Latin America | ukwatch.net

London Protesters Demand an End to US Coups

JamieSW — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:44:36 +0000

Scores of solidarity campaigners picketed the US embassy in London on Wednesday night before a huge rally at the National Union of Journalists head office to demand an end to US interference in Latin America.

Responding to ongoing coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said that it was ironic that he was protesting outside the US embassy when its government had nationalised more of its economy in the last few days than Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had in the last decade.

“The US is standing up for privilege, for the interest of the few against the interest of the many and will go to any length to achieve it,” he stormed.

“It will go to the lengths that it did in Chile and will drown the revolution in blood if it gets the opportunity,” referring to the CIA-orchestrated coup against Salvadore Allende 35 years ago.

“But there is one big difference – we are prepared, we have learned the lessons and we are already organised.”

The 100-strong crowd chanted “No More Coups” and waved colourful solidarity banners as embassy workers left for the day.

Dozens of people made speeches in English and Spanish, with some making the point that, in the dying days of US President Bush’s regime, many people thought that he would attack Iran – yet it was clear that Latin America was the real target.

Loud cheers went up whenever speakers brought up the expulsion the US ambassador in Bolivia because of his links to coup-plotters and Venezuela doing the same in solidarity, with cries of “Yankee go home” filling Grosvenor Square.

At the NUJ headquarters, Bolivian ambassador Maria Beatriz Souviron explained how the traditional political system in Bolivia had been swept away with the election of Evo Morales.

“He has given people hope for the first time. There has not just been a change in who controls the state, but also a change in culture in a country that has been racist for so long.”

Bolivia Solidarity Campaign organiser Amancay Colque, who helped organise the actions with Hands Off Venezuela, brought harrowing news from the northern state of Pando, where the far-right governor threatened to split from Bolivia and had paid mercenaries to machine-gun rural workers loyal to Morales.

She explained how the elite was fuelling racism to try to divide Bolivians and that, in the right’s eastern stronghold of Santa Cruz, it was now impossible for an Aymara or Quechua indigenous Bolivian to walk down the street without being attacked.

John McDonnell MP pointed out that “what is happening is not a personal attack on Morales or Chavez but an attack on the seeds of socialism that they are spreading.

“What the US is terrified of is the prospect that socialism will catch light all across the Americas, so of course it has to go on the attack. But it is exactly for this moment that solidarity campaigns exist.”

Venezuelan charge d’affaires Felix Plasencia said that he was “honoured to stand with Bolivia as all Latin America struggles for dignity, sovereignty and independence. We have finally thrown off the US Monroe Doctrine that treated us as their ‘backyard’ for 200 years.

“The aim now is to extend this people’s power throughout Latin America and the solidarity shown to Bolivia as it fights back against counter-revolutionaries is a significant step in uniting our countries,” he added to great applause.

EU-Latin America Trade Negotiations

Tim Holmes — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:55:57 +0000

Since 1993, representatives from the member countries of the Andean Community of Nations (ACN) and the European Union (EU) have met periodically to strengthen their commercial and political ties. From the European side, the eventual goal of these meetings was to allow for the Andean countries to find an alternative development model to the one proposed by Washington. This would allow for the EU to assist in creating development programmes and offer the Andean nations opportunities for economic integration with the European body. As part of this assistance, the ACN and the EU would negotiate a treaty to enhance their political dialogue and cooperation. Though negotiations have been stalled for quite some time, the potential Association Agreement resulting from the meetings would include pursuing common political and economic goals, such as a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two blocs and for further support for development within the Andean region.

Analysing the Association Agreement

European politicians would like their Latin American counterparts to believe that the above are the goals of the Agreement. In reality, the actions of EU leaders do not begin to address the complex political-economic situation found within the Andean region. Furthermore, it would be naïve to underestimate the possibility of special interests pressuring Andean politicians to sign an FTA and equally as far-fetched to assume that Europe intends to help the ACN out of pure altruism. The proposed FTA is based on previous agreements negotiated by Peru and Colombia (the latter ones, yet to be ratified) with the U.S. and must be closely scrutinized in order to ensure that it is both efficient and rejection proof.

What is the EU’s real interest?

The growing commodities crisis is transforming Latin America into a crucial region because of its abundant natural resources. Therefore, Europe developed a heightened interest in improving its commercial relations with the ACN. Other countries, such as the U.S., have already been doing so for some time. It is not a coincidence that both the EU and the U.S. started negotiating with the Andean countries in 1993, and that they compete in similar export markets such as machinery and other capital goods, in addition to both importing huge amounts of raw resources from the region. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was the U.S. attempt at pulling the region into its sphere of influence, though it utterly failed at this due to tough-minded opposition from populist and anti-imperialist presidents in South America. With the Western powers displaying a sobering interest in trading with South America, it became clear that it would be beneficial for the ACN to pursue an Association Agreement with the EU.

Taking into consideration that the ACN already is under the jurisdiction of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), and that the GSP allows the ACN to export to the EU under a relatively low tariff regime without having to lower its import tariffs, the intrinsic importance of a new FTA to the ACN could easily be overestimated. The ACN wants the bargaining process to start with the GSP as a reference point, but the EU demands that negotiations must start from scratch. If talks fail, the GSP will be able to ensure that Andean imports still have some commercial preferences in entering the EU market. Again, in order for any potential FTA to be acceptable to the Andean trade association, it must be considered just as beneficial to its commercial interests as the GSP is today.

Furthermore, while the FTA is supposed to include mechanisms that protect its members against artificially low-priced imports, such as subsidized agricultural goods, it is evident from the NAFTA experience that, in practice, these mechanisms usually are insufficient. An FTA, in comparison to the GSP, may be less advantageous for the ACN if subsidized agricultural goods end up potentially bankrupting many more already impoverished Andean farmers.

There are even more reasons to be sceptical of an Association Agreement. Despite a pledge at the Lima summit by EU leaders to protect human rights and the right of migration, a July 18th “return directive” calls the EU’s motivations into question. The return directive standardizes procedures for dealing with illegal immigrants hoping to migrate to a European Union country, of which an estimated three million have come from Latin America. While Europeans argue that they favour legal migration and a strong human rights code, Latin American leaders are concerned over the treatment of illegal immigrants in the region. For example, under the new EU directive, minors can be detained and extradited to their home countries without their parents, cruelly separating families. In defence of the law, Francesca Mosca, the ambassador of the EU to Panama, said that the law seeks to unite families and establishes the voluntary return of illegal immigrants.

Reactions to a Shameful Law

In response to the EU’s approval of its directive, President Evo Morales of Bolivia dispatched a letter to European leaders, reminding them of the pledge to protect human rights made at the Lima summit. He stressed that the Americas have always welcomed poor European immigrants to their member countries and that it would be impossible to continue trade negotiations if the EU did not modify its new regulations. Morales threatened to require visas for Europeans desiring to enter Bolivia, following the diplomatic principle of reciprocity. The other Andean presidents have joined Morales in condemning the new EU directive. A total of nine Latin American presidents have expressed their disapproval for the directive to date. Bolivia and Venezuela have gone so far as to threaten cutting off oil and natural gas supplies to Europe, while Ecuador has announced the suspension of the EU-ACN negotiation because of the immigration issue. In addition, the Organization of American States (OAS) has organized a multinational commission to discuss the issue with European delegates. Colombia and Peru have not abandoned trade negotiations altogether, but in order to successfully influence European politicians to create a more humanitarian law, all Latin American nations must unite.

The already slow trade negotiations have now stalled completely, arguably for good reason. If the EU cannot fulfil its pledge on immigration, the Andean countries have some logic on their side to be suspicious of EU intentions regarding other outstanding issues, including free trade. Will the Association Agreement include some sort of protection against subsidized European farm goods? Will the new trade deal be more beneficial for the ACN than the GSP has been? Most importantly, is European influence preferable to U.S. influence? Or will it be less benign? Andean leaders are likely to be asking themselves at least some of these very questions.

Divide and conquer, the U.S. strategy

The U.S. seems to be fully aware of the EU’s competition for political and economic influence in South America. For this reason, when the FTAA failed, Washington threw itself into pursuing individual bilateral agreements, a strategy that worked in Peru and may yet be successful in Colombia. Thus far, the U.S. has a negative trade balance with both of these countries, and signing the FTAs will probably serve to only increase the U.S. trade deficit. Such sacrifice can only be explained by the belief that a larger long-term benefit, such as the securing of Andean natural resources, would be in the offering.

By signing individual FTAs, the U.S. has been able to slow the negotiation process between the EU and the ACN. These FTAs have divided the members of the ACN. Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia have lower import tariffs among themselves in order to promote commercial integration. If the U.S. implements an FTA with one of these countries, subsidized imports from the U.S. may be resold to any of the other three using the FTA signer as a middle man. The result is that cheaper, subsidized American products compete unfairly against poor farmers from the entire ACN bloc. To prevent this, tariffs between ACN members would need to be raised, effectively defeating the purpose of forming the ACN to begin with.

Individual FTAs have contributed substantially to the undermining of the ACN. Venezuela left the pact in part because it disagreed with Peru and Colombia’s FTAs with the U.S. The former two have also attempted to sign trade agreements with the EU before Ecuador and Bolivia, which could further accelerate the disintegration of the ACN. The inability of the Andean group to establish a common foreign trade policy has led to the failure of the EU-ACN negotiations, which were postponed by the EU on June 30th. It remains unclear whether the application of U.S. influence was intentional or not, but the recent mobilization of the Fourth Fleet in regional waters is undeniable proof that Latin America is once again on the minds of U.S. policymakers.

South American Economic Alternatives

Given the clear geopolitical and economic interests that both the U.S. and EU have in the Andean region, the reaction of area left-leaning governments, like that of Chavez’s, is not surprising. The creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an alternative to the American FTAA, was based on a mutual regional cooperation formula instead of neoliberal trade procedures. Up to this point, it has been signed by Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia and Dominica. ALBA member countries do not have to fear for the livelihood of their impoverished farmers since they can still use tariff barriers to protect themselves from artificially inexpensive agricultural products coming from the subsidized farms of Europe or the U.S. Though the potential trade among member countries is quite limited in comparison to trade with the Western powers, ALBA brings on a commitment to economic modernization. For example, Cuba sent doctors and teachers to aid Venezuela in exchange for favourable oil prices, marrying social justice to hardcore economics. ALBA may represent what other regional economic agreements are failing to do: trade designed to benefit the poor.

While Venezuela leads ALBA, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has strong ties to Brazil. In years to come, UNASUR may represent a significantly greater potential for South American interests in terms of economic trade, defence and political influence than ALBA. The GDP and population of ALBA nations is only one-eighth that of UNASUR. Founded in May of 2008, UNASUR seeks to eventually unite the ACN and Mercosur in an effort to create a single free market for South America and to promote further integration among member countries. UNASUR may be able to project increased negotiation power and an obvious ability to stand up for Latin America when it comes to formulating free trade agreements. However, different national interests may cause conflicts and delay the whole-hearted implementation of UNASUR. In any case, Brazil could use the treaty as a wedge to expand its growing influence in the region.

Whatever their motives, these countries have the theoretical opportunity to improve their socio-economic situation through UNASUR membership. With the full participation of all South American countries, the combined GDP of UNASUR would be approximately $2 trillion, making it one of the largest markets in the world and irresistibly attractive for investors. Infrastructure projects connecting the different countries would greatly benefit their local economies, whose competitiveness and size are limited because the market for their products is relatively small. Also, new trade routes are likely to open, creating additional opportunities and helping to solve local supply problems. An example of such integration is the Transatlantic Highway between Brazil and Peru, currently under construction. The free movement of people will allow for greater flexibility in accessing the membership’s labour market, while the full advent of the South American Defence Council might render UNASUR as an international power once it is fully implemented. However, international disputes like the conflict between Peru and Chile over Pacific ocean borders and fishing rights may slow a much-needed integration process. Despite the favourable economic conditions that much of South America enjoys, it seems likely that UNASUR could remain a distant dream due to ideological differences and the sometime conflicting interests of its member nations.

Other concerns over free trade

According to neoliberal economic theory, liberalization of trade should benefit Latin American economies through increasing competitiveness and foreign investment. Two instances that nurture this idea are the experiences of the Asian Tigers and Chile. It must be noted that when the Asian economies started implementing neoliberal policies, they did not suffer the degree of inequality found in ACN economies today. In the case of Chile, neoliberal policies in the 1973 – 1986 period, under the Pinochet dictatorship, did not bring substantial per capita GDP growth rates.

Although in the long term Chilean neoliberal economics brought sustained GDP growth, the stringent controls affecting structural adjustment process led to repeated human rights violations under the Pinochet regime. It is questionable whether neoliberal policies can be implemented in ACN democracies, given the possibility that the adjustment process involved will result in popular dissatisfaction with the government. This in turn may lead to the election of populist leaders pledged to reverse neoliberal policies.

Discrimination lessens the benefits to certain sectors of society, especially the indigenous and those of African descent. Will free markets be plausible in countries like Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, where these often have excluded groups that represent sizeable segments of the population? It remains to be seen if the Andean countries will be able to meet the conditions for free trade to succeed, and it will be interesting to compare the future economic stability of Colombia and Peru with that of their neighbours Ecuador and Bolivia.

Whether or not the ACN-EU trade agreement is signed, it can be comprehended that the Andean countries are each following disparate trends, from trade liberalization to statism, which has led the ACN into disarray. One school of thought believes that if some of these countries insist on pursuing conflicting interests, they will never be able to establish the unity that would give the group the leverage needed to achieve more favourable deals, like the final form of the Association Agreement proposed by the EU. If properly bargained, this agreement would be more beneficial than previous accords such as the GSP. While the lack of unity has slowed the creation of UNASUR, it also has prevented the possibility for an unfair negotiation that would further impoverish the already neglected farmers of the Andes. Either way, no sign of major change is likely to be seen in the near future in Latin America if increased cooperation is not promoted between the Western and Eastern hemispheres.

This analysis was prepared by COHA. Guillermo Cornejo is a Research Associate of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Colombia: vicious friend of the West

JamieSW — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:54:47 +0000

Colombia’s government is not just a vicious regime that targets trade unionists and civil activists. It is also George Bush’s key ally in Latin America and on the front line of his intervention in that region.

Bush recently declared uncritical support for Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.

He sees Uribe as a bulwark against the radical anti-US governments of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez and Bolivian president Evo Morales.

The US has been channelling huge amounts of money and military assistance to Colombia for years – first under the cover of the “war on drugs”, then under the “war on terror”.

Britain is the second biggest donor of aid to Colombia. New Labour refuses to say exactly how much military aid and assistance it has given to Colombia, but it is thought to be over £1 million a year.

This comes in addition to military training and granting export licences for the sale of arms to Colombia.

Bush and his defence secretary Robert Gates are trying to push a controversial free trade agreement through the US Congress.

Bush says this agreement is “pivotal” to countering the influence of Chavez in Latin America.

Meanwhile the Colombian national army and right wing paramilitaries that operate with the collusion of the state are waging a brutal war on the poor and left wing activists in the country.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a trade unionist. More than 4,000 union activists have been murdered in the last 15 years, as have thousands of human rights campaigners, journalists, students and opposition politicians. Torture and “disappearances” are common.

The links between the Colombian state and paramilitary death squads are widely documented. In 2003 Uribe’s government claimed it was “dismantling” the paramilitary groups. But an investigation by Amnesty International found that “paramilitarism has not been dismantled – it has simply been re-engineered”.

Amnesty pointed out that many paramilitaries were encouraged to join “civilian informer networks” to provide military intelligence to the security forces, or to become “civic guards”. It concluded that “many paramilitary structures remain virtually intact and that paramilitaries continue to kill, often in collusion with the security forces”.

State repression is often carried out under the pretence of stopping the “terrorism” of left wing guerrilla groups.

Colombia recently launched a raid into neighbouring Ecuador and murdered several members of the left wing Farc guerrilla organisation.

Guerillas

This is just the latest in a 40 year war that the Colombian state has waged against leftist guerrilla groups such as Farc and the smaller ELN group.

These groups emerged in the 1960s in response to state violence against the poor and political opposition. They have been fighting corrupt and elitist governments for decades.

Chavez has called on Colombia to recognise Farc as a legitimate political force and enter peace negotiations. Any serious peace process in Colombia must involve negotiations with both Farc and the ELN.

But Uribe is desperate not to give credit to Chavez or make any concessions to Farc. Instead he continues to attempt to defeat the opposition groups by brute force.

Farc and the ELN offer some protection for farmers in the areas they control. These farmers face chemical crop spraying and violence from US-backed “counter-insurgency” programmes.

However, the guerilla groups are not based on mass democratic movements. Nor are the social and economic conditions in areas they control significantly better for the poor.

Farc and the ELN have been locked into a bloody war for decades against a highly armed state that is backed, financially and militarily, by the US and Britain.

Their guerilla strategy will not offer the political progress ordinary Colombians need so badly.

But against all the odds – and in the face of brutal repression – Colombian trade unions, students and social movements are resisting and fighting for fundamental change.