Honduras Joins ALBA

Honduras has recently joined ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América). An interesting development, as Honduras is probably the biggest mess in Central America, which is saying a lot given their neighbours. The biggest pull seems to be the fact that the IMF severely restricted foreign loans to the country and the increase of oil prices, which has caused significant inflation. This is coupled with the failure of the CAFTA-US (Central American Free Trade Agreement) to deliver because of the recession in the US economy.

ALBA provides for these three areas - the political alliance with Venezuela brings in lower interest loans and oil is traded to other ALBA members in return for services and products instead of currency, allowing countries with poor access to US dollars (or other trade-able currencies) to trade what they do have (and what Venezuela does want - food and services).

It will be interesting to see how developed this trade network can become. In Honduras, as the article talks about, it has to overcome a very corrupt political system and a very poorly developed political, social and economic infrastructure. Unlike in Bolivia, where ALBA has also come with political reforms of the Morales government, in Honduras the President is part of one of the two traditional parties and therefore is not accompaning wider political reforms... reforms that both Nicaragua (under the Sandanistas in the 80s) and Cuba have undergone in the past. Honduras' problems will be an interesting challenge to the future of ALBA. But if FMLN wins the election in El Salvador, there will be 3 Central American countries part of ALBA, directly challenging US economic hegemony in the region and hopefully encourage regional friendships. Guatemala, the largest country and economy in the region, would also be increasingly interested in ALBA and has a government that is at least partially interested in presenting a centre-left image.

These kinds of 'real' gains made by Latin American leftist governments go underreported in comparison to all the challenges they have faced by the rightwing and the fascist opposition. They however are clearer steps of progress for Chavez and his goal of creating interregional relationships outside of the sphere of US influence. The biggest threat the US now holds over these countries is restricting their largest source of foreign capital - remittances from undocumented workers.

HONDURAS: Joining ALBA ‘A Step Towards the Centre-Left,’ Says President

By Thelma Mejía

TEGUCIGALPA, Aug 26 (IPS) — Honduras has joined the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), amid criticism from the business community and right-wing political sectors.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who took office in 2006, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez signed the membership document Monday in the presence of Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage.

Chávez initially promoted ALBA, which now has six members — Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela — to counteract the U.S.- led plan to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which has now collapsed.

ALBA was launched at the People’s Summit held in parallel to the official meeting of heads of state at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 2005, as an alternative to the "neoliberal" (free market) model, embodying cooperation, solidarity and complementarity and committed to fighting poverty, inequality and unequal terms of trade, according to its founding document.

Chávez highlighted Zelaya’s "courage, because in spite of the demonisation of ALBA, he has not hesitated to join a Latin American integration project based on the thinking and spirit of our foremost heroes."

"Today we are signing not only a fraternal pact of solidarity, but also an integration project for Latin America that stands out as an alternative to imperial hegemony and integrates progressive governments that are proposing a way out of oppressive imperialism," Chávez said.
...

Honduras’ entry into ALBA is "an act of freedom, because we are a free and sovereign people," Zelaya said. "This is a heroic act of independence and we need no one’s permission to sign this commitment. Today we are taking a step towards becoming a government of the centre-left, and if anyone dislikes this, well just remove the word ‘centre’ and keep the second one."
...

http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=13046

Alternet has an interesting interview with Raj Patel, who has recently written Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. His website: http://www.rajpatel.org/ .

What makes the interview really interesting is that he is attacking the underlying capitalist structure of the current food crisis - in particular the neoliberal idea that "individual rational choice" in a "free" market will save the day, and that while we have "free choice" now, we don't have enough and the problem to overcome is that we need more. Which is complete bullshit. Sorta unrelated, but I heard an interview with Jack Layton on CBCR1 yesterday morning concerning curbing carbon emissions and the interviewer kept pressing Jack as to why the NDP focuses on "big" emitters and not on the consumer with carbon taxes and such things - Jack should have just let loose on this, instead he tried to dance around saying that some of the costs will trickle down, that big producers make up 50% by themselves, and that poor people can't afford to make the changes. It was a valiant attempt, and a horrible interview because the interviewer tried to keep making it sound like the "consumer" was the problem and we just have to find the "market" solution to making them more environmental consumers... passing the collective problem onto the shoulders of the individual. This has the consequence of making the individual feel guilty, helpless, and ultimately powerless in the face of an economic system. Yes they can effect some "changes" but not the major ones that bring around the systematic changes needed. Here is the relevant quote from the interview with Raj Patel:

OR: Can you talk about how the individualizing of obesity and health problems is problematic?

RP: The first edition of the Atkins diet had a long tirade against the sugar industry. Atkins was saying that we're being poisoned by the sugar industry -- they're putting sugar in everything. But then Atkins makes the turn that is very common in America: It's a problem of the industry, it's an economic problem, it's a political problem, and the solution has to be individual. The solution is not to confront the sugar industry, not to legislate, not to use government to change that, but to exercise an almost Puritan control over the will as a way of getting out of a situation that has everything to do with politics.

That's why the diet industry is so very big. It is a particularly American solution to the problems of obesity. Why is it that 20 percent of fast food meals now are eaten in cars? This is a figure that you get from Michael Pollan's work. He bemoans the fact. But when I explain to people outside America that 20 percent of fast food meals are eaten in cars, they are blown away. It's inconceivable to them. They wonder whether it's because Americans like their cars so much.

Here, we understand that this isn't some preference for the dashboard; it's because Americans work much harder than any other industrialized country to be able to have healthcare, to have the promise of a pension. In particular if you're from a working family, your income has been dropping in real time since the 1980s. Chances are you live far away from where you work because you can't afford to buy land or buy a house there. So you spend a long time commuting, and if you're in a community where people are of a lower income, you'll find less access to fresh fruits and vegetables, less access to green space. Is it any wonder that so many meals are eaten in cars? Is it any wonder that across the industrialized world, we're seeing levels of obesity in communities of poorer people going up so fast?

All of the reasons I've given for why people are forced to eat bad food have nothing to do with choice. Choice is almost entirely absent from any of these calculations. Yes, you can choose between Burger King or McDonald's, but you don't get to choose to have time to have a healthy meal. You don't get to choose to have time to sit down with your family and cook a decent meal, to really enjoy food, savor it, and connect with it. What we're left with is this poor simulacrum of choice -- constrained between two options that are equally bad for you. Individualizing this is a case of blaming the victim. When we say that it is your fault because you're choosing McDonalds rather than the Whole Food's salad, that's bullocks because people couldn't choose the Whole Food's salad. The choice is Coke or Pepsi, Burger King or McDonalds, either because people don't have the time or the money.

OR: I think that's such an important critique. To read your book is to see the infrastructure behind what Pollan proposes: to spend more time to have meals together, to grow more of our own food. I think it's critical for people who are middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy, who are trying to be conscientious eaters, to understand why they have the choices they have and why these may not be as readily available to others.

RP: The message that is so much harder to explain to Americans is that politics is necessary. People do need to get their hands dirty by getting involved in social change. There is a particularly American fantasy that we can together create a better world by shopping. It's absolutely a case of thinking we can go to Whole Foods, choose the right thing, shop here, pay for this and all of a sudden we will lift the righteous above the impure.

The rest of the interview is interesting and has some good quotes as well (this section just fit with where I wanted to take this): http://www.alternet.org/environment/85395/

The same problem Jack Layton had in explaining the problem with targeting the "consumer" is driving a lot of food and health problems in the developed economies. We think that there is "rational choice" at work, and that if we just adjust the parameters of the "rational choice" of the consumer the market will respond and we will be saved. This meme is so pervasive that it is passed off as common sense, but there are serious problems with this thinking.

First, the idea that we all can be equally rational consumers. Patel demonstrates this point clearly: the rich can be more "rational" because of their purchasing power. This is because decisions are not "free", they cost money - we don't have "free choice" we have a what is "affordable choice". As Patel points out, rural and urban poor alike within the US simply cannot afford to make the "rational choice" of eating healthy by buying nutricious vegetables, meats, and dairies and preparing their own food. Instead their "rational choice" mechanism is constrained to what is fastest and cheapest as the social-economic constraints prevent a free choice. Wealthier people, who can afford to have leisure time and buy what have been marked as "high value" food items and as a consequence are able to eat more healthy. The inequality of wealth and exploitation for profit under this system makes the irrational, a more unhealthy population, a "rational choice".

That point leads me to the second inconsistency - competitions of "rational choice" between the consumer and (primarily) the vendor (and depending on the product the producer and the middleperson) because of unequal power dynamics. The "rational choice" of the vendor is to maximize profit, this is not socially rational in terms of food as it leads to a competition with the consumer. Instead of being socially rational and provide healthy food alternatives at a price that allows equal access, an economy that makes healthy food and healthy living an activity of the wealthy to increase the profit margins, while providing processed "by-product" consumption (calories from chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and high fructose syrup) for the poor the affordable option. Patel makes the point that poor rural producers of "high value crops" cannot afford the products they produce, which is an insane inconsistency. This has been a problem plaguing developing countries for years - there is the old import-substitution-industrialization problem of selling bananas for machinary, but what about even just buying back those bananas (not to mention the local food production that those bananas displaced). It is simply more profitable for a company to sell "high value" crops to the wealthy than make sure everyone has equal access and a fair "rational choice" as to what they eat. The interests of corporate profit are set against the rational interest of the consumer - so that the ability to make a free choice is manipulated by an interest in "profit" and not what is socially rational.

This is at the core the biggest problem with the current food crisis. We do not have a "supply and demand" problem - there is a more than adequate food supply for the global demand at present. There may be loaming problems with the supply following peak oil, but at current production levels there should not be food riots anywhere on this planet because of hunger, simply put. So if "rational economics" made any social and ethical rational sense, then the market price of a basic and healthy quality of food would be affordable for everyone. But it is not, the problem is not the individual consumer making more "free choice" under the language of the current model - since that "free choice" is actually constructed to be dis-empowering.

The inequality of power between consumers and between the consumer and the vendor/middle-companies makes an economic situation that is not "rational" by any sort of criteria beyond the profit for a small group of people. The idea of making the economy respond to consumer's "rational choice" better by reducing collective action against the elites, as the interviewer suggested to Jack Layton in terms of the collective carbon problem simply advances the social and ethical inconsistencies of this economic model. Ultimately, as we see both with global warming and the rising food prices, the economic system of "rational choice" capitalism leaves people, contrary to the western capitalist idea of "free choice", dis-empowered and furthers the social, economic and political inequality that makes this economic model so devastating to our planet and people's lives.

Body of War

Body of War is a documentary that has been floating around in distribution limbo since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last Septemeber. It was made by well known TV personality and anti-war activist Bill Donahue and Ellen Spiro. Given it's relative obscurity (oddly...), despite passionate reviews from TIFF and a people's choice award, it is hard to get a chance to see this film that follows the day-to-day life of paralyzed Iraq war veteran Thomas Young. But every glimpse I have seen of this film has been a deeply moving and highly profound impact on my state of being. Thomas' life has been completely changed by the war on Iraq, a war that was launched on lies and by a US congress too concerned about reelection to care about what it was signing onto. But he has taken the difficulties, problems, and pain in life and bravely and honouarbly pushed his life to be an activist against a war that was/is/will always be illegal.

For those of us above the 49th, we have to remember that war is always worthy of debate, we must always be second guessing our political leadership that pushes us to war, and constantly evaluating our reasons and motivations for putting our citizens into a dangerous situation. Any person who says a debate on the war endangers the lives of soldiers is a liar, a charlatan, and someone who does not "support the troops" because if we do not have this debate for as long as we are at war we allow liars and manipulative warmongers to rule. And who knows what they would do with the lives of our soldiers? Just look at what they have done with the life of Thomas Young and remember the names of the politicians who rather than debate the Iraq War mouthed the lies of President Bush.

PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, the most authentic reporting I can find on American television, recently spotlighted the important documentary Body of War and interviewed Donahue and Spiro.

From the interview:

PHIL DONAHUE: The saddest — the scene in our movie that I have — I still can't get through. It, you know, makes me-- well up to talk about it. Tomas goes to an antiwar demonstration in Washington. And at the end of the demonstration he's wheeled up to a rope behind which are Gold Star Families, people who have lost loved ones in the war. They're holding their pictures up. And they're touching Tomas. It's a vicarious way to touch their loved one who didn't come home. And Tomas is available to them. He lets them. He gets it. I was so impressed with his empathy and you know, I mean, not every 20-something male is gonna get this, and he did. And it's another example of what is admirable about this young man.

Please watch it in two parts, available online here: Bill Moyers: Body of War interview.

Website for Body of War is here.

Thomas Young also talks about the songs that help him get through his day on the journal.

My own recommendation: check out The Consumer Goods if you like your poprock charged with politics:
their myspace page
there cbcradio3 page

Final comment on the Colombia-Ecuador incident

Fearing that I have put an early emphasis on this one issue, hopefully I will write on something else soon, but I wanted to just get in this last word taken from a comment I made over at Latin American News Review.

The attack on FARC was for international consumption as much as it was for Colombian - Uribe's support within Colombia is (rightly or wrongly) fairly strong and killing a FARC leader was not necessary to maintain a tough on FARC image.

There are two contexts that are significantly more important: first the hostage releases and second how international law views the conflict within Colombia. Both of these issues are indeed connected back to Chavez since he has both declared the FARC to be a belligerent rather than "terrorist" group as well as being instrumental in getting hostages released most recently.

The hostage issue was a huge embarrassment for Uribe and had it continued it had the potential to undermine his strong hand tactics and present an alternative path towards peace. Internationally Colombia was facing a lot of pressure to pursue this path, one which Uribe does not want to take because of his commitment to a heavily militarized society and government (rightly or wrongly - another discussion to have).

More importantly, and where the US comes in, is how international law is interpreted. The US has a vision of the world that it can strike anywhere that it wants because it has labeled a group a "terrorist". Colombia was testing this vision of the world out, whether or not the US told or encouraged them to do it does not matter specifically to this point since if successful it would have reinforced the US version of international law. This was a huge failure for Uribe, and it turns out it doesn't matter that the FARC is a "terrorist" group, the region would not tolerate the attack on another country's sovereignty for any reason.

It made Colombia look like a militant state to other countries in the region. Since internally Uribe' popularity couldn't improve much, it may have been a neutral result. Internationally, with the potential interruption of fairly popular hostage releases and the disregard of international laws concerning sovereignty Uribe lost a lot of respect. He was smart enough to back down, and I'll give him credit there.

I do not know enough about Chavez's internal problems and have a hard enough time trying to read through the very strong anti-Chavez bias that permeates the global North's media to comment about the other points. But regionally - if any thing - Chavez's position was validated by his regional neighbours and his ally Correa earned a lot of regional prominence (and I suspect respect), hardly a loss to the "Bolivarian Alternative". And as trade resumes, Colombia realizes that it depends on Venezuela's oil money to buy its legal products, and it may not be such a bad thing that the purchasing power of the lower class Venezuelan has increased the demand for Colombian agricultural and food products. And just to put it out there, Venezuela might be providing an alternative exit to the war on drugs through increased demand for legitimate Colombian exports. A novel idea that probably is worth exploring.

It is really disappointing that the dominant international media fro the global North has not been interested in the impact this incident had on international law or even to investigate the internal civil war within Colombia. More often than not, it was a chance to write about how bad Chavez is doing recently and how Chavez was making the world a less safe place. There has been a great revision of events, issues, and problems to present a narrow vision of Latin America and its regional politics. What has been frightfully lost is any analysis in the Global North on how a peaceful resolution may be reached. If any thing, there is a hopeful sign or message in the conclusion of the conflict: Latin America has strong regional ties committed to regional stability (something we could not have said for the past decade) that transcends the political spectrum. Economic ties that have been increasing across countries in the past decade making regional peace and co-operation extremely important. And as an aside: the economic ties are based upon models of trade designed in Latin American and not by Washington (I am strongly against the FTAA model). Even between Colombia and Venezuela, the polar extremes of Latin American politics, there is a recognition of economic dependence that is breaking down the North-South trade. The increase of Venezuela's economy and purchasing power through the redistribution of oil wealth to lower classes has meant a sharp increase in demand for Colombian products, and the closing of the border while difficult for Venezuela was potentially more disastrous for Colombia. The resolution of the conflict highlighted a silver lining of greater regional integration and the necessity for co-operation. And to get my jab in against the anti-Chavistas, this has been part of the goal of Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution from day one and behind the commentary about Chavez's rhetoric one, there is the reality that Venezuela has played an important role in financing (directly and through trade) and organizing (ALBA, Mercosur, etc.) this regional integration.


NACLA News has an article on the stalled peace negotiations between Colombia and ELN, check it out:
Negotiating Peace in Colombia: A Missed Opportunity?

Handshakes at Rio Group Summit - The Real News

As an aside - it is frightening to hear the Democratic candidates. The citizens of the US have to wake up or we are going to see a return to a more traditional US imperialism in their "backyard". While they are not Bush or Bush disciples, they still come from a political system dominated by economic interests and a reinvigorated left in the region scares multinational corporations in the US and Canada.

Colombia bombs in Ecuador = Chavez the terrorist?

Don't be tricked by the mainstream media - Uribe didn't win. FOCAL (NED of Canada) had an analysis of this conflict today in the Grope and Flail to support their editor's anti-Chavez rant from earlier this week. Apparently according to these two this incident was manufactured by Chavez to create conflict, support terrorism in the region, draw attention away from his collapsing government, and generally to be the big bad wolf.

Lets review the facts (short list):
Colombia was the aggressor launching a strike within Ecuador without Ecuador's permission (Uribe: "I told them it was happening" makes it all okay, right?).

Ecuador responded immediately against the military aggression in its territory by taking up defencive position on its border (a logical response to a military attack on your territoriy by another country).

Venezuela, ally of Ecuador and also facing potential strikes in its territory by Colombia, responds similarly.

Colombia "does not" mobilize its army in response (therefore they are the "good guys"). Ignoring the FACT that its army is ALREADY mobilized (civil war) and already on the border (launched a military strike into Ecuador).

International condemnation against the act - including other rightwing governments in the region: Peru (immediately) and Mexico as well as "moderates" in Chile (immediately) and "centre-left" Brazil (immediately and strongly) and Argentina (immediately and strongly). But it is Chavez's fault according to FOCAL.

Uribe finds a laptop with emails detailing a "300" -obviously $300 million from Chavez to FARC for 2.5$ million per (specific amount, whatever it was way overpriced) in unrefined uranium. Be scared. Dirty bomb -international terrorist! Ecuador was *gasp* talking to FARC! Maybe that is what Uribe should be doing...

France, Ecuador, Venezuela respond: Reyes was negotiating the release of Betancourt. Uribe - you idiot!

Fit this into the wider picture of hostage releases, Chavez has had more success at this in a couple of months than Uribe in years - yes it is because of an ideological alliance, but that is besides the point if it eventually leads to the demobilization of FARC and real negotiations for peace. Chavez by negotiating the release of hostages is hardly making the FARC a more viable fighting force and perpetuating the conflict. FARC is losing the "war" against Uribe's army that is true, but FARC will not be defeated through slaughter and nor will the civil war end when they are dead - peace has to be established. Uribe doesn't want it.

For Uribe this incident has helped his support. Chavez is a monster (according to Colombians on Facebook).

But with the handshake, the request for forgiveness, and the promise to not do it again - it is Uribe who has been defeated. He found zero friends in Latin America for his American style preemptive strike. Correa meanwhile has gained in national and international statue for being level headed, hard dealer, and a nice guy to invite to your country to have talks (he talked with Alán García of Peru even!) - he proved his little country wont be bullied easily, that it will seek out friends, and in the end is looking for a peaceful resolution (Chavez apparently didn't get his war that FOCAL/NED argued he was looking for). Uribe learned that being an American puppet in Latin America is not popular, will get him isolated, and that in the end keeping in line with his neighbourhood watch is second only to internal politics. Uribe lost, but the US lost most.

The Real News on Colombia's invasion of Ecuador

The Real News talks to Pepe Escobar on Colombia's assassination of Raúl Reyes within the territory of Ecuador.

Baghdad a Model for Urban Oppression

The "success" of the surge in the media has been presented as a result of an increase in troop levels. In the imaginations of Americans this likely brings pictures of friendly American youths patrolling the streets, giving out candy, accepting flowers. But this isn't the reality. The picture we should be seeing is much more like Alfonso Cuarón's dystopic vision of London in Children of Men - or a more historical one from the Warsaw ghetto. Baghdad is no longer a city, it is a series of enclosed neighbourhoods with restricted access in and out. Think the "Green Zone" without golden toilets and luxury hotels. Actually don't think the Green Zone, since the only thing these areas share is large concrete walls and an occupying army - the rest of the way people live is likely much more horrific and poor. In this world the mark of success is isolation. The method is to put whole populations with solitary confinement - the epitome of American prison culture. The Iraqis, the thinking goes, are too uncivilized to live together therefore they get to live with no one.

But what kind of city would this be? What kind of people are being created? What all happens, as a result, when the Americans eventually do leave and the walls come down?

For Baghdad these are scary questions. But this is a model not just for Baghdad, but for the world. Rapid urbanization has been driven by the largest human migration in the history of this planet towards the cores of elite wealth in the global south - slums are becoming the homes of millions of new urbanites in cities like Mumbai, São Paulo, Rio de Janerio, Bogotá, Mexico City, Lagos, and the list goes on. From the movie City of God western culture has been informed of the violence in Rio's infamous favelas, reinforced by news of streetwars between gangs and the police. It is clear that the slum as a model for urbanization is failing. But as these areas erupt with violence and anger - now too close to home for elites - the Baghdad model is a possible candidate for the world's cities.

Raúl Zibechi describes this model as it spreads across the global south in his article The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries:

...Electoral democracy and development are necessary to prevent terrorism, but they are not objectives in and of themselves. In countries with weak states and high concentrations of urban poor, the armed forces move to take the place of the sovereign government, reconstruct the state, and in a totally vertical and authoritarian manner, initiate mechanisms to assure the continuation of domination.

In Iraq, these policies have their obverse and complement in the building of large walls to separate neighborhoods in Baghdad. According to writer and Arab expert Santiago Alba Rico, the construction of walls in 10 neighborhoods in the Iraq capital is intended to turn each into "an armored closet whose inhabitants are filed away or abandoned in locked drawers and sealed enclosures."10

The logic is simple: "Neighborhoods that have not been crushed militarily are walled, enclosed, and abandoned to their luck. Complete areas of the city have been demarcated and segregated with inhabitants confined inside, subjected to entry and exit controls so ironclad that we can speak without hesitation of a ghetto policy."

Other parts of the world are not lacking in cement walls to isolate and separate peripheral neighborhoods. Symbolic walls are fabricated according to differences in color, dress, and ways of occupying space. But the results and objectives are identical. Control mechanisms—whether dressed in military garb, or as NGOs for development, or promoting market economy and electoral democracy—are interlaced and, in extreme cases like the suburbs of Baghdad, the slums of Rio de Janeiro, or the shanty towns of Port-au-Prince, they are subordinated to military planning.

In Brazil, to give just one example, different forms of control are simultaneously applied: the "Zero Hunger" government plan is compatible with the militarization of the slums. ....

From: The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries

This discription brings to mind another part of the world: the Gaza Strip.

Rather than deal with sources of "trouble" rooted in inequalities and extreme poverty, governments have increasingly turned to the projection of military power onto areas of urban populations who are either unwilling to accept the unjust economic structure or have turned to criminal activities to find their way around it.

This is not only a frightening trend for what it does to people in the present but as many authors of dystopic visions have described it is putting into place a model of political-authoritarian domination to control the lower classes and restrict all of their access to protest and resistance. As the world begins to experience the coming shocks of a faltering US economic hegemony, the model of Baghdad may be the one elites turn to to protect and consolidate their power and wealth from a populace angered by century-long mismanagement and inequalities. The future we have been warned against for millions will become a reality.