Big and good news!! The Latin-American Saker blog is now officially active!

I had been waiting for this one with great anticipation and finally it has happened!  The Latin American Saker blog is now officially online, up and running at the following URL:

http://www.vineyardsaker.es/

This is nothing short of fantastic as it bring in not just a language, but an entire culture, one of the most diverse and dynamic ones on the planet.  Furthermore, Latin America is, for sure, one of the main poles of resistance to the Empire.  Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua are in the lead, but there is also a very real resistance to Empire in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and many other countries.  And if Brazil is not a Spanish-speaking country, it is very much a crucial member of the "Latin-American brotherhood of nations", not an empty concept, but an ideal felt by many in this wonderful continent.  For a great introduction to the goals and spirit of the Latin American Saker blog, please read the top "welcome" article  ¿Por qué una comunidad Saker en español?

Right now, the focus is on the Ukraine, but we should not forget that the very same struggle is happening elsewhere and with particular intensity in Latin America.  I have very high hopes for these new members of our community and I ask you all to welcome them with the enthusiasm they deserve.

On a sadder note, I have had to "freeze" the Serbian Saker blog because of what is often called "irreconcilable differences of opinion" with its Team Leader.  This is a most unfortunate situation but I hope to have it resolved in a couple of months.  I am right now looking to for a brand new team for the Serbian Saker blog so if you are interested, please email me.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

PS: I leave you with a wonderful hymn to Latin America sung by Mercedes Sosa:

¡Salve Correa y Ecuador ! Cuatro lecciones

por Atilio A. Boron para El Correo
 
La aplastante victoria de Rafael Correa, con un porcentaje de votos y una diferencia entre él y su más inmediato contendiente que ya hubieran querido tener Obama, Hollande y Rajoy, deja algunas lecciones que es bueno recapitular.

Primero, y lo más obvio, la ratificación del mandato popular para seguir por el camino trazado pero, como dijo Correa en su conferencia de prensa, avanzando más rápida y profundamente. Sabe el reelecto presidente que los próximos cuatro años serán cruciales para asegurar la irreversibilidad de las reformas que, al cabo de diez años de gestión, habrán concluido con la refundación de un Ecuador mejor, más justo y más sustentable. En la conferencia de prensa ya aludida dijo textualmente : « O cambiamos ahora al país o no lo cambiamos más ». El proyecto de crear un orden social basado en el socialismo del sumak kawsay, el « buen vivir » de nuestros pueblos originarios, exige actuar con rapidez y determinación. Pero esto también lo saben la derecha vernácula y el imperialismo, y por eso se puede predecir que van a redoblar sus esfuerzos para evitar la consolidación del proceso de la « Revolución Ciudadana ».

Segunda lección : que si un gobierno obedece al mandato popular y produce políticas públicas que benefician a las grandes mayorías nacionales –que al fin y al cabo de eso se trata la democracia–, la lealtad del electorado puede darse por segura. La manipulación de las oligarquías mediáticas, la conspiración de las clases dominantes y las estratagemas del imperialismo se estrellan contra el muro de la fidelidad popular.

Tercero, y como corolario de lo anterior, el aplastante triunfo de Correa demuestra que la conformista tesis tan común en el pensamiento político convencional, a saber : que « el poder desgasta », sólo es válida en democracia cuando el poder se ejerce en beneficio de las minorías adineradas o cuando los procesos de transformación social pierden espesor, titubean y terminan por detenerse. Cuando en cambio se gobierna teniendo a la vista el bienestar de las víctimas del sistema, pasa lo que ocurrió ayer en Ecuador : si en la presidencial de 2009 Correa ganó en la primera vuelta con el 51 por ciento de los votos, ayer lo hizo, con el recuento existente al momento de escribir esta nota (un 25 por ciento de los votos escrutados), con el 57 por ciento. En lugar de « desgaste », consolidación y acrecentamiento del poder residencial.

Cuarto y último : con esta elección se supera la parálisis decisional generada por una Asamblea Nacional que se opuso con intransigencia a algunas de las más importantes iniciativas propuestas por Correa. Si bien hay pocas cifras disponibles al respecto, no caben dudas de que Alianza País tendrá la mayoría absoluta de los asambleístas y con chances de alcanzar una representación parlamentaria que le permita contar con una mayoría calificada de dos tercios.

Conclusión : los tiempos han cambiado. La ratificación plebiscitaria de un presidente que precipitó un formidable proceso de cambios sociales y económicos dentro del Ecuador, que protagoniza la integración latinoamericana, que incorporó su país al ALBA, que puso fin a la presencia estadounidense en la base de Manta, que realizó una ejemplar auditoría de la deuda externa reduciendo significativamente su monto, que le otorga asilo a Julian Assange y que retira al Ecuador del Ciadi, no es algo que se vea todos los días.

¡Felicitaciones Rafael Correa, salud Ecuador !

Hugo Chavez hosts summit of new regional group minus US

The BBC reports:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hosting a summit of a new regional bloc that brings together 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  The general aim of the group, which does not include the US or Canada, is to foster regional ties.  Mr Chavez has described the bloc as a counter to US influence in the region.

The two-day summit is Mr Chavez's first big international event since he was treated for cancer and forced to postpone the original meeting in July.  The summit in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, will be the inaugural gathering of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, known by its Spanish initials, Celac.

It will be a further addition to regional groupings that include the Organisation of American States (OAS), Unasur, Mercosur, Alba and the Caribbean Community (Caricom).  Unlike the long-established OAS, Celac does not include the US or Canada.  And unlike the OAS, it will include Cuba, which in 2009 rejected an invitation to rejoin the Washington-based body after a long exclusion.

Mr Chavez has described the summit, with some rhetorical flourish, as "the most important political event to have happened in our America in 100 years".

For the Venezuelan president, Celac forms part of his dream of realising Latin American unity and also creating a counterweight to Washington but for other regional leaders, the aims are less grand though no less important, correspondents say.

These include examining the region's response to the global financial crisis, promoting economic development and discussing joint efforts to tackle drug-trafficking.  And Celac's birth does not herald the demise of the OAS, analysts say.

"[The OAS] has clearly defined purposes and principles to guide it. Its procedures are in place. And it has a budget - most of which comes from the US and Canada," Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told the AFP news agency.

The inaugural summit was due six months ago but was postponed because Mr Chavez was recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous growth.  The talks on Friday and Saturday will be watched for indications of Mr Chavez's current health.  The Venezuelan president has said he is completely recovered after four rounds of chemotherapy.

He is expected to run in next October's presidential election for another six-year term.

Analysis by Sarah Grainger BBC News, Caracas:

The US and Canada were deliberately excluded from this summit, but Cuban President Raul Castro has been welcomed with open arms.

The heads of state of 32 countries in the region have come to Caracas for the inauguration of the new organisation.  Only President Humala has stayed away, amid continuing protests over mining in Peru.

While US exclusion from the meeting is clearly a snub to Washington, the Venezuelan government says the new organisation will foster regional ties and look at ways of insulating the region from economic problems in the US and Europe.

Latin America mourns the death of Néstor Kirchner

by Carlo Moiana

Former president Néstor Kirchner has unexpectedly died today of heart failure. He was the first elected president of Argentina after the terrible economical and political crisis that the country suffered in 2001.

Kirchner had had some health problems lately: in February he had a surgery for problems in the carotid artery, and in September he had an angioplasty. His doctors recommended him rest, but he kept a very tight agenda: he was a congressman, president of the Justicialist Party (also known as Peronist, Argentina's biggest party) and Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). And, despite not having any formal position in the Executive, headed by his wife Cristina, he is known to be closely involved in it.

He began his political career as governor of Santa Cruz province, in Southern Argentina. Barely inhabited, it has a high income per capita, due to oil and gas extraction and a strong fishing industry. Despite of his leftist tendency, in the 90's Kirchner supported former president Carlos Menen (known for his strict neoliberalism) even in the privatization of Argentina's national oil company YPF, which has a strong presence in Santa Cruz. When the economy was beginning to show problems in the late 90's, he transferred the reserves of his province to banks abroad. Despite his affirmation that these funds have already returned to the country after the crisis was overcome, there are claims that part of these were diverted.

As a president, his government had two parts, one very good and another quite problematic. Initially he had the merit of further stabilizing the country after a terrible crisis. When he came to office, he managed to reach an agreement with the IMF and creditors over the defaulted national debt, began an economical policy of growth, recovering of industrial sector and low exchange rate to benefit exports. The economy began growing around 10% per year, unemployment drastically lowered, together with poverty, and his popularity soared.

But in late 2005 he sacked his Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, and began a more unorthodox policy of high state expenditures. Inflation began to rise, and the government intervened the statistical institute so not to reveal true inflation data. While most independent economists calculate an inflation of around 30% annually, officially Argentina has an inflation of less than 10% per year. Argentina is the only country in the world with unreliable official economical data: not only inflation, but also GNP growth and poverty level data are also under suspicion.

Another merit of him was breaking at last Argentina's "automatic alignment" with the US. Since Menem became president in 1989, Argentina was the strongest ally of the United States in the region, even sending warships to the first Gulf War in 1991. In 2005, in a conference in the Argentinian city of Mar del Plata, Kirchner together with most of South American presidents rejected Bush's proposal for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, effectively burying this project. But then in 2006 he accepted the controversial US and Israeli version of the attack against the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association in 1994, blaming Hezbollah and Iran for it. Argentina's foreign policy, though not so closely aligned with the US as in the previous decade, continues to be less independent than Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and even Brazil.

His wife Cristina was elected in 2007, and followed exactly the same policies. Néstor is considered the true strong figure behind the president. Next year there will be presidential elections in Argentina. The political panorama was already complicated: Kirchner had a decrease in popularity, but he kept strong support in many sectors. And he was surely the most influent person in Front for Victory, the faction of the Justicialist Party currently in power and with the biggest representation in the Congress (though not having absolute majority). After his death, it's completely unpredictable for now what will happen in the next elections. Being also the first head of the recently created Union of South American Nations, his death also affects regional policies and the future political and economical integration of the continent.

The Argentine government is receiving condolences from all over the world, specially from countries with similar leftist orientation (both "moderate", as Lula in Brazil and Mujica in Uruguay, and "hard-liners", like Chavez in Venezuela and Correa in Ecuador).

46 Warships and 7,000 Troops Reported to Be Heading to Central American Country and Coast

By Jamie Way for The Narco News Bulletin

In a controversial decision that is likely to fan the flames of regional tensions in Latin America, Costa Rica recently granted the US permission to move 7,000 troops and 46 warships (along with their accompanying planes and helicopters) into Costa Rican waters. Officially, the act is considered to be part of the “Drug War,” which appears to be increasingly more war-like in nature due to such actions and mounting violence in Mexico and Colombia. Costa Rica’s neighbors, however, see the massive military presence as a potential base for regional strikes.

Due to the long history of US intervention in Latin America (perhaps most notably in neighboring Nicaragua), the region is clearly justified in its concern over the disproportionate and virtual invasion of troops into an area that could potentially provide such a logistical and geographic striking point. Internally, many Costa Ricans are questioning the military presence and its impact on the nation’s sovereignty. One party, the United Social Christian Party, has even brought forth a claim questioning the constitutionality of such an act. The Citizen Action Party, the United Social Christian Party and its former presidential candidate, Luis Fishman, have been amongst the most vocal opponents of the US military presence. Fishman has compared the permission granted to handing the US a carte blanche, and has denounced the act as having negative repercussions for the nation’s sovereignty.

The US has responded by disregarding opposition. According to a Tico Times article, US Ambassador Anne Andrew responded by saying, “We are not sure why there is this uproar,” and furthermore stated that the request was the same as the one that had been submitted each year for the last decade under a bilateral agreement. Past agreements, opposition argues, however, appear to have only granted US vessels permission to enter the area in pursuit of suspects and do not seem to have mentioned troop or warship presence. Furthermore, the opposition argues that the massive military presence of 7,000 troops and 46 warships is a disproportionate and inappropriate measure for fighting narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

Regardless of how this act varies from past US actions, it is clear that within the present context, the military surge is more disconcerting. This action comes amidst increasing disappointment with the Obama administration and its failure to create mutual respect between the US and Latin America as many had hoped. In fact, to the contrary, through the shuffling and increase of military presence in the region, not only has the relationship with the US remained strained, but additionally regional tensions have flared. Due to the newly won access to seven bases in Colombia (said to replace the loss of a base in Ecuador), regional relations have been further strained. Tensions remain high between Colombia and many of the countries in the region led my left leaning leaders, who see the US military presence in the region as a direct threat to their democratic rule. In fact, the Colombian-US agreement even drew heavy criticism from President Lula of Brazil, who is widely known to be one of the regions most reasonable actors.

From its Southern border to South America, the US has increased its military presence. Most recently, the Obama administration sent 1,200 troops to the US-Mexico border, further militarizing this already violent area. This regional increase in military presence is also accompanied by an increase in military and police aid. According to a report by the Center for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America, during most of the 2000s, military and police aid accounted for less than 40 percent of all aid that the US sent to Latin America. However this year, before aid to Haiti is added to the equation, military and police aid will total approximately 47 percent of all US aid to the region. Perhaps most telling, after 58 years of inactivity, in 2008 the US government reactivated the 4th Fleet, the navy fleet in charge of the waters in the Southern Command.

Amidst a growing climate of US militarism and the militarization of its relations with Latin America, the region is justified in its apprehension over impending threats to its sovereignty. While the media speculates about war against Iran, US solidarity activists are concerned about the near to total media blackout of news about the escalation of US militarism in our own hemisphere. Whether all of this is a mere shifting of the pawns or an increase, this massive military presence in the region (paired with the US’s regional track record) necessitates careful vigilance if we are to address US military expansionism.

The Mossad in South America

(thanks to John for drawing my attention to this article - VS)

by Nil Nikandrov for the Strategic Culture Foundation

“N”, a correspondent from an Iranian media agency, whom I met in the association of foreign journalists in Caracas, told me that he used to work in Buenos Aires for some time. Things were going well, N's employer was satisfied with the job he did, and he planned to spend a few more years in Argentine, but eventually had to change his plans. After a while “N” noticed that he was under surveillance and that his mail regularly got stolen. Uninvited guests started to frequent his office. He talked to the local police and counterintelligence service, but both replied they had nothing to do with the problem. They did mention to “N” cautiously that he was in the sphere of interests of «the Zionists». He told me: «The people in my agency in Tehran knew that Iranian citizens often encounter such problems and concluded that the Mossad was planning a provocation against me. This is why I relocated to Venezuela. It is a country friendly to Iran, one enjoys a certain level of security guarantees here and can expect to be protected in case of need».

I had a similar conversation with “F”, a journalist from Syria. He told me frankly that he preferred to stay on the alert even in Venezuela because the Israeli intelligence service watches over all Syrians working in Latin America and often attempts to compromise them. Like most of his countrymen, “F” believes that hostile acts by the Mossad — drugs put in his pocket, allegations of links to Arab terrorists, the emergence of «documentary evidence» of connections to Columbian guerrillas — are likely. “F” said: «I am ready to face whatever happens. I'm not paranoid, I just look at things realistically. I even obtained a gun permit» and showed me a gun he wore under his jacket.

The Mossads's objectives are listed on its official web site. They include secret collection of operative, political, and strategic information abroad, termination of terrorist activity targeting Israeli and other Jewish installations, prevention of development or acquisition of nuclear weapons by countries hostile to Israel, and covert operations abroad. The January, 2010 killing by the Mossad of the leader of the the paramilitary wing of Hamas Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel gives an idea of what the term «covert operations abroad» refers to.

A Mossad hit squad of 11 agents disguised as tourists blocked the corridor leading to the hotel room where al-Mabhouh stayed. Then the Israeli hitmen got inside, electroshocked and strangulated the man. In several hours the Mossad agents left the Emirates with fake British, Canadian, Irish, and Australian passports.

The demonstrative character of the act was supposed to highlight the Mossad's capability to score with the enemies of Israel in any part of the world. The operation drew extensive coverage in Latin American media, most of which published the photos of the Mossad agents and, of course, that of their chief - the 64 year old Meir Dagan who has long deserved the nickname of «a man with a knife between his teeth». Among other operations, hundreds of killings of Iranian and Iraqi scientists who were involved in military-related research and were regarded as potentially dangerous to Israel are tracked to Dagan.

According to ALAI (Latin America Information Agency), the Mossad is using at least 40 Israeli companies (as well as embassies and other official institutions of the state of Israel) as fronts for its activity. The total number of the Mossad operatives in Latin America is not greater than 100-110, but an extensive network of agents and the cooperation with Jewish organizations and communities ensure the Mossad's presence across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Mossad's interests gravitate to the regions south of the Rio Grande which are densely populated by Arab immigrants. The Mossad analysts believe that the epicenter of the potential «Muslim terrorism» in Latin America is located in the Zone of Three Borders between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Venezuela's Isla Margarita, a place where Lebanese and Syrian immigrants hunting for pearls started to settle down in the early XX century, is viewed similarly. When a free trade zone was opened on Margarita Island, the Arab populations switched to selling shoes, textile, and bijouterie. The Venezuelan government was a number of times forced to disprove allegations that Chavez hosts Muslim terrorists. In reality, Margarita is a small island where more or less everybody knows everybody else and no secret activity — least the operation of Hezbollah training camps — is possible.

Over the years of spying on the above «terrorist centers» Mossad never discovered the networks that could present a threat to Israel. Nevertheless, the Mossad's efforts were not wasted, at least since the Israeli «reliable» data were invariably used by Washington in planning its struggle against terrorism in Latin America. This is the mechanism of ideological support for the establishment of increasing numbers of US military bases on the continent in the proximity of the Latin American countries with «populist» regimes.

In many cases, Israeli intelligence operatives are involved in legal arms trade business which they use to gain connections in local military circles and security services.

The Mossad also uses affiliated companies to advise its Latin American colleagues on fighting terrorism, «leftist extremism», guerrilla groups and their support networks, as well as to help intelligence services modernize their technical base. A company most often mentioned in the context is Israel's Global CST, whose CEOs are retired high-ranking Mossad operatives. In July, 2009 the Peruvian government hired the company to help reorganize the country's intelligence community in order to boost the efficiency of its struggle against «subversive and terrorist organizations» including the re-emerging Sendero Luminoso Maoist group. Global CST is also helping the Peruvian government create a joint system of control over mobile communications, Internet, and other communications media.

Global CST has grown notably more active in Columbia. The Israeli company familiarizes the country's military intelligence and political police (DAS) officers with new techniques in the spheres of anti-terrorist activity and espionage. Over recent years, Columbia's intelligence services have been increasingly assertive outside the country, evidently imitating the modus operandi of their CIA and Mossad peers. Columbia maintains intelligence networks in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, and other Latin American countries. The FARC and ELN envoys are finding themselves under permanent surveillance, routinely kidnapped and sometimes — assassinated.

International Security Agency (ISA) mainly staffed by former Israeli special forces officers and intelligence operatives is also active in Latin America. The agency (in tight cooperation with the CIA and the Mossad) took part in the coup that displaced M. Zelaya, the legitimate President of Honduras. Currently ISA specialists are working in the security service of the current President of Honduras P. Lobo, who was propelled to presidency as the result of an imitation of free elections like those Washington realized in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is a consensus among experts that the Mossad's number one adversary and target in Latin America is Hugo Chavez, the political leader condemning Israel's attempts to resolve conflicts in the Middle East by force. Chavez suspended Venezuela's diplomatic relations with Israel in August, 2006, following the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. At that time Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Cohen and the embassy staff (mostly Mossad operatives) left Caracas. In several months Chavez took steps to normalize the relations with Israel, largely in response to the requests made by Venezuela's 12,000 Jewish community.

The diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Israel were severed again in January, 2009 when the former protested the crimes committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli operation resulted in the killing of over 1,000 Palestinians, a third of them — children. In a televised address, Chavez criticized Israel as a country guilty of genocide and inhumane persecution of Palestinians. Not surprisingly, Israel's reaction was negative. In November, 2009 Shimon Peres addressed a thinly veiled threat to Chavez by saying that «Chavez will soon disappear». The Venezuelan leader remarked that Perez had to undertake a long journey to Latin America to say the words and wondered publicly what would have happened if similar words were said about Peres in Venezuela.

TV commentator and former Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel often warns in his TV show that the Mossad is planning to assassinate Chavez. Agents with the corresponding qualifications were sent to Columbia, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Curacao Island. In Rangel's view, the greatest threat emanates from Columbia as DAS — instigated by the CIA — already conspired quite a few times to kill Chavez. Alarming comments were also made by US journalist Eva Hollinger who is a renown expert in operations against Venezuela. Author of CIA in Venezuela Hose Sant Ross calls the Venezuelan authorities to be mindful of the Mossad's operations in the country.

As a rule, the efforts of Venezuelan security services to identify the Mossad agents echo with carefully orchestrated protests staged by the country's Jewish community and with «solidarity» campaigns across Latin America. Media synchronously respond by charging Chavez with antisemitism and collusion with Muslim extremism.

Actually, the theme of antisemitism recurs due to a range of causes, for example whenever the Venezuelan government takes measures to scrutinize the country's financial sphere. For decades, there used to be a number of jewelry stores in La Francia building in downtown Caracas, not far from the Venezuelan Foreign ministry, where gold and jewelry were bought and sold with practically no fiscal control. The administration's attempts to make the business take legal shape and to subject the accounting documents of the stores to the long-overdue audit were condemned by the opposition media as persecution of Jewish businessmen. Nevertheless, the announcement of the coming audit had an explosive effect: in a matter of hours La Francia building was completely abandoned. The most valuable stuff was evacuated secretly at night.

Venezuelan counterintelligence agents watched the process from a distance, occasionally taking pictures. They did not expect to learn anything new — it was known that the Mossad used La Francia to carry out its financial transactions.

7 Questions for Carlo Moiana about the current situation in Latin America

Today its my very real pleasure to publish my interview with Carlo who, since our "meeting" in August 08, became a regular commentator on this blog. Carlo is extremely well-informed about the situation in Latin America (his other specialty is Russia) and I asked him to agree to a Q&A about the current developments on this continent. It is hard to overstate the importance of Latin America in the worldwide struggle against the USraelien Empire and recently the liberation struggle has been faced with numerous ominous developments. Now is a perfect time to make a survey of the "Latin American Union" with an expert like Carlo to whom I am deeply grateful for his time and expertise.

The Saker
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The Saker: Carlo - lots of things have been happening in Latin America. The USA successfully overthrew President Zelaya of Honduras, Evo Morales was brilliantly won the General Election in Bolivia, but in Chile a multi-billionaire right wing president, Sebastian Piñera, won the presidential elections with 51.6% of the vote. The US recreated the 4th Fleet under SOUTHCOM, Colombia allowed the US to open a series of military bases and Venezuela reported regular airspace violations by US military aircraft from Colombia (a de-facto US colony) and the Dutch Antilles (a de-jure and de-facto Dutch/NATO colony). Venezuela is engaged in a major arms purchase program (from Russia) while at the same time the oil prices are putting Venezuela in a difficult economic situation. The earthquake in Haiti made it possible for the USA to essentially occupy the small country and make darn sure that the devastation would not be a pretext for the return of the legitimate President. What do you make of all these, and other, developments in Latin America? What is your assessment of the "State of the Continent", so to speak.

Carlo: Well, you already made an excellent summary of the most important events in Latin America in the last years. The region has made important progress in the last 10 years, but we should notice that the "golden years" are gone. These lasted from 2002, when the US became completely involved in Afghanistan and began preparing the war against Iraq, til 2008, when the 4th Fleet was reactivated, and it meant that South American countries could do mostly what they wanted without fearing a US intervention. Now there are more risks when implementing independent policies in the region, but I think Chavez, Morales and Correa don't fear these risks anyway.

Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean are different cases, and the US kept intervening there even during the height of the "War on Terror". I think it is extremely likely that the US participated in the coup against Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 (he was forced to board a US plane with US military personnel) and a possible manipulation of Mexican presidential elections in 2006, when a leftist candidate almost won.

The Saker: Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador seem to be forming in informal alliance of Latin American countries which clearly reject US imperialism and who want to built a new economic model. How are, in your opinion, these countries doing, how successful have they been.

Carlo: Politically, very successfully. They have a very good image throughout the world (except perhaps Cuba), even though there are many attacks from the US corporate media, and this makes unlikely a direct military attack against them. They also managed to decrease poverty and income differences (which are huge in most of the continent), and create better health and education systems - Venezuela was the second country in the region, after Cuba, to eradicate illiteracy. But there may be problems ahead. The main economical and political engine of this alliance was surely Venezuela, fuelled by very high oil prices. But now that these have decreased drastically, inflation and deficit budget are increasing in Venezuela, and this may affect Chavez's government in the parliamentary elections that will happen this year. Chavez made the big mistake of not diversifying his country's economy, which only exports oil and imports most of the industrialized products and even a great part of the food it consumes. In 2005 a program to settle unemployed urban workers in the countryside was implemented, but it will probably take some time to bring results. Anyway, despite the problems, Chavez's popularity is still very high, so probably he won't suffer very bad results in the elections.

The Saker: In contrast, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay have followed a "sort of but not really" kind of progressive course, in which the rhetoric is definitely Left-leaning, but the actual policies are not. What kind of result has that brought these governments and how do you assess their future prospects?

Carlo: You could have included Chile in the list also, at least until Piñera assumes. First, let's talk a bit about Mercosur. This was originally conceived in the 1980's as a free trade area between Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, but its role has grown, and now it has a parliament, very easy transit of people (it is not even needed a passport to travel between these countries), an increased number of associate members (Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, the last is to become a full member as soon as Paraguay approves its membership), and plans to create a common currency. Mercosur did a lot to integrate these countries, but has its share of problems, mostly the commercial disagreements between the two biggest and most industrialized members, Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay and Paraguay have less diversified economies and sometimes feel their interests are overshadowed by the biggest members, so many times they turn to the US to have an alternative market for their agricultural products. The same happens with Chile, which is mostly an exporter of raw materials: this country has been ruled by the moderate left since Pinochet left power in 1990, but remained an important political and comercial partner of the US.

Brazil and Argentina are very unique countries. In Brazil, the rightists have a very strong hold in Brazilian mass communication (mostly Globo, one of the biggest mass-media corporation in the world), and they usually support the US economical and political agenda. On the other hand, Brazil has a very diversified economy, it exports many industrialized products, like automobiles, electronics and aircrafts, and is undoubtedly the leader in South America, having by far the biggest territory, population and economy. And the political leaders, even though not left-leaning, usually pursue a more independent foreign policy. This was true for previous presidents, like centrists José Sarney (1985-1990) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003). And the independent policy got stronger (though not as much as in Venezuela and Bolivia) with Lula, the current president since 2003, who is extremely popular, and has always been at odds with the mass media.

Argentina was the most industrialized country in the region until the 1970's, but is perhaps the only country in which a de-industrialization program was conceived and applied on purpose (Russia and other former Soviet countries were largely de-industrialized in the 1990's, but it wasn't done so much on purpose, it was mostly due to the ill-conceived "reforms"), in two phases: first during the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983, and then during the hard-right presidency of Carlos Menem, from 1989 to 1999. The rightists are not so strong in this country because people felt directly the consequences of a very pro-US politics and monetarist economics, which ruined the country and caused most of the industries to close, creating huge unemployment and a sharp decrease in living standards (which, til the 1970's, were much higher than any other South American country).

The presidency of the Kirchners (first Nestor, from 2003 to 2007, and since then his wife Cristina) have been a contradictory and deceiving government. After the complete collapse of the country in 2001, Nestor Kirchner assumed in 2003 and had a quite successful presidency, restoring the economy and partially re-industrializing the country. Also, ties with Venezuela and Bolivia have increased, and some anti-US rhetorics have appeared. But Argentina kept close ties with Israel (even adhering to the US and Israelian version of the attack against the AMIA Jewish center, which was bombed in 1994, blaming Iran and Hezbollah for it). But the Kirchners have a very apathetic foreign policy, differently from Brazil and Venezuela, which are constantly seeking new allies and partners to diminish the influence of the US and Europe in the region. Cristina Kirchner last week canceled an official visit to China, because of conflicts with her vice-president. And after some years of high growth and some decrease of poverty, the economy has been deteriorating again, with high inflation, stagnation and a new rise of poverty and income differences. There has been no interest in fighting inflation, instead what the government has been doing since 2007 is interfering in the main statistical institute, trying to hide the true economical data. And with shrinking popularity, it is very probably that they won't remain in power after 2011, when there will be new presidential elections, but it is still impossible to know what will happen then. Nestor and Cristina Kirchner are probably the biggest disappointment in the region: the country seemed to be in the right path from 2003 til 2006, but since then they became more arrogant, distant from the population, made billionaire agreements with business which showed loyalty to them, and their personal fortune increased 7-fold in just one year (2008). Lula, though not as independent and progressive as Chavez, and also with some corruption scandals, at least managed to increase considerably the economy, decrease poverty to some extent, and specially strengthened Brazilian influence in the world.

The Saker: Mexico, Peru, Colombia and now, Honduras are clearly under US control and have pretty much cast their lots with the US Empire. Do you believe that these countries are now indeed firmly under US imperial control or do they still have the potential to free themselves?

Carlo: Mexico has a US ally in the presidency, Felipe Calderón, thanks to very controversial elections in 2006. And Honduras went under US control through a coup against former president Zelaya, who was a close ally of Chavez. So these two countries could have a possibility of freeing themselves, though proximity with the US make this much harder than in South America. Colombia, on the other hand, has a very rightist president who was elected through legitimate elections, and who is also very popular. But Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president, is surely the biggest threat: using "anti-terrorist" rhetorics (against the FARC guerrilla which controls a great part of Colombian territory) he even attacked Ecuadorian territory in 2007, to kill some FARC leaders who were there for negotiations to have Ecuador as a mediator in the Colombian conflict. Uribe also uses very strong rhetorics against Chavez, accusing him of supporting the "terrorists", and there are fears that a war between both countries may appear.

The Saker: How would you assess the role and importance of the OAS, in particular in comparison with ALBA and how would you assess the current status and potential of ALBA?

Carlo: The OAS is, nowadays, quite useless. The entire region opposes the US embargo against Cuba (even Canada criticizes it), nevertheless it continues to exist and there seems no possibility that it will end anytime soon (unless there is a sudden regime change in that country). There was a consensus in the OAS in the 60's and 70's, when Latin America was entirely ruled by the right, mainly by military dictators. But since democracy has returned to the region in te 80's, there is no consensus at all in the OAS. About ALBA: it is an interesting political, strategical and economical proposal. Its members are Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Vincent and Granadines. It appeared as an alternative against the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas (which, by the way, will hardly be implemented entirely, except by some countries which signed bilateral agreements with the US, like Colombia). But ALBA is still only beginning, and Mercosur is a much more consolidated agreement and includes the two biggest economies in South America, Brazil and Argentina.

The Saker: It is clear that the Latin American continent is becoming polarized and there is a lot of talk about the risk for military conflicts. How likely do you think that such conflicts really are? In particular, what do you make of the US moves of recreating the 4th Fleet and opening bases in Colombia? Do you think that a major US intervention is being prepared and, if yes, against what country? Venezuela?

Carlo: The US didn't care for South America for quite some years, when they dedicated mostly to Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, and a lot of independent movements popped in the entire region. Even Mexico almost elected a leftist president in 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Having realized this, the US is now coming back, for sure, with an increased military presence in the region. Hugo Chavez and even Fidel Castro had hopes that Obama would improve ties with their countries, the most "rebel" ones. But, as all other hopes people used to have for Obama, this one has also vanished completely. Anyway, I think a direct intervention of the US in the region, specially a military attack, is very unlikely, as it would be hugely unpopular in the entire world. But destabilization, economical wars, manipulation of elections and "revolutions for democracy" (similar to the Ukrainian and Georgian cases) are very real possibilities, and some of them may even be realities (for example, manipulation of the 2006 presidential elections in Mexico).

There are risks of a military conflict between the country with the most independent policy in South America, Venezuela, and the biggest ally of the US in the region, Colombia - two countries which, by an irony of fate, are neighbors. But I think the risk is small. The populations of both countries would be strongly against a war, and don't want any conflict. Also, I think a war between them wouldn't be good for the US, either. The last war that happened in South America was a brief border conflict in a remote jungle area between Peru and Ecuador in 1995, which lasted one month, and in 1998 both countries signed a treaty solving the territorial disputes between them.

The Saker: More generally, we can say that what is going on nowadays in Latin America is a struggle between the White, colonial, plutocracy and the native, indigenous popular movements. I am not much of a Marxist, but find that a class analysis of the politics in Latin America makes a great deal of sense. Do you agree with this view and, if yes, what do you see as the likely outcome of this 21 century "class struggle"?

Carlo: What you affirm mostly applies to Bolivia, and in a smaller degree to Argentina and Chile, where there is a division between European descendants, who belonged to the higher classes, and poorer Indian descendants. With Morales as president, Bolivia has made a great progress to integrate the Indian descendants, and now the country is officially called The Multinational State of Bolivia, with 36 native languages recognized as official, together with Spanish. But in Brazil, for example, there has been a lot of miscegenation, though usually the division was between European and African (brought as slaves) descendants. But I would say you are right in the aspect that Latin America is polarized between very poor populations, with no access to quality education and health care, minimal infrastructure and low qualification jobs, if not unemployed and going into crime, and, on the other hand, rich and medium classes who have lifestyles very similar to Western Europeans and North Americans. Latin America is not so much a poor region, it has a reasonable decree of economical development, even high in some countries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay), but the greatest tragedy in this region is the extremely unfair division of wealth and unequal access to education and health services.
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Carlo Moiana, 32, is Brazilian and has been living in Argentina since 2005. He contributed voluntarily to the Portuguese-version of the online newspaper Pravda.ru from 2003 til 2008, and since this year has been a follower of the Vineyard of the Saker blog (which he discovered during the South Ossetian war).

Obama, Is Preparing for War in South America

Interview with Eva Golinger by Mike Whitney for Information Clearing House

Mike Whitney: The US media is very critical of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He's frequently denounced as "anti-American", a "leftist strongman", and a dictator. Can you briefly summarize some of the positive social, economic and judicial changes for which Chavez is mainly responsible?

Eva Golinger: The first and foremost important achievement during the Chávez administration is the 1999 Constitution, which, although not written nor decreed by Chávez himself, was created through his vision of change for Venezuela. The 1999 Constitution was, in fact, drafted - written - by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory examples of nation building, and then was ratified through popular national referendum by 75% of Venezuelans. The 1999 Constitution is one of the most advanced in the world in the area of human rights. It guarantees the rights to housing, education, healthcare, food, indigenous lands, languages, women's rights, worker's rights, living wages and a whole host of other rights that few other countries recognize on a national level. My favorite right in the Venezuelan Constitution is the right to a dignified life. That pretty much sums up all the others. Laws to implement these rights began to surface in 2001, with land reform, oil industry redistribution, tax laws and the creation of more than a dozen social programs - called missions - dedicated to addressing the basic needs of Venezuela's poor majority. In 2003, the first missions were directed at education and healthcare. Within two years, illiteracy was eradicated in the country and Venezuela was certified by UNESCO as a nation free of illiteracy. This was done with the help of a successful Cuban literacy program called "Yo si puedo" (Yes I can). Further educational missions were created to provide free universal education from primary to doctoral levels throughout the country. Today, Venezuela's population is much more educated than before, and adults who previously had no high school education now are encouraged to not only go through a secondary school program, but also university and graduate school.

The healthcare program, called "Barrio Adentro", has not only provided preventive healthcare to all Venezuelans - many who never had access to a doctor before - but also has guaranteed universal, free access to medical attention at the most advanced levels. MRIs, heart surgery, lab work, cancer treatments, are all provided free of cost to anyone (including foreigners) in need. Some of the most modern clinics, diagnostic treatment centers and hospitals have been built in the past five years under this program, placing Venezuela at the forefront of medical technology.

Other programs providing subsidized food and consumer products (Mercal, Pdval), job training (Mission Vuelvan Caras), subsidies to poor, single mothers (Madres del Barrio), attention to indigents and drug addicts (Mission Negra Hipolita) have reduced extreme poverty by 50% and raised Venezuelans standard of living and quality of life. While nothing is perfect, these changes are extraordinary and have transformed Venezuela into a nation far different from what it looked like 10 years ago. In fact, the most important achievement that Hugo Chávez himself is directly responsible for is the level of participation in the political process. Today, millions of Venezuelans previously invisible and excluded are visible and included. Those who were always marginalized and ignored in Venezuela by prior governments today have a voice, are seen and heard, and are actively participating in the building of a new economic, political and social model in their country.

Mike Whitney: On Monday, President Chavez threw a Venezuelan judge in jail on charges of abuse of power for freeing a high-profile banker. Do you think he overstepped his authority as executive or violated the principle of separation of powers? What does this say about Chavez's resolve to fight corruption?

Eva Golinger: President Chávez did not put anyone in jail. Venezuela has an Attorney General and an independent branch of government in charge of public prosecutions. Chávez did publicly accuse the judge of corruption and violating the law because that judge overstepped her authority by releasing an individual charged with corruption and other criminal acts from detention, despite the fact that a previous court had not granted conditional freedom or bail to the suspect. And, the judge released the suspect in a very irregular way, without the presence of the prosecutor, and through a back door. The suspect then fled the country.

This is part of Venezuela's fight against corruption. Unfortunately - as in a lot of countries - corruption is deeply rooted in the culture. The struggle to eradicate corruption is probably the most difficult of all and will probably not be achieved until new generations have grown up with different values and education. In the meantime, the Chávez administration is trying hard to ensure that corrupt public officials pay the consequences. That judge, for example, engaged in an act of corruption and abuse of authority by illegally releasing a suspect and therefore was charged by the Public Prosecutor's office and will be tried. It has nothing to do with what Chávez said or didn't say, it has to do with enforcing the law.

Mike Whitney: Why is the United States building military bases in Colombia? Do they pose a threat to Chavez or the Bolivarian Revolution?

Eva Golinger: On October 30th, the US formally entered into an agreement with the Colombian government to allow US access to seven military bases in Colombia and unlimited use of Colombian territory for military operations. The agreement itself is purported to be directed at counter-narcotics operations and counter-terrorism. But a US Air Force document released earlier this year discussing the need for a stronger US military presence in Colombia revealed the true intentions behind the military agreement. The document stated that the US military presence was necessary to combat the "constant threat from anti-US governments in the region". Clearly, that is a reference to Venezuela, and probably Bolivia, maybe Ecuador. It's no secret that Washington considers the Venezuelan government anti-US, though it's not true. Venezuela is anti-imperialist, but not anti-US. The US Air Force document also stated that the Colombian bases would be used to engage in "full spectrum military operations" throughout South America, and even talked about surveillance, intelligence and reconnaisance missions, and improving the capacity of US forces to execute "expeditionary warfare" in Latin America.

Clearly, this is a threat to the peoples of Latin America and particularly those nations targeted, such as Venezuela. Most people in the US don't know about this military agreement, but it they did, they should question why their government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, is preparing for war in South America. And, in the midst of an economic crisis with millions of people in the US losing jobs and homes, why are millions of dollars being spent on military bases in Colombia? The US Congress already approved $46 million for one of the bases in Colombia. And surely more funds will be supplied in the future.

Mike Whitney: What is ALBA? Is it a viable alternative to the "free trade" blocs promoted by the US?

Eva Golinger: The Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas - Trade Agreement for the People, is a regional agreement created five years ago between Venezuela and Cuba, and now has 9 members: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica. ALBA is a trade agreement based on integration, cooperation and solidarity, contrary to US trade agreements which are based on competition and exploitation. It promotes a way of trading between nations that assures mutual benefits. For example, Venezuela sells oil to Cuba and Cuba pays with services - doctors, educators and technological experts that help to improve Venezuela's industries. Venezuela sells oil to Nicaragua and Nicaragua pays with food products, agricultural technology and aide to build Venezuela's own agricultural industry, which long ago was abandoned by prior governments only interested in the rich oil industry. ALBA seeks to not just provide economic benefits to its member nations, but also social and cultural advances. The idea is to find ways to help members develop and progress in all aspects of society. ALBA recently created a new currency, the SUCRE, which will be used as a form of exchange between member nations, eliminating the US dollar as the standard for trade.

Mike Whitney: Are US NGO's and intelligence agents still trying to foment political instability in Venezuela or have those operations ceased since the failed coup?

Eva Golinger: In fact, the funding of political groups in Venezuela, and others throughout Latin America that promote US agenda, has increased since the April 2002 coup against President Chávez. Through two principal Department of State agencies, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US government has channeled more than $50 million to opposition groups in Venezuela since 2002. The USAID/NED budget to fund groups in Venezuela in 2010 is nearly $15 million, doubled from last year's $7 million. This is a state policy of Washington, which the Obama Administration plans to amp up. They call it "democracy promotion", but it's really democracy subversion and destabilization. Funding political groups favorable to Empire, equipping them with resources, strategizing to help formulate political platforms and campaigns - all geared towards regime change - is a new form of invasion, a silent invasion. Through USAID and NED, and their "partner NGOs" and contractors, such as Freedom House, International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Pan-American Development Foundation and Development Alternatives, Inc., hundreds of political groups, parties and programs are presently being funded in Venezuela to promote regime change against the Chávez government. US taxpayer dollars are being squandered on these efforts to overthrow a democratically elected government that simply isn't convenient for Washington. Remember, Venezuela has 24% of world oil reserves. That's a lot!

Mike Whitney: How hard has Venezuela been hit by the economic crisis? Do the people understand Wall Street's role in the meltdown?

Eva Golinger: Actually, the Chávez government has taken important steps to shelter Venezuela from the financial crisis. People here in Venezuela absolutely understand Wall Street's role in the crisis and know that the US capitalist-consumerist system is principally responsible for causing the financial crisis, but also the climate crisis that the world is facing. The Venezuelan government took preventive steps against the financial crisis, such as withdrawing Venezuela's reserves from US banks two years ago, creating cushion funds to ensure social programs would not be cut and diversifying Venezuela's oil clientele so as not to be dependent solely on US clients. Recently, several banks have been nationalized by the Venezuelan government and others have been liquidated. But this was more due to the mismanagement and internal corruption within those banks. The Venezuelan government reacted quickly to take over the banks and guarantee customers' savings would not be lost. In fact, it's the first time in Venezuela's history that no customers have lost any of their money during a bank liquidation or takeover. This is part of the Chávez Administration's policy of prioritizing social needs over economic gain.

Mike Whitney: Here's an excerpt from a special weekend report by Bloomberg News:

"Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery. Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January...Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months....Only 32 percent of poll respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction, down from 40 percent who said so in September." (Bloomberg)

The frustration and disillusionment with the US political/economic system has never been greater in my lifetime. Do you think people in the United States are ready for their own Bolivarian Revolution and steps towards a more progressive, socialistic model of government?

Eva Golinger: The rise of Barack Obama neutralized a growing sentiment for profound change inside the US. Hopefully, the slowdown in US activism will only be temporary. South of the border, there is tremendous change taking place. New social, political and economic models are being built by popular grassroots movements in Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American nations that seek economic and social justice. I believe strongly that models in process, like the Bolivarian Revolution, provide inspiration and hope to those in the US and around the world that alternatives to US capitalism do exist and can be successful.

The US has a rich history of revolution. There are many groups inside the US dedicated to building a better, more humanist system. Unity and a collective vision are essential aspects of building a strong movement capable of moving forward. Every nation has its moment in history. This is the time of Latin America. But there is great hope that the people of the US will soon unite with their brothers and sisters south of the border to bring down Empire and help build a true world community based on social and economic justice for all.

Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), named “La Novia de Venezuela” by President Hugo Chávez, is a Venezuelan-American attorney from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, “The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” (2006 Olive Branch Press), “Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela” (2007, Monthly Review Press), “The Empire’s Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion”, “La Mirada del Imperio sobre el 4F: Los Documentos Desclasificados de Washington sobre la rebelión militar del 4 de febrero de 1992” and "La Agresión Permanente: USAID, NED y CIA". Since 2003, Eva, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and CUNY Law School in New York, has been investigating, analyzing and writing about US intervention in Venezuela using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about the US Government’s efforts to destabilize progressive movements in Latin America. Her first book, The Chávez Code, has been translated and published in six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian & Russian) and is presently being made into a feature film.

US 'involved in Honduras military coup'

Press TV reports:

The United States was involved in a military coup in Honduras that ousted President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, a top aide to Zelaya says.

Before heading to Costa Rica, the Honduran military plane that flew Zelaya into exile stopped to refuel at the Soto Cato air base (Palmerola) where at least 500 US troops are based, said Patricia Valle, the deputy foreign minister of Zelaya.

Palmerola is a Honduran air base that houses US troops who according to Washington conduct counter-narcotics operations and other missions in Central America.

"The United States was involved in the coup against Zelaya," Valle told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The aide however added that she did not believe the highest levels of the Obama administration were involved. (yeah, right. so what, only the local troops knew? VS)

US Embassy spokeswoman Shantel Dalton said she had no information about Valle's claim and could not comment.

International and regional efforts to reinstate Zelaya have so far failed, with some regional leaders alleging that the US - despite condemning the incident - was actually behind the June 28 military coup against Zelaya in a bid to threaten the new leftist alliance in Latin America.

"This threat doesn't scare us; on the contrary, with more force, we will be stronger," said the Bolivian President Evo Morales referring to the June 28 military coup.

Earlier, the ousted president himself criticized Washington for failing to play a bigger role in helping him to reclaim his presidency and failing to impose tougher penalties on the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti.

Meanwhile, the country's interim President Roberto Micheletti is to send a delegation to the US to try to gain inter-national recognition. The mission will meet with foreign ministers of nations belonging to the Organization of American States.

The US Empire looses yet another country, this time El Salvador

Leftist Victory in El Salvador Closes an Historic Cycle

By Marc Cooper for the Huffington Post

The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy.

With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now democratically govern much of Central America.

Funes, once a commentator for CNN's Spanish-language service, comes to power representing the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Marxist guerrilla group-turned-political -party, an organization that the U.S. government once described in terms now reserved for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.

From the late 1970's until a negotiated peace settlement in 1992, the FMLN fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed right-wing regimes. Those Salvadoran regimes engaged in horrific massacres and deployed savage death squads, taking a massive human toll. While the FMLN also perpetrated atrocities, all independent analysts agree that the overwhelming majority of the 75,000 who were killed in the war in El Salvador were victims of government-sponsored violence.

This same FMLN which now comes to power in El Salvador was once declared as the primary perpetrator of "international terrorism" by the Reagan administration who deployed hundreds of U.S. military advisors to the tiny Central American country and who quadrupled the size of the Salvadoran Army. In this all-out quest to crush the FLMN, U.S. authorities, at best, turned a blind eye to the bloody excesses of the Salvadoran regime. At worst, it encouraged them.

At the same time in history, the U.S. spent billions creating a "contra" army to destabilize and dislodge the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which had taken power in Nicaragua in 1979, overthrowing the dynastic and dictatorial rule of the Somoza family - another U.S.-backed ally.

During the entire eight years of the Reagan era, defeating both the FMLN and the FSLN were the absolute top priorities of U.S. foreign policy as the administration argued that the Texas border was a short hop from the fields of Central America and that all must be done to stop the northward march of hemispheric revolution. The sort of inflammatory rhetoric used to describe the Central American guerrilla movements was an eerie precedent for the overheated war of words against "The Axis of Evil" that would emerge earlier this decade.

The Nicaraguan Sandinistas were eventually defeated by an American-backed opposition in elections in 1990 and democratically and peacefully transferred power (something the Reaganites claimed could never happen). But the Sandinistas returned to power last year re-electing its historic leader Daniel Ortega as president. Almost twenty years of rule from the pro-U.S. coalitions that had succeeded the Sandinistas had failed to implement any meaningful social change.

The Salvadoran FMLN, meanwhile, which has acted as a parliamentary opposition party since the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords, now comes to power ending twenty years of uninterrupted rule by the country's ultra-conservative ARENA party - a political organization born directly from the death squads of the 1980's and, yes, a close ally of the U.S.

All of this raises the question of why so many lives were spent and so many billions in U.S. dollars were burned in an attempt to expunge these leftist forces twenty years ago? Wouldn't it have been possible in 1989 to find some sort of accommodation with these radical forces and not postpone the inevitable for twenty years?

In the case of Nicaragua, the year-old reborn and duly elected Sandinista administration--while far from a model of democratic ethics-- hardly poses any threat to U.S. interests. Though President Ortega, saddled with governing one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, still clothes his actions in revolutionary rhetoric, he has headed up what many think is essentially a conservative regime which recently outlawed all abortion (a move that could warm the deceased Ronald Reagan's heart). Ortega campaigned successfully for the presidency last year by quoting from scripture and has not flinched from pacting with the most conservative of political elements.

In the case of El Salvador, President-elect Funes has pledged to maintain close and cordial relations with the U.S. And while the FMLN--like the Sandinistas - clings to some of its Cold War revolutionary rhetoric, no one expects any radical moves by the incoming government. Fighting widespread poverty aggravated by the global slump and a chilling crime wave, the FMLN will have its hands full just keeping the government on keel. President-elect Funes holds distinctly moderate views and in an American context would be little more than a liberal Democrat. In any case, the FMLN can point to its recent governance of several Salvadoran cities (including until recently the capital of San Salvador) as its democratic bona fides.

The resurrection of the FMLN and the FSLN at this time in history raises a troubling irony regarding U.S. foreign policy. Yesterday we were told they were our greatest enemies. Today, now in power, they hardly garner any U.S. press coverage, let alone much attention from Washington. Likewise, the right-wing forces we bankrolled with blood and treasure and who we were told were a bulwark of Western Civilization, utterly failed in solving the basic existential questions that bedeviled their respective countries. Twenty years from now, we have to ask, what will Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria look like? Might we find ourselves peacefully co-existing with the same undefeated forces who today we proclaim our mortal enemies? Might we be better off using our soft power, our economic and diplomatic clout to force negotiation and moderation with those we perceive as irrational and radical enemies? Or do we only reach that conclusion after the dissipation of prolonged, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful armed intervention and war?


Journalist and author Marc Cooper is a Special Correspondent for The Huffington Post as well as Editorial Director of its campaign reporting project OffTheBus. A contributing editor to The Nation magazine, Marc is also a member of the faculty at the USC Annenberg School for communication and Associate Director of its Institute for Justice and Journalism. Marc can be reached at cooper@huffingtonpost.com .

Victory for Venezuela’s Socialists in Crucial Elections – November 2008

by James Petras for Venezuela Analysis

The pro-Chavez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 72% of the governorships in the November 23, 2008 elections and 58% of the popular vote, dumbfounding the predictions of most of the pro-capitalist pollsters and the vast majority of the mass media who favored the opposition.

PSUV candidates defeated incumbent opposition governors in three states (Guarico, Sucre, Aragua) and lost two states (Miranda and Tachira). The opposition retained the governorship in a tourist center (Nueva Esparta) and won in Tachira, a state bordering Colombia, Carabobo, and the oil state of Zulia, as well as scoring an upset victory in the populous state of Miranda and taking the mayoralty district of the capital, Caracas. The socialist victory was especially significant because the voter turnout of 65% exceeded all previous non-presidential elections. The prediction by the propaganda pollsters that a high turnout would favor the opposition also reflected wishful thinking.

The significance of the socialist victory is clear if we put it in a comparative historical context:

1. Few if any government parties in Europe, North or South American have retained such high levels of popular support in free and open elections.
2. The PSUV retained its high level of support in the context of several radical economic measures, including the nationalization of major cement, steel, financial and other private capitalist monopolies.
3. The Socialists won despite the 70% decline in oil prices (from $140 to $52 dollars a barrel), Venezuela’s principal source of export earnings, and largely because the government maintained most of its funding for its social programs.
4. The electorate was more selective in its voting decisions regarding Chavista candidates – rewarding candidates who performed adequately in providing government services and punishing those who ignored or were unresponsive to popular demands. While President Chavez campaigned for all the Socialist candidates, voters did not uniformly follow his lead where they had strong grievances against local Chavista incumbents, as was the case with outgoing Governor Diosdado Cabello of Miranda and the Mayor of the Capital District of Caracas. Socialist victories were mostly the result of a deliberate, class interest based vote and not simply a reflex identification with President Chavez.
5. The decisive victory of the PSUV provides the basis for confronting the deepening collapse of world capitalism with socialist measures, instead of pouring state funds to rescue bankrupt capitalist banks, commercial and manufacturing enterprises. The collapse of capitalism facilitates the socialization of most of the key economic sectors. Most Venezuelan firms are heavily indebted to the state and local banks. The Chavez government can ask the firms to repay their debts or handover the keys – in effect bringing about a painless and eminently legal transition to socialism.

The election results point to deepening polarization between the hard right and the socialist left. The centrist social-democratic ex-Chavista governors were practically wiped from the political map. The rightist winner in Miranda State, Henrique Capriles Radonsky, had tried to burn down the Cuban embassy during the failed military coup of April 2002 and the newly elected Governor of Zulia, Pablo Perez, was the hand picked candidate of the former hard-line rightwing Governor Rosales.

While the opposition controlled state governorships and municipal mayors can provide a basis to attack the national government, the economic crisis will sharply limit the amount of resources available to maintain services and will increase their dependence on the federal government. A frontal assault on the Chavez Government spending state and local funds on partisan warfare could lead to a decline of federal welfare transfers and would provoke grassroots discontent. The rightwing won on the basis of promising to improve state and city services and end corruption and favoritism. Resorting to their past practices of crony politics and extreme obstructionism could quickly cost them popular support and undermine their hopes of transforming local gains into national power. The newly elected opposition governors and mayors need the cooperation and support of the Federal Government, especially in the context of the deepening crisis, or they will lose popular support and credibility.

Conclusion

There is no point in expecting the mass media to recognize the Socialist victory. Its effort to magnify the significance of the opposition’s 40% electoral vote and their victory in 20% of the states was predictable. In the post-election period, the Socialists, no doubt, will critically evaluate the results and hopefully re-think the selection of future candidates, emphasizing job performance on local issues over and above professed loyalty to President Chavez and ‘Socialism’. The immediate and most pressing task facing the PSUV, President Chavez, the legislators and the newly elected Chavez officials is to formulate a comprehensive socio-economic strategic plan to confront the global collapse of capitalism. This is especially critical in dealing with the sharp fall in oil prices, federal revenues, and the inevitable decline in government spending. Chavez has promised to maintain all social programs even if oil prices remain at or below $50 dollars a barrel. This is clearly a positive and defensible position if the government manages to reduce its huge subsidies to the private sector and doesn’t embark on any bailout of bankrupt or nearly bankrupt private firms. While $40 billion dollars in reserves can serve as a temporary cushion, the fact remains that the government, with the backing of its majorities in the federal legislature and at the state levels, needs to make hard choices and not simply print money, run bigger deficits, devalue the currency and exacerbate the already high rates of annual inflation (31% as of November).

The only reasonable strategy is to take control of foreign trade and directly oversee the commanding heights of the productive and distributive sectors and set priorities that defend popular living standards. To counter-act bureaucratic ineptness and neutralize lazy elected officials, effective power and control must be transferred to organized workers and autonomous consumer and neighborhood councils. The recent past reveals that merely electing socialist mayors or governors is not sufficient to ensure the implementation of progressive policies and the delivery of basic services. Liberal representative government (even with elected socialists) requires at a minimum mass popular control and mass pressure to implement the hard decisions and popular priorities in the midst of a deepening and prolonged economic crisis.

Threat to Democracy in Latin America

On 10 September, the president of Bolivia declared the US ambassador to Bolivia persona non grata. On 11 September (the 35th anniversary of the military overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile) the president of Venezuela asked the US ambassador to Venezuela to leave the country.

President Hugo Chavez believed he was facing the possibility of an imminent coup d'etat in which he accused the United States administration of being involved. President Evo Morales believed that his government was facing serious destabilisation which was also being fomented by the United States. A third country, Paraguay, announced ten days previously that they had detected a conspiracy involving military officers and opposition politicians.

Latin America now faces its most serious crisis since the re-introduction of democracy at the end of the 20th century.

The plot against democracy in Venezuela centred on a conspiracy, revealed in telephone conversations between senior military officers broadcast on national television, to assassinate the democratically elected head of state, President Chavez.

In Bolivia, the separatist prefects of the five eastern and southern departments, (whose ringleader Ruben Costas, the prefect of Santa Cruz department, recently met with the US Ambassador), have begun a campaign of violence and economic sabotage designed to destabilise the democratic regime.

These events demonstrate unequivocally who defends democracy and who threatens it in Latin America today.

We are appalled by the failure of much of the international media to provide accurate and proportionate coverage of these events.

We call upon democrats throughout the world to rally to defend democracy, social progress and national independence in Latin America and to condemn these conspiracies against democracy and human rights.

We call upon the European Union and European governments to adopt a policy independent of the Bush administration in the US and unequivocally condemn all attempts to overthrow democratically elected governments in Latin America.

Signatories:

Harold Pinter
John Pilger
Bruce Kent
Victoria Brittain
Tony Benn
Ken Loach
Gordon Hutchison, Sect. Venezuela Information Centre
Jean Lambert MEP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Bill Etherington MP
Ian Gibson MP
Harry Cohen MP
Bob Abberley, Assist Gen. Sect. Unison
Gail Cartmail, Unite the Union, Assist. Gen. Sect
Les Bayliss, Unite the Union Assist Gen. Sect.
Bob Crow, Gen. Sect. RMT
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Bill Wilson MSP
Cllr. Salma Yakoob
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead
Billy Hayes, Gen. Sect. CWU
Keith Norman, Gen Sect. ASLEF
Gerry Morrissey, Gen Sect. BECTU
Bill Greenshields, President, NUT
Andy Bain, President TSSA
Doug Nicholls, Nat.Officer Unite
Geoff Shears
Michael Dereham
Kaveh Mussavi
Diana Raby
Derek Wall
Steve Cottingham
Joni McDougall, Internat Officer GMB

Reactionary Rampage: The Paramilitary Massacre in Bolivia

by Forrest Hylton for NACLA

Bolivian President Evo Morales’ expulsion of US Ambassador Phillip Goldberg on September 10 for alleged coup plotting sparked the latest diplomatic crisis in the Americas. But the diplomatic fallout has overshadowed the internal dynamics that led to the massacre of some 30 campesinos with perhaps as many as 40 more disappeared in El Porvenir, Pando, near Bolivia’s northeastern border with Brazil. The massacre coincided with the 35th anniversary of the violent overthrow of socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile.

The massacre in El Porvenir was the worst in Bolivia since right-wing President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada presided over the slaughter of more than 70 unarmed protestors in October 2003. This time, however, the violence was not orchestrated by the central government, but by regional officials: departmental prefects in league with civic committees. Administratively organized similar to France, Bolivia is divided into nine departments, each run by a prefect, while civic committees are made up of a handful of unelected, local, commercial-landed elites who preside over one of the most unequal distributions of land and wealth in the world. These public- and private-sector authorities, in turn, are allied with cypto-fascist paramilitary youth gangs armed with baseball bats, clubs, chains, guns, and in the case of the massacre at El Porvenir, official vehicles. These groups have made Bolivia’s eastern lowlands ungovernable for the Morales administration.

It may be helpful for U.S. readers to consider Bolivia’s eastern lowlands as analogous to Dixie. In the 1950s and 60s, working with governors and mayors of states and localities, white supremacist paramilitary groups terrorized African Americans. The campaign of terror was intended to preserve a status quo that benefited a tiny class of wealthy white landowners, against which the federal government—under Eisenhower and Kennedy—hesitated to act.

Imagine, though, that African Americans had comprised an overwhelming majority of the U.S. population, that Kennedy was Black, and that he had come to power on the back of serial insurrections led by African Americans. Imagine that, in response, white supremacists not only massacred Blacks, but also blockaded roads, blew up oil pipelines, and burned and looted federal government offices and installations.

The limits of the analogy with the Jim Crow south are significant, but another analogy—from a century earlier, the 1850s and 60s—transcends them. The southern secessionist movement sought to preserve the republic of slavery and extend it through the west to the Pacific. The movement mobilized a mass following and mounted an armed challenge to the federal government. Such analogies help convey the virulence of what one commentator has labeled a “revolt of the rich,” as well as the scope of the challenge posed by a wealthy white minority to a government backed by a majority of workers and campesinos of Indian descent, a government without historical precedent.

Massive support for the central government was ratified as recently as August 10 in the recall referendum in which Morales increased his overall share of the vote to 67%—up from 54% when he was elected president in late 2005. Morales improved his standing in his strongholds—the cities and countryside of the western highlands and valleys, as well as the coca-growing regions in the Yungas and the Chapare. But more importantly, he made inroads in the heart of opposition country in Beni, Pando, and Tarija, where he won an additional 20% compared to 2005. In Pando, nearly half the population voted in favor of Morales. No Bolivian president has ever has ever had such broad appeal across the nation.

On the heels of victory, Morales spoke of dialogue and reconciliation with the opposition. But opposition prefects, led by Rubén Costas from Santa Cruz, and empowered by their substantial gains in the same recall vote, announced their intention to implement the “statutes” approved in “autonomy referendums” in May and June 2008. The “autonomy referendums” were de facto voting exercises, lacking any legal standing in Bolivia, were not recognized by any foreign government, and were not overseen by international observers. Yet opposition prefects claimed a mandate to install their own police, tax collection services, and departmental legislature. The implementation of this mandate could only come about through the use of force.

Then came September 11. Death squads armed with sub-machine guns massacred unarmed Morales supporters on their way to a mass meeting in El Porvenir. The meeting had been called to discuss possible responses to increasingly violent attacks on government supporters. The central government was slow to react and hesitant when it finally did. It could not safeguard the property and lives of its supporters or defend its own offices and functionaries; it could not even offer humanitarian aid to survivors, many of whom, fearing for their lives, hid in the mountains. In a televised interview, the presidential delegate in Pando, Nancy Texeira, asked in a halting voice choked by pain and sadness, “Why doesn’t the government in La Paz do anything? We have been abandoned here.”

Over the past several years, Morales has cultivated good relations with the police and armed forces, yet he has been mostly unwilling or unable to use either since the crisis that began in August. Armed opposition forces have overwhelmed both police and military in the lowlands, thus far with impunity. The Bolivian security forces have therefore been humiliated according to their shared institutional code. And yet, as the opposition ups the ante of violence and illegality, the central government becomes increasingly reluctant to monopolize legitimate use of force, and the opposition becomes ever more brazen in persecuting Morales supporters.

This, at least, has been the dynamic in Pando. Opposition prefects in Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija have pulled back to some degree from their onslaught, and ostensibly agreed to “dialogue” with the Morales government, but the damage is done. Morales declared martial law in Pando and ordered the arrest of the departmental prefect Leopoldo Fernández on September 12. Many of Morales’ supporters will be asking why he is pursuing dialogue with opposition prefects in Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija, when they—and their supporters—could be legitimately brought to trial for their crimes.

The emergency meeting of the South American Union (Unasur) convened in by President Michelle Bachelet in Chile on September 15 is a sign of changing times in the Western hemisphere. Military dictators like Chile’s Augusto Pinchet, Bolivia’s Hugo Banzer, and their bastard offspring, such as Leopoldo Fernández—who got his start in the late 1970s as a paramilitary operative under successive dictatorships—belong to the past.

This new regional diplomacy exercised through the Organization of American States (OAS), the Rio Group, and now Unasur has successfully confronted diplomatic crises triggered by the U.S. government and its local allies on the right. Although Hugo Chávez’s expulsion of the U.S. Ambassador from Venezuela grabbed headlines in the United States, the Bolivian crisis played quite differently in the regional media. Bolivia sells most f its natural gas to Brazil and Argentina, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez denounced the separatist movement in unusually strong terms. The outcome of the Unasur meeting further proved that Morales has robust support from neighboring governments and the major inter-state organizations to which they belong

Given regional repudiation of secessionist movements in Bolivia and Morales’ overwhelming support at home, opposition forces have little chance of toppling Morales and installing a right-wing government. Furthermore, they must contend with formidable and rising resistance within their own departments, not only in the countryside but also in the cities: the northern part of Beni is controlled by indigenous groups that back the Morales government, for example, while peasant supporters of Morales fought pitched street battles against the opposition in Tarija (the capital city of the department with the same name).

The reactionary rampage in the lowlands is the result of a desperate, cornered minority that has been given considerable breathing room by a weak, vacillating central government that nevertheless enjoys massive popular backing. Since it can’t take back the central government and is isolated internationally, the opposition’s last weapon is to bleed the Morales administration of legitimacy by making the country ungovernable.

The opposition has demonstrated the central government’s inability to impose the rule of law amid public-private terror against its supporters—a spectacular triumph for any right-wing movement. Since August’s recall referendum, the arc of illegality and violence traced by the opposition has been unmistakable. While no one anticipated the scale of the massacre in El Porvenir, it was all but certain that one would occur.

What if the Bolivian government had tried to prevent this tragedy by sending in the army and riot police before any of its supporters were killed, instead of reacting weakly and hesitantly ex post facto? Will the government rise to the occasion in the future, or are there more massacres to come?

If the Morales administration is not able to guarantee the lives and property of supporters, some of them may be tempted to take justice into their own hands, in which case the media cliché of pending “civil war,” until now a mere figure of rhetoric, could become reality. Regardless of what happens in the future, there is now one more massacre to commemorate on September 11, and the dilemma signaled by Allende’s tragic example remains as daunting as ever.

Forrest Hylton is the co-author, with Sinclair Thomson, of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (Verso, 2007) and the author of Evil Hour in Colombia (Verso, 2006). He is a frequent contributor to NACLA and New Left Review.