AAM DISPATCH

Carved out of the jungle 120 years ago, as the site to unify this massive nation, Brazil’s ultra-modern capital, Brasilia is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Brainchild of the visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer, the city is infamously non-walkable and utopian in both the best and worst sense of the word. But the city is also studded with remarkable public buildings, including those housing all Brazilian Ministries – like the Ministry of Health that heads the national AIDS program. As an optic treat, AAM presents images of one of the most visually stunning cities in the world.

Radio Producer Matt Ozug produced this piece for America Abroad’s AIDS: The Politics of Prevention. Music: “Carolina,” Seu Jorge.

Javier Barrera Latin America

Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, is now an infamous place. The international and Mexican press is peppered with tales of drug smuggling, rehab center massacres, inter-cartel killings and cartel-military clashes. Just this week, the number of murders in Juarez passed the 2,000 mark, surpassing last year’s 1,600 murders with more than two months left in the year. Its American sister city is now home to pockets of Juarenses who can afford to flee the violence. These rates are astounding and alarming for a city of 1.5 million that before 2008 had about 200 murders a year.

These numbers tell the bloody story of a city under siege and brought to its knees by drug violence, tragedy and hopelessness. But the story of Juarez is not just a drug story – it’s also a story of economics, where the aftershocks of the global financial crisis play out in unforgiving ways.

After ratifying NAFTA in 1994, Mexico tied its economic fate intimately to the US, and for a time, that approach seemed to work well, at least for some sectors of the Mexican economy. The Juarez-El Paso metro area became one of the largest manufacturing hubs in North America, as hundreds of maquiladoras opened their doors in Juarez. American companies found these Mexico-based factories appealing because they offered the twin advantages of lower worker wages and close proximity to the large US market. Maquiladoras producing anything from clothes to electronics offered a livelihood to thousands of Juarenses and migrants from other parts of Mexico and a steady supply of goods for American customers.

But the US economic crisis brought this manufacturing engine to a sputter – with Americans not buying, thousands lost their jobs in Juarez. America’s recession has been devastating for the Mexican economy – at least for its “legal” economy. Meanwhile, the global economic slowdown has yet to bruise the “illegal” economy and slow the flow of drugs, guns and laundered money across the US-Mexico border. With the contraction of Mexico’s economy, the value of the peso has fallen, which means that drugs coming from Mexico are cheaper than they were before the economic slowdown and demand among American consumers, whose wallets have also thinned, has remained steady.

For many struggling Juarenses, whose livelihoods have been tied to American patterns of consumption, that’s meant they must go where the jobs are, namely the huge drug industry, one of the few flourishing industries on the US-Mexico border. Last month I traveled to the El Paso-Juarez area to work on a piece on the economics of the drug trade. For a primer on the actors and market forces of this illegal economy, listen here:

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Monica Villavicencio drugs, Economy, Latin America, Mexico

Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC group) recently held their own summit to challenge international financial institutions long-dominated by the US. The BRIC countries account for approximately 42 percent of the world’s population and all countries have enjoyed accelerated economic growth in recent years. Chinese and Russian leaders have gone as far as to suggest that it may be time to replace the US dollar as the main global currency, which would diminish US influence in global affairs. From NPR:

“This BRIC summit should create conditions for a fairer world order,” [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev said. “And a better atmosphere for solving urgent global tasks.”

One way to evaluate American influence is to look at US relationships with developing nations, especially those in its own backyard. When the US turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America began fostering new relationships, in particular, with China. Listen to this excerpt from AAM’s Power Shift:

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Javier Barrera China, Latin America

Last night the women of Davida, an organization of Brazilian sex workers, came out to say goodbye to the Help Nightclub. For over a decade, Help, a discotheque on Copacabana’s Avenida Atlantica has been a well known meeting spot for prostitutes and Rio’s sex tourists. But recently the city of Rio De Janeiro bought the building under eminent domain laws. The stated goal is to turn the block into a museum of sound — however, cleaning up the image of this stretch of Copacabana surely wasn’t far from the minds of government officials.

The problem, according to Davida, is that Help has served as one of the safest pick up spots you’ll ever find. The sidewalk cafe in front of Help is well-lit, patrolled by police, and well in public sight. Prostitutes and Johns all pay a cover charge to enter the nightclub, which eliminates the possibility for exploitation at the hands of pimps or brothel owners. According to a survey done of the area’s prostitutes, if this nightclub closes, most will simply move their business down the road, to increasingly less safe locations. Help, Davida says, has been safe space in a business where the threat of violence is all too real.

So, beginning at 10pm, about 50 of Rio’s prostitutes enjoyed what may be one of their last nights working at the famed location. Some, who are also Davida members, distributed condoms and tried to assess what the closing of Help would mean for their fellow sex workers who they represent.

Matt Ozug Latin America

If anyone deserves credit for helping to reduce the HIV prevalence rate in Brazil of the past two decades, Gabriela Leite is certainly on the short list. Over 20 years ago she started an organization for sex workers called Davida, which today encompasses over 35 smaller NGOs nationwide representing some 25 thousand men, women and transsexuals who sell sex. She’s long advocated for the rights of sex workers in the face of police (and other) brutality and championed the use of condoms by commercial sex workers.

Gabriela is a retired sex worker and as she said in our interview, having walked in their shoes makes her uniquely – and necessarily – capable of representing the interests of Brazil’s prostitutes. (While many public health experts and international NGOs use the term “sex worker,” Gabriela actively embraces the word “puta” to describe herself and those she represents.) She says:

“I couldn’t work with homosexuals because I’m not a homosexual. I’m a prostitute and I can speak the language of the prostitutes. Too many organizations can’t speak the language.”

Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Chris Beyrer discovered that one of the main reasons for Brazil’s relatively low HIV/AIDS rates is because the Brazilian response has included the full participation of organizations like Davida. It’s done prevention with those who are most at risk, not just those who are politically appropriate.

Davida and Gabriela are both receiving an increasing amount of recognition and attention, both nationally and internationally. Gabriela’s autobiography is flying off shelves here, and she snagged a cameo on one of Brazil’s telenovelas – serial TV dramas that are a national addiction. But despite this recognition, prostitution, while legal, is still not exactly socially acceptable and Davida struggles to support itself financially. They tried managing a bar to bring some cash into the organization, but weren’t turning much of a profit. They’ve recently launched their own clothing line, called Daspu which has been much more successful. The name, Daspu, means “from the hookers,” but is also a play on the name of a trendy Rio shop. When that shop sent a letter to Davida, saying their apparel line was tarnishing the store’s good image, Gabriela promptly turned around and shared that letter with the press – causing her sales to soar.

In 2008, Daspu unveiled a new line of clothes at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Models strutted down the catwalk to Funk Daspu: a Brazilian funk song, penned by some local supporters. Listen to an excerpt:

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At 57, Gabriela shows no sign of slowing down. Besides, she says, she can’t. Activism, it seems, is in her blood.

Read an interview with Gabriela Leite from PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and for further links, visit Wikipedia’s page on Davida.

Matt Ozug Latin America

Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s former president was indicted last week for crimes against the state. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. This ruling was the first time a Latin American leader was convicted of crimes against humanity in his own country. This has been seen as a landmark case where most despot leaders around the world seldom see the rule of law applied to them. On WNYC, Erna Paris, author of several books including Long Shadows and the new book, The Sun Climbs Slow, talks about America’s relationship with the international criminal justice system.

A task force from the American Society of International Law examined the US connection and what the role should be with the International Criminal Court. It has come out and said that the kinds of concerns that were announced by the Bush administration.. simply do not hold water and that [in] their view, the court does not conflict with the US Constitution. In fact, it compliments America values of accountability, truth-telling, pursuit of justice and the protection of fundamental human rights.

Listen to more from WNYC:

and listen to AAM’s Judging the International Criminal Court.

Javier Barrera ICC, Latin America