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 Business News | January 2006 
Latin America Winning 7-0
 Prensa Latina
| | Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales holds his credential as 'Presidente Constitucional de la Republica de Bolivia', or Constitutional President of the Republic of Bolivia, during a ceremony organized by the Bolivian National Electoral Court in La Paz January 16, 2006. Morales, who is supported by populist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro, has raised fears in Washington of the formation of an anti-U.S. bloc in Latin America. Morales will take office on January 22. (Reuters/David Mercado) |
Havana - The United States, the European Union and the international financial institutions are watching their economic order being bashed in Latin America, where popular sectors are having their demands heard for the first time.
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and now Chile, with the victory of Michelle Bachelet, the first woman president in that southern country´s history, lead the silent (for the mainstream media) revolution taking place in the continent.
Already Brazil and Argentina have cut their ties with the International Monetary Fund by paying their outstanding debts with the institution, while announcing their intention of doing so with official creditors represented in the Paris Club.
President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has made great strides in uniting the continent by offering the region a free trade alternative that really works, which takes into account the differences in development levels of each nation.
Part of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA in Spanish) is initiatives in the energy sector that are already alive and working.
PetroCaribe, PetroSur and PetroAndina will lead later on to the creation of PetroAmerica, designed to achieve independence and sustainability in the region´s energy sector.
Also in public health and education, continental programs are underway to address urgent problems in the region, among them illiteracy and eye surgery.
Analysts in the United States are acknowledging the change. For one, John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” says most Americans know that a transit strike crippled New York City, but few are aware that seven South American countries, representing 80 per cent of the continent´s population, have recently elected presidents with anti-American sentiments.
In Ecuador, the president was thrown out of office by a popular grass-roots uprising when he capitulated to economic threats and bribes, and went against his campaign promises to force US oil companies to pay more for the Ecuadorian oil they extracted.
During the past year, points Perkins, a rising tide of people throughout the world has been rebelling against policies they see as unjust. This has occurred not only in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, but also in the United States, where workers resent corporations and their executives for receiving high tax breaks.
According to this man, once employed by the US Treasury Department to submit developing economies to bribes and political pressure, transnational corporations have taken control of much of the production and trade in developing countries.
For example, 40 percent of the world´s coffee is traded by just four companies, while the top 30 supermarket chains control almost one-third of worldwide grocery sales.
A trade surplus of one billion dollars for developing countries in the 1970s turned into an 11 billion deficit by 2001.
The income ratio difference between wealthy and poor countries widened from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. Another astonishing fact is that of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations, of which 47 are US-based.
The gap also gets wider inside industrialized nations. Slaves before the US Civil War received room and board, while wages paid currently by the sweatshops that serve many US industries do not cover the most basic needs.
The number of poor in the US has increased by 5 million in the last four years.
Unrest throughout the planet is the harbinger of the difficulties that will haunt future generations, unless reason prevails. All people, and not just those at the top, have the right to justice and dignity.
Voters throughout South America have warned that people and nature´s interests must be taken into account if the human race is to survive. |
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