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(Part
Two)
I
promised I would continue the reflections today, using
textual news and adding pertinent commentaries.
“NEW
YORK, March 13 (ANSA) – The absence of Argentina in the
itinerary of the new trip by the U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to South America is another sign of
Washington’s annoyance with the authorities in Buenos Aires,
according to the New York Times today.
“The
newspaper recalled that Rice is visiting Brazil and Chile
this week but ‘notably absent from her itinerary’ is
Argentina where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, wife of
ex-President Néstor Kirchner, ‘became the first woman
elected to be the country’s President.’
“The
omission underscores Washington's disappointment with the
new Kirchner government, which has continued to strengthen
ties with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, while
‘accusing the United States of political motives’ in the
case of the $80,000 illegally brought into the country by
Venezuelan officials.
“The
New York Times describes this money as ‘suspected to be
a secret contribution made by Venezuela to the Kirchner
campaign’.”
“BRASILIA, March 13 (EFE) – The U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice expressed her hope that Colombia’s
neighbors would fulfill their commitment to prevent FARC
guerrillas from using their territories ‘to continue killing
innocent people.’
“’We
are very concerned with the regional situation (in South
America)’, said Rice at a press conference today in Brasilia
accompanied by Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Celso
Amorim.
“’Countries cannot be threatened from within or from
outside. And we must avoid that the terrorists continue
killing innocent people’, the head of U.S. foreign policy
said after meetings with both Amorim and with Brazilian
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.”
“BRASILIA, March 13 (ANSA) - […] the official said that the
U.S. government maintains good relations with left-wing
leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva and
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
“After
the press conference, Rice and Chancellor Celso Amorim had
lunch together at the Itamaraty Palace.”
“BRASILIA, March 13 (AP) - […] Rice made these declarations
a day after President George W. Bush said that the recent
crisis between Colombia and Ecuador was ‘the most recent
step of a worrisome pattern of provocative behavior on the
part of the Caracas government’.
“Washington is toughening its rhetoric against Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez, at the same time it is praising its
South American allies for firmly confronting terrorism.”
In
Brazil, after dealing with the subject of the future
composition of the Security Council, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice clearly explained that the United States
would not be opposed to Brazil’s entry into that Council,
but she warned that its support was committed to Japan, its
strategic and economic partner.
“SANTIAGO, March 13 (AFP) – The U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will make a brief visit to Chile on Friday,
where she will be meeting with President Michelle Bachelet
to consolidate bilateral ties and review the regional
situation.
“Rice
will arrive in Santiago Friday afternoon, coming from
Brazil, where she had arrived this Thursday. The chief of
the United States diplomacy will be in the Chilean capital
for almost six hours, and she will be returning to
Washington on the same Friday, just before taking off on a
trip to Moscow.”
According to that same agency, the U.S. ambassador in
Santiago, Paul Simons, declared:
“The
fact that she is coming to Chile in the middle of a very
busy schedule shows the importance she is giving to
conversations with her colleague, Chancellor Foxley, and
with the President about our positive agenda.”
“Brazil
and Chile ‘are countries that are friends and strategic
regional partners of the United States’, the diplomat added
in a press conference.
“With
the Chilean authorities, Rice will be discussing the state
of bilateral relations, but also the regional situation
following the serious crisis created by the Colombian
military incursion into Ecuadorian territory, resulting in
the death of the second-in-command of the FARC guerrillas,
Raúl Reyes.
“’We
shall be talking about the regional situation’, Simons
disclosed.
“In
Santiago, Rice will also give the go-ahead to her Chilean
colleague for the so-called ‘Chile-California Plan for the
Twenty-first Century’, an agreement that would like to take
advantage of similarities in geography, climate and
productivity between the South American country and that
U.S. state.
“The
agreement is unprecedented and it came up following a
personal conversation between Foxley and Rice, according to
ambassador Simons without disclosing any more details.”
Unquestionably, the U.S. ambassador in Chile, as it is his
habit let too much slip out, speaking of a plan that the
Chilean government still hasn’t even publicly mentioned, nor
has there been any decision made about something that
appears to be a fantasy from Arabian Nights.
On the
Internet there is also much news about the U.S. Secretary of
State's tour. On March 13th, the following headlines could
be read:
BBC
World – London, Great Britain. “Rice: Borders, No Hiding
Places.”
Terra –
News Portal, Spain. “Rice Ratifies in Brazil U.S.
Commitment with Colombia and Against the FARC.”
Alarde
– Brazilian newspaper. “U.S. Defends South American
Security Plan."
El
Observador
– Venezuelan newspaper. “Rice Insists that U.S. Studies
Information about Alleged Venezuelan Ties with the FARC."
Ansalatine
– Italian News Agency. “Rice proposes joint action against
FARC.”
BBC
World – London, Great Britain. “Rice Visits ‘Strategic’
Partners”
El
Nuevo Diario
– Nicaraguan newspaper. “U.S. Toughens Rhetoric against
Chávez in Rice’s Tour”
AFP –
French News Agency. “Rice Will Visit Chile to Consolidate
Ties and Talk about the Regional Situation.”
EFE –
Spanish News Agency. “Rice Ratifies in Brazil U.S.
Commitment with Colombia and Against the FARC.”
AFP –
French News Agency. “Rice: U.S. Examines Ties between
Chávez and FARC and will Take Action".
La
Prensa
– Argentine newspaper. “Borders cannot be a Hide-Out, U.S.
Warns".
On
March 14th, O Estado de Sao Paulo, a
Brazilian news site, successively sends three articles
titled: “Untimely Interference”, “Rice Discusses African
Tourism in Bahia” and “Amorim and ‘Condi' Make Mistakes.”
O Globo
on Line – Digital Site of the Brazilian TV channel.
“Condoleezza: Borders are not ‘Hiding Places’”.
El
Mercurio
– Chilean newspaper. “Rice, Arriving Today in the Country,
Will Discuss with the Chilean Government a Request to send
Peace Forces to Kosovo.”
Crónica
Digital – Chilean News Site. “Policy: Sticks and Carrots:
Condoleezza Rice’s Chilean Agenda.”
Condoleezza Rice herself would have to answer some
questions: How many Americans have been killed by bombs sent
by Cuba? Has even one single brick ever been broken because
of an explosive device coming from our country? Why are we
being included in the grotesque list of terrorist countries,
the same one on which Venezuela’s inclusion is being
arbitrarily threatened? Who used terrorism against our
homeland to blow up planes in mid-air, commit acts of
sabotage, and launch mercenary invasions and threats of
bombings and wars, economic blockade and actions that have
cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of
dollars? Who is going to believe you or Bush? Why are you
insisting on provoking fratricidal wars between the peoples
of Latin America?
In
Iraq, more than a million people have died. How many deaths
does the United States of America offer Latin America, a
region with over 500 million inhabitants, to defend its
democracy and its empire?
It is a
real fact that Bush and his group are much more trapped in
their foreign policy errors than even Nixon when he resigned
in 1972. The bloody Iraqi War and its rejection by the U.S.
people, the toll in human lives, the extremely high number
of wounded and maimed for every death in the military
adventure, all reveal a situation full of contradictions:
the deteriorated image of the United States and the
impossibility of giving up the wars of conquest for raw
materials, the dollar and the price of gold, currency
devaluations and inflation, consumerism and the inability to
supply themselves with consumer goods, production of ethanol
and the world shortage of food, fascist methods and
democratic demagoguery, torture practices and secret
prisons and human rights, maximum environmental pollution of
the country and the species’ right to survival, the benefits
of science for health and the use of the same to massively
liquidate or invalidate human beings, the brain drain and
underdevelopment of poor countries, the price of oil and the
ever-greater wasting of energy, the November elections and
growing numbers of Latinos dying on the border.
The
list would be endless. It is, in essence, a contradiction
between life and death.
Today,
on Sunday March 16th, we can read the dispatches
which correspondents were writing in Havana yesterday night,
Saturday, about the material published today in Juventud
Rebelde, received by them in advance on the previous
day.
It is
remarkable that none of the capitalist news agencies have
published a single word on what was written about the former
guerrilla Pedro Pablo Montoya who killed a leader of the
FARC and cut off his hand in order to receive a bounty of
2.6 million dollars that was legalized by an Attorney
General of Colombia. He was probably an agent infiltrated
by the Yankees. The issue has elicited a great debate due to
its ethical implications.
Condoleezza is off to Moscow, Bush announces a trip to the
Ukraine and Bucharest for the first days of April and he
will conclude the tour in Croatia, Serbia’s neighbor, from
which imperialism ripped its vital province of Kosovo, site
of its culture and source of essential material resources
that formed the basis of its development.
McCain
has just arrived in Iraq for the eighth time, to offer his
full support to Bush’s war, and to the 3 trillion dollars it
has cost, to which millions of victims must be added, among
the displaced and the dead, for the price of the fallen and
mutilated Americans already mentioned.
What
can the world expect from such a policy?
The
imperialist leaders and officials are working feverishly,
threatening everyone with their brutal strength, but the
empire is unsustainable and it doesn’t give up. It is
thirsty for blood. We must persistently denounce it!
Fidel
Castro Ruz
March
16, 2008
6:15
p.m. |
