What's Up With Latin America?

[danalwyn]

Thaksin Shinawatra, former Prime Minister, and now wanted criminal in his native state of Thailand, has been getting higher and higher on the Thailand's Most Wanted list, mostly because the government is looking desperately for someone to blame for the chaos the country is in. And who better to blame then Thaksin, whose deposing by a coup led to the whole struggle between the PPP and the PAD.

But their attempts to have him deported have just hit another snag. The AP, among others, are reporting that Thaksin now has an new passport. It appears that Mr. Thaksin has been given a passport, and an ambassadorship without portfolio of some kind, by Nicaragua.

While some people are already pointing out that this could very well be fake, and that we should wait for more information, the rest of are asking ourselves, "Really? Nicaragua?" Because in our list of the top ten countries who would want to hold Thaksin, Nicaragua wasn't even on the list. Hell, it wasn't even on the page. Now, I'm not saying they can't do it...it's just...well, why? What's the deal here Nicaragua? Sure, Thaksin may be chums with Daniel Ortega or something, but does that justify a passport? Why?


Meanwhile, Evo Morales of Bolivia claims that police stopped an attempt on his life, in the processing killing three foreigners, who may have been Hungarian, or may have been Irish and Romanian, but were definitely mercenaries. Really, mercenaries? I mean, Morales has plenty of enemies in Bolivia, it doesn't seem that anybody would need to hire foreign mercenaries to kill him. Especially when at most there seem to be five of them. You can't possibly convince me that it was easier and safer to fly in foreign mercenaries then to get a local. Is Bolivian Intelligence that good? Is the opposition that incompetent (signs point to "possibly")? Is Hollywood just really desperate for something they can stick a "Based On A True Story" label on?

When people sent by one government attempt to eliminate the agents of another, they are usually referred to as "agents" themselves. Mercenaries implies something else, specters of coups and civil wars. But by who? Where? Are things that tense? Why hasn't anyone else pointed this out? And what the hell were they really going to do?

Weird things happen all the time, but they don't usually leave this many questions, and usually don't happen twice in one day on one region. What's up with Latin America today? Maybe it's something in the water.