Peru's Top Court Accepts Lawsuit Against Vizcarra's Closure of Congress

Reuters. October 29, 2019

BUENOS AIRES - Peru's top court on Tuesday accepted a lawsuit to determine whether President Martin Vizcarra exceeded his powers by dissolving Congress last month amid a long-running standoff with lawmakers over anti-corruption reforms.

The seven members of Peru's Constitutional Tribunal unanimously voted to admit the suit, court president Ernesto Blume said, the latest development in a battle between Vizcarra and lawmakers that has rattled the South American country.

Pedro Olaechea, the former Congress president who now leads a smaller permanent parliamentary commission, submitted the appeal earlier this month against the "arbitrary" dissolution of Congress.

Vizcarra's shutdown of Congress garnered support from the armed forces in the copper-rich nation, as well as the police and Peru's voters. A poll showed his popular support had jumped to the highest level during his administration.

The past three years in Peru have been marked by repeated clashes between the executive and legislative branches and back-to-back corruption scandals, including one that led former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to resign in March last year.

Blume said on Tuesday the court would not for now overturn the closure of Congress, and previously at least two members of the court have said that the legal process could take up to three or four months.

There are legislative elections already scheduled for Jan. 26 to elect new Congress members.

OAS audit of October 20 election result will be 'binding': Bolivia Foreign Minister

Vivian Sequera. Reuters. October 30, 2019

LA PAZ (Reuters) - An Organisation of American States (OAS) audit of Bolivia’s disputed election results will begin on Thursday and be binding for all parties, Foreign Minister Diego Pary said on Wednesday.

The results of the Oct. 20 election handed a slim victory to President Evo Morales, a leftist seeking a fourth term, but his oppponent Carlos Mesa and his supporters cried foul after a delay in publishing the voting scores.

Pary said that the report resulting from the review would be “binding” for all parties, who would sign an agreement to that effect on Wednesday.

He said Bolivia had invited observers to the process from Spain, Mexico and Paraguay. He did not say when the audit report would be completed.

“This agreement will enter into force upon signature by the authorized representatives of the parties, remaining in force until the electoral audit process is concluded,” he told reporters at the government headquarters in La Paz.

Mesa said on Tuesday that he believed the OAS audit would demonstrate that the election was fraudulent “in a clear and unequivocal way”.

A wave of protests has rocked Bolivia since the elections in which the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) unexpectedly suspended the publication of results of an electronic vote count, which eventually granted Morales a fourth term of five years.

The US Double Standard in Venezuela vs. Honduras

STEVE ELLNER TERI MATTSON. Jacobin. October 29, 2019

If you want evidence that the US government doesn't actually care about drug trafficking, violation of democratic norms, violation of human rights, or widespread corruption, just look at how the Trump administration has treated Honduras versus how it has treated Venezuela.

The recent conviction of Tony Hernández for massive cocaine smuggling in a federal court case in which his brother, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, was an unindicted co-conspirator demonstrates one thing beyond a doubt: Honduras is a narco-state. The equally compelling evidence of widespread corruption, electoral fraud, and savage repression confirms Honduras’s status as a rogue state and begs comparison with Venezuela, which has faced similar accusations.

Venezuela, however, is paying an infinitely higher price in the form of international sanctions and other regime-change efforts. Even if one accepts as accurate the denunciations against the government of President Nicolas Maduro put forward by most of its critics, Venezuela doesn’t reach Honduras’s level of unethical and undemocratic behavior.

This is just one example of the notorious inconsistencies of US foreign policy, dating back to the beginning of the Cold War. Long before Trump, Washington condemned some governments for violating democratic norms and embraced others that were just as bad, if not worse. It threatened military intervention or carried it out against nations for reasons that could have applied to others that received substantial military assistance from Washington.

Under Trump, these inconsistencies and gaps between rhetoric and practice have widened. Consider the democratic credentials of presidents who Trump lavishly praises while condemning Maduro for allegedly undemocratic behavior: Rodrigo Duterte (the Philippines), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Saudi Arabia); and Andrzej Duda (Poland). Many European leaders have harshly criticized these regimes for their blatantly undemocratic behavior.

Consider also that while Trump threatens Iran and Venezuela with military invasion, if not obliteration, he pledges to put an end to the “endless wars” throughout the Middle East, the longstanding and high-risk stalemate with North Korea, and antagonistic relations with Russia. These latter positions may actually be worthy of support, unlike the bellicose rhetoric of Democratic party leaders.

There is no better contrast that demonstrates the contradictory nature of Trump’s foreign policy than that of Venezuelan and Honduras. What makes the comparison so compelling is the four principal accusations that Washington hurls at Maduro to justify the imposition of crippling economic sanctions: drug trafficking, violation of democratic norms, violation of human rights and widespread corruption. All four could well be cited to justify international measures against Honduras.

So let’s make the comparison. For the sake of argument, we’ll accept the validity of the accusations against Maduro coming from detractors, other than those of the most blatant fabricators of fake news.

Drug Trafficking
President Juan Orlando Hernández was accused of receiving a million-dollar bribe from Mexico’s El Chapo in the trial of Tony Hernández, who was found guilty on counts of “Cocaine Importation Conspiracy” and “Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices,” Yet, just one day after the trial ended, US charge d’affaires in Tegucigalpa Colleen Hoey was photographed at a public gathering smiling alongside the president. But the case for calling Honduras a narco-state goes deeper than that.

The president’s sister, the late Hilda Hernández, was also the subject of a major drug trafficking and money laundering investigation by US authorities. The evidence against the Honduran state even goes back further in time. The son of Hernández’s predecessor Fabio Lobo received a twenty-four-year sentence in US prison following a guilty plea of “conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.”

Compare this solid case against Honduras with that against Venezuela. November 2015 saw the arrest of two of Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores’s nephews in Haiti in a sting operation by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Both received an eighteen-year prison sentence in US court, although they were not linked to a cartel and (in the words of their lawyers) “never had the intention or the ability to deliver a huge amount of drugs” as charged.

The other main drug-trafficking charge involving the Venezuelan government lacks verified evidence. Days before the 2018 presidential election, the US government accused Diosdado Cabello, the second in command after Maduro, of drug trafficking and slapped him with financial sanctions. Unlike Lobo’s son and Hernández brother, no formal US judicial charges have been lodged against Cabello nor has he been granted the right of reply.

Democratic Norms
Honduras also compares unfavorably in the area of electoral fraud. The November 2017 presidential election suffered a thirty-six-hour delay in ballot counting when center-leftist candidate Salvador Nasralla had taken a decisive lead. When the process resumed, the election swung in favor of Hernández, the incumbent.

Nasralla noted that a rectification of the fraudulent results was unlikely given the fact that the nation’s supreme court and electoral tribunal were in Hernández’s camp. In contrast to many governments throughout the region as well as the Organization of American States, Washington immediately recognized Hernández’s presidency as legitimate and called on Nasralla to do the same.

Venezuela’s last presidential election held in May 2018 saw a 46 percent voter turnout despite a boycott by most, though not all, of the major opposition parties. The opposition’s objections to the electoral process centered on unfair practices — such as the failure of the state-run TV channel to provide all candidates with the stipulated advertising time — but did not, for the most part, consist of allegations that votes were not properly counted or that voting was not secret. Following the elections, President Trump issued an executive order restricting Venezuela’s ability to liquidate state assets and debt in the United States.

Human Rights
Venezuela’s record on human rights has been denounced on many grounds with well-founded evidence. The government has jailed opposition leaders, and security forces have clashed with protesters in 2014 and 2017 resulting in nearly two hundred deaths in total. An objective evaluation, however, needs to consider context.

On both occasions, urban areas were paralyzed for four months, hundreds of barricades built, and arms used by protesters resulting (in 2014) in the death of six national guardsmen and two policemen while military and police installations were fired upon and overrun. On August 4, 2018, two drones attempted to assassinate President Maduro, who was addressing a rally, along with his wife and members of the military high command. One can only imagine the response of other governments in the face of similar tactics.

In Honduras, President Hernandez’s security forces are not victims of violence — they are perpetrators. The UN’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) report issued in March stated: “Impunity is pervasive, including for human rights violations, as shown by the modest progress made in the prosecution and trial of members of the security forces for the human rights violations committed in the context of the 2017 elections.”

Corruption
Few can deny that corruption is widespread in both nations. In the case of Venezuela, President Maduro acknowledged the possible veracity of denunciations formulated by insiders in 2014 regarding a multi-billion dollar swindle as a result of the system of exchange controls. He failed to act. Only in mid-2017 did he begin to clamp down on corruption through the appointment of a new attorney general.

In Venezuela, however, there is nothing equivalent to the type of evidence presented in the trial of Tony Hernández that millions of dollars of drug money contributed to the election of the president of Honduras.

Backlash on the Horizon?
Why are countries like Venezuela on Washington’s hit list while undemocratic ones like Honduras receive favorable treatment? One explanation is that while Venezuela has pursued anti-neoliberal policies, Honduras since the US-supported overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya ten years ago has implemented neoliberal policies. This includes the privatization of health and water this year, which was met with street protests that were harshly repressed.

Another explanation is that Washington has its eyes on Venezuelan oil, a policy objective that Trump has justified with the slogan “to the victor goes the spoils” and is now considering for Kurd-occupied territory in northeastern Syria. A third explanation is Venezuela’s cozy economic, political and military relations with Russia and China. Rather than mutually exclusive, all these arguments contain important elements of truth.

The Honduras-Venezuela comparison shows how self-serving and conspicuous Washington’s role as judge and cop has become under Trump. Although interventionism in favor of US interests has been a long-standing component of Washington’s foreign policy, it is now being applied with steroids.

An international backlash appears to be on the horizon. This was evident in the UN General Assembly on October 17 when 105 delegates voted to admit Venezuela as a member of the UNHRC, and many of them roundly applauded after the results were announced. The US had actively campaigned against Venezuela’s membership, but since the vote was secret, efforts at bullying combined with material inducements could not be effectively employed.

Meanwhile, protests on the streets of Tegucigalpa and other cities in Honduras are calling for the resignation of Juan Orlando Hernández in reaction to his brother’s conviction. It may be that in spite of all the efforts of the Trump administration to oust Maduro, our man in Tegucigalpa will end up going first.

Venezuelan Opposition Files Lawsuit Attacking Citgo-Backed Bonds

Andrew Scurria. Wall Street Journal. October 29, 2019

Venezuela’s opposition government escalated its efforts to protect Citgo Petroleum Corp. from seizure, seeking a U.S. court order erasing bondholders’ collateral rights over the state-owned refiner and invalidating $1.7 billion in debt.

U.S.-backed opposition leaders filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in New York on Tuesday claiming that bonds backed by the Houston-based, Venezuelan-owned refiner were issued illegally under President Nicolás Maduro and can’t be enforced.

The complaint marks the most direct confrontation yet between the country’s bondholders and opposition forces led by Juan Guaidó, who has tried for months to seize political power in Caracas.

The bonds, issued in a 2016 debt swap by state oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela SA, have clouded Citgo’s future as a Venezuelan asset. They were secured by a 50.1% stake in Citgo, potentially enabling bondholders to wrest control of the company if they weren’t paid.

At the urging of Mr. Guaidó’s opposition, the Trump administration last week extended a three-month shield over Citgo, preventing creditors from transferring and auctioning the shares through Jan. 22. With Citgo temporarily safe from seizure, the PdVSA bondholders weren’t paid $913 million they were owed on Monday.

Tuesday’s complaint said the PdVSA bonds are “null and void” because they were issued without the approval of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature, the National Assembly. Creditors provided Mr. Maduro with “a financial and political lifeline,” knowing the bonds were questionable, according to the complaint.

Bondholders include Ashmore Group PLC, BlackRock Financial Management Inc. and Contrarian Capital Management LLC. A spokesperson for the bondholders wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Representatives for Mr. Maduro couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

As Venezuela’s largest asset in the U.S., Citgo is a natural target for creditors that have grown impatient during Venezuela’s long economic meltdown. In addition to bondholders, multinational companies are also circling Citgo, viewing its valuable Gulf Coast refineries as possible compensation for assets in Venezuela that were expropriated under socialist rule.

There isn’t nearly enough of Citgo to go around, sparking a race among creditors to lay claim to the company.

The Venezuelan opposition has asked for permanent protection for Citgo, arguing that losing the company to creditors would discredit Mr. Maduro’s political rivals and undermine U.S. efforts to oust him from power. Members of Congress from Gulf Coast states have also urged the Trump administration to intervene on the company’s behalf.

With U.S. support, Mr. Guaidó and his allies took over Citgo’s boardroom in February, installed directors friendly to the opposition government and severed the company’s ties with its owner, PdVSA. The takeover delivered a potential revenue source to the opposition but meant payments on the Citgo-backed bonds were its responsibility to make.

The U.S. Treasury Department has said it would look favorably on a potential deal to restructure the debt. Citgo has considered bankruptcy as one option for sorting out claims on its assets if creditors closed in, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

How Pinochet's economic model led to the current crisis engulfing Chile

Kirsten Sehnbruch. The Guardian. October 30, 2019

After 12 days of mass demonstrations, rioting and human rights violations, the government of President Sebastián Piñera must now find a way out of the crisis that has engulfed Chile.

Analysts have correctly interpreted the wave of protests as a reflection of discontent with the material, political and social inequalities engendered by the economic model imposed by the country’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

That model deregulated markets and privatised social security systems, and was widely emulated by other countries in the region.

Now the Piñera government has the chance to transform the exhausted Chilean model and lay the foundation of a real welfare state, giving Chile a chance to become a genuinely developed country – not one which has merely seen an increase in GDP per capita.

Chile is notorious for its income inequality: the gap between rich and poor has widened in recent years as the combined wealth of its billionaires is equal to 25% of its GDP.

But inequality is multidimensional: Chile’s employment rate languishes at 55%, while employment conditions are so precarious that 50% of the workforce cannot possibly accumulate enough savings to fund a minimally adequate pension.

Thirty per cent of formal contracts are short-term and last an average of just 10 months, interspersed with lengthy periods of unemployment, leaving workers one step away from poverty if they become ill or unemployed.

They feel excluded and ignored by political power, which is highly concentrated among the elite. They feel cheated and exploited by firms and retailers, who have fixed prices for basic consumer goods.

Many Chileans live with high levels of debt and thus pay more for the same services (such as higher education or healthcare) than rich people, who get discounts because they can pay in cash.

But perhaps most importantly, they feel discriminated against and humiliated in all these areas as they battle with inadequate public services that fail to level the playing field.

The result is that the expectations for a better and more secure life have outpaced the opportunities for social mobility that the Chilean model actually delivers.

By now it should be obvious that in a (thankfully) fiscally balanced country, these inequalities cannot be overcome by patching up the deficiencies of the economic model through the country’s limited fiscal resources, which have stagnated at approximately 20% of GDP, compared with the OECD’s average of 34%.

Reforms such as increasing minimum wages or pensions through fiscal resources will fail to make a dent in inequalities generated by privatised social protection systems that barely share risk between their beneficiaries.

Nor will they help informal workers, who desperately require an earned income tax credit to motivate them to engage in formal and stable employment, while giving a significant redistributive boost to their disposable income.

The legacy of Pinochet’s economic model underlies existing social protection systems largely because political elites have refused to contemplate structural changes.

A significant proportion of contributions to social systems must now go towards sharing risk equally among the population so that rich and poor can receive the same level of care in hospitals, receive pensions that are a guarantee of old-age security and have the same chances of obtaining a good education.

This is the basic premise of public services as they exist in every developed country in the world.

But structural reforms are difficult to implement in any country, especially when the government does not command a majority in Congress. Most importantly, they require a social and political consensus.

The rage felt by marginalised youth explains – although does not justify – the violence that erupted during the protests, and it is accompanied by sharply declining credibility and trust in institutions, including all political parties.

Piñera now has a tremendous opportunity to generate the kind of social pact that could sustain such reforms, as requested by representatives from over 300 civil society leaders.

This week, he took an important step in this direction by reshuffling his cabinet to include younger and more liberal ministers, who have the ability to think creatively, establish a social dialogue and engage with civil society in a way that generates a new social pact. However, they should not be in this task alone.

Politicians from across the political spectrum must support such a pact. But it will be up to the president to lead the country in this process and make use of the opportunity that this crisis has generated.



Kirsten Sehnbruch is a British Academy global professor and a distinguished policy fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science, working on Latin American labour markets and social security systems. She has lived and worked in Chile for more than 10 years and was a founding board member of the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion.

Chile protests sharpen as calls for constitutional change grow

Naomi Larsson. Al Jazeera. October 30, 2019

Santiago, Chile - Protesters in Chile rejected President Sebastian Pinera's political concessions as major demonstrations continued across the country demanding greater equality and constitutional changes.

Central Santiago was covered in smoke on Tuesday evening as a fire raged by the hill in Santa Lucia during unrest against social inequality and police violence.

Thousands more gathered in the streets in cities across the country, from Puerto Montt in the south to Antofagasta in the north.

In the coastal town of Valparaiso, demonstrators gathered to the sound of banging pots after another volatile night during which police fired tear gas.

Protests erupted again on Tuesday despite Pinera's decision to reshuffle his cabinet on Monday, as part of his moves to quell a weeklong uprising against his administration.

Pinera replaced one-third of his cabinet, including Andres Chadwick, the right-wing interior minister who was heavily criticised for calling protesters "criminals" last week.

Chadwick, who is Pinera's cousin, was openly supportive of Augusto Pinochet's regime during Chile's dictatorship that ended in 1990.

"Chile has changed and the government, too, has to change to confront these new challenges in these new times," Pinera said as he announced the replacement of his cabinet, which also includes the finance and labour ministers.

"These measures won't solve all our problems but they are an important first step. They reflect the firm will of our government and the strong commitment of each of us in favour of a socially more just and equitable Chile."

But the cabinet changes fell flat as new protests erupted after the announcement.

What started as a demonstration against a four percent increase in Santiago's metro rail fare earlier this month has evolved into a wider dissent against decades of growing inequality.

Many protesters say they are angry with the "neoliberalism" that has led to poor public services, including the almost complete privatisation of pensions, health and education.

Call for new constitution
Others are demanding a new constitution, which remains as a hangover of the Pinochet regime.

"A new constitution is the only way. All the past governments couldn't change the constitution, and this is what we need. The Chileans are clear," Patricia, a 62-year-old protester in Santiago, told Al Jazeera, adding she struggled to survive on her stagnant salary.

"The repression has to change because this social movement isn't going to stop."

On Tuesday afternoon, a peaceful march formed in Santiago's Plaza Italia, while vandalism and looting took place elsewhere in the city.

Armed police fired water cannon at protesters gathered along the Alameda, the main highway leading towards the presidential palace.

One staff member of the national human rights institute, the INDH, was wounded by armed forces during the clashes.

The incident took place following the arrival of rights watchdog Amnesty International to investigate allegations of human rights violations against the demonstrators. The UN Human Rights Commission will also send a team to Chile this week.

"Even though the eyes are on Chile, the president hasn't stopped the repression on the streets, and mobilisation continues to be massive," Amnesty's America director Erika Guevara told Al Jazeera.

"The demonstrators are not seeing genuine commitment from the government to really address their demands."

Allegations of rights abuses
At least 20 people have died since the unrest began.

Currently, 3,712 are detained and the INDH has filed 138 judicial cases of alleged violence, including sexual harassment and other forms of abuse.

Pinera has pledged full transparency in the investigations, and lifted the state of emergency that granted the state special powers to control the right to assembly and movement.

"It's quite clear there have been instances of human rights violations - if the reports are true about the nature of the injuries, and the video evidence," said Saladin D Meckled-Garcia, senior lecturer in the department of political science at University College London.

"People are unhappy and an authoritarian government that seems to respond with violence isn't going to solve it."

Opposition parties are reportedly working on a proposal to change the constitution, and are expected to present on Wednesday a case against Chadwick, the former minister of the interior.

Chilean Protestor: I Was Raped by Police

EFE. October 29, 2019

SANTIAGO – As Chile grapples with a wave of protests that show no sign of abating, allegations of police brutality have grabbed headlines.

Joshua Maureira was allegedly subjected to a sadistic attack by police and has become the face of victims of human rights violations.

The 23-year-old medical student reported he was beaten unconscious by officers, sexually assaulted with a baton and subjected to homophobic abuse and death threats.

He was imprisoned for allegedly assaulting police.

Maureira has spoken out about his alleged ordeal despite reportedly receiving threats from his attackers.

“It is so that never again in Chile any person sees their human rights violated,” he said during a statement at the prosecutor’s office.

He spoke to a crowd of hundreds of people who gathered on Monday in front of the building to show support for him and demand justice.

“It is a rather long and painful statement,” he added.

NIGHT OF HORROR

The attack allegedly took place at dawn on 21 October.

Maureira said he was standing outside a looted supermarket during a curfew and went into the shop after hearing cries for help.

The police arrived soon after, confiscated his phone and beat him until he lost consciousness, he stated.

He said he woke up in a police car and that the beatings continued until they reached the police station in the Pedro Aguirre Cerda municipality. It is one of the stations that has been accused of the largest number of sexual crimes since the protests started, Beatriz Contreras, head of the National Institute of Human Rights (NHRI) for the Santiago region, told Efe.

HOMOPHOBIC ABUSE

At the police station, the violence was allegedly stepped up when officers noticed he was wearing red nail polish and realized that he was gay.

Maureira said he was forced to repeatedly shout “I’m a fag” while officers hit him.

He said that four officers, including at least one woman, were directly involved in the physical attacks whilst six others witnessed events without attempting to stop the assault.

There were photographs of his bruised body but a medical evaluation that was issued during his detention classified his injuries as minor.

RAPED AND JAILED

Maureira said that the worst was still to come.

After the initial attack, officers continued to beat him until they broke his nose and then raped him.

“Two of them took me by the waist and lowered my pants and underwear,” he said.

The officers then sexually assaulted him with a baton, he continued.

When he went to court, Maureira learned police had accused him of stealing from the supermarket and attacking officers, so he spent several more days in jail.

Gonzalo Cid, leader of the Sexual Diversity Movement, told Efe: “Here the most serious thing is that they are agents of the state.

“It is the National Police of Chile that is doing that, and that generates a lot of fear.

“Who do you denounce if it is the police itself that tortures upon learning that one is homosexual?”

ALLEGATIONS OF UNPRECEDENTED BRUTALITY

Until now there was no precedent in Chile for institutionalized brutality towards homosexuals.

The only incident that came anywhere close was the murder of Daniel Zamudio who was killed by neo-Nazis 2012.

The crime paved the way for the Zamudio Law which banned discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, appearance or disability.

Maureira’s complaint has shocked the country.

The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has expressed its “greatest concern” over the alleged attack.

Police have been removed from the investigation into Maureira’s report.

Sergio Micco, director of the NHRI, told Efe there may be more people who have suffered similar attacks and remained silent out of fear or shame.

The organization has been encouraging any victims who have not yet done so to come forward to seek advice from NHRI on how to issue their reports.

REPORTS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE

So far 17 reports of sexual violence have been filed.

The protests in Chile have been marred by human rights violations and 20 people have died, including three Peruvians, two Colombians and an Ecuadorian national.

The deaths include five homicides allegedly committed by police officers.

All of the reports will be assessed by the United Nations mission for human rights which this week will evaluate the allegations that have been made since 18 October when the protests started.

People have taken to the streets to demand better salaries and pensions and fairer electricity and gas prices as well as improvements in education and healthcare.