Search
NEWSLETTER

One region, all voices

National Liberation Army: The Longest-Lived Guerrilla in Latin America

Jerónimo Ríos Sierra
-
0
National Liberation Army: The Longest-Lived Guerrilla in Latin America

The National Liberation Army (Spanish: Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) carried out its first public action on Jan. 7, 1965, when Simacota, a small municipality in the department of Santander, was taken over by a small group of guerrillas, which claimed their revolutionary ideology inspired by the Cuban Revolution. Some of these were part of the small contingent of Colombians, who had lived a revolutionary experience in Cuba. From there, they exported the idea that a focus of  guerrilla activity, opportunistically conceived as a seed of insurgency, could precipitate the very idea of revolution.

Thus, it was conceived that the corridor that included the city of Barrancabermeja and the municipality of San Vicente del Chucurí offered the ideal conditions for the formation of a guerrilla: The presence of foreign capital with an extractive essence, due to the location of the oil industry. Unionism and university students’ movements were elements that are present in their initial supporting bases. 

The ideological imprint

However, the most profound ideological imprint would be developed with the arrival of the guerrilla, albeit for a short period of time, given the tragic outcome of the sociologist and priest Camilo Torres toward the of 1965. He would be the defender of the overlapping Marxist postulates that the guerrilla raised, with the theology of liberation, which would be so important for the development of its ideological corpus, especially throughout the 1970s. 

Since its beginnings, the ELN has been going through important difficulties as a result of its operational weaknesses, its disenchantment with the authoritarian leadership of Fabio Vásquez Castaño, its maximum leader. Also because the guerrilla is on the verge of disappearing. In 1973, an operation took place around the Antioquian municipality of Anorí, which left behind the loss of two thirds of its structure. Reasons for which the guerrilla remains only on peripheral enclaves, far from government pressure, especially from the departments of Arauca or Norte de Santander.

Thus, in 1980, one of ELN´s main armed fronts was established: The Domingo Laín Front. As the spearhead of the so-called Eastern War Front, this front saw notable growth, both in men and resources, thanks to oil discoveries in the region around the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline. A critical infrastructure that feeds the guerrilla with income, due to the activism on the extractive capital present in the region. 

Since then, the ELN—together with the FARC-EP—has been the predominant actor not only in Arauca, but in other departments, like Norte de Santander. Not only the two guerrillas fought against each other during the 1990s, but they also had to fight the paramilitary project that occurred from the late 1990s and until the mid-2000s.

Beyond other scenarios with a traditional ELN presence, such as the departments of Antioquia, Bolívar, Chocó, Cauca, and Nariño, eastern Colombia—in particular Arauca and Norte de Santander—has emerged as a true stronghold for the guerrillas. The ELN´s most powerful structure is located there nowadays, while one of the most belligerent positions of the guerrilla is at the head of it: commander Gustavo Aníbal Giraldo, also known as Pablito. 

He is one of the most prominent voices distancing the movement from the negotiating attempts in the last decade. When it came to generating trust mechanisms or certain nods that would suggest the guerrillas’ willingness to negotiate, the Eastern War Front did its thing. That is, showing itself as the most active and operative structure in terms of combat, armed actions and kidnappings. 

The functioning of the ELN

This situation only showed three elements that made impossible any peace negotiations. First, the functioning of the ELN, beyond any central power and command hierarchies, operates in a decentralized fashion, resting upon interests and power relations with a local character. Second, the ELN has never been clear about its position or the road map with which to approach a space for dialogue, such as that effectively carried out by the FARC-EP. 

Third, there is a generational gap between an old political command located in Cuba today and a new, younger and more belligerent generation of leaders, whose “action on the ground” is far from the perspective of the classic guerrilla command.

Today’s ELN has little to do with the ideological purity that once characterized it. Its higher level of violence, its proximity to the coca and gold business, and its criminal stamp make it difficult to be perceived as an armed group with political motivations that aspires to a political transformation. For years its activism has been gaining momentum, its scenarios of influence have grown substantially and its troops have gone from 1,800 elements in 2010 to more than 3,000 today, establishing itself as a hegemonic actor in some scenarios where the FARC-EP demobilized.

Furthermore, today—and for a long time— there is full evidence of the existence of ELN camps at the border with Venezuela. This indirectly implies that the Bolivarian regime has an ally in states such as Táchira or Apure, which have a strong opposition component. As a parastatal actor, the Colombian east offers the ELN immeasurable revenues from extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking, consolidating it as a guarantor of the criminal activity in this region. There are even testimonials that assure that there is quasi-formal collusion between the ELN and the Bolivarian National Guard or the national intelligence system. 

Other criminal groups

Regardless of the veracity of this, it can be presumed that the guerrillas and the government could have a mutually beneficial agenda that, rationally, they might be trying to maintain. This is true even in a hostile context in which there are other criminal groups of lesser significance and in which other structures are added, such as the FARC-EP dissidence led by prominent guerrilla leaders Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich. 

In conclusion, the ELN is currently in a comfortable situation in which it is doing a  territorial and operational readjustment, with the back of Venezuela. This also thanks to a withdrawal strategic move, while obtaining resources that provide to the guerrillas and which, on the other hand, discourages any negotiating framework. 

Although the Venezuelan Government doesn’t recognize the ELN as its ally, it does find potential support with it, especially due to its disagreements with the Colombian government of Iván Duque. A president that, needless to say, delays and torpedoes any efforts in favor of the peace accord with the FARC-EP, while it endorses a confrontation policy in which there is only one usual loser: the civilian population.

*Translation from Spanish by Ricardo Aceves

Photo from Brazil by Fato en Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

The eternal chimera of Latin American integration

Juan Francisco Camino
-
0
The eternal chimera of Latin American integration

Co-author Melany Barragán

The “Patria Grande” that Bolivar dreamed of, more than two centuries ago, is still a chimera. Despite the advance of globalization, the proliferation of international organizations or the development of integration experiences such as the European Union, Latin America still does not find the keys to articulate a successful communitarian process.

Neither the periods of bonanza nor the critical junctures have allowed the different countries of the region to come together to create a common project. And, in the short term, neither the health nor economic crisis that the world is going through, nor the new stage that is opening with the transition of power from its northern neighbor, seems to be altering the situation. While crises and wars were an opportunity to unite peoples in the past, Latin America continues to miss the mark.

Precedents of integration

It would be a mistake to deny that steps have been taken in this direction. The Pan-American conferences, promoted by the United States during the first half of the 20th century, began to shape a system of technical and commercial cooperation in the region, as well as a hemispheric diplomacy that materialized with the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS). Later, in the second half of the last century, Latin American countries began to develop their own integration organizations. Many of them emerged with the objective of prioritizing free trade areas among the signatory countries and over time they tried to deepen the processes of interdependence by establishing customs unions and common markets.

It was during this period that organizations such as the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) or the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA, 1975) emerged. Intergovernmental organizations such as the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) or the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) also began to proliferate.

In the 21st century, the process does not stop and new organizations such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) emerge.  The most recent is the Forum for the Progress of South America (PROSUR), created at the initiative of Sebastián Piñera in response to the temporary suspension and departure of some countries from UNASUR.

During this period, some Latin American leaders have taken advantage of these experiences to evoke the symbolic and remember Bolivar’s dream, evoking a future in which Latin American countries would not only be united by economic agreements, but also share a common political project. Others, less emotional, have seen the European Union as a mirror in which to look at themselves in order to provide greater stability and security to the region.

Numerous initiatives with the same aim

However, the paradox is the high number of initiatives that pursue the same end.  If we add up all the experiences promoted, both those that are still in operation and those that have already expired, we find that there are almost as many common projects as there are countries in Latin America. It seems that there has never been a real attempt to generate greater interdependence and consolidate a regional integration process.

From a superficial look, it could even be said that the creation of many of these organizations has been the result of the pretensions of political actors who have used imaginaries of unity to try to position themselves as bastions of “true integration”. Integration has been based more on questions of ideological concordance among foreign policy makers than on a true state policy.

But behind this view there are deeper causes. The existence of disparate political projects and development strategies in the countries of the continent, the strong dependence of these initiatives on political cycles, the reluctance of States to cede sovereignty to supranational bodies, and the historical inclination to look more to the United States than to neighboring peoples, have been the real brake on Latin American unity.

Challenges in the integration process.

Why is it complicated to reverse this situation? Although there are numerous causes, the following should be highlighted. First, the great heterogeneity of the region. Secondly, from the economic point of view, it is worth highlighting the scarce economic interdependence between the different countries, the absence of a country with industrial development that would allow other states in the region to be its suppliers of raw materials and the competition between them to place their raw materials on international markets.

Finally, in the political-institutional dimension, it is worth mentioning the strong presidentialism, the excessive distrust in the preservation of national sovereignty, the low institutionalization of political systems and the constant ideological swings. All this makes it difficult to generate the optimal conditions for integration.  No matter how much supranational organizations and institutions are created, in the end some overlap with others and the region does not manage to present itself in the international order as a single interlocutor. Not even on those issues that are of common interest to all of Latin America.

The challenge of regional integration is enormous. Despite the implementation of numerous initiatives, conditions and political will to reconcile the interests of the region have been lacking. Nevertheless, integration can be a solution to many of the region’s problems.  It can pave the way for a deepening of trade relations, the development and potentialization of the service and industrial sectors, the creation of multinational companies capable of generating private investment in these countries, and the development of greater political cohesion on issues that are transcendental for this century, such as security, education, and access to information technologies.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo by Chancellery Argentina on Foter.com / CC BY

What does he have in mind when he says “Brazil is bankrupt”?

Leonardo Weller
-
0
What does he have in mind when he says “Brazil is bankrupt”?

The interpretation of Bolsonaro’s controversial statements has become a kind of Brazilian national sport. The last statement that sowed confusion was on January 5th when he stated that Brazil is broken and assumed that he could not solve the problem. In the face of such a statement, the following question becomes inevitable: what does the highest representative of the Republic have in mind when he makes statements that apparently play against his own government? Is it an unthinking act or is there a goal behind it?

It is hard to believe that a pariah in the political game of the New Republic has managed to be elected without an apparent strategy, and – perhaps most surprisingly – to remain in power despite the already vast collection of crimes. There is no way to read the headliner’s brain, but we can speculate on the existence of a strategy based on his personal interests.

Aid prompted government approval

By saying that he cannot pull Brazil out of bankruptcy, Bolsonaro justifies the – socially painful – end of emergency aid, while the country faces the second wave of Covid-19. The aid boosted the economy and got the government’s approval off the ground in the months leading up to the November 2020 municipal elections. However, the measure weighed on the public accounts, contributing to the fiscal deterioration that currently limits the economic team’s room for action. The president seems to be betting that the poorest people understand the reasons why he will abandon them from now on: the country has broken down, there is nothing nothing else can be done.

On the other hand, the apocalyptic discourse, paradoxically, reaches the market. Bolsonaro points out that his government will resist the temptation to reissue the emergency program, which would alleviate the suffering of millions, but would worsen the already compromised public accounts. That is probably why the Ibovespa index rose the day after the statements.

Everything indicates that investors know that Brazil has not gone bankrupt. At least not yet, despite the fact that public debt reaches 93% of GDP, which is quite high for a developing country. But for now there is demand for public securities, even with the basic interest rate (the SELIC) at only 2%. From the external point of view, the US$356 billion deposited in international reserves guarantees that there will be no caps like those that occurred in the past.

The slow deterioration of democracy

The January 5 statements are another episode in the slow deterioration of democracy promoted by Bolsonaro. The president did not declare himself incapable per se, but pretended to be disabled due to the ties that limit the Executive Branch, be it Congress or the media. According to this reasoning, the logical solution would be to loosen those ties, either by annulling the deputies or by censoring the media, measures that constitute the first step of any dictatorship.

Bolsonaro never hid his predilection for authoritarianism. Consistent with a long history of defending the hard line of the military regime, the current president does everything possible to undermine the Brazilian political system, pointing to the democratic process itself as the cause of our economic ills. If in the past dictatorships were imposed with tanks and bayonets, in the 21st century coups d’état are carried out little by little, in disguise. Each anti-democratic statement by the head of state is a step towards the autocracy he is shamelessly striving for.

The supposed incapacity of the representative also serves to justify the bad government he leads. His economic team approved very few reforms in Congress. In particular, privatizations and fiscal and state reforms have not come off paper. The economy was already stagnant and public accounts in the red before the pandemic, further reducing the prospects for recovery in 2021.

Bolsonaro plays for his fans

Finally, Bolsonaro is playing for his supporters, a relatively large and loyal minority, ready to re-elect him in 2022. It is remarkable that these people continue to support him. After all, Brazil’s new far right emerged as a reaction to the old politics of traditional, corrupt parties, most of whose leaders have recently become governors. Within this framework, the president is striking a balance to reconcile his two main objectives: staying in power and re-election. To avoid impeachment, he negotiates with congressmen for state offices. While in public, he shouts out against the media and Congress itself, thus pleasing his most ardent voters.

It seems that Bolsonaro will not repeat the mistakes of Jânio Quadros, who resigned in 1961. At that time Brazil was truly bankrupt thanks to the unrestrained spending of the previous government of Juscelino Kubitschek that raised inflation and generated external caps. Jânio tried to resing after losing several battles in Congress. He bet on the support of the Armed Forces to return to the Plateau and resolve the issue with authority, without the tutelage of opposition congressmen. Finally, he was left alone and went down in history as an incapable man with a reputation for drunkenness. Bolsonaro is very different: although he has solid military support, he slowly moves towards authoritarianism, playing the disabled and blaming his own democracy for his outright misrule. 

Photo by Palácio do Planalto on Foter.com / CC BY

Against Trump we lived better

Joaquín Roy
-
0
Against Trump we lived better

When the “year in which we lived dangerously” has ended, let’s ask about a “new era”, once the defeat of Donald Trump has been confirmed. The new scene is presided by uncertainty. This sentiment is caused by damage caused by the Trump presidency. The only doubt is about the permanence of the disaster caused by the four-year period that is now ending.

Inserted in the context of satisfaction with the cessation of the nightmare, a prediction of a certain nostalgia is detected. It is based on a strategy of confrontation in the face of what was labeled as the formation of a dictatorship within the oldest democracy in documented history. We wondered what we would do when we woke up. We were obsessed by a schedule filled by a single issue.

Some of us feared that in the supreme moment of expectation of the success of a confrontational strategy we would be reminded that in the panorama of importance and loneliness of questioning the irrational policy of the president we would be unfairly accused. Unusually, we had had an unwanted accomplice in the urgent eviction of the uncomfortable tenant from the White House.

The irrational behavior of the president

We did not know how we could be grateful, so to speak, for the assistance of the pandemic that still grips the planet. The irrational behavior of the president in the successive stages of the Cobid19, its development, expansion and implantation throughout the planet, had become Trump’s worst enemy and the best ally of the opposition’s behavior. At the same time there was an awful sentiment consisting of the implantation of the virus and the consequent denial of Trump joining the efforts of the political opposition to achieve the defenestration, even if it was at the limit of his administration.

Every infected human being in the United States, plus every certified death, followed up by Trump’s erratic health policy, were recorded as “votes” in the tally of the November 3 election. The hope that Cobid19 would magically vanish overnight, as Trump himself surrealistically predicted in the early spring of 2020, would spell the demise of the towering enemy that had loomed over the White House.

Meanwhile, the opposition to the president in the apparent majority of the United States and in a universal proportion abroad were dedicating their efforts on an agenda exclusively full of reaction to each one of the president’s outrages. But there was an absence of a strategy with an agenda for “the day after”.

The Democrats

In the Democratic field there was no plan for the future. The discussion about the best candidates dragged on. That detail was not clarified until the decision in favor of Biden and Harris was done. In an environment reluctant to the formation of “kitchen cabinets” there was no government program to be implemented after 3 November.

In view of the poorly concealed feeling of insecurity, it was feared that one day it would be possible to exclaim with poorly concealed nostalgia: “against Trump we lived better”. This expression has its origin in the thought that the Spanish Communist Party expressed at the time of the re-installation of democracy in Spain after the disappearance of the Franco regime. Its precedent was the claim that the remnants of the regime put forward: “with Franco we lived better.” The communists, their reserved space was occupied by the neo-democrats, confessed that when they were in the opposition they had more effective power than in parliamentary democracy.

The oposition to Trump may be forced to express itself in the same way once the system is fully opened at the end of January. This feeling will have based all his conduct on criticism of each and every one of the government’s “policies”. In reality, they were merely whims expressed in the wee hours of the morning by clicking noises on the mobile. The monumental void left by Trump’s mismanagement will still be occupied by an appropriate vaccine and the verification of its excellence, a task that would be extended throughout the rest of 2021.

It will depend on the effectiveness of the implementation of the urgent measures of the new government that the electorate will not be tempted to listen again to the siren songs of 2016. The reconstruction of the economy, the reduction of the damage caused to the neediest sectors, the better integration of immigration, and the determined fight to eliminate racism are some of the most urgent tasks of the new government. Only with its reasonable resolution will it be avoided that part of the 70 million who voted for the outgoing president would be tempted to exclaim: “with Trump we lived better.”

Photo by vpickering on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Roraima: Growth Sustained by U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela

Pedro Silva Barros
-
0
Roraima: Growth Sustained by U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela

In January 2019, South America witnessed the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and the self-proclamation of Juan Guaidó in Venezuela. The following month, the Brazilian foreign minister, in coordination with the United States, Colombia and the Venezuelan opposition, took two vehicles loaded with rice, milk and low-complexity medicines to the border between Brazil and Venezuela under the narrative of humanitarian aid.

This was the peak of the migratory flow from Venezuela to Brazil and the political pressure from Brazil and its allies against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela kept the border closed for a few thousand dollars and the practical effect of the operation was zero.

Two years later, the pandemic cooled migratory pressure, but the commercial flow on the border between Pacaraima and Santa Elena de Uairén has never been more intense. This phenomenon is even more surprising when one considers that intraregional trade in South America ended 2020 at its worst relative level since the creation of Mercosur and that political fragmentation among the countries of the region has increased considerably.

For the first time in history

In 2020, for the first time in history, two Brazilian states had their main export destination in a single neighboring country. They were not states on the southern border with Argentina or on the western one with Peru. Last year, Roraima and Amazonas sold more to Venezuela than to any other country in the world. The other 25 units of the Brazilian federation had as their main export destination countries outside the region, 15 to China and six to the United States.

The state of Roraima, which was Brazil’s smallest exporter, multiplied its foreign sales more than tenfold in two years, rising from 15 million in 2018 to 200 million in 2020. More than three quarters of everything Roraima has exported in the last two years has been destined exclusively to Venezuela. This figure would be significantly higher if informal border trade is considered.  No other state has such concentrated foreign sales. In 2019, Roraima’s GDP grew by 4.3%, while the Brazilian average was 1.1%. The trend intensified in 2020.

The explanation, of course, is not Venezuela’s economic dynamism. Venezuela’s GDP has plummeted by 70% since 2013, the worst performance in the world. This is one of the side effects of the economic sanctions applied by the United States against Nicolas Maduro’s regime and several Venezuelan institutions. It is one of the fruits of the positive agenda designed between Brazil and Venezuela in the 1990s and three decades of migratory flows, very acute in the last five years, that stimulate border trade.

The migration to Roraima

Internal migration to Roraima was stimulated by the Brazilian governments in the effort to occupy the Amazon. Most of the migrants came from poor areas of northeastern Brazil, attracted by the expansion of mining during the military regime (1964-1985). Under the governments of Sarney (1985-1990) and Collor (1990-1992), the struggle against garimpo, as informal mining is known, generally on a small scale, during the preparations for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio-92), led to a wave of migration from Roraima to Venezuela, accompanied by several incidents and massacres of indigenous people. A significant number of Brazilians who had gone to Venezuela migrated back to Guyana and Suriname in search of isolated mines.

The reaction of the governments of Itamar Franco (1992-1994) and Rafael Caldera (1994-1998) was to build a positive agenda, the Guzmania Protocol, articulated by Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in 1994. It was a positive agenda and one of integration between the two countries. It led to the paving of major roads and the interconnection of the Bajo Caroní and Boa Vista hydroelectric power plants. In less than a decade, hundreds of kilometers of new roads and power transmission networks physically integrated the two countries. Roraima began receiving Venezuelan electricity, and Manaus, bathed by the Amazon River, was joined by Puerto Ordaz, on the banks of the Orinoco, by 1580 km of suitable road.

The good political relations between Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) stimulated a significant increase in bilateral trade between Brazil and Venezuela, from 1 billion in 2003 to over 6 billion in 2012.

Venezuela was one of the three countries in the world with which Brazil had the largest trade surplus between 2007 and 2012. The balance was quite favorable for Brazil. However, trade expansion was not accompanied by productive integration.

The Venezuelan economic crisis

The Venezuelan economic crisis, the decline in Brazil’s regional prominence and the political distance between the two countries caused bilateral trade to drop sharply between 2014 and 2018. Both São Paulo’s manufactured goods and agricultural products were transported by ship and formal trade at the land border was negligible.

At the beginning of the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021), the U.S. extended economic sanctions against Venezuela. If they were previously focused on individuals at the top of the government, the sanctions, this time, included various Venezuelan economic institutions and companies from several countries that had relations with the country. Ships carrying rice from Rio Grande do Sul or Southeast Asia to Venezuela could not subsequently dock in the U.S.; companies involved in this operation would have their accounts frozen.

The US sanctions did not achieve the announced consequences: to weaken Nicolás Maduro, to strengthen Juan Guaidó and to force a political transition. On the contrary. Maduro apparently has more internal political power today than he did two years ago. Before, the resources of formal Venezuelan exports entered through the central bank, the Venezuelan treasury, or the subsidiaries of the state oil company and entered the formal state structures. Now exports are informal and are managed by parallel structures associated with the regime, with much more discretion.

Informal exports

It is these informal exports that guarantee foreign exchange for Brazilian food imports transported by land in quantities thousands of times greater than humanitarian aid in February 2019. The significant increase in trade flows between the states of Roraima and Amazonas to Venezuela in the last 24 months was only possible because of the previous infrastructure and Brazil’s non-adherence to the policy of economic sanctions against Venezuela .

In addition to Venezuela, Roraima borders Guyana, the only country in the Americas that had economic growth in 2020. The lack of adequate infrastructure between Boa Vista and the capital, Georgetown, has prevented Roraima and Brazil from being associated with the recent development of this neighboring country.  

Beyond the geopolitical issues involved, the recent economic dynamism of the Brazilian-Venezuelan border shows the untapped potential for intraregional trade in South America and the importance of adequate infrastructure. This is an important issue for the post-pandemic growth recovery agenda.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Picture by Paolostefano1412

Latin American Lessons for US Democracy after 6-J

Scott Morgenstern
-
0
Latin American Lessons for US Democracy after 6-J

Co-author Peter Siavelis

The events in the US of January 6, 2021 have, once and for all, ended the idea that the US is exceptional and that some of the initial comparisons of Trump to Latin America’s worst populist and semi-authoritarian presidents seem valid. The events in Washington have clearly dented the myth of the superiority of US democracy by showing that the system is rife with institutional inadequacies and a dysfunctional political class.

As Americanos, but professors of Latin American politics, we turn to our regional knowledge to gain perspective on what this insurrection means for US democracy. The region’s history, too often punctuated by violence and right-wing military coups that ended any semblance of constitutional rule, provides lessons and cautions for the United States. 

Social uprisings, an alarm signal

Latin America first teaches us that social uprisings are a sign of longer term danger, and this conflagration likely signals continued attacks on social peace in the US.  We want to caution against conflating the mob inspired by President Trump with other protests in the US and elsewhere that have been inspired by legitimate grievances — but it is critical to understand that the polarization that has given rise to the storming of the US Capitol will not be easily reversed. 

Prior to the 1973 coup that overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende there were years of attacks on his government. Truckers brought the country to a standstill with a (US government supported) strike, legislators in Congress refused to consider presidential proposals, and violent street conflict between gangs on both sides of the political divide became commonplace. 

As a final parallel, a pre-coup election that leaned in Allende’s supporters direction fanned the opposition’s fires of discontent. While the US uprising was put down, the divisions that spawned it are as alive as ever.

Polarization leads to social upheaval

Second, Latin America’s history cautions that polarization leads to social uprising and crises of democratic government, too often resulting in military coups or full destruction of democracy. Venezuela 2002 seems an apt comparison.  Business leader Pedro Carmona whipped up a mob to confront a pre-planned government march hoping to use the confrontation to justify overthrowing the Chavez government.  In his 36 hours, Carmona did not try to install a flowering democracy, but instead shuttered congress and suspended the supreme court, among other “reforms.”   

Third, there are parallels in the supposedly-revolutionary words of the insurrectionist leaders that give us some clue as to what Trump (at least) thinks is next. In pushing the mob to start the storm, Trump approached Chavez’s famous:  we have (only) failed “for now,” and exclaimed: “We will never concede!”   And like Castro, Trump’s version of “history will absolve me” was that “We didn’t lose…You don’t concede …. We will not take it anymore!”.

More ominously like Carmona and right wing dictators who proposed to save democracy by shuttering Congress and later unleashed waves of arrests, torture, and murder, Trump whipped up support in the crowd by labeling political opponents as the enemy, who he called “emboldened radical Democrats.” 

While Trump’s megalomania elicits comparisons with dictators and populists, we do not intend direct comparisons of Trump’s hordes with Latin American social movements that have raised legitimate grievances.  There are reasons for protest in the United States–highlighted in overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations in recent months–but these were not the source of riot.

Here the source of grievance came from the top, from leaders worrying about losing their power and privilege. They built resentment on racial hostility, as evidenced by the confederate flags that the mob carried during their raid. This is a stark contrast with social movements that have advocated for political inclusion, social advancement, and economic justice.  

What to do with insurgent leaders?

Another caution emerging from Latin American history is what to do with insurrectionists. Some leaders have re-risen from their escombros, stronger and, perhaps like Daenerys Targaryen, with somewhat-controlled dragons.  Castro and Chavez provide clear examples, since they both spent their times in jail or exile writing manifestos exhorting followers to later mobilize. Others, like Carmona, have faded from history (he became an inconsequential academic in his Colombian exile).  

Latin America provides lessons on this dichotomy in terms of transitional justice, with concerns over who to prosecute (generals or foot-soldiers) and how the process might contribute to either a “fast” or “slow” death of democracy. The rioters who desecrated the US Capitol will clearly face serious consequences.

But what of Trump and the leaders who incited the turba? For years they have purposely spread lies that inspired millions to denigrate those with other political positions, and then used that well of discontent to inflame followers–based on a new lie about a stolen election–to jump over the cliff in pursuit of a glorious revolution.  If Trump and his hench-people — including his formal advisors, and those in the media and legislature — face no consequences, then there will be no deterrence from future attempts, and we face the potential for the slow erosion of democracy, a scenario that has already played out in Hungary, Poland and Russia.

The alternative, initiating strong punishments against the insurrectionist leaders, has led some ex-autocrats (e.g., Chile and Argentina) to threaten new democratic regimes with new uprisings and a fast death of democracy.  Putting Trump or other US leaders on trial would inevitably risk new mobilizations and violence. This risk for the US, however, seems less significant than a slow death of democracy, where populists, demagogues, and insurrectionists see immunity in whatever (baseless) actions that they take personally or in efforts to incite others. 

Institutional controls prevented Trump from stealing the election

A next lesson that we draw is from a contrast.  While we acknowledge the continuing threat of Trumpism and the representational weakness of US democracy, institutional checks prevented Trump from successfully stealing an election.  Even with state-level electoral authorities and the Supreme Court packed with Trump’s supporters, both rejected the president’s allegations of electoral fraud.

Indeed, when the high court was called upon to rule on electoral irregularities in Pennsylvania, it rejected them in a single line:  “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.” Such safeguards have too often failed in Latin American history.  

The non-political role of the armed forces

The role of the American armed forces is also crucial.  As Latin Americanists we know the brutal toll inflicted on the region by American armed forces and their proxies. Nonetheless, and in spite of Trump imposing his own picks at their head, the US armed forces has repeatedly distanced itself from politics. 

Responding to concerns raised regarding the armed forces backing Trump’s bid to stay in office, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff averred “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual.” He went on to say that “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.” 

This is not a return to implying that the US is an exemplary or exceptional democracy, and indeed there are allegations that the new (interim) Secretary of Defense balked at sending in the National Guard, among other problems.  Still, these statements show  the apolitical role of the armed forces in the United States and how it, in combination with institutional checks, is critical  for democracy, 

In terms of more hopeful Latin American lessons, by forcing the Piñera government to agree to a process for writing a new constitution, Chile’s 2019 estallido shows a potentially positive outcome from destructive social violence. This result, however, was instigated by citizens demanding social and economic justice, rather than by a sitting leader who whipped up a mob through invented conspiracy theories. 

We are not, to reiterate, suggesting equivalency between these situations, but cite Chile in the hope that the shocking sequence of events in the US could prompt an evaluation and then action to address the myriad inadequacies of US democracy.  

There is some intentional irony in our comparison of Trump to Chavez and Castro and we do not want to belittle the stark differences in the legitimacy of grievances.  The lessons from these cases, plus those of other countries and time periods, however, are serious. 

Latin America has continually faced populist and authoritarian threats, with antiheroes such as Pinochet claiming that they had to overthrow democracy in order to save it from itself.  Despite differences from Latin America, the US is not exceptional in its vulnerabilities.  We will now wait to see if it is exceptional in the reactions and consequences.  

Photo by Blinkofanaye on Foter.com / CC BY-NC

The long web of conspiracy

Federico Finchelstein
-
0
The long web of conspiracy

There are people who believe that the coronavirus is an instrument of world domination created by the enemies of their country. They are the same ones who believe that when their candidates do not win there was fraud, or that anything the leader says is simply a translation of the people’s wishes. These are the people who support Trump in his attempted coup d’etat whose pathetic, fleeting and atrocious end was the assault on the capitol. In short, we are seeing a new version of unreality in the long web of historical conspiracy. Or to put it another way: there is a new configuration of the anti-vaccines and the anti-democrats in a post-fascist key.

Like the fascisms, the new populisms mix, deform and deny science through conspiratorial fantasies. In the United States, which today has the largest number of vaccine doses available, outgoing President Donald Trump has not yet been vaccinated despite the advice and frustration of some of his advisors. In fact, the large number of Americans who do not plan to get vaccinated is roughly distinguished by their “trumpism” at the political level.

Vaccines and Conspiracy Theories

Thus, delusions and lies used in political circles abound. For example, Trumpist ideologues, often posted or re-tweeted by their defeated leader, maintain that vaccines are a form of social and population control by the state or a weapon consciously wielded by China.

Thus, the national and global vaccination campaign is portrayed by fanatical Christian evangelists and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory who think that Trump has faced and is facing a conspiracy of cannibalistic-pedophiles who dominate the Democratic Party, Hollywood and global finance. According to this delusion, this conspiracy is responsible for all the world’s problems and this would include vaccines as well.

In this framework, reality is falsified through the denial of science, disease, and election results. According to the Washington Post, many of the people who profess the obvious lie of a vaccine plot to control people’s bodies are the same people who believe the big lie of a Trump victory in the presidential election.

In particular, it should not surprise us that people who deny reality in general, deny it in the particular sense of vaccines as well.

A political movement that channels paranoia

What we see now, globally, is a new political alliance of the ignorant, the gullible, and the liars. Before Trump, the anti-vaxxers did not have a political movement to channel their paranoia. This is now possible for many of them, for as the historian of American populism Richard J. Hofstadter had warned, conspiracy theories and indiscriminate suspicion were central to the xenophobic populist style in the United States.

But if in Trump this situation is presented in an ambiguous way in the sense that Trump also, contradictorily, wants to present himself as the main supporter of the vaccine and in this sense he plays two roles: “pro-vaccine” for the independent voter and “anti-vaccine” for his followers; in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has adopted a plainly obscurantist position.

Bolsonaro has a Brazilian experience of more than a century of being a leader in mass vaccination campaigns. If Brazil was an example for Latin America and the world, today it is rather the opposite, a country governed by an extreme paranoid that praises shamelessness.

Bolsonaro has said that he does not plan to get vaccinated and has even argued that the vaccine can make women grow beards and men become crocodiles or start talking in a “feminine” way. As in the United States, the Pfizer vaccine is the main victim of this campaign of falsification of reality that contains homophobic, xenophobic and nationalist elements.

Historical paranoia

None of this is new, because as Hofstadter said, the paranoid style has existed since long before and in fact was the main mark of reactionaries, and then fascists and anti-Semites: “this style has circulated since long before the extreme right discovered it and its objectives have varied from ‘international banking’, the Masons, the Jesuits and the arms manufacturers.

Things were not always like this in the history of classical populism. It was precisely the first populist regimes that came to power after 1945 that left behind these delusions. When it needed it, populism turned to science. And in fact historically, in the classic periods of populist government science did not suffer attacks and generally scientific and medical development was not ignored. Beyond the folklore of spiritualism so well portrayed by the writer Tomás Eloy Martínez in La novela de Perón, about occultism and magic of Peronism in the Triple A with José López Rega and Isabel Perón at the head, Peronism, like populism in general, was not reactionary in its relationship with science.

In fact, support for science extends to the health of the leaders themselves, who in many cases have promised to be vaccinated first. The situation is quite different for the new far-right populisms. For them the vaccine conspiracy is real and the reality is simply out of reach.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo by chaddavis.photography at Foter.com / CC BY

Assemblies and consultations in Latin American constitutional reforms

Julio Echeverría
-
0
Assemblies and consultations in Latin American constitutional reforms

Ecuador, like the rest of Latin America, has closed the year 2020 wrapped up in a crisis of uncertainty regarding the immediate future. The uncontrollable presence of the Covid-19 has installed a combination of health and economic crises that feeds back dangerously: the more uncontrollable the health crisis becomes, the more the economy is affected; the more it worsens, the more complicated the operation to control the pandemic becomes. Although Covid-19 can affect everyone without recognizing class, age, or gender differences, it mainly affects those most vulnerable sectors of the economy, the self-employed, who live in the informality and survival that characterize urban agglomerations.

This double dimension of the crisis ends up affecting the political institutional framework; the phenomenon of corruption increases and takes advantage of the social and economic disarray, even compromising political actors. The involvement of the political class in corruption causes politics itself and its institutions (parties, assemblies or congresses and the executives themselves) to enter a spiral of uncontrollable delegitimization.

Deslegitimidad política

In Ecuador, the popularity of the president, but also of the Assembly, does not reach double digits; in Peru there was recently a parliamentary coup that replaced President Vizcarra; while in Chile the call for a Constituent Assembly was approved via consultation.

In Ecuador, a considerable sector of citizens grouped around the Citizens’ Committee for Democratic Institutions has collected more than three thousand signatures to get the call for a popular consultation approved. This would seek to introduce radical transformations into the current constitution, which was designed to suit former President Rafael Correa and his Alianza País group.

This proposal for a consultation passed through the filter of the Constitutional Court, but has received resistance and obstacles in the legislative process, particularly when trying to eliminate a substantial aspect, such as the introduction of a second chamber in the current mono-chamber Assembly.

Can the double chamber contribute to reversing the crisis of efficiency and legitimacy of the political system? How can it reduce the tendency to concentrate power in the executive that is characteristic of hyper-presidentialism, without this meaning obstruction or blocking of decisions? Can the deliberative logic be perfected by passing through a double filter of discussion in the formation of laws and in the supervision and control of the management of government?

Constitutional Reforms

In the proposal put forward, the Senate or second chamber points towards institutional abstraction. It encourages a long-term view, a strategic vision; in this line, it complements the territorial representation that is expressed in the election of provincial assembly members and that is specified in the lower house. The Senate appears as a reflexive organ, that is, it stops with its power of veto the hurried decisions conditioned by the circumstantial pressure and forces to rethink them; it returns to the lower chamber and forces it to re-discuss the law initially approved, a function of brake that, however, cannot become a blockade; the upper chamber would not be forced to approve again the version re-discussed by the lower chamber.

The Upper House, on the other hand, can provide itself with greater legitimacy by championing general interests over party interests and, at the same time, contribute to the quality of law-making; it thus adds value to the management of immediate politics, which means the differentiation of competences between both chambers.

It would seem that the intentions to stop the possibility of the Ecuadorian legislature calling for a consultation are due to the fear that it could affect the current status quo of the party system. The fear of modifying an institutionality that could be functional to a modality of reproduction of the party system, which is that of clientelist arrangements due to the character of local and provincial representation that characterizes the current representative system.

It is a system that seeks to appear highly representative of the social base, while leaving the strategic direction of politics to the unquestionable concentration of hyper-presidentialism, which in the case of Ecuador has been shown to be responsible for systemic corruption.

Las consultas directas

In both cases, in Chile and Ecuador, modalities of direct democracy (consultations) are combined with representative democracy (assemblies).   Direct consultations are appropriate in exceptional or extraordinary cases that are not fully defined in the constitutional charters, as in the case of Ecuador, or when the deliberative possibilities of representation do not produce results and only lead to the blocking of decisions, as in the case of Chile.

In both, the necessity of inovcking the consultation is due to the need to have a greater burden of legitimacy of origin, or to ratify a future course established by social pressure, as would be the case in Chile, or when it is considered that the same consultation could produce a new course of reform, as is the assumption of the Citizens’ Committee, in Ecuador. In any case, it is advisable to think of them as complementary functions and not as alternative functions. 

Both reforms, the Chilean one, just like the Ecuadorian one, aim to better combine the two challenges that characterize every political system: its legitimacy and its effectiveness. In both cases, the use of proposals for institutional reform through the consultation process leads us to discern the system’s performance. In both cases, the institutionality of the political system is at stake, as we discuss agreed-upon rules that are valid for all political actors, beyond their ideological or programmatic orientation, an institutionality where the imperative of protecting and deepening democracy is realized.

The situation is enormously paradoxical: direct democracy can be an important instrument of political innovation, as long as the decision-making capacity of political representation is truly strengthened.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo of the National Assembly of Ecuador in Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Central America and The New U.S. Administration

Pedro Trujillo
-
0
Central America and The New U.S. Administration

Countries in Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala) are the ones that concentrate most violence, poverty, lack of justice and low development indicators in the region, in addition to Nicaragua, – less and less information is available due to Ortega’s authoritarian regime – which represents a different problem for Washington. Regardless of international aid, the peace missions established in the 1990s and other efforts, there is still a sense that the process of improving indicators is about to begin. 

If one analyzes the World Bank’s governance index, one can observe a data that is also found, although more dispersed, in other indices: the substantial problems to be overcome are corruption and the lack of the rule of law (which also applies to Nicaragua). Systematically since 1996, when the study began, these are the two variables with the lowest scores in the three countries. In other words, and to be somewhat bold, the causes of almost all the problems in these countries are high institutional corruption and the absence of justice and law enforcement.

Extreme impunity

With a very high rate of impunity (Global Impunity Index) it is complex and difficult to establish the basis for development. The opportunity cost of crime in these countries is extremely low, which “encourages” people to ignore the rules as long as this does not pose a significant risk. Moreover, in most cases this is promoted by the governments concerned. 

For this reason, both in Honduras and Guatemala, international institutions have operated to combat corruption, and in El Salvador, President Bukele created the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES). This commission was created in collaboration with the Organization of American States, as was the Mission of Support against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), which began in 2016 and concluded in January 2020, although different from the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG) that operated in Guatemala until 2019.

The need to improve the fight against corruption is not new, but the form is still being debated. In Honduras, in addition to the case of former President Zelaya, one can cite that of Porfirio Lobo and his wife or the more recent case of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, after his brother was convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking issues. In El Salvador, we must remember the late President Flores, who was prosecuted at the time, as well as Antonio Saca and Mauricio Funes, the latter exiled in Nicaragua.

Finally, Guatemala has a president who has fled and taken refuge in Panama (Serrano Elias), another who died before his pre-trial as mayor could be lifted (Arzu), a third who was condemned in the United States for appropriating foreign funds, one more imprisoned, another prosecuted and the last one with several pre-trial proceedings and now protected with the immunity granted by being a member of the Central American Parliament, after being sworn in at a hotel a few hours after ceasing to be president. There should not be a region in the world with such a concentration of cases!

The National Security of the United States

Because of this precedent, but above all because of the importance that the area has for the national security of the United States due to issues such as drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering and organized crime, the different U.S. administrations have paid special attention to the area.

Nevertheless, it could be said that during the Trump administration the pressure was relaxed and, consequently, changes can be expected from the new Biden administration. Let us remember that Guatemala, together with the United States, changed its embassies from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem and also signed a “Safe Third Country” agreement – at the request (pressure) of the United States – so that Guatemala would receive migrants in its territory while in the north the decision was made as to what to do with them. An “elegant” way to dissuade them. For its part, the US administration allowed President Morales (2016-2020) to expel the CICIG after a strong and open confrontation with the UN Secretary General.

This did not happen with Honduras, especially after the condemnation in US courts of the brother of the current president, which provoked a much harsher reaction against the Central American president who is even credited with organizing marches of migrants to the US that ended up collapsing facilities for undocumented immigrants and provoking serious conflicts on the borders with Guatemala and Mexico. 

Back to normal?

The Biden administration has announced its willingness to resume negotiations with the objective of ending the poverty that generates migration – as well as violence – always with the interest placed in North American security. To that end, it has “secured” some $750 million to support reforms, although the larger program would extend over four years and reach some $4 billion. Also worth mentioning in this new offensive is the recently passed Enhanced Northern Triangle Engagement Act (HR 2615), similar to the Magnitsky Act, created to impose sanctions on citizens around the world who have committed human rights abuses and acts of corruption in their own countries. However, it gives U.S. authorities a specific tool for targeting Northern Triangle countries.

The new administration will also seek to promote development from different perspectives: private investment, improving security and the rule of law, and addressing endemic corruption and reducing poverty. In addition, a Department of Justice and Treasury office will be established in each U.S. embassy in the Northern Triangle countries, and offices of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) will be created. This initiative is similar to the efficient regulations proposed at the time by Congresswoman Norma Torres of Guatemalan origin, regarding the identification of public officials who have committed serious acts of corruption, drug trafficking and illicit financing in electoral campaigns in the countries of the Northern Triangle.

The new year may, without a doubt, bring important news for the Central American region. However, we still have to wait for the change of government in the United States.

*Translation from Spanish by Ricardo Aceves

Photo from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala at Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Colombia 2020: a future that is past

César Niño
-
0
Colombia 2020: a future that is past

2020 has been the year of the return to the past. It leaves us with the lesson of how vulnerable we humans are on Earth and the evidence that the planet does not need humanity to exist, but that it is necessary for the life of humanity. It is perhaps a tragic year for the global economy and therefore for the region, but beyond the macroeconomic equations, which sometimes dehumanize the data, it was 12 months of public health problems and a time that laid bare the most serious and urgent issues in Latin America.

For example, in Colombia the pandemic cohabits with failures at all levels. To begin with, the covid-19 opened a portal that exacerbated poverty in many peripheral regions of the country. It became the vector of atomized violence and even allowed criminal armed groups to recruit minors and irregular migrants. Such recruitment increased by 113% in the midst of the health emergency. In Colombia, the pandemic has been one of the many problems that kill citizens, has been one of the factors of social instability, has been one of the causes of economic failures and bankruptcies of companies, massive layoffs and exacerbated unemployment. 

The National Picture

The national panorama, despite the government’s efforts for economic recovery and the timely achievement of the vaccine, is not satisfactory. Violence is expanding at a faster rate than any respiratory virus, it has coincided with the eve of an electoral year that has been capitalized by dangerous Creole populisms and social nonconformism that demands more rights and better liberties. The Colombian panorama, keeping its particular proportions, does not distance itself much from that of the region.

A 2020 and a pandemic that left in evidence that the quarantines were only for those who have a ceiling, a fact that deepened the reality of Colombia with almost 49% in monetary poverty and 14% in extreme poverty. In addition, the concern about the transformation of violence, new massacres, environmental complications, a political context immersed in polarization, and a government agenda aimed at mitigating the effects of the pandemic, even complicated the idea of advancing on different fronts of the implementation of the peace agreement. 

There is no doubt that progress has been made, but it could have been more and better. Among other concerns is the fact that, in some areas of the country, there are criminal governments, that is, criminal groups that have constructed subway social contracts and have woven social and economic controls supplanting the State, or in some opportunities, functioning as it does. This situation is not exclusive to the pandemic, but it is a constant that has been aggravated by it.

A bleak future

The outlook for the coming year is not as encouraging as one would like. The destinies of nations do not depend exclusively on the rulers, but on social transformations. In other words, despite the fact that Colombia is part of the OECD, has macroeconomic growth forecasts of over 4% and is a global partner of NATO, people are still dying of hunger, violence and disease due to lack of quality hospital care. The more contrasts and gaps there are, the greater the structural problems that must be overcome. 

2021 is configured as the year in which the real effects of 2020 will be seen, poverty will have increased, it will be a year of political coalitions, of social protests, of unpopular tax adjustments, of strategic decisions in the political and security orbit. A year in which, if there are no drastic changes in the social and political planes, not even economic, the next pandemics, which will surely come, will not give us a chance to think about the future.

Photo by Cristal Montanez Venezuela on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

*Translation from Spanish by Ricardo Aceves

1...122123124...132Page 123 of 132

Media that publish our content

Copyright © Latinoamérica21.com - Montevideo

Go back up