UPDATE 2: From Issandr El Amrani at The Arabist:

The radical-theological option that Bin Laden represented as a solution to the state of the Arab world has long been discredited. It was discredited before it even began, in that it was a result of the failure of the violent Islamist movements of the 1970s-1990s era. Also discredited, or at least on the ropes, are the pro-US reformist option of the moderate Arab regimes. Moderate, in the way Saudi Arabia or Mubarak's Egypt was, and reformist, because they are interested in changing to survive, not making a radical break. But the people spoke and they don't want reform, they want rupture.

UPDATE 1: From the Angry Arab, As'ad Abukhalil:

But what is not yet acknowledged here in the US is that Bin Laden is a product of horrific US policies in the Cold War: of their alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The people in Pakistan and Afghanistan would be relieved today: not because they hated Bin Laden (many do sympathize with him only to spite the US), but because scores of Afghans and Pakistanis have been killed over the years during the campaign to get and kill Bin Laden. Remember that time in late 2001 when the US incinerated a convoy there because a tall dark man was seen getting into one of the cars. The US intelligence analyst on the scene assumed that there were no tall people other Bin Laden. But the factors that produced Bin Laden and Al-Qa`idah are still there: the US is still very tempted to arm and fund fanatical groups if they think it is politically convenient for US national security interests. Look at that lousy Libyan Transitional Council: there are fanatics in the ranks and I assume that we will hear from some of them, especially once they declare the victory of their holy cause.

INITIAL POST: Osama Bin Laden is dead, and I am not particularly interested in whether it happened yesterday or was merely announced yesterday. After all, there are many who believe that he has been dead for years. Instead, I am more interested in how the public announcement of his death reveals, yet again, an inability by Americans to seize upon opportunities to reflect upon the interrelationship between violence and US policy.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I expressed the hope, however misguided, that Americans, having experienced such traumatic acts of violence, would now empathize with many others around the world who have suffered similarly. For example, the 9/11 attacks took place on the same day in 1973 that the Chilean military, with the support of the US, forcibly removed President Salvador Allende from power and subsequently killed thousands of Chileans. Shortly thereafter, Chile, along with other US backed dictatorships in the region, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru, launched Operation Condor, a covert intelligence operation with the express purpose of exterminating the left in the southern cone of South America. With the support of the CIA, these countries killed, at minimum, 40,000 people and incarcerated 200,000 others. In other words, the destabilization of Chile by Nixon and Kissinger and subsequent military coup by Pinochet were preconditions for a more ambitious effort to erase the left in much of South America. The coincidence that both 9/11 and the Chilean coup occurred on the same date could have served to provoke Americans to reflect upon the horrible consequences of the infliction of such violence for political purposes. Beyond South America, we could have understood the horrible suffering that resulted from US military and covert operations all over the world.

We could have taken responsibility for our actions even as we grieved over those who died on 9/11, and strove to induce other countries to resolve political disputes non-violently. But this would have required Americans to relate to 9/11 as an act of violence, as opposed to an act of nihilistic resistance to American hegemony, and identify with others who have experienced such violence as well, regardless of their nationality, religion and political ideology. Unfortunately, most Americans responded vengefully, villifying those around the world who objected to the militaristic response to the attacks and the exploitation of them to extend the reach of US imperial influence. Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq followed, and, to this day, despite the lack of any significant al-Qaeda presence in either country, US troops remain, as Bush and Obama have discovered new enemies to justify their presence. Needless to say, the death and destruction associated with these occupations far exceeds that related to 9/11. Sadly, in Iraq, the US has relied upon the same kind of death squad activity that was such a prominent feature of Operation Condor, as well as covert operations in Vietnam, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. And, under Obama, the US has expanded its military and covert operations in Pakistan, Yemen and Libya.

In this, Bin Laden succeeded in his one of his primary objectives, to reduce much of the relationship between the US and the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia to one of military violence or the threat of it. But, as Baudrillard predicted, this effort to overcome the vulnerability revealed by the 9/11 attacks merely increased the perception of US weakness. US troops are mired in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan without any prospects for success by any recognizable standard, other than the perpetuation of conflict indefinitely. To the extent that people are euphoric over Bin Laden's death, this is a measure of the permanence of his achievement. Paradoxically, though, one of the consequences has been an eruption of more secular, more inclusive activism throughout North Africa and the Middle East, an eruption in which al-Qaeda has been conspicuously absent. Hence, Americans are celebrating success in a struggle that has already been rendered largely irrelevant.

Bin Laden often expressed his belief that this objective would lead to the attainment of another, more serious one, the economic decline of the US, a decline so pronounced that it would no longer be capable of imposing its will upon other countries. Here, the record is mixed. Admittedly, countries in Asia and South America have a freedom of maneuver that they did not possess prior to 9/11. About seven months later, in April 2002, Hugo Chavez survived a coup supported by the US, signalling to the rest of South America that the door was now open to the emergence of center-left governments. It is still uncertain, however, as to whether US economic influence is been impaired globally. The US, with the assistance of Germany and the United Kingdom, has successfully imposed a program of extreme austerity upon Europe, marked by the evisceration of historic social welfare programs, as a means of addressing the severe global recession of 2008 and 2009.

Meanwhile, within the US, the ongoing war on terror serves to ring fence spending on the military and the intelligence services, despite substantial budget deficits, thus empowering those who aspire to eliminate the remaining vestiges of social protection initiated during the New Deal and the Great Society. At this time, it would be more accurate to say that Bin Laden indirectly participated in the creation of circumstances that have made it possible to reconfigure the global economy in ways even more amenable to finance capital. It is tempting to say that Bin Laden lacked a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between the US and global capital, but this is doubtful. Rather, it is more likely that he considered the aggressive neoliberalism of recent years as compatible with his social philosophy and beneficial to the future of al-Qaeda. In this, there is a perverse, unacknowledged alliance between al-Qaeda, neoliberals and neoconsevatives, as all three groups are in agreement about the urgency associated with the need to marginalize and impoverish workers even if it is in the service of strikingly different visions of the future.

Labels: "War on Terror", Al Qaeda, American Empire, Barack Obama, Chile, Hugo Chavez, Neoliberalism, Obituaries, Osama Bin Laden, South America, Venezuela

As Louis Proyect states with precision, you can't simply put a minus where the ruling class puts a plus:

The struggle in the Arab world is for democratic rights. That trumps any diplomatic deal struck between Venezuela and Libya. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels first came into prominence as activists in the revolutionary upsurge of 1848 that sought to abolish feudal despotism. The ground had to be cleared for battles between the working class and the bourgeoisie. To hasten that showdown it was necessary to fight for a democratic republic with full rights for working people, including the right to form trade unions, to vote and to assemble peacefully. That is exactly the same kinds of battles taking place in the Arab world today and those on the left who oppose it through malicious propaganda are serving the counter-revolution.

In regard to Chavez, Proyect states that the more he obfuscates, the worse it will get for him. I'm more pessimistic, and believe that the damage may already be irreversible.

Or, to put it more bluntly, as As'ad Abukhalil did last Thursday:

I just can't stomach those leftists who stood with Saddam, and who are standing today with Qadhdhafi. There is nothing leftist about those two reprehensible tyrants. Those two tyrants are very similar, as I argue in my Al-Akhbar article for this coming Saturday. They both were unpopular and charismatic and suffering from an acute case of Nasser's syndrome. They both wanted to be intellectuals and novelists. Tariq Aziz tells that Saddam was sending him his last novel manuscript a day before the US invaded his country. There are tyrants with talents and neither of the two were. At least Stalin was really well-tread and wrote very well (he wrote his own books too), while Mao was really smart and wrote good poetry. You can't even compare the aphorisms of Mao to the drivel of the two lousy tyrants. Oh, and I never treated the clown, Chavez as a leftist. I view him more as a clown in the same league with Sa'ib `Urayqat but with different momentary politics.

Personally, I don't consider Chavez a clown, as a close reading of my post on this subject last week indicates, as well as others about him and Venezuela that I have presented here over the years. There is much about him that is praiseworthy, with his speech in opposition to the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 being one of the bravest acts by a political figure in recent memory, but he is displaying a dogged refusal to recognize that world events no longer confirm to his Manichean, post 9/11, post April 2002 coup perspective about the perils of US imperialism. He is revealing himself as an example of precisely what Proyect deplores, putting a minus where the ruling class puts a plus. As one of the most important creations of a left culture that developed over several decades in South America, he is risking the future maginalization of it through his support for Gaddafi, which is more important than whether he reveals himself to be a clown or not.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Hugo Chavez, Libya, Neoliberalism, Venezuela

Predictably, the Libyan rebels have rejected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's offer to negotiate a truce between them and Muammar Gaddafi. After all, he refuses to condemn Gaddafi for his use of violence against the Libyan people, providing him with qualified suppport.

Instead, Chavez emphasizes the prospect of a US invasion to seize control of Libyan oil reserves. It is not a ludicrous notion, that the US and the EU want to establish a military presence in the country so as to exert influence over a post-Gaddafi regime in regard to the exploitation of Libyan oil reserves. But if that is his real concern, shouldn't he advise Gaddafi to depart as quickly as possible so as to enable the rebels to take power without any purported US assistance? Furthermore, the US did invade Iraq for this purpose, and it hasn't worked out nearly as well as planned.

More generally, Chavez has personalized the situation, resulting in a political debacle that may permanently reduce his authority within and without Venezuela. Instead of recognizing similarities between the aspirations of the Arab masses, and those in South America who put people like him, Morales, Lula and Kirchner, among others, into power, he has decided to give priority to his personal relationship with Gaddafi, saying that he would be a coward if he condemned his friend. Protests throughout North Africa and the Middle East have highlighted themes that should be familiar to Chavez and South American leftists, such as demands for greater inclusion within existing political and economic structures and dismay at the impoverishment that has resulted from the implementation of neoliberal economic policies, even if they are not as prominent a feature as they have been in South America. Yet Chavez implies that Gaddafi is closer in spirit to the South American left than the rebels.

This was always the peril of Chavez's realpolitik foreign policy, a policy that sought allies to resist US threats to the sovereignty of Venezuela in the most unsavory of places, in Iran, in Libya, even in Belarus and Zimbabwe. While I personally question to effectiveness of such a policy, even on its own terms, I don't criticize Chavez for undertaking measures that he felt necessary to preserve the power of the left in Venezuela. The problem is rather different, as explained by Louis Proyect:

Now it should be clearly understood that there is nothing wrong with forming alliances with Zimbabwe, Iran or Libya. Countries that are trying to develop a foreign policy independent of imperialism will by necessity adopt a kind of socialist realpolitik. When the government of Mexico made the streets run red with the blood of student protesters in 1968, it was understandable why Cuba remained silent. When Cuba had few friends in Latin America, Mexico’s PRI had a shred enough of remaining nationalism to stand up to the OAS and trade with Cuba. Furthermore, Cuba was in its rights to maintain diplomatic relations with Spain when Franco was dictator. Beggars cannot be choosers.

What is not acceptable is elevating despots like Mugabe, Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad into revolutionaries even though they have had confrontations with imperialism. We are not trying to build an anti-imperialist movement. Our goal instead is to build a socialist movement, which is alone capable of ridding the world of capitalism. In the final analysis, imperialism is the latest stage of capitalism and not some new economic system.

Of course, the consequence of Chavez's support for Gaddafi is that it will discredit him and the Bolivarian Revolution with many people around the world who have been sympathetic to it. It legitimizes rightist claims that Chavez will, if necessary, use whatever force is necessary to preserve his power. Never mind that Chavez is noteworthy for his refusal to order the mass suppression of the opposition in Venezuela after the 2002 coup and the 2002-2003 strike at the state run PDVSA oil company, a strike instigated by the opposition to bring about the sort of economic chaos that lead to the coup against Allende in 1973. Never mind that he thereafter proceeded to defend himself politically in an August 2004 referendum on the question of his removal from office. Now, the methods of Gaddafi are associated with the methods of Chavez. Beyond that, it discredits the internationalism of anti-imperialism and socialism through the association of them with kleptocratic dictators like Gaddafi.

Sadly, Chavez, as well as President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, have created a fissure between leftists in South America and Arabs in North Africa and Middle East, people who, as already noted, find themselves struggling against similar forms of oppression. Superficially, there appears to be a different social context in the current protests, one in which the middle class, people within the military, concerned about their economic privileges, and even heretofore longtime supporters of the regimes participate, but it does not justify a dismissive attitude towards them. Upon closer examination, such a process, marked by the specific conditions of the Arab countries in question, is actually somewhat similar to the ones that resulted in the elections of Chavez and Lula. Even if the composition and conduct of these movements can be described as objectionable in some way from a left perspective, it does not necessarily invalidate them as ones that faciliate the eventual defeat of imperialism and capitalism, as Proyect observes by reference to Lenin's positive response to the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland.

Lenin understood that if one insists upon a properly constituted revolutionary movement before proceeding to participate, then one would be waiting a very long time indeed, perhaps forever. Back in the 1990s, Chavez had a similar understanding, when he distanced himself from the more radical leftist groups in Venezuela because of what he considered their unrealistic expectations as to how Venezuela could be transformed. Chavez recognized that, in such a situation, the left must seek to present a plausible, persuasive critique of the existing social order and offer a credible alternative, which he did, quite effectively. With his support for Gaddafi, he has drifted away from his past history of left pragmatism. We can only hope that it has not already created an irreparable separation between the leftists of South America and the revolutionaries of the Arab world, a separation that can only serve to perpetuate US global influence and capitalism.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Hugo Chavez, Libya, Neoliberalism, Venezuela

Back in July 2007, I reviewed Ben Dangl's The Price of Fire, an excellent book that described how Bolivians collectively organized against the neoliberal globalization process to preserve their access to the resources necessary for their survival. Now, Dangl is back with a new book, Dancing with Dynamite, addressing the problematic relationship that the social movements of several South American countries have with the left leaning governments of the region. Many of these movements are associated with the historic grievances of campesinos and indigenous peoples going back centuries.

It is a timely subject, one that, as with most issues associated with South America, we are tempted to push to the side because of our ongoing, necessary preoccupations with the perpetually expanding war on terror and the sub-proletarianization of the US and Europe. But, given that the people there have resisted the postmodern atomization of social life throughout much of the rest of the world, and insisted upon alternatives to neoliberalism, we should remain engaged with what is happening there. For, it is primarily within South America that we perceive the prospect of either a post-capitalist order or one in which the voraciousness of capital is sharply curtailed. His work provides us with new insights and encourages us to speculate about the social forces that will shape the future.

Generally, Dangl presents a dynamic whereby social movements seek to obtain greater autonomy within the nation state, sometimes in conflict with the electoral left within government and sometimes not, while aligning with leftist political parties when necessary to prevent the reemergence of right wing control as it is universally acknowledged that a return to rightist repression and neoliberal economic policy would be catastrophic. He suggests that social movements retain the most effectiveness in terms of achieving their aspirations and containing the rightist threat, when they preserve an independent stance in relation to the political process. Dangl describes this complex, often contradictory relationship between social movements and leftist political parties as a dance, one that requires cooperation without cooptation.

Both Bolivia and Venezuela are interesting examples of how this dynamic plays out on the ground because of their relative distance from American influence. Not surprisingly, the chapters about the social movements in these countries are the longest ones in the book, and Dangl brings out the similarities and differences in regard to the relationship of their social movements to the state. Both countries are governed by charismatic leaders, who, by virtue of their personal appeal, have the capability of incorporating independent activism into their electoral organizations. But both also require a vibrant, activist culture to remain politically viable.

However, in Bolivia, Dangl relates how Morales, and his political party, the Movement Toward Socialism, the MAS, have, by and large, successfully channeled pre-existing demands for the transformation of society into the decisionmaking processes of representative government. He expresses concern about his discovery that the community organizations of El Alto, once a center of anti-authoritarian resistance to state authority, have become quiescent. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Chavez remains an inspirational figure for millions of poor Venezuelans, one who encourages them to take charge of their communities through demands for public services, such as water and power, as well as by seeking legal recognition of land seizures, housing developments and cooperative factory takeovers, frequently in the face of institutional resistance. Paradoxically, social movements in Venezuela face the challenge of becoming powerful enough to effectively organize themselves independent of the government, while those in Bolivia struggle to preserve their hard fought independence.

Perhaps, this is attributable to the differing socioeconomic terrain in the two countries. Social movements in Bolivia, especially ones involving indigenous peoples, have the express purpose of decentralizing power to the point of achieving the dissolution of the nation state itself. Conversely, decentralization has been a prominent feature of Venezuelan life for decades, with the people there having lived through the rapid urbanization of the country in the absence of a strong administrative presence. Furthermore, indigenous people play a more prominent role in Bolivia because they constitute a substantial part of the population, while, in Venezuela, they are much less so. Hence, the people of Bolivia have a stronger tradition of resistance to the nation state form of organization imposed by Europeans, resulting in a strong anti-authoritarian sensibility, while the Venezuelan left retains the influence of Trotsky and Luxemburg, probably reinforced through various waves of immigration. But, despite such different ideological traditions, Dangl implies that the momemtum in both countries appears to be in the same direction, towards the creation of a highly democratized Keynesian social welfare state.

Unfortunately, there is a more sinister possibility, as revealed by Dangl's exploration of social and political conditions in Paraguay. In 2008, former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo won the presidential election there, a historic victory for the left in a country dominated by an oligarchy for decades. But, upon visiting there, Dangl discovers that little has changed in the last two years. One political analyst tells Dangl that the powerful interests in the country can be described as follows:

1) the oligarchy, consisting of soy growers and cattle ranchers who rely upon paramilitaries to allow them to expand

2) the narco-traffickers who pay off politicians

3) the lumpen business class, which relies upon international trade and black market goods

4) the transnational corporations who that buy and export soy, cotton and sugar

Accordingly, poor urban and campesino movements remain marginalized, despite Lugo's victory. Campesinos are finding it hard to retain their land against the incursions of the transnational soy business, tragically related to Dangl through the experiences of the victims, much less obtain more through land reform.

Of course, one can imagine similar outcomes in other countries throughout the region, including left bastions like Venezuela and Bolivia, as James Petras has already done. There is nothing irreversible about what has transpired there, particularly given the personality cults centered around Morales and Chavez. Such a propect points toward something that deserves investigation beyond what Dangl has done in Dancing with Dynamite, the role of the industrialized workforce in the social transformation of South America. In his chapter on Brazil, Dangl contrasts the laudable radicalism of the landless workers movement, the MST, with the accommodation of President Lula, and his party, the Worker's Party, the PT, with international capital. The proletariat, and its informalized brethren, are noteworthy for their absence and it is a significant one, given the industrialization of Brazil with the assistance of foreign investment since World War II.

An examination of the relationship between unions, pension funds and foreign investment in Brazil might be revelatory in this regard. Consider, for example, Francisco de Oliveira's evaluation of Lula's record in 2006:

Lula’s reconstruction of the system of power, after the dizzying decomposition that had led to his own election, has been geared around a further, externally oriented shift towards financialization and export-led growth, with new relations of domination powerfully over-determined by globalized capital. Exports have been led by the expanding agribusiness sector. With few exceptions, the other export fronts are in low value-added commodities, with little capacity for establishing strong, inter-industrial relations or self-sustaining growth processes on a national scale. These sectors have limited means for binding together broad social interests and generally tend towards a strong concentration of wealth, as exemplified by agribusiness, founded on an expropriated workforce.

In Brazil’s semi-peripheral economy, capitalization was always closely tied to the state. Financialization, in its latest form, has also been dependent on state-linked capital, via the pension funds of public-sector enterprises; these were developed as a type of private welfare insurance by the military dictatorship, on the model of the Banco do Brasil’s Previ scheme. The 1988 Constitution capped this with establishment of the Workers’ Assistance Fund (fat), now the principal contributor to the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (bndes). There is currently an attempt to attract further foreign investment with new domestic financial instruments, via the pension funds and a banking system that largely depends on transactions involving government bonds. Ultimately, such dependence on external capital flows can only deepen the crisis of peripheral neoliberalism. As Cardoso himself, on whose watch the national debt multiplied tenfold, has put it, It is not the government that controls the debt, but the debt that controls the government. The policy of external financing leads to an exponential increase in the debt burden, hamstringing the accumulation of capital. It also functions as a powerful mechanism for the concentration of income in the financial system. Banks’ profits have risen to staggering new heights under the Workers Party government.

The consequence of such policies are social formations that de Oliveira has described as a duck-billed platypus, a creature that combines external dependency with casualized labour, truncated accumulation with an unremittingly inegalitarian social order. According to de Oliveira, the most conspicuous feature of this order is the creation of a new social class, defined by its access to and control over public funds.

There is therefore an urgency to an effort to move beyond an examination of social movements created by indigenous people, campesinos and the jobless, and their relationship to leftist electoral parties, as so compellingly profiled by Dangl, to others more centrally located in the process of capitalist accumulation in South America. I say more centrally located, because they are workers, whether formal or informal, who directly faciliate the process of truncated capital accumulation referenced by de Oliveira, whereas those emphasized by Dangl constitute its detritus, useful to the current economic order only if they can be reconstituted in a form rendering them subject to the accumulation process.

Similarly, such an examination in Argentina, where Dangl posits the desultory interaction between social movements, such as the jobless piqueteros, the middle class and the government as an explanation for the demobilization of social movements since the economic collapse of late 2001 and early 2002, might provide further insight as well. It might partially explain why Kirchner was able to reconstruct capitalism in Argentina as he has acknowledged.

Beyond clarifying current social conditions in Brazil and Argentina, it could also make a strong contribution to Dangl's effort to show how the practices of South American social movements can be effectively utilized by people in the US, as he has done in relation to the Republic Windows and Doors occupation, successful efforts to reverse the privatization of municipal water systems and the Take Back the Land Movement in south Florida, where homeless people seize empty, foreclosed properties for their homes. In any event, the proletariat, even in its currently disorganized condition, is likely to play a major, possibly decisive role, in deciding the future of the South American left, despite its premature dismissal by Chavez.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Bolivia, Book Reviews, Neoliberalism, South America, Venezuela

From the Associated Press:

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran’s nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

“There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions.

It added, “Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran.”

The report did not say where the uranium was from.

There was no immediate comment from officials in Venezuela or Bolivia about the report.

Perhaps, Israel can launch airstrikes against them, too, expanding any war with Iran to South America as well. All in all, it sounds remarkably similar to the Niger forgeries, documents leaked by Italian intelligence in 2002 that purportedly established that Iraq had been attempting to purchase processed uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons development.

By way of background, there is a strong belief among Venezuela leftists and some in the military that Israel was involved in the 2002 unsuccessful coup attempt against Chavez. I was also told during my trip to Venezuela in 2005 that Chavez, sometime after taking office in 1998, removed a number of Israeli operatives providing unspecified services to the Venezuela military and intelligence services. He did it because he believed that they were using these positions to gather information that could be used against him. Recently, Chavez ordered the removal of the Israeli ambassador in Caracas in protest against the assault upon the civilian populace of Gaza.

One should not dimiss the possibility that the hostility towards Israel within Venezuela is coloured by a residue of anti-semitism directed towards Jews generally. Even so, Chavez apparently had good reason to be concerned. After all, Israel supported Somoza in Nicaragua, and subsequently provided military assistance to the contras. Not surprisingly, Israel also provided provided military assistance to El Salvador and Guatemala in their armed struggles with the left during this same period. In the case of Guatemala, Israel assisted the government's brutal campaign of near extermination against its indigenous populace when the US was legally prohibited from doing so. And, as you might have guessed, Israel had good relations with Pinochet in Chile as well, selling weapons to him, despite his flirtation with a notorious neo-Nazi sect.

Closer to home, at least from a Venezuelan perspective, Israel has supplied weapons to Colombian paramilitaries since the 1980s, and continues to do so. Similarly, Israel participated in the dirty war in Argentina. Chavez, and the left throughout South America, understand what many in the US do not, that Israel has been an implacable enemy of leftist movements in South America, violent or non-violent, for decades. Furthermore, it has provided material assistance in their violent suppression by rightist governments and social movements. Such a history lends credibility to the belief of some Venezuelans that Israel, through the Mossad, was involved in the 2002 coup. No doubt the Bolivians are aware of this history as well, and wary about Israeli involvement in their country.

But are Venezuela and Bolivia supplying Iran with uranium? Hard to say, although the report comes across as embarrassingly propagandistic. The Associated Press article states that Venezuela has undertaken no action to mine its estimated uranium reserves, while Bolivia does so. It is, of course, possible that Venezuela is involved in the delivery of Bolivian uranium to Iran. If so, what is the significance? Is it illegal for them to do so? Of course, it is common for countries to sell uranium to other countries for use in nuclear power generation facilities, as Australian does in relation to China, and Russia now does in relation to the US. If Iran is merely involved in the development of nuclear power, consistent with the most recent National Intelligence Estimate and the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency, one would assume that such purchases, if they ever happened, transgress no international laws. Oh, by the way, did I forget to mention that the report also claims that Venezuela is also a Hizbullah sanctuary?

Labels: American Empire, Bolivia, Israel, Neoliberalism, South America, Venezuela, War with Iran

. . . . if Morales is removed by a coup.

Labels: American Empire, Bolivia, Hugo Chavez, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, Venezuela

Bolivia has become the front line of conflict between the United States and the leftist regimes of South America:

After registering astonishing levels of support in the referendum, the MAS government declared that it was going to bring forward for popular referendum the draft of a new constitution approved by the Constituent Assembly in Oruro several months ago.

In celebration, indigenous peasant and working-class supporters of the government set off on August 29 for a peaceful march to the Plaza 24 de Septiembre, in the centre of the city of Santa Cruz. A gathering of autonomists, organized in part by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Cruceño Youth Union, UJC), were there to greet them.

According to the mainstream daily La Prensa, one UJC speaker at the autonomist rally declared: “We are not going to permit [the entrance of the masistas] into the Plaza. When we go to their communities, they treat us like dogs. We want independence. We don’t want this damned race in our territory.” Other chants and phrases used that day, according to the vociferously anti-Morales La Razón newspaper, included: “shitty collas,” (colla is a racial epithet used in Santa Cruz to refer to indigenous people from the western highlands), and, “Indians return to your lands.”

After the speeches, the racists when on a rampage against the unarmed trade unionists and peasants, as well as any visibly indigenous person in proximity of the plaza. Indigenous women wearing the traditional pollera, or gathered skirt, were particularly vulnerable to beatings and racist taunts. One autonomist youth leader, Amelia Dimitri, was captured in video footage and photographs whipping an indigenous woman wearing a pollera. This occurred immediately after Dimitri addressed the crowd of autonomist thugs in a rousing speech. She’s only the latest face of hatred on the autonomist right.

On national television, Bolivians watched as racist teenagers wielded clubs, whips, and two-by-fours against unarmed indigenous workers and peasants. Images of men and women with broken noses and shirts literally drenched in blood quickly made their way to You Tube, private and national state media, and the front pages of the local newspapers. These are the “democracy supporters” supported by imperialism against the “dictatorship” of Evo Morales.

But where were the cops? Where was the military? The MAS government refused to act, calling instead for negotiations.

And in the following weeks things intensified further, such that in the last two days Bolivia has been perched on a precipice, below which lies the defeat of left-indigenous power – on the rise since the wave of insurrections between 2000 and 2005 – and the conquest of power by imperialism and the rich and the white-mestizo elite who have long-ruled the country, and who retain control of economic power despite Morales’ electoral victory.

Not surprisingly, the US ambassador has expressed sympathy for the demands of the elite. In response, President Evo Morales has ordered him to leave the country:

President Evo Morales said Wednesday that he is expelling the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia for allegedly inciting violent opposition protests.

Morales' announcement came hours after his government said a pipeline blast triggered by saboteurs forced the country to cut natural gas exports to Brazil by 10 percent.

"Without fear of the empire, I declare the U.S. ambassador 'persona non grata,'" Morales said in a speech at the presidential palace. He said he asked his foreign minister to send a diplomatic note to Ambassador Philip Goldberg telling the American to go home.

"We don't want separatists, divisionists," Bolivia's leftist president added.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid called the accusation "baseless" and said the U.S. government had not yet received a note about the ambassador.

Now, this morning, we learn that rightists have killed seven peasants in Santa Cruz province:

At least eight people were killed as violent anti-government protests flared in Bolivia Thursday, creating havoc in the natural gas industry and raising tensions with the United States.

Washington ordered out the Bolivian ambassador in response to Bolivia's move a day earlier to oust the U.S. envoy whom President Evo Morales blamed for the escalating violence.

Opposition activists shot dead seven peasant farmers in the remote Amazon region of Pando, a government official said, describing the incident as a massacre. An employee of the opposition-led regional government was also killed.

"We're talking about a real massacre and the person responsible is the Pando governor," said Deputy Minister of Social Movements Sacha Llorenti.

Morales' leftist government blames the unrest on rightist governors who control four of the impoverished country's nine regions.

The opposition demands greater autonomy and energy revenue and opposes plans by Morales, a former coca farmer and Bolivia's first indigenous president, to rewrite the constitution and distribute land to the poor.

Clashes also erupted in Tarija, a region rich in natural gas, and anti-Morales demonstrators occupied public buildings in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, an opposition stronghold, for a third day.

As this article indicates, the escalating conflict is centered around control of Bolivia's resources, with the white mestizo elite, supported by the US, resorting to violence in an attempt to overturn the referendum result in favor of Morales. It is reminiscent of the shutdown of the Venezuelan state owned oil industry by the oil workers union in late 2002 and early 2003 in an effort to prevent Chavez from using industry profits to fund social programs. It is, of course, also frighteningly reminscent of US covert operations within Chile in the period leading to the military coup in 1973.

The most disturbing aspects of the deteriorating situation in Bolivia are the extent to which the US is supporting violence that has crossed the threshold into death squad activity, as well as the enthusiastic expression of racism against indigenous people as means of inciting a rebellion. No doubt, we will soon hear someone from the State Department blame the government for the deaths and injuries inflicted upon the indigenous communities of the country, much as they blame Iraqi and Afghan insurgents for the deaths of civilians caused by US military operations in their countries.

While bigotry towards indigenous people and the poor more generally have also been important aspects of the opposition to Chavez in Venezuela, I don't recall that it has ever been expressed this crudely, this violently, on a mass basis. US policy in Bolivia, and, to a lesser degree in Venezuela, is taking on more and more of the features of white supremacy. If the rightists prevail, the prospect of out of control, indiscriminate killings of indigenous people looks very plausible, with the country spiraling into an irreversible cycle of violence similar to the one that plagues Colombia.

Morales appears to be hesitating to use force against the secessionists because it could provide a justification for US intervention. But it doesn't look he has any choice. The Bush administration is bent upon settling old scores before leaving office, as also indicated by the intensification of hostility between the US and Chavez in Venezuela as well, or, at least, leaving behind a policy of confrontation that will be difficult for Obama to change if he becomes President, assuming, of course, that he would even have the inclination to do so.

More abstractly, US elites may have also decided that there is an urgency for a more blatant policy of seizing control over hydrocarbon and mineral resources around the world in light of the ongoing collapse of the financial system. Unable and unwilling to obtain these resources at the market rate, they may have concluded that the implementation of a neo-mercantile policy through local surrogates, like the elites in Santa Cruz province, for example, is required. While the market remains, the empowerment of such elites by the US provides it with a means to manipulate the market to its advantage that it no longer possesses. Speculative musings, no doubt, but ones that may lead to a clearer understanding of the situation with the passage of time.

Labels: American Empire, Bolivia, Hugo Chavez, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, Racism, Venezuela

From today's New York Times:

Chafing at ties between American intelligence agencies and Ecuadorean military officials, President Rafael Correa is purging the armed forces of top commanders and pressing ahead with plans to cast out more than 100 members of the American military from an air base here in this coastal city.

Mr. Correa — who this month dismissed his defense minister, army chief of intelligence and commanders of the army, air force and joint chiefs — said that Ecuador’s intelligence systems were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the C.I.A.” He accused senior military officials of sharing intelligence with Colombia, the Bush administration’s top ally in Latin America.

The dismissals point to a willingness by Mr. Correa, an ally of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, to aggressively confront Ecuador’s military, a bastion of political and economic power in this coup-prone country of 14 million people. Mr. Correa’s moves mark a clear break with his predecessors, illustrating his wager that Ecuador’s institutions may finally be resilient enough to carry out such changes after more than a decade of political upheaval.

The gambit also poses a clear challenge to the United States. For nearly a decade, the base here in Manta has been the most prominent American military outpost in South America and an important facet of the United States’ drug-fighting efforts. Some 100 antinarcotics flights leave here each month to survey the Pacific in an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with drug traffickers bound for the United States.

But many Ecuadoreans have chafed at the American presence and the perceived challenge to the country’s sovereignty, and Mr. Correa promised during his campaign in 2006 to close the outpost.

So far Ecuador’s armed forces, arbiters in the ouster of three presidents in the last 11 years, have bent to the will of Mr. Correa, a widely popular left-leaning president who has sought to assert greater state control over Ecuador’s petroleum and mining industries while challenging the authority of political institutions like the country’s Congress.

More specifically:

Still, tensions persist over his clash with top generals, which emerged after Colombian forces raided a Colombian rebel camp in Ecuador last month. The raid against the rebel group, the Marxist-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, put Ecuador and its ally Venezuela on edge with Colombia. Twenty-five people were killed, including Franklin Aisalla, an Ecuadorean operative for the group, known as the FARC.

The face-off between Ecuador and Colombia ended at a summit meeting in the Dominican Republic, but it has begun again over revelations that Ecuadorean intelligence officials had been tracking Mr. Aisalla, information that was shared not with the president, but apparently with Colombian forces and their American military advisers.

The leak became evident when video and photo images surfaced in Colombia and Ecuador showing Mr. Aisalla meeting with FARC commanders.

“I, the president of the republic, found out about these operations by reading the newspaper,” a visibly indignant Mr. Correa said last week during an interview in the capital, Quito, with foreign correspondents. “This is not something we can tolerate. He added that he planned to restructure the intelligence agencies to give him greater direct control over them.

Boy, it's not the 1980s down south anymore, is it?

Labels: American Empire, Colombia, Ecuador, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, Venezuela

From ow over at the Oil Wars blog, a frightening list of labor activists killed in Colombia in 2006. The list for 2007 has yet to be compiled, but it is projected to be worse. But, of course, it's Hugo Chavez and those crazy Venezuelans next door who are the problem as far as the US is concerned. Exterminating the left in Colombia is acceptable, but asserting control of steel and cement production most assuredly is not.

Labels: American Empire, Colombia, Death Squads, Hugo Chavez, Neoliberalism, Venezuela

To read the original post, go here. Colombian President Uribe has a provocative resume. According to the Pentagon in 1991: Alvaro Uribe Velez--a Colombian politician and senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the U.S.... Uribe has worked for the Medellin cartel and is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

And here is a summary of his political allies:

>>> Fourteen of Uribe's closest congressional allies remain behind bars for their terrorist links, and are slowly revealing where bodies have been dumped, leading to discovery of mass graves last spring.

>>> His foreign minister was forced to resign a year ago when her brother (a senator) was arrested for overseeing the killing of thousands of peasants. (Yeah that’s “thousands” with a “thu”)

>>> His campaign manager/secret police chief was jailed that same month for “giving a hit list of trade unionists and activists to paramilitaries, who then killed them.”

>>> His Army chief “collaborated extensively” with illegal death squads and, back in 2002, colluded in the massacre of 14 people for their supposed leftist politics.

>>> His police intelligence unit illegally wiretapped the phones of journalists and opposition figures for two years

>>> His Defense Minister “tried to plot with the outlawed private militias to upset the rule of a former president," and

>>> In last fall’s elections, a whopping 30 major candidates turned up murdered.

Hat tip to Borev over at Information Clearing House. His post has links in support of all of these assertions.

Of course, the obsession of the US elite and its media allies will remain Chavez and Venezuela. I'm beginning to think that he was incorrect in his description of Uribe's Colombia. Given media disinterest in Colombia in marked contrast to its hysteria in regard to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, rather than Israel, may be a more apt comparison.

Admittedly, Colombia lacks oil (although it does have natural gas), but the media seems willing, as it is with Saudi Arabia, to ignore the flagrant human rights abuses there. One wonders whether Chavez would be more acceptable to the US if he was connected to narco traffickers and killed his political opponents. If US policy prevailed and resulted in the removal of Chavez, Venezuelans would probably find themselves facing the institutionalized state violence inflicted upon the people of Colombia.

Labels: Colombia, Death Squads, Hugo Chavez, Mainstream Media, Political Violence, Venezuela

Earlier this week, after the Colombian military launched an airstrike within Ecuador to kill a high ranking figure within the FARC insurgency, Chavez described Colombia as the Israel of Latin America. Predictably, he was subjected to ridicule within the US, but, as this post by lenin over at Lenin's Tomb reveals, there is a solid historical foundation for it. lenin's post is a good summary of the historic relationship between Israel and the repressive right wing regimes of Central and South America.

Anyone subject to the US elite obsession with Venezuela in recent years would probably tend to believe that Venezuela is the violent, dangerous, politically and economically unstable country, primarily because of the Chavistas, of course, while Colombia represents a mature, American style democracy. What a shock to discover that the Colombian right wing and US corporations destroyed the electoral left in the mid-1980s by relying upon paramilitary death squads to kill and intimidate anyone who attempted to participate in the political system.

Throughout the 1990s to the present, they continue to kill and threaten to kill students and labor leaders. According to Gary Leech in the Colombia Journal:

In the past 20 years, more than 3,000 Colombian unionists have been assassinated. And of the 144 unionists killed worldwide last year, 78 were Colombian—eight more than the previous year. According to the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU), there were 1,165 documented murders of Colombian trade union members between 1994 and 2006. However, the state has convicted the perpetrators in only 14 of these cases—an impunity rate of over 95 percent.

Venezuela is certainly not perfect. It is confronting the economic challenges associated with being a lesser developed nation, challenges that it may or may not overcome. It also has an alarmingly high crime rate, including murder. But it remains an open society, one in which people can participate in the political system without the risk of being targeted by death squads, with the exception of campesinos agitating for land reform.

Who's killing them? Yes, you guessed the prime suspect: Blame has focused on right-wing Colombian paramilitaries hired by Venezuelan latifundistas to intimidate campesinos who move to take control of under-utilised land. I was personally told the same thing by people that I spoke with when I traveled to Venezuela in 2005. Of course, neither the opposition nor their allies in the US media ever express any concern for them, as they would not assist in the project of reinstating neoliberal economic policies there.

Labels: Colombia, Death Squads, Hugo Chavez, Israel, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, Venezuela, Zionism

From Green Left Weekly:

“We’re showing the world that no multinational company can just come here to humiliate Venezuelan employees”, Nixon Lopez, a Venezuelan workers’ leader, told BBC News on October 24. Lopez was referring to the actions of over 10,000 former employees at the Coca-Cola Femsa bottling company, the second-largest soft drink bottling company in the world.

The workers began blockading all 75 plants and warehouses on October 23, shutting down operations across Venezuela. They were demanding that Coca-Cola pay them up to US$2.3 million they say they are owed in pension payments. Current workers also joined the dispute over plans for further redundancies, according to an October 23 Venezuelanalysis.com article by Steve Mather.

via Politics in the Zeros

Labels: Venezuela

Simbaud reports the Democrats are about to win big because Hugo Chavez secretly controls every voting machine in America. Here's the Miami Herald:

Federal officials are investigating whether Smartmatic, owner of Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, is secretly controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, according to two people familiar with the probe. [ ... ]

Concerns about Smartmatic are keen on the eve of the Nov. 7 election, given fears that someone with unauthorized access to the electronic system could create electoral chaos. Some critics believe that if the Venezuelan government is involved, Smartmatic could be a ''Trojan horse'' designed to advance Chavez's anti-American agenda.

God, you can't make this stuff up...

Labels: Hugo Chavez, King of Zembla, Latin America, Venezuela