STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 14/07/01 18:36:25 Eastern Daylight Time, Lahuelga writes: << Chavez Kicks Off Poverty Summit By ALEXANDRA OLSON .c The Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez kicked off a Latin American summit on poverty by warning that the region's governments lack the will to reduce a yawning gap between rich and poor. The Venezuelan president said late Tuesday he worried there was no plan to reduce poverty by 50 percent in the Western Hemisphere by 2015 - a goal set during the Summit of the Americas in April in Quebec City, Canada. ``How are we going to meet that goal?'' Chavez said to a three-day congress of politicians, social leaders and others. ``I don't see the political will to solve that problem.'' Some 224 million Latin Americans - or 36 percent of the region's people - live in poverty, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the richest 10 percent of Latin America's 500 million people receive 40 percent of the income, while the poorest 30 percent get only 7.5 percent. The rest goes to the middle classes. Chavez - alone among hemispheric leaders in not enthusiastically endorsing a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005 - said the FTAA was being hammered out by political elites without considering the needs of the hemisphere's disenfranchised. Beatriz Paredes Rangel, president of the Latin American Parliament, complained that decisions by such elite groups as the G-8 industrialized nations ``have more weight than the national congresses of the world.'' AP-NY-07-11-01 0044EDT Venezuela urges Latam to rebel against poverty trap CARACAS, Venezuela, July 14 (Reuters) - Latin America should rebel against a "savage" neoliberal economic model which along with an "unpayable" foreign debt was the main cause of its poverty, Venezuelan Vice-President Adina Bastidas said. In a speech closing a conference on Poverty in Latin America on Friday night, Bastidas urged nations of the region to seek "new paths" to end social inequality and promote development. "We must rebel against the single theory that has been imposed upon us," she told participants in the four-day meeting in Caracas organized by the Latin American Parliament. Bastidas, echoing a favorite theme of left-leaning Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, singled out for criticism the "unjust and savage" model of neoliberal capitalism which she said had dominated most of Latin America for two decades. She said this model, imposed from outside the region and characterized by its privatization policies, had blocked development efforts and exacerbated poverty, leading to a deterioration of standards of living, health and education. "To this model was added the debt problem," she said, describing Latin America's $750 billion foreign debt as a "cancer for our nations." "The debt is unpayable," Bastidas added, recalling that this was a conclusion previously reached at a Latin American Debt Summit hosted in Havana in 1985 by communist-ruled Cuba. Bastidas said international financial institutions also shared a responsibility for Latin America's indebtedness and poverty, because they "converted themselves into policemen for the international banking community and obliged us to ... dedicate large slices of our budgets to repaying the debt". Since his election in 1998 six years after leading a failed coup bid, Chavez has often criticized what he calls "savage" neoliberal capitalism, invoking similar views held by veteran Cuban President Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II. Nevertheless, bankers and analysts say oil-rich Venezuela, bolstered by solid income from oil exports, sustained by high world prices, has been regularly paying its foreign debt. Bastidas noted that Chavez' critics and political enemies had accused him of seeking to export the "peaceful revolution" he had declared in Venezuela to the rest of the region. "It is them who are lighting the fuse of revolution among our peoples," she said. She said that ironically it was these same advocates of neoliberal capitalism who were unwittingly "financing" revolutionary movements in Latin America by promoting economic policies that caused hunger, poverty and social inequality. 11:44 07-14-01 Nobel Laureate Rips US Drug Policy By MARGARITA MARTINEZ .c The Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu criticized a U.S.-backed policy of fumigating farmers' drug crops, and said she was disillusioned with efforts to end Colombia's 37-year guerrilla war. She said President Andres Pastrana, who leaves office in 13 months, might be missing a chance to use peace talks to halt the fighting. ``I was very hopeful that Mr. Pastrana's government would leave behind a significant foundation for peace,'' Menchu told The Associated Press. ``It's frustrating because a lot of things seemed possible two years ago.'' The talks have produced almost no tangible results since they begin in January 1999. Menchu, whose native country Guatemala signed a peace accord in 1996 that ended a 36-year civil war, said Colombia's conflict has continued to get worse. ``Here you don't have a war between two valiant parties who turn their arms on one another, but rather a cowardly war in which arms are turned on the civilian population,'' said Menchu. Colombia's war pits leftist guerrillas against the military and paramilitary groups. At least 3,000 people are killed annually, the majority unarmed civilians in massacres. Menchu also criticized U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate crops used to make cocaine. Opponents say the program, in which herbicides are forcibly sprayed over farmers' plots, is ruining the environment and unfairly punishing poor people who grow coca to feed their families. U.S. and Colombian officials insist the eradication plans are aimed only at large traffickers, and have offered small farmers aid for switching from coca. But Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, called it a ``nefarious'' policy that will create more internal refugees. AP-NY-07-13-01 1941EDT >> ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chavez Kicks Off Poverty Summit By ALEXANDRA OLSON .c The Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez kicked off a Latin American summit on poverty by warning that the region's governments lack the will to reduce a yawning gap between rich and poor. The Venezuelan president said late Tuesday he worried there was no plan to reduce poverty by 50 percent in the Western Hemisphere by 2015 - a goal set during the Summit of the Americas in April in Quebec City, Canada. ``How are we going to meet that goal?'' Chavez said to a three-day congress of politicians, social leaders and others. ``I don't see the political will to solve that problem.'' Some 224 million Latin Americans - or 36 percent of the region's people - live in poverty, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the richest 10 percent of Latin America's 500 million people receive 40 percent of the income, while the poorest 30 percent get only 7.5 percent. The rest goes to the middle classes. Chavez - alone among hemispheric leaders in not enthusiastically endorsing a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005 - said the FTAA was being hammered out by political elites without considering the needs of the hemisphere's disenfranchised. Beatriz Paredes Rangel, president of the Latin American Parliament, complained that decisions by such elite groups as the G-8 industrialized nations ``have more weight than the national congresses of the world.'' AP-NY-07-11-01 0044EDT Venezuela urges Latam to rebel against poverty trap CARACAS, Venezuela, July 14 (Reuters) - Latin America should rebel against a "savage" neoliberal economic model which along with an "unpayable" foreign debt was the main cause of its poverty, Venezuelan Vice-President Adina Bastidas said. In a speech closing a conference on Poverty in Latin America on Friday night, Bastidas urged nations of the region to seek "new paths" to end social inequality and promote development. "We must rebel against the single theory that has been imposed upon us," she told participants in the four-day meeting in Caracas organized by the Latin American Parliament. Bastidas, echoing a favorite theme of left-leaning Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, singled out for criticism the "unjust and savage" model of neoliberal capitalism which she said had dominated most of Latin America for two decades. She said this model, imposed from outside the region and characterized by its privatization policies, had blocked development efforts and exacerbated poverty, leading to a deterioration of standards of living, health and education. "To this model was added the debt problem," she said, describing Latin America's $750 billion foreign debt as a "cancer for our nations." "The debt is unpayable," Bastidas added, recalling that this was a conclusion previously reached at a Latin American Debt Summit hosted in Havana in 1985 by communist-ruled Cuba. Bastidas said international financial institutions also shared a responsibility for Latin America's indebtedness and poverty, because they "converted themselves into policemen for the international banking community and obliged us to ... dedicate large slices of our budgets to repaying the debt". Since his election in 1998 six years after leading a failed coup bid, Chavez has often criticized what he calls "savage" neoliberal capitalism, invoking similar views held by veteran Cuban President Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II. Nevertheless, bankers and analysts say oil-rich Venezuela, bolstered by solid income from oil exports, sustained by high world prices, has been regularly paying its foreign debt. Bastidas noted that Chavez' critics and political enemies had accused him of seeking to export the "peaceful revolution" he had declared in Venezuela to the rest of the region. "It is them who are lighting the fuse of revolution among our peoples," she said. She said that ironically it was these same advocates of neoliberal capitalism who were unwittingly "financing" revolutionary movements in Latin America by promoting economic policies that caused hunger, poverty and social inequality. 11:44 07-14-01 Nobel Laureate Rips US Drug Policy By MARGARITA MARTINEZ .c The Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu criticized a U.S.-backed policy of fumigating farmers' drug crops, and said she was disillusioned with efforts to end Colombia's 37-year guerrilla war. She said President Andres Pastrana, who leaves office in 13 months, might be missing a chance to use peace talks to halt the fighting. ``I was very hopeful that Mr. Pastrana's government would leave behind a significant foundation for peace,'' Menchu told The Associated Press. ``It's frustrating because a lot of things seemed possible two years ago.'' The talks have produced almost no tangible results since they begin in January 1999. Menchu, whose native country Guatemala signed a peace accord in 1996 that ended a 36-year civil war, said Colombia's conflict has continued to get worse. ``Here you don't have a war between two valiant parties who turn their arms on one another, but rather a cowardly war in which arms are turned on the civilian population,'' said Menchu. Colombia's war pits leftist guerrillas against the military and paramilitary groups. At least 3,000 people are killed annually, the majority unarmed civilians in massacres. Menchu also criticized U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate crops used to make cocaine. Opponents say the program, in which herbicides are forcibly sprayed over farmers' plots, is ruining the environment and unfairly punishing poor people who grow coca to feed their families. U.S. and Colombian officials insist the eradication plans are aimed only at large traffickers, and have offered small farmers aid for switching from coca. But Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, called it a ``nefarious'' policy that will create more internal refugees. AP-NY-07-13-01 1941EDT
