CIAO DATE: 09/2014
Spring 2014
Social Conflict & ILO 169 (PDF)
Rebecca Bintrim
Across the Andes, resource-related conflict has increased over the past 10 years.
Oh! The Places You'll Go (PDF)
In most countries the process isn't always clear or direct. Who does it, how to do it and how long it can take varies from country to country--a reflection of the vagueness of ILO 169 and the uneven development of government regulations across the hemisphere. To compare, here are the steps you would need to take in Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru. - See more at: http://www.americasquarterly.org/charticles/want-to-complete-a-consulta-previa/#sthash.BS3C3Urg.dpuf
Country Study: Peru (PDF)
Cynthia Sanborn, Alvaro Paredes
During his 2011 presidential campaign, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala promised a new relationship between the Peruvian state and Indigenous peoples, in which the rights of the latter would be guaranteed and their participation in government would be treated
as fundamental.1
One of Humala’s first acts as head of state was to sign into effect the Ley del derecho a la consulta previa a los pueblos indígenas u originarios (Law of the Right to Prior Consultation for Indigenous and Native Peoples), making Peru the first country in Latin America to incorporate International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169) into national legislation. In 2013, Peruvian authorities carried out the first formal process of prior consultation within that framework with the Maijuna and Kichwa peoples of the Amazonian province of Loreto, to create a conservation area on their ancestral lands. At least 14 other processes of consultation are now under way.
Behind the scenes, however, relations between government officials and Indigenous organizations in Peru are marked by profound tension
and distrust.
Country Study: Chile (PDF)
Jerónimo Carcelén Pacheco, Valentina Mir Bennett
While Chile has recognized and supported Indigenous rights through a variety of constitutional, legal and statutory norms, one of the most central—especially given the country’s extractive industry—is one of the least settled. Officially International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169) has been in effect in Chile since September 15, 2009. But on September 4, 2009, just days before it was to take effect, the Ministry of Planning (today renamed the Ministry of Social Development) issued regulations intended to govern the norms and processes of consultation with Chilean Indigenous communities. Indigenous groups immediately rejected the regulations because the Chilean government had failed to consult them, calling it a law developed without “consultation about consultation.” The regulations were officially overturned in March 2014. To fill the gap left by the rejection of the 2009 decree, since March 2011 Chile’s Ministry of Social Development has conducted a consultation process to create a more consensus-based regulatory framework for the implementation of ILO 169. This process has involved organizing workshops, providing technical and logistical support for Indigenous groups’ internal meetings, providing independent counsel and experts selected by the Indigenous people themselves, and financing these and other activities. According to the government, this initiative has been mostly successful, and it is in line with the recommendations of then-UN special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, James Anaya, adhering to the principles and standards of the convention, such as good faith and the intention to reach an agreement.
Country Study: Guatemala (PDF)
Silvel Elias, Geisselle Sánchez
Although they constitute 40 percent of Guatemala’s population, Indigenous Guatemalans face great inequality in terms of access to health, education, housing and—most critically—political representation.1 In 1995, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court asked Congress to approve and ratify International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169). Ratified on June 5, 1996, the Convention was elevated to the category of law, committing the Guatemalan government to adapt national legislation in compliance with it. The Guatemalan government has since attempted to pass regulation on consulta previa numerous times, but has not yet succeeded.2 In 2011, with the goal of determining how consultations should be carried out, who should participate, and the degree to which the consultations would be binding, the administration of then-President Álvaro Colom proposed a regulation intended to ensure the adoption of the norm—the Reglamento para el proceso de Consulta del Convenio 169 de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo sobre Pueblos Indígenas y Tribales en Países Independientes (Regulation for the consultation process of ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and tribal peoples in independent countries). But many Indigenous organizations rejected the resolution, claiming they were not adequately consulted while the regulation was being developed and that the regulation gave too much power to government entities. Furthermore, many claimed there should not be regulation for consultations, because ILO 169 already delineates how the process of consulta previa should be carried out in a way that accommodates local methods of implementation.
Country Study: Colombia (PDF)
Diana Maria Ocampo, Sebastian Agudelo
In Colombia’s 2010–2014 National Development Plan, President Juan Manuel Santos listed the mining sector as one of the five engines of the country’s economic growth, alongside infrastructure, housing, agriculture, and innovation. At the same time, the government recognized the need for regulatory, legal and policy instruments to make Colombia a regional powerhouse for mining and infrastructure. Yet the legal and policy framework that was intended to be adopted in the reform of the 2010 Mining Code was struck down by Colombia’s Constitutional Court in early 2011. According to the Court, the 2010 code should have been discussed with Colombia’s ethnic minorities (Indigenous peoples, Afrodescendants, Raizales, Palenqueros and Rom communities),1 in accordance with the 1991 Colombian Constitution and International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169) ratified in 1991. In Colombia, according to the latest official population census (2005), 3.4 percent of the population is Indigenous and 10.6 percent is Afrodescendant. Together, these two ethnic groups occupy nearly 30 percent of Colombia’s total landmass. Article 7 of Colombia’s 1991 Constitution establishes respect for, and protection of, an ethnically and culturally diverse population as a fundamental principle. Accordingly, the Constitution recognizes Indigenous lands as collective “territorial entities,” to be governed by Indigenous communities according to their own customs and by their own representatives. These lands are inalienable, meaning they cannot be taken away from the original owners. Following the same rationale, black ancestral communities were also recognized as entitled to collective property ownership under Law 70 in 1993.
Reducing the Financial Risk of Social Conflict (PDF)
Daniel M. Schydlowsky, Robert C. Thompson
The Peruvian economy has experienced exceptional growth in the past 10 years, with its GDP expanding at an average yearly rate of 6.5 percent. Much of this growth is due to the mining sector, which in 2012 accounted for 9.6 percent of Peru's GDP, 1.3 percent of its employment and 56.9 percent of its exports.
Unfortunately, this robust growth has been accompanied by an increasing epidemic of sometimes violent socioeconomic conflicts between mining enterprises and surrounding communities.
Conflicts in Bagua (2009) and at the Conga mine (2011-2012) cost 33 and 15 lives, respectively. Overall, the number of conflicts reported in 2013 shot up to 216, from 63 in 2004.
Containing the negative fall-out constitutes a major policy challenge for Peru. To help, the Peruvian banking supervisory agency has developed a regulatory framework to ensure that banks and their customers join efforts to reduce the risk of social conflict by engaging with local communities and performing their own due diligence.
Business Responsibility to Respect Indigenous Rights (PDF)
Paloma Munoz Quick
While numerous United Nations mechanisms1 have addressed the impact of business activities on Indigenous rights, it was only in 2011-with the UN Human Rights Council's unanimous endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights-that the role of businesses in respecting, or abusing, these rights was officially acknowledged.
The Guiding Principles' "do-no-harm" approach was developed by Harvard University Professor John Ruggie, the UN special representative to the secretary general for business and human rights. They rest on three pillars.
States are obliged to protect against human rights abuses by companies.
Corporations are obliged to act with due diligence to ensure that their activities do not adversely affect the rights of those living on the targeted lands.
Victims of adverse impacts have the right to seek a remedy.
The Guiding Principles call on businesses to ensure, at a minimum, that-regardless of the size, location and type of project-their activities adhere to those rights contained in the International Bill of Rights and the International Labour Organization core conventions. Moreover, corporations should comply with the additional requirements under ILO 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), such as free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)-or consulta previa.2
Contested Lands, Contested Laws (PDF)
Carlos Andres Baquero DIaz
he right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), or consulta previa, has expanded throughout South America. Nine states have ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 (ILO169)—the principal treaty regarding consulta previa.* But regulations created by four of those states—Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador—contradict the commitments they accepted when they ratified the treaty, in effect violating the right of Indigenous people to be consulted on administrative and legislative measures that could directly affect them.1 ILO 169 clearly establishes that before a government decides to begin an oil extraction project, change a law about logging, build a dam, or create a bilingual education law, it must consult in advance with local communities and reach an agreement with them. The right to consulta previa takes the form of a dialogue between the state and an Indigenous community. But since ILO 169 does not provide guidelines regarding how this dialogue should be structured and carried out, much of the debate in South America has focused on verifying what requirements are necessary for this dialogue to happen—such as who will participate and what the participants’ functions will be. Since the pursuit of natural resources has turned the ancestral lands of ethnic peoples into zones of dispute, clear guidelines that govern the implementation and authority of ILO 169 are essential. Given the vagueness of the original convention, it has been up to individual countries to develop guidelines in the form of domestic regulations. Such regulations can be a mixed blessing. Many national-level Indigenous and Afrodescendent organizations are opposed to domestic regulation, arguing that it will reduce the protection afforded to them by ILO 169. They claim it will be difficult—if not impossible—to create a universally acceptable procedure that takes into consideration both cultural differences and the differences in the types of projects being explored. The validity of their concerns was demonstrated by the efforts of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile to regulate consulta previa. Each country’s measures varied in level of detail, but in all cases the mandated procedures actually reduced the level of protection afforded by international law and endangered the physical and cultural existence of Indigenous peoples.
Contradiction in International Law (PDF)
Angela Bunch
Indigenous peoples’ control over natural resources continues to be one of the most controversial issues in international law.1 Numerous international human rights treaties recognize Indigenous communities’ right to be consulted over the use of resources on or beneath their communal lands. But international law tends to consider third parties’ exploitation of natural resources on Indigenous land to be legal—as long as Indigenous rights to consultation, participation and redress, among other rights, are met.2 But there are disputing interpretations of whether Indigenous communities have the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)—the right not only to be consulted about, but to reject activities that adversely affect them. 3 Comment on this post This is evident in the two main international human rights instruments that apply specifically to Indigenous peoples: the legally binding ILO 169 (1989), and the non-binding United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007.3 While ILO 169 does not clearly recognize Indigenous and tribal peoples’ right to veto measures or investment projects that they oppose, UNDRIP does.
Two Views of Consulta Previa in Guatemala: A View from Indigenous Peoples (PDF)
Joseph Guadalupe Gomez
Guatemala is a plurinational country that 22 Maya nations, Xinka, Garifuna, and Ladino people jointly call home. The efforts to gain access to natural resources—often without the consent of the communities affected—constitute another stage in the long history of dispossession and repression of Maya peoples since colonization. The Maya peoples’ understanding of Earth stands in conflict with capitalism. To capitalists, Earth is defined as a source of raw materials that can be sold to the highest bidder. Maya people, in contrast, do not place a monetary value on our natural resources. We call Earth “Qtxutx‘Otx,”1 or Mother Earth, because she gives us life, water, air, fire, and nourishment, and she protects us. We are part of her and she of us.2 Since the Spanish invasion in 1524, the Maya have been systematically robbed of their land and exploited. Colonialism imposed the feudal system of encomienda (share cropping) and dispossessed communities of their land. The repression increased under President Justo Rufino Barrios (1873–1885) in the so-called Liberal Reform, when Indigenous peoples’ communal lands were divvied up among landowners and businessmen for coffee and later banana plantations. The overthrow of President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 unleashed over three decades of violence that directly affected and often targeted Indigenous peoples. According to data from the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (Commission for Historical Clarification—CEH) and the Proyecto Interdiocesano de Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (Inter-Diocesan Recovery of Historical Memory Project—REMHI), more than 1 million people were displaced, hundreds of communities destroyed, and more than 250,000 people killed or “disappeared” during the armed conflict. Other victims include 80,000 widowed women, 200,000 orphans, 700,000 people conscripted by paramilitary groups such as the Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (Civil Self-Defense Patrols), and more than 50,000 identified and 25,000 unidentified refugees.
Two Views of Consulta Previa in Guatemala: A View from the Private Sector (PDF)
Cementos Progreso S.A.
Guatemala ratified International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169) on June 5, 1996, more than a year after Guatemala's Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, ruled in Document 199-95 that the Convention did not contradict the Guatemalan Constitution.1
But the lack of clarity in ILO 169 and the absence of clear national guidelines for setting up a consulta previa process, despite the Court's decision, have left the door open for conflict and misinterpretation that has harmed, rather than helped, the people the Convention intended to serve. Nearly 10 years later, Guatemala still does not have a clear path for the development of regulations that can balance commercial and investment interests with the rights of Indigenous peoples.
Guatemala isn't alone. Latin American countries make up the largest group of signatories to the Convention: as we like to say, ILO 169 "speaks Spanish." Of the 185 ILO member states, only 22 have ratified the Convention-and 13 of those countries are Spanish-speaking Latin American states.2 Yet most of them are still waiting for clear guidelines about how to proceed.
Article 6 of ILO 169 obligates states to consult with Indigenous communities on all the "legislative or administrative measures that might directly affect them." Many countries, lacking the capacity to exploit their nonrenewable natural resources, have granted concessions to private companies in exchange for tax revenue. That has provoked conflict.
But today, the right has expanded to other areas: decisions to approve laws, build schools and roads to distant communities or spray illicit crops.
The Rise of Popular Consultations (PDF)
Diana Rodriguez-Franco
On a hot Sunday morning in July 2013, the inhabitants of Piedras, a small municipality in the Colombian Andes, gathered to decide whether large-scale mining activities should be permitted in their territory. Piedras, traditionally a rice farming community, could soon be a neighbor to one of the biggest open-pit mining projects in the world. The South African transnational AngloGold Ashanti announced plans to exploit gold reserves at La Colosa—56 miles (90 km) from Piedras and estimated to contain 24 million ounces with a current market value of $31 billion—within the next two years. The farmers in Piedras, a non-Indigenous campesino community, fear that La Colosa’s tailings dam, which would be built in the municipality, will pollute and reduce their water supply.
Speaking a Common Language with Latin America: Economics (PDF)
Jose W. Fernandez
United States-Latin American relations have often suffered from a disconnect. While we stress security issues, the region’s leaders speak of poverty reduction and trade. They resent being seen as afterthoughts to U.S. policies focused elsewhere. As a result, the region is sporadically open to new suitors, such as Spanish investors 15 years ago, or the Chinese today. Despite their frustration with Washington, Latin American leaders recognize that, as the hemisphere’s largest economy and market, the U.S. remains the indispensable partner. The challenge, both for the U.S. and Latin America, is to agree on common economic priorities both sides can pursue jointly, rather than continuing parallel dialogues. Economic growth, poverty reduction and job creation are common elements on both sides’ wish lists. Politically, the stars are more aligned than ever in recent history for a renewed emphasis on economics in our relations with Latin America. The administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has made clear that its priority will be economic reform at home and more integrated North American markets and supply chains. From the beginning of his term, the Mexican president called for elevating our economic diplomacy to the same levels as our security relationship, which led to the first High Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) between Mexico and the U.S. in late September.
International Cooperation or Gridlock? (PDF)
Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota
A shift of the global balance of power is under way. Emerging countries are increasingly playing significant roles on global issues, such as the global economy, trade, and investment, as well as in diplomacy and multilateral decision making. In a few years, we will witness a historically rare phenomenon, when a new country will become the world’s largest economy. China’s GDP will soon become the largest in the world, overtaking the United States. The last time the world’s number one economy changed was in the nineteenth century, when the U.S. economy surpassed the United Kingdom’s. Another remarkable trait of contemporary international relations is the unprecedented reduction of poverty on a global scale—with Brazil experiencing a steep decline in social inequality in the past years—making the eradication of extreme poverty an attainable goal worldwide. It is possible that, by 2030, a majority of the world’s population will be able to enjoy a middle class standard of living, an achievement unparalleled in human history. However, this will not eliminate the significant gap in living standards that will continue to exist between developed and developing countries, such as China and India, even though they will probably become the world’s first and second largest economies in terms of GDP by 2050. Even as emerging countries are increasingly able to tilt the balance, the so-called “established powers” will still play a major role globally. These countries will continue to have diversified economies, formidable technological capacity and, in the case of the U.S., the ability to hold, for decades to come, far superior military power. Yet, there is no question that the relative power of the G8 countries has declined and, with it, their capacity to lead.
Elections in Colombia (PDF)
Francisco Miranda Hamburger
On May 25, 32 million Colombians will vote in one of the most important presidential elections in the nation’s recent history—an election that will turn on the issue that remains Colombia’s greatest challenge: putting an end to the armed conflict. But the significance of this issue contrasts with the apathetic response of the majority of the population. In the March 9 legislative elections earlier this year, 55 percent of the electorate opted to stay away from the voting booth, a slight increase from the last electoral cycle, four years ago. Still, the promise of peace continues to dominate the battle for the presidency, a perennial feature in Colombian election campaigns. During the 1998 elections, when a photo of conservative candidate Andrés Pastrana with Manuel Marulanda, then commander of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC), appeared, it gave Colombians hope that peace was finally within reach. It was a key factor in Pastrana’s victory that year. Four years later, the failure of negotiations with the FARC led to the victory of Álvaro Uribe Vélez from the center-right Primero Colombia (Colombia First) alliance. After what many voters had come to believe was the lack of genuine commitment of the FARC to peace, Uribe convinced the electorate that only its military defeat would bring the long-sought end to hostilities.
Ask the Experts: Consulta Previa (PDF)
Sonia Meza-Cuadra, Katya Salazar, Cesar Rodríguez-Garavito, Roberto Jungito Pombo
What have been the benefits of countries adopting consulta previa? Sonia Meza-Cuadra answers: Governments aim to make decisions that will improve the economic and social development and welfare of their citizens. But historically, decisions affecting Indigenous and tribal people’s culture, ancestral lands and habitats have too often been made without their participation. ilo 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples seek to redress this situation. The processes of free, informed prior consent, or consulta previa, have faced several challenges, most of which are rooted in the historical mistrust between governments and Indigenous peoples. Rebuilding this trust and reaching a consensus is complicated by the long absence of the state and, consequently, minimal public services in remote areas where most Indigenous people live. Progress in the implementation of ilo 169 has already benefited countries. First, the convention has improved awareness and understanding of Indigenous peoples’ rights among the general population and the Indigenous community itself. Second, the laws, regulations and court decisions that have followed have laid the groundwork for more responsible and socially, economically and environmentally sustainable public and private investment. Third, in seeking to meet their commitments under the convention, governments and public officials have improved their capacity to seek popular consultation and consensus. Fourth, already the dialogues that have been established among governments, companies and communities have improved discussions among these stakeholders and lowered the long-term legal risks of these investments.
Michael McDonald
Dispatches: Guatemalan Migrants BY MICHAEL MCDONALD Guatemalans returning home from the U.S. face unemployment, a maze of red tape—and social stigma. (slideshow available) Read a sidebar about voluntary return migration. Read a sidebar about the stigma that return migrants face. View a slideshow of return migrants in Guatemala below. Fidelino Gómez remembers fondly the years he spent in Iowa, where his middle child was born. Standing outside his one-room wood home in his native Guatemala, Gómez, 34, thumbs through pictures he took of the Mississippi River, snowy Midwest winters and gatherings with family and friends. He recalls easier times. “We lived well,” Gómez says under the searing sun. “We could feed our children, pay our bills, and we still had money left over.” From 2004 to 2008, Gómez and his wife María earned roughly $7 an hour working at Agriprocessors Inc., a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The money was more than they ever imagined as subsistence farmers back home. But the family’s dream was cut short when United States immigration officials raided the plant in May 2008, arresting hundreds of undocumented Guatemalan workers and deporting them. Now, like more than 100 other families deported after the Postville raid, they struggle to eke out a living back in the economically depressed farming village San José Calderas, some 40 miles (64 km) west of Guatemala City. They grow corn and beans to feed their loved ones and do odd jobs, scraping by on the equivalent of between $15 and $30 per month.
Robert A. Boland, Victor A. Matheson
The urgency and scale of hosting can provide a needed boost to public investment and transform a country’s image, infrastructure and business conditions beyond the games. BY ROBERT A. BOLAND Do megasports events contribute to economic development? Yes Following the 2014 World Cup? Read more coverage here. In the next two years, Brazil will host the three largest mega sports events in the world: the 2014 FIFA World Cup this summer, and then the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio in 2016. Other nations in the Americas and across the globe will be watching to see if Brazil’s hosting duties lead to broad-based, lasting growth, or are merely an expensive distraction. While history provides examples of both scenarios, hosting such megaevents can provide lasting and transformative value, including to developing nations. Megaevents can accelerate the process of planning for and executing much-needed public investment, while the host countries or cities can rebrand themselves as safe for investment and trade, and as a destination for tourism. For democratic governments, the construction blitz around megaevents can cut through political deadlock, representing the best available chance to quickly bring about focused and necessary change. The ability to develop infrastructure that can improve the quality of life, health and economic strength of the host nation is key. Hosts with plans focusing on self-improvement, investment and the enlargement of existing assets tend to fare better than countries that simply build competition venues.
Arts Innovator: Francisca Valenzuela, Chile Singer. Fashion designer. Entrepreneur. At 27, Francisca Valenzuela has already reached the kind of success usually associated with a professionally managed career. But instead of a top agent or a big record label, the San Francisco-born Chilean artist owes her achievements to a team that includes her mother, biochemist Bernardita Méndez, her boyfriend and artistic confidante Vicente Sanfuentes, and a small, committed staff in Chile that has skillfully used social media—including 275,000 Twitter followers and fans known as “Franáticos”—to spread the word of her talents. Valenzuela is one of the most engaging examples of a new generation of artist-entrepreneurs who are controlling their own career paths. “I’m not waiting for someone to come rescue me industry-wise,” Valenzuela says, describing how, when her music took off in her late teens, she and her mother purchased Business for Dummies online to understand the fine print in her first contract. Valenzuela’s early musical success—with a hit single, Peces (Fish) in 2006—came after years of performing in talent shows, but she was never “serious” about music until she started performing on the underground jazz circuit in Chile. She eventually dropped out of the Universidad Católica de Chile, where she was studying journalism, to pursue her burgeoning musical career. Along the way, she has had two books published, two pop-rock albums that went platinum and gold in Chile, and designed a clothing line for the Chilean brand Foster. Now, Valenzuela develops projects and artistic collaborations through her own company, FRANTASTIC Productions. “We’ve structured an independent enterprise basically run by two people [that’s] competitive with counterparts who have a whole corporate background,” she says proudly. Valenzuela’s do-it-yourself ethic in the music industry is not the only thing that sets her apart from many of her peers. Valenzuela spent the first 12 years of her life in the United States before the family relocated to Santiago. In fact, Valenzuela’s first book—Defenseless Waters, a collection of poems that she published at age 13 about themes ranging from long-lost love to social injustice to nature—was written in English. “When I was young in the Bay Area, everyone seemed to be doing extracurricular activities, sports, painting, nurturing kids,” she recalls. Valenzuela’s literary background and political convictions have inspired her songwriting in Spanish. The title song of her latest album, Buen Soldado (Good Soldier, 2011), focuses on the power dynamic between men and women, and she has been an outspoken advocate of sexual diversity and LGBT rights in Chile, participating in gay rights marches since she was 14.
Visiting Cuba — Argentina's currency devaluation — Integrating new immigrants in the United States.
Robert Muse, Natalie Schachar, Charles Kamasaki
Travel Regulations: OFAC and Cuba BY ROBERT MUSE The re-opening of “people-to-people” travel to Cuba by President Barack Obama in early 2011 was the boldest and, arguably, the single most consequential step taken by his administration in relation to the island. It was in fact a revival of a Clinton-era exemption to the decades-old ban on U.S. citizens visiting that country. The exemption had been closed in 2003 by President George W. Bush. Visits to Cuba must meet two requirements to be approved as people-to-people travel: the travel must be for an educational purpose, not tourism; and there must be frequent “meaningful” interactions between the U.S. travelers and Cubans who are not officials of the government of Cuba. The educational requirement of people-to-people trips is most often met through cultural programs that explore such subjects as Cuban music, dance, fine art, and architectural history. However, among many other current offerings there are also environmentally themed trips, as well as programs focused on the Cuban health care and education systems. Since the program was re-introduced, an estimated 100,000 Americans have been visiting Cuba each year on people-to-people trips. The visits have been organized by a wide variety of groups, including the National Geographic Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dozens of similar institutions. The travelers meet and talk with Cubans from different backgrounds and leave millions of dollars in the hands of non-state restaurateurs, artists, musicians, taxi drivers, and small farmers who supply the new private eateries of a changing Cuba.
Ted Piccone, Jim Swigert, Ariel Fiszbein
Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana by Marc Frank BY TED PICCONE Popular interest in Cuba will continue to grow as Americans open their eyes and ears to one key fact: after 55 years, Cuba is changing. It is shifting from a highly centralized, paternalistic, socialist regime, both lauded and vilified for achieving social progress at the cost of democracy and civil liberties, to a hybrid system in which individual initiative, decentralization and some forms of limited debate are encouraged. As the Castro brothers prepare to leave the scene, they are handing power to a more institutionalized Communist party that maintains tight political control even as it liberalizes the economy. Marc Frank’s new book, Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana, expertly captures this evolving terrain. He provides a clear and compelling guide to the transition from Fidel to Raúl Castro after the demise of the Soviet Union. Frank, currently a freelance journalist for Thomson Reuters and the Financial Times, deploys his two decades in Cuba and his extensive network of colleagues, friends and family (he is married to a Cuban) to explain to both seasoned and amateur observers why Cuba’s leaders are embarking on a new path. This is no easy assignment. Nearly everything about life in Cuba today is complicated by Cuba’s outsized role during the Cold War, the trauma of exile and the opaque nature of its regime. Despite Cuba’s controlled media environment, Frank managed to open doors to information not readily available to others, a testament to his intrepid reporting.
World Cup Update Following the 2014 World Cup? Read more coverage here. With preparations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup nearing completion, soccer fans across the region can turn their attention to what really matters: their national team’s chances of winning on the world’s biggest stage. Although European teams have won four of the last six competitions, South American teams have historically fared far better when playing at home. The World Cup draw last December placed the 32 qualifying teams in eight groups of four. From June 12 to June 26, each team will play the other teams in its group in a round- robin format. The top two teams from each group will advance to the elimination round. Not all groups are created equal, so here are some predictions for the hemisphere’s 10 qualifying teams.