Monthly Archives: February 2013

France, Mali

François Hollande’s triumphant visit to Timbuktu — and next steps for Mali

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françoismali

Earlier this weekend, French president François Hollande flew to Timbuktu in Mali, where French forces have only in the last week cleared the historic city of Islamist control.France Flag IconMali Flag Icon

I was quick to argue that the intervention in Mali wasn’t some neocolonial retreat to Françafrique, and for a three-week military campaign, I’ll be the first to agree that Hollande’s intervention seems to have saved Bamako, Mali’s southern capital, from pending capture — or at least from pressure from Islamist rebels that were quickly closing in on Bamako after locking down control of the northern two-thirds of the country.

But given that the Timbuktu trip had a ‘mission accomplished’ feel to it, after just three weeks of French military effort, I’m not sure whether Hollande will ultimately come to regret such a high-profile event — as former U.S. president George W. Bush learned, prematurely spiking the ball is not smart politics.

For a country that’s often had a troubled post-colonial relationship with its former colonies, especially in north Africa, it’s perhaps an odd thing to see huge crowds of French-speaking Africans praising Hollande over the weekend:

As Mr. Hollande, ringed by security guards, plunged into the crowd to shake hands, some waved banners that said “Papa François, the mysterious city welcomes you.”

“Hollande is our savior,” said Arkia Baby, a 24-year-old college student, who wore a purple batik dress of a style banned by the Islamists. “He gave us back our freedom.”

You might think that Hollande’s success so far in Mali should be helping him at home politically, but budget woes, tax policy and continued economic weakness have nonetheless kept Hollande’s approval ratings incredibly low as he enters only his 10th month in office — only 35% of French voters continue to have confidence in Hollande, opposed to 61% who do not, pursuant to a TNS Sofres poll from January 30.

First and foremost, where does Mali go from here? If and when the French forces leaves, won’t the Islamist and Tuareg rebel forces simply re-emerge from their northern rural enclaves?

In contrast, if French forces really stay long enough to push the more radical Islamist elements out of Mali, won’t they just create a new problem in another country?

Mauritania doesn’t seem like an incredibly bad place for al-Qaeda in the Maghreb to target next.

Given that the French-backed effort to arm rebels in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi might have destabilized Mali by flooding north and west Africa with additional weapons, it’s not too early to wonder if the Mali effort will result in further unintended consequences, like so many falling dominoes.  It’s no secret, too, that U.S. aid to the mujahideen in the 1970s and 1980s in Afghanistan empowered the radical Islam that bloomed in the 1990s and turned against the United States by sponsoring al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and, indirectly, resulted in the current U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan.

So there’s no way to know what follow-on effects the French offensive will have.

And that, of course, is probably a best-case scenario — there’s a risk that France could get stuck fighting an increasingly unpopular stalemate in Mali if it stays.  Continue reading François Hollande’s triumphant visit to Timbuktu — and next steps for Mali →

Italy, Lombardia

Lombardy looks to post-Formigoni era in toss-up regional elections

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Inside Vittorio Emanuel II

Although Italy will hold national elections on February 24 and 25, three regions will hold elections as well — Lombardy, Lazio and Molise.

lombardyItaly Flag Icon

None of those will be more important than those in Lombardy (or Lombardia in Italian), the most populous region of Italy and, as home to Milan, Italy’s financial and fashion capital, also its wealthiest region.

Since the fall of the so-called ‘first republic’ with the implosion of Italy’s Christian Democratic party in the early 1990s, the centrodestra (the center-right) has dominated regional politics in Lombardy and, since 1995, Roberto Formigoni has served as Lombardy’s regional president, consistently winning outsized victories against the centrosinistra (the center-left) in 2000, 2005 and most recently, 2010.

Formigoni (pictured below), however, is not running for reelection — he announced the resignation of the regional legislature in October 2012 after his colleague, Domenico Zambetti, was arrested for purchasing votes from the ‘Ndrangheta — the local organized crime operation of Calabria — during the 2010 elections.

As such, ending corruption in the region’s government has taken center-stage in one of Europe’s wealthiest regions.

formigoni

Realistically, that means that the centrosinistra has its first real shot at winning regional power in Lombardy, though the centrodestra‘s strength is such that, despite its scandal-plagued woes, it remains very much capable of winning yet another term in power.

It would be nearly the equivalent of the Democrats in the United States taking control of the government of the state of Texas  — a political earthquake, even more of a surprise for the left than in the regional elections in Sicily in October 2012, when Rosario Crocetta became not only the island region’s first leftist president, but also its first openly gay president.

Voters will choose the regional president in a direct vote — the winner and the runner-up, as leader of the opposition, are guaranteed a seat in the 80-member Consiglio Regionale della Lombardia (Regional Council of Lombardy). The remaining 78 members of the Regional Council are selected pursuant to a proportional representation system, tied both to the presidential vote and to a separate party-list vote.

Polls show both the direct presidential vote and the vote for the Regional Council are incredibly tight.

Roberto Maroni, who became the national leader of the Lega Nord (LN, Northern League) in July 2012 after the resignation of longtime leader Umberto Bossi, is running as the candidate of the centrodestra — the Lega Nord‘s local branch in Lombardy is the Lega Lombardia (LL, Lombardy League), and it has been the longtime ally in Lombardy of the conservative Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Freedom) of Silvio Berlusconi.

Maroni (pictured below) has pledged to step down as the leader of the Lega Nord after the regional elections in February, regardless of whether he becomes the next regional president, apparently ending what’s been a long and fairly successful career in national politics.  Most recently, in Berlusconi’s previous government from 2006 to 2008, Maroni served as minister of the interior.

maroni

A victory for Maroni would not only showcase the strength of the centrodestra‘s hold on Lombardy, but would be a huge boost for the Lega Nord, which has advocated more autonomy for the relatively wealthier northeast and center-north of Italy — and, at times, even its complete secession from Italy.

The candidate of the centrosinistra, Umberto Ambrosoli, is the son of Giorgio Ambrosoli, an attorney murdered in 1979 as a result of his investigation into the irregularities of a the Mafia-connected banker, Michele Sindona.

Polls show each candidate winning between 35% and 40% of the vote, often trading leads. Continue reading Lombardy looks to post-Formigoni era in toss-up regional elections →

Cuba, United States

A public interest theory of the continued U.S. embargo on Cuba

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andrewmoore

The New York Times recently examined the U.S. embargo on Cuba, noting that the opening of the Cuban private market, through Cuban president Raúl Castro’s push for privatization of parts of the state-run economy and other reforms, is giving a new rationale to lifting the embargo:USflagcuba

With Cuba cautiously introducing free-market changes that have legalized hundreds of thousands of small private businesses over the past two years, new economic bonds between Cuba and the United States have formed, creating new challenges, new possibilities — and a more complicated debate over the embargo.

The longstanding logic has been that broad sanctions are necessary to suffocate the totalitarian government of Fidel and Raúl Castro. Now, especially for many Cubans who had previously stayed on the sidelines in the battle over Cuba policy, a new argument against the embargo is gaining currency — that the tentative move toward capitalism by the Cuban government could be sped up with more assistance from Americans.

Which begs the question, a day after Cuba’s own sham parliamentary elections: why is the embargo still in place, 51 years after the Cuban missile crisis?

The easiest and obvious explanation is a public choice theory — Cuban Americans, especially those in Florida, remain adamant against lifting the embargo, and any politician’s move to open trade or travel restrictions on Cuba would risk the wrath of a key electoral bloc in not only a large U.S. state, but one with 29 electoral votes (i.e., more than 10% of the votes a presidential candidate needs to win an election).

Given the prominence of many Cuban-American representatives in Congress, including the likely new chairman of the U.S. Senate committee on foreign relations, U.S. senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey (if he can survive allegations of improper donations and dilly-dallying with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic), it’s easy enough to see how a small group of politicians and an active group of voters can block any change on the issue.

I find that a very compelling explanation for why the embargo remains in place, but is there a compelling public interest explanation for continuing the embargo?

Economic sanctions rarely ‘work,’ unless virtually the entire world participates — note how the French, the Russians and the Chinese and other interests undermined sanctions on Iraq throughout much of the 1990s.  Likewise, despite a severe hangover from the end of the Cold War in the 1990s due to the abrupt termination of Soviet subsidies, Cuba has seen an increasing flow of Chinese investment over the past decade, not to mention a steady stream of European and Canadian tourists, delighted to find a haven from American tourists, who of course, aren’t legally able to visit Cuba.

The Cuban-American community often argues that the embargo is necessary to continue to punish and isolate the Castro regime, but the United States has no problem doing business with regimes that continue to feature authoritarian political control, including Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China.

But other than the Cuban-American lobby, I hear far fewer people trying to make the case for a public interest argument for retaining the embargo.  While I’m not necessarily advocating it (and I don’t want to list the many reasons, political, economic, humanitarian and otherwise, in favor of lifting the 51-year embargo), the case must go something like this:

If you are close in proximity to the United States (90 miles off those shore of Florida, no less!), and you collude with the chief geopolitical enemy of the United States to aim nuclear missiles at the United States, the U.S. government will not only punish you, but it will punish you for so long after the incident, holding the grudge for such a long time and beyond all expectations, that no one in Latin America will do anything to endanger U.S. national security to the same degree without thinking long and hard about the isolating aspects of the U.S. response.

On this theory, the embargo is less important for U.S.-Cuban relations and more important as a deterrent to, say, Venezuela or Nicaragua or whichever Latin American regimes in and around the Caribbean that happen to feature a relatively anti-American government.

I find this persuasive, in particular, given that the relative distance of the United States from Europe and Asia has been one of its key strategic strengths, especially in geopolitical affairs over the past century and a half — note that the trauma involved with both the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington in 2001 resulted in part from the relative scarcity of foreign attacks on the U.S. mainland.

Any other rationales?

Photo credit to Andrew Moore — Habana Vieja, on Calle Bayona, 1998.  Check out his latest book of photos from Cuba here.

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: February 4

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East and South Asia

Bhutan booming.

Indian president Pranab Mukherjee will back tougher laws against sexual assault and rape.

Why India doesn’t need a new rape law.

The Philippine economy may have grown at 6.5% in 2012.

Japanese finance minister Tarō Asō is looking to the 1930s in the United States as precedent for fiscal stimulus.

Japan’s government gears up for the fight over the next chair of the Bank of Japan, to be selected in April.

North America

New York City remembers Ed Koch, mayor in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Premier-designate Kathleen Wynne gives the Ontario Liberals a boost into a three-way tie in Canada’s largest province.

Latin America / Caribbean

Paraguayan presidential third-party candidate Lino Oviedo has died in an airplane accident.  [Spanish]  English story here.

Fidel Castro (pictured above) emerged to vote in Sunday’s Cuban parliamentary elections.

Rafael Correa has a smooth path to reelection as Ecuador’s president.

What John Kerry means as U.S. secretary of state for Latin America.

Africa

A closer look at Swazi elections later this year.

An Ethiopian editorial weighs in against former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s kind words for Il Duce.

Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama is not a liberal on gay rights.

Europe

More on a potential Cyprus bailout.

More on why Cyprus could be a problem.

Socialist opposition leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba has called on Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy to resign.

Silvio Berlusconi pledges to revoke an unpopular local property tax in the Italian election campaign.

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair talks to Andrew Marr.

Árni Páll Árnason, former minister of economic affairs, will succeed Icelandic prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir as leader of the Social Democratic Alliance.

But the center-right Independence Party leads polls in advance of Icelandic elections.

France’s gay marriage bill moves closer to passage.

Should Georgia’s parliament select the next president?

Middle East

Why Qatar is backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Yair Lapid thinks he can oust Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister.

Checking in on the latest in Egypt’s political struggle.

A new twist in the generational saga surrounding the Saudi succession.

Australia

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard’s Labor Party is behind in polls.

Italy

In Depth: Italy

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<See below Suffragio’s preview of Italy’s February 2013 parliamentary elections, followed by a real-time listing of all coverage of Italian politics.>

Italian voters go to the polls on February 24 and 25, 2013 to select 630 members of the Camera dei Deputati (House of Deputies), the lower house of the Parlamento Italiano (Italian Parliament) and the 315 elected members of its upper house, the Senato (Senate) for a term that can last for up to five years. Italy Flag Icon

The current prime minister, Mario Monti, was appointed by the Italian Parliament as a ‘technocratic’ prime minister in November 2011 following a crisis over Italian sovereign debt and the resignation of previous prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

PdLBerlusconi is back, leading the campaign for a center-right coalition comprised of his own party, the Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Freedom), as well as the autonomist party in northeastern Italy, the Lega Nord (Northern League), though Berlusconi has pledged — for now, at least — not to seek to become the center-right’s candidate for prime minister in the event that his coalition wins (though polls show this will be unlikely).

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Monti is reluctantly heading a coalition of small parties that hope to return Monti as ‘technocratic’ prime minister, Con Monti per l’Italia) (with Monti for Italy), including a new political party, Scelta Civica (SC, Civic Change) formed for the express purpose of supporting Monti, as well as two smaller center-right parties, the Unione di Centro (UdC, Union of the Centre), which is comprised of former Christian Democrats close to the Vatican and led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, and Futuro e Libertà per l’Italia (FLI, Future and Freedom), a party formed by Gianfranco Fini, once a Berlusconi ally who served as deputy prime minister, foreign minister and as  president of the Camera dei Deputati during previous center-right governments.

Berlusconi, who served as prime minister from 1994 to 1996, from 2001 to 2006 and again from 2008 until 2011, has been running a vigorous campaign just as much against Monti and the politics of austerity imposed by Brussels and Berlin as much as the campaign’s frontrunner, Pier Luigi Bersani.PD logo

Bersani, who won the primary of the center-left coalition in November 2012 to become its candidate for prime minister, is the leader of the center-left Partito Democratico (PD, Democratic Party), Italy’s main leftist party, and a former government minister, most recently in 2006 to 2008 the minister for economic development.  His chief opponent in the center-left primary, Matteo Renzi, currently the mayor of Florence, is supporting Bersani’s campaign, and although he lost the primary to Bersani, his message of generational change has made him one of Italy’s most popular politicians.

Bersani’s coalition also includes the more leftist Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (SEL, Left Ecology Freedom), led by the leftist, openly-gay two-term regional president of Puglia, Nichi Vendola.5star

Finally, the anti-austerity protest movement led by blogger and comedian Beppe Grillo, the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S, the Five Star Movement) is also polling in double-digits, and it could well win enough seats to force a hung parliament.

Complicated proportional voting

Elections are conducted pursuant to a proportional representation system.

For the Camera dei Deputati, a coalition must win 10% of the total votes nationally in order to win seats, and each party within the coalition must win 2% in order to be allocated seats.  Parties outside of coalitions that win at least 4% of the vote will also be eligible for allocated seats.  There are 26 electoral districts (each of Italy’s 20 regions has its own district, while Lombardy has three and each of Piedmont, Veneto, Lazio, Campania and Sicily have two), each of which is assigned a number of seats, which are awarded proportionately according to each party’s (or coalition’s) performance in each district.

The coalition (or party) that obtains the largest plurality of votes (but less than 340 seats) is assigned additional seats to reach a 54% majority of the seats.

For the Senato, each of Italy’s 20 regions elects its own senators (with six senators representing Italians who live abroad).

Seats are awarded solely on a regional proportional basis, such that a coalition must win 20% of the vote in a region to win seats (and 3% for each individual party in the coalition), and a party outside of a coalition must win 8% of the regional vote.

In each region, furthermore, the coalition (or party) that wins a plurality is automatically awarded at least 55% of that region’s seats.

In addition to the 315 elected senators, four additional ‘senators for life’ serve in the Senato — each living former president is automatically a ‘senator for life,’ and Italian presidents are permitted to appoint up to five ‘senators for life’:

  • Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, formerly Italy’s president from 1999 to 2006, as well as a former longtime governor of the Banca D’Italia, Italy’s central bank, from 1979 to 1993, and a former ‘technocratic’ prime minister from 1993 to 1994.
  • Giulio Andreotti, a former Christian Democratic prime minister, also with ties to the Vatican, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
  • Emilio Colombo, another former Christian Democratic prime minister and foreign minister in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
  • Mario Monti, as the current prime minister.

Key regional elections to be held simultaneously

Three of Italy’s regions — Lombardy, Lazio, and Molise — will hold elections for their regional governments on February 24 and 25 as well — and each is being conducted under the shadow of PdL scandals.

In Lombardy, Italy’s wealthiest and most populous region, snap elections have been called following the dissolution of its regional legislature by longtime regional president Robert Formigoni in October 2012 after one of his PdL colleagues was arrested for buying votes from the ‘Ndrangheta in the previous 2010 election.

In Lazio, Italy’s third-most populous region, snap elections are being held following another PdL scandal — regional president Renata Polverini dissolved the parliament following charges of misuse of public funds.

Finally, in Molise, Italy’s second-least populous region in the south-central part of the country, regional president Michele Iorio’s victory in the election in October 2011 was declared invalid due to irregularities committed by Iorio and the PdL and, accordingly, new elections will be held in Molise as well.

Italian Parliament must choose a new president

In May, the Italian Parliament will turn to electing a new president of Italy.  The current president, Giorgio Napolitano, a longtime moderate member of the once-strong Italian Communist Party and former center-left minister in the 1990s, has said he will not seek a second term.

Although the Italian president is essentially a figurehead, the head of state appoints the prime minister after elections, and is responsible for dissolving the Italian parliament and calling elections.  The Italian president is also influential both behind the scenes and in terms of swaying public opinion on important matters of state.

If Monti doesn’t return as prime minister, he would certainly be a top candidate for the presidency. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s CEO and a former Fiat CEO, who has recently entered politics in favor of Monti, has said he would also be a candidate for the presidency.  If the center-left wins an overwhelming mandate, Massimo D’Alema, a longtime fixture of the Italian center-left (prime minister from 1998 to 2000 and minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2008) could emerge as a leading candidate — he was a candidate in the prior 2006 election. 

Other center-left candidates might include Giuliano Amato, a former ‘technocratic’ prime minister from 1992 to 1993 and 2000 to 2001 and most recently interior minister from 2006 to 2008), or even Romano Prodi, prime minister from 1996 to 1998 and 2006 to 2008 and president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.

The presidential election is conducted among both houses of the Italian Parliament, as well as among a special group of 58 ‘electors’ appointed by each of Italy’s 20 regions.

A two-thirds majority is required on the first three ballots, but starting on the fourth ballot, a simple majority is sufficient to elect a president.

* * * * *

Please find below Suffragio‘s posts covering Italian politics:

Renzi, Berlusconi team up for electoral law pact
January 21, 2014

In dismissing Fassina, Italy’s Renzi marks his ‘Sister Souljah’ moment
January 14, 2014

Renzi wins Democratic Party leadership in Italy, establishing rivalry with Letta
December 9, 2013

Rise of new Italian political leadership eclipses Berlusconi’s expulsion from the Senate
November 18, 2013

What the Alfano-Berlusconi split means for Italian politics
November 18, 2013

Letta dicusses political stability in Washington on day after US gov’t shutdown ends
October 17, 2013

Letta survives no-confidence vote easily as Berlusconi suffers humiliating defeat
October 2, 2013

Does this week’s political crisis in Italy represent Berlusconi’s last stand?
September 30, 2013

Berlusconi verdict plunges Italian right (and everyone else) into uncharted territory
August 1, 2013

Italy’s problem with racism goes far deeper than recent slurs against Cécile Kyenge
July 16, 2013

Don’t read too much into Marino’s center-left victory in Roman mayoral election
June 11, 2013

Rome mayoral race heads to tense June runoff between center-left, center-right coalition partners
May 28, 2013

Former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti is dead
May 6, 2013

Letta unveils government short on Berlusconi allies, long on economists
April 27, 2013

Who is Enrico Letta?
April 24, 2013

Napolitano’s in (again), Bersani’s out, and Italy’s as dysfunctional as ever
April 20, 2013

Prodi falls far behind on fourth Italian ballot

April 19, 2013

Prodi emerges as united center-left’s presidential candidate in Italy
April 19, 2013

Presidential vote returns Italian politics to high operatic drama
April 18, 2013

Seven people who could be appointed Italy’s next technocratic prime minister
March 28, 2013

Italian government now rests in hands of Napolitano, Italy’s president
March 28, 2013

Does Pier Luigi Bersani believe in miracles?
March 25, 2013

Pier Luigi Bersani has five days to build an Italian government
March 22, 2013

How would Italian politics function under a French electoral system?
March 6, 2013

Maroni’s Lombardy victory consolidates Northern League’s regional hold
February 27, 2013

More thoughts on the final Italian election results and Italy’s election law
February 26, 2013

Where Italy goes from today’s elections: A look at four potential outcomes
February 25, 2013

Making sense of today’s Italian election results
February 25, 2013

The role of Italy’s south in this weekend’s election
February 24, 2013

What will Italy’s election mean for LGBT rights?
February 22, 2013

What kind of Italian prime minister would Angelino Alfano make?
February 20, 2013

History shows Italy’s center-left coalition will likely be short-lived and tenuous
February 20, 2013

Monte dei Paschi scandal gives share of blame to Italian left, right and center
February 19, 2013

What the papal abdication means for Italy’s upcoming general election
February 14, 2013

How the Italian election, Bersani’s to lose, became a Berlusconi-Monti dogfight
February 13, 2013

Center-left poised to block nationalist Storace’s comeback in Lazio
February 5, 2013

Lombardy looks to post-Formigoni era in toss-up regional elections
February 4, 2013

Italian prime minister Mario Monti has a ‘Goldilocks’ problem
January 3, 2013

Monti resigns as prime minister in light of Berlusconi’s political return
December 10, 2012

Five reasons Berlusconi returned to run in the upcoming Italian election
December 8, 2012

Bersani routs Renzi in ‘centrosinistra’ primary to lead Italian left next spring
December 3, 2012

Bersani leads as Italian ‘centrosinistra’ primary heads to Sunday runoff
November 28, 2012

Bersani and Renzi offer two distinct personalities for Italy’s center-left
November 19, 2012

Crocetta likely to become Sicily’s first openly-gay, first leftist president
October 30, 2012

Incredibly low turnout in Sicilian election
October 29, 2012

Today’s Sicilian elections showcase potential party strength before 2013 Italian election
October 28, 2012

Berlusconi convicted of tax fraud, sentenced to four years in prison
October 26, 2012

Is Italy headed into a post-Berlusconi ‘third republic’ era of national politics?
October 11, 2012

Is the European ‘Christian democracy’ party model dead?
September 4, 2012

Il ritorno del Berlusconi — why his re-emergence in Italian politics is completely logical
July 31, 2012

Addio to the Lega Nord
April 20, 2012

* * * * *

Photo credit to Kevin Lees — Duomo in Florence, September 2006; Tiber river and the Vatican in Rome, November, 2011.

Personal

Suffragio celebrates its one-year anniversary

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anniversary

So today, my blog is exactly one year old.

In February 2012, I started this blog as a part-time venture and, nearly 17,000 hits and over 550 posts later, I’m still going strong.

As usual, thanks to my readers and guest contributors — and of course, please do share any thoughts to make Suffragio better: more relevant, more thoughtful, more prescient and more engaging.

Here’s to the next year for Suffragio!

Guatemala

Former Guatemalan dictator Ríos Montt to be tried for genocide

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huehuetenango

Central America was a rough neighborhood during the Cold War.guatemala flag icon

And Guatemala, with a civil war that essentially began with the overthrow of elected president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (with U.S. support) in 1954, and ended only with a peace treaty in 1996, was particularly rough.

Even in that context, however, the reign of Efraín Ríos Montt in the early 1980s, again backed by the United States, was a particularly brutal one.

Ríos Montt, however, this week became the first ever head of state to be tried for genocide in the Western Hemisphere, when a Guatemalan judge ruled that the trial will go forward — authorities charged Ríos Montt in early 2012 with genocide and crimes against humanity for, particularly, 1,771 deaths of indigenous Ixil Mayans during his 17-month reign, but really over 10,000 deaths in 1982 attributed to Ríos Montt’s regime — it’s a trial that could bring about a greater awareness of the atrocities committed not only in Guatemala, but throughout Central America during the Cold War, as well as the complicity of the United States in some of the most brutal events in Latin American history in the 20th century.

Ríos Montt, now aged 86, continues to argue for amnesty under the basis of a 1996 amnesty, but his lawyers have been accused of using legal tactics to bring about additional delays in the case.

Under international law, crimes against humanity and genocide have been considered to be exempt from national amnesty statutes, and indeed, even under Guatemala’s 1996 national conciliation law, genocide, torture and forced disappearances are expressly exempt from amnesty.

Today, the misty mountain air of Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands is best known for tourism rather than terror (pictured above).  Towns like Huehuetenango and Santiago Atitlán, in 2013, are better known as a source of fair-trade coffee than as a site of genocide.

But 30 years ago, the Guatemalan highlands saw some of the worst atrocities of the Guatemalan civil war.  Continue reading Former Guatemalan dictator Ríos Montt to be tried for genocide →

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: February 1

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East and South Asia

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is not popular in Pakistan.

North America

Former U.S. senator and nominee for U.S. defense secretary Chuck Hagel has a tough day of hearings.

Latin America / Caribbean

Argentina’s government turns down a Falklands summit.

An explosion at México’s state-owned oil company, Pemex.

FARC clashes with the Colombian government.

How to maintain Peruvian economic growth.

Africa

Islamist rebels in Mali are on the defensive after three weeks of French activity.

Kenya’s March 4 presidential election will feature eight candidates.

Europe

Armenian presidential candidate Paruir Airikian is shot and wounded.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is distancing herself from her coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party.

A slush fund for Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular?

Russian prime minister Dmitri Medvedev (pictured above with president Vladimir Putin) lays out his economic goals.

Middle East

Foreign Policy peeks into Lebanon.

Will Hamas try to take over the leadership of the PLO?

Photo credit to Dmitry Astakhov of RIA Novosti.