This Week in the Americas
Mexican Government’s Ill-Conceived Campaign for Free Trade
By Laura Carlsen
From the Latin American summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina to the forum of Pacific Rim countries in Busan, South Korea, President Vicente Fox is a man with a mission. His mission: to promote the U.S. model of free trade, as embodied in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
In Mar del Plata, Fox’s insistence on including a commitment to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in the final declaration at the Fourth Summit of the Americas led to diplomatic frictions with Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Even after the attempt failed to gain consensus, Fox bitterly criticized those he claimed “short-sightedly think that the solution is to close themselves off and not enter into market competition,” in allusion to the Mercosur countries and Venezuela who opposed the FTAA.
Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org.
See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2966
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http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/columns/0512fox.pdf
The Vicious Cycle of AIDS, Poverty, and Neoliberalism
By Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
World maps illustrating areas of high poverty largely overlap those of high HIV/AIDS prevalence. It’s no coincidence that poverty and the HIV-AIDS pandemic have run rampant in these last two decades of neoliberalism, since the root causes of both can be found in the economic model. Approximately 40 million people currently live with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or are suffering from illnesses associated with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS launched a plan to provide antiretroviral medications to three million AIDS patients in the next two years—approximately half the patients estimated to need the treatment. At first glance, this global strategy appears to be a decisive intervention by the international health organizations and the White House to control this devastating disease. However, by supporting the same neoliberal economic policies that have created the conditions for the spread of the disease—inequality, monopoly patent protection, reduced public healthcare—the efforts of scientists, the billions of dollars, and the work of innumerable prevention organizations can still not detain the disease. The fight against AIDS is the fight against poverty. And given that poverty in the contemporary world is of neoliberal origin, it will be impossible to defeat AIDS without defeating the neoliberal model.
Bernardo Useche is a professor at the University of Texas' School of Public Health and Amalia Cabezas is a professor in the Women's Studies Department of the University of California, Riverside. The full version of this article appeared in the August 2005 issue of Revista Envio www.envio.org and this version is reprinted with permission. The IRC Americas Program www.americaspolicy.org thanks our partners at Envio in Managua for the translation from Spanish.
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http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2965
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http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/reports/0512vicious.pdf
Regional Integration After the Collapse of the FTAA
By Raúl Zibechi
Although every Latin American government pays lip service to integration, taking the concrete steps needed to attain it is much more difficult than simply issuing declarations. In the wake of the collapse of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), Latin America faces the dilemma of remaining divided and at the mercy of the interests of the great powers, or setting out on the road to continental unity. Even if the forces in favor of integration prevail, the type of integration to be constructed remains to be defined.
Two centuries after gaining independence, Latin America’s republics have been unable to overcome their Balkanization, one of the worst legacies of colonialism. In progressive circles and among social activists, the obstacles to Latin American unity are usually deemed to be the division sown by different forms of imperialism throughout history. But a closer look at what has happened over the past two centuries—from Simón Bolívar’s failed attempt to unify the northern part of South America to José Artigas in the Río de la Plata—leads to the conclusion that the difficulties also stem from the conflicting interests of the many players squaring off on the regional chessboard.
Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, is a teacher and a researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina as well as an advisor to several social groups. He is also a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (http://americas.irc-online.org/). Translated from Spanish by Alan Hynds.
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http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2937
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http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/briefs/0511collapse.pdf
Community Tourism Helps Fishing Village Keep Speculators at Bay
By Bill Hinchberger
In Prainha do Canto Verde, community tourism serves not only its own ends, generating extra income for people like João and Aila, but it acts as a weapon in the battle against real estate speculation and the social and environmental problems that inevitably accompany mass tourism. In Prainha do Canto Verde, locals have managed to throw a novel twist into the plot that usually unfolds as communities are “discovered” as tourism destinations.
A former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week, Bill Hinchberger is the founder and editor of BrazilMax: http://www.BrazilMax.com and contributor to the IRC Americas Program www.americaspolicy.org. The Center for Social and Environmental Support (CASA) and the Greengrants Alliance of Funds (GAF) (www.greengrants.org) provided support for this article.
See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2951
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http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/articles/0511fishing.pdf
Letters from our Readers:
In response to Michael Stallard (See November 28, 2005 Crossborder Updater located at: http://americas.irc-online.org/updater/2960.)
First he states: “In 1933, unable to crush the popular resistance/revolution against his regime, Cuban President Gerardo Machado resigned. Roosevelt wouldn't recognize the leftist provisional government that ensued, and it lasted only 17 days. With Roosevelt's blessing, Fulgencio Batista eventually emerged as dictator, suppressing freedom and equality in Cuba until 1959, when he was overthrown by Fidel Castro.” Was it Mr. Stallard's point that Castro was better than Batista? Kennedy pulled the rug out from under Batista, was that more neighborly?
Next he derides something about which I have personal knowledge. “Near his death in 1945, Roosevelt opened the School of the Americas in Panama. Since then, more than 60,000 Latin American students have learned counter-insurgency, weapons training, psychological warfare, and ‘interrogation' techniques at the SOA. With many dictators, assassins, and general hatchet men among its graduates, the SOA (now located at Fort Benning, Georgia, and renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) is held in contempt throughout Latin America.” The training given did not include what these students brought from their own countries, specifically “rematadores.” We did not teach applying the coup de grace during raids and ambushes but these students made it clear to me that was their policy even though we did not teach it and actively discouraged that practice. While his opinion may be to disparage the School of The Americas, the school was a prize to the students who attended. Only within the Jesuit community was it so maligned.
War is about killing and breaking things and that is what we taught there. When did certain aspects of warfare like counter-insurgency, weapons training, psychological warfare, and “interrogation” techniques become off limits? How would you have us train the Armed Forces of these Latin American countries, with spoons?
Joseph J. Ogershok, Jr.
Ex Special Forces Medic and SOA Trainer 1974-1981
