Evo the Unpopular

20/04/2011

Alexander the Great; Ivan the Terrible; William the Conqueror; it’s easy enough to pigeonhole historical leaders with flattering and unflattering sobriquets (nicknames if you feel like being less pretentious…or French), but it gets a little harder with modern day heads of state.

To suggest something flattering would sound like a pathetic attempt on the part of the obsequious party faithful; to suggest something unflattering would sound like a pathetic attempt on the part of the opposition.

Nonetheless, here’s a contemporary suggestion: Evo the Unpopular...

Things haven’t been going too well for the Bolivian President lately.

In a country where protests are the norm, and where the President rose to power after leading protests against the nationalization of the country’s resources, setting the record for “expressions of discontent” during his presidency has to be a perverse irony.

But that’s the dubious distinction the Bolivian NGO CERES (the Cochabama Centre for Economic and Social Reality) bestowed on Morales last week with the release of their study on protests in the country over the last 41 years.

The study counted 811 “expressions of discontent” in 2010, which they defined as “strikes, street protests, road closures, and prison rebellions.”

That makes for about 67 a month. And it’s only getting worse—according to the study, anyway.

There have been 240 conflicts registered so far in 2011—up from 207 for the same period in 2010.

But…

There was an agreement reached yesterday between Morales’ MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) government and the COB (the Bolivian Workers Center)—the biggest trade union in the country.

The government is heralding it as a MASSIVE breakthrough.

But is it?

The agreement, which the Communications Minister called the result of massive “efforts and sacrifices”, is little more than a 1% salary increase for teachers and healthcare workers. And though that’s 1% on top of the 10% raise they got in April, it’s still far below the 15% for which the COB was asking.

Ok, let’s be reasonable—a 15% raise? Who asks for a 15% raise?

Well, people living with 11% inflation (18% when it comes to basic foodstuffs).

The poorest and most malnourished population in South America isn’t looking for luxuries; their salaries just aren’t paying them enough to feed themselves.

The proximate cause of this particular inflationary crisis was a government decision in December to end gas and diesel subsidies. The gasolinazo, as it was known, led to price increases of 80%.

Apparently MAS didn’t see the food cost corollary...

But while in February the vice-president confessed to making mistakes and asked for forgiveness, yesterday the Communications Minister was much less conciliatory.

He accused certain leaders of using the protests as a pretext.

They’re using the conflict to “damage and affect the process of change, democracy, and the government,” he said.

Morales went further and said the protests were a precursor to a coup d’état.

Was it just fear mongering?

I thought Morales’ days were numbered last August when the MAS governor in Potosí went on a hunger strike with his fellow Potosians over a lack of investment in the department. But that ignored the context in which the protest was occurring, because with the perspective the CERES study provides, it was nothing more than a blip—a minor disruption amongst hundreds of others.

This time it’s on a national scale, though. And when your people can’t afford to eat, the stakes are a little higher.

The other Kuczynski

30/03/2011

Ok, so Kaczynski and Kuczynski aren’t exactly the same—kind of like Smith and Smyth—but you can’t deny that a headline reading 'Kuczynski could be the next President of Peru' wouldn’t get your attention. Because when you say it quickly, it sounds like the Unabomber got out of prison and somehow finagled his way into the Peruvian Presidential election…right?

Or maybe that’s just because I couldn’t figure out how to spell my last name till I was ten…

Regardless, up until recently I thought the only candidates who stood a chance of winning the Peruvian presidency were former President Alejandro Toledo, sometimes Chávez pal—Ollanta Humala, and Keiko Fujimori—the daughter of the imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori.

Granted Kuczynski is sitting fourth, but he’s been quickly rising in the polls.

The most recent ones have Humala leading at 22%, but the Lima stock exchange crashed with that news, which has to mean he and Hugo are a little too chummy for most.

Toledo and Fujimori are both hovering around 20 and 21%, with Kucz (my nickname) or PPK (everyone else’s) coming in at 16%.

Two months ago Kucz was sitting at 5%, and as The Economist recently reminded—Alberto Fujimori polled at 5% a few weeks before the 1990 election.

So, if Americans can elect a man whose name is precariously close to Osama, why can’t Peruvians elect a man whose name is precariously close to that of an American Thoreau-reading serial killer?

Well, for one thing—maybe he and Ted might have a little too much in common for the Peruvian electorate?

No, I’m not implying Pedro Pablo is a closet serial killer; but he does hold an advanced degree from an American university—and he is… American.

Peruvians have already seen what a President with dual nationalities can do, so he’s been forced to do something about the latter: he’s announced he’s renouncing his American citizenship. And even though Toledo—for whom he formerly served as finance minister— hasn’t stopped pressing him (“he’s said he started the process, so show us the documents.”)—I don’t think it hurts his chances.

And even the former—his European/American education, which was followed by work for the World Bank, the IMF, mining corporations and investment banks...well, Toledo has a PhD from Stanford and he—by his own public admission—has lived outside of the country for more than forty years.

True, Toledo looks more like the average Peruvian than Kuczynski, and has that irresistible rags-o-riches background that helped get him elected last time—but Kucz has his flute—and his Mexican!

Ok, maybe it isn’t the Andean pan flute—maybe it is of the well-bred Julliard variety—but at least he plays traditional Andean tunes that make you forget he’s Jean-Luc Godard’s cousin.

And then there’s Miguel Ángel Cornejo—his Mexican leadership guru who mitigates Kucz’s pedantry with these pearls of wisdom:

“When you get up—smile, it doesn’t cost you anything.”

“We’re all champions.”

To some—cheesy clichés, to others—positive electioneering—we’ll see come April 10.

Kaczynski-Kuczynski…tomato-tomato

From hero to opportunist: Mexico’s would-be police chief

06/03/2011

It was a lofty moniker to bestow on a twenty-year-old. And as I fell hook, line and sinker for a narrative that had to be cooked up in Tinseltown, every rational bone in my body knew there couldn’t be a Hollywood ending.

Last October, the international media took to calling a young criminology student named Marisol Valles García, “the bravest woman in Mexico.” She took on the position of police chief in a little town called Práxedis G. Guerrero, about an hour away from Ciudad Juárez—one of the more violent places on the planet (there were 229 murders in February alone).

No hombre wanted anything to do with the traditionally male position.

It took a year for it to be filled after her predecessor’s head was left outside the police station—a warning to future intrepid applicants...

But now, according to the Chief Prosecutor in the state of Chihuahua—Jorge González Nicolás, García has crossed the border and is seeking asylum in the U.S.—the death threats from organized crime having apparently become intolerable.

Or at least one particular death threat…

On Friday the Prosecutor said García “received a threat and that justified her leaving for the United States.” Later an immigration lawyer in El Paso, Texas said she was looking into the asylum process for “personal reasons.”

No one with an ounce of sincerity could question the legitimacy of those threats; Hermila García, the thirty-eight-year-old female police chief of Meoqui—another small town in the Chihuahua province, was ambushed by hit men at the end of November. Then there was the kidnapping of Érika Gándara in late December. Gándara was literally the last police officer in the border town of Guadalupe; everyone else either resigned or went on extended sick leave.

Either of those two women might more deservedly be called “Mexico’s bravest woman”.

I say that because the cynic in me can’t help but ask: What could García have possibly thought she was getting into?

“Everybody is scared here; we’re all scared, but we’re going to trade that fear for security,” she declared after taking the job in October. The requisite photo-op showed her at her desk, working away, openly—though she did have two bodyguards.

She told the media she had no intention of going after the worst of the worst; she’d leave that to the Federal Police. She saw her role as preventative— organizing the town so its citizens wouldn’t succumb to the temptation of crime, drugs, and easy money.

At her swearing-in ceremony, the young mother also said she wanted her son to grow up in “a different community than the one we have today.”

Most—of course, thought she meant in Práxedis…

Her predecessor was decapitated...In all seriousness—what was she expecting? A few rotten eggs and a burning bag of dog….?

So now what happens?

There were supposedly 19 officers on the force when she took the job—nine of whom were women. Maybe one them will be the next step up?

Of course they’d have to accept a healthy dose of public skepticism and the end of magnanimous nicknames.

They’d have to accept there’d be a theory that—like their predecessor, they were just using the job to facilitate their passage north.

Reason for Honduras’ LGBT community to be gay

25/02/2011

The Obama administration’s decision on Wednesday to end its constitutional defence of a federal law banning same-sex marriage may have caught some people off guard; for one thing, it never seemed to carve itself a niche in the public discourse in the way its chic policy cousin “Don’t ask don’t tell” did. And though I’m sure those who follow these things closely saw Congress’ repeal of the latter as natural segue, for a Canadian without a close ear on the pulse of Barack’s gay rights agenda—this was foreshadowed by a comment he made almost a month ago.

With the leader of the free world’s attention presumably focused on the revolutions besieging North Africa and the Middle East (there wasn’t even been time to address the unrest in Bolivia)—Honduras’ LGBT community?

From the President’s Press release on January 27, 2011:

“At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate. In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered. It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

I acknowledge he led with the David Kato murder, but any statement by the President about LGBT rights in a Central American country had to presage a large domestic policy announcement...

So what exactly has been going on in Honduras? What got the President’s attention?

He mentioned five murders in the weeks preceding Kato’s murder. That’d be 5 out of 34 murders in the last 18 months—more than double the number recorded in the five years previous.

The most horrific of these five murders was that of “Lady Oscar”.

Óscar Martínez, a 45-year-old gay transvestite was stabbed, tied to a chair, and burned alive three days before Christmas.

Three weeks before his murder, he reported an assault and actually indentified three of his attackers.

That proved to be a costly decision. The day of the crime, witnesses saw two men chasing him.

No one did anything to help.

In a country where only one in twenty murders is solved, the murder of an LGBT Honduran is rarely ever investigated.

Indyra Mendoza, a coordinator with a gay rights group based in Tegucigalpa, described the situation as follows:

“On the street—people insult you, the police hit you. I have trans friends who are shot right in the street and they won’t even remove the body because they say they have aids.”

The government of Porfirio Lobo is taking symbolic steps forward. In November they established a Ministry of Justice and Human Rights that’s been assigned the task of investigating these unsolved murders.

But I doubt they’ll come up with much.

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in a poor region, and the Lobo government is still primarily concerned with both gaining recognition of the post-Zelaya government from those countries still holding out, and re-admittance into the Organization of American States.

Nonetheless, there’s certainly some solace for Honduras’ LGBT community in knowing Uncle Sam is keeping an eye on the situation.

The man who tried to bring the internet to Cuba’s Jews

15/02/2011

While not necessarily timely, there are some stories that—even tardy—deserve a belated comment or two.

I think Alan Gross is one.

Gross—depending on your point of view and your access to the case details, was either unjustly detained in 2009 for “providing satellite communications equipment and Internet access for Jewish groups in Cuba”, or logically arrested for espionage.

How many Jewish people are there in Cuba?

No. That’s not a rhetorical question. I actually don’t know. But I digress…

After spending—let me figure this out (December 2009 till now =?)…over a year in prison awaiting charges, last Friday he was formally charged with "acts against the independence and integrity" of the state—for which a conviction could lead to twenty years in prison.

But let’s let P.J. Crowley from the U.S. State Department explain:

"We deplore the Cuban government’s announcement that Cuban prosecutors intend to seek a 20 year sentence against Mr. Gross. As we have said many times before Mr. Gross is a dedicated international development worker who was in Cuba providing support to members of the Cuban Jewish community. He has been held without charges for more than a year, contrary to all international human rights obligations and commitments regarding justice and due process. He should be home with his family now."

Gross was denied habeas corpus in Cuba? Really?

And I thought that only happened in Guantanamo…

Who do the Cubans think this guy is? Omar Khadr?

I can assure you he looks nothing like him. See here: (http://www.daylife.com/topic/Alan_Gross)

Nor, to my imagination’s disappointment, can I picture him sipping après-subversion martinis in posh Havana lounges.

Gross was working for a USAID subcontractor called Development Alternatives, whose mission it is ”to make a lasting difference in the world by helping developing nations become more prosperous, fairer and more just, cleaner, safer, healthier, more stable, more efficient, and better governed.”

Got that? I know, a lot of commas, aren’t, there?

As reiterated by his family, that meant “working with Jewish groups to help them connect to the internet.”

And so my laziness won’t allow me to avoid my earlier question…

What is the Jewish population of Cuba?

Jewishcuba.org, a website “listed by the US Interests Section of the Department of State as a resource for information on Cuba”, has a link to an article by CNN’s Steve Kastenbaum.

In an article written in 2008, Steve stated the population was 1,500—down from an estimated 15,000 in the 40s and 50s; that’s 1,500 out of a total of 11,423,952—also as of 2008.

Not what you might call a HUGE segment of the population. But then again—even taking into account increased tolerance by the Cuban state, religion still isn’t kosher on the island. So that probably is an underestimate. Nonetheless, although I do in principle support what I think Gross was trying to accomplish, I’m both bothered and amazed.

I’m bothered that USAID would have such a parochial focus on a right of such fundamental importance. Nowhere in the First Amendment does it say Congress shall make no law abridging the Freedom of Speech of the Christian people. Why should it be any different aboard? Is a Jewish Cuban more deserving of that right than any other Cuban?

I’m amazed, even though I know probably shouldn’t be, by the audacity of the American government. They sent an employee to a country (and yes, even if he was a subcontractor, he was still representing the American government) whose government they’ve tried to both overthrow and repeatedly undermine; they then broke that country’s laws, as oppressive as they may be, and expected there not to be consequences?

Maybe Alan Gross is a patsy. But I don’t think so. He knew exactly what he was getting into. And as unacceptable as his treatment has been after one year, he’s now been assured consular representatives, his family, and American legal counsel will be permitted to participate in his trial.

I’m fairly certain there’s a Canadian who would quite willingly trade places.