From Cuba, Fidel slew the Monroe Doctrine! From Washington, viva the Monroe Doctrine!
By
Saul Landau
As
very few celebrate the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most
of the world recognizes Bush’s compulsion to mass violence as an
act of pre-medieval arrogance and ignorance. Like Vietnam and Korea
before it, the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences have sapped imperial
resources at home.
Far
from dead, however, imperial axioms rein supreme in U.S. politics.
The Monroe Doctrine continues to provide guidance to policy makers.
This 1823 statement of chutzpah, viewing European interference in
Latin America “as dangerous to our peace and safety,” came long
before Washington could enforce it. The U.S. vitiated the Doctrine’s
other clause — U.S. out of Europe — when it entered World Wars I
and II.
By
the 1890s, and through the 20th
Century,
Washington dictated policy to the Hemisphere.
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
As
very few celebrate the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most
of the world recognizes Bush’s compulsion to mass violence as an
act of pre-medieval arrogance and ignorance. Like Vietnam and Korea
before it, the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences have sapped imperial
resources at home.
Far
from dead, however, imperial axioms rein supreme in U.S. politics.
The Monroe Doctrine continues to provide guidance to policy makers.
This 1823 statement of chutzpah, viewing European interference in
Latin America “as dangerous to our peace and safety,” came long
before Washington could enforce it. The U.S. vitiated the Doctrine’s
other clause — U.S. out of Europe — when it entered World Wars I
and II.
By
the 1890s, and through the 20th
Century,
Washington dictated policy to the Hemisphere. No longer! Compare
Latin American relations today to its bondage 50 years ago. In 1958,
Washington called all the shots. Latin American nations wouldn’t
dare vote against U.S. interests in the OAS or UN, or disagree with
U.S. economic policy. The CIA removed the few who resisted, like
reform-minded Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.
In
1959, under Fidel Castro’s leadership, the Cuban Revolution forged
long term resistance. In retaliation, the United States launched an
exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs, instituted assassination and
terrorism as official policies and enacted an embargo, while
maintaining a U.S. naval and now torture base on Cuban territory. All
this, plus imposed diplomatic isolation and possibly chemical and
biological warfare, didn’t deprive Fidel of a meal or a conjugal
opportunity. It hurt Cubans, but failed to raise even a small welt on
the Comandante’s back. Officials in Washington still tell you —
off the record — restoration of relations with Cuba must wait until
Fidel gets properly punished.
While
Cuba averted U.S. destabilization, the CIA ensured no other
“upstarts” would challenge its hegemony. They ousted Brazilian
President Joao Goulart in 1964, helped destabilize Chilean President
Salvador Allende’s regime for a coup in 1973, and waged a 10 year
long covert war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. U.S.
troops prevented noncompliance in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and
in Haiti in the 1990s. Independent minded Presidents Omar Torrijos of
Panama and Jaime Roldos of Ecuador died mysterious deaths in 1981
airplane crashes. No cause has yet been determined for the
“accidents.”
In
2008, noncompliance has become widespread. Washington had to rely on
Alvaro Uribe’s dubious regime in Colombia as a “model” and a
platform state to do its bidding. In 2008, such “obedience” costs
U.S. taxpayers some $600 billion to buy that loyalty. (Anastasia
Moloney 15 Feb 2007 World Politics Review) Uribe presides over a
kleptocracy that routinely violates human rights. Labeled a democracy
by the three monkeys at the State Department, Colombia’s government
continues to encourage its super rich to not pay taxes; a place where
poverty and injustice coincide with violence and corruption. These
very material reasons stand behind the Colombian government’s
inability to stifle an insurgency — a cruel and cynical one — that
has endured for more than four decades.
During
that period, Colombia’s government has not stifled an insurgency
that has gained a bad reputation even with revolutionaries for its
narco-trafficking and kidnapping policies. Indeed, the FARC and other
insurgent group still control an estimated 20 percent of Colombia’s
territory.
Desperate
to show hemispheric clout after suffering setbacks in the Middle East
and electoral reverses for its candidates in Latin America,
Washington — in the name of the war on terror — provided
intelligence to Colombia to target the position of FARC guerrillas in
Ecuadorian territory. On March 1, Colombia’s military, with U.S.
tactical, logistic and weapons support, attacked a guerrilla camp
inside Ecuador and assassinated Raúl Reyes, FARC’s
international spokesman and some 16 other guerrillas.
Not
wanting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to claim prestige for having
helped free captives kidnapped by the Colombian rebels, Washington
surreptitiously encouraged this extraterritorial operation.
Ecuadorian Defense Minister Sandoval more than implied that when he
said the Colombians dropped explosives “that are normally known as
smart bombs which the U.S. has.” Sandoval explained that to locate
FARC leader Reyes, “equipment was used that Latin American armed
forces do not possess.” Troops and aircraft moved in to assassinate
FARC guerrillas, and ironically delay the release of hostages.
As
war clouds gathered over Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, the Latin
Americans settled the dispute themselves, without U.S. or OAS
intervention when they met under the auspices of left leaning
Dominican President Leonel Fernandez. Uribe apologized to Ecuador and
swore never to repeat such aggression. Behind the scenes, U.S.
officials tried unsuccessfully to pressure certain governments at the
summit to condemn the victims.
Latin
American governments viewed U.S. efforts to provoke violence, using
Colombia as its agent, as threatening to their fragile sovereignty.
Indeed, citizens of most Latin American countries would have mocked
their President had they backed Colombian aggression in the name of
fighting terror.
By
late 1986, U.S. failure to provide a sensible policy for Latin
American and the Caribbean for so many decades — unless one includes
looting as sensible — led leaders of the region to create the 18
member Rio Group (meeting in Rio de Janeiro). Although it excluded
Cuba, it also barred the U.S. from membership. It became a kind of
alternative to the OAS and reflected the first stages of collective
disillusionment with U.S. policy in the region.
Latin
Americans can celebrate their quiet emancipation from The Monroe
Doctrine, which remains axiomatic in official Washington circles, as
its coincidence with reality diminishes.
Whom
to credit for sidelining this seemingly eternal Doctrine? Ironically,
Fidel Castro has played a lead role in making the Doctrine — well…
so last century. As Washington officials condescendingly predicted —
and waited expectantly — Castro’s death, they failed to see the
terminal illness in their own policies.
Neither
the political class nor the media have acknowledged the new reality.
They continue to ridicule the policy dragon slayer as he sits in his
hospital suite in Havana writing analytical essays. Four of his
ideological sons run Latin American governments: Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Fidel’s ideological cousins govern
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Panama, the Dominican Republic
and Honduras. And all of them won free and fair elections — more
than Bush can say. More cousins or even closer relatives might soon
emerge victorious in Paraguay, El Salvador and Peru.
The
left should celebrate cautiously. The U.S. has risen before from
imperial ashes, as it did after defeat in Vietnam. And Cuban
socialist achievements in health, education and social welfare,
notwithstanding, stand second to the example of Fidel’s Guinness
World Record status as King of disobedience to empire.
Without
his defiance, would Security Council members Chile and Mexico have
dared challenge the United States during the 2003 Iraq War
resolution? Would Brazil and Chile have casually switched major trade
partners from the United States to China?
One
additional reason for declining U.S. influence relates to the fall of
the dollar. Latin American countries export coffee and cocoa, but
receive approximately the same price as they did 50 years ago, when,
as Fidel Castro noted, “the dollar had a few dozen times the
purchasing power it has today. Simple trade, increasingly unequal, is
crushing the economies of many Latin American countries.” (Cuban
News Agency March 8, 2008)
Venezuela,
Bolivia and Ecuador show how citizens could elect governments to
represent their interests, rather than those of “free traders.”
As Cuba struggles to adjust its order to meet popular grievances
ranging from more freedom to buy to greater liberty to speak, its
government benefits from the fact that the United States arrogantly
imported Fidel’s enemies. These Miami-based exiles cause problems
in the United States. They have governed the “autonomous republic
of Miami” for decades. Men in their 70s continue to “train” in
the Everglades with guns or continue to proclaim as did Miami radio
screamer Armando Perez Roura that “the only way to overthrow the
Communist tyranny is through arms.”
Some
older members of Perez Roura and his listeners’ generation still
dream of returning, reclaiming their wealth, power and prestige on
the island. They invoke the good old days, when the Monroe Doctrine
meant Batista and the Mafia, that brutal security blanket that made
them happy.
The
“good old days” in Cuba, like the Monroe Doctrine, have died. In
Miami, younger generations of Cubans and other Latin Americans
populate the city, making the old guard seem stale and stifling, just
as when it ruled Cuba. As the 50th
anniversary of Cuba’s revolution approaches, in some nine months, a
few Miamians will acknowledge the importance of the event that helped
bury the Monroe Doctrine and allowed Latin Americans to forge a more
independent path in the 21st
Century.
Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow. His new book is
BUSH
AND BOTOX WORLD.
His award winning film is WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE,
available on DVD (roundworldproductions@gmail.com).
