U-n-a-s-u-r : That’s for UNITY
You gotta let em know, you ain’t a complicit member state, you’re a rogue. Or in non-Latifah, you’re Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In the latest lame trend by governments around the world, the heads of 12 South American countries including Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, and slightly-more-volatile Venezuela and Bolivia, among others, signed an “agreement” to create a union modeled directly after the EU and unify government, infrastructure, and as Raymond Colitt puts it, “boost economic integration and political cohesion.”
For Chavez, as well as some other key figures in the sickly corporatist merger, all this talk of cohesion and integration is more reminiscent of that balls-sticking-to-legs feeling. In a statement on South American TV, Chavez said “the empire is counter-attacking … Washington is rebuilding the oligarchies.” No word yet on how the American media will spin this statement to seem like a threat to peace and prosperity of a healthy body of determined nations that just want what is right for humanity.
Oligarchy is an interesting choice of word (if that’s the literal translation I read) since government bodies see the need for merging into unions as based in economic security and of course, combating terrorism. Terror was a divisive point for Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia (for now). He feels the FARC rebels need to be handled like a terrorist group by all Unasur members, though Ecuador has been accused of “harboring” these fighters. Interesting, I think I just heard an echo.
Chavez obviously wants no part in a streamlining of governments that encroaches on his sovereignty, and you’d have to be some lunatic dictator to reject Unasur’s “rotating presidency.” That’s right, everyone will get a turn. And with all the vast differences between the peoples and leadership styles of South America, that can only be good, they will say.
Case-in-point: “Unasur means that we can be a global actor, that we have a single voice that can be heard,” says Chilean Prez Michelle Bachelet.
Luiz Inacio, Brazilian Prez, says the move is a sign that South America is becoming a “global actor.” That global actor phrase is kinda catchy. Is that like the same thing as like, Jackie Chan or Colin Farrell? They’re global actors, too. One other interesting thing of note, Inacio also said “there’s no democracy without people protesting in the streets.” I guess he’s got a twisted point there.
Brazil has apparently been trying to bring about this union for some time in order to act as a balance to U.S. and European business interests in South America, which you’ll want to remember in a few years when the North American Union is pitched. I mean, how else will Americans counterbalance all the foreign business interests in their region? Gosh, this one-size-fits-all style of government and economic policy is awful appealing.
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