Tag Archives: Venezuela

A very different face of Colombia

There’s a good reason life in Pasto, Colombia appears different to a visitor from the capital, Bogota: it is.  Pasto reflects all the many faces of the country, but does so with a decidedly different attitude and a very different flair.  These differences date back centuries.

In many ways, Bogota is a typical accelerated capital city: its nine million citizens move at an impersonal, self-important pace, comparable to just two other Latin American centers; Mexico City and Brazil’s commercial capital, Sao Paulo.  The air is one of super, often hyper- activity. Efficiency is occasional; results, questionable; attitude, incidental.

Challenges abound in Bogota with choking traffic, a daily influx of some 1,500 displaced campesinos, massive corruption and rampant crime. Through it all, universities abound, the arts flourish and the climate is unremittingly fair.

On the other hand, 500 miles to the southwest, there is Pasto with 380 thousand inhabitants.  Capital of Narino Department whose western border is the Pacific Ocean, things move at a brisk but sensible pace; people are more relaxed and open-minded and their products ranging from coffee to handicrafts are arguably the finest that are produced in Colombia or the rest of Latin America.

Yet there are many challenges that include eliminating the still flourishing coca cultivation; balancing the demands of disaffected indigenous inhabitants with basic community services; convincing prospective tourists the spirit, handicrafts and beaches of Narino are worth the minimal risk.  And doing it all on a miniscule state government budget of 10 million dollars for 1.6 million citizens.

Fortunately, popular enthusiasm for change is matched by dynamic government action.  Consider cocaine.  Efforts to eradicate coca cultivation have been a comprehensive failure.  Airborne fumigation campaigns have blighted all crops, infected citizens, earned widespread opposition and done nothing to significantly decrease production levels.

A new test project has been launched by Narino Governor, Antonio Navarro Wolff that actively involves farmers in the process.  The "Si Se Puede" [Yes We Can] trial project was launched in two cocoa infested areas just a year ago with then Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, (the leading candidate to succeed President Alvaro Uribe), in attendance.  The multi-level program graphically informs campesinos of the dangers to themselves, of the sharp increase in crime, of the true costs and profits and of the financially positive farming options available [including lemons, peanuts and broccoli].  It assists in clearing the fields — fumigation merely kills the leaves, not the roots of the sturdy coca plant — and provides technical, micro-financial and marketing assistance. 

Independent observers believe Si Se Puede can be successful, many citing a similar program launched by Colombian activist Sonia Amado that has virtually eliminated poppy production in Narino.  Ms. Amado contends, "Colombian campesinos know making money is not everything, and they know cultivating narcotics complicates their lives.  When you show them murders in drug cultivating areas are more than double the national rate, they quickly calculate their personal misery index, including alcoholism, prostitution and spousal abuse.  Then, the idea of perhaps making a little less becomes acceptable."

Si Se Puede project director, Plinio Perez believes "Involving the people from the very beginning has been critical and has won their trust and involvement.  It will be a long struggle, but we are optimistic."

"Results to date are encouraging, Governor Navarro agrees, "but it will take at least two more years to judge test results.  One thing we know is that what has been done before has not worked."

Narino’s long-neglected indigenous native population has benefited from another recent Navarro innovation; Latin America’s first multi-national, multi-cultural festival.  Held in Pasto and neighboring areas, the August event was the first ever cultural activity involving the entire Andean region of South America, with ethnic groups from eight countries providing an exceptional and diverse array of music, theatre, spiritualism and handicrafts.  The "Time to Flourish" festival attracted over 800,000 visitors as well as virtually every native pastuso.

Noteworthy highlights were a music and dance group from Ecuador’s Cuenca University and presentations of shaman tribal rituals by several of more than 200 gathered for a rare conference of native spiritual leaders. 

A presentation of "La Vida es Sueño" [Life is a Dream], by Baroque Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca, produced by Marcela Bustamante, Antonio Navarro’s remarkably talented ex-wife, was staged and acted at a Broadway level of professionalism.

Pasto’s fifth annual film festival organized by architect and filmmaker Javier Delgado, presented 115 productions from eight nations [entries from Venezuela and Ecuador were withdrawn, evidently for political reasons].  The department’s varied landscape has made it a favorite for film producers from Europe and North America, and no less than 57 made-in-Narino films were shown.  Mr. Delgado’s next challenge is producing a Narino-based documentary targeted for presentation at the 2011 Sundance festival. 

The pace is brisk and positive, and the driving force has been Narino’s governor, Pasto native, Antonio Navarro Wolff.  The question is: how does he do it, given the minimal funds available just to maintain 2,200 schools, 2,000 miles of roads and 124 medical facilities?  The answer is innovation.  "There is much that we can and must do to set Narino on a solid growth path", Governor Navarro believes.  "If we keep doing things the way they have been done for decades, we simply will not grow, so we keep looking for new approaches, which include new ways to raise money."

When skeptical Bogota bureaucrats were unwilling to provide financing for the coca eradication test and with nothing available for the August festival, the Governor had to find new funding sources.  A recent visit to the trial area by British Minister for Development Gillian Merrow and Ambassador John Dew will be followed by a 40 million Euro grant from the European Union directly to the Narino government by year’s end, funding that will allow the department to pay staff salary arrears as well as implement further refinements to the project. 

Because Colombian departments are not permitted to raise taxes, most of Narino’s operating revenue comes from sale of state-produced alcohol but there is little or nothing available to fund new initiatives.  So, in order to underwrite Augusts’ multi-national festival, the Narino government inaugurated a special licensing stamp for state contractors, costing two percent of their contract revenue.  Not surprisingly, the bootstrapping businessmen readily agreed to fund what became a booming success.

Elected governor in 2008, Antonio Navarro Wolff has pursued a very different career.  A native of Pasto, he spent several years following university graduation in M-19, Colombia’s first major radical political insurgency.  After a colorful, combative and life-threatening career as M-19’s second in command, the future politician led a group of his comrades back into society and launched a leftist political party, Polo Democrático Alternativo.

His prominence as a reformed guerrilla plus reputation for incorruptibility led to appointment as one of three wise men [with conservative leader Alvaro Gomez and liberal politician Horacio Serpa] who guided the creation of Colombia’s 1991 constitution.

Elected Mayor of Pasto in 1995, Mr. Navarro earned a reputation for action and incorruptibility, both unusual traits among Colombian politicians.  Colombia’s leading newspaper, El Tiempo and the FES Leadership Institute, named him the best mayor in the country. Later, he was declared Colombia’s outstanding congressman by Cambio newsmagazine.

Election as Narino governor was natural, according to one leading local conservative: "The man gets things done.  He appoints people based on their abilities, not friendships or favors; as mayor and now governor, he has created a new spirit for Pasto and Narino".

Action has continued to be Mr. Navarro’s byword since becoming Governor – action with a purpose and a distinctly different approach.  It all may go back to his guerrilla days, when he was critically wounded in an attempt on his life that cost him a leg and required countless surgeries to reconstruct his face.  "He was very close to death", a long time friend and supporter told me. "He decided to live, and to make a difference."

Mr. Navarro has twice sought Colombia’s presidency and continues to be considered a possible candidate. Although he has significantly moderated his political creed to a pragmatic, free market approach, his unorthodox style is considered a major impediment by many observers.  As one analyst remarked, "Navarro Wolff is clean, independent and unpredictable … that’s not the kind of person who gets nominated, much less elected, in Colombia."

In addition, there are a considerable number of people who can neither forgive nor forget Mr. Navarro’s violent past.  The Governor’s reaction is intriguingly incomplete, although in no way threatening: "I’ve always just tried to do the job — whatever it is — well.  That done, the future should unfold well; if not…."

Interestingly, Narino’s different approach goes back to Colombia’s fight for independence.  The people of Pasto told Simon Bolivar nearly 200 years ago that they preferred to stay with Spain, thank you, and many citizens remain proud of it. 

Today, Narino department’s determination and the Navarro approach to politics continue to be very different from the Colombian norm. Bureaucratic buck passing is as unpopular as arriving too late for dinner in Pasto, although both are standard fare in Bogota.

Time to Flourish festival director, Carmen Perini unwittingly summed up the Pasto attitude, when asked how a multi-faceted, multi-national festival could be organized in 10 months.  She shrugged and said, "This is the very first encounter of all the Andean cultures in one place at one time.  It simply had to get done".  Fortunately for Pasto, Narino and nearly a million visitors, Ms. Perini and her team were impressively successful.

Similar success in eradicating the coca scourge could finally write Narino’s name large on Colombian and South American maps.  In the bargain, the energy and dedication displayed by Narino’s governor could set an example for politicians of every persuasion.

 

Bogota resident John R. Thomson focuses on political and social developments in developing countries.

Obama Doctrine ‘coup’

Undermine our allies.  Embolden our enemies.  Diminish our country.  If anyone doubted those nine words summed up the Obama Doctrine, look at what the President’s team perpetrated last week in Honduras.

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Dan Restrepo, visited the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, on Wednesday to compel the country’s recalcitrant democrats to make a deal with the man the latter had lawfully removed from the presidency on June 28th. It remains to be seen whether, pursuant to this deal, ex-President Manuel Zelaya will now be – as he claims – restored to power.  What is already unmistakable, though, is that it is better to be a foe of America than its friend.

The Obama administration has been on the wrong side in this affair from the moment the Honduran supreme court and congress acted as required by their nation’s constitution in the face of Zelaya’s effort to engineer an illegal second term.  Instead of standing with those who lawfully protected democracy, President Obama and his minions immediately joined the region’s authoritarians – including notably Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Castro brothers – in declaring Zelaya a victim of a "coup."       

When the interim Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya’s own party, and his countrymen refused to reinstall the latter, Team Obama unleashed their full "soft power" arsenal upon America’s impoverished ally.  Drawing upon an opinion authored by notorious transnationalist Harold Koh, the State Department’s Legal Advisor, which found that the Hondurans’ action was indeed a "coup" and must be reversed, the U.S. administration and/or its allies on Capitol Hill: cut off most aid to Honduras; issued travel warnings to discourage tourism; blocked visas for officials of the interim government; tried to preclude fact-finding missions to Tegucigalpa by Republican legislators; and promoted the heavy-handed, pro-Zelaya "diplomacy" of the Organization of American States’ leftist Chilean secretary general, José Miguel Insulza.

As the Honduran democrats refused to bend to such coercion, Obama’s team dropped the big one:  The United States would join the hemisphere’s large and growing block of authoritarian nations in refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the election scheduled for the end of this month.

The effect of this power-play would be to deny the people of Honduras the one peaceful means they would have to end the nightmare Zelaya unleashed.  Representatives of all of the parties, including Zelaya’s, were anxious to have the elections go forward as planned and, on the basis of free and fair balloting, democratically select a new president.  During their visit last week, however, the American officials – joined by the widely reviled U.S. Ambassador to Tegucigalpa Hugo Llorens – evidently made the Hondurans, as mafia godfather Vito Corleone would say, "an offer they can’t refuse."

According to the resulting deal, it will be up to the Honduran high court and legislature to decide whether Manuel Zelaya will be restored to power for the remaining three months of what was once his term in office. As both acted in the first place to depose him, that would not seem likely. 

But with the likes of Harold Koh, Tom Shannon and Dan Restrepo calling the shots, the would-be dictator may be right when, according to the Associated Press he claimed on Friday that the "U.S.-brokered pact will restore him to power in about a week."  In addition to authoring the opinion that justified Obama’s hard line on the Honduran democrats, Koh is fixated on having international norms (for example, opposing "coups") trump national sovereignty (for example, the Honduran constitution). 

Worse yet, as Nicolle Ferrand points out in the Center for Security Policy’s Americas Report, Shannon was no help to Latin American friends of freedom during his tenure in the Bush administration.  That profile would certainly square with a report in Honduras’ El Pais newsapaper on Sunday that Shannon is now lobbying legislators there to allow Zelaya’s restoration.

Then, there is Dan Restrepo, yet-another problematic product of John Podesta’s left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP) – an organization whose staffing of and influence over the Obama administration is extremely worrisome.  Ferrand speculates that Restrepo’s attachment to Zelaya’s restoration may have something to do with his sympathy for the radical drug-legalization agenda of George Soros, a key CAP benefactor.  After all, among Zelaya’s other misdeeds, the ousted president stands accused of being deeply involved in the narco-trafficking that Chavez and the Colombian FARC have increasingly used Honduran territory to conduct.

At the very least, it is predictable that Venezuela and other Chavista regimes will be doing all they can to intervene in Honduras’ pending decisions about Comrade Zelaya’s fate.  They surely will calculate that, with the Americans forcing open the door to their man’s return to power, the more trouble they threaten or foment in Honduras, the more likely it is that he will be allowed to walk through it.

There has been a "coup" alright in Honduras.  America’s friends there have been undercut and demeaned.  This country’s many enemies in the region have been encouraged to redouble their attempt to hijack yet another of its few remaining democracies.  And the United States is diminished by demonstrating that it is willing to use its influence and leverage to hurt the former and help the latter.  Whether Manuel Zelaya actually regains the presidency or not, last week’s "deal" represents a coup for the Obama Doctrine.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.

 

Who’s behind the Obama Honduras policy?

The Obama Administration has made serious mistakes in its handling of the crisis in Honduras where it supports the return of the deposed president, Mel Zelaya. The Administration categorized the removal of Zelaya as a coup when, in fact, the Honduran military has had no role in governing the country.  The Honduran Congress and Supreme Court abided by their Constitution and rule of law and ousted Zelaya because he had violated the law. As a result, the crisis in Honduras today is almost unmanageable. So what does this behavior reveal about Mr. Obama’s respect for the separation of powers, as Mary Anastasia O’ Grady from the Wall Street Journal accurately points out, that he would instruct Secretary of State Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted? [1] Is this administration forcing a foreign nation to violate its own laws?

It astonishes legal experts and independent observers that President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and their advisors have chosen to ignore a serious factual report filed at the Library of Congress by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that states "Available sources indicate that the (Honduran) judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system," [2] writes CRS senior foreign law specialist Norma C. Gutierrez in her report.

Why is this administration siding with Zelaya and his main supporter, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez? Chavez is known to be hostile towards the U.S while working closely with Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is on the brink of obtaining a nuclear weapon and has established a bank in Venezuela with Chavez to avoid the sanctions already imposed against Iranian financial institutions responsible for transferring funds to Tehran’s nuclear program. Actually, the Obama Administration and the Chavez regime sponsored a UN resolution that condemned the government of Honduras for legally removing Chavez’s puppet "Mel" Zelaya.

What is even worse, the State Department has suspended $30 million in aid to Honduras for standing by their constitution and has stripped current President Roberto Micheletti and fourteen members of the Supreme Court who ruled against Zelaya of their U.S. visas.

Since people are often policy, who are the individuals on the Obama team responsible for shaping our Latin American policy and specifically for the misguided decisions made regarding Honduras. 

The Obama Latin America Team is composed of: Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Frank Mora, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs and most importantly Dan Restrepo, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at The National Security Council.  Thomas Shannon, who was also Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the second Bush term, seems to have a kind of get along -go along approach with regards to Latin America. Indeed, some of Mr. Shannon’s highlights include:

  • In Honduras: remaining silent as Manuel Zelaya attempted to subvert democratic institutions and the Honduran Constitution and as the Congress and Supreme Court worked to remove Zelaya legally from office, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa and Shannon worked diligently to dissuade the Honduran Congress and protect Zelaya. [3]
  • In Venezuela, Mr. Shannon constantly promoted cooperation between the U.S. and Chávez relating to the drug trade despite evidence-and objections from other U.S. agencies-that the Venezuelan government itself was facilitating narcotics trafficking.  Mr. Shannon also denied support to Venezuela’s civil society and sat by as Chavez dismantled the country’s democratic institutions.  Today, the Mayor of Caracas still cannot get into his office to perform his duties.  In all this, Mr. Shannon’s rationale for shunning Venezuela’s civil society has been that the U.S. and Venezuela have a strategic relationship based primarily on energy. [4]
  • In Nicaragua, Mr. Shannon advocated the continuation of U.S. aid to the Sandinista government despite evidence of overwhelming fraud in the 2008 mayoral race in Managua.  Meanwhile, Mr. Shannon has sought to cut support to Nicaragua’s civil society, in order not to ‘antagonize’ President Ortega. [5]
  • In Bolivia, when President Morales expelled the U.S. Ambassador and DEA from the country, Mr. Shannon was against waiving trade preferences and U.S. aid.  Instead, he advocated that the Bush Administration sign a document by President Morales, which was essentially a ‘mea culpa.’ The U.S.  State Department’s Legal Advisor at the time overruled him and the U.S. didn’t sign the document. [6]
  • In Ecuador, Mr. Shannon has sought to accommodate and improve relations with President Correa despite his dismantling of democratic institutions and evidence that President Correa has connections to the FARC. [7]

However, since assuming the presidency in January of 2009, the Obama White House mainly follows the expertise of Mr. Daniel Restrepo on issues pertaining to Latin America.

 

Dan Restrepo and The Center for American Progress

Prior to moving to the National Security Council, Dan Restrepo was the director of the Americas Project at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, whose President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then President Bill Clinton. This think tank has become so influential making personnel appointments in the Obama Administration that Time Magazine recently declared "there is no group in Washington with more influence at this moment in history." [8]

One of CAP’s main contributors is billionaire speculator, George Soros. In fact, some independent groups that are more transparent, such as the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Legal Center, criticize the Center’s failure to disclose its contributors, particularly since it is so influential in appointments to the Obama administration.

 

Dan Restrepo, Honduras and Chavez

Restrepo’s complete lack of judgment with respect to issues in Latin America, especially with regards to Chavez, put the region, the US and its interests at risk. He actually thinks Chávez is only a nuisance and not a national security threat, despite the fact that Chávez said during a recent visit to Iran — his eighth since taking office — that he is discussing with Iran the creation of a "nuclear village" in Venezuela, which he claimed will be for "peaceful purposes." And there are recent claims made by New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau that Iran may be using Venezuela for "building and storing" weapons of mass destruction. So what does Restrepo think about the Iran-Venezuela nuclear cooperation? He actually "hopes that all countries in the Americas respect international rules, and their international responsibilities regarding nuclear energy." So, according to him, the U.S. should keep hoping and do nothing in the meantime. 

Why are Obama and Restrepo so eager to return Zelaya to power despite the overwhelming evidence against him? (For the case against Zelaya please See "The Americas Report" August 4, 2009 titled "All that is wrong with Insulza and the OAS.")

Despite the fact that what happened in Honduras was NOT a coup and that the actions taken against Zelaya were in accordance with the rule of law after he violated the Constitution by illegally trying to perpetuate himself in power with the help of Hugo Chavez, the Obama administration is sticking to its coup theory. It continues misrepresenting the facts with the help of some friendly media outlets. In addition, it has decided to ignore evidence provided by Honduras’ Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez who has charged that as President, Zelaya was involved with drug trafficking from Venezuela into the United States: "Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds…and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," he said. "We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it," adding that "the drugs arrive in Honduras from Venezuela, which has become a main drug transit center, and increasingly in speedboats from Colombia," according to the Key West, Florida-based Joint Interagency Task Force-South, which coordinates drug interdiction in the region. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne in Washington said he could neither confirm nor deny the DEA investigation. [9]

It is precisely this information involving Zelaya and drugs that could give us the key answer to what is truly going on behind U.S. policy regarding Honduras.

An extremely influential figure in Restrepo’s life is Center for American Progress’ strongman George Soros, who is an advocate for the legalization of illicit drugs. In fact, Soros is a member of the board of the "Drug Policy Alliance," a non-profit organization with the principal goal of ending the American "War on Drugs." As a side – note, George Soros financially contributed to the political campaign of Barack Obama, together with four other family members – daughter Jennifer, sons Jonathan and Robert and wife Susan. He has also financially supported John Kerry, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Charles Schumer, Joseph Biden, Patrick Leahy and Barbara Boxer. Soros also funded Al Gore for President.

 

Why is Zelaya’s return so important for Soros and Restrepo?

Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the region’s main producers of drugs, especially cocaine, and Mexico has become a major drug transit country and an important supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. In recent years, Honduras and other Central American nations have become major transshipment points for Colombian cocaine, particularly as Mexico’s government cracks down on cartels. So it is not surprising that one of Soros’ main interests would be to try to convince Latin American leaders that the U.S. Government’s war on drugs is wrong. Remember, he wants to legalize drugs. To this end, he is actively pushing to move away from the use of national and global law enforcement resources against the drug trade.  He is also fiercely opposed to Plan Colombia. To achieve this goal, he has purchased the services of several former Latin American government officials to campaign to end the war on drugs.

Actually, in October 13, 2008, then Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said at a Soros – funded Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy conference held in Tegucigalpa: "Drug use ought to be legalized as a way to combat violence." He proposed creating a regional counternarcotics plan that would displace the US-led efforts in Colombia and Mexico. It was in this conference that Soros presented his plan for a paradigm shift within democracies to accommodate legalization. A few weeks later Zelaya appeared with Soros at a U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean conference in the Dominican Republic openly calling for the legalization of drugs – supposedly to reduce violence. [10]

Many have been asking, what is behind Soros’ obsession with drug legalization? Does he have clients in his hedge funds that have links to illegal activities? Soros has categorically denied receiving money from drug cartels or any criminal network, but the fact remains, however, that at least some of his financial operations have been based offshore, in banking and financial centers that are widely reported to be considered conducive to money laundering.  The Soros fund is based in the Netherlands Antilles, a self-governing federation of five Caribbean islands. A CIA factbook describes the region as "a transshipment point for South American drugs bound for the U.S. and Europe; and a money-laundering center." In fact, Soros’ partner, Peter Lewis, considered by the Washington Post as "one of the country’s 10 most generous philanthropists," was arrested in 2000 in New Zealand for "importing" drugs, including hashish and marijuana. [11]

Soros and Lewis together founded "America Coming Together", a political organization designed to defeat George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Both have helped bankroll a campaign to legalize marijuana, featuring a public relations effort that falsifies the dangerous nature of marijuana and presents it as "medicine." Since 1991, Lewis has contributed $5 million to the ACLU to fight drug laws, and has made large contributions to drug "legalization" campaigns in Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Utah, Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts. [12]

While it is often difficult in determining the exact motivating factors in driving an administrations’ foreign policy, these connections are interesting to consider. That the Obama Administration chooses to go along with Zelaya, who violated the Honduran Constitution and is a protégé of Chavez and would therefore employ all the same anti- American policies, appears to be working against our own national security interests. Certainly, without Zelaya in power Chavez has lost, for now, another country to the forces of democracy.

 

Nicole M. Ferrand is a research analyst and editor of "The Americas Report" of the Menges Hemispheric Security Project. She is a graduate of Columbia University in Economics and Political Science with a background in Law from Peruvian University, UNIFE and in Corporate Finance from Georgetown University.

 

[1] Hillary’s Honduras Obsession. Sept. 21, 2009. The Wall Street Journal. Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

[2] Honduras: Constitutional Law Issues. August 2009. The Law Library of Congress.

[3] Senate Continues to hold Tom Shannon’s nomination to be US Ambassador to Brazil. October 15, 2009. Council of Americas. Liz Harper.  

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Why The Center for American Progress Rules. November 26, 2008. Time Magazine. Michael Scherer.

[9] Honduras Coup Leaders Headed for Faceoff. July 1, 2009. CBS.

[10] What the old media is not reporting on Honduras. July 1, 2009. The World Tribune.

[11] Who is Peter Lewis? December 3, 2003. Accuracy in the Media. By Arne Steinberg.

[12] Ibid.

Brazil’s tilt towards Chavez and Iran

For those of us concerned with hemispheric security, the big question has always been how do we contain Chavez‘s expansionist ambitions. 

Under the Bush Administration, the answer, in the words of a Republican Senator was, "containment of Hugo Chavez should be undertaken by Latin American countries". This conception was consistent with the idea of a non-interventionist policy in Latin America. Indeed, even under the hawkish Bush Administration the policy was one of good neighborhood plus trying to develop trade relations. In terms of Hugo Chavez, the policy was basically to ignore his hostile anti-Americanism and even his interventions in neighboring countries. The hope was that Latin Americans would eventually realize that Chavez was the bad guy and thus try to isolate him. This never happened.

Apparently, the country the Bush Administration had in mind when suggesting the policy of containment was Brazil. Led by President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva (Lula), a pragmatist socialist, Brazil did not depend on Chavez’s largesse for their economic well-being. To the contrary Brazil has the largest and most dynamic economy in Latin America.  Therefore, their economic and industrial power would prevail over the ambitions of a mad man like Chavez whose power depends solely on the production of oil. 

The Workers’ Party (PT)

Lula’s party, the Workers’ party (PT) was founded in 1980 by trade unions that emerged in Brazil as a result of increasing urbanization. The PT, contrary to many party elites in Latin America, included grassroots organizations with permanent participation in decisions at every level. The PT includes a whole scope of socialist and popular movements such as unions, human rights groups, liberation theology groups within the Catholic Church (a Christian group that tries to reconcile between Christian theology and Marxism), environmentalists, women’s groups, indigenous, Afro-Brazilians groups and the powerful landless movement (MST). 

The radical component of the PT was clear. Lula was in sympathy with the ideas of Fidel Castro and together they founded the "Foro of Sao Paulo". The Foro" promised to provide an alternative against the Washington consensus and its neo-liberal policies as well as to the Third Way policies of the European left. The "Foro" was built as a Latin American network of solidarity between socialist, communists, and various groups, including some guerillas, to strengthen themselves in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. "Foro" leaders include individuals such as Daniel Ortega from the Sandinistas as well as leaders from guerilla movements such as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the Union Revolucionaria de Guatemala (URNG), Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacional (FMLN) of El Salvador and the Partido de La Revolución Democrática de Mexico (PRD).  Liberation theology is also part of the "Foro". Hugo Chavez joined the Foro in 1995 when he was not yet president of Venezuela. The "Foro" holds an ardent anti-globalization and anti-American posture and also speaks for the rights of indigenous populations and promotes Indian separatism from the Latin American national states.

Thus, it was no wonder that the Bush Administration looked with skepticism at Lula’s election to the presidency in 2002. Initially, those suspicions were justified as Brazil moved to implement some of its pro-third world ideology.

As an example, Brazil hosted a South American/Arab summit in May 2005 where the Brasília Resolution was adopted. The resolution commends the Government of Sudan for its assistance in trying to solve the problem in the Darfur region without mentioning their   responsibility in leading the genocide taking place there.  The resolution also called for combating terrorism by having an international conference to study and define terrorism, but in such a way as to avoid a clear and unequivocal condemnation of terrorism. Similarly, it condemned the "Syria Accountability Act", a law passed by the U.S. Government to impose sanctions on Syria amid its support for terrorism. In addition, participants wanted an International Court of Justice to require Israel to tear down the security fence, which Israel built to prevent terrorist attacks.

Pragmatism vs. Ideology

Despite Lula’s socialism and third world anti-imperialism, he quickly transformed himself as a pragmatist in domestic and foreign policy. Once in power the PT built a broad coalition with parties from the center and from the right including the appointment of conservatives in the cabinet. Cooperation with entrepreneurs and with supporters of neo-liberal policies was pursued and implemented.

In foreign affairs, despite the traditional anti-imperialist approach of the PT, the party has not sought confrontation with the United States or with the International Monetary Fund. Likewise, he kept a distance from his former "Foro" peers, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, by refusing to adopt their anti-American dogmatisms. Similarly, Lula signed bi-lateral agreements of cooperation with the U.S. to develop alternative energy for the region.  Recently, he also distanced himself from all those in Latin America that objected to the establishment of more military bases in Colombia.

Lula’s attitude led U.S. policy makers to believe that Lula had the legitimacy and the pragmatism that would eclipse Chavez. However, a huge and very dangerous disappointment is emerging from Brasília in the last few months.

Lula’s Reversal: Embracing Iran and Enabler of Chavez 

Last summer, after Iran’s June 12th presidential elections, President Lula was the first western leader to recognize hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the legitimate winner in spite of wide spread indications of fraud.  The fact that those who protested the theocratic regime were courageous individuals fighting for freedom meant nothing to Lula. In fact, Lula ridiculously compared post-election protests in Teheran with a fight between fans of two rival soccer teams in Rio de Janeiro. No other country in the West except Venezuela recognized the legitimacy of the result of the Iranian elections.

Lula went further. During the last United Nations General Assembly, he defended Brazil’s relationship with Iran basically saying he cannot judge Iran’s nuclear ambitions or the way the June 12 elections were handled.  He also pointed out that he is "not ashamed of having relations with Iran".  Likewise, referring to Iran’s anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial Lula defended Ahmadinejad’s right "to think differently". Then, Lula announced that Brazil will send a trade mission to Iran in the coming months to explore areas of joint investment. Trade between the two countries quadrupled in the last five years.

It now seems that Lula Da Silva after years of remarkable pragmatism and centrism is returning to the days of radicalism. What is worse, Lula has moved from mere rhetoric into dangerous policy. He has provided Brazils’ embassy in Tegucigalpa to Mel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras, who was deposed late in June. Zelaya was deposed because he called for a constitutional reform following Chavez’ model, disobeying the will of the Honduran Congress and the Supreme Court. Zelaya did that after developing close relations with Hugo Chavez. Zelaya’s restoration to power has not only been on the agenda of his patron, Hugo Chavez, but also on the agenda of the Organization of American States and the U.S. Government. Negotiations to restore Zelaya led nowhere and then Brazil stepped in offering its embassy in Tegucigalpa to host Zelaya while he organizes to come back to power. Though we do not know how the situation in Honduras will evolve, it is clear that Zelaya’s presence in the country exacerbates violence and intensifies the possibility of a civil war. In other words, Brazil has been actively promoting violence in Honduras to serve the interests of no other than Hugo Chavez.

Interestingly enough, tensions between factions in the PT and Lula have been registered for years. Most of these tensions emanate from complaints from radical factions in the PT that claim that Lula has not carried social reforms far enough. One such movement is the Landless Movement or Movement of the Landless Workers (MST), which was an integral part of the foundation of the PT. The MST is a social movement whose goal to achieve agrarian reform was coupled with a radical militant ideology and semi-violent action that included road blockades and illegal take over of large pieces of land.

The MST, like the base of the PT, is part of the Congreso Bolivariano de los Pueblos (CBP), an organization controlled by Hugo Chavez aimed at reaching out to grassroots organizations throughout the continent. These organizations help to deepen Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution. In addition, they usually receive funds from Chavez.  The MST website (www.mstbrazil.org) displays articles and materials in support of Hugo Chavez and highlights the achievement of his revolution.

In other words, Lula’s government seems to be leaving the pragmatic road and embracing the demands of the most radical and most ideological factions within his constituency. Likewise, his astonishing policies towards Iran seem to revive the ghosts of Lula from the   "Foro of Sao Paulo". It looks like, contrary to expectations, it is Chavez containing Lula and not the other way around.

Does this behavior serve the interests of Brazil? 

Chavez and Iran have had very close relations. As it has been reported, both countries are partners in banking ventures whose only purpose is to help Iran avoid sanctions imposed on it. The more effectively Iran is able to circumvent sanctions, the more they can focus on developing their dangerous nuclear program. Chavez will also begin selling Iran 15% of the gasoline Iran needs with the same purpose in mind. It has also been reported a long time ago and confirmed recently by a Venezuelan high officer that both countries are cooperating in matters related to the extraction of uranium with which Iran could develop an atomic bomb and other aspects of nuclear technology.

Venezuela has been the main supporter of Iran, worldwide. As a result, Iran is deeply grateful to Chavez. Given this, what will Iran do to pay back their South American friend? Most likely Chavez will ask that Iran provide Venezuela with nuclear weapons once Iran obtains them. Chavez is a man with imperial ambitions who craves power. Lately, he has purchased large amounts of sophisticated weapons from Russia. Following this logic, it is clear to me that having a nuclear weapon will provide Chavez with the respect and the fear he needs to carry out his agenda of exporting his revolution, as well as controlling and deterring as many countries as possible.  This is even more frightening if we ask ourselves, why Iran would refuse to provide weapons to Chavez when, in fact, those weapons could place the U.S. under direct threat and provide Iran with a deterrence factor.

Most recently Jose Sarney, a former president and currently the President of the Brazilian Senate, pointed out that Venezuela’s aspiration to become a regional military power is worrisome. More troubling for Brazil and the region will be a nuclear Chavez-led Venezuela. Lula is not just the leader of the Brazils’ poorest. He was supported by a large middle class component that most probably rejects Brazil’s behavior. Polls already indicate that the PT candidate ranks third for the upcoming presidential elections.

Also, in its desire to become an influential country in the world, Brazil is seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Under the present circumstances Brazil does not deserve this seat unless it behaves with responsibility.  Historically, Brazil is a western country and its rise to power should be welcomed but not under the current circumstances. Nobody who has a moral and politically relativistic view of ominous individuals like Chavez and Ahmadinejad should be added to the community of world leaders. 

To the contrary, Brazil must overcome its moral and political schizophrenia and stand on the side of civilization and freedom against the barbarism and oppression of the Teheran-Caracas axis.

 

Luis Fleischman is Senior Advisor for the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington D.C

 

Revolutionary Anti-Semitism

"Sometimes I ask myself if Hitler wasn’t right when he wanted to finish with that race, through the famous holocaust, because if there are people that are harmful to this country, they are the Jews, the Israelites." — David Romero Ellner, Executive Director, Radio Globo, Honduras, Sept. 25, 2009

Meet one of Honduras’s most vocal advocates for the return of deposed president Manuel Zelaya to office. He’s not your average radio jock. He started in Honduran politics as a radical activist and was one of the founders of the hard-left People’s Revolutionary Union, which had links to Honduran terrorists in 1980s. A few years ago he was convicted and served time in prison for raping his own daughter.

Today Mr. Romero Ellner is pure zelayista, hungry for power and not ashamed to say so. This explains why he has joined Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Mr. Zelaya in targeting Jews. Mr. Chávez has allied himself with Iran to further his ability to rule unchecked in the hemisphere. He hosts Hezbollah terrorists and seeks Iranian help to become a nuclear power. He and his acolytes cement their ties to Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by echoing his anti-Semitic rants. The Honduras debate is not really about Honduras. It is about whether it is possible to stop the spread of chavismo and all it implies, including nuclear proliferation and terrorism in Latin America. Most troubling is the unflinching support for Mr. Zelaya from President Barack Obama and Democratic Sen. John Kerry-despite the Law Library of Congress review that shows that Mr. Zelaya’s removal from office was legal, and the clear evidence that he is Mr. Chávez’s man in Tegucigalpa. On Thursday, Mr. Kerry took the unprecedented step of trying to block a fact-finding mission to Honduras by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who is resisting Mr. Obama’s efforts to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

Mr. Zelaya, recall, was arrested, deposed and deported on June 28 because he violated the Honduran Constitution. He snuck back into the country on Sept. 21 and found refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in the capital. Mr. Romero Ellner’s calumny against Jews was a follow-up to Mr. Zelaya’s claim that he was being "subjected to high-frequency radiation" from outside the embassy and that he thought "Israeli mercenaries" were behind it.

The verbal attack on Jews from a zelayista is consistent with a pattern emerging in the region. Take what’s been going on in Venezuela. In the earliest years of Chávez rule, a Venezuelan friend, who is a Christian, confessed his fears to me. "In his speech, he always tries to create hate between groups of people," my friend told me. "He loves hate speech."

For a decade, Venezuelans have been force-fed the strongman’s view of economic nationalism laced with this divisive language. Venezuelans are encouraged to seek revenge against their neighbors. Crime has skyrocketed.

The Jewish community has been targeted as Mr. Chávez’s relationship with Mr. Ahmadinejad has blossomed. In 2004, I reported on a police raid at a Jewish school for young children in Caracas. The pretext was a "tip" that the school was storing weapons. No weapons were found, but the community was terrorized.

In recent years, Venezuela and Iran have signed joint ventures estimated to be worth $20 billion. There are similar pacts, estimated at $10 billion, between Iran and Venezuelan satellite, Bolivia. Both South American countries accused Israel of genocide in Gaza in 2008 and cut diplomatic ties. Mr. Chávez’s tirades against Israel during that time emboldened his street thugs. In January 2009, vandals broke into a temple in Caracas and desecrated the sacred space with graffiti calling for the death of Jews.

New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recently gave a speech to the Brookings Institution in which he said "Iran and Venezuela are beyond the courting phase. We know they are creating a cozy financial, political and military partnership, and that both countries have strong ties to Hezbollah and Hamas."

Iran has courted Honduras as well. When Mr. Zelaya was still in power, the Honduran press reported that his foreign minister Patricia Rodas met with high-ranking Iranian officials in Mexico City. That raised plenty of eyebrows in Central America.

Neither Venezuela nor Honduras has any history of anti-Semitism. But with Mr. Chávez importing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s despicable ideology and methods, an assault on the Jewish community goes with the territory.

Honduras recognizes that it was a mistake to deport Mr. Zelaya after he was arrested. But it argues that fears of zelayista extremism and use of violence as a political tool in the months leading up to June 28 provoked desperation. Mr. Romero Ellner-whose radio station was closed down by the government last week-provided exhibit A with his remarks. If the U.S. State Department is opposed to the exile, let it call for Mr. Zelaya to be put on trial now that he is back in Honduras. It has no grounds to demand that democratic Honduras restore an anti-Semitic rabble rouser to power.

 

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal

Making hash of Honduras

Now that the Honduran crisis has moved back into the media spotlight, we should examine what actually took place in Honduras as well as the Obama administration’s response because it provides an insight to where our foreign policy is headed. The anti-democratic movement led by the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (supported by Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega), who has destroyed democracy in Venezuela, has been derailed in Honduras.

The key issue in the Honduran crisis was the removal of President Manuel Zelaya for his illegal actions to force a referendum to change the Honduran constitution on presidential term limits, similar to what his ally Mr. Chavez did in Venezuela. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled that his unilateral referendum was unconstitutional. The army, acting on orders from the Supreme Court, moved for his arrest and removal from office, and he wasflown to Costa Rica. This was no traditional military coup, as has been portrayed by the media and Mr. Zelaya’s left-wing supporters and regretfully by many in the Obama administration.

President Obama’s response was to say he was deeply concerned and to call on Honduran officials "to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Charters." Well, that is exactly what the Honduran government institutions did. Sowhy would the Obama administration want to join forces with the anti-American, anti-democratic forces led by Mr. Chavez, Fidel and Raul Castro, Mr. Ortega et al. to thwart the democratic process and install a Chavez-like dictatorship in Honduras?

We now have the secretary of state cutting more than $30 million in U.S. development aid (which only hurts the Honduran people) as one means of forcing Honduran officials to reinstate the ousted president for the remainder of his term. With help most likely from his leftist allies, Mr. Zelaya has surreptitiously returned to Honduras and has taken refuge in the Brazilian Embassy to avoid arrest. New elections are due in November.

The administration seems to be oblivious to how democracy can be challenged from within by ideologues who use the freedoms guaranteed by democratic institutions to subvert it, as is happening in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. The United States should be helping those countries preserve the independence of institutions that keep elected presidents from becoming dictators. In Venezuela, Mr. Chavez is guided by Cuba’s example as he attacks the press and systematically destroys the checks and balances of democraticinstitutions. Is this what we want to see happen in Honduras? Of course not!

Let’s not forget Mr. Chavez’s relationship with Iran. The Venezuelan president has signed economic and energy agreements totaling roughly $17 billion with the tarnished Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He also hosts and provides villas for representatives from the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists groups, both of which are supported by Iran.

Mr. Chavez also has established a strong military relationship with Russia and has embarked on a huge purchase ($15 billion to $17 billion) of military equipment, including tanks and Sukhoi jet fighters. None of this type of equipment will be of much use in the jungle, but it will help Mr. Chavez maintain control of the Venezuelan masses.

At a recently concluded a special summit in Argentina sponsored by Venezuela and Argentina, Mr. Chavez led his allies in opposition to the United States’ long-term access to Colombian bases to fight drug-trafficking and Marxist rebels. However, they were unsuccessful in derailing this important Colombian-U.S. relationship.

The Obama administration’s position on Honduras is symptomatic of a larger retreat from leadership that has our allies and friends nervous. For example, the administration’s scrapping of the planned missile defense system to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic by 2013 – with apparently nothing in return – will be seen as selling out our allies in Eastern Europe. Administration funding cuts for our anti-ballistic missile programs and advanced fighters like the F-22 may cause others to doubt America’s willingness to defend even itself.

This plus Mr. Obama’s willingness to embrace America’s adversaries will not make for successful foreign policy. Appeasement has not worked in the past and is destined to fail again. Mr. Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe on American foreign policy by Nicaragua’s paragon of democracy, Mr. Ortega, at the fifth summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in July. The best response he could muster was that he was glad Mr. Ortega didn’t personally blame him for things that had happened when he was 3 months old. Shocking! Since when does the communist Mr. Ortega set the criteria for American foreign policy?

The practiced cool demeanor of our president will not enhance his stature or his popularity with those who plan to do harm to the United States. Respect for American ideals and the competence of our military forces should be the pillars for our foreign policy, which should support constitutional democracies and defend them against the predations of Mr. Chavez, the Castro brothers, Mr. Ortega and Mr. Morales.

Retired Navy Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations and deputy chief of naval operations, in which position he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters.

Adm. Lyons is the chairman of the Center’s Military Committee.

An enfeebled Obama

If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran’s nuclear installations.

In an interview with the Daily Beast Web site last weekend, the man who served as former US president Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser said, "They [IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not."

Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as one of the most outspoken Israel-haters in polite circles in Washington. Under normal circumstances, his remarks could be laughed off as the ravings of a garden variety anti-Semite. But these are not normal circumstances. Brzezinski served as a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, and his views are not terribly out of place among Obama’s senior advisers in the White House. In an interview in 2002, Samantha Powers, who serves as a senior member of Obama’s national security council, effectively called for the US to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians.

The fact of the matter is that Brzezinski’s view is in line with the general disposition of Obama’s foreign policy. Since entering office, Obama has struck a hard-line position against Israel while adopting a soft, even apologetic line toward Iran and its allies.

For eight months, Obama has sought to force Israel to the wall. He has loudly and repeatedly ordered the Netanyahu government to prevent all private and public construction for Jews in Israel’s capital city and its heartland in order to facilitate the eventual mass expulsion of Jews from both areas, which he believes ought to become part of a Jew-free Palestinian state.

Until this week, Obama conditioned the resumption of negotiations toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians on such a prohibition of Jewish building and so encouraged Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to further radicalize his positions toward Israel. Until Obama came around, Abbas had no problem negotiating with Israeli leaders while Jews were building homes and schools and other structures in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But with Obama requiring a freeze of all such construction, Abbas made clear in an interview with The Washington Post in May that he couldn’t talk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu without looking like a sellout.

Obama made no equivalent demands of the Palestinians. He did not precondition talks on freezing illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem, or on dismantling the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, or even simply on setting aside the Palestinian demand that Israel release convicted terrorists from its prisons. To the contrary, he has energetically supported the establishment of a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas – which the US State Department has since 1995 designated as a foreign terrorist organization to which US citizens, including the US president, are required by law to give no quarter.

As for Iran, during his meeting with Netanyahu in May, Obama gave the clear impression that the Iranian regime had until September to accept his offer to negotiate the disposition of its nuclear installations. But it is now September, and in its belated response to Obama’s generous offer of engagement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime rejected the terms of Obama’s engagement out of hand. Obama did not retaliate by taking his offer to negotiate off the table or – perish the thought – working to implement the sanctions he had pledged would follow an Iranian rejection of his open hand.

Instead, Obama announced that he is sending a senior US official to meet with the Iranians on October 1. And with that announcement, any residual doubt that Obama is willing to live in a world in which Iran is armed with nuclear weaponry dissipated completely.

In the meantime, in his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and in his remarks at his meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas on Tuesday, Obama made clear that, in the words of former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, he has "put Israel on the chopping block." He referred to Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines as "illegitimate."

Moreover, Obama explained that Israel can no longer expect US support for its security if it doesn’t bow to his demand that it surrender all of the land it has controlled since 1967.

Apparently it is immaterial to the US leader that if Israel fulfilled his demand, the Jewish state would render itself defenseless against enemy attack and so embolden its neighbors to invade. That is, it matters not to Obama that were Israel to fulfill his demand, the prospect of an Arab war against Israel would rise steeply. The fact that Obama made these deeply antagonistic statements about Israel at the UN in itself exposes his hostility toward the country. The UN’s institutional hostility toward Israel is surpassed only by that of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

So given Obama’s positions toward Israel on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other, it seems clear enough that the logical endpoint of Obama’s policies would look something like Brzezinski’s recommended course of action. Moreover, Obama’s foreign policy as a whole makes it fairly easy to imagine him ordering the US military to open hostilities against a US ally to defend a US adversary – even as that adversary goes out of its way to humiliate Obama personally and the US in general.

Since Obama took office, he has been abandoning one US ally after another while seeking to curry favor with one US adversary after another. At every turn, America’s allies – from Israel to Honduras, to Columbia, South Korea and Japan, to Poland and the Czech Republic – have reacted with disbelief and horror to his treachery. And at every turn, America’s adversaries – from Iran to Venezuela to North Korea and Russia – have responded with derision and contempt to his seemingly obsessive attempts to appease them.

The horror Obama has instilled in America’s friends and the contempt he has evoked from its enemies have not caused him to change course. The fact that his policies throughout the world have already failed to bring a change in the so-called international community’s treatment of the US has not led him to reconsider those policies. As many Western Europeans have begun to openly acknowledge, the man they once likened to the messiah is nothing but a politician – and a weak, bungling one at that. Even Britain’s Economist is laughing at him.

But Obama is unmoved by any of this, and as his speech at the UN General Assembly made clear, he is moving full speed ahead in his plans to subordinate US foreign policy to the UN.

His stubborn insistence on advancing his feckless foreign policy in the face of its already apparent colossal failure is of a piece with his unswerving commitment to his domestic agenda in spite of its apparent colossal failure. Obama’s economic stimulus package failed to stimulate the US economy and increased the US’s economic deficit to heights undreamed of by his predecessors. His nationalization of major US corporations like General Motors, his cash-for-clunkers program to stimulate the US auto industry and his massive encroachments on the banking and financial industries have done nothing to increase economic growth in the US and indeed, unemployment has reached generational highs. And yet, rather than reconsider his belief in vastly expanding the size of the federal government’s control over the private sector, Obama has insistently pushed for further governmental control over the US economy – most notably in his drive to transform the US health care industry.

Both Obama’s supporters and his opponents have claimed that his presidency may well stand or fall on his ability to pass a health care reform law in the coming months. But the fact of the matter is that if he succeeds in passing such a law, his success will be a Pyrrhic victory because Obama has promised that his plan will do the impossible, and therefore it will unquestionably fail.

He has promised that the health care plan he supports will increase access to health services and improve their quality, but simultaneously will not increase the size of the federal deficit or be funded with tax hikes – and this is impossible. Obama’s health care plan will fail either to pass into law, or if it becomes law, it will fail to live up to his promises.

Obama’s failures in both foreign and domestic policy have weakened him politically. His response to this newfound weakness has been to put himself into the public eye seemingly around the clock. Apparently the thinking behind the move is that while Obama’s policies are unpopular, Obama’s personal popularity remains high, so if he personalizes his policies, it will become more difficult for his opponents to argue against them.

But alas, this policy too has failed. The more Obama exposes himself, the less he is able to leverage his personal celebrity into political power.

The question for the US’s spurned allies in general – and for Israel in particular – is whether we are better off with a politically strong Obama or a politically weak Obama. Given that the general thrust of his foreign policy is detrimental to our interests, America’s allies are best served by a weak Obama. Already this week Israel benefitted from his weakness. It was Obama’s weakness that dictated his need to stage a photo-op with Netanyahu and Abbas at the UN. And it was this need – to be seen as doing something productive – that outweighed Obama’s desire to put the screws on Israel by preconditioning talks with a freeze on Jewish construction. So Obama was forced to relent at least temporarily and Netanyahu won his first round against Obama.

During a television interview this week, Sen. John McCain was asked for his opinion of Brzezinski’s recommendation that the US shoot down IAF jets en route to Iran in a hypothetical Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. He responded with derisive laughter. And indeed, the notion that the US would go to war against Israel to protect Iran’s nuclear installations is laughably absurd.

The weaker Obama becomes politically, the more readily Democrats and liberal reporters alike will acknowledge that attacking US allies while scraping and bowing before US foes is a ridiculous strategy for foreign affairs. Certainly no self-proclaimed realist can defend a policy based on denuding the US of its power and forsaking a US-based international system for one dictated by its foes.

It is true that a weakened Obama will seek to win cheap points by putting the squeeze on Israel. But it is also true that the weaker Obama becomes, the less capable he will be of carrying through on his bullying threats against Israel and against fellow democracies around the world.

High stakes in Chile

Chile will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday December 13, 2009, with a run-off scheduled for January 17, 2010 if no candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote. The winner will succeed current president, Michelle Bachelet. 

Chilean politics are dominated by two main coalitions: the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia), composed of the Christian Democrat Party, the Socialist Party, the Party for Democracy, and the Social Democrat Radical Party; and the center-right, Alliance for Chile (Alianza por Chile), composed of the Independent Democrat Union and National Renewal. [1]

The stakes are very high for this election. The center-left coalition, Concertación Democrática, has governed Chile, without interruption, for almost 20 years since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s rule in 1990. According to recent polls, candidate Sebastián Piñera from the center-right National Renewal (RN) party has a great chance of winning.

 

The Main Candidates

Conservative Sebastián Piñera, born December 1, 1949 is a Chilean economist, investor and politician. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Chile’s Catholic University as well as a Master’s and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the fourth richest man in the country and number 701 on the Forbes billionaires list. He made his fortune introducing credit cards in Chile, and today his investments include soccer teams, banks, energy and retail companies. Piñera served as a senator from 1990 to 1998 and in 2005, he ran in the Chilean presidential election, losing to Michelle Bachelet in a runoff. [2]

Although Piñera and his political associates have long been aligned with the military, records show that he voted against continuing Pinochet’s rule in a 1988 plebiscite. He has built his career on the premise that he represents a new type of conservatism that is no longer tied to the Pinochet era. [3] His supporters believe that as a successful businessman, he is more capable than the Concertación of guiding Chile out of the current economic downturn and creating jobs, which is by far Chileans’ main concern.

Piñera’s strongest competitor is 67-year-old Eduardo Frei, of the Christian Democratic Party and the governing Concertación coalition. Frei Ruiz-Tagle is a Chilean politician and civil engineer who was President of Chile from 1994 to 2000. As former President, he gained a seat as senator for life in Congress but given that Constitutional reforms in 2005 abolished life senators starting in 2006, Frei ran for an elected Senate seat in the December 2005 parliamentary elections and won. On March 11, 2006 Frei became President of the Senate, like his father, who was also President of the Senate after being President of the Republic. Many expect that if elected, he will likely continue with the policies Bachelet implemented. [4]

A third candidate Marco Antonio Enríquez-Ominami Gumucio (born in Concepcion, June 12, 1973) is a Chilean filmmaker and politician. He has been an independent deputy representing District 10 since March 11, 2006. He is the son of Revolutionary Left Movement’s historical leader, Miguel Enríquez and sociologist, Manuela Gumucio. Enríquez-Ominami is currently running for the presidency of Chile as an independent. He resigned from the Socialist Party in June 2009. [5] He has captured the sympathy of many Concertación supporters who are less than enthusiastic with the idea of another Frei regime and who were not happy when the Concertación didn’t allow Ominami to run, choosing Frei instead.

Then there is Jorge Félix Arrate Mac-Niven (born May 1, 1941), a lawyer, economist, academic, writer and Chilean politician who served as minister under both, President Patricio Aylwin and President Eduardo Frei Ruiz – Tagle. He is running for the Communist Party of Chile. [6] At this point, his chances of winning are minimal.

 

The Elections

Analysts agree that the current political climate in Chile is somewhat unique since there is strong support for president Bachelet (70%) who many credit with strong progress in a region plagued by economic and political instability. Still, Chileans are clamoring for change. Many feel that the Concertación worked well for twenty years, but are tired of the same old politics.

Presently, Piñera has 37 percent of the vote, 15 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, Senator Eduardo Frei (22 percent). Marco Enriquez-Ominami is running third with 15 percent, followed by far-left candidates Jorge Arrate and Alejandro Navarro, 1 percent each, and center-right Senator Adolfo Zaldivar with just a fraction of a percent.

The Concertación has suffered setbacks partly as a result of the candidature of Enríquez-Ominami, a former Socialist Party deputy. His decision to run against Frei has taken votes away from the official Concertación candidate and caused infighting within the coalition.

 

Chilean Political and Economic Outlook

Chile has solid foundations in economic management and democratic rule, which suggest that it will maintain its stability for years to come. Despite the fact that Michele Bachelet belongs to the left, she is considered moderate and pragmatic and has ruled as such. The previous Concertación presidents also adopted conservative policies and also led the country following free market principles. Although her administration’s approval ratings substantially fell for most of 2008, they have again risen as she has shown responsible management of the economy during the current global economic crisis. [7]

By most measures Chile continues to be Latin America’s star performer. Per capita income has increased at an annual rate of 4.1% over the past 15 years, compared with just 1.1% a year in the rest of the region. Chile has actively sought free trade agreements with several partners including Canada, Japan and the U.S. The government officially encourages foreign investment and legislation has been incrementally liberalized since 1974. The country also benefits from a transparent regulatory system and well- functioning bureaucracy. [8] In general, people trust their elected officials and dutifully respect the law.

More advanced than any other country in Latin America, the Chilean government and energy sector have already put together a plan to diversify energy sources, and promote infrastructure investment to minimize medium-term implications. This is due to the systemic problems in Argentina’s energy sector, which have serious implications for Chile. Argentina’s government has repeatedly restricted gas shipments to Chile to ensure adequate domestic supply. Some of these plans have already been implemented, but equilibrium between energy demand and supply is yet to be achieved and forecasts predict this will take another two years to accomplish. [9]

 

Swing to the Right?

Consensus among Chileans is that while the free-market formula has served Chile well over a quarter century, the model needs more work. Chile has nearly 800,000 people jobless, the highest figure in the history of the country. Foreign investment has leveled off and although the poverty rate has been halved since 1990, it still stands at 18%.

Polls show that businessmen and young entrepreneurs worry that the economy is no longer the most dynamic in South America. There is also an urgent need to improve the quality of education and invest more in innovation, research and development if Chile is to become more prosperous. [10] The discourse of the Concertación seems to have nothing new to offer and uncharismatic Frei has been unable to rally support even among the party’s base.

Today, innovative ideas are coming from the center -right, and candidate Sebastian Piñera’s energized campaign has drawn much support from younger voters who have become tired of the same old faces.  According to him, "We’ve gone from the Chilean miracle to the Chilean siesta (nap)." He adds that he would keep the same fiscal policies and the social-protection net, and says that the Concertación is, in essence, killing entrepreneurship. Pointing to falling productivity, he blames rigid labor legislation and the mismanagement of public investment (where $10 billion has been wasted in the past four years due to the botched overhaul of the railway network and Santiago’s public transport). His economic adviser, Felipe Larraín, says that a Piñera government would raise the annual rate of growth to 6%, boosting productivity through tax breaks for investment, a more flexible labor market and civil-service reforms. [11] His innovative and diverse economic plans offer plans for creating new jobs, which is what people most need.

Even though Chileans believe that on the domestic front the country has made great progress in terms of democracy, political and economic stability, and knows they fare better than many neighbors in the region, a majority disagrees with the ideological direction the country has taken. This is especially true since the Bachelet regime began cozying up to Hugo Chavez. Recent polls show that Chileans and Latin Americans in general favor free-market capitalism and in a PODER/Zogby poll commissioned earlier this year by NEWSWEEK, 63 percent of Latin Americans ages 18 to 29 said they believe that free trade is not only good but benefits all people and two thirds named Chávez as the leader worst suited to lead the region in the future. [12] So it is no surprise that people in the South American nation have grown increasingly weary of the closeness of some local leaders to the Venezuelan dictator.

In addition to Bachelet, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, also from the Chilean Socialist Party, has favored Chavez’s agenda so openly, that many locals have become suspicious of the driving force behind his actions. In general, Chileans have become tired of seeing their leaders stop short of supporting the revolutionary plans of Chavez and the Castro brothers.

One major reason Piñera is holding a steady lead is that many know that the National Renewal candidate has more affinity with respected conservative leaders such as Alvaro Uribe from Colombia, Jose Maria Aznar from Spain and Mauricio Macri from Argentina than with the revolutionaries and Chavistas of Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Argentina. Chileans, especially the young, see in Piñera a new fresh face in politics, capable of injecting politics with new ideas and a new sense of excitement.

Indeed, if Piñera is elected in December, it will mark a comeback of the right in Chile, at the same time as many other Latin American countries are shifting toward the left.

In regional terms, if Piñera wins, Chavez will lose an important political ally in the region and it could also be the beginning of a swing to the right for the region; with Honduras on a new path after the ouster of Manuel Zelaya, the possible re-election of Uribe in Colombia and Alan Garcia in Peru and with elections in Uruguay and Brazil set to occur within the next 17 months, where center – right candidates are expected to win.

Even though Chile has advanced immensely in terms of democracy, economy and the rule of law, it is vital for a full functioning democracy that alternation of power takes place. It could be that after twenty years the time is now ripe for Chileans to break with the taboo of voting for a center – right candidate. This could invigorate the political spectrum, promoting the discussion of new ideas and objectives for the nation’s future. 

 

Nicole M. Ferrand is a research analyst and editor of "The Americas Report" of the Menges Hemispheric Security Project. She is a graduate of Columbia University in Economics and Political Science with a background in Law from Peruvian University, UNIFE and in Corporate Finance from Georgetown University.

[1] Chile’s Democratic Restoration. Latin America EconoMonitor. Manuel Alvarez Rivera. October 6, 2008.

[2] Sebastian Piñera: Politician in Poll. Elections Meter. December 2008.

[3] Is Chile Heading to the Right? GlobalPost. May 15, 2009. Pascale Bonnefoy.

[4] Chile’s Democratic Restoration. Latin America EconoMonitor. Manuel Alvarez Rivera. October 6, 2008.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Chile: Economic Overview. EDC. June 2009. Jorge Rave.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Chile’s Presidential Elections. The Strange Chill in Chile. The Economist. September 17, 2009.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Latin America isn’t tilting left, it’s tilting right. Newsweek. Mac Margolis. August 2009. 

Our irredeemable international system

Our international institutions are irredeemably corrupted. From the United Nations to the International Criminal Court and their affiliate and subordinate bodies, these institutions are rotten at their core.

It isn’t that they don’t function. They function just fine. The problem is that through their regular functioning, they advance goals antithetical to those they were established to achieve. Instead of promoting global security, human rights, freedom and international peace, they facilitate war and aggression, human suffering and tyranny.

The UN General Assembly is now convening its 64th session. As they do every year, heads of state from across the globe are descending on the Big Apple to participate in the proceedings. As they convene, their agenda will demonstrate the failings of the UN. On the one hand, they will consider the UN Human Rights Council’s latest broadside against Israel, which comes this week in the form of the UNHRC’s 575-page report of its probe of Israel’s behavior in its military campaign against the Hamas terror regime in Gaza this past December and January.

On the other hand, they will not give the slightest consideration to the fact that Iran is about to become a nuclear power, in contempt of its international obligations, and so is poised to become the gravest threat to international security in the past 25 years. Moreover, they will pay no attention to the fact that as it sprints toward the nuclear finishing line, the Iranian regime is engaged in a systematic and brutal repression of its political opponents, who since the stolen June 12 presidential election have been clamoring for freedom and democracy.

Both in its treatment of Israel and in its treatment of the Iranian regime, the UN demonstrates that its practices are an inversion of its stated mission. Despite its leaders’ and supporters’ repeated claims to the contrary, the UN stands shoulder to shoulder with tyrants and aggressors against democrats and democracies seeking to advance the causes of freedom, human rights and international security.

MANY ISRAELIS reacted angrily to the UNHRC’s probe of Israel’s prosecution of Operation Cast Lead, claiming that its final report presents Israel – a liberal democracy – as the moral equivalent of Hamas – an illegal terrorist organization dedicated to the commission of genocide against Israelis. Yet in their anger, they missed the real problem with the report.

As Prof. Avi Bell from Bar Ilan University law school notes, Richard Goldstone’s report does not present Israel and Hamas as moral equivalents. Rather, it presents Israel as a terrorist and Hamas as a legitimate government.

The Goldstone Report does not accept as fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that consequently, in accordance with binding UN Security Council resolutions, all UN member states are required to work to disband it and give no quarter to its members and supporters. Instead it treats Hamas – which is charter-bound to a policy of genocide against Jews and rose to power through a campaign of murder and intimidation – as the legitimate governing authority in Gaza, which, the report’s authors irrationally claim, is simultaneously governed by an Israeli occupation four years after Israel withdrew its civilians and military forces from the area. In the UNHRC’s parallel universe, Hamas is the only lawful actor in town. Israel – and the Palestinian Authority under Fatah – are guilty of illegally persecuting Hamas by arresting its members.

Hamas, which is working to establish a terrorist Islamic theocracy in Gaza, is not seen as systematically violating human rights and freedom. Israel is. Since it downplayed the 12,000 rockets, mortars and missiles that Hamas and its terror affiliates in Gaza have shelled southern Israel with during the eight years preceding Operation Cast Lead, the Goldstone Commission was unable to understand the overwhelming popularity the operation enjoyed among the Israeli public. Consequently, their report attributed that public support to Israel’s abrogation of the civil liberties of the operation’s opponents.

In contrast, the Goldstone Report downplays the importance of Hamas’s systematic persecution of women, Christians and its political opponents.

And so it goes. For 575 pages, rather than promote the cause of human rights as one would expect from the UN’s Human Rights Council, the Goldstone Report promotes a fiction of Israeli criminality and Hamas victimization. That is, it promotes the cause of human rights abusers against human rights defenders.

Many Israelis have expressed disgust with Goldstone, a South African Jew who purports to "love Israel."

This is a reasonable reaction, for Goldstone indeed disgraced himself by leading this commission. But the fact is that the report would have drawn the same conclusions based on the same lies regardless of who led the commission. By its very nature, the UNHRC is incapable of doing anything else. Like the UN itself, it is a body dominated by dictatorships and supported by leftist elites who love them. Its political agenda, of supporting dictatorships on the one hand and attacking Israel on the other, is indistinguishable from that of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

THEN THERE is Iran. Before he flies to New York for his annual visit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to finish off his political opponents back home.

Friday is Jerusalem Day in Iran. Jerusalem Day is the day the regime organizes mass demonstrations throughout the country calling for Israel’s destruction. The regime’s democratic opponents, who since the stolen June 12 election have been doggedly maintaining their protests against Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the police state they run, are planning to use the day to stage renewed protests. Aware of their intention, Khamenei warned that anyone demonstrating for anything other than Israel’s destruction will be severely punished. Reports abound of the regime’s plan to use the day to arrest opposition leaders Mir Hossain Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who both ran against Ahmadinejad in June.

Friday would be a good day to arrest them. After all, now that the US has agreed to hold negotiations with Ahmadinejad’s representatives next month about whatever Iran would like to discuss, the Americans have lost any residual leverage they still held over Iran. Today it is Ahmadinejad, not the US or the UN Security Council, who sets the agendas and conditions for meetings. And Ahmadinejad can be certain that in light of this, no one will utter a peep if on the eve of his trip to America, he arrests or even murders his chief political opponents.

In the weeks following the election, before the regime began its crackdown and arrested, killed, tortured and raped thousands of its opponents, many of the demonstrators held signs demanding to know where the UN was. Why, they wished to know, was no one at the UN supporting them in their demands for democracy and human rights? Why was there no international community standing at their side as they sought to bring down the most dangerous regime on earth – a regime that has made genocide a strategic goal and is steadily working to acquire the means to commit genocide through nuclear war even as it murders its own people?

And that’s the thing of it. The same UN that appoints a new commission to criminalize Israel seemingly on a weekly basis, has been a major facilitator of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

First, for three years, from 2003 until 2005, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency ignored mountains of evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and refused to refer the issue to the Security Council. Then, after the IAEA finally referred the issue to it, the Security Council failed to pass anything but the mildest of sanctions against Iran. Worse than doing nothing to prevent Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons, these Security Council sanctions actually facilitated the Iranian program. While passing ineffective sanctions, the council gave the appearance of addressing the issue and so made it impossible for individual states to convince other states to adopt harsher, and perhaps more effective measures – like for instance cutting off trade with Iran or divesting from companies that trade with Iran – outside the Security Council.

DUE TO the UN’s unvarnished belligerence toward it, in recent years a consensus has formed in Israel that there is nothing to be gained from cooperating with this openly and dangerously hostile body. Reflecting this consensus, Israel’s leaders, from former prime minister Ehud Olmert to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to President Shimon Peres, are united in their condemnation of the Goldstone Report.

For a time during president George W. Bush’s first term in office, the US also recognized that the UN and the UN-based international system is irredeemably corrupt. Bush and his senior advisers spoke of the need to build international coalitions of willing governments to advance the causes of international security, human rights and freedom that the UN and its affiliated bodies are inherently incapable of advancing. Although this policy received public support at home, it provoked fierce opposition among the US foreign policy elites in Washington and in the media and among their allies on the political Left.

Due to their criticism, by his second term in office, Bush agreed to give the UN a leading role in dictating US foreign policy. He subordinated American policy to the Security Council on the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and cooperated with the UN as it advanced its openly anti-Israel agenda, even increasing US funding of such anti-Israel groups as UNRWA.

Bush’s eventual surrender to the establishment set the course for what under President Barack Obama has become a cornerstone of US foreign policy. Unlike Bush, Obama has enthusiastically embraced the notion that the UN should by rights have a leading role in international affairs. He has also accepted the UN’s basic notion that in the interest of world peace, the US and its democratic allies should bow to the desires of despots and dictators.

So it is that this week he abandoned US allies Poland and the Czech Republic in his bid to appease Russia. So it is that his administration has sided with ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, who, with the support of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, sought to undermine Honduran democracy, against Honduras’s lawful government and democratic defenders. So it is that the administration has sided with the genocidal mullahs in Teheran over their democratic opponents. So it is that the administration has adopted the view that Israel is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East and embraced as legitimate political actors Palestinian terror groups that refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist.

Until Obama came along, Israel could afford not to make too much of the fact that its enemies control the UN-led system of international institutions, because it could trust that the US would use its Security Council veto to prevent these forces from causing it any real harm. This is no longer the case. With the Obama administration fully on board the UN agenda, Israel and other threatened democracies like Honduras, Poland, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Japan will have to loudly proclaim the UN-based international system’s inherent moral, political and legal corruption and seek ways to undermine and weaken its power.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.