For Grassroots Movement-Building and Sharing of Resources Within the US-Latin America Solidarity Community
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By Eva Golinger
ZNet Daily Commentary, June 22, 2010
A revealing report published in May 2010 by the FRIDE Institute, a Spanish think tank, prepared with funding from the World Movement for Democracy (a project of the National Endowment for Democracy “NED”), has disclosed that international agencies are funding the Venezuelan opposition with a whopping $40-50 million annually. This exorbitant amount of financing well exceeds the approximately $15 million previously believed to have been channeled to Venezuelan opposition groups via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the NED [more...]
On a recent delegation to the state of Chiapas, Mexico, we learned that Chiapas is considered both the central and starting point for the Mesoamerica Project, a giant development plan for building infrastructure needed to attract capital investment and dramatically expand trade via NAFTA, CAFTA, and an eventual trade agreement with Colombia.
The Mesoamerica Project (MP) was once called Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP), an ambitious plan that met with widespread grassroots resistance and sent PPP administrators back to the drawing board. In December 2006, Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderón, announced he would revive PPP, renamed the MP in 2008, at a meeting of the governors of affected states and presidents of member countries. [more...]
- by Dale Sorensen
My interest in the unfolding drama that is Honduras comes from my outrage at the June 28, 2009, coup d’état and subsequent installation of Porfirio Lobo as president. I have visited Honduras twice in the last 6 months, talked to members of the social movements and human rights groups and read almost everything written about the coup, the US role and the sham election. Opinions about whether the US orchestrated or initiated the coup are numerous but for the sake of expediency let’s agree that the US facilitated what the oligarchic forces conceived and executed. The oligarchy is made up of the elites (10 families that hold most of the wealth), the business interests, and the hierarchy of the Catholic and Protestant churches, the corporate media and the military. [more...]
- by Robert Roth
“We have all suffered. But we are motivated right now to help our people. That makes us strong. That allows us to go on.”- Teacher at a mobile school/ Aristide Foundation for Democracy
What is most shocking when one travels to Haiti is how little aid is visible in the earthquake zone. Where is even a fraction of the $5.3 billion pledged by international donors and “in the pipeline” for Haiti? Members of our delegation visited three different refugee camps. We heard the same story over and over again during our visit in late May: no food, poor shelter and no work. [more...]
“Obama’s Expanding Covert Wars” by Jeremy Scahill
“Muscling Latin America: The Pentagon’s New Monroe Doctrine” by Greg Grandin, excerpted from the Nation’s cover article 2/8/10)
“Why Washington Cares About Countries Like Haiti and Honduras” by Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), from Report, Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas. [more...]
- by Moira Birss
Despite hopes among many in the Americas that the election of President Obama would mark a shift toward more peaceful US policy engagement in the region, recent actions have dashed them. A prime example is the agreement signed by the administration and the Colombian government in October 2009 allowing the US military largely unfettered access to seven Colombian bases. Shortly thereafter rumors began circulating about increased US military presence in Panama. Then the earthquake in Haiti happened, and the US military was sent to the ravaged island in large numbers.
Though ordered before President Obama took office, the reactivation in June 2008 of the Fourth Fleet, US Navy, deactivated since the end of WWII, also has many civil society organizations in the region on edge. Activists are concerned that the US military presence is in parts of a region rich in natural resources. The biodiverse Amazon basin and oil reserves in Southern Atlantic waters, for example, are believed to be likely targets. A leaked Pentagon budget document referred to the Colombia base agreement as a strategic opportunity to deal with "anti-American governments" in the region. [more...]
It’s time! It’s long past time to terminate NAFTA. We all know that the free trade agreement has vastly increased poverty in Mexico, helped create a dangerous level of unemployment in the US, and lost Canada valuable manufacturing jobs. Ross Perot predicted “a giant sucking sound.” Many of us campaigned hard against Bill Clinton’s pressure to pass NAFTA. The Zapatistas rebelled on 1/1/94, the first day the trade agreement went into effect. [more...]
By Peter Mott
Margaret Regan, a superb journalist who has reported for the past ten years on what happens to families and individuals who daily risk their lives crossing the desert to find work in the US, has written a compelling and important book. The ups and downs, the deaths and triumphs, the practical details of each crossing, the suspense before decisions on where to cross, whether to trust a “coyote,” all become personal when the people themselves are interviewed. [more...]
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