Annotations for Countries: Guyana

Tri Continental News service reports on the Latin American reaction to the US strategic reserve's policy. The Nixon Administration's plan to sell 85% of the US' non-ferrous metal reserves and other minerals on the open world market is causing great concern in many underdeveloped countries, particularly those of Latin America. The US government has traditionally stockpiled vast reserves of strategic materials for use in case of a national emergency and as a hedge against the ups and downs of the world market. Nixon now claims that the US economy and technology are sufficiently dynamic to find substitutes for scarce materials during possible large scale conflicts, and has presented a bill to Congress authorizing sale of almost nine tenths of the US strategic reserves, which would flood the world market next year if approved.

Tri Continental News Service continues, at a recent meeting of Latin American energy and petroleum ministers, the Peruvian Mining and Power Minister called the US government's moves in reality economic aggression against the Latin American countries. He went on to explain that such a move would force down prices of those materials and have a disastrous effect on the economies of Latin America. Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, who export one or more of the affected minerals, would be hurt most severely. Guyana, Mexico and Columbia would also suffer negative effects.

Chile Hoy reports from Brazil that the left could take power in most any country in Latin America, but if this happens, what measures would the Brazilian military adopt? they ask. This question, phrased in 1969 by high level officers of the Advanced War School in Brazil, was answered by the highest echelons of the armed forces in a recently released classified document entitled Plan Alpha, in the following manner. If the left took power in Latin America, Uruguay and Chile being the most likely places, the Brazilian armed forces would adopt the following measures. First, they would strengthen and perfect the internal security of Brazil, and secondly, they would transform into strategic areas for Brazil through possible military interventions, various countries and regions, including all of the Uruguayan territory, parts of Brazilian territory, the Guyanas and Paraguay.

The Brazilian military Plan Alpha is not a mere project on paper, as many believed when it was revealed after being smuggled out of secret army files. Ever since the leftist Popular Unity government took power in Chile, the plan appears to be implemented in accelerated form. First, there were expanded arms purchases. Brazil spent $270 million on defense in 1971 and projected spending 800 million in '73, having recently concluded with the Nixon administration in the US, the largest arms deal in Latin American history.

In addition, they have rigorously followed part two of the plan. The aggressive presence of the Brazilian military in Uruguay and Bolivia coincides with the political and economic changes in those countries. Also in Paraguay, the Brazilian regime owns enormous quantities of land along the borders.

Chile Hoy continues that after the Bolivian coup overthrew the moderate liberal Juan Torres, Brazil immediately sent $54 million of credit to the new military regime as well as selling arms to the Bolivian army. A new highway is being constructed through Bolivia to northern Chile and will provide easy access for arms and troops. Before, Bolivia was a landlocked buffer state between the two countries, now it is practically an appendage to Brazil. In another instance, the Brazilian military has a well-known contingency plan known as "Operation 30 hours" to move into Uruguay if opposition to the recent military takeover there becomes too strong. This from the Santiago Weekly, Chile Hoy. 

Excélsior also reports that Algeria was converted into the capital of the Third World last week when it became the seat of the fourth conference of the Organization of Non-Aligned Countries. Statement from the Latin American countries of Cuba, Peru, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad-Tobago, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina joined heads of state from more than 70 other Third World countries. Mexico, Panama and Ecuador and Venezuela participated only as active observers. 

The organization represents a major front of underdeveloped nations against today's superpowers. Since 1970, when the Non-Aligned Movement began relating its position to the realities of the global economic system, its conferences have become increasingly relevant and outspoken. It is the first such event at which Latin Americans will have a dominant impact. Latin America's reluctance to identify itself with the movement in the past in part had to do with its ignorance of African and Asian struggles and its willingness to identify its future development with that of Europe and the United States. Another powerful force was the fact that Latin America could scarcely be defined as non-aligned since the Monroe Doctrine. 

The Non-Aligned Countries' fundamental objective of unifying the struggle against colonialism and racism was sounded in these generally approved recommendations. The right to sovereignty over their own national resources, the regulation of developmental investments, common rules of treatment for foreign capitalists, regulations over exporting of foreign profits, and concrete means to control the operations of multinational corporations. 

The struggle for the economic nationalism was a dynamic theme enunciated by the Latin Americans. Chile exhorted the Third World to form a common front to restrain the excesses of multinationals and affirm their rights to nationalize foreign corporations when necessary for the public interest. 

Peru advocated the adoption of a worldwide plan to give coastal countries a 200-mile jurisdiction over their ocean shores as a means of affirming maritime rights. Panama reiterating its stand against imperialism harshly attacked the United States for its possessions in the canal zone. The idea proposed by the Peruvian Prime Minister Jarrin that the US-Russian detente signifies a solidarity of terror, threatening the Third World with economic aggression was generally approved. 

Also met with hardy acceptance was Castro's announcement that he has broken diplomatic relations with Israel. He condemned Israel for its continued occupation of Arab lands. At the same time as they unified their struggle against new forms of dominance and exploitation, the Third World countries agreed to the necessity of assuming their own responsibilities, analyzing their weaknesses and strengthening their countries in order to defend themselves against the imperialist and economic aggression. That from Excélsior. 

Cuba has made headlines in the Latin American press recently due to Fidel Castro's participation in the Non-Aligned Nations Conference in Algiers last month, and to Cuba's loud protest to the Chilean coup in the United Nations. The Mexico City Daily Excélsior reports that Henry Kissinger has announced that the US will begin consultations with other member countries of the Organization of American States to determine the possibility of reestablishing relations with Cuba.

Kissinger stated that the US will not act, as he put it, "unilaterally", but in accordance with the other member countries. He has not, however, stated when and in what form the first steps will be taken. Seven members of the OAS have already broken with the US supported attempt to isolate Cuba. They're Mexico, which never accepted the decision of rupture, Chile until the overthrow of the government there, Peru, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Argentina. A number of these countries maintain that the OAS should allow its members the liberty to decide in diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Fidel Castro's Summit meeting two weeks ago with four leaders of the independent Commonwealth Caribbean is part of Cuba's continuing effort to eliminate any possible threat from its immediate neighbors. The British News Weekly Latin America reports that although it lasted barely three hours and was a stopover en route to the non-aligned nations conference in Algiers, Fidel Castro's meeting with four prime ministers of the English-speaking Caribbean was highly significant for an area still divided and ruled as efficiently as ever by the great powers. The four meeting Castro at Port of Spain's airport were Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, Forbes Burnham of Guyana, Michael Manley of Jamaica, and Errol Barrow of Barbados. 

It is too early says Latin America to say what park Cuba would be willing to play in the region's economic and other groupings, but since the four independent Anglo-Caribbean states opened diplomatic relations with Havana 10 months ago, the Cubans have worked steadily to build up contacts. Cuban sugar technicians have visited the islands to offer advice and aid about the commodity which dominates the economies of all of them. Cuban fisheries experts will soon go to Guyana under an agreement signed two weeks ago. Ministerial delegations from all four states have been to Cuba and Castro's journey from Havana to Trinidad via Guyana inaugurated a regular air service between Cuba and the islands. 

Apart from the basic wisdom of making friends with one's smaller neighbors when under threat from the US only 90 miles away, the four states could be a source of economic relief to Havana. The recent major oil strikes off Trinidad and the prospect of others off the coast of Guyana would be a useful way to lessen dependence on Eastern Europe, which currently supplies all Cuba's oil needs. As for regional solidarity, Cuba might be instrumental in encouraging more effective use of bauxite as a weapon against the rich nations. 

Latin American newspaper concludes that even in Central America, traditionally the hardcore of the right wing, pro-Washington resistance to Cuba, Honduras became the first country of the group formally to renew trade relations with Havana by signing a $2 million agreement to buy Cuban sugar. But all these advances have been overshadowed by Argentina's billion dollar credit to Cuba to buy machinery and other equipment. This is the most important step so far towards reducing Cuba's dependence on the Soviet block. This from the weekly Latin America.