Fausta’s Blog

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. Haiti continues to be the top story, but in Venezuela Hugo Chavez is now closing RCTV permanently, continuing to consolidate his power. Seven students from Universidad Santa María (USM), a private university in the state of Anzoátegui (northeastern Venezuela), were injured after the police broke up a demonstration outside the campus.

AMERICAN POLITICS
Univision’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Xavier Becerra regarding President’s Obama’s 1st year (link in Spanish)

ARGENTINA
New Twist in Argentine Currency Fight

Argentina: Cristina Against Everybody Else?

BOLIVIA
Fidel: Protect Morales from ‘the empire’

BRAZIL
Brazil’s presidential biopic
Lula, sanitized: A film for the campaign trail

CHILE
Chile’s presidential election
Piñera promises a gallop: After 20 years, a move to the right

And the winner is, Chile!

Las exitosas Bicicletas Públicas de Providencia

Open letter to Sebastian Pinera

Chile unlikely to lead anti-Chávez bloc

COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol proven oil reserves up 35%; share price falls

CUBA
More on the free healthcare: Twenty-Six Cuban Mental Patients Dead

Cuba: What Globalists Want You to Know

LEAVE CHE ALONE!!!…I MEAN it!!! (part 2)

José Daniel Ferrer García, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 1/24/10

Repairs

ECUADOR
Lawyers for the Government of Ecuador Engage in Revisionist History – Myth of Jurisdiction Exposed

Ecuador Should Stop Interfering With International Arbitration Mandated by Treaty

Humor: Nueva Ley de Comunicación
¡Prohíben photoshopear lluchas! Un grupo de asambleístas considera nocivo el retoque de fotos femenino de contenido erótico.

HAITI
The upside of Yankee imperialism in Haiti

Debate grows in aftermath of quake: Should U.S. let more Haitians immigrate?

Post-earthquake chaos in Haiti
A massive relief effort limps into gear: The world’s attempt to aid Haitians stumbles against extraordinary difficulties of transport and communications

U.S. Military in Haiti: A Compassionate Invasion

And the meme goes on

HONDURAS
Pepe’s deal with Zelaya

Hammering Honduras

Honduras’s new president
Lobo alone: Picking up the post-coup pieces

MEXICO
Mexico: Halting drug war corruption

PANAMA
Supreme Court to Noriega: Bon voyage

VENEZUELA
RCTV international cut-off

¡ESTE PUEBLO YA NO SE DEJA “CARIBEAR”!

Tonight’s baseball game of the final series a hotbed for protests

A January 23 harsh on democracy: RCTV out again and Globovision is the last network in Venezuela to present the opposition views, the rest are pro Chavez or “neutral”, that is, silent.

Venezuela President Chavez orders TV station off the air

Chávez closes down opposition media outlets

Venezuela Orders Cable Providers to Remove RCTV

Hugo Chavez: Circling the Drain?
The Venezuelan would-be dictator has put his country in an accelerating economic collapse.

How Hugo Chavez’s revolution crumbled

During the past two weeks, just before and after the earthquake outside Port-au-Prince, the following happened: Chávez was forced to devalue the Venezuelan currency, and impose and then revoke massive power cuts in the Venezuelan capital as the country reeled from recession, double-digit inflation and the possible collapse of the national power grid. In Honduras, a seven-month crisis triggered by the attempt of a Chávez client to rupture the constitutional order quietly ended with a deal that will send him into exile even as a democratically elected moderate is sworn in as president.

Last but not least, a presidential election in Chile, the region’s most successful economy, produced the first victory by a right-wing candidate since dictator Augusto Pinochet was forced from office two decades ago. Sebastián Piñera, the industrialist and champion of free markets who won, has already done something that no leader from Chile or most other Latin American nations has been willing to do in recent years: stand up to Chávez.

Piñera was only stating the obvious — but it was more than his Socialist predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, or Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been willing to say openly. That silence hamstrung the Bush and the Obama administrations, which felt, rightly or wrongly, that they should not be alone in pointing out Chávez’s assault on democracy. Piñera has now provided Washington an opportunity to raise its voice about Venezuelan human rights violations.

He has done it at a moment when Chávez is already reeling from diplomatic blows. Honduras is one. Though the country is tiny, the power struggle between its established political elite and Chávez acolyte Manuel Zelaya turned into a regional battle between supporters and opponents of the Chávez left — with Brazil and other leftist democracies straddling the middle.

The outcome is a victory for the United States, which was virtually the only country that backed the democratic election that broke the impasse. Honduras is the end of Chávez’s crusade to export his revolution to other countries. Bolivia and Nicaragua will remain his only sure allies. Brazil’s Lula, whose tolerance of Chávez has tarnished his bid to become a global statesman, will leave office at the end of this year; polls show his party’s nominee trailing a more conservative candidate.

Haiti only deepens Chávez’s hole. As the world watches, the United States is directing a massive humanitarian operation, and Haitians are literally cheering the arrival of U.S. Marines. Chávez has no way to reconcile those images with his central propaganda message to Latin Americans, which is that the United States is an “empire” and an evil force in the region.

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Bill for Haiti czar? 15 Minutes on Latin America
Hope among the ruins: the @USNSComfort VIDEO
Just what Haiti needs: John Edwards
Zeyala to go, Nancy rejects the Bill, and other roundup items with VIDEO
Anti-Americanism and the Haiti earthquake: 15 Minutes on Latin America

Post re-edited for omitted items.

Please note there will be no podcast tomorrow due to an appointment change.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Carnival of Latin America, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, Mexico, Nicaragua, RCTV, Venezuela. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.