Bush's Brush with Latin America's Drug Lords (The Nation)

[marmar]

Bush's Brush with Latin America's Drug Lords
Frank Smyth


George W. Bush has embarked on the longest trip of his presidency to Latin America this week, a junket to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico that purports to advance social justice. His journey comes at a time when oil-rich Venezuela, under the radical populist President Hugo Chávez, has eclipsed the United States in bankrolling health and education programs to help the poor in Venezuela and other nations in the region.

But Bush's trip also comes in the wake of evidence that organized crime has infiltrated the top law enforcement agencies of two nations on his travel itinerary. Each one, moreover, is playing a separate role in moving most of the cocaine reaching the United States. Last week the Bush Administration blamed Venezuela and Bolivia--another Andean country under another leftist president--for lacking the political will to combat drug traffickers. But the Administration has said little or nothing about the lack of political will to combat drug traffickers on the rightist side of the political spectrum in Colombia and, especially, Guatemala.

Fortunately, many drug suspects elsewhere in the region have already been held to account. Last month Mexico extradited fifteen fugitives, including one alleged kingpin, in what the US Drug Enforcement Administration said was an "unprecedented" and "priceless" step. Recently Colombia, too, has made what the DEA heralded as "record numbers" of extraditions, including that of a leftist guerrilla financier who was recently convicted of smuggling to our nation at least five kilograms of cocaine.

But Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has decided not to extradite rightist paramilitaries responsible for mass murders in Colombia and for trafficking tons of cocaine to the United States, saying he must offer the paramilitaries an amnesty to entice them to lay down their arms--even those belonging to what the State Department identifies as a paramilitary terrorist group. Why is Uribe so soft on paramilitaries? Last month two of his top officials fell from office over their alleged paramilitary ties, including the Colombian foreign minister, who resigned on February 19, and the nation's top law enforcement intelligence director, who is now in jail. ....(more)

The complete article is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070326/smyth

[lutefisk]

1. Am I correct in seeing more than a little irony in this?

The Reagan administration criminals in Junior's Regime have a pretty solid background in this area. I mean, he's been brushing up against them since they dressed him up to be the pResident in 1999, right? Of course Junior probably doesn't even know some of the old Reagan crooks that have been placed, like some premeditated cancer, throughout our government- they just diligently do the Devil's work while young George snorts, drinks, and campaigns.

[Demeter]

2. Chavez Has Been Liberating South America From World Debt

He's buying up their obligations from IMF and such:

http://www.pogge.ca/archives/001498.shtml

Peace, order and good government, eh?
Who promised you democracy would be easy?

March 02, 2007
Chavez Sidelining the IMF in Latin America
It’s interesting in general how greatly IMF influence has waned over the last few years. I don’t really understand it, although there are a few pointers. The news seems to have generally gotten around after the Asian meltdown and events like the Argentina troubles that IMF funding is a cure worse than the disease—not only for the countries involved, but often for the politicians leading those countries. And I’ve gotten the impression that there’s an awful lot of investment money splashing around these days, so countries haven’t had to go to the “lender of last resort” because there are plenty of other lenders.

But it seems that nowhere has the IMF’s influence disappeared so entirely as in Latin America, in good part because Hugo Chavez has been using oil money to buy bonds and otherwise lend (at much lower interest rates than the IMF from what I’ve heard) to countries in the region, allowing them to pay off IMF debt, substituting lower-interest debt to Venezuela. The effect has been dramatic, according to this article:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is squeezing the International Monetary Fund out of Latin America, the region that once accounted for most of its business. IMF lending in the area has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, Chavez has used his oil wealth to lend $2.5 billion to Argentina, offer $1.5 billion to Bolivia and hold $500 million out to Ecuador.
It took me a moment to process that—down to 1% of IMF lending from 80%, I got that immediately. But I didn’t at first register that this wipeout happened in one year! It seems as if Chavez, with his ambitious regional economic plans, concluded that the IMF would be a major force blocking those plans, and simply took them out. Say what you want about the man, he has a strong sense of strategy.

A US spokesperson objected,


“Chavez is at grave risk of running out of money,” said Truman, who is now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The article notes that Chavez is running a deficit. But Venezuela’s debt is around 25-30% of GDP (which is to say, much lower than ours or the US’). And these actions aren’t simply giving away money, either; while generally lower-interest than IMF loans (which are often very high-interest indeed) they are still loans or bond purchases—that is to say, money making investments. In any case, to some extent it doesn’t matter if he can’t keep it up—the IMF doesn’t have any more lending to replace. That job is done; arguably, rather than the IMF having political influence on the region as a lender, it is now Venezuela which inherits that influence (although hopefully it will be wielded in less coercive ways). Mind you, one thing that should be kept in mind is that all this doesn’t mention the World Bank, which I believe actually lends much more money than the IMF, although its reputation is not quite as coercive.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s economy continues to hum along. Economic growth was at 10% last year even though the oil sector actually declined slightly, and unemployment went down, while employment shifted slightly from the informal towards the formal sector.

Posted by Purple Library Guy at March 2, 2007 01:59 PM