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<font size=3>Dirty Business, Dirty Wars: U.S.-Latin American Relations in
the 21st Century<br>
<a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1687/1/" eudora="autourl">
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1687/1/<br><br>
</a>Written by Cyril Mychalejko <br>
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 <br><br>
Source: <a href="http://www.wpunj.edu/%7Enewpol/issue46/cont46.htm">New
Politics Winter 2009, Vol. XXII</a><br><br>
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." <br><br>
Breaking the Chains <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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). <br><br>
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 nation’s 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.<br><br>
Venezuela’s 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
Guatemala’s 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. <br><br>
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 China’s 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. <br><br>
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." <br><br>
A Laboratory for Counterinsurgency <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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." <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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." <br><br>
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." <br><br>
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." <br><br>
Playing the Terror Card <br><br>
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 Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Washington has added
the "War on Terror" into the equation by spreading unfounded
allegations about Islamic terrorist infiltration into the region.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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."
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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." <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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." <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
A New Cold War? <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
These developments should further perpetuate the “Red Scare” making its
way through the Senate. Then there is Russia’s military sales and
cooperation with Venezuela. U.S. News and World Report’s 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." <br><br>
But more importantly, it is the region’s “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." <br><br>
Moving Forward <br><br>
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. <br><br>
With Washington’s 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.
<br><br>
But because of the deeply embedded and institutionalized nature of
Washington’s imperial machine, it doesn’t 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 America’s promising future which is directly tied to
ours. <br>
Cyril Mychalejko is an editor at
<a href="http://www.upsidedownworld.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.UpsideDownWorld.org</a>. <br><br>
<br><br>
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