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Chavez outfoxing neo-cons as tide turns?
President George W. Bush is scheduled to speak before the UN General Assembly
next week. It will not be a happy occasion for Bush. He will be looking out on
an assembly that will be poised to deliver the United States and Mr. Bush a
humiliating defeat.
The United States is losing in its effort to have Guatemala
take over the Latin American seat on the UN Security Council. Venezuela is now
favored to win the seat over the objections of US ambassador John Bolton, whose
permanent nomination to be ambassador has been killed by the Senate for the
current session, and the efforts of Guatemala's Foreign Minister and close Bush
administration ally, Gert Rosenthal.
Guatemala has among the worst human rights
records in Latin America and its government is rife with evangelical
fundamentalist Christians and Opus Dei Catholics. Its security services possess
the latest in population surveillance technology thanks to Israeli companies
like Tadiran.
Venezuela is piling up votes for the Security Council seat and the Bush
administration has been powerless to stop President Hugo Chavez's and Foreign
Minister Nicolas Maduro's diplomatic juggernaut. In fact, Bolton's temperament
at the UN has ensured that Venezuela's election to the Security Council is a
"slam dunk."
If Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Panama, and other U.S. Latin American allies are not able to reach a consensus
among themselves by October 16 on whether Venezuela or Guatemala gets the seat,
the vote will be decided by a two-thirds vote of the 192-member General
Assembly, where Venezuela now has a lead. Not only has Venezuela lined up the
votes of China and Russia, but as a result of the recent Non-Aligned Meeting in
Havana, it can count on the support of a number of nations in the Caribbean,
Africa, and the Middle East.
Already, countries like Argentina, Brazil, Guyana, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia,
Dominica, Cuba, Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada,
Malaysia, Iran, Belarus, Ghana, Mali, Zimbabwe, Syria, and Papua New Guinea have
publicly announced their support for Venezuela, while positive pro-Caracas
statements have come from Chile, Angola, Myanmar, Vietnam, Qatar, Benin, and
India.
Meanwhile, the Bush State Department (the main anti-Venezuela point man is
Eric Watnik), Paul Wolfowitz's World Bank, and the new breed of intrusive and
bellicose U.S. ambassadors have been strong-arming various countries to support
Guatemala over Venezuela -- even by threatening to withhold much-needed economic
aid. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two countries that have been warned by
Washington not to vote for Venezuela "or else."
Guatemala can count on the votes of Bush administration allies, who are also
supporting U.S. military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. They include
Canada, Japan, Australia, Israel, Denmark, Poland, Albania, and the United
Kingdom. But with the world increasingly seeing a vote for Venezuela as a slap
at Bush, Venezuela will continue to gain supporters.
Source: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
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