The Conquistador Connection
Hundreds of years ago the Spanish crown in Madrid dispatched intrepid ships to the New Word to explore, colonize and find El Dorado. Since then, Europe’s Spain and American Spanish speaking countries have built up quite a diplomatic history. They know each other very well, share some of the same media outlets, exchange cultural nuances and adore each other’s pop stars. Sometimes the glare of Washington, D.C. over powers this political arena and we ignore it, but then there are times when the Conquistador connection shines thru.
Once the Spanish empire stretched across the continents, now old diplomatic ties and bad relationships are cause for international concern. Colombia and Venezuela, situated next to each other at the top of South America, are on very different sides of an international terror plot to assassinate the President of Colombia and others.
This week a Spanish judge accused the government of president Hugo Chávez in Venezuela of involvement with the Basque terrorist group “Eta”, sparking a diplomatic row between the two countries. They are accused of collaborating to assassinate the President of Colombia and other high level Colombian officials living in Spain and Colombia. Worse yet, the Colombian narco-terror group Farc is linked to the scheme.
Background:
The Basque group is an armed nationalist and separatist organization in northern Spain. The group was founded in 1959 and they evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence. They have killed over 800 people and are internationally widely regarded as a terrorist group.
FARC is described as a terrorist group by the Colombian government, the United States Department of State, the Canadian government and the European Union. Other governments however, including the Venezuelan government, are less hostile towards the FARC. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez publicly rejected their classification as “terrorists” in January 2008.
Story Continues:
Hugo Chavez denies connection
The BBC reported that Judge Eloy Velasco charged six members of Basque separatist group Eta and seven members of Colombian rebel group Farc with various offences.
He said he believed Farc had asked for Eta’s help in a plot to kill Colombian officials in Spain, including Mr Uribe.
He said the two groups benefited from “Venezuelan government co-operation”.
In a 26-page indictment Mr Velasco said an investigation launched in 2008 has turned up evidence “that demonstrates Venezuelan governmental co-operation in the illicit collaboration between Farc and Eta”. Read more…
Spain has demanded and answer and Hugo Chávez called the accusations lies. With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveling through the region this week including stops in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala – its going to be an interesting week to look in on the Conquistador connection.
Russia get its man in the Ukraine
It was announced today, that Viktor Yanukovych will be inaugurated Feb. 25 as the new president of Ukraine despite the ongoing challenge by current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who is disputing the results. The outcome certainly makes Moscow happy, but the US and Europe may also have reasons to breathe easier.
Mr. Yanukovych may be the new face of Ukraine to the rest of the world, but he is a well known and well connected figure in his country. Overcoming several “youthful errors” with the law, he achieved a remarkably fast rise through the communist party system before helping to found the political movement he now heads with then President Leonid Kuchma in 1997. Kuchma later appointed Yanukovych to the post of Prime Minister in 2002.
Russia openly supported Yanukovych during the presidential election and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a swift invitation after the results were announced for Yanukovych to visit Moscow in the near future. Yanukovych, whose draws his strongest supporters from the Russian speaking eastern region of the country has been careful to downplay his Kremlin ties so as not to lose votes from the more pro-Euro leaning Ukrainians, but his foreign policy tendencies are well known to be pro-Russian.
Russian business groups have considerable ties in the Ukraine and the Russian navy leases a vital Black Sea base from the government in the port city of Sevastopol. The permanency of the Russian base remained in question throughout the elections, but on Saturday, Yanukovych hinted that the matter would be resolved amicably. “I think, Russian President Medvedev’s initiatives on security are acceptable for Ukraine,” Yanukovych said. “The BSF (Black Sea Fleet) issue won’t be resolved at the detriment of Russia, it will be resolved in the interests of Ukraine, but I do not rule out that BSF will stay in Crimea after 2017”.
Ukraine straddles Europe and Russia
Although it may seem counterintuitive, this election outcome could also yield benefits for Europe and the United States. While Yanukovych strongly opposes NATO membership and may be in favor of extending Russian’s military outcrop in the Black Sea, the energy pipeline battles between Russia and the Ukraine that sparked natural gas shortages throughout Eastern Europe are likely to subside under his presidency. Executives from energy consortiums such as Gazprom, Lukoil, and Evraz Group SA with substantial interests in the country supported Yanukovych and therefore are expected to receive favorable terms in their expansion plans.
A quiet Black Sea region, a calmer Europe and a satisfied Russia is quite probably a gift to President Obama who has other problems to deal with. Moreover, while the democratic transition process in the Ukraine is not perfect, every peaceful transfer of power moving forward in mostly-free, pluralist elections is a gift to the Ukrainian people.
U.S. launches major offensive in Afghanistan on eve of Olympics
Intrepid reporting by C. J. Chivers and Dexter Filkins for the New York Times broke today that the US and its Coalition Partners have launched a major offensive in the south of Afghanistan. Recalling Russia’s military offensive into Georgia during the last Olympic games’s opening ceremony in Beijing (August, 2008) - the move may indeed have been intentionally timed by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, an eery tragedy took place before the games began when a 21 year old Georgian luge athlete died during a practice run.
“Thousands of American, Afghan and British troops attacked the watery Taliban fortress of Marja early Saturday, moving by land and through the air to destroy the insurgency’s largest haven and begin a campaign to reassert the dominance of the Afghan government in a large section of southern Afghanistan.
The force of about 6,000 Marines and soldiers — a majority of them Afghan — began moving into the city and environs before dawn.
As Marines and soldiers marched into the area, several hundred more swooped out of the sky in helicopters into Marja itself. Marines from Company K, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, landed near an intersection of two main roads at the northern fringes of Marja, piled out of the their helicopters and scattered into the houses and compounds around them.
In the quiet dark of 2:40 a.m., Company K met no resistance. But none of the Marines believed the peace would last the night.
“Basically, we are going into a main hornets’ nest,” said Capt. Joshua P. Biggers, Company K’s commander.
Just after midnight, aircraft bombed the southernmost portion of Marja, where officials believed foreign fighters were hiding. Later, Marines and Afghan soldiers began setting up cordons to the northeast, south and west of the city, in anticipation of a ground assault that was expected to begin within hours.
The operation, dubbed Moshtrarak , which means “together” in Dari, is the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001. Its aim to flush the Taliban out of a huge area — about 75 square miles — where insurgents have been staging attacks, building bombs and processing the opium that pays for their war.“ Continue Reading –
Developments in Chad have International Analysts, Aid Groups and the UN on Edge.
Chad, one of Africa's poorest countries is now the site of intense diplomatic negotiations
Over the past 5 years, genocide and proxy wars have ravaged the border region between the African nations of Sudan and Chad. However, in the face of strong misgivings by the United Nations and the international community, thawing relations between the countries’ leaders may bring an end to the cross-border battles and result in the expulsion of UN peacekeeping troops. Many international analysts, aid groups and the UN are on edge.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby said last Wednesday that he would travel to Khartoum this week for talks with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, his first visit there in six years of rocky relations between the two oil-producing rivals. Mr. Deby who has been in power since 1991 and pushed through a successful referendum eliminating term limits in 2006, is widely regarded as one of Africa’s most corrupt leaders. Mr. al-Bashir, we should not forget, has been indicted for war crimes by the International Court of Justice for his role in the Darfur genocide and does not rank any higher on the corruption chart.
Chad and Sudan have repeatedly traded accusations against each other, while overtly supporting each other’s rebel groups through weapons and safe havens. Sudanese backed rebels even nearly succeeded in taking control of Chad’s capital in February 2008, before being driven back by Deby’s forces. However, a new agreement between the two counties to form a joint border patrol has resulted in the government of Chad refusing to allow the United Nations to continue its peacekeeping and humanitarian role in the country. “We have officially notified the special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General of our wish to not renew MINURCAT’s mandate,” said General Oky Dagache, Chadian President Idriss Deby’s representative to the MINURCAT, as the UN mission in Chad is known.
One might deduct that this stipulation was a quid-pro quo request of Sudan’s government in the agreement as well.
view large map
The expulsion of the UN in this country would be a profound mistake at this time, but the governments of Chad and Sudan seem unconcerned about the practical ramifications. The UN force in Chad has been fulfilling a critical role in the maintenance of peace and order, the training of police forces and local judiciary, and the delivery of essential humanitarian aid assistance. After many years, the toxic mixture of armed rebel groups, drought conditions, corruption, oil profits and millions of refugees has critically impaired the people in this region to project and feed themselves.
The peacekeeping mission, established by the Security Council in 2007, is mandated to protect civilians and refugees as well as promote human rights and peace in the troubled northeastern part of the Central African Republic and eastern Chad. Right now 3,032 uniformed troops from 40 countries are stationed at four forward bases.
Sources at the UN Department of Peacekeeping say this posturing by Chad could be a ploy to extract greater concessions from the UN and reduce the scope of the mission, but others think Chad is not bluffing. Both Chad’s and Sudan’s leaders see the international presences as an infringement on their sovereignty and would like international observers out of this region so they could suppress rebel groups.
Despite Chad’s request, some western governments are maintaining a wait and see attitude. 200 Irish soldiers are still scheduled to depart on Sunday (Feb 7) for a four-month tour of duty and UN diplomats engaged in high-level discussions with Chad over the peacekeeping mission’s mandate have been reportedly instructed by the United States not to make any agreements in Chad, before returning to UNHQ in New York to debrief others. We’ll certainly look forward to upcoming developments.
Haiti and Dr. Shah’s First Test
Over the last week, the world has been watching the brutal aftermath of a 7.0 earthquake, which struck Haiti last Tuesday afternoon. For Rajiv Shah, the execution and delivery of relief efforts are to be his first test since taking over the US Agency for International Development (USAID) this past Christmas Eve. However, in the coming weeks ahead, after the initial nutritional, shelter and hygienic needs of Haiti are met – a real development plan for Haiti must be made.
Supplies being unloaded onto Haiti's airport tarmac photo/Google Earth
While this seismic tragedy was unexpected, the knowledge that Haiti was a fragile and poor nation with a struggling government was not. It has had a United Nations peacekeeping force and developmental presence in Haiti since 1993. In the first hours after the earthquake struck the county’s flimsy structure was easily apparent and swift action was taken by the US government to provide basic logistical services that the Haitian government could not. Many other governments have pledged support, but the US has essentially taken over the command and control functions of the entire relief operation, with the US Federal Aviation Administration dictating all air traffic into Port-au-Prince’s airport and the Pentagon coordinating every supply airlift and sea delivery.
One bright spot is the outpouring of civilian assistance and humanitarian aid from all parts of the world. Boosted by new donation streams such as mobile text messages and online social networking sites, these contributions have generated tens of millions of dollars with The American Red Cross alone reporting over $10 million in mobile txt donations late Friday evening. At the same time, aid workers armed with technology are using their mobile phones to pin point their locations as trouble spots on Google Maps and share this geographical information with command and distribution centers. However, while these and other factors such as Haiti’s proximity to the US are in its favor, years of abject poverty, ignored development, UN bureaucracy and weak state institutions are compounding the earthquake’s tremors.
As USAID’s Administrator, Dr. Shah is a competent professional, with previous stints at the US Department of Agriculture and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. According to his official USAID bio he earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and M.Sc. in Health Economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and also attended the London School of Economics. Not too shabby…but Haiti will be harder than any other test he has had to face.
The relief efforts will go on for some time, but when the US leaves, albeit probably not any time soon, Haiti’s people need to be able to hold up their own economy and communities again. As USAID marshals its own plan for Haiti’s recovery, job creation, exportable goods and outsourced services must be the end goal of any development scheme. Good luck Dr.
The Paralysis of Copenhagen and the Potential of Cochabamba
An Opportunity to Stop Burning Coal
Op-Ed Contributor:
Jim Gonzalez Founder and Chair of the Renewable Energy Accountability Project
In a bold move that could recoup the momentum that was lost at the disappointing Copenhagen Climate Conference, Bolivian President Evo Morales has challenged governments “who want to work with their people” to come to Cochabamba on April 20-22, 2010 to work on meaningful climate change reform. President Morales is inviting indigenous peoples, social movements, scientists and environmentalists from throughout the world to attend.
Here is why I will attend.
The Copenhagen Climate Conference was meant to unify the world in bold action to save the planet. Instead, inaction and indifference prevailed in a lemming march to the global warming tipping point — led in large part by the rich nations of the developed world.
Those who will suffer most as a result of climate change are often ignored in a rich world debate about cap and trade. The threat of climate change on the lifestyles of the richest countries is highlighted at the expense of the life and death struggles of the subsistence poor. In truth, the rich may be able to shift their buying power to avoid the impact of climate change, but it is the poor who will die in the wake of rising sea levels and hemispheric droughts.
The data and scientific evidence are compelling. Scientists from the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently announced that global carbon dioxide levels in 2008 were a staggering 40% higher than in 1990. This means that sea levels may rise as much as one meter by 2100, nearly twice as much as was projected just two years ago by the IPCC. To abate a global climate disaster by keeping global warming under two degrees Celsius, per capita carbon emissions will have to decrease by at least 80% below the 1990 per capita emissions from developed nations.
This is a tall order that can be accomplished only through facing the truth about the greatest source of global warming pollution – burning dirty coal to generate electricity.
The one statistic big utilities and corporate polluters hope the public never focuses on is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) estimate that over 40% of man-made carbon emissions in the United States are attributable to the burning of fossil fuels (primarily coal) to generate electricity.
(Ironically, in the United States the coal industry cheerily advertises that over half of our electricity comes from coal; and Congress debates the infusion of billions of dollars on carbon capture and sequestration, aka “clean coal”, in an attempt to extend the life of over 600 U.S. coal fired plants.)
Amidst the disappointments of Copenhagen and the new opportunity of Cochabamba are the horrific coal burning statistics which are at the very core of the global warming crisis. These statistics — if ever honestly dealt with — would provide the single most effective solution to human caused global warming.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, from 2002 to 2007, China doubled its use of coal – 3 billion tons of coal, more than three times that of the United States. The impact of coal burning on the environment and its relationship to greenhouse gas pollution and global warming is incontrovertible. And yet, these statistics are brushed aside as the popular debate turns to speculative engineering adventures, “freakonomics” geo-engineering, carbon “capture and sequestration,” or to the creation of yet another Wall Street derivative market through the cap and trade gamble.
If we are to be truthful about the crisis we are in, and if we are to examine scientific data – and yes, statistics – with cold realism, we are led inevitably to one undeniable conclusion: we must end coal burning to generate electricity- and if we do we will halt, and possibly reverse, human caused global warming.
Although scientific evidence and data has been essential in understanding and confronting the climate crisis, too often the profit motive has trumped sound national and international policy. In this case, the facts clearly indicate that coal burning is way too profitable for Big Utility cheerleaders to be inspired to do the right thing.
Owning a coal plant – particularly an older coal plant — is, in effect, like owning a diamond, or gold mine; or an unlimited license to print money. A lot of mega-polluters are dependent on coal profits at the expense of the environment: the mountain top removal mining companies, the railroads which transport coal and the big utilities (both private and public) which burn coal.
So, in the wake of the paralysis of Copenhagen and the potential of Cochabamba, it is time to start focusing on the coal electricity monopolies that are the chief culprits of the climate crisis. Retiring coal plants in the United States and China is the most efficient and effective way to solve the global warming crisis; and to usher in the worldwide green economy. Since world leaders stumbled at Copenhagen, hopefully now the people will lead the march to save Mother Earth in Cochabamba.
Jim Gonzalez is the founder and chair of the Renewable Energy Accountability Project, a grass roots campaign to hold utilities and policy makers accountable to their commitments to a clean energy future. Jim Gonzalez is a former member of the elected Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, California. www.reapinfo.org
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