Summary of hot items, 5/1/09
So much is happening!:
-How many “leftist” presidents are now elected in Latin Amer?..9
-How many LA nations have withdrawn from the SOA?…4
-In how many has continuous US interference with elections been ended?….1, in El Salvador in April, “09, as you know!
Time to summarize where we are with current crises, deep questions esp. re US policy affecting the Hemisphere, and opportunities.
First, see the topics below concerning how we can change US foreign policy:
-The issues listed at www.interconn.org are still relevant and need answers.
-The natural disasters of Haiti and Cuba are still extremely serious, and the lists you’ll see of where to usefully send donations are still good.
Where you see progress of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition, those actions are ongoing…The approach to the Obama Administration, our 11 Demands (also see the LASC website at www.lasolidarity.org). The joint LASC/NACLA Teach-ins, held through April, ’09, were successful. The Movement is alive and well-esp. if you all join in (send a representative of your group to join the LASC Coordinating Committee (conf. call monthly)
-The best sign of a successful movement is the result: I think you will agree that we have been right re the negative results of the “Washington Concensus”, esp. NAFTA and other free trade agreements. And we have been on the right side of popular movements in Latin America which have developed strong democracies and elected exciting presidents who oppose US neoliberal policy and favor an end to poverty, illiteracy, and such glaring inequality.
What is the worst of all US policies toward Latin America? -One could quickly respond: the embargo of Cuba, corp. globalization, interference in elections, hostility toward the newly elected presidents of several nations. -But top of my list is US policy toward Haiti! The poorest nation in the Hemisphere, as you know, where the US got rid of the twice democraticlly elected Pres. Aristide by severe economic measures followed by a military coup in 2002 and the support of an illegal group of thugs who took over (and little support for the newer Pres. Preval, elected overwhelmingly after we supported his opposition. And what are USAID and that part of the National Endowment for Democracy which is the International Republican Institute doing now?) -Add to this the US (and Canadian and French) pressure on the UN to attach “Peacekeepers” (MINUSTAH) which have massacred dozens of poor slum-dwellers who support the return of Pres. Aristide and have done nothing to release the many political prisoners.
What have been the next worse US policies toward Latin America? -Official (and mainstream media) hostility toward the “leftist” governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua.
So: Join us with ideas through our blog, the newsletter INTERCONNECT (free every 3 mos. by e-mail..just send us your e-address), or directly with the LASC.
Thanks, Peter
— Peter Mott
LASC "educating" Pres. Barack Obama
One thing our movement has known for over twenty years is how difficult it is to educate the US public and our representatives in Washington about Latin America: particularly hard because of government policy and the lack of full information in the media. The need to convey truth extends also to Pres. Obama.
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) had sent the following memo to then Senator Obama and the Obama campaign staff:
We are writing as the Coordinating Committee for the US-based Latin America Solidarity Coalition. We represent over 2000 local and national groups of US residents working in solidarity with the people of many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. These groups are in all 50 states. Thousands of our members have been exchanging visits with and working closely with different parts of the Region. We have combined their rich experiences at four national LASC conferences and developed analyses and plans for many crisis areas, past, present and potential future crises. (You may see our website at www.lasolidarity.org).
We have studied then Senator Obama’s wide-ranging speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, Miami, May 23, 2008 on US-Latin American relations. We were disappointed in many of the positions he expressed as well as the fact that he chose to make them before an extreme right-wing group whose influence on US policy toward that region is responsible for much of the deterioration in the US image in Latin America. requested a meeting with Pres. Obama to provide him with our ideas for a more positive US policy toward our neighbors to the South. Our hope would be to (1) help him to keep his discussions as accurate as he would like, and (2) help him develop a moral and sustainable US foreign policy in the region.
As you well know, the nations, their cultures, their political-economic situations are complex. As you also know, over the years the US has made mistakes, many of which have threatened our own goals of helping to develop good feelings about our country among the people themselves, helping true democracies to develop, eliminating human rights abuses by the militaries that the US supports and trains, and encouraging strong economies and trade.
The positions of the LASC are:
Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, also known as the School of the Americas.
Close the InternationalLawEnforcementAcademy in San Salvador.
Stop funding Plan Colombia and cut off all military aid to that country.
Stop funding the Merida Initiative and the militarization of the US/Mexico border.
Close the National Endowment for Democracy and return USAID to its original foreign aid mission.
Return President Aristide to Haiti, advocate freedom for all political prisoners and support the end of the UN occupation.
End belligerence toward Venezuela and other Latin American countries whose citizens have elected left-leaning governments over the past decade.
End the embargo against Cuba and normalize relations with our island neighbor.
Stop initiating “Free Trade“agreements that benefit only corporations while destroying local agriculture and forcing Latin Americans to leave their homeland to work in the US.
Publicly state support for the legitimate elected government of Bolivia, condemn the separatist violence and take no actions to further inflame the crisis there.
Extradite the terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles to Venezuela, as required by extradition treaty, to stand trial for the fatal bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight that killed 73 people. Free the five Cuban anti-terrorist agents falsely convicted of espionage for infiltrating Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami whose repeated terrorist attacks have killed over 3,000 Cubans and foreigners in Cuba.
As you well know, the nations, their cultures, their political-economic situations are complex. As you also know, over the years the US has made mistakes, many of which have threatened our own goals of helping to develop good feelings about our country among the people themselves, helping true democracies to develop, eliminating human rights abuses by the militaries that the US supports and trains, and encouraging strong economies and trade.
©2007 Interconnect.org
— Peter Mott
Educating public, Congress
All of us in the Latin America Solidarity Movement—-and that’s probably over 4000 groups in the US (INTERCONNECT’s mailing list has been over 2000 separate groups in all 50 states, all working in solidarity with the people of some part of Latin America)…We all know that one of our most important functions is education of the public and of Congress. My question is…How do we do it better? We do pretty well with crises: particularly in the Central America solidarity days we could amass 300,000 marchers in DC over and over…against the war in El Salvador, and to prevent a US invasion of Nicaragua during our Contra War. And one can make the case that we won both of those.
We also do well with other crises: eg, closing the SOA (getting close to victory), getting 5 nations to stop sending troops to the SOA.
A delegation here in Rochester NY changed our Congressperson’s views of ending the US Embargo of Cuba.
But we don’t ever seem to get the public or Representatives in Congress to understand the situation more deeply. We activists don’t need to be reeducated about the deeper thinking about US-Latin American affairs —especially the economics but also about the poverty, indigenous people’s rights, how our colleagues in the South feel about “democracy”, religion, ownership of a country’s natural resources (not US corporations!). But I’m not aware that many of us can more deeply educate others.
What works with you? Taking an official along on a delegation for a week in Latin America? Regular visits with updates for your Congressperson about Latin Amer. affairs? Educating the staffs?
Please share your successes. —-Peter
— Peter Mott