Guatemala pushes bid for Security Council seat (against Venezuela)

[Judi Lynn]

Guatemala pushes bid for Security Council seat

By Mica Rosenberg
Reuters
Monday, July 24, 2006; 6:19 PM

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemalan president Oscar Berger said on Monday his Central American nation is closer to getting the votes needed to beat U.S. antagonist Venezuela for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

"We have 98 countries backing us, I'm not going to mention names," Berger told reporters.

Guatemala needs a two-thirds majority vote among 192 members of the U.N. General Assembly to replace Argentina as a non-permanent representative on the 15-nation Security Council. The voting is by secret ballot, so any public commitment may come undone.
(snip)

The United States is backing Guatemala as a way to block the government of Hugo Chavez from winning the seat, although Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, is seen as the likely victor.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400843.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006
Mercosur backs Venezuela for Council seat
Associated Press

CORDOBA, Argentina - Major South American economic powers threw their support Friday behind anti-U.S. crusader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in his fight against Washington for a U.N. Security Council seat.

Led by the two leading South American powers, Argentina and Brazil, and backed by Uruguay and Paraguay, the Mercosur bloc said at the close of a two-day summit that Venezuela would make an important contribution to the council.

Venezuela, inducted as a full member of Mercosur on Friday, "will promote respect for the rule of international law" and provide balance if it gains a seat, bloc countries said in a statement.

Venezuela has occupied a Security Council seat four times, but the U.S. government is lobbying hard to thwart Chavez's bid by supporting Guatemala's candidacy.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15095568.htm

[Sadie5]

1. The US backing Guatemala

I guess this says all we need to know. I hope Chavez beats the pants off of them.

[54anickel]

3. The US doesn't have a lot of use for the Security Council or International

Law. Though it seems smaller nations are willing to defer to the World Court. Could put a cramp in Bushcos pre-emptive style if usage the World Court instead of war comes into vogue (not to mention the lose of those behind the scenes operations we tend to get into to "stir up the pot"). I'm sure they would prefer a "US-friendly" country to take the seat. Venezuela might actually do something to "promote respect for the rule of international law", especially with regards to the US. Chavez is quite vocal and Bushco would much prefer some shrinking violet.

July is the month to accept international law
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2006/July/opinion_July67.xml§ion=opinion&col=

IT IS time overdue for the US to hand back Guantanamo to Cuba, for Britain to hand back Gibraltar to Spain, for Spain to return its African enclaves to Morocco, for India to accept the Pakistan compromise on Kashmir and Russia to renounce its claim to the four southern Kuril islands.

With a few step like this we could have a lot more peace and less threats of war, more trade, more economic growth, and we’d all be happier all round.

This month two countries in different continents have shown the way — Nigeria in Africa with its dispute with neighbouring Cameroon over ownership of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsular and Argentina over its neighbour Uruguay’s decision to build two big pulp mills on the banks of the Uruguay river which divides them. Both countries decided to forgo hostilities, even war in Nigeria’s case, and go to the International Court of Justice (the World Court) and accept whatever these judges in faraway, The Hague, decided.

snip>

Today we have the application of international law in disputes between nations available on demand from a full time World Court. Tragically, the only permanent Security Council member that recognises its authority without reservation is Britain.

The US refused in 1986 to accept its ruling over the illegal mining of Nicaragua’s harbours and since then is only a half signed up member, refusing to accept its compulsory jurisdiction, although an American judge serves on its bench. It seems that it is smaller powers that are determined to give the court teeth by seeking its judgement, even though, as with Nigeria and Argentina, nationalist passions are just as difficult to deal with as elsewhere.

more...

[tritsofme]

5. Id probably agree about Guantanamo, but the people who live in Gibraltar

seem to be very happy with the present situation.

In the last referendum during the 80s IIRC, less then 50 residents voted for unification with Spain.

[IndianaGreen]

7. The monkeys of Gibraltar didn't get to vote!

What kind of democracy is that! :P

[54anickel]

8. Well yeah, you've got a good point there. Probably not the best choice

for the author to include in the opening paragraph. Did that debate between Spain and the UK ever even make it to the World Court? Spain ceded way back in the 1700s. Not sure why that was included. If they did go to court and the court decided to return Gibraltar back to Spain - I'd change my opinion of the World Court and not be so inclined to support it. BUT...
Seeing how the author makes the point the Britain is "the only permanent Security Council member that recognizes its authority without reservation", I doubt it's been to the court. The guy sort of blows his point of view in the opening paragraph. Then again, maybe he's using it to make his point that these thing should be decided in the court rather than pulled out of ones' ass as he did in the opening paragraph. ;-)

Thanks for pointing it out...I wouldn't have caught that.

[saigon68]

6. It's John Negroponte His THUGS Raped Nuns There

HE LIKES HIS THUGS WEARING BLACK SKI MASKS AS THEY DROP THEIR TROUSERS


http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960520/guatemala.html



SISTER DIANNA'S ORDEAL

A Nun Raped And Tortured In Guatemala Demands Answers On Alleged U.S. Involvement In The Crime

On Nov. 3, 1989, Sister Dianna Ortiz was in desperate straits, yet she was afraid to seek help in the most logical place. An American citizen working as a missionary in rural Guatemala, she had just been abducted, tortured and raped by men who were apparently members of the Guatemalan military. Now she was free, but she felt she could not seek sanctuary at the U.S. embassy. Why? Because the man who gave orders to her kidnappers was a fellow American, she believed, and was somehow connected to the U.S. government.

[IndianaGreen]

2. A bunch of School of the Americas graduates in Guatemala

and I am sure, they are forging the Coalition of the Supine.

[Judi Lynn]

4. They don't seem to want to let go of Guatemala, once Reagan

got a taste for supporting mad dog killers like "Christian" Efrain Rios Montt:

Guatemala Reacts to Intl Arrest Orders For Ex-Dictators & Military Leaders Responsible for Genocide
albert id 21 Jul 2006 14:24 GMT

Guatemalan human rights activists met with members of the UN High Commission for Human Rights to discuss state amnesty laws on Wednesday in response to a landmark decision by a Spanish judge on July 7 to issue international arrest orders against former dictators and top military officers on charges of genocide after more than two decades of impunity.

Efraín Ríos Montt, who served as president of the Guatemalan National Congress as recently as 2004, is one of eight individuals sought for crimes including genocide, terrorism, torture and illegal detention.

According to a UN-sponsored Truth Commission the 36-year civil conflict, in which Ríos Montt´s presidency (1982-1983) was one of the bloodiest, resulted in the death or disappearance of upwards of 200,000 people– the overwhelming majority of whom were indigenous Maya. They calculate that at least 626 state-led massacres occurred during this period.
(snip)

http://www.indymedia.org/fr/2006/07/843051.shtml

[MrPrax]

9. It's still a shithole...

and rather than give IT a UN seat, they should be thinking about dispatching a UN force.

Mob justice on the rise in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - An angry mob snatches two accused child molesters in a Guatemalan highland village, ties them to a lamp post in the central plaza, douses them with gasoline and threatens to burn them alive.

After hours of tense negotiations, authorities convince furious villagers in San Cristobal Tonicapan to hand the men over to police.

The attack last week was among the latest in Guatemala's long history of mob violence but officials and human rights groups say there has been an upsurge this year amid growing frustration with an inept justice system that fails to catch and charge criminals.

Reuters

_______

Guatemala's epidemic of killing

In Guatemala, a small country not long emerged from three decades of civil war, women and girls are being murdered faster than anyone in authority can cope.
...
The raped and mutilated body of Andrea Contreras Bacaro, 17, was found wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown into a ditch, her throat cut, her face and hands slashed, with a gunshot wound to the head.

The word "vengeance" had been gouged into her thigh.
...
According to Amnesty International, which has collated these stories and others in a new report on the killing of women in Guatemala, the country's leaders must share the blame for an epidemic of violence that has killed more than 1,500 women in under four years.

In 2001, the first year separate records were kept for men and women, 222 women were registered as murdered, Guatemalan human rights activists have told the BBC.

By 2004 that figure had more than doubled, to 494. In the first five months of 2005, the tally reached 225 - considerably more than one killing every day.

BBC

_______

..and this from a country that wants a seat on the Security Council of the UN, while at the same time is actively promoting a 'Washington' plan of setting up a competing Central America peacekeeping force under the CAFTA modelled similar to the African Union?

_______

Guatemala’s newly appointed defense minister, General Francisco Bermudez, is currently in Washington D.C., for a four day visit that began on March 13. On his agenda is an appointment with the Secretary of Defense. In that meeting, Rumsfeld is expected to address the matter of a renewal of U.S. military aid to Guatemala, and possibly the construction of a DEA base in the Guatemalan rainforest to help combat drug trafficking in Central America. The relatively high visibility of Bermudez’ visit is not adventitious, but represents a longstanding Rumsfeld policy of upgrading ties with some of Latin America’s most reprehensible and unsavory military establishments, who during the 1970s and 1980s savaged their nations’ constitutions and citizenry, including in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and, perhaps most of all, Guatemala.


The Guatemalan Military:
Presente Bermudez’s visit comes as a follow up to last October’s defense conference, “Security and Economic Opportunity,” which took place in Key Biscayne, Florida. At that reunion, Rumsfeld met with Central American defense ministers and representatives from different branches of the region’s armed forces. It was during this gathering that the then-Guatemalan defense minister, General Carlos Aldana, called for the creation of a Central America peacekeeping force, which putatively would promote political stability, as well as provide emergency relief to civilians after natural disasters such as hurricanes. Secretary Rumsfeld said the talks were a “unique moment in the Americas.” But, what Rumsfeld didn’t say out loud, was that by attempting to revive the Latin American military, he could be putting to risk the very civil governance whose creation is at the heart of what he says is his Iraq policy.

Guatemala’s Cursed Armed Force Back in Town
Scoop

[Judi Lynn]

10. High impact post. So much which has happened in this hemisphere

which is absolutely unforgivable has happened out of range of the very people who provide the financing, and in whose name it is conducted.

Great links, excellent information.

Hope people will take time to check the LAST link, Scoop, as well, for info. on _Bush's surreptitious dealings with Guatemala.

Undoubtedly he envies Reagan the bloodbath he accomplished in Central America, and hopes to outdo his record before leaving his stolen office (IF he ever heaves, of course).

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Another fun fact about Guatemala

It's the only country in the American continent (besides the USA) that has the death penalty.

No wonder the death fetishists in the Bush administration are so engrossed with it.