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Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez Keeps Speaking Truth to Power
It’s the 490th anniversary of Havana today and the Cuban government has arranged for celebratory activities. Ordinary residents of Havana and all Cubans who cherish their civil and human rights have less to celebrate, however, as Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez regularly reminds us. Sanchez has become a major irritant of the regime because of her penetrating posts about the absurdities and injustices of everyday life in communist Cuba. You can see her blog in Spanish here, and in English here.
Just over a week ago, in an incident that was widely reported in the international press and that reveals the threat to the Cuban regime of the growing Cuban blogger movement, Sanchez was assaulted in Havana by plain-clothed government agents. Though she was forcefully beaten, she and her friends managed to fight back and get away. More than that, they took pictures of their assailants and of the incident for posting on the blog, prompting the government thugs to leave the scene. One photo of an agent features the caption “She is covering her face…Perhaps afraid of the future.” Another photo features Sanchez pursuing her assailants with the caption: “They have watched us for decades. Now we are watching them.” Very smart.
As it happens, last week we posted a beautifully written paper by Sanchez (in Spanish) on Cato’s Spanish-language web page, www.elcato.org. (The paper just won a prize in an essay contest in Mexico organized by TV Azteca at which my Cato colleague Juan Carlos Hidalgo was a judge.) Her essay, “Liberty as a Form of Payment,” describes the fraudulent deal that Castro promised when he came to power. In exchange for liberty, Cubans would be better off culturally, economically, and in other ways. Sanchez describes the reality of social control under communist Cuba in which the real exchanges occur as a consequence of the power relationship. Access to housing, jobs, new goods, and the possibility of minor improvements in life, all depend on a well documented support of the revolution through attendance of mass meetings and membership in the communist party, for example.
Or through personal relationships with those in power. Sanchez describes how young women long ago began prostituting themselves to high ministry or military officials in exchange for non-monetary goods or privileges. Such “courtesans of socialism” later turned to traditional prostitution with the arrival of currency convertibility in Cuba. Sanchez also optimistically describes the role that technology, especially the internet, is playing in creating spaces of liberty. In a country where people increasingly feel the regime’s days are numbered, such exercises of personal freedom can be powerful.
A Georgian Constitution of Economic Liberty
The former Soviet Republic of Georgia is a late economic reformer, having started such liberalization after the Rose Revolution in 2004. But it is one of the most successful post-Soviet reformers, and it may be the country that has implemented the largest range of serious market reforms in the shortest period of time. Its growth rate from 2004 through 2008 averaged 7.6 percent per year (which includes the comparatively low 2.1 percent rate of 2008 that resulted from the global financial crisis and the war with Russia).
Last month, the government submitted a draft act to Parliament that calls for amending the country’s constitution so that it would safeguard various elements of economic freedom. The amendments would put caps on public debt, spending and deficits; and ban any kind of price controls, state ownership of banks and financial institutions and restrictions on currency convertibility, and any kind of control over the movement of capital. New taxes or increases in tax rates would require approval through a national referendum.
With the possible partial exception of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, I’m not aware of any other constitution that explicitly enshrines economic freedom. I’m told by Georgian colleagues that prospects for passage of the law looks good, with the constitution being amended as early as next month.
It All Began In Poland, 1939-1989
The fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago today is rightly being celebrated in Germany as a momentous historical event that led to a huge increase in human freedom around the world. The wall was indeed the most visible physical symbol of an inhumane system that divided Germany and Europe, holding captive hundreds of millions of people.
At a seminar in Wroclaw, Poland hosted by the Polish Adam Smith Center last month, I was reminded that the Poles correctly view their country as playing a central role in the 20th century drama of totalitarian aggression and eventual liberation. As the title of a book I was given suggests—It All Began In Poland—the country’s invasion by Nazi Germany, which sparked World War II, and the invasion and partial occupation by the Soviet Union almost immediately thereafter signaled what was in store for much of Europe. Similarly, the peaceful revolution of freedom that culminated in the collapse of communism was symbolized and pushed forward early on by Poland’s heroic Solidarity movement.
People from all parts of the former Soviet empire deserve recognition and admiration for their efforts and sacrifices in promoting freedom. As we reflect on this momentous day, let’s remember the special role the Poles played in making the world a better place.
The Spirit of Nien Cheng (1915-2009)
Nien Cheng, author of best-seller Life and Death in Shanghai and one of the greatest Chinese voices of humanity to have opposed communism, passed away in Washington yesterday. To read her account of the cruelty and madness of the Cultural Revolution, during which she was imprisoned for six-and-a-half years and her daughter killed, is to come away inspired by Nien Cheng’s sheer strength of character and the dignity and power of the individual even in the face of totalitarianism. Her refusal to accept dogmas, her deep understanding and love of Chinese culture and history, her capacity for self-reflection, the way in which she used her learning and sharp wit to confront her oppressors and expose their incoherent views, and her ability to survive persecution—all was truly a triumph of the human spirit.
I had the great good fortune to have known Nien Cheng both through Cato and because she coincidentally lived in the same Washington condominium building as I did for many years until I recently moved. (It was the same building in which she typed her book manuscript once she lived here in exile, never thinking that many people would read it.)
To know Nien Cheng was to confirm the impressions one forms of her from reading her book, and more. As neighbors, we chatted from time to time, and on several occasions my now-wife Lesley and I enjoyed tea and lively discussion in her apartment. Mrs. Cheng was generous and polite, and she was curious about the opinions of others. But she was also very well read, kept up on current affairs, and was opinionated, honest and transparent. She was always insightful. The trappings of political power never impressed her. She was regularly invited as a guest to White House functions by several administrations, but although she was honored, she had long been turning them down because, as she told me, she was too old for such things and it was too much time standing around.
Nien Cheng never liked to waste time and so maintained the habits of an industrious person. Perhaps that was partly a strategy to keep her mind at ease since the death of her daughter tormented her all of her life. I’m sure, however, that she ultimately died in peace. Never displaying an air of self-importance, she was ready and happy to pass on, as she told me and others on more than one occasion. For testifying to the world about the realities of Chinese communism and for living a courageous life, Nien Cheng holds a special place in the hearts and minds of all advocates of the free society, especially the Chinese.
May her spirit live on.
Chávez Declares Socialism the ‘Kingdom of God’
A new poll in Venezuela shows that President Hugo Chávez’s approval ratings have fallen from about 60 percent early this year to 46 percent now. Likewise his disapproval ratings have increased from about 30 percent earlier in the year to 46 percent now, and 59 percent of those polled view the country’s situation negatively.
Despite having received upwards of $800 billion in revenues during Chávez’s ten years in power, the government is doing a dismal job of carrying out its proper functions—such as controlling crime or corruption—and public administration in other areas is deteriorating. Chávez recently announced regular cuts in electricity and water provision. (These issues will be discussed in an upcoming Cato forum on Venezuela on November 10.)
As domestic conditions deteriorate, Chávez is apparently feeling more empowered, or at least feels the need to continue his relentless accumulation of power. Today, El Universal, a Venezuelan daily, reports that Chávez has announced that he can expropriate private enterprises at will because he was given that power by the people. Why worry about the rule of law when you have the ability to interpret the will of the people? Chávez’s comments reported today should dispel any doubts that he considers himself a savior to his country:
Every day I’m more of a revolutionary, every day I’m more socialist… I’m going to take Venezuela toward socialism, with the people and the workers…The revolution is not negotiable, socialism is not negotiable, because every day I’m more convinced that socialism is the kingdom of God on earth. That is what Christ came to announce.
A Russian Hero of Liberty Looks Back on Communism
Renowned Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky reflects on the legacy of communism 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in today’s Cato podcast.
According to him, the failure of Russia to acknowledge the criminal nature of its communist past—as was rightfully done in the case of Nazism after its demise—in large part explains the return of authoritarianism in Russia. There don’t seem to be any celebrations of the fall of communism planned in Russia, and the West is currently consumed with major issues including how to deal with Iran, the global financial crisis, etc. But valiant efforts to remind the world of the horrors of communism include the compelling new documentary, The Soviet Story, which features Bukovsky and new evidence of Soviet complicity with the Nazis. Join us for a screening of the movie at the Cato Institute on November 2.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; International Economics and Development
What Does the State Department Not Want Us to Know about Honduras?
Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina recently traveled to Honduras and found—no surprise—a peaceful country and broad support for the ouster of President Zelaya among members of civil society, the supreme court, political parties and others. In an op-ed in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, DeMint describes his trip in light of Washington’s continuing support of Zelaya and its condemnation of what it calls a “coup.” U.S. policy is mystifying since the ousted president’s removal from office was a rare example in Latin America of an institutional defense of democracy as envisioned by the constitution and interpreted by the Supreme Court that ruled that the president be removed. (For independent opinions on the case, see here and here.)
However, the Senator reports a legal analysis at the State Department prepared by its top lawyer that apparently has informed Washington’s policy but that has not been made public nor even released to DeMint despite his repeated requests. In the interest of democracy and transparency, the State Department should immediately release its legal report. Maybe then we (which includes much of the hemisphere) will be less mystified about what is driving Washington policy toward Honduras. Or at least we’ll have a better insight on the administration’s understanding of democracy.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; International Economics and Development
New Report: Honduras Acted Constitutionally
A new report by the non-partisan Law Library of Congress now publicly available reviews the legal and constitutional issues surrounding Honduran President Zelaya’s removal from office. The report concludes that both the Supreme Court of Honduras and the Congress acted in full accordance with the constitution in removing the president from power. The study, first reported by Mary O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal this Monday, is consistent with the point she, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, and others have made with regard to Washington’s unbelievable policy of undermining Honduras’ rule of law by insisting on Zelaya’s return to power, calling his removal a coup, and otherwise sanctioning the small nation’s Supreme Court by suspending the visas of its justices.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Foreign Aid Spent Domestically to Promote Foreign Aid
A new study by the International Policy Network in London documents how the United Kingdom’s foreign aid agency is spending money, much of it domestically, on NGOs to fund pro-aid lobbying and the promotion of political ideology.
Millions of pounds have gone to UK trade unions to enable teachers to “become global agents of change” and for other union members to celebrate “International Women’s Day,” for example. In one case, the UK’s Department for International Development created an NGO — Connections for Development — to provide a forum for minorities to discuss international development. The aid agency is the only donor to that “NGO” and has spent £600,000 on it.
Much of the funding goes on behind closed doors without the benefit of an open tendering system or the possibility of new applications, thus creating a closed circle that includes an increasingly elite group of supposedly independent NGOs.
Whether or not you favor foreign aid, it is thoroughly undemocratic to spend tax dollars lobbying for a particular government program, spending the money in non-transparent ways, and creating the impression of independent views that support such funding. Certainly, such a practice is inimical to the principles of a free society. And it surely reduces accountability. But that’s a problem that plagues all foreign aid programs whether the money is spent domestically or internationally — a problem that has not been solved and is widely recognized by aid critics and supporters alike. All the more reason to doubt the wild claims of those who would massively increase foreign aid.
Aid is indeed encumbered, among other things, by the problem of no accountability for end results, so more aid is unlikely to work better. But rewarding an unaccountable system of aid delivery with dramatic increases in funds will only make the problem of accountability worse.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; International Economics and Development
In Praise of the Brain Drain
The standard view in policy discussions is that emigration of skilled workers from poor countries to rich countries is bad for development becuase it deprives poor countries of much-needed human capital and it reduces growth.
A new study by Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development challenges this view. Clemens shows that efforts to slow the so-called brain drain “generally brings few benefits to others, and often brings diverse unintended harm.” There is little evidence that limiting skilled migration improves growth or public finances in poor countries, while following such a policy may reduce the demand for education, international trade and capital flows, and the diffusion of ideas and norms. There is also a gap between the policy discussion (that takes the negative aspects of the brain drain for granted) and the research literature (that reaches much more ambiguous conclusions). Clemens also rightly stresses choice and freedom as central factors to consider when formualting policy–an element so far missing from the policy discussions.
The study was first released this spring as a background paper to the UN’s forthcoming Human Development 2009 annual report, which will focus on migration and incorporate much of Clemens’ work.
Ecuador Copies Venezuela on Press Freedom
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa announced Monday that his government is reviewing the broadcast licenses of radio and television stations and that it is finding “irregularities” to which sanctions will be applied, including revoking licenses. “Some sacred cows will fall,” he warned. The measures could affect hundreds of stations. The announcement was made just days after President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela also used an administrative pretext to close down 34 radio stations critical of his regime. Last week the Venezuelan congress began considering a press crimes law that would criminally penalize with prison sentences of up to four years members of the media “or any other person that expresses himself through any medium of communication” for reporting news that is false, harmful to mental health, or that produces instability. It’s not clear that Correa will also copy Chavez on a press censorship law or that he will close as many stations. But at the very least, Correa is seeking to significantly muzzle the independent press through intimidation and self-censorship.
Venezuela’s Assault on Freedom of the Press and Other Liberties
A Venezuelan court has prohibited Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision Television, from traveling to Washington, D.C. where he was scheduled to deliver an address tomorrow at the Cato Institute. Zuloaga and his network have been openly critical of the Hugo Chavez government, and as a result have endured harassment from authorities as Chavez attempts to place television and radio networks under government control or shutter them completely.
As a result, the Cato forum will now feature the vice-president of Globovision TV, Carlos Alberto Zuloaga, and Rafael Alfonzo, president of CEDICE, Venezuela’s leading market-liberal think tank, with comment by Robert Rivard, of the Inter American Press Association. Mr. Alfonzo will discuss how CEDICE and other members of civil society are coming under increasingly serious government harassment for expressing views critical of the government.
The Populist Assault on the Latin American Press
Mary O’Grady writes in today’s Wall Street Journal on the Kirchners’ threats to press freedom in Argentina. Unfortunately, the attack on free expression is part of a worrying trend that is intensifying in some of the region’s populist countries. For more, see Gabriela Calderón’s post on Ecuador here; and my posts on Ecuador and on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s efforts to close down Globovision TV here and here.
“We Don’t Want Venezuela to Become a Totalitarian Communist State”
“We don’t want Venezuela to become a totalitarian communist state,” declared Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa yesterday in Caracas at the opening of a major conference organized by the market-liberal think tank, CEDICE. I’m in Venezuela this week with my Cato colleagues Juan Carlos Hidalgo and Gabriela Calderon to participate in the event and to run a seminar for 60 students and young leaders from Venezuela, which took place earlier this week.
Vargas Llosa’s concern is not about some remote possibility. Nor is it the opinion of an isolated intellectual detached from reality. His comments received sustained applause from the over-flow crowd of the 600 people in attendance and he has been mobbed by the press since he arrived here yesterday. Venezuela is not yet a full fledged dictatorship, evidenced by the fact that we are meeting here with leading liberal intellectuals from the region. But the environment of intolerance, arbitrary rule, and state vilification of anybody who disagrees with Hugo Chavez’s march toward socialism has worsened at an alarming rate in recent months.
Hayek and Development
Friedrich Hayek’s 110th birthday today offers a good opportunity to reflect on his growing influence in the field of economic development. Here’s a short video from a Cato policy forum featuring William Easterly, one of the world’s leading development economists, explaining Hayekian insights that have shaped Easterly’s own influential thinking.
Hayek’s appeal to students of development economics is due not only to the sorry record of foreign aid and the top-down development approach of so many poor country governments; more recent, constructivist efforts to promote economic freedom or democracy, as through IMF conditionality or war and occupation (e.g., Iraq) have proved equally discouraging. As Hayek noted, “To plan or organize progress is a contradiction in terms.”
In the field of international economics, Money, Markets and Sovereignty is the latest, important book that I regard as Hayekian. Authors Benn Steil of the Council on Foreign Relations and Manuel Hinds, former finance minister of El Salvador, make the timely case that the extreme form of monetary nationalism that exists today is incompatible with globalization, prone to crises, and poses the greatest threat to globalization. For those of you not interested in monetary policy, chapter two on “A Brief History of Law and Globalism” is well worth the price of the book.
Or you can come hear the authors at Cato on May 19 present their book at a forum. (For a case study of how El Salvador is becoming an economic success story, see here.)
Is Aid Killing Africa?
No individual today is more effectively challenging the foreign aid establishment and the harm it inflicts on Africa than Dambisa Moyo, Zambian author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way For Africa. She spoke at a recent Cato book forum and has been ubiquitous in the media. For a sense of her views, here’s an interview I recommend that she recently did with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Compatibility of Growth and Human Rights
Do trade and economic growth conflict with human rights?
Too often, human rights advocates present development as incompatible with rights. So-called development agencies like the World Bank often ignore rights, including personal choice, when they push for top-down growth strategies around the world. Jean-Pierre Chauffour will speak at the Cato Institute tomorrow on his new Cato book, The Power of Freedom: Uniting Human Rights and Development, where he takes the human rights and development “communities” to task for working at cross purposes and muddled thinking.
Sign up here or watch online to hear him present a development agenda that respects the full range of human rights. Susan Aaronson of George Washington University will comment.
Freedom of Speech Under Attack in Ecuador
Freedom of speech is coming under attack again in President Rafael Correa’s Ecuador. Last year Correa sent armed soldiers before dawn to some 200 private businesses, including three television stations, on the pretext that the owner (an unpopular businessman and critic of the government) had not paid money owed to the government.
It was never clear why the government had to place its own people in charge of running those businesses rather than go through the usual auditing or bankruptcy procedures. The result was to reduce criticism of the government at those TV stations and send a message to the rest of the media. At the time, Gabriela Calderón, Cato’s Ecuador-based editor of our Spanish language web site, www.elcato.org, hosted a weekly talk show program on CN3 TV station with two other market-liberal commentators. The station was one of the ones taken over, after which, Gabriela and her colleagues were told that from then on, their show had to “balanced” and include pro-government spokespersons. Gabriela and her colleagues quit in protest and the show went off the air.
Now Correa is enforcing a law that explicitly violates freedom of speech. Ecuador has been an officially dollarized country since 2000, before Correa came to power. Years of high oil prices have financed an explosion in government spending. With oil prices down, Correa’s populist project is quickly running out of money and people are speculating that he will de-dollarize Ecuador, allowing him to run the printing presses. However, it is illegal in Ecuador to suggest that the country will de-dollarize, as that would violate the law against spreading rumors of devaluation. The first victim has been Rómulo López Sabando, an attorney and long-time columnist for the Diario Expreso. On March 24 he wrote a column indicating that the government is planning to dedollarize. For committing that crime, the government ordered his arrest. He has been in hiding since.
It’s a very good bet that the government will de-dollarize this year, yet the Ecuadorian press has been silent on the matter. As the law victimizes the press and, more generally, Ecuadorian democracy, López remains in hiding and the arrest warrant still holds. Will Obama and other hemispheric leaders meeting at the summit of the Americas later this week denounce these abuses?
Cato Scholar Swami Aiyar Named among Top 10 Opinion Makers in India
Congratulations to Swami Aiyar, research fellow at Cato’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, for being named among the “Top 10 Opinion Makers” in India by the Indian Express this Sunday. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen ranked first, Swami was in eighth place because of his style of writing “economics for the common man.” Swami’s weekly column, “Swaminomics,” appears in the Times of India.
Filed under: General; International Economics and Development
Latin Americans Are Fed Up With the War on Drugs
Today, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy released a report providing more evidence that Latin Americans are fed up with the war on drugs and that momentum is building for a paradigm shift in dealing with drug abuse.
Headed by ex-presidents of three leading Latin American countries—César Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil—the commission calls for Latin American and other leaders to “break the taboo” of criticizing anti-drug policies.
It is imperative to rectify the ‘war on drugs’ strategy pursued in the region over the past 30 years…
Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the expected results. We are further than ever from the announced goal of eradicating drugs.
The commission further calls for drug use to be dealt with as a public health issue, notes that prohibition has increased violence and corruption, and has otherwise undermined democracy as it has led to “the criminalization of politics and the politicization of crime.”
Leading Latin American intellectuals, including Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Mexican writer Enrique Krauze, and Venezuelan policy expert and editor of Foreign Policy Magazine Moisés Naím, were also members of the commission.
This is a significant report and comes after Honduran President Zelaya’s recent call for legalization. In the past, Latin American leaders have expressed frustration with Washington’s heavy handed war on drugs, but have nevertheless relented in the face of enormous U.S. pressure. A few public officials, such as former Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Castañeda, have been openly critical of prohibition, but they have been virtually alone and without official support for their views. The commission’s report is a sign that Latin American leaders feel more confident in acting together to counter a policy approach that is destroying the region. And, as my Cato colleague Ted Carpenter notes, now that Mexico is being consumed by an unwinnable war against drug trafficking that is spilling over into the United States, Washington can no longer easily ignore the damaging effects of its policy in the region.
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