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Ortega leads anti-U.S. critique at Latin American food summit
Christian Science Monitor ^ | May 7, 2008 | Tim Rogers

Posted on 05/08/2008 2:15:44 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

In a region beset by runaway food costs, the socialist government of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and its leftist allies appear to have found fertile ground to plant the seeds of revolutionary discourse.

At an emergency food-security summit held Wednesday in Managua, Nicaragua, 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations convened under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the leftist trade bloc founded in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela as an alternative to United States free-trade agreements.

The summit was supposed to focus on how the countries can prevent food shortages and unrest as the global food crisis hits the region, but it morphed into a series of complaints about US policy led by the summit's host, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Mr. Ortega called the food crisis an "epic problem" – one that he blames on the "tyranny of global capitalism." This echoes the words of his ideological comrade Mr. Chávez, who recently called the crisis "the greatest demonstration of the historic failure of the capitalist model." ...

Honduras's center-left President Manuel Zelaya....urged the governments of Central America to take a more active role in their countries' economic development and called for a revival of the "agrarian reform" policies of the 1980s, in an apparent nod to the first Sandinista government's land redistribution programs.

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, also blamed the US for his country's fisheries-based food crisis. Mr. Gonsalves said that US-produced global warming has increased the ocean's temperature and driven the fish to deeper waters, where they are harder to net by island fishermen. Plus, he said, hurricanes and tropical storms, which wreak havoc on lobster and shrimp populations on sea beds, are also a result of global warming caused by US pollution.

(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: agrarianreform; danielortega; food; foodcrisis; freetrade; latinamerica; trade

1 posted on 05/08/2008 2:19:06 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

How the hell is it our fault?

Sheesh...sometimes I think we should just plug a hunk of lead in each one of these idiots.


2 posted on 05/08/2008 2:21:48 PM PDT by RockinRight (Supreme Court Justice Fred Thompson. The next best place for Fred.)
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To: RockinRight

well if we’re such bad guys why don’t they stop importing American grain? Hell I’m sure socalism will somehow magic food back into the stores without us.


3 posted on 05/08/2008 2:23:12 PM PDT by utherdoul
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To: utherdoul

Some days I think “if only I were in charge...”


4 posted on 05/08/2008 2:24:57 PM PDT by RockinRight (Supreme Court Justice Fred Thompson. The next best place for Fred.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Daniel Ortega, brought to you by Jimmy Carter. Carter, the gift that keeps on giving.


5 posted on 05/08/2008 2:27:34 PM PDT by BBell
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To: Tailgunner Joe

“Mr. Ortega called the food crisis an “epic problem” – one that he blames on the “tyranny of global capitalism.””

Such an old time commie. Wrong yet again. It’s the tyranny of the Midwest Farm Lobby.


6 posted on 05/08/2008 2:29:12 PM PDT by Shermy (Nightmares From My Pastor, A Story of Race and Insanity)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Chubby and Ortega now have the US to blame their “food shortages” on, thanks to a willing press and our own Leftists.

Their failed Marxist policies won’t be mentioned at all while their BS is printed in the MSM.


7 posted on 05/08/2008 2:33:21 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Ted Kennedy - Codename -> "Bobber")
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Morons..... why don’t they look to Zimbabwe or Myanmar for great examples of governments that know how to reject “capitalism”???? Chavez, Ortega, the Castros, and all their psychotic pals drag their countries down into the toilet bowl of nutcase socialism.


8 posted on 05/08/2008 2:50:39 PM PDT by Enchante (Obama: My 1930s Foreign Policy Goes Well With My 1960s Social Policy!)
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To: Enchante

Enraging


9 posted on 05/08/2008 3:28:46 PM PDT by GauchoUSA
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To: Tailgunner Joe
I am trying to remember all of those great agricultural achievements in 'command-type' governments. Stalin's SovUnion? Mao's P.R.C.? India from the 50s to the 80s? Castro's Cuba? Something doesn't jibe with the facts on the ground.

Chavez's Venezuela is oil rich but the agriculture is breaking down as he 'redistributes' prosperous farms to his unskilled supporters who unsurprisingly fail to match previous output. Zimbabwe calling - Duh!

10 posted on 05/08/2008 3:30:45 PM PDT by SES1066 (Cycling to conserve, Conservative to save, Saving to Retire, will Retire to Cycle.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Mr. Ortega called the food crisis an "epic problem" – one that he blames on the "tyranny of global capitalism." This echoes the words of his ideological comrade Mr. Chávez, who recently called the crisis "the greatest demonstration of the historic failure of the capitalist model." ...

While two million people have starved to death in North Korea in the last 20 years. Capitalism, I tell you.

11 posted on 05/08/2008 3:32:19 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Expel the priest and you don't inaugurate the age of reason, you get the witch doctor--Paul Johnson)
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