The Week - UK (2022-05-07)

16 NEWS Best articles: International

THE WEEK 7 May 2022

Life in jail for

the ruler of a

narco state?

The Boston Globe

It’s not every day that a former head of state is extradited to the US to face serious criminal charges,

says Marcela García. Thirty years ago, it happened to Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who

was convicted of drug trafficking and racketeering, and served 17 years in a Florida prison. Now it

has happened to the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who stands accused of

facilitating the importation of more than 500 tonnes of cocaine into the US. Hernández insists he is

innocent, but it doesn’t bode well for him that a US court convicted his brother of similar trafficking

charges last year, sentencing him to life in prison. The trial of Hernández, who stood down in

January after eight years at the helm, promises “a measure of justice” for Hondurans, but it raises

questions about why it took the US so long to turn on him. Hernández is alleged to have overseen

a drug-trafficking empire since at least 2004. Yet for years the US “supported and legitimised him”,

even as thousands of Hondurans fled to the US to escape his “narco state”. Washington should now

make amends by launching “a true collaboration to help rebuild democracy in Honduras”.

A simple plan

to bring us

better senators

The Washington Post

Here’s an idea that could “instantly improve” the quality of American politics, says George F. Will:

ban senators from standing for president. The reality is that Congress’s upper chamber has become

a “theatre of performative behaviours by senators who are decreasingly interested in legislating”,

and increasingly preoccupied with burnishing their own image. When they’re not using social media

to practice what Alexander Hamilton deplored as “the little arts of popularity”, they’re giving

vainglorious speeches or passing “sentiment-affirmations masquerading as laws”. The prime example

is Josh Hawley, Missouri’s freshman Republican. Since entering the Senate in January 2019, he has

indulged in non-stop self-promotion, “clambering aboard every passing bandwagon” that might get

him on TV. Successful government depends on a certain rivalry between the executive and legislative

branches, but the first loyalty of too many senators is not to their chamber but to themselves. It’s no

coincidence that Mitt Romney, a man who no longer harbours any presidential ambitions, is one of

the best senators. Were all his colleagues barred from tilting at the White House, it would “improve

the calibre of senators, and of presidents, and the equilibrium between the political branches”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on food prices, says Raphael Parens – and

nowhere is this felt more than in Africa. A continent already struggling with the effects of Covid and

climate change is suddenly having to pay 64% more for wheat. A spike in food prices in 2008 helped

trigger the Arab Spring upheavals in North Africa, as well as riots in Mozambique and Niger. Rising

prices now threaten a new cycle of unrest at a sensitive time. Angola and Kenya are due to hold

presidential elections later this year, and Sudan and the DRC are due to follow in 2023. The prospect

of food riots is worrying enough, but an added concern is that embattled African governments will

be tempted to seek help from private military contractors such as the Wagner Group. The Kremlin-

linked organisation, which offers help with training programmes, riot suppression and military

operations against rebel groups, already does a lot of work in Africa. It has intervened in Libya,

Mozambique, Sudan, Madagascar, and most recently Mali. But given the group’s brutal methods,

exploitative demands (it often negotiates for control of mining extraction rights and sites) and

unsavoury links, African leaders may soon come to regret allowing it “to enter their countries”.

The looming

spectre of the

Wagner Group

Foreign Policy

Research Institute

(Philadelphia)

HONDURAS

UNITED STATES

AFRICA

The Philippines is poised to witness

the “last phase of a startling

resurrection”, said Cliff Venzon on

Nikkei Asia (Tokyo). More than 35

years after the end of his father’s

dictatorship, Ferdinand “Bongbong”

Marcos Jr is clear favourite to win next

week’s presidential election. It’s quite

a comeback for a family once regarded

as “pariahs”. Marcos Sr and his wife

Imelda stole some $10bn before being

driven into exile in Hawaii in 1986;

much of the money is still missing. Yet

their son could be about to win power

on a “unity” ticket with the party of

the current president, Rodrigo Duterte.

It helps that most of the nation’s 67 million voters are too

young to remember the dictatorship. The Marcos camp has

exploited this by filling Facebook, TikTok and YouTube with

“content glorifying the Marcos regime” – such as montages of

infrastructure projects and clips of the late strongman’s speeches

• which have “gone viral in a country regarded as one of the
  world’s heaviest users of social media”.

Just like the Russians, we Filipinos are being “enticed by

the prospects of a return to the ‘golden era’ of a previous

authoritarian society”, said Ramon R. del Rosario Jr in the

Philippine Daily Inquirer (Manila). Surely we’re not going to fall

for it, and let the “forces of corruption

and dictatorship rule once again”? We

shouldn’t assume that Marcos will

repeat “past evils”, said Ricardo Saludo

in The Manila Times. The Philippines

has adopted a new constitution and

a host of other laws since 1986 to

prevent such abuses. And Filipinos

wouldn’t stand for it today. It’s more

likely that Marcos will seek to redeem

his family’s reputation by governing

with integrity and competence.

“Whichever way it goes, Marcos Jr’s

run certainly adds a new page in Asia’s

book of princelings,” said Lucio Blanco

Pitlo III in the South China Morning Post. From China, Taiwan

and Singapore to Japan and India, the continent is full of leaders

who have followed their parents into the governing elite. But

political dynasties have become particularly pervasive in the

Philippines. Marcos would be the third child of a president

to take that role since 2001. The exception is Duterte, the

incumbent president – yet his daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, is

Marcos’s running mate. A recent study found that 80% of the

Philippines’ governors and 67% of its members of congress had

other members of their family who also hold political office.

The Marcos family itself now dominates much of Luzon, the

nation’s largest island. None of this augurs well for reform.

“Bongbong” in action: from pariah to president?

Family politics in the Philippines: the return of the Marcos clan