Naomi Klein (Toronto Globe & Mail): Latino politics, Miami beached

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Toronto Globe and Mail
Dated Thursday October 23

Latino politics, Miami beached
Bolivia's deposed president has just joined other leaders-in-exile in the city that's also home to refugees from their policies
By Naomi Klein

When massive political protests forced Bolivia's president to resign last week, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada fled to a place where he knew he would find a sympathetic ear. "I'm here in Miami trying to recover from the shock and shame," the ex-president told reporters on Saturday, after being unseated by a revolt against his plan to sell the country's gas to the United States.
Fortunately for Mr. Sanchez de Lozada, there are plenty of other Miami residents who know just how shameful it feels to lose power to a left-wing resurgence in Latin America. So many, in fact, that he could form a local support group for sufferers of post-revolutionary stress disorder.
Possible members: Venezuela's ex-president Carlos Andres Perez, who started living part-time in Miami after his 1993 impeachment on corruption charges; fellow Venezuelan-Miamista Carlos Fernandez, a leader of the failed coup against President Hugo Chavez; Ecuador's ex-president Gustavo Noboa, who tried to flee to Miami in August to avoid a corruption investigation at home; and even Francisco Hernandez, who took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and, as president of the Cuban American National Foundation, has been plotting to overthrow Fidel Castro ever since.
For decades, Miami has been the preferred retirement community for Latin America's regurgitated right wing. So powerful is the Florida Factor in Latin American politics that Joao Pedro Stedile, one of the founders of Brazil's powerful Landless People's Movement (MST), half-jokingly told an audience in Toronto on Monday that if Brazil's elites continue to undermine reforms promised by President Inacio "Lula" da Silva, they could find themselves looking for a South Beach condo.

Read more.

[Judi Lynn]

1. This article reminds us to watch out for Miami in November

Interesting points:

~snip~ But Florida is also home to exiles of another sort, people who left their home countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to escape the policies imposed by many of these same disgraced politicians.

On Nov. 20, the two Miamis will come crashing together when the city hosts a major summit for the proposed Free-Trade Area of the Americas, a plan to create the world's largest, most far-reaching free-trade zone. ~snip~

~snip~ On Monday, Joao Pedro Stedile of the Landless People's Movement described Latin America as "a volcano." ~snip~