Panama's President Varela sits down for a FP interview

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela sits down for an interview with Foreign Policy. In it, he answers questions on global (airstrikes against ISIS), regional (immigration, drug trafficking) and national (corruption, organized crime, goals) politics.

FP: How are you going to change Panama?

JCV: My main challenge is to change politics from a business to a service. I want to make sure politics and public life is all about serving the people.

FP: How do you expect to do that?

JCV: By appointing cabinet members and a government that is committed to transparency and honesty. [I want] a government that focuses all of its effort on not worrying about elections but worrying about the problems that affect people every day.

Today we have 65 percent of Panamanian kids graduating from high school. I want to make that 100 percent. So you need to build more schools and to give scholarships to kids that are living in poverty to achieve that goal. 30 to 40 percent of Panamanian homes don't have basic sanitation.

FP: You spoke about that during your campaign.

JCV: Drinking water and sewage -- basic sanitation. I want to accomplish the goal of getting that to 100 percent. We need to impact 300,000 homes. I hope I can get it to 85 or 90 percent in my five-year term.

I wouldn't read too much into a single interview but I did come away impressed. 

New volume on the Salvadoran civil war and its aftermath

I have a new chapter on "Los partidos políticos en El Salvador: Una vision desde el extranjero" that was just published in Historia y debates sobre el conflicto armado salvadoreño y sus secuelas. 

The book is based on a February 2012 seminar on "History, Society and Memories: the armed conflict on the 20th anniversary of the Peace Accords" organized by Unit of Investigations about the Salvadoran Civil War (UIGCS) of the Universidad de El Salvador. 

Jorge Juarez coordinated the volume and it was published by the Instituto de Estudios Históricos, Antropológicos y Arqueológicos Universidad de El Salvador and the Fundación Friedrich Ebert in El Salvador. 

If you are interested in a PDF of the book, shoot me an email.

Primera parte

1. Actores armados: génesis, evolución y reconfiguraciones

Presentación by Alberto Martín Álvarez

Las relaciones urbano-rurales en la insurgencia salvadoreña by Ralph Sprenkels

Radicalismo político en los estudiantes de la Universidad de El Salvador durante el siglo xx. La Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios Social Cristianos (frusc) by Jorge Cáceres Prendes

Del partido a la guerrilla: los orígenes de las Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí (fpl) by Alberto Martín Álvarez

Transición a la democracia electoral y neoliberalismo en El Salvador by Carmen Elena Villacorta Zuluaga

Los partidos políticos en El Salvador: una visión desde el extranjero by Michael E. Allison

Los procesos de aprendizaje de Arena y del fmln durante la guerra civil by Heidrun Zinecker

Mujeres, lucha armada y crisis estructural del capital: de los Acuerdos de Paz al neoliberalismo by María Gabriela Guillén Carías

2. Memorias e historia reciente

Presentación by Eduardo Rey Tristán

La Comisión de la Verdad y la gestión de la memoria en la posguerra salvadoreña by Ralph Sprenkels

El despliegue de las memorias: el peso del pasado reciente en El Salvador by Jorge Juárez Ávila

«Memorias de la revolución»: resituando el pasado en el presente (reflexiones para su estudio) by Miguel Ayerdis

El Salvador 1972-1992: conflicto social y memoria de un pensamiento político by Francisco Eliseo Ortiz Ruiz

El historiador y la creación de un documental by Jeffrey Gould

3. El conflicto armado y las relaciones internacionales

Presentación by María Julia Flores

México ante el conflicto centroamericano, 1976-1996. Una perspectiva histórica by Mario Vázquez Olivera

La diplomacia paralela en el conflicto armado salvadoreño by Oscar Martínez Peñate

Los Estados Unidos y el golpe de Estado de 1979 by Gilles Bataillon

Segunda parte

1. Estado de la cuestión sobre el conflicto armado.

Sus principales tendencias

Presentación by José Alfredo Ramírez Fuentes

Mesa de debate (Alberto Martín Álvarez, Jorge Cáceres Prendes, Rafael Guidos Véjar)

2. Fuentes y pistas para la investigación del conflicto armado

Presentación by Eduardo Rey Tristán y Ralph Sprenkels

Mesa de debate (Claudia Ponce, Óscar Campos Lara, Carlos Henríquez Consalvi, Jaqueline Morales de Colocho, Alexis Hurtado, Coronel Adalberto García, Eudald Cortina Orero)

3. Principales enfoques teóricos y metodológicos para la investigación del conflicto

Presentación by Pablo Morales

Mesa de debate (Heidrun Zinecker, Rafael Guidos Véjar, Gilles Bataillon, Carlos Lara-Martínez)

I'd love to give Central America $1 billion

Central American leaders: investment will curb migration north

Northern Triangle Countries Present Their ‘Plan Central America’

Big Central America Aid Request Coming

I'd love to give Central America $1 billion for "Plan Central America." One of the major problems, however, is that the US uses the Millennium Challenge Corporation to identify countries and programs in which to invest hundreds of millions of dollars. Infrastructure projects like those identified by the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras would be perfect matches.

While El Salvador will have received over $700 million dollars after the completion of a second compact, Honduras and Guatemala do not qualify for compacts. Threshold programs, yes, but not the big money compact investments.

MCC forms partnerships with some of the world’s poorest countries, but only those committed to:

• good governance,

• economic freedom,

• and investments in their citizens.

While the US could come up with another program, one of the difficulties that the US has giving large sums of money to Guatemala and Honduras is that they do not qualify.

The Guatemalan and Honduran governments need to take measures to reduce corruption, support the rule of law, promote and protect and free and transparent media, stop killing their own citizens, etc. The US isn't looking at perfection. They are looking to invest in countries that need the investment and where we have some confidence that hundreds of millions of dollars will do some good. Hence the debate over whether El Salvador has done enough to justify a second $300 million compact.

While there are good reasons to provide these countries with multi-million dollar investments, does anyone sincerely believe that the governments and private sectors in Guatemala and Honduras have earned such an investment?