[News] Dirty Business, Dirty Wars: US-Latin American Relations
Anti-Imperialist News
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Tue Jan 27 14:26:30 EST 2009
Dirty Business, Dirty Wars: U.S.-Latin American Relations in the 21st Century
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1687/1/
Written by Cyril Mychalejko
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Source:
<http://www.wpunj.edu/%7Enewpol/issue46/cont46.htm>New
Politics Winter 2009, Vol. XXII
Much is being made across the political spectrum
in the United States about Washington's waning
influence in Latin America. The region has seen
an emergence of left and center-left presidents
voted into office, many as a result of budding
social movements growing democracy from the
grassroots. Some pundits and analysts are
suggesting that this phenomenon is occurring
because of the Bush Administration's perceived
neglect of the region. Rather, what is happening
is blowback from Washington's continued meddling
in the economic and political affairs of an area
arrogantly referred to as the United States
"backyard." Latin America's growing unity in
rejecting the Washington Consensus remains
fragile in the face of U.S. opposition.
Washington has been quietly using the war on
drugs, the war on terrorism, and a neo-cold war
ideology to institutionalize a militarism in the
region that risks returning us to the not so far off days of "dirty wars."
Breaking the Chains
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's election in
1998 sparked the beginning of the leftward
electoral paradigm shift in the hemisphere. After
he orchestrated a failed coup attempt in 1992, he
was elected six years later based on a campaign
that promised to lift up the impoverished
nation's poor majority through economic policies
that ran counter to the free market
fundamentalism and crony capitalism pursued by
the country's oligarchs, with the aid of
Washington and international financial
institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). Chavez also
began to challenge the idea of U.S. hegemony in
the region by advocating a united Latin America
based on the ideas of one of his intellectual
mentors, Simón Bolívar, the 19th century
revolutionary instrumental in defeating Spain's
control of the region. Chavez, who also claims to
be influenced by the teachings of Karl Marx and
Jesus Christ, has championed what he calls a
"Socialism of the 21st Century." A fierce and
outspoken critic of neoliberalism, Chavez has
said "I am convinced that a path to a new, better
and possible world is socialism, not capitalism,"
words that have been scarce in the region's
capitals with the exception of Cuba.
Since Chavez's ascent to power, we have seen
presidents elected in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Uruguay
which translates into a majority of countries in
the region advocating center-left and left-wing
political programs (while Mexico and Peru missed
joining this new Latin American consensus by
narrow, if not fraudulent, election outcomes).
While it is true that, despite these
developments, socialism is a long way off from
taking hold in the region, the rejection of
Washington's Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) back in 2003, long before the left had
firmly taken hold in the hemisphere, marked the
beginning of an outright challenge to free market
orthodoxy, U.S. hegemony, and corporate power.
Since then we have seen multinational
corporations booted out of countries and
defiantly confronted by social movements, U.S.
ambassadors expelled from three nations
capitals, free trade agreements protested,
illegitimate foreign debts challenged, and U.S.
drug policies rejected. In addition, alternative
political and economic institutions and policies
have been advocated and created.
Venezuelas Chavez developed the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an
antithesis to the FTAA that advocates a trade
regime based on economic, social, and political
integration guided by the principals of
solidarity and cooperation. Even Honduras, long
seen as a U.S. satellite state dating back to the
days it assisted Washington in overthrowing
Guatemalas government in 1954, has joined ALBA,
showing that the creeping tide of Bolivarianism
is extending to the still fragile Central
America. Meanwhile, Brazil's Lula de Silva,
viewed by Washington and the U.S. corporate media
as part of the "acceptable" or "responsible"
left, declared in 2007 that "Developing nations
must create their own mechanisms of finance
instead of suffering under those of the IMF and
the World Bank, which are institutions of rich
nations . . . it is time to wake up." And the
region has woken up as the "Bank of the South"
was formed to make development loans without the
draconian economic prescriptions of
Washington-controlled financial institutions,
which in the past have forced countries to cut
social spending, deregulate industries, and open
markets to foreign capital policies that have
exacerbated poverty and inequality in the past
and as a result compounded dependence on foreign capital and Washington.
In terms of security cooperation, both Brazil and
Venezuela have led efforts to create a South
American Defense Council, a NATO-style regional
body that would coordinate defense policies, deal
with internal conflicts and presumably diminish
Washington's influence in its "backyard." While
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
back in March that Washington "had no problem
with it" and looked "forward to coordination with
it," Bloomberg News reported that Brazilian
Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told Rice and
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley that the
United States should "watch from the outside and
keep its distance," and that "this is a South
American council and we have no obligation to ask
for a license from the United States to do it."
In a similar challenge to U.S. military presence
and influence, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa
decided to force the United States. to close its
military base in the port city of Manta. And then
there is Chinas and Russia's growing economic
and political ties to the region something that
would not only be unheard of in the past, but not tolerated.
Developments such as these led the Council on
Foreign Relations to declare in May that the "era
of the United States as the dominant influence in
Latin America is over." Frank Bajak, writing for
the Associated Press on Oct. 11, echoed this
observation when he wrote, "U.S. clout in what it
once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps
the lowest point in decades" and that "it's
unlikely to be able to leverage economic
influence in Latin America anytime soon."
Meanwhile, The Washington Post took a more
indignant and belligerent position in an Oct. 6
editorial when it questioned whether Washington
should "continue to subsidize governments that
treat it as an enemy" while "a significant part
of Latin America continues to march away from the
'Washington consensus' of democracy and
free-market capitalism that has governed the region for a generation."
A Laboratory for Counterinsurgency
While conventional thinking has led many to
believe that Latin America's independence from
the United States may be an irreversible paradigm
shift, behind the scenes Washington has put into
place policies that could unleash a reign of
terror not seen since the 1980's. Colombia has
served as laboratory for this new
counterinsurgency program that can be interpreted
as a continuance of U.S. supported state
terrorism and a re-emergence of the national security state in Latin America.
The U.S. government has sent more than $5 billion
in mostly military and counter-narcotics
assistance to Colombia since 2000 to fund "Plan
Colombia," a counter drug program said to be
designed to fight cocaine production and
narco-trafficking, as well as the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in turn further
intensifying the country's long-standing civil
war. But as the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported in 2001
in a study sponsored by the Center for Responsive
Politics, "The protection of U.S. oil and trade
interests is also a key factor in the plan, and
historic links to drug-trafficking right-wing
guerrillas by U.S. allies belie an exclusive
commitment to extirpating drug trafficking."
The ICIJ investigation also found that "Major
U.S. oil companies have lobbied Congress
intensely to promote additional military aid to
Colombia, in order to secure their investments in
that country and create a better climate for
future exploration of Colombia's vast potential
reserves." In addition, corporations with
interests in the region were reported to have
spent almost $100 million lobbying Congress to
affect U.S. Latin America policy.
Eight years later, Colombia has evolved into a
full-fledged paramilitary state. President Álvaro
Uribe, Washington's staunchest ally in the
region, his extended family, and many of his
political supporters in the government and
military are under investigation for ties to
paramilitaries and right-wing death squads. As
far as U.S. corporate collusion goes, Chiquita
Brands International Inc. was forced to pay the
U.S. Justice Department a $25 million settlement
in 2007 for giving over $1 million to the
right-wing terrorist organization United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Even more
damaging is the fact that Secretary of Homeland
Security Michael Chertoff, at the time assistant
attorney general, knew about the company's
relationship with AUC and did nothing to stop it.
Alabama-based coal company Drummond Co., Inc. and
Coca-Cola have also been accused of hiring
right-wing death squads to intimidate, murder or
disappear trade unionists. This is what the ICIJ
meant when they wrote about securing investments
and creating a better climate for business.
According to the U.S. Labor Education on the
Americas Project, Colombia accounts for more than
60 percent of trade unionists killed worldwide.
There have also been at least 17 murders of trade
unionists just this year, which, according to a
report released in April 2008, accounts for an 89
percent increase in murders over the same time
period from 2007. Meanwhile, the Washington Post
reported in August that the collateral damage
from Colombia's civil war has resulted in more
disappearances than occurred in El Salvador and
Chile, while Colombia's attorney general believes
there could be as many as 10,000 more bodies
scattered across the country meaning totals
would surpass those from Argentina and Peru.
Despite what should be considered as a total
failure from a policy and, more importantly,
human rights standpoint, this same Colombian
model has been promoted by Washington to other
nations in the region, and remarkably has
been embraced by these countries. In 2005,
Guatemalan officials called for their own "Plan
Guatemala," while Oscar Berger, president at the
time, asked for a permanent DEA station in the
country and for U.S. military personnel to
conduct anti-narcotics operations. In addition,
he was a proponent of a regional rapid deployment
force, initially conceived to fight gangs, but
later adjusted to include counter-narcotics and
counter-terrorism in order to attract U.S.
support. It should be noted that the AFL-CIO,
along with six Guatemalan unions, filed a
complaint, allowed through labor provisions of
the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA),
on April 23, 2008, charging the Guatemalan
government with not upholding its labor laws and
for failing to investigate and prosecute crimes
against union members which include rape and
murder. This speaks to the idea of securing a
business-friendly climate like in Colombia,
which many in Washington want to reward with a
free trade agreement. Guatemala's government is
currently led by President Alvaro Colom, a
politician who represents the country's ruling
oligarchs. Pre-election violence during his
campaign claimed the lives of over 50 candidates
(or their family members) and political
activists, in a country Amnesty International
reports is infested with "clandestine groups"
comprised of members of "the business sector,
private security companies, common criminals,
gang members and possibly ex and current members
of the armed forces" responsible for targeting human rights activists.
This regional militaristic strategy finally
materialized into policy on June 30 when
President Bush signed into law the Meridia
Initiative, or "Plan Mexico," which according to
Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program "could
allocate up to $1.6 billion to Mexico, Central
American, and Caribbean countries for security
aid to design and carry out counter-narcotics,
counter-terrorism, and border security measures."
Just one day later, investigative journalist
Kristen Bricker reported that a video had
surfaced showing a U.S.-based private security
company teaching torture techniques to Mexican
police. This led Amnesty International to call
for an investigation on July 3 to determine why
techniques such as "holding a detainee down in a
pit full of excrement and rats and forcing water
up the nostrils of the detainee in order to
secure information" were being taught. Later in
July the Inter Press Service published a story
about a 53-page report on Human Rights and
Conflicts in Central America 2007-2008 that
suggested "Central America is backsliding badly
on human rights issues, and social unrest could
flare up into civil wars like those experienced
in the last decades of the 20th century."
Nevertheless, Washington continues to push for
the re-militarization of the region, as evidenced
by a $2.6 million aid package given to El
Salvador in October to "fight gangs."
Coincidentally, this was announced just months
after the Inter Press Service reported in a June
16 article that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
John Negroponte "expressed concern over supposed
ties between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) guerrillas and the Farabundo
Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)," while
also announcing that "the Bush administration is
on the alert to Iran's presence in Central America."
Playing the Terror Card
In order to up the ante as a means of promoting
this militaristic vision for the Americas and to
vilify strategic "enemies" such as Venezuela's
Hugo Chavez and Bolivias Evo Morales, Washington
has added the "War on Terror" into the equation
by spreading unfounded allegations about Islamic
terrorist infiltration into the region.
Journalists Ben Dangl and April Howard of Upside
Down World, reporting for EXTRA! in Oct. 2007,
wrote "In the Cold War, Washington and the media
used the word 'communism' to rally public opinion
against political opponents. Now, in the post
September 11 world, there is a new verbal weapon
'terrorism.'" This puts into context
Washington's evidence-lacking assertions that the
Tri-Border Area, where Brazil, Paraguay and
Argentina meet, is a hub for Islamic Terrorist
groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, claims the
mainstream media have obsequiously parroted, yet
Dangl and Howard helped disprove. Dangl and
Howard, reporting from Ciudad del Este, a city
located in the center of this alleged "hotbed" of
terrorsim, talked with Paraguayan officials, as
well as local residents, all of whom denied there
was any presence of foreign terrorist groups.
They pointed out that the governments of Brazil
and Argentina have also denied the claims. But
the terrorist assertions haven't stopped there.
Norman A. Bailey, a former U.S. spy chief for
Cuba and Venezuela, testified before the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs on July 17 that
"financial support has been provided [by drug
traffickers] to insurgent groups in certain
countries, most notoriously to the FARC in
Colombia, as well as to ETA, the Basque
separatist organization, and most importantly to
Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, through their
extensive network in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America."
The State Department's David M. Luna, Director
for Anticrime Programs, Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, gave a
statement on Oct. 8 claiming that international
terrorist organizations will collaborate with
regional criminal networks to smuggle WMD's
across the U.S.'s border with Mexico.
"Fighting transnational crime must go hand in
hand with fighting terrorists, if we want to
ensure that we 'surface them," stated Luna. He
also went on to regurgitate the empty claims of the Tri-Border Islamic threat.
That same day the Associated Press reported that
U.S. officials were concerned with alliances
being formed by terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida
and Hezbollah and Latin American drug cartels.
"The presence of these people in the region
leaves open the possibility that they will
attempt to attack the United States," said
Charles Allen, a veteran CIA analyst. "The
threats in this hemisphere are real. We cannot ignore them."
And on Oct. 21 the Los Angeles Times reported
that U.S. and Colombian officials allegedly
dismantled a drug and money laundering ring used to finance Hezbollah.
This post-Sept. 11 fear-mongering, being carried
out for years now, has served as a pretext for
Washington to deploy Special Operations troops in
embassies across the globe, including Latin
America, "to gather intelligence on
terrorists...for potential missions to disrupt, capture or kill them."
The New York Times, which broke the story on
March 8, 2006, reported that this initiative, led
by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was
an attempt to broaden the U.S. military's role in
intelligence gathering. The soldiers, referred to
as "Military Liaison Elements," were initially
deployed without the knowledge of local
ambassadors. This changed after an armed robber
in Paraguay was killed after attempting to rob a
group of soldiers covertly deployed to the
country. Senior embassy officials were
"embarrassed" by the episode as the soldiers were
operating out of a hotel, rather than the embassy.
But in a follow-up by the Washington Post on
April 22, "the Pentagon gained the leeway to
inform rather than gain the approval of the
U.S. ambassador before conducting military
operations in a foreign country" when deploying
these "elite Special Operations Troops." This
development has remained largely under the radar,
with the exception of analysis by Just the Facts,
a joint project of the Center for International
Policy, the Latin American Working Group
Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America.
A New Cold War?
In Oct. 2006 President Bush signed a waiver that
authorized the U.S. military to resume certain
types of training to a number of militaries in
the region which had been suspended as a result
of a bill intended to punish countries not
signing bilateral agreements that would grant
immunity to U.S. citizens from prosecution before
the International Criminal Court.
Bush was forced to act as a result of Venezuela's
growing influence in the region, as well as the
"red" threat that China's growing business in the region presented.
"The Chinese are standing by and I can't think of
anything that is worse than having those people
go over there and get indoctrinated by them. And
I think maybe we should address that because
that's a very serious thing," said Sen. James
Inhofe (R-OK), at a March 14, 2008, hearing of
the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), at the same
hearing, said this was "a serious threat" and
called for ending the restrictions on U.S.
military training programs imposed on Latin
American nations for refusing to sign the
bilateral immunity agreements. Of course, Latin
American nations should not be subject to
sanctions for quite properly rejecting the
immunity agreements; but neither should there be
training programs for their repressive
militaries, to teach these militaries repressive practices.
The Associated Press reported in Oct. that
China's trade with Latin America jumped from $10
billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year.
[And] In May, a state-owned Chinese company
agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.
These developments should further perpetuate the
Red Scare making its way through the Senate.
Then there is Russias military sales and
cooperation with Venezuela. U.S. News and World
Reports Alastair Gee wrote a fear-mongering
article on Oct. 14, 2008, in which he stated,
"This is not the first time Russians have sought
close links with Latin America. In 1962, the
stationing of Soviet missiles in Cuba nearly
precipitated nuclear war with the United States.
The Soviets also funded regional communist
parties and invited students from the region to study in Soviet universities."
But more importantly, it is the regions march
away from the 'Washington consensus' of democracy
and free-market capitalism that has drummed up a
cold war mentality in Washington. With
democratically elected presidents in the region
openly embracing socialism and socialist-style
policies, economic programs in various countries
that include nationalizing industries and
redistributing the wealth, and social movements
ideologically and physically confronting free
market capitalism, it should come as no surprise
that anti-globalization movements have found
themselves classified as a national security
threat to the United States. A declassified April
2006 National Intelligence Estimate entitled
"Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the
United States," states, "Anti-U.S. and
anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and
fueling other radical ideologies. This could
prompt some leftist, nationalist, or separatist
groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests."
Moving Forward
Developments in Latin America are reason for hope
and optimism that a new, better and possible
world could be on the horizon. But these very
same reasons are cause for concern.
With Washingtons imperial stretch on the
decline, both militarily and economically, both
history and current conditions suggest it will
try to reassert itself in Latin America just as it did after Vietnam.
But because of the deeply embedded and
institutionalized nature of Washingtons imperial
machine, it doesnt matter much which party
controls the White House and Congress. To fight
these developments, we need to continue to grow
grassroots media projects and support independent
journalists, build long-term solidarity with
Latin American social movements and build social
movements in the United States, fight free trade
and do our part to shed light upon the structural
violence threatening Latin Americas promising
future which is directly tied to ours.
Cyril Mychalejko is an editor at www.UpsideDownWorld.org.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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