User loginAnarchist LibraryAnarchist Events
|
Venezuela: Demarcation without land, criminalization and death for indigenous struggle
Instead, an enormous deployment of soldiers blanketed the event, supposedly for the security of the ministers (Interior and Justice, Indigenous People’s, among other functionaries present), and who, at the slightest sign of protest by those communities not favored by the event, went immediately into action to repress their demands. It was, in the end, an event by which the Yukpa had to forcefully accept the receipt of NOTHING. It was known for weeks before that something was going to happen on the Yukpa side of the Sierra of Perija. The Regional Demarcation Commission announced the date for awarding the title deeds but said that it was for three communities: Aroy, Sirapta and Tinacoa, places where the government had already made a deal with the land owners who were in fact spared from giving land to the Yukpa who received nothing but mountain and rocks, not arable lands, which were legally left in the hands of the land owners. During this period, in synchronicity and by means of actions executed alternatively, ministerial commissions headed by Diosdado Cabello (Chavez’s plenipotentiary Minister) and Tarek el Aisami (Interior and Justice) among others, got busy distributing bags of food, promising infrastructure works: schools, institutes, roads, hospitals and other projects for agricultural and monetary production for those who would accept the give away of October 12, and threatening those who would oppose it. At the same time, a military base was built in unmarked Yukpa territory, which was loudly protested by the indigenous people who were repressed by the very same Diosdado Cabello, commissioned by Chavez for the task since the base is linked to plans that we will discuss later in this article. Meanwhile, in the same context, the Chaktapa community and its leader Sabino Romero have become the pebble in the “transnational-Chavist” shoe as this has been the community that didn’t want to wait for the government’s demarcation that condescendingly recognizes the living spaces of these peoples, but instead assumed their condition as historical subjects and decided to reclaim their ancestral lands, occupying and controlling as communal land some six haciendas. For Chavez’s State-government and for the mining transnationals and land owners this act has turned Sabino and his Chaktapa community into the enemy to defeat and, for his daring, has been condemned to death, not as an indigenous warrior who’s not for sale, but as a vulgar cattle rustler, a delinquent ready to kidnap and kill, someone linked to foreign military forces and an enemy of the State-government. Thus, the act of giving land to the Yukpas on October 12 sealed the process by which Chavez’s State-government swallowed up part of the Yukpa communities headed by Efrain Romero of Sirapta and the cacique Olegario Romero, giving them a free hand to act against their own Yukpa brothers of Chaktapa headed by Sabino Romero. The excuse: an accusation of cattle theft (120 heads) by an ad hoc rancher in which Sabino Romero, the true leader in the struggle for Yukpa territory in the Sierra of Perija, is directly accused. Today, October 13 2009, as I write these lines, Sabino is being rescued from Chaktapa with three gunshot wounds inflicted by Olegario’s people who, with the support of ranchers and the “revolutionary” government attacked him, killing one of his sons in law, wounding two of his sons and a grand daughter, while another of his sons has disappeared. All of this is the result of a grand strategy by the “Bolivarian revolution” regarding the demarcation of lands and indigenous habitat in the Sierra of Perija. Therefore, we responsibly denounce that President Hugo Chavez knew what was going to happen. That is why he didn’t attend the shameful act of October 12. We denounce this as we already start to see the news in the state owned channel trying to confuse the facts. Likewise, as confirmation we read or listen to confusing reports by traditional opposition journalists and land owners from Fegalago justifying the actions against Sabino and the Chaktapa community, paradoxically joining the State-government in this policy, publicly executed by its two principal ministers Diosdado Cabello and Tarek el Aisami. Therefore we denounce that everything that happened and may happen is just the tactical execution, within a political strategy of ethnocide and ethno-devouring, of a policy by a government that continues to hang onto the language and the lives of the poor to maintain what is truly essential: its power. Within this strategy of permanence in power, Chavez has opted for the continuation of development projects combined with the exploitation of non-traditional minerals such as uranium; known to exist in the Yukpa region of the Perija. Therefore, the State-government builds a military base contested by the Yukpa but defended, in the President’s name, by Diosdado Cabello as part of a Chavez-Iran project to exploit the uranium. At the same time, it gives a free hand to other mining projects and assures for the land owners the territorial despoliation of the indigenous people. We’ve had enough with honest comrades in solidarity with the indigenous struggle that continue to justify Chavez and place the guilt for the insane policies against people on his bureaucracy. The guilty ones are the guilty ones, and in this case they are Chavez, Diosdado Cabello and Tarek el Aisami. These three will someday have to account for whatever happens to Sabino Romero and his community that, against all odds continues in the struggle because they have decided that is their way and the way of all indigenous communities in the country. [More info, in Spanish & English, in www.nodo50.org/ellibertario] |
PollNews commentsRecent blog posts
SearchCheck out the monthly Anarchist News Digest. |
This article is pure garbage
This article is pure garbage -- worse than garbage, on second thought, it is active disinformation of the worst kind. The Spanish version repeats over and over again the Bolivarian Revolution's ethnocide of indigenous peoples. The authors of this article are knowingly lying when they accuse the Bolivarian Revolution of ethnocide; they are knowingly lying when they accuse the Chavez government of conspiring to assassinate indigenous leaders. These events have been widely reported by a number of sources and none of them remotely come close to reporting the ravings contained in this piece by El Libertario.
The Chavez government -- which was instrumental in bringing to power Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in Latin America, instrumental in securing land rights for the indigenous peoples of Venezuela (a program which, by the way, is supported by a number of Yukpa leaders and people -- a fact which doesn't seem to come up in this absurd statement), instrumental in doing more work than any other Latin American government in history to fight the racism directed at indigenous peoples. This list could go on and on but it all adds up to one thing: there is no possible way any observer (and you can be sure that El Libertario members are exactly that ... passive observers) could possibly accuse the Bolivarian Revolution of ethnocide.
To the extent that this is the official statement of the El Libertario editorial board, one must now wonder who and what motivates El Libertario. The most likely answer is that it's just a seriously misguided, cult-like devotion to a sectarian ideology -- although, it is hard to believe that El Libertario doesn't know that they are intentionally misleading in this statement, unless they are so inexperienced and naive about life that they don't understand what "ethnocide" looks like (a trip to the West Bank would be enough to cure that). Whatever it is, this article is the final nail in a coffin with many other nails that buries El Libertario's credibility as a news source for anything going on in Venezuela. They are liars; they are the worst kind of rumor-mongering sectarian scumbags; they spread disinformation that threatens a historic anti-capitalist social movement that, not surprisingly, their confused politics has had absolutely nothing to do with.
Shut the hell up, El Libertario.
Shut the hell up,
Shut the hell up, asshole.
Anarchists have been at odds with Chavismo for a long fucking time now. Maybe this RAAN report might clear shit up for you:
http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/civilwarinvenezuela.html
Anarchists who kiss Chavez's ass are the same people running around with Che T-shirts without any clue what the man did to Cuban anarchists. Maybe if you want to compromise with state socialists, you should move to Greece and help lock up our comrades in Athens, you fucking crypto-Trot snake in the grass.
Nah, I won't shut the hell
Nah, I won't shut the hell up. On the contrary, I've begun a project I've been meaning to do for a long time, which is a catalog of all the outright lies that have been published by El Libertario in one clear & concise document so that this miserable publication can be exposed for the hollow and incompetent effort it is.
The RAAN report that you cite has nothing to do with the topic on which I posted. Did you read anything that's being discussed here, or do you just see an opportunity to strike a rebel without a clue posture?
If you do have remotely any evidence that the Bolivarian Revolution is committing ethnocide against the Yukpa indigenous community, or evidence that the Venezuelan government conspired with its natural enemy (the landowners who kidnapped him at gunpoint in 2002), by all means, post it here and I'll engage in a meaningful debate with you on the topic. But you seem more interested in talking about everything EXCEPT the topic at hand: Che Guevara, Greece, Trots ... but not the point I was making, which is that El Libertario is known for publishing misinformation and this latest article is perhaps the most egregious.
But, hey. Maybe you are in favor of the anarchist community being ignorant about what's really going on around the world. Because, I promise you, after El Libertario spammed their article on every news site around the world, anarchists everywhere will be making fools of themselves in public when they come out with the absurd claim: "Maan, haven't you heard that Chavez assassinated a pregnant indigenous woman as part of ETHNOCIDE against the indigenous people of Venezuela?" And, to anyone who knows anything about Latin American politics, that anarchist will be the dismissed as misinformed & clueless -- and rightly so.
I spoke with someone from the El Libertario editorial group about this idiotic statement they've made. His response? He didn't have the time to read it yet but it was probably true. That's the mentality you're dealing with when you deal with El Libertario.
But, considering your response here, that seems right up your alley. Again, if you want to actually argue with what I said, let me know.
"Sabino is being rescued
"Sabino is being rescued from Chaktapa with three gunshot wounds inflicted by Olegario’s people who, with the support of ranchers and the “revolutionary” government attacked him, killing one of his sons in law, wounding two of his sons and a grand daughter, while another of his sons has disappeared."
so, you are contesting these facts? sabino romero has not been shot? his son in law has not been murdered? two sons and a grand daughter not wounded? aother son disappeared? and the land provided to the indigenous was of a high quality and extensive amount?
is that what you are saying?
please be clear.
I'll take it from your line
I'll take it from your line of questioning that you still have not sought out third-party accounts of what is happening in the Cordilla de Perijá.
Of course, these brutalities have happened. Everyone knows this. I'll go you one further -- it was roughly a year ago that those of us who follow these events closely heard the news that the demented bastard Alejandro Vargas HIMSELF grabbed a double-ought shotgun and four paid thugs and personally went out in search of the Yukpa cacique. It was that type of atmosphere -- where a wealthy estate owner could personally lead a lynch mob, shoot in the door of the home searching for the cacique, when he didn't find him there, smirked to the scared-shitless people inside to not report the incident to the local authorities because he "pays all of them."
Alejandro Vargas eventually did find his target -- Sabino Romero's father -- and savagely beat him to death, a man who was over 100 years of age.
But Alejandro Vargas is just one of many and the FEDENAGA live by another set of rules then the rest of civilized society does.
Well, they did.
Now we now that there's a reason Vargas infamously told everyone he could (usually while pointing a shotgun in their face) that the law was on his payroll: because he was secretly afraid that the revolutionary National Guard who AREN'T from hickville might be sent up there to restore civilization. Soldiers with guns who are sworn to protect the Constitution that came into power along with Chavez, which is, historically, the first legal document that grants indigenous communities in Venezuela with civil, legal and parliamentary rights.
Well, to FEDENAGA's dismay, that's exactly what happened. Chavez publicly announced on television that between the landowners and the Yukpa, the Bolivarian government would always side with the Yukpa. And he backed that claim up with firepower, similar to the way the National Guard was sent into Alabama when local southern politicians refused to enforce federal civil rights laws.
He's talked about the indigenous people's conflict, in typical Chavez style, endlessly and I could quote forever from Chavez his undeniable support of the Yukpa. Or, you can do the same thing. (In this case, talk is not cheap as the common racism against the indigenous is widespread throughout all of Latin America and people just need to keep hearing that indigenous communities are a central part of any social revolution.)
Or, you could just already have the slightest knowledge of the Bolivarian Revolution which keeps the indigenous cause at the core of its political program, which is why Chavez is so often accused of illegally supporting the Evo Morales electoral campaign. It is hard to read anything about what Chavez is doing without seeing this. The Bolivarian Revolution has advanced the cause of the indigenous communities of Latin America a trillion times more than anything El Libertario has ever done or any other group, for that matter. It is an historic transformation of the entire region.
But, back to your line of questioning. Of course these people were shot and killed. It is a matter of public record and has been reported in the international press as well as the local newspapers. However, what is not clear is who did the killing. Everyone is inclined to believe that it was the estate's mercenaries who are responsible but there is much more to the story than that. Tensions were already running strong because Chavez's national holiday honoring indigenous people was this week (Columbus Day, in the US) and it was on that day that land titles to 41,600 hectares of land were transferred to three different communities who have their own tensions between themselves.
Sabino Romero himself says that the whole incident began when "his son-in-law García was set upon by inebriated relatives of Guamo Pamocha chief Olegario Romero, who accused García of belonging to a group that allegedly stole more than 100 head of cattle from three local ranches a few days earlier," as reported by Humberto Márquez.
When Sabino went to Guamo Pamocha to complain about the drunken brawl, the local cacique pulled a shotgun on them and fired it off a few times, chasing them away. Sabino is, of course, always armed as well and fired back -- and it is said that this is when the pregnant woman was hit.
At least, this is one of the stories and according to the journalist who reported it, much of the story comes from Sabino Romero himself. There are numerous eyewitnesses to all these events.
And this is where El Libertario makes a fantastic leap in judgement, as they write: "Therefore, we responsibly denounce that President Hugo Chavez knew what was going to happen." Perhaps seeing into the future and being a witch is yet another charge El Libertario, along with the ruling elite, can hurl at the president.
El Libertario goes on to make another fantastic leap, based on their assertion that Chavez saw into the future and knew that a cow theft would take place and that Sabino Romero would engage in a wild west shoot-out and perhaps, in the process, committing an act of homicide of a woman and her unborn child. That leap is that there is a "political strategy of ethnocide and ethno-devouring" going on, an Orwellian way of describing the unprecedented victories for civil and human rights gained by indigenous communities by way of the Bolivarian community -- not only in northwest Venezuela but all over the continent.
El Libertario's statement is a shallow and misleading glossing over of a complicated situation of numerous power dynamics that has gone on for hundreds of years. And their simplistic conclusion is that the Bolivarian Revolution is committing ethnocide, an assertion that is so idiotic that no one familiar with the situation can possibly take it seriously.
In fact, Provea and the other human rights groups which work on the ground in that area every single day (unlike El Libertario), those who are most sympathetic to Sabino Romero -- even if he has taken an innocent life or two -- don't claim anything remotely close to El Libertario's exaggerated bullshit.
They do want policy changes in Plan Yukpa but the reason that they make these demands is because they know that, with Chavez, these communities have a voice and it is heard in the highest positions of power within Venezuela's revolutionary government. Any other Venezuelan regime would have simply arrested every Yukpa person they could get their hands on, thrown them in jail or worse, not given anything to anybody besides the estate owners and multinational corporations and called the matter a done deal.
Instead, Chavez responded by declaring his government's unwavering support of the indigenous communities to receive what is rightfully their's. Your final question about the "land provided" is an unanswerable question because the process is not over.
Nonetheless, El Libertario know they are lying and know that most anarchists around the world don't really know even the macro-political changes happening in Latin America, much less the details of one particular land issue. They take advantage of this ignorance to spread horrific lies, to wit:
1. That Chavez's soldiers were the people who attacked Sabino Romero, anyone else in his family, the pregnant woman, etc.
2. That Chavez saw into the future and knew that Sabino Romero would get caught up in a shoot-out, during which he probably shot a pregnant woman.
3. That the Bolivarian Revolution, which includes thousands and thousands of indigenous participants, is pursuing a plan of "ethnocide" -- putting them as the historical equivalent of Nazi Germany, a statement that is so beyond absurdity that I don't know how anyone can take them seriously if they know anything about what is going on.
4. That the estate owners really don't have much to do with what is going on, per the lack of attention given to their actions and their political muscle in this statement.
Those are, at least, the big lies I see in this statement. And this isn't an isolated incident. El Libertario has a long history of publishing outright lies about Venezuela, and they should be assured that I, for one, have had enough of it and will be documenting them all in one single place for everyone to see and judge for themselves the motivations and integrity of El Libertario.
That's what I'm saying. Clear enough for you?
"but not the point I was
"but not the point I was making, which is that El Libertario is known for publishing misinformation and this latest article is perhaps the most egregious."
Okay, gimme a list of the minsinformation they've published. No doubt a long line of shit that doesn't make Chavez look like the saving angel of Latin America. HOW DARE WE CHALLENGE YOUR FAVORITE CULT OF PERSONALITY!
Seriously, go join up with the SWP.
I've already given you a
I've already given you a pretty substantial list, based on just one of their statements and you have neglected to respond with even one fact or even a demonstration that you understand the slightest bit of what this statement is talking about.
All you can do is get frustrated and blurt out some attempt at a sectarian insult. In other words, failing to have the ability to intellectually argue this matter, you throw a temper tantrum. Cute, but useless.
In fact, you probably fit the demographic of the anarchist who would have taken this statement at its word and look a fool some time in the future when informed people are trying to have a smart discussion about the social movements in Latin America and you bumble into it with the above disinformation from El Libertario.
I guess ignorance is bliss -- oops, time to vote on the "best form of modern illegalism" huh huh huh.
Niggah please. The bolivian
Niggah please. The bolivian revolution is not anti-capitalist. If anything it is saving capitalism in Venezuela. The old ruling class has a beef with it because they might lose some power to other people - i.e to Chaves and his croonies. If they would have just been more pragmatic and cooperated(and some of them no doubt allready are) with the Chaves goverment, none of this would have even been an issue really. Although the left would prolly still jerk off to it as the big hope for anti-capitalism around the world as the sad, naive fucks in denial that they are.
Also, you didnt present any arguments for why (and what) the article was "lying". All you did was to say that it did.
I'll start with you and your
I'll start with you and your comments on the "bolivian revolution" (sic). If you don't understand why what's in quotes is idiotic, I'll give someone else the pleasure of explaining it to you.
You drastically underestimate the changes being implemented by the Foro de São Paulo political parties. They are turning 500 years of Latin American politics on its head, destroying families that were once god-like in their social status and reducing them to simmering ex-pats of the Miami flavor and dramatically re-painting the political landscape of Latin America, with the vision of social movements that are millions and millions strong.
Every single day in Venezuela, the policy of entrenchment that is being aggressively pursued by all levels of the Bolivarian Revolution is creating a situation that not even the US military can overturn (as evidenced by the success of a similar entrenchment policy in Cuba, insofar as defending it from imperialist aggression).
You can see evidence of this everywhere: in the neighborhood councils, in the open education centers, in the free technology centers and El Libertario is just pissed off because they never predicted that it would have such overwhelming success, nationally and internationally, and they've never had anything to do with it. It is an enormous working class movement that they have absolutely nothing to do with, except continue to try and kind SOME fault with it, which time and again they cannot, unless they resort to lies and exaggerations.
The only thing that saves El Libertario from the ire of the working class is that no one really cares about what they do or even knows they exist, a position that they promote themselves -- preferring to be the darlings of a minority international tendency that seeks the same thing: something, anything to allow them to discount the historic earthquake of social change that the people are creating in Latin America in our lifetimes.
so you don't, actually,
so you don't, actually, contest the facts about romero and his family and the poor quality of land being provided to indigenous.
this is a classic dispute between anarchists and liberals. there is no doubt that chavez is providing major improvements to the lives of working class people just as fdr did in the u.s. as liberal reform this is to be applauded. but it is liberal reform nonetheless. it is a revolution as much as the new deal was a revolution, which is to say, not at all. capitalist institutions will be significantly curtailed but not dispossessed of their stolen property. and the direction of of reform will come from above, from the state, not from the people themselves.
this is reformed capitalism and capitalism like all civilization (like socialism and like communism and the roman and all other empires and the earliest agricultural civilizations), is fundamentally expansionist. traditional indigenous people will be smashed unless they arm themselves against the mal gobierno and control some of their land.
anarchism has to achieve liberation by the indigenous for the indigenous (and by workers for workers, by women for women, by gays for gays, etc.) if technological civilization is to be continued under anarchism it will have to become something it has never been: non-expansionist. it will have to leave room for indigenous people living on their own lands and in their own way.
Patience is a virtue --
Patience is a virtue -- please see the detailed reply I just posted.
The rest of your blah blah blah I'll ignore for now until you have a chance to reply to my more detailed position.
it is my patience that is
it is my patience that is being tested when i merely ask for information and state an opinion (which i stand by and will clarify here), and to which you respond by calling my words "blah, blah, blah." perhaps this tone of disdain for different points of view is typical of someone who is swept up in a liberal reform movement with a heroic leader. it certainly does not betray the necessary humility of a person who claims to be liberating others, a claim that anarchists (as far back as malatesta at least) have always abhorred. to paraphrase "we anarchists do not come to liberate the people; we come to help the people liberate themselves." but then there is always the fascist or conservative or socialist or communist state waiting in the wings to smash actual revolutionary and liberatory movements.
on the other hand, i respect your level of detailed information and your clear writing style; it's something SORELY missing from this site and from the comments of many of the people who post here. you are correct in stating that i do not know the details of this incident. it is precisely why i asked for clarification. i can now read other accounts and see how yours stacks up. i do understand two things: from working with indigenous people here up north, i know that their culture has been devastated by centuries of abuse by euro-colonial, satanically greedy forces. as a result of a basic, constant divide and rule tactic there are many deep divisions within indigenous communities. so these issues are, indeed, complex. the other thing i know is that chavez's reform movement is not revolutionary. a revolution is a violent upsurge from below that displaces both the dominant economic class and the dominant ruling class (as in the case of the French, Russian, Chinese or Cuban cases). chavez's reforms leave in place many of the same economic elites and elite political institutions that have dominated venezuela throughout its history. it is the bolivarian reform movement.
now, the very power of the landlords that you speak of proves this. in a revolution they would have been killed or, at least, neutralized. instead, they remain quite powerful, and chavez's efforts is to redistribute some land, not all of it. the same is true for many financial and media elites as well as opposition party figures--which is to say, in many instances, politicians and parties representing the rich.
anarchists' naivete exists in not recognizing the complex factors determining why chavez might not move in a truly revolutionary direction, not least of which is the near certainty of a more forceful u.s. backed coup, civil war or outright invasion. similarly, widespread land reistribution might conceivably lead venezuela in the same direction as Zimbabwe. chavez may be doing the best HE, practically, can. i admit it. but the end result will not be revolution, and it will not, most likely, end well for venezuela's indigenous.
You claim to "help the
You claim to "help the people liberate themselves" but it seems your methodology for doing so is telling the (literally) tens of millions of Latin American working people that they are idiots for seeing revolutionary changes happening in the Bolivarian Revolution -- something that you earlier referred to as the "Bolivian Revolution" and you're talking down to people who have lived and worked their entire lives in Latin America, and maybe you could consider for just a moment that the working class of Latin America DO understand what revolutionary change is (especially considering how many of them fought, were tortured, gave their lives, watched friends and family die to reach this point) and DO see it in the Bolivarian Revolution.
But, based on whatever "revolutionary experience" you have (I'd certainly like to see your resume of victories), you feel confident enough to tell all these working class people how wrong they are.
That word game about "helping, not leading" may work on naive kids who are just learning about social change but I wouldn't buy it for a wooden nickel. On what authority do you stand to decry the Bolivarian Revolution as "liberal reformism" when, in fact, the social structure of 500 years is being torn apart and re-assembled in the interest of revolutionary social justice? Now, all of that is something to which I'd like an honest answer.
By the way, I would invite
By the way, I would invite you or anyone in El Libertario to take up arms against the landowners in Latin America. To date, the ONLY people to do this have been people from the Bolivarian Revolution -- all of those people who gave their lives in the last 20 years in Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia and all over Latin America bringing the struggle right to the land owners and, through the use of force in many cases, seizing their land and kicking their asses right into the Miami ex-pat community.
No one from El Libertario has done that and I'm pretty sure that no one responding to me on this message thread has done that either. But feel free to help -- because that struggle has been going on for a while now and continues to this date. It isn't quite as easy as you make it out to be but I'll chalk that up to you never having done it yourself.
So all you got is a mass
So all you got is a mass movement and an overturning of an old political tradition. Nowhere do you explain why the movement is anti-capitalist. A mass movement, even a workingclass such, does not become anti-capitalist in and of itself.That is the misstake you are making - you think that everything that shine is gold, but most often it is not and never will be. Infact, most often it has the exact opposite purpose than any noble anti-capitalist goals. You say it might turn that way, but instead of looking of what MIGHT happen, look at what is happening every day right now. The so-called revolution is a nationalist capitlaist project of integrating the workingclass into the system and the state - nothing more and nothing less. There is nothing revolutionary about it and if you cant understand that then i will give someone else the pleasure of explaining it to you in terms you might understand (though i doubt you ever will).
Go back to whatever naive leninist site you came from and let us grown-up discuss the real situation in Venezuela without all the ideology and mystification that you present.
I would direct you to answer
I would direct you to answer the questions I asked the other person on this thread who insists that they know the secret ingredients that make up a revolutionary anti-capitalist movement and what credentials you can present that make you more knowledgeable than the tens of millions of Latin American working people (who represent both a MASS movement and a CLASS movement, given the extraordinary disparity of wealth in Latin America, making the working class a mass in and of themselves).
Furthermore, you exhibit a serious misunderstanding of the Bolivarian Revolution by calling it a nationalist project. Do you KNOW the spirit of Bolivar and what he wanted to accomplish in his lifetime? Here's a hint: it starts with Gran Colombia and tramples over many more national borders before it is finished.
Again, it is cute that you think that the responses I've gotten here represent a thoughtful, "adult" reply but you'll have to forgive me if I see detailed, thoughtful critiques of El Libertario's shamelessly sectarian lies coming from me and a complete lack of responses other than "join a trot group" and "grow up". Seriously.
How many people who makes up
How many people who makes up the movement is irrelevant. Quality, not quantity, dude.
Yes i do have the "secret ingredience". Here is a hint: it has something to do with work.
Oh, definitely! And I see by
Oh, definitely! And I see by the incoherence and use of the word "dude" that you've got a high-grade, high-quality thing going on here! Real top-notch, dude. You've convinced me: these tens of millions of Latin Americans who defeated the military dictatorships imposed on them and then rebuilt their societies such that anti-capitalist political organizations are now the dominant power while the right-wing scrambles to recover their past glory are the real fools! Your undefined & unproven gringo plan is the way to go. Where do I sign up?
LATIN AMERICA IS THE CENTER
LATIN AMERICA IS THE CENTER OF GLOBAL RESISTANCE TO CAPITALISM
US Intellectual Noam Chomsky Declares the Latin American Movements as the Most Important in the World - September 2009
Latin America is today the place more stimulant of the world, Noam Chomsky says. There is a real resistance here to the USA empire; a lot of areas of the don't exist which can one to say the same. Interviewed by La Jornada, one of the more relevant dissident intellectuals of our times marks that the hope and the change announced by Barack Obama is an illusion, since they are the institutions and no the individuals that determine the direction of the politics. Ultimately, which Obama acts, for Chomsky, it is a turn of the extreme right heading for the center of the traditional politics of the United States.
Present in Mexico to be celebrated La Day's 25 years, the author of more than a hundred books, linguist, anti-imperialist critic, analyst of the paper carried out by the communication means in the production of the consensus, it explains as the war to the drugs began in the USA as part of a conservative offensive against the cultural revolution and the opposition to the invasion of Vietnam. We presented to follow the complete of the declarations of Chomsky to La Jornada:
"Latin America is today the place more stimulant of the world. For the first time in 500 years there are movements heading for a true independence and separation of the imperial world. Countries that historically were separate are beginning becoming complete. This integration is a prerequisite for the independence. Historically, the USA dropped a government after another; now no longer they can make it.
Brazil is an interesting example. In the beginning of the sixties, the programs of João Goulart were not so different from the one of Lula. In that case, Kennedy's government organized a military coup d'état. Like this, the national security state spread for the whole area as a curse. Nowadays, Lula is the good man, to which it try to treat well, in reaction to the most militant governments in the area. In the USA, Lula's favorable comments Chavez or Evo Morales are not published. Them silenced because they are not the model.
There is a movement towards the regional unification. They begin being formed institutions that, if they still don't work fully, they begin to exist, as it is the case of Mercosul and of Unasul.
Other notable case in the area is it of Bolivia. After the referendum, there was a great victory and also a quite violent rebellion in 1/2 Moon's provinces, where they are the governors traditional, white. Dozens of people died. There was a regional meeting in Santiago from Chile, where a great support was expressed Morales and a firm condemnation to the violence, what was answered by the Bolivian president with an important declaration. He said that it was the first time in the history of Latin America, from the European conquest, that the people took the destiny of their countries in their own hands without the control of a foreign power, in other words, Washington. That declaration was not published in the USA.
Central America is traumatized by the terror of the era Reagan. It is not a lot what happens in this area. The USA follow tolerating the military blow in Honduras, although it is significant that cannot support him openly.
Another change, although accident victim, is the cure of the pathology in Latin America, probably the unequalest area of the world. It is a very rich area, always governed by a small Europeanized elite, that it doesn't take any responsibility with the rest of their respective countries. That can be seen in very simple things, as the international flow of goods and capitals. In Latin America the escape of capitals is almost same to the debt. The contrast with oriental Asia is a lot better. That area, much poorer, had a development much more economical noun and the rich ones are submitted to control mechanisms. There is no escape of capitals; in South Korea, for instance, he is punished with the death penalty. The economical development there is relatively equalitarian.
The weakness of the control of the USA
There were two traditional forms for the which the USA controlled Latin America. One era the use of the violence; the other, the economical pressure. Both were weakened.
The economical controls are now weaker. Several countries were liberated of International Monetary Fund through the collaboration. Also the actions were diversified among the countries of the South, process in which the relationship of Brazil with to South Africa and China it carried out an important factor. Those countries started to face some internal problems without the powerful intervention of the United States.
The violence didn't finish. They happened three coup d'état in this century beginning XXI. The Venezuelan, openly leaning for the USA, it was reverted, and now Washington has to go through the other means to subvert the government, among them, press attacks and support to dissident groups. The second was in Haiti, where France and the USA deposed the government and they sent the president for to South Africa. The third party, in Honduras, was of a mixed type. Organization of American States (OAS) it assumed a firm posture and the White House had to follow her and to proceed with a lot of caution and slowness. IMF has just approved an enormous loan to Honduras, that substitutes the reduction of the government's from the USA help. In the past, these were routine subjects. Now, those measured (the violence and the economical pressure) they were weakened.
The United States are reacting and giving steps to militarize the area. The Fourth Fleet, dedicated to Latin America, that had been dismantled in the years 1950, was retaken, and the military bases in Colombia are an important theme.
The illusion of Obama
Barack Obama's election generated great change expectations to Latin America. But they are illusions. Yes, there is a change, but the turn is because Bush's government was so to the end of the American political spectrum that any thing that if it moved would go for the center. In fact, own Bush, in his second period, was less extremist. It came undone of some of their more arrogant collaborators and their politics were more moderately center. And Obama, in a previsible way, continues with this tendency.
We had a turn heading for the traditional position. But which is that tradition? Kennedy, for instance, was one of the most violent presidents of the postwar period. Woodrow Wilson was the largest intervener of the century XX. The center is not pacifist nor tolerant. In fact, Wilson was who took possession of Venezuela, removing English of there, in function of the discovery of petroleum. He supported a brutal dictator. And of there it proceeded heading for Haiti and to Dominican Republic. He sent them "marinate" and practically it destroyed Haiti. He left in these countries national guards and brutal dictators. Kennedy made the same. Obama is a return to the center.
The history repeats with the theme of Cuba, where, for more than half century, the USA wrapped up in a war, since the island won his/her independence. In the beginning, this war was quite violent, especially with Kennedy, when there were terrorism and economical pressure, to which most of the American population is opposed. During decades, almost two thirds of the population have state in favor of the normalization of the relationships, but that is not in the political calendar.
The maneuvers of Obama steered towards the center; he suspended some of the most extreme measures of Bush's model, which until it was leaning for the Cuban-American community's good part. He moved a little towards the center, but he left very clear that there won't be larger changes.
What makes them
What makes them anti-capitalist? Its not that they are many. Its not that they have changed the political disposition in the country abit. Its not the neigbourhood committees or factory occupations ( because the problem with capitalism is not democracy). So what is it?
Uh, it's their political
Uh, it's their political program of "21st-century socialism" that Chavez campaigned on in his re-election bid. And, of course, what the acronym MAS stands for makes the Bolivian mission pretty clear. It's the radical restructuring of society to end capitalism in Latin America and replace it with aforementioned 21st-century socialism. Again, that should seem obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Is that enough for you? Do you really need an itemization of all the extraordinary political changes that have happened in the FSP countries in the last 10+ years?
A political program does not
A political program does not make them anti-capitalist. The so-called "21st century socialism" that Chaves promotes is not against capitalist in any way - thats my point! Tell me what is anti-capitalist in their practice! Nothing, thats what. Meanwhile, Chaves and his croonies are getting rich off the back of the movement and the workingclass is further integrated into the state and their projekt of building a better, more "modern" (since they are behind) capitalism in venezuela. Thats whats up. Wake up
Protectionism is not
Protectionism is not anti-capitalist! Direct democratic forms of the state is not anti-capitalist. Whats left? Big, empty flowery declarations maybe.
Popular assemblies with both
Popular assemblies with both financial and political power, state-owned industries that are becoming more and more directly run by the workers, the free knowledge/education movement (with an emphasis on open source, free software tech education) with labs all over the country, community/popular health care centers all over the country, community/popular housing projects, democratization of media with funding and support for community-based radio and TV and other forms of media, and on and on and on. That just starts to scratch the surface of just the beginning of 21st-century socialism in Venezuela and those are just the domestic programs, let alone the international solidarity programs and foreign policy of Venezuela. That and a whole list of other initiatives, which I just leave to you to read up on your own.
Like i already said; none of
Like i already said; none of that goes against the logic of capitalism or even the state. Sorry, try again.
I would like to apologize. I
I would like to apologize. I fear that I brought this silly debate from fredericton to anews soil. I suspect that the above comments are not from/by people who frequent this site but from authoritarian activists in my city with an axe to grind (they recently brought over Julio Chavez and everybody got rock hard). I usually see intelligent debate on this site and I am happy to see that nobody on here has the time/desire to debate something like this. Remember boys and girls: what you choose to debate says plenty.
Hahaha. Sorry, I'm not from
Hahaha. Sorry, I'm not from Canada and if I were, I wouldn't admit it in mixed company. Frankly, I find most Canadians naive, snobby and irritating to be around.
As for your attempt at being clever about what to debate, maybe the indigenous movement in the Americas isn't a concern for you. Quelle surprise!
But, hey, you Canadian activists are doing a hell of a job up there. It takes a special kind of fuck-up to allow a peaceful, lefty country like Canada get taken over by anally-retentive right-wingers who go on holiday with the Bush Family. Keep up the good work, man! You certainly have the experience to lecture Latin America on what to do and how to do it!
You sound like a snobby
You sound like a snobby leftist who is ready to save the world. Oh, how thoughtful, how kind of you! But you need a lesson in observation: where did I say I gave a shit about lecturing Latin America or any of the "movements" therein.
And stop being so fucking naive. Canada was never peaceful, and the Left was never something to get your panties wet about. I'm not "working" on this country. I'm working on myself. And I'm not a "man".
Go back to your fucking hip coffee shop.
Ugh, how typically Canadian.
Ugh, how typically Canadian. You literally take the words I used to insult you (more than one even!) and hurl them back at me, as if you had thought them up on your own. That was AFTER publicly demonstrating your tin ear by declaring that I'm someone you know from the Fredericton Peace Coalition. Get a grip, man.
I don't know about saving the world but I'm all about fighting for it. Apathy is cowardice -- you should definitely be working on saving your country. When Canada turns into a high-class banana republic like the US is, you'll be sad you were wasting your time in self-therapy or whatever the fuck it is you do to "work on yourself."
You did get me that I consume a hell of a lot of coffee every day but not at any particular shop -- I'm too busy so I always get it to go.
Who said anything about the
Who said anything about the Fredericton Peace Coalition? I sure didn't.
It took me about a minute to
It took me about a minute to Google who brought the Venezuelan speaker to your city.
Canada was never peaceful,
Canada was never peaceful, and the anarchists in Canada are generally against the leftists. At least make your insults accurate.