A summit of huge importance was held in Venezuela on December 2-3. Two hundred years after Latin America’s independence fighters first raised the battle cry for a united Latin America, 33 heads of states from across the region came together to form the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
For Latin America, the summit represented a further step away from its traditional role as the United States’ backyard and its emergence as a player in its own right in international politics.
Resources
Federico Fuentes
Representatives from the Latin American and Caribbean governments that make up the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) met in Bolivia on November 17-18 to coordinate their battle plan ahead of the international climate change summit in Durban later this month.
ALBA unites eight countries, including the radical governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. It helped lead the fight at the 2009 Copenhagen summit against attempts by rich nations to impose their anti-environmental plans.
Seven years after being launched by the Venezuelan and Cuban governments, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) has become an important voice on the global stage willing to stand up and denounce capitalism.
ALBA has grown to include eight Latin American and Caribbean countries (Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Despite the government reaching an agreement with indigenous protesters on all 16 demands raised on their 10-week march onto the capital, La Paz, the underlying differences are far from resolved.
The recent march in Bolivia by some indigenous organisations against the government’s proposed highway through the Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) has raised much debate among international solidarity activists.
September 25 will go down as one of the darkest days in Bolivia since Evo Morales was elected as the country’s first indigenous president almost six years ago.
Statements, articles, letters and petitions have been circulating on the internet for the past month calling for an end to the "destruction of the Amazon".
WikiLeaks' release of cables from the United States embassy in La Paz has shed light on its attempts to create divisions in the social and indigenous movements that make up the support base of the country’s first indigenous-led government.
The cables prove the embassy sought to use the US government aid agency, USAID, to promote US interests.
A March 6, 2006, cable titled “Dissent in Evo’s ranks” reports on a meeting only months after Morales' inauguration as president in December 2005 with “a social sectors leader” from the altiplano (highlands) region in the west.
Neoliberal policies “which have fed the growing political disaffection of Bolivia's majority poor, have helped fuel the country's rolling 'social revolution.'"
This was how a May 6, 2006, US embassy cable from La Paz recently released by WikiLeaks viewed the powerful wave of struggle that led to the election of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2005.
This secret assessment came despite Washington publicly trumpeting neoliberal policies as the way to solve the problems of Latin America's poor.
The decision by leaders of the Sub Central of the Indigenous Territory and National Isiboro Secure Park (TIPNIS), to initiate a 500-kilometre protest march on Bolivia's capital of La Paz capital has ignited much debate about the nature of Bolivia’s first indigenous led-government.
Speaking to CNN en Espanol on July 27, Bolivian President Evo Morales said “When presidents do not submit to the United States government, to its policies, there are coups.”
His comments are backed by attempts by the US and Bolivia’s right wing to bring down his government.
Recently released WikiLeaks cables prove the US embassy was in close contact with dissident military officers only months before a coup attempt was carried out in September 2008.
But the close relationship between the US and Bolivia’s military has a long history.
War on drugs
Recently released United States embassy cables from Bolivia have provided additional insight to the events leading up to the September 2008 coup attempt against the Andean country’s first indigenous president.
On September 9, 2008, President Evo Morales expelled then-US ambassador Philip Goldberg as evidence emerged that Goldberg and embassy officials had been meeting with several key civilian and military figures involved in an unfolding coup plot.
- Previous page
- Page 20
- Next page