By Marcelo Colussi on July 13, 2019
Throughout the countries of this great geographic area of Latin America, even since its native aristocracies were born, the project of nation building was always weak. These oligarchies and “their” countries were not born which is different from the European powers in American land at the heat of an original project of sustainable nation, with its own life, and a vocation for expansion. On the contrary, devoted since their beginning to primary agriculture-export production for foreign markets (raw material with little or no value added), Latin American history is marked by dependence, even a tendency to favor things foreign.
Oligarchies with inferiority complex, always trying to find references outside their countries, with racist and discriminatory practices in regard to native people —who were used of course by the exploitative class to accumulate wealth. Their history as a social segment and history of their own countries where they exerted their power is defined not by themselves but by the hand of foreign powers (Spain or Portugal first, then Great Britain, and from the Monroe Doctrine on, the United States).
However, this should be understood within the logic of the capitalist system’s natural law of expansion. Capitalism, since its beginning, showed an unstoppable trend of expansion as a system and concentration of capital. The need of new and every day more varied and extended markets is inherent to it. “The particular task of bourgeois society is the establishment of the world market… and of production based on it. Since the world is round, this seems to have been completed,” said Marx in 1858.
When Spanish sailor Rodrigo de Triana shouted “Land!” from the ship of Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492, the expansion of capitalism and the real globalization process had its beginning The world became round there effectively and capital started to spread worldwide in the quest for, 1) markets for capital gain and 2) raw materials to manufacture new commodities, while endlessly inventing new necessities.
At the beginning of the 21 century, the United States appears to be in control of its allegedly natural “backyard.” Latin America is its rearguard and the country up North is its imperial center, though not the same way as comparing the Europeans centuries before. Why did this happen? It is not due to inherent malice from the hawks governing from Washington; it is rather the prevailing social-economic system which leads to this condition.
The United States is the main exponent of current capitalism, completely globalized and possessor of the international political scene nowadays. Mega capital controlling the world continues being to a large extent from the United States, they speak English and are ruled by the dollar. That uncontrolled capitalism increasingly needs raw material and energy. The globalization of the “American way of life” entails an endless consumption of resources. Securing those resources and energy sources grants the possibility of controlling humanity.
Latin America is part of that logic of global domination, mainly, as supplier of raw materials and energy sources. The Latin American subcontinent provides 25 percent of the total resources consumed by the United States. Among other materials, there it gets oil, natural gas, prized resources like bauxite, coltan, niobium, thorium, biodiversity in tropical forests and its eyes are now focused on the large fresh water reserves.
The development of its Latin American countries is mortgaged by the foreign debt of the entire region and there is some growth for a few local large groups —usually connected to transnational capital conglomerates. Meanwhile, the standard of living of most of the poor, urban and rural majorities, are in continuous decline. But the transference of resources to the United States never ends, as payment for the foreign debt or as remittance of profits towards headquarters of companies operating in the region.
The U.S. ruling class takes care not to lose all of these interests, doubtlessly vital to maintaining their privileges. This is the reason for their foreign policy towards Latin America, basically consisting of the role played by their leaders regardless if they are democrats or republicans, in that respect history seems to be written a long time ago. Since the times of Simon Bolivar, who said in 1829 that “The United States appear to be destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty,” until now, this trend has remained consistent.
The interest of large U.S. capital needs the Latin American and Caribbean countries. They control every inch of the region for it. They control it through several means, including interfering and manipulation in domestic politics, reinforcing technology dependence, unpayable foreign debt and commercial subjection. And when all of that is not enough, they take up arms.
The hypotheses of social conflict from a military perspective are presented in the Santa Fe IV document, an ideological key for the current hawks tied to the military-industrial complex who are in fact the ones framing the foreign policy and can be seen in the Army Reserve 2020 Vision and Strategy plan or in the Global Trends 2015 Report of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.
Decreasing poverty and fighting marginalization as part of the ambitious (which perhaps is unattainable under capitalism) U.N. Millennium Development Goals 2015-2030 is not among the empire’s geostrategic plans. Instead there is a firm hand for those who protest or try to go against its hegemonic interests! There is no other answer when we consider the 70 high tech military bases that are protecting Latin America and the Caribbean for the global capitalist system.
Why is so much control necessary? Excuses about fighting drug trafficking or international terrorism is not what this is about when one considers that the largest and most powerful facility is under construction in Honduras, very close to Venezuela’s oil reserves. A coincidence?
The Mariscal Estigarribia military base in Paraguay —with capacity to shelter 20,000 soldiers— is close to the Guarani aquifer and Bolivia’s gas reserves. Is that a coincidence too? When the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet was reactivated, after decades of inactivity, then Brazilian president Lula da Silva wondered, “Now that we have discovered crude oil 300 kilometers off of our coast, we would like the United States to explain to us the logic of having this fleet in such a peaceful region like this one.”
It is evident that Latin America is a territory occupied by the White House’s hemispheric geopolitics. And there are no strange “coincidences” between its (political or military) interventionism and the interests it defends. To be precise, this is a calculated agenda of domination.
But all is not lost. Even though the United States seems to be an invincible power, it is not. That is proven by history. Though its control over our territories seems absolute, there are always cracks in the empire. The history of humanity is, in short, a long, endless struggle between oppressors and oppressed. And history is not complete yet, just as the system triumphantly chanted years ago after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
If the empire needs so much warfare at its disposal to be able to control it is because it knows that the bubble may burst at any moment, as it has already burst in some points; Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela. Therefore, we should not feel that the no way out of so much domination; let’s recall Pablo Neruda: “They can cut all the flowers, but they can’t stop the spring.”
Source: Nodal, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau