Juanson World

Happy Memorial Day. I just spent this past weekend at Princeton's annual alumni Reunions, which I will argue is unparalleled in the United States. I happened to bump into two class of 55ers who were both US Ambassadors in Latin America - Thomas Boyatt (Ambassador to Colombia in 1980) and Anthony Quainton (Ambassador to Nicaragua and Peru, among others). Tony had a fascinating career in which he was in Lima during the heydey of the Shining Path and in Managua in the early 80s during the Contra war. The Sendero actually placed a bomb in his house but luckily he and his family were not present.

It seems that the Foreign Service, which was once dominated by Princetonians, has fallen out of favor for young Ivy League graduates. My landlord and Politics professor Paul Sigmund commented to me yesterday that during his trips through Latin America in the 1960s, each embassy had Princeton grads. Now the same cannot be said. For one thing, more (lucrative) opportunities exist for bright graduates in international affairs and business, such as investment banking and multinationals. In addition, the visa work as a young Foreign Service officer can be mundane and boring ("Everyone's lying to you, and you have to figure out who's telling the truth," remarked Paul). Also, apparently the Foreign Service has tried to diversify their ranks, which means gaining an advantage if you come from Oklahoma instead of Massachusetts. I have had a few friends take the Foreign Service exam and they have, without fail, done relatively poorly on the Oral section. I think I will sit for the exam, but a USAID officer I met with at the US Embassy in Bogota told me that USAID was more up my alley than State.

Also, I'm getting ready for another gira through Latin America - 3.5 weeks in Central America. After 10 days in Costa Rica, I am going to try to get to Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. Should be an excellent trip, as I have never been to the latter three countries, which is embarrassing considering I lived in CR for a year.

Amidst the renewed vigor of protests that have all but shut down La Paz, Juan Forero reports on a different type of social movement: the rap and hip hop scene in El Alto:

[The rappers'] inspiration, though, comes straight from Bolivia's recent tumultuous history: the fall of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October 2003 after protests in which 60 Indian demonstrators were killed, the bitter struggle over development of Bolivia's huge natural gas reserves, the indignation over the Washington-financed eradication of coca and the desperate poverty.

Wherever I went in Bolivia, Goni - who before being exiled to the States was the richest man in Bolivia with an estimated fortune of $200 million - seemed to be Public Enemy Number 1.

However, one Aymara man told a different story. Rolo, who had worked for the Sanchez de Lozada family for over 10 years, told me of the generosity and warmth that Goni exuded towards him and his family.

"He never talked down to us. He treated us all the same," he told me. "He got to know us and asked us about our families. When one of our family members was sick, he would give us time off and give us 1000 bolivianos. [About $125] It was wrong what happened, but he wanted the best for this country. He was a good, kind man."

Thus lyrics such as these do not boost the public opinion of the ex-president:

"Goni, inept, the people ask for gas; the people ask for peace," the lyrics go. "Goni, understand, the gas is not for sale, because the people depend on democracy - they demand their rights."

These Aymara youth have strong influences from US rappers both in their dress and in their music. Whether their music is commercially marketable as Forero suggests seems unlikely.

Bob Herbert makes an interesting point in his column today, stating that the Bush administration is being hypocritical in saying that all life is sacred in their opposition to stem cell research yet has been employing various torture techniques throughout the world in the War on Terror. As Tom DeLay, a true paragon of morality, stated yesterday,

The choice to protect a human embryo from federally funded destruction is not, ultimately, about the human embryo. It is about us, and our rejection of the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others.

Herbert calls out this viewpoint by pointing out that the use of torture at home and abroad reflects that the administration indeed considers some lives more sacred than others:

People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.

Warfare, when absolutely unavoidable, is one thing. But it's a little difficult to understand how these kinds of profoundly dehumanizing practices - not to mention the physical torture we've heard so much about - could be enthusiastically embraced by a government headed by men who think all life is sacred. Either I'm missing something, or President Bush, Tom DeLay and their ilk are fashioning whole new zones of hypocrisy for Americans to inhabit.

While I doubt that Bush and DeLay are proponents of torturing innocents, the fact that abuses are coming to light will continue to foment anti-American sentiment abroad, especially among fundamentalist Muslims. Whatever your stance on stem cell research or abortion, our credibility is as fragile as it as been in the post-9/11 world, and the Bush administration needs to consider the consequences of taking ideological positions that could resonate throughout the world.

It's hard to imagine someone as dignified as Colin Powell among the ranks of George Steinbrenner, Peter Angelos, and the late Marge Schott. Most recently, the retired Secretary of State was rumored to be the likely successor to James Wolfensohn as World Bank president, and I am not alone in opining that he would have been a far wiser choice than the polarizing Paul Wolfowitz. Perhaps George W. told Powell about how much fun it was to be the owner of the Rangers. In any event, the Washington Post is reporting that Powell has joined the Washington Baseball Club, a group of investors looking to purchase the Nationals from Major League Baseball.

Looking at the list of investors, it appears that the purchase of the Nationals is as much an inside-the-Beltway affair as anything else on the Hill. I see that Dennis Bakke, founder of AES, is also on the list. Bakke's son was my quarterback on the Princeton sprint football team for two years. Also on the list is Darrell Green, who I think needs to be in sports management: but ideally in the Redskins' front office.

Oscar Arias, "perhaps the most internationally respected Latin American politician," (Miami Herald) shakes hands with the owner of a local bakery in Turrialba, Costa Rica. I am in the foreground attempting to pull a Forrest Gump. Dr. Arias invited me and another lowly Arias Foundation intern to accompany him to CATIE, where he was giving the commencement address.

On the way back to San Jose, we stopped by this bakery much to the delight of the staff and patrons. Being part of his "entourage" that day was a great experience, as everywhere he went, all eyes were focused on him. Despite being one of the most famous Central American politicians of the 20th century, in person, Dr. Arias is quite introverted and shy. I'll be following closely his campaign for the presidency in February of 2006.

The NYTimes has an Op-Ed today on growth and poverty in Latin America. The article points out that Latin America has been growing on a macroeconomic level but this has not quelled the worst inequality in the world, with the exception of Chile, which according to the Times has done everything right.

The Times offers three suggestions:

1) Continue growth. (Duh.)
2) Reduce debt.
3) Increase taxation, and by extension, target the revenue towards the poor.

Not exactly rocket science, but I suppose there isn't much room in the Times op-ed section for details, and I appreciate any attention that Latin America gets on that page. I think its very easy to praise Chile (which still suffers from extreme inequality, despite progress in poverty reduction) and then blame the region for issues that are often the fault of multinational investors and the international banks. However, the battered public institutions of Latin America do need to focus their energies on what I consider one of their largest weaknesses: corruption and tax evasion, which start at the highest levels and is really as much a cultural phenomenon as anything else.

There have been a number of Op-Eds regarding DR-CAFTA. Andres Oppenheimer, Marcela Sanchez, and former US Trade Rep and current Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellik have weighed in recently on the topic, and the three agree that the American sugar lobby needs to drop its subsidies to US sugar producers and open the market to competition from Central America.

As Oppenheimer states, there are political barriers to doing this:

While sugar amounts to only 1 percent of the U.S. agribusiness industry's income and 0.5 percent of its employment, three of the top 10 agribusiness political donors are sugar producers, the figures show.

Political contributions have worked wonders for the sugar industry: Over the past three decades, Congress has set import quotas that have cut by 75 percent the amount of U.S. sugar imports.

Zoellick points out the groundswell of support for the agreement among the Central American presidents:

In Nicaragua and Guatemala, leaders who took over from corrupt predecessors want CAFTA to cement their push for more transparent societies based on rules, not privileged relationships. In El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, CAFTA is seen as a cornerstone of broader development strategies.

Yet he fails to mention a key deterrent to the passage of the accord: Costa Rica. Term-limited President Abel Pacheco has balked at supporting the agreement as the country faces presidential elections in February of 2006. He has appointed a "council of notables" to analyze the law and won't back it until he is sure it will not hurt the poor. (I can't help but think back to my experiences in Costa Rica where decisions were postponed, over and over again, while every possible angle was discussed. The debate has been going on in Costa Rica for 3 years now, and the president is unable to take a stand.)

Former President and Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias, who is running for the seat again next year, is a staunch supporter of CAFTA and was recently in the US lobbying with the other Central American presidents. But Pacheco's bumbling in the matter could be viewed as a good excuse for protectionist members of Congress to oppose the agreement.

As Sanchez concludes,

There may be those who would conclude that all of these are reasons to oppose this deal altogether. But that's really missing the point. Free trade agreements are never going to be perfect deals, but will be only as good as both the public and the private sectors strive to make them.

In Lima's Plaza San Martin, this man was giving an impromptu public lecture on the current state of Peruvian politics. The crowd listened attentively as various speakers were given the floor. Most expressed their extreme lack of confidence in the Toledo administration (he currently enjoys about a 9% approval rating, the worst in Latin America). What I found interesting, however, was their capacity to blame themselves for what had happened. Thus, instead of lashing out at the establishment, those assembled questioned their own roles within in the framework of Peruvian democracy.

Juan Forero and Larry Rohter both have articles today in the NYTimes, on Bolivia and Chile, respectively.

Forero gives a good summary/recap of what's going on in Bolivia in terms of the latest round of social movements, which have mobilized in protest of the new hydrocarbons law. I think the article does a good job in illustrating that the debate in Bolivia is being framed today such that the uneducated populace becomes drawn to social movements which place the blame for the country's ills squarely on the shoulders of corrupt politicians and the transnationals. In the end, no one wins because the end result is a weak law that neither maximizes Bolivia's potential for gas exports nor does it quell the desires of private sector or social movements. Mesa continues to govern by not taking a stand. Many working-class Bolivians I spoke to recently either were firmly against the constant roadblocking and protesting ("We need to get a Pinochet in here to clean up the streets and put people to work") or expressed blunt hatred of the "corrupt" politicians who bring in foreign investment just so they can fill up their own coffers. ("Goni was corrupt and stole from the Bolivian people")

I agree with Boz that Rohter's article on the tragedy in Chile has nothing to do with Pinochet's legacy. A natural disaster is an unpredictable tragedy that cannot be tied to the abuses of a military government. However, those in the chain of command that apparently disregarded weather reports and sent ill-equipped soldiers into the fray should be punished, even if it was not their fault. An example of this sort of accountability: an American working at the US Embassy in Bogota told me that the general in command of the American soldiers caught selling ammunition to paramilitaries will be relieved of his command.

Bob Herbert argues the same today in his op-ed, saying that it's finally time for Secretary Rumsfeld to go. As a fellow Cap member and sprint football captain, I have always admired Rummy's intensity even if I usually disagreed with his politics. In any event, relieving Rumsfeld of his duties would be a wise move politically for the Bush administration by infusing new leadership into the Pentagon for the myriad challenges that lie ahead.

I remember where I was when I heard that Pat Tillman had been killed in Afghanistan. After finding out in an internet cafe in Playa del Coco, Costa Rica (a truly awful beach), the news hit me like a pile of rocks. I am not one that feels emotionally involved in the deaths of high profile individuals. I rarely feel sorrow when a famous person dies: they are still strangers to me, and should not merit any more of my grief than a person selected randomly on the Obits page.

But Pat Tillman inspired me, because he of the way that he lived his life on and off the football field. He played football the way I hoped I played the game: with heart, rage, and tenacity. He bucked stardom and turned down lucrative contract offers because of loyalty to the lowly Cardinals. He ran marathons and did triathalons for "fun" in the offseason. And he left in all in a heartbeat because of a higher calling to serve his country.

Tillman was held up as a national hero when he died, and the story would not have been nearly as romantic had the American public known the truth behind his death. Today, the embittered Tillman family is angry with the army, and it's saddening to read this article in today's Washington Post. The country that Tillman gave his life for has let him down:

Shortly after arriving in the mountains to fight, Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy as he got into position to defend them.

Immediately, the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers. After a public memorial service, at which Tillman received the Silver Star, the Army told Tillman's family what had really happened, that he had been killed by his own men.

The latest investigation, written about by The Washington Post earlier this month, showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.

As my father always told me, "once you get caught in a lie, you can never be trusted again." Thus it is understandable that Tillman's parents would feel the way they do now:

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."

"It makes you feel like you're losing your mind in a way," [Mary Tillman] said. "You imagine things. When you don't know the truth, certain details can be blown out of proportion. The truth may be painful, but it's the truth. You start to contrive all these scenarios that could have taken place because they just kept lying. If you feel you're being lied to, you can never put it to rest."

The fact that the Army and the Bush Administration would use Tillman's death for political and PR purposes is very sad indeed. The Army needed Tillman's story badly, and now they need to punish those who manipulated that story for their own ends.

Today's Washington Post details the arrest of 60 illegal immigrants working at infraestructure sites in six states. Typically, these immigrants were all Latin American. I did not find this article particularly newsworthy but I was slightly amused by the following quote by the Department of Homeland Security spokesman:

There is no evidence that any of the workers -- who come from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala -- have any terrorist ties, said officials with the DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

But officials said there is reason to be concerned about their presence at those sites nonetheless.

The immigrants arrested "pose a serious homeland security threat," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Michael J. Garcia said in a statement. "Not only are their identities in question, but given their illegal status, these individuals are vulnerable to potential exploitation by terrorist and other criminal organizations."

How are illegal immigrants more liable to become terrorists, once they've crossed the border? Where is the correlation? I understand the need for increased border security in order to stem the flow of terrorists entering the country, but I don't see what this accomplishes.

So I'm finally back in the States after 5.5 weeks in South America: about a week in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. It was an incredible trip and I'm glad that my return has coincided with the spring weather here in the Northeast. I got a lot of work done for PiLA and now it's back to the grindstone.

Five Surprising/Interesting Observations:

1) Seeing NGO workers in Bolivia living in beautiful houses in the richest part of La Paz - the Zona Sur. The economic situation in the country is so dire that those who do not work for international agencies - be it NGOs, the World Bank/IMF, etc. - feel compromised about their future. I heard one story of a woman who graduated with a degree in law from the Universidad Catolica (the top university in the country) and started out at one of La Paz's top law firms. She ended up leaving to go to the US where her lack of language expertise will only allow her to seek out low-wage employment. Currently she is in the Virginia suburbs where she is unemployed, but she believes that she has more of a future in the States than she would as a lawyer in Bolivia.

2) I've touched on this before, but I really cannot believe the bargain that is the city of Buenos Aires. Where else in the world can you get so much bang for your buck? Every gringo should be taking their girlfriend on a romantic week in BsAs. Trust me guys, it's Paris at 25% of the cost. The flip side, is of course the dire economic situation which I see the country slowly lifting itself out of.

3) The political instability in La Paz. Every morning thousands of poor indigenous workers en El Alto board minibuses at la Ceja, the loading point for the 15 cent, 30 minute van ride which descends 400 meters into the Plaza San Francisco in the heart of La Paz. The transitory cadence of child workers who shout out the destination of each van blends into the hustle and bustle of El Alto's migrant workforce. The irony is that it is these marginalized individuals that join up in the social movements which paralyze the same city that they uphold, and which - barely - sustains them.

4) The taste of a fresh ceviche in Lima. My Peruvian-American friend and I rushed to the local cevicheria at 11am to make sure that the seafood was fresh out of the water. I especially enjoyed the enormous kernals of fresh corn and the sweet potato on the side. I had never had a ceviche for a main course but it I struggled to finish it off.

5) My last observation is not about South America per se, but of the usual entry point for Latin Americans coming to the US: Miami. I had been to South Florida before, but never in my life did it strike me as vivid and colorful as it did on this visit. From dropping $200 in one night partying on South Beach to witnessing the indulgences of the Latino nouveau riche, the essence of South Florida was captured in one word: excess. Successful Miamians are not afriad to show off their money, be it through clothes, cars, houses, or their latest cosmetic surgery. Coming from the conservative and bashful DC metro area, it was exhilarting to experience the superficial warm-bloodedness of a city that pulsates with energy. Would I want to live there? No. But it was a guilty indulgence as I transitioned from the Northeast to Bolivar's continent.

Now that I am back in North America, I find the Canadian political situation to be fascinating. I was always one of those Americans who knew absolutely nothing about Canada other than hockey, Quebec, and maple syrup. Becoming friends with several Canadians when I was working in Costa Rica and learning of their external development programmes (gotta use the proper spelling) has made me gain an appreciation of our neighbors to the North. It's really interesting how most Americans don't really consider it a separate country, and in many ways Canada is tied economically to the States.

Prime Minister Paul Martin barely won the no-confidence vote yesterday when two independent lawmakers sided with his Liberal party. The opposition Conservatives in alliance with the Bloc Quebecios demanded the ousting of Martin in regards to a financial scandal in the 1990s. A few choice lines that I found interesting:

The prime minister tried to cast his close call in the best light. "We must move forward now in the spirit of cooperation," he told Parliament immediately after the vote. "We ask the opposition to join with us in a new effort to make this Parliament work for the people of Canada."

The clear loser was Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party, who tried to overthrow the Liberals in alliance with the separatist Bloc Québécois. But he promised to stay on the attack. "Tonight the Liberals won a Pyrrhic victory, one that will sow the seeds of its own destruction, one that will present our party with great opportunity," Mr. Harper said. Switching to French, he added, "I'm embarrassed and I deeply regret that our Parliament has decided this evening to maintain its confidence in a corrupt party."

Can you imagine a Democrat standing up in Congress and evoking nationalism, labeling the entire Republican party as corrupt? This scandal reminds me of Iran-Contra, in that Reagan claimed to know nothing and thus was able to avoid an outright political disaster:

Though Mr. Martin has insisted that he knew nothing about the suspected illicit campaign financing, he has been kept off-balance and weak since he took power in late 2003. To survive, he has been forced to veer left to secure the base of his party and win support from a smaller leftist party, forcing him in recent months to raise social spending and to abandon his pledge to join President Bush's missile defense program.

The confidence vote was the climax to weeks of heated exchanges, parliamentary filibustering and the specter of constitutional crisis.

The spectacle on the floor of House of Commons of members accusing one another of covering up criminal acts and questioning their patriotism served to elevate voter cynicism and rattle the Canadian dollar.

What remains clear is that Martin remains on shaky footing and must win over the opposition and public opinion if he has hopes of winning reelection when he calls his general election later this year.

David Brooks breathes a breath of fresh air into the Newsweek debate today:

Excuse me, guys, but this is craziness. I used to write for Newsweek. I know Mike Isikoff and the editors. And I know about liberals in the media. The people who run Newsweek are not a bunch of Noam Chomskys with laptops. Not even close. Whatever might have been the cause of their mistakes, liberalism had nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, the left side of the blogosphere has erupted with fury over the possibility that American interrogators might not have flushed a Koran down the toilet. The Nation and leftish Web sites are in a frenzy to prove that the story is probably true even if Newsweek is retracting it.

This, too, is unhinged. Would it be illegal for more people on the left to actually be happy that a story slurring Americans may turn out to be unproven? Could there be a few more liberals willing to admit that prisoners routinely lie about their treatment? (Do we expect them to say their time in captivity wasn't so bad?)

Then I click my mouse over to the transcripts of administration statements and I can't believe what I'm seeing. We're in the middle of an ideological war against people who want to destroy us, and what have the most powerful people on earth become? Whining media bashers. They're attacking Newsweek while bending over backward to show sensitivity to the Afghans who just went on a murderous rampage.

Without question, the reaction of the Muslim extremists went way over the line. We may not know whether a Koran was actually flushed down the toilet, but you are naive if you believe that atrocities do not happen in jail cells. The real question is not whether the riots were justified or whether the incident happened, but whether the media should be disclosing such information. This incident is just one example - at what point do you draw the line? My personal opinion is that the facts - even if they are horrifying - should be made available to taxpayers who are funding US foreign policy: be it arming Israelies, fumigating coca in the Andes, or spending $200 billion to bring democracy to a country of 25 million people.

Alleged terrorist Luis Posada was finally arrested today in Miami. Posada is accused of bombing a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, among other attacks on Cuban tourist areas in the 1990s, one of which included the death of an Italian national. Posada had been hiding in Miami since March and it had all of the makings of a PR disaster for the Bush Administration. On one hand, Posada was an anti-Castro crusader supported if not beloved by the pro-Bush Cuban exile community in Florida. On the other hand, how could the architects of the global War on Terror possibly harbor a terrorist within its borders?

Apparently, this interview granted to the Miami Herald today was the straw that broke the camel's back, as Posada was arrested later this afternoon.

One thing which is key is that declassified documents have shown that Posada worked for the CIA back in the 1980s and perhaps longer, this also may have been a factor in the Bush administration's embarrassing stalling in his arrest. Interesting that the BBC has focused on this point all along yet the Miami Herald does not focus on this in its coverage.

The buzz in Colombia the past few days has centered on the arrest of ex-congressman and Minister of Justice Alberto Santofimio Botero for the 1989 murder of fellow Liberal and presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan. According to several sources, John Jairo Velásquez (alias Popeye), one of Pablo Escobar's hit men and the only person to have spent time in prison for the crime, has called out Santofimio from behind bars:

"Alberto Santofimio Botero had the idea of killing Luis Carlos Galan," Velasquez said. "Alberto Santofimio recommended that he be killed because the man, with the weapons of the state, would go after Pablo Escobar."

"He was 100 percent calm ... he was removing a political enemy from his path," Velasquez said.

For Escobar, the assassination of Galan meant eliminating a candidate who would likely extradite drug traffickers to the United States for trial.

This development 16 years after the murder of one of Colombia's most charasmatic politicians is promising for the legitimacy of the Colombian justice system. This justice system will be tested as former guerillas and paramilitaries continue to step down and must be reintegrated into society. Some 6,000 ex-guerillas and ex-paramilitaries live in Bogota and suffer from severe mental and drug problems. They are often illiterate and do not have any marketable skills other than being able to shoot a machine gun.

Justice has not yet been served in another brutal murder: the 1990 assasination of presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro, who was killed in cold blood aboard a commerical flight from Bogota to Barranquilla. I recently spoke with Carlos's brother, Eduardo, who is a renown sociologist at the Universidad Nacional and columnist for El Tiempo. Eduardo survived an attempt on his life in 1999 when he was shot twice by unknown attackers on a motorcycle as he was leaving the university. He then left Colombia for a number of years and I was lucky enough to have him as a professor my senior year at Princeton.

There has been no justice in the Carlos Pizarro case, fifteen years later. Eduardo told me the Avianca flight his brother was scheduled to take was changed at the last minute from a 6 AM departure to 7 AM. Supposedly, the only person who knew of this change was a DAS (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad) employee, who presumably planted the machine gun that was used by the hitmen that morning. Eduardo's decision to continue to risk his life in returning to Colombia and his determination in seeking peace in the armed conflict is inspiring.

Despite having been an academic his entire career, it appears that he will be rewarded with an important political appointment in the coming months: the Colombian ambassadorship to England. I wish Eduardo well as he soon embarks on a three-week tour in Europe to give a series of presentations in coordination with the Foreign Ministries in the EU. If Colombia is to emerge from the violence and corruption of the past decades, it will need this sort of pragmatic leadership in the fight for peace.

Juan Forero's piece in the NYTimes describes Telesur, a Latin American television network hoping to counter some of the regional and global hegemony of networks such as CNN and Fox:

A venture that involves Argentina, Cuba, Brazil and Uruguay but is largely financed by Venezuela, Telesur will have a decidedly Latin feel, says its director, Aram Aharonian. The station, scheduled to begin broadcasting in July and testing its signal late this month, will show long documentaries about landless peasants in Brazil or indigenous movements in the Andes while offering nitty-gritty reports about politics and sports from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego.

I think that this part of the equation is great: I am all for much needed coverage of this sort. However, I am very wary of Chavez the demagogue turning this network into a Castro-esque state television station. His actions thus far in restricting press freedom are disturbing:

A Law on Social Responsibility of Radio and Television, signed in December, imposes restrictions that broadcasters say are aimed at muzzling news reports and requirements that they accept outside programming. The law stipulates that the news media cannot put out reports that endanger national security or incite disruption of public order.

Amendments to Venezuela's criminal code, which went into effect in March, make it a crime to insult or show disrespect for government authorities.

The twin laws have already prompted self-censorship, managers of radio and television stations said in interviews. Newscasts have been toned down. Venezuela's once-incendiary talk radio has been significantly cut back, with many shows canceled.

This is very troubling, and as I continue to see reports that Chavez is "building support" throughout the region (Miami Herald), I suspect that Telesur will continue to spread this misleading propanganda.

The Colombian radio stations are up in arms about the following tank top being marketed in the latest Guess? product line:



The tank top reads: Ski Colombia: Always Plenty of Fresh Powder!

Props to the designers at Guess? for yet another edgy double entendre. Unfortunately, the witty Manhattan hipsters were unable to spell Colombia correctly as they named the 29 dollar shirt "Columbia Ocean Tank." I guess the sweatshop workers in Malaysia were able to pick up on the error because the text on the shirt does have the correct spelling.

The announcers on the news program I was listening to were attempting to contact Guess? both in New York and in Los Angeles but the bigwigs did not accept their calls. Their next step was contacting the Colombia Consulate in LA.

This type of thing usually doesn't bother me all that much, but I am annoyed because I look around here in Bogota and am shocked that tourism is non-existant. Bogota has a lower homicide rate than most Latin American cities (Mexico City, Panama City, Caracas, Rio, Lima, even San Juan) and there has yet to be a registered kidnapping in the capital in 2005. The city is beautiful, clean, and offers both world-class dining and nightlife as well as picturesque Spanish colonial architecture.

So it doesn't help that this garbage is going to be in department stores across middle America. While I personally enjoy the fact that I don't run into other gringos while I am here, the potential for tourism in Colombia is untapped throughout the major cities, the coasts, and the interior of the country. Much of Colombia's reputation is deserved, but if I had a nickel for every wise-ass who asked me if my father was a drug dealer...

So Diego Maradona has successfully dropped over 60 pounds after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in Cartagena. I personally cringe at the thought of these surgeries. One wonders how one of the most revered athletes of the 20th century was unable to get himself on some sort of a diet/exercise program. Will he stay clean/sober/skinny?

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Source: AFP

I saw the Chilean film Machuca here in Bogota last night. Despite my penchant for nodding off in movie theaters, I was able to catch most of the film and I really enjoyed it. Listening to the Chilean accent often sounds goofy when I am away from Chile but I have been impressed with the last two films that have come out of the country (I saw the comedy Sexo con amor back when I was living in San Jose.)

Machuca is the fairly typical story of the rich kid and the poor kid who become friends despite societal pressures to the contrary. This occurs within the context of a private school in pre-coup 1973 Santiago. The priests running the school decide to allow a group of poor mestizo boys into the school to mix with the rich whites already present. Some affirmative action before today's PC era, if you will. In any event, the film follows their friendship within the context of growing political and social unrest, which cultimates in the original 9/11. I like the vantage point that director Andres Wood uses in that it allows the film to speak for itself (through the eyes of children) without becoming overly politicized.

The credits indicated that much of the film was produced with support from the Chilean government as well as donors from Spain. This was key: the budget was large enough to make the settings and costumes appear to be vintage 1970s Chile: down to small details such as license plates and shots of the television news. Like the movie Hotel Rwanda, I thought that Machuca was especially effective in not overdramatizing the horror and suffering of those being tortured and dying (a la Gibson's Passion of the Christ, which I mercifully abstained from viewing) but rather making it human by presenting a story of innocence lost through the eyes of two very skilled child actors.

Andres Oppenheimer's recent column in the Miami Herald accuses Brazil of throwing its weight around in regards to regional diplomacy. Oppenheimer claims that Brazil was the key player in getting Miguel Insulza elected to Secretary General of the OAS and that it has alienated Mexico through its use of the newly created South American Community of Nations:

While Latin American countries often discussed their regional problems within the Group of Rio, a Latin America-wide diplomatic group in which Mexico played a leading role, Brazil now prefers to conduct its foreign policy through the South America-only group.

Oppenheimer then points out Argentina's frustration with Brazil's ambitions in acquiring important world diplomatic posts:

''If there is a job opening at the World Trade Organization, Brazil wants it. If there is a space at the United Nations, Brazil wants it. If there is a job at the U.N. Food and Agriculture organization, Brazil wants it. They even wanted a Brazilian pope,'' Argentine President Néstor Kirchner was reportedly heard saying, according to the Argentine daily Clarín.

Oppenheimer warns that this diplomacy could become dangerous:

My conclusion: Brazil may need to offer Amazon parrots, and maybe much more, to its neighbors. Otherwise, politicians in neighboring countries will step up their nationalist rhetoric and revive old-time rivalries, which in many cases need only a small rhetorical spark to become passionate public causes.

Here is where I beg to differ. I believe that Brazil should, like other large Southern countries such as India, be as ambitious as possible when it comes to important posts at the UN and in other diplomatic settings. Brazil's diligence in organizing the South American-Arab Nations Summit in Brasilia represents a new form of outreach to the rest of the world which I believe is necessary in today's (to quote Tom Friedman) "flat world." While Larry Rohter's article in today's New York Times criticizes the effectiveness of the summit, Brazil must continue to use its stature as the largest Latin American nation in order to narrow economic and political ties to the rest of the world, independent of the G8 countries.

I was sitting at a in a bar in Lima last night chatting with two British friends when a young Peruvian-looking man leaned over and asked me in English, "Where are you all from?"

When I replied that I was American, he told me that he was also: he is a Marine corporal stationed outside of San Diego and was on a six-day leave to visit his fiancée. Almer was born in Lima but left Peru with his mother when he was five years old when she divorced his father and immigrated to the US.

He explained that despite only being 20 years old and not having seen his fiancée in months (he proposed to her over the phone), he is getting married for two reasons. First, he is supporting his mother with his salary from the Marine Corps, and getting married affords extra pay and benefits. Second, his fiancée is a family friend - he has known her since he was 12 years old - and the American citizenship that she will receive will allow her to carve out a better life for her in the US and for her family in Peru. "It's a good arrangement," he told me, cradling his fiancée in his arms. "Everyone wins."

I then asked Almer if he was going to be shipped abroad anytime soon. He told me that his unit was going to be deployed to Japan in October. "But its no big deal. I've already been to Iraq. And I came home with a Purple Heart."

Almer served as a Motor-T - a motor transportation operator - during his eight months in Iraq. While leading a convoy, an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) exploded under his Humvee and flipped the vehicle. He sustained permanent hearing damage and now wears a hearing aid.

I asked Almer how the Iraqis on the ground reacted to his presence as an American soldier. He described how young children often would throw rocks at his convoy. I asked him how that made him feel, and he replied matter-of-factly:

"I felt bad - I shot them. I killed probably 15 children. They could have been throwing grenades. I did not ask them to throw rocks. But as a Marine, my first responsibility is my men. I've got to get them home. They've got wives, children, brothers, sisters, families. But I felt bad."

These words stung as I heard them from someone who looked so young.

"I just hope we're in there for the right reasons," he added. "I'm just not sure. It seems it's all about money, about oil. But I do know one thing: when a Marine dies, he died for a reason. I know that if I died, it was for something."

Lake Titicaca, at 12,500 feet the highest lake in the world.

I'm kind of late in addressing this, but I did want to comment on the two US soldiers arrested in Colombia on Tuesday that were caught with ammunition that appeared to be destined to right-wing paramilitaries:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/05/04/colombia.smuggling/

You can see from my posts below that I am a fairly vehement critic of Plan Colombia. This current embarrassment follows the arrest five years ago of an American coronel whose wife was caught smuggling heroin in the States as well as the five American soldiers who were caught in March for trafficking cocaine into Texas (http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1730842.php).

While I tend to not blame soldiers for misguided foreign policy enacted by governments, it is clear that the line is blurring between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." Certain bad apples stationed in the field are cutting deals with corrupt Colombian authorities. I do not believe that this is being sanctioned from above, but future cases such as these will continue to undermine the effectiveness of US-Colombia cooperation in ending this interminable conflict.

Lastly is the issue of jurisdiction in the handling of the two soldiers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/international/americas/06colombia.html?

I don't blame the Colombians for feeling slighted, but that is the name of the game when dealing with the boys up north. Lest you not forget the bullying that occurred two summers ago when Colombia was blackmailed into pulling out of the treaty for an International Criminal Court. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3035296.stm)

I will be visiting the US Embassy in Bogota next week and it will be interesting to see how this is playing out.

I lived for six months in Chile and I heard nary a word about Bolivia. Yet from the moment I stepped off the plane in Santa Cruz until my flight out of La Paz a week later, I was continually bombarded by the collective national bitterness towards Chile. As my taxi driver welcomed me to his country, I asked him what Bolivians thought of foreigners. His reply: "We are welcoming to everyone: even to the Chileans, who stole our access to the sea."

Indeed, Bolivia was the big loser of the 1879 War of the Pacific against Chile and Peru, having lost access to the Pacific Ocean to Chile, which expanded its coastline by one-third through its conquest. Chile's coastline now stands at over 2,800 miles, making it the longest country N-S in the world.

The renown economist Jeffrey Sachs (who incidentally was a consultant to the team that stabilized Bolivia during their 1985 hyperinflation) has published several papers on the link between geography and development. His findings can be summarized into two main conclusions:

1) Countries along the equator are more underdeveloped than those in colder climates.
2) Landlocked countries (with the exception of European countries with access to the integrated market of the EU) are underdeveloped due to their having been restricted from markets.

Regardless of the validity of Sachs' research, being landlocked can certainly be considered to be a factor in Bolivia's underdevelopment. Yet over a hundred years later, the lack of access to the sea continues to be used both as a crutch and a national rallying cry.

From the moment Bolivians enter school, they are taught that the shifty Chileans stole their access to the ocean. Every morning at 7:30am on the national radio station, the throaty voice of an announcer urges Bolivians to "strive forward in progress, to a day when we will finally reclaim the sea." Not to be outdone, Bolivian politicians never fail to drop the "access to the Pacific" card when they need to sway public opinion. In the recent OAS Secretary General election, Bolivia was the only member state to vote against the Chilean Miguel Insulza. Meanwhile, the Bolivian ambassador to the OAS delivered a long-winded speech about the difficulty to negotiate the reclaiming of territory with a Chilean at the helm of the regional body.

It kind of reminds me of those one-sided rivalries, where one team hates the other and the dominant team simply doesn't care. Like Princeton-Penn. Like the Yankees and the Red Sox, until last year. For all of its 2,880 miles of coastline, Chile could definitely be a good friend and share. But they won that battle years ago.

These kids were playing soccer in the dirt streets of Plan 3000, an urban slum outside of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

It's been depressing to be a DC Sports fan during the past 15 years. (For the sake of this post, I am considering the Orioles to be part of the DC Sports landscape. This of course, is now very questionable with the advent of the Nationals and several of my friends have given me heat for this. However, I've been an O's fan my whole life, and while I will follow the Nats, it's tough to switch a childhood alligance.) The O's last made the playoffs under Davy Johnson, the Skins have made one playoff appearance since the first Joe Gibbs era, and the Bullets/Wizards have made the playoffs once since I have been a DC sports fan. The Caps have been the only consistent playoff team during this period, making the Stanley Cup in 1998 (I attended Game 3 that year and there were four Red Wings fans for every Caps fan), but they have floundered of late. I also follow the local college basketball teams (Georgetown, Maryland, and GW) one or two of which usually makes the NCAA tournament.

So besides DC United, which has picked up a handful of MLS Cup titles, the only DC sports franchise to take home a title since I became a serious fan was the Juan Dixon and Steve Blake-led Terps in 2002. Just my luck, I happened to be in Chile during their Final Four win, so I was forced to bask in that celebration via the Internet. Now I find myself back in South America and none other than Juan Dixon is leading the Wizards charge against the Bulls in the first round of the NBA playoffs. I guess I am a good luck charm when I am south of the border. Michael Wilbon writes today about the impact that Dixon had in last night's game:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201745_pf.html

Note that Wilbon is a huge Bulls fan. I applaud and agree with his comments about the softness of Kwame Brown. Kwame is your typical DC Sports bust (see: Heath Shuler, Michael Westbrook, Albert Belle, Glenn Davis, Desmond Howard, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jaromir Jagr, et al) I fully expect Kwame to get picked up by a team like the Nuggets and become an all-star his first year post-DC Sports.

OK, the Nationals. I am thrilled that DC finally got a baseball team, and the fact that they have a winning record is great. I love RFK Stadium and I plan on getting to as many games as I can. But the O's are on fire. All of a sudden things are clicking and they are on top of the AL East with the Yankees and Red Sox bruised and beaten. OK, its April. But the following article makes me very optimistic.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpa2lpNnFzBF9TAzk1ODYxNzc3BHNlYwN0bQ--?slug=cnnsi-keepingthefaith&prov=cnnsi&type=lgns

Can the Os survive with the Sox and Yanks in the same division? I doubt they will be able to stay hot and their current starting rotation will be a huge liability down the stretch. But I don't think that a wild card birth is out of the question.

Urban planning tends to be an oxymoron when talking about Latin American cities. Public transportation systems as well tend to be inefficient and horrible for the environment. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Buenos Aires's urban grid reminds you of a European city, and the Metro in Santiago rivals any in North America (haven't seen Japan's).

This recent article in the Christian Science Monitor sums up some of the major improvements in this regard in Bogotá under the leadership of two dynamic mayors. Getting effective and innovative public policy implemented is often a trying battle in Latin America, and as a Colombian-American, I am justifiable proud of these advances and hope that they may be replicated in other cities, Latin American or elsewhere.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0427/p06s01-woam.html

So I've been in Bolivia for 5 days now and I can hardly catch my breath. (Yes, literally. Not much oxygen here in the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, at some 12,000 feet.) My first trip to this country has been a whirlwind and it is a staggering thought to even begin to make sense of it all in one post. For a student of politics, history, and economics, Bolivia has been through it all: civil strife, hyperinflation, coup d'etats (count 'em, nearly 200), political revolutions, ethnic tensions, and some of the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere, to name just a few. Add to all of this a varied and beautiful geography and some of the friendliest people I have ever met and I wish I had another few weeks to take it all in.

In Santa Cruz, where I spent my first four days, I was propositioned by a cab driver who wanted me to write him a notarized letter inviting him to my house in the US for "wedding." He has been trying to get a visa to get to the land of opportunity for several months, and he thought that if I "sponsored" him than he would be able to speed up the bureaucracy at the US embassy. He told me that he hoped to leave his wife and two children behind for two years so that he could save up $15,000 which he hoped to bring back to Bolivia to start up his own business: a gas station. In a country where the average salary is $900, he is in good shape economically: he owns a cab which nets him $200 a month, his wife makes $100 a month as a schoolteacher, and he owns two houses, one of which he rents for $100 a month. Yet with an income of $400 a month, he admitted that he is barely "sliding by" with his two children in college. His eyes lit up as I told him what kind of salary he would be receiving at a minimum wage job in the states.

I spent much of my time in Santa Cruz in an urban slum located in the periphery of the city called Plan 3000. Here, 40% of the population lives in poverty and 60% live in misery. 13 years ago, a Spanish bishop decended upon Plan 3000 to do missionary work, and today he runs a foundation called Hombres Nuevos (www.hombresnuevos.org). Since Padre Nicolas has been in the Plan, Hombres Nuevos has built a hospital, a clinic for malnourished children, several schools and cafeterias, and an athletic facility, all with the support of Spanish donors.

The problems for those living in the Plan are many. With scant economic opportunities available nearby, mothers and fathers leave their children behind at 5:30 in the morning to hawk trinkets or panhandle in Santa Cruz, sometimes not returning until midnight. Thus family structures break down and the children often end up wandering the dusty dirt roads sniffing glue. Mothers often feed their newborns coffee or Coke, leading to grave malnutrition problems. I visited the clinic for malnourished children and saw the progress that the infants were making after having been neglected. The programs that Hombres Nuevos administers seek to make the Bolivians themselves responsible for their own future. The children's mothers come in one day a week to cook and clean at the clinic, and they must participate in nutritional education programs. There are no hand-outs either: every service and program the foundation offers comes at a nominal cost.

A Spanish doctor, who lives in the Plan full-time and administers the program's hospital in Santa Cruz, told me, "the politicians of Santa Cruz have neglected these people. They come into the slums once a year prior to elections and try to buy their votes by handing out t-shirts. It is only through the Church that we can make an impact forming a new Bolivia."

I grew up in Arlington, VA - the smallest county in the nation. For the past twenty years I witnessed the impact of the growing number of immigrants, mostly from Central America, that decended upon Arlington County. Now South Arlington is almost exclusively Hispanic, with more and more of North Arlington (traditionally more affluent) becoming dominated by Central Americans, mainly from El Salvador. For example, my best friend's mother attended Washington-Lee High School in the 1960s, when it was a predominantly white high school, drawing students from both South and North Arlington. Now the democraphics have changed dramatically: today W-L is over 70% Hispanic. This trend is not exclusive to Arlington: both Alexandria City and Fairfax County have experienced the same sort of demographic shift, including other ethnic groups primarily from Asia.

When Salvadoreans began fleeing the civil war in the 80s, many were ex-paramilitaries who were previously members of existing maras such as Salvatrucha. Thus new gangs emerged in the US which found themselves pitted against Mexican gangs, primarily in Southern California. Recently, these groups have been consolidated into MS-13, which now consists of Ecuadoreans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans in addition to Salvadoreans: an estimated 2,000 of which reside in Northern Virginia. Recently, episodes of gang violence involving teenagers have plagued Northern Virginia while law enforcement devotes more and more of their resources to fighting terrorism.

Today's Washington Post provides an chilling update on the murder trial of 17 year-old Brenda Paz, who was killed in cold blood after fellow MS-13 members discovered that she had been colluding with authorities:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/01/AR2005050100814_pf.html

For long-time residents of affluent Northern Virginia, this type of gang warfare is an alien concept which has only served to deepen resentment towards Hispanic immigrants.

I have been to several Latin American countries but I had never encountered an intersection without a clearly defined right-of-way until I arrived in Buenos Aires. While many of the main thoroughfares have traffic lights, many busy intersections do not have stop signs, nor is a right-of-way clearly established. Thus, intrepid drivers proceed at their own risk, slowing down and honking if they are cautious and often escaping minor accidents as taxis and colectivos barrel their way through the streets. The same is true in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where cars actually appear to be more aggressive than in Buenos Aires (contrary to my expectations). Thus, the North American paradigm of "defensive driving" is non-existant. I asked an Argentine cabbie about this, and he remarked, "unless you are aggressive, you will get run off the road."

Others sharing the streets, such as bicyclists and pedestrians, are not afforded the same rights that they enjoy in North America. Forget the notion that a pedestrian is a sacred object when they are in a crosswalk. In Central America in particular, pedestrians must be creative when it comes to getting to the other side. I remember seeing cars actually accelerate in San Jose as I briskly half-jogged to get to the median on a four lane road. It was not uncommon for Josefinos to cross one lane at a time, straddling lane markings like a nimble tight-rope walker. This is night and day from the myriad of crosswalks in Princeton, NJ (where I spent four years of college and where I live currently) which mandate that cars must anticipate when a pedestrian is about to cross and slow down accordingly.

So while it can be a bit testing for a gringo like myself to navigate Latin American cities on foot, the opposite is often true for Latin Americans who come to the United States. I worked at the DC affiliate of Telemundo a couple of summers ago, and we did a story on Central American pedestrians who had been hit by buses and cars while crossing major streets. The reason they were hit was that they were not used to using crosswalks and attempted to cross eight-lane highways one lane at a time.