LASC "educating" Sen. 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 presidential candidates – even Senator Obama.
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) has sent the following memo to 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 Senator Obama’s wide-ranging speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, Miami, May 23, 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. We would like to request a meeting with Sen. 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 soon as he becomes President.
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.
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 presidential candidates – even Senator Obama.
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) has sent the following memo to 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 Senator Obama’s wide-ranging speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, Miami, May 23, 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. We would like to request a meeting with Sen. 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 soon as he becomes President.
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.
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Truth Campaign proposed
Is it essential or naive for the Movement to consider a Truth Campaign?
All of us know that, in response to the needs of our colleagues in the South we must change US behavior in this Hemisphere: Foreign policy, economic policy, maybe much of domestic policy.
All of us know that this task will take a major educational campaign for the public and the Congress, and that will take far greater numbers of activists in the US-Latin America solidarity movement.
We would probably agree that all this will take careful planning. Such a large and growing movement, we have learned, should include networking with “equal and independent allies” in a non-hierarchical grouping.
May I suggest that step one should be a Truth Campaign, such as that proposed in my 2006 book, “Cancer in the Body Politic: Diagnosis and Prescription for an America in Decline” (see the home page of this website, or e-mail admin@epica.org and get a copy for $10). From pg. 77:
“Preparing the People for Change: Truth
To prepare the people to share an overall vision of a future, stronger USA, it is necessary to simplify and clarify the information available to the public. Many institutions and groups—schools, churches, agencies, clubs—can share in effecting this. We need both leaders and populace to begin at last to peel off the layers and reach what each citizen can freely decide is his or her truth. We must demand truth from our media, truth in government statements, truth in the cirriculum, especially of true US history, warts and all.
We must have truth. Why would it be considered naive to call for a full Truth Campaign—nationally, by state and region, and locally?
— Peter Mott
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