by the El Reportero’s news services
Eric Holder
The Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) concluded on March 10 that the Mexican government did not know about the US arms-smuggling operation ‘Fast & Furious’.
The PGR’s finding was contradicted by the US embassy in Mexico City which released a statement in which the US Justice Secretary, Eric Holder, is quoted as telling the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice and science subcommittee that the Mexican government did know about ‘Operation Fast & Furious’.
This was an operation under which the US Bureau of Alcohol Firearms, Tobacco & Explosives (ATF) allowed assault rifles and other weapons to be smuggled to gangsters in Mexico. The idea was to track the weapons and so roll-up complete smuggling networks. According to at least one ATF official, however, the ATF lost track of most of the weapons.
Ecuador moves onto electoral footing as court approves referendum
Ecuadoreans will go to the polls on May 7 to vote on a popular referendum tabled by President Rafael Correa. The referendum, which contains 10 questions, was adjudged to be acceptable by the constitutional court.
Correa can now partake in a surrogate electoral campaign for the next two months, at a cost of US$22m. The stakes are high. If he wins, he will be empowered, among other things, to undertake a sweeping judicial reform.
The traditional opposition, which he pejoratively describes as the partidocracy, will try and thwart him, but the main challenge will be provided by founding members of his Alianza País (AP), who have grown disillusioned with what they consider to be the increasingly authoritarian turn of his citizens’ revolution.
Piñera shows soft side to boost flagging popularity
What has gone wrong? One year after taking offi ce on March 11, Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera is struggling to arrest a declining approval rating. Contending with the fallout from a huge earthquake was a tough start for any head of state but since then he has enjoyed a boost from the “miner miracle” and benefi ted from the long mourning period of the leftwing Concertación which, after 20 years in power, is yet to provide coherent opposition.
Piñera seems to have concluded that his relentless focus on long-term targets has blinded his government to the signifi cance of sudden developments, such as the recent gas protests in Magallanes, and that he
must deliver in the shortterm.
After a major foreign tour to the Middle East, the Vatican and Spain, he plans to remedy this on his return to Chile, and show in the process that the Right has a social conscience.
Violence morphs again
The killing of Jaime Zapata, the fi rst US government offi cial to be murdered while on duty in Mexico since 1985, has overshadowed what appears to be at least a stabilisation of the gang killing rate in Mexico in the fi rst couple of months of 2011.
This stabilisation, however, does not mean that the government can claim, finally, to be winning its self-declared war against the gangs.
