LA Quick Hits: Cholera Kills in Haiti, Juarez (Again), Hugo and Santos, Bolivia - Not So Gassy, Peru Talks Security, PRD Drops Godoy & More

• Cholera outbreak in Haiti kills 150 thus far; not in Port-au-Prince but earthquake to blame. WaPost and LAT also follow story.
• 15 youths dead in Juarez.
• Santos and Hugo to meet in Caracas on October 29.
• Bolivia gas reserves a lot lower than previously believed.
• Colombia, Brazil and Peru talk security (notice the source link and how they play down Chavez nuke plans).
• Peru says FARC is hanging out there.
• Peru talks narcos with Bolivia.
• PRD dumps Godoy. Why did they accept him in the first place. Godoy has ties to organized crime and still sits in Chamber of Deputies. He is immune from prosecution while in office.
• PAN's preemptive strike against AMLO fails - they should just ignore him. They are turning him into a martyr...again.
• Colombia has more fauna under threat than any country in world, save Mex.
• Susana Villaran still has a 14K vote lead in Lima mayoral race with over 88% of votes counted.

LA Quick Hits: Hugo & the Banks, Cubans Doubtful About Change, Peru Talking FTA as Exports Explode & I Wish My Girlfriend Was Colombian

• Since he has not done enough to frighten off investment and squelch any hope for private sector growth, Hugo is going after the banks now. He also gives a hat tip to Correa for coming up with the idea of not allowing banks to have ownership stake in media.
• Cubans sceptical of Raul's promise for economic change, they have seen this all before.
• Peru has started FTA talks with Central America.
• Year-to-year, Peruvian exports shot up a shade over 40%, imports were up 38%.
• Colombians only buy 2.2 shoes a year?

Next to Hugo, Sean Penn is Sane

In "Hugo Boss" Christopher Hitchens recounts his time with Hugo and Sean Penn. Same title as a good Foreign Policy piece (subscription only) from a couple of years back. Anyway the best part for me is glimpse into the mind of Hugo:

It did not take long for this hero-obsession to disclose itself in bizarre forms. One evening, as we were jetting through the skies, Brinkley mildly asked whether Chávez's large purchases of Russian warships might not be interpreted by Washington as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The boss's response was impressively immediate. He did not know for sure, he said, but he very much hoped so. "The United States was born with an imperialist impulse. There has been a long confrontation between Monroe and Bolívar. … It is necessary that the Monroe Doctrine be broken." As his tirade against evil America mounted, Penn broke in to say that surely Chávez would be happy to see the arrest of Osama Bin Laden.

I was hugely impressed by the way that the boss scorned this overture. He essentially doubted the existence of al-Qaida, let alone reports of its attacks on the enemy to the north. "I don't know anything about Osama Bin Laden that doesn't come to me through the filter of the West and its propaganda." To this, Penn replied that surely Bin Laden had provided quite a number of his very own broadcasts and videos. I was again impressed by the way that Chávez rejected this proffered lucid-interval lifeline. All of this so-called evidence, too, was a mere product of imperialist television. After all, "there is film of the Americans landing on the moon," he scoffed. "Does that mean the moon shot really happened? In the film, the Yanqui flag is flying straight out. So, is there wind on the moon?" As Chávez beamed with triumph at this logic, an awkwardness descended on my comrades, and on the conversation.

LA Quick Hits: Calderon Still Talking Security, Hugo Isn't, But He Should, Hugo Skipping Mercosur, Chincilla Wants to Cash In & More

• Calderon acknowledges the need to open a new chapter in the battle to provide security for Mexico.
• There is a security problem in Venezuela and the opposition promises to make it an issue. The only city in LatAm that has suffered more? Ciudad Juarez.
• Momentum for Honduran recognition continues. Mex and Chile give a thumbs up to the Lobo government. Don't hold your breath for the Legion of Doom following suit.
• Hugo is not going to make it to the next Mercosur summit in Argentina. Cites the tensions with Colombia.
• Chinchilla met with Red Chinese FM Yang Jiechi. The Ticos are trying to cash in on their switch from ROC to PRC recognition - they asked for a donation to finish a four-lane expressway.
• The Santiago exchange soared to a historical high of 4,418.66

LA Quick Hits: UNA-USELESS, Hugo Moves Troops, Nacho Not So Libre &, Ships Sit

• UNASUR's attempt to mediate Venezuela/Colombia kerfluffle fizzles. Hugo then moves Venezuelan troops to the border.
• Sinaloa Cartel drug lord "Nacho" Coronel was killed. He is an ally of Sinaloa kingpin, "Chapo" Guzman. NYT posits that people aren't going to feel safer.
• 30 ships have been waiting over two weeks to be offloaded at Port of Cabello in Venezuela. This as scandal grows over the way Ports allocate resources.

LA Quick Hits: Mex Drug Cartels Go South, Don Diego Lives!, Correa the Commie, Begging Bolivia & More

• Colombia is not backing down on its FARC accusations and tells Hugo where to stick his "Plan de Paz."
• Great piece in WaPost on Mex Drug Cartel Violence going to Central America. Did you know that homicides per capita in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras far outstrip Mexico's?
• Kidnappers of Don Diego release photo and letter. Depressing and awful.
• Correa starts to set the stage to nationalize petrol companies.
• Ortega talks up US Sec of Labor Solis, kind of nauseating actually. She is visiting the Nicas.
• Alvaro Vargas Llosa is cautiously optimistic about the release of political prisoners in Cuba. Even then, he is too optimistic. The Church got a role in all of this because Ortega is a tool and can be manipulated not because it brings anything to the table.
• US Charges d' Affaires in Bolivia whines and begs Evo to cooperate in fight against narcos. Seriously, why should he? So the US can help the way they help Mex? The way they helped sink Colombia to the brink of collapse? Why should they lift bring more killing, corruption and crime just to raise the price of cocaine by $1 a kilo? Evo should give him the middle finger and say - "We don't snort or smoke, you deal with it."
• Maradona is out - the vote was unanimous.
• Peru's State of the Union/4th of July is tomorrow - one legislator's plea..."Don't lie."

LA Quick Hits: FCH - Security Important, Hugo is Scared, 2 Cool 4 School, Cristina Knocks US (Again), Samper Whines, Have a Coke and a Smile & More

• Understatement of the day: Calderon says security is a national priority.
• Blake says Calderon has told him to focus on security.
• Hugo declines Santos inauguration invite and threatens to break off relations. He said he feared for his life if he went to Colombia.
• Four Colombian reporters detained in Venezuela won't be sent back till Monday.
• It's so hot over here that I sweat just think about going outside, but in the southern cone they are freezing their butts off. Bolivia is closing the schools through Wednesday.
• In Bolivia drug traffickers have made inroads in 27 impoverished communities.
• Cristina backs Mex on Arizona law...imagine my surprise.
• Former Prez Samper laments the decline of the Liberal Party and looks to the PRI for inspiration. Read the interview and see why the Libs in Colombia have no chance. Vague notions and embittered sniping is not going to get anyone elected.
• It's been awhile but activists want justice for the Bolivian disappeared and those that suffered under the Meza regime.
• Coca Colla takes the fizzy drink industry back to its roots, so to speak.

LA Quick Hits: FARC in Venezuela, Hugo Gets Pissed, Santos Invites Neighbors, Car Bomb in Mex, Killing Labor, Bolivar is Dead, Peru "Slows" & More

• FARC and ELN leaders are chilling out in Venezuela. Colombians have pictures and film to prove it - the evidence goes back to 2002 and...
• Venezuela is SHOCKED by the allegations...Hugo pulls his ambassador from Colombia. That Ambassador must have some pretty awesome frequent flier miles.
• You're invited! Santos invites Hugo and Correa to his inauguration...good luck with that.
• First car bomb in Mexico's drug war goes off in Ciudad Juarez - four dead.
• Mexican drug cartels have US made grenades.
• Argentina oks same-sex unions - Cristina takes a swipe at the US, of course.
• Hugo's unions take on the old unions and 75 union leaders have died. How come we only hear about Colombia?
• Cuban Commie spy is sentenced for life. His wife gets off easy with only six and three quarter years.
• Not a parody - Hugo exhumes Simon Bolivar, speaks to the remains and relates it all to a national audience. The crazy thing is that if he ran tomorrow, Hugo would probably still get re-elected.
• Cardinal Ortega visited US in June - met someone, but Obama Admin is not confirming who.
• Peruvian economy continues to sizzle, growing 9.2% in May
• Happy Birthday Plan Colombia! $8 billion, 84% reduction in terrorist attacks, 88% reduction in kidnappings, 58% in coca production and 45% reduction in homicides.
• Correa gears up for war against crime.
• Ten candidates for Prez of Brazil, only Dilma and Serra matter.
• Twelve Candidates for Mayor of Lima, right and center right candidates leading.

The Hugo Dems

WSJ has an editorial on what it labels the "Chavez Democrats." WSJ correctly castigates the Dems for trying to slap down Colombia during its high stakes confrantation with Hugo. They also note that the "soft power" lovers of the left seem to have forgotten what soft power is about:

Even as Mr. Chávez was doing his war dance, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus was warning the White House not to send the Colombia deal to the Hill for a vote without the permission of Democratic leaders. He was seconded by Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, who told Congress Daily that "they don't have the votes for it, it's not going to come on the floor," adding that "what they [the White House] don't understand it's not the facts on the ground, it's the politics that's in the air."

Mr. Rangel is right about the politics. No matter what U.S. strategic interests may be in Colombia, this is an election year in America. And Democrats don't want to upset their union and anti-trade allies. The problem is that the time available to pass anything this year is growing short. The closer the election gets, the more leverage protectionists have to run out the clock on the Bush Presidency. The deal has the support of a bipartisan majority in the Senate, and probably also in the House. Sooner or later the White House will have to force the issue.

Unfortunately the ed. goes overboard bringing up the supposed fraud of the Hugo recall of 2004. Fraud or not he still had overwhelming support at the time. It was unlikely that he would have been defeated in that instance. WSJ singles out my personal favorites Delahunt and Dodd as being particularly close to Hugo:

These are the same Democrats who preach the virtues of "soft power" and diplomacy, while deriding Mr. Bush for being too quick to use military force. But trade is a classic form of soft power that would expand U.S. and Latin ties in a web of commercial interests. More than 8,000 U.S. companies currently export to Colombia, nearly 85% of which are small and medium-sized firms. Colombia is already the largest South American market for U.S. farm products, and the pact would open Colombia to new competition and entrepreneurship.

Which brings us back to Mr. Chávez and his many Democratic friends. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's early support helped the strongman consolidate his power. Former President Jimmy Carter blessed Mr. Chávez's August 2004 recall victory, despite evidence of fraud. And then there are the many House Democrats, current and former, who have accepted discount oil from Venezuela and then distributed it in the U.S. to boost their own political fortunes. Joseph P. Kennedy II and Massachusetts Congressman Bill Delahunt have been especially cozy with Venezuela's oil company. If Democrats spurn free trade with Colombia, these Democratic ties with Mr. Chávez will deserve more political scrutiny.

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both competing for union support. But if they wanted to demonstrate their own Presidential qualities, they'd be privately telling Ms. Pelosi to pass the Colombia pact while Mr. Bush is still in office. That would spare either one of them from having to spend political capital to pass it next year.Instead, both say they oppose the deal on grounds that Mr. Uribe has not done more to protect "trade unionists." In fact, Mr. Uribe has done more to reduce violence in Colombia than any modern leader in Bogotá. The real question for Democrats is
whether they're going to choose Colombia -- or Hugo Chávez.

Uribe, Chavez & Correa Hold Hands and Sing Kumbaya

The mess is over...for now. More on this later when I can expand on it.

Kaplan's Kolkata and Kaplan's Colombia

Robert Kaplan has a new piece in the April issue of The Atlantic. I would love to post it but it's not up yet on their site. Kaplan is obviously still working on his new book, this article is about his visit to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Apparently the name was changed in 2001. I want to say more but today is our baby girl's baptism and my wife is going to beat me posterior if I don't start wrapping this up.

CSM pronounced The Atlantic's daily post The Current as one of its "Monitor Picks." This is what they said:

Struggling to find time to wade through a 5,000-word essay on global affairs? Go the easier route, and check out The Current, where Atlantic scribes offer their pithy takes on timely topics.

Kaplan was a recent contributer with his take on Colombia and Alvaro Uribe which I consider spot on:

Venezuelan megalomaniac Hugo Chavez's dispatch of troops to the Colombian border is meant not just as an affront to the Colombians but to Colombia's ally, the United States. Chavez must have deep sense of inferiority, because Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez is everything Chavez is not. Indeed, handicapped for size and importance of the country, Colombian President Uribe is the most impressive and successful ruler in the democratic world. A quiet, workaholic, he is the opposite of a demagogue. If Pakistan or Iraq had an Uribe, they would both be increasingly out-of-the-news success stories.

Hugo the FARC Lover

Hugo is making some noises and Correa is following his lead. Myles Frechette, a former ambassodor to Colombia, made the rounds in the papers. I don't want to read too much into it but it appears to me that the Frechette tailored his message to his audience. For the Herald Frechotte cited Hugo's motivation for his actions:

"You'll see a lot of [diplomatic] movement in the next few days,'' Frechette said, adding, "Chávez is playing to the cheap seats in Venezuela. His ratings are down. The economy is suffering, and the people know it. He's using this as a smoke screen. Note that Chávez has carefully not said he'll attack Colombia"

In the WaPost piece Frechette goes out of his way to say that Uribe is the one in dire straights:

"Uribe has got to go down there, meet with Correa, calm him down, and he's going to have Chávez fuming at the border," Frechette said. Uribe is "in a pickle, in the sense that diplomatically he's got to get himself out of this corner that he's got himself in."

Every piece even the one at NYTimes notes Chavez is gets along fine with the FARC. NYTimes article defined Chavez/FARC relations as warm and noted, just like WaPost, that Reyes and Hugo had met three times.

Chavez Exposed

Chavez takes a double barreled blast from Foreign Affairs and The Economist. The devastating take down in Foreign Affairs lays bare Hugo's "Empty Revolution." Francisco Rodriguez notes that much of what has been accepted by even Hugo's enemies, that he has generously invested resources on the impoverished, that he has improved health care and that he has attacked illiteracy is in fact all myth. Ironically The Economist is one of those cited as swallowing the Bolivarian lie. This week The Economist checks out the Rodriguez piece and sets the record straight on Hugo's failure on the literacy front:

The literacy scheme was one of a clutch of social “missions” organised by Mr Chávez in 2003, when he faced possible defeat in a recall referendum on his presidency. The government claims that by October 2005 it had all but eliminated illiteracy. That claim has become a centrepiece of the international propaganda effort on behalf of Mr Chávez's “revolution”. But there is no data to support it. Many educationalists doubt it. Even the government itself has retreated from its initial figure of “less than 1% illiteracy” to a figure of around 4%, though it is not clear whether this refers just to adults or to the total population.

It is notoriously difficult to obtain precise literacy figures from census data, which rely on self-assessment. But Francisco Rodríguez of Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Daniel Ortega of IESA, a Caracas business school, have used household surveys from the national statistical institute to assess the programme. In an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Mr Rodríguez says that they found “little evidence” of any “statistically distinguishable effect on Venezuelan illiteracy”. Where the government says it taught 1.5m, the study found that only 1.1m were illiterate to begin with, and that the fall over the 2003-05 period was less than 100,000. Even this improvement could largely be explained by a long-term demographic trend (many illiterate adults are elderly and die off).

Adán Chávez, who is the education minister as well as the president's brother, has complained of statistical “manipulation” by the government's foes. But Mr Rodríguez, for one, is no reactionary; he was the chief economist of Venezuela's National Assembly in 2000-04, and was once a chavista sympathiser.

Last year the statistics institute launched its own study on the impact of the social missions. This was supposed to be ready by January. But delays in buying equipment mean it has yet to start, according to Irene Gurrea, the economist in charge. Asked if there were any reliable statistics on the impact of Misión Robinson, Ms Gurrea said: “As far as we know, no—that's why we're doing the study.”

Staff of an older literacy programme run by Fe y Alegría, a Catholic charity, say they continue to enroll students. In Machiques, near the Colombian border, 100 joined in the past semester. They say that up to 40% of the Warao Indians in the Orinoco delta are illiterate. In 2005 Mr Chávez told local officials to declare their towns officially “illiteracy free”. Knowing this to be untrue, the mayor of Machiques resisted, but gave in to pressure, according to Jesús Vilorio, who works for Fe y Alegría.

It is not hard to find individuals like Ms Silva who say their lives were changed by Misión Robinson. But the missions have gone hand-in-hand with neglect of schools and hospitals. Mr Rodríguez estimates that Robinson spent $1,000 for each of its literate graduates, compared with around $60 for other literacy schemes in Latin America. At the least, that money could have been better spent.

The Rodriguez case in Foreign Affairs does not stop with the withering attack on Hugo's literacy propaganda. First there is the failure of Hugo's antipoverty programs:

Soon after joining the National Assembly, I clashed with the administration over underfunding of the Consolidated Social Fund (known by its Spanish acronym FUS), which had been created by Chávez to coordinate the distribution of resources to antipoverty programs. The law establishing the fund included a special provision to ensure that it would benefit from rising oil revenues. But when oil revenues started to go up, the Finance Ministry ignored the provision, allocating to the fund in the 2001 budget only $295 million -- 15 percent less than the previous year and less than a third of the legally mandated $1.1 billion. When my office pointed out this inconsistency, the Finance Ministry came up with the creative accounting gimmick of rearranging the law so that programs not coordinated by the FUS would nevertheless appear to be receiving resources from it. The effect was to direct resources away from the poor even as oil profits were surging. (Hard-liners in the government, incensed by my office's criticisms, immediately called for my ouster. When the last moderates, who understood the need for an independent research team to evaluate policies, left the Chávez camp in 2004, the government finally disbanded our office.)

Rodriguez notes that income inequality has actually increased during Hugo's tenure:

One would expect such a consensus to be backed up by an impressive array of evidence. But in fact, there is remarkably little data supporting the claim that the Chávez administration has acted any differently from previous Venezuelan governments -- or, for that matter, from those of other developing and Latin American nations -- in redistributing the gains from economic growth to the poor. One oft-cited statistic is the decline in poverty from a peak of 54 percent at the height of the national strike in 2003 to 27.5 percent in the first half of 2007. Although this decline may appear impressive, it is also known that poverty reduction is strongly associated with economic growth and that Venezuela's per capita GDP grew by nearly 50 percent during the same time period -- thanks in great part to a tripling of oil prices. The real question is thus not whether poverty has fallen but whether the Chávez government has been particularly effective at converting this period of economic growth into poverty reduction. One way to evaluate this is by calculating the reduction in poverty for every percentage point increase in per capita income -- in economists' lingo, the income elasticity of poverty reduction. This calculation shows an average reduction of one percentage point in poverty for every percentage point in per capita GDP growth during this recovery, a ratio that compares unfavorably with those of many other developing countries, for which studies tend to put the figure at around two percentage points. Similarly, one would expect pro-poor growth to be accompanied by a marked decrease in income inequality. But according to the Venezuelan Central Bank, inequality has actually increased during the Chávez administration, with the Gini coefficient (a measure of economic inequality, with zero indicating perfect equality and one indicating perfect inequality) increasing from 0.44 to 0.48 between 2000 and 2005.

In fact by almost every measure things have managed to get worse for many Venezuelans:

...official statistics show no signs of a substantial improvement in the well-being of ordinary Venezuelans, and in many cases there have been worrying deteriorations. The percentage of underweight babies, for example, increased from 8.4 percent to 9.1 percent between 1999 and 2006. During the same period, the percentage of households without access to running water rose from 7.2 percent to 9.4 percent, and the percentage of families living in dwellings with earthen floors multiplied almost threefold, from 2.5 percent to 6.8 percent.

How about that largesse being diverted to the poor? Non-existent says Rodriguez, although he eschews raw numbers and goes by percentage of the budget:

Remarkably, given Chávez's rhetoric and reputation, official figures show no significant change in the priority given to social spending during his administration. The average share of the budget devoted to health, education, and housing under Chávez in his first eight years in office was 25.12 percent, essentially identical to the average share (25.08 percent) in the previous eight years. And it is lower today than it was in 1992, the last year in office of the "neoliberal" administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez -- the leader whom Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, tried to overthrow in a coup, purportedly on behalf of Venezuela's neglected poor majority.

Health stats are also quite bleek:

In a number of recent studies, I have worked with colleagues to look more systematically at the results of Chávez's health and education misiones. Our findings confirm that Chávez has in fact done little for the poor. For example, his government often claims that the influx of Cuban doctors under the Barrio Adentro health program is responsible for a decline in infant mortality in Venezuela. In fact, a careful analysis of trends in infant and neonatal mortality shows that the rate of decline is not significantly different from that of the pre-Chávez period, nor from the rate of decline in other Latin American countries. Since 1999, the infant mortality rate in Venezuela has declined at an annual rate of 3.4 percent, essentially identical to the 3.3 percent rate at which it had declined during the previous nine-year period and lower than the rates of decline for the same period in Argentina (5.5 percent), Chile (5.3 percent), and Mexico (5.2 percent).

Bills are coming due:

But by late 2007, Chávez's economic model had begun to unravel. For the first time since early 2004, a majority of voters claimed that both their personal situation and the country's situation had worsened during the preceding year. Scarcities in basic foodstuffs, such as milk, black beans, and sardines, were chronic, and the difference between the official and the black-market exchange rate reached 215 percent. When the Central Bank board received its November price report indicating that monthly inflation had risen to 4.4 percent (equivalent to an annual rate of 67.7 percent), it decided to delay publication of the report until after the vote on the constitutional reform was held.

This growing economic crisis is the predictable result of the gross mismanagement of the economy by Chávez's economic team. During the past five years, the Venezuelan government has pursued strongly expansionary fiscal and economic policies, increasing real spending by 137 percent and real liquidity by 218 percent. This splurge has outstripped even the expansion in oil revenues: the Chávez administration has managed the admirable feat of running a budget deficit in the midst of an oil boom.

But Rodriguez doubts Hugo can do what it takes to fix things:

A sensible solution to Venezuela's overexpansion would require reining in spending and the growth of the money supply. But such a solution is anathema to Chávez, who has repeatedly equated any call for spending reductions with neoliberal dogma. Instead, the government has tried to deal with inflation by expanding the supply of foreign currency to domestic firms and consumers and increasing government subsidies. The result is a highly distorted economy in which the government effectively subsidizes two-thirds of the cost of imports and foreign travel for the wealthy while the poor cannot find basic food items on store shelves. The astounding growth of imports, which have nearly tripled since 2002 (imports of such luxury items as Hummers and 15-year-old Scotch have grown even more dramatically), is now threatening to erase the nation's current account surplus.

Bookpages: Hugo Books Reviewed in NYT

At the Sunday Book Review Daniel Kurtz-Phelan checks out Hugo Chavez by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka as well as the entusiastically titled ¡Hugo! by Herbert Matthews...um I mean Bart Jones, who should not be confused with Bert Jones.

I'll keep this brief since I am a bit sleepy. Marcano and Barrera Tyszka's book is a pretty clunky translation of the original Spanish but it is the better of the two. Jones is a boot licking sycophant who loves his Hugo.

More Hugo and His Plan for LA

Writing in the Hoover Digest where he hangs his hat William Ratliff uses W's tour of LA as an excuse to assess Hugo's vision for LA:

Polls in Latin America have found Bush slightly more popular personally than Chávez, but many Latins nonetheless resonate in varying degrees to much of what the Venezuelan has to say, and much more so now than 10 years ago. He has eagerly taken the role Fidel Castro held for decades as the region’s foremost anti-American purveyor in chief of false hope. If one flushes out the incessant ad hominem attacks on Bush and other American leaders, Chávez’s message can be boiled down to three points:

1. Most of Latin America is plagued by seemingly intractable poverty and inequality.
2. The United States and entrenched domestic elites and institutions are responsible for this.
3. Chávez’s “twenty-first-century socialism” is the hope for the impoverished masses who seek a free and prosperous future.

He is dead right on the first point, partly right on the second, and dead wrong on the third.

On to our friend Hugo:

Chávez is a newfangled old-fashioned caudillo who is far more inclined toward faith than objective analysis. That faith is in Himself, the new messiah whose gospel is twenty-first-century socialism. Chávez talks of socialism, but his style is left-fascism; his sermons and actions lead to authoritarian paternalism, and not the nurturing sort. Its essence is simple: “Go home, gringo, and leave Latin America to Latins—and to Me.”

This is the earthly salvation offered by every Chavista messiah in Latin America today. But tragically, Chávez’s gospel is just corked wine in a new bottle. Twenty-first-century socialism is an aggressive and globalized rehash of the type of rule that caused and sustained Latin America’s underdevelopment over the centuries. It is the latest adaptation of the late fifteenth-century Iberian view of God, man, and institutions that over many centuries made and kept Latin America the most unequal region on earth.

Stop for a second..."most unequal region on earth." Is it really more unequal than Africa? It's not that I don't believe him but give me a stat or a footnote.

So what does LA need?

Thus Latin America’s real needs now, as in centuries past, are precisely the opposite of Chavista authoritarian socialism. It needs greater pluralism, economic liberalization, truly free trade, much higher-quality governance, greatly expanded and improved education, and more opportunity under impartial law. These policies must be put into practice in individual countries by their own leaders with popular insistence and support. Latin America is not likely to have reforms in an “Asian” mold, for those have often relied on superior leaders combining vision, realism, and patience who have not turned up often in the Latin world. Up to now, most Latins have been unwilling, which is their choice, or unable to significantly modify traditional cultural or institutional norms that prevent their societies from growing like the Asian “tigers” and “dragons.” Thus, much of Latin America is rapidly falling behind other parts of the developing world, particularly Asia.

As for our role, it is not so well defined in this piece -

Although U.S. policy itself cannot erase this Latin tradition of avoiding responsibility, it can foster reform, if Latins want it enough to sacrifice for it. Such reform also would serve U.S. interests. Besides changing some of the counterproductive U.S. policies toward Latin America, which no recent president yet has been able to do, there are other steps we can take.

President Bush’s newly discovered interest in social justice and other issues at the top of Latin agendas is a big step in the right direction. His 2007 trip was far more effective than the one to the APEC forum in Santiago, Chile, in late 2004, when he struck out with Latin public opinion while a much more personable Chinese President Hu Jintao was hitting a home run.

Finally our focus should not necessarily be on Chavez but the rest of LA:

Despite his links to Iran and Russia, Chávez is primarily a threat not to the United States but to the well-being of Latin Americans. His “socialism” will further reduce their chances of prospering or even surviving in the modern world—and that is what collides most seriously with the interests of the United States. Thus our strategy in combating him and his ideas is more constructive attention to the region as a whole, not direct combat with Caracas.

Castro Playbook: Hugo

Hugo is now taking aim at the private schools.

LA Quick Hits: Evo is Loved, Hugo Beats China, Ecuador Kicks US Out, Lula's Package, Calderon Fights and Fights, Harleys in Havana & More

• One year in and Evo is still popular but divisive. What helps is the increased revenue from his nationalization program and that the economy is still growing. Evo marked the anniversary with a Fidel-esque 4 1/2 hour speech.
  
• The biggest customer in the arms market since 2005? Would you believe Hugo? Venezuela chipped in $4.3 billion to buy weapons and other military hardware (en esp.) while the China Reds ponied up $3.4 billion.
• Ecuador made clear that it is booting the US from the base in Manta (en esp.) in 2009, when the pact with US expires. Ecuador also looks to get into the LA arms race. (en esp.)
• CSM's excellent series on Calderon continues. Now the discussion focuses on his economic policy particularly the difficulty of dealing with monopolies. Ironically FT has a story on Calderon's planned assault on monopolies.
• Lula unveiled his growth package and it was bigger than expected.
• Calderon unveiled an 8-point plan to fight the drug war. He plans to rely more on local police in the future.
• Speaking of the police in Mex another cop was killed in Monterrey and...
• ...police in Tijuana are using slingshots, while they wait for their guns back.
• Miami (and Hugo) has given us a new pressure group Independent Venezuelan-America Citizens. They seem to be following the CANF model except that they will try to reach out to middle America by speaking English.
• Danny sliced his salary and those of his cabinet. (en esp.)
• Having a Harley in Cuba isn't easy.
  

LA Quick Hits: Hugo Talks (and Talks and Talks), Nutty Correa, Lula's Plan, Evo is Stuck, Monterrey, Cuba Libre! and More

• Hugo's babfest, Alo Presidente, was back on the air. Hugo told US to "go to hell," spoke of Brazilian babes in string bikinis, the hanging of Saddam, a plan to jack up taxes, raise the famously low price of Venezuelan gasoline and his plan to not pay market value for the nationalization of CANTV (en esp.) - the telecom company.
• FT has a round up of LA. Among the issues explored: Hugo's power grab and insane fiscal policy, Correa's even nuttier fiscal plans and the promising start of Calderon.
• Lula is set to unveil a growth package for Brazil. Among the features of Lula's plan: tax breaks, increased public spending on infrastructure along with other cuts in spending.
  
• Mercosur tabled plans of expansion, despite Hugo's enthusiasm for it.
• CSM begins a very promising series on Calderon's crackdown.
• Calderon's people insisted that they will carry on with the drug war and the AG insisted that extradition of drug traffickers had nothing to do with pressure from US.
  
• Bolivia's constitutional assembly is stuck in the mud and the politics of that country are a mess. Divisions abound and Evo has had to adjust.
• 5 killed by FARC bomb.
  
• 11 Iraqis bound for US were arrested in Mexico.
• Residents of Monterrey are accused of being cheap by fellow Mex. Is it an accident that Monterrey is the most business friendly and entrepreneurial major city in Mex?
  
• Monterrey is finishing off its own "River Walk."
• Who wants a free Cuba? No one but US.

LA Quick Hits: Elections Colombian Style, Shut 'em Down Hugo Style, A Bunch of Stuff on Drugs - An Arrest, A Fungus and A Runner & More

• Uribe blew off para leader Mancuso's revelation that the paras pressured voters to support Uribe. (en esp.)
  
• Want to know why Hugo is shutting down RCTV? WaPost has the best story thus far on what it is about RCTV that ticks Hugo off.
• Texan lawmakers are asking for $850 million dollars over five years to fight the drug war in Mexico. Once again we are looking for a proxy to do our fighting for us. Once again we are looking for our southern neighbors to bear the brunt of the drug war. Why don't we spend $850 million to get people off drugs or to get them off of our streets?
• Pedro Diaz Parada, allegedly a drug cartel leader, was arrested in Oaxaca. This is the first major arrest of the Calderon crackdown.
• "Franken-fungus" a powerful herbicide may be to controversial and dangerous to spread here but some in DC don't have a problem in using it in LA to combat drugs.
• Colombian authorities stumbled on $54 million worth of loot while conducting drug raids in four houses.
• Cubans wait and wonder as to the state of Fidel's health. I'll say it again, when he dies there will be wailing in the streets. I'm just preparing myself psychological for the sight and the glowing news reports.
• Cuba is keeping a Colombian drug runner under lock and key, even though they haven't charged him with anything drug related. The insinuation in the piece is that if they let him go he may reveal something to embarass the Cubes. Not that I think the Castro Bros. don't run drugs (I do) but I doubt they would have made a high profile case over a weak link.
• A miner's death has some in Coahuila skittish. 65 miners were buried alive last year and safety remains a concern.
• Former LA prezes are being nailed when they leave office. The Herald explains why...I'll do it quicker most LA gov't's are dirty.
  

...& His Cultural Revolution

Hugo really wants to control aspects of Venezuelan life, even its entertainment and culture:

Welcome to another dimension of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's socialist "revolution" and war against the West. The man who recently announced plans to nationalize key industries and who has become the world's most outspoken scold of President Bush also wants to take on Walt Disney and Snoop Dogg.

He is trying to promote a national identity and more independence from "imperialist" America by forcing radio stations to play indigenous music, granting prominent space to amateur Venezuelan artists in museums, and setting up a state-run movie studio. It may be one of the world's bolder – and most controversial – experiments in trying to engineer a culture.

To supporters, the move may well give artists who otherwise might be swept aside by the forces of capitalism and commercialism an opportunity to develop their craft – and, by extension, enhance the artistic diversity of a nation.

But critics, including many artists themselves, see the move as a political gambit – one that, in trying to promote a national cultural identity, threatens the very integrity of the culture itself.

"They [Chávez administration officials] have no respect for culture in Venezuela," says Beatriz Sogbe, an art historian here. "You can't hang culture within the law."

Chavez wants to take on Hollywood, which is odd because it is so close ideologically to him:

In its attempt to counter what it sees as the hegemony of Hollywood, the Chávez administration has created "Cinema Village." It has put $42 million into the project, through the Ministry of Culture, with the intent of producing 19 feature-length films a year, in addition to documentaries and television series. The project also calls for building 24 screening rooms throughout the country in places without movie theaters. Six have been constructed so far.

The idea is to encourage films that incorporate themes of social empowerment, Latin history, or Venezuelan values. Participants insist it is not a form of political propaganda, but an incubator for budding auteurs and an alternative to American movies and their "stereotypes."

"Hollywood creates movies to sell tickets, and in doing so, we are taught that all Arabs are terrorists, that Africa is poor because it wants to be, that all women in Latin America are prostitutes," says Lorena Almarza, Cinema Village's president, a hip 30-something wearing a red "Chávez" bracelet.