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2022/05/26 * The fight against Climate Change and War has to be systemic and not continue to be atomized 2022/06/16 * Let us not lose these favorable conditions to strengthen our sovereignty 2022/7/01 * Why neither CELAC nor a reconstructed OAS is a path to Latin American integration |
CHALLENGES OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION: |
2022/7/15* 1 - Investment and External Debt 2022/7/24* 2 - A Necessary Interdependence 2022/7/31* 3 - Emigration 2022/8/15* 4 - Science and Technology 2022/8/30* 5 - Human Rights 2022/9/15* 6 - External Threats 2022/9/30* 7 - Reflective Synthesis: Integration, protection of our future. 2022/10/21* To the people and leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean 2022/10/31* Our leaders need to understand their people 2022/11/07* In the climate crisis, science is the tool, but the solution is political 2022/11/20* Our region needs statesmen rather than politicians to lead it |
Editorial 2022/07/01
1 - By arguing for the elimination of "taboos" on climate change, NATO countries are destroying what little progress has been made in the fight to stop it.
While the G7 announces with great fanfare the formation of a "Climate Club" to fight climate change, news reports appear in the European media such as the project to expand the production of a gigantic coal mine in the Colombian Goajira, to supply European countries; or Germany's plans to use the predatory method of tracking to exploit gas fields in the North Sea; or the statements of the German Minister of Economy and Climate, R. Habeck, who stated that "we are confident that we will be able to achieve the goal of climate change". Habeck, who stated that he "will rely more on coal-fired power plants rather than gas-fired power plants", to mention just a few of those published in the international media.
2 - With the application of Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to join the BRICS (with more than 40% of the world's population), other countries can be expected to follow suit, leading to the constitution of a real and even more powerful anti-pole, which will necessarily lead to the reconfiguration of the international order.
Our region must play a leading role in shaping this emerging New Order in order to defend both our interests and those of nature itself.
But such integration will not be possible either with the CELAC structure or with the reconfiguration of the OAS, as some leaders have proposed.
The CELAC, for two fundamental reasons: first, its conception of unanimity in decision-making, which, given the conflicting positions of its member countries, paralyses it in practice, and second, the annual rotation of the pro-tempore presidency, which means that, as long as it is exercised by a progressive president, integration will be promoted, but when exercised by a retrograde one, it will slow down and destroy what has been advanced.
Neither will the reconfiguration of the OAS, given the conflict of interests that exists between the United States and Canada with the rest of the region, as was seen at the recent "Summit of the Americas", in which that nation, seeking to impose an agenda tailored to its interests, ignored very important problems of our peoples.
This divergence of interests means that the current OAS is not only a paralysed and ineffective entelechy, whose image can be likened to that of a cart pulled by two yoke of oxen, placed on opposite sides, but that it prevents any possibility of being an instrument for our integration.
Anyone who proposes CELAC or a "reconstructed" OAS as avenues for integration is, consciously or unconsciously, against our peoples.
This does not mean that economic, political and diplomatic relations with the United States should not be maintained, far from it. Certainly, more than necessary, they are essential, but they must be sincere, and the best way to do it is to understand the differences and interests and to sustain them placed on different sides of the desk.
About Esequibo
It is highly worrying that the current President-elect of Colombia has not referred to his country's relationship with NATO, nor to its military bases, while announcing a pact with the Liberal and Conservative parties. Let us remember that the Caldas "incident", provoked by the domination of the Gulf of Venezuela and its rich oil fields, was planned by those parties when they were in power, nothing indicates that they have renounced to those plans. The alliance with NATO is clearly going in that direction.
And if we add to that the very recent and revealing "incidents", related to the sanctions against our country, such as the extension of the status of Monomer, the visit of a US delegation to meet with the belligerent sector of the opposition, the abandonment of the country by important foreign companies, the denial of visas for our sports delegations, etc., etc., we can clearly see the strategy of taking advantage of our foreseeable reaction to the future decision of the International Court of Justice on the Essequibo, to initiate a warlike adventure to secure our immense energy resources.
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Editorial 2022/07/15
INVESTMENT AND EXTERNAL DEBT
Achieving Latin American and Caribbean integration is not a simple task, given the different challenges to be overcome.
In the current situation, the first challenge is to achieve an economic development that generates the necessary wealth for the inhabitants to have a quality of life that not only covers their basic needs, but is also in line with the benefits offered by the spectacular scientific and technological advances that have been made, especially in the areas of health and communications, to mention just a few. .
While we understand that the objectives of regional integration are different, at present, a clear roadmap in the economic sphere is essential for its success.
CAPITAL INVESTMENT.
In order to achieve the necessary level of income, capital investment is a determining factor, both social, through public administration, and in the attainment of the necessary monetary capital.
In this last aspect, the experiences in the region are instructive and set the tone for the measures to be taken. In this regard, we must point out the enormous flight of private capital, which instead of being used for investment and reinvestment, and under the influence of the deep political crises experienced in the region, sought "security" abroad, and which we can safely estimate at thousands of billions of dollars,
Contrasting this attitude with that of the owners of capital in the industrialized countries, who convert their profits, mostly in new investments, either made by the companies themselves or through the financial system, resulting in an increase in the production of goods and services as well as their profits, to the point that this continuous growth of production made the domestic markets small and boosted capital investments abroad, converting their profits into an ever greater net transfer of capital abroad.
An integration process should reverse this behavior, promoting the creation and strengthening of local capital companies and the local recapitalization of their profits, leaving foreign investment only for those niches of the economy in which the necessary technology or capital is not available.
EXTERNAL FINANCING.
Another way to raise capital for production is through external financing. However, the unfortunate experiences lived by many Latin American countries that contracted huge debts, which in the end were not used to leverage productive investments, and which ended up turning their payment into heavy burdens for their peoples, impose the need to establish very clear criteria to prevent their repetition.
It is worth mentioning Venezuela's recent tragic experiences in this regard.
In 1989, our country obtained voluminous capital resources through a large international loan for "productive investment", which ended up turning into a maelstrom of corruption, causing a gigantic financial crisis and the impoverishment of our people.
In the years 2016 and 2017, more than 70 billion dollars of public debt matured, a period in which the national oil production inexplicably decreased, which, combined with the plunge in the price of a barrel of oil from approx. 80$ to 19$, caused an extreme shortage of goods to the population, including basic necessities and produced a deep economic crisis.
This is why, within the integrationist scheme, local financing mechanisms must be designed, such as the so-called Bank of the South, proposed in 2006 by seven Latin American Presidents and which, unfortunately, did not crystallize.
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Editorial 2022/07/24
A NECESSARY INTERDEPENDENCE
In our opinion, the most important challenge to be overcome in an integration process in our region is the formation of an economy that impedes, rather than hinders, the regional exchange of goods and services and, therefore, the necessary economic interdependence among nations, without which any attempt at integration will fail.
In effect, the economies of the countries of the area are based, fundamentally, on their primary sector, with agricultural, livestock and fishing production and mineral extraction, with a weak secondary sector, concentrated mainly in agro-industry and products for daily household and personal use, mostly controlled by foreign capital factories, and with the presence of a hypertrophied tertiary sector, fed by public spending and bureaucracy.
With the exception of very specific cases such as Argentine wheat, agricultural, livestock and fishery products are very similar throughout the region, so that, except in exceptional situations such as those experienced by Venezuela in recent years, these products do not find a market in other countries in the region.
For example, all Latin American and Caribbean countries, except Bolivia and Paraguay, have maritime coasts, or almost all of them have livestock and poultry infrastructures, so that local production of these goods is directed to the domestic market of each country and to transcontinental markets.
In the case of minerals, since the region does not have a solid industrial development that demands them, their production is directed to the most industrialized countries of North America, Europe and Asia, thus wasting the enormous advantage of having resources such as copper, oil, lithium, etc., which can underpin a strong industrial development.
All this is a consequence of the fact that our nations have become true "neo-banana" countries, suppliers of raw materials and agricultural products to the industrialized nations and demanders of the industrial goods they produce. The same scheme colonial.
The recent pandemic and the unfortunate war in Ukraine have exposed how harmful this economic dependence on foreign nations is for our countries. We have experienced this in the case of vaccines and other vital supplies to combat the corona virus; also in the significant decrease in the export of agricultural products such as bananas; in the practical paralysis of tourist activities; in the serious problems caused by the shortage of fertilizers; or in the substantial increase in the cost of fuel; among many other examples.
As long as this situation remains unchanged, any attempt at integration will be very fragile and would allow some countries to withdraw from it, since it would not represent any significant economic loss for them. What has happened with UNASUR, in which only four nations remain, is a tangible example of what we are expressing here.
It is therefore necessary that any integrationist initiative that crystallizes should make it a top priority to promote, in a planned manner, the creation of new productive niches through the industrial development of the countries, establishing internal mechanisms to prioritize the acquisition of these goods.
A process that should combine the total production of a good in one nation, as well as the shared production among different countries of the various components required to manufacture products such as motor vehicles, boats, electronic devices, etc.
All this so that the benefits that such measures will undoubtedly bring will serve as a glue for a solid and strong integration of our countries, in addition to the inevitable added value that this will entail in the technological development of the area.
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