What’s new and old in U.S. policy on Latin America

By Weekly Archive On Jul 24, 2007

“Deceive a few, buy the others; those you cannot deceive or buy, liquidate."
— Anonymous

A friend of mine tells me the introduction to this article is an old aphorism of U.S. policy. In reality, it is an old tactic used by all the empires that have existed in this world, from the Roman Empire to today’s Empire. It’s like an axiom. In politics, very little is new under the sun.

Ever since Niccolo Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" — that damned book all politicians have studied, even though they say they haven’t — politics has been the same, one way or another, with greater or lesser intelligence: an expression of the economic interests of the classes, where one class always dominates society because it controls the State.

Before Machiavelli, things were like that, too. It’s not a question that today’s politicians copy the ancient politicians. The truth is, they don’t have many choices.

Only few politicians, very few, have the chance to create in matters politic. On the average, they are human beings characterized by their genius, iron will and fireproof ethical principles. Do you know any such person? There were not many of them in the 20th Century. In this 21st Century, to my knowledge, there is only one who comes from the previous century. The others, except for a few exceptions, are pure mediocrity.

The empires base their power on military and economic force, in deceit, in the purchase of those who have a price (there’s plenty of them around) and in the elimination of those who cannot be bought or deceived and who oppose the empire’s interests. The other tactic, by now hackneyed, is to divide and conquer. So it has been and so it will be as long as empires exist. Study the history of any empire and you’ll see that the eras and the characters may change but the methods remain the same.

Therefore, it is not at all odd that the current U.S. administration is using the same tactics. What other choice does George W. Bush’s White House have, an administration that is bereft of ideas, with a messianic vision and lacking credibility inside and outside the country? What’s most remarkable is the scant capacity for creation among its members, especially in its principal figure, the man who receives his orders "directly from God."

Until now, U.S. policy toward Latin America — especially after W. Bush’s visit in March, the so-called "ethanol tour" — has been to strengthen Washington’s relations with its many allies, to offer carrots to some (in the shape of ethanol production, credits, trade and ridiculous medical aid) and to wave the stick at others.

The U.S. also has looked for ways to divide and hamper the processes of integration. Those ways have led to conflicts inside the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), the Andean Community of Nations (ACN) and the scant weight of the Union of Southern Nations (UNASUR).

Washington’s allies have performed an important role in this divisive tactic. The free-trade agreements they have signed with the U.S. are an important element to prevent integration. The stage of eliminating those who oppose U.S. policies has still not arrived, although Washington has made some failed efforts in that regard.

The other tactic, according to some analysts (and I quote one of them) is "to separate what they called ‘the good left’ (Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina) from ‘the bad left’ (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador)." Apparently, to the U.S. government, the concept of left is very wide or very narrow, depending on how one looks at it.

The truth is that they haven’t had much success with that tactic. But it has created some tensions, such as Venezuela’s difficulty in entering MERCOSUR, the increasingly evident separation between Uruguay and MERCOSUR and the internal conflicts afflicting Bolivia and Ecuador.

It is not possible to separate from that U.S. policy the separatist attempts in Bolivia or the role played by the Ecuadorean oligarchy. We must also consider the offensives begun by the Christian democrats and the social democrats, aimed at assuming power again in those countries.

As we see, the United States is developing a strategy of domination in which it is seconded by its national and worldwide allies.

But there is another element of that policy of domination, of recovering the lost space, about which little is said, an element that is almost always unnoticed because that’s what its organizers like. I refer to the role of the U.S. armed forces and its relations with the Latin American armies. In this regard, the U.S. Southern Command plays a fundamental role.

According to analyst Fernando Molina Cortés, in an article published early this year in the Web site Rebelion, the Pentagon mobilizes to combat "radical populism" in Latin America through "the establishment of small military bases in numerous countries to ‘dominate without occupying,’ in addition to training the local armies in their own countries."

Some of those bases are not that small, like the one in Paraguay near the triple frontier and the natural gas fields of Bolivia. Others are almost unnoticed, such as those in Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador. The pretext: the struggle against terrorism, drug trafficking, and now the so-called "radical populism."

According to some media, the U.S. Southern Command operates in 32 nations in the region: 19 in South and Central America and 13 in the Caribbean, in addition to the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, in Cuban territory.

Radical populism is described as the policy conducted by the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, intended to improve the living conditions of their people. That behavior is not in the best interest of the United States.

It was no coincidence that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Organization of American States about the need "to create new mechanisms to regain those countries that deviate from the democratic road." According to this, in order for a country to be "democratic," it should do nothing to benefit the people or the national dignity because that would mean deviating from the democratic road.

It was also Ms. Rice who, in January of this year, announced the reopening of the so-called School of the Americas in Fort Benning, which used to be based in Panama. The school was closed in 2002 after the manuals it used came to public light — the manuals defended the practice of torture, extortion and summary execution.

We should also remember that the School of the Americas trained a large number of Latin American military officers who later were implicated in the bloody dictatorships that flayed many countries in the region during the 1970s and 1980s. Supported by the United States, the dictatorships’ aim was to wipe out the leftist movements and put in power governments that would apply the neoliberal model.

In his article, Molina Cortés cites other forms of Southern Command influence on Latin American armies. Among them is "at-home training" conducted by private companies of mercenaries, hired by the Pentagon, such as DinCorp in Colombia. This method avoids a direct intervention by U.S. troops and the possible casualties and consequences.

This way, Molina Cortés writes, "once military training has been handed by the State Department over to the Pentagon, [the administration] enjoys the immunity gained by freeing itself from Congressional oversight on the matter of human rights."

In reality, in the aftermath of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress has done little or nothing for human rights. Not even before that time, except when the violators were not allies of the United States.

I think it’s evident that the White House will do everything possible to solve the problems facing it, problems that question its hegemony in Latin America. To do so, it will use any means. The last recourse will be the armies, in those countries where they still have influence over the rulers, because to do so would be to return to the era of military dictatorships.

But remember that in Venezuela there was an attempted coup against President Chávez in 2002 and that Evo Morales, Lula and Néstor Kirchner have received threats of a coup. It is a warning.

After Bush’s tour of five Latin American countries in March — Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico — White House spokesman Tony Snow said that "the president left very pleased, because he established warm relationships with Latin American leaders who believe in the free market and democracy, and understand and appreciate the role of the United States in the region."

Apparently, the people in those countries have a different point of view, because Bush’s presence was repudiated everywhere with large demonstrations against him.

Many people think that W. Bush lives in a virtual world, where he sees only what’s convenient for him. However, his administration takes steps to impede the process of integration in Latin America and the improvement of the living conditions of the people in the region.

A diplomatic offensive, the hardening of the military presence in the region, campaigns to destabilize progressive, nationalist and leftist governments — especially those in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia — are not part of a virtual world.

They are the tactics of a real strategy of domination by the U.S. government, as representative of the major transnational corporations, which aspire to totally control the natural resources of Latin America.

Whether that strategy — which contains nothing new — is successful or not will depend on the attitude assume by the people of Latin America, more than their governments. And the Latin American people — some more, some less — have shown that they have awakened and will defend their rights. Let’s hope that nothing or nobody will lull them back to sleep, for their own good and even for the good of the true interests of the American people, which are not imperial but national.