The United States and Bolivia: A New Beginning?

[Judi Lynn]

Posted February 25, 2009 | 06:17 PM (EST)
The United States and Bolivia: A New Beginning?

With the Obama administration's policy towards Venezuela pretty much decided, and the embargo on Cuba considered untouchable because no one is willing to risk losing support among Cuban Americans in the swing state of Florida, that leaves Bolivia as a left government in the region where the hostility of the Bush administration could be quickly reversed.

However there are a number of outstanding issues between the two countries. The United States and Bolivia currently do not have ambassadors. Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador on September 10, on the grounds that he (and Washington) were intervening in Bolivia's internal affairs. Among other offenses, the U.S. embassy was caught trying to use Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar for spying; U.S. ambassador Phillip Goldberg had met privately with opposition leaders at a time when elements of the opposition were engaged in destabilizing violence; and the U.S. seemed to lend tacit support to the Bolivian opposition by not condemning this violence or even offering condolences when dozens of government supporters were massacred in Pando on September 11.

The Bush administration responded to the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador by expelling Bolivian ambassador Gustavo Guzmán. But there are also other important issues for Bolivia. On September 26, the Bush administration suspended Bolivia's trade preferences under the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act). The official reason was that Bolivia had not been co-operating sufficiently in the war on drugs. But according to the UN's 2008 report, Bolivia's coca cultivation had increased by just 5%, compared to a 27% increase in Colombia, the biggest beneficiary of U.S aid in the region.

The Bolivians are eager to begin a new chapter of improved relations with Washington. To demonstrate this willingness, the Bolivian government refrained from filing a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States for the suspension of its trade preferences. Their legal case is quite solid; under WTO rules, countries are allowed to establish rules for preferential access to their markets, but the rules must be applied equally to all countries receiving the preferences. But before filing a complaint at the WTO, Bolivia wanted to see if the new administration is interested in improving relations.

Then there is another holdover from the Bush administration: Bolivia's new constitution declares that health care (along with water and other necessities) is a human right and cannot be privatized. In keeping with their constitutional law, Bolivia asked the WTO for permission to withdraw the previous government's commitment to open up its hospitals and health care sector to foreign corporations. According to the WTO's procedural rules, if there are no objections to such a request within 45 days, it is approved. The European Union, home to some of the big health care corporations that might have an interest in the issue, responded that it had no objections. On January 5, the last day of the waiting period, the Bush administration objected.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/the-united-states-and-bol_b_170006.html

[Bacchus39]

1. Bolivia is no longer receiving preferential trade status

there is no requirement to give another country preferential trade status.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Your view seems so limited, Bacchus. And what is your point?

There is trade status.

There are trade rules.

There is aid of various kinds.

There is the U.S. "war on drugs."

There are the new Constitutional protections for human rights to water and health care.

There are the CIA destabilization activities.

There is the issue of traditional coca leaf use.

There is the matter of the extreme poverty in Bolivia.

There is the historic election of the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country), with the Bushwhacks doing everything in their power to prevent it, and to make things difficult for Morales.

There is the issue of property rights--from the point of view of landowners and from the point of view of the indigenous, whose lands were stolen.

There are many, many issues of importance in U.S./Bolivia relations, and the Bushwhacks' arbitrary removal of Bolivia's preferential trade status, in violation of WTO rules, makes them all much more difficult for the Obama adminstration to address.

Why are you defending this stupid, punitive Bushwhack action?

[Bacchus39]

3. I see contradictory views on trade here all the time

usually its free trade is bad. so perhaps you can clarify, are free trade and/or preferential trade agreements good or bad??

[Peace Patriot]

7. I think it depends on the country and its people, and on the status of democracy

in the country (is the government making trade deals with adequate input from the people, and in the interests of the people?). I have nothing against trade. I think a colorful marketplace, full of interesting, novel goods, as well as necessities, may be written in human DNA. We love variety. We love to trade things. Monsanto's monopoly and its draconian practices are something else again--neither free, nor trade. Bludgeon power. Genghis Khan riding his hordes of warriors through the village market, disrupting lives and trade. I support "fair trade" not "free trade." The latter is associated with monstrous, bullying, international corporate powers that kill trade. Exxon Mobil, Chiquita, Bechtel, et al. They have no interest in trade. They seek a monopoly on power.

That said, I think Bolivia has a very fine democracy, indeed, and there is adequate public input on government trade decisions. Bolivia had existing trade arrangements that its government deemed beneficial. The Bushwhacks were merely being punitive when it suspended them. They were pissed off that their funding/organization of the fascist coup didn't work, and that Morales and UNASUR took action to defeat it. What the Bushwhacks were seeking was monopoly control of Bolivia's gas/oil reserves. They wanted to set up a separate, fascist mini-state, with a government that they would control, and gain hegemony over Bolivia's resources and its gas/oil customers, Brazil and Argentina. When that scheme was defeated, they took punitive action against Bolivia.

The Bushwhacks are anti-democratic. They wanted to oust Morales--the democratically elected president, who enjoys a 70% approval rating. Is that proper U.S. policy--to suspend trade arrangements that have already been agreed to, because our government doesn't like the leftist (majorityist) politics of the target government? That is totally improper and wrong. If we are going to have some kind of international "rule of law," we have to respect agreements that are democratically arrived at. You might say that those agreements with Bolivia were not democratically arrived at, from our point of view, since the Bush junta stole two elections, but that is another matter. I frankly consider every action that the Bushwhacks took during their eight year junta to be illegitimate and illegal. But that's our problem. I don't think Bolivia should be punished for it.

The WTO is not a very democratic institution, because of the bully power of the U.S. and other "first world" countries and our monstrous multinational corporations. I have personally protested it. But I've also been glad to see Brazil lead a block of "third world" countries in asserting principles of fairness in global trade rules, and achieve some success. And if a "third world" country, with a good democracy and adequate input from its people, makes agreements that they think are beneficial, within that organization or any other, they should be respected. Bolivia in fact has a good case against the U.S. on this arbitrary action, as to U.S. violation of WTO rules. Wouldn't it be nice to see a "little country" get some justice in the WTO? But probably Bolivia won't do that, because their government wants to restore the trade arrangements peaceably. That has been a characteristic of the Morales government--peacefulness. It sought peaceful means to defend itself against the Bushwhack secession plot--and succeeded. Now that we have a legitimate government here, perhaps fairness and justice can be achieved without contentious legal action.

[Bacchus39]

8. well, I don't believe trade is necessarily bad either provided that

it is a benefit to the US workforce. and if trade agreements result in a benefit to the other trading country more the better. Fair trade is fine too. My understanding it usually involves collections of smaller businesses pooling together to sell their products.

on the other hand, outsourcing jobs and negative benefits of trade have to be weighed with any positive gains. so trade agreements are certainly open to review, modification, and/or suspension.

I note the Bolivia case in comparison to the recent opposition to the inclusion of Costa Rica in the CAFTA or an agreement with Colombia. there seems to be general opposition to those efforts, while the suspension of trade benefits to Bolivia is condemned. See any contradiciton?

however, I still don't see the strong case that Bolivia has. I know of no requirement for the US to implement or maintain a trade preference or agreement with another country. if you can supply more evidence for Bolivia's "good case" then by all means do so.

[Peace Patriot]

4. I hope to God Weisbrot is wrong on Obama policy on Venezuela and Cuba!

"With the Obama administration's policy towards Venezuela pretty much decided, and the embargo on Cuba considered untouchable because no one is willing to risk losing support among Cuban Americans in the swing state of Florida..." --Weisbrot

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

I don't know where he's getting that Obama's policy on Venezuela is "decided." I have seen no sign of that--just the opposite, in fact. I've seen a wildly see-sawing ambivalence. One day, they're dissing Chavez just like Bushwhacks; the next day they're praising Venezuela's democratic process. They are veering around, from high-minded and objective, to gutter propaganda that could be coming out of the mouths of the anti-Castro mafia in Miami.

Decided? When? On what evidence? Weisbrot is a well-informed writer, so he may certainly know a lot more than I do about what's going on within the Obama administration on Venezuela. I just hope he's wrong, and maybe was feeling depressed, because he'd talked to someone in the Obama adminstration on one of their "off" days on Venezuela.

It made me sick to my stomach to read that it's all "decided." Why? Because I think it's a very, very, VERY big--and potentially fatal--mistake, on Obama's part, to keep up this insane, Bushwhack hostility to the people of Venezuela and their freely chosen president.

I strongly suspect that the "old guard" CIA, which is now starting to take over from the Bushwhack-CIA, has A LOT of filthy Bushwhack dirt to clean up, and bodies to bury, in South America. And I realize that Chavez may have the goods on them. He has certainly brilliantly out-maneuvered them, at every turn. And the Venezuelan military's raid on the Stanford bank in Caracas, back in late October, may be just the "tip of the iceberg" of what Chavez knows. So I can see why the Obama team is afraid. They seem very into covering up Bushwhack crimes. Why, I don't know for sure. Could be they have designs upon Venezuela's oil themselves. It's just too early to tell. But IF what Weisbrot says is true--that it's all "decided" (a policy of hostility)--that would lend weight to the possibility that the Bushwhack war plan is not dead.

One other little tidbit: I just read a Panetta comment that Venezuela, Ecuador and Argentina (three of the four main Bushwhack targets in South America) are "unstable" and this is worrisome (he said.) (Sorry, don't have the url handy.) But, you see, this is bullshit. Venezuela, for instance, is flush with international cash reserves, as a cushion against our Financial 9/11--due to good management by the Chavez government--while the United States of America is totally bankrupt--kaput, all the money's gone. We're driving on vapors. Venezuela is in excellent shape, compared to us. And they help their neighbors. So why is Panetta saying this? I can only answer: It's wishful thinking on his part, perhaps based on a Bushwhack-CIA scenario, which possibly included the run on the CIA's Stanford bank. The Chavez government caught it, before it went too far. Was Panetta hoping that it would have the desired cascade effect? This certainly bodes ill for Obama policy (--if Obama and CIA policy are one and the same).

The other way that hostility is a mistake--and possibly a fatal mistake--is that "divide and conquer" is not going to work any more, in South America. That day is over. That is an old, tired, outmoded, failed policy. They cannot divide Bolivia from Venezuela, or Venezuela from Brazil, or whatever the hostility policy would portend (short of war). The alliances among most of the South American leaders are solid. And if Obama makes this mistake--of trying to "divide and conquer," South America is going to go its own way, into its own independent, democratic, social justice-oriented, and very likely prosperous future, and kiss the U.S.A. goodbye. And that would be a tragedy, from our point of view. It would probably be a boon to South America (in the way that Chavez's independence has been a boon to Venezuelans, who now get a 60/40 split of their oil profits, as opposed to the prior 10/90 split, favoring multinational corporations). We would be the losers. We would, for one thing, lose the South Americans' example, as to clean, transparent elections, and their example of socializing human rights, and their example, as in Ecuador, of reverence for Mother Earth ("Pachamama," in the indigenous), and their example, as in Bolivia, of a SANE drug policy, and their example of how to deal with the multinationals. These excellent lessons for us all would get less currency here; would have less of a chance of being heard--if a permanent rift develops between the northern and southern regions of the hemisphere.

And if this happens, South America will likely take the whole of Latin America with them. We can go ahead and finish the Bushwhacks' wall on the Mexican border--like the one in Israel, like the Berlin Wall--and build it up high, and put barbed wire on the top, and machine gun turrets, and surveillance cameras, and seal our people in, and these new leftist trends out, and move from the decline to the fall of our "Roman Empire." Or we could go kill a million campesinos for their oil, and try to "circle the wagons" in the Caribbean/Central America, and ignite the continent with the horrors of another resource war. That is where the policy of hostility to Venezuela is going. And that is what I mean by fatal mistake.

[Judi Lynn]

5. I found the article you may have seen:

CIA chief Leon Panetta says Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela face instability because of economy

Associated Press | Feb 25, 09 3:06 PM CST in Politics

CIA Director Leon Panetta says Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela are in dire economic straits and could be destabilized by the worldwide economic crisis.

Panetta told reporters Wednesday that the spy agency has to pay attention to the impact of the recession around the world.

In his first on-the-record meeting with the news media, Panetta said the CIA has to know how the economy is affecting the international policies of China, Russia and other countries.

The new CIA chief says that the spy agency has issued its first daily Economic Intelligence Briefing on overseas economic and political matters for the Obama administration.

http://www.newser.com/article/d96ir5q02/cia-chief-leon-panetta-says-argentina-ecuador-venezuela-face-instability-because-of-economy.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sounds entirely like the foundation someone would construct from which to launch a whole series of destabilization efforts, under the appearance of "economic crisis" reaction.

You remember how Nixon did it to Pinochet, when he told Helms, who made a record of it for posterity, it was his intention to "make the economy scream," and then DID IT before wrecking Allende's Presidency, the entire Chilean economy, and sliding Pinochet into place so he could get busy and slaughter so much of the opposition, create so much fear, there finally was no dissent whatsoever.

[Judi Lynn]

6. New follow-up story on the Leon Penetta comment:

February 26, 2009 - 3:01 p.m.
Argentina summons US ambassador to talk about CIA

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina's foreign minister says President Cristina Fernandez has summoned the U.S. to discuss the CIA director's comments about how the world economic crisis could destabilize some Latin American governments.

Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said Thursday that the president wants to talk to Ambassador Earl Anthony "and we will demand explanations."

On Wednesday, CIA Director Leon Panetta listed Argentina, Venezuela and Ecuador as countries in dire economic straits that could be destabilized by the worldwide economic crisis.

Taiana called Panetta's comments "regrettable."

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Latin_America_And_Caribbean/LT_Argentina_US_CIA.html