Thread: CAFTA, THENIGHTAFTA NOT WELCOME IN SOUTH AMERICA

Sixx says: Taken in context of the bombing of the Citigroup building in Ecuador the other night, Bush better listen. Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador don't want anything to with this free trade stuff

Jun 12, 2005

Venezuela's Chavez Says U.S. Free-Market Policies Led to Bolivia Crisis
The Associated Press


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed free market policies promoted by the United States for the crisis in Bolivia on Sunday, and said Latin America would no longer accept such "poisonous" economic doctrines.
Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington's foreign policy, said proposals by U.S. President George W. Bush for a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement would only lead to more poverty - and protests - in the region.

Speaking before the Organization of American States, Bush touted the proposal in Florida last week saying it would open the way to peace and prosperity in the Americas and reduce the attraction of "false ideologies."

Chavez called Bush's free-trade proposal "the medicine of death," adding that U.S. open market policies that have been applied in Latin America "have led to exclusion, misery ... and destabilization."

"Look at Bolivia; fortunately the Bolivians opened the door toward a peaceful path, but they were on the verge of a civil war," said Chavez, speaking during his weekly radio and television program "Hello President."

Nationwide protests led by highland Indians, labor activists, miners, leftist students and coca-leaf farmers over the last month in Bolivia brought down President Carlos Mesa, who was replaced Thursday by Eduardo Rodriguez.

Protesters were demanding the ruling elite grant more power to a poor majority and back away from free-market policies many blame for their troubles. Rodriguez met one of their key demands, to call early elections.

Chavez, a self-proclaimed "revolutionary," said Latin American nations are moving toward socialist-orientated economic models rather than those based on "perverse" capitalism touted by the Bush administration.

"We say no Mr. Bush, no sir ... I'm sorry for you," said Chavez, speaking briefly in English.

"The people of Latin America are saying 'no' to you, Mr. Danger, they are saying 'no' to your medicine," Chavez continued in Spanish.

Many Bolivians who staged demonstrations were demanding the nationalization of the Andean nation's oil and natural gas industries.

Chavez says his government is gradually establishing what he calls "21st-century socialism" in oil-rich yet poverty-stricken Venezuela.

"Capitalism is the road to destabilization, violence and war between brothers," he said. "The people of this continent will construct, and we are doing it, a path in which revolutionary Cuba, socialist Cuba, has been and is an example," Chavez said.

Government opponents accuse Chavez of dangerously dividing this South American nation of 25 million along class lines, promoting anti-Americanism and secretly funding Marxist rebels in neighboring Colombia.

Chavez rejects the allegations, saying his political adversaries make unfounded accusations against him as part of a U.S.-backed initiative aimed at portraying his government as a negative influence in the hemisphere.

AP-ES-06-12-05 1354EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBFRRTKV9E.html

Neither do most Americans ether Sixx