South American presidential approval ratings

The leaders of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador all saw a response in their popularity rating following an incident in early March that frayed tensions across the region. Colombian president Álvaro Uribe’s saw his already high popularity ratings have reached an all-time peak of 84 percent in the wake of the imbroglio.

Similarly, the dispute did much to solidify the approval rating of Ecuador’s leader, Rafael Correa, who already enjoyed a 55 percent approval rating. A recent poll showed that more than 80 percent of Ecuadorians approved of his efforts during the crisis.

The one leader whose involvement has suffered is Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez whose popularity rating is now at 34 percent. Many in Venezuela are concerned the fiery leftist leader needs to address pressing domestic issues such as food shortages and domestic security.

Here is a rundown of the rest:

• Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is enjoying renewed popularity due to his country’s recent economic prosperity. His 58 percent approval rating is the greatest for Lula in five years and analysts credit the recent increase in wages and drop in unemployment as the key factors behind it.


• Uruguayan president Tabaré Vázquez is enjoying a 56 percent approval rating, a significant uptick from just four months ago. The leader has recently reshuffled his cabinet in an effort to reinvigorate his administration.


• Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who won Argentina's presidency last December, continues to enjoy positive poll numbers. Almost 58 percent of Argentines say they rate her tenure as good or very good.


• Bolivia’s Evo Morales has seen his popularity erode in the past few months particularly due to questions over his effort to re-write the country’s constitution. Just more than 46 percent of Bolivians say they want him to continue as president.


• Chilean president Michele Bachelet, who reached the one-year mark of her administration in March, continues at just more than 42 percent approval. That stability is in the face of various problems in the country faced over the last 12 months and the current looming energy crisis due in part to a massive drought.


• In Peru, Alan Garcia's popularity rating has dropped to 28 percent - less than half of where it stood six months ago. His administration has cut spending, lowered taxes and raised interest rates that has made the country attractive to foreign investment but rising food and fuel costs which has increased domestic dissatisfaction.


• Paraguay’s unpopular Nicanor Duarte continues to bring up the back of the pack with a woeful 17 percent approval rating. The country’s presidential elections will be held in April.

A roundup of presidential popularity polls from August 2007 can be found here.

The dim future for Plan Colombia and US anti-drug funding in South America

For almost a decade Colombia has been the focal point of the United States international anti-drug efforts and has poured more than $5 billion into the program known as "Plan Colombia." That, many believe, may be changing.

Colombia's ambassador to the U.S., Carolina Barco, said this week
her country is bracing for at least a 10 percent cut in funding. Last month the US Senate recommended slashing the Bush administration’s request of almost $450 million by $90.7 million - and the House's version of the bill suggested cutting even more.

Since 2001, when the United States began aggressively funding the Colombian anti-drug effort, the area of coca under cultivation dropped dramatically but the cocaine production levels actually increased more than 10 percent, according to the UNODOC.

US congressional leaders have been questioning the expense for some time now and those calls have increased since last year when Democrats took control of congress.

Now many are citing Colombia’s questionable human rights record as a pretext for suspending funding. Some payments were already frozen in April following allegations that the Colombian army had been working alongside paramilitaries.

The House Appropriations Committee issued a blistering report in June as part of the assessment of the expenditure:

"The Committee notes that this is now year eight of an ever more evolving multi-year plan. This program is not working and the Administration's fiscal year 2008 request for Colombia is virtually identical to previous requests."

Despite that, Bush administration officials have blasted the possible cuts as "silly beyond belief."

Yet the future of the Colombia-centric anti-drug strategy is expected to change as the United States begins to focus more of its efforts in Mexico where many of the drug cartels are now believed to be located.

While Colombia remains the top producer of the drug, roughly 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States now passes through Mexico.

Currently, Mexico receives about $40 million in anti-drug assistance, a number expected to increase dramatically with the next budget. Mexican officials have confirmed they have been negotiating with the US on the new aid package.


Find out more about Colombia, South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Colombia, Plan Colombia, anti-drug funding, cocaine

The South American arms race

The growing arsenal of Venezuela has caused alarm among many who fear leftist revolutionary talk of the country's flamboyant leader, Hugo Chavez, is more than just bluster.

Since 2005, Venezuela has spent more than $4.3 billion on weapons, mostly purchased from Russia. These include a new fleet of 24 Sukhoi Su-30s airplanes as well as nine 636 and 677E Amur-class diesel-powered submarines. That has made Venezuela Latin America's largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

The stakes were raised this week when Venezuela announced that it is building two plants to make Kalashnikov assault rifles making it the first country to win a production license for the guns since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The buying spree has been matched by Chile who, since 2000, has shelled out $2.8 billion for weapons including 10 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter planes, 18 second-hand similar warplanes from the Netherlands, 16 frigates, two submarines and 118 Leopard IIA4 tanks from Germany.

The other big arms spender is Colombia who has been redoubling it's military purchases in recent years. Since 2000, the country has increased defense from $2.6 billion to more $4.48 billion last year. That has been bolstered by the more than $5 billion in funding from the US to finance anti-drug efforts. A situation that has helped president Alvaro Uribe make progress against leftist rebels and paramilitary groups but has rankled neighboring Venezuela.


Find out more about South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, arms race

Peru's young rebel of the chessboard

Emilio Cordova has gained considerable fame in his native Peru for his chess-playing skill. The 15-year-old is already a Grand Master and crowned South American chess champion in January after winning a tournament in the Argentine city of Cordoba.

Yet it's his actions away from the chessboard that have gained him wider fame. After that victorious tournament, Cordova went to Brazil, telling his family he wanted to compete in tournaments to reach the rank of international grandmaster.

That plan seemed to go awry when he told his family he had fallen ill and needed them to wire out money to pay for medical expenses. He even sold his laptop computer, which contained all his chess notes and training programs. Eventually, the Peruvian press tracked him down in Sao Paulo living with a dancer – in some accounts, a stripper - almost twice his age.

In March, his father went to Brazil and brought him back Peru. Cordova, who claims to still be in love with the woman, stopped speaking to his father, returned to living with his formerly estranged mother, and went back to playing chess.

Cordova was back in the news last week when he clamed the Peruvian Chess Federation stranded him in Colombia by not purchasing him a ticket back to Lima after he lost his.

And he's no longer the hottest player in the country. In the past year a 12-year-old, Jorge Cori, has been tearing up the regional tournament scene. He is already one of the highest ranked players in the world in his age category and took first place honors in the Colombia tournament last month won him "master" ranking - the same tournament Cordova had trouble getting home from.

Find out more about Peru, South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Peru, Emilio Cordova, Jorge Cori, chess

South American presidential approval ratings

The heads of state across South America have a pretty broad range of popularity ratings. None, at the current moment, exceed two-thirds of the populace approving their leadership efforts but only two have less than a third of the citizenry supporting them.

Colombia's Alvaro Uribe leads the way with a 66 percent approval rating. This is actually an unprecedented drop in his numbers attributed to the recent scandals in his country.

Controversial Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez continues to enjoy popular support with a 64.7 percent approval rating (from April, the most recent poll available). Two of Chavez' closest allies in the region Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa are enjoying approval ratings of 61 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has sustained a 50 percent approval rating despite fending off scandal accusations of his own. Uruguay's Tabaré Vázquez is also fighting a recent dip with his figures holding at 51 percent.

Argentina's Néstor Kirchner is holding at 49 percent approval while his wife and Buenos Aires senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner continues to hold the lead for October's presidential election.

Chilean president Michelle Bachelet has seen her approval rating dip to 41 percent following waves of popular protest this year. Her neighbor to the north, Alan Garcia, has seen a similar whallop to his ratings following recent unrest. He's struggling to hold onto a 32 percent rating - half of what he enjoyed upon being elected one year ago.

Bringing up the rear is Paraguay's Nicanor Duarte whose 20 percent approval (from February, the most recent poll available) casts a dim light on his re-election hopes next year.


Find out more about South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, presidential approval ratings

Alvaro Uribe and corruption in Colombia

Just more than a year ago, Álvaro Uribe was re-elected the President of Colombia by a landslide – becoming the first president to win re-election in the Andean nation in more than a century.

Colombians, who gave Uribe 62 percent of the vote, seemed to be responding to the progress his government had made in wresting control of this country from Marxist rebels and drug traffickers. And the president was not shy in touting his achievements which have continued apace.

Kidnapping fell by 76 percent from 2002 through 2006, and homicides were down 40 percent, according to Bloomberg. About 40,000 paramilitary and guerrilla fighters have handed in their weapons in return for reduced jail sentences and job training.

But the hallmark of his second term has been the unending series of scandals. Uribe political opponents allege that much his political support is rooted in the paramilitary movements he has pledged to disarm going as far to insist the groups financed his 2002 presidential campaign.

Although Uribe has consistently denied all the accusations and invited a federal investigation into the matters his political supporters have begun to feel the pressure. More than a dozen of Uribe’s allies in the legislature as well as dozens of local and regional politicians have been charged in connection with pledging to support paramilitaries in exchange for votes from group members.

The revelations led to the resignation of Uribe’s Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo in February when her brother, a senator, was jailed on charges connected to the investigation. Her father, a former provincial governor, federal lawmaker and agriculture minister, also under suspicion in connection with a kidnapping case, has since fled the country.

Moreover, former paramilitary leaders, after being offered partial amnesty by Uribe, have confessed to launching a murderous campaign against Colombians they considered sympathetic to the FARC. As of mid-July, they had led police to 760 cadavers around the country. The attorney general says he expects the total to approach 4,000.

That's become a sore spot as Uribe is in a pitched battle with the Colombian Supreme Court that ruled last month that demobilized paramilitary fighters must be charged with common crimes like drug trafficking and murder rather than with sedition.

The decision has jeopardized the peace deal between the groups and Uribe's governemnt which promised that many paramilitaries will face only political charges, which can be pardoned, in connection to their 20-year struggle against left-wing rebels.

And the problems don’t stop there, on Monday Colombia’s Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said cocaine smugglers and leftist rebels have infiltrated senior levels of the Colombian army. He said there have been several arrests and more were expected.

The revelation follows the discovery of classified military information in computer files of guerrillas from the FARC rebel group who died in combat with state security forces in July.


Find out more about Peru, South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: colombia, Alvaro Uribe, Farc, paramilitaries, corruption

The US Air Force looks for a home in South America

For most of the past decade, the US military has based its anti-drug efforts in South America from the Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta, Ecuador.

The base is the United State's largest military outpost in South America and it serves as home to the fleet of surveillance aircraft that fly over the Pacific Ocean every day tracking drug shipments headed north to Mexico.

But the 10-year lease expires in 2009 and the future beyond that is uncertain. And the election of Rafael Correa last year has raised questions of whether it will be renewed. Correa made a campaign pledge to shut down the U.S. military base in Manta, where 400 U.S. soldiers are stationed. He has claimed the US military presence is an affront to Ecuadorian sovereignty.

US officials have said that, despite the rhetoric, they were optimistic Ecuador would allow the aircraft to use the base past 2009. But, since then, Ecuador's neighbors have reportedly stepped forward to offer their air bases for US use.

Earlier this month, The Miami Herald - also citing an anonymous source - reported that Colombia made a similar offer. Days later, Colombia's defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, refuted the report but in a carefully worded manner: "Neither have we asked for the installation of a (military) base, nor have we offered it to them."

This week Reuters cited an unnamed US official saying that Peru offered the U.S. government an alternative base for counter-drug surveillance flights. And, in turn, Peru's Minister of Foreign Relations, José Antonio García Belaunde, issued a carefully worded denial.

Find out more about Peru, South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, drugs, smuggling, air bases, Manta, AWACS

The United Nations Drug Report and Peru

The release of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's 2007 drug report was largely heralded as a success in the worldwide 'war on drugs.' The report found that global markets for illicit drugs stabilized in 2005 and 2006 and the cultivation, production, and consumption of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines seem to have been brought under control.

One notable exception to this rosy outlook was Peru.

Coca grown and cocaine made in Peru continues to rise despite the multi-million dollar effort to stem the trend. The report found that the amount of coca leaf grown in Peru increased 8 percent in 2006 from 2005, while the area cultivated with coca grew 7 percent. That comes despite more than $300 million in U.S. anti-drug aid the country has received since 2000.

This isn't a new story, I wrote about this trend in 2005 for several major US newspapers. The numbers are a bit different this year but the trends the experts warned about then are clearly continuing unabated.

Find out more about Peru, South America and my varied interests over on Klephblog.

Technorati Tags: Peru, Colombia, coca, cocaine, drug trade, UNODC