Free Republic

Gaining international recognition is the first step in securing global reparations for the descendants of African slaves. Venezuela is joining the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in the fight for global slavery reparations, discussing appropriate compensation for centuries of injustice. During a speech entitled 'Reparations of Resistance to Action,' Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza urged Latin America and colonizing countries to assume responsibility for past wrongs which affected Africans and their ancestors around the world. The Venezuelan government is working to guarantee that the social rights of residents of African descent are respected, and officials have opened the floor to dialogue for...

The bloodbath in Venezuela directly effects a large part of West-Indie but most of all, the 17 members of Caricom, and the Petrocaribe-oil alliance. The population of Venezuela is revolting because the socialist State of Venezuela is out of money, rather out of dollars, and since most consumptions is imported ( 80%) and not locally produced, out of food and everything else. The Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez spent more money than its economy produced and the shortfall could only temporarily be bridged by international loans, mostly from China, and the money press. The latter caused dramatic inflation ( 58%),...

Could this be the decade that slavery reparations become a reality? If not, it won't be for a lack of trying. This is the obvious next step for poor countries getting poorer because of bad economics, bad politics, and bad, bad leaders. Former colonial powers are to be milked for all the cash that can be gotten by laying a guilt trip on the good socialists who run these countries now. Any successes enjoyed by the former colonies will no doubt encourage African Americans to try the same ploy here. Jamaica is leading the way in pushing for reparations from...

MIAMI (AP) — Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. The Caribbean Community, a regional organization that typically focuses on rather dry issues such as economic integration, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands. Caricom, as the organization is known, has enlisted the help of a...

PETROVINA, Brazil - The six-seat Embraer airplane glides from a cloudless sky onto a red-dirt runway. Views of scrub-brush savanna stretching to the Amazon River give way to fields of 10-foot high corn and boll-bursting cotton. It's a farmer's wonderland, where the fecund soil can be had for as little as $200 a sun-drenched acre and a Maryland-sized chunk of land is cleared each year for cotton, corn, soybean and cattle farms. Agriculture is booming in Brazil, and U.S. farmers are taking notice. Buffeted by high production costs, low market prices and the World Trade Organization, Americans increasingly look to...

Donald Rumsfeld paying a visit to Nicaragua? The Secretary of Defense has a lot on his plate right now, and rarely travels unless it’s awfully important. For him to go to such a small, impoverished country is a red flag marking something very significant swimming under the surface. So what’s been news in Nicaragua lately? Two ugly things – one, the political attack on President Enrique Bolanos, a U.S. ally embattled against leftist judges who want to jail him for political reasons. ... the second awful thing happening in this country is that Nicaragua’s desperate voters elected Sandinistas in several...

CARACAS, VENEZUELA – Whether Washington is a hero or hangman of democracy in Latin America may be a matter of political perspective. Haitians watched last week as US agents whisked leftist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide off to the heart of Africa in what Mr. Aristide describes as a kidnapping. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, another leftist who has antagonized Washington, has harshly accused the White House of backing coup-plotters against him. Critical of US action in Haiti, he warned the US on Friday to "get its hands off Venezuela." The Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, an organization of mostly English-speaking nations, is...