by the El Reportero’s news services
Daniel Ortega
The controversial participation of the Organization of American States in the conflict unleashed by Costa Rica against Nicaragua seems to have lost the little sense it had and the case will go to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
After the Costa Rican government went to the OAS with the evident intention of politicizing its differences with Nicaragua, the OAS showed its total inability to mediate a problem over which it has no jurisdiction. The issue will now goes to the international court, as it should have in the first place.
Speaking to reporters on November 3, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega discredited the Costa Rican decision to involve the OAS in the dispute, because it has no jurisdiction in border matters, and said Nicaragua would go to the international court.
Later, in a rigged and partial decision, the OAS Permanent Council issued a statement clearly favorable to the government of President Laura Chinchilla, which Nicaragua rejected, saying it would not discuss the matter in that body again. Nicaragua also ignored the approval of a December 7 meeting with OAS foreign ministers, called at the request of Costa Rica in a discussion in which Nicaragua had no part.
Lobo’s legally blond moment
On 17 November, President Porfirio Lobo declared that if it was up to him he would “pardon” everyone involved in or affected by the June 2009 coup d’état, including the military and the ousted former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009). Lobo has muddled up “pardon” and “amnesty”.
On 18 November he stated: “if the congress would give me, for example, the capacity that previous presidents had, to issue a pardon, then I would pardon them all, the military, Mel and all of them”. In fact, what Lobo appears to mean is a political amnesty, which only the congress can grant, as per Article 205 (16) of the 1982 Constitution. On 27 January 2010, the congress did in fact grant a political amnesty to all the coup participants and to Zelaya. Zelaya, however, is still facing criminal charges for which there is still an arrest warrant pending.
‘Happy slapping’ in the Argentine congress
There were insults, accusations of intimidation and bribery and even a televised slap across the face in the Argentine congress on 17 November. If the protagonists hadn’t been well known legislators, Argentine viewers may have thought they had tuned in to the latest episode of a saucy telenovela instead of the latest congressional meeting to overcome the political deadlock that has thus far left the country without a 2011 budgetary law.
Colombia shuts down mafia’s amusement park
The public embarrassment caused by the irregularities afflicting Colombia’s Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes (DNE), the national drugs directorate, was such that the institution was labelled the “mafia’s amusement park” by its new director, Juan Carlos Restrepo, and as “the nucleus of illegality” by President Juan Manuel Santos.
The move to place the DNE under administration on 2 November pending an investigation into allegations of “administrative corruption” underlined the high risk of penetration of Colombia’s public institutions by narco-trafficking groups and has given the government an opportunity to demonstrate its stated commitment to confronting criminal interests head on; conversely, it has revived the debate over the accuracy of drugs data and whether the legalization of marijuana could be a viable option in the so-called ‘war on drugs’, which some argue has irrefutably failed to accomplish its goals. (Latin News contributed to this report.)
