Latin America Delivers A Swift Kick
By Conn Hallinan
Source: Dispatches From The EdgeWednesday, May 02, 2012
http://www.zcommunications.org/latin-america-delivers-a-swift-kick-by-conn-hallinan
On one level, Aprils hemispheric summit meeting was an old fashioned butt kicking for Washingtons policies in the region. The White House found itself virtually aloneDudley Do Right Canada its sole allyon everything from Cuba to the war on drugs. But the differences go deeper than the exclusion of Havana and the growing body count in Washingtons failed anti-narcotics strategy. They reflect profound disagreements on how to build economies, confront inequity, and reflect a new balance of power in world affairs.
The backdrop for the summit is anger in Latin America over the failure of the U.S. and Europe to stimulate their economies, all the while pursuing policies that have flooded the region with moneya monetary tsunami in the words of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseffdriving up the value of southern hemisphere currencies and strangling local industries.
South Americans tried the austerity model and found it wanting. They have also seen the U.S. and NATO spark wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and they are deeply suspicious of policy of humanitarian intervention in places like Syria because they dont trust the motives behind it. Members of the BRIC countries, made up of Brazil, South Africa, India, Russia, and China, share those suspicions.
Theres almost a third-world sense, a post-colonial sense, says Mark Quarterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that they were meddled in, in ways that didnt rebound to their benefit, and now the same countries are claiming humanitarian reasons for meddling.
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