The new documentary Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas proves that democracy can and should be more than casting a ballot every four years. This empowering film gives hopeful and concrete examples from around the Americas of people taking back the reigns of power and governing their own communities. Beyond Elections is a road map for social change, drawing from communal councils in Venezuela and social movements in Bolivia to participatory budgeting in Brazil and worker cooperatives in Argentina. The film gracefully succeeds in demonstrating that these grassroots examples of people’s power can be applied anywhere. Particularly as activists in the US face the challenges of an Obama administration and an economic crisis, this timely documentary shows that the revolution can start today right in your own living room or neighborhood.

In this interview, Michael Fox, Co-Producer of Beyond Elections, talks about how the film was created, what its aims were and what the films impact has had among viewers in the US.

Benjamin Dangl: How did you decide on the focus and message of Beyond Elections?

Michael Fox: I’ve been living and working in Latin America for many years, studying and reporting on, above all else, the experiences in participatory democracy- cooperatives, communal councils, participatory budgeting, social movements, community radio, etc… Sílvia (my wife, who grew up in Southern Brazil, and who is also Co-director of the film) and I were living in Venezuela in 2006 when the communal councils law was passed, and local communities all across the country began to come together and take on this new form of organizing. You could see how it was empowering people on an individual and local level.

In March of 2007, Sílvia and I found ourselves in Porto Alegre, Brazil — where we now live — at the same time that the 2007 Participatory Budgeting cycle was about to begin. We realized that although there have been many local videos on the experiences of participatory budgeting, cooperatives, social movements and even some on the recently-formed communal councils, there was no documentary film that tried to give both the big and local picture of these new participatory concepts of democracy across the hemisphere.

This concept is almost completely absent in the United States, and yet, it is absolutely necessarily for people to understand what is going on across Latin America, and also extremely important for activists and people in the United States to understand the failures of our own system and the lack of participation and input from everyday citizens.

We originally planned the film to focus only on participatory democracy, but quickly realized that the only people who would want to see it would be activists that are already doing this type of work. We needed to open it up to the very concept of democracy itself.

This was important to us, because time and again in the United States, pundits, elected officials, everyday folks and even journalists use the word “democracy” as an excuse to de-legitimize extremely democratic groups and governments. They say, “Venezuela is threatening democracy in the region”, and yet depending on your definition, Venezuela is perhaps the most democratic country in the region — much more so than the United States. But these realities are very subtle, and if you have never been to Venezuela, or Brazil or Bolivia or Ecuador (or if you go and only stay at the resorts and the upper-class part of town), then you’re never going to know what to believe because the mainstream media is quick to repeat the manipulations.

There are some mainstream media that actually call Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator, despite the fact that during his ten years in office there have been more than a dozen free and fair elections in Venezuela legitimately-recognized by international observers from around the world, and that he has always respected the Venezuelan Constitution and the laws. He may be a very charismatic, domineering, and powerful figure, but he’s not a dictator.

Then the real question is, “What is democracy?” And that’s where we wanted to focus our attention – giving people the space to tell their stories across the Hemisphere.

As the Portuguese Sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos says, (and you can find the link to more of his work on our website, www.beyondelections.com), the United States has created a monopoly on the definition of democracy — U.S. style hegemonic representative politics.

But Sousa Santos points out that in reality, democracy is a work in progress. As he says, “democracy without end.”

His colleague, Leonardo Avritzer, professor from Brazilian Federal University of Minas Gerais, points out in our film, “What we’ve tried to stress, is the idea that democracy is an open concept and the frontiers of democracy are always imprecise. For instance, in the 19th century you could say that it’s democratic to expand suffrage. And that’s true. It was democratic at the end of the 19th century to expand suffrage to women. Or at the beginning of the 20th century it could appear democratic to expand democracy to the countries of the global South. So the question today in the Southern countries is how to think about the democratization of things like the budget, health policies, education policies, urban policies, the democratization of life where you live.”

Of course, it’s not always easy. Especially when you are trying to make a film for not one audience, but audiences in various languages all across the Hemisphere. But that’s what we set out to do, and I think we succeeded.

BD: Could you talk a bit about the process of making your documentary?

MF: This is very important, because we wanted the making of the film to reflect as much as possible the “democracy” that we are trying to portray. We used very little narration- only about two and a half minutes worth — because we wanted people to tell the stories in their own words. We tried not to change the scenery where we were filming. We only used music from local musicians, and tried to only use it when it was part of the scene. It is also a testament to what two people can do without any external resources or really expensive equipment.

The entire budget came out of our own pockets and Silvia and I filmed nearly the entire film with our Panasonic 3CCD handycam, and edited it all on our aging G4 Powerbook.

Of course, we had more than a half a dozen individuals and groups that supported with b-roll, and either shot for us, or allowed us to use footage they had already filmed in areas that we couldn’t make it to like Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Bay Area.

The SF-based musician and sound editor, Ben Bernstein, donated his time to post-produce our audio, which came out great. The Venezuela-based film group, Panafilms was a huge support, as were hundreds of folks all across the region.

BD: What was the response among viewers during your tour in the US?

MF: We did our tour last fall from mid September straight through till two days before the 2008 Presidential elections. We drove from the East Coast to the West Coast and back, covering our costs with donations from the nearly two-dozen showings all across the U.S.. It was an amazing experience. Of course, we were organizing the tour ourselves, so our audiences varied from a couple hundred people at some Universities all the way down to a living room showing with a few people in Oklahoma City. But really, the response was the best we could have hoped for, and both Silvia and I were impressed with the diversity of opinions. Some viewers were struck by the amount of local democracy and participation in Venezuela specifically, especially with the negative press that it gets in the United States. Many viewers were impressed with the democratic experiences, and the fact that people all across the region are all participating in similar ways. Others were shocked because so little of this is happening in the U.S. Others felt the movie really put things in to a perspective that they had rarely seen or heard of before. This was the case of one gentleman in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans where we showed Beyond Elections with a projector on the side of a building. He said, “Wow, I’ve always known all of this, but I had never understood that everything was connected. I feel like I have a new perspective on things.”

Without a doubt, the biggest and only major critique was that it was, and remains, a long documentary- just under two hours, which we’ll keep in mind for our next documentary. The DVD version of the movie is divided in to chapters, which can each stand alone, so it can easily be used in university and high school classrooms according to theme. The right hand side of the website, www.beyondelections.com has dozens of links to additional information, all also sorted according to the chapter and the theme.

We tried to build the film in order to give people an understanding of the realities, and also leave them with a sense of hope. Because these experiences anywhere; be it in Latin America or the United States, in the local government, the community, the office, the school or the home can only happen if we take the steps to open the democratic spaces of participation. This is the exciting thing about the film and I believe that people could feel it. The film gave people an idea about some of the things that are being done, and some of the things that they can also do. As Sílvia often said in our after-film discussions, “the best thing you can do to support these democratic experiences abroad is to make change in your own communities, attempt to open democracy in your own community.” As a Brazilian, she knows the affect that this can have.

In our discussions after nearly all of our showings, we tried to stress this point; how we can open up these democratic experiences in our own lives. After numerous requests, we actually developed a “Beyond Elections Democracy Discussion Guide,” which attempts to help people to do just that, Bring Democracy Home. It is also available to download halfway down the right-hand side of our website, under “Beyond Elections Materials.”

And that is our job now — to spread the word about the film, and open up the space for democracy where wherever you are. As we wrote shortly after the 2008 US Presidential elections, “We can no longer leave important local, regional or national decisions in the hands of our elected representatives alone. They should be held accountable, not to their campaign contributors, but to the citizens who they are supposed to represent.” (See this link)

Please let us know if you are interested in supporting Beyond Elections, finding out more, or setting up a showing in your own community. We would love to be able to support your local efforts.

ENRIQUE (septuagenarian who picked us up on side of road in province of Esmeraldas
in northwest Ecuador): Baghdad is the capital of Iran.

Enrique was a retired bakery owner en route to the Ecuadorian coast, where he and his considerably younger wife Gina were hoping to invest Enrique’s savings in beachfront property in case the dollar proved unsustainable and the sucre was suddenly reinstalled as Ecuador’s national currency. Amelia and I offered alternate suggestions for the capital city of Iran and suggested that the installment of the Iranian rial, instead, might grant the Ecuadorian economy a greater degree of insulation in the event of subsequent global financial crises.

US Secretaries of State had also exhibited a tendency to view members of the Axis of Evil interchangeably, and Madeleine Albright’s assertion that sanctions against Iraq were worth half a million dead children was followed up by Hillary Clinton’s recommendation that Iranians consider the possibility of total obliteration. For his part, Enrique dismissed the strengthening of ties between Ecuador and Iran on the grounds that both nations produced fruit and oil and that redundant commercial relations were not worth the wrath of the US; he then addressed other instances of geographical confusion outside of Iran and Iraq, such as why Amelia and I were in the province of Esmeraldas if we were trying to get to Venezuela.

We explained that we intended to travel northeast along the Colombian coast. Enrique asked why we had failed to consult a roadmap, and informed us that the only way to cross from Esmeraldas to Colombia without dealing with guerrillas was on a boat that departed once a week. This revelation complicated our current schedule, according to which we were supposed to reach Venezuela with enough time to insert ourselves into the national health care system prior to the referendum scheduled for 15 February.

Amelia and I had based our medical endeavors on Hugo Chávez’ past offers of free eye surgery to millions of citizens of the western hemisphere, the parameters of which we were hoping could be expanded to include dental work. Direct benefits of such expansion for Chávez, we felt, would consist of heightened convictions among sectors of the international community that there was nothing inherently harmful about leaving him in power for the next several decades, one possible outcome of the February referendum. Enrique foresaw eager replications on the part of Correa of free dental programs for foreign nationals — lack of adequate Ecuadorian resources notwithstanding — and proposed reappointing the evicted Venezuelan ambassador to Israel as head of Ecuador’s new embassy in Iran in order to save on airfare. Gina meanwhile limited herself to flapping her hand in front of her husband’s face every few minutes in order to indicate that he was about to plunge over a speed bump, pothole, or chicken.

After passing the Esmeraldas oil refinery, which Enrique claimed was a likely benefactor of increased Iranian influence in the country, we stopped for seaside piña coladas at the request of Gina, who downed hers immediately and proceeded to recount for us her marriage at age 14 to a British CIA agent 30 years her senior. She appeared to have alternated between the agent and Enrique until the agent’s recent death; Enrique condemned endorsements of the Monroe Doctrine by British individuals and briefly declared patriotic support for Correa’s squandering of public funds on hospitals and roads.

Support diminished when we got back in the vehicle and resumed damaging its underside. As for Amelia’s and my Venezuelan intentions, Enrique and Gina invited us to stay at their hotel on the coast for a night before hitchhiking back east to Quito, where the Pan-American Highway would then lead us north to more navigable sections of the Colombian border. By the time we reached the hotel, the Panamericana had come to constitute a glorious Bolivarian vision linking the nations of the former Gran Colombia with no interference from unmarked mounds of asphalt. (Other potential obstacles to Bolivarianism were ignored for the moment, such as that:

1. the Panamericana was in fact a system of roads linking Argentina to Alaska.

2. the Panamanian portion of the Panamericana was separated from the rest of Gran Colombia by forests and swamps.)

Following a destructive ride to dinner that evening, Amelia and I raised the possibility of Iranian improvement projects on provincial roads. Iran’s expertise in such fields had already infiltrated the borders of other nations in which the US dollar was an encouraged unit in daily transactions; additional similarities between Ecuador and Lebanon included unique interpretations of laws of centrifugal motion on the part of motorists, although reversing down the highway appeared to be less of an institution in Ecuador.

One likely outcome of Iranian contributions to Ecuadorian roadways was the erection of roadside emblems of the Islamic Revolution, replacing current signs featuring the Energizer bunny and entreating drivers to have faith in God but to drive carefully. The substitution of symbols would in turn legitimize the inclusion of the roads in lists of wartime casualties, thereby necessitating additional improvement projects by other concerned nations, as had happened during the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. Following the war, the US had declared its intention to restore the Mdairej Bridge, the infrastructural culpability of which presumably stemmed from the fact that it helped link Beirut to Damascus; the only difference between American and Iranian postwar contributions to Lebanese roads was that Iran had not provided the weapons to destroy them in the first place.

Enrique explained that Ecuadorian infrastructure was already in danger, as Correa had advocated arms purchases from Iran in order to guard against Colombian convictions that one’s territorial sovereignty did not end at one’s borders. Along with infrastructure, other likely casualties of Correa’s recent policies included Ecuador’s foreign debt—which he had defaulted on in December—and the US air base in Manta, the lease for which was set to expire in 2009.

As for other Iranian military apprentices aside from Correa, Enrique reprimanded Hamas for the “lluvia de cohetes” (rain of rockets) that had prompted Israel’s own convictions on the nature of territorial sovereignty; he then backed down under pressure, illustrating the susceptibility of Latin America to pernicious outside influence:

ENRIQUE: There was a lluvia de cohetes.
US: There was not a lluvia de cohetes.
ENRIQUE: Yes, you’re right.
GINA (downing further piña coladas): Enrique is like my father.

Enrique was subsequently demoted to grandfather and then to devil, which was the same label Hugo Chávez had previously applied to George W. Bush. In a show of regional continuity, Correa had then proclaimed the label offensive to the devil; additional continuity was exhibited in the Ecuadorian referendum of 2008, which resulted in the passage of a new constitution potentially permitting Correa’s reelection to two more consecutive terms. (Correa had thus far refrained, however, from establishing a unique time zone for Ecuador, according to which Ecuadorian clocks would strike the half hour when the rest of the world’s clocks — minus those in Venezuela and a smattering of other locales such as Iran — struck the hour.)

Three days later Amelia and I found ourselves on the Panamericana in the southern Colombian department of Cauca, where a Colombian truck driver analyzed Álvaro Uribe’s compatibility with regional continuity and added that at least neighboring political leaders held referenda to assure their immortality. As for competing geostrategic interests in South America, the truck driver expressed the imperial tendencies of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in terms of the number of people from his village who had lost fingers, tongues, and other appendages to paramilitaries.

The Pan-American vision Amelia and I had concocted had already begun to fade prior to this point, due to certain realities such as that:

1. the Panamericana often appeared to be a euphemism for cliffs, falling rocks, and Colombians posing with shovels in one hand and receptacles for donations in the other—part of an ongoing road improvement charade.

2. the Ecuadorian Energizer bunny was superceded in Colombia by ubiquitous black four-pointed stars outlined in gold that were painted on the road to commemorate victims of traffic accidents. (Amelia and I quickly adopted billboard slogans in favor of star reduction, such as “No más estrellas en la vía.”)

3. standing on the side of the road in Colombia with one’s thumb extended was an ineffective means of travel, thanks to the seemingly pervasive assumption that female hitchhikers were accomplices in plots to deprive motorists of their savings and/or physical wellbeing.

Amelia and I had arrived to Colombia via the Tulcán-Ipiales crossing, where the goal of a Latin America without borders appeared to still be within reach given that it was entirely possible to cross from Tulcán to Ipiales without being asked a single question aside from “Qué es eso?” — in reference to the cups of yerba mate we were holding. During the several hours that then elapsed between the time we stuck out our thumbs and the time we got a ride, we were thus able to contemplate not only why the FARC was not keeping tabs on foreigners standing alone on the side of the road but also why US financing of the war on drugs had merely produced curiosity in the national beverage of Argentina.

In order to combat Colombian resistance to hitchhiking, Amelia and I eventually devised new tactics such as drawing Spanish-language stop signs on notebook paper in red marker and stationing ourselves in the middle of the street. When vehicles continued to careen by undeterred, we began approaching checkpoints belonging to the Ejército Nacional de Colombia, where — provided there were people on duty and not life-size cardboard cutouts of people on duty — we recruited mercenaries for our hitchhiking cause. The Ejército enjoyed a higher rate of success than we had at stopping vehicles, underlining the fundamental link between possession of arms and prospects for social change in Colombia, and Amelia and I were inserted onto a succession of trucks, eventually making it to the city of Cali.

In Cali we were picked up by a father-son team en route to Bogotá in two separate trucks marked TÓXICO. The truckers described their toxic cargo as products for farmers; they did not specify whether the products were meant for use by farmers on their own crops or for use on farmers and crops alike by government airplanes.

During a stop at one of the various roadside establishments bearing the name Restaurante Panamericano, Amelia’s and my geographical sensibilities were once again called into question when the truckers asked why we were going through Bogotá to reach Venezuela. The confusion, which this time stemmed from the fact that our map of Colombia featured rivers and not roads, was rectified by transferring Amelia and me to a different road leading to the city of Cúcuta on the Venezuelan border. The transfer took place at an Ejército checkpoint after the city of Ibagué in the department of Tolima, where the Ejército confirmed that the Pan-American Highway did not begin and end in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and loaded us into a truck with a driver named John. John was transporting feminine hygiene products to a city near Cúcuta, accompanied by very loud salsa music.

Our trajectory was promptly interrupted when a two-truck collision resulted in the closure of the road for 4.5 hours. John amused himself with even louder salsa music, interspersed with shouted lectures on how the distribution of the Ejército across Colombian thoroughfares brought far greater seguridad to the nation’s poor than the distribution of Venezuelan wealth brought to poor Venezuelans. Amelia and I, in turn, tried to interest John in possible Iranian contributions to the campaign against estrellas en la vía.

John rejected Iran’s ability to reduce fatality rates and suggested that Iranian road works would consist of replacing the estrellas with Hezbollah martyr posters, which he speculated might already line the streets of Caracas. Once the accident had been cleared, we continued in the direction of Venezuela, where the upcoming referendum will help determine future intersections of the Panamericana and the Pax Americana.

Ecuador

First, to deal with the nation that had first vanquished the secessionists, Ecuador . Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland Alliance), the ruling party of President Rafael Correa, had lead a movement against neo-liberalism and for a new, progressive constitution. After his initial election and two subsequent electoral victories, the stage was set for the final referendum in late September 2008 to approve or reject the product of several years of struggle. It would open up new avenues for reversing the ravages of neo-liberalism and further popular participation in the administration of state power; a critical step for the most cautious nation in the Bolivarian camp.

In opposition, including the ever present puritanical voice of the Catholic Church, were the secessionists in the important province of Guayas, led by the mayor of Guayaquil (host city of the 2006 CONFILAR gathering), Jaime Nebot. Thanks to a vibrant array of social movements, the right-wing opposition was defeated overwhelmingly, with 64% of the voters favoring the new constitution nationally and 51% in Guayas.

Since this victory, the secessionists have been largely silent. With less initial support than their Venezuelan and Bolivian counterparts, it seems that the elites have apparently decided to pursue different tactics to derail the changes sweeping Ecuador, which may very well include co-opting Correa’s “Citizen’s Revolution.” New contradictions have risen during the rule of the transitional regime that holds caretaker power until the April elections, which has brought the government into conflict with one of the most important social movements in the nation, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).

The dispute centers over the rights to mine Ecuador’s vast natural resources. The government has signed a deal with a multinational corporation based in Canada which APAIS argues that it will help the economy and increase government control, but others are uneasy about the multinational’s presence, with CONAIE in large part against any mining at all. Several large, militant demonstrations and blockades were held, which were met by police repression.¹ This friction, in addition to disputes over the minimum wage, is making it very apparent that Correa will soon be made to choose between yielding to the national bourgeois elements of the revolution or utilize the new constitution to advance in an explicitly socialist direction.

Venezuela

In Venezuela , the revolution led by Hugo Chavez is leading the charge towards the Bolivarian Socialist ideal: a united Latin America whose future is not contingent on Washington, Wall Street, or their lackeys, but the will of the people, with whom power exclusively resides. As the trajectory of Chavez and PSUV (the United Socialist Party of Venezuela) grew ever more radical in the face of the international crisis facing capitalism, contradictions reached new heights in the run-up to the November 2008 regional elections, especially in the state of Zulia, rich in oil and under the control of CONFILAR-affiliated governor Manual Rosales (recently replaced by his hand-picked successor Pablo Perez Alvarez)

Violence perpetrated on behalf of the capitalist class was the defining facet of the opposition’s strategy to build momentum after the Bolivarian forces were defeated in late 2007. Groups of quasi-political, petty-bourgeois thugs like the M13 (March 13th Movement) incited violence as they had been doing so for quite some time, but the anti-democratic forces went much further. Involving owners of some of the biggest news outlets in Venezuela and several rightist officers, a coup was planned and was apparently very close to being executed when it was uncovered on September 11th of last year. Having closed this especially viscous avenue, the election proceeded relatively normally (as normal as an election could considering the sheer quantity of US meddling), and on November 23rd, there were no major disturbances. The interpretation of the results varies widely.

First, let’s get the facts straight.² The last time Venezuela had municipal elections pro-Chavez forces won 21 of 23 governorships. However, as the socialist orientation of the Bolivarian revolution became more apparent, several parties showed their true, counter-revolutionary colors and joined the opposition. When the elections were held, PSUV and its allies controlled 16 of the governorships; after the election, they controlled 17. Roughly 60% of votes went for pro-Chavez candidates, which is the level of support the Bolivarians have consistently received throughout the course of the revolution. 4 of 5 mayoral elections went in favor of the PSUV-led Patriotic Alliance.

There are some unnerving aspects of the results. The five elections that PSUV lost were in some of the most heavily populated states, and therefore only 57% of Venezuelans have socialist governors. This is especially troubling as it suggests that the urban proletariat’s support for the revolution is dwindling, for the most part due to the government’s inability to deal with high crime rates. As for Zulia, PSUV was defeated and Rosales and his allies retained power. However, with the defeat of secessionism in Bolivia and Ecuador, there has been almost no secessionist rhetoric, perhaps due to the overall socialist victory in the elections.

The Bolivarian forces experienced a critical success in the municipal elections. On the other hand, it showed the worrying possibility of stagnation in revolutionary fervor; the only remedy for which is a deepening of people’s power. Essential to this ongoing struggle is the leadership of Hugo Chavez, whose absence would create a possibly fatal power vacuum that could be filled by the “Endogenous Right” (the small but dangerous national bourgeois tendency within PSUV).

The victory of November 23rd can only be solidified with a victory on February 15th, the date of the referendum to abolish term limits.

Bolivia

In Bolivia , the greatest battle between the Bolivarians (Evo Morales’ Movement for Socialism, MAS) and the secessionists took place. The magnitude of this confrontation was greatly exacerbated by the complex ethnic makeup of the nation, with the largely white Media Luna (Crescent Moon) region, filled with natural resources, in antagonism with the densely populated indigenous Andean areas. The first bold political moves by the mostly white oligarchy took place on May 4th, when a referendum on autonomy was held in Santa Cruz province, tainted with violence carried out by the Santa Cruz Youth Union,³ a group of fascist-inspired thugs. Seeking to strike back and assert the popularity of the leftist central government, a referendum was called on August 10th which would confirm or recall the head of state and the prefects of all nine departments in Bolivia. This turned out to be a stunning success for MAS, with two-thirds of voters preferring to retain Morales as President and recalling two secessionist prefects. This set the stage for the civil coup.

Defeated overwhelmingly in an internationally-observed, democratic referendum, the secessionist capitalists tried to violently overrule the people. Shutting down daily life, attacking important infrastructure, and massacring those in their way, a “Civil Coup,” as it came to be known, occurred in early September of last year. The people, well organized by the nation’s robust social movements, were quick to strike back. Backed up by UNASUR and eventually the Bolivian Army, massive protests threatened to lay siege to the Media Luna. Giving up some ground in negotiations (mostly having to do with term limits), the crisis ended and the referendum was scheduled for January 25th.

The campaign for the referendum was not especially dramatic widely expected to go in MAS’ favor. Most polls showed support at around 65% percent, and the only real opposition came from the private media, which launched a disinformation campaign in the tradition of their notoriously deceptive Venezuelan counterparts.⁴ In the end, over 61% voted in favor of the constitution.⁵

While this was a great victory for the oppressed people of Bolivia , the results,⁶ when looked at through a regional and demographical lens, also revealed some troubling blind spots. The Media Luna largely rejected the constitution. For example, in Santa Cruz , whose governor is the de facto leader of the secessionists, “No” won 65-35. It also became clear that MAS has been so far unable to overcome the contradiction between town and country and unite workers in both the countryside and the cities. In rural areas, the constitution was approved by over 80% of the population. This is important as it will provide a serious hindrance to secession, with the rural provinces eating away at the otherwise large portion of Bolivia within the Media Luna. However, only 52% of the urban population voted “Yes”, highlighting the need for MAS to truly become a multi-ethnic vanguard and reach out to the industrial proletariat that may not be of indigenous heritage. If it does not, then the mantle of secessionism could be taken up once again by the oligarchy.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre

The CONFILAR secessionists have, for the most part, been neutralized. This is by no means the end of the revolutionary road Latin America (and especially these three nations) has been traveling on; rather, this victory has simply opened up new avenues. All three nations must take this opportunity to radicalize: Venezuela needs to break with capitalism on a fundamental level, Morales’ must proudly proclaim his socialist beliefs, and Correa must break out of the constrictive mold of social democracy. The bold rebellions against neo-liberalism have yet again been successfully defended, and the people must ceaselessly fight for the complete annihilation of capitalism and its resulting social ills, the only way to guarantee sovereignty and democracy.

1. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1659/1/
2. http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3990
3. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1270/31/
4. Tinyurl
5. www.cne.org.bo/ResultadosRNC2009/
6. Tinyurl

Chavez recounted phone conversations he had during the night of March 1st with Ecuador President Rafael Correa, whose land had just been invaded by Colombian troops, pilots and police. Their objective was not Ecuador itself but an encampment of FARC guerrillas located two kilometers inside northern Ecuador.

Raul Reyes, FARC’s second in command, and twenty-four other guerrillas were murdered, many in cold blood. Among those murdered was Olga Marin, Reyes companion and the daughter of Manuel Marulanda, FARC’s founder and leader for 40 years. The guerrillas had not been able to resist, because they were asleep, later found in their underwear, when attacked by planes from the US base Manta in Ecuador, which dropped five “smart bombs”, followed by helicopters flying in from the south of Colombia. Several of them were shot in cold blood directly in the back of the head or face as was the case with Reyes and Julián Conrado, the only cadavers taken to Colombia in a police helicopter. The other persons were found by Ecuadoran troops in the coming hours. Three wounded persons, who were able to hide, were found and gave eye-witness testimony to their rescuers and to an OAS (Organization of American States) investigation team, which later came to the area. Among the dead and wounded were five Mexican students, who were not guerrillas.

President Chavez told the nation that Uribe had lied about the operation to Correa, whom he telephoned after its “success”, as Uribe viewed the blood bath.

“Uribe is a lying lackey of the US Empire, a mafiosa, a criminal supporting para-militarist assassins and a narco-trafficker. He doesn’t want peace.”

[Uribe did nothing to aid the process of returning four captured Colombian congresspersons, which FARC had unilaterally released just two days before this horrible massacre.]

“Uribe operates in the style of Israel, converting Colombia into the key arm of US interests in Latin America just as Israel is in the Middle East.”

“We won’t tolerate this and we must protect our borders against this satellite. Correa has broken diplomatic relations and moved troops to the border. Correa can count on us. Generals, send ten battalions with tanks and aircraft to our border with Colombia!”

In the upcoming investigations by Ecuador, Venezuela and OAS we learned that Operation Phoenix, as the Uribe-US plan was named, used technology not possessed by any Latin America country and which had disclosed where Reyes group was hiding. Army and police units from Colombia cooperated with Ranger army units of the United States operating out of its Manta base. Manta had been used during eight years against Colombian peasants and their armed forces, FARC, as part of the billion dollar-a-year Plan Colombia extermination operation. At least 50,000 Colombians—mostly civilians—had been killed in Plan Colombia’s eight-year operation. And 300,000 had been forced to flee their homes into the welcoming arms of Venezuela. They live there with the same rights and benefits as citizens, just as do all three million Colombian immigrants.

President Correa declared that he will not renew the Manta contract at the end of 2008.

In these days, I witnessed intense concern in La Victoria about a possible war, a subject that embraced everyone across the nation. Just after Chavez’ announcement of cutting diplomatic relations with Colombia and sending troops to the border, I heard my next door neighbors yelling, “Who wants war? Chavez that’s who. It was Ecuador that Uribe violated not Venezuela. Then why mess in it?”

My neighbor across the Plaza Ricaurte park told me, “I support Chavez 100%. I’m ready to die for the fatherland. But I’m tired, tired of the oligarchy, the corruption within the Chavez government, tired of all the waiting. I want it all to end. It’d be better to declare war and get it over with.”

This park contained many opinions. There were those who applauded Chavez’ action and hoped it would prevent Bush-Uribe from testing Venezuela’s will to defend its revolution by sending provocative bullets across the long border, not possible to close off entirely. Then there were the young men with fancy cars and motor cycles who could care less about anything else. As one neighbor described them, “They play with life and wait for capitalism to return in full.”

Both Chavez and Correa had been patient, too patient many militant revolutionaries maintained, with Bush-Uribe provocations. Chavez reminded us of occasions when Colombian soldiers and para-militarists had been captured on Venezuelan soil. They were preparing sabotage and murder, hoping to start a war. Para-militarists sold drugs and pistols to young inane gangsters, hoping to destabilize the government. After some arrests and a short time in prison, Chavez had agreed with Uribe to return them to Colombia. Correa told the world that he had been patient with Uribe too. His troops has found several small FARC camps and turned them away. Colombian soldiers had crossed into Ecuador five times between February 2007 and January 2008. And now this massacre.

During this tense week, Uribe’s generals claimed they had found three computers among Reyes possessions. Miraculously, they were the only material left untouched by the “smart bombs”, and they allegedly showed that Chavez had financed FARC with $30 million. They also claimed that Correa’s people were cooperating and trading with FARC. Correa answered that his emissaries, and Chavez’, were on the verge of accomplishing final negotiations for the number one held prisoner, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. Chavez had served as the principle international negotiator in the two prisoner releases by FARC. These seven released prisoners, and Betancourt’s mother, all praised Chavez for his humanitarian efforts on television.

Meanwhile in Bogota, the cadaver of Reyes was placed on public display. A newspaper photograph showed a boy hitting his hanging body with a bat while his father stood proudly behind him.

VEA newspaper ran a photograph of a Coca-Cola worker in Venezuela wearing a t-shirt with the words: Don’t Drink Coca-Cola. Although there is no grassroots boycott of Coca-Cola in Venezuela, as there is in Colombia, India, USA, UK and other lands, there is general knowledge that Coca-Cola companies inside Colombia pay death squads to murder workers who try to organize a union, struggling for decent conditions. In fact, Coca-Cola is on trial in Miami for doing just that: murder. Chiquita banana had to pay a $25 million fine for hiring death squads to murder its workers in Colombia. No one went to prison, of course. And Bush-Uribe talk of democracy, accusing Chavez and Correa of financing and cooperating FARC, which the Coca-Cola/Chiquita bosses and their politicians contend are “terrorists.” The devil claims God is the devil.

It is an Alice in Wonderland world we live in!

Just as the Venezuelan troops had settled in at the border, Chavez ordered them home. A week had gone by since the massacre in Ecuador. OAS had met about the conflict and so had the 20-nation member Rio Group. Even before OAS’ investigation was completed, these bodies expressed unanimous agreement that what Uribe did was wrong. They simply needed to read aloud what is written in all the agreements of these bodies, the United Nations and all other international agreements. It is unlawful for any nation to invade another without the agreement of international bodies, namely the UN or OAS, or if not acting in defense of an armed attack by forces of another government.

Uribe said he was sorry and wouldn’t do it again.

Chavez called this a great victory for all of Latin America and a great defeat for the US Empire. Fidel did the same in his written reflections. Correa was a bit less optimistic and somewhat taken aback when he saw Chavez embrace the “lying, murderous, criminal…” and then call Uribe to be his “brother” and “friend” a week later.

As the media was proclaiming that calm had returned, another leader of FARC was murdered, this time by a compatriot hired by the Colombian army. Pablo Montova turned on his leader, Iván Rios, killing him and his female companion and then cutting off one of Rios’ hands, which he turned over to the army as proof of his ugly deed. He was to receive $2.6 million for these murders, and the security, according to him, that the army would not murder him and his female companion. Although the death penalty is legally prohibited in Colombia, the government fulfilled its promise of paying the hired killer.

This occurred at the same time that unionists in Colombia and progressives conducted a peaceful march in Bogotá. They sought an end to the internal war and the corrupt Uribe government. Dozens of Uribe’s staff and ministers, connected to narco cartels and para-militarists, had been condemned and even sentenced to prison by a sometimes independent attorney general and Supreme Court. Within three days of this march, three unionist leaders of the protest were murdered, and one had been tortured prior to death.

In the middle of March, Marulanda died of a heart attack. FARC did not announce this, however, for two months. Half of FARC’s seven-man leadership was now dead. It had lost several thousands of its 17-20,000

The brave of FARC is everyone

It is an Alice in Wonderland world we live in!

Read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Bolivia

In Bolivia, the secessionists are well organized and more powerful than their Venezuelan and Ecuadorian counterparts. Emboldened by CONFILAR and after sufficient agitation, the largely white ruling class of this Andean nation had an epiphany: that autonomy was the only way to escape Morales’ redistribution of wealth. The first aggressive action taken by the oligarchy was on May 4th with the illegal autonomy referendum held in Santa Cruz Department. Morales called for abstention in this quasi-consultation plagued with violence perpetrated by the Santa Cruz Youth Union, and, if abstentions are counted as no votes, the voting was split almost exactly down the middle.

This set the stage for the August 10th recall referendum for the President, Vice President, and all of the departmental prefects, called with support from both the governing MAS (Movement for Socialism) and the opposition. While some counter-revolutionaries thought that this would strengthen their position, the referendum did just the opposite. The people showed tremendous support for Morales, who garnered over 67% of the vote. In addition to this socialist victory, the secessionist prefects of the Cochabamba and La Paz departments were overwhelmingly voted out of office. After this great outpouring of popular support, the long-awaited constitutional referendum was called for December 7th, as well as the elections for those who would replace the recalled prefects. Having been trounced in the arena of democracy and faced with the threats of a very progressive constitution and that, in all likelihood, the secessionist prefects will find themselves in the minority, the oligarchy turned to violence.

The fighting began when “strikes” enforced by the Santa Cruz Youth Union were called in the Media Luna (as the departments ruled by the secessionists are called); which coincided with the seizure or vandalizing of government institutions and later, on September 10th, an attack on an important pipeline; truly a “civil coup.” This attack finally prompted Morales to deploy the military to defend vital infrastructure, and the violence reached its peak on September 11th when 16 pro-Morales peasants were massacred by groups connected to prefect Leopoldo Fernandez, who was later arrested. Faced with insurmountable odds, the oligarchs agreed to negotiate and the situation de-escalated after September 12th when negotiations began. These will almost certainly turn out favorably for the popular MAS government, as the powerful social movements of Bolivia had provided muscle were Morales was forced to be soft and will continue their blockade of the rebellious provinces until the referendum on the new constitution is secure. This referendum will (seeing the broad support for Morales during the crisis and in the recall referendum) almost certainly pass and consolidate and invigorate the socialist transformation taking place.

Ecuador

In Ecuador, the leftist government of Rafael Correa is the product of years of struggle. From the revolution that overthrew Lucio Gutierrez, who betrayed the people with his capitulation to neo-liberalism, to the Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland Alliance, Correa’s party) campaign to defeat the notorious capitalist Alvaro Noboa for the presidency, the Ecuadorian people have shown that exploitation is not acceptable. To that end, Correa’s APAIS administration (although one might stop short of calling the government socialist) has pursued an anti-imperialist line primarily via the drafting of a new constitution.

Within three months of Correa’s taking office, a referendum was held on whether or not to proceed with the restructuring of the apparatus of state power. Overwhelmingly, the people approved by a margin of over 4 to 1. This was, naturally, followed by an election for the constituent assembly that would draft the new constitution. Held less than six months later, APAIS crushed the other parties, garnering nearly 70% of the vote. A few months of hard work later a new framework for a just, independent Ecuador was laid, ensuring social security, healthcare, education, the end of foreign military presence, and regional solidarity. All that was left was to rally the people for a final vote, the September 28th constitutional referendum. And this is when our friends from CONFILAR come in.

Jaime Nebot, the mayor of Guayaquil and therefore host of CONFILAR, became the de facto leader of the opposition to the constitution alongside the Catholic Church, which played a major role in a well coordinated misinformation campaign via a disgusting spectacle of manipulation playing to homophobic and misogynistic tendencies the Church itself instilled in some Ecuadorians. Opposing them were the social movements, toughened by the struggle against the corrupt governments of the past, carrying out an even more efficient mobilization campaign emphasizing the history-making significance of this consultation.

When September 28th finally rolled around, there was, in reality, two elections going on. One in Ecuador as a whole, determining the fate of the progressive constitution, and another in Guayas province, where the level of approval for the constitution would determine whether or not there was any future for the CONFILAR strategy. In both contests, the secessionists were defeated, with 64% support nationally and 51% support in Guayas. To give a final dose of legitimacy to the new order, a general election will be held in a few months, and from there on it’s easy to see Correa radicalizing just as Chavez did after the passing of Venezuela’s progressive, 1999 constitution. Although this may be too bold, at present it seems that the oligarchy will have to de-emphasize its secessionist tactics.

Venezuela

Certainly more developed than the Ecuadorian secessionists, but less so than their Bolivian counterparts, a CONFILAR-originated quasi-movement for autonomy has reared its head in the oil-rich state of Zulia, whose governor, Manuel Rosales, is a long time opponent of Chavez and was complicit in the 2002 coup attempt. In Venezuela, the opposition forces (which includes the media in its near entirety) are arguably the most radical and definitely the most hardened and manipulative. With tremendous popular support, Hugo Chavez and PSUV, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (in one incarnation or another), have won every election they faced with the exception of the most recent, the 2007 constitutional referendum. Through a combination of insufficient agitation by the Bolivarian forces and the vehement anti-Chavez attitude of the media, the constitution was defeated. The oligarchs used this momentum to attempt to construct a two-pronged counter-revolution: electoral organizing (backed by US government slush funds like USAID) and violence (carried out by thugs or reactionary officers).

The electoral organizing (if spending NED grants can be considered organizing) is focused on the November 23rd regional elections. Currently, 21 of the 23 states have Bolivarian governors. However, up to seven of these positions could be lost, and especially critical is control of the governorship Zulia. The construction of socialism could be totally put on hold or even begin to reverse should the oligarchy be able to multiply its momentum. On the other hand, should PSUV be able to hold on to the vast majority of states, the weaknesses of the revolution could be rectified.

Undeniably, Chavez and PSUV have vast popular support, so while the regional elections may strengthen the opposition, it will certainly not be an outright victory. As such, violence is a key tactic of the desperate counter-revolutionaries. At first, this was confined to bands of thugs, most notable of these is the March 13th Movement (M13). For example, a little over two months ago M13 (consistent with their actions before the 2007 referendum) instigated a riot in the city of Merida. However, these paramilitary actions have proved insufficient. No, the oligarchy has no other alternative than to take the route of Pinochet, Banzer, and Stroessner.

On September 11th, the 35th anniversary of Pinochet’s seizure of power from the Allende government, it was announced that a coup was being planned involving officers both presently and formerly serving as well as media tycoons Miguel Henrique Otero and Alberto Federico Ravell, heads of El Nacional newspaper and Globovision channel, respectively. Using an F-16, the plotters would bomb Miraflores (the presidential palace) or shoot down Chavez’s plane with an AT-4 rocket launcher. Luckily, yet another usurpation of state power was averted through excellent intelligence gathering. However, even if a putsch had occurred, the people would have, just like they’ve done before, came out in force to re-establish democracy and sovereignty. It’s essential that the popular support that would drive such an action is maintained, and this means reaffirming the Bolivarian government’s dedication to entirely removing capitalism, possible only with a victory on November 23rd.

From the tremendous show of support for the socialist government in Bolivia, to the successful resistance against a reactionary civil coup, the establishment of a starting point for radical change in Ecuador, and courageous resistance against imperialist and capitalist influence in Venezuela, we may very well be seeing the defining moment in the fight for South American liberation. However, we should be careful not to assume a triumphant attitude in the light of these recent victories. Anti-imperialists of all nations (especially in the United States) should fight on and redouble their efforts to not only achieve national sovereignty by fighting Western (or more accurately, Northern) lackeys in the two elections to come but to consolidate this freedom via Latin American integration along socialist lines.

The liberal approach emphasizes ‘universal responsibility” for the destruction of the environment – rich and poor, mining companies and miners, factory owners and factory workers, auto manufacturers and drivers, governments and citizens, real estate speculators and slum dwellers. The liberal ecologists claim the negative consequences adversely affect everyone: “We all suffer from the destruction of the environment.”

The liberal approach to the development of Indian movements and politics follows a similar approach, using the non-class categories of ‘community’, ‘culture’ and religion, to discuss Indian social structure as a ‘homogeneous’ social phenomenon.

The Marxist approach to ecological destruction and Indian social movements focuses on the inequality of power and control over the means of production and destruction, unequal exposure to contamination in the workplace and neighborhoods, inequality in access to land and use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides and other contaminants and unequal access to state power. Marxists focus on the class structure, class inequalities and the class nature of the environmental disasters which take place. Marxists view ethnic and contemporary Indian movements, policies, leadership and relationships in relationship to the larger class system through the lens of class analysis. Marxists do not accept the liberal rhetoric and indigenous identity or ‘indigenista’ ideological assumption that Indian society is made up of homogeneous ‘communities’ bound together by harmonious undifferentiated ethnic interests without class divisions and conflicting class interests. Today, even more than in the past, the deepening penetration of capitalist expansion and market relations, capitalist and socialist ideology and political parties, imperialist funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by US and European governments and the World Bank, have created class-polarized and divided Indian societies. ‘Communalism’ and communitarian ideology is the ideology of the rising Indian economic and political petit bourgeoisie articulated to subordinate the impoverished Indian peasantry to their struggle to share power with the established ‘European’ or mestizo bourgeoisie.

Case Studies

To demonstrate the validity and relevance of the class analysis approach to ecology and the Indian movements, it is essential to empirically examine concrete contemporary cases of major environmental issues and existing Indian movements.

We have chosen several cases of environmental disasters, which have large-scale, long-term negative impacts, which are familiar to world public opinion. These include: Fish depletion in the waters off Eastern Canada, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the world wide food crises and global warming.

Fish Depletion

Maritime scientists have published numerous studies documenting the catastrophic decline in fish stocks, the destruction of livelihood of millions of small-scale fishermen and the loss of maritime high protein food for tens of millions of poor people. The causes, according to liberal ecologists are ‘over-fishing’, ‘contamination; and state subsidies – without identifying the class character of those responsible.

Over-fishing is the result of the concentration and centralization of the fishing industry in large-scale capitalist enterprises, which operate massive factory ships with 3-mile drag nets that drag the bottom of the sea, indiscriminately destroying fish habitats and pulling in undersize fish thereby undermining the reproductive process.

Contamination of fishing waters is the result of large-scale fish farms, the massive use of chemical fertilizers and the run-off of animal waste which destroy the delicately balanced coastal water ecology, as well as oil spills by big petroleum and shipping companies.

State subsidies financed the growth of large fleets with high technology fishing gear, while state de-regulation policies, favored big fishing companies over the interests of the small local artisan fisherfolk. In summary, the world-wide depletion of fishing stock is the result of environmental conditions induced by the operation of the capitalist system – namely the concentration of fishing industry in a powerful capitalist class, subsidized and promoted the state under capitalist control.

Hurricane Katrina

In August 2006 Hurricane Katrina hurled winds of over 100 miles an hour through the Caribbean, hitting both Cuba and the Southern Gulf Coast of the United States, especially Louisiana and Mississippi. The consequences for the people of Cuba and those of the two southern states were vastly different: Several thousand poor, mostly black, United States citizens were killed, while in Cuba there were fewer than ten deaths. The difference in mortality was a product of the different social systems: Socialist Cuba has a highly organized and effective, centrally planned civil defense system which puts the highest priority in diagnosing, anticipating and mobilizing tens of thousands of civilian and military personnel and sending thousands of public buses and trucks to transport people and their farm animals to safety. The country is mobilized to prevent even a single Cuban death. In contrast, the capitalist United States government placed higher priority in creating a repressive political apparatus (Homeland Security) which failed to anticipate the impact of the storm, abandoned hundreds of thousands of low income residents to the raging storm surge and flood waters and provided inadequate mobilization of transport, water supplies and food for the destitute. The results were catastrophic. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Cuba gave highest priority to rebuilding the homes of the displaced people; whereas in the US, the capitalist state displaced the poor and rebuilt the urban landscape to suit the interests of multi-millionaire real estate speculators, commercial interests and the tourist elite.

While the hurricane was a ‘natural’ disaster, the unprecedented destruction in New Orleans was a consequence of the capitalist priorities in political repression (Homeland Security and the Patriot Act) over basic civil defense, commercial expansion and speculation over environmental safeguards and individual forced to survive on their own over state planning.

Food Crisis

Liberal ecologists argue that natural disasters, excess state intervention in the market and over exploitation of land by peasants and farmers are responsible for the ‘food crisis’, defined as ‘excess demand over supply’ leading to rising prices. Marxists argue that ‘free market’ policies have resulted in the bankruptcy of millions of food producing peasants and farmers, the concentration of landownership in the hands of giant agro-business consortiums which specialize in exports of staples, thus decreasing the production and increasing the price of food for local popular consumption.

Neoliberalism has accelerated the normal capitalist process of concentration and centralization of the means of agricultural production (land, fertilizers, marketing, farm machinery); the profit motive has led to agro-business converting land use from food for the people to the production of agricultural commodities (sugar and corn) for automobile fuel (ethanol).

The conversion of food to ethanol has led to a massive invasion of finance capital into agriculture, and the demise and destitution of peasants and small farmers, lowering the purchasing power of food and creating large-scale hunger.

The over-exploitation of land is the result of the expansion of agro-exporters and their displacement of peasants into precarious laborers. The high price of agricultural inputs and the low income of peasants producing in low production regions means that small producers have few financial resources to rejuvenate the productivity of their land. The ‘food crisis’ is a direct consequence of the expansion of capitalist agriculture which determined what is produced (supply), the target market (demand) and the cost of reproduction (the price of inputs/profits).

Global Warming

Liberal ecologists blame ‘human consumption’ of fossil fuel, the failure of state regulation, the private transport (automobiles) and manufacturing industries.

Class analysis provides a more comprehensive and specific diagnosis. In the first place, it was the capitalist owners of the auto-industry in control of state transport policy which destroyed public transportation, eliminating subsidies and lowering budgetary funding for electric light rail while channeling billions of dollars into highways, bridges and road maintenance for private vehicles. The massive increase in CO2 was a result of the power of privately owned automobile industry over publicly owned railroads. The widespread use of highly contaminating private auto was a result of advertising which promoted the purchase of big gas-guzzling automobiles depicting them as status symbols. The bigger the car, the higher the profit, the greater the contamination.

Private and public manufacturers who operate on the market principle of higher production, lower costs and higher returns have been the driving force of industrial pollution. It is not manufacturing per se that leads to pollution; technology, productive and organizational processes exist which can substantially reduce or eliminate pollution, but they increase immediate costs and lower profit. State policies, which deregulate control over pollution levels, are the result of capitalist power. The problem of climate warmth is not the result of individual car owners or workers in polluting factories. The responsibility of pollution and high CO2 levels leading to climate change rests in the capitalist class and its state, which own and ‘regulate’ the means of pollution.

Indian Movement in Class Perspective

Liberal writers on ‘Indian movements’ and ‘Indian communities’ wrongfully conceptualize them as homogeneous social phenomena, understating the degree of capitalist penetration, class differentiation and subsequent political polarization. Liberal writers adopt a simplistic bi-polar view in which homogeneous classless ‘Indian communities’ are compared to an undifferentiated ‘white society’. On the basis of this classless conception, liberals argue in favor of so-called ‘communitarian’ politics in which micro-projects, based on class collaboration in which religion and tradition are treated as ‘bonds’ that link upwardly mobile petit bourgeois Indian political and business leaders to the mass of landless and impoverished subsistence peasants.

The Marxist analysis is based on several key theoretical assumptions and historical cases backed by empirical observations.

Capitalist penetration of Indian communities deepened pre-existing social differences, leading to the formation of multi-class society. A small group of Indians become ‘intermediaries’ between the masses of poor Indians and the local, regional, national and international markets. These intermediaries, speaking in the name of the ‘Indian communities’, in fact, became the owners of transport (trucks), local commercial buyers and sellers, moneylenders, commercial farmers. Rather than sending their children to public schools taught in regional indigenous languages, their children went to private schools taught in Spanish in order to become professionals, politicians, lawyers and heads of NGOs specializing in ‘indigenous’ issues and linked to foreign foundations, government agencies and the World Bank.

These linkages between the upwardly mobile Indian petit bourgeois with national and international capital were not without tension, conflict and competition. Two sets of conflict emerged: 1) At one level between the mass of impoverished Indians exploited by agro-business through violent dispossession of communal/individual lands, exploitation of semi-serf (and even semi-slave) and wage labor and repression by the capitalist state; 2) at another level, the rising Indian petit bourgeois competed and confronted the mestizo/European national and international ruling class, which imposed limits on their access to economic resources, finance, credit, markets and land and limited and marginalized their political role. The goal of the bourgeois Indian elite was to share power with the ‘white’ oligarchy, not to overthrow them. Evo Morales provided the exact formula for class collaboration by declaring his intention to interact with the oligarchs as ‘partners not bosses’. To open the doors to social mobility and sharing of wealth and power, the marginalized petit bourgeois Indian minority needed organized mass power to threaten, pressure and force political negotiations with the intransigent ruling class. The politics of the Indian social movements reflect the dual class basis of Indian society: a revolutionary impoverished peasant mass base and an electoral-reformist petit bourgeois leadership. Political influence and government office had two different meanings for each: For the Indian masses it meant a comprehensive integral land reform, public ownership on banking, trade and strategic economic sectors; for the petit bourgeois Indian it meant collaboration with the ‘productive’ agro-business sector and distribution of marginal, less fertile public lands, profit sharing between the Indian/Mestizo elite in the private sector and foreign-owned extractive sectors.

The class differentiation of Indian society and the overt and covert conflicting interests became clearer with the electoral advances of the Indian parties in Ecuador and Bolivia.

Ecuador: 2000-2003

In 2000, the Ecuadorian Indian movement (CONAIE) played a leading role in the overthrow of the bourgeois government of Jamil Mahuad. Three years later, in 2003, the Indian political party, Pachacuti, together with CONAIE formed an electoral alliance with a retired military officer, Lucio Gutierrez, and won the presidency. The ascendant Indian petit bourgeois leaders gained several ministries and many lesser positions under Gutierrez, including the Foreign Ministry and Agriculture. Within a year, the Gutierrez regime proceeded to privatize the oil fields, repress labor, defend and extend support to large agro-business exporters, foreign MNCs and banks and sign an intrusive security pact with the US. Pachacuti leaders in the government were forced to resign from office; CONAIE lost significant membership and was severely demoralized and fragmented. The mass of poor Indians felt betrayed by the political deals their petit-bourgeois leaders had made with the oligarchs.

Bolivia: 2003-2005

Between 2003-2005 the Indian movement formed with factory workers, unemployed and informal workers of the city slums and militant miners to overthrow two bourgeois regimes: Sanchez de Losada (2003) and Carlos Mesa (June 2005). In both uprisings the petit bourgeois leadership of the Indian-led electoral part, MAS, or ‘Movement to Socialism’, played no role in the mass struggle. Instead they intervened to block a revolutionary transformation, imposing a neoliberal substitute (Carlos Mesa) in 2003 and a caretaker bourgeois regime (Rodriguez) in July 2005. Evo Morales, his party MAS and his followers in the Indian social movements channeled most activity into electoral politics culminating in his successful electoral campaign for the presidency. The social class, property and income inequalities between the ‘white European’ ruling class and the Indian majority in Bolivia has remained intact. What did change was the social inequalities within the Indian society as a whole new strata of former Indian social movement (NGO) leaders received second level government positions and subsidies for restraining and channeling their followers into supporting the Morales government. Numerous petit bourgeois Indian/mestizo lower level professionals occupied government offices and rose in wealth and influence. The mass of Indian peasants were demobilized from the streets and re-mobilized according to the tactical needs of the Morales’ regime as it negotiated with the big bourgeoisie. Morales’ accommodation of the traditional ruling class led to their rapid recovery of power following the insurrection of May/June 2005. It did not lead to an agreement with the ruling class to ‘share power’ with the ‘Indian President’ Morales. The issue was not inequality of land ownership, which was never questioned by the governing MAS regime: 100 ‘European’ families still owned 80% of the arable land after 3 years of Morales’ ‘Indian presidency’. The question was one of sharing political power, state revenues and a recognition of co-government between the ‘flexible’ (often bent over) government of an Indian petit bourgeois leader and the ‘intransigent’ (thoroughly racist and brutal) European big bourgeoisie. It became a struggle between a petit-bourgeois Indian ‘liberal democracy’ and an oligarchic ‘fascist’ European regional government and middle class social movements.

Faced with fascist threats to eliminate political freedoms, liberal racial equality (constitutional citizen rights), access to individual social mobility and local autonomy and right to collective organization, the Indian peasants and working class masses overwhelmingly backed the liberal Morales regime against the advance of the fascist ruling oligarchs. As a result, the real divergence of class interests between the property-less and impoverished Indian masses and the upwardly mobile pro-capitalist Indian petit bourgeois professionals and leaders were subordinated to the common struggle against the racially exclusive fascist big capitalist regional power bloc.

Clearly the case studies of Ecuador and Bolivia demonstrate that ‘communitarianism’ is an ideology of the rising Indian petit bourgeois eager to undermine an intensive intra-Indian class struggle. The defining reality of Indian society in Bolivia and Ecuador is that it is class divided – one that poses a continual tension and conflict between a petit bourgeoisie struggling with the larger capitalist society to join the elite and share power and a mass of impoverished Indians without propert or influence over state policy. In summary: There are two class struggles, which are intertwined, one led by the petit bourgeois Indian professionals to consolidate a liberal democracy backed by the masses mystified by religious and cultural symbolism and another led by independent, downwardly mobile, class conscious Indian workers and peasants against both the European ruling class and their own Indian petit bourgeois leaders.

Conclusion

Our discussion suggests that both the ecology and Indian movements are not ideologically or socially homogeneous. Underneath the veneer of common goals against ecological destruction and exploitation of indigenous peoples are two diametrically contrasting ideologies – liberalism and Marxism – based on competing and conflicting social interests and political strategies. Marxist class analysis highlights the centrality of property ownership, specifically the class nature of the ownership of the means of production and control over state power as central to understanding the destruction of the environment and the complex politics of Indian society. We reject the notion of a ‘classless’ approach promoted by liberal ecologists and ideologues of Indian communitarianism as intellectually limiting and politically disastrous. These cannot create a sustainable environment and cannot provide the material basis for the social liberation of the poor and Indian majorities in Latin America. Ecology and Indian liberation are essentially and inextricable part of the class struggle.

The new constitution gives nature the “right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution” and mandates that the government take “precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.”

“I think a lot of eyes will be on Ecuador this weekend” said Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

Margil and other members of the Defense Fund were invited as a result of their environmental litigation and legislative work with municipalities in the United States. They made several trips to Montecristi over the last year where they worked with members of Ecuador’s constitutional assembly on drafting legally enforceable Rights of Nature, which Margil believes marks a watershed in the trajectory of environmental law.

Dr. Mario Melo, a lawyer specializing in Environmental Law and Human Rights and an advisor to Fundación Pachamama-Ecuador, said that the new constitution redefines people’s relationship with nature by asserting that nature is not just an object to be appropriated and exploited by people, but is rather a rights-bearing entity that should be treated with parity under the law.

“In this sense, the new constitution reflects the traditions of indigenous peoples living in Ecuador, who see nature as a mother and call her by a proper name, Pachamama,” said Melo.

Challenging Corporate Power

Ecuador’s leadership on this issue just may have a global domino effect as the Defense Fund is now fielding calls from other countries such as Nepal, which is currently writing its first constitution. This could begin to make neoliberal development models obsolete and have a tremendous impact on multinational corporations, especially those in the extractive industries, from entering new markets and conducting “business as usual”.

“I expect them to fight it,” said the Defense Fund’s Margil. “Their bread and butter is being able to treat countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels. Multinational corporations are dependent on ravaging the planet in order to increase their bottom line.”

The class-action lawsuit in Ecuador against Chevron is a testament to Margil’s forecast. Tens of thousands of Ecuadorians accuse the California-based company of dumping millions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon (when it was formerly Texaco), and as a result causing massive environmental destruction and widespread health problems. Chevron, which could be forced to pay as much as $16 billion, refuses to take responsibility and calls the action a “shakedown.”

“The ultimate issue here is Ecuador has mistreated a U.S. company,” a Chevron lobbyist who asked not to be identified told Newsweek in July. “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this-companies that have made big investments around the world.”

Chevron is lobbying Congress to squeeze Ecuador on the issue by threatening to withhold the renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act. Chevron took similar measures in 2006 by lobbying for the exclusion of Ecuador from Andean Free Trade Agreement negotiations as retribution for the lawsuit–something Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) criticized at the time in a letter to then U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman.

Jorge Daniel Taillant, President of the Center for Human Rights and Environment (in Argentina), recently wrote, “The crude reality of the Chevron lobbyist comment, brings home what few politicians or oil industry representatives want to admit, that our societies have been unsuccessful in properly balancing our need for oil and containing the negative impacts that this industry has on our natural and social environment.”

It is this lack of success, as vindicated by the symptoms of global warming, and which are becoming all too apparent, that for Margil emphasize the urgent need to try something different, like what’s being proposed in Ecuador. But even this might not be far enough.

Populist Greenwashing?

For all of the hope and tangible progress the Rights of Nature articles in Ecuador’s proposed constitution represent, there are shortcomings and contradictions with the laws and the political reality on the ground.

Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag, who has been a tireless defender of Pachamama against transnational mining companies such as Canada’s Ascendant Copper (which recently changed its name to Copper Mesa Mining Corp.), takes a more skeptical approach to the proposed laws.

“It sounds great,” said Zorilla, “but in practice governments like [President] Correa’s will argue that funding his political project, which will bring ‘well being and relieve poverty’, overrules the rights of nature because the best technology will be used and mining and other extractive industries will be, of course, sustainable.”

The articles place the responsibility of carrying out these laws largely to the government, though it does give citizens and communities legal recourse if its determined that the government is failing in its responsibilities.

“It comes down to the government doing what is the will of the people,” said an optimistic Margil.

But Zorrilla, along with many other critics from social movements, point to Correa’s refusal to include in the constitution a clause mandating free, prior and informed consent by communities for any development project that would of affect their local ecosystems, as well as the Correa Administration’s embrace of an extractive economic model of development, although one with greater State control.

“They aren’t issues you can reconcile,” said environmental lawyer Melo. “On various occasions, President Correa has stated his will to amplify border-region projects for the extraction of natural resources, especially petroleum and metals, and this can only be done in Ecuador at the cost of natural resources important for their biodiversity, since they are the source of rivers and the homes of local communities. The Constitution Project, on the contrary, promotes a development model oriented towards ‘good living’ (buen vivir), which means living in harmony with nature and strengthening environmental rights for this end. This contradiction, between Correa’s statements and buen vivir, will probably provoke an intensification of socio-environmental conflicts in the coming years.”

Despite any shortcomings, the eyes of the world should stay on Ecuador beyond this weekend’s vote when the constitution will most likely pass. If history is any indicator, Ecuadorians will fight for the Rights of Nature, with or without President Correa.

As we eat, Armando continues to guide me through Ecuador as he talks about the reforms taking place under President Rafael Correa with his “Citizen’s Revolution.” He explains this “revolution” (a word we would both put in quotes) by contrasting it, as I will discover is his habit, with the indigenous cosmovision. Armando, like a growing number of Ecuadorans, has come to believe that the only way “forward” is into the “past.” “You see, in the Andean cosmovision, the past is in front of us and the future is behind us.” It’s a conception I still can’t quite grasp intellectually, but I can deeply appreciate Armando’s integration of that cosmovision with a libertarian left ideology. While left politics is generally expressed in terms of ideology, the Andean cosmovision is generally offered in the form of fables and stories, as in Armando’s response to my question about democracy in Ecuador.

Armando tells me that there was a town near Otavalos, a couple of hours east of Quito, where, many years ago, the people decided to build a road. Everyone in the town agreed that the road was to go from here to there,” he says, indicating an imaginary line through the park with his free hand. “Everyone, that is, but an old man. They all went to him hear why he disagreed and he told them that in one direction was a well (ojo de agua) and if they made a road over it, there would be no water for future generations.” Armando finished by offering the moral of the fable. “So the indigenous way is not majority rule, because that isn’t democracy. Democracy is consensus.”

Building consensus in a country like Ecuador might seem a utopian endeavor, given the struggle between an oligarchy determined to maintain control of the country, and indigenous and social movements equally determined to wrest the country from its clutches, a phenomenon currently reflected in the fight over the new Constitution. Between these two forces stands Correa and his supporters, largely drawn from the educated middle class and the former “Forajidos” who overthrew Lucio Gutierrez in 2005. For now, the more radical left has joined forces with the middle class, small business and other center-left reformist sectors that make up the core of Alianza País and that large block is likely to win the support of the majority in voting through the new Constitution this September.

Luis Angel Saavedra, president of INREDH (Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos), a human rights organization in Quito, offers Armando and me a brief analysis of the social conflicts that have rocked Ecuador in recent years. “For the past thirty years in Ecuador, we’ve seen the consolidation of political parties linked to powerful economic interests,” Luis explained one day in his office. “Each powerful economic group has had two modes of expression: A political party and the media. And so the social movements have had alternatives because the political parties and the media were completely controlled by those powerful economic interests. The only means of expression for social movements was the power of revocation by means of demonstrations, demonstrations aimed at the overthrow of presidents.” Luis went on to explain that the presidents during this period were elected for their leftist discourse, but were overthrown for not following through on it.

Ecuadorans suffer neither fools nor liars. In this Andean culture, the three rules of conduct as preached and practiced by the Incans to the present, are still taken as seriously as, and arguably more so than, the Ten Commandments in Alabama: Don’t lie, don’t steal and don’t be lazy. So far Rafael Correa and the Constituent Assembly he convoked last year to write a new constitution, have passed the first tests of conduct. But greater tests of a more pragmatic nature lie before those proposing a new course for the nation which Correa calls the “Citizen’s Revolution.”

The Ecuadoran constitution, born into public life less than a month ago, already has a group of sworn enemies determined to defeat it when it goes up for a nationwide vote on September 28th of this year. The class lines in this struggle couldn’t be more clear: the Constitution, drawn up by the Constituent Assembly, voted into power last year, has spent its life drafting this document which is broadly supported by social movements and popular opinion. However, the Guayaquil, Quito and other oligarchies, along with the Catholic Bishops and Evangelical Christians, are determined to defeat the new Constitution. This divide between the oligarchy, backed by reactionary Christians, on one hand, and the social movements, the majority of the country’s poor, indigenous, campesino and Afro-descendents, on the other hand, is symbolic of a long struggle that is reaching a new stage in the refounding of the nation through the new Constitution.

Evidently the good bishops of the Church feel that a constitutional protection of human life “from conception” isn’t strong enough to defend a fetus from the wiles of already-born humanity. The bishops, the right wing media (owned by the sectors of the oligarchy) and the evangelicals claim that the Constitution, in the words of the good minister Francisco Loor, is “pro-abortion, pro-homosexual and has taken the name of God in vain so as to get more votes.” But the “No” forces are few even while vocal and their arguments, on a par with the right wing in the U.S., are not likely to convince many.

Still, the fight over the constitution has gotten dirty and, while most of the lies and manipulation have predictably come from an oligarchy terrified of losing control of the country, President Rafael Correa has thrown his share of mud — not only at the “pelucones” (“wig-wearers,” a term referring to colonial oligarchs who wore wigs) but also at his presumptive allies on the left. In his weekly show, Dialogue with the President, a show similar to Hugo Chavez’s Hello President, in which the two national leaders address their respective publics, Chavez on Sunday, and Correa on Saturday, Correa continued his minor tirade, begun the day before in his talk before the National Assembly as he received the Constitution from their hands.

What is little understood outside of Ecuador, is that, despite Correa’s rhetoric of the “Socialism of the 21st Century” for Ecuador, the president seems to be committed to a capitalist dependency model of development for the country. As Daniel Denvir puts it, only outside Ecuador is Correa viewed as a “leftist,” while inside Ecuador itself “conflicts between Correa and the social movement Left—the indigenous movement, environmentalists and unions, among others—have become increasingly heated” (I recommend the full article).

Speaking from Chongón, in the province of Guaya, the day after accepting the new Constitution from the Assembly, Correa again castigated the “infantile leftists” and “infantile environmentalists” and “infantile indigenous” without being more specific about what made them “infantile” and why they caused him so much ire. After all, he’d gotten what he wanted: his people had “edited” the entire Constitution prior to the final vote by the Constituent Assembly, some argued so as to make it more amenable to his “reformed-capitalist extractionist policies” and also to strengthen his own presidential powers. Because his party, Alianza País (Country Alliance) was the majority, all the “infantile” sectors had to choose between approving the illicitly redacted document or voting against it and allying themselves with the oligarchy and its religious lackeys.

These shenanigans on the part of Correa’s people, however, didn’t go unnoticed and Ecuanuri, the largest indigenous organization within CONAIE, called for an “extraordinary assembly” on the following Tuesday, July 29, to consult on whether or not to accept the document as edited.

The theater of the National Museum was filled by the time the meeting began, opening with part of a short film on the mobilizations of indigenous people in 1990 which began a nearly twenty year process culminating in Rafael Correa’s rise to power, the founding of the Constituent Assembly and the writing of the Constitution. The film, although low budget and poor quality, was extremely moving, filled with images of indigenous people rising up at last to claim their rights as humans, disinherited in their own lands.

After the film, several of the members of the Constituent Assembly spoke of the Constitution as having been called into being by those very demonstrations and, indeed, the new social contract describes Ecuador as “plurinational” and “intercultural” and recognizes the rights to communal land and territory and recognizing not only individual rights, but the rights of “communities, peoples, nationalities and collectives.”

It is the first constitution in the world to grant rights to “Pachamama,” or “Mother Earth” and it also grants rights to the indigenous to carry out justice as they see fit in their communities, within the limits of national and international standards of justice. The document emphasizes that “Ecuador is a territory of peace. The establishment of foreign military bases nor foreign installations with military objectives will not be allowed.”

Advocating “quality of life” (from Kichwa, “sumaj kawsay,” el buen vivir), the document guarantees the right to water in an article against privatization of that resource, and it guarantees the “right to secure and permanent access to healthy, adequate and nutritious food, preferably produced at the local level.” This chapter two, article 13 was changed by Correa’s people at the last minute, where “guarantees” became “promote:” “The Ecuadoran state will promote food sovereignty.” Nevertheless, even the redacted constitution has the fingerprints of the indigenous movement, environmentalists and leftist values all over it, especially in the articles guaranteeing free healthcare and education, right to “adequate housing” and social security for all, regardless of whether or not one has paid into it.

Even though many Assembly members expressed outrage over the last-minute changes to fifty articles of the Constitution that Correa’s people made to the final draft, the overwhelming majority of the speakers urged the gathering, mostly indigenous members of CONAIE, to vote “Yes” in the referendum on the Constitution. Among the “infantile left” who spoke was Dr. Albert Acosta, president of the Constituent Assembly until just a few weeks before when he resigned at the urging of Correa and by vote of the assembly because he wanted to prolong the proceedings so that more voices could be heard.

Without a note of bitterness, but rather with an enthusiasm that inspired a prolonged applause, Acosta began by agreeing that the Constitution wasn’t perfect, but that it should be approved with “a ‘yes’ and a thousand times ‘yes.’” He reminded people that the approval on September 28th would be only the beginning of the new Social Contract in which it would be “an instrument for struggle” which represents “a new stage of that struggle.”

The struggle will be sharpest between the uneasy coalition of Correa’s centrist party, Alianza País and the left, comprised mainly of those Correa calls “infantile”: the indigenous, environmental and social movements, all favoring the Constitution, and the Catholic hierarchy, the Evangelical churches and the oligarchy, opposed to the Constitution.

Correa would be wise to recall that all those people, groups and organizations he has categorized as “infantile” and accused of “infiltrating” his Alianza, are his allies in a struggle against the right. He’ll need their help to pass the new Constitution, but also to govern the country afterwards if he wants to continue the gains of what he calls the “Citizen’s Revolution.” Rather than his customary approach to governing by power politics and decree, many believe Correa needs to look at the way the indigenous see democracy as the building of consensus and unanimity. Correa, some would say, is prone to tantrums, and his outbursts against his allies have already alienated many on the left, leading one powerful indigenous leader to say, “We support ‘yes’ on the Constitution, but we no longer support Correa.” Increasing numbers of people from diverse sectors in the social movements would say the same thing, and they are the very ones who have overthrown an entire crop of presidents leading up to Correa. If Correa continues to blur the distinction between his allies and his enemies, he may no longer find himself to be the exception.

Throughout modern imperial history, ‘Divide and Conquer’ has been the essential ingredient in allowing relatively small and resource-poor European countries to conquer nations vastly larger in size and populations and richer in natural resources. It is said that for every British officer in India, there were fifty Sikhs, Gurkhas, Muslims and Hindus in the British Colonial Army. The European conquest of Africa and Asia was directed by white officers, fought by black, brown and yellow soldiers so that white capital could exploit colored workers and peasants. Regional, ethnic, religious, clan, tribal, community, village and other differences were politicized and exploited allowing imperial armies to conquer warring peoples. In recent decades, the US empire builders have become the grand masters of ‘divide and conquer’ strategies throughout the world. By the 1970’s, the CIA made a turn from promoting the dubious virtues of capitalism and democracy, to linking up with, financing and directing, religious, ethnic and regional elites against national regimes, independent or hostile to US world empire building.

The key to US military empire building follows two principles: direct military invasions and fomenting separatist movements, which can lead to military confrontation.

Twenty-first century empire building has seen the extended practice of both principles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, China (Tibet), Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Somalia, Sudan, Burma and Palestine — any country in which the US cannot secure a stable client regime, it resorts to financing and promoting separatist organizations and leaders using ethnic, religious and regional pretexts.

Consistent with traditional empire building principles, Washington only supports separatists in countries that refuse to submit to imperial domination and opposes separatists who resist the empire and its allies. In other words, imperial ideologues are neither ‘hypocrites’ nor resort to ‘double standards’ (as they are accused by liberal critics); they publicly uphold the ‘Empire first’ principle as their defining criteria for evaluating separatist movements and granting or denying support. In contrast, many seemingly progressive critics of empire make universal statements in favor of the ‘right to self-determination’ and even extend it to the most rancid, reactionary, imperial-sponsored ‘separatist groups’ with catastrophic results. Independent nations and their people, who oppose US-backed separatists, are bombed to oblivion and charged with ‘war crimes’. People, who oppose the separatists and who reside in the ‘new state’, are killed or driven into exile. The ‘liberated people’ suffer from the tyranny and impoverishment induced by the US-backed separatists and many are forced to immigrate to other countries for economic survival.

Few if any of the progressive critics of the USSR and supporters of the separatist republics have ever publicly expressed second thoughts, let alone engaged in self-critical reflections, even in the face of decades long socio-economic and political catastrophes in the secessionist states. Yet it was and is the case that these self-same progressives today, who continue to preach high moral principles to those who question and reject some separatist movements because they originate and grow out of efforts to extend the US empire.

Washington’s success in co-opting so-called progressive liberals in support of separatist movements soon to be new imperial clients in recent decades is long and the consequences for human rights are ugly.

Most European and US progressives supported the following:

1. US-backed Bosnian fundamentalists, Croatian neo-fascists and Kosova-Albanian terrorists, leading to ethnic cleansing and the conversion of their once sovereign states into US military bases, client regimes and economic basket cases — totally destroying the multinational Yugoslavian welfare state.

2. The US funded and armed overseas Afghan Islamic fundamentalists who destroyed a secular, reformist, gender-equal Afghan regime, carrying out vast anti-feudal campaigns involving both men and women, a comprehensive agrarian reform and constructing extensive health and educational programs. As a result of US-Islamic tribal military successes, millions were killed, displaced and dispossessed and fanatical medieval anti-Communist tribal warlords destroyed the unity of the country.

3. The US invasion destroyed Iraq’s modern, secular, nationalist state and advanced socio-economic system. During the occupation, US backing of rival religious, tribal, clan and ethnic separatist movements and regimes led to the expulsion of over 90% of its modern scientific and professional class and the killing of over 1 million Iraqis… all in the name of ousting a repressive regime and above all in destroying a state opposed to Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

Clearly US military intervention promotes separatism as a means of establishing a regional ‘base of support’. Separatism facilitates setting up a minority puppet regime and works to counter neighboring countries opposed to the depredations of empire. In the case of Iraq, US-backed Kurdish separatism preceded the imperial campaign to isolate an adversary, create international coalitions to pressure and weaken the central government. Washington highlights regime atrocities as human rights cases to feed global propaganda campaigns. More recently this is evident in the US-financed ‘Tibetan’ theocratic protests at China.

Separatists are backed as potential terrorist shock troops in attacking strategic economic sectors and providing real or fabricated ‘intelligence’ as is the case in Iran among the Kurds and other ethnic minority groups.

Why Separatism?

Empire builders do not always resort to separatist groups, especially when they have clients at the national levels in control of the state. It is only when their power is limited to groups, territorially or ethnically concentrated, that the intelligence operatives resort to and promote ‘separatist’ movements. US backed separatist movements follow a step-by-step process, beginning with calls for ‘greater autonomy’ and ‘decentralization’, essentially tactical moves to gain a local political power base, accumulate economic revenues, repress anti-separatist groups and local ethnic/religious, political minorities with ties to the central government (as in the oppression of the Christian communities in northern Iraq repressed by the Kurdish separatists for their long ties with the Central Baath Party or the Roma of Kosova expelled and killed by the Kosova Albanians because of their support of the Yugoslav federal system). The attempt to forcibly usurp local resources and the ousting of local allies of the central government results in confrontations and conflict with the legitimate power of the central government. It is at this point that external (imperial) support is crucial in mobilizing the mass media to denounce repression of ‘peaceful national movements’ merely ‘exercising their right to self-determination’. Once the imperial mass media propaganda machine touches the noble rhetoric of ‘self-determination’ and ‘autonomy’, ‘decentralization’ and ‘home rule’, the great majority of US and European funded NGO’s jump on board, selectively attacking the government’s effort to maintain a stable unified nation-state. In the name of ‘diversity’ and a ‘pluri-ethnic state’, the Western-bankrolled NGO’s provide a moralist ideological cover to the pro-imperialist separatists. When the separatists succeed and murder and ethnically cleanse the ethnic and religious minorities linked to the former central state, the NGO’s are remarkably silent or even complicit in justifying the massacres as ‘understandable over-reaction to previous repression’. The propaganda machine of the West, even gloats over the separatist state expulsion of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities — as in the case of the Serbs and Roma from Kosova and the Krijina region of Croatia… with headlines blasting — “Serbs on the Run: Serves Them Right!” followed by photos of NATO troops overseeing the ‘transfer’ of destitute families from their ancestral villages and towns to squalid camps in a bombed out Serbia. And the triumphant Western politicians mouthing pieties at the massacres of Serb civilians by the KLA, as when former German Foreign Minister “Joschka” Fischer (Green Party) mourned, “I understand your (the KLA’s) pain, but you shouldn’t throw grenades at (ethnic Serb) school children.”

The shift from ‘autonomy’ within a federal state to an ‘independent state’ is based on the aid channeled and administered by the imperial state to the ‘autonomous region’, thus strengthening its ‘de facto’ existence as a separate state. This has clearly occurred in the Kurdish run northern Iraq ‘no fly zone’ and now ‘autonomous region’ from 1991 to the present.

The same principle of self-determination demanded by the US and its separatist client is denied to ‘minorities’ within the realm. Instead, the US propaganda media refer to them as ‘agents’ or ‘trojan horses’ of the central government.

Strengthened by imperial ‘foreign aid’, and business links with US and EU MNCs, backed by local para-military and quasi-military police forces (as well as organized criminal gangs), the autonomous regime declares its ‘independence’. Shortly thereafter, it is recognized by its imperial patrons. After ‘independence’, the separatist regime grants territorial concessions and building sites for US military bases. Investment privileges are granted to the imperial patron, severely compromising ‘national’ sovereignty.

The army of local and international NGO’s rarely raise any objections to this process of incorporating the separatist entity into the empire, even when the ‘liberated’ people object. In most cases the degree of ‘local governance’ and freedom of action of the ‘independent’ regime is less than it was when it was an autonomous or federal region in the previous unified nationalist state.

Not infrequently ‘separatist’ regimes are part of irredentist movements linked to counterparts in other states. When cross national irredentist movements challenge neighboring states which are also targets of the US empire builders, they serve as launching pads for US low intensity military assaults and Special Forces terrorist activities.

For example, almost all of the Kurdish separatist organizations draw a map of ‘Greater Kurdistan’ which covers a third of Southeastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, a quarter of Iran, parts of Syria and wherever else they can find a Kurdish enclave. US commandos operate alongside Kurdish separatists terrorizing Iranian villages (in the name of self-determination; Kurds with powerful US military backing have seized and govern Northern Iraq and provide mercenary Peshmerga troops to massacre Iraqi Arab civilian in cities and towns resisting the US occupation in Central, Western and Southern regions. They have engaged in the forced displacement of non-Kurds (including Arabs, Chaldean Christians, Turkman and others) from so-called Iraqi Kurdistan and the confiscation of their homes, businesses and farms. US-backed Kurdish separatists have created conflicts with the neighboring Turkish government, as Washington tries to retain its Kurdish clients for their utility in Iraq, Iran and Syria without alienating its strategic NATO client, Turkey. Nevertheless Turkish-Kurdish separatist activists in the PKK have lauded the US for, what they term, ‘progressive colonialism’ in effectively dismembering Iraq and forming the basis for a Kurdish state.

The US decision to collaborate with the Turkish military, or at least tolerate its military attacks on certain sectors of the Iraq-based Kurdish separatists, the PKK, is part of its global policy of prioritizing strategic imperial alliances and allies over and against any separatist movement which threatens them. Hence, while the US supports the Kosova separatists against Serbia, it opposes the separatists in Abkhazia fighting against its client in the Republic of Georgia. While the US supported Chechen separatist against the Moscow government, it opposes Basque and Catalan separatists in their struggle against Washington’s NATO ally, Spain. While Washington has been bankrolling the Bolivian separatists headed by the oligarchs of Santa Cruz against the central government in La Paz, it supports the Chilean government’s repression of the Mapuche Indian claims to land and resources in south-central Chile.

Clearly ‘self-determination’ and ‘independence’ are not the universal defining principle in US foreign policy, nor has it ever been, as witness the US wars against Indian nations, secessionist southern slaveholders and yearly invasions of independent Latin American, Asian and African states. What guides US policy is the question of whether a separatist movement, its leaders and program furthers empire building or not? The inverse question however is infrequently raised by so-called progressives, leftists or self-described anti-imperialists: Does the separatist or independence movement weaken the empire and strengthen anti-imperialist forces or not? If we accept that the over-riding issue is defeating the multi-million killing machine called US imperialism, then it is legitimate to evaluate and support, as well as reject, some independence movements and not others. There is nothing ‘hypocritical’ or ‘inconvenient’ in raising higher principles in making these political choices. Clearly Hitler justified the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the name of defending Sudetenland separatists, just like a series of US presidents have justified the partition of Iraq in the name of defending the Kurds, or Sunnis or Shia or whatever tribal leaders lend themselves to US empire building.

What defines anti-imperialist politics is not abstract principles about ‘self-determination’ but defining exactly who is the ‘self’; in other words, what political forces linked to what international power configuration are making what political claim for what political purpose. If, as in Bolivia today, a rightwing racist, agro-business oligarchy seizes control of the most fertile and energy rich region, containing 75% of the country’s natural resources, in the name of ‘self-determination’ and autonomy, expelling and brutalizing impoverished Indians in the process — on what basis can the left or anti-imperialist movement oppose it, if not because the class, race and national content of that claim is antithetical to an even more important principle — popular sovereignty based on the democratic principles of majority rule and equal access to public wealth?

Separatism in Latin America: Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador

In recent years the US backed candidates have won and lost national election in Latin America. Clearly the US has retained hegemony over the governing elites in Mexico, Colombia, Central America, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and some of the Caribbean island states. In states where the electorate has backed opponents of US dominance, such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua, Washington’s influence is dependent on regional, provincial and locally elected officials. It is premature to state, as the Council for Foreign Relations claims, that ‘US hegemony in Latin America is a thing of the past.’ One only has to read the economic and political record of the close and growing military and economic ties between Washington and the Calderon regime in Mexico, the Garcia regime in Peru, Bachelet in Chile and Uribe in Colombia to register the fact that US hegemony still prevails in important regions of Latin America. If we look beyond the national governmental level, even in the non-hegemonized states, US influence still is a potent factor shaping the political behavior of powerful right-wing business, financial and regional political elites in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. By the end of May 2008, US backed regionalist movements were on the offensive, establishing a de facto secessionist regime in Santa Cruz in Bolivia. In Argentina, the agro-business elite has organized a successful nationwide production and distribution lockout, backed by the big industrial, financial and commercial confederations, against an export tax promoted by the ‘center-left’ Kirchner government. In Colombia, the US is negotiating with the paramilitary President Uribe over the site of a military base on the frontier with Venezuela’s oil rich state of Zulia, which happens to be ruled by the only anti-Chavez governor in power, a strong promoter of ‘autonomy’ or secession. In Ecuador, the Mayor of Guayaquil, backed by the right wing mass media and the discredited traditional political parties have proposed ‘autonomy’ from the central government of President Rafael Correa. The process of imperial driven nation dismemberment is very uneven because of the different degrees of political power relations between the central government and the regional secessionists. The right wing secessionists in Bolivia have advanced the furthest — actually organizing and winning a referendum and declaring themselves an independent governing unit with the power to collect taxes, formulate foreign economic policy and create its own police force.

The success of the Santa Cruz secessionist is due to the political incapacity and total incompetence of the Evo Morales-Garcia Linera regime which promoted ‘autonomy’ for the scores of impoverished Indian ‘nations’ (or indianismo) and ended up laying the groundwork for the white racist oligarchs to seize the opportunity to establish their own ‘separatist’ power base. As the separatist gained control over the local population, they intimidated the ‘indians’ and trade union supporters of the Morales regime, violently sabotaged the constitutional assembly, rejected the constitution, while constantly extracting concession for the flaccid and conciliatory central government of the Evo Morales. While the separatists trashed the constitution and used their control over the major means of production and exports to recruit five other provinces, forming a geographic arc of six provinces, and influence in two others in their drive to degrade the national government. The Morales-Garcia Linera ‘indianista’ regime, largely made up of mestizos formerly employed in NGOs funded from abroad, never used its formal constitutional power and monopoly of legitimate force to enforce constitutional order and outlaw and prosecute the secessionists’ violation of national integrity and rejection of the democratic order.

Morales never mobilized the country, the majority of popular organizations in civil society, or even called on the military to put down the secessionists. Instead he continued to make impotent appeals for ‘dialog’, for compromises in which his concessions to oligarch self-rule only confirmed their drive for regional power. As a case study of failed governance, in the face of a reactionary separatist threat to the nation, the Morales-Garcia Linera regime represents an abject failure to defend popular sovereignty and the integrity of the nation.

The lessons of failed governance in Bolivia stand as a grim reminder to Chavez in Venezuela and Correa in Ecuador: Unless they act with full force of the constitution to crush the embryonic separatist movements before they gain a power base, they will also face the break-up of their countries. The biggest threat is in Venezuela, where the US and Colombian militaries have built bases on the frontier bordering the Venezuelan state of Zulia, infiltrated commandos and paramilitary forces into the province, and see the takeover of the oil-rich province as a beach-head to deprive the central government of its vital oil revenues and destabilize the central government.

Several years into a Washington-backed and financed separatist movement in Bolivia, a few progressive academics and pundits have taken notice and published critical commentaries. Unfortunately these articles lack any explanatory context, and offer little understanding of how Latin American ‘separatism’ fits into long-term, large-scale US empire building strategy over the past quarter of a century.

Today the US-promoted separatist movements in Latin American are actively being pursued in at least three Latin American counties. In Bolivia, the ‘media luna’ or ‘half-moon’ provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija have successfully convoked provincial ‘referendums’ for ‘autonomy’ — code word for secession. On May 4, 2008 the separatists in Santa Cruz succeeded, securing a voter turnout of nearly 50% and winning 80% of the vote. On May 15, the right-wing big business political elite announced the formation of ministries of foreign trade and internal security, assuming the effective powers of a secession state. The US government led by Ambassador Goldberg, provided financial and political support for the right-wing secessionist ‘civic’ organizations through its $125 million dollar aid programs via AID, its tens of millions of dollar ‘anti-drug’ program, and through the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded pro-separatist NGOs. At meetings of the Organization of American States and other regional meetings the US refused to condemn the separatist movements.

Because of the total incompetence and lack of national political leadership of President Evo Morales and his Vice President Garcia Linera, the Bolivian State is splintering into a series of ‘autonomous’ cantons, as several other provincial governments seek to usurp political power and take over economic resources. From the very beginning, the Morales-Garcia regime signed off on a number of political pacts, adopted a whole series of policies and approved a number of concessions to the oligarchic elites in Santa Cruz, which enabled them to effectively re-build their natural political power base, sabotage an elected Constitutional Assembly and effectively undermine the authority of the central government. Right-wing success took less than 2 ½ years, which is especially amazing considering that in 2005, the country witnessed a major popular uprising which ousted a right-wing president, when millions of workers, miners, peasants and Indians dominated the streets. It is a tribute to the absolute misgovernment of the Morales-Garcia regime, that the country could move so quickly and decisively from a state of insurrectionary popular power to a fragmented and divided country in which a separatist agro-financial elite seizes control of 80% of the productive resources of the country… while the elected central government meekly protests.

The success of the secessionist regional ruling class in Bolivia has encouraged similar ‘autonomy movements’ in Ecuador and Venezuela, led by the mayor of Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Governor of Zulia (Venezuela). In other words, the US-engineered political debacle of the Morales-Garcia regime in Bolivia has led it to team up with oligarchs in Ecuador and Venezuela to repeat the Santa Cruz experience… in a process of “permanent counter-revolutionary separatism.”

Separatism and the Ex-USSR

The defeat of Communism in the USSR had little to do with the ‘arms race bankrupting the system’, as former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has claimed. Up to the end, living standards were relatively stable and welfare programs continued to operate at near optimal levels and scientific and cultural programs retained substantial state expenditures. The ruling elites who replaced the communist system did not respond to US propaganda about the virtues of ‘free markets and democracy’, as Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton claimed: The proof is evident in the political and economic systems, which they imposed upon taking power and which were neither democratic nor based on competitive markets. These new ethnic-based regimes resembled despotic, predatory, nepotistic monarchies handing over (‘privatizing’) the public wealth accumulated over the previous 70 years of collective labor and public investment to a handful of oligarchs and foreign monopolies.

The principle ideological driving force for the current policy of ‘separatism’ is ethnic identity politics, which is fostered and financed by US intelligence and propaganda agencies. Ethnic identity politics, which replaced communism, is based on vertical links between the elite and the masses. The new elites rule through clan-family-religious-gang based nepotism, funded and driven through pillage and privatization of public wealth created under Communism. Once in power, the new political elites ‘privatized’ public wealth into family riches and converted themselves and their cronies into an oligarchic ruling class. In most cases the ethnic ties between elites and subjects dissolved in the face of the decline of living standards, the deep class inequalities, the crooked vote counts and state repression.

In all of the ex-USSR states, the new ruling classes only claim to mass legitimacy was based on appeals to sharing a common ethnic identity. They trotted out medieval and royalist symbols from the remote past, dredging up absolutist monarchs, parasitical religious hierarchies, pre-capitalist war lords, bloody emperors and ‘national’ flags from the days of feudal landlords to forge a common history and identity with the ‘newly liberated’ masses. The repeated appeal to past reactionary symbols was entirely appropriate: the contemporary policies of despotism, pillage and personality cults resonated with past ‘historic’ warriors, feudal lords and practices.

As the new post-USSR despots lost their ethnic luster as a consequence of public disillusion with local and foreign predatory pillage of the national wealth, the leaders resorted to systematic force.

The principle success of the US strategy of promoting separatism was in destroying the USSR — not in promoting viable independent capitalist democracies. Washington succeeded in exacerbating ethnic conflicts between Russians and other nationalities, by encouraging local communist bosses to split from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to form ‘independent states’ where the new rulers could share the booty of the local treasury with new Western partners. The US de-stabilization efforts in the Communist countries, especially after the 1970’s did not compete over living standards, greater industrial growth or over more generous welfare programs. Rather, Western propaganda focused on ethnic solidarity, the one issue that undercut class solidarity and loyalty to the communist state and ideology and strengthened pro-Western elites, especially among ‘public intellectuals’ and recycled Communist bosses-turned ‘nationalist saviors.’

The key point of Western strategy was to first and foremost break-up the USSR via separatist movements no matter if they were fanatical religious fundamentalists, gangster-politicians, Western-trained liberal economists or ambitious upwardly mobile warlords. All that mattered was that they carried the Western separatist banner of ‘self-determination’. Subsequently, in the ‘post Soviet period’, the new pro-capitalist ruling elites were recruited to NATO and client state status.

Washington’s post-separatism politics followed a two-step process: In the first phase there was an undifferentiated support for anyone advocating the break-up of the USSR. In the second phase, the US sought to push the most pliable pro-NATO, free market liberals among the lot — the so-called ‘color revolutionaries’, in Georgia and the Ukraine. Separatism was seen as a preliminary step toward an ‘advanced’ stage of re-subordination to the US Empire. The notion of ‘independent states’ is virtually non-existent for US empire builders. At best it exists as a transitional stage from one power constellation to a new US-centered empire.

In the period following the break-up of the USSR, Washington’s subsequent attempts to recruit the new ruling elites to pro-capitalist, client-status was relatively successful. Some countries opened their economies to unregulated exploitation especially of energy resources. Others offered sites for military bases. In many cases local rulers sought to bargain among world powers while enhancing their own private fortune-through-pillage.

None of the ex-Soviet Republics evolved into secular independent democratic republics capable of recovering the living standards, which their people possessed during the Soviet times. Some rulers became theocratic despots where religious notables and dictators mutually supported each other. Others evolved into ugly family-based dictatorships. None of them retained the Soviet era social safety net or high quality educational systems. All the post-Soviet regimes magnified the social inequalities and multiplied the number of criminal-run enterprises. Violent crime grew geometrically increasing citizen insecurity.

The success of US-induced ‘separatism’ did create, in most cases, enormous opportunities for Western and Asian pillage of raw materials, especially petroleum resources. The experience of ‘newly independent states’ was, at best, a transitory illusion, as the ruling elite either passed directly into the orbit of Western sphere of influence or became a ‘fig leaf’ for deep structural subordination to Western-dominated circuits of commodity exports and finance.

Out of the break-up of the USSR, Western states allied with those republics where it suited their interests. In some cases they signed agreements with rulers to establish military base lining the pockets of a dictator through loans. In other cases they secured privileged access to economic resources by forming joint ventures. In others they simply ignored a poorly endowed regime and let it wallow in misery and despotism.

Separatism: Eastern Europe, Balkans and the Baltic Countries

The most striking aspect of the break-up of the Soviet bloc was the rapidity and thoroughness with which the countries passed from the Warsaw Pact to NATO, from Soviet political rule to US/EU economic control over almost all of their major economic sectors. The conversion from one form of political economic and military subordination to another highlights the transitory nature of political independence, the superficiality of its operational meaning and the spectacular hypocrisy of the new ruling elite who blithely denounced ‘Soviet domination’ while turning over most economic sectors to Western capital, large tracts of territory for NATO bases and providing mercenary military battalions to fight in US imperial wars to a far greater degree than was ever the case during Soviet times.

Separatism in these areas was an ideology to weaken an adversarial hegemonic coalition, all the better to reincorporate its members in a more virulent and aggressive empire building coalition.

Yugoslavia and Kosova: Forced Separatism

The successful breakup of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact alliance encouraged the US and EU to destroy Yugoslavia, the last remaining independent country outside of US-EU control in West Europe. The break-up of Yugoslavia was initiated by Germany following its annexation and demolition of East Germany’s economy. Subsequently it expanded into the Slovenian and Croatian republics. The US, a relative latecomer in the carving up of the Balkans, targeted Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosova. While Germany expanded via economic conquest, the US, true to its militarist mission, resorted to war in alliance with recognized terrorist Kosova Albanian gangsters organized in the paramilitary KLA. Under the leadership of French Zionist Bernard Kouchner, the NATO forces facilitated the ethnic purging, assassination and disappearances of tens of thousands of Serbs, Roma and dissident non-separatist Kosova Albanians.

The destruction of Yugoslavia is complete: the remaining fractured and battered Serb Republic was now at the mercy of US and its European allies. By 2008 a EU-US backed pro-NATO coalition was elected and the last remnants of ‘Yugoslavia’ and its historical legacy of self-managed socialism was obliterated.

Consequences of ‘Separatism’ in USSR. East Europe and the Balkans

In every region where US sponsored and financed separatism succeeded, living standards plunged, massive pillage of public resources in the name of privatization took place, political corruption reached unprecedented levels. Anywhere between a quarter to a third of the population fled to Western Europe and North America because of hunger, personal insecurity (crime), unemployment and a dubious future.

Politically, gangsterism and extraordinary murder rates drove legitimate businesses to pay exorbitant extortion payments, as a ‘new class’ of gangsters-turned-businessmen took over the economy and signed dubious investment agreements and joint ventures with EU, US and Asian MNCs.

Energy-rich ex-Soviet countries in south central Asia were ruled by opulent dictators who accumulated billion dollar fortunes in the course of demolishing egalitarian norms, extensive health, and scientific and cultural institutions. Religious institutions gained power over and against scientific and professional associations, reversing educational progress of the previous seventy years. The logic of separatism spread from the republics to the sub-national level as rival local war lords and ethnic chiefs attempted to carve out their ‘autonomous’ entity, leading to bloody wars, new rounds of ethnic purges and new refugees fleeing the contested areas.

The US promises of benefits via ‘separatism’ made to the diverse populations were not in the least fulfilled. At best a small ruling elite and their cronies reaped enormous wealth, power and privilege at the expense of the great majority. Whatever the initial symbolic gratifications, which the underlying population may have experienced from their short-lived independence, new flag and restored religious power was eroded by the grinding poverty and violent internal power struggles that disrupted their lives. The truth of the matter is that millions of people fled from ‘their’ newly ‘independent’ states, preferring to become refugees and second-class citizens in foreign states.

Conclusion

The major fallacy of seemingly progressive liberals and NGOs in their advocacy of ‘autonomy’, ‘decentralization’ and ‘self-determination’ is that these abstract concepts beg the fundamental concrete historical and substantive political question — to what classes, race, political blocs is power being transferred? For over a century in the US the banner of the racist right-wing Southern plantation owners ruling by force and terror over the majority of poor blacks was ‘States Rights’ — the supremacy of local law and order over the authority of the federal government and the national constitution. The fight between federal versus states rights was between a reactionary Southern oligarchy and a broader based progressive Northern urban coalition of workers and the middle class.

There is a fundamental need to demystify the notion of ‘autonomy’ by examining the classes which demand it, the consequences of devolving power in terms of the distribution of power, wealth and popular power and the external benefactors of a shift from the national state to regional local power elites.

Likewise, the mindless embrace by some libertarians of each and every claim for ‘self-determination’ has led to some of the most heinous crimes of the 20-21st centuries — in many cases separatist movements have encouraged or been products of bloody imperialist wars, as was the case in the lead up to and following Nazi annexations, the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the savage Israeli invasion of Lebanon and breakup of Palestine.

To make sense of ‘autonomy’, ‘decentralization’ and ‘self-determination’ and to ensure that these devolutions of power move in progressive historic direction, it is essential to pose the prior questions: Do these political changes advance the power and control of the majority of workers and peasants over the means of production? Does it lead to greater popular power in the state and electoral process or does it strengthen demagogic clients advancing the interests of the empire, in which the breakup of an established state leads to the incorporation of the ethnic fragments into a vicious and destructive empire?

Writer and student of Latin American politics Nicholas Kozloff has written a book examining these and other questions regarding the leftward drift in Latin America. His first book, titled Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S., examined the rise of Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian revolution. Kozloff’s reading of the phenomenon is skeptical but hopeful. It is also told from a left viewpoint that mistrusts the monolithic model of Cuba almost as much as it distrusts US imperialism. His new book, Revolution: South America and the Rise of the New Left continues in a similar vein.

Comparing and contrasting the various left-leaning governments in Latin America, Revolution is both an update and a critical guide to the various possibilities Latin America might face in the future. His on-the-ground approach brings him into contact with activists for social justice and government officials. Never too academic, the text is very readable and accessible. One page provides the reader with the insights of the author; another page gives the reader a glimpse into the thoughts of a veteran of some social movement; and another gives the opinion of an academic observer of Latin American history and monetary policy. There are at least two things going on here: the first is a look at the various nations changing the political face of Latin America, and the second is a study of those nations’ attempts to create a united front in order to confront the US wolf always ready to blow their house in.

There is no glossing over of the problems the people of the countries looked at here face. The balance between indigenous desires for autonomy and the population’s fascination with those things US culture beams into residents’ living rooms via satellite television is but one. Others involve internal debates and conflicts over the representation of different demographic elements in each society. On a continent-wide scale, many differences exist between the cultures, economies, and desires of the different peoples the governments studied here must represent. Add to that the enmity of Washington and its allies in the South and the only thing certain is that the future of the popular movements represented by the governments examined in Kozloff’s book are anything but certain.

Yet, there is hope that the historical relationship between the governments of Latin America and their people may be forever changed thanks to the current crop of populist governments in power throughout the continent. This possibility rests on a number of circumstances both external and internal. Kozloff examines them all, from the potential downside of the growing identification of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela with the persona of Hugo Chavez to the continued subversion of change by Washington, its so-called free trade pacts and the aggressive actions of its clients in the Colombia government and the opposition parties of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

Revolution: South America and the Rise of the New Left is an erudite examination of the recent history of the changes occurring throughout Latin America. While certainly sympathetic to these changes, the text maintains a critically supportive tone and outlook. The narrative is at once as intimate as the stories of officials who rose from the illegal slums and as analytical as the examination of the economic and political arguments for and against Latin American integration. Those in North America who dismiss the significance of the populist revolution taking place to the south — either because it’s not “left” enough or because they genuinely believe that nothing that happens in Latin America could really matter — would do well to read this book.

After a handshake deal at a summit of Latin American leaders, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez pulled his troops back from a possible border confrontation with Colombia. Nevertheless, Colombia’s right-wing leader, Álvaro Uribe, remains the U.S. government’s close ally in its ongoing effort to destabilize Venezuela.

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Chávez shook hands with Uribe at a summit of Latin American leaders in the Dominican Republic, winding down a crisis that erupted a week earlier when Colombia’s national police stormed across the border with Ecuador to kill the number-two leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Colombia’s assassination of Raúl Reyes, who was killed along with more than 20 other FARC fighters, was a calculated blow to negotiations with the FARC over the release of hostages held by the rebel group.

The talks were begun last year by Chávez, initially with approval from Uribe, who was under pressure to secure the release of hostages after a series of scandals linked his government to right-wing paramilitaries. But Uribe withdrew from the process months later, accusing Chávez of meddling in Colombia’s internal politics. Several hostages were released by the FARC into Venezuelan custody anyway.

Now, by eliminating Reyes, the FARC’s main negotiator for hostage releases, Uribe is hoping to gear up for another round of fighting in Colombia’s decades-long civil war. He has the full backing of the U.S., which has long been frustrated by Uribe’s past cordial relationship with Chávez.

But while Uribe postured as the defender of Colombia from terrorism, some 200,000 people marched in the capital city of Bogotá against state violence and terror by right-wing paramilitaries, an unprecedented event in a country where opposition is routinely met with violence. The march–part of protests held in every big Colombian city and in Colombian communities worldwide–was an answer to pro-Uribe marches held a month earlier against kidnapping by the FARC.

Adding to Uribe’s problems was the fact that almost every Latin American country condemned Colombia’s raid as a violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty.

Only George Bush seized the moment to praise “Colombia’s democracy.” He pledged U.S. support against “the continuing assault by narco-terrorists as well as the provocative maneuvers by the regime in Venezuela.”

To further please their backers in the U.S., Colombia’s armed forces released information from a computer hard drive captured in the border raid that supposedly provided evidence that Chávez had funneled $300 million to the FARC, and that the rebel group was using the funds to develop a radioactive “dirty bomb.”

A few reporters, including Juan Forero of the Washington Post and National Public Radio, lapped this up, but unnamed U.S. intelligence officials told ABC News that such reports should be treated with “extreme skepticism.”

Colombian government officials also released documents that, they claim, document an e-mail discussion among FARC leaders over how much money they should donate to Rafael Correa’s presidential campaign in Ecuador in 2006. Correa denied ever receiving funds from the FARC.

The Bush administration hasn’t yet accepted the legitimacy of these documents. But in any case, Washington’s endorsement of the Colombian attack on Ecuador’s territory is a message to Correa’s reformist government that the U.S. will try to undermine his government as well.

The U.S. has been looking for an opportunity to slap down Correa, who since taking office has crossed Washington by forging close ties to Chávez and refusing to renew the lease on the big U.S. air base in the town of Manta when it expires in November 2009.

It’s unclear whether U.S. officials had a broader offensive in mind when they gave Colombia the green light to carry out the raid on Ecuador, which was also a symbolic attack on Venezuela as well. With most of Latin America under center-left or left-wing governments, the conservative presidents who run Colombia, Mexico and Peru remain the U.S. government’s only major allies in the region.

But even Peru’s Alan Garcia and Mexico’s Felipe Calderón refused to support Uribe. Washington, desperate to prevent Chávez from using oil revenue to assist in Latin American economic integration outside U.S. control, apparently hoped Colombia’s provocations would isolate Chávez. Instead, the U.S. only pushed Latin American leaders further into Chávez’s camp.

All this is lost on the U.S. media, which routinely portray Uribe as a democrat and Chávez as a strongman or worse.

But honest observers of the region conclude otherwise. “Colombia presents one of the worst human rights records in the world,” wrote José Miguel Vivanco and Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno of Human Rights Watch.

“At nearly 3 million, Colombia’s population of internally displaced persons is second only to that of Sudan. Colombia also has the worst record in the world in terms of assassinations of trade unionists, with over 2,500 being killed in the last 20 years–more than 400 during the Uribe government. Journalists and human rights defenders live in fear they will be threatened or killed for simply doing their jobs.”

Much of this violence has been carried out by right-wing paramilitaries, often with covert or even open state support. According to the Colombia Support Network, right-wing paramilitaries have killed about 600 people per year between 1982 and 2005.

Uribe attempted to clean up Colombia’s human rights record with an amnesty program that allowed paramilitaries to “surrender” to the state. But as last year’s revelations showed, paramilitaries continue to function and have influence at the highest levels of government–the figures known in Colombia as “para-politicians.”

None of this stopped Washington from bankrolling Colombia’s civil war in the name of the “war on drugs.”

“During the Clinton administration, Colombia became, outside of Israel and Egypt, the leading recipient of U.S. military aid in the world,” Jake Hess wrote last year. “Since 2000, under Plan Colombia, Washington has funded Bogotá to the tune of some $5 billion, about 80 percent of which has been military aid. Overall, in the past decade, two-thirds of all U.S. military and police aid to Latin America has been devoted to Colombia.”

While U.S. law enforcement officials claim that the FARC are “narco-terrorists,” it is the rightist paramilitaries who are intimately linked to the major drug cartels.

Now comes Plan Colombia II, a package that combines further U.S.-Colombian military ties with a proposed free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia.

“With this strategy, they are seeking to privatize, hand over natural resources to multinationals, provide cheap Colombian labor and also legalize the plunder of extensive zones of national territory, where entire populations have been victims of paramilitary vigilante groups that took over their lands,” the left-wing party Polo Democrático Alternativo said in a statement issued in December.

Growing opposition to the free trade deal, as well as to Uribe’s policies, was the backdrop to the march against paramilitary and state violence on March 6.

“The people want truth, justice and effective reparations for the victims of state violence,” protest organizer Iván Cepeda Castro told a reporter for Colombia’s Semana magazine. “The demonstrators marched for this, because there is a community that wants the total dismantling of the paramilitaries, and they’re against para-politicians.”