BERKELEY REVIEW OF
Latin American StudiesU N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A , B E R K E L E Y
SPRING 2007
BERKELEY REVIEW OF
Latin American StudiesU N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A , B E R K E L E Y
U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum U.S.–Mexico Futures ForumChile Heads RightChile Heads Right
FALL 2009 – WINTER 2010
The Making of a MaestroThe Making of a Maestro
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Table of Contents
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
FALL 2009 – WINTER 2010Comment Harley Shaiken 1
Chile Heads Right Kirsten Sehnbruch 2
A Tale of Two Economies Brian Palmer-Rubin 9
Peering Behind the Curtain Jude Joffe-Block and Brian Palmer-Rubin 14
Headwinds for Climate Change Policy Christopher M. Jones 18
The Making of a Maestro Lawrence Rinder Interviews Fernando Botero 22
Silver or Lead: Confronting the Business of Violence Wendy Muse Sinek 31
The Bachelet Bounce Kirsten Sehnbruch 38
Culture and Politics in the Honduran Coup Rosemary Joyce 42
Presumed Guilty: Based on an Untrue Story Mary Ellen Sanger 48
“La noche está estrellada”“La noche está estrellada” Photo from El Paranal, Chile 52
The Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies is published by the Center for Latin American Studies, 2334 Bowditch Street, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Chair
Harley Shaiken
Acting Vice Chair
Dionicia RamosEditor and Publications Coordinator
Jean SpencerProgram Coordinator
Beth PerryDesign and Layout
Greg Louden
Special thanks to former CLAS staff members Sara E. Lamson, Jacqueline Sullivan and Matt Werner.Contributing Editor: Deborah Meacham
Additional thanks to: Carla Aguirre, Lucinda Barnes, Dena Beard, Lisa Calden, Sean Carson, Genevieve Cottraux, Daniella Chudler, Vanessa Gatihi, Sharon Gibbons, Lupe Gomez-Downing, Roberto Hernández, Cristina Lleras Figueroa, Tim Lynch, Layda Negrete, Jessica Occhialini, Ernesto Ottone, Rosa Ovshinsky, Stan Ovshinsky, Michael Prete, Lawrence Rinder, Annie Rochfort, Freya Saito, Massimo Tarenghi, Breidi Truscott and Susan Urrutia.
Contributing Photographers: Marceloa Agost, Julie Akers, Ed Carsi, Sandra Cuffe, Jeroen Elfferfich, Will Klinger, Anirudh Koul, mañsk, Matty Nematollahi, Alex E. Proimos, Peg Skorpinski, Jonathan Tobin, Eneas De Troya, Rob Verhoeven and Lisa de Vreede.
Front cover: Street scene around La Fuente de los Faroles, Zacatecas. Photo by Eneas De Troya.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
1Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
We go to press with this Review in the aftermath of
two devastating earthquakes. The quake in Haiti was a
natural disaster that became a social catastrophe, leaving
hundreds of thousands dead and displaced and crippling
the economy. The unusually strong terremoto in Chile —
8.8 on the moment magnitude scale — resulted in hundreds
of dead and severe economic disruption. The disasters saw
an outpouring of aid from throughout the Americas, but
the grueling challenge of rebuilding lies ahead for both
countries. We plan to look at the context of the disasters
and the options for the future in upcoming Reviews.
We begin with a political upheaval: the end of two
decades of center-left governance in Chile and the election
of Sebastián Piñera, a candidate of the right. While the
Piñera victory was hardly a surprise, the new president
faces the tasks of reconstruction on top of the challenge of
constituting a new government. Kirsten Sehnbruch lays out
the possibilities in “Chile Heads Right.” Sehnbruch, a senior
fellow at CLAS and now a professor of Public Policy at the
Universidad de Chile, also examines the historic legacy of
the Bachelet presidency in this edition.
This Review also refl ects on the many challenges
facing Mexico and the United States. Four articles examine
the bilateral relationship from different angles, including:
the economic collapse and its impact on both countries;
the growing importance of issues of transparency and
accountability; energy and the environment; and the
horrifi c escalation of violence associated with the drug
wars. All of these issues were part of the discussion at the
U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum, organized by CLAS and
ITAM and held at Berkeley in the fall of 2009.
Rosemary Joyce, a UC Berkeley Anthropology
professor, writes about “Culture and Politics in the
Honduran Coup.” Joyce has done path-breaking
anthropological research in Honduras for three decades
and brings unusual depth and cultural understanding to
this look at a contemporary political disaster.
Finally, we present a conversation between Fernando
Botero and Lawrence Rinder, director of the Berkeley Art
Museum, about the world-renowned artist’s life and work.
Botero was in Berkeley to open an exhibit showing 60 of
his extraordinary Abu Ghraib paintings and drawings
that he has donated to UC Berkeley. Chancellor Robert J.
Birgeneau presented him with the Chancellor’s Citation,
one of the university’s highest awards.
— Harley Shaiken
Comment
Harley Shaiken with members of the U.S.-Mexico Futures Forum walking across the Berkeley campus, fall 2009.
Phot
o by
Mat
ty N
emat
olla
hi.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
2 Article Title
Chileans go to the polls.Chileans go to the polls.Photo by Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images.Photo by Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
3Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
On January 19, 2010, two decades of government
by the Concertación, Chile’s center-left coalition,
came to an end. The triumphant winner of the
election, Sebastián Piñera, received the congratulations
of the outgoing president, Michelle Bachelet, and the
defeated Concertación candidate, Eduardo Frei, while his
supporters took to the streets to celebrate, honking the
horns of their shiny SUVs. The pelolais, upper-class girls
with glossy hair and high heels, got lost downtown near
Plaza Italia because they had never before ventured beyond
the confi nes of Santiago’s four high-income districts.
More disconcertingly, portraits of Chile’s former dictator,
Augusto Pinochet, appeared from nowhere to line the
streets in some wealthy areas of town.
It was a rare display of upper-class celebration in a city
that continues to be marked by the stark contrast between
a few shiny skyscrapers and the humble homes of the
majority of its population. These unusual images prompt
the question: How did a left-of-center coalition that has
made extraordinary progress in every policy area lose an
election, even as its extremely popular outgoing president
clocked up record approval ratings?
The result of this election was by no means a
foregone conclusion, despite the poor performance of
Chile Heads Right by Kirsten Sehnbruch
ELECTION 2010
>>
Sebastián Piñera demonstrates his soccer skills.
Phot
o by
Rod
rigo
Ara
ngua
/AFP
/Get
ty Im
ages
.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
4
the Concertación’s candidate, Eduardo Frei, in the first
round. In fact, considering that the coalition has spent
the last 20 years in government, the election result was
impressive: rather than a resounding victory for the
right, Piñera won the presidency by a 3 percent margin
and did not obtain the majority he needed in both houses
of Congress to prevent the Concertación from being able
to block legislation.
Still, the Concertación lost the presidency.
Four immediate reasons spring to mind. First, 20 years
in offi ce, no matter how well executed, is a long time for
any government. Tired of seeing the same faces on TV
for the last two decades (and even longer if we consider
the Concertación’s role as opposition to the Pinochet
dictatorship), the Chilean electorate wanted change. During
the last 20 years, Chile has evolved beyond recognition,
as have the aspirations of its population. Twenty years
ago, the main issue was poverty. Now, Chileans are more
concerned with the country’s persistently high levels of
inequality and access to higher education and health care.
The irony of the situation is that the Concertación changed
Chile faster than it adapted to that change itself.
The ad-hoc candidacy of a relatively unknown
congressman, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, is a testimony
to how fed up Chileans have become with traditional
politics. Formerly a member of the Socialist party,
Enríquez-Ominami broke with the Concertación to run as
an independent, garnering an astonishing 20.1 percent of
the vote in the fi rst round of the presidential elections. His
candidacy, which came about due to a lack of democratic
decision-making within the Concertación, was the second
factor contributing to the coalition’s defeat: Enríquez-
Ominami split the vote in the fi rst round of the elections
and then failed to give Frei his wholehearted support in the
second round.
The third problem lay with the Concertación’s
candidate. In a year when the electorate demanded change,
Eduardo Frei was a throwback. Not only had he previously
served as president (1994-2000), he is also the son of a
former president. The drawbacks of Frei’s association with
the past were compounded by his lack of personal pizzazz.
In a democracy in which the personalities of presidents
increasingly decide election results, the reliable, competent,
but nevertheless lackluster fi gure of Frei did little to pull in
votes for the Concertación.
While a candidate with a stronger personality would
undoubtedly have made a difference in this election, the
fourth reason for the Concertación’s loss is probably the
Chile Heads Right
Marco Enríquez-Ominami on the campaign trail.
Photo courtesy of Marco Enríquez-O
minam
i.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
5Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
most critical. Chile’s binominal election system, in which
two candidates from each competing coalition stand in
each district, almost automatically guarantees the victory
of at least one candidate from the governing and one from
the opposition coalition in every electoral district. This
leads to a system of pre-negotiated democracy, in which
who wins depends more on which candidate is set to
compete against which coalition partner than on any real
competition between political coalitions. The resultant
jockeying for candidacy strains the unity of the coalition.
Moreover, the inertia that this system generates prevents
the emergence of younger politicians: candidacies are
awarded by party elders, rather than being the result of
any organic grassroots process.
This system of negotiated democracy has undoubtedly
led to cronyism and a degree of clientelism within the
coalitions, even though actual corruption rates in Chile
remain very low. This phenomenon has been more visible
to the electorate in the case of the Concertación because
these party negotiations have been replicated within the
governing administration, leading to the impression that
offi ces are fi lled according to political connections rather
than merit.
In addition, this system prevents political renewal, as it
is diffi cult for outsiders to break into party negotiations or to
set up independent candidacies. It also explains why political
parties in Chile are so poorly regarded by the electorate and
magnifi es why 20 years in offi ce, an extraordinary feat in
itself, left voters looking for change.
The big question now is whether Sebastián Piñera will
really be able to institute the changes he promised in the
short four-year presidential term, which does not allow for
consecutive reelections. These promises include recovering
economic growth rates of 6 percent per annum, generating
one million decent jobs, privatizing a portion of the state
copper company, reforming the government, reducing
crime and taking a tougher judicial approach to criminals.
Since Piñera does not have a clear majority in either
house of Congress, the Concertación could mount a strong
opposition to any policies it does not favor. Furthermore,
Piñera will have to face the difficulty of balancing the
interests within his coalition. His own party, Renovación >>
Eduardo Frei speaks to supporters.
Phot
o co
urte
sy o
f Edu
ardo
Fre
i.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
6 Chile Heads Right
Nacional (National Renewal, RN), has more senators,
but his coalition partner, the Unión Democrática
Independiente (Independent Democratic Union, UDI)
has twice as many deputies and clearly expects to play
an important role in his government. Therefore, the
first dilemma Piñera will face is how to balance these
pressures, particularly since many of the UDI’s members
are so closely linked to the former dictator, Augusto
Pinochet. The question of whether Piñera would include
politicians in his administration who had also participated
in Pinochet’s government caused a lot of tension during
the final days before the presidential election. Although
Piñera knows that any association with the dictatorship
is politically dangerous, he also has to keep his coalition
partners happy. Just as presidents Lagos and Bachelet
had to prove that the left is no longer the left of Salvador
Allende, Piñera has to prove that the right is no longer the
right of Augusto Pinochet.
Piñera’s cabinet nominations show that he is well aware
of these issues. Out of a cabinet of 22 ministers, Piñera
only picked eight from his coalition parties. One minister,
Jaime Ravinet, is a long-standing Christian Democrat
and a former minister in the Lagos administration.
The remaining 13 ministers are not party militants but
independent technocrats. By selecting a cabinet with
such a large number of independent ministers, Piñera is
sending several clear signals: fi rst, he is relegating political
parties to a position of secondary importance. Second,
he is demonstrating that he has selected his ministers for
their qualifi cations and levels of expertise rather than to
satisfy party quotas. Third, his nominations distance his
government from the Pinochet dictatorship and force
the parties that back him to follow this shift towards the
political center. Fourth, the fact that most of the new
ministers come from high-level management positions
in the private sector demonstrates Piñera’s desire to
introduce a change of attitude and greater effi ciency into
Chile’s public sector. Fifth, governing with members of
the opposition in key ministerial positions demonstrates
Piñera’s desire to establish a government of national unity,
a new concept in Chilean politics, where the lines between
government and opposition have never yet been crossed.
Piñera supporters celebrate victory.
Photo by Lisa de Vreede.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
7Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
So far, Piñera’s strategy constitutes a high-risk
political gamble. As yet, it is too early to say whether he
will win or lose. Appointing cabinet ministers without
political experience or party endorsement could backfire.
The same goes for appointing ministers from the private
sector who have obvious conf licts of interest between
their new and their old positions. Again, this is untested
ground for Chile’s post-transition democracy, which will
have to find transparent mechanisms for managing these
conf licts of interest.
It is clear that Piñera is betting on the unity and
political discipline of his coalition, which will be driven by
a desire to win the 2014 election and thus defi nitively break
the Concertación’s stranglehold on power. If his cabinet
functions smoothly and successfully, this unity is likely
to hold. Problems could arise if the new cabinet makes
mistakes or is faced with unexpected popular unrest.
Chile’s immediate political future will also depend
to a significant extent on the role of President Bachelet,
who could potentially stand for reelection in 2014. While
her overwhelming approval ratings make her a potential
candidate, the clamor for generational change, together
with the lack of political unity in a Concertación that
needs to regroup and rethink, could have an impact on
the race.
In any case, the 2014 elections will be very different
from past elections: an electoral reform is likely to be
passed that will no longer require people to register to vote.
Registration will become automatic while the actual voting
will become voluntary. At present, voters are not obliged to
register, and many choose not to, but once they do, it is
mandatory for them to vote in every subsequent election
or they may be fi ned. This means that young people, who
since 1990 have generally not bothered to register to vote,
will be able to do so without going through the previously
required administrative steps. It also means that many
of those who currently get out and vote may stay home.
These changes will have an unpredictable impact on voting
patterns, so in 2014 anything could happen.
Kirsten Sehnbruch is a professor of Public Policy at the Instituto de Asuntos Publicos, Universidad de Chile.
Phot
o by
Cla
udio
San
tana
/AFP
/Get
ty Im
ages
.
The new president faces unforeseen challenges: fi shing boats cast ashore by a tsunami, February 2010.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
8
The U.S.–Mexico The U.S.–Mexico Futures ForumFutures Forum
A project of CLAS and ITAMA project of CLAS and ITAMSponsored by the Hewlett Foundation Sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation
The Diana fountain, Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City.(Photo by Anirudh Koul.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
9Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
The Great Recession has underscored how closely
the economic fates of Mexico and the United
States are intertwined, with oil, immigration
and manufacturing playing lead roles in this tale of two
economies. Mexico shares nearly 2,000 miles of border
with its northern neighbor, and a substantial portion of
the country’s income is made up of oil and manufacturing
exports to the United States and remittance checks sent
home by workers who have immigrated to the world’s
largest economy. Mexico inevitably experiences crippling
shock waves when the U.S. economy falters.
The current economic downturn is no exception.
Mexico’s economy has been the hardest hit in Latin
America; its GDP dropped 10 percent from the second
quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009. Furthermore,
the crisis has uncovered serious structural fl aws in both
countries’ economies that are likely to inhibit a full recovery,
according to the panelists who led a discussion on the
Global Economic Crisis at the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum.
Presenters included Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy
at UC Berkeley; J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics
at UC Berkeley; and Isaac Katz, Professor of Economics at
the Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Although much attention has been paid in congressional
hearings and in the media to the proximate causes of the
crisis in the U.S. — subprime lending and overreach by
banks — careful analysis reveals root causes that extend at
least as far back as the Reagan administration. Reich and
DeLong identifi ed the regressive tax reforms of the 1980s
and the Federal Reserve Bank’s hands-off approach to
overseeing fi nancial institutions as factors that precipitated
the downturn. The two experts made the case that the U.S.
A Tale of Two Economiesby Brian Palmer-Rubin
U.S.– MEXICO FUTURES FORUMForeclosure sign in Salton City, California.
Photo by Jeroen Elfferfi ch.
>>
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
10 A Tale of Two Economies
economy, once lauded as the pinnacle of capitalism, faces
serious structural problems.
Most dire is the concentration of wealth in recent
decades, which has led to anemic demand. Because those
with lower incomes spend a higher percentage of their
earnings, Reich explained, the concentration of income at
the top has hindered consumption. He also posited that
growing inequality played a substantial role in the subprime
mortgage crisis, as middle-class Americans accumulated
unmanageable levels of debt in response to rising housing
prices and stagnant wages.
The hubris of the Federal Reserve Bank regarding its
ability to avert large-scale crises is also to blame for the
current situation, DeLong maintained. After more than
half a century without a severe economic crisis in the U.S.,
the Fed under Chairman Alan Greenspan (1987-2006)
endorsed fi nancial deregulation, confi dent in the stability
of self-regulating fi nancial markets. This optimism carried
over into the term of Ben Bernanke, Greenspan’s successor.
As a result of this miscalculation, said DeLong, the Fed did
not intervene quickly enough and did not have the right
tools to take effective action when important fi nancial
institutions, such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and
Merrill Lynch, began to fail.
While many experts predict that the U.S. economy will
stabilize by 2010, formally ending the current recession,
Reich and DeLong did not see great prospects for a
boost in the level of aggregate demand. For Mexico, this
spells bad news. Though demand for oil, Mexico’s most
important export, is expected to rebound, one-fi fth of
Mexico’s economy is based on manufacturing exports to
the U.S., a less-promising sector. Since the 1980s, Mexico
has implemented an export-led growth model for economic
development. As a result, over the past 20 years, the share
of foreign trade has doubled, from about one-third of GDP
to roughly two-thirds, according to Reich. It follows that
low demand north of the border would lead to declining
employment and income south of the border. In Reich’s
words, “Mexico is sleeping with an elephant, and the
elephant is very sick.”
Even more disconcerting, there is reason to doubt that
economic recuperation in the U.S. will be paralleled in Mexico.
With stubbornly low levels of demand among American
consumers, Mexico’s industrial sector is unlikely to lead
the way to economic recovery, said DeLong. Moreover, the
most viable potential “leading sectors” in generating extra
demand in the United States — government health care and
import-substitution manufacturing — offer little in the way
of support for Mexican production. According to several
indicators — GDP, employment, government revenue —
Mexico has been the Latin American country hardest hit by
the economic crisis. Katz offered two explanations for the
Declining demand from the United States has affected Mexico’s export industry.
Photo by Jonathan Tobin.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
11Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Guillermo Ortiz, president of the Bank of Mexico, with a graph of his country’s GDP growth over the last few years.
>>
Phot
o by
Gre
gory
Bul
l/AP
Phot
o.
severe impact south of the Rio Grande. First, he echoed Reich
and DeLong in noting that Mexico is the country whose
economy is most closely linked to the U.S. through trade and
remittances. Second, Katz argued that Mexico’s economy has
a particularly ineffi cient incentive structure, which stunts
research and development and hinders competition.
Two key economic sectors are illustrative of the
ineffi ciencies in the Mexican market system. First,
Pemex, the state-owned oil company, is stuck with aging
infrastructure and limited resources for investment, as its
coffers are regularly raided by the federal government to pay
for social programs. Second, lenient competition policy for
public utilities has led to infl ated prices and spotty service,
hampering the growth of all business sectors that rely on
those services. Such ineffi ciencies not only stunt economic
growth but also lead to smaller government budgets, since
lower business revenue yields lower tax payments.
Given the Mexican government’s limited funds,
President Felipe Calderón’s administration has chosen to
stay the course, continuing to emphasize fi scal austerity, as it
did prior to the crisis, rather than implementing a stimulus
package. Most other Latin American countries have taken
the same approach. Yet practically all countries in the region,
aside from Mexico, are navigating the turbulent times with
a remarkable level of stability.
Chile’s handling of the crisis serves as a positive model.
Blessed with a thriving copper mining industry, the South
American country’s export markets fl ourished in the years
preceding the crisis as copper prices reached an all-time
high. Rather than spending all its copper tax revenue right
away, however, the Chilean government invested a large
portion of these funds in a special account to help the
country withstand future downturns. This strategy seems
incredibly prescient today, as Chile has been able to put in
place a $4 billion stimulus package (2.8 percent of GDP)
without going into debt. Chile is providing evidence to
counter the long-held assumption that reliance on natural
resources leads to profl igate spending.
In contrast, Mexico’s investment rating with agencies
such as Standard and Poor’s is likely to decline if the
country does not resolve its budget imbalance in the
coming months. A lower rating would further intensify
Mexico’s economic woes by discouraging much-needed
foreign investment. Given that Mexico’s oil fields, from
which the government derives one-third of its revenue,
are in serious decline, the most obvious option for
avoiding future budget deficits is to raise the income tax,
Katz argued. He suggested a jump from its current level
of about 10 percent of GDP to roughly 17 percent. Such a
reform poses immense political challenges, however, and
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
12 A Tale of Two Economies
prospects for tax reform in the near
future are low.
More so than in other Latin
American countries, economic down-
turns in Mexico are exacerbated
by emigration. A lack of attractive
job opportunities induces young
Mexicans — both skilled and unskilled
— to cast their fate as immigrants
in the U.S., leading to a shortage of
qualifi ed workers for new jobs in
Mexico, as well as subpar tax receipts
and consumption. Katz maintained
that formal Mexican employment
would have to grow to offer potential
migrants better alternatives than
moving across the border, but the trend
is in the opposite direction: only the
informal sector is growing in Mexico
today, and informal employment
tends to be precarious and poorly
remunerated. Boosting formal
employment opportunities, however,
would require highly contentious
reforms to policy on energy, education,
telecommunications and labor law.
Unfortunately, Mexico’s political
parties have demonstrated a stubborn
reluctance to reach compromises
on these types of reforms, leading
to stalemate in Congress. Katz
concluded his remarks by noting
that Mexico’s demographic window
of opportunity, the period when the
country’s working-age population is
at its peak, is set to close in 2020. If
Mexico does not enact reforms before
then, he warned, the country will
remain permanently poor.
Poverty indicators lend credence
to this sobering assertion. According
to fi gures calculated by Coneval, the
Mexican government’s Council to
Evaluate Social Development Policy,
the number of Mexicans living below
the poverty line has increased by
roughly 6 million, from 44.7 to 50.6
million since 2006. This despite the
country’s concerted effort to decrease
the incidence of poverty, which
climbed to a high of 64 million in the
aftermath of the 1996 peso crisis. The
latest increase in the poverty level
refl ects the fact that many Mexican
citizens who had been precariously
perched above the poverty line before
the crisis today struggle to make ends
meet. According to data from the
Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y
Empleo (ENOE, National Survey on
Occupation and Employment), formal
unemployment has only increased
from 3.5 percent to 5.2 percent
since the second quarter of 2008,
but underemployment — defi ned as
involuntary part-time employment
— has almost doubled during the
same period, rising from 6.9 percent
to 11.1 percent of workers.
In light of their pessimism
regarding traditional manufacturing
and oil, participants at the forum
suggested other economic sectors
— such as green energy and health
tourism — that could lead the way to
a bilateral economic recovery. Special
attention was paid to potential
economic reforms that could generate
bilateral synergy, casting Mexico and
the United States as partners in new
ventures rather than as competitors.
David Bonior, a former
Democratic Whip of the U.S. House
of Representatives (Mich., 1991-2002)
and current president of American
Rights at Work, a nonprofi t labor
rights organization, offered two
proposals for reforms that could
lead to greater long-term economic
health for the United States. The fi rst
was investment in “green energy”
technology, such as solar power,
which, according to Bonior, has
the potential to strengthen the U.S.
manufacturing sector in the immediate
term and also to insure the country
against rising fossil fuel prices.
Bonior’s second proposal was
the passage of legislation, such as the
Employee Free Choice Act, that would
strengthen the bargaining power
of U.S. unions, ameliorating rising
inequality and the ongoing crisis of
insuffi cient demand from middle-class
consumers. While Reich, a former U.S.
Labor Secretary (1993-97), concurred
that improving the bargaining power
of the U.S. working class would be a
step in the right direction, he warned
that American manufacturing jobs are
facing several threats, including the
automation of industrial production
and the outsourcing of jobs.
Harley Shaiken, Chair of UC
Berkeley’s Center for Latin American
Studies, agreed that potential advances
in low-carbon energy technology
offer an opportunity for the U.S. and
Mexican economies to turn the corner.
Shaiken further emphasized that these
Mexico’s demographic window of opportunity.(Source: “De la población de México 2005-2050,” Consejo Nacional de Población/www.conapo.gob.mx.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
13Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
countries can learn a lesson from China about the close
relationship between manufacturing and development.
Rather than designing high-tech products domestically
and outsourcing the manufacturing, Shaiken argued that
the U.S. should retain domestic manufacturing jobs, as
China has done, by sustaining a close linkage between the
research and production processes of such energy-effi cient
technology as hybrid cars, solar-power components and
advanced battery systems.
Despite the dire economic prospects faced by the U.S.
and Mexico, the two countries’ shared suffering has the
potential to yield a positive outcome. With both countries
facing a need for far-reaching economic reform, new
opportunities may arise for closer bilateral collaboration.
Rafael Fernández de Castro, Presidential Adviser on
International Affairs and Competitiveness in Mexico,
shared his vision of “Nafta 2.0,” a set of reforms that
would usher in a period of greater economic cooperation.
Potential components of Nafta 2.0 include: allowing U.S.
retirees to use Medicare in Mexico, thereby contributing to
the Mexican economy and accessing less-costly treatment
than that provided by U.S. doctors; creating a North
American market for the copper trade; improving border
infrastructure, particularly by installing the necessary
facilities to safely allow the passage of Mexican trucks
into the U.S.; and implementing bilateral agreements on
labor policy. Such proposals are likely to be met with great
resistance; in particular, healthcare policy and border
security are highly contentious political issues in the
United States.
Whether such reforms take place depends on political
will and the outcome of future bilateral negotiations.
What the speakers at this panel made clear, however, is
that the economic fates of the United States and Mexico
are intimately linked. Without much-needed reforms,
both economies are likely to continue to stumble for the
foreseeable future.
The Economic Crisis Panel was one of four sessions of the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum held at UC Berkeley on August 23-25, 2009. The presenters included J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley; Isaac Katz, Professor of Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México; and Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and former U.S. Secretary of Labor (1993-97).
Brian Palmer-Rubin is a Ph.D. student in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley.
American retirees go to Mexico for low-cost health care and affordable retirement options.
Phot
o by
Ste
ve L
iss/
Tim
e Li
fe P
ictu
res/
Get
ty Im
ages
.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
14
Can a political system be described as democratic if its
own citizens are unable to access offi cial documents
or even basic information about government
processes? Analysts argue that “access to information” or
“transparency” reforms are a key element of the second step
of democratization, the ongoing political transformations
that secure the rule of law and open up opportunities for
greater political participation in fl edgling democracies. In
the last decade, these types of reforms have been adopted
by several Latin American governments, transforming the
relationship between agencies and the citizens they serve.
Transparency reforms are not only important in young
democracies, however. As demonstrated by the notoriously
opaque Bush administration — particularly with regard
to national security — basic political freedoms and the
quality of democracy are vulnerable to abuse if politicians
are not subject to public scrutiny.
The United States and Mexico are both at pivotal
moments in achieving greater government transparency.
In 2002, the Mexican Congress passed a federal
transparency law and created an agency to handle
information requests from citizens, the Instituto Federal
de Acceso a la Información Pública (Federal Agency for
Public Information Access, IFAI). And in the U.S., as one
of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama wrote a
memo to the heads of federal agencies and departments,
calling on them to help usher in what he called “a new era
of open government.”
While these advances are welcome steps in the
right direction, both countries still have work to do
Peering Behind the Curtainby Jude Joffe-Block and Brian Palmer-Rubin
U.S.– MEXICO FUTURES FORUMFederal police line Mexico City’s Zócalo before a speech by President Calderón.
(Photo by Julie Akers.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
15Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
to ensure greater openness and accountability in
their political systems, according to Kristin Adair,
Staff Counsel at the National Security Archive, a
research institute based in Washington, D.C., and
Juan Ernesto Pardinas, a consultant with the Instituto
Mexicano para la Competitividad (Mexican Institute
for Competitiveness). Adair and Pardinas delivered
presentations on these topics at the U.S.–Mexico Futures
Forum panel on Transparency and Accountability.
The U.S. pioneered access to information legislation
with the 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),
which was one of the fi rst laws ratifi ed worldwide to
allow citizens to request access to state documents. Yet
in the four decades since this law was adopted, the U.S.
government has experienced ebbs and fl ows in its level of
transparency. The latest transition of power is only the
most recent example. Adair explained that transparency
policy in the U.S. remains at a crossroads between the Bush
administration, which operated under the “presumption
of secrecy,” and the Obama administration, which has
pledged to disclose any information that does not clearly
fall under the category of classifi ed.
Still, even with the Obama administration’s renewed
commitment to transparency, the American system is
grappling with a number of challenges, according to
Adair. National security concerns still loom large and
are often in conf lict with the public’s “right-to-know.”
For example, the Obama administration cited security
concerns when it refused to release photographs of
tortured detainees in U.S. custody.
Furthermore, the procedure for responding to
information requests is not yet seamless. Federal agencies
do not have adequate resources to respond effectively to
citizen information requests, sometimes leading to long
delays in answering these petitions, which renders the
service unsuitable for media organizations operating
on short deadlines or lawyers who need information
for pending legal proceedings. In addition to these
logistical concerns is the technical challenge of archiving
government records and communications when so much
government business is now done over email.
Moreover, the system lacks any built-in oversight or
enforcement mechanisms; complaints for unjust denials
of information requests must go though the courts
for resolution — a lengthy and arduous path. There is
reason for optimism, however. Adair noted that in the
fall of 2009, the Office of Government Services will be
introduced, employing an ombudsman who will take
up the cause of citizens in cases where agencies did not
comply with their information requests.
One hope for the Obama administration’s new policy
of openness is that it will translate into freer information
sharing between U.S. and Mexican authorities. Adair
argued that security interests would benefit if law
enforcement agencies on both sides of the border were
to have a more streamlined process for coordination.
Also, improving bilateral communication regarding
environmental health issues is necessary to avoid public
health disasters in border areas, pointed out Adrián
Fernández Bremauntz, president of the Instituto Nacional
de Ecologia (INE, National Ecological Institute), a
research organization of the Mexican government.
Not only are there likely benefi ts to information
sharing across the border, Adair also highlighted several
ways in which the U.S. could improve access to information
by following the example of Mexico’s IFAI. First, the IFAI
handles information requests through a streamlined and
user-friendly, Internet-based system in contrast to the U.S.
system, where requests must be submitted to individual
agencies. Second, the IFAI consistently sets and monitors
deadlines for government agencies to respond to citizen
requests. While Mexican agencies have up to 30 days to
respond, Adair cited cases of U.S. agencies taking as long
as 20 years.
Indeed, Mexico’s approach to government
transparency is both innovative and far reaching. The
IFAI, which serves the role of intermediary between
citizens and government agencies, is a unique institution.
In most other countries with access to information laws
— like the U.S. — citizens submit their requests directly
to the agencies from which they require the information.
The procedure and the success rate often vary widely
between agencies. In contrast, the IFAI centralizes the
process, allowing citizens to submit all of their requests for
information from federal government agencies through a
single, user-friendly website. With the click of a mouse,
a citizen can also register an appeal if she feels that an
information request was unduly denied or an agency’s
response was inadequate. A board of IFAI commissioners
then considers the appeal, with the mandate to insist on
disclosure in cases where the information requested is not
explicitly exempt according to the 2002 transparency law.
This system has yielded positive results: a recent analysis
found that over 80 percent of information requests handled
by the IFAI were fulfi lled within the established deadline.
The IFAI is not without its faults, however. Requesting
government information remains a diffi cult proposition
for the average citizen. Information requests that are not
composed using bureaucratic jargon or referencing offi cial
documents are often unsuccessful. Agencies can deny >>
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
16 Peering Behind the Curtain
requests by claiming that the information sought does not
exist. These denials are close to impossible for the citizen
requester or the IFAI to verify.
Mexican statesman Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas noted
that one of the IFAI’s greatest weaknesses is its inability
to compel compliance in cases where agencies refuse to
provide information that the appeals board has already
directed them to release. Mexico’s Secretaría de la Función
Pública (Ministry of Public Administration), a federal
agency charged with promoting governmental trans-
parency and accountability, is vested with the power to
enforce compliance with the rulings of the IFAI appeals
board. As Cárdenas pointed out, however, this enforcement
body often appears to be more interested in catching people
in the act of malfeasance than actually preventing abuses,
missing many opportunities to improve the provision of
information. Pardinas agreed with Cárdenas’ observation
but was cautiously optimistic that a newer agency, the
Auditoría Superior de la Federación, which is modeled
on the U.S. Government Accountability Offi ce, has the
potential to improve the oversight system for Mexico’s
transparency mechanism.
Several of the shortcomings of Mexico’s access to
information system are described in an article by Jonathan
Fox, Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies
at UC Santa Cruz, entitled “Mexico’s Right-to-Know
Reforms,” published in the Fall 2008 edition of this
journal. Fox recounts the experiences of grassroots civil
society organizations in the Mexican state of Guerrero that
attempted to use the public information system to uncover
offi cial documents revealing misappropriation of federal
funds for state-run rural health clinics. Even though
activists from these organizations had personally seen the
documents requested, they were told by the Department
of Health that the documents did not exist. Their appeals
were unsuccessful because the IFAI appeals board was
unable to verify whether or not the documents existed.
This example demonstrates another weakness in
Mexican government transparency. State and local
governments are not subject to the federal access to
information law or to the jurisdiction of the IFAI, leading
to generally lower levels of transparency for these entities.
Pardinas’ presentation highlighted the serious
inadequacies in government oversight at the state and
municipal levels in Mexico. He argued that Mexico’s
decentralization of executive agencies in the 1990s was
too hasty and failed to create adequate provisions for
ensuring responsible governance at the local level. In
particular, he cited a lack of standard budgeting practices
at the state and local levels. As a case in point, Pardinas
compared the state of Jalisco’s detailed 2008 budget,
which totaled 277 pages, with the single paragraph
produced by Baja California Sur.
Many analysts support Pardinas’ assertion that the
shortcomings of Mexico’s federal political system are the
result of the haphazard way in which decentralization
reforms were adopted. Decentralization began to pick up
steam in the 1990s, when the Carlos Salinas de Gortari
and Ernesto Zedillo administrations expanded state and
municipal budgets as much as tenfold and allowed state
governments to drastically increase taxation of their
citizens. By 1997, state and municipal governments had
acquired much greater control over such policy areas
as education, health care, public works and economic
development. These reforms took place during a period
in which the once-hegemonic Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI)
began to face serious threats to its electoral dominance
at the national level. The party was able to strengthen
its electoral base at a more local level by decentralizing
budgets and policymaking to governors and municipal
presidents. However, these reforms were undertaken
without the necessary preconditions: capacity building
for state and municipal governments; legislation to guide
budgeting and public administration; and mechanisms for
coordination between federal, state and local leaders.
To illustrate his point that decentralization had led
to inadequate government oversight, Pardinas shared the
colorful case of José Antonio Ríos Granados, the former
The terse budget for the state of Baja California Sur.
Image courtesy of the state of Baja C
alifornia Sur.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
17Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
mayor of Tultitlán, a small city in the
state of Mexico, who took advantage
of lax oversight to alter the municipal
budget and to elevate his own salary
to roughly $250,000 — a fi gure that
compares favorably with the salaries
of many G-8 leaders. The enterprising
mayor also used government funds
to attract the B-movie industry to
Tultitlán, with the condition that
he appear in fi lms shot in his city.
Pardinas theorized that a lack of
oversight led many other local and
state governments to squander
their budget surpluses during times
of prosperity, an outcome that is
exacting a painful cost for Mexico in
today’s dire economic climate.
Still, a great triumph of Mexico’s
access to information law is that
citizen watchdog efforts can expose
these instances of government mis-
management. Uncovering corruption
with facts obtained through IFAI
information requests can also be a
source of empowerment for groups
that are traditionally marginalized.
C.R. Hibbs, Managing Director
of the Hewlett Foundation’s Mexico
Program, recounted one such case
to the group of participants in
the session. She told of a woman’s
organization in rural Veracruz that
used an information request to access
health records that proved that the
government had falsifi ed documents
in order to deny them essential
medical procedures to which they
were entitled. By exposing this
misconduct, these women were able
to draw attention to their cause and
pressure the state to provide the
promised medical services. In light of
cases such as these, Hibbs urged the
forum participants not to lose sight of
“the power of the information itself
to change lives and have an impact on
even the poorest of the poor and the
least-empowered citizens.”
As Harley Shaiken, Chair of
the UC Berkeley Center for Latin
American Studies observed, the
discussion went beyond transparency
and accountability and was, in fact,
about the infrastructure necessary
for a democratic society. “Absent
transparency, development becomes
far more complicated. Absent
transparency and accountability,
democratic processes are much more
uncertain,” Shaiken concluded.
The Transparency and Accountability Panel was a session of the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum held at UC Berkeley on August 23-25, 2009.
Presenters included Kristin Adair, Staff Counsel at the National Security Archive, and Juan Ernesto Pardinas, Consultant for the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad.
Jude Joffe-Block is a student in the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.
Brian Palmer-Rubin is a Ph.D. student in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley.
DV
D c
over
from
Woo
dhav
en E
nter
tain
men
t.
This B-movie, shot in Tultitlán, features the town’s then-mayor, José Antonio Ríos Granados.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
18 Headwinds for Climate Change Policy
“The climate imperative is truly pressing…
every single lesson on the climate science
side is bad.” Dan Kammen, a UC Berkeley
professor of Energy and Public Policy, pulled no punches
in his opening remarks as part of the Alternative Energy
Panel at the 2009 U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum. Oceans,
terrestrial ecosystems and the Arctic are experiencing rates
of change that scientists had not previously predicted in
any of the global climate models, he asserted. Kammen’s
fellow panelist, Bracken Hendricks of the Center for
American Progress, elaborated on his grim prognosis,
pointing to the human and economic costs of such rapid
environmental change: “Two to four billion people
going without access to reliable drinking water is not an
environmental problem. It’s a tremendous geopolitical
security problem. It’s a health problem. It’s a devastating
social and economic problem.”
The panel, which also included Adrián Fernández
Bremauntz, President of Mexico’s National Ecology
Institute, continued a discussion begun at the 2008 Futures
Forum held in Mexico City. At that conference, Kammen
documented the continuing rise in global carbon emissions
despite the growing availability of cost-effective, low-carbon
technologies. Worse still, he warned, when oil prices rise,
vast reserves of even more environmentally damaging oil
from tar sands and other unconventional sources will enter
the global fuel mix unless policies explicitly require that the
energy gap be fi lled with clean, renewable sources such as
wind, solar and tidal energy. “It’s going to be a policy battle,
fi rst and foremost,” he said then. “And that’s a sobering
thought because, in this area, policy in the United States
moves slowly.”
Less than a year later, the tone of the conversation
had shifted dramatically. This time, Kammen focused his
comments on the “remarkable” changes in the political
landscape and on a range of new opportunities arising to
support a cleaner energy economy. The most notable change
in the political landscape was, of course, the election of
President Barack Obama. With a sizable portion of economic
stimulus money being directed to clean energy and a climate
change bill making its way through Congress, addressing
climate change has moved up the political agenda.
Now, the greatest challenge is keeping up with the
tremendous opportunities afforded by the stimulus funding,
Kammen explained. “We are dramatically understaffed…
the number of people who are expert and working on the
diverse aspects of the low-carbon economy is dramatically
smaller than the most minimum set you would want in these
areas.” With roughly one-eighth of stimulus funding being
channeled into clean energy, “all federal energy offi ces, in
the very short term, now have an infi nite amount of money,
in the sense that there is well more money available than
they can spend.”
The implication is that so-called shovel-ready clean
energy projects can now be dramatically scaled-up.
Kammen cited one example, a clever fi nancing scheme fi rst
proposed in the city of Berkeley, which is designed to take the
sting out of upfront costs for homeowners. Under the plan,
cities borrow money at low rates, pay for energy retrofi ts and
Headwinds for Climate Change Policyby Christopher M. Jones
U.S.– MEXICO FUTURES FORUM
President Calderón speaks at the opening of La Ventosa, a wind farm in Oaxaca.
Phot
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f the
Mex
ican
Fed
eral
Gov
ernm
ent.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
19Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
solar installations on the homes of participating residents and
then simply charge homeowners the loan amount over time
by marginally increasing their property taxes, the amount
of which is offset by lower monthly energy bills. In part
due to such fi nancing options, Kammen argued that solar
could contribute upwards of 20 percent of U.S. electricity by
2025 or sooner. Coupled with a similar or greater amount
of energy from wind, these two renewable energy sources
alone could cut greenhouse gas emissions from electricity in
half. Portugal already gets 42 percent of its electricity from
wind during peak times, Kammen noted.
Building on this example, Bracken Hendricks pointed
out that the benefits of the Berkeley model extend far
beyond greenhouse gas reductions. With creative energy
financing, “you’re getting consumer savings. You’re
getting job creation. You’re deploying clean energy
technology. You’re reducing carbon emissions, and
you’re creating all these spillover economic development
benefits.” In other words, “solving global warming is
really an investment agenda” that can ultimately drive
economic development in a virtuous cycle of positive
feedback loops.
Reiterating a point by Kammen, Hendricks maintained
that the transition to a clean energy economy is not just
about creating green jobs; it’s about creating jobs, plain and
simple. It’s about creating more vibrant and sustainable
economies. “Fundamentally we’re asking the wrong
question if we ask how much does it cost to build a low-
carbon economy.” The important question is not whether
we should invest in a clean energy future, but what, exactly,
are we going to build. “How do we rewire the grid around
renewable energy? How do we go block-by-block and
household-by-household and retrofi t for energy effi ciency?”
he asked.
If the debate in the United States is shifting to
substance, the focus in Mexico is shifting to international
diplomacy. Mexico has become the fi rst developing country
to voluntarily commit to greenhouse gas reduction, and
it is now an active player in international climate change
mitigation talks through the Kyoto Protocol process. A
recent proposal by the Calderón administration would
create a “green fund” for global development that would
allow any country, regardless of its level of economic
development, to borrow from and invest in the fund. As
Hendricks noted, this changes the way we think about
the issues in fundamental ways. Instead of framing the
international climate debate in terms of the interests of
rich vs. poor countries, the concept of a green fund creates
a framework for international cooperation.
For panelist Adrián Fernández Bremauntz, Calderón’s
proposals don’t go far enough. Mexico should accept
a mandatory or binding greenhouse gas reduction
commitment. “The time for sitting on the fence is over,” he
said. What is needed is a comprehensive climate strategy
that creates an “optimal package” of interventions that is
appropriate for Mexico’s political, economic and social
context. Unfortunately, the time for Mexico to create its
own strategy is quickly running out. “We are moving at a
very slow pace. The time will come that we will have to sign
a policy that was designed by someone else,” he warned.
Not surprisingly, a major challenge to designing
effective climate policy in Mexico and other developing
countries is a vast shortage of technical expertise. Echoing
Kammen’s previous point about human capital, Fernández
added, “If the United States is understaffed, think about
Mexico. We have scarce human capital in Mexico. That’s
Mexico. What about Central America?” In spite of these
diffi culties, Mexico and other developing countries
should work quickly to create a set of climate policies
and interventions that are within reach. This is critical if
>>
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
20 Headwinds for Climate Change Policy
appropriate reduction targets are to be
set for individual countries.
For Mexico, Fernández proposed
that target setting should be based
on: 1) actions that can be taken at the
country’s own initiative; 2) actions that
can be fi nanced through subsidized
international loans; and 3) actions
that are possible if the upfront costs
of moving to clean technology are
paid for by countries with historic
responsibility for global warming.
If all these reductions are added
up, Mexico could make a serious
commitment to reducing carbon
emissions. He estimated that “a 30 to
40 percent deviation from businesses
as usual” was possible if there was an
international commitment to helping
Mexico reduce emissions.
The question-and-answer session
highlighted the gap between the
political will to take a leadership
position in climate change negotiations
that exists at high levels of Mexico’s
government and the lack of widespread
popular concern about the issue. Rafael
Fernández de Castro, Presidential
Advisor on International Affairs and
Competitiveness, noted, “I don’t see that
President Calderón is gaining anything
politically for being responsible,
environmentally speaking.” With
security and development at the top of
the Mexican agenda, addressing climate
change is simply not an attractive
political platform.
Isaac Katz, a professor of
Economics at ITAM, pointed to
additional institutional barriers.
“Building a wind farm in Mexico is
quite impossible,” he maintained.
The most attractive sites are on ejidos
(communal lands) and, therefore,
approval has to go through the
Ministry of Land Reform. Mexico’s
petroleum monopoly, Pemex,
presents another important obstacle.
As a strategy intended to fi ght poverty,
Pemex keeps energy prices artifi cially
low, thereby undercutting incentives
to conserve. Furthermore, as
Fernández noted, the county’s energy strategy mandates that electricity be produced by the cheapest possible means, which leads to the use of
highly polluting domestic fuel oil. In short, changing institutions takes time, and time is of the essence if the most damaging effects of climate change are to be averted. Several participants lamented the amount of time already wasted. UC Berkeley economist J. Bradford Delong noted that 16 years had elapsed since President Clinton dropped the “Btu tax” — a proposal to tax the heat content of fuels — in 1993. In his view, decades of delay have placed a future with a 2°C rise in temperature out of reach. Barring some miracle, “we face a 5°C global warming future over the next 70 to 150 years,” he warned. Both Hendricks and Kammen were surprisingly upbeat in the face of these comments. “While I accept the premise that it’s tragic that we lost that time, it’s also irrelevant,” Hendricks contended. “Because if we do nothing, we end up with that future. That future is unacceptable. How are we going to get busy, tomorrow, to build this?” he challenged. Kammen concurred, adding, “it’s remarkable… how quickly these technologies have changed when there actually was a focus on them.” The need to bring the developing world on board was also a common area of concern, and a prescient one, as developments at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen attest. At the Forum, Kammen argued that despite the fact that “it’s a logical negotiating position for China and India and many other countries to say, ‘Global warming was created largely by the North, therefore it’s your problem,’” China, at least, has made signifi cant investments in clean technology. In spite of the differences between the developed and the
developing world, Fernández
maintained that “there’s agreement
on what needs to be done.” The
problem lies in how the burden is
Projected green collar jobs created and power generated by state under renewable portfolio standard (RPS) regulations, which set requirements for the proportion of energy produced from renewable sources.(Source: UC Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory/rael.berkeley.edu.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
21Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
going to be shared. Katz built on this idea, arguing that
a signifi cant stumbling block will be how to compensate
the losers. “The senators from the Midwest are really
opposing any energy bill that will cause a reduction in
GDP production,” he noted. “If we take that to the world
as a whole, developing countries are less willing to reduce
carbon emissions because they are poor. The relative cost
for them is higher than for the U.S.” There needs to be
a mechanism to compensate those who will experience a
drop in production if they are asked to reduce emissions,
he asserted.
To wrap up, the panelists were asked to summarize the
single, most important point they wanted the participants to
take away from the session. Professor Kammen’s answer was
succinct. “The one most important idea is pricing carbon.
Period. No footnotes, no nothing. If we don’t price carbon,
even to some degree, we will never send a consistent signal
to business, and we won’t reward companies that fi nd a way
to innovate and go to that lower carbon future... Putting a
price on carbon that is too low is better than no price on
carbon.” Until we do that, he concluded, “everything else
we’re doing is a holding pattern, cobbling things together.”
In the months since the Futures Forum, the
Copenhagen Climate Change Conference has come and
gone to surprisingly small effect, and the cap-and-trade
bill has stalled in Congress. While the cobbling together
continues at the sub-state level, global policy remains in a
holding pattern, with developed and developing countries
facing off in a high-stakes game of chicken. It remains to
be seen whether the dynamism of new policies and new
technologies will be enough to stabilize the climate in the
absence of a binding international treaty.
The Alternative Energy Panel was a session of the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum held at UC Berkeley on August 23-25, 2009. The presenters included Daniel M. Kammen, 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at UC Berkeley; Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Adrián Fernández Bremauntz, President of Mexico’s National Ecology Institute.
Christopher M. Jones is Staff Research Associate at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.
Futures Forum coverage continues on page 31>>
President Barack Obama speaks with world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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ouse
.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
22 The Making of a Maestro
On September 23, 2009, the Center for Latin American Studies and the Berkeley Art Museum held a public event to celebrate Fernando Botero’s donation of his Abu Ghraib series of paintings and drawings to the University of California, Berkeley. At the event, the internationally acclaimed artist was presented with the Chancellor’s Citation for his lifetime of achievement. He then engaged in a public discussion about his life and work with the museum’s director, Lawrence Rinder.
Rinder: Your fi rst presentation as an artist was in 1948, when I believe you were only 16 years old. You sold an illustration, if I am not mistaken.
Botero: Well, yes. I started to participate in group shows in
my hometown with the older painters of the region. Then I
moved to Bogotá and stopped my high school studies and
became a professional artist very early. I was 17 or 18 when I
started as a professional.
R: This work from 1949, “Crying Woman,” was done only a year after you fi rst began to show publicly. Historically, 1948 was the fi rst year of what has become known as “La violencia” — which was a tragic and tremendously important moment in the history of Colombia. We’re still seeing the after-effects today. And it’s unfortunate that your own career began at the very moment when Colombia began to unravel. I wonder if you could talk about “La violencia,” what it was and how it impacted your early years as an artist.
B: It had a great impact because, of course, young people
are very sensitive to these manifestations of violence, social
injustice, etc. We were very touched by this situation. As
you said, violence started in Colombia with the killing
of Jorge Gaitán, who was a popular leader who was going
to be president. A very reactionary group in Colombia
killed him, and then the reaction of the masses was total.
They burned half of Bogotá and Medellín. Every young
The Making of a MaestroLawrence Rinder Interviews Fernando Botero
ART Fernando Botero in conversation with Lawrence Rinder, September 2009.
Photo by Peg Skorpinski.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
23Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
intellectual, student, artist, etc. was
very touched by the situation.
From the point of view of
painting, of course, at that time we
had very little information about
international art. What we got mostly
were reports of Mexican art. I was
very interested in Diego Rivera and
especially Orozco, as you see in
“Crying Woman.” At the same time,
there is an interesting element in
this watercolor from 1949: there was
already a special interest in volume
that you can see in the arm of the
“Crying Woman.” My watercolors of
that time were always very volumetric,
and I just cannot explain why. Really
it was unusual. When I was a student
in Florence a couple of years later, I
was able to rationalize the importance
of volume and understand that in
these watercolors there was already a
tendency inside me. That’s why I was
so enthusiastic about Quattrocento
art [the art of 15th century Italy].
R: You went to Europe in 1952. I imagine part of the reason was to see the great works of art but also to get out of the declining political and social situation in Colombia.
B: It was mostly because I wanted to
see the Great Masters, the museums,
etc. I didn’t know much about the
Great Masters because there was
so little information. I knew there
was somebody called Michelangelo,
Raphael, Titian, Velázquez, but
there was very little information. So
when I got to Europe, I discovered
their fantastic work and that art was
much more important than I had
ever thought, more complex and
extraordinary.
My original plan was to go to
Paris, as every young artist aspires
to do. Then I changed my plans and
went to Italy. That is why my work
is very involved with Italian art,
especially the Quattrocento: Uccello,
Piero della Francesca, etc. As a
matter of fact, I realized when I went
to Florence that Mexican art was
actually inspired by and derivative of
the Quattrocento. It was better to see
the source of this art. From then on, I
was not looking at Mexican art; I was
looking at Quattrocento.
R: And then in ’56 you actually did go to Mexico City. Did you meet any of the muralists at that time?
B: I met Diego Rivera once but in a
group of about ten people. He was there;
I was there.
R: And the infl uence had already occurred in your youth.
B: Well, no. I was very inf luenced by
Mexican art in the beginning because
that was the only thing you saw. Then
once I went to Europe, I saw the
difference — I saw the Great Masters
that inspired the Mexican work. Then
I was much less impressed.
>>
“Crying Woman,” watercolor on paper, 59 x 44 cm, 1949. (© Fernando Botero, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.)
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
24 The Making of a Maestro
I think the Mexican artists were
very important because they refl ected
the political problems of their time.
The reality of the country was
revolutionary, and beyond style or
technique, they were confronting the
very human problems in Mexico.
R: I want to go back to the point you made about volume. You said earlier that volume was an issue even at the very beginning in the 1949 watercolor. I wonder if you could talk about this picture, “Still Life With Mandolin.” I think it was a bit of an epiphany for you.
B: A very early work, yes. By then
I saw the importance of volume
in paintings. I was reading a lot
of Bernard Berenson who gave
tremendous importance to volume.
As a matter of fact, he created a scale
of importance based on the ability
to produce what he called “tactile
values.” As I said before, in my early
work there was an element of volume.
Then, all my work became more and
more involved with volume but in a
way that was very derivative of the
Italian volume.
One day, I was painting a
mandolin, and the moment I was
going to make the hole in the
instrument, I did it very small. There
was something there that I identifi ed
with immediately. I saw that it became
much more important, much more
radical. The contrast between the
small detail and the generous outline
makes the form become much more
important and aggressive and sensual
and so many things. People recognize
my work very easily because they see
this exaltation, this extravagant or
exaggerated volume.
Volume was very important
through the centuries after the time
of Giotto up to the Impressionists.
Volume was expressed more or
less in every painting. After the
Impressionists, and in the 20th
century, art became much more
dimensionally fl at, and volume was
forgotten. For me, part of the magic
of a painting is the fact that on this
fl at surface you have the illusion of
space and volume. It really is part
of the mystery of painting. Without
volume, an element of mystery and
sensuality is missing. That is why I
am critical of much of this art that
was extremely decorative. I wanted
my work to reincorporate this
element that was somehow forgotten
or dismissed in the 20th century.
R: So you began applying volume to figures in quite a pronounced way, as in this piece called “Dead Bishops”
from 1958, a really remarkable work that actually anticipates one of the works upstairs, in the Abu Ghraib collection.
B: Yes, exactly. As a matter of fact, I
was thinking of this painting.
R: In the 1958 painting you can see that we are talking about the rotund outline with the small detail. It’s clear. There is another element to this painting, a quality to the palette and also to the brush stroke, which really only existed in your work for about three or four years, right at this point from 1958 to ’61 or ’62. The palette is almost fauve: bright colors, more expressionistic in a way. I think this was a period when you were also living in New York, and I wonder whether there was an infl uence at all from the Abstract Expressionists, or what was the context of this work?
B: I saw the Abstract Expressionist
paintings and was very seduced
by them. It was a very seductive
movement because of the freedom,
the generosity, the sensuality of the
application of color, the brush stroke.
I started painting with a brush stroke
that was apparent.
The art of the Quattrocento
always has a very fi ne surface, and,
historically, most art has very smooth
surfaces. There were very few artists
— like Frans Hals, like Goya in
his Black Paintings — who left the
brush stroke very evident. But the
Abstract Expressionist paintings were
so interesting that for some years I
was doing this. But then, in a way, I
found that it was a contradiction.
I was trying to bring some calm to
my work. I admire the calm of Piero
della Francesca very much. I admire
the calm in Egyptian and Greek art.
Calm gives a sense of eternity to the
form; this exaltation, this fever of the continued on page 28 >>
“Still Life With Mandolin,” oil on canvas, 67 x 121 cm, 1957.
© Fernando Botero, courtesy M
arlborough Gallery, N
ew York.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
25Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Left:“Dead Bishops,” oil on canvas, 175 x 190 cm, 1965.
FOLLOWING PAGE:“Abu Ghraib 89,” 171 x 111 cm,
oil on canvas, 2006.
(All images © Fernando Botero, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York.)
Right:“Dead Bishops,” oil on canvas,
190 x 218 cm, 1958.
26 Article Title
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Spring 2009 27
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
28 The Making of a Maestro
brush stroke, was a contradiction. That is why, at a certain
moment, I stopped.
R: So, for example, this version from 1965 — it’s the same painting but done in the style of Piero della Francesca. So why a pile of dead bishops?
B: I really don’t know my reason exactly. But the reason
I painted people from the church is because, in the
Renaissance, people went around with the most fantastic
colors. They painted that way because the models were then
full of color. In our time, most people wear grey or black
or white, and the people of the church and the toreros are
the only ones who use extravagant colors. For me, it was a
pretext to use color.
R: It’s like a still life of fruit, but instead it’s dead bishops.
B: Why were they in a pile? I really don’t know. I cannot
explain that.
R. And what about these folks? This is called “Offi cial Portrait of the Military Junta” from 1971. I think that this clearly is not just about a grouping of color. This is really a social, a political satire. The composition here very closely resembles the Goya painting “The Family of Charles IV.” So tell me about this. Is this a particular family? What was going on socially and politically at this time?
B: Well, this was the time of the Somozas, the Trujillos and
so many military juntas in Latin America. And of course
everybody who was intelligent was against this ridiculous
thing. It was very easy to make satires when you heard the
stories of generals who were fi ve years old and the kinds
of things that they did in the Dominican Republic and
Guatemala and places like that. Most of Latin America
suffered this kind of military dictatorship. And I did a series
of paintings that were satires of these people. Of course,
Goya’s “The Family of Charles IV” was a good example. I
did a presentation of the Latin American family that was
like “The Family of Charles IV.”
R: And so, in this case, the volumizing of the fi gures seems to be clearly a satirical element. Would you say that, in this case, that formal quality plays the role of satire?
B: Well, the thing is that this volume, for some reason,
inspired people to think that it was funny. When you see
somebody who is very slim, you don’t think it’s funny. But
you think that somebody who is fat is funny.
Actually, I was not trying to do satire. I was trying to
satirize the costumes and the fact that there were these little
generals. I did a presentation that was satirical, but it was
done with the same spirit that I do still life. All my life, I
have been painting still life because the act of painting is
caressing, is trying to communicate sensuality and peace
through the form. Even if I do a painting on a subject that is
repulsive, in a way I have to treat it with the same love that I
treat a fruit. That is the contradiction, but that’s the way it is.
R: What was the response to this work in Latin America? Did you have any diffi culty among the ruling classes? They must have sensed that all was not well, or did they not even notice? Did they commission pieces like this?
B: Actually, I did not meet any of these dictators. I was
living in Europe and New York. But the painting became
extremely popular. People were reproducing it in many
places. That was the positive thing. Actually, that was what I
wanted, that the satire be planted in the mind of the people
so they would see how ridiculous these dictators were.
R: So the Abu Ghraib series is not at all new in your work, in that it takes on the subject of state violence. This is actually something that you have been representing for decades. This untitled piece here from 1978 is one example, but one of many. You’ve been speaking about the role of art to create a feeling of calm and that every painting is fi nally a still life, but can you speak for a moment about the relationship between, maybe not art, but an artist’s practice and state violence? How do you think art should respond? How have you responded?
B: You cannot be indifferent to situations that are so
repulsive. At that time, the police were treating people
very badly. There were these two paintings that ref lected
the situation. Later on, I ref lected the violence in my
country, in Colombia. I did a series of paintings that were
very dramatic…
R: …of the drug war…
B: …of the massacres, the parades of coffi ns. You would see
these parades of 50 or 60 coffi ns coming down the main
streets of these towns. I saw this on television, and I did
paintings. As a matter of fact, I donated that series to the
National Museum in Colombia.
Every time that I’m impressed or shocked by
something, it comes out in my work. I was shocked by the
torture in Iraq at the time of the Bush administration. It
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
29Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
was something the whole world was against. Everybody
that was involved with art, because of the sensibility of the
artist, was more shocked. That is why I developed like a
rage. And one day I started to visualize what was going on
in that prison, and then I began painting. I kept working
and working. It became an obsession until I said what I
had to say. And somehow it was like a therapy, because
the more I painted, the more calm there was in my heart.
When I fi nished doing the series, I felt peace, somehow. It
was a therapy really. But I knew that I had to do something
because it was such a shocking thing. And I did.
R: I wanted to ask you about Christianity because this is a theme that was discussed quite a bit in the conversations that took place on the occasion of your last visit. Professor Tom Laqueur called the Passion of Christ, “the paradigmatic instance of suffering in the Western tradition,” and he suggested that this theme was a very strong undercurrent in your work.
As a sort of counterpoint to that, T.J. Clark, who is also on the faculty here, said that your work might have been stronger if it had stayed, “true to the sordid meaninglessness of the moments captured on fi lm.” He wished that you had explored Abu Ghraib’s fundamental distance from the narratives that have defi ned Western artistic culture, such as the association of physical suffering with redemption and the sacred. So two different points of view: one seeing the connection to Christianity as empowering the work and giving its message added volume, if you will, and another saying that the allusion to the narrative of Christianity and the connection between suffering and sacredness is not really true to what happened, that there was little sacred in Abu Ghraib. Can you talk about that?
B: People have often found a connection between religious
art, Christianity, the Passion of Christ and the work I do.
The truth is that in Latin America, religious art shows a very >>
“The Offi cial Portrait of the Military Junta,” oil on canvas, 173 x 218 cm, 1971.
© F
erna
ndo
Bote
ro, c
ourt
esy
Mar
lbor
ough
Gal
lery
, New
Yor
k.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
30 The Making of a Maestro
bloody presentation of Christ. It was the kind of the thing
you saw in every church. Where there are no museums, no
traditions, no galleries, the art you see when you are a child
and an adolescent is at church.
At the same time, in Latin America the subject of art
has traditionally been religious. Ninety percent of the
work was religious. Then, in the 20th century, there was an
absence of religion in paintings, in art. In a way, it was like
what happened with volume; volume was an element that
disappeared. Religion disappeared as a subject matter in
20th-century art. It had been extremely important for
centuries. Then, since there was this tradition in Latin
America, I liked to do more of this subject matter, even
though I’m not a religious person. But I saw the beauty of
these religious paintings by the old masters of Latin America.
And I like the idea of doing something that is forbidden
somehow, to give importance to a subject matter that is
taboo in modern art. The conception of most art critics
is that this subject matter is taboo. I like the idea of doing
things that everyone thinks you shouldn’t do. Why not?
There is a great tradition of religious art in art history.
And, for me, art history is extremely important. I am
always thinking of the panoramic view of art. If something
was important then, why is it not now? Why can’t you do
it now? In a way, art history gives you the authorization to
sell certain things. Why — if it was great art — why is it
not now?
When I did the Abu Ghraib paintings, all of this
background came out. It is normal. But somehow a lot was
read into it with the Abu Ghraib series. It’s not that I was
trying to do Christ. It is what happened. And it came as an
afterthought. It’s not that I did it on purpose.
(Audience question): Why the relative silence from American artists on this particular subject during this time?
B: I think the only logical explanation why the Americans
— who I’m sure were personally shocked and disgusted with
the situation — didn’t do anything, is because American art
is mostly abstract and conceptual. Perhaps some people did
do something that made a reference to this torture, but it
was not clear. Doing a direct, clear presentation would be a
violation of the philosophy of the conceptual artist. There
are very few well-known fi gurative artists in America, and
they didn’t do anything. But most art today in America
is abstract and conceptual, and it is very diffi cult to say
something like this if you’re an abstract painter. That is
the only logical explanation why it was not done. But it is
incredible at the same time.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau presents Fernando Botero with the Chancellor’s Citation.
Photo by Peg Skorpinski.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
31Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Silver or Lead:Confronting the Business of Violenceby Wendy Muse Sinek
U.S.–MEXICO FUTURES FORUM
Mexico is fast becoming one of the world’s most
violent countries. In 2008, the United States
military issued a Joint Operating Environment
Report that paired Mexico with Pakistan and suggested
that both states were “failing” and susceptible to rapid
collapse. While many analysts, both in Mexico and
elsewhere, strongly dispute this claim, the situation is
undeniably grim. According to a 2009 report published by
Mexico’s Citizen Council for Public Security and Justice,
the murder rate has increased four-fold in Mexico over the
past two years, and as of September 2009, Ciudad Juárez
was found to be more dangerous than either Medellín or
Baghdad. Today, drug traffi cking gangs routinely battle
with President Calderón’s federal troops. Mexican citizens
fi nd themselves caught in the crossfi re, and Americans
worry that violence will spill across the border and into
their front yards.
What sparked this chain of events? More importantly,
what can policy makers in Mexico and the U.S. do to
improve security on both sides of the border? Through
the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum, UC Berkeley’s Center for
Latin American Studies convened a roundtable discussion
to address these issues. Prominent Mexican and U.S.
elected offi cials met with foreign-policy experts from both >>
An unoffi cial street sign in Mexico.
Phot
o by
mañ
sk.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
32 Silver or Lead
countries to discuss causes and solutions to this crisis.
Fully aware of the limitations of any given policy response,
the participants delved into the contours of the debate to
brainstorm realistic policy alternatives.
Shannon O’Neil, Fellow for Latin American Studies at
the Council on Foreign Relations, opened the discussion
with an analysis of the U.S. response to the Mexican
security crisis. On the one hand, Mexico deserves to be at
the top of the foreign policy agenda; the two countries have
become steadily more intertwined over the past 20 years.
Trade, foreign direct investment and even immigration
now fl ow in both directions. These transnational ties
alone are suffi cient to warrant increased U.S. attention.
However, the rise of Mexico on the foreign policy agenda
is due, sadly, to increased concerns over violence.
Given this heightened interest in Washington, what
has the U.S. government done? O’Neil stated that the
main policy result has been the Mérida Initiative, a
security cooperation and assistance package for Mexico
and countries in Central America. According to the U.S.
State Department, the program will provide $1.57 billion
over three years to address security issues in Mexico, with
the money going toward military hardware and training
as well as some institution-building initiatives. In
addition, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives will receive some funding for border
investigations and the Treasury Department will step up
anti-money laundering efforts.
While the Mérida Initiative will undoubtedly provide
needed resources, O’Neil argued that when viewed in
comparative perspective, Mexico still appears to be
an afterthought. Consider that Colombia, which has
generally overcome the security challenges of 2000-01
and is today a relatively stable state, still receives $600
million per year. Pakistan, Mexico’s “partner” as a failing
state, is slated to receive $5 billion for 2010 alone.
More importantly, O’Neil stressed that efforts
to increase security at the border miss larger social,
political and economic concerns that underlie the
escalating violence. For example, the priorities of the
Mérida Initiative were designed with the Plan Colombia
template in mind. However, the security situation in
Mexico is very different. The Colombian state struggled
to achieve a monopoly over the legitimate use of force
throughout their territory because guerrilla movements,
led by drug- and weapons-trafficking organizations,
had gained control over significant portions of the
country. Large swaths of territory were without a strong,
Blood and bullet holes mark a Tijuana murder scene.
Photo by Guillerm
o Arias/A
P Photo.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
33Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
legitimate state presence, and guerrillas were quick to
fill the void. By contrast, the Mexican state is visible and
present in every community, and state institutions are
found throughout the territory. The issue for Mexico is
that these institutions are weak, and in many cases, they
have been co-opted by nefarious elements. As a result,
critical resources need to be dedicated to institution-
building initiatives. Hardware and helicopters are useful
for taming guerrilla factions but not for strengthening
institutional legitimacy and the rule of law.
For a true security solution, O’Neil emphasized that
the U.S. must strengthen democracy in Mexico, namely by
supporting the growing Mexican middle class. Americans
want the border area to be stable and secure. Pouring funds
into military hardware might achieve this objective in the
short term, but for sustained peace, the border area and
other urban centers must provide economic opportunities
for Mexico’s working people. Moreover, no amount of
money will be able to solve Mexico’s security dilemma
without the support of ordinary citizens.
Amalia García Medina, Governor of Zacatecas,
agreed with O’Neil that security is a shared challenge
for both countries. However, she argued that Americans
need to acknowledge the many factors that brought
Mexico to this crisis point. The U.S. is, after all, the
world’s largest consumer market for illegal drugs. By
virtue of its geography, Mexico is a natural location for
producers and traffickers.
The consequences of geography have been
compounded by globalization and the worldwide
economic crisis. Since the passage of Nafta, Mexican corn
farmers have been hit hard by cheap imports at home and
crop subsidies that protect markets abroad. Declining
corn prices have made cultivating marijuana a tempting
alternative. The recent economic crisis has also increased
the pull of the illegal economy. As of September 2009,
there were almost 800,000 newly unemployed persons
in Mexico, all needing to find a way to make a living.
García Medina stressed that these dynamics give Mexican
farming families a terrible choice: suffer the economic
vicissitudes of the legal agricultural markets or cultivate
economically viable but illegal drug crops.
Complicating this situation is the undeniable fact that
corruption exists, not just within Mexico but also at the
U.S. border. Within the past few years, Mexican cartels have
amassed great power, and 90 percent of their weapons >>
Soldiers arrest municipal police in Nuevo Léon, November 2009.
Phot
o by
Juan
Car
los
Rey
es G
arcí
a/A
FP/G
etty
Imag
es.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
34 Silver or Lead
come from the United States. But, García Medina stressed,
we must ask ourselves how this occurs. To illustrate her
point, she recounted how she had once mistakenly packed
a travel sewing kit in her carry-on bag for a fl ight from
the U.S. to Mexico. Her kit, with its small needle, was
confi scated as a potential security threat. This incident
demonstrates that careful vigilance is clearly possible —
and yet there are 11,000 points along the U.S.–Mexico
border where weapons of war cross every day. How is it that
a tiny sewing needle is caught and confi scated but bazookas
and AK-47s pass through undetected? Mexico clearly has a
corruption problem, but the U.S. must admit that corruption
exists on its side of the border as well. Without it, this level
of weapons traffi cking would not exist.
García Medina concluded that in order to address
Mexico’s security crisis, a highly trained and well-equipped
police force is needed. However, she added, Mexicans also
need to change their society from within. Every day, young
people enter the criminal life. To counter this, families must
teach children self-respect, solidarity and responsibility,
and everyone should watch out for each other. At the same
time, the Mexican government should reinforce these
values. To this end, she questioned why Mérida Initiative
funds are directed toward weapons and military training
but not education, health care or productive community
projects. In order to prevent criminal activity, people —
especially youth — must be enabled to envision a future
with dignity. That is the way out of the security crisis, for
both countries, she maintained.
On the whole, O’Neil’s and García Medina’s remarks
touched on complementary themes. The U.S. should secure
the border while simultaneously heightening efforts to
strengthen Mexico’s democratic institutions and support
the emerging middle class. For its part, Mexico needs
to combat pervasive corruption — but the U.S. should
also admit that corruption exists north of the border as
well. Reducing the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. is
another component of the solution.
These are broad, long-term goals. Few would argue
that they are not worthwhile, but what do they mean in
practice? The real work lies in translating desirable ideals
like these into feasible policy solutions. The roundtable’s
assembled guests took up this challenge and debated the
merits and limitations of specifi c courses of action for over
an hour.
Some individuals questioned whether or not Mexican
security is at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. Silvano
Aureoles Conejo, a senator from Michoacán, affi rmed
that Mexico is doing its part, but the U.S. needs to share
responsibility as well. It’s not enough for Mexican violence
to make the nightly news; elected offi cials must give
sustained policy attention to security concerns. Ana Paula
Ordorica, a Mexican political analyst, reinforced this view
asking, “What evidence do we have that Mexico is central to
American foreign policy?” O’Neil responded that Mexico
has risen to the forefront of President Obama’s attention,
sharing front-page status with Afghanistan and Iraq on the
president’s daily foreign policy memo. The question is not
whether Mexico has the United States’ attention in terms
of security — it clearly does. The challenge is that the
discussion has not broadened beyond securing the border.
Alex Saragoza, Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC
Berkeley, concurred that a paradigm shift in Washington
is crucial. Whenever the U.S. media reports on Mexico,
Americans hear about problems “over there” — from
drugs to travel advisories to the H1N1 virus. And, in his
view, the Mérida Initiative reinforces this perception.
Funding is dedicated almost entirely to solving the crisis
“over there” in Mexico. Few resources are earmarked for
addressing issues within the U.S. that contribute to the
problem, namely reducing the demand for illegal drugs.
David Bonior, Chair of American Rights at Work and
former U.S. Congressional Representative for Michigan’s
10th district, expanded on this issue, drawing out two
practical implications. First, the way to decrease demand
is to reduce the number of drug users in the United
States, which means targeting hard-core addicts for
rehabilitation. O’Neil agreed, citing research from the U.S.
National Drug Control Strategy group which found that
while hard-core addicts comprise only about 20 percent
of American drug users, they consume 70 percent of all
illegal drugs. Rehabilitating these chronic users would
signifi cantly reduce the demand for drugs in the United
States. However California State Senator Gilbert Cedillo
reminded the group that drug rehabilitation initiatives
have never been politically popular. Getting measures like
these through the policy-making process would require a
broad coalition. He suggested that one way to meet this
challenge might be to bring doctors on board and to frame
the issue in terms of ensuring public health.
Bonior also stressed that the U.S. needs to control
the trafficking of firearms. There are already laws in
place to prevent individuals with arrest records from
purchasing guns. However, gangs have begun recruiting
young women with clean records as purchasers, drawing
previously uninvolved individuals into criminal activity.
What would stronger controls on weapons trafficking
look like, and would it be politically possible to enact
them in the United States? Rafael Fernández de Castro,
Presidential Advisor for International Affairs and
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
35Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Competitiveness in Mexico, asked the members of the
U.S. Congress present: “Is it impossible to enact a law
banning assault weapons in the United States?” The
perception in Mexico is that this policy would be highly
effective in reducing international weapons trafficking
but that it is a political impossibility due to the strength
of the American gun rights lobby.
In response, Bob Filner, a member of Congress
representing California’s 51st district, said that such a ban
is possible, and the U.S. should try to enact one. While
he acknowledged that this is a politically sensitive issue,
Filner also claimed that there is sufficient support in the
House. If President Obama took up this issue, it might get
through the Senate as well.
Up until this point, the discussion on how the U.S.
can take responsibility for its share of the security crisis
had centered around two specific policies: providing
treatment for hardcore drug addicts to reduce demand
and enacting stronger controls on cross-border weapons
trafficking. Within this conversation, Isaac Katz,
Professor of Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico
Autónomo de México, observed that the discussion so
far had overlooked a crucial point: Mexican cartels exist
because the drug trade is profitable. The root of the
security problems that both countries face can be traced
to the Mexican cartels’ extraordinarily high revenues,
which he estimated to be $30 billion per year. The
“paradox of the war on drugs,” Katz claimed, is that “the
more resources you put into fighting drug cartels, the
more profitable the activity becomes.” Decreasing U.S.
demand and tightening gun control laws are components
of an overall security strategy, but, Katz argued, “as long
as we don’t discuss the legalization of drug production,
drug trafficking and drug consumption, there will be
these security issues again and again and again.” As a first
step, part of the solution would be to strengthen Mexico’s
financial system to prevent the cartels from laundering
their profits with impunity.
With this comment, the participants began to discuss
the practical challenges involved in strengthening Mexican
institutions. Juan Ernesto Pardinas — a consultant
for the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, a
Mexican policy research group — shared Professor Katz’s
concerns. Taking the challenge of institution-building
a step further, Pardinas claimed that reforming the
Mexican municipal police is crucial.
Municipal police forces were designed in the 19th
century, and their structure has remained unchanged to >>
A Texas gun store manager poses with her wares.
Phot
o by
Gill
es M
inga
sson
/Get
ty Im
ages
.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
36 Silver or Lead
the present day. As a result, they are unable to confront
21st-century threats. Over the past year, municipal forces
in 22 states have engaged in shootouts, not with the drug
traffi ckers, but with federal police forces. Why do local-
level offi cials protect drug kingpins and cartel members?
The municipal police live in the very neighborhoods that
they protect. In the United States, this might be seen as
an advantage, but within the context of cartel violence,
it is a liability. Drug traffi ckers know where families live,
where children attend school. Faced with these personal
threats, municipal police fi nd themselves protecting the
traffi ckers’ interests instead of those of the state. Pardinas
explained that Mexicans describe the situation as one of
“plata o plomo” (silver or lead). Cooperation is rewarded
with payment while standing in the way of the traffi ckers’
interests results in a bullet for yourself or your family.
García Medina responded to the issues that Katz
and Pardinas raised, stating that efforts are in place to
strengthen the rule of law and reform the municipal
police. For example, some states are currently reforming
their penal codes so that people can receive timely
access to justice. However, she agreed that reforming the
municipal police force is a difficult challenge. Municipal
police officers tend to have little education and low
salaries, so they are in no position to stand up to the
cartels. She suggested that state governments should
collaborate with the federal government to coordinate
their response, possibly meeting weekly in each state.
Pardinas countered that within his state of Monterrey,
increased coordination efforts among the three armed
forces have been attempted for years, with few positive
results. The essential issue is that municipal police whose
families are threatened by the cartels will never prioritize
the interests of the state over protecting their loved ones.
For this reason, Mexican state or federal police should
relieve the municipal police forces of their front-line
responsibilities. Responding to cartel violence should be
addressed at the federal level.
And yet, O’Neil replied, federal armed forces
are not well suited to internal policing efforts in any
country. Militaries are generally not trained in domestic
policing, nor should they be — these efforts are outside
the scope of their proper role. In response, Fernández
de Castro stressed that coordination remains essential.
Perhaps the emphasis should shift toward ensuring
better information sharing between the U.S. and
Mexico. Government agencies naturally tend to protect
their intelligence, but in order to combat the cartels,
information needs to f low at least as freely across the
border as drugs and weapons do.
At this point, Ordorica asked García Medina
to comment on the feasibility of funding broader
educational and social initiatives within Mexico.
Specifically, if Mérida Initiative funds were channeled
toward particular community projects, would Mexican
elected officials view this as intruding on their sphere
of inf luence? García Medina prefaced her answer by
clarifying that she would respond not as a state governor
or a party representative, but just as a Mexican citizen.
With that, she noted that the U.S. has been funding
educational initiatives in Mexico for many years. In
her home state of Zacatecas, this funding has been very
well received, and it is producing positive results. For
example, Carnegie Mellon University has partnered with
Mexican secondary schools to teach students software
development. In January 2010, this program was expanded
to introduce elementary students to the field of robotics.
Initiatives like these are fundamentally connected to
security concerns because they not only encourage youth
to envision a positive future, they provide them with the
tools and opportunities that they need to get there. With
practical skills and job opportunities waiting for them,
youth will be better able to resist the lure of the cartels.
With the time for discussion rapidly coming to a
close, Pete Gallego, a state representative from Texas,
observed that public support is critical for any of
these proposed policy solutions to succeed. Clearly,
the problem cannot be solved through military efforts
alone. Community initiatives, reducing corruption
on both sides of the border, strengthening democratic
institutions and rehabilitating hard-core drug users are
all part of the solution, yet most citizens don’t connect
these issues with enhanced security. The challenge going
forward is to gain public awareness and support.
This session of the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum
resulted in a thorough and lively discussion that explored
the merits and limitations of specific policy solutions
to the security crisis. Although the participants did not
reach consensus on every issue, one element is clear: the
time for focusing on short-term security efforts is over.
Relations between Mexico and the U.S. can no longer be
“You have to be strategic about your resources… your state will be overwhelmed if you try to incarcerate… your way out of this problem.”— Gil Cedillo, State Senator, California
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
37Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
based on funding for weapons and military incursions
alone. Doing so allows the drug cartels to set the agenda
and does little to ensure results over the long term.
The Mexican state is not failing, but its institutions,
particularly the rule of law, are weak. Reforming the
municipal police so that they are protected from cartel
threats is a key part of the solution. In addition, broader
social initiatives to support economic opportunities for
the middle class and education for youth will serve to
strengthen democracy in Mexico. Cartels find it difficult
to operate when democratic institutions are strong.
U.S. funding for the Mérida Initiative is welcome
and necessary. No security strategy would be complete
without basic military efforts to secure the border area.
However, security solutions cannot and must not stop
there. The U.S. needs to address the corruption within
its own ranks that allows illegal weapons to enter Mexico
unchecked. Rehabilitating hardcore drug users, though
politically difficult to implement, would do much to
reduce drug demand, thus making the drug trade less
profitable for the cartels.
Not all of these policy prescriptions can be easily
enacted, but some of them must nevertheless go forward.
The current economic crisis has demonstrated once
again that the world is increasingly interconnected, and
security is no exception. As partners and neighbors,
Mexico and the U.S. must accept shared responsibility
for the security crisis and move forward with a common
agenda focused on long-term solutions.
The Security Panel was a session of the U.S.–Mexico Futures Forum held at UC Berkeley on August 23-25, 2009. The presenters included Amalia García Medina, Governor of Zacatecas, and Shannon O’Neil, the Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Wendy Muse Sinek is a Visiting Instructor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley.
A vigil against violence in Mexico.
Phot
o by
Ed
Car
si.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
38 The Bachelet Bounce
M ichelle Bachelet’s place in Latin America’s
history books is assured. When she was sworn
into office on March 11, 2006, she became
Chile’s first female president and the first popularly
elected Latin American woman president who did not
follow a politically prominent husband into office.
Equally remarkable was the success and stability of the
coalition that she led to a fourth consecutive victory.
Since her election, Michelle Bachelet has become the
most popular president in Chile’s history, at least since
opinion polls began to ask the question. Recently, her
approval ratings have approached or surpassed the 80
percent mark in all opinion surveys. Chile’s most reliable
survey, run by the Centro de Estudios Públicos (Center
for Public Studies, CEP) registered a 78 percent approval
rate in October 2009.
Furthermore, this halo of political magic surrounds
not only the president herself, but also her government.
According to an October 2009 CEP survey, 69 percent
approve of how the Bachelet government is managing
the economy. Andrés Velasco is the most popular finance
minister (normally a thankless task) that the country
has ever had. And though the general approval ratings of
her government are more disperse, they are far superior
to those of the opposition coalition (41 percent vs. 27
percent, CEP).
During the early years of the Bachelet administration,
I wrote a critical article in this publication that compared
her government to Goethe’s poem about the sorcerer’s
apprentice, who lost control of the spinning brooms and
could not rein in the fl oods that threatened to drown him.
Now, however, towards the end of Bachelet’s four-year
presidential term, it seems that no apprentice has ever been
so successful at turning herself into a powerful sorcerer,
The Bachelet Bounceby Kirsten Sehnbruch
CHILE
President Michelle Bachelet on Chilean Independence Day, September 2009.
Photo by Alex E. Proim
os.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
39Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
with record approval ratings in the face of an economic
crisis, a high unemployment rate and an election defeat.
This begs several questions: How did President
Bachelet achieve this feat? What did her government do
for Chile? And why was the Concertación defeated in
the January 19, 2010, presidential elections? (See “Chile
Heads Right” on page 2 of this issue).
The years since 2006 have indeed been a rollercoaster
ride for Michelle Bachelet. After the upbeat emotion
surrounding her election triumph, she immediately faced
a series of crises, including massive student protests,
corruption scandals, labor unrest, internal governmental
divisions and defections of political allies from the coalition
parties, leading to the loss of her Senate majority. Worst
of all, the major reorganization of Santiago’s transport
system, known as the Transantiago Plan, went horribly
wrong, leaving 6 million people stranded and facing
appalling transportation conditions. The allegations of
ineptitude and wrongdoing surrounding the Transantiago
debacle led to a serious and sustained political crisis in
the Concertación and cost the Bachelet administration
political capital in its fi rst year of government.
The initial responses of Bachelet’s ministers and of
the president herself to these crises were widely criticized.
Frequent cabinet changes and lack of coordination among
different ministers gave the impression that the president
lacked leadership and that the government was adrift.
There were even publicly voiced doubts about whether
a woman could govern Chile. By December 2007, the
president’s approval ratings had fallen to historic lows.
However, the turnaround in Bachelet’s fortunes
in early 2009 was equally remarkable. It seems that
the worldwide economic recession turned into an
opportunity for the Bachelet government, mostly thanks
to her administration’s management of the economy.
Instead of spending windfall profits from high
copper prices, her minister of finance, Andrés Velasco,
accumulated reserves in a sovereign wealth fund outside
of Chile and paid down the national debt, resisting
intense political pressure to tap into these reserves. When
>>
The Radomiro Tomic copper mine in Antofagasta, Chile.
Phot
o by
Mat
t H
ints
a.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
40 The Bachelet Bounce
the 2009 worldwide economic crisis
hit, Velasco was able to put together a
comprehensive stimulus package that
kept Chile from experiencing as deep
a crisis as other countries around the
world. Ironically, therefore, President
Bachelet’s popularity took off just
as the country slid into a brief and
slight recession. Simultaneously, the
pension reform that the Bachelet
administration had instituted during
the early years of her government
supported household incomes as it
increased elderly citizens’ access to
pensions that doubled the amounts to
which they were previously entitled.
Opinion polls give testimony
to how extraordinarily well the
economic crisis was managed
in Chile. Despite relatively high
unemployment rates, the vast
majority of Chileans did not
expect their economic situation to
deteriorate during the next year.
However, none of these
developments alone can explain
President Bachelet’s stellar approval
ratings. While it is still too early to
judge her political legacy, there is no
doubt that her options were limited
by a newly shortened presidential
term. Many challenges remain:
electoral reform; constitutional
reform; and reform of the political,
social and economic structures that
the Concertación inherited from
the dictatorship. Nevertheless, the
Bachelet administration has achieved
profound shifts, particularly in the
area of social policy.
The pension reform, for
example, establishes a minimum
standard of social security. In a
country of stark inequalities, this is
no mean feat. Moreover, the pension
reform has been accompanied
by a series of other social policy
measures, such as the expansion of
national health insurance services
and the extension of childcare and
unemployment benefits, which have
established minimum guarantees of
services for all Chileans. Although
this policy was initiated during
the Lagos administration with a
comprehensive health insurance
reform (a period during which
President Bachelet was minister of
health), her administration expand-
ed this strategy to form what could
be considered the basic structure
of a welfare state. In particular, the
expansion of benefits beyond the
poorest segments of the population
to include the burgeoning middle
classes constitutes a significant step
in an economy that until now had
focused all its efforts on targeting
only the poor, in line with the classic
development models proposed by
the Washington institutions during
the 1990s.
Combined with her charismatic
leadership and a political discourse (as
well as specifi c measures) empowering
women, the social policies of President
Bachelet will form her historical
legacy. She has succeeded in instilling
a sense of entitlement among those
excluded from Chile’s largely private
provision of social insurance, which
has empowered the electorate.
Seventy-eight percent of Chileans approved of President Bachelet’s government.(Data from Centro de Estudios Públicos, Encuesta Nacional de Opinión Pública, October 2009).
Chileans expressed confi dence in their economic future and government economic policies.(Data from Centro de Estudios Públicos, Encuesta Nacional de Opinión Pública, October 2009).
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
41Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Indeed, the fact that the Concertación lost the
January presidential elections may, in part, be
attributable to this success. The same electorate
that enjoyed increased benefits also sought more
opportunities and blamed the Concertación for the
persistant inequalities that mark Chile. The profound
shift that President Bachelet has achieved in terms of how
the population thinks about social security was visible
in the election discourse of the opposition’s candidate,
Sebastián Piñera. After 20 years of voting against the
most progressive elements of the Concertación’s proposed
social reforms, Piñera had to promise further progress on
social issues.
Above all though, President Bachelet’s most power-
ful legacy, and the outstanding achievement that will
guarantee her place in the annals of history, is that she
has been by far the most successful female president
in Latin America. She will be remembered as a strong,
caring leader with an impressive record of laying down
the foundations of social change that focused on women,
not just symbolically by establishing Latin America’s
first gender paritarian cabinet, but also practically, by
providing women with more options in their lives and a
greater sense of empowerment. Perhaps the best summary
of her legacy is the assertive statement of Amparo García
Oliva, the seven-year-old daughter of a friend of mine:
“When I grow up, I want to be president of Chile.”
Kirsten Sehnbruch is a professor of Public Policy at the Instituto de Asuntos Publicos, Universidad de Chile.
President Bachelet visits with benefi ciaries of the “Chile Grows With You” program.
Phot
o by
Mar
celo
a A
gost
/ww
w.p
resi
denc
ia.c
l.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
42 Culture and Politics in the Honduran Coup
On June 28, 2009, the elected civilian government of
Honduras was overthrown by a military coup. In
the wake of this event, Honduran citizens began
demonstrations that continued despite constant threat of
arrest, suspension of the rights of free speech and assembly
and arbitrary imposition of curfews. The day after the
coup, I started a blog that continues to provide access to
Honduran scholars’ analyses of the political situation as
well as contextual information about a country that has
been virtually ignored in the United States since the end of
the Contra War against Nicaragua.
How did an archaeologist fi nd herself caught up in the
aftermath of a coup? Described by the U.S. mainstream
media as a confl ict about presidential term limits, the coup
was actually a response to the profound implications of
broader policies. For the fi rst time in modern Honduran
history, there was a call for broad citizen participation, even
in the realm of cultural heritage where I work.
The Making of a Coup In my three decades working in Honduras, I have
learned that election years are always tense, but the
bitterness of 2009 was unprecedented. Honduran
newspapers, never a source of particularly reliable
information, turned into propaganda machines directed
against the president for his alleged intention to remain
in office beyond the end of his term.
The basis for these claims was the nonbinding opinion
poll that President Zelaya had scheduled for June 28. The
single question to be asked in the referendum read, “Are
you in favor of having a question on the November ballot
that would ask if people want to convene a constitutional
assembly?” I personally saw the poll as entirely symbolic
since it would be up to Congress, whose members were
among the poll’s fiercest critics, to propose any binding
referendum for the November ballot.
However, the prospect that poll results would
Culture and Politics in the Honduran Coupby Rosemary Joyce
HONDURAS Police and protestors in Honduras, July 2009.
Photo by Sandra Cuffe.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
43Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
demonstrate the true level of
dissatisfaction with the present
form of Honduran government
was apparently too threatening to
allow. Researchers for the Latin
American Public Opinion Project
had already documented widespread
disillusion in Honduras, not just
with a specifi c government, but also
with government in general. In a
2008 comparative study, they found
that among all Latin Americans,
Hondurans were the most dissatisfi ed
with their government.
Citizens’ longstanding resig-
nation to enduring poverty and
corruption had turned into a
profound sense of alienation.
Participation rates dropped below
50 percent in the 2005 congressional
election. Participation in the
presidential election held that same
year was signifi cantly higher, with 55
percent of those eligible casting a vote.
Thus, while President Zelaya entered
offi ce with less than a majority, a
larger proportion of the Honduran
electorate seemed to feel it was worth
their time to vote for president than
for Congress, where no term limits
exist and politicians consolidate
power and remain for decades.
Zelaya took office in 2006, during
a time of rising oil prices. Honduras,
which has no domestic supply, is
particularly vulnerable to swings in
the oil market. The new president
acted almost immediately to secure
alternative sources of petroleum,
joining Venezuela’s Petrocaribe
initiative, a maneuver that is
commonly, if misleadingly, glossed
as the start of his “move to the left.”
Analyses by Honduran economists
like Miguel Cáceres Rivera suggest
this decision was pragmatic, not
ideological. Venezuela took 50
percent payment on an already
low price for oil, financed the
remainder for 25 years at 1 percent
interest, would accept payment in
kind in lieu of cash and would loan
back much of the cash paid for use
in development projects.
Reining in oil prices, along with
a reform of the banking system that
lowered interest rates from roughly
27 percent to around 11 percent,
helped stabilize the Honduran
economy. During Zelaya’s presidency,
the national currency, the lempira,
maintained its value for the fi rst time
in 20 years. But as Cáceres Rivera
explained, the more globalized the
business, the more the Honduran
business community had to gain by
resisting economic reforms. As long
as the cost of labor in Honduras
remained low, the profi t from
international sales of Honduran
products went up. Confrontation
increased between Zelaya’s govern-
ment and the network of business,
media and political interests that had
grown in the 1990s to unite previously
separate commercial and political
elites. In the autumn of 2008, when
Zelaya faced a mandate to establish
wages for government employees, he
increased the minimum wage by 60
percent. While this baseline wage
still did not cover minimum food
costs for a typical family, the dramatic
rise was enough to bring about a
revolt by the business community.
Some commentators have suggested
the action was politically motivated,
noting that Zelaya’s popularity
increased sharply in the quarter
following the increase.
It was against this backdrop
that Zelaya decided to push for the
public opinion poll on convening
a constitutional convention. While
opponents immediately charged that
his sole concern was to lift restrictions
on reelection, the promotional
material for the poll emphasized
political reforms, including the
recall and censure of politicians and
the election of Congress members
by localized districts. Beyond
the basics of public participation
in government, the campaign
materials mention guarantees of
the rights of women and ethnic and
racial minorities. It was this aspect
of Zelaya’s agenda that made work
on cultural heritage, including
archaeology, politically dangerous.>>
Signs protesting the coup government’s interference in research.
Phot
o co
urte
sy o
f Ros
emar
y Jo
yce.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
44 Culture and Politics in the Honduran Coup
History Is Dangerous In late August, protestors disrupted a lecture about
Copán in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second largest city.
This Classic Maya archeological site was the fi rst Unesco
World Cultural Heritage Site in Honduras and remains the
country’s only cultural World Heritage Site. The protestors
carried signs demanding: “No to exclusive cultural policies”
and “Yes to the democratization of culture.” A third reading
“No to the mayanization of Honduran Culture” began to
make clear why an archaeological talk was an appropriate
place for political action against the coup.
“Mayanization” is a term coined by Honduran historian
Darío Euraque, at the time the head of the Honduran
Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH) and himself
under threat of dismissal by the de facto regime. Euraque
has argued that cultural differences across prehispanic
Honduras were erased and replaced by a single history of the
Classic Maya, a civilization portrayed as having disappeared
long ago. Mayanization thus renders invisible the indigenous
groups still living in Honduran territory. The Classic Maya
may have disappeared from Copán, but their Chorti Maya
descendants remain and make demands for control of their
land and of representations of their history, including that
part recorded in inscriptions at Copán using grammar
specifi c to Chorti. The Lenca language was declared dead
by researchers in the 1970s, but the Lenca living throughout
central and southern Honduras remain and today demand
to know how they are related to the people who built the
20-meter-tall pyramid of Yarumela around 700 BC. The
Mosquitia region in the eastern part of the country never
was fully integrated into the Spanish colony of Honduras
and guarded knowledge of large precolumbian settlements
only revealed to archaeologists starting in the 1980s.
I do not work at Copán, however, nor in the
Mosquitia or near any of the Lenca communities of
Central and Southern Honduras. I have spent my
career documenting archaeological traces in the fertile
Ulua river valley, near San Pedro Sula. The region
began experiencing explosive population growth and
economic development in the late 1960s, and the city’s
rapid expansion led to the IHAH’s 1977 decision to begin
constructing a baseline inventory of archaeological sites
in the face of their impending destruction.
But that was then, and this is now. Another sign at the
August protest read: “No to the cancellation of archaeo-
logical projects outside Copán.”
While the poster did not specify which projects were
being cancelled, it carried an image drawn from an object
excavated under the direction of a recent Berkeley Ph.D.:
the logo of Currusté, an archaeological park inaugurated
in early 2009. Located within the municipal boundaries
of San Pedro Sula, the Currusté project was a product of
policies put in place by the Ministry of Culture and the
Institute of Anthropology under the Zelaya administration,
calling for greater public participation in all government-
sponsored work. As public participatory research, the
project was not just a dig but a collaboration. It was this
policy of grounding research in public participation that
made history dangerous.
Archaeology Matters My own research project under the Zelaya
administration explored forgotten histories of race
in north-coast Honduras through archaeological and
historical anthropological research. It focused on
contemporary Omoa, the site of a prehispanic indigenous
town as well as the 18th-century Spanish colonial fort San
Fernando de Omoa, built to defend the colony against the
British and their Miskito allies.
During Zelaya’s presidency, the IHAH had its own
goals for research and prioritized its support of projects
according to their advancement of those goals. Its priorities
included a clear sense that the Institute needed to develop
projects in every part of the country in order to encourage
public participation in historical research. Archaeological
work was urgently pressed in places where the Institute
had the opportunity to develop public parks, for the fi rst
time targeting local audiences, especially near cities like
San Pedro Sula. Our proposal for work in the town of
Omoa was given the go-ahead because it contributed to
the Institute’s larger goal of building a new museum. This
museum project, suspended after the coup, would have
developed new historical themes for public presentation,
bridging the gap that exists between townspeople and the
international tourists visiting San Fernando de Omoa.
Omoa was of interest to us because documents
from archives in Spain and Guatemala showed that
the 18th-century community was internally complex.
Distant indigenous towns provided labor for the initial
construction of the fort, as did contingents of enslaved
Africans owned by the Spanish Crown. Once the fort
was built, people from the indigenous towns of the Ulua
River valley continued to provide labor in Omoa. There
was also a population of what were called “free blacks” —
African-descendant people who had escaped enslavement
in British-controlled territory — working under the >>
Right: Stela H depicts the 13th ruler of Copán.(Photo by Rob Verhoeven.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
45Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
46 Culture and Politics in the Honduran Coup
orders of the Commander of the Fort and enjoying an
unprecedented degree of liberty. Omoa, we believed,
would offer us the opportunity to explore a colonial
community where the multiracial and multiethnic
population of contemporary north-coast Honduras was
forged. We hoped that it would allow us to understand how
this historic complexity of population was forgotten.
For most of June 2009, our group from UC Berkeley
excavated areas in the yard of the present museum.
Located in a historic building, the museum was once
the headquarters of the Cuyamel Fruit Company and
later became the intake center for prisoners condemned
to the repurposed colonial fort; San Fernando de Omoa
was formally designated a penitentiary in 1910. Historical
memory of the prison is how people in the modern town
and along much of the north coast personally relate to
Omoa. When the fort became a national historic site in
the 1970s, these connections were obscured in favor of a
history of pirates of the Caribbean.
In addition to our excavation work, we also served as
part of the scholarly writing committee for a new Omoa
museum that was to contain a reinterpretation of the site.
The old historic building was to be preserved for offi ces
and study space, and the new museum would locate that
building in a continuing history of place at Omoa. Our
fi nds in the summers of 2008 and 2009 would contribute
to the presentation of a history of occupation of the fort
and town that neither began with the completion of the
fi rst version of the fortress, El Real, in about 1753, nor
ended with independence in 1821. The history of the fort
would be brought up to the present through work with
local people considered to be community historians. In
2009, we recorded gravestones in the historic cemetery that
reoccupied El Real after its abandonment, based on the
urgings of community members in a public forum in 2008.
Under the cultural policies of the Zelaya
administration, our work explicitly involved community
participation. In 2008, these efforts included public
forums held at the museum and systematic interviews of
community members about what they felt were important
historic questions. In 2009, we held weekend workshops
as part of a nationwide program in which hundreds of
Hondurans — from high school students to teachers to
workers in the tourism sector — attended scholar-led
tours of historic sites and received reading materials about
Honduran history to which they would never have had
access otherwise. The purpose of these workshops was
not simply one-way transmission of information; rather,
participants were taught techniques that they could use to
create, in the words of Dr. Euraque, “textured histories”
from their locally rooted perspectives and thereby
contribute to the historic narrative of modern Honduras.
San Fernando de Omoa.
Photo by Will K
linger.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
47Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Connecting Cultural Policy and the Coup Our project came to a halt in the wake of the coup
due to the end of international funding, the dismissal
of Dr. Euraque and our own decision that continuing
to work under the de facto regime would be, in a small
way, to legitimate it. Myrna Castro, the newly appointed
minister of culture, lost no time in opposing programs
encouraging public participation in local history; she even
denounced book distribution programs on the grounds
that the recipients — rural farmers and indigenous and
African-descendant people — were “vulnerable” to the
supposedly subversive ideas they contained.
At the IHAH, Castro decried attempts to develop a
broader range of archaeological parks as evidence of a
lack of attention to Copán. She defined the Institute’s
mission as increasing tourism rather than developing
knowledge of the Honduran past, as legally mandated.
As if to underline the class interests that drove the coup,
she chose to invest Institute funds in fashion shows,
declaring, “Fashion is an industry, but it is also part of
the culture of the people.”
Those who would reduce the complex Honduran past
to a simple, saleable narrative in which a now-vanished
Maya state dominated the land, found the cultural
research encouraged by the Zelaya administration not
just superf luous but threatening. Rather than equating
culture with consumption, the work we were doing
placed an emphasis on the ways in which communities
can create meaningful connections with the past. By
putting the work of interpreting the national story in the
hands of local communities, projects like ours were part
of a move to empower the Honduran people. And that, in
the end, is what the elite found intolerable.
Rosemary Joyce is a professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley and has conducted archeological fi eldwork in Honduras since 1977. To read her blog on the Honduran coup,go to http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/.
Berkeley doctoral candidate Doris Maldonado discusses the Currusté archaeological project with community members and Berkeley undergraduates.
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emar
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yce.
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
48
“Andar por la calle ya no es confi able… ¿Cuántos inocentes seguirán cayendo?”“On the streets it’s not safe for us to walk… How many more innocents will fall?”— Antonio Zúñiga Rodríguez
When Antonio “Toño” Zúñiga raps at the end of
the new documentary “Presumed Guilty” that
it’s not safe to walk his streets in Mexico City, it’s
not for fear of pickpockets, kidnappers, gunshots or gangs.
“Ahora ya no queda cuidarse de la lacra; ahora hay que cuidarse de un ofi cial con placa.”“Now we’re not so wary of the bad guys; now we’re careful of the offi cer with a badge.”
It’s the police, he warns, who are making the streets
unsafe. Zúñiga speaks from experience: he spent more
than three years in a Mexico City prison for a murder he
did not commit.
Presumed Guilty:Based on an Untrue Storyby Mary Ellen Sanger
FILMWaiting behing the bars of a Mexican prison.
(Photo courtesy of Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete.)
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
49Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
Two young Mexican lawyers have made it their mission
to take on the system that incarcerates innocents like
Zúñiga. Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete, who call
themselves “lawyers with cameras,” are a married couple
whose effervescent charm belies their serious purpose. As
they work toward their doctorates in Public Policy at UC
Berkeley, they advocate for the fi lming of criminal court
proceedings in Mexico, believing that cameras can be a
tool for bringing transparency to the courts.
Their first-of-its-kind filming of Zúñiga’s case
resulted in the chilling documentary, “Presumed Guilty,”
which presents in gripping detail the harsh reality of
Mexico’s trial system that is responsible for the almost-
routine incarceration of innocent people. The film,
directed by Hernández and award-winning documentary
filmmaker Geoffrey Smith, made its world premier in
September 2009 at the prestigious Toronto International
Film Festival. It went on to win top recognition at
the Morelia Film Fest and the Amnesty Award at the
Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. The
hair-raising footage of court proceedings seems artfully
scripted for dramatic effect, but unfortunately it is all too
real. At a recent public screening in Mexico, the crowd
was up in arms, screaming at the judge on the screen,
kicking the f loor and gesturing angrily.
“We didn’t actually realize we were making a film,”
Hernández says, “until we found out we could get a retrial
for Toño.”
Zúñiga was already in jail and sentenced to 20 years
when Hernández and Negrete met him. On December
12, 2005, police officers grabbed Zúñiga off the street,
handcuffed him and threw him in prison. His accuser
was a minor who had previously been a suspect. “He’s the
one” and a point of the finger. That’s all it took. Zúñiga
and the young man who accused him had never met.
There was no arrest warrant. No evidence. The witnesses
who had seen him 20 minutes away from the crime scene
at the time of the murder appeared as handwritten names
in a file of written reports and testimonies four inches
thick and sewn together with twine. Zúñiga’s file was
just one in a mountain of similar files in an archive room
of the court. Nobody followed up. Why bother? He was
already presumed guilty.
It’s an all-too-common story in Mexico, where
police are paid bonuses for the number of arrests they
make. Though the right to a fair trial has long been
constitutional, it is only since 2008 that “fair” has
been defined specifically to include the presumption of
innocence and an oral trial. Currently, trials are held
with or without a judge present (usually without), with
or without witnesses present (usually without) and with
or without real evidence or an attorney for the defense.
Sheaves of paper are pushed back and forth across desks
for signatures and stamped in triplicate. Defendants
are often convicted without ever seeing the judge who
sentenced them. This assembly line operation only
very narrowly fits any definition of justice, as clerks,
prosecutors, secretaries and judges “just do their jobs”
within a dehumanizing system.
Getting camera teams inside that system is no small
feat. While Mexicans have a constitutional right to a public
trial, in reality everything happens behind closed doors.
Hernández and Negrete use the Constitution to negotiate
access to trial proceedings. “This is a constitutional right,
but there has been no precedent,” Negrete explains. “In
general, a trial is so difficult to understand that almost
nobody is even interested. Of course, the media has been
in hearings, and they show images of people facing a trial,
but they’ve never assembled the whole trial.”
Because the trials are so difficult to understand,
even for lawyers like Negrete and Hernández, they
found that cameras gave them the chance to better
follow the proceedings.
“We get clarity from the cameras,” Hernández says.
“Without the cameras, you don’t know who’s who, what’s
what, what’s the theory about the case, what are they
trying to prove. There is no opening argument. You can’t
hear anything; you don’t understand. It’s clearer in the
film. I only found out certain things had happened when
I was checking the footage.”
The film shows Zúñiga standing in a poorly lit
area, face pressed up against the bars that separate and
brand him, struggling to understand the convoluted
proceedings. The high-pitched drone of ink-jet printers
competes with the scraping of chairs on the tile f loor
and the echo of legal banter — each word repeated by
the judge for proper recording by the secretary. Zúñiga’s
family and friends are present in the background, kept at
bay by a four-foot wall.
While Zúñiga’s trial seems impersonal, he actually
receives better-than-average treatment because of
the presence of cameras. Normally, he would be tried
simultaneously with up to 12 other defendants. It wouldn’t
be “the Zúñiga trial,” it would be the “criminal trial of the
day.” In front of the cameras, the judge — not generally
present so there isn’t a designated space for him — stands
through the entire proceedings, even wearing his robes.
The prosecutor is also dressed professionally. Witnesses >>
BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
50
for the prosecution are actually produced, though they
testify only by not remembering the answers to any of the
questions posed by the defense attorney.
“Toño is an everyday guy,” Hernández says,
explaining why they decided to make a documentary
of his legal battle. “It’s a case that’s very representative
of what anybody who is arrested by the police might
experience. It’s not a strange case, statistically.”
Negrete adds that fully 92 percent of the defendants
in Mexican courts are convicted, in most cases without
scientifi cally validated evidence. Testimonies and
depositions are accepted simply because they have been
stamped “received” and entered into the reams of paper
that make up the case.
“We were researchers. We knew what the patterns
were and what we wanted to change in the criminal justice
system: lack of presumption of innocence, the way the
system can convict without evidence, lack of professional
standards for police,” says Negrete.
“You have these courts that are willing to convict
based on anything,” her husband adds. “There is no need
to develop forensic expertise. Get whatever… say whatever.
You’ll get the conviction anyway.”
The 2008 constitutional amendment requiring the
presumption of innocence and an oral trial signals an
important opening for increased fairness. Hernández and
Negrete hope the timely release of “Presumed Guilty” will
help create enough public pressure to make sure the new
law is enforced.
“One of the things we’ve noticed is that Mexican
authorities don’t follow up very much. It’s easy
for Mexico to enact or to reform a constitution,”
Hernández muses. “José María Morelos was the first to
do it. With the Constitution of Apatzingan in 1814, we
had the right to be heard in trial and due process for
the first time. But it never got implemented, and so it
happened with the 1857 and 1917 Constitutions. They
all talked about this right to a fair trial, but nobody has
ever implemented it.”
For Negrete and Hernández, their fi lm presents a
unique opportunity to make people aware of just how
unbalanced the court system is. “It’s incredible,” Negrete
sighs. “So many Mexicans believe that we have an American
courtroom — that we have the prosecutor, the defense, the
judge and the trial. They believe that! Because they have
never been in contact with a trial.”
Presumed Guilty
The judge presides over Toño’s case.
Photo courtesy of Roberto H
ernández and Layda Negrete.
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
51Fall 2009 – Winter 2010
The team envisions a grassroots approach for the
distribution of “Presumed Guilty.” Their earlier short fi lm
about the justice system, “El Túnel” (“The Tunnel”), was
targeted at the political and economic elite. With their
feature-length fi lm, they hope that ordinary people will
identify with its articulate “everyman” protagonist and
begin to demand their right to a fair trial.
Hernández wants the inmates of Iztapalapa Prison,
where Zúñiga was locked up, to be among the first to
watch the film. “Because it’s incredible, they are the ones
most hurt and most vulnerable, but at the same time,
most empowered by their situation to fight it. If they
don’t fight it, nobody else can. I think they all have a
lot of fear — they are afraid if they demand anything,
they will lose. They don’t know that the odds are already
stacked against them.”
The film itself is a step toward reducing that
stack of unbalanced odds. The product of an unlikely
collaboration between the brave and vulnerable Zúñiga
and a pair of relatively privileged lawyers who chose not
to ignore his call for help, “Presumed Guilty” is already
making waves in Mexico and internationally. Negrete and
Hernández hope that the documentary created through
this rare instance of cooperation will become a tool with
the power to reform the Mexican judicial system.
Mary Ellen Sanger lived in Mexico for 17 years. In 2003, she was incarcerated for 33 days in the Oaxaca State Penitentiary on invented charges that were eventually dropped.
“Presumed Guilty,” supported by the Center for Latin American Studies, will soon be premiering in the U.S. Please see http://www.presumedguiltythemovie.com (English) or www.presuntoculpable.org (Spanish).
Toño dancing while in prison.
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erto
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nánd
ez a
nd L
ayda
Neg
rete
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BERKELEY REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
52
MamulengoBy Chico Simões
Brazil — a country known for its racially mixed cultural formations — is slowly
coming to recognize and display the vitality of its popular cultures. These are the very
cultures that the colonizing mentality, which also played a formative role in the
nation, had always opposed. Mamulengo, or traditional puppet theater, is one example
of this long-repressed cultural legacy.
Working in popular culture, and with mamulengo in particular, is a pleasure, a profession and a mission inherited from
the masters of this tradition. It is also an effective means of holding up a mirror
to the public. By identifying with the characters, their stories, their passions and their creative spirit, the spectator discovers the possibility of confronting
life with creativity and humor.
Chico Simões holds the 2009 Mario de Andrade Chair in Brazilian Culture at UC Berkeley. A puppeteer and educator
who specializes in traditional forms, Simões is the director of a Ponto de Cultura in Brasilia. He gave a presentation
of mamulengo at UC Berkeley on April 16, 2009.
“La noche está estrellada,“La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”
— Pablo Neruda, “Poema 20”, — Pablo Neruda, “Poema 20”, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperadaVeinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada
Spring 2009 53
CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY
A panoramic view of the Milky Way Galaxy from El Paranal, Chile.(Photo courtesy of the European Southern Observatory.)
‘‘The night is shattered‘‘The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance”and the blue stars shiver in the distance”
— Pablo Neruda, “Poem 20,” — Pablo Neruda, “Poem 20,” Twenty Love Poems and a Song of DespairTwenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Center for Latin American StudiesUniversity of California, Berkeley2334 Bowditch StreetBerkeley, CA 94720
clas.berkeley.edu
The telescopes of the European Southern Observatory at El Paranal, Chile. Photo courtesy of the European Southern Observatory.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
Non-profi t organization
University of California
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