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33 Latin American and Caribbean countries have decided at Cancún, Mexico, to create a new continental bloc without the USA and Canada, but with Cuba.
This is the first international organization including all or most of Latin America that is not overseen by the USA or Spain. It is continuation of the Rio Group but it aims to establish a real organization, which will be outlined at next year's meeting at Venezuela.
Full Declaration of Cancún at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs [es].
18 comments:
It is just a platform for Hugo. I know this organisation is a delight for US haters, but it will do little other than divert more of people's money to the pockets of politicians.
Hugo offered retiring Lula a new job, Mexico does not want to be left outside an organisation Brazil is getting in, Hugo tells Álvaro irse al carajo and Álvaro tells Hugo to be a man. Then dictator Raúl tells them to calm down (any thoughts about Armando Zapata? fue su propia culpa?)
This is a real joke. Meanwhile Venezuela is selling off oil fields to Repsol and even US companies such as chevron at worse prices than expected. But of course, as Hugo repeated the word "imperialismo" a million times, the Eurokinder are happy and see no harm.
I wish we had a stronger Latin America that can stand independent to other powers - not only the USA, mind -, but this is not it.
If it's just "a platform for Hugo", then why are ALL Latin American and Caribbean states in it? Isn't it that what the USA is doing in America (Haiti, Honduras, Colombia...) is getting everyone on their toes?
Remember anyhow that the main power in that bloc is not Venezuela, your obsession, but Brazil. It'd be like claiming that EU is a platform for the Netherlands or whatever. That is what is a joke.
Brazil is certainly 100 more powerful than Venezuela, but it is to the advantage of both the Brazilian elite + politicians in power and the Venezuelan government to do what they are doing right now.
Or you think Brazilians are holier than the gringoes? That is the joke.
The Venezuelan regime does anything as long as it can stay in power (also giving incredible concessions previously frown upon when given to the US Americans and more). In exchange, Lula says everything is kosher in Venezuela, "just different".
There is nothing new to the Rio group, just more rhetoric from Hugo to the delight of US haters.
Man: I am not a "pitiyanki", but frankly speaking: most of Hugo's appeal has to do with his babbling about the US.
Like Marxists getting excited with him because he says he is a Marxist, although he mentioned in
the very same moment he hasn't read Das Kapital (and neither has he read The Manifest, but never mind)
Brazil has right now a gigantic surplus with Venezuela.
Businessmen in Brazil are happy with that...Lula can play the lefty abroad if that helps exports and oil investments.
"Or you think Brazilians are holier than the gringoes?"
No. Do you think the Gringos are "holier"? It seems to me from the tone of your posts that everything made in USA or EU is cool but that Latin America takes the reins of its own destiny is by default wrong. It seems to me that you'd like to minimize the militarization, mafiosity and democide happening at places like Colombia or Mexico under the overlordship of the USA, only to rant against "Hugo".
"... but frankly speaking: most of Hugo's appeal has to do with his babbling about the US".
Indeed: that is important in building a discourse and hopefully a praxis that is not just more of the same neo-colonized desperation. In 200 years of independence where has Latin America gone to? Nowhere but from disaster to disaster. In a few years of Evo's rule Bolivians have become more literate than Spaniards (or Gringos for the case). That is a difference! A crucial difference that leaves a mark for the future because culture is the key to democracy, to popular power, or at least one of the main keys. If all the governments of the world would do that today, tomorrow we would have many less problems.
And I agree: Lula is a great deception. I was more interested in him than in Chavez some years ago but now... really not. Brazil needs to be a regional power but Lula is too soft, Brazil needs ecosocialism but Lula has betrayed that ideal (where is the agrarian reform, for instance?). And worst: he has promoted as dauphin a woman who has no charisma and, with the left divided between "Ecos" and "Socialists", the right will almost undoubtedly win the next elections, bringing not just Brazil but the whole continent one step back.
But at least this project is something. There's no future for America under the boot of Washington.
"Do you think the Gringos are "holier"?"
No, I don't, but I definitely think there is a considerable greater amount of real debate in Europe than in L.A. and definitely a thousand times more than in Venezuela.
Hugo and his regime absolutely reject debates. They never ever have the courage to answer, to discuss openly with others. They hide in their Alo Presidentes and stuff like that.
If you think Basque nationalists are living under "a dictatorship", just try to see what is going in Venezuela.
I would be happy if L.A. takes the reins of its own destiny. What we are seeing is not that.
It is just selling off the countries to different people, like the chinese or mind, the Spaniards. You should read a little bit about the conditions in which Repsol is getting oil deals in Venezuela and also Spanish electricity companies...as long as Hugo signs the deals, the PSOE is happy.
"It seems to me that you'd like to minimize the militarization, mafiosity and democide happening at places like Colombia or Mexico under the overlordship of the USA, only to rant against "Hugo".
No, I don't. I actually think Hugo is the best that could happen to the gringoes on a long term as L.A. will get out of this more weakened.
"In a few years of Evo's rule Bolivians have become more literate than Spaniards (or Gringos for the case). "
Yeah, y los reyes magos te traen regalitos?
Maju, I don't know the details about Bolivia, but I seriously doubt it if things went like in Venezuela. In Venezuela it was a farce: the chavista apologists (who claim to be "lefties")
say "la Unesco lo certifica". That is false. Literacy (at least on paper) was around 93% in 1997 and according to government numbers half of those who could not read were over 60 or 65 years old (forgot which).
Then they claimed literacy was 100%, which is rubbish, not even in Denmark do they have that.
Then they said "literacy is in the ninety something". Well, that was the case in 1997 and a lot of the illiterate were going to die soon.
And you know in what they base their numbers? In so-called "self-assesments". Give-me-a-break.
It is not coincidence that the only countries that reject to take part in the PISA programme are Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, apart from the Guyanas.
"with the left divided between "Ecos" and "Socialists", the right will almost undoubtedly win the next elections, bringing not just Brazil but the whole continent one step back."
This is your problem: you still see the world as a fight between right and left, evil and good. That was XX century man. Extremists on both sides actually hold hands.
"If you think Basque nationalists are living under "a dictatorship", just try to see what is going in Venezuela".
Well, I invite you to reverse that statement. Here there are no free elections, there is total police control, no free TV of any sort and almost no free radios or newspapers (and always fearing a "legal" but arbitrary closure, as has happened in the past). I laugh at your criticisms of Venezuela: they are so provincial and short sighted.
As for European debate, there's almost none. There is debate in the scattered "far left" opposition but that's about all (add some minor squabbles between the two heads of the bicephalous single party about this or that but is nothing but distractions or the usual but meaningless electoral riff-raffs).
"I actually think Hugo is the best that could happen to the gringoes on a long term as L.A. will get out of this more weakened".
Remember he was softer with them before: there were almost no criticisms. And then the coup attempt happened, and Aznar and Bush and the Vatican were behind it. So I can perfectly understand why the change of tone after that.
Now you see how, under Obama, the colonial pressure mounts up against Latin America: Haiti, Colombia, Honduras...
But I do't think Chavez is helping the Gringos in any way. Of course the right wing media in the USA paints him as "a dictator" (very unjustly) but what can you expect from those nazis? In the opposite side is the ALBA, which is providing for some good, innovative and collaborative development tools not just to Venezuela but also to other countries. It is the ALBA what the Gringos fear most, not the discourses of Chavez.
"This is your problem: you still see the world as a fight between right and left, evil and good".
It's a pretty good description of reality: there are greedy, selfish powermongers and courageous, altruist commies who don't look just for their short-sighted benefit at the expense of Humankind but for Humankind even at the expense of their own lives.
Of course, once in power we must guard against leeches, because those also exist and, as the saying goes: power corrupts...
But we are for "el que mande mande obdeciendo", right? I am indeed.
Also, check this: Brasil adopta el método cubano de alfabetización "Yo sí puedo" (Brazil adopts the Cuban alphabetization method, "Yes I can"). I believe it's the same successful method used by Bolivia and I'm 100% sure that it was adopted by Andalusia (Spain) earlier, also with success.
When did Andalusians adopt that method? Before or after this?
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/12/04/espana/1196763523.html
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/andalucia/PISA/elpepiespand/20071208elpand_15/Tes
They are the worst in Spain by far. I hope that helps.
Maju, the guy leading Venezuela is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbNy1_usvJc
It was not like the guy was particularly poor (albeit he does love to sell himself like that in Europe)
His parents had exactly the same background as my parents, he went to a similar (free) school as I did and supposedly did the same bachillerato de ciencias, where you have to see at least three years of biology, physics, universal history, etc. His parents were actually teachers.
What do you mean there is no debate? You have the parliament in Spain and you have the EU parliament. In the EU parliament you have all those communist parties, which, in your "democratic mind", seem to be the only ones with the right to have
derecho de palabra (now please, tell me there is no communist party in the European Parliament).
The Spanish parliament may be one of the crappiest in the EU but still there you can have Izquierda Unida and others ask questions to the prime minister. Nobody can ask any question to Hugo unless the person is filtered through for an interview and never ever someone from the opposition.
In Germany and many other countries you have guys like the head of Die Linke (I suppose you consider them capitalists, right?)
facing and debating with Angela Merkel and the Liberals and the ecologists LIVE.
Hugo and his people have refused time after time after time.
When the disidents have tried to talk at the Asamblea Nacional chavistas (just think of the name of a movement called after a living person) don't let them speak.
In reality communists (or so-called communists, it seems they always turn into "state capitalists" or something else, it is like the quantum theory and the inability to both measure location and speed of a subatomic particle) NEVER want to hold an open debate once they get to power.
After this blog was created, I think. Though not sure if it was Andalusia or a major city within it, like Seville.
"What do you mean there is no debate? You have the parliament in Spain"...
Hahaha!
Zapatero and Rajoy saying "chorradas"! That's not a debate but a show for the gallery. Do you think that Zapatero and Rajoy or whichever of their guards, disagree in anything relevant like the self-determination of the peoples, getting out of NATO or nationalizing private property in order to face the crisis without people losing jobs?
They are in total agreement and so are all others, including IU, who exist only for the same reason that the CDU existed in East Germany: to support the regime with a weak, shy and powerless pretense of opposition.
Remember that when the coup of 2001, the proposed concentration government included all factions, including Felipe González as vice-president and several commies. They did that to prevent Spain from becoming a federal state. Since then they are in total agreement. There's no debate anymore, only "come y calla". And soon not even anything to eat either.
We have been paying all the time abusive prices for electricity and housing (and tobacco too but this is an Euro-Gringo fashion). The government and the decorative parliament do nothing about all that.
And anyhow the Spanish parliament is designed to over-represent Castile and under-represent the minorities.
But don't rise the 1% taxes on financial capital!
The Europarliament is even more ridiculous. There's maybe a little more of debate because it's larger and somewhat more colorful but it's almost totally powerless. And again the two large parties in agreement do their bid anyhow most of the time.
And did you read that eurosceptic MP who has been reprimanded for saying Rompuy is nobody. He is absolutely right and is, for once, saying what main street Europeans think but the presidency of the parliament is censoring him on "politeness" grounds (exactly what happened in Wikipedia, btw, where sincerity and direct free speech was buried under a politeness protocol more proper of the Royal House of Tongo - not Tonga: it's a wordplay in Spanish).
So I laugh at your nonsense claim that there is any effective democracy in Europe anymore. Everyday there is less and less free speech and citizen participation, while the Commission and the state governments do exactly what the feudal lords... I mean: the corporations say.
And don't forget the secret networks of NATO. Gladio was not investigated properly almost anywhere (only Italy): they are still the ones running the show and the mafias (Italian mafia of course but also the Zionist Mafia, the DEA and all the rest) are totally implicated.
Things have to change and will eventually change but people will need some years to become aware of how much all this affects their real lives.
Maju, there is no democracy anywhere in the world then...apart perhaps from in your head and in the world you are going to create. Apparently "the people who build things" are going to follow you suit.
Damn if they don't.
As for Gladio: yeah, and they were not the only ones and they are not the only ones now.
So?
"As for Gladio: yeah, and they were not the only ones and they are not the only ones now.
So?"
They ARE.
You seem to suggest that true democracy, with democratic companies and democratic media, as well as democratic administration at all levels is impossible. Well, I can't know for sure if it's possible or not, but it's for what we, humans are made, not for fascism.
First is to abolish private property, specially land property (land is there for all and everything else is a robbery) and to abolish the privileges of corporations, such as not being ruled democratically or being given special advantages over individuals or even the same rights of real people, as recently did the US Supreme Court.
Second is to organize democratic participation, people's power, at local and company levels, soviets if you wish.
Third is to guarantee absolute freedom of speech to everybody (real people). "Si te picas, ajos comes". And assure the equal rights of everybody regardless of birth, assure free (as in gratis and as in guaranteeing the rights of children, even against their parents if need be) quality education for all. To assure the right to a decent home and to a decent job to everybody. Etc. (read the UDHR)
That is democracy. What you defend is corporate feudalism. I demand radical democracy, not a pretense of such thing that is not substantially different to the "organic democracy" of Franco.
Maju, can you tell me in what communist system the world has had more real debate than what we have within the EU? (and not that I think big thing about the EU parliament, I do like a lot the Bundestag or the Scandinavian parliaments or the Dutch one)
Oh, those were not communist systems, they were "state capitalist systems". Doesn't this ring an alarm bell to you?
OT, but perhaps not so much: what do you think of Marina Silva of Brazil NOW?
Marina Silva
Have you ever heard of the Spanish Revolution? (More like Catalan Revolution in fact but whatever). That kind of direct democracy is what we need... but stable.
"... what do you think of Marina Silva of Brazil NOW?"
Thanks for the link it helps me make up my mind. I read that the commies in Brazil are against her, dubbing her a bourgeois option. What I think is that Lula's policies have managed to split the left and therefore the right will win.
I can accept such criticisms towards Cuba, a system that after all belongs to the Fordist/Stalinist period, but I don't think they are fair re. Venezuela. Anyhow, Cuba is still well ahead in liberty in comparison with countries like Colombia and a whole lot of regimes through the world: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaiyan, Belarus, Russia, Turkmenistan, Khazakstan, Uzbekistan, China, North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Niger (also before the coup), etc.
I don't even think Cuba has much to envy Spain or the USA for instance. All is relative. Certainly a personalist system like those that seem to be fashionable in Latin America are not for us Basques, who are closer by history to the Swiss system, but the Swiss systems has its shortcomings too (banks are overtly powerful and issues like religious discrimination and other forms of xenophobia seem to be too prevalent, no doubt for lack of class struggle).
I see...the communists are really perfect...somehow it always ends up being the infiltrated into the system, like Lula's "liberal capitalists". This is strikingly familiar: it is the "derecha endógena" that always manages to creep it. We went over this before: at the end if the individual realises he himself has succumbed, it will be the demon of capitalism that took hold of him. And then we talk about evangelicals...
Funny you like to compare cuba to those countries as if cuba had been in that position. cuba was, in spite of all the inequalities (that are still there) one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America in 1958.
And in spite of the Batista dictatorship, "freedom" was better than in any of those countries sixty years ago.
You know...I still have a lot of books from the Soviet embassy. I was rereading one of them last year. It was about the Baltic republics and how they had advanced so much under the rule of the Soviet Union. The funny thing is that they did not say that those republics were already much more prosperous than the other republics when they were part of the czarist Russia and what they did not say was that those countries that did not fall under the Soviet occupation developed faster.
Maju, compare apples to apples and pears to pears.
Before you get into explaining something good happened because of communism or some sort of attempt to communism, try to falsify the statement.
Politics is not really a science, but you still can discover a lot of things if you don't cling blindly to a Manitu or to Marx
and instead try to see further possible causes.
"Se te vé el plumero", Kepler. What you like is Batista, Uribe and Pinochet. Who can say that Cuba is not a zillion times more egalitarian and democratic now than with Batista. Prosperity for the mafias? I don't want that "prosperity" that is nothing but misery for the people.
And have no doubt that, in spite of all, the the countries of Eastern Europe were generally speaking better off before their reconversion to capitalism. Latvians in particular were oppressed ethnically, as we Basques are but were not oppressed economically as Mexicans are.
"...cuba was, in spite of all the inequalities (that are still there) one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America in 1958".
That's false: even the always hyper-biased History Channel knows better. Man: you lie (or deceive yourself) more than Hollywood dares!
"And in spite of the Batista dictatorship, "freedom" was better than in any of those countries sixty years ago".
Freedom for the rich? Let's be serious. There would have been no revolution with so much "prosperity" and "freedom" as you want to believe. Step down from your position of privilege and live as the real people has to every single day: only then you'll know how it is, bourgeois.
"... that those countries that did not fall under the Soviet occupation developed faster".
Depends which one. Yugoslavia or Hungary compared well with Mediterranean Europe or Ireland. Russia itself would not have developed so fast without Stalinism, we like it of not. What happened since the late 60s is not the same as what happened before, when the Soviet bloc was highly competitive (within the context of Fordism).
Yugoslavia in particular was at Nordic standards of development but they had a more participative (Toyotist) system.
"I see...the communists are really perfect...somehow it always ends up being the infiltrated into the system, like Lula's "liberal capitalists"".
Lula's government is not "communist": it's a center-left bloc that includes many liberal parties and ministers.
Communists are not "always good", Communism, like true Democracy is good.
"Funny you like to compare cuba to those countries as if cuba had been in that position".
I have compared Cuba with a wide variety of countries through the world: ex-soviet states, East Asian "tigers", Latin American narco-protectorates of the USA, a varied array of Arab nations, many with lots of oil or gas, Israel, etc. What's wrong with that comparison? Do you think Cuba under Batista was some sort of "Sweden"? Yugoslavia under Tito was but Cuba under Batista was more like Colombia is today: money for the mafias and misery for the rest.
I dislike any kind of autocrats, be it murderers like Batista (who was a former communist, by the way) to Pinochet to Trullijo, to Pérez Jiménez (right-winger who is still a model for Chávez) to Castro and Chávez (conceded: there are only clear proofs of his responsibility for getting over 60 murders on Feb 1992, plus his absolute incompetence for letting the murder rate in Venezuela rise from 19 to over 60x100000 in his 11 year rule, plus som of the blame on 2002 murders - read The Silence and the Scorpion - the rest are conjectures or most likely things that went into the hands of his amigos)
See: I know a lot of persons from the former Soviet Union and from some of its former colonies. None of them would like to go back to that and are happier with the situation now, in spite of it all (including bank collapse in Latvia).
There will always be a percentage of the population that is unhappy.
Cuba under Batista was the US's brothel. Cuba under the Castro clan is the EU's brothel.
Now the rich are the ones high up in the Party, although it is true they cannot show it off due to the total collapse of the country.
The real difference is that people don't have hope: an ideology has come that blames it all on the gringoes (I concede: the embargo is a shame and a sham). Any dissent is transformed into treason.
I do think the US Americans are incredibly stupid regarding that country. They should totally lift the embargo. The regime would collapse very soon.
You say communism, like true democracy is good. But it never happens and every time they try to make it happen a catastrophe occurs. Should you not learn from that?
You won't get it. There will always be people not wanting to take part and you can't just call them all "capitalist rich". Would you let them go to another country? At what cost?
Maju, have you pondered on why those countries? I have. I speak German and I speak Russian. I have friends there, I studied in Germany and I know the details of the URSS's history.
I suppose you think the huge increase in Neonazi movements in Eastern Germany is also a good thing. Actually, the Linke and the Neonazis are just variances of the same thing: people who cannot handle change and openness.
The people who are still longing for communist times are the ones who either were maintained by others (a lot in Russia before) and/or the ones who were kept thinking people would maintain them (as in Eastern Germany thinking West Germany would be Vater Staat again, but with bananas and electronic gadgets).
The Poles, the Hungarians, the czechs, the Slovenians, the Slovaks, the Lithuanians, etc, etc knew they could not blame it forever on others and they stood up for themselves. It was an error for West Germany to keep support of East Germany for so long and that much.
In the case of cuba: I have never been there, but I have several friends who have. The misery is terrible and probably the same amount of people die of it as in the US, only that cuba has just 10 million people and it never gets cold.
Half of the population is happy to live as they live now because they have nothing to do but act as thugs keeping an eye on the other half so that there is no revolt.
The first group is sitting around all day in the porches and claiming they are doing some rubbish for the "revolution", the second group halfways gets things done.
Take a bloody plane and go to cuba. Try to get around and not just stay in a place and be guided by a cuban security guy.
As for Venezuela: the most communist part, apart from the talk and the threats and the rejection to open debate can be found in the red shirts and red baseball caps.
Did you not read about the Repsol deals? About the very overpriced electricity projects Venezuela signed with Spain? There are very srong rumours that Diosdado cabello, one of the strongmen, got several million dollars from the last deal. The Spaniards are giving us power stations at twice the price of comparable power stations in any other place on Earth.
The oil deals with the chinese are not better...
Qué carajos! Mientras canten la Internacional y usen camisetas del che, todo está bien/
Ah...Uribe cannot go for a third round. Great! The judges in that country have more cojones than the ones in Venezuela (who, by the way, shouted in one event "uh, ah, chávez no se va)
Die Linke is a perfectly valid democratic party and the only real opposition in Germany since the murder of Petra Kelly and her husband by the BND.
Comparing what makes Germany still a more or less democratic country with the Nazis is highly offensive. Very specially when the KPD was the only party opposing Hitler in Germany, while all the rest made his bed, just like they are doing now at global level. There would not have been fascism anywhere without the support of the "democratic parties" when they saw themselves and their fucking slavist regime losing power, nowhere!
Die Linke is being persecuted because they pose a challenge to the capitalist system (that's what they call "the constitutional order" but it only means their wallets). Your cheap bourgeois discourse is just boring: I have heard that nonsense since I was born and I just don't swallow it anymore.
"In the case of cuba: I have never been there (...) Take a bloody plane and go to cuba".
Do it yourself, I don't have one euro in excess.
"Did you not read about the Repsol deals?"
Yes I did. I'm not happy about that but that only shows how you complain about nothing like all those crying bourgeoises (ouch, my wallet!): your damn capitalist neocolonialist order is safe with Hugo.
"Ah...Uribe cannot go for a third round. Great!"
It won't make any difference, I bet. The narco-oligarchy will remain in power and he will be well rewarded for his services to the mafias and the Empire, which are not few. He won't be prosecuted unless things change a lot and the FARC take over, what is still a possibility, I guess.
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