MIDEAST: Building New Bridges to Latin America
By Baher Kamal

This article published by IPSNews is dated in Madrid at March 29th, and it reports the convergence of an Arab-South American summit in the Qatari capital on March 31st to discuss key political and economic cooperation between the participating regions.

Although the final declaration drafted by both parties talks about increasing trade agreements in the areas of commerce, energy and technology, there is also a political aspect to it: the support of Latin American countries to an independent Palestinian State.

Trade between the two regions increased from 8 billion dollars in 2005 to 21 billion dollars last year, according to the director of the League of Arab States’ Two Americas Department.

According to the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, based in Caracas, Venezuela, this is “the first time the Union of South American Countries (Unasur) will participate as a representative organ, formed as a bloc of Latin American countries proposing the integration of the south with the Arab countries.” The agency reports that 34 Arab and Latin American presidents are meeting on the same date to discuss and undersign bilateral agreements.

How is this summit going to affect foreign relationships between Latin America and Israel and also, is this an indirectly forceful position against the US?

These two articles show Bolivia’s struggle to maintain its sovereignty under the government of Pres. Evo Morales. The first article describes the perverse relationship of “give and take” with the United States government on the coca production.

An interview with Pres. Morales himself, the second article describes the efforts of an indigenous majority to be represented in government for the first time in history.

Despite the vote of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States against indigenous people’s rights to promote, develop and maintain their institutional structures and their customs (United Nations General Assembly Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 34), Bolivia’s government is determined to work for the right to land and self-determination.

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