US worried by increased struggle across Latin America 

By Dick Nichols

BUENOS AIRES -- In recent months the struggles of the people of Latin America have increased in scale and intensity. In Colombia, the two main guerilla forces, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN), now control over 40% of the country, a situation which has the US frantically drawing up battle plans. In Venezuela popular struggles have led to the establishment of the populist Hugo Chavez government, which for the moment is not playing by the rules of neo-liberal politics and diplomacy.

Clashes in September between the newly elected Constituent Assembly, boasting an overwhelming majority of supporters of President Chavez, and the Congress, dominated by the old parties of the Venezuelan oligarchy, the Copei (Christian democrats) and Democratic Action (social democrats), became explosive; the vast mass of Venezuela's working poor and unemployed supported the Constituent Assembly.

Although politics in Venezuela has settled into an uneasy truce since and Clinton has expressed "understanding" of Chavez's position, Washington cannot but be concerned about developments in Venezuela.

One danger for the US is that the Chavez movement will grow and inspire support beyond that country, producing a new wave of continental populism and making the job of keeping order in the US "backyard", and particularly in Colombia, all the more difficult.

This is particularly true because entire sections of Latin American middle, and even big, capital are under threat of extinction from multinational corporations that are carrying out a wave of takeovers and are the chief beneficiary of privatisations across the continent. Indeed, an implicit nationalist political coalition, ranging from sections of big business to the unions, from peasant organisations to shantytown dwellers, already exists in Colombia.

The same upturn in struggle also helps explain why governments in Latin America are so wary about lining up with the Pentagon-Drug Enforcement Agency operations in support of the Colombian Pastrana government and its war against what the US calls the "narco-guerillas" of the FARC and ELN.

In addition to the Venezuelan events, the last couple of months in Latin America have produced a wide range of struggles.

In Colombia, not only have there been increased clashes between the ultra-right "paramilitaries" (funded by the big landowners, drug cartels and the army) and leftist guerilla forces, but on August 31 Colombia's unions called a national stoppage which lasted for three days. A further stoppage of public sector workers followed on September 14.

A 100,000-strong march of the Movement of the Landless (MST) besieged Brazil's capital in late August, marking a turning point in the struggle against the Cardoso government, which is also under fire for its budget cuts and privatisations from state administrations led by radical Workers Party (PT) leaderships.

Paraguay, a small country of 8 million, has been rocked by massive mobilisations of peasants demanding land reform and basic infrastructure such as water and electricity. These protests have been so powerful as to force a retreat in government plans to implement neo-liberal policies.

In Ecuador, strikes by the country's indigenous peoples plus a 12-day national stoppage by taxi drivers and public transport workers earlier this year forced the withdrawal of government budget cuts.

Strikes and violent demonstrations by council workers in the Argentine province of Tucumán and clashes between taxi and hire-car drivers in Córdoba typify the response of increasingly desperate sectors of the working class and unemployed.

Clearly, for many Latin American governments, support for a US military initiative in Colombia would only create another headache in situations that are testing their political management skills to the utmost.
 

Economic and social crisis

While the advanced capitalist countries like Australia have so far been able to ride out the Asian storm by switching to new export markets and boosting consumer expenditure, most Latin American economies have seen their export markets shrink. At the same time, cautious banks have curtailed credit for investment and consumption, such that internal demand is stagnant at best.

For countries dependent on the export of a few particular agricultural commodities, the problem is particularly bad, because world agricultural prices continue to slump. Also, the higher the level of foreign debt, the more vulnerable are such economies to forthcoming increases in US (and world) interest rates.

The economic crisis is putting great strains on agreements among Latin American economies such as the Mercosur free-trade zone, as the fight for shares in stagnant export markets intensifies. Since mid-August, the Brazilian real has depreciated against the Argentine peso, exposing Argentinean industry to increased competition from Brazilian imports, while in late August Chile announced that it would float its currency, almost certainly headed for devaluation. Such is the lack of demand that in Argentina over the past year, prices have fallen for the first time in 40 years.

The decline in production also means a decline in taxation income in systems where tax evasion by the rich is rife. This puts pressure for cuts in public spending combined with increases in public sector debt. This in turn leads to increased pressure for higher interest rates, in order to attract loans to cover the deficit. The increased interest rates further depress investment.

The inevitable result of this vicious depressive cycle is massive unemployment and underemployment, crime and social desperation. In Colombia alone it is estimated that 10 million out of 36 million people have to depend on begging, criminal activities or petty trading to survive. In Venezuela real unemployment runs at more than 50% of the economically active work force.
 

Political explosiveness

In this situation it is simply stupid politics, particularly for those countries bordering Colombia, to underwrite an unconditional alliance with the United States as well as surrendering the weapon of local patriotism against potential Latin American "enemies".

This largely explains the vehement Brazilian refusal to allow a US presence in that country. The Cardoso government never knows when it will have to play the card of anti-Argentinean patriotism to win support for its own economic policies.

Moreover, Brasilia is nervous about letting outsiders know too much about the extent of the still immense resources of the Amazonian region, a more or less inevitable side effect of allowing a US military presence into the Amazon basin.

In Panama it is politically impossible for the Moscoso government to openly support any Colombian effort against the guerilla movement. Indeed, the former president of Panama, Guillermo Endara, put in by the US after it removed Manuel Noriega, has denounced the actions of the Colombian army on his country's border:

"The paramilitaries are the Colombian army's hit men who are carrying out reprisals against our citizens because they sell food to the FARC guerillas just as they would to any other buyer. This is a violation of our sovereignty which we as Panamanians cannot tolerate."

Similar problems confront the Ecuadoran government: last year Colombian paramilitaries had no compunction in crossing the border to kill a progressive Ecuadoran member of parliament who had denounced their murders of Colombian and Ecuadoran peasants.

The spectre of war between Colombia and Venezuela has also been raised, Chavez being accused in Colombia of giving refuge to FARC guerillas and of speculating on the possibility of Venezuela gaining territorially from an eventual collapse of the Colombian state.

On the other hand, those countries farthest away from Colombia are the ones that can most afford to flirt with the US line. Costa Rica's foreign minister, Roberto Rojas, has expressed full support for the "right" of Colombia to invite a multinational Latin American force into its territory and criticised Chavez's opening towards the FARC as "against all principles of international law".

Similarly, Argentina's Carlos Menem told US anti-drug boss Barry McCaffrey that he believes that the Colombian government should seek a military solution to the crisis, withdrawing the demilitarised zone conceded to the FARC as part of the peace negotiations.

Right-wing geopolitical commentators here are already saying that the situation is so explosive that some type of intervention in Colombia will not only be inevitable but a necessary lesser evil. None of these conflicts preclude the possibility that the US won't be able to convince or force enough Latin American governments to join it in an organised anti-guerilla alliance in Colombia.

Indeed, as the struggle in Colombia intensifies, politics across Latin America will increasingly be dominated by the struggle between "hawks" and "doves" on which policy to adopt towards this latest challenge to imperialist hegemony in its backyard. However, whichever tactic wins out in any particular month, the dispossessed peoples of Colombia will need all our active solidarity and support.

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