Bolivia launches constitutional reform

by Lisa Garrigues
CUSCO, Peru
It began as a long march by indigenous people through the Amazon jungle in 1990, shook the streets of Bolivia in 2003 and 2005, brought down two presidents and elected the first Indian president of Bolivia in December 2005.

On July 2, the people of Bolivia will finally begin the process which indigenous groups and social movements have been demanding for 15 years: the rewriting of Bolivia's constitution.

Two hundred and fifty-five representatives will be elected, with a quota of women, who will draft the new constitution over the next year. Simultaneously, Bolivians will vote on a referendum for greater autonomy for the country's wealthy eastern region.

In the four months he has been in office, Bolivian president Evo Morales has cut his own salary and the salary of other government officials, nationalized Bolivian oil, begun ambitious land reform and literacy programs, and imported Cuban doctors to work in poor, rural communities.

Now, in his proposal for the new constitution, Morales reframes Bolivia, which is 65 percent indigenous, as a state based on ''plurality, equality, and the dialogue between cultures.'' But as the elected representatives add their own ideas to Morales' proposal, he will be challenged not just by conservatives who opposed his election but by some Indian and campesino organizations who say they have been excluded from the constitutional assembly process.

''Refundar Bolivia,'' a document released by Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in May, specifically mentions the struggles of Andean indigenous heroes.

It lessens the power of the Catholic Church by redefining Bolivia as a lay state with respect for all religions and beliefs. It makes the Wiphala, a flag that has been a symbol of Latin American Indian unity and resistance, the official flag along with the current one. Aymara, Quechua and Guarani are named as official languages along with Spanish, and Bolivia's indigenous population is ensured the right to their political systems, cultural traditions and natural resource management. The coca leaf, as a cultural tradition, is guaranteed protection by the state.

Several campesino and Indian organizations are mentioned as having worked on the MAS proposal, including the Confederacion Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB) and the Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Marqas de Qollasuyo (CONAMAQ).

But in April, some of the leaders of CONAMAQ, a nongovernmental organization headed by Martin Condori, took to the streets and burned papers representing agreements with MAS, officially ending the relationship. They claimed that MAS had not given them enough representation in its selection of candidates for the constitutional assembly. Vice President Alvaro Linera responded that MAS could not give them more without excluding other groups.

''Evo is one of our sons,'' said Jaime Perez Castro, one of the mallkus, or authorities, of CONAMAQ, ''but is he paying attention to his ancestral culture?''

Castro says CONAMAQ will present Morales with its own proposal, emphasizing indigenous forms of political organization.

''We're not interested in communism or capitalism,'' he said. ''We want to return to the system of Ayllus we had before the colonization.''

Leaders of CSUTCB, which was once headed by Felipe Quispe, Morales' opponent in the 2002 presidential elections, have also expressed dissatisfaction with Morales, ranging from accusations that he is still surrounded by too many members of the previous government to charges that his proposal is ''too European'' or that Hugo Chavez is wielding too much power in Bolivia.

Quechuan activist Marta Orozco, who worked with Morales before his presidency, said some of the dissatisfaction from Indian groups is because ''Morales is a syndicalist, not an Indianist. But it's all healthy self-criticism, a necessary part of the process.''

Faustino Aricagua, Mallku of the indigenous group El Consejo de Suyus Aymaras y Quechuas del Qullasuyu (CONSAQ), emphasized the need for unity.

''Evo is working hard to incorporate all 36 of our national indigenous cultures,'' he said.

''What we need to do is change the cultural self-esteem of every single Bolivian,'' said Aricagua. ''This can't happen in three or four months.''

One of the major criticisms from indigenous organizations and social movements has been that the hurried deadline for gathering signatures made it impossible for them to present candidates, essentially handing over the assembly to political parties and excluding other organizations.

Democracy Center Director Jim Schultz has commented in his Web blog from Bolivia that this may be one of the reasons for the relative lack of enthusiasm for the constitutional assembly elections compared to the presidential elections of December. Without the enthusiasm MAS was able to generate in December, he said, Morales may end up with a majority of assembly members from opposition parties, who have opposed his land reform project and seek greater autonomy for the wealthy, largely European area of Santa Cruz.

Those within MAS see the constitutional assembly as ''the beginning of an important change'' for the indigenous people of Bolivia.

''The peoples of Bolivia, the Guarani, the Aymara and others, were excluded from the writing of earlier constitutions. Now it's our turn,'' said Lorenzo Mamani, Aymaran director of unemployment for MAS.

Mamani said the MAS proposal is a work in progress, and authorities from indigenous communities will continue to be consulted in its development.

He took the criticisms of Morales and MAS in stride. ''You are never going to be able to satisfy everyone,'' he said. ''There will always be criticism.''

In La Paz, women in traditional Aymaran clothing mingled with university students in blue jeans and office workers in suits and ties, at a meeting of Santucos or ''busy little devils,'' a grass-roots MAS group, which has sprung up separately from the MAS leadership to organize for the new constitution on a community level. There, organizers spoke of how to gather suggestions from people on the street to add to the MAS proposal.

''It's not the job of MAS to preach to the people,'' said one organizer, ''it's our job to find out what kind of Bolivia they want.''

US gears up for post-Castro era in Cuba

by Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON
The United States should act fast to boost a transitional government in Cuba when President Fidel Castro's rule ends and get advisors on the ground within weeks, a U.S. government report recommends.

The report, which was ordered by President George W. Bush and is due to be released next week, also recommends a new U.S. "democracy fund" for communist-run Cuba worth $80 million over two years to boost opposition to Castro.

In addition, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, suggested yearly funding for Cuban democracy programs of $20 million until Castro's "dictatorship ceases."

The report, obtained by Reuters on Friday, was bound to irritate Castro, who has been in power since 1959 and has long accused Washington of meddling in Cuban affairs.

The two countries have no diplomatic ties and the United States has maintained an economic embargo on the Caribbean island for more than four decades. While the report suggested some tightening of enforcement of the embargo it did not suggest drastic changes.

Washington has had plans for a post-Castro transition period for years and its expectations for such a period now appear to rest largely on the leader's eventual death.

Castro, who is 80 in August, has shown no sign of wanting to step down, and has designated his brother, Raul, to succeed him when he dies.

The State Department declined comment, saying the report could change before being made public, most likely on Wednesday. The president still has to agree to its contents.

The report accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of giving funds to subvert democracy in Cuba. Chavez, a firm Castro ally, has helped Cuba economically through oil import deals.

U.S. HELP FOR TRANSITION

Cuba expert Phil Peters of the Virginia-based thinktank, the Lexington Institute, said the tone of the report was more conciliatory than a previous one in 2004, this time suggesting U.S. assistance would be given if requested rather than imposing it on the island.

"The U.S. government will need to be prepared well in advance to help in the event assistance is requested by the Cuban Transition Government," said the report.

However Peters said any of the proposed post-Castro aid could take a while to implement because of strict U.S. laws governing any help for Cuba. "I expect the U.S. will be a spectator there for a long time," said Peters.

The commission, chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Cuban American Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, said that with the end of the Castro government, a transitional government would face daunting challenges to address people's basic needs from health care to providing water.

The United States must be ready to help, said the report, adding such assistance would aid a transitional authority build a democracy.

The report said Cuban exiles could play a crucial role in the transition period.

"The Commission strongly believes that the Cuban community abroad should redouble their efforts to foster reconciliation on and off the island and to undertake steps now to organize and prepare to assist a Transition Government in Cuba."

Hugo Chavez with African Summit

CaracasVenezuela's President Hugo Chavez is due to travel Friday to Gambia to attend July 1-2 the African Union (AU) Summit, in which the South American country is an associated member.

Chavez confirmed Thursday his departure to Africa and said his participation will be quick but very important, to later return Caracas where he will attend a MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market) summit.

The Venezuelan leader stated that his country is associated member and observer of the AU, as part of his government's international policy that "really worries US imperialism."

The Caracas policy of solidarity and brotherhood is continuing in the world and that's why Washington has staged an international campaign to avoid its entrance to the UN Security Council in October.

The Venezuelan head of State is still not sure of his country's entrance in the UN body, because there are three months of battle with United States and its policy of blackmail, threats and pressure in favor of its candidate, Guatemala.

After Venezuela repudiating the recent Israeli attack on Palestine, Chavez stated the US does not want Venezuela on the UN Security Council, because it knows that "with occurrences like these we will continue raising our voices of protest."

U.S. Supreme Court declares trials in Guantánamo prison illegal

WASHINGTON
This Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President George W. Bush does not have the authority to order military trials for detainees in Guantánamo.

The ruling is an admonishment to the Bush government, which has been accused of using the war against terrorism as a pretext for exceeding its constitutional powers, reported AP.

John Paul Stevens, a Supreme Court judge, wrote the ruling which states that such trials would be illegal and in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.

The case from which the ruling emerged focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni detained on the U.S. base in Cuba who had worked as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver.

From Paris, the news agency EFE reported that Terry Davis, secretary general of the European Council described the U.S. Supreme Court ruling as "a victory of justice over terror and hypocrisy."

U.S. authorities should take advantage of the ruling to "review their policy, close down Guantánamo and abandon the practice of abusive treatment of prisoners as well as other measures contrary to international human rights regulations," said Davis.

Human rights defenders and Democratic Party legislators are also celebrating the Supreme Court decision, according to EFE.

Venezuela is Second Most Proud Country

by Megan Reichgott
When it comes to national pride, Americans are No. 1 in the world, according to a survey of 34 countries released Tuesday.

Venezuela came in a close second for having the most patriotism, according to the report from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. People rated how proud they were of their countries in areas such as political influence, economic success, sports and history.

"The two things we (Americans) rank high on are what we think of as the political or power dimension," said Tom W. Smith, who wrote the report and directs the General Social Survey at the university's research center. "Given that we're the one world superpower, it's not that surprising."

Patriotism is mostly a "New World" concept, the survey said. Ex-colonies and newer nations were more likely to rank high on the list, while Western European, East Asian and former Socialist countries usually ranked near the middle or bottom.

The report was based on a survey in 34 countries conducted by the International Social Survey Program. People rated how proud they were of their countries in 10 areas: political influence, social security, the way their democracy works, economic success, science and technology, sports, arts and literature, military, history, and fair treatment of all groups in society.

The U.S. ranked highest overall and in five categories: pride in its democracy, political influence, economy, science and military. Venezuela came in second by ranking highest in sports, arts and literature, history, and fair treatment of all groups in society.

Eric Wingerter, a Washington D.C.-based spokesman for the Venezuelan government, said the country previously imported much of its television programming, movies and pop music from the U.S., but that has changed under President Hugo Chavez's leadership.

Many Venezuelans say Chavez has helped create a new sense of national pride, he said.

"There's been a real emphasis on rediscovering what it means to be Venezuelan," he said.

The debate in Venezuela over Chavez, who makes headlines for nationalistic, anti-U.S. rhetoric, might account for the country's No. 2 ranking, Smith said.

"We looked at, 'Well, is it just the Chavez support, or is it the image of the country?' and they're actually both high," Smith said.

Ireland came in at No. 3, followed by South Africa and Australia.

Cultural differences might explain lower rankings for the three Asian countries on the list--Japan (18th), Taiwan (29th), and Korea (31), Smith said.

"It is both bad luck and poor manners to be boastful about things there," Smith said.

Countries that were part of the former Soviet Union or in the former Eastern Bloc ranked lower because they're still struggling to find new national identities, Smith said. Hungary was the highest Eastern European country on the list at 21.

Cuba condemns Israeli military aggression in the Gaza Strip

STATEMENT FROM THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, has learnt with great concern of Israel’s large-scale military operation that began in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of June 28, 2006 with the mobilization of around 5,000 soldiers, hundreds of tanks and other military hardware, during which it attacked the principal electricity station in the area, leaving half of the territory without electricity, indiscriminately bombarded several bridges connecting different parts of the Strip, reoccupied important southern portions of Palestinian territory, and detained many high-ranking figures from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

This inhumane and criminal aggression took place just when an agreement had been reached among the Palestinian political forces, which is contributing to the renewal of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, in line with the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba rejects the violation of the Arab Republic of Syria’s airspace by Israeli military aircraft which, together with the barbaric actions in the Gaza Strip, once again exposes the Middle East to a dangerous escalation of violence that is putting international peace and security at risk.

As in the past, Israel is acting with the arrogance and impunity afforded it both by U.S. economic and military support and its permanent veto on the UN Security Council.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba wishes to express its most vigorous condemnation of the barbaric Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip and calls on the international community and peace-loving forces to mobilize in demand of the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip; a cession of Israeli state terrorism; and respect for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent, sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, the return of refugees, and the unconditional return of all Arab territories occupied in June 1967, as the only way of reaching a just and lasting peace for all the people of that convulsive region.

Havana, June 29, 2006

Washington’s Undeclared War Against Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez:

The State Department Human Trafficking Report: Raw Ideology Rather Than Bona Fide Research

In evaluating the standards used to assess the performance of ideological foes in such areas as human rights observance, narcotics, terrorism, respect for religious freedom, and human trafficking, the State Department’s certifications (compiled annually as mandated by U.S. Congress) are little better than fabrications to meet the political requirements of Secretary of State Rice. Depending upon whether the Secretary of State wants to complain about an ideological adversary or praise a loyal ally, the architects of the reports are prepared to spotlight phantom offenses or ignore arrant abuses. Venezuela, which received a Tier 3 (serious offender) rank on Washington’s human trafficking list, could have faired no better at the hands of the Bush administration’s operations.

The State Department’s human trafficking methodology is to rank countries on a three tier system. Tier 3 is comprised of countries that are the most egregious participants in trafficking and are thus subject to heavy sanctions. Tier 2 includes countries complicit in trafficking, but which, from the State Department’s perspective, are making significant efforts to counter the problem; finally, Tier 1 is comprised of countries not significantly engaged in the industry. The problem with this methodology is that a country’s ranking appears to be based far less on well-defined evidentiary standards than on Washington’s readiness to launch a rant against the likes of Chávez.

In its ongoing crusade to impugn the government of Chávez, the Bush administration, during both the Powell and Rice eras, has blacklisted Venezuela. These findings have become famously known in Washington as contrived, spurious, and worthless exercises. Out of all these negative ratings, the one awarded to Venezuela regarding human trafficking has generated perhaps the most moral outrage among independent scholars and may represent one of the more gross cases of faulty research developed by the State Department.

Human Trafficking: Definition and State Department Report
Human trafficking is one of the world’s most reprehensible crimes. Defined in 2000 by the UN as “the recruitment, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion,” human trafficking frequently encompasses sexual exploitation or forced labor. Until recently, governments and NGO’s did not systematically track information on human trafficking, and only rough anecdotal estimates have been available from the past.

In 2000, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a measure designed to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and provide yearly benchmarks on a given country’s effort to minimize human trafficking. The annual assessments mandated by the act were based on information coming from a variety of sources, including U.S. embassies, foreign government officials, NGOs and international organizations. Based on a threshold of 100 or more victims, State Department officials endeavor to determine whether a given country serves as a source, transit point, or destination for trafficking victims. State Department officials, monitoring human trafficking under Director John Miller, offered up their own rather discretionary interpretations of the already highly fluid standards and loose evidentiary arguments to validate the given country. Needless to say, the evaluation of Venezuela – given that Hugo Chávez has been one of the Bush administration’s chosen anti-Christs – was preordained. Critical to the integrity of the process is that judgments now being made must not be politically driven. On this score, the State Department has woefully failed.

In many instances, impartial analysis in today’s State Department has fallen by the wayside. There is simply no way that the human trafficking document, in its reference to the Chávez administration, is delivering anything more than desultory gibberish aimed more at pleasing special interests in Coral Gables, where large numbers of wealthy Venezuelans have second homes, rather than to draft a truly professional evaluation of Caracas’ performance.

A Biased Gavel
In 2005, the United States once again ranked Cuba as Tier 3. The judgment represented Cuba’s third year on the list, and it hardly took any effort at all for the U.S. to deliver its verdict. The initial decision to include the island in the most negative category came about without any new evidence being presented that Havana had committed any offenses since the last reporting period. In fact, Cuba was not even mentioned in either the 2001 or 2002 report, and its reappearance had more to do with the zealotry of the Representative Ros-Lehtinen-led hard-right Miami delegation in the House, than respectable scholarship. The island’s abrupt reappearance on Washington’s rogue list casts severe doubt upon the document’s integrity. Like other annual certifications, the Human Trafficking Report is now subject to ideology, and its chronic lack of objectivity appears to confirm the politicized manipulation and the routine use of selective data.

The 2005 Human Trafficking Report on Cuba illustrates this debauched process. The document relies heavily on hearsay. For example, it notes that “there are no reliable estimates available on the extent of trafficking in the country; however, children in prostitution (are) widely apparent, even to casual observers.” Since U.S. “casual observers” are not permitted by Washington to travel to Cuba, one wonders whether there are members of the U.S.-Cuba interest section in Havana. These are pathetically weak grounds for Cuba’s Tier 3 placement, yet such qualms do not appear to trouble the thoroughly unprofessional State Department personnel working on the project, including, Director John Miller of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and Secretary of State Rice.

The Venezuelan Finding
Venezuela was also ranked Tier 3 in the human trafficking category, yet this classification, if anything, represents an even worse perversion of scholarship. Following the release of its latest report, the State Department was forced to admit that its claim that Caracas had failed to prosecute a single human trafficker may have been wrong, since the Chávez government asserted that it had, in fact, prosecuted 21 individuals. Nevertheless, as a result of the ranking, predicated as it was on a very narrow or nonexistent foundation, the South American nation has suffered sanctions involving the blockage of $250 million in international loans in 2005. While Caracas is cited as having a poor preventative anti-trafficking process in place, the State Department report cannot point to a single stated complaint against Venezuelan authorities.

Furthermore, this heavy-handed U.S. designation flies in the face of quality analyses done by other organizations. For example, according to a study recently issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns, there are, in fact, more reports on human trafficking incidents applying to a major U.S. ally, Colombia, than Washington’s major adversary, Venezuela; yet the former received only a Tier 1 classification from the State Department, while the book was thrown at Caracas. This discrepancy reveals how much sway political factors have in the methodology behind producing the agency’s annual report. Colombia is one of Washington’s closest regional allies; thus the country’s endemic corruption and the tempo of human trafficking are systematically overlooked or downplayed by U.S. officials. Numerous cases of Colombian women being trafficked into Japan’s sex industry have been cited by entities such as the UN, and the attribution process is cited as an area in need of major improvement.

Venezuela, one of Washington’s chief hemispheric antagonists, is subject to harsh sanctions as a result of these bogus allegations. The Bush administration’s use of a heinous crime like human trafficking as merely another weapon in its anti-Chávez crusade, is nothing more than an example of grossly self-indulgent behavior, worsened by the fact that it degrades the usefulness of the reporting process, as well as the administration’s repeated invoking of lofty rhetoric referring to the importance of building an international community to advance the public good. In fact, the question should be asked whether the entire certification process, in all of its manifestations, should be dropped, because it is obvious, that what is now being done in the name of high-minded reform, is simply shameless self-serving pandering to the White House’s reigning ideological biases.

A Distinguished Report?
In the years since the State Department’s annual report was created, it has received abundant criticism from NGOs and other governments. In 2003, Human Rights Watch observed that the report lacked adequate analysis backed by concrete data and noted that the U.S. document did not include facts about tried, prosecuted, and the conviction rate of traffickers in countries with which it has close ties. Another common complaint has been that some countries are placed in tiers that do not correspond with the relative weight of their alleged human trafficking records. For example, many officials believe Japan’s extensive human trafficking activity and weak legislation to combat it should have landed it in a Tier 3 ranking, but clearly that nation is too important an ally and trade partner to allow for such a designation. Such appellations have their foundation in the White House’s irresistible ideological propellant that leads to the hand out of negative classifications for countries such as Cuba and Venezuela — rankings which are based more on politicized prejudice then on facts.

Beyond Ideology
Unfounded allegations by the State Department are perversions which have further sullied its fast vanishing integrity under its present leadership. While Secretary of State Rice has perfected a techno-babble style of public utterance that seems to say far more than actually is the case, the fact is that if the U.S. intends to be a key player in the fight against human trafficking, its research and reports must be impeccable. Using doctored official findings as handy political weapons, as in the case of Venezuela, will only discourage international cooperation on the issue and result in global derision due to the use of tainted documents, which deserve to be considered almost worthless. If Washington is serious about confronting the problem of trafficking, and not just using it as a vehicle for anti-Chávez propaganda, it must do better than simply continue to push a self-serving political agenda on such an important issue.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Gabriel Associate
June 28, 2006

Morales making good on pledge to share Bolivia's energy wealth

by Joseph Stiglitz
A few months ago, Evo Morales became Bolivia's first democratically elected indigenous head of state. Indigenous groups constitute 62 percent of Bolivia's population, and those with mixed blood another 30 percent, but for 500 years Bolivians had been ruled by colonial powers and their descendants. Well into the 20th century, indigenous groups were effectively deprived of a vote and a voice. Aymara and Quechua, their languages, were not even recognized for conducting public business. So Morales' election was historic, and the excitement in Bolivia is palpable.

But Morales' nationalization of Bolivia's oil and gas fields sent shock waves through the international community. During his campaign, Morales made clear his intention to increase state control over national gas and oil. But he had made it equally clear that he did not intend to expropriate the property of energy firms -- he wanted foreign investors to stay. (Nationalization does not, of course, necessarily mean expropriation without appropriate compensation.) Perhaps surprising for modern politicians, Morales took his words seriously. Genuinely concerned about raising the incomes of his desperately poor people, he recognized that Bolivia needs foreigners' expertise to achieve growth, and that this entails paying fairly for their services. But are foreign owners getting more than a fair rate of return?

Morales' actions are widely supported by Bolivians, who see the so-called privatizations (or "capitalizations") under former President Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada as a rip-off: Bolivia received only 18 percent of the proceeds! Bolivians wonder why investments of some US$3 billion should entitle foreign investors to 82 percent of the country's vast gas reserves, now estimated to be worth US$250 billion. While there has not yet been full disclosure of returns, or an audit of the true value of investments, it appears that investors would, at the old terms, have recouped all their money within just four years.

Bolivians also ask why foreigners reap all the benefits of today's high prices for oil and gas. It costs no more to extract oil or gas today than it did when prices were one-third of their current level. Yet, the foreign oil companies get 82 percent of the increase -- in the case of oil, this would amount to a windfall for them of US$32 a barrel or more. No wonder that Bolivians thought they were being cheated and demanded a new deal. On May 2, Morales simply reversed the percentages, pending renegotiation of the contracts: the companies operating in the two largest fields would get 18 percent of the production. As part of this new deal, Bolivia should also get a larger share when prices increase. (Bolivia may, of course, not want to bear the risk of a fall in the price, so it may strike a deal to transfer some of the downside risk to foreign companies, giving them in exchange more of the upside potential.)

To most Bolivians, what is at stake is a matter of fairness: Should foreign oil and gas companies get a fair return on their capital, or a supernormal return? Should Bolivia be paid a fair value for its resources? And should Bolivia, or foreign companies, reap most of the windfall gains from increases in energy prices?

Moreover, many deals were apparently done in secret by previous governments -- and apparently without the approval of Congress. Indeed, because Bolivia's Constitution requires the approval of Congress for such sales, it isn't clear that Morales is nationalizing anything: the assets were never properly sold. When a country is robbed of a national art treasure, we don't call its return "re-nationalization," because it belonged to the country all along.

As with many privatizations elsewhere, there are questions as to whether the foreign investors have kept their side of the bargain. Bolivia contributed to these joint enterprises not only with resources, but also with previous investments. The foreign companies' contribution was supposed to be further investment. But did they fully live up to their commitments? Are accounting gimmicks being used to overstate the true value of foreign capital contributions? Bolivia's government has, so far, simply raised questions, and set in motion a process for ascertaining the answer.

The problem in Bolivia is a lack of transparency when contracts are signed and afterwards. Without transparency, it is easy for citizens to feel they are being cheated -- and they often are. When foreign companies get a deal that is too good to be true, there is often something underhanded going on. Around the world, oil and gas companies have themselves to blame: too often, they have resisted calls for greater transparency. In the future, companies and countries should agree on a simple principle: there should be, to paraphrase President Woodrow Wilson's memorable words, "open contracts, openly and transparently arrived at."

If the Bolivians do not get fair value for their country's natural wealth, their prospects are bleak. Even if they do, they will need assistance, not only to extract their resources, but also to improve the health and education of all Bolivians -- to ensure long-term economic growth and social welfare.

For now, the world should celebrate the fact that Bolivia has a democratically elected leader attempting to represent the interests of the poor people of his country. It is a historic moment.
*
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is professor of economics at Columbia University.

Morales signs new gas agreement in Argentina

Argentina will pay 5 US dollars for every million BTU of Bolivian natural gas, up from the current price of 3.20 US dollars, announced the Bolivian embassy in Buenos Aires.

The agreement, following negotiations which started in May, will be officially sealed Thursday when Bolivian president Evo Morales makes his first official visit to Argentina since taking office last January.

Argentina currently imports a daily average of 5 million cubic meters of natural gas from Bolivia, which Argentina pays at 3.20 US dollars but that in international markets sells for 7 to 8 US dollars per million BTU.

When President Morales last May first took control of the country’s hydrocarbons resources he also announced he would be demanding higher prices from its main customers, Brazil and Argentina.

While Brasilia has yet to begin talks with Bolivia on a new price, Argentina quickly arrived to a new understanding. Buenos Aires is anxious to have terms in place before the completion of a new pipeline that will enable it to increase imports of Bolivian gas to roughly 27 million cubic meters per day.

Bolivian Ambassador Roger Ortiz Mercado in Buenos Aires said that the energy agreement reached “goes beyond the setting of prices" since "it’s not multinational corporations that are reaching an agreement but two sovereign countries”.

Morales agenda in Buenos Aires includes the inauguration next to Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, of a sports stadium in the suburb of Hurlingham where a large community of Bolivians live and a massive rally has been programmed.

Detailed analysis of construction of the South gas pipeline

CARACAS
Engineering plans and construction costs were among issues discussed at the 2nd meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Great Gas Pipeline of the South, an integration project currently being promoted by the Venezuelan government.

In this second coordination and planning meeting for the work, which covers an area of approximately 8,000 kilometers, the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia were given details of this last country’s incorporation into the project.

The Energy and Hydrocarbons representatives from the four nations involved approved the timescale for works on the gas pipeline, which will run from Venezuela to Argentina, passing through Brazil.

They also announced the assignation to Bolivia of $150,000 for the development of an environmental study prior to becoming part of the plan. The committee has programmed its next meeting for September in La Paz.

In addition, it was decided to create a group to study the effects and viability of a Transitory Enterprise Union and another permanent commission to present the terms and conditions for contracting the conceptual engineering for the project.

The project, at an estimated cost of $20 billion, is to incorporate natural gas from Bolivia, a country that has the third largest gas reserve on the continent, into that produced by Venezuela.

The state enterprises ENARSA of Argentina, PETROBRAS of Brazil, Bolivian Fiscal Oilfields (YPBF) and Venezuelan Oil (PDVSA) are responsible for the project.

According to the plans, the gas pipeline should be underway in 2017, which is why technical teams are working on the evaluation of the environmental impact and projected route.

President Hugo Chávez views the project as an investment that would be recouped within a short period, as it was designed on the basis of a plan allowing income via a functioning route.

A Call from the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca

The Next “Mega-March” Will Be Held on June 28, As a Popular Struggle is Constructed “From Below”

By the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, The Other Mexico

CALL FROM THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA TO THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND DEMOCRATIC AND REVOLUTIONARY LABOR UNIONS TO THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES AND PARENTS TO THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA, OF MEXICO AND OF THE WORLD

Today the people of Oaxaca write one of the best pages in their state’s last 30 years of history, as today, just as durring the years of independence and the Mexican Revolution, our people have decided to take the lead in the development of a national struggle of the workers. In Oaxaca, the Revolution of the 21st Century is brewing. The clamor of all its people for Ulises Ruiz Ortiz to leave our state, together with his accomplices and the big oligarchs and owners of wealth that sustain him, has gone the way of struggle in the streets, with the many mobilizations that have taken place. The people have decided to take the fate of this struggle into their own hands with the creation of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, which has begun to develop in the different regions of the state. Day by day, the process continues with the integration of the assemblies at the regional, district, municipal and community levels.

At this point in our struggle we have managed to take an impressive step forward in the unity of all the people toward the total defeat of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Nevertheless, we still have not achieved the goal of this struggle; we still have not kicked that fascist off our Oaxacan soil, as those who sustain him in power remain determined that he continue administering their wealth and hardening his policies toward the workers and people of Oaxaca. That is why there is a prevailing necessity that we continue strengthening our struggle and see it through to the end. For that reason, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca makes this call:

To the national organizations and labor unions, to strengthen the caravans leaving Monday, June 26 from Oaxaca City toward Mexico City, to present the evidence against Ulises Ruiz Ortiz to the appropriate authorities. We also call on you to attend the next “mega-march” to be held in the city of Oaxaca, on June 28 at 3:00 p.m., within the framework of a “National Civic Strike” and the installation of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca at the end of the march.

To the people of the world, so that they may, from their own countries, using the most diverse forms of struggle, organize demonstrations of solidarity within the framework of our next mega-march.

To the workers, peasant farmers, housewives, indigenous, youth, women, and everyone from the land of Oaxaca, to join the caravans that will leave from all the regions of our state toward the city of Oaxaca. We invite all the people to participate in the next mega-march on June 28, at 3:00 p.m., leaving from the Airport intersection; and to participate in the next session of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca at the end of the mega-march, which will be held at the Benito Juarez Stadium in Oaxaca City.

To all the indigenous peoples and workers from all regions of the state, to put together the popular regional, district, municipal and community or neighborhood assemblies, thus guaranteeing that the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca is constructed from below.

From now on, it will only be in the hands of all the people that we bring this struggle to its conclusion. Our great army of teachers continues to proudly carry out its role, strengthening this struggle that is now everyone’s. That is why we need to strengthen our unity and organization, hitting this government and the rich that sustain it harder and harder, tearing from them al the economic and political power that they have usurped for so many years, usurping the sovereign power of the people.

LET US PROUDLY CARRY OUT OUR HISTORIC TASKS!
DOWN WITH ULISES RUIZ ORTIZ AND HIS ENTIRE GANG OF MURDERERS AND THIEVES!
LONG LIVE THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA!

FRATERNALLY:

“ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE”
POPULAR ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA
Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca.

The Orphans of July Third, The Zapatistas Challenge the Sanctity of the Vote

by John Gibler
Jun 24
I.
When the Zapatistas launched the Other Campaign in San Cristobal de Las Casas on January 1, 2006—exactly twelve years after they took that city by force—they made clear that the stakes would be high.

“We are putting everything we have into the Sixth [Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle] and the Other [Campaign],” Subcomandante Marcos told the crowd of 20,000. “Our lives are the least of what we have—our moral authority, our prestige, everything we built is in this effort.”

Now, after four months on the road, four hundred Other Campaign meetings held across twenty states, and two hundred and twenty political prisoners taken during the brutal police raid on San Salvador Atenco on the morning of May 4, the Zapatistas have cast their “everything” against the most sacrosanct day of the Mexican political calendar: election day.

At a national Other Campaign gathering in Mexico City on May 29, Subcomandante Marcos called on members of the Other Campaign across the country to gather in Mexico City on June 30 for two days of debate and, on election day, Sunday July 2, to “interrupt into the calendar of the elite [los de arriba] with civil and peaceful organizing and mobilizations.”

A thousand people exhaled simultaneously, filling the old Venustiano Carranza Cinema with the “sssss” sound of worry.

“If the elite now want to pretend as if nothing is going on and have their party without freeing our comrades,” Marcos continued, “then we must step into their calendar and place the demand for liberty there.”

speech in zocalo

II.

Since the beginning, the Zapatistas' Other Campaign has been unashamed to demand the quixotic, to aim for the highest standards of economic and social justice, calling out the roots of exclusion and violence in Mexico with utter disregard for whom they might offend or isolate with their explicit and unyielding description of Mexico's entrenched system of oppression.

The Other Campaign's founding document, the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, and Subcomandante Marcos' numerous communiqués and speeches over the past months leave no doubt as to how the Zapatistas define responsibility for Mexico's back-breaking poverty, marginalization, and political violence: these social ills, they say, are the necessary results of capitalism, coordinated and protected in Mexico by a small class of political elite.

The snowball effect of the Other Campaign—pulling small grassroots struggles into a national political context, and gathering momentum and numbers with each stop along the road—has been completely ignored by the press, political parties, and most intellectuals. Nearly everyone on the outside of the campaign reduces the entire effort to a failed display of Marcos' enormous ego. They compare the Other Campaign to the Zapatista march from Chiapas to Mexico City in 2001, and conclude that the Other Campaign has been a flop simply because it has pulled fewer people to the public speaking events in town squares. This measurement of social value by the sheer summation of numbers shows how little the critics understand of the political project behind the Other Campaign.

The 2001 march, a caravan through 14 states known as the March of Indigenous Dignity, sought to gather support for an indigenous rights bill based on the 1996 San Andres Accords that were widely supported by indigenous communities across Mexico and signed by both the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the government of then-president Ernesto Zedillo. The public events along the march mixed social outcry and political analysis with cultural fair and rock star like appearances by Marcos and the EZLN commanders. The march was informally dubbed the “Zapatour,” half-mocking the more entertainment like aspects of the trip.

The media pundits and intellectuals now call the 2001 march a success (they did not then) in order to show that the Other Campaign is a failure. Time and time again they repeat that in 2001 there were so many more people, the plaza was filled, one could barely move, and this is their measure of success, plazas filled with people.

But the 2001 march had a specific political objective: incorporating the indigenous rights protections from the San Andres Accords into Mexican law. And here, the march failed. The legislators passed a gutted version of the law that led the Zapatistas to file back to Chiapas and cut off all relations with the government and the major political parties. All those people who filled the plazas went back to their daily grinds, they did not take to the streets to demand the implementation of the San Andres Accords, nor did they vote the offending legislators out of office in the following 2003 elections. The supposedly left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) turned their backs on the indigenous rights law, failing to put up even a theatrical fight in the Mexican Senate. They voted for the gutted version, didn't vote, or simply didn't show up for work that day.

While more people came out for the March of Indigenous Dignity than the Other Campaign, much less was being asked of them.

The Other Campaign is not a Zapatour. It is a call to action, a call to participate in a national organizing effort with the impossible-sounding objective of uprooting capitalism in Mexico along with the corresponding concentration of political power in a small elite class. Whereas the March of Indigenous Dignity called for support within the electoral political system—support for a piece of legislation presented to the legislative branch of government—the Other Campaign calls not only for a sharp split from that very system, but to overthrow it.

The challenge of the first phase of the Other Campaign is not whether it can fill plazas, parks, and auditoriums—which it mostly has, though not as tightly as in 2001—but whether it can pull people into a new, national social movement that overcomes the deep and historic divisions amongst the left. The early results are positive, though not euphoric: since the Other Campaign paused its nationwide road trip to fight for the liberty of the political prisoners taken during the police raid on San Salvador Atenco, thousands of people have answered the call for solidarity, taking to the streets in marches and protests across the country, and on May 28 and 29 bus loads of Other Campaign participants from every state in the country drove into Mexico City for a national march and assembly.

III.

It comes as no surprise that the right wing political parties who have always sought to delegitimize the Zapatista struggle would sling mud at the Other Campaign. What is new, since 2001, however, is the number of left-leaning sympathizers from middle class and academic circles who have turned their backs on the Zapatista initiative.

For the first time in Mexican history a presidential candidate who openly describes himself as a leftist has a good chance of winning the elections. Andres Manual Lopez Obrador, the PRD candidate and former mayor of Mexico City with an activist background in his home state of Tabasco, is running neck-and-neck against the far right, social conservative candidate from President Vicente Fox's Party of National Action, Felipe Calderon.

There is little that is leftist about Lopez Obrador or the PRD. They plan to follow the same macro-economic model as the previous right wing governments, promising only to “put the poor first” by flooding state money into infrastructure programs, many of which—such as the planned shipping corridor across the Isthmus of Tehuántepec, Oaxaca, a spin off project from the Fox administration's Plan Puebla Panama—face serious national and local opposition by indigenous groups, small farmers, and environmentalists.

During the past six-years the PRD has become something of a half-way house for disenchanted politicians defecting from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the dinosaur that ruled Mexico for over 70 years until its defeat by the PAN in 2000. Many of the politicians that aided PRI president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) as he eviscerated the indigenous rights and land reform protections in the Mexican Constitution in order to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement, have fled to the PRD, and found a home in Lopez Obrador's campaign team. Mexican historian Adolfo Gilly writes in a recent issue of Latin American Perspectives that former Salinas administration officials such as Manuel Camacho, Marcelo Ebrard, Ricardo Monreal, Federico Arreola, Socorro Diaz, and Leonel Cota, are now “the pillars of the presidential campaign of the PRD and its candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.”

Many are able to ignore the uncomfortable details of Lopez Obrador's candidacy and economic program by focusing on the overall leftist framing of his campaign: the way to fight crime is by fighting poverty, creating employment opportunities, creating a just economy. One of Lopez Obrador's strongest points, however, is that he is not Felipe Calderon, who presents himself as an iron-fisted protector of the “rule of law,” which in Mexico is code for a regime of violent repression and corresponding impunity.

It is very likely that Lopez Obrador's administration would be less corrupt and less bloody than Calderon's. In the context of 7 decades of PRI dictatorship and 6 years of the PAN's special blend of ineptitude and cartel market economics, a Lopez Obrador victory would be a serious shake-up in the power struggles of the elite in Mexico. Add in the celebratory mood over recent left-wing victories in Latin America and it is easy to understand the combination of hope and delusion that accompanies Lopez Obrador's candidacy.

Thus Subcomandante Marcos' pointing out all the ugly particulars about Lopez Obrador, his campaign team, and the PRD has incurred the unique spirit of wrath reserved for spoilers. It is highly likely that a Calderon victory would unleash a tide of fury and resentment against Marcos and the Zapatistas, not criticism of Lopez Obrador's economic program, his ex-PRI campaign team, or his stilted, clumsy, and facile campaign (in the past few months Lopez Obrador refused to attend the first debate, called Vicente Fox a loud bird (chachalaca), failed for months to answer Calderon's smear campaign against him, did not say a word about the atrocities in San Salvador Atenco, and came out in the second debate unveiling a ready made corruption scandal implicating Calderon).

Few are those who are able to walk the middle path between the Other Campaign and the PRD, agreeing with the Zapatista analysis, supporting the Other Campaign, and planning nonetheless to wake up on July 2nd and vote for Lopez Obrador. In the grand tradition of the left, most have chosen sides and curse their opponents as egoists and traitors. And the divisions are now deep.

Although there is reason to believe that Lopez Obrador would lean more to dialogue than Calderon (read: not send in the riot police or the army in the first five minutes of conflict), there is also reason to doubt the depth and sincerity of his commitment to human rights protections and seeking peaceful solutions to social conflicts. Lopez Obrador has refrained from denouncing the massive human rights violations—sexual violence, mass beatings, torture, arbitrary detentions, killings—carried out by local, state, and federal police in Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco on May 3 and 4. Rather than taking on the most calculated and brutal state repression in Mexico in decades, Lopez Obrador has focused the energy of his campaign on bringing out documents linking Calderon to a corruption scandal involving his brother-in-law, Diego Zavala.

During the scripted presidential “debate” on June 6th, no one mentioned the violence in Atenco, though Calderon made reference to the iron-fist (mano dura) necessary to beat back the unruly machetes of protesting farmers. Instead, the three major candidates paraded through the two-hour debate reciting their slogans and general promises and showing their props. Lopez Obrador brought copies of the documents incriminating Calderon's “uncomfortable brother-in-law” in corruption and tax-evasion, as an example of the kind of government for the rich that he would do away with. Calderon brought a full-color PRD flier for Arturo Núñez, a former PRI leader who helped secure a multi-million dollar tax-payer bailout for politicians near bankruptcy in the 1994 peso crisis, the very same scandal that Lopez Obrador uses to smear Calderon and the PAN.

IV.

The Zapatistas launched the Other Campaign challenging the legitimacy of the vote in the context of a repressive economic system controlled by a single political class. There are no choices for us, the underdogs of the left, they said. The challenge, however, was more than anything else, an invitation. The Zapatistas did not call for abstention; they called for reflection, for analysis. Take a close look at all these ugly details in the plans and histories of the three parties and the three candidates, and think: do any of these options address the social forces that push me down? Do any of these candidates offer a program of social change?

Think for yourselves, the Zapatistas reiterated throughout the Other Campaign, but we think you will find that the answer is no, that the answer is: the only change, the only hope for a program of social change that uproots the culture of state corruption, repression, and cartel market economics will come through grassroots organizing, from below, and from the anti-capitalist left. This has been the call of the Other Campaign: it does not matter whom you vote for on July 2nd, if you place your hope and your faith in any of those options, you will be an orphan on July 3rd.

The Zapatistas planned to hold a national Other Campaign assembly in Mexico City on June 24 and 25, and then return to the jungle in Chiapas to spend the days surrounding the presidential elections at home, away from the polls and the television cameras.

No more.

In response to the brutal repression in Atenco, the government's continued denial of the extent and nature of the violence, and the continued incarceration of 31 people detained arbitrarily in Texcoco and Atenco on May 3 and 4, the EZLN and the Other Campaign, are betting everything on taking to the streets in protest on election day.

The risk is extreme. Any act that could be viewed as impeding the vote—a highway or bridge blockade, or even a march—could not only bring down the wrath of the State—police units, the army, clubs, machine guns—but could turn millions of supporters across Mexico and the world against the Zapatistas and the Other Campaign. A highway blockade on July 2 could give the federal government the pretext to once and for all rid themselves of Marcos and his closest supporters.

If done well, however, the Other Campaign could create a mass mobilization of social protest that does not physically threaten or impede voters, that draws from the Zapatistas' world famous sense of humor and artistic creativity, to expose the fallacy of electoral options in Mexico, to mock the sanctity of the vote in a country with 50 percent abstention, a deeply entrenched culture of electoral fraud, and an elite political class with a monopoly-control over government and the resources of the State.

The participants in the Other Campaign will define and agree upon plans for the mobilization on July 2nd during a two-day assembly in Mexico City on June 30 and July 1. It is impossible to know what they will decide, and thus how great the risk will be, beforehand.

Venezuela and U.S. to Sign New Drug Control Agreement

by Gregory Wilpert
Caracas, Venezuela
Jun 26
Venezuela’s director of the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA), Luis Correa, said today that an agreement has been reached between Venezuela and the U.S. to re-start cooperation on fighting drug trafficking. The agreement will be signed between the ONA and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on July 8.

“The points in which we had differences between the DEA, or the North American government and the Venezuelan, have been solved. Both countries are in agreement about the new work paper,” said Correa.

Venezuela had suspended its cooperation with the U.S. last year, when President Chavez accused the DEA of engaging in unauthorized activity in Venezuela, of spying, and of over-stepping its bounds in its work. He had said the DEA would be expelled from Venezuela. U.S. officials denied the charges at the time.

However, during a press conference in Washington today, DEA administrator Karen Tandy clarified that the threat to expel the DEA was never implemented and that the DEA continued to operate in Venezuela without interruption. “While President Chavez announced through the papers his intent to expel DEA, he withdrew that shortly afterward and has been, through his counternarcotics officials, working with DEA on a memorandum of understanding that we could execute together as to how we will work together in that country,” said Tandy.

The new drug control agreement will be signed by Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior and of justice, Jesse Chacon, and the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield.

In September of last year, the U.S. officially “decertified” Venezuela as a country that lives up to its international obligations in the fight against drug trafficking. Venezuela, though, pointed out at the time that its drug interdictions have increased substantially since Chavez came into office. Drug interdictions increased from 43 tons in 2004 to 72 tons in 2005. Police estimate that 300 tons of cocaine pass through Venezuela per year.

The decertification normally means a cut-off of all U.S. aid to a country. However, the Bush administration decided to waive this consequence because, “support for programs to aid Venezuela's democratic institutions, establish selected community development projects, and strengthen Venezuela's political party system is vital to the national interests of the United States.”

According to documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. government provides over $5 million per year to mostly opposition groups in Venezuela.

Chile and Panama sign free trade pact

Chile and Panama yesterday signed a free trade agreement that will eliminate 98 percent of tariffs on trade between the countries within 10 years.

‘‘Panama and Chile are generating the necessary conditions for an economic takeoff that will allow us to leave underdevelopment behind,’’ said Panamanian Vice-President Samuel Lewis Navarro.

Chilean Foreign Relations Minister Alejandro Foxley described Panama as ‘‘politically close’’ to Chile.

While the agreement will take effect over a period of years, Panamanian Commerce and Industry Minister Alejandro Ferrer said that cooperation between Chile and his country was already bearing fruit.
The two nations have a longstanding commercial relationship.

The majority of the trade is in Chilean exports to Panama, which reached US$111.5 million out of US$122.3 million in bilateral trade last year. Panama hopes the pact will narrow the imbalance.

Chile is the fourth-heaviest user of the Panama Canal, a position which could be boosted by the pact, according to Foxley. He also expressed support for plans to expand the canal.

Fox Chooses U.S. Over Latin America, Continuing Mexico’s Accommodation to Washington’s Regional Primacy

by Michael Lettieri
In the latest test of its tenacious allegiance to the U.S., Mexico has once again planted itself squarely in Washington’s corner. Verbalizing what would eventually be its position, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez announced to reporters at a lunchtime meeting in Brazil on June 13, that in the race for the temporary UN Security Council seat between U.S.-favorite Guatemala and Venezuela, his country would support the former, and that “the position is quite clear.” The competition for the Security Council slot has sparked vigorous lobbying from Washington in an attempt to block Caracas’ bid. Even veiled efforts have been made, including a meeting in Secretary of State Rice’s office, in order to coerce Chilean foreign minister Alejandro Foxley, and a confidential diplomatic note – leaked to the BBC – which underscored the U.S. position. Yet it is likely that Derbez, just like his predecessor Jorge Castañeda, did not need much of a push. Under President Vicente Fox, Mexican foreign policy in recent years has consistently trended away from an independent stance, in favor of near obeisance to pro-U.S. initiatives, and the supremacy of Washington’s hemispheric wish list.

Doing Things Your Way
Whatever its previous corrupt and repressive domestic profile, Mexico, prior to Fox and his ruling PAN party’s arrival to office, had long maintained a proud and independent foreign policy during decades of uninterrupted rule by the authoritarian PRI. Examples of this are numerous, and include respectful relations with Cuba throughout the Castro era and resistance to Washington’s hegemonic Central American policy during the 1980s. Moreover, Mexico had often served as a de facto interlocutor for Latin American interests with Washington, attempting to advocate a constructive engagement with the region. Yet, under the Fox administration, Mexico witnessed an abrupt and embarrassing turn from such a stance, as first under Jorge Castañeda and then under Ernesto Derbez, Mexican policy became all but indistinguishable from Washington’s, be it Iraq or giving the cold shoulder to Castro at Monterrey.
...

Cuba: not only must the Guantánamo prison be shut down, but that territory must also be returned

Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, affirmed today that not only must the prison on the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba, be shut down, but that that territory illegally occupied by the United States must also be returned.

Cuba: not only must the Guantánamo prison be shut down, but that territory must also be returned"What must be demanded, of course, is that the torture center is shut down; even Bush (U.S. president) has said that he is in favor of closing it down, but what is more important is that they return it," Alarcón told journalists...
...

Central American Parliament highlights Cuba’s fulfillment of the Millennium Goals

Julio Palacios, president of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), highlighted this Monday Cuba’s fulfillment of the UN Millennium Goals on the reduction of poverty, access to education and health and a lower infant mortality rate.
...

Election could bring revolution south of the border

by Ruben Navarrette
SAN DIEGO
Angry over illegal immigration and yet reluctant to take even a sliver of responsibility for it, some Americans have devised an interesting way to fight back: They're calling for a revolution -- in Mexico.

Naturally. Better to change the government on that side of the border than to change our behavior on this side. We want to be free to continue hiring illegal immigrants to increase profits and make our lives easier, but we also want to be able to blame Mexico for supplying the illicit commodity for which we have developed an insatiable appetite.

Now with the approach of Mexico's presidential election on Sunday -- the first such match-up since Vicente Fox and the National Action Party (PAN) triumphed over the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2000 -- those who say they want radical change may get their wish.

Here's the irony: While many of the Americans in this camp probably consider themselves conservative, the candidate who is most likely to deliver what they want is a left-leaning populist.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the ex-mayor of Mexico City and presidential candidate representing the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), may just win a contest that is still considered too close to call.

At first glance, you would think that conservatives -- with thoughts of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez running through their heads -- would cringe at the prospect of a populist on the southern border. But in this case, they'd be wise to take a closer look at Lopez Obrador and his appeal to Mexican voters.

The candidate, referred to by members of the Mexican media as AMLO, doesn't waste time blaming the United States for Mexico's woes, as Mexican politicians are prone to do. AMLO cuts to the chase and blames Mexico, specifically the rich elites who prey upon the poor and then react with indifference when those without options leave home to search for opportunities in the United States. He promises to pump government money into the economy to jump-start it.

Of course, there are those in America who instinctively call this kind of talk "socialism" (as opposed to say, New Dealism?) and warn that it could devastate the Mexican economy and send ever more millions of migrants north across the border. Never mind that this is already happening and the situation isn't improving.

AMLO also deserves credit for talking about the human costs of Mexico's national shame -- the fact that millions of its citizens have fled the country and, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, as much as 40 percent of their countrymen would do the same if they could.

For Lopez Obrador, the saddest part of all this is the toll that the exodus takes on families in a country steeped in family values. Despite efforts by Fox to reach out to Mexicans in the United States, that doesn't change the essential fact that Mother Mexico still plays favorites among her children. The country's elites don't care one way or another about those who flee to the north. But throughout Mexico, real mothers care a great deal that their families have been broken apart because of a failure by government and businesses to provide gainful employment at home. No wonder the recurring theme in this election has become jobs, jobs, jobs.

According to the polls and judging from the large crowds that gather to hear him campaign, Lopez Obrador and his message are catching fire, especially with the poor who have lost faith in the alternatives: the PRI, which looted the country in the last century, and the PAN, which didn't create enough jobs in the last six years.
The PRI candidate, Roberto Madrazo, was never in this race. Apparently the Mexican electorate has a good memory of past corruption and no desire to travel that road again.

The inheritor of the PAN's legacy is AMLO's chief competitor -- Felipe Calderon, an ex-member of the Mexican Congress and energy minister. The Harvard-educated Calderon is pro-business, pro-trade and perfectly capable. Should he triumph, Mexico would probably be in good hands.

But there would be no revolution. And that may be exactly what is required.

Clarification: In an earlier column, I wrote that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter had called for immigration hearings on the bill passed by the House of Representatives. An aide to Specter insists that the hearings are intended to be on the Senate bill, which the Senate has already passed. A story in a Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, suggests that the Senate hearings are retaliatory and quotes Specter as saying that, "I don't start wars, but, if I'm forced to, I'll participate."

Election could bring revolution south of the border

by Ruben Navarrette
SAN DIEGO
Angry over illegal immigration and yet reluctant to take even a sliver of responsibility for it, some Americans have devised an interesting way to fight back: They're calling for a revolution -- in Mexico.

Naturally. Better to change the government on that side of the border than to change our behavior on this side. We want to be free to continue hiring illegal immigrants to increase profits and make our lives easier, but we also want to be able to blame Mexico for supplying the illicit commodity for which we have developed an insatiable appetite.

Now with the approach of Mexico's presidential election on Sunday -- the first such match-up since Vicente Fox and the National Action Party (PAN) triumphed over the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2000 -- those who say they want radical change may get their wish.

Here's the irony: While many of the Americans in this camp probably consider themselves conservative, the candidate who is most likely to deliver what they want is a left-leaning populist.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the ex-mayor of Mexico City and presidential candidate representing the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), may just win a contest that is still considered too close to call.

At first glance, you would think that conservatives -- with thoughts of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez running through their heads -- would cringe at the prospect of a populist on the southern border. But in this case, they'd be wise to take a closer look at Lopez Obrador and his appeal to Mexican voters.

The candidate, referred to by members of the Mexican media as AMLO, doesn't waste time blaming the United States for Mexico's woes, as Mexican politicians are prone to do. AMLO cuts to the chase and blames Mexico, specifically the rich elites who prey upon the poor and then react with indifference when those without options leave home to search for opportunities in the United States. He promises to pump government money into the economy to jump-start it.

Of course, there are those in America who instinctively call this kind of talk "socialism" (as opposed to say, New Dealism?) and warn that it could devastate the Mexican economy and send ever more millions of migrants north across the border. Never mind that this is already happening and the situation isn't improving.

AMLO also deserves credit for talking about the human costs of Mexico's national shame -- the fact that millions of its citizens have fled the country and, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, as much as 40 percent of their countrymen would do the same if they could.

For Lopez Obrador, the saddest part of all this is the toll that the exodus takes on families in a country steeped in family values. Despite efforts by Fox to reach out to Mexicans in the United States, that doesn't change the essential fact that Mother Mexico still plays favorites among her children. The country's elites don't care one way or another about those who flee to the north. But throughout Mexico, real mothers care a great deal that their families have been broken apart because of a failure by government and businesses to provide gainful employment at home. No wonder the recurring theme in this election has become jobs, jobs, jobs.

According to the polls and judging from the large crowds that gather to hear him campaign, Lopez Obrador and his message are catching fire, especially with the poor who have lost faith in the alternatives: the PRI, which looted the country in the last century, and the PAN, which didn't create enough jobs in the last six years.
The PRI candidate, Roberto Madrazo, was never in this race. Apparently the Mexican electorate has a good memory of past corruption and no desire to travel that road again.

The inheritor of the PAN's legacy is AMLO's chief competitor -- Felipe Calderon, an ex-member of the Mexican Congress and energy minister. The Harvard-educated Calderon is pro-business, pro-trade and perfectly capable. Should he triumph, Mexico would probably be in good hands.

But there would be no revolution. And that may be exactly what is required.

Clarification: In an earlier column, I wrote that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter had called for immigration hearings on the bill passed by the House of Representatives. An aide to Specter insists that the hearings are intended to be on the Senate bill, which the Senate has already passed. A story in a Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, suggests that the Senate hearings are retaliatory and quotes Specter as saying that, "I don't start wars, but, if I'm forced to, I'll participate."

Hugo Chávez

by Greg Palast
You’d think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chávez’s behind. Not only has Chávez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chávez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, “not too high, a fair price,” he said—a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon.

But our President has basically told Chávez to take his cheaper oil and stick it up his pipeline. Before I explain why Bush has done so, let me explain why Chávez has the power to pull it off—and the method in the seeming madness of his “take-my-oil-please!” deal.

Venezuela, Chávez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis’ reserves.

However, most of Venezuela’s mega-horde of crude is in the form of “extra-heavy” oil—liquid asphalt—which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil’s price—and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago—would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chávez’s offer: Drop the price to $50—and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela’s investment in heavy oil.

But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn’t like that one bit. It comes down to “petro-dollars.” When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn’t because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.

The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush’s $2 trillion rise in the nation’s debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.

Chávez would put an end to all that. He’ll sell us oil relatively cheaply—but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chávez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations.

Chávez, notes The Wall Street Journal, has become a “tropical IMF.” And indeed, as the Venezuelan president told me, he wants to abolish the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, with its brutal free-market diktats, and replace it with an “International Humanitarian Fund,” an IHF, or more accurately, an International Hugo Fund. In addition, Chávez wants OPEC to officially recognize Venezuela as the cartel’s reserve leader, which neither the Saudis nor Bush will take kindly to.

Politically, Venezuela is torn in two. Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal—a progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity—makes him wildly popular with the poor. And most Venezuelans are poor. His critics, a four-centuries’ old white elite, unused to sharing oil wealth, portray him as a Castro-hugging anti-Christ.

Chávez’s government, which used to brush off these critics, has turned aggressive on them. I challenged Chávez several times over charges brought against Súmate, his main opposition group. The two founders of the nongovernmental organization, which led the recall campaign against Chávez, face eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican [Party] Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns, but the charges (no one is in jail) seem like a heavy hammer to use on the minor infractions of these pathetic gadflies.

Bush’s reaction to Chávez has been a mix of hostility and provocation. Washington supported the coup attempt against Chávez in 2002, and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly denounced him. The revised National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March, says, “In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region.”

So when the Reverend Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, told his faithful in August 2005 that Chávez has to go, it was not unreasonable to assume that he was articulating an Administration wish. “If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him,” Robertson said, “I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

There are only two ways to defeat the rise of Chávez as the New Abdullah of the Americas. First, the unattractive option: Cut the price of oil below $30 a barrel. That would make Chávez’s crude worthless. Or, option two: Kill him.

Q: Your opponents are saying that you are beginning a slow-motion dictatorship. Is that what we are seeing?

Hugo Chávez: They have been saying that for a long time. When they’re short of ideas, any excuse will do as a vehicle for lies. That is totally false. I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

Q: Some of your opponents are being charged with the crime of taking money from George Bush. Will you send them to jail?

Chávez: It’s not up to me to decide that. We have the institutions that do that. These people have admitted they have received money from the government of the United States. It’s up to the prosecutors to decide what to do, but the truth is that we can’t allow the U.S. to finance the destabilization of our country. What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George Bush? They would go to prison, certainly.

Q: How do you respond to Bush’s charge that you are destabilizing the region and interfering in the elections of other Latin American countries?

Chávez: Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud. Not only that, he is also currently applying a dictatorship in the U.S. People can be put in jail without being charged. They tap phones without court orders. They check what books people take out of public libraries. They arrested Cindy Sheehan because of a T-shirt she was wearing demanding the return of the troops from Iraq. They abuse blacks and Latinos. And if we are going to talk about meddling in other countries, then the U.S. is the champion of meddling in other people’s affairs. They invaded Guatemala, they overthrew Salvador Allende, invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. They were involved in the coup d’état in Argentina thirty years ago.

Q: Is the U.S. interfering in your elections here?

Chávez: They have interfered for 200 years. They have tried to prevent us from winning the elections, they supported the coup d’état, they gave millions of dollars to the coup plotters, they supported the media, newspapers, outlaw movements, military intervention, and espionage. But here the empire is finished, and I believe that before the end of this century, it will be finished in the rest of the world. We will see the burial of the empire of the eagle.

Q: You don’t interfere in the elections of other nations in Latin America?

Chávez: Absolutely not. I concern myself with Venezuela. However, what’s going on now is that some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless. About candidates like Morales [of Bolivia], for example. They said I financed the candidacy of President Lula [of Brazil], which is totally false. They said I financed the candidacy of Kirchner [of Argentina], which is totally false. In Mexico, recently, the rightwing party has used my image for its own profit. What’s happened is that in Latin America there is a turn to the left. Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus—a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty.

Q: You have spent millions of dollars of your nation’s oil wealth throughout Latin America. Are you really helping these other nations or are you simply buying political support for your regime?

Chávez: We are brothers and sisters. That’s one of the reasons for the wrath of the empire. You know that Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor. We are selling to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, some Central American countries, Uruguay, Argentina.

Q: And the Bronx?

Chávez: In the Bronx it is a donation. In all the cases I just mentioned before, it is trade. However, it’s not free trade, just fair commerce. We also have an international humanitarian fund as a result of oil revenues.

Q: Why did George Bush turn down your help for New Orleans after the hurricane?

Chávez: You should ask him, but from the very beginning of the terrible disaster of Katrina, our people in the U.S., like the president of CITGO, went to New Orleans to rescue people. We were in close contact by phone with Jesse Jackson. We hired buses. We got food and water. We tried to protect them; they are our brothers and sisters. Doesn’t matter if they are African, Asian, Cuban, whatever.

Q: Are you replacing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as “Daddy Big Bucks”?

Chávez: I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon.

Q: And it would be the Bank of Hugo?

Chávez: No. The International Humanitarian Bank. We are just creating an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. It is based on cooperation. For example, we send oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they are paying us with cows.

Q: Milk for oil.

Chávez: That’s right. Milk for oil. The Argentineans also pay us with cows. And they give us medical equipment to combat cancer. It’s a transfer of technology. We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I’m not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty. For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt.

Q: Speaking of the free market, you’ve demanded back taxes from U.S. oil companies. You have eliminated contracts for North American, British, and European oil companies. Are you trying to slice out the British and American oil companies from Venezuela?

Chávez: No, we don’t want them to go, and I don’t think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other. It’s simply that we have recovered our oil sovereignty. They didn’t pay taxes. They didn’t pay royalties. They didn’t give an account of their actions to the government. They had more land than had previously been established in the contracts. They didn’t comply with the agreed technology exchange. They polluted the environment and didn’t pay anything towards the cleanup. They now have to comply with the law.

Q: You’ve said that you imagine the price of oil rising to $100 dollars per barrel. Are you going to use your new oil wealth to squeeze the planet?

Chávez: No, no. We have no intention of squeezing anyone. Now, we have been squeezed and very hard. Five hundred years of squeezing us and stifling us, the people of the South. I do believe that demand is increasing and supply is dropping and the large reservoirs are running out. But it’s not our fault. In the future, there must be an agreement between the large consumers and the large producers.

Q: What happens when the oil money runs out, what happens when the price of oil falls as it always does? Will the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez simply collapse because there’s no money to pay for the big free ride?

Chávez: I don’t think it will collapse, in the unlikely case of oil running out today. The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project. However, we are today implementing a strategic program called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won’t have any more oil, but that will be in the twenty-second century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years.

Q: But the revolution can come to an end if there’s another coup and it succeeds. Do you believe Bush is still trying to overthrow your government?

Chávez: He would like to, but what you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast, who interviewed President Hugo Chávez for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is the author of “Armed Madhouse: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War,” from which this is adapted.