by the El Reportero’s news services
Raúl Castro
On 9 June the Cuban authorities announced the conviction of a deputy minister and 10 other senior officials for corruption. Taken with another development this week, the verdicts demonstrate that President Raúl Castro is prepared to let reform have its head.
The other major development this week is Castro’s apparent instigation of a competition between China and Venezuela over the expansion of the country’s key Cienfuegos oil refinery: this move suggests that Cuban officials will have to make decisions based on the evaluation of competing proposals and a judgment of execution-risk. This will be novel for a politicallydriven economic system.
Humala promises consensual change after sealing Peru win
Ollanta Humala will become the 94th president of Peru on 28 July. Humala defeated Keiko Fujimori in a desperately close contest on 5 June, but which Humala will voters get? The radical reformer of 2006 or the moderate consensus-builder of 2011? His victory speech strongly implied the latter.
His decision to head off on 8 June on a foreign tour of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and, intriguingly, Chile, rather than Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, was designed to suggest the same. His cabinet appointments in the coming weeks will provide further clues. What is clear is that Lima will not be the axis of Peruvian politics for the next five years, and that the poorer, more marginalised voters in rural regions, where social conflicts abound, will have high expectations of what their champion can deliver.
H o n d u r a s – B a c k t o t h e f u t u re
On 1 June the Organization of American States (OAS) lifted its suspension of Honduras, imposed after the June 2009 coup d’état against the former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009).
President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras, who secured a face-saving deal on the eve of the second anniversary of the coup to end the country’s diplomatic pariah status, was triumphant. Though the nine-point ‘Accord for the National Reconciliation and Consolidation of the Democratic System of the Republic of Honduras (‘The Cartagena Accord’) reads like a list of provisions to ensure the political future of Zelaya, who returned to Honduras on 28 May after a 16 month exile in the Dominican Republic,President Lobo himself may seek to reap the main political benefit ahead of the next scheduled general elections in November 2013.
Why Ecuador matters
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is one the region’s most intriguing politicians. He is also one of the most ambitious and ruthless. The most effective critics of his administration are almost all his former close allies. Ministers who fail to deliver are dumped unceremoniously, reinforcing the image of Correa as a man with a mission. Significantly, important members of Correa’s administration are now starting to argue that their vision, especially on economic and environmental issues, has implications beyond Ecuador. The Bolivian government has confirmed Sunday the region’’s supportto its demand for a sovereign outlet to the Pacific Ocean, which Bolivia lost to Chile in a war in 1879.
In statements to the “The People’s News” program, in the state-run “Patria Nueva” (New Homeland) radio network, Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, said that this was one of the main agreements of the most recent General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), held in El Salvador.Choquehuanca said that since 1979, the OAS issued resolutions requiring Chile and Bolivia to solve the maritime dispute.
