Justifiable Paranoia
Friday, September 12th, 2008If there is one quality that Latin American leaders share it’s paranoia. Unfortunately, their paranoia is justified by historical fact. For more than a century the United States has influenced Latin American governments, supported its wealthy elite, and exploited it while the majority of its inhabitants have endured severe economic hardships and, in many cases, abuse by regimes supported by the United States. In truth, there is a laundry list of precedents regarding US political interference in Latin America that, in many cases, resulted in not only the diminishment of freedoms, but the support of regimes responsible for mass killings.
While justified by many as Cold War necessity, US actions in Latin America have always been more about ensuring the survival of economic exploitation and the small influential blocks that locally benefit from it that thus work to ensure that Washington’s influence remains steadfast. Those that support American backed regimes are largely, if not entirely, represented by the wealthy, who commonly receive support from US organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy to fund anti-government operations. Such was the case when an attempt was made to oust Hugo Chavez, and then again when pressure was brought to bear to hold a referendum on his Presidency. After winning it, and realizing that the forces arrayed against him were receiving support from the United States, he succumbed to the sort of paranoia shared by many Latin American leaders and began systematically dismantling those apparatuses used by his detractors. He also took steps to cripple the stranglehold of foreign corporations, such as nationalizing large swaths of Venezuela’s oil industry. He was, of course, condemned for such actions by the North American media and the US government, who, as is always the case, denied any involvement in aiding those looking to remove him.
Moving to Bolivia, where protests against the government of Evo Morales have been occurring, producing numerous deaths (and it should be noted that they were committed by those protesting), we find another very possible example of US interference, though the United States has, again, denied it.
The protests are occurring in five of Bolivia’s eastern provinces, which also happen to be home to Latin America’s second largest natural gas reserves. Those protesting are opposed to Morales’s plan to share natural gas revenues with the country’s remaining four poorer provinces, as well as the redistribution of land to some of the nation’s indigenous majority who largely live in poverty. Added to that, the province of Santa Cruz, one of the resource richest of the five eastern provinces, held a vote in May of this year in which 80% of its population backed a resolution aimed at giving the province more control over its resources. That said; considerable voting abstention was reported and the vote itself was organized by wealthy landowners in the region.
Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, with the majority of its wealth belonging to a small minority of land owners, many of whom have ties to US corporations. To dismiss, out of hand, the Bolivian government’s assertion that it possesses information regarding possible US interference is a stretch. If anything, it reads like as play out of a very storied playbook.
Was Morales justified in expelling US Ambassador Philip Goldberg? That depends on what Morales’s government knows, and they’re sure as hell not going to tip their hand by gifting details and thus allowing the US to spin it by employing some of the world’s most powerful media outlets.
In solidarity with Morales, the paranoia engrained in other Latin American leaders has led to the expulsion of the US ambassador to Venezuela and a refusal by the government of Honduras to accept the credentials of the new ambassador to that country.
As for US culpability in Bolivia, one need only examine their involvement in the two attempts to remove Chavez from power to determine whether or not Morales is acting out of turn.
New reports out of Burma have placed deaths caused by the cyclone that recently hit the country at upwards of 10,000 people, far greater than figures initially released. Some 24 million people live in the five regions of the country that were hit. There have also been reports that that 80% of Laputta has been completely destroyed.