[News] Losing Latin America ... All the Way to Tierra del Fuego

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Apri1 18, 2008


Losing Latin America ... All the Way to Tierra del Fuego


The Bush Legacy

By JOHN ROSS

Mexico City.

For George Bush, the March 1 anti-terror strike 
by the Colombian air force under U.S. guidance on 
a FARC guerrilla camp deep in the Ecuadorian 
jungle had everything to do with legacy.

During eight years in the White House, Bush's war 
on Iraq so absorbed his attention that for once 
in three centuries of Yanqui hegemony, Latin 
America has breathing room to shore up common 
defenses against the Colossus of the North, build 
alliances, as the pendulum swings left from 
neoliberalism, and even elect some social democratic presidents.

"We're back!" U.S. Undersecretary for Western 
Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon greeted the crowd 
at the Council of the Americas in New York on 
April 2, signaling renewed Bush government 
interest in the Western Hemisphere. Not that the 
U.S. had ever really been away: "Our influence is 
not diminishing--it's just changing," the 
undersecretary argued before his well-heeled 
audience, most with serious fiduciary interests 
south of the border. Shannon conceded that the 
administration's temporary inattention had 
created a vacuum that "offered an enormous 
opportunity to articulate one vision"--a 
long-winded euphemism for the hated Hugo Chavez. 
But now Chavez's space was "shrinking," and with 
Colombia (the key U.S. proxy on the continent), 
Brazil (neutered by Lula's ambition), Peru, Chile 
and Mexico back on board, "together we can overcome our recent history."

What seemed most significant on Shannon's 
shopping list of new and old accomplices were the 
absences: Argentina, for example, the third 
largest economy in Latin America and an important 
player in the southern continent's tilt to the 
left, where Peronist Social Democrat Cristina 
Fernández de Kirchner succeeds her Social 
Democrat husband Nestor. The Kirchners have been 
in the Bush doghouse since they helped torpedo 
his neoliberal pipedream ALCA (Free Trade Treaty 
of the Americas) at a 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar de Plata.

To complicate Cristina Kirchner's investiture, 
U.S. authorities in Miami and Washington charged 
that the dreaded Chavez had financed her 
campaign. The scenario was a twisted one. On the 
eve of Cristina's inauguration last November, 
Argentinean customs agents in Buenos Aires 
confiscated $800,000 from a Venezuelan 
"businessman" living in Florida, Guido Antonini 
Wilson. The ultimate destination of the money was obscure.

Although the investigation into the origins of 
the boodle was strictly within 
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Argentinean jurisdiction, FBI agents in Miami 
promptly arrested four Venezuelans suspected to 
have been involved in the affair for failure to 
register as Chavez's agents. Wilson himself was 
not indicted, having worn an FBI wire in order to 
implicate the others. Despite the lack of 
credible evidence, the story that Washington is 
broadcasting to the continent is that Hugo 
Chavez, the Saddam of South America, bought the 
Argentine presidency for Cristina Kirchner.

"We're back!" Tom Shannon declared, and Cristina 
Kirchner's first 100 days were troubled by 
mischief that had a distinctly made-in-U.S.A. 
whiff. As the 32nd anniversary of the 
installation of the military junta--that set off 
years of dirty war in which as many as 30,000 
Argentinean leftists disappeared--approached, 
agribusiness tycoons, miffed at a 9 per cent tax 
Kirchner had slapped on soaring soy exports, 
hired armies of goons to block the nation's 
highways and shut down commercial traffic in and 
out of Argentina. The shelves of Buenos Aires supermarkets quickly went bare.

Thirty two years ago, according to an account by 
the Argentinean journalist Stella Callone, one of 
the organizers of the lockout, Sociedad Rural 
(Rural Society), financed the military junta that 
seized power on March 23, 1976. The road 
blockades brought back bad dreams. The 1976 coup 
had been preceded by a similar lockout.

"Pintas" (wall slogans) were slapped on the walls 
of Buenos Aires: "Volvere Videla!". General 
Videla headed the junta. On March 23-24, 2008 the 
anniversary of the junta's coup, thousands of 
upscale housewives gathered in the Plaza de Mayo 
in front of the Casa Rosada, the Argentine White 
House, and staged a "cacerolazo"--beating on pots 
and pans in support of the striking tycoons.

The cacerolazos \ brought back memories of middle 
class housewives' marches in Santiago that led up 
to the 1973 assassination of Chilean socialist 
President Salvador Allende, a U.S.-overseen 
enterprise. More recently, in Bolivia and 
Venezuela, the CIA's apptoach has been to 
encourage such mobilizations of the "gente 
decente" (the "decent people") against the 
socialist regimes of Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez.

Curiously, as the cacerolazos clattered in the 
plazas of Buenos Aires, leaders of the Latin 
American right were gathered in Rosario Argentina 
at an "Encounter of Young Leaders," hosted by 
former right-wing Spanish Premier Jose Mara 
Aznar. Among his guests were Bolivian 
ex-president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga; the Peruvian 
writer Mario Vargas Llosa, now a Spanish citizen; 
and Roger Noriega who once occupied Shannon's 
post and was the late Jesse Helm's hatchet man in Latin America.

Tuto's stay in Rosario struck a familiar chord. 
Well-to-do agroindustrialists in Bolivia's four 
breakaway eastern provinces, known collectively 
as the Media Luna (half moon), had been blocking 
roads and borders for days to protest President 
Evo Morales' edict banning exports of cooking oil 
until domestic demand was met. The secessionist 
provinces--Santa Cruz, Tariya, Beni, and 
Pando--hold much of Bolivia's natural gas wealth, 
the second largest such deposits in Latin 
America, and wield clout in Washington. Demanding 
autonomy from the central government, provincial 
leaders who represent the oligarchy and are 
universally white in a majority Indian nation, 
reject Morales' new constitution and have put 
Bolivia on a civil war footing. One item gaining 
traction in the Latin press has the bloodthirsty 
Colombian paramilitary AUC (Autonomous Units of 
Colombia) training secessionist troops for 
eventual hostilities. Both the Catholic Church 
and Bolivia's immediate neighbors seek a 
negotiated settlement, but the secessionists have refused talks.

Across the Chaco to the east, U.S. Special Forces 
are garrisoned at Mariscal Estagarribia, 
[Paraguay, strategically positioned to keep an 
eye on the purportedly terrorist-ridden Triple 
Frontier (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) at 
Iguazu Falls, the largest fresh water reserve on 
the continent, and the breakaway Bolivian provinces.

Much to Shannon and President Bush's 
consternation, Paraguay, with the deepest income 
divide in the southern hemisphere, may well 
become Latin America's latest left domino in 
upcoming April 20 presidential elections, as 
former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo is favored 
to upset the Colorado Party, the longest ruling 
dynasty (61 years) in the Americas.

On a Mexican swing last fall, Lugo insisted that 
if elected, he would shut down the U.S. military 
operation in Paraguay much as Ecuador's Rafael 
Correa has vowed to do with the U.S. drug war 
installation at Manta. The of losing bases on the 
Latin mainland naturally causes alarm in 
Washington, D.C. In a desperate maneuver to keep 
Lugo from the presidency, the U.S. Embassy 
generated alarm by charging that the Colombian 
FARC is operating in San Pedro, the ex-Bishop's ex-diocese.

Although Lugo has advertised his support for 
Hillary Clinton and Venezuela's Chavez hopes that 
relations with the White House will improve once 
the present occupant has departed, a change in 
mindset at the Casa Blanca seems unlikely. Bush's 
potential successors have had little to say about 
the future of bilateral relations with the 
countries of the south. All three denounce 
Chavez. Republican John McCain calls him a "thug" 
and has promised to topple the Venezuelan strongman if elected.

The White House's aggressiveness in pushing for a 
free-trade agreement with Colombia is payback for 
years of loyal service as Washington's most 
assiduous proxy in the region. As did Bill 
Clinton (still lobbying hard for it), the present 
commander-in-chief regards the trade agreement as 
a crucial matter of national security and tries 
to frame the debate for passage in Cold War 
terms: the Free Market vs. Chavez's 21st Century 
Socialism. Democrats who won't support the FTA 
are redbaited as Chavistas and supporters of 
narco-terrorists. But, despite the risks, many 
Dems [spell out] are reluctant to give in on Free 
Trade. Big Labor has conditioned its support for 
the candidates on a continuing "No" vote.

Just how deeply the FTA issue has contaminated 
Clinton's campaign was embarrassingly spotlighted 
by the resignation of Mark Penn as Hillary's 
chief advisor. The departure of Penn, chief of 
the powerful PR lobbyshop Burson-Marsteller, who 
had signed on with Colombia to lobby the Free 
Trade Agreement through congress despite his 
boss's outspoken opposition (at least in rust 
bowl states like Ohio and Pennsylvania) has Clinton's campaign in a tizzy.

Failure to move the FTA through the U.S. Congress 
will put one more tear in George Bush's tattered 
Latin legacy. Bush desperately needs passage to 
validate not only his doctrine in Latin America but James Monroe's as well.

But George Bush's real legacy continues to exhort 
the Latin masses from the balconies of Miraflores 
Palace in downtown Caracas. Despite eight years 
of foiled plots to remove Chavez from office, to 
fund the opposition and foment coups, and even 
kidnap the comandante, he remains at the helm of 
state, and Shannon's "shrinking space" seems 
delusionary. Painted by the Bushites as a 
totalitarian, when ambushed by a "No" vote on a 
cherished referendum that would have extended his 
stay in power, Chavez chose to accept the "No" to 
underscore his democratic credentials.

Chavez's people are wary. "This is Bush's most 
dangerous moment," worries Venezuelan 
Communications Minister Andres Izarra. Prospects 
for a Bay of Pigs or Panama Deception-like 
invasion are still on the White House drawing 
board, although all sides know that such a 
desperate aggression would spell 
suicide--Venezuela provides Bush with 1.5 million 
barrels of black gold daily and is Washington's 
fourth largest supplier. Indeed, without Chavez's 
oil, Bush's war in Iraq would be grounded.

In times of stress, President Chavez has often 
threatened a cutoff of U.S. shipments, his 
ultimate weapon. Meanwhile, threats of a new 
aggression by Washington may well be met by 
Venezuela with a demand for payment in euros and 
not worthless US dollars. Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez 
remains politically incorrect--at least in 
Washington's vision--financing elections of left 
candidates up and down the continent, 
underwriting Mercosur, and re-nationalizing 
industries that were once privatized, with zeal. 
Two Mexican billionaires have been recently 
buffeted--Lorenzo Zembrano, whose CEMEX cement 
conglomerate the comandante nationalized in 
preparation for a major housing program, and 
Carlos Slim, Forbes magazine's richest [although, 
he is not magazine's richest man, but he is 
riches man according to this magazine] man on 
earth, who last year lost the recently purchased CANTV phone company to Chavez.

Arriving for a state visit in Mexico on April 11, 
the sixth anniversary of the failed U.S. coup 
against his ally Chavez, Ecuadorian President 
Rafael Correa cautioned Washington: "I hope they 
understand that Latin America has changed and that change is irreversible."

John Ross is in Mexico City and can be reached at 
<mailto:johnross at igc.org>johnross at igc.org.




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