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good for small countries). El Salvador was considering it. Then Honduras--which had become a member of ALBA, on President Mel Zelaya's initiative--got decapitated with U.S. (Obama/Clinton) help, and the body parts of its democracy thrown into a mass grave, along with the heads and body parts of hundreds of trade unionists, teachers, human rights workers, anti-coup protest leaders and other people inconvenient to the new fascist regime, murdered by rightwing death squads.
So Funes quickly withdrew El Salvador's application to join ALBA--foregoing some significant advantages (including cheap oil in barter trades with Venezuela). El Salvador is a tiny country right on the Honduran border. Honduras is the U.S. fascists' traditional footstool for mustering death squads into neighboring countries. Though Funes is head of the party that once fought a guerrilla was against the bloodthirsty fascists in El Salvador, he is too young to have fought in that war, and I suppose he has to be pragmatic and realistic, or thinks he does. Democracy is not well-established in Central America yet, and may never be, because it is part of the U.S. "circle the wagons" region--with the Pentagon prowling the waters and establishing military bases wherever it can get a boot in, and U.S. "free trade for the rich" already shoved down peoples' throats, with CAFTA et al.
I'm actually surprised, though, that Funes went for a U.S. presidential visit (if he had a choice). It might well stir things up. El Salvadoran leftists are well aware of the U.S. bludgeoning of Honduras. How is he going to prevent big protests?
Lots of remittances issues and immigrations re U.S/El Salvador. As president, Funes is responsible for keeping things cool for El Salvadorans working in the U.S. He can't really change the fact that El Salvador is a U.S. client state--at least not in the foreseeable future. So he's got to be pleasant, at least. But I don't think ANY Latin American leader these days--and I mean even the most rightwing leaders (Funes is a leftist) would exactly welcome being associated with the U.S. or not feel resentment, if not fuming anger, at U.S. interference and bullying.
Chile is no surprise. Rightwing billionaire president. Obama will feel quite comfortable. That's who he hobnobs with, and NOT with U.S. workers, the vast U.S. poor majority, the downtrodden middle class or leftists.
And Brazil, of course, will be fascinating. They just elected a serious leftist, Lula da Silva's former chief of staff and his hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff. She was given hardly a chance at the beginning and whomped the rightwing candidate. Da Silva was persecuted and imprisoned by the prior, U.S.-supported fascist shit-heads who ran Brazil--he was a union leader--but Rousseff was TORTURED by them. Really tortured. It's a wonder she survived. She was a leftist guerrilla.
Further, Lula da Silva defied U.S. dictates, time and again--most especially on his close friendship and alliance with Hugo Chavez--the foundation of the South American political/economic integration movement (moving towards a common market and EU-type structure), and recently on Honduras--and also on Wall Street's dictates. I don't know that much about Rousseff, but I would guess that she will be consistent with da Silva policy on protecting Latin American sovereignty and independence, promoting social justice and resisting U.S. domination and bullying.
The U.S. is on a "divide and conquer" warpath in Latin America. Its multinational corporate/war profiteer rulers (our real rulers) probably can't afford another oil war--although I think it's quite plain that they have been contemplating one in Latin America (main targets, Venezuela and Ecuador), and that the Pentagon has one on its Big Board. Obama, or his imperial entourage, will likely be looking for issues/methods with which to stick a knife into Brazil's relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and/other leftist allies (for instance, Bolivia and Paraguay), but mainly Venezuela, which has the biggest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's, according to the USGS). Our U.S. rulers want control of that oil, and if they can't get it by war, they want to get it some other way and the key to that will be preventing Chavez from getting re-elected in 2012. They are pouring millions of U.S. tax dollars into rightwing groups in Venezuela, to that end, and are likely working hard on regional divisive tactics that might harm Venezuela's economy or put Chavez is a bad light.
The U.S. is also likely looking to Brazil for oil. And two events stand out in that regard. One is that, after Chavez renegotiated the oil contracts in Venezuela, to Venezuela's benefit, especially to the benefit of its social programs (education, health care, etc.), Lula da Silva--who met monthly with Chavez to discuss mutual goals and projects--applied Venezuela-like conditions on development of Brazil's new oil find--majority state control, use of a good percentage of the profits for social programs. Secondly, when the Bush Junta reconstituted the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean (mothballed since WW II), Lula said that it was "a threat to Brazil's oil" (everybody knew it was a threat to Venezuela's), and proposed a "common defense" to be developed within the context of UNASUR.
There is no scenario by which the U.S. could easily take Brazil's oil (or think they could). So, for one thing, Lula may have said this, about the threat to Brazil's oil, as a warning to the U.S./Bush Junta that Brazil would side with Venezuela, if it came to a war. But mainly it means that the U.S. and Brazil are on more of an equal footing than they have ever been. U.S. corporations will not be dictating terms for access to Brazil's oil or any other resource. Lula is not Chavez, however. For instance, he made a biofuels deal with the Bush Junta that environmental groups and campesinos were appalled at. He is an old-style liberal developer--genuine liberal, former steelworker with passionate commitment to sharing the wealth (both regionally and within Brazil--as Chavez is--they share this "raise all boats" policy). But he--and presumably Rousseff--are more capitalist than socialist (the reverse of Chavez)--and more open to U.S. corporate deals.
In Lula's last speech as president, recently, he said that "U.S. policy has not changed" (from the Bush Junta). Obama came into office saying that his policy in Latin America would be "peace, respect and cooperation." Then Obama/Clinton colluded on the rightwing coup d'etat in Honduras--infuriating Lula who fought that horror every way he could. So he has called them out. And it will be interesting to see what goes down between his successor, Rousseff and Obama, and their diplomatic teams, as harbinger of the future. It is possible--not likely, but possible--that Obama/Clinton have taken a realistic look at the situation, concluded that the U.S. simply cannot get its way in Latin America--or in some countries--as it has in the past, and must rein in those militaristic and bullying tendencies. On the other hand, they've got the bloody-minded Miami mafia contingent in the Scumbag Congress already calling for war on Venezuela, Ecuador and others. But if they revert to the bullying mode, Brazil might just kiss them off.
I'm just trying to scope out what to look for, in these presidential visits. These are just some of the issues, in broad outline. The U.S. "war on drugs" will likely be a big one as well. (There is rather a big movement in Latin America to end it--but it's the U.S. war profiteers' backup gravy train.)
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