Brazil Calls on Obama to Start Dialogue with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil Calls on Obama to Start Dialogue with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez
Written by Newsroom
Monday, 16 November 2009

Celso Amorim, Brazil's Foreign Affairs minister is sounding the alarm that relations between the United States and Latin America are deteriorating and called on American president Barack Obama to begin a dialogue with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

"It's possible that when President Obama concentrates on the region's problems relations between United States and South America will have deteriorated, let's us hope it does not happen," said Amorim in a Sunday interview with Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo.

"Maybe President Obama is too absorbed with Iraq and Afghanistan and that impedes him to concentrate in other issues," added Amorim.

The Brazilian minister insisted that the core issue of relations between the US and South America is the deployment of US forces in seven Colombian bases following on an agreement recently signed between the administration of President Obama and Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe.

"I believe the US should act with more frankness towards the region. President Lula proposed President Obama a meeting to address the issue (of US personnel in Colombian bases) but he did not accept," said Amorim.

More:
http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/11432/

[EFerrari]

1. Now, *that* is diplomacy.

To be honest, though, I don't have any hope that such a process will be undertaken by Obama. He does have a full plate left by the torture president and, sadly, he doesn't seem to have much of an intuitive response to the region.

[Judi Lynn]

2. True. By the way I heard Monday night Hillary Clinton could be thinking of running for NY Governor!

If that's the case, knock on wood, it will mean we'll be losing a very Cuban right-wing "exile" pandering Secretary of State, and their best friends in South Florida, the Venezuelan ex-patriots.

Seems unlikely any replacement could be any more indulgent of mostly right-wing leaning US policy left over from the Bushes and Reagan, and Nixon, even, sadly, Bill Clinton.

We need a reason to hope!

[Peace Patriot]

5. Interesting. That could be a way out for Obama, after the debacle in Honduras--

a way for him to restore good faith with Latin America (if he wants to). Former ambassador Robert E. White has called what Obama's envoys did last week in Honduras "cynical," "amateurish" and "a complete diplomatic fiasco," and he had particular scorn for Clinton...

"It was, of course, possible, even probable, that negotiations would have failed, but that result would have been infinitely preferable to the charade where Zelaya signed an agreement under the illusion the United States would ensure his prompt reinstatement to power.

"The result of this cynical and amateurish diplomacy could hardly have been worse.

"The secretary of state triumphantly announces a breakthrough in Honduras. Micheletti responds that he has not yet agreed to the restitution of the elected president, and a deceived Zelaya states the agreement is dead. The diplomatic fiasco is complete."

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6565

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

That's when "heads roll," in normal times. The appointee takes the fall--so that the leader and head of state can try to repair the damage and put things back on a better course. Maybe it's time to bring Bill Richardson back into the picture.

I'm not too hopeful about this, though, since I don't think these are "normal times." The gas-guzzling US war machine needs another source of oil and appears to be going for what they think are "the easy pickins" in "our own backyard." Venezuela and Ecuador. And they are in cahoots with Exxon Mobil & brethren, who want to charge US taxpayers $500/gal for it. (I saw that figure the other day--I think re Afghanistan--but it wasn't documented.) And that is the Bushwhacks' main obsession--enriching the US oil giants. And I don't think Obama has the power to counter them--and maybe not the will and the vision. (Not sure about that yet.) I think we are going to be mired in "Vietnam II" in South America within a couple of years, if not sooner, and if Obama doesn't go along with it, he'll be Diebolded out in 2012, and the next "war president" installed. Obama may just be a little "hopeful" interregnum in a Long Corpo-Fascist Junta. The Pentagon will likely get its ass handed to it, in South America, as they did in Vietnam, because you can't win against a widespread passion for independence, such as we are seeing in South America--unless you "nuke 'em," and since they stopped short of doing that to Iran--partly because the US military brass balked at it, and probably partly because China and Russia threatened to come into it, on Iran's side--at which point Daddy Bush intervened (is my guess)--they likely won't go that far in South America, and will have to settle for a long stint of mere war profiteering (on weapons, bombers, helicopters, high tech equipment, GI rations and so on--for both the US and the Colombian militaries) and slaughtering peasants and leftists. The "peasants and leftists" will win, and the US empire will finally fall. That's where the Bushwhacks were heading us, when they were running things--creation of a brutal fascist empire, doomed to fail, after causing mayhem at home and abroad. And they seem to be still running things.

The issue is much bigger than Honduras, or Clinton's "cynical, amateurish fiasco" there, or DeMint's demented influence. The issue is President vs the Bushwhack warmongers and their visible and invisible operatives within the government--or perhaps more accurately, the People vs the Bushwhack warmongers. I don't know if the President is on our side or not. He may be. It's a difficult situation to read. The forces that are draining us of all our wealth, destroying our progressive country and dragging us into one war after another, for the benefit of the super-rich, including foreign super-rich, and who now control our very voting machines with 'TRADE SECRET' code, appear to have an iron grip on our government and I don't have a lot of hope that we can stop them before they utterly destroy us. They have the capability--the EASY capability!-- to put Sarah Palin in the White House and slaughter a million South Americans, to steal their oil, as they did in Iraq. They already have the psyops/disinformation machine up and running on Oil War II, and now they're putting the war assets in place (in Colombia, Honduras, Panama and the Caribbean). We must never give up on the goal of a peaceful world, and we must never, ever, ever give up on American democracy. Our people don't want this. They don't want war. They didn't want it in Vietnam. They didn't want it in Iraq. They don't want it in Afghanistan. And they won't want it in South America, when it is sprung upon them. That is the truth. And that is what we must never give up on--the good people in this country, the vast majority.

[Downwinder]

6. I nominate Gary Hart. n/t

[EFerrari]

7. The State Department is a horrible mess.

And that's dangerous.

[Braulio]

3. I believe the call was for Chavez and Obama to talk

And both refused. To be honest, I don't have any hope Chavez would want to do it at this time.

[Peace Patriot]

4. When did Chavez refuse to talk to Obama?

I think you are mixed up. He said he had "nothing to say to Colombia." And, unless "Colombia" and "the U.S." are one and the same--which is arguably true, I suppose**--Chavez did NOT say he wouldn't meet with/talk with Obama. Please cite the source, if you have information that he did.


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**(One of the reasons I am extremely concerned about the US military buildup in Colombia, is that the situation so closely resembles South Vietnam, 1963. Very corrupt, fascist, human rights-abusing US puppet government propped up by a huge amount of US taxpayer dollars--$6 BILLION in military aid in the case of Colombia--creating a proxy army, as a front for the introduction of US bases and forces, under the radar of the American people. "Just a few military advisers," they said re South Vietnam. A year later, it began dramatically escalating, ultimately reaching half a million US troops. "Just 600 US troops and 600 US 'contractors'" (immune from Colombian laws), they're saying about Colombia. And merely the "use" of SEVEN military bases. Etc. Etc. Pentagon bullshit deja vu all over again. A long civil war between the left (the poor majority) and the right (the rich few), with the South Vietnamese government--a creation of the CIA--representing the rich few. Colombia is very similar. The Uribe government is the tool of the Bushwhacks, and subsequent governments are not likely to be any different--just as the Diem government and subsequent governments of South Vietnam were tools of the US/CIA. Indeed, this is why the US lost the Vietnam War: It was trying to crush an independence movement. That was the issue to the Vietnamese, not "communism." And I would guess that it is the same with leftist FARC guerrilla army in Colombia, which has been fighting the rightwing, US puppet government for 40+ years. They don't want to be dominated by the US and its corporate predators (for instance, Chiquita International, whose execs paid millions of dollars to rightwing death squads in Colombia, to slaughter some 4,000 labor leaders.) And the use that the Bushwhacks and the Pentagon intend to put their puppet government and proxy army in Colombia to, is similar to the US aim of toppling the very popular leader of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh (who would have won UN-sponsored elections in 1954, if the US had permitted elections to be held). The current aim is to topple Colombia's neighbor--the very popular leftist president of Venezuela--and their goal, in this era of "Peak Oil," is of course stealing Venezuela's (and probably Ecuador's) vast oil reserves, to fuel the oil-hungry US war machine, at fabulously inflated prices charged to US taxpayers, while the fabulous profits fill the pockets of Exxon Mobil and the super-rich. Chavez's contemptuous remark about Colombia--that he has nothing to talk to them about--comes after years of efforts by Chavez to make peace with Colombia, met only by treachery and now a US military buildup. Why should he talk to Colombia--which has turned itself into a US war base aimed at him? But I would be very surprised if he had said the same thing about the US, since the US is the operative party and it is only the US/Obama who can call the war off. The US is the real aggressor. Colombia is only a chattel, and its corrupt government would fall tomorrow but for US $$$.)

[Braulio]

8. Read about it somewhere

I can't remember where I read it, I think it was a paper paper. I think drug use should not be penalized, therefore the approach the US uses to fight "the war on drugs" is wrong. Heck, most of what the US does in foreign policy is wrong. If you put me in charge in the US, the first thing I'd do is end the war on drugs, the second thing I would do is cut aid to Israel, and the third thing I would do is invite the US Senate to watch Ghandi, the movie.

However, you are really pushing the limit when you compare Colombia to Viet nam. Colombia is a democracy, and Uribe is very popular. The more Chavez threatens Colombia, the more popular Uribe becomes.

Chavez is the left's enemy when it comes to results, gets the other side elected, as far as I can see. Maybe he needs to figure out how to cut the inflation and crime rates in Venezuela, work on that hospital problem he called a national emergency, and figure out how to get the electric power back up, rather than focusing so much on external events which he can't control. And it would really help if he stops listening to Fidel Castro. That old geezer is way out of it by now.

[ChangoLoa]

12. Venezuela rechaza oferta de mediación de EEUU y la considera "grosera"

He considers it rude that Obama proposes his mediation, because USA just wants to distract the attention from the real origin of the problem is the bases. etc... I think you can read spanish, no?

Typical logic: there's a problem with Colombia concerning the American bases. We should prepare to be attacked. Chavez doesn't want to talk to Colombia, because they're nothing but slaves to their masters: the empire. He says that eventually the talks should be with the master and not the lackey. The TV show is over. Brazil sends a signal straight to Obama, who responds (?)... and after all that.....

Chavez feels offended and refuses.
The master of strategic surrealism (it sure's at least confusing!)

Now they'll end up issuing a long justification on why this position is the final one.

Let's see what happens to Pérez Vivas...



El gobierno nacional rechazó hoy la oferta de Washington de mediar en la crisis con Colombia y la calificó de intento "grosero" de "desviar la atención", recordando que el origen del malestar fue la "instalación de unas bases militares controladas por Estados Unidos".

"La propuesta de mediar (de Estados Unidos) tiene un claro propósito de desviar la atención de su responsabilidad primaria en la crisis y resulta grosera a los ojos de los pueblos conscientes del mundo", reza un comunicado del ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores.

"Venezuela desea recordar que la instalación de bases militares bajo el control irrestricto de los Estados Unidos en Colombia constituye el origen de esta situación de inestabilidad y de inquietud regional", prosiguió el texto oficial.

La semana pasada, el portavoz del Departamento de Estado estadounidense, Ian Kelly, llamó a Bogotá y Caracas a "bajar el nivel de la retórica" y manifestó la disposición de su país a mediar en el conflicto causado por un acuerdo militar entre Colombia y Estados Unidos que Venezuela considera una "amenaza" para ella y toda la región, indicó AFP.

"Si los Estados Unidos tienen un real interés en colaborar para promover el diálogo y la estabilidad regional deben desistir en su intención de convertir a Colombia en la base de operaciones de su estrategia regional de dominación", aseguró el comunicado oficial.

El país congeló las relaciones con Colombia a fines de julio a raíz de un acuerdo militar que otorga a Estados Unidos el derecho a utilizar de manera controlada hasta siete bases militares en Colombia.

La tensión aumentó hace diez días cuando Chávez llamó a responsables militares y al pueblo venezolano a "prepararse para la guerra", aunque posteriormente negó estar propiciando un conflicto armado con Colombia.

Sin embargo, en respuesta, Bogotá llevó el caso ante el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas y la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA).

Este martes, el comunicado insistió en que el debate sobre estas bases militares debe darse en el marco de la Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas (Unasur).

"El fortalecimiento de la presencia militar de los Estados Unidos está orientado a proyectar su poder global para disuadir a países como Venezuela, que mantienen una posición crítica hacia su política imperialista", insistió el comunicado.

El ministerio considera que el gobierno del presidente estadounidense Barack Obama ha manifestado su compromiso con el derecho internacional y el multilateralismo, pero está incumpliendo resoluciones de la ONU al "ofrecer refugio a quienes cometen actos de terrorismo y prohibir su extradición".

El gobierno se refería al activista anticastrista Luis Posada Carriles, condenado en Venezuela por la voladura en 1976 de un avión civil cubano, que dejó 73 muertos.

Nueve años después se fugó de la cárcel y se encuentra hasta hoy en Estados Unidos, donde puede ser objeto de un juicio en los próximos meses.

[rabs]

9. An intriguing tidbit heard the other day

And that is that Obama quietly has turned over Latin American diplomacy to Lula.

Would make sense, since Obama is so preoccupied with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, China, health care, the economy etc etc.

Brazilian diplomacy until recently had been very low key. But now with Mercosur and the mess in Teguz, a lot of people have taken note of Itamaraty's growing role not only in Latin America but also on the global stage.

[Downwinder]

10. I think I might debate that one. If he turned it over to anyone,

it is SouthCOM. There is not much diplomacy there, it is "what the military wants, the military gets."

[rabs]

11. Recent article from AJ on Brazilian diplomacy

Skip over the Shannon stuff, think the author is wrong there. Shannon is largely responsible over the mess in Teguz so do not think Itamaraty and Lula are "thrilled" with him. Besides, Shannon wanted Buenos Aires, and Brasilia was his second choice !! (Far as I know Shannon is still is being stonewalled by some Repug from Florida in the Senate.)


Snip

What’s it all mean? There are a lot of diplomatic undercurrents swirling right below the surface. Given all the above, you can connect the dots anyway you wish and come up with your own conclusions. But Brazil is, at minimum, expanding the sphere of countries it engages diplomatically, and maybe even going much, much further and jumping into a whole new realm of diplomacy as the Switzerland of South America


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2009/11/16/brazil-middle-east-peace-broker

[Braulio]

13. I'd say the problem in Honduras is Zelaya's fault

Blaming the USA for a Chavez inspired move by Zelaya, which backfired badly, is pretty silly.