El Salvador’s “Constitutional Crisis”

Photo by: rosaamarilla via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/amccy/3395160591/

A months-long political feud over the Supreme Court in El Salvador has blossomed into what observers are calling a constitutional crisis.  The first shot was fired in April when legislators from the FMLN engineered a “legislative decree” to replace five court Magistrates, the outgoing Assembly’s second shot at choosing justices during its three-year term.  The court’s Constitutional Chamber in June declared the decree unconstitutional – because each Legislature gets to vote only once for Magistrates.  At the same time, the Chamber invalidated a similar move by the opposition ARENA party affecting Magistrates chosen in 2006.

The theater came to a head this month when two feuding Supreme Courts met in different wings of the same building and claimed legitimacy – one with five members elected in 2009 and the other with the 10 invalidated members.  The rightwing ARENA party and its allies in Washington are claiming the crisis represents a shift against democracy by the FMLN.  Two Cuban-American members of the U.S. Senate have called on the Obama Administration to impose sanctions – principally suspending negotiations on a second Millennium Challenge Corporation compact potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars – if the crisis is not ended quickly and in the manner they wish.  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has called for prompt resolution, and the U.S. Ambassador in San Salvador and the State Department have expressed “concern.”  A Washington Post editorial this week lambasted the FMLN for shifting toward Chávez-style authoritarianism and President Funes for failing to stop it.

This episode reflects maneuvering within the FMLN – fueled by frustration that President Funes’s soft line toward ARENA has only weakened the party’s influence – and poor judgment among activists on where and how to pick the fight.  The legislators rushed the decree because they anticipated correctly that they were about to lose control of the Assembly in elections several weeks later.  The crisis falls into a much more ominous pattern, however, in that – like the coups in Honduras (2009) and Paraguay (2012) – the right wing and its coreligionists in Washington exploit events to challenge the democratic credentials of a democratically elected reformist government to rationalize weakening it, while the Obama Administration responds timidly.  ARENA is again demonstrating its superior lobbying skills in Washington, which have already severely disadvantaged President Funes on issues such as relations between his security cabinet and its U.S. counterparts – resulting in a serious erosion of his own influence over security issues.  If the current political impasse is not resolved to the satisfaction of U.S. conservatives, Washington’s threats – ironically directed against the Administration’s “best friend” in Central America – will likely continue and relations will be strained, further persuading hardliners around Funes that moderation pays no dividends.

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by clalsstaff on July 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in El Salvador
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 20, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/20/el-salvadors-constitutional-crisis/

The Consequences of Deferring “Deferred Action”

Photo by Larry Engel

The Obama administration’s recent announcement of a sweeping initiative designed to remove the shadow of deportation from the lives of nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. is the latest twist in the dual saga of immigration policy reform and enforcement. According to government sources, including the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, the carefully worded policy of “deferred action” is not an attempt on the part of the administration to sidestep a deadlocked Congress, an example of executive overreach, nor a strategic campaign maneuver during an election year in which the Hispanic vote could be decisive. It is simply the “right thing to do.”

The disparity between this morally grounded, high-level rhetoric and actual immigration law enforcement practices—which last year resulted in a record 400,000 deportations—has sent mixed signals about the current administration’s sincerity. It seems that the rising rate of deportations, touted last year as a “step in the right direction,” is beginning to be viewed within the administration as an unfortunate miss-step. Nonetheless, to many advocacy groups who lobbied in support of the DREAM Act and against blind enforcement of immigration laws, this Friday’s announcement by the Department of Homeland Security provoked a case of déjà vu. Only a year ago, in June 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton enthusiastically revived the policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” promising to scale back the removals of young students, military service members, and others. However, as of May 29 of this year, only 4,363 cases —a mere two percent of the 232,000 backlogged cases under review—had been administratively closed or dismissed.

Beyond questions of electoral politics and policy implementation, one thing is certain: for many undocumented immigrants and their U.S.-based families, deferred action has come too late. A recent report from DHS cited that during the first six months of 2011 alone, over 46,000 parents of U.S. citizen children were forcibly removed—a statistic that raises serious concerns about the health and social impacts of deportation on U.S. Latino communities. As the current administration seeks to hammer out a consensus regarding a long-term solution to the country’s broken immigration system, it is crucial that such a consensus be informed about the consequences of political miss-steps.

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by clalsstaff on July 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 19, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/19/the-consequences-of-deferring-deferred-action/

Fiscal Policies Worsen Security Crisis in Central America

From left to right: Aaron Schneider, Maynor Cabrera and Hugo Noe Pino at the June 5 event on Central American fiscal policy.

Economists are warning that Central America – unlike some South American countries and Mexico – has still not rebounded from the 2007 global economic crisis, and that current fiscal policies dim prospects for improvement.  After making progress reducing poverty prior to 2007, the subregion has been stymied by static tax policies, insufficient investment in physical infrastructure, corruption, and natural disasters induced by climate change.  This is the assessment of Hugo Noe Pino, Ricardo Barrientos and Maynor Cabrera, economists from the Central American Institute on Fiscal Studies (ICEFI), and Aaron Schneider, Professor of Tulane University, who presented their work at a CLALS-sponsored seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Center on June 5.

The specialists’ research indicated that political resistance to fiscal reform is strong and comes from both new and traditional political and economic interests.  Elites have not found common ground with the middle and lower class in most of Central America – a key element of Costa Rica’s success prior to the financial crisis.  Absent an enduring fiscal pact, countries in the region are likely to remain plagued by persistently slow growth and unusually skewed income distribution.

Violence and security dominate Washington’s agenda on Central America, but this focus largely misses the underlying dynamic between economic decline and crime throughout the subregion.  Elites favor policies that discourage effective state‑building – including investment in security forces paid well enough that they are less vulnerable to corruption – and that exacerbate social inequalities.  Political fragmentation and low citizen confidence in government institutions have dire consequences for national security, and countries get caught in the Catch‑22 of being unable to attract investment from abroad and encourage development from within as long as fiscal policies fail to promote an educated, healthy and skilled workforce.

CLALS currently has a program investigating how traditional, renewed and emerging elites shape the political and economic landscape of Central America.  For more information click here.  And click here for a video of the ICEFI presentation and discussion at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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by clalsstaff on July 12, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 12, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/12/fiscal-policies-worsen-security-crisis-in-central-america/

Honduras Adopting Failed Counternarcotics Model?

The rapid escalation of operations by U.S. and Honduran military and counterdrug teams against suspected drug-traffickers transiting Honduras suggests that Washington has persuaded Tegucigalpa to follow Mexico’s footsteps with a predominantly military strategy against the cartels.  The New York Times has published reports on the deployment of binational teams – patterned after U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – in remote areas of Honduras to disrupt clandestine aircraft dropping off Colombian cocaine for shipment by river to the north coast and then northward to the United States.  The aircraft, weapons, advisors, trainers, and intelligence used by the “Tactical Response Teams” are all provided by Washington.  U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubiske said the Honduran units are “eager and capable partners in this joint effort.”

The units claim to have intercepted tons of cocaine, but the operations have also stirred up controversy.  In one operation near the northeastern town of Ahuas in May, a response team killed four citizens, including two pregnant women.  Although the circumstances of the victims’ presence in the area are not entirely clear, the mayor has protested the U.S.-inspired tactics, and local indigenous groups issued a statement that “declared these Americans to be persona non grata in our territory.”  One June 23, a DEA agent shot and killed a man during a raid in northern Honduras when the suspect reportedly pulled a gun on him.

This military-intensive strategy has yielded some 60,000 dead in Mexico – with negligible impact on cartel operations – and in Honduras, where institutions are much weaker, the violence probably will be proportionally even higher.  The U.S. Ambassador’s confidence in Honduran units notwithstanding, the military’s human rights record – never stellar – has steadily worsened since the coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.  Vetting units and keeping them clean when institutions are so weak and vulnerable to corruption and protecting operatives’ identities in Honduras’s “small-town” society all argue for an approach different from that which has failed in Mexico.

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by clalsstaff on July 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Honduras, United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 9, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/09/honduras-adopting-failed-counternarcotics-model/

Panamanian President Martinelli Examined

Photo by: Congreso de la Republic del Perú via http://www.flickr.com/photos/congresoperu/4923731107/

 

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady on June 20 published a commentary about right-leaning Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli that had a tone and edge that she usually reserves for leaders she suspects of being communists, populists or nationalists.  Entitled Panama’s Democracy Goes South, Ms. O’Grady documented “the warnings from a growing chorus of Panamanians that [he] is moving the country toward authoritarianism.”

Martinelli – blessed by the Obama Administration last year with a Free Trade Agreement in part based on an evaluation of Panama’s democratic institutions – is “tearing down institutions,” stacking the Supreme Court, and apparently steering government lucre to build a parliamentary coalition that made the national assembly into a rubberstamp of his agenda.  O’Grady points out that this amounts to “the erosion of Panamanian pluralism” and compares him with Venezuelan President Chávez.

This portrayal of Martinelli’s leadership is not unique – it is well documented – but official Washington’s embrace of it would be.  The authoritarian tendencies of some ALBA presidents have been well publicized and, at times, exaggerated, but rightwingers with similar tendencies often get a pass.  In this context, such comments in the Wall Street Journal are significant.  For now, no regional institution and no major democracy, including the United States, has threatened sanctions against Martinelli.  Last week, the State Department announced that some assistance to Nicaragua will be suspended because of poor progress toward achieving transparency in government budgets – precisely one of the areas where Panama has experienced egregious backsliding.  Sanctions against Martinelli, however, seem remote.  Latin American leaders at times have bridled at the double-standards of external criticism more than at the sanctions themselves.  O’Grady’s commentary challenges the State Department to send a message to the region that its “democracy promotion” agenda applies to conservatives as well as those it often categorizes as on the Left.

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by clalsstaff on July 5, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 5, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/05/panamanian-president-martinelli-examined/

Washington Politics: Fast and Very Furious

Photo by Ryan J. Reilly via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license

The operation codenamed “Fast and Furious” remains a hot topic in Washington two years after it went awry.  Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the operation was intended to monitor the flow of weapons – through a “controlled delivery” – from Arizona gun dealers into the illegal channels by which tens of thousands of arms clandestinely enter Mexico each year.  Tracking the arms would allow the U.S. Government to disrupt the network.  However, ATF lost track of the weapons – and they reached their intended buyers.  The failure was made worse when traces showed that two of the weapons were used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol agent near the Mexican border in December 2010.

While both political parties in Washington have expressed disappointment, the Republicans have made the failed operation the centerpiece of efforts to weaken Attorney General Eric Holder (ATF is an agency of the Department of Justice, over which the Attorney General presides) and to discredit President Obama, according to numerous press reports.  The vote in the House of Representatives last week [[June 28]]to find Holder “in contempt” – for not handing over all of ATF’s internal documents on Fast and Furious that the Republicans demanded – was a party-line vote.  Many Democrats walked out of the chamber.

The political maneuvering around Fast and Furious has nothing to do with foreign policy, but the weakening of ATF undermines what modest efforts were under way to stanch the flow of illicit arms into Mexico and Central America.  “Controlled deliveries” are a standard operation for intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, and every agency involved in border issues has suffered similar mistakes.  ATF is the smallest such agency (2,500 special agents compared to FBI’s 13,400 and DEA’s 5,500) and is therefore more vulnerable to the internecine backstabbing.  In addition, ATF’s enforcement of laws relating to the use, manufacture, and possession of firearms often puts it at odds with American politicians who feel the agency threatens their interpretation of the gun rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The attacks on the ATF appear intended to weaken enforcement of U.S. law and embarrass the Attorney General and the President.  The obstacles to a sound policy of limiting the flow of weapons into Latin America are evidenced by the virulence of the debate over Fast and Furious.

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by clalsstaff on July 2, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 2, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/02/washington-politics-fast-and-very-furious/

Mexico Elections: Change Ahead in Cooperation with the U.S.?

Photo by: World Economic Forum via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.

News media are generally predicting a relatively comfortable margin of victory for PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto over PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the ruling party PAN’s candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota in Presidential elections next Sunday.  Polls give the PRI candidate (44 percent) a big lead over the PRD (28 percent) and the PAN (25 percent.)

Compared to the weight of Mexico’s problems, the campaign has been light on issues.  Both the PAN and PRI have made vague pledges of continued cooperation with the United States in efforts against the drug cartels.  While current President Calderón’s approach to drug-related violence has resulted in no discernible improvement in security – indeed, some 60,000 people have died since he launched his military-intensive strategy – both Peña Nieto and Vázquez Mota have pledged to triple the Federal police (Vázquez) and create a paramilitary gendarmerie of 40,000 (Peña).  López Obrador has focused on jobs, services, and social issues.

Whoever wins the election, Mexico-U.S. relations do not appear likely to return to the mutual suspicion and tension of years past.  Neither of the three main parties seems overly dependent on nationalism – and anti-gringoism – for political support.  But the bloom is certainly off the much-vaunted U.S.-Mexico “co-responsibility” in the struggle against the cartels, and the next Mexican president almost surely is going to press for an end to the bad deal Mexico gets in the relationship  – the U.S. provides guns and intelligence, and tens of thousands of Mexicans die as drugs flow to eager American consumers.  Calderón’s successor probably will press Washington to prosecute the “war on drugs” in the United States, where the cartels’ footprint is huge, their operations are audacious, and they freely buy thousands of weapons smuggled southbound to kill Mexicans.  Whichever candidate is elected to the U.S. Presidency in November, next year will be a watershed during which the U.S. can either demonstrate a consequential commitment to co-responsibility – by pursuing the cartels in the United States and stanching the flow of guns and bulk cash into Mexico – or Calderon’s successor will unilaterally curtail cooperation.

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by clalsstaff on June 28, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 28, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/06/28/mexico-elections-change-ahead-in-cooperation-with-the-u-s/

Paraguay Coup: Setback to Democracy Even if Technically Constitutional

 

Photo by: Juan Alberto Pérez Doldán, via http://www.flickr.com/photos/38384810@N02/3531158719/

President Fernando Lugo, struggling to consolidate power since taking office in 2008 in Paraguay’s first meaningful transfer of power in 60 years, was removed from office on Friday by the same elites who had resisted him all along.  In a series of lightning actions, the Senate convened an impeachment process – giving him only two hours to prepare a defense – and voted him out of office.  Opposition leaders cited the government’s mishandling of a squatter protest earlier this month, resulting in 17 dead, but they had been undermining him from day one of his administration.  By Friday afternoon, Lugo accepted his removal and left the Presidential residence.  His vice president, Federico Franco, was sworn in and subsequently declared, “The country is calm. … Activity is normal and there is no protest.”

International reaction was slow at first, as the region focused on an environmental summit in Brazil.  But Brazil, Argentina and the ALBA nations condemned Lugo’s ouster and threatened sanctions.  President Dilma Rousseff urged immediate suspension of Paraguay in Mercosur and UNASUR, and Brasilia and others have withdrawn their ambassadors.  The U.S. State Department expressed “concern” at first and then urged “all Paraguayans to act peacefully, with calm and responsibility, in the spirit of Paraguay’s democratic principles.”  The OAS held an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council and sent a fact-finding mission to Asunción.

As President Lugo said, the action was as much against “Paraguay’s history, its democracy” as it was against him.  Like the coup that removed President Mel Zelaya in Honduras three years ago, the action was intended to stop a popular president and influence elections scheduled in coming months, but Zelaya was removed and exiled by the military, and the Congressional documents sanctioning it were fabricated after the fact.  The events in Paraguay pose an important challenge to the democracy clauses of the various regional charters (Mercosur, UNASUR, OAS) as well as the leadership of the region’s biggest democracies, including Brazil and United States.  At this early point, the Paraguayan elites probably judge that they can weather the storm because the U.S. and Brazil – with the diplomatic tensions about the Honduran coup, elections and reaccession to the OAS still fresh – have few options for restoring Lugo to presidency.  Insofar as entrenched elites sense that Washington will react mildly to the removal of democratically elected presidents they can cast as “leftist,” coups like those that have taken place in Honduras and Paraguay will continue.

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by clalsstaff on June 25, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Paraguay, South America
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 25, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/06/25/paraguay-coup-setback-to-democracy-even-if-technically-constitutional/

Brazil: A Permanent Seat Litmus Test?

Minister Patriota and Secretary Clinton Photo by: Ministério das Relações Exteriores via http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrebrasil/6162800484/

The U.S. State Department is expressing increasing frustration with Brazil for staying on the sidelines of debate on Syria.  Mike Hammer, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, said recently that “a country of Brazil’s stature can have influence, and we want them to be part of this effort – pressing Assad and his military to put an end to this horrible campaign.”  Other critics have linked Brazil’s reluctance to press other countries in South America to condemn the al-Assad government – notably Venezuela, which supports it – with its quest for a permanent seat on the Security Council.  (Brazil kept Syria off at least the public agenda during a recent meeting with Venezuela.)  Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of regional rival Mexico, said Brazil is “not ready for prime time.”

Brazil supports the peace plan laid out by Kofi Annan, and has said it would back sanctions or an arms embargo if it were part of that plan.  Brazil also proposed further international delegations to investigate Syrian atrocities, though previous visits have failed.  Itamaraty stresses the risks of confronting the massive Syrian army, and it continues to demand that the Security Council be the sole forum for international action.  Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota announced opposition to sanctions imposed without U.N. authorization.

Brasilia’s position is in keeping with its traditional skepticism about international intervention and the doctrine of “responsibility to protect.”  The notion of using Syria as a litmus test for Brazilian readiness to join the Security Council seems premature as no serious initiatives are before the UNSC and the Annan plan, which Brazil supports, is in play.  If anything, Brazil has demonstrated a commitment to keeping the UNSC at the center of the international diplomacy.  State Department pressure on Brazil to expend political capital to rein in the ALBA countries on a distant issue like Syria is unlikely to bear fruit until clearer international diplomatic strategies emerge.

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by clalsstaff on June 21, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Brazil, Middle East
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 21, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/06/21/brazil-a-permanent-seat-litmus-test/

Nicaragua: Government-Private Sector Tactical Cooperation

Leaders of Nicaragua’s private sector and political opposition have teamed up with the government to press Washington not to go overboard with sanctions in response to flawed elections last November.  Their traditional allies in Congress, including the Cuban-Americans who dominate the Obama Administration policy toward Latin America, are pressing for suspension of two waivers to U.S. laws that suspend bilateral and multilateral aid to Nicaragua.  One waiver depends on progress on fiscal “transparency,” and the other on the resolution of property disputes from the 1980s.  The former, which would affect several million US dollars in bilateral aid (apparently for an AIDS program), is doomed, according to insiders.  But a decision on the property waiver – suspension of which would require the United States to oppose Nicaraguan loans from the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank and IMF worth more than $200 million in 2011 – has not yet been made.

In public and private appearances, leaders of the Nicaraguan business community and political opposition, including Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance standard-bearer and Presidential Candidate Eduardo Montealegre, have forcefully stated their differences with the government of President Daniel Ortega, particularly regarding the conduct of elections and the lack of “institutionality” – i.e., the politicization of government institutions.  But the business community has pleaded for U.S. flexibility.  They estimate that suspension of the property waiver would threaten $1.4 billion in development assistance, deal a serious blow to their own prospects, and thrust Nicaragua into deep crisis.  Montealagre said he would lobby “neither for nor against” the waiver, but his participation in the delegation signaled a clear preference for Washington to be cautious.  Ortega’s personal emissary for foreign investment, Alvaro Baltodano, has emphasized the growing commercial links between the two countries and the benefit it provides directly to the Nicaraguan people.

The private sector and opposition are in the odd position of trying to persuade their own friends in Washington to be practical – not to be more anti-Sandinista than they.  Suspension of the property waiver would not only hurt them in the pocketbook; it would give a propaganda boost to President Daniel Ortega and make the population even more dependent on his social programs, heavily subsidized by Venezuela.  All of the U.S. aid and most of the multilateral aid provides direct benefit to the Nicaraguan people.  Ortega’s opponents do not want U.S. sanctions to close the business and political operating space they have enjoyed in recent years, despite Ortega’s excesses.

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by clalsstaff on June 18, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 18, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/06/18/nicaragua-government-private-sector-tactical-cooperation/

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