The Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America
By MIGUEL TINKER SALAS
Counterpunch: August 7-9, 2009
I would submit that events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of
a conservative counterattack taking shape in Latin America. For some time,
the right has been rebuilding in Latin America; hosting conferences, sharing
experiences, refining their message, working with the media, and building
ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic right fringe,
but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class
that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent
left electoral victories and the rise of social movements. With Obama in the
White House and Clinton in the State Department they have now decided to
act. Bush/Cheney and company did not give them any coverage and had become
of little use to them. A "liberal" in the White House, gives conservative
forces the kind of coverage they had hoped for. It is no coincidence that
Venezuelan opposition commentators applauded the naming of Clinton to the
State Department claiming that they now had an ally in the administration.
The old cold-warrior axiom that the best antidote against the left is a
liberal government in Washington gains new meaning under Obama with Clinton
at the State Department.
Coup leaders in Honduras and their allies continue to play for time.
Washington's continuing vacillation is allowing them to exhaust this option,
but so are right-wing governments in Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Peru.
After all, this coup is not just about Honduras but also about left success
in Latin America, of which Honduras was the weakest link. It is increasingly
becoming obvious that there is no scenario under which elites in Honduras
will accept Zelaya back. I do not think that they have a plan "B" on this
matter and this speaks to the kind of advice they are getting from forces in
the U.S. and the region. If Zelaya comes back, the Supreme Court, the
Congress, the military and the church all-loose credibility and it opens the
door for the social and political movements in Honduras to push for radical
change that conservative forces would find more difficult to resist.
But Honduras is only part of the equation. Colombia's decision to accept as
many as 7 new U.S. military bases (3 airbases, including Palanquero, 2 army
bases, and 2 naval bases one on the Pacific and one on the Caribbean),
dramatically expands the U.S. military's role in the country and throughout
the region. The Pentagon has been eyeing the airbase at Palanquero with its
complex infrastructure and extensive runway for some time. This is a very
troubling sign that will alter the balance of forces in the region, and
speaks volumes about how the Obama administration plans to respond to change
in Latin America. A possible base on the Caribbean coast of Colombia would
also offer the recently reactivated U.S. Fourth Fleet, a convenient harbor
on the South American mainland. In short, Venezuela would be literally
encircled. However, Venezuela is not the only objective. It also places the
Brazilian Amazon and all its resources within striking distance of the U.S.
military, as well as the much sought after Guarani watershed. After public
criticism from Bachalet of Chile, Lula of Brazil and Chávez of Venezuela,
Uribe refused to attend the 10 August meeting of UNASUR, the South American
Union, where he would be expected to explain the presence of the U.S. bases.
The meeting of the UNASUR security council was scheduled to take up the
issue of the bases and Bolivia's suggestion for a unified South American
response to drug trafficking. Instead, Uribe has launched his own personal
diplomacy traveling to 5 different countries in the region to explain his
actions. In addition, Obama's National Security Advisor James Jones is in
Brazil trying to justify the U.S. position on the bases.
The recent media war launched by Uribe against Ecuador and Correa once again
claiming financing of the FARC and the more recent offensive against
Venezuela concerning 30 year old Swedish missiles, that like, the Reyes
computers, cannot be independently verified, have filled the airwaves in
Venezuela, Colombia and the region. The current Colombian media campaign was
preceded by Washington's own efforts to condemn Venezuela for supposed
non-compliance in the war against drug trafficking. In addition, Israel's
foreign minister Avigdor Liberman also travelled throughout Latin America in
July claiming that Venezuela is a destabilizing force in the region and in
the Middle East.
Lost in all this, is the fact that Uribe is still considering a third term
in office and his party has indicated it will push for a constitutional
reform. So conflicts with Ecuador and Venezuela serves to silence critics in
Colombia and keep Uribe's electoral competitors at bay. All we need now is
for Uribe to ask the Interpol to verify the missiles origins and director
Ron Noble to give another press conference in Bogota. Déjà vu all over
again!
The right and its allies in the U.S. are also emboldened by the electoral
victory in Panama and the very real prospects of leftist defeats this year
in Chile and even Uruguay. Obviously they are also encouraged by the
humiliating defeat of the Fernández / Kirchner's in Argentina. These
developments could begin to redraw the political map of the region. Correa
of Ecuador has already expressed concern about being the target of a coup
and Bolivia will undoubtedly come under intense pressure as they are also
preparing for an election later this year.
All this is occurring with an increased U.S. military commitment in Mexico
with Plan Mérida which seeks to build on the lessons of Colombia; maintain
in power a president whose economic and social policy are highly unpopular,
but who relies on conflict, in this case the so-called war on the drug
cartels, to maintain popularity. Parts of Mexico are literally under siege
including, Michoacán, Ciudad Juarez, and Tijuana. The backdrop for this is a
divided left, the PRD was the biggest looser in recent midterm elections,
and social movements remains localized and unable to mount a national
challenge.
None of these developments are forgone conclusions, but they nonetheless
speak to the fact that conservative forces in Latin America and their allies
in the U.S. are mounting a concerted counter offensive that could increase
the potential for conflict in the region.
Miguel Tinker Salas is Professor of History at Pomona College. He is the
author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela.
***
http://www.truthout.org/081609B?n
Militia Activity on the Rise in US
by: Arthur Bright
The Christian Science Monitor: 14 August 2009
The Southern Poverty Law Center warns that US antigovernment militias are
gaining traction.
Right-wing militia groups are on the rise in the United States after
nearly a decade of obscurity, according to a new report from the Southern
Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups and extremist
activity.
The report, released Wednesday, warns of "unmistakable signs of a
revival of what in the 1990s was commonly called the militia movement."
Militia rhetoric is being heard widely once more, often from a second
generation of ideologues, and conspiracy theories are being energetically
revived or invented anew. "Paper terrorism" - the use of property liens,
bogus legal documents and "citizens' grand juries" to attack enemies and,
sometimes, reap illegal fortunes - is again proliferating, to the point
where the government has set up special efforts to rein in so-called "tax
defiers" and to track threats against judges....
Militia training events, huge numbers of which are now viewable on
YouTube videos, are spreading. One federal agency estimates that 50 new
militia training groups have sprung up in less than two years. Sales of guns
and ammunition have skyrocketed amid fears of new gun control laws, much as
they did in the 1990s.
The report also cites a range of events and reports as evidence for the
purported upswing in militia activities, including the murders of six law
enforcement officials over the last several months by those espousing
anti-government, racist, or pro-militia beliefs. It also singles out the
June shooting of a National Holocaust Museum guard by James Von Brunn, who
had ties to white supremacist groups, as The Christian Science Monitor
reported.
The SPLC report also claims that with the election of Barack Obama to
the head of the US government, which militias typically perceive as their
enemy, the messages of militias, not traditionally focused on racial hatred,
have taken on racial undertones.
Agence France-Presse reports that some experts believe that the upsurge
in militias is in part caused by "a vibrant world of unsubstantiated yet
widely publicized conspiracies."
Fox News writes that conservative groups are dismissing the report,
which they say relies on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report
released earlier this year on right-wing extremism. They say that the DHS
report relies on unofficial reports and unfairly lumps together legitimate
critics of the Obama administration with radical militias, and as a result
the new SPLC report is suspect for the same reasons.
They are attempting to brand all right-of-center protesters as potential
domestic terrorists or extremists," [William Gheen, president of Americans
for Legal Immigration PAC,] said. "They are painting whole swaths of people
as hate groups and extremists."
As for the purported rise in "militia" groups, which SPLC includes as
part of the broader anti-government "Patriot" movement, Gheen said: "We're
just not seeing it."
Dwight Lewis, a columnist for The Tennessean, writes that "the Southern
Poverty Law Center's track record is one that doesn't show it disseminates
information to the public just to be blowing smoke."
Consider the letter SPLC officials wrote to U.S. Attorney General Janet
Reno 15 years ago warning about extremists in the militia movement, saying
that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate'' was "a recipe for
disaster.''
Six months later, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was
bombed.
Yes, we've got to take note of the return of these right-wing militia
groups, but more importantly, government and law enforcement officials need
to make sure they're kept in check.
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