Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Cuba: Felipe & Rajoy to visit

Spain’s King Felipe and the prime minister will drop by “as soon as possible” before Raúl retires next year:

During their conversation, Rodríguez and King Felipe discussed the worsening situation in Venezuelawhere protesters have taken to the streets after the opposition-controlled national congress was briefly stripped off its powers. Speaking at a press conference afterward, Rodríguez said Cuba would continue supporting the government of President Nicolás Maduro to find the best “solutions and decisions.” He also referred to the 2002 coup that briefly toppled Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said after meeting with Rodríguez that the invitation “symbolizes the will of Cuba to increase links with Spain.”

As Carlos Eire points out,

Spanish hoteliers have invested heavily in Castrogonia’s apartheid tourist monopoly, and Comrade [Cuban foreign minister] Bruno [Rodríguez] would love for these neocolonialist Spanish businessmen to invest even more.

Good luck with that. Here’s a headline from two years ago: Cuba to compensate Spanish firms that stayed loyal in “difficult years”
Havana makes pledge to Spain’s top trade official as he leads investors’ delegation.

That check is still in the mail.

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Mexican woman arrested in Spain for inciting ISIS jihad

El País reports:
Mexican woman arrested in Madrid on terrorism charges. The detainee is said to be a “very important” figure in radical circles in her home country

Say again?
“The detainee is said to be a “very important” figure in radical circles in her home country”

Spanish authorities have accused the woman of glorifying terrorism and believe she was a part of a “stable structure” dedicated to the diffusion of extremely violent jihadist propaganda “using a range of online platforms and instant-messaging services,” Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

EN ESPAÑOL
Una mexicana, detenida en Madrid por enaltecer el terrorismo yihadista
Spanish authorities have accused the woman of glorifying terrorism and believe she was a part of a “stable structure” dedicated to the diffusion of extremely violent jihadist propaganda “using a range of online platforms and instant-messaging services,” Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The detainee had already converted to Islam in 2010 before moving move to Spain, according to the Civil Guard. On her arrival in this country, she married a Muslim and began to spread radical messages.

“She managed to become one of the most important figures among women in the Islamic community in the country of her birth,” sources say, promoting female jihadism and sharing propaganda material with a wide range of contacts. [emphasis added]

The woman remains unnamed.

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The foreign countries’ dilemma: They bet all on Hillary

There’s wailing and gnashing of teeth abroad: Most foreign countries failed to hedge their bets, and now they have to face what they thought was impossible. El País describes the situation, not just in Spain, but across the world,
Madrid improvises Plan B after surprise win for Donald Trump. Rajoy government bet on Clinton victory; now faces an unfamiliar Washington

After assuming that Hillary Clinton would win the US elections, the Spanish government must now urgently improvise ways to build bridges with an administration led by Donald Trump.

And they can’t count on the king, either,

But Spain’s Mariano Rajoy cannot count on the royal family’s mediation this time around. Juan Carlos’ son, Felipe VI, is friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton, but not with the billionaire who will be sitting in the Oval Office from January.

Not that it couldn’t have been prevented,

Spanish PP deputies in the EU parliament did not attend the Cleveland convention that nominated Trump in July, but they did travel to the Philadelphia convention where Clinton was put forward as the Democratic Party candidate.

Here’s a bit of advice: Next time, work both sides of the aisle.

UPDATE
Linked to by Designs On The Truth. Thank you!

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Salvadoran Maras in Spain

El País reports, Police arrest Mara 18 leader tasked with starting gang activity in Spain. Man known as ‘The Mexican’ detained while setting up extortion, kidnapping and trafficking ring

Spain’s National Police force has arrested a man known as ‘The Mexican’ on suspicion of being one of the leaders of the international criminal organization known as Mara 18. He is thought to have been tasked with starting a new chapter of the violent gang in Spain.

I was rather confused over the headline, since I remembered reading that Mara 13 were rivals of Barrio 18.

Th always valuable InSight Crime clarifies,

Barrio 18 and MS13 are concentrated in the Northern Triangle region ofHonduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and they also have a presence throughout much of the rest of Central America, as well as Mexico and the United States. Nonetheless, the extent of the gangs’ transnational ties remains an open question, as the links between the different branches areoften highly tenuous.

The presence of Central American-based gangs in Europe is not a new phenomenon; both the MS13 and Barrio 18 have had a presence in Italy since the mid-2000s. There is increasing evidence, however, that the gang members in Europe are taking orders from Central American bosses. In addition to the recent case involving Mexicano, the gang members arrested in 2014 in Spain were reportedly Salvadorans sent overseas to build up MS13 operations in the country.

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Venezuela: Enter the CLAPs

Yes, siree, in the midst of the chronic, acute food shortages, Venezuelans now have to deal with the CLAPs.

The unfortunately-named CLAP, Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (Local Committee for Supply and Production) are the latest blight inflicted by the communist regime on the Venezuelan people. According to the official TV station, the CLAPs are

una “nueva forma de organización popular encargada, junto al Ministerio de Alimentación, de la distribución casa por casa de los prodcutos [sic] regulados de primera necesidad”

[My translation: A new form of popular organization in charge, along with the Ministry of Food, of distributing, house by house, the first-need restricted products.]

Which means the regime distributes to its supporters.

Three links on the rolling disaster,

Venezuelans Ransack Stores as Hunger Grips the Nation

In the last two weeks alone, more than 50 food riots, protests and mass looting have erupted around the country. Scores of businesses have been stripped bare or destroyed. At least five people have been killed.

As Imports Seem To Rise In Venezuela, Everything Else Seems Negative (emphasis added)

The consequence is that as the scarcity levels have increased, higher imports are simply not felt by the population. Meanwhile, the Government remains in control of what may be or not imported, while at the same time increasing its power over distribution channels. Its latest invention, ironically called the CLAPs, are committees to distribute food to only Government sympathizers, thus creating an apartheid in which if you don’t sympathize with the Maduro administration, there will be no food for you.

Food only for chavistas, money to communists everywhere else: Venezuela Assembly probes Podemos funding from Chávez regimePablo Iglesias and other leaders asked to come to Caracas to explain €7.16 million payments from former president for advisory work

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Venezuela: Seen in the Panama Papers

The Panama Papers show Venezuelans among Mossack Fonseca’s documents (emphasis added),

The insider files also illustrate what happened in Venezuela over the last 15 years with the enormous flow of oil money. The Panama Papers reveal that Mossack Fonseca created tailor-made corporate structures for several Venezuelan clients who wanted to conceal their presence in incorporated companies, or else sought to generate external debt through transactions with shell companies – often owned by themselves – that could later be submitted to the relevant agencies in the Venezuela of controlled exchange rates

For now, the ICIJ Power Players page only lists Jesús Villanueva and Víctor Cruz Weffer.

From the information released at the ICIJ website, it is not clear who the several clients are.

I’ll be posting more on the PP by country this week.

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In other Venezuela news,
Spain’s ABC reports that they have positive proof of Hugo Chavéz’s direct financing of Spain’s Podemos party by transferring €7million to its creator, the CEPS foundation (link in Spanish)
Chávez pagó 7 millones de euros para «crear en España fuerzas políticas bolivarianas».
El «comandante» firmó la entrega de fondos a la fundación de Iglesias, Monedero y Errejón para propiciar en nuestro país «cambios políticos afines al Gobierno bolivariano»
[Chávez paid 7 million euros for “creating in Spain a bolivarian political army”
The “comandante” assigned the funds to Iglesias, Monedero and Errejón’s foundation to bring about in our country “political changes agreeable to the bolivarian government”]

The article states the €7million was in addition to any other fees Podemos founders Iglesias, Monedero and Errejón received from Chávez, which were detailed last year in the Wall Street Journal’s article, How Hugo Chavez Helped Inspire Spain’s Far-Left Podemos Movement. For instance,

Dividing his time between Madrid and Caracas, Mr. Monedero appeared often on Venezuelan state TV. From 2006 to 2009 he was employed by Centro Miranda, a Caracas-based think tank funded by the government to advise its leaders. He toured the country to monitor Mr. Chávez’s socialist programs, touting them on Venezuelan TV as “the political path Southern Europe should follow” to shore up the welfare state.Mr. Monedero said he was paid an additional €425,000 ($482,885) for work in 2010 to help the Chávez regime and allied governments in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua develop a proposal for a single Latin American currency.

Mr. Iglesias, a former Communist who in 2012 called Venezuela “one of the healthiest democracies in the world,” established a separate tie to the regime. In 2008 he joined the board of a Madrid-based think tank, the Center of Political and Social Sciences, that lists the Venezuelan government as the source of more than 60% of its income from 2004 to 2012. Mr. Errejón joined the board in 2013.

The WSJ reported then,

Podemos officials say the party relies on crowdfunding and has never received money from CEPS.

I doubt that the revelations will alter Spain’s or Venezuela’s political landscapes (it certainly hasn’t since the publication of the 2015 WSJ article), but, as a commenter mentioned on Facebook, €7million is a lot of toilet paper.

Time capsule post: Spain, moving towards Chavismo?

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Iran in the news

As I have been posting about for years, Iran‘s presence in Latin America has not only increased, it has involved nuclear deals, drugs, terror attacks, and money.

But Iran also spread money in Spain:
Podemos: Spain’s anti-corruption party ‘received illicit funding from Iran’. The El Confidencial news website claims the party received more than €5m through a Spanish TV station operated by an Iranian businessman and financed by the government in Tehran

According to the El Confidencial news website, the party received more than €5m (£3.8m) through a Spanish television station, Hispan TV, which is operated by an Iranian businessman, Mahmoud Alizadeh Azimi, and financed by the Iranian government.

The website alleges that the money was paid by the Iranian businessman through a series of different countries, and via inflated invoices issued by Podemos for appearances by Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the party. Mr Iglesias has served as the host of a political talk show, Fort Apache, which is broadcast on the station. Mr Iglesias said he would be delighted to speak to officials at the Udef about the matter.

[This is not the first time Podemos has been linked with shady business. Last August Brazil’s Veja reported on a Bolivian general’s allegation that Podemos was linked to Venezuela’s drug traffic through Hugo Chavez.]

Pablo Iglesias himself (link in Spanish) allegedly declared that he was receiving Iranian financing for his “Fort Apache” show, for the purpose of destabilizing Spain, as reported by Spain’s La Razón.

The Apaches ought to sue.

Which brings us to the news this week that

Certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency would allow Iran to immediately recoup some $100 billion in assets frozen overseas.

$100 billion is a lot of dough to spread around.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Cuba: Crime doesn’t pay, and never will

The criminal enterprise commonly known as the Communist Cuban government doesn’t pay its debts. As I mentioned yesterday, in 1985 Fidel Castro called for Latin America to collectively repudiate its foreign debt.

Cuba has been defaulting for a long time (emphasis added),

Cuba last reported its “active” foreign debt, accumulated after it declared a default in the late 1980s, as $13.9 billion in 2011. It no longer reports its “passive” debt from before the default, which economists estimate at $8 billion.

Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank official who now lives in Colombia but follows Cuba’s finances closely, said he estimates the foreign debt is “somewhere between $25 billion and $30 billion” and that a $10 billion reserves figure is plausible.

But there’s a sucker born every minute, so Spain agrees to forgive part of Cuba’s short-term debt. Cuban government won’t have to pay penalties on late payments and some of principal. Madrid and Havana want to bolster joint research and development projects

Cuba’s debts with Spain total about €535.6 million, but this figure had increased five-fold in the last three decades with interest and penalties for late payments.

Good luck with those “joint research and development projects,” guys. Just don’t expect to collect.

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