Latin America news roundup - June 7, 2009

A woman cries as she watches police search one of her relatives, unseen, in the street in Bagua Grande, Peru, Saturday, June 6, 2009. Clashes broke out early Friday when security forces moved to break up a roadblock by some 5,000 Indians that was mounted in early April, to protest oil and gas exploration on their lands in the Amazon. Peruvian authorities say 20 police have died in the clashes and Indian protest leaders say 25 Indians have died in the clashes. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)

TOP STORY - 34 dead in Peru protests (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Argentina - Vultures circle Argentina (Guardian)

Brazil - Brazil, China deals challenge US position in Latin America (World Socialist Web Site)

Chile - ITT attempted to block the election of Salvador Allende by proposing payments to Allende's opponents through the CIA (Wall Street Journal)

Chile - Chile exhumes singer Victor Jara, slain under Pinochet (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Colombia - Colombian journalists track civil conflict on Contravía (Colombia Journalism Review)

Ecuador - Ecuador finance minister "very happy" with debt buyback (Reuters)

El Salvador - Interview: Members of University Front of Roque Dalton from the National University of El Salvador (Upside Down World)

United States - Boosting US funds for IMF proves a hard sell for Obama (DPA)

Uruguay - Poll shows Uruguay’s ruling coalition winning next October (MercoPress)

Venezuela - El Salvador to investigate Chavez claims (Associated Press)

World - Is Nehru coming back? (Mainstream)

Fordlandia: The Failure Of Ford's Jungle Utopia

All Things Considered (National Public Radio)

June 6, 2009

Henry Ford didn't just want to be a maker of cars — he wanted to be a maker of men. He thought he could perfect society by building model factories and pristine villages to go with them. And he was pretty successful at it in Michigan. But in the jungles of Brazil, he would ultimately be defeated.

It was 1927. Ford wanted his own supply of rubber — and he decided to get it by carving a plantation and a miniature Midwest factory town out of the Amazon jungle. It was called "Fordlandia."

Leonor Weeks DeCeco was 8 years old when she joined her father in Henry Ford's jungle utopia. "We had everything that we really wanted. We had a swimming pool, tennis court, golf course, and I had my animals — my Chico, which was a rare monkey."

"My dad was a construction engineer, and he was in charge of everything, and I enjoyed being down there with him," she says.

But for pretty much everyone else, it was a green hell of riot and blight. Author Greg Grandin tells the story in his new book, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City...

(click here to view entire report)

Latin America news review - June 6, 2009

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa gestures during a ceremony in Tegucigalpa, Sunday, May 31, 2009. Correa was on a brief visit to Honduras and then travelled to El Salvador for the swearing in ceremony of President Mauricio Funes on June 1. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)

TOP STORY - Ecuador’s Correa forecasts the end of OAS and promotes the Group of Rio (MercoPress)

Bolivia - Iran not interested in Bolivian uranium: Tehran envoy (AFP)

Bolivia- Bolivian peasants block highways (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Brazil - Brazil opens its arms to Chinese investment (The Australian)

Chile - Chilean candidates struggle to define how their economic programs would be different (Two Weeks Notice)

Colombia - Stalled but not dead: Update on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (Rabble)

Ecuador - Ecuador to join Alba (News of the Restless)

El Salvador - New president promises to beat poverty (Inter Press Service)

El Salvador - Salvadorans expect better times with Funes (Angus Reid Global Monitor)

United States - Barack admits US role in 1953 Iran coup (Press TV)

An interesting old interview with Salvador Allende

International media attacked Allende's Popular Unity government in much the same way that they attack Venezuela's Chavez government today

Political schizophrenia at the Caracas Chronicles

By Justin Delacour

Latin America News Review

June 5, 2009

Francisco Toro of the Caracas Chronicles is quite the enigma.

One month Toro eloquently lambastes his fellow Venezuelan oppositionists for calling Hugo Chavez a "dictator," pointing out that, when people hear the word "dictatorship", most of them understand "something that's very far removed from the way Chávez exercises power."

But then, the next month, Toro turns the tables on us and launches his own round of hysterics about Chavez's "dictatorial moves" and the "Cubanization" of Venezuela.

Then, a week later, Toro is back to telling us that Venezuela is still a "half wannabe-Miami-mall-culture," which pretty much defeats his whole point about "Cubanization."

Then Toro turns the tables on us again and really goes off the deep end today. After Chavez engages in a rhetorical flare about how "rich people aren't human," Toro chimes in with this little gem:

We know, from history, that the deployment of dehumanizing discourses is a necessary pre-condition for the physical extermination of one human group by another.

Ah, yes, Francisco. In the "half wannabe-Miami-mall-culture," where it sometimes seems that every other woman and her mother has breast implants, a Cambodian-style pogrom against the rich is imminent.

Might I suggest some medication, Mr. Toro?

I mean, Jesus. This guy really is the Jekyll and Hyde of political commentarists.

Latin America news review - June 5, 2009

TOP STORY - US policy and democracy in Latin America: The Latinobarómetro poll (ZNet)

Argentina - Argentina's community media fights for access and legal reform (Americas Program, Center for International Policy)

Chile - A human rights mystery is solved in Chile (GlobalPost)

Colombia - UN warns of "rising intimidation" in Colombia while Colombian government turns to intimidating U.S. and British activists (Huffington Post)

Colombia - Uribe's refusal to compromise endangers release of Moncayo: FARC (Colombia Reports)

Cuba - Cuba wants integration without OAS (Inter Press Service)

Cuba - Human Rights Watch and their "higher collective standard" (Daily Kos)

Peru - Peru’s economic model and poverty reduction: Is it working? (Council on Hemispherica Affairs)

United States - Ronald Reagan: Worst president ever? (Consortium News)

World - NGOs Oppose Nearly 100-Billion-Dollar Pledge to IMF (Inter Press Service)

Latin America news roundup - June 1, 2009

Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff of Brazil's presidency and the likely ruling party candidate for president in 2010, listens to a question at the Reuters Latin American Investment summit in Brasilia, May 8, 2009. REUTERS/Jamil Bittar (BRAZIL POLITICS BUSINESS HEADSHOT)

TOP STORY - Brazil's Lula and his candidate's approval up-poll (Reuters)

Bolivia - Licensed to kill: Right wing zealots, big oil and the tattoo that hid an icon of hatred (Irish Mail)

Brazil - Reviews of Greg Grandin's Fordlandia (The Ebooks Review)

Costa Rica - Costa Rica opposition party hosts first nationwide primary (Tico Times)

Ecuador - Correa vows to deepen the citizens' revolution (Green Left Weekly)

Ecuador - Correa urges OAS nations to apologize to Cuba for isolation (Xinhua)

Ecuador - Ecuador wants billions to not drill in biosphere reserve (AFP)

El Salvador - The beginning of a new era (Monthly Review)

El Salvador - Archbishop Oscar Romero arises in the Salvadoran people (Daily Kos)

Latin America - South American nations agree on technical rules for Bank of the South (Americas Program, Center for International Policy)

Peru - Indigenous protests force government negotiation (Green Left Weekly)

Uruguay - Mercosur remains strategic for Uruguay and must be “strengthened” (MercoPress)

Venezuela - Battling murder in the participatory republic of Venezuela (openDemocracy)

World - Gary Dymski on the global economic crisis and the opening it presents for the Left (Re-public)

Who "chickened out" in Venezuela?

The real story --which the Venezuelan opposition seeks to turn on its head-- is that Vargas Llosa and company refused to debate with intellectuals of the Venezuelan left

By "Tosh"

Latin America News Review (from comments)

June 1, 2009

These guys [of the Venezuelan opposition] must have watched the whole thing on Globovision, and that's why they don't know what really happened.

I watched the whole thing go down on Alo Presidente. Chavez invited ALL THE GUESTS of Cedice over for a debate with the socialist intelectuals (he was talking to some pro-Chavez intellectuals when he made the offer), and [Mario] Vargas Llosa said he would only go if it was an exclusive debate between Chavez and Vargas Llosa.

Well, that wasn't the offer. Chavez isn't going to give Vargas Llosa that kind of publicity and platform to spew his nonsense.

The offer was for the intellectuals from the right to debate those of the left on Alo Presidente. The right wing refused the offer.