NOVEMBER   2008
Since June 2000

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA {11-19-2008} HELLO, BIG BEAR MICHAEL ROWAN THIRTY YEARS AGO, THE PITCH OF HUGO CHAVEZ was not good enough to get him into the big leagues of baseball. Today, is his political pitch good enough to get him into the big leagues of global power politics? We'll soon see as the Russian bear walks invited through Venezuela's door with its nuclear weapons bombers, super cruisers, and revived ambitions for world dominance. Lenin once said that wars are not fought to get something but to get something back. Russia has a lot to get back, including a dozen nations spun from the collapse of the Soviet Union and a reputation for warfare unparalleled in history. The Russian exercise of savage power stretches from the ancient tsars Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great to its modern versions: Lenin, Stalin and now Putin, the power behind today's nominal President Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian winter defeated Napoleon and Hitler and became the final resting place for millions of Russian dissidents who disappeared into its Gulag. The Russians -- past and present -- play for keeps. The Russians didn't invent the game of chess but are history's masters at winning it. Strategically, Russians imagine dozens of traps and evasions ahead as opponents remain fixated on the chessboard. To Churchill, Russia was "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." The Russian mind is mystical and Byzantine. Putin's life before taking power in Russia was in the KGB. All this begs the question: What is the Russian bear up to in Caracas? Back home, Russia is in a desperate, massive decline. Demographically, the population is disappearing unlike any country on earth. The country is run by ruthless mafias that have fostered an environment of chaos, lawlessness, plunder, corruption and crime. Like Venezuela, Russia is breaking down on the inside. What game can it play except for threatening its enemies with thousands of nuclear missiles that sit rotting in silos ripe for sale to terrorists? And where are those terrorists; where is the money; and where can nuclear weapons transactions secretly take place in this complicated world? This is what Venezuelans might think about as the nuclear weapons cruiser Peter the Great arrives in La Guaira: in this chess game being played with Russia, who controls the next move? Who is the king? And who is the pawn? <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {11-07-2008} WILL OBAMA COZY UP TO CHÁVEZ, CASTRO? NOT LIKELY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER ONE OF THE BIGGEST QUESTIONS ABOUT PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA is whether -- unlike President Bush -- he will fulfill his campaign vow to meet without preconditions with anti-American strongmen such as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Raul Castro. I doubt it. Judging from my own interviews with Obama and what I'm hearing from some of his advisors, there are three reasons why Obama is not likely to take chances with these and other U.S. adversaries. First, Obama's campaign vow to meet with anti-American leaders was not the product of a carefully thought out foreign policy plan, but most probably a rookie misstatement in the heat of a Democratic Party primary debate. It happened during the July 24, 2007, CNN-YouTube debate, when Obama was asked whether he would meet separately, without preconditions, with the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries critical of U.S. policies. Obama answered, “I would.'' Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton immediately seized on Obama's answer to portray him as inexperienced in foreign policy issues, and argued that she wouldn't hold such meetings because ''I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes.'' Later, Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign would turn that verbal exchange into one of its main propaganda weapons against Obama. But I have reasons to suspect that Obama misspoke during that primary debate. During an interview he had given me a day earlier, when I asked him pretty much the same question, he responded that he believed in talking with America's foes ``under certain conditions.'' After the CNN-You Tube debate, Obama had little choice but to cling to the ''without preconditions'' theme, while at the same time back-pedaling and saying that this did not mean that he would meet with anti-American leaders ''without preparations.'' It was a semantic solution to control the damage, an Obama campaign source conceded to me on Wednesday. The second reason why Obama is unlikely to sit down with anti-American foes without preconditions is that whomever he picks as secretary of state -- Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are said to be on the short list -- will strongly advise him not to take any chances. NEED GUARANTEES They will tell him that, as a young president who will be under close scrutiny because of his relative inexperience in foreign affairs, he cannot afford to hold such meetings unless there are reasonable guarantees that they will be successful. ''There is no risk of him sitting down with any of these people for a long time, unless they do something that changes the way things are now,'' a source close to the Obama campaign says. Third, Obama will want to win a second term in 2012 and will seek not to antagonize some of the constituencies -- such as Florida's Hispanic community -- that helped him win Tuesday's election. Obama won a record 57 percent of the Hispanic vote in Florida, a major achievement in a state where no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the Hispanic vote since the 1980s. Even among Miami's Cuban-American voters, who vote heavily Republican, Obama got a respectable 35 percent of the vote, according to a Bendixen & Associates poll of early voters. That's more than the 25 percent than Democratic candidate Kerry got in 2004, and than the 20 percent that Democrat Al Gore received in 2000. Obama will not want to squander his party's growing inroads into the Cuban-American community, and the state's non-Cuban Latinos, by coming across as too close to Chávez, or the Castro brothers. My opinion: Obama is likely to meet his campaign promise to lift restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, may lower the tone of U.S. rhetoric on Venezuela, and may even shake hands with Chávez at the Summit of the Americas next April in Trinidad and Tobago. But that's as far as he's likely to go. NO CONCESSIONS It will soon become clear that anti-American leaders won't make the slightest concessions to the new administration because they need to keep their conflicts with the United States alive to maintain a climate of imminent danger that justifies their authoritarian rule. Even if Obama had really wanted to meet with Ahmadinejad, Chávez or Castro without preconditions, they will not give him an opening big enough to justify him doing so. Don't expect big changes on that front. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> WASHINGTON, D.C. {11-01-2008} A DICTATORSHIP IN THE MAKING JACKSON DIEHL // THE WASHINGTON POST THIS IS A COLUMN about a country that has scarcely been mentioned in the presidential campaign, that has disappeared from the American press and that has essentially been forgotten by Washington -- which is the oddest part of the story. After all, two decades ago Nicaragua and its president, Daniel Ortega, inspired fierce passions here: Democrats and Republicans spent most of a decade bitterly debating whether to fund an armed opposition movement against his Sandinista regime, and senior Reagan administration officials broke the law in order to do so. Ortega hasn't changed much. Back as Nicaraguan president since 2006, he is denouncing the U.S. ''empire,'' succoring Colombian terrorists and cultivating alliances with Iran and Russia, which recently pledged to supply his army with fresh weapons. Two opposition political parties have been outlawed; gangs from the Sandinista Party are assaulting opposition gatherings. This month, Ortega launched a crackdown against nongovernmental organizations devoted to media freedom, women's rights and poverty reduction. Police raided the offices of a press foundation headed by Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a journalist whose mother defeated Ortega when Nicaragua adopted democracy in 1990. Having overcome his lack of public support through corrupt manipulation of the legislature and courts, Ortega is now dismantling what remains of that democracy. According to a statement in support of Chamorro that circulated last week, Ortega's ''long-term project to arbitrarily centralize power'' has ''increasingly taken on the character of a family dictatorship.'' It added: ``We call on the international community to denounce these acts that so clearly demonstrate Ortega's dictatorial designs for Nicaragua.'' Here's the interesting thing about that statement: It was drawn up and signed by a group of prominent left-wing Latin American writers and intellectuals, such as the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano and the Chilean poet Ariel Dorfman. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's State Department had nothing to say. This is part of a strange pattern. Over the past several months, Ortega has been repudiated by seven of the eight other Sandinista leaders of the '80s and by most of their erstwhile fellow-travelers. Noam Chomsky, Bianca Jagger and Tom Hayden have all denounced Ortega's anti-democratic moves. European governments, including Germany and Britain, have moved to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. The State Department has been silent. A bland statement in September urged that upcoming local elections be fair; it said nothing about the attacks on the opposition. The Millennium Challenge Corp. continues a five-year, $175 million aid program, even though the preservation of democratic institutions is one of its core requirements. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly needled Vladimir Putin about the fact that the only country to follow Russia's lead and recognize two Russian-occupied Georgian provinces is Ortega's Nicaragua -- but she has said nothing about what is happening in Nicaragua itself. It's not hard to understand why the left is so angry at its former hero. Although Ortega still proclaims himself a socialist and has joined the regional alliance of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, he regained power through an alliance with a corrupt former right-wing president and the Catholic Church -- and promptly supported a new law banning abortion. That was the last straw for supporters of women's rights, who have never forgotten Ortega's stepdaughter's allegation that he sexually abused her. Then last summer Ortega picked a fight with the revered leftist poet Ernesto Cardenal, prompting more than 60 intellectuals to release a letter ``to protest the lack of transparency, the authoritarian style, the unscrupulous behavior and the lack of ethics that Daniel Ortega has shown since his return to power.'' Why has the Bush administration appeared less perturbed? Well, the lefties point out, Ortega's hatred for the empire hasn't stopped him from exporting duty-free textiles to the United States under the Central America Free Trade Agreement; or from signing a three-year agreement with the International Monetary Fund; or from welcoming $330 million in foreign investment into his country last year, much of it from the United States. Though he is using millions in aid from Chávez to build an ominous network of ''Citizens Power Councils'' around Nicaragua, Ortega hasn't broken with the ''Washington consensus'' on trade and investment. Don't ignore Ortega In fact, say U.S. officials, the trade and aid programs are helping to develop one of the hemisphere's poorest countries. Cutting them off, they argue, would only play into Ortega's hands. Nicaragua doesn't pose any particular threat to the United States. And the lambasting that the caudillo is getting from his former comrades is probably more effective than anything the United States could say. Fair enough, except that suggests the Bush administration doesn't really mind if Ortega reestablishes a dictatorship that prompted a previous Republican administration to mine harbors, fund a rebel army and persist even in contempt of Congress. What was it, exactly, that was so dangerous then -- and why doesn't it matter now? Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> WASHINGTON, D.C. {10-27-2008} HOW TO WIN THE CUBAN AMERICAN VOTE JORGE MAS SANTOS // THE WASHINGTON POST U.S. POLICY TOWARD CUBA is at best static and at worst counterproductive, a source of increasing frustration to many Cuban Americans. This sad status quo contributes to the challenge that Cuban Americans will face on Election Day as, once again, particularly in Florida, our vote will probably help determine the next occupant of the White House. The overwhelming majority of Cuban Americans expect the next president to abandon today's failed "wait and hope" policy and adopt a policy of support and engagement directed toward opening new avenues of freedom for the Cuban people as well as enhancing stability in the United States. The Cuban American National Foundation, the nation's largest Cuban exile organization, has a predominantly Republican membership. Yet our fundamental interest is not partisan politics but helping to restore freedom to our brothers and sisters on the island. We entered the new millennium expecting U.S. policy toward Cuba to follow the effective model of the West's support for Poland's Solidarity movement and civil society across Eastern Europe. It was our hope that by seeking to empower Cuba's independent civil society through unlimited support for the brave men and women on the island opposing the Castro regime, the energy and resources of the Cuban American community would be unleashed. To this end, we have been sorely disappointed. As a direct result of President Bush's strategic blunder in 2004 restricting contact with the island, Cuban dissidents have experienced a significant reduction in material and humanitarian assistance. They are also subject to a ban on receiving cash remittances that help them and their families survive. The isolation of these and other Cubans has increased while Fidel Castro's departure from office caught the Bush administration off guard. Together, these developments have helped Raúl Castro consolidate control over the Cuban people. These failures in U.S. policy undermine important American interests. Just as a democratic Israel is a key U.S. friend in a critical region, a democratic Cuba would be a crucial ally in furthering democracy in Latin America. Cuba is important, also, because the dissatisfaction of its people under the Castro regime is bound to have a significant effect on Floridians and Cuban Americans nationwide. It has in the past. The next president must put a stop to America's spectator approach. To this end, we have presented the campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama with simple recommendations based on two basic premises: (a) the status quo is unacceptable; and (b) change needs to come from within Cuba. Our specific recommendations are: • Change the rules that make it impossible to send cash aid and allow direct, substantial and unfettered aid to Cuba's dissidents. • Lift the 2004 restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans. Removing the handcuffs that have prevented us from becoming active participants in the development of Cuban civil society will make us agents of change. • Maintain sanctions that diminish the Castro regime's access to hard currency, which it uses to help fund its apparatus of repression. • Engage democratic and reformist forces in Cuba, including those in the military and in the civilian government. They need to know that they can count on the friendship and support of the United States. • Rebuild our intelligence capabilities in Cuba; they have been dismantled over the past decade, creating a vulnerability in this nation's security. Both presidential candidates have made clear that they want to help the Cuban people achieve freedom. But Barack Obama's forward-looking and proactive approach toward empowering the Cuban people is more in line with these proposals than John McCain's vow to continue the Bush administration's policy. More of the same will not bring about freedom in Cuba, and more must be done to directly assist Cuba's opposition movement. Cuban Americans are wary of empty promises. But on Nov. 4, before casting ballots, we will ask ourselves two important questions: Who will adopt a proactive policy toward Cuba, and if dissidents in Cuba had a vote in our election, for whom would they vote? The writer is chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {10-18-2008} FALLING OIL PRICES A BAD OMEN FOR CHÁVEZ ANDRES OPPENHEIMER THE WORLD FINANCIAL MELTDOWN OF 2008 is sparing no ideologies: It has crushed the Bush administration's brand of go-go capitalism and it will put a damper on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's oil-based leftist populism. Most international economists agree that Venezuela will be the Latin American country hardest hit by the coming world recession. This is because Venezuela relies on oil for 94 percent of its foreign income, and oil prices have plummeted from their record $146 a barrel in July to about $75 a barrel on Wednesday. If the world recession is here to stay for awhile, as most economists predict, rich countries will buy less oil. The Goldman Sachs bank projected this week that crude prices will be at $70 a barrel at the end of the year, and may drop further to $50 a barrel in the case of a deeper-than-expected world recession. Others estimate oil prices will be at $65 a barrel. With these prices, Chávez will have trouble maintaining his domestic social programs, which could lead to growing social tensions. And his grandiose economic aid promises abroad will be very hard to meet. PFC Energy, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm, says Venezuela would need oil prices at $97 a barrel to balance its external accounts in 2009 -- way beyond current oil prices. Rose Anne Franco, one of the authors of the PFC report, told me that this estimate does not include foreign aid promises that Chávez makes almost daily around the world, but that have not yet been included in Venezuela's budget. That would push the threshold even higher. LOW BENCHMARKS Venezuelan officials say the country's 2009 budget is based on oil at $60 a barrel, but independent economists agree that this figure doesn't mean much: Venezuelan presidents have historically used low oil benchmarks in their budgets to be able to spend projected oil exports at will, and Chávez has done so at record levels. ''In Latin America, Venezuela is without doubt the biggest loser from falling oil prices because of the immense importance of oil in its economy,'' says Augusto de la Torre, the World Bank's chief economist for Latin America. ``Things can get very difficult because public spending is very high, and it won't be politically easy to adjust it to a lower oil income.'' Venezuela's main problem is that while oil prices have increased five times over the past six years, public spending has risen proportionally. Making things worse, the Chávez government has not substantially increased its foreign reserves to save for a rainy day, and it cannot increase oil production to make up for falling prices because many of the country's PDVSA oil monopoly's facilities have not been adequately maintained. ''The party is over, and there will be a major economic adjustment,'' says Ramón Espinasa, an energy advisor to the Inter-American Development Bank and former chief economist of PDVSA. ``It will be a major shock, given the steady rise in public spending over the past six years.'' Veneconomy, a Venezuelan newsletter, says the country may be ``on the threshold of one of the worst economic crises ever.'' With oil prices at current levels, the government is likely to devalue the currency before the end of the year, increase value-added taxes, announce a drastic cut in public spending, or a combination of all of the above, it says. It will also ''start looking for scapegoats, and if [President] Bush is no longer available, perhaps Venezuela's private sector would do,'' it speculates. BIG SPENDER My opinion: The sharp drop in world oil prices will not prevent Chávez from spending way beyond his means in coming weeks, as he seeks to win key state elections in late November. That's what populist demagogues do by definition, even if such policies lead to long-term poverty. And the coming economic downturn is not likely to drive Chávez out of power anytime soon. He now controls Central Bank reserves, which he can use to cushion the impact of the crisis. And he can always blame the U.S. ''empire'' for Venezuela's inevitable economic belt-tightening. But, if oil prices remain at their current levels, Chávez's petro-driven populism will run out of gas (pardon the pun). The megalomania of Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist president has been directly proportional to the rise of oil prices. With oil prices plummeting, get ready to see a less loquacious Chávez -- or one who will talk just as much but with fewer people paying attention. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MADRID, SPAIN {10-15-2008} WHAT WILL CHÁVEZ DO WITHOUT CASTRO? CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER HUGO CHÁVEZ HAS JUST DECLARED THAT FIDEL CASTRO IS HIS FATHER. He says that Castro phones him constantly and tells him what to do. Chávez obeys him solicitously, like a good son who admires the wisdom of his progenitor. ''The Devil knows more not because he's the Devil but because he's old,'' the Venezuelan president has said through laughter. Chávez laughs a lot, sings and makes many people laugh. Castro laughs less, because his dentures are ill-fitting and slippery, and he never sings because he sings badly and has an intense fear of ridicule. But he does send letters and ''little notes'' to his disciple to enlighten him. Chávez receives those lessons and suggestions with great expectation and talks about them in his weekly reality show, Hello, President! Recently, Castro explained to Chávez how to build a new international financial system. While Cuba is an irreparably ruined country (and that's a fact), Castro insists that he knows a lot about international finance. Could be. As Forbes magazine keeps reporting, his fortune abroad is among the world's largest. In Cuba, that money is called ''the Comandante's accounts,'' and everyone on the island was hoping that he would use it to palliate the recent catastrophe caused by the two hurricanes. But Castro didn't think it was a good idea to repatriate his money for enterprises as lacking in glory as rebuilding the 500,000 houses that were damaged. That's a vulgarity of ``petty history.'' At this stage in Castro's life, he should consider himself blessed because Chávez declared himself his disciple, beloved son and apostle of collectivist socialism, in an era when those archaic beliefs have been discarded. Castro's personal tragedy is that nobody in Cuba pays any attention to him anymore. In Cuba, for the past many years, people -- even those closest to him -- have paid him homage and pretended to obey him, but they don't take him seriously. They applaud him, because they have no other choice, but with profound indifference. No devotion will withstand half a century of interminable speeches divorced from the reality of a country that is falling apart because of the stubborn stupidity of its ''Maximum Leader,'' as the older people still call him. In turn, Chávez is a chronic orphan looking for a paternal figure to whom he can cling, a person who desperately needs an ideological guide who will organize his chaotic mind. Twenty years ago, he declared himself the son of Norberto Ceresole, an Argentine fascist who had scrambled Peronism with Islam and preached the virtues of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's Green Book. Chávez was very happy with Ceresole, until the day he repudiated him and adopted Castro as his father. The way Chávez forges political alliances is odd. He takes those relationships to a familial plane that expands like the universe. Besides his ''brethren'' Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega, he is beginning to talk about ''my brother'' Vladimir Putin of Russia and ''my brother'' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's petty tyrant, who is intent on wiping Israel off the map. It is not clear whether, by designating these characters as ''brethren,'' Chávez has placed them under Castro's prolific paternity, or if they are his brothers on his mother's side, or sired by Simón Bolívar, another figure whose DNA the Venezuelan president has resolutely appropriated. What will happen to Chávez when Castro dies and the little notes and delirious ideas stop flowing? Will the Venezuelan feel totally neglected and will he fall into a state of deep melancholy, or will he set out to adopt another paternal figure who will compensate his profound insecurity? I don't know. Latin America does not lend itself to political analysis. Over there, the cry might well be ``Prozac or death!'' <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {10-10-2008} HARD ECONOMIC TIMES MAY JUST BE STARTING ANDRES OPPENHEIMER DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE UNIVERSAL SIGH OF RELIEF that was heard Friday when the U.S. Congress approved a $700 billion package to rescue the U.S. banking system. The measure will help avoid an economic collapse, but the U.S. economy will remain in the doldrums, and Latin America will be hit harder than many suspect. Granted, the Wall Street crisis that rocked world markets in recent weeks will not mean ''the debacle of capitalism,'' as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez triumphantly proclaimed, nor will it cause the First World to ''plunge like a bubble,'' to use Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's mixed metaphor. That's not going to happen. More likely, it will mean a shift of the pendulum from the Bush administration's excessively deregulated free market economy to a more regulated one, as has happened so many times after cycles of U.S. overspending and undertaxing. But judging from what I heard from Latin American presidents, economy ministers and leading economists at The Herald's Americas Conference hours after the House passed the bailout, the U.S. credit crunch will hit us all for the remainder of this year and in 2009, if not longer. ''The shock has been so big that it's going to take some time for the American consumer to start buying again, or to start taking up credit,'' said Mustafa Mohatarem, chief economist of General Motors. “Consumer spending will be more curtailed for at least a couple of years.'' That will mean a slowdown in U.S. economic growth, the engine of the world economy, and the main source of trade, tourism and investment for most Latin American countries. The U.S. economy, which was projected to grow at 3 percent a year for the rest of the decade before this crisis, is now projected to grow by 1 percent next year, or not to grow at all. As a result, Latin American countries will see a drop in their exports to the world's biggest market, fewer U.S. tourists, and less family remittances from their migrants living in the United States. This will especially hurt Mexico and Central America, whose economies are closely tied to the U.S. market. But South America will also be hit hard by a drop in commodity markets because a slowing world economy will result in less demand for oil, soybeans and other raw materials that have fueled the growth of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and other countries in the region. ''The commodity bubble, while not bursting, is clearly deflating,'' Mohatarem said. Financially, Latin America as a whole will have greater difficulties to access foreign loans to pay for infrastructure projects or meet their foreign debt payments. In addition, the financial crisis comes at a time when many countries already are facing higher oil and food import bills. ''We have four crises that are affecting our countries simultaneously,'' Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández said. ``The financial crisis, the energy crisis, the food crises and the global warming crisis. There is no question that this will have an immediate, direct impact on us.'' While international financial institutions have not yet officially downgraded their economic projections for Latin American economies in 2009, they probably will do so soon. Augusto de la Torre, the head of Latin American department of the World Bank, told me in a television interview that Latin America's economy may grow by 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent in 2009. Previous World Bank projections, and those of most international financial institutions, were forecasting a Latin American growth rate of at least 4.5 percent for next year. THE BOTTOM LINE My opinion: The U.S. bailout is good news, but won't be enough. It will not spur economic growth unless Washington starts reducing its $11.3 trillion debt, and people renew their confidence in the economy. The next U.S. president should impose an austerity package -- much like those prescribed to Latin American countries whose financial crises rocked world markets in the 1980s and 1990s. As for who will get hurt the most in Latin America, the list will include the very countries that have been celebrating the U.S. financial crisis as the alleged ``collapse of capitalism.'' The decline in commodities prices will hurt the export income and may increase political tensions in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and other raw material-exporting countries that have been spending above their means. Their populist policies were based on sky-high commodity prices -- and that's an era that may have come to an end. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

MIAMI, FLORIDA {11-17-2008} CURRENT CUBA POLICY IS WEAK AND INEFFECTIVE BY CAMILA RUIZ GALLARDO // SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD Camila Ruiz Gallardo is director of government relations for the Cuban American National Foundation. THE WORD ''CHANGE'' seems to spark a range of diverse emotions in South Florida. For some, the word represents hope, an opportunity to adjust course with the goal of achieving a better outcome. For others, it evokes alarm, uncertainty, a rejection of past efforts. Merriam-Webster doesn't offer much help in its own definitions, which include: to alter as well as: to transform. So you can appreciate the complexity of using the word when applying it to Cuba policy, something so many in this community care deeply about. The truth, however, is that those of us who desire Cuba's freedom cannot be satisfied with the current state of affairs. Cuba is still governed by a ruthless dictatorship that systematically denies its people the most basic of human rights and freedoms. Dissenters are relentlessly tortured and jailed. An entire generation has been beaten into hopelessness, enough so that they continue to risk their lives in the treacherous 90-mile journey to freedom. Cubans are in dire need of change -- the transformative kind. Unfortunately, our current policy toward Cuba, as applied, does not provide support for that transformation to democracy. In fact, it helps perpetuate the regime's hold on power by failing to apply the teeth that were written into such landmark legislation as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 (Helms-Burton) and by refusing to emulate in Cuba the direct support of democratic opposition groups championed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. We have been led to believe that the current policy promotes tough sanctions on the regime, when in fact, throughout the past decade, we have weakened rather than strengthened the embargo. With the waiving of Title III of Helms-Burton that would hold liable foreign companies trafficking in confiscated property, we missed an opportunity to place the Cuban regime in a position to choose either to reform or deal with the consequences of international isolation. Since 2001, we have allowed American companies to dump billions of dollars' worth of products into Cuba. The regime marks up these products and resells them, making extraordinary profits. This year alone, U.S. companies are expected to sell in excess of $700 million in goods that the Cuban people will never see. In 2004, the administration further restricted family travel, remittances and care packages -- intending to place the burden of caring for the Cuban people on the regime (a burden we know the regime has never felt). Our community was misled when we were told that this was a policy that was supposed to be ''tough'' on the Castro regime. In practice, it is clear that current policy hasn't made a dent on the regime and has severely limited our ability to help support the development of independent civil society in Cuba. Today, we see that those vehicles of direct aid for the Cuban people that are paramount to a peaceful, democratic transition have been rendered ineffective. Not only are we denied the opportunity to help an extended family member in need, but we are prohibited from sending direct aid to members of Cuba's brave opposition movement and the families of political prisoners. Programs created to directly support the democratic opposition in Cuba have been fatally flawed in their application due to the continuation of a policy -- made by a mid-level Clinton administration official -- that bans aid to dissidents. So today, Cuba's brave dissidents continue to go without, carrying on their struggle with the most rudimentary of tools, subsisting on the trickle of aid that makes its way through. During the transfer of power from Fidel to Raúl Castro, perhaps one of the most critical moments in the past 50 years of Cuba's history, we surrendered an opportunity to bolster these forces. That's why our Cuba policy needs to be altered. This does not mean a weakening of sanctions. On the contrary, the embargo should remain in place until there is substantive, democratic reform. But we do need to move beyond today's policy that surrenders Cuba's destiny to the Castros and unleash the power of direct aid, communication and support that can lead to the transformative change we all want -- in Cuba. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {11-17-2008} OBAMA'S WIN CHALLENGES CASTRO IDEALS MYRIAM MARQUEZ T HE OBAMA CONUNDRUM threatens the Castro brothers' dysfunctional dynasty. Democracy and capitalism, the duo's argument goes, is only good for the white and the comfortable preying on the black and poor. Then this son of a black Kenyan dad and a white Kansas mom gets 53 percent of the vote in a country where black Americans are only 12 percent of the population. He wins over the suburbs, grabs the youth vote, sweeps the Hispanic vote, attracts about half the white and elderly vote and overwhelmingly claims the Jewish vote despite Hussein for a middle name. Explain that to 11 million Cubans -- the majority black or mestizo -- who have been spoon-fed the regime's ''racist U.S. imperialists'' propaganda for five decades. Imagine the monumental challenge of this historic moment for a regime in which Afro-Cubans hold virtually no high-level posts beyond a handful of old black generals who fought with Fidel and Raúl Castro. FORTIFIED WALL There's no glass ceiling for Cuban blacks and women on the communist island -- it's a fortified white male wall of condescending machista malice built on scare tactics. Forget the immensity of the civil rights movement, the rise of a growing black middle class, the election of African Americans and their appointment by both Democratic and Republican presidents to top Cabinet posts. Nah, just watch Mississippi Burning -- the Cuban regime's favorite TV rerun. That's the revolutionary drill. Omar López Montenegro, the 54-year-old executive director of human rights for the Cuban American National Foundation, calls Obama's election the debunking of the Tarzan syndrome. ''There's a fundamental condition to the issue of race in Cuba,'' said López Montenegro, who is black and was repeatedly detained in Cuba for civil disobedience until he left in 1992. `It's that the Cuban population has been trapped in the Tarzan syndrome -- the white superhero who has to defend blacks in Africa because, you know, those poor little blacks can't do it themselves. “That Tarzan was Fidel and now it's Raúl and it's also the political class there.'' A STARK CONTRAST Let's not discount that racism and discrimination exists -- and not just in this country but in the dark recesses of cold hearts everywhere. But nowhere have there been more efforts to eradicate racist attitudes and generational poverty -- through affirmative action, Pell grants for poor college students, housing and employment rules that ban discrimination -- than here. It's a stark contrast to Cuba's ''revolutionary equality,'' where almost everybody is poor and struggling -- except the predominantly white ruling class. Obama stands not only as the symbol of five decades of progress. He's the everyman as healer in a white world, in his black skin, marked by the dire poverty he witnessed as a small child living with his stepdad and mom in Indonesia. Those of us who worry that Obama would reward a despotic regime by ignoring its horrendous human rights record must dare to dream about the power of symbolism, the challenge that skin color poses for the Castros. Obama's win has ''dealt a mortal blow'' to the Castros' Tarzan complex, López Montenegro said. “They can't say to folks that a democratic future belongs only to whites.'' In one seismic shift, as Cuba's two old white dudes were left searching for their Tarzan tiger skins to cover their lies, Obama proved democracy belongs to all of us. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA {11-07-2008} CHÁVEZ IN A CORNER MICHAEL ROWAN TODAY'S PROBABLE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA IN THE USA changes a lot of politics in the world but nowhere as much as Venezuela. Obama's skin shade may resemble Chavez's but in every other respect the two are opposites. Obama's moderate, tolerant, pragmatic and hopeful approach to government could not be more different than Chavez's radical authoritarian dogmatism of the absurd. Obama's focus on jobs, health, education and economy presents a stark contrast to Chavez's calamitous failures in each of those areas after ten years and tons of money that he has spent everywhere but on the desperate needs of Venezuelans. Chavez is scared. Like John McCain at the end, he's doing everything in his power to change the subject from his dismal performance in Venezuela. And what better subject-changer is there than his assassination? That is a bugaboo he has used time and again since 1999 to mesmerize the voters. Chavez's culprits this time include Zulia's "Don Corleone" Manuel Rosales, Luis Posada Carriles, Miami Cubans, disgruntled Venezuelan military officers, the CIA, the FBI and maybe the ARENA party of El Salvador — a motley crowd you may think— but the president believes they presented enough of a credible threat to cancel his appearance at the Ibero-American summit of presidents meeting in El Salvador. Is it coincidental that Chavez's candidate in El Salvador's March presidential election, Mauricio Funes, fears that association with Chavez's corrupt money could sink his chances as happened to Lopez Obrador in the last Mexican election? A recent poll in El Salvador shows that 77% of voters there oppose Chavez's influence over their presidential candidates. The last person Funes wants to see in El Salvador is Chavez. Never discouraged, Chavez will launch another change-the-subject routine next week, this time with the historic visit of Russia's President Medvedev, along with Peter the Great, the largest nuclear-armed battleship afloat in the world. Chavez's hope is that when Venezuelans vote for mayors and governors in late November they will focus on Russian nuclear weapons and a re-heated Cold War with America and not the calamities of inflation, unemployment, poverty, corruption, homicide and crime that have worsened so severely during the decade of his reckless rule. Can he get away with it again? <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> BUFFALO, NEW YORK {10-29-2008} AN OBAMA VICTORY WOULD MEAN SIGNIFICANT CHANGES FOR CUBA AND LATINOS LIVING IN THE U.S., SAYS UB CARIBBEAN STUDIES CHAIRMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS ELECTING BARACK OBAMA PRESIDENT could significantly change the balance of power in Cuba and among Latinos in the U.S. because Cuba would be forced to deal with the first American administration in decades poised to strengthen ties with the country's military government, the director of the University at Buffalo's Caribbean Studies Program said today. "For the first time since President Eisenhower, the Castro brothers are becoming aware that come next year they might be dealing with a chief executive in Washington whose policy will be to reestablish dialogue leading to the normalization of relations between Washington and Havana," said Jose F. Buscaglia, associate professor of American studies and director of UB's Caribbean Studies Program. Buscaglia, who has spent the past decade traveling with students to Cuba and who has extensive knowledge of the country's cultural geography and politics, said the prospect of Obama as president sends a "profound sense of unease into the darkest precincts of power in Havana." An Obama administration will be a "perilous threat" to the reigning military government now ruling Cuba, according to Buscaglia. "Nothing could be more threatening to the long-held views of the Cuban 'comandantes' and generals, as well as to the institutions they have carefully developed over the last half century to keep their country under the tightest control," said Buscaglia. Electing Obama, with his interest to open talks with the Cuban government, would be a more serious threat to the military elites who now control Cuba than the loss of Soviet aid in the early 1990s and the subsequent collapse of the island's economy, according to Buscaglia. "Will the Castro brothers engineer a crisis to prevent the reestablishment of normal relations?" Buscaglia asked. "Will they be able to contain the people of Cuba, predominantly young and non-white, if they are attracted to a figure sitting in the Oval Office whose face will seem more familiar and whose vision will be all the more coherent than those of the elusive old men who rule their lives from a secret hospital room or a bunker in Havana?" The U.S. broke relations with the Cuban government shortly after Fidel Castro became prime minister in 1959 following the overthrow of the Batista government. Since coming to power, the Bush administration has carried on an unprecedented set of measures intended to raise tensions and impede the normalization of relations with Havana, Buscaglia said. Electing Republican candidate John McCain would send a different message to Cuba, Buscaglia said. McCain would continue to support the Bush doctrine of isolating Havana, especially since McCain seems to hold a particular grudge against the Castro brothers whose agents he still blames for some of the harshest interrogation methods used against him when he was a POW in Vietnam, Buscaglia said. An Obama victory would be fundamentally different, Buscaglia said. It could also significantly change the power structure in what Buscaglia called the "Story of Two Cities" played out in the Miami-Havana connection. After two consecutive elections won by George W. Bush with the support of the Cuban exile community in Florida, the wealthiest and politically most-powerful sector of the Latino community in the U.S. may stand to lose much clout in the power centers of what in Havana is known as the "monster" or the "empire," according to Buscaglia. "An Obama victory could change the balance of power in favor of Chicano, Puerto Rican, and other Central and South American Spanish-speaking constituencies in the U.S. that are more liberal and populist than the often conservative and sometimes outright racist Cuba-American elites," said Buscaglia. "This would be no insignificant change as Latinos become the majority of the population of the country. It could set a new tone on internal political debates and it certainly would be a welcomed change for most of our neighbors in the hemisphere and indeed throughout the world." The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA {10-23-2008} WHAT IF MICHAEL ROWAN WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF VENEZUELA had adopted the Alaska strategy for sowing its oil revenues in the population rather than the state in the 1970s? Here's what: Poverty would be all but extinguished; the middle class would include a majority of the families in the country; Venezuela's income equality would be one of the best in the hemisphere (it's now the worst); the diversified economy would be two or three times the size of today's oil-dependent economy; unemployment and inflation would be in single digits; the Venezuelan people and not the state would own a sovereign fund with hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to invest in themselves; and the education, health, social security and law enforcement systems would be among the top three in the hemisphere. If Venezuela had been wise about sowing the oil revenues in wealth creation tools for the population, it would be a First World nation economically, socially and democratically. But it was not to be. Venezuela squandered the decades from the 1970s to the 1990s by engaging in divisive political turf fights over monopolizing oil rents. The oil revenues were corrupted and the economy failed, closely followed by -or caused by- the political parties. When Chavez came to power ten years ago, Venezuela was absolutely ready to start over. If he had adopted the truly revolutionary strategy of Alaska, he, too, could have achieved virtually all the success described above. But what Chavez did was to compound the mistake of the past he said he so despised: he monopolized power and money in Venezuela. Monopolies are casinos ripe for plunder. Monopolies are breeding nests for national poverty, inequality, lawlessness and failure. In 2006, presidential candidate Manuel Rosales proposed setting aside 20% of the oil revenues as a fund for capitalizing the enterprises of the poor and for direct distribution to the people. While the idea appealed to over 70% in surveys, Rosales was defeated in the election. On election night, claiming victory from the balcony of Miraflores, Chavez ripped up a poster image of Mi Negra - the electronic card representing the population's ownership of 20% of the oil. Since 2006, Chavez has increased his monopoly over power and tons of new oil money, while the country's systems have all but collapsed. Is it too late to ask again Arturo Uslar Pietri's question: when is Venezuela going to sow its oil revenues in the nation? <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {10-15-2008} OUTRAGEOUS SUPPORT FOR THE CASTROS’ TYRANNY EDITORIAL, DIARIO LAS AMERICAS IT IS INCONCEIVABLE that there be some rulers, politicians, university professors and important media around the civilized world that not only are tolerant when analyzing the totalitarian Marxist-Leninist tyranny of Fidel Castro, but who also express themselves, many of them clearly, as partisans of that opprobrious regime. This is a regime that will soon have been in power for half-a-century brazenly violating all human rights. There are rulers who clearly express their close ties to the Castro brothers without any qualms whatsoever. They consider that tyranny as something normal, compatible with the democratic norms that many of those rulers claim to defend. In some cases these are rulers who directly or indirectly support the Castros’ tyranny without themselves, necessarily, practicing the methods of that dictatorship in their own countries. Certainly, the fact that they behave in this way disqualifies them as true defenders of democracy and true followers of it. Unfortunately, there are many in the United States of America and in the rest of the continents that get used to this shamelessness, to this way of looking at the Castro tyranny as if it were only a deficient democracy and not what it is, an absolute tyranny entrenched mercilessly from the very first moment it began in January 1959, with disguises that fooled many people. Incidentally, this happened because these people did not believe that there could be a consolidation of a regime that began with reprehensible executions and cruel reprisals against those who opposed the fledging tyranny. The executions were done applying the death penalty retroactively for real or fabricated crimes committed before the official victory of the Castro revolution. It is lamentable, more than lamentable outrageous, that in international democratic forums the totalitarian Marxist-Leninist tyranny of the Castro brothers receives an absolutely undeserved treatment when in those forums is spoken about democracy and commitments are made on its behalf. The democratic doctrine and the institutions that stem from it should not be mocked. They must be constantly dignified with behaviors that reject tyrannies such as that of Castro. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA {10-09-2008} ON THE ATTACK MICHAEL ROWAN MAYBE HUGO CHÁVEZ'S DREAM to end the "evil empire" of the US will come true. The current collapse of the US financial system was caused by running up excessive debts such as the USD 700 billion the US paid for foreign oil in 2008, including over USD 40 billion to Chávez. When confidence in getting paid for home mortgage debts waned, US credit froze, which clogged the most successful wealth creation engine in human history. Whether it brings it down completely remains to be seen. While securitized mortgages -unregulated derivative financial products- were the proximate cause of the financial collapse, the man who helped drive the price of an oil barrel from USD 11 when he took power to a high of USD 147 last July certainly deserves some of the credit, as do his partners in the drive for high oil prices and for dumping the US dollar as the international currency of record -Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden. Of course, as the US economy craters, so does the world economy, which is inter-dependent with it. This is of great concern to all states except the rogues who love global trouble because it provides opportunities for local mischief. In Venezuela, Russia and Iran -all oil states that contributed to the debt problem- a global depression presents opportunities for expanding local hegemonies. Chávez wants to control Latin America; Russia's Putin wants to control the satellite states that split from the Soviet Union; and Iran wants to control the Middle East, while wiping Israel off the map. These three in combination are, as Chávez says, a "colossus." So it is no surprise that Iran and Venezuela have engaged in USD 20 billion of projects, some of which may encourage Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions or the insertion of Hezbollah and Hamas in Venezuela; or that Russia would send air force bombers to practice in Venezuelan skies on the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 disaster; or that Russian navy warships will visit Caribbean waters for the first time since the Cold War; or that Iranian and Russian weapons are pouring into Venezuela; or that Russia will provide the nuclear reactor technology -as it did for Iran not long ago- that could be used to build a nuclear weapon. It would appear that just in case the US does not collapse from the financial mess, Chávez may have another way to make his dream come true. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {09-30-2008} THROUGH CHAVEZ, ANOTHER RUSSIAN PENETRATION IN THE AMERICAS EDITORIAL, DIARIO LAS AMERICAS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, regrettable, and threatening is the interference of old Russia in the politics of the Western Hemisphere, especially in Latin American countries, mostly in Chávez’s Venezuela. Right now Chávez is on another visit to Russia to sign trade and military agreements. These agreements, specially the military ones, have immense imperialist political importance, because Russia continues to think about restoring its traditional and historic empire that hails back to before becoming a Marxist-Leninist empire. It is absurd that a country as Venezuela, respected for its cultural history and its participation in the early Nineteenth Century in the independence of the Americas, be carrying out joint naval exercises with Russia in this area of the Western Hemisphere. The only explanation is that it is trying to consolidate a political and strategic alliance that affects the security of this hemisphere and the democratic institutions that, amidst wise and unwise decisions, exist in the region. Naturally, the Venezuelan nation, that is, the Venezuelan people, have to pay the cost of these maneuvers regardless of the fact that they are suffering privation. This can be easily verified visiting that country and seeing in the outskirts of the capital how thousands of people live on the hillsides in poverty and unsafe conditions. The alliances made with Venezuela have ramifications with other governments in this continent, especially, and mainly, with the government of the Castro brothers, who were the first ones to bring Russia into this part of the world turning Martí’s homeland into a satellite and a base of military operations of what was then the Soviet Union. The millions of dollars that Venezuela is spending in military purchases in Russia represent grave harm for the economy of Venezuela that, right now, because of the high price of oil, is not seriously affected. However, it is a fact that, sooner or later, the terrible consequences of everything that Chávez is doing will be felt by the noble homeland of Simón Bolívar. To all this must be added that the Chávez government is spending money not only in Russia, but also in several Latin American countries where it is attaining disproportionate political influence paid for with its petrodollars. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA {09-24-2008} DEEP TROUBLE MICHAEL ROWAN // EL UNIVERSAL THE GOVERNMENT has shot itself in both feet. Its domestic and foreign wounds are self-inflicted. Its problems are of its own making. For the government to play the victim of external forces is disingenuous to the extreme. After ten years of trouble, is there no one in this government that will take responsibility for what is being done to Venezuela? It is the government and no external cause that decided to centralize power over the political economy and society of Venezuela. No one forced the government to take the powers of the legislature, judiciary, prosecutors, the moral power, the states and cities, PDVSA, the military, the schools, and formerly private sector enterprises and put them in the hands of the executive. No one forced the government to spend the $700 billion since 1999 the way it did. The resulting poverty, inequality, inflation, crime, corruption and misery cannot be laid at anybody else's doorstep but that of the government. The devil did not make them do it. They did it themselves. And it is the government and no external cause that created the controversies and scandals involving Cuba, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Peru. All of those actions, from subsidizing Cuba to going to the brink of war against Colombia, were taken by the executive, usually at the spur of the moment on Alo Presidente. The decision to mix Venezuela into the Byzantine politics of the Middle East, Iran, nuclear proliferation, Israel, Syria, the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and Hamas, was taken by the executive. The decision to invite Russian bombers and aircraft carriers into the Caribbean where they have not been seen since the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis was taken by the executive. So if it turns out that Venezuela can no longer sell its oil to the U.S. and Venezuela sinks into economic chaos, while hundreds of government officials have their assets frozen there - and maybe elsewhere - we know who to blame. There is no way the president can duck from the responsibility of using his power the way he did. He did it, and now Venezuelans must take the consequences. The least he can do is admit it. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MIAMI, FLORIDA {09-18-2008} TWO HURRICANES THAT HIT CUBA, AND A TYRANNY OF HALF A CENTURY EDITORIAL, DIARIO LAS AMERICAS IT IS AN INDISPUTABLE REALITY THAT THE ISLAND OF CUBA HAS JUST BEEN HIT BY TWO ENORMOUS HURRICANES, the first one called Gustav, and the second called Ike, this one being worse than the first. They were disastrous hurricanes, not only for Cuba, but also for other countries, particularly Haiti and Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and important cities of the United States along the Gulf of Mexico. The television images show a disaster almost without any precedent in the history of the hurricanes which have hit this region. However, certain difference must be established between what is clearly seen as a disaster caused by a hurricane, and the disastrous conditions of houses of different sizes and categories, that were already in terrible conditions as a consequence of the political and economical tyrannical regime of the totalitarian communist character imposed by the Castro brothers. The footprints of the totalitarian Marxist-Leninist tyranny can be separated from the terrible rubble produced by the hurricane. It is well known that the results of the two hurricanes are, by themselves, independent of the tyranny that scourges Cuba since fifty years ago, with its aftermath of trampling on the public liberties and the poverty caused by the socio-economical system imposed, ruthlessly by a tyranny that has no precedent in the history of America as a whole. There is no need to have an extraordinary effort of imagination to see the difference between the horrible rubble and floods left by the hurricanes, and what can be witnessed regarding houses and buildings that were in deplorable conditions even before the hurricanes hit. It is convenient to take into consideration the fact that with the increase of the Cuban population, a great deal of houses had to be built, houses that due to the poverty prevalent in that country, had been built with very little money, in which, even without any hurricane, its occupants have lived in despicable conditions. And that may be understood when people see those “decrepit hovels,” many of them were destroyed, and others miraculously still standing. Of course, for those who knew Cuba and its cities before those hurricanes, and before the political tragedy that has been endured for 50 years, they see, with sadness and pain, how those houses or buildings of long ago are now, due to the tyranny and its poverty, in deplorable conditions. We must reflect, with indignation, about the suffering of the Cuban people, not only because they were hit by terrible hurricanes, but also because they have endured a totalitarian Marxist-Leninist tyranny, that of the Castro brothers, a destructing tyranny that is already at the threshold of half a century. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
 

NAIROBI, SOMALIA {11-19-2008} SOMALI PIRATES SEIZE ANOTHER SHIP EL UNIVERSAL SOMALI PIRATES have hijacked yet another ship, and a maritime group said two French tourists kidnapped at sea a week ago were being held by gunmen demanding a ransom of more than $1,4-million (about R11,2-million). South Korea's Yonhap news agency on Wednesday said a South Korean cargo ship had been seized off the coast of Somalia. It said its crew included nine South Koreans, but had no other immediate details. The East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme named the French couple captured off the lawless Horn of Africa nation on September 3 as Jean-Yves Delanne and his wife Bernardette. It said their luxury yacht was now being used to hunt more victims. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> DUBAI, BAHREIN {11-18-2008} PIRATES HIJACK SAUDI-OWNED OIL TANKER WITH 25 CREW ABOARD IN THE ARABIAN SEA CNN PIRATES IN THE ARABIAN SEA have hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker with 25 crew aboard, the U.S. Navy and the British Foreign Office confirmed on Monday.. Pirates have caused havoc in the perillous waters of the Gulf of Aden this year. The Sirius Star -- a crude "super tanker" flagged in Liberia and owned by the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco company -- was attacked on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, the statement said. The crew include British, Croatian, Polish, Filippino and Saudi nationals. The UK Foreign Office confirmed two Britons were aboard and said it was seeking more information about the incident. A multinational naval force including vessels from the U.S., the UK and Russia has been patrolling the seas near the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, following a sharp increase in pirate attacks in the region. On Sunday pirates seized a 20,000-ton Japanese cargo ship off the coast of Somalia. A Russian patrol ship also thwarted an attack on a Saudi vessel. Eleven vessels are currently being held by pirates hoping to secure ransoms for their release, according to The Associated Press. They include the Ukrainian-owned MV Faina, which was hijacked in September along with 200 crew and a cargo of weapons and T-72 tanks. Ninety percent of ships transiting the perilous seas are using a guarded corridor and there have been no hijackings inside the zone since it was set up on August 22, Danish Commodore Per Bigum Christensen told AP last week. Around 20,000 oil tankers, freighters and merchant vessels pass along the crucial shipping route each year. "Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates' ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack" said U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the Combined Maritime Forces. "Piracy is an international crime that threatens global commerce. Shipping companies have to understand that naval forces can not be everywhere. Self protection measures are the best way to protect their vessels, their crews, and their cargo." <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> BOGOTA, COLOMBIA {11-13-2008} COLOMBIA'S DEFENSE MINISTER: "FARC IS KIDNAPPING PEOPLE IN VENEZUELA" EL UNIVERSAL THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT said on Tuesday that the growing financial problems facing the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) have forced the group to seek funding from kidnappings and extortions in Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters that the main source of funds for the Caribbean Block of the FARC is kidnapping in the border area with Venezuela, while other factions of the rebel group engage in the same illegal activity in neighboring departments, EFE reported. "The best examples of these activities are Fronts 41st and 59th, engaged in extortion and kidnappings of Venezuelan businessmen and merchants," Santos explained. The Colombian minister stressed that climbing crime rates in border areas are the result of the precarious economic situation facing the guerrilla. The rebels are "so broken they no longer have money to pay debts." Santos said that one single front of the FARC owes some USD 8.5 million to the coca growers and they do not have money to pay. "In some cases, growers have been murdered for asking the guerrillas to pay," Santos asserted. He also clarified that due to the pressure exerted by troops, the rebel group is no longer the largest producer of cocaine. Santos explained that the rebels have contented themselves with the production of coca base, which has an extremely low yield for drug-trafficking organizations. "While in the past some commanders handled up to USD 15 million as 'petty cash,' today they do not have enough money to buy food for their members," said Colombia's Defense Minister. He added that the precarious situation of the guerrilla contrasted with the situation of the wealthy members of the FARC Secretariat, who own large sums of money using front men and relatives. According to Santos, the FARC are receiving less than 4 percent of the income they obtained from kidnappings when President Álvaro Uribe Vélez took office. "We have reduced kidnappings considerably. Additionally, when they kidnap, their demands are considerably lower," he said. This is the reason why the FARC are kidnapping more people in neighboring countries. The relations between Venezuela and Colombia have improved after months of tensions due to an impasse related to President Hugo Chávez's mediation with the FARC to negotiate a humanitarian swap. President Chávez has branded Santos as "enemy" of Venezuela, and claims that the Colombian official has an interest in undermining bilateral relations. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> CARACAS, VENEZUELA {11-11-2008} VENEZUELA PLANS MILITARY BASES FOR COLOMBIA BORDER VENEZUELA plans to build five military bases along its border with Colombia. Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami said the bases will help President Hugo Chávez's government fight drug smuggling, extortion and kidnapping. The bases will run along the Sierra de Perija, a mountain range in western Venezuela that follows part of its porous 1,400-mile border with Colombia. Chávez said Venezuela is doing everything possible to crack down on Colombian leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and other criminal groups that operate along the border. El Aissami announced plans to build the bases while visiting the region on Sunday. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> BAGHDAD, IRAQ {11-03-2008} IRAQ REINFORCES SYRIAN BORDER AS TENSIONS RISE BETWEEN COUNTRIES ASSOCIATED PRESS IRAQ SENT POLICE REINFORCEMENTS SATURDAY to the Syrian border after last weekend's U.S. raid against an alleged Al Qaeda hideout in Syria raised tension between the two countries, officials said. Police Col. Jubair Rashid Naief said a police quick reaction force for Anbar province moved to the border town of Qaim, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, to prevent Al Qaeda from moving into the area from Syria. Al-Arabiya television quoted witnesses as saying scores of armored vehicles were seen moving from the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi to Qaim, which had been a major Al Qaeda stronghold until Anbar's Sunni tribes turned against Al Qaeda. The police moves follow last Sunday's bold U.S. raid on the Syrian border town of Abu Kamal, during which U.S. officials say they killed a top Al Qaeda militant who operated a network of smuggling fighters into Iraq. The U.S. has not officially acknowledged the attack. Syria says eight civilians were killed and has branded the raid as aggression. Damascus has demanded that Washington apologize for the strike and has threatened to cut off cooperation on Iraqi border security in response to the attack. Earlier this week, Syria also sent additional troops to the border following the raid, but has since withdrawn them. U.S. Attack in Syria The Iraqi government has rejected the attack, but has urged Syria to crack down on organizations on its territory that are trying to hurt Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari voiced confidence the raid would not damage long-term relations, saying there is "good understanding to overcome this crisis." Also Saturday, unknown assailants gunned down a policeman on a foot patrol along Palestine Street in Shiite eastern Baghdad, police said. Violence is down sharply in Iraq since the Sunni revolt against Al Qaeda and the routing of Shiite militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq last spring. Still, attacks continue, although at a lower level. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE,TAMPA {11-02-20008} GENERAL PETRAEUS ASSUMES HELM OF CENTRAL COMMAND STEVE NESIUS // REUTERS GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, who is credited with leading a successful counterinsurgency strategy that pulled Iraq from the brink of civil war in 2007, said bringing stability to the broader region will require harnessing "all our government capabilities" and working in close cooperation with governments in the region. Petraeus assumed the helm of Central Command, headquartered here, in a ceremony Friday. The command's area of responsibility includes a broad swath of area, including the Persian Gulf Region, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Petraeus said the area holds numerous challenges, including sectarian strife, piracy and "industrial-strength" insurgencies. "The way ahead will be difficult," he said. Petraeus, who led efforts to overhaul the military's counterinsurgency doctrine between tours in Iraq, has emphasized that battling insurgencies involve more than military force. "We have all seen in recent years addressing these challenges requires comprehensive approaches that employ the whole of our government capabilities in close coordination with host countries and coalition governments and security forces," Petraeus said. Petraeus replaces Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who will be given a fourth star and take command of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised both men, delivering speeches under sunny skies as a stiff wind snapped a large U.S. flag next to the podium. Gates called Petraeus "the pre-eminent soldier-scholar-statesman of his generation and precisely the man we need in this command at this time." Petraeus's most immediate challenge will likely be Afghanistan, where violence has grown steadily over the past year as the Taliban has attempted to reassert itself. "Under his leadership, our troops have dealt our enemies in Iraq a tremendous blow," Gates said. "Now he will take aim at our adversaries in Afghanistan." Tackling problems in the region will also require diplomacy. Taliban insurgents have used a mountainous region inside Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the region, as a safe haven from which to launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan. U.S. officials have been pushing Pakistan's government to urge them to crack down on militants in the region, which is largely outside any government control. U.S. and NATO forces are also working more closely with tribal leaders in Afghanistan in a strategy with parallels to Iraq, where U.S. forces empowered tribal leaders and set up local security groups. But violence in Afghanistan has continued to grow. Insurgent attacks have grown by from 20% to 30% this year as Taliban militants have fought back against U.S. and NATO forces in mountainous and forbidding terrain. The Taliban have shifted almost exclusively to guerrilla tactics and away from direct confrontations with NATO and U.S. troops. The number of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in Afghanistan increased to about 3,000 this year from 1,900 last year, according to Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy commander of NATO forces there. Most of the IEDs are roadside bombs and about half are discovered before detonation. Ground commanders in Afghanistan have requested about three additional brigades and support units, about 20,000 troops. The Pentagon has said significant further reinforcements in Afghanistan will depend upon the pace of the drawdown in Iraq. In Afghanistan there are currently about 60,000 coalition forces, including 32,000 Americans. In Iraq, there are about 150,000 U.S. troops. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> HAVANA, CUBA {10-29-2008} BILL AYERS WORKED WITH CUBA SAYS FBI REPORT JUDI MCLEOD // ASSOCIATED PRESS UNREPENTANT TERRORIST former leading Weather Underground Organization (WUO) member William Ayers was aided by Fidel Castro’s Cuba in the 1970s, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report. The 400-page report, a copy of which was obtained by the New York Times, revealed that Cuban intelligence officers in the General Directorate of Intelligence (known by its initials in Spanish as the DGI, Cuba’s equivalent of the CIA) set up the Venceremos Brigades in which WUO members participated. “The ultimate objective of the DGI’s participation in the setting up of the Venceremos Brigades was “the recruitment of individuals who are politically oriented and who someday may obtain a position, elective or appointive, somewhere in the U.S. Government, which would provide the Cuban Government with access to political, economic and military intelligence.” (Italics CFP’s). “Three years before militant members of the students for a Democratic Society split off to form the Weather Underground Organization in 1970, North Vietnamese and Cuban officials were influencing radical antiwar strategy through foreign meetings. Many of those meetings were held in Communist countries, including Hungary, Czechoslovakia and North Vietnam,” said the report. “After the Weathermen went “underground” in 1970 when many of them were being sought by the FBI on criminal charges, Cuban intelligence officers were in touch with them from both the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Cuban Embassy in Canada.” In fact according to the report, Ayers played a primary role in the Venceremos Brigades, a role revealed courtesy of Larry Grathwohl, a man publicly described as the “most effective informer the FBI ever placed among the Weathermen.” It was Ayers who told “fellow underground WUO member Grathwohl that if communication could not be made through specially arranged Canadian numbers to flee American authorities, an individual should get in touch with the Cuban Embassy in Canada in order to establish contact with other members of the WUO. “To do this an individual should use the code name “Delgado” when referring to himself and the person with whom he desired to make contact,” the report said. The report was prepared in August 1976 after the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into charges that bureau agents had committed burglaries and carried out illegal mail openings and wiretaps in their attempts to apprehend Weathermen fugitives. Closely held, only 10 copies of the report were sent to the bureau director, Clarence M. Kelley. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> WASHINGTON, D.C. {10-28-2008} U.S. FORCES STAGED ATTACK IN SYRIA, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS CNN THE U.S. MILITARY CONDUCTED A "SUCCESSFUL" STRIKE INTO SYRIA on Sunday to kill a suspected al Qaeda facilitator, a U.S. official said Monday. The American official, who would not be identified but has access to U.S. intelligence, identified the intended target of the attack as "Abu Ghadiya," an Iraqi whose family he said has been active in smuggling money, weapons and foreign fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq. The official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the classified nature of the operation, also confirmed that U.S. helicopters and military special operations forces carried out the attack. Syrian officials lashed out at Washington on Monday for a "sheer violation of international law," saying the U.S. attack killed eight people and wounded one. Syria's state news agency SANA said four U.S. helicopters crossed the border and struck a farm about 5 miles inside Syria before returning to Iraqi airspace. The raid occurred about 4:45 p.m. local time on Sunday, the agency said. It said the helicopters hit a civilian building under construction on the farm, killing a father and his four sons, a married couple and another man. Don't Miss However, local officials said seven men were killed, according to an Associated Press report. And an AP journalist at the scene in the village of Sukkariyeh on Monday reported seeing the bodies of seven men at funerals in the village. Villager Jumaa Ahmad al-Hamad told The AP he saw four helicopters in the area on Sunday. Two landed, he said. Ten minutes of shooting followed, al-Hamad told The AP, after which he walked to the scene and found the bodies of his uncle, Dawoud al-Hamad, and four of his uncle's sons. Another witness told the AP he saw two men taken away by U.S. forces. "The U.S. is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, so this is an outrageous crime for a country who is responsible for maintaining peace and security in the whole world to act this way," Jihad Makdissi, a spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in London, told the BBC. The attack occurred near Al-Bukamal, a town home to a Red Crescent camp for Iraqi refugees. The town is across the border from the western Iraqi city of Qaim, a major route for Sunni Arab fighters battling U.S. troops in Iraq. Syria has said it has made efforts to secure the 600-kilometer desert border, but Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the U.S. commander in western Iraq's Anbar province, told reporters last week that much of the border is "uncontrolled." "We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement, not much, through Anbar because of our activities out there," Kelly said. But he said Iraqi intelligence believes al Qaeda operatives and others "live pretty openly on the Syrian side, and periodically we know that they try to come across." Syrian Embassy spokesman Makdissi said the United States cannot take matters into its own hands. Watch CNN's Cal Perry explain the implications of the attack » "They should come to Syrian authorities and share their information instead of applying the law of the jungle," Makdissi told the BBC. After Sunday's attack, Damascus, Syria, demanded that Iraq's government "immediately investigate this serious violation," SANA reported. And the Syrian government summoned U.S. and Iraqi diplomats to the Foreign Ministry in Damascus to condemn the attack, according to a Syrian diplomat in Washington, who asked to remain anonymous. The diplomat said Syrian officials insisted that Iraq must not be a staging ground for attacks on Syrian territory. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO {10-24-2008} U.S. SUSPENDS TRADE DEAL WITH BOLIVIA CONDOLEEZZA RICE: BOLIVIA'S PRESIDENT HAS FAILED TO IMPROVE ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE said Thursday that the United States is suspending a trade deal with Bolivia. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives Wednesday in Puerto Vallarta on a visit to Mexico. Rice said the suspension is unfortunate. But she said Bolivian President Evo Morales has failed to improve Bolivia's anti-drug efforts. Rice made the comments Thursday during a visit to the Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta. The announcement came as Bolivian envoys arrived at the U.S. Trade Representative's office in Washington to lobby for their country's continued participation in a regional trade pact. It rewards Andean nations for cooperating with U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. Bolivia's government has said the suspension will cost 20,000 Bolivian jobs and $150 million a year. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> WASHINGTON, D.C. {10-23-2008} US SLAPS SANCTIONS ON IRAN BANK ASSOCIATED PRESS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION on Wednesday imposed financial sanctions on an Iranian state-owned financial institution for allegedly providing financial services in support of the country's weapons program. The Treasury Department's action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets belonging to the Export Development Bank of Iran that are found in the United States are frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with the bank. The government contends the bank provided financial services to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, which controls Iran's ballistic missile research, development and production activities. The United States also alleges that Iran was using the bank to evade international sanctions. "Iran has adopted a strategy of using less prominent institutions, such as the Export Development Bank of Iran, to handle its illicit transactions," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Wednesday's action exposes the export development bank's role "in helping Iran violate U.N. sanctions so that financial institutions around the world can take appropriate steps to protect themselves," Levey added. Treasury on Wednesday also took action against three entities that the United States believes are owned, controlled or acting on behalf of the Export Development Bank of Iran. They are the EDBI Stock Brokerage Co. and EDBI Exchange Co., both in Tehran, and Banco Internacional De Desarollo in Venezuela. The U.S. government alleged that the Export Development Bank of Iran provides financial services to multiple entities connected to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. That has enabled those entities to "advance Iran's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs," Treasury said. It also alleged that the bank "facilitated the ongoing procurement of various front companies" associated with the entities connected to Iran's weapons agency. The step marks the latest effort to tighten the financial noose on Iran, which the United States accuses of bankrolling terrorism and seeking a nuclear bomb. The United States has already imposed sanctions on several state-run Iranian banks and businesses along with elements of its defense ministry and Revolutionary Guards Corps. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> KABUL, AFGHANISTAN {10-21-2008} TALIBAN: AID WORKER KILLED FOR PREACHINGSTORY HIGHLIGHTS CNN MOTORBIKE GUNMEN KILLED A FOREIGN AID WORKER IN KABUL MONDAY, the Afghan Interior Ministry has said. In a separate incident, two German soldiers and five Afghan children were killed when a suicide bomber struck an Afghan-German military convoy in northern Afghanistan, said the Kunduz provincial governor. Gayle Williams, 34, had dual British and South African nationality and worked for SERVE (Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprise), an inter-denominational Christian charity that helps the disabled, the organization's chairman said in a statement. Williams was shot in the western part of the city, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said, while walking to work. She died shortly after the attack, SERVE chairman Mike Lyth said. "She was a person who