As US President Bush tours Latin America to push his free trade policies, thousands fill the streets to let him know he is uninvited.
Over 30 000 people took to the streets Thursday in San Paolo, Brazil to protest US President Bush’s presence in their country. Bush is in the middle of a 7-day, 5-nation tour of Latin America and protests are being organized in each of his stops in Colombia, Uruguay, Guatemala and Mexico.
In San Paolo, aproximately 18 protesters were injured, after more than 6000 people led a largely peaceful march but clashed with police, as a few rocks thrown led officers to beat people and fire tear gas. Similar conflicts between the people and police were reported in Colombia where Bush is scheduled to arrive Sunday. In Mexico City, where Bush is scheduled Tuesday, protesters have gathered outside the US Embassy. Everywhere protesters burn effigies of Bush, shout slogans of “Get out, imperialist!” and graffiti reading “Get Out, Bush! Assassin!” can be seen sprayed on city walls.
Bush is touring these countries to woo governments away from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s influence and the several leftist governments gaining ground against US neoliberal economic policies. He is also pushing an ethanol energy alliance with Lula da Silva, President of Latin America’s largest nation, Brazil. The country uses ethanol as fuel for eight out of ten of its cars, a move seen by some as a more environmentally friendly alternative to dependance on oil. Bush is proposing an accord to make ethanol an international trade commodity and to promote its sugarcane-based production in Central America and the Caribbean.
Environmentalists fear that with an increased reliance on ethanol as an alternative fuel, Brazil may clearcut its jungles to augment sugarcane production. Another concern is the fact that it takes four liters of fresh water for every litre of ethanol produced. Social unrest could also rise between wealthy sugarcane-ethanol operators and the poor sugarcane cutters. The anger is also directed at the American government’s unfair economic policies and attempt to control not only the world’s oil reserves but now this alternative fuel.
Brazil is hoping this accord will open the US market to their biofuel but while the US is imposing free trade on the rest of the world, inside the US, there is a 54 cents a gallon tariff on ethanol. This means no real chance for the fuel to sell in the US and thus, no real economic development for the Caribbean or Latin America.
This article was published Sunday, March 11, 2007
