Saturday, May 06, 2006
The Three Latin 'Amigos'
Nothing like a lefty politician in South America who drips with oil money.
It's the"Chavez effect," according to the Guardian; and began when "Hugo Chavez was elected as Venezuelan president in 1998.
Chavez started making noises about unfair trade practices by its Northern super power; and soon hooked up with Catro and began trading oil for doctors to provide health care for the poor peasants of his country.
Now Bolivia has nationalized the oil industry; and the Associated Press via MaxSpeak reports that Castro, Chavez and newly-elected Bolivian president Evo Morales signed an "anti-U.S. trade pact."
[T]he three presidents signed a...document with...concrete proposals.
Cuba promised to send Bolivia doctors and teachers. Venezuela will send gasoline to the Andean nation and set up a $100 million fund for development programs and a $30 million fund for other social projects.
Cuba and Venezuela also agreed to buy all of Bolivia's soybeans, recently left without a market after Colombia signed a free trade pact with the United States.
Well, a country has to do what a country has to do to survive. The U.S. has pushed hard to isolate Venezuela from the rest of Latin America with "the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas hemispheric trade pact . But alas, no longer is Uncle Sam the only rich uncle.
The Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian presidents called the FTAA a U.S. effort to "annex" Latin America. Chavez and Morales have warned they could pull their countries from the Andean Community economic bloc if members Colombia, Peru and Ecuador sign pacts with the United States.
[...]
"According to any reasonable definition of the term, this is not a trade agreement," Michael Shifter, a political analyst with the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said of last year's deal. "It's an attempt to pose a real counterweight to the U.S. role and agenda in Latin America."
That sounds about right to HL; and the problem is exactly what?!? That the U.S. will no longer be able to dictate terms of trade to some thieving right-wing dictator who will meekly go along; and where the land of a nation is raped and its wealth plundered by a few high-ranking henchmen in government and U.S. corporate elites and their cronies.
Remember the motto, buy "American"? This is just a little nationalism from the three "amigos" who want to give the citizens of their country the bounty from its lands without the sticky fingers of Yankee oil interests.
Have you ever seen Chavez on Globovision? Cracks me up when he starts talking about Bush. Great Entertainment
: 10:09 PM << Home
