Across the Americas - Americas

US builds up its bases in oil-rich South America

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:09:16 -0800

From the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for 'full-spectrum operations' is escalating rapidly

by Hugh O'Shaughness, The Independent. Monday, November 23, 2009

The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development – and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it – is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.

Address by Miguel d'Escoto to the U.N. responding to the Coup in Honduras

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:24:38 -0700

To the Plenary Session on the Situation in Honduras
UN Headquarters , New York, 29 June 2009

Excellencies,

It is with a heavy heart and deep personal outrage that I open this plenary session to consider the coup d’etat that interrupted the democratic and constitutional rule of President Manuel Zelaya in the Republic of Honduras yesterday, the 28th of June.

The Dark Side of Plan Colombia

Thu, 28 May 2009 15:03:06 -0700

Is Plan Colombia subsidizing narco-traffickers to cultivate biofuels on stolen lands?

By Teo Ballvé
The Nation, May 27, 2009

On May 14 Colombia's attorney general quietly posted notice on his office's website of a public hearing that will decide the fate of Coproagrosur, a palm oil cooperative based in the town of Simití in the northern province of Bolívar. A confessed drug-trafficking paramilitary chief known as Macaco had turned over to the government the cooperative's assets, which he claims to own, as part of a victim reparations program.

SIGN PETITION TO STOP THE CANADA-COLOMBIA FTA!

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:59:58 -0700

April 17, 2009

Dear friends:

The Canadian Parliament is about to consider ratification of a “free trade” agreement with Colombia. The text of the agreement is nearly identical to the US-Colombia trade agreement and would have the same kinds of disastrous consequences for millions of Colombians.

Big gold mining interests are destroying Marmato

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:24:28 -0800

Jorge Enrique Robledo, Bogotá, January 16, 2009

On November 13, at the time when the Mining Company of Caldas owed
salaries and benefits to its workers, a number of trucks arrived at the facilities owned by the Canadian transnational Colombia Goldfields to haul off to Medellín the "calculating equipment, furniture, implements, materials and the rest". The reason? To sell them to the highest bidder to pay off --according to the company-- their labor and commercial debts. In the following days they abandoned their operations in Marmato and fired the last of 200 workers, without honoring their commitment to pay on December 10 many of these workers for services rendered.

Awas unite to fend off threats

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:20:27 -0800

by Luis Ángel Saavedra
1/22/2009
Indigenous groups on both sides of the border need each other to protect their land and autonomy.

Members of the Awa indigenous people of northern Ecuador and southern Colombia say that despite the political border dividing them they need each other to fight a common threat: the appropriation of their lands.

Colombia and Venezuela: Testing the Propaganda Model

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:40:23 -0800

Dec 19 2008
Kevin Young – Media Accuracy on Latin America (MALA)

U.S. news coverage of parallel political events in Colombia and Venezuela offers an opportunity to test the usefulness of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model,” developed in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, reissued 2002). The model predicts that the news media will look favorably upon the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe, a close U.S. ally, while consistently vilifying the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, whom the U.S. government frequently identifies as an antagonist. If the model holds, U.S. media outlets will be found to portray the Uribe government as relatively democratic, progressive, and peaceful, while casting the Chávez government as authoritarian, regressive, and militaristic.

Ecuador Defaults on Foreign Debt

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:27:26 -0800

Written by Daniel Denvir, 12 December 2008 *

Rafael Correa declared on Friday that Ecuador would not make a $30.6 million interest payment on $510 million in bonds due in 2012, calling the debt illegal.

The default on the Global Bonus 2012 bonds means that Ecuador is also defaulting on Global 2015 and 2030 bonds. The default totals $9.937 billion, 19 percent of the country's GDP. Ecuador has assembled a legal team to fight expected lawsuits and hopes to use the default as leverage to renegotiate the debts.

Indigenous People Rising: Historic Changes Across Latin America

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:35:51 -0800

By James Cockcroft
Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, November 28-30, 2008

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as “unity in diversity.” Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”

Bush Seen As Out of Touch on Latin America

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:37:38 -0700

by Ali Gharib

(IPS) -The policies of the George W. Bush administration lag behind public opinion on a host of issues relating to Latin America, according to a new poll of likely voters across the U.S.

The poll, released Friday by Zogby International, polled over 2,700 people and found that most of them are in favour of revising policies towards Cuba and think the "war on drugs" is a failing effort.

The Andean Forum in Response to Large Mining: Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:27:59 -0700

The Bogotá Declaration, September 27 2008

Following a broad debate, peoples and indigenous communities from the Andean and Amazonian region, mining workers, small and medium miners in Colombia, together with social movements and fraternal organizations from Guatemala and the United States, who have coexisted ancestrally with mountains and clear waters according to ways of life founded on a good life for all that is both complementary and values reciprocity and who are today affected by mining and brought together by the Andean Forum in response Large Scale Mining, declare:

The Battle Over PEMEX

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:44:16 -0700

by Rick Arnold, Common Frontiers coordinator *

Mexicans vote to continue their public ownership

On July 27th more than one and a half million Mexicans in nine states and the capital city voted on proposed legislation that would see Mexico’s nationalized energy sector opened up to foreign investment. Over 80% voted against President Calderon's privatization plans in the first of three consultations, with the next two scheduled for August 10 and 24. In Mexico City 826,000 people cast their ballots at some 5,600 voting booths. In the nine participating states, with results still trickling in from remote areas, a similar number of voters had turned thumbs down on the government's pending legislation.

PROPUESTA DE LEY DE COMERCIO

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:42:00 -0700

PROPUESTA DE LEY DE COMERCIO
(VERSIÓN DE LA CÁMARA DE REPRESENTANTES DE EUA)
Traducción No oficial al español de A. Villamar/ 06-06-2008

110 CONGRESO
2da SESIÓN

Para exigir una revisión de los acuerdos comerciales vigentes y la renegociación de los acuerdos comerciales vigentes sobre la base de la revisión, para fijar los términos de futuros acuerdos comerciales, para expresar el sentido de la Cámara de Representantes sobre el papel del Congreso en las políticas comerciales que deben ser fortalecidas, y para otros fines.

HSA Bulletin June 23, 2008

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:08:43 -0700

HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE
ALIANZA SOCIAL CONTINENTAL
http://www.asc-hsa.org

1. Europe Raises Its Wall: Parliament Approved Anti-Immigrant Law
2. CAOI (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - Coordination of Andean Indigenous Organizations): No to the "Flexibilization" of Decision 486 of the CAN (Andean Community)

Regarding "The Return Directive"

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:55:50 -0700

by Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Republic of Bolivia

Until the end of the Second World War, Europe was a continent of emigrants. Tens of millions of Europeans came to the Americas to colonize, escape
hunger, financial crisis, wars, European totalitarianisms and the persecutions of ethnic minorities.

Today, I am following with deep concern the approval process of the so-called "Return Directive". The text, validated on June the 5th by the Home Affairs Ministers of the 27 European Union countries, has to be voted on June 18th in the European Parliament. I consider that it drastically hardens the detention and expulsion conditions of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the length of their stay in the European countries, their employment situation, their family ties, their will or their achieved integration.