Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Friday, March 07, 2008

  • Paraguay Today: International Arms Trade Alive & Well

    Viktor Bout, the Tajikistan-born ex-Russian military arms dealer who was caught doing who-knows-what in Thailand (meeting with the North Koreans? buying Chinese arms from the Burmese? getting some sun?) seems to have had a penchant for using Paraguay as a staging ground to get his weaponry to interested parties in South America. Notably, FARC in Colombia (perhaps going through the northern border with Bolivia? This is a less sexy border than the Triple Frontera with Argentina and Brazil (see: Miami Vice (2006)) that has nevertheless attracted US attention amid rumors that the Bush clan is buying up great swaths of land).

    For more about Viktor:
    Arms Dealer Arrested for Weapons Sale to the FARC

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

  • Social Deviance and Paraguay Today: Following Up On Two Herbs

    I keep getting hits from people searching for something that leads them to my entry on mate cocido, which is about yerba mate, an herb that people drink in the Southern Cone and Lebanon/Syria (and now in the global North). Is it interest in yerba that leads these surfers to my site via google images at 2:30am or is it that they're searching for some really kinky porn?

    And, remember my earlier entry on pot in Paraguay and Brazil? Well, here's more from ABCdigital:

    Paraguay provides marijuana to Brazil

    Brazilian authorities calculate that 60% of the marijuana consumed in their country comes from Paraguay. So says a UN report about the drug financing for the year 2007, released last night in Asunción. It also claims that 60% of the 5 tons of the herb confiscated in Chile also were from our country. The lowest levels of consumption of the drug were registered in Paraguay, Bolivian, and Peru.


    My Commentary: Word on the street is that this marijuana comes from the Mennonite communities in the Chaco... Paraguay's version of the Amish (though a little less strict in their practice, obviously).

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

  • Two helpful articles to understanding the Colombia/Venezuela siuation.


    From slate.com: A field guide to the leftist militias of Latin America.

    A much longer article from The Nation: Chavez's Fix


  • Colombia's Uribe to bring charges against Chavez in the ICC


    AFP is reporting that Colombia's ambassador to the UN will bring charges against Chavez today before the International Criminal Court for "patronizing and financing genocide."

    Why "genocide"? Why not "terrorism," since FARC is officially considered a terrorist organization by the EU and the USA? Because following the Second World War, genocide is the one thing the world's nations have all formally committed to stopping such that when something is declared a genocide (as opposed to "acts of genocide"), there's legal grounds for military intervention.

    I wonder how this case will test the strength of the ICC. We're living in an interesting time when we see tensions between the authority of the nation versus supranational organizations (like the UN, World Bank, and ICC). At times it seems like these organizations have a lot of power to make international decisions, but the power to make binding decisions over nations requires that nations cede authority.

    And the accusation of attempting to purchase uranium? Is that true or yet another convenient appeal (this time to the fear that terrorist organizations and rogue states might acquire weapons of mass destruction)? And even if it is true, was the FARC the intended recipient of the uranium or just another middleman?




Monday, March 03, 2008

  • Threating Sovereignty: Chavez funds the FARC $300mil?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7276228.stm

    Such an accusation is, like Colombia's incursion into Ecuador's territory, an affront to the national sovereignty of, in this case, Colombia. What remains to be seen is whether this latest escalation in rhetoric and political grandstanding (cutting off diplomatic relations) between Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia will materialize into physical conflict or whether it will dissipate.

    I have often wondered whether  Chavez would only be removed from power by a "local" force-- be that internal or a coalition of regional neighbors because, well, outright US machinations incur too much resentment. Is it true that that a computer was found containing data linking Chavez and the FARC and the $300mil? Impossible to tell, but it's certainly politically expedient for the Colombian military to make charges of collusion, especially in light of their entrance into Ecuadorian territory under the auspices of chasing down armed combatants. There are few places in the world where countries tolerate the presence (uninvited) of armed troops from a neighboring nation-state. This, in fact, violates a fundamental premise of the concept of national sovereignty... ideas which have been popularly held since the 17th century signing of the Peace of Westphalia (which recognized the idea of national sovereignty in Europe).



Monday, February 11, 2008

  • All bark? Chavez threatens to cut off U.S. oil shipments


    The CNN article reporting this threat neglects to say that this is a bit unrealistic and that Chavez is bluffing for one simple reason: the U.S. has the refineries necessary to process the kind of crude that Venezuela has. Chavez has to send it to the U.S. because he doesn't really have any other options. China? Doesn't have the refineries. For all his anti-U.S. empire talk, for all his Bolivarian Revolution talk, he's not stopped leaning on the U.S. for that.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

  • Paraguay Today: Brazil willingly accepts Paraguayan wheat and weed.

    Brazilian Jailbird Maintains Control of Paraguayan Pot (my title)


    Beira-Mar maintains the empire and the [infra]structure for narcotrafficking in Paraguay.
    (abc.com.py's title)


    The confessed Brazilian narcotrafficker Luiz Fernando da Costa, aka "Fernandinho Beira-Mar," maintains the agricultural empire and the framework for his criminal organization in Paraguay, a report in the Paulista newspaper O Estado (The State) revealed today. Beira-Mar, held in a maximum security prison in Campo Grande, capital of the mid-western state of Mato Grosso do Sul, continues leading the scheme that permits the annual entry into Brazil of 80% of Paraguay's marijuana, more than 12,000 tons.


    Record Production of Wheat Estimated, Stimulated by International Prices.

    Representatives from CAPECO (the Paraguayan Association Cereals and Oil-Producing Plant Exporters... bleh... not the best translation) hope that 2008 be a record year in production of wheat, keeping in mind great international demand and the good price being paid for the product globally. The principal buyer of Paraguayan wheat is Brazil, which has a demand of 5 million tons. Last year's production reached 650,000 tons.


    My commentary:
    Oh, the irony that both Paraguay's licit and illicit agricultural products are controlled and owned from the outside... Brazilian soy and Brazilian pot. Meanwhile, I wonder how many Paraguayans are employed by the narco interests versus the wheat interests.


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Thursday, January 24, 2008

  • "Off with his head," says a distant relative in the 19th century

    from here.


    The following is printed in the "Massachusetts Mercury:"[Pg 104]—

    From the Georgia Gazette.

    Vice Consulship of Spain for the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

    Meſſrs. Nicholas Johnſton and Co.

        Gentlemen,

    His Excellency Lieut. Colonel Don Vincent Folch, Governor of the Province of Weſt Florida, in a letter, dated Panzacola, 1ſt Auguſt, has been pleaſed to communicate to me the following:

    "I have iſſued a proclamation, offering FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to any perſon who will deliver here, or in Apalache, the body of WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BOWLES, or elſe produce ſufficient proof of having killed him; which information I will thank you to make public, in order that ſome clever fellow, at the cheap rate of one gun ſhot, will place in his pocket the ſaid ſum, which ſhall be paid, with the greateſt acknowledgment of gratitude, in good Spaniſh dollars, without the leaſt delay."

    Therefore I requeſt you to give this a conſpicuous place in your paper. It is, doubtleſs, a very intereſting ſubject to Spain, America and the Indians, that they be rid of this noted vagabond.

    I remain, with reſpect,                
    Your obedient ſervant,        
    EMANUEL RENGILL.

    Savannah, 25th August, 1800.