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Latin America Breaks Free of the US - LeMonde Diplomatique
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Le Monde Diplomatique via Info Clearing House - Dec, 2007
http://mondediplo.com/2008/01/05latinamerica
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18938.htm
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Latin America breaks free of the US
The US has lost ground in Latin America over the past decade, since the
project to develop the Free Trade Area of the Americas flopped and
since leftwing governments took power and used it with imagination and
vigour. The US continues to try to block such emancipation by promoting
more free trade agreements, and increasing military cooperation in the
name of the war on terrorism and narcotics and the defence of market
democracy.
By Janette Habel
Latin America is a lost continent according to the editor of Foreign
Policy, Moises Naim. The president of the Inter-American Dialogue
organisation, Peter Hakim, voiced the same concern when he asked: Is
Wa****ngton losing Latin America? (1). Over the past decade the United
States has suffered many setbacks in this part of the world. Voters,
rejecting neo-liberal policies, have elected radical or moderate
leftwing coalitions, claiming degrees of independence. In April 2002
the attempt to overthrow Venezuelas president Hugo Ch!vez failed. In
2005 the native movement brought Evo Morales to power in Bolivia
despite US State Department efforts. Though it exerted pressure, the US
was unable to prevent Daniel Ortega from being elected in Nicaragua or
Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2).
But despite growing hostility, most of the free market groundwork is
still in place. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), launched by
President Bill Clinton at the Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994
to open up a huge market from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, failed to
materialise. But US firms nevertheless invested $353bn in Latin America
and the Caribbean in 2005, with their subsidiaries employing 1.6
million people. In 2006 US ex****ts to the region increased by 12.7% and
im****ts by 10.5%, according to the US commerce secretary, Carlos
Gutierrez.
Though the FTAA failed, progress was made through bilateral and
multilateral agreements, particularly free trade accords (FTA). The US
market is a powerful asset when bargaining: Our country must find the
strength it lacks on account of its size through its relations with all
the countries in the world, and particularly the United States, said
the economy minister of Uruguay, which is tempted by an FTA with the
US. One consequence would be a conflict with Mercosur, the South
American common market, which would please the US. Latin Americas
elites may see themselves as representing the centre left but they soon
yield to neo-liberal pressures.
The political content of the FTAs has gradually increased. A further
step towards integrating the whole continent was taken in Waco, Texas,
on 23 March 2005. The Security and Prosperity Partner****p of North
America (SPP) is a trilateral effort by the US, Canada and Mexico.
What is new about this agreement, said legal expert Guy Mazet, is
that it adds the notion of security to the rationale of economic and
trade processes, while institutionalising the power of business and the
private sector to influence public policy (3). The legal basis for an
agreement negotiated without consulting national parliaments is open to
question. The private sector is using an international agreement to
exert greater influence over national policy, Mazet added. The US
writer Craig Van Grasstek has established that all the Latin American
countries that joined the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq also signed
up to an FTA with the US. The same applies to those " Colombia, Ecuador
before Correas election, Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala " who left the
Group of Twenty (G-20) (4). The publication by El Pas of the
transcript of conversations between President George Bush and Spanish
Prime Minister Jos(c) Maria Aznar in February 2003 (5) revealed the
brutality of the pressure exerted by Bush on countries reluctant to
sup****t military intervention in Iraq: [Chilean President Ricardo]
Lagos should know that the free trade accord with Chile is awaiting
Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put
ratification in danger.
Lagoss successor, Michelle Bachelet, favours a strategic partner****p
with Wa****ngton. However, she would run the risk of sanctions if the
Chilean Congress were to ratify the treaty establi****ng the
International Criminal Court and refuse to guarantee the immunity of US
soldiers before this jurisdiction. The US may suspend military aid,
forcing Chile to pay the Pentagon a lot to train its pilots to fly the
F-16 fighters it has just purchased. The US has suspended military
training and aid programmes for Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Bolivia and Uruguay on the same grounds.
Consensual forms of domination
The collapse of the Soviet Union boosted the credibility of US
democratic rhetoric. Times have changed since Jeanne Kirkpatrick, then
working for a conservative think-tank in Wa****ngton, criticised
President Jimmy Carter for raising the issue of civil rights. In so
doing, she argued, he was undermining non-Marxist authoritarian regimes
although they were closer to US interests. With the boom in free market
reform, it has become received wisdom that the discipline of the global
market limits the risk of regimes becoming too populist. As the
researcher William I Robinson has noted, it is possible to penetrate
civil society waving the flag of democracy, although the aim may be to
control it through consensual forms of domination (6). Drawing on the
teachings of Antonio Gramsci, US strategists have realised that the
real seat of power is civil society, providing it can be split into
groups and communities with divergent interests.
A consensus gradually emerged within the Organisation of American
States (OAS) after 9/11 that defending democratic order went hand in
hand with the right to intervene against threats to that order. The
adoption (by acclamation) of the OASs democratic charter in 2001,
under the wary eye of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld,
confirmed this trend. There is nothing new about forcibly upholding
democracy, but some on the left are now citing the right of
humanitarian interference as a reason for endorsing the use of force.
However, the ****ft in the balance of power in South America has
complicated the task of the OAS " and the fact that all threats to
democracy are not treated in the same way has created tension. At the
OASs 37th General Assembly in Panama in June the US secretary of
state, Condoleezza Rice, called for a committee of inquiry to be sent
to Venezuela to find out why President Ch!vezs government had not
renewed the concession of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). The assembly
rejected the proposal, isolating Rice and obliging her to leave.
The US administration is counting on other allies to weather the storm,
in particular NGOs and foundations. The United States Agency for
International Development (USAid) plays a pivotal role in this process,
primarily through financial aid. It is the most appropriate tool, when
diplomacy is not enough or military force imprudent, its
administrator, Andrew Natsios, explained to a Senate Committee in May
2001. Venezuela is a good example of this approach, with USAid funding
a wide range of initiatives alongside other democracy builders. The
International Republican Institute, directed by John McCain, currently
a presidential candidate, is one of five NGOs allocating USAid funds to
opposition organisations and programmes.
Destabilise, then overthrow
After the bid to oust Ch!vez in 2002, which Bush endorsed, the State
Department set up an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas.
One of its stated objectives is to encourage citizen participation in
the democratic process. It presents non-violent resistance as the most
effective method for destabilising governments prior to their overthrow.
The campaign to defend freedom of speech in Venezuela is part of
political exploitation of separatist demands by Bolivias rightwing
opposition. The racist, separatist, violent and anti-democratic
right, according to Bolivias vice-president, Alvaro Garca Linera,
controls four provinces (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija) and is
holding up the work of the Constituent Assembly. The fact that the
governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have taken control of
their strategic resources " oil and gas "helps explain the US attitude.
Bush has strengthened the US embargo on Cuba and the Commission on
Assistance to a Free Cuba is drafting proposals for a peaceful
transition, some of which are secret for reasons of national security.
In 1998 the US Southern Command (Southcom), the main military
organisation in Latin America, moved from Panama to Miami. Contacts
between Southcom and governments in the region involve the military but
exclude civilians. Southcom sets the agenda for the region
unilaterally, without informing the State Department directly. The Bush
administration has sidelined development and agricultural aid agencies,
with bilateral aid down by one third from its cold war level, and the
Defence Department now handles most development programmes in the
sub-continent. This move is far from neutral, as Congress has much less
control over the defence budget than over foreign aid. Between 1997 and
2007 the US spent $7.3bn on military and police aid for Latin America
(7).
The Centre for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) defines the war on terror
as a global enterprise of uncertain duration and global reach. In
this asymmetric conflict the enemies are manifold: Islamists; smugglers
and narco-traffickers hiding between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay;
radical populists, primarily in Venezuela and Bolivia; terrorist
organisations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc)
or the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia; social movements,
but also gangs of youths, refugees and illegal immigrants, all of whom
may be potential terrorists.
A nuclear-free zone
Southcom considers that no single foreign power threatens US interests,
the sub-continent being a nuclear-free zone with no weapons of mass
destruction. The key emerging threat, according to Southcoms former
commander, James Hill, is radical populism, in which the democratic
process is undermined to decrease rather than protect individual
rights. Such populism, embodied by Ch!vez, gathers strength by tapping
into deep-seated frustrations of the failure of democratic reforms
and by inflaming anti-US sentiment (8).
General Bantz J Craddock blames political instability on anti-US,
anti-globalisation, and anti-free trade demagogues. The US must
strengthen security forces in the region and increase Southcoms budget
because it cannot afford to let Latin America and the Caribbean become
a backwater of violent, inward-looking states that are cut off from the
world around them by populist, authoritarian governments (9).
Alongside the Pentagons involvement it is worth noting the presence of
US military advisors and the growing im****tance in Colombia of private
military companies and non-state actors, also based in the US. These
subcontractors fulfil missions that the armed forces cannot undertake
due to the limits on engagement fixed by Congress. No such
authorisation applies to private military companies.
In September, after a plea by the families of 173 people murdered in
banana-producing areas, a Wa****ngton court found the multinational
banana company, Chiquita Brands, guilty of paying $1.7m to a
paramilitary organisation, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia
(AUC), to protect its plantations between 1997 and 2004. The court
ordered the firm to pay a $25m fine, but an agreement was negotiated
with the US government exempting the management from prosecution. I am
surprised that a few million dollars can buy impunity in the US, noted
the Colombian justice minister.
Soldiers as policemen
At the instigation of the US, Latin American armies are once again
involved in domestic policing activities. In December 2006 Mexicos
President Felipe Calderon sent 7,000 soldiers to the state of Michoacan
to combat drug trafficking. The military also intervenes in the favelas
of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, against mara youth gangs all over central
America, and to check immigration on the Mexican border. There is
nothing new about military involvement in enforcing law and order. Here
it comes in response to demands for greater security in the face of
organised crime, but it goes against the trend, observed since the end
of the dictator****ps, of confining the military to their barracks.
Civil rights organisations are concerned, for the troublemakers are
often native Americans, unemployed youths and other underprivileged
outcasts. Intervention by the army may further stigmatise them,
stirring fears of the enemy within. It may also give the military
greater political clout, recalling sinister memories (10).
It was in this context that Bush asked Congress in October to approve
Plan Mexico to combat narco-trafficking. Its draft budget of $1,400m
will be allocated to procuring military equipment (helicopters,
intelligence gathering) and joint training of the armies of both
countries. The risks involved in militarising the war on narcotics are
apparent, particularly with several Mexican states in serious social
conflict. A $50m budget extension is now scheduled to broaden the
campaigns scope to include Central America. It remains to be seen how
the Democratic majority in Congress will respond.
The US has been advocating reform of the conventional role of Latin
Americas armed forces and argues that priority should be given to
regional cooperation and interoperability, whereas during the cold war
military aid was almost exclusively directed to bilateral
collaboration. Southcom aims to set up a rapid-response force to cope
with new threats. In 2006, at the 37th OAS General Assembly in Panama,
Rice proposed a mutual defence alliance to counter threats to the
continents security, monitoring domestic policies of member states and
ensuring they meet democratic standards. The assembly rejected the
proposal, seen as a stratagem to penalise Venezuela (11).
The US needs forces in the field and allies to endorse its
intervention, but the launch of a rapid response force seems uncertain
given the current balance of power in Latin America. Lessons may yet be
learnt from Haiti. William Leogrande has analysed the Bush
administrations part in the downfall of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide (12). He noted that although Aristides mistakes contributed
to his forced departure, it was a paramilitary force, the US-backed
Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which ousted
the president in a successful example of outside interference. It is
surprising that forces from South American countries should be taking
part in the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) (13) despite
the continuing dispute over the coup against Aristide. The former
representative of the UN Secretary General in Haiti, Dante Caputo, has
accused the CIA of involvement (14), but in view of the situation the
US may conclude that a stabilisation force such as Minustah could be
useful for future initiatives.
Southcom has other ways of convincing reluctant allies. In 2001, at a
meeting in Santiago, Chile, OAS members adopted the cooperative
security concept, which fosters transparency in military
matters (15). Regular Defence Ministerial of the Americas (DMA)
meetings help to build trust. Army manoeuvres with international
components, joint naval exercises, training by the US of 17,000
Latin-American military (2005 figures) and arms sales all create ties.
The official end of the embargo on arms sales to Latin America
confirmed the Pentagons leader****p and the im****tance of the
military-industrial complex, at a time when the US was already the
regions top supplier of such equipment. The decision risks starting an
arms race. The sale of F-16 jets to Chile may prompt other countries to
modernise their air forces (16). Brazils defence ministry has already
announced that it will be increasing the military investment budget by
more than 50%, even though it is on good terms with all its neighbours.
In its dealings with the US the Latin American left is in a quandary,
split between advocates of a negotiated partner****p with the constraint
of limited social reforms, and those in favour of greater political
integration for whom the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alba)
represents the first step (17). Imperialism today is not the same as
it was 30 years ago, wrote Atilio Boron (18). Leftwingers must make
allowance for these changes, while considering that the US
administration is not prepared to let them re-appropriate national
resources, scrap free trade agreements or pursue the political
independence advocated by the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and
Venezuela.
English language editorial director: Wendy Kristianasen - all rights
reserved (c) 1997-2007 Le Monde diplomatique
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