Smear Campaign in Colombia

Man, Santos sure is getting desperate. Colombia Reports writes today about the increasing use of smear tactics in the Colombia presidential campaign, "As Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus' popularity increases, so too do the attempts to sully his name." Last week banners started appearing with slogans criticizing Mockus, trying to tie his campaign to Chavez. CR continues:

Votebien political analyist Rodrigo Lozada says that the tactics seen today in Colombia "were copied from the campaigns in the United States. The idea is find the opponents' weak points, exaggerate and distort them, to make them look bad before society."

Maybe not such a surprise, given James Carville's role in the campaign...a smear campaign in Bolivia led to the election of Goni...another one of Carville's campaigns. But there is another political consultant who showed up in Colombia in recent days that probably better explains the situation, CR has the dirt:

Santos has relaunched his campaign strategy with Venezuelan spin doctor J.J. Rendon at the helm. Rendon has been called an "expert in rumorology" and 'the king of 'black' propaganda." In 2007 the Venezuelan publicist was almost deported due to accusations that he had blackmailed Congressman Nicolas Uribe by threatening that he would publish photos of the politician cavorting with prostitutes if Uribe didn't fire a certain employee. Uribe resigned from the Partido de la U campaign in protest when Santos contracted Rendon.

Since Rendon's arrival on the scene, a pro-Santos website has been launched, which attempts to discredit Mockus. The same banners that appeared in Cali are published on the website, along with videos and a cartoon depicting Mockus as Chavez's buddy. Again the inference is that Mockus is pro-Chavez atheist, who plans to extradite President Uribe.

Ah yes, Rendon (the one between Lobo and Uribe in the pic above)...who you might remember led the voter fraud charge in Venezuela in the 2004 referendum. Rendon also ran the campaign of former Venezuela president Carlos Andres Perez (eventually arrested for stealing public money) back in the 1980s, as well as doing PR work for Venezuelan defense ministers....ya know the defense ministers who killed hundreds of civilians during the Caracazo. He is especially notorious in Mexico, where, as Al Giordano pointed out, he was implicated in eight different criminal cases in 2001 for "printing anonymous propaganda… in which the proposals of the PAN party candidate for the mayoralty of Puebla, Luis Paredes Moctezuma, were distorted." Recently, he was seen shaking hands and advising Pepe "reconciliation" Lobo in Honduras. Sure is some good company Santos is keeping these days. Already since he joined the campaign, three of Santos' closest assistants have left the campaign, probably not too excited about cavorting with someone with such a lovely past as Rendon.

I don't think this is going to cut it though. His presence has already gotten a ton of press in Colombia and throughout the region, and its not exactly a secret what a slime ball this guy is. If Mockus is popular because he represents a change from "politics as usual", then a "politics as usual" smear campaign is not going to do the trick. Nice try Santos.

The Whitewash Commission

So today Pepe "reconciliation" Lobo and the rest of the golpistas unveiled their latest attempt to whitewash the coup. While the US, UN, and OAS were all holding hands and singing kumbaya, patting themselves on the back for a job well done...Honduran human rights organizations, and South American leaders were taking a stand. Bertha Oliva, head of the prominent rights organization COFADEH, wrote:

Now the Lobo government, in an effort to regain international legitimacy, is creating a Truth Commission, an initiative that is being applauded by the United States administration. Yet COFADEH and the other Honduran human rights defenders who have spent much of our lives calling for a truth commission to investigate past political violence are not applauding. We are protesting.

The fact is, Lobo's proposal in no way resembles our idea of a truth commission, or indeed any other truth commission that has played a role in healing the wounds provoked by repressive regimes, such as those of El Salvador, Argentina or South Africa. If we were not dealing with such a tragic situation, the Lobo proposal could be considered laughable.

To begin with, this so-called Truth Commission has been given no mandate to examine the human rights violations that have taken place since the coup. The presidential decree that establishes the commission does not even recognize that a coup took place on June 28th and makes no mention of the victims of the subsequent repression.

And that's certainly just the surface of it all. Honduras Culture and Politics notes that more so than truth, what it's really about is business; the coup cost Honduras a cool 6.6 percent of GDP. Not exactly disproving the theory, Rights Action reported a few days back that one of the members of the commission is a Canadian lawyer who also represents Canadian mining interests. If you remember, mining companies weren't exactly the biggest "Zelayistas".

Meanwhile, UNASUR was holding a meeting today, where among other things, several countries pledged not to attend the EU-Latin America & the Caribbean Summit in Madrid if Lobo is invited. A pretty clear stand against the US' position, also coming as the regional grouping picked their first Secretary General, Nestor Kirchner. In case you needed more evidence of the waning influence of the US in the region.

Oh and for good measure, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement today about a string of death threats against Honduran journalists...who happened to be reporting on the killings of other journalists...ya know, since there has been at least six of 'em murdered since good ol' Lobo took office...how's that for "reconciliation"?

(photo of May Day celebration in Honduras, via Quotha, via Mario Ardón Mejía...check it out)

Investor-state lawsuits related to mining and hydrocarbons on the rise in Latin America

The Institute for Policy Studies, a lefty think tank based in Washington, DC, has a new report on international arbitration related to mining and hydrocarbon investments. Mining for Profits in International Tribunals, authored by Rebecca Dreyfus, Sarah Anderson and Manuel Perez Rocha, details how Latin America has been hit the hardest by the rise of investor-state lawsuits.

As the Count told us back in march, international corporations have been increasingly using provisions contained in Bilateral Investments Treaties (BITs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that allows them to sue governments for policies that might impact their bottom line. In other words, corporations can seek compensation for policies that, say, seek to mitigate the environmental and social consequences of resource extraction. These investor-state provisions allow corporations to bypass domestic courts and sue governments in the secretive and notoriously scummy International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), housed at (where else?) the World Bank.

Never mind the irony of housing a supposedly unbiased court of law in an institution known for prioritizing corporate interests.

One recent case at ICSID pits tobacco giant Phillip Morris International against the government of Uruguay for strengthening health warnings on cigarette packages. A few months ago Uruguay introduced a new law raising the portion of cigarette packs that had to feature health warnings. Phillip Morris considered this detrimental to its bottom line and took advantage of investor-state provisions in the BIT between Uruguay and Switzerland (where Phillip Morris International is based) to demand compensation for lost profits.

But suing for public health measures is only one example of how investor-state mechanisms are being used to fight public interest policies. According to the report, the last decade has seen an explosion in investor-state lawsuits related to natural resource extraction:

"At the most frequently used tribunal, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), there are 128 pending cases. Thirty-two of these cases are related to oil, mining, or gas. By contrast, ten years ago, there were only three pending ICSID cases related to oil, mining, or gas. There were only 7 such cases filed during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s."

What's more, Latin American governments have been disproportionately targeted. The pie chart below shows all mining, oil or gas cases currently pending in ICSID by region. As can be seen, cases against Latin American governments overwhelmingly outweigh every other region of the world.

As the report notes:

"Latin American governments make up about 9 percent of the 155 ICSID member governments. And yet they are the targets of 70 (55 percent) of all ICSID cases and 21 (nearly two-thirds) of the 32 extractive industries cases."

But don't listen to me. Go read the report yourself and find out about loads of more interesting stuff on the subject, including the history of investor treatment in Latin America and a few good case studies worth checking out too.

Weekend Update

It's late and I'm sunburned, so let's get to this:

• First off, merry May Day to all. Workers in Venezuela were treated with a 15% increase in the minimum wage, while in the US it was certainly a big day after that racist, fascist bullshit Arizona law. But maybe not as big as in Honduras...read about it (and see the pics) from the irreplaceable Adrienne Pine at Quotha...more here.
  
  
• For what's been going on in ye ol' blogosphere, check out Otto while he plays catch up...we missed you...
  
  
• Does anyone else think this Chavez tweeter thing has been pretty boring?
  
  
• While we're on the internet in Venezuela, Chavez continued his crack down on the web. He's gone so far that, as Reuters says, "Internet use has blossomed in Venezuela during his 11-year rule, especially among the poor." Wait, whaaaaat?
  
  
• Remember how the US was all like "we support democracy in Honduras", well I guess enough time has passed now. Ambassador Llorens talks some trash about Zelaya...revealing what we already knew...the US didn't give a shit about "democracy" in Honduras, they just didn't want to look bad. Again, Quotha is on it.
  
  
• In Ecuador, Correa is planning on tapping Central Bank funds for development projects...good for him. "Why does a central bank that doesn’t even have a national currency need $2 billion in capital," Correa said. What's with autonomous central banks? Autonomous from what? Democracy?
  
  
• Evo nationalized some power companies....and the sky hasn't started falling yet, but don't expect "experts" to stop saying it will. Not like Bolivia had the best growth in South America last year or anything...
  
  
• Colombia presidential candidate admits to poking smot in college....the surprising part, it wasn't this guy.
  
  
• Setbacks for delayed justice...Brazil holds up amnesty law, Peru just goes ahead and lets murderers off the hook...
  
  
• Finally for some entertainment....Like graffiti? Check this out. My favorite, what's yours?
  

In solidarity,

Structurally Maladjusted

Piñera's honeymoon coming to an end

It seems Piñera's honeymoon is ending. Yesterday the polling company Adimark released it's monthly government approval poll, showing a small two point decline in Piñera's approval rating. Of course, this decrease is within the 3 point margin of error, but Piñera's rate of disapproval has shot up 13 points since last month, reaching 31 percent.

One odd result from last month's poll was that the overall government received a much higher approval rating than Piñera personally, 60 percent vs. 52 percent respectively. This result was in part attributed to public perceptions regarding his, at the time, unresolved conflict of interest due to the delayed sale of his LanChile shares. Well now, however, the approval rating for the government as a whole has dropped 9 points to 51 percent, more or less matching Piñera's own rating.

But what accounts for the precipitous drop? As can be seen below, much of it is explained by public perception of the government's handling of the earthquake. The left side shows approval to the government's help towards earthquake victims and the right shows approval of the reconstruction effort.

[Independently of your political orientation, do you approve or disapprove of the way Sebastian Piñera and his government are handing the following problems related to the earthquake?]

An interesting thing has also happened during the last month regarding the income demographics of his support: it has fallen among the wealthiest and registered a small increase among the poorest (though the latter is within the margin of error).

Now, all in all these results are still obviously quite good, reflecting the fact that so far Piñera has actually done a pretty decent job all things considered, contrary to the left's fears. Obviously, experiencing one of the largest earthquakes on record might change your political agenda slightly and prompt some to govern more pragmatically. But nevertheless, Piñera the consummate businessman deserves some credit. Who would've expected the business presidency to talk about increasing mining royalties, raise corporate taxes and raid the military's trust fund, even if it's to pay for the reconstruction?

The Count: Cuban edition

[Editor's note: Wow, the Count has certainly been traveling a lot these past weeks! After going to China to investigate it's commercial ties with Latin America and flying to Europe to ask pissed off Greeks in the streets about their opinions of the IMF, the Count has finally come home to the Western Hemisphere. But without further ado, maladjusted brings you this week's Count.]

78.6...

...is the number of years the average Cuban is expected to live (unless they live in Miami, in which case all bets are off).

The current issue of the prestigious Science Magazine features an article (sorry, subscription-based) on the quality of health care in Cuba since Castro took power. We've all heard of Cuba's health care before, but now it turns out Michael Moore was right...according to scientists! In all seriousness though, Cuba has managed to achieve first world health levels on a third world budget and all while enduring the U.S. embargo, which restricted medicinal imports. From the article:

"Despite the embargo, Cuba has produced better health outcomes than most Latin American countries, and they are comparable to those of most developed countries. Cuba has the highest average life expectance (78.6 years) and density of physicians per capita (59 physicians per 10,000 people), and the lowest infant (5.0/1000 live births) and child (7.0/1000 live births) mortality rates among 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries."

Not bad. Not bad at all. The graph below shows average life expectancy in Cuba, Latin America, Canada and the U.S. Notice how fast average life expectancy increased and caught up to U.S. levels after the revolution. Since then, Cuban life expectancy has more or less been on par with that of the U.S. except for the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when aid to Cuba contracted sharply.
But how did Cuba achieve such good results in the face of the embargo while at the same time spending far less per person than the U.S. and most European countries? The article explains:

"Cuba has one of the most proactive primary health care systems in the world. By educating their population about disease prevention and health promotion, the Cubans rely less on medical supplies to maintain a healthy population. The converse is the United States, which relies heavily on medical supplies and technologies to maintain a healthy population, but at a very high cost."

Another side of the story, the article notes, is the government's emphasis on community access to health care and deliberate policies to tailor each local practice to the health profile of the community it serves. This, combined with universal coverage and free service, explains a lot of the outcome. To this I would add a more broader point: government priority. Specific strategies aside, what is most striking about Cuba's health outcomes is that no matter how many obstacles a country faces (such as, for instance, fending off the most powerful country in the world for five decades) it can provide free health care to all its citizens so long as it prioritizes their well being.

There's a lesson to be learned somewhere in there me thinks.

Paramilitary violence in Oaxaca

So this news has slowly made its way into the press...and there is not a lot maladjusted has to add other than pointing those who want updates from the ground from someone much better informed than maladjusted, to Kristin Bricker at My Word is My Weapon.

Check it out.