A historic meeting - The Organization of American States - June 2005

Introduction

While the media accounts focused on the diplomatic conflicts and polemics between the US and Venezuelan diplomats, there were deep structural issues which were overlooked.

A major result of the OAS meeting was the overwhelming defeat of a US proposal, backed by the recently elected OAS Secretary General Insulza, to establish an intervention mechanism which would allow the US via the OAS to judge and intervene against any electoral regime which according to US interests was not acting democratically.

Progressives, democrats and upholders of the rule of international law hailed the defeat of the transparently intrusive measure. However little or no attention was paid to the internal divisions among the victorious coalition. A closer examination of the internal debates and positions suggest that the results were not altogether favorable in protecting the rights of self-determination.

Political Divisions in the OAS

The US proposal demanded a fundamental change in the OAS constitution, calling for the formation of a ‘nucleus of OAS members’ to ‘monitor’ each and every measure, law and decree passed by an elected legislature or executive, and to intervene when the measures are deemed to be contrary to democracy. The presumption is that the US would be the dominant force in this ‘nucleus’ and its political and economic interests would dictate which governments and which measures would be judged ‘authoritarian’ and what action the OAS should take (such as economic sanctions, diplomatic rebukes, investigatory commissions, calls for new elections, military intervention, or support for opposition groups).

The US proposal’s prime supporter was not a country spokesperson but the new Secretary General of the OAS, the Chilean ’socialist’ Jose Miguel Insulza, a long-time architect of Chile’s embrace of Washington’s free trade agenda. Echoing Condeleeza Rice, Insulza spoke in favor of adopting ‘mechanisms to implement the obligation of the Democratic Charter.’ The latter was signed in 2001 and simply embraced democratic principles and free elections. Insulza’s reference to ‘mechanisms’ was understood by every country representative as the intrusive proposal of US tutelage of regimes and intervention against mass movements and incumbent electoral regimes critical of US policy. Rather than strengthening the US position, Insulza quickly discredited his role in the leadership of the OAS.

There were more or less three positions taken in opposition to the US proposal and its attempt to convert the OAS into an instrument of intervention.

Venezuela and Mexico took the strongest position rejecting any effort to intervene in the internal affairs of any Latin American country, under any circumstances. The Venezuelan Ambassador was most forthright in stating that any changes in the political system or in the methods of governance was an affair of the people affected. Venezuela’s leadership role in the struggle against the US proposal reflected the fact that the ‘monitoring’ mechanism was specifically designed by Washington to intervene against Venezuelan democracy and to strengthen the position of US-funded NGO’s.

The proposal of the Caribbean Community group in the OAS explicitly rejected Condeleeza’s demand for a ‘preventive role for the OAS in a crises of governability’. With the brutal US invasion of Haiti, the kidnapping of elected President Aristide, the installation of a puppet regime and the brutal military occupation of the Island, fresh in mind, the Caribbean countries had a very clear idea of what a ‘preventive role’ meant in practical military and political terms.

The third and largest group of countries called ‘the eleven’ (including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Surinam and Guatemala) rejected the US proposal that the OAS decide when countries need ‘intervention’ or are in a ‘crises of governability’. They did propose that the OAS should intervene ‘when the governments ask for aid’ and feel they are passing a ‘crisis of governability’. In effect this group of countries tried to combine a margin of autonomy from unwarranted US intervention with a fallback on OAS intervention if they were faced with a popular uprising.

During the OAS meeting, large-scale social movements in Bolivia were demanding the nationalization of gas and petroleum and/or the resignation of President Mesa. The Peruvian Foreign Minister called on the OAS to intervene in the face of a ‘crisis of governability.’ The Bolivian representative to the OAS affirmed his nation’s sovereignty by stressing that the Bolivian people would resolve the crisis. Mesa was forced to resign.

Likewise during the OAS meeting the US Ambassador to Haiti called on President Bush to send several thousand marines to repress the growing pro-democracy Aristide movement. The Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorin stated that he had no objection to the US sending marines to Haiti.

Among the Eleven it is clear that while Latin American governments oppose the general principle of US intervention, in practice and under specific circumstances, they follow the US line.

The third group which tried to ‘reconcile’ the position of the Eleven with the US proposal included Argentina, El Salvador, and Honduras. Essentially they proposed a text calling on US proxy Insulza to formulate ‘recommendations and specific measures to lend support to countries which ask for it’ as is implied by the Democratic Charter, signed by the OAS in 2001. The Argentine proposal completely undercuts the Venezuelan and Mexican defense of self-determination, weakens the resolve of the Eleven and opens the door via the selection of Insulza as their candidate to the US monitoring system.

Analysis

The Venezuelan representative Ali Rodriguez put his finger right on the main issue confronting the Latin American regimes at the OAS: the growing poverty and social inequalities is creating widespread unrest and instability, leading to the ‘crisis of governance’. The US refused to face these issues because it would require it to confront the failure of the neo-liberal free market model from which its MNCs and banks have benefited. For Washington the problem was not only the progressive Chavez regime but the continent wide challenge to the neo-liberal order evinced by the overthrow of two of its clients, Gutierrez in Ecuador (now residing in Miami) and Sanchez de Losada and Mesa of Bolivia.

Washington needs and demands a multi-lateral force and OAS mandate to punish progressive governments and to finance client ‘civil society’ NGOs and destabilizing forces against those same regimes.

The real debate went far beyond imperial intervention versus self-determination. What was at stake is a continent-wide confrontations between empire-based, discredited clients and emerging powerful social movements intent on revolutionizing the social order. Rice made it abundantly clear that the debate was not about ‘monitoring’ democracy but about imperial intervention when she stated ‘The question is not to intervene to punish but to intervene in order to support democracy’ (my emphasis).

Rice’s statement contradicts the notion put forth earlier that the US proposal was about ‘monitoring’ to explicitly referring to intervening against electoral regimes. It broadens the scope for US intervention from opposing non-electoral systems to intervening against methods of governance. By pursuing this unilateral interventionist strategy against electoral regimes in the OAS, Rice sought to implicate Latin America in it assault on elected governments, thus calling into question their own legitimacy.

What drove Washington to this extremity? There is no doubt that Rice was drawing on the Latin America complicity in the US invasion of Haiti and overthrow of elected President Bertram Aristide, justified on the basis of his ‘authoritarian methods’. The Bush Administration’s strategy was to polarize Latin America against Venezuela in order to isolate Chavez’s experiment with a welfare state, mixed economy and independent foreign policy. The move backfired: Washington polarized Latin America against the Bush Administration, and handed the Chavez government a major diplomatic victory.

Why Washington Failed

There are numerous reasons why the Bush Administration’s Latin America diplomacy failed in what was up to now an international forum, which it had dominated. Washington totally misread or disregarded the growing and widespread mass movements opposing US imperialism and the constraints they were imposing on the willingness of Latin American regimes, even neo-liberal clients, to toe the US interventionist line.

Secondly, Chavez does no appear to most observers in Latin America as a social revolutionary, but rather as an independent reformer promoting a mixed economy and social welfare measures, which the governments in Latin America rhetorically support. Hence to attack Chavez, these regimes would expose the hollowness of their own rhetoric and lose whatever claim they have to be ‘fighting poverty and inequality’.

Thirdly the US support of the Venezuelan coup in April 2002 severely damaged its credibility as a ‘monitor of democracy’ and the ability of the Latin American regimes to convince their public that the measure would ’strengthen democracy’.

Fourthly Chavez is immensely popular among a broad spectrum of political and social forces in Latin America, from the center, leftward. Many regimes, like Lula in Brazil, who have seen their leftist credentials severely questioned have used their association and agreements with Chavez to retain a degree of popular legitimacy.

Fifthly US policy is too extreme, by any measure, in any international forum. The challenging of methods of governance brings into question every Latin America regime that at one moment or another has resorted to ‘authoritarian methods.’ Equally damaging the US violations of international law, its use of torture as a means of ‘governing’ in its occupied countries, its authoritarian Patriot Act to persecute internal opposition hardly recommends the US as an authority on democratic norms of governance.

The US involvement of several Latin American countries in the occupation and repression of the majoritarian poor and support for the US puppet regime in Haiti has been an unmitigated disaster. Going against public opinion in their own countries, the Brazilian led multi-national expeditionary force has failed in every one of its objectives: bringing peace, democracy, security and development. The Latin American countries are surely wary of being recruited for another one of the US anti-democratic interventions.

The US proposal of ‘monitoring’ incumbent regimes is tailored to favor opposition groups (supported by the US), hardly an incentive for any governing power. A constant set of legitimate or illegitimate complaints is likely seen by Latin American regimes as a permanent obstacle to pursuing government policies. No Latin president enjoys the idea of looking over their shoulder to see if Big Brother is preparing to rap them over the knuckles, to secure some concessions.

While some of the more conservative regimes in Latin America may find Chavez radical speeches a nuisance, the manifestos are not linked to any centralized organization or influential international structure. No regime feels threatened by Chavez since he supports most incumbent regimes in the major Latin American countries, including some otherwise unstable regimes, as is the case in Bolivia, against mass revolutionary movements.

Many of the pro-free market regimes are vulnerable to mass pressure from the Left. Palacios in Ecuador, Rodriguez in Bolivia recently came to power thanks to popular uprisings. Others, like Lula in Brazil, are already facing widespread opposition in Congress and among landless rural and unionized urban workers. None of these regimes is in a position to fuel greater opposition to satisfy Washington’s effort to overthrow Chavez with such a blatant device as a ‘monitoring’ system.

Paradoxically for almost all the regimes opposing the US their primary concern is stability. US proposals to intervene in Venezuela and elsewhere is eminently destabilizing. The imperial ‘roll back’ policy clashes with their conservative status quo orientation.

Conclusion

The most significant political and diplomatic defeats of the US in Latin America have come about when it has tried to impose rightwing regimes or force Latin Americans to sign on to programs which have no reciprocity clauses - like the Latin American Free Trade Agreement.

The most significant advances in Washington’s agenda has resulted from the evolution of former leftist leaders and parties to neo-liberal and free-market policies as is the case with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

In the areas of greatest conflict, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, Washington has chosen to confront reformist policies and economic openings with ideologically driven aggression, which has boomeranged - isolating the US from the rest of Latin America. The US embargo on Cuba is rejected by all major and most smaller countries; the US campaign against Venezuela in the OAS was soundly defeated; the US rejection of social democratic electoralist Evo Morales results in greater polarization.

What Washington doesn’t ‘get’ is that old style neo-liberalism or free market policies are deeply resented and rejected by most sectors below the elite. The Free Market regimes are in deep crises throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, a crisis that only needs the added ingredient of US overt aggression to flare into the open - even via otherwise docile client regimes. The US secured a ‘Democratic Charter’ from the OAS in 2001, aimed at castigating Cuba’s political regime. Today there is a consensus even among the liberal regimes in Latin America that there is a need for a Social Charter which puts poverty reduction and the narrowing of inequalities in the center of hemispheric debate. There are real and serious doubts whether many of the Latin regimes are prepared to adopt consequential measures. But as Washington is tied to a one-dimensional conception of empire building through militarization and intervention, the political and diplomatic distance between Latin America and the US can only widen.

June 15, 2005