Panama Wins U.N. Security Council Seat

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Security-Council.html?ei=5094&en=70d0c8ba7b1550f6&hp=&ex=1162962000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1162916462-xxVUGIctHPnWO9wWzEcItQ

Panama Wins U.N. Security Council Seat

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Panama won a seat on the U.N. Security Council on the 48th ballot Tuesday after U.S.-backed Guatemala and Venezuela, led by leftist anti-American President Hugo Chavez, dropped out to end a deadlock.

Panama got 164 votes in the 192-member U.N. General Assembly, more than the 120 needed to win a two-year term starting Jan. 1 on the U.N.'s most powerful body. Venezuela got 11 votes, Guatemala 4 votes, and Barbados 1 vote.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Emblematic of the face-off between the forces of torture, tyranny, death

squads and exploitation, led by the Bush Junta, and the amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution that has swept Latin America--with leftist governments elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, and big leftist movements in Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Nicaragua.

The Bush Cartel is purchasing a 200,000 acre enclave in Paraguay--a weak government, and easy prey for the "Plan Columbia" paramilitaries and death squads ($600,000 in U.S./Bushite funding this year alone). We U.S. taxpayers have also paid for a top-of-the-line U.S. military air base in Paraguay. Likely first target: Bolivia. The Bolivians revolted against Bechtel Corp., after Bechtel privatized the water in one Bolivian city, and then jacked up the prices to the poorest of the poor, even charging some poor peasants for collecting rainwater! The Bolivians rose up, threw Bechtel out of their country, and elected socialist Evo Morales as president--the first indigenous president of Bolivia--who opposes the murderous U.S. "war on drugs" and wants to nationalize Bolivia's considerable natural gas reserves.

We are also paying for the Bushite funding of fascist political candidates in many of these countries (--often in violation of the countries' laws, as in Venezuela). The Bushites' attempted violent coup in Venezuela, however--and other tactics, such as the crippling oil professionals' strike--have not only failed, they have backfired. Hugo Chavez--who is actually a brilliant president--weathered it all. Support for Chavez has remained at 60% throughout. His government IS representative of the majority (and its elections have been the most heavily monitored on earth, with all parties attesting to their integrity).

So it appears that what the Bush Junta intends to do is to pick off the weaker countries around Chavez, and try to isolate and destroy this vast democracy movement, one country at a time. Paraguay may not only be a Bushite refuge from prosecution, but also a base from which to wage a private corporate war against democracy in South America. With Democrats running Congress (a possibility today, for many reasons), and a Democrat in the White House in '08, there may be some improvement in our policy of toppling democracies in Latin America, but funding for the "war on drugs" will no doubt continue (it's a military/war profiteer boondoggle that most of our Dem politicians support), as well as promotion of global free piracy (which many Dem leaders also support). So, the Bushites will do the dirty work, with nothing to stop them except regional South American solidarity and cooperation, which the Bushites have sorely tested with this U.N. Security Council fight. (For instance, it looks like Chile--headed by socialist Michele Batchelet, the first woman president of Chile, who was tortured by the U.S.-backed dictator Pinochet--may have broken ranks and settled for some "free trade" deals, to abstain on the Venezuela/Guatemala votes.)

"The issue is joined"--as Howard Baker used to say, during the Watergate hearings. The gauntlet has been thrown. The forces of fascism and the forces of democracy are lined up. And the main battle line will be in the Andes.