The global fallout from the Snowden affair continues to reverberate following the latest news that four Latin American countries - Brazil, Argentina, Urugay and Venezuela - announced on Friday they would recall their ambassadors from the countries that blocked their airspace [11]to Bolivia's Evo Morales following false rumors he was carrying Snowden, forcing an emergency landing in Austria. The four countries said this incident violated international law. As a result of Obama's "neo-colonial" practices in Europe, as Uruguay's foreign minister Luis Almagro denounces Europe's servile compliance with pax AmericaNSA, the Mercosur ambassadors in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal will be pulled back for consultations.
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The decision to take this stance was made during a summit of the Mercosur trade bloc.
"We emphatically reject the interception of telecommunications and espionage actions in our nations, as they constitute a violation of human rights, of the right of our citizens to privacy and information,'' Mercosur leaders said in the summit's final statement.
"It's unacceptable behaviour that breaches our sovereignty and harms relations between nations."
The South American group also defended the right of asylum after Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua recently offered it to Snowden.
Curiously, the post-Snowden schism continues to split the world in pro-US/China demarcation lines: Latin America, far more reliant on Chinese import markets for its growth has denounced the NSA spying scandal, and Snowden's treatment far more vocally than the failing Eurozone, which is vastly more reliant on the Fed's monetary generosity to preserve its cohesiveness. It is not surprising, thus, that while French president Hollande logged a statement of protest, one which resulted in Le Monde exposing [13]precisely the same spying set up in France, Europe has largely taken the Snowden disclosures quietly. It knows that if it rocks the boat too much, then the Fed/Goldman/US-backed support for Europe just may slip away.
Latin America, on the other hand, being far more reliant on Chinese goodwill, has had little trouble denouncing the NSA scandal, as well as offering Snowden the asylum he has requested, unlike European countries, including Iceland [14], all of which have rejected the NSA-whisteblower's plea.
If nothing else, Snowden's disclosures over a month ago, have cemented the new bipolar world: one in which an American empire in decline is critical to a European continent on the edge of collapse both of which depend exclusively on the Fed's perpetuation of a reserve currency fiat myth, offset by a block comprising of China, Russia and Latin America.
More on Friday's Mercosur announcement from Al Jazeera [15]:
Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro said the four Mercosur trace bloc nations will recall their own ambassadors in the European countries involved for consultations over the incident.
The actions of the four European countries were "unfounded, discriminatory and arbitrary, in a flagrant violation of the precepts of international law," Almagro said.
He said the summit found that Morales was subjected to "neo-colonial practices."
"It is an incredible, unfriendly and hostile action that violates human rights and affects the freedom of transit and movement and the immunity that every head of state enjoys," Mercosur leaders concluded, according to Almagro.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that the European actions were offensive to each of the leaders at the summit as Latin American presidents, and vowed "concrete and effective actions, be it with regard to the governments or the ambassadors of those countries."
Rousseff noted media reports based on US National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked by Snowden that the United States spied on many countries around the world including Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.
And from the BBC [16]:
In a statement, Mercosur said: "We repudiate any action aimed at undermining the authority of countries to grant and fully implement the right of asylum."
It called for "solidarity with the governments of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which have offered to grant asylum to Mr Edward Snowden".
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Mercosur would also demand "explanations and public apologies" from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal over the plane forced landing.
Bolivia, which is an associate member of Mercosur, summoned the ambassadors of the four European countries last week over the diversion of the plane, which it called an act of aggression.
Of course, if Bolivia's Evo Morales, president of the world's third largest producer of cocaine [17] after Colombia and Peru, wanted to hurt those who make the real decisions, i.e., Wall Street, then he should just burn down all domestic coca plants and crush cocaine production for the next 6-12 months. Right after he nationalizes all remaining foreign mines [18]in his country of course (the San Cristobal mine [19]owned by Sumitomo is the third largest in the world with ~20MM oz/year, followed closely by Peru's Antamina mine) .
Only then would one see real "developed world" panic.