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A Political-Religious Lobby that Penetrates and Conquers

Dardo Justino Rodríguez
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A Political-Religious Lobby that Penetrates and Conquers

Evangelical cults have been growing for several decades in Latin America. Slowly in their beginnings, but picking up speed over the years. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is the discredit of the Catholic Church, which is the historically predominant cult in the region. Another reason is the intentionality of the U.S. political-religious establishment, which has seen in its particular form of “evangelization” another form of domination.

The “evangelist” policies from the Trump environment

For a long time these advances had limited, albeit growing, success, taking advantage of the gaps left by the retrograde and intransigent attitude of a good part of the Catholic hierarchy. However, a few years ago, an unthinkable alliance between sectors of the Israeli Zionism and evangelical leaders gave birth to an initiative which had a decided and explicit, although discreet, support from the White House, once Trump assumed the presidency in 2016. 

According to the Transnacionales de la Fe journalistic project—led by Columbia Journalism Investigations (CJI), along a network of 16 recognized Latin American media outlets—since the beginning of Donald Trump’s administration, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both evangelical Christians, were the main promoters, ideologists and developers of a plan for Latin America. This project was designed from the White House Faith & Opportunity Initiative (WHFOI), created by Trump in the early days of his term.

His main ally, an ideologist and the strategy executor, was Ralph Drollinger, an evangelical pastor and director of Capitol Ministries, which is a religious organization for biblical studies sponsored by the Trump White House. 

According to the mentioned investigation, his work was to “evangelize” relevant political leaders, particularly in “third-world” countries, with a special focus on Latin America. This, with the objective to have them rule in accordance to biblical principles. This strategy coincides with the geopolitics of the most radicalized sectors of Israeli Zionism, regarding Latin America.

Tracking public information, it can be seen that, by 2009, Drollinger was a pariah within the evangelical community since he was expelled from his congregation for serious irregularities. But as a spiritual mentor to Pence and Pompeo, with whom Drollinger established a relationship about a decade ago, he led those biblical studies in the White House from the moment the vice president invited him to settle there, in 2016, according to information published by Transnacionales de la Fe.

The offensive south of the Rio Grande

Following the thread of the mentioned investigation, we could see that the offensive of Capitol Ministries since those days was increasing with very good results in Nicaragua—where the country’s president and his wife invited Drollinger to install his research center. Meanwhile, in Honduras the Ministries were able to convince President Juan Orlando Hernandez to change his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In Brazil, through local evangelical churches, Capitol Ministries has achieved an important penetration in the sectors related to President Bolsonaro, whose candidacy and his administration have been supported by them until now.

In Guatemala, a delegation of the WHFOI, comprised by more than 20 pastors, many of them experts in political operations, managed to change former President Jimmy Morales’s position to transfer the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem, in exchange for allowing him to dismantle the already uncomfortable Commission against Impunity and Corruption in Guatemala (CICIG), which was sponsored by United Nations. 

The killing of that Commission was backed by the complicit silence of the White House, which until then, had even promoted, supported and partially financed it. This dismantling left Morales with peace of mind, since he was being investigated, and about to be charged, with various acts of corruption and abuses.

Who are they and what do they want?

Research by Transnacionales de la Fe says that in the evangelical-Israeli strategy, designed from the WHFOI, the Cuban-American Pastor Mario Bramnick—founder of the Miami-based Latino Coalition for Israel (LCI0), a christian-zionist organization—has a prominent role too, in addition to Drollinger. The main target of this organization is the recruitment of Latin-American political and religious leaders that support the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.

Capitol Ministries and the WHFOI keep the identities of their main directors in secret reserve. Only a few names are known. Among them are Ralph Drollinger, Mario Bramnick and Michele Bachmann, former U.S. Congressman and founder of the Tea Party group in the House of Representatives. Bachmann is a board of directors’ member of Capitol Ministries and personally leads a ministry at the U.N. headquarters in New York, from where she promotes a vision of Israel, according to the Old Testament.

They are joined by Oscar Zamora from Peru, who has worked in Capitol Ministries as director for Latin America since 2017. Since then, this organization has opened ministries in several countries of the region: Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama.

Biblical Fundamentalists

According to anthropologist and professor at the University of Miami James Bielo, the texts of Capitol Ministries respond to postulates of fundamentalist Protestantism, which argue that the Bible should be interpreted literally and that all principles to govern should be derived from it, always respecting the Book’s literal reading.

While Capitol Ministries was during these four years expanding its ministries south of the Rio Grande, WHFOI’s operators worked actively to align latin America’s political leaders with the agendas of both Doanld Trump and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, regarding the Middle East.

According to information reviewed by Transnacionales de la Fe, “Prime Minister Netanyahu, also under investigation for corruption allegations, is without a doubt the most grateful for the work of evangelicals, with whom he meets frequently to coordinate what ‘evangelical countries’ to influence to support the State of Israel’s expansion in Jerusalem, according to advisors of the White House Faith & Opportunity Initiative.

*Translation from Spanish by Ricardo Aceves

Photo of the Planalto Palace at Foter.com / CC BY

Violent borders in South America in the time of Covid-19

Ludmila Quirós
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Violent borders in South America in the time of Covid-19

The closure of international borders that took place in much of the world to contain the VOC-19 pandemic brought with it economic and social consequences that affected the world’s population in many ways. Within this framework, women, girls and migrants are the most vulnerable groups and, therefore, the most exposed to insecurity and criminal violence.

Although this was a growing trend, according to the latest annual reports of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), the arrival of COVID-19 produced a significant increase in human trafficking for sexual exploitation, as well as in the trafficking of migrant women and girls throughout the region.

In times of health emergency, border violence -militarization, insecurity in crossing zones, or gender violence- together with the dynamics of internal and/or local recruitment, -perpetrated by gangs with different degrees of organizational complexity- are the most evident manifestations of human commodification through trafficking and smuggling. This has been fueled, in turn, by the worsening of a complex socio-economic crisis that existed in most Latin American countries.

Violent borders in the Southern Cone

Violence in its various forms is a structural phenomenon in Latin America. With 8% of the world’s population, the region is one of the most violent in the world, home to 41 of the 50 cities with the highest homicide rates globally. Within this framework, borders play a key role in criminal violence, which in most cases is the result of organized crime interactions.

Because they are spaces that are scarcely monitored by the states, border regions are focal points for criminal violence. There, different types of transnational crime converge, such as drug trafficking or the smuggling of weapons, wildlife or people, which tend to be juxtaposed, generating different manifestations and degrees of violence.

According to the Atlas of Violence (2018), Latin America has 36 borders and 155 border crossings, 30 percent of which have epidemic death rates. Several of these are concentrated in Central America (Guatemala-Honduras, Guatemala-El Salvador and El Salvador-Honduras) and in some South American countries, such as those between Colombia and Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil, and Paraguay and Brazil.

In all of these cases, border violence is often driven by drug trafficking and the expansion of transnational criminal organizations. These, in turn, converge on the borders, diversifying their illicit profit-making activities through other crimes such as trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, especially women.

Some of the most criminally violent borders in South America, including the commerce of people, mostly Venezuelans, to Trinidad and Tobago are the Yellow Delta, human trafficking from Zulia to Colombia, the Aguas Blancas-Bermejo pass in Argentina, or Rumichaca in Colombia. Other cases are the trafficking of women in the Triple Frontier between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and the migrant smuggling networks that connect criminal organizations in Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago with the police and political collusion of both countries.

In this context, migrant women and girls are the main victims of physical and psychological abuse and human rights violations. However, faced with this scenario, the border management policies of the countries involved are often left half way through, or are dysfunctional or even non-existent.

The South American Gap

Irregular migration across international borders is a phenomenon of which little is known. In fact, official statistics – based mostly on the number of arrivals and/or migrants detained at the border – are limited. Because of its nature and dynamics (routes, perpetrators, modus operandi), it is often juxtaposed to the crime of human trafficking, when in fact they are distinct, albeit related, phenomena.

In addition to the limited knowledge, most reports tend to be concentrated in Central America and Mexico, leaving the rest of the region in the background. For this reason, migrant trafficking in South America is a latent phenomenon, but very little known since the actual size of the problem or the level of lethality involved in crossing through clandestine routes is not known. We do not even have reliable knowledge of these routes or the profiles of the victims and facilitators/perpetrators of irregular migration. Therefore, it is necessary to generate greater knowledge about migrant trafficking in South America in order to define comprehensive policies that facilitate cooperation in terms of border security and information exchange, while respecting human rights.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on Foter.com / CC BY

Trump burns the last ships in Cuba

Melany Barragán
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Trump burns the last ships in Cuba

The last days of the Trump administration have been anything but quiet. Just when the world thought there would be no more surprises after the assault on the Capitol, the still-US president has struck a blow that will compromise Joe Biden’s foreign policy. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reported, the outgoing administration has declared Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism.

This move could trigger sanctions that include “restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls on commodity exports; and various financial and other restrictions. Among the latter is the inability of listed countries to access loans from the International Monetary Fund.

The reasons

The reasons given by Pompeo to justify this measure, almost at the end of the President’s term, are the following. First, Cuba’s refusal to extradite members of the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN). Second, the fact that the island has become a haven for American fugitives and international terrorists. Thirdly, Pompeo mentioned Cuba’s alliance with Venezuela, a country considered by the Trump government as a pernicious influence for the continent. Furthermore, he has accused the regime of providing medical and material aid to terrorists while allowing Cuban citizens to live in poverty.

US-Cuba relations have worsened as the Republican leader’s term has progressed. While during the beginning of his election campaign Trump not only acknowledged the restoration of relations but also expressed his intention to reach better agreements, at the end of the race he established an alliance with the anti-Cuban extreme right to benefit from their electoral machine in South Florida.

Once in power, he increased financial persecution and sanctions against Cuba. At the end of the administration, hostility became even more evident and new coercive measures were adopted. However, despite the bad relations, many experts agree that the decision to include Cuba among the countries sponsoring terrorism is somewhat hasty and seems to be driven by domestic interests.

No Prior Investigation

Different sectors have pointed out the absence of a previous investigation and even the European Union has pointed out that the United States’ decision does not respond to any new information. The president is approaching the end of his term with an aggressive strategy that combines hard offensives to discredit his rivals and destabilizing actions that complicate the path of the new administration. 

Thus, many see the decision on Cuba as a scorched earth policy that responds to at least two basic objectives. First, to reverse the policies of rapprochement adopted by Obama, who removed Cuba from the group of state sponsors of terrorism in 2015 and resumed diplomatic relations with the island. Second, to try to satisfy his electorate, especially the entire anti-Castrist population in Miami, leaders in exile and leaders of Cuban organizations in the United States who see in the measure a correct rectification of the “error of 2015”.

Repercussions from Cuba

From Cuba, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, condemned Trump’s measure and described the United States’ decision as hypocritical and cynical. Likewise, he underlined the political opportunism of the measure. Months ago, the Cuban government had already stated that its country is not only not an accomplice of terrorism, but that it can be considered a victim. Reference was made in this case to the attacks received in the last six decades by anti-Castro groups with the support of the United States.

In the same line, the permanent representative of Cuba in the United Nations, Pedro Pedroso, expressed his country’s rejection of terrorism and pointed out that the measure responds to a personal campaign of the outgoing Secretary of State and his discredited foreign policy. Likewise, Cuba denounced the situation before the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

Biden has already announced that he will continue the path started by Obama and will lift many of the measures adopted by his predecessor, such as the restriction of remittances, the ban on direct flights or the closing of the consulate. Some of these are simple to deactivate. However, others, such as the inclusion of Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism, involve greater complexity and may take months to reverse. In particular, it will be necessary for the State Department to conduct a formal review of the case and demonstrate that Cuba has not been linked to acts of terrorism during the last six months.

A key year is opening for both countries. On the one hand, the United States is facing a complicated transfer of powers, in a context of high polarization and setting in motion a 180-degree change in many areas of both domestic and foreign policy. On the other hand, in April, the VIII Congress of the Communist Party will be held in Cuba, where Raúl Castro will leave the post of First Secretary. In addition to the changeover, the congress will serve to establish the strategic lines that will mark the future of the Cuban people in the coming years.

Melany Barragán is a professor at the University of Valencia and an external lecturer at the Univ. of Frankfurt. D. in Rule of Law and Global Governance from the University of Salamanca. She specializes in political elites, representation, party systems and comparative politics.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo by szeke on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Back to 1984: The Reduction of Civic Spaces in Latin America

Andrés Serbin
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Back to 1984: The Reduction of Civic Spaces in Latin America

A recent workshop on Regional Responses to the Crisis in Latin America addressed the sustained increase in strategies to reduce civic spaces in various countries in the region and the growing pressure on citizens and their rights.

According to a 2020 Civicus report, civic space has shrunk in 22 of 32 countries in the region, and has been suffocated and blocked in 8 of them. Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela – as the most worrying situation – appear to be the most evident cases, but other countries do not escape this general trend.

The rules imposed by quarantines

In fact, in many cases, the pandemic and the quarantine regulations decreed and imposed by governments as part of prevention policies have been used as a pretext to increase control, surveillance and the reduction of civic spaces.

Especially because pre-pandemic trends – which are deepening and accelerating – are being used by some governments – both left and right – to increase authoritarianism and often unconstitutional control over citizens.

If we assume a conception of civic space as an environment in which citizens or civil society organize, debate and act – between states, businesses and the family – in defense of public goods and citizens’ rights, the measures imposed in the framework of the pandemic have accelerated the reduction of these spaces both locally and nationally, as well as regionally and internationally. This situation alarms the international community in general and the international human rights community in particular.

The demand for their rights and for the right to influence public policy, to be able to develop dialogues with decision makers at the governmental and intergovernmental level; the right to associate, express themselves and act freely within the framework of the law, have been severely repressed by various legal, illegal or extra-legal mechanisms – that is, outside the law, eventually with the use of physical violence.

An Orwellian twist

In addition to legal measures and illegal and extralegal mechanisms applied to disempower civil society and reduce its capacity for expression and advocacy – in an Orwellian twist – new technologies have also served to accelerate the repression of civic spaces where citizens express themselves, through various mechanisms of control, surveillance, distortion, censorship and intervention in social networks. New technologies of control and monitoring of citizens are currently important export items to the region for some of the main actors of the international system.

A recent report by the Igarapé Foundation in Brazil sets out a detailed typology of strategies applied to the reduction of civic spaces by governments that include: co-optation, direct or indirect coercion, fake news and misinformation, open censorship, intimidation and harassment, violation of privacy (surveillance of the individual), violation of civil and political rights, restrictions (legal and illegal) on participation and civil involvement. restrictions on funding, physical violence, use of unconstitutional procedures, and abuse of power.

These strategies are being implemented in the context of a complex global transition, which threatens the basic values of the established international system, not only in the economic sphere, but particularly with regard to the values associated with the rule of law and democratic governance, citizen freedoms and human rights in particular. Any Orwellian resemblance to some reality – nearby or far away – is not mere coincidence.

*Translation from Spanish by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Photo by Miguel Vera in Foter.com / CC BY

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

Jerónimo Ríos Sierra
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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