OBAMA’S BIGGEST CHALLENGE – CENTRAL AMERICA

By Andres By Oppenheimer

aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

The country that will receive the most attention during President Barack Obama’s ongoing visit to Latin America — other than Libya — will be Brazil, but the place where he will probably have the biggest, and most needed, impact will be Central America.

Fifteen years after the end of Central America’s civil wars, this region is once again becoming the world’s most violent place, and a major source of drug trafficking, organized crime and illegal immigration to the United States.

According to United Nations estimates, more than 15,000 people a year are dying in drug and human trafficking-related violence in Central America.

Honduras is already the world’s most violent country, with a homicide rate of 67 per 100,000 people a year, four times higher than Mexico’s, the weekly The Economist reported recently.

During a five-day visit to Honduras, Nicaragua and a stop in El Salvador, I was surprised to see a huge increase of private security guards on the streets — like nothing I had seen in recent years. You see private guards everywhere, much more than uniformed police or army troops.

According to U.N. figures, there are at least five times more private security guards than police forces in Honduras and Guatemala.

What is going on, I asked Honduran President Porfirio Lobo in an interview. Lobo, who was democratically elected after a constitutional crisis triggered by a 2009 civilian-military coup, told me that growing numbers of Mexican drug lords are moving south to Central America because of the Mexican government’s military crackdown on the cartels.

“The cartels are coming our way,” Lobo said. “The growing crime rates are affecting us a lot, in many ways. Among other things, they scare away investments.”

Lobo reminded me that in over the past two years, members of the Los Zetas armed gang — originally part of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel — have burned down buses with dozens of people inside in several Central American countries. The drug gangs, which are heavily involved in human trafficking, have also opened fire against a shoe store in Honduras, killing several innocent bystanders, and murdered 72 Central American migrants in Mexico when they couldn’t pay for being smuggled into the United States.

“They are much bloodier than anything we’ve seen before,” Lobo said. “By comparison, the traditional cocaine barons look like schoolboys.’’

Juan Orlando Hernandez, the president of the Honduran Congress, told me that Central American countries cannot fight against these criminal organizations single-handedly, because they lack the resources and know-how to beat them.

“We need a coordinated multinational effort that includes the United States, Mexico, Colombia and all Central American countries,” Hernandez said.

Obama, who is scheduled to arrive in El Salvador on Tuesday after his visit to Brazil and Chile, is expected to announce a new package of funds to help Central America fight criminal bands, U.S. officials tell me. Officials declined to elaborate on the amount and scope of the aid package.

My Opinion: Obama’s expected announcement of new aid to help Central America combat criminal organizations will be a welcome development, but it will be a Band-Aid approach that won’t do much to solve the problem.

What should he do? Just as previous U.S. presidents admitted — after many years of U.S. denial — that massive U.S. drug consumption is a big part of the drug-trafficking problem, and just as the Obama administration recently conceded that U.S. arms smuggling to Mexico is a big part of the drug violence problem there, Obama should take the bold step of admitting that it’s time to revise the U.S. war on drugs.

It’s clearly not working. Washington has only succeeded in pushing drug cartels from Colombia to Mexico, and now — increasingly — from Mexico to Central America. If we drive them out of Central America, they will go to the Caribbean. It’s a never-ending game that is costing billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of innocent lives.

Obama should heed the advice of former Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria and many others who are saying that it’s time to consider decriminalizing marijuana, and use the savings to fund education and prevention campaigns to diminish overall U.S. drug consumption.

Further reducing U.S. drug consumption would help more than anything else to weaken the drug cartels, and reducing the bloodshed in increasingly violence-torn Central America.

GHOSTS OF CHILE

President Obama has an opportunity to confront the trauma inflicted by Pinochet's regime, and by the United States.

By Ariel Dorfman (*)

When Barack Obama arrives in Chile on Monday for a 24-hour visit, something crucial will be missing from his agenda. There will be succulent seafood, speeches praising Chile's prosperity, bilateral agreements and meetings with the high and mighty. But there are no plans, I am sure, for the president to encounter what has been the defining experience of Chile's recent history, the trauma that the people of this country underwent during the 17 years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's regime.

And yet, it would not be impossible for Obama to witness a small sample of the grief of Chile. A scant seven blocks from the presidential palace, La Moneda, where he is to be feted by President Sebastián Piñera, 120 researchers are busy all day long compiling a conclusive list of Pinochet's victims so that final amends and compensation can be made. This is the third attempt since the dictatorship ended in 1990 to deal with the massive losses it left behind. Two officially sanctioned commissions had already investigated an enormous number of cases of torture, execution and political imprisonment, but it became apparent as the years went by that countless human rights violations remained to be identified. And the current inquiry has, in fact, received 33,000 additional petitions for redress.

Although Obama would be unable to read any of the confidential reports about these cases, a few minutes spent away from his strict calendar of events, talking to some of the men and women who are carrying out the inquiries, would tell him more about the hidden agony of Chile than a thousand briefing books.

For instance, he could talk to a researcher named Tamara. On Sept. 11, 1973, the day President Salvador Allende was overthrown, her father, one of Allende's bodyguards, was arrested — and never heard from again. I worked at La Moneda at the time of the coup, and my life was saved by a chain of miraculous coincidences. But Tamara's father was not that lucky,nor were several good friends, whose bodies have never been found.

Or Obama could look into the eyes of a lawyer I know, who was abducted one afternoon a few years after the coup and tortured for weeks before being dumped one night on a strange street and then almost immediately rearrested for breaking the curfew. Obama might listen to an anthropologist who had to go into exile for 14 years, losing country, livelihood and language. Her return to Chile was as painful as the original banishment because her children, having grown estranged from the country of their birth, stayed abroad, splitting the family forever.

If Obama prefers places to people, he could acquaint himself with Villa Grimaldi, a former torture house turned into a center for peace, or devote 10 minutes to the Museum of Memory, where exhibits recall the darkest days of Chile's history.

One of the reasons Obama should do everything he can to catch a glimpse, however cursory, of our vast affliction is that the United States, alas, is partly responsible for its existence. Washington aided and abetted the downfall of Allende's democratically elected government and the tyrannical rise of Pinochet. Today, when the revolt in Egypt, among other nations, reminds us of the consequences of propping up brutal regimes, it would be sobering for a president as thoughtful and compassionate as Obama to see a few men and women who have been destroyed by those U.S. policies.

And Chile also offers a cautionary tale of how difficult it is to deal with crimes against humanity — how difficult but also how necessary. In Chile we have learned that if we, as a people, do not face that terrible past and bring its sorrows into the light, if the perpetrators are not punished, we risk corrupting the very soul of our nation.

It is a lesson that Obama and his fellow citizens should also learn. Two years after his inauguration, Guantanamo remains open, and there has been no prosecution of the human rights violations of the George W. Bush administration or an apology tendered to its victims. A U.S. commission modeled on the one established in Santiago might constitute a first step toward a reckoning that, as Chileans are aware, cannot be postponed indefinitely.

Important as this experience might be for Obama, another one could be even more significant. He will be having dinner at the presidential palace where Allende died defending the right of his people to choose their own destiny. Allende is buried in a cemetery not far from where the country's elite will be toasting the friendship between the United States and Chile.

In 1965, during a momentous trip to Chile, Sen. Robert Kennedy stepped outside the tight protocol arranged for him and met miners and university students; he plunged into the country to try to understand it. What if Obama decided to follow Kennedy's example and went off script to do something unprecedented, like visiting Allende's grave? What if Obama simply stood there in silence for one lonely minute? No need to publicly express regret for America's intervention in Chilean affairs or for supporting Pinochet.

That simple gesture in homage to a president who gave his life fighting for democracy and social justice would send a message to Latin America and, indeed, to the whole planet that would be more eloquent than 50 speeches. It would be a signal that perhaps a new era in the U.S. relationship with its neighbors to the south might be feasible, that the bitter past will never again return, nunca, nunca más.

____________________________________________________________________
(*) Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean-American writer, is a professor at Duke University. He is the author of "Death and the Maiden" and the forthcoming "Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile."http://www.adorfman.duke.edu

EUROPE, LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE DITHERING

By Clive Crook

President Barack Obama was not in Washington when the first missiles struck targets in Libya. As the US went to war at the weekend – the third on his watch – he left for Brazil to discuss trade. The trip could have been cancelled but the White House made a virtue of it. The president’s absence affirmed the administration’s stance. The US is supporting the strikes against Col Muammer Gaddafi, but it did not take the lead in insisting on them and is not in command.

This is not the kind of leadership the world is used to. On the other hand it is the posture much of the world, the part enraptured by Mr Obama’s election, said it wanted. Now we have it, we shall see how long it lasts and how well it works.

As you would expect, US foreign-policy hawks are unimpressed. They say Mr Obama dithered. While the allies built their coalition and won their UN resolution, Col Gaddafi gained the upper hand. If his forces mingle with civilians in Benghazi and other cities, attacking from the air will be hard. Helping the rebels win would have been easy two weeks ago. Now the allies might have to police a partition of the country, with Col Gaddafi hanging on.

It is one thing to hear these arguments from American hawks. If necessary, when vital interests are at stake, they want the US to act on its own initiative, international law be damned. It is quite another thing – in fact, it beggars belief – to hear similar complaints about dithering from some Europeans. Mr Obama has let us down, they say. Precious time has been lost.

Not long ago, Europe complained that the US was bullying, reckless and high-handed. Not long ago, Europe was ecstatic at Mr Obama’s election because this was not his style. You would think, having longed for a president who was cautious, deliberate and respectful of other countries’ opinions – and having voiced contempt for George Bush because he was none of those things – Europeans would hesitate to say: “The time for talking is over. Just start shooting.”

Both kinds of critic – US hawks and Europe’s militant multilateralists – are right to say dithering held up the allied attacks and made the mission harder. The problem for multilateralists is that dithering is built into the system they advocate. If you cannot tolerate dithering, better not demand UN authority for your military interventions.

Europeans say better US leadership could have brought the allies to the point of action faster. How? America had good reason to lag behind the UK and France. It was right to be nervous about further inflaming sentiment against it in the Islamic world. If the operation was seen as US led, that might help the Libyan regime to stir resistance at home and abroad. And US military resources are already stretched. The Pentagon was leery of this mission and expressed its reservations in public. A wise president does not overrule such advice lightly.

Moreover, even if the US had pushed harder, a coalition with Britain and France would still have been too small by multilateralist lights. Assembling broad consensus, regional participation and cast-iron compliance with international law was bound to take time. To meet these conditions so quickly, and to win authority not just for a pointless no-fly zone but for “all necessary measures”, was a notable achievement. Against the odds, armed multilateralism has passed its first test: the allies have launched an intervention with a chance of success .

Unfortunately, the price of multilateralism is not confined to initial delay. It is hard to fight by committee, especially when every tactic is examined for political salience. So much has been made of this feat of co-operation that the coalition must be maintained at all cost. Suppose the fight is tougher than the allies expect. Will they agree on how or whether to escalate? Arab League support has been emphasised at every turn. Does this give it a veto over the campaign? That would be awkward since its chief on Sunday said the air strikes were not what it had envisaged.

In short, unilateralist scepticism is well grounded. Yet the advantages of full-compliance multilateralism are, even from the narrow American point of view, appealing. Legitimacy in the eyes of other nations has value in a world where soft power counts. In Libya the allies are doing the right thing and, let us hope, winning friends – while the breadth of the alliance, the authority of the UN and the US posture of “third among equals” refute the accusation that America has opened a new front against Islam. In fiscally straitened times, greater burden-sharing in global security is all to the good.

It would be hard to exaggerate how much rides on the outcome. Even if the Libyan regime crumples, there will be times when the allies regret their ownership of the consequences. Still, if all goes well, Col Gaddafi will exit, peace will be restored and Libya will take halting steps towards democracy. Collective action under UN authority will have scored a huge victory and a new pattern will be set. If the venture drags on or collapses – especially if its multilateral character is seen as the reason – international relations will be pushed the other way.

One imponderable, oddly neglected up to now, is the view of US voters. The mood has been against US involvement. If all goes well, voters will come round and be proud. If not, they will care not a jot about international legitimacy and will ask instead about legitimacy at home. If this is another war, where was Congress? Whose decisions, exactly, are putting US forces at risk? And why was the president not in the Oval Office when this all started, explaining his decision to the nation?

He had a meeting in Brazil.

“The War on Warren"

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last week, at a House hearing on financial institutions and consumer credit, Republicans lined up to grill and attack Elizabeth Warren, the law professor and bankruptcy expert who is in charge of setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Ostensibly, they believed that Ms. Warren had overstepped her legal authority by helping state attorneys general put together a proposed settlement with mortgage servicers, which are charged with a number of abuses.

But the accusations made no sense. Since when is it illegal for a federal official to talk with state officials, giving them the benefit of her expertise? Anyway, everyone knew that the real purpose of the attack on Ms. Warren was to ensure that neither she nor anyone with similar views ends up actually protecting consumers.

And Republicans were clearly also hoping that if they threw enough mud, some of it would stick. For people like Ms. Warren — people who warned that we were heading for a debt crisis before it happened — threaten, by their very existence, attempts by conservatives to sustain their antiregulation dogma. Such people must therefore be demonized, using whatever tools are at hand.

Let me expand on that for a moment. When the 2008 financial crisis struck, many observers — myself included — thought that it would force opponents of financial regulation to rethink their position. After all, conservatives hailed the debt boom of the Bush years as a triumph of free-market finance right up to the moment it turned into a disastrous bust.

But we underestimated the speed and determination with which opponents of regulation would rewrite history. Almost instantly, that free-market boom was retroactively reinterpreted; it became a disaster brought on by, you guessed it, excessive government intervention.

There remained, however, the inconvenient fact that some of those calling for stronger regulation have a track record that gives them a lot of credibility. And few have as much credibility as Ms. Warren.

Household debt doubled as a share of personal income over the 30 years preceding the crisis, and these days high levels of debt are widely seen as a major barrier to recovery. But only a handful of people appreciated the dangers posed by rising debt as the rise was happening. And Ms. Warren was among the foresighted few. More than a decade ago, when politicians of both parties were celebrating the wonders of modern banking and widening access to consumer credit, she was already warning that high debt levels could bring widespread financial disaster in the face of an economic downturn.

Later, she took the lead in pushing for consumer protection as an integral part of financial reform, arguing that many debt problems were created when lenders pushed borrowers into taking on obligations they didn’t understand. And she was right. As the late Edward Gramlich of the Federal Reserve — another unheeded expert, who tried in vain to get Alan Greenspan to rein in predatory lending — asked in 2007, “Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers?” And he continued, “The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.”

Given Ms. Warren’s prescience and her role in shaping financial reform legislation — not to mention her effective performance running the Congressional panel exercising oversight over federal financial bailouts — it was only natural that she be appointed to get the new consumer protection agency up and running. And it’s hard to think of anyone better qualified to head the agency once it goes into action.

The fact that she’s so well qualified is, of course, the reason she’s being attacked so fiercely. Nothing could be worse, from the point of view of bankers and the politicians who serve them, than to have consumers protected by someone who knows what she’s doing and has the personal credibility to stand up to pressure.

The interesting question now is whether the Obama administration will see the war on Elizabeth Warren for what it is: a second chance to change public perceptions.

In retrospect, the financial crisis of 2008 was a missed opportunity. Yes, the White House succeeded in passing significant new financial regulation. But for whatever reason, it failed to change the terms of debate: bankers and the disaster they wrought have faded from view, and Republicans are back to denouncing the evils of regulation as if the crisis never happened.

By the sheer craziness of their attacks on Ms. Warren, however, Republicans are offering the administration a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days. And that’s an opportunity the White House should welcome.

“Why Obama Went to Brazil"

There's a chance to build a new foreign policy alliance that disdains dictators like Hugo Chávez.

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

President Obama's trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador this week, while war rages in Libya, has been sharply criticized as proof of dangerous detachment from a world that badly needs U.S. leadership.

Yet there is a case to be made for going—to Brazil anyway. Arguably Santiago and San Salvador could have been postponed. Chile is already a stable ally and the stop in El Salvador, to mouth platitudes about hemispheric security while Central America is going up in narco-trafficking flames, only highlights the futility of the U.S. war on drugs.

Going to Brasilia to meet with Workers' Party President Dilma Rousseff on Saturday, on the other hand, was important.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama discredited his trip even before it began by peddling it as a trade mission to create jobs and boost the U.S. economy. With those goals in mind, he would have been better off staying home and lobbying Congress to drop the 54 cents per gallon tariff on Brazilian sugar ethanol, and to end all U.S. subsidies on cotton, which have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization in a case brought by Brazil. Or he could have sent the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where they would be easily ratified.

Let's face it: Mr. Obama's reputation as a protectionist precedes him. If he believes otherwise, our silver-tongued president has a tin ear.

As to the good reason for such a trip, consider the shared geopolitical interests between the U.S. and the biggest democracy in Latin America. Although former President Lula da Silva, also from the Workers' Party, did almost nothing to deregulate a mostly unfree economy over his eight years in office, he did manage to respect the central bank reforms carried out by his predecessor, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. As a result, after decades of inflationary chaos caused by central bank financing of government deficits, Brazil has now had vastly improved price stability for more than a decade. Ending the cycle of repeated devaluations is enabling the formation of a substantial middle class, and it is shaping a nation that increasingly wants to be part of the modern, global economy.

Millions of Brazilians climbing out of poverty is something to celebrate. But it is troubling when the leadership of a formerly isolated sleeping giant announces that it seeks alliances with tyrants. That's what was happening during Lula's time in office.

Lula had a thing for thugs. Given his roots in the left-wing labor movement, his soft spot for Cuba's Fidel Castro was understandable. But his decision to act as a flack for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the world stage was not. Fortunately, it was ineffective. On the other hand, his support for Hugo Chávez—who is antidemocratic at home and supports Colombian terrorists beyond his borders—damaged multilateral efforts to contain the Venezuelan menace.

Now Ms. Rousseff wants to shape a new foreign policy that, while far from aligning itself with the U.S., is not so likely to actively pursue dictators and authoritarians. The U.S. should nurture this effort. In the struggle for hemispheric stability, Brazil is a crucial player.

As president, Ms. Rousseff, who was once a member of a Marxist guerrilla group, was expected to be further to the ideological left than her predecessor and just as dangerously populist. But so far she has proven pragmatic. Whereas the charismatic Lula was fond of the limelight, she keeps a low profile. When she does speak, she is serious and measured. Lula complained loudly about media criticism and wanted to clamp down on press freedom. Ms. Rousseff has rejected the idea.

It is an old Brazilian tradition to reserve the foreign ministry for the country's crackpot left. That and the time-tested Brazilian ambition to defeat U.S. hegemony in the region is one way to explain the support for despots under Lula. Brazil also has valuable commercial contracts in Venezuela. But Ms. Rousseff seems to have decided that Lula's approach was counterproductive, especially to Brazil's goal of winning a permanent seat on the U.N.'s Security Council.

Shortly after she won the election runoff last Oct. 3

1, she began criticizing the human rights records of Iran and Cuba, something Lula never had the courage to do. Another important, though subtle, signal is the way in which Ms. Rousseff seems to be distancing herself from Mr. Chávez and his cohorts.

If Brazil is seeking rapprochement with the U.S., it is a welcome development for the entire hemisphere. As an ally on the fundamentals, like opposition to torture in Cuban jails, Brazil could be part of a long-awaited regional push to denounce human rights abuses. It might also come in handy next year when Venezuela holds presidential elections. Mr. Chávez has said that even if he loses, he won't step down, and the commander of the army has agreed.

That could make for a situation not unlike what is unfolding in Libya today. If the U.S. and Brazil are singing from the same hymn book, it will help. It's only too bad the commander in chief who was starting a war didn't have the good sense to return home after the meeting in Brasilia.

Jorge Castañeda, las dos Américas Latinas, Obama y algunos errores de apreciación

Raúl Allard Neumann analiza, en 10 puntos, las tesis que plantea en su columna el ex canciller mexicano Jorge Castañeda, .

Síntesis

El ex Canciller mexicano Jorge Castañeda, normalmente un analista informado, anuncia que la reciente visita de Obama a América Latina sería la última a la Región como tal por cuando habrían en realidad dos “América Latina”, la América del Sur, en la que destaca a Brasil, Chile, Argentina, Perú, Colombia, entre otros, y la “otra América”, más cercana a los Estados Unidos, integrada por México, Centro América y el Caribe. Desliza como erróneas políticas como las de crear el UNASUR , detrás de lo cual aprecia un afán de excluir a México, Estados Unidos y Canadá, a diferencia de lo que significaría la OEA que sí los acoge. Estimamos que el analista mexicano, en este caso, incurre en una apreciación errónea al magnificar la importancia de la relación- siempre importante-con Estados Unidos y no valorar la relevancia de América Latina como actor colectivo con intereses propios e identificables si se trata de promover en las próximas dos décadas un sistema internacional más coherente, más justo, con respeto a las diversidades y con posibilidades de desarrollo y participación para todos los pueblos.

Raúl Allard Neumann, ex Presidente del Foro Valparaíso

1. La gira del presidente Barrack Obama de los Estados Unidos a Brasil, Chile y El Salvador fue fuente de interesantes aportes y debate tanto anteriores a la misma-como el caso de Jorge Castañeda- como durante y después de la misma. En un artículo publicado en “El Mercurio, Santiago, “El viaje de Obama y América Latina”, Jorge Castañeda, ex Canciller de México, y quién nos tiene acostumbrados a análisis independientes e informados, despliega como siempre “good insights”, buenas visiones como cuando describe las tendencias comunes o de algún modo similares- aunque en medio diferencias- de diversos países sudamericanos que trata con mayor interés, como Brasil, Chile, Argentina, Perú y Colombia, con características como democracia, clases medias, empresariado local e inversión extranjera, exportadores de “ commodities” de altos precios, comercio internacional diversificado y otros. Igualmente, cuando se refiere a la agenda más propia de las relaciones de “la otra América”, los países ubicados más al norte de la Región, México, Centro América y el Caribe en sus relaciones con Estados Unidos, en particular, en temas como fronteras, migraciones, migraciones, comercio transfronterizo, turismo, seguridad, narcotráfico.
2. La conclusión natural sería de que existe cierta particularidad en la agenda de estos países situados relativamente más al norte geográfico del Continente por la omnipresencia de Estados Unidos, la mayor potencia mundial. Distinto a América del Sur con una agenda más amplia en la que la vinculación con Estados Unidos es importante pero no decisiva.
3. Aunque no lo dice con esas palabras Castañeda, Estados Unidos y la Administración habrían dado hasta el momento una atención conjunta a América Latina: en esta oportunidad visitó dos países sudamericanos, Brasil y Chile y un centroamericano, El Salvador, pero antes había visitado a México y participado en la Cumbre de las Américas en un país del Caribe anglófono, en Puerto España, Trinidad y Tobago
4. Hasta aquí, sin duda, se puede concordar con el marco de referencia propuesto por el analista mexicano. Sin embargo, merece una análisis mayor la observación de Jorge Castañeda en el sentido de que este podría ser “la última visita” a la Región como tal, pues ”de ahora en adelante será cada vez más difícil hablar de una unidad latinoamericana y habría que pensar en dos partes muy desiguales y muy diferentes”, esto es las dos zonas ya referidas, Sudamérica y “la otra América”, la región de más al norte y cerca de EEUU. Lleva la distinción al extremo de hablar “del abismo” que divide a las dos áreas, atribuye una intención conspirativa a UNASUR, la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas, que sería un “organismo creado apara excluir a Estados Unidos, México y Canadá, diferencia de la OEA”. En este contexto crítico, la decisión soberana de Brasil, país emergente de creciente presencia internacional, de abstenerse en la votación del Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas sobre la intervención en Libia, sería una muestra más de la “persistente esquizofrenia diplomática” de Brasil, más patente con el ex presidente Lula que con la Presidenta Rousseff, pero igualmente existente.
5. Consideramos quede los elementos que hemos resumido en los puntos 1 y 2 de este comentario, no se siguen las afirmaciones que reseñamos en el punto 4 y que el ex Canciller mexicano habría incurrido en errores de apreciación. Mencionaremos cinco aspectos.
6. En primer término, lo preocupante es que la ya detectada-en la doctrina y en el propio debate en México- situación especial de dicho país de difícil equilibrismo entre el norte y el sur a nivel latinoamericano e interamericano se resuelve aquí mediante una división de la región, la que se atribuye no a las políticas de México- como su inclusión en NAFTA y la orientación muy preferente de su comercio a Estados Unidos-, sino a los países del Sur y sus características y políticas. Este dilema se resuelve en esta visión en contra de una consideración de América Latina como actor colectivo.
7. En segundo término, la referencia a UNASUR y su contrapunto con la OEA resulta a mi juicio poco coherente. UNASUR refleja una realidad como se colige del propio análisis de Castañeda entre países con características comunes en medio, también, de una fuerte diversidad. La experiencia de UNASUR es perfectamente compatible con la OEA. El autor de este comentario trabajó más de diez años en funciones directivas en la OEA y cree tener conciencia de sus fortalezas y carencias: la Organización se justifica como lugar de encuentro con EEUU y el tratamiento de materias como democracia y derechos humanos, pero en el plano propiamente político internacional los países latinoamericanos no presentan sus temas propios al seno de la OEA por la misma asimetría y diversidad de puntos de vista que se tiene con la mayor potencia mundial, que tiene otro juego, otros intereses, otras alianzas.
8. Tercero, y lamentablemente, no se ha generado una institucionalidad propia de la integración latinoamericana suficientemente fuerte, pero la línea debe ser fortalecerla por medio de la convergencia de UNASUR, de instrumentos de consultas como el Grupo de Río-en que también está Cuba-,y de diversas experiencias regionales y subregionales de integración de modo de construir las mayores interacciones posibles a nivel de comercio intra latinoamericano y circulación de mercancías,capitales y personas, pero también otras formas de cooperación como la armonización de políticas en planos como el energético y el de la innovación, intercambios educativos y culturales, facilitar las inversiones mutuas y concertar posiciones latinoamericanas para tener una voz propia en foros como Naciones Unidas y la modificación del Consejo de Seguridad, FMI, Banco Mundial, OMC y la eventual reanudación de la Ronda de Doha.
9. En cuarto término, la referencia a la supuesta “esquizofrenia” de la política de Brasil aparece también como poco fundamentada. Por una parte, nada se dice en tono crítico de países como Alemania que tienen muchísimos vínculos con EEUU y que también se abstuvieron en la resolución del Consejo de Seguridad sobre Libia. Por otra parte, Brasil puede sostener visiones que consideren, por ejemplo, sus políticas hacia el África, como parte de una acción con intereses desplegados a nivel universal. Más bien, podríamos imaginar hacia el futuro una América Latina que en instancias como esta pueda articular una posición propia que influya desde sí misma en los asuntos mundiales. Y lo mismo cuando se trata de articular cambios en la arquitectura del sistema internacional, desde una perspectiva de situaciones más justas para países y pueblos tradicionalmente más desaventajados.
10. Por último, posiciones como la de Jorge Castañeda, con la que se puede, indudablemente, coincidir en algunos aspectos puntuales, considerada en su conjunto parece clausurar esa acción más decidida de América Latina como actor colectivo, considerando diferencia “abismales” en su interior. Creemos que no es así, que la posición del distinguido diplomático y académico mexicano parece exagerar la importancia de las relaciones de los países latinoamericanos con Estados Unidos-sean geográficamente más cercanos o más lejanos- y que en la actual realidad de la segunda década del siglo XXI se advierten muchas áreas problemas internacionales en que una acción mancomunada de América Latina es necesaria y posible.

Leer columna de Jorge Castañeda http://bit.ly/fbgW7r

(*) Raúl Allard Neumann es actualmente Director del Programa de Magister en Relaciones Internacionales de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

ACTUAL CONDUCCIÓN DE ACHEI

Directorio

Presidente: Dr. Alberto Sepúlveda Almarza

Vicepresidente: Prof. Jaime Sepulveda Cox, M.A. Ms.Sc.

Secretaria Ejecutiva: Dra. Loreto Correa Vera

Directores: Prof. Christian Torres Miranda

Embj. ® Samuel Fernández Illanes

Prof. Miguel Navarro Meza, M.A.

Prof. Carol Pinto-Agüero Barría, M.A.

Comisión Organizadora del Congreso

Presidente: Dr. Joaquín Fernandois Huerta

Secretario Ejecutivo: Prof. Cristián Fuentes Vera, M.A.

Blog

Editor: Embj. ®, Prof. Otto Boye Soto

IX. INCORPORACIÓN A ACHEI

ACHEI está plenamente abierta a la incorporación de toda persona que tenga genuino interés en el quehacer de las Relaciones Internacionales o en el estudio, investigación, y análisis de las mismas y posea experiencia en este campo.

Para integrarse a ACHEI, los Estatutos que la rigen establecen que:

• Para ser admitido como Miembro, se deberá presentar por el interesado una solicitud que señale su interés, acompañando documentación que acredite su experiencia en el área de Relaciones Internacionales y solvencia económica y personal.

• Son miembros las personas natu­rales aceptadas como tales por la mayoría simple de la Asamblea, previo informe del Directorio.

Las Solicitudes de Incorporación pueden ser obtenidas en esta Dirección Electrónica: cpintoa@ctcinternet.cl

XI. ACTUALES MIEMBROS DE ACHEI (*)

1. Enrique Alberto Albayay Castro

2. Roberto Orlando Alcántara Astorga

3. Raúl Eduardo Allard Neuman

4. Armin Ernesto Andereya Latorre

5. Miriam Virginia Bilbao Sette

6. Otto Alejandro Boye Soto

7. Luis Eugenio Cádiz

8. Gloria María Camy Guerrero

9. Manuel Alfredo Cárdenas Aguirre

10. Patricio Chellew Schroeder

11. Ramón Fernando Contreras Baeza

12. Loreto Edith Correa Vera

13. Felipe Cousiño Donoso

14. Roberto Alberto Enrique Durán Sepúlveda

15. Edgard Emilio Eckholt Iturralde

16. Juan Guillermo Espinosa Carmona

17. Cristián Gonzalo Faundes Sánchez

18. Sergio Eduardo Fernández Aguayo

19. Samuel Gerardo Fernández Illanes

20. Joaquín Fernandois Huerta

21. Giovanna Jocelyn Flores Medina

22. Cristián Humberto Fuentes Vera

23. Cristian E. Garay Vera [F-AI]

24. Alexis Victorino Guardia Basso

25. Pedro Osvaldo Alejandro Hernández González

26. Miguel Andrés Lavín Espinosa

27. Humberto Enrique Ledesma Rey

28. Miguel Ángel Patricio Leiva Lavalle

29. Diego Abdón Lira Silva

30. José Manuel Maganza Valenzuela

31. Guido Alfredo Meller Mayr

32. Celso Enrique Moreno Laval

33. Ricardo Osvaldo Navarrete Betanzo

34. Miguel Ángel Navarro Meza

35. Guillermo Eduardo Ortiz Romero

36. Cristóbal Bernardo Ortiz Salamovich

37. Miguel Eduardo Ortiz Sarkis

38. Lorena Cristina Oyarzún Serrano

39. Carol Pinto-Agüero Barría

40. Andrea Pinto-Agüero Corominas

41. Valeska Soledad Ponce Moreno

42. Raúl Andrés Quiroga Aguirre

43. Guillermo Ramírez Rebolledo

44. Héctor Valdemar Repetto Vera

45. Cristián Patricio Riquelme Saavedra

46. Luis Alfredo Rivero Cornejo

47. Marilys Lys Rosas Sandoval

48. Carolina Sancho Hirane

49. Julio Nelson Sau Aguayo

50. Wilna Yolanda Saavedra Cortez

51. Eduardo Schott Stolzenbach

52. Alberto Sepúlveda Almarza

53. Jaime Rodolfo Sepúlveda Cox

54. Ángel Mauricio Soto Gamboa

55. Christian Alfonso Torres Miranda

56. Valeska Tamara Troncoso Zúñiga

57. Roberto Ramón Ubilla Quevedo

58. Patricia Andrea Vargas Cárdenas

59. María Victoria Valderas

______________________________________________________________

(*) Registro de Miembros al 31/08/2010

XII. CONTACTOS CON ACHEI

Asuntos Institucionales Generales: asociacionachei@gmail.com

Solicitudes de Incorporación: cpintoa@ctcinternet.cl

Asuntos del Congreso: acheicongreso2010@gmail.com

Blog: http://elblogdeachei.blogspot.com

Dirección Postal: Román Díaz 89. Providencia. Santiago de Chile