Venezuela's Chavez blames Bush for Bolivia crisis

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5865294&cKey=1118616616000

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed President Bush on Sunday for Bolivia's crisis and said Bush's "poisoned medicine" of free-market democracy was being rejected by Latin America.

The left-wing Venezuelan leader said the protests that shook the Andean nation this week were triggered by popular opposition to capitalist free-trade policies advocated by Bush.

Chavez condemned as "poisoned medicine" a speech given by Bush to the Organization of American States last week in which he recommended a mix of representative democracy, integration of world markets and individual freedoms.

"That is what is killing the peoples of Latin America. ... This is the path of destabilization, of violence, of war between brothers," Chavez said, speaking on his "Hello President" weekly television and radio show.

[getmeouttahere]

1. Tell it like it is, President Chavez!

www.handsoffvenezuela.org

we may not be able to save the U.S. from BushCo, but we can try to help the world avoid their social and economic terrorism.

[FloridaPat]

2. How come so many S. Amer countries now have good leaders while we

have the really bad one? He's probably right too.

[Fridays Child]

5. The spread of true democracy across South America has been...

...been a long time coming. And our own downward spiral into a fascist dictatorship at the same time, is oddly ironic.

[mom cat]

8. Notice how much of Latin America's progress has come while the US is

bogged down in Iraq. While the cat is away.......

[Say_What]

9. Because

Bush is a uniter not a divider. ;-)

[malaise]

3. We know n/t

[Joey Liberal]

4. Even South America hates Bush

Has there ever been a more hated President than the Boy King Bush?

[Say_What]

11. 'Even South America'

Huh?? Understandably, LatAm has never had much love for Tio Sam and a look at the history of the US in LatAm would give you a clue why.
http://zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=3375&SectionID=20

Meanwhile, here's something entertaining that might give you some insight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<clips>

DECLINE OF THE BANANA EMPIRE?

We sure did, Mr. President. How could we have “misunderestimated” your regime’s ability to drive your country two Worlds back to the Third—not just a Third World country, but a full blown Banana Empire. As U.S. imperial reach is extended, the country is ruled by corporations through an unelected executive who continues to gut civil liberties in the name of national security with the complicity of a servile media and a one-party system disguised as two—not to mention economic and environmental degradation. Welcome to Third World politics kiddies!

Let’s begin with the rigged election of 2000. The son of a former President, “Bush the Lesser” (thank you, Arundhati Roy), had his brother Jeb swinging votes in Florida. The blatant politicking and nepotism of that sham was an electoral fiasco that probably even made Mexico’s PRI blush. When the Cuban government offers to send election monitors to Florida, something momentous has occurred.

With the worst still to come, Bush the Lesser assumed power and appointed a recycled cabinet that, for the purposes of this mental exercise, we’ll call a junta. I’ve always been amazed at the way some Latin American dictators—Bolivia’s Hugo Banzer Suárez or Guatemala’s Efraín Ríos Montt, among others—maintained political legitimacy after a well-documented reign of terror. Bush’s neocon cabal, including such Iran-Contra scandal veterans as John Negroponte and Elliott Abrams, seems to have done the same. Abrams helped support some of the most repressive regimes in Latin America and helped conceal their abuses, mostly in countries dominated by the U.S. fruit industry—the so-called Banana Republics. The irony of Abrams’ appointment and title was probably lost on Bush when the one-time Contra supporter was given the post of Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations in 2001.

Then came September 11, sadly an event that is now used to justify the Wars du Jour. As in the Latin American dirty wars of recent decades, national security is now used to rally the population behind illegal and inhumane detentions of citizens and non-citizens alike. As far as we know, today’s “detainees” could be suffering the same torture endured by the desaparecidos of the South.

http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2288

[Up2Late]

6. US behind Bolivia crisis - Chavez (BBC News)

(I love this Quote, "We say no Mr Bush, no sir...I'm sorry for you," he said. "The people of Latin America are saying 'no' to you, Mr Danger, they are saying no to your medicine.)

Monday, 13 June, 2005, 02:51 GMT 03:51 UK

US behind Bolivia crisis - Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has blamed Washington's brand of capitalism for the recent troubles in Bolivia.

Speaking on his weekly TV programme, he said US open market policies in Latin America had led to "exclusion, misery and destabilisation". He called President George W Bush's proposal for a regional free trade agreement a "medicine of death".

Bolivia was brought to a virtual standstill by protesters calling for economic and constitutional reforms. "Look at Bolivia. Fortunately the Bolivians opened the door toward a peaceful path, but they were on the very of a civil war," said Mr Chavez.

'No, Mr Bush'

Mr Chavez, an outspoken critic of Mr Bush's foreign policy, was responding to suggestions by some US officials that he was influencing the Bolivian protesters. During his seven-hour broadcast, he said Latin American countries were moving towards socialist economic models instead of US-style capitalism.

He said Mr Bush's idea for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone, mooted last week at a meeting of the Organisation of American States in Florida, would lead to more poverty and protests in the region. "We say no Mr Bush, no sir...I'm sorry for you," he said. "The people of Latin America are saying 'no' to you, Mr Danger, they are saying no to your medicine. "Capitalism is the road to destabilisation, violence and war between brothers."

(more at link above)

[ngGale]

7. Go Chavez...

tell it like it really is.

[jazzjunkysue]

10. Freedom is on the limp! < insert sound of dead body hitting floor >