Chiapas: Zapatistas to host "Festival of Dignified Rage"

The Sixth Intergalactic Commission of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has announced a "First World Festival of Dignified Rage" (Festival Digna Rabia), to be held in January at San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Participants have been confirmed from some 20 countries around the world. Among the Mexican participants are the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), representatives from maquiladora workers in Baja California and Tamaulipas, and from the Lomas de Poleo land struggle at Ciudad Juárez. International participants include a delegation from the ACIN indigenous alliance in Cauca, Colombia; Spain's anarcho-syndicalist General Workers Confederation (CGT); and representatives from the labor struggle in Iran. Invited writers include Mexico's Adolfo Gilly, Ireland's John Halloway, the USA's Michael Hardt, and India's Arundhati Roy. (La Jornada, Nov. 29)

http://ww4report.com/node/6454

Puerto Rico’s Teachers Beat SEIU Raid

When last seen on the picket line, Puerto Rican teachers were fighting their way through police barricades to appeal to fellow workers from the Service Employees (SEIU) at its lavishly funded convention in San Juan in June.

The message of the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) was simple: please stop SEIU President Andy Stern from colluding with the indicted governor of the island to replace FMPR with a “company union.”

In the view of SEIU, teachers needed a new SEIU-affiliated union because FMPR no longer had legal recognition after its walk-out over wages, classroom size, and the threat of privatization.

This month, however, the teachers themselves disagreed that it was time for a change. By a margin of 18,123 to 14, 675, they voted against joining the SEIU-backed SPM (Sindicato Puertorriqueno de Maestros), which is closely aligned with another SEIU affiliate, the Association de Maestros de Puerto Rico, an organization of school principals and administrators.
OFF PROGRAM

At SEIU’s convention, only a handful of delegates dared to challenge Stern on this issue. When eight rank-and-file members from California tried to distribute a leaflet asking why the “top leadership has sided against the teachers of Puerto Rico in a gross case of ‘colonial’ unionism,” SEIU staffers threatened several of them with reprisals. “They told us that this is a betrayal and that we could be suspended from the union if we continued handing out the fliers,” delegate Brian Cruz, from Local 1021 in San Francisco, explained to The San Juan Star.

Most of the 3,000 delegates and guests simply cheered when Stern and SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera, a native of Puerto Rico, introduced their good friend, Anibal Acevedo Vila, the island’s governor. Acevedo Vila is still awaiting trial on federal corruption charges and it was his administration that precipitated a 10-day, island-wide public school strike led by the FMPR last winter. As The Star reported June 3, SEIU used its convention and the governor’s appearance to promote a rival organization, “which is hoping to become the new union representative for an estimated 42,000 public school teachers.”

It was not to be. The FMPR orchestrated a “vote no” campaign, after it was denied a spot on the ballot as further punishment for its “illegal” strike. FMPR was even barred from having observers at teacher polling places.

Prior to the start of the election, FMPR presented evidence to the labor relations commission showing that it still had voluntary financial support from 12,000 members, who have continued to pay union dues even though automatic deductions from all teachers’ paychecks were discontinued when FMPR was decertified.
Although SEIU favors “employee free choice” on the mainland and assured critics here there would be a multiple-choice ballot, Puerto Rican teachers had just one union option, which they then rejected.

The defeated SPM has almost no dues payers so SEIU had to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into this losing effort, much of it spent on advertising. As one FMPR supporter reported, SEIU had “paid staff at each school giving out free T-shirts and coolers and the media and the government were clearly in its favor but still they couldn’t impose their union on us.”

FMPR activist Edgardo Alvelo, who teaches at a vocational school in Rio Piedras, estimates that his union spent only “$50,000 on the whole campaign.” According to Alvelo, “that money was very hard to obtain, but it was enough to win. It was our people in the schools that did the job. Today, we are celebrating and tomorrow our struggle will continue in all our schools.”
94 PERCENT TURN-OUT

The vote turnout was extremely high. Of the 36,000 teachers eligible to participate due to their permanent status, 33,818 actually voted, with a thousand of those ballots being challenged or voided. FMPR now faces the task of continuing to function as what’s called a “bonafide organization” under Puerto Rican labor law. While still deprived of the full collective bargaining rights it had before the strike, FMPR retains a strong steward structure, the ability to represent members, and mobilize around educational policy issues and day-to-day job concerns.

FMPR supporters in New York, California, and elsewhere aided the successful “vote no” campaign by raising money to help keep this militant independent union afloat. (For more information, see the FMPR’s own website: http://fmprlucha.org) On October 14, some protested outside the Manhattan headquarters of United Healthcare Workers-East (the former SEIU/District 1199 long headed by Rivera), where they denounced Stern’s raid on FMPR as an insult to New York hospital workers “proud history of fighting for justice and dignity.”

During an August visit, one New York Solidarity Committee member, Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, brought money that was collected for FMPR members disciplined for their union activity. Reports Sheridan-Gonzalez, a registered nurse:

“The union, in collaboration with students and parents, had developed a progressive, inclusive curriculum that was extraordinarily successful. This collaborative structure was unilaterally dismantled by the government/school authority in 2007 and 17 teachers were suspended when they fought back. Their energy and commitment was inspiring and reminiscent of the spirit of U.S. unions in the 1930s and Puerto Rican labor in years past.”

That same feisty spirit was on display in this month’s island-wide union vote, which gave SEIU an expensive lesson in the meaning of “no.”

http://labornotes.org/node/1964

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission Blames Plan Mexico for APPO Arrests

Official human rights ombudsman says the government believed Plan Mexico funds were conditioned on resolving Brad Will case

The Mexican government's human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish initials) slammed the Federal Attorney General's office (PGR) yesterday over the arrests of Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) supporters in the Brad Will murder case.

The PGR arrested three APPO supporters and has issued warrants for eight more in the Will case. José Luis Soberanes Fernández, the head of the CNDH, said that with the arrests, the PGR made the decision "to ignore the body of evidence that we sent it" regarding the case.

One principal component of the CNDH report that the PGR explicitly rejected was that Will was shot from a distance of 35-55 meters, not the 2 meters that the PGR claims. Despite the fact that a forensic video specialist hired by the Will family has found bullet streaks in the last two frames of Will's video, and that anyone who shot Will at close range would have appeared in his video since he was shot head-on, the PGR maintains that the APPO supporters standing around Will were the ones who murdered him.

The CNDH and the PGR have exchanged harsh criticisms since the APPO arrests. The CNDH accuses the PGR of making arrests "on a whim" and that its behavior "lacks professionalism and responsibility."

The PGR criticized the CNDH after it publicly released its report and recommendations in the Will case, saying that the CNDH had "leaked" information about the case, and threatened legal action as a result.

The CNDH's Soberanes Fernández shot back, saying, "Whatever. There will be more [threats]. They've gotten into that nasty little habit recently. It's all part of the job. It's a very despicable way for the PGR to fight: instead of using reason and arguments, it fights with threats. This dispute will have to go to court."

It's all about the money

Soberanes Fernández believes Plan Mexico is to blame for the recent and sudden arrests in the Will case. He says the government arrested the APPO supporters "because in the United States they are pressuring them," he responded. "It's said that they weren't going to give them the Merida Initiative resources if they didn't resolve this case, and therefore they had to clear it up at any cost, and now we see the results."

While Plan Mexico funds are not legally conditioned on resolving the Will case, an earlier House version of Plan Mexico did call for a "thorough, credible and transparent investigation" of the murder, along with investigations into police behavior in San Salvador Atenco, where 26 women reported physical, verbal, and sexual violence--including gang rape--perpetrated against them by police. This language was removed from the version of the bill that was signed into law, but it remains in an explanation that accompanies the bill.

Mexico and the United States are currently in final negotiations over the release of Plan Mexico funds. The arrests in the Will case came just six days before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited with her Mexican counterpart to discuss Plan Mexico, and just one day prior to US drug tsar John Walters' visit to Mexico city to discuss the release of funds.

Human rights conditions backfire

Friends of Brad Will, an organization of Will's friends and family who are fighting for justice in the murdered Indymedia journalist's case, have opposed Plan Mexico since it was first proposed in October 2007. They were joined in their opposition by Global Exchange, Witness for Peace, the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, the AFL-CIO, Tikkun, CISPES, Alliance for Democracy, Maryknoll Global Conerns, the Latin American Solidarity Committee, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

According to Robert Jereski from Friends of Brad Will, his organization chose to oppose Plan Mexico outright instead of pushing for human rights conditions because "we saw what happened with Plan Colombia and those human rights conditions. They didn't stop that country from becoming the worst country in the world for rights for labor activists, where hundreds have been assassinated by the government or government-supported paramilitaries. We saw how ineffective the conditions were, that [Plan Colombia] resulted in 4 million displaced people driven off of resource-rich land by the same thugs the US government has been supporting through the Uribe government and military. We had serious doubts about value of human rights conditions."

The big players in human rights, however, remained silent throughout much of the debate over Plan Mexico. Human Rights Watch did not take a stance on the initiative until after it was passed. Amnesty International only weighed in publicly after the measure had passed both houses of congress. Its Mexico office circulated a letter calling US collaboration with Mexico "appropriate and timely" and simply requested that human rights conditions be included in the final version that would be sent to the president.

Only the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) testified before Congress regarding the initiative. WOLA strongly criticized the bill, saying that it would not lead to an overall reduction in drug trafficking and noting that US training has often backfired in Mexico, as in the case of Los Zetas, an elite special forces team that defected from the Mexican military to become the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel. WOLA did not, however, oppose the bill; it merely offered suggestions for how to improve the military and law enforcement strategy of combatting drug cartels, such as "be careful who you train."

When Plan Mexico passed, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch praised the human rights conditions and failed to take a strong stance on further US support for corrupt and brutal Mexican military and police forces and the continuance of the failed policy of using the military to combat cartels. Amnesty International's post-passage press release stated, "the final bill is an important first step to prevent military and police abuses, including torture."

Those organizations that opposed Plan Mexico from the beginning were horrified--but not at all surprised--that the human rights conditions regarding the Will case backfired. Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, said, "Of the cases that Congress demanded progress on as a precondition to releasing finds under Plan Mexico, both have resulted in movement by the Mexican government--to scapegoat the protesters. One was Brad Will where pressure by the family and Friends of Brad Will has kept the issue alive and made it impossible for the US government to ignore. The Amendment Three to the House version demanded proof of progress within 45 days of enactment although the final version omitted this particular demand. Now the government has imprisoned not the government-affiliated thugs directly implicated by videos and forensics examinations, but APPO members."

Carlsen noted that Will's case was not the only one that seemed to be affected by Plan Mexico's human rights conditions. Plan Mexico also called for a "thorough, credible and transparent investigation" of police behavior in San Salvador Atenco in May 2006. According to Carlsen, "the response [in this case] was to sentence movement leaders to 69 years while granting impunity to the police and politicians who orchestrated the rape, torture and beatings of protesters in police custody."


http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/10/mexicos-national-human-rights-commission-blames-plan-mexico-appo-ar

Rise of the Latin Africans

A new black-power movement in Central and South America

By Joe Contreras
Pambazuka News

Hugo Chávez is known as a revolutionary in many contexts, especially in his defiance of the United States. In recent years however he’s also broken ground on a far less well-exposed subject: the question of race in Latin America. The saga began two years ago, when, during a tour of Gambia, Chávez surprised observers by declaring that ‘I’ve always said that if Spain is our mother, Africa, mother Africa, is much more so.’ Since then, the Venezuelan leader has often revisited the theme at home, even drawing attention to his own African roots. It may not sound shocking. But such language would have been inconceivable from a major Latin American leader just a short time ago.

That’s now changing, due to a black-consciousness movement stirring in Central and South America. Emboldened by the success of their indigenous countrymen in pressing for resolution of long-ignored grievances, Afro-descendientes (people of African descent), as they are known, are now lobbying for recognition of their own communities’ land rights and for increased spending to improve living conditions in urban slums and rural villages. Local activists have begun urging Latin blacks to take pride in their culture, and with the help of the Internet, leaders are reaching across borders to share tactics and compare notes with their brethren in the Caribbean, the United States and Africa. This ‘black-power movement has gone way beyond anything that has happened in the past,’ says Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, director of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. ‘People are making critiques of racism in their own societies, and there’s been a real shift in black consciousness and involvement.

Black power isn’t entirely new to the region; for some time now the descendants of African slaves have wielded political clout in a few corners of the hemisphere. That’s especially the case in the English-speaking Caribbean, where black heads of state are the rule. And in Brazil, where nearly half the country’s 192 million people have African ancestry, Joaquim Barbosa, arguably the most influential member of the Supreme Court, is black; so is recording artist Gilberto Gil, who served as culture minister under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for five years. Moreover, Lula’s predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, once announced that he himself had ‘one foot in the kitchen’­a colourful way of admitting intermarriage among his ancestors (albeit one that earned him criticism at the time).

In the rest of Latin America, blacks remain a small (they’re thought to number about 20 million, though activists claim the figure is much higher) and marginalised minority. Demographics highlight their second-class status. For example, Ecuador’s blacks, who make up 5 percent of the population, suffer a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, higher than that of the country’s non-black majority and twice that of indigenous groups. In neighbouring Colombia, which is home to 10.5 million Afro-descendientes­giving it the third largest black population in the hemisphere, after Brazil and the United States­only one in five blacks has access to electricity and running water (compared with 60 percent of the rest of the population), and the black infant mortality rate is more than three times the white level.

Now, however, black communities are organising and pressing for change. In Honduras, for example, locals of African descent, who are known as Garifunas, have staged protests in Tegucigalpa, the capital, against a proposed constitutional amendment that would permit foreigners to purchase property along the Atlantic coast, a region the Garifunas have called home since 1797. And in Ecuador, more than a hundred black housewives and working women joined forces in 2006 to seek more government assistance for housing to combat racial discrimination in the rental market.

The epicentre of the new black activism, meanwhile, is Colombia. That’s due as much to circumstance as design: more than a third of the 3.2 million Colombians uprooted by the country’s long-running civil war are of African ancestry, as are many of the ragged street vendors and beggars who approach motorists at busy Bogotá intersections. Foreign and local NGOs are now working hard to publicise their plight. Though a landmark 1993 law enshrined the right of Afro-Colombians to obtain formal title to their ancestral lands, including 5 million hectares along the Pacific coast­a unique experiment in ethnic self-government­implementation has lagged, as unscrupulous agribusinesses and paramilitary warlords have seized communal property with near impunity. But recently, as part of its ongoing effort to win US approval for a free-trade agreement, the government of President Alvaro Uribe has begun to expel these companies and restore 8,000 hectares of stolen land to Afro-Colombian community councils.

Throughout the region, individual blacks have also begun blazing new trails. Graciela Dixon became the first black woman to head Panama’s Supreme Court in 2005, and Luis Alberto Moore, a cop in Colombia, has reached the rank of general­a first for an Afro-descendiente. ‘I hope I will serve as an example for other black people in Colombia who will say, ‘If General Moore did [it], then so can I’,’ says the 48-year-old Bogotá native.

But many other Latin blacks remain reluctant to openly acknowledge their background, which makes it hard for their communities to increase their influence. In 2005, for example, when Colombians were asked for the first time to identify their ethnic background in a census, less than half the country’s blacks described themselves as such. Doris de la Hoz, a senior Afro-Colombian official in the Ministry of Culture, says that even this percentage represented progress, since more than 4 million people did acknowledge their heritage. But ‘there is still a strong separation of people by groups,’ she says, ‘and many black families try to convince their lighter-skinned children that they are white.

Yet such attitudes also seem to be shifting, albeit gradually. Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, 48, is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up in middle-class Caracas, where she was usually the only black in her classroom and, later on, her office. Over the years she’s endured her fair share of cruel jokes. Starting in her twenties, however, Laurent-Perrault, a biologist by training, began to develop a passionate interest in her culture and its links to Africa. She is now working on a Ph.D. at New York University analysing the topic in the context of Venezuela. ‘There is [now] more pride in being black,’ she says. ‘People are mobilising, and organisations have arisen in almost all of Latin America to expose inequality and demand that this must end.

Such organisations are drawing inspiration and financing from foreign, largely US, sources. In February, African-American journalist Lori Robinson launched a new website called vidaafrolatina.com that spotlights news, cultural events and commentary by and about Afro-Latinos. Leading members of the US Congressional Black Caucus, like Rep. Gregory Meeks, have taken a special interest in Afro-Colombians and dispatched staff to advise black Colombian legislators. USAID has funded a variety of social and economic development projects in predominantly black areas of western Colombia, and has provided money and technical assistance to an association of black mayors and groups working on behalf of internal refugees. The groundbreaking presidential bid of a certain young US senator hasn’t gone unnoticed in the region, either. ‘A triumph of Barack Obama would be extraordinary,’ gushes Ernesto Estupiñan, mayor of the predominantly black Ecuadorian city of Esmeraldas. ‘It would be a huge encouragement for all of us in terms of minority participation in politics.’ Indeed, if Obama does reach the White House, one of his familiar slogans could soon take root in the hearts and minds of his fellow Africano-Americanos south of the border: ‘¡Sí se puede!’ (‘Yes we can!’).

With Steven Ambrus in Bogotá, Maria Amparo Lasso in Mexico City and Phil Gunson in Caracas

* Joseph Contreras became Newsweek’s Latin America Regional Editor in July 2002, moving from his previous position as Miami bureau chief, where he’d been since August 1999, and has been based in Mexico City since June 2006.

http://illvox.org/2008/10/25/rise-of-the-latin-africans/

Cuba claims massive oil reserves

The state-owned Cuban oil company says the country may have more than 20bn barrels of oil in its offshore fields - more than double the previous estimate.

Cubapetroleo's exploration manager said drilling in the offshore wells would begin as early as the middle of 2009.

Such reserves would place Cuba among the top 20 oil producing nations.

Cubapetroleo's estimates are based on comparisons to known oil reserves found within similar geological structures off the coasts of the US and Mexico.

The company said Cuba had undersea geology "very similar" to that surrounding Mexico's giant Cantarell and Poza Rica oil fields in the Bay of Campeche.

'More data'

Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico was established in 1977, when it signed treaties with the US and Mexico.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently estimated that as much as 9bn barrels of oil and 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie within that zone, in the North Cuba Basin.

However, Cubapetroleo exploration manager Rafael Tenreyro Perez said his company's estimate was higher because it had better information about Cuba's offshore geology.

"I'm almost certain that if [USGS officials] ask for all the data we have, their estimate is going to grow considerably," he told a news conference in the capital, Havana.

If correct, Cuba's oil reserves would be almost the same as those of the US - 21bn barrels, according to the Oil & Gas Journal - and nearly twice the size of Mexico's - 11.7bn barrels.

It could generate unprecedented wealth for the Communist-run state.

Mr Tenreyro said he expected the first production well to be drilled before the middle of next year by a consortium led by the Spanish oil company, Repsol, and that more wells could be started before 2010.

Cuba currently produces 60,000 barrels of oil a day.

It depends on Venezuela for an additional 93,000 barrels a day, which it receives at preferential rates in exchange for the services of thousands of Cuban doctors working in Venezuela.

Chiapas Massacre Update

Posted by Kristin Bricker - October 9, 2008 at 12:34 am

State police summarily executed three peasants in front of a child

The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) issued a press release on denouncing the October 4 police operation in Chincultik that left six peasants dead, 17 wounded, and 36 detained. Of the wounded, ten were beaten and six were shot. Three men were gravely injured: one was transfered to a hospital in Mexico City, and the other to a hospital in the Chiapas capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

According to a communique from the state attorney general's office, about 40 police had entered the community to carry out subpoenas against 28 people whom it suspected were involved in the takeover of the Chincultik ruins and the booth at the entrance to the ruins where visitors are charged an entrance fee. The police entered on horseback, in vehicles, and on foot, shooting tear gas and kicking down doors in various houses.

The townspeople, who claim that the government does not properly maintain the ruins and that the tourism proceeds from the ruins should benefit the town, defended themselves from the attack. They surrounded the police and disarmed them, guarding the 77 police weapons in the town. The residents detained the police officers, holding them in the town office.

Hours later, 300 State Preventative Police officers entered the community, again shooting tear gas at the residents. The peasants responded with sticks and stones, at which point the police opened fire, injuring several residents.

Agustin Alfaro Alfaro, his wife Eloisa Margarita Espinoza Morales, and their young son arrived from a neighboring ranch to transport four of the injured men to the nearest hospital. However, before reaching the hospital the State Preventative Police intercepted their truck and opened fire. A bullet struck Alfaro in the leg. The police pulled him from the car and shot him in the chest. Then they summarily executed three of the injured men: Rigoberto López, Alfredo Hernández, and Miguel Antonio Martínez. Espinoza Morales and her son were uninjured.

During the operation, police also shot Ignacio Hernández López and Ricardo Ramírez Ramírez, who died on the way to the hospital.

The 36 peasants who were detained during the operation were released the following day in exchange for the weapons the peasants confiscated from the police they detained.

Frayba reports that state and federal authorities have decided to pay the dead peasants' families MX$35,000 (USD$2,851.31) in funeral costs and MX$75,000 (USD$6,109.95) in "economic support." They've also promised residents food rations, community development projects to build tourist hostels or restaurants. The residents are offended by the offer.

Meridiano90 released the following photo montage of the operation and its aftermath:

Bolivia: Defeat of the Right

In the amazing series of elections in South America in the last five years, the most radical results were in Bolivia, with the election of Evo Morales as President. It is not because Morales stood on the most radical platform. It was rather that, in this country in which the majority of the population are indigenous peoples, this was the very first time that an indigenous person was elected president of the republic. This in itself was a profound social revolution, and was not at all appreciated by the descendants of European immigrants who had always controlled the country.

The big question when Morales was elected was whether he could stay long in office, or whether the Bolivian right, perhaps in collusion with the armed forces, could oust him. He has now demonstrated that he can.

There were three major elements in his program. Bolivia's national income today is primarily drawn from its gas exports, essentially to Brazil and Argentina. The gas is located in the eastern provinces, the so-called Half Moon. And these areas are the ones in which there are the lowest percentages of indigenous peoples. The majority are Euro-descendants. Until Morales came to power, the prices at which the gas was sold were ridiculously low. And the income remained largely with the eastern provincial governments.

So, Morales sought to renegotiate the prices of the gas being exported. And he instituted a hydrocarbon tax so that much more of the income would come to the national government. Morales intended to use the money for social redistribution throughout the country, which would of course significantly benefit the indigenous populations.

In addition, the land in the eastern provinces is exceptionally mal-distributed. Two-thirds of the land are owned by one-sixth of 1% of the population. Morales wished to place a cap on the acreage any one person could own -- a form of major agrarian reform.

In foreign policy, Morales attempted to maintain reasonable relations with the United States. He continued to accept the money the U.S. had been giving for anti-narcotic operations, especially since this money went to the armed forces. He did, however, in addition, welcome Venezuelan aid and Cuban doctors. The U.S. government was clearly not happy with Morales and would have preferred to see the Bolivian right return to power.

The strategy of the Bolivian right was to demand more autonomy for the regional governments, ultimately hinting at secession -- a project they had never advocated as long as they controlled the central government. They demanded a recall election of Morales. The tactic badly backfired.

Morales accepted the challenge, adding to the recall election the question of whether the nine provincial prefects should also be recalled. In the elections Morales got a whopping 68% support, far greater than the votes he had originally received when he was elected. Seven prefects were returned but two anti-Morales governors were ousted, which has allowed Morales to name successors.

The right in the eastern provinces then sought to block exports of gas. They hoped thereby to induce the Brazilian and Argentine governments to put pressure on Morales. Supporters of Morales then began to demonstrate. The governor of Pando province, Leopoldo Fernández responded with repression. Over 30 demonstrators were killed in the capital city, El Porvenir. Morales arrested the governor and named a navy admiral as the new prefect.

At this point, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile convened an emergency meeting of the organization of the 12 South American states, UNASUR, to consider the situation. All twelve presidents came to Santiago for the meeting, and unanimously adopted a resolution of "full and complete support for the constitutional government of Evo Morales," denouncing any possible coup d'état. The significance of this resolution was that it was unanimous, being signed even by the deeply pro-American president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe. The resolution was then endorsed by the Grupo Río, composed of 22 countries from all of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico.

UNASUR called for dialogue. Morales called for dialogue himself, even before the UNASUR resolution. The right is stymied. Its last hope was some U.S. intervention. But Bolivia has now expelled the U.S. ambassador, Philip Goldberg, for "conspiring against democracy," that is, with the Bolivian right. The United States is now withdrawing its small aid projects in Bolivia. Russia has offered to enter the breach. The United States is becoming more and more irrelevant in Latin America.

If one asks why even Uribe supported the resolution, it is because no president wants to see the new tactic of secession receiving support. The United States is trying this also in Ecuador, where it has backfired equally, with the great victory of President Rafael Correa's referendum on the constitution.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wallerstein031008.html