Bolivarian diplomacy: you give us a drug trafficker; we’ll give you a few terrorists and maybe even that money we owe you

25/11/2010

It isn’t just anyone who can give you the concession to the most important port in the country. That decision comes from up high.

I’d hope so.

It only makes sense that control of something so vitally important to a nation’s economy would be awarded by high-level functionaries through a well-vetted and excruciatingly detailed process.

Except that’s not Walid Makled meant in his post-arrest interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdv3n18Od24) with the Colombian news channel RCN, because Walid Makled, despite once having legitimate assets such as the Venezuelan Airline Aeropostal and the port I alluded to above (Puerto Cabello), is not a legitimate businessman—he’s a drug dealer; and up until recently, a really successful one.

The Venezuelan of Syrian heritage who for some reason often goes by “The Turk” was said to be moving ten tons of cocaine a month to Europe and the United States.

And the reason he could do this?

I’ll just assume you won’t need a second guess. Those people up high: Governors, Generals, and really anyone with concomitant decision-making power.

“If I’m a drug trafficker,” he told the RCN interviewer, “then they’re all drug traffickers.”

That was back in September. But if you picked up a major Latin American newspaper in the last few days, you most often found the story front and centre again. That’s because Mr. Makled’s extradition has become a diplomatic hot topic.

Hugo Chávez has made it clear that Makled’s extradition from Colombia to Venezuela (as opposed to the United States) is nonnegotiable if again amicable Venezuela-Colombia relations are to remain that way. Luckily for Chávez, at least if you believe Makled has the damning proof he claims he does, President Santos agreed to temporarily turn his back on longtime ally the United States and send Mr. Makled back to Venezuela.

On Sunday, a gleeful Chávez rejoiced: “I believe in President Santos’ word.”

He continued by saying that this decision would prevent Makled from vomiting “up all sorts of accusations against the Bolivarian Republic, against its political and military leadership…”

He offers no explanation of why the accusations of a drug trafficker and accused murderer should matter at all. Nor does he explain, as one Colombian editorialist remarked the other day, why Makled was being protected in Venezuela—why he had no trouble till “he made the mistake of stepping on to Colombian territory…”

The answers to those questions being fairly obvious, the focus has shifted to President Santos. The most hyperbolic column I read compared him to Neville Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement; I have no doubt that former President Uribe is at least partially responsible for these kinds of editorials. He’s more active on his Twitter account than most celebrities, and is none too subtle in publically second-guessing the dovish policies of his former Defense Minister; he’s also quite clearly peeved his successor’s approval ratings after his first hundred days are higher than those he had at any time throughout his immensely popular presidency.

So, knowing that Santos has some popularity to spare—why Makled? Why now?

Two reasons: first, it’s widely-known and acknowledged by almost everyone except Chávez that there are guerilla camps inside the Venezuelan border. In a gesture intended to show future cooperation in that area, two captured middle ranking ELN and one FARC member were turned over to Colombia. Considering guerilla presence within Venezuela was one of the main reasons relations soured in the first place—it’s a big step.

Second, there’s the issue of outstanding debt to Colombian exporters, said to be close to US$ 800 million. If Chávez is angry, there’s no hope of those exporters seeing any of what they’re owed, and there’s certainly no hope of returning cross-border trade to its pre-dispute levels.

True, that’ll hurt Venezuela, too; it’ll mean increased inflation in an economic environment where everyone but the government ignores the official exchange rate; but for Colombia, where politicians are more likely to be held accountable, it’ll mean additional unemployment in a country where levels are already too high.

At personal level, we tell ourselves we can choose our friends. In the realm of international relations, that’s more than a little misleading. A certain naïveté leads us to believe an active conscience can and should dictate all of leaders’ actions; necessity proves that disingenuous.

Were Makled extradited to the United States, his revelations could—as some have pointed out, turn Chávez into another Noriega.

I doubt it.

I suspect they’d quickly be dismissed as Yanqui propaganda, and that would be that. A more likely scenario would be a slightly more difficult Presidential election for Chávez in 2012—one without the financing he appears to have been receiving from one of Latin America’s more powerful drug traffickers.

President Santos certainly isn’t Neville Chamberlain, but statements of that kind evidence the sympathy Colombians currently have for Venezuelans. They see a country people fear to visit and remember a time not that long ago when their own was perceived to be a place to avoid.

Now major American dailies are encouraging tourists:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111902827.html

If giving away a drug trafficker is the price to pay for stability, it’s easy to understand why most Colombians don’t find the price all that steep.

When Super Mario became the new Ronald McDonald

18/11/2010

A movie store is a rare sight in Latin America. They do exist, but there’s always an element of surprise when you see them. The explanation is pretty simple: why rent a DVD from Blockbuster when you can pay the guy around the corner less and never have to worry about returning it?

In the “developed world” some combination of guilt and the dissuasive power of intellectual property laws actually being enforced oblige the person selling pirated DVDs and the person purchasing them to operate clandestinely—when they operate at all. That’s not to say we don’t go about it other ways—illegally downloading movies and music; of course we do. We just try not to celebrate it. And furthermore, those who do are somewhat counterbalanced by those who use iTunes and those who are actually influenced in movie theaters by the anti-piracy advertisements we now expect to see before our movies.

So, why such different attitudes when it comes to intellectual property?

When I lived in Peru, I personally adjusted pretty quickly. Within days I was following the hordes who felt no compunction whatsoever when buying a DVD outside a theater where that same movie was playing. I contributed to the underground economy without flinching. But when I returned to Canada, I never sought out pirated DVDs or even downloaded movies illegally. Maybe I was lazy? Maybe there’s just something I’ve always liked about browsing the shelves. But now I’m back—in Colombia this time, and I’ve adjusted again.

That said, just when I started to think my respect for intellectual property was tenuous at best, I saw something that assured me there was only so far it could fall: Mario Bross restaurant in Cali, Colombia.

Yeah, I know. You’re probably thinking I made a mistake and added another “S”.

I didn’t.

That’s actually what the place is called. It’s a chain, I’m told. And in case there’s any ambiguity about the origin of the name, because I guess the owner’s name could’ve been Mario Bross, or something like that—the sign has everyone’s favorite Italian-American plumber carrying a massive burger on a tray that struggles to contain it.

Correct me if I’m wrong—I don’t remember that in the video game.

Shortly after my Mario Bross encounter, I had a beer at a place called Olafo’s, which shamelessly uses Hägar the Horrible to sell its food. Reading the newspaper later that day—ok— the comics, I realized Olafo is how Hägar the Horrible is translated, making the misappropriation even more blatant. Because I can’t find any proof that Dik Browne and his estate or Shigeru Miyamoto and the people at Nintendo approved their creations being used to sell mediocre fast food in South America. Realistically they’re probably not even aware, just as I’m fairly certain Christina Aguilera doesn’t know her face is being used to lure Peruvian women to various peluquerias, or hair stylists.

Who knows? Maybe none of them would care if they did know. It’s not as if these places are raking it in; and everyone’s aware Latin American systems of justice have more pressing concerns than the punishing trademark counterfeiters.

That said, at least in the Colombian context—it is part of their law.

As a member of the WTO, Colombia is required to abide by the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of International Property Rights) Agreement, which “requires members to comply with certain minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property rights covered in it.”

Ok, so we might say it’s something like the Kyoto Protocol—ratifying it and signing it doesn’t mean you actually have to enforce it. Just try your best and everyone’s satisfied.

But I was curious—what exactly are they supposed to be enforcing? From a 2001 WTO Legislation review, in response to a question from the United States, Colombia gave this answer:

“The penalties for infringement of copyright are laid down in Law No. 44 of 1993 as follows:

Article 51. – The following shall be liable to imprisonment for two to five years and a fine of five to 20 times the legal minimum monthly wage…

4. Any person who reproduces phonograms, videograms, software or cinematographic works without the express prior authorization of the owner, or transports, stores, stocks, distributes, imports, sells, offers for sale, acquires for sale or distribution or in any way deals in such reproductions.”

And…

“Law No. 599 of 2000…defines the following offences related to infringement of industrial property rights:

Article 306 states that "Any person who fraudulently uses a trade name, sign, trademark, patent, utility model or industrial design that is legally protected or likely to be confused with one that is legally protected shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of two (2) to four (4) years and a fine of twenty (20) to two thousand (2,000) minimum prevailing legal monthly wages", and the same penalty applies to any person who finances, supplies, distributes, puts on sale, markets, transports or acquires goods produced or distributed in the circumstances described above for commercial or brokerage purposes.”

Two to five years for the guy who sold me a DVD on the corner? Two to four for the owners of Mario Bross and Olafo’s?

Right.

You’re more likely to find the police buying DVDs beside me before they eat average burgers at Olaf’s or Mario Bross than you are to see them applying laws the “developed” world knows aren’t worth the paper on which their written.

As I said before, they've got other things to do.

A rebel with a cause, and a simple question I can’t answer

11/11/2010

I can’t remember his name right now, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. He was smug—a cheto as the porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) would have called him—young, well-built, though not overly muscular, with Lacoste everything and a cocky stride that stuck out in an otherwise bland IBM office building in Puerto Madero.

I knew when I first met him that every class would be a challenge. In that sense I was lucky his attendance was sporadic.

One particular class, he was especially irritated. He was complaining about the laissez-faire attitude (read lazy) of the Spanish workers with whom he was obliged to communicate on a daily basis for what was at that moment the foreseeable future; then suddenly he came out with this:

“What are you doing here?”

Put on the spot, I came up with an embarrassing, barely coherent answer I won’t repeat. It felt like I was challenged and lost; I promised myself I’d never be unprepared for that question again.

It was a promise I didn’t keep.

Because the other day, on a bus to Cali, Colombia, a man in his forties sat down next to me, started to tell me how he’d lived for fourteen years in New Jersey, lost everything when he was deported for not being able to provide the authorities with papers after a supposedly random inspection...

“I miss it so much. There’s nothing here for me,” he continued. Then: “What are you doing here?”

I mumbled something about “viajando and de vacaciones”. He smiled and told me he was glad I was seeing his city, but the sad envy in his eyes told me something else. I could go back to the cold winters and opportunities. He had to wait six more years in sultry Cali before he could have a chance to get back to his American-born daughter in Newark.

This has been an extremely longwinded way of getting to what I planned on discussing: Lori Berenson—a woman who's answered that question and had the question answered for her repeatedly over the last fifteen years— a martyr to some and a sanctimonious would-be terrorist to others.

What was she doing with the Tupak Amaru Revolutionary Movement in Peru in 1995?

If you were to believe her parents, she was doing what any young, intellectual social activist would do?

From the Free Lori website:

“Lori Berenson is a firm believer in the need to work for a better world for all, for a world in which everyone's fundamental human rights are respected.”

They go into great detail about the kangaroo court that tried her—much less about the MRTA weapons cache found in the house she was renting in Miraflores, Lima, her grito de dolores-like statement (“There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA; it's a revolutionary movement!") made slightly less credible by their subsequent seizure of the Japanese embassy, and well, the fact she was arrested with the wife of one of the group’s leaders, Néstor Cerpa.

That she was guilty is and was hard to dispute. But despite how vociferously that guilt was contested by those close to her, it was always the judicial process rather than the evidence that was questioned.

When she was initially released this past May, I admit I found the reaction of her new neighbors in Lima surprisingly aggressive; a lot of time had passed; she looked older than her forty years, certainly owing to the fifteen years she’d already spent in prison. And yet that clearly visible naïveté was as strong as ever—like she’d do it all over if she had to.

Again granted parole five days ago, I’ve rethought my disappointment at again not having an answer to such a simple question.

Uncertainty shouldn’t be a source of embarrassment; there’ll never be a shortage of rebels. There’ll never be a shortage of causes.

A merciless, misguided fight

07/11/2010

Sipping a coffee in the neighborhood of La Candelaria in Bogota, Colombia, I opened my copy of El Tiempo to see what the national newspaper had to say. On the bottom right corner of the front page of Thursday’s edition, a headline caught my eye: “Lucha sin cuartel”, or merciless fight.

The merciless fight was referring to a government raid on La Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes (DNE), the agency responsible for managing the seized assets of the narcotraficantes, or drug traffickers.

The raid was undertaken at the behest of the agency’s new leader—Juan Carlos Restrepo, who maintained he had “detected a series of fraudulent operations, the value of which could be measured in billions of pesos.”

Corruption in the Colombian agency that manages the assets seized from the drug trade?

I wasn’t exactly astonished, but then I realized I really didn’t know what their ally in the United States did with theirs.

After several conversations and discussions, I realized no one else seemed to know either. The dilemma was pretty simple: if the assets seized in any way funded police operations, they could easily create a budgetary dependence that—well I think the implications are fairly obvious…

And so the cursory research…

In the U.S. the assets seized by the USDA are held in something called the Assets Forfeiture Fund, created as part of 1984’s Comprehensive Crime Control Act. Essentially it works like this: the proceeds of forfeiture are used “to pay the costs associated with such forfeitures, including the costs of managing and disposing of property, satisfying valid liens, mortgages, and other innocent owner claims, and costs associated with accomplishing the legal forfeiture of the property.”

Pretty reasonable, really. The money seized is used to manage the money seized.

But then there’s a part under general investigative expenses about compensating “state and local law enforcement officers participating in joint law enforcement operations with a federal agency participating in the fund.”

I guess that’s where it gets hazy to me. States and municipalities facing budget cutbacks seem to have a strong incentive to “participate”. One particular U.S. Department of Justice audit I found from 2007 suggested that “while the DEA had established internal control policies for safeguarding seized cash, some of those policies need to be strengthened. For example, the DEA should: (1) better define situations when seized cash should be counted immediately by the seizing agent.”

Better define situations when seized cash should be counted immediately by the seizing agent?

I won’t go there.

In the Colombian context, the editorial in El Tiempo suggested it might be time “to clean the DNE from the inside.” But cleaning or reorganizing the DNE or DEA implies they can both operate transparently—that there is a way or ways to make them less susceptible to what that same editorial called “irregularities.”

I’d agree there is: eliminate the need for the cash seized to be managed at all.

Eliminate the cash.

Because as long as it’s treated as something that can be purified or at least managed, there will continue to be “evidence of a series of shady characters receiving benefits” and “numerous assets seized by the authorities, simply disappearing from the public registry.”

Whether it’s in Colombia or in the United States, whether it’s greed or desperation, the temptation to take a little extra home from work or to rationalize the funding of policing operations with the proceeds from drug trafficking are or at least should be blatantly obvious.

El Tiempo argues the Colombian government should be applauded for showing a willingness to eradicate “corruption, democracy’s most evil cancer.”

They could start by eliminating the DNE.