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International Affairs
The Bear in the Sun: Moscow Proclaims
New ‘International Order’ in Latin America
Toby Westerman
A week-long meeting in Moscow helped to undermine the position of the U.S. in Latin America and hasten the arrival of a new - and anti-American - "international order." Cuban president Raúl Castro, brother of the increasingly infirm Fidel, arrived in Moscow January 28 to meet with the elite of Russia's ruling class in what the Cuban dictator described as an "historical event" of "great emotion."
The Cuban leader Raul Castro won aid pledges of $354 million during his meetings with Medvedev and Putin in Moscow
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Moscow has always considered Cuba a "key ally" in Latin America, a region whose governments are, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "natural allies in the formation of a more just and secure international order." Raúl stated that Latin America has a "growing strategic relationship" with Moscow. Havana already hosts a large, sophisticated Chinese electronic spy base, which replaced the Soviet-era Lourdes base closed in 2001. It remains uncertain how Moscow will express this "strategic relationship" with Cuba. Russian naval forces have recently visited Cuba, and there are reports that Moscow has considered placing bombers on the island.
Moscow has already promised the Cuban regime military and technical aid, including assistance with "domestic security" measures.
For years Cuba has had the well-deserved reputation of a tropical gulag. Growing pressure from dissidents, however, has proved to be embarrassing to the island's Communist regime. Moscow has a proven track record in eliminating those who make trouble for the Kremlin elite, and is apparently willing to share its experience with Havana.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the earliest days of the "new" Russia, individuals who have challenged Russia's political elite have been eliminated in a variety of ways, including being shot to death in the Moscow center. Investigative journalists have been favorite targets. Recently, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta asked state authorities to allow its journalists to carry firearms.
Journalists, however, are not alone. Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer known for energetically defending human rights advocates, defending investigative journalists and representing those who accuse the Russian military of abuses, was gunned down mid-day in Moscow. In the same attack crusading journalist Anastasia Baburova was also murdered.
Demonstrators hold a portrait of slain lawyer Markelov at a protest on February 1, 2009
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Commenting on the killings, Igor Yakovlenko, head of the Russian Journalists' Union, remarked that "it is a disgusting symbol of our times that a lawyer and a journalist were killed at the same time."
Russia's growing influence in Latin America extends to Venezuela, where millions of dollars in small arms, fighter jets, attack helicopters and other weapons support the Marxist regime of Hugo Chavez. Other leftist leaders in the region are working closely with Moscow: Argentina's president, Christiana Fernandez de Kirchner, Communist ex-guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Chavez-want-to-be Evo Morales of Bolivia, Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Raphael Correa of Ecuador.
The regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador are also tied to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Spanish acronym, FARC), a communist narco-terro army which sells illegal drugs and arms throughout South and North American continents. Some of their best customers are the Mexican drug cartels along the U.S. border that are threatening the very existence of the Mexican state.
Cuba and Venezuela also have close ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is willing to share its nuclear knowledge with the Chavez regime.
The new "international order" that Moscow and Havana advocate is patently anti-American and includes the most violent oppressive groups and states in the world. This is Socialism in action. Led by dictators and supported by secret police organizations, Latin America's socialist governments seek an international socialist system and an end to the economic and political system in United States as we now know it.
We place ourselves in peril if we ignore this threat.
Posted February 2, 2009
Toby Westerman publishes
International News Analysis - Today
An investigative, analytical, and uncompromising weekly analysis of the world situation
Contact T. Westerman at
www.inatoday.com
or P.O. BOX 5182, Rockford, ILL, 61125-0182
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Conversion of Russia Negated by Vatican
Moscow Warns of a 'Looming War of Civilizations'
The Closest Thing Possible to Stalinism
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