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Where were you when Argentina needed oil, Venezuela needed beef, and they traded?
Where were you when several countries' economies were being destroyed by the World Bank/IMF and Venezuela helped bail them out (seed of the Bank of the South), driving those U.S./European loan sharks out of the region?
Where were you when Hugo Chavez began meeting monthly with Lula da Silva to foster regional integration as well as bilateral projects?
Where were you at the opening of the new Orinoco Bridge between Venezuela and Brazil?
Where were you when BOTH Venezuela and Brazil opened trade relations with Iran and invited Iran's president to visit their countries--in what was clearly a coordinated economic/political strategy to de-isolate Iran and help foil U.S. war plans?
Where were you when Lula da Silva demanded the same conditions for exploitation of Brazil's new oil find, as Chavez had demanded in Venezuela--majority state control of the project, and a substantial percentage of the profits to be used for bootstrapping the poor?
Where were you when Honduras needed oil--among other things, to lower the price of bus tickets for poor workers--and Venezuela provided it, in the context of the ALBA trade group that Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and others had formed, which has the express purpose of economic integration among member countries, mostly in the Central American/Caribbean region, in opposition to U.S. "free trade for the rich"?
Where were you when Venezuela traded oil for doctors with Cuba?
Where were you when UNASUR was formalized, with the express purpose of South American economic/political integration?
Where were you when its first president, Michelle Batchelet of Chile, activated UNASUR, in its first months of existence, to back up the Morales government in Bolivia, in the face of a U.S.-funded/supported, violent, white separatist insurrection?
Where were you when Bolivia's chief gas customers, Argentina and Brazil, in concert with UNASUR, made it very clear to the white separatists in Bolivia that Argentina and Brazil would not trade with a separatist government, most especially as to the gas resource that the white separatists were trying to steal from their countrymen and the Morales government?
Where were you when Batchelet acted to settle a 100-year dispute with Bolivia, over Bolivia's access to the sea?
Where were you when Venezuela's Chavez government provided negotiation experts to help Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, re-negotiate Bolivia's gas contracts, resulting in DOUBLING of Bolivia's gas revenues, with the profits to be used to bootstrap the poor? (--expertise that the Chavez government gained from dealing with Exxon Mobil in Venezuela.)
Where were you when Brazil, Venezuela and other countries pledged the money to build a new highway across South America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through Bolivia--which will make Bolivia a major trading hub for the Global South?
Where were you when Brazil's Lula da Silva pressured Brazilian hydroelectric companies to agree to re-negotiate Paraguay's hydroelectric contracts, which were unfair to Paraguay and its very poor majority?
Where were you when Mercosur was created--a trade integration group, pre-dating UNASUR, which requires political actions by member governments to unify their political/legal systems, such as, a) No member country may grant diplomatic immunity to foreign (i.e., U.S.) troops, and b) No member country may deny official extradition requests (no more immunity for escaped rightwing dictators in Paraguay). Paraguay had to change its laws in order to join Mercosur for trade purposes--an excellent example of what economic/political integration means.
There are numerous other examples of the growth of economic and political integration in Latin America. It is a very powerful movement that is aimed at an EU-type structure and common market, and even--as proposed by Brazil--a common defense. Numerous economic projects, financial deals, mutual aid, political actions and meetings are preceding it. UNASUR will likely be the vehicle in South America. It has a rotating president (heads of state) and headquarters in La Paz, Bolivia. All South American countries have membership, even Colombia. UNASUR was the meeting place for discussions of the secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement, that so many of Latin America's leaders objected to. UNASUR was the meeting place for emergency measures taken to support the Morales government in Bolivia, and again to support Rafael Correa's government in Ecuador, during the recent coup attempt. UNASUR is South America's "common ground," in lieu of the failed OAS (failed largely because it serves mostly U.S. interests).
The Central American/Caribbean region is not as unified on this goal as South America, because the U.S. has been more successful at inflicting "free trade for the rich" and U.S. militarization ("free trade for the rich" enforcement) on the Central American/Caribbean region, and the success of the ALBA trade group clearly terrified U.S. multinationals and war profiteers, resulting in the rightwing coup d'etat in Honduras, which then exited ALBA, and in U.S. military maneuvers in Costa Rica. U.S. multinationals and war profiteers don't want fair trade, a level playing field or real democracy in their subject countries. They want slaves. But the desire is there, in most Latin American countries, to be free to U.S. exploitation and bullying, and the only way to do that is to pull together, to create trade groups, to have each other's backs politically and eventually to form a common market that excludes the U.S. (if the U.S. continues its exploitation and bullying).
This is a movement whose time has come. It was first envisioned by Simon Bolivar in his dream of a "United States of South America." Latin America is approaching it in fits and starts, but they are, finally, aiming for it seriously. It is the only answer for them. The U.S. has made each of them into chattels, with "divide and conquer" and with brutal dictatorships. They must pull together. They know this. Chavez has been the leader of this movement from the beginning. He and his government were the innovators and the courageous thinkers, at first all alone in the hemisphere. But leaders like Chavez and da Silva also have an almost preternatural understanding that it cannot be a rivalry--it cannot operate on the principles of savage capitalism. It cannot mean that one Latin American country prospers at the expense of another. It must be cooperative. And it must include "raising all boats"--bigger, richer countries helping smaller, poorer ones.
This is why Chavez has gone way out on a limb, on several occasions, to make peace with Colombia, despite its status as a militarized U.S. client state. He offered Uribe a new Venezuela-Colombia railroad and many other joint projects. Uribe, too much in the Bush Junta's grip, turned viper. Now Chavez has re-opened trade with Colombia, with its new leadership, to the benefit of both countries. Latin Americans need to pull together. United, they are a powerhouse. Divided, they are slaves.
How you can be blind to all this, I don't know. "What economic integration?" you ask. Do you have eyes? Can't you read? But, of course, this is the very thing that corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies want to keep their readers from understanding. You have to pay attention, read between the lines, seek out alternative news sources and dig for this information. They won't hand it to you on a silver platter. They won't hand it to you at all. They will do their best to blind you to it. This is the chief reason why they hate Chavez so much--because he started the integration movement and is its most advanced advocate--a movement that can give Latin America collective clout visa vis its U.S. and European corporate and financial ravagers. Simon Bolivar's dream--and oh, boy, they don't want this to happen! They will do almost anything to stop a prosperous, integrated, independent, democratic Latin America, including outright war.
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