Andrew Hagen

Steve Suo reported yesterday in the Oregonian that Mexican imports of cold medicine have soared “from 66 tons to 224 tons in the past five years, customs records show. That’s roughly double what the country needs to meet the legitimate demands of cold and allergy sufferers, an analysis by The Oregonian found.” (*) Cold medicine contains pseudoephedrine, a needed ingredient to make the dangerous and illegal drug meth. Meth is sometimes termed “hillbilly crack” because of its deadly effects.

The drug cartels have been bypassing tighter American regulations on cold medicine. They’re now getting what they need through porous Mexican customs filters.

Follow the money. Who is bribing whom?

The US needs to address this with the Mexican government. Mexican controls over pseudoephedrine must be significantly and immediately tightened.

I opposed the April 2002 overthrow of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, and applauded when it failed. I noted that Venezuela faces numerous problems, particularly in its economy. (*) The US gets much of its foreign oil from Venezuela.

I opposed the post-coup recall effort against Chávez as undemocratic. He won an election for a term in office through 2006. I suggested that Venezuelans allow him to serve out his term, and that any recall process was illegitimate.

Lowell Ponte now reports on some of the machinations Chávez has engaged in. There are untoward signs of links from Chávez to Castro’s Cuba and perhaps even to Islamist terrorism. (†)

Ponte correctly notes that the recall process is part of the Venezuelan constitution. I had mistakenly believed that the recall process was against the Venezuelan constitution. I was wrong.

The Venezuelan government has stymied the recall process, even though it was declared legitimate by outside arbiter bodies like the Organization of American States (OAS). The government has refused to abide by the constitutional recall process. In doing so, the government stifles the voice of the people.

I’m changing my position. I now side with those who call on Chávez to allow the recall process to go forward. It is proper and legitimate under the Venezuelan constitution for a recall to occur. The democratic system and the rule of law in Venezuela ought to command respect from all Venezuelans, especially from the leader of the government.

English-language web logs that focus on Venezuela include Caracas Chronicles (‡) and Venezuela News and Views. (§) Vcrisis.com also provides insight. (**)

They say Bolivia doesn’t exist, but Eduardo Galeano insists that it does in the Progressive. (*)

Last month, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was (†) was forced from power (‡) amidst popular disaffection in this land of broken promises. (§) The poorest country in the region has a great reservoir of natural resources it could theoretically drawn upon.

President Bush has failed to take a leadership role in Latin America. His administration has no coherent Latin America policy. As a result, in countries like Bolivia, problems such as poverty and cocaine production fester (**), and unless the Administration lives up to its responsibilities, the problems will eventually will boil over into chaos or, potentially, military hostilities.

President Bush, it’s time to get a coherent policy. Any plan is better than the absence of one.

This is a joint statement, not authored by me, that will be sent to the Cuban mission to the United Nations and several publications.

We are women and men of the democratic left, united by our commitment to human rights, democratic government and social justice, in our own nations and around the world. In solidarity with the people of Cuba, we condemn the Cuban state’s current repression of independent thinkers and writers, human rights activists and democrats. For “crimes” such as the authorship of essays critical of the government and meeting with delegations of foreign political leaders, some 80 non-violent political dissidents have been arrested, summarily tried in a closed court, without adequate notice or counsel, convicted, and given cruel, harsh sentences of decades of imprisonment. These are violations of the most elementary norms of due process of law, reminiscent of the Moscow trials of the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin.

The democratic left worldwide has opposed the US embargo on Cuba as counterproductive, more harmful to the interests of the Cuban people than helpful to political democratization. The Cuban state’s current repression of political dissidents amounts to collaboration with the most reactionary elements of the US administration in their efforts to maintain sanctions and to institute even more punitive measures against Cuba.

The only conclusion that we can draw from this brute repression is that Cuban government does not trust the Cuban people to distinguish truth from falsehood, fact from disinformation. A government of the left must have the support of the people: it must guarantee human rights and champion the widest possible democracy, including the right to dissent, as well as promote social justice. By its actions, the Cuban state declares that it is not a government of the left, despite its claims of social progress in education and health care, but just one more dictatorship, concerned with maintaining its monopoly of power above all else.

To add your name to the list, send e-mail to Leo Casey. Current signatures are below.
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Richard Gott reports that the conditions in Venezuela are sinking to to the level of overt class warfare. (*) Gott may be overstating things, but the conflicts he cites are very real, including those involving race, profound economic inequality, and the proposed sale of the crown jewel of the Venezuelan economy—its petroleum company. The president of Venezuelua, Hugo Chávez, was elected with 60% of the vote. (†) The next election is scheduled for 2006. The minority opposition wants Chávez to step down and hold a special election immediately, as Juan Ferero reports for the New York Times. (‡)

The Times must be held suspect in its reporting on Venezuela. Last April 12, a military coup deposed Chávez. Pedro Carmona, the would-be dictator, announced that the National Assembly, the supreme court, and other constitutional institutions of government were suspended. This unlawful, anti-democratic coup d’etat was hailed by the New York Times editorial page the next day. (§) Events soon overtook the newspaper, however, and Chávez was restored to power by loyal military units, particularly paratroopers, of which Chávez was a veteran. The Times printed a retraction of their junta-loving editorial a few days later. (**) It wasn’t just the Times that showed a dark side, either. The conservative journal of record, the National Review, printed a toasty bit of propaganda by Thor Halvorssen, arguing that Chávez was the real dictator. (††) Halvorssen repeated a number of scurrilous and unsubstantiated rumors that had originated in the opposition—for example, that one million protesters were in the streets of Caracas before the coup (it was closer to 300,000), and that Ch?vez’s men were shooting protesters from rooftops (it was probably a right-wing paramilitary group that was doing the shooting). (‡‡) The performances of the American media and conservatives were shameful. Whether you like Chávez or not, he was democratically elected, and is the legitimate president of Venezuela.

There were also inklings that the US government may have encouraged the coup plotters. (‡‡) The attempted putsch of the legitimate government did follow a pattern similar to the US-sponsored coup d’etat of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, replacing him with the murderous thug Augusto Pinochet. The evidence of US involvement in Venezuela is little more than supposition, however.

Venezuela continues to face steep challenges. No less than 67% of the population is below the poverty line. The country’s main economic asset is its oil reserve. The state-owned oil company monopolizes proudction of the resource. All of the profits, however, flow to its employees. Chávez put a stop to the planned sell-off of the company, and now the potential beneficiaries of the sale, comprising a small minority of the Venezuelan population, are howling. While those opposed to the democratically elected Chávez are a minority, they are a force to be reckoned with. For example, as Le Monde Diplomatique estimates, Chávez’s opposition controls 95% of the country’s media. (§§) Chávez’s support mostly comes from the black, the indigenous, and the poor.

Unfortunately, anger is growing on both sides, the rich and the poor, the lesser pigmented and the highly pigmented. The key conflict is over the oil company. If Chávez is able to shift control of it to those loyal to him, he will have won a major victory over the elite minority, and will have put himself in a position where he can reshape the Venezuelan economy to create a large middle class. It is not clear, though, if given the chance, whether Hugo Chávez will fulfill his promises and implement the reforms necessary to modernize his country’s economy in a just and equitable manner. I hope he does.

Update: 17 November 2003. Natasha of The Watch links. (***)