by the El Reportero’s news services
Felipe Calderón
On 2 December, the designated publishers of the ‘WikiLeaks’ U.S. State Department cables started publishing material on Mexico. The first half dozen (of the 2,500) cables to be published show the U.S. officials to be scathing about President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. Calderón’s wellknown sensitivity to any criticism means that the publication will further complicate U.S.-Mexican relations.
How Chávez is playing his rapprochement with Santos
The thaw in Colombian-Venezuelan relations that began when presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chávez restored ambassadorial relations last August has been proceeding apace. Venezuela is handing over Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrillas, paying accumulated debts, agreeing to joint anti-drugs and anti-kidnap efforts. Colombia is reciprocating by clamping down of gold smuggling from Venezuela and agreeing to extradite a suspected Venezuelan drug kingpin — a man Chávez is keen to get hold of for political reasons involving the U.S.
WikiLeaks gives Unasur a leg up
Among the standout diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in late November was one sent to the U.S. State Department by the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, stating unequivocally that the former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) was illegally removed in a coup d’état on 28 June 2009. The timing of the WikiLeaks release is a perfect gift for the 12-member Union of South American Nations (Unasur), which has just approved the addition of a new democratic charter to its 2008 constitutive treaty empowering the new regional organisation to impose political and commercial sanctions against member nations for breaches of the democratic order.`
The empire with no clothes: WikiLeaks and U.S.-Latin American relations
Criticism, concern, silence, even indifference. The release of just the first few hundred of 250,000 classified U.S. State Department memos and cables by WikiLeaks on 28 Nov. elicited a varied response from Latin American governments. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said the U.S. was left “naked”.
He is right. The fact that so much could be accessed and leaked might complicate international diplomacy for the U.S.. Where he is wrong is in supposing that only the U.S. was stripped bare. Many Latin Americans have a visceral suspicion of U.S. duplicity and will be surprised nothing more compromising has emerged – at least not yet. That some of their own governments are guilty of hypocrisy is more of an eye-opener, especially at a time when they are striving to deepen integration, and reduce U.S. infl uence in the region, through the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).
Bolivia to be host to ALBA
Defense Academy Minister of Defense of Bolivia Ruben Saavedra confirmed that as of 2012 the eastern region of Santa Cruz will be the venue of the Defense Academy of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America. In remarks to state-run Cambio daily, Saavedra said that the certero f academia studies and research is being constructed in Santa Rosita del Paquio, in Warnes province.
He recalled that the presidents of each member country of ALBA will put the academy in operation to train their military and even civilians interested in defense and security. He said that the center is being constructed at the initiative of President Evo Morales put forward in the ALBA Summit of Cochabamba on Oct. 17, 2009, as a response to foreign military infl uence and the need for ALBA members to count on their own doctrine.
