Micheletti's WSJ piece

Interim President Roberto Micheletti published this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and I for one am not all together sure what to make of it. As far as I can tell, it represents to the most direct appeal from Micheletti to international public opinion since June 28, and at the same time, ably manages to say nothing new at all. Most importantly, he gives no mention whatsoever to his heretofore ardent stance against the possibility of Zelaya returning to limited power, the most controversial aspect of the so-called San Jose accord which Micheletti himself has repeatedly refused to endorse.

The article, most likely edited, if not written, by Lanny Davis' team, may serve mostly to further stoke conservative US support (which has a short attention span for non-drug related Central American drama) for the legality of the interim regime and the continuation of major US aid programs to Honduras, of which over $150 million hangs in the balance:

"Regardless of what happens, the worst thing the U.S. can do is to impose economic sanctions that would primarily hurt the poorest people in Honduras. Rather than impose sanctions, the U.S. should continue the wise policies of Mrs. Clinton. She is supporting President Arias’s efforts to mediate the issues. The goal is a peaceful solution that is consistent with Honduran law in a civil society where even the president is not above the law. "

The appeals to Clinton's and Arias' roles and rationales struck me as odd, since I was under the impression that Micheletti has been among the most strident voices to date against Arias' plan and his "meddling" in Honduran affairs, and even received a phone call from Clinton last week which supposedly called him to task for not being more productive in the talks. Lastly, I know it was a busy weekend on the Nicaragua-Honduras border, but I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see a real dearth of analysis on this letter -- both in analyst circles and on related blogs, but it suggests to me that either a) The letter's content was so insubstantial that it simply simply slipped through the cracks, b) People no longer care what Micheletti has to say (evidence of his 15 minutes coming to an end shortly, or c) a combination of both.

I've been pretty hard on Zelaya for both his pre- and post-June 28 behavior, but I have also thought that Micheletti and his damage control team hass been anything but. To date, they've done little service to Hondurans towards resolving what they had refused to acknowledge was a crisis until recently, and as far as I can read, this letter doesn't help much.

Thanks for posting any good commentary on this letter that pops up.

WSJ: Chavez, FARC in deep cahoots

According to an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal, (WSJ), there are very deep ties between Venezuela’s government and Colombia’s FARC guerillas. The report alleged that their data was based on “more than 100 new files” taken from laptops seized after the controversial Colombian army raid in Ecuador last March:

These documents indicate Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles. The files suggest that Venezuela offered the FARC the use of one of its ports to receive arms shipments, and that Venezuela raised the prospect of drawing up a joint security plan with the FARC and sought basic training in guerrilla-warfare techniques.

The article goes on to note that separate statements from the Venezuelan government and the FARC have denied the documents that are supposedly from the seized computers. In addition, the piece said that international police organization Interpol is currently investigating the legitimacy of the computer files.

Several bloggers have reacted to the WSJ piece; for instance, BoRev.net questions the validity of the anonymous sources cited in the piece. Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation’s blog has accused “liberals in Congress” of helping the FARC based on legislators' relations with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Image- CNN

Sources- AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Latin Americanist, Reuters UK, BoRev.net, The Foundry