The world again enters an economic, political, and
military crisis in the Western Hemisphere. It remains important to think
historically about last January’s call by the United States and 10 hemisphere
countries for President Nicholas Maduro to step down as President of Venezuela,
increases in the blockade of Cuba, the undermining of economy and political
institutions in Puerto Rico, and the desperate migration of Central
Americans fleeing repression. For many who are learning about US
imperialism for the first time, it is important to revisit the history of the
Western Hemisphere and to contextualize regional crises, including the sordid
treatment of those fleeing violence and poverty and the borders of the United
States.
A
Brief HistoryAs Greg Grandin argues in “Empire’s Workshop,” the rise of the United States as a global empire began in the Western Hemisphere. For example, the United States took one-quarter of Mexico’s land as a result of the Mexican War of the 1840s. Later in the nineteenth century, the United States interfered in the Cuban Revolution defeating Spain in the Spanish/Cuban/American War of 1898. And, at the same time, the United States attacked the Spanish outpost in the Philippines (while colonizing Puerto Rico and Hawaii) thus becoming a global power. Latin American interventionism throughout the Western Hemisphere, sending troops into Central American and Caribbean countries thirty times between the 1890s and 1933, “tested” what would become after World War II a pattern of covert interventions and wars in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Western Hemisphere was first colonized by Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and France from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. The main source of accumulated wealth funding the rise of capitalism as a world system came from raw material and slave labor in the Western Hemisphere: gold, silver, sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, indigo, and later oil. What Marx called the stage of “primitive accumulation,” was a period in world history governed by land grabs, mass slaughter of indigenous peoples, expropriation of natural resources, and the capture, transport, and enslavement of millions of African people. Conquest, land occupation, and dispossession was coupled with the institutionalization of a Church that would convince the survivors of this stage of capitalism’s development that all was “God’s plan.”
Imperial expansion generated resistance throughout
this history. In the nineteenth century
countries and peoples achieved their formal independence from colonial rule.
Simon Bolivar, the nineteenth century leader of resistance, spoke for national
sovereignty in Latin America.
But from 1898 until the present, the Western
Hemisphere has been shaped by US efforts to replace the traditional colonial
powers with neo-colonial regimes. Economic institutions, class systems,
militaries, and religious institutions were influenced by United States
domination of the region.
In the period of the Cold War, 1945-1991, the United
States played the leading role in overthrowing the reformist government of
Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala (1954), Salvador Allende in Chile (1973), and gave
support to brutal military dictatorships in the 1970s in Brazil, Argentina,
Chile, and Uruguay. The Reagan administration engaged in a decade-long war on
Central America in the 1980s. In 1989
the United States sent 23,000 marines to overthrow the government of Manuel
Noriega in Panama. (This was a prelude to Gulf War I against Iraq).
From 1959 until today the United States has sought
through attempted military intervention, economic blockade, cultural intrusion,
and international pressures to undermine, weaken, and destroy the Cuban
Revolution.
Often during this dark history US policymakers have
sought to mask interventionism in the warm glow of economic development.
President Kennedy called for an economic development program in Latin America,
called the Alliance for Progress and Operation Bootstrap for Puerto Rico. Even
the harsh “shock therapy” of neoliberalism imposed on Bolivia in the 1980s was
based upon the promise of rapid economic development in that country.
The
Bolivarian Revolution
The 21st century has
witnessed a variety of forms of resistance to the drive for global hegemony and
the perpetuation of neoliberal globalization. First, the two largest economies
in the world, China and India, have experienced economic growth rates well in
excess of the industrial capitalist countries. China has developed a global
export and investment program in Latin America and Africa that exceeds that of
the United States and Europe.
The Bolivarian Revolution stimulated political change based on varying degrees of grassroots democratization, the construction of workers’ cooperatives, and a shift from neoliberal economic policies to economic populism. A Bolivarian Revolution was being constructed with a growing web of participants: Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and, of course, Cuba.
On the Latin American continent, under the leadership and inspiration of former
President Hugo Chavez Venezuela launched the latest round of state resistance
to the colossus of the north, with his Bolivarian Revolution. He planted the
seeds of socialism at home and encouraged Latin Americans to participate in the
construction of financial institutions and economic assistance programs to
challenge the traditional hegemony of the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.
The Bolivarian Revolution stimulated political change based on varying degrees of grassroots democratization, the construction of workers’ cooperatives, and a shift from neoliberal economic policies to economic populism. A Bolivarian Revolution was being constructed with a growing web of participants: Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and, of course, Cuba.
It was hoped that even
after the premature death of Chavez in 2013, the Bolivarian Revolution would
continue in Venezuela and throughout the region. But the economic ties and
political solidarity of progressive regimes, hemisphere regional institutions,
and grassroots movements have been challenged by declining oil prices and
economic errors; increasing covert intervention in Venezuelan affairs by the
United States; a US-encouraged shift to the right by “soft coups” in Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador; and a more aggressive United States foreign policy
toward Latin America. Governments supportive of Latin American solidarity with
Venezuela have been undermined and/or defeated in elections in Honduras,
Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and now attacks have escalated against what former
National Security Advisor John Bolton calls “the troika of tyranny;” Venezuela,
Nicaragua, and Cuba. As Vijay Prashad
puts it: “Far right leaders in the hemisphere
(Bolsonaro, Márquez, and Trump) salivate at the prospect of regime change in
each of these countries. They want to eviscerate the “pink tide” from the
region” (Vijay Prashad, thetricontinental.org,
January 20, 2019).
Special
Dilemmas Latin Americans Face
Historically all Western Hemisphere countries have
been shaped and distorted in their economies, polities, and cultures by
colonialism and neo-colonialism. They have also been shaped by their long
histories of resistance to outside forces seeking to develop imperial hegemony.
Latin American history is both a history of oppression, exploitation, and
violence, and confrontation with mass
movements of various kinds. Also, it is important to emphasize that the
imperial system has created complicit and repressive regimes in Latin and
Central America and have generated extremes of wealth and poverty. Military
repression and extreme poverty within countries have forced migrations of
people seeking some physical and economic security. Armed with this
understanding several historical realities bear on the current crises in the
region, including the emigration of people from their countries.
First,
every country, with the exception of Cuba, experiences deep class divisions.
Workers, peasants, the new precariat, people of color, youth, and women face
off against very wealthy financiers, entrepreneurs, and industrialists, often
with family ties, as well as corporate ties, with the United States. Whether
one is trying to understand the soft coup in Brazil, the instability in
Nicaragua, or the deep divisions in Venezuela, class struggle is a central
feature of whatever conflicts are occurring.
Second,
United States policy in the administrations of both political parties is
fundamentally driven by opposition to the full independence of Latin America.
US policy throughout the new century has been inalterably opposed to the
Bolivarian Revolution. Consequently, a centerpiece of United States policy is
to support by whatever means the wealthy classes in each country.
Third,
as a byproduct of the colonial and neo-colonial stages in the region, local
ruling classes and their North American allies have supported the creation of sizable
militaries. Consequently, in political and economic life, the military remains
a key actor in each country in the region. Most often, the military serves the
interests of the wealthy class (or is part of it), and works overtly or
covertly to resist democracy, majority rule, and the grassroots. Consequently,
each progressive government in the region has had to figure out how to relate
to the military. In the case of Chile, President Allende assumed the military
would stay neutral in growing political disputes among competing class forces. But
the Nixon Administration was able to identify and work with generals who
ultimately carried out a military coup against the popular elected socialist
government of Chile. So far in the Venezuelan case, the military seems to be
siding with the government. Chavez himself was a military officer.
Fourth,
given the rise of grassroots movements, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela
began to support “dual power,” particularly at the local level. Along with
political institutions that traditionally were controlled by the rich and
powerful, new local institutions of popular power were created. The
establishment of popular power has been a key feature of many governments ever
since the Cuban Revolution. Popular power, to varying degrees, is replicated in
economic institutions, in culture, and in community life such that in Venezuela
and elsewhere workers and peasants see their own empowerment as tied to the
survival of revolutionary governments. In short, defense of the Maduro
government, depends on the continuing support of the grassroots and the
military.
Fifth,
the governments of the Bolivarian Revolution face many obstacles. Small but
powerful capitalist classes is one. Persistent United States covert operations
and military bases throughout the region is another. And, perhaps most
importantly, given the hundreds of years of colonial and neo-colonial rule,
Latin American economies remain distorted by over-reliance on small numbers of
raw materials and, as a result of pressure from international financial
institutions, on export of selected products such as agricultural crops. In
other words, historically Latin American economies have been distorted by the pressure
on them to create one-crop economies to serve the interests of powerful
capitalist countries, not diversified economies to serve the people.
Sixth, United States
policy toward the region from time to time is affected by the exigencies of
domestic politics. For example, the Trump Administration verbal threats against
Venezuela are being articulated as the president’s domestic fortunes are being
challenged by the threat of impeachment and confrontations with the new
Congressional leadership. War often masks domestic troubles.
Finally, the long history of colonialism,
neo-colonialism, “land grabs” such as taking one third of Mexico, and the
establishment of repressive regimes in the Western Hemisphere coupled with the
establishment of draconian neo-liberal economic policies set in motion
desperate migrations of people fleeing repression, violence, and abject
poverty. The migration crisis today, the creation of virtual concentration
camps of people at the United States border, is a direct result of over one
hundred years of United States foreign policy.
Where
do Progressives Stand
First, and foremost, progressives should prioritize an
understanding of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and the role of
Latin American as the “laboratory” for testing United States interventionist
foreign policies. This means that critics of US imperialism can be most
effective by avoiding “purity tests” when contemplating political activism
around US foreign policy. One cannot forget the connections between current
patterns of policy toward Venezuela, with the rhetoric, the threats, the
claims, and US policies toward Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and in the new century, Bolivia, Venezuela,
Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina.
Second, progressives need to show solidarity with
grassroots movements in the region, support human rights, oppose military
interventions, and demand the closure of the myriad of United States military
bases in the region and end training military personnel from the region.
Third, progressives should realize that as tensions
rise again in the hemisphere there are growing dangers of violence spreading
throughout Latin America. By attacking “the troika of tyranny,” the United
States is increasing the likelihood of class war throughout the region. And,
given growing Chinese and Russian economic and political involvement in the Western
Hemisphere, it is not inconceivable for regional war to escalate to global war.
Finally, progressives must stand and fight against
brutal and inhuman United States border policies and the establishment of
concentration camps that violate every element of the United Nations
Declaration of Human Rights. The migrations and the oftentimes brutal responses
at the border are inextricably connected to the historic role of the United
States in the Western hemisphere.
In short, the time has come to stand up against United
States imperialism.
(A useful history of United States interventionism can
be found in Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow:
America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Henry Holt, 2006).