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ISSN 1060-4189
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Volume 19, Number 3
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January 23, 2009
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Copyright 2009, Latin America Data Base (LADB)
Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico
http://ladb.unm.edu
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Editor: Patricia Hynds
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Writers:
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Elsa Chanduvi Jana, Andres Gaudin, Jose Pedro Martins, Luis Angel Saavedra, Benjamin Witte
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In This Issue:
LATIN AMERICA: REGION STRUGGLES TO DEEPEN INTEGRATION
*Uruguay's complaints against Argentine block leadership vote
*Efforts to deepen integration stalled, not ended
URUGUAY: PLEBISCITE ON IMPUNITY LAW, EX-PATRIOT VOTE
*Cause of citizens abroad on ballot
*Ending impunity
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GENERAL
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LATIN AMERICA: REGION STRUGGLES TO DEEPEN INTEGRATION
By Andres Gaudin
In the third week of December, Costa do Sauipe, a natural paradise on the northeastern coast of Bahia state in Brazil, was the scene of four simultaneous summits in which the presidents of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries participated. The meetings were part of a diplomatic offensive aimed at consolidating integration mechanisms capable of making the region a strong player in international politics.
In his gambit to set himself up as the continent's top leader, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was able to bring together the members of the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Grupo de Rio, the Union de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), and the Cumbre de America Latina y el Caribe (CALC). For the first time, regional leaders met without the participation of Spain and Portugal, the former colonial powers with which they meet every two years at the Ibero-American summits, and, above all, without the US, the superpower that has dominated the hemisphere's politics for the last two centuries. It was the acid test.
Despite areas of agreement, the summits produced few concrete results. Analysts said that, while a strong political will exists, regional-integration structures are still a long way from being a powerful and solid reality. All the bilateral conflicts that impede progress surfaced at the meetings. Nevertheless, two far-reaching resolutions were passed: a unanimous request to the US to lift the embargo it has imposed against Cuba since 1961 (even strong US allies Colombia, Peru, and Mexico supported the resolution); and the decision to set up a regional organization similar to the Organization of American States (OAS), guided by its own rules but without the US or Canada.
Alongside those two significant actions was an episode that marked the summits and prevented UNASUR from being given the authority needed to move this ambitious South American geopolitical organization forward. This was Uruguay's supposed veto of the designation of former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner as UNASUR's political secretary, an executive position whose task would be to get the project underway.
Uruguay's complaints against Argentine block leadership vote
Two specific Uruguayan complaints against the former Argentine president and Argentina as a nation set off a media blitz based on rumors and reports that have still not been confirmed by either of the two principals: Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The first complaint was about former President Kirchner's lack of collaboration in seeing that a group of environmentalists, protesting the construction of a cellulose-pulp mill on the Uruguayan coast, end their 26-month blockage of traffic across a bridge spanning the Rio Uruguay, the border between the two countries. Before Nov. 20, 2006, when the protest began, the bridge was the major route for the exchange of goods and movement of people between the two countries (see NotiSur, 2007-02-16, 2008-01-04, 2008-10-17).
The second complaint was Argentina's failure to complete the dredging of the principal navigation channel of the Rio de la Plata, essential for deep-draft vessels to travel the route between the ports of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Armed with these two real issues, the local press and news agencies said, without any evidence, that Uruguay would veto Kirchner's designation, and, also without proof, that Uruguay was ready to withdraw from the UNASUR meeting--and by doing so destroy the still-not-formalized organization--if the former Argentine president was chosen by a majority and not unanimously, as had been agreed.
The press reports originated in an Oct. 23 article in El Pais, principal voice of the Uruguayan right. The international news agencies and reporters from the major regional media outlets took as fact Uruguay's supposed decision to veto the Kirchner candidacy. Since that date, the El Pais version has been the accepted one in the South American media.
The Uruguayan government responded with silence, which allowed the story to grow. Within a few hours, Uruguayan opposition leaders came out in support of the supposed decision, and the matter even set off a debate within the Frente Amplio. Using Vazquez's limited regional standing, members of his party criticized him for departing from a historical strategic political position of leftist and progressive groups in the tiny country, where a deep integrationist spirit has always dominated.
In the days just before the Dec. 16 opening of the four summits, the press came out with another version. The source was, once again, El Pais. This time the paper reported that if Kirchner were chosen as executive secretary of UNASUR, Uruguay would resign from the group. That is, it would break from the most ambitious political integration project in South America. The news agencies and reporters accepted the newest version and, in Argentina, the story, involving the husband of the president, was the daily headline in the two newspapers that lead the opposition to the government.
The atmosphere was tense when the summit opened. President Vazquez did not respond when asked about the supposed veto and the resignation of Uruguay from UNASUR. President Fernandez de Kirchner said repeatedly that the executive-secretary position had not been a topic of the summit, and Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister Celso Amorim announced that UNASUR officers would be elected when the 12 countries meet in Chile in April 2009.
Efforts to deepen integration stalled, not ended
Beyond whatever had been the initial objective--with the Uruguayan right, to cause a conflict between the president and his own party, and, for the Argentine opposition, to damage the image of the government--what is certain is that the press played a role in the failure of one of the summits in Brazil. In this case, the role was similar to that which it has been accused of playing recently in Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Argentina: to fan the flames of discontent and act as political-destabilization agents against those governments.
President Fernandez de Kirchner called it, directly, "promoting a dismissive climate," meaning a climate conducive to a coup. And, with the failure of the summit, the brakes were applied, at least until April, to a project as ambitious as it is necessary. This has various analysts asking whether, behind the campaign of various unsubstantiated stories, there was a greater goal than just causing friction between Vazquez and his party and sullying the image of the Argentine government during a legislative-election year.
This question arises because there might be those who wanted UNASUR to remain merely a proposal. UNASUR, whose Tratado Constitutivo (founding document) was signed by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Paraguay, Surinam, Uruguay, and Venezuela on May 23, 2008, has enormous significance. Among its principal objectives is "to construct a space for cultural, social, economic, and political integration and unity." It gives "priority to dialogue, social policies, education, energy, infrastructure, financing common works, and environment, among others, with a view to eliminating socioeconomic inequalities, achieving social inclusion and citizen participation, strengthening democracy, and reducing asymmetries within the framework of consolidating the sovereignty of the member states."
UNASUR supports creating a Consejo Sudamericano de Defensa, conceived as a consultative forum rather than a classic military alliance with its own armed force. UNASUR and the countries that will be invited to join it in the future have enormous potential. Statistics from the UN Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC), from 2007, indicate that the 33 countries cover 20 million sq km and have 550 million inhabitants, a US$3.5 trillion GDP, and US$459.774 billion in reserves.
Brazilian analyst Alfredo Prado wrote in the Angola-based magazine Africa 21 that, beyond the numerous obstacles in the road leading to UNASUR and the expansion of the Grupo de Rio, the summits clearly show regional willingness to assume a greater international role. "The presence of Cuban head of state Raul Castro, and the formal entry of Cuba into the Grupo de Rio, one of the two most important diplomatic forums in South America, need to be understood as a new era for integration and also as a signal to President-elect Barack Obama that Latin America believes the time has come to end the blockade of Cuba," said Prado.
Uruguayan political analyst Gerardo Caetano opted for formulating a query that also serves as a warning to regional leadership. "Could it be," he asked, "that the constant expansion of integration formats (ALADI, Comunidad Andina de Naciones [CAN], MERCOSUR, Alternative Bolivariana para las Americas [ALBA], etc.), rather than deepening what already exists, is a new flight forward."
[Sources: Africa 21 (Angola), January 2009; Associated Press, 10/23/08; El Mercurio (Chile), 10/24/08; Brecha (Uruguay), 10/31/08; El Litoral (Argentina), 11/02/08; O Estado de Sao Paulo (Brazil), 12/14/08; EFE, 10/23-24/08, 12/14/08, 12/16/08; El Comercio (Ecuador), Agencia ANSA, 10/23/08, 12/18/08, 01/12/09, 11/18/08, 12/16/08; Radio El Espectador (Uruguay), 10/23/08, 11/19/08, 12/14/08, 12/17/08; La Republica (Uruguay), 10/24/08, 12/14/08, 12/17/08; La Nacion (Paraguay), 10/23/08, 12/18/08; Reuters, 12/14/08, 12/18/08; Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), 12/18/08; Deutche Presse-Agentur (DPA), 10/23/08, 10/31/08, 11/19/08, 12/15/08, 12/21/08; La Jornada (Mexico), 10/24/08, 12/21/08; El Pais (Uruguay), 10/23/08, 12/17/08, 01/09/09, 01/13/09; Clarin (Argentina), 10/24/08, 12/14/08, 12/17/08, 01/13/09; Pagina 12 (Argentina), 12/16/08, 12/18/08, 01/13/09; La Nacion (Argentina), 10/23/08, 11/02/08, 12/17/08, 01/09/09, 01/14/09]
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URUGUAY
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URUGUAY: PLEBISCITE ON IMPUNITY LAW, EX-PATRIOT VOTE
By Andres Gaudin
Since the end of a bloody military dictatorship in 1985, Uruguayans have resolved essential aspects of the institutional life of the country through popular consultations. Along with presidential elections in October 2009, voters will say Yes or No on at least two critical issues. A third plebiscite is on the way to being dropped, after President Tabare Vazquez halted a signature-collecting campaign through which a group of citizens were hoping to put on the ballot a constitutional amendment allowing for presidential re-election. The two issues that Uruguay's 2.5 million eligible voters will decide are establishing the right of Uruguayans residing outside the country to vote and annulling an amnesty law that conferred impunity on members of the military accused of crimes against humanity during the 1973-1985 dictatorship.
The Uruguayan Constitution provides two ways by which a law can be subject to a plebiscite: either by collecting the signatures of at least 10% of eligible voters (250,000) or through legislation approved by at least two-fifths of lawmakers. All seven plebiscites carried out since the end of the dictatorship were convoked through the signature-gathering process. This time, the consultation on annulling the impunity law, technically called the Ley de Caducidad de la Pretension Punitiva del Estado (Law Nullifying the State's Claim to Punish Certain Crimes), will be convoked in the same way. However, for the issue of the right of Uruguayans living outside the country to vote, the governing Frente Amplio (FA) will avail itself of its parliamentary majority to call for the referendum through a two-fifths vote in the legislature.
In both cases, the proponents of a Yes vote are the parties of the FA coalition and the social organizations that back them--unions and their only federation, the Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadoes-Convencion Nacional Trabajadores (PIT-CNT), the high school and university students federations, the union of cooperatives, human rights organizations, neighborhood associations, and dozens of groups of Uruguayan citizens living abroad. Those backing a No vote are the four opposition parties: the Partido Blanco (PB or Nacional), the Partido Colorado (PC), and the tiny Partido Independiente (PI) and Union Civica del Uruguay (UCU).
The Catholic Church, not a heavy hitter in a country that established separation of church and state in the 19th century, and the dozens of evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which have seen accelerated growth in recent years, have not taken public positions so far. However, pastors of the historic Protestant churches--mostly Methodists and Waldensians--have generally advocated for a Yes vote in both consultations.
Cause of citizens abroad on ballot
In August 2005, four months after being elected to head the first progressive government in the history of the country, President Vazquez sent Congress a bill to establish voting by mail--a longtime cause of the Uruguayan left--through a system similar to that in effect in Italy and Spain and countries with a long democratic tradition, like France. The bill died without even being debated. To approve it would have required support of two-thirds of lawmakers, meaning that six opposition deputies would have had to vote with the governing party and against their own parties.
Both Blancos and Colorados contend that those who left the country have no right to elect its leaders because, as presidential precandidates Jorge Larranaga (Blanco) and Pedro Bordaberry (Colorado) said, the political or economic exiles who have not been able to return to the country "would not suffer the consequences of whatever the government that they helped elect did. They come and go, but we stay here and end up being the ones to pay."
For supporters of the right of those living abroad to vote, other criteria are more important. Secretary-general of the Partido Socialista del Uruguay (PSU) Eduardo Fernandez said that in modern democracies this right is clearly enshrined. In Italy, he said, since the 2006 elections, residents in the exterior and their children can not only vote for a party but can elect deputies and senators who represent them. In Rio de la Plata, he said, the Italians, their children, and grandchildren can vote for legislators who take to Congress the mandate of residents in both countries.
For FA Deputy Edgardo Ortuno, the only black in the Uruguayan Congress, the vote promotes "the full integration of those who had to leave and today send their remittances here so that their families can live in dignity." And he asked, "Are political and economic exiles good enough to send money home but not good enough to elect those who govern the country?"
According to Fernandez and Ortuno, preventing exiles from voting would be equivalent to punishing them again. "They had to leave, the first punishment, and now we condemn them anew by preventing them from voting," said Ortuno. Denying them the vote seems absurd, they say, especially considering that Article 78 of the Constitution even guarantees that right to foreigners who have resided in the country for 15 years.
Blancos and Colorados believe that the immense majority of Uruguayan exiles--the "patria peregrina [migrant country]," are FA supporters. And they are not mistaken. In 2004, Vazquez was elected thanks to the votes of 30,000 Uruguayan residents in Argentina who crossed the Rio de la Plata to support the progressive candidate. They are convinced that, if vote-by-mail or consular vote (ballots mailed in or deposited in urns in embassies and consulates) is approved, the FA will continue winning elections.
Two surveys taken in the exterior--one by the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the other quoted by the daily La Republica from the British publication The Economist--put Uruguay, together with Costa Rica, among the countries that make up the world's advanced democracies. And Uruguayan Ministry of Foreign Relations figures indicate that 700,000 nationals reside in the exterior, a startling number because it is almost 21% of the 3.5 million people who live within the borders.
In some way, the fear of the Blancos and Colorados is well-founded because the great majority of people living abroad are exiles and their families. It is estimated that some 330,000 Uruguayans live along Argentina's border with Uruguay, while another 40,000 live in Australia. Those are the two largest colonies or Uruguayans in the exterior.
Ending impunity
The consultation regarding the impunity law has the same opponents. The vote is on annulment, not repeal, because, legally, annulling a law means that it never existed and repealing it simply means that it is no longer in effect. While the FA supports the proposal, it does not do so enthusiastically because President Vazquez opposes it.
The president believes that the amnesty law allows legal action in some cases. The text was approved in 1986 as a result of a compromise between the Partido Colorado and the military when the country was still under dictatorship.
Besides granting impunity to those who imposed state terrorism and were the authors of the worst crimes against humanity, it established an intolerable interference of the executive power in the affairs of the judicial branch. Breaking with the principle of independence of the branches of government, the law says that the president must determine which cases benefit from the law and which not. Thus, Vazquez has designated various cases as outside the benefit of the law, and, in the last two years, about twenty military officers were tried, and 11 were extradited to Chile and Argentina. In addition, former dictators Juan Maria Bordaberry and Gregorio Alvarez are in prison.
The law was approved in 1986 after the military refused to appear to testify in the legal investigations. This led legislators to formulate the compromise assumed by the Partido Colorado before the country returned to constitutional rule.
On that occasion, FA deputies and senators opposed the law, as did the same organizations that today are promoting its annulment, and they gathered the necessary signatures to call a plebiscite on whether to keep the law. The consultation took place in 1989, amid a campaign in which the Blancos and Colorados repeatedly told the public that, if the No won, the military would carry out a new coup. The Yes won, and the law stayed in effect.
There is still no clear awareness among the general population of the extent of human rights violations committed during the 12 years of de facto government. Today, in jailing and extraditing so many military, the judiciary has proved that the defenders of the dictatorship no longer have the power that they once had.
Moreover, new evidence has emerged of assassinations, disappearances of people thrown into the sea or buried in military installations, newborn babies stolen, state-terrorism practices coordinated with the regimes in power at the time in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. Citizens were unaware of much of this when the law was ratified in that first plebiscite in the post-dictatorship period. Various polls say that now, with these new elements on the table, Uruguayans are ready to annul the law.
[Sources: Deutsche Welle, 09/30/08; Agencia ANSA, 10/24/08, 12/20/08, 12/23/08, 01/01/09, 01/03/09; La Republica (Uruguay), 07/02/07, 09/05/07, 10/23/08, 01/05/09; Associated Press, 10/27/08, 12/20/08, 12/23/08, 01/05/09; Ultimas Noticias (Uruguay), 10/30/07, 10/17-18/08, 12/02/08, 01/02/09, 01/05/09, 01/07/09; Radio El Espectador (Uruguay), 06/19/06, 08/24/07, 09/27/08, 01/08/09; El Observador (Uruguay), 01/08/09; El Pais (Uruguay), 10/29/08, 11/06/08, 12/02/08, 01/09/09; Agencia Prensa Latina: 12/20/08, 01/09/09; Semanario Brecha (Uruguay), 12/29/06, 09/07/07, 12/05/08, 01/09/09; Agencia Telam (Argentina), 12/20/08, 01/10/09]
Latin American & Iberian Institute