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South/Latin America

  • Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente? Heavy Favorite in Chilean Vote Cuts Against Grain
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Monte Reel
    SANTIAGO, Chile — Everyone in the audience was dressed in dark blue or black. Some wore clerical collars, and most had heavy silver crosses dangling around their necks. But Michelle Bachelet wore an electric pink jacket that sent a clear message: She was a candidate for president, not sainthood.
    "I’m agnostic. . . . I believe in the state," Bachelet told several groups of evangelical ministers last week. "I believe the state has an important role in guaranteeing the (…)

  • Leftist Morales Claims Victory in Bolivia
    20 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By FIONA SMITH
    COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - The Socialist firebrand who claimed victory in Bolivia’s presidential race repeated his promise to end a U.S.-backed crusade against coca plants, but said Monday his government would respect private property.
    Unofficial results showed Evo Morales - himself a coca farmer - with a decisive lead over seven opponents that would make him the first Indian president in the 180-year history of independent Bolivia and solidify a continental leftward shift. (…)

  • Causachun coca! Wañuchun yanquis!
    20 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    25 comments

    Thanks to Pachamama, Mother Earth, thanks for the Coca Plant.
    We, Aymaras and Quechuas, original nations of the Andes, have survived the onslaught of the white man until today thanks to our coca leaf. From the moment the white man came to our land he has tried to control our leaf for his own enrichment. He has abused it here and now he is abusing it everywhere else. Since it has escaped his control he is intent on destroying it.
    He has labeled our sacred plant a drug, to be prohibited (…)

  • The New Cooperative Movement in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process
    9 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By Camila Piñeiro Harnecker
    I arrived in Caracas in July 2005 with a few contacts at different cooperatives, anxious about how I would sort through the more than 70,000 cooperatives that the Superintendencia Nacional de Cooperativas (National Superintendence of Cooperatives — SUNACOOP) had referred to in its recent press statements. Indeed, I found cooperatives everywhere. Between one night and the next morning, I stumbled on cooperatives in some rather unexpected places: a group of (…)

  • Panicky Bush slinks away from Chavez
    8 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    10 comments

    by Mike Whitney
    The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists.
    Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named “free trade” economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as “Leftists” or (…)

  • AMERICANS TO VISIT GUANTÁNAMO PRISONERS
    8 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    25 U.S.Citizens walk 80 miles across Cuba in an effort to visit prisoners at U.S. Naval Base
    Calling their action Witness to Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners in Guantánamo, the marchers began morning in Santiago de Cuba and will walk the 80 miles to the gates of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay to arrive on December 10th, International Human Rights Day. They include War Resisters League (WRL) activists and members of Catholic Worker communities throughout the country.
    Frida (…)

  • Venezuela’s true patriots ... unlike the cowards who stayed home and griped!
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    by Mary MacElveen
    With the outcome of the Venezuelan elections now decided President Chavez’ MVR party now holds a convincing majority. No matter what the fevered opposition says, it is still a majority since those who did in fact go to the polls in torrential rains decided which direction Venezuela must democratically take.
    MVR won 114 out of the 167 seats and this boils down to 68% ... it must mean that Chavez is doing something right if he gained such a majority to push through (…)

  • Dr. Michelle Bachelet likely Victor In Chile’s Dec. 11 Presidential Election
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    by Brian McAfee
    Chile’s Socialist party’s presidential candidate, Dr Michelle Bachelet, stands poised to be the next president of Chile. She has a significant lead in the polls, and if there is a run-off election she is expected to still be the victor. Her closest opponent, Joaquin Lavin, a conservative, trails well behind her.
    Dr Bachelet endured numerous personal tragedies in the years of Pinochet’s coup. Her father, Alberto Bachelet, an airforce general loyal to president Salvador (…)

  • Chavez’s Party Wins 68% of Seats in Venezuela’s Parliament
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Gregory Wilpert
    Caracas, Venezuela, December 4, 2005-Chavez’s party, the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), won 114 or 68% of the 167 seats in the new National Assembly, according to preliminary results that MVR deputy William Lara announced this evening. Pro-Chavez parties won all 167 seats in the new National Assembly.
    The President of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Jorge Rodriguez, said that with 79% of the voting center results examined, voter turnout so far was (…)

  • Latin America: A Native Speaker
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    The campaign of Bolivian indigenous leader Evo Morales is lending hope to the region’s poor but increasingly assertive underclass.
    By Jimmy Langman
    Dec. 12, 2005 issue - On the ballot, he is listed as Sixto Jumpiri, one more candidate in the Bolivian national elections later this month. But to the Aymara and Quechua Indians of the Bolivian highlands, he is better known as Apu Mallku, or Supreme Leader. Not long ago, that millennial honorific might have sounded quaint. Today, traditional (…)