Highways open new South American trade routes

[Judi Lynn]

Highways open new South American trade routes
Wednesday, 26 January 2011 01:53
By Terry Wade

New highways stretching across South America from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans will consolidate Brazil’s role as the continent’s leader and give it an alternative export outlet to Asia. The roads won’t redraw global trade patterns the way the Panama Canal did, but their impact could be considerable.

Peru says the highways — which will eventually provide direct links to five ports on its Pacific coast — will help it become a strategic trade route between two of the world’s largest emerging markets: Brazil and China. The first of three transcontinental routes that will run through Peru is about to open, and environmentalists are already warning of more deforestation in the Amazon basin.

The road is 3,379 miles long (5,438km) -- nearly 1,000 miles longer than the drive from Los Angeles to New York. Another one, which links Brazil to Bolivia and Chile, opened in late 2010. The infrastructure projects are a concrete example of “south-south” investment, in which traditional markets in the developed world are bypassed, reflecting a broader shift in the global economy.

“Brazil was always geared toward the Atlantic because it never had an efficient way to get to the Pacific and have a link with Asian countries. It had to use the Panama Canal or the Strait of Magellan,” said Juan Carlos Zevallos, president of Peru’s transport regulator, Ositran. “Now there is an alternative.”

More:
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/business-views/140352-highways-open-new-south-american-trade-routes.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. People need to understand that this project is the result of LEFTIST policy that began with Chavez

and Venezuela--the pioneers of regional independence and integration--spread to Brazil with the close friendship and alliance between Hugo Chavez and Lula da Silva, and has now spread throughout the region, as the benefits of Chavez/da Silva policies become evident to everyone, including independence from the U.S. and its multinational corporate/war profiteer rulers.

The benefits include regional cooperation on banking and finance (evicting the U.S.-dominated IMF/World Bank and its ruinous policies from the region, and establishing a regional bank--the Bank of the South--as Venezuela did), the benefits of south-south trade (without U.S. profiteers in the middle, raking off all the profit and enslaving local workers), the benefits of barter trade (which Venezuela pioneered with Argentina and Cuba), the benefits of having each other's backs, rather than being at each other's throats (the notion of "raising all boats"--pioneered by Venezuela, with Brazil joining in; the notion of resisting "divide and conquer" by the U.S.), and the benefits of the common goal of social justice and democracy coordinated among Latin American countries, and many, many other benefits, that all started in Venezuela with the Bolivarian Revolution and the Venezuelans' successful defeat of the U.S.-supported coup d'etat in 2002.

The benefits of the Bolivarian Revolution continue with Venezuela's on-going generation of new ideas, policies and projects--such as the ALBA trade group-- that are good for Venezuela and that "RAISE ALL BOATS"--whether those of the poor within Venezuela, or those of other smaller or weaker countries, like Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. And now the region has joined them--with Lula da Silva's visionary decision being probably the most important one.

It could be argued that Nestor Kirchner's famous reply, when the Bush Junta issued their dictate that Latin American leaders must "isolate Chavez"--Kirchner replied, 'But he's my brother!"--was the seminal moment in the leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America, with cooperation and having each other's backs as the key to economic/political integration. Or one could point to the Argentina/Venezuela swap of beef for oil, or Venezuela helping to bail Argentina out of ruinous IMF/World bank debt.

But it was Lula da Silva's recognition of the importance and rightness of Venezuela's policies--and his bringing the gigantic Brazilian economy into the fray, on the side of independence and cooperation--rather than the cut-throat rivalry that typifies predatory capitalism--that was decisive as to the direction that Latin America would go. That is the foundation of the Pacific to Atlantic highway and many other projects and policies.

The U.S. and its corporate/war profiteer rulers are still trying to cling, by tooth and claw, to their "circle the wagons" area--Central America/the Caribbean--anchored by their blood-drenched client state, Colombia, on its south rim and angling to add Venezuela's oil to that part of the "circle" (as well as drenching Mexico in blood to retain the northern rim on the U.S. border), but that is the past. Latin America as the U.S. "backyard" is OVER. The future is Latin American independence.

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Some other key points and questions related to the Pacific-Atlantic highway:

BOLIVIA

Extending the highway into Bolivia, and giving land-locked Bolivia access to the Pacific, were critically important policies of the LEFTIST leaders of Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina, back in 2008, when the Bush Junta funded and organized the white separatist insurrection in Bolivia in an effort to overthrow Bolivia's leftist government.

The white separatists wanted to split up Bolivia and take Bolivia's big gas reserves (Bolivia's major resource) with them. Evo Morales, who had just been elected president of Bolivia with more than 60% of the vote--Bolivia's first Indigenous president--threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of the Bolivia for their collusion with the white separatists. Chile's leftist president at the time, Michele Batchelet, first head of the new all-South America EU-prototype organization, UNASUR--which had just been formalized--called an emergency meeting and got a unanimous decision to support Morales, help stop the violence and hold Bolivia together.

Brazil and Argentina--Bolivia's chief gas customers--made it very clear that they would not trade with a separatist government. The insurrection was put down. And THEN, a) Batchelet settled a 100 year old dispute with Bolivia and gave Bolivia access to the sea, and b) Brazil, Venezuela and others put up the funds to send an extension of the new Pacific-Atlantic highway through Bolivia, giving Bolivia (which also has the biggest lithium deposit in the world--a rare component of electronics) an important position in south-south trade. (Also, Venezuela helped Bolivia re-negotiate its gas contracts, which doubled Bolivia's gas revenues and provided funds for social programs.)

"Raising all boats.' Organized resistance to typical, bloody-handed U.S. interference. Economic cooperation.

The rightwing billionaire, who recently defeated Batchelet's successor in Chile, immediately started to undermine the sea access deal with Bolivia, by scuttling the provision that Bolivia's tiny bit of land on the Pacific would be sovereign Bolivian territory. Peru (U.S. "free for the rich" client state) also began making trouble about it. If Chile/Pinera's move holds up, Bolivia's port facility and sea trade will be overseen by Chilean officials (and likely spied upon by the Pentagon as well).


THE MEANING OF THE EVENTS IN BOLIVIA IN THE BIGGER PICTURE

Trouble, vicious rivalry, predatory capitalism, thy name is the Rightwing. Peace, cooperation, a mixed capitalist/socialist economy with non-predatory trade/finance, are the characteristics of the Leftwing, which represents the interests of the majority.

In understanding elections in Latin America, we have to understand that the U.S. is pouring multi-millions of dollars into rightwing groups all over the region, currently and of course under the Bush Junta--through agencies like the USAID--and in addition Latin America has even worse corpo-fascist 'news' media than we do. So, when leftists win in Latin America--which they have been doing a lot, lately--they're winning against hugely stacked odds and their victories are actually much bigger than the numbers represent. They have overcome U.S. multi-millions (our tax dollars), the money and power of the local rich elites, U.S. and rightwing dirty tricks and other bullshit, and relentless corporate media propaganda against the Left.

The only advantages of the Left are relatively honest vote counting in many Latin American countries (which we have lost here), sheer numbers (the poor are the overwhelming majority) and good (in some cases, awesome) grass roots organization. I mention this because I think Pinera probably did win, in Chile--although I am not sure (about their vote counting system) and Batchelet left office (termed out) with an 80% approval rating (!), so how did her successor lose? If Pinera actually did win, while yet Brazil was almost simultaneously electing Lula da Silva's successor, Dilma Rousseff--a former leftist guerrilla who was tortured by the former fascist (and U.S.-supported) dictatorship--what does this portend for the future of South American peace, cooperation and social justice, and for LEFTIST-created prosperity projects like the Pacific-Atlantic highway?

The rightwing, in some instances in Latin America, has proved more savvy than our own rightwing. For instance, Paraguay's rightwing rescinded Paraguay's non-extradition law (which allowed fascist dictators to abide there) and immunity for U.S. soldiers in Paraguay, BEFORE Paraguay elected its first leftist president. Their reason? Paraguay is surrounded by countries with leftist governments, and they wanted in on the trade advantages that leftist leaders were creating. They wanted to be part of "raising all boats." (Paraguay is very poor.) Soon, Lula da Silva was pressuring Paraguay's Brazilian hydroelectric customers to re-negotiate their contracts, which were very unfair to Paraguay.

This kind of rightwing pragmatism might bode well for the general prosperity and independence of the region. It is certainly not universal, though. And, in some ways, Latin America today reminds me of the original British colonies in North America at the time of our revolution. Although united by culture and language, they were extremely fractious, onery, self-seeking and half of them were slave states. How they ever achieved unity on anything--let alone the break with England and establishment of a country--is one of the great puzzles of American history. Simon Bolivar was inspired by it, and wanted to create "the United States of South America." That dream has been reborn--famously in Venezuela but also throughout the region. And like Great Britain and its trade monopolists, back in the 18th century, the U.S. government--a wholly owned subsidiary of its multinational corporations and war profiteers, and, sadly, imitating its one-time oppressor--is INTENT on "divide and conquer." And it has much more power, wealth, military force and proximity than Great Britain did, with which to destroy unity in Latin America.

Latin American integration will not likely result in one government--not even to the extent of the EU. They are more wary of overly centralized power--given the U.S. and E.U. examples--and their nationalism and devotion to national sovereignty are much more developed than they were in the British-American colonies. Also, the strongest Leftists are devoted to de-centralized power and grass roots democracy (one of the excruciating ironies of the corpo-fascist media's lies about "Chavez, the dictator"). But they will and they are pioneering structures of political/economic integration, which are greatly aiding the fight against poverty and the goal of general prosperity.

I think Pinera and some of his compadres--for instance, Alan Garcia and the rightwing in Peru--will choose pragmatism. There is some evidence that Garcia and his corrupt crowd have done so. There is evidence that the Colorado Party in Paraguay--even worse than Garcia--did so. And there is even evidence that Colombia's new regime--THE most brutal and fascist in Latin America ($7 BILLION in U.S. military funding)--has recognized the advantage of peaceful trade with Leftist countries (notably Venezuela). The U.S. has its talons in Colombia for the very purpose of "dividing and conquering" the south--its purpose in Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru and other places as well, but Colombians have suffered the most from it. Trade and the unity movement might eventually restore peace within Colombia and help establish democracy there. (it is a bloody sham, at present.)

Venezuela was just designated THE most equal country in Latin America, on income distribution, by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. The Chavez government has cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70%. Colombia, on the other hand, has one of the worst rich/poor discrepancies in the western hemisphere. The Left creates prosperity and spreads the wealth. The Right creates more riches for the rich and vast poverty for everybody else. Can major projects like this Pacific-Atlantic highway--and similar initiatives (such as the newly proposed railroad between Venezuela and Colombia, or the new Bolivia sea port on Chile's coast, or the new Orinoco Bridge between Brazil and Venezuela, etc.) help pull the region together and foster democracy, social justice and prosperity for all, or will the U.S. and local rightwing forces stoke up greed and divisiveness to sabotage the goals of these projects?


THE LEFTWING GIVETH AND THE RIGHTWING LOOTETH

That's how it's been. The "New Deal" re-created a prosperous U.S. and the Bushwhacks and collusive Democrats have allowed it to be thoroughly looted and deconstructed by the rich and by multinational corporations and war profiteers. The Chavez government and Lula's government, and others--Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and the other leftist governments--create prosperity, and then the Right, still controlling vast wealth and the media, and having U.S. support as well, re-group, are trained by the USAID how to lie like our politicians do, and take it all over, for another round of looting and impoverishment of the majority.

Will the "moderate rightwing"--such as Pinera and Garcia--pave the way for a fascist, Bushwhack-type rightwing? Will the far rightwing--which dominates the right in Venezuela and Bolivia, for instance--learn to disguise themselves as "moderate rightwing" and thus take over the oil revenues that Chavez worked so hard to greatly increase and direct into social programs, or the gas revenues that Morales doubled for Bolivia and also devoted to social programs? Will the far right regain ascendancy, not the quick way, by war, torture and murder, but the slow way, by gradually destroying democracy, as they have done here?

This is my worry. Short of a second U.S. oil war, this time in South America--which the Pentagon has on its Big Board but which the U.S. might not be able to afford--will the ideals of "raising all boats," sharing the wealth and real democracy, and their foundation in political/economic integration, hold up, over the long term, as the U.S. and its rightwing allies in Latin America start taking advantage of them? There are some edgy--hard to decipher--little hints that this might be a rightwing/U.S. plan (Pinera's victory in Chile; the Chavistas' losses in the recent by-elections in Venezuela--but there are counter-indications, such as the big leftist victory in Brazil).

And my other worry is the environment. Despite strong environmental movements within the Left and influencing Leftist governments, there is no question that the development necessary to eliminating poverty in Latin America has components that could degrade and destroy, not just the regional environment, but also the entire planetary environment. Democracy and empowerment of the Left seem to be the only way to avoid this. Some progress has been made--typically with the governments that are furthest to the Left--but not nearly enough. And there are already reports that the new Pacific-Atlantic highway has been tearing up the Amazon rainforest and is paving the way for further ravages.

An excruciatingly painful dilemma.

[Bacchus39]

2. these projects were planned well before Chavez

and neither of the new highways involves a segment in Venezuela.

Although, I can't say I am surprised that you tied two transcontinental highways that have been decades in the works and are unrelated to Venezuela whatsoever as a success by Chavez.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The first contracts were won in 2004. Construction began in 2005.

http://enr.construction.com/news/transportation/archives/070705a.asp
http://bulktransporter.com/news/Peru/

Peru-Brazil to build transcontinental highway 8/5/2005 (my emphasis)
http://en.mercopress.com/2005/08/05/peru-brazil-to-build-transcontinental-highway

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The controlling organization was founded in the year 2000 under the auspices of UNASUR...

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The Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA) is a development plan to link South America's economies through new transportation, energy, and telecommunications projects.

IIRSA investments are expected to integrate highway networks, river ways, hydroelectric dams and telecommunications links throughout the continent—particularly in remote, isolated regions—to allow greater trade and create a South American community of nations.

The initiative was launched in late 2000 with the participation of the 12 countries of South America which form the Union of South American Nations. It is being supported by the Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the River Plate Basin Financial Development Fund (Fonplata). Together the three institutions form the Technical Coordination Committee (CCT) which provides technical and financial support for IIRSA activities.<1>

(MORE)
(my emphasis)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative_for_the_Integration_of_the_Regional_Infrastructure_of_South_America

------

The Bolivian section was negotiated in 2007. This 2007 article mentions the Bolivia-Chile dispute (sea access for Bolivia) which Batchelet settled soon after the U.S.-supported white separatist insurrection in Bolivia was put down, in late 2008, and was part of a general effort to help Bolivia live long and prosper.

http://politicom.moldova.org/news/south-american-nations-propose-new-highway-81590-eng.html

-------------------------------

Chavez was initially elected in 1998, prior to the vote on the new Constitution, was the first of the new leftist leadership of Latin America to be elected, and, after the Venezuelan people repelled the U.S.-supported rightwing coup, his government became the pioneer for Latin American independence from the U.S., for the protection of Latin American sovereignty and for social justice, as well as for cooperative regional economic and infrastructure projects to those ends. His close friendship and alliance with the later-elected Lula da Silva (Brazil-2002) and Nestor Kirchner (Argentina-2003) was the foundation for the new cooperative spirit in Latin America and insured the eventual formalization of UNASUR (in 2008) as well as numerous initiatives toward political/economic integration.

Your denial of Chavez's influence, and of the importance of these friendships, is ridiculous. Why do you think he's demonized in the U.S.? He started it all--or rather he and his government and the people of Venezuela did. NO ONE has been more of an advocate of solidarity among Latin American countries than Venezuela, since Chavez was elected. NO ONE has been more influential in promoting the "raise all boats" philosophy.

And it's interesting that Alan Garcia (rightwing/"free trade") objected to, and tried to hold up, the Peru-Brazil highway, in 2005, just before he was elected president of Peru (in a very close election with leftist Ollanta Humala). One wonders what the corrupt Garcia was after.
http://en.mercopress.com/2005/08/05/peru-brazil-to-build-transcontinental-highway

[Bacchus39]

4. your attribution of the highways to Chavismo is what is ridiculous

they have nothing to do with him.

[Peace Patriot]

5. You were wrong that it took "decades." It took half a decade...

from conception by UNASUR in 2000 to the signing of the first contracts in 2005. And who dominated that period in Latin America--the first to actually implement policies of economic/political integration, south-south trade, multi-lateral rather than U.S.-dominated trade, and independence from the U.S. and its rapacious corporations, banksters and war profiteers? Who took the first hit for this effort at independence? Who survived that hit, to the wonder of all, and established five years of sizzling economic growth, most of it in the private sector (not including oil), on the basis of independent economic/political policies?

Who bailed Argentina out of ruinous IMF/World Bank debt? Who drove the IMF/World bank out of the region? Who started the Bank of the South? Who attracted the friendship and alliance with Lula da Silva for mutual pursuit of the Bolivarian goal of an economically/politically integrated South America, based on cooperation and social justice? 



Chavez was the first on all of these issues, and has been a key influence toward Latin American independence all along the way. The Brazil-Peru-Bolivia transcontinental highway, linking the oceans, means independence from the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal! That is the main reason that it is being built. Whose name is practically equivalent to "independence" in Latin America? 


I have put this particular project in context. That is what our corporate media never does. We MUST understand this, if we are to understand Latin America today, and if we are to grasp the import of items like this: Lula da Silva stating, about Chavez, that, "They can invent all sorts of things to criticize Chavez but not on democracy!", or his statement that the Bush Junta's reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean "is a threat to Brazil's oil."

On the first, Lula was not just talking about Venezuelan democracy. He was talking about their mutual project of "raising all boats"--empowering the poor majority, so abject and disempowered for so long, throughout the region. On the second, he was not just talking about Brazil--he was talking about solidarity with Venezuela and the far more serious threat that the U.S. poses to Venezuela's oil and to its democracy. And when he said, in his final speech as president, that "U.S. policy in Latin America has not changed" (under Obama), Lula was speaking for all of them. That is WHY they are building this highway--to overcome, by their own initiative, U.S. bullying, domination and interference. 



Chavez has taught them this--or rather, Chavez, his government and the people of Venezuela have taught them this--in their perseverance in their goals of independence and social justice, despite every obstacle, tripwire and plot that the U.S. has mounted against them. Chavez is the leader of the independence movement, which these other leaders joined, as they were elected. And Chavez was never speaking or acting alone. He was speaking and acting for millions of people--in Venezuela and in these other countries, who long to be free of U.S. domination, to utilize their own resources to improve their societies, to end poverty, to establish FAIR trade--not "free trade for the rich"--to be free of our loan sharks and "austerity" dictates, to make their own decisions, to elect the leaders they really want rather than those who toady to Washington, to protect themselves from yet more bloody U.S.-supported dictatorships as in the not very distant past, and to pursue policies of every kind that benefit them--the majority--and not the super-rich here or their own bloody-handed rich elites. 



Chavez's constituency is the same kind of constituency that elected Lula in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Lugo in Paraguay, Ortega in Nicaragua and others, and that exists throughout Latin America--the poor majority. Chavez was the first to be elected and the first to ask "WHY do these conditions persist?" and to start providing answers--the first of which is continual interference and bullying by the U.S. and its corporate rulers--and he was the first to start fighting back with innovative policies and programs.

This is an historic and vast change of the political landscape. It has vast implications for us here in the U.S. And if it were going the other way--if leftists were losing election after election, or were being toppled like dominoes in coup after coup, and some fascist like Alvaro Uribe were leading the continent back into the dreadful "dirty wars"--I would say the same thing: It has vast implications for us here in the U.S. UNDERSTANDING is my goal. I am leftist and a humanitarian, so I applaud most of what has happened in Latin America over the last decade. And though I am an environmentalist, I can't help but applaud their highway, because I know why they are building it. It should be called Independence Highway.

But if something else was happening, I would want to understand that as well. You can't make policy, or, as a citizen, form opinions, without understanding THE CONTEXT--the overall political and social context, the historical context, the context of particular leaders and how they relate to each other, and current political and social movements--peoples real needs and desires. It is this context that connects one thing to another. 



For instance, there is a very obvious connection between the Chavez government's earliest policies and the formalization of UNASUR, and UNASUR was how the highway project was started and is its planning and implementation body. This doesn't mean that the idea was not being kicked around before. Probably it was. But how did it get galvanized? What prompted these countries to undertake such an enormous and expensive project, and what kept them at it until the contracts were signed and work began? It is the notion that South America can be independent of the U.S.--that prosperity lay in that direction.

Though Latin America won independence from Spain and Portugal, the U.S. almost immediately replaced their colonizers as the new domineering exploiter and tyrant. Who changed that--very dramatically, in August 2002, and thereafter with policy after policy aimed at independence and at solidarity with other Latin American countries ? Chavez and the people of Venezuela!

The new highway that doesn't touch their soil, nor benefit them directly, but that will open up south-south trade and provide vital independence and economic benefit to others, is a product of the Venezuelan revolution. It is a perfect example of "raising all boats"--what helps others will help us, too--and of the cooperative regional projects that the Chavez government has fostered from the beginning.

[Bacchus39]

6. the roads have been planned for decades

Brazil financed most of it. the governments in Peru Bolivia and Brazil financed and constructed it. the highways have nothing to do with Chavez. why doesn't Venezuela upgrade its own roadway system?? here just read this.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/01/25/en_eco_esp_ninety-percent-of-ve_25A5036651.shtml

[Bacchus39]

7. Ninety percent of Venezuelan roads in terrible conditions

http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/01/25/en_eco_esp_ninety-percent-of-ve_25A5036651.shtml


Ninety percent of Venezuelan roads in terrible conditions
Lack of asphalt, lighting and insecurity claim life of drivers

Roadside faults and detached asphaltic layer are business as usual on the road to eastern Anzoátegui state (Handout photo: Enzo Betancourt)

Country
Venezuelans interested in traveling soon to the moon under the aegis of Virgin Galactic Co. do not need to pay USD 200,000 for boarding. If they are eager to live the experience first hand, just can take some of the country's roads.

Craters, defective roadsides, poor lighting, deficient asphalt and insecurity, in addition to spilled contaminated water resulting from squatting, form part of the moon landscape on national freeways.

Based on a technical survey of the Venezuelan Engineers' Association (CIV), 70 percent of roads are in terrible conditions after the heavy rainfalls recorded in late 2010. Today, 90 percent of roads are seriously damaged, thus restricting traffic and causing casualties.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Francisco Garcés lately claimed that the heavy rains had spoiled existing roads. CIV President Enzo Betancourt thinks otherwise. In his view, the rains just completed the damage.

"Ninety percent of roads are impassable for lack of investment and maintenance. Not a single freeway provides safety and comfort to drivers 24 hours a day," Betancourt lamented.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I'm going to believe El (non) Universal, or Venezuela's Engineering Association which

tried to overthrow the government with an oil bosses' lockout and other sabotage?

I don't trust either one, for very good reason. And I have no reason to distrust Venezuela's Minister of Transportation and Communications, who makes the very reasonable point that Venezuela has been hit with catastrophic rains and floods.

I find it excruciatingly ironic that the rightwing and their corporate backers, who deny Global Warming and the weather extremes that it is causing, then turn around and blame LEFTIST governments when the country is hit by catastrophic drought--as in last year's hydroelectric crisis in Venezuela--and then get hit this year by catastrophic floods, knocking out entire communities and all their infrastructure. It's all Chavez's fault! This is Mad Tea Party thinking. It is upside down, inside out, backwards "Alice in Wonderland" thinking. Oust the leftist government, the only one capable of addressing crises (i.e., Katrina) and put the corporate looters and those who intend to "drown government in the bathtub" back in charge. Yeah, they'll fix it. Ye gods!

In any case, the creaky parts of Venezuela's infrastructure are the legacy of the "neo-liberals" and fascists who ruled Venezuela in the past, and FAILED to invest the oil profits in roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, community centers, low cost housing, education, health care, well thought out land reform, food security and local manufacturing. They raked off the top of the oil profits, giving the rest of it to Exxon Mobil & brethren, and bought imported food and luxury items--even importing the machine parts for the oil industry, rather than creating local jobs! Their malfeasance and indecency, in giving away most of the oil profits and failing to develop their own country, makes them one of the most irresponsible ruling elites I have ever studied.

While they carved out the better part of Caracas for themselves, and bought their Gucci bags and their Jaguars, millions of Venezuelan children had no shoes to wear to school, suffered malnutrition, and had no hopes and no prospects. Millions were jobless, stuck in chronic poverty. Small farmers, who could feed their families and communities, were driven, by the millions, into urban squalor, by rich landowners often sitting on thousands of acres of unused farm land. And now, just like the Mad Tea Party here, that fronts for the rich elite, all these Venezuelan loudmouths, who front for the rich elite there --the ones who FAILED to develop Venezuela--do noting but carp at a government that has dramatically CHANGED this imbalance, that fought for a better share of the oil profits for Venezuela, and that is actually investing the oil profits in Venezuela and Venezuelans. This rich elite has NO IDEAS except to bring down the Chavez government and get themselves re-installed by the U.S., for another round of looting and neglect.

THEY are going to fix it? THEY are going to build roads? THEY are going to build a country?

Give me a break.

[Bacchus39]

10. Chavez is responsible for the roads in Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil

seems like he should be able to fix the problem in his own country don't you think?

[ChangoLoa]

12. Remember we owe him Dudamel.

And that he invented hot water!

[ChangoLoa]

11. New Record: The Venezuelan Engineers' Association tried to overthrow Chavez?!

:rofl:

Unbelievable.
Do you even know what it is?

Wow.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Wonderful comments, with links. Far more than enough to prompt anyone to start researching

in order to get the real picture of what has been actually happening in Latin America/

So little real information actually makes it through the wreckage of corporate news disinformation.

You are a teacher at heart, and you know how badly people have been misled. I think you know a great many people trust you implicitly, trust your character, and your judgement.

Thanks for taking the time to answer so very well.