Abigail and Adam discuss the Cancún summit, human rights in Venezuela, reelection in Colombia, and Hillary Clinton's trip to the region next week.

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Cancun, Mexico is always regarded as a conference and summit hotspot, but this week it was overtaken by 32 representatives of Latin American and Caribbean countries - 24 of which were heads of state. The Rio Group Summit, the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development, and the Mexico-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit were all held in Cancun over the past few days, and they all convened at the Latin American-Caribbean Unity Summit to discuss the creation of a new regional alliance, among other things.

Topics that were covered at the Summit included an aid strategy for reconstruction and development in Haiti, the current dispute between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, the creation of a new Latin American and Caribbean unity organization that would rival the Organization of American States, and more. Though not initially planned, other topics such as the spat between Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez were thrown into the mix, after the two presidents exchanged harsh words during lunch yesterday.

New Latin America-Caribbean Alliance

As the two-day summit came to a close yesterday, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced that the 32 nations have agreed to create a new regional alliance that will "push for regional integration" and "promote the regional agenda in global meetings." This new alliance is intended to serve as an alternative to the Organization of American States with a slightly different membership - the United States and Canada will not be members, while Cuba will be.

According to the AFP, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela said that the United States does not see the new group as a problem, and that "This should not be an effort that would replace the OAS." And, during yesterday's State Department press briefing, Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley commented on the new alliance.

We think it's a good thing when countries in the region come together to talk about how they can cooperate more effectively, and this can take place in many regional fora. And virtually all of the countries attending the summit are strong partners of the United States and we are working together with them on a broad range of initiatives. So – and we consider the meeting in Mexico as consistent with our goals for the hemisphere.

Though this new alliance is being referred to as the Latin American and Caribbean Community, its name, status, and organizational structure will be decided on next year at a meeting in Caracas, Venezuela.

Argentina:

Over the past few weeks, tensions have sparked between Great Britain and Argentina over oil drilling rights in the waters surrounding the Falkland Islands (known as Las Malvinas in Argentina). The longstanding sovereignty dispute over the islands intensified earlier this month upon announcement that a British oil rig was arriving to drill offshore for oil.

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner says London has violated UN resolutions calling on the parties to take no actions that could aggravate their dispute and instituted a decree last week requiring vessels traveling through territorial waters to obtain permission from Buenos Aires. Britain has mostly dismissed the move as sabre-rattling, and the British oil company announced on Monday that it has begun drilling for oil in the territorial waters of the Falkland Islands.

The Unity Summit of 32 countries backed Argentina's claim that Britain is flouting international law by permitting drilling. According to the Associated Press: "Argentina presented a statement quoting Mexican President Felipe Calderón as saying that 'the heads of state represented here reaffirm their support for the legitimate rights of the republic of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute with Great Britain.'"

Colombia-Ecuador relations

Outside of the various summits, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe held their first official meeting since the two countries cut diplomatic relations in March 2008 (after Colombia bombed a Farc encampment on Ecuadorian territory, resulting in the death of Farc leader Raul Reyes). Official from both countries have been working to restore diplomatic relations, but yesterday's meeting marks an important step forward in the process.

Prior to the meeting, both governments made statements saying that diplomatic relations would not be restored immediately, as each side still has concerns that need to be addressed. However the meeting between the two presidents demonstrated their will to move the process forward. "Without looking at the past to not repeat it, but looking toward the future and what is best for our countries, the political will to normalize relations between the two countries as soon as possible has been ratified," President Correa said.

As Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez noted at a press conference yesterday, the next step toward normalizing relations is the implementation of a "commission of reasonable affairs that will cover topics of interest and the concerns of each side."

Colombia-Venezuela relations

The face-to-face encounter between President Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was not as diplomatic as the meeting between Presidents Uribe and Correa. During lunch on Monday, the two presidents held a heated exchange, in which Uribe told Chávez to "be a man," while Chávez responded with "go to hell," according to various media outlets. The media was not in attendance at the lunch, but reports emerged detailing what was called a "shouting match" between the two presidents. As reported by the BBC, the exchange was as follows:

"Uribe: Be a man! These issues are meant to be discussed in these forums. You're brave speaking at a distance, but a coward when it comes to talking face to face.

Chavez: Go to hell!"

Cuban President Raúl Castro stepped in to stop the verbal spat, noting the irony of the fight at a "unity" summit: "'How is it possible that we're fighting at a summit intended to unite Latin American and Caribbean countries?,'" he asked.

Later in the day, both President Uribe and President Chávez agreed to an intervention by "friendly" countries to help resolve the diplomatic crisis that has emerged between the two countries. The commission formed to help the two countries includes Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Brazil.

Semana reported that President Chávez noted that "we have the capacity to not throw rocks at each other, because there are factors that alway play to this, to impede unity. It is an old history, the divide and conquer." President Uribe, on the other hand, asked his government's officials, especially Minister of Defense Gabriel Silva, to refrain from making any declarations about Venezuela without first consulting him.

Adam talks about the rising crime rate in Medellín, Colombia, the reasons why violence continues to fluctuate, and a controversial effort to negotiate a "non-aggression pact" between criminal gangs.

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Abigail and Adam review news from the week: Costa Rica's elections, the Colombian defense minister's visit, re-election in Colombia, and the UNASUR summit in Quito.

You can now subscribe to the "Just the Facts" podcast on iTunes. Thank you for listening.

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We're pleased to present the first edition of the Just the Facts Podcast. We expect to make these audio submissions a regular feature.

While the podcast will have its own home page at www.justf.org/podcast, we will post to this blog every time we add an entry. It will soon be on iTunes' podcast directory, and its RSS feed can be found at www.justf.org/podcast/feed.xml.

In our inaugural February 5 post, Adam Isacson of CIP talks about the debate in Colombia over President Álvaro Uribe's apparent desire to run for a third term in office, which just suffered a setback in the justice system.

Download or listen to the 12-and-a-half-minute .mp3 file here or at our podcast page.

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On January 21, three U.S. senators on committees with jurisdiction over U.S. aid to Colombia sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The letter calls for the United States to "reevaluate U.S. assistance to Colombia," and notes that despite allocating nearly $7 billion in aid to Colombia from fiscal year 2000 to 2009, "the amount of cocaine entering the United States ... has not changed appreciably... Moreover, progress in other priority areas - human rights and the strengthening of democratic institutions - is lacking."

Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) chairs the Senate Appropriations/Foreign Operations Subcommittee.

The letter expresses concern over various trends in Colombia, including:

• The "false positives" scandal, "in which Colombian soldiers killed hundreds of civilians and dressed them in guerrilla clothing in order to inflate body counts;"
• Colombian military leaders' continued denial of "the scope of the executions" and opposition to "civilian court jurisdiction in many cases involving abuses of human rights;" and
• The "particularly troubling" abuses of the presidential intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), in which the "DAS was systematically conducting illegal surveillance of human rights groups, journalists, opposition politicians, Supreme Court judges, trade unionists, and international human rights organizations."

Senators Feingold, Dodd, and Leahy add that "a possible third term for the current president threatens to further erode the checks and balances that help protect Colombia's fragile democracy."

The three senators call for President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget request to Congress to reflect new priorities and a new approach toward Colombia. This new approach would include:

• Reducing coca cultivation and cocaine production through "greater emphasis on farmer-led programs with voluntary eradication coupled with effective alternative development programs;"
• Strengthening judicial and law enforcement programs "to dismantle criminal networks, combat the money laundering that enables the narcotics trade, and reduce impunity for corruption and human rights abuses;"
• Reducing "military aid while continuing judicial and law enforcement, development and humanitarian assistance; and
• "Explor[ing] more vigorously the possibilities for peace in Colombia."

The 3-page letter can be downloaded here as a PDF file.

Every year, the U.S. Department of State submits a report to Congress with its detailed budget request for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) assistance. This program is the largest source of military and police assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean, and during the past decade has funded programs like Plan Colombia, the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, the Mérida Initiative for both Mexico and Central America, and the recently approved Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, which is an extension of the Mérida Initiative programs in the Caribbean region.

This report, known as the "Program and Budget Guide," is usually made public around September. It provides Congress with more detail about its INCLE budget request for the next fiscal year, and gives detail about how the assistance was spent during the past two years. It was only recently uploaded to the State Department website. (Download the FY2010 Program and Budget Guide)

Information from the FY2010 INCLE Program and Budget Guide relevant to Latin America is now on the Just the Facts database (see country totals here, click on a country for more details on how the assistance was allocated) and a few trends are worth noting, especially with regard to Colombia. As seen in the graph below, INCLE military and police assistance to Colombia has decreased significantly since 2007, when assistance reached almost $400 million, to $209 million budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010, of which Congress approved just under $200 million when it passed the foreign aid budget bill last month.

The decline in INCLE military assistance to Colombia owes mainly to the Democratic Party's takeover of the majority in Congress after the November 2006 legislative elections. Beginning in early 2007, as it considered the 2008 budget, the new leadership sought to reduce the overwhelmingly military emphasis of the program in Colombia, which relied heavily on forced aerial eradication of coca, and to place a greater priority on economic development, humanitarian aid and judicial reform.

The decline in INCLE military aid to Colombia can especially be seen in the decline in funding for both coca eradication and aviation support. INCLE's aviation support for the Colombian Army and National Police includes aviation maintenance and logistics support for the dozens of helicopters and planes used by the Colombian Army and Police. In 2005, INCLE allocated over $195 million to the Colombian Army and National Police for aviation support, while in 2010 the amount budgeted for both programs is $91 million, of which Congress approved $85 million.

Similarly, the funding for coca eradication for the Colombian National Police in 2005 was $82.5 million, compared to $60 million requested for 2010, of which Congress approved $53 million.

In 2007, President George W. Bush announced the Mérida Initiative, a 3-year, $1.4 billion program, most of it military and police assistance, to help Mexico and Central America fight organized crime and narcotrafficking. Congress first appropriated funds to the Mérida Initiative in the Fiscal Year 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, and have since appropriated nearly $1.3 billion for the initiative.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a branch of the U.S. Congress that audits and evaluates government policies, released a report (pdf) Thursday finding that as of September 30, 2009, only 2% of funds ($26 million) allocated to the Mérida Initiative since 2008 had been actually delivered. The report attributes the delay to three factors: "(1) statutory conditions on the funds, (2) challenges in fulfilling administrative procedures, and (3) the need to enhance institutional capacity on the part of both recipient countries and the United States to implement the assistance."

Interestingly, in 2003, the GAO released a similar report on the status of assistance appropriated to Colombia under Plan Colombia from 2000-2003 (pdf). The report only covered the allocation of assistance appropriated in 2000 to the Colombian Army, much of which had been delivered by June 2003, though it highlights similar financial and management challenges.

The most clear comparison between the two reports is the delay in delivering the helicopters provided under the two U.S.-funded programs. In the report on the Mérida Initiative, the time it takes for administrative procedures to be carried out, especially for the delivery of helicopters, was an important factor in slow delivery of Mérida assistance. The report cites one State Department official, who explains that "it typically takes between 3 to 6 months to negotiate and sign a contract for the provision of aircraft." Once the contract has been signed, it then takes another 12 to 18 months for a helicopter to be built, and 18-24 months for an airplane. Therefore, it would take anywhere from 15-24 months for a helicopter to be delivered. The report does say that the State Department expects five Bell helicopters to be delivered to Mexico sometime this month as a result of an attempt to expedite the process. Though it is noted that "the time lapse between funds being appropriated and a deliverable on the ground will still be about 18 months."

The earlier report on Plan Colombia noted an even longer lag in the delivery of helicopters. President Bill Clinton signed the Plan Colombia appropriation into law in July 2000, yet the first Black Hawk helicopters were delivered between July and December 2001 and not operational until November 2002 "because of a shortage of fully qualified Colombian Army pilots." 25 UH-II helicopters were also to be delivered between November 2001 and June 2002, however, "they were delivered between March and November 2002 instead because the Colombian military was considering whether to use a more powerful engine in the helicopters than the one usually installed." Those helicopters were not operational until June 2003, again due to a lack of qualified pilots. The Colombian Army did not have the operational helicopters promised under Plan Colombia for almost two and a half years - a long delay that makes the 18 month lag in delivering helicopters to Mexico look like an improvement, though the problem with training could arise as it did in Colombia.

Both reports also mentioned human rights conditions and a lack of institutional capacity as factors in the delay of aid delivery under these two prominent counternarcotics initiatives.

July: News of a military deal between Colombia and the United States is made public. The deal will allow the U.S. access to seven Colombian military bases. At this point details of the agreement are not yet available to the public. The deal creates tension throughout Latin America, especially between Venezuela and Colombia. Like many other leaders in the region, Chávez was angered by not being consulted before the announcement of the deal. Moreover, the deal represents a threat to Venezuelan sovereignty and he fears a U.S. led invasion.

October 2 2009: Venezuela arrests three DAS agents charged with spying for Colombia. Colombian DAS Director Felipe Munoz says "We're waiting to see what this is about because officially there are no DAS officials in Venezuela carrying out any activities."

October 24 2009: The bodies of 11 young men are found, including nine undocumented Colombians, in the Western Venezuelan state of Táchira. The young men were kidnapped by a group of heavily armed men in pickup trucks while while playing soccer in a town four hours from the Colombian border. Venezuelan government and Colombian opposition believe that their deaths were the result of a clash between paramilitary groups from Colombia. Venezuelan opposition asserts that Chávez is only interested in rooting out the right-wing paramilitaries, and is actually aiding the guerrillas. In response to the violence, the Venezuelan government restricts trade and other economic activities with Colombia.

November 2 2009: Two Venezuelan National Guardsmen are murdered. Colombia expels a Venezuelan National Guardsman. In response Venezuela closes two international bridges between Colombia and Venezuela, as Venezuelan authorities search for the suspects, creating mass confusion for residents.

November 4 2009: Venezuela announces the deployment of 15,000 troops to the two countries' common (1,375-mile) border. President Chávez also shuts down several border crossings, and threatens to shut down more. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Maduro says that the violence along the border is part of a U.S. and Colombian plot to destabilize Venezuela.

November 9 2009: President Hugo Chávez' rhetoric becomes increasingly inflammatory. He announces on Venezuelan television, "Let's not waste a day on our main aim: to prepare for war and to heLp the people prepare for war, because it is everyone's responsibility." He also orders 15,000 troops to the border, citing increased violence by Colombian paramilitary groups. In response, President Uribe states, "Colombia has not made nor will it make any bellicose move toward the international community, even less so toward fellow Latin American nations." Colombia also responds with a letter to the U.N. Security Council, "explaining in detail concerns Colombia has about remarks by President Chávez and other sensitive matters."

November 19 2009: Venezuela blows up two pedestrian bridges on its border with Colombia. Venezuela argues that the bridges were being used by narcotraffickers and guerrillas. However, while the bridges were not major structures, they were important to the people that used them. See this video news report from Caracol showing interviews with local residents and the mayor of the town. Colombia's Defense Minister Gabriel Silva says Álvaro it will lodge a complaint with United Nations and the Organization of American States over the "aggression."

December 1 2009: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez expels over 400 illegal Colombian and Brazilian miners, creating chaos in the small border town of Puerto Inirida, Colombia. According to the governor of Guainía, many of the miners arrived malnourished, having walked two or three days through the mountains, running from the Venezuelan Guards, and are staying with friends. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva says "We're going to report this sort of forced displacement to international human rights authorities because it violates international humanitarian rights."

Most recently, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández has agreed to serve as mediator, after Colombian President Uribe asked him to do so in a private meeting during the Ibero-American Summit, which ended last week in Estoril, Portugal. President Fernandez stated that his country "because of its geographical and friendship with its neighbors, has on other occasions mediated in regional conflicts to see solutions to these differences."