Bush to Latin America:
'Submit or starve'
By Teresa Gutierrez
More than 50 heads of state gathered at the United Nations
International Conference on Financing for Development on March
18-22 in Monterrey, Mexico. They met, they said, to discuss the
growing gap between rich and poor and how to eradicate
poverty.
But the anti-globalization movement has successfully pointed
out that no gathering of the rich and powerful will alleviate
the dire situation that billions of people face every day. In
reality these kinds of meetings--when they are
successful--serve only to strengthen the capitalist ruling
classes and increase the extreme exploitation of the
masses.
The imperialists are rich because they suck the profits like
lifeblood from the countries they impoverish. It is a class
battle between oppressor and oppressed.
The meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, was no different. It paid
lip service to the desperate economic situation of millions of
Latinos. It offered band-aid solutions. It set the stage for
U.S. imperialism's attempt to further bully Latin America.
And the U.S. managed to drive a wedge between Mexico and
Cuba. Cuban President Fidel Castro, a participant at the
conference, was reportedly asked by Mexican officials to go
home before U.S. President George Bush's scheduled arrival.
Bush used this conference to bring the so-called war on
terrorism to the doorstep of many Latin American nations: "You
are either with us or you are against us." Unfortunately, many
Latin American heads of state were more than willing to comply
with imperialism.
Bush's trip was designed to show U.S. imperialism's strong
interest in Latin America. Given special attention right now is
the Andean region, where Washington has allocated a great deal
of resources--not to aid the impoverished masses but to
militarize the region.
Washington is hell bent on exterminating the Colombian
insurgents who, after 40 years, are continuing to fight
capitalist exploitation. Washington is keenly interested in
developments in Venezuela, where a progressive administration
threatens to serve the people rather than the voracious
appetite of the International Monetary Fund.
By its close, the Monterrey conference officially declared
that it had "struck a new bargain to fight world poverty." But
it offered aid and development to impoverished countries only
if they commit to open markets and "good government."
The media reported that aid proposals by the U.S. and Europe
fall far short of the $100 billion a year the UN has said is
needed to cut poverty in half by 2015.
And opening markets wide to imperialist exploitation will
only intensify the unprecedented economic, social and political
crisis facing Latin America.
Mexico is an example of how "open market" policies bring
only greater poverty. As a result of NAFTA, a quarter of the
corn used in Mexico is now imported from the U.S. This has
resulted in an even more desperate situation for thousands of
peasants.
The exploiting countries and their financial institutions,
such as the IMF, have been forced to take up the issue of
poverty by the growing movement of the oppressed. But their
"solutions" only make it worse because they take for granted an
economic system that lives for profits, not to solve human
needs.
George Dubya got a taste of the rising struggle on his
whirlwind tour in Latin America when he visited Monterrey,
Mexico; Lima, Peru; and San Salvador, El Salvador.
'Bush: leading terrorist!'
While in Monterrey, Bush announced the further
militarization of the Mexican/U.S. border with state-of-the-art
equipment deployed along 2,000 miles.
Mexican socialist parties and many mass organizations, in
just a few short weeks, brought thousands of activists to
protest the UN meeting. Many Mexicans expressed their outrage
at the treatment of Fidel Castro, who is beloved throughout
Latin America.
Zapatistas, as well as groups fighting privatization, took
part in the protests. Many students and youth groups
participated.
On March 21, several thousand protesters gathered at police
barricades and some burned an effigy of Uncle Sam, a long-time
symbol of U.S. imperialism. Others hurled a dead goat over the
barricades. Activists said the goat had died from toxic waste
from a nearby factory.
Bush then traveled to Peru--the first visit by a sitting
U.S. president to that country. It was an indication of the
strategic role Peru and its president, Alejandro Toledo, will
play in U.S./Latin American relations.
While in Peru, Bush reportedly made it clear that he is in
agreement with the unjust incarceration of Lori Berenson, a
North American activist who is in a Peruvian jail allegedly for
aiding rebels there.
The March 24 Washington Post gave the standard cover story
for expanding U.S. armed intervention in the region: "President
Bush and President Alejandro Toledo pledged a joint fight
against terrorism and drug trafficking in the hemisphere."
In Peru, a car bomb was set off near the U.S. Embassy just
days before Dubya's arrival. At another protest, many Peruvians
threw stones at the 7,000 police who tear gassed them. Several
protesters were arrested.
But they got their message across, waving placards that read
"Bush, murderer, out of Peru!" "We don't want to be a North
American colony." One painted bed sheet read, "U.S.: leading
terrorist of the world."
In El Salvador, tens of thousands marched in the streets of
the capital San Salvador to remind Bush of the role the U.S.
played in the deaths of thousands of Salvadorans during the
1980s. They carried signs against the Free Trade Area of the
Americas, Plan Colombia and the blockade of Cuba.
The protests were spurred on by the fact that Bush set foot
in El Salvador on March 24--the anniversary of the day
Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by U.S.-backed death
squads in 1980. Only a month before his murder, the archbishop
had denounced U.S. military aid to the Salvadoran
dictatorship.
The mainstream U.S. press reported that Bush was on more
than one occasion challenged by members of the Latin American
press. A Mexican reporter boldly asked Bush who was really
lying about President Castro leaving Mexico.
During his trip, Bush also met with presidents or leaders
from Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Ecuador, Bolivia and
Colombia. Many of the Latin American leaders reportedly raised
the Andean Trade Preferences Act, legislation they hope will
alleviate their economic crisis by providing duty-free access
to U.S. markets for a range of products from the region.
All these leaders want to avoid an Argentina-type crisis.
But while many of them issued welcoming remarks to the Emperor,
the masses on the other hand were in the streets, marching and
protesting against Bush's visit.
Reprinted from the April 4, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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