Latin America « Aletho News

Panama Papers: Should the Corporate Media Have Been Trusted?

By Joe Emersberger – teleSUR – May 14, 2016

“John Doe” made a bad call when he leaked the Panama papers to the corporate media.

“Can a corporate media system be expected to tell the truth about a world dominated by corporations?” the Media Lens editors once asked rhetorically.

Assuming the best of intentions on the part of whoever leaked the Panama Papers, trusting hundreds of corporate journalists to wage war on income inequality was a bad mistake. However, the corporate media can be trusted to wage war on the enemies of income inequality, in particular progressive governments in Latin America, and use the Panama Papers to do so even if the ammunition they have is pitiful.

Consider an article in the Miami Herald that ran with the mocking headline, “Ecuador’s leader demands release of Panama Papers, and learns he’s in them.” A very similar article with an almost identical headline ran in the UK Independent, and in many other outlets. The article in the Herald began:

“… Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa called out his country’s journalists and boasted that, unlike other countries, he and his government weren’t found in the leak.

However, the secret documents show that he and his estranged brother, Fabricio, caught the attention of anti-corruption authorities in Panama in 2012.”

Anyone who follows Ecuadorian politics will find this very underwhelming. Fabricio Correa is a long-time bitter foe of his brother’s government. Fabricio is also a businessman who has long been accused of being less than ethical by his brother and many other people. That’s old news and it is hardly surprising that it would have “caught the attention” of investigators years ago. How could it not have? A book was written in 2010 – “El Gran Hermano” – alleging that Rafael Correa was complicit with his brother’s corruption and in 2012 Correa won a defamation suit against the authors.

The article in the Herald is convoluted and often unclear, but that actually serves its purpose. It is padded with details that ultimately fail to land a blow against Fabricio Correa, never mind President Correa, but readers unfamiliar with Ecuador, even if left confused by the article, will probably still come away thinking that something damning has been uncovered.

The use of meaningless statistics is another way the article is padded. It says “searching the word ‘Ecuador’ yields more than 160,000 secret documents. Guayaquil, the wealthy coastal city, shows up in 109,000 documents,” as if that refutes Correa’s observation that hostile Ecuadorean journalists who have had access to the documents for a year have not found anything to discredit his government. Correa would be the last person to deny that corruption, in particular tax avoidance by his elite opponents, is still a big problem in Ecuador. That’s one reason why Correa demanded that all the information be released rather than cherry-picked by corporate journalists. Ecuador’s private media led a very dishonest propaganda campaign last year against tax reforms that would have almost entirely impacted Ecuador’s wealthiest 2 percent. Moreover, Guayaquil’s mayor for the past 16 years has been Jaime Nebot, a right-winger who is arguably Correa’s most prominent opponent. Applying the shoddy logic suggested by the article, Nebot and his right wing allies – including his many allies in Ecuador’s private media – are discredited by how often the word “Guayaquil” appears in the Panama Papers.

Reporters are not always so sloppy. When a journalist I recently corresponded with found a Venezuelan opposition member mentioned in the Panama Papers he explained to me that “he was simply mentioned in newspaper articles passed around by IMF staff.”

The article in the Herald also cited an NGO as follows:

“Last year, Transparency International ranked 168 countries and territories on its government corruption index. It found that 106 nations were less corrupt than Ecuador.”

It neglected to mention that the head of the groups’ Chile branch just resigned after being linked to offshore firms. Much more importantly, it has been obvious for many years that a little transparency does not flatter Transparency International (TI). In 2008, Calvin Tucker wrote a hard hitting piece about a shockingly dishonest report that TI published about Venezuela’s state oil company. He reported “TI says that they ‘stand by their report’ and stand by the person who compiled the data, an anti-Chávez activist who backed the 2002 military coup against democracy.”

The Miami Herald also used the Panama Papers as an excuse to rehash the farcical “suitcase scandal” of 2008. It was a comical example of the US government using its prosecutors and a more than cooperative media to smear governments it didn’t like – in this case the left governments of Venezuela and (at the time) Argentina. How could the United States possibly claim jurisdiction over a case based on far-fetched allegations that the Venezuelan government had tried to smuggle a suitcase full of cash into Argentina to influence an election? The U.S. government weaseled in by alleging that an “unregistered agent” of Venezuela’s government had come to the United States to convince one of the people involved to keep quiet. There had never been an indictment under this law unless there was an espionage or national security accusation to go along with it. Mind you, several years later the Obama Administration would officially declare Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States – and then defend the insane declaration by saying it didn’t mean it. The U.S. media responded with some timid criticism. That should be unsurprising. Media outlets owned by the rich and powerful, whose most influential customers, advertisers, are rich and powerful are not going to lead movements for serious reform, never mind revolution.

None of this is to say that the Panama Papers will not be of any help in the fight against income inequality. Time will tell. There must be a very small number of journalists working in the private media who are genuinely interested in fighting inequality, but one can easily imagine how much more positive impact these leaks may have had. Recall how wisely Edward Snowden singled out Glenn Greenwald as a journalist he could trust. Remember where Julian Assange, a real thorn in the side of the most powerful and violent people in the world, ended up seeking refuge; and never forget how viciously the corporate media turned on him.

The battle against inequality, which is a crucial part of the battle for meaningful democracy, requires a struggle against the corporate media, a real movement to democratize the means of communication, not (a few exceptional corporate journalists aside) collaboration with it.

Panama Papers: The Caribbean Connection

May 15, 2016 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Ecuador, Latin America, Panama Papers, Rafael Correa | Leave a comment

Colombian Military Bombing of Indigenous Territory Forces Flight

There is not enough shelter to house all of the displaced families.

There is not enough shelter to house all of the displaced families. | Photo: Contagio Radio

teleSUR – May 13, 2016

A national bombing campaign in the territories of the Indigenous Embera Wounaan ethnic group has forced them to flee their homes and take shelter elsewhere.

More than 400 Indigenous people from the ethnic group Embera Wounaan have been forced to leave their homes and stay in shelters in protection against military bombings of the camps of the National Liberation Army (ELN), Prensa Latina report.

Faced with threats to their security, the 94 families who have been forced to seek protection away from their land in the coastal area of Medio San Juan, Choco, say there are not enough shelters to house everyone.

The bombings began on April 10. According to Dura Bernardino, the leader of the Indigenous community, the bombings sent the community into a panic and that is why they decided to go to the municipal administrative center to save their lives.

The vulnerable community is calling on the government to stop the bombings and provide them with guarantees to return to their land.

May 14, 2016 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | Colombia, Latin America | Leave a comment

Washington Coup in Brazil? Was Incoming President US Embassy Informant?

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | May 13, 2016

Adding to suspicions of a US role in the ouster of independent-minded Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is a revelation making the rounds today that Michel Temer, the opposition leader who will step in as interim president, had met with US embassy officials in Sau Paulo to provide his assessment and spin on the domestic political situation in Brazil. Thanks to Wikileaks, we have the US embassy cable that resulted from the incoming president’s visit to US political officers.

Acting president Temer will hold office for up to six months while impeached president Rousseff stands trial in the Brazilian senate. If her impeachment is finalized by a two-thirds vote, Temer will remain in office until elections in 2018.

Rousseff’s ouster has been curious all along. She claims it is a coup against the will of the Brazilian voter and indeed she has not been accused of corruption or serious crime. Instead, she has been impeached for accusations that she used some tricky bookkeeping maneuvers to hide the extent of Brazil’s budget deficit in advance of her successful 2014 re-election bid. Observers would note that if fiddling with economic statistics to make a country’s balance sheet look better were grounds for impeachment in the United States, there would have been successive impeachments for decades or perhaps longer.

There are more curiosities surrounding the US role in Brazil’s “regime change” this week. Just weeks ago, as Brazil’s lower house of parliament began the process by voting 367 to 137 for impeachment, one very powerful opposition senator made his way to Washington to make his case in the Beltway corridors of power.

The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald wrote at the time:

Today — the day after the impeachment vote — Sen. Aloysio Nunes of the (opposition) PSDB will be in Washington to undertake three days of meetings with various U.S. officials as well as with lobbyists and assorted influence-peddlers close to Clinton and other leading political figures.

Sen. Nunes is meeting with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Undersecretary of State and former Ambassador to Brazil Thomas Shannon; and attending a luncheon on Tuesday hosted by the Washington lobbying firm Albright Stonebridge Group, headed by former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Bush 43 Commerce Secretary and Kellogg Company CEO Carlos Gutierrez.

The US has long been opposed to Rousseff, seeing her independent-mindedness and participation in the BRICS trade grouping as a threat to US influence in the region. Leftist governments in both Brazil and Venezuela have long been targets of US destabilization efforts. When Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA had been tapping her phones, Rousseff delivered a blistering speech at the United Nations accusing the US of violating international law and violating “the principles that must guide the relations among…friendly nations.” Most foreign leaders when informed that the NSA had been spying on them sheepishly dropped the subject. Rousseff was almost alone in venting her rage over what she viewed as betrayal by a friendly government.

Is today’s news about Temer’s trips to the US embassy a smoking gun of a US role in this week’s dramatic events? It must be stated that a meeting between political opposition figures and US embassy officials is not uncommon, and some alternative press accusations that the meeting makes Temer a US “informant” or even a US intelligence agent are probably over-blown. Embassy personnel as a matter of course cultivate political leaders in countries where they are posted to help get an understanding of the broad political situation. But it is part of the US interventionist strategy, from Moscow to Budapest to Minsk to Damascus to Sau Paulo, for US embassy personnel to actively engage opposition figures in countries where the US would like to see regime change. While it is understandable — and can even be admirable — that US embassy political officers actually get out from behind the embassy walls, it is also no secret that these meetings can be highly selective and can serve as a way to reinforce existing US policy toward a particular country instead of gaining a better understanding of the broad political landscape.

How deeply are Washington’s fingers in the pie of Brazil’s political crisis? There is at least one precedent, Greenwald notes in the above article. After years of strident US denial, secret documents were finally released revealing the central role played by the US in Brazil’s 1964 military coup to remove a left-wing government. Plus ça change?

May 13, 2016 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular | Brazil, Latin America, United States | Leave a comment

Soft Coup in Brazil: A Blow to Brazilian Democracy

By Juan Sebastian Chavarro, Raiesa Frazer, Rachael Hilderbrand and Emma Tyrou | Council on Hemispheric Affairs | May 12, 2016

The impeachment this week of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff represents the most significant test for Brazil’s institutions since the end of its military dictatorship in 1985. After the Senate voted Thursday to begin an impeachment trial of the country’s first female president, less than halfway through her second term in office, one politician described the events as representing the “saddest day for Brazil’s young democracy.”^[1] Since the post-dictatorship transition, impeachment requests have been filed against each and every one of Brazil’s presidents, but none were carried through.^[2] Rousseff, however, will be only the second president to experience an actual trial. Portrayed as a crusade against corruption, the current process against a democratically elected president rests on unclear budgetary charges and bears the mark of a right wing retaliation after 13 years of left rule. This process is further complicated by the fact that virtually all of Brazil’s leading political figures are implicated to some degree in the corruption schemes. In the eyes of many, Brazil’s institutions seem to be failing this test and are not holding all actors equally accountable. From the outside it appears that in the young Brazilian republic, the structures of democracy are being shaken down. While the right-wing claims that Rousseff’s impeachment request is a legitimate response to budgetary malfeasance, her supporters are characterizing the efforts to impeach her as unconstitutional, and therefore a coup.

In “Behind Dilma’s Destitution, a Neoliberal Coup,” Tatiana Roque, a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) described the events surrounding Rousseff’s impeachment as a “neoliberal coup.” She states: “In the putting on hold of the democratic principles and the weakening of the voting power, we foresee the appearance of a dramatically anti-democratic process.”^{^[3]} In coverage of such a complex situation, the crisis has been portrayed by the privately owned media as a movement of the people against a corrupt government, which is ultimately an inaccurate and oversimplified explanation. In light of events this past week, it is even more necessary to analyze the legal ground on which the whole illegitimate process rests and to grasp its significance for the entire region.

Brazil’s Senate Vote to Continue the Impeachment Process

The push to oust Rousseff from office has been a protracted and chaotic process littered with soap opera-like developments and reversals. On Wednesday, May 11, Brazil’s Senate voted in favor 55 votes to 22, after 21 hours of tense debate, to suspend the office of President Dilma Rousseff and to begin the formal impeachment trial against her on charges of fiscal and budget responsibility crimes. The process now moved to the Senate after a series of complicated events. On April 17, the Chamber of Deputies voted to approve the continuation of the impeachment process, in a circus-like atmosphere where almost none of the Deputies directly addressed the charge backing her impeachment. The former President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, was removed earlier this week on the grounds of the obstruction of investigations in the Petrobras corruption scandal. He was replaced by Waldir Maranhão who immediately after taking office, decided to annul the April 17 decision only to then cancel the request, a mere 48 hours before the Senate was scheduled to commence and vote. In response to this wild back and forth, the highly respected former Supreme Court (STF) judge, Joaquim Barbosa, tweeted: “Do you know what the whole world must be thinking about us Brazilians? “A laughing stock’.” Amidst all this, Rousseff insists that she will continue to keep fighting until the very end. In Brasilia, while waiting for the announcement of the Senate’s decision the two sides of the makeshift wall that separated those supporting from those opposing the impeachment could not have been more contrasting. While on one side the pro-impeachment crowd dressed in yellow and green had a Carnival like celebration, those opposing the impeachment process were at certain times in the evening subjected to tear gas by the police.

Now the Senate has voted in favor of the commencement of the impeachment trial, which will be conducted in the Senate and led by the President of the Supreme Court Ricardo Lewandowski. Within 180 days and after consideration of evidence and testimonies by both the accusatory commission and Rousseff’s defense team, a verdict will be rendered: guilty or not guilty. Meanwhile, she will be suspended from office and her duties will be temporarily fulfilled by the universally unpopular Vice President Michel Temer, from the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). Temer, however, is himself implicated in a number of scandals, leaving his political future uncertain. He stands accused of illegal financing during the 2014 elections and also has been cited in a plea bargain regarding his alleged involvement in the Petrobras corruption scandal.^{^[4]}

The Veneer of Legitimacy

Opponents of Rousseff’s administration claim that the current impeachment followed a legal procedure: it was voted on by Congress and is a political process acting on the people’s desire to remove an increasingly unpopular president. According to them, the charges behind Dilma’s impeachment request – the maneuvering of funds and tampering with budgets – are sufficient cause for her removal since such acts are illegal under the Constitution due to the Fiscal Responsibility Law. However, the case against Dilma is missing the most important component: proof that a crime of responsibility has been committed.

The right-wing of Brazilian politics, represented by different parties – the main being the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) – and principally supported by the traditional ruling class, economic elite, and a highly concentrated national mainstream media, have been out of power at the federal level for over a decade. However, in the current political crisis, recession, and corruption scandals, this coalition sees an opportunity to take back power from Rousseff’s Workers Party (PT) that has been ruling for the past 13 years. Since the right-wing has not been able to win at the ballot box, they have stirred up yet another anti-corruption campaign to gain support from the already angered population.^{^[5]} In the midst of an economic crisis there may be enough public discontent to push for Dilma’s impeachment due to fiscal irresponsibility, even if she has not committed a crime. Yet the already complicated situation becomes more complex when one considers that many of the very same politicians fighting for Dilma’s impeachment are also accused of personal embezzlement. All parties – those in power, the left; as well as those in the right-wing opposition trying to replace the current government – are involved in some measure of corruption. Ironically, Rousseff is one of the only political leaders not accused of personal enrichment. Nearly a third of the 594 members of Congress, including the leaders of the lower house and the Senate, are under scrutiny before the courts over claims of violating laws including Eduardo Cunha (PMDB), the former President of the Chamber of Deputies, Renan Calheiros (PMDB), the President of the Senate, and Aecio Neves, the opposition’s (PSDB) leader.^{^[6]} The motivation behind the impeachment process therefore appears not to be an anti-corruption campaign, but rather the desire to instigate a political war between the right and left in an opportunistic strategy for Brazil’s political elite to regain power without votes or democratic legitimacy.

Rousseff and her government supporters argue that she has not committed any crime that justifies her removal. Under any circumstances, impeachment without proof of a crime should be considered a coup. The legal flaws in the case against Dilma make the continuation of the impeachment process an undemocratic attempt by the Brazilian elite to enter into power by overthrowing a democratically elected leader. President Rousseff was democratically elected by majority vote in 2010 and again in 2014. Given that she was thereby twice granted a democratic mandate to govern in free and fair elections, the entire process, especially now that the trial has opened, is setting a dangerous precedent in Brazilian politics. The Brazilian Constitution (enacted in 1988 after decades of rule by a military junta) defines the country as a “presidential regime” rather than a parliamentary one. In the former, impeachment is designed as an ultimate solution to remove from power a leader guilty of crime, and therefore deemed unfit to conduct the remainder of its mandate. It should by no means be confused with the more common vote of non-confidence, aiming at replacing a leader who has lost legislative support in a parliamentarian system. Simply put, these attempted impeachments are trivializing the impeachment clause process, and are eroding citizens’ faith in their own political system.

Such a situation raises concerns over the prevailing strength of Brazilian democracy. In an interview with Democracy Now! on May 10, journalist Glenn Greenwald stated,

“To sit here and witness the utter dismantling of a democracy, which is exactly what is taking place, by the richest and most powerful people in the society, using their media organs that masquerade as journalistic outlets, but which are in fact propaganda channels for a tiny number of extremely rich families, almost all of whom supported that coup and then the military dictatorship, is really disturbing and frightening to see.”^{^[7]}

No more than three years ago, Brazil’s economy was booming, its prospects improving, and in the long-term it looked as if Brazil’s goal to become a developed power in the world was close at hand. The current economic crisis has reversed this process and frustrated the Brazilian people. While approval ratings for Rousseff and her administration were once high, Brazilian voters have directed their frustration towards Dilma and the Worker’s Party due to the economic downturn. The right-wing political and economic elite have used this economic discontent on top of the nation’s largest corruption scandal to remove Dilma from office – even if there is no legitimate claim backing her removal.

Regional Implications

With clear parallels to the 1964 coup that ousted then-President João Goulart as well as to the political crisis that led to oustings of democratically elected presidents in Paraguay and Honduras, Brazil’s ongoing impeachment process is an assault on democracy. The ousting of the current Brazilian president based on political and judicial manipulations, as well as constitutional misinterpretations, undermines the democratic legitimacy of the government but moreover calls into question the viability of Brazil’s major institutions. In its success, the precedents set for future governments are devastating not only in Brazil but in all Latin America. Brazil represents the eighth largest economy in the world, and it is a leading power in the continent.

In the first hours of his new mandate, acting President Temer promised the new government will announce austerity measures.^{^[8]} Temer has previously set eyes on Paulo Leme, the chairman of Goldman Sachs in Brazil, to potentially serve as finance minister or central bank chief. Temer also is considering Luiz Fernando Figueiredo, a previous central bank official and founder of asset manager Mauá Capital, to be Treasury secretary for the central bank. They have been consulted for the drafting of “A bridge to the Future”, the PMDB economic plan.^{^[9]}

The right wing takeover of the government in Brazil will likely have momentous consequences for the integrity of UNASUR as a bastion of independence from U.S. hegemony in the region. Combined with the neoliberal stance of President Macri in Argentina, we can expect a concerted effort by this conservative wave to drive MERCOSUR in to the free trade camp, isolate Venezuela, and undermine the Bolivarian cause in Bolivia and throughout the region. But just as Macri appears to be overplaying his hand in provoking popular outrage, the right in Brazil may soon find itself faced with an eroding, ephemeral legitimacy.

[1] Watts, Jonathan. “Dilma Rousseff Suspended as Senate Votes to Impeach Brazilian President.” The Guardian. 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/12/dilma-rousseff-brazil-president-impeached-senate-vote?utm_source=esp.

^{^[2]} Nolte Detlef, and Llanos Mariana. “The Many Faces of Latin American Presidentialism.” GIGA Focus Latin America, May 2016. Accessed May 11, 2016. https://www.academia.edu/25159273/The_Many_Faces_of_Latin_American_Presidentialism

^{^[3]} Roque, Tatiana. “Sous la Destitution de Dilma Rousseff un Coup d’Etat Neoliberal.” Regards, May 12, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.regards.fr/web/article/sous-la-destitution-de-dilma-rousseff-un-coup-d-etat-neoliberal

^{^[4]} Esther Fuentes. “Who Is Who in Brazil’s Complicated Lava Jato Corruption Allegations?” COHA. March 17, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.coha.org/who-is-who-in-brazils-complicated-lava-jato-corruption-allegations/

^{^[5]} Jen Glüsing. “Staatskrise in Brasilien: Kalter Putsch.” Der Spiegel, March 19, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/brasilien-hexenjagd-auf-lula-ein-kalter-putsch-kommentar-a-1083218.html and Laurent Delcourt. “Printemps Trompeur Au Brésil.” Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2016/05/DELCOURT/55435

^{^[6]} Esther Fuentes. “Who Is Who in Brazil’s Complicated Lava Jato Corruption Allegations?” COHA. March 17, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.coha.org/who-is-who-in-brazils-complicated-lava-jato-corruption-allegations/

^{^[7]} Amy Goodman. “Glenn Greenwald on Brazil: Goal of Rousseff Impeachment Is to Boost Neoliberals & Protect Corruption.” Democracy Now! May 10, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.democracynow.org/2016/5/10/glenn_greenwald_on_brazil_goal_of

^{^[8]} “Brazil’s Rousseff Set to Bow out after Senate Votes to Put Her on Trial.” Reuters. May 12, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-idUSKCN0Y206H

^{^[9]} “Exclusive: Temer Eyes Goldman Banker, Investor for Brazil Economic Team: Sources.” Reuters. April 15, 2016. Accessed May 12, 2016. https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-temer-eyes-goldman-banker-investor-brazil-economic-205132190–sector.html

To download a PDF version of this article, click here.

May 13, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Corruption | Brazil, Latin America | Leave a comment

Parliamentary Coups: the New Strategy of Latin America’s Right

By Pablo Vivanco – teleSUR – May 12, 2016

Like Honduras and Paraguay, Brazil’s elites used the legislature against Dilma Rousseff. Is Venezuela next?

For most, the decades of the 1970’s and 1980’s are regarded as a dark period for Latin America.

The majority of South American nations were taken over by brutal military juntas, while in Central America civil wars claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. The armed forces in the region, often trained and financed by the United States, ruled through force and where civilian governments didn’t heed their agendas, these were ignored or overthrown.

Despite entailing the onslaught of disastrous neoliberal economic policies that exacerbated poverty and inequality, the 1990’s also ushered in an end to the military dictatorships in Latin America. Elected governments returned to Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, while peace accords in Guatemala and El Salvador also meant that the militaries would see a diminished role in the politics of those countries (at least in theory).

Latin America did not solve its numerous problems, but a general consensus was arrived at — no coups or military regimes should be permitted again in the region.

Of course, this consensus began to break with the resurgence of Latin America’s left, beginning with the Bolivarian movement and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Even though he initially harbored very modest proposals for reforms, Venezuela’s ruling class almost immediately sought to topple Chavez’s government. In April 2002 they acted as Latin American elites had done in previous decades and enlisted the upper echelons of the military to stage a coup to remove Chavez. The results were predictable — Venezuelans revolted against the coup and its leaders and the region (except for the U.S. government led by George W. Bush), rejected the move.

The lesson: military coups make for bad PR.

As the decade and Latin America’s left advanced, the regional right adopted a different strategy to counter the trend. While in many countries the left was winning presidencies, in these countries the legislative branches remained largely under the control of traditional (and generally right-wing) parties. Far from providing checks and balances on the authority of the executive branch, opposition-controlled legislatures began to be used as the instrument to overthrow elected presidents.

The first test came in 2009, when Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was removed from office after calling for a non-binding referendum on changing the country’s constitution. The Honduran Congress had voted to remove Zelaya from office, and the country’s Supreme Court — dominated by figures connected to the previous military government — ordered his arrest. The Honduran military dutifully complied with their order, kidnapping Zelaya and forcing him onto a plane to Costa Rica.

Three years later, Paraguay’s parliament impeached President Fernando Lugo, a former bishop who ended 61 years of one-party rule in the country. The charges and process against Lugo were met with skepticism in Paraguay as well as in the region, prompting Paraguay to be suspended from the Mercosur pact.

The impeachment process against the president of Latin America’s largest nation mirrors the intentions of the coups of the 70’s and 80’s and the methods of those in the last decade. Despite the absence of evidence that could justify an impeach against Dilma Rousseff, a majority of Brazilian legislators — many of whom are implicated or being investigated in a massive corruption scandal — have approved removing her from the office she was elected to. The man who will fill the seat is one of those being investigated, but he faces no repercussions from his colleagues.

In neighboring Venezuela, the opposition-led National Assembly has the same objective and has initiated the “recall” clause in the country’s constitution in an attempt to oust Nicolas Maduro from the Miraflores presidential palace.

In all of these cases, the objective is not merely power, but what power facilitates. Since 1998, numerous left-leaning governments have been elected to redistribute wealth and decision-making power. Not only has this led to inequality and poverty being slashed, but the political dynamics in those countries have shifted and the region has become more unified and independent.

The new strategy to stem the Pink Tide builds from the same objectives as those employed by the dictatorships of Pinochet, Videla and others: stop the left from being able to implement its program. But while it uses one elected institution to subvert another, it should be clear that these maneuvers are no less undemocratic than their military predecessors.

Pablo Vivanco is Director of teleSUR English.

May 12, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics | Brazil, Latin America, Paraguay, Venezuela | Leave a comment

UNASUR Head Says Rousseff Remains ‘Legitimate Leader’ of Brazil

The Secretary-General of the UNASUR Ernesto Samper spoke out against the impeachment efforts against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Ernesto Samper, secretary-general of the Union of South American Nations. Photo – UNASUR

teleSUR | May 12, 2016

Ernesto Samper, secretary-general of the Union of South American Nations, told teleSUR in an exclusive interview that Dilma Rousseff remained “the legitimate leader” of the Brazilian people and maintains “democratic legitimacy” by virtue of having been re-elected in 2014.

During a press conference Thursday, Samper said that the decision of the Brazilian Congress to initiate an impeachment trial against President Dilma Rousseff was “compromising the democratic governability of the region in a dangerous way.”

“What has happened in Brazil, is a parliamentary political majority is challenging the citizens’ majority that expressed themselves in a clear way in favor of Rousseff,” said Samper referring to the 2014 re-election of President Rousseff.

He stopped short of calling the impeachment trial of Rousseff a rupture of democratic order, which would have triggered the possible suspension of Brazil from the regional bloc.

He added that the efforts by Brazilian politicians to oust Rousseff via impeachment were of “a political character” and criticized the lower chamber for failing to provide Rousseff with room to defend herself.

Samper called on the upper chamber, which will now preside over her trial, to respect due process.

“In this new phase, we ask that the right to defense for President Rousseff be guaranteed,” said Samper.

The secretary-general of UNASUR said it was “not their place to comment on the interim government (of Michel Temer).”

During an earlier event Wednesday, Samper said the greatest risk to governance in the region were groups who “engage in political work without political responsibility.”

The impeachment effort against Rousseff was largely driven by political, media, and economic elites in Brazil.

The support of the Globo media conglomerate was essential in stirring up support for impeachment, providing disproportional coverage of corruption allegations against members of the Workers’ Party and granting widespread media attention to right-wing rallies calling for Rousseff’s ouster.

Elements of the country’s judiciary—including Sergio Moro, the judge who is presiding over the investigation into a corruption scandal—played a lead political role, which Rousseff’s supporters said were inappropriate for a judge.

The country’s Supreme Court also refrained from intervening and stopping the coup plot, despite the fact that Rousseff was being put on trial without having been found guilty of any crime.

The impeachment effort against the ousted Brazilian president is based on allegations she manipulated budget accounts, a deed committed by most of her predecessors and by some of the very senators who voted for impeachment efforts to proceed.

The UNASUR chief previously warned that a potential impeachment scenario would set a “dangerous” precedent by criminalizing standard government budget management practices.

May 12, 2016 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, Latin America | Leave a comment

The Next US Coup in Latin America: Obama Takes Aim at Venezuela’s Maduro

Sputnik – 06.05.2016

Unsatisfied with only ousting Brazil’s President by leaking NSA surveillance to the country’s judiciary, Washington now seeks to break the back of Venezuela by fracturing the powerful Petrocaribe energy alliance.

On Monday, the US began a two-day energy summit in Washington, attended by several Caribbean countries, in an attempt to undermine the Petrocaribe oil alliance between Venezuela and Caribbean nations, in what some see as a bid to break the back of the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro.

The energy summit comes on the heels of a proposed recall referendum against the Venezuelan leader, who was elected following the death of Hugo Chavez. The Maduro government faces flagging public opinion due to economic disruption brought about by dwindling oil prices, now at $35 per barrel.

The Venezuelan economy relies on oil revenues for some 95% of its income. Regional agreements set forth under the Chavez regime allow for Latin American and Caribbean countries to pool resources in markets where they possess a competitive advantage.

With oil prices nearing decade lows, the Venezuelan economy and its populace continue to be ravaged by deep poverty and over 1000% inflation. Dire conditions in the country are a consequence of policies that long pre-date the Maduro government, and have been exacerbated by Western market manipulation and Saudi Arabia’s push to bankrupt competitor countries by artificially deflating oil prices below profitable levels.

In a Wednesday interview with Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker, Francisco Dominguez of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign explained that this is not the first time that the White House has attempted to fracture the Petrocaribe oil alliance. In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden created a fracas by attempting to meet secretly with Caribbean leaders to woo them away from the alliance. The Vice President and the State Department initially denied the meeting before retracting that position.

Dominguez speculated that this week’s energy in summit in Washington revolved around US imperialistic hopes to replace Maduro with an opposition leader more favorable to American oil companies. “I think this whole thing has more to do with the overall policy of the United States seeking to oust the government of Venezuela once and for all,” said Dominguez.

US relations with the Latin American country have long been strained, both under Maduro and under his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Many remember the late-President Chavez stating before the United Nations that he smelt sulfur, a reference to the Christian devil, after walking past then-President George W. Bush. The Chavez regime opposed the Bush administration’s penchant for regime change and US intervention in oil rich countries.

Yet, Dominguez believes that the Venezuelan people have more to fear from Washington Democrats than from a Republican Party led by presumptive nominee Donald Trump. He suggested that this week’s round of meetings was sparked by a positive general election outlook on the side of Democrats, who expect a Clinton presidency that will mirror the policies of Obama.

“It looks good for the Democrats against the Republicans so now they want to take a tougher policy against Venezuela,” said Dominguez.

Dominguez asserts that it remains unlikely that Caribbean states will abandon the Petrocaribe alliance, providing as it does for impoverished countries with stable oil supplies preferential conditions and favorable prices for 25 years. He suggests that at least 13 Caribbean nations have benefited from an arrangement that also contributes to regional unity.

But the Washington-supported opposition in Venezuela includes among their grievances the Petrocaribe energy alliance, which has become increasingly expensive for the country to maintain as oil prices have dropped. The White House is seen to be aiming to fabricate the fear among Caribbean states that Venezuela will not maintain their commitment to Petrocaribe, in a bid to force the smaller nations to accept an arrangement with the United States.

Some see the effort to fracture the Petrocaribe alliance as an attempt by Washington to strike a fatal blow at Chavez’s legacy. The controversial former leader established a number of regional political bodies in an effort to strengthen Latin America against Western corporate interests.

Dominguez recalls that the string of coalitions established by Chavez saw to it that each regional country contributed what they had into a broader pool, expanding the fortunes of all Latin American and Caribbean countries.

“In the case of Venezuela it was oil, in the case of Brazil it was industrial goods, Argentina provided agricultural goods, and Cuba supplied the doctors,” said Dominguez. “Chavez was very successful, if you look at the regional political map.”

That legacy now rests in the hands of the embattled Maduro government, likely facing a recall election following a review of referendum signatures. The opposition will need some 7.5 million votes to oust Maduro, equal to the amount of votes he won when elected. The outcome of the referendum remains unpredictable, and to date the opposition remains divided.

May 6, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Cuba, Latin America, Obama, PetroCaribe, United States, Venezuela | Leave a comment

Colombian Soldiers Arrested for the Murder of Indigenous Leader

Governor Bolaños Lasso (Photo credit Diaro del Cauca)

teleSUR | May 4, 2016

An army sergeant and a corporal have been arrested for the murder of Indigenous governor Bolaños Lasso in southwest Colombia, local media reported Tuesday.

The Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed the arrest of the two low-ranking army commanders who are part of the Jose Hilario Lopez battalion, of the Army’s 3rd Division, and said the pair are under investigation for the murder of Lasso.

Lasso was killed from gunfire on a road leading from Puracé, an Indigenous community in the Cauca Department, to the province’s capital of Popayán, on Oct. 19, 2015, according to the army.

“While the troops of the battalion Jose Hilario Lopez moved to the village of Santa Leticia, in Purace, where they prepared to take a position to provide security for election day October 25, they heard several shots,” representatives of the 29 Army Brigade said in an statement.

Commenting on the death last year, Colombia’s Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC) said that Bolaños had “no known type of problem” that may have provoked his assassination.

No motive for the murder has been established as yet by authorities. The two soldiers will go on trial before the Third Municipal Criminal Court Guarantee Control charged with the murder of protected persons.

Murders and mistreatment of Indigenous Colombians is a regular occurrence in the Cauca region. As teleSUR reported in November, the Colombian army killed one campesino and wounded five others after it raided a rural area in what military officials say was an effort to “manually eradicate” illegal coca crops.

The slaughter stoked ire among many human rights activists including former Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba who, in the aftermath, said the army needs to “sit down” with other organizations and social movements and “agree on another way of doing things.”

May 5, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties | Colombia, Human rights, Latin America | Leave a comment

The Left: Business Accommodation and Social Debacle

By James Petras :: 05.04.2016

Prologue: In 2004 I wrote Brazil and Lula: Year Zero (Edifurb: Blumenau, Sao Paolo 2005), in which I presented my analysis of the Lula-Workers Party (PT) regime in Brazil undergoing a Grand Transformation with the first stage represented by the PT’s incorporation into a government apparatus led by of bankers and exporters (the agro-mineral elite).

Two years earlier, my colleague, Henry Veltmeyer, and I had published Cardoso’s Brazil: A Land for Sale (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham MD 2003) where we described how President Cardoso had sold off the major public resources, banks, petroleum and iron resources to foreign capital for rock bottom prices. The 2002 election of President Lula DaSilva of the Workers’ Party did not reverse Cardoso’s sell-out. Indeed, Lula accepted his predecessor’s neo-liberal policies – embellished them – and set about forging an alliance between the Workers’ Party and the economic elites, replacing Cardoso’s Party! For the next few years, we were attacked by the Left academic and pundit world for having dared to advance such a critique on their ‘worker president’! The consequences of what we had described as the PT’s pact with the Right are clear to everyone today: Brazil is enmeshed in swindles, scandals and coups.

Introduction

“The nature of the multitude is to arrive rapidly and depart swiftly”.

For more than a decade, left-wing parties, accompanied by working class trade unions and landless rural social movements, dominated Brazil, the largest country in Latin America. Their political leaders were repeatedly elected; their trade union and rural social officials secured concessions from the state; the political process followed legal procedures adjudicating its agenda with the opposition business, banking and professional parties.

We were told the days of coups and revolutions were passed. Electoral processes, honest vote counts and mutual recognition of political legitimacy precluded any violent, dismissal and ouster of the established Left political leadership.

The Rise and Fall of the Political Left

The dominance of the Left is now only a memory! Its parties are in full retreat. Its leaders are scorned, insulted and prosecuted by their former political allies. The business allies of the past are now at their throats. Those politicians, who secured government positions in return for loyalty and votes, have fled clamoring for ‘impeachment’ and claiming deceit… while seeking new sources of patronage and plunder.

The great left political leaders, who had once bragged of 53 million voters, who were hailed in the international press for their command of a huge mass base while accommodating the interest of modern trade and business, are now condemned by the capitalist media as the cause of the current economic calamity.

The popular heroes of yesterday, who shared wealth and status with their rivals in the business elite, are now ostracized and facing show-trials for corruption.

The Trade Union and Rural Workers’ Leaders

Veteran trade union and rural leaders came to the Presidential Palace to celebrate the electoral successes of the ‘worker president’.

Once blushing with flattery, these mass leaders are now dismayed that the fiesta has ended and the music has stopped, while the workers and peasants are ordered to pay for the broken dishes and start the cleanup…

The mass popular organizations are now without allies in Congress; their voices are shut out of the bourgeois media; the domestic economy has been abandoned by the market; and the masses are in the streets clamoring for retribution against the politicians betrayal. Now trade union and peasant leaders appeal for resistance and a return to class struggle; but their followers are in retreat!

Toward an Understanding of a Historical Defeat

The rise and fall of the Left is a historical reversal, which requires a systematic analysis of a disastrous strategy. The left’s defeat cannot simply be dismissed as a betrayal by treacherous allies, corrupt party officials or plots concocted by billionaires and the US Embassy, leading up to a coup via a clearly phony impeachment process. The real question to ask is: Why did the Left allow such treachery and betrayal, culminating in a legislative ‘coup d’état’, to develop unopposed leading to reversal and rout of the Left? How could a huge multi-million-person voting machine, a vast and experienced trade union apparatus and a militant rural social movement fall defeated without even a struggle?

The Strategy of the Left

The Left parties deliberately adopted a short-term strategy of accommodation with the right, in part to avoid long-term, large-scale strategic confrontations with the defeated economic elite. For their part, the parties of the Right and their US advisors patiently chose to accept the Left’s compromises and offers of cooperation, in order to prepare for a strategic offensive when the Left’s mass of support had declined.

The Left parties embraced poorly thought-out ’short-cuts’ to governance. They occupied government posts while cutting cozy deals with all the major power brokers of the Right.

The Left signed ‘austerity’ agreements with the IMF to restrain budgets and accept debt obligations. Members of notorious rightwing and opportunistic political parties were brought into the cabinet, assigned strategic congressional leadership positions and placed on senior presidential advisory panels in exchange for their votes to approve loans, credits and regional development projects.

The Left negotiated deals with business elites, offering them generous subsidies and high profits, while restraining workers’ demands for structural changes. They viewed this accommodation as an exchange for economic growth, wage increases and trade union recognition as a legitimate power sharer.

The Left dismissed the grassroots demands for social transformation and they opposed any popular campaign to prosecute the financial elites for money laundering and white-collar crimes. Instead, they favored incremental increases in wages, poverty funds, pensions and consumer credit.

The Left ignored the reality that such arrangements with the business elites were only a temporary truce rather than a permanent, strategic alliance.

The trade unions followed the lead of the Left political leadership. They directed their mass organizations to accept negotiations based on periodic wage increases, more funds for trade union education and subsidies for new union building complexes. The trade union leaders discouraged strikes, repressed demands for public ownership and prevented any investigation into mining, banking and agro-business corruption, tax evasions and bribery. Even the well-documented wave of assassinations of landless worker activists and the naked land grabs of ‘protected’ Indian territories went unpunished.

The business elite realized they faced a potential radical mass movement, which was under the control of an elected ‘Left’ government. They were ‘delighted’ that this Left government was so willing to accommodate capitalist demands. They cautiously decided that short-term rewards and well-placed bribes would help prepare the ground for their restoration to power and reversal of the left’s concessions.

The Left rural social movements retained their radical socialist rhetoric and mass membership, but their leadership followed the Left parties in government.

In exchange for subsidies to set-up and expand community-based rural organizations and training schools for farmworkers, the social movements mobilized their mass activists to ‘turn-out the vote’ for the Left parties’ President and Congress people.

The rural movement leaders justified their accommodation with the Left- business alliance describing the Left regime as a ‘field of contention’, where they could press for radical changes. After more than a dozen years of successful mass struggle, the radical rural movement chose to ally with the Left party apparatus! Only when the ‘Left President’ was impeached did the rural workers’ leader call for the return to class struggle!

The Left’s Short Term Gains and Long Term Losses

The political leaders on the left, as well as trade union and rural movement leaders, all believed they had a winning strategy. They claimed their mostly superficial ‘gains’ were ‘evidence’ of their success. These included:

(1) Their governance for over four administrations where they increased or maintained the left’s voting majority.

(2) ‘Pragmatic’ political alliances with parties across the spectrum – won through various forms of bribery – as a formula for winning Congressional approval for major development contracts.

(3) Their funding of opposition allies, which attracted ‘respectability’ and enriched both Left politicians and their electoral campaigns.

(4) The decrease in social tension achieved by recruiting business opponents and gaining support among sectors of the capitalist class.

The Left political leaders’ strategy of accommodation depended on the economic success of the mineral-oil-agriculture export elites. This ignored the business sector’s fundamental policy of cutting social and productive investments whenever markets, profits and economic opportunities declined.

When the Left regime’s public subsidies for the export industry declined following the collapse of the global commodity market, the entire capitalist elite coalesced into a virulent Rightwing opposition.

When the previous political accommodation with capital, held together by corruption and questionable subsidies became the target, the Right launched their strategic offensive.

The fact that business, banking, media and agro-mineral elites were able to join forces so quickly and launch their attack on the Left shows how they had flourished for a decade during the commodity boom.

The entire façade of a ‘broad progressive coalition’ disappeared: The trade union and rural movement structures, linked to the Left political leaders, were incapable of mobilizing their mass base and countering the insurgent Right. For over ten years, the Left regime had cut all its political deals in Congress, in the corridors of elite power, while ignoring ‘class struggle’.

This was a ‘Left’ regime, wholly dependent on market conditions and business allies. It was unable to defend any strategic ground when the Right regained its power base.

The Left regime had retained an intact and fully functioning right administrative and judicial apparatus, composed of courts and judges, the prosecutors and investigators all aligned with the Right opposition. They were ready to undermine the regime’s congressional majority by opening ‘corruption’ investigations targeting the Left. Meanwhile, the business elite managed to intensify the consequences of the economic recession and insist that ‘recovery’ meant austerity against the poor.

The Right purchased its street crowds and mobilized its party allies, including the center, the fascists, the neo-militarists, the agro-business elite and the imperial and local financial press. From Sao Paulo to New York to London they were poised to forcibly oust the elected Left President from power and jail its leaders.

Conclusion

The Left believed in the myth of democratic capitalism. They had faith that their negotiations with the business elites would increase social welfare. They operated on a platform of gradual accommodation of class interests leading to multi-class alliances and strategic conciliation between business and labor.

The historical lesson has proven otherwise – again. Business and the capitalist elite make clear, tactical short-term agreements in order to prepare a strategic counter-offensive. Their patient long-term strategy was to mobilize their class allies and overturn the electoral process – at the ripe moment.

The Left parties depended on achieving a series of ’strategic understandings with the capitalist class’ where both would benefit at a time of peak global demand for Brazil’s commodities, instead of expanding their popular mandate by transforming the economy and domestic market.

The Left behaved as if favorable world market conditions would last forever. They lost their chance to use their 53 million-voter strength and radically change the organization and ownership of Brazil’s strategic economic sectors!

In this way, the Left imitated the Right, choosing to share its power bases through accommodation with their business-partners. These were amateurs at the bourgeois power game, who found themselves entrapped in corruption and crisis! How shocking!

It was so much easier for the Left politicians to get campaign funding through the usual practice of business payola than to campaign from door to door, factory to factory, village to village, fighting repression, elite media boycotts and armed vigilantes.

In the end, their ‘power base’ dissolved and their capitalist ‘partners’ and political ‘allies’ abandoned them: the Left President was impeached.

Victorious capital and empire neatly ended this charade of ‘market democracy’. The retreating Left parties begged for a reprieve via parliamentary vote and ended with a decisive defeat… bleating their last whimper as the door slammed shut…

Capitalists have never and will never recognize weak popular opposition. The capitalist political elite will always choose power and wealth over social democracy. The Left, in retreat, isolated and expelled from the corridors of power, now face retribution from the most corrupt and treacherous of their ‘former allies’.

They usher in a lost generation.

May 4, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Brazil, Latin America | Leave a comment

Caceres’ Relatives: No Confidence in Official Investigation

teleSUR | May 3, 2016

Relatives of Berta Caceres, Indigenous and environmental leader murdered in Honduras March 3, reaffirmed their distrust of the public prosecutor after having been excluded from the investigation, regarding the arrest of four suspects Monday.

“They excluded us from the investigation process from the beginning, we have no way of knowing whether the arrests are the result of exhaustive proceedings, nor do we know whether these include the masterminds at all levels,” they said in a statement.

They also stated that the alleged involvement of active and retired military linked to the company DESA demonstrates the involvement of state agents in the murder of Caceres.

Children and other relatives of Berta Caceres learned of the arrests through the media “and not through the channels they are entitled to by law,” the statement said.

The Honduran Office of the Public Prosecutor reported that 10 coordinated raids were carried out Monday in connection with Caceres’ homicide in the capital Tegucigalpa, as well as in La Ceiba, and Trujillo.

The four suspects are scheduled to appear in court in the following days, the OPP added.

Caceres’ death prompted massive international condemnation and led to huge protests in Honduras, a country that currently has the one of highest murder rates in the world.

May 3, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Environmentalism | Berta Caceres, Honduras, Human rights, Latin America | Leave a comment

Massive May Day rallies show support for Brazil’s Rousseff

The BRICS Post | May 2, 2016

Even as May Day protests were expected in cities across the world on Sunday, as economic crises and a rise in unemployment have fuelled anti-government sentiment, Brazil saw some radically different scenes.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Brazil’s main cities on International Workers’ Day in a show of support for the embattled President Dilma Rousseff.

Protests were seen in 16 of the country’s 27 states, called by Central Union of Workers (CUT) and numerous other labor and left-wing organizations.

The support for the embattled leftist leader Rousseff in Brazil was in sharp contrast to France which was on high alert after protests against planned labour changes this week sparked a frenzy, with cars set on fire and dozens of police officers being injured in Paris in clashes with protesters.

On Sunday, the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo saw the largest march with around 100,000 people, according to organizers, in three separate marches.

Rousseff appeared at the CUT march in Sao Paulo, alongside the mayor of Sao Paulo, Fernando Haddad, and the president of the Workers’ Party, Rui Falcao.

During a speech to the crowd, Rousseff announced a new policy measure, according to Brazilian daily O Globo, saying that her flagship social welfare program Bolsa Familia would be increased by 9 per cent.

Bolsa Familia is an ambitious cash-transfer scheme that has helped elevate millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Funds are channelled through the mothers of poor and working-class families.

The scheme was launched nationwide by President Lula’s administration in 2003 and its exemplary success has cemented support for Rousseff’s Workers Party among the poorest in Brazil.

On Sunday, Rousseff also announced that 25,000 new houses would be built within the Mi Casa, Mi Vida (My Home, My Life) program, the renewal of the contracts of foreign doctors in the Más Médicos (More Doctors) program, an increase in paternity leave for public officials and an adjustment to the rental tax to benefit workers.

In other cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Joao Pessoa, Recife and Salvador, Rousseff supporters marched, saying they would not allow her impeachment.

The Brazilian Senate is currently considering whether to open an impeachment trial against Rousseff, over alleged fiscal irregularities in 2014 and 2015.

May 2, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, Human rights, Latin America | Leave a comment

President Obama: The Race for the Imperial Legacy

By James Petras :: 04.29.2016

President Obama is racing forward to establish his imperial legacy throughout Russia, Asia and Latin America. In the last two years he has accelerated the buildup of his military nuclear arsenal on the frontiers of Russia. The Pentagon has designed a high tech anti-missile system to undermine Russian defenses.

In Latin America, Obama has shed his shallow pretense of tolerating the center–left electoral regimes. Instead he is has joined with rabid authoritarian neo-liberals in Argentina; met with the judges and politicians engineering the overthrow of the current Brazilian government; and encouraged the emerging far-rightwing regimes in Peru under Keiko Fujimori and Colombia under President Santos.

In Asia, Obama has clearly escalated a military build-up threatening China’s principle waterways in the South China Sea. Obama encouraged aggressive and violent separatist groupings in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjian and Taiwan. Obama invites Beijing billionaires to relocate a trillion dollars in assets to the ‘laundry machines’ of North America, Europe and Asia. Meanwhile he has actively blocked China’s long-planned commercial ’silk route’ across Myanmar and west Asia.

In the Middle East, President Obama joined with Saudi Arabia as Riyadh escalated its brutal war and blockade in Yemen. He directed Kenya and other African predator states to attack Somalia. He has continued to back mercenary armies invading Syria while collaborating with the Turkish dictator, Erdogan, as Turkish troops bomb Kurdish, Syrian and Iraqi fighters who are engaged on the front lines against Islamist terrorism.

President Obama and his minions have consistently groveled before the Jewish State and its US Fifth Column, massively increasing US ‘tribute’ to Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, Israel continues to seize thousands of acres of Palestinian land murdering and arresting thousands of Palestinians, from young children to aged grandparents.

The Obama regime is desperate to overcome the consequences of his political, military and economic failures of the past six years and establish the US as the uncontested global economic and military power.

At this stage, Obama’s supreme goal is to leave an enduring legacy, where he will have: (1) surrounded and weakened Russia and China; (2) re-converted Latin America into an authoritarian free-trade backyard for US plunder; (3) turned the Middle East and North Africa into a bloody playpen for Arab and Jewish dictators bent on brutalizing whole nations and turning millions into refugees to flood Europe and elsewhere.

Once this ‘legacy’ is established, our ‘Historic Black President’ can boast that he has dragged our ‘great nation’ into more wars for longer periods of time, costing more diverse human lives and creating more desperate refugees than any previous US President, all the while polarizing and impoverishing the great mass of working Americans. He will, indeed, set a ‘high bar’ for his incumbent replacement, Madame Hilary Clinton to leap over and even expand.

To examine the promise of an Obama legacy and avoid premature judgements, it is best to briefly recall the failures of his first 6 years and reflect on his current inspired quest for a ‘place in history’.

Fear, Loathing and Retreat

Obama’s shameless bailout of Wall Street contrasted sharply with the desires and sentiments of the vast majority of Americans who had elected him. This was a historic moment of great fear and loathing where scores of millions of Americans demanded the federal government reign in the financial criminals, stop the downward spiral of household bankruptcies and home foreclosures and recover America’s working economy. After a brief honeymoon following his ‘historic election’, the ‘historic’ President Obama turned his back on the wishes of the people and transferred trillions of public money to ‘bailout’ the banks and financial centers on Wall Street.

Not satisfied with betraying the American workers and the beleaguered middle class, Obama reneged on his campaign promises to end the war(s) in the Middle East by increasing the US troop presence and expanding his drone-assassination warfare against Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Syria.

US troops re-invaded Afghanistan, fought and retreated in defeat. The Taliban advanced. The US expanded its training of the puppet Iraqi army, which collapsed on its first encounters with the Islamic State. Washington retreated again. Regime change in Libya, Egypt and Somalia created predator-mercenary states without any semblance of US control and dominance.

Obama had become both a master of military defeats and financial swindles.

In the Western Hemisphere, a continent of independent Latin American governments had emerged to challenge US supremacy. The ‘Historic President’ Obama was dismissed as a clueless hack of the US Empire who lacked any rapport with governments south of the Panama Canal. While trade and investment flourished between Latin America and Asia; Washington fell behind. Regional political and economic agreements expanded, but Obama was left without allies.

Obama’s clumsy attempts at US-backed ‘regime change’ were defeated in Venezuela and elsewhere. Only the small, corrupt narco-state of Honduras fell into Obama’s orbit with the Hillary Clinton-engineered overthrow of its elected populist-nationalist president.

China and Russia expanded and flourished as commodities boomed, wealth expanded and demand for Chinese manufactures exploded.

By 2013 Obama had no legacy.

The Recovery: Obama’s Lost Legacy

Obama began the road to establishing his ‘legacy’ with the US-financed coup in Ukraine, spearheaded by the first bona fide Nazi militia since WWII. After celebrating the violent ‘regime change’ against Ukraine’s elected government, Obama’s new oligarch-puppet regime and its ethno-nationalist army have been a disaster, losing control of the industrialized Donbas region to ethnic Russian rebels and completely losing the strategic Crimea when the population overwhelmingly voted to re-join Russia after 50 years. Meanwhile, the oligarch-’president’ Poroshenko and his fellow puppets have pilfered several billion dollars in ‘aid’ from the EU… all in pursuit of the Obama legacy’.

Obama then slapped devastating economic sanctions against Russia for its role in the Crimean referendum and its support for the millions of Russian speakers in Donbas, and in the process forced the European Union to make major trade sacrifices. For their role in creating a real “American legacy” for Mr. Obama, the Germans, French and the other twenty-eight countries have sacrificed billions of Euros in trade and investments – alienating large sectors of their own agricultural and manufacturing economy.

The Obama regime placed nuclear weapons on the Polish border with Russia, pointed at the Russian heartland. Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians joined Obama’s military exercises stationing US ships and attack aircraft in the Baltic Sea threatening Russia’s security.

Obama’s Legacy in Latin America

The Obama regime intensified its efforts to re-establish supremacy with the demise of the center-left regimes following elections in late 2013 to the present.

Obama’s ‘legacy’ in Latin America is based on the return to power of neo-liberal elites in the region. Their successful elections were the result of several factors, including: (1) the rise of rightwing economic power in Latin America; (2) the decay and corruption of political power within the Left; 3) incapacity of the Left to develop its own independent mass media to challenge the media monopoly of the right; and (4) the failure of center-left regimes to diversify their economy and develop growth outside the boundaries defined by the dominant capitalist sectors.

The Obama regime worked closely with the political-business elite, organizing the political campaigns and controlling key economic policies even during the center-Left governments. The Left regimes had financed, subsidized and rewarded right-wing business interests in agro-mineral industries, banking, and the media as well as in manufacturing and imports.

As long as worldwide demand for primary materials was strong, the Center-Left governments had plenty of room to adjust their social spending for workers while accommodating business interests. When demand and prices fell, budget deficits forced the Center-Left to cut back on social spending for the masses as well as subsidies for the business elite. In response, the business sector organized a full-scale attack on the government – in defense of elite power. The Center-Left failed to counter the growing power and position of their business elite adversaries.

The business elite launched a full-scale propaganda war via its captive mass media – focusing on real or imagined corruption scandals discrediting Center-Left politicians. The Left lacked its own effective mass media to answer the Right’s accusations, having failed to democratize the corporate media monopolies.

The Center-Left parties adopted the elite’s technique of financing political campaigns – namely, through bribes, contract concessions, patronage other deal making with billionaire private and state contractors. The center-Left imagined it could compete with the free-market rightwing in financing campaigns and candidates via swindlers – and not through class struggle. This was a game they could never master.

The Right, however, mobilized their allies within police, judicial and public institutions to prosecute and disqualify the Center-Left for committing the same crimes the Right had evaded.

The Center-Left did not mobilize the workers and employees to establish even minimal controls over the elite and assume some managerial power. They thought they could compete with the Right on its own terms, through shady business and chicanery.

The Center-Left relied on financing its administration and policies through the commodity boom in demand for its natural resources – overlooking the fundamental instability and volatility of the global commodity market. While the Right openly condemned the ‘weakness of the Center-Left’ – in private, it pursued policies even more dependent on overseas speculators and narrow elites.

In Argentina, as the economy declined, the leadership of the rightwing, led by Mauricio Marci, launched a successful presidential campaign involving the mass media, banks, middle class voters and agro-mining elites. Immediately upon taking power, the Macri regime cut social services for workers and the lower middle class, slashing their living standards and lay off thousands of government employees. Obama saw Macri as his kind of legacy savior and viewed Argentina as the new center of US power in Latin America – with plans for more regime change in Brazil, Venezuela and throughout the region.

In Brazil, the Center-Left Workers’ Party (PT) faced a massive attack on its power base by the extreme rightwing parties. Corruption scandals rocked the entire spectrum of the political class, but the PT was most heavily implicated by massive fraud in Brazil’s huge national oil company, Petrobras. The PT regime’s troubles intensified as the country entered a recession with the drop in demand for its agro-mining exports. Growing fiscal deficits compounded the regime’s problems. The Brazilian hard Right mobilized its entire apparatus of elite power – the courts, judges, police and intelligence agencies – in a bid to overthrow the PT government and impose an authoritarian neo-liberal regime seizing all financial, business and productive assets.

The Center-Left had never been very left, if at all. Under Presidents Lula and Rousseff (2003-2016), the powerful mining and agricultural elites flourished; banking, investment and multi-national enterprises prospered. The Center-Left made some paternalistic concessions to the lowest income classes, and increased wages for labor and farm workers. But the PT relegated labor to the background while it signed business agreements and granted tax concessions to capital. It failed to engage Brazilian workers in class struggle.

The Right was never engaged in any struggle with a genuine leftist government pressing business for structural changes. Nevertheless, the Right sought to eliminate even the most superficial reforms. It would accept nothing short of total control, including: the privatization of the major national oil company, the reduction of wages, pensions and transport subsidies and a slashing of social programs. The Brazilian Rightwing coup – a fake impeachment organized by indicted crooks – is designed to vastly re-concentrate wealth, and re-establish the power of business, while plunging millions into poverty and repressing the principal organized mass movements. In Brazil, the elite-controlled media, courts and politicians act as judge, jury and jailers – against a center-left regime which had never taken control over the major institutions of elite power.

Obama and the Axis of his Legacy

Political rightists join police to control the multitudes and seize power, re-establishing deep ties among Brazil, Washington and Argentina. They will then move toward the neo-liberal re-conquest of all Latin America. Against this new wave, it must be understood that Obama’s Latin American legacy is too recent, too hasty and too disjointed – the new Right exhibits the same or even worse features of the recently deceased Left.

Argentina’s Marci borrows $15 billion at 8% interest, when the economy is fracturing, employment is collapsing, exports and worldwide demand is declining. At the same time, President Mauricio Marci’s cabinet is plagued by major financial scandals ‘a la Panama Papers’. The entire political party-trade union-employed working class is profoundly disenchanted with Marci’s minority rule.

Argentina may not turn out to be Obama’s enduring Latin Legacy: While Macri may open the door for a brief Washington take-over, the results will be catastrophic and the future, given Argentina’s recent history of popular street uprisings, is uncertain.

Likewise in Brazil, the impeachment/coup will result in new and more numerous investigations with trials of post-impeachment politicians and a deepening economic crisis. Brazil’s Vice-President, who turned against Rouseff, now faces corruption charges, as do his supporters. The prolonged confrontation precludes any basic continuity. The rightwing regime’s policy of slashing wages, pensions and poverty ‘baskets’ will detonate large-scale confrontations with the polarized population. Obama’s ‘legacy’ will be a brief episode – celebrating the ouster of the Workers’ Party President followed by a long period of instability and disorder.

Rightist regimes in Venezuela, Colombia and Peru will be part of Obama’s ‘legacy’ but to what lasting end?

The Venezuelan rightwing congress – dubbed the MUD – seeks to overthrow the elected president. It demands the release of several right-wing assassins from prison, the privatization of the oil industry, and a deep cut in social programs (health and education). They would reduce employees’ wages and eliminate food subsidies. The MUD has no competent plan or capacity to grow the oil economy and overcome chronic food shortages. The MUD would merely replace the Left’s subsidized economy with massive price increases for basic commodities — reducing domestic consumption to a fraction of its current level. In other words, the right-wing offensive may defeat the Chavista left but it will not stabilize Venezuela or develop a viable neo-liberal alternative. Any new rightwing regime will deteriorate rapidly and the chronic problem of criminal violence will exceed the current levels. The alliance between Washington and Venezuela’s far right will hardly support Obama’s claim to a historic legacy. More likely, it will serve as another example of a failed right wing state unable to replace a weakening left regime.

Similar circumstances can be found among other ‘emerging’ rightist regimes.

In Colombia, the current rightwing President Santos talks to the FARC guerrillas, but also accommodates the paramilitary death squads. His talks of peace settlements and social reform are linked to the genocidal right, led by the former President Uribe. Meanwhile, the economy stagnates with oil and metal prices collapsing on the world market. Colombian living standards have declined and the promise of a rightwing revival grows dim. The US-Colombian alliance may undercut the FARC but the rightwing does not offer any prospect for modernizing the economy or stabilizing the society.

Similarly in Peru, the rightwing wins votes and embraces free markets, but growth declines, investments and profits dry up and mass disenchantment grows among the poor promising street conflicts.

The Obama ‘legacy’ in Latin America has followed a series of brutal victories, which have no capacity to re-impose a stable ‘new order’ of free markets and free elections. The initial wave of favorable investments and lucrative concessions will fail to revive and recalibrate a new growth dynamics.

More ominously, Obama relied on mass murder to replace an elected leftist-nationalist president in Honduras and imposed a regime of terror against the poor and indigenous population. Meanwhile, illicit offshore handouts reward speculators in Argentina.

Obama’s legacy in Latin America reflects an entire spectrum from illicit-rightwing coups to oust the elected governments in Brazil and Venezuela, to elected authoritarian presidents in Peru and Colombia with historic links to death squads and multi-million dollar overseas accounts.

Obama’s contemporary ‘Latin American legacy’ reeks of gross electoral manipulation preparing the ground for bloody class wars.

Obama’s Legacy in the Ukraine, Yemen and Syria

The Obama regime thought it could manage widespread conflicts, uprisings and wars to advance its global supremacy.

To that end, Obama spent billions of dollars in weapons and propaganda arming Neo-Nazi para-military troops to seize power in Ukraine. A grotesque, brutal gang of oligarchs (and disgraced, foreign fugitives – like the ousted Georgian leader, Mikhail Saakashvili) served Washington in the puppet Kiev regime. Critics, journalists, jurists and citizens are being assassinated. The economy has collapsed; prices skyrocket; incomes declined by half; unemployment tripled and millions have sought refuge abroad. Wars raged between Russian ethnic citizen armies in the Donbas and the puppet Kiev regime. The people of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia. Meanwhile, economic sanctions against trade with Russia have exacerbated shortages for the people of Ukraine.

Under Obama’s stewardship the Ukraine became a world-class… basket case: so much for his European legacy. He can rightly claim credit for imposing a thoroughly retrograde regime of Klepto-capitalism with no redeeming feature.

Obama embraced Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen – destroying the life and cities of the poorest nation in the Middle East. Obama’s ‘legacy’ in Yemen stands for the systematic obliteration of a sovereign people: Obama performs his tricks for billionaire Saudi despots while savaging the innocent. To the Israelis in Palestine and the Saudis in Yemen, Obama pays homage to the criminals responsible for millions of shattered lives.

What of the Obama ‘legacy’ in Syria and Libya? How many million Africans and Arabs have been murdered or fled on rotten boats in destitution. Only the rankest gang of corrupt media pundits in the US media can pretend this gangster President should evade a war crimes tribunal.

Conclusion

The Obama regime has pursued wars of unremitting destruction. It has forged partnerships with terrorists and death squads as it seeks short-term imperial victories, which end in dismal failures.

The imperial legacy of this ‘historic’ president is a mirage of pillage, squalor and destruction. The effect of his political lies has even begun register here among the American public: Who trusts the US Congress and the President? And in Europe, who trusts Obama’s European partners as they eagerly pushed for wars in the Middle East and North Africa and now fear and loathe the millions of their victims–refugees fleeing to the cities of Europe, with the drowned corpses of uprooted communities spoiling their beaches?

Obama pushed for wars and the Europeans receive the victims – with fear and disgust.

Obama’s victories are temporary, blighted and reversed.

Obama bombed Afghanistan yesterday and now flees renewed resistance.

Obama’s allies are again plundering Latin America but face imminent ouster via popular uprisings.

Obama terrorized and fragmented Syria yesterday but lost elections the day after.

Obama threatens China’s economy while eagerly buying China’s products.

The Obama legacy began as a failed military and economic offensive accompanying a profound social crisis. During his final year in office, Obama tries to forge alliances with the dregs of the hard right to save his legacy. His brief advance into this sordid world of neo-liberals, neo-Nazis and Saudi despots is a prelude to more retreat and chaos.

Obama’s public celebration of the right turn in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East applauds the most retrograde alignment of forces in modern times: Saudis and Israelis; Egyptian generals and Libyan jihadis; neo-Ottoman Turks with Ukrainian gangster-oligarchs. Regime changes in Argentina and Brazil encourage Obama to claim vindication of his imperial legacy.

His ‘moment’ of imperial truth is brief, all too brief. Everywhere, we witness the rapid rise of imperial success followed by a series of debacles.

Throughout Latin America capitalist profiteers plunge into wild financial adventures, theft and chaos. In the Middle East, the US stands on the crumbling palaces of a moribund Saudi regime. The much-proclaimed imperial advances are based on grand theft everywhere, from Egypt and Turkey to the Ukraine.

Simply stated: the US formula for a successful legacy is failing at the precise moment that it claims success! Obama and the Right have created a world of chaos and disintegration. Obama and his legions, the US and Europe have no future in peace or war, election or defeats.

There is no imperial legacy for the ‘historic’ President Obama!

April 29, 2016 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Argentina, Brazil, Latin America, Middle East, Obama, Syria, Ukraine, United States, Yemen, Zionism | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

An Open Letter To President Donald Trump (My Response)

Aletho News Videos

or go to

Aletho News Archives – Video-Images

From the Archives

Guatemala: A Test Tube of Repression

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | October 3, 2010

Last week’s grotesque revelation about American public health doctors infecting nearly 700 Guatemalans with venereal disease to test penicillin from 1946-48 marked just the start of the U.S. government’s post-World War II abuse of that Central American country.

Indeed, as troubling as the VD experiments were, U.S. administrations from Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan would do much worse, treating Guatemala as a test tube for Cold War counterinsurgency experiments that led to the slaughter of some 200,000 people, including genocide against Mayan Indian tribes. … continue

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Enter your email address to receive new posts by email.

Email Address:

Join 2,461 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 7,455,516 hits
Looking for something?

Search for:
Archives
Archives
Calendar

April 2026

M T W T F S S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30

« Mar
Categories

Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for Israel
Tags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights Hungary India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Poland Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen Zionism

April 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Aletho News
If Americans Knew
No Tricks Zone
Contact:

atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer

This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.

This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.

Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.

Fair Use

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

DMCA Contact

This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.

We will respond and take necessary action immediately.

If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.

All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

There is not enough shelter to house all of the displaced families. | Photo: Contagio Radio

Ernesto Samper, secretary-general of the Union of South American Nations. Photo – UNASUR

Governor Bolaños Lasso (Photo credit Diaro del Cauca)

Featured Video

From the Archives

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | October 3, 2010

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Visits Since December 2009

Looking for something?

Archives

Calendar

Categories

Tags

Contact:

Disclaimer

Site info