Why the US Has No Right to Lecture Latin America
July 30, 2013
A Breathtaking Hypocrisy
Why the US Has No Right to Lecture Latin America
by DANIEL WICKHAM
Venezuela has announced that it is ending efforts to improve ties with the United States after the Obama administrations nominee for the role of ambassador to the United Nations labelled the country repressive. Samantha Power, who is widely known for her strong stance on human rights, vowed to contest the crackdown on civil society being carried out in countries like Cuba, Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
For obvious reasons, Power is selective in who she choses to criticise. The likes of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, all of whom have presided over major crackdowns on dissent in recent years, warrant no mention, which is not surprising given the US governments staunch support for the regimes in question. Regarding Saudi Arabia, Washingtons attitude towards democracy is best expressed by William M. Daley, Obamas chief of staff during the Arab uprisings, who said that the possibility of anything (like the revolution in Egypt) happening in Saudi Arabia was one that couldnt become a reality. Daley explained that for the global economy, this couldnt happen, referring of course to the importance of Saudi oil, which was described by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2003 as the primary reason for US support for the monarchy. An unsurprising claim, in light of the US State Departments description in 1945 of the Gulfs oil reserves as a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.
Returning to Latin America, the hypocrisy is again breathtaking. Condemning Venezuela as repressive, Power neglects to mention that the most dramatic setback, according to Americas Watch, for human rights in Venezuela came in 2002 when a coup detat, allegedly supported tacitly by the United States, removed Chavez from office and dissolved the countrys democratic institutions. It is also worth noting that the US supported enthusiastically the Caldera and Perez administrations which preceded Chavezs Bolivarian Revolution, both of which were vastly more repressive than the current revolutionary government.
Also strikingly absent from Powers remarks was any mention of Colombia, the United States closest ally in the region, which according to Americas Watch, presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere. This years annual report claims that over the past decade, the Colombian army committed an alarming number of extrajudicial killings of civilians, carried out in a systematic fashion, during which time the army was the highest recipient of US military aid in Latin America. Most of the killings occurred under the presidency of Alvaro Uribe, whom President Bush described in 2006 as a personal friend and a strong believer in democracy and human rights. Under Obama, Colombia has continued to receive more military aid than any other country in the hemisphere, with Mexico, whose well-documented record of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and widespread torture is not much better, coming second.
This practice- of giving military aid to the Hemispheres worst human rights abusers- runs throughout history. A 1979 study into Amnesty Internationals reports on torture revealed that 25 of the worlds 36 most prolific torturers between 1945 and 1975 received military aid and training from the United States, with Latin American regimes accounting for more than 80% of the most urgent appeals for victims of torture at the time.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/30/why-the-us-has-no-right-to-lecture-latin-america/
John2
(2,730 posts)of the GodFather and the Mafia.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Quite literally.
Been that way for a long time. Who knows what the state of human rights would be in South America or the Middle East, if we hadn't propped up every murdering monster who was willing to "do business" with the right people?
Then sometimes, we take them down -- Noriega, Hussein -- and pretend we'd just noticed how awful they were and how they (cough) had outlived their usefulness (cough) had to be stopped in the name of freedom and democracy.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)are rapidly vanishing in the rear view mirror.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)A Banana Republic with nuclear weapons, and with a Secret Police clamping its eyes and ears to every keyhole.