by the El Reportero’s news services
Dora María Tellez
Exguerrilla woman protests to Ortega with hunger strike
After several days of having begun a hunger strike, the legendary Nicaraguan guerrilla woman, Dora Maria Téllez, starts feeling the first effects of food absence.
Téllez who was Minister of Health in the previous government of President Daniel Ortega, took this decision in protest against the threat from the Nicaraguan Electoral Power of cancelling their Movement Renovator Sandinista (MRS) political party’s right to participate in the next municipal elections.
Constantly risk to the life of the exguerrilla, might be putting in check the stubbornness with which the government of President Ortega has tried to ignore this protest.
This topic is causing high political fuss between diverse sectors within the Nicaraguan population that have shown their solidarity with the exguerrilla member.
In the international area, the General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OEA) Miguel Insulza, said that they are evaluating this political situation.
Latin America closes ranks at food summit
On 5 June delegates representing Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, and three other Latin American countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the final document drawn up at the end of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s global food crisis summit in Rome.
Argentina refused to sign the declaration, which was nonetheless ratified by the 42 other heads of state attending.
The FAO food summit – which ran from 3 to 5 June and was attended by over five thousand different delegates from 183 countries including, embarrassingly, the president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe – was characterized by a lack of consensus and heated debate over the main causes of the current crisis.
The protests of Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia – together with Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s angry defence of biofuels on 3 June – signalled a growing sense of unity on the world stage among a number of Latin American countries.
Chávez revamps Venezuelan secret intelligence service
The government is poised to carry out a sweeping reform of the secret intelligence service to counter “U.S. intervention in the country’s domestic affairs”. The secret police (Disip) and military intelligence (DIM) will be superseded by a four-pronged service consisting of military and police intelligence and counter-intelligence services, the former answerable to the defence ministry and the latter to the interior ministry. The interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, did not set an exact timeframe for the changes to be implemented but he implied that it could take a year.
Brazil acts against perceived risk of conflict in Amazonia
The government of President Lula da Silva has decided to station troops within indigenous reservations, disarm Indians in the border state of Roraima, impose controls on the presence of foreigners and foreign-controlled organisations in Amazonia, and introduce legislation regulating the activities of NGOs. The move, which comes in the wake of a media-inflated row over military criticism of the government’s indigenous policies, has been months in the brewing. It reflects the widespread conviction that the Amazonian region is under threat from a variety of foreign interests.
Is it different this time?
Usually, when the US tips into a recession, Latin America slows down. This does not seem to be happening in 2008. The region, by and large, is expecting a bumper year thanks to high commodity prices and a near-decade of solid economic policymaking.
Over the past decade, Latin America has shifted its debt burden from foreign markets to domestic ones and, with the notable exception of Argentina, governments have learnt to live within their means. The other significant change in the region’s economic policymaking is (again with the exception of Argentina and also Venezuela) that countries have adopted floating exchange rates.
