20 million voters will elect Peru’s president in today’s runoff
I’ll be posting the results once they are in, but check out The Latin Americanist for analysis and Living in Peru for news.
Oh, and after campaigning for Humala, Mario Vargas Llosa won’t be voting for him, since his doctor says he needs to rest. No word as to whether this was due to a cognitive dissonance explosion.
Sure, everybody’s heard about the Chilean miners, but this week’s Carnival is dedicated to the unionized Bolivian miners who stopped nationalization plans,
But last week, the Federated Syndicate of Bolivian Mine Workers, which represents miners employed in the private sector, threatened to strike. “We are not going to permit the state to take control of those mines”, said union leader Cesar Lugo.
…
“The government is an inept administrator,” said Sergio Vacarreza Salazar, leader of a growing movement of independent mining cooperatives that is looking to foreign sources for investment.“We want to form our own ventures with private investors to develop our mines. The government just does not have the money or access to technology,” he added, following a deal signed last week between his independent workers’ cooperative and a U.S.-based miner, Franklin Mining, to develop a gold mine.
ARGENTINA
Argentina Aims to Tighten Farm-Land Ownership Rules
BOLIVIA
Bolivian Miners Stop Nationalization Plans
BRAZIL
Brazil Will Hand Over Five Airports To Private Sector
Price of Success in Brazil: $15 Movies
CHILE
Chile’s Private Social Security System Turns 30 (emphasis added)
Instead of paying a 12.4% Social Security tax as we do here, Chilean workers must pay in 10% of their wages (they can send up to 20%) to one of several conservatively managed and regulated pension funds. From the accumulated savings, they get a life annuity or make programmed withdrawals (inheriting any funds left over).
Over the last three decades these accounts have averaged annual returns of 9.23% above inflation. By contrast, U.S. Social Security pays a 1% to 2% (theoretical) return, and even less for new workers.
Former Agent for Pinochet Is Found Slain in Argentina
U.S. Millionaire Cultivates South American Park Plan
Cuba’s cigar industry
Smoked out
Rolling up under-the-counter trading in an emblematic product (by subscription only)
ECUADOR
POLL NUMBERS!!! Correa leads Ecuador referendum 60-40
Don’t reward Ecuador with a new U.S. ambassador
What is clear is that, according to the full batch of leaked cables, tensions between the U.S. embassy and the Correa government had been building for months, with the Correa government looking for any and all opportunities to criticize U.S. actions. The cables further reveal the U.S. embassy’s profound lack of trust in President Correa and their continuing frustration trying to establish a working relationship with his government. (Were these cables being read in Washington?)
They report that Correa has surrounded himself with a claque of inveterate anti-Americanists dedicated to damaging bilateral relations and the U.S. image in Ecuador. They have interfered in the work of U.S.-sponsored and trained special police units that combat trafficking in drugs and persons. A disturbing number — including the foreign minister — have close ties to Cuba, Hugo Chavez, and Colombian narco-terrorists.
Against this backdrop, it is beyond comprehension why there would be any U.S. haste in restoring ambassadors in both capitals. Correa is already under fire by Ecuadorean exporters concerned that his rash action will deprive Ecuador of trade benefits under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which is subject to congressional approval. Beyond that, it is unclear what tangible benefits have accrued for U.S. interests from a “make nice” policy with Correa to date.
GUATEMALA
Guatemalan kingpin, wanted in U.S., captured
HAITI
More Whoa! in Haiti: Did the Ruling Party Manipulate Election Results?
MEXICO
Mexico stiffens penalties for monopolistic practices
Can security reform save Mexico?
PANAMA
6.1-magnitude quake shakes southern Panama
PERU
Presidents from Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile gather in Lima to sign accord, the Pacific Agreement.
Naive, irresponsible and deranged are among the kinder epitaphs raining down on the author. Jaime Bayly, a leading commentator, accused Vargas Llosa of hypocrisy and forgetfulness on the grounds that he sold the film rights of a novel, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, to an Alberto Fujimori crony.
Dripping sarcasm, Bayly said Vargas Llosa, 75, had reached an age at which he “deserved to be happy and without fear”, and so for his own sake should abstain from voting.
Bayly’s own article, in Spanish, Los golpes de Humala.
A Candidate in Peru Tacks Toward Brazil’s Course
VENEZUELA
No electricity? No problem! Have a free day, but dress in red!
ARGENTINA
Facebook Group Honors Forsaken Vets of Argentina’s Forgotten War
BRAZIL
Teenage cartoonist lampoons Brazil’s elite
COLOMBIA
Colombia ‘Optimistic’ About U.S. Trade Deal
CUBA
Jimmy Carter Lobbies for Cuban Spies
Why lend legitimacy to the Castro brothers?
This is a new low for Mr. Carter—and not only because it demonstrates complete disregard for the American criminal justice system. The dangers that Cuban agents operating inside the U.S. present to Americans are well established. Treating their crimes lightly will only increase the nation’s exposure to serious risk.
Rafael Ibarra Roque, Cuba Political Prisoner of the Week, 4/2/11
Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
ECUADOR
Ecuadoran president sues critical news daily for defamation
Ecuador: Don’t Prosecute President’s Critics
Criminal Defamation Provisions Should be Abolished
HAITI
Good enough for government work
A flawed vote beats low expectations
MEXICO
The uglier face of justice
Banning a documentary film has resulted in even more people seeing it
PERU
Peru’s Llosa Says Election Has Become Show
Kin selection
When family replaces party
VENEZUELA
U.S. Losing Big Drug Catch
![[MAKLED_p1]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BA042_MAKLED_NS_20110331182105.jpg)
Venezuela No Longer to Certify Oil Export and Production Numbers
Venezuela’s PDVSA in Ecuador — The Blind Leading the Blind
Qaddafi Exile Options Span Uganda to Venezuela as Ally Defects
IMMIGRATION
Agency to continue rejecting green-card applications from same-sex couples
The week’s posts,
Terrorism in Latin America: Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah in Brazil
How Wachovia laundered $380 billion of Mexican drug money
Carlos Eire on PBS this weekend
Jimmy comes back empty-handed
Cristina awards Hugo a prize for contribution to “popular communication.”
Mexican cartel guns coming from Central America, not USA
The entire hemisphere is listening to the news on Japan. The LatinAmericanist has a roundup of LatAm ”desaparecidos” in post-earthquake Japan
LATIN AMERICA
Buoyed by Recovery, Migrants Send Home More Money
Tsunami waves graze Latin America’s Pacific coast
ARGENTINA
Peronists seek to stifle Vargas Llosa
Why is a segment, perhaps the majority, of the Argentine electorate insensitive to these violations of the law and moral standards? In my view, for three reasons:
• Because, 60 years ago, Peronism introduced a practice of patronage politics in which the militants give their support in exchange for some privilege or gift given by the politicians. They vote with their stomachs, not with their hearts or heads.
• Because a cynical attitude prevails towards the democratic system, built on the false premise that “all politicians are equally corrupt.” (That’s not true; in Argentina there are honest politicians and officials.)
• Because many Argentines, after several generations of continuous apathy, are willing to flout the law if they obtain some benefit from it. That makes a mockery of the republican ideal of a society of thoughtful citizens, voluntarily placed under the authority of the law. That responsible attitude simply does not prevail in a country where it’s common to boast about breaking the rules.
It’s no wonder that this lamentable civic climate nurtures an atmosphere conducive to the use of fascist tactics inimical to republican virtues, a habit of using some degree of violence against those who report violations of law, or simply express opinions contrary to the official current.
Bones and human rights
Identifying skeletal remains
BRAZIL
Brazil’s labour laws
Employer, beware
An archaic labour code penalises businesses and workers alike
CHILE
Chile-Japan nexus
COLOMBIA
22 Oil Workers Are Freed
Marxist guerrillas have freed 22 of the 23 oil workers for Canadian energy company Talisman Energy Inc. who were kidnapped late Monday, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said Tuesday.
Mr. Rivera said one of the 23 was released or escaped Monday night, while the 21 others were freed early Tuesday because of heavy pursuit by Colombia’s armed forces.
Managing cities
Bogotá’s rise and fall
Can Enrique Peñalosa restore a tarnished municipal model?
Tehran says is keen to cement ties with Colombia
Gaddafi and Castro, Solidarity Between Despots
A little less Che & a little more Tea for Cuba?
Continue reading on Examiner.com: A little less Che & a little more Tea for Cuba? – Portland TEA Party | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/tea-party-in-portland-me/a-little-less-che-a-little-more-tea-for-cuba#ixzz1GaMNN1c3
ECUADOR
Tsunami waves hit the Galapagos,
MEXICO
Dallas News report: Path of Destruction, via Silvio Canto.
Suicidal: Obama Sends 20 More ICE Agents to Mexico… Unarmed, article also at the Washington Examiner, Obama sending more unarmed agents into Mexico
Current Mexican law bans foreign law enforcement agents from carrying weapons, even when working on an investigation–a policy over which President Obama recently expressed his approval.
American Professor Kidnapped in Mexico
ATF Let Guns “Walk” Into Hands Of Mexican Drug-Gangs?
ATF Lied, Mexicans Died, via Doug Ross.
Should Mexico Go the ‘British Way’?
México tuvo menos homicidios que varios países, incluyendo a Venezuela
los países que están por arriba de México son Brasil (con 25,3 homicidios por cada cien mil habitantes), Jamaica (32,4), Belice (32,7), Colombia (37,3), Venezuela (48,0), Sudáfrica (49,6) y El Salvador (61,0).
PBS Documentary, U.S. mayor, police chief charged with smuggling guns to Mexico
Wanted: Officers to Retake Mexico
The Storm that Swept Mexico, airing on May 15,
TRAILER – The Storm That Swept Mexico from Paradigm Productions on Vimeo.
PERU
Peru elections shaken by reports of drug money
PUERTO RICO
Third U.S. Tsunami Center May Be Headed to Puerto Rico
Walking a tightrope 60 feet above the ground, El acróbata Rick Wallenda imita en Puerto Rico la hazaña en la que murió su abuelo
VENEZUELA
BFFs
OAS monitor concerned with gov’t attacks on press in Venezuela
The week’s posts and podcasts,
After the Gross sentence: More concessions from Obama?
Cuba: Alan Gross sentenced to 15 yrs in prison
Congress must pass the FTAs with Colombia and Panama
Why the Obama administration’s silence on Chavez and Castro? UPDATED with VIDEO
On my last day in Buenos Aires I had the chance to buy the newly-released novel, El sueño del celta (The Dream of the Celt), by this year’s Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa. The novel had been released the day I bought it and I was able to get it at the last minute before leaving. It’s 451 pages long and I’m still at it.
The celt in the title is real-life Robert Casement, an Irishman whose report on the horrifying conditions of the colonization of the Congo by the Belgians revealed the truth about King Leopold’s fiefdom in Africa.
Carlos Alberto Montaner writes about the novel (spoiler warning),
A big lie that tells a big truth
Why, almost 100 years after Casement’s execution, does Mario Vargas Llosa raise him from his grave and recreate the drama of his life and death? Because the character and his story have all the ingredients of the always opaque human nature, which is what really interests the great Peruvian writer.
Casement is a hero and a traitor. He is an exemplary man, but his sexual preferences, which spurred him cruelly, pushed him toward a type of relationship that was then despised and vilified. He was a lay saint and an inveterate sinner. He was a universal defender of the victims, whatever their color or country, but ended up being a rabid and sectarian nationalist.
Vargas Llosa realized that Casement’s ambiguous life was perfect for the telling. The result is extraordinary.
This is not light reading, and more than once I have had to stop (including during the flight back from Argentina) due to the gruesomeness of the details. However, it is a good novel by a great writer that has a lot to say about the human condition. Read it in the original Spanish, or in the upcoming English translation.
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. Two big stories this week: Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Chilean miners may be very close to being rescued.
ARGENTINA
The Argentine Economy is Booming!
BOLIVIA
Evo Morales caught kneeing player in groin during football match (video below the fold at the end of this post)
CHILE
Video of on the rescue:
Chile mine shaft reinforced, ready for rescue
Expert driller from Denver becomes hero of Chile mine rescue – says it’s all in the feet
CUBA
Castro regime unhappy with Nobel Prize selections
ECUADOR
The Coup That Never Was
HONDURAS
Afraid of the traffic or afraid of the traffic police?
MEXICO
Another Fun Weekend Near The Border
Journalism lecture in Austin focuses on covering Mexico, drugs and the border
PANAMA
60 companies and 2,852 workers in Howard
PERU
Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner says her official visit is “an apology to Peru.”
PUERTO RICO
FBI makes record crackdown in police
corruption
When ridicule and tyranny meet
ENTERTAINMENT
HBO Documentary: El espiritu de la salsa, via Pat:
The week’s posts and podcasts:
Are the Nobels becoming relevant?
Drill breaks through to Chile’s 33 trapped miners VIDEO
Alvaro Vargas Llosa speaks about Mario’s Nobel Prize, and VIDEO
Chile: More hope for the miners VIDEO
Is Cuba about to “dip a toe in capitalist waters”?
Mario Vargas Llosa wins the #Nobel in Literature UPDATED
Puerto Rico: Big FBI raid on police
Let’s hear it for the clown: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Oprah, Agroisleña, Rahm, Pundita, and trouble
Brazil edition: Where are the clowns? Congress! VIDEO, UPDATED
Castro and the Jews
Evo Morales video below the fold:
(more…)
In the natural sciences, the Nobel Prize committees have been awarded to people who have done meaningful work that changed the study of science; however, in literature and the “peace” categories, they have shown themselves totally irrelevant.
This year marks a change:
First, with the Nobel in Literature,
Vargas Llosa and the Value of Literature
His work is a rebuttal to those who believe that fiction exists on the periphery of history and politics.
As Mr. Vargas Llosa wrote in his 2001 essay about literature, “Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal.”
This year’s citation for Vargas Llosa says that he got the prize for “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” This points to a focus on individual rights which is central both to simple humanitarianism and also — though European Leftists would disagree — market-led neoliberalism.
In making this choice, for this reason, the Academy seems to have done just what is expected of it, which is not to go by rumours and prejudices, but to look at the work itself. And as an example of why Vargas Llosa is fascinating, there is not just all his considerable body of work over the years, but also his most recent book, published this year, which has not been translated from Spanish, but whose subject matter signals its exceptional interest.
The selection of Liu Xiabo for Peace Prize is even more striking:
China is furious, making this onerous statement,
In recent years, relations between China and Norway have maintained favorable development, which is in the basic interests of the two countries and their people. The Nobel committee’s award to Liu Xiaobo is completely contrary to the objective of the Nobel Peace Prize, and will bring harm to the China-Norway relationship.
The Chinese government has also forced Liu Xiabo’s wife out of her home in Beijing, and blanked Nobel Prize searches:
Text-messaging on mobile phones is not immune from censors, either. A Shanghai-based netizen, @littley, tweeted his unfortunate experience: “My SIM card just got de-activated, turning my iPhone to an iPod touch after I texted my dad about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize.”
From an email by the Independent Institute, where Alvaro Vargas Llosa is senior fellow,
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Prosperity, who has authored such notable works as Liberty for Latin America, which obtained the Sir Anthony Fisher International Memorial Award for its contribution to the cause of freedom in 2006, expressed the following sentiments:
The Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to my father, Mario Vargas LLosa, is great news for those of us who value freedom. His work explores the oppressive structures of power and the plight of the individual who rebels against them, [and} their impact has given some comfort, for decades, to those who struggle against authoritarian regimes. Among the moving messages he and the family have received since the announcement are hundreds of letters of hope from Cubans and Venezuelans who see in him a symbol of what they stand for. The cause of liberty in the Western Hemisphere has good reason to rejoice.
The Independent Institute and its staff would like to join Alvaro in his praise, and extend their sincere appreciation to Mario for his tremendous contributions to the advancement of freedom in Latin America and across the world.
In other Nobel Prize news, the Peace Prize committee finally gets it right:
Nobel Peace Prize Given to Jailed Chinese Dissident (emphasis added)
Liu Xiaobo, an impassioned literary critic, political essayist and democracy advocate repeatedly jailed by the Chinese government for his activism, has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”
Mr. Liu, 54, perhaps China’s best known dissident, is serving an 11-year term on subversion charges, in a cell 300 miles from Beijing.
He is one of three people to have received the prize while incarcerated by their own governments, after the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in 1991, and the German pacifist, Carl von Ossietzky, in 1935.
By awarding the prize to Mr. Liu, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has provided an unmistakable rebuke to Beijing’s authoritarian leaders at a time of growing intolerance for domestic dissent and a spreading unease internationally over the muscular diplomacy that has accompanied China’s economic rise.
I applaud the Peace Committee’s decision; let’s hope they continue on this track.
UPDATED with video,
A Pen Against Dictatorship
Vargos Llosa wins the literature Nobel.
The Nobel Literature Committee has awarded the Prize to the best living Spanish-language writer, and one of the best writers in the history of literature:
Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Literature Prize
Vargas Llosa is not only a white male, he’s also a free-market libertarian who believes in democracy. His books have been bestsellers for decades.
He’s currently teaching at Princeton, and will be giving a public lecture at Princeton U next Monday – I expect it’ll be mobbed.
Vargas Llosa is one of those rare literary creatures who has not only helped to define the aesthetic stylistic innovation of his period but directly influence its events.
The author of over 30 books – and very nearly the president of Peru – Vargas Llosa is one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the post-war era and one of the great libertarian heroes of the age at least since his highly public criticism of the Castro regime starting in the early 1970s. An outspoken critic of authoritarian regimes on the right and the left, who else but Vargas Llosa would have called for the legalization of drugs while addressing the American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner a few years back? He has been a consistent voice against repression wherever he finds it and an eloquent champion of freedom in all its manifestations. His insistence that all aspects of liberty – political, economic, and cultural – are inextricably linked is as powerful as it is rare among writers of his stature.
Reason has published two articles by Vargas Llosa: The Children of Columbus, and Global Village or Global Pillage?
Why we must create a universal culture of liberty
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle
In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said.
Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea.
This is a troubling aspect of the digital age. In the old paper age, once a book was released to the public that was it. It was out there in people’s bookshelves and on their nightstands. If someone decided after the fact that whatever was published shouldn’t be out there it was too late. The toothpaste was out of the tube, and there was no putting it back in.
But now, in an Orwellian twist of technoligical development (I told you it was ironic), that’s not necessarily the case any more. As more and more of our literature and communication goes digital the archives of those things because less and less secure. If there is no hard copy, those with the power and the means to erase what they don’t want you to see can.
I’m also concerned about the original texts being changed, too.
For centuries scholars have compared different editions of texts, whether sacred, such as the Bible, or in literature, such as James Joyce’s Ulysses. What was changed from one hard copy to another matters.
Let me give you one recent instance:
On July 25, 2005 I blogged about Cuba and Venezuela,
Why bother with all this talk of “erradicating illiteracy” when people are not allowed to read freely?
- Chávez has already come out with his version of Don Quijote For Dummies: just this year he took the excellent, definitive Don Quijote de la Mancha 4th Centennary edition by the Read Academia Española, abridged it, removed the essay “Una novela para el siglo XXI” by Mario Vargas Llosa, and replaced that essay with a short preface by José Saramago.
- The essence of Vargas Llosa’s censored preface is that Don Quijote’s a free men’s novel. Saramago, Nobel Prize winner and Portuguese Communist Party member, has gone on the record (link to an article in Spanish) saying he hates democracy.
- Chávez is using the Cuban “Yo si puedo” method — while Cubans are sent to concentration camps for owning banned books — the books Fidel doesn’t want the people of Cuba to read.
- Investor’s Business Daily (via Publius Pundit) reports that Chávez’s new television network is designed to put the region’s free press out of business
Yo si puedo, but only if it’s what Hugo and Fidel say is OK.
As you may recall, Chavez detained Mario Vargas Llosa upon arriving at Caracas airport.
Buy the hard copy. Keep it.
UPDATE
Just One Minute:
If Amazon wants to run the irony meter past the red and off the scale, they should follw up by e-deleting all Kindle copies of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
And, by the way, Truffaut’s movie version of Fahrenheit 451 is excellent, too.
