CORRUPT RUSSIA

CORRUPT RUSSIA - Putin's Stormtroopers retreat

Russia: Clashes and arrests as thousands rally against corruption in Moscow

Putin's Russia

Putin's Russia

Hitler and Putin: A Tale of Two Authoritarians

Will Russia’s unconstitutionally elected president, Vladimir Putin, unleash a full-scale land war against Ukraine.

 

I can give you ten reasons for every possible answer to this question. Which is to say that, like everyone else trying to divine Putin’s “mind,” I don’t know.

 

But there is one thing that I definitely do know. Suddenly, we are all talking about war in Europe. The one thing that was supposed to have become “unthinkable” and “unimaginable” after the end of the Cold War and the rise of the European Union has become perfectly thinkable and quite imaginable.

 

And all thanks to Putin. If tomorrow’s headlines scream “RUSSIA INVADES ESTONIA,” we’d be shocked, but would we be surprised?

 

Don’t blame the thinkability and imaginability of war on the Ukrainians. All they did was remove a corrupt dictator and embark on building a democracy. The Ukrainians didn’t invade Crimea. Nor did they arm separatist republics with Russian soldiers and weapons. That was Putin’s doing and only Putin’s doing.

 

There’s a lesson here, and it’s not either of the ones that are usually drawn: that Putin is a power-hungry madman, if you’re his critic, or that Putin is a shrewd statesman motivated by raison d’état and Realpolitik, if you’re his backer. The real lesson is that dictatorships, especially fascist dictatorships built on the ruins of collapsed empires, are prone to do bad things, such as engage in imperialist wars.

 

I’ve made the comparison many times before (starting in the late 1990s, by the way), but it’s worth reminding ourselves just how similar Russia’s and Putin’s trajectories are to those of post–World War I Germany and Adolf Hitler. The point is not to score easy debating points or to shake Germans’ assumptions about the uniqueness of Nazi evil, but to demonstrate that there are deeper structural reasons for Putin’s aggressiveness and indifference to international norms.

 

Both Germany and Russia lost empires and desired to rebuild them. Both Germany and Russia suffered economic collapse. Both Germany and Russia experienced national humiliation and retained imperial political cultures. Both Germany and Russia blamed their ills on the democrats. Both Germany and Russia elected strong men who promised to make them grand and glorious again. Both strong men employed imperialist arguments about “abandoned brethren” in neighboring states, remilitarized their countries, developed cults of the personality, centralized power, gave pride of place in the power structure to the forces of coercion, constructed regimes that may justifiably be called fascist, and proceeded to engage in re-annexing bits and pieces of lost territory before embarking on major landgrabs. Both strong men demonized friendly nations. Germany’s strongman ended up starting a world war. Russia’s strongman—well, we don’t know what he’ll do, but please do notice that a rigorous pursuit of the comparison does not bode well for peace in Europe or the world.

 

Democracy matters. Dictators are more prone to war precisely because they can manipulate public opinion and ruthlessly pursue whatever warped visions they have without much resistance from institutions and elites. Democratic presidents don’t have that luxury—as a rule of course. That’s why democracies plod along. That’s why they muddle through. That’s why they’re the worst form of government, as Winston Churchill observed, except for all the others.

 

Ukraine’s democracy has at best been crummy and creaky for the last two and a half decades. It’s done far too little about reform and it’s been much too enamored of corruption. As a result, Ukraine has muddled along, sometimes muddling up, sometimes muddling down. Change is imperative, and, thanks to the Maidan Revolution, everyone in Ukraine finally knows it. Stasis is bad, possibly unsustainable, probably destructive. And yet, and yet: Ukraine remains a democracy, far more so now than just a few months ago. It’s searching for answers to complex questions, balancing far too many interests and sensitivities, moving much too slowly to satisfy proponents of breakthroughs (and that includes me).

 

But do take note of one very important fact. Amid all this democratic sludge, independent Ukraine has been pacific for the entire time of its existence. At the same time, when provoked, as in the past few months, democratic Ukraine has also demonstrated that it can fight to defend itself and its values.

 

Which goes to show two things: that, except for the likes of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Stephen F. Cohen, Marine Le Pen, and Aleksandr Dugin, even a crummy Ukrainian democracy is preferable to an efficient Russian dictatorship and that a war initiated by democratic Ukraine really is unthinkable and unimaginable.

Uruguay says it accepted Venezuela in Mercosur as part of a major negotiation

The Uruguayan government said that it accepted the incorporation of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur as part of a “negotiation” in which it demanded no economic sanctions on Paraguay and that is why “the last word has not been said” on the issue.

 Diego Canepa, his master’s voice tries to explain what happened in Mendoza

During a press round following a cabinet council meeting on Monday the Deputy Secretary from the Presidency Diego Canepa expanded on Foreign minister Luis Almagro’s words, earlier in the day, when he said he was not satisfied with the incorporation of Venezuela to Mercosur under the current circumstances and that is why there was a request to have until July 31 to make effective the entrance of President Hugo Chavez.

According to Canepa, Uruguay ended accepting the decision although it was in favour of such a move on virtue of “political circumstances”.

“That is why President Jose Mujica decided not to veto the incorporation of Venezuela in spite of the fact that the Paraguayan parliament had not given its approval, but given the trading importance of Venezuela for Uruguay, as well as the acceptance by Brazil and Argentina not to impose economic sanctions on the Paraguayan regime”, explained Canepa.

The Deputy Secretary then revealed that President Mujica and Minister Almagro decided to attend the Mendoza summit with the idea of not allowing economic sanctions on Paraguay, because “what happened was not a problem with the Paraguayan people”.

Accordingly Mujica requested from his peers, Cristina Fernandez and Dilma Rousseff the continuity of the Mercosur Structural Convergence Fund for Paraguay and proposed that Venezuela should not cut the oil aid to the country, as Chavez had originally promised and announced.

Besides, the Uruguayan president proposed and it was accepted by the two lady presidents the opening of the regional block “to the countries from the Pacific Alliance,” a decision which Uruguay “believes is an opportunity to expand dialogue and not end up with a fractured America”.

The Pacific Alliance recently created includes Chile, Peru and Colombia, and eventually Mexico, all governments that favour open markets, foreign investment and are friendly business, which is not necessarily the case with Mercosur and the rest of the continent.

The alliance has seriously disturbed Brazilian diplomacy that is now facing a major challenge to their political, economic and trade dominance in the region.

Canepa also pointed out that Mujica requested to wait until the next Mercosur meeting in Rio do Janeiro to make official the incorporation of Venezuela instead of doing it right away in Mendoza.

“It was important that Uruguay adopted a realistic policy and having achieved what it achieved, Uruguay could not appear vetoing the access of Venezuela” argued Canepa.

The close aide of Mujica said that “Uruguay understands that from a juridical point of view another path could have been chosen and even better, but if in your country half the political public opinion supports it, you can’t reject the position”.

He also insisted that the incorporation of Venezuela to the Mercosur block was “long ago voted” by the Uruguayan parliament and besides all the presidents considered that the Ushuaia constitutional clause was not being complied during the process to remove Lugo and that is why the suspension of Paraguay from all Mercosur activities until elections are held in 2013.

“Paraguay did not leave Mercosur, but rather a democratic clause was applied. The three presidents understood that it was necessary to send a strong signal in strategic terms so that Mercosur in a complex chapter in world affairs, more precisely because of the situation the EU and US are undergoing”, concluded the loquacious Canepa.

Argentina: the past won’t stay away

SW reviews a recently published book and essay, reminders that the desaparecidos remain at the forefront of Argentines’ minds and that answers are still needed

 Nearly four decades after the military coup of March 1976 in Argentina, society has still not come to terms with its recent past. The intellectual conviction is that societies have to assimilate the past to be able to bury it in the history books, but this has not yet happened. A recent book hinted at the possibility of change, but early optimism sank rapidly. The book, by journalist Ceferino Reato, editor of Fortuna magazine, researches into the dark corners of the seventies, and provides a cold and cruel description of the military plan to murder thousands of opponents as told in nine interviews by an imprisoned former dictator.

Argentina’s dictatorship held power between 1976 and 1983. Although this was the shortest dictatorship of all those in the region the rule of the Junta of three armed forces chiefs was the bloodiest, the only one that had a systematic plan to detain its captives in secret camp and make them disappear. Thus Argentina gave the word “desaparecidos”, in Spanish, to the language of repression. Political groups and human rights organizations set the figure of disappeared at 30,000. But this has been a projection, not backed by the recovery of remains and identities.

The contemporary regimes that lasted into the mid eighties or longer did not have a premeditated plan of annihilation and the death toll was not as high. That goes for the regimes of general Augusto Pinochet, as from 1973, general Gregorio Alvarez in Uruguay (1973) and the armed forces, in Brazil, led by marshal Castelo Branco, general Costa e Silva and others, as from 1964. They lasted up to the late eighties.

In Final Disposal (Disposición Final, in the original Spanish), subtitled “The confessions of (ex general Jorge Rafael) Videla about the desaparecidos” (published by Sudamericana), author Ceferino Reato secured a chilling narrative from the dictator, now 86, who is serving life imprisonment.

“Let’s say there were seven or eight thousand people who had to die to win this war: we could not execute them. How could we execute so many people?” says Videla.

“We never used the phrase ‘Final solution’. ‘Final Disposal’ were the words most used; those are two very military words that refer to taking something useless out of service. When, for example, one speaks of clothing that is used no longer or is too worn, it goes under Final Disposal. It no longer has a useful life.”

The statements made by Videla now go a long way to help explain the failings of a society that allowed and even cheered the murderous military dictatorship that began in 1976. “Yes, but the guerrillas started killing first,” was often the rejoinder we got at the Buenos Aires Herald when editorially critical of the uniformed rulers. The guerrillas were not first, they were the product of the failure of constitutional government, of a whole society that considered itself the most modern and intellectually advanced in South America.

The armed forces, formed into the most powerful party in the country since the 1930s, had hampered, disrupted and overthrown elected governments at will. Wrecking an elected government should have been considered a crime. And, we argued from the pages of Argentina’s smallest daily, in English, “the State cannot descend to the level of its enemies, because killing people is wrong, whoever does it.” We did not get very far with that argument. When I quietly admitted to people that I had been an informant for Amnesty International since 1971 and writing for Index on Censorship since 1973, the ensuing question was, “Yes, but what side are you on?” You had to take sides in the politics of a country that was descending into horror.

“To avoid arousing protests in or outside the country, we reached the decision that those people had to disappear; each disappearance can be understood as a certain masking, a disguise of a death,” Videla told Ceferino Reato.

On a personal note, this quote takes me back to September 1976 and to a meeting at Government House in Buenos Aires attended by the then editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, Robert Cox, and myself as his news editor, with Videla’s Secretary for Information, a naval captain (later Admiral) named Carlos Carpintero. When we chided the minister about the secrecy and horror of the disappearances his rejoinder was, “D’ you want us to have all the adverse publicity that Chile has? No way. What would the IMF and all those international organizations say?” The flippant remark added to the horror. Robert Cox thought then that Videla was a dove among hawks. Since Reato’s book appeared, Cox has published two columns in the Herald stating that Hitler was alive and well and living in Argentina in the person of Jorge Rafael Videla. In one article Cox wrote, “(His) account of the holocaust unleashed on Argentina is notable for his lack of human decency and the coldblooded manner in which he tells his story... I see a tactic behind Videla’s confession. He has nothing to lose now, but by admitting responsibility for all the crimes committed while he was army commander and later de facto president, he has put a spanner in the works for trial judges who have to include him among all the accused who are currently on trial.”

The former dictator admitted to Reato that there were “mistakes and excesses” but that was not the case “with the disappeared”, whose fate was part of a policy. The “responsibility in each case fell to the regional commander, who used the method he thought most appropriate. Each commander had full autonomy to find the quickest and least risky method. Nobody was against that: I was not consulted. I consented by omission.” Elsewhere, Videla said, “each commander was master and ruler over the life and death of each detainee.” And the method for disposing of bodies, that sinister “Final Disposal”, was equally the responsibility of unit commanders, no questions were asked among senior officers. They could bury the dead in mass graves, burn them in a stack of tyres, destroy them with lime.

Videla denies that there was, “an order to abduct minors. There were cases, I know, but they were the result of our lack of controls, there was no systematic plan to steal babies from captured mothers. The military handed over 227 children of captives to neighbours or relatives or to juvenile courts. But the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who campaign for the restoration of young people whose identities were stolen through abduction (“appropriation” is the word they use) originally estimated that there were nearly 600 children missing. The figure claimed is now closer to 400, and just over 100 have recovered their original family names, lost in forced adoptions. However, the Grandmothers gave the figure of 190 children disappeared along with their parents on their official web on December 24, 2011.

When Reato’s book was published in mid-April 2012, the statements appeared to some to be the first signal of an aged former president and army commander wanting to come clean with the country he had presided over for five years (1976-1981). He even seemed to regret the terror. However, by May 2012, it was obvious that the aging monster had agreed to talk on the record to say that he had been the boss when the military decided that the nation had to be saved from the subversive menace (Marxist and nationalist Peronist guerrillas). For those most ingenuous Videla could be about to produce the documents that recorded the military crimes (officially, they were destroyed in 1983, just before the elections, under orders of the last de facto chief, general Reynaldo Bignone, now in prison). But that idea was demolished by a letter from Videla to the conservative newspaper La Nación, published on May 21, rejecting some of author Reato’s passages. Videla claimed that he had said, “according to reliable figures, seven or eight thousand had died.” He further added, “Mind, I do not regret a thing and I sleep soundly and at peace every night.”

Reato rebuked the former general showing twenty hours of his interviews in hand written notes (voice recorders and cameras are banned at the Campo de Mayo barracks where Videla is imprisoned). The roughs were typed at home by Reato who on each subsequent visit to the prison took the typed sheets to Videla, who read and corrected in his hand, and returned.

The strength of the conversations felt akin to those written up in the late seventies by the Vienna- born British journalist Gitta Sereny with the imprisoned Nazi Albert Speer (1905-1981). The aged criminal appeared at once generous with information and coldly brutal in his views of events. On more than one occasion in his replies, Videla said he was merely acting as a military officer in his country’s service.

What had given the first inkling of hope for answers was in Videla’s death-toll figures. The “seven or eight thousand” were not far from “official” numbers, but distant from the 30,000 claimed by activist and human rights groups. Under President Raúl Alfonsín, the first civilian to be elected after the dictatorship in polls that were largely the result of the defeat of Argentina by Britain in the Falklands-Malvinas war in April-June 1982, there were 8,960 “desaparecidos” during the dictatorship, not including people killed in gunbattles or armed attacks. This figure was recorded by a human rights group, known as Conadep (National Commission on Disappeared Persons) that Dr. Alfonsín appointed to compile the casualties list.

This report led to the Junta trials in 1985. The results were later confirmed in a book by Conadep secretary Graciela Fernández Meijide, at one time a national senator and the mother of a disappeared son. Years later, in 1991, in a private conversation held at a book launch, Dr. Alfonsín accepted that totals found during his government could be projected to 14,000 maximum, to cover errors and omissions but he could not accept the figure of 30,000. The initial total of dead or disappeared coincided with reports compiled by Amnesty International in London and by the Clamor human rights group in Brazil, in the seventies, and is not too distant from that posted (7,954) on the national human rights secretariat web in 2009, under the current government of Mrs. Cristina Kirchner. And the walls of the National Monument to the Victims of Terrorism, on the edge of the River Plate, show 8,875 names.

However, we still have a long way to go for an answer as to what happened in the seventies.

If Argentina’s people are really intending to live in peace, we must be prepared to understand what happened to us in the seventies and before, and admit our share of responsibility. Admission of this will take us to a measure of self-compassion and forgiveness. That is the main message of an essay by a journalist and now a senator in Argentina’s Congress, Norma Morandini. She should know, her two younger siblings were “disappeared” in September 1977.

Norma Morandini’s recently published essay is a stream of personal and moral exploration and a search of Argentine society to try to explain recovery from a state of denial. It is a revealing account. Her own story begins in comfortable middle-class Córdoba, then moves through the loss of those dear, exile, and from a distance she sees her mother grow out of grief, first, then enter battle to seek her lost children as one of the mothers of the disappeared. The next stage in Norma’s life as a journalist is a return to Argentina, guilt-ridden for having survived, rejected for jobs and discriminated against for having dead or “disappeared” members of her family, finally to re-invent herself as a campaigner for a new culture and to enter politics.

Morandini’s book, From Guilt to Forgiveness (De la culpa al perdón, in Spanish, published by Sudamericana), is a painful personal essay written 10 years ago, only published now. It has a challenging sub-heading, “How to build an open society above the intolerance of the past”. The idea of forgiveness for the dictators of the past prompted an irate reader of Clarín’s Ñ cultural weekly to write in reply to a review and refuse compassion and pardon “for the criminals” of the dictatorship. But Senator Morandini is not suggesting we all go into an exercise of religious pardon of the sins of the monsters. She does propose that each one put their feelings in the balance and try to come to terms with their past as a necessary step into the present and beyond.

The book was published only a few days after Ceferino Reato’s Final Disposal last April. Reato brought into debate the casualty figures of the seventies. In conversation, Morandini dismissed, “Videla’s figures, because if accepted they must be seen as the tally of the executioner. We can’t simply believe the killer and not the victims” who claim that 30,000 disappeared.

Senator Morandini said: “During the trial of the Juntas in 1985 the figures and statements of the victims were usually put in doubt. For example, in those long, hard six months of the trials of the Juntas, former captives said that prisoners were drugged, tied, and dropped into the sea. Nothing happened. It was more than 10 years later when the executioner, naval officer Adolfo Scilingo confessed to Judge Baltasar Garzón in Spain, that the account of the bodies thrown from planes was true. Then it was believed. Human behaviour makes it reasonable to give credit to the killer but not the victim”. There is no reason to accept Videla’s figures that “seven or eight thousand had to die”, Morandini argued.

Morandini, formerly national deputy (MP) and now senator for a leftist alliance (FAP), studied medicine and psychology in her native Córdoba province, then became a journalist. She fled Argentina after the abduction of her brother and sister in September 1977, went to Brazil and found asylum in Portugal, whence she worked for the magazine Cambio 16, in Spain, which was then just trying on the discourse and freedoms of a new age after the death of Francisco Franco.

“In Argentina) we are a country that has not had a state policy to deal with events in our recent past. Our education does not include the construction of a culture of human rights.” These two sentences in part define the aim of Morandini’s book, to develop a democratic “society above the intolerance of the past.”

Speaking in her office a block away from the National Congress building, Senator Morandini was emphatic on her need, and by extension that of Argentina, to put human rights and the understanding of them above politics. “And we’ve failed to do that for too long, which explains why some of our society can’t or won’t speak of the past, or argues that it is too long ago to carry on arguing or campaigning about old events. The trouble is we have not renewed our politics. Politics in Argentina were born dead at the end of the dictatorship. They have not changed style or discourse or policies from before the coup. We do not have politicians and parties that made sure a new political life was born to enhance democracy.

“We have had 30 years of democratic formalities and we do not have democratic values. This is because society has leaders who do not want to recognize their part or the role of their parties in the civic failure that led to the worst dictatorship in our history. Here people are still trying to convince themselves that we are a peaceful nation without admitting we were cutting each others’ throats throughout the nineteenth century and killing people because we didn’t like what they said in the twentieth.

“We have not been able to see the difference between guilt and responsibility. Admiral Emilio Massera, commander of the navy during the dictatorship, and the most notorious of the tormentors, told the court in 1985, ‘I am responsible, but I do not feel guilty.’ He was speaking then as our politicians still do trying to make believe they can account for their decisions, but are not to blame for what goes wrong.” The US academic, Marguerite Feitlowitz has a remarkable study of the linguistic twists of Admiral Massera in her book, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (OUP, 1998).

In a breakdown of her essay the senator explained some of the multi-form behaviour of the seventies that still requires understanding by later generations. “The infamous naval torture centre, the ESMA, is not just a symbol of the worst of State Terrorism. ESMA forced its captives into slavery to allow them to survive.

One of the best examples of resistance was that of Víctor Melchor Basterra, a printer by trade and an activist of the hard-line Peronismo de Base, who had to forge documentation, contracts, passports, property deeds, and shady arrangements by the naval command. This was perverse, because he was ‘disappeared’ but was being used as an office clerk. He was freed on Fridays, went home and Sunday night they came for him to take him back into captivity at the ESMA. The man had the courage to remove copies of files on people disappeared and killed. In a system that ‘disappeared’ people without trace, that somebody should have to take photos of the condemned is perverse. They are very disturbing photos (a remarkable exhibition of some of this material was shown at the Palais de Glace six years ago). But those documents and photos were the only concrete and real elements of proof that reached the trials.

Basterra’s story can be linked to the day that writer Jorge Luis Borges went to the hearings. We were not allowed to have recorders or cameras. We had to take notes and none of us who covered those six months could really convey the horror. Borges, in 40 lines said what we failed to in six months: “He was not a Peronist, not a Communist, he was a man who suffered” (the article was published in Clarín, July 31, 1985). Borges conveyed humanity to the inhumanly distorted.

“That trial, famous as it became, was held behind closed doors. The country was afraid to know what had happened, and much of that feeling remains.”

Morandini has not lost hope for recovery. “For the first time in decades we are beginning to look at ourselves, our own mistakes. This change is coming from a new generation, the youngest, the children, and even grandchildren of the activists, sometimes utopian, and the disappeared of the seventies. This makes me feel we are on our way to a political culture that includes responsibility. At present we still have many bad old habits. We look at the crises in Europe and delight in their suffering, seeing it as a failure. What we don’t see in their plight is also that the protesters are demanding more democracy.”

This is what Norma Morandini’s deeply personal essay is about: the need for understanding of loss. She was greatly inspired by Hannah Arendt’s writings. “we must see others now as we must see ourselves, understanding. We need a greater sense of self-compassion, of the intimacy of pain suffered. For me to say this, now, is to come to terms with the guilt I have felt, the guilt of being older than my brother and sister who were disappeared. My political activism was lightweight, theirs was committed, dangerous. I saw the sadness of my mother and how she recovered and grew to an admirable strength. As a society, now, we must learn that the formulation of our past to ourselves will be the means by which we handle our present and even our future.

“We have to find a balance somewhere between being sucked down into evil which destroys us and choosing departure, escape, which robs us of the humanity needed to overcome. It is a

difficult balance. The book has ‘washed my soul’ as the Brazilians say. We must try to learn the

concept that one man is all men, the behaviour of one belongs to us all.”

Argentine Presidential Whore CFK calls for 'unity' to shield region from crisis emerged from rich countries

The Whore took to her Twitter account to say that “the fundamental goal in the unity of the region must be to make sure that the crisis has the less kind of possible impact in the development of our nations.” 

 

It summoned the entire region to “become more united” in order to face a crisis that emerged “in the rich countries.”

“Our commitment is to have integration be even deeper because this is what has allowed us to grow,” she tweeted. “Maybe many will think that most of our discussions in th Mercosur summit were related to the situation in Paraguay, but in fact most of them were about the need to further expand regional integration.”

“We discussed the need to join forces to face a crisis that is coming from abroad, coming from the rich countries,” it explained.

It also mentioned the Mercosur’s recent decision to accept Venezuela as a joining member of the trading bloc after July 31st in Rio de Janeiro and that both the Mercosur and Unasur will accept the will of the Paraguayan population after they have participated in “free, popular and democratic elections.”

“We’ve decided we will not apply any sort of economic sanctions on Paraguay because our goal is to improve the quality of life of our peoples,” it concluded.

Mercosur announced admission of Venezuela as a full member end of July

Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay made official on Friday the temporary suspension of Paraguay from Mercosur, because of the ‘summary’ removal of President Fernando Lugo and at the same time announced Venezuela will be incorporated to the group on July 31 at a meeting in Rio do Janeiro.

Cristina Fernandez, Dilma Rousseff and Jose Mujica meeting at the twice a year Mercosur summit in Mendoza, Argentina, confirmed that no economic sanctions will be imposed on the new Paraguayan administration of President Federico Franco, who replaced Lugo after the Paraguayan congress voted to impeach him.

The incorporation of Venezuela has been stalled since the original request in 2006 blocked by the same Paraguayan congress that impeached Lugo and had him replaced by Vice-president Franco.

The conservative Paraguayan Senate challenged all attempts from Lugo and pressures from neighbouring countries to have Venezuela incorporated, but they consistently argued that “no way” is the Venezuela of President Hugo Chavez going to join the block: “with him out of the picture, it will be different; Chavez does not believe in democracy: he gags the press, persecutes political adversaries and promotes subversive movements”.

Reading the conclusions of the ‘limited’ Mercosur summit, Argentine Presidential WhoreCristina Fernandez proposed that Unasur, Union of South American Nations should name a special committee to follow the Paraguayan process.

“Economic sanctions always end as a burden for the people, never governments. None of our peoples can be exposed to sufferings from decisions from a sector of their leadership”, said the Argentine Whore. Paraguay was suspended from the block until the coming elections to be held 23 April next year.

“According to the protocol agreed by Mercosur, a full democracy is essential condition for the process of integration. The reestablishment of full democratic institutions is what the protocol demands” insisted Fernandez (who knows nothing about democracy) .

Later in a brief ceremony the head of state transferred the Mercosur chair for the next six months to Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff who pledged to continue efforts for the advance of regional integration.

Following the Mercosur mini summit, Unasur presidents were scheduled to hold an emergency meeting to address the Paraguayan situation. Other heads of state in Mendoza included Ecuador’s Rafael Correa; Bolivia’s Evo Morales; Peru’s Ollanta Humala, Chile’s Sebastian Piñera and Foreign minister Nicolas Maduro replaced Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

“What we are dealing with here is whether we are capable of safeguarding legality and legitimacy and avoid these regional thinly veiled coups which do not fully develop to be dictatorships but under a certain veneer are a breakdown of the constitutional order,” the Argentine Whore assured.

She recalled the overthrow attempts of her friend and fellow Dictator Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and highlighted the absolute rejection the Mercosur and Unasur blocs showed at the time.

“These administrations have implemented inclusion policies to improve the life of millions of citizens who could not even access basic services. These decisions have a quality. Unasur does not group heads of state who share the same opinion in every aspect, but the positive aspect is that when facing situations regarding the breakdown of democratic order all of the Presidents have reacted by unanimously rejecting them,” it added.

Paraphrasing Jorge Luis Borges the Argentine poet, teh Whore said that love might not unite us, but certainly fear and horror. She pledged that Mercosur and Unasur ”will accept Paraguayan people’s will regardless of the outcome of the 2013 presidential elections in that country”.

Illegal Economic Blockade!

Mercosur agrees info exchange on hydrocarbons naval traffic to the Falklands

 Mercosur agreed at the Mendoza summit to exchange information on ships and other “naval artefacts” involved in hydrocarbons activities with routes that include the Falklands/Malvinas Islands over which Argentina claims sovereignty.

The tracking of oil rigs and support equipment on the Mercosur agenda The tracking of oil rigs and support equipment on the Mercosur agenda

At the summit it was also agreed besides information exchange, “to adopt measures susceptible to be regulated to impede the access of ships or ‘naval artefacts’ flying the illegal flag of the Islands” to the ports of the countries that make up the block.

The statement is one of several on different issues subscribed by Mercosur full members and associates released on Friday at the end of the summit.

“The presidents of Mercosur and associate member states declare their commitment to exchange available information on ships and ‘naval artefacts’ with routes that include the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands with cargo destined to hydrocarbons and/or illegal mining activities on the Argentine continental platform”, reads the resolution.

 Members present at the Mendoza Mercosur summit and Unasur extraordinary meeting included: Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez, host of the event; Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff; Uruguay’s Jose Mujica; and associates from Peru, Ollanta Humala; Evo Morales from Bolivia; Sebastian Piñera, Chile and Rafael Correa from Ecuador. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro represented President Hugo Chavez.

The leaders also renewed their support for Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands, a British Overseas Territory.

Unasur suspends Paraguay; names Peru at the group’s pro-tempore presidency

Unasur, Union of South American nations on Friday suspended Paraguay from the group following the ouster of the country's former president, Fernando Lugo. The decision was adopted at an extraordinary meeting in Mendoza, Argentina where earlier in the day Mercosur members adopted a similar measure.

 CFK's Lapdog and Village Idiot Argentine Foreign minister read the Unasur declaration Argentine Foreign minister read the Unasur declaration

Argentine Foreign minister Hector Timerman said the Unasur suspension will be in place until the country holds presidential elections slated for April next year.

Paraguay will be welcomed back into both groups once it holds clean and democratic elections, regardless of the result, Minister Timerman said at a press conference Friday following the meeting.

He added that Paraguay’s period at the pro-tempore Unasur presidency was over and will be replaced for the next twelve months by Peru.

The Unasur declaration described events in Paraguay as “a rupture of democratic order” and the procedure to remove Lugo as a “summary trial”, and a clear violation of the right to due process with minimum guarantees for an adequate defense.

Unasur will also promote the suspension of Paraguay from all forums, dialogue mechanisms, political convergence and integration of the region according to what is established in the statutes and regulations from the organization.

A special high level group will be named for the monitoring and assessment of the situation in Paraguay, particularly directed to a quick normalization of its democratic institutional order.

Finally Unasur reaffirms its unrestricted solidarity with the people of Paraguay and will ensure that “the effects of this decision do not harm the Paraguayan people”.

Mercosur Secretary General resigns and walks out from the Mendoza summit

Mercosur Secretary General Samuel Pinheiro Guimaraes resigned to his post in the midst of the Mendoza summit following a strong exchange with the group of Foreign Ministers, indicated reports from Buenos Aires.

 Pinheiro Guimaraes complained of lack of political support Pinheiro Guimaraes complained of lack of political support

The Brazilian official, according to summit sources, resigned and walked out of the meeting after presenting to the Foreign ministers his mid year report, arguing the “lack of political support and budget differences”.

In a brief message addressed to the summit, Pinheiro Guimaraes who before taking the Mercosur post was Brazil’s Presidency Strategic Affairs minister and Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained that his initiatives for some time “have not prospered” or for that matter “even considered”.

According to summit sources the attitude of Pinheiro Guimaraes surprised the Argentine and Uruguayan delegations, although Hector Timerman and Luis Almagro accepted the resignation with no questions.

Allegedly the outgoing official had serious differences with Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota, who has also fallen in disgrace with President Dilma Rousseff, according to Brasilia sources.

Pinheiro Guimarães became Mercosur Secretary General in January 2011 for a three year period and among his duties was to elaborate proposals and represent common policies from the group.

Another Dictatorship ‘Venezuela; to become full member of Mercosur, Paraguay suspended

Argentine Presidential Whore  Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner delivers a speech during the plenary of the XLIII Mercosur presidential summit in Mendoza, 1050 Km west of Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 29, 2012.

CFK’s Lapdog and role playing Nazi Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman announced today Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay’s decision to make Venezuela an official member of the Mercosur trade bloc. In addition, Paraguay was officially suspended, until the country’s authorities are renewed.

The announcement was made this afternoon before government ministers and heads of state from across the region as President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner read out the final conclusions of the Mercosur summit, taking place in Mendoza province.

Venezuela’s official inauguration to the trade bloc will take place on July 31 in Río de Janeiro, Brazil.

The final resolution also included, the suspension of Paraguay until the administration of the country is changed.

“The Mercosur will respect the wishes of the Paraguayan people, by having free and democratic elections,” Fernández de Kirchner said today.

Strife in Argentina - Pablo Moyano: 'The Gov't keeps adding fuel to the fire'

Teamster associate secretary, Pablo Moyano view of Argentine Government “It showed us an image of a military dictatorship”.

Amid the tension between the Government and truck drivers over the strike which has cut off national fuel distribution, Teamster associate secretary Pablo Moyano stated that “instead of negotiating, they just keep putting fuel to the fire,” restating his claim for talks.

“The Government needs to live in reality, not in a bubble. They cannot see the public aggravation on the streets.

“We want to know exactly what changed, because the Moyano’s have not changed. We used to be welcomed. The Government has distanced itself from the workers,” Pablo Moyano stated.

During a radio interview this morning, the truck driver’s associate secretary furthered:

“We were just able to see images of a petrol tanker being driven by a border guard, loading fuel in a total military-like way, surrounded by guards. It showed us an image of a military dictatorship.”


***********************************************************************************

 

'By midday, 65% of petrol stations in Buenos Aires will run out of fuel'

A representative for the Federation for Fuel Entities in Buenos Aires, Luis Malchiodi, said today that 65 percent of petrol stations in Buenos Aires Province will run out of fuel by midday, due to the trucker’s strike.

Malchiodi insisted the Government “make a decision” to overturn the trucker’s decision to strike, because “millions of people are being affected.”

“Between 60 and 65 percent of petrol stations in the province don’t have any more stock and by midday they will be left without fuel supply. There are more than 1000 service stations. Eight lorries worth will provide practically nothing,” the representative furthered.

Malchiodi was referring to the eight petrol-filled lorries that the Government managed to send out last night, from the YPF refinery in La Matanza, amid clashes between Border Guards and truck drivers.

Furthermore, Malchiodi said, “the border guards aren’t qualified to transport petrol."

"We are in a state of emergency. We have to tolerate some imperfections.

“The amount of petrol that was transported last night is really minimal. In the province area of Buenos Aires there are about 1,800 petrol stations. Petrol is going to run out very soon.”


*********************************************************************************

 

De Vido warns Supply law 'may go into effect'; businessmen 'to be reported if necessary'

Planning Minister Julio De Vido gave a press conference today at the Economy Ministry to give a thorough assessment on what the fuel distribution scenario is nationwide as the national strike set by the Teamsters’ union continues. The official remarked that the national government "will take all necessary legal actions to resolve the situation", which may include bringing the Supply law into effect, and reporting those businessmen who refuse to collaborate.

Thus, the official highlighted that "A total of 6,000 homes within the Buenos Aires province have been affected due to the fuel shortage. So, we recommend the population to take good care of their gas consumption until the situation gets back to normal."

Likewise, De Vido revealed that "As from today, we have re-assigned 7 million cubic metres of natural gas so that population can be provided. Obviously, many industry sectors will be affected by this whole situation", the minister said and added in what seemed to be a macro analysis of the situation that "There's a a glass factory that had to stop its production due to the fuel shortage."

In terms of transportation, the Minister said that "According to the available stock, fuel supply of metropolitan [BA City and Greater BA] transportation, including trains and buses, is guaranteed until this Saturday.

Long distance buses have reduced their frequency by 30 percent, so we recommend the population to avoid –if possible- taking long trips mostly to Cuyo region where the fuel shortage is quite sensitive by now."