Ecuador Takes Over U.S. Oil Comany

On May 10, thousands of indigenous Ecuadorians (from the Amazon area), along with workers and sudents, marched in Quito demanding the Ecuadorian government take over Occidental (Oxy) oil facilities and they had 15 days to do so before nationwide protests would begin. During the month of March, the entire Ecuadorian nation was shaken up with massive demonstrations by labor, student and indigenous organizations. On May 16, the Ecuadorian government announced the take over of the Oxy oil facilities. Oxy is the country’s biggest foreign investor said they plan sue the government. In response, the U.S. government announced it is breaking off trade negotiations with Ecuador.

Announcing the decision to cancel Oxy’s contract on Monday night, Ivan Rodriguez, Ecuador’s energy minister, said Oxy had improperly transferred a 40 per cent interest in its fields to EnCana of Canada in 2000.

Ecuador has drawn up a shortlist of international bidders that it may now offer Occidental’s contract to, including Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro, Venezuela’s PDVSA, Colombia’s Ecopetrol and Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos.

A potential purchaser could also come from China. In March EnCana sold its assets in Ecuador to Andes Petroleum, a Chinese consortium, for $1.42bn, the biggest transaction in the history of the country’s oil sector.

With much pressure coming from the U.S., Ecuadorian government officials find themselves split over the next steps. Different comments have been made by Ecuador's Energy Minister and Petroecuador's President. The one thing they agree is the planned cooperation with Venezuela to help reconstruct Ecuador's oil refineries to be self sufficient.

We can't say for sure what is going to happen, but wait and see. Don't worry, I'll keep you updated.

Colombia Loosens Abortion Law: One Step Forward, But Many More Needed

Above: Pro-Choice rally in Colombia (left), Lawyer Maria Roa who filled the case with the Supreme Court (right).

In mid-May, the Colombian Supreme Court voted in favor of allowing abortions in cases of incest, rape and if a women's life is in danger. This now leaves El Salvador and Chile as the only countries in Latin America in which abortion is illegal no matter the circumstances. While the world press credits the lawyer Maria Roa as the cause of this victory, what is missing is the fact there has been a growing women's movement developing across South America.

There are only three nations in South America and the Caribbean where abortion is legal: Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico (because as a colony follows U.S. laws). There has also been a growing movement to decriminalize abortions in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Colombia.

The sentiment is changing in this largely Roman Catholic continent. One example is Nicaragua of which a debate broke out in 2003 over the case of a 9 year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped. The Catholic Church announce the excommunication of the parents, doctor and others involved in the child's abortion. While some 20 years before this decision by the parents would have been condemned, in 2003 most Nicaraguan's where in favor and outraged over the Church's decision.

The same is true in Colombia and other nations over sentiment on abortion. In July 2004, a bill was rejected by the Uruguayan Congress to decriminalize abortion by a vote of 17-13. Uruguay, a nation of 3.3 million, has about 52,000 births each year and between 30,000 and 50,000 pregnancies are terminated. Polls also showed that 63 percent of the population were in favor of the pro-choice legislation. The pro-choice law is to be voted on again and the recently elected Socialist Party President Tabare Vazquez has announced he plans to veto the bill if passed.

Three days after the vote in the Uruguayan senate, Chile signed into law a bill legalizing divorce—one of the few countries in the world where divorce had been banned by law. Reflecting the growing involvement of women in the labor market, and thus their increasing independence from spouses for survival, many married couples would separate and live with their companions. This trend is reflected in the fact that over 40 percent of children in Chile today are born from unmarried parents. This only demonstrates deep contradictions that exist and not talked about. At the same time, Ms. Bachelet, the first female president of Chile, has said that the "possibility to legalize abotion is not part of her platform." Being part of her platform or not, it doesn't necessarily reflect a growing pro-choice sentiment.

Nonetheless, an estimated 4 million women have abortions in Latin America annually—most performed under clandestine and often dangerous conditions. Some 800,000 of these result in complications that require medical treatment. In Argentina about four out of 10 pregnancies are terminated by abortion. About 500 women die from botched abortions every year in Argentina, the largest single cause of maternal deaths in the country. In Latin America, abortions account for 12 to 30 percent of maternal deaths.












Clockwise: Pro-choice demonstrations in Uruguay(2004), Argentina(2004) and Chile(2003).

Mafalda #3

Bolivia Nationalizes Gas Industry and Plans to Construct a 'Gasoduct'

President Evo Morales has moved forward on one of his campaign promises: to nationalize the gas industry. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, but rich in natural resources and crippled by underdevelopment. This will affect Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp.

The nations of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela have announced support. At the same time, the Bolivian government announced discussed plans with the heads of state of Argentina (Kirchner), Brazil (Lula) and Venezuela (Chavez) in building a major pipeline.

Not Just the Gas, but Mines and Land

On May 1st, the International Holiday celebrating Working Men and Women, Morales announced that foreign corporations whom function in that country have received a 180-day notice to sign new contracts. The new contracts include that the state gas firm would receive 82 percent of the revenues, with the oil companies getting the remaining 18 percent.

Morales also said the gas decree "was just the beginning, because tomorrow it will be the mines, the forest resources and the land."

The next day, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said mining companies could face higher taxes and royalty payments and the government will enforce existing laws to break up underdeveloped land holdings, apparently to turn them over to the poor.

70 per cent of Bolivia’s population is classified living under the poverty level. The majority indigenous population led mass demonstrations during the last 5 years that brought down presidents and shook up the mine and gas industry with demands of nationalization.

Full nationalization of the gas industry, or moves in the petroleum, cannot be complete because Bolivia lacks the ability to tap all its natural gas and petro on its own. Morales told Brazil's Valor Economico newspaper that Bolivia would have to "set up a new battalion, a new army of oil and gas specialists to exert the property right" for a complete state takeover of petroleum production.

The presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia met last week in the Argentine city Puerto Iguazu to discuss details on the new decree and the effects it will have with Argentina and Brazil. Seperate negotiations continued with the advisors of Bolivia and Brazil and an agreement was made.

Gasoducto del Sur
As a signer of the treaty Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), Bolivia has joined with Venezuela and Cuba to strive for further cooperation and solidarity with in the nations of Latin America. This treaty seeks to strengthen the South American nations by combining its resources, being natural (gas, petroleum, etc.) or human (doctors, teachers, etc.). In November of 2005 President Chavez of Venezuela and President Uribe of Colombia signed a deal that included building a petroleum pipeline between the two countries.

Venezuela has the fifth largest oil reserve in the world, and first in the Americas. Venezuela also has the largest natural gas reserve in the Americas, followed by Bolivia. This is why discussion soon took place with the newly elected Bolivian government on the plan to build a natural gas pipeline that will connect the nations of the southern cone. The heads of state of Argentina and Brazil expressed agreement in building a Gasoduct of the South (Gasoducto del Sur). It is planned to be 8 thousand kilometers long with extensions of 12 thousand kilometers at a cost of an estimated $20 billion.

This will possibly include Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay, but only criticism has been expressed by the government of Bachelet in Chile, who also expressed agreement in signing a free trade agreement with the U.S.

Wave of Nationalism
Bolivia is not the first country in Our America to make this move. Historically it has been done by every nation in South America, reversed by military dictatorships or by the wave of privatizations in the late 1980s and early 1990s that proved disastrous for their economies, Argentina being a prime example.

Last summer, Venezuela, who's oil industry was already nationalized, made moves to take further control and raise royalties on foreign investors. As part of this wave of nationalism is to seek to diversify investors and not relay on solely U.S. contracts. Venezuela has signed contracts with China as part of this move. Bolivia also wants to keep its contracts diverse and is also pursuing deals with China, since the state of California is seeking a large investment in that nation's natural gas industry.

The Ecuadorian Congress last month ratified a hydrocarbons reform law designed to cut into windfall profits of foreign crude producers, among them U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. The law would give the government 50 percent of oil company profits whenever the international oil market exceeds the prices established in existing contracts. Most of those deals were pegged to 1990s oil prices when crude was worth a fraction of today's market.

The Ecuadorian law sparked sharp reaction from Washington. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said recently that the law appeared to violate a bilateral investment treaty between the two nations. But with mass demonstrations led by the indigenous population along with trade unions and students, left the country paralyzed during the month of March. These demonstrations opposed Ecuador signing a free trade agreement with the U.S. and demands for further control of their natural resources. Ecuador's indigenous people have brought down 4 presidents in the last 5 years, so pressure was felt into signing the royalty law and not signing the trade agreement.

The country that has sparked discussion recently is Peru. Ollanta Humala, the nationalist presidential candidate is headed to a runoff election and is receiving large support. Humala, an indigenous, has come out opposing the FTAA and support of the moves that the Bolivian government has made. He said he too would force foreign mining and gas companies to renegotiate new contracts. But his vice presidential running-mate, Gonzalo Garcia, said they would take a less confrontational stance than Morales.

But right now what can be said is: We'll see. There has been a lot of hope with Michelle Bachelet in Chile, but no action or words of support to its neighboring Andean nation.

In the end, the only thing that counts is action, not words.

Our Time Has Come Again

In mid-April, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, meet with the Presidents of Venezuela and of Cuba to sign the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). This comes after two member countries of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) signed trade agreements with the U.S. putting in jeopardy Bolivian crops that normally trade with Colombia and Peru.

Some of the concrete decisions include Cuba’s promise to send Bolivia doctors to provide medical care to poor people and teachers to conduct a literacy campaign. Venezuela will send gasoline to the Andean nation and set up a $100 million fund for development programs and a $30 million fund for other social projects. In addition Bolivia will beef up the grouping's economic potential with the Andean nation's vast natural gas reserves. Cuba and Venezuela also agreed to buy all of Bolivia's soybeans, recently left without markets after Colombia signed a free trade pact with the United States.

With no Latin American nations signing the U.S.’s Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and only two (Colombia and Peru) signing individual smaller versions, ALBA is becoming more attractive and discussed by not just the heads of state, but the people in Latin America. One of the U.S. allies, Peru, is a potential ALBA member if nationalist Ollanta Humala prevails in a presidential runoff expected for May 28 or June 4. (For further on trade agreements read previous article.)

What is ALBA?
ALBA is a trade agreement calling on the nations of Central, South America and the Caribbean to join forces in solidarity and cooperation. One aspect is trade, but not necessarily in the capitalist conventional sense. For example, Venezuela sells Cuba 90,000 barrels of oil a day, and in return Cuba will pay a portion in cash but the rest with other goods. Their cooperation includes:

Mission Barrio Adentro:There are presently 23,600 Cuban medical personnel in Venezuela treating 17 million people (there are additional Venezuelan doctors involved). They set up clinics in the most impoverished neighborhoods, as well as isolated areas, especially were Venezuelan indigenous people live, in the Amazon forest.

Mission Robinson: This is a literacy campaign in Venezuela that after a two and a half year effort, on October 28, 2005, the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed Venezuela “free of illiteracy”. Over 1.4 million people (76,000 were indigenous) learned to read and write (or relearn), with the help of Cuban resources and Venezuelan volunteers. It was announced that the literacy campaign would begin in Bolivia at the end of May with 20 Venezuelan, 48 Cubans and additional Bolivian volunteers.

Mission Milagros (Eye Surgery Program): Has carried out 220,500 eye operations recovering eyesight. Of that 188,389 were Venezuelan patients, 7,000 from Bolivia, 70 from Paraguay and the rest from Central American or Caribbean nations.

Youth Graduate from Latin American School of Medicine: The first set of students graduated this year from this school just outside of Havana. There were 1,600 students from 27 developing nations plus the U.S. Students are given an 8-year education to become a medical doctor for free (including food and board). The youth must come from an impoverished background and special opportunities to those from indigenous decent. Since then, the program has expanded to enroll 10,500 students from Latin America, the Caribbean, North America (65 U.S. students) and Africa; the total number of foreign medical students in Cuba is now nearly 12,000 from 83 countries. President Hugo Chavez also announced that another school would be constructed in Venezuela with the same purpose that will triple the amount of students.

As cooperation between these nations continues, there will be further examples, and hopefully we will see other countries in the Americas joining in.

What do the Free Trade Agreements Mean for the People of Latin America?

If you would like to see the Latin American countries advance economically and socially, whether you are a proponent of capitalism or socialism, the trade agreement known as the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) being discussed by the politicians in South America and the Caribbean gives us hope.

In this article I want to discuss some of the different agreements that already exist and if the involvement of the U.S. influences the decisions of those who govern. I am going to dedicate a separate article about ALBA and the different propositions being discussed to advance the education and health of our people.

There is a lot of confusion about the agreements and I want to briefly answer the questions most asked: What is their effect? What are the differences? Who benefits?

Andean Community of Nations (CAN)
This is one of the oldest agreements in South America that continues. But this trade agreement has its days numbered since two of its members, Colombia and Peru, signing the controversial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. The countries that remain (Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela) have discussed the dissolution of CAN.

It was originally known as the Andean Pact formed in 1969. Chile was a founding member, but broke in 1976 during the dictatorship of Pinochet due its political-economic outlook were incompatible with the Pact. Members of CAN are able to travel within each other nations without visas and business between corporations are open and free of tariffs. That was before some of its members began to negotiate agreements with U.S. in the 1990s.

Even though the U.S. has been able to advance further with the nations of Central America in forming Central America Free Trade Agreement-Dominican Republic (CAFTA-DR) wich includes Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, it hasn’t been able to do the same with the majority of the countries of the southern cone.

In response to the trade agreements the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said, “The Free Trade Agreement signed between Colombia and U.S. has taken from us the comerce for the Bolivian section. In CAN exists some nations that have been converted in instruments for disentegration.”

Plan Colombia: Against Narctrafficing or Our People
It is not surprising that Colombia is one of the first country to sign the FTA. This is different from the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) which no country in South America has agreed to the demands of the U.S. The smaller version known as the FTA was directed towards members of CAN. Recently Colombia and Peru signed the FTA, and Ecuador was on the verge of signing until it was stalled due to mass protests by trade union, student and indigenous organizations that paralyzed the Andean nation.

Colombia is one of the countries in Latin America governed by conservative politicans who are complacent to the demands of the U.S. It is one of three countries that receives the most amount of money from the U.S. surpassed by Israel (first) and Egypt (second). In 2000 President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party signed Plan Colombia which projected $1.3 billion dollars over the next 10 years to combat narcotrafficking. This Plan is a continuation of a smaller plan signed in 1996.

For 2006, the Bush Administration proposes an increase in Plan Colombia and budgeting $742 million and 80% of it for Military/Police “aid”. The money is being used for the training of troops and paramilitaries. These paramilitaries are fighting in a civil war that has been raging Colombia for the last 40 years. Also, a year ago, Colombian paramilitaries were found in Venezuela planning the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

In the end Plan Colombia has helped arm paramilitaries because the U.S. government would like to see the defeat of the Maoist rebel group known as FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces). At the same time the amount of drugs that enters the U.S. has only risen. A study by the Washington Offices of Latin America have figured that cocaine is sold 31% cheaper in U.S. streets since Plan Colombia was signed.

Another example in how the “war on drugs” led by the U.S. has only aided the rise of narcotrafficking is Afghanistan. Since the U.S. invasion of that country the cultivation of poppy (which produces heroine) has risen two-thirds. In 2004 the selling of poppy culminates 40 to 60 percent of its economy.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html#6

MERCOSUR
The MERCOSUR is a treaty formed in 1991 between the nations of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay. It is similar to CAN in which its purpose to facilitate commerce between its members. Even though disagreements do errupt between its members that impeds advancement. In 2005 Venezuela was voted in as member of MERCOSUR. Its potential is limited to country members and agreements made with other countries.

The economic devastation trade agreements Third World nations have agreed to with the U.S. has only benefited the financially strongest nation, which is the U.S. There are example of what NAFTA has done to Mexico, and another agreement done with Jamaica has impacted the poor Caribbean nation. Many of the demanstrations that have errupted in Latin America against the FTAA, for example, are also nationalist protest. They demand that their natural wealth be used to benefit everyone in their nations which puts them in contention not just with U.S. and European corporations, but their own wealthy class.

The difference between these accords and ALBA, is that the purpose of ALBA is a treaty that unites the nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean. To use our natural resources for the advancement of our people. Also using the human resources available to advance the education and health of everyone. In the next article I will explain what has been accomplished, especially by Cuba and Venezuela, and future plans being made with Bolivia, Argentina and other nations.