World

Having come out of an intense period of political confrontation, including the biggest mobilisation in Bolivia’s history, this landlocked country situated in the heart of rebellious South America seems on the verge of plunging into a new phase of open conflict. At the centre of this is the country’s Constituent Assembly — a central plank of Bolivia’s cultural and democratic revolution, led by the country’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales — which was convened over a year ago with the goal of achieving a new social pact between Bolivia’s conflicting sectors and drafting a new constitution that would for the first time include the country’s indigenous majority.

On August 15 — the third anniversary of President Hugo Chavez’s victory in the recall referendum of 2004 and the 202nd anniversary of Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar’s famous oath not to rest “until the chains of oppression are lifted from my people” — tens of thousands of people turned out to an extraordinary session of Venezuela’s National Assembly (AN) to hear the president’s proposed constitutional reforms.

New evidence has been presented in a judicial review of Garuda Indonesia pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto — who was acquitted last year for murdering renowned human rights activist Munir — that links the murder with the National Intelligence Agency (BIN).

Following the first collapses among its lenders last year, the US subprime mortgage market began a sharper collapse in recent weeks, sustaining losses that an investment offshoot of Banque Agricole estimated in mid-August to be US$150 billion.

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the Cuban- and Venezuelan-initiated Latin America trading bloc that bases itself on solidarity and cooperation, is continuing to expand and develop as a genuine alternative to the US-pushed neoliberal “free trade” policies that have caused widespread suffering across Latin America.

On August 16, Iraqi PM Nuri al Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani announced the formation of a “new” political alliance consisting of Makili’s Islamic Dawa (Dawn) party, Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kudistan (PUK), Massound Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Abdul-Aziz al Hakim’s Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC).

Former East Timorese prime minister Mari Alkatiri has called for the withdrawal of Australian troops from his country. Speaking to Agence France-Presse on August 20, he said: “It would be better for Australian troops to just return home if they cannot be neutral. They came here to help us solve our problems, but they came to give their backing to one side and fight against the other.”

The Chicago Black community has accused the police of unjustifiably killing two unarmed Black men during the first week in August in separate incidents and abusing those who have come into the street to protest those killings.

Representatives of Western Sahara’s Polisario Front (the Saharawi liberation movement) and the Moroccan government met in Manhasset, New York, on August 10 and 11 with a view to “achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara” — the words of UN Security Council’s Resolution 1754, adopted on April 30.

“Thousands of government supporters converged on Venezuela’s National Assembly, carrying banners reading ‘Yes to the reform, on the path to 21st Century Socialism’”, the BBC’s website reported on August 16, as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez announced proposed constitutional reforms to provide a legal framework for the increasingly radical direction of the revolutionary process led by his government. This process aims to create a system of popular power and socialism.

Popular resistance to neoliberal “reform” was the underlying cause of Peru’s July general strike. On July 5, public schoolteachers walked off the job over government plans to privatise education. Within days, discontented workers from other industries joined the embattled teachers. Before long, schools, mines, factories and construction sites were shut down as tens of thousands of striking protesters took to the streets of every major city demanding higher pay, improved conditions and revisions to the US-Peru free-trade agreement. Peasant farmers joined the mass mobilisation, closing roads and paralysing transport networks.

Liliany Obando, an international representative and organiser of the Agricultural Workers Union Federation of Colombia (FENSUAGRO), will be among more than 35 international guests at the Latin American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum to be held in Melbourne on October 11-14.