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CROSSBORDER UPDATER | May 4, 2005
Vol. 3, No. 7

Latin America's Coming of Age | This Week in the Americas by Laura Carlsen
The Paths of the South American Community of Nations | Article by Eduardo Gudynas
Third Mexican Activist Wins Award for Environmental Defense | Commentary by Talli Nauman

Letters from Our Readers
A letter in response to: Brazil's Black Civil Rights Activists Achieving Overdue Policy Reform
Two letters in response to: The Good Neighbor Policy--A History to Make Us Proud
A comment: Open Borders?

Distributed by the IRC's Americas Program
"A New World of Ideas, Analysis, and Policy Options."
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This Week in the Americas

Latin America's Coming of Age
By Laura Carlsen

The May 2 victory of Chilean Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza as Secretary General of the Organization of American States ends one phase of a drama that is only beginning.

The OAS vote shows that Washington no longer exclusively calls the shots in Latin American politics. This is a positive development, not only for those nations seeking greater autonomy in international relations but for the U.S. as well. More effective representation of interests in the OAS will enhance the organization’s credibility, and permit it to help negotiate the resolution of political crises, such as the ongoing turmoil in Ecuador, more effectively.

Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center (IRC), online at http://www.irc-online.org/.

See the complete commentary online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentar ... 05oas.html


The Paths of the South American Community of Nations
By Eduardo Gudynas

Recently the presidents of South American nations launched a proposal to form a “Community of Nations� that would group twelve countries covering 17 million square kilometers, with 361 million inhabitants, and a GDP of more than $970 billion dollars.

Although the announcement of a South American Community of Nations invokes the persistent dream of a union of governments and peoples, the current proposal remains firmly on the path of traditional trade agreements. In reality, a Latin American union requires taking another path, with more attention to social and political demands.

Eduardo Gudynas is an information analyst at D3E (Desarrollo, EconomÃÂ*a, EcologÃÂ*a y Equidad en América Latina; http://www.globalization.org/). He is a regular columnist for the IRC Americas Program (online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/).

See full article online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/columns/g ... 4sacn.html


Third Mexican Activist Wins Award for Environmental Defense
By Talli Nauman

Another Mexican has won the international Goldman Environmental Prize, which is called the “Nobel� for grassroots environmentalists. Isidro Baldenegro López is the third Mexican to claim the coveted award. Not only that but he and both the others earned that distinction for the same kind of activism: defending the forest.

That says something about the importance of halting deforestation in Mexico. It also says something about the grave danger of trying to protect the woods.

As Goldman Environmental Foundation President Richard N. Goldman noted at the awards ceremony in San Francisco on April 18, the recipients are selected on the basis of the need for their countries to act on the prizewinners’ initiatives and on the candidates’ courage.

Mexico’s rate of deforestation is second only to that of Indonesia. From 1993 to 2000, forest coverage in Mexico declined almost 3 million acres each year. Misguided enterprises have cut or burned more than half of the country’s woodlands-and not for any significant contribution to the formal economy. Meanwhile, threats and rights abuses are the steady fare for community activists who try to reverse the trend.

Talli Nauman is a program associate at the Americas Program of the International Relations Center (online at http://www.irc-online.org/). She originally published this opinion in her weekly column at The Herald Mexico, based at El Universal in Mexico City, as part of her independent media project Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, which she initiated with support from the MacArthur Foundation.

See full article online at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentar ... ldman.html


LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

Brazil's Black Civil Rights Activists Achieving Overdue Policy Reform
online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/citizen-a ... razil.html

For more than a decade African-American scholars and activists have been waging a legal battle inside the United Nations to establish Human Rights and secure Reparations for all Afro-Descendants (slave descendants) in the Western Hemisphere. We estimate the total number of slave descendants who continue to suffer from ethnocide and forced assimilation at 250 million. In March 2002 the UN sponsored a crucial conference for us in La Ceiba Honduras which was attended by delegates from 19 countries. Another key conference is slated to occur in Peru later this year. I am interested in networking with Afro-Brazilian scholars and activists who are seeking justice in the international legal arena.

Sincerely,
Malik Al-Arkam
www.AllForReparations.org


The Good Neighbor Policy--A History to Make Us Proud
online at http://www.irc-online.org/content/comme ... 503ggn.php

Congratulations on the splendid article by Barry, Carlsen, and Gershman re: Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy. It forms a valuable platform for political action for those of us who wish to summon a different vision of America's future.

Sincerely,
James E. Jennings, Ph.D.
President
Conscience International
www.conscienceinternational.org


The Good Neighbor Policy--A History to Make Us Proud
online at http://www.irc-online.org/content/comme ... 503ggn.php

So what the authors envision is a return to isolationism that allows despots and dictators to rised up and plunge the world into another global conflict.

Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.

Scott Baker


Passport to Cross Border

This was regarding the falicy of requiring U.S. citizens to produce a passport when reentrering this country from Mexico or Canada to the exclusion of a birth certificate--which is the required primary id to buy a passport!

There are no known organizations, associations, leagues, societies, or cross-border contacts that specifically deal with American border rights. I did find some native people websites and asked them if they know of any groups besides native rights groups but so far no answer. Sometimes the indians dont like to answer us but i find they are quick on a lot of issues that bypass us. There was a treaty governing our relationship with the North American countires but I do not find this on blevens internet treatys in force.Was this the 'open door' treaty? This is an issue which needs some input and lobbying by the American people if we are not to become the new Russian serfs with no rights at all.

Judi Donnelly


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