Help Wanted at the Organization of American States

March 2, 2010

You’d never know it, but there’s a pretty big election coming up later this month at the Organization for American States (OAS). On Wednesday, March 3, representatives from the member states of the OAS (35 in total minus Cuba and Honduras) meet in a special session to formally introduce candidates to become the tenth secretary general.

The mission of the OAS, founded more than 60 years ago, is to promote and strengthen representative democracy, development and security, to act as the forum for governments in the hemisphere and to ensure peaceful settlement of disputes.

That’s a pretty tall order.

The current secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, wants to serve for another five-year term and recently said confidently that he would be confirmed on March 24. He needs to get at least 17 votes.

For the last year or so, current and former government officials have been murmuring that Insulza failed to lead the OAS and fulfill its mission. Instead, Insulza sat passively by as the executive powers in Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador gradually whittled away at the authority of the legislative and judicial branches. This weakening of democracies undermined the credibility and value of the OAS.

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Our Man, Cuba’s Pawn

February 4, 2010

This post is a follow-up to my Unleash the Googles entry from last week. But now I would like to specifically focus on the human rights implications of Alan Gross’ detention.

Why is the U.S. keeping so quiet… still? This has been a vexing question. There’s no grand geopolitical strategy behind our silence.

Alan Gross did not sign a privacy waiver. That simple. Out of respect for this request, the U.S. won’t say anything about Gross—either in his defense or in defense of our policies. This is true even though it’s in our best interests to clarify what Gross was doing and what equipment he was distributing.

For now, it’s all very murky, enhancing the cloak and dagger mystique around this 60-year-old guy from the suburbs of Washington DC. This makes the nature of his work seem all the more insidious.

We could be rebutting more aggressively the charges that the Obama administration is still Cuba’s arch enemy, working stealthily to topple its regime. Gross is being turned into the predictable tool for the Castros and the Chavistas to denounce the U.S., reminding me of how Fidel Castro sought to use Elián González as a pawn against the United States.

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Unleash the Googles on Cuba

January 29, 2010

U.S.-Cuba dynamics continue to follow the traditional script of mixed signals. The romance is there; the trust is not.

Shortly after U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bisa Williams returned from extended talks in Havana, the Cuban regime seized Alan Gross, a U.S. subcontractor for a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) democracy program in Cuba.

Another kicker came on Thursday when the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, told reporters that immigration talks in Havana were scheduled for February 19.

Part of the Cuban agenda presented to the government of the United States is a proposal for a new immigration agreement and solidifying cooperation in the fight against people trafficking,” Rodríguez is translated as saying in English by Reuters. Let’s hope that Cuba’s wishes to exchange Gross for the Cuban Five will remain a non-starter.

The imprisonment of Mr. Gross (or “Harold,” as he was first named to me in early December) serves as a good reminder of the criminals-in-office we are dealing with in Havana. And also a reminder of our ill-conceived, yet well-intended, Cuba policies and programs.

Why didn’t we complain louder about Gross’ continued detention? For one, the man and his family did not sign a privacy waiver with the State Department, and without that waiver the U.S. Department of State and U.S. embassies and consulates abroad cannot release information on an individual—even when it hurts our national interests.

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All I Want for Christmas is Ambassador Shannon in Brazil

December 10, 2009

Arturo Valenzuela is finally settling in as assistant secretary for the western hemisphere on the 6th floor of the State Department. But, the distinguished diplomat who most recently served in that job—Tom Shannon—is still waiting for his next post due to another hold on his nomination to be ambassador to Brazil. 

Back in early November, when Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) lifted his holds on Arturo Valenzuela as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere and Tom Shannon as ambassador to Brazil, newcomer Senator George LeMieux (R-FL) slapped a hold on Shannon’s nomination the very next day. 

Senator DeMint’s hold was ostensibly due to concerns of how the U.S. handled Honduras, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador.  Conspicuously absent was Cuba. Right then and there, that should have been a red flag of more complaints to come against Shannon, as Cuba is the ostensible focus for these new questions.

As soon as Sen. LeMieux lifts his hold, I’m told, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) will take his place, and after Sen. Vitter lifts his hold, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will step up with his own hold.   Like whack-a-mole. As soon as one goes down, another will pop up. 

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At the DC Watering Hole: Senate Continues to Hold Tom Shannon's Nomination to be the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil

October 15, 2009

For months, the Senate has unnecessarily held up President Obama’s appointments for the U.S. ambassador to Brazil and the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. These actions have prevented the administration from assembling its Latin America team and have held hemispheric policy hostage to a few, lone voices.

We are stuck in gear. But if some conservative Republicans get their way, we risk being thrown into reverse, back to the Cold War. This time instead of communism, it’s through the prism of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

A more conspicuous and tangible evidence of the Cold War revival has been the recent campaign by some conservative Republicans against the nomination of Tom Shannon as ambassador to Brazil. This is the same Tom Shannon who was appointed and served as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs under George W. Bush.

The closed-door briefings and talking points that circulated in Congress are narrow and hollow criticisms of the United States’ Latin America policy over the last four years and are specifically tailored against Shannon. 

Because the talking points are dangerous without context, I want to share them in full as they arrived to me. A major part of their context is this underlying partisan intent:

“In Honduras, Shannon remained silent as Manuel Zelaya attempted to subvert democratic institutions and the Honduran Constitution.  But as the Congress and Supreme Court worked to remove Zelaya legally from office, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa and Shannon worked diligently to dissuade the Honduran Congress and protect Zelaya (3 July Washington Post, columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner).”

“In Venezuela, Mr. Shannon constantly promoted narcotics cooperation with Chávez despite evidence—and objections from other U.S. agencies—that the Venezuelan government itself was facilitating narcotics trafficking.  Mr. Shannon also denied support to Venezuela's civil society and sat by as Chavez dismantled the country's democratic institutions.  Today, the Mayor of Caracas still cannot get into his office to perform his duties.  In all this, Mr. Shannon’s rationale for shunning Venezuela's civil society has been that the U.S. and Venezuela have a strategic relationship based primarily on energy.”

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In Appreciation: Ted Kennedy's Latin America Legacy

August 31, 2009

As Americans eulogized Senator Edward Kennedy over the weekend, I also want to take pause and remember his contribution to our nation’s relations with Latin America.

He will be remembered as an effective liberal senator who knew how to work the Capitol, a flawed person who came to grips with his inner demons, and a man who used his name imbued with all its power and mystique of the Kennedy dynasty to tirelessly defend human rights and social justice—both here and abroad.

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U.S.-Colombia Military Deal Causes Controversy… Still

August 17, 2009

Even now that Bogotá and Washington concluded their talks over the U.S.-Colombian military deal on Friday, questions linger over how and why it sparked so much controversy.  The general consensus—even by the Pentagon’s own admission—is that Bogotá and Washington mangled the public message. 

Now that more details are coming out about the deal, it’s clear that it didn’t need to be such a lightening rod. And even if it did, why did the U.S. allow Colombian President Álvaro Uribe to twist in the wind?

The core of the deal is to grant the U.S. access to seven of Colombia’s military bases (five air and two naval) to help build up Colombia’s current assets and capability (particularly on surveillance and intelligence gathering). The deal seeks to “provide to the Colombians that what they need in order to continue to prosecute their efforts against the internal threats that they have,” as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General James E. Cartwright said at a Pentagon briefing on August 13, 2009.

This is NOT about increasing the ceiling for U.S. personnel in Colombia, or in South America. 

Under current law, the U.S. cannot have more than 800 military and 600 contract personnel in Colombia. Last year, there were only 71 military personnel and some 400 contractors in Colombia.  More importantly, the U.S. Congress has little appetite to increase the number of U.S. troops stationed there. 

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Honduras Holds Up State Department Nominations, as the U.S. Signals Policy Shift

August 7, 2009

Summer is sticky but not so sweet here in the nation’s capital, as Honduras is yet again butting into U.S. politics and policymaking.

Even as Congress readies to run out of town, it never came around to confirming what really are no-brainers: nominees Arturo Valenzuela as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere and Tom Shannon as ambassador to Brazil! Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation as the newest Supreme Court Justice would ideally open the gates to more confirmations but the possibilities look bleak that these two positions will be filled anytime soon.

Instead, certain Republican Senators—led by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)—are determined to voice their dissatisfaction to the Obama administration over its Honduras policy. DeMint asked Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry to hold over the nominations of Valenzuela and Shannon, which he did. And when the committee approved their nominations and their nominations went to the floor in late July, DeMint’s office told me their nominations would again be held over.

Why? To again express dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of Honduras.

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New State Department Team Ready to Roll, as Republicans Challenge Obama Policy

July 9, 2009

Arturo Valenzuela, Tom Shannon, Carlos Pascual, and  Kenneth Merten all went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week for their “job interviews” for Latin America policy (aka, confirmation hearing).

As I’ve written here before, Valenzuela is up for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Shannon, ambassador to Brazil; Pascual, ambassador to Mexico; and Merten, ambassador to Haiti.

The senators and nominees primarily focused on alternative energy, the Merida initiative, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and, of course, Honduras.  It’s important to note that a frequent topic of the day—the presence and nefarious influence of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda in the hemisphere—didn’t get so much time. Perhaps that comes up only when administration officials are stumping Congress for more funding on Latin America initiatives.

The headline out of this hearing, however, is not about the accomplishments, or policies, of these sharp and savvy diplomats. It was an opportunity for certain Republicans to raise legitimate complaints about the Obama administration’s policies on Honduras and Cuba. At the same time, it was hardly contentious—fortunate for those going through the confirmation process! 

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Que Importa Honduras! – Obama Administration Strikes the Right Tone

July 2, 2009

Honduras, que importa, right? Does this tiny Central American country warrant all this debate, discussion and media coverage?! Yes, it does, and the Obama administration is right to be defending democracy.

Due attention must be given to the dramatic developments there—not only for the historic regional implications of dealing with a twenty-first century military coup, but for the test of how the U.S. will now conduct its relations in the hemisphere.

Besides being a striking, unsettling reminder of the fragility of our region’s democratic institutions, the event brought to the fore how different the Obama administration’s approach to Latin America is from that of the Bush administration.  

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More Talk at the DC Water Cooler: Obama’s Latest Nominations

June 11, 2009

President Barack Obama is zipping along with nominations and appointments related to all things Latin America. I am not going to share a laundry list of every post coming from the administration, but here are some highlights and what people are saying. 

First, Arturo Valenzuela. As I wrote here months ago, he was nominated as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs in May. Valenzeula, a Chilean-American, served at the State Department and the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton and was an adviser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.  

If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll be leaving his current job as director of the Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His expertise is democratization, security issues, and of course, Chile. And, he really knows how to deal with the media. That’s important.

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To Run or Not to Run – Is that Even a Question with Uribe?

May 26, 2009

Here in Washington discussion about Colombia generally revolves around the free-trade agreement (FTA). Will Obama really push Democrats in Congress to approve it?

And now that the Colombian Senate this week approved a referendum on whether to change the constitution to eliminate a ban on a third presidential term, the topic du jour has shifted: Will President Álvaro Uribe run?  And what does that mean for the FTA?

Wait. Haven’t we recently heard this story before from another Andean country? 

Oh right. We have, but now we’re talking about Colombia—one of the United States’ best allies in South America—and about its popular president, now in the middle of his second, charmed term. And, he only got that second term through a constitutional amendment in 2006.

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Today is World Press Freedom Day: Let’s Look at How Far We’ve Come

May 4, 2009

Do you know that it’s World Press Freedom Day today?

The media are so often taken for granted or made into the punching bag for whatever complaints we have. But just pause for a second, and imagine what the U.S. would be like without reporters.  You can’t. The press is essential for a healthy democracy—to expose corruption, fight against abuses, give a voice to the voiceless, and to share information and ideas in an open manner, regardless of socioeconomic level or political bias. But what’s the status of U.S. media today?

Many say that U.S. reporters are giving a sweet deal to President Obama and that his honeymoon isn’t over yet. 

We all know the danger of sleeping journalists (i.e., an Iraq war based on fabricated information).

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All Quiet on the Latin American Front? Not Quite.

April 30, 2009

The Summit of the Americas brought a ton of Latin American coverage in the U.S. media.  Finally. But, now that the Summit is over, press attention to the hemisphere is waning. That is except for the swine flu spreading from Mexico.

There were a few news nuggets that came out of the Summit, but judging from post-Summit news coverage, you’d think that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Cuba were the only stories.  Of course, those are the two boilerplate favorites for covering Latin America. There have, in fact, been a number of positive developments—some of them coming out of the Summit. Unfortunately, none of them makes the U.S. news.

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Another Czar is Born!

April 17, 2009

Indeed, as some feared and others hoped, the Obama administration does like its czars and special envoys. 

We’ve already got the war czar, climate czar, health czar, urban affairs czar, drug czar, and a special envoy for the Summit of the Americas, to name a few.

And as of April 15, we now have a border czar when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano named former federal prosecutor Alan Bersin, 62, to the newly created post at a press conference in El Paso, Texas.

Well, his official title is Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs.

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Drug Flashback: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Drug War

April 8, 2009

As if President Barack Obama didn't have enough on his plate—the Mexico drug war has really come up and brought the administration's focus back into this hemisphere.  Besides grappling with a global financial meltdown, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the stunning severity of narcoviolence—and the "spillover" into the U.S.—is demanding immediate attention from the U.S. government, perhaps sooner than people would have thought or certainly hoped. 

Congress is paying attention, holding several hearings and questioning officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, State and Justice, among other agencies. Unfortunately, the hearings have demonstrated there is no comprehensive strategy or clear coordination, or direction, in confronting the drug problem.  In all fairness, it's still quite early in the Obama administration and people who would otherwise be working on this issue have yet to be installed in the government. And, the Merida Initiative—the $1.4 billion, three-year counternarcotics program for Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and Dominican Republic initiated under the Bush administration—has only recently gone into effect.

After Congress made a big enough stink, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Mexico last month, and President Barack Obama is due to visit Mexico City on April 16, before he goes to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. (Actually he’s arriving the evening of the 15^th and leaving the 17th.)

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The Obama-Lulathon

March 16, 2009

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and President Barack Obama met in the Oval Office on Saturday morning.

The White House said Larry Summers, head of the White House's National Economic Council, General Jim Jones, head of the National Security Council (NSC), Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg and Dan Restrepo, the NSC’s director for Western Hemisphere affairs attended the meeting. Among those attending on the Brazilian side, Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Amorim, Chief of Staff Dilma Rouseff and Finance Minister Guido Mantega.

On the menu: the upcoming G-20 summit, the Summit of the Americas, the global financial crisis, biofuels and, privately, the custody case of David Goldman.

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SUMMIT PREPARATIONS

March 13, 2009

The State Department is in full gear preparing for the Summit of the Americas in mid-April. And I got a good look at those preparations at the Inter-American Dialogue’s discussion with Tom Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow—who I can now FINALLY say is the White House Adviser for the Summit of the Americas.

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Seduced by Cuba’s Honey Pot of Power

March 5, 2009

Cuba’s Raúl Castro shook up his Cabinet big time this week—the largest change in decades—when he ousted, promoted or shifted around more than 20 officials.

Most prominent—and surprising to many here in the United States—was the dismissal of Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque and Vice President Carlos Lage, known as the brains of recent economic reforms.

The next day, Raúl’s older brother, Fidel, wrote a letter saying he had been consulted about these changes (oh, but of course he was!).

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BABY STEPS ON US Policy in CUBA; COLOMBIA AND THE SUMMIT

February 26, 2009

This week, two small steps for U.S. policy on Cuba.

First up: Sen. Richard Lugar’s new report, “Changing Cuba Policy-In the United States National Interest.” In short, it calls the existing policies ineffective, finding major reform in the United States’ best national (and economic) interests.

The recent leadership changes in Washington and Havana have created an opportunity to “reevaluate a complex relationship marked by misunderstanding, suspicion and open hostility,” Sen. Lugar wrote in his letter to fellow senators.

Several traditional realists, like Pedro Burelli, a former member of the PDVSA—Venezuela’s state oil company—board of directors have applauded this report’s recommendations as pragmatic, rather than “coming from the perspective of the teary-eyed leftist camp.”

And, the report, I’m told, has largely received positive feedback.

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Mr. Obama Goes to Ottawa

February 18, 2009

But do people really care?

Well, north of the border, it’s very big news that Obama is traveling to Ottawa. Beyond his exciting Rock Star status, Obama revived the presidential tradition of making Canada the first overseas trip, following the footsteps of four of the last nine presidents.

You couldn’t tell that though by hanging out at White House briefings, talking with other foreign affairs reporters, or about any of the anticipatory prep and advance work for this visit. The Ottawa trip is very ho-hum.

And why should anyone in the U.S. really care about Obama going to Ottawa—Canada’s Washington, DC—to meet with Conservative party Prime Minister Stephen Harper (no relation to yours truly) and Liberal party opposition leader Michael Ignatieff? Obama is scheduled to be there for a mere five to six hours.

Some press reports characterized this stop as a “training wheels trip” – a kind of “practice run” for future pow-wows abroad. It’s way too cold anyhow and the accents can be rather off putting.

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Talk at the DC Water Cooler

February 12, 2009

A popular DC parlor game these days is about who is getting what position in the Obama administration. There have been numerous articles about the administration’s foreign policy agenda and what related appointments suggest about the president’s priorities –Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, Iran, and Iraq.

Yet, among all this verbiage—Latin America is usually left out. Has this part of the world just fallen off the map with the administration?

With that void, many are picking up on the water cooler talk about possible appointments and as a way to deduce what direction Obama’s Latin American policies could take.

It’s already well known that Tom Shannon is asked to continue “for the time being” as assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. What does “for the time being” mean? Shannon reportedly wondered the same thing. He’s expected to stay put at least until the Summit of the Americas in April.

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