The challenge of Latin America

By
Noam Chomsky                                                               Read Spanish Version

From
La Tribuna Hispana

Archaeologists
are discovering that Bolivia once had a wealthy, sophisticated and
complex society — to quote their words, "one of the largest,
strangest, and most ecologically rich artificial environments on the
face of the planet, with […] spacious and formal towns,"
creating a landscape that was "one of humankind’s greatest works
of art."

Today,
Bolivia and most of the region, from Venezuela to Argentina, has
experienced a resurgence. The Spanish Conquest and its echo of
imperial domination in the United States are giving way to the
independence and interdependence that mark a new dynamic in relations
between North and South. And all that has as its backdrop the
economic crisis in the United States and the rest of the world.

During
the past decade, Latin America has become the most progressive region
of the world. The initiatives throughout the subcontinent have had a
significant impact within the individual countries and in the
regional institutions that are slowly emerging.

Among
these are the Banco del Sur, an initiative that was endorsed in
Caracas in 2007 by Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz; and
the ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the
Caribbean, which might prove to be a true dawn
if its initial promise can be realized.

The
ALBA is often described as an alternative to the U.S.-sponsored "Free
Trade Area of the Americas," though the terms are misleading. It
should be understood to be an independent development, not an
alternative. And, furthermore, the so-called "free trade
agreements" have only a limited relation to free trade, or even
to trade in any serious sense of that term.

And
they are certainly not agreements, at least if people are part of
their countries. A more accurate term would be "investor-rights
arrangements," designed by multinational corporations and banks
and the powerful states that cater to their interests, established
mostly in secret, without public participation or awareness.

Another
promising regional organization is UNASUR, the Union of South
American Nations. Modeled on the European Union, UNASUR aims to
establish a South American parliament in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is a
fitting site. In 2000, the people of Cochabamba initiated a
courageous and successful struggle against the privatization of
water. That awakened international solidarity, because it
demonstrated what can be achieved by committed activism.

The
dynamic of the Southern Cone has flowed in part from Venezuela, with
the election of Hugo Chávez, a leftist president dedicated to using
Venezuela’s rich resources for the benefit of the population rather
than for wealth and privilege at home and abroad. He is also
dedicated to promoting the regional integration that is so
desperately needed as a prerequisite for independence, for democracy,
and for meaningful development.

Chávez
is not alone in those objectives. Bolivia, the poorest country in the
continent, is perhaps the most dramatic example. Bolivia has forged
an impressive path to true democratization in the hemisphere. In
2005, the indigenous majority, the population that has suffered the
worst repression in the hemisphere, entered the political arena and
elected someone from its own ranks, Evo Morales, to promote programs
that derived from popular organizations.

The
election was only a stage in the ongoing struggles. The topics were
well known and serious: control over resources, cultural rights and
justice in a complex, multiethnic society, and the great economic and
social gap between the large majority and the wealthy elite, the
traditional rulers.

Consequently,
Bolivia today is also the scene of the most dangerous confrontation
between popular democracy and the privileged Europeanized elites who
resent the loss of their political privileges and therefore oppose
democracy and social justice, sometimes in a violent manner.
Routinely, they enjoy the firm backing of the United States.

The
South American leaders gathering at the UNASUR summit in Santiago in
September 2008 declared "their full and firm support for the
constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was
ratified by a big majority" — referring to his overwhelming
victory in the recent referendum. Morales thanked UNASUR, observing
that "For the first time in South America’s history, the
countries of our region are deciding how to resolve our problems,
without the presence of the United States."

The
United States has long dominated Bolivia’s economy, especially
through the processing of the nation’s tin exports. Latin America
scholar Stephen Zunes points out that "At a critical point in
the nation’s effort to become more self-sufficient [in the early
1950s], the U.S. government forced Bolivia to use its scarce capital
not for its own development, but to compensate the former mine owners
and repay its foreign debt."

The
economic policies forced on Bolivia in those years were a precursor
of the structural adjustment programs imposed on the continent 30
years later under the terms of the neoliberal "Washington
consensus," which has generally had disastrous effects. By now,
the victims of neoliberal market fundamentalism are coming to include
the rich countries, where the curse of financial liberalization is
bringing about the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The
traditional modalities of imperial control — violence and economic
war — have loosened. Latin America has real options. Washington
understands very well that those options threaten not only its
domination of the hemisphere but also its global domination. Control
of Latin America Control of Latin America was the earliest goal of US
foreign policy, tracing back to the earliest days of the Republic.

If
the U.S. cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect "to
achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world," Richard M.
Nixon’s National Security Council concluded in 1971 while considering
the paramount importance of destroying Chilean democracy — which it
did.

Even
mainstream scholarship recognizes that Washington has supported
democracy only if it contributed to its strategic and economic
interests, a policy that continues without change through all
administrations to the present.

These
antidemocratic concerns are the rational form of the domino theory,
sometimes more accurately called "the threat of a good example."
For such reasons, even the tiniest departure from strict obedience is
regarded as an existential threat that calls for a harsh response.
That goes from peasant organizing in remote communities of northern
Laos to fishing cooperatives in Grenada.

In
a Latin America with brand-new self-confidence, integration has at
least three dimensions. One dimension is regional, a crucial
prerequisite for independence, making it more difficult for the
master of the hemisphere to pick off countries one by one.

A
second form of integration is global: the establishment of
South-South relations, and the diversification of markets and
investment, with China a growing and particularly significant
participant in hemispheric affairs. The third — and in many ways the
most vital form of integration — is internal. Latin America is
notorious for its extreme concentration of wealth and power, and the
lack of responsibility of privileged elites for the welfare of the
nation.

Latin
America has big problems, but there are also promising developments
that may herald an era of true globalization — international
integration in the interests of people, not investors and other
concentrations of power.

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