New winds in Latin America
ALTAMIRO BORGES
In a change of scenario, in which the empire becomes vulnerable and the ideas of neo liberals lose their appeal, the struggles of the people of the world advance. The heroic Iraqi resistance in a region rich in oil, is today the Achilles' heel of the USA. As a result of imperialist violence, the whole Asian region has been set on fire. Another encouraging phenomenon is the growing commitment of youth in the struggle for a potentially different world.
This resistance movement, which gained larger organization from the World Social Forums (FSM) of Porto Alegre, is today a potential stone in the shoe of business corporations and of the capitalists. And there are also positive signs appearing of a resurging of the Trade Unions struggles, with the recent general strikes in France, Portugal, Greece and Italy against the regressions in social welfare and in labor rights.
A continent in trance
The uniqueness of this resistance, however, takes place in Latin America, which is not always noticed by the social fighters of Brazil perhaps because we still do not cultivate our Latin-American identity. In the last years, the continent suffered brusque alterations in the political area. For political scientist, José Luis Fiori, this change is unknown in the history of the region. From the laboratory of neo liberalism, it was converted into the vanguard of the struggle against its destructive effects.
The resistance advances quickly, using several forms of struggle. In a residual way, the experiences of guerrilla war still persist with emphasis on the Armed Revolutionary Force of Colombia (FARC), that dominates 40 % of the territory. It forms another struggle, one with insurrectional marks, it is that of the popular east, which already deposed eleven presidents in the region.
The biggest form of expression of this resistance, however, happens through the ballot box, with popular dissatisfaction resulting in the defeat of candidates committed to neo liberal ideas. Hugo Chávez, a rebellious soldier, inaugurated a series of victories of the left at the end of 1998; following a worker and trade unionist was elected in Brazil, Lula; a peasant leader and native in Bolivia, Evo Morales; an ex-guerrilla in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega; a heterodox economist in Ecuador, Rafael Correa; besides René Preval in Haiti, Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay and Michele Bachelet in Chile. Soon, a liberty theologian, Fernando Lugo, will be able to become President of Paraguay.
Paces and differentiated processes
Each of these countries, with its own peculiarities, carries out different experiences in confrontation with the serious crisis that devastated the region in the gloomy decades of neo liberalism. Some rulers adopt more daring postures, especially in the Andean nations Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Others follow more moderate roads, avoiding confrontations, as in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile. In common, all the new governments, because of the fear of social pressure, try to distance themselves from the old dogmas of the neo liberals, paralyzing privatizations in strategic areas of the economy, coming back to strengthen the inductive role of the state, investing in social programs and reducing the impetus of the measures of the precarious members of the Labor Party.
As Chávez affirmed in the Social Worldwide Forum in Caracas, in 2006, the conduct of the new rulers reflects the correlation of forces of each country, it does not adopt a unique model and follows differentiated paces, but everyone looks to surpass the misfortunes of neo liberalism. Not to frustrate popular expectations and, to avoid the return of the conservative-liberal block, forces the governments’ need to advance in making changes. Life pushes for bigger and more daring radicalization; otherwise, history’s revenge can be brutal. The most exemplary case is in Venezuela, where the Bolivarian process acquires revolutionary outlines and it places as a challenge the construction of “socialism of the XXI century.”
Chávez challenges imperialist arrogance and attacks media dictatorship by not renewing the license of the tricky RCTV. His project of constitutional reform was temporarily defeated in the referendum that proposed the reduction of the working day to 36 hours per week, anti-landowning land reform and inclusion of the status of the informal worker. Already in Bolivia, Evo Morales nationalizes fields and refineries of oil and gas.
The courageous initiative is a landmark in the history of the country, the poorest of South America, and in spite of this, it has reserves estimated in 1.5 trillion cubic meters of gas, extracting 40 thousand barrels of oil in a day and producing 150 million cubic feet of gas yearly. From this sovereign gesture, part of the natural wealth now is destined for social programs to combat hunger, for electrification of rural areas and for increasing literacy.
Already Rafael Correa, in Ecuador, affirms that he will not pay the foreign debt with the hunger of the people, won with the election for the Constituent Assembly and he reaffirms his socialist convictions. In other countries, including Brazil, the process of change is more contained, which generates dissatisfaction in social movements and it arouses conservative sectors.
