In this age of Obama are Latin America relations souring? In this issue we list many current problems and challenges for our movement. The urgent task for us is to persuade our government to change course, to see the democratic spirit that is sweeping Latin America not as a threat but an opportunity for true partnership.

Most alarming reports

• Copenhagen: Many small nations – including our colleagues in the South – were frustrated by our back-room deals and strong-arm tactics at the UN climate conference, threatening developing countries, and not requiring major polluters to make emissions cuts (Will Weissert, Huffington Post, 12/21/09
• Venezuela and Drones: President Hugo Chavez reported (12/20) on TV’s “Alo Presidente,” that unmanned aerial vehicles have illegally entered Venezuela’s airspace in the State of Zulia, bordering Colombia. Chavez gave the order to shoot down any drones (David Cancel, www.Bloomberg.com, 12/20). On 1/8 a US P-3 combat plane from the US base in Curacao violated Venezuelan air space. Two Venezuelan F-16s escorted it away. The Pentagon denied the report. Also, several days earlier, Venezuelan Vice President, Ramon Gonzalez, reported another US military plane from Curacao.
• The Fourth Fleet, reactivated in 2008, is perceived by a majority of nations in Latin America as a direct threat to regional sovereignty. They now have “established a Defense Council to deal with external threats” (Eva Gollinger, Global Research, 12/20).
• Dole Food Co. and Chichita Brands International paid the Colombian army’s paramilitary AUC to provide “protection,” including murder of trade unionists, according to demobilized paramilitary Jose Gregorio Mongones on 12/6/09, in the current civil lawsuit filed by family members of the victims (NACLA, Juan Smith, 12/14/09).
• The US and Colombia in July concluded a secret deal to permit US use of seven military bases in Colombia. Also, in April 2009, the US Air Mobility Command agreed to enlarge the Palanquero base in Colombia to become a “cooperative security location” that can cover half the continent with a C-17 military transport without refueling (Noam Chomsky, Task Force on the Americas Report, Fall 09). Panama has ceded four aero-naval bases to the US, one close to Colombia. (Professor Marco Gandasequi, U Panama in ALAIAMLATINA, 4/11/09
• Militarization of the Mexico-US border is increasing. In the northern border state of Coahuila, incoming mayors recently ratified the continuation of former military officers to head police departments in five municipalities (Center for International Policy, Americas Program, Kent  Patterson, 1/6/10).

 

THE PEOPLES’ RESISTANCE AND THE POWERS’ REPRESSION

US militarization of this continent is increasing.  We know it is not simply because of “the drug war’ or “the war on terror.” It appears to be for US corporate/economic control – a preservation of the Monroe Doctrine, labeled as the neoliberal economic system. And at a time when the grassroots in Latin America favor, instead, a shift to increasing self-sufficiency, nationalism, regional organizing, increasing social programs and decreasing privatization.

For two decades we - as a movement – have worked in solidarity with the people of Latin America to RESIST corporate globalization/neoliberalism. And we have marched all over the US to stop REPRESSION. However, both RESISTANCE and REPRESSION persist.

RESISTANCE

Readers are aware that for several years Latin Americans have been electing presidents who are liberal, progressive, and independent of US domination. All of them have been elected democratically in Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and now Uruguay, running on platforms opposed to corporate globalization/neoliberalism and favoring the peoples’ rights to their own natural resources. For example:

• “Bolivia’s first indigenous leader, President Evo Morales, easily won (63%) his second five-year term, solidifying the revolution he promises for the country’s long-oppressed indigenous majority...” (Christian Science Monitor, 12/20/09)
• “President Rafael Correa, elected in 2006, and re-elected in 2009 under the new constitution, is leading Ecuador through what he calls a new ‘revolution.” (Ronn Pineo, Upside Down World, 12/24/09)
• Venezuela’s  President Hugo Chavez, still being demonized by our State Department and media, has been freely and fairly elected twice, has nationalized the oil industry, and increased health and education for the poor majority.
• Previous issues of INTERCONNECT (see www.interconn.org) have included a continuing series of other forms of resistance to neoliberalism, such as the South American trading bloc ALBA,  and UNASUR (Union of South American Republics) for regional cooperation.
• Uruguay. On 11/30/09 José “El Pepe” Mujica,  a 74-year-old charismatic former rebel leader, won the run-off election for President. He ran for the ruling Broad Front with the backing of President Tabare Vasquez. He’s popular with the young and the poor and promises to nudge the country leftwards. During Uruguay’s conservative military dictatorship (1873-85) he served 14 years in prison for work with the Tupamaros guerilla movement (Guardian News Service 10.25.09) “His election is being seen as an expression of the desire for leftwing continuity.” (Candace Pieeptte, BBC News, Montevideo, 11/30/09).

REPRESSION

The US role in repressing any challenge to corporate globalization by “leftist” governments is well known: ridding Guatemala of President Arbenz in 1954, and Chile of President Allende in 1973, the suspicious death in 1961 of Panama’s President Trujillos and the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, the wars of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, the US invasion of Panama and Grenada, the US role in the military coups in Haiti and suspicious signs of  involvement in the Honduras military coup (see INTERCONNECT News Alerts at www.interconn.org).

Honduras  Most reports of the military coup in our corporate media have been misleading, although occasionally truth comes through. For example, the New Yorker’s  article, “An Old-Fashioned Coup,” by William Finnegan (excerpted here. See the full article in the 11/30/09 issue).

• “There were deaths, disappearances, and mass detentions. Still, the protests went on. (President) Zelaya may have lost the support of the country’s traditional institutions, but he gained a large following among teachers, labor unions, and peasant organizations…His policies were not the issue; democracy was.
• “Signals from Washington were mixed. Congressional conservatives rallied around the coup leaders, who…spent at least six hundred thousand dollars on Washington lobbyists…(Lanny Davis, the former Clinton White House special counsel, and his firm pocketed much of that). By early October, nine Congressional Republicans had visited Honduras…supporting Micheletti’s de facto regime.
• “Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras, concealed in a vehicle…with his wife at the Brazilian Embassy…Thousands flocked (there)…were beaten and dispersed by soldiers and riot police…The US was officially aghast. But the US representative to the OAS called Zelaya’s return ‘irresponsible and foolish.’
• “Four days after the accord was signed, (Assistant Secretary of State) Thomas Shannon jolted Honduras and much of Latin America, by suggesting on ‘CNN en Espanol’ that even if Zelaya were not restored to the Presidency, the US would recognize the results of the November elections…Zelaya pronounced the accord ‘dead.’ It looked as if an old-fashioned coup could still succeed in Latin America after all.”

Paraguay  In the fall of 2009, after the military coup in Honduras, there was fear that other leftist presidents might be overthrown. Apparently the former “Bishop of the Poor,” President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, was afraid of such an event. (NY Times 11/5/09). [Ed. note: He replaced many military leaders and – as this newsletter goes to print – we have not been aware of any coup activity since.]

Ecuador  The Cuban press (GRAMMA, 1/5/10) states: “President Correa reported today “discovery of a conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the government and preparing the floor for a coup d’etat,” and that “conspirators have been receiving help not just from the US government but from US right-wing organizations.”

Cuba  An article published in the New York Times (12/12/09), by Eva Golinger, revealed the detention of a US government contract employee in Havana this past December 5th. The employee, whose name has not yet been disclosed, works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), one of the largest US government contractors providing services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The employee was detained while distributing cellular telephones, computers and other communications equipment to Cuban dissident and counterrevolutionary groups that work to promote US agenda on the Caribbean island.
Last year, the US Congress approved $40 million to "promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. DAI was awarded the main contract, "The Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program", with oversight by State and USAID (www.chavezcode.com/2009/12/cia-agent-capured-in-cuba-employee-of.html).

WHAT CAN WE DO?

From Global Trade Watch:

“The spectacular 1999 protests of the WTO in Seattle stopped a plan for massive WTO expansion…a decade later the question is whether the Obama administration will lead an effort to modernize the rules of the global economy…153 member countries remain bound to a full complement of neoliberal policies…extreme poverty in poor countries has increased…so has hunger. Corporate interests are putting enormous pressure on Obama to continue the failed model.

“On the other hand: in Congress the Trade Act (HR ) calls for renegotiation of the WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA. “Global justice activists worldwide have turned to permanent campaigning at home to make their governments better represent their interests.”
(Lori Wallach, Director of Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, excerpted from the Nation, 12/21-28/09).

[Ed. note: “Permanent campaigning” as a strategy for our movement?]
An ongoing education/action campaign, and not just for the crises but the goal might be – over time – to get the public, our representatives and the administration to raise our level of understanding of the people of Latin America. And, why don’t we go for the soft underbelly of neoliberalism – IMF rules of “structural adjustment.”

We believe the majority of Americans – when polled with objectively-worded questions – are opposed to:

Extreme, unfettered capitalism;
Exporting jobs to cheap labor areas;
Really cheap labor itself;
Free trade agreements – especially NAFTA;
Extreme privatization;
Corporate domination;
Undemocratic aspects of the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

Save the date: Detroit June 22-26

What:        The US Social Forum (USSF)
Where:      Cobo Hall and Hart Plaza downtown and the Wayne State University downtown campus.
Objectives:           Strategizing for our movements
Networking with folks from all over the US.
Helping the LASC plan  Latin America workshops
Contact:   Maureen Taylor or William Copeland, 877-515-USSF
Register:   See website (http.//www.ussf2010.org/
How to Help:     Call Chuck Kaufman at the Alliance for Global Justice, 202-256-8032, or Alexis Stoumbelis at CISPES, alexis@cispes.org.