Iranian
leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets former Cuban
dictator Fidel Castro in Cuba, Jan. 12.
Vanguardia, Mexico
The Hypocrisy of Ahmadinejad's
Latin American Hosts
"Ahmadinejad's four 'anti-imperialist' Latin American 'friends' never criticized the undemocratic methods of their Persian ally because they themselves use them, including election fraud, the backing of terrorist movements and the persecution of independent media."
Latin America's red carpet roll-out for Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
coincidentally fell on what was the 30th anniversary of the Falkland Islands War,
and 20 years since a terrorist attack struck their comrades in Argentina.
This
marks Ahmadinejad's fifth trip to the region - which is an attempt to counter
the recent announcement by the U.S. and E.U. of the imposition of sanctions
over Iran's supposedly peaceful nuclear program and its threat to close the oil
tap in the Strait of Hormuz. He carried his anti-American propaganda to Cuba,
Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, gathering flowers that are denied him in
his own country.
At
their anti-imperialist banquet, Cuban leader Raul Castro, Ecuador President
Rafael Correa, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Venezuela President Hugo
Chavez failed to bring up their previous complaints on behalf of their
colleagues, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, her late husband Nestor Kirchner,
and Argentina's Ministry of Justice, who all accuse Iran of masterminding the 1992
attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, as well as the 1994 attack
on the Asociación
Mutual Israelita Argentina.
Cristina
shouldn't be naďve about all this. Ahmadinejad's four "friends" never
criticized the undemocratic methods of their Persian ally because they
themselves use them, including election fraud, the backing of terrorist
movements and the persecution of independent media. Free expression and
assembly are prohibited in Cuba, with dissidents repressed and imprisoned.
Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela have had traditions of irregular elections and
pursuing legal action as a means of oppressing media, provoking the ire of
journalists and forcing them into exile. Meanwhile, all four governments have a
long history of supporting the narco-guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia [FARC].
Ahmadinejad's
revolution is responsible for over 3 million irregular votes in the 2009 polls
that won him reelection and the brutal repression of demonstrators that
preceded the Arab Spring. Furthermore, Iran has the greatest number of
imprisoned journalists in the world, with 42 jailed last year alone, and
according to recently uncovered evidence, it planned attacks on U.S. nuclear plants
and attacks on Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires and Washington.
Using
the justification of sovereignty, the same four governments have received the
leader of Iran's terrorist regime - and there was no shortage of criticism of
the U.S. embargo against Cuba. But they ignored that it is the sovereign duty
of nations like the United States to observe or implement blockades, like the
one ratified by Mercosur
member states to ban ships flying the Falkland Islands flag.
[Editor's
Note: Mercosur is chiefly a trading group that currently
includes Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela are associate members.]
Embargoes
and economic blockades, although failing to have the desired effect, such as
restoring democracy to Cuba - even after a five decade embargo - serve to put
political positions on the international agenda, one example being when the
United Nations instituted an embargo against South Africa in solidarity with
the victims of apartheid.
This
week, under this shared premise, the governments of Dilma Rousseff [Brazil],
Sebastián Pińera [Chile], Fernando Lugo [Paraguay], and Jose Mujica [Uruguay] reaffirmed their December
decision to back Argentina in its effort to reclaim sovereignty over the
Falkland Islands, which it has been trying to recover since the war in
1982.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Great
Britain sought to reverse the decision by applying strong diplomatic pressure
to Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. But it sufficed for the Argentine
government to list the dozens of proposed by U.N. resolutions that would
require the British come to the negotiating table and give up their absurd
stubbornness about maintaining colonialism.
Without
a doubt, the Mercosur blockade of Falkland Islands shipping is a boost to
Argentina's aspirations to retake the Falklands, but that is insufficient -
because Falkland ships can circumvent the ban by simply replacing their flags
with British ones. The ban would be more effective if the blockade was applied
to all British vessels, and it would prove even more successful if Chile were
to cut off commercial flights between Punta Arenas and the Falklands.
On
the other hand, it was a surprise that Ecuador's Correa and Venezuela's Chavez
wasted a chance to join in the enforcement of the blockade and defend their
aspirations by becoming full members of Mercosur, although this is a great
opportunity for the Argentine government to figure out who its real friends
are.
