People's Democracy

Some Trends In Latin America Now

Anil Biswas

ACROSS the vast continent of Latin America, important changes are taking place over the past few months.  The struggle against status quo, against neo-liberalism, against authoritarianism, and against sectarian politics, and against capitalist form of development has gained momentum over the recent months. In a great many number of states of this continent, the Left has made excellent progress in terms of political advancement and ideological development.

The communist and socialist parties have shifted gears afresh in these countries to try to come to the forefront of workers’-peasants’ movements.  In this brief overview, our intention is to highlight some of the notable landmarks chalked up in the recent period in Latin America in terms of change and continuity.

Perhaps the most sweeping pro-people changes have taken place in Venezuela whose resurgent president, Hugo Chavez visited West Bengal some months back. Chavez, a popular president, took over the reins of a ruined country in a surge of popular movement, a nation that was ruined by ‘neo-liberal’ adjustments. 

Per capita income was one of the lowest of the continent.  More than 85 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line.  Social spending had touched rock bottom.  There was malnutrition and ill health dogging the nation as such. Corruption was a way of life.  The divide between the rich and the poor was increasing rapidly.

Chavez, an ardent Leftist, and a self-confessed Fidelista, struggled hard along with a dedicated team of communist, socialist, and other Left and democratic leadership to accomplish what has been called a Venezuelan turn around. 

LAND REFORMS

The base on which Chavez has built up his programme of development has certainly been redistributive land reforms.  Land holdings above 10 – 5000 hectares were gradually confiscated, vested in the state, and then redistributed among poor and landless of the rural areas.  So far, the Chavez government has managed to distribute state-owned land to 130,000 peasant families. 

The battle, says Chavez speaking to Prensa Latina recently, is against the stakes of the latifundia.  The latifundia are defined as private estates of over 20,000 hectares each. The land reforms programme of the Chavez government has faced severe criticism from the rightist opposition in Venezuela as a ‘communist programme.’ 

The number of workers’ cooperatives grows every day.  Millions of Venezuelans are involved in the functioning of these cooperatives and, with state sponsorship readily available, the cooperatives have become instruments of pro-people change. The cooperatives receive regular financial inputs from the state-sponsored bank and financial institutions.

A drive is ‘on’ to stop the efforts of the earlier authoritarian, US-backed regimes to privatise the oil and natural gas sectors.  Limits have been placed on penetration of foreign capital with foreign investments welcomed only on terms and conditions set by the Venezuelan government.  Special state-sector banks have been set up to assist farmers and small entrepreneurs.  The rights of the indigenous people are being protected especially in such sectors as agriculture and fishery.

Free and sponsored health care is provided to the masses of the people who could ill afford the high cost privatised health service of yesteryears.  People’s clinics (barrio clinics) have been set up in townships as well as villages to help the people get healthcare.  Education has been made free (right through the university level) and there has been sharp rise over the past three months in school enrolment.

‘Bolivarian circles’ or neighbourhood committees have been set up all over the country and these are designed to activate people at the base level to assist efforts in literacy, education, vaccination, and sanitation campaigns.  Most of all the ‘Bolivarian circles’ work towards heightening the consciousness of the masses.

BOLIVARIAN ALTERNATIVE

An important achievement of Hugo Chavez is the putting up of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas or ALBA to counter and to resist the US sponsored FTAA.  What is the ALBA?  The ALBA was defined and explained in the document that Venezuela signed late last year with Cuba at Havana. The ALBA is a fructification of the Cuban patriot and national hero, Jose Marti’s vision of ‘our America’ as opposed to the United States, which is expansionist and has imperialist appetite.

The ALBA speaks not merely about economic, financial, commercial, and trade-linked cooperation, it stresses on the fact that it would build up the broadest solidarity among the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, seeking to eliminate social inequalities and promoting the quality of life of the masses of the people, and encouraging them to participate in order to shape their own destiny. In promoting and expanding ALBA, Chavez has contributed in a solid measure to the struggle against the neo-imperialist and neo-liberalist forays of the United States, especially in Latin America and in the Caribbean.

Uruguay has long been a subservient partner of the US imperialism, with the earlier presidents making great efforts to oppose ALBA and to push the neo-liberalist agenda of the FTAA.  It was Uruguay again that had under US tutelage mooted a resolution at the UN condemning Cuba in 2002 and again in 2003.

For the first time in the history of Uruguay, a Left coalition of political parties won the national elections last year.  The Broad Front as the coalition is known was formed more than three decades ago and it was only in October 2004 that the coalition was able to register electoral success.  The new Socialist President of Uruguay is Dr Tabare Vasquez, an oncologist by training.  The son of a working class couple, Dr Vasquez was the Left mayor of Montevideo from 1990 to 1994.

Founded by communists, socialists, and by Left-leaning Christian democrats in 1970-71, joined in by the Tupamaros guerrillas in 1975, the Broad Front steered clear of the political practices of the two ‘mainstream’ parties, the National Party and the deeply discredited Colorado Party, and engaged itself in pro-people, pro-socialism politics.

BROAD FRONT TRIUMPHS

The 2004 electoral triumph was marked by a long and arduous heritage of movements, struggles, and campaign amidst the people.  The political platform of the Broad Front has been summarised by Liber Seregni, a long-time leader of the party.  Seregni says that the Front proposed to bring about profound structural changes in the society, replacing the classes that were in power, displacing the oligarchy in particular, and bringing in the masses of the people to govern democratically.

During the years between 1971 and 1985, in the dictatorship regimes and even later, the Front leadership including Dr Vasquez was imprisoned, tortured and exiled. Since the 1960s, the US intelligence agents have trained Uruguayan army and police in interrogation methods and torture.  According to even conservative estimates, more than half of the population of Uruguay has been either interrogated and/or tortured at some point of time. Uruguay had the largest number of political prisoners in the world.

There was an increasing and irreversible polarisation of political forces, between the Left and the right, and in the process, the Front campaigned intensely and widely against the ills of neo-liberalism processes, linking it to the economic dysfunction that Uruguay suffered from. The wide swathe of recession that cut across Uruguay in the 1990s saw one million of the country’s 3.3 million population sink below the poverty line. In the circumstances, come the 2004 polls, the Broad Front was swept to office with Dr Vasquez winning 50.69 per cent votes in the first round, making a second round unnecessary. The National Party and the Colorado Party candidates finished a distant second and third.

Since assumption of office, the Front government has been engaged in five major tasks: setting up a welfare state as a prelude to greater social changes; deepening democracy, building up a transparent state, enhancing agrarian and industrial production, and developing R&D in science and technology.  The Vasquez government has been pursuing polices that the Front leadership has repeatedly dubbed as ‘revolutionary Marxist.’

Economic activity has started to recover from 2005.  Unemployment figures fell for the first time in the history of the nation.  The recession has started to lessen. Uruguay has established relations with Cuba and has signed treaties of economic cooperation with Brazil as well.  However, Uruguay has tactically not gone in for any confrontation with the US, preferring to assure the US administration that it would not dishonour foreign debt.

NEO-LIBERALISM REJECTED

Chavez has described the intensity of crisis developing now in Bolivia as a violent rejection of the FTAA-type ‘free market’ democracy imposed by the forces of US imperialism in Latin America.  Bolivia is one of the poorest countries of Latin America with 90 per cent of the rural populace living in abject poverty devoid of the most basic of amenities like health, shelter, sanitation, and electricity.

Bolivia is also a rich country in terms of natural resources.  It has natural gas, and large deposits of tin, silver, and gold.  The ruling classes, nearly all white, with the backing of US imperialism, have mercilessly exploited the country. They have also come down heavily throughout the history of the country on the indigenous people who comprise more than 60 per cent of the population.  The Left is solidly entrenched among the poor, the indigenous people, and increasingly among the middle class hit by neo-liberal reform measures of the preceding regimes.

The battle commenced in 2000 when the indigenous people led by Evo Morales, of the Movement towards Socialism party, forced the US multinational company, Bechtel to wound its business down in Uruguay; Bechtel was interested to own and control the Cochabamba water project.  In January this year, Morales and the Movement towards Socialism joined another battle when they opposed the move by the Bolivian government to privatise water and sewerage systems of the capital La Paz. 

The movement of Morales, backed by the Communist Party and by the Socialists, has called for nationalisation of oil, natural gas, water, and sanitation projects of the country. They also call for a new constitution that will include regional autonomy for the indigenous people and their inclusion and representation in the Constituent Assembly.  The presidential elections are coming up very soon, and there is a great deal of chance for Morales to romp home with help from the communists, the socialists, and the Left and democratic forces in general.        

Strong challenges loom ahead of the Left in Chile.  Ricardo Lagos who took over as the president of Chile back in 2000 promised to improve public services, and work for the country’s teeming poverty ridden populace.  Limited headway could be made chiefly because of lack of political intentions.  Poverty continues to overwhelm the majority of the population while such amenities as health care, education, and shelter has faltered measurably over the past five years.

Guillermo Teillier, president of the Communist Party of Chile has pointed out that under the present system, it is difficult for a coalition to gain ascendancy in the congress.  Under the system, called the ‘two-seat bi-nominal’ system, two-thirds vote of in any constituency is required to gain both seats in the congress’s lower house.  This precludes any coalition from gaining a big majority.

UNITED WE WIN

The Left political alliance, inspired by the political activism of the late Chilean communist leader, Gladys Marin, has been formed to fight the 2005 presidential polls.  The alliance is called juntos podemos, or ‘we can do it unitedly,’ and a recent National Assembly for Democracy and Popular Sovereignty saw the emergence of the presidential candidate of the Left, Tomas Hirsch of the Humanist party as the consensual choice. 

The Chilean Communist Party has pointed out that under the neo-liberal regime of Lagos, minimum wages were gradually dismantled and being replaced by a new flexible labour law that would reduce salaries further and introduce contractual, cheap labour. Teillier has described the move as an attempt to enslave the Chilean work force.

The Communist Party of Chile has pointed recently to the fact that the Lagos regime would not keep its promises to look after the education, health, and housing sector, especially for the poor and has gone ahead with privatising the bulk of the education sector making access possible only for the affluent.

In a statement, the Communist Party has noted that the ethnic minorities were ruthlessly exploited and discriminated against in terms of human rights.  Women are blatantly exploited and discriminated against affording them no protection from domestic violence.  The wages of women are on an average 30 per cent lower than the national average. Unemployment is higher for women, too. Childcare is hopelessly inadequate.

The juntos podemos are aware of the challenge ahead.  They need at least a million votes to be considered a viable political force in the congress.  However, the Communist Party would not see the task of winning the presidential elections as the final barrier.  As the Left presidential candidate points out, the basic task was for all the Chilean masses to unite under the Left agenda and work for great social and political changes that were long overdue in Chile.

Brazil has seen great and good progress made under the leadership of the Workers Party and the president Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva.  Social services have been strengthened in a short period of time and welfare measures initiated for the poor. At the same time, to tackle the huge debt burden ready to overwhelm the country’s economy, ‘Lula’ has put in place an austerity programme.

Public debt and inflation remain problems but the undoubted fact is, the Brazilian communists, socialists, and other Left forces believe, that the national economy could show signs of growth, and more importantly, both inflation and unemployment figures were down. Brazil works in close cooperation of Venezuela and Cuba.  Its exports have exceeded import figures.  Industrialisation of the country goes on apace, specialising in iron and steel, transport equipment, food products, hydropower, petrochemicals, and coffee.

LULA’S SUPPORT BASE GROWS

‘Lula’ has consistently received strong support from the trade union movement on Brazil.  However, the government faces a few problems in reckoning with the problems of the landless peasants movement.  However, it was the ‘movement for landless workers,’ or the MST that was instrumental in ensuring a win for ‘Lula.’ The progress made in redistributive land reforms, claims the MST leadership, and has slowed down over the years since the new government took over.

During the summer of this year, ‘Lula’ took time out to meet the MST leader in a delegation of 15,000.  He promised and then has started to work on such issues as the settlement of 430,000 peasant families in land plots in the space of one year, organising land mapping and land utilisation priorities, not to direct the agricultural production to cater to overseas demands alone, and to increase the process of land transfer to the rural poor supporting the process with government grants and low-interest loans.  ‘Lula’ agrees with his MST comrades that what Brazil needs is a massive social revolution, and soon.

Over the rest of Latin America, the Left-led popular movements have progressed apace. In Argentina, the workers and peasants have organised several large demonstrations against the neo-liberal policies of the president Nestor Kirchner who came to office in a shower of promises but would not move against the tide of neo-liberalism sweeping the ruling elite of the country.  Inflation remains on a high and as the economic recovery slows down less and less employment is likely to be created. 

President Kirchner has two sets of new problems confronting him.  The duel with his compatriot and predecessor Eduardo Duhalde has informally split the Peronist Party and this has sent confusing signals to his rank-and-file supporters in Argentina.  Second, and more important, Kirchner faces pressure from the IMF to put the mandatory fiscal deficit to around 4 per cent which the president is not willing to do as he would not like to present an image that he is buckling before the IMF and going for structural adjustments.

The falling economic growth has added to his worries. Waves of protest of unemployed workers in the capital Buenos Aires has embarrassed him further especially when riot police had to be sent in.

In Peru, the regime of president Alejandro Toledo has been put on the backfoot by the congress.  He was supposed to fly off to the US to take part in the so-called ‘millennium goals’ conference.  The congress chose to rise against his move and asked him not go out of the country or else he will stand to lose his presidency since under Peruvian constitution a visit abroad by a president not authorised by the congress can have serious consequences for the incumbent. 

The president has also been put to great pressure by the waves of popular movements taking place in the country against neo-liberal politics and economics and he may well decide not to go in for an all out support of the FTAA, at least not before the new Peruvian government is elected come April 2006.

In Colombia, the mountain war goes on between the guerrilla fighters of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Colombian government.  The recent (September 15) release of the ELN spokesman, Francisco Galan marks the beginning of a three-month countdown for the peace talks.  The Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe under pressure from the Left and democratic forces to come to the negotiating table has recently announced that if the ELN accepted cessation of hostilities as a principle, ‘I recognise whatever it wants.’  ELN central committee member and commander-in-chief Antonio Garcia said in response that the ‘government should start the peace process.’

In smaller Latin American states like Ecuador, Guatemala, and Paraguay, democratic forces have advanced but in a limited fashion. The communists and the socialists have regrouped although the result has not been of a magnitude that would issue a challenge before the ruling classes. Change, and continuity thus marks the current Latin American scene and the process of unity across the Latin American and Caribbean countries against neo-liberalism has great portents for the future.