Jueves 22 de febrero 2007. Año II, No. SESENTA Y UNO

La Secretaría General de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) ha iniciado la coordinación del proyecto “América Latina ante la Segunda Administración Bush”.  

Como parte de este  proyecto, la Secretaría General de FLACSO ofrece otro canal de información con un resumen noticioso semanal sobre lo que se publica acerca de América Latina en algunos de los principales diarios de los Estados Unidos.  Esto permitirá identificar   cuales son los temas que despiertan mayor  interés en Estados Unidos sobre la región latinoamericana y su tratamiento en la prensa estadounidense.  Las noticias correspondientes a la semana del 16 al 22 de febrero 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

COMERCIO
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ROSEAU, Dominica - (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made a plea for Caribbean unity as he opened a fuel storage facility on this poor island on Friday, as part of a program offering Caribbean countries fuel on generous terms.

''We are one nation -- the Caribbean nation,'' Chávez told Dominica leaders in the capital, Roseau, where representatives of the two governments signed agreements on cooperation in tourism, education and other fields. ``Let's get together, truly.''

Under its Petrocaribe initiative, Venezuela has sent petroleum products and other aid to needy Caribbean countries to help them counter rising energy prices. Recipients are offered deferred payment and long-term financing for fuel shipments.

Dominica -- one of the region's poorest nations, with an economy based on fading agriculture and tourism -- has received asphalt, fuel storage tanks, university scholarships and $12 million for housing.

The 5,000-barrel fuel storage tank is one of five that Venezuela has pledged to build here under Petrocaribe, an agreement between Venezuela and 14 Caribbean countries signed in 2005 amid the sharp spike in oil prices.

MIGRACION
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THE North American Free Trade Agreement, enacted by Congress 14 years ago, held out an alluring promise: the agreement would reduce illegal immigration from Mexico. Mexicans, the argument went, would enjoy the prosperity and employment that the trade agreement would undoubtedly generate — and not feel the need to cross the border into the United States.

But today the number of illegal migrants has only continued to rise. Why didn’t Nafta curb this immigration? The answer is complicated, of course. But a major factor lies in the assumptions made in drafting the trade agreement, assumptions about the way governments would behave (that is, rationally) and the way markets would respond (rationally, as well).

Neither happened, yet Nafta remains the model for trade agreements with developing Latin countries, including the Central American Free Trade Agreement, passed by Congress in 2005. Three more Nafta-like agreements are now pending in Congress — with Panama, Columbia and Peru.

When Nafta finally became a reality, on Jan. 1, 1994, American investment flooded into Mexico, mostly to finance factories that manufacture automobiles, appliances, TV sets, apparel and the like. The expectation was that the Mexican government would do its part by investing billions of dollars in roads, schooling, sanitation, housing and other needs to accommodate the new factories as they spread through the country.

Almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families slipped out from the shadows of American life and walked boldly in daylight through Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, New York and other cities. “We Are America,” their banners cried. The crowds, determined but peaceful, swelled into an immense sea. The nation was momentarily stunned.

A lot has happened since then. The country has summoned great energy to confront the immigration problem, but most of it has been misplaced, crudely and unevenly applied. It seeks not to solve the conundrum of a broken immigration system, but to subdue, in a million ways, the vulnerable men and women who are part of it. Government at all levels is working to keep unwanted immigrants in their place — on the other side of the border, in detention or in fear, toiling silently in the underground economy without recourse to the laws and protections the native-born expect.

SILVERBELL, Ariz. -- Among the statuesque saguaro cactuses in the desert south of this old mining town lies the remnant of a crime scene that federal authorities say signals a troubling and escalated level of violence associated with the human smuggling trade.

Sometime in the pitch-black early morning hours of Feb. 8, a pickup packed with illegal immigrants from Central America, on their way to a presumed stash house in Phoenix, was attacked by two men shooting high-powered assault weapons. The four witnesses found tell conflicting stories about the time, place and other details about the shooting. The abandoned vehicle and two bodies were found near Silverbell, 70 miles north of the Arizona-Mexico border; another body and two survivors were found on the side of a dirt road eight miles north of the mining town.

Three immigrants -- a woman and two men -- were killed, and another woman was seriously wounded by three rounds from an AK-47. An alleged smuggler, whose hand was shattered by gunfire during the attack, is under arrest. The truck driver and another two dozen immigrants remain missing. Inside the yellow police tape strung across prickly pear and ocotillo cactuses lay staples the immigrants carried on their trek across the desert: a package of bologna and a plastic water jug. Personal effects taken from the dead, including blood-smeared pictures of children left behind in Guatemala and El Salvador, are now sealed away as evidence in the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

EL ALBERTO, MEXICO - Sirens wail, and Rosa Estrada charges down a dirt path, down the side of a mud bank, then picks her way silently across the stinking, swampy earth.

"Get under the bushes!" someone barks in a whisper in the blackness of the night. "Immigration is coming!" Twenty Mexicans scramble to the ground, crouching among thick branches and brambles.

"Hello, this is border patrol," booms a voice in English. Red and blue lights streak the sky overhead. In Spanish: "Are you Mexicans? It's too dangerous to cross the river. Remember your kids and families at home."

Ms. Estrada lies still, breathing quietly.

She is not on her way to "El Norte." About 700 miles from the US-Mexican border, she has paid $18 at a park in the central state of Hidalgo that offers a simulated experience of a migrant crossing.

SAN LUIS RÍO COLORADO, Mexico — For 10 years, Eduardo Valenzuela has been crossing the border illegally near Yuma, Ariz., trekking over desert scrub and hopping a freight train to get back to his job with a construction company in Phoenix. The clandestine trip has become an annual ritual for him, as he goes home each winter to see his children.

But on a recent afternoon he and four travel companions from his hometown, Los Mochis, plopped down on a bench in a park in the border town of San Luis Río Colorado, exhausted and dispirited. They were beat. Border Patrol agents had caught them twice over three days, hounding them with helicopters and four-wheel-drive trucks.

“It’s become much more difficult,” Mr. Valenzuela said, echoing the comments of dozens of other migrants. “Before, you just arrived here and then you walked a little and got the train. You used to see a border patrol agent every 10 kilometers. Now you see four of them where there was one. Think of it.”

All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants

SEGURIDAD
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La violencia pandillera continúa siendo la mayor amenaza a la seguridad en El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras. Según fuentes oficiales, la actividad marera representa hasta un 90 por ciento de todos los crímenes, incluidos homicidios, secuestros y extorsión.

Funcionarios de los tres países se han quejado por años de que la política estadounidense de deportación exacerba el problema pandillero. Pobre cooperación e insuficiente intercambio de información han hecho imposible saber si los deportados, que llegan por centenares en aviones fletados para ese propósito, son criminales o no. Existen casos de reconocidos delincuentes que al pasar por la puerta giratoria de las deportaciones aprovechan para adquirir nueva identidad y así seguir evadiendo a la justicia.

Hace dos años, cuando el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional lanzó una campaña de tolerancia cero contra inmigrantes ilegales sospechosos de ser pandilleros, optó por deportarlos inmediatamente en vez de llevarles ante una corte estadounidense. El número de deportados se duplicó.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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COLOMBIAN POLITICIANS HELD; PARAMILITARY TIES ALLEGED
The Miami Herald
Feb. 16, 2007

BOGOTA - The Colombian government has arrested five national politicians, including Sen. Alvaro Araújo, the brother of Colombia's foreign minister, and has issued an arrest warrant for one other politician charging them with links to illegal right-wing paramilitaries.

The attorney general's office also has summoned the cousin of the senator and Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araújo -- the current governor of the province of Cesar, Hernando Molina -- to testify about his connections to a former paramilitary commander and his possible participation in paramilitary murders.

U.S. AID

The revelations Thursday came amidst a diplomatic offensive by the Colombian government in Washington to help secure funds for Plan Colombia II, a multi-pronged strategy to fight drug trafficking and leftist guerrillas that have plagued this country for decades. Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside the Middle East, receiving somewhere in the vicinity of $700 million annually.

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos spent this week in Washington meeting with members of Congress who questioned him about the Colombian government's human-rights record. Last month, Colombia's defense minister visited Washington and insisted that Colombia have more flexibility as to where to put the money that comes from the United States.

HAVANA - (AP) -- Fidel Castro's eldest son and namesake said Thursday his father's comeback from intestinal surgery has been ''satisfactory'' and that he could eventually recover completely.

''As Raúl said officially, as well as other leaders: his state of health is progressing in a satisfactory and sustained manner,'' Fidel Castro Diaz Balart told reporters.

Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother and the 75-year-old defense minister, has been acting president since his 80-year-old sibling stepped aside more than six months ago to recover from the surgery.

''That's the same perception that I have,'' the 56-year-old known as ''Fidelito'' said on the sidelines of an international book fair. ``We believe that bit by bit, comrade Fidel will achieve total recovery. That's the hope of the Cuban people and the revolutionaries of the world.''

ANTISLAVERY EFFORTS IMPERILED IN BRAZIL
The Christian Science Monitor
February 16, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO - A decision by Brazil's Congress to curb the powers of labor auditors threatens to jeopardize an antislavery program that led to the release of more than 15,000 slaves and made Brazil a world leader in fighting indentured servitude, officials and activists said here this week.

Brazilian lawmakers passed a new law on Tuesday that unites two federal tax bodies in a bid to streamline a complex and bureaucratic system.

But one key amendment in the bill strips labor auditors and prosecutors of their power to determine the relationship between employers and employees. The amendment was included at the behest of media companies, who routinely use freelancers and who, under the existing statute, could be punished for doing so by labor auditors.

Under the new law, judges are now responsible for defining that relationship. An apparently unintended consequence of the change is that auditors can no longer determine what constitutes slavery, say prosecutors, auditors, and human rights activists.

AS HAITI STABILIZES, PROGRESS STILL SLOW
The Miami Herald
Feb. 16, 2007

PORT-AU-PRINCE - For the first time in years, Haiti is enjoying relative political stability.

There is not-so-good news as well. Progress has been slow, frustrations are growing, international donors are complaining and lawmakers are bickering. Crime remains high, and the slow pace of government may be steering the nation back toward paralysis. ''We are building a country, and it's not easy,'' said Prime Minister Jacques- Edouard Alexis, defending the government. ``I don't think there is a form of government as difficult as a democracy.''

But confounding problems face President Réne Préval. Following his election a year ago this month, Préval formed a coalition government in hopes of avoiding a repeat of what happened during his first presidential term from 1996 to 2001, when a nonfunctioning parliament paralyzed his government.

''The problems in Haiti are so enormous that you could justify prioritizing almost every one at the top of the list,'' said former Florida Sen. Bob Graham. ''But you cannot put 50 items at the top of the list,'' Graham said, echoing criticisms that the government's priorities change from meeting to meeting and lack strategies for implementation.

CHAVEZ THREATENS TO JAIL PRICE CONTROL VIOLATORS
The New York Times
February 17, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 16 Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chavez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country is expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela is currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.

Mr. Chavez, whose leftist populism remains highly popular among Venezuela its poor and working classes, seemed unfazed by criticism of his policies. Appearing live on national television, he called for the creation of committees of social control, essentially groups of his political supporters whose purpose would be to report on farmers, ranchers, supermarket owners and street vendors who circumvent the state’s effort to control food prices.

FOREIGN MINISTER OF COLOMBIA QUITS IN SCANDAL
The New York Times
February 20, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 19 — The foreign minister of Colombia resigned Monday as the government of President Álvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in South America, struggled with a scandal that has disclosed ties between paramilitary cocaine-trafficking squads and some of Mr. Uribe’s most prominent political supporters.

The resignation of Foreign Minister María Consuelo Araújo came days after Mr. Uribe expressed support for her. But fallout from the arrest last week of five politicians, including her brother, Senator Álvaro Araújo, on charges of working with paramilitary squads in a kidnapping case related to the scandal, made her presence in the cabinet untenable.

Hours after the resignation, the president appointed Fernando Araújo, who recently escaped after six years in rebel captivity, to replace Ms. Araújo. The two are not related.

President Bush, who is scheduled to visit Colombia in March, has stood by Mr. Uribe, in part to counter the enhanced regional influence of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

CUBA EXTENDS HOURS OF SOME STATE OFFICES
The Miami Herald
Feb. 20, 2007

HAVANA - (AP) -- Cuban officials are tackling problems such as child care, poor lighting and insufficient transportation for workers so they can keep some government offices open later, the Communist labor newspaper reported Monday.

The goal is to have offices open at times when people can use them before or after their own eight-hour workdays, taking advantage of an expanding economy.

Trabajadores, published by Cuba's Communist Party labor federation, reported that some notaries and civil registries in Havana are already working until 8 p.m. and officials hope to expand hours at least some days of the week at child care centers, primary schools, hair dressers and workshops.

IN HAITI, ABDUCTIONS HOLD NATION HOSTAGE
The Washington Post
February 21, 2007

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Kidnappers came for Petit-Frère Desilus in the early afternoon, as he was driving away from his office.

The street was busy and he was just 10 feet outside the gated compound where he worked as a billing clerk. But they got him anyway, Desilus recalled recently in a hushed voice, trying to steady his trembling hands.

Two young men, their faces hard but calm, flashed pistols at him. When he turned, he saw four more gun barrels behind him. Pedestrians did nothing, merely swerving around the unfolding scene, he said.

"Lie down, shut up," Desilus remembers being told. "Today you're going to get yours."

Pressed flat against the back seat, Desilus was about to begin a downward spiral that severed his tenuous hold on a working-class lifestyle, leaving him poor and depressed more than four months after his captors released him. His troubles have become commonplace here. One year after a presidential election that generated optimism and marked only the second peaceful handover of power in Haitian history, Port-au-Prince is a city of fear.

MEXICO ARRESTS PROSECUTOR IN POLITICAL FIGURE'S SLAYING
The Washington Post
February 21, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 20 -- Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an assistant state prosecutor suspected of involvement in the murder of a state political party leader, a federal drug investigator and two pilots in the violence-torn border state of Durango.

The prosecutor, Hugo Armando Reséndiz Martínez, is also being investigated for allegedly protecting drug cartels and funneling advance notice of raids and investigations to notorious traffickers Sergio "El Grande" Villareal and Arturo "El Chaki" Gonzalez Hernández, the Mexican attorney general's office said in a statement late Monday.

Mexican leaders have long been accused in the United States of failing to crack down on corrupt public officials in the northern border states, where drug cartels are suspected of using bribes and coercion to control police officers, judges and city leaders. Victor Clark, an organized crime analyst and human rights activist in Tijuana, said Tuesday that it remained to be seen whether Reséndiz Martínez's arrest signaled a new approach to drug corruption.

3 SALVADORAN OFFICIALS KIDNAPPED, KILLED IN GUATEMALA
The Washington Post
February 21, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 20 -- Three Salvadoran representatives to the Central American Parliament were kidnapped and killed during a trip to Guatemala for a parliamentary meeting, then their bodies were burned, authorities said Tuesday.

Among the victims was Eduardo Jose d'Aubuisson, the 32-year-old son of the late Roberto d'Aubuisson, founder of El Salvador's ruling Arena party. Representatives William Pichinte and Ramón González, as well as their chauffeur, were also killed in an assassination that investigators say they believe took place late Monday.

The presidents of El Salvador and Guatemala on Tuesday condemned the gruesome killings and announced plans to discuss the investigation Wednesday in Mexico, where they had previously been scheduled to attend a meeting with business leaders. The Central American Parliament posted a message on its Web site that called the killings "a massacre" and made an "energetic demand" that the two presidents conduct an immediate investigation.

4 SALVADORANS KILLED IN WAY THAT EVOKES ’80S CONFLICT
The New York Times
February 21, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 20 — A grisly quadruple killing in a rural part of Guatemala on Monday in which three Salvadoran lawmakers and their driver were shot and their bodies burned may be a sign that the ghosts of the bitter civil wars that raged through Central America in the 1980s still linger.

Among the charred bodies recovered in El Jocotillo, about 25 miles east of Guatemala City, was that of Eduardo D’Aubuisson, a son of the late Salvadoran rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson.

The elder Mr. D’Aubuisson, a former national guard major who died of cancer in 1992, was found by a United Nations-sponsored investigation in 1993 to have ordered the assassination of the country’s Roman Catholic primate, Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, in 1980. Roberto D’Aubuisson is still reviled and revered in his country.

His son was on his way to a meeting in Guatemala City of the Central American Parliament with two fellow members, William Pichinite and José Ramón González. Their driver was not immediately identified. The Parliament, created in 1986 to pull the fractious region together, has 132 members from five of the seven Central American countries.

CRIME LINKS SHAKE UP COLOMBIAN LEADERSHIP
The Christian Science Monitor
February 21, 2007

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - Colombia is scrambling to contain international fallout from a ballooning political scandal surrounding ties between some of President Álvaro Uribe's closest collaborators and right-wing death squads.

Mr. Uribe's image has been tarnished by the arrest of eight lawmakers from his governing coalition, jailed on charges they colluded with paramilitary groups responsible for some of Colombia's most grisly crimes. The crisis threatens to debilitate his government just as it seeks a new $3.9 billion US aid package and ratification of a free trade deal with Washington, and prepares for a visit by President Bush next month.

Uribe himself appears untouched by the burgeoning scandal, but his foreign minister, María Consuelo Araújo, was forced to resign on Monday after her brother, a senator, was among five lawmakers arrested last week for collusion with the paramilitary groups. Sen. Álvaro Araújo is charged with ordering the kidnapping of a political rival.

SOME CALL ORTEGA'S WIFE POWER-HUNGRY
The Miami Herald
Feb. 21, 2007

MANAGUA - A month after President Daniel Ortega took office, his Sandinista government has come under attack for creating powerful parallel governing institutions that could undermine Nicaragua's fragile democracy.

But it's not Ortega, an erstwhile Cold War nemesis of the United States, who's taking the heat. It's his wife, Rosario Murillo, an eccentric poet who some critics say may some day seek the presidency for herself.

Murillo, 55, who managed her husband's electoral campaign, now heads the Council on Communication and Citizenry, the most powerful of several new presidential advisory councils created almost immediately after Ortega took office on Jan. 10.

Murillo's job puts her in charge of ''coordinating the government's message,'' a task that apparently includes controlling government funds for publicity and propaganda. A Finance Ministry memo leaked to the media last month indicated it had allocated its advertising budget to Murillo's council.

SALVADORANS' DEATHS REMAIN A MYSTERY
The Miami Herald
Feb. 21, 2007

SAN SALVADOR - (AP) -- President Tony Saca on Tuesday condemned the grisly killings in Guatemala of three Salvadoran members of the Central American Parliament, including the son of the alleged mastermind of El Salvador's 1980s death squads.

Police discovered the lawmakers' charred bodies Monday on a rural road near El Jocotillo, about 20 miles southeast of the Guatemalan capital, after they failed to show up as expected at their hotel. It was not clear if the killings were politically motivated, although Guatemalan President Oscar Berger said that was being investigated.

''It was not by chance,'' he said. ``We have various theories, and we are not ruling out the possibility that it was a political crime.''

The dead legislators were identified as William Pichinte, Ramón González and Eduardo D'Aubuisson, the 32-year-old son of the founder of El Salvador's ruling party. All three represented El Salvador at the Central American Parliament, based in Guatemala's capital of Guatemala City. Their driver, who was not identified, was also killed.

HAITIAN DESCRIBES TORTURE BY POLICE TO JURORS
The Miami Herald
February 21, 2007

Lexiuste Cajuste, once a top labor union leader in Haiti, described in detail to a Miami jury Tuesday how military-overseen police officers in Port-au-Prince tortured him in 1993.

Officers, he said, forced him under the open frame of an iron bed, his back and buttocks exposed. Then, he added, officers took turns stomping on his back with their boots and beating his buttocks with wooden clubs -- until he lost consciousness.

''I felt a lot of pain, and I felt I was going to die,'' Cajuste said in Creole, as an interpreter translated his words into English for the jury of four women and two men.

Cajuste's testimony came on the first day of a civil trial for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages against former Haitian army Col. Carl Dorelien, a former high-ranking officer who won $3.2 million in the Florida Lottery in 1997 after he settled in Florida.

Attorneys for Cajuste, one of two plaintiffs in the case, claim Dorelien is responsible for the torture suffered at the hands of police and military officers -- not because Dorelien was personally involved, but because he was a member of the high command and his assignment was to ensure military discipline.

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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CHÁVEZ CLOSE TO CASTRO IN POLITICS, NOT ECONOMICS
The Miami Herald
Feb. 21, 2007

CARACAS - As analysts try to dissect the latest twists in Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's quixotic revolution and fiery rhetoric -- which have included favorable references to Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao -- one name keeps popping up: Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Analysts say the question isn't whether Chávez is emulating longtime mentor Castro, but exactly what pieces of Castro's regime is Chávez trying to reproduce in Venezuela.

The issue has taken on added importance because of Castro's illness and disappearance from public life since July, Chávez's acceleration of his own ''21st Century Socialism'' at home and his seeming attempt to inherit Castro's mantle as leader of the Latin American left.

But while analysts believe that Chávez's intention is similar to Castro's, in that he seeks to create a single-party state where he has total control, they add that he faces obstacles the Cuban leader did not when he seized power in 1959.

JUDGE SETS TRIAL FOR CASTRO FOE WITH U.S. TIES
The New York Times
February 16, 2007

EL PASO, Feb. 15 (AP) — An anti-Castro Cuban militant accused of lying to United States immigration officials in an effort to become a citizen should stand trial in May, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The judge, Kathleen Cardone of Federal District Court here, set May 11 for jury selection in the case against Luis Posada Carriles, who is also wanted in Venezuela on charges that he planned a deadly jet bombing.

Mr. Posada, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative and Army soldier, is accused of lying about how he illegally entered the United States from Mexico in 2005.

According to an indictment last month, Mr. Posada told investigators he had paid a smuggler to drive him across the border into Texas but really entered the country aboard a boat.

He is also accused of lying about using an alias.

Mr. Posada has been in federal custody since May 2005, when he was arrested on a charge that he illegally entered the country.

WASHINGTON - Concerned about a possible mass exodus of Cubans, the Department of Defense plans to spend $18 million to prepare part of the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay to shelter interdicted migrants, U.S. officials told The Miami Herald.

The new installation is needed because terrorism suspects occupy space on the base used in past emergencies to hold large numbers of migrants, Bush administration officials directly involved said. They note that the facilities are designed to house people from any Caribbean nation who attempt to enter illegally -- not just Cubans.

But they say privately that Fidel Castro's illness and temporary hand-over of power to his brother Raúl last summer injected a renewed sense of urgency into plans to handle a mass exodus. The administration quietly requested the funds about a month ago and Congress has approved it, The Miami Herald was told.

The officials, who were authorized to speak on the subject but requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of Cuban issues, say there is no sign a Cuban migration crisis is brewing, but they acknowledge predicting one is difficult. The 1980 Mariel boatlift, which saw 125,000 Cubans arrive in Florida, began when a group of Cubans tried to storm the Peruvian embassy in Havana.

WASHINGTON - A Colombian peasant who rose to become the financial chief of a powerful squadron of the leftist FARC guerrillas was convicted Tuesday by a federal jury on charges of conspiring to send more than five tons of cocaine to the United States.

Nayibe Rojas was the first high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, convicted of drug running by a U.S. federal court, although the U.S. and Colombian governments have long alleged that the FARC was deeply involved in every facet of Colombia's cocaine industry.

Late last year, the U.S. government suffered an embarrassing setback when another Washington jury failed to reach a verdict on Ricardo Palmera -- a senior FARC leader better known as Simón Trinidad -- accused in the kidnapping of three U.S. defense contractors still held by the FARC. His retrial is scheduled for next month.

Rojas' case grew in importance after the Palmera hung jury because Colombian prosecutors often use the threat of extraditions to the United States to entice FARC members to collaborate with them.

REGIONAL
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CUBANS ON MEDICAL AID MISSION FLEE VENEZUELA, BUT FIND LIMBO
The Washington Post
February 20, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Ariel Perez was, like thousands of fellow Cuban doctors, a devoted soldier in Fidel Castro's most important overseas mission -- providing medical care to the poor in oil-rich Venezuela, Cuba's most vital ally. But last year, Perez and two Cuban companions, carrying rucksacks with a few belongings and holding just $1,300 among them, sneaked across the Colombian border and promptly defected.

"From the moment I got there, I thought of it -- leaving," Perez, 36, said in an interview in Bogota, where about 40 Cuban physicians and other medical professionals are living after fleeing from Venezuela.

Now, Perez and the other Cuban defectors are providing a rare inside look at a program that has helped define the close relationship between Washington's two most formidable adversaries in the Americas, the 48-year-old communist government in Cuba and the populist administration of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Several Latin American countries are about to make their most ambitious investment in education ever -- giving out millions of $150 laptop computers to schoolchildren. But as the magic moment nears, critics are voicing concerns that the program will be a flop.

Before I tell you where I stand, let's look at the facts.

After years of research and negotiations with dozens of governments, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab is about to roll out its nonprofit ''One Laptop Per Child'' plan to sell millions of $150 laptops to about a dozen countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya and perhaps Mexico. The laptops are scheduled to begin arriving in some of these countries as early as July.

Governments will give them out to schoolchildren, especially in poor urban neighborhoods and rural areas, so that they take them home and use them for school and entertainment. The idea is to close the digital gap that separates these children from their Internet-connected counterparts in wealthier neighborhoods at home and abroad.

Last week, I had a chance to see -- and use -- one of the first working prototypes of the new laptop while taping a television show on the project. The white-and-green plastic computer can connect to the Internet, exchange e-mail and has audio and video.