by the El Reportero’s wire services
Foreign ministers of Mercosur will meet on Saturday in Brazil to discuss the case of Venezuela confirmed the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay, Eladio Loizaga.
There will be defined if they conclude with the process of application of the Protocol of Ushuaia, which provides that a country is suspended from the block when it breaks the constitutional order.
Loizaga said that there is not much to analyze in the case of Venezuela and that it only remains to suspend it from the bloc until the democratic order in that country is restored.
He explained that the entire process foreseen in the Protocol had been fulfilled and that now only decisions remain.
He recalled that under the Protocol the last thing before reaching the suspension was to call upon the affected State to state its point of view, but Venezuela did not even respond to this invitation.
It is unclear what will be the position of Uruguay that has been the most reluctant member to sanction Venezuela and prefers to insist on dialogue and a possible understanding.
Guatemalan government seeks indigenous support in dispute with Belize
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Morales has begun today a working visit to three regions of the country seeking support from mayors, governors and indigenous authorities and explaining the reasons for the territorial dispute with Belize.
The official support is seeking to influence positively in a people’s consultation planned before 2018 and will determine whether or not to take an insular and maritime litigation with Belmopan to the International Criminal Court (ICC) according to press media.
It is tried, in this manner, to solve a claim dating back to two centuries, as published by the Guatemalan News Agency’s official website.
In order to the ICC accept the case the application must be supported by the populations of both nations, according to local authorities.
Guatemala recognized the Belizean government in 1991 but paid no attention to its territorial borders, the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry’s spokesman stated.
The Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales recently asked the political parties not to raise any political banner on this issue, according to foreign minister.
NAFTA renegotiation will harm Mexico, warns peasant leader
Renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will harm Mexico, assured today the Secretary General of the Independent Agricultural Workers and Peasants Union (Cioac, in Spanish), Federico Ovalle.
The peasant leader criticized what he described as weaknesses in the renegotiation process of NAFTA by the government and the ‘fictitious’ growth figures in agriculture and the creation of jobs.
He stressed that the agricultural chapter should be removed from the trilateral treaty and not go, once more as it happened in 1993, to a subortdinated negotiation of the Mexican economy.
Ovalle summoned to remember and not forget that the trade agreement with the United States and Canada in 1993 was headed by the present party in power, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, and now the renegotiation is also in its hands.
He called for a great mobilization next August 8 in this capital, on occasion of the 138th anniversary of Emiliano Zapata’s birth date and in defense of the interests of Mexican agricultura, above all, the small producers.
