Imperialism Re-Booted in Latin America Canada's Long Embrace of the Honduran Dictatorship http://www.counterpunch.org/gordon03192010.html

As Eric Toussaint, president of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt, recently pointed out in the Socialist Worker, “we can see that the Obama administration is in no hurry to break with the methods used by its predecessors: witness the massive funding of different opposition movements within the context of its policy to ‘strengthen democracy’; the launching of media campaigns to discredit governments that do not share its political agenda

(Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Manuel Zelaya’s Honduras and so on); maintaining the blockade of Cuba; the support for separatist movements in Bolivia (the media luna and the regional capital, Santa Cruz), in Ecuador (the city of Guayaquil and its province), and in Venezuela (the petroleum state of Zulia, the capital of which is Maracaibo); the support for military attacks, like the one perpetrated by Colombia in Ecuador in March 2008; as well as actions by Colombian or other paramilitary forces in Venezuela.”

Canada’s imperial role in the region has taken on a similar guise as the U.S., although shaped more specifically around Canadian mining and other capitalist interests in the area. Kent’s last trip to the region, prior to the Honduras visit, saw him in Venezuela. Apparently there was insufficient time to meet with any representatives of the democratically-elected government of Hugo Chávez, although he met with a number of groups associated with the far-right opposition. On January 28, after having returned to Canada, Kent issued a news release declaring that there was “shrinking democratic space in Venezuela” under Chávez. “During my recent visit to Venezuela,” Kent said, “I heard many individuals and organizations express concerns related to violations of the right to freedom of expression and other basic liberties.”