Organisation of American States decides to readmit Cuba.

It would appear as if, despite all evidence to the contrary, the world is sometimes capable of good sense:

The Organisation of American States tonight lifted Cuba's half-century-old suspension in a dramatic decision to bring Havana back into Latin America's diplomatic fold.

The pan-regional body rebuffed the United States, which lobbied against the move, and revoked a 1962 cold war measure which had marked the communist island as a pariah.

"The cold war has ended this day in San Pedro Sula," said Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, who hosted the 34-member organisation in Honduras's second city.

Dozens of foreign ministers from the Caribbean as well as central and South America stood to applaud when the announcement was made at the end of the two-day summit. "This is a moment of rejoicing for all of Latin America," Ecuador's foreign minister, Fander Falconi, told reporters.

Cuba said it had no interest in rejoining the OAS, which Fidel Castro this week called a "Trojan horse" for US interests, but the opening of the door was a diplomatic victory for Havana and exposed Washington's isolation.

After almost fifty years, the Cold war reaction to Cuba is beginning to thaw.

Most of Latin America, after eight years of Bush and the neo-cons, is now more leftist than at any other time in history, so we shouldn't really be surprised at this taking place at this moment in time.

But it's extremely welcome nevertheless.

"The vote to readmit Cuba to the OAS represents an unprecedented assertion of Latin American power in a hemispheric institution long dominated by the US," said Daniel Erikson, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank and author of The Cuba Wars.

Washington recently softened its economic embargo against Cuba - a controversial policy enshrined the same year the OAS suspended the fledgling Castro government - but that was not enough to appease Latin leaders demanding bolder steps.

"The vote sends a powerful signal to the Obama administration that the path of moderate, incremental change in US policy towards Cuba is depleting America's political capital in the region at an alarming rate," said Erikson.

Latin leaders gave Obama a rapturous reception at an April summit in Trinidad and Tobago, his regional debut, but today's decision showed a steely resolve to stand up to the "gringo" superpower which is considered to have bullied the region for over a century.

There is great goodwill towards Obama from Latin America, but only because they hope that he will be the agent of change which he promised to be.

This vote shows the kind of change that they hope to witness. Obama has often reminded us that it is a form of madness to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Nowhere has that flawed policy been more evident than in the US's reaction to Cuba.

The policy hasn't worked for fifty years. Even longer than the US's failed policy towards Iran.

Latin America is now telling Obama that it is time for change.

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Tags: Obama, Cuba, Latin America, Organisation of American States, Clinton, Castro

Barack Obama offers olive branch to Chávez, Ortega and Latin America

The nuttier members of the right are up in arms over the fact that Obama shook Chavez's hands at a summit in the Caribbean and will no doubt be outraged that he is talking about "new beginning" with Cuba. However, it is impossible to argue that the US's embargo with Cuba has even been remotely successful. How many US presidents did Castro see off?

It the definition of lunacy to keep trying the same thing and expect to get different results, and Obama has clearly decided to try a whole new approach to Latin America.

Obama promised a "new beginning" with Cuba, sought out Venezuela's Hugo Chávez for a handshake and used humour to defuse a challenge from Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega.

"We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms," Obama told the summit to loud applause. "But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations."

The summit threatened to be a lion's den for the president because of the US's long history of meddling in Latin America and the region's tilt towards the left. Almost every leader of the 34 nations represented at the three-day meeting, which ends today, was expected to demand an end to the US embargo against Cuba, a 47-year-old policy which has become symbolic of "Yankee" bullying.

Last week Obama loosened the economic stranglehold over the communist island but kept most sanctions in place, leaving many Latin leaders impatient for bolder change. Cuba's president, Raúl Castro, responded by offering to discuss "everything" with Washington, including contentious issues such as political prisoners.

Bush famously tried to overthrow Chavez and the US for decades have been refusing to have any dealings with Cuba, it's tiny neighbour and "Communist threat". Perhaps, under Obama, the US will at last accept that the people of Venezuela have democratic right to choose whoever they wish to represent them and that Cuba is a tiny island that represents no threat at all to the US.

Yes, it would be nice to see the people of Cuba given access to the democratic process, but the embargo only aids keeping the status quo in check as it portrays Cuba as under assault from it's more powerful neighbour.

Suspicion between the two country's will not be easy to thaw, after this many decades how could it be? But Obama is making a great start.

Tags: Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama, usa, venezuela, summit of the americas, presidents, Cuba, Ortega

Chavez calls for anti-US alliance

It says rather a lot about the way George Bush's presidency has increased anti-American feelings across the globe and diminished actual US power that Hugo Chavez can so openly call for countries in South America to revolt against their northern counterpart.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has called on other Latin American and Caribbean countries to form a military alliance against the United States.

The vehemently anti-US leader says Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and Dominica should create one united force.

Mr Chavez, a long time critic of what he sees as US imperialism, made the comments after a summit of its leaders.

Of course, having already failed to oust him in a coup, and with their hands tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is very little chance of the US making any kind of serious response to Hugo's remarks.

Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and now the Caribbean island of Dominica are all members of a trade alliance known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a group that takes its name from South America's independence leader, Simon Bolivar.

Mr Chavez has urged them to draw up a joint defence policy and create a united military force against US imperialism.

"If the US threatens one of us, it threatens all of us," he said, "we will respond as one."

America's meddling in South America has long been a source of anger for many across the globe.

During the cold war the US seemed obsessed with stopping communism from creeping into south America and, to that end, often interfered in the business of small nations.

However, under Bush's presidency, most of South America has turned socialist and no-one in the White House appears to have noticed.

It's bizarre. Much as I loathed the Reagan presidency and it's goals, there was at least an intellectual consistency; under Bush there is none.

That's why the man who declared his intention to export democracy to the Middle East can now find himself offering $20 billion arms deals to Saudi Arabia, one of the least democratic nations in the region; it's like he's literally making it up as he goes along.

What I find interesting here are not so much Chavez's comments but rather how they fit into a narrative that has developed under the Bush presidency. Chavez joins Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il in sticking a finger up at the American empire, knowing full well that Bush is far too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to anything about it.

The neo-cons claimed that they were going to use America's military superiority to impose what they saw as a new American century upon the world. And yet, after seven years of their military imperialism, the US appears weaker on the world stage than it was before they began their failed experiment.

And that is because the central theme of the Bush presidency - the Bush doctrine - which is basically an arrogant policy of preemption - has failed to produce any viable, sustainable, results on the ground. Which is why people like Chavez can now openly call for people to unite against the US.

It's just another tiny example of the many, many ways that the Bush presidency has actually weakened the US global position.

UPDATE:

There's a great article in today's New York Times magazine that explains this phenomenon much more eloquently than I could. It's well worth reading:

Waving Goodbye to Hegemony

Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them.

It says this about Chavez:

Hugo Chávez, the country’s clownish colonel, may last for decades to come or may die by the gun, but either way, he has called America’s bluff and won, changing the rules of North-South relations in the Western hemisphere. He has emboldened and bankrolled leftist leaders across the continent, helped Argentina and others pay back and boot out the I.M.F. and sponsored a continentwide bartering scheme of oil, cattle, wheat and civil servants, reminding even those who despise him that they can stand up to the great Northern power.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Chavez, Venezuela, Bush, United States, neo-cons, Bush doctrine, South America

The News Dissector: How does U.S. TV cover Venezuela?

Hat tip to The Largest Minority.

Tags: Venezuela, Chavez, Elections

Chávez on to a winner with referendum gamble

Hugo Chavez's gamble in Venezuela appears to have paid off with it looking like he has won a narrow victory to abolish presidential term limits and allow him to serve as President as long as he continues to win elections.

Two government exit polls suggested most voters approved sweeping revisions to abolish presidential term limits and enshrine socialism. The opposition was sombre but did not immediately concede defeat.

Turnout appeared to be low despite claims from both sides that a yes vote would mark a radical acceleration towards what Chávez terms "21st century socialism". The 53-year-old president said last week he would rule until 2050, as long as he continued winning elections.

Of course the CIA are reported to have plans to undo all of this in the near future.

On a scarier note, an internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington.

The Largest Minority cover just what exactly the CIA plan consists of:

How is this to be done?

In the memo, the CIA proposes the following tactics and actions:

• Take the streets and protest with violent, disruptive actions across the nation
• Generate a climate of ungovernability
• Provoke a general uprising in a substantial part of the population
• Engage in a “plan to implode” the voting centers on election day by encouraging opposition voters to “VOTE and REMAIN” in their centers to agitate others
• Start to release data during the early hours of the afternoon on Sunday that favor the NO vote (in clear violation of election regulations)
• Coordinate these activities with Ravell & Globovision and international press agencies
• Coordinate with ex-militar officers and coupsters Pena Esclusa and Guyon Cellis - this will be done by the Military Attache for Defense and Army at the US Embassy in Caracas, Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO)

The Largest Minority also have a video page regarding Venezuela which gives great details of the CIA plan to undermine any victory that Chavez may have by claiming voter fraud.

Bang on cue, the opposition have begun to make claims that there has, indeed, been fraud at the ballot box:

"In my opinion, these are not the (real) numbers. The government is wrong," claimed Delsa Solorzano, a member of the New Time party at the opposition's referendum headquarters in Caracas. Earlier, Mr Chavez said voting was going well. "We're going to accept the results, whatever they are."

Chavez continues to be portrayed as a dictator within the US media, no doubt to make his overthrow seem like the height of democratic reform, when - in fact - nothing could be further from the truth.

The word “Chavez” and “dictator” are usually not spaced too far apart from corporate media coverage of the events in Venezuela. Little mention is given to the fact that the people of Venezuela have voted in favor of Chavez and his reforms on no less than 11 occasions, which in many books makes him the most heavily elected official on the planet, or at least creates a very strange definition of the word “dictator”.

So, is George Bush, the man who wants to export democracy around the world, about to overturn another democratic election result because - once again - the electorate have foolishly chosen the wrong party? If he is, it really does make a mockery of his supposed love of democracy.

UPDATE:

The BBC are now reporting that Chavez has actually lost the referendum and has swiftly conceded defeat.

Mr Chavez swiftly conceded and urged the opposition to show restraint.

"To those who voted against my proposal, I thank them and congratulate them," he said. "I ask all of you to go home, know how to handle your victory."

He insisted that he would "continue in the battle to build socialism".

"Don't feel sad," he told his supporters, saying there were "microscopic differences" between the "yes" and "no" options.

He said the reforms had failed "for now" but they were "still alive".

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Tags: Chavez, Venezuela, Bush, CIA

The War on Democracy - Trailer.

Tags: john pilger, war on democracy, pilger, chomsky, chavez, venezula, documentary

Chávez opens his wallet wider to boost Latin American influence

In his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins outlines how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have become tools which the west uses to rob poorer countries of their resources by giving them loans which we know they will not be able to repay, and then demanding access to their resources when they, inevitably, fail to meet repayments.

Venezuela recently repaid all monies owed to these organisations and now Chavez is setting out to free other South American country's from the grip of the World Bank and the IMF. He has already announced that he will buy up $1billion in Argentinean bonds, even before his tour takes him to Uruguay, Ecuador and Bolivia.

"We need to unite and the north American empire doesn't want us to unite," the president told reporters in Buenos Aires. "It is a battle of interests, but we will win this battle."

Argentina, thanks to Chavez, will now be able to meet it's international commitments this month - which come to around $2.5 billion - at a time when Argentina was having difficulty attracting credit.

"This is a big effort for Venezuela, but we are doing it because we know what is at stake. Argentina is freeing itself from Dracula, it is cutting ties with the IMF," said Mr Chávez.

In January 2006, Argentina repaid its entire remaining $9.6bn debt to the IMF, giving President Néstor Kirchner kudos at home for restoring national pride and sovereignty.

Mr Chávez's latest cash injection was a reminder to Mr Kirchner's politician wife, Cristina, that she too will owe Caracas if she wins the presidency in October's election after her husband steps down.

Some critics say the first couple have merely swapped one master, the IMF, for a more radical and controversial one. Argentina was now "Chávez-dependent", said Joaquín Morales Solá, a columnist with the daily La Nación.

The criticism is to be expected. But Chavez has set out to unite South America in a way that was previously unthinkable. George Bush's apparent lack of interest in what is going on in this region - apart from his brief embrace of the failed attempt to have Chavez replaced - has left the space for South America to unite. Already the South has elected an unprecedented number of socialist leaders. This is the very point when one would normally expect the World Bank and the IMF to intervene. Instead, what we have is Chavez touring the region and offering aid to his neighbours.

This is part of his overall plan to form an alliance against the US, which has even gone as far as to see him entering deals to build tractors with Ahmadinejad.

The socialist radical is using Venezuela's vast oil wealth to strike commercial and political deals with countries that challenge the US such as Iran, Belarus, Russia and China, as well as much of Latin America and the Caribbean, to rebuff what he refers to as the "empire".

"Chávez is a global player because right now he has a lot of money that he is prepared to spend to advance his huge ambitions," said Michael Shifter, an analyst with the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank. "He has worked tirelessly to upset US priorities in Latin America."

Supporters say he has worked tirelessly to support the poor and marginalised, for example through a $250,000 (£121,000) loan to help farmers in Bolivia's lowlands build a coca industrialization plant, part of an effort to turn the leaf into cakes, biscuits and other legal products instead of cocaine.

"For years we have wanted to do this but no one would support us," said Leonardo Choque, leader of the Chimoré federation of coca growers. "Then the Venezuelans come and offer us a loan with very low interest rates. And no conditions." Venezuela is also funding a new university nearby.

There can be no surprise that Chavez is seeking to unite the South where a great number of citizens live in dire poverty. The United States have consistently intervened in this area to prevent what it describes as Socialism on it's doorstep, as if Latin America's citizens have no right to choose the kind of government they would like due to their proximity to America.

Usually this has been done surreptitiously, by claiming to be part of a "war on drugs", but at other times it has simply been overt intervention.

Chavez challenges US domination of this region like no leader before him, simply because he is backed by oil cash. His strong resistance to the Bush administration's Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) has severely set back, if not derailed entirely, the US's long-held hemispheric agenda.

It is understandable that other Latin American country's will question why he is being so generous and what he actually wants in return. I suspect he simply wants South America to be independent enough to be able to resist US intervention. And, with US history regarding Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba and many others, that's no bad thing.

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Tags: Chavez, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, US regional domination, South America

Argentina renews Falklands claim

Pinochet's great friend stayed largely silent as she remembered the Falklands war. A war that saved her Premiership. Lady Thatcher allowed the wreath she laid do the talking for her, a wreath remembering the 255 Britons who died in a war that also claimed the lives of 655 Argentines and three islanders.

A war for a group of islands that most Brits did not even realise Britain claimed as hers until Argentina invaded them.

On the 25th anniversary of that war, Argentina have renewed their claim that The Malvinas belong to Argentina, and it is very hard to argue with them.

"The Malvinas are Argentine, they always were, they always will be," said Argentine Vice-President Daniel Scioli.

Mr Scioli was speaking in the southern city of Ushuaia - one of a series of events marking the start of the war.

He urged the UK to resume talks on the sovereignty of the islands.

The Falklands war was fought out of a sense of outrage, Thatcher's outrage. At the time she was the least popular Prime Minister since records began. When Galtieri invaded the islands he, unwittingly, threw her a lifeline.

She launched an Armada, knowing that her political future would be decided by the fate of the venture. Tragically, she succeeded, and used that success to inflict almost criminal damage upon Britain's working class.

Now, 25 years later, far removed from the outrage that Galtieri's invasion set off in Fleet Street, is there a single Brit who seriously thinks that these islands belong to us? These islands 8,000 miles from our shores?

The argument over whether or not Britain should have defended the islands from invasion is a separate argument from whether or not one actually believes these islands belong to Britain. Galtieri left Thatcher with no choice. Had she not attempted to retake the islands her Premiership would have been over. The British press would never have forgiven this assault on our honour over a group of islands that few of us had ever heard of. Indeed, when I first heard that Argentina had invaded the Falklands, I assumed that they must have taken some islands north of Orkney. The idea that we were laying claim to group of islands nearer to the south pole than to Cornwall simply never occurred to me.

However, 25 years later, the essential argument has never been resolved. The people on the island continue to insist that they are British, whilst equally insisting that they have no wish to live in Britain, and the Argentineans continue to insist that the islands actually belong to them, although they now say that they will never again invade them.

National honour is at stake, only twenty five years down the line, it's hard to actually argue that the honour at stake is British. That may have been the case when the islands had been invaded, but in the cold light of day it's very hard for the British to maintain their claim over these islands anymore than they can continue, with a straight face, to lay claim over Gibralter.

The problem, of course, is the wishes of the islanders themselves which the British have always maintained will be sacrosanct.

There will be many who think that this is a proper position for the British to adopt, although I don't find too many of them arguing that the Americans should leave Diego Garcia and allow the residents evicted by the British to return to their homes.

The residents of Diego Garcia were evicted for no more honourable a reason than that the Americans wanted a military base there and the British wanted Polaris missile technology.

If people are going to argue that the Falklanders are British because the people there insist that they are British, then they must carry the argument to it's logical conclusion and insist that the Americans vacate their base at Diego Garcia and allow the evicted populace to return.

If they are not willing to do this, then they must accept that asking the people of the Falkland Islands to carry a different passport is hardly comparable to what was done to the residents of Diego Garcia.

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Tags: Falklands Islands, los Malvinas, Thatcher, Blair, Falklands war, twenty five year anniversary

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers

As we discover more each day about how willing the Republicans have been to lie under oath to Congress, we should also recognise that this is not a new phenomenon. This has been something that Republicans have been doing since the days of Nixon and Reagan, deciding that there are greater causes than upholding the American Constitution. It is this mindset that led Bush to refer to it as, "just a piece of paper". This documentary details the birth of this mindset which, as Gonzales' recent behaviour towards Congress proves, is as prevalent today as it has ever been.

Tags: Gonzales, Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush, the constitution

A revolutionary's revival

Call me perverse, but I think there's something wonderful about Reagan's old nemesis Daniel Ortega sweeping back into power in Nicaragua.

Even old Ollie North made his way there to declare a victory for Ortega to be "the worst thing" for Nicaraguans. Because, after the carnage that Reagan and North inflicted on Nicaragua throughout the eighties, Ollie really is the best man to tell Nicaraguans what is good for them.

Failed Reagan administration efforts to oust Ortega capped a legacy of U.S. meddling in this desperately poor nation of 5.7 million people, starting with adventurer William Walker's quest to annex Nicaragua as a slave state in the 1850s. Skirting a ban on U.S. training and funding of the contras, Reagan aides financed the rebels in their bloody civil war by illegally selling arms to Iran in the Iran-Contra scandal.

So the Nicaraguan election has yielded the result that the Bush administration most feared. Let's hope, as Americans go to the polls today, that it's a portent of things to come.

tag: Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, Oliver North, election, victory,