Bolivia: Morales's Victory

Here is an excellent article and analysis of Morales's decisive (62% of the vote), yet not overwhelming victory in the Bolivian referendum. He now has a clear mandate, but still has his work cut out for him in terms of land reform and nationalization, particularly in Santa Cruz (though he won over 40% of the vote there, surprisingly). The wealthy, predominantly white minority will continue to block moves by Morales to grant some measure of social progress and equity to the overwhelming, impoverished indigenous majority.

I'm not an expert on Bolivian politics, but suffice it to say claims that Morales is a "leftist" are overblown melodrama - yes, he favors state control over some aspects of the economy, especially natural resources and some financial services/heavy industry - but these are policies that have worked to generate government revenue and provided the impetus for industrialization in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and India. For that matter, land reform was a key aspect of generating an agricultural surplus in South Korea, Taiwan, and China as well.

Private enterprise is all well and good, but there needs to be sufficient government capital to provide social programs (e.g. education and basic health care) and public infrastructure. There also needs to be some sense of equal property distribution, at least to the point where there is enough demand to generate local consumption and ensure a market for locally-produced goods. Latin American Gini coefficients typically range from 0.6-0.7, compared with Asian and European Gini's in the 0.3-0.45 range (lower = more equal). Capitalism doesn't work without the prerequisites for a market, even neoliberals recognize that, and public control of commodities and finance can be an effective way of jump-starting industrial development - as the East Asian Miracle has demonstrated. Privatization, whether or not we like it, frequently needs to come later on in the process. Sometimes, what seems a "lefist" policy in an American context is simply pragmatic policy in another context (especially a development context).

US Fearmongering and Venezuela: The Saga Continues

As I've mentioned before, the US government is notable for its somewhat imperialistic approach to Latin America. Even more remarkable is that the mainstream newsmedia tend to be implicit accomplices in anti-Latin American fearmongering, comparing "leftist" leaders with Fidel Castro when any connections are tenuous at best. Well, surprise, surprise... looks like we're at it again.

In the wake of last-month's standoff between Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, over Uribe's unauthorized attack against FARC rebels based out of Ecuador (and over the express protests of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa), it appears that even the standard label of "communist dictator" that the administration applies to President Chavez is now too tame. Instead, the administration now seeks to add Venezuela to a list of states accused of harboring terrorists, in this case based on rather scanty evidence taken from laptops confiscated by Colombian officials. Surprising, isn't it, that Colombian officials conveniently discovered incriminating evidence to aim at Venezuela so soon after a military showdown?

Although, it's probably even more unfortunate that, even after all the lies this administration has told us, we're still so willing to believe the standard line on Chavez.

Raul Castro is not an idiot...

Major newspapers today are reporting that the Cuban government is taking some fairly bold moves to re-orient itself and remove many of the more onerous restrictions the government had imposed over the years - including moves to give farmers greater autonomy over what is grown, allowing Cubans to use tourist facilities (for the few who can afford it), and allowing the sale of computers, cell phones, electric scooters, microwaves, and even car rentals.

Assuredly, the reception to such reforms will be lukewarm in the United States, but they may signal changing winds in Cuba - particularly since they come at a time when Cuba is not forced into these reforms and enjoys the support of many left-leaning leaders in Latin America. At the very least, these seemingly inconsequential reforms mean a great deal in the everyday life of ordinary Cubans. Raul Castro is not his brother, he's a pragmatic goal-oriented socialist, rather than the ideologue that Fidel is/was.

Correa and Chávez toe-to-toe with Úribe

To read most media accounts of the tensions building between Venezuela/Ecuador and Colombia, one would think that Correa and Chávez are vastly overreacting to a perfectly legitimate Colombian strike against an established terrorist organization (the FARC). Most media outlets are providing minimal background information on the unfolding events, and couching their articles in the standard line on Chávez – that Hugo is a bombastic socialist quasi-dictator out to overthrow America, this time through supporting leftist rebels in Colombia. Yet, while mobilizing the troops and sending 10 tank battalions to the Colombian border might be a bit over the top (Chávez is nothing if not emphatic in making a point), this is not a sudden, wholly unexpected event. In fact, tensions between Colombia and Venezuela have been building since November.

The reason for these tensions is not, as the media would suggest, because of Chávez’s support of the FARC, but rather it is due to the collapse of a hostage negotiation, largely the result of unbending militancy on the part of Úribe. A thorough report of the hostage issue and its current effects (from a main-stream media source) can be found here. The basic gist of things is that Úribe asked Chávez to help negotiate a hostage release by FARC. As the deal was almost closed (this past November), Úribe then removed Chávez from his role as mediator and, now that he had located the rebels, proceeded to mobilize forces in the region for an apparent military strike… which understandably drove the FARC contingent into hiding and jeopardized the hostage deal. While FARC did release some hostages in January and February (thanks in part to President Chávez), Venezuela was understandably irked by Colombia’s fickleness during the negotiations. Coupled with their ideological differences and what Correa and Chávez both view as Colombia’s tendency to act as an American “puppet state” in the region, the mobilization may be a bit extreme, but it is at least somewhat understandable.

As a general note, I would suggest the Center for Economic and Policy Research as a good news source for the alternate view on Venezuela (and left-leaning governments in Latin America more generally). This report on the Venezuelan economy is particularly interesting.