The second Monday in October Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Crossposted

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your links included, please email me: faustaw2 "at" gmail "dot" com.

This week's top story:
Two seeminly unrelated Venezuelan news stories,
First, Student opposition leader gunned down in Venezuela

Venezuelan authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of a student leader who helped organize protests against constitutional amendments proposed by President Hugo Chavez.

Julio Soto, a student leader at the University of Zulia, was killed Wednesday by unidentified gunmen in the western city of Maracaibo.

Local Police Chief Jose Gonzalez said he believes Soto was specifically targeted because the assailants sprayed his vehicle with gunfire and then fled without taking anything.

But Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami said federal authorities have not yet determined if the killing was a politically motivated hit.

Soto was a member of the Copei opposition party. Voters rejected Chavez's proposed reforms in December.

Hugo Chávez has ordered authorities to quickly solve the murder

Education Minister Hector Navarro told Venezuela's state news agency on Thursday that Chávez wants police to catch those who killed Julio Soto ``as soon as possible.''

In the second item, former Defense Minister Gen. Raúl Baduel, who was instrumental in defeating Chávez constitutional reforms last December, was detained by the authorities on Friday and is now barred from leaving the country:

Rafael Tosta, a lawyer for Mr. Baduel, who was released Friday night, said his client was also required to appear before a military tribunal every 15 days and was prohibited from publicly commenting on the accusations, which revolve around $14.5 million in missing funds.

Mr. Baduel, who helped reinstall Mr. Chávez after a brief coup in 2002, has gone from being a hero of the president’s socialist-inspired revolution to one of its outcasts. Mr. Baduel emerged as one of Mr. Chávez most vocal opponents since resigning as defense minister last year.

Here's the video of his arrest:



Baduel has been charged with robbery:

Military Attorney, Gen. Ernesto Cedeno, said the former minister has been charged with alleged robbery of National Armed Forces funds and properties during his term of over four years at the helm of the military institution.

In a press conference, Cedeno said the decision was taken in the wake of an investigation stemming from an accusation rather than from political reprisal, as stated by Baduel, who assumed opposition stances after his retirement.

"According to the investigation, there are over $31 billion bolivars missing (about $14.50 million), and out of a sense of justice and honor, he oughts to clear up the situation during his term as Defense minister," stressed Cedeno.

Baduel was recently shot at while driving his car but managed to get away.

Does this signal a new crackdown on the Venezuelan opposition? Stratfor sees it at attempts to destabilize the opposition:

A few months ago, the loosely organized and previously unpopular opposition parties began making major gains in public opinion as Venezuela’s economy began souring and Chavez’s socialist policies came under fire. With this in mind, Chavez has gone so far as to have the courts ban 272 opposition politicians from running for office, charging them with corruption.

Chavez has also moved to strengthen the central government ahead of the elections, including implementing a series of reforms rejected in the 2006 constitution vote. Most recently, Chavez — with the help of the National Assembly — enacted the Organic Law for the Organization and Management of the Territory, which gives the central government control over local and state-level governments. In doing so, Chavez effectively negates any gains the opposition leaders might achieve if they are able to score seats in the upcoming election.

LATIN AMERICA
Why Did the Chicken Cross Party Lines?

Latin American Economies: Keeping their fingers crossed

Cómo validar nuestra educación en Los Estados Unidos

Hard economic times may just be starting

World War III knocking at our door

ARGENTINA
Las maletas contenian 6 millones de dolares

BOLIVIA
Young Bolivians fight for their regions

The oppositions criticisms of Bolivia's draft CPE

COLOMBIA
Colombia, U.S. Ally, May Conclude Defense Agreement With Russia

CUBA
Proposed Russian-Cuba-Venezuela Space Cooperation Raises Many Questions

A billboard for shelter

Cuba, FARC may be training guerrillas at Venezuelan camp
Cuban advisors and Colombian rebels are helping train paramilitary fighters, critics and former participants say

Going to hell on a financial handbasketcase: Fidel asesora creación de un nuevo sistema financiero, liderado por Venezuela e Irán Fidel's an advisor on a new financial system led by Venezuela and Iran (whom, by the way, years ago joined forces to undermine the US dollar)

ECUADOR
Nature as a Privileged Minority

US Problems Spread to Ecuador's Dollar Economy

Ecuador’s new constitution: In good faith

USA Backs Russo-Iranian-Soros Cartels running Venezuela and Ecuador; Abandons Honorable Uribe: Throwing Colombia to the Wolves of Deceit

HONDURAS
Protestan contra Ortega a su llegada a Honduras y él se escondió

MEXICO
North America Must Integrate for Trade, Calderon Says

9 bodies found dumped in Mexico

NICARAGUA
Just to make you chuckle a little bit about Nicaragua

Ortega targeting his ex-comrades
With a weakened right-of-center opposition, Nicaragua's president cracked down on former comrades on the left.

PUERTO RICO
Pork and rum? Rum Tax Break Report False, Says Distilled Spirits Council of the United States

There is confusion over a provision in the current financial rescue package which benefits the rum-producing territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This is not a tax break for rum makers as has been reported in the press and claimed on Capitol Hill.

It is fundamentally a revenue sharing arrangement between the U.S. government and the governments of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, which Congress has voted to extend repeatedly over the last 20 years. Under this provision, the federal government rebates to the governments of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands most of the Federal Excise Tax collected on rum imported to the United States.

VENEZUELA
Democrats Shouldn't Coddle Chávez
The prospect of a nuclear Venezuela should be enough to unite allegiances in Washington.

Liberal fascism in Venezuela

Caracas, murder capital of the world

Student opposition leader gunned down in Venezuela

Via IBD blog, Venezuelan town ruled by Colombian guerrillas

Venezuela, France mull nuclear energy deal As IBD blog commented,

Well, why not? /s The U.S. is sending loud signals it doesn't care about Russian nuclear proliferation in the Caribbean, so the French are taking the cue that this is a 'for sale' sign. Or maybe something more negative is going on. France also says it wants Hugo Chavez, that glorious mediator to FARC (who was found to have used FARC contacts not to mediate but funnel cash and arms to the terrorists) now will mediate between the West and Iran. Wonder what he will funnel now? This is insane. Do the French never learn?

The South American nuclear genie

Venezolano con carné: the latest on the "valija gate"

How quickly does Hugo Chavez forget his fake beliefs in democracy or Venezuela, a democracy no more!

AMERICAN POLITICS
Via LGF Linkviewer, William Ayers and Hugo Chavez

Campaigns woo new Hispanic citizens as key bloc

Special thanks to Eneas, GoV, Maggie, Maria and Siggy


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Is the Venezuelan army sending Hugo a message?

Two apparently independent items:

The first one, from the Guardian (definitely not one organ of the vast right wing conspirators), Venezuela: Army unrest grows over Chávez reforms (emphasis added)

Venezuelan military officers have expressed growing alarm at attempts by President Hugo Chávez to turn the armed forces into a political instrument of his socialist revolution.

One general has been detained and hundreds of other officers reportedly sidelined for protesting against the ideological drive. Chavez has ordered the armed forces to adopt the Cuba-style salute "Fatherland, socialism or death" to put the institution at the heart of his effort to transform Venezuela.

Pastors from the recently formed pro-Chávez Reformed Catholic church have been installed as army chaplains to weaken the influence of the traditional Catholic church, which is hostile to the president. "That's causing a lot of resentment, a lot of upset," said a source close to the military.

Last week military intelligence agents detained an outspoken critic, General Angel Vivas Perdomo, and questioned him for nine hours. Vivas had asked the supreme court to ban the new official salute. As a replacement he suggested "Death to tyranny. Long live freedom!" - a slogan from the 19th-century independence hero Francisco de Miranda.

The general was ordered to report to the military prosecutor's office twice a month and to stay in Caracas but was not charged with any crime.

Before his detention he told the Associated Press that the new motto deprived "the right of every Venezuelan citizen to think differently and to disagree with socialism".

According to Citizen Control for Security, a watchdog group, about 800 disgruntled officers have been left without formal duties. Many sit at home awaiting early retirement, it said.

I copied and pasted the article in its entirety. As regular readers of this blog know, I seldom cut and paste a whole article, but every word in that article needed to be read. Let's bear in mind that retired military officers do make a difference in Venezuelan politics.

And now for a flashback:
Last March Hugo was threatening war with Colombia in reaction to the Colombian raid in Ecuador that killed the FARC's #2 guy, Raul Reyes. Considering Colombia's superior military might it came as no surprise that the Venezuelan army wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to go to war.

It so happened that the Venezuelan army's advance to the Colombian border got held up by a taxi drivers' strike, an incident which the Guardian refers to as "unrelated"

An unrelated taxi strike on a motorway reportedly bogged down Venezuelan military convoys

but evoking "comic opera".

Fast-forward to last week's Mercosur summit,
where Chavez was saying that the U.S. Navy's decision to re-establish its Fourth Fleet is "a threat" to Latin America. Right before Mercosur Chavez even had the military do exercises, named Operation Socialist Fatherland,

a military exercise designed to show the strength of Venezuela's combined forces.

Chavez returned from Mercosur, and soon after came the Colombians' rescue of the FARC's four most valuable hostages. Chavez claims he heard the news from a construction worker at one of the socialist cities.

The second independent item:
Along came the July 5th celebration of Venezuela's Independence Day, where the military parade is also a "show of strength", or so you would expect. Except that it was not; it was, again, something of a "comic opera":
There was the overturned truck: the truck overturned while driving at a vertiginous parade speed of maybe 5 miles per hour.


Then things really got smokin':


And some thing fell off the tank:

The thing had to be dragged off the street.

To add to the hilarity of the celebration, this guy's probably glad he wore a cup to the parade:


Hardly the stuff one expects to fight the Fourth Fleet with. Definitely the stuff one expects in a "comic opera".

Crotch-gazing aside, is the Venezuelan military sending Hugo a message?

I post, you decide.



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Venezuela: Who is Raul Baduel?

Time Magezine: How Solid Was Hugo Chavez's Base?

Until recently, Venezuela's opposition was so weak and fragmented it seemed unable to even fathom an electoral victory. But, in the early morning hours on Monday, it sealed a surprising triumph over the constitutional reform proposal of a president who, in nine years, had never lost an election. Scrambling to explain this aberration in a land where Hugo Chavez dominates the political landscape, many political observers point to the thousands of university students, who, dormant until this year, clogged the streets to protest the reform in the weeks leading up to the vote. Raul Baduel, the former defense minister and longtime ally of the president, also injected life into the opposition when he, along with the former pro-Chavez party Podemos (Spanish for "We Can"), called for people to vote "No." But the results raise another, perhaps more important, question: how much help did the opposition actually receive from the poor, Chavez's main support base?

It used to be a given that Chavez could count on the lower class, which represents the majority of the population, to turn the vote his way. Clearly, after logging 49% of the vote for his controversial reform, Chavez still has many of the poor on his side. The electoral council has yet to release detailed results that would indicate how impoverished areas voted. But an abstention rate of 44% suggests some of Chavez's traditional support base didn't show up to vote. And, narrow as the vote count was, the rejection of his proposal only one year after he won reelection by a margin of over 20% raises the possibility that abstention was compounded by some supporters actually voting "No." If, as interviews in Caracas this week suggest, more people in barrios disagree with Chavez's political agenda, that's worrisome for a man whose political raison d'etre is defined by alleviating poverty.

Here is Raul Baduel's message explaining the reasons to vote NO (in Spanish, at his own blog, via Two Weeks Notice) MENSAJE DE RAUL BADUEL LUNES 12 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 2007.RAZONES PARA ACUDIR A VOTAR "NO". One particular statement catches my eye:

Como soldados hemos sido preparados profesionalmente en la administración de la violencia legal y legitima del Estado, y por ende, expertos en este asunto y lo que la violencia entraña. Por lo tanto, se acentúa mas nuestro deber en evitar en grado sumo el desencadenamiento de procesos violentos y erigirnos entonces como generadores de sosiego y sendero cierto hacia el desarrollo del país y propulsores y mantenedores de la paz, haciendo cierta la vocación pacifista del pueblo venezolano recogida de manera principista en el articulo 13 constitucional.

As I see it, Baduel is saying two things:

• He's telling the people to vote no.
• He's telling the military to allow the NO vote to stand

Most importantly, he stressed that abstention isn't effective. The military, Chavez's own base, and the people of Venezuela were listening.

By these stressing these three points, he actively promoted a NO vote on the referendum on Chavez. Make no mistake, while Chavez can legally stay as president until 2013, Chavez himself turned this constitutional amendment poll into a referendum about himself.



Who is Raul Baduel?
From his blog

He graduated in 1976, 11th in a class of 86.
In 1982 he was one of the four founding members of the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario (Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement) along with Hugo Chavez, Jesus Urdaneta and Felipe Acosta Carles.
On April 11, 2002 he led, as a Commander of Army Paratroopers, the operation that brought Chavez back in power.
From 2004-2006 he was Army Commander General. On June 2006 he was promoted to Chief General and appointed Minister of Defense, which he served until July 2007.
On November 5, 2007 he declared himself against the constutional reform.

At the BBC, March 19, 2004: Chavez's key backers

Gen Raul Baduel::Army Commander-in-Chief
Gen Raul Baduel was one of the officers who rose up against the short-lived Carmona government during the April 2002 coup d'etat, when he was chief of the 42nd Airborne Brigade of paratroopers.

Known for his new-age beliefs, Gen Baduel was the first senior officer to declare his opposition to the coup.

He helped organise the operation that rescued Mr Chavez from prison on the Caribbean island of La Orchila.

He was subsequently promoted to commander of the Maracay Garrison, before rising to commander-in-chief of the army in January 2004.

President Chavez's military-civilian policy is a central tenet of the Bolivarian revolution, and began with Plan Bolivar 2000, a controversial internal defence and development exercise.

The general has rejected allegations of a rift within the army, saying that the group of dissident officers who declared themselves in legitimate disobedience in October 2002 "have strayed from the path of duty and turned their backs on the Venezuelan state because of a thirst for power and personal gain".

But critics say Gen Baduel is one of a small group of officers "co-governing" Venezuela with Mr Chavez.

In today's NYT, Simon Romero writes (emphasis added),

But in an unforeseen challenge to Mr. Chávez, the new leaders of this opposition have emerged from the disaffected within his own movement. They are hewing to leftist ideals while expressing increasing unhappiness with state control of the economy and the intensifying cult of celebrity around Mr. Chávez.

"The president wanted to obligate Venezuelans to accept this project," said Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, the retired top commander of Venezuela’s army who broke with Mr. Chávez last month.

General Baduel, speaking at a news conference here on Monday, said "the people did not propose one comma or period to the text" of the defeated proposals, which would have formally created a socialist state. As a next step, General Baduel proposed that the country convene a new constitutional assembly to rewrite Venezuela’s laws.

Aside from General Baduel, other leaders whose stars are rising are Ismael García, a deputy in the National Assembly, and Ramón Martínez, governor of Sucre State in eastern Venezuela. Both men were supporters of Mr. Chávez but have vociferously distanced themselves from him in recent months.

They were joined by a student movement that led street protests here and in other large Venezuelan cities before the vote. In contrast with some traditional opposition parties, few of the student leaders describe themselves as conservative critics of the president, preferring to tout their own progressive ideals.

Raul Baduel: remember that name.

Please listen to last Sunday's podcast:
In Sunday's podcast Dr Luis Fleischman talked about General Baduel and how Baduel's stance incited and encouraged the people to defeat the referendum
Dr. Luis Fleischman is an advisor to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington DC. He is also an adjunct professor of Political Science and Sociology at Wilkes Honor College at Florida Atlantic University.
Calrification: During the podcast Dr. Fleischman mentioned that Gen Baduel had been shot at. This article (in Spanish) states that Baduel was threatened by a man pointing a gun at him calling him "traitor" as Baduel was leaving his polling place after voting. (h/t Eneas Biglione of HACER)

Update:
In an email exchange with Rick Moran, where I said, "As I see it, he's the one that made the result stand>", Rick commented,

Absolutely. And I think his appearance on TV late on election night while all that stuff was happening at the CNE probably saved the vote from being hijacked. His insistence that the results be released immediately forestalled any attempt to manipulate the ballots.

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