Ruminations of an Expatriate

Exit polling is indicating an end to the 61 year rule of the Colorado party in Paraguay, the party of the 35 years of the ruthless dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, which ended in 1989 when he was dethroned by his own party and the Paraguayan military. The country had its first democratic election in 1993.

The projected winner is former Catholic Priest Fernando Lugo who has promised a government that will aid the poor and indigenous population of the country, Latin America’s second poorest nation ,with over 40% of its population living in poverty. Lugo has forged a coalition of labor unions, indigenous Paraguayans, and poor framers under the banner of the Patriotic Alliance for Change.

Also up for election are the 45-member Senate and 80-member lower House of Deputies, all for five-year terms. And 17 governors, 18 representatives to the Mercosur trade bloc, and local officials.

So it looks as though Paraguay is set to join Brazil; Argentina; Uruguay; Bolivia; Ecuador; Venezuela; Nicaragua; and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Chile in rejecting the “neo-liberal” policies advocated by the USA government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Policies which counsel corporate ownership of natural resources and enterprises which provide essential public services.

UPDATE:  Reuters reports that with 72 percent of the polling stations reporting Lugo has a 9.5 percentage point lead over the Colorado party candidate.

Here’s an interesting article addressing Cuban elementary school education and Cuban children outperforming low income students from other Latin American nations.

“In today’s globalized world, the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people. When narco-trafficking and corruption threaten democracy in Latin America, it’s America’s problem too. . .”

So exclaimed Barack Obama in a recent “foreign policy” address, necessitated in his presidential campaign, I think, by the persistent media criticism that Obama lacks foreign policy experience.

Aside from the fact that such media criticism is nothing more than obedient stenographic reproduction of Obama’s opponents’ talking points, and that only one of our last five presidents had any foreign policy experience entering office, Obama is wrong.

Obama is correct that “narco-trafficking and corruption threaten democracy in Latin America” and it is the USA prohibition of illegal drugs that enables the black market within which the narco-traffickers operate.  It is the USA drug policy and appetite for drugs that lies at the root of the narco-trafficking”. 

Legalize drugs and the narco-traffickers would be out of business almost instantly, as would the corruption inevitably associated with drug wars.  I presume that Obama, like most other politicians, understand this fact but lack the political courage to say so.

The Boston Globe reports that dozens of associates of Columbian President Uribe have been implicated for their associations with right wing death squads. Some of Uribe’s associates have resigned their government positions and others have been arrested.

The Globe reports that “a computer seized from paramilitary leader ‘Jorge 40′ revealed the names of dozens of politicians who supposedly collaborated with paramilitaries in intimidating voters, seizing land, and kidnapping or killing labor unionists and political rivals. Other revelations followed, including secret documents signed by officials pledging moral support or kickbacks to the illegal militias.”

Columbia, as you will remember, receives more USA military and economic aid than any other nation in the Western Hemisphere. The aid is provided to fight the drug war and a long term insurgency.

Have you notice all of those disgusting paeans to Pinochet in recent days that excuse Pinochet’s tortures, murders, international terrorism (D. C. car bombing and Argentinian assassination) and illegitimate dictatorship because he engineered an “economic miracle?” As noted in the articles I linked to a couple days ago, here and here, the Chilean economic miracle is a myth, taken as a matter of faith by Pinochet apologists.

The most vile example of such paeans I’ve encountered was by Johah Goldberg, holding forth in the L. A. Times with the silly thesis that “Iraq Needs a Pinochet.”

It follows from such logic, it seems, that Hitler may be excused for his atrocities, as he caused the trains to run on time and engineered the revitalization of the German economy.

The term “economic miracle”, as attached to Chile, was coined by Milton Friedman, whose acolytes trooped into Chile upon Pinochet’s bloody seizure of power and engineered the destruction of the Chilean economy. The Chilean experience somewhat removed the shine from Friedman’s nobel prize winning economic theories.

Following is what I consider to be a more appropriate Pinochet send off, which I happened upon at Brad DeLong’s excellent blog.

By Neddie Jingo!: Pinochet Passes By

Neddie Jingo’s encounter with Pinochet:

By Neddie Jingo!: Pinochet Passes By:

June, 1975: Santiago de Chile

Your Ned, the son af an American diplomat, is a sophomore at an international school at the farthest edge of town, in the Andean foothills. His anti-authoritarian teenaged years in their fullest pimply bloom, he insists, despite his parents’ entreaties (or, who knows, perhaps because of them) on affecting the uniform of the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen: the long, ratty hair, jeans worn through at the knee, the general surliness.

In a fascist dictatorship — gun emplacements on the public thoroughfare, DINA agents prowling the streets in unmarked cars ready to pounce and “disappear” you to torture chambers on Dawson Island, itchy-trigger-fingered Carabineros on street corners stopping any random passerby who looked vaguely “socialist” — the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen look is the sort of thing that the Authorities lick their chops at. It’s utterly impossible to understand, in a cosmopolitan democracy, the raw, adrenaline-pumping fear that can gnaw at your vitals when you can be hauled off the street at any instant for the way you dress. I’m sorry, punk rockers and Disaffected Victims of the Man: you can’t know. There is no comparison.

I came to dread with a sickly nausea those knee-trembling moments when a machine-gun-wielding cop would pick me out of a crowded sidewalk, step in front of me, and accost me for my ID: “A ver, joven…”

And I was safe! I was untouchable! I had Diplomatic Immunity! I had a diplomatic carnet de identidad that rendered me literally untouchable!

Most of my friends were theoretically untouchable, too — but try explaining that to my pal Joe, son of the Bolivian chargé d’ affaires, who got his knee broken in just such an encounter. He’d forgotten his wallet. Boom. Rifle butt to the patella. Don’t forget, punk.

The trip to school that year was a bouncy, uncomfortable ride with several other kids in the back of a covered pickup truck. A few families had banded together, hired a driver for the duty. Our outbound trip wound its way through Santiago’s fashionable districts, picking up kids, then out to Calle Las Condes for the drive to the beautiful foothills.

One morning, we were going down a one-way street on our usual route. Minding our own business. Obeying the speed limit. Being good citizens. Out of nowhere, coming directly at us, came two motorcyle cops, gesticulating wildly — get out of the way! Get out of the way!

On a one-way street. Going the wrong way.

Directly into oncoming traffic.

The motorcycles were followed by several police cars, Carabineros leaning out the windows, also waving their arms. One of the cars slowed momentarily, and a particularly vehement cop shouted directly into our drivers’ face; apparently the rather deft dive the driver had made onto a spare patch of sidewalk hadn’t been fast enough to please him.

Then a Mercedes limousine passed imperiously by, oblivious to the strewn traffic on either side of the quiet city street. A profile in an ornate military peaked cap, distinctive brush moustache clearly visible, adorned the opened back window. Generál Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, Presidente de la República de Chile.

It’s a good thing those Carabineros were so preoccupied ahead, clearing the way for the Great Man. I’m not sure they would have taken kindly to the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen Neddie’s upraised middle finger that extended from the back of the truck.

I hope dying hurt a whole lot, you rat-faced son of a bitch. I hope you suffered the tortures of the damned. I hope no one wiped your brow or comforted you while you suffered and died. I hope you died alone.

Posted by Brad DeLong on December 13, 2006 at 09:32 AM in Moral Responsibility, Politics | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

Greg Palast recounts how Pinochet, who violently seized power from democratically elected Salvador Allende with USA government assistance, implemented neo-liberal economic policies which enabled the looting of the Chilean economy by a few super rich interests; and how he ultimately found it necessary to resort to socialist economic measures to restore Chilean economic health. Palast observes that Allende’s nationalization of Chile’s copper resources from control by multi-national corporations and his land reform program are today largely responsible for the currently favorable state of the Chilean economy.

Incidentally, Chile, under Pinochet, implemented “private accounts”, as advocated by Bush as “social security reform”. The results should discourage anyone, except the “private account” fund managers, from considering implementation of such.

More on the failure of Pinochet’s economic policies from Asia Times Online.

A week go the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean released a report entitled “Social Panorama of Latin America 2006″ which, as the organization put it in a press release, indicates that:

“Latin America has turned in its best performance in 25 years in economic and social terms. Progress in poverty reduction, together with improvements in unemployment and, in some countries, income distribution, as well as increases in the number of jobs, are the main factors underlying the positive trend in a number of the region’s countries.

“These encouraging trends are reflected in the most recent estimates of poverty and indigence, which decreased, for the third consecutive year, in 2005. According to the latest available figures, in that year 39.8% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean (some 209 million people) lived in poverty and 15.4% (81 million people) lived in extreme poverty or indigence. This represents a decrease of more than 4% in relation to figures for 2002, which registered levels of poverty and indigence of 44% and 19.4%, respectively.”

The organization’s press release goes on to note that “The most significant improvements occurred in Argentina (26% poverty rate in 2003-05, compared to 45.4% in 2000-02) and Venezuela (37.1% in 2003-05, compared to 48.6% in 2000-02).”

Is it merely a coincidence that the governments of the countries exhibiting the largest reductions in poverty are those which have most radically departed from the “neo-liberal” policies advocated by the USA government, the World Bank, and International Monetary Fund?

It appears not, or at least an examination of the Argentinian experience would indicate not.

A 2004 report by the Condor Advisers, which its web page indicates, “has been providing independent, emerging markets investment risk analysis to a select number of institutional investors since 1996″, documents the Argentinian experience.

The Condor Advisers report indicates that Argentina suffered “unprecedented political and social instability between 1999 and 2002, when the cumulative contraction of gross domestic product approached 20 percent. More compelling than the economic collapse that occurred during this period was the surge of individual poverty, which increased from 27 percent of the population in 1998 to 54 percent of the population in 2002. The political, social and economic disasters that befell Argentina were largely the product of IMF-induced economic policies. By discarding these policies, the Kirchner government has enabled Argentina’s stabilization and recovery.”

On the  other hand, the Condor Advisoers report that “Like pre-default Argentina, Brazil has studiously applied the IMF’s economic policies. The result has been weak economic growth, deteriorating social conditions and rapidly increasing public sector debt. Annual average gross domestic product growth in Brazil was 1.6 percent between 1999 and 2003. Over the same period, unemployment more than doubled to 13 percent and cumulative real average earnings contracted by over 13 percent. The outlook for economic growth is discouraging. Gross domestic product growth is not expected to exceed 1.5 percent this year. This weak economic performance and tragic deterioration in social conditions are a direct result of the IMF’s demand that Brazil keep fiscal and monetary policies tight in return for continued access to multilateral credit.”

The Kirchner government, like the Chavez government in Venezuela, has emphasized investment in its human resources rather than to continue pursuing the neo-liberal model, which emphasizes policies such as public debt and the private ownership of resources and utilities that enrich a few at the expense of the many. The result has been robust economic growth and a decrease in poverty.

One-by-one the other nations of Latin America are electing governments that, to one degree or another, are following the Argentinian and Venezuelan lead.

This Associate Press report, I think, provides an accurate explanation of why Latin Americans are voting for leaders who reject the Wash. D.C./World Bank/International Monetary Fund “neo-liberal” economic model which has resulted in unmanageable national debt and stagnant economic growth throughout Latin America.

It seems that Hugo Chavez has done in ten years what Castro has been unable to do in 45 years. Chavez has provided an economic model that emphasizes improving the lot of the poor while sustaining robust economic growth. While it is true that Chavez has the advantage of an oil rich economy, the non-oil sectors of the Venezuelan economy have enjoyed robust growth in recent years as well.