Wonder of wonders -- Venezuela and Colombia still recognize each other

Actually, the only surprise in what Venezuela does anymore is that its radical leftist leader, President Hugo Chavez, hasn't gotten into any new trouble internationally. To the contrary, Venezuela appears to have become a more-or-less responsible member of the South American community of nations. Case in point: Tuesday's agreement to restore full diplomatic relations with its oft-estranged neighbor, U.S. ally Colombia. Chavez was in Santa Marta for Tuesday's ceremony announcing the resumption of relations and agreement to form commissions for economic and security cooperation between the two countries, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "I think we've taken a step forward in re-establishing confidence, which is one of the basic tenets of any relationship," Colombia's newly elected president, Juan Manuel Santos, said at the announcement, CNN reported. The countries have been arguing for years over allegations by former President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring Marxist guerrillas seeking to overthrow Colombia's pro-U.S. government. Chavez was particularly aggrieved by Colombia's 2008 raid on rebel camps across the border in Ecuador, and by last year's military agreement between Colombia and the United States. Santos was Colombia's defense minister in the Uribe government. But both countries' leaders were all smiles Tuesday. "I came here to turn the page," Chavez said, according to CNN. There are billions of dollars in trade at stake. Bilateral trade between Caracas and Bogota reached $7.3 billion in 2008 but has fallen sharply since then as relations between the countries soured, CNN said.

Colombia's peaceful transition demonstrates commitment to democracy

Anybody still harboring doubts about the strength of South America's commitment to democracy -- perfectly understandable, in light of recent political events -- should take heart from Colombia's presidential transition. We're speaking, of course, of Friday's decision by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to withdraw from the next presidential election after the country's highest court ruled out last-minute efforts to make him eligible for a third term. The two-term incumbent's unexpected departure from the race makes former Finance Minister Juan Manuel Santos the front runner in the election in May, according to the Reuters international news service. Uribe bowed out of the race graciously after the ruling in a region known for tumultuous politics. "I accept and I respect the decision of the Constitutional Court," Uribe said after the ruling. "One dream inspires me: that the country betters its path, but does not change it." Uribe still enjoys wide popularity in Colombia, where he championed a crackdown on Marxist rebels and cocaine traffickers, and helped the country evolved from a failed narco state into one with a robust economy. Success against the rebels led to increased foreign investment and economic growth, Reuters said, and Colombia became the strongest supporter of the United States in a region that has seen anti-U.S. leaders come to power in nearby Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Colombia is now Latin America's largest coffee exporter and No. 4 oil exporter, Reuters said. Santos is expected to continue Uribe's policies, but faces a tough campaign against Medellin Mayor Sergio Fajardo and former defense minister Noemi Sanin.

Venezuela's Chavez could lose control of Congress

Venezuelans returned to the streets today in protests over the country's deteriorating economic picture as this year's parliamentary elections drew nearer. Observers say President Hugo Chavez's hold on Congress could be in danger after devaluation of the currency and in the face of water and power outages caused by a severe drought. An opposition legislature could prevent Chavez from ruling by decree, a tactic he has used to make fundamental socialist-inspired changes in the Venezuelan economy, according to the Reuters international news service. Pro-Chavez marchers also took the streets on Saturday in a show of support for the government's aid programs for Venezuela's poor. "Tremble, you oligarchs -- this is the joy of the patriotic revolution," Chavez told his supporters, Reuters said. "The streets no longer belong to the oligarchs." The pro-Chavez march also was celebrating the 11th year of his presidency, which ushered in years of friction with the United States. Chavez called former U.S. President George W. Bush "the devil" at the United Nations in New York in 2006, no doubt because he was briefly removed from power in 2002 by a coup he blamed on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But Chavez returned to office and has since consolidated government control of the economy, including the state oil company and the judicial system. Chavez gained control of the legislature in 2005 after opposition parties boycotted parliamentary elections, Reuters said.

New agreement could mean end is near for Honduras crisis

Word from Honduras that an agreement has been reached to allow former President Manuel Zelaya to leave the country bodes well for a negotiated end to a constitutional crisis that has poisoned relations with most of the rest of the world. Honduras' new president-elect, Porfirio Lobo, and the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez, signed the pact Wednesday, and Zelaya said it was "a good gesture" and that he would study it, according to the New York Times. Zelaya has been holed up in the Brazil's embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, since September, when he snuck back into the country after being ousted by military leaders fearful of his growing alliance with leftist South American leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Most countries, including the United States, demanded Zelaya's return to office but military leaders refused, even as former allies suspended aid to Honduras, one of Latin America's poorest countries. But Zelaya's term has since expired, and Lobo is now trying to improve the country's international standing, the Times said. He is scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 27. Under the agreement, Zelaya would be free to leave Honduras with no restrictions and a long list of charges leveled by the interim government would be dropped, the Times said.

Ousted Honduran leader to spend Christmas in Brazilian embassy

The latest word from Honduras is that ousted leftist president Manuel Zelaya and his family will spend Christmas in Brazil's embassy in Tagucigalpa, where he has been sheltered since sneaking into the country in September, three months after being forced out in a military coup. "For Christmas, the army has told me they will let my mother and my children in and we will be here saying a prayer for the Honduran people," Zelaya told the Reuters international news service by phone from the embassy complex. "No family would want to go through what we are going through unless they were perverse, cruel or heartless." Zelaya was awakened by soldiers June 28 and flown out of the country in his pajamas when the Honduran military seized control and installed a legislative leader as interim president. The coup, apparently designed to prevent Zelaya from moving Honduras closer to Venezuela's anti-U.S. leader Hugo Chavez over the objections of business leaders, was condemned by most countries including the United States, which demanded Zelaya's reinstatement. Zelaya's opponents also accused him of planning to change Honduras' constitution to allow him to stay in office beyond the end of his term in November, Reuters said. Negotiations failed to produce a settlement and Honduras' Congress voted against Zelaya's return to office. The interim government sponsored a new presidential election last month, won by opposition leader Porfirio Lobo. Many European and Latin American countries have refused to recognize the result but the United States said it offered a way to end Honduras' leadership crisis, Reuters said. Lobo is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 27 and has promised amnesty for Zelaya and coup leaders, Reuters said.

War means big business -- U.S. tops list of weapons exporters

Just when it seemed Washington was ready to resume its expected role of helping to bring sanity to world affairs comes word of a congressional study finding the United States was involved in more than two-thirds of worldwide arms sales last year. The study, released Friday by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, found U.S. arms sales increased 50 percent in 2008 to $37.8 billion despite the worldwide recession, according to the New York Times. The report shows the United States is by far the world's largest arms trader, with Italy a distant second at $3.7 billion and Russia third at $3.5 billion. The report said U.S. arms sales increased nearly 50 percent from 2007. The increase was attributed by the report "not only to major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia, but also to the continuation of significant equipment and support services contracts with a broad-based number of U.S. clients globally. The study, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations," was written by Richard F. Grimmett, a specialist in international security at the CRS, a division of the Library of Congress. Top buyers of U.S. arms and equipment in the developing world were United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, the report said, while main buyers of Russian armaments were China, India and Venezuela. Arms sales to major oil exporting countries helps keep the trillions of dollars they earn in circulation and keeps the world economy in some sort of balance, but is an enormous temptation to become aggressive and start wars.

"Captain" Hugo aims rhetorical phasers at Barack Obama

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized U.S. President Barack Obama as "lost in the Andromeda Nebula" on Sunday after Obama said the United States had been asked to do more to restore the president of Honduras, who was ousted in a coup last month. "We are not asking you to intervene in Honduras, Obama," Chavez said on his weekly television show, according to the Reuters international news service. "On the contrary, we are asking that 'the empire' gets its hands off Honduras and get its claws out of Latin America." The Venezuelan leader has been highly critical of United States' involvement with Latin American countries and repeatedly accuses Washington of trying to dominate the region. He claims the United States had advance knowledge of the Honduras coup in June and had arrangements in place to fly deposed President Manuel Zelaya out of the country from a U.S. military base. Obama has denied the charges, which does not necessarily mean they're untrue. But Chavez, for his part, is no stranger to bombastic rhetoric. He frequently launches into tirades against what he called U.S. imperialism and, remember, he's the guy who called former President George W. Bush "the devil" at the United Nations in 2006. Chavez is known to be angry about an agreement between the United States and his neighbor, Colombia, that grants access to military bases for U.S. troops to help in the fight against the drug trade, Reuters said. Chavez claims the agreement makes it easier for the United States to attack Venezuela to steal its oil reserves, and is actively purchasing Russian armaments to beef up his armed forces. "This is just the start of an imperial military expansion," Chavez said. The Venezuelan president called on the United States to withdraw from its longtime base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and from the Soto Cano airbase in Honduras.

Antigua and Barbuda beneficiaries of the 'other' Hugo Chavez

What does it mean that Venezuela's virulently anti-United States president, Hugo Chavez, just gave $50 million to help the Caribbean two-island country of Antigua and Barbuda cope with financial losses from the collapse of a bank owned by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford? Antigua's prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, announced Thursday that Venezuela had agreed to loan the tiny country $50 million on favorable terms to help it weather the crisis. "Today, I am pleased to advise the nation that at one o'clock this morning President Hugo Chavez signed the necessary paperwork to approve the immediate transfer of the full amount of $50 million to the government's call account at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank," Spencer said, according to the Reuters international news service. Spencer led Antigua to join the Chavez-inspired ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American countries two months ago, an alliance that includes Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, which was created as an alternative to U.S. economic influence in Latin America, Reuters said. Aiding Antigua is another way for Chavez to gain influence in the region, since the United States has not offered such aid because it believes Antigua's government was involved in a $7 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Stanford through his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank. The U.S. Justice Department handed down indictments in June accusing Stanford, three bank executives at the bank and Antigua's chief bank regulator with complicity in the fraud. Investors from the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Peru have sued Antigua for $24 billion, accusing the country of helping the fraud. Venezuelan investors also lost money in the investment scheme, which involved certificates of deposit from the bank, Reuters said. Antigua is a member of another Chavez-inspired group, PetroCaribe, which allows poor countries in the region buy oil on credit. This is not the first time Chavez's dislike for the United States has "encouraged" him to help his neighbors -- hopefully, it won't be the last.

Venezuela and Colombia break diplomatic relations

News from Caracas that Venezuela will withdraw its ambassador from Colombia and "freeze relations" with its neighbor should be no surprise to U.S. residents and can even be seen as reassuring. The cantankerous disagreements between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and former U.S. President George W. Bush reflected badly on the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, given how well Chavez seemed to get along with others. Now, the Bush administration looks a lot better. Tensions began rising Monday between Venezuela and Colombia, a staunch U.S. ally, over Bogota's announcement that it had found weapons in the hands of Marxist rebels that had originally been purchased by Venezuela. "I've ordered to withdraw our ambassador from Bogota, to withdraw our diplomatic personnel," Chavez said in a televised Cabinet meeting, according to the Reuters international news service. "We will freeze relations with Colombia." Colombia's government has been battling FARC insurgents since the 1960s. Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said his government would investigate how the antitank weapons got to FARC but had no comment on the severing of diplomatic relations with Venezuela, Reuters said. Chavez called allegations that his country sold the antitank missiles to FARC a "big manipulation," Reuters said, and said Venezuela would import farm products from other countries. Venezuela and Colombia have a recent history of sour diplomatic relations despite billions of dollars in trade annually. According to Reuters, Chavez believes Colombia's invitation to host U.S. troops to fight drug trafficking is a threat to his government. But Chavez also needed to bolster his popularity, which has suffered in the past year as falling oil price crimped government spending, Reuters said. In 2008, the two countries massed troops along their long border after Colombia bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador.

OAS suspends Honduras

Maybe the decision by the Organization of American States to suspend Honduras after its military overthrew elected leftist president Manuel Zelaya will bring enough pressure to force the junta to step aside, but it's hard to see at this point how that will be accomplished. The OAS voted 33-0 on Saturday to bar Honduras from participation in the organization, shortly after its secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, returned from Washington, D.C., following an unsuccessful effort to broker a deal to return Zelaya to office, according to the Miami Herald newspaper. The resolution passed by the OAS called the military coup an "unconstitutional altertation of the democratic order" and bars Honduras from receiving loans or other aid while still requiring the nation to adhere to the diplomatic union's human rights rules. A spokeswoman for the new military government in Tagucigalpa, the Honduran capital, dismissed Insulza's effort as insincere and said her country had withdrawn from the OAS before the meeting. "We saw that our good faith was taken advantage of and we were not listened to," Honduras Deputy Foreign Minister Martha Lorena de Casco said, according to the Herald. "Honduras has been viewed as a small, poor country. It's said and unfortunate, but the freedom of Honduras is not for sale." Military leaders apparently were alarmed by Zelaya's advocacy of a referendum polling Honduran voters to see if they would accept extending his term of office as a power grab, on a par with efforts by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to convince voters to lift constitutional limits on his time in office. Zelaya had frequently clashed with Honduras' attorney general, Supreme Court and military leaders, the Herald said. But Zelaya immediately won the support of most countries, including the United States. The deposed leader vowed to return to Honduras on Sunday, even though the ruling junta cautioned that he would be arrested if he did.

Venezuela turns attention to soda pop

Nice to see Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez still has a sense of humor. Chavez's government, which has in the last few years concerned itself with harsh criticism of the United States while cracking down on critics at home, banned the sale of Coke Zero today and ordered the product removed from store shelves. "The product should be withdrawn from circulation to preserve the health of Venezuelans," Health Minister Jesus Mantilla told the government news agency, the Reuters international news service reported. The ban appears to be in line with recent nationalizations and stepped-up government examination of businesses operating, Reuters said. Venezuela has seized two Cargill facilities and threatened U.S. drug giant Pfizer this year. Coca-Cola Co. introduced Coke Zero in Venezuela in April, around the same time that CocaCola Femsa of Mexico announced that it would increase its sale of low-calorie sodas, Reuters said. Chavez had toned down the anti-U.S. rhetoric since the election of Barak Obama, and even hugged the U.S. leader at the Summit of the Americas conference in Trinidad and Tobago in April. Chavez and former U.S. President George W. Bush were famously opposed to each other, with Chavez calling Bush a "devil" at the United Nations in 2006.

Top U.S. official attends inauguration of leftist as president of El Salvador

Just in case anyone still thought things hadn't changed in Washington, word comes from San Salvador that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended Monday's inauguration of Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador. Funes is the leader of the FLMN, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the formerly Marxist group that fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed governments in the Central American country from 1980 to 1992. The United States was one of 75 nations that sent representatives to the inauguration, according to the Reuters international news service. ""It's a real testament to the strength and durability of democracy in the Americas," Clinton said Sunday as she arrived in El Salvador for a three-day visit to Latin America, Reuters said. Funes said the leftist government he would lead would work with the United States on regional issues such as migration and drug smuggling, and said he would not model himself after anti-U.S. leaders Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. Chavez and Ortega did not attend the inauguration, Reuters said. Funes' cabinet will have more pro-business officials than ex-guerillas, Reuters said. Funes said in his inauguration address that he would work to restore relations with Cuba, a possible source of friction with the United States, which does not have diplomatic relations with Havana despite recent developments. Clinton also is scheduled to travel to Honduras for a meeting of the Organization of American States, at which a majority of members are expected to push to readmit Cuba over U.S. objections. Funes' election in March ended two decades of rule by the pro-U.S. ARENA party. More than 75,000 people, many of them civilians, died in the El Salvador civil war, Reuters said.

Nothing comes easy in post-Bush era foreign policy

News that socialist Rafael Correa easily won re-election as president of Ecuador on Sunday should give pause to the inner circle around U.S. President Barack Obama, since it means they will have to work harder to contain damage from the Bush administration. No doubt, the White House had hoped that Correa, a pal of anti-U.S. rhetoric spouting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, would at least suffer a setback in this election that would slow him down. Instead, Correa got a majority of the vote in the eight-candidate field, avoiding a runoff for the first time since democracy was restored in Ecuador in 1979, according to the Reuters international news service. The leftist Correa, popular in Ecuador for socialist policies that took hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign countries drilling for offshore oil or managing banana plantations and putting the money into pensions, schools and health care, money to the poor, successfully pushed a constitutional amendment enabling him to run for a third term in 2013. "This revolution is on the march, and nobody and nothing can stop us," the 46-year-old president said in Guayaquil, his hometown. "The people ... have given us the most splendorous victory of probably the last 50 years." Correa's major rivals included former president Lucio Gutierrez and billionaire Alvaro Noboa. Correa caused a stir in the West last year by defaulting on billions of dollars in debt, closing a U.S. airbase used for anti-drug flights and expelling two U.S. diplomats he accused of spying.

Problem solved: Venezuela wants Gitmo detainees

Problem solved. Just when it looked as if there was no way out for the United States short of living up to its principles and accepting never-convicted inmates when the detention center closes at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced Thursday that his country would be willing to accept any former prisoners. "We would not have any problem with receiving a human being," said a government news release quoting an interview gave to Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Chavez also said he hoped the United States would return the land on which the naval base is located to Cuba. The United States acquired the land for the Guantanamo base in 1903 after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Then-President George W. Bush opened the detention center in 2002 to hold what he characterized as "enemy combatants" captured in the so-called war on terror. The new administration of Barack Obama, which took over the White House in January, has not disclosed its plans for the prisoners when the detention center closes. Obama has pledged to close the prison.