As neoliberal policies continue to define the rules of the world economy, great signs of change are being witnessed in many progressive governments of Latin America that are rejecting the Washington Consensus in favour of democratic and people-oriented models of development based on greater regional integration, cooperation and economic justice.
In focusing on the Middle East George Bush has neglected the problems in his own backyard - as he will see during his trip to Latin America. It's an ill wind ... and the Iraq war has certainly done wonders for Latin America. An area traditionally under the United States' lock and key has been allowed to escape from its customary captor.
First of all I want to greet the World Social Forum and all the compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters who participate here in order to continue formulating a programmatic, political and ideological line to change the world, this world of injustices and inequalities.
At a meeting in Brazil on April 26, 2006, plans moved ahead between Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil for a major transcontinental oil pipeline. The pipeline would be 10,000 kilometres long and would link the four countries plus Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez said the pipeline would be integral to economically integrating South America and strengthening it against US imperialism, and was essential in “the fight against poverty and exclusion”. However, in the August 15 New Scientist an article titled “Is Venezuela’s pipeline the highway to eco-hell?” reported that “environmentalists are furious” about the project.
Shares in some of Venezuela's biggest corporations plunged yesterday after the president, Hugo Chávez, said electricity and telecommunications companies would be nationalised as part of a sweeping move towards socialism.
Heinz Dieterich, who has advised President Chavez, discusses what 21st century socialism might look like and what the chances for its implementation are in Venezuela.
A new wave of Latin American leaders is changing the face of the region and its relations with the United States, multilateral institutions, international financial markets and foreign investors. While this is often seen in Washington in political terms, as the rise of populism or anti-Americanism, much can be explained by looking at the economics of these changes.
Hugo Chavez isn't the only Venezuelan leader to ever challenge and anger the United States. Cipriano Castro, president of Venezuela from 1899 to 1908, was probably as big of an adversary to Washington as Hugo Chavez is today.
