Hope is not a plan

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez continues to operate in his 1970s socialist drama. Denied continued arms from the United States, Venezeula recently signed a deal to buy 30 Su-30s from Russia, along with a number of military helicopters, for about a billion dollars. He also visited Hanoi, where he said he "wants to work more closely with Vietnam as part of his alliance against American imperialism." The government of Vietnam is none-too-comfortable with this old position, however, and canceled trips to areas that serve as reminders of the decades of war in Vietnam.

Of course, the current administration is playing its part in this 1970s socialist-versus-capitalist rehash, calling Chavez "one of the biggest dangers facing Latin America" and describing his interactions with Cuba as "particularly dangerous."

I'd rather we didn't bother with Chavez one way or the other, as he represents one pole of a dispute between domineering socialism and domineering commercial-military dictatorship. As described in this Amnesty International report, both sides have attempted to gain influence and power at the expense of the Venezuelan people. By continuing to play our part as the cackling, imperialist bad guy, we give Chavez an external threat to point to and rally people against, while he goes right on quashing dissent. It's good that we've stopped arms sales to Venezuela, but we should have done that a long time ago, before Chavez ever saw power. We don't need the money and the region doesn't need weapons.

We need to get over our irrational fear of a socialist threat that is now irrelevant and put aid into the region, with an emphasis on keeping political struggles above-board and keeping the population safe. Let's not be part of the drama anymore. We gain nothing from it.

The National Assembly of Venezuela is going to give President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for a year and a half.

Chavez plans on nationalizing the hell out of businesses in Venezuela, something that always turns out well for the people involved.

Critics of Mr Chavez say he is trying to build a totalitarian dictatorship with all institutional powers consolidated into his own hands.

National Assembly President Cilia Flores said "there will always be opponents, and especially when they know that these laws will deepen the revolution".

It'll deepen something about Venezuela's condition, certainly.

BBC article

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, is shying away from Venezuala's Hugo Chavez over the issue of oil versus biofuels. Brazil, powerhouse of cane-based ethanol and with room to expand in the biodiesel arena, is not on board with Chavez's idea that going the biofuel route will cripple the South American food supply and play into American hands.

Chavez, by way of counter-proposal, has suggested that South America instead rely on "its" large oil reserves. One imagines Lula has some reservations about agreeing to a plan that eschews Brazil's strengths -- biofuels and land -- and embraces Venezuela's -- oil. Although it's true that loss of arable land is a problem, and that loss of rain forest to biofuels farming in Brazil is a problem, the solution of "rely on oil" isn't so hot, either -- and is conceptually quirky, coming from an avowed leftist.

In the end, it comes down to what you have, and it's unlikely Lula will pick ideology over prosperity for his people.

al Jazeera article

A paramilitary commander has accused US companies which buy Colombia's bananas of financing illegal right-wing militias that have killed thousands of people in more than a decade.

In testimony to investigators, jailed commander Salvatore Mancuso named Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte as having made regular payments to the paramilitaries, according to Jesus Vargas, a lawyer for victims of paramilitary violence who was present at the hearing.

The assertion is that the various companies paid "protection money" to the paramilitaries to be allowed to operate in territories those paramilitary groups controlled. Naturally, the companies involved deny this allegation.

However, lest it seem conceptually far-fetched, consider that within recent history, Chiquita Brands International admitted that it paid paramilitary groups $1.7 million over six years, and has agreed to pay a $25 million fine to the Justice Department.

Chiquita says the payments were made to protect the safety of its workers but Colombia's chief prosecutor has said companies that made such payments shared the responsibility for paramilitary murders.

Labour and human rights activists say Colombia companies and multinationals routinely paid paramilitaries to act as union busters and kill union leaders.

More motivation to buy local and seasonal foods, perhaps.

al Jazeera article

Last week, the Supreme Court of Argentina revoked a pardon previously given to Santiago Omar Riveros. Mr. Riveros, formerly General Riveros, was one of many in charge of the Dirty War in the late 70s and early 80s, during which about 30,000 people were killed. Riveros was pardoned by the president of Argentina in 1989, along with hundreds of other military and police officials.

This revoking sets a precedent for opening up many other pardoned individuals to trials for their crimes against humanity, which is a key step forward.

BBC article

Led by current president Evo Morales, a special assembly approved a new draft constitution for Bolivia last weekend. The new constitution would increase indigenous rights, allow consecutive presidential terms, and, perhaps most critically, redistribute wealth from the rich lowland regions to the substantially poorer highland portions of the country.

By way of reply, the three richest regions in the country declared autonomy.

President Morales has said that this declaration is illegal. It's unclear what measures he'll take to stop or otherwise impact planned upcoming local votes on autonomy in each region.

"The unity of the country is untouchable, it is not up for discussion. There is no referendum to be held on the country's unity," Mr Morales said.

If the story of the nascent twenty-first century is one of globalization and unification, it is at the same time one of regional and ethnic fragmentation.

BBC article

Despite the perhaps negative tone of many things I post about here, I am, on the whole, convinced that the trend line of humanity is going in the right direction. Today's example:

Prosecutors in Italy have issued arrest warrants for 140 people over a decades-old plot by South American dictatorships called Operation Condor.

A judge issued the arrest warrants on Monday, following a request from state prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo.

One of the true, positive achievements of the last two decades has been an unwillingness to let old crimes against humanity simply rest. In a very real way, there should be no statute of limitations on wanton cruelty, and more and more often, that is the case. It's never a wasted effort prosecuting these people, even decades and decades after the fact.

BBC article