The new South America

By Weekly Archive On Apr 7, 2009

From
Le Monde Diplomatique

The
recent victory in El Salvador of Mauricio Funes, candidate or the
Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), has a
threefold meaning. For the first time, the Left manages to wrest
power from the hard-line Right, which had always dominated this
unequal country (0.3 percent of Salvadorans hoard 44 percent of the
wealth). More than one-third of all Salvadorans live under the
threshold of poverty and another third is forced to migrate to the
United States.

Funes’
success at the polls also demonstrates that the FMLN was right when,
in 1992 and in the context of the end of the Cold War, it abandoned
the guerrilla option after a 12-year conflict that took 75,000 lives,
and adopted the road of political combat and the ballot box. At this
point, in this region, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.
That is the subliminal message sent — particularly to the Colombian
FARC — by this FMLN victory.

Finally,
Funes’ victory confirms that the winds that are favorable to the
Lefts continue to blow strongly in South America [1]. Since Hugo
Chávez’s historical victory in Venezuela 10 years ago, which cleared
the road, and despite the media campaigns of fear-mongering, more
than a dozen progressive presidents have been elected by popular vote
on platforms that announce social transformation of great breadth, a
fairer redistribution of wealth, and the political integration of
social sectors that were previously alienated or excluded.

While
in the rest of the world (very particularly in Europe) the Lefts,
distant from the popular classes and committed to the neoliberal
model that has caused the current crisis, appear exhausted and bereft
of ideas, in South America, stimulated by the powerful energy of the
social movement, the new socialists of the 21st Century overflow with
political and social creativity. We are witnessing a renaissance, a
true refounding of that continent and the final act of its
emancipation, initiated two centuries ago by Simon Bolívar and the
other Liberators.

Although
many Europeans (even leftist Europeans) may not know it — because of
the colossal wall of lies erected by the big media conglomerates to
conceal the truth — South America has become the most progressive
region in the planet. It is the place where more changes are being
made in favor of the popular classes and where more structural
reforms are being adopted to emerge from dependence and
underdevelopment.

Beginning
with the experience of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and
with the encouragement of presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and
Rafael Correa of Ecuador, an awakening of the indigenous people has
taken place. Significantly, these three states have resorted to
referendums to write new Constitutions.

Shaken
to its foundations by winds of hope and justice, South America also
has given a new direction to the great dream of integration of the
peoples, not only of the markets. In addition to the Mercosur, which
shelters the 260 million inhabitants of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay,
Uruguay and Venezuela, the most innovative institution in its
promotion of integration is the Bolivarian Alternative for the People
of Our America (ALBA).

Its
members [2] have achieved a stability that allows them to devote
themselves to the struggle against poverty, misery, alienation, and
illiteracy, to guarantee their citizens an education, health care,
housing and decent jobs.

Thanks
to the Petrosur project, those nations also have achieved a greater
energy cohesion, as well as a significant increase in their
agricultural production that will enable them to achieve food
sovereignty. Thanks to the creation of the Bank of the South and a
Common Monetary Zone (ZMC), they are also moving toward the creation
of a common currency that could be named the sucre
[3]

On
March 9, several South American governments [4] took a step that
seemed inconceivable: they decided to form the Council for South
American Defense (CDS), an organization of military cooperation
created through the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), an
organization founded in Brasília in May 2008.

Thanks
to these recent instruments of cooperation, the new South America
will attend — more united than ever — its big date with the United
States at the Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain (Trinidad &
Tobago), April 17-19. There, the South American leaders will engage
in debate with the new President of the United States, Barack Obama,
who will state his vision of U.S. relations with its neighbors to the
South.

In
his recent visit to Washington, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva asked Obama to totally lift the United States’ economic
embargo against Cuba, arguing that it is opposed by all the countries
in the region [5]. On March 11, Washington announced that
Cuban-Americans may visit whoever they want on the island once a year
and remain in Cuba as long as they wish. Although during his
presidential campaign, Obama promised to maintain the embargo, it
seems that an era of rapprochement between Havana and Washington is
approaching. It was time.

Still
to happen is a normalization of relations with Venezuela and Bolivia.
More broadly, Washington must admit that the concept of a "back
yard" is over, that the people of South America have begun their
march. And that this time they won’t stop.

Ignacio
Ramonet, a Spanish journalist and writer, was editor of Le Monde
Diplomatique.

Notes:

[1]
The concept of South America, which Venezuelan Bolivarianism
supports, surpasses that of "Latin America" because it
acknowledges the participation of indigenous nations and people of
African descent, and encompasses countries and territories whose
"Latin Americanness" is questionable. In other words, the
traditional concept of "Latin America" is unable to define
the South American space as a package of realities, from the Rio
Grande and the Caribbean to Tierra del Fuego.
[2]
Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Venezuela (Ecuador is an observer nation.)
[3] Single System for
Regional Compensation.
[4] Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia,
Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and
Venezuela.
[5]
Costa Rica and El Salvador, the only two countries in the region that
had no diplomatic relations with Havana, announced in March their
decision to reestablish them.