January 25, 2006
Two Views of One Phonecall
Monday's recent election, in which Steven Harper's Conservative Party ended the 13-year rule of the Liberals, continues to dominate headlines in Canada. The two major national papers - the right-leaning, Calgary-based National Post and the center-left Globe and Mail of Toronto - offer telling differences in their coverage of the election's aftermath.
The Globe and Mail leads with a cover story on a 20-minute phone call between George W. Bush and the Prime Minister-designate. No details of the conversation are availible, but the paper runs a photograph of a smirking Bush talking into the phone, obviously pleased with what he's hearing. This picture dominates the front page and, given the unpopularity of Bush in Canada, can't but be interpreted as a provocative gesture. In some ways, this is an oblique reference to the Liberal campaign's strategy of trying to link Bush and Harper, with the suggestion that a Conservative victory will serve to bolster the un-Canadian Bush, and may lower resistance to such unpopular, US-backed initiatives as national missile defense, the war in Iraq and domestic surveillance.
How does the right respond? What is the National Post's take on the phone conversation between the two leaders? We don't know - the Post runs an inoccuous wire version of the story, without picture, stuffed in the back pages of its print edition.
Posted 11:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2006
La Paz Effect in Pakistan
The ripple effect of Evo Morales’s stunning presidential win in Bolivia is being felt – and closely watched – as far away as Pakistan, as shown by a recent op-ed in The News, one of Pakistan’s leading English dailies.
The recent sweep of left leaning presidents in Latin America (referring to the election of anti-neo liberal candidates in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuela and Chile, as well as Bolivia, over the past year) is instructive for Pakistan, writes Farooq Sulehria: “Latin America was the first continent turned into a laboratory for neo-liberal experiments. Ironically, it also is the first to stand up in rebellion.” While Pakistani President Musharraf is “busy implementing…come what will” the free trade and privatization directives of the World Bank and IMF, Sulehria argues that there are lessons to be learned for Pakistan about the rising of Latin resistance to this model:
“By opening up economies to ‘market forces’, Latin American countries were promised significant poverty reduction. In fact, what happened was a significant increase in the hold exercised over Latin American economies by multinationals, especially US corporations. Between 1990, and 2002, multinational corporations acquired 4,000 banking, telecommunications, transport, petrol and mining interests in Latin America.”
Sulehria closes with this warning:
“For the last two decades, Washington has forced neoliberalism (read poverty) down third world throats in order to make the world better for US business. To many the US economic empire, spreading at gunpoint, seemed unassailable. But now, unable to defeat rag-tag Iraqi militias and rapidly losing allies in Latin America, the empire stands exposed to others on the globe. Others, including Pakistan, are watching and learning.”
DAVID MONTERO reports from Islamabad, Pakistan for the Christian Science Monitor.
Posted 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2006
La Paz Effect: Latin Tremors
The ripple effects of Evo Morales’ election as President of Bolivia are continuing to be felt throughout Latin America—most poignantly in the ongoing dissection of the economic reform model known as the ‘Washington consensus’ that was one of Morales’ favorite targets.
Bolivia was supposed to be a laboratory for the ‘consensus’ economic reform model of tight social spending and export-oriented growth. But it was those who perceived themselves as 'disenfranchised' from those policies--millions of small farmers, urban poor and the country’s large indigenous population--who put Morales into the presidential palace in La Paz, and toppled whatever remaining legitimacy for the ‘consensus’ remained within the continent. Shortly after Morales’ election, Argentine president Nestor Kirchner announced that he would pay off the country’s outstanding $9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, thus unhinging the country from IMF/World Bank constraints; a left candidate for the Peruvian presidency, Ollanta Humalla, surged into second place in the polls; and the Zapatistas, in Mexico over new years, launched “the other campaign” in parallel to that country’s presidential race to highlight issues of indigenous rights--an effort widely perceived as having received a considerable boost from the election results in Bolivia. By January 14, the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo featured a debate between John Williamson, the U.S. economist, affiliated with the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, considered to be one of the primary architects of what’s become known as the Washington Consensus; and José Luis Machinea, Secretary General of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations, over what, if anything, remains of the “Consensus’.
The changes in Latin America—long in the works, but also intensified by Morales’ election—are not merely ones of rhetoric. Even John Williamson admitted that the World Bank made mistakes in not paying enough attention to the ‘social factors” involved in economic reform. The “Washington consensus,” a complex set of policies so tied to the United States that they bear the name of our nation’s capital, is unraveling just as quickly as a new term is being introduced to suggest a somewhat more welcome economic power in Latin Power: “Chindia,” the combined economic might of India and China. The turn of many Latin countries east—toward Asia as well as toward the European Union—has gone largely un-reported in the United States. But, El Tiempo suggests, such new trading partners offer not only growing and increasingly affluent markets, but none of the political baggage associated with the long history of U.S. intervention in the region:
“Since the end of the communist system in the USSR, the United States has been dreaming of a world dominated by one superpower: the U.S. That is not coming to pass.
The rapid transformation of China into an economic power, with India following in its footprints, signifies that the U.S. better prepare for a different future, one in which it will have to understand how to share power among others like never before. It’s a change that will not be easy.”
Posted 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005
New Kid on the Rig
The immediate after effects of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and (now) Wilma have been under consideration in the past few months, but their collective effect on the developing world has received considerably less coverage.
One such residual issue has been the price of petroleum in Latin America, which, in the case of Nicaragua, has undergone one of the most precipitous hikes in national history.
In a story in 7 Días, the author notes that hurricane season initialed a phase of "irrational consumption" of strategic reserves on the part of the U.S. This, in turn, has forced reductions in petroleum exportation in the western hemisphere as a whole.
The article notes that the impact of refineries should be minimized in due time, and that the $65 oil barrels and a 20% increase in domestic energy prices should also go the way of the dinosaur (lest Nicaragua truly suffer). The most interesting facet of this article, however, is the notion that China's staggering growth rate and increasing petroleum consumption has had one of the most adverse effects on the energy needs of the developing world.
Will China soon bear the label of an imperial power with its rapacious appetite for resources and markets? And what will be the role of American interests in this new model?
Posted 01:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2005
Evolving security issues
“Most forms of political violence have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War,” states a recent report published by the Human Security Center under the title Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century.
The situation has improved significantly since 1990 and the end of the Cold War. The report finds a reduction of 80% in genocides, 40% in the number of conflicts, 30% in the number of refugees. The number of deaths in each conflict is declining significantly but the proportion of civilians in relation to combatants is much higher today than it was 20 years ago. (See graphics here).
Human security is a relatively new concept. “Unlike traditional concepts of security, which focus on defending borders from external military threats, human security is concerned with the security of individuals,” explains the Center. It is linked to the Canadian Consortium on Human Security which is funded by the Human Security Program of the Foreign Affairs Canada (FAC).
The French daily Le Monde asked Gareth Evans, chief executive of the International Crisis Group, to comment on the report.
The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization working to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. It is chaired by the former European Commissioner for External Relations Lord Patten of Barnes.
An ex Australian Foreign Minister, Evans sees three major threats for today’s world:
- The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
- Terrorism;
- “The loss of influence of the notion of international order due to the American administration discourse according to which the world does not need the U.N.”
It is obviously linked to the fact that the Human Security Center Report summarizes its finding by saying that, among other elements, “the best explanation for this decline is the huge upsurge of conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding activities that were spearheaded by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Cold War.”
Interestingly enough the title of Le Monde’s interview only says “Two dangers: Nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.”
Posted 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Hot Water over Water
Canadians are always sensitive to encroachment by the US (whether real or percieved), and that sentiment is manifesting itself in a new phenomenon - aqua-nationalism, an ideological commitment to preserving as much autonomy over Canadian water supplies as possible. In the context of global warming and population growth, as the North American climate shifts while demand continues to grow, there will be growing pressure on Canada to sell its water to thirsty American cities, a number of which, due to poor planning, have been constructed in the middle of deserts. The Walrus, a serious Canadian intellectual magazine, devotes its October issue to examining aqua-nationalism and the thorny issue of managing and sharing water supplies, supplies that have the pesky habit of criss-crossing borders with no regard to national sovereignty. The article manages to capture Canadian axiety on the issue, anxiety that's not entirely unfounded (there was pressure to include fresh water as a tradeable good under NAFTA), but it goes on to argue that some kind of cross-border managemant will be inevitable, as larger and larger scale projects become necessary to supply North American communities and ecosystems with enough water to survive, while diverting water from areas newly-flood prone. Can Canadians overcome their aqua-nationalism? Do Americans know how to simultaneously cajole and reassure thier neighbors? Much may be riding on the answers to these questions.
Posted 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2005
Bangladesh Tastes Bolivia's Revolt
Will the breakneck speed of trade liberalization, as
prescribed by the IMF and WB, push Bangladesh toward a
street revolution a la Bolivia? That’s the warning of
AJM Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan, a professor in the
Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at
University of Dhaka, in an editorial in
">The Daily Star,the country's largest English language daily newspaper.
“In recent years Bangladesh has become an ideal place for
international money lenders such as the IMF and WB,” he writes.
The adoption of neo-liberal policies, Bhuiyan cautions, has
already resulted in big blows to the nation’s economy.
The closing down of one of the largest and long
standing jute mills in the country, for example, cost
thousands of people their jobs, effectively destroying
the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of their
dependents.
The history of the IMF and WB policies in Latin
America are a bracing wake up call for Bangladesh and
other developing countries, the author says, tracing
the history of peasant uprisings in Bolivia. “If the
government [of Bangladesh] continues to adhere to IMF
and WB recommended policies, is the vision of a mass
of hungry and poor people seizing the capital like
Bolivians for food, education, shelter, and healthcare
in the near future out of the question?”
Others have echoed his cries. Rapid trade
liberalization, undertaken to appease the World Bank,
is costing Bangladesh dearly, slowing down its
economy, a former commerce minister, Tofail Ahmed,
recently told a trade expo.
DAVID MONTERO is a freelance journalist
currently based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His writing has
appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation,
and Mother Jones, and other publications.
Posted 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
The Cuban Embargo: Forty-five years later
To give some sense of the Bush Administration's reluctance to resort to less bellicose moves in relations with North Korea and Iran, it's instructive to think of the role of embargoes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
The Colombian weekly Semana gives an overview of the American embargo of Fidel Castro's Cuba over the last forty-five years, noting that the decision has ultimately defined the country. After all, "two of every three Cubans was born during the time period of the blockade."
Semana cites a number of alterations to the American policy since 1960, including most recently a 2004 decision by the government to impose harsher penalties on those who do travel to the Caribbean island, including those visiting family members with the blessing of immigration (weight restrictions, cash limitations, etc.)
The article ends with a sense that contemporary Cuban affairs are of little importance to the U.S. government for the time being given its other obligations, but quotes an expert who says that the democratization of the country will only be successfully administered from within, not by a force that "says to the Cubans what they must do.
---
All of this reckoning comes in the wake of a Ibero-American conference held over the weekend. The represented members agreed on a resolution that, according to Chinese news service, Xinhua, officially condemns the blockade.
Posted 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
About “the nature of Anti-Americanism”
Anti-Americanism is but a part of the question of “perceptions of the U.S. in the world” that we are trying to tackle here. One of the most common views seems to be that people tend to make a distinction between the Administration, the country, the values, and the people.
A recent essay written by UC-Berkeley Professor Emeritus—Raymond K. Kent--, and published on a liberal Canadian website—Global Research-- takes a provocative position: anti-Americanism is shifting from targeting the Administration to targeting the American people, at least in the Islamic “street.”
In The Nature of Anti-Americanism is Changing, And it is Fifteen Minutes to Midnight, Prof. Kent seeks to address the two following questions:
"(a)Should the U.S. dominate the world, through a combination of Geo-politics, militarism and hard-ball diplomacy focusing, basically, on obedience to its will?(b)Can it succeed, as the "Indispensable Nation," in shaping and re-shaping other societies and their governments to "make the world safe for Democracy?"
The conclusion, which should become clear in the ensuing pages, is that, so far, the answer to both questions has been " yes." The thesis presented in the text is that our Machiavellians, who promote (without admitting) the pseudo-science of "Geo-politics," and Imperialism of "free trade," "human rights" and spread of Democracy as "rule by the people,"(demos from Greek), are actually self-defeating and suicidal, for the nation as a whole, with or without "Home Security." The immortal words of Lee Hamilton, after the 9/11 Report, "we (just) did not get it," apply equally to both questions posed. Articulated by "the street" in countries with Islam as the state religion, a silent and sullen hate is mutating in the most dangerous sense. Instead of being directed primarily at one or another U.S. Administration or individual occupants of the White House, as used to be the case not long ago, its emerging target today is the American People."
This is not necessarily what appears in some of the surveys mentioned in this blog—see this entry about Europe and the German Marshall Fund—or that one about Latin America and the Chilean social-science institute FLACSO, but it certainly deserves a good debate.
What do you think?
Posted 06:57 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Supreme deception?
Normally the personnel changes of courts warrant little international attention, but the choice of Harriet Miers seems to have struck a chord in much of the Latin American press.
In spite of the fact that President Bush has stated that he thinks Miers "extremely qualified" for the position of Supreme Court justice, Mexican daily El Universal cites complaints relating to her lack of experience, especially in light of the prominent Hispanic candidates in the American judiciary who could have been chosen.
Citing representatives from two prominent Latino advocacy groups, the paper characterizes a sense of disbelief in the community. "This is like a slap in the face of the Hispanic judges who have served in high distinction on the courts," says Raul Yzaguirre of the the National Council of La Raza.
Mexican-American news site La Opinión, meanwhile, situates this discussion as "deception" on the part of an administration that had once considered raising Florida Senator Mel Martinez (Cuban-American) or Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (Mexican-American) to the high court. This line of reasoning appears to be that it little matters about the ideological suasion of a judicial candidate, important because most American Latinos do not identify themselves as political conservatives.
This story ends on a foreboding note for an administration that is currently in the firing line between ceaseless calls for border tightening and a rising class of malleable Latino voters: It quotes a LULAC lawyer as saying with this move "[the president] risks angering one of the fastest growing electorates in the country."
Posted 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2005
Two parallel world bodies?
A view from Paresh of the National Herald (New Delhi).
Posted 06:07 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2005
New Poll Tracks Latin American Perceptions of the US
FLASCO, a Chilean social-science institute, has released new telephone survey data tracking public perceptions of the US in four Latin American capitals – Santiago, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Brasilia. Although this is billed as a Latin American survey, the fact that research was limited to capitals and to those four countries weakens its conclusions – adding the provinces of these states, or other Latin American countries (Venezuela for anti-Bush, Columbia for pro) would likely significantly alter these results.
That said, it is useful to consider some of their conclusions.
Some of the findings confirm conventional wisdom – George Bush is extremely unpopular in Latin America, gathering his highest ratings in Santiago with a mere 19% of favorable responses. Unfavorable responses ranged from 40% (in Santiago), to 64% in Buenos Aires. Much and varied blame is laid at his feet, with 69% of respondents complaining about his neglect for their country, while 82% argue that the US interferes excessively in other countries affairs.
Although there are complaints about neglect, there also seems to be a perception that US involvement may be neither neccessary nor desirable - 60% of respondents don’t believe that US aid is necessary to tackle their country’s problems. There is also a significant divergence about what those problems are – terrorism is not considered to be a threat by a majority of respondents anywhere, while narco-trafficking, corruption, unemployment and poverty score very high levels of concern.
The survey also shows significant negative attitudes towards the US as a country. 70% of respondents consider it “an imperialist country,” and an equal amount do not believe America contributes to world peace. Neither US military power or democracy gather any accolades but, on the bright side, most of those called spoke favorable of US culture and economic dynamism.
There seems to be a consensus that the US does promote development abroad, though opinion is torn on whether free trade is a good idea – a majority of Chileans are pleased with their free trade agreement, a majority of Argentines and Brazilians are hostile to one, while Uruguayans are ambivalent.
Posted 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2005
US-Canada: A key relationship under strain
While foreign perceptions of the US manifest themselves most through speeches and writing, they can also be detected in what people choose to do, or where they choose to go. The Economist tracks Canadian-American relations through the volume day trips made across their common border. For the last twenty years, the number of day-long visits has varied regularly according to affordability:
When the Canadian dollar went up, shoppers would flood south and a few budget-conscious American tourists would forgo their vacation among the moose, mountains and Mounties. There was even a rough rule of thumb: for every 10% appreciation of the loonie (as Canadians call their currency) against the greenback, there would be a 13% increase in the number of Canadians going south and a 3% decrease in the number of Americans heading north.
Lately, this trend has broken down – despite a significant appreciation of the Canadian dollar, visits by Canadians are flat, and more Americans are staying away then expected. The article puts forward two explanations – that people are deterred by the length and hassle of the post-Sept. 11th border controls, and that diverging cultural and political values make visits less appealing. It sites a survey of Americans conducted by the Ontario provincial government, in which Canadian anti-Americanism was the number 2 reason given for opting against vacationing in Canada, as well as fear of terrorism and Canadian recognition of gay marriage. Canadians have similarly reservations about the US – the article quotes one tourism official noting that it’s “Both sides [that] feel less welcome in the other country.”
Another article chronicles a ten-year trade dispute over softwood lumber. A marginal and unknown issue in the US, in Canada it's front-page material. The dispute hinges on tarrifs placed on Canadian softwood exports, which have been determined to violate the NAFTA agreement by tribunals organized under the treaty - seven times. After losing its final appeal, the US announced it would maintain tarrifs in open violation of the NAFTA agreement. The Canadians responded by abandoning negotiations, and both sides have resorted to threats and name-calling. The article notes that, while the Canadians have little direct leverage, they don't intend to keep silent - "Canada also plans an information campaign telling other countries seeking trade deals with the United States what it has learned about the value of its signature on a treaty."
Posted 08:07 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005
Sun-Sentinel: Look at Cuba
Cuba, one of the most hurricane-striken Caribbean islands prepares seriously for hurricanes. Abundant and precise information is given before hand. The forecast is somehow “excellent”. The pyramidal structure organizes evacuation to shelters staffed with doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists. People obey the evacuation orders. So much so that South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel writes:
Now, as analysts and politicians examine how the U.S. government responded to Hurricane Katrina -- and perhaps avoid a similar catastrophe in the future -- some say this communist island may have a few lessons to offer.
The Sun-Sentinel quotes Dan Erikson, Caribbean specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, for whom:
"It's still a police state. You could say one advantage they may have is the ability to move large numbers of people in a short amount of time. But of course the political environment in Cuba makes it difficult to resist those kinds of orders."
Nevertheless the daily points out that:
Cubans have weathered some of the most violent storms the tropics can churn up, with surprisingly low death tolls and almost perfect compliance with evacuation orders.Last year, United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland singled out Cuba for praise among Caribbean nations for hurricane-evacuation planning. When Hurricane Ivan swiped the island last September, for example, Cuba didn't record a single death, while 115 people died in other parts of the region. The same month, Hurricane Jeanne killed more than 1,500 in Haiti, with many drowning in floodwaters.
Posted 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2005
Latina Katrina
In Latin American press, much is being made of the collapse in aid to the Gulf region of Hurricane Katrina. Particular attention is being paid to the ouster of FEMA jefe Mike Brown and the Bush Administration’s general inability to hem in a protean bureaucracy after September 11th. Nicaragua’s El Nuevo Diario (centrist) discusses Brown’s perceived incompetence while the online Argentinian magazine Clarín (independent) calls FEMA an organization “responsible (supposedly) for helping out in disasters” and claims that it has a mentality of political wrangling summed up as “today me, tomorrow you.” Editorials from a variety of political spectrums in Mexico have been similarly condemnatory of the problems with the federal chain of command and its disaster relief (El Universal (centrist), La Jornada (left-wing)).
Posted 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2005
Katrina Perspectives...
The Bush Administration's response to Hurricane Katrina seems to be offering plentiful opportunity for foreign observers to reflect on the multiple ironies of a United States seemingly floundering at what it projects to the world its best at: matters of security, whether the challenge comes from terrorists or from the forces of nature. The Peruvian newsmagazine Caretas offered yet another critical perspective, adding to a litany from around the world suggesting how the Bush administration's sole focus on international terrorism--both at home and abroad--blinded them to the real dangers presented by the rise of Katrina. "The gross indifference of this administration (to the rising tragedy) comes partly out of their monothematic agenda and dangerous incompetence."
Posted 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
"What really matters"
[On the left "In Iraq" - On the right "In New Orleans"]
Published in the Mexican La Jornada with the caption "What really matters."
Posted 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
Abu Ghraib's sentence
Sabrina Harman, the woman soldier who we saw in the horrifying photographies in the Abu Ghraib’s prison, while she was applying electrodes on hooded prisoner, has been sentenced to six months for torture. Just six months? The Italians newspapers are asking.
L’Unità, a historical journal from the Left, for a long time the principal voice of the Communist Party, has titled the article on the site web: “Tortures at Abu Ghraib’s prison just six months for the elettroshock’s woman soldier”. The article continue to adopt a guilty position: “The court has decided for her one of the lighter punishment for the Abu Ghraib’s abuse.: six months. Six months of punishment!Not mention that Harman has been also found guilty of antoher emblematic episode that well describes the climate of torture and abuse in the Abu Ghraib’s prison: the elettroshock of a hooded prisoner”.
Also Repubblica, the second most sold newspaper in Italy, politically form the Left, chose a guilty position titled: “Tortures at Abu Ghraib’s prison, just six months for the human pyramid’s woman soldier”. After saying that the punishment has been very light, the journal comments: “Harman risked a five and half year sentence: ten more than the penalty inflicted on her. The prosevcution asked for three years. Considering the time that she has already spent in prison, the woman soldier will be free before the end of summer”.
Also a traditional moderate newspaper like ‘Corriere della Sera’, the most popular in Italy, has also considered with more caution the punishment inflicted as inadequate: “Six months of prison. This is the sentence, wich is far from heavy that has been passed on the woman soldier Sabrina Harman”.
Finally, it is important to look at the position of Ansa, the most important Press Agency in Italy. If isn’t strange the approach hold by italian newspapers, and the confidence treating the news, it’s surprising that the Ansa take the same. “Tortures at Abu Ghraib, light judgment for Sabrina”. This is the title of the article, that continues to say: “The woman soldier Sabrina Harman, one of the ‘jailer’ of Abu Ghraib’s prison, has been sentenced to just six months of imprisonment…”.
From the Italian media emerges and an veiled judgment towards American military justice. It’s easy to presume that this attitude came from Calipari’s gate that has demonstrated how the USA are always ready to justify the actions and the mistakes of their soldiers. Who are sent to a certain defeat and are not prepared for uncontrollable wars, and have no fear of punishment.
Posted 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
Mexico and U.S. “anti migrants measures”
On the official side, President Vicente Fox declared that Mexico would formally protest for the building of a new wall between his country and the United States.
The decision was part of a bill unanimously adopted by the Senate on Wednesday May 11th, and should be signed into law before the end of the month.
Mainly conceived to bring support to American troops overseas, the bill includes a set of immigration related measures. The most important is known as the “Real ID Act” and will require states to check the citizenship or legal residence of any applicant for a driver’s license (the most important document for undocumented immigrants).
The daily Reforma (subscription required) published the information on its front page, under the title “The US approves anti migrants measures.”
Without comments, another story ran on the side that showed how the country lives out of the remittances sent by these very migrants. They grew almost 200 percent in the last five years, and are essential to the survival of 1,6 million homes.
“Mexican families receive a significant income which, in many cases, has helped fight poverty and is the most important source of income for whole regions” declared Raúl Feliz, a researcher quoted by the newspaper.
For the newspaper, they are considered a pillar of the national economy and a factor of financial and social stability for the country.
Coming after Governor Schwarzenegger’s recent support of Minutemen chasing migrants who cross the border in Arizona, the bill contributes to a deep sense of indignation in many very moderate and even pro-American Mexicans.
Posted 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
"Argentina's No. 1 Enemy"
By Peter Orsi
Imagine that you owe $20 to a man named Kenneth Dart. Dart has a highly successful pedigree; his father started a thriving container manufacturing business in Michigan currently worth $2 billion to $6 billion, with annual revenues of $464 million. But Dart made most of his fortune speculating in the financial markets. He presently resides in the Cayman Islands -- he moved there several years ago, reportedly to avoid paying taxes in his home country. Few people on the island have seen him in the last few years. When he's not on his multimillion-dollar yacht equipped with armor and an anti-missile system, he lives in a sprawling beachfront mansion, protected by armed guards. You, meanwhile, lost your job four years ago when your country fell into financial chaos. Your savings lost two-thirds of their value overnight, and your entire country is struggling to recover from financial ruin.
You might not feel like paying sending that $20 bill to the Caymans.
Now imagine that everyone on your block, everyone in your city, everyone in your country of some 40 million people (roughly equal to the population of California) owes $20 each to Kenneth Dart. This is the reality on the ground in Argentina today.
In Spring 2004 I covered a Buenos Aires protest against on the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The demonstration was just as big and noisy as the similar protests around the world that day. But mixed in with the antiwar signs and chants was a great deal of anger at what is perceived as U.S. complicity in Argentina's financial woes. Dart, Argentina's largest private creditor -- he's seeking to collect some $725 million from the country, plus four years of interest, about $130,000 a month -- is perhaps the poster child for this anger.
Argentina's leading newspaper, Clarín, is running a special on Kenneth Dart, whose case against the Argentine government was heard yesterday by an appellate court in New York. "The fortune and prosperity of millions of Argentines is these days in the hands of Kenneth Dart," says the multimedia presentation. If you can read Spanish, it's worth checking out in its entirety – especially since there's not much about the case in the U.S. press. To understand Dart's story is to understand why many Argentines feel that some of the richest people in the world's wealthiest country have taken their entire nation for a ride.
More parts of the Dart package:
* "The enigmatic holder of the vulture fund who hides out on the Grand Cayman"
* "The secret history of the lawsuit Dart initiated in the United States"
* "The intriguing business of the firm Dart founded in Pilar, Argentina"
Further Reading:
* Despair in Once-Proud Argentina (Washington Post, from 2002; good background piece on Argentina's financial collapse).
* Argentina Fends Off Vultures (AmericanFreePress.net; describes how Argentina is working to emerge from debt; some info about Dart and other "vulture fund" creditors).
Posted 02:07 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
English: Language for Detouring the United States
{Ana Alfaro is a regular contributor to La Prensa, the premier newspaper in Panama, and writes the Lingua column for the paper's Sunday magazine, MOSAICO.}
The March 7, 2005 edition of Newsweek International ran a story about the English language which stated that three fourths of the English speakers of the world are not native speakers. That is, they are not British, Canadian, Irish, U.S. or Australian citizens. And that eighty percent of the electronically stored information is in English, and sixty six percent of the world's scientists read in it. 
English is no longer one of, but THE most important workskill for the global Agora--just as Latin was in the heyday of the Roman empire.
What happened to the Roman Empire? It was too large, too unwieldly, and finally, had frontiers that were too porous. The conquered peoples wished to become citizens, and they simply marched into--and out of--the Empire on those very fine roads built by the Romans themselves.
Nowadays, the road is English, and the information superhighway knows no frontiers. Like Rome in its final century, the roads that all once led there are now spinning off into a thousand new tributaries. And those roads are paved with English-language textbooks and dictionaries.
Dorothy from Des Moines has absolutely no idea that the voice confirming her air travel reservations is that of a twenty-three year old in Panama City, Panama. And the English she has mastered is also a tool she can use to contact her peers in all the corners of the new empire--where English is the master key to all gateways.
A couple of centuries ago, the British Empire began laying down the groundwork for the current world domination of English, which was picked up and carried forward by the United States. English was the export vessel for U.S. technology and pop culture. The rest of the world wants some of that dollar bounty: The Chinese (and Japanese) traditional pictogram for the United States is the same used for “rice;" whoever has plenty of rice, has plenty, period.
But now the Internet, the headless monster created for defense purposes, has made it possible for the rest of the world to become connected--and makes it possible to bypass the U.S. altogether. When China buys beef from Argentina, when Mexico buys airplanes from France, the common denominator is always English. English has, in effect, allowed the rest of the world to bypass the United States and create new strategic alliances, new trade pathways, which herald the end of the world as we know it, dominated by the Northern hemisphere and by the Caucasian English-speaking elite.
Add to that the diminishing popularity of the current U.S. administration in other countries, more and more of whom are reporting mistreatment at the hands of U.S. immigration authorities. In 2003, the heir to the Spanish crown, Prince Felipe and his then fiancée, journalist Letizia Ortiz, were detained by a U.S. Immigration agent in Miami, and held for interrogation for several hours. The incident was not given much press coverage in the United States, but soon thereafter, Iberia, the national airline of Spain, moved its Miami hub to Costa Rica. The general feeling is that the U.S. behaves as if the rest of the world's inhabitants are second class citizens.
Let the U.S. not forget that no man is an island. Neither can a country live in isolation, and the U.S. and its citizens make precious little effort to learn the languages of the rest of the world. Now the Global Village is learning theirs, and leaving them out of the equation. Rejection is a two way street.
Posted 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Chile faces U.S. opposition in the OAS Election
The tie in the OAS election last Monday and the United States´ clear decision to back the Mexican candidate, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernest Derbez, and not his contender, Chile´s Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza has raised many questions in Chile about the country´ s relationship with the Bush Administration.
It is well-known that since September 11, the U.S. has called for greater intervention of multinational organizations such as the U.N or the OAS in troubled countries such as Haiti and Venezuela. It is such policy that led the Bush Administration to support the removal of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and to indirectly back up the attempt to depose leader Hugo Chavez in 2002.
And that’s where problems start for Chile. According to Peruvian analyst Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Chile’s friendly relationship with Chavez´ government has everything to do with the U.S. opposition to Chile’s leadership in the OAS.
“The reason (of the U.S. opposition) stands in the friendship that Chile has been forced to develop with Chavez government in this campaign to build a solid south American front in a context in which Bolivia was always ruled out, Perú was a tough cookie to crack and Paraguay - because of the Foreign Secretary’s aspiration to obtain the second most important position in an organization that assigns positions according to geography- was never taken into consideration. To Washington, this reality led Santiago to put Chavez in a position of “factotum” to the Chilean candidacy. Venezuela was sometimes more visible than Brazil in Insulza´s effort to obtain the support of the Caribbean countries”, Vargas LLosa wrote in the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, last Sunday.
The columnist added that in any circumstances the “Chavez factor” would have put U.S. support at risk, but that the situation is all the more delicate now that Caracas has ordered the acquisition of combat planes, helicopters, patrol ships and rifles from Brazil, Russia and Spain. Also, Venezuela increasing subsidies to Cuba has made the situation even more complicated.
The Venezuela factor, however, does not necessarily mean that Chile has already lost the election, says Vargas Llosa.
“Chile is the only Latin American country that has reduced its poverty level in the last decade and that offers to the continent an alternative “model” to the Andean chaos or to the revival of the populist left-wing. This logic indicates that there may be countries that will think twice before turning their back to Santiago”, says the analyst.
Posted 07:14 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
The Economist (Part I): Special Report on Anti-Americanism
This week's print issue of the Economist (Feb. 19-25, 2005) has a three-page analysis of world perceptions of America and Americans, in the aftermath of two recent polls (one conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, previously discussed here; and another from the BBC). The article is premium content, but the site sometimes runs free-access days sponsored by advertisers (as is the case today, Feb. 22). In any case, it's an intelligent, well-written analysis of the current state of anti-Americanism around the globe -- well worth locating in print if you can’t get it online. (Excerpts inside.)
Though anti-Americanism spans the globe, the phenomenon is not everywhere the same. It mutates according to local conditions, and it is seldom straightforward.
No wonder. Most people's feelings about America are complicated. "America," after all, is shorthand for many other terms: the Bush administration, a Republican-dominated Congress, Hollywood, a source of investment, a place to go to study, a land of economic opportunity, a big regional power, the big world power, a particular policy, the memory of something once done by the United States, a set of political values based on freedom, democracy and economic liberalism, and so on. It is easy to be for some of these and against others, and some may wax or wane in importance according to time, circumstance, propaganda or wishful thinking. So it should be no surprise that some people can hold two apparently contradictory views of America at once. The incandescent third-world demonstrator, shrieking "Down with America!" in one breath and "Can you get me a green card?" in the next, has become a commonplace.
The piece begins with France, which it calls "the locus classicus of anti-Americanism." One source of anti-Americanism here, the author writes, is
the rivalry between France and America, based on their remarkably similar self-images; the two countries both think they invented the rights of man, have a unique calling to spread liberty round the world and hold a variety of other attributes that make them utterly and admirably exceptional. Jealousy also plays a part ... French anti-Americanism tends to rise when France has just suffered a setback of some kind, whether a defeat at the hands of the Germans, a drubbing in Algeria or the breakdown of the Fourth Republic.
The author then goes through many of the world's nations, from Angola to Vietnam, examining the state of anti-Americanism and identifying underlying causes in each:
In Iran, for example, anti-Americanism is a tool exploited by the regime "to divert attention from its many failures."
In Indonesia, it’s "largely an armchair affair."
The piece concludes by pointing out that recent polls show anti-Americanism in many cases may have much to do with the reelection of George W. Bush and policies specific to the current administration, then saying:
That is the, perhaps short-term, view of some non-Americans. It is accompanied by another view, increasingly common among pundits, which holds that America is losing its allure as a model society. Whereas much of the rest of the world once looked to the United States as a beacon, it is argued, non-Americans are now turning away. Democrats in Europe and elsewhere who once thought religiosity, a belief in capital punishment and rank hostility to the United Nations were intermittent or diminishing features of the United States now see them as rising and perhaps permanent. Such feelings have been fortified by Mr Bush’s doctrine of preventive war, Guantánamo, opposition to the world criminal court and a host of other international agreements. One way or another, it is said, people are turning off America, not so much to hate it as to look for other examples to follow—even Europe’s. If true, that could be even more insulting to Americans than the rise in the familiar anti-Americanism of yesteryear.
Posted 02:08 PM | Comments (1)
February 17, 2005
"Spain and Anti-Americanism": A dissenting voice from Spain
"According to the polls, Spain is the most anti-American country in Europe," writes Carlos Alberto Montaner in "España y el antiamericanismo."
Montaner is a Cuban-born author, academic, and journalist who has lived in Madrid (in exile from Fidel Castro's Cuba, one wonders?) since 1970 and contributes to, among other publications, the Miami Herald. He also maintains a webpage of his writings (in Spanish, English, German, Russian, Slovak, Czech, and Polish) at www.firmaspress.com.
In this article from June 2004, Montaner considers the historical and contemporary causes of anti-Americanism in Spain, then concludes:
The Spanish democratic left should recognize that it's absurd to continue attacking an ally vital in all terrains. It's time they understood that we live in a cultural and economic space that is absolutely interrelated, in which we all benefit from the successes of others and suffer from their failures. The need to understand that to be anti-American is also a form of being anti-Spanish...
(More inside.)
He's right that U.S.-Spain relations aren't exactly at their zenith these days. In an October 2004 poll, Spain was the only country surveyed where fewer than half of respondents had "a favourable or unfavourable opinion of Americans," and only 5 percent said events during the past few years had improved their opinion of the United States. And current Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero famously irked the Bush administration by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq after his Socialist party swept into power in March 2004 in the wake of an al Qaeda attack on trains in Madrid that killed some 200 people.
But in "Spain and Anti-Americanism," Montaner traces Spanish anti-American sentiment much further back than the Iraq war, identifying its roots in 19th-century tensions between the U.S. and the Spanish right, which were then "reinforced" during the Spanish-American war, as well as in the Spanish left's resentment of the U.S. for not taking a harder line on Spain's Fascist dictator Francisco Franco (during the Cold War, the U.S. cozied up to Spain -- which was seen as strategically important in large part since it controlled access to the Mediterranean Sea).
Montaner takes a hard line of his own toward the Spanish left, arguing that U.S.-Spanish relations were vital to the country's transition to democracy following Franco's death in 1975, and suggesting that Spain cannot afford to turn its back on the United States.
Excerpts from the article (translated from the original Spanish):
According to the polls, Spain is the most anti-American country in Europe. As a consequence, the electoral strategy of the Spanish Socialists during the recent elections to the European Parliament was based on trying to demonstrate that their conservative adversaries were pro-American.
The origin of this negative perception is in the intense campaign launched by the Spanish right in the 19th century, when it identified the United States as a country that was Protestant, the wicked inheritor of the "perfidious Albion," materialistic, masonic, ignorant, dominated by the "Chicago sausages" or by the "Jewish bank." To this ridiculous stereotype, reinforced by the War of 1898 [The Spanish-American War] and partially in effect still today, was added the Marxist vision after the Bolshevik Revolution, and began to describe the United States as a soulless, imperialistic group of multinational corporations dedicated to the exploitation of weak countries and the looting of workers.
The truth is that, contrary to the opinion of the left, the close ties between the Americans and Francoism contributed decisively to the subsequent democratization and development of Spain. The Spanish military, victors of the Spanish Civil War, most of whom were adherents of Fascism, were influenced by the American military, formed from the cult of democratic values, which became a general trial for the subsequent entry of Spain into NATO. Also, the economists and functionaries of Francoism, at the time submerged in the Fascist mythology of economic nationalism, autarchy, and state-controlled economy (as dictated by the right's own Socialist ideology), had access to an American perspective based on the free market and openness to the exterior.
It's unfair, then, to attribute to the United States the kind of complicity with Francoism that supposedly retarded the establishment of democracy. On the contrary, it's very likely that the democratic tendency of King Juan Carlos, vital during the transition, was reinforced by his own pro-American attitude. And it's certain that, following the death of Franco, every time Washington had the opportunity to make its weight felt, it did so in the direction of fomenting the incorporation of Spain to the international mechanisms integrated by democratic nations, be it the European Union or NATO, given that American diplomats were convinced that [Spanish philosopher and essayist José] Ortega y Gasset was correct when he stated that "Spain is the problem, and Europe the solution."
It's a demagogic error on the part of the Socialists to insist on anti-Americanism as a formula for attracting voters. Just as conservative politicians – at least the controlling wing – buried their phobias toward Washington, the Spanish democratic left should recognize that it's absurd to continue attacking an ally vital in all terrains. It's time they understood that we live in a cultural and economic space that is absolutely interrelated, in which we all benefit from the successes of others and suffer from their failures. The need to understand that to be anti-American is also a form of being anti-Spanish, just as being anti-European is a foolish way of being anti-American.
Full text of article (Spanish): http://www.firmaspress.com/388.htm
Recent Montaner articles in English:
Election shows desire for peace
American strategists believe that the consolidation of a democratic state by Palestinians will contribute to the stability of the entire region and that, in due course, that climate of peace will lead to a radical reduction of the levels of anti-Americanism.
Zapatero's dangerous diplomacy
The first consequence of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's foreign policy was to chill Spain's relations with Washington.
Posted 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2005
Four More Long Winters?
Writing for the Argentine daily La Nación, Mario Diament notes that the 2005 State of the Union Address fell on Groundhog Day. He spends several paragraphs telling his readers about Punxsatawney Phil, the groundhog's shadow, and Bill Murray, etc., then concludes what is otherwise a light feature with a slap at the current administration (translated from the original Spanish):
Those who are accustomed to following statistics didn’t miss the fact that in the last four years the groundhog has seen his shadow every time he came out of his hole, and the winters have been inevitably long. A similar feeling must have been experienced by the audience that attended the State of the Union Address, which President George W. Bush gave that night in Congress. Nobody knows if Bush saw his own shadow, but all fear that what it predicts is an overly long winter.
Posted 08:37 PM | Comments (0)