Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for January 2015

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Cuba: US clueless on number of fugitives

Smart diplomacy today,
U.S. has no idea how many fugitives Cuba’s harboring

Nobody tracks it. Nobody even routinely asks for the return of those wanted on serious federal charges, much less more common state offenses, the Sun Sentinel has found.

And,

The Sun Sentinel, in a recent far-reaching investigation into Cuban crime rings in America, disclosed that Cuban nationals are taking advantage of generous U.S. immigration laws to come to the U.S. and steal billions from government programs and businesses.

Millions of dollars have traveled back to Cuba, and many individuals flee there when police close in on scams the Cubans specialize in. These typically involve health care, auto insurance, or credit-card fraud; cargo theft; or marijuana trafficking, the Sun Sentinel found.

“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

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Today’s Capt. Louis Renault moment: Hugo Chavez died before he was of officially “dead”

I’m shocked, shocked!

According to Leamsy Salazar

Hugo Chavez died in December 2012, not March 2013 as was claimed by his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Salazar says that Maduro and his cronies covered up Chavez’s death for three months so they could sign decrees under his name.

Ahmadinejad kissed the coffin all the same:

Too bad Chevy Chase is not doing this anymore,

John Hinderaker points out that

It is noteworthy that “eight other members of President Maduro’s personal security force have deserted Venezuela and defected to the United States, according to reports in Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.” These particular rats are well-positioned to know when the ship is about to sink. It can’t happen too soon.

True, but also true is the fact that Putin met Maduro after first having refused him – and now the Venezuelan regime’s on full crackdown mode, so I don’t expect the Communist regime to collapse right away.

The woes of the Venezuelan people may just be starting.

———————-

In a lighter mode,

UPDATE:
Linked to by Designs on the Truth. Thank you!

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Venezuela: Fire at will

The Venezuelan government has authorized its military to fire upon civilians at rallies and public demonstrations:

The armed forces are now directed to use “potentially lethal force, whether with firearm or any other potentially lethal weapon”, as last resort to “avoid disorders, support legitimate authority, and reject all aggression, confronting it immediately and by the necessary means.”
( “uso de la fuerza potencialmente mortal, bien con el arma de fuego o con otra arma potencialmente mortal”, como último recurso para “evitar los desórdenes, apoyar la autoridad legítimamente constituida y rechazar toda agresión, enfrentándola de inmediato y con los medios necesarios”.)

The resolution makes no distinction between peaceful or violent demonstrations, and may most likely be unconstitutional (link in Spanish), but, as Emiliana Duarte points out,

There’s a grim kind of tradeoff at play here: the government’s relaxed brutality when it comes to Human Rights affords them the time to hesititate over the economic shitstorm that’s creating the protests they will need to repress in the first place.

And, really, who’s to argue against expediency for the sake of peace?

In other news, Key Evidence in Leopoldo López Case Allegedly Manipulated
Lawyers to File Criminal Complaint against Discrepancies in Court Documents.



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Colombia: Santos wants former FARC as cops

Words fail me:

Colombia has become embroiled in a heated debate after President Juan Manuel Santos announced the possible creation of a rural police force similar to the French gendarmerie if the government signs a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The idea, Santos said, was to consolidate security in the regions most affected by the internal armed conflict, and he did not rule out the participation of demobilized ex-guerrilla members in that force.

Santos’ initial proposal did not mention the FARC, but when a journalist asked him about the possibility, the president thought about it and replied: “I hadn’t thought about that, but I would not rule it out. We could very well negotiate something like that with the other party [FARC],” he told the press in Paris after meeting with French President François Hollande during an official visit to the country.

Considering how Santos wants unelected FARC in Congress, it’s no surprise that many were outraged, among then Uribe,

“Santos has destroyed the self-esteem and initiative of law enforcement, and now he finishes them off by announcing the creation of terrorist police forces”

Let’s hope Santos was only talking off the top of his head.

The Santos administration talks with the FARC will resume on February 4 in Havana.

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Argentina: #Nisman’s funeral

There was a massive police presence outside the Tablada Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of the Argentine capital as the hearse carrying Alberto Nisman’s body finally arrived. It was a private funeral, but crowds gathered outside and along the route.

Photo gallery at TN.

The BBC reports,

Senior Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died in unexplained circumstances, borrowed a gun because he did not trust the police protecting him, a colleague has said.

UPDATE:
Cliff May:

The Organization of American States, which claims to be dedicated to the promotion of democracy and the defense of human rights in this hemisphere, has said not a word about the death of Mr. Nisman.

President Obama, deeply enmeshed in negotiations with Iran’s rulers over their ongoing nuclear weapons program, has so far not commented. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has called for a “complete and impartial investigation” into Mr. Nisman’s death, adding that the pursuit of those responsible for the 1994 terrorist attack “must not stop.” Excuse me, Ms. Psaki but can you elaborate? What is this administration prepared to do to ensure that international terrorists and gangsters do not get away with the 85 murders committed in 1994 and the elimination of the prosecutor who attempted to hold them to account in 2015? Anything? Anything at all?

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Cuba: Gimme, gimme, gimme Gitmo!

Now that the murderous Communist regime in Cuba knows that to the Obama administration the word “easement” means “A deal for which the U.S. gets nothing in exchange”, they want more.

Who wouldha thunk it!

How much more?

The whole enchilada (YES, I KNOW ENCHILADAS ARE MEXICAN. Bear with me here!):

  • Ending what’s left of the embargo
  • Ending all TV and radio broadcasts to the island
  • Cutting off support to dissidents
  • Removal from the states sponsors of terror list
  • Giving Guantanamo Base to Cuba

and (drumroll please)

  • Reparations! “just compensation to our people for the human and economic damage that they’re suffered.”

Since Communists love slogans, Gimme, gimme, gimme Gitmo!

Lest you believe that gifting Gitmo to Russia and all of these concessions are unlikely to come about, keep in mind that Obama is obsessed with his “legacy”. Take it away, Ed!

Only if one believes that these conditions will discourage Obama. He’s desperate for a foreign-policy achievement that will allow him to claim a legacy, and Castro knows it. (So does Iran.) Castro isn’t anywhere near as desperate for normalized relations with the US; he gets plenty of hard currency from the rest of the world, and exchanges it with the near-worthless Cuban peso with which he pays Cubans. Castro wants to strengthen his regime, and humiliating Obama will raise his prestige immeasurably at home.

Gifting Gitmo already has support among some, but as Joshua Treviño commented on Facebook (emphasis added),

We need to establish a new rule of thumb: anyone arguing that major bargaining points should be ceded in exchange for unforced goodwill does not understand basic power dynamics and should be ignored in policymaking henceforth. The Cuban regime isn’t going to be any more grateful or well-disposed toward us after occupying Guantanamo than they are now. They’ll just feel, with some justification, like they’ve won — and moreover won cheaply. What good that does us, well, ask the Israelis about the goodwill garnered after leaving Lebanon and Gaza.

As for the hand-waving dismissal of the modern importance of “conventional hemispheric defense,” that is the sort of thing one writes when one’s historical horizons are confined to an exceedingly small slice of history.

The small slice of history, in this case, “is all about the O.”

Somewhere in Cuba, Fidel’s amanuensis is gloating,

[Read more…]

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