UNASUR Bariloche: Hypothesis worry more than realities

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

On Friday 28 August, in the Argentine city of Bariloche, the South American Heads of States met to, primarily, address the issue of the Colombian-US military agreement.

Regarding this there was talk of conflict scenarios, future implications, and the possible risks that the region would assume with this military agreement. Valid and relevant debates, but that force us to ask why the UNASUR does not show the same heightened concern when it comes to facing other security problems that exist in the region.

In terms of security, South America currently has several pending cases, among which are mainly four: 1. Colombian guerrilla movements, which, although they operate mainly in Colombia, are also involved in numerous illegal acts committed in neighboring countries; 2. The regional arms race, conducted mostly by countries like Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Brazil; 3. High crime rates and 4. Drug trafficking.

Four matters that are facts, not conjectures, therefore if the UNASUR countries are so firm in condemning imaginary risks, with more reason they should be more committed in combating the real threats that face our region.

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Polls for Uruguay's presidential elections

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Uruguayans will go to the polls on October 25, 2009 to elect a new president and members of the legislature. According to the latest opinion poll, Jose Mujica is the favorite to be elected president, the candidate of the Progressive Encounter-Broad Front (EP-FA) from which the current Uruguayan president, Tabare Vazquez, is also member.

In the study conducted by Factum from July 24 to 29, 2009, Uruguayans expressed that if elections for president and parliament were held at that time, they would vote as follows: 45% by the Broad Front, 38% for the National Party, 9% for the Red Party, 1% for the Independent Party and 6.5% are undecided. Margin of error is 3.3%.

However, while this study indicates that there will be a close election and that the current ruling party would remain in control of the Uruguay presidency, we can note that, given these results, a coalition between the National and Colorado parties -both opponents- would give a small majority to the opposition in Congress.

Click on the image to enlarge it

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Why the Colombia-US military agreement

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

If the United States needs to carry out military operations in Colombia is because obviously it wants to serve a military purpose. Otherwise it would use organizations like the DEA, FBI, or any other nonmilitary agency of the U.S. government.

In this sense, most military operations are aimed at neutralizing heavily armed threats, military forces generally, which in the case of Colombia leads us to think specifically in the socialist guerrillas. So we can conclude that the most likely target of the U.S. military that would work in Colombia would be the FARC.

Uribe has made great advances against the rebels, but it seems that he does not have the ability to dismantle them completely, or strongly reduce their narcotics empire -A 2009 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office says the FARC accounts for 60 percent of the total cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States- And if that were not enough, the governments of Castro, Chavez, Ortega and Correa are determined to continue contributing with these irregular groups. Realities that the governments of Colombia and the U.S. should have pondered before creating a military agreement that would allow U.S. forces to operate out of seven Colombian bases.

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Reelectionist wave in Latin America

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Since 1999, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have made constitutional changes to allow the continual reelection of the president.

In Honduras, Manuel Zelaya wanted something similar but was overthrown. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega announced he will request a constitutional reform that would let him be reelected. And now is the government of Alvaro Uribe who is planning to amend the Constitution of Colombia to prolong his stay in the presidency.

Facts that indicate a tendency to prolong the presidential term -by way of constitutional reform and continuous reelection- in much of the governments of Spanish America. A fad raised by a new ruling class and the Latin American past. That one takes advantage of its high popularity ratings to corrupt democratic systems and develop personalist projects, and this, full of dictatorships and populism, continues to shape our political traditions.

We are still at a point where both the citizen who votes and the leader have failed in surpassing the old autocratic habits.

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Poll: Honduras must elect new president to tackle crisis

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

During the first 15 days of August 2009, we made the following question to the visitors of our Spanish website Morochos.org:

What action is most appropriate to tackle the political crisis in Honduras?

We gave two options, and each received the following percentage of votes:

1) Hold elections to appoint new president, 69%

2) Return Zelaya to the presidency, 31%

Observations:

In Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, the congress, the court and the Armed Forces are involved in questionable acts that need a judicial inquiry. Hence, returning Zelaya to power, or leaving Micheletti in charge longer, do not seem reasonable options.

Therefore, holding elections to elect new president just may be the most viable action to tackle the political crisis in Honduras, as this survey says.

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Criticisms of the Urban Land Law in Venezuela

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

The National Assembly of Venezuela on August 14 approved the Urban Land Law, a document that seeks to regulate the use and possession of urban land. These are our observations:

It puts the President above private property and gives it judiciary powers: According to Article 3 it is declared of "public utility" any “unused” urban land, but, who says which urban land is not in use and must pass into the hands of the government? The subjectivity of the National Executive -Art. 6, No. 3-

Similarly, any process of motion, complaint, right to defense, sentence and order of occupancy/expropriation of urban land will be handled, not by the Venezuelan courts following the due process, but by the National Executive through its competent organ -art.21-30- Then now the administration of justice, in regard to urban land, will be directly implemented by the National Executive.

It threatens private property: According to Article 2 of this law, it is decreed that "urban property has a social function", which means that all urban land is socialized, it is no longer private, but has a collective, communitarian, public goal, that prevails over the rights of the owner.

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Chavez's bureaucratic latifundium

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

To justify attacks on the independent press in Venezuela, Chavista leaders talk about combating "media latifundium", a rhetorical device that seeks to represent the fact that one person controls the mass media.

And beyond the discussion of whether the allegory is etymologically well founded or not, the truth is that it is easy to understand what it means, fulfilling its propaganda goal. However, it would be also interesting to use the same symbolism with another large extension of resources belonging to one person in Venezuela, for example, why not apply it to political power?

In Chavez's country, virtually all public institutions and offices of the Venezuelan State are controlled by one "owner". Even in the armed forces, officers greet by saying the slogan of the PSUV, Chavez's party, as if the institutions that previously belonged to Venezuela had been privatized for the exclusive use of the Chavista monopoly.

So, according to the concept invoked by the enemies of press freedom, the political reality of Venezuela would also be like a latifundium, but bureaucratic. Unfortunately, it seems that it has no opponents in the high chavismo.

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Obama's health reform is politically out of touch

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Obama and his team believe that, as a health system accessible to all Americans is a reasonable idea from many points of view, it is essential to pressure the Congress to approve it, ignoring public opinion.

Obama and his people do not realize that the reform proposed for the health system has a rejection of at least two points over those who support it, i.e. a technical tie. And, in such scenario, it is unreasonable to pass this bill on the House Floor, because even if they get to approve it, by pressure on congressmen and political alliances, the reality is that a little more than half of Americans do not support a substantial reform of their health system.

As things stand, not reforming the health system would be a mistake, as almost half of the country wish it, but imposing this desire on the other half, without including their proposals, would be a mistake even worse. In this case, the right thing would be to broaden the debate and develop a health program with the participation of every national sector, in order to reflect the point of view and interests of all U.S citizens.

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Criticisms of Chavez's Education Act

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

On the education draft law currently debated in the Venezuelan National Assembly, and that was approved on first reading, we have the following criticisms:

1) It does not recognizes the individual facet of personhood: In the twenty-first century, a law that shapes the principles of a country's educational system, should include the training of citizens to develop their individual and collective faculties. However, this does not appear anywhere in the law and it puts all the weight towards the development of man in the social aspect, which is evidenced in the fact that the word "individual" appears only once in the whole document. Realities that give to the law a too collectivist tendency, typical of fascist/communist regimes that disregard the individual initiative.

2) It is Socialist: It says that Venezuelan education has as one of its goals to achieve the social happiness through "a new social production model" -art. 13, Section 9- Making clear reference to socialism. Besides, it talks about the socialization, ownership and preservation of knowledge in the society -art. 30- which may lead to ignoring copyright and intellectual property.

3) It is racist: It refers directly to what the Venezuelan government call education with an African descent and aboriginal vision -art 12- Excluding intentionally the identification with whites, Asians and other lineages. It should refer to all races.

4) It gives authority to commune councils to act as “educational agents”: In other words, according to art. 16, the political operators of the Chavez's regime would have the right and duty to proselytize in schools in favor of the government. This is because, in Chavez's Venezuela, commune councils are subsidiaries of the government party and are not elected by popular vote.

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The post-financial crisis: More regulation

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Since the seventeenth century, capitalism has never existed without government, on the contrary, each new capitalist stage has always been accompanied by more and better regulations. The role of public administration has always been fundamental to the development of capitalism, and in no place the fanciful idea of market self-regulation without government has been tested successfully. This is why none of the contemporary economic superpowers is supervised by a weak government.

So when we review the history of capitalism, we can easily grasp the importance of government in terms of actions that have resulted in indisputable improvements, as the implementation of fiscal and monetary policies; labor, contract and banking laws; as well as the rules on public safety funds and cash ratio -legal reserve-

We saw it also in 2008-2009, it is undeniable that the government's intervention reduced the impact of this crisis. For example, the public power was used to enhance the guarantee of savings, protect those affected by bankruptcy or fraud, limit short selling of companies that were on the brink of collapse, approve the financial rescue of banks and automakers, and implement an intense economic stimulus plan.

Hence, another process that will continue its activity on capitalism, after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, is regulation, as there are some things that, at least for now, the market's invisible hand does not do better than the visible hand of government.

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Attacks on the press muddy the Chavez image

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

The recent attacks of the Chavez government against the independent press in Venezuela have prompted criticism from nearly all national and international sectors. A reality that shows us the disastrous impact of these actions in the image of the Venezuelan president.

And it could not be otherwise, what public reaction is Chavez hoping for when he jails dissident journalists like Oscar Azocar, when he orders the Attorney General to bring a bill before the National Assembly that would criminalize journalism, when he closes 34 radio stations for political reasons and when his urban guerrilla bands attack Globovision?

Not only Chavez, but any world government which commits the aforementioned attacks against independent media, would immediately project into the public mind an authoritarian, arbitrary and oppressive concept of the regime. Which leads us to conclude that this new wave of press persecution was another serious error of Hugo Chavez.

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America's Affordable Health Choices Act

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

On July 14, 2009, House Democrats introduced the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 -H.R.3200- Click here to download the full text -PDF- of the proposed health care reform.

Trade sanctions: Bad for Cuba, good for Colombia?

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Hugo Chavez has always been a harsh critic of the United States' trade sanctions against Cuba. Chavez says that this embargo violates the people's right to self-determination, that a foreign pressure like this is an unforgivable intrusion, that has not changed nothing in many years, and that is an inhuman policy because the bigger loser is the Cuban people.

Ironically, every time Chavez has differences with the government of Colombia, the first thing the current president of Venezuela does is threatening economic sanctions, but if the disagreement persists, Chavez breaks off diplomatic relations and restricts bilateral trade, publicly leaving the promise that if the differences get worse, he would suspend trading altogether, or would take more severe actions against Colombia.

Therefore, for Chavez, economic war tactics are an atrocity when applied against the Cuban dictatorship, but become an act of justice when the Chavista government uses them against the Colombian people.

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