South American Union is making waves too small
Oct.4 Foreign Minister of Brazil Celso Amorim arrived in Ecuador to discuss possible areas of mutual interest with President Rafael Correa. Visit after national elections last Sunday the congregation, which gave the president broad powers to deepen his socialist platform strap to reduce economic inequality and exploitation in Ecuador.
The visit provided an opportunity for the minister to talk with Correa in his statement that Ecuador now collect 99 percent ofSpecial oil prices in Ecuador, compared with 50 percent of that obtained previously. Although workers of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, the party sympathetic to the current situation in Ecuador, announced a new non-contract terms imposed on the national oil company Petrobras in Brazil, one of the largest producers in Ecuador and undermines the right, recognized in Ecuador.
The third reason for the visit of Amorim, last week was to meet with Borja, a formerPresident of Ecuador and the new Secretary General of UNASUR. Brazil is one of the main drivers of current traffic and the increasing integration of bilateral projects and investments. Both countries agreed to open direct air link between Ecuador and the Brazilian city of Manaus, and to help fund the new South Bank, a regional investment bank created by the countries of UNASUR.
Also announced last week that Peru's President Alejandro Toledo wasits decision to appeal against Chile in the southern maritime border. The resource-rich countries are struggling coastal Tacna Arica. The conflict erupted last year, when the Peruvian Congress voted to lift the 1954 border treaty and claims that the measure of Chilean territory.
Chileans reacted to cancel a planned trip by President Michelle Bachelet to Lima in Peru in November to move also complicates the current dispute between Bolivia and Chile during theThe same area of Bolivia, who says the law, but was lost in the Pacific War in 1849.
Finally, the planned talks Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez with the group of Colombian Marxist guerrillas of FARC, have been scrapped after Colombian President Álvaro Uribe withdrew. Chavez offered to help negotiate the release of Ingrid Betancourt dual French-Colombian politician and three American contractors were taken hostage for several years, but all parties are moving slowly andfeared the effects of the introduction of new elements in the conflict.
These three events show three different aspects of UNASUR the current political environment. First, many people still do not want or can not make the sacrifices necessary for local authorities to improve continental relations. Ecuador has a new government fund social projects planned somewhere, preferably without increasing taxes on lower socioeconomic class. The foreign oil companieseasy target for the young leader of the Socialists to use these measures, especially in the recent high price of oil on the world market. Correa is betting that Brazil will be patient and willing to negotiate, like Bolivia, which nationalized gas fields in Brazil run last year after President Evo Morales came to power.
The second aspect of the new highlights is the relative lack of regional institutions to resolve local conflicts. Peru use the World Trade Organization(WTO) and regional and UNASUR no arbitrator or the Andean Community to resolve your dispute with Chile indicates a lack of faith that objects in Peru in the treaties.
Actions such as Peru, in connection with the aforementioned dispute between Chile and Bolivia as well as the dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over the construction of paper mills along the Platte River make it difficult for other nations to have an American South 's resolve integration seriously.
The third aspect of the UNASUR, which last week highlights the news is more positive. The will of the leaders of Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and to promote regional solutions to the conflicts in Colombia illustrates the growing awareness that the events in neighboring countries have the opportunity to influence conditions in the home. Do you call the hostages managed or not, this is a very positive step that Colombia's neighbors finally take the initiative, which is essentially regionalconcern.