As an English-language reader in South America, I am constantly frustrated. Stories are everywhere, and too many go untold. Whether it’s an investigative piece about how mercury gets to illegal mines, a character sketch of an El Alto bus driver, the natural history of Venezuelan vanilla — you name it. There are too many stories, and not enough getting written, especially in English.
Sure, if a story is connected to New York or London (or Toronto or Dublin), great — it has a chance of getting written and published. If not, well, hit or miss. And miss, and miss, and miss.
Otto writes: Every few months, reliable Mexican polling company Mitofsky puts together its Poll of Polls on the popularity of Heads of State in The Americas, then publishes its findings. That’s what they did scant hours ago and here’s how things look for the continental bigwigs at the moment, colour-coded chart and all. We even do a table if that big graphic is too messy and big for you.
Earlier, Semana (and then Tuerto) raised the alarm that Ecuador’s Correa and Venezuela’s Chávez contributed to recommendations to be brought before the OAS to reform its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a way that might neuter that body’s freedom of expression rapporteur. I am happy to say that the danger appears to have passed.
We love a free press, but does the Latin American version always have to be so darn elitist? (Image from George Baxter, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
El Universo, the Ecuadorian newspaper that local courts have hit with a $40 million fine for slandering President Rafael Correa, took a curious tack this week as it sought to defend itself in the court of public opinion while the courts of law prepared to weigh a final appeal (cassation actually, if any lawyers are keeping score).
I got this note Monday, sent to the e-mail I use for my energy blog.
xxx@podesta.com via gmail.com to settysoutham…
Dear Steven,
I hope you are aware of the egregious attack on independent media currently underway in Ecuador and more generally across the region. If you have considered covering this topic, or already have something in the works, the next couple days are a great time to write. A high court hearing, followed immediately by a decision on the El Universo case, has been scheduled for Tuesday, January 24 at 9:00 am….
In which your correspondent is informed that he was more right that he knew. (Image by Christian Haugen, CC-BY-2.0, www.creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
After yesterday’s post on the rapid rise in real estate prices in residential ‘hoods of Lima, Peru, your author had an interesting exchange with a friend who lives there and is immersed in the issue (his ID will be reserved, however). Here’s what he said:
…those are average, not real prices, so don’t try to go shopping for apartments relying on them. As my stats teacher said: ‘beware of statistical data because if I eat a chicken and you eat none, statistics will say we ate half each, which is not true.”
So number-nerd is as number-nerd does, I poked him with a stick by shooting this back:
Mexico’s Miss Bala was supposed to be competitive, but no dice. Anyway, these are the people who voted Driving Miss Daisy, Titanic, and Crash best picture, so should anyone give a damn?
The blog Cine Latino has a nice list of Latin American films that were contenders, so at least the Oscar competition gives us a lineup of films to reluctantly pirate over the next few months as we are frustrated in our efforts to view them legally.
The good news is that newly available personal credit and expansion of low-to-no downpayment mortgage market hasn’t caused a dangerous looking real estate price bubble in the country as yet.
The habitual brutality of Chile's carabineros during student protests was almost entirely left out of Human Rights Watch's 2011 annual report.
I’m sure the good people over at Human Rights Watch are very busy, and they already had plenty of horrifying material for their 2012 World Report. But it would have been nice to see them give more of a nod to the police abuses during this year’s massive student protests in Chile. The section on Chile saves a scant two paragraphs for police brutality, and really less than one sentence for the generalized abuses seen during the protests. Says HRW:
Cases of excessive use of force by police when dealing with detainees during demonstrations and Mapuche land occupations continue to be reported. In August 2011 a carabinero (uniformed policeman) shot and killed a 16-year-old student, Manuel Gutiérrez Reynoso, who had been watching a demonstration from a Santiago footbridge during a national strike. A police general—who had brushed aside accusations that the police were responsible for the incident—was fired, together with the alleged culprit and several other junior officers. A military prosecutor was investigating the case at the end of September. (Emphasis mine)
Truly, the Mapuches continue to get the very short end of the stick. A more-or-less representative video made the rounds recently showing a carabinero take a whack at a woman with the butt of a tactical shotgun while her children looked on:
But why almost nothing on the police violence during the student protests that rocked the country for much of the year?
I enjoy Cuban humor, and this seems to have it going on. And they didn’t have to change Havana much to make it look post-apocalyptic. The budget was $2.3mn, which according to the movie’s publicity material went mostly for post production special effects. Interestingly, the movie was produced independently, by Producciones La 5ta Avenida, which is incorporated in Bolivia.
Ecuador's Correa and Venezuela's Chávez are pushing to weaken a key OAS freedom of expression body.
Whatever the merits of Latin America’s left-wing presidents, their track record on freedom of expression has been terrible. The administration of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has shut down opposition radio and television stations on the thinnest of pretenses. Ecuador’s Rafael Correa is in the process of suing the country’s largest newspaper (El Universo) out of existence. Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner and her allies have gone after Clarín and La Nación again and again, most recently by passing a law declaring newsprint to be in the national interest. All three administrations regularly take time during public appearances to verbally attack specific journalists or news outlets.
While it’s been basically tough beans for local journalists and media outlets, the OAS’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has done some good work cataloging the abuses and bringing cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – often to no avail, but at the very least it has maintained a useful legal-historical record of the abuses for posterity and the purposes of international shaming.
But because of its role as a state eye-poker, the IACHR is not exactly popular with the powerful, and next week the OAS is set to hold a vote in which its member states decide whether to smother one of its more bothersome (read: effective) parts.
@Lillie_Langtry Thanks for covering this. I don't think the English-language press gets how big this story really is. 6 hours ago
This is front-page news in Argentina. Really amazing story, but this AP note is just the tippiest tip o' the ice: http://t.co/zWeXkjYP6 hours ago
RT @elizondogabriel: Rio de Janeiro's most wanted drug kingpin, known as FB, arrested tonight in São José dos Campos, about 100k from Sã ... 12 hours ago
Hey, a big wet sloppy thanks to all who helped us emerge into the light this week. You're beautiful! 13 hours ago
This is a really excellent op-ed (apparently such things exist): In Honduras, a Mess Helped by the U.S.: http://t.co/3NWLBeOD13 hours ago
