Job Discussion Forums

[Aramas]

Does anyone know a credible site that covers south american governments and their relationships with the world's least favourite terrorist? Obviously Chavez and Lula can Just Say No, whereas Uribe and ex-poodle-in-chief Gutierrez can't (hopefully his successor will give the US military presence in his country the boot and address the mass poisoning of farmers near the Colombian border by US choppers). What about Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina? Do they have US military bases? Are they bending over and spreading their buttocks in order to secure an ironically-named Free Trade Agreement? I'd hate to end up in a country suffering from the political equivalent of HIV.

[Weona]

No country in Latin America, with the exception of Cuba (ironic, I know) and Puerto Rico, has a U.S. Military base. Well, last time I checked....

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[moonraven]

Weona--The last time you "checked" must have been quite some time ago.

Ecuador has a sizable--and very controversial base in Manta. There are also bases in Cura�ao (from where threatening manuevers were made last month in the direction of Venezuela), Aruba and Comalapa, El Salvador. In addition, the US has almost 20 "radar sites"--primarily in Peru and Colombia--ostensibly to monitor movements in the "War against Drugs". There are also a number of US troops in Peru and Colombia at bases that are nominally Peruvian and Colombia. Plus the US troops that are "unofficially" in Paraguay (to direct "war games" against Muslim "terrorists" but really to keep a US military presence around the largest freshwater aquifer) and Bolivia (to try to rub out Evo Morales). The last 4 or 5 US soldiers--part of a US/Venezuela "Cooperation" program) were just evicted from Venezuela--11 months after Venezuela took over the US military office in Fort Tiuna, Caracas, for other uses.

Aramas: Peru, Ecuador and Colombia were engaging in Free Trade Agreement negotiations last week in Lima with the US. Ecuador pulled out when Guti�rrez was ousted. I am in Quito at the moment, and the majority mood here is very anti-Bush, anti-Free Trade Agreement, anti-Plan Colombia.

The Washington Post was squealing and whining that due to the Bush administration's lack of a "plan" in regard to Latin America, that Ch�vez would take advantage of the change of government in Ecuador to pull Ecuador into his camp. The Bushies are very afraid of the influence of Ch�vez, as it is growing daily all around the globe in even greater measure than that of Bush is shrinking.

Both Uruguay and Argentina are in the Venezuelan camp in regard to not accepting the Consensus of Washington, and are actively participating in joint ventures with Venezuela. Bolivia is up in the air--and will be until Carlos Mesa, who took over when "The Gringo" was ousted in Oct. 2003, is history and Morales in the presidential chair.

There are quite a few sites which regularly cover what you are looking for. The Venezuelan ones are probably the best: www.venezuelanalysis.com (in English) and www.aporrea.org. Also, zMag--a US site has good articles on Latin America, as well as several "watches" for specific countries. NarcoNews is also good. La Jornada (excellent Mexican newspaper) is online at www.jornada.mx.

Those will get you started, anyway.

[thelmadatter]

Ben,

Puerto Rico is a US territory. However, when it benefits them, they claim to be a country. I mentioned something about this during the Olympics last year as Puerto Rico and Guam somehow got "country" status.

MR is right that the US has a presence in a number of Latin American countries... its just not as "official" as the bases we have in Cuba, Germany, Japan etc. In those cases, we have a nice formal treaty with these countries. While Im not intimately familiar with the countries MR cites, I did have a boyfriend who was stationed in Honduras - a US base in all but name - at least in the late 1980's. I do know most of these bases are dedicated mostly to intelligence (I used to be MI 98G way back when) and yes, covert actions too. We have similar things in other places too. We will soon have formal bases (of the treaty type) soon in Iraq and maybe Afghanistan.

[moonraven]

The US has formal agreements for 10 years with the governments of Ecuador, El Salvador and The Netherlands (in the cases of Aruba and Cura�ao.

The US base in Honduras in the 1980s was for the "Contras"--the US-funded mercenaries who made raids across the border into Nicaragua to destroy towns and villages, pillage and try to bring down the Sandinista government.

The Honduras base and the mercenaries were primarily financed by the CIA from drug trafficking and the sale of arms to Iran (the Iran-Contra scandal, when it broke landed a few butts in jail briefly--but almost all of the usual suspects are now honchos in the Bush administration.)

[Weona]

[moonraven]

Why not say that it SHOULD be a country? It was a colony of Spain until the US blew up one of its own ships, the Maine, in the harbor of La Habana in 1898 and used that as an excuse to declare war on Spain and take its colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Since 1898 PR has been under US colonial rule. That does not mean that it does not have its own CULTURE.

[Aramas]

Thanks for the links, although the English language site is rather...um...enthusiastically Bolivarian

I still haven't found much on Chile, and what I have found is contradictory. They seem to be chummy with both Chavez and Bush. Chilenos used to be rather right-wing, by all accounts, but where does popular sentiment lie now?

[Weona]

A group of U.S. Marines came here a while ago. I wasn't sure what they were doing but they got a bad rap for the way they treated some of the people in Valpara�so. I heard they were very demanding and were more interested in chasing local Chilenas around than what their real purpose of being there was.

Anyway, in general, relations between the U.S. and Chile seem to be pretty good. President Lagos (from the pseudo democratic socialist party) and Bush get along well but Lagos is still pretty firm on some of the issues that he does not like about the Bush administration. The general concensus in Chile (amongst the people) is that the U.S. is pretty much evil and that Americans are stupid for having voted in Bush for a second term. But! Chileans are very intelligent individuals and will most likely not judge every gringo/a because of the country he/she is from and would instead invest more in conversation to get our own thoughts about the U.S. since they are aware that not all Americans agree with what's going on over there.

That's kind of ambiguous, I know. The yonger generation here in Chile is a lot more to the left than their parents are mainly because they grew up without the dictatorship of Pinochet and have more liberty to express themselves and participate/not participate in certain conservative catholic functions/beliefs/views/politics, etc.

[moonraven]

I am also enthusiastically Bolivarian. The journalist/sociologist, Gregory Wilpert, who started the venezuelanalysis site was NOT a Bolivarian when he first went to live and write in Venezuela. He became one during the 2002 golpe de estado--which is when he and I began corresponding after he wrote a few pieces for La Jornada. Did you expect me to refer you to one of the "escualidos'" racist hate sites?

Chile's president Lagos was in Venezuela recently (also in Colombia)--and Chile and Venezuela did sign some economic agreements while he was there. His relatively recent cultivation of Ch�vez (both countries withdrew their ambassadors in 2003 when Ch�vez indicated that he had been dreaming of being on the beach in BOLIVIA--a reference to Chile's taking away Bolivia's access to the Pacific at the end of the War of the Pacific) has had 3 motives:

1. Venezuela is the economic force on the continent (18%) growth in GNP last year and an expected 10% this year--one of the highest on the planet--so most countries want to get a piece of the action (not only South American countries).

2. Chile is locked in a vote tie with Mexico for the new General Secretary of the OAS, and Lagos wants to make sure that the Chilean candidate (Insulza) prevails. Although Ch�vez had already indicated he wanted the SA candidate, Lagos wanted him to use his influence with other countries who had voted for the Mexican candidate, Derbez.

3. Ch�vez is extremely popular and influential--not only in Latin America, but in the world in general. Most presidents with any sense--and an eye on their electorate--want their photo taken with him. Lagos is sort of a "fogey", but he is not a dummy.

Chile is the only SA country which has signed a Free Trade Agreement with the US. It still has enormous vestiges of the Pinochet years--both in its constitution and its thinking--despite the recent charges against the former dictator, his being under house arrest, etc. Salvador Allende is seen as a hero in most countries of the world--but in Chile there is very little homage paid. Some Chileans see that as a paradox. This poster does not, as Chile's oligarchy colluded with the US to put Pinochet in power by the bloody golpe de estado of Sept. 11, 1973--and still wields a strong "conservative" influence in Chile.

[thelmadatter]

If culture = country, then New York City ought to be its own country too. I experience quite a bit a culture shock when I finally moved out way back in 1987. What a shock it was to find that most people in the US are not Catholic, don't know what knishies and pierogies are and dont have off from school on major Jewish holidays! lol

Taiwan and China have essentially the same culture, but Taiwan is a distinct political entitiy (own passports, army etc). China claims Taiwan is not a distinct country but Taiwan says it is (as to a small number of countries how have formally recognized it). So which is it?

Culture is not enough to determine country status. I believe Puerto Rico has even less stature as a "country" because it has voted several times to remain a so-called "colony" of the US. They chose to remain an American territory. If they want to be a country, they should vote to be one and take complete responsibility for their own political and economic situation. But I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

[moonraven]

No, it won't happen anytime soon--not with the threats the US blasts in PR's direction every time enough signatures are gathered to have a referendum.

Apparently Thelma believes that colonies VOTE to stop being colonies, that democratic process is part of the colonial system. History shows us that colonies become countries when they wage a successful war against the colonial power (USA, Mexico, South America, Algeria, Angola, and a host of others come to mind.)

And, just for the record, those doughy little numbers are knishes (not knishies)-- and one is a knish.

[thelmadatter]

OK - time to back up statements with facts.

According to the World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/pr-d22.shtml in Dec 1998, a referendum was held (again) about Puerto Rico's status. This website focuses on how "only 46.4 percent" of voters voted for statehood, and that the vote of 50.2 percent voted "none of the above" as a "vote of social protest" (the title of the article). The focus of the article was the division of the vote (70% of Puerto Ricans voted in this election) along social class lines as typical for a very left-leaning source.

But buried way down the article is the mention that only 2.5% of the population voted for independence. Whatever gripes Puerto Ricans have with the mainland US, it doesnt translate into support for independence. There is my point. Whether as a state or as a territory/commonwealth, Puerto Ricans overwhelmingly vote to remain politically American. The issue is, how closely associated they want to be politically.

This referendum follows others that occurred in 1993. 73.6% voted, of whom 48.4% voted for Commonwealth Status, 46.2% for statehood and 4.4% for independence. There have been sporatic referendums since 1951 on the status of the island, almost all of which seemed split between statehood and remaining a "commonwealth." http://www.prmag.com/history.htm I found no references to any kind of "blasts in PR's directions" (which I interpret to mean some form of bullying to guarantee certain results) from the US in regards to these referendums. If you have a credible news source, Ill be glad to read it.

If Puerto Rico is a "colony," the residents dont seem to mind it too much.

My position is, if you want to be part of a country - then be part of it. If not, be independent.

[snielz]

I am sure that it is not cut and dried that the US maniacally wants to control Puerto Rico because it benefits so much from it now. In the past, it was a more significant territory but now it serves only as a market for US goods and products, and a small one at that. The US has to let it remain a colony because it has created a parasitic relationship where the Puerto Rican economy is no longer capable of sustaining itself (this is not Puerto Rico's fault). They wanted to be a free state but after Puerto Rico kicked out the Spaniards, the US took its legs out so that it can't really stand on it's own. Now without US money to run the government and social institutions, Puerto Ricans would be even more impoverished and most businesses employing the people on "la isla" are based in the US. This means that all of the money made goes to Wal-mart or McDonald's or whichever but if they were to leave, the Puerto Ricans would have no jobs...It's a bad cycle with no simple answers (including kick out the yankees).

Also, we can't give Bush too much credit for his conservative/aggressive, ethnocentric, grandiose policies and ideas. Indeed, the US was built on an idea of "manifest destiny". This high ideal, when put in to practice, meant genocide for Native Americans and centuries of enslavement for Africans. You all know the story (and the US is not all bad either)- all I'm saying is that Bush is not really the problem. He's more the symptom than the problem.