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	An Andean Crisis of Democracy by Khaleej Times / NYT / OpenDemocracy   December 8 2005   "A dangerous neighbourhood", by Noam Chomsky. (Khaleej Times / UAE)   How Venezuela is keeping the Home Fires burning in Massachusetts," reads a recent full-page ad in major US newspapers from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, and CITGO, its Houston-based subsidiary.   The ad describes a programme, encouraged by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to sell heating oil at discount prices to low-income communities in Boston, the South Bronx and elsewhere in the United States — one of the more ironic gestures ever in the North-South dialogue.  The deal developed after a group of US senators sent a letter to nine major oil companies asking them to donate a portion of their recent record profits to help poor residents cover heating bills. The only response came from CITGO.   In the United States, commentary on the deal is grudging at best, saying that Chavez, who has accused the Bush administration of trying to overthrow his government, is motivated by political ends — unlike, for example, the purely humanitarian programmes of the US Agency for International Development.   Chavez’ heating oil is one among many challenges bubbling up from Latin America for the Washington planners of grand strategy. The noisy protests during President Bush’s trip last month to the Summit of the Americas, in Argentina, amplify the dilemma.   From Venezuela to Argentina, the hemisphere is getting completely out of control, with left-centre governments all the way through. Even in Central America, still suffering the aftereffects of President Reagan’s "war on terror," the lid is barely on.   In the southern cone, the indigenous populations have become much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, both major energy producers, where they either oppose production of oil and gas or want it to be domestically controlled. Some are even calling for an "Indian nation" in South America.   Meanwhile internal economic integration is strengthening, reversing relative isolation that dates back to the Spanish conquests. Furthermore, South-South interaction is growing, with major powers (Brazil, South Africa, India) in the lead, particularly on economic issues.   Latin America as a whole is increasing trade and other relations with the European Union and China, with some setbacks, but likely expansion, especially for raw materials exporters like Brazil and Chile.   Venezuela has forged probably the closest relations with China of any Latin American country, and is planning to sell increasing amounts of oil to China as part of its effort to reduce dependence on a hostile U.S. government. Indeed, Washington’s thorniest problem in the region is Venezuela, which provides nearly 15 percent of U.S. oil imports.   Chavez, elected in 1998, displays the kind of independence that the US translates as defiance — as with Chavez’ ally Fidel Castro. In 2002, Washington embraced President Bush’s vision of democracy by supporting a military coup that very briefly overturned the Chavez government. The Bush administration had to back down, however, because of opposition to the coup in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.   Compounding Washington’s woes, Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming very close. They practice a barter system, each relying on its strengths. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil while in return Cuba organises literacy and health programmes, and sends thousands of teachers and doctors, who, as elsewhere, work in the poorest areas, previously neglected.   Joint Cuba-Venezuela projects are also having a considerable impact in the Caribbean countries, where, under a programme called Operation Miracle, Cuban doctors are providing health care to people who had no hope of receiving it, with Venezuelan funding.   Chavez has repeatedly won monitored elections and referenda despite overwhelming and bitter media hostility. Support for the elected government has soared during the Chavez years. The veteran Latin American correspondent Hugh O’ Shaughnessy explains why in a report for Irish Times: "In Venezuela, where an oil economy has over the decades produced a sparkling elite of superrich, a quarter of under-15s go hungry, for instance, and 60 per cent of people over 59 have no income at all. Less than a fifth of the population enjoys social security. Only now under President Chavez ... has medicine started to become something of a reality for the poverty-stricken majority in the rich but deeply divided — virtually nonfunctioning — society. Since he won power in democratic elections and began to transform the health and welfare sector which catered so badly to the mass of the population progress has been slow. But it has been perceptible ..."   Now Venezuela is joining Mercosur, South America’s leading trade bloc. Mercosur, which already includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, presents an alternative to the so-called Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, backed by the United States.   At issue in the region, as elsewhere around the world, is alternative social and economic models. Enormous, unprecedented popular movements have developed to expand cross-border integration — going beyond economic agendas to encompass human rights, environmental concerns, cultural independence and people-to-people contacts.   These movements are ludicrously called "anti-globalisation" because they favour globalisation directed to the interests of people, not investors and financial institutions. US problems in the Americas extend north as well as south. For obvious reasons, Washington has hoped to rely more on Canada, Venezuela and other non-Middle East oil resources.   But Canada’s relations with the United States are more "strained and combative" than ever before as a result of, among other issues, Washington’s rejection of NAFTA decisions favouring Canada. As Joel Brinkley reports in The New York Times, "Partly as a result, Canada is working hard to build up its relationship with China (and) some officials are saying Canada may shift a significant portion of its trade, particularly oil, from the United States to China." It takes real talent for the United States to alienate even Canada.   Washington’s Latin American policies are only enhancing US isolation, however. One recent example: For the 14th year in a row, the UN General Assembly voted against the US commercial embargo against Cuba. The vote on the resolution was 182 to 4: the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Micronesia abstained.   (Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).   10 December 2005   "Elections could tilt Latin America further to the Left", by Juan Forero. (New York Times)   Morochata, Bolivia - In perhaps the quirkiest, most colorful of the many presidential campaigns gathering momentum in Latin America, Evo Morales, the Aymara Indian leader turned congressman, arrived in this mountain hamlet on a recent day, got out of his car a mile up the road and strode in like a conquering hero.   The town"s fathers honored him Bolivian-style, placing a heavy wreath of potatoes, roses and green beans around his neck. Crowds of peasants amassed behind him, while a ceremonial escort of indigenous leaders led him across cobblestone streets to a field filled with thousands. There, Mr. Morales gave the kind of leftist speech that increasingly strikes a chord with Latin America"s disenchanted voters, railing against privatization, liberalized trade and other economic prescriptions backed by the United States.   "If we win, not just Evo will be president, but the Quechua and Aymara will also be in the presidency," Mr. Morales said, referring to Bolivia"s two largest Indian communities. "We are a danger for the rich people who sack our resources."   Mr. Morales, 46, a former llama herder and coca farmer who has a slight lead in the polls for the election on Dec. 18, offers what may be the most radical vision in Latin America, much to the dismay of the Bush administration.   But the sentiment extends beyond Bolivia. Starting on Dec. 11 in Chile, voters in 11 countries will participate in a series of presidential elections over the next year that could take Latin America further to the left than it already is.   Since a bombastic army colonel, Hugo Chávez , won office in Venezuela in 1998, three-quarters of South America has shifted to the left, though most countries are led by pragmatic presidents like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina.   That decisive shift has a good chance of spreading to Bolivia, Ecuador and, for the first time in recent years, north of the Panama Canal. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, are positioning themselves to win back the presidency they lost in 1990. Farther north, in Mexico, polls show that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a hard-charging leftist populist, may replace the business-friendly president, Vicente Fox, who is barred from another term.   Traditional, market-friendly politicians can still win in all these countries. But polls show a general leftward drift that could bring policies sharply deviating from longstanding American economic remedies like unfettered trade and privatization, better known as the Washington Consensus.   "The left is contesting in a very practical way for political power," said Jim Shultz, executive director of Democracy Center, a policy analysis group in Bolivia. "There"s a common thread that runs through Lula and Kirchner and Chávez and Evo, and the left in Chile to a certain degree, and that thread is a popular challenge to the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus."   The shift has not been as striking as might by preferred by leaders like Mr. Chávez, whose open antagonism toward the United States is rare. Presidents like Mr. da Silva and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay practice the kind of fiscal restraints accepted by Wall Street.   Still, the prospects for a further turn to the left could signal a broad, popular distancing from the Bush administration, whose focus on fighting drugs and advocating for regional free trade have failed to generate much backing.   While the Bush administration may be pleased that its most trusted and important ally in Latin America, President álvaro Uribe in Colombia, will probably win re-election in May, Washington"s most fervent adversary, Mr. Chávez, is also expected to cruise to victory late next year.   And the left may mount a strong challenge in market-friendly Peru. There, a fiery nationalistic cashiered army officer, Ollanta Humala, who compares himself to Mr. Chávez, is now second in the polls to a conservative congresswoman.   No one, though, quite offers the up-by-the-bootstraps story that Mr. Morales does. He grew up poor in the frigid highlands. Four of his six siblings died young, he said. When the mining industry went bust, the family moved to Bolivia"s coca-growing heartland, where Mr. Morales made his mark as a leader of the coca farmers, who cultivate a shiny green leaf that is the main component used to make cocaine.   That made him a pariah to the United States, which has bankrolled the army"s effort to eradicate the crop. But under Mr. Morales"s leadership, the cocaleros have fought back, paralyzing the country with road blockades and playing a role in uprisings that toppled two presidents in 20 months.   Now, Mr. Morales travels Bolivia"s pockmarked mountain roads in a relentless campaign, blasting Andean music that heralds him ("We feel it, we feel it, Evo presidente," goes a standard line).   "One thing few people realize is how good a politician this man is," said Eduardo Gamarra, a professor at Florida International University in Miami. "Evo has a tremendous political structure that he"s built up over the last 20 years."   Mr. Morales vows to veer Bolivia away from liberalized trade and privatizations that have marked the country"s economy for a generation, tapping into the discontent of voters upset that market reforms did little to improve their lives.   Michael Shifter, who tracks Latin American campaigns for the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said, "Evo is the expression of that frustration, that resentment and the search for answers."   In interviews on the campaign trail, Mr. Morales complained that open borders had brought in cheap potatoes from Argentina. He offers a range of solutions, like loans to microbusinesses and the formation of more cooperatives. He also says his government will demand a bigger take from the foreign corporations developing Bolivia"s large natural gas reserves.   Mr. Morales seems to relish talking about the United States, noting that criticisms from American officials have helped his popularity in an increasingly nationalistic country. Mr. Morales, who is close to Mr. Chávez and has called Fidel Castro"s Cuba a model, says he will reject American-imposed economic principles and policies like the eradication of coca. "The policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, under the direction of the United States government, which concentrate capital in few hands, is not a solution," he said. "Western development is the development of death."   Such talk resonates with people like Herminio López, a leader in the hamlet of Piusilla. "We are sure he will not defraud or fool us, like all the others," he said. "Eighty percent of us are poor, and for us to have someone like him makes us proud."   Mr. Morales knows well what appeals to his supporters. Aside from an economic transformation, he promises symbolic proposals like changing the Bolivian flag to include elements of the indigenous flag of the Andes."This moment is not just for Evo Morales," Mr. Morales told the crowd here in Morochata. "It is for all of us."   18 - 11 - 2005   "An Andean Crisis of Democracy", by John Crabtree. (OpenDemocracy)   The political elites in Latin America"s southern Andes, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, face a restless population hungry for better government and a fairer society, writes John Crabtree.   2005 has been a year of political convulsions in Latin America. The last two weeks alone have seen high-level disagreement and tumultuous protest at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina; a continuation of the series of corruption scandals that has riven Brazil"s governing Workers Party; evidence of an intensification in Colombia"s long-running civil war; and a bitter dispute between the presidents of Mexico and Venezuela, Vicente Fox and Hugo Chávez.   One of the most politically febrile zones of the region is the southern Andes, especially Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, where public repudiation of traditional parties and their leaders is generating new challenges to the status quo. According to the Latinobarómetro, a Latin American polling survey, dissatisfaction with existing institutions is particularly marked in these three countries..   With eight national elections due in 2006 (in addition to the polls in Honduras and Chile as well as Bolivia before the end of 2005), next year promises to be an even more politically charged period in Latin America. A long, painful search for new models and institutions that can address the deep structural inequalities of the region is continuing, against the backdrop of significant changes in the global economy. The only certainty is that there are more surprises ahead. Visit the related web page
	President Bush"s approval falls to new low by NYT / The Independent / The Age USA   18 November 2005   “Bill Clinton: The big mistake of the Iraq war”, by Rupert Cornwell. (The Independent)   The dam has burst. Former president Bill Clinton"s verdict that the war in Iraq was "a big mistake" is echoing around the world.   The unease, the misgivings, and downright opposition can be contained no longer. From Senate Republicans, to one of the most influential Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday, the message has been the same. The Iraq war has been a disaster, and the sooner American troops leave the better. The alarm was sounded on Capitol Hill on Tuesday when Senate Republicans and Democrats joined forces to demand the White House explain every three months how it intends to "complete the mission" in Iraq.   The next day, Mr Clinton weighed in from the Middle East, saying the war as it unfolded was "a big mistake". It was a good thing Saddam Hussein had gone, the former president said, "but I don"t agree with what was done". The administration underestimated "how easy it would be to overthrow Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country".   On Tuesday, US senators voted 79-19 to endorse a Republican amendment demanding a regular accounting for the war from the Bush administration.   Vice-President Dick Cheney, arguably the driving force behind the invasion, delivered a vitriolic retort to a conservative audience on Wednesday, accusing Democrats of peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods".   But Democrats scornfully dismissed the "tired rhetoric" of a discredited vice-president. John Kerry, who was defeated by Mr Bush in 2004, said "few people have less credibility" than Mr Cheney, who said before the war that Saddam was "reconstituting" nuclear weapons, and the US invaders would be greeted with garlands. But the most significant developments have come on Capitol Hill, as both parties signal that enough is enough.   Chuck Hagel, a widely respected Republican senator from Nebraska, said that the bipartisan vote was a "historic turning point", with Congress reasserting its constitutional duty to oversee foreign policy.   And in another stunning development, John Murtha, an old-school Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania of 30 years" standing, demanded an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, "because they have become the target".   A decorated marine veteran and ranking Democrat on the House defence appropriations subcommittee, Mr Murtha has been a hawk on military matters, and voted for the 2003 invasion. But close to tears at times in a press conference, he said he had changed his mind.   "It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the US, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region." His call for an "immediate redeployment" not only flies in the face of the refusal of the White House to set any date for a draw-down of American forces. During a news conference, Mr. Murtha, thumped the lectern as he dressed down Messrs. Bush and Cheney. "I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don"t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done," said Mr. Murtha, who has served in Congress since 1975.   "I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he criticized Democrats for criticizing them. This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public knows it. And lashing out at critics doesn"t help a bit. You"ve got to change the policy."   "I"m absolutely convinced that we"re making no progress at all. . . . Until we turn it over to the Iraqis, we"re going to continue to do the fighting. . . . They"ll have to work this out themselves. . . . We have become the enemy; 80 percent of the people in Iraq want us out of there; 45 percent say it"s justified to attack Americans. It"s time to change direction."   The latest polls show that up to two-thirds of Americans now oppose the war.   November 18, 2005   Bush approval falls to fresh low.   US President George W. Bush"s job approval rating has touched a new low of 34 per cent, according to a US survey published today by Harris Interactive. While one in three Americans rated Bush"s performance in the White house as "positive", 65 per cent said it was "only fair" or "poor", the poll shows.   Mr Bush"s approval rating has been slipping from 50 per cent when he was re-elected in November 2004, to 45 per cent in June to 40 per cent in August of this year, according to the New York-based pollster.   In 2001, at the start of his first four-year term, Mr Bush enjoyed a 56-per-cent approval rating, which shot up to 88 per cent after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.   In April 2003, as the US geared up for an invasion of Iraq, 70 per cent of Americans approved of the Republican president"s job performance, but his approval ratings had been steadily falling for a year. In the latest Harris survey, Vice President Dick Cheney fared even worse than his boss, with just 30 per cent of Americans believing he was doing a good job. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld matched Bush with a 34-per-cent approval rating.   Sixty-eight of those polled said the country was on the "wrong track," while 27 per cent said it was headed in the "right direction".   17 November 2005   A Timetable for Mr. Bush. (The New York Times)   No matter how the White House chooses to spin it, the United States Senate cast a vote of no confidence this week on the war in Iraq. And about time.   The actual content of the resolution, passed on a vote of 79 to 19, was meaningless. The Senate asked the administration to provide regular reports on progress in Iraq, and took the position that next year should be "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty." It was a desperate - but toothless - cry of election-bound lawmakers to be let off the hook for a disastrous military quagmire.   Republican leaders, who supported the proposal, argued that the vote was a repudiation of a Democratic motion to set possible withdrawal deadlines for American troops. But the proposal would never have come to the floor if members of the president"s party had not felt the need to go on the record, somehow, as expressing their own impatience with the situation.   The ultimate Iraqi nightmare, which continually seems to be drawing closer, is a violent fracturing of the country in which the Kurdish north and Arab Shiite southeast break away, leaving the west, dominated by Arab Sunnis, an impoverished no man"s land and a breeding ground for international terrorism. While this page was completely wrong in our presumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, we - and virtually everyone outside the Bush administration - warned about this danger from the beginning. Only loyalists who had bought the fantasy about dancing Iraqis throwing flowers before American tanks dismissed it as unlikely.   The consequences of such a breakup would be endless and awful: civil war, the persecution of minority populations in the new states, an alliance between the Shiites and Iran, and a complete breakdown of American moral and military influence in the Middle East.   No one wants that to happen, but Americans must ask themselves every day whether the troops who are risking their lives in Iraq are doing anything more than postponing the inevitable.   The one frail hope for a better outcome lies with the ongoing struggle to create a democratic central government in Iraq. We are encouraged by the high participation in elections, including the enormous increase in the number of Sunni voters in the last balloting, and by the declared willingness of leading Iraqi officials and sectional politicians to make political concessions to keep the country patched together. It is very possible that most of the voters are simply casting ballots on behalf of supremacy for their own religious or ethnic factions, and that the officials are only going through the motions, hoping to keep the United States minimally satisfied while they move toward their own self-serving goals. But at this moment, both the people and their leaders are clearing at least the lowest possible bar on measuring their progress.   A precipitous withdrawal at this point would be counterproductive. And while a timetable is certainly an option, the people who need deadlines are the Iraqis. Their government must be put on notice that the United States expects Iraq to show speedy, measurable progress in taking control of its own security, and that it must demonstrate that it is not just stalling for time when it comes to guaranteeing democracy and human rights.   The current constitution is unsatisfactory. It shortchanges the Sunni minority and fails to provide Iraqi women the guarantee that they will not wind up worse off under the new government than they were under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leaders have promised to change it after next month"s elections. Washington needs to carefully scrutinize how quickly and how fully they honor that promise.   The Shiite-dominated government will be getting an early test of its commitment to building a just and inclusive society in how it responds to this week"s horrifying allegations that policemen who are members of a powerful Shiite militia have been abducting Sunni Arab men and torturing them in a secret prison in the heart of Baghdad.   President Bush has lost the confidence of the American people, and his own party, when it comes to handling Iraq. If he wants to win it back, he must come up with a very clear road map for what he expects, both politically and militarily, from the Iraqi government. If the Iraqis fail to meet those goals, he must demonstrate that the price of equivocation is American withdrawal. If the president fails, the American public has a timetable of its own. Elections for the House and the Senate are less than a year away.   Washington, November 14, 2005   "Guantanamo a haunted house for Bush", by Michael Gawenda. (The Age)   When the President of the United States, under repeated questioning and under pressure, has to declare, as he did last week, "We do not torture", you know that even his allies in Congress no longer believe him.   And when the US Supreme Court decides to hear a case that challenges the legality of the military commissions set up by the Bush Administration to try alleged terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay, you know that in the end, whatever the court ultimately rules, the commissions are fatally tainted.   The Bush Administration"s demand for unfettered executive power to fight the war on terror and the war in Iraq is under serious challenge in Congress and in the courts.   In Congress, that challenge is being mounted not by Democrats, but by senior Republicans who cannot be dismissed as wishy-washy liberals who oppose war and play down the threat posed by terrorism.   It is encapsulated in legislation passed by the Senate and sponsored by John McCain, a likely candidate for the Republican Party"s presidential nomination in 2008.   The legislation bans the use of torture, all forms of abuse and inhumane and humiliating treatment of all detainees held by the US military and by all US agencies, including the CIA, anywhere in the world. It was passed 99-9 in the Senate and will almost certainly be passed by the lower house as well, despite threats from the White House to veto it.   Vice-President Dick Cheney, who in an editorial in The Washington Post was labelled "the Vice-President of Torture, has been lobbying Republicans in Congress to vote against the bill or, at the very least, exempt the CIA from it. All in vain. Cheney"s credibility is shot, his approval rating is down around 19per cent and questions about his involvement in the CIA leak affair won"t go away.   But this is not primarily about Cheney"s credibility. It"s about chickens coming home to roost. It"s about the growing realisation in America that the systematic abuse and torture of prisoners and detainees held by the US around the world is a direct consequence of Administration policies and directives.   And the McCain legislation won"t be the end of this revolt by Congress. There is already talk about the harm to America"s standing abroad, especially in the Muslim world, that Guantanamo has wrought.   When the Administration decided that the rules of war would not apply to alleged terrorists captured in Afghanistan, the result was a US military that gave confused signals to its troops about the proper treatment of prisoners under their control. The result was Abu Ghraib and the indelible images of abuse and humiliation by American soldiers of detainees at a prison where Saddam Hussein"s henchmen had killed and tortured thousands of Iraqis.   Then there"s Guantanamo Bay, set up in the wake of 9/11 at the base in Cuba to ensure that captured alleged terrorists and Taliban fighters in the looming war in Afghanistan would not have access to US courts. The military commissions were cooked up in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld"s office against the advice of senior military legal advisers and were designed to deliver swift and certain verdicts. These were not normal court martial proceedings.   Four years on, there have been no military commission hearings, the Supreme Court has ruled that detainees do have the right of access to US courts and even some senior prosecutors assigned to try detainees have concluded the system is rigged..   (Michael Gawenda is United States correspondent for the Age newspaper in Australia).
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