By now you have all heard about Israel's attack agaisnt the aid flotilla, killing at least 19 people, and injuring scores more. So while virtually the entire world has been extremely vocal condemning the attack, the US has been conspicuously quiet. One region not scared to speak up and condemn Israel...the new power bloc of Latin America. So while we got a statement like this about the US:
"We'd like to express our thanks to the United States that worked behind the scenes to water down the [statement] at the United Nations," said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.
We get this from Brazil (via Xinhua):
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry in a statement said that "Brazil strongly condemns the Israeli attack, because there was no justification for the military intervention against a pacific convoy with strictly humanitarian character. The event is worsened, according to the available information, because it occurred in international waters."
"The event must be investigated independently to make completely clear the event based on Humanitarian and International Laws," the ministry said.
Brazil added that this event "once more shows the need of immediate lifting the embargo in Gaza, in order to guarantee people's freedom of transit and their free access to food, medicines and consumption goods in that region."
The article contains statements from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico in addition to Brazil. Venezuela was also quick to offer their condemnation. Nothing really to add here, just pointing out the latest example of one of the most profound changes in the region over the last decade, an independent foreign policy.
On a separate note, the fact that the US is working behind the scenes to dilute the UN statement reminds me a lot of the Honduran coup. The forum then was the OAS, but the US ambassador worked hard to dilute or block anything that the OAS tried to do. Good ol' U.S. of A, using their relative power to protect their right-wing "allies" since....well I don't know, always?
(image is a poster from a Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, via Canadian Dimension.)
Speaking of "independent foreign policy"...
ReplyDeleteBefore Israel surprised absolutely no one, Turkey's Erdogan was busy popping his Lat Am cherry with Brazil & Chile. Though, he had to pull of out of Argentina, for fear of catching heat over Armenia.
Alek Boyd better update that web of evil chart. Cuz you see: Turkey's moving closer to Iran, whose evil is being enabled by Brazil, who are overly chummy with Venezuela, whose leader is a puppet of Cuba, the nation that poses the greatest threat to the continent.