South American Politics thread - Page 43

On October 02 2019 22:30 JimmiC wrote:
A lot to unpack there, first source those sanctions and then we can discuss them. And then second point a leftist would not support putin because he is a facist. A anti US person would but a leftist is not strictly anti US, that is a different brand of person. Third can you please name the countries you think are subserviant to the US, that would also be helpful. Forth do you think Russia is a democracy?

BAÑOS, Ecuador — Ecuadoreans found their nation at a standstill on Thursday, with major roads closed, taxis unavailable and public transportation shut down as the country’s transit unions declared a strike to protest President Lenín Moreno’s decision to strip away a $1.3 billion fuel subsidy.

Demonstrators blocked roads in the capital, Quito, and in smaller cities across the nation. Blockades along the main road to Quito International Airport shut down traffic, setting off rippling flight delays and cancellations.

President Moreno’s move on fuel subsidies is expected to significantly raise the price of gasoline and diesel for consumers. Taxi drivers, who are represented by the union, pay for gas out of pocket; other protesters voiced alarm at ballooning consumer prices.

By Thursday afternoon, Mr. Moreno announced a state of emergency, permitting Ecuador’s armed forces to dismantle the makeshift blockades, which were formed by buses, vans and taxis parked across the roads.

Luis Galárraga, communications manager for the Quito airport, said the protests were “affecting all of our operations.”

Passengers were forced to choose between waiting in the airport for the disruptions to end or going to nearby hotels for lodging, Mr. Galárraga said. He added that international airlines like KLM, Air France and Avianca had canceled flights in and out of Quito, and domestic flights operated by Avianca and Tam were also being canceled.

In the resort town of Baños, about three and a half hours southeast of Quito, all travel in and out was stopped. Taxis had disappeared; they had all gathered in the closest big city, Ambato, to participate in the protest.

“We haven’t had a strike like this in a really long time,” said Marcela Piñuela, manager of the Hotel Casa Real in Baños. Transit strikes were more common under previous presidents, including a significant one in 1999 that lasted five days.

Ms. Piñuela said even though the strike had been in place for a matter of hours, she was already seeing a major impact on her business: “All of our reservations are being canceled, because people can’t get out of Quito or the airport.”

In Cuenca, a major city in the south of Ecuador, protests turned violent. Local news outlets reported that hundreds of protesters threw rocks and fired paintballs at officers protecting government buildings, and the police fired tear gas into the crowds in response.

In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Moreno denounced the protests in strong language. “To those who want to impose chaos as a mechanism to achieve something, that time is over,” he said.

He added that he was unwilling to reconsider revoking the fuel subsidy: “The measures we have taken together are firm,” he said. “There is no possibility of change.”

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Rioting, arson attacks and violent clashes wracked Chile for a fifth day Tuesday, as the government raised the death toll to 15 in an upheaval that has almost paralyzed the South American country long seen as the region’s oasis of stability.

President Sebastián Piñera announced a program Tuesday night calling for modest boosts to the lowest incomes and increased taxes on the wealthiest as he sought to calm anger in the streets.

About half of Chile’s 16 regions remained under an emergency decree and some were a under military curfew, the first — other than for natural disasters — imposed since the country returned to democracy in 1990 following a bloody 17-year dictatorship.

Unrest sparked last week when a relatively minor, less-than-4% rise in subway fares led to students jumping station turnstiles in protest. But the defiance exploded into violence Friday with demonstrators setting fire to subway stations, buses and a high-rise building. Demonstrations escalated with wide-ranging demands for improvements in education, health care and wages, and spread nationwide, fueled by frustration among many Chileans who feel they have not shared in the economic advances in one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations.

“I fight so that all that will end and so that all of us will have something fair,” said one protester, José Tomás López, a cook.

He said he took to the streets “because I’ve seen how my mother lives, with a salary of not more than ($700 a month) to maintain my three siblings, and I know her debts and all her efforts to meet them.”

Riot police used tear gas and water cannons Tuesday to break up marches by rock-throwing demonstrators in several parts of Santiago, while soldiers and police guarded other Chileans who formed long lines at supermarkets.

“I’ve walked several kilometers searching for milk, but the supermarkets remain closed and neighborhood stores have run out,” said Carmen Fuentealba, a retiree.

Many stores, subway stations and banks were burned, damaged or looted during protests over the weekend, and some people have reported problems getting cash at ATMs.

“It’s enough with this,” said store owner Fernando García. “They want to destroy it all. I don’t sleep at night because I fear that they’ll loot.”

Shortly before the rioting broke out last week, Chile’s conservative president boasted in an interview with The Financial Times that Chile “looks like an oasis” in the region because it has a stable democracy and a balanced and growing economy that has been creating jobs and improving pay.

But the wealth is unevenly spread, with one of the region’s highest rates of inequality. Many Chilean families earn $550 to $700 a month and pensions can be as low as $159.

“It’s indispensable that they lower the price of medications because there’s no salary that can hold up to this,” said Hernán Pavéz, a retired teacher.

Long lines of cars also continued to snake from gas stations as drivers worried about supplies in a country that imports nearly all its gasoline.

“People are desperate,” said gas station attendant Jacqueline Zúñiga. “They think the gasoline, the petroleum is going to end, and they keep filling and filling their tanks. ... This has all led to aggressiveness.”

The disorder has prevented many people from getting to their jobs, and about 2 million young people are unable to get to classes.

Marta Lagos, director of the polling firm Latinobarometro, said problems have accumulated over at least the last four governments, which were of both the left and right.

Officials can argue “that we have reduced poverty, that there’s no inflation these days, that the economy is controlled, etcetera, etcetera,” Lagos said. “And all those arguments mean nothing to the people who can’t make it to the end of the month.”

After the protests erupted, Piñera rolled back the subway hike while also declaring a state of emergency. He said this week that Chile is “at war with a powerful, relentless enemy that respects nothing or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime without any limits.”

But he did not identify the enemy, and the remark brought rebukes from celebrities, politicians and soccer players.

“A war needs two sides,” Chilean soccer player Gary Medel tweeted. “And here, we’re just one people who want equality.”

Piñera, a billionaire and former airline owner, then switched to a more conciliatory tone. He said the government is working on a reconstruction plan to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in damaged infrastructure.

The president met with members of his administration and three of the six main opposition leaders Tuesday to explore a “social agreement” on solving “the problems that affect Chileans.”

Hours later, Piñera announced an agenda calling for increasing the lowest monthly pensions from $151 to $181, raising the monthly minimum wage from $413 to $481 and rescinding a 92% rise in electricity rates scheduled to take effect next month. It would also include a tax increase for anyone earning more than $11,000 a month.

Some leftist parties boycotted the meeting to protest the

“I think it’s a critical moment in Chile in history,” said Joe Eldrige, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America. “Are we going to go back to the old kind of right-left extremes ... or are these institutions sufficiently flexible and adaptable to address the current situation?”

On October 23 2019 22:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Death toll is now at 15. When is the Government going to relent?



Source

Colombia’s government has launched a military offensive to hunt down the gunmen responsible for the massacre of five indigenous leaders in the south-western province of Cauca.

The president, Iván Duque, travelled to the region on Wednesday along with his defence and interior ministers to condemn the massacre and oversee operations to root out armed groups that plague the conflict-ridden Cauca province.

The government blamed dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc), a now-demobilised leftist rebel group, for the attack on Tuesday, in which assailants threw grenades and opened fire on a convoy of armoured SUVs carrying the indigenous leaders.

Among the victims was Cristina Bautista, the leader of the semi-autonomous Tacueyó reservation and her unarmed indigenous guardsmen. Six other people were wounded in the aftermath, as the attackers fired on an ambulance that arrived at the scene.

An initial investigation suggested that the massacre came in response to the capture of three Farc dissidents by local indigenous guardsmen.

“Clearly, here we have a longstanding threat of drug trafficking groups, and of dissidents, who want to intimidate the population,” Duque told reporters from the nearby town Santander de Quilichao. “I hope to make some important announcements about operational capacity in the region and the capacity we will have to face these threats.”

But his words rang hollow with indigenous leaders across the country who say he has done little to combat threats and attacks that have persisted since the Farc demobilised following a peace accord signed in 2016.

“The government says the right things, but doesn’t do anything,” said Eduin Marcelo Capaz, the human rights coordinator of a local indigenous council. “Duque will say whatever he has to to cover up his government’s ineffectiveness and disinterest in protecting us.”

“When will the massacre end?” tweeted the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (or Onic), going on to report that 121 indigenous people have been murdered since Duque took office in August last year.

Opposition politicians also lambasted the government’s inaction. “What is under way in Colombia is an indigenous genocide, and it will not stop if international justice does not appear,” Senator Gustavo Petro tweeted on Tuesday night, as news of the massacre began to spread.

Violence is a daily reality in the Cauca province, where last month mayoral candidate Karina García was murdered with three others on the campaign trail ahead of elections that took place last Sunday.

The violence that marred the election campaign – six other candidates were murdered nationwide – reminded Colombians of the political violence of the 1990s and 2000s, when the Farc were at their most powerful.

The 2016 peace deal was supposed to usher in a new chapter of tranquility, formally ending half a century of civil war that killed 260,000 and forced over 7 million from their homes.

But while the Farc demobilization removed one faction from Colombia’s war, peace never truly arrived: local conflicts over the drug trade, land rights and mineral resources continue to fuel violence, and social and indigenous leaders are often targets.

According to Colombia’s human rights ombudsman, 486 activists and human rights defenders have been murdered since January 2016, alarming watchdogs.

“The region where this massacre took place is a first-tier zone for violence, and the defence sector surely knows this but the response to repeated calls for help from indigenous communities has been far from adequate,” said Adam Isacson, a security analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a thinktank.

“People are being left unprotected by their government in an area that is being disputed among several armed and criminal groups,” Isacson added. “Colombia must prioritise protecting these communities, working with their leaderships, to prevent another horrible tragedy.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign Sunday after senior army and police chiefs called on him to do so following weeks of right-wing unrest and violence against his Oct. 20 elections victory, in what his government has called a coup by opposition forces in the country.

“I decided to resign from my position so that Carlos Mesa and Luis Camacho stop abusing and harming thousands of brothers ... I have the obligation to seek peace and it hurts a lot that we face Bolivians, for this reason, so I will send my letter of resignation to the Plurinational Assembly of Bolivia,” the former president of Bolivia said in a press release.

The resignation comes after Morales proposed a dialogue process with the opposition parties but was rejected and even accepted the Organization of American States’ (OAS) call for new elections.

On November 11 2019 09:35 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Didn't he lose a referendum vote that would allowed him to run for a fourth term?

On November 11 2019 09:35 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Didn't he lose a referendum vote that would allowed him to run for a fourth term?

On November 11 2019 15:36 Belisarius wrote:
Given the circumstances around Morales's re-election, leading with "democratically elected" there is fox-level spin.