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Amérique du Sud
Voici un gros pot-pourri des développements qui ont eu lieu en Amérique du Sud au courant de l'année 2007 et touchant même à la fin de 2006.
Il est sans conteste que silencieusement mais sûrement, elle est en profond changement, en révolution, et pour le mieux dans la plupart des cas. Les sud-américains sont en train de reprendre le pouvoir chez eux: plusieurs ont renationalisé leurs industries pétrolières, redistribué les terres aux pauvres, mis en place des gouvernements de la gauche, jeté le FMI dehors et plus. Alors suivez ce fil des événements et laissez-vous inspirez par la renaissance de ce beau coin du monde et ces habitants si joyeux et heureux et humains dans leurs coeurs!
Amérique du Sud
Amérique du Sud : la puissance économique et écologique du XXIe siècle ?
La Communauté sud-américaine des nations (CSN) est une initiative non encore matérialisée qui a accompli officiellement en décembre dernier sa première année d’existence. Le sous-continent sud-américain est une des zones les plus riches de la planète en termes de biodiversité.
Après un demi-millénaire de pillage des ressources naturelles du sous-continent américain par les puissances coloniales et néo-coloniales, les jeunes républiques de la région (qui n’ont pas encore 200 ans de vie indépendante) ont l’occasion de consolider un bloc géopolitique qui pourrait être la grande puissance économique et écologique du nouveau siècle.
South America: Toward An Alternative Future
Vénézuela
Venezuela quiting the IMF and World Bank
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Monday that his country had decided to withdraw from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Chavez made the announcement at an event to celebrate workers' rights.
"I want to formalize our exit from the World Bank and the IMF," Chavez said, adding that "We will no longer have to go to Washington, neither to the IMF nor the World Bank, not to anyone."
Chavez signs decree to nationalize foreign oil companies
The decree allows Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, (PDVSA) to take a 60 per cent stake on May 1 in four projects which process crude oil into 600,000 barrels of synthetic oil a day in the country's eastern Orinoco River basin.
The companies affected by the decree are Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips from the US, Total SA from France, British Petroleum and Norway's Statoil ASA.
Chavez threatens to cut Venezuelan oil supply to US
Venezuela delivers 1.3 million barrels of oil to the US daily.
"President Bush is not the boss over there, he is just a small figure," he said. "The big corporations make the decisions, those unscrupulous ones that start wars to sell and win billions of dollars."
"We've gotta invade NOW!
It just may distract people from the horrendous messes we've made of Afghanistan and Iraq - at least for a week or so!" - Official White Horse Souse.
Chavez cancels opposition TV station's license
I think these guys hit the nail on the head -- it ain't "censorship" to stop well-funded probably CIA-backed liars from polluting the public discourse by piping bullshit into everyone's living rooms ...
The Guardian, Cuba Solidarity Project
En mai 2004, Washington avait rendu public un énorme rapport de 454 pages, élaboré par la Commission d’assistance à une Cuba libre (Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, CAFC), destiné à porter le coup de grâce au gouvernement cubain et entraîner sa chute. Les sanctions économiques sont alors devenues plus sévères et ont grandement affecté le niveau de vie de la population cubaine1.
Les Etats-Unis accusés de vouloir renverser Chavez avec des fonds secrets
Le désespoir de l’opposition vénézuelienne
Bush Orders More CIA Activity in Venezuela
During a briefing before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence, current CIA chief General Michael V. Hayden revealed President George W. Bush had requested his agency “pay more attention” to the activities of President Hugo Chávez and his government in Venezuela.
Great: as though we don't have enough problems with Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially with Iran.
What is Bush planning, another invasion for oil?
Venezuela Preparing for 'Asymmetrical' Showdown With U.S.
MIAMI -- Venezuela is beefing up its military capabilities by land, sea and air in preparation for what one senior official called a possible "asymmetrical conflict" with the United States.
Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez said that while his country is preparing for possible warfare with the United States -- a notion President Hugo Chavez has repeatedly asserted -- Venezuela is nonetheless in complete compliance with international and regional non-proliferation treaties.
Viva Chavez
"We are facing the threat of global challenges stemming from the genocidal, immoral, sick, and corrupt elite currently governing the United States, which appear to have no limits" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Venezuela: Between Ballots And Bullets
Venezuela Halts Issuing Visas to Israelis
AL-QUDS, Oct. 23--Venezuela has ceased issuing tourist visas to Israelis, accenting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's harsh criticism of the occupation regime.
Venezuela and Peak Oil: New Estimate of Oil Reserves Makes Venezuela the Grandest of Grand Prizes for the US
I just finished reading an important new book the author's publisher sent me, which I'll shortly be reviewing for publication. The book is investigative journalist (and in his words "forensic economist") Greg Palast's latest foray into exposing the hidden from view crimes and wrongdoings of the Bush administration. I'm very familiar with Palast's important work and can only wish many others of his profession did the same sort of it he does - his job. Sadly most don't, but luckily we have some who do, and we should pay close heed to what they tell us. They're our window to the dangerous world around us, and the information they provide is our protection from it.
Venezuela Backs Plan to Sell Oil in Euros:
Venezuela supports the idea of selling oil in euros instead of U.S. dollars, a proposal also supported by fellow OPEC member Iran, the country's oil minister said.
US names spy operations 'manager' for Cuba, Venezuela
We're facing 'challenges' from Cuba and Venezuela?Well, I'll be darned!
I mean, in Cuba, they have a literacy rate that would make our DOE blush with shame, and Venezuela through its US subsidiary CITGO has been making affordable heating oil available to America's poor at reasonable rates.
But of course, the two countries have one thing in common: an understanding that the US wants to control them economically and politically, and leaders of both countries have spoken out against that unequivocably.
Venezuela Accuses U.S. DEA of Being a “Drug Cartel”
The Venezuelan government responded yesterday to United States Drug Czar John Walters' criticisms that Venezuela is not cooperating with the United States in the fight against drugs by saying that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is a "drug cartel." The Venezuelan government rejected Walters' statements, saying that the U.S. has the intention of damaging Venezuela's reputation and intervening in its affairs.
John Walters, who is the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, made the statement in an interview with the Colombian magazine Semana last week. And today in Brussels, Walters made further statements about Venezuela at a meeting with the European Union and NATO about drug-related issues. Walters warned of an increasing problem with cocaine entering Europe from South America, and in particular from Venezuela.
Cuba
Qui est Raoul Castro ?
Dans le flot de désinformation qui nous a accablé, les journalistes ont eu du mal à expliquer qui était Raoul Castro. L’inévitable "expert" Machover, et d’autres du même acabit, sont venus expliquer que Raoul ne "tiendrait" rien, parce qu’il n’avait pas le charisme de son frère, que personne ne le connaissait quasiment à Cuba. Machover, enterrant avant le temps Fidel, pour la première fois lui rendait un hommage détourné : il reconnaissait implicitement que Fidel ne tenait pas son peuple par la terreur mais par "le charisme". Mais c’était pour mieux, une fois de plus, nous asséner quelques contre vérités.
Un acharnement cruel et irrationnel contre Cuba
L’Assemblée générale des Nations unies s’apprête à condamner, le 7 novembre 2006, pour la quinzième fois consécutive, les sanctions économiques inhumaines que les Etats-Unis imposent à Cuba depuis le 6 juillet 1960. De son côté, Washington ne cesse d’accroître la pression sur La Havane. Après les mesures draconiennes adoptées le 6 mai 2004 et le 10 juillet 2006, la Maison-Blanche poursuit sa politique irrationnelle et cruelle1.
En effet, le 10 octobre 2006, un nouveau groupe destiné à renforcer les restrictions contre Cuba a été créé, avec comme objectif de pourchasser les agences de voyages, les entreprises et les citoyens qui transgresseraient la loi en vigueur. Le procureur fédéral du sud de la Floride, M. Alexander Acosta, a présenté l’impressionnante nouvelle entité (Groupe de travail pour renforcer les sanctions contre Cuba, CSETF) composée de plusieurs agences gouvernementales telles que le Bureau de contrôle des biens étrangers (OFAC), le département du Trésor, le département de Sécurité intérieure, le FBI, le Service de Rentes internes (IRS), les services d’immigration et des douanes (ICE), le département du Commerce, ainsi que des services des Gardes-côtes et de la Protection des frontières (CBP)2.
Would Somebody Finally Tell Me Why Cuba Is My Enemy?
UN AGENCIES EXPRESS OPPOSITION TO US BLOCKADE OF CUBA
For the younger readers, here is a bit of background on why the mighty United States still "fears" tiny little Cuba.
In 1940, Fulgencio Batista won the Presidency of Cuba in an election tainted with massive vote fraud. Batista was very popular with American interests such as United Fruit and PepsiCo to whom he sold Cuba's agricultural produce at below-market prices, and with organized crime, which built the infamous casinos in Havana.
Batista lost the election of 1944 because of his unpopular policies, but ran again in 1952. Polls showed him in last place. With the backing of his American supporters, Batista staged a coup and took over the government. He held elections in 1954 and easily won, being the only candidate on the ballot.
Batista continued to impose tighter and tighter controls on the increasingly angry Cuban people until finally forced to leave office, and fleeing Cuba on January 1, 1959.
Cuba came under control of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, a former lawyer. Having studied in the United States when young, Castro approached the US to normalize relations, but US interests still wanted favorably trade deals, and Castro refused. Cuba's produce would be sold at prevailing international prices. Castro also wanted the Mafia's activities in Havana, in particular the excesses like the "donkey shows" (women performing sexual acts with animals before an audience), shut down.
So, the US decided to blockade Cuba and cut off their trade, to starve the new government into surrendering Cuba back into the hands of the favored US thug, Batista. Castro refused. The irony is that it was this very blockade which forced Cuba into their relationship with the USSR, giving the soviets a key base right at America's doorstep and handing the US a disastrous foreign policy blunder.
Working with the remnant's of Batista's regime, now holed up in Miami, the CIA and Mafia began to plan a counter-revolution to place Cuba back under Batista's rule. Claiming that the Cuban people were having second thoughts about Castro, the CIA enlisted President John F. Kennedy's assistance for an invasion, as well as support from prominent businessmen such as George H. W. Bush, who provided three ships for logistical support. The claim was that the people of Cuba would rush down to the beach to join the invaders in overthrowing Castro. In reality, the Cubans preferred Castro to anyone the US was going to back, rushed down to the beach at the Bay of Pigs, and pounded the invaders into the sand. When JFK realized he had been lied to regarding the popular sentiment on Cuba, he pulled the plug on the invasion. The USSR responded to the attempted invasion of their ally by plaving nuclear ICBMs in Cuba, triggering the Cuban missile crisis, and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war over cheap sugar and donkey shows.
Kennedy fired CIA director Allen Dulles for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and shortly thereafter, Dulles sat on the Warren Commission "investigating" Kennedy's assassination. There was a brief attempt to link the assassination to Cuba in order to build support for a new invasion, but President Lyndon Johnson was well aware that the USSR had pulled their nuclear missiles out of Cuba with the express understanding that another invasion would result in an immediate nuclear strike by the USSR on the US. At the time, the USSR had an advantage in l;ong-range ICBMs and a working anti-0missile system as well, so Johnson quickly shifted the blame to the "lone nut" Oswald.
Since that time, the US has maintained a blockade against Cuba not because the island nation is any kind of a threat to the US but because it is an embarrassment. Little Cuba has withstood the covert might of the United States for half a century now, a beacon to the world that the US is not always able to select who will rule other peoples' countries. The Cuban blockade is not a military necessity; it is a grudge, written in steel and signed in the blood of the Cuban people.
And it is an antiquity the world can live without.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 (NNN) -- United Nations agencies voiced their opposition to the US blockade on Cuba, asserting that it is a "unilateral policy" that thwarts social and economic cooperation with the island.
Some 20 UN agencies, on record in an official report issued at UN Headquarters on Friday, asserted their disapproval of Washington’s imposition of coercive measures on Cuba for more than 40 years. In addition, they demanded the lifting of the blockade against the island because it is in violation of international law.
The report, compiled by the Office of the Secretary General, includes the perspectives of close to 100 nations opposed to the blockade and points to the nearly universal consensus against the hostile practice.
The report is being circulated among UN members as part of the activities leading up to the annual debate in the General Assembly on the "Necessity of Putting an End to the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade against Cuba."
According to the 61st General Assembly’s official agenda, the debate will take place on November 8, with this being the 15th consecutive year the issue has been raised.
-- NNN
Mexique
Mexico becoming one of world's more dangerous countries
The report, made public last week, said that major federal crimes, which include homicides, kidnappings and arms trafficking, rose 25 percent in the first half of 2007 over the same period last year. In 2006, the same crimes had risen 22 percent over the previous year.
Gangland style executions have risen 155 percent since 2001, according to the congressional report.
Drug cartels declare war on Mexican government
The war between Mexico's drug cartels and the state intensified this week, with a death toll of nine police officers and others this week.
Mexico, even in the previously "safe" areas for tourists, may be a very unpleasant place to visit for visitors for some time to come.
Pro-Government forces shoot and kill INdymedia photographer in Oaxaca, Maxico
This is another story the US media does not want you to see. The Mexicans continue to riot over their stolen elections, and that is an idea the US media does NOT want Americans thinking about as we head into a contentious election already discredited with obvious fraud.
Bombings shake up Mexico
Concerns about Mexico's future were sharpened by the attacks, which authorities said were more sophisticated than previous occasional pipe-bomb incidents in the capital.
They come against a backdrop of social unrest, including a summer presidential election that bitterly divided the country and ongoing strife in Oaxaca state, where leftist demonstrators have repeatedly clashed with federal riot police.
The election in question was exposed as fraudulent. That is why the Mexicans are rebelling against the government. The Mexicans have Democracy cajones Americans only dream of.
Colombie
Colombia military in bomb scandal
Army officers in Colombia have been accused of placing car bombs around the capital in the latest military scandal to hit the country.
Bolivie
Bolivia orders troops to seize gas and oil supplies
· President tells foreign firms to give up ownership
· Analysts say move is part of contract renegotiation
Bolivia Nationalizes Natural Gas Industry
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Bolivia's President Evo Morales decreed the nationalization of the country's natural gas industry today, following through on an election pledge to increase control over the energy industry.
Bolivia returns land to Indians
Préparatifs de coup d'État en Bolivie
Les militaires ne font jamais un coup d'État en l'air, m'a dit il y a sept ans mon ami le Général Alberto Mueller Rojas, aujourd'hui membre de l'État-major présidentiel de Hugo Chávez. C'est cette logique dont on observe actuellement le déroulement en Bolivie. Tout un bloc de conspiration, composé de différentes forces sociales et de l'État, travaille de manière accélérée pour en finir avec le Président Evo Morales.
Les préfets (gouverneurs) des États producteurs d'énergie et séparatistes de Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz de la Sierra et Tarija encouragent la formation de ce que l'on appelle les "Comités civils", qui sont le fer de lance de la subversion politique visible. Tant les préfets que les comités civiques sont entrés en rébellion franche contre le gouvernement constitutionnel de Evo Morales, en déclarant que "ils ne se soumettront pas à la Constitution politique de l'État qui sortira de l'Assemblée constituante, si cette constitution n'est pas approuvée dans tous ses articles par les deux tiers des voix" des constituants. Ils préviennent qu'ils avanceront sur la voie des "autonomies départementales" si cette condition n'est pas remplie.
Une renationalisation en trompe l’œil qui suscite des espoirs…
C’est avec un sens aigu de la mise en scène qu’Evo Morales a annoncé, le 1er mai dernier, la renationalisation des hydrocarbures. L’annonce a eu l’effet d’un coup de tonnerre d’autant que, chorégraphie oblige, au moment même où le président s’exprimait depuis Carapari, un site pétrolier de la région du Chaco, au sud de la Bolivie et la plus riche en hydrocarbures (cf. La brèche No 22), l’armée occupait 56 sites d’extraction et de production appartenant à des compagnies étrangères.
C’est par un décret, le «décret suprême 28701» intitulé «heroes del Chaco» – s’identifiant ainsi à la guerre menée contre le Paraguay pour le contrôle de cette riche région durant les années trente du siècle passé – que les privatisations et les largesses concédées par le gouvernement de Sanchez de Lozada (1993-1997) aux compagnies pétrolières transnationales ont été annulées. Celles-ci accordaient en particulier 82 % des revenus de l’exploitation du sous-sol aux multinationales, les 18 % restants allant renflouer le Trésor national.
Équateur
L’Equateur expulse la Banque mondiale : Ultralibéralisme non grata !
30 avril 2007. Le courant grandissant en faveur d’une annulation effective de la dette du tiers-monde, dette odieuse, inique et jeu d’écriture cynique enregistre avec satisfaction le divorce de la république d’Equateur avec la Banque mondiale. Le cheval de Troie d’une mondialisation uni-libérale et prédatrice, s’est vu signifié le rejet par un pays du Sud, engagé dans des réformes alternatives, des programmes de privatisation du monde au profit de quelques groupes influents et de la Triade. Le Comité d’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers-Monde, CADT réagit [27.04.07] à cette prise de position de l’Equateur.
Guatemala
Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit
Paraguay
The US Military Descends on Paraguay
On May 26, 2005, the Paraguayan Senate allowed US troops to train their Paraguayan counterparts until December 2006, when the Paraguayan Senate can vote to extend the troops' stay. The United States had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the troops entry. In July 2005 hundreds of US soldiers arrived with planes, weapons and ammunition. Washington's funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay soon doubled, and protests against the military presence hit the streets.
Some activists, military analysts and politicians in the region believe the operations could be part of a plan to overthrow the left-leaning government of Evo Morales in neighboring Bolivia and take control of the area's vast gas and water reserves. Human rights reports from Paraguay suggest the US military presence is, at the very least, heightening tensions in the country.
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