Politics

The conference was held from Monday November 30th to Wednesday December 2nd in the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación (Cultural Center of Cooperation) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The speakers, hailing from the spheres of academia, politics, and culture, gave talks on various aspects of the issue of foreign military bases in Latin America.

In a tribute to Martin Luther King from the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, Tomas Hirsch honors Dr. King’s dream. Mr. Hirsch spoke at the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, and referred to present dreams for a world without nuclear weapons and without wars. He declares his disappointment for President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Members of the international team of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence met with US Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Capitol Hill as well as staff members of Congressman John Lewis, Congressman Keith Ellison and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Congressman Lewis was to introduce a resolution in support of the World March to Congress that afternoon.

The Obama administration is moving further away from its stated support for the reinstatement of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Porfirio Lobo, a wealthy landowner, emerged victorious with 55 percent of the vote. Zelaya’s supporters boycotted the election, and many Latin American countries have refused to recognize its outcome.

A Western Saharan human rights activist is in the third week of a hunger strike after being deported against her will by Moroccan authorities occupying her homeland. Aminatou Haidar, known as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” is at the airport on the Canary Islands and is demanding that she be allowed to return to home. Morocco has occupied most of Western Sahara since 1975.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stressed Brazil would not recognize the Honduran election results as legitimizing the process to ensure a serious president for Latin America. “Brazil does not have to rethink the situation in Honduras”, da Silva added, highlighting the need for one´s position to remain firm, serving as a warning to anyone else harboring similar notions.

On his stop in Spain, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, asked for the vote of Bolivians residing there. He listed before the press the domestic accomplishments achieved by the government of Evo and the improvements for Bolivians living abroad. Regarding the future, he made clear the next big challenge for the coming years: the industrialization of the country.

“In the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger,” says a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) online video. It continues, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.” In addition to this online campaign, United Nations is hosting the World Summit on Food Security in Rome this week

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence was welcomed to Rabat by Siba, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by Dermolini, the Secretary General for Youth. The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Popular Movement, a party which includes many former members of the resistance who chose peace as the only method for conflict resolution.

The three-day World Summit on Food Security ended today after committing the international community to investing more in agriculture and to eradicating hunger at the earliest date. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who hosted the event, said the Summit marked “an important step towards the achievement of our common objective – a world free from hunger”.