Results tagged “americas”

From Megan Stack's article in the Los Angeles Times:

"There's no future in Russia for pro-American policy," said Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the World Security Institute in Washington. "You can build your whole career based on anti-American policy -- build a political career, become a famous journalist or public figure. But if you promote the idea of friendship with America, you'll be denounced immediately."

The Cold War is a faded relic in American memory. Now there are Iran and North Korea to worry about; a few years ago, there was Saddam Hussein. And so it is perhaps easy to forget that, in Russia, the Cold War remains a poignant and powerful idea.

Talk of current events often conveys the distinct sense that Russia is clinging to the idea of an American threat. If there is no hostility with the United States, the thinking runs, it can only mean that Russia is no longer important enough to merit it. And that's unpalatable to Russia's political elite.

We often hear from U.S. observers all about the mutual interests that Washington and the Kremlin share in curbing Iran's march toward nuclear proliferation and other indications of growing hostility, yet it's funny how we usually see nothing but obstruction.  We've speculated in the past that Russia benefits most from preserving the status quo, and want to maintain their swing position.  This opinion from David Kramer is also interesting:  for one, Russia may indeed be interested in seeing U.S. diplomacy succeed in Iran (indeed they are more directly threatened), but they want to see other countries do the heavy lifting.  Secondly, they just don't have all that much influence over Tehran.  From Voice of America:

But other analysts, including David Kramer, a former senior U.S. State Department official in the Bush administration (now with the German Marshall Fund in the United States), say Russia's influence over Iran is limited.

"I've been skeptical about Russia's ability: one - to have leverage to use over Iran, and two - its willingness to do so, even if it did have it," said David Kramer. "Russia has a lot of interests in Iran: significant trade, nuclear reactor construction, energy, arms sales. And I've been of the view that Russia would much prefer for the United States and other countries to play the role of the bad guy, to lean on Iran, to be the one pushing for sanctions while Russia stays in the background."

Is it a mistake for President Barack Obama to only meet with President Dmitry Medvedev?  Andrew Kuchins thinks so.  From the Moscow Times:

There should be no illusions about where ultimate decision-making authority in Russia resides today. The "tandem" is a fiction, of course. Obama must operate under the assumption that on any issue of importance to him -- from nuclear arms reductions to Afghanistan to Iran -- the ultimate arbiter for Russian policy is Putin.

This does not mean that meeting with Medvedev is a waste of time, but it must be assumed that every position taken by Medvedev has been blessed by his mentor. Obama must also harbor no illusion that the United States can take measures in Moscow to empower Medvedev or his Western-leaning colleagues in the government.  (...)

Since Putin is clearly the most important and powerful figure in Russia, I hope that Obama does not shy away from engaging with him in an environment where they can have a real discussion. Obama should go to Putin's dacha and take a walk in the woods -- with or without translators -- and say what needs to be said in a clear and forceful way.

I like this last idea of the private talk.  With so much emphasis placed upon Russia's leadership needing to "look tough" in front of the new administration, as well as the general consensus that the Kremlin is unsure of what it wants beyond respect, this approach could help to strip away some of these extenuating factors.

I just couldn't resist the alliteration temptation. What we're looking at here is the broader directions that should result from next week's Obama-Medvedev powwow.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski offers a three-pronged strategy in the Financial Times for President Obama when he travels to Moscow next week. In the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, Robert Legvold offers a template for improving US-Russia relations in general. Since this is a blog, and not a newspaper or brick-sized bi-monthly periodical, I'm going to re-engineer the formats of these two articles into what should be an easy reference in the future for those not willing to plow through a 6,000-word appeal to the Obama Administration to redesign relations with Russia NOW. First, Brzezinski:

Stephen Blank has an interesting new article on Forbes in which he assesses the economic damage being caused by Russia's inability to effectively reduce legal nihilism and corruption, both of which are dragging on the country's attempt to recover from the crisis.  Sticking out like a sore thumb is of course the second trial of Mikhail Khdorkovsky, which will be in full session during the first state visit of President Barack Obama.  Blank describes the Khodorkovsky trial as a "palpable judicial farce," and if President Dmitry Medvedev is unable to take action to solve the situation it will "confirm the widespread belief that he is merely a tool of his predecessor, a placeholder until Putin resumes the presidency."

When he was a candidate to lead Russia, Dmitry Medvedev denounced the country's "legal nihilism." Now, as president, he has often spoken in favor of judicial independence. Yet one year after his inauguration, with President Obama set to pay a state visit on Monday, Russia remains engulfed by a tidal wave of corruption, hamstrung by a politicized justice system that is chasing away the enduring foreign investment and economic stability that Russia so desperately needs.

I've heard of some really wild excuses by diplomats to avoid having to travel to Russia, but throwing yourself to the ground in an airport and shattering your elbow really takes the cake.

CBS News:  Clinton Won't Travel to Russia

Just kidding, HRC, get well soon.
Love, the RA blog team.

Glad to see we are not the only ones asking that President Barack Obama raise the issue of human rights during his visit to Russia. The following video, focused on the growing problem of hate crimes in Russia, was produced as part of a campaign by the NGO Human Rights First, which last year invited the youth movement activist Oleg Kozlovsky for an award.

George Friedman of Stratfor gives some interesting and less interesting opinions on the Obama-Medvedev summit coming up next week.  Friedman believes the the "sphere of influence" question will be the central issue of the meeting, while he doesn't expect any major breakthroughs, just more cosmetic agreements.  Beware of high flying assumptions and weighty clichés (like Obama showing that he is "tough as Putin"!).

Robert Amsterdam has a new blog post up over on Huffington Post about Obama's approach to Iran and Venezuela.  Here is a short excerpt:

There are two reasons why both the authoritarians of Persia and the Orinoco Belt represent a common foreign policy challenge to the United States. Firstly, they both lean upon a brand of populism that is heavily dependent upon an outdated conception of anti-Americanism. They have woven a narrative, backed only by selective scraps of facts combined with myths, that the United States is a hostile, hateful, and aggressive power which is responsible for nearly every social problem of their country. Oh yes, and they also want to invade us, so we had better arm ourselves to the teeth.

This narrative makes for efficient politics and tosses more fuel to the ever growing fires of nationalism, but becomes a harder story to sell when you have an African-American president of an immigrant father with the middle name "Hussein" who is more popular on the streets on Tehran and Caracas than their own angry leaders.

Secondly, I consider Iran and Venezuela together because of their mutually supportive and burgeoning alliance (this has also been pointed out by Moisés Naím). They are cooperating together along with Russia to build a natural gas cartel, they have unregistered flights allegedly bring scores of Hezbollah members into Latin America, Chávez happily provides Iran with Bolivian and possibly Venezuelan Uranium, while the Venezuelan government even engages in vigorous anti-Semitism to please their friends in Persia and the Middle East (see this interview we recorded with a Jewish student leader who was attacked on state television). Additionally, while Iran maintains a stable of political prisoners such as Behrooz Javid-Tehrani, Chávez is doing his best to copy these tactics with prisoners such as Eligio Cedeño - a case I am directly involved in.

With President Obama visiting Russia very soon, the opposition is worried that pragmatism will be the focus, leaving the issues of rights and rule of law aside.  Some warn that U.S. officials shouldn't fall into the trap of using the same language as Moscow is discussing these matters, which would be seen as a validation or endorsement of policy.  Most signs point to disappointment for Russia's liberals during Obama's first visit, but we will be given a glimpse of how the administration intends to handle the dynamic.  From VOA:

Igor Klyamkin, of the Liberal Mission Foundation in Moscow, told VOA the commission may be parroting the rhetoric of Kremlin officials, without regard for the hidden meaning of their words.

Klyamkin says what they mean is that democracy and rule of law are alien to Russia; that its values and traditions are autocratic and authoritarian rule. The activist says, by using the same words [as the Kremlin], Americans indicate agreement with that kind of Russia.

With all of Silvio Berlusconi's torrid scandals in recent weeks, one may expect the colorful prime minister to hold some regrets and seek national reconciliation, while asking the country to put the past behind them.  Here's a quote from the AP:

"We want to forget (the past) and resume total cooperation on all the issues on which we have decided to collaborate," Mr. Berlusconi told journalists on his arrival at the meeting. 

But no, Berlusconi wasn't talking about Italian politics or his allegedly high-priced houseguests.  He was talking about the resumption of NATO-Russia diplomatic relations, which had been severed since the war last August.  The NRC Summit held in Corfu was only attended by two European heads of state - Mr. Berlusconi and Greek PM Costas Karamanlis, and while an important issue, this is just one stop on a long international road show by the Italian PM (and staunch Kremlin ally) to improve his international image.

Robert Amsterdam was interviewed on the Lionel Show on Air America, discussing the Iran-Venezuela link, Eligio Cedeño and the new white paper, as well as some discussion about Russia:

Garry Kasparov's column in the Wall Street Journal today expounds on the significance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's choice of Moscow as a good place to during the electoral turmoil to prove his international legitimacy.  He argues that the alliance makes sense, as "autocrats learn from each other and from history how to hold onto power."  Well, if we are to judge by its friends, Russia sure is not having its best week - Hugo Chavez is about to bring the sledgehammer down on a TV station, Tehran is shooting its own people, while Berlusconi, arguably Putin's closest friend in Europe, is doing his best imitation of a Mediterranean Hugh Hefner (Alexander Stille predicted this last scandal quite a long time ago).

Yet despite all this, they all keep on winning elections.  We will see Russia copy some of these tactics, or vice versa?  More commentary on Iran to come from RA later on...

On Feb. 1, 2007, a Venezuelan judge named Yuri López admitted a complaint from a defendant, denouncing the improper conduct of judicial officials who shared his case materials with third parties, and then later perjured when questioned on the topic under oath.  Though she was warned by two of her superiors to dismiss the complaint, the judge saw clear merits in the evidence and admitted the complaint which indicated the illegal conduct of judicial officers.  It was a decision that would end her career in the Venezuelan justice system.  After being violently threatened in court by one of the named judicial officials, the following day Yuri López was placed on mandatory vacation, and in going to the school to pick up her daughter, she narrowly averted a kidnapping attempt by men she suspects were linked to the political controversy at work.  She now lives in Miami under political asylum, and was recently profiled by Casto Ocando in the Nuevo Herald.

The only reason that López lost her job and had her life and her family threatened was the fact that the defendent was one Eligio Cedeño, a political prisoner of the Venezuelan government.  The story of this judge and many others who have been caught up in the crossfire of Venezuela's politically corrupt judicial apparatus are detailed in a new white paper I have published along with my colleagues Gonzalo Himiob and Antonio Rosich.

For some reason I keep coming back to the story of this judge and the attempted kidnapping of her daughter.  What possible excuse can be given for this kind of conduct?  In debriefing various individuals on the conditions of political prisoners under the Venezuelan authorities, the regime's supporters argue that such conduct is acceptable because President Hugo Chávez holds regular elections.  What is not discussed is the near absolute lack of legislative or judicial autonomy, problems of freedom of the press, or one of the many other ways that Venezuela lacks a level playing field.  There are terrible violations of human rights and due process occuring with regularity in Venezuela, and I believe it is a great pity that the political ambiguity achieved by Mr. Chávez is sufficient to have these abuses ignored. 

It is hoped that this new report, which gathers together a wealth of information about the many victims of chavista justice, can help contribute to the understanding of the judicial reality in Venezuela, and be useful in moving toward a unified call upon the Venezuelan president to observe his own laws and international commitments. 

Remember back when the Russians bribed the Kyrgyz government with a $2 billion aid package in order to kick the Americans out of the Manas airbase, severely hampering the U.S. government's ability to operate in Afghanistan?  Well it looks like those clever guys in Bishkek are double dipping, and are now taking more than three times the rent to allow NATO to continue to use the airbase.  (I wonder if the Russians got a money-back guarantee on this one.)

There also appears to be a presidential "election" next month that Kurmanbek Bakiyev is hoping that Washington will not criticize.  It makes one wonder how they assign value to all these political and strategic favors - I would think that having everybody ignore a stolen election would be worth at least one free airbase.  So at the end of the day, Bakiyev gets $2 billion from the Russians for nothing, three times the rent from the Americans while retaining the right to kick them out in another six months, and a criticism-free seizure of power.  Oh yes, and the war continues, and Obama and Medvedev have one less sticking point for the July summit.  You've got to love Central Asian politics.

I liked this line from Shevtsova's MT article:

Nevertheless, Obama might try to pull off something in Moscow that no other U.S. president has succeeded in doing: reaching an agreement with the Kremlin on issues of common interest and at the same time offering a different world vision to Russian society.

Indeed, I won't be the only disappointed party if we don't get the second half of this deal....

Having recently completed a week-long trip to the cities of São Paulo, Brasilia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I am struck with several observations that relate to relations with Venezuela, Russia, and the international business community.  The title of this post I borrow from Professor Marshall Eakin of Vanderbilt University, whose 1998 book does much to capture the country's long-standing hope of ascendency in global relations - this nearly permanent sensation that the country is on the cusp of major change, only to see the opportunity escape due to unfortunate coincidences and mistakes.  There are many who believe that this time Brazil's rise might be for real.

I had the opportunity to meet Professor Eakin last week at lunch, where over the course of a wide-ranging discussion, he expounded on several social and cultural underpinnings that have provided the Brazilian people with such generous amounts of pride and optimism.  Indeed, "pride" is the one word that I would take away from the country, as I found an inwardly focused nationalism nearly everywhere I turned, driven in part by grand ambitions:  the building of the capital Brasilia from scratch in just three years, the transformation of São Paulo into one of the leading automotive manufacturers of the Western Hemisphere, or any one of the hundreds of rich stories of Brazil exceeding expectations and nearing greatness.

This nationalism, though different from the dangerous American and Russian versions, also conceals some distortions and serious challenges for the country to confront and move forward.  Brazil, I discovered, really likes to talk about Brazil - and remains unaware of many things happening nearby.  One will find that after spending some time here and speaking with Brazilian observers, that the stereotypes of samba, beaches, and boisterous parties barely scratch the surface of what the country has to offer.

The jury apparently is in for now - a Treasury Department official says that the $134.5 billion of treasury bonds recently seized at the Swiss-Italian border are fakes. As much as I wish there was something more to this story, sadly, there is not, and I'm generally not of the mind to conjure up conspiracy theories. I do, however, remain more than open to entertaining others' conspiratorial whims, so if anyone out there has an unsubstantiated theory that has a pig's chance of actually being something close to the truth, by all means let's hear it!

Robert Amsterdam is currently in Brazil, where he met yesterday with Senator and ex-President José Sarney, to discuss the plight of political prisoners in Venezuela, and in particular the case of Eligio Cedeño, a Venezuelan banker who has been languishing in a Caracas jail for more than two years without trial, and who has recently been committed to another two years incarceration. More detail of the visit on the Venezuela pages of the website in English and in Spanish.

"Brazil is a highly respected regional leader and shining democratic model which many Latin Americans look up to," said Amsterdam. "When it comes to these aberrant violations of human rights and imprisonment of political prisoners in Venezuela, no friend, ally, or partner can afford to remain silent."

The French newspaper L'Express also has an article on the topic.

Some key stats that Bloomberg uncovers in what must be the 800th article in the past 48 hours with the word "BRIC" in it:

• Dollar bonds sold by China earned 11.4 percent in the past year, more than double the 4.6 percent for debt in yuan.
• Brazil's U.S. currency bonds returned 3.6 percent as real-based notes lost 4.9 percent
• Russia's dollar bonds outperformed with a 1.9 percent loss compared with a 7 percent drop in ruble debt

Now for the most quoteworthy quotes:

• "It's not up to politicians to determine which currency will be the world reserve currency," said Lutz Karpowitz, a currency strategist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt.
• Bonds sold in dollars have beaten domestic debt in part because Russia and China manage the ruble and yuan. Those denominated in the U.S. currency can trade more freely, giving fund managers confidence they can sell the securities and get their money when they need it.
• China and India are "highly restrictive on the local debt side" and Russia has "quite an illiquid market" for foreign investors, said Cristina Panait, an emerging-market strategist at Los Angeles-based Payden & Rygel, which manages more than $50 billion. "Currency performance is a big portion of returns."