Six South American nations suspend participation in UNASUR regional bloc due to U.S. pressure

[sandensea]

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru announced this week that they would indefinitely suspend their participation in the meetings of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

In a joint letter sent to the Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fernando Huanacuni Mamani, who assumed the rotating presidency of UNASUR on April 17, they stated that their withdrawal was related to the current lack of a secretary general of UNASUR.

The withdrawal was announced just 2 days after Bolivia assumed the presidency however.

The move can be seen as another move by the growing neo-conservative block in Latin America to break away from Latin American integration and move closer to a U.S.-backed agenda.

UNASUR was officially founded in 2008 in Brasilia to promote political and economic coordination between all 12 South American nations.

The project was one of the many that developed during the cycle of progressive governments in Latin America seeking to create a regional response to the efforts of U.S. interests to maintain unregulated access to Latin American labor, natural resources and markets - as well as to counter the Bush administration's political agenda.

“If UNASUR is dissolved the continent will be closer to a Free Trade Area of the Americas,” Argentine foreign policy analyst Martín Granovsky noted, in reference to a key Bush initiative.

“And this without Washington having needed to make the least effort.”

At: https://newsclick.in/six-south-american-nations-suspend-participation-unasur-regional-bloc-due-us-pressure

South American leaders inaugurate the Néstor Kirchner Building, UNASUR's headquarters, in Quito, Ecuador, in 2014.

Kirchner, who died in 2010, was instrumental in forming UNASUR - a move opposed by U.S. policy makers and neo-cons in particular.

[Judi Lynn]

1. The progress to Latin American countries controlling their own interests still lies ahead.

The people of the Americas have struggled toward this honorable, decent, righteous goal for so long, and outside interests have fought them at every step, using horrendous wealth, power, and even US military force to implement their will when possible, and covert machinations always.

This paragraph, from the article above, was also noteworthy:

While these governments leave the regional integration projects, they open the doors of their countries to transnational capital, international economic institutions, and increase militarization and “security” projects. They are passing regressive labor and pension reforms, allowing multinational companies to exploit their precious natural resources, stripping funds from public programs and services, privatizing the remaining public companies, essentially sacrificing their people to serve the interests of their local oligarchy, the United States and the transnational elite class.

The "New World" still lies ahead for us all, as empire appears to have always been here since the Americas were "discovered" then violently invaded by Europeans in search of new ways to wealth without the imposition of laws and higher authority overseeing their ambitions. We were given the goofy and utterly bogus image of the early waves of European humble immigrants as passive victims of European oppression, "yearning to be free."

You bet! Within a couple of hundred years, millions of indigenous people were slaughtered, enslaved, and some simply dead by suicide. So mock-worthy when idle right-wing bullies attempt to push their ignorant crappola down our throats that everyone who doesn't support the "every man for himself" approach to "life" is the enemy.

The New World lies ahead of us all, still, and it WILL come to life the right way, without the lying, cheating, back-stabbing, murderous treachery of the fascists. We all know that way doesn't work. They will always be in their death-throes until they finally shove off.

Hooray for the people, whose world lies around us in potential now, ready to spring to life after evil runs out of steam. We all know it's going to happen after the clowns leave.

On edit:

Sandensea, thanks for the photo, and the reference to the statue. I was feeling pretty sure it was President Kirchner, who, himself was a torture prisoner of the Argentinian military dictatorship, but I had never heard there was one of him created already. I am very happy to see that statue. He was a rare leader who accomplished so much, so fast, coming from a horrendous deficit left behind by the inhuman excesses of the right-wing dictatorship and the lingering residue.

He will be remembered a very long time.

[GatoGordo]

2. Leaderless. Rudderless. Agenda-less.

"The governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Paraguay believe the bloc has been rudderless under the current rotating presidency of Bolivia, according to a statement sent to Brazilian ministers, seen by Reuters."

“Unasur works by consensus but the differences between its members’ political and economic views are so great it can no longer operate,” said a Peruvian diplomat who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Chavez and other leaders set up Unasur to create a regional economic and political union that ultimately struggled to gain momentum.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-unasur-membership/six-south-american-nations-suspend-membership-of-anti-u-s-bloc-idUSKBN1HR2P6

Even money is betting that by the end of the week, Unasur will be Bolivia, Uruguay, Suriname and Venezuela. Ecuador and Guyana have had their fill of Unasur. They won't fund it any longer.

Unasur = ALBA. Redundant.