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September 23, 2008
This week the McCain team is trying to dispel the notion that Palin is a foreign policy lightweight. The Alaska Governor is slated to meet with a handful of foreign leaders during the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations. The roster of leaders chosen by the McCain camp bodes badly for U.S. foreign policy should the Republican ticket win in November.
September 22, 2008
Since the democratic election of Evo Morales in December 2005, the U.S. government has sent millions of dollars in aid to departmental prefects and municipal governments in Bolivia. Last year, the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $89 million of U.S. taxpayer money in the Andean country. At least some of these funds have ended up in the hands of opposition groups linked to recent anti-government violence. A group of Latin America experts have called on the U.S. government to publicly disclose USAID's funding portfolio.
September 16, 2008
Events in Bolivia took a dramatic turn on September 11 with the murder of more than two dozen government supporters by armed vigilantes in the northern department of Pando. With the massacre, President Morales' denunciations of a "civic coup" grew more urgent, sparking an emergency top-level meeting of the South American Union in Chile. In response to these recent events, Bolivia's opposition has slightly pulled back its overt attacks, but it will nonetheless continue to actively make the situation ungovernable for the weakened Morales administration.
September 15, 2008
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In the northwestern sierra of Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, a cowboys and Indians saga of the twenty-first century is coming to a head. The conflict pits wealthy cattle ranchers (hacendados) and coal barons against the Yukpa, Barí, and Wayuú indigenous nations in the renegade state of Zulia. Although Chávez has expressed support for the indigenous, other members of his administration have sent mixed signals. Meanwhile, violence continues to escalate as armed vigilantes terrorize the indigenous activists.
September 12, 2008
“Bolivia on the Brink,” is a phrase too often uttered by passing journalists unaccustomed to the country’s regular politics of the streets. But events of the last two weeks cannot be passed off as the ordinary business of protest. Rather, a right-wing coup attempt is in the offing in the five departments (states) governed by the right-wing opposition to President Evo Morales, of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party.
September 12, 2008
Benedicto Martínez, a leader of Mexico’s Authentic Workers Front (FAT), talks to NACLA about the bleak prospects faced by workers in an age of global labor markets and an anti-labor state.
September 9, 2008
As we approach the anniversary of September 11, the thirty-fifth year since Allende died and this seventh year since that other September 11th, which has brought even more suffering and even less justice to the world, it is more important than ever to support NACLA's work. I was reminded of this when I recently visited the humble home of an elderly carpenter in a poor neighborhood of Santiago, Chile.
September 9, 2008
Venezuela and Russia recently announced they will be conducting joint-naval exercises off Venezuela's Caribbean coast in November. The announcement comes amid bitter diplomatic dispute between Russia and the United States over the war in South Ossetia. The upcoming Venezuela-Russia naval exercises along with the Pentagon's recent re-deployment of its Latin America fleet have stoked fears that Latin America will once again be the stage for renewed Cold War tensions.
September 8, 2008
Marchers have recently taken to the streets in Mexico on three different occasions. The marches generally represent three different groups vying for political influence. At the center of the storm is President Calderón's proposed step-by-step privatization of the nation's state-owned oil company, Pemex. The government has succeeded in driving a wedge between independent-minded unions and those being reeled into the pocket of the government in support of the privatization.
September 5, 2008
A commitment to mutual respect, self-determination, and cooperation would take Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama much further in forging a "New Partnership for the Americas." As president, Obama might not praise or support governments and people's movements with which Washington has major differences, but if elected he will need to treat them as sovereign nations that have the right to set their own course.