Meeting Point

Celac: Convergence And Contradictions

2011-12-08T18:22:00.000Z

Sweet, vengeful irony: 188 years to the day that the Monroe doctrine was proclaimed, 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries came together in Caracas on December 2 and 3 to set up the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) without the United States and Canada.

The entire Latin American and Caribbean political spectrum was represented in this coming together: socialist governments such as that of Venezuela, the driving force of the summit and the dominant voice at least for now, the moderate progressive governments of Argentina and Brazil, the Right-wing states of Colombia, Chile and Costa Rica and every other shade of regime in between, including post-coup Honduras. What are the points of convergence among these disparate states and what are contradictions they will have to manage?

Convergence

The immediate impulse is economic. There is broad acceptance, and some excitement, among the Latin Americans that this is their time, that this is to be their century. With the USA and Spain in economic difficulties, the gravitational pull that drew in countries such as Colombia, Chile and Mexico into a near-permanent imperial orbit has largely gone, at least when it comes to the economy. China is now a credible alternative trading partner. Brazil has emerged from its long slumber and trade among the continental nations is expanding. The capitalist classes of countries still politically situated to the Right see better opportunities of capital accumulation in their immediate neighbourhood rather than in the troubled markets abroad.

There is no threat of armed revolutions within their borders to drive the ruling classes of the Right-wing states to irrational fratricidal wars. The mad dog of Colombian politics, former President Alvaro Uribe, has had to leave office. Venezuela and Cuba are more into defending themselves than exporting revolutions but not weak enough to be needled without consequences. Brazil and Argentina are wedded to the project and Mexico sees in it a leveraging card with its big-brother neighbour. The Socialist bloc has convinced others that it will not mount an ideological take-over; that Celac will not be hijacked and that it will respect plurality and divergence in this as they have done with their own internal Opposition.

With an operational Celac, the Left-wing states like Bolivia and Ecuador will feel more able to deal with armed internal subversion. Celac effectively stops the USA from outflanking them. The big winner was Cuba: it was striking to watch one President after another from Latin America and Prime Ministers and others from the Caribbean nations effusively, almost defiantly, welcome Cuba to their fold at the summit. The blockade of Cuba was unanimously condemned and the USA named in the Caracas declarations. Celac is an overarching insurance policy with each state imagining a different dividend for itself.

Contradictions

Celac was born with at least one of the midwives trying to strangulate it. The rabidly pro-U.S. Costa Rica – its President kept out of the summit – suggested that it only be a forum so as not to challenge the Organisation of American States (OAS) and that all its decisions be taken only by consensus. The Ecuadorian delegation was the first to spot this trap, arguing that this would, in effect, give veto right to each member. Costa Rica had few formal backers, only Colombia coming close to it, and the final decision was that the decision-making procedure would be sorted out in the coming months.

The wish-list of the progressive countries to declare Latin America a zone of peace, get rid of U.S. military bases, develop their own electoral and human rights monitoring agencies (would Colombia, Chile, Mexico or Honduras like the record of their prison systems or their armies to be investigated by less pliant observers?) and take on Spain and USA for the treatment of migrants will be stonewalled by the Right. How long before their patience snaps? Will the Celac countries stick together when one of them, say Ecuador, Bolivia or Venezuela, takes on the Western media monopolies and their local allies? What happens to Celac if the Right returns to power in one of these countries? Will there be unanimity if there is a Honduras-like situation again or if the USA militarily intervenes in the continent? Will the degree of unity in Celac transfer to international issues – there were clear differences on Libya and will this not be the same for Syria or Iran? How far will the Caribbean countries go in asking for a more respectable role in Celac and not remain an afterthought, as Trinidad and Tobago publicly demanded at Caracas?

Celac’s biggest weakness, as the Uruguayan President, Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica, made clear is that it is an institutional project. The people are still not involved in any meaningful way. And, though the dream of Latin American and Caribbean integration has broad support in the continent, and though many Latin Americans are comfortable with assuming a continental identity, they still do not have the common travel, working, residential and legal rights that many West Europeans have. Will Celac deliver or will it be knifed and left to bleed in the dark corridors at any of its next annual summits?

China Displaces USA In Trade Ties

2011-02-05T15:13:00.001Z

Economic collaboration with China over the past years has brought fresh capital into Latin America and reduced the continent’s decades-long dependence on the United States. Chinese capital began to flow into Latin America from the end of the Nineties with the arrival of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Lula da Silva in Brazil.

In 2000, trade that Latin America and the Caribbean had with China reached $10 billion and in 2008 it was $140 billion. Despite the economic crisis in the USA, the region’s commercial exchange with it did not suffer much and closed 2009 at $143 billion. In 2010, trade with China grew to around $240 billion.

In these 10 years, China has multiplied its investments in the region, principally in mining, hydrocarbons, energy, iron and steel, communications and railways. It is present in the vast majority of countries, very different from 1959 when only Cuba recognised it. With the Caribbean, Chinese trade is close to $2 billion and it has come to be one of the principal trading partners of the region.

Brazil has attracted 50% of all Chinese investment in the region. China is financing Petrobras, the Brazilian state petroleum company, with $10 billion. China is participating in petrol fields in the north of Brazil and offshore ones in the states of Para and Maranhao. It has given the Vale company, principal iron producer, $1.2 billion to build 12 giant ships to carry iron to China.

China’s Wuhan Iron and Steel and the Brazilian company EBX have invested $5 billion to build an iron and steel factory together. There are plans for a high-speed rail network between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. A deal has been signed with Argentina to build a high-speed train between Buenos Aires and Cordoba at a cost of $10 billion. Another $1 billion has gone into a host of projects such as agro-chemicals, thermal power and a commercial port in Tierra del Fuego. Soya has become a fundamental Argentinean export to China.

Beijing handed Venezuela in 2010 a credit of $20 billion for 19 projects. The two countries have signed hundreds of contracts. In 2011, Venezuela will sell 600,000 barrels of petrol daily to China, a figure that will cross 1 million in the next few years. China is collaborating with Venezuela in petroleum extraction in the Orinoco belt.

Half of Chile’s total exports to Asia go to China, about $10 billion, three times what it exports to the USA ($3.6 billion). Its exports mostly are copper and other minerals. Chile will close trade offices in Atlanta to open branches in Beijing and Canton.

Peru sells China everything from mineral to fish, textiles and fruit and is also a huge recipient of Chinese capital with more than $1.5 billion invested, mainly in mining. President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia has increased trade ties with China and sells both traditional and non-traditional items to Beijing, whose trade with Ecuador and Bolivia are growing in mining and hydrocarbons.

Trade with China allowed the region to escape some of the worst effects of the global downturn last year.

Source: Rebelion

Snapshot Of Latin America 2010

2011-01-03T22:06:00.009Z

Water: More than 120 million Latin Americans do not have access to potable water in their homes and more than 200 million are without access to proper sewers. Another 100 million lack drainage cover and another 256 million have to get rid of their waste through septic tanks.

Killing Scribes: Latin America was the most dangerous place for journalists, contributing to 35 of the 105 scribes killed worldwide. 14 of them died in Mexico.

Child Labour: Of about 141 million children between the ages of five and 17 in Latin America, some 14 million work as child labour, the ILO said.

Ecuador Children: Ecuador has virtually eliminated the practice of children working in garbage dumps. There were 2,000 of them at the start of the year but only 29 now remain.

U.S. Aid: 47% of the $3 billion in U.S. aid to Latin America this year has gone either to the military or the police, says a report by three U.S. thinktanks.

Road Accidents: Road accidents kill 120,00 in Latin America and the Caribbean every year, with fatality rates of 26.1/100,000, the highest in the world, going up to 31 in 2030.

Dakar Rally: The Dakar car rally, shifted to Latin America from Africa, is being criticised for the environmental impact it will have, especially by the indigenous populations of Chile and Argentina through which it will pass.

Peru Tribes: Peru has 1.786 indigenous communities spread over 11 provinces and belong to 13 linguistic families.

Clean Cuba: Cuba is the ninth cleanest country in the world, according to a table developed by researchers at the Yale and Columbia universities, with Iceland at the top, Costa Rica third and Columbia ninth.

Cuba Medics: At least 38,000 Cuban health professionals work in 77 countries, but the largest number is in Venezuela where the country’s health system is being revolutionised with Cuban help.

Angola: Angola will implement Cuban ‘Yes I can’ pedagogical method in tackling adult illiteracy from this year with the start of a pilot project.

Milagro: More than 1.3 million Venezuelans have been attended to by Misión Milagro, the world’s biggest ophthalmologic programme signed between Cuba and Venezuela in 2005, which now treats patients from all over Latin American and in parts of Africa.

Venezuela Medicines: Venezuela plans to achieve sovereignty in medicines within the next three years with help from Cuba and Portugal.

Mexico Jobless: Unemployment grew by 333% in the last nine years and employment and the number of workers paid five times the minimum wage fell by 30%.

Bolivia Poverty: The number of people living below the poverty line fell by 16% between 2000 and 2009.

Mexico Poverty: Every second Latin American who descended into poverty in 2009 was a Mexican, according to the government and the World Bank. In 2008, 47.4% of Mexico’s 105.3 million people lived in poverty.

Brazil Poverty: Poverty in Brazil fell between 2004 and 2008 from 33.2% to 22.9% and signs are that it has fallen even further in 2009.

Homes: As part of the “My house, my life” programme, Brazil will construct a million homes for those of modest incomes as part of efforts to generate employment.

Brasil Landless: 1.6% of land owners control 46.78% of the land in Brazil, according to the MST social movement.

Coca: Peru’s legislators have approved a measure to allow coca leaves to be processed as flour and as flavouring for certain drinks though it will also have to passed by Congress.

Colombia Drugs: Coca cultivation in Colombia grew 27% in 2007 and it now accounts for 55% of the Latin American cultivation, followed by Peru 29% and Bolivia 16%.

US Complicity: The CIA and senior U.S. diplomats were aware as early as 1994 that U.S.-backed Colombian security forces engaged in "death squad tactics," cooperated with drug-running paramilitary groups, and encouraged a "body count syndrome," according to declassified documents published on the Web today by the National Security Archive.

Judge Flees: A Colombian judge who sentenced a former soldier to prison for his part in the killing of civilians has had to flee the country after death threats and criticisms from the President and the reluctance of the state to provide her with security.

Disappeared: 38,225 people have been “disappeared”, presumably killed, in the last three years, says a Colombia group, Legal Medicine.

Hired Killers: Colombia says there are 2,000 hired killers in the country.

Juarez: 306 women were killed in Ciudad Juarez on Mexico’s border, the highest in the last 18 years.

Arms Dealer: The Tourism Minister of Panama, Salomón Shamah, has been linked to arms dealing and money laundering.

Guatemala Archives: Guatemalan Army has declassified 11,641 civil war archives for the years 1960-96 which will throw light on disappearances and human rights violations.

Minister Arrested: Spanish police have arrested Carlos Vielmann Montes, a former Guatemalan Minister accused of authorising and supervising the extra-judicial killing of 10 prisoners between November 2005 and September 2006.

Child Killers: The Right-wing Colombian death squad AUC killed more than 2,000 children in 18 years, Bogota has told Unicef and that 104 bodies of children were found in common graves.

Colombia Refugees: Ecuador will recognise 50,000 Colombians living on its soil as refugees. They had sought refuge between 2000 and 2007.

Torturer: A retired Brigadier of the Chilean Army, Jaime García Covarrubias, who worked as a Professor in the Pentagon, has been named as a torturer during the Pinochet regime.

Argentina Killings: Since 2003 the Argentinean security forces have been killing at least one person a day, half of whom are men below the age of 25.

Bolivia Prisoners: 78% of Bolivia’s prisoners are undertrials, their likely number more than 10,000.

Evo’s double: The Bolivian police rescued in the nick of time Valerio Queso, Evo Morales’ double in the film on the Bolivian leader, Evo Pueblo, after he led a land occupation by the homeless in El Alto.

Allende Suicide: Gonzalo Meza Allende,45, grandson of Salvador Allende, the murdered Chilean President, committed suicide after a long bout of depression.

Chile Killings: The Chilean justice system has discovered that many Peruvians, Bolivians and Ecuadorians were killed during the Pinochet years.

Murdered President: A forensic expert's report confirms ex-Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was poisoned to death 27 years ago, an attorney for the family says. Though an opponent of Salvador Allende, Frei was starting to oppose Pinochet; his family think his regime was behind the murder.

No To Tasers: An Argentinean judge ruled that Taser guns violated the U.N. pact against torture. The right-wing mayor of Buenos Aires had bought several of these for use in the city.

Mexico TUs: 90% of Mexican trade unions are fakes and this affects women workers the most as they make up 37% of the economically active population but are left without labour rights.

Free Lunch: 873.150 Venezuelans get free food from Monday to Saturday in 5.821 centres distributed in the 24 states. Pregnant women, people in dire poverty and children in difficult circumstances are the principal gainers.

Malnutrition: Venezuela has Latin America’s lowest malnutrition rate, says WHO. It ranges from 4 to 6%. in 1998, before the Chávez-led Government came to power, it was 21% and 98% of Venezuelans now have at least three meals a day.

Malnourished: Just about every other pregnant Colombian woman suffers from malnutrition.

Guatemalan Hunger: 49% of Guatemalan children below the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition while 40% of children between 7-9 suffer moderate to severe malnutrition.

High Prices: Basic food items in El Salvador such as rice, maize and sugar are the most expensive in Central America and could be because of the government’s close ties with the private sector.

Organic Sugar: Cuba has started producing organic sugar and hopes to export it to Europe, North America and Japan, where it fetches significantly higher prices.

Bolivia desert: A full 41% of Bolivia, where 71% of the population lives, has been affected by desertification brought about by climate change, overgrazing, population pressure and indiscriminate felling of forests, says a Bolivian minister.

Cancun Pact: President Evo Morales says he will ask the International Court in Hague to nullify the Cancun agreement because it was done without consensus and is against human life on the planet.

Cuba Blockade: 59% of Americans think their country should lift the blockade of Cuba and restore normal relations, up 14% from May 2008, while 30% want to retain the old policies.

Wikileaks: Fear and Loathing of Chavez, Allies

2010-12-17T16:24:00.003Z

Clown, mad, ignorant, disaster, thug, erratic and lost cause – these are some of the expressions that prominent Spanish diplomats offered in private about Latin American leaders, mostly those who form the Bolivarian bloc, that is, the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and the Castro brothers of Cuba.

The insults, always in private and before U.S. diplomatic representatives, contrast with the official discourse of the Spanish state in recent decades. Other Wikileaks documents reveal the opinion about the ousted Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya.

These private declarations are those responsible for drawing the foreign policy of the current Socialist government of Spain and include the likes of Bernardino León, chief of staff of President Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jiménez.

In a conversation between Bernardino León and Tom Shannon, then No. 2 in the State Department, the former hard words for the Leftist Latin American leaders and also for the Argentines. The Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, he said, was given to being stupid while the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, was erratic, unpredictable and a lost cause. Evo Morales was ignorant and inexpert but honest.

Hugo Chávez was the principal objective though Spain has done thriving trade with him, for example selling him coast guard vessels. Behind closed doors, he said Chávez was a clown, ignorant and mad. The Wikileaks documents reveal Zapatero’s disregard for Fidel and Raúl Castro and quotes him as saying he is proud not to have met them or visited the island.

In a 2008 cable, the U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Charles Ford, said President Zelaya was almost a caricature of a landowning caudillo in his style and tone, an eternal rebel adolescent, someone who wanted to have a public image of a martyr, of someone who wanted to do good but was held back by powerful interests.

Ford claimed Zelaya was linked to organised crime. Zelaya and Ford met almost weekly but still the President stuck to his choice of Honduras’ ambassador to the United Nations, someone the USA wanted to veto. There was a dark side to Zelaya, said Ford, with his Cuban and Venezuelan advisers. He did not have friends outside his family, said Ford, and suspected he might be addicted to drugs for his back pain.

In other Wikileaks documents, it emerges that the U.S. authorities sought information from Venezuelans linked to the oil industry in exchange for granting them visas. In 2005, the then Venezuelan Archbishop asked the USA to go hard after Chávez to “contain” him.

Sources: La Jornada, Aporrea

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Wikileaks: Secret U.S. Blueprint To Undermine Hugo Chavez

2010-12-10T18:23:00.003Z

[María Luisa Rivera for Wikileaks, 9 December 2010, 13.30 GMT]

Craig Kelly, the U.S. ambassador to Chile, drew up a secret list of strategies to undermine Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president. His memo - dated June 15, 2007 - was one of a series drawn up by various U.S. embassies in the Southern Cone region.

Kelly summed up his vision as follows: "Know the enemy: We have to better understand how Chavez thinks and what he intends; —Directly engage: We must reassert our presence in the region, and engage broadly, especially with the "non-elites"; —Change the political landscape: We should offer a vision of hope and back it up with adequately-funded programs; — Enhance military relationships: We should continue to strengthen ties to those military leaders in the region who share our concern over Chavez."

Specifically, Kelly proposed strengthening U.S. intelligence operations in Latin America in order to better understand Chavez’s long-term objectives and blackmailing neighbouring countries to turn against Chavez such as by excluding Venezuela from regional free trade agreements.

Kelly, who just retired after serving as the second highest ranked diplomat for "western hemispheric affairs" at the State Department, acknowledged in his memo that “Chavez has made significant inroads, particularly with local populations, by providing programs for the underprivileged.”

Despite admitting that Chavez had been successful, Kelly also described the Venezuelan president’s vision as “distorted” and mocked his “tirades and antics” claiming that "Chavez’s mouth (often) opened before his brain has engaged." Kelly recommended telling "the truth about Chavez — his hollow vision, his empty promises, his dangerous international relationships starting with Iran."
Yet the cable also warns that Chavez must be taken seriously noting that “it would be a mistake to dismiss Hugo Chavez as just a clown or old school caudillo. He has a vision, however distorted, and he is taking calculated measures to advance it”.

Kelly noted that few countries in the region had proven capable of resisting the appeal of Venezuela’s aid and investment packages. "Poor countries, like Uruguay, are vulnerable not so much to Chavez’s ideology but to his petrobolivars," he wrote.

Another example that Kelly used to illustrate this point was Argentina’s ties to Venezuela. Due to Argentina’s lack of access to capital markets Kelly noted that Chavez “bought” support through financial assistance, recommending that the "obvious counter to the influence that Chavez’s financial support has bought him in Argentina is to help the GoA (government of Argentina) regain direct access to international financial markets."

In order to reduce Venezuela’s influence in regional affairs, Kelly also proposed holding up Brazil and Chile as “case studies” of “countries that are leftist-led but are democratic and fiscally responsible”.

Acknowledging Chavez’s success at creating the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) - a 12 nation group modelled after the European Union - that pointedly excluded the U.S. Kelly suggested that the U.S. block further integration of the region by threatening to stop trade with Southern Cone countries if Venezuela is allowed to join MERCOSUR, a free trade zone made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The cable further shows the intention of the U.S. to destabilize Chavez’s authority. Kelly recommended using “public diplomacy” to fight a “battle of ideas and visions”. One suggestion was that the embassy should track “local elite appetites for corruption" and any examples of the Chavez administration "fail(ing) to deliver on their promises."

He also recommended exploiting the fears of the anti-Chavez leaders and opinion makers that “appreciate the importance of relations with the U.S.”
Kelly claims that the five-country visit by Bush in March 2007 was a major diplomatic success against Chavez, so he encouraged further senior-level visits to wean other Latin American countries away from Venezuela’s influence.

"When we make these visits, it is important we be seen not just with government officials and elites, but also with those who have been marginalized or are on the fringes of society. We need visits not only to those countries where leaders praise us, but even more importantly where governments have distanced themselves from us. In these places, showing the flag and explaining directly to populations our view of democracy and progress can change views about the U.S. that may have become distorted or out of date."
Finally Kelly recommended increased funding for "critical programs such as International Military Education and Training (IMET) and traditional Commander Activities (TCA) and the elimination of other important programs such as Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).

Much of this funding has been cut in recent years as a punishment to countries who refuse to shield U.S. citizens from the prosecution of the International Criminal Court.
In the past, however, the U.S. was deeply involved in the training paramilitary forces in Latin America many of whom were associated with right wing regimes, notably at the School of the Americas (SOA) located at Fort Benning, Georgia, which was renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" in 2001.

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Source: Wikileaks

Bolivarians Will Win Big In Assembly Elections

2010-09-19T17:56:00.006+01:00

It is never easy for outside observers to call election results correctly in Venezuela and election surveys are often partisan in that country. Depending on its degree of rabidity, Opposition factions have either been claiming that Chavez and his party will lose control of the National Assembly in the September 26 elections or that the two camps are almost at level terms.

This, of course, serves a purpose or two. Tall claims shore up the morale of the mostly upper and middle class Opposition voters who, in their blind class and race rage, seem to have retreated from the reality of their country. More “reasonable” claims of close elections have another advantage: if the Bolivarians win big, the Opposition can cry fraud as they have done in the past. The Chavez camp has said it will recognise the results whatever it be; Opposition has mostly refused to do the same.

Gregory Wilpert of Venezuela Analysis seems to have fallen for the close-elections prognosis. He argues that many Chavez supporters will abstain because they are not happy with the pace and quality of the government’s work: “And so my guess is that a lot of people who would normally vote for Chávez … they're going to abstain”; “… a certain amount of fatigue that has set in… a lot of problems… have accumulated, and particularly in an election year”.

In an excellent analysis of the complexities of the Venezuelan revolution, Steve Ellner, who has lived in that country for years, somewhat uncharacteristically speaks of “a natural wearing-out process”. These are fairly similar arguments though Wilpert and Ellner could not have been clearer about the moral bankruptcy of the Opposition.

Abstention?

GIS XXl is a Venezuelan polling organisation headed by a one-time Chavez minister, Jesse Chacon. Nevertheless, it has the best track record among Venezuelan opinion tracking firms in predicting past elections. This time, it predicts a 68% participation in the Assembly elections. This if far higher than normal and does not bode well for the abstention hypothesis. The hypothesis of Chavez supporters not turning out in large numbers falls on another logic: the D and E economic segments comprise roughly 75% of the population. They have been the biggest gainers of the government’s policies and most empowered by the revolution. They are not entirely uncritical but know that a protest abstention will hurt them the most if the Opposition sneaks in, especially as money for the many misiones (missions) has to be approved by the National Assembly. The abstention, if anything, will be more pronounced among the Opposition supporters. Albert Nolia, an independent-minded Venezuelan broadcaster, has been saying for some time now that many anti-Chavez voters will stay at home rather than vote for the same old capos who dominate the Opposition ranks. There is a logistical reason why the turnout will be higher this time. More voting centres are being set up in the barrios, making it easier for the poor to vote.

Narrow Victory?

GIS XXl also gives the Chavista-Communist alliance (PSUV-PCV) more than two-thirds majority as the most likely outcome of the elections (124-41), curiously the same as the Opposition-aligned Datanalisis firm, which later tried to play down its own findings. El Nuevo Herald, a rabidly anti-Chavez Miami newspaper, now says that the aggressive campaign by Chavez is taking the wind out of the Opposition sails. The final confirmation of impending Opposition defeat comes from the arch anti-Communist Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, who has begun to squeal about electoral manipulation in Venezuela and how Chavez can only be got rid through a popular uprising.

Díaz Rangel, editor of the independent Venezuelan newspaper, Ultimas Noticias, says the Opposition’s weakness is that it has very little presence in the places where the majority of the Venezuelan poor and lower middle classes live. The PSUV has never been as united and organised as this time. There are close to some two million volunteers working for it. The party claims four million assured votes and is looking for up to five million more from among the 12 million voters expected to turn out on election day. President Chavez has been out on his campaign trucks and the support seems to have taken even him by surprise. “This smells of 2012,” is how he put it in reference to the next presidential election. The official campaign was first named Operation Demolition after the enormous mobilisations but has now been renamed Operation Willian Lara in memory of a Bolivarian state governor who recently died in a road accident.

The Opposition campaign, missing from the streets, has been conducted through the print and visual media, which remain overwhelmingly hostile to the revolution and with support from the Catholic hierarchy scare mongering about the dangers of Cuban communism. There is no single Opposition leader with detectable popular support; the faction chiefs they have are at war with one another; they almost all come from the upper classes and, in confirming that in victory they will do away with the laws and initiatives which allow for the popular health, education and housing missions, have confirmed their reactionary stripe. A good Opposition showing will then somehow have to come out of nowhere.

It is always foolish to predict elections. It could be that Ellner and Wilpert are right and that the Chavistas are heading for a poor to mediocre showing, though not defeat. If that is indeed how it turns out, I salute their prescience (I’m not being sarcastic) and would like to admit in advance that I was wrong and they were right. If not, I suggest they were let down by their tools of analysis developed in mainstream political science geared to understanding Western liberal democracies — that governments eventually become unpopular and the other side wins in a sort of endless cycle and that the key to winning elections is more efficient administration than radical politics.

The Bolivarian experiment is not without its faults and shortcomings. Within that, it is being asked to achieve great administrative efficiency, deep political mobilisation and total respect for the rights of those who would not think twice about denying those very rights (including that of life) to the Bolivarians — and all this in a decade or so and with the real threat of a malevolent United State within and outside its borders. For all its evident weaknesses, the Venezuelan revolution still is the most concrete expression in our time of Socialism with respect for political and ideological pluralism. I know Wilpert and Ellner will agree with me on that.

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Argentina, Maradona, World Cup: It’s More Than Football

2010-07-10T11:14:00.003+01:00

The four German goals that destroyed Argentina’s dream of winning the football World Cup this year rekindled another: that of the Argentine Right and its sinister pointsman, Mauricio Macri. The real target of the Argentine Right and its allied “media generals”, as President Cristina Fernándes calls them, is Diego Maradona, revered in Argentina for his football achievements and for his political journey to the Left.

Maradona has since resigned as the team’s technical director and the Clarín, the unforgiving Right-wing rag, started ripping into him. However, the people turned up in thousands to cheer the return of the defeated team with two slogans to chill the Right's ardour. The first, 'he who does not jump is English', was a throwback to the celebrations of the 1986 victory over England in which Maradona entered Argentinean legend as a cheeky devil with his first, handball goal and as a demi-god with his second solo effort, accepted by most people as the best World Cup goal. It was seen as revenge for defeat in the Malvinas. The second rallying cry, 'uh-ah, Maradona no se va' (Maradona's not going away), was borrowed from the Venezuelan Chávez supporters, of whom Maradona is one.

The President invited the team to the presidential palace. The team led by Maradona said they were not worthy of the honour. Holding back her tears, Cristina Fernándes said they were mistaken, they were indeed worthy of it. All this might seem melodramatic to outsiders but Argentineans live and breathe the game. What Eduardo Galeano said of the Uruguayans holds true of the neighbouring Argentineans, that they are suckers for the beautiful game and are born shouting goooaaal. As it happens, Clarín's owner was away from the country when the team returned, reportedly in the USA, escaping it seems from the revelation that her children were adopted during the military dictatorship (1976-1983), brothers whose parents were murdered by the military regime. President Fernández forced the Argentine Football Association to make sure that the World Cup matches were accessible to all rather than the pay-per-game scheme which would have translated into millions of dollars in profit for the Clarin media group. Ever since, they have had the President and the "golden kid" in their sights.

Mauricio Macri's father, who established himself as a fabulously wealthy businessman, made most of his money during the dictatorship years. Mauricio apparently decided to take to politics while he was briefly kidnapped and held for ransom by a group of policemen. His family is said to have paid a huge fortune for his release. Mauricio took over the Boca Juniors football club, where Maradona made his name as a precocious youngster and a senior player who would not go to the rival, well-heeled River Plate for more money. Mauricio stabilised the club and this paid him political dividends. He was elected Mayor of Buenos Aires with most votes coming not only from the fashionable neighbourhoods but also the poorer parts where most Boca supporters live. As the Buenos Aires Mayor, Macri has given early hint of what his rule could be like. He has unleashed violent police crackdown on demonstrations, spied on his rivals and colleagues using the capital's notorious police force, brought in ex-FBI advisors for them, stood by wealthy residents who tried to erect walls to keep out the poor from sight, and recently admitted that he made some appointments based on advice from the CIA and Mossad. Maradona’s Left turn imperils the Macri project of becoming Argentina's next President on the lines of Chile's billionaire President Piñera. Diego has defended Cristina Fernándes, who lacks her husband, the former President Nestor Kirchner's popularity.

World Cups hold bittersweet memories for Argentineans. The 1986 victory in Mexico gave them Maradona. The first time they held the Jules Rimet trophy was in 1978. The country was then ruled by a military dictatorship and dissidents were being held and killed a thousand metres away from the main stadium. The River Plate stadium was being used as a clandestine holding centre. Even today, a bad football game in the continent is known as a ‘Pinochet’, filling up a football stadium for a horror show. Argentina's Dutch rivals in the finals were advised not to go. They and the others did and the military used the victory for its counter-human rights campaign with the slogan, “Argentineans are right and human”. General Jorge Rafael Videla, the architect of the dirty war, is on trial now. His policy of making people "disappear" (the disappeared were neither dead nor living, he clarified at his first trial, they had merely dis-a-ppeared) has become a template for the coupsters of Latin America. The Dutch crown princess, born Máxima Zorreguieta in Buenos Aires, is the daughter of the Agriculture Minister during the dictatorship and holds dual Dutch-Argentinean citizenship.

In 1978, Juan then 22, was transferred together with 15 other political prisoners from the Sierra Chica jail to the concentration camp of La Perla in Córdoba as hostages to be executed if guerrillas committed any attack during the World Cup. That group of 16 was kept for the period of the championship handcuffed behind their back, blindfolded, seated on the floor against the wall but with a rare privilege: if Argentina played, their guards handcuffed them in front so they could celebrate and wave them about when the team scored (which they heard over the radio). In June 1978, Ernesto, then 23 and political prisoner in Magdelana jail, was taken out of his cell during the night, beaten to pulp with sticks, made to bath in freezing water and put through several mock executions and later thrown into a punishment cell where he stayed squatting for ten days because it was too small for him to stand up. From that cell, Ernesto heard the cheers of the hangmen each time that Mario Kempes tore through the other team. Ernesto also celebrated but sensed that each Argentine goal could prolong his captivity. It was only years later that they saw the famous photos of the military junta celebrating the title in the palace and remembered those goals that they celebrated, and suffered, in the darkness of their dungeons.

The Instituto Espacio para la Memoria (Space for Memory Institute) tried to heal the wound between the footballers who won the Cup and the victims of the military regime by hosting the "Other Final" in 2008. Among those players present were Luque, Villa and Houseman who, like a large part of Argentine society, were unaware of the magnitude of the massacres. Some of the players did not join that act, and indeed criticised it, while the then coach, Menotti, stayed away. Medals were handed over to the participants saying: “In recognition of your participation in the ‘Other Final’. The match for life and human rights.” Houseman shed tears, Luque was noticeably emotional and Villa, pioneer in recognising that horror, was at all the microphones. Joaquín, Manuel and Sebastián, children of Ernesto and Juan, had their Argentine shirts signed by the players. Before travelling to Cape Town, this Argentinean team had themselves photographed holding a huge banner saying, 'We support the Mothers of the Plaza (a group of women who stood up to the dictatorship) for the Nobel Peace Prize'. Would that have been possible without Maradona's consent?

Maradona turned to the Left during his worst personal crisis while battling a drug addiction. He travelled to a detoxification clinic in Cuba and Fidel Castro mentored him at that time. Today, Maradona sports a Che tattoo on his arm and one of Fidel in his calve. The "golden kid" was an iconic presence at the 2005 demonstrations at Mar del Plata, where he sported a George Bush war criminal tee shirt and called him human garbage. One of those present at that demonstration was a Boca Junior fan who had always dreamt of meeting Maradona -- Evo Morales, now the Bolivian President. Maradona might not be all that stands between the Argentinean Right and a presidential victory but "el diez" (the perfect one in reference to his No 10 shirt), warts and all, is part of the Argentine, Latin American and international Left. Even English socialists must feel like jumping at this.

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A New Colombian President Hatches From Uribe’s ‘Little Eggs’

2010-06-23T13:11:00.003+01:00

In the upside down world of Colombia, the more things remain the same, the more they change. Juan Manuel Santos has been elected President, approvingly described by the BBC and other western news media as a “safe pair of hands” to continue with the policies of the current regime of the notorious President Alvaro Uribe. Santos won almost 70% of the votes cast but it turns out that almost 60% of the Colombians did not vote and that many of them did not turn out, or cast almost half a million blank votes, as a form of protest. Coming in the week that Jose Saramago, the Portuguese novelist died, it was somewhat ironic since his novel ‘Seeing’ charts out how a well-set regime begins to tumble after citizens spontaneously put in blank votes.

The winning candidate is of impressive Colombian pedigree. Santos is part of a very wealthy and influential Bogotan family which owns, together with its Spanish partners, a lot of the national media. It also supplies top-range political figures from time to time. Uribe’s Vice-President is a Santos, a cousin to the incoming President, who also had a great-uncle as a President from 1938-1942. Juan Manuel took some unorthodox steps in the past to get this particular office. A former Colombian President, Ernesto Samper, accused him of trying to set up deals with drug lords and even reaching out to the Left-wing FARC guerrillas in order to organise a coup against him.

That he thought of doing simultaneous deals with drug lords and Left-wing rebels should mark him out as a pragmatist. There were more signs of pragmatism like being linked to the company that oversaw the elections. And somebody must have felt charitable about him winning to organise the widespread voting fraud, ranging from having the paramilitaries threaten voters to making voters understand they would lose welfare benefits if they did not attend Santos rallies or voted improperly. Then a citizens’ group found out from a random sampling that fraudulent ballot papers somehow mostly seemed to have gravitated towards Santos in the first round of polling.

But there are times when even Juan Manuel discards opportunism to stand up for beliefs – like letting the world know how proud he feels when his country is described as the Israel of Latin America. Or may be it is still pragmatism, for Colombia buys a lot of Israeli weapons, its paramilitaries received (it would still be ongoing, wouldn’t it) a lot of training from Israeli officers and Colombia, like Tel-Aviv, has developed security expertise field testing its military tactics and weaponry on a hapless population.

Juan Manuel would not have been President if his predecessor, Don Uribe, had had his way. Having tweaked the country’s Constitution once to allow for a second term, he was all set for another tweak when Colombia’s Supreme Court decided that the constitutional amendment campaign had taken money from dubious backers and overruled the President. However, Juan Manuel publicly remains loyal to his former boss and promises to carry forward his policies. This is what some of Uribe’s achievements, the little eggs, as Uribe put it, that Santos would like to guard well:

Almost half of Colombians are poor and seven million live in extreme poverty. Colombia has the largest number of internally displaced persons after Sudan, something approaching 10% of its population. Farmers are driven off their land by the paramilitaries, their land is then handed over to large agro-businesses and government funds meant for small farmers are diverted to these large corporations. Neat. Unemployment is something like 13% and in some cities it approaches 20%. Four out of five Colombians lucky to work are not lucky enough to earn the minimum wage. So some take to smuggling drugs. Something like eleven million Colombians or 58% of the workforce is in informal employment. The services sector accounts for a disproportionately large number of jobs. School dropout is endemic. The public health system recently came close to collapse and is still infirm. Of the 102-odd aboriginal groups, something like 32 of them are in the danger of disappearing. Forty trade unionists were killed last year; this year the figure has already reached 31. Nevertheless military spending will approach 5.6% of the GDP this year. Colombia is the second largest military spender in Latin America after Brazil. In the past four years, some 5,000 were killed in cold blood, the so-called false positives where unsuspecting civilians were lured with jobs, shot, dressed in guerrilla fatigues and passed off as enemy combatants to take advantage of the financial incentives for killing guerrillas. The country has Latin America’s biggest common grave and many more are still being found. Thousands have been “disappeared” during Uribe’s presidency. Meanwhile, paramilitary bosses say they enjoyed a cosy relationship with Uribe and the military all through and that they supported Uribe’s 2002 presidency. Juan Manuel was also Uribe’s Defence Minister and in 2009 was linked to a scandal in which he is said to have favoured a friend of his in defence purchases.

During the presidential campaign, one candidate went on fast saying the media were ignoring him. Another, Gustavo Petro of the Leftist alliance, said the Bogota establishment had manipulated opinion polls to show the Green candidate was running a close second to Juan to inject some legitimacy into an election many Colombians see as essentially fixed. Piedad Cordoba, Colombia’s doughty peacemaker first expressed that view and unsurprisingly in the actual elections Juan won by an enormous margin.

President Santos is a sinister shadow over Latin America. Nevertheless, he will find that Colombians are emerging from a long period of dissociation from political protest. Students, environmentalists, indigenous people, the victims of the civil war and state violence are all beginning to hit the streets again and the forced retirement of the nimble and utterly ruthless Uribe will be a loss for the Bogota establishment. The Colombian elite will have to sweat again.

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Haiti: The Open Wounds

2010-05-19T11:15:00.006+01:00

By Blanche Petrich

The United States and the Rene Preval government see the private sector as constituting the “spine” of post-earthquake reconstruction. According to a document, Haiti Tomorrow, $9 billion will be put into infrastructure works such as roads and ports to “relaunch” the economy. One of the first roads will lead north from the capital Port-au-Prince to what will be a new township in Cabaret, just the place where Papa Doc Duvalier had thought of constructing his own Brasilia – Duvalier Ville. Experts from the organisation assessing the damage say it amounts to 120% of the GDP, $8 billion, something they have never encountered on this magnitude using the same methodology in the past 35 years.

Women Victims: The earthquake dealt a hard blow to Haitian feminism. Three of its principal figures died on January 12: Myriam Merlet, advisor to the Ministry for Women, Magalie Marcelin of the organisation Kay Fanm, and Anne Marie Coriolan, founder of the organisation SOFA. Women’s conditions were, and are, totally neglected, says Jesi Chancy, feminist activist. The first survey by these organisations found more than 7,000 pregnant women in these camps. Very rarely in the camp committees are there women representatives. Women do not have the privacy even for taking a bath. Not only are there cases of sexual harassment but also trade in sex. Girls and mothers have to trade their body for food or a piece of canvas.

Warnings Ignored: The first thing that documentary maker Arnold Antonin thought of when the earthquake struck was, it’s come: the catastrophe foretold, the warning unheard. In 2004, the geologist Claude Prepetit handed over a technical study to Jean Bertrand Aristride, the then President, warning him that fault lines below Haiti made an earthquake likely between two and ten years. Prepetit had been warning of this risk since 1996. The environmental movements, Moun pu un Aiyti Bel (People for a Beautiful Haiti) and Free Forum, organised a march in July 2009 after a poorly constructed school building collapsed in 2008, killing about 30 students. Their banner read: No to collective suicide.

Crime Nightmare: The flight of some 5,000 dangerous criminals from four prisons in the capital after the earthquake is a “real nightmare”, says Alix Fils Aime, the anti-mafia czar. The four prisons of Puerto Principe emptied of prisoners on the night of January 12. The guards fled and left behind the arms. It wasn’t accidental. Someone ordered the gates to be opened. Among the thousands of fugitive prisoners, says Aime, are 500 truly dangerous men – leaders of kidnap, rape and murder gangs.

Homeless: In the 34 seconds that the earthquake lasted, 313,000 houses collapsed. Half of them were completely destroyed and the rest could be repaired, leaving 15% of the urban population homeless. Among these were those on the top of the hills surrounding Port-au-Prince, exquisite homes with terraces and swimming pools and with a view of Gonave Bay, and shanties on the slopes built in the past three decades.

Forgotten Ones: The newly disabled, whose numbers have risen drastically, run the risk of the becoming the “forgotten ones” of the earthquake, the United Nations has warned. Take the case of Marie Michelle, 16-years-old, homeless and living in a hospital courtyard with her surviving siblings, attended to by the Cuban health brigade and visited twice a week by a psychologist. She was studying in a room when the earthquake struck. She wanted to run but was paralysed with fear, watching the walls dance. She was stuck in a heap of rubble for 25 hours, rescued, brought to hospital and had to have her right leg amputated. It is estimated that there have been between two and four thousand major amputations.

Evangelist Invasion: It’s market day at Kenscoff, a mountain village half an hour from the capital and the pastor Joe sets up state-of-the-art audio and video equipment for his evangelical show. Thousands of such missionaries from New York, Boston, Tampa and Miami are at work in Haiti. Anthropologist and Voodoo priest Rachelle Beauvoir-Dominique says these sects have been at work for decades with help from USAID. Her father Max Beauvoir, Voodoo head priest in Haiti, says if the evangelists want war, they will have war. Recently Baptists attacked a voodoo ceremony in remembrance of the dead, says Rachelle. Voodoo has been under attack since the very beginning, she says, from the days of Toussaint Louverture. Initially, the 19th-century French missionaries were tolerant, themselves product of the French revolution, but a new and aggressive group from Breton was sent in the middle of the century after a pact with the Vatican and they attacked Voodoo temples. The religion was banned during the U.S. occupation from 1915-34. In 1942, a million Haitians were forcibly converted to Catholicism and after the end of the Duvalier regime, when a distorted form of Voodoo was used to oppress the people, the religion came under attack again from the military and the Catholic Church. Then came the evangelical offensive.

Source: La Jornada

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Evo Morales Asks Pope To Humanise Church

2010-05-17T15:55:00.004+01:00

The Bolivian President, Evo Morales, in his meeting at the Vatican with the Pope which lasted 25 minutes, handed over a letter which asked him “respectfully” to abolish celibacy among the clergy and democratise and humanise the Catholic Church.

“The Church does not have to deny the fundamental part of our nature as human beings and should abolish celibacy. This way there would be fewer daughters and sons not recognised by their parents,” wrote Morales. The President revealed the letter in the course of a Press conference at a hotel in Rome after the end of the meeting with the Pope

“It is a personal contribution as a base member of the Catholic Church, said the Leftist leader, who started a tour of Europe which takes him to Spain, Norway and Finland with this stop in the Vatican.

Some “reflections made me propose very respectfully the need to overcome the crisis of the Church which, as you said, is wounded and in sin,” said the letter. Morales also underscored the fact that “it is essential to democratise and humanise your clerical structure” and asked that “women should have the same rights as men to fully exercise priesthood”.

Morales’ unusual request was handed over to the Pope by the President of the Andean republic in his private study, where he came dressed in dark clothes, with a traditional jacket and without a tie. It is the first time that the Pope received the Bolivian President in the Vatican since the former assumed office four years and four months ago.

Morales surprisingly admitted for the first time a week ago: “I want to express the truth: I am Catholic”. This is despite the bitter controversies between the Catholic Church hierarchy and his government.

Source: Aporrea

Meeting Point

Celac: Convergence And Contradictions

Convergence

China Displaces USA In Trade Ties

Snapshot Of Latin America 2010

Wikileaks: Fear and Loathing of Chavez, Allies

Wikileaks: Secret U.S. Blueprint To Undermine Hugo Chavez

Bolivarians Will Win Big In Assembly Elections

Argentina, Maradona, World Cup: It’s More Than Football

A New Colombian President Hatches From Uribe’s ‘Little Eggs’

Haiti: The Open Wounds

Evo Morales Asks Pope To Humanise Church

Honduras: What A Resistance

Eduardo Galeano: Nature’s Rights Are Also Human Rights

Venezuela’s Young Communication Guerrillas

Tasers And Post-Modern Torture

Haiti: Two Competing Aid Approaches

Haiti: Sad, Sad Facts

Cuba's Daltonic Racism: José Steinsleger

European Fascism Will Strike Hard, The Pope's A Cynic: José Saramago

Argentine Media Spews Hate Against Maradona

Honduras Coup Boss Pays Out To Lobbyists

China Will Help Launch Bolivian Satellite

Bolivia Challenges Colonial Pedagogy

Oscar Niemeyer: 101, Fecund & Going Strong

The Good Swede Harald Edelstam

Uribe Spies With His Many Little Eyes

Havana Book Fair '09: To Read Is To Grow

Venezuela Vote Reveals Chavez Gains

Rethink War On Drugs, Say Ex-Presidents

Uribe Can't Halt Colombia's Peaceniks

War Debases The Self: Adolfo Esquivel

Davos: Delusions At Not-So-Magic Mountain

Galeano: Operation Lead Unpunished

Peru admits CIA Helped In Phone Tapping

Galeano on Haiti: The White Curse

Brazil Starts To Cast A Long Shadow

Mexican State Is Terror Source, Says Zapatista Leader Sub-Comandante Marcos

In Solidarity With Gaza

Bolivia Achieves Full Literacy

Leonardo Boff : Is It Possible To Be Happy In An Unhappy World?

Colombia, The Heart of Darkness: 7 Killed or Disappear Every Day of Uribe's Rule

Lucía Morett Returns To An Uncertain Future In Mexico

Nieto Gil, The Black President Colombia Won’t Acknowledge

Paradoxes of the Venezuela Verdict

Why You Will Not Be Told Of This Miracle

Gaza Update: Boliviia, Venezuela Snap Ties

'Uribe Ordered El Aro Massacre'

Uribe's Colombia And The Real One

Javier Ponce, Poet and Defence Minister, Takes On The CIA In Ecuador

Argentina's Growing Female Prison Population

Colombia's Young Men End Up As War Trophies

Venezuela and Bolivia: What International Aid Could Look Like

Latin America Kingdom Of Paradoxes: Galeano

Ecuador Asks Ingrid To Show Some Gratitude

'Colombia Lives In A Spiral Of Silence'

Chile Imprisons Documentary Maker

Cuba Wants Internet Democratised

Dark History of the 1978 Football World Cup

Mexico's Accidental Incompetent President

Hondurans Protest Negroponte Visit

Chile's Torture Ship On Goodwill Tour

The Footballing Passion of Evo Morales

Blackwater Eyes Colombia, Mexico

I Will Risk My Life For Truth: Lydia Cacho

Mass Graves Found In Peru Army Barracks

Chavez Plans Circus Of The South To Take On The Media Clowns

Mexican Student Survivor Is Colombia’s Latest Public Enemy

Unlike Uribe, My Hands Are Not Stained With Blood: Ecuador President

Ecuador Flushes Out The Nest of Spies

Argentina Drowns In Sea Of Soya

Israel in Colombia: Death Do We Impart

Penguins Rise Up Against Latin 'Jaguar'

Dear President Zapatero, What About Some Solidarity With the Cuban Five?