Archive for March 2008

Bolivar's Dream Lost: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guerrillas, and Files

A month ago, Colombia's incursion into Ecuador's territory set off events that still are unraveling. All of Latin America immediately condemned the trespassing as a violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty. For the most part, this had nothing to do with the excuse given by Colombia (that it was chasing rebels-- an excuse deemed inadequate by almost every nation in the hemisphere, the U.S. as a notable exception). Rather, this had to do with stemming any further violations of territorial sovereignty in the region by reasserting the strength of the international legal framework. Had they not come down as strongly as they did, Latin American countries would seem to have courted future military incursions and interventions. Colombia recognized the importance of de-escalating the situation, which is why it didn't bother sending troops to the border even as Ecuador and Venezuela did.

With the 19th century exceptions of the War(s) of the Pacific between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia (wherein Chile gained territory from the latter two) and the War of the Triple Alliance between Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay (where Paraguay lost territory and 90% of its male population to the latter three), Latin America has had little interstate warfare (particularly compared to, say, Europe). It has had its share of conquest, violence, and systematic extermination of indigenous populations. Nevertheless, in spite of a slew of bureaucratic authoritarian governments (i.e. military dictatorships), it's not the most militarized part of the planet.

This makes the rising international tensions in South America all the more noteworthy. To say that Hugo Chavez is a polarizing figure in Latin America is to state the obvious. He's popular for two reasons: his redistribution of oil wealth to broader segments of the population (i.e. not just the elite); his anti-imperialist rhetoric against the U.S. Because U.S. actions in the region since the Mexican-American War have been seen as self-interested and imperialist, the fact that he doesn't kowtow to the U.S. reflects broad public opinion among a wide swath of classes. On the other hand, his inflammatory oratory style and his meddling in his neighbors' business do not endear him to many.

And now there's news that Chavez has done more than give his opinion on what his neighbors should do. The computer found during Colombia's raid has yielded a bounty of material that seems to implicate both Chavez and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa, in supporting the FARC, the supposedly marxist insurgency fighting a war to liberate Colombia but instead an armed group better known for kidnapping, drug trafficking, and making the lives of ordinary Colombians dangerous. If, as is claimed by Colombian investigators, money and weapons have been exchanged between the FARC and Chavez/Correa, I don't see how conflict can be avoided. Alvaro Uribe is a popular president and Colombians are fed up with the decades of violence.

I don't think the U.S. government thinks it is politically expedient to directly remove Chavez, Pat Buchanan's urging of a CIA hit notwithstanding, given the tattered reputation the U.S. enjoys in Latin America. And it has long been my sense that for Chavez to be removed from office, it would be at the hands of his neighbors, tired of his meddling, the weight that he throws around because of the oil wealth, and threatened by his expansionist aspriations of uniting South America in a Bolivarian dream.

We'll see what happens with the laptop as Interpol investigates.

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In Repeat of Conquest, Europeans Spread Disease to Indigenous Americans


Reality TV = the new conquistadores.


Apparently, despite the warnings from the Peruvian government and an anthropologist familiar with the region, TV scouts for a British reality show visited some really remote tribes and spread the flu to them. Four have died and many more are extremely ill.

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Paraguay Today: a New Guerrilla?

Investigating Supposed Guerrilla Group
from abc.com.py


The Attorney General's Office is investigating a supposed guerrilla group called the Paraguayan People's Army (PPA) to which it attributes the attack against the farm of Brazilian settler Nabor Both, located in the district Horqueta.


My commentary: In Spanish this is Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP). Rather than coming across as one of those leftist guerrilla groups from the 50s and 60s, the EPP seems much more nationalistic. Nabor Both's farm is one of those soy farms located in Paraguay, operated by a Brazilian, meaning that most of the benefits do not accrue to Paraguay (and that the land being used was probably ill-gotten). Local peasants have been complaining about the deleterious health effects of spraying pesticides and have been pressing their case for restitution of land that was lost to them. Of course nothing has really happened to address their claims-- in Paraguay today it was announced that the country is eliminating school lunch because there isn't money even as some people are trying to bring charges against the sitting president for appropriating millions of dollars from the hydroelectric dam projects that was supposed to fund social projects.

And, by the way, Paraguayan peasants know a lot about pesticides. Paraguay is the world's largest producer of organic sugar.

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Doing the Math: Remittances in the Southern Cone

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) released information today about remittances to Latin America for 2007. Aside from a slowing growth trend (for the first time in 7 years, the growth over last year was less than 10%), the $66.5 billion sent to Latin America in 2007 reveals other interesting dynamics:

Argentina (population 36 million) received $920 million.
Chile (population 13 million) received $850 million.
Uruguay (population 3.4 million) received $125 million.

Paraguay (population 5.8 million) received $700 million.

Which is to say that Paraguay receives almost the same amount of remittances as do countries two and six times its size. A lot of these migrants are in Argentina and Spain, scraping by on very low paying jobs.

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El Salvador Musical-- the Journal of Salvadoran and Latin American Music

Welcome to El Salvador Musical, the online home of Revista de Música Salvadoreña y Latinamericana.

from their website:

Dedicated to the musical activity of El Salvador and Latin America. Its author is Salvadoran-American composer Carlos Colón-Quintana. Various collaborators also will participate in this virtual forum. Our principal emphasis is on música de arte [which I'm guessing is something closer to concert pieces/classical music]. However, we also will discuss folkloric music and important popular groups. Nevertheless, the focus will be from a cultural and serious point of view.

I thought Años (con texto de Nora Méndez) was particularly interesting. You can listen to a few of Carlos' pieces on the site.

Años (con texto de Nora Méndez)

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19th Century Travel Writing: What a Woman Sees in Latin America

The caption states:

Portrait by Maria Graham of “Dona Maria de Jesus, a young woman who has lately distinguished herself in the war of the Reconcave.” Adds Graham: “Her dress is that of a solider of one of the Emperor’s battalions, with the addition of a tartan kilt, which she told me she adopted from a picture representing a highlander, as the most feminine military dress. What would the Gordons and MacDonalds say to this?” (Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, 1824, p. 292.)


This is from Mary Louise Pratt's Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, wherein she analyzes how travel writing is used to frame exotic places in certain ways (for example, as "exotic" or "barbaric" or "so completely different from us as to be maybe almost unknowable and maybe not even human").

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Paraguay Today: International Arms Trade Alive & Well

Viktor Bout, the Tajikistan-born ex-Russian military arms dealer who was caught doing who-knows-what in Thailand (meeting with the North Koreans? buying Chinese arms from the Burmese? getting some sun?) seems to have had a penchant for using Paraguay as a staging ground to get his weaponry to interested parties in South America. Notably, FARC in Colombia (perhaps going through the northern border with Bolivia? This is a less sexy border than the Triple Frontera with Argentina and Brazil (see: Miami Vice (2006)) that has nevertheless attracted US attention amid rumors that the Bush clan is buying up great swaths of land).

For more about Viktor:
Arms Dealer Arrested for Weapons Sale to the FARC

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Social Deviance and Paraguay Today: Following Up On Two Herbs

I keep getting hits from people searching for something that leads them to my entry on mate cocido, which is about yerba mate, an herb that people drink in the Southern Cone and Lebanon/Syria (and now in the global North). Is it interest in yerba that leads these surfers to my site via google images at 2:30am or is it that they're searching for some really kinky porn?

And, remember my earlier entry on pot in Paraguay and Brazil? Well, here's more from ABCdigital:

Paraguay provides marijuana to Brazil


Brazilian authorities calculate that 60% of the marijuana consumed in their country comes from Paraguay. So says a UN report about the drug financing for the year 2007, released last night in Asunción. It also claims that 60% of the 5 tons of the herb confiscated in Chile also were from our country. The lowest levels of consumption of the drug were registered in Paraguay, Bolivian, and Peru.


My Commentary: Word on the street is that this marijuana comes from the Mennonite communities in the Chaco... Paraguay's version of the Amish (though a little less strict in their practice, obviously).

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