AS/COA Online - Lugo Seeks to Quell Coup Fears in Paraguay

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Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo spent the past week quelling coup fears after he replaced the country’s top military officials. At a November 6 ceremony where he swore in a new military commander, Lugo suggested the changes were intended to reward young, talented staff. But the reshuffling of the military deck marked the fourth since Lugo’s 14 months in power. It also comes as the ex-priest faces another paternity suit—the third since he took office. And with the crisis in Honduras on the minds of Latin American leaders, Paraguay’s latest military shake-up raised eyebrows.
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AS/COA Online - Honduras Deal Flounders

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A week ago, a U.S.-brokered deal was hailed as a “breakthrough” for its potential to conclude a four-month-old tug-of-war for the country’s presidency. But today—the morning after de facto leader Roberto Micheletti announced the formation of a unity government without the ousted Manuel Zelaya—the deposed president declared the accord “dead.” Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee member James DeMint (R-SC), who opposed the White House’s Honduras policy, lifted a hold on the nominations of Arturo Valenzuela for assistant secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs and Thomas Shannon as U.S. ambassador to Brazil.
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AS/COA Online - Haiti Sacks Prime Minister in Government Shake-Up

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Last week, while Honduran leaders reached a deal to end a crisis brought on by the ousting of the president, another leader in the Americas found herself out of a job. In the early morning on October 30, senators in Haiti’s Congress elected to remove Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis from office, thereby dissolving the cabinet. Eighteen out of the country’s 29 senators voted for the prime minister’s dismissal following 10 hours of bitter debate and after several senators who supported her stormed out. President René Préval quickly appointed Planning Minister Max Bellerive as a replacement and the shake-up was met with relative calm in the streets of Port-of-Prince. But the ousting of Pierre-Louis, whose term marked a period of stability, could spark worry among investors and donors about ongoing instability.
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AS/COA Online | An End to the Honduran Waiting Game?

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With a delegation from Washington in Tegucigalpa to push for an end to Honduras’ ongoing political stalemate, negotiators reached a power-sharing agreement late Thursday. The pact, termed a “breakthrough” by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, allows for a “reconciliation and unity government.” The accord also lays a path for answering the sticky question of whether deposed leader President Manuel Zelaya will regain office. Approval of the deal could build international support for recognizing the November 29 elections.

With less than a month to go before those elections, the pact allows the Honduran Congress to vote on Zelaya’s reinstatement—a proposal the deposed leader’s negotiators previously put forth. Following news of the October 29 agreement, Zelaya said he was “optimistic I will be restored to the presidency.” The accord’s provisions call on both sides to recognize election results and the subsequent power transfer, ask the international community for normalized relations, reject amnesty for political crimes, and require creation of a truth commission to investigate events leading up to and following the June 28 coup.
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AS/COA Online | DOJ Cartel Bust Breaks Family Ties

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On October 22, the U.S. Justice Department announced the arrest of 303 people linked to La Familia Michoacana, a major Mexican drug trafficking cartel. The crackdown on the cartel’s networks spanned 19 states and involved the coordinated law enforcement efforts of several thousand federal, state, and local law officers as part of Project Coronado, a 44-month operation. “This unprecedented, coordinated U.S. law enforcement action—the largest ever undertaken against a Mexican drug cartel—dealt a significant blow to La Familia’s supply chain of illegal drugs, weapons and cash flowing between Mexico and the United States,” said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Project Coronado’s recent successful bust. “We will continue to stand strong with our partners in Mexico as we work to disrupt and dismantle cartel operations on both sides of the border.”
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AS/COA Online | The Honduran Half Step

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Talks continue in Honduras between negotiators of deposed leader Manuel Zelaya and the interim government of Roberto Micheletti. Last week, Zelaya’s representatives indicated an accord needed little more than dotted i’s and crossed t’s. Then hope waned as Micheletti’s negotiators said no deal had been reached. Still, both sides indicate the talks have produced measurable progress. After the October 14 round, representative said dialogue had advanced by 90 percent. A day later, the figure advanced another 5 percent. The sticking point? Whether Zelaya should be allowed to serve out the rest of his term. Each side has put forth its own proposal of how to resolve the standoff.
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AS/COA Online | New ALBA Trading Currency Dawns at Bolivia Summit

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Bolivian city Cochabamba played host to leaders from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA) October 16 and 17. The meeting marked the seventh leaders summit for ALBA, now in its fifth year and with its name modified to swap “Alternative” for “Alliance” in June. At this weekend's meeting, the countries took on the weightier matter of signing a treaty to replace the dollar with a virtual currency—known as the “Sucre”—for commerce between members. Attendees also decided to sanction current member country Honduras in protest of the June 28 overthrow of Manuel Zelaya.
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AS/COA Online | Calderón Pulls Plug on Mexico City's Power Company

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Hours after Mexico’s victory over El Salvador in a World Cup-qualifying match, less-than-celebratory events came to pass at the headquarters of a state-run electric company. In the wee hours of October 11, the government dispatched hundreds of federal police officers to seize the offices of Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), which supplies electricity to more than 25 million people in Mexico City and neighboring areas.  Mexican President Felipe Calderón issued a decree disbanding the company and delivered a national address describing the firm’s losses as “unsustainable.” In the wake of the closure, Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel told reporters that LyFC’s inefficiencies cost the country the equivalent of a GDP point. However, Calderón’s government could face a political battle with unions and congressional opponents over the liquidation.
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AS/COA Online | Colombian and Ecuadorian Relations on the Mend?

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A year and a half after relations between Ecuador and Colombia took a nosedive, progress may be underway toward repairing ties. Last month, high-level officials met with the goal of pushing forward steps to rebuild broken diplomatic ties. Then, at the end of September, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said the two governments were working to restore bilateral trust. His Colombian counterpart Álvaro Uribe echoed those sentiments Wednesday ahead of an October 9 meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers. The thaw comes as Bogota announced it would share information about camps run by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Ecuadorian soil. “Let them tell us where they are and we’ll catch them,” responded Correa.
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AS/COA Online | Honduran Impasse Stirs up Differences in Washington

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More than two weeks after a surprise return to Honduras, deposed leader Manuela Zelaya remains confined in the Brazilian Embassy. A much-maligned emergency decree declared by interim leader Roberto Micheletti came and went, and the stand-off continues. While tensions simmer between Hondurans for and against Zelaya, Democrat and Republican lawmakers are locked in their own tit-for-tat over the U.S. role in Tegucigalpa standoff. An Organization of American States (OAS) delegation arrives in Honduras on October 7 to mediate in the three-month-old dispute over who should govern the country, raising questions about whether this group of mediators can succeed where other have failed.

In a dispatch, Reuters photojournalist Edgard Garrido describes the current scene inside the embassy compound, where he is confined with Zelaya supporters, a handful of journalists, and the ousted leader. The unlikely residents face food shortages, tear-gas fears, and concerns about what comes next. “With both sides so far apart, it's not at all clear when there will be an end to the crisis, or my unusual and uncomfortable assignment,” writes Garrido, who snapped a widely circulated photograph of Zelaya napping on an embassy sofa.
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AS/COA Online | Rio Wins Battle over Olympics Bid

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Candidate countries made their cases and the die has been cast: Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Summer Olympics, making it the first South American city to host the Games. As the clock counted down to the October 2 announcement, competition grew between two contenders in the Western Hemisphere, Chicago and Rio.

Vying cities sent top leaders—including U.S. President Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—to stump for the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in Copenhagen Friday. But, in the end, Obama's home city was the first eliminated. "Chicago's marketing muscle clearly was no match for the sentimental sway of Rio," said Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinal in an article accompanied by an image that shows the disappointed faces of Chicagoans. Tokyo was the next city counted out, leaving Madrid and Rio in the running. The Brazilian city was declared the resolute winner, pulling in 66 IOC votes to Madrid's 32.
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AS/COA Online | Counting the Costs of the Honduran Coup

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The Honduran de facto government found itself even more isolated September 3 when Washington terminated over $30 million in aid to the Central American country. The State Department had temporarily suspended aid after the June 28 coup when the military forced President Manuel Zelaya out of the country. The agency’s decision came as the deposed leader met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington last week to make his case for stepped-up pressure on the interim government, headed by Roberto Micheletti. In return, the State Department announced not only the end of non-humanitarian aid, but also that it would revoke visas for some members of Micheletti’s regime and refuse to recognize upcoming elections if carried out by the de facto government.
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CFR.org | Backgrounder: The Six-Party Talks on North Korea's Nuclear Program

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The Six-Party Talks are aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program through a negotiating process involving China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia. Since the talks began in August 2003, the negotiations have been bedeviled by diplomatic standoffs among individual Six-Party member states--particularly between the United States and North Korea. In April 2009, North Korea quit the talks and announced that it would reverse the ongoing disablement process called for under the Six-Party agreements and restart its Yongbyon nuclear facilities. Because Pyongyang appears intent on maintaining its nuclear program, some experts are pessimistic the talks can achieve anything beyond managing the North Korean threat. The Obama administration has been pursuing talks with the other four countries in the process to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiation table. Alongside the United Nations' effort to sanction North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, "this regional partnership between the United States and the countries of Northeast Asia remains the best vehicle ... for building stable relationships on and around the Korean peninsula," writes CFR's Sheila Smith.

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Co-authored by Jayshree Bajoria and Carin Zissis

CFR.org | Backgrounder: Terror Groups in India

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India has long suffered violence from extremist attacks based on separatist and secessionist movements, as well as ideological disagreements. In particular, the territorial dispute over India-controlled Kashmir is believed to have fueled large-scale terrorist attacks, such as the bombings of a Mumbai commuter railway in July 2006 as well as a deadly explosion on an India-Pakistan train line in February 2007. Kashmir-related terrorist violence draws international concerns about its possible link in a chain of transnational Islamist militarism. The terrorist assault on Mumbai's hotel district on November 26, claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahadeen, appears to confirm a disturbing new turn of events domestically. Recently, a group calling itself the Indian mujahadeen joined the roster of terror forces, claiming responsibility for a series of blasts in November 2007 in the state of Uttar Pradesh and 2008 attacks in the Indian cities of New Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. Their relationship with the new Deccan Mujahadeen group remains unclear. India also faces another extremist threat: A Maoist insurgency by violent revolutionaries called "Naxalites" has emerged across a broad swathe of central India - nicknamed the "red corridor" - to claim a growing number of lives.

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CFR.org | Backgrounder: The Role of the UN Secretary-General

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Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan left a mixed legacy after two terms as the organization's chief executive, ending in 2006. Annan garnered a Nobel Prize for encouraging global cooperation on peace, launched unprecedented investigations into UN peacekeeping and security, and set about reforming bodies like the UN Human Rights Commission. Yet his critics also saw a failure in Annan's inability to do more to end abuses in Sudan's Darfur region, his handling of relations with the United States, and his management of the UN's Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. Annan's replacement, Ban Ki-moon, has made climate change and AIDS themes of his term. The differences between Annan's and Ban's leadership styles in many ways point to the ambiguous nature of the secretary-general position itself—a role bifurcated, often unevenly, between the tasks of "secretary" and "general."

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Co-authored by Carin Zissis and Lauren Vriens

CFR.org | Backgrounder: The Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand

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Over the past four years, an insurgency in Thailand's southern, predominantly Muslim provinces has claimed nearly three thousand lives. The separatist violence in these majority Malay Muslim provinces has a history traceable back for more than half a century. Some experts say brutal counterinsurgency tactics by successive governments in Bangkok have worsened the situation. Political turmoil in Bangkok and tussle between supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the country's military have further contributed to the instability, working to stymie any serious initiatives for a long-term solution to the crisis.

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Co-authored by Jayshree Bajoria and Carin Zissis

CFR.org / washingtonpost.com - Backgrounder: China’s Environmental Crisis

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China's heady economic growth continued to blossom in 2007, with the country's gross domestic product (GDP) hitting 11.4 percent. This booming economy, however, has come alongside an environmental crisis. Sixteen of the world's twenty most polluted cities are in China. To many, Beijing's pledge to host a "Green Olympics" in the summer of 2008 signaled the country's willingness to address its environmental problems. Experts say the Chinese government has made serious efforts to clean up and achieved many of the bid commitments. However, an environmentally sustainable growth rate remains a serious challenge for the country.

Read the full article at washingtonpost.com.

Co-authored by Jayshree Bajoria and Carin Zissis

AS/COA Online - Entrevista: Activista Estudiantil Yon Goicoechea sobre el Futuro Político Venezolano

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“Yo creo que para tener países modernos también hace falta renovar nuestras estructuras políticas.”

Yon Goicoechea, estudiante venezolano de derecho, activista y fundador de la fundación Futuro Presente habló con la editora de AS/COA Online Carin Zissis sobre el movimiento estudiantil, ampliamente acreditado como pieza importante en la derrota del referendo constucional de diciembre del 2007. Goicoechea fue recientemente galardonado con el premio Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty del Cato Institute. “Hay cientos de miles de jóvenes en Venezuela comprometidos en hacer política de la buena y por eso creo que en 10 años vamos a tener nuevas instituciones en el país y nuevas oportunidades para hacer las cosas mejor,” dice Goicoechea.

AS/COA: ¿Como empezó el movimiento estudiantil en Venezuela?

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AS/COA Online - Secretary General José Miguel Insulza on the OAS Role in the Western Hemisphere

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“The sub-regional integration institutions will gather more strength. But we still need a forum for hemispheric dialogue.”

José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of Americas States, spoke with AS/COA Online Managing Editor Carin Zissis following an Americas Society/Council of the Americas event about the OAS role in promoting democracy in Latin America (Listen to audio of Insulza’s remarks). In recent months, the OAS has played a central role in negotiations related to regional matters, including a vote on autonomy in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz province and the March Andean standoff between Colombia and its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela after a Colombian attack on a FARC camp inside Ecuador’s borders. “What I think is that the OAS has to prove itself as the main forum for political dialogue in the Americas, prove itself to be a bona fide intermediary in the problems among or within countries, and especially act very independently based only on Inter-American law,” said Insulza of the organization, now in its sixtieth year.

AS/COA: During your remarks you discussed the recent Andean crisis. There’s been discussion about the role of the OAS in that matter. You talked about how quickly the OAS had to respond to that issue. Can you talk about how that has affected the OAS and the process by which various issues are handled?

Insulza: We have tried very hard this year, not only to be relevant but to be timely at the same time. I fear all the time that something will happen as it did with the Venezuela crisis; in 2002, after the president was deposed, the council met and they were still meeting when the president was re-instated.

I think [the handling of the recent crisis] has given us a lot of legitimacy to work on the process. Basically, we were very evenhanded. We understood the Colombian motives, we understood the Ecuadorian rights, and we managed to forge a consensus on that.

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CFR.org | Backgrounder: The U.S.-South Korea Alliance

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The longstanding U.S.-South Korea alliance, originally established during the early years of the Cold War as a bulwark against the communist expansion in Asia, has undergone a series of transformations in recent years. Since 1998, when political power passed for the first time from the dictatorial ruling party to the political opposition, the United Democratic Party, successive UDP governments have steered a more independent course from Washington, sometimes leading to friction. During the tenure of President George W. Bush, the once solid alliance went through a difficult period. Among the many issues that bedeviled ties was disagreement over how to handle Pyongyang’s erratic behavior, a generational divide in South Korea on the alliance and the U.S. military presence that underpins it, an ascendant China, and disagreements during bilateral trade negotiations. In 2007, the countries signed a bilateral free trade accord and agreed to a rearrangement of the military command structure that gives Seoul a greater say in its own defense. They also narrowed their differences on North Korea policy. In 2007, a conservative, Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, won South Korea’s presidency, and his party followed up with victories in 2008 parliamentary elections, ending two decades of UDP dominance. Lee strongly supports the U.S. free trade agreement and takes a harder line on North Korea unlike his two predecessors.

Read the full text.

Co-authored by Carin Zissis and Youkyung Lee