Former Costa Rican President Applauds U.N. Arms Treaty Vote

Ex-Costa Rican President Óscar Arias praised the U.N. General Assembly after it overwhelmingly approved a treaty aimed at controlling the global trade in conventional weapons.

“It’s the history of a dream behind wanting to regulate international arms trade,” said the Nobel laureate according to the website for Costa Rican daily El Financiero.

“I’m very moved by the vote because I never expected the U.S. to back the agreement while I was still alive,” added Arias who ha campaigned for comprehensive global arms treaty for the past sixteen years.

Arias also praised his country’s diplomatic team for their efforts over the past seven years to help formulate the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and obtain such a strong vote of confidence at the U.N.

“The treaty is the greatest contribution by Costa Rica to humankind in its entire history.  It’s a triumph of the moral authority held by this small country,” said Arias.

Several Latin American states including Argentina, Mexico and Colombia helped Costa Rica to push the pact that had stalled numerous times including as recently as last week.  (See embedded video above).

Syria, Iran and North Korea were the only countries to vote against the ATT in Tuesday’s vote while 154 member states including most Western Hemispheric nations approved the pact. 

Among the twenty-three countries that abstained from the vote were five countries belonging to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas bloc: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Cuban representative Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez said his country would abstain since the final version of the ATT had “serous limitations…and multiple ambiguities and legal gaps.”  Nevertheless, Costa Rica's Eduardo Ulibarri said that the agreement was a fair compromise that demonstrates that the U.N. is “able to address the most serious and complex global challenges.”

Venezuela: Pro-Chavez LatAm Leaders Sign Solidarity Declaration

Representatives of over twenty Latin American and Caribbean countries signed a declaration supporting ailing President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government.

Signatories to the “Caracas Declaration” promise to reject any attempts to  “destabilize and promote intervention into matters on which the Venezuelan people have clearly expressed their will.”

The text also called on the international community to “respect” Wednesday’s Venezuelan Supreme Court ruling to postpone the inauguration of Chavez that was supposed to take place on Thursday.

Among the countries that signed the declaration are member states of the Petrocaribe oil alliance and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, both groups that have received strong support from the Chavez regime.

In lieu of Chavez, who is reportedly in Cuba and in “delicate” condition since undergoing cancer surgery one month ago, several Latin American leaders gathered at a rally in his name on Thursday.  The presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Uruguay joined Maduro and other senior Venezuelan government officials on stage at the event in Caracas.

“I am confident that our comrade Hugo is the person most interested in being here, but who says he is not here? He is in every woman, peasant...” proclaimed former Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo at the “symbolic” inauguration that was also attended by tens of thousands of Venezuelans.
   
Venezuelan opposition leaders, meanwhile, announced that they will hold their own rally on January 23rd over what they consider a violation of Venezuela’s constitution.

Internet Challenge: Does Anybody Like 'South of the Border'?

Reading Foreign Policy's not-too-favorable review of the new Oliver Stone film South of the Border got me wondering: does anybody who's serious about Latin American affairs think it's a legit film?

The roundup:

Washington Post: "In 'South of the Border,' Stone makes no pretense of objectivity."

New York Times: "'South of the Border' is a valuable, if naïvely idealistic, introductory tutorial on a significant international trend."

Forbes: (Not shocking) "a bit of agitprop with only an ideological payoff likely for the lefty auteur and his writers, Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot."

Although The Times also notes that "There are no serious interviews with the poor to determine how everyday lives have changed under these socialist governments, and there is no mention of the human rights abuses in Venezuela reported by Amnesty International."

NPR is less harsh on content but doesn't praise Stone heavily for his filmmaking style:

"Say what you will about political bias — and it's certainly fair to accuse Stone of filming Latin American leaders through rose-colored lenses — the portrait he paints of the contemporary social movement known as the Bolivarian Revolution (after Simon Bolivar's 19th century struggle to free Latin America from Spanish rule) isn't giddy or simple-minded."

It's worth pointing out in the sake of fairness that I've listed reviews of major US media outlets, the ones that Stone attacks in his film as willfully portraying an inaccurate, easy-to-consume picture of Chavez the tyrant lurking "South of the Border."

46 on Metacritic, btw.

Image Source: New York Times

Online Sources: Foreign Policy, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, Forbes, Metacritic

ALBA Bank opens in Cuba

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA, in Spanish) opened its first bank yesterday in Cuba. The ALBA trade alliance- consisting of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia- will start with nearly $1 billion in assets and can fund development projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

The ALBA Bank was masterminded by Hugo Chavez and formed during a summit in January. According to one Venezuelan official, the bank is designed to compliment with another multilateral economic body promoted by Chavez: the Bank of the South.

(Vice-minister for Financing and Development Gustavo Hernandez) denied the project would compete with the Bank of the South, an initiative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez designed to be an alternative to multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which according to Caracas are overly influenced by Washington.

"We want to work internationally in a financial framework that allows us to build a type of cooperation and innovation based on other criteria," he said.

Aside from the ALBA, Venezuela and Bolivia are part of the Bank of the South along with Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

Image- Christian Science Monitor (“A presence: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez presides over the first Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) Summit in 2007.”)

Sources- International Herald Tribune, Prensa Latina, Guardian UK, The Latin Americanist, BusinessWeek