Poverty in Argentina

Both Argentina's Catholic University (UCA) and the government use the same 2010 census conducted by the Statistics and Census National Institute (INDEC) to analyze the country's social and economic conditions. While they agree that poverty has declined between 2006 and 2010, the university's analyses produce much higher rates of poverty and extreme poverty than do official government figures.

According to government reports, approximately 4 million (9.9%) Argentines are poor. The UCA report, on the other hand, says that approximately 10 million (29.6%) people are poor. The UCA also estimates that 11% of the population lives in extreme poverty compared to the government's 2.5% estimate. Of the country's 10 million poor, 3.5 million are homeless.

The difference between government and UCA's statistics is based primarily upon how each calculates the cost of the basic food basket. The government estimates that by the end of 2010, an average family needed $303 to avoid falling under the poverty line. The UCA estimated the amount to be $436.

Discrepanices between governmental and other organizations' poverty figures is nothing new in Argentina. Here's a 2009 Al Jazeera report on poverty in Argentina.


Argentina is not the only country where official and unofficial poverty figures are in dispute and I wonder whether these differences are playing into the discussion at Two Weeks Notice over what Peruvians want from their government (see here, here, here, and here).

The Liberation of Lori Berenson

NY Times

The New York Times has a sympathetic story on the front page of its website today entitled The Liberation of Lori Berenson. There are a lot of interesting quotes and stories that jump out while reading her saga.

Here are the two that I chose.

Today, while Berenson refuses to discuss in detail what happened during the year she spent in Peru before her arrest, she does admit that she knew her associates were M.R.T.A. members (without knowing their real names — a customary practice in subversive groups) and willingly helped them to rent the house. “It might not have been intentional, but the bottom line is: I did collaborate with them,” she said...

She admits to vaguely collaborating with the MRTA but still won't tell the entire story.

“I’m not going to have anything to do with a violent organization,” she told me, “but that does not mean that I accept the status quo; I have to do something about it.”

Perhaps there was good reason to believe that violence was the solution in the early 1990s. And while she will pursue nonviolent change in the future, she will not apologize for her role in supporting the MRTA who resorted to violence against the Peruvian government in the early 1980s. 

I hope that President Garcia commutes her sentence before leaving office so that Berenson and her son can return to the US. That was her parents and her son no longer have to suffer.

Berenson to Remain Free

AP

On Monday, a Peruvian appeals court rejected the prosecutor's attempt to revoke Lori Berenson's parole. Berenson had been released in May but the prosecution had been trying to have her returned to jail because he did not believe that, as a convicted terrorist, Berenson should have been able to apply work and study credits towards the completion of her sentence.

Berenson says that she wants to return to NY to raise her son Salvador. However, she will have to remain in Peru until 2015 unless President Garcia commutes the rest of her sentence. I didn't think that it was wise of her to open up to reporters upon her release from prison earlier this year. Nothing good would come of criticizing the prosecution while her case was being appealed. I still don't think that it was smart but fortunately, for Berenson, the appeals court ruled in her favor.

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in April so we probably won't have to wait too long to hear from the outgoing president, Alan Garcia.

Berenson Appears Before Peruvian Court

Lori Berenson once again appeared before a Peruvian court on Monday pleading with them not to revoke her parole and send her back to jail.

"I reaffirm everything said in the Aug. 18 hearing: That I believe I am not a danger to society, that I acknowledge my responsibility in the crime I committed and that I feel repentant about it," Berenson told the judges.

The court has fifteen working days to to decide whether to send her back to jail or to let her remain free on parole.  If the court decides that Berenson should remain on parole, it will be up to President Garcia to decide whether to commute the remaining years of her sentence which would allow her to return to the United States.  Months ago, Garcia said that he would not make a decision until all legal remedies had been exhausted. 

Top Destinations - Guatemala and Peru

CNN recently named two countries in Latin America among its nine Top Destinations for 2011.  The Peruvian Amazon came in at number 3.

When many people think of the Amazon, they think of Brazil, but Peru offers a great base for exploring the region: Iquitos, a metropolis of almost half a million people in the heart of the Peruvian jungle.

Iquitos is a fitting destination for 2011, which has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Forests.

"You can create your own adventures when you're there," Reid said.

It's the biggest city you can't drive to in the world, he added. You have to fly in or take a boat.

To experience the region in a unique way, Rapp recommended taking an Amazon River cruise from Iquitos on Delfin or Aqua Expeditions.

Here's an Iquitos video from YouTube.

Guatemala checked in at number 8.

More than 10 years after the end of its civil war, Guatemala is coming into its own as a tourist destination, Frommer said.

The country is an appealing alternative for people looking to travel south of the border and trying to branch out beyond popular places like Costa Rica, she added. Once there, you'll be amazed by the sites -- and the low prices.

"Lake Atitlan is one of the most beautiful places in the world. In fact, Aldous Huxley said it was more beautiful than Lake Como. I was there in March, and I would agree," Frommer said.

She called the destination "a bargain wonderland." A round-trip flight from New York cost Frommer $350, "decent hotels" charged as little as $35 a night, and a meal at a sit-down restaurant might set you back just $3, she said.

And here's a YouTube tourism video for Guatemala.

The Egomaniacal Alan Garcia

Wikileaks recently released a US diplomatic able that suggested Peruvian President Alan Garcia had "a colossal ego."  The cable also noted rumors that Garcia could be afflicted by manic depression or bipolar disorder.  Understanding the mental state of world leaders seems to have comprised a large percentage of the recently released Latin America cables.

However, what surprised me in the case of Garcia was his response.

"This is gossip, information you tend to get from your family, your spouse, at work from bosses, opinion, rumor," he said in a radio interview Thursday with Radioprogramas. "I don't feel offended, nor do I give it importance. But I will say there's a lot of poor-quality diplomacy."

If your spouse and family go around saying that you have a collossal ego or suffer from manic depression or bipolar disorder, you really have a problem.

Lori Berenson in the NYT

Simon Romero at the New York Times had a piece on Lori Berenson over the weekend.



I can't add much from this article to my previous posts on Berenson.  She has served the requirements of her sentence.  She has apologized for the most part.  She doesn't appear to be a threat to anyone.  Let her fulfill the requirements of her parole and make the best of the rest of her life.

And I still don't think that she should be speaking to reporters (Peruvian or American) until her case has been resolved. 

Reflecting on the challenges that await her, she said she often remembers a book she read in prison, “The Pig’s Deed,” a novel by the Argentine writer Marcos Aguinis. It is about the Spanish Inquisition as it unfolded in colonial Peru, focusing on the persecution of a doctor who acknowledged his Jewish origins.

“It’s very vivid in the way things continue in society,” said Ms. Berenson, reflecting on the fate of outcasts then and now. “I think the difference is, people who were accused of terrorism weren’t burned at the stake. I wonder if we had been, maybe we would be less interesting. I think for some reason it’s useful that people still be considered dangerous.”

I'm not entirely sure what she means, but I don't think that comparing your plight to that of a Jewish doctor persecuted under the Spanish inquisition in colonial Peru helps your cause while your case is still in legal limbo.

Lori Berson Speaks (for some unknown reason)

I can't understand why Lori Berenson spoke with the AP and other press outlets shortly after her release from prison.  Not that what she said was so inflammatory, but it still doesn't seem to be the wisest course of action when the prosecutor is attempting to overturn your parole.

"Right now my freedom is on the line," she told The Associated Press in an interview, her curly-haired 18-month-old son, Salvador, playing beside her in a rented apartment as her mother, Rhoda, looked on.

Released just 24 hours earlier from a woman's prison, Berenson expressed profound worry that Peru's top anti-terrorism prosecutor would succeed in sending her back to prison until 2015 to finish out a 20-year sentence for aiding leftist rebels.

 "I believe I am the face of terrorism," the bespectacled Berenson, who turns 41 this week, said in measured tones. "I think I'm useful as the face of terrorism."

And in an interview with Time, she states

"It is scary, I really feel that I am being singled out. So many people have been released and it has not been a problem, but now that Lori Berenson is out the world is about the end. I don't understand why this continues to be the case. It has been 15 years."...

"There is nothing like my case.  It has always been so high profile. I think it is fascinating, but I don't understand it."

It's true that several convicted terrorists have been granted early release after serving 75% of their sentence. However, it doesn't help Berenson's case that she calls the prosecutor out on that fact. It's best to leave that legitimate criticism up to others, such as JosÉ Antonio Nique, president of Peru's bar associations.

"Lori Berenson is not a danger to the country, but she is unlike others in her condition. She is a foreigner, a gringa, and it has been easy to make her a scapegoat. There are sectors that are trying to win political points with her case."

Judge Jessica Leon granted Berenson parole in May.  However, a three-judge panel sent her back to prison in August because her post-prison address had not been verified by authorities.  Judge Leon again granted Berenson parole on Friday.  The prosecutor was not too happy with Leon's decision and let her know.

He lashed out at Leon, calling her the patron saint of terrorists and alleging that she might be a terrorist herself, infiltrated into the judiciary system to set free dangerous criminals.

And the prosecutor is not the only Peruvian upset with the decision to release Berenson.

Justice Minister Rosario Fernandez has joined the prosecutor in berating Judge Leon, saying the judge made a serious mistake twice, which is unforgiveable.

Berenson's problem now is that her parole has been appealed to the three-judge panel that originally revoked her May parole.  They will decide whether she has actually completed 75% of her term.  Their decision will partly depend upon how they understand "work and study credits." 

If her parole is overturned, she will return to prison until November 30, 2015.  She will not have another opportunity to appeal because that provision of the law was eliminated in 2009.

That's why I don't think that Lori Berenson should be speaking to the press.  She can't say anything that will help her case.  Only things that will hurt.

Lori Berenson

On Friday, a Peruvian court paroled Lori Brenson after she had completed a few more months of her sentence.  Today, she left prison on conditional release.   

President Garcia said that he would only made a decision regarding the commutation of Berenson's parole once all legal maneuvering had been exhausted.  However, the prosecutor in the case is now working to overturn this most recent parole decision.  An appeals court could make that decision within a month, so we are unlikely to hear from Garcia for at least a few more weeks..

Lori Berenson Paroled Again

On Friday, Peruvian courts once again granted Lori Berenson parole after having completed fifteen years of a twenty year sentence (Reuters and AP). 

President Alan Garcia has previously stated that he would consider commuting the remaining years of her sentence so that she can can return to the US.  However, he wouldn't do so until the legal process in Peru had been exhausted.  Given that prosecutors are expected to appeal the court's ruling, a decision by Garcia will have to wait.

I know this will sound insensitive, but I have this picture in my head of the Peruvian and US governments negotiating an exchange of Berenson for Inca relics. On the same day that Berenson was paroled, Garcia led thousands of protestors demanding that Yale return thousands of artifacts that Hiram Bingham took from the country nearly a century ago and never returned.  

For earlier Berenson coverage, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Government Secrecy

Recently, the issue of government secrecy has been in the news with Wikileaks and its dump of Iraq war documents.  Matt Yglesias is obviously concerned with the tendency of our military and bureaucrats to overclassifiy information that really has no justification being classified.

Obviously some degree of military secrecy is necessary, but it’s clearly much less than the degree we’ve now got. Instead a lot of stuff seems to be kept classified merely because it’s convenient to stamp everything that way, or else because sparing the citizens the gory details of war is better for home front morale. Or something.

I would agree that some degree of secrecy is necessary as well.  However, government secrecy works to undermine democracy in numerous ways and we all know how well our government's need to keep secrets turned out in Latin America during the Cold War. 

Here's Kate Doyle from the National Security Archives recently writing about her experience providing expert witness testimony in the case of the disappearance of Edgar Fernando Garcia in Guatemala in 1984.  He disappeared while the US was providing political cover to the Guatemalan Government.  However, to no one's surprise, declassified State Department and Embassy cables written at the time that we were defending the Guatemalan government against scandalous lies speak more openly about what its government was actually doing.

They describe a planned campaign on the part of the Guatemalan government to kidnap and kill trade union activists and student leaders linked to the opposition. In a secret analysis written on February 23, 1984, for example, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research reported a “new wave of violence” launched by military and police under head of state General Oscar Mejía Víctores, targeting a broad swath of Guatemala’s legal and clandestine opposition. “Government security services have employed assassination to eliminate persons suspected of involvement with the guerrillas or who are otherwise left-wing in orientation,” wrote U.S. officials, pointing in particular to the army’s “notorious presidential intelligence service (archivos)” and the National Police, “who have traditionally considered labor activists to be communists.” This and other U.S. documents provide context for Fernando García’s kidnapping as well as describe a pattern and practice on the part of Guatemalan security forces to use forced disappearance in their war against their political opponents.

Two soldiers were recently found guilty for abducting Garcia.  I'm sorry, but I'd prefer that we err on the side of disclosure.

A related argument to the case is that bureaucrats might simply classify material simply because that's what bureaucrats do (See Bernstein).  They're not necessarily trying to hide anything.  Fortunately, in the Guatemalan case, military bureaucrats also did what bureaucrats do - they kept meticulous notes that documented their surveillance of the victim and his and associates ultimate disappearance.  These documents were invaluable to bringing about a conviction.

Another issue that I come across and sometimes think about myself is that secrecy was vital during the Cold War.  When things return to "normal," we won't have as much government secrecy.  I haven't convinced myself of that yet.

As Boz mentioned earlier in the week, the CIA was involved in the shooting down of a civilian plane in Peru in 2001 that killed a US missionary and her daughter.



Instead of admitting that a mistake had been made, the officers tried to cover up their actions by, among other things, lying to congress.  While too little too late, the CIA handed out administrative punishments to 16 retired and current officers for their role in the killings.

In the end, the US government fought the Cold War in our name.  It has been fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in our names.  And it has been fighting the drug war in our name.  Civilians, including Americans, have died, sometimes at our hands.  The American people are entitled to the truth behind our government's activities no matter how embarrassing.  That's how democracy works.