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Vol. 71/No. 12      March 26, 2007

 
Protests meet U.S. president
during Latin America tour
U.S. rulers use visit to expand continent’s plunder
 (front page)
 
BY RÓGER CALERO  
March 14—U.S. president George Bush concluded today a seven-day tour of five Latin American countries: Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. Washington used the visit to push for trade and other bilateral agreements that would open these countries to even greater plunder by U.S. imperialism.

Bush’s tour was met by protests by tens of thousands of working people, students, and others in many countries on the continent.

Instead of focusing exclusively on austerity demands and other such conditions for loans and trade, Bush announced he would be asking Congress to fund education and health-care programs that would supposedly benefit the region. He also tried to paint the trade agreements as a source of jobs for thousands. Bush announced an “energy partnership” with the government of Brazil to promote production of ethanol as an alternative to oil.

According to the March 6 New York Times, on the eve of the tour, the White House “signaled a new willingness” to include “fair trade” language in three pending deals with the governments of Panama, Peru, and Colombia. Such measures, pushed largely by the Democratic Party leadership and U.S. labor officialdom, include a ban on child labor and forced labor, and would establish standards to enable U.S. businesses to compete better against those in Latin America. The White House and most Republican politicians had previously opposed such language.

The tour by Bush came at a time of deepening class polarization in the region, popular moods against imperialist domination, and rising expectations among working people seeking livable wages and better working and living conditions.

Tens of thousands of workers, peasants, students, and others took part in rallies and other actions across the region to protest Bush’s tour. In São Paulo, Brazil, more than 10,000 people reportedly marched downtown the night of Bush’s arrival there. Some 30,000 rallied March 9, coinciding with Bush’s visit to Uruguay, at a stadium across the River Plate in neighboring Argentina, where Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez spoke. In Bogotá, Colombia, demonstrators opposed a trade agreement between the two governments, and condemned Washington’s military aid to the right-wing regime of President Alvaro Uribe.  
 
 
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