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Article Artículo

UN Human Rights Expert: Haiti and International Community Should “Throw Light” on Cause of Cholera Outbreak

According to reports on Twitter yesterday, the United Nations independent expert on the human rights situation in Haiti, Michel Forst has resigned for “personal reasons,” even though his mandate was supposed to continue for another year. In one of his last acts, Forst’s report for the U.N. Human Rights Council was presented yesterday, recommending to Haiti and the international community that they “throw light” on the cause of the cholera outbreak and “respond to any compensation requests”. The cholera outbreak has killed at least 8,050 and sickened over 650,000 more.

In his report Forst notes that the “question of what caused the outbreak of the epidemic in Haiti remains a burning issue that has attracted significant public controversy.” Over the last few years, a number of scientific reports have identified U.N. troops as the source of cholera’s introduction. Forst’s report, which was issued before the U.N.’s denial of victims’ compensation claims, notes “that silence is the worst response.”

The U.N. broke their “silence” on the issue by rejecting the victims’ claims, yet they have continued to stonewall on the issue of responsibility. While Forst “deplores” the exploitation of the issue by “certain organizations…for political ends,” he recognizes the “need that victims or their families have expressed to know the truth and perhaps even to be given compensation.”

In addition to recommending shedding light on the cause of the outbreak, Forst also calls on the international community and Haitian government to, “Secure international assistance to combat the spread of the cholera epidemic.” The claim against the U.N., in addition to seeking damages, also asks for the U.N. to fund the needed infrastructure to eradicate cholera from Haiti. A 10 year, $2.2 billion eradication plan has been announced, but thus far the funding for it remains in doubt. The plan for the first two years notes that “The total cost for implementation of the Action Plan for 2013–2015 is estimated to be US$443,723,100.” So far, little more than half of that - $238 million - has been secured, most of it from existing funds.

On Sunday, the New York Times editorial board added their voice to those critical of the U.N.’s immunity claim, noting that the U.N.’s “handling of cholera is looking like a fiasco.” The Times adds:

While it insists that it has no legal liability for cholera victims, it must not duck its moral obligations. That means mobilizing doctors and money to save lives now, and making sure the eradication plan gets all the money and support it needs.

Its record so far is dubious. A U.N. appeal last year for $24 million for cholera programs ended the year only 32 percent financed, and in December, the U.N. said it would contribute $23.5 million to the new 10-year plan — about 1 percent of what is needed.

Jake Johnston / March 21, 2013

Article Artículo

Honduras

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Police Death Squads in Honduras Then and Now

An important new investigative report from the Associated Press’ Alberto Arce describes the apparent ongoing activities of death squads within the Honduran police, reporting that:

In the last three years, the AP has learned, Honduran prosecutors have received as many as 150 formal complaints about death squad-style killings in the capital of Tegucigalpa, and at least 50 more in the economic hub of San Pedro Sula. The country's National Autonomous University, citing police reports, has counted 149 civilians killed by police in the last two years, including 25 members of the 18th street gang.

The AP report also describes a now-infamous and disturbing video (posted here) that appears to show the extrajudicial, cold-blooded murders of two young men in city streets “by masked gunmen with AK-47s who pulled up in a large SUV” – consistent with the police death squad modus operandi as described in the article.

Arce writes that “Even the country's top police chief has been charged with being complicit,” going on to summarize charges against Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, now the National Chief of Police, for involvement in extrajudicial killings and disappearances back in 2002. Arce notes that “Last year, Bonilla was chosen to lead the national police force despite unanswered questions about his past. The U.S. Congress decided to withhold State Department funding to the police while they investigated the 2002 internal affairs report.”

A confidential 2003 State Department cable made available by Wikileaks reveals that State Department officials wanted Bonilla (then a fugitive) arrested at the time, and also were concerned with “extra-judicial killings of youth” – in which Bonilla was implicated:

¶12. (C) In his meeting with Minister of Public Security Oscar Alvarez, [Western Hemisphere Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary Dan] Fisk urged Alvarez to take action against corrupt police, to send a strong signal about impunity by arresting fugitive policeman Juan Carlos "Tiger" Bonilla, and to act carefully against whistle-blowers, such as ex-Chief of Police Internal Affairs Maria Luisa Borjas. He also encouraged Alvarez to address the problem of extra-judicial killings of youth and trafficking in persons.

CEPR / March 20, 2013

Article Artículo

Argentina

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Former Argentine Dictator Calls for Coup Against Cristina Kirchner’s Government

On Saturday March 16th, a weekly newspaper from Spain, Cambio16, published an interview with jailed former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla. Videla is serving two life sentences, another 50-year sentence, and continues to stand trial, for crimes against humanity, kidnapping, torture, and the unlawful appropriation of babies (that were taken from female prisoners who gave birth in captivity before they were murdered). These were crimes that he and fellow junta leaders committed following the 1976 coup d’état that they directed and that was responsible for the kidnapping, torture and deaths of an estimated 30,000 Argentines. 

When his interviewer, Ricardo Angoso, whom Página/12 points out is a stated opponent of the Kirchner government and far-right journalist, asked him what he would say to his “comrades” also serving time in prison for similar convictions, he stated:

I want to remind each one of them, especially the younger ones, who today on average fall between the ages of 58-68, and are still physically capable of combat, that in the case that this unjust imprisonment and slandering of the republic’s basic values continues, you reserve the duty of arming yourselves again in defense of the republic’s basic institutions, which are today being trampled upon by the Kirchner regime, led by president Cristina and her henchmen.*

According to Página/12, Videla also accuses the current government of wanting to turn towards a “failed communism of the Cuban sort.” He then declares that “it will again be the security and armed forces who, along with the people –from which they [the security and armed forces] originate- will impede it”. 

CEPR and Sara Kozameh / March 19, 2013

Article Artículo

Is USAID Mainly Serving U.S. Interests?
An op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday lays out the case for USAID reform, highlighting the case of contractors in Haiti (and citing this blog) as an example. The piece, by Charles Kenny of the Center for Global Development, also examines the politi

CEPR / March 19, 2013

Article Artículo

David Brooks Tackles Progressive Caucus Budget: Remedial Logic to the Rescue

David Brooks has trouble with issues of logic and arithmetic as he frequently demonstrates in his column. His criticisms of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) budget suffer badly from this problem.

The piece begins by telling readers that the CPC has broken with past liberalism by seeing the government, rather than the private sector, as the engine of growth. His basis for this argument is that the CPC proposes a large program of public investment to restore the economy to full employment. Brooks distinguishes this spending from prior efforts at stimulus:

"liberals have always believed in Keynesian countercyclical deficit spending. But that was borrowing to brake against a downturn when certain conditions prevail: when the economy is shrinking; when debt levels are low; when there are plenty of shovel-ready projects waiting to be enacted; when there is a large and growing gap between the economy’s current output and what it is capable of producing.

"Today, House progressives are calling for a huge increase in government taxing and spending when none of those conditions apply. Today, progressives are calling on government to be the growth engine in all circumstances. In this phase of the recovery, just as the economy is finally beginning to take off..."

Let's see, Keynes advocated large amounts of spending when the debt to GDP ratio in the United Kingdom was well over 100 percent. (FWIW, our interest to GDP ratio is extraordinarily low.) He also advocated this spending when the economy was not shrinking, it was just stagnant or growing slowly at a time when there was mass unemployment and the economy was far below its potential. Maybe Brooks doesn't consider Keynes a Keynesian.

Dean Baker / March 19, 2013

Article Artículo

Robert Samuelson: "What Frustrates Constructive Debate is Muddled Pundit Opinion"

Okay, that's not exactly what Robert Samuelson said, but pretty close. He actually told readers:

"What frustrates constructive debate is muddled public opinion."

I just thought I would make a small change in the interest of accuracy.

Samuelson is very upset because almost no one, Democrat, Republican, or independent wants to go along with his crusade to cut Social Security and Medicare. He tells readers with disgust:

"In a Pew poll, 87 percent of respondents favored present or greater Social Security spending; only 10 percent backed cuts."

He then demands that President Obama rise to the occasion and insist that people accept lower benefits.

President Obama's time can probably be more productively spent teaching economics and arithmetic to people who write on budget issues in major news outlets. Most of the main assertions in Samuelson's piece are misleading or just flat out wrong.

First, the budget is only constrained at the moment by superstition. There is no obstacle to the government borrowing more money to meet needs and put people back to work. We are not spending more money because we have superstitious people with large amounts of power who are making claims about the dangers of deficits that they cannot support with evidence. Rather than lecturing seniors, who have a median income of $20,000, on the need for lower Social Security and Medicare benefits, Obama could try to confront the people spreading superstitions about deficits.

Samuelson's complaint about the size of spending on the elderly is also highly misleading. He complains:

"In fiscal 2012, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and civil service and military retirement cost $1.7 trillion, about half the budget."

Dean Baker / March 18, 2013

Article Artículo

Capitalism, Steven Pearlstein, and Morality

The Washington Post had a major column by Steve Pearlstein on the front page of its Outlook section headlined, "Is Capitalism Moral?" The piece notes the sharp upward redistribution of income over the last three decades and asks whether we should just being willing to accept market outcomes.

Of course this question is absurd on its face. The upward redistribution of the last three decades was the result of deliberate government policies designed to redistribute income upward; it was not the natural workings of the market.

For example, trade policy was quite explicitly intended to place segments of the U.S. workforce in direct competition with low paid workers in Mexico, China and other developing countries. The predicted and actual result of this policy has been to push down the wages the bottom 50-70 percent of the workforce to the benefit of those at the top.

This was hardly the free market. We could have adopted trade policies that were designed to put doctors, lawyers and other highly paid professionals in direct competition with their much lower paid counterparts in the developing world. If we had done this, doctors in the U.S. might be earning closer to $100,000 a year rather than the current average of more than $250,000 annually. This would transfer more than $100 billion annually to the rest of the country in the form of lower health care costs.

The government also strengthened and lengthened the periods of monopoly protection provided by both patents and copyrights. This has hugely increased the amount of rents being paid to high-end earners, the pharmaceutical industry and the entertainment industry at the expense of everyone else.

Dean Baker / March 17, 2013