Cuba wouldn't print this

Cuban television is pretty unbearable. Hours of documentaries on the revolution are interspersed by a few news bulletins, strictly devoid of news. Instead, they almost invariably focus on the plight of “The Miami Five,” a group of Cubans in jail in Florida on charges of spying. Or, as the Havana newsreader will tell you "illegally imprisoned by the Empire.” The only thing really considered worth watching on the island are Mexican soap operas.

Television censorship is part of life in Cuba. Cubans take the shortage of information in the same stride as the shortage of just about everything else. They have become famous for their ability to shrug it off.

Every now and then, though, some foreigner will turn up, and rub the average Cuban’s face in his state of subjugation. Independent Cuban journalist Oscar Mario González recently complained of an Italian who said that she spent four months of every year in Cuba living off the standard ration book.

“It‘s such a great way to lose weight,” she told González. Another asked how many times he’d seen Fidel Castro. All the time, every day of the week, he answered — on television.

Ignorant tourists telling Cubans how much they wish that they could live like them is bad enough, but the scathing hypocrisy displayed by some groups is as unbearable as the non-news reels. Attitudes regarding television censorship are exemplary of these double standards.

This weekend, Cubans were treated to an unusual broadcast. Hugo Chávez’s megalomaniacal show Aló Presidente (a recent episode lasted more than eight hours) was recorded and aired in Cuba to mark the 40 years since the death of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. To add to the festivities, the convalescent Fidel Castro put in an appearance. He chatted to Chávez live over the phone. It’s the first time any live broadcast of El Jefe Máximo has been made since he fell ill last year.

The broadcast of the Chávez show from Cuba and his chumming with Castro is just another way of rubbing the Cuban people’s face in the dirt. Press censorship in Cuba, a particularly sour aspect of life in that socialist dictatorship, is made all the more poignant by Chávez’s foray into local broadcasting there. In Venezuela, you can still zap away from the man’s endless waffling. Even despite the recent licence-revoking of RCTV, there is still a range of channels. In Cuba last Sunday there was no real alternative.

Venezuela and many other countries including Argentina often display a nauseating kind of hypocrisy where Cuba and the freedom of the press are concerned. The most recent example of such double standards is reported by the independent Cuban journalist Juan González Febles.

In his latest missive to the Miami based Cubanet newsservice, González Febles notes that on October 8 and 9 the board of Telesur met in Havana. This television network, launched by Chávez as a way of countering global media corporations, is also owned by Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia and Argentina, where it airs on channel 7. Last week in Havana it welcomed its two newest members, Ecuador and Nicaragua. According to the network’s executives, they are working for “Latin American sovereignty in communication, a necessity for political sovereignty.”

While that conference got underway, employees of the state run telephone company Etecsa, a joint Cuban-Italian venture, were teaming up with police to track down illegal television satellite dishes across Havana. Owning such a device is against the law in Cuba. González reports that the operations took place in at least five different city neighbourhoods on October 10. The aim? To stop residents from accessing sources of information other than those provided by the government.

All international television stations are barred in Cuba, including Telesur. That’s right, even Chávez’revolutionary communications project is deemed too subversive for Cuban eyes by the enlightened communist leadership. Instead, a few of the channel’s educational programmes are broadcast through local stations at night.

Such was the focus of zealous Telesur executives as they sat around, as one of their members put it concisely, “bringing light to the hegemonic darkness that the privatized media impose,” while not far off Fidel Castro’s goons, sponsored by an EU member, cracked down on even the faintest glimmer of light.

It reminded me of an incident that I witnessed while in Havana during the celebrations for Castro’s 80th birthday in December 2006. It was after all 1500 of us invitees had lunched exorbitantly and for free at the hotel next to the Palacio de las Convenciones. In a conference hall full of Fidelistas from around the world, Italian veteran journalist Gianni Mina expounded upon the manipulation of mass media by corporations. He praised Cuba and the communist regime for its furthering of “freedom of expression.” I glanced down at my flimsy copy of the state run newspa- per Granma — one of only two available to Cubans — and felt sick to my full stomach.

This time it wasn’t an Italian journalist but Andrés Izarra, the Venezuelan in charge of Telesur, whose hypocrisy knew no limits. He told his Cuban hosts and the other directors that the channel was “an integrating force, looking to give a voice to those that have none,” while outside Etecsa and the police went about their repressive task.

I wonder if our Telesur representatives looked down at their copy of Granma, too.

Correa's Latinomics

One of the front running candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize is former US vice-president Al Gore. Gore’s nomination is on the basis of his cinematic efforts to put climate change on the world agenda. However, while Oslo gears up to name its favourite on Friday, a daring environmental initiative has been unfolding right here in Latin America. If successful, it might just be a reassuring answer to Gore’s “inconvenient truth.”


Last week Bariloche was host to the Latin American Conference on National Parks. One of the more interesting ideas presented was whether countries with a rich biodiversity could claim payment for “environmental services.” The idea being that the conservation of Latin America’s forests is in the interest of all mankind. Not only for the oxygen they produce, but also because, according to the government, burning forests account for 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the region. In exchange for safeguarding the “green lung,” then, poor countries should receive payment from rich countries.

“We shouldn’t just be wondering what Argentina can do about climate change,” Héctor Espina, in charge of the Argentina’s National Parks Administration, said at the conference. “We should also be looking at what our country can do to combat the effects of global warming. Among other things, we can offer our environmental services.” It’s a concept that has been gaining ground over the past few months.

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s hugely popular president, recently floated the idea of a massive conservation for cash exchange that has been well received by the rich countries of the North and applauded as a possible model by those in the South. Correa’s suggestion is straightforward. Ecuador is home to the Yasuní national reserve, one of the most biodiverse regions on earth. Its 10,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest are home to thousands of plant and wildlife species as well as several undisturbed indigenous tribes. A place that should definitely be left untouched, is the global consensus, were it not that an estimated one billion barrels of crude oil lie underneath the tropical forest, worth about 720 million dollars a year.

Correa insists he’d rather not ravage the forest to get to the oil underneath, but he will if he has to. To make keeping the biodiversity intact a viable option, the Ecuadorean president has suggested rich nations compensate his country, thereby he claims, insuring their own supply of oxygen. “The whole world can breath, without paying us anything,” he said in a recent interview with Spain’s daily El País. “It’s in Ecuador’s best interest to extract that oil, that money will pay for schools and healthcare... however, on a global scale more will be lost than won.”

So Correa launched the idea that rich nations cough up 350 million dollars a year and in exchange Ecuador will let the forest be. During the UN General Assembly last month Correa again put forward his scheme, this time echoed by President Néstor Kirchner, who suggested swapping foreign debt for the conservation of natural reserves.

Up until now the Ecuadorean scheme has been well received. The governments of Germany, Italy, and Norway have taken a serious interest. The Clinton Initiative, a foundation run by the former US president, chose the project as the topic of debate for a meeting between world and business leaders after of the General Assembly. According to an Italian MP, “We have an ecological debt to pay back, and this suggestion by Ecuador is an intelligent solution. It’s the responsibility of all of us to look after these reserves.”

Despite the jubilant reception, the sale of environmental services is far from foolproof. Where will the money go? And when governments change hand, who will ensure the oil stays in the ground or that forests don’t get chopped down after all? What ever happens, after centuries of seeing its natural resources shipped off to other continents, its a good sign Latin America wants to turn global demand to its advantage — using market mechanisms to protect and not plunder its environment.

*******

Meanwhile, Costa Rica, famous in Latin America for already cashing in on its environment, went to polls on Sunday and voted in favour of a Free Trade deal with the US. “Yes” led “No” by a little more than 3 points with 51,6 versus 48,3 percent.

Although a victory for the government of Oscar Arias, the approval of the trade agreement (TLC) doesn’t mean it will be implemented tomorrow. Arias had hoped that the divisive referendum could be quickly relegated to history, saying “We’re no longer ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ tomorrow we’ll all march behind the same flag.”

The opposition, however, had other ideas, claiming fraud and asking for a recount. Even if they lose in a recount, they still have some clout with which to bring the process to a halt. Before the treaty can be implemented 13 laws must pass through Congress. These include legislation to free up markets such as telecom and insurance which must be approved before March 1, 2008, or else the treaty sinks. The government holds only 25 of the 57 seats, but governs with the consent of an ally, giving them a total of 38. However, powerful opposition groups such as the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC), which holds 17 seats, could well cause enough trouble for the government to fall short of the deadline.

Chances are though that won’t happen. This is Costa Rica, after all. Its reputation for mature politics is not without reason. More likely, the opposition will seek congressional approval for laws that buffer the worst side-effects of the TLC and for guarantees on such key issues as water supply and sanitation, preventing them from being entirely privatized. In exchange they’ll allow the 13 laws to pass, proving that Latin politics can be a game played by more than one. Fingers crossed.

First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 09/10/2007

A Peruvian precedent

On Saturday morning an elderly man in suit and tie stepped aboard a rickety Antonov in the Chilean capital, Santiago. His only luggage was a briefcase. When he emerged from the plane nine (!) hours later on a military air base in Peru, a historical event had taken place. It was the first time a former president had been extradited to his home country to face trial for human rights abuses.


The man, of course, was Alberto Fujimori who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000. He faces charges of murder in two different incidents in 1991 and 1992 when a total of 25 people died at the hands of police. Add to that three cases of corruption, including the 15 million dollars he allegedly gave his spy master Vladimiro Montesinos by way of a retirement package.

The case is without precedent. In two other incidents a former head of state has been turned over to an international tribunal. First was the Serbian Slobodan Milosevic who was extradited by his government to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. The other was former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, shipped by Nigeria to the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But never before was a former head of state forced to return home and face a local judge for crimes committed in office.

For Latin America the fact that this landmark extradition took place here, between two countries whose historic animosity is no secret, makes it all the more significant. It sets a precedent for the region.

Bolivians, for instance, will look on this ruling with hope. They want former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada extradited from the US. He is charged with human rights abuses for supposedly setting the military on demonstrators in 2003.

The Fujimori case “is a significant example for Latin America and will serve as a reference point for us,” Rogelio Mayta, a human rights lawyer in Bolivia, told the Christian Science Monitor. A much more poignant case in the region is the former Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega. His case is similar to that of Fujimori’s in more ways than one.

The old CIA-hand has already been condemned to a 40-year prison term for murder by a local judge in Panama. The Central American country has asked the US for his extradition, but so has France, who wants to put him away for 10 years on charges of money laundering. His 17-year US jail sentence ended on September 9 and currently his lawyers are appealing a court decision to send him to France. That raises the question why a judge would extradite a prisoner to a third country on relatively minor charges, when his own country wants him for human rights abuses?

The curious thing about the Noriega-case is that although Panama’s government says it wants Noriega in jail there, few believe it actually does. The former general is still rich, still influential and certainly has a few secrets up his sleeve. Panama’s elite is numbered and many of those, such as justice minister Daniel Delgado Diamante, are old cronies of carapiña, his not so nice nickname poking fun at his heavily pockmarked face. The country’s economy is growing at a great pace so for many a controversial blast from the past is something to be avoided.

In that sense, Peru is no different. Fujimori still has supporters in the country, many of whom turned out in vain to meet the man they call El Chino at Lima’s airport (the flight was deviated, and landed at a military base instead).
In fact the main reason Fujimori left Japan for Chile in November 2005 was because he intended to run in Peru’s 2006 presidential elections. Keiko Fujimori, the ex-president’s daughter, heads his congressional party, controlling a significant bloc.

They also provide the government of President Alan García with a desperately needed majority. “With the same energy with which we have supported the positive initiatives of this government, we will have no problem confronting them if they violate the rights of Alberto Fujimori,” Carlos Raffo, a leading fujimorista congressman, told El Comercio. “We are prepared to do battle, whatever the consequences.”

Opponents of Fujimori are already warning of the possibility that García and cohorts could go weak at the knees. “We should pay close attention to what the government and its allies do,” writes law student Alberto de Belaunde on his blog RealPolitik. He foresees political pressures on the judicial system as it gears up to try the former president. So despite the landmark extradition and the positive precedence it sets, the case of Alberto Fujimori still has a long way to go before anyone can safely say justice has been done.

That said, one country can already claim the moral high ground in this affair. After years of struggling yet failing to put their own past on trial, in the form of General Augusto Pinochet, Chile has finally managed to do the right thing by giving its neighbour its chance to prove itself a mature nation. That feeling was probably best expressed by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley who said, after putting Fujimori on that historic flight, “I feel a great sense of relief.”

First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 25/09/2007

Guaraní Inferno

Seen from the air the inroads made by forest fires in Paraguay’s Mbaracayu Nature Reserve look like the trails of some ravenous insect, smoke plumes betraying its movement. In fact the flames are devouring the insects and the thousands of other species that live in the unique subtropical forest. 24 of the Paraguay’s 48 most endangered animal species make their home in the Mbaracayu reserve.


The daunting images I saw of the fire were sent to me by Danilo Salas, a biologist and project coordinator for the Moises Bertoni Foundation that administer for the reserve. He told me that of the park’s 64 thousand hectares, 3000 had already been destroyed in the fires. “The pastures and crops of the indigenous communities have been lost already. That means that the will either have to leave or starve,” he said.

Neighbouring Paraguay, in case you hadn’t been told, is ablaze. Some 1.2 million hectares have gone up in flames – that’s more than half of Tucuman province. Or almost half of Belgium. 15 thousand families have lost their homes and are forced to look for shelter elsewhere. The most recent casualty is a farmer, Wilder Smith Kennedy, who died while trying to douse the fire on his ranch. As for the damages done to crops, live stock and the economy in general, that won’t be clear until the fires are put out, but it’s safe to say that the impact won’t be easily absorbed by the already impoverished country.

All of this would be bearable for Paraguayans if it were clear that their government was making every effort to combat the fires and relieve it’s victims. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. “I’ll give you an idea of how little the government know or care about the fires,” Salas fumed over the phone from Asunción. “The minister responsible said on Friday that things were going very well because instead of 1500 separate fires, we were down to 1200.” If that’s the good news...

The forest fires, commentators argue, have brought to light the complete incompetence of President Nicanor Duarte’s administration. Short on everything from personnel to equipment, the blaze was beyond the government’s control almost as soon as it started. After finally managing to muster a few hundred troops to help put out the flames, no one could deliver the 400 machetes needed to cut the brush. As the daily ABC Color wrote in its editorial on Saturday; “The Paraguayan air force has many generals, yet only with great effort did it manage to find one single helicopter to fight the fires.”

If the government seems incapable of fighting the fires, it has an uncanny knack for pinpointing the culprits. According to a cabinet minister, it wasn’t the burning of pastures by farmers or attempts to open up the virgin forest or even the unusually dry season, which were to blame. It was the opposition. Trade minister José Maria Ibáñez just knew that the man behind this Guarani inferno was ex-bishop and presidential candidate Fernando Lugo. Why? “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the largest fires started in San Pedro?” was the rhetorical question Ibáñez put to journalists over the weekend. San Pedro is the home province of Lugo, who spent 11 years as a bishop there. It’s also the poorest region in Paraguay, neglected by the consecutive Colorado governments over the past 60 years.

So now Paraguay waits patiently for foreigners to arrive and the heavens to break with rain. Hugo Chávez, always eager to display his generosity in the region, promised to deliver the Russian fire-fighting mammoth Ilyushin-76. Unfortunately the aircraft was called back because of forest fires in Russia. He then pledged an extra million dollars and yesterday two specialist helicopters arrived. The US promised a skimpy 50,000 dollars to buy machetes and other fire-fighting equipment (that “winning of the hearts-and-minds” isn’t going to well here either...). Brazil, Chile and Argentina all pitched in and then; finally, the Almighty did his bit too. It started raining, although only in the south and only a few millimetres. With some luck an end to the fires may be in sight.

Does that mean it’s over. No, quite the opposite. For one thing the fires have caused the displacement of thousands of people. At some point they will want to return to what’s left of their villages to build on the ruins. Typically, Salas told me, the government has made no effort to record these movements or to document testimonies. In a country where property rights are constantly disputed, that’s a recipe for future conflict.

Possibly an even more dire consequence is the effect of animal migration. The fires have driven millions of mammals and birds from their habitat. Apart from the impact on biodiversity, that mass migration could also be fatal to humans. “It means that viruses that were once confined to determined areas could now spread causing an epidemic,” the biologist explained. Some of those viruses, such as Hanta transmitted by rodents, kill humans.

In fact the only good thing to come out of the blaze is that it has damaged the government’s chance of winning in April’s elections. Polls show the Colorado’s trailing both Lugo and former colonel Lino Oviedo. If nothing else, perhaps the forest fires have cleared the way for a new horizon in Paraguayan politics.

First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 18/09/2007

Guatemala heads to run-off

Guatemala celebrated its sixth consecutive presidential election on Sunday since its return to democracy in 1986. Centre-left candidate Alvaro Colom, who headed the polls throughout, beat his main rival former general Otto Pérez Molina by four percent of the vote. Despite the victory, Colom failed to get the support of more than half the electorate and so faces Molina again on November 4 for a second round of voting.


The voting transpired in such calm that Diego García Sayán, Peruvian observer for the Organization of American States, insisted there was a state of “tranquillity across the length and width of the country.” The burning of at least seven urns in Santa Rosa province and evidence of vote buying elsewhere were put down to “incidents.” Despite a supposed state of nationwide calm, Guatemala is still a long way off from calling itself a stable democracy. Election participation was down, election related violence was not. Both are cause for concern.

First of all the turnout — 58 percent — was worryingly low for a country where voting is compulsory. Bad weather is a possible explanation. Hurricane Felix hit Guatemala hard at the beginning of last week, leaving around 5000 families homeless. Heavy rains persisted over the weekend, turning dirt roads into barely navigable lanes of mud.

Lousy weather, however, doesn’t tell us why more than 20 percent of those who should be registered to vote, aren’t, making the real turnout even lower. Carlos Cabrera, who runs the blog EleccionesGuatemala.com puts it to a lack of civic culture. Many Guatemalans, he says, don’t care about politics or simply feel that their vote doesn’t count.

If they did, maybe Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchú would have more than three percent of the vote. In a country where two thirds of the population belong to an indigenous community and where racism is rampant, the only candidate of Mayan descent was left in sixth place. That’s a staggering defeat for someone who theoretically could be the Central American equivalent to Nelson Mandela. Menchú’s problem, say some commentators, is she sounds more like the spokesman of a NGO than a presidential candidate. The real reason though, may be the fact that she is not perceived as tough on crime in a country where violence is a daily affair.

Violence is also the main reason not to place too much importance on a calm day of voting. If the day itself was tranquil, the campaign which preceded it was simply horrific. Over the past 15 months more than 50 murders of candidates, their supporters and relatives have been linked to the elections. Take, for instance, the case of Armando Sánchez. A candidate for Guatemala’s Congress, he told the Washington Post he attended seven funerals in six months. All of them candidates or political workers. Héctor Montenegro, another congressional candidate, sorely misses his 15-year old daughter. Three weeks ago, her throat was slit before she was stuffed into the trunk of a taxi.

Most of those killings can be put down to the drug cartels’ way of reminding voters and candidates that they are also stakeholders in the country’s future. It’s part of a pattern. Last year saw 6000 murders in Guatemala. This year the killings include the gunning down of three Salvadoran lawmakers and their driver along a remote highway, followed by the brutal murder of the four policemen accused of the killings in the very police cell where they were being detained.

The cartels are waging a battle for control over Guatemala’s institutions. Helen Mack, a human rights activist, insists they have infiltrated political parties. Along the border with Mexico drug money finances candidates, irrespective of their ideological outlook, in a bid to ensure a free run of the frontier zone. Drug barons build landing strips, plant opium and marijuana and run the place like feudal overlords, holding their puppet mayors by the strings. The drugs, mostly cocaine originating in South America, are destined for the US market.

Ironically, it was the silent will of US consumers that first sent Guatemala into turmoil over 50 years ago. In June 1954 US bomber pilots backed an invasion masterminded by the CIA. The aim, to topple an elected government threatening the interests of the United Fruit Company. What followed was a series of military dictatorships and a civil war, which lasted until 1996. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have died during the conflict.

This time round things are a little different. The current president, Oscar Berger, is a firm ally of the Bush administration. He even went so far as to send troops to Iraq. In return Bush confirmed his intention to help the country fight crime during a visit in March of this year. Hopefully, that intention will materialize and Guatemala can expect some of the same assistance Colombia and Mexico receive. Because as long as violence and intimidation continue, the kind of civic culture needed to bolster democracy is unlikely to take root in Guatemala.

First published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 11/09/2007

Chavez to the rescue?

Throwing his weight about the region by treating his neighbours to everything from Cuban doctors to Carnival floats has been one of the high profile traits of Hugo Chávez’s rule in Venezuela. But for the first time in a long while he seems to have stumbled on a worthy cause.


About a fortnight ago he offered to mediate in Colombia, the scene of Latin America’s longest running guerrilla insurgency. That offer was welcomed by the FARC guerrillas, whose spokesman Raúl Reyes said last week that Chávez’s participation would give negotiations a “fresh boost.” Last Friday, Chávez and President Alvaro Uribe spoke for over seven hours to thresh out the details of a plan to bring about a deal between Bogotá and the 17,000 strong guerrilla organization.

After the talks Chávez announced that he had invited a FARC envoy to Venezuela to negotiate a potential exchange of guerrilla hostages for jailed insurgents.
Chávez said he hoped that the envoy would be Manuel Marulanda Vélez, the guerrilla commander, alias “Sureshot.” During his weekly television show on Sunday he repeated his invitation to the 77-year old insurgent leader. “Person to person,” as he put it, using his Venezuelan Spanglish vernacular.

The aim of the negotiations is clear. The release of 45 hostages being held by FARC, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US military contractors and Colombian soldiers and police, will be in return for the release of hundreds of its troops.

Should Chávez manage to broker a deal, it would make him something of a Latin American Kofi Annan. He would be succeeding where the French, the Spanish, the Swiss and the Catholic Church have failed. That’s because dealing with FARC is a tricky business.

Chávez proposed that the prisoner exchange take place on Venezuelan soil, but FARC spokesman Reyes ruled out that suggestion. He insists they are willing to negotiate, but only if a demilitarized zone is provided by the Colombian government. FARC has had their eye on the municipalities Predera and Florida in the southwestern district of Valle for a long time. Reyes repeated the group’s demand to turn the localities into a so-called clearance area for 45 days, saying it was not much to ask.

The Uribe administration disagrees. His government has been loath to relinquish any territory. On principle, but also on the basis of past experience. A similar experiment by former president Pastrana in 1998 ended in FARC using the terrain to strengthen itself and carry out attacks on neighbouring areas. The interior minister, Carlos Holguín, flatly declined any possibility of a clearance (despeje), but said the government was open to alternatives. Now it’s up to Hugo Chávez to work out a compromise.

Hostage brokering is not the only difficult piece of negotiating that Chávez is applying his newfound diplomatic skills to. Fearing Venezuela may eventually be blackballed from Latin America’s most prosperous trade group, Mercosur, the former colonel has said he wants to re-join the Andean Pact or CAN, made up of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador. That same Chávez left the CAN in a huff in May last year, claiming the organization was “dead.”

Soon after that, he showed up at the front door of Mercosur. He was initially welcomed, especially by Uruguay and Argentina, but since then his popularity has taken a turn for the worse. Brazilian legislators aren’t eager to see Chávez join the Southern Cone’s union fearing he will politicize what is essentially a place where Brazil sells shoes.

Recently Venezuelan bilateral relations with Argentina soured after a Venezuelan national carrying 800,000 dollars in a suitcase tried to bluff his way through customs at Newbery metropolitan airport. Reacting to the embarrassment it caused the Kirchner-administration, who paid for the jet Guido Antonini Wilson flew in on, local officials tried to pass the hot potato off on the Venezuelans, leading to a cooling between Chávez and Kirchner.

To make things worse, Chávez then stepped on the toes of the fourth Mercosur country, Paraguay. Anti-Chavism there was ignited last week when the ABC Color newspaper reported finding a document, which it claimed proved Venezuela was trying to “infiltrate” the impoverished country. The steps set out in the paper deal mainly with instilling the “Bolivarian spirit” in youth leaders and journalists and airing long television programmes about the positive side of Venezuela. The implications of this “infiltration” seem to verge more on the tedious than on the subversive. In Paraguay though, the document caused a storm.

So now Hugo Chávez is forced into an about face and re-join the old CAN (although he insists that with Venezuela’s participation it will become “a new CAN, the CAN of the 21st century,” which sounds like it will get the same confusing treatment he gave to socialism.)

Venezuela’s look to joining the Andean Pact is positive. Ecuador and Bolivia are ideological allies in the common cause of reaching out to Latin America’s disenfranchised. Peru, which had its feathers ruffled by Chávez during its presidential elections, has welcomed Venezuela. “Chávez has realized that to be a Bolivarian one needs to be Andean too,” was how Peruvian President Alan García put it. Finally, Colombia is not an obstacle, especially now that the Bolivarian has assumed the role of peace broker. Despite the good omens though, Chávez may still feel cheated in the end.

When Venezuela initially left the CAN it was because Chávez was angered over the fact that Peru and Colombia were trying to negotiate free trade deals with the United States. For Colombia, getting the deal approved hinges on Uribe’s ability to convince the Democrat majority in the US Congress that he can be trusted on human rights issues.

The irony of the situation is that, should Chávez manage to broker a deal between FARC and the Uribe government, in doing so he would be greatly increasing the chances of that free trade deal — which he despises — coming about.

Published in the Buenos Aires Herald on 04/09/07