Just Foreign Policy News
June 9, 2010
Reset: Stephen Kinzer’s Vision of a New U.S. Relationship with Turkey and Iran
Some Americans may be surprised to see Turkey playing a more independent role. Liz Cheney says Turkey is part of a new axis of evil that wants to destroy Israel. It’s quite opportune that Stephen Kinzer has a new book out this week that argues the opposite case: Turkey’s more independent policy is good for America.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/reset-stephen-kinzers-vis_b_604867.html
Live Virtual Brown Bag with Stephen Kinzer
On Friday, June 11th at 1pm ET (12pm Central, 10am Pacific), Just Foreign Policy will be broadcasting a live, interactive virtual talk with former New York Times foreign correspondent and author Stephen Kinzer. Kinzer is promoting his new book, "RESET: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future," which is being published tomorrow.
Find out more and register:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/kinzertalk
This week and next, Stephen will be in New York, DC, Chicago, SF, LA:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/kinzertour
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Brazil, Turkey Defy Washington on Iran Sanctions
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution calling for new sanctions against Iran today. The man-bites-dog story is that two countries – Brazil and Turkey – voted no, while Lebanon abstained. That’s a record.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/brazil-turkey-defy-washin_b_606502.html
Ask a local theater to show "South of the Border"
Oliver Stone’s powerful new documentary about progressive change in Latin America is opening in the US this month. JFP President Mark Weisbrot co-wrote the script. Does your town have an art theater? Might they show "South of the Border"? There’s no harm in asking. The trailer is here:
http://www.youtube.com/southoftheborderdoc
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Egypt said it will leave its border with Gaza open indefinitely for humanitarian aid and restricted travel, AP reports. Egypt is only allowing a restricted group of Gazans to leave the territory, including medical patients, students attending foreign universities and those with residency abroad. In nearly a week, thousands of Gazans have left and 500 tons of medical supplies were trucked in. Egypt will not transfer large cargo shipments or construction material because the border crossing is designed primarily for travelers, a security official said.
2) Secretary of State Clinton urged Latin American nations to impose a heavier tax burden on the wealthy, saying the region’s economic growth depends on it, AP reports. Clinton said in a speech in Quito that tax evasion among the wealthiest in the Western Hemisphere is unacceptably high and hurts efforts to build badly needed infrastructure like roads, bridges and power plants. She said it is also keeping countries in the Americas from reducing poverty and improving health care. [In a March 2003 paper, CEPR economist John Schmitt pointed out that Latin American adoption of US-style taxation would have allowed most countries to double expenditures on education and health, and that the additional revenues from implementing a US-style system for all of Latin America would be three times larger than the total foreign assistance provided by all the world’s rich countries to all the world’s poor countries. http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/latin_america_2003_04.pdf – JFP]
3) Haitian President Préval is being urged to move faster to schedule elections in Haiti or risk losing the confidence of Congress, the Miami Herald reports. A report from Senator Lugar recommends that the State Department "seek an agreement with the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council] and all political parties, including factions of Fanmi Lavalas, to ensure that the parties meet the CEP’s legal requirements and are not excluded from elections because of perceived technicalities." [Fanmi Lavalas, associated with ousted President Aristide, was excluded from the last election based on such "technicalities" – JFP.]
4) The Obama administration wants to retain the ability to hold terrorism suspects at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, even after it hands control of the facility to the Afghan government, the Los Angeles Times reports. Under a recent U.S. appeals court decision, the prison at Bagram air base is outside the reach of federal courts. The ruling means that prisoners held there cannot challenge their detention or demand legal rights, unlike detainees at Guantanamo. Human rights organizations are likely to view the creation of another detention facility outside the reach of U.S. law as a betrayal by the Obama administration, the LAT says.
5) The Kandahar "offensive" has been canceled due Afghan political opposition and the failure of the assault on Marjah, the New York Times reports.
6) In 2009, the Americas were again the deadliest region of the world for trade unionists, the International Trade Union Confederation reports. Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had the highest death toll. On the positive side, the new government in El Salvador has facilitated the right to organize.
Israel/Palestine
7) Under international law, Israel only has the right to use force in Gaza – including blockade – if it has exhausted peaceful means, notes Noam Chomsky in In These Times. Since negotiations haven’t been tried, the use of force is illegal.
8) President Obama promised a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza, the New York Times reports. But it was unclear how the aid would be administered in Gaza, the Times says.
10) Israel has broadened the variety of foods allowed through its land crossings into Gaza, the New York Times reports, including juices and sweets. "It is not enough to permit Gaza residents to purchase Israeli-made cookies," said the Israeli human rights group Gisha. "Israel should stop banning raw materials such as industrial margarine and glucose, so that Gaza residents can produce their own cookies and restart the economy that has been paralyzed for three years."
Bolivia
11) President Evo is threatening to expel USAID from Bolivia, saying USAID helped fund NGOs in Bolivia allied with the right-wing opposition, AHN reports. Morales accused Mark Feierstein, President Obama’s nominee to become USAID’s deputy administrator, of having been an advisor to former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. The former president lives in Miami; he left Bolivia under a threat of being put on trial for human rights abuses.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Egypt to keep open border with impoverished Gaza
Sarah el Deeb, Associated Press, Mon Jun 7, 6:34 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100607/ap_on_re_us/gaza_blockade
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt – After three years of cooperating in the Israeli blockade of Gaza, Egypt said Monday that it will leave its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely for humanitarian aid and restricted travel. With international pressure building to ease the blockade, an Egyptian security official said sealing off Hamas-ruled Gaza has only bred more militancy.
The decision to ease the restrictions erected by Israel to isolate and punish Hamas comes a week after a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade.
The move restores a link to the outside world for at least some of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians. It also appeared calculated to defuse anger in the Arab and Muslim world over Egypt’s role in maintaining the blockade and to show that Egypt, too, is now pressing Israel to open at least its land crossings with Gaza. " Egypt is the one that broke the blockade," Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said. "We are not going to let the occupying power escape from its responsibilities."
[…] In announcing the change in Egypt’s position, a security official acknowledged his country was in a "continuously critical situation," and he said Israel was wrong to think the closure could pressure Hamas to meet a series of demands, including the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, who has held since 2006. "Israel still insists that the blockade is a pressure tool. It can release Schalit and force Hamas to stop resistance. … On the contrary, it becomes more extremist," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Egypt’s new measures constitute an incremental change rather than a radically different approach to the border closure, in part because Egypt does not want to end up bearing sole responsibility for large-scale Gaza aid operations.
For the time being, Egypt is only allowing a restricted group of Gazans to leave the territory, including medical patients, students attending foreign universities and those with residency abroad. In nearly a week, thousands of Gazans have left and 500 tons of medical supplies were trucked in. It has done so before, sporadically and for a period limited to two or three days.
Egypt will not transfer large cargo shipments or construction material because the border crossing is designed primarily for travelers, the security official said. One such convoy, organized by Egypt’s Islamic opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, was stopped Monday before it got close to the border.
[…]
2) Clinton to Latin America: Tax your rich
Matthew Lee, AP, June 9, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5guCSurh8SvwlLu_hzaUM8REynjHQD9G7BBU01
Quito, Ecuador – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Latin American nations Tuesday to impose a heavier tax burden on the wealthy, saying the region’s economic growth and competitiveness depend on it.
Clinton said in a speech in the Ecuadorean capital that tax evasion among the wealthiest in the Western Hemisphere is unacceptably high and hurts efforts to build badly needed infrastructure like roads, bridges and power plants. She said it is also keeping countries in the Americas from reducing poverty and improving health care.
"Despite progress in some places, tax and budget systems are ineffective and inefficient in much of the hemisphere," she said, noting that in many countries the burden falls too heavily on lower classes.
"But," she said, "in many places, it is also a simple fact that the wealthy do not pay their fair share. We can’t mince words about this. Levels of tax evasion are unacceptably high – as much or more than 50 percent in some of the region’s economies when it comes to personal income tax."
As a result, she said most governments in the region are unable to afford to provide basic services.
[…]
3) Schedule elections, U.S. Congress urges Haiti president
Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, Wed, Jun. 09, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/09/v-fullstory/1671436/schedule-elections-us-congress.html
Haitian President René Préval is being urged to move faster to schedule presidential and parliamentary elections in an earthquake-battered Haiti or risk losing the confidence of the U.S. Congress.
The warning comes from a high-ranking influential member of Congress, who in an eight-page report obtained by The Miami Herald, calls for Préval, whose presidential mandate ends in 2011, to "issue the appropriate decree establishing an official date for presidential and parliamentary elections, without delay."
"Our government is sympathetic to the plight of Haitians, as demonstrated by the assistance our military, diplomats and development experts provided in the wake of the disaster," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., ranking member of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, said. "But the positive effect of assistance programs will be limited if Haiti lacks a responsible, popularly-elected government."
Préval has repeatedly expressed his desire to hold elections, telling Haitians as recently as last week during an appearance in the Dominican Republic to prepare themselves to go to the polls. And while he has been reluctant to announce a formal date until now, his advisers told The Miami Herald that a presidential decree authorizing the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to schedule the elections for Nov. 28 is currently under review and should be published in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the report calls on Préval and his government to show "strong leadership," on the matter of elections and recommends that the U.S. State Department ask him to issue the presidential decree "in earnest" and restructure the membership of Haiti’s beleaguered CEP in consultation with the international partners in a way that "demonstrates a clear political commitment to contesting credible elections."
The State Department is also being urged to ask donors to disburse a portion of the estimated $38 million needed to hold elections as soon as Préval issues the decree. The State Department also is being asked "to seek an agreement with the CEP and all political parties, including factions of Fanmi Lavalas, to ensure that the parties meet the CEP’s legal requirements and are not excluded from elections because of perceived technicalities."
[…]
4) U.S. hopes to share prison with Afghanistan
The plan would give the Obama administration a place to interrogate terrorism suspects from other countries even after control of the Bagram prison is transferred to Afghanistan next year.
Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-bagram-20100609,0,6561536.story
Washington – The Obama administration wants to retain the ability to hold terrorism suspects from other countries at its largest prison in Afghanistan, even after it hands control of the facility to the Afghan government next year, according to U.S. officials.
If Afghan officials agree, it would give the administration a place to interrogate terrorism suspects captured in countries such as Somalia or Yemen. President Obama made a high-profile pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after taking office last year. But that would leave the administration without a lockup for those suspected of plotting attacks against the United States.
Administration officials have looked in recent months to the U.S.-run prison at Bagram air base north of Kabul as a place to hold suspects captured elsewhere. But Afghan officials have long demanded they be given control of the prison, and the Obama administration has agreed. Last month, Obama reiterated that promise.
Now, administration officials are developing a compromise plan to hand over control, but also carve out a section of the prison for non-Afghan detainees who would remain under U.S. custody, according to a senior U.S. official.
[…] The issue encompasses the legal and ethical quandaries that continue to engulf U.S. detention policy. Under a recent U.S. appeals court decision, the prison at Bagram air base is outside the reach of federal courts. The ruling means that prisoners held there cannot challenge their detention or demand legal rights, unlike detainees at Guantanamo.
[…] In the past, U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have opposed bringing additional detainees from outside the war zone to Bagram, fearful it could delay the handoff of the prison and erode relations between Washington and Kabul.
[…] The compromise plan being discussed by officials in Washington preserves Afghan control and meets the need of other military and intelligence officials for a secure overseas prison at which to interrogate suspects.
Senior Defense officials have expressed frustration that the U.S. lacks an overseas prison where new terrorism suspects can be held. Some Defense officials believe the U.S. is often pushed into trying to kill militants, instead of attempting to capture and question them.
[…] Human rights organizations are likely to view the creation of another detention facility outside the reach of U.S. law as a betrayal by the Obama administration.
[…]
5) Afghanistan Strategy Focuses on Civilian Effort
Rod Nordland, New York Times, June 8, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/world/asia/09kandahar.html
Kandahar, Afghanistan – The prospect of a robust military push in Kandahar Province, which had been widely expected to begin this month, has evolved into a strategy that puts civilian reconstruction efforts first and relegates military action to a supportive role.
The strategy, Afghan, American and NATO civilian and military officials said in interviews, was adopted because of opposition to military action from an unsympathetic local population and Afghan officials here and in Kabul.
There are also concerns that a frontal military approach has not worked as well as hoped in a much smaller area in Marja, in neighboring Helmand Province.
The goal that American planners originally outlined – often in briefings in which reporters agreed not to quote officials by name – emphasized the importance of a military offensive devised to bring all of the populous and Taliban-dominated south under effective control by the end of this summer. That would leave another year to consolidate gains before President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat troops.
In fact, there has been little new fighting in Kandahar so far, and the very word "offensive" has been banished. "We cannot say the term offensive for Kandahar," said the Afghan National Army officer in charge here, Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai. "It is actually a partnership operation."
The commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, insisted that there never was a planned offensive. "The media have chosen to use the term offensive," he said. Instead, he said, "we have certainly talked about a military uplift, but there has been no military use of the term offensive."
Whatever it is called, it is not happening this month. Views vary widely as to just when the military part will start. General Zazai says it will begin in July but take a break for Ramadan in mid-August and resume in mid-September. A person close to Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar, says it will not commence until winter, or at least not until harvests end in October. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
American officials, on the other hand, say it has already begun, not with a bang, but with a steady increase of experts from the United States Embassy and NATO and aid workers – a "civilian surge" – accompanied by a quiet increase in American troops to provide security for them. The Americans strongly deny that they planned an offensive they are now backing away from.
Whereas in Marja the plan was to carry out a military assault to oust the Taliban, followed by rapid delivery of government services, in Kandahar the approach is now the opposite. Civilian aid workers, protected by an increased military force, will try to provide those services first, before any major military action.
"This is not going to be a door-to-door military campaign," said one American civilian official, who requested anonymity in line with his agency’s policy. "You’ll see more Afghan National Police checkpoints, but it’s not going to be an aggressive military campaign. They’ve looked at it and realized it wouldn’t work."
[…] It is not so much what happened as what did not. Marja did not go nearly as well as hoped, and the area is still not sufficiently controlled for the local government’s activities to resume or take root. Marja, with 60,000 residents, is far smaller than Kandahar, with more than a million in the city and the surrounding districts. If Marja was hard, planners worried, what might Kandahar be?
[…]
6) 2010 Annual Survey of violations of trade union rights
Americas: Impunity rules supreme among the champions of trade union rights violations
International Trade Union Confederation
http://survey.ituc-csi.org/-Americas-.html
As in previous years, denials of trade union rights and brutal abuse took place in the Americas in 2009. The appalling record of murders, death threats, disappearances and harassment occurred throughout the year in the region. The prevailing climate of extreme violence cost the lives of 89 trade unionists and labour activists including at least seven women, again making the Americas the deadliest continent in the world. Unsurprisingly, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had the highest toll, with respective figures of 48, 16 and 12 trade unionists and labour activists killed. There were also six deaths in Mexico, four in Brazil, and three in the Dominican Republic.
[…] In Colombia, on top of the 48 labour activists killed during the year, the anti-union climate that has been prevailing for years now seems to be more firmly anchored. In Mexico, the government’s anti-union strategy has persisted. Four members of the national miners’ union were killed during a long strike, whilst in separate incidents two trade union leaders were killed, one of whom was slaughtered with his family. In Brazil, violations against workers in the agricultural sector rose, with three agricultural union leaders and one rural rights activist killed. Repression against the members of the trade union, peasants’ and indigenous peoples’ movement (MSICG) in Guatemala became more marked. Throughout the year, a dirty war was waged against trade unionists, comprising murders, death threats, confinement and torture. In Honduras, at least 12 trade unionists were killed and 125 arrested during the post-coup violence.
[…] On the positive side, the decisions of the new government in El Salvador have facilitated the right to organise, including in the public sector, and some unions have finally been registered. In Bolivia, though the 2009 Constitution improved the protection of trade union rights, some restrictions remain, such as the need to obtain the government’s prior authorisation for establishing a union. In Argentina, a Supreme Court decision extended the protection previously granted only to leaders of trade unions with official status to representatives of all registered unions.
Israel/Palestine
7) The Real Threat Aboard the Freedom Flotilla
Noam Chomsky, In These Times, June 8, 2010
http://inthesetimes.com/article/6064/the_real_threat_aboard_the_freedom_flotilla/
Israel’s violent attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza shocked the world. Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime.
But the crime is nothing new. For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats between Cyprus and Lebanon and killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes holding them hostage in Israeli prisons.
Israel assumes that it can commit such crimes with impunity because the United States tolerates them and Europe generally follows the U.S.’s lead.
As the editors of The Guardian rightly observed on June 1, "If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a NATO task force would today be heading for the Somali coast." In this case, the NATO treaty obligates its members to come to the aid of a fellow NATO country – Turkey – attacked on the high seas.
Israel’s pretext for the attack was that the Freedom Flotilla was bringing materials that Hamas could use for bunkers to fire rockets into Israel. The pretext isn’t credible. Israel can easily end the threat of rockets by peaceful means.
The background is important. Hamas was designated a major terrorist threat when it won a free election in January 2006. The U.S. and Israel sharply escalated their punishment of Palestinians, now for the crime of voting the wrong way.
The siege of Gaza, including a naval blockade, was a result. The siege intensified sharply in June 2007 after a civil war left Hamas in control of the territory.
What is commonly described as a Hamas military coup was in fact incited by the U.S. and Israel, in a crude attempt to overturn the elections that had brought Hamas to power.
That has been public knowledge at least since April 2008, when David Rose reported in Vanity Fair that George W. Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Elliott Abrams, "backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."
Hamas terror included launching rockets into nearby Israeli towns – criminal, without a doubt, though only a minute fraction of routine U.S.-Israeli crimes in Gaza.
In June 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement. The Israeli government formally acknowledges that until Israel broke the agreement on Nov. 4 of that year, invading Gaza and killing half a dozen Hamas activists, Hamas did not fire a single rocket.
Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire. The Israeli cabinet considered the offer and rejected it, preferring to launch its murderous invasion of Gaza on Dec.27.
Like other states, Israel has the right of self-defense. But did Israel have the right to use force in Gaza in the name of self-defense? International law, including the U.N. Charter, is unambiguous: A nation has such a right only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case such means were not even tried, although – or perhaps because – there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed.
Thus the invasion was sheer criminal aggression, and the same is true of Israel’s resorting to force against the flotilla.
[…]
8) Obama Pledges New Aid for Palestinians
Helene Cooper, New York Times, June 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/middleeast/10prexy.html
Washington – President Obama promised a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States scrambled to come up with a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East exacerbated by the Gaza flotilla incident last week.
Mr. Obama, meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, said that the money would go to housing and schools. White House officials said that the money also would help increase access to drinking water and to help address health and infrastructure needs.
The exact details of how such aid would be used in Gaza remained unclear. Nor was it immediately clear how Mr. Abbas, who has authority in the West Bank but no authority in Gaza, would be able to administer it.
Gaza has been subjected to an Israeli blockade since 2007; an Israeli raid that thwarted a Turkish-led flotilla carrying aid supplies toward Gaza last week led to international protests over the blockade, which Mr. Obama has called "unsustainable."
[…] "The president has described the situation in Gaza as unsustainable, and it demands a significant change in strategy," the White House said in a statement. "While we work with our partners in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, and the international community to put such a strategy in place, these projects represent a down payment on the United States’ commitment to Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve a better life and expanded opportunities, and the chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank."
9) Israel Widens Supplies Allowed Into Gaza
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, June 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/middleeast/10mideast.html
Jerusalem – Israel has broadened the variety of foods allowed through its land crossings into Gaza, officials on both sides said on Wednesday, but Israel denied that this signaled any change in policy toward the Hamas-run enclave as a result of international pressure.
World leaders have been calling on Israel to lift or significantly ease its blockade of Gaza after an Israeli commando raid on a boat trying to breach the naval blockade turned into a violent clash and left nine activists dead in late May.
In the last few days Israel has added juices and preserves to the basic supplies it allows into the Palestinian coastal territory, and it has recently started allowing in jam, halva and other sweet snacks.
[…] Still, international organizations working in Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamic militant group, Hamas, have warned of growing hardship. Deprived of raw materials, local industry has been severely damaged, and the Gaza economy has collapsed.
[…] "It is not enough to permit Gaza residents to purchase Israeli-made cookies," Gisha , an advocacy group that focuses on freedom of movement for Palestinians, said in a statement on Wednesday. "Israel should stop banning raw materials such as industrial margarine and glucose, so that Gaza residents can produce their own cookies and restart the economy that has been paralyzed for three years."
[…]
Bolivia
10) Bolivian President Threatens to Expel U.S. International Relief Agency.
Tom Ramstack, AHN, June 7, 2010 5:29 p.m. EST http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7018920752?Bolivian%20President%20Threatens%20to%20Expel%20U.S.%20International%20Relief%20Agency
La Paz, Bolivia – Bolivian President Evo Morales is threatening to expel a U.S. relief agency that assists underdeveloped nations after accusing it of supporting his political adversaries. He said the U.S. Agency for International Development helped fund non-governmental organizations in Bolivia allied with his right-wing opposition that staged a recent protest.
"We expelled the ambassador of the United States and the Drug Enforcement Agency," Morales said in an interview with a Bolivian radio network. "If the U.S. Agency for International Development continues with its activities, I will not hesitate to expel them because we are dignified, sovereign and we are not going to allow any interference."
[…] Morales accused Mark Feierstein, President Obama’s nominee to become USAID’s deputy administrator, of having been an advisor to former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. The former president has lived in exile in Miami since the downfall of his administration in 2003. He left Bolivia under a threat of being put on trial for genocide.
Feierstein is a former associate of the political consulting firm Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, which once counted Sanchez de Lozada among its clients.
The Senate still must confirm Feierstein’s appointment to USAID.
Morales’ warning follows by weeks violence near La Paz by farmers protesting government agricultural policy. Two people were killed after the group blocked roadways. Morales said USAID helped support the protesters.
His threats to expel USAID are casting further doubt over the possibility of improved relations with the United States.
Last week, U.S. State Department assistant secretary Arturo Valenzuela visited Bolivia to discuss whether the two countries could renew relations by exchanging ambassadors. Valenzuela and Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca came away from their meeting saying they had resolved many of their differences.
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.