Thread: Six Day Latin America Trip Begins

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070308/D8NO86PO1.html

Bush Opens 6-Day Latin America Tour

Mar 8, 4:42 PM (ET)

By TOM RAUM

(AP) Brazilian Policemen beat a protester during a march against U.S. President George W. Bush in Sao...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - President Bush sought to reverse an impression of U.S. neglect as he opened a six-day tour of Latin America on Thursday. Street protests awaited him.

Bush's trip was intended to promote democracy, increased trade and cooperation on alternative fuels. The president and his advisers also hoped his visit would offset the growing influence of leftist leaders, such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

As he flew here on Air Force One, Bush's national security adviser brushed aside Chavez's provocations. "The president is going to do what he's been doing for a long time: talk about a positive agenda," said Stephen Hadley.

Thousands of students, environmentalists and other protesters, some waving communist flags, gathered in the business district of South America's largest city ahead of Bush's arrival. And in the southern city of Porto Alegre, more than 500 people yelled "Get Out, Imperialist!" as they burned an effigy of Bush outside a Citigroup Inc. (C) bank branch.

Meanwhile, the police commander of Colombia, which Bush will visit on Sunday, said authorities had thwarted leftist rebel plans to disrupt Bush's visit to Bogota. "We have taken measures to neutralize them," said Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, Colombia's highest-ranking police officer.

Bush played down the protests in interviews ahead of his trip with Latin American news organizations.

"I am proud to be going to a part of the world where people can demonstrate, where people can express their minds," he said in an interview with Univision. And he told CNN En Espanol: "The trip is to remind people that we care."

Chavez, aligned with Cuba's Fidel Castro and a fierce critic of Bush, is marking Bush's trip with a rival tour of the region.

On Saturday, the Venezuelan leader will speak at an "anti-imperialist" rally in a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about 40 miles across the Plate River from Montevideo, where Bush will be holding talks on Saturday with Uruguay's president, Tabare Vazquez.

Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, told reporters that instead of worrying about Chavez, Bush was "going to be focusing on those countries and those leaders that have the right model and the right ideas for a better Latin America."

In addition to Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia, Bush is also visiting Guatemala and Mexico.

Bush did not plan visits to any countries that have moved into Chavez's sphere of influence, including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva are expected to announce an "ethanol alliance" on Saturday aimed at creating quality standards for the alternative fuel while joining forces to promote more ethanol use in nations lying between Brazil and the United States.

Silva, in turn, has said he will press the U.S. Congress to repeal or scale back the 54-cent per gallon U.S. tariff on sugar-based Brazilian ethanol. Bush and Silva also were expected to talk about efforts to salvage the World Trade Organization talks - the so-called Doha round - that collapsed in discord last summer over farm subsidies and other disputes.

Among those participating in Thursday's protests were environmentalists and social groups who oppose the biofuels project, fearing that Brazil may clear pristine jungle to ramp up sugarcane cultivation. Greenpeace activists hung a huge banner warning against increased reliance on ethanol as an alternative fuel on a monument to 17th century Portuguese explorers and conquerors.

bUsH will pass out billions of our tax dollars on this one . Hopefully when we see a homeless person , a disabled vet , elderly Americans that eat dog food and can't afford insurance we will remember how our hard earned money was wasted .

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latina ... ade_firms/

Brazil protesters invade firms
Critics rally ahead of Bush's visit to Latin America

(photo) On the eve of President Bush's trip to Brazil, women from the farm workers movement closed an iron ore mine in Nova Lima. Protesters criticized the impact of big companies on the poor. (ALEX DE JESUS/LIGHT PRESS via ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By Stan Lehman, Associated Press | March 8, 2007

SAO PAULO -- Landless farmers invaded a mine, a bank , and other corporate property in Brazil yesterday to protest the impact of big companies on the poor and President Bush's visit to Latin America's largest nation.

Breaking News Alerts: Protesters, most of them women from the Via Campesina farm workers movement, briefly shut down an iron ore mine, invaded an ethanol distillery , and took over the Rio de Janeiro offices of Brazil's National Development Bank on the eve of Bush's visit.

Fresh graffiti reading "Get Out, Bush! Assassin!" in bright red letters popped up along busy highways near the locations in Sao Paulo where Bush will appear as he kicks off a five-nation Latin American tour.

Protest leaders plan to draw as many as 15,000 people for a two-mile march today before Bush arrives in South America's largest city to forge an ethanol energy alliance with the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva .

"Bush is coming to Brazil as a messenger boy for the multinational companies, the agribusiness companies, the oil companies , and the automobile companies that want to control the biofuels," said Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the powerful Landless Rural Workers' Movement , which helped organize yesterday's protests.

Organizers denounced foreign investment in the vast sugarcane fields that are used to produce Brazil's ethanol.

United States policy in Latin America has been built around free-trade agreements, anti- narcotic programs , and the war against terrorism.

Yesterday, Bush defended free trade against criticism that it is one-sided and favors the US "I truly believe that one of the most effective ways to eliminate poverty is through free and fair trade," the president said in an interview with CNN En Español.

The US is the world's largest ethanol producer -- using corn -- but Brazil is the biggest exporter and has much more land to dedicate to ethanol production as international demand grows. The left-leaning protesters say large corporations are bound to pocket most of the profits while poor cane cutters will continue to receive meager pay.

"The pact between Brazil and the US for the promotion of ethanol is sinister," said Bishop Tomas Balduino, head of the Roman Catholic Church's Land Pastoral group, which helps poor farmers. "It's just going to promote death, marginalization, poverty , and the destruction of the environment because it defends the interest of large multinationals."

Bush's visit is also aimed at shoring up support for America in a region that has seen a sharp political tilt to the left.

"It is obviously an offensive to contain the progressive, democratic forces that are struggling for the independence and emancipation of other countries," Balduino said.

Bush will head on Friday to Uruguay, where marches and protests were planned in the capital of Montevideo and the city of Colonia del Sacramento , where he will meet with President Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay.

Army General Jorge Rosales said elite army units will provide security alongside thousands of police officers.

Bush will not visit Argentina. However, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has established himself as a regional leftist rival of the US, will travel to Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires to lead protests against Bush in a soccer stadium Friday.

Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo , a group still seeking sons and daughters missing from the country's 1976-83 dictatorship, will join the event.

Brazil is mounting what has been described as its biggest security effort ever in Sao Paulo.

including Brazilian troops and FBI and US Secret Service agent, will be on hand during Bush's almost 24-hour visit.

Bush is expected to travel in a 60-car caravan through streets that will be closed to traffic, and sharpshooters will be posted on rooftops, Brazilian media reported.