Cubans caught in the eye of political storm
More than a half-million homes destroyed. Three-hundred bridges collapsed. Six-hundred municipal water wells wiped out. Almost a third of Cuba's population without electricity.
Bananas, sugar, yams, vast fields of food -- all gone.
After getting battered from one end of the island to the other by back-to-back hurricanes, Cubans are crying out for help. The risk of water-borne diseases, bacterial outbreaks, viruses and malnutrition is mounting.
But their leaders and ours keep going in circles, sizing up one another to see how they can gain the political advantage out of hurricanes estimated to have done billions of dollars in damage.
And there the Cuban people are: hungry, tired, yearning to be free -- propelled into the eye of this latest political storm.
The U.S. government quickly approved $10 million in aid to Haiti and sent planeloads of supplies as one million were left homeless there from recent hurricanes. And more U.S. aid is coming.
A DANGLED CARROT
But for communist Cuba the Bush administration offered a paltry $100,000 quick hit, dangling the carrot of millions of dollars in aid if a U.S. emergency relief team were allowed into Cuba to assess the damage.
Cuba's response was to call for the end to the decades-old U.S. embargo. No surprise there. Cuba can't get credit lines from U.S. companies under current law, so the regime has to pay in cash for those goods. Good thing, too, because Cuba is infamously bad about paying its debts. Ask Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy and on and on.
For decades, Cuba has mismanaged its economy and conveniently blamed the U.S. embargo. Make no mistake: The crumbling buildings wiped out during Gustav and Ike were a product of 50 years of the Castro brothers' neglect, exacerbated by wind and water.
So that's the lousy history, and we all know it. The question is: Why do we keep repeating it?
Because while the two governments are pointing fingers and the exile community keeps arguing over who's right on how to end the dictatorship, millions of desperate people are being held hostage to hunger and homelessness.
Cuba's foreign ministry pooh-poohed the U.S. aid offer as one more example that the U.S. government ``behaves cynically. . . . They lie unscrupulously.''
BITTER, NASTY RELATIONS
Well, yes, tit for tat. Apparently Cuban officials are fretting that American emergency aid experts would be checking out the Cuban countryside. What are they hiding? Old Soviet missiles unearthed by the storms?
It's not unusual for governments helping others to send assessment teams.
But there's nothing usual about U.S.-Cuba relations. It's bitter and nasty, and the Castros thrive on it.
So let's call the regime's bluff.
Already religious charities are scrambling to assemble shipments for Cuba and Haiti. They know from past assistance efforts that Cuba's militant regime has the structure -- beginning with those spying block committees -- to get basic aid, food and medicine to the masses quickly.
What's another option? Starve the Cubans until they somehow, after five decades of revolutionary propaganda, rise up and free themselves using scraps of lumber and metal from their demolished homes as their weapons?
Think U.S. national security. If this war of words escalates and aid to Cuba from other countries likely falls short, we can expect another rafter crisis.
And once again, the Castro brothers will have released the escape valve and saved themselves.
Bolivian president says gun battle was work of `assassins'
A dispute that killed at least 18 was described by Bolivian President Evo Morales as an ambush of his political supporters.
In a bid to defuse the bitter dispute over a new constitution and land reform that threatens to tear apart the poor Andean nation, Chile called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Monday.
''A larger tragedy has to be avoided,'' said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a strong ally of Bolivia's leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.
Morales described as an ambush a gun battle in the eastern province of Pando on Thursday that led him to impose martial law the next day.
''These people were massacred,'' he told a news conference Saturday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 16 people were killed in the clash -- the majority of them peasants who back Morales -- and authorities said another two died Friday at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
Bolivia's first indigenous president said he would not hesitate to extend the state of siege if necessary to the other three pro-autonomy eastern provinces where separatists seized government offices and natural gas fields last week in the gravest crisis of his nearly 3-year-old presidency.
Government opponents are demanding Morales cancel a Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow lands to landless peasants.
The emergency summit in Chile comes after both Morales and Chávez expelled the U.S. ambassadors in their countries to protest what they say is Washington's inciting of opposition protesters in Bolivia.
U.S. officials called the accusations baseless and expelled the Bolivian and Venezuelan ambassadors in Washington.
At Saturday's news conference, Morales said ''Brazilian and Peruvian assassins under the command of the governor of Pando'' took part in what he said was an ambush of government supporters.
Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernández denied having anything to do with the violence, saying it was not an ambush but rather an armed clash between rival groups.
Peasant leader Antonio Moreno told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the violence began when he and several truckloads of companions came upon an opposition blockade on a jungle highway.
He said there was some fighting, then suddenly a man exited a vehicle and fired on the farmers with a submachine gun.
Pando and the rest of the country were reported quiet on Saturday.
Death toll in Bolivia unrest reaches 18
Death toll in Bolivia unrest reaches 18
In a bid to defuse the bitter dispute over a new constitution and land reform that threatens to tear apart the poor Andean nation, Chile called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Monday.
"A larger tragedy has to be avoided," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strong ally of Bolivia's leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.
Morales described as an ambush a gunbattle in the eastern province of Pando on Thursday that led him to impose martial law the next day. "These people were massacred," he told a news conference on Saturday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 16 people were killed in the clash - the majority of them peasants who back Morales - and authorities said another two people died Friday at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
Bolivia's first indigenous president said he would not hesitate to extend the state of siege if necessary to the other three pro-autonomy provinces in eastern Bolivia where separatists seized government offices and natural gas fields last week in the gravest crisis of his nearly 3-year-old presidency.
Government opponents are demanding Morales cancel a Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants.
The emergency summit in Chile comes after both Morales and Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassadors in their countries to protest what they say is Washington's inciting of anti-government protesters in Bolivia.
U.S. officials call the accusations baseless.
Nonetheless, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Saturday he would reject an invitation he had received to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush out of "solidarity" with Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with Washington. Ortega also backed Morales' claims against the U.S. He did not say why or when he had been invited to the White House.
At Saturday's news conference, Morales said "Brazilian and Peruvian assassins under the command of the governor of Pando" took part in what he said was an ambush of government supporters.
Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez denied having anything to do with the violence, saying it was not an ambush but rather an armed clash between rival groups.
"The government has a great ability to distort things, and its arguments are always the same, accuse without reason," Fernandez told Radio Fides.
Peasant leader Antonio Moreno told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the violence began when he and several truckloads of companions came upon an opposition blockade on a jungle highway. He said there was some fighting, then suddenly a man exited a vehicle and fired on the farmers with a submachine gun.
"The campesinos fled to the mountain, while others jumped into the river," Moreno said.
National Health Minister Ramiro Tapia told Erbol radio that isolated shooting incidents involving opposition protesters Saturday were making it difficult for the military to enforce martial law in Pando's capital, Cobija, on the border with Brazil.
Interior Ministry officials told the AP that they expected more bodies to turn up from Thursday's violence, which occurred 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the provincial capital of Cobija.
The state of siege prohibits people from gathering or carrying weapons. It was declared hours after Morales and opposition governors from the four eastern provinces agreed to hold talks aimed at ending the crisis.
"We all agree that we have to look for a point of compromise," said Carlos Dabdoub, autonomy secretary in Santa Cruz - Bolivia's richest province and the center of anti-Morales opposition - on Friday.
But the following night, opposition governors announced that dialogue would be broken off if there are any more deaths in Cobija, and said in a statement that they would travel there Sunday to stand with Fernandez.
The protests temporarily disrupted natural gas exports to Brazil, Bolivia's No. 1 customer.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday that he would attend the regional gathering in Chile if Bolivia requests it, and urged the Andean nation's government and opposition to determine goals for the summit.
"If we make a decision that neither side respects, then the meeting will be useless," Silva told reporters.
He also appealed for gas supplies to continue, saying, "We have a contract, and therefore this contract must be respected."
THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
Biden, Palin could be bad news for the region
Over the past few months, you may have read in this column that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's stand on free trade and his Republican rival John McCain's position on immigration are not good for Latin America. Unfortunately, their respective running mates may be even worse for the region.
Let's start with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who -- unlike his Republican rival, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- has a 35-year career in the Senate, and has a long record of votes on almost every issue affecting Latin America.
On free trade, Biden is more of a hard-liner -- some would say protectionist -- than Obama. While Obama opposed the recent U.S. free-trade agreements with Central America and the pending deal with Colombia but supported the free-trade agreement with Peru -- and he repeatedly told me in an interview that he is not ''anti-free trade'' -- Biden has opposed all recent free-trade agreements with Latin America.
The Democratic vice-presidential nominee voted against the U.S. free-trade deals with Chile, Central America and Peru, as well as against similar U.S. deals with Oman and Singapore.
Biden's 2008 presidential campaign website stated that ''Joe Biden believes that U.S. trade negotiations must protect American workers by insisting on basic labor and environmental standards.'' But critics, including many Latin American trade officials, say Biden has voted against free trade because of his ties to U.S. labor unions, which want to protect their members' jobs from foreign competition even if that translates into higher prices for U.S. consumers.
In addition, Biden has often come across as a member of the chorus of Mexico-bashers in the U.S. Senate. The Associated Press quoted him as saying in November 2006, when he was about to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that ``Mexico is a country that is an erstwhile democracy.''
In fact, Mexico's seven-decade rule by the authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party ended in 2000. Whatever you may think of the current government, Mexico is more democratic than under the PRI administrations.
''Biden does not have a very distinguished record on Latin America,'' says Peter Hakim, head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a bipartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. ``And Palin is a totally blank slate.''
PALIN THE ISOLATIONIST
Indeed, Palin -- who reportedly got her first passport last year -- has shown scant interest in foreign affairs. A Google search under her name and ''Latin America'' on Friday yielded only one entry -- a blogger noting that there aren't any such entries.
But on immigration, she is believed by many to be significantly more isolationist than McCain. McCain supported a comprehensive immigration reform -- including an earned path to legalization for millions of undocumented workers -- until he recently switched to a let's-secure-the-border-first stand.
Palin is already being embraced by anti-immigration zealots as one of their own.
Radio show host Laura Ingraham, a darling of Hispanic-allergic anti-immigration groups, is quoted in www.ontheissues.org as having said earlier this year, ``I sat next to her at dinner -- this was in July -- I spoke at an event. And she's not for comprehensive reform, I can tell you that right now. She's sick to death of this immigration nonsense in the United States.''
Asked about it, two spokespersons for the Palin campaign said they would call back with a response, but neither had done so by late Friday.
My opinion: Biden and Palin appeal to the most extreme isolationist-populist wings of their respective parties. No matter whether Obama or McCain win the election, may they be blessed with good health and complete their term, and may we be spared from their No. 2's.
CHAVEZ'S MANEUVER
POST SCRIPT: There are three reasons behind Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chávez's decision to expel the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela last week.
• First, to divert attention from new revelations in the scandal over the suitcase with $800,000 in cash for political contributions, confiscated from a Venezuelan government delegation in Argentina last year.
• Second, to preempt the Sept. 9 announcement by the U.S. Treasury Department identifying top Venezuelan officials as active providers of funds and weapons to Colombia's FARC guerrillas.
• Third, and perhaps most important, to create a climate of international confrontation aimed at justifying new crackdowns on anti-Chávez parties, and preventing a new opposition victory -- like that of the Dec. 2, 2007, referendum -- in Venezuela's Nov. 23 state and local elections.
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