Obama's not-so-new Latin America policy

[IndianaGreen]

Obama's not-so-new Latin America policy

Sarah Hines writes from Bolivia on the gap between Barack Obama's rhetoric about a more cooperative Latin American policy and the reality of continued U.S. domination.

July 22, 2009

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama declared at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in April that there would no longer be junior and senior partners in the Americas--but his actions are sending a different message.

The most egregious case is Honduras, where the U.S. has played ball with the coup-makers who overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya earlier this month. The Obama administration also failed to speak out against last month's Peruvian police massacre of more than 50 indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon who were protesting the incursion of petroleum transnational corporations into their territory.

In Bolivia, too, Obama failed another important test. On June 30, the Obama administration rejected renewal of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) for Bolivia, citing the country's alleged failure to cooperate in drug eradication efforts.

With this pronouncement, the administration ratified George W. Bush's decision last November to suspend the trade agreement with Bolivia on the basis of supposed non-cooperation in counter-narcotics operations. In reality, the suspension was one of a series of tit-for-tat moves that began when Bolivian President Evo Morales declared U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg persona non grata after he advised opposition politicians plotting a coup last September.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/22/obamas-latin-america-policy