Chavez announces trip to Brazil for Venezuela’s formal admission to Mercosur
President Hugo Chavez said he will be attending at the end of July the coming Mercosur meeting in Brasil when Venezuela will officially become the group’s fifth full member, a decision that has proved controversial and exposed differences inside the Common Market of the South.
“On July 30 I will have to be at the special ceremony in Brazil to formalize the full incorporation of Venezuela to Mercosur, a ceremony I can’t miss” said Chavez from Caracas.
Venezuela was admitted into Mercosur last June 29 during the Mercosur summit in Mendoza, Argentina which also decided to suspend Paraguay until new elections are held. Venezuela first requested to belong to Mercosur in 2006 and the only pending vote was from the Paraguayan congress which systematically rejected the presence of Chavez in the group.
However Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo favoured the incorporation but never had the votes or the political ability to convince and increasingly isolated ended up removed from his post following an impeachment where he only managed one vote in the Lower House and four in the Senate.
The impeachment was triggered following a shootout between police officers and landless peasants occupying a farm and nearby forest, which left ten peasants and seven officers killed. Land disputes are common in Paraguay but never to this extent of killings and have become a highly sensitive political issue.
On July 31 the three remaining Mercosur active presidents, Dilma Rousseff from Brazil, Cristina Fernandez from Argentina and Jose Mujica from Uruguay, should be congratulating and embracing the new member.
The country which has most questioned the decision has been Uruguay: while President Mujica openly supports the decision, Vice-President Danilo Astori has been extremely critical questioning the process chosen for the incorporation of Venezuela, with one of the full members suspended. Foreign minister Luis Almagro is somewhere half way and has asked experts of the ministry about the legality of the decision.
President Chavez also announced that Social Affairs minister from Argentina, Alicia Kirchner arrived in Caracas over the weekend and that next Thursday Defence Minister Arturo Puricelli, currently on an official visit to China is expected in Venezuela.
Chavez is in the midst of a presidential campaign for his re-election next October and the incorporation to Mercosur is seeing as a boost for his aspirations although he has a comfortable lead in the public opinion polls.
What is more interesting is that if Chavez finally travels to Brazil, it will be his first overseas trip since he was diagnosed with a yet undetermined cancer that forced him to slow down his rhythm of activity and spend long weeks away from Venezuela in Cuba where he is undergoing the treatment for his disease.
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had , if any .
Dengue fever can really take hold in someone whose immune system is degraded by chemo-therapy. :o)
only cris has replied since then.
“only cris has replied since then.”
Ah! But, you see, I'm such a good guy! LOL :o)
just correcting English and logic.
“Unbelievable; the British and US bloggers have no shame -- gloating about someone's disease and openly expressing hopes of an immediate demise of the president of a nation that has never done harm to anyone. I'm also talking about you, Geoffy. And yet you dare to show offense when someone comments on dead British occupiers in Afghanistan. Have you got no shame.”
Coming from the man who gloats about the people of Northern Ireland being killed during the troubles you fucking hypocrite.
What is it, Geoff? After your little outburst the other day, I'd like to know why is it OK to hope that this man's life be eaten away by cancer? I thought it was a matter of decency to you not to express this sort of disregard for human life -- that was what I understood after your objections to my comments about British soldiers. Why then did you openly express the hope that Chávez's life be 'immediately' terminated in the post above? Is it because he's not British that his life is less worthy?
Exactly. Answer that question, unless there isn't a good reason and you'd like to retract your “hope”?
or why the 'immediate'?
'Immediate' serves two purposes
(i) I don't subscribe to 'better the devil you know'. With Chavez unable to stand for the imminent presidential 'election', there is some hope that things might improve for the Venezuelan people.
(ii) With Chavez immediately out of the way (ie before the next Mercosur meeting), there is some hope that the VE-manipulated entry of VE to Mercosur may not be the unmitigated disaster for the countries not yet under the 'Bolivarian' leadership of this Great Dictator.
Sometimes 'immediate' is to the advantage ... like in a Blitzkreig, ...like in a Paraguayan impeachment. Hmm.
How do you manage to type Chavez in correct Spanish with proper punctuation marks over the letter 'a', not used in English?
You have gone to a lot of trouble if you are typing on an English keyboard.
How many Brits would go to this trouble?
To those wondering how I got to type Chavez the Spanish way, I was cutting and pasting! No smoking gun here
It seems he had difficulties remembering the spelling of Chavez's name (all 6 letters C...H...A............V...E...Z), notwithstanding the fact that he had copied and pasted the name many times earlier (all from English websites) and the spelling of the name was directly in front of him (Given that the subject of the article was C...H...A..............V'...E...Z) as he was writing, on this occasion, and struggling with the spelling AGAIN, he decided to change his computer settings to seek out a Spanish website to copy from and finish off his brief posting.
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