Latin America on the Road to Democracy and Humanism

The great revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara left Cuba for Bolivia with a mission to spread the struggle against world imperialism and was murdered by a CIA agent in Bolivia. In December, 2005, after nearly 39 years, Evo Morales, a poor coca farmer was elected Bolivia’s new president.

In Bolivia, on the occasion of his installation, Morales requested a minute’s silence for Che and other millions of people who sacrificed their lives all over Latin America. He said in his speech that his struggle was a continuation of Ernesto Che Guevara’s mission.

Before Evo Marales, Carlos Mesa was a neo-liberal politician who was thrown out of office, through elections followed by popular revolt. Ironically, he was himself brought to power in an upsurge of protest. But he failed to challenge neo-colonization and corporate greed and had to go long before his stipulated time in office.

In Bolivia, a mass revolt stopped the attempt to privatize the nation’s water in 2000. In 2003 and 2005, mass revolts overthrew pro-US governments in huge demonstrations that pivoted on the demand, supported by Morales, to nationalize Bolivia’s gas reserves. In Bolivia, alongside Venezuela, one of the keys to the future of Latin America can be found.

In Brazil, January 2003 Lula took office as president. With 52 million votes behind him, the former steel workers’ leader and his Workers’ Party are elected to the government. Brazil accounts for 40% of Latin America’s GDP. People are looking forward to a radical change in the living conditions of millions of Brazilians currently unemployed, hungry, and subject to the most horrific poverty.
In Venezuela, the struggle has gone beyond periodic revolts and into an ongoing revolution to transform the nation. The government of President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, has led the impoverished majority to take control of Venezuela’s resources and put them to use to overcome extreme poverty and underdevelopment. When Chavez began introducing reforms that benefited the poor over the rich, the local elite and multinationals, backed by the US government, responded with repeated attempts to overthrow the government.

The first signs of the regional revolt came in Venezuela in February 1989, when the poor spontaneously rose up against International Monetary Fund-imposed price rises on basic goods. Through the 1990s, movements against neo-colonialism grew.
In Ecuador, President Luis Gutierrez was forced out from office in mid 2005, by an uprising. Although elected on an anti-neo-liberal platform, Gutierrez, like Bolivian president Mesa, abandoned his promises in an attempt to keep neo capitalism and its sponsor, United States happy.

In the recent years several pro-US and pro-US multinational corporation governments have been brought down by popular revolt in Latin America, and a growing number of governments have been elected on platforms that challenge American-orchestrated, neo-colonialist policies. It is, indeed becoming a fact that while the United States is becoming more and more fixated on the Muslim world, a region much closer is quietly spinning out of American control. American policies are being singled out as only serving the interest of killer multi-national corporations, while the poor are exploited and poverty perpetuates. The increasing isolation of the US in the region was demonstrated at the “Summit of the Americas” meeting in November, where the US failed to force through its key project for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which was nothing but a trap to expose South America to domination and exploitation by US corporations.

Latin America is veering left. The combined outcome of a rejection of so-called economic liberalism and effectiveness of mass movement resistance in recent years, as in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia - the traditional right has undergone a series of electoral defeats. Predictions and objective conditions dictate that most likely the next group of countries will be Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua, leaving Colombia as the only major country where the reactionary right will continue to govern, and that too only with the support of US paramilitary thugs. However, the US-backed government has been unable to destroy people’s insurgency, despite enormous military aid from Washington.

Imperialism is not defeated in Latin America as yet, but it is being pushed back every passing day. From Bolivia to Venezuela to Cuba, history is being rewritten to prove that the revolution Che fought and died for is alive, well, and advancing. In Latin America, democratic socialism is making roots again. People are working to build what they like to call “new socialism of the 21st century”, based on principles of democracy and humanism, and it has already start to bear fruit, as poverty is decreasing and the poor are winning more and more power. In the process, based upon their own bitter experience of many decades, many have also drawn a bitter conclusion that monopoly capitalism cannot be reformed, and is doomed. Latin American situation is just a beginning of the eventual end. Monopoly capitalism, the perpetrator of human greed, is not and will not be able to stand the tide of people’s will. The system has started to crumble, under its inhuman payload.

Now, let us examine, very briefly the issues of Latin America and its relation and interface with US multi-nationals together with the lending agencies and try to assess the situation, past and present:-
This Latin American revolt is no accident. The fact is known to everyone that in the 1980s and ’90s, the US and international financial institutions forced neo-colonialist policies onto Latin America, and this plunder resulted in impoverishment of millions of people. Latin America was the first to be turned into a laboratory for neo-colonial experiments, through thugs and criminals abetted by US imperialism itself. Ironically, Latin America is the first to stand up in rebellion.
Since the 1980s, the World Bank and IMF orchestrated the so-called free trade, privatization and redirection of funds from basic services to debt repayment as the only way to prosperity, which resulted in more borrowing and the cycle went on and on. By opening up economies to so-called ‘market forces’, Latin American countries were promised significant poverty reduction. What actually happened was a significant increase in the hold exercised over Latin American economies by multinationals, especially US corporations.

Bearing some similarity with the “East India Company” of the British India, between 1990 and 2002, multinational corporations were able to acquire approximately 4,000 banking, telecommunications, transport, petroleum and mining interests in Latin America. In the aftermath, after a decade of neo-colonialism, Argentinean economic system resulted in a total collapse and in December 2001, the number of people living in extreme poverty in Argentina gradually shot up from less than one million in 1990, to 14 million. Viva free trade!!

It is an appalling fact that the richest one-tenth of the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean together, earn 48 % of the total income, while the poorest tenth earn only 1.6 %. For the sake of comparison, Uruguay’s economic disparity, considered the least in Latin America, is still far worse than the poorest country even in Eastern Europe, considered impoverished by EU standards. This increased poverty discredited the whole process of so-called liberalization and this situation led to huge mobilization, street protests, factory occupations and militant movements, ultimately paving the way for the change that we see now.
This situation in Latin America is creating new contradictions and new tensions with the US. However, at the present time, the US presence in Latin America is relatively weakened by US strategic involvement in Iraq, Middle East and in Central Asia. Despite all this mess created by the US in the world, their military advisers and intelligence agents are still already present in Columbia. However, in order to counter the revolutionary tendencies in Latin America, the imperialist powers are also adopting countermeasures by using new governments that follow the path of liberalism or social-liberalism by enticing them to short term economic tactics, which immediately start to show fancy (but superficial) “growth rate” numbers. This is the case in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador. These new governments have achieved a degree of “stabilization” of the social and political situation. However, in the longer term, the system will create even bigger class contradictions, as the “insatiable appetite” of greedy multi-nationals is bound to surface again, very soon.

These so-called liberal governments of countries mentioned above, are not expected to succeed in resolving the main contradictions of monopoly capitalism. In the society at large, social inequalities are growing and there have been no noteworthy changes in the situation of the masses as these governments continue to follow the “free market”, IMF and World Bank dictates, and attempt to implement regional policies, to conquer new positions for the benefit of local ruling classes, who are getting richer by the day.

Many Latin American countries have started to get rid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the past, the US could manipulate the countries by supporting military coups, subversion, invasion, violence and so on. That doesn’t work so well any more. The last time they tried in 2002 in Venezuela, the US had to back down because of enormous protests from Latin America, and of course the coup was overthrown from within. US Government knows well that if they lose the economic weapons of control in Latin America, they will be very much weakened.
Argentina is one of the countries essentially getting red of the IMF and is paying off the debts after getting a very bitter taste of IMF rules that they followed over a long period of time and had totally disastrous effects. They are being assisted by Venezuela, which is buying up part of the Argentinean debt. Bolivia will probably do the same. Bolivia’s had witnessed the worst 25 years of rigorous adherence to IMF rules. Per capita income in Bolivia is now less than it was 25 years ago. They want to get rid of it. The other countries are doing the same. It is generally known that the International Monetary Fund, in content, is essentially nothing but the US Treasury Department. It is the economic weapon that was being used alongside the military weapon for maintaining control for a long time. Latin America has concluded that they have to dismantle the control of this monster. The developments in Latin America are extremely significant; however for US planners, they are an extreme nightmare.

Unlike Europe, it is next to impossible to intimidate China as the United States is afraid of its might. China is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers. However it is impossible to intimidate. China’s increasing interactions with Latin America are frightening the United States. Latin America is also improving economic interactions with Europe. China and Europe now are each other largest trading partners. These developments are slowly, but surely eroding the means of domination of the US world system. US is aggressively playing its strong card which is the military. Military expenditures in the US are about half of the total world expenditures. In Latin America, the number of the US military personnel is probably higher than they ever were, during the Cold War and the expenditure and level of training of Latin American officers is also increasing. Neo-colonizers are anticipating an all out war, for their survival, as they are losing the ideological war.

It is quite evident over the last twenty-five years that the countries that have opted for and adhered to the American style neo-liberal rules have had an economic catastrophe and the countries that didn’t pay any intention to the rules grew and developed. East Asia developed rapidly by totally ignoring the rules. Chile is claimed as being a market economy but that is a highly misleading statement. Chile’s main export is copper, from a very efficiently run, state owned copper company which was nationalized under Salvador Allende’s Government, before he was overthrown and killed by the CIA-abetted military junta. In the words of Naom Chomsky, “Adherence to the neo-liberal rules has been associated with economic failure and violation of them with economic success. Maybe some economists can miss this fact, but people do not, they live it”.

In the Latin America of 1960’s there was a relative hope. American hooliganism crushed the hope by violence. For example, Chile was moving steadily on the path of democratic socialism but in 1973, Allende’s government was overthrown by a CIA supported military junta, which proved to be a catastrophe for Chile. The ensuing brutal military dictatorship also finally resulted in an economic disaster in Chile bringing about a worst recession in its history. The military eventually transferred power to a civilian government, which is to this day ruling the country. Chile has only partially liberated itself from the military dictatorship. Similarly, there has been a slow process in many countries like Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia where there has been a systematic overthrow of brutal dictatorships, which had invariably been supported, and in some cases instituted, by the US.

The crisis continues to deepen in Latin America. The economic disaster in Argentine has spread to neighboring Uruguay, due to the economic and financial links between the two countries. Brazil has also entered a phase of strong financial tensions, while social struggles are developing throughout the continent, from Venezuela where Chavez is in the line of US fire, to Peru and Bolivia. IMF has also not given up yet and is reformulating its policies in Argentina and Brazil, in particular, in the wake of changing circumstances. In 2002, to everyone’s surprise they announced a huge loan of thirty billion dollars to Brazil, which was unthinkable, in the past.

Four economically and politically major Latin American countries namely, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba are briefly discussed below:

VENEZUELA

Ever since his election victory in 1998, President Hugo Chavez has been a big worry for Washington. As in the past, Washington attempted to get rid of him through a military coup. The US-backed attempted coup against Chavez in 2002 was defeated by a historic mass mobilization. Hugo Chavez was flown back to the presidential palace on board a military helicopter.
Back in the presidential palace, Chavez started talking of ‘21st century socialism’ through his Bolivarian revolution. He is using Venezuela’s immense oil wealth to fund ambitious social programs to improve the lives of the poor. The mass literacy program, which has succeeded in eradicating illiteracy by United Nations standards, is an example the third world should emulate. Chavez’s revolution is a threat to the US because it seeks to unite Latin America, on the basis of economic cooperation and integration among Latin American nations, and is an alternative to the US-driven “Free Trade Area of the Americas”.
Chavez has also refused to sign any fresh agreements with the IMF and denounces the Fund as the "road to hell". His willingness to stand up to Washington has put enormous pressure on other Latin American governments that will stand exposed in the eyes of their people if they chose to submit to the US.

CUBA

The US is particularly upset with the political and economic ties Venezuela maintains with Cuba. Washington has attempted many times in the past to overthrow the government led by Fidel Castro. The US understands that Cuba with its free education and health care, research and development is a beacon of hope for the rest of the Americas. Cuba is living proof of the alternative economy. US wishes to isolate Cuba and Venezuela but what is actually happening is exactly the opposite, as these policies are only enhancing US isolation. Since fourteen (14) years in a row, the UN General Assembly has been voting against US commercial embargo against Cuba. However, this time the vote on the resolution was 182 against to 4 in favor. Cuba is a victor, morally.


BRAZIL

In Brazil, IMF made a much orchestrated attempt at blackmail and pressure tending to destabilize the presidential campaign of Lula, fearing that if Lula was elected, there could be an uncontrolled extension of the crisis across the whole continent. Therefore they returned to a more classic policy, to maintain its influence on Brazilian political life by announcing a huge loan, as mentioned above. However, the terms and conditions of the loan are very strict. We leave the details of Brazil for another country-specific presentation, as Brazil requires a more detailed assessment and analysis.


ARGENTINA

The tactics of IMF in Argentina are different. The Argentine economy having literally imploded, in part under the pressure of IMF demands for budgetary strictness. After injecting tens of billions of dollars, as a tactic, the IMF stopped the payments and a war of position started. IMF started to insist on negotiating an adjustment programme in exchange for the resumption of its aid. Argentine government had to obtain partial suspension on the dates of loan repayment. IMF agreed to this arrangement as it no longer desired to destabilize a government which is already exposed to a decomposing economy. They are also afraid of the rise in popular opposition. The concern is fast growing.

POST SCRIPT

Due to the unity, support and a collective strategy of Latin American countries, which they learned after bitter lessons in history, they are now supporting one another and the US is not able to resort to the same policies, it resorted to, casually, in the past. Latin America is moving towards economic independence, formulating their own social policies, having complete access to their own resources to overcome the tremendous and awful internal problems. US hates and denounces this populism, vigor and energy as a threat to elite rule aimed at concentration of state power, so that the IMF and World Bank “friendly” system can gradually be brought back, again. For the last two decades, US has forced neo-liberalism (the other name of poverty) down the throats of the third world, in order to make the world better for US business. To many the US economic empire, spreading at gunpoint, seemed impregnable, but now, rapidly losing its dominance in Latin America, the empire stands exposed to others issues all over the world.