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and since leftists now dominate trade organizations, the new S/A common market, UNASUR, and all economic and political negotiations, I expect Morales to win both points: access to the sea for Bolivia and eventual extradition of the Lozada ministers (accused of being responsible for the massacre) from Peru back to Bolivia.
Alan Garcia, president of Peru, is a Bush crony, and a very corrupt advocate of the very unpopular U.S./Peru "free trade" agreement. A leftist, Ollanta Humala, coming of nowhere, nearly beat him in the last election, and probably will beat him in the next election. Under Garcia, Peru has been going the way of Venezuela prior to Chavez--that is, creation of a rich, privileged, corrupt, urban elite, to the extreme detriment of the rest of the country and of good government policy. The country is roiled with protests and strikes, and it is no surprise at all, with Garcia as president, that killers of protesters and strikers from Bolivia are welcome in Peru, just as it is no surprise that Lozada himself, the one ultimately responsible for the the massacre in Bolivia, gets safe haven in the U.S., where we are unable to prosecute the Bushwhack principles for a list of the gravest "high crimes and misdemeanors" ever committed by a U.S. regime--including the slaughter of a hundred thousand innocent Iraqis to steal their oil, the torture of prisoners, massive domestic spying and massive theft of billions and billions of dollars from our federal coffers.
U.S. complicity in violent oppression of the poor in South America could not be clearer in the sorts of asylums that our government grants. Miama is full of "Lozadas." The question is, will this wrongful, anti-democratic U.S. policy continue under Obama, whose interests will the Obama administration be serving in South America, as to both overt and covert policy, and whether South American democracy can survive Obama policy, if it is bad policy, as has always been the case in U.S. history with very few exceptions (FDR, JFK)?
Access to the sea for Bolivia is a critically important issue for the success of the new, cooperative, leftist leadership of South America. They have strongly resisted U.S. "divide and conquer" tactics thus far, over the last half decade or so. This is a revolutionary development all by itself. Issues like this have always been to the advantage of U.S. global corporate predators, who control our government policy and activities, and have successfully used issues like this to stir up trouble, weaken and destabilize countries and impose an exploitative agenda, by force or by guile. Michele Batchelet, president of Chile--an increasingly strong leftist--has made settlement of this Chile/Bolivia dispute a high priority. She was also perhaps the most important player in South American resistance to the U.S./Bushwhack funded and organized white separatist riots and murders, and coup attempt, in Bolivia, this last September. The presidents of Brazil and Argentina were also important to that successful effort, but Batchelet was key. She has been more a center-leftist than leftist, and fell prey to some Bushwhack arm-twisting back when they were furiously trying to topple Chavez, but she has come a long way especially in understanding and promoting the sovereignty of Latin American countries, no doubt because of her personal history as a victim of the U.S.-imposed Pinochet regime in Chile. When she called the first formal meeting of UNASUR, to deal with the Bushwhack plot in Bolivia, she took the country representatives on a tour of the government's Pinochet torture museum, as a reminder of what happens when South American leaders permit such interference. She is a peacemaker and a brilliant negotiator. (She even got Colombia to vote with the majority on the Bolivia issue, to make it unanimous--a rather amazing diplomatic success.) She is determined to settle this issue, and to grant Bolivia access to the sea.
Bolivian access to the sea is not a stand-alone issue. It is combined with Brazil's, Argentina's and Venezuela's plan for a new highway from Brazil's Atlantic coast, through Bolivia, to the Pacific, which will turn Bolivia into a major trade route for the "Global South" (Africa, South America, Asia/Pacific). Whether it's done with a tunnel, ceding of land or sharing of land, or some other way, doesn't really matter, politically--but of course has issues of expense, danger (esp. a tunnel), and environmental impacts. Peru is very isolated in this situation, under Garcia, who may be taking orders from Clinton/Obama, to disrupt negotiations. I cannot say. That is traditionally what the U.S. has done, and it certainly would be what the Bushwhacks would do. Disrupt, destroy, destabilize, "divide and conquer" in the interests of the rich and the corporate. It is notable that Peru, under Garcia, was the ONLY member of UNASUR who did NOT participate in the emergency meeting of UNASUR that Batchelet called to support Morales' government when it was under attack by the Bushwhacks. That was clearly on orders from "the Empire." But that was then (September '08). Who or what is prompting Garcia now, to throw a 'monkey wrench' into this important diplomatic/economic effort? Again, I really don't know. Obama policy in Latin America is still very hard to read. I still hope, and have some faith, that Obama means well. But it's become increasingly clear that his hands are tied in many respects, as to restoring democracy here, and putting our government back into the service of our people, as well as undoing Bushwhack horrors around the world and restoring the rule of national and international law. And I would have to say that it would not surprise me to find out the U.S. is trying to disrupt this important diplomatic effort among the leftist leaders of South America to work together to solve this and other problems.
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