Adam reviews President Obama's stops, major policy speeches, and pending issues in Chile, Brazil and El Salvador. Plus, a look at elections in Haiti and Peru.

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• Colombia’s FARC guerrillas released hostage Marcos Baquero (kidnapped June 2009) on Wednesday. As of this writing (Friday), they have just released Armando Acuña (May 2009) and Henry López (May 2010). On Sunday, they are to release Guillermo Solórzano (June 2007) and Salín Sanmiguel (May 2008). While the unilateral releases have led some analysts to speculate about peace prospects, the FARC’s kidnapping of two paper-company workers on Thursday in Cauca puts a damper on things.

• Meanwhile Colombia’s Free Country Foundation, an NGO founded by former Vice President Francisco Santos, found the first annual increase in kidnapping in the country since 2002: a 32 percent jump in kidnappings from 2009 (213) to 2010 (282).

• On a visit to Central America and Colombia, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield spoke of a plan to provide Central American countries with $200 million in new assistance to combat drug trafficking and the influence of Mexican cartels. Brownfield also mentioned a desire to create “synergies” and a “single umbrella” to cover U.S. aid to Mexico (the Mérida Initiative), Central America (the Central America Regional Security Initiative) and Colombia (the Colombia Security and Development Initiative, a successor to Plan Colombia).

• Speaking in Utah on Monday, the U.S. Army’s number-two civilian official was asked about America’s “strategic blind spots.” He replied:

  One of them in particular for me is Latin America and in particular Mexico. As all of you know, there is a form of insurgency in Mexico with the drug cartels that’s right on our border. This isn’t just about drugs and about illegal immigrants. This is about, potentially, a takeover of a government by individuals who are corrupt.

  After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the term “insurgency” to describe Mexico’s violence in September, President Obama walked back her comments a bit. Similarly, Army Undersecretary Joseph Westphal took back his statements the next day after they stirred an outcry from the Mexican government.

• For the first time in years, Venezuelan authorities announced the national homicide rate: 48 murders for every 100,000 citizens. This is higher than Colombia (34) and about the same as Guatemala (46).

• Brazil has long been considering a multi-billion-dollar purchase of high-tech fighter aircraft, which would be the biggest arms sale to Latin America since – well, probably ever. The Lula government had been leaning toward a purchase of French jets, due mainly to French promises of technology transfers. The new government of Dilma Rousseff, however, indicated to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – who paid a visit to Brazil Monday – that it was now leaning toward a U.S.-made model, Boeing’s F-18. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, who served under Lula but stayed in his post, is reportedly considering resigning out of disagreement with the new government’s preference.

• Brazil may be near another big arms buy: a 2.9-billion-pound (US$4.64 billion) purchase of warships from the United Kingdom. This after a major deal from France last year, which includes a nuclear-powered submarine.

• Sometime in the past 24 hours or so, the State Department posted to its website the Foreign Military Training Report for 2009 (see our post on the recently released 2008 report). At first glance, it’s a bit surprising to see no significant increase in training to Mexico. More details and analysis of this data-rich report will be coming soon.

• A Republican push for ratification of pending free trade agreements with Colombia included a floor statement by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), a report issued by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking minority member Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), and a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee. At the latter, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk “declined to commit to bringing the Colombia and Panama agreements to Congress within six months.”

• Meanwhile, because of a larger trade impasse in the U.S. Congress, Colombia and Ecuador are to lose their preferential access to the U.S. market when the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Elimination Act (ATPDEA) expires this weekend. The longstanding measure, which is repeatedly renewed, is likely to be passed next week.

• A summit of Latin American and Arab leaders is scheduled to be held in Lima next week, but may be delayed by the political upheaval in Egypt. (UPDATE: AP Andean Bureau Chief Frank Bajak tweets that the summit has been postponed indefinitely.)

• “While drug violence continues to spread in Mexico,” reports NBC News, “White House officials have decided the situation doesn’t rank as an ‘emergency’ under federal rules,” because doing so would mean angering the U.S. gun lobby and requiring border-state gun shops to report large purchases of assault rifles. Thus this small measure to slow the flow of weapons to Mexico’s cartels will have to wait several more months.

• Opposition legislators now have over a third of seats in Venezuela’s National Assembly. Things are so polarized that, even though the new legislature began in early January, this week saw a mass fistfight break out on the floor of the chamber.

• Recommended (in Spanish): University of Miami Professor Bruce Bagley, a renowned expert on U.S. policy toward the Andes, has a two-part series about the war on drugs at the Colombia-based “Razón Pública” website.

A visit from Colombia's defense minister. Cutbacks to control of arms smuggled into Mexico. Brazil's president visits Argentina, but America's president doesn't.

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• Arturo Valenzuela, the State Department’s top Latin America official, gave a speech at the Brookings Institution Wednesday on “Latin America Relations: A Look Ahead.” While largely upbeat, Valenzuela’s text had strong words about deteriorating democratic conditions in Venezuela, and a hint that Venezuela is violating the OAS Democratic Charter.

  Particularly worrisome, among other developments, is the recent delegation of legislative authority to the executive that extended beyond the term of office of the outgoing National Assembly. This undemocratic measure violates the shared values enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which will mark its tenth anniversary this year. We are committed to looking for ways to more effectively implement the charter as a safeguard of core democratic principles.

  Valenzuela followed this up by tweeting, “it is worrisome to see the delegation of legislative authority to the executive in a way that violates the Dem Charter.”

  Violators of the 2001 Charter are subject to suspension from OAS membership, if a special session of the body’s General Assembly votes to do so. Valenzuela gave no indication of what actions, if any, the United States might take with regard to Venezuela and the Charter.

• Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez while both attended the January 1 inauguration of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. But neither the United States nor Venezuela are likely to have ambassadors in each others’ capitals anytime soon. Venezuela has maintained its rejection of U.S. Ambassador-Designate Larry Palmer, because he had told Senate questioners months ago (PDF) that “morale” in Venezuela’s armed forces “is reported to be considerably low, particularly due to politically-oriented appointments.” With the end of the 111th Congress, Palmer’s nomination expired, and State Department officials hinted on Monday that they might nominate someone else. This hint inspired an angry Washington Post editorial on Tuesday, and by Wednesday the State Department had clarified its intention to re-nominate Palmer over Chávez’s objections. For his part, Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Álvarez, was sent home in December.

• Valenzuela, meanwhile, will spend next week in Argentina and Chile.

• Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) will travel next week to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Panama.

• Brazil’s newly sworn-in president, Dilma Rousseff, wants to do something that her popular predecessor, Lula, tried and failed to do in 2009. She declared that she wants a Truth Commission to investigate (but not prosecute) human rights crimes committed by the military regime that ran Brazil between 1964 and 1985. President Rousseff’s new Secretary for Human Rights, María do Rosario, has made a Truth Commission a top priority for her office. Brazil’s military, which strongly opposed a similar proposal in 2009, didn’t help its case when a top general, Elito de Carvalho Siquiera, said “it is not cause for shame that the country had political disappearances” during the dictatorship.

• Argentina will be the destination of Rousseff’s first foreign visit, before the end of the month.

• “Border-state legislators from both parties … say they view the U.S. military presence” on U.S. soil along the Mexico border “as a long-term necessity,” according to a troubling article in Wednesday’s Washington Post.

• More than 13,000 people are estimated to have been killed by drug-related violence in Mexico in 2010, up from 9,600 in 2009.

• The Associated Press this week published detailed updates on two ambitious anti-crime programs in the Americas: “Todos Somos Juárez,” the struggling anti-crime and economic-opportunity program in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and the “Favela Pacification Program” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

• The favela program, the topic of a long post to this blog, has been covered by several articles in the English-language press over the past week.

• A bomb on a bus killed six people in Guatemala City, while gunmen killed eight people shooting up a minibus on a rural road in Olancho, Honduras. Gangs linked to organized crime are blamed for both attacks.

• In one of her first communications as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) scolded the State Department’s Valenzuela for “efforts by U.S. officials to pressure the Government of Honduras to absolve former President Manuel Zelaya of the criminal charges he faces.” Rep. Ros-Lehtinen’s opinion differs with that of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, who believes that charges of corruption and abuse of power should be dropped against the ex-president, who was exiled by a June 2009 military coup.

• The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a large U.S. economic aid program founded by the Bush administration, produced its list of countries who, because they met a range of good governance criteria, are eligible to apply for assistance in 2011. Honduras and Nicaragua – both former recipients of MCC aid – are now ineligible.

• In Colombia, the FARC guerrillas set off three small bombs over five days in Neiva, a mid-sized city that is the departmental capital of Huila, in the country’s southwest. Meanwhile discussions of the logistics for the FARC’s promised release of five long-held hostages are proceeding with extreme slowness.

• Colombia’s El Espectador has a very good piece on the Alto Naya paramilitary massacre of at least 46 people, which took place nearly 10 years ago, in April 2001. Last year, violence killed at least 21 non-combatants in the Alto Naya zone, which sits on a key drug-trafficking corridor along the border between Cauca and Valle del Cauca departments.

• Cuba’s almost completely state-run economy has begun to lay off 500,000 workers from government payrolls. In a country of 11,200,000 people, the impact will be staggering.

A view of Rio's Complexo de Alemão favela.

Just before the holidays I accompanied WOLA colleagues on a week-long research trip to Brazil. While In Rio de Janeiro, I saw a scenario that’s starting to look very familiar around Latin America, and that may recur elsewhere in 2011.

It goes something like this:

1. 1. Decades of government neglect effectively cede a piece of territory, and its population, to violent groups. This neglected territory could be a discrete urban neighborhood; it could be a vast rural region. The violent groups – whether insurgents, pro-government militias, mafias or gangs – recruit unoccupied youth and fund themselves by drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. The illegal groups corrupt and penetrate the very government institutions that are supposed to confront them: the security forces, the judicial system, local and sometimes national government.

2. 2. The violence and illegality worsen, eventually becoming so intolerable that they affect daily life in wealthier, more central territories – if not national security as a whole.

3. 3. The government responds by sending in large numbers of security forces, including army troops, to clear the violent groups from the neglected zone and hunt down their members.

4. 4. Past experience or current frustrations make clear that a military/police occupation won’t be enough. Instead, officials present an innovative-looking, sequenced and coordinated “whole of government” plan. The idea is to bring in more trustworthy police, have civilian government agencies provide basic services, and integrate the zone’s residents as full citizens who are no longer excluded from national life.

5. 5. At the end, the plan calls for the security forces to withdraw to normal levels, leaving behind a functioning civilian state, a legal economy and an engaged citizenry.

If you follow Latin America, you’ve seen this scenario playing out, with varying degrees of success, in Ciudad Juárez (the “Todos Somos Juárez” program) and some other Mexican border cities; in the slums ringing Medellín, Colombia (“Operación Orión” and its aftermath); and in rural Colombian zones like La Macarena, where an ambitious “Consolidation” program is now completing its fourth year. If you follow Afghanistan, this narrative also probably applies to territories like Marjah or Kandahar since the Obama administration increased troop levels a year ago.

This list now includes Rio de Janeiro, a mega-city that will host some of the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. A “Favela Pacification Program” begun at the end of 2008 is now accelerating as Rio seeks to regain control of pockets of statelessness – decades-old shantytowns and slums called favelas, dispersed throughout the city.

Impoverished, violent, poorly governed neighborhoods are common in Latin America, where rapid urbanization began in the second half of the twentieth century. In most of the region’s cities, though, slums concentrate on the outskirts. The poor neighborhoods blanketing the hillsides around downtown Medellín are a classic example.

Rio de Janeiro is different. A legacy of freed slaves relegated to what was then the city’s worst land – hilltops and swamps – Rio’s shantytowns are scattered throughout the city’s geography, including alongside some of its most exclusive neighborhoods. For generations, the favelas were tolerated but ignored. City government made little or no effort to provide services like electricity or water, which are pirated, or even trash collection. Notoriously corrupt police provided little or no protection, if they were present at all.

In last 20 years, these pockets of urban lawlessness were taken over by violent drug-trafficking gangs who carry weapons and deal drugs openly, with a cocaine-on-display brazenness not equaled in Colombian or Mexican cities. Today, most of the violent competition for control of the drug trade takes place between three gangs: the “Red Commandos” (Comando Vermelho), the “Friends of Friends” (Amigos dos Amigos), and the “Pure Third Command” (Terceiro Comando Puro). In addition, some favelas have seen the drug gangs displaced by “militias” – vigilante groups usually led by off-duty police – who rival the gangs in brutality and corruption.

Rio’s Military Police have been part of the problem. (Despite their name, the Military Police are no longer a part of Brazil’s armed forces, as they were during the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorshop. Today, Military Police forces are constabularies subordinated to state governments, but with a military-style organization and subject to the military justice system.) With “resisting arrest” the most frequent pretext, the Rio and Sao Paulo police kill over 1,000 people each year, making them probably the most lethal police forces in the world. Between their reputation for brutality and their reputation for corruption – including collusion with the drug-trafficking gangs – the Military Police are widely distrusted, if not hated, in the favelas.

In December 2008, Rio’s state and city governments under Governor Sergio Cabral and Mayor Eduardo Paes (whose PMDB party is part of Brazil’s ruling coalition) embarked on a new strategy, the Favela Pacification Program. Under the program, the Rio Military Police’s elite unit (the Police Special Operations Battalion or BOPE, featured in the “Elite Squad” movies) sweeps into a favela, chasing out – or chasing underground – the gangs. This operation often includes intense urban combat.

Immediately afterward, the BOPE are meant to give way to government officials offering social services and a brand-new police force, the Pacification Police Units or UPP.

The UPP is a key piece of this puzzle. Though part of the Military Police, it is a force-within-a-force being created from scratch. It recruits only brand-new police, untainted by association with the old, troubled force, and prefers college graduates. Recruits to the new force receive training with a large component of human rights and community policing skills. Afterward, UPP members are closely monitored for signs of corruption or abusive behavior.

A confidential 2009 WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. Consulate in Rio (worth a read) explains further.

UPP commander Colonel Jose Carvalho - a former United Nations Peacekeeping Commander - told us on August 25 that only new police academy recruits are selected into the UPP program. “We need fresh, strong minds, not a Rambo,” Carvalho stated. “The older generation of cops is more oriented to kicking down doors and shooting people.”

Armored personnel carrier at an entrance to the Complexo de Alemão favela.

The UPP received glowing praise in an October 2010 New York Times article about its operations in the notorious City of God favela, one of the first to be occupied in late 2008.

Even with violent challenges ahead, many Rio residents are rooting for the program. Dilma Rousseff, the leading candidate to be Brazil’s next president, has proposed expanding the model to other cities. Millions of dollars in donations from companies like Coca-Cola and a billionaire businessman, Eike Batista, are also pouring in, paying for things like police equipment.

With 1,000-1,500 members and presence in a few dozen favelas – most of them small communities near some of the wealthiest tourist beaches – the UPP is still a small force, though recruitment and training are accelerating. The goal is to arrive at about 12,000 UPPs, present in 160 communities, by 2014, according to Rio state Public Security Secretary José Mariano Beltrame.

While the new police force is barely online, coordination of security with social services has also been a challenge. A program of “quick impact” projects called UPP Social is able to offer some assistance, but lacks the authority to encourage the rest of the federal, state and city governments to make long-overdue investments in education, health, sanitation and similar services. Officials said that persuading the Rio government’s “Secretarias” to coordinate with the Pacification Program has been difficult.

Still, the Favela Pacification Program is moving ahead very quickly – perhaps more rapidly than originally planned.

In October, security chief Beltrame told the New York Times that gang leaders fleeing “pacified” favelas were moving to larger, more dangerous “mothership” favelas, particularly the sprawling Complexo de Alemão series of favelas in the northern part of the city (population approximately 200,000), not far from Rio’s airport. However, Beltrame said at the time, “he probably did not have the manpower” to move the Pacification Program into the Complexo de Alemão during 2010, as it would be a “complex operation.”

Yet a month and a half later, the Complexo de Alemão operation had begun. On November 28, hundreds of BOPE and military police agents entered the Vila Cruzeiro part of the complex and moved through the rest of Alemão, chasing out the Comando Vermelho leaders who had been controlling it. The operation for the first time included regular Brazilian Army soldiers and Marines, who drove armored personnel carriers into the neighborhood and continue to guard its perimeter.

Soldiers posted at an entrance to the Complexo de Alemão favela

The operation was very popular in Rio. It came a week after a wave of bus burnings and other violence that, officials believed, was the gangs’ attempt to derail the Pacification Program through intimidation. News footage showed gang leaders running for their lives; Rio residents celebrated.

But now comes the hard part, and it’s going to be particularly difficult because as of now there are none of the “new” police – the UPPs – yet recruited, trained and available for duty in Alemão. The disliked Military Police are in charge, along with the Army and Marines, which may stay deployed in the favela until June or even October.

The neighborhood has seen some hints of social services to come – at least, a major campaign by private utilities (electric, phone, cable television) to sign residents up for legal connections. But for now, many Alemão residents we spoke with are wary, if not downright fearful.

We heard allegations of police abuse during the takeover operation, though some civil-society leaders we spoke with contended that the extent of abuse was far less severe than a 2007 offensive in Alemão that killed at least two dozen people. That offensive – ostensibly to secure the city for the upcoming Pan American Games – was not accompanied by public services, community policing or any other effort to improve governance.

One of the most serious allegations, detailed in a December New York Times article, is that the Military Police may have allowed as many as 400 gang members to escape. The Times piece echoes allegations that the Military Police kept for themselves money confiscated from the drug dealers during the Alemão offensive. During our visit to the Complexo de Alemão, we spoke with residents who told of police kicking in their doors, ransacking their homes and stealing cash and valuables.

This is a crucial moment for winning the favela populations’ trust and support. It is of great concern, then, that – for at least the next several months – the “old” Military Police are the main authority, and the much-promoted “new” UPP units aren’t ready yet. And beyond policing, the arrival of other social services is still uneven and uncertain, with plans and commitments notably more vague.

Meanwhile Rio has 600 favelas, plus even poorer and more violent slums on its distant outskirts. Some of these favelas may indeed be brought into the city’s civic life for the first time. But while political will seems to exist, resource and manpower limitations make it likely that only a relative handful – chiefly those in more central zones of the city – will see much improvement in governance between now and the 2016 Olympics.

Our Rio visit was another reminder that these operations – call them “counterinsurgency,” “clear, hold and build,” “stabilization and development,” “consolidation” – are becoming ever more common in today’s Latin America.

Establishing a state presence after a long absence from a territory is a worthy goal, but these ambitious, complex operations don’t have universal support. Opponents on the left argue that they are an example of wealthy residents seeking to evict the poor from key zones. Those on the right argue that a civilian component is unimportant, that the state needs only to provide security and enforce the law, and the free market will take care of the rest. Civil-society groups, even those who share the programs’ goals, worry about militarization, human rights abuse, and the likelihood that the government’s commitment won’t be sustained.

Where these programs have been tried, there have been early successes in some cases, and frustrations in all cases. The process requires a level of patience and coordination uncommon in any government. A list of lessons and best practices to keep these programs on track could go on for an entire publication. Four general principles, though, would be the following.

1. The state presence must become civilian as soon as security conditions allow. A military or police occupation alone, in which citizens get few other government services, will fail once the security forces draw down their numbers, as security demands elsewhere will require them to do.

2. Citizens of these zones must be included in decision-making. Security and development plans cannot be imposed from without. If there is a lack of consultation, not only won’t there be “buy-in,” but populations may oppose the plan outright, fearing that its real goal is their removal.

3. The justice system must be able quickly and transparently to investigate and punish corruption and abuse. A greater state presence can do more harm than good if government representatives steal from or abuse the population with impunity. The resulting damage to the state’s credibility can undermine the whole effort.

4. Before claiming security successes, ensure that improved security is truly a result of public policy. Recent past drops in crime have sometimes resulted from either a pact between criminal groups, or one criminal group’s dominance and monopoly over illegal activity. Recent examples include Medellín in the mid-2000s, Nuevo Laredo in the late 2000s, and perhaps São Paulo today. While reduced murder and violent crime rates are welcome, if they are not a result of government institutions’ performance, they will be as temporary as the balance of power between competing organized crime groups.

Dilma Rouseff won a resounding victory in Brazil's October 31 presidential elections. What will be the impact on Brazil's foreign relations, relations with the United States, and regional security? Adam talks to Sam Logan of Southern Pulse.

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Brazil has a new president\: Dilma Rousseff of the ruling Workers’ Party won a resounding 55-to-44-percent victory in Sunday’s second-round vote. She will take office – succeeding her close ally, popular two-term president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva – on January 1. She is the first woman ever to serve as president of Brazil.

Rousseff’s victory is unlikely to change the trajectory of Brazil’s cordial but distant relations with the United States. The President-Elect has offered little reason to doubt that she will continue her predecessor’s arms-length posture.

While Lula engaged in a friendly dialogue with Washington, his government had sharp disagreements with the Bush and Obama administrations about trade, Iran’s nuclear program, climate change and the 2009 coup in Honduras. During Lula’s tenure, as Brazil saw its economic and political influence increase worldwide, the country charted an ever more independent foreign policy course. It prioritized relations with neighbors in Latin America and the “global south,” while at times ignoring or defying the United States.

In her youth, Dilma joined the underground resistance against – and was jailed and tortured by – a military dictatorship that enjoyed the Nixon administration’s support. Though she has since grown more moderate politically, the U.S. role in supporting Brazil’s authoritarian past darkens many PT members’ attitude toward Washington, and Dilma may be no exception.

Reading the record offers few clues about Dilma and the United States, however. Her campaign website includes a “platform” page listing several issues, in which foreign policy does not even appear. When her campaign did issue declarations about foreign policy, though, it made clear that the United States was not at its core.

We maintained [in the last government] our traditional ties, with all their historical baggage. At the same time, we broadened the range of our relations. We strengthened our links with Latin America, Africa, the Arab countries, with China and India. … [O]ur foreign policy – universal and multilateral – favors the formation of a multipolar world. We endorse a closer South-South, though this does not mean a departure from the United States, the European Union or Japan.

During a 2009 visit to the United States Dilma, then Lula’s chief of staff, chaired the “Fourth Meeting of the Brazil-U.S. Forum of business leaders,” where she evidenced a strongly pro-free-trade position, emphasizing the need to “fight protectionism” in the bilateral relationship. Beyond that, though, our examination of Dilma’s record offers very few clues about her plans, if any, for U.S.-Brazil relations.

The record does, however, highlight a revealing rhetorical theme. On at least a few occasions during the campaign, the President-Elect used the United States as an example to illustrate something negative.

• On October 18, calling for the need to lift poor Brazilians out of poverty in order for the country to be considered “developed,” Dilma said, “We don’t want to be the United States of South America, in which part of the black population is in jail, and the poor whites live in trailers.”

• Speaking at a Jewish center in São Paulo on September 13, “Dilma explained that she shared the Lula government’s opinion, which defends peace negotiations instead of isolation. For the candidate, the method applied by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that the best strategy is not war, but the building of a path to peace.”

• In an October 11 debate against opponent Jose Serra: “My generation remembers well the Vietnam War. There was a total underestimation of the Vietnamese capacity to resist the world’s greatest power, the United States. Serra has the habit of underestimating people, he believes he’s superior to everyone else.”

This certainly doesn’t indicate an antipathy that could damage U.S.-Brazil relations. Dilma Rousseff is a pragmatic politician who, like her predecessor, will seek good relations with the United States whenever she views it as in Brazil’s interest to do so. But her occasional remarks indicate that Dilma may not feel deep personal affection for Brazil’s big northern neighbor.

• Mexican authorities seized 134 tons of marijuana on Sunday near the Mexico-U.S. border. On Wednesday, the 15,300 bales were set ablaze. One heavily quoted excerpt from the New York Times on the "bonfire" no longer appears in the article, but is included in the slideshow of the event. It reads:

  And so up in smoke went the equivalent of a few hundred million joints in what Mexican authorities called the largest seizure of the drug in the country’s history, a dash of hype befitting the elaborate ceremony to both get rid of it and highlight a success, any success, in a bloody, lingering drug war.

• 30 members of Congress sent a letter (PDF) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton requesting a suspension of U.S. aid to the Honduran government. This letter argues that "assassinations, arbitrary arrests, beatings and death threats targeting political activists and the human rights workers who attempt to protect them" continue with impunity. LAWG's Lisa Haugaard provides more information about recent attacks against human rights defenders and journalists in Honduras in this Huffington Post article.

  State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley responded to a question about the letter on Wednesday, stating that the State Department does not intend to cut off assistance to Honduras, as requested in the letter.

  ... I think where we disagree with our congressional colleagues is that they conditioned progress on the human rights as a precondition for the return of Honduras to the OAS. We think they go hand in hand – improving the democratic performance of the government is vitally important, but also reintegrating Honduras into the community of democratic nations in this hemisphere is also important. And in fact, the election of the Lobo government was itself a major step forward for Honduras.

• Mexican President Felipe Calderón sent Congress a proposal that would reform Mexico's military justice code, requiring troops to be tried in civilian courts for three types of human rights abuses: torture, rape and forced disappearance. Mexican and international human rights organizations argue that the proposal "falls short of what was expected from Mexico," and "fails to hold armed forces accountable." Here are some responses to the proposed reform from LAWG, WOLA, Human Rights Watch and 13 Mexican organizations.
• Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela met with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on September 24th on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly "to encourage the release of Alan Gross," a USAID contractor arrested in Cuba on December 3, 2009 after being accused of spying.
• In response to the news that Russia is to build a nuclear power plant in Venezuela, President Obama said, "We have no incentive nor interest in increasing friction between Venezuela and the U.S., but we do think Venezuela needs to act responsibly."
• A new report by the National Commission on Human Rights in Honduras says that every 88 minutes someone is murdered in Honduras.
• In Colombia, a former high-ranking DAS official, Martha Leal, said that ex-DAS director Andres Peñate ordered her to spy on opposition figures at the "express request of former President Alvaro Uribe." Leal has been ordered to testify in the investigation into former President Uribe's involvement in the illegal wiretapping of his opponents.
• A new report by the Third National Survey on the Verification of the Rights of the Displaced in Colombia says that, as a result of violence, 6.65 million hectares of productive lands were abandoned in Colombia between 1980 and July 2010.
• The Houston Chronicle's Dudley Althaus writes about police reform in Mexico.
• Assistant Secretary of State David T. Johnson traveled to Guatemala and Honduras this week. While in Guatemala, Assistant Secretary Johnson ratified the United States' support in the country's fight against organized crime. "The United States is committed to working with Central America and Guatemala to combat corruption and organized crime through security services and rule of law," he said during a press conference at the National Civilian Police headquarters. In Honduras, he met with President Porfirio Lobo and convened the U.S.-Honduras Merida-CARSI Task Force. Johnson said, "I do not think that Honduras is about to become a 'narco-state', but I do think that the country has the challenge to confront it and I think that working together they can build institutions that can confront this challenge."
• Over the weekend, Brazilian presidential candidate José Serra promised a "great war against drugs" if elected president in the upcoming runoff election against Dilma Rousseff. A recent Vox Populi poll shows Rousseff with 51 percent of vote intention compared to 39 percent for Serra.
• A high-level delegation of U.S. officials will arrive in Colombia on Sunday. The group will include Undersecretary of State James Steinberg, Assistant Secretary of State, Arturo Valenzuela, and Maria Otero, Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. Officials say that good governance, democracy, human rights, energy and science and technology will be the main issues discussed--notably absent from these bilateral talks is the word "drugs."

A Sukhoi fighter plane, one of Venezuela's recent arms purchases from Russia.

On September 10 the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, released its annual report on arms transfers to the developing world This report is rather unique: relying on U.S. intelligence data, it estimates arms sales from all suppliers worldwide, combining the United States and other countries.

Entitled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations” (PDF), it is often referred to as the “Grimmett Report” after its author, CRS researcher Richard Grimmett. The latest report covers arms transfers from 2002 to 2009.

Due to the global economic crisis, the report found a small drop in arms-purchase agreements to developing countries in 2009. The United States and Russia, however, continue to dominate the market.

The value of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2009 was $45.1 billion, a decrease from the $48.8 billion total in 2008. … Recently, from 2006-2009, the United States and Russia have dominated the arms market in the developing world, with both nations either ranking first or second for all four years in terms of the value of arms transfer agreements. From 2006-2009, the United States made $68.7 billion of these agreements, or 36.7% of them. During this same period, Russia made $42.4 billion, 23.8% of all such agreements, expressed in constant 2009 dollars. Collectively, the United States and Russia made 62.4% of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations during this four year period.

Latin America’s arms purchases lag behind those of developing countries in Asia and the Near East. The report, however, finds a very sharp growth in Latin American countries’ agreements to buy new weapons. Comparing the last two four-year periods (2002-2005 and 2006-2009), CRS documents a fourfold increase.

Regional Arms Transfer Agreements by Supplier, 2002-2009
(Millions of current U.S. dollars)

The table shows 80% growth in U.S. arms sales agreements to Latin America between these four-year periods. But the country that contributed most heavily to the increase is Russia, which was by far Latin America's greatest weapons supplier between 2006 and 2009. Russian arms transfer agreements to Latin America increased by 1,750 percent between 2002-2005 and 2006-2009.

During the 2006-2009 period, the United States in fact drops to third place among Latin America's top arms suppliers. Russia sold the region 46.78% of its weapons, France captured 26.55% of the market, and the United States accounted for 10.23% of the region's arms purchases. This is down from a 23.65% market share in 2002-2005.

Latin America, in fact, is now France's largest regional market for weapons in the developing world: fully 44.06 percent of France's arms sales agreements to developing countries in the 2006-2009 period went to Latin America, compared to 33.57% to the Near East and 22.38% to Asia. While 27.41% of Russia's developing-country arms sales went to Latin America, it sold still more to Asia and the Near East. The United States, by contrast, makes only 3.64% of its developing-country arms sales to Latin America.

Who in Latin America is buying these Russian and French weapons? Mainly Venezuela and Brazil, the only Latin American countries on the Grimmett report's list of the developing world's top ten arms-buyers between 2002 and 2009. Venezuela is fifth in the world with US$12.7 billion worth of weapons purchase agreements during those eight years; Brazil is ninth with US$8.6 billion.

Looking just at 2009, though, yields a remarkable result: Brazil and Venezuela are number one and two in the entire developing world.

Latin America's predominance on the 2009 list may be temporary; the global economic crisis did not hit the region as badly as it did most others. Nonetheless, the world's arms suppliers are clearly pursuing the Latin American market more aggressively -- and the United States is no longer the supplier of choice.