Peru's president-elect softens criticisms of Chavez

[AnOhioan]

Excerpted from http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-06-06T174555Z_01_N06407039_RTRIDST_0_PERU-CHAVEZ-PICTURE.XML

LIMA, Peru, June 6 (Reuters) - Peru's president-elect Alan Garcia said on Tuesday he would stop battling Venezuela's populist anti-U.S. leader Hugo Chavez after weeks of public spats that underscored political divisions in Latin America.


"Someone declares war on me and I will declare peace. ... I am not interested in leading some continental anti-Chavez movement," Garcia said in his first news conference since beating a Chavez-backed ex-army nationalist in Sunday's vote.



The administration of President George W. Bush, looking for support against Chavez, has welcomed Peru's criticism of Venezuela for meddling in its affairs.

It would seem that Mr. Garcia is now going to become almost as annoying to the chimp as Chavez already is.

[jseankil]

1. Viva Garcia! Chavez should have kept his nose out! /nm

nm

[katinmn]

2. Garcia had to leave the country following his last failed experiment

at governing 16 years ago to escape arrest for mass corruption.

I hope he does better this time.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Everybody seems to be accepting the corporate news spin on the Garcia-

Humala election, and, thus, when something like this occurs--Garcia attempting to defuse things with Chavez--we are kind of bewildered.

Here's what happened: Humala, a 100% indigenous Indian, with no money, came out of nowhere--representing the poor, the indigenous and the true Left--to win 30% of the vote in the prelim election, winning a runoff with corrupt ("free tradist") Leftist Garcia, and thus bumping the rightwing candidate out of the race. Humala surprised everybody. He then went on to win 45% of the runoff vote against Garcia's 55%, still with no money and facing hostile corporate news monopolies. This unknown INCREASED his vote by 15%, between the prelim and the runoff. So the truth of the matter is likely that Chavez HELPED him, not the other way around. And that makes more sense. Chavez is immensely popular in the vast poor and indigenous populations that straddle Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. THEY could care less what Bush thinks--they hate Bush--or what the rich and their corporate news monopolies think, of "interference" from a hero like Chavez. The Bolivarian dream--the dream of the great revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar who freed them from Spain and freed the slaves--was ONE COUNTRY in this region anyway. The divisions--the national borders--are a Colonial invention (small, exploitable countries--as in Africa and the Middle East--as opposed to a powerhouse, united regional government, which is what Bolivar wanted, but died too young to help bring about).

As the result of this resurgent true Left and Humala's candidacy, Bush and the Corporatists had only one candidate they COULD endorse--the corrupt Leftist. Think about the irony of THAT! He's sort of a Clintonite (social liberal, free tradist). The 'free trade' part of it (and the corruption) will destroy Peru's economy, much like politicians similar to Garcia destroyed Argentina's economy, and Humala and the true Left will no doubt be back, with a yet bigger mess to clean up. (Argentina finally broke free from IMF/World Bank debt and the corrupt politicians who had incurred it--with guess who's help? Hugo Chavez and Venezuela helped bail them out!)

This huge, peaceful, democratic, Leftist revolution that is occurring in South America--with Leftist governments elected in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia--is unstoppable. It is very deep and widespread--because it is based on TRANSPARENT elections (hard work by the OAS, the Carter Center, EU election monitoring groups and others) and strong civic organization. It is a reflection of the vast majority of South Americans, who are fed up with US domination and global free piracy. In Argentina, they took little hammers to all the ATM machines in the country--the middle class and the poor working together--as a protest against the goddamned international banking world. We're talking FED UP!

In Bolivia, the poor rose up and basically threw Bechtel Corporation out of their country--for privatizing the water in one Bolivian city and then jacking up prices to the poor, even trying to charge poor peasants for collecting rainwater. Then they elected the first indigenous president of Bolivia, socialist Evo Morales. Tens of thousands of Andes Indians came down out of the mountains to invest him in office, in a special pre-inauguration ceremony.

Beware of corporate news monopoly narratives on Latin America. Garcia is well aware of the power of the true Left--and of the empowerment of the vast majority poor and indigenous--as this peace initiative with Chavez clearly shows.

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"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales

[AnOhioan]

4. Maybe I was not clear....

I am not criticizing Chavez....I was trying to comment on the irony of the chimp placing alot of emphasis on the fact that Garcia was knocking Chavez. Now, with election over, Garcia seems to be mending fences in a hurry. I think Garcia said what he needed to say about Chavez...now he can ignore the Neo-cons and make friends with Chavez.

[Peace Patriot]

5. For an alternative perspective on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution,

try: www.venezuelanalsis.com. Good articles. Deep background. Very helpful in overcoming our war profiteering corporate news monopoly's delusionary world (where anybody who dares to represent the majority in a South American country is painted as a gun-toting leftist guerilla and "strongman," even if he WAS repeatedly elected by his countrymen in TRANSPARENT, honest, aboveboard, highly monitored elections--something they never mention).

[killbotfactory]

6. When Chavez promotes a candidate, he is meddling

When the US does it, we are spreading democracy.