Cota 1061

28/11/2008 | Moscow News №47 2008
Moscow News Weekly

CARACAS (RIA Novosti) - Talks in Caracas between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Vene­zuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez have yielded a host of bilateral agreements.

Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the Venezuelan capital late on Wednesday for a two-day visit, the first by a Russian head of state for 150 years.

The two parties signed a 25-year intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in oil, gas and power generation with an option to extend it for another five years, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who is accompanying Medvedev.

“Cooperation in the oil sector covers the entire chain from development and transportation to the construction of pipelines, equipment supplies and refining,” Sechin said.

The agreement also includes building hydro and thermal power plants, and support for mining projects, he added.

Russian energy giant Gazprom and Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) signed an agreement on joint prospecting for oil at the Ayacucho-3 block in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

The two energy giants could launch talks to set up a joint venture after field data gathered from the Orinoco area has been evaluated.

Oil, jointly produced by PDVSA and a newly established Russian oil consortium that includes Gazprom, the country’s largest independent crude producer LUKoil and Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP, will be exported to the U.S., Chinese and European markets, said Vagit Alek­perov, LUKoil CEO.

A memo of understanding was signed between the Russian United Shipbuilding Corporation and PDVSA Naval, a shipbuilding subsidiary of PDVSA.

The two countries also agreed to sign another intergovernmental ag­reement to set up a joint bank within the next two weeks, Medvedev said.

The joint bank could become an instrument to finance projects in Russia and Venezuela, and will handle payments for oil supplies and will involve Gazprombank, Russia’s third-largest bank.

The Russian president said Moscow and Caracas could switch to national currencies in bilateral payments.

“We have discussed with President Chavez the use of the national currencies, the ruble and the bolivar, in bilateral payments,” Medvedev said at a news conference in Caracas.

The two leaders also considered establishing reserves in the two currencies as bilateral trade between Russia and Venezuela reached $772 million in the first eight months of 2008.

Medvedev also said that the two countries intended to boost contacts in the defense sector, in line with international law.

However, the two leaders did not discuss the delivery of Russian submarines to Venezuela, Chavez said.

“We did not discuss submarines. We discussed surface vessels,” Chavez told reporters after talks with Medvedev.

Medvedev and Chavez will visit Russia’s Northern Fleet missile cruiser, the Pyotr Veliky, later on Thursday in Venezuela’s La Guaira port. The naval vessel leads a Russian task force due to take part in joint naval exercises in the Caribbean on December 1.

Medvedev will crown his Latin American tour with a visit to Cuba later on Thursday.

Shooting in Peru Killed Missionary, Infant

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2008; Page A08

An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case.

The agency’s inspector general said CIA officers repeatedly ignored rules of engagement in a joint U.S.-Peruvian campaign to halt airborne drug smugglers, resulting in the downing of at least 10 other aircraft without proper warnings. Afterward, CIA managers concealed the problems from lawmakers and the Justice Department, the agency watchdog said.

Even the White House was kept in the dark, as agency officials and lawyers withheld key details while cautioning their staff to avoid putting anything in writing that might be used later in a criminal or civil case, the inspector general said in a report.

Unclassified excerpts from the report were released by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, who blasted the agency for actions that he said were tantamount to obstruction of justice.

“These are the most serious and substantial allegations of wrongdoing I’ve seen in my time on the committee,” said Hoekstra, whose western Michigan district was home to the two Americans killed in the 2001 incident.

The White House declined to comment on the report, which was disclosed on the eve of a trip by President Bush to Peru to attend a regional summit. The CIA’s current director, Michael V. Hayden, was aware of the report and had begun his own inquiry before deciding how to respond, an agency spokesman said.

The controversial anti-drug program operated from 1995 to 2001 to assist Peru in stopping drug traffickers from ferrying narcotics through the country’s airspace. CIA officers in small planes would track flights by suspected drug runners before alerting Peruvian fighter pilots, who would swoop in for the kill.

The program had succeeded in bringing down numerous suspect planes when, on April 20, 2001, a Peruvian pilot mistakenly shot into a small aircraft carrying a family of Baptist missionaries from Michigan. A bullet struck and killed one of the missionaries, Veronica “Roni” Bowers, and her infant daughter, Charity. The pilot was wounded but managed to land the plane. Bowers’s husband and their 6-year-old son were not injured.

Multiple investigations at the time found that the CIA had been lax in its oversight of the program and had failed to ensure that strict rules were followed in identifying the plane before calling in the Peruvian fighter. Yet, according to the inspector general’s report, agency officials sought from the outset to conceal the program’s serious problems, while portraying the 2001 shooting as an aberration.

“Within hours, CIA officers began to characterize the shoot-down as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program,” the report stated. “In fact, this was not the case.”

Instead, in nearly every instance, CIA and Peruvian participants ignored guidelines intended to prevent innocent pilots from being shot from the sky, it said. Often, suspect planes were shot down “within two to three minutes of being sighted . . . without being properly identified, without being given adequate warnings to land,” it said.

Hoekstra, citing the still-classified portions of the report, said the CIA’s program was “actually operating and being implemented outside the law.” The investigators found that CIA managers “knew of, and condoned” the violations and failed to properly oversee the program, he said.

Later, when asked by Justice officials and congressional overseers about the problems, CIA officials gave misleading accounts, the inspector general concluded. The agency had by late 2001 documented “sustained and significant violations . . . dating back to the first shoot-down,” yet it failed to share its findings with Justice and congressional investigators, or with the White House National Security Council, the report said.

The Justice Department closed its investigation in 2005 without filing criminal charges against any of the CIA employees — a decision Hoekstra supported at the time. But the Michigan Republican called yesterday for a new criminal probe as well as congressional hearings. “Americans deserve to know that agencies given power to operate on their behalf aren’t abusing that power, or their trust,” he said.

Hoekstra said he did not know how widely the problems were known within the upper ranks of the CIA’s management. But he said he had personally presided over congressional hearings attended by CIA managers who knew the facts but did not speak up.

“CIA officials in front of my committee may have allowed incomplete or misleading statements to be made,” he said.

Hayden, who was appointed CIA director in 2006, received a copy of the report in August and “recognized the seriousness” of the findings, agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. Hayden is now “seeking input from a cleared outside expert — one who knows the complex issues involved in an air interdiction program — before making any decisions,” he added. Among those reportedly advising Hayden was retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman.

“The CIA takes very seriously questions of responsibility and accountability. To suggest otherwise does a great disservice to those who work at the agency,” Mansfield said.

A senior intelligence official familiar with the internal report said the classified version presented a more nuanced account of the actions of agency officers in Peru who, he said, were placed in a difficult position.

In addition, “there are numerous facts and circumstances not laid out in the IG report that would be relevant to any decisions that would be made,” the official said.

Staff writer Carrie Johnson and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Batzepita.com Note: As far as this weblog is aware, the Peruvian Air Force followed procedures established beforehand, in order to avoid error when facing unidentified aircraft in unregistered flights. Procedures include - but are not exclusive to - radio and visual signals. Failing that, warning shots are fired, before forcing down any unregistered, unsuspected, uncooperative flight

By MARTIN SIEFF
Published: Nov. 17, 2008 at 10:24 AM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) — Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday proclaimed his huge nation’s commitment to boosting its power in the Western Hemisphere by paying a state visit to Cuba.

To add insult to injury for lame-duck U.S. President George W. Bush, Hu flew to Cuba, a nation Bush has tried to keep in quarantine during his eight years in office, immediately after attending the Group of 20 major nations’ emergency financial summit in Washington. He flew there via a short visit to Costa Rica.

Chinese Ambassador to Cuba Zhao Rongxian told China’s official Xinhua news agency that Hu wanted ”to further promote the close ties between both countries.”

China is now far more important economically to Cuba than its historic ally and protector Russia. Beijing has become the communist-led Caribbean island’s second-largest trading partner after Venezuela. Zhao said their total volume of trade in 2007 was worth $2.3 billion.

The ambassador also said bilateral cooperation was also rapidly expanding in transportation, communication, agriculture and education.

China does not have the strategic military power that Russia can bring to Latin America. The Kremlin sent two Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic nuclear bombers to Venezuela for a week in September, and they practiced long-range patrol patterns in the Caribbean Sea. The two aircraft together had the capability to fire 24 nuclear-capable, 2,000-mile-range KH-55 air-launched cruise missiles into the heart of the United States. China cannot provide any comparable military or strategic muscle to Cuba, Venezuela or their neighbors.

However, economically, China is pumping far more investment and economic clout into Latin America. Beijing’s economic and political ties with Brazil are extremely close, and the two nations cooperate especially closely as BRIC — Brazil-Russia-India-China major emerging economies — partners.

So far in Cuba the growing Chinese presence has not been expressed in much direct investment. However, Beijing has provided plenty of credit to buy Chinese exports.

Hu also squeezed in his visit 10 days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was due to visit the island on a Caribbean swing that will focus on Venezuela. Medvedev’s trip to Caracas, where he will be warmly welcomed by fiercely anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has been scheduled to coincide with a Nov. 24-30 visit to Venezuela by a powerful Russian naval squadron consisting of the missile battle cruiser Pyotr Veliky (”Peter the Great”) and the anti-submarine war combat vessel Admiral Chabanenko.

Hu and Medvedev’s eagerness to risk Washington’s wrath by honoring the most anti-U.S. leaders in the Western Hemisphere may be in part a calculated insult to Bush during his lame-duck incumbency for the next two months until he is replaced by President-elect Barack Obama. They may also, however, signal a much more calculated defiance of Washington by Russia and China in the Western Hemisphere once Obama takes office.

For Russia and China are both working energetically to take advantage of the United States’ faltering influence in the Latin American region — America’s own “near abroad.” Russia and China have been expanding their influence in Latin America at U.S. expense, and they have been using Cuba and especially Venezuela as close partners in the process. It has been a process pursued with both an economic and security dimension.

As UPI’s John Sweeney reported Oct. 31, the Chavez government also is expanding defense and security ties with China.

During his visit to Beijing on Sept. 24, Chavez signed an agreement to purchase 24 Chinese-made K-8 light attack aircraft, which Venezuelan air force officials say will be used for training purposes. The K-8s, which are scheduled to arrive in Venezuela during 2009, will operate from the Teniente Vicente Landaeta Gil Air Base near the city of Barquisimeto in Lara state, Sweeney reported.

The Bush administration has largely ignored Latin America during its eight years in office while obsessing on Iraq. Hu’s visit to Cuba Monday, coupled with expanding Chinese influence throughout the region, demonstrates that a price is going to be paid for that neglect.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

RIA Novosti
Wednesday, Nov 5, 2008
Infowars.net

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has held up Russian economic cooperation as evidence of the two countries’ “strategic” relations, the Mexican media reported on Wednesday.

“The establishment of a Russian-Venezuelan development bank, and an energy consortium involving [Russian energy giant] Gazprom and Venezuela’s state-run oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela is evidence of our strategic relations,” Chavez was quoted as saying at a meeting to support gubernatorial candidates in the western Venezuelan state of Tachira on Tuesday.

The Russian-Venezuelan intergovernmental commission will hold a meeting in Caracas on Thursday, with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin leading a delegation of around 60 Russian businessmen.

Cooperation between Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Russia’s largest independent oil producer LUKoil, as well as a project to establish a joint development bank is expected to be on the agenda.

Chavez said earlier that Sechin’s visit would pave the way for the arrival of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Venezuela.

Chavez first announced Medvedev’s “strategic” visit to Venezuela on October 10. Russian presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova has said Medvedev could call in some Latin American countries as part of his trip to Lima, Peru for the APEC summit on November 22-23.

Taiwan News
Page 6
2008-11-04 01:34 AM

Combined with the current visit to Taiwan by People’s Republic of China envoy Chen Yunlin, the appointment of Chinese Nationalist party (Kuomintang) honorary chairman Lien Chan as President Ma Ying-jeou’s representative to the informal leaders meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru late next month signifies the KMT government’s acquiescence to Beijing’s suzerainty over Taiwan.

Some observers see the appointment of the former vice president and two-time presidential sweepstakes loser as a major advance for Taiwan’s international status compared to both the terms of former president and ex-KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui and the eight years of Democratic Progressive Party under ex-president Chen Shui-bian.

Since the APEC informal leader meetings began in 1993, Beijing previously was unwilling to accept even former vice premiers or the speaker of the Legislative Yuan, much less former vice presidents, and in recent years had insisted on “Chinese Taipei” being represented by business leaders.

But this appearance is certainly a deception.

Far from being a breakthrough, Lien’s appointment marks less an upgrade in Taiwan’s international status but an award to the former KMT chairman for his services to the Chinese Communist Party and the common KMT-CCP cause of suppressing democracy and “preventing independence” in Taiwan.

Lien’s greatest contribution was made in late April 2005, just over a year after losing for the second time to DPP President Chen Shui-bian, when the then KMT chairman led an “ice-breaking” visit to Beijing and issued a “five point vision” with Hu that committed the KMT to engaging in cross-strait talks based on the “Consensus of 1992,” promote a peace accord, promote comprehensive economic interchange and work toward a cross-strait common market, promote talks with Beijing on Taiwan’s international participation and set up a regular platform for KMT-CCP party-to-party contact.

The political point of the high-profile visit to Taiwan by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yun-lin ostensibly for talks on “technical issues” is to lock the Ma government into implementing these “five visions,” the core meaning of which is the acceptance by the KMT of a subordinate status, even if using the “Republic of China” signboard, for Taiwan under the PRC’s shadow in exchange for the CCP’s backing of the KMT’s efforts to maintain “complete governance” in Taiwan indefinitely.

In effect, while Chen Yunlin’s visit represents Beijing’s assertion of Beijing’s dominance over Taiwan, Lien’s participation the APEC meetings as the representative of Taiwan or “Chinese Taipei,” with the PRC’s seal of approval will signify the KMT government’s acceptance of this status on the international stage and Beijing’s right to define Taiwan’s international status.

Not over our heads

However, Ma’s victory in the March 22 presidential election signified that the Taiwan people had given the KMT candidate a mandate to realize his promises for faster economic growth, a clean government, more peaceful and normal cross-strait relations with the PRC and also fulfill his vows to ensure that “only the 23 million Taiwan people can decide Taiwan’s future” and “not to give an inch on sovereignty.”

Contrary to the spin of presidential and KMT spokespersons, the 7.6 million voters who backed Ma did not give the KMT candidate a mandate to realize the KMT-CCP agenda on Taiwan’s ultimate future, namely to turn Taiwan into a “region” of the PRC under the KMT’s thumb.

Hence, Chen Yunlin’s visit has been met by considerable opposition, as reflected by the half-million strong demonstration on Oct. 25 against Ma’s excessive “tilt” toward Beijing and for the protection of Taiwan’s sovereignty and by numerous public opinion surveys showing a sharp division over whether Chen is “welcome” and doubt over his intentions.

The combination of Chen Yunlin’s visit to Taiwan and Lien’s appointment to the APEC meeting does not signify a genuine peace between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait but the cementing of an alliance between the two authoritarian parties of the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party that will be inimical to both Taiwan’s independence and democracy, the future development of democracy in China and Hong Kong and Macau and indeed, Asia in general.

From this perspective, the open rejection of the KMT-CCP consensus by DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen and her affirmation on behalf of Taiwan’s opposition that only the 23 million Taiwan people can determine Taiwan’s political future takes on special significance.

Tsai’s affirmation that all cross-strait pacts must be approved by the Legislative Yuan and that any pact impinging on Taiwan’s sovereignty must be ratified by national citizen referendum also signals the reverse, namely that such agreements will be considered invalid without ratification through democratic processes.

The authoritarian alliance of the KMT and the CCP should take note of Tsai’s warning and not imagine that they will be able to decide Taiwan’s future over the heads of the 23 million Taiwan people like Beijing and London handed Hong Kong over to the PRC.

Nov 2, 6:36 AM EST

By ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer
Through Daily Record.com

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch says the ongoing metamorphosis of China and India from historic backwaters into economic powers will help reshape the world in the next few decades.

The News Corp. chief gave an upbeat assessment of the future and made a vigorous case for free markets despite troubled economic times and what he called “naked, heartless aggression” in the world. In the first of a series of speeches in his birth country of Australia, Murdoch spoke Sunday of “the great transformation we’ve seen in the past few decades, the unleashing of human talent and ability across our world, and the golden age for humankind that I see just around the corner.”

He said China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being “incarcerated by communism or caste.” The rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness.

“The world has never seen this kind of advance before,” Murdoch said. “These are people who have known deprivation. These are people who are intent on developing their skills, improving their lives and showing the world what they can do.”
Murdoch, whose New York-based conglomerate includes Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, Dow Jones & Co. as well as newspaper stables in Australia and Britain and the online networking site MySpace, described the global financial crisis as one of many challenges facing Australia.

He urged Australia to embrace internationalism and touched on a range of global issues, from international security to the commercial opportunities offered by the world’s need for cleaner energy. Murdoch’s remarks came in the first of six lectures to be sent out on radio nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. - this year’s edition of an annual series of talks by prominent Australians. Murdoch said that in another speech he would give his opinions on the future of newspapers, which are suffering a severe downturn, especially in the United States, as advertising revenue is lost to the Internet. He made a strong pitch for freer trade between countries, taking agriculture as an example and saying that reducing artificial barriers is a moral and strategic issue.

“So we must continue to leverage our connections and continue to push when others have left the conference table,” he said. “The global trade dialogue should echo with Australian accents.”

Touching on security, he chided Europe for appearing to have “lost the will to confront aggression” and said NATO should be reformed into a group based on common values, not geography, and include countries like Australia as members. “In this promising new century, we are still seeing naked, heartless aggression - whether it comes from a terrorist bombing in Islamabad or a Russian invasion of Georgia,” Murdoch said. “We can lament these developments, but we cannot hide from them,” he said, noting Australia’s contribution of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.

In an interview published in The Weekend Australian on Saturday, Murdoch said governments have only limited power to fix the financial crisis, though they could make it worse. Murdoch warned that a rise in protectionism in the United States “could add to all sorts of tensions in the world financial system and the world trading system and eventually all the way down to employment.”

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Copyright 2008 Associated Press

Latest Update: Saturday 1/11/2008, 11:50 PM Doha Time
Gulf Times

By David Chang

TAIPEI: Taipei is filling up potholes, removing the sensitive Taiwanese national flags from roadsides and holding police drills to prepare for next week’s Taiwan-China dialogue.

Hundreds of policemen are combing each floor of the Grand Hotel, venue of the November 3-7 dialogue, and its surrounding hills to check for bombs and security gaps.

The island will mobilise 7,000 policemen to maintain order and assign 40 bodyguards to protect Chinese negotiator Chen Yunlin’s safety. Chen arrives tomorrow leading a 60-member delegation.

The dialogue will be the most important talks between Taiwan and China in a half century. President Ma Ying-jeou called it a milestone in Taiwan-China ties.

“It can minimise differences and maximise opportunities. It can expand consensus,” he said in an interview.
Ma said that Taiwan and China would sign four pacts during the talks — on direct sea and postal links, expansion of weekend charter flights and the safety of China’s food exports to Taiwan.

“With the opening of direct sea links, Taiwan’s fish and fruits can be quickly shipped to China and have a longer shelf life in Chinese markets. When Taiwan and China are busy doing business with each other, there won’t be time for confrontation,” Ma said in the interview.

While the talks will focus on expanding exchanges, the arrival of China’s negotiator Chen and his scheduled meeting with President Ma will mark a breakthrough in ties between Taiwan and China, split since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, according to analysts.

“The dialogue carries great symbolic meaning because it will be the first time a high-ranking Chinese envoy visits Taiwan. It is like China’s sending envoy to Tibet in ancient times,” political commentator Antonio Chiang said.

Since 1949, China and Taiwan have existed as two separate countries, with the mainland, or the People’s Republic of China, being recognised by 171 countries and Taiwan, the Republic of China, currently recognised by 23 countries.
With the thaw of tension, Taiwan and China held their first dialogue in Singapore in 1993, to launch a semi-official channel of contact in the absence of formal ties.

The two sides held a series of talks under the dialouge’s framework to discuss the verification of legal documents, fishing quarrels and deportation of Chinese plane hijackers and job seekers. China halted the talks in 1995 to retaliate against former president Lee Teng-hui’s advocating Taiwan’s sovereignty, resuming the dialogue only in June 2008 in Beijing, after Taiwan had picked a new president, Ma Ying-jeou from the China-friendly Chinese Nationalist Party. Ma urged Taiwan and China to put aside political disputes and pursue economic co-operation. He also proposed a ‘diplomatic truce’, meaning Taipei and Beijing should stop trying to win over each other’s diplomatic allies. Chinese President Hu Jintao welcomed Ma’s peace overtures, and assured Taipei that so long as Taiwan des not seek independence, “anything can be discussed.”

Taiwan and China resumed the dialogue in Beijing in June 2008, agreeing, among other things, to launch weekend charter flights on July 4 to let Chinese tour groups to visit Taiwan. During the dialogue Taiwan and Chinese experts will also discuss how the two sides should cooperate in tackling the global financial crisis.

In a goodwill gesture ahead of the dialogue, China has allowed Taiwan to send former vice president Lien Chan to the Apec leaders’ summit to be held November 22-23 in Lima, Peru. For the previous summits, Taiwan could only send an economic official as China sees Taiwan as is breakaway province and barred Taiwan’s president from attending.

Brichard Bush, head of the Centre of Northeast Asian Policy Study at the US think tank Brookings Institution, said that allowing Lien to attend the Apec summit is a positive attitude shown by Beijing. This will allow Lien and Chinese President Hu Jintao, who have met before, to continue their interaction and build mutual trust, the Central News Agency quoted Bush as saying. Bush believed that with improvement of ties, China might allow President Ma to attend the Apec summit some day.

Although the majority of Taiwanese welcome the upcoming dialogue, the independence-leaning opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is firmly opposed to it. Accusing Ma of moving too close to China and endangering Taiwan’s interests, DPP insists that Taiwan and China are two separate countries and Beijing must accept Taiwan’s sovereignty. The DPP plans to hold protests during Chen Yunlin’s visit and explode firecrackers at night near the Grand Hotel to disturb his sleep.

“China has deployed more than 1,000 missiles against Taiwan to intimidate Taiwan people. We want Chen Yunlin to know how it feels if one is threatened,” Huang Jui-hsiung, a DPP Taipei councillor, told reporters.

Ma asked DPP members to refrain from violence and defended his overtures to China. “I am only trying to sell Taiwan fruits to China,” he said. –DPA

Financial crisis is taking toll on influence in region

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press / Houston Chronicle
Oct. 11, 2008, 5:27PM

QUITO, ECUADOR — In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States’ financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

“We did our homework — and they didn’t, they who’ve been telling us for three decades what to do,” said the man who presides over Latin America’s largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil.

‘A banana republic’
Latin America’s more than 550 million people now “have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic,” says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous.”

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.

People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China’s trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela’s Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn’t limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss “better relations in defense.” Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran, although the Islamic republic’s ambassador has yet to arrive and the only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense. Russia’s ambassador to Bolivia told the AP that Moscow has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

“We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries,” said the Russian diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Checkbook diplomacy

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn’t comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean and said it has no interest in reviving “Cold War rhetoric.” Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush’s presidency.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for military or counternarcotics and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez’s checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras’ president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

“Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked,” Zelaya said.

Ugly legacy
Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington’s $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, “We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region.”

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile’s center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington’s ambassador to Chile an old joke, “Some say the only reason there’s never been a coup in the United States is because there’s no U.S. Embassy in the United States.”

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America’s elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree — though that didn’t stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

Post Cold War United States doesn’t care about region, political analyst says

Frank Jack Daniel, Reuters
Published: Monday, September 22, 2008

The Vancouver Sun

CARACAS — Russian bombers swoop over the Caribbean, Bolivia and Venezuela expel American ambassadors and once-trusty Washington ally Honduras aligns with Cuba as Latin America’s hard-left dents U.S. influence in its backyard.

Left-leaning governments, some openly antagonistic to the United States, now stretch from Patagonia to Central America with the only break in the Andes for Colombia and Peru.

Even moderate leftist governments in Brazil and Chile that value U.S. partnership have diversified commercial ties away from the superpower and increasingly embrace Europe and Asia.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who plans to hold joint military exercises soon with Russia, leads the most anti-U.S. government in the region and record oil revenues have augmented his clout. He is closely supported by Ecuador and Bolivia.

But while most other countries would not go so far, an overall trend toward Latin American independence from the United States has emerged in the last few years. The area displays new levels of self confidence, launching diplomatic, financial and defence organizations that exclude its northern neighbour, as nations enjoy greater economic freedom on the back of a commodities export boom.

“Latin America has changed,” Chavez said at a South American summit Monday that eased tensions in a political crisis in Bolivia. “We are writing a new page in history.”

The region seems largely united, relatively prosperous — and happy to distance itself from a superpower that in the Cold War sometimes backed bloody military rulers but now sees few vital interests in South America.

“One of the reasons the United States has lost a great deal of influence in Latin America is that the United States doesn’t care,” said George Friedman of political risk group Stratfor.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, several of the civil wars and insurgencies that had torn apart countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru died out. Military dictatorships in countries like Chile and Argentina gave way to democracies and Washington ceased to see Latin American leftists as a threat.

That disinterest is a factor in the rise of leftist governments, which after harsh economic times in the 1990s have won popularity by spending the profits of a boom in oil, farm produce and minerals on social services.

But U.S. interest may be reviving. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales accused the U.S. ambassador of aiding protests and expelled him earlier this month, prompting Chavez to do the same.

Chavez’s plan to welcome Russian planes and warships to Venezuela also makes him a bigger threat in the eyes of U.S. hardliners, who are pushing for tough action against him.

Honduras was a staunch U.S. ally in the Cold War and still hosts an American base. But the Central American nation joined an economic alliance with Venezuela and Cuba in August.

Monday, nine presidents met to back Bolivia, where Morales is struggling with violent opposition protests. It was the second such meeting this year — and a snub to U.S.-based Organization of American States.

Violence erupts over attempt to centralize government power

MSNBC

Associated Press
updated 9:46 p.m. PT, Fri., Sept. 12, 2008

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivian President Evo Morales decreed a state of siege and sent troops Friday to an eastern province where at least eight people were killed in street battles between pro- and anti-government activists.

Troops took control of the airport in Cobija, the capital of Pando province, and fired shots to disperse protesters. Opposition Sen. Ronal Camargo and Fides radio reported one person was killed and several wounded in the operation.

But that information was not confirmed by Defense Minister Walker San Miguel, who announced the government decree alongside Bolivia’s interior minister.

The state of siege, which prohibits people from gathering or carrying weapons, aims “to safeguard lives and the collective good,” Interior Minister Alfredo Rada told reporters.

The move came hours after Morales and opposition governors from four eastern provinces that are in open revolt against him agreed to talks on ending the crisis.

“We all agree that we have to look for a point of compromise,” said Carlos Dabdoub, secretary for autonomy in the eastern province of Santa Cruz — a hotbed of anti-Morales opposition.

Tarija Gov. Mario Cossio announced he would travel to the capital, La Paz, for negotiations. “The first step will be to bring peace to the country, and second to reach an agreement,” he said.

Vote on Morales’ power
Government opponents are demanding Morales cancel a Dec. 7 nationwide vote on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants from Bolivia’s poor indigenous majority.

In a speech in central Cochabamba province, Morales said opponents “have every right to reject the new constitution, but through the vote and not through violence.”

The crisis went international after Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador, accusing him of inciting the protests. U.S. officials denied the charges and responded by kicking out Bolivia’s ambassador to Washington.

Morales ally and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also kicked out the American envoy to his nation in solidarity with Bolivia.

About 100 people marched to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz on Friday to support the expulsion of Ambassador Philip Goldberg, who angered Morales by meeting recently with the governor of Santa Cruz, a leading opponent of the president.

There were reports of some food and fuel shortages blamed on road blockades. The protests also temporarily disrupted natural gas exports to Brazil — Bolivia’s No. 1 customer.

Military’s support?
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged restraint and a negotiated end to the violence. He also offered to assist in talks.

Several Latin American governments have publicly supported the Bolivian government in the crisis. On Thursday, Chavez threatened military intervention if Morales were to be overthrown.

Armed forces chief Gen. Luis Trigo said Friday that won’t be necessary.

“We will not permit any foreign military force to set foot on national territory,” said Trigo, who recently joined other military chiefs in proclaiming their loyalty to the government.

“We must resolve this problem among Bolivians,” Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told reporters later.

Massive street demonstrations in Bolivia led to the downfall of former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in 2003.