In this paper we would like to contribute towards turning this around—to resurrect the socialist project; to do so by deconstructing the discourse on “neoliberal globalization” and reconstructing the actual contemporary dynamics of capitalist development.

This is a major task requiring a closer look at the issues. The modest contribution of this paper is to bring into focus the imperialist dynamics of capitalist development in Latin America. To this end, we present an analytical framework for an analysis of the dynamics of capitalist development and imperialism. We then summarize these dynamics in the Latin American context. Our argument is that the dynamics of capitalist development and imperialism have both an objective-structural and a subjective-political dimension and that a class analysis of these dynamics should include both. This means that it is not enough to establish the workings of capitalism and imperialism in terms of their objectively given conditions that affect people and countries according to their class location in this system. We need to establish the political dynamics of popular and working class responses to these conditions—to neoliberal policies of structural adjustment to the purported requirements of the new world order. The politics of the Left might so be better informed.

The Neoliberal Era of Capitalist Development and Imperialism

Capitalist development in Latin America can be periodized as follows: (1) an initial phase of primitive accumulation and national development dating more or less from the Independence Movement in the 1860s and crystallizing in the Porfiriato, an extended dictatorship of the big landowners and incipient bourgeoisie in Mexico; (2) a period of modernization, incipient industrialization (in the form of “Fordism”) and social reform, dating from the Mexican Revolution in the second decade of the twentieth century; (3) a period of state-led capitalist development with “international cooperation” (technical and financial assistance) dating from the end of the Second World War and the construction of the Bretton Woods world order (1945-70); (4) a period of transition (1971-82) characterized by an extended crisis in the global system of capitalist production and diverse efforts to restructure the system; and (iv) the construction of a new world order designed so as to free the “forces of freedom” from the constraints on capital accumulation imposed by the system of sovereign nation states. This phase, which can be dated from the onset of a region-wide debt and an ensuing “development” crisis, is characterized by dynamic processes of neoliberal globalization and imperialism – the institution of a neoliberal policy framework (the structural adjustment program, as it was termed at the time), a renewed imperial offensive, and the decline but then partial recovery of the capital accumulation process and the self-styled “forces of economic and political freedom”.

The latest period of capitalist development has two dimensions (globalization in theory / imperialism in practice, forces of opposition and resistance), both of which can also be broken down into four phases.
Neoliberalism and Imperialism in Practice: A Framework of Analysis

Phase I (1975-82) of the neoliberal project is associated with the bloody Pinochet regime in Chile constituted with a military coup in 1973. The “bold reforms” implemented by this regime and extended into Argentina and Uruguay were subsequently implemented by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and used by economists at the World Bank as a model for the structural reforms set as the price of admission into the new (neoliberal) world order.

Phase II (1983-90) of neoliberalism (imperialism masked as globalization) includes the foundation stones of renewed process of capital accumulation on a global scale; setting the parameters for a new configuration of economic and political power; implementation of a second round of neoliberal “structural reform”; launch of an ideology (globalization) designed to legitimate this reform process, and the first wave of privatizations as part of this reform process; and a process of redemocratization designed as a means of securing the political conditions of structural adjustment—a marriage of strategic convenience between capitalism /economic liberalism and democracy / political liberalism (Dominguez and Lowenthal, 1996).

Phase III (1990-2000) entails what might be viewed as a “golden age” of massive transfers of public property to the “private sector” (capitalists and their enterprises); an enormous net outflow of capital (“international resource transfers”) in the form of profits on investments, debt payments and royalty charges; virtually no economic growth—less than one percent per capita over the decade and a growing divide in the distribution of society’s wealth and income; huge bailouts of the banks and investors in corporate stock in a situation of financial crisis; and another round of neoliberal policy reform (“structural reform”), this time with a “human face” (adding to the reform process a “new social policy” targeted at the poor,); a second wave of privatizations and an associated denationalization of the banks and strategic economic enterprises; and a post-Washingron Consensus on the need for a more inclusive form of neoliberalism designed to empower the poor (Craig and Porter, 2006; Ocampo, 1998; Van Waeyenberge, 2006).

Phase IV (2000-09) begins with an involution in the system of capitalist production and the collapse of foreign direct investment inflows; and the onset of political crisis viz. widespread disenchantment with neoliberalism, and a process of regime change (Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela—a coup against and the restoration of Chávez to power—and Uruguay. In 2003, the production crisis gives way to a mild economic recovery for a number of countries in the region and a sweeping realignment of political forces into four blocs. The basis of this process of economic and political development is a realignment of global production—a primary commodities boom fueled by the growing demand in China and India for new sources of energy, natural resource industrial inputs and consumption goods for a rapidly growing middle class.

Opposition to Imperialism, Class Rule and Neoliberalism: Forces of Resistance

Phase 1 (1973-82) of the anti-neoliberal project includes a major counter-offensive of the landed proprietors and big capital against the incremental advance of the workers and peasants; a double-offensive of the state against the rural poor and landless peasants in the form of the “Alliance for Progress” (“rural development”) and use of the state’s repressive apparatus against the guerrilla armies of national liberation; the counter-offensive of capital, with the support of the state, against the working class, resulting in a disarticulation of the labor movement, cooptation of its leadership and a weakening in its capacity to negotiate for higher wages and better working conditions; and, with the agency and support of U.S. imperialism, the institution of military coups and the institution of military rule and a war against “subversives” under the aegis of a Washington-designed “Doctrine of National Security”.

Phase II (1983-99) was characterized by a reorganization of the popular movement, particularly in the countryside—in the indigenous communities and among the masses of dispossessed, landless workers and peasant producers; the mobilization of the forces of popular opposition and resistance against the neoliberal policies of the governments of the day; various uprisings of indigenous peasants in Ecuador, Chiapas and Bolivia, resulting in the ouster of several presidents if not regime change, and in the blocking of governments efforts to extend the neoliberal agenda; the division of the indigenous movement (in Bolivia and Ecuador) into a social and political movement, allowing it to contest elections as well as mobilize the forces of resistance in direct action against the state; a general advance in the popular movement with the growth of new offensive and defensive class struggles.

Phase III (2000-03), corresponding to a crisis in production and ideology vis-à-vis neoliberalism, was characterized by the emergence of various offensive struggles and social mobilizations that led to the overthrow of regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez came to power, inciting the complex dynamics of a class struggle characterized by a series of counter-offensives by the ruling class (attempted coups, referendums), growing demands for radical reforms and the institution of the “Bolivarian Revolution” based on an anti-imperialist strategy designed to take the country along a socialist path.

As for Phase IV (2003-09) it saw the rise of a bloc of pragmatic neoliberal, quasi-populist democratic socialist regimes oriented towards the post-Washington Consensus, an ebb in the flow of the popular movements, the radicalization of Chávez’s project of “21st Century Socialism” and the reflux of the popular movement.

Four Cycles of Neoliberalism

“Neoliberalism” in this historic context denotes a national policy—or rather, reform of the then-existing policy of state-led development (“structural reform” or “structural adjustment”)—justified with a neoclassical theory of economic growth and development and an ideology of globalization. In this context, we can identify four cycles of neoliberal “structural reform”. The first cycle, initiated by the Chicago Boys in Chile under Pinochet . After this first round of neoliberal experiments in policy reform, extended to Argentina and Uruguay, crashed in the early 1980s, a second round of neoliberal policy reforms was implemented under conditions of redemocratization, an external debt crisis and the political leverage that this crisis provided the World Bank and the IMF, the agencies that assumed primary responsibility for implementing the Washington Consensus on needed policy reform.

The third cycle of neoliberal policies was implemented in the 1990s. At the outset only four major regimes had failed to fully embrace the “discipline” of structural adjustment. But serious concerns had surfaced as to the sustainability of the neoliberal model and the associated Washington Consensus. For one thing, neoliberalism had utterly failed to deliver on the promise of economic prosperity and mutual benefits to countries north and south of the global development divide. For another, structural reforms had not only released the “forces of freedom” but also forces of resistance that threatened the survival not only the viability of the neoliberal model but the survival of the state itself. To avert an impending crisis the ideologues of globalization and neoliberal architects of policy reform came up with a revised model: structural adjustment with a human face (UNICEF, 1989) in one formulation, productive transformation with equity (ECLAC, 1990) in another, and “sustainable human development” (UNDP, 1996) in yet another. The common feature of these and other such models was a continuing commitment to a neoliberal program of “structural reform” at the level of national policy, the design and adoption of a “new social policy” that “targeted” social investment funds at the poor and their communities, and specific policies that helped shelter the most vulnerable groups from the admittedly high “transitional” social costs of structural adjustment.

Policy Dynamics of Neoliberal Structural Reform

The discourse on “globalization” emerged in the 1980s in the context of efforts in policymaking circles to renovate the ailing Bretton Woods world order—to create a “new world order”. Under widespread systemic conditions of a capitalist production crisis and an associated fiscal crisis, economists at the World Bank and its sister “international financial institutions”, all adjuncts of the U.S. imperial state, formulated a program of policy reforms designed to open up the economies of the developing world to the forces of “economic freedom”, to integrate these societies and economies into the new world order. These policy reforms included various IMF stabilization measures such as currency devaluation and import restrictions, and policies of structural adjustment: (1) privatization of the means of social production and associated economic enterprises (reverting thereby the nationalization policies of the earlier model of state-led development); (2) deregulation of diverse product, capital and labor markets; (3) liberalization of capital flows and trade in products and services; and (4) and administrative decentralization, attempting to “democratize” thereby the relation of civil society to the state, transferring to local governments in partnership with civil society responsibility for economic and social development; that is, privatizing “development” (allowing the poor to “own” and be responsible for improving their lives, changing themselves rather than the system.

By the end of the 1980s, this package of policy reforms had transformed the economic and social system of many Latin American societies. The state-led reforms of the 1960s and 1970s (nationalization, regulation of capitalist enterprise and capital inflows, protection of domestic producers, rural credit schemes, land and income redistribution market-generated incomes, etc.) had been reverted, effectively halting, where not reversing, the process of development and incremental change.

The outcome and social impacts of this social transformation were all too visible and apparent, especially to those groups and classes that bore the brunt of the adjustment and globalization process. With a significant reduction in the share of labor (and households) in society’s wealth and national income, and an equally significant concentration of asset-based incomes and its conversion into capital, Latin American society became increasingly class divided and polarized between a small minority of individuals capacitated and able to appropriate the lion’s share of the new wealth and a large mass of producers and workers who had to bear the costs of this “structural adjustment” and excluded from its benefits. The economic and political landscape of Latin American society was, and is, littered with the detritus of this development process. The objectively given conditions of this process are not only reflected in the all too evident deterioration in living and working conditions of the mass of the urban and rural population. They are also reflected in the evidence of a process of massive outmigration, the export of labor as it were, and an equally massive process of capital export—a net outflow or transfer of “financial resources” estimated by Saxe-Fernandez and Núñez (2001) to amount to over USD 100 million for the entire decade of the 1990s. Recent studies suggest that if anything the process, fuelled by the financialization of development and policies of privatization, liberalization and deregulation, has continued to accelerate, putting an end to any talk, and much writing, about a purported “economic recovery” based on a program of “bold reforms” and “sound economics.” Neoliberalism is in decline if not dead.

Globalization or Global Class War?

It is commonplace among many intellectuals, pundits and policy makers both in Latin America as elsewhere to discuss “globalization” as of it were a process unfolding with an air of inevitability, the result of forces beyond anyone’s control—at worst allowing policymakers to manage the process and at best to push it in a more ethical direction; that is, allow the presumed benefits of globalization to be spread somewhat more equitably. This is, in fact, the project shared by the antiglobalization movement in their search for “another world” and the pragmatic centre-left politicians currently in power in their search for “another development”.

In this discourse, globalization appears as a behemoth whose appetites must be satisfied and whose thirst must be quenched at all costs—costs borne, as it happens but not fortuitously, by the working class. In this context to write, as do so many on the Left today, of the “corporate agenda” and “national interests”, etc. is to obfuscate the class realities of globalization—the existence and machinations of the global ruling class (Petras, 2007) and what Jeffrey Faux (2006) terms a “global class war.”

Faux’s book allows us to view in a different way the globalizing economy, the politics and economics of free trade, and soaring corporate profits on the one hand, and, on the other hand, deteriorating standards of living and the continuing (and deepening) poverty of most of the world’s people. What is behind this reality? A dynamic objective process, working like the invisible hand of providence through the free market to bring about mutual benefits and general prosperity? Or a class of people who in their collective interest have launched a global war with diverse features and theaters. One feature of this class war, one of many (on its manifestation in the European theater, see Davis, 1984; and Crouch and Pizzorno, 1978) entails ripping up the social contract that had allowed the benefits of capitalism to be broadly shared with other social classes. Another feature was the use of the state apparatus to reduce the share of labor in national income waken its organizational and negotiating capacity, and repress any movement for substantive social change.

The globalization discourse hides the class realities behind it. The press, for example, consistently talks about national interests without defining whom exactly is getting what and how, under what policy or decision-making conditions. Thus, American workers are told that the Chinese are taking their jobs. But the China threat, in fact, is but another global business partnership, in this case between Chinese commissars who supply global capital cheap labor and the U.S. and other foreign capitalists who supply the technology and much of the capital used to finance China’s exports. Workers in Latin America are told that it is their inflexibility and intransigence, and government interference in the free market, that hold them back from engaging meaningfully or at all in the many benefits of globalization. Many, including on the Left, view “globalization” in this way. However, it would be better to see it for what it is: a class project vis-à-vis the accumulation of capital on a global scale; and as “imperialism” vis-à-vis the project of world domination, a source and means of ideological hegemony over the system.

Neoliberalism is the reigning ideology of the global elite, a transnational capitalist class that holds its annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland. Hosted by the multinational corporations that dominate the world economy (Citigroup, Siemens, Microsoft, Nestlé, Shell, Chevron, BP Amoco, Repsol-YPF, Texaco, Occidental, Halliburton, etc.), some 2000 CEOs, prominent politicians (including former and the current presidents of Mexico), this and other such meetings allow this elite to network with pundits and international bureaucrats, discuss policy briefs and position papers on the state of the global economy, and to strategize abut the world’s future – all over the best food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the fire among friends and associates – fellow self-appointed and nominated members and guardians of the imperial world order.

Davos is not a secret cabal, although it is surrounded by meetings and workings of a host of groupings, meetings and committees and extended networks that is. Journalists issue daily reports to the world on the wit and informal charm of these unelected, self-appointed or nominated members of the class that runs and manages the global economy. In this sense it is a political convention of what Fauz dubs “the Davos Party” that includes solid representation from the economic and political elite in Latin America. The mechanism and dynamics of class membership are unclear; as far as we know it has not been systemically studied. But it likely involves “people” like Henrique Fernando Cardoso, former dependency theorist and later neoliberal president of Brazil, upon or before completion of his term in office, being invited to give a “talk” or address members of the imperial brain trust, the global elite, at one of its diverse foundations and “policy forums”, such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a critical linchpin of the imperial brain trust and its system of thinktanks, policy forums and geopolitical planning centers. Certainly this is how former Mexican presidents Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo were appointed and assigned specific responsibilities on diverse working “committees” designed to identify and redress fissures in and threats to the system. It is evident that listing in Forbes’ listing of the world’s biggest billionaire family fortunes, such as Bill Gates, George Soros and Carlos Slim, is sufficient in itself to ensure automatic membership in the club.

The New World Order system easily identifies those members of the global elite in each country that, as Salbuchi (2000) notes, are “malleable, controllable and willing to subordinate themselves to the system’s objectives”. Their careers are then launched so that they may rise to become presidents of their countries or ministers of finance and central bank governors. This was the case, for example, for Argentina’s Domingo Cavallo, Chile’s Alejandro Foxley and Brazil’s Henrique Cardoso, each of whom received suitable local and international press coverage; were honored with “prestige-generating” reviews, interviews, conferences and dinners, etc.; and then invited to address the Council on Foreign Relations, the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, so that the key New World Order players in New York and Washington could evaluate them. If and when they pass muster their election campaigns are generously financed by the corporate, banking and media infrastructure of the “establishment” that has the resources and means to bring them to power legally and democratically—to do the bidding of their masters and colleagues.2 Some are even invited to join elite circles and organizations such as Trilateral Commission and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), or one of the CRC’s working committees.

The Left Responds to the Crisis of Neoliberalism

Throughout the 1990s the dominant popular response to neoliberal globalization and associated regimes and policies was in the form of social movements that represented and advanced most effectively the struggle against what Ron Chilcote (1990) called a “plurality of resistances to inequality and oppression”. These movements placed growing pressure from below on the regime and the “political class”. However, by mid-decade, well into the left’s general retreat from class politics, a number of these movements followed Brazil’s labor movement (The PT or Workers’ party) in establishing a party apparatus to allow them to contest both national and local elections—to pursue an electoral strategy. This political development did not require or mean an abandonment of the social movement strategy of social mobilizations, etc. but it did open up a broader opportunity to participate in the electoral process, allowing the populace to participate in party politics.

Local Politics and Community Development

The mobilization of the electorate via the institutional trappings of liberal democracy provided a new impetus to the political left—the segment that opted for party politics over social mobilization as a strategy for achieving state power: influencing government policy from within rather than outside the system. However, a large swath of the Left seem to have heeded Jorge Casteñeda’s call for the Left to switch its electoral ambitions to the municipality, local politics and community development. His argument, advanced in Utopia Unarmed, was that “municipal politics should be the centre-piece of the left’s democratic agenda…because it typifies the kind of change that is viable…a stepping stone for the future” (1994: 244). Engagement in local politics, he argued –and much of the left seemed to have followed this line—would provide the basis for a consolidation of the Left after the so-called “democratic transition” from 1979 (Bolivia, Ecuador) to 1989 (Chile). In addition it would help re-articulate the civil society-local state nexus and restore legitimacy to the Left’s relationship with the popular sector (Lievesley, 2005: 8).

An example of the approach proposed by Casteñeda, and in fact widely pursued by the Left even before his book (the World Bank’s strategy in this regard was already quite advanced) had already is the PT’s experience with municipal government in Porto Alegre, the capital city of Brazil’s state of Rio Grande do Sul (1989-2004). The PT administration opened up municipal institutions with a stated commitment to accountability and transparency, as well as citizen participation in the budget planning process via the mechanism of public meetings (Orçamento Participativa).

The Porto Alegre experience with participatory budgeting was hailed by the World Bank and the International Development “community” of multilateral institutions and liberal academics as a good example of collective decision-making for the common good, a model of grassroots participatory development and politics, and it continues to serve as a guide to similar practices and experiences elsewhere (Abers, 1997). Other examples of this “participatory” approach towards local politics and community development, widely adopted by the Left in the 1990s in its retreat from class, can be found in Bolivia and Ecuador, both countries a laboratory for diverse experiments to convert the municipality into a “productive agent” (the “productive municipality”)3 and exertions by the Left to bring about social change via local politics (North and Cameron, 2003). On the left this shift from macro-politics and development (national elections versus social movements) to micro-politics and development (local politics, participatory development) was viewed as a salutary retreat from a form of analysis and politics whose time had come and gone. Within academe the dynamics of this process has been viewed in some circles as the harbinger of a “new tyranny” (Cooke and Kothari, 2001).

The World Social Forum Process: Is Another World Possible?

On January 3, 2007, Caracas, the capital city of an epicenter of social and political transformation in the region was concerted into the Mecca of the international left. Thousands of activists (100, 00 according to the organizers) arrived in Caracas from some 170 countries to participate in the sixth edition of the World Social Forum (WSF), a process initiated in Porto Alegre, Brazil, six years earlier. It was the first of a then thereafter annual event, extended to and replicated in other regional settings from India, Europe and most recently Nairobi, Kenya in the African subcontinent. In each place and in each annual event, the organizers would bring together hundreds of nongovernmental and civil organizations committed to the search for a more ethical form of globalization, a more human form of capitalism. The process brings together diverse representatives of a self-defined new left committed to the belief in the necessity and possibility of a “new world”, an alternative to globalization in its neoliberal form.

There are, of course, defined limits to this new political process: participants are invited and expected to explore diverse proposals for bringing about “another world” but to limit this search to reforms to the existing system, reforms that no matter how “radical” are expected to leave the pillars of the system intact. This liberal reform orientation to the process is ensured by explicit exclusions—any political organizations that include armed struggle or violent confrontation and class struggle in its repertoire, that are oriented towards revolutionary change.

ATTAC, a Paris-based social democratic organization is the most visible representative of this approach towards social change, but the World Social Forum from its inception morphed into and became a significant expression of what emerged as the “antiglobalization movement”. This movement had its origins in the encounter of diverse forces of resistance formed in middleclass organizations in the “global north” and mounted against the symbols of neoliberal globalization such as the World Trade Organization and the G-7/8 annual summit. A defining moment in this movement, rooted in the organizations of the urban middle class—NGOs, unions, students, etc.–in both Europe and North America, included the successful mobilization against the MAI in Seattle. This mobilization was the first of a number of serialized events scheduled to unfold at important gatherings of the representatives of global capital—Genoa, Quebec, Melbourne, Dakar….

In Latin America the World Social Forum process, is the basic form taken by the “antiglobalization movement” in the search for “another world” (the latest event in this process was hosted by Lula, taking place in Bélem towards the end of January 2009). Apart from the absence of an internal division between the advocates of moderate reform (ethical globalization) and more radical change the antiglobalization process is designed to define and maintain the outer limits of permitted change; that is, controlled dissent from the prevailing model of global capitalist development. Not anti-globalization but a more ethical form. Not anti-capitalism but a more humane form of capitalism, a more sustainable human form of development. Not anti-imperialism because imperialism is not at issue.

The New Left and the Politics of No-Power

In the shape and form of class struggle the path towards social change in the 1960s and 1970s was paved with state power. That is, the forces of resistance, at the time based in the countryside, in the organizations and movements of the landless and near landless peasants, and in the urban-based organized labor movement; and for the most part led by petit-bourgeois middle class intellectuals, were concerned with the capture of state power. In the 1990s, in a very different context—neoliberal globalization—and in the wake of the Zapatista uprising in January 1994, there emerged on the left a postmodern twist to the struggle for social change: “social change without taking state power” (Holloway, 2002).

In the discourse of Subcomandante Marcos, the Zapatismo came to symbolically—or theoretically, in the writings of Holloway and others (for example, Burbach, 1994)—represent a “new way of doing politics”: to bring about social change without resort to class struggle or the quest for state power (Holloway, 2002). However, much of the Latin American Left appeared all o ready to retreat from class politics and engage the new way of “doing politics”. Some of the Left joined the struggle for change at the level of local politics and community development–to bring about social change by building on the assets of the poor, their “social capital” (Portes, 1998, 2000; Ocampo, 2004). Another part joined the “situationists” and other militants of “radical praxis” in an intellectual engagement with the forces of social and political disenchantment in the popular barrios of unemployed workers—in Gran Buenos Aires and elsewhere (Besayag and Sztulwark. 2000; Colectivo Situaciónes, 2001, 2002). This was in the early years of the new millennium. In the specific conjuncture of economic and political crisis, a generalized rejection of the “old way” of doing politics (“que se vayan todos”), the search for redemption and relevance left a large part of the left without a political project, without a social base for their politics.

Dynamics of Electoral Politics: What’s Left of the Left

With the advent of the new millennium, it was clear that the neoliberal model even in its revamped form, had failed to deliver on its promise of economic growth and general prosperity. Instead it had deepened existing class and global divides in wealth and income, and regime after regime was pushed towards its limits of endurance by the forces of popular mobilization. In this context, the political class in each country turned to the left, opening up new opportunities for groups that had hitherto concentrated their efforts on local politics and community development. Governments of the day, many of them neoliberal client regimes of the US, fell to the forces of resistance and opposition.

Political developments in the region regarding this regime change led to a concern in the US, and widespread hopes and expectations on the Left, about a tilt to the left in national politics and what the press (Globe & Mail) has termed a “disheartening” triumph of politics over “sound economics”. A lot of this concern revolves around Hugo Chávez, who appears (to the press and U.S. policymakers) to be taking Venezuela down a decidedly anti-US, anti-imperialist and seemingly socialist path–and taking other governments in the region with him.

Chávez’s electoral victory was seen by many as the moment when a red tide began to wash over the region’s political landscape. In the summer of 2002, the Movement to Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia, led by militant coca growers’ leader Evo Morales, became the second largest party in the Congress while in December it achieved huge victories in municipal elections—in what was billed by the MAS itself as “la toma de los municipios”. The election to state power of Lula da Silva in Brazil (October 2002) wa followed by Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (May 2003), Tabaré Vasquez in Uruguay (November 2004), Evo Morales (December 2005), (December 2006) Rafael Correa in Ecuador (December 2006) and most recently Lucas Longo in Paraguay. The tide was checked in Mexico in the summer of 2006 when Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate of the PRD, fell just short of victory, and in Peru, where the nationalist Humala lost out to Alan Garcia, the once disgraced social democrat but reborn neoliberal. But it appeared to swell again with Daniel Ortega’s victory in Nicaragua—although, given his opportunism and religious rebirth, Ortega could hardly be viewed as on the Left notwithstanding his friendship with Chávez and Fidel Castro—and Rafael Correa.

Thus it appeared that Latin America had turned against the US-inspired—and dictated—neoliberal policies of structural adjustment and globalization by electing to state power a number of parties on the political left—although “moderate” or “pragmatic”. Centre-left regimes, some of which cherish their links with Cuba and relish throwing it in the face of the U.S. administration, which has shown itself to be extraordinarily ideological and non-pragmatic, now outnumber right-of-centre governments in the region. The days of the US-supported and instigated right-wing dictatorships and military rule are over, having long disappeared in the dustbins of history and replaced by a new breed of neoliberal regimes.

Latin America turns left?

These regimes in appearance (that is, as constructed in the rhetoric of public discourse) have changed or are changing economic course, ostensibly moving away from the neoliberal policies pushed by the US. This was the case in Argentina, for example where the Kirchner administration was compelled by the most serious economic and political crisis in its history to confront the IMF and the World Bank, and the US, by halting payments on the country’s external debt, redirecting import revenues towards productive and social investments, including short-term work projects demanded by the mass of unemployed workers that at the time constituted over 25% of the laborforce and who had taken to the streets, picketing highways in protest. The result: some three years later is an annual growth rate of 8%, the highest in the region.

Another example of apparent regime change was in Brazil, where and when in October 2002 the electorate after his third attempt voted Ignacio [Lula] da Silva, leader of the PT, into power, re-electing him in 2006 to a second term in office. The first President on the “left” voted into power since Allende in 1970, Lula is nevertheless (and for good reason, it turns out) very well received by Wall Street, if not Washington, which tends to view him as a thorn in the U.S. side. Indeed Lula played a major role in defeating the White House plan for a hemispheric free trade zone, and continues to annoy the U.S. with his support of Chávez-Morales-Correa axis in Latin American politics. In this context, the intellectual Left associated with the antiglobalization movement choose to see Lula as an opponent of neoliberal globalization. In fact, Lula, on behalf of Brazil’s agribusiness and other capitalist producers simply has been playing and continues to play hardball in negotiations over access to the U.S. market.

Elections of centre-left governments followed in Uruguay (2004), Chile (2005), Ecuador (2006) where the electorate was polarized between a business magnate, Alvaro Noboa, the richest man in the country and a committed neoliberal ideologue; and Rafael Correa, head of a centre-left coalition that appears to be taking Ecuador down the same path as Evo Morales is taking Bolivia, particularly in regard to a constituent assembly that might well, or is expected to, change the economic and social system as well as the correlation of class forces in the country’s politics. In this regard, elements of the political left in Ecuador, especially those associated with the “Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales” (CMS), see a political opportunity to build a “radical bloc” on the basis of combined action “from above” (the government) and “from below” (the indigenous and popular movement). Whether this will happen (see Saltos, 2006)4 remains to be seen. For one thing, it hinges on the capacity of the popular movement for active mobilization – to pressure the Correa government from below towards the left. On this the historic record is fairly clear. As observed by Pedro Stedile, leader of the MST, “without active mobilization the government gives nothing”.

With the election of Rafael Correa over Alvaro Noboa the popular and indigenous movement in Ecuador at least placed on the agenda of government action issues such as national sovereignty, nationalization of the country’s natural resources, agrarian reform, indigenous rights, subordination of payment on the external debt to social programs, renegotiation of oil contracts will the multinationals, the ending of the military bases in Manta, and Latin American (vs. continental) integration. Whether the government will act on these issues remains to be seen.

The conflict that ensued over the Constituent Assembly (CA) in Ecuador and Bolivia, where the CA was finally approved) is symptomatic of the profound legitimation crisis in the system of class domination in these and other countries (Saltos, 2006). Earlier and other forms of hegemony, such as “globalization” and the trappings of representative “democracy”, have lost their hold over people, having been totally undermined by the all too tangible and visible signs of the negative effects of neoliberal policies. The reign of Washington in the region appears to be in serious decline. Nor can Washington, in its efforts to preserve the status quo or the status quo ante, revert to the use of force—to bring back the Armed Forces to restore order. Its only recourse is to engage “civil society” in the project of “good governance”—to restore political order by means of a broad social consensus that reaches well beyond the state and the political class (Blair, 1997; OECD, 1997; UNDP, 1996; World Bank, 1994b).

What we saw in Quito and La Paz in regard to the Constituent Assembly went beyond a conflict between two branches of government. At issue was that those who elected Correa and Morales had come to the point of refusing to be subordinated to a state controlled by the dominant class and servile to Washington and the interests of global capital. On achieving political representation with the election of Morales and Correa, and Chávez for that matter, the forces in the popular movement were all too aware that the legislature was dominated by the “oligarchy” (the ruling class is understood in Bolivia and Ecuador). In this situation, Morales and Correa were compelled to construct a multi-class alliance and mobilize the forces of resistance to class rule and the neoliberal agenda of previous governments under the post-Washington Consensus. The result is the construction of a multi-ethnic or pluri-national state oriented towards what the Vice-President of Bolivia, Alvaro Garcia, conceives of as an Andean form of capitalism, and a new anti-american axis of regional politics and trade.

These and other such political developments in Bolivia and Ecuador are illustrative of what appears to be a regional trend. For example, in neighboring Colombia in October 2003 the voters elected a former union leader Luis Garzón as mayor of Bogotá. The election marked a swing to the left in Colombia’s second most important elective office, a clear challenge to the pro-US, scandal-ridden right-wing government of Alvaro Uribe. If we take these and other such developments together, especially in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, there does indeed seem to be a leftward swing in the political winds of change, leading …to declare that democratic elections are not enough: governments in the region also have to “govern democratically”, i.e. place no constrictions on the forces of opposition to the new agenda in national and regional politics.

Whither Socialism in a Sea of Crisis and Neoliberal Decline?

A serious discussion of the prospects for socialism in Latin America today must take into account world economic conditions in the current conjuncture, the state of US-Latin American relations relative to the project of world domination and imperialism, the specific impact on Latin American countries of these conditions and relations, the conditions deriving from the correlation of class forces within these countries, and the class nature and agency of the state relative to these forces.

World Economic Conditions and Their Impact on Latin America

Latin America’s “restructured” capitalist economy emerged from the financial crisis of the 1990s and the recession of the early years of the new millennium with its axis of growth anchored in the primary sector of agro-mineral exports (Cypher, 2007; Ocampo, 2007). From 2003 to 2008 all Latin American economies, regardless of their ideological orientation or political complexion, based their economic growth strategy on the “re-primarization” of their export production, to take advantage thereby of the expanding markets for oil, energy and natural resources and the general increase in the price of primary commodities on the world market. The driving force of capitalist development in this period was agribusiness and mineral exports, export-oriented production of primary commodities leading to an increased dependence on diversified overseas markets and a change in the correlation of class forces, strengthening the right and, notwithstanding a generalized tilt to the Left at the level of the state, a weakening of the Left. Ironically, the primarization of exports led to the revival and strengthening of neoliberalism via the reconfiguration of state policy to favor agro-mineral exporters and accommodate the poorest section through populist clientelistic “poverty programs”. In the context of a primary commodities boom and the emergence of a range of democratically elected centre-left regimes, trade union leaders were coopted and the social movements that had mobilized the forces of resistance to neoliberalism in the 1990s were forced to beat a retreat from the class struggle (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2009).

The link between U.S. finance capital, the growth of industry and the domestic market in Asia, and the primary commodities boom, was responsible for the period of high growth in Latin America from 2003 to 2008, when the boom went bust and most economies in the region succumbed to a financial crisis of global proportions and a system-wide deep recession that threatened to push the U.S. economy, at the centre of the gravitational force of this crisis, towards collapse. With the U.S. empire’s “over-extension” and the exceedingly high costs of prosecuting imperialist war in Iraq and maintaining its enormous military apparatus—military expenditures on the Iraq war alone increasing by millions each minute (as of February 17, 2009 US$ 597.7 billion) and likely to cost well over a trillion dollars before it is over—the capacity of the U.S. to weather the storm of financial crisis and a deepening recession has been seriously diminished. Given the absorption of the U.S. state in the Iraq war, governments in Latin America in the latest phase of capitalist development managed to achieve a measure of “independence” and “relative autonomy” in their relations with the United States. And this has given leaders like Hugo Chavez a free hand in his efforts to push Venezuela in a socialist direction.
Impact of World Recession and U.S. Imperial Revivalism in Latin America

Latin America is feeling the full brunt of the world recession. Every country in the region, without exception, is experiencing a major decline in trade, domestic production, investment, employment, state revenues and income. The projected growth of Latin America’s GDP in 2009 has declined from 3.6% in September 2008 to 1.4% in December 2008 (Financial Times, January 9, 2009). More recent projections estimate Latin America’s GDP per capita as falling to minus two percent (-2%).5 As a result state spending on social services will undoubtedly be reduced. State credit and subsidies to big banks and businesses will increase; unemployment will expand, especially in the agro-mineral and transport (automobile) export sectors. Public employees will be let go and experience a sharp decline in salaries. Latin America’s balance of payments will deteriorate as the inflow of billions of dollars and euros in remittances from overseas workers, a major source of “international financial resource” for many countries in the region, declines. Foreign speculators are already withdrawing tens of billions of investment dollars to cover their losses in the U.S. and Europe. A process of foreign disinvestment has replaced the substantial inflow of “foreign investment” in recent years, eliminating a major source of financing for major “joint ventures”. The precipitous decline in commodity prices in 2008, reflecting an abrupt drop in world demand, has sharply reduced government revenues dependent on export taxes. Foreign reserves in Latin America can only cushion the fall in export revenues for a limited time and extent.

The recession also means that the economic and social structure, the entire socioeconomic class configuration on which Latin America’s growth dynamic in recent years (2003-2008) was based, is headed for a major transformation. The entire spectrum of political parties linked to the primary commodity export model and that dominate the electoral process will be adversely affected. The trade unions and social movements oriented toward an improvement in their socioeconomic conditions and wages, social reforms and increased expenditures of fiscal resources and social spending within the primary commodity export model will be forced to take direct action or lose influence and relevance.

The initial response of the left of center regimes that came to power in the context of a primary commodities boom and neoliberalism in its demise has largely focused on: (i) financial support for the banking sector (Lula) and lower taxes for the agro-mineral export elite (Kirchner/Lula); (ii) cheap credit for consumers to stimulate domestic consumption (Kirchner); and (iii) temporary unemployment benefits for workers laid off from closed small and medium size mines (Morales). The response of the Latin American regimes to date (up to the beginning of 2009) could be characterized as delusional, the belief that their economies would not be affected. This response was followed by an attempt to minimize the crisis, with the claim that the recession would not be severe and that most countries would experience a rapid recovery in “late 2009”. It is argued in this context that the existing foreign reserves would protect their countries from a more severe decline.

According to the IMF, 40% of Latin America’s financial wealth ($2.200 billion dollars) was lost in 2008 because of the decline of the stock market and other asset markets and currency depreciation. This decline is estimated to reduce domestic spending by 5% in 2009. The terms of trade for Latin America have deteriorated sharply as commodity prices have fallen sharply, making imports more expensive and raising the specter of growing trade deficits (Financial Times, January 9, 2009, p. 7).

The impact of these “developments” can be traced out not only in regime politics but on the class structure and the correlation of forces associated with this structure. Thus, the fall in the demand and price of primary commodities is resulting in a sharp decline in income, the power and the solvency of the agromineral exporters that dominated state policy in recent years. Much of their expansion during the “boom years” was debt-financed, in some cases with dollar and euro-denominated loans (Financial Times, January 9, 2009, p.7). But many of the highly indebted “export elite” now face bankruptcy and are pressuring their governments to relieve them of immediate debt obligations. And in the course of the recession/depression there will be a further concentration and centralization of agro-mineral capital as many medium and large miners and capitalist farmers are foreclosed or forced to sell. The relative decline of the contribution of the agro-mineral sector to the GDP and state revenues means they will have less leverage over the government and economic decision making. The collapse of their overseas markets and their dependence on the state to subsidize their debts and intervene in the market means that the “neoliberal” free market ideology is dead – for the duration of the recession. Weakened economically, the agro-mineral elite are turning to the state as its instrument of survival, recovery and refinancing.

In this new context, the “new statism” in formation has absolutely nothing “progressive” about it, let alone any claim to “socialism”. The state under the influence of the primary sector elites assumes the primary task of imposing the entire burden of the recession on the backs of the workers, employees, small farmers and business operators. In other words, the state is charged with indebting the mass of people in order to subsidize the debts of the elite export sector and provide zero cost loans to capital. Massive cuts in social services (health, pensions and education), and salaries will be backed by state repression. In the final analysis the increased role of the state will be primarily directed to financing the debt and subsidizing loans to the ruling class.

The State of U.S. Relations in Latin America in the Current Conjuncture

If the U.S. suffered a severe loss of influence in the first half decade of the early 2000s due to mass mobilization and popular movements ousting its clients, during the subsequent four years the U.S. retained political influence among the most reactionary regimes in the region, especially Mexico, Peru and Colombia. Despite the decline of mass mobilizations after 2004, the after-effects continued to ripple through regional relations and blocked efforts by Washington to return to relations that had existed during the “golden decade” of pillage (1990-1999).

While internal political dynamics put the brakes on any return to the 1990s, several other factors undermined Washington’s assertion of full scale dominance: (i) The U.S. turned all of its attention, resources and military efforts toward multiple wars in South Asia (Afghanistan), Iraq and Somalia and to war preparations against Iran while backing Israel”s aggression against Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Because of the prolonged and losing character of these wars, Washington remained relatively immobilized as far as South America was concerned. Equally important Washington’s declaration of a intensified worldwide counter-insurgency offensive (the “War on Terror”) diverted resources toward other regions. With the U.S. empire builders occupied elsewhere, Latin America was relatively free to pursue a more autonomous political agenda, including greater regional integrations, to the point of rejecting the U.S. proposed “Free Trade Agreement.”

In this new context the spectrum of international relations between the U.S. and Latin America runs the gamut from “independence” (Venezuela), “relative autonomy” within competitive capitalism (Brazil), relative autonomy and critical opposition (Bolivia) to selective collaboration (Chile) and deep collaboration within a neoliberal framework (Mexico, Peru and Colombia). Venezuela constructed its leadership of the alternative nationalist pole in Latin America, in reaction to U.S. intervention. Chávez has sustained its independent position through nationalist social welfare measures, which has garnered mass support. A policy of “independence” was made possible, and financed as it were, by the commodity boom and the jump in oil prices. The “dialectic” of the US-Venezuelan conflict evolved in the context of U.S. economic weakness and over-extended warfare in the Middle East on the one hand and economic prosperity in Venezuela, which allowed it to gain regional and even international allies, on the other.

The autonomous-competitive tendency in Latin America is embodied by Brazil. Aided by the expansive agro-mineral export boom, Brazil projected itself on the world trade and investment scene, while deepening its economic expansion among its smaller and weaker neighbors like Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador. Brazil, like the other BRIC countries, which include Russia, India and China, forms part of newly emerging expansionist power center intent on competing and sharing with the U.S. control over the region’s abundant resources and the smaller countries in Latin America. Brazil under Lula shares Washington’s economic imperial vision (backed by its armed forces) even as it competes with the U.S. for supremacy. In this context, Brazil seeks extra-regional imperial allies in Europe (mainly France) and it uses the “regional” forums and bilateral agreements with the nationalist regimes to “balance” its powerful economic links with Euro-US financial and multi-national capital.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the “imperial collaborator” regimes of Colombia, Mexico and Peru, which remain steadfast in their pro-imperial loyalties. They are Washington’s reliable supporters against the nationalist Chávez government and staunch backers of bilateral free trade agreements with the U.S.

The other countries in the region, including Chile and Argentina, continue to oscillate and improvise their policies in relation to and among these three blocs. But what should be absolutely clear is that all the countries, whether radical nationalist or imperial collaborators operate within a capitalist economy and class system in which market relations and the capitalist classes are still the central players.

Socialism and the Latin American State in the Current Conjuncture of the Class Struggle

Control of the state is an essential condition for establishing socialism. But it is evident that a more critical factor is the composition of the social forces that have managed to achieve state power by one means or the other. From 2003 to 2008, in the context of a primary commodities boom and a serious decline in the mobilizing power of neoliberal globalization, one state after the other in Latin America has tilted to the Left in establishing a nominally anti-neoliberal regime. However, the only regime in the region with a socialist project is that of Chávez, who has used the additional fiscal resources derived from the sale of oil and the primary commodities boom—specifically the growing world demand for oil – to turn the state in a socialist direction under the ideological banner of the “Bolivarian Revolution”. All of the other center-left regimes formed in this conjuncture for one reason or the other, and regardless of their national sovereignty concerns vis-à-vis U.S. imperialism, have retained an essential commitment to neoliberalism, albeit in a more socially inclusive and pragmatic form as prescribed by the post-Washington Consensus (Ocampo, 1998). A surprising feature of these centre-left regimes is that not one of them—again Venezuela (and of course Cuba) the exception—use their additional fiscal revenues derived from the primary commodities boom to reorient the state in a socialist direction, i.e. to share the wealth or, at least, in the absence of any attempt to flatten or eliminate the class structure to redirect fiscal revenues toward programs designed to improve the lot of the subordinate classes and the poor. Again, Chávez” is the exception in the use of windfall fiscal revenues derived from the primary commodities boom (oil revenues in the case of Venezuela) to improve conditions for the working class and the popular classes. The statistics regarding this “development” (see Weisbrot, 2009) are startling. Over the entire decade of Chávez rule, social spending per capita has tripled and the number of social security beneficiaries more than doubled; the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39%, and extreme poverty by more than half. During the primary commodities boom (2003-2008), the poverty rate in Venezuela was cut by more than half, from 54% of households in the first half of 2003 to 26% at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty fell even more (by 72%). And these poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education. However, in the other countries in the region governed by a centre-of-left regimes, not one of which is oriented towards socialism, conditions were and are very different. In a few cases (Chile, Brazil) the rate of extreme poverty was cut, but in all cases, despite recourse to an anti-poverty program following the PWC, government spending was relatively regressive. In only one case (Venezuela) is per capita PSE greater today than it was in 2000 in the vortex of a widespread crisis and a zero growth (Clements, Faircloth and Verhoeven, 2007). In many cases social programs and government spending was allocated so as to distribute more benefits to the richest stratum of households and the well to do than to the working class and the poor.6 Even in the case of Bolivia, where the Morales-Garcia Lineres regime has a clearly defined anti-neoliberal and anti-US imperialist orientation, not only has the government not expanded social program expenditures relative to investments and expenditures designed to alleviate the concerns of foreign investors but the richest stratum of households benefited more from fiscal expenditures on social programs than the poorest (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2009). All of the centre-left regimes that have came to power in this millennium, especially Brazil and Chile, elaborated anti-poverty programs with reference to the PWC. In the case of Bolivia fiscal expenditures on social programs defined by the “new social policy” of the post-Washington Consensus have been supplemented by a populist program of bonuses and handouts, and popular programs in health and education, but these have been almost entirely financed by Cuba and Venezuela. As for the fiscal resources derived from Bolivia’s participation in the primary commodities boom they have been allocated with a greater sensitivity to the concerns of foreign investors than the demands of the working class and the indigenous poor.

In this situation what is needed is not only access to state power, which the social movements managed to ostensibly achieve via the election of Evo Morales, but an ideological commitment of the government to socialism – to turn the state in a socialist direction. In this connection the Chávez regime is unique among Latin American heads of state. Even so the road ahead for the Bolivarian revolution in bringing about socialism of the twenty-first century promises to be long and “rocky”, as in the case of Cuba littered with numerous pitfalls but unlike Cuba with the likely growth in the forces of opposition.

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Those who are exploited are our compatriots all over the world; and the exploiters all over the world are our enemies… Our country is really the whole world, and all the revolutionaries of the world are our brothers.
– President Fidel Castro.¹

The revolutionary [is] the ideological motor force of the revolution…if he forgets his proletarian internationalism, the revolution which he leads will cease to be an inspiring force and he will sink into a comfortable lethargy, which imperialism, our irreconcilable enemy, will utilize well. Proletarian internationalism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary necessity. So we educate our people.
– Che Guevara²

I think that the governments of Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua let down the entire Tamil population in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as well as “proletarian internationalism” and the “exploited”, by extending unconditional support to Sri Lanka’s racist government.

Cuba did so—along with the Bolivian and Nicaraguan governments and members of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America)—on May 27, 2009 when signing a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution praising the government of Sri Lanka for “the promotion and protection of human rights”, while only condemning for terrorism the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which fought the government in a civil war since 1983 until their defeat on May 19, 2009.

During the last year of war, the Sri Lankan government illegally and brutally interned nearly half-a-million Tamil civilians; 280,000 of these civilians were entrapped in several “welfare centers” upon the LTTE’s surrender. Half-a-year later, only a few thousand have been released. Their conditions are the opposite of “promotion and protection of human rights”. Hundreds have died and are dying for lack of food, water, basic health care.

Since advocating for and signing the unbalanced HRC resolution, I have found no text or evidence that these progressive-revolutionary-socialist governments of ALBA have criticized Sri Lanka for routinely practicing brutality and neglecting basic life necessities of these illegally interned people. The conduct of Sinhalese-led governments towards Tamils ever since Sri Lanka’s independence from Great Britain, in 1947-8, has always been one of mistreatment and inequality, even genocide.

While ALBA leader Venezuela is not a member of that council, President Hugo Chavez followed suit by applauding Sri Lanka’s victory.³ I hope that these revolutionary leaders will undo that damage by coming to the aid of the interned and all 2.5 million Tamil survivors of this horrible carnage and condemning Sri Lanka for its beastly and racist conduct. Tamils national rights must also be recognized, especially by governments representing other indigenous and once enslaved peoples.

In this first of a five-part series, I begin to lay the case that Sri Lanka’s governments practice genocide. I will also speculate about why the four ALBA countries involved in this matter could have decided to ignore this reality, why they disallowed an investigation into the assertion, and why they support such a cruel, chauvinistic regime. In the forthcoming parts, I will sketch the history of the Sinhalese and Tamils; outline the right and necessity for Tamil nationhood; delineate their struggles for equal rights; and show the geo-political power game being played out between the west and its’ sometimes antagonistic counterpart regimes in China and Iran; and conclude with the present state of affairs for Tamils.

Human Rights Council Resolution S-11/1: Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and protection of human rights

Upon the end of the war, 17 countries on the 47-member Human Rights Council called for an extraordinary session about the Sri Lankan situation. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, spoke for an “independent and credible international investigation” into the reports of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law on both sides of the civil war.

“For its part, the Government reportedly used heavy artillery on the densely populated conflict zone, despite assurances that it would take precautions to protect civilians”… and the “reported shelling of a hospital clinic on several occasions”…”

“These people are in desperate need of food, water, medical help and other forms of basic assistance… there have already been outbreaks of contagious diseases.”

“The images of terrified and emaciated women, men and children fleeing the battle zone… must spur us into action.”

Pillay’s professional, compassionate and balanced proposal was not tabled or even discussed. Instead 17 members—mostly EU countries and Canada, but also Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile—proposed only that an investigation into these charges of human rights abuse be pursued by the Sri Lankan government itself, that is: the government investigating its brutality, hardly anything radical or effective. This, and the call for “rapid and unhindered access” for humanitarian aid from the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross, was the only significant difference from another resolution proposed by the majority, mostly Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries. Chile was the only NAM member to vote against the majority, which wanted no investigation at all. And the “rapid and unhindered access” for humanitarian aid was reduced to: “provide access as may be appropriate”, thereby giving Sri Lanka’s government the power to use food/water/medicine as a weapon against their enemy: the Tamil people and not the now defeated LTTE.

Sri Lanka was present at the HRC sessions as an observer. It had been a member from 2006 to 2008 when it lost reelection as one of the six Asian State members. Poignantly overlooked by most NAM members assembled a year later, it had been severely criticized by Tamils around the world and by internationally respected Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

“The systematic abuses by Sri Lanka government forces are among the most serious imaginable. Torture and extrajudicial killings are widespread [as is] kidnappings of its own people,” said Tutu in May 2008 when opposing its seat on the Human Rights Council.

A year later, the HRC majority unfastidiously praised Sri Lanka for continuing “to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law”. The key promoter of the majority resolution was, to my dismay, Cuba—the homeland of my heart and where I had lived and worked for the government for eight years.

The Cuban ambassador to the Council, Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios—who also spoke on behalf of the NAM—praised Sri Lanka’s governments over the years, and “congratulates” it on “putting an end” to the armed conflict. A key sentence is: “Sri Lanka’s sovereign right to fight terrorism and separatism within its undisputed borders must be respected.” The words “separatism” and “undisputed borders” will be dealt with at length later. But no one familiar with the history of Sinhalese and Tamils for decades since independence and centuries before could have chosen to speak of “undisputed borders”. Tamils had a homeland, two kingdoms, for centuries before the Sinhalese came to the island and for centuries afterwards.

Cuba also acted as a special advocate for Sri Lanka as an “interlocutor”, in addition to Egypt, India and Pakistan. The resolution about Sri Lanka was actually its own draft, which Cuba tabled.⁴

Just before the vote, the Bolivian HRC ambassador, Ms. Angélica Navarro Llames, made it clear she was perturbed by the manner in which many of the 17 countries had presented their resolution and for insisting upon a special meeting just a week before the scheduled one. She objected to “neocolonialist attitudes”. The Bolivian then spoke of LTTE terrorism used against the people and the government and people, and defended its right to fight for its sovereignty.

Resolution S-11/1 adopted by the majority (29 members for, 12 against, 6 abstentions). Here are pertinent excerpts:

Reaffirming the respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and its sovereign rights to protect its citizens and combat terrorism,

Condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields…

Welcoming the conclusion of hostilities and the liberation by the Government of Sri Lanka of tens of thousands of its citizens that were kept by the LTTE against their will as hostages, as well as the efforts by the Government to ensure safety and security for all Sri Lankans and bringing permanent peace to the country…

Emphasizing that after the conclusion of hostilities, the priority in terms of human rights remains the provision of the necessary assistance to ensure relief and rehabilitation of persons affected by the conflict, including internally displaced persons, as well as the reconstruction of the country’s economy and infrastructure,

Encouraged by the provision of basic humanitarian assistance, in particular, safe drinking water, sanitation, food, and medical and health care services to the IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] by the Government of Sri Lanka with the assistance of the United Nations agencies…

1. Commends the measures taken by the Government of Sri Lanka to address the urgent needs of the Internally Displaced Persons;

2. Welcomes the continued commitment of Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of all human rights and encourages it to continue to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law;…

5. Acknowledges the commitment of the Government of Sri Lanka to provide access as may be appropriate to international humanitarian agencies in order to ensure humanitarian assistance to the population affected by the conflict, in particular IDPs…

In Favour: Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Uruguay, Zambia;

Against: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;

Abstaining: Argentina, Gabon, Japan, Mauritius, Republic of Korea, Ukraine.”⁴

I will show in upcoming articles how points 1, 2, and 5 cited here have never been the reality; Sri Lanka has not respected Tamils lives or their rights nor provided them their “urgent needs.”

Terrorism and Genocide

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was first dubbed a terrorist organization by India, in 1992. Ironically, it wasn’t until 1998 that Sri Lanka’s government so characterized them, and it did so only after the US did, in 1997. On May 30, 2006, the EU placed LTTE on its terrorist list and banned the organization. It made it a terrorist crime to economically or military aid LTTE, and it froze all LTTE bank and financial assets in Europe. The EU appeared to be even-handed by calling upon the Sri Lankan government to end its “culture of impunity” and to “curb violence” in its areas of control. At the time of LTTE’s defeat, 32 countries had defined them as terrorists.

Never having been in Sri Lanka or South Asia, it is difficult for me to know whether LTTE was a decidedly terrorist organization or not—that is, one which seeks to terrorize civilians. After reading many accounts of atrocities, such as killing hundreds of civilian Sinhalese in their homes, on buses and trains, I conclude that this once Marxist revolutionary organization resorted to terrorism.

At the same time, it must not be forgotten that any liberation movement the world’s greatest state terrorist, the United States of America does not agree with is “terrorist” and therefore illegitimate. Other terrorists, such as the government of the separatist state of Kosovo, are no longer considered terrorist although its drug-smuggling paramilitary organization had been so described, even by the US. Superpowers support or oppose autonomy-independence when it suits their interests. This is also the case with Ireland, the Basques in Spain, and the Palestinians.

Furthermore, the US systematically practices terrorism in its permanent war—invading or “intervening” militarily in 66 countries, a total of 159 times since World War Two.

We must lament the unacceptable methods the LTTE used against many people, and do so without ignoring the history of why and how it was born. Nor must we reject out-of-hand the basic rights and needs of the Tamil people. Their plight must not be abandoned, especially by governments and organizations grounded in anti-imperialism and equality amongst peoples.

Sri Lanka’s history since independence is one of conducting genocide against the Tamils. Genocide is defined by the UN, and Sri Lanka ratified its promise to adhere to it on October 12, 1950.The Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted December 9, 1948 and entered into force, January 12, 1951, states:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
   (a) Killing members of the group;
   (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
   (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
   (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
   (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.⁵

Destroying “in whole or in part” an ethnic group is certainly what Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese governments, as well as Buddhist monks, have been doing to the Tamils for six decades. Evidence will be forthcoming. There is so much evidence that even a former US deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration filed a 12-count indictment against S.L. defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for “perpetrating genocide against Tamil civilians.”

The suit was filed by Bruce Fein, in February 2009, in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

The case can be filed in the US because G. Rajapakse is a naturalized citizen and Fonseka holds a resident green card. They are charged with responsibility for: “3,750 alleged extrajudicial killings, with 10,000 suffering bodily injury and more than 1.3 million displacements,” which, according to Fein, “far exceed displacements in Kosovo which led to genocide counts before the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”

Fein noted that G. Rajapakse said in a BBC interview that, “if you are not fighting the Tamil Tigers you are a terrorist and we’ll kill you.” The attorney represents Tamils Against Genocide. He believes that G. Rajapakse will be “the best witness of the genocide.”

Why ALBA voted as it did: Some points of contention:

I ask the three ALBA governments, which voted for the above resolution, to take Sri Lanka’s government to account on the serious charge of genocide against the Tamil people. At the very least, ALBA should be able to see that hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are brutally treated, and that routine discrimination and abuse have been the Tamil’s plight at the hands of Sinhalese. This is a dichotomy to ALBA’s ideology of equal rights for all: in language, in religion, in the economy, in all aspects of life. In fact, the very new constitution of Bolivia recognizes itself as a pluri-nation in which all the languages and religions of all the peoples are recognized equally. The same is the case in Venezuela with its new constitution.

How can it be, then, that these peoples’ governments have fallen in the arms of such an oppressive, racist government? Possible reasons are:

1. Separatism! It is ironic and ideologically insupportable that anti-imperialist progressive and revolutionary leaders in Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia—mainly dark-skinned peoples, and many of them, especially in Bolivia, are Original Peoples long abused by many whites and creoles—side with the Sinhalese chauvinist elite in Sri Lanka. Perhaps they have not studied the sordid history of Sri Lanka. But more certainly is it that they do not support separatism or dual nationhood within one land mass. Cuba especially has, from its revolutionary start, argued for unity. What Cuba and the others fail to realize or acknowledge is that the Tamil people had tried for decades to achieve equal rights with the Sinhalese, many of whom assert adherence to Marxism, yet to no avail. Most Sinhalese do not wish to unify equally with the other ethnic group. Once peaceful means are exhausted, armed struggle is the only means to achieve liberation, as was the case with Cuba and other Latin American guerrilla movements.

In the case of Sri Lanka and separatism, ALBA governments could be prompted to side with it because of, in part, the role of China! The threat of separatism, which has been the desire of many Tibetan Buddhists, is an impelling factor for China’s position of one nation in its own region, and may be how it views the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Here, China sides, ironically, with Buddhists against Hindus-Christians-Muslims.

Bolivia and Venezuela, too, are pressed by separatist demands but they come not from an ethnic group but from a rich class of Whites-Creoles, which has no historic ethnic Homeland.

2. Geo-politics! Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-dominated governments have been supported militarily and economically by many States, some of which are sometimes antagonistic to one another. Some leftist governments and leftist organizations often operate on the notion that the enemy of my enemy is a friend. If that is the way some socialist-communist-revolutionaries view China and Iran, both totalitarian regimes, in regards to US-Europe-Canada-Australia-Japan imperialism when it comes to Sri Lanka they are mistaken. Surely there are economic and geo-political interests on the part of China and Iran in investing and trading with countries in development, including Sri Lanka but also Cuba and all in Latin America. Fortunately most Latin Americans and the majority of their governments have ceased jumping when a US president or general barks, and they are combining in regional alliances and seeking foreign investments and aid from non-traditional partners.

Since China and Iran began extending their interests into Sri Lanka and sided with its brutal treatment of Tamils, many leftists and progressive governments could think in the black-white geo-political manner. The US-EU states, for their own propaganda image, question Sri Lanka for possible abuses of human rights against Tamils. Ah, no one with experience or knowledge about the duplicity of the empire and its allies could side with them so one must back the other side.

But China is no longer socialist, rather its economy is mainly based on government-sponsored private enterprise with exploitation of labor in the extreme: no union protection, long work hours, low wages, child labor, no say on the job or national and international policies. The working class no longer even has access to full education and health care without paying on a capitalist basis. In fact, workers in most capitalist countries in Europe have better access to health care than workers do in China. Millionaire capitalists now sit on leadership bodies of the so-called Communist Party, and make important decisions over the heads of workers and the population. China is interested mainly in accumulating capital in the grand old raw capitalist style, and it owns more of the US economy (8%) than any other government or economic entity. China’s economy is intricately interdependent upon the US’s capitalism and its imperialist wars.

Iran is run by fundamentalist religious fanaticism. Its economy is basically a capitalist one. Its working class, just as the working class in China, is not a decision-maker. Iran is also a warring partner with US imperialism in its illegal war against Iraq, whose troops are a key factor in the violence against millions of Iraqis. Iran supports their co-religious Muslims in the Quisling government under US domination.

Is it possible that the developing countries, which back Sri Lanka against the Tamil population, do so out of economic reasons? China and Iran provide needed investments and technology and thus one must not criticize. Is that possible, and if so is it ethical, is it consistent with our humanitarian principles and socialist ideology? Cannot one be a trading partner without cowing politically?

Another issue is secularism. The ALBA countries and all truly socialist oriented governments are not and cannot be theocracies! How can secular nation states and organizations consider the Sri Lanka state “democratic socialist” when it declares a religion, and only one, as THE national and official religion? Secularism is the only common ground by which all can be united.

Conclusion

I concur with progressive Tamils in the Tamil Nadu state of India, who have for decades supported Cuba and the new ALBA formation. The Latin American Friendship Association there has held many solidarity activities for these countries, and published scores of books by Latin American authors, including Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Upon learning of the HRC resolution, they were appalled. The author of the excerpted letter below is Amarantha Visalakshi. For 25 years, she has translated books about Latin America into Tamil and written some herself.

We here in Tamil Nadu celebrated the 80th birthday of Comrade Fidel by releasing eight books on Cuba’s achievements in various fields… and are in the midst of our preparation for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and evaluation of the consolidation of Latin American countries in ALBA…

We are struck dumb and rendered disheartened and disillusioned by this act [the HRC resolution] by those countries of Latin America on which we have pinned our hopes for the future—Socialism of the 21st century.

Why do these countries wish for wiping out the Tamils from the Sri Lankan soil where they rightfully belong? What are the sources of information for these Latin American countries to decide against the Tamils and in favour of the racist Sri Lankan government in the UN Human Rights Council?… more than any other time we feel the absence of Che Guevara, the true internationalist, who laid down his life for the oppressed people of the world.

I also concur with Australia’s largest left-wing organization, the Democratic Socialist Perspective and Socialist Alliance, which publishes greenleft.org.au.

We need “to undertake work to help convince the revolutionary governments of Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, to cease support for the Sri Lankan government, and to recognize the national rights of the Tamil people. There is a long-run danger if revolutionary governments, for whatever reason, fail to support genuine movements for national self-determination in Third World countries, and endorse repressive regimes on the basis of a bogus ‘anti-imperialism…’”

1. Fidel told writer-photographer Lee Lockwood: Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel, Macmillan, N.Y. 1967.
2. Socialism and man, Marcha, Uruguay, March 12, 1965.
3. “Hugo Chavez praises President Rajapaksa’s leadership in defeating LTTE”, Sri Lanka Daily News, September 4, 2009. In this piece, published by a pro-government newspaper, there is not one quotation by Hugo Chavez, who spoke with Rajapakse when they were in Libya. The piece paraphrases what the anonymous writer asserts Chavez having said; an example: Chavez apparently said that the defeat of LTTE terrorism “is a glowing example to other countries beset with the same problem,” words of the writer. Chavez allegedly praised Rajapakse for his leadership.
4. 1, 2, 3.
5. Source. Although the US signed the 1948 convention, it did not accede to it until November 1988. As of 2008, 140 nation states have acceded.

Zelaya is a wealthy businessman, a member of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), a former National Congress Deputy from 1985-1998, a former PL Minster for Investment, and president from January 27, 2006 to when he was deposed on June 28.

His 2005 presidential campaign was largely on a law-and-order platform with pledges that, if elected, he’d address Honduras’ crime problem with more police programs against and reeducation ones for violent international and local street gang members.

Zelaya also joined Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) based on fair, not one-sided “free” trade; complementarity, not competition; solidarity, not domination; cooperation, not exploitation; and respect for each nation’s sovereign freedom from corporate control.

According to supporters like Alejandra Fernandez, a Honduran student, he also: “raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, (and) made more scholarships available for students.” In addition, he built roads and schools in rural areas. “That’s why the elite classes can’t stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle.” One the Resistance is detemined to win and hardliners aim to crush.

The Coup d’ Etat

On June 28, dozens of Honduran soldiers stormed Zelaya’s residence at night, arrested him in his pajamas at gunpoint, and exiled him to Costa Rica in violation of the 1982 Constitution that states:

“No Honduran may be expatriated nor delivered by the authorities to a foreign state,” nor may a democratically elected leader be deposed.

On July 3, the Honduran army’s top lawyer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, admitted as much in a Miami Herald interview saying: “We know there was a crime there. In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”

He meant protection from the Constitution’s Article 239 (crafted by a military government to subordinate civilians to repressive rule) that states: “No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

Also, Article 374 stating:

It is not possible to reform, in any case, the preceding article, the present article, the constitutional articles referring to the form of government, to the national territory, to the presidential period, the prohibition to serve again as President of the Republic, the citizen who has performed under any title in consequence of which she/he cannot be President of the Republic in the subsequent period.

Zelaya didn’t suggest it or break the law in calling for a simple non-binding June 28 “yes” or “no” referendum on one question:

Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box (the other three being for candidates) in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constituent Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?

The Honduran Congress and military opposed it. The CSJ illegally ruled it unconstitutional, ordered no distribution of ballot boxes, and threatened those doing it with 8-12 years in prison for “abuse of authority.” The High Court and Congress are stacked with right-wing ideologues. In addition, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs calls the CSJ “one of the most corrupt institutions in Latin America.”

So is the military whose officers from captain on up have been trained for decades at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISEC), where they’re taught the latest ways to kill, maim, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, suppress popular resistance when it erupts, and work cooperatively with Washington to solidify hard-right rule, intolerant of progressive change — familiar tactics since June 28.

The day before, the military set off a chain of events. Reports said Zelaya fired Joint Chiefs Head General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez for refusing to distribute ballot boxes. He denied it. Velasquez may have resigned on his own. So did Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana and several military commanders. Nonetheless, the CSJ and Congress called Velasquez’s dismissal illegal. Military forces deployed around Tegucigalpa, surrounded the Presidential Palace, and took over the airport and borders in advance of the planned coup, made in Washington, of course, like numerous others for decades.

Zelaya, nonetheless, ordered ballot boxes distributed. Congress recommended removing him. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced that anyone setting up polling stations or promoting the referendum would be prosecuted. Anti-Zelaya forces urged a boycott.

Right-wing media hype called the vote illegal, a ploy to re-elect Zelaya, a way to shift his conservative Liberal Party far-left, a scheme to solidify his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) membership and let Chavez make Honduras socialist. In a pro forma June 29 pronouncement, the CSJ reinstated Velasquez. The Catholic Church backed the coup government. Months of terror followed, including:

• imposing military rule, martial law, and a state of siege;
• deploying combat troops on city streets;
• suspending civil liberties, including habeas, the right of assembly, free movement and free expression;
• committing thousands of human rights violations;
• thousands more illegal arrests;
• dozens of killings, beatings, kidnappings, and nationwide intimidation;
• according to the human rights NGO Comite de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared – COFADEH), torturing and sodomizing men and gang-raping women;
• reactivating the infamous Battalion 316, the CIA-created death squads that disappeared, tortured, and exterminated regime opponents in the 1980s;
• silencing the independent media; and
• harassing and arresting Honduran and foreign journalists; at least one was murdered, Gabriel Fino Noreiga on July 3.

Barack Obama ignored the worst of state terror in support of coup d’etat rule — no surprise from a president calling the fraudulent Afghan election “a step forward…to advance democracy, peace and justice… in “the interests of the Afghan people (and) a reflection of a commitment to the rule of law.”

Post-coup on Veneuela’s TV Telesur, Zelaya called his ouster a:

kidnapping. An extortion of the Honduran democratic system. And I will ask the presidents of the Americas, including the US president — I want to hear the US Ambassador Hugo Llorens in Tegucigalpa if they are behind this, and if not, clear it up, because if the US is not behind this coup, they won’t be able to stay there forty-eight hours.

For over 100 years, Washington repeatedly intervened in Central and Latin American affairs — by invasions, bombings, occupations, assassinations, countless episodes of destabilization and election rigging, and numerous coup d’etats against leaders it wished to depose.

Zelaya was the latest, confirmed by the Obama administration’s refusal to cut diplomatic ties, halt military aid, impose sanctions as US law requires, or call the ouster a coup.

Announced Deal

On October 30, New York Times writers Ginger Thompson and Elisabeth Malkin headlined, “Deal Set to Restore Ousted Honduran President.” To what given the agreed on terms. On October 29, AP reported that:

“opposing political factions resumed talks (today in hopes of reaching a deal) to end the power crisis that has paralyzed the country” since June 28. “The two sides returned to the negotiating table a day after visiting US diplomats urged both factions to be more flexible and find a solution (ahead of) scheduled” November 29 presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections.

Terms of the So-Called Agreement/Accord

Signed on October 30, it’s for Congress and the CSJ to approve it. Titled “Accord for National Reconciliation and the Strengthening of Democracy in Democracy,” it’s as Orwellian as “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Post-coup, The Hill.com reported that the far-right Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) hired former Bill Clinton special counsel, Lanny Davis’ firm, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, to lobby Congress and conduct a supportive PR campaign for its leaders. Lobbyist Bennett Ratcliff was enlisted to work with Davis, and according to an unnamed source in the New York Times, the Micheletti government hasn’t made a move without first consulting him.

These men, their associates, and legal staff prepared the Accord, the way business sectors craft all Washington legislation affecting them.

It begins saying:

We, Honduran citizens, men and women, convinced of the need to strengthen the rule of law, protect our Constitution and the laws of our Republic, deepen democracy and ensure a climate of peace and tranquility for our people, have carried out an intense and frank process of political dialogue to seek a peaceful and negotiated solution to the crisis in which our country has been submerged in recent months.

Terms include:

1. Forming a “National Unity and Reconciliation Government.”

Fact Check

Only hardliners need apply, and if reinstated, Zelaya will finish his term as an impotent puppet head of state.

2. Renouncing “a Call for a National Constituent Assembly and Amending the Unamendable Articles of the Constitution.”

Fact Check

According to Article 5 of the 2006 Honduran “Civil Participation Act,” government officials may hold non-binding inquiries (referenda) to determine popular support for proposed measures. Gauging sentiment for a National Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution is legal. Illegally, Washington and Honduran hardliners stopped it.

3. The coup regime calls on Hondurans to “peacefully participate in the coming general election and to avoid any type of demonstrations that oppose the elections of their results, or promote insurrection, unlawful conduct, civil disobedience or other acts that could result in violent confrontations or transgressions of the law.”

Fact Check

Honduran coup opponents called for an election boycott. On September 15, so did Zelaya saying: “One cannot talk about the elections where there are no guarantees that the will of the people is going to be respected.”

On October 24, 300 members of the two dominant parties, the National Party (PL) and Liberal Party (PL), announced they’ll refuse to participate. Will they now after the Accord was signed?

If some reports are accurate, Zelaya capitulated to coup d’etat terms by calling the Accord a democratic “triumph” – even though trade unionist independent candidate and National Resistance Front member Carlos Reyes and legislative deputy Cesar Ham of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD) party dropped out of the presidential race on September 9. Most of the remaining PN and PL candidates are conservative hardliners who’ll assure no possibility of democratic change.

The elections will fill 2,896 positions, including the presidency, all 128 National Congress deputies, 20 others to represent Honduras in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), 298 mayors and another 2,000 municipal officials.

4. The Honduran military and police will be “placed at the disposition of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal from one month before the general elections for the purpose of guaranteeing the free exercise of suffrage, the custody, transport and surveillance of electoral materials and other security aspects of the process.”

Fact Check

Hardline security forces will subvert democratic change. Hondurans will be disenfranchised if they back the charade. In betraying his supporters, Zelaya capitulated, meaning he’ll support coup d’etat authority.

5. The CSJ and Congress will “resolve the issue regarding ‘restoring possession of the Executive Power to its status prior to June 28 until conclusion (of) the current governmental period on January 27, 2010.”

Fact Check

Two hard-right bodies will decide IF Zelaya is reinstated and on what terms. He’ll be impotent by agreeing to the charade.

6. A “Verification Commission” will be created “to verify commitments made under this Accord and those deriving from it… composed of two (coup lackey) members of the international community and two members of the national community, the last two to be chosen, one each, by” Micheletti and Zelaya.

Fact Check

Staunch Washington ally, Ricardo Lagos, former Chilean president, and Obama’s Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, will represent the international community along with Jorge Eduardo Idiaquez, Zelaya’s UN ambassador, and coup lackey, Arturo Corrales Alvarez. A three to one edge assures no chance for democratic change.

7. The coup regime calls for “Normalization of Relations between the Republic of Honduras and the International Community” to restore the status quo.

Fact Check

The regime wants international recognition for its illegitimacy, continued hardline policies, and apparently will get it.

8. The Verification Commission will handle “differences regarding interpretation or application of this Accord…”

Fact Check

Hardliners want rubber stamp approval. Commission members chosen will assure it.

9. The Accord is effective on signing. The “following calender for compliance” was agreed on:

(1) On October 30, signing the Accord into effect, delivering it to Congress, and having it rule on Point 5, “Regarding the Executive Power.”

(2) On November 2 or no later than November 5, forming the Verification Commission and establishing the “National Unity and Reconciliation Government.”

(3) On January 27, “celebrating the transfer of government.”

The Accord was agreed to by Micheletti and Zelaya representatives, Thomas Shannon, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Obama’s yet-to-be confirmed ambassador to Brazil. Ostensibly, it will return Zelaya to office in exchange for international support for subverting democracy and continuity under far-right officials taking over in January.

It also assures his impotence. Hardliners will be empowered. Constitutional change will be prohibited. Democracy will be subverted. Zelaya must distance himself from Hugo Chavez. Perhaps other regional center-leftists as well. Coup plotters will get amnesty, and Zelaya may still be tried for treason for ordering a legitimate referendum.

What’s Next?

With elections in a few weeks, hardliners may stall, obstruct, and from what Micheletti advisor, Marcia Facusse de Villeda, told Bloomberg News maintain the status quo until new officials take office in January.

“Zelaya won’t be restored,” she said. Further, “just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections.” From Washington for sure according to Thomas Shannon. On November 4, Al Jazeera reported that he: “told CNN en Espanol (on November 3) that the US will recognise the November 29 elections even if the Honduran congress votes against Zelaya’s return to power before the vote.”

No surprise, and according to Micheletti aide, Arturo Corrales, Congress isn’t in session so approving the Accord will come “after the elections.” Yet, according to hondurasthisweek.com, the congressional Executive Committee (Junta Directiva) met on November 3 to evaluate the Accord, but what’s next is anyone’s guess as Congress president, Jose Alfredo Saavedra, hasn’t convened an extraordinary legislative session to decide on reinstatement. Nor has the CSJ ruled, yet the November 5 midnight deadline came and passed.

Zelaya Reacts

Still holed up at the Brazilian embassy under threat of arrest, Zelaya told Radio Globo: “There’s no sense in deceiving Hondurans.” His negotiator, Jorge Reina, said the Accord is dead because Congress failed to vote by the agreed on date and added:

“The de facto regime has failed to live up to the promise that, by this date (November 5), the national (unity) government would be installed. And by law, it should be presided by the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.” Reina accused Micheletti of arranging “a great electoral fraud this November. We completely do not recognize this electoral process. Elections under a dictatorship are a fraud for the people.”

According to AP: “Shortly before midnight, Micheletti announced that a unity government had been created even though Zelaya had not submitted his own list of members. Micheletti said the new government was composed of candidates proposed by political parties and civic groups.”

In other words, mostly hardliners to solidify coup d’etat rule even though earlier hondurasthisweek.com cited a November 1 Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia report saying Tegucigalpa diplomatic sources told the paper that Thomas Shannon forced Zelaya’s compliance or risk his son, Hector’s, prosecution on drugs trafficking. He lives in America. Zelaya complied, but as of November 6 no longer. Nonetheless, events are fast moving with likely new developments in the hours and days ahead.

At issue is how the international community will react if a fake national unity government is established and elections precede a vote on Zelaya’s reinstatement.

The Organization of American States’ (OAS) Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza, said he’s creating a “mission” to assure compliance, meaning Zelaya must be reinstated once Congress and the CSJ agree. However, no deadlines are set, so hardliners may run out the clock and declare victory. They’ve already won even though The New York Times reported that:

“As news of the agreement spread, residents poured from their homes and workplaces across Tegucigalpa, the capital, to celebrate. Jubilation broke out in streets,” with more likely if Zelaya’s reinstated. It’s not assured. Neither is what’s next if it comes. What if delay and obstruction follow, and what if Venezuelan lawyer, author, and close Chavez confidant, Eva Golinger, is right about more Washington-instigated “coups in Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela, where subversion, counterinsurgency and destabilization increase daily.”

Latin America is being more militarized, the result of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe giving the Pentagon access to seven new military bases with US forces currently on nine others, supplemented by the April 2008’s Fourth Fleet’s reactivation after a 60 year hiatus. Now the Honduran coup suggests other regimes outside the US orbit or not enough in it may be targeted. Add Bolivia to Golinger’s list and still more if center-left regimes take over.

The Honduran Resistance Reacts

In an October 1 interview, National Resistance Front leader, Juan Barahona, said:

“We will not stop. We will continue to be against the coup until the last day they are in power. After the June coup, the level of consciousness has greatly risen. There has been a parting of waters. This is a struggle between classes: on one side the exploited people, and on the other the capitalists, the large capitalists that dominate this country. (It’s a) struggle of the poor against the rich….” Overwhelming public sentiment wants a referendum calling for a National Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution.

Will popular resistance demand it? On November 5, two of its leaders appeared in Washington at an event to restore democracy and human rights in Honduras: Bertha Oliva, COFADEH founder, and Jessica Sanchez of the National Alliance of Honduran Feminists in Resistance.

On November 4, a London protest was held at the US Embassy for the same purpose. It also stressed “end(ing) all US economic, political and military support to” the Honduran dictatorship. Speakers included trade unionist leader Tony Burke, other activists, and Jeremy Corbyn MP.

The UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), “the voice of Britain at work (with) 58 affiliated unions representing nearly seven million working people,” called on MP David Miliband, Secretary of State Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, “to increase pressure” on hardliners “to restore democracy and to strongly condemn the series of human rights violations” post-coup.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing 170 million workers in 158 countries, unanimously passed a resolution at its recent Berlin General Council meeting calling for:

– suspending Honduran trade preferences and financial aid and cooperation until democracy is fully restored; and

– not cooperating with the bogus November elections by sending observers.

On October 31, the National Resistance Front told Hondurans:

• “We celebrate the upcoming restoration of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales as a popular victory over the narrow interests of the coup oligarchy;”
• the Accord mandates “returning the holder of executive power to its pre-June 28 state (and assuring) a democratic framework in which the people can exercise their right to transform society;”
• the Accord must “be processed in an expedited fashion by the National Congress; we alert all our comrades….to pressure for the immediate compliance;”
• “We reiterate that a National Constituent Assembly is an unrenounceable aspiration of the Honduran people and a non-negotiable right for which we will continue struggling in the streets, until we achieve the re-founding of our society to convert it into one that is just, egalitarian and truly democratic….(After over four months) of struggle, nobody here surrenders!”

One of its leaders, Rafeal Alegria, told Prensa Latina: “The people will not approve the electoral farce the putschists are preparing. The only solution to the conflict is the restitution of democratic legality and the president elected by the people.”

Key now is follow-through, persistence, and staying mobilized for the long haul. Popular victories come only at great cost after years of struggle the way noted journalist IF Stone explained: “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins…”

It’s for Hondurans and oppressed people everywhere to understand, persevere, and endure, no matter what.

In a situation of negotiations between on the one hand the putschists and on the other hand the legitimate government and its allies in the Front, all this in the context of the presidential elections, what is the Micheletti de facto government attempting to do? Amongst other things, it is trying to divide the resistance forces and weaken the mass movement in the streets in order to gain time and legitimize itself through elections. However, all three forces, firstly the Front and its affiliate social and trade union organizations and followers in the street, secondly the two potential candidates for the presidential elections who are directly linked to the Front and thirdly the Zelaya government, have all further developed their unity with each other. Their combined tactics in this complicated situation constitute one of many examples exhibiting the rapidly growing political maturity and consciousness of all the components forming the resistance. All of these forces, far from succumbing to the usual imperialist tactics of divide and rule, are further unifying themselves. The resistance in the streets, the new political forces and the constitutional Zelaya government all complement each other.

From an exclusive October 5 telephone interview with Zelaya by some international media and reported by on-the-spot journalist Giorgio Trucchi, the following are excerpts:

Question: You have agreed to sign the San Jose Arias Plan or Agreement which does not envisage the main demand of the National Front Against the Coup, that is to begin a process to install a Constituent Assembly. Does this imply a concession by you? [The question is related to President Zelaya refraining from promoting the Constituent Assembly during the remainder of his mandate.]

Zelaya: The person who is going to sign the Plan is me as the elected representative of the Honduran people. The Plan has two components: my restitution in order to say No to coups d’etats; the Latin American presidents are interested in this so as to feel confident that the sovereignty of the people is going to be respected and that no military, economic and political elite can replace the will of the people.

The second component comprises the social processes and reforms and is related to timing….The Constituent [Assembly] is not a power of the President, neither of the de facto regime, nor any other group. It is a faculty of the Honduran people who, through a people’s consultation, can determine when they are going to do it. That is why the signing of the Arias Plan is consistent with my position in relation to the reforms that have to continue…. The decision to organize a Constituent [Assembly] belongs to the people who are sovereign…¹

In an October 14 interview with Front leader Juan Barahona and as reported by Telesur, in response to the question:

Another point where it will be difficult to reach an agreement is number 3, where it is proposed that President Zelaya concedes the promotion of a Constituent Assembly?

Barahona: President Zelaya has already said that he is ready to sign the Agreement of San Jose and renounce the Constituent Assembly during the period that will remain to end his mandate. We are going to respect this position of the President; however, we as the Resistance are never going to renounce the need to push for the Constituent [Assembly]…. There will be no elections if President Zelaya is not restored ….

I am very pessimistic [about the negotiations] and I do not have many expectations that it can reach a comprehensive agreement. The putschists are trying [since the beginning of the negotiations] to divide our delegation saying that there exists strong contradictions between the resistance and President Zelaya. We [the resistance] meet daily to refine strategy and seek common positions, but this disinformation campaign indicates that they want to make the dialogue fail and then place the responsibility on our shoulders. They have gone so far as to launch a campaign against myself personally saying that I am very tough [a hardliner] and therefore I am not fit for negotiations. In this sense, it is true that I am tough, because I will never be willing to renounce the rights of the people…²

In communiqué No. 28 of the National Front, dated October 13, it is stated:

…We withdrew our comrade Juan Barahoma from the so-called Guaymuras dialogue. Our comrade Barahona was acting as the representative of the National Front against the Coup in the delegation of President Zelaya in the said dialogue.

The delegation of the coup regime, in a typical act of intransigence to hinder the advance of the negotiation, tried to paralyze the dialogue by refusing to accept that our representative would sign accord No. 3 referring to the installation of the National Constitutional Assembly with reservations, since we wished in that reservation to have it recorded that our Front does not renounce nor will it renounce the struggle for this demand, which is the demand of the Honduran people. Conscious of the fact that this was a manoeuvre to cause a failure of the dialogue using any pretext, since signing with reservations was suggested by them in an earlier session, we decided not to lend ourselves to this and therefore we took this decision, leaving President Zelaya at liberty to substitute another representative that enjoys his trust. In that sense, the lawyer Rodil Rivera Rodil was delegated as part of the commission of President Zelaya in substitution for our representative.

The preceding signifies that the [National Front] left the Guaymuras dialogue and that we will keep fighting in the street for the demands that we have raised since the 28th of June; the return of constitutional order, the restitution of President Zelaya to his office, and the convening of a Constitutional Assembly.

We declare that we respect the decision of our president if he decides to sign the San Jose Accord, even with all its conditions, and we declare that we are in full harmony with him in regard to the demand that the coup perpetrators sign an accord by which they will abandon power, and the office of President of the Republic will be returned to him [Zelaya.]³

It was reported on October 19:

In a telephone message to a meeting of the National Front…[on October 18, Zelaya] called on it to keep up the peaceful struggle to restore democratic legality, broken by the June 28 military coup. ‘We will resist until the people obtain victory’… [and] stressed that the struggle will continue until we obtain a country with justice and equity, in a truly participatory democracy. The national directorate of the Front agreed [on October 18] and vowed to continue the peaceful resistance until the return to power of Zelaya and then go on to a national Constituent Assembly…⁴

There are two candidates for the presidential elections who are fully involved in the National Front:

César Ham of the Unificación Democrática (UD) party and trade union leader and independent candidate Carlos Reyes. Zelaya called on them both to take a stand against participating in the elections under the existing conditions which would lend legitimacy to the putschist electoral process.⁵

In an interview carried out by Giorgio Trucchi in Honduras with popular trade union leader and independent presidential candidate Carlos Reyes, the latter stated, as published on September 30:

“…If we the people´s and democratic candidates do not withdraw from this electoral process, we would be endorsing all that scaffolding [built-up by Micheletti] and weaken the resistance…”⁶

This position was confirmed on October 15 by one of the Front leaders Rafael Alegría who emphasised that Reyes will not be candidate under the current conditions in order to “…refrain from legitimizing coups d’etats or constitutional breakdowns…”⁷

On October 19, the UD party, the third most important of five political force amongst all tendencies in Honduras, announced that it is withdrawing from the elections taking into account that they are “unconstitutional without the restoration of the legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya…”⁸

This tendency developed even further on October 22. Even a section of the Liberal Party, a party to which the coup perpetrators are linked and one of the biggest political parties in Honduras, joined the protest against the elections. According to an interview accorded to Prensa Latina on October 22: “The Coordination of the Liberal Party against the Coup in Honduras confirmed that it will abstain from participating in the November 29 elections if there is no re-establishment of democracy in the country…. In order for the elections to be recognized by the people and the international community, the indispensable requirement is the return to constitutional order and of the legitimate President, Manuel Zelaya. The Coordination was created in the middle of August during a meeting with the participation of more than 5,000 Liberal Party delegates who rejected the break-down of legal democracy carried out by the military on June 28…”⁹

Despite all the pressures, on October 25, the National Front, through the voice of its Coordinator Juan Barahona declared that the Front met on October 24 and confirmed their position that “one of the agreements reached was to ratify that if President Zelaya is not returned to his position, there will be no elections on November 29 in the face of the rejection by the vast majority of the people…Barahona pointed out that the candidates running as independents, those from the UD, from the sections of the Liberal Party, as well as Innovación and Unidad Social Democrática parties opposed to the coup, have all anticipated their withdrawal from the elections if Zelaya is not restored…”¹⁰

According to a Prensa Latina report, in order to make sure that this orientation regarding the elections makes its point, on October 25 the Front met at the local neighbourhood base and then following the mandate received from this level, decided on October 25 that the 121st consecutive day of resistance will take place on October 26…” Of great political significance, in my view, is that the Front decided in favour of “the resistance carrying out a variety of initiatives in order to stop the military dictatorship from succeeding in its attempt to seek an appearance of legality through the elections.”¹¹

This constitutes one of the most important steps in the struggle since the coup; right from the beginning the Honduran oligarchy and those supporting them either directly or indirectly have been attempting to gain time, to stall until the elections take place and in this way “legitimize” the coup.

Since June 28, the Honduran people and all progressive forces including the Zelaya legitimate government have been developing their unity, political consciousness, organization and peaceful tactics with the immediate objective being the restitution of Zelaya followed by Constituent Assembly, the latter whether Zelaya is ever returned to power or not. The putschists have provoked a mass movement in the country to renew Honduras through a new constitution as the foundation. In fact the new foundation has already been built on a solid basis constituted of the people’s political consciousness and the innovative alternative organization.

For example, in an October 23 interview, Barahona declared that “Honduras completely changed, and we are going to inherit a very positive result of all this; an organization and an important experience. During these days of struggle the level of consciousness has risen far more than by means of a hundred courses on class struggle…”¹²

Honduras 2009 already has carved out its place in the most recent history of this small Central American country. It is bound to win, nothing can stop it.

Each country in the region has its historic moments which have proven to be watersheds in its respective history:

* Cuba, as the pioneer, is so rich in ground-breaking historical steps. Taking the most recent history, one can indicate the attack on Moncada in 1953 as the continuation of José Marti’s nineteenth century tradition, and its future development following the Granma landing in 1956, the Sierra Maestra war in 1957-1958, with decisive events such as Che’s historic 1958 action in Santa Clara which broke the back of the pro US-military dictatorship.

* Venezuela 1998 is now synonymous with the first electoral victory of Hugo Chávez, coming out of a long struggle by the leader and his movement, a year which changed the coursed not only of Venezuela, but affected all of South America. However, a coup d’etat organized by Washington and their allies in Caracas in 2002 turned into a disaster for the US and Venezuelan oligarchy when the political and organizational strength of the people of Venezuela exploded into a massive action. The secret to success, amongst other factors such as the support for the President from a section of the military, had as its basis mass participation as was explained to the author in a recent interview accorded by a Venezuelan participant who is now a Legislator.¹³ The columns of people coming from all over completely overwhelmed the coup perpetrators in Caracas. The political consciousness including the need for further organization took a leap forward in a just a couple of days.

* Bolivia 2005: Evo Morales as an indigenous trade union leader and his movement were hoisted to the head of the government in the wake of a massive and successfully organized involvement of a marginalized people; they discussed and acted upon election procedures and soon after a new Constituent Assembly as the basis of a new constitution.

* Nicaragua 2006, nourished from the tradition of the 1970s and 1980s but with a renewed political organization and tactics, Daniel Ortega broke through to victory in 2006.

* Ecuador 2006, the election of Rafael Correa as President proved to be the first step in a rapid succession of political events running into 2008 including a referendum on the need for a Constituent Assembly, the actual election of a Constituent Assembly and the successful referendum on a new modern constitution emerging out of the Constituent Assembly.

Honduras 2009 marks the watershed between the old and the new in this country which Zelaya attempted to remove from its position of being one of the poorest nations in South America, an economic and military colony of the USA. Honduras 2009 may continue into 2010, but the Honduran people will win, just as did the Cubans, Venezuelans, Bolivians, Nicaraguans, Ecuadorians and others.

1. Entrevista en exclusiva con el presidente Manuel Zelaya, en Tegucigalpa, Giorgio Trucchi, Rel-UITA, 5 October 2009
2. Telesur, 14 October 2009
3. voselsoberano.com,13 October 2009.
4. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 19 October 2009.
5. Telesur, 17 October 2009
6. Giorgio Trucchi, Carlos Amorín, Rel-UITA, 30 September 2009.
7. Telsur, 15 October 2009.
8. Venezolano de televisión, 19 October 2009.
9. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 22 October 2009.
10. Prensa Latina, 25 October 2009.
11. Raimundo López, enviado especial Prensa Latina, 26 October 2009.
12. tercerainformacion.com, 23 October 2009.
13. Lor Mogollón, Henrys, Deputy ,Yaracuy Province, in a private interview with the author, October 14, 2009, Montreal.

Widespread human and labor rights violations were revealed, including child labor; illegal below-poverty wages; few or no benefits; forced or unpaid overtime; hazardous working conditions; verbal, physical, and sexual abuses; forced pregnancy testing to be hired and while employed; excessive long working hours causing physical ailments, stress, and harm; denial of free expression, association, and collective bargaining rights; and elaborate schemes to commit fraud and deceive corporate auditors.

In April 2009, Subsidizing Sweatshops II followed to provide more evidence of a global problem. It tracked developments in four factories from the first report and four new ones in five countries on three continents producing uniforms for nine major firms in China, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and America.

Two cases relied on investigations by independent factory monitors. Three others used personal worker interviews conducted by “credible local unions and non-governmental organizations with expertise in labor rights.” Three more are based on SFC-conducted interviews.

In all cases, the global economic crisis materially increased worker hardships leaving them more vulnerable, in jeopardy, and unable to secure their rights. Most often, the following violations were found:

• children as young as 14 forced to work the same long hours as adults and under the same onerous conditions;
• wages so low, they only cover one-fourth to one-half of essential needs;
• workers in at least two factories not paid overtime;
• because of excessive production quotas, workers forced to skip breaks, not go to the bathroom, and work sick through grueling 12-hour or longer days;
• unhealthy work environments in stifling heat and thick fabric dust detrimental to health;
• numerous sewing machine accidents causing wounds and loss of fingers; and
• instances of severe repression against union supporters and organizers, including harassment, intimidation, firing, and blacklisting from further employment elsewhere.

The report’s findings “are corroborated by scores of academic research and industry investigations.” Human and labor rights violations are the norm, not the exception. Monitoring alone won’t change them, but perhaps public disclosure can help.

The Honduran Alamode Factory

Employing about 500 workers, it makes public employee uniforms and other apparel for Lion Apparel, Cintas Corporation, and Fechheimer Brothers Company. In 2008, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) reported some of the worst working conditions in the region, but months later corrective measures had been taken, thanks to exposing the situation to public scrutiny.

Alamode agreed to pay minimum wages, provide back pay, enroll all workers in the Honduran social security system to give them access to health care, paid injury leave and other benefits, and establish an injury log as required.

However, other issues remained unresolved, including:

• further improvement of health and safety issues;
• ending verbal harassment; and
• making overtime work voluntary, not mandatory.

Despite improvements, Alamode workers still earn sub-poverty wages, and full compliance with labor rights falls far short.

The Mexican Vaqueros Navarra Factory

The factory produces jeans and uniforms, including the Dickies brand. In May 2007, its workers tried to form a union but faced extreme harassment and intimidation, as reported by a labor rights monitor on the scene. It’s investigation:

found that workers had been psychologically and verbally harassed, dismissed without warning, and forced to sign resignation letters for attempting to form an independent union at the factory and that at least some workers dismissed for union activities have been blacklisted….the official reason given for workers dismissed… was ‘lack of work.’

Two months after voting to affiliate with the Garment Workers Union, employees were told the plant shut down for lack of work. Yet three buyers, Gap, Warnaco, and American Eagle, placed orders with the factory in support of their right to organize.

In July 2008, the Tehuacan Valley Human and Labor Rights Commission filed a complaint with WRC alleging that another Navarra Group factory, Confecciones Mazara, discriminated in its hiring practices. WRC investigated and found “overwhelming evidence that Confecciones Mazara engaged in unlawful discrimination against union supporters in hiring decisions, otherwise known as ‘blacklisting.’ ”

Twenty former Vaqueros Navarra workers applying for jobs were rejected. Another initially hired was fired on her first day after her former union organizing activities were discovered. In response to WRC complaints, the company refused to comply and continues its blacklisting practices.

The Dominican Republic’s Suprema Manufacturing, Wholly Owned by Propper International (PI)

It operates three plants and employs about 1,000 workers making uniforms and other apparel items. PI is one of the largest makers of US military clothing. In 2008, Suprema Manufacturing’s employees described low wages, high production quotas, unhealthy work conditions, and extreme hardships, all unaddressed by the company.

At the same time, PI distributed a threatening notice to its Puerto Rico workforce accusing the union and workforce of defamation. The same notice said that SweatFree Communities’ publications expressed “a defamatory tone toward Propper (alleging) that the Department of Defense is subsidizing companies with terrible work conditions, and safety and human rights violations.” The notice concluded saying:

“SAY NO TO THE UNION. DON’T SIGN ANOTHER CARD.”

In March 2009, Federation of Workers of Free Trade Zones (FEDOTRAZONAS) workers and volunteers and their counterparts at the National Federation of Free Trade Zone Workers (FENOTRAZONAS) conducted over two dozen interviews on behalf of SweatFree Communities (SFC). They revealed extreme poverty, exhaustion, intense pressure to meet production quotas, an unhealthy work environment, and intimidation-instilled fear against openly supporting union organizing. Even though Suprema has a certified union, only a handful of workers belong. As a result, it’s weak, unable to represent workers effectively or organize to recruit more.

Workers said to get by, they need other jobs and loans (at 10% weekly interest) to pay unexpected medical and other expenses. Their work load is so exhausting, it makes “my whole body hurt,” according to one employee. “When I leave work, I am tired and exhausted…. All I want to do is lie down, but I have my obligations.” Another machine operator said:

“The work is hard and the production quota is killing us (and earning minimum pay) isn’t enough for anything, for what’s needed at home.”

Other workers complained of health-related issues related to poor air quality, extreme heat, and fabric dust. According to workers interviewed, they can’t act individually or collectively to address issues as important as these or any others. According to one:

“In the event that we complain, normally they don’t listen to us but you have to suffer the consequences. One time I complained about the high temperatures in the factory and said it is not good for our health. And the manager said to me, ‘If you are not comfortable you can leave.”

Another worker said “we discuss problems at work amongst the other workers, but not with management because we are afraid…. If you complain too much, they fire you. So we don’t complain because we need employment….”

They also fear recrimination over union organizing or joining one. In 2000, 300 union members were fired. After reviewing the case, the Dominican Labor Department ordered 30 leaders reinstated with back pay. When they returned, management ordered workers not to speak to them or be fired. Workers today live in fear, endure harsh conditions, and put up with whatever they’re ordered to do.

New Bedford, Massachusetts-based Eagle Industries

Eagle supplies tactical gear to the Pentagon and state governments. In November 2007, it acquired a New Bedford, Massachusetts facility that made headlines in March 2007 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided the factory, discovered sweatshop conditions, and arrested hundreds of alleged undocumented workers.

In its 2008 report, SweatFree Communities (SFC) highlighted Eagle’s failure to address abusive sweatshop conditions as well as its hostility to an ongoing union organizing campaign at the time.

In February 2009, SFC conducted in-depth interviews with eight union supporters and learned the following:

• Eagle raised its minimum wage by 50 cents an hour to an average of about $9 an hour;
• it included a week’s vacation in worker benefits bringing the total to two, including an annual July shutdown;
• a new sick day policy requires a doctor’s note, and time off remains unpaid; and
• workers expressed concerns over low pay, poor benefits, dangerous working conditions, and everyday harassment of union supporters by company managers.

Examples cited:

• machines need lots of oil; in operation, it “shoots into your eyes,” according to workers;
• excessive heat, lack of circulation, smoke and oppressive smell causes dizziness, head and stomachaches, and for some vomiting;
• forklifts go everywhere and sometimes hit people, causing injuries;
• fabrics used are so heavy and stiff, they inflict abrasions, leave fingers bent and stiff, and cause chronic pain;
• no health insurance is provided;
• without a doctor’s note, no sick days are offered and if taken are unpaid;
• workers are constantly watched and checked, even when they go to the bathroom;
• action is taken against anyone suspected of supporting a union; new hires must sign a declaration agreeing not to join one;
• pressure and harassment are constant “to produce a lot;” and
• departments are shut down and workers reassigned to divide and separate them from each other.

As a result, workers feel a union is their only hope because it “offers a contract and a negotiating table with the owner of the factory where he will have to realize the suffering we have endured working for him for so long, making money for him so he will have a good future while our future is bleak,” according to one worker.

Tijuana, Mexico’s Safariland

A division of Armor Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAE Systems, Inc., Safariland’s 700 employees produce bulletproof vests and accessories, belts and personal accessories, and grenade and pistol holsters.

Workers told researchers that management told them in response to questioning to say everything is fine and not complain. Reality, however, concealed lives of extreme poverty, living at home with:

“No water, no electricity, and no terrace. One room made of garage doors and cardboard. The electricity we have is stolen. We buy water because there is no running water. There is no floor. The roof is made of laminate and cardboard.” Workers expressed little hope for future change, even less now in economic crisis hitting Tijuana like most everywhere.

In recent months, thousands lost jobs, and when openings exist, long lines queue up to apply. Women must take pregnancy tests, a violation of Article 3 of Mexico’s labor law requiring equal treatment of both genders. Article 26 requires worker contracts with wage guarantees, their amount, how they’re paid, working hours, breaks, vacations, and other benefits. Yet Safariland offers only temporary ones, then chooses whether or not to renew them, a violation of Article 37.

Pressure and harassment are constant to meet quotas, arrive on time, and respect supervisors. Failure is punished by suspensions without pay for one to three days.

However, Mexican Labor Law is clear, yet Safariland disobeys it. The Constitution’s Article 123 establishes an eight hour work day, including breaks. So does the Labor Law’s Article 61 and under its Article 67, double pay is required for overtime. In addition, Article 110 prohibits pay deductions for any reason, but Safariland gets around it by suspending workers.

Articles 177 and 178 let 14-16 year old minors work for up to six hours daily, including a one-hour rest after three hours, if they pass a medical examination. Workers said children worked the same hours as adults.

They also reported dangerous and unhealthy conditions, including accidents with sewing and riveting machines and material cutters, resulting in wounds and lost fingers. In addition, hazardous substances are used, including thinners, solvents, and Resistol 5,000 glue, the notorious narcotic used by Latin American street children.

Other complaints included supervisors’ indifference to worker concerns, and according to one account: “They do not listen to us, and if we complain they treat us like troublemakers.” Anyone caught supporting a union “would be fire(d) or at least consider(ed) troublemakers,” said another. “They would put us on the blacklist,” a believed widespread practice in Tijuana.

The Dickies de Honduras Factory

Located in Choloma, its 1,000 workers produce apparel under oppressive conditions. Wages are sub-poverty, and at best cover half a family of four’s basic necessities. Work days are long, 11-12 hour days, four days a week, and constant pressure to produce. According to one worker, illness is no excuse for missing work.

Union organizing is forbidden, and those caught or suspected are fired. One union leader explained how organizers are treated. In 1998, Dickies fired 80 supporters. In 2003, alleged leaders were fired, then in 2005, 280 workers got legal recognition to form a union. A month later, a Mexican Ministry of Labor representative and three union officials attempted to deliver official documents to the company. They were denied entry. The officials and others were fired, and Dickies stonewalled government summonses to answer for the action. Other firings followed, and the company refused to recognize a union, bargain collectively with it, or address employee grievances.

Workers nonetheless persisted until the current economic crisis became challenging. Claiming lack of orders and a need to cut costs, worker dismissals began in December 2008. By March 2009, 58 were gone, in all cases for supporting a union, in violation of Honduran Labor Law’s Article 96 that prohibits employers from “firing or persecuting their workers in any way because of their union affiliation.”

China’s Genford Shoes

Located in Guangdong Province, its 10,000 employees produce work, exercise, casual, and dress shoes, 80% for Ohio-based Rocky Brands. According to the company, Genford is independently audited for social compliance, but SFC research found evidence of widespread labor law violations.

Workers are constantly pressured to produce for low pay under poor conditions:

• new employees get no income for their first three days; they also must pay $4 for a physical examination, $10 for housing, and another $10 for ten days’ meals in the company cafeteria – in total, around a week’s wages;
• wages are sub-poverty;
• no rest days are allowed for an entire month during peak production periods, in violation of Article 38 of China’s Labor Law requiring at least one per week;
• children as young as 14 work the same hours as adults and are hidden when customers visit the factory; Article 28 of China’s Labor Law prohibits employing children under age 16; it also protects 16 – 18 year olds from “over-strenuous, poisonous or harmful labor or any dangerous operation” and requires employers to follow state laws regarding types of jobs, hours worked, and labor intensity for adolescents;
• excessive over time is mandatory at below the legal double hourly pay rate for daytime work on weekends;
• by law, workers can cancel their labor contracts by giving 30 days notice, but are penalized by loss of wages when they do;
• they live 12 to a room in crowded dorms of around 200 square feet with ten cold showers for 264 workers;
• pollution levels are oppressive; workers describe discharged black, foul smelling effluent into the adjacent river; and
• at the end of every work day, body searches are conducted, similar to but not full strip searches.

Genford employs a complex system of bonuses and fines to achieve output. Workers get bonuses for meeting quotas that must be maintained hourly, but no one understood how they’re calculated. They also complained that they’re hard to reach, and they’re constantly pressured to work faster for maximum production. In addition, fines are levied for arriving a few minutes late, leaving early, skipping work, or causing trouble.

It’s also not easy to quit even though Article 37 of China’s Labor Law lets workers do it by giving 30 days advance written notice or three days during their probationary periods. Employers must then fully compensate workers, but they don’t.

Frackville, Pennsylvania’s City Shirt Company

Its owner, Elbeco Inc., a producer of public employee uniforms, “was the first major uniform company to endorse SweatFree Communities’ campaign for worker rights,” and it shows in how it treats its employees.

According to one, “I am pretty much able to cover my needs. Anybody can always use more money, but I do pretty well, I can say.”

The average worker makes about $11 an hour, but some get up to $19 because the company is unionized and was able to bargain collectively for decent wages and benefits. In addition, workers have “a seat at the table with the company… affording them a sense of ownership and respect.”

City Shirt’s employees are also much older than at other factories studied, a sign of greater stability and a contented workforce staying in place, happy to be there, and for many, hoping to stay for the rest of their working lives.

Yet they worry that their jobs may not last because of factors beyond the plant’s control forcing layoffs to cut costs and stay viable. Apparel manufacturing in America is dying. In addition, the current environment is taking its toll closing factories across America, and City Shirt has had to cut one-third of its workforce in the past 18 months.

The alternative is the global sweatshop as oppressive or worse than the ones described above. The company’s employees hope to reach retirement age before their operation gets outsourced, but making it won’t be easy.

In today’s global economy, in good times and bad, worker rights are subordinated to greed and private profit, and future prospects look grim. Job losses are continuing. Wages are stagnating at best. Benefits are eroding, and job security is a thing of the past at a time governments, in alliance with business, are indifferent to protecting them. The result, more and more, is that workers are on their own to endure against very long odds. It’s all the more important for harder struggle because it’s the only way they have a chance.

Anti-Sweatshop Legislation in Congress

On January 23, 2007, S. 367: The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act was introduced in the Senate “to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to prohibit the import, export, and sale of goods made with sweatshop labor, and for other purposes.” It was referred to committee but never passed.

On April 23, 2007, HR 1992: The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act was introduced in the House for the same purpose. It, too, was referred to committee but never passed.

Both bills were introduced in a previous congressional session and failed. They may be re-introduced later in 2009.

Sweatshop labor takes different forms, some far worse than others. On February 14, 2007, Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Right, testified about the worst kind at a Senate committee hearing on Overseas Sweatshop Abuses, Their Impact on US Workers, and the Need for Anti-Sweatshop Legislation.

Citing the December 2001 US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, he gave examples of human trafficking and involuntary servitude abuses that followed:

• Jordan’s 114 garment factories employ over 36,000 foreign guest workers from Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka and India;
• Bangladeshi guest workers had to borrow at exorbitant interest rates $1,000-$3,000 to pay unscrupulous manpower agencies for two-to-three year contracts to obtain work;
• they were trapped in involuntary servitude at one factory and couldn’t leave;
• they were promised benefits, then reneged on, including free food, housing, medical care, vacations, sick days, and at least one day a week off;
• on arrival in Jordan, their passports were seized;
• they were forced to work shifts of “15, 38, 48, and even 72 hours straight, often going two or three days without sleep;”
• they worked seven days a week for as little as 2 cents an hour, 98 hours a week;
• those complaining were beaten and abused;
• 28 workers shared one small 12 x 12-foot dorm with access to running water only every third day;
• legally owed back wages were never paid nor were factory owners prosecuted for human trafficking, involuntary servitude, or treating their employees abusively;
• they sewed clothing for Wal-Mart; and
• other Jordanian, Chinese and other factory workers are treated the same way; some worked under conditions so hazardous that “scores of young people (are) seriously injured, and some maimed for life.”

Kernaghan’s National Labor Committee (NLC) web site highlights the problem by saying that corporate predators “roam the world to find the cheapest and most vulnerable workers… mostly young women in Central America, Mexico, Bangladesh, China, and other poor nations, many working 12 to 14-hour days for pennies an hour.”

Corporate unaccountability is responsible for this moral crisis of our time — a dehumanized, expendable workforce ruthlessly exploited for profit. NLC believes worker rights are as inalienable as human rights and civil liberties and says “now is the time to secure them for (everyone) on the planet.”

Venezuela is far from the “dictatorship which has a facade of democracy” described by General Raúl Baduel, who has been accused of corruption. What kind of tyranny oversees a 70% increase of participation in presidential elections, as Chávez has, or the government holding 13 free and fair elections in 10 years?

Of course, Venezuelan society and democracy is imperfect. One example is that corruption remains a very real problem. Opponents have tried to use this issue to disparage the government, though it pre-dates the Chávez era. It is therefore ironic that when measures are taken to tackle it, as is the case in legal prosecutions, these are cited as examples of a clampdown on political freedoms. Many Chávez-supporting politicians are under investigation and it paints a distorted picture to focus only on prosecutions against those opposed to Chávez.

Taking the two most prominent cases of those aligned with the opposition. With Baduel, the military prosecutors investigating the disappearance of more than $18.6m in 2006 and 2007 while he was minister of defence have decided to prosecute. He has had all the rights to a defence lawyer and transparent trial, yet so far his defence has not produced any evidence to counter the charges of corruption.

Manuel Rosales, infamously a signatory to the decree backing the 2002 military coup against Chávez, is one of the most notorious cases. He has allegedly been unable to show the source of millions of dollars in assets both in Venezuela and abroad. He fled to Peru and requested political asylum, but being given asylum by Peru is not proof of innocence. Recently Bolivia nearly broke diplomatic relations with Peru for granting asylum to three ministers from a previous government charged with responsibility for the October 2003 massacre in which 67 people were killed by the Bolivian army.

What cannot be said of Venezuela is that the right to protest is threatened. This year alone, the opposition have staged dozens of marches free from state harassment. On numerous occasions opponents and marchers have been invited to address the nation from the National Assembly.

In contrast, it was only 20 years ago that protests were met by brutal repression in Venezuela, with the Caracazo massacre by state security forces leaving 276 dead according to official figures and up to 3,000, according to claims, once mass graves were uncovered.

The opposition’s hostile views of the Chávez government dominate the Venezuelan media. But that is not the reason why some radio stations were recently closed. These were operating illegally without proper licences and continued to refuse to comply with the law. More than 200 radio stations, most of which identify with the opposition, that were also operating irregularly but did renew their franchises continue to operate freely.

Respect for democracy is intrinsic to the particular model being followed by the Chávez government. It does not resort to violence – it wins elections. In contrast, it is noteworthy that the notable elements of the Venezuelan opposition have broadly sympathised with the illegal de facto government of Micheletti in Honduras. Maybe in Honduras we have a serious glimpse of what “democracy” would have been like in Venezuela had its violent attempts to overthrow Chávez been successful?

The process of globalization was the result of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ conditions and class coalitions embedded in the social structure of both the imperial and ‘recipient’ or targeted countries. The expansion of capital was neither a linear process or continual expansion (accumulation) nor of sustained collaboration by the targeted countries. Crises in the imperial centers and regime transformations in collaborator regimes affected the flow of capital, trade, rules and regulations.

One of the unintended consequences of the ascendancy of global ruling classes was the rise of large scale and tumultuous social movements, especially in Latin America, which challenged the rulers, ideology and institutions sustaining the global empire.

The relations between imperial globalization and social movements are complex, changing and subject to reversals or advances. This study, with its focus on Latin America, addresses several hypotheses exploring the relation of globalization and social movement over a thirty-five year period: from the onset of the free market doctrine which is the motor force of globalization (1975) to the present 2010. This time frame provides us with a sufficient period to observe the long term operations of global capital and the historical trajectories of social movements. By including Latin America as a whole, we incorporate an entire continent and lessen the possibility of idiosyncratic developments specific to a single country.

Our inquiry is guided by a specific set of hypothesis that will be tested through a historical analysis of global economic tendencies and the trajectory of social movements. We will proceed by providing a brief overview of the dynamics of globalization and the growth of social movements in Latin America and then proceed to specify our key hypothesis regarding the relationships between globalization and social movements.

Globalization: Class, State and Economy

The onset of a new and dynamic phase of imperial capital expansion, which we will call globalization, owes a great deal to the favorable political outcome of the capital – labor struggle on a world scale. The defeat and retreat of the working class in the West, particularly in the US and England, and the self-destruction of the Communist regimes of the East laid the groundwork for an aggressive global crusade against leftwing regimes and movements in the Third World, especially in Latin America. The ‘rollback’ of the working class movements was particularly vicious and successful in Latin America, where the major part of the continent experienced the onset of military dictatorship, which dismantled the national constraints on capitalist flows and trade tariffs.

Within this new global framework of imperial empire builders and authoritarian collaborator regimes, several factors enhanced global economic expansion.

   1. Technological innovations, especially information technologies accelerated the flows of capital and commodities.
   2. Large scale accumulation of capital in the imperial states, a relative decline in rates of profits and the growing role of finance capital spurred the drive for overseas investments, speculation and buyouts of privatized firms.
   3. Intensified competition between the US-EU-Asia drove MNC to seek advantages by securing banks, resources; market shares within Latin America.
   4. The rise of pro-western rightist dictatorships provided exceptionally favorable socio-economic conditions for buyouts and acquisitions of local enterprises and resources, extraordinary returns on financial speculation and minimum opposition from repressed trade unions and nationalist and leftist parties.

As a consequence of these structural changes, free-market doctrines and neo-liberal policies were put in practice resulting in bilateral free trade agreements (NAFTA),and deregulation of the economies. The growth of speculative activity took root and prospered, at the same time that social safety nets was dismantled.

After over two decades of highly polarized development and mediocre growth the neo-liberal economies stagnated and went into crises: commodity prices fell, the financial bubbles burst, large scale banking swindles impoverished middle class depositors, investors were defrauded, leading to a virtual economic collapse and mass unemployment. By the beginning years of the new millennium, Latin America faced a systemic crisis in which neo-liberal regimes were overthrown, social movements were in ascent and economic bankruptcies were multiplying. Center-left parties and coalitions were elected and moved to implement ameliorative measures which lessened the impact of the crises. Stimulus packages were passed to revive the economies. The vertical rise of agro-mineral prices in world market facilitated economic recovery which lasted till the onset of the world recession of 2008.

Social Movements

Growing out of the polarized growth, intensified exploitation of labor and displacement of peasants and farm workers, endemic to free market policies, social unrest spread in rural areas, especially among the landless rural workers, peasants and Indian communities. A new generation of militant leaders emerged, with a capacity to link local grievances to national and international structural policies. By the early 1990s mass movements took hold and launched a series of mass campaigns and mobilizations which spread to the cities and engaged the growing mass of unemployed urban workers, public sector employees and impoverished downwardly mobile middle class business people and professionals.

The crises precipitated large scale uprisings led by the new social movements, demanding systemic changes but settling for the election of center-left regimes. The first decade of the 21st century witnesses the ebb and flow of movement activity eventually settling into varying niches in the new order presided over by the center-left regimes.

Key Hypothesis

The expansion of ‘globalization’ or the imperial centered development model was accompanied by the growth of mass social movements. This raises the fundamental question of the relationship between the two processes. We set out several hypotheses to explore the relationship.

   1. The greater the deregulations of the economy leads to the acceleration of globalization and spurs the growth of the social movements.
   2. The crises and breakdown of deregulated globalization leads to a greater role and radicalism of the social movements up to and including social upheavals overthrowing incumbent regimes.
   3. The stronger the regulatory regime controlling the globalizing process the lesser the impact of the crises, the more moderate the activities of the social movements and the less likely a popular rebellion.
   4. The weaker the social safety net in time of crises the bigger the social movements and the more radical their demands. Conversely, the stronger the social safety net in time of crises the slower the growth of the social movements and the more reformist their demands.
   5. Depressed world commodity prices are more likely to engender radical social movements than periods of buoyant prices.

By combining our four principle variables into a single hypothesis on the relation of globalization and social movements, we come up with the following two propositions.

The optimal conditions for radical mass social movements occur when an economy is highly deregulated, in times of financial crises and productive recession, when commodity prices are depressed in the context of a weak social safety net.

Conversely, radical mass social movements are less likely to emerge under a highly regulated economy with a strong social safety net when world commodity prices are rising and the economy is buoyant.

Testing the Hypothesis: Latin America 1980-2010

Between 1980-1990, Latin America experienced a period of moderate growth and stable world prices for its commodities. This was a period of major dismantling of state regulations of the economy and weakening of the social safety net. Yet there were not major social uprisings nor mass social movements, except in Chile between 1985-1986, which ended with a US backed political pact between the Pinochet dictatorships and the Socialist-Christian Democratic parties and their subsequent ascent to government in 1990.

During the first half of the 1990’s world commodity prices declined to historic lows, the social safety net continued to deteriorate; capitalist profits soared in an orgy of privatizations and foreign takeovers, while overall growth stagnated. Social movements grew, mass mobilization, extended from the countryside to the cities but few popular rebellions occurred.

The period between the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s (roughly 1999-2003) experienced a major socio-economic and political crisis, including economic and financial crises in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay. After over twenty years of free market policies accompanying the globalization process, the social safety net was in tatters. Commodity prices remained low and financial deregulation deepened the vulnerability of the economies to the US recession.

Between 2000-2005, neo-liberal regimes were overthrown or replaced in Argentina (3 regimes in 2 weeks) 2001-2002, Bolivia (2003, 2005) Ecuador (2000, 2005), Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela (coup regime 2002 lasted 48 hours). Social movements grew precipitously throughout the region and their demands radicalized, including fundamental structural changes. The Brazilian Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) led massive land occupation movements throughout the country. Worker, peasant, Indian uprisings in Bolivia ousted two incumbent electoral regimes. In Ecuador, Indian-urban movements in coalitions overthrew an incumbent neo-liberal regime in 2000 and a broad based urban citizens movement ousted a corrupt neo-liberal regime in 2005. In Argentina, a popular rebellion led by unemployed workers impoverished middle class neighborhood organizations ousted neo-liberal presidents and dominated politics throughout 2001-2003. In Venezuela a mass popular mobilization with military allies ousted the US backed business – military junta of April 2002 and restored President Chavez to power.

The period between 2003-2008 witnessed a sharp rise in commodity prices to record levels; the ascent of center-left regimes was accompanied by capital controls and the partial restoration of the social safety net, rapid economic recovery and relatively high growth. Social movements receded, their demands focused on immediate reforms, mobilizations were more infrequent and some of their key leaders were co-opted.

The period between 2008-2010 witnessed a sharp decline of growth, reflecting the impact of the world recession and the decline of commodity prices. While most countries entered a recession, the financial system did not experience a collapse comparable to the earlier period (2000-2002), in part because of the capital controls in place since the earlier part of the decade. While unemployment grew and poverty levels increased, the improved social net ameliorated the impact of the recession. The social movements increased their activity and experienced mild growth but with few if any direct challenges to state power, at least during the first two years of an ongoing crises.

Conclusion

Our historical survey demonstrates that single factors such as implantation of neo-liberal changes and deepening globalization in and of themselves do not lead to the growth of massive, radical social movements: witness the period of 1980-1990. Nor do low commodity prices a weak social safety net and declining state revenues provoke popular uprisings and radical mass social movements. Likewise an economic crises, such as the recession of 2008-2010 has not led to a resurgence of mass radical social movements and popular rebellions.

Only when a combination of internal factors, such as a weak social safety net and a deregulated economy and an external crises such as a global recession and declining world commodity prices do we have optional conditions for the growth of dynamic mass radical social movements.

Writers who focus or start from a ‘world system’ or other ‘globalist’ perspectives’ in attempting to address the rise of social movements as a function of the ‘operations’ of the market fail to take account of the internal political and social struggles and the resultant state social polices as determining factors.

We should note that social movement rebellions do not suddenly occur because all of the contingencies are in place. The social upheavals at the end of the nineties and early half years of the new millennium had a decade of gestation: organizing, accumulating social forces, creating alliances with institutional dissidents – like radical church people – and developing leaders and cadres. Economic crises, at best, were “trigger” events which severely discredited the ruling class, undermined the dominant ‘globalization’ ideology, and allowed the movements to make a qualitative leap from protest to political rebellion and regime change.

Finally though, it is not central to this paper, we should note that while social movements at their height were able to oust incumbent neo-liberal regimes, they were not able to take political power and revolutionize society: to their upheavals allowed center-left politicians to come to power. Ironically, once in power they passed sufficient social economic reforms to fend off the re-radicalization of the movements when the world economic crises struck again at the end of the first decade of this century.

The military-civil coup in Honduras was the first in Latin America since the region re-democratization in the 80s-90s (aside from Alberto Fujimori’s proclaimed autogolpe in Peru in 1992) and has faced unanimous condemnation. The continent’s historical tradition of military takeovers has been challenged for the first time ever. After the “leaning leftwards” of the early 2000s, current governments in the region consider it to be shameful and humiliating to be deposed by means of force. It’s a natural fear for them that, if they tolerate this, they themselves can be next.

On Sunday night (27 September), the ‘de facto’ administration, headed by former speaker Roberto Micheletti, threatened to remove the status of embassy from the building where Zelaya is sheltered since last Monday. This would make way for storming the place, but attacking a diplomatic building is a severe rupture of international law – every embassy is considered to be territory of its parent country. Micheletti gave Brazil an ultimatum to either hand over Zelaya or grant him political asylum. And, at the same time, suspended civil rights, restored curfew, banned demonstrations, and threatened to shut down media outlets which broadcast or print speeches by the opposition. If there was still any doubt Honduras is under a dictatorship these days, they are now all gone.

Although the United States of Barack Obama have publicly joined the hemispherical unanimity to condemn the coup, word that the State Department and the CIA gave their support to overthrowing Zelaya spread throughout Latin American nations, ranging from suspicion to strong conviction. Although no evidence of U.S. interference has been found so far, the century-old history of Washington’s logistical and financial support to “breaches of constitutional order,” to be euphemistic, is a witness for the prosecution.

On the other hand, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has emerged as the leading voice among Latin American governments calling for immediate restoration of Honduras’ democratically-elected president to his dutiful post. This time, it wasn’t theatrical Hugo Chávez denouncing the U.S. as the geopolitical Devil, nor timid center-left Chilean diplomats, who took the lead in tackling the reactionary forces of the region. It was the president of a rising star: the Brazilian one.

With its economy quickly recovering from the capitalist crisis, and practically returning the nearly one-million jobs lost since 2008, Brazil is presenting itself as the next best thing in the global scenario. The country is now an active voice in developing nations fora like the G20, BRIC (with Russia, India and China) and IBAS (with India and South Africa), while calls for South-South cooperation are finally materializing with crossed investments and united lobby in the World Trade Organization (WTO). But, historically, the diplomats of Brazil (long dubbed as “the sleeping-giant”) were vacillating about turning the economy high tide into political power in international relations.

It seems the self-confidence problems are being solved now. The “Itamaraty,” as the Brazilian foreign office is called, has decided to take a firm stance against the coup and to help Zelaya to get back to office. Brazil is sheltering the ousted president within its embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he claims he got “by his own means” – although we know it’s highly unlikely that Brasília was fully unaware of his coming, something the Itamataty will never admit. Besides that, Lula used his opening speech in the General Assembly to demand the immediate return of Zelaya into his elected post and an emergency meeting of the Security Council. Even other international entities like the Organization of American States and the World Monetary Fund, both formerly supportive of authoritarian regimes, joined the condemnation after pushed by Brazilian initiative.

Anything more than that would be interfering in a foreign nation’s internal affairs. Lula has repeatedly stated he will not cross this line, but at the same time refused to sit on his own hands. However, that’s exactly what the conservative elites of Brazil are already claiming. This Saturday (26 September), Brazilian ultra-rightist weekly magazine Veja ran a cover story accusing Brazil of ‘megalomaniac imperialism’ – while no line was ever dedicated to the U.S. centennial imperialist tradition. The opposition parties, PSDB and Democrats, are criticizing the Itamaraty for hosting the lawful president. And the daily prime-time newscast of Globo TV, on Friday, aired an appalling report to argue that what happened in Honduras in June “was technically not a coup d’état,” quoting lines from the country’s constitution. Its article 239 says any president who proposes to alter the ban on reelection would be automatically removed, but the broadcasters omitted that Zelaya never did that – only called for a discretionary referendum.

What they all omit, however, is that Brazil has no other interests in Honduras but to assert is political strength in the region, something that cannot be seen as undermining in any way, but rather as a matter of state interest. Moreover, Brazil is acting not on its own behalf, but on behalf of the global South as a whole. This is the first time poor nations are rising a single voice against the use of brute force in politics. And the isolation which the regional governments have imposed on the ‘de facto’ government in Honduras is unprecedented, even if we count what happened to Cuba in the early 1960s.

With Fidel Castro old and officially out of power, the antagonistic role in the geopolitical script of the Americas has been performed by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. But perhaps Chávez’s bombastic style might be counterproductive for his own foreign policy and for the left in general, while Lula’s more discrete – albeit straightforward – approach has proven successful in other regional crisis like Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti, where Brazil keeps 1,200 troops under UN peacekeeping blue helmets since 2004.

Let it be clear: Zelaya is by no means an ideological leftist, but rather a populist leader in the very same shape the Latin Americans are used to. But ideology is really not the central matter here; it’s about sending a message to military to stay in the barracks. Had it happened to a liberal or elite-backed conservative government, the cry against the unlawful removal of an elected head of State would be done all the same – perhaps only less loud.

Even if the threats by the de facto administration are met, or any setback in the next days would prevent Manuel Zelaya from leaving the Brazilian embassy and walking in triumph to his lawful chair at the presidential palace of Tegucigalpa, the bridge is crossed already when it comes to the shift in regional powers. Any defeat of Zelaya now would not exactly be a defeat to the Itamaraty, but rather enforce its moral victory: that it achieved to forge an unprecedented unity in the continent and made it clear that the age of military takeovers in Latin America is over.

Now that the elections have been called by the coup perpetrators, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia has also called for the boycott of the elections. The non-recognition of the elections and the simultaneous continued mass movement in the streets for a new Honduras is a most important phase in the battle. Workers’ and employees’ unions, women activist groups, peasants, students, intellectuals and other sections of the society are all in the forefront. The Honduran putschists are hoping to legitimize the coup through the holding of the elections.

Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya take part in a rally to protest against the military coup in Tegucigalpa on July 1, 2009. Deposed Zelaya on Wednesday delayed his return to Honduras to reclaim the presidency for the weekend, after the Organization of American States gave the country 72 hours to reinstate him as president. AFP PHOTO/Yuri CORTEZ (Photo credit should read YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Political forces not connected with the military regime are also joining forces with the mass movement. The Resistance has gained so much prestige that it has succeeded in winning the adherence of a wide range of political forces. For example, on July 18 (over one and a half months ago), in an interview with Prensa Latina’s Raimundo López, the presidential candidate (at that time) for the Partido de Unificación Democrática (UD) and current deputy César Ham stated that that there is “a pre and post-coup Honduras.” His statement, in very few words, crystallized the current situation in Honduras and provides the historical context. The UD has joined the Frente Nacional de Resistencia in the streets. In fact two of UD’s leading members were assassinated by the military regime. On August 31, according to a Prensa Latina report, Ham and others UD members confirmed that they are boycotting the elections. Other non-traditional and even some sections of the traditional political forces are doing the same. “The grassroots movement,” Zelaya said [as reported in The Nation, September 4, 2009], has only one purpose, the transformation of Honduras, including deep structural changes. “This movement is now very strong. It can never be destroyed,” he said.¹ On September 5, when the people’s resistance against the military coup was going on for 70 days, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia was analyzing its next actions.

Post-coup Honduras has now joined the movement that has been spreading like wild-fire across South America, even if its elected President Zelaya is not in the country at this time. This grass-roots South American movement represents a push in favour of people’s power and against neo liberal policies and US domination. The goal is to use the ballot box in order to bring about radical change in their respective countries. The election of constituent assemblies and the writing of new modern constitutions have already been accomplished in several countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Others such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Paraguay, just to mention a few, have taken the path to re-found their nations. Cuba is the pioneer, even if change took place in entirely different historical conditions and with different means. The 1959 triumph of the Revolution and its resulting complete revolutionary transformation had its roots in the nineteenth century Cuban Mambisi tradition. Amongst other characteristics, it consisted of people writing their own constitutions as a Republic in Arms while Cuba was still a colony of Spain.

Honduras was known as an example of what the US deprecatingly and arrogantly described as a banana republic. Honduras is the third poorest nation in all of South America and the Caribbean. Honduras is highly illiterate as was the case in Bolivia before election of Evo Morales and the re-founding of the political system there. However, it is these people of Honduras who are now giving lessons to Washington as to what is needed, that is a new modern constitution.

The political and economic situation in the US is so bad that given its immense foreign debt even some American commentators refer, tongue-in-cheek of course, to the US as a banana republic. The US was the scene of two fraudulent elections victories under the Bush family. How is it that a program for health reform results in a strongly divided nation with citizens at odds with each other, while right-wing extremist opponents to the new health scheme are even threatening violence? While in theory slavery and official racial discrimination have been eliminated in favour of civil rights, racism is not only still rampant, but it is on the increase in the society. Americans of Latino origin are increasingly the victims of racist attacks from the major media, trickling down into the society. Racism is institutionalised. Even President Obama is the victim of right-wing racist threats and attempts at intimidation. While there was a move to impeach former Vice-President Cheney (something which never was capable of being executed) for war crimes and lying to his fellow citizens in order to lead them into a war, there are now rumours that Cheney may be a candidate for the 2012 presidential elections! If Cheney turns out to be only a non-candidate, he is definitely leading the charge at this time for a return to Bush-era politics. The Washington Post openly supports torture and coincides with the Cheney position.² The full story of September 11 is still to be revealed by the US government. The US is the biggest arms and drugs dealer in the world. All of this and much more take place in the murky swamp in conformity with, and/or the violation of, the US Constitution.

The peoples in the south are advancing. Would not the most progressive and forward-thinking sections of United States society take this movement into account and thus reflect upon the need for a new constitution in the US itself which would assure the citizens control over their destiny and over foreign policy? (The same question applies to other countries in the north.)

The people of Honduras, for their part, are certainly for a constituent assembly and a new constitution: Poetic justice for the inhabitants of a “banana republic.” During the period leading up to the coup, President Zelaya was leading his people towards a new situation. That is why he was ousted. However, post-coup Honduras has changed the country. The movement since June 28 is even more profound and going beyond pre-coup Honduras. This country is now more than ever part of this vast movement in South America for new economic, anti neo-liberal policies and political institutions, while being against US domination, pillage of its natural resources, and installation and extension of military bases. Honduras may have its ups and downs in the near future, but in the long-run, the trend is irreversible – as it is throughout the south which is today rising up.

1. Zelaya Speaks, by Tom Hayden
2. How a Detainee Became An Asset: Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding

Despite recent popular upheavals and the ascent of center-left regimes in most of the countries in the region, the economic structures, strategies and policies pursued, followed in the footsteps of their predecessors particularly in relation to foreign economic practices.

Influenced by the sharp demand and rise in prices of commodities, especially agro-mineral and energy products, the Latin American regimes, backed off from any changes in several crucial areas and adapted to the policies and economic legacies of their neo-liberal predecessors. As a result, with the world wide recession beginning in 2008, they suffered a sharp economic decline with severe social consequences.

The resulting socio-economic crises provides important lessons and reinforces the notion that deep structural changes in investment, trade, ownership of strategic economic sectors is essential to stable, sustained and equitable growth.

The Free Market, Free Trade Doctrine: the 1990s

From the mid 1970’s with the advent of pro U.S. military and authoritarian civilian regimes and under the tutelage of U.S. free market academics and U.S. educated economists, Latin America became a laboratory for the application of free market-free trade policies.

Trade barriers were lowered or eliminated, so that subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural products entered unhindered, decimating local small farmers producing food for local consumption. Under the doctrine of “comparative advantage” policymakers financed and promoted large scale agro-business enterprises specializing in export staples – wheat, soya, sugar, corn, cattle, etc. betting on favorable prices, favorable market access and reasonable prices of food, farm equipment and non-agricultural imports.

The total de-regulation of the economy and the privatization of public enterprises opened the floodgates to foreign investment, the takeover of strategic economic sectors and increasing dependence on foreign investment to sustain growth and the balance of payments.

The overall strategy of the regimes was to rely on export markets, at the expense of deepening and extending domestic markets (local mass consumption); a policy which relied on cheapening local labor costs, and sustaining the high profits, of the agro-mineral ruling class. The latter’s presence in all the key economic ministries of the regimes ensured that the self-serving policies were given an ideological veneer around the notion of “rational efficient markets”, failing to note the long term history of built-in instability of world markets.

Crises of the Traditional Neo-liberal Regimes

The deregulated financial system and the world recession of 2000 – 2001, the savage pillage of the economy and treasury by the free market practioners and the monumental corruption and the unmitigated exploitation of workers, peasants and public employees produced region-wide revolts. A whole series of U. S. backed electoral regimes were overthrown and/or defeated in electoral contests. Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay witnessed popular upheavals, which however ultimately led to the election of center-left regimes, especially in electoral campaigns promising “deep structural change”, including changes in the economic structure of power and substantial increases in social spending and land redistribution in the countryside.

In practice the political defeats of the established right wing parties, and the weakened economic elite did not serve as a basis for large scale, long term socio-economic transformations. The new center-left regimes pursued socio-economic policies which sought to ‘reform’ the economic elites forcing them to accommodate to their effort to reactivate the economy and to subsidize the poor and unemployed. The political elites were driven from office, a few of the most venal officials implicated in mass repression were put on trial but without any serious effort to transform the party – political system. In other words the demise of the neo-liberal elites at the crises, induced by the free market policies, remained in place, temporarily held in abeyance by the center-left regimes state interventionist crises management policies.

Center Left Policies: Crises Management and the Economic Boom

The new center-left governments adopted a whole series of policies ranging from economic incentives for business, financial regulations, increased expenditure on poverty programs, widespread wage increases and consultation with leaders of popular organizations. They repudiated the political enemies and perpetrators of the previous period along with the intervention in a few bankrupt private enterprises. These symbolic and substantive policies secured, temporarily, the support of the mass electorate and isolated and divided the more radical sectors of the popular movements.

Nevertheless demands for broader and deeper changes were still on the mass agenda while the center left regimes attempted to balance between the radical demands from below and their political commitments to normalize and stimulate capitalist development, including all the existing elites (foreign multi-nationals, agro-mineral, financial, commercial and manufacturing elites). The dilemma of the center-left was resolved by the sudden upsurge in prices of commodities in large part stimulated by the dynamic demand and growth of the Asian economies, namely China.

The center-left regimes abandoned all pretexts of pursuing structural change and jumped on the bandwagon of “export driven growth” – based on the export of primary products. Abandoning the critique of foreign investment and demands to ‘renationalize’ strategic private firms, the center-left regimes opened the door to large scale inflows of foreign capital – suspending the application of some of their regulatory controls.

The commodity boom of 2003 – 2008 allowed the center left (and the right wing) regimes to “buyoff” the opposition: trade unions received hefty wage increases, business received substantial incentives, foreign investors were welcomed, overseas workers remittances were encouraged, as contributions to poverty reduction.

In a word the entire socio-economic edifice of Latin America’s high growth export oriented strategy rested on world market demand and economic conditions in the imperial countries. Few of the economic experts, financial columnists and political celebrants of ‘rational markets’ expressed any doubts about the sustainability of the “export market” model.

The extraordinary vulnerability of these economies, their dependence on volatile markets, their dependence on a limited number of export products, their dependence on one or two markets, their dependence on overseas remittance from the most precarious workers should have raised a red flag to any thinking economist and policy maker. The high priced consultants and overseas advisory missions drawn from the Harvard Business School, Penn’s Wharton School and other prestigious centers of higher learning (enamored by their mathematical equations which demonstrated what their premises assumed) argued that the least regulated markets are the most successful and convinced their Latin American counterparts from Center Left to Right to lower the trade barriers and let the capital flow.

After only five years of export market induced rapid growth, the Latin American economies crashed. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin American exports from Latin American and Caribbean nations in 2009 will show their steepest fall in more than 72 years (since the last world depression). The regions exports will decline by 11% by volume, while imports will fall by 14%, the biggest drop since the world recession of 19821.

Pitfalls of Specialization in Commodity Exports

The benchmark dates are indicative of the long standing commitments and vulnerabilities in trade structure: past and present recessions have an acute impact on Latin America because both now and in the past their economies depend on agro-mineral exports to imperial markets, which rapidly shift their internal crises to their Latin American trading partners. The historic decline in trade inevitably doubles and triples the unemployment rate among workers in the export sectors and has a multiple effect on satellite economic enterprises linked to spending and consumption generated by overseas trade. Specialization in agro-mineral exports limits the possibilities of alternative employment in a way that a more diversified economy does not. The dependence of the state for most of its revenues from agro-mineral and energy exports means automatic cuts in public investment and expenditures in social services.

Latin America’s trade crises has especially affected those counties with the most traditional export product configuration in agriculture, mineral and energy commodities: Venezuela and Ecuador (oil) Columbia (oil and coal) and Bolivia have experienced as much as 33% decline in 2009, far above the average for the region. Mexico, dependent for 80% of its trade with the U. S. (oil, tourism, remittances, automobiles) experienced the biggest decline, 11% in GNP, of all countries in the hemisphere.

While all export driven economies were hard hit by the crises those countries which had a more diversified trade mix, (manufactures, agriculture, services) dropped by nearly 20% while the countries which specialized in oil and mineral exports fell by over 50%.

Pitfall of Single Market Dependence

The counties with a greater diversity of markets and trading partners especially those which traded within the Latin American zone and with China experienced a smaller decline compared to those countries like Mexico, Venezuela and Central America which depended on the markets of the U. S. and the European Union which fell by over 35%.

Trade was only one of the four fronts which impacted negatively on Latin America: Foreign direct investment, remittances from workers abroad, and commodity pricing contributed to the crises.

Pitfalls of Dependence on Foreign Investment

Latin America’s open door to foreign investment (FI) was a major cause of the crises. FI flows escalated in response to the internal growth of Latin America, taking advantage of the high profits generated by the commodity/trade boom. With the decline in trade, income and profits, FI exited, repatriated profits and disinvested, exacerbating the crises and increasing unemployment. FI follows the practices of easy entry and fast withdrawal – a highly unreliable and volatile agency for development.

Pitfalls of Dependence on Overseas Remittances

Latin American regimes took for granted and built into their economic policies and projections multi-billion dollar transfers of income from overseas workers, overlooking the highly vulnerable legal and economic position of their citizens working abroad. The vast majority of overseas workers are in very vulnerable positions: many are undocumented (“illegal immigrants”) and during recessions or economic downturns are abruptly fired. Secondly they work in sectors like construction, tourism, gardening, and cleaning which are hard hit by recessions. Thirdly they have little or no seniority and are “last hired and first fired”. Fourthly, many are not able to collect unemployment insurance and face deportation if they cannot support themselves. The results of the high vulnerability of overseas workers are visible in the multi-billion dollar decline in remittances to Latin America, exacerbating poverty and tilting the balance of payments in the red.

Volatility of Commodity Prices

By putting all of their eggs in the basket of high commodity prices and overseas markets, the governments of the center-left lost a great opportunity to deepen their internal market via import substituting industrialization, agrarian reform and public investments in infrastructure linking agricultural – mining – manufacturing and energy sources in a “grid” to protect the national economy from externally induced crises.

The Limits of Social Liberalism (“Center-Left”) and the Economic Crises

Throughout the first decade of the new millennium the newly minted center-left regimes railed against neo-liberalism and even identified themselves as “21st century” socialists. In practice what this meant was hitching increases in social expenditures to the existing economic structures and trade policies, with some adjustments in trading partners, and in some cases “joint-ventures” with foreign investors. Throughout the period the entire range of regimes practiced social liberal policies familiar to observers of contemporary European social democratic regimes: they combined free trade and an open door for foreign investment with greater spending for anti-poverty programs, unemployment benefits and increases in the minimum wage. On the other hand vast profits accrued to the agro-mineral elites and to the banking sector which financed trade, consumer consumption and debt roll-overs.

The entire social liberal model rested however on the fragile foundations of the crises prone commodity export strategy, highly volatile trade revenues and income from vulnerable overseas workers. When Latin export markets dried up and commodity prices fell, revenues declined and workers were laid off. The social liberal model collapsed into negative growth and the previous gains in employment and poverty reduction were reversed.

Lessons From the Collapse of the Social Liberal Model

Several important lessons can be drawn from the ongoing experience of social-liberal regimes.

   1. Positive social programs are not sustainable without structural changes which lessen external vulnerability.
   2. Reducing external vulnerability depends on public ownership of the strategic economic sectors in order to avoid capital flight, typical behavior of foreign based capital.
   3. Reducing economic vulnerability depends on diversifying markets away from crises ridden, financially controlled imperial centers. Greater economic sustainability depends on deepening the internal market, increasing inter-regional trade and redirecting trade toward high growth regions.
   4. Social expenditures are necessary immediate palliatives but do not go to the root of poverty and low incomes. Far reaching land distribution programs linked to large scale development financing and investment in local food production and in domestic industries which complement and link up with agro mineral production will lessen dependence on overseas markets and stabilize the economy.
   5. State control of foreign trade and strategic mineral enterprises allows for the capture of the economic surplus to finance economic diversification and innovation.
   6. Regional integration has to pass from rhetorical declarations to actual performance and practice. Venezuela’s President Chavez, the leading advocate of regional integration and promoter of Latin American Bolivarian Association (ALBA), still depends on the U. S. markets for 80% of its sale of petroleum and 70% of government export earnings from petroleum, and over 50%of its food imports from U. S. military client Columbia. Regional integration is feasible based on planning complementary investments, and joint public ventures in industrializing mineral,petrol and other primary commodities.
   7. Joint security pacts among and between Latin American regimes aimed at countering the U. S.-Columbian military bases and the U. S. militarization strategy can also have an economic function – creating joint venture armaments industries and reducing outside purchases.
   8. Diversification of trade to Asia and lessening dependence on the U. S. and EU is necessary but insufficient if the export content continues to be predominantly primary commodities. Changing trading partners but perpetuating “colonial style” trading patterns will not decrease vulnerability. Latin America especially Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador must insist that their primary products are industrialized and value is added before they are exported to China, India, Japan and Korea.

In summary the current world crises reveals the limitations and unsustainability of the social liberal policies and regimes. Recognition of the vulnerabilities and volatility lays the groundwork for a more thorough structural transformation based on changes in land tenure, trade patterns and ownership of strategic industries. The current crises has discredited both the neo-liberal and social liberal prescriptions and opens the door to new thinking that links social expenditures with social ownership.

As must have been the case with all previous hegemonic societies, our nation’s pursuit of warfare abroad is inevitably cloaked in the rhetoric of national defense. Somehow the story is sufficiently twisted that it seems an inferior military force abroad poses an enormous threat to our national interest, and to such an extent that we must send our troops abroad to confront this force in its own territory and with civilian casualties almost entirely limited to its population. Intellectuals vent their doubts, so homespun Americans become indignant in response, insistent on the need once again to enforce their vision of democratic exemplification to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, our nation’s banks and defense industries reap enormous profits and increased financial liquidity benefits the rest of our population at least to a certain extent.

Warfare accordingly continues to play too big a role in our nation. There has been too much combat on foreign soil–far more than for all other nations combined since World War II. Vietnam and Iraq were illegal, the first because Secretary of State Dulles refused to sign the 1954 Geneva Accords, thereby precluding American involvement in the avoidance of a plebiscite election as dictated by the Accords, and the second by having bypassed Article 42 of the U.N. Charter, having already benefited from Article 41. The rest of the wars, if arguably legal, could have been avoided without much difficulty by effective negotiations. And too many innocent civilians have needlessly died in these wars. U.S. troops caused the deaths of as many as three million people in Vietnam and an estimated one million in Iraq, totaling two-thirds of the Holocaust victims during World War II. Throw in the two million lives lost in Korea, which was partly our responsibility, and we just about match the Holocaust. Not to forget the heavy financial burden of war, for example the congressional allocations to the military industrial complex to equip and supply the pursuit of warfare. According to Stiglitz, the total cost of our “war of choice” against Iraq will ultimately cost $3 trillion dollars from taxpayers that go into the military industrial complex.

The total financial cost of our military establishment has been no less debilitating to our economy than was the case for most of the previous hegemonic civilizations described two decades ago by Paul Kennedy in his excellent book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Random House, 1987). It seems that all U.S. military expenditures combined, inclusive of such items as the Veterans Administration, now consume at least 55% of our annual federal budget. This might seem useful in military Keynesian terms, but the total now equals or exceeds military expenditures for the rest of the world combined. Whether we like it or not, our nation has become addicted to warfare since World War II. Most of our military budget is spent on defense industries with trickle-down benefits to a large number of grateful subcontractors (most of them highly patriotic for obvious reasons) as well as their host communities (also highly patriotic for obvious reasons), but this can only be at a substantial cost to the rest of the nation without sufficient trickle-down access. In general Vermont farmers tend to lose; Texas laborers tend to win.

But it cannot be sufficiently emphasized that the Vietnam and Iraq wars–as well as the military operations in Korea, Panama, the Persian Gulf, and even Yugoslavia–have been only the tip of the iceberg. According to Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire, published in 2004, 725 U.S. military bases, inclusive of sixteen Main Operating Bases (MOBs), exist in as many as 41 nations. Altogether, 250 thousand U.S. troops are stationed abroad, including 118 thousand in Europe, 92 thousand in east Asia, and 14 thousand in the western hemisphere. Significantly, there was almost no military conflict in these regions at the time of Iraq’s invasion and occupation, yet large numbers of U.S. troops continued to remain deployed in these regions instead of being transferred to Iraq to participate in the fighting there. Preceding the 2007 “surge,” military spokesmen repeatedly insisted in prime time interviews that more troops were needed in order to win in Iraq. They neglected to explain why many thousands of U.S. troops were retained in military bases elsewhere in the world, apparently as a no longer necessary Cold War measure that seamlessly converted into a peacetime occupation strategy. It almost seems as if our government has had an unspoken commitment since the fall of the U.S.S.R. to dominate the entire world into the indefinite future. Proponents might argue that their purpose is to protect the world, but this is to protect the world under our nation’s authority, hence to dominate the world, just as gangland protectionist rings “protect” those they extort money from. It’s no accident that U.S. investors are active worldwide with governments fully cooperative with U.S. authority.

Also deplorable has been the ongoing effort of our government to intervene in other country’s internal affairs by manipulating elections, assassinating both enemies and potential enemies, and in general bringing into play whatever dirty tricks seemed useful. As calculated by William Blum in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, published in 2003, at least fifty such interventions can be counted for less than the four decades since World War II. Among the many countries manipulated by the CIA and other such U.S. organizations have been Greece in the late forties, the Philippines in the 1940s and 50s, Iran and Guatemala in 1953-54, Syria in 1956-57, Ecuador in 1960-63, Iraq in 1972-75, Australia in 1973-75, Angola in 1975-the 80s, Morocco in 1983, and so on. Among the many foreign political leaders targeted for assassination were Chou en-Lai of China, Lumumba of the Congo, Castro of Cuba, Torrijos of Panama, Sukarno of Indonesia, Mossadegh of Iran, Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt, Sihanouk of Cambodia, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, De Gaulle of France, Allende of Chile, Manley of Jamaica, Milosevic of Yugoslavia, etc. Fortunately many of them lived to talk about it, but others didn’t.

According to John Perkins in Confessions of a Hit Man, published five years ago, the arrangement was simple enough. Bogus U.S. economists including himself (which he freely admitted) would try to convince foreign governments to “liberalize” their economies by accepting U.S. investments without imposing fees, tariffs, or other such costs. If these governments refused to cooperate, U.S. secret agents identified as “jackals” would arrive to take whatever steps seemed necessary in order to reverse the situation, even if it meant destabilizing the government or assassinating whoever seemed an impediment, presidents and friendly dictators included. And if the jackals failed, then an invasion became necessary as in the cases of Iraq, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Of course the issue was always the war against communism, but somehow the beneficiaries just as inevitably turned out to be U.S. business ventures that had financial interests to be protected and/or advanced by U.S. military forces.

Our country’s unique relationship with Israel has been the source of enough problems that it deserves to be listed here in a category of its own. The $3 billion per year of foreign “aid” to Israel ($500 per capita) is relatively small compared to our nation’s budget as a whole even when a large variety of supplemental benefits provided to Israel is taken into account. However, this supportive relationship has borne unexpected difficulties that Truman should have recognized when he hastened Israel’s creation as a campaign strategy in 1948. Without any clear mandate, Israel’s relentless effort since then to annex adjacent territories in the West Bank has led to such excessive persecution of the Palestinians that the world’s entire Muslim population has become hostile to both Israel and the United States as its primary benefactor. Bin Laden’s first public statement after 9-11, made available on October 7, primarily spoke of retaliation for the American role in Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians.

The perhaps unrecognized Machiavellian advantage of our nation’s connection with Israel right now is that it has permitted military Keynesianism to persist during the Obama administration through combat with a variety of Arab nations hostile to Israel. Arab terrorists have replaced the commies as our nation’s most invidious enemies. As a result, warfare continues to play its role as a crutch to our economy exactly when it needs it the most. Obama insists the Afghan campaign is not a war of choice, but of course it has become one, and its potential economic benefit to our defense industries (i.e., all our major industries) can hardly have been overlooked. There is no doubt that bin Laden is still loose and that al Qaeda continues to thrive in Afghanistan as a potential threat to our nation. However, their role focuses U.S. aggression and thereby intensifies their appeal in almost every nation in the region. In fact, al Qaeda’s successful recruitment of guerrilla fighters thrives because of our nation’s aggressive military effort of to root it out in any particular country. And why not? If U.S. troops invaded and forcibly occupied Canada to root out murderous Canadians hostile to Americans, it wouldn’t be long before everybody in Canada could be treated as a potential enemy. The same with Afghanistan, especially now that the brutal Afghan warlord general Dostum has been allowed to return to the fold as a supporter of our puppet president Karzai.

One also asks whether Obama actually thinks combat can be limited to the mountainous region on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or is a new full-scale war what he really wants? Because that’s what he is going to get. Of course we’ll “win” if this is his intention–but all we need to do is declare victory and withdraw any time we want, since the Taliban lacks the capacity to chase us beyond their own border. Nor do they want to. As a result the war is both unwinnable and unlosable–in other words at least as much a quagmire as Vietnam had been. But does Obama really want to mount an escalation that might be judged by history with the same disfavor as President Johnson’s fabricated 1965 Tonkin attack and Bush’s fabricated 2003 threat of Saddam Hussein’s atomic capability? Does he want to be another infamous American president for exactly the wrong reasons?

One also wonders why Obama has, if anything, expanded the use mercenary forces such as Blackwater (now identified as Xe) in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Africa. It has been disclosed, for example, that roughly one quarter of our nation’s intelligence activity in Afghanistan is farmed out by the CIA to Blackwater. Once Obama and Secretary of State Clinton opposed Blackwater–now they depend on it. Also, why has Obama chosen to enlarge the size of our military by as many as 21,000 new troops, 17,000 of which will be sent to Afghanistan? And why doesn’t he put more effort into negotiating with Taliban factions who are willing to reject al Qaeda–just as was done to “win” the war in Iraq by paying once hostile Sunni tribal leaders monthly salaries between $240 and $300 per month to participate in the so-called surge? And when will our administration finally realize, if they haven’t already, that U.S. combat troops make inferior occupation troops, often provoking a hostile opposition sufficient to initiate a costly full-scale war? This is exactly what happened between March and September, 2003, when the Iraqi populace were goaded by the severe and unprovoked aggressiveness of U.S. troops into outright resistance. Many of these troops are now being used in Afghanistan. Do we truly want déjà vu all over again? Would McCain have gotten away with this sort of thing if he had been elected president? Indignant liberals would be demonstrating in Washington, New York City, and elsewhere.

As for potential conflict with Iran, why does Defense Secretary Robert Gates announce a “routine” trip to Israel to consult its leadership and deny that this consultation would involve the current standoff with Iran? And then, having concluded consultations, why does he announce in his press conference a September deadline imposed on Iran to fully cooperate with U.S. objectives? And why does he insist that if Israel chooses to attack Iran the U.S. would have no recourse but to accept this choice? Is an attack on Iran now in the works? Would this also be suggested by Dennis Ross’s reassignment to the National Security Council perhaps to take operational control of such an attack? If this is what happens, Zionists will once again succeed in diverting U.S. policy from the effort to obtain negotiations with the Palestinians to a peripheral issue that diverts our energies toward a useful and relatively harmless cause beneficial to Israel on another front–this time Iran instead of Iraq.

Speeches by Obama now and again indicate his full awareness that genuine peace is only possible in the Near East once a two-state solution has been implemented between Israel and the Palestinians. But what exactly has been done to bring this about since he came into office? Why hasn’t his administration offered Israel an obvious quid pro quo through diplomatic and trade relations with all Arab nations plus the guaranteed elimination of Iran’s nuclear weapons program–if it has one–in exchange for Israel’s full acceptance of a viable two-state solution respected by both parties? Just as our government has generously financed Israel’s aggressive foreign policy since 1967, it would even more generously finance a peace settlement based on all the agreements already in the works at Oslo, Madrid and Taba, to say nothing of Camp David, Roadmap and Annapolis. All groups and nations involved would get a fat payoff, even ourselves by once and for all terminating the crisis. Suddenly there would be an area-wide peace agreement such as has been proposed repeatedly by the Arab League. Both the Iranians and Palestinians would gladly accept such an arrangement as would most nations outside the Near East. Until this can be brought about, the United States will remain hostage to the Near East quagmire so effectively orchestrated by the Zionist lobby with lies, threats, broken promises, staged indignant rallies, and the like.

Turning to South America, why the announced establishment of three or four new U.S. military bases in Colombia near the border of Venezuela? Even if the command of these bases is turned over to the Colombian government, as Hillary Clinton promises, construction costs would obviously be paid by ourselves, and we can expect that American troops would be permitted to be stationed there. There would also be an airfield for military transport planes and fighter planes. Is this Obama’s first step to enlarge our military presence in South America in order to combat “Chavismo” at the very edge of South America’s most hostile nation? Also, why has it been disclosed that several other bases–half a dozen in all–would be constructed elsewhere in South America from the Andes to the Caribbean? Moreover, was the present military insurrection of Honduras a thousand miles away intended (or permitted) as a “friendly” takeover in the spirit of President Aristide’s forced exile from Haiti in 2004 orchestrated by the Bush administration? Is Obama actually dusting off Otto Reich’s counter-productive South American strategy a couple decades ago in order to initiate full-fledged regional imperialism once again in South America? How can an apparently aggressive shift in policy be undertaken at the same time both in South America and the Near East inclusive of Russia? Is some kind of an overarching strategy in the works to expand our military presence worldwide even further? Or is the timing simply to be chalked up to ineptitude by Washington bureaucrats? They shouldn’t want this kind of thinking to happen.

5. Running Dogs That Bark Up The Wrong Tree

American news coverage is heavy, lasting from morning to night, but with a paucity of genuine new information. Crime and human interest stories predominate, and, relevant to what might be described as “hard” news, the same stories are incessantly repeated until the topic has exhausted the public “mind,” whereupon the press switches to other such stories to fill the gap. In too many instances the primary task is to suppress crucial facts and shape and craft the stories that cannot be avoided to such an extent that they keep the American public ignorant of exactly the issues that matter the most. On the other hand, information that cannot be ignored but is found distasteful and/or ideologically unacceptable (for example, U.S. drones that accidentally kill large wedding parties in Pakistan) lasts just one or two news cycles at most.

Most obviously, the “respectable” American media has almost without exception given full support to our nation’s foreign intervention across the globe. Seldom does news coverage feature information that might discredit military operations against a foreign nation. Instead, with the current exception of Afghanistan, our press has celebrated the cause with full patriotic approval exactly when its approval has seemed the most useful. News coverage repeatedly vilifies the putative enemy and extols the American cause and those engaged in making it happen. And whenever needed, competent patriotic reporters can be found who willingly participate in bending their evidence to support a positive judgment, as illustrated by Barbara Miller’s famous coverage of U.S. preparations preceding the invasion of Iraq as well as the bias of “embedded” war correspondents in response to the fighting. The same “respectable” journalistic support, if not quite at the same level, was put into play to justify military operations in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan. All of these wars of choice were more or less illegal and ill conceived, and in at least two instances–Iraq and Vietnam–they were finally ruinous to our nation’s sense of collective decency among those who keep track of foreign policy issues. Yet the press promoted them with great enthusiasm exactly when they could have been prevented if there were more public opposition at the time.

Many claim the basic problem is that news coverage has become a commodity almost totally dominated by such media giants as Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, NBC Universal, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and the New York Times Company. Among all these corporate entities, profit predominates at the expense of keeping the public informed. In varying degrees, with Fox at one extreme and the New York Times at the other, the reporter’s “job” of telling stories with a guaranteed audience takes precedence over informing the public at large on an adequate basis. Of course a modicum of information remains important, but it plays second fiddle to the bottom line, the profits guaranteed by the size and enthusiasm of the audience. As a rule of thumb, media owners are Republicans, reporters are middle-of-the-road Democrats (with one or two liberal Democrats to enliven the package), and publishers mediate between owners and reporters, almost inevitably giving the nod to the owners when the choice really matters, for example when it comes time to endorse a political candidate. The bias–and there always is one–thus tilts toward conservatism with a sprinkling of information that might be considered middle-of-the-road liberal.

As an exception to the rule, significant bias often occurs in news coverage relevant to Israel. The news corporations listed above are dominated by billionaires and multi-millionaires incidentally friendly to the Zionist cause as illustrated by their willingness to publicize Arab atrocities and to suppress information about Israeli transgressions. This bias seems evident in the almost total suppression of information about Sivan Kurtzberg and four other Israeli citizens (two of whom were connected with Mossad) when they were arrested at the edge of a New Jersey highway cheering and photographing the 9-11 catastrophe across the Hudson River. It seemed at the time that they were somehow involved in the event, if only as witnesses who knew in advance that it was going to occur. They were held in detention for 71 days, then flown back to Israel with little if any publicity. This bias may also be observed in the almost total lack of press coverage relevant to the 2005 story about Larry Franklin, a Zionist spy who served at a high level as a Pentagon analyst, having been caught and then involved in a sting operation that trapped Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman of AIPAC in the act of accepting secret information to be forwarded to Israel. Many other Zionist spies embedded in U.S. agencies might also have been uncovered if the investigation had been pursued more effectively, but it wasn’t, and the case against Rosen and Weissman was finally closed based on the argument that the secret information was so sensitive that it could not have been used as evidence in a courtroom hearing.

On the other hand, the media’s persistent anti-Arab bias has been in in full display most recently in the media’s top billing over the better part of a week of its indignation with the release of Abdel Baset al Megrahi from prison in Scotland for the destruction of Pan American flight 103 in 1988, over two decades ago, in which a total of 270 people were killed. The official explanation for releasing Megrahi, the token culprit, was his terminal cancer. But whether or not he had any part in the conspiracy–which he has persistently denied–the U.S. media has featured his presumed guilt while totally neglecting the probable justification for this act of terrorism, either the earlier sinking of a couple of Libyan boats in the Gulf of Sidra by American fighter planes or the destruction just six months earlier of an Iranian civilian airliner, flight IR 655, by antiaircraft fire from the U.S. aircraft carrier Vincinnes under the command of Captain Will Rogers III. In this case 290 passengers died (twenty more than in flight 103), 66 of whom were children en route to a vacation with their families on a recognized civilian air route. Neither Rogers III nor President Bush ever apologized for this inexcusable “mistake,” but a couple years later the U.S. government paid slightly over $60 million in damages.

Significantly, the IR 655 incident led to Iran’s acceptance of a U.N. ceasefire that ended the war between Iran and Iraq at a time when Reagan’s administration was intensifying the conflict with its Iran-Contra strategy that just happened to benefit Israel through the mutual destruction of two potential enemies. Today, newsmen such as Wolf Blitzer, a former reporter for the Jerusalem Post, excoriate Megrahi’s release without at all mentioning the overall context. As usual, they totally ignore the full story with the justified expectation that the American public has an even shorter memory than they themselves. But some of us don’t.

Too often the media seems almost eager to convey approved misinformation without questioning it. The majority of intrepid Fox watchers, for example, did not realize for a couple years beyond the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever with al Qaeda. Vice President Cheney kept insisting that a connection existed between the two based on false reports, and Fox kept this assumption afloat on the airwaves as an unassailable fact–which it wasn’t.

But excessive collaboration has been in effect at all levels in the media, including the three most respectable newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

Even today, for example, during the supposedly enlightened Obama administration, the American public is kept ignorant of the likelihood that our government secretly encouraged the recent coup d’etat in Honduras. Suggestive of this possibility are the facts that our nation already has 400 troops stationed there and that the military coup leaders are using the Washington lobbyist Lanny Davis, once closely connected with Bill and Hillary Clinton, to represent their case in Washington. It also seems relevant that a U.S. military airfield was used to help fly the deposed president out of Honduras and that U.S. government apologists first tried to excuse themselves with the argument that U.S. representatives in Honduras–whether military, diplomatic, or both–warned the coup leaders not to go through with their plan. How, though, could these Americans have done this if they weren’t aware that a coup attempt was being undertaken? And if they did know of it and opposed such a possibility, as they now insist to their Latin American friends, why didn’t they make an effort to prevent it?

But there are more questions as well. Honduras’ military leadership, mostly educated in Fort Benning’s School of the Americas, avoids doing anything we don’t let them do–so why did we let them do this? Why has our government belatedly cancelled its aid of $30 million to Honduras at exactly the same time as an aid package of $150 million is being provided by the IMF? Could our current administration’s manipulative involvement have anything to do with the State Department’s concern about President Zelaya’s friendship with President Chavez of Venezuela? And is its “lukewarm” support of Zelaya linked with the strategy of “waiting it out” until the next election is held on November 29, less than three months from now, when our government can once again help to manipulate election results as it has done so many times before? One wonders, though, if Zelaya might be able to run for reelection on the technicality that he has not served his full term. The answers to these and other such questions will have far-reaching impact on our nation’s relations with most of Latin America during the rest of Obama’s presidency. Yet coverage in the American press tells us very little. Everybody who is anybody in Latin America is well aware of what is involved–it is the supposedly informed American reader who remains ignorant.

Of course one cannot discount the possibility that the NYT and WP are now researching the Honduras issue to be able to give a full report later, but this did not happen after last August, when Georgia waged a surprise attack against South Ossetia. U.S. newspapers inclusive of the NYT and WP treated the counter-attack of Russian troops as having been the initial assault. But this was not true, and these news sources never fully conceded their error afterward. This left American readers with the false impression that the Russians were mostly at fault–which was not the case. Instead, the encounter began with a highly destructive midnight surprise attack on South Ossetia’s capital planned by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. One suspects his strategy was at least partly to expedite admittance in NATO in the near future. But Russians troops stationed in South Ossetia staged a successful counter-attack the next morning, and Georgian troops fled for their lives.

In his recent visit to Georgia, Vice President Biden was able to reinforce the notion that Russia was at fault in his repeated insistence that Russia had first launched the invasion, once doing so while standing arm in arm with Saakashvili. Whether he believes it himself, Biden’s misinformation is only possible because of the failure of most of the American press, especially the New York Times, to set the record straight. Now, just a couple weeks later, we hear that 750 Georgian troops are to be trained by U.S. marines, presumably to serve in Afghanistan. But who is kidding whom? If Russia retaliates, for example by supplying its most advanced technology to augment Iran’s defensive missile system, as it has already announced, the Cold War just might be effectively resurrected, and Obama will have pulled off what McCain could never have achieved if he had been elected. We also learn from a recent Nation article by Alexander Cockburn that Saakashvili has actually boasted of Georgia’s defense minister, David Kezerashvili, and Temur Iakobashvili, its minister in charge of negotiations regarding South Ossetia, having both been Israeli residents before coming to Georgia.

So the picture gets complicated. Israel demands that pressure be exerted on Russia to withdraw its offer to Iran, and the State Department seems to be making an effort to use both the training of Georgian troops and a new missile system offered to Poland, manned by as many as 100 American technicians, as leverage against Russia in order to give Israel what it wants–the opportunity to attack Iran without any possibility of high-tech Russian intervention. A little news coverage is to be found in our major newspapers relevant to some of what is happening right now, but only in bits and pieces, and without acknowledging the other side of the story or the full extent of all the tradeoffs now in play. If and when military conflict erupts in the region involving a Zionist attack on Iran, our press can take satisfaction in Israel’s “existential” justification, and nobody in the United States will know any better. And with Iran eliminated as a potential threat, Israel can junk any prospects of a regional solution for the Near East, letting it (Israel) continue doing what it pleases in its suppression of Palestinians, hopefully culminating in their transfer elsewhere within another decade or two.

6. Matters Cultural (or not)

And finally the demoralization of the American public cannot be disregarded as a byproduct of collective decline resulting from what might be described as spent expansionism. When a hegemonic civilization begins to disintegrate, in imperial America no less than our nine hegemonic predecessors, this decline bears with it with a full array of negative consequences that are more or less precipitous. Just as our economy is both broke and extravagant at the same time, and just as our military juggernaut is both powerful and ineffectual at the same time, our collective lifestyle and the social infrastructure that supports it are both wasteful and impoverished at the same time. The virtue of growth has degenerated into mere extravagance, and traces of decline can be expected to penetrate every aspect of society that has directly or indirectly shared in this excess. Enlarged rewards proportional to output become an insistence at all levels of economic behavior, and innovation (today a corporate mantra) usually consists of useless variation to suggest improvement instead of a cheapening of the product. Greed thrives, and intrinsic value almost completely takes a back seat to profit maximization.

Cherished possessions become junk too soon. Almost every feature of what we buy and use manifests planned obsolescence as first explained by Bernard London in 1932. Our cars, appliances, TV, computers, cameras, and telephone gadgetry too quickly become obsolete, far too vulnerable to damage, and far too intricate to understand for anybody but the most avid junkies devoted to their use. New houses and furniture are actually stapled together, and new cars and appliances too often depend on plastic components exactly at the sites where wear is the greatest, thus guaranteeing the need for early replacement. Metal isn’t exactly metal, nor is plastic quite plastic. Nor are wood and its various substitutes straight from the tree, if at all. Also, our food, our lawns, and everything we touch, smell or breath is laced with presumably non-toxic chemicals that somehow increase corporate profits but whose combined effect on our health can only be harmful. And so on.

Our medical system is the most expensive and least productive, dollar for dollar, in the entire post-industrial world. Our longevity statistics are actually forty-sixth from the top worldwide according to the 2008 CIA World Factbook estimates. Almost all of Europe lives longer than we do. Obesity has become rampant resulting from the consumption of processed junk food, much of it with the “diet” brand. Today an estimated one-third of the American public are both too bulky and too unhealthy, emblematic of our society as a whole. Also contributing to our nation’s bad health, as many as forty-six million Americans go without health insurance, and according to the Institute of Medicine in 2004, quoted by Wendell Potter (a former private health insurance publicist), as many as eighteen thousand Americans die each year because of the lack of health insurance. Their medical care at emergency wards is both too expensive and necessarily insufficient.

Meanwhile the 1200 private health care providers collectively reap about $30 billion in annual profits. Thirty percent of the health industry’s overall budget is spent on administration costs inclusive of profits, lobbying, and so-called “rescissions,” the ongoing effort of lawyers and medical researchers to exclude potentially unprofitable individuals (i.e., those with bad health) from its benefits programs. Trained employees scour the medical records of patients suddenly in trouble to find an earlier medical problem unmentioned in their original applications, however minor, then retroactively cancel these application for fraud exactly when these patients are the most desperately in need of this support.

No wonder the private health care industry depends as heavily as it does on lobbying elected officials in Washington and dredging up a swarm of blustering “angry” demonstrators presumably eager to retain their private health insurance. During the first three months of this year alone, it is also estimated that health-care companies and their employees have contributed almost $1.8 million to House members supervising health care reform, with the 52 Blue Dog Democrats receiving 25 percent more apiece than other Democrats. Another report says altogether $5.4 million has been spent in campaign donations, 60 percent of which went to the Blue Dog Democrats who now control the committees.

Unfortunately, single-payer insurance comparable to the programs of other post-industrial nations no longer seems a viable possibility in Congress. Moreover, even the substitution of a public option that would include single-payer insurance as a competitive alternative to private insurance plans seems likely to be sacrificed in favor of a much watered-down co-op option guaranteed to fail. Not surprisingly, conservative congressmen supportive of the health insurance industry are now suggesting that even this concession would be unacceptable to them. And it appears their lobby has the political leverage to impose their own choice. As a result, Obama’s campaign promise to obtain genuine health insurance reform if elected seems to have caved in despite its widespread public support, in large part because his public relations effort has been inadequate and he and his subordinates have been too compliant in their negotiations toward acceptable compromises. It seems he is willing to make basic concessions before obtaining an adequate tradeoff from those with whom he is negotiating.

Our educational system is also victimized by bloated costs matched with inferior results. This contradiction is relevant to both the current K-through-12 test-based improvement strategies and the steady degeneration of colleges and universities into corporate ventures that primarily treat knowledge and student enrollment as marketable commodities. Business Administration and computer technology have almost completely replaced history, philosophy, anthropology, and comparative literature as the chosen majors of students, and this is in fact the appropriate choice, given our nation’s current economic crisis. Our universities feature expensive new construction, high salaries for an excessive number of administrators, and a variety of operational costs that have escalated proportional to the total budget. If all these expenses were pegged to faculty salaries and/or student tuition at the same level as five, three, or even one decade ago, one suspects there would be no serious budget crisis. To offset these needless costs peripheral to the basic task of education, our colleges and universities jack up tuition each year and substitute instructors and teaching assistants for tenure-track faculty as much as possible–to the extent that many students do not encounter a genuine tenured professor until they reach their junior year. As a result many college-educated individuals are no longer particularly educated, only competent in making money–that is to say, in maximizing their income relative to the effort expended.

The gap between poverty and perceived respectability seems to have become almost unbridgeable. Vertical mobility has become less accessible than in the past, quite opposite the prevalent myth of poor people striking it rich one way or another. The few who do succeed (rock stars, etc.) get heavy publicity, and most others rest satisfied with the dream. The poor are mostly to be found in run-down urban neighborhoods, the middle-class in stapled split-level houses located in upscale housing projects, and the wealthy in gated communities crowded with stapled McMansions minus personal libraries except for Christmas and birthday books.

Moreover, traditional families have become almost archaic.

Among two-parent families both fathers and mothers work to support an artificial standard of living, and their children either run free or endure the supervision of nannies, many of whom have trouble coping with the English language. Similarly, the rates of divorce and single parenthood are off the chart, as is the deliberate rejection of parenthood among exactly the best and most suitable candidates for this role. Too many of our most promising potential parents don’t parent, while too many of our most challenged parents excessively test this challenge.

Meanwhile, a steady diet of teen-appeal TV movies, reality TV programming, violent computer games, and internet pornography consume the attention of too big an audience. Extravagance has become an obsession of too many Americans who live otherwise impoverished lives. Hollywood movies have become for the most part hebephrenic junk except for a few weeks preceding the March Oscar ceremonies. In response to this collective vulgarity, an ultra-reactionary tide of mindless opposition now manifests itself among our nation’s quasi-literate sub-population of supposedly concerned citizens. As to be expected, these strident misguided soldiers of democracy have latched onto arch-patriotism, fundamentalist religion, the rights of unborn babies, and the freedom to bear arms as the primary answers to our nation’s most compelling problems. A fraudulent $3 trillion war is far less offense to them than health care reform at a far lower cost that actually saves many tens of thousands of American lives.

So exactly who, then, best fits the description as our current generation’s great thinkers, great creators, great jurists and great statesmen comparable to those of previous generations? Alas, they don’t exist except for a few dozen angry iconoclasts, further testimony to our nation’s present decline into mediocrity despite its abundance of glitz and technological gimmickry.

7. Flopping on the Dock

President Obama is certainly bright and competent enough to confront this challenge under the right circumstances. However, he is far too conciliatory with the Bush-style Republicans who managed to survive the last election. It is to be conceded that his supposedly unbeatable majority in both houses of Congress is vulnerable to partisan resistance by blue-dog Democrats working in conjunction with their Republican friends equally indebted to the K-Street lobbyists. Nevertheless, Obama seems almost eager to appease these people, and if his ultra-conciliatory strategy persists much longer his administration is likely to replicate the disappointing outcome of the Carter and Clinton presidencies as opposed to the earlier successes of the FDR and Johnson administrations, the latter despite the glaring exception of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Obama’s current foreign policy adventurism should be curtailed, to begin with by coming up with an acceptable withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan. Obama might seem a more effective spokesman in defense of military operations abroad than Bush had been, but his ability to gild a sullied strategy will eventually catch up with him.

Again it is to be acknowledged that the United States enjoys dominant status in the world today similar to that of a handful of hegemonic societies–nine in all–that preceded us throughout the history of Western Civilization. But as much as anything this historic similarity suggests the likelihood of a similar outcome, of course in a manner appropriate to our particular circumstances. For history cannot entirely be forgotten. In 1909, exactly a hundred years ago, England seemed completely dominant across the entire world, and in 1809 so did Napoleon across Europe inclusive of Spain, Egypt, and soon enough Moscow. Both hegemons tumbled, England beginning with the First World War five years later, and France more decisively with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo six years later. So what about our current prospects as a world power in 2009? As with all our precursors, paradoxically, our economy and military capabilities are at once both formidable and fatally overextended, dependent on a debt level one trillion dollars in excess of the total annual GDP of the entire world combined, the United States included. This amounts to incredible extravagance. It is what has paid for everything else, and now the party is over–almost. Like a landed barracuda, our nation vigorously flops on the dock. It is dangerous to everybody who stands too close but its chances of surviving much longer as a threat to others are slim. So the question poses itself what can be done to slow down this process, if not turn it around. For, again, our nation’s particular version of hubris seems to be running on empty, unable to take things much farther in the direction we’re going.

Arnold August, Montreal author and expert on Cuban democracy, was invited on August 24 by Sylvia Richardson of CJSF Radio to shed light on the June 28 events in Honduras and the revelations surrounding the case which are being exposed over time.

Mr. August noted, a now a known fact, that the aircraft that carried Zelaya the night of his abduction from his home landed at the U.S. military base in Soto Cano in Honduras, before continuing to its final destination of Costa Rica. “Even if one is not a military expert, how can a plane land and to take off again on a military base where you have 600 American soldiers and a lot of military equipment there, without the knowledge, expertise and support of the Americans at that base?” Mr. August asked.

Therefore, the study of the U.S. State Department’s official publications since June 28, which Mr. August has followed closely, show that the strategy of Washington since this military coup has not consisted solely in emphasizing the “mediation” by the President of Costa Rica Oscar Arias, a hoped-for dialogue between what Washington calls “the two parties.”

Sylvia Richardson noted that the United States has invaded or interfered in more than 50 countries in the last century and draws a dark portrait of US interventions, the most recent having occurred in Haiti in 2004 and Venezuela in 2002. The latest demonstration of U.S. hegemonic intent: the agreement between the United States and Colombia to establish seven military bases in this country sharing a border with, amongst others, Ecuador and Venezuela. Colombia is the main geopolitical powerful ally of the United States in the region. Mr. August said that compared to the 60s, the situation has changed drastically. At that time Cuba was isolated by the vast majority of southern governments. All governments in the south now recognize the socialist island. In the entire hemisphere, only the United States refuses to do so.

The coup in Honduras was not only directed against President Manuel Zelaya and the Honduran people, but it especially targeted the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean which had chosen to join ALBA, an economic, social and political alliance as an alternative to U.S. dominated alliances. Mr. August stated: “The military coup d’état that took place in Honduras was sort of a threat, an indication from Washington that even if power has changed hands, even if we have a new face there, the empire still considers Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean to be areas that should be dominated by the United States.”

Mr. Obama, at the August 10 meeting in Mexico with Canada’s Prime Minister Harper and Mexican President Calderon, lost his cool by qualifying as hypocrites those who ask him to intervene strongly in favour of the return of President Zelaya and the Honduran people to power. In this sudden lack of diplomatic tact, Obama has shown the true face of his administration by putting down those who, like Venezuela, demand that Washington takes a firm stand against the coup.

Mr. August said: “What is being demanded that the United States act upon is certainly not an intervention in the internal affairs of Honduras, but Washington should at least withdraw their own ambassador as have already done most countries, and completely stop all military and economic aid to Honduras.” He continues: “What we’re seeing evolving before our very eyes is Washington applying the same imperial policy in Central and Latin America, that is to say a policy of domination and interference in order to control the natural resources of the region and have a stranglehold on the geo-strategic areas.”

Mr. August said the growing and all-encompassing resistance in the south against U.S. policy is now so palpable in the light of the Honduran people occupying the streets of the country by claiming not only the return of their democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, but also the holding of a Constituent Assembly to reform the Constitution. The growing prestige of countries such as Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Paraguay, and the reputation of their leaders and their social programs, has spawned a growing movement against U.S. domination, the capitalist system and neoliberalism, not considered viable for the peoples of the world.

On the same day, the Washington Post introduced their article with the banner: “On Foreign Policy, Obama Treads Carefully”. It continued: “President Obama came to office promising bold change on a variety of fronts, but he has often conducted his foreign policy in shades of gray. Whether in Iran or China or North Korea, when is the Obama administration not ‘moving cautiously’ or ‘treading carefully’ abroad? The latest example is Honduras, where the White House yesterday criticized the coup that toppled Manuel Zelaya yet didn’t signal complete disapproval. ‘But while condemning the overthrow, U.S. officials did not demand the reinstatement of Zelaya,’ the Los Angeles Times writes.”

Real or apparent differences between President Obama and the State Department headed by Hillary Clinton will be dealt with below. For the moment let us continue with the initial theme. The Associated Press story reproduced in many major US and international media on July 6 carried the following title written by their correspondent Nestor Ikeda: “Obama is playing the role of a tight rope walker in the Honduran Drama”. Mr Ikeda hit the nail on the head as he writes: “Seeing as that Obama had promised the South American governments that we will follow an orientation of dialogue in conditions of diplomatic solutions, it seems that he is demonstrating a new role for the first time in the face of the military coup in Honduras: a high-wire artist.”

“Clinton’s high-wire act on Honduras” was the banner of the July 7 issue of the Christian Science Monitor for the article highlighting that “the Obama administration waded deeper into the political crisis in Honduras Tuesday, anxious to see the hemisphere’s latest conflict resolved – but wary of appearing like the hegemonic power of old that imposed its will on smaller neighbours.”

In the same direction, Time magazine wrote on July 8 that “Since the coup, the White House has had to walk a fine line between cultivating a new, less interventionist image for the U.S. — which has too often aided military coups in Latin America – and ‘responding to the hemisphere’s desire that it take a strong lead in defending democratic norms,’ says Vicki Gass, senior associate for rights and development at the independent Washington Office on Latin America.”

Washington’s dilemma was foreseen by one of the most hardened media supporters of the current coup d’etat regime when the El Heraldo of Honduras noted on January 19 right after Obama’s inauguration that “he knows that he has no right to disappoint his followers….It was reported that in his inaugural address “Obama will be as if walking on a tightrope”. (My translation from original Spanish) This was in reference mainly to the economic crisis, but it can also be applied to the international situation.

The Honduran El Heraldo newspaper knew that the Honduran oligarchy had to tilt the balance in favour of itself.

WHAT ARE THE TWO SIDES BELOW THE TIGHT ROPE?

In Hillary Clinton’s recent important July 15 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, she stated:

….The question is not whether our nation can or should lead, but how it will lead in the 21st century. Rigid ideologies and old formulas don’t apply. We need a new mindset….And to these foes and would-be foes, let me say our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. Our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends, our interests, and above all, our people vigorously and when necessary with the world’s strongest military. This is not an option we seek nor is it a threat; it is a promise to all Americans….On the question of increased funding for USAID. Just as we would never deny ammunition to American troops headed into battle, we cannot send our civilian personnel into the field underequipped….Building the architecture of global cooperation requires us to devise the right policies and use the right tools. I speak often of smart power because it is so central to our thinking and our decision-making. It means the intelligent use of all means at our disposal, including our ability to convene and connect. It means our economic and military strength; our capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation; and the ability and credibility of our new President and his team. It also means the application of old-fashioned common sense in policymaking. It’s a blend of principle and pragmatism….

Let us take note of some conceptions to be taken into account for a successful tight rope walker:

1. Washington is going to lead the world, which are the same words employed by President Bush. The problem is that his foreign policy orientation proved to be a failure and thus threatened the objective of US domination and control. So how to lead without appearing that it is more of the same Bush-era politics? Thus Clinton says that there is a need for a new mindset.

2. Washington intends to use diplomacy, that is, emphasis on talks and engaging other countries in dialogue. At the same time the other side of the tight rope into which Washington has to avoid falling also includes the use of force and the military. But how new is this mindset? She warns that their willingness to talk does not exclude action: “vigorously and when necessary [with] the world’s strongest military.” Taking into account the current situation in Honduras, what place and importance does the olive branch really hold in relationship to using the military?

3. “A blend of principle and pragmatism.” One can assume that the main principle is that the US must “continue to lead” (but successfully, that is, without inciting the worlds’ peoples and governments against the US). Pragmatism must mean the need to avoid one-sided reliance on the military to the expense of the olive branch as was characterized by the Bush and other administrations before him. This is proving to be a real challenge in the face of on the one hand the continued peaceful opposition of the Honduran people and its legitimate President Zelaya, and on the other hand the military coup perpetrators and its brutal repression backed by the US military base in Honduras. The unrelenting and courageous struggle of the people of Honduras to put an end to the coup regime can upset a balancing act performed even by the most experienced tight rope walkers to be found in Washington.

Let us examine how the State Department attempts to deal with the situation as this holds many lessons for the peoples of South America.

THE US STATE DEPARTMENT’S BALANCING ACT

On June 28, the day of the coup, Clinton stated: “The action taken against Honduran President Mel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all. We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue. Honduras must embrace the very principles of democracy we reaffirmed at the OAS meeting it hosted less than one month ago.”

The State Department refused to call it a coup and makes no reference to the manner in which President Zelaya was violently kidnapped and forcefully sent out of the country, reducing this to the term “action.” The delicate balancing act goes further by placing the putschists and the constitutionally elected Zelaya government on the same footing: “All parties in Honduras… should resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue.” When the US was aware, before the actual coup on June 28, that something was to take place, whatever happened to the peace and love pragmatism of Clinton? Or was the US actually involved in the coup? Clinton’s principle of using military force as indicated above in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations might very well translate itself in the following manner: use of military to stop the ever-growing trend of governments and peoples of South America to build their own anti-neo liberal future and opposing US domination in the area.

On June 29, the next day, Clinton said: “…The United States has been working with our partners in the OAS to fashion a strong consensus condemning the detention and expulsion of President Zelaya and calling for the full restoration of democratic order in Honduras. Our immediate priority is to restore full democratic and constitutional order in that country. The United States has been working with our partners in the OAS to fashion a strong consensus condemning the detention and expulsion of President Zelaya and calling for the full restoration of democratic order in Honduras. Our immediate priority is to restore full democratic and constitutional order in that country. Now, the wisdom of our approach, I think, was evident yesterday when the OAS and the Inter-American Democratic Charter were used as a basis for our response to the coup that occurred…”

Was Clinton moving more to the side of diplomacy and distancing the State Department from the military-backed coup perpetrators? She after all mentions “condemning the detention and expulsion of President Zelaya” However, in order to be part of the OAS strong resolution against the coup and the restoration of Zelaya in his rightful position as president, the US had to make some concessions. One must take note of the fact that Clinton does not mention the return of Zelaya, but rather makes general reference to the “full restoration of democratic order in Honduras.”

And so the State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, had to mount the tight rope. Right after the above-quoted Clinton statement, on June 29, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly responded to reporters’ questions on Honduras during one of the regular and almost daily press briefings on any topic. It seems obvious from the excerpts of the transcript below that the US, in order to save face and combine pragmatism with principle (to use Clinton’s words), had to join with the OAS orientation. This seemed to have been done in a half-hearted manner as reflected in the responses by Kelly to be seen below (the US “signed-up” to the OAS resolution). The exchange below also exposes another theme, the first of a long series of reporters’ questions and ambiguous State Department answers, extending for a period of close to six weeks. What was at stake for six weeks? The answer is: whether the US legally classifies the coup as a military coup d’etat or not. This legal classification of the coup as a military coup d’etat would imply cutting off all military and other assistance to their allies in Honduras.

QUESTION: So Ian, I’m sorry, just to confirm – so you’re not calling it a coup, is that correct? Legally, you’re not considering it a coup?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think you all saw the OAS statement last night, which called it a coup d’etat, and you heard what the Secretary just said. Having said that, we’re also very cognizant of the particulars of U.S. law on this. So let us get back to you on the legal definition issue. I don’t want to necessarily make policy up here.

QUESTION: And can I follow up? I mean, it’s unclear what you’re really looking for, because you’re not calling for the restoration – you’re calling for the restoration that’s in the democratic order in the constitution, but you’re not calling for the President, who you say is a legitimately elected president of the country, to go back. So do you –

MR. KELLY: Yes, we are.

QUESTION: – Secretary Clinton just said – no, Secretary Clinton just said that she doesn’t know what the U.S. is calling –

MR. KELLY: We – I mean, we signed up to that very strong statement from the OAS Permanent Council that demanded that President Zelaya be reinstated as a legitimate president.

The next day, June 30, Kelly had to face reporters on the same issue as to whether or not the US has legally ruled that a military coup d’etat took place in Honduras.

QUESTION: Honduras.

MR. KELLY: Elise. Yes.

QUESTION: Can you talk about the review of U.S. aid to Honduras in the wake of the coup –President Zelaya?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. As we talked about yesterday, there is a provision in section – I think it’s 7008 of the foreign operation act that obliges us to make a legal assessment of the facts on the ground and whether or not the funds cut-off provision applies to these circumstances. And so there is this process that’s going on right now in our Office of the Legal Adviser.

QUESTION: — without being simplistic, and I understand there are legalities, but if you’ve got a president who’s been ousted, and you’ve got troops in charge, not constitutionally elected, I’m

MR. KELLY: Well, yeah.

QUESTION: — not quite sure what the complication is.

MR. KELLY: Well, okay. You heard what the Secretary said yesterday. She said that there is a coup.

QUESTION: Well –

MR. KELLY: The President said there’s a coup.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. KELLY: We do have some facts, of course, and the facts are that the constitutional order in Honduras has been overturned. But there’s also a – there’s a process that we need to follow, and that we are following now. And it’s a legal matter. And as you all know, when you – when a legal issue is involved, it’s good to consult your lawyers, so that’s what we’re doing.

MR. KELLY: Well, I think our message is going to be the same message that we’ve said publicly, that Secretary Clinton said yesterday and President Obama has said – that we think that President Zelaya is the democratically elected constitutional president of Honduras and should be allowed to serve out the rest of his term. And we’re working very closely through the mechanism of the Organization of American States, and we think that what happened in Honduras was inconsistent with the principles of the Inter-American charter, and that we need to work this multilaterally. At the same time, there are fast-moving events up at the UN, too. And so I think this is an opportunity to show our support for the presidentially – I mean, democratically elected president of Honduras, and also talk to him about how we’ve been coordinating with our allies, and part of that is in the OAS.

QUESTION: Do you think it’s a good idea for him to return on Thursday like he wants to?

MR. KELLY: I’m not going to – I’m just – I think it’s a good idea for him to be reinstated as the president of Honduras.

QUESTION: Will the U.S. be willing to provide any security for him if he returns to Honduras on Thursday?

MR. KELLY: That’s just not a question I’m prepared to answer, actually.

Yeah, Jill.

QUESTION: Yeah, Ian, just getting back – I hate to be kind of asking another legal question.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: But just – you say constitutional – you do have the facts. The constitutional order has been overturned.

MR. KELLY: Right.

QUESTION: Okay. So is that the trigger? Is that enough to cut aid? Because then you said there’s a legal process to follow.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: In other words, have you defined – is that the trigger we have – you know, overthrow the constitutional order, therefore we have the right to cut the aid?

MR. KELLY: Well, we – like I say, there’s a process. We want to make sure that the newly confirmed Legal Adviser of the State Department Harold Koh and his team has a chance to make a determination on this.

QUESTION: Okay. So –

MR. KELLY: So that’s what’s happening right now.

QUESTION: Okay. So that’s not enough to stop the aid? The overturning of the constitutional order is not legally enough for you to stop that aid?

MR. KELLY: We need to have our legal experts look at the law, look at the facts on the ground, and make a determination.

QUESTION: And how long is that going to take?

MR. KELLY: Oh, it won’t take long. I can’t tell you exactly how long it’ll take, but I would expect it wouldn’t take very long.”

Once again we see above that Kelly delays any commitment on the classification of the coup from the US perspective and laws. This means more time and a daily dose of fresh oxygen for the military that was (and still is) on a daily basis repressing the growing resistance in Honduras and hindering its movements. The army and police also were, and are, attempting everything to hide and severely hinder the international and local press coverage of what is really happening in the country. Kelly also tries to divert US responsibility by quickly emphasizing the need for diplomacy and mediation by the OAS. Notice above that Kelly says that “we’ve been coordinating with our allies, and part of that is in the OAS.” This raises the question as to who are Washington’s allies? Costa Rica, Columbia, Canada? On the one hand, the US praises the OAS but at the same time reserves the right to bilaterally deal with certain governments of their own choosing. Washington needs time to organize with their allies; while simultaneously giving the green light to the putschists to do the same with the right-wing oligarchy in South America and Miami. This represents a thinly veiled attempt to divide the forces in the OAS. The just and correct OAS resolution becomes merely a cover-up for anything except the restoration of President Zelaya. Kelly also refused to answer the question as to whether or not the US would provide security to President Zelaya if he attempted to return to his country. This high-wire act is very telling; this is so because when Zelaya publicly stated that he will attempt to return on July 24 via land from the Nicaraguan border, the US as we will see below, tried to strongly persuade Zelaya to refrain from going to Honduras. This was done in such a way that any resulting incidents would be considered by the US to be the fault of Zelaya. This is the same position taken by the coup perpetrators.

At the next briefing held on July 1, Kelly, answering the same question as to when the US legal classification of the coup would be made, stated that he would disagree with any “time-related adverb.” He also said, what seems to be an excuse for further delay, that the US takes “our obligations under the law very seriously.” However, the law in the form of Resolutions adopted by the OAS and the UN does not seem to fall into the category of taking “our obligations under the law very seriously.”

QUESTION: To start with Honduras, yesterday, you told us that the Legal Adviser’s Office has begun its formal review of whether the U.S. Government regards this as a military coup.

MR. KELLY: Right.

QUESTION: And therefore triggers the aid cutoff.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Is that review complete? You had also said you didn’t think it would take that long.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Is it complete, and have you made a determination?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. It’s always dangerous when you put any kind of time-related adverb on any statement. In point of fact, we have not completed our legal determination. As I said yesterday, though, our legal advisers are actively assessing the facts and the law in question, which we take very seriously. We take our obligations under that law very seriously. And of course, I’ll let you know as soon as this determination is made.

On July 2 the portion of the briefing dealing with Honduras reads as follows, in response to the same reporters’ questions:

MR. KELLY: Well, of course, our goal is the restoration of constitutional – of the constitutional order in Tegucigalpa, which means the restoration of President Zelaya. There is a process led by the OAS which is in place. We think that this process should be allowed to play out, and we would discourage any actions that would prove to be an obstacle to this process reaching its desired outcome, which, of course, is the restoration of Mel Zelaya to power.

QUESTION: So just so I’m clear, are you suggesting that possibly his return at too early a stage might be an obstacle?

MR. KELLY: It could be. I think that what everybody needs to focus on now is this OAS mission that was mandated by the OAS Special General Assembly. Of course, I can’t speak for President Zelaya, but it’s my understanding that he has delayed any plans to return.

QUESTION: Do you have any news on the review of possible aid cutoff to Honduras?

MR. KELLY: Yeah, I do have an update for you on that if you’ll just hold on a second.

The legal review is ongoing. We’re trying to determine if Section 7008 of the Foreign Assistance Act must be applied. In the meantime, we’ve taken some actions to hit the pause button, let’s say, on assistance programs that we would be legally required to terminate if it is determined – if the events of June 28 are determined to have been, as defined – I’m sounding more and more like a lawyer here – as defined, under the Section 7008 of the Foreign Assistance Act, as defined as a military coup.

While this is going on in Washington, the repression against the heroic resistance of the people of Honduras carries on without let-up.

A MILITARY COUP OR NOT? HAS THE STATE DEPARTMENT TAKEN A DECISION?

Not yet! On July 6, the high wire act continues:

QUESTION: Okay. And then have you guys made a decision yet on – a determination on whether a military coup has indeed transpired, and therefore whether U.S. aid would have to be cut off?

MR. KELLY: Well, as I said on Thursday, we decided that no aid that would be subject to termination under this law – that none of this kind of aid is now flowing to the de facto regime. We are still in the ongoing process of determining whether the law applies. But we’re not inclined to make a statutory decision while diplomatic initiatives are ongoing.

….

MR. KELLY: Well, just a couple of points. One is that there are – most of our activities are excluded under this particular section of the law, and that’s the humanitarian aid and aid to support democracy-building programs. What we’ve decided to not continue our funding of are those programs that could be construed as having – directly aiding the government or the – what we’re calling the de facto regime of Honduras. And it’s a complicated process, but we recognize that we may make this determination to terminate, and that’s why any programs that could be construed as aiding the government have – none of this aid is flowing through the pipeline now.

One may want to notice that Kelly is concerned about any aid to the de facto regime is “construed” as aiding the government, using this term twice in the same paragraph. This makes me think back to Mrs. Clintons’ important July 15 policy statement quoted above when she referred “to the ability and credibility of our new President and his team. It also means the application of old-fashioned common sense in policymaking. It’s a blend of principle and pragmatism….” What the State Department seems to be concerned about first and foremost is rebuilding the image or credibility of the US as it tries to “lead” in a new effective manner. By providing time and aid to the de facto regime this contributes to the principle enunciated above regarding the objective: the US imperialist goal to dominate or what Washington calls “leading”. This intent is meant to blend with pragmatism: in the case of Honduras to refrain from brazenly supporting the military-backed regime as the disastrous Bush-policy would have done and which had only contributed to encourage the massive peoples’ movements in South America against US imperialism and neo-liberal politics. The rapid defeat of the US-organized coup against President Chavez is one example of the futility of this policy which Washington is now trying to avoid. This pragmatism is carried out by covering-up the real US target with notions of dialogue and diplomacy.

The scope of this article does not allow me to go into subtle legal notions and levels regarding different forms of US aid and support, such as military, economic, humanitarian and political “democracy promotion.” Instead I am now limiting myself to dealing with the current US politics of stalling on the legal classification of a military coup d’etat. What implications would a legal classification of the coup as a military coup d’etat mean for US policy on Honduras? For a full disclosure and analysis regarding different forms of US aid and support, see Eva Golinger’s two most recent articles.

In the July 7 briefing, Kelly responded to a question regarding the return of Zelaya as president:

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I think – if you look at President Obama’s speech in Moscow today, what he said was that we saw a situation where a democratically elected president was overthrown and exiled out of the country. And we want this principle that you can’t deal with these kinds of conflicts extra-constitutionally, and that’s the principle that we want to see upheld. We want to see the – this democratic and constitutional order restored.

QUESTION: It seems that you opened the window for a different solution in probably early elections or –

MR. KELLY: Now, we’ll see. I mean, now – I mean, we’ve said all along that (a) we want these conflicts to be resolved through dialogue and (b) we saw this as a problem for the Organization of American States and for the – for this forum of this Inter-American Forum. We now have a very good process where you have the president of Costa Rica who’s agreed to be a mediator. Of course, this is the beginning of a process. And as the Secretary said, we don’t want to prejudge how the process will play out, but we now have a dialogue in place.

Mr. Kelly wants Costa Rican President Arias’ mediation and dialogue to “play out” while the struggle in Honduras continues between the regime and the resistance. It seems that the State Department is hoping and praying that the resistance of the people in Honduras will wear itself out over time. However, at the time of writing, this demoralization is not happening despite the repression and extremely difficult conditions.

On July 10 in response to questions, Assistant Secretary of the US State Department Philip J. Crowley said that the Arias “…negotiation is the best route to solve this peacefully….” Only when a reporter insisted if this means the return of Zelaya to his position, did Crowley confirm this, …in words, in any case.

IS THE ARIAS MEDIATION AN AMERICAN PROCESS?

As the answer to this question was becoming more and more under public scrutiny on July 13, Kelly was asked whether the Arias mediation is an American process or not.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, this is not an American process. It’s a process that we are putting all of – it’s a process led by Costa Rican President Arias that we are giving our full support to. And –

QUESTION: That sounds like an American process to me. (Laughter.)

MR. KELLY: We are supporting this process led by President Arias. It is not an American –

QUESTION: Whose country is in what part of the world?

MR. KELLY: It’s not a process that’s being led by the United States of America. (Laughter.) And we just have to give – we have to give time for this process to work. And I’ll just – we – we’re – as I say, we’re standing firmly behind President Arias. He said late last week that he expects to sit down again within a week with the two parties, and these would be the kinds of proposals I hope that both sides can discuss.

And on July 14:

QUESTION: President Zelaya has laid down a – what people say is an ultimatum. He says that if the talks that President Arias is mediating don’t restore him or return him to power in their next session, that they will have failed and other measures may have to – other measures will have to be taken.

MR. KELLY: Yes

QUESTION: What – is that the same as the U.S. position?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think you know what our position is – is that we think that all parties in the talks should give this process some time, don’t set any artificial deadlines, don’t make any – don’t say if X doesn’t happen by a certain time, then the talks are dead. We have to give the process a chance and support what President Arias is doing.

QUESTION: Well, will you regard them as having failed if they do not at their next session result in Zelaya returning?

MR. KELLY: Well, look, again, we don’t want to set an artificial deadline.

QUESTION: Well, that’s – are you saying the answer is no, you do not agree with Zelaya that they will have failed if they –

MR. KELLY: I think that we should give President Arias a chance….

CHANGE OF TIGHT ROPE WALKER BUT SAME SHAKY POSITION

Another State Department spokesman, Robert Woods responded to reporters on July 17 in this way:

MR WOOD. And look, the Arias peace talks haven’t been – I mean, this is recent. We need to give it some time. As I said, he’s committed to this process, we are, others in the hemisphere are. We need to allow it to work. We need to allow it to go forward. And so we’re going to continue to encourage the parties to support this process, because we think it’s the best way to get back to where we want to get to.

Warren.

QUESTION: Following on that, has the U.S. Government specifically asked or urged President Zelaya not to try to make another contested attempt to enter Honduras?

MR. WOOD: I don’t want to get into discussions we may or may not have had with President Zelaya on a host of issues. Let us just say that we don’t – as I had said earlier, we don’t want people to take steps that in any way conflict or don’t contribute positively to the Arias mediation efforts.

QUESTION: So then would his return not contribute positively to it? Is that what you’re saying?

MR. WOOD: I don’t have anything more to add to it than I’ve given you….

WHAT DID CLINTON SAY TO MICHELETTI?

On July 20, back to Crowley:

MR. CROWLEY: And yesterday from New Delhi, the Secretary had a phone conversation with the leader of the de facto regime, Mr. Micheletti. And she laid out during that call – encouraged him to continue focus on these negotiations and also helped him understand the potential consequences of the failure to take advantage of this mediation.

QUESTION: Now, that’s the first time that she – that anyone, I think, has talked to Micheletti?

MR. CROWLEY: That’s a fair question. I don’t – we have been touch with representatives from both sides, but that clearly is her first contact with him.

QUESTION: So not on –

QUESTION: Do you have any readout on how firm she was in her conversation with Micheletti?

MR. CROWLEY: I think she –

….

QUESTION: — was she very clear to Mr. Micheletti that the U.S. does not recognize the de facto government, and that whatever its objections during this weekend’s talks, it needs to make preparations to step aside and let the elected president come back?

MR. CROWLEY: I think it was a very tough phone call. However, I think it was – she made clear if the de facto regime needed to be reminded that we seek a restoration of democratic and constitutional order, a peaceful resolution. We do not think that anybody should take any kind of steps that would add to the risk of violence in Honduras, and that we completely support the ongoing Arias mediation.

QUESTION: So are you cautioning Mr. Zelaya to stay in Nicaragua, or whichever country gives him shelter, for the time being if that does lead to a lessening of tension?

MR. CROWLEY: I think we’ve also made clear to President Zelaya that we think that mediation is the way to go.

QUESTION: Can you – any tougher actions, any declarations that you’re planning to do if they – the de facto regime keep doing the same –

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, we have options if not – also legal requirements if these negotiations fail.

….

QUESTION: Just to clarify that. You said that you told Zelaya that mediation is the way. But have you told him specifically, “Do not go back because it’s dangerous and it could create tension and violence”.

MR. CROWLEY: Yes.

QUESTION: Directly, you’ve said that?

MR. CROWLEY: Yes.

QUESTION: Okay.

This Clinton-Micheletti telephone conversation has not been made public. However, I believe that Clinton did indeed make a “tough” phone call to Micheletti as her secretary spokesman indicated above. Why is this? The coup perpetrators cannot even agree to a mediation proposal which is heavily in their favor, while the resistance in the streets of Honduras continues: how does this look for the new foreign policy image that Washington would like to portray to the world? How does this appear to the US population itself who have shown that it is increasingly against confrontation politics on the international scale?

Zelaya, on the other hand, did not have the privilege of any private warnings. As indicated above by the State Department: “Do not go back because it’s dangerous and it could create tension and violence.” By publicly saying this, does it not indicate in an open manner to the putschists that Zelaya is fair game and that he will not enjoy the support of Washington? Compare this to the secret phone call to Micheletti: perhaps not as tough as the words directed toward Zelaya?

Washington’s decision on the legal classification of the coup according to US norms had not yet been decided. This eventual ruling would probably decide whether the US will or will not fully and permanently, as long as the coup plotters stay in power, cut off all military, economic and political aid as well as withdraw diplomatic recognition. The regime fully depends on US aid of all kinds for its very existence. At the time of the briefing cited above (July 20) the State Department has said that they have only hit the pause button on certain programs, that is placed them on temporarily hold. On so later on during this briefing, in response to the following question: “Have you ruled this as a coup d’etat there legally…” Mr. Crowley said: “No.”

Ambiguity within ambiguity! Does this mean that the US had finally classified that the coup is not legal, or does this mean that they have not yet ruled on the issue? This will be clarified later on over a week later, on July 29.

At the next briefing on July 21, Deputy Department spokesman Woods said in response to a question that “We’re in constant contact with a number of countries in the hemisphere regarding the situation in Honduras. And we believe that the Arias mediation is the right way to go…” In reaction to another question as to what Woods meant by “acting now,” he responded that “what I meant by acting now is we have a process that’s in place that’s being headed by President Arias.”

It seems clear that the Arias mediation goes hand in hand with providing time for the US to attempt to form alliances in South America. These alliances are directed not only against Zelaya but also in opposition to all South American governments including those in the Caribbean and Central America who persist in supporting his unconditional return as required by the OAS and UN resolutions. It must be very frustrating for the thousands of people in the streets of many cities in Honduras who are defying the US-trained and sponsored military. The people persist in putting forward their demand in the face of fierce repression; the US defines “acting now” as being applicable only against the social forces that oppose the coup plotters and not pertinent to the putschist regime On the list of US priorities, the olive branch is all the way on the bottom, after all the military components.

UNWISE, PREMATURE AND RECKLESS?

The following day, on July 23, as a reply to another question on the time frame for the Arias mediation, Assistant Secretary of State Crowly said that there should be no “timeline.” And then in a retort to another query about Zelaya’s plan to return to Honduras, he called it “unwise.”

July 24: The struggles were increasing in the streets of Honduras and in areas close along the Nicaraguan border where Zelaya was organizing his return. On that day the official State Department video could not camouflage Assistant Secretary of State Crowley’s reaction to yet another question on the same theme of the Zelaya’s return. One could easily notice the frustration on his face. Crowley seemed to sigh in exasperation. He turned up the ratchet a bit more against Zelaya and his sympathizers; now the return would be “premature.”

There may not have been a major difference between “unwise” and “premature,” however the same day, July 24, Mrs. Clinton appeared in a press remark opportunity with Iraqi Prime Minster Nour al-Maliki after their meeting at the State Department. She stated on her own, not in response to any question, that she considered the return of Zelaya to be “reckless.” This is definitely turning up the ratchet. Is this not an encouragement to Micheletti to take a hard stance against Zelaya? Her “tough phone call” to Micheletti must have been very far in the back of his mind when he heard Clinton publicly warning Zelaya.

THE CLINTON-MICHELETTI DUO

From Friday July 24 to Sunday July 26 the military tried (and to a certain extent succeeded) in repressing by brute force the very evident massive and heroic support of the Honduran people to welcome Zelaya back over the border. Despite this, Kelly confirmed on Monday July 27 that Clinton’s characterization of a Zelaya return as “quite rightly, reckless.” He also added that the State Department supported the return of Zelaya by “mutual agreement.” In response a question regarding the July 27 Zelaya demand for sanctions against the de facto regime Kelly avoided the question by saying that they “support President Arias.”

How can there be a “mutual agreement” when the putschists refuse a Zelaya return as President either through vague dubious diplomatic means (the Arias proposals) or via a peaceful return over the border? In the context of the tense situation along the Nicaraguan-Honduras border, “supporting Arias” indicates increasingly every day the following: the US-sponsored Arias plan is geared to provide the military-backed regime the necessary time to organize nationally and internationally. Micheletti develops his contacts internationally and at the same time uses brute force against the people: time plays in the favor of the status quo. The State Department, Arias and Micheletti are doing everything to demoralize and discourage the social movements in the country while striving to provoke divisions and desertions internationally.

Talking about providing time to the Micheletti regime, on July 27, the Wall Street Journal provided to Micheletti an op-ed opportunity on its editorial page. He literally praised Clinton’s characterization of the “reckless” Zelaya return as being “appropriate.” Micheletti goes on by appealing to the extreme right wing and hawkish elements in the US oligarchy: “…rather than impose sanctions, the U.S. should continue the wise policies of Mrs. Clinton. She is supporting President Arias’ efforts to mediate the issues.”

There must be a lot of pressure on the new Washington administration to maintain the pro-US military domination over Honduras irrespective of the political costs to the Obama Administration. The Wall Street Journal is indicative of this coercion.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND THE US RIGHT-WING

In a recent article by Venezuelan/American lawyer/author/journalist Eva Golinger published in Cubadebate, she wrote that [my translation from the original Spanish]:

The Wall Street Journal is part of the Dow Jones News Corporation news company. Its owner is the powerful multi-millionaire Rupert Murdoch, who through his monopoly media, News Corporation, controls hundreds of newspapers, magazines, television and radio at the world level. Murdoch is well known for its American Fox News Channel, which promotes the imperialist and neoconservative vision of the United States. Some of its other businesses media include National Geographic Channel, The Film Zone, all FOX channels and studios, Film Channel, MySpace (internet) Harper Collins (editorial books), New York Post (newspaper), The Sunday Times (UK), The Sun (UK), among many others.

The Wall Street Journal is a daily with a circulation of over two million copies per day on the world level and 931,000 users on the internet. The editorial of the dictator Roberto Micheletti was written and promoted by his lobby in the United States, Attorney Lanny Davis, who is a close friend and lawyer of former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, current Secretary of State of President Barack Obama.

The Wall Street Journal has argued in favour of the coup in Honduras since the first day, and has even published a series of articles that are trying to accuse Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez for having caused the crisis in the Central American country.

The network of connections is exposing itself, as the above information divulges. The tight rope walker is having an increasingly difficult time keeping his or her balance. The performer seems to be inevitably, and in full view of the audience, falling to the side of military might at the expense of the edge representing the Trojan horse of “dialogue and diplomacy”. It would take an acrobat to maintain the teetering position of the high-wire performer.

I’LL NEED TO GET YOU AN UPDATE ON THAT

The State Department was first asked by reporters about the standing or results of the legal classification of the coup on June 29, the day after the coup. Kelley said as I quote above: “Let us get back to you on that.” On July 28, I am purposely repeating, July 28, that is one month later:

QUESTION: And one – one other on Honduras. I’m well aware that the Legal Adviser’s Office was examining whether the events in Honduras technically met their definition of a coup and therefore would trigger the cutoff in aid that I realize you have already suspended.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you yet reached a determination on that question?

MR. KELLY: I’ll have to get you an update on that.

QUESTION: Ian?

QUESTION: This doesn’t mean that you’ve decided or that that review is coming to an end?

MR. KELLY: I – just like I say, I just need to – I’ll need to get you an update on that.

What is even more telling than the transcripts is the body language exhibited by Kelly and so visible on the official video. Kelly’s last answer: “I – just like I say, I just need to – I’ll need to get you an update on that,” seemed to have taken an eternity for him to finally get it out of his mouth. He fidgeted to no end. There were no more questions from the reporters. No reporter mentioned that the State Department said the same thing a month ago!! If it was not for the most serious and critical situation in which the people of Honduras, and for that matter the whole of South America finds itself in the historical context of the coup, the circus in the State Department should be laughed out of town.

BUT THE SHOW GOES ON: IS IT A MILITARY COUP OR NOT?

On August 1:

QUESTION: Since you haven’t condemned that government yet, do you somewhat support it?

MR. CROWLEY: For about a month we’ve strongly condemned the action of the de facto regime and the ouster of President Zelaya.

QUESTION: Do you acknowledge that it was a coup, a military coup?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, there are legal issues there that we have chosen not to exercise at this point. But clearly, in every way possible, we have said that what happened in Honduras is a violation of the OAS Charter, which is why we took action against Honduras. It’s a violation of the Inter-American Charter, the Inter-American Democratic Charter. And we continue to work intensively to try to resolve the situation.

On August 6, one reporter insisted on the issue of legal classification of the coup:

MR. WOOD: ….But a coup took place in the country, and –

QUESTION: Well, you haven’t officially legally declared it a coup yet.

MR. WOOD: We have called it a coup. What we have said is that we legally can’t determine it to be a military coup. That review is still ongoing.

QUESTION: Why does it take so long to review whether there’s a military coup or not?

MR. WOOD: Well, look, there are a lot of legal issues here that have to be carefully examined before we can make that determination, and it requires information being shared amongst a number of parties. We need to be able to take a look at that information and make our best legal judgment as to whether or not –

QUESTION: It seems to be taking a very long time.

MR. WOOD: Well, things take time when you’re dealing with these kinds of very sensitive legal issues. So we want to make sure that –

QUESTION: Have you made a decision on whether to impose additional sanctions on the de facto government?

MR. WOOD: No decision has been made to do anything right now, other than support the San Jose Accords and the mediation process.

QUESTION: ….My question was whether you’ve made the decision not to impose new sanctions on Honduras?

MR. WOOD: And what I’m saying to you is that where we’re focused right now is on supporting that process and trying to get the two parties to come to some sort of a political settlement. But beyond that, I don’t have anything to add on that question.

At this point, what one does not read in the transcript but can be very vividly seen in the video is the following: Wood was visibly annoyed. He cut off the insisting reporter by pointing to another reporter. However, the people of Honduras know that it is a military coup. They are further uniting and organizing their forces in the course of stepping up their struggle against the military and police. This is being carried out despite the increased repression. This includes, so far, at least six assassinations and many hundreds of arrests and injuries.

On the same day, August 6, according to a Reuters report, the State Department went even further:

‘Our policy and strategy for engagement is not based on supporting any particular politician or individual. Rather, it is based on finding a resolution that best serves the Honduran people and their democratic aspirations,’ wrote Richard Verma, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. ‘We have rejected calls for crippling economic sanctions and made clear that all states should seek to facilitate a solution without calls for violence and with respect for the principle of non-intervention,’ he said. The letter was obtained by the Reuters news service.

Two important points:

1. From the position of supposedly supporting Zelaya and opposing Micheletti, the State Department policy (as quoted above) is “not based on supporting any particular politician or individual.” The State Department is now neutral! However this shows that the fine line that the State Department was walking along was not that fine. In reality it was in the camp of the de facto regime. Maintaining the status quo means supporting Micheletti.

2. When State Department official Richard Verma indicates above that “We have rejected calls for crippling economic sanctions…,” does this inadvertently provide us with a reason why the US has not legally classified the coup as a military coup d’etat?

OBAMA: VICTIM OR ACCOMPLICE?

We have thus far dealt extensively with the State Department and Mrs. Clinton but not President Obama. This is hard to avoid seeing as that Obama has so far not placed himself in the center of this issue. Since the beginning of the crisis on June 28 and at the time of writing, President Obama and his Press Secretary have made a total of six comments:

On June 29, in a press opportunity in the White House with Columbian President Uribe, Obama declared, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected President there. In that we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States.”

On June 29, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs performs in front of reporters:

QUESTION: …Still on the Honduras issue and trying to get a clear picture of what the U.S. is considering. Is the administration looking at withdrawing its ambassador as the leftist Latin American governments have decided to do, or even looking at a possible cutoff of aid?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I think some of that is in the next — in the frame of next steps in evaluating this. I just don’t want to get real specific at this point.

QUESTION: Did the United States have any advance knowledge or word of a planned coup? Did it do anything to try to head that off? And what does the administration’s failure to have headed that off say about its credibility in Latin America?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think as I said a minute ago, the administration, our government, working with partners, were attempting to prevent the type of unrest that we’ve seen happen over the last 24 hours. They worked on that over the past several days. And we will continue to work to restore democratic order in Honduras.

QUESTION: Did the administration warn President Zelaya that this was in the making?

MR. GIBBS: That I don’t know.

Based on the above, is this any different from the State Department tight-rope walking performance?

There does not seem to be such a great difference.

On July 1, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs faces reporters:

QUESTION: But with the Pentagon suspending joint military operations, how far-reaching is that and are there next steps that are under consideration as well?

MR. GIBBS: Well, we continue to monitor the situation and will respond accordingly as events transpire. But, again, as I said, we’re watching closely what’s going on.

However, while the State Department seemed to be caught up increasingly in the “if and but” scenario regarding the return of president Zalaya, President Obama made a comment on Honduras in response to questions in Moscow during his visit there. On July 7 ABC News Senior White House Correspondent, Jack Tapper, not known as a conservative nor ABC not exactly being like right-wing Fox News, wrote from Moscow and quoted President Obama as follows: “ ‘America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies,…’ ”

Tapper, based on his long experience in White House politics, wrote: “Facing criticism for having backed the ‘wrong’ side in the recent coup in Honduras, President Obama Tuesday [July 7] tried to explain his advocacy on behalf of ousted President Manuel Zelaya….But conservatives have criticized the president and blamed Zelaya for his current lot.” Correspondent Tapper quoted as examples of conservatives pressure, Florida right-wing anti-Venezuela, anti-Cuban activists, Republicans Congress Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Connie Mack.37

Taking the above Obama statement into account, on the surface there indeed seems to be a difference if not a conflict between on the one hand President Obama and on the other hand the State Department. The latter (as we have seen above on numerous occasions and most recently in the Wall Street Journal Micheletti piece) is more shamelessly tied to the military and the Bush era right-wing forces.

On August 7, according to Reuters, “Obama told reporters that he still supports the reinstatement of Zelaya. However, he added, ” ‘I can’t press a button and suddenly reinstate Mr. Zelaya,’ ” Obama said… “‘It is important to note the irony that the people that were complaining about the U.S. interfering in Latin America are now complaining that we are not interfering enough.’”

Here again one may get the impression that there is a significance difference between the president and the State Department. While the State Department declared on August 6, as quoted above, that its policy is “not based on supporting any particular politician or individual,” Obama declares the next day on August 7 that he “…still supports the reinstatement of Zelaya.” However, using his gift for oratory, Obama conditions this support for Zelaya by saying that he “can’t press a button” to reinstate Zelaya. Does this mean that the pressures against Obama from the right-wing US and Latin American oligarchies and even the State Department are too strong for him to make a move? Or is Obama simply using different words and images to support the State Department politics consisting of stalling for time and thus oxygenate the de facto government?

Here again one may get the impression that there is a significance difference between the president and the State Department. While the State Department declared on August 6, as quoted above, that its policy is “not based on supporting any particular politician or individual,” Obama declares the next day on August 7 that he “…still supports the reinstatement of Zelaya.” However, using his gift for oratory, Obama conditions this support for Zelaya by saying that he “can’t press a button” to reinstate Zelaya. Does this mean that the pressures against Obama from the right-wing US and Latin American oligarchies and even the State Department are too strong for him to make a move? Or is Obama simply using different words and images to support the State Department politics consisting of stalling for time and thus oxygenate the de facto government?

Regarding Obama’s remarks about the “irony” in reference to opposition versus support for US interference: Honduras has on its territory an important fully-sponsored US military base with US armed forces and equipment on its territory. A decision to completely shut down the base, immediately withdraw US troops and military equipment and fully stop the training does not consist of interfering in the internal affairs of Honduras. These bases, whether in Honduras or Columbia, are merely extensions of US military might in other countries.

Even though it is another context and with different legal and historical conditions, who would complain of foreign interference in Cuban affairs if the US would shut down Guantanamo, withdraw completely and hand over that piece of Cuban territory back to the Cuban people? Who would complain of foreign interference (aside from Micheletti) if Obama decides today as President to withdraw the US Ambassador to Honduras and cut of diplomatic relations until Zelaya is restored? These are buttons which the president can press.

On August 10 at the North American Leaders’ Summit (USA, Mexico and Canada), it was reported that Obama declared:

The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we’re always intervening and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America….If these critics think that it’s appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate, then I think what that indicates is that maybe there’s some hypocrisy involved in their — their approach to U.S.-Latin American relations…

The official Joint Statement issued by the three leaders declared on the issue of Honduras:

…We have thoroughly discussed the coup in Honduras and reaffirm our support for the San José Accord and the ongoing OAS effort to seek a peaceful resolution of the political crisis – a resolution which restores democratic governance and the rule of law and respects the rights of all Hondurans….

WHAT DOES THIS TELL US ABOUT OBAMA?

Firstly, what is the formal legal and constitutional link between the US president, the US military and the State Department? This is what the White House web site indicates:

The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces….

The Department of State plays the lead role in developing and implementing the President’s foreign policy. Major responsibilities include United States representation abroad, foreign assistance, foreign military training programs….

And the US Constitution:

Article II. Section 2.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States….

On June 29, 2009, political analyst Thierry Meyssan wrote under the headline (my translation from the original French) “The SOUTHCOM took power in a member-state of ALBA”:

… The small Honduran army has been entirely armed, trained and instructed by United States. It is supposed to obey their commander in chief, President and Chief of Staff. But in practice, is under the control of SOUTHCOM, from Soto Cano and Miami. Just last Thursday [June 25 2009] the Pentagon hastily installed the new commander of SOUTHCOM, General Douglas M. Fraser, to follow the coup…. The SOUTHCOM is located in Miami, but also has a station at Soto Cano [Honduras] and outposts in Comalapa (Salvador), Manta (Ecuador) and on the islands of Aruba and Curacao (Netherlands Antilles).

And so President Obama has to take his responsibilities. Is he allowing the State Department to do the dirty work for him while he remains relatively aloof in order to desperately hang on to the image of “change” for the well-being of his own Administration? The pro-military coup newspaper in Honduras, El Heraldo, as quoted above, noted way back in January 19, 2009 that the extreme right-wing in Honduras, South America and the US had to keep the pressure up: “He [Obama] knows that he has no right to disappoint his followers….” Obama seems to be caught between, on the one hand “his followers” that is the electorate and that section of the ruling circles which supported his accession to the presidency, and on the other hand his electioneering declarations on change which can be interpreted as being his good intentions. Will he join the circus high-wire act? Is he already becoming part of the show?

DOES OBAMA HAVE HIS FEET ON THE GROUND?

El Heraldo was quite right six months ago in noticing the contradictions between words and actions and how the right-wing has to manoeuvre in this situation. Polls are already showing that Obama is losing many of “his followers”.

On July 22 the AP-GfK Poll results headlined: “Great hopes for Obama fade to reality.” In the text itself: “That was fast. The hope and optimism that washed over the country in the opening months of Barack Obama’s presidency are giving way to harsh realities…; [Confidence in removal of] troops from Iraq and improved respect for the U.S. around the world, all slipping 15 points….”

An August 6 CNN poll: Only forty-one percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, down 9 points since May.

Is Obama aware of what is happening? It seems that his trips abroad to Europe, Russia, Cairo and Africa seem to have gotten to his head. On July 23 the Chicago Tribune reported on Obama’s visit to Chicago that day for two Democratic Party fund-raisers ($15,200 per person with the goal of attaining $2 million in one night.) The president responded to a reporter’s question regarding his administration’s prestige on the international scene. While the courageous people of Honduras were confronting for the fourth consecutive week (at that time) the US-backed military, Obama is quoted as saying that “Anti-Americanism is no longer fashionable.”

Anti-Americanism has never been fashionable in the upper spheres of the Democratic Party. Obama may find, or wants to believe that he has found, some allies on the world scale, but ask the people of Honduras who are bravely declaring to Obama that “we also have a dream!” Ask the peoples of South America? Ask the vast majority of governments in Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean what their opinions are of US domination, control and interference in their America?

The crisis in Honduras continues. Washington, or at least certain right-wing sections in the oligarchy, seems to be continuing the policies which foster “anti-Americanism”. For example, it was reported on August 4 by a Swedish journalist based in South America that according to Honduras human rights activists, Israeli commando forces are now further training the Honduran military and police forces in suppression.

This situation reminds us of the role played par excellence by Israel: combining on the one hand talk of peace/dialogue and the olive branch while on the other hand using the sword in the most brutal manner, committing genocide. This constitutes a warning to the governments and peoples of South America and the Caribbean about certain attempts to supposedly extend the olive branch.

On August 4, it was also reported that Washington and Columbia have come to an agreement to establish seven military bases in Columbia. This has been in the making for some time. However, take into account the military coup d’etat in Honduras and the latest Columbian decision. They constitute a new offensive against the rising prestige of Cuba, Venezuela, the other ALBA-member-states (of which Honduras under Zelaya became a member), other countries and the vast majority of governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The US ruling circles are trying everything to defeat the uprising in Honduras, including media terrorism. The US major media such as the CNN are in tune with the State Department in providing all the excuses for the coup either directly or indirectly. Completely avoiding a report on the resistance against the violent repression is the CNN’s contribution in attempting to demoralize the people of Honduras. CNN says in effect: let us give the Honduran people the impression that the world does not know what is happening. This will of course make it easier for the US to continue its Honduran policy or even strike harder against the people. Let us take one of many examples to illustrate the above: several cable news agencies such as AFP reported on the August 5 demonstration of more than 3000 students against the coup at the UNAH University in Tegucigalpa and its violent suppression.

However, the CNN carried nothing at all on Honduras. Its only report on South America was on the Chavez criticism of Columbia’s accusation of a supposed Chavez-FARC arms connection. The article terminated with disinformation this issue.

…On August 10, more than 10,000 supporters of the deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya repudiated the de facto government and warned that they will deepen their protests for the return of the president…. This was the largest demonstration for the return of Zelaya since July 5 near the airport of Toncontin in Tegucigalpa, where the ousted president attempted a landing with a Venezuelan airplane; however, the de facto government prevented the landing by erecting obstacles on the runway. The march was strengthened with the arrival of crowds from the eastern and northern regions of the country and an expected column from the south. Other went to San Pedro Sula….” (translated from the Spanish by the author)

THE PEOPLE OF HONDURAS ARE THE ONES WHO WILL HAVE THE LAST WORD

The peoples of the world, in my view, also have to keep the pressure up on Obama and his administration. As he looks at the polls, he must be aware: If the Honduras issue backfires on him, as is quite possible, and thus fuels “anti-Americanism,” how will his foreign policy look to the US population and even to those who pay $15,200 per plate for a fund-raiser? The latter did not invest this money in order to usher in another Bush-like era of an anti-US atmosphere spreading across the globe. Then again, Obama also has to look ahead to the next presidential elections in 2012 for which he seems to be already seeking to fill the coffers. Does he not want to have the right-wing oligarchy on his side as well in order to assure a victory in 2012?

The swirl of US politics seems to be inevitably drawing Obama into the high wire act. I hope that this is not the case. The people of Honduras as well as the peoples and most governments of South America are determined to force him to take a stand. Which actions? Here are some that Obama can take: Executing serious actions and sanctions (not showcasing the revocation of a few visas to Honduran de facto regime members) against the coup regime; and supporting in real concrete unconditional terms the return of President Zalaya to his post. Obama, as a lawyer, should also be able to deal with all bureaucracy in the US government (if that is the problem, which I doubt) which six weeks after the coup has still not decided how to legally classify the coup!

The evolution of the political situation of the new US Administration also raises some questions about the US type of democracy and elections and how they operate in the USA. That country supposedly gives (through diplomacy and by military force) lessons about democracy and elections to the peoples of the world. If this current international situation proves to represent “change” that people can NOT believe in, then some may wonder: What is the meaning of democracy and elections in the USA? (I will be dealing with this thoroughly in a future publication.) Obama should accept the notion of mutual respect between different countries and their respective political systems.

Obama and Clinton and their entire administration are being judged. “…The people of Honduras are the ones who will have the last word,” predicted Fidel Castro on July 21 in the midst of the most complicated situation facing the people: the US-backed Arias mediation combined simultaneously with police and military repression against the resistance.

As the situation evolves, Fidel Castro’s prediction (and confidence in the peoples) is proving to be right. In fact it seems to be irreversible, notwithstanding the ups and downs. One of the leaders of the resistance in Honduras, a deputy in the Honduran Congress, made a most profound comment to Prensa Latina reporter Raimundo López. The latter has been courageously and continuously reporting from the ground in military-occupied Honduras. On July 18 the Honduran activist César Lam told the reporter in an interview, “There is a pre-coup Honduras and a post-coup Honduras.”

This statement reflects the resistance movement of all the Honduran social and new political forces.

Even the most experienced tight-rope walker can be shaken to the ground by the force of the peoples’ desire for change. It would be preferable for President Obama to take a just stand.

Even a close observer of the Canadian press would know almost nothing about the ongoing demonstrations, blockades and work stoppages calling for the return of elected President Manuel Zelaya. Since Zelaya was overthrown by the military on June 28 the majority of teachers in Honduras have been on strike. Recently, health workers, air traffic controllers and taxi drivers have also taken job action against the coup. In response the military sent troops to oversee airports and hospitals across the country.

For more than a week protesters from all corners of the country walked 20 km a day and on Tuesday tens of thousands of demonstrators converged on the country’s two biggest cities, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. These demonstrations prompted the de facto regime to reimpose a curfew in the capital, which had been in effect in the weeks after the coup.

This resistance — taking place under the threat of military repression — has gone almost entirely unreported by leading Canadian media. So has Canada’s tacit support for the coup.

Last Tuesday the ousted Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister told TeleSur that Canada and the US were providing “oxygen” to the military government. Picked up by numerous Spanish language newspapers, Patricia Rodas called on Canada and the US to suspend aid to the de facto regime.

During an official visit to Mexico with Zelaya last week, Rodas asked Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was about to meet Harper and Obama, to lobby Ottawa and Washington on their behalf. “We are asking [Calderon] to be an intermediary for our people with the powerful countries of the world, for example, the US and at this moment Canada, which have lines of military and economic support with Honduras.”

To my knowledge, no Canadian media reported Rodas’ comments. Nor did any Canadian media mention that Canada’s ambassador to Costa Rica, Neil Reeder, met coup officials in Tegucigalpa last week. The Canadian media has also ignored the fact that Canada is the only major donor to Honduras yet to sever any aid to the military government.

Latin American (and to a lesser extent US) media have covered Ottawa’s tacit support for the coup more closely than the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen and most of the rest of the Canadian media. When Zelaya tried to fly into Tegucigalpa a week after the coup Canada’s minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, told the Organization of American the “time is not right” for a return. The New York Times ran two different articles that mentioned Canada’s anti-Zelaya position while Bloomberg published another. Many Latin American news agencies also printed stories about the Conservative government’s position, however, the Canadian media was uninterested.

A few weeks later Zelaya attempted to cross into Honduras by land from Nicaragua. Kent once again criticized this move. “Canada’s Kent Says Zelaya Should Wait Before Return to Honduras,” read a July 20 Bloomberg headline. A July 25 right-wing Honduran newspaper blared: “Canadá pide a Zelaya no entrar al país hasta llegar a un acuerdo” (Canada asks Zelaya not to enter the country until there’s a negotiated solution).

After publishing a number of articles about Ottawa’s position in the hours and days after the coup, Mexican news agency Notimex did a piece that summarized something this author wrote for rabble.ca. Then on July 26, Notimex wrote about the Canadian Council for International Cooperation’s demand that Ottawa take a more firm position against the coup. Both of these articles were published (at least online) by a number of major Spanish-language newspapers.

Finally, a month after the coup there was a small breakthrough into Canada’s dominant media. A sympathetic producer at CBC radio’s The Current provided space for Graham Russell from Rights Action, a Canadian group with a long history in Honduras, to criticize Ottawa’s handling of the coup. Unfortunately, Russell’s succinct comments were followed by the CBC interviewer’s kid gloves treatment of Minister Peter Kent. Still, the next day the Canadian Press revealed that Ottawa refused to exclude Honduras from its Military Training Assistance Program, a program rabble.ca reported on days after the coup.

Uninterested in the Conservative government’s machinations, the Canadian media is even less concerned with the corporations that may be influencing Ottawa’s policy towards Honduras. Rights Action has uncovered highly credible information that Vancouver-based Goldcorp provided buses to the capital, Tegucigalpa, and cash to former employees who rallied in support of the coup. As far as I can tell, the Halifax Chronicle Herald is the only major Canadian media outlet that has mentioned this connection between the world’s second biggest gold producer and the coup.

Under pressure from the Maquila Solidarity Network, two weeks ago Nike, Gap, and another US-based apparel company operating in Honduras released a statement calling for the restoration of democracy. With half of its operations in the country Montréal-based Gildan activewear, the world’s largest blank T-shirt maker, refused to sign this statement. According to company spokesperson Genevieve Gosselin, Gildan employs more than 11,000 people in Honduras. Without a high-profile brand name Gildan is particularly dependent on producing T-shirts and socks at the lowest cost possible and presumably the company opposed Zelaya’s move to increase the minimum wage by 60% at the start of the year. Has Gildan actively supported the coup like Goldcorp? It is hard to know since there has yet to be any serious investigation of the company’s recent activities in the country.

The Canadian media’s coverage of the coup demonstrates the importance of independent media. We need to support news outlets willing to challenge the powerful.

To explore some tentative hypotheses of why there is little organized protest, we need to examine the historical-structural antecedents to the world economic depression. More specifically, we will focus on the social and political organizations and leadership of the working class, the transformation of the structure of labor and its relationship to the state and market. These social changes have to be located in the context of the successful ruling class socio-political struggles from the 1980’s, the destruction of the Communist welfare state, and the subsequent uncontested penetration of imperial capital in the former Communist countries. The conversion of Western Social Democratic parties to neo-liberalism, and the subordination of the trade unions to the neo-liberal state are seen as powerful contributing factors in diminishing working class representation and influence.

We will proceed by outlining the decline of labor organization, class struggle and class ideology in the context of the larger political-economic defeat and co-optation of anti-capitalist alternatives. The period of capitalist boom and bust leading up to the current world depression sets the stage for identifying the strategic structural and subjective determinants of working class passivity and impotence. The final section will bring into sharp focus the depth and scope of the problem of trade union and social movement weakness and their political consequences.

History of Economic Depression and Worker Revolts: US, Europe, Asia and Latin America

The social history of the 20th and early 21st Century’s economic crises and breakdowns is written large with working class and popular revolts, from the left and right. During the 1930’s the combined effects of the world depression and imperialist-colonial wars set in motion major uprisings in Spain (the Civil War), France (general strikes, Popular Front government), the US (factory occupations, industrial unionization), El Salvador, Mexico and Chile (insurrections, national-popular regimes) and in China (communist/nationalist, anti-colonial armed movements). Numerous other mass and armed uprising took place in response to the Depression in a great number of countries, far beyond the scope of this paper to cover.

The post-World War II period witnessed major working class and anti-colonial movements in the aftermath of the breakdown of European empires and in response to the great human and national sacrifices caused by the imperial wars. Throughout Europe, social upheavals, mass direct actions and resounding electoral advances of working class parties were the norm in the face of a ‘broken’ capitalist system. In Asia, mass socialist revolutions in China, Indo-China and North Korea ousted colonial powers and defeated their collaborators in a period of hyper-inflation and mass unemployment.

The cycle of recessions from the 1960’s to the early 1980’s witnessed a large number of major successful working class and popular struggles for greater control over the work place and higher living standards and against employer-led counter-offensives.
Economic Crises and Social Revolts in Latin America

Latin America experienced similar patterns of crises and revolts as the rest of the world during the World Economic Depression and the Second World War. During the 1930-40’s, aborted revolutionary upheavals and revolts took place in Cuba, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia. At the same time ‘popular front’ alliances of Communists, Socialists and Radicals governed in Chile and populist-nationalist regimes took power in Brazil (Vargas), Argentina (Peron) and Mexico (Cardenas).

As in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America also witnessed the rise of mass right-wing movements in opposition to the center-left and populist regimes in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and elsewhere – a recurrent phenomenon overlooked by most students of ‘social movements’.

The phenomenon of ‘crisis’ in Latin America is chronic, punctuated by ‘boom and bust’ cycles typical of volatile agro-mineral export economies and by long periods of chronic stagnation. Following the end of the Korean War and Washington’s launch of its global empire building project (mistakenly called ‘The Cold War’), the US engaged in a series of ‘hot wars’, (Korea- 1950-1953 and Indo-China- 1955-1975) and overt and clandestine coups d’etat (Iran and Guatemala – both in 1954); and military invasions (Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada and Cuba); all the while backing a series of brutal military dictatorships in Cuba (Batista), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Haiti (Duvalier),Venezuela (Perez-Jimenez), Peru (Odria) among others.

Under the combined impact of dictatorial rule, blatant US intervention, chronic stagnation, deepening inequalities, mass poverty and the pillage of the public treasury, a series of popular uprisings, guerrilla revolts and general strikes toppled several US-backed dictatorships culminating in the victory of the social revolution in Cuba. In Brazil (1962-64), Bolivia (1952), Peru (1968-74), Nicaragua(1979-89) and elsewhere, nationalist presidents took power nationalizing strategic economic sectors, re-distributing land and challenging US dominance. Parallel guerrilla, peasant and workers movements spread throughout the continent from the 1960’s to the early1970’s. The high point of this ‘revolt against economic stagnation, imperialism, militarism and social exploitation/exclusion’ was the victory of the socialist government in Chile (1970-73).

The advance of the popular movements and the electoral gains however did not lead to a definitive victory (the taking of state power) except in Cuba, Grenada and Nicaragua nor did it resolve the crisis of capitalism (the key problem of chronic economic stagnation and dependence). Key economic levers remained in the hands of the domestic and foreign economic elites and the US retained decisive control over Latin America’s military and intelligence agencies.

The US backed military coups (1964/1971-76),US military invasions(Dominican Republic 1965 ,Grenada1983,Panama 1990,Haiti 1994,2005),surrogate mercenaries Nicaragua 1980-89 and right-wing civilian regimes (1982-2000/2005), reversed the advances of the social movements, overthrew nationalist/populist and socialist regimes and restored the predominance of the oligarchic troika: agro-mineral elite, the ‘Generals’ and the multinational corporations. US corporate dominance, oligarchic political successes and pervasive private pillage of national wealth accelerated and deepened the boom and bust process. However the savage repression, which accompanied the US-led counter-revolution and restoration of oligarch rule ensured that few large-scale popular revolts would occur, between the mid 1970’s to the beginning of the 1990’s – with the notable exception of Central America.

Civilian Rule, Neo-liberalism, Economic Stagnation and the New Social Movements

Prolonged stagnation, popular struggles and the willingness of conservative civilian politicians to conserve the reactionary structural changes implanted by the dictatorships, hastened the retreat of the military rulers. The advent of civilian rulers in Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina in the late 1980’s was accompanied by the rapid intensification of neo-liberal policies. This was spelled out in the ‘Washington Consensus’ and was integral to the President George H.W. Bush’s New World Order. While the new neo-liberal order failed to end stagnation it did facilitate the pillage of thousands of public enterprises, their privatization and de-nationalization. At the same time the massive outflow of profits, interest payments and royalties and the growing exploitation and impoverishment of the working people led to the growth of ‘new social movements’ throughout the 1990’s.

During the ascendancy of the military dictatorships and continuing under the neo-liberal regimes, while social movements and trade unions were suppressed, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) flourished. Billions of dollars flowed into the accounts of the NGOs from ‘private’ foundations. Later the World Bank and US and EU overseas agencies viewed the NGOs as integral to their counter-insurgency strategy.

The theorists embedded in the NGO-funded feminist, ecology, self-help groups and micro-industry organizations eschewed the question of structural changes, class and anti-imperialist struggles in favor of collaboration with existing state power structures. The NGO operatives referred to their organizations as the ‘new social movements’, which, in practice, worked hard to undermine the emerging class-based movements of anti-imperialists, Indians, peasants, landless workers and unemployed workers. These class-based mass movements had emerged in response to the imperial pillage of their natural resources and naked land grabs by powerful elites in the agro-mineral-export sectors with the full support of voracious neo-liberal regimes.

Toward the end of the 1990’s, neo-liberal pillage throughout Latin American had reached its paroxysm: Tens of billions of dollars were literally siphoned off and transferred, especially out of Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina, to overseas banks. Over five thousand lucrative, successful state-owned enterprises were ‘privatized’ by the corrupt regimes at prices set far below their real value and into the hands of select private US and EU corporations and local regime cronies. The predictable economic collapse and crisis following the blatant looting of the major economies in Latin America provoked a wave of popular uprisings, which overthrew incumbent elected neo-liberal officials and administrations in Ecuador (three times), Argentina (three successful times) and Bolivia (twice). In addition, a mass popular uprising, in alliance with a constitutionalist sector of the military, restored President Chavez to power. During this period mass movements flourished and numerous center-left politicians, who claimed allegiance to these movements and denounced ‘neo-liberalism’, were elected president.

The deep economic crisis and repudiation of neo-liberalism marked the emergence of the social movements as major players in shaping the contours of Latin American politics. The principal emerging movements included a series of new social actors and the declining influence of the trade unions as the leading protagonist of structural change.

The Crisis of 1999-2003: Major Social Movements at the ‘End of Neo-liberalism’

Major social movements emerged in most of Latin America in response to the economic crisis of the 1990’s and early 2000’s and challenged neo-liberal ruling class control. The most successful were found in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia.

Brazil: The Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST), with over 300,000 active members and over 350,000 peasant families settled in co-operatives throughout the country, represented the biggest and best organized social movement in Latin America. The MST built a broad network of supporters and allies in other social movements, like the urban Homeless Movement, the Catholic Pastoral Rural (Rural Pastoral Agency) and sectors of the trade union movement (CUT), as well as the left-wing of the Workers Party (PT) and progressive academic faculty and students. The MST succeeded through ‘direct action’ tactics, such as organizing mass ‘land occupations’, which settled hundreds of thousands of landless rural workers and their families on the fallow lands of giant latifundistas. They successfully put agrarian reform on the national agenda and contributed to the electoral victory of the putative center-left Workers Party presidential candidate Ignacio ‘Lula’ Da Silva in the 2002 elections.

Ecuador: The National Confederation of Indian and Nationalities in Ecuador (CONAIE) played a central role in the overthrow of two neo-liberal Presidents, Abdala Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in January 2000, implicated in massive fraud and responsible for Ecuador’s economic crisis of the 1990’s. In fact, during the January 2000 uprising, the leaders of CONAIE briefly occupied the Presidential Palace. Beginning in the late 1990’s CONAIE had resolved to form an electoral party ‘Pachacuti’, which would act as the ‘political arm’ of the movement. Pachacuti, in alliance with the rightist populist former military officer Lucio Gutierrez in the 2002 elections, briefly held several cabinet posts, including Foreign Relations and Agriculture. CONAIE’s and Pachacuti’s short-lived experience as a government movement and party was a political disaster. By the end of the first year, the Gutierrez regime allied with multi-national oil companies, the US State Department and the big agro-business firms, promoted a virulent form of neo-liberalism and forced the resignation of most CONAIE-backed officials. By the end of 2003, widespread discontent and internal divisions were exacerbated by an army of US and EU-funded NGOs, which infiltrated the Indian communities.

Venezuela: Major popular revolts in 1989 and 1992 culminated in the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999. Chavez proceeded to encourage mass popular mobilizations in support of referendums for constitutional reform. A US-backed alliance between the oligarchy and sectors of the military mounted a palace coup in April 2002, which lasted only 48 hours before being reversed by a spontaneous outpouring of over a million Venezuelans supported by constitutionalist soldiers in the armed forces. Subsequently, between December 2002 and February 2003, a ‘bosses’ lockout’ of the petroleum industry, designed to cripple the national economy, supported by the Venezuelan elite and led by senior officials in the PDVSA (state oil company), was defeated by the combined efforts of the rank and file oil workers with support from the urban popular classes. The failed US-backed assaults on Venezuelan democracy and President-elect Chavez radicalized the process of structural changes: Mass community-based organizations, new class-based trade union confederations and national peasant movements sprang up and the million-member Venezuelan Socialist Party was formed. Social movement activity and membership flourished, as the government extended its social welfare programs to include free universal public health programs via thousands of clinics, state-sponsored food markets selling essential food at subsidized prices in poor neighborhoods and the development of universal free public education including higher education. At the same time numerous enterprises in strategic economic sectors, such as steel, telecommunications, petroleum, food processing and landed estates, were nationalized.

While the ruling class continues to control certain key economic sectors and highly-paid officials in the state sector retain powerful levers over the economy, the Chavez government and the mass popular movements have maintained the initiative in advancing the struggle throughout the decade from the late 1990’s into the first decade of the new millennium.

The Venezuelan social movements retain their vigor in part because of the encouragement of Chavez’ leadership, but the movements are also held back by powerful reformist currents in the regime, which seek to convert the movements into transmission belts of state policy. The movement-state relationship is fluid and reflects the ebb and flow of the conflict and the threats emanating from the US-backed rightist organizations.

The regime-movement relationship deepened during the crisis period of 1999-2003 and was further strengthened by the rise in oil prices during the world commodity boom of 2003-2008. With the unfolding of the world economic crisis in late 2008-2009, the positive relationship between the state and the movements will be tested.

Bolivia: Bolivia has the highest density of militant social movements of any country in Latin America, including high levels of mine and factory worker participation, community and informal market vender organizations, Indian and peasant movements and public employee unions. The long years of military repression from the early 1970’s to the mid 1980’s weakened the trade unions and was followed by intense application of neo-liberal policies.

By the end of the 1990’s, new large-scale social movements emerged but the locus of activity shifted from the historically militant mining districts and factories to the ‘sub-proletariat’ or ‘popular classes’ engaged in informal, ‘marginal’ occupations, especially in cities like ‘El Alto’. ‘El Alto’, located on the outskirts of La Paz, is densely populated by recent migrants, displaced miners and impoverished Indians and peasants, and received few public services. The new nexus for direct action challenging the neo-liberal regimes emerged from the coca farmers and Indian communities in response to the brutal implementation of US-mandated programs suppressing coca cultivation and the displacement of small farmers in favor of large-scale, agro-business plantations. In the cities, public sector employees, led by teachers, students and factory health worker unions fought neo-liberal measures privatizing services, like water, and cutting the public budgets for education and health care.

The economic crises of the late 1990-2000’s led to major public confrontation in January 2003, followed by a popular revolt in October and insurrection centered in ‘El Alto’ and spread to La Paz and throughout the country. Before being driven from power, the Sanchez de Losada regime murdered nearly seventy community activists and leaders. Hundreds of thousands of impoverished Bolivians stormed the capital, La Paz, threatening to take state power. Only the intervention of the coca farmer leader and presidential hopeful, Evo Morales, prevented the mass seizure of the Presidential palace. Morales brokered a ‘compromise’ in which the neo-liberal Vice President Carlos Mesa was allowed to succeed to the Presidency in exchange for a vaguely agreed promise to discontinue the hated neo-liberal policies of his predecessor, Sanchez de Losada. The tenuous agreement between the social movements and the ‘new’ neo-liberal President survived for two years due to the moderating influence of Evo Morales.

In May-June 2005, a new wave of mass demonstrations filled the streets of La Paz with workers, peasants, Indians and miners forcing Carlos Mesa to resign. Once again, Evo Morales intervened and signed a pact with the Congress calling for national elections in December 2005 in exchange for calling off the protests and appointing a senior Supreme Court judge (Rodriguez) to act as interim President.

Morales diverted the mass social movements into his party’s campaign machinery, undercutting the autonomous direct action strategies, which had been so effective in overthrowing the two previous neo-liberal regimes. This resulted in his election as President in December 2005.

While the economic crisis abated with the boom in commodity prices, President Evo Morales’ social-liberal policies did little to reduce the gross income inequalities, the vast concentration of fertile land in a handful of plantation elite and the dispossession of a majority of Indian communities from their lands. Morales’ policies of forming joint ventures with foreign multinational gas, oil and mining companies did little to end the massive transfer of profits from Bolivia’s natural resources back to the ‘home offices’ of the MNCs. Nevertheless the Morales’ tepid ‘nationalist gestures led to a ‘political-economic’ confrontation with the US-backed Bolivian oligarchy, which was funded by their enormous private profits gained during the ‘commodity boom’.

Argentina: The strongest relationship between a severe economic crisis and a mass popular rebellion took place in Argentina in December 19-20, 2001 and continued throughout 2002.

The conditions for the economic collapse were building up in the 1990s during the two terms of President Carlos Menem. His neo-liberal regime was marked by the corrupt ‘bargain basement’ sale of the most lucrative and strategic public enterprises in all sectors of the economy. The entire financial sector of Argentina was de-regulated, de-nationalized, dollarized and opened up to the worst speculative abuses. The national economic edifice, weakened by the massive privatization policies, was further undermined by rampant corruption and gross pillage of the public treasury. Menem’s policies continued under his successor, President De la Rua, who presided over the banking crisis and the subsequent collapse of the entire national economy, the loss of billions of dollars of private savings and pension funds, a thirty percent unemployment rate and the most rapid descent into profound poverty among the working and middle classes in Argentine history.

In December 2001, the people of Buenos Aires staged a massive popular uprising in front of the Presidential palace with the demonstrators taking over the Congress. They ousted President De la Rua and subsequently three of his would-be presidential successors in a matter of weeks. Hundreds of thousands of organized, unemployed workers blocked the highways and formed community-based councils. Impoverished, downwardly mobile middle class employees and bankrupt shopkeepers, professionals and pensioners formed a vast array of neighborhood assemblies and communal councils to debate proposals and tactics. Banks throughout the country were stormed by millions of irate depositors demanding the restitution of their savings. Over 200 factories, which had been shut down by their owners, were taken over by their workers and returned to production. The entire political class was discredited and the popular slogan throughout the country was: ‘!Que se vayan todos!’ (‘Out with all politicians!’). While the popular classes controlled the street in semi-spontaneous movements, the fragmented radical-left organizations were unable to coalesce to formulate a coherent organization and strategy for state power.

After two years of mass mobilizations and confrontation, the movements, facing an impasse in resolving the crisis, turned toward electoral politics and elected center-left Peronist Kirchner in the 2003 Presidential campaign.

Low Intensity Social Movements: Peru, Paraguay, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Central America, Haiti and Mexico

The entire Latin American continent and the neighboring regions witnessed the significant growth of social movement activity of greater or lesser scope. What differentiated these movements from their counterparts in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela was the absence of political challenges and regime change and the limited scope of their social action.

Nevertheless significant outbreaks of mass popular movements raised fundamental challenges to the reigning neo-liberal hegemony.

In Haiti, a mass popular rebellion to reinstate the democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who had been taken hostage and flown into exile by a joint US-EU-Canadian military operation, was brutally repressed by a multinational mercenary force led by a Brazilian general. Subsequent massacres in crowded slums by the occupying troops aborted the resurgence of the popular ‘Lavelas’ movement protesting the foreign imposition of neo-liberal ‘privatization’ and austerity measures.

Mexico witnessed a series of localized rebellions and mass uprisings against the neo-liberal regimes dominating Mexico. In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberal Army (EZLN), based in the Indian communities of rural Chiapas, rose and temporarily succeeded in gaining control of several towns and cities. With the entry of many thousands of Mexican Federal troops, and in the absence of a wider network of support, the Zapatistas withdrew to their jungle and mountain bases. An unstable truce was declared, frequently violated by the government, in which an isolated EZLN continued to exist confined to a remote area in the state of Chiapas. In Oaxaca, an urban rebellion, backed by trade unions, teachers and popular classes in the capital city and surrounding countryside, organized a popular assembly (comuna) and briefly created a situation of ‘dual power’ before being suppressed by the reactionary neo-liberal governor of the state using ‘death squads’ and Mexican troops. Faced with the repressive power of the state, the insurgent popular movements shifted toward the electoral process and succeeded in electing center-left Andres Manual Lopez Obrador in 2006 in the midst of the neo-liberal economic debacle. Their victory was short-lived, with the election results, overturned through massive fraud in the final tally of the votes. Subsequent peaceful protests involving millions of Mexicans eventually lost steam and the movement dissipated.

In Colombia, mass peasant, trade union and Indian protests challenged the neo-liberal Pastrana regime (1998-2002) while the major guerrilla movements (FARC/ELN) advanced toward the capital city. Fruitless peace negotiations, broken off under US pressure and a $5 billion dollar US counter-insurgency program, dubbed ‘Plan Colombia’, heightened political polarization and intensified paramilitary death-squad activity. With the election of Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian regime decimated peasant, trade union and human rights movements as it advanced its neo-liberal policies.

The political effects of the economic crisis at the end of the 1990’s, which had precipitated social movement activity throughout the hemisphere, led to brutal repression in Haiti, Mexico and Colombia in order for the neo-liberal regimes to continue their policies.

In several other Latin American countries, namely Peru and Paraguay, as well as in Central America, powerful rural-based peasant and Indian movements engaged in rural road blockages and land occupations against their governments’ neo-liberal ‘free trade’ agreements with the US. Since these rural movements lacked nation-wide support, especially from the urban centers, their struggles failed to make a significant impact even as their economies crumbled under neo-liberal policies.

Social Movements in the Time of the Commodity Boom

The sharp rise of agricultural and mineral commodity prices between 2003-2008, along with the election of center-left politicians, had a major impact on the most active and dynamic social movements.

In Brazil the election of Lula De Silva (2002-2006) from the putatively center-left Workers Party was backed by all the major social movements, including the MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement) under the mistaken assumption that he would accelerate progressive structural changes like land re-distribution. Instead, Da Silva embraced the entire neo-liberal agenda of his predecessor, President Cardoso, including widespread privatization and tight fiscal policies, which, with the rise of agro-mineral prices, led to a narrowly focused agro-mineral export strategy centered exclusively on large agro-business and mineral extractive elites to the detriment of small businesses and rural producers. The MST’s efforts to influence Da Silva over the past decade(2003-2009) were futile – as state, local and federal governments criminalized the movement’s direct action tactics of land occupation. Lula’s policy of granting subsistence federal food allowances to the extremely poor and his success at co-opting movement leaders, especially from the huge trade union federations, neutralized the landless peasants and organized workers’ capacity to protest and strike. Lula’s policies isolated the MST from its ‘natural’ urban allies in the labor movement.

Lula’s right-turn and the vast increase in export revenues from high commodity prices led to increased social expenditures and reduced the level of activity and support for the MST in its struggle for agrarian reform. While retaining its mass base and continuing its land occupations, the MST no longer had a strategic political ally in its quest for social transformation. Subsequently it pursued more moderate reforms to avoid confrontation with the Lula regime, to which it still offered ‘critical support’.

In Argentina, the massive wave of direct action social movements subsided with the election of Kirchner (2003-2008) and the 7% economic growth rate stimulated by the commodity boom and the recovery from the dramatic economic melt-down of 2001-2002. With the recovery of employment and the return of their savings, the middle class assemblies rapidly disappeared. Kirchner offered subsidies to the unemployed and co-opted their leaders, which led to a sharp reduction of road blockages and membership in the militant unemployed workers organizations. Kirchner won over part of the human rights movement with his policies, which included his public purge of some of the more notorious military and police officials and the granting of subsidies to certain sectors of the human rights movement, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. With the decline of the radicalized movements of 1999-2002, the economic recovery of 2003-2008 led to a partial recovery of trade union activism, whose demands were mostly economic, focusing on the recovery of the workers’ wages and benefits lost during the systemic crisis.

In Bolivia, the economic boom, which began under the neo-liberal regime of Carlos Mesa continued under ‘leftist’ populist Evo Morales. He quickly moderated movement demands as he moved to the center-left. As an alternative to the social movement platform calling for the nationalization of the principal resource sectors exploited by multi-national corporations, Morales promoted ‘joint ventures’ which he demagogically claimed were ‘nationalization without expropriation’. Likewise he answered peasant and Indian demands for agrarian reform by opening up mostly uncultivatable public lands in the Amazon to the landless peasants. By the same token, he protected the most fertile land in the largest privately owned plantations from expropriation by exempting private land, which was classified as performing a ‘social function’. Avoiding structural change, Morales was able to use the windfall of state revenues from the high prices of Bolivian minerals and gas to co-opt movement leaders, provide incremental increases in the minimum wage, finance subsidies to Indian communities, encourage legal, political rights and recognize indigenous jurisdiction over their local communities.

Morales retained his leadership of the coca farmers union and, through his Movement to Socialist Party (MAS), exercised hegemony over the major community-based movements. His close ties with Presidents Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela set him in radical opposition to Washington’s interventionist policies and its supporters among the five rightist-controlled provinces centered in Santa Cruz. The extreme right gained ascendancy in the latter region and launched a violent racist frontal assault on the Morales government, polarizing the countryside while guaranteeing Morales the continued mass support among the popular classes and movements throughout the country.

In Ecuador, the powerful Indian movement (CONAIE) and its allies in the trade unions supported the neo-liberal regime of Lucio Gutierrez and suffered a severe decline in their power, support and organizational cohesion. The recovery has been slow, hindered by interventions of numerous US/EU funded NGOs.

With the demise of the established social movements, a new urban-based ‘citizens’ movement’ led by Rafael Correa overthrew the venal, corrupt, neo-liberal Gutierrez regime and led the electorate to vote Correa into power in both 2006 and 2009. Correa adapted center-left political positions, financing incremental wage and salary increases and state subsidized cheap credit to small and medium size businesses. He adopted a nationalist position on foreign debt payments and the termination of US military basing rights in Manta. The boom in mining and petroleum prices and ties with oil-rich Venezuela facilitated President Correa’s capacity to fund programs to secure support among the Andean bourgeoisie and the popular classes.

In Venezuela, the economic boom, namely the tripling of world oil prices, facilitated Venezuela’s economic recovery after the crisis caused by the opposition coup and the bosses’ lockout (2002-2003). As a result, from 2004 to 2008 Venezuela grew by nearly 9% a year. The Chavez government was able to generously fund a whole series of progressive socio-economic changes that enhanced the strength and attraction of pro-government social movements. The social movements played an enormous role in defeating opposition referendums, which had called for the impeachment of the President. Peasant organizations were prominent in pressuring recalcitrant bureaucrats in the Chavez government to implement the new agrarian laws calling for land distribution. Trade union militants organized strikes and demonstrations and played a major role in the nationalization of the steel industry. Given the vast increase in state resources, the Chavez government was able to both compensate the owners of the expropriated firms and meet workers’ demands for social ownership.

Summary

The economic boom and the ascendancy of center-left governments led to incremental increases in living standards, a decline of unemployment and the co-optation of some movement leaders — resulting in the decline of radical movement activity and the revival of traditional ‘pragmatic’ trade union moderates. During the economic boom and the rise of the center-left, the only major mass mobilization took the form of right wing movements determined to destabilize the center-left governments in Bolivia and Venezuela.

A comparison of the social movements in countries where they played a major role in political and social change (Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia) and movements in countries where they were marginalized reveals several crucial differences. First of all, the differences are not found in terms of the quantity of public protests, militant direct actions or number of participants. For example, if one adds up the number of social movement protests in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Central America, they might equal or even surpass the social actions in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. What was different and most politically significant was the quality of the mass action. Wherever they were of marginal significance, the organizations were fragmented, dispersed and without significant national leadership or structure and without any political leverage on the institutions of national power. In contrast, influential social movements operated as national organizations, which coordinated social and political action, centralized and capable of reaching the nerve centers of political power – the capital cities (La Paz, Buenos Aires, Quito and to a lesser degree Sao Paolo). To one degree or another, the high impact social movements combined rural and urban movements, had political allies in the party system and bridged cultural barriers (linking indigenous and mestizo popular classes).

World Economic Crisis and Social Movements – 2008 Onward

Beginning in late 2008 and continuing in 2009 the world economic crisis spread across Latin America. The crisis came later to Latin America and with less initial severity than in the US or EU. Because it is an ongoing process, the full socio-political implications and economic impact is still far from clear. What we can observe is that, at least initially, the current crisis has not provoked anything like the mass upheavals and the surge of radical social movements that we witnessed during the crisis beginning in 2001.

Gross Domestic Product
($ Millions of dollars, constant 2000 prices)
Annual growth rates
Country	2007	2008	2009*
Argentina	8.7	7.0	1.5
Bolivia	4.6	6.1	2.5
Brazil	5.7	5.1	-0.8
Chile	4.7	3.2	1.0
Colombia	7.5	2.6	0.6
Costa Rica	7.8	2.6	3.0
Cuba	7.3	4.3	1.0
Ecuador	2.5	6.5	1.0
El Salvador	4.7	2.5	-2.0
Guatemala	6.3	4.0	1.0
Haiti	3.4	1.3	2.0
Honduras	6.3	4.0	2.5
Mexico	3.3	1.3	-7.0
Nicaragua	3.2	3.2	1.0
Panama	11.5	9.2	2.5
Paraguay	6.8	5.8	3.0
Peru	8.9	9.8	2.0
Dominican Republic	8.5	5.3	1.0
Uruguay	7.6	8.9	1.0
Venezuela	8.9	4.8	0.3
Sub-total Latin America	5.8	4.2	-1.9
Caribbean	3.4	1.5	-1.2
Latin American and the Caribbean	5.8	4.2	-1.9

* Projections
Source: ECLAC

If anything, we have seen a surge of right-wing movements and electoral organizations in countries, like Argentina, and a US-backed right-wing military coup backed by the rightist business associations in Honduras, and the continued ‘pragmatic’ behavior of mass social movements in Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador.

The only exception is in Peru where the organized Indian communities in the Amazonian region have engaged in armed mass confrontations with the US-backed, right-wing regime of Alan Garcia. The Amazonian Indians responded to a series of Government decrees, which handed mineral and gas exploitation rights on Indian lands to foreign mining and energy corporations. From a historical perspective, the struggle was ‘conservative’, in so far as it pitted indigenous communities defending traditional use and ownership of lands and resources against the modern economic predators and the the neo-liberal state.

The Lumpen-Bourgeoisie: The Triple Alliance of the Neo-Liberal State, Narco-traffickers and the Unemployed Poor

The least studied, but most dynamic, and, possibly best organized social movement in Latin America today is the right-wing drug trafficking movement. Headed by a powerful narco-bourgeoisie, with strong ties to the military and neo-liberal state apparatus and with armed lumpen-cadres drawn from the urban unemployed and landless peasantry, the ‘Lumpen’ Movement has created a powerful geographic and social presence in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and elsewhere.

It was the agrarian neo-liberal policies that prepared the ground for the ‘mass base’ of the rightist narco-movement. The promotion of mechanized agro-export agriculture in Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Central America uprooted millions. State terror and paramilitary death squads drove millions of peasant families from the land and into urban slums. The large-scale importation of cheap, subsidized agricultural produce from the US wiped out many thousands of small-scale family farms. The stagnant of manufacturing sector was unable to absorb the migrants into labor-intensive work. This created massive numbers of young rural unemployed landless and urban workers, who could be either recruits for progressive social movements or recruits for the narco-industry. Cultivating coca and opium, refining and smuggling the drugs and soldiering for the drug lords provided a livelihood for these desperate young men and women. The deep economic crisis and stagnation of the 1990’s and early 2000’s created a large mass of young unemployed and under-employed workers in the cities ripe for employment by the narco-gangs who paid a living wage for an often deadly occupation.

The links between right-wing political parties, banking, business and landowner associations has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout Latin America. In Colombia, drug traffickers have become large landowners after their death squads devastated peasant communities suspected of supporting leftists or progressive organizations. ‘Sicarios’ or ‘hit-men’ are mostly young men from working or peasant class background who ‘work’ for business leaders and multi-national corporations as assassins. They have killed hundreds of trade union and peasant and Indian leaders each year in Colombia alone. Over a third of the members of the Colombian Congress, the principle backers of President Uribe, have been financed by the drug cartels. Uribe has long-term ties with prominent narco-traffickers and death-squad militia leaders.

In Mexico, drug traffickers have recruited widely among the impoverished peasants. In many Mexican states the narcos have purchased the services of thousands of government officials from top to bottom. In the absence of employment and a social safety-net, many of the poor find work in the narco-trade. Narco-traffickers have established alliances and business associations with upper class financial groups engaging in joint ‘philanthropic’ activities, such as handing out cash and delivering needed services to the poor. Narco-traffickers eventually wash their illegal earnings through major banks in the US, Canada and Europe and then invest in real estate, tourist complexes and landed properties.

Narco-trafficker organizations and death squads have worked closely with rightwing movements in Sta. Cruz (Bolivia), with rightist political parties in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in Mexico and Colombia.

The ‘lumpenization’ process operates via two routes: In some cases, young unemployed males are directly recruited via neighborhood organizations; in other cases the dispossessed, bankrupt and downwardly mobile farmers and long-term unemployed workers are gradually forced into the ‘illegal’ labor market.

The long-term, large-scale process of stagnation, despite the periods of export growth, marginalize the rural poor and accelerate their impoverishment without generating compensatory stable, urban employment paying a living wages. The ‘lumpenization’ of these displaced, marginalized peasants and workers, produced by the crisis and class polarization, is accompanied by the rise of a ‘lumpen culture’ with its own hierarchical structures, where the few at the ‘top’ develop ties to the economic and state elite and the masses at the ‘bottom’ aspire to a degenerate kind of middle-class consumerist life-style.

By the first decade of the new millennium, the rightist lumpen-narco movement far exceeded the progressive popular movements in terms of power and influence in Mexico, Colombia, Central America and some countries in the Caribbean, like Jamaica. The relationship between the ‘legal’ rightist and the ‘narco’ rightist movements is one of collaboration and conflict: They join forces to oppose powerful rural and trade union movements and progressive electoral regimes. The lumpen-narcos provide the ‘shock troops’ to assassinate progressive leaders, including elected officials and to terrorize supporters among the peasantry and urban poor. On the other hand, violent conflict between the rightists can break out at any time, especially when the lumpen-elite encroach on the state prerogatives, business interests, ties with imperial drug enforcement agencies and raise questions about the legitimacy of the bourgeois class.

Latin America’s Social Movements and the Economic Recession/Depression

Economic crises have multiple and diverse impacts on the popular classes and social movements.

The profound economic crisis of the 1990’s and first years of 2000 radicalized the popular classes and led to widespread ‘high impact’ protests and national rebellions, which overthrew incumbent neo-liberal regimes and replaced them with ‘center-left’ regimes. At the same time the social changes, implicit in the neo-liberal crisis, led to a downwardly mobile urban and rural sector. This formed the basis for the growth of dynamic leftist social movement led by popular mass-based leaders and rightist movements led by lumpen-narco chiefs and supported by the economic elites. The conservative, far-right confronted popular social movements from positions in the state and through the military and para-military death squads.

The commodity boom and the ascendancy of the ‘center-left’ regimes led to the ‘moderation’ of demands from below in the face of cooptation from above. Large-scale job creation and poverty programs, cheap credit and incremental wage and salary increases all contributed to moderating mass politics. The trade unions re-emerged as central actors and collective bargaining replaced mass direct action. Rural movements engaged in militant struggle were relatively isolated. The key political factor in this period was the demobilization of the popular classes, the decline of the direct action movements and the restoration of the power of the business, land-owning and mining elite based on their strengthened economic position. The rejuvenated Right took the lead in directing their own ‘direct action’ movements in Bolivia, Argentina and Central America.

As the crisis of 2008-2009 unfolded, the progressive movements were slow to respond, having been ‘under the tent’ of the center-left electoral regimes. Since these regimes were now being held responsible for the fallout of the commodity crash, the left social movements were in a weak position and unable to pose any radical alternatives.

It is important to remember that the world economic crisis had hit the ‘North’ (US/EU) earlier and harder than in Latin America. In Latin American, the social impact was weaker – at first. Unemployment grew mainly during the last months of 2008. The gradual unfolding of the crisis contrasted with the system-wide crash of the late 1990’s-2002, which precipitated mass rebellions. In addition, as a consequence of the earlier crisis, capital and finance controls had been imposed that limited the spread of the toxic assets and financial crisis from the US to Latin America.

Moreover, Latin American countries are diversifying their trade, especially toward Asia including China, which continues to grow at 8% a year. Diversification and financial controls limited the impact of the US financial melt-down on the Latin American economies. In addition, the early ‘stimulus’ measures, taken in response to the first signs of the crisis, had the effect of temporarily ameliorating the impact of the global recession/depression on Latin America.

Nevertheless as the depression deepens in the North, Latin America’s trade has plunged, and the region has fallen into negative growth. As a result, unemployment is growing in both the export sectors as well as in production for the domestic economy. In response, the right-wing parties and leaders blame the center-left regimes. Moves are underway in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador to oust these regimes through elections or through coups, backed by US President Obama’s ‘rollback’ global strategy. The July 2009 coup in Honduras, covertly backed from the strategic US military base in the country, is the first sign that Washington is moving its military client to overthrow the new independent ‘center-left’ regimes in the region. This is particularly true among the Central American and Caribbean countries linked with Venezuela in the new integration programs, such as ALBA and PetroCaribe.

The first manifestations of progressive mass popular protests in the current economic recession are not directly related to the economic decline. In Peru, the indigenous Amazonian communities organized militant road blockages and confrontations with the military resulting in over one hundred dead and wounded. This mass movement developed in response to the Peruvian government’s granting concessions of mining exploitation rights to foreign multi-nationals, an infringement of the rights of the indigenous people to their lands in the Amazonian region. Demonstrations in solidarity with the Amazonian Indians occurred in most cities, including Lima. The Congress, fearing a mass uprising, temporarily canceled the concessions. This was a major victory for the indigenous communities. Moreover, the success of the Amazonian Indian communities has detonated widespread sustained strikes and protests in most of the major cities of Peru, in response to economic decline resulting from falling commodity prices.

The sustained popular struggle in Honduras is in response to the military coup overthrowing President Zelaya, a moderate reformer pursuing an independent foreign policy. Led by the urban public sector trade unions and peasant movements, the struggle has combined democratic, nationalist and populist demands.

Apart from these two mass popular movements, the economic crisis has yet to evoke mass radical rebellions, like those which took place during earlier crises between 2000-2003. We can posit several possible explanations or hypotheses for the contrasting responses of the mass movements to economic crises.

Hypotheses

1. The full impact of the world crisis has yet to hit the popular classes – it began late in

2008 and only began to register increased unemployment in the first quarter of 2009.

2. The current crisis, at first, did not hit the lower middle classes, public employees and skilled workers. It has been highly segmented, thus weakening cross class solidarity and alliances present in earlier crises.

3. Unlike the previous period, the crisis takes place in many countries, which are ruled by ‘center left’ regimes with an organized social base backed by the social movements. These regime-movement linkages neutralize mass protests, out of fear of a return to the hard right.

4. The mass movements on the left have responded to the crisis with relative passivity – in part because the governments have intervened with economic stimulus measures and some social ameliorative policies. The continuation and deepening of the crisis and the inadequate coverage of moderate public interventions could eventually lead to the resurgence of mass struggles.

5. The increasing economic vulnerability of the incumbent center-left regimes and the relative passivity of the progressive social movements has opened political space and opportunities for rightwing mass mobilizations, combining electoral and street politics to build a base for a return to power.

6. The crisis will likely accelerate the lumpenization process, as long-term unemployment sets in and if alternate movements fail to organize the chronically unemployed in consequential struggles.

7. As the bourgeoisie and its political supporters find few legitimate sources for profiteering available, they will likely serve as intermediaries and ‘protectors’ of the narco-traffickers and other criminal syndicates and rely on them to eliminate left social movement leaders and activists.

8. The rise of the ‘lumpen-Right’ may lead to a virtual ‘dual power’ situation in which legitimate and illegitimate power configurations cooperate in repressing social movements and compete for influence.

9. The relative passivity of the social movements is likely a transitory phenomenon, influenced by the convergence of circumstances. If the crisis deepens and extends over time and rightist regimes return to power, recent past historical experience strongly suggests that the massive increase in poverty and unemployment, combined with repressive rightist regimes, could lead to mass rebellions on the part of the previously ‘passive’ popular classes.

Also in June, a military coup overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped and deported to Costa Rica on June 28. Initial clashes between troops loyal to the coup plotters and Zelaya supporters left at least one person dead and 30 injured. On July 30, as many as 150 people were arrested, with dozens injured, when soldiers and police attacked demonstrators with tear gas, water cannon, clubs and gunfire. One of the wounded, a 38-year-old teacher, was left fighting for his life after being shot in the head. Journalists reporting from the scene were also attacked.¹

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, describes how the Honduran people have been “risking their lives, confronting the army’s bullets, beatings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions”. And yet the US media has reported this repression “only minimally, with the major print media sometimes failing even to mention the censorship there.”²

Our own media database search (August 3) of national UK press editorials mentioning the word ’Iran’ over the previous five weeks delivered 26 results. A search for editorials containing the word ’Honduras’ delivered 2 results. In fact, there has been a single leading article on the Honduran crisis (in the Independent on June 30 — see below). Over the same period, a search for UK national press articles mentioning ‘Iran’ gave 848 results; for ‘Honduras’ 96 results. This is not hard science, but it does indicate comparative levels of UK media coverage of the two issues.

Weisbrot notes that the Honduran coup is “a recurrent story” in Latin America, pitting “a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president.”³

Mainstream outlets claim the coup marks a worrying return to earlier regional trends. A July 23 BBC “Q&A“ on Honduras commented:

“Coups and political upheaval were common in Central America for much of the 20th Century, and until the mid-1980s the military dominated political life in Honduras. Mr Zelaya’s removal is the first in the region since 1993…”⁴

This is false. In April 2002, a US-backed military coup briefly ousted Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez until mass protests returned him to power. A Guardian article that month reported that the “US ‘gave the nod’ to Venezuelan coup.” Several weeks prior to the coup attempt, US government officials had met the business leaders who assumed power after Chávez was arrested. General Rincon, the Venezuelan army’s chief of staff, had visited the Pentagon the previous December and met senior officials.⁵

A 2004 military coup forced Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee to Central Africa. Aristide told the Associated Press that he was forced to leave Haiti by US military forces.⁶ Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, wrote:

“Haiti, again, is ablaze… Almost nobody, however, understands that today’s chaos was made in Washington – deliberately, cynically, and steadfastly.”⁷

The BBC Q&A noted: “The role of the US is key, as it is Honduras’s biggest trading partner.”

Curiously, the article failed to mention that the US has its only Central American military base in Honduras. In fact the Honduran military is armed, trained and advised by Washington in a relationship that is deep and enduring. The two generals who led the coup were both trained at the US School of the Americas (SOA) based in Georgia (SOA is now known as The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC). Commander-in-chief Romeo Vasquez, head of the Honduran military, received training at SOA between 1976 and 1984. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the air force, studied there in 1996. Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, a Honduran army lawyer who also trained at SOA, has admitted the illegality of the military’s kidnapping of Zelaya. He told the Miami Herald: “It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That’s impossible.”²

Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, described SOA last month as “this school of assassins, this school of coups, this school with so much blood on its hands.”⁸

Weisbrot notes that Washington’s response to the Honduran coup is guided by conflicting interests: “powerful lobbyists such as Lanny Davis and Bennett Ratcliff, who are close to [Hillary] Clinton and are leading the coup government’s strategy; the Republican right, including members of Congress who openly support the coup; and new cold warriors of both parties in the Congress, the state department and White House who see Zelaya as a threat because of his co-operation with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and other left governments.”⁹

This explains Washington’s ambiguous reaction. The Obama administration’s first statement did not criticise the coup, and the state department continues to refuse to describe it as a coup. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly refused to say that ‘restoring the democratic order’ in Honduras requires the return of Zelaya. It took three weeks for the White House to threaten to cut off aid.

Roger Burbach, Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, writes:

U.S. efforts to restore Zelaya have been quite tepid compared to other countries. While many ambassadors have been withdrawn, the US head diplomat Hugo Llorens, appointed by George W. Bush, remains in place. There are reports that he may have even given the green light to the coup plotters, or at least did nothing to stop them. And while the World Bank has suspended assistance, the State Department merely warns that $180 million in US economic aid may be in jeopardy. Most importantly the United States refuses to freeze the bank accounts and cancel the visas of the coup leaders, measures that Zelaya and other Latin American governments have urged Washington to do.¹⁰

Recently, US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley, commented:

We certainly think that if we were choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow, that the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model. If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson.¹¹

The Independent: Doing Democracy A Service

In their June 30 leading article, the Independent’s editors, led by pro-Iraq war editor Roger Alton (formerly editor of the Observer), opened with this extraordinary paragraph:

The ousting of the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the country’s military at the weekend has been condemned by many members of the international community as an affront to democracy. But despite a natural distaste for any military coup, it is possible that the army might have actually done Honduran democracy a service.¹²

By contrast, many experienced observers have warned that the coup represents an extreme threat to prospects for democracy in Honduras and the region. The Independent explained its reasoning:

President Zelaya was planning a referendum to give him power to alter the constitution. But the proposed alterations were perilously vague, with opponents accusing Mr Zelaya of wanting to scrap the four-year presidential term limit. The country’s courts and congress had called the vote illegal.

This is an increasingly familiar turn of events in emerging democracies: an elected leader, facing the end of his time in office, decides that the country cannot do without him and resorts to dubious measures to retain power. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, won a referendum in February altering his country’s constitution and abolishing term limits. He now talks about ruling beyond 2030.

On the same day, in the same newspaper, Heather Berkman, a Latin America associate at the global political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote:

Manuel Zelaya has taken a few unexpected turns to the left during his tenure as President of Honduras, deviating from its political norms. This time, it looks like he may have gone too far… Mr Zelaya can be blamed for staging a coup that, in turn, provoked a counter-coup.”¹³

Recall that these articles appeared in the Independent, widely considered to be at the left of the mainstream media spectrum.

Weisbrot argues that in fact there was no way for Zelaya to extend his rule even if the referendum had been held and passed:

The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country’s constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis – although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.²

Nikolas Kozloff, journalist and author of Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left, traces the deeper sources of opposition to the Honduran president. Around 2007-2008, the initially conservative Zelaya began to embrace “the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas.” Kozloff explains:

It’s Chávez’s answer to the US-imposed free trade agreements in the region. And Zelaya had come out in support of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. And so, this set him at odds with the United States, and there was a history of friction between the US and Zelaya leading up to the coup.”¹⁴

As the Independent editorial makes clear, the mainstream offers a different version of events. Kozloff comments:

I think if you were just reading the reports in the mainstream media, you might get the impression that this coup is just about term limits in Honduras and it’s just a conflict over whether Zelaya will be able to extend his constitutional mandate of one four-year term.

The BBC, for example, reported: “Zelaya was sent into exile on 28 June amid a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change.”⁴

The Times wrote: “His opponents say that he wanted to overturn term limits and extend his power like leftist regional allies such as President Chávez of Venezuela…”¹⁵

Kozloff comments: “And my point is that there is an ideological component to this coup… the first salvo against the Honduran elite was his moves to raise the minimum wage by 60 percent… I mean, this is a country where you have these maquiladora assembly plants, and the Honduran elite were, to say the least, displeased by the moves.”

In a rare exception to his newspaper’s wretched performance, Johann Hari wrote in the Independent of how Zelaya had “increased the minimum wage by 60 per cent, saying sweatshops were no longer acceptable and ‘the rich must pay their share’.

“The tiny elite at the top – who own 45 per cent of the country’s wealth – are horrified. They are used to having Honduras run by them, for them.”¹⁶

As Hari noted: “It was always inevitable that the people at the top would fight back to preserve their unearned privilege.”

Prior to the coup, US multinational Chiquita expressed its concern at Zelaya’s minimum wage decrees, which they said would reduce profits and increase export costs. Chiquita appealed to the Honduran Business Association, which was also opposed to Zelaya’s minimum wage policy. Kozloff told the website Democracy Now!: “what I find really interesting is that Chiquita is allied to a Washington law firm called Covington, which advises multinational corporations. And who is the vice chairman of Covington? None other than John Negroponte…”¹⁷

Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when he played a key role in coordinating US terror attacks on Nicaragua by means of “the Contras”, a mercenary army. Negroponte is complicit in massive human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military.

Throughout the twentieth century, Chiquita, then known as United Fruit Company, was associated with “some of the most backward, retrograde political and economic forces in Central America and indeed outside of Central America in such countries as Colombia”, Kozloff notes. In 1954, United Fruit played a leading role in the US-backed coup that ousted Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala.

Kozloff reports that the current US Attorney General, Eric Holder, was Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. Holder defended Chiquita and its actions in Colombia when Chiquita was allied to right-wing paramilitary death squads in the 1990s and was found guilty of paying off paramilitaries. Holder was Chiquita’s lead counsel.

We searched national UK newspapers (August 3) for articles containing the words ‘Honduras’ and (separately) ‘Chiquita,’ ‘John Negroponte’ and ’Eric Holder’ since June 28; all searches produced zero results.

1. Bill Van Auken, ‘Honduran coup regime launches brutal crackdown,’ August 1, 2009, World Socialist Web Site.
2. Weisbrot, ‘Hondurans Resist Coup, Will Need Help From Other Countries,’ ZNet, July 9, 2009.
3. Weisbrot, ‘Does the US back the Honduran coup?’ The Guardian, July 1, 2009.
4. ‘Q&A: Crisis in Honduras,’ BBC website, July 23, 2009.
5. Julian Borger and Alex Bellos, ‘US “gave the nod” to Venezuelan coup,’ The Guardian, April 17, 2002.
6. Eliott C. McLaughlin, Associated Press, March 1, 2004.
7. Sachs, ‘Fanning the flames of political chaos in Haiti,’ The Nation, February 28, 2004.
8. ’Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009.
9. Weisbrot, ‘U.S.- Brokered Mediation Has Failed – It’s Time for Latin America to Take Charge,’ ZNet, August 1, 2009.
10. Burbach, ‘Obama and Hillary Nix Change in Honduras,’ ZNet, July 27, 2009.
11. James Suggett, ‘Honduras Coup,’ ZNet, July 28, 2009.
12. Leading article, ‘Guns and democracy,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009.
13. Berkman, ‘Zelaya pushed,’ The Independent, June 30, 2009.
14. ‘What’s Behind the Honduras Coup? Tracing Zelaya’s Trajectory,’ Democracy Now!, July 1, 2009.
15. Hannah Strange, ‘Deposed President “can never return”,’ The Times, July 3, 2009.
16. Hari, ‘The other 9/11 returns to haunt Latin America,’ The Independent, July 3, 2009.
17. ‘From Arbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America,’ Democracy Now!, July 21, 2009.

That’s the story as Miguel Rivera tells it. His brother, Marcelo Rivera was the latest victim of the newly organized death squads, formed from what appears to be a triad of power: Pacific Rim (a Canadian multinational), the ARENA party (the political party organized by the death squad killer of Monsignor Romero, Roberto D’Aubuisson) and the “maras” or gang members.

Of course Miguel, who has a deep and even scientific knowledge of his locale, is aware that the myth is just that: a small story that reveals a larger, hidden truth, in this case that a “Gringo” multinational indeed entered the area, but the reason for the deaths was the heavy metal waste from the mining that was poured into the community’s water.

In cultures and states where telling the exact truth can lead to one’s death, it’s always more convenient to wrap the story in myth. Those who unpackage the myths, like Marcelo Rivera, often disappear into thin air — that is, until they’re found, as he was, naked, castrated and murdered after being horribly tortured: his fingernails had all been pulled out; his face had been disfigured so much that his brother could only identify him by his nose; the beatings had broken his skull. Finally, after he had been strangled to death, his body was thrown in a sixty-foot well, covered with chicken manure, dirt, and pieces of meat.

The right wing press did, of course, repeat the official story that Marcelo had fallen in with “mara” gangsters and drank with them, but editors had the integrity to also print a counterpoint that everyone who knew Marcelo had quite clear: that the victim of the unholy triad of moneyed power in El Salvador never drank nor hung out with the maras. His hero was Monsignor Romero and Miguel says the last time he saw his brother he was wearing a t-shirt with the image of that martyr on it.

There’s a significant difference between El Salvador under the FMLN where power in the media is actively being contested, and Honduras where there is a blackout of the opposition perspective. Another difference is that the ARENA party has lost control of the military and has to rely on “maras” to do its dirty work while in Honduras the government hasn’t yet had to consider recruiting “civilian contractors” from the 100,000 or so “maras” operating in Central America. Thus far the military has been quite happy to do the job of eliminating or terrorizing opponents under the “golpista” Honduran government (coup government) of Micheletti. On July 5, for example, the military fired with machine guns on a crowd numbering in the thousands. This is the unofficial story, of course. The papers, including El Heraldo, claimed that the military had fired on the crowd with rubber bullets. Officially, also, only one person died. Protestors say that there were eight or nine victims who died on the way to the hospital, and whose bodies were disappeared. Given the machine gun fire, it’s only surprising that more didn’t die.

The Honduran government of the 1980s found it had no need to replicate the widespread massacres being carried out in El Salvador and Guatemala. It was able to selectively eliminate a couple hundred leaders of the opposition and take care of its problem with the “subversives.” But in order to maintain control over the rest of the population and assure its docility and compliance, like anywhere else, it required a press willing and able to cloak a damning reality in a less threatening myth.

Once again Honduran reporters are being called in to do overtime in psyops. Granted, the press in Honduras under the “golpista” government isn’t any worse than Fox News. That being said, everything having to do with the news around the recent “golpe” (coup) has a quality that ranges from surreal interpretation to black propaganda. It would seem that the journalists of the major papers of Honduras really were frustrated writers of dystopian science fiction.

One Honduran tells me she saw a murder in her neighborhood that was multiplied in the journalistic alchemy of the Honduran press by six the following day. I keep that in mind as I sit here in my hotel room in Tegucigalpa, leafing through what my wife back home would call “the daily pack of lies.”

As I try to discern the Honduran narrative of the “golpe” I recall the copy of the article I left behind in El Salvador, printed in a right wing paper — and, unfortunately, the newspapers are all right wing in El Salvador, with the exception of the Diario Co-Latino, the latter a blessing not bestowed upon Honduras. The Salvadoran article was based on a piece that appeared in Honduras’ El Heraldo. The author claimed to have in possession secret documents that indicated that President Hugo Chavez was working with a large number of “maras” who he was arming and paying, and also infiltrating his own military to do a lightning attack and kill high-ranking officials of the Micheletti government. Supposedly residents have seen armed men in inaccessible regions of the country. Does that sound like the narrative of “Al Qaeda sleeper cells” doped up on the Koran ready to attack Bush’s America? Only the names, places and drugs of choice have changed.

I’m looking here at a full page ad in La Tribuna from Tuesday, the 21st, paid for by “Hondurans for Democracy.” There is a photo, in the top half, of Chavez aiming a gun. Beside the photo is the caption “Chavez calls for violence and wants bloodshed in Honduras.” Beneath that picture is a crowd shot of Hondurans dressed in white (the color of the Conservative Nationalist Party) and holding the blue flags of Honduras. The caption reads, “But Hondurans want peace, unity, democracy and freedom.” Ah, behold the foreign devil who has brought death to our peaceful little country. It’s a variation on the diabolic gringo myth, but in reverse, since Chavez has been a counterforce to the “deadly gringo.”

The following day, (Wednesday, July 22) El Heraldo has an interview with Alejando Peña Esclusa, a right wing Colombian who is president of UnoAmerica, described as “a democracy organization (sic: organización democracia) of Colombia.” The headline reads, “The FARC [Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), Narcotrafficking and ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas) are all the same thing." The surrealism doesn't end with the title, which makes laughable connections between a program of solidarity created by Venezuela to share its wealth with loans and grants to Latin America to facilitate growth and development, and narcotics trafficking and a guerrilla that, while it taxes the cocaine trade, seems to have fewer connections to the actual trade than does the Uribe government.

Esclusa develops his surreal story in this large-spread article on page 6: He says that the coup "has kept Honduras from falling into the project of Hugo Chavez and saved democracy from the Constitutional coup which Zelaya hoped to undertake." What was the "Constitutional coup" Zelaya was plotting? To bring people more deeply into the political process of the country by asking them if they'd like to write a new constitution. So according to Esclusa, the military coup was a way of saving "democracy" by taking it away. And the project of Chavez, well, ask 60-70% of Venezuelans who support Chavez and they'll tell you that his project is to move the country from "representative to participatory democracy." But the interview with Esclusa gets even wilder: "the principle element of the disturbances in Honduras is not "Mel" Zelaya nor the discussion of whether or not he returns" (this would come as a surprise to the hundreds of thousands of people marching daily in Honduras for the single purpose of having their president return) "but it is Hugo Chavez who finances the dirty campaign, buying minds ("conciencias") so as to disinform about Honduran reality."

Again, the utterly implausible charge that Chavez, and not the golpistas, is behind all the country's problems. For Esclusa, the solution is simple: Isolate Chavez from Honduras and all the problems will be solved.

What's fascinating about this analysis is that there's not even a hint of truth in it. First of all, the marches aren't financed by anyone but the marchers. And secondly, the only Venezuelan I've seen has been an old friend who is a documentary filmmaker--and probably the last Venezuelan journalist in the country since Telesur was chased out. Noticeably absent from the marches is even the slightest mention of Chavez or Venezuela, neither of which appear in any of the chants, placards, discussions, programs, or anything else. There's only one message: "Golpistas Leave! Bring Mel Home."

In this surreal world where Chavez is working with narco gangsters and infiltrating along the coast, paying people to demonstrate, the poor golpistas are also unfairly being persecuted by "the OAS, UN and the international community."

This line was repeated to me the other day in the hotel by the woman behind the desk, who identified herself as a National Party supporter. She almost whined as she told me that "everyone is against us." Does that sound a little paranoid? When a sane person is told that everyone is opposed to what he or she is doing, that person begins to reflect again on his or her actions. Not so Micheletti; not so Mr. Esclusa; not so the National Party and Liberal Party members who went out on the 23rd on the march for "peace, unity, democracy and freedom."

Then the bombshell: According to Mr. Esclusa, the FARC, a guerrilla force of 30,000 with shrinking power, is the force behind all the presidents who are part of ALBA which is, in turn, a project of the FARC and financed by cocaine money.

If this were the ravings of a madman in the street, we could afford to ignore him. But this interview is published in one of Honduras' two major newspapers, with big headlines, a photo of Esclusa, on page 6. And obviously the government is taking this same paranoid siege narrative seriously because on page eight is the story and headline, "Honduras Breaks Diplomatic Relations with Venezuela" and the subhead reads, "Venezuelan officials, in a confrontational attitude, warn they won't leave the country. The [Honduras] Chancellor cancels the consular visa of Iranians for fear of terrorism.”

Now that’s interesting. Honduras breaks relations with Venezuela and it’s Venezuela that is being confrontational. Takes you back to the bad old days of Bush and the Saddam Hussein “menace” doesn’t it? Then there are the Iranians, whose government has never so much as threatened anyone in Latin America, yet who now “feared as terrorist.” Wild rumor, speculation on a fantastic level: Vice Chancellor Marta Lorena Alvarado says that “we’ve confirmed the existence of terrorist Iranian cells in Latin America and considering that there are direct trips from Teheran… to Venezuela and from Venezuela to Nicaragua… there’s concern that there’s been a terrorist incursion into [Honduras].”

Here we’ve definitively returned to the bad old days of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush with the Amber, Yellow and Orange alerts when supposed “sleeper” cells that were never uncovered or identified were sleepwalking the US.

These are but a few of the jewels from the Honduran press. You could do with it as I did when I first confronted it in the hotel with the woman behind the desk: you could try reasoning with it. You could, as I did, say, isn’t the very definition of a coup when an elected representative is removed from office and, rather than being held and tried and convicted or returned to office, is sent out of the country into exile at gunpoint? But the response is just as wild: “They were trying to prevent bloodshed. If they kept him here, his followers would cause bloodshed.” But we’re to believe that the people who sent the military to the airport on July 5th to machine gun protesters are really concerned about bloodshed? By the look on the woman’s face, a gringo has come to town and poisoned the water.

Despite the threat of military violence, hundreds of thousands of Hondurans have marched, gone on strike and blocked highways to reverse the coup. Almost every country and major institution in the world has condemned the coup. But the Canadian government seems to support it.

Foreign Affairs remained silent in the hours after Zelaya was kidnapped by the military. Eight hours after Zelaya’s ouster a Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Notimex news agency that Canada had ‘no comment’ regarding the coup. It was not until late in the evening, after basically every country in the hemisphere denounced the coup, that Ottawa finally did so.

Canada, reported Notimex, was the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya’s return to power. Unlike the World Bank and European Union, Ottawa has not announced plans to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America. Nor has Ottawa mentioned whether it will exclude the Honduran military from its Military Training Assistance Program.

At a special Organization of American States meeting a week after the coup, Canada’s minister for the Americas, Peter Kent called for Zelaya to delay his planned return to the country claiming the “time is not right.” On Sunday, after the coup government refused to consider the return of Zelaya as proposed by mediator Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Kent again called on the elected president not to reenter his country. “A return to Honduras prior to a negotiated resolution is strongly discouraged.”

Kent has yet to denounce the coup government for killing peaceful protesters and arresting thousands, but he did respond to Zelaya’s recent comment that Hondurans had the right to “insurrection” against an illegitimate government. On Sunday Kent said, “we call on all parties to condemn any and all incitement to violence in this ongoing crisis.”

This was just Kent’s most recent attack against Zelaya. At the special OAS meeting two weeks ago Kent said “there has to be an appreciation of the events that led up to the coup,” blaming Zelaya for clashes with the army, Supreme Court and Congress. Before the coup Kent criticized Zelaya’s plan for a non-binding public poll on whether to hold consultations to reopen the constitution. “We have concerns with the government of Honduras,” he said in early June. “There are elections coming up this year and we are watching very carefully the behaviour of the government and what seems to be an attempt to amend the constitution to allow consecutive presidencies.”

This is parroting the U.S. (and Honduran) neo-conservative argument that an elected president can be made illegitimate if he consults with the population as to whether or not it wishes to change the constitution. If this were to stand, then Hondurans would forever be captive to a constitution written by a right-wing, military-backed government.

Ottawa’s hostility is likely motivated by particular corporate interests and Zelaya’s support for the social transformation taking place across Latin America.

From 1996-2006 Canadian companies were the second-biggest investors in Honduras. Zelaya’s move earlier this year to raise the minimum wage by 60% could not have gone down well with the world’s biggest blank T-shirt maker, Montréal-based Gildan, which employs thousands of Hondurans.

Likewise, announcing that no new mining concessions would be granted during his term could not have made Zelaya popular with Canada’s powerful mining sector, which has some 1,300 properties in Latin America. An interesting note in this regard is that Vancouver-based, Goldcorp Inc., which runs a controversial open pit, cyanide-leeching gold mine in the country, provided buses to the capital, Tegucigalpa, and cash to former employees who rallied in support of the coup, according Rights Action.

More broadly, the Harper government opposes Zelaya’s gravitation toward the countries leading the push toward a more united Latin America. A year ago Honduras joined the Venezuelan led ALBA, Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas, which is a fast growing response to North American domination of the region.

Canadian corporations, with more than $100 billion invested per year in Latin America, cannot be pleased.

Since touring South America two years ago, Harper has worked to stunt the region’s growing rejection of capitalism and U.S. dependence. In March Harper referred to the far right Colombian government as a valuable “ally” in a hemisphere full of “real serious enemies and opponents.” And after answering questions regarding Venezuela in April he said, “I don’t take any of these rogue states lightly.”

The recent announcement that Canada would shift ‘aid’ from Africa to Latin America is part of an attempt to slow the region’s transformation. The region’s most pro-capitalist governments, in Colombia and Peru, will benefit from this increased aid as will regional civil society groups whose views most closely align to Ottawa’s.

Supporting the coup in Honduras is a continuation of this policy; an attempt by Ottawa to block Latin America’s leftward shift.

That’s all behind us now, I thought, as the green leaves and limbs blurred by in the magical landscape on the way into the city of San Salvador from the airport. The FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) evolved from an armed guerilla movement to an electoral party that won the presidency of the country this spring. During my first few days here, I kept being reminded that this is not the 1980s–but the poison from the past is as present as the promise of the future.

On the way into town, my taxi driver and I talked about the coup in Honduras. I admit to having been the one who brought it up. I had told him my own war story and ended by saying,

“I’m sure you have a few war stories yourself.”

He nodded. “Yes, we all do here in El Salvador.”

“Thank god that’s over now,” I said. “But the golpe in Honduras. It’s a return to the ’80s, isn’t it? And what sort of message is it sending out to the world? And to the Salvadoran military?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I worry about that.”

“Because the same military is still there, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes, the same ones,” he agreed.

Later in the day I raised the question with Leah Wilson, a North American solidarity activist who has spent a lot of time in El Salvador, following the news and talking it over with astute political friends. Besides being a voracious reader of the news, she knows someone in just about every social movement in the country.

“Yes, I’ve thought about that myself,” she told me over lunch. “President [Mauricio] Funes doesn’t believe it can happen here. He says the military is the only institution that has been thoroughly ‘de-ideologized’ and followed through on the Peace Accords” that brought an end to the brutal civil war that took over 80,000 lives.”

“Do you believe that?” I asked her. She shrugged. “I’m not sure. And I’ve talked to other people who aren’t so sure, either. Either way, it’s a very bad message that they’re sending to the rest of Central America.” I took “they” to mean the coup plotters, then I realized that she was probably also talking about the United States.

Leah mentioned the full page ad ARENA just took out in a national paper. ARENA is El Salvador’s Nationalist Republican Alliance, founded by Archbishop Romero’s murderer Roberto D’Aubuisson, and modeled after the “grand old party” of Bush, Sr. and Jesse Helms. The ad called on President Funes to recognize the “de facto” “president” Micheletti and essentially told him to “look in the mirror.”

Other recent events recall the bad old days of the ’80s, like the death of Marcelo Rivera. His name is on most people’s lips these days here. Marcelo was a good revolutionary, a committed member of the FMLN, something that no longer will get you killed by anyone in the country. But he also went up against corruption in San Isidro, a small town in the department of Cabañas where he lived, and took on the Pacific Rim gold company. Pacific Rim hoped to mine the gold from Marcelo’s region and leave behind the poisonous environmental disaster gold companies are known to create – ask any Californian who has studied the Gold Rush in any detail and multiply that damage by a hundred.

The local prosecutor’s office and the police say Marcelo got killed because he had chosen the wrong drinking partners and fallen in with a gang in Ilobasco – something which people in his community say wasn’t at all like Marcelo. More likely, the word on the street goes, it was a death squad killing, done in collusion with the police and under orders of Pacific Rim and other mining interests.

Recent events in Marcelo’s life gave more credence to the word on the street than to the official story. Marcelo’s brother Miguel told the government-friendly Diario Co Latino that “Marcelo suffered previous death threats from the miners and there was also one failed attempt to run over him in an unidentified vehicle, and constant spying on him by the local police.”

Whatever happened, Marcelo’s body was found several days later in a well. He’d been strangled and his body showed signs of exactly the sort of torture the death squads of the 1980s used on their victims: burn marks, bruises from beatings, and all his fingernails had been torn out.

Twenty-five years ago, the murder would have struck fear in everyone’s heart and made people run for cover. Now there is outrage, and it’s gone public. On Friday, July 17th in the summer afternoon heat that drives most people to the shade trees of the parks, a few hundred people gathered at Plaza Civica in front of the National Palace in downtown San Salvador to celebrate Marcelo’s life and to denounce the murder of a worthy activist.

Ilma Alvarado had come down from San Isidro, Cabañas to join the protest and to “commemorate and celebrate” a man who she said, “always brought everyone together and inspired us to work.” She dismissed the official version of Marcelo’s death.

“He was killed for fighting the mines,” Alvarado said. “That’s why they killed him. He didn’t associate with the “maras” (gang members). He didn’t drink. He was a very healthy person. He headed the casa de cultura (cultural center), he led the marches, and he was the coordinator of the FMLN [in Cabañas]. He was a social leader who headed the casa de cultura but was also at the forefront of the struggle.”

In San Isidro the plaza is empty this Sunday afternoon, except for a full house at the Casa de Cultura which Marcelo and his younger brother, Miguel, founded nearly twenty years ago.

The building, Miguel tells me, served as a makeshift funeral home where the bodies of the victims of the civil war were stored before being shipped out to San Salvador. “You could look in here and see black bags piled to the ceiling sometimes,” Miguel says. Community members remember the Rivera brothers as bright, even brilliant, kids from a family so poor that they often went hungry, but a family with great dignity, known for honesty and commitment to the community.

The community itself could have been described that way, according to Miguel, before Pacific Rim came into the area in the mid 1990s. “We never had crime here, not like other places. People worked hard and lived clean lives.” But then Pacific Rim arrived with lots of money to throw around at officials, and a marginal community, and things changed. After exploration by Pacific Rim revealed that there was, indeed, gold in the area, it’s alleged that they bought their way into mining permits. Marcelo led the local struggle against the mines and things got serious. One community member broke down at a community dinner and confessed that Pacific Rim had paid him $2000 to poison the food. “But I can’t kill anyone,” he told them.

In the January elections the ARENA candidate perpetrated a massive fraud to which Marcelo led protests and successfully had the election annulled – the only election to be annulled in the country. The second election, also under the ARENA government, was called, but this time ARENA brought in 300 gang members who terrorized the community by carrying around shotguns and Molotov cocktails and made threats against FMLN supporters. The “maras” were ironically accompanied by large numbers of National Police, soldiers and the situation was monitored by helicopters of the ARENA government. Busloads of ARENA supporters were brought in, as well as people from Honduras, to vote for the ARENA candidate, and he “won” the election.

The murder of Marcelo was a classic death-squad style murder with the same gruesome forms of torture. What was different about Marcelo’s case is that now the death squads seem to be using the “maras” rather than the police or military (as the government did in the 1980s) and, given this new turn of a situation and ARENA’s use of the gangs, the “maras” themselves present one of the knottiest social issues confronting the new FMLN government. President Funes has suggested sending the military into the streets to control them.

Mario, a student at the University of El Salvador, says the maras are, indeed, the most serious problem. “They’re really violent. They get on buses and murder the man collecting fares and take the money,” Mario said, adding that the maras used to be open and recognizable by tattoos and style but a government crackdown under the conservatives only sent them underground. The estimated 16,000 maras are now indistinguishable from anyone else, making them even more dangerous.

People are looking to President Funes to clean up the national police force, which turned rotten after a brief laundering during the Peace Accords. Hopes are high, and the social movements are more active than ever as they ride on the energy of the FMLN’s electoral victory. They’re determined to maintain an active, visible presence in the country and the government appears to be listening.

“The 1980s were also hard on the military and they don’t really seem to be interested in going back into a civil war,” Leah said. And on the same afternoon that environmentalists and anti-mining and water activists were holding their memorial to Marcelo in front of the National Palace, a demonstration against the coup in Honduras was winding through the streets in another part of town. There was no tear-gassing of demonstrators, much less beatings, imprisonments, or disappearances. The police, it seems, were as civil about it all as the demonstrators.

With their renewed hope, social movement organizations like Coordinadora del Bajo Rio Lempa are even taking on the maras. The Coordinadora encompasses about 64 communities on the banks of El Salvador’s largest river and along the Bay of Jiquilisco in Usulatan. The Coordinadora has many irons in the fire, but one of the more exciting is the youth program in Tierra Blanca community where the Coordinadora has been implementing what one board member called “crime prevention” by educating the community. “When we arrived there were lots of problems here, including assaults and robberies,” one of the board members told us in the air-conditioned office put together by particle board and concrete blocks.

The Coordinadora responded by developing youth programs where community members could come to learn to paint, dance and act. Gang members joined a more positive community through the project and, the board President said, “not to glorify ourselves, but the fact is that it worked.” Crime has dropped through a process of popular education and the offering of creative alternatives for youth.

Estela Hernández Rodriguez, the member of the board of directors who was our contact, said that their most recent focus has been on alternative agriculture, combining permaculture with community development. Permaculture, from “permanent agriculture” is a philosophy of agriculture that aims to use the least amount of energy to get the greatest amount of production and, in the process, to use all waste, that is, to produce no waste. To give us a taste of how that’s working out, she arranged for us to stay in one of the communities for the night. It’s called Ciudad Romero (Romero City) and it’s enough to say that it’s named after the martyred Bishop Oscar Romero. Before we drove the few miles to Ciudad Romero, Jose Amilcar, a young man who heads the agricultural program, took us for a short tour around the Coordinadora headquarters. It houses a community radio station (which was playing a muzak version of “Bridge over Troubled Waters”) and a small cashew-nut processing operation with three women using rudimentary, but very effective, equipment. Then we leave to Ciudad Romero.

The red flag of the FMLN flies high over the one corner store at the intersection of two unmarked dirt roads running through the center of what can only mockingly be called a “city.” The scrawny dogs didn’t bother to move for the black Sentra winding its way around the deep potholes and large rocks on the way into the community.

Jose arranged for us to visit Ernesto, whose house is just a couple of blocks away from the Coordinadora’s agricultural center. We walked slowly in the hot afternoon sun, but even so, my t-shirt was soaked from sweat by the time we arrived and move into the shade of the trees around the concrete fish pond where Ernesto, machete always in hand, was feeding his tilapia. The fish swam lazily through the green water and fed on the morsels Ernesto scattered over the surface like a man feeding chickens. After a few minutes of watching the fish eat, we followed Ernesto down a mercifully shaded road to his field. On the way, I asked Ernesto what percentage of the residents of Ciudad Romero did he figure voted for the FMLN. “We all did,” he said immediately, without needing to add, “of course.”

I felt cross-eyed and dangerously close to a heat stroke by the time we went the three or so blocks to the field and walked through the rows of new corn covered with the mulch formed of the plants from the cleared field. My companions recognized this (probably by my white face suddenly turning red) and Jose directed us into the shade at the field’s edge. We talked a little more and then, after the gringo recovered, turned back to “town.”

This community, Jose told us, has been in the process of putting together its common life over the past twenty years since its members returned from exile in Panama after the peace accords were signed in 1990.

They were viewed by the government, and rightly so, as guerrilla sympathizers. Since each returning exile was given a small piece of land, as agreed upon in the peace accords, the government was forced to fulfill its commitment and turn over land to the community. But the land the government gave this particular community was defined, by the government itself, as “uninhabitable” and “unproductive.” Moreover, the land alternately suffered drought and flooding, the latter caused by the indiscriminate release of water by the managers of the hydroelectric dam upriver.

There was no infrastructure for many years, and even now the dirt roads into Ciudad Romero can only be navigated at very slow speeds in our rented car. And ours is the only car we’ve seen in this “city.” Most people walk or ride bicycles. Nevertheless, the community has hung on, thanks in part to international solidarity, but also because of a deep commitment to each other, what one farmer called “compañerismo,” which might be translated into “neighborliness times ten.” Through the last two decades of conservative or far-right governments, the community has also moved forward by organized resistance. To stop the flooding, for instance, the communities that made up the Coordinadora launched protests and other acts of civil disobedience to force the government to stop the flooding of their land.

And finally, the land itself has sustained them. Long fallow and overgrown, it was, nevertheless, far from “uninhabitable” or “unproductive.” One farmer told us that the land once belonged “to the rich people, and they didn’t like the fact that it was now in possession of the guerrillas.” But the land has certainly taken to the “guerrillas,” who are carefully and slowly implementing a permaculture philosophy and ecological, organic methods of fertilization and pest control.

Jose took us to another neighbor’s farm which is really a food forest, a jungle of bananas, coconut palms, mango trees and papayas. The neighbor was away, but we took a stroll through the forest.

“This was all grown up with weeds and very few trees, this whole region. Since the community has arrived we’ve forested the area with fruit trees. None of them were here,” Jose told us as we passed a lime tree. “And this neighbor has a special interest in reforestation, to help bring the temperature of the planet down. It’s something we have to do to stop global warming.”

We returned to the car which I parked on the shoulder of the long road disappearing under a canopy of trees. For a moment I resisted getting back in the car and stood on the shoulder listening to a chorus, a symphony of birds, all unfamiliar to my ear. The trees the community planted have not only brought shade and food to the people struggling to make this area “habitable” and “productive,” but have provided habitat to another, symphonic community. In the end Ciudad Romero, with its slow, steady enrichment of rural community life based on ecological values and “compañerismo” makes up for what it lacks in services that would qualify it as a city.

When we look around the world we see a number of leaders – Chávez is one of them but not the only one – who, over the last eight years, have become more and more negative and oppositional to the United States. The prior administration tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn’t work.

We are going to see what other approaches might work. We have no guarantees that we can create a better relationship with someone who has a different view of politics, the economy, and so much else. But we think it’s worth trying to just explore this and see what comes of it. I don’t think that in today’s world — a multipolar world where we are competing for attention and relationships with at least the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians — it’s in our interest to turn our backs on countries in our own hemisphere.

So we’re going to try some different approaches. No illusions about who we’re dealing with or what the issues are. But I think it’s worth a try, because what we’ve been doing hasn’t worked very well. In fact, if you look at the gains, particularly in Latin America, that Iran is making and China is making, it’s quite disturbing. They are building very strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders. I don’t think that’s in our interest.

I’m certainly open to constructive criticism and ideas, but – we talked about exchanging ambassadors again with Chávez, which I think we will do at some point. We are looking to figure out how to deal with Ortega. The Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua, and you can only imagine what it’s for.

We want to try to build better relationships with [Ecuador's Rafael] Correa, and we want to see if we can figure out how to get an ambassador back and work with [Evo] Morales in Bolivia.

We’re facing an almost united front against the United States regarding Cuba. Every country, even those with whom we are closest, is saying ‘you’ve got to change, you can’t keep doing what you’re doing.’ We would like to see some reciprocity from the Castros on political prisoners, human rights, and other matters.

So we’re looking at a number of different relationships and trying to figure out whether we can be more productive. My bottom line is: What’s best for America? How do we try to influence behavior that is more in our interest than not? And that’s how we’re looking at it.

– US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Address to State Department Employees, May 1, 2009

In resisting the aggressions of the most powerful empire ever to have existed, our people fought for the other sister peoples of this continent. The OAS was an accomplice of all the crimes committed against Cuba.

At one moment or another, the totality of the countries of Latin America were victims of interventions and political and economic aggression. There is not one single one that can deny that. It is ingenuous to believe that the good intentions of a president of the United States can justify the existence of that institution that opened the gates to the Trojan horse that backed the Summits of the Americas, neoliberalism, drug trafficking, military bases and economic crises. Ignorance, underdevelopment, economic dependence, poverty, the forced return of those who emigrate in search of work, the brain drain, and even the sophisticated weapons of organized crime were the consequences of interventions and plundering proceeding from the North. Cuba, a little country, has demonstrated that it can resist the blockade and advance in many fields, and even cooperate with other countries.

– Fidel Castro, “The Trojan Horse,” June 2, 2009

Washington “pretty much by itself”

On June 3, at the end of a a Ministerial Conference of the Organization of American States (OAS) in San Pedro Sula, Honduras – and while President Barack Obama was the recepient of lavish pomp and circumstance by the absolutist monarchy and semi-feudal dictatorship of the House of Saud in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Washington’s delegation, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, patched together a last-minute, highly-diluted resolution that allowed Washington to save some face and prevent an abject political humiliation over its anti-Cuba policy. Nevertheless the gathering registered a further retreat by a clearly stung Washington in the face of overwhelming Hemispheric (and international) opposition to the decades-long US economic and political war – and permanent military intimidation and threats – against revolutionary and socialist Cuba.

Washington continues to hold onto the core of its bipartisan policy of demanding the overturning of the Cuban government and promoting the consequent return of US economic, financial, and political domination. But, in doing so, Washington, under the Obama Administration, was forced, at San Pedro Sula, to jettison yet another legal prop cushioning and justifying the core policy, in this case a US-promoted 1962 resolution expelling Cuba from the OAS.

According to an article in the May 31, 2009 USA Today the Obama Administration went into the Conference prepared to accept the abrogation of the 1962 resolution and retreat to a position of setting political conditions for Cuba’s “membership” in an Hemispheric body which the Cuban revolutionaries view with contempt as an historic tool of US imperialism against Latin America and the Caribbean. Other national delegations, led by Nicaragua and Venezuela, put forward a position of opposing any conditions on Cuba. This view was apparently supported by at least the two-thirds majority needed to pass if things had moved to an open and public vote. But a push for an up-or-down vote did not happen and apparently an accomodation was made to Washington’s “needs.”

When the US delegation found no support for specific language deliniating its political conditions – the usual demagogic and hypocritical boilerplate about “democracy,” “political prisoners,” “free elections,” and so on – the Clinton-led team was reduced to conjuring up language, mealy-mouthed enough to reach “consensus,” that could be nevertheless be spun into a stick to attack Cuba and maintain Washington’s core, unchanged agenda.

The language within the actual resolution, passed by acclamation, reads “…that Cuba’s participation in the OAS would be the result of a dialogue initiated at the government of Cuba’s request and in conformity with the practices, purposes and principles of the OAS.”

Dan Restrepo, who is a special assistant to President Obama and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs on the U.S. National Security Council said, “What we’ve seen today is really a testament to the hard work of multilateral diplomacy…The United States and other countries from various parts in the hemisphere fought, defended and prevailed in saying that this was not an automatic process, that ‘yes, let’s leave an argument of the past in the past, let’s not become prisoners of the past, but let us ensure that we are defending the basic principles of democracy and human rights and nonintervention and noninterference as the path forward to Cuba’s return to the organization.”

In an article in the June 5 Washington Post – based on mostly unattributed interviews with “diplomats” and obviously spun by US officials to present what happened in the most positive light – it was reported that polarization, rupture, and even the possible disintegration of the OAS appeared imminent. At one point, before bolting to the Middle East to join Obama, Clinton had blurted out the reality that Washington was “pretty much by itself” in the discussions over Cuba at the OAS Conference.

The Post piece further asserts that “The United States compromised more than it ever had in the OAS on the Cuba issue, diplomats said, and it mustered its most impressive diplomatic firepower to get a deal – with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton leading the delegation and [President] Obama calling Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.”

On the defensive throughout the San Pedro Sula Conference, Clinton took the line that the new Obama Administration had already done so much to reverse Bush’s “failed” policy on Cuba that they were actually taken aback by how little this had softened the united, clear, and unwavering call by all governments and countries across the Americas for Washington to immediately and unilaterally end all economic and travel sanctions against Cuba.

“I want to emphasize the United States under President Obama is taking a completely new approach to our policy toward Cuba: We have eased restrictions on family travel and remittances,” Clinton said. “As I was getting ready in my hotel room this morning, I had CNN on and I saw just a tearful reunion between a man and his little baby boy who he hadn’t seen in a year and a half because of the prior travel restrictions.” Clinton added that the Obama Administration had also authorized telecommunications links with Cuba supported resuming bilateral talks on immigration and direct mail.

“We are not interested in fighting old battles or living in the past,” she said in the text of a speech prepared for delivery to the group. “At the same time, we will always defend the timeless principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” Of course the whole “past” of US interventions and subversion in the Americas shows a vicious disregard for the “timeless principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”

The Post article tells us that “Nicaragua and Venezuela were threatening to quit the group unless Cuba was readmitted…And there was a possibility that members could put the issue to a vote, leaving the United States alone on the losing side, which would have caused a backlash in Congress.” Republican and Democratic Congessional Representatives most strongly identified with the counter-revolutionary elements in the Cuban-American community tied to decades of terrorism and sabotage inside Cuba (who are in now in a distinct and shrinking minority) have been threatening to cut off US funds to the OAS which has historically been utterly dominated by Washington’s political and economic interests and priorities – with no higher political priority than eliminating the Cuban revolutionary example.

Recovering from the Bush years

Such a move is viewed as politically disastrous by top US policymakers who are attempting to advance, not further erode, US political authority in the Americas, which is seen as having deteriorated significantly during the years of the George W. Bush Administration. Those years saw the defeat in 2002 of a US-backed military coup in Venezuela and the failure of the White House drive to get rid of the government of Hugo Chavez as well as the election and consolidation of other left-wing governments in Bolivia and Ecuador that are in conflict with Washington and international capital and which quickly developed close relations and deepening economic and political collaboration with Cuba. All of those governments came into power out of the mass popular struggles and class battles against the imperialist-imposed austerity, or “neoliberal,” policies that have increasingly framed and marked politics in Latin America from the mid-1990s under the Democratic William Clinton Adminstration through the years of the second Bush Administration.

Throughout the Americas the traditional political spectrum moved significantly to the left in the Bush years as conservative governments were defeated electorally in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and El Salvador (and narrowly maintained power in Mexico and Peru). All of these new governing parties and coalitions remain firmly within the framework of the prerogatives of the capitalist market and the boundaries of bourgeois electoralism, eschewing the use of governmental power to promote mass mobilizations of workers and peasants. Nevertheless, to one degree or another, these governments present themselves as receptive to the demands and pressures from working people and the class and popular struggles and resistance that break out independently of them, including the increasingly politically conscious and militant struggles of indigenous peoples fighting institutionalized racism. These governments have not generally been marked by harsh repression against workers and peasants and political space has expanded.

All of this can easily bring these “leftist” governments into conflict with the “national” capitalist and landlord classes and consequently the US government which ultimately is the main prop of these ruling classes. At the same time US economic and financial power competes ferociously and unequally with these same ruling classes. One registration of all these economic, social, and political contradictions is that all of these governments (and indeed more conservative governments such as Colombia and Mexico) have pursued normal and friendly relations and collaboration with Cuba. Cuban medical and education missions thrive and do amazing work in many of these countries, where popular solidarity with Cuba is strong whatever the political coloration of the government.

The Obama Adminstration is in the unenviable position of seeing Washington’s anti-Cuba policy become a very public obstacle to the positive (from their point of view) development of US diplomacy and policies throughout the Americas. It is striking that even relatively conservative governments in Latin America and the Caribbean feel unable to identify publicly with Washington in placing conditions and politically attacking a government in Cuba that is led by revolutionary Marxists.

The Obama Administration and the US rulers in general understand fully that the disintegration of the OAS – the historic instrument and cover of US policy and Hemispheric domination – could only strengthen the already clear tendency in Latin America and the Caribbean toward regional and other bodies independent of US (and Canadian) participation which register the growing economic integration and common political orientation that runs counter to the economic, financial, social, and political policies and priorities promoted by Washington. In December 2008 Brazil hosted a Summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders which pointedly excluded the United States and Canada and included Cuba.

The Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (ALBA), initiated by Venezuela and Cuba and expanded to now include Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduras, and Ecuador began and developed out of the struggle against the drive by Washington, under the cover of the OAS, to impose the so-called Free Trade in the Americas (FTAA) treaty on the peoples of the Hemisphere, reinforcing and extending neoliberal imperialist domination and unequal economic and financial exchange and social relations. FTAA is now in, at best, a comatose state to the great dismay of Washington and Wall Street.

Needless to say the current economic and financial crisis and the onset of world depression conditions can only exacerbate class and social polarization and struggle throughout the Americas, adding to the urgency for Washington to reposition itself politically and recover from the derailment of US policy over the past decade.

The Cuban Revolution and the OAS

In 1962 the Democratic Party Administration of John Kennedy was able to push through Cuba’s expulsion from the OAS based on an “adherence…to Marxism-Leninism [which] is incompatible with the inter-American system” by the revolutionary leadership team headed by Fidel Castro which came to power when the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1, 1959. The Cuban revolutionaries established a government which was supported enthusiastically by the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people, particularly among industrial workers, peasants, Black Cubans, and youth of all social classes. The Cuban government had solidified that support by carrying out sweeping, revolutionary measures on agrarian reform and land redistribution; workers rights and entitlements such as pensions, maternity leave, trade-union representation, and so on; universal access to free medical care; radical rent and utility cost reductions; massive programs to eliminate illiteracy and establish access to excellent education free of charge for all; the smashing of racist Jim Crow segregation laws and practices; the promotion of laws and policies that greatly elevated the status and emancipation of women; and the eradication of US-based Mafia networks which organized the island’s vast prostitution, gambling, and narcotics rackets.

Naturally these measures did not go down well with the social and class forces in Cuba that had benefited and profited from the social relations of the pre-revolutionary order that was being uprooted nor, of course, with US business and financial interests that utterly dominated every aspect of the Cuban economy. As in every genuine Revolution, Cuban society became highly polarized along social and class lines. Although a distinct, clear minority, there were still hundreds of thousands of Cubans whose “way of life” was disrupted and swept away by the Revolution driven by and in the interests of the overwhelming majority who were oppressed, degraded, and exploited…and who had now risen up in a united, clench fist of revolutionary mobilization and action.

The Cuban landowning class, bourgeoisie, and large layers of the professional and middle classes – most of whom chose to ensconse to Miami and the United States — became the social base for the US-organized attempts to overturn the revolutionary order in Cuba. (Of course, not every landlord, capitalist, or middle-class professional opposed the Cuban Revolution and not every worker, peasant, and Black Cuban supported it. But it is an indisputable fact that this was the general, overwhelming tendency.)

The revoked 1962 OAS resolution also cited Cuba’s alliance with the former Soviet Union and allied Eastern European regimes as the revolutionary Cuban government sought to defend the triumphant Revolution against direct US military aggression after the defeat of the US-organize Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban counter-revolutionary mercenaries. This was a period of intense counter-revolutionary activity organized from the United States and vertically directed by the White House, CIA, and State Department. Every day assassination plots were being organized, terrorist incursions planned and implemented, and plans for economic sabotage carried out. Large bureaucracies employing hundreds of operatives were established just for the purpose of planting false stories in the press, spreading vile rumors and disinformation (so-called psychological operations or “psy-ops”). Miami was the nerve center and after the debacle of the Bay of Pigs it suffered a nervous breakdown.

The 1962 OAS expulsion of Cuba was part of Washington’s attempt to re-establish political cover and credibility for new direct aggression – this time without the leading edge of its mercenary Cuban proxies – by US forces. This period culminated later in 1962 with Cuba acceeding to Soviet pressure to secretly install nuclear weapons on Cuban territory in the hope of deterring the US invasion they knew was in place and impending. Upon discovery, Washington organized a naval quarantine of Cuba and threatened to engage Soviet naval vessels entering Cuban waters, a sequence of events that nearly led to direct military strikes and an invasion of Cuba by the United States, not to speak of devastating nuclear exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union and untold millions of deaths. The crisis was resolved when the Soviet leadership removed the nuclear weapons from Cuba, the Kennedy Administration agreed, in a secret protocol, to remove US nuclear missiles from Turkey that were an equivalent distance from the Soviet Union, and an alleged, informal pledge that the United States would not invade Cuba.

US government documents declassified since the 1962 “Missile Crisis” reveal that Washington policymakers fully understood that a US invasion would meet truly massive popular Cuban resistance – the entire population was armed to the teeth and in a state of full territorial mobilization – that would in the first days and weeks lead to 10,000 or more US casualties. It was this reality – as much as any supposed “statesman-like cool” – that restrained President Kennedy from ordering an invasion and negotiating, without the participation of the Cuban government, a mutually agreeable settlement with an equally anxious and politically-diplomatically outmaneuvered Soviet government which had overplayed its hand.

From then until now Washington has focused on isolating and subverting Cuba through attempts to implement a death-inducing economic and financial blockade, supplemented with terrorist attacks and economic sabotage launched from US soil by CIA-trained Cuban-American cunter-revolutionaries (including as revealed in 1976 US Senate Hearing the introduction of biological agents to destroy Cuban agricultural production).

The resolution passed by acclamation at San Pedro Sula overturned the 1962 expulsion of Cuba from the Washington-dominated body following the 1959 Cuba Revolution. It took Washington three years after the triumph of the Revolution to muster the support among the various capitalist governments of Latin America and the Caribbean to boot out the revolutionary Cuban government. Over the next decade-and-a-half succeeding Administrations – Democratic and Republican – and the Democratic Party-controlled Congress, promoted policies that established vicious right-wing military dictatorships throughout Latin America (Brazil 1964; Dominican Republic 1965 following a US invasion; Uruguay and Chile 1973; Argentina 1976; Bolivia with numerous coups and counter-coups from 1964-82) adding to the already longtime family-military tyrannies backed by Washington (Duvalierist Hait; Somocista Nicaragua; El Salvador; and so on.

This is the “past” Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do not want to be “living in.” And who can blame them? But the present-day economic, social, and political realities in the Americas, the legacy of oppression, grinding exploitation, and obscene social inequality, flows precisely from this “past.” Indeed, how could they not be? Among these present-day realities which the Obama team came up against in San Pedro Sula is the clear and united Hemispheric solidarity with Cuba against Washington’s economic and political war.

The overriding aim of Washington’s Cuba policies is to prevent the extension of the Cuban socialist revolution, especially in the Americas, which overturned capitalist property relations on the island and began to forge a new society and new human beings based on human needs over private profit and solidarity with the oppressed and exploited overwhelming majority of humanity.

This has not changed to this day and has become more compelling and imperative with the ongoing waves of mass popular and anti-imperialist struggle that have shaken Hemispheric politics in the young 21st Century. This is why Washington continues to be willing to put up with Hemispheric and international isolation and embarrassment over its policy toward a small Caribbean island that has had such a huge impact on world politics and whose influence and resonance on the world stage is greater than ever.

Epilogue to San Pedro Sula

A few days after the OAS Ministerial Conference the White House chose, with great fanfare, to announce the arrest of a former State Department employee and his wife on “espionage” charges of giving “classified” US government documents to Cuba. Supposedly the couple had been under “suspicion” for over a decade.

Nine days later the US Supreme Court announced it would not accept an Appeal to review the outrageous injustice of the five Cuban revolutionaries, the Cuban Five – Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, and Ramon Labanino – who have been incarcerated in US prisons for more than a decade for the “crime” of preventing ongoing terrorist attacks against their country from US soil by infiltrating counter-revolutionary Cuban-American organizations involved in such activities. The case of the Cuban Five is emblematic of the entire history of Washington’s response to the Cuban Revolution and, at the same time, the Five Cuban patriots represent the extraordinary and heroic individuals – out of the ranks of ordinary people – that a genuine Revolution produces. The continued denial of freedom for the Cuban Five and the growing awareness and resonance of their cause has become an important part of the deepening political price Washington is paying, and is prepared to pay, to defeat and destroy the example of the Cuban Revolution. It is teaching a whole new generation worldwide about the Cuban Revolution.

Clearly, Washington’s anti-Cuba policy will not go away gently into the night. But the pressures are mounting to end, once and for all, US economic and travel sanctions and for the normalization of US-Cuban relations. The relationship of forces has changed in the Americas. While US imperialism retains great military power, its economic and financial might is increasingly crisis-wracked and its political authority has never been weaker since the origins of the modern US Hemispheric imperial colossus at the very end of the 19th Century. But today Washington can no longer control events in the Americas.