Banco Alba.Petrocaribe.Venezuela

“Financiamiento y endeudamiento alternativo: el Banco del Alba y Petrocaribe”

Intervención de Alejandro Bendaña, Coordinación Regional de Jubileo Sur, en el VII Encuentro Hemisférico de Lucha contra los Tratados de Libre Comercio y por la Integración de los Pueblos”, 9 de abril, la Habana, Cuba

Iniciamos rindiendo tributo a los héroes que cayeron y fueron asesinados, hace exactamente 50 años, durante la huelga general revolucionaria contra la tiranía batistiana.

Aquellas acciones del 9 de abril de 1958, como señalar Fidel, “no sólo constituyeron un ejemplo extraordinario de heroísmo, constituyeron también un ejemplo de cómo un pueblo revolucionario es capaz d recuperarse de cualquier revés”.
Hoy nos seguimos enfrentando la tiranía del neoliberalismo capitalista, que durante este último año ha golpeado nuevamente la dignidad económica de los pueblos pobres.
Nos referimos al trastorno que ha significado el incremento brutal de los precios del combustible—ocasionado fundamentalmente por la guerra injusta que Estados Unidos libra contra el pueblo de Iraq—

Ese embate es sentido a dos niveles
--a nivel de las condiciones de vida de los más pobres, alzas en transporte y en el costo de la vida, empobrecimiento de las ya pobres
--nuevos costos brutales que significa para los países no productores de petróleo en materia de balanzas de pago y presupuestos-
Pero junto a una nueva crisis cíclica del capitalismo, nacen instituciones y mecanismos alternos con objetivos ya no solo financieros sino fundamentalmente sociales, económicos y hasta políticas.

La Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas nació como una consigna buscando como integrar a los pueblos y no solo los mercados, utilizando las políticas comerciales y de inversión, como medios y no como objetivos en si mismos. Forman parte del ALBA Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua y Venezuela, incorporándose la pequeña nación del Dominica a fines de 2007.

Y en estos días el ALBA asume forma concreta para establecer mecanismos de financiamiento de la factura petrolera principalmente pero para el desarrollo también. Nos referimos al Banco del Alba y a Petrocaribe

El Banco del Alba

El Banco del Alba ha sido creado e impulsado con una celeridad sin precedentes y hacia finales de abril del 2008 se contempla el lanzamiento de operaciones.
Esta nueva institución financiera internacional pretende beneficiar en su primera etapa a más de 53 millones de habitantes. «Este banco es un instrumento político, para el desarrollo social y económico de los pueblos del mundo», señaló el presidente Chávez. En diversas declaraciones de los gobiernos se ha destacado la importancia de
• Fortalecer la cooperación a partir, no de una premisa mercantil, sino una motivación social,
• Ser parte de la construcción constructores de un espacio geopolítico, social e ideológico
• Asumir, a diferencia del Banco del Sur, que cada nación con independencia de su aporte tenga el mismo derecho en la toma de decisiones”. Un país un voto en el Consejo de Ministros aunque estamos pendientes de cómo se integrara el Directorio Ejecutivo que es donde está el poder de decisión

Se estableció un capital autorizado de 2 mil millones de dólares y para inicios de abril se habría concluido una pre-selección de 18 a 20 que requieren entre 48 y 60 millones cada uno.

Los gobiernos han hecho lo suyo pero que nos toca a los pueblos defender nuestro proyecto. Para ellos es fundamental asegurar una participación en las deliberaciones y decisiones del banco.

Por un lado el Alba contempla, a la par de su Consejo de Ministros, un Consejo de Movimientos Sociales, para incidir sobre las políticas. No hay sin embargo claridad todavía con respecto a la relación del consejo y el banco. Pero esperamos que este hermoso reconocimiento revolucionario de la importancia de los movimientos sociales en América Latina y el Caribe tenga sea más que un reconocimiento protocolar, más que un simple mecanismo para la aprobación de proyectos y distribución de recursos, sino un mecanismo político con capacidad de incidencia política sobre los gobiernos.
Así mismo, nuestra organización, Jubileo Sur espera que la integración del Consejo refleje los principios de diversidad y autonomía (dentro del marco anti-neoliberal por supuesto) que caracterizan la dinámica de los movimientos sociales.

Tenemos que decir que no ha sido perfecto el proceso de incidencia, participación y consulta popular en la conformación de los instrumentos constitutivos y selección de prioridades y proyectos del Banco del Alba. Pero los espacios hay que conquistarlos y esto es vital. Nos queda a los Movimientos la experiencia un poco amarga del Banco del Sur y la enorme distancia entre la realidad de ese Banco y los planteamientos que hicieran en su momento Jubileo Sur y los movimientos sociales en el sentido que no queremos ni necesitamos otro banco capitalista impulsador de mega-proyectos.

Por eso opinamos que el único camino para el Banco del Alba es colocarse al servicio de un desarrollo soberano, solidario, sustentable y democrático. Y para lograr eso tendremos que desarrollar una presión constante y articulada para que los gobiernos incluyan los criterios y representantes de los movimientos sociales sin discriminación en el proceso organizativo y también en los sistemas decisorios del Banco del Alba

Petrocaribe

Petrocaribe viene a ser el mecanismo multilateral que busca articular, ante todeo, las políticas energéticas de la nación. Lo integran 14 países firmantes de convenios con el gobierno de Venezuela y/o PDVSA. Petrocaribe se concretiza con la celeridad revolucionaria que caracteriza el actuar del Presidente Chávez. Los países miembros en lo general adquieren petróleos y derivados de Venezuela con un 50% pagaderos en 90 días y el otro 50% a 25 años al 2% con 2 años de gracia. (en algunos convenios los términos varían ligeramente). De ese 50%, la mitad puede ser utilizada como un fondo para el desarrollo social y económico.

Forman parte de Petrocaribe: Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, República Dominicana, Haití, Antigua y Barbuda, Bahamas, Belice, Dominica, Granada, Guyana, Jamaica, San Cristóbal y Nevis, Santa Lucía, San Vicente y las granadinas y Surinam son signatarias del pacto Petrocaribe. Guatemala analiza la posibilidad de integrarse a la iniciativa energética impulsada por Venezuela, y ALBA-Petróleo existe como empresa con municipalidades en El Salvador permitiendo a los consumidores acceder al combustible a un precio más bajo que el ofrecido por las transnacionales.
Celebramos el advenimiento de Petrocaribe pero recordemos que el petróleo no es regalado, ni se compra a un precio reducido—se trata de una deuda para la adquisición de petróleo y derivado a precio del mercado. Pero es un endeudamiento como ningún otro en la historia, con términos impensables para las transnacionales del petróleo, pero deuda al fin y al cabo que, al tratarse de deuda pública, tiene que ser pagado por el pueblo.

De hecho, conforme datos presentados por el mismo presidente Chávez durante la apertura de la refinería de Cienfuegos en diciembre, actualmente hay una deuda de unos 1.000 millones de dólares y que alcanzará los 4.566 millones de dólares para el 2010.

Esta situación nos impone un reto como movimientos sociales y sociedad civil organizada:

En primer lugar asumir nuestra propia responsabilidad como deudores. Resulta un poco extraño para Jubileo Sur formule este postulado, en tanto hemos siempre pregonado la cancelación y el no pago de la deuda ilegitima externa.

Sin embargo esta deuda si es legítima, siempre y cuando se mantenga limpios y transparentes el uso de la misma. Los pueblos son custodios de esos recursos ofrecidos por el al pueblo y gobierno de Venezuela, y somos custodios de la obligación de asegurar el carácter legitimo de esa deuda. Dar uso legítimo a una deuda legitima.

Que significa esto?

Significa que podemos todos estar de acuerdo en el marco de principios, pero la experiencia del Banco del Sur nos enseña que debemos de estar encima de los procedimientos técnicos, la letra menuda, incluso la selección de proyectos.,

Significa formar parte del debate, para asegurar la ratificación de los convenios en términos transparentes y discutidos con pueblos y parlamentos.
En Nicaragua y Centroamérica debemos confesar que hay una gran resistencia al ALBA principalmente por parte de los que nunca se preocuparon del endeudamiento en el pasado con el fondo y las Instituciones financieras internacionales FIs, quebrando bancos e incrementando irresponsablemente la deuda interna. Ellos ahora se rasgan las vestiduras planteando que el país no debe endeudarse con Venezuela.
A pesar de derecha, en Honduras se logró la ratificación, jugando un papel importante el movimiento COPINH denunciando como las transnacionales y los grupos de poder estaba satanizando el convenio y haciendo gala de su poder en el congreso nacional.

En El Salvador, los Estados Unidos lanzaron una campaña acusando a Venezuela de apoyar al FMLN para las elecciones presidenciales del año entrante acusando a la empresa Alba Petroleo del aseguramiento de fondos. En Guatemala comienza el mismo debate con respecto a si adherirse a Petrocaribe.

A fin de no dar armas a EE.UU. a la derecha, y para no desvirtuar el objetivo social de los préstamos, es imprescindible que los gobiernos suscriptores de convenios de Petrocaribe actúen con plena transparencia, pleno respeto a legalidad institucional y clara canalización de los recursos liberados hacia objetivos sociales.:
• En Nicaragua hemos insistido con el gobierno que los convenios con Venezuela deben ser sometidos a aprobación en el presupuesto general y su uso fiscalizado.
• Insistimos que los fondos no se manejen discrecionalmente a fin de no desvirtuar el cometido social de los fondos. Y si, como dicen algunos, se trata de deuda privada comercial, esto debe aclararse.

• También el préstamo debe contemplar planes de ahorro energético, proyectos comunitarios de generación de energías limpias como solar, eólica, micro represas, las que deben de ser de propiedad pública o comunitaria y ejecutarse urgentemente un plan de electrificación rural y urbana que beneficie a los más marginados. Prestamos o aun donaciones para construir refinerías? Tenemos dudas.

Alba.Petrocaribe.Venezuela.Nicaragua.debt

Nicaragua’s Illegitimate Debt to Venezuela?

Ordinarily, the 14 countries that are member of Petrocaribe would have reason to be grateful to President Hugo Chavez. Under the terms of the oil delivery terms, Venezuela has agreed to supply 100% of the country’s oil needs at market rates: 50 % paid in 90 days, but the other 50% over 25 years at 2% with two years grace. What is more, that unpaid 50% of the sales revenue would remain in the country for bilaterally-supervised social and development projects. Certainly, these are terms that no country could have expected from the oil corporations, private or multilateral banks, or even traditional “donor” co-operation. From the Jubilee South perspective, it may be a case where the debt should be repaid as it seems legitimate and fair priced.

However, social movements and various organizations in Nicaragua are challenging the legitimacy of that debt incurred by the Ortega government. The principal argument invoked is that the use and channeling of the funds is far from being transparent or subject to accountability, let alone citizen participation in the decision of how the funds/debt can be used. The process itself in Nicaragua, although not in other recipient countries, is incredibly convoluted. Venezuela provides the oil directly to Nicaragua’s oil distributor PETRONIC which then resells the petroleum to private companies such as Esso. PETRONIC then transfers 100 % of its sales revenue to ALBANISA, which in turn transfers 50% of the money back to Venezuela as payment within 90 days, and then pays the other 50 percent over 23 years at 2% annual interest. Of the money paid up front, half goes to the ALBA social fund and another half into Albanisa coffers. Private economist Adolfo Acevedo calculates that in the past year ALBANISA has handled 800 million in oil business, meaning there should be 200 million salted away in company fund for social projects. Ortega, however, has mentioned that Venezuela aid to Nicaragua already totals 520 million. So needless to say the numbers have everyone confused—and concerned given that this amount is roughly the equivalent of all external western “aid” to Nicaragua, and over one third the amount of Nicaragua’s total exports.

Amidst all the money transfers the question is posed where the money really ends up, who it belongs to, and who owes what to whom. Of late, the government claims that it is not a public debt and hence does not have to be legally submitted to the Parliament, scrutinized or reported in its budget. If Albanisa is a semi-public enterprise, then its “private” debt would have to be assumed by the State in case of a default.

The IMF has, up to now, gone along with governmental reasoning. Even the US has been silent, considering perhaps a good example of “public-private” partnerships.
Independent civil society groups and the Jubilee coalition in Nicaragua, by contrast, are calling for a public auditing of the arrangements. While some groups are ideologically eager to lambast Chavez and the Venezuela connection, other groups demand that the ALBA cooperation scheme deserves support on account of the principles its support including that of stimulating development and cooperation alternatives to the Washington Consensus model. The fact that the President of Petronic, the Vice President of Albanisa and the Treasurer of the Sandinista governing party is the same person speaks volumes.

Insistence on transparency, accountability and public participation is also part of an alternative development and politics. Venezuela must clarify whether it is the purpose of the cooperation to allowing Ortega and his governing party to use the ALBA/Petrocaribe funds for patronage purposes and strengthening its own business enterprises. If that is the case, ALBA may still be considered a geopolitical proposition wishing to win over governments and parties to its side, but the ideological component will be placed in doubt—that is, providing a genuine alternative to the neoliberal formulas for enrichment while paying lip service to the impoverished.

After all the money transfers and sleight of hand there are many unanswered questions about where that money really ends up, who it belting to, and who owes what to whom. If this is not cleared up, then both the legality and the legitimacy of the debt will be in question.

Fighting Corruption
Autor: Alejandro Bendaña
(Book, published May 2008)


The dominant definition of corruption – which then informs or misleads the ways to address corruption -- is much too narrow. The way most people view corruption is itself the result of the systemic abuse of economic power as it presents itself globally.
The book Fighting Corruption: A Non-Corporate Perspective presents a global justice perspective that puts corruption in the contemporary context of corporate globalization. Published by the Centro de Estudios Internacionales in cooperation with the International South Group Network and Jubilee South, the book aims to reach important constituencies outraged about corruption and to help channel that understanding into a broader movement that tackles corruption at the root and structural level, and not simply in a few corporate-friendly limited expressions.

The author, Alejandro Bendaña, presents a view in which corruption is a process facilitated by institutions and economic interests, and not simply single acts by single individuals chiefly in the South. With this in mind, he presents a broader and more contemporary understanding of corruption that can help people, victims in particular, account for many of the daily economic injustices suffered.
Alejandro Bendaña is Chair of the Centro de Estudios Internacionales in Managua, Nicaragua and a member of the International Coordinating Committees of Jubilee South and the International South Group Network.

Fighting Corruption: A Non-Corporate Perspective is now available. Please send us an email to cei@ibw.com.ni or info@ceinicaragua.org

PDF Only in English >> http://www.ceinicaragua.org/textos/pdfs_publicaciones/fighting_corruption.pdf

Security in Latin America

“Rethinking Regional Security in Latin America: Back to the Future”

Alejandro Bendaña
Centro de Estudios Internacionales
Managua, Nicaragua

One spoke of “new” security challenges in the context of the post Cold War period. Characteristic of that period were innovative approaches where western development agencies and “new” democracies challenged the old security paradigm by stressing new concepts such as human security in which development and governance constituted key entry points. The emphasis was on extending the notion of democratic governance into the security sector, injecting notions of transparency, accountability, legal oversight with the increasing participation of legislatures and civil society in all aspects of the security sector particularly its policy-making.

The attack on the twin towers and the US-led “global war on terror”, embraced by its chief allies, dealt a critical blow to the “new” security sector thinking and practice closing one era and opening up another. The global security paradigm increasingly enveloped national state-centric ones, in various regions in varying degrees, as indeed the notion of national democratic governance became increasingly sacrificed on the altar of the “new” global security demands. Demands defined chiefly by the US not only for itself but for others inasmuch as US security now was said to begin at other peoples’ borders and not simply its own. Antiterrorism-driven security policies have undermined security sector governance approaches, if not democratic governance itself as the traditional pendulum between security and democratic liberties swung decidedly in the direction of security.

National security is not the sole product of national considerations. And not simply because of the proverbial “threats” of transnational crime and the like but because of power relations. In a world where some are decidedly stronger and others more dependent, where ruling governing elites North and South have a way of homogenizing outlooks and interests, Washington’s decision to go to war enlisted governments and security establishments the world over, sometimes by conviction and other times by threats. While not denying that terrorism is and always has posed a threat to modern societies, there were misgivings in the post 9/11 world as to the adoption of universal measures in response to another nation’s perceptions and definitions of terrorists—yet such was the unilateral premise as Washington and NATO demanded integrated operations with armed forces and multinational cooperation among security apparatus.

Of course, police, border control and intelligence agencies have always cooperated across national lines to confront international organized crime and the like, but security sector governance was all about insuring that such activities did not come at the cost of civil liberties, nor removing the emphasis on development and democratic control of the armed forces and of their budgets and influence in society. In many senses, traditional security concerns as well as the pre 9/11 oversight trends were being sacrificed as a greater focus was placed—and was demanded—on tackling “terrorism” linking such cooperation to development assistance as a carrot or to sanctions as the stick. “Efficiency” and “professionalism” and indeed “security sector reform” are taking on new meanings in response to the shifting political and global context, as the spaces for “national policy ownership” including civil society participation once again seem to contract.


Latin America and the Caribbean: No End of History

Nowhere more than in Latin America does the “war on terror” bring back gruesome memories of the “war on communism”. This spells more continuity than change in inter-hemispheric relations when as far back as the Monroe Doctrine (1823) Latin American and the Caribbean was told they belonged to the US sphere of influence, particularly in security matters. Neocolonialism is another word that comes to mind. Nearly 200 years later, it would not be outrageous to argue that security and insecurity in Latin American and the Caribbean is, once again, intimately tied up with how the US defines its own security. “Regional” security and regional security threats are now largely defined by what the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. This is at the heart of many “regional” security schemes, including the reshaping of the security services in various Latin American countries, including those that are attempting to escape from the Northern embrace (and become an alleged security threat to others hemispheric countries in the process).

Political analysts and “security” experts, particularly from the Southern Cone, uniformly bristle at the suggestion that US concerns—and reactions to US concerns—are much different in Southern South America than, for example, than in the more Northern Latin American latitudes, including the Andean region. Somehow the security establishments of the southern region (Paraguay excluded!) are said to be more reformed and permeable to democratic governance. This assumes that US policy is disaggregated ideologically or subsumed to geography, which is not the case, or that there are no specific territorial areas where counter-terrorism and US military operations are underway. For example the US has targeted the broader Amazon region, the “ungoverned” spaces in Colombia, the Triple Frontier area between Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, as key strategic zones susceptible to “terrorist” influence and control, pushing local militaries to extend their operations and lend facilities to the US military. One adds US mistrust of the governments in Venezuela and Bolivia which merits, in Washington’s opinion, a “regional” responses, as do developments in Paraguay on account of its geopolitical importance in heart of the continent. Military exercises combining US troops which were down to 9 in 2001 had doubled by 2004.

While the USG may have more influence in some countries more than others in the region, none can escape the linkage made between security and economic policy—discussed forthwith—and the increasing resort to hard security responses to social discontent, hardly a measure of superior levels of democratic governance.
By and large, security assessments or risk planning among Latin American militaries pays only lip service to “force on force” scenarios—with the possible recent exception of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, where US decidedly supportive of Colombia and where the internal war in Colombia could, according to some, become internationalized. There is talk of the “Israelization” of Colombia interpreted as the use of proxy armies to destabilize third countries, or the “Colombianization” of Chiapas referring to the increased use of paramilitaries by the those in power. As paramilitaries become involved in cross border operations from bases in Colombia, the internal Colombian conflict can acquire sub-regional dimensions particularly as numerous human rights organizations have documented the ties between paramilitaries and the Colombian government and members of the government.

New anti-terrorists laws are being approved allowing new and sometime dangerously vague definitions of who or what may be considered “terrorist”. When this is coupled with social protests over unemployment, food and transport prices, the basis is laid for new waves of violent conflict. Many recall with pain the invocation of “communist threat” and the campaigns to defend “democracies” led to the creation of undemocratic national security states. Ironically, the movement for security sector transformation had its roots in the democratic struggle against the murderous militarism of the Cold War era. However, to gauge by the meetings of security and army chiefs, Washington is steadily pushing for the creation of what it calls “new architecture of hemispheric security” to “integrate” the region’s security forces more tightly into the US military’s command structure and global policy. Washington pressed Latin American armies to do more domestic policing and establish control over what it called “ungoverned spaces,” ranging from shantytowns to coastlines to rural areas where the civil state has a limited role. Haven’t we been here before?

Under the new US national security guidelines, the lines between police and military, on one side, and among guerillas, drug traffickers, and criminal gangs on the other are all dangerously and sometimes intentionally blurred. Then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned the 2004 meeting of the Defense Ministers of the Americas, to be aware of the “anti-social combination that increasingly seeks to destabilize civil societies.” James Hill, the head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command was more explicit: “Legal boundaries don’t make sense anymore given the current threat.”

To ignore the global counter-terrorism context is to apologize for it—and dealing with Security Sector Reform can be a double edged weapon if it is molded by the US counter-terrorist agenda. Reform or transformation may take place in the wrong direction—away from a genuine human security perspective and the rule of law, including the rollback of the right to dissent.


Remilitarization of the State?

State militarization has reached unprecedented levels in Mexico as the Armed Forces are called in against the state itself, that is, sectors of the government (such as the police) earlier perceived by the US to be under the control of the drug cartels. Today the US is providing massive support to President Calderon’s counter-narcotics initiative, but the program is being criticized on both sides of the border for its secrecy and faulty evidence. In December of 2007 Washington announced a three year 1.4 billion USD aid package for Mexico. Known as the Mérida Initiative, the plan encompasses “counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and border security” with real time intelligence integration capacities.

A group of Washington-based critics complained that “Congress is being asked to approve a major shift in foreign policy without really knowing what kinds of military training and equipment for the Mexican and Central American militaries might accompany the package in the defense bills”. For its part, Human Rights Watch urged the US Congress not to approve the plan unless there were specific provisions to end abuses by Mexican military forces who are leading the drug war. Army counternarcotics operations are responsible for a series of human rights abuses, including the beating of municipal policemen and the sexual abuse of women. According to Human Rights Watch, the ability to investigate abuses and bring the accused to justice are undermined by the fear of retaliation.

As in Colombia, security cooperation with the United States seems to go hand in hand with the insecurity of many people. And in both countries, the drug war has been turned over, with dubious legality, to the military. The stated objective: to standardize “strategic plans and practices”, and while some intelligence-sharing is necessary, there is an undermining of the emergence of legitimate national security agendas broadly defined in conjunction with civil society and in a sovereign manner.

While Mexican officials insist they will not allow US troops to operate on Mexican soil, this would not exclude in principle the appearance of private contractors. If the plan can indeed reduce the corruption in Mexican law enforcement, enhance its professionalism, end the drug cartel wars (Mexico’s top law enforcement officer was gunned down in May, 2008), reduce the number of deaths along the Mexican border where there in 2006 alone, according to the Economist, there were 2,100 drug related deaths perpetrated by Mexican gangs, then a less skeptical note may be warranted in the future.

The Mérida Initiative has also been dubbed Plan Mexico on account of its similarity to Plan Colombia. Initiated in 2000, Plan Colombia encompasses a seven year programme to combat both drugs and the guerilla movements in that country, without bothering to make much distinction between the two. US military advisors are present in considerable numbers in Colombia which features the largest US Embassy in the world, after Iraq. Aid to Colombia reached some 756 million in 2007 with US and Colombian officials claiming huge successes (alleged drop of the price of cocaine in US markets), as the US Drug Enforcement Agencies steps up its presence in the region. And as in Colombia, the US is working with Mexico to build a central command to coordinate the work of the various agencies involved in the “war on drugs”.

Security in the region would be better served if more attention were placed on the supply side of arms and the demand side of drugs. Critics say that what is really required is the reduction in demand in the United States where some 35 million people abuse illegal drugs. As the Economist noted, “Many Mexicans will no doubt think that it is about time that their rich neighbor helped to clean up the mess caused by a drug habit that prohibition has failed to eliminate. The American Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Centre estimates that each year between $8 billion and $23 billion in illegal drug proceeds flow south, much of it to the gangs in Mexico.”
Others point to the need for more action to stop US and foreign arms dealers from supplying the drug cartels. One study estimated that around 2,000 guns enter Mexico daily from the US, where gun registration is easily evaded. The argument is simple: No weapons, no violence. Even the Mexican government has protested uncontrolled illegal arms shipments coming over its borders from the US.

Markets and SecurityWhile trade and security have always been linked in the history of expansionist powers, the US reaction to 9/11 gave a huge boost to that connection. The National Security Strategy document of 2002 dedicates an entire section positing a new relationship between “free markets” and US national security. A causal chain is assumed between the capitalist free trade model, economic development and national security. For example, the recent trilateral (US-Canada-Mexico) Security Prosperity and Protection, according to one analysis, “makes the relationship between the US trade and security agendas explicit, under the pretext of greater integration. Its accords mandate border action, military and police training, modernization of equipment, and adoption of new technologies, all under the logic o the US counter-terrorism campaign”.

Parallel to the myth that free market development produces security for all, recent crackdowns seem to prove the failure the same model to improve conditions for workers and poor that take their grievances to the streets (or to the United States in the form of immigration). As it also helps explain the booming private security business to protect wealthy elites in their fortresses. In the generalized climate of fear and social protest, it does not take much for organizations opposed to the status quo to be branded as “terrorists” no matter how absurd it may seem.
Similarly, in the wake of the consolidation of power of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, assisted by the US-backed failed coup attempt in 2002, the US is pushing new trade and security agreements so as to retain both business and geopolitical influence in the region. As Chávez promotes new forms of economic and energy security for Latin America, the US government’s views new trade agreements as critical to balance Venezuelan advocacy of a new regional security model for the region. According to the 2007 US State Department report on hemispheric relations, “In 2008, we will continue our efforts to secure congressional approval of pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama. Once implemented, these three agreements [counting those approved with Mexico, Central America and Peru] will complete an unbroken chain of trading partners stretching from Canada to Chile”. (2009 however may be another story as the leading Democratic Party candidates have both come out in favor of renegotiating NAFTA and opposing FTAs with Panama and Colombia.) As Laura Carlsen concludes, “The use of the territorial image again demonstrates the geopolitical importance attached to FTAs within a hemisphere increasingly divided between perceived allies and renegades.”

Security and economic doctrines as well as the tools to implement them are being “harmonized” throughout the Americas, including Canada, particularly since the attack on the Twin Towers. The US, Canada and Mexico—the North American Free Trade Agreement members-- now have the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership, also termed NAFTA on steroids on account of its militarization implications. This “deep integration” project is developing without public debate although it reaches into every aspect of every day life for the whole of the populations, permitting the US security apparatus to “integrate” approaches and “coordinate security with its neighbors and allies.”

As NAFTA constitutes the most advance experience of US-led free trade model, its expansion into the terrain of security – the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)--constitutes a warning that the “free-trade” model being pushed globally is not simply a commercial proposition. The coherence however is only on the US security side as revealed by the contradiction between the freedom being given for merchandise exchange on the one hand, and the criminalization of immigrants and the building of border walls. In fact, however, the United States is “pushing its borders out” in an ever-expanding security perimeter, with US security agencies interweaving with those of Mexico, Canada and Central American
Nor is “economic cooperation” divorced from “security” considerations. Free market economic policies generate indirect violence—producing unemployment and marginalization, forcing people to emigrate. Borders are increasingly militarized and the persecution of migrants extends to the Mexican authorities charged with stopping Central and South Americans presumably on their way illegally to the US. Economic necessity driving undocumented immigration is falsely conflated with US security.

And conversely for Latin America where Free Trade Agreements occasion security concerns: in Peru and Guatemala crackdowns and killing of protesters were characterized local governmental reactions to protests over the impending treaties. US-supported trade and investment model entails security considerations across-the board, from sovereign implications to the question of how to deal with protests generated by the treaties. Many farmers feel trade questions are matters of life and death. Trade Agreements with the US provoked reactions that unseated cabinet members and even governments, as center left candidates came won elections and came into office in Ecuador and Bolivia (and almost in Mexico in 2006).
The trade-security equation, or what Carlsen terms the geopolitics of trade policy, came to the fore as the Bush Administration endorsed the March 1st Colombian excursion into Ecuador. The White House immediately demanded that its legislature approve a pending Free Trade Agreement with Colombia terming it “pivotal to America’s national security”. By the same token, Congressional opposition prevailed citing assassinations of labor leaders in Colombia, government ties to paramilitaries, and human rights violations.

Persecuting Protesters

In her recent book, “The Shock Treatment: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, Naomi Klein argues that Northern economic and military policies impose a ‘shock doctrine’ upon people in the Third World. Latin American, and Chile in particular, witnessed its birth when 1973 the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet overthrew, with US government and corporate complicity, a democratically-elect government and proceeded to unleash brutal repression—including detention, disappearances, torture and murder—against its critics.

Debates on security sector reform in our region should not be naïve and ignore history. Indeed the extent of democratic security sector reform should be measured by who a regime deals with dissidents and whether it criminalizes them. Under the guise of the war on terror, in many parts of Latin America (including some deemed ‘left’), labour and social activists, militant priests and community leaders are under governmental attack for attempting voice and organize the discontent towards the government and the prevailing economic policies.
Actors seem to change but the methods do not: military regimes that persecuted “communists” give way to civilian-led governments tolerant of military, security and paramilitary forces waging counter-insurgency once again. And not simply security establishments, but much of the elite media and economic oligopolies have interpreted the “war on terror” as a license to get-tough policies.
For example:
• On August 29, 2008 demonstrators in Chile who tried to pass a police blockade in downtown Santiago met with unspeakable police violence where dozens were beaten, including a Senator. According to some observers, the Chilean government reaction could have the potential to unravel democratic gains in that country

• In El Salvador, in September last year, the military clashed with civilians in Suchitoto as 13 protestors were arrested for blocking the road in protest against the government’s plan to privatize water services in that community. Police alleged that the hundreds of local residents and social activists engaged in “acts of terrorism,” in violation of the Law Against Terrorism. Many of those arrested served nearly 3 months in jail before their case was thrown out by Salvadoran courts who found no evidence to support the charges. As in other countries, the special anti-terrorist legislation fails to provide an exact definition of terror allowing the government to freely label and punish even minor crimes as terrorist ones. Washington, of course, is pleased with the toughness of the provisions which includes 25 to 30 years of possible imprisonment .anyone participating in “taking or occupying, in whole or in part” a city, town, public or private building, or a variety of other locations. The law would be activated when weapons or “similar articles” are used to “affect the development of the functions or activities” of its inhabitants.

• In Paraguay, with the development of the soybean industry in Paraguay, hundreds, if not thousands of rural poor are being forced from their land, resulting in a growing number of movements of protests. The new social activists are targeted under a new penal code and Anti-terrorist Law Juan Martens, a lawyer with the National Coordinator of Human Rights in Paraguay said, “The law is so lax that anyone could be considered a terrorist….A lawyer giving a workshop, a journalist doing an investigation or an international NGO providing financial support could all be accused of promoting terrorism.” The election of Fernando Lugo, a former priest, in April, 2008 may put an end to such practices.

In the light of multiplying episodes of repression, the question posed is whether how much the United States Government is involved. Are we witnessing the re-starting Latin America’s Dirty Wars in the light of a new wave of US-supported militarism? During the 1970s and 1980s, various South American military regimes collaborated with each other and the US employing kidnapping, torture and murder to eliminate dissent and opposition.

Right wing militarism in Latin America has always reached out to the United States, be it by way of counter-insurgent training or, more recently, the participation in joint exercises with the US. As US troops conduct various operations and joint training, critics in Paraguay and Nicaragua, for example, claim that so called “Medical Readiness Training Exercises” include “observation” operations aimed at developing a “type of map that identities not just the natural resources in the area, but also the social organizations and leaders of different communities.”


Social Cleansing

Parallel to the political persecution of protesters, a new form social warfare is being waged against youth. Failure to produce jobs and social support systems has meant an increase in delinquency and the targeting of youth, with the media and powerful business groups giving the security forces a green light to react with an “iron fist” or “mano dura” and “super mano dura”, particularly in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Sadly, polls indicate that broad sectors of the population support brutal suppression, along with political candidates for office campaigning on such platforms.

Youth gangs clash with each other and with the security forces with stepped up levels of violence which, no doubt, are also the product of repressive policies. Thousands of youth become victims or aggressors while “zero tolerance” policies leading to more human rights violations and even greater levels of citizen insecurity. By all accounts, the streets of Guatemala City or San Salvador were much safer during the 1980s war than they are today. Much of the social cleansing is carried out by paramilitary bodies, linked to the police and armies, who carry out operations forcing gangs to go underground lest they are “disappeared” in unaccountable urban counter-insurgency raids. Repressive military structures which pitted armies against insurgents during the war are now substituted by police and para-police bodies confronting gangs. Police are out of control in Brazil as they wage virtual wars with gangs in the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo.
Human rights bodies in many countries of the region insist that what is needed is true police service and not social cleansing units. Would security sector reform not have to begin with recognition of the fact that corruption, drug trafficking and delinquency are frequently protected and even practiced by the very security bodies to reformed and sometimes enlisted in the war on terror? Youth requires interlocutors, channels of communication with the civic and police authorities, and particularly clear differentiation between youth groups and criminal gangs. Policies of prevention and different police models have worked in Nicaragua where similar levels of poverty and exclusion have not resulted in a gang phenomenon evident in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Of course, the fact that the security forces did not suffer radical reconversion during the post-war period stands out as a causal factor in comparison with the Nicaraguan forces that were born with the 1979 revolution. As elsewhere, European ‘donors’ have invested considerably in SSR in Central America, as elsewhere, but their own NATO ties seem to preclude criticism of the intrusion of US counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics operational modalities.

With the Global War on Terror came the doctrine of pre-emptive war and unilateral military action against perceived terrorism anywhere. Until March, 2008 Latin America had not suffered the implications of the doctrine. However, justifications provided by the Colombian government for its illicit March 1st military incursion into Ecuador mirror those provided by the US to “rationalize” the illegalities of anti-terrorist operations. As the Ecuadorean government and others pointed out, the new “national security” rationale poses a threat to stability and democratic self-determination in the region, setting a grave precedent loudly denounced by most Latin American and Caribbean governments.

Similarly, opposition Congressmen in Mexico protested the dutiful passing of a new counter-terrorism law warning that the failure to differentiate between something called “international terrorism” from the recognized crime of terrorism: “We don’t want to be immersed in a cycle where the enemies of other nations are automatically put forth as our own enemies.”

Anti-terrorism laws are approved criminalizing social protest and establishing decades of prison for participating in “terrorist” activities. Para-military movements are formed, connected to large agribusiness and landowners, taking the law into their own hands and repressing the local population. In Paraguayan paramilitary groups are calculated at some 9,000 as compared to the 13,000 members of the military. In Colombia, the banana company Chiquita Brands was penalized in US courts for making equal payments to the paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Force of Colombia, designated by the USG as a terrorist organization. In Mexico, paramilitaries are supplied and organized by the government and local elites to create confrontation among the indigenous communities, creating displacement and with it the grabbing of land and resources.

US intelligence agencies have stepped up operations in Central America and Bolivia, while the Pentagon reactivated its IVth Fleet (in mothballs since the 1960s) to secure its naval presence in hemispheric waters and support military exercises . Pentagon reassertion in the region and elsewhere of restructured geographic commands to give the US military greater role in coordinating US civilian agencies’ activities. The US Southern Command, for example, issued a new “Command Strategy 2016” envisioning a role for itself in coordinating other US agencies, including non-military ones, operating in the region. Setting key civilian accountability principles aside, the Southern Command has assumed, according to US critics, “that it can make dramatic changes in its mission, structure and focus without any change in legislative authority” allowing the military, instead of the State Department, to decide on military training and equipping of foreign armed forces, and with circumvented legislative oversight.

Security sector reform and the definition of what constitutes a “threat” is not, therefore, an exclusively nationally-generated proposition. Policy is discussed with an elephant in the room. Latin Americas perceive the choice to train and equip foreign militaries as a US endorsement of those security establishments—which in turn undermines ongoing security reform initiatives. Conversely, in countries were the militaries are not particularly US-friendly, US support for “reform” becomes politically tainted and indicative of selectiveness. Furthermore, US association with a particular military (as in the case of Colombian) affects the security concerns and balance of power in the entire region, and within the country, particularly where that same military is engaged in human rights violations.
US influence over the region’s security establishments can scarcely be over-stated: between 1999 and 2006 the US Defense Department funded 77,313 military and police personnel from the Western Hemisphere (65 percent of the 119,837 total international trainees) along with the provision of some 2 billion USD in military and police aid to the region (30 percent of the 6.4 global total during those years). A new Counter-Terror Fellowship Program (with provision for lethal training as of 2004) provided training for 3,262 students from Latin America and the Caribbean between 2003 and 2006. As regards police training, after more than three decades of it being banned due to human rights violations committed by US trained forces, the State Department is now authorized to make exceptions and has approved transferring that authority to the Pentagon.

A South American Defense Council?

Within hours of the outbreak of the Colombia-Ecuador skirmish, President Lula of Brazil reactivated its bid to create a South American Defense Council. Years earlier Venezuela floated such an idea and in January Chávez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed a joint military force with Bolivia, Cuba, and Dominica, which are all members of the regional cooperation scheme called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). Unsurprisingly, the security perceptions of Venezuela and its allies, centered as they correctly are on US historical behavior, were clearly different from those of the Brazilian government and the Chavez bid was shelved.

But in its own way, the Brazilian initiative also addressed the objective problem of how to diminish Washington’s influence over the definition –and response to--“regional” security concerns, where several countries in the region felt that the US was the real threat. Washington however could not publicly reject the Brazilian initiative—given the strategic alliance between the two countries on the bio-fuels/ethanol initiaves. "I not only have no problem with it, I trust Brazil's leadership and look forward to coordination with it," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim asked the U.S. to keep its distance from a South American Defense Council and for the US to ``watch from the outside and keep its distance.'' Following a meeting with Venezuelan President on April 15, Jobim restated “we have no obligation to ask for a license from the United States to do this," and emphasized that the council could help South America “acquire a very strong presence in the concert of world relations." Jobim clarified that distinct from NATO, “the intention of the council is not to form a classical military alliance,” specifying that “there is no operational intention,” and “there is no expansionist pretension.” The defense council would promote joint military trainings and defense bases, and “military industrial integration” in order to “ensure the supply of the necessary elements for defense,” the minister clarified. “Dissuasive defense” would be the aim, he continued, adding that it is important for countries to acquire arms and maintain their militaries “in order to have and to project a capacity for dissuasion.” This in no way constitutes an arms buildup, Jobim insisted. He said those who have made public statements suggesting that a Latin American arms race is taking place, such as the U.S. government, “are mistaken” and “want to impede South American unity.” The formation of the CDS would be the headstone of a region-wide military alliance that, according to Jobim, would not be the classical military alliance as it would not involve operational units.
On a more lofty note, President Lula stressed that the Council was “founded on common values and principles such as respect for sovereignty, self-determination, territorial integrity of states, and non-intervention in internal affairs.” Its objective was to “deepen our South American identity in the area of defense,” Lula said, assuring that “our armed forces are committed to the construction of peace.” Given, however, the present behavior of Brazilian and UN troops in Haiti, the creation of yet another force for international interventions is no step forward. A South American Defence Council seeks to increase the Brazil’s international weight, its bid for a permanent seat at the UNSC, building a South American security system at the expense of the post World War II “Interamerican” system.
In any case, President Chávez swallowed his pride and signaled support for the Council in recognition perhaps of Brazil’s commanding military strength in the region. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela - agreed to establish a task force to present a revised proposal within three months, tracing out the role, mission and mandate and workings of the Council. Brazil said it was determined to launch the formal initiative by the end of 2008.
Backed by the United States, the Colombian Government said it would not participate in the creation of the new regional defense council. Bogotá claimed the war against “terrorists” FARC would not be subordinated to quaint legal obligations of any government to respect another’s country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to a government spokesperson, Colombia “cannot become part of the [council], given the threats of terrorism and known derivations”. In opposition to the Brazilian proposal, President Uribe argued that the organization already had the OAS (Organization of American States), and pointing to differences with neighboring states—among them Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela—on the classification of illegal armed groups like the FARC as “terrorists.”

There were rumblings in Washington about the new Council as it constituted a historic step: Latin America’s first military alliance without the United States. Over and above the US alliance with Colombia, the greater geopolitical reality was that US participation in the new Defense Council would undercut the carefully consulted Brazilian bid for leadership of a regional security model that excluded the US but was not anti-US. Obviously, a Venezuelan-led alternative would have contesting US influence as a key driving force. Brazilian military circles for their part believed that the alliance notion is a means of placing a check on Chavez, reign in his military spending and growing economic and military ties with countries such as Russia, China and Iran, among others. Chavez for his part could not easily pull out of the alliance without becoming isolated, a key US policy objective in Latin America.
In any case, the Council may be better placed than the OAS to deal with the growing regional implications of the internal conflict in Colombia. This is not simply a matter of possible FARC operations outside Colombian territory, but similar movements by the Colombian paramilitaries. No serious analyst precludes the possibility incidents in an area with Venezuelan and Colombian troop presence on a shared border known to be, in large swathes, FARC-controlled territory. In a dense forest, where a gunshot could come from any one of the four groups, causing an immediate reaction. Add President Chavez’s strident foreign policy and military acquisitions from non-Western manufacturers in order to upgrade the rather chaotic status of his armed forces, or President Correa’s determination to respond firmly to Colombia, and the makings are there for a major crisis. Chavez has stated he would prevent the United States from setting up a military base near Venezuela's border “whatever the cost”. He has also warned that US support for demands for separatist demands in eastern Bolivia could lead Venezuela to intervene in support of the government there.




It is an open secret that the Defense Council formed part and parcel of the Brazilian bid to attain a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council. Jobin stated that the South American Council could coordinate military exercise but also promote a “collective” participation in UN peacekeeping missions. Already Brazil headed the UN military mission in Haiti preferring to project the operation as a Latin American more than a US-led undertaking. The question in the air is whether the new scheme can accommodate the security perceptions of Venezuela and Brazil (and the United States)—all state centric. In social movements discussions, however, the perception is that what the regions does not need is yet another regional military force to carry out Haiti-like anti-popular “stabilization” operations.
Securitization of Democracy
There are those that continue to argue that insecurity in the form of crime relates more to effectiveness of public security policies and legitimacy than to the structural characteristics. While much remains to be done to enhance the quality, legitimacy and effectiveness of public security policies—the framework for such efforts cannot be the War on Terror but rather a war on poverty and inequality, much of it internationally generated. Crime control and crime prevention strategies alone may reach geopolitical and elite-defined objectives even at the expense of hard-won struggles for the enhancement of political and economic rights by way of sovereign democratic policies. Given the weakness of democratic institutions in diverse countries in the region, security sector reform strategies that require the fighting the war on terrorism will simply increase the risk of police and privatized security forces abuses, undermining the pretence of legitimacy among citizenries deeply distrustful of the military and police, but also the criminal justice system. Crime prevention and community-generated efforts will only take as so far—what is required is the democratization of the economies and of institutions as a whole, and not simply law enforcement agencies.
Clearly, economic and social development is a long term proposition, but citizens suffering from insecurity lose patience with the long term. The danger is that afflicted societies will support aggressive, zero tolerance crime control policies, with little understanding of the enormous political and economic cost entailed by the expansion of the power and resources allocated to the police and the military.
One can and should conceive alternative economic policy instruments that enhance security by decreasing the social economic divide. Democratic movements are being built on that premise and thanks to them governments are appearing that may deal more effectively and democratically with both traditional and non-traditional security threatening the daily lives of people. One hopes that domestic efforts in this direction would find support in European governmental agencies, but that presupposes standing up to Washington by insisting that democracy is the first precondition of democratic security sector transformation—and that there can be no democratic transformation (or holistic security) outside of international law and the principle of self-determination. A counter-terrorism policy that redefines security sector reform at the expense of human rights and political reform is not the way to support adherence to justice and law. Preaching democratic governance to national governments and tolerating impunity on the global level is as ineffective as it is hypocritical and even dangerous.

NICARAGUA: BETWEEN LEFT RHETORIC AND RIGHT REALITY

NICARAGUA: BETWEEN LEFT RHETORIC AND RIGHT REALITY
Presentation, Understanding Populism and Political Participation: A New Look at the ‘New Left’ in Latin America, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, USA, March 10, 2008

Alejandro Bendaña

In 2006 a private survey in Nicaragua questioned people on what they considered to be “Left” and whether Ortega was Left. A very high percentage answer that indeed Daniel was “very left wing”, 80% said they didn’t identify at all with the Left and just 7% considered themselves leftwing.

The general opinion was that Ortega is left wing and therefore they see the Left as negative. And that sums up the problem of the Left in Nicaragua—Ortega is giving it a bad name in a period where in other parts of Latin America the Left seems to be making a come-back. The force that “dare not speak its name” let alone—hence the need to call it Populist, lest electoral majorities disprove the end of history. Populists being those whose own opinion is different from their own and does not presumably rise to their level of sophisticated political behavior.

So the title of this talk can either be why the Ortega Government is not Left or, for a Washington audience, why it is not Populist. I, for one, prefer the former because many of us happen to believe that the Sandinista Party ceased to be Left, hat is Sandinista, some time ago, although we have to wage an uphill battle to convince a majority of Nicaraguans of this fact.

Labeling of course poses a problem. Perhaps Karen Kampwirth sums it up best in a recent issue of NACLA discussing the resurgence and reorganization of the Right in Latin America. She narrates how evangelical and Catholic activists have converged in Nicaragua to form a powerful anti-feminist movement, whose first major victory came in 2006, when abortion was outlawed without exception—with the crucial votes of Sandinistas. She describes this as “shift to cynicism,” rather than to the right, on the part of the FSLN. “Though we tend to speak of movements as left- or right-wing, liberal or conservative,” she writes, “they may in fact be all of these things at once—simultaneously resisting imperialism, rejecting dictatorship, and promoting gender inequality.”

Fortunately however over the course of the last year evidence we have mounting evidence that Nicaragua is not shifting Leftward, or indeed following in the footsteps of Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. Nicaragua in not part of that process of State-supported changes aimed at achieving social equity, overcoming political inequalities and cultural exclusions through the promotion of new forms of participation and the construction of genuine citizenship.
Obviously the Right will not pursue such a path, while Social Democracies may limit themselves to policies that limit themselves to compensating the negative socio-economic effects of an unchallenged economic model. For that we in Nicaragua would require a born-again Sandinista movement and party.

Why Washington is not Worried

Its been over a year since Mr. Ortega came to office. Enough time to pass form an serious opinion on the political nature and the public style of the new government.
History tells us that if there were genuine societal and economic shifts in Central America underway then the US would be concerned--the understatement of the year--. To our knowledge there has been no ideological or historical reconversion in Washington that would make it a friend of Left governments embarked on new schemes of redistributive economics and politics. Yet, as officials on both sides admit, Washington has acceptable relations with the Ortega government. Conclusion: the government in Managua is doing something “Right”.

A number of bilateral issues could be cited: the negotiation of the SAM missiles, allowing the DEA greater operational space in Nicaragua, sending Nicaraguan troops to the School of the Americas, and others. But the US interests in Central American reach a lot deeper than simply security ones. “Good relations” demand an ideological, economic and political alignment with Washington’s proclaimed predilection for “market based democracies”. That is with an economic growth model predicated on so-called free trade, liberalization and allegiance to IMF economics. US Commerce Under Secretary Christopher Padilla probably had it right when he said in Managua two weeks ago that the US was willing to have relations with any country in the region, independently of its political orientation, as long as that government continues to be committed to democracy and free markets. And he left Managua a happy man.

The continued Nicaraguan official alignment with the Washington Consensus helps explain the deep political understanding between the present Nicaragua government and Nicaragua’s mega-capitalists who are not uncomfortable with Ortega. Indeed their belief is, increasingly proved by governmental policy, is that national and international banking and investors are being well served by the government that can talk Left but act Right. And as long as the talk does not scare off too many investors, and the US magnanimously pretends to be deaf to nostalgic rhetoric, then Mr. Ortega can keep his revolutionary pretenses and have his cake or oil if you will, and eat it too. According to the January/February 2008 Envío magazine, “the financial groups and the economic groups linked to exports and imports have been the major beneficiaries of Nicaragua’s limited economic growth since 1990, and the Ortega government has not touched that logic. FSLN leaders now belong to that group and are busy consolidating themselves there with the advantages offered by their party’s five years in office.”

If structural change were afoot we would have gotten some indication reading the budget presented by the government to the Legislature. We would have seen a new tax regime affecting the rich, greater spending on education and health. Yet you look at the budget submitted by the Ortega Administration to the National Assembly and you will be hard-pressed to find substantive differences from that submitted by the Bolaños government. Continued allegiance to IMF economics and macro-economic fundamentalism means that there is a virtual freeze on public sector wages. Take for example the figures on education spending per student in Central America:

• Costa Rica spends 757 USD per high school student, 509 primary, and 101 pre-school
• Guatemala 341 high schools, 197 primary, 128 pre-school
• El Salvador 222 dollars high school, 228 in primary (to prepare the new generation of maquila workers), and 192 pre-school.
• Honduras 275 dollars, 179 in primary and198 pre-school
• Nicaragua 51 dollars secondary, 127 primary

Or look at teacher salaries—a teacher in El Salvador earns an average of 242 USD en Guatemala, 261 in Honduras, 329 in El Salvador, 445 in Costa Rica, but only 196 in Nicaragua. These are 2005 averages which continue to hold.

Now there could be the usual claim “the IMF made me do it”. But the Ortega government claims that for the first time in recent times it has been the government and not the IMF that has set the tone for the economic program including the budget. Well that contention seals our argument since it reveals how far IMF thinking Sandinista government officials. The IMF does not have to impose anything that the government had already assume and proposed! And if one looks at the process by which it was approved, the total absence of consultation (let alone participation) the closed nature of policy-making stands out prominently. At least the Bolaños government pretended to consult civil society organizations on matters of public policy, but the new government can’t be bothered to go through the motions.

Even the FSLN unions are grumbling over wage gains that barely cover inflation and devaluation effects. And many within his own camp, let alone many of us outside it, are furious over the decision of the government to honor an odious, illegal and illegitimate debt to Nicaraguan bankers and their allies that took the form of Central Bank emissions, which even the Comptroller’s office holds to have been issued illegally and at outrageously high interest rates.

There have been, on the other hand, important programs to alleviate hunger and to deprivatize education, but traditional social compensation schemes are no substitute for the more radical undertakings that are required by the country. The character of governmental institutions is not being changed, nor is there an interest in their being changed by those in power, unless it entailed securing a constitutional change allowing for Ortega’s re-election. Not rocking the boat is the name of the game in order to consolidate the strategic alliance hat Ortega has made with sectors of the Right, seeking to keep it divided while stifling dissent within the Party itself. As a result we witness a dangerous growth of a cultural and political disconnect developing between the upper classes and the marginalized sectors of society.

Oil and Democracy

Conceivably the Ortega government could have followed the lead of South American left governments mobilizing the people in support of a Constituent Assembly to clear and insure the legal path towards expanded political participation and opening new forms of political representation. The government however lacks a parliamentary majority –let alone the electoral one. Where there is a will there could be a way and one could have conceived of sustained popular mobilization greatly facilitated by the Venezuela oil sale support scheme that could help counter the budgetary and even social constraints on the government.

But there is little evidence that a Venezuelan-assisted political reorientation of the Ortega government is taking place. Instead government policy suffers from a bipolar condition. As the US Embassy knows quite well, and as the Vice President likes to remind Conservative backers, heed what Ortega does and not what he says.
--He praises ALBA but pledges allegiance to CAFTA,
--accepts Venezuelan subsidies and then submits them to IMF scrutiny,
--proclaims support for a Bolivarian Army but sends Nicaraguan soldiers to be trained at the old School of the Americas in the US,
--denounces US military threats against Venezuela but he invites the DEA to help patrol Nicaraguan coastline.
--quotes Pope John Paul II condemnation of “savage capitalism” but is all smiles with visiting Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, praises the Millennium Challenge Account, and caters to Taiwanese sweat-shop owners
--presents ALBA as the new alternative for Latin American economic independence, but then insures that the Esso-Exxon gets a tidy profit from the processing of Venezuelan crude, using proceeds to keep the Spanish multinational Union Fenosa in business in Nicaragua providing state payment guarantees to Union Fenosa creditors.


When one adds all this to the fact that the government is dead set against channeling the fuel sales proceeds through the national budget with accountability to the Nicaraguan legislature and civil society, we arrive at an aid privatization scheme that would make the pro-private enterprise USAID blush. All this would seem inexplicable unless one remembers that the US, CAFTA and the Nicaraguan business elite have more influence over the Ortega government than Venezuela, ALBA or the Nicaraguan working class. Or that the some 400 million in Venezuelan assistance to Nicaragua is still less than the 550 million allotted by Western traditional aid agencies.

In all, a far cry from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

18th or 21st century Democracy?

Under these circumstances the politics and the debate about democracy in Nicaragua is not moving into the 21st century. In fact we are back in the 18th century have to demand the separation between Church and State, and defense of the right to live, inasmuch as the far-from-progressive Ortega and party continues to support a ban medically-approved pregnancy interruptions to save a mother’s life, with legislation that puts us in the grand company of El Salvador and Chile.

It’s a travesty therefore to even consider Nicaragua among a group of countries that are experiment in with new forms of democracy, citizen participation and a new socialism. The FSLN’s launching of the Consejos de Participacion Ciudadana is fine in theory or in rhetoric—indeed the more people organized themselves the better—but we would be talking about self-organization, independent organization, organization from below, and not from the top, for the outside, on behalf of an existing political structure, that is not, and this is the crucial difference, does not hold a majority.

One perceives the need felt by the Sandinista Party to transform its electoral minority into a social majority, and that conceivably could take place gradually and assisted with Venezuelan facilitated resources. But the way it is being undertaken now is simply wrong and narrow, bound to create more conflicts. This is a Left perspective, because from a Right one, the CPCs should not exist and endanger the liberal institutions which has done so much for a few and virtually nothing for the many.

These experience are answering the question of what political representations for with a new model of representation. This is one that, after the struggles against dictatorship or extreme forms of corruption and oligarchic rule, takes elections and representative democracy seriously, not as a sufficient definition of democracy but rather as one part of a strategy for more radical democratic—including economic—transformation. Ortega and cohorts are really not interested in changing the model of representation, but rather consolidating the present bipartisan one symbolized by the power-sharing deal with Aleman and the Liberal Party.

As Hillary Wainwright and others have argued, Left oriented transformative politics has been made possible in much of Latin America by what of strong highly political conscious forms of popular democracy or non-state sources of democratic power—it is really not coming from Political Parities—but from neighborhood associations, movements of the landless and indigenous people, and radical trade union organizations. But this was not the case in Nicaragua and will not come from any existing Political Party there, which differs this country from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

A radical left party, in the best of cases, would seek to redistribute power and stimulate new institutions of popular organizations so that they may control state power—and transform political parties in the process. It is a difficult task of utilizing political institutions but also work against them to allow for the emergence of new sources of power. This requires working with autonomous movements so that the institutions can become effectively democratized—encouraging non-State and non-Party sources of democratic power in order to achieve the necessary transformations. The struggle for democracy entails building democratic power to challenge and transform institutions that however liberal in theory are contested by private profit and bureaucratic self-interest where conventional mechanisms of accountability are more rhetoric than reality.

I agree with Wainwright, that “that the strengthening of these grassroots-base forms of democratic power, including their connection and exchange of ideas and organizations lessons with each other, is essential to the idea of anew transformative model of political representation along the lines exemplified in LA. This political organization at the base is a priority on which many of us could agree whether we are members of a party or not”.

Without an active, conscious, organized and mobilized majority there is no transformation. That majority simply does not exist in Nicaragua – one cannot expect renewed revolution from the Ortega government when there is no social basis to sustain that change. Where the FSLN was successful was in mobilizing the minimal necessary electoral percentage to win the elections, in part by cutting an unethical deal to lower the threshold, and in part by turning the party into an electoral machine . That is its strength but also its weakness. Another traditional political party, another power group contributing to the same sort of discontent with traditional structures that helped bring Chavez, Correa and Morales to power.

Discontent is one thing, having an organized basis for social transformation quite another. In Nicaragua there is no significant organizational basis for transformation, and civic participation structures are very weak. Which does not mean that there aren’t grassroots sectors and many individuals who are fighting for another country and another world. As a social left we have our work cut out, but a start has been made that will in time help substitute electoral cynicism with genuine political consciousness, genuine participation and genuine democracy.

De la Ayuda al Desarrollo al Desarrollo para la Solidaridad: El Papel de Venezuela

De la Ayuda al Desarrollo al Desarrollo para la Solidaridad: El Papel de Venezuela


Presentación de Alejandro Bendaña en la Conferencia sobre “El rostro cambiante de las finanzas para el desarrollo global: Impactos e implicaciones para la ayuda, el desarrollo, el Sur y las instituciones de Bretton Woods”.

Iniciativa Halifax, Ottawa, Canadá, 1-2 de febrero de 2008

Si la meta es el desarrollo —mejor definido como la transformación soberana de la democracia social— entonces no debemos hablar de hacer más efectivas las actuales modalidades de “ayuda”, sino de sustituir la ayuda misma y también el sistema en el que tiene lugar. Se comienza por cuestionar la naturaleza de la arquitectura financiera internacional en un sentido amplio, qué es lo que significa, y quién se beneficia más de ella. La “ayuda para el desarrollo” que practica el Norte forma parte de un sistema que genera creciente desigualdad y dependencia, entre los países y dentro de ellos. En tal contexto, es cuestión de hacer que la ayuda sea menos efectiva, y no más efectiva, es cuestión de terminar del todo con la ayuda, porque en su conjunto hace más mal que bien.

Pensar en los egresos, no en los ingresos. Del Sur al Norte. Por cada dólar de ayuda que va a los países en desarrollo, diez dólares salen como fuga de capital. Sin embargo, este es un tema que suele soslayarse en las discusiones sobre el desarrollo. Mejor que guardar el dólar que entra, es mucho más importante buscar el modo de detener los nueve dólares que salen. Se ha calculado que los países en desarrollo pierden más de $500 mil millones cada año, en fugas ilícitas que no se reportan a las autoridades y por los cuales no se paga impuesto. En América Latina los montos extraídos durante los últimos 30 años pueden haber llegado a 950 mil millones de dólares, según cifras suministradas por James Petras.

Ninguna cantidad de ayuda, de inversión extranjera directa o de remesas va a cambiar la ecuación estructural a la larga. Si se va a hablar de nuevos ingresos, entonces se debe concebir la forma de pagar la verdadera deuda histórica que el Norte le adeuda al Sur —no “ayuda”, ni caridad, ni filantropía privada, sino indemnizaciones, restituciones, compensaciones, pago de la deuda ecológica a los pueblos y al medioambiente del Sur. Es necesario librarse del discurso y de la visión estrechamente vinculada a la perseverancia de las estructuras de poder contemporáneas, incluso del discurso y la visión que enarbolan y practican las agencias gubernamentales de “ayuda”.

Claro que es necesario que los países en desarrollo retengan una mayor cantidad de sus recursos nacionales, pero también tenemos que reconocer que eso no es meramente una cuestión de la voluntad —a menudo inexistente— de las elites financieras nacionales, sino de impedimentos internacionalmente generados que se plasman en los llamados tratados de libre comercio, en los regímenes de protección de la inversión, en las condiciones impuestas por el FMI y similares, que exigen liberalizar cada vez más el flujo de bienes y de capitales. La ayuda y los préstamos son minúsculos si se comparan con las ganancias que se hacen a expensas nuestras a través del comercio injusto, de la explotación de nuestro trabajo, de la apropiación de nuestros recursos, de los intereses sobre los préstamos que nos conceden, de la dominación sobre nuestros mercados, y de los privilegios e incentivos otorgados a las corporaciones multinacionales. Súmese a todo ello el costo de indemnizaciones y restituciones.

¿Cómo se construye un orden alternativo nacional e internacional de justicia y desarrollo?

1. Primero se tiene que concebir ese orden. Si se piensa que no puede haber alternativa, entonces no la habrá. Es difícil, porque implica un cambio de paradigma.
2. Segundo: hay que reconceptualizar y cambiar el papel del mercado. En la organización de la economía política los mercados tienen que ocupar un espacio subordinado. Los mercados y el gran capital no pueden dictar los compromisos. Los mercados tienen que estar insertados en la sociedad, y por tanto, en relaciones de solidaridad, no de competencia. Un enfoque político de la economía. Así lo declaró Alberto Acosta, presidente de la Asamblea Constituyente de Ecuador: Queremos un país en donde funcionen los mercados, entendidos como espacios de construcción social organizada en función de las necesidades del ser humano de hoy y de mañana. Queremos desbloquear el falso dilema entre mercado y Estado. No queremos un mercado descarnado que genera procesos de acumulación de riqueza en pocas manos, pero tampoco queremos un Estado ineficiente, que otorga prebendas y que transfiere recursos de todos y todas a los grupos de poder.
3. Hay que tener claros los indicadores. Si no hay mejoría en las condiciones de vida y en la dignidad de la población a 50 millas de Maputo, de Managua o de Manila, entonces no hay alternativa. Podemos informar ya que, gracias a los nuevos esquemas de ayuda al desarrollo conducidos por Venezuela, miles de personas se están beneficiando en los alrededores de Managua, mediante clínicas y cirugías oftalmológicas.
4. Que la alternativa se construye con cambios, en la interacción de las ideas y la política. Las ideas desafían el paradigma dominante e introducen la alternativa, pero la meta es que el paradigma alternativo se vuelva hegemónico.
Una Nueva Alba para las Américas
La combinación de ideas y cambios políticos la estamos viendo hoy en el esquema de colaboración internacional conducido por Venezuela y conocido como ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas).


En el 2004, el gobierno de Venezuela tomó la decisión política de usar sus enormes reservas petroleras y sus ganancias para ayudar a otros países del mundo, con el objetivo abiertamente declarado de que esos países pudieran disminuir su dependencia del comercio dominante y del orden financiero internacional. Según estadísticas de fuentes opositoras de Chávez —que sienten que Chávez está regalando la riqueza nacional— 18 acuerdos de cooperación firmados por Venezuela sólo en el año pasado suman un total de unos 4.747 mil millones, en petróleo y refinerías principalmente, pero también en infraestructura, salud, agricultura, viviendas, cancelación de deuda, plantas de aluminio y otros rubros. Y en su mayor parte están en América Latina, aunque también en Irán, el Reino Unido, China e incluso Burkina Fasso.
La premisa de ALBA es que se necesita una nueva forma de integración regional y una unidad política verdadera y más amplia para que tenga lugar un desarrollo con independencia.

ALBA nació como una alternativa al Tratado de Libre Comercio de las Américas creado por el gobierno estadounidense —integración para fortalecer la soberanía y las relaciones sociales justas, en vez de liberalización y desnacionalización. Venezuela y Cuba firmaron la primera serie de acuerdos bilaterales, y en el 2007 Nicaragua y Bolivia se incorporaron al ALBA. “Un nuevo proyecto político y estratégico para un nuevo mundo”, dijo Chávez, lo que incluye cooperación en los campos de salud, industria, producción alimentaria y seguridad en materia de energía, con un criterio más social que mercantil. Su acta fundacional llama al establecimiento de un Consejo de Ministros, pero también a un Consejo de Movimientos Sociales, para ayudar a tomar decisiones informadas.

A comienzos del 2008, los jefes de Estado miembros del ALBA —entre los que ahora se incluye el pequeño Estado insular de Dominica— anunciaron la creación del Banco ALBA, con un capital de mil millones de dólares. Allí se declara como meta fomentar entre sus integrantes la producción industrial y agrícola, apoyar proyectos sociales, y también crear acuerdos de cooperación entre sus miembros, particularmente en el campo de la energía. El objetivo es contrarrestar los efectos negativos que produce entre sus integrantes la globalización neoliberal, así como las finanzas y el comercio. Ello constituye una pieza más en la construcción de una alternativa al orden económico internacional, pero a diferencia de su predecesor —el Banco del Sur, integrado por naciones sudamericanas—, el Banco ALBA está menos influido por los intereses de los megacapitalistas brasileños conservadores, que ejercen gran influencia en el Banco del Sur. Sin embargo, antes de emitir un veredicto final hay que esperar la publicación de las actas constitutivas y de los procedimientos del proyecto financiero en curso.

De mayor importancia para las naciones del Caribe y América Central fue la formación de Petrocaribe, en 2007. Catorce países, principalmente del Caribe, junto con Nicaragua y Honduras, se han unido al plan por el cual Venezuela, a través de su compañía petrolera PDVSA, acuerda garantizar a los países miembros el 100% de sus requerimientos en materia de energía, especialmente petróleo y sus derivados, a precios de mercado (Venezuela, como miembro de la OPEC, no puede hacerlo de otro modo), con el 40-50% pagadero en un plazo de 90 días (los términos varían ligeramente en los distintos acuerdos bilaterales), y lo restante a un plazo promedio de 25 años con el 2% de interés y dos a tres años de gracia. Lo que se recaude de esto —supuestamente acumulado por las compañías generadoras de energía de los respectivos Estados, o bien, por una agencia gubernamental designada para ello— formará parte de un fondo para el desarrollo social y para inversiones en infraestructura. Como en el caso del Banco ALBA, los procedimientos se están resolviendo en la práctica mediante negociaciones bilaterales.

¿Qué preocupaciones suscita ALBA?

ALBA, su banco y Petrocaribe, junto con docenas de acuerdos de cooperación bilateral en varios campos —que incluyen lo cultural— son una auténtica novedad, por lo que resulta difícil evaluar en su conjunto el proceso en curso. Sin embargo, lo mismo que ha ocurrido con el Banco del Sur, los movimientos sociales de América Latina y las redes regionales están haciendo un acucioso monitoreo, y se han expresado algunas preocupaciones —que se pueden y se deben expresar, pero dentro de un marco de apoyo general a la iniciativa y a su dinámica antiimperialista. Esas preocupaciones conciernen a:
• La predilección por los megaproyectos, particularmente la construcción de refinerías, oleoductos e infraestructura para el transporte, son preocupación de grupos ambientalistas.
• Escasa atención a la necesidad de impugnar el modelo dominante de energía centrada en el petróleo, acaso perpetuando la dependencia y el consumo de petróleo.
• El hecho de que PDVSA es la contraparte venezolana y aparentemente está a cargo de aspectos clave de la cooperación, e incluso de la supervisión técnica y financiera.
• La dificultad que encuentran organizaciones de la sociedad civil para obtener información sobre acuerdos bilaterales específicos, con la consiguiente preocupación por la transparencia.
• La decisión declarada —al menos por el gobierno de Nicaragua— de privatizar la cooperación y de manejarla como una deuda comercial privada, por consiguiente, no estaría sujeta a escrutinio legislativo de su presupuesto ni a rendición de informes, lo que despierta suspicacias acerca del uso partidista de fondos por los que no se rinden cuentas.
• La falta de aprecio por la autonomía y las dinámicas de trabajo de los movimientos y de sus redes regionales, los que, por cuestión de principios, rechazan la noción de ser “convocados” por cualesquier gobierno, o de permitir que sean los gobiernos los que seleccionen cuáles movimientos deben formar parte del Consejo.
• La falta de credibilidad del gobierno de Ortega en Nicaragua, mismo que sigue aplicando políticas neoliberales y confesionales, y al que se oponen los movimientos sociales de Nicaragua y de América Latina, particularmente sus contingentes de mujeres.


¿Qué significa todo esto en términos del Debate 2008 sobre la eficacia de la ayuda (Conferencia de Accra) patrocinada por la OECD y por la Oficina de Financiación para el Desarrollo de la ONU (Doha)?

Desde el punto de vista de los movimientos sociales —el Jubileo del Sur incluido— el debate sobre la eficacia de la ayuda es inviable. Una contradicción de términos, a menos que la eficacia funcione para beneficio del capital financiero y sea un instrumento de dominación, un lubricante para la penetración del capital corporativo. Tampoco se puede hablar de eficacia en el contexto de una ayuda que se vuelve, cada vez más, un franco instrumento para las metas de las políticas externas y de seguridad, incluida la llamada Guerra contra el Terror, o que simplemente va atada a la aceptación de la liberalización comercial y financiera (los actuales esquemas de asociación participativa de la UE).

Entrar al debate sobre la ayuda en preparación para la Conferencia de Accra es útil para explicar de qué manera la ayuda forma parte de las injustas relaciones económicas de poder, y se debe hacer hincapié en detener los egresos de capital y de riqueza desde los países del Sur.

La financiación para el desarrollo es una propuesta más sencilla. El objetivo debiera ser identificar mejor y desafiar los impedimentos internacionales (incluida la llamada ayuda) que obstaculizan la acumulación nacional y su movilización nacional, incluida la conducta de los capitalistas nacionales en el envío de la riqueza nacional al exterior, incluidos sus ciudadanos expulsados por el empobrecimiento que va vinculado al enriquecimiento de las elites globales. La financiación para el desarrollo debiera hacerse en forma de indemnizaciones y restitución debidas, del Norte hacia el Sur —la única deuda verdadera y legítima— a cuenta de siglos de saqueo y explotación, e incluso de los daños al medioambiente. Bajo ninguna circunstancia debemos caer en la ilusión de que la “ayuda” y los “préstamos” de los “donantes” —es necesario rechazar ese discurso— llevan el propósito de “ayudar” a los pueblos del Sur. Lo que hay que creer es que se trata de una “trágica ignorancia o de arrogancia imperdonable”, afirma Lidy Nacpil, coordinadora internacional del Jubileo del Sur.

¿Por dónde avanzar? El cambio del poder está en curso, pero el camino es largo.

El primer punto a destacar es que el avance hacia el desarrollo no se puede separar de la construcción de una democracia emancipatoria, puesto que forma parte de ella.
El segundo es crear consciencia crítica, en el Norte y en el Sur, acerca de la centenaria exacción de riquezas del Sur hacia el Norte, de los pobres a los ricos, dentro de los países y entre ellos —y no como una cuestión técnica o de normas, sino como un asunto moral y político: abordar la pobreza no como una mera realidad contemporánea, sino como un proceso histórico de enriquecimiento.

Tercero, reafirmar la importancia de la solidaridad y la movilización internacional de esa consciencia. Llevar este tema candente al espacio público de las calles. Sin resistencia no puede haber alternativas —la resistencia son las alternativas en ciernes. Apoyar el derecho de un pueblo y una región a ejercer su derecho a la autodeterminación económica —que forma parte de la verdadera democracia— de cara a lo que será la hostilidad sin tregua del gobierno de Estados Unidos y de sus aliados. Cuba sigue construyendo su alternativa, Venezuela la suya, y Bolivia también —y esos países son el blanco de las campañas de desestabilización dirigidas por el gobierno de Estados Unidos.

Cuarto, comprometerse críticamente. Si bien apoyamos un mayor énfasis en el Estado —tal como lo destacan ALBA y el Banco del Sur— no deseamos sustituir la supremacía de un grupo de capitalistas del Norte por la de un grupo de capitalistas del Sur. Los bancos son problemáticos, como bien han hecho públicas sus preocupaciones REDES y el Jubileo de América del Sur. Esperamos que al menos algunas de esas preocupaciones se aborden en la configuración del nuevo Banco ALBA. Pero siempre hay que tener presente lo que dijera Bertold Brecht: fundar un banco es mayor delito que robar un banco.

Quinto, no perder de vista la meta del cambio del poder —y ello es tanto un producto a obtener en el futuro como un proceso que requiere práctica en el futuro. No se trata simplemente de alejarse de Bretton Woods y de la dominación del capital corporativo para acercarse al capital regido por el Estado, cosa que debe ir a la par de un cambio democrático más amplio: para transformar la realidad internacional tenemos que transformar nuestras realidades nacionales. Damos la bienvenida al decisivo liderazgo de Venezuela que está rompiendo las reglas del juego —no tiene precedentes esta histórica movilización de los recursos de un país en beneficio de otros países, este paso de la soberanía de la deuda a la deuda solidaria. Pero esto no es un fin, sino un principio, les guste o no les guste a los gobiernos. La ayuda, los bancos y la deuda son instrumentos de control político y social.

El cambio de poderes visto como un distanciamiento de las mentalidades y paradigmas capitalistas, donde
• Las personas se consideran no como consumidores, sino como ciudadanos.
• Los países no se consideran como mercados, sino como naciones.
• El capital y los gobiernos sirven al pueblo, y no al revés.
La forja de un nuevo modelo de desarrollo y la creación de una arquitectura de la solidaridad son fundamentalmente tareas políticas y sociales. Son una expresión de una lucha más amplia en pro de los derechos humanos y la soberanía, y esa lucha tiene que ser dirigida cada vez más por las mujeres y los jóvenes, y cada vez menos por los hombres blancos; por los movimientos sociales, por la sociedad incivil, en nuestro continente por los movimientos indígenas, ambientalistas y contra el pago de la deuda, que demandan no eficacia de la ayuda, sino justicia histórica, en forma de pago de la deuda social y ecológica que se ha acumulado a lo largo de cinco siglos.

El apoyo a la vía del desarrollo alternativo significa apoyar el derecho y la capacidad de los pobres a crear sus propios movimientos independientes y a ejercer constante presión política desde abajo. Avanzar hacia coaliciones de “reforma no reformista” que pueden presionar al poder estatal para que se implementen verdaderas políticas de desarrollo basadas en la justicia. Apoyar y participar en los movimientos que luchen en pro de economías solidarias, en pro de gobiernos nacionales democráticos y en pro de cambios en las políticas, en las estructuras y en los sistemas financieros y económicos, de modo que permitan la creación de alternativas.

Es necesario llevar al escenario más movimientos, puesto que esta lucha ciertamente no es técnica, sino política, en consecuencia, se tienen que forjar alianzas. En esta conferencia pudimos habernos beneficiado de la presencia de dirigentes de las comunidades aborígenes de Canadá, quienes sin duda tienen cosas claves que decir en materia de ayuda para el desarrollo. Con los ambientalistas de ustedes y su lucha contra la explotación de las arenas bituminosas, que está empobreciendo al mundo. Con quienes abogan por la paz y la justicia e impugnan la noción de que las tropas canadienses están llevando paz y desarrollo a Afganistán. Sin la participación de los movimientos y sin su perspectiva sobre las alternativas, Accra y Doha serán simplemente otras dos aburridas reuniones de predominancia masculina.


En 1933, John Manyard Keynes escribió: [El capitalismo] no es un éxito. No es inteligente, no es bello, no es justo, no es virtuoso, y no reparte bienes. En resumen, nos disgusta, y estamos comenzando a desdeñarlo. Pero cuando nos preguntamos qué cosa poner en su lugar nos sentimos sumamente perplejos.

Pues bien, en buena parte de América Latina la gente ya no está perpleja, y está comenzando a poner algo en lugar del capitalismo, como hicieron los cubanos hace unos 50 años. El socialismo —o mejor dicho, los socialismos— del siglo 21 están de regreso; no siguen un modelo ni pretenden inventar ninguno, sino que son un conjunto de principios para guiar la interacción humana en toda su diversidad y en su relación con la naturaleza.

Se están haciendo progresos, y aunque no sabemos dónde estaremos al final del día, en América Latina estamos convencidos de que hay una nueva alba política de certidumbre y determinación que debe apoyarse y ampliarse.


(Ayuda de Hugo Chávez en crisis”, La Prensa, (Managua), 15 de enero de 2008. Cifras del Centro de Investigaciones Económicas de Venezuela (CIECA), opositor del gobierno.)

Failed States: Perspective from Latin America

Fragile Premises and
Failed States:A Perspective
from Latin America
C h a pt e r 4 of the Canadian Development Report (North-South Institute, Ottawa, Canada) Alejandro Bendaña


Fragile Premises and Failed States:
A Perspective from Latin America
Alejandro Bendaña

“If you run away,” says the mother, “I will run after you.
For you are my little bunny”
— The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown

State fragility or state failure are, in essence, the latest in a long history of ideological constructs created by powerful nations to legitimize interventions in weaker ones. Although perhaps less dismissive than the “rogue state” category invented by the Clinton Administration, “fragile” or“failing” purport to underscore the right claimed by the global superpower to revamp other nations — toppling governments, invading states, destabilization, and so on.

State weaknesses, fragility, or “failure” are pretexts for empire-building. In many places,the US is increasingly perceived as a power in search of an empire but its determination to employ military means necessitates new justifications or rationalizations, particularly with a view to recruiting allies.

Given the term’s origins, it is no surprise the characterizations of failing states usually ignore causes of “failure” or “fragility,” often rooted in the global economy structure, neo-liberal economic policies pushed by international financial institutions (IFIs), or Northern governments, alongside the absence of effective democracy and domestic accountability within the country.

The Bush Administration, its European and NATO allies, and Bretton Woods institutions, have now proclaimed themselves the global arbiters of what constitutes good governance and acceptable states, and what and who does not. Not that a great deal of high-minded discussion goes on before invading: lower level policy-makers and policy-watchers are left, usually ex post facto, to problematize the role of donors and states in the post 9/11 security-first global order.

Revisiting the State
Before examining what is a failed or weak state, analysts would do well to address the question of what are the expectations, duties, responsibilities, and rights of states. Who are the legitimate parties to make such a determination? Domestic constituencies, of course, have varying public policy expectations and demands — as varied as the sectors that compose civil society along with the business sector. Differences notwithstanding there is a larger principle involved, which is the principle of democratic self-determination. In a world of sovereign states, governments may influence each other but, again in principle, it is individual nations alone that must decide with or on behalf of the citizenry.

Dominant hegemonic powers are not particularly keen on respect for sovereignty, save for their own. There are, of course, legal international responsibilities and agreements that require observation and monitoring. But over and above those norms, power and wealth considerations enter into the picture, and with it the imposition of particular “national” interests and corresponding “interpretations” over collective ones. At issue is the state, its purpose and the pressure for change, from within and outside national boundaries. From a normative perspective, a state fails when it cannot effectively ensure the delivery of physical security, economic opportunity and fundamental services to its citizenry, or at least a large majority thereof.

A case by case approach would be necessary to determine whether a state is functional or dysfunctional, but hopefully carried out in an objective fashion that ensures full respect for democracy, accountability, and legitimacy. Only then could one arrive at broader formulas for de termining state efficacy or its absence, and just what specifically state-building should entail. Subsequently one would ask, and not simply assume, that donors and international bodies assist with such a process. Which, in turn, leads to the central question of whether the state “reform” or “reconstruction” process driven from a market-oriented or a securityoriented perspective coincides with a domestic alignment of forces, or mostly to an external induction by powers suffering from delusional control issues.

Fragility and failure, in this context, may be more in the eyes of the beholder, conducive to the export of ideology and mechanisms (“reform,” “good governance,” “anti-terrorism”) defined by the hegemonic state and demanded by its requirement for a “global” environment conducive to its own economic and security concerns. Failed or fragile states cannot be full members of the new global order, nor can they enjoy the same rights as other countries — they are assigned a second class legal status, not fully worthy of independence and obliged to receive external tutelage and intervention. This new white man’s burden requires conceptual and eventual legal enshrinement contrary, in many basic senses, to the evolution of international law and the hard-won principles of non-intervention and national self-determination.

As with the use of the term genocide, a politics of naming comes into play. Some states will win the designation of “failed” and others, engaged in much the same practices, will not. There is no mathematical formula derived from the application of indicators. The logic is political not scientific having more to do with the real world of power projections and the definition of new codes of international behaviour from which the powerful are somehow exempt. Targeting is selectively guided by the existence of resources or strategic geographical locations (Afghanistan yes, Somalia no).1

Unfortunately, the more the categorization is propagated, the more interventions gain in legitimacy. A new generation of donor darlings and aid effectiveness criteria is born and the older generation of donor orphans is sent packing. Historical, systemic and global structural causes of state weaknesses are not acknowledged let alone tackled. The pre-determined prescription (intervention) requires a pre-determined diagnosis (state failure). Neither the prescription
nor the diagnosis take sovereignty into account, let alone the alternative economic and security perspectives being proposed by a nation’s citizens. Democracy is mentioned but not the facts that independence is its prerequisite, that democracy cannot be exported, or that external tutorials seldom make an enduring contribution.

If the rather meddlesome issue of democracy is sacrificed in the name of state or international security, then the picture, at least analytically, becomes clearer. It becomes a matter of “stabilization,” or “pacification” driven from the outside. A genuine peacebuilding and democracy building as bottom-up processes. Just if and how the lively-fiction called the “international community” can assist a true democratic endeavour is open to question, particularly if the subject being “helped” has its own ideas of what that help should be.

Stakeholders before rights-holders?

State failure per se is not a social problem. In fact, a state collapse may be welcome news when it puts an end to a repressive or undemocratic regime. But tears may be shed on the part of that regime’s external partners. Nor is fragility a problem if it entails the logical, slow, and complicated process of perfecting democracy and building citizenship-centred public institutions, a process that can involve decades and, in many senses, is never ending for rich and poor countries alike.

The crux of the issue is the social and economic character of the state and its capacity to protect and promote democratic transformation, not to contain it. Granted the notions of state modernization or state-building have their problems, but this is not to trade-in processes for quick-fix solutions in which the technical experts take over from the internal beneficiaries. Nor is there much qualitative difference between “state-building,” public sector development and
democratization in fragile states as opposed to other poor developing countries, save for the unfortunate intrusion of the “anti-terrorist” criteria that is leading to the “securitization” of ODA and the emergence of “triple D” criteria (diplomacy, development, defence).

The problem has more to do with politics and power than with policy. In the name of rescuing or even preventing failed states, the United States and some of its allies have deliberately ignored international law and multilateral leaderships. In the absence of genuine multilateral decisionmaking, NATO determines what constitutes failure or fragility, and what states or even regions lack the capacity to ensure certain standards and what countries or multilateral institutions should step in for the reconversion and reconstruction. Governments would then organize “consultations” and commission research around good practices, the “how,” “when,” and “who,” sidelining the “whether.”

An insistence on “practical,” “policy-oriented,” “operative results” reinforces the dominant donor-defined framework. State fragility or failure become simplistic misnomers for what could be a more legitimate discussion around institution building and democratization — two interlocked propositions whose separation is responsible for more than one failure. We witness thereupon a regression to the era of trusteeships with entire nations held as wards of the so-called international community. That may be the easy way out given the complexities of state-building in the context of historical specificities and normative principles. The critical
principal here is national sovereignty as observers, particularly from the South, continue to reject concepts and practices that, in effect, signify a recolonization with the reversion of the hard-won principle of national self-determination.

What we require is a greater understanding of how the proposition of the state is intimately linked to national democratization, the failure of one is the failure of the other. But failure or fragility is also linked to the absence of global democratic governance, which makes any national democratic state-building process all the more difficult. The Latin American state, and states elsewhere, are caught in between the pressures from below (democratic) and the pressures from the outside (colonialist). Nonetheless, as Mariano Aguirre has argued, Latin America’s search for new models of governance can benefit from an understanding of how its fragile states encourage violence and block democracy. Indeed, extending these
concepts to Latin America may help better illuminate the problems posed by changing
political and social dynamics.2 From this standpoint, a deeper understanding and definition of fragility and failure is warranted.

Failed National States or Failed Global Systems?

The stepping stone for the World Bank’s entry into the fragile states foray was its “Low Income Countries Under Stress” initiative also known as LICUS. Not until January 2006 did the World Bank sign on to the new terminology.3 Multi-donor trust funds or reconstruction fund mechanisms managed by the World Bank gave this institution enormous power to complement its already sizeable influence over national economic policy-making. Unfortunately, donor fragility concerns are translating into yet another mission sweep by the World Bank as it is granted authority to enhance its already deep involvement in domestic policy-making.4
And there is no direct relation between IFI involvement on the one hand and macro-stabilization on the other. A recent study by William Easterly, a former World Bank official, found a disturbing correlation between IMF interventions and state fragility pointing to eight cases of state failure in the 1990s where each of these countries had an average of 55 IMF programs, as opposed to the average of 20 for all developing countries between 1970 and 1990.5 Statistically, claims the author, “spending a lot of time under an IMF program is associated with a higher risk
of state collapse… At best, the IMF doing a program in these countries was like recommending heart-healthy calisthenics every morning for patients with broken limbs. …the planner’s mentality in which the IMF applies the same type of program to all countries is ill matched to such ill societies… People in the country receiving the IMF loan,” he adds, “often blame the IMF when the government does those things, and they take to the streets to protest IMF-enforced austerity. One big trouble in IMF stabilization plans is their disturbance of domestic politics.”6

Genuine democratic development itself is a destabilizing proposition as it inevitably challenges the role and power of the IFIs. Economic fragility has political repercussions; a drop in revenue can strain or even provoke the collapse of basic services, including elementary physical protection. Fragility and non-performance, in a social context, are also linked to years of failed donorimposed structural adjustment conflicts resulting in violent conflicts, at worst or massive
violations of economic and social rights. Structural Adjustment Programs and the contemporary spinoffs are responsible for the dismantled state and public sector structures, for accentuating inter-elite conflicts over the spoils of office and policy, and for generating social unrest. Trade liberalization can aggravate internal contradictions and provoke the emergence of new elites and external corporate control that is resented by distinct sectors of national producers, increasing poverty and unemployment. Migration and remittances may attenuate conflict and offer an escape valve, but it raises reactions in the rich countries
bordering on hysteria.

In Latin America, we witness new evidence of an old phenomenon with a new name: state failure and fragility that take the form of government incapacity to help guarantee basic rights and services. Fragility and failure are also the result of the pressure placed on governments attempting to shift economic power away from the traditional elites and their corporate multinational partners. For their part, the IFIs and “donors” will insist on economic and governance “reform” packages in which the government is told to constrain public sector budgets, and promote privatization and liberalization. Washington seems obsessed with Venezuela, but this is a distraction from the real issues around state-restructuring in Latin America. Former Chief World Bank Economist Joseph Stiglitz believes that, “The mistake, from my point of view, is trying to figure out Chávez. What you’ve got to figure out is why the market economic model has not worked to include the majority from Mexico down to Tierra del Fuego.”7

The global power structure in both its military and economic manifestations can (and is sometimes intended to) induce destabilizations among Southern governments. Models
of state transformation that do not respond to the needs of the global political economy, or the global war on terror (GWOT), will hardly be the subject of “assistance” save for that provided to internal forces bent on regime change. Domestic processes develop with external constraints, and with sharply reduced spaces for policy discussion and democratic accountability.

Until recently, Latin American governments did not feel sufficiently empowered to explore development and security options different from those defined in Washington. Intervention and external expectations can overload the state, and this may well be the greatest source of failure or weakness, far more than the corruption and lack of good governance as fashionable donor wisdom argues. The problem, the North insists, is not the “advice” but the unwillingness of the countries to adopt it.

The Pentagon and the GWOT in Latin America

The events of 9/11 convinced the US governing elite that the normal mechanisms for dealing with perceived security threats were insufficient. Individual freedoms and the democratic process may be taking second place to counter-terrorism, weakening democratic institutions in the process. If this is already reflected within the US and some of its allies, then it is that much more intense when operating abroad. In parts of Latin America it could entail the return of features of the Cold War anti-communist national security state.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pentagon demands a “new architecture of hemispheric security” to integrate the region’s security forces more tightly into the US military’s command structure and global policy. An immediate need was to secure broader Latin American participation for the occupation of Haiti and Iraq. By 2006, however, only El Salvador continued to ship soldiers to Iraq. Washington continued to press Latin American armies to do more domestic policing and establish control over what it called “ungoverned spaces”, ranging from shantytowns to coastlines to rural areas where the civil state has a limited role. Root causes of statelessness are overlooked as the public security dimension is given priority, dangerously blurring the lines between military and police functions while weakening civil control.8

That is not the only line being blurred. Over the course of the past decade, economic suffering has led to peaceful organized social protests. Social movements are now warning that legitimate protest is being “criminalized” and dealt with as a security threat. “Terrorists, drug traffickers,hostage takers, and criminal gangs,” Donald Rumsfeld told the 2004 meeting of the Defence
Ministers of the Americas, “form an anti-social combination that increasingly seeks to destabilize civil societies.” James Hill, the head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command was more explicit: “Legal boundaries don’t make sense anymore given the current threat.”9 The Pentagon pushed Latin American and Caribbean armed forces to become more involved in the various fronts of the war on terror, the occupation of Haiti, containing the Colombian guerrillas, playing a greater role in disaster relief, integrating military commands in Central America, and making bases and forward operation facilities available to US forces.

In response to Rumsfeld, the Chilean defence minister reminded the defence ministers’ meeting in Quito in 2004 that the United Nations was the “only forum with international legitimacy to act globally on security issues”. The Argentine minister said that he and his colleagues could take care of their own borders and that “terrorism is a concern but not a top priority”. A former head
of Ecuador’s armed forces, General René Vargas, claimed Rumsfeld’s proposal was an attempt to “consolidate control” over his country’s oil and water: “In Latin America there are no terrorists,only hunger and unemployment and delinquents who turn to crime. What are we going to do, hit you with a banana?”10 At the October 2006 defence ministers’ meeting in Managua, the US again insisted on lining up the hemisphere’s armies in the GWOT, not only in the region but elsewhere.

According to an October 2 report by Reuters, “The United States is pressing some Latin American countries to send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq not so much for combat purposes but for the war-to-reconstruction transition envisioned by the Pentagon.”11 Canadian journalist Naomi Klein argues correctly “that the real war on terror is being waged by Latin America’s social movements — Brazil’s landless rural activists, Argentina’s unemployed,Ecuadorian indigenous confederations, Bolivian coca leaf growers, and many others — are actually waging the real war on terrorism — not with law and order but by providing alternatives to the fundamentalist tendencies that exist wherever there is true desperation.”12

Weak government has been endemic to much of Latin America, assuming indeed that lapses into authoritarianism are indicators of neither “fragility” nor strength. The reasons are many, including institutional crisis, narrow governing elite interests, and of course largely non-violent popular uprisings that have forced the removal of government leaders and, increasingly, of political systems.

Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela spring to mind, although each has its own characteristics. Strange as it sounds, Washington now has a problem with the absence of sovereignty in parts of the region. Pentagon doctrine calls for helping fragile states achieve “effective sovereignty” in territories that supposedly are, or could be, operating grounds for terrorist organizations. While the extension of effective political and civic sovereignty to remote regions would be welcome in
terms of enhancing access to public services, what the Pentagon has in mind is something different, demanding that the local militaries take up that occupation, guided by security considerations.

As a result, the military and security apparatus acquire an enhanced political influence and leeway in their operations. This does not happen by chance: US policy, according to Adam Isaacson, “seeks to direct military aid to the lawless areas, and to erase the dividing lines between the roles of military and police forces in these areas, giving the military a new role in the domestic politics of the region’s countries.”13

Is insecurity primarily the product of poverty, unemployment, and institutional weakness, meriting a political and state overhaul? Or is it the other way around, as is claimed by the United States, requiring big increases in the security forces? What each course entails is illustrated by the cases Colombia and Ecuador.

Addressing State Fragility in Latin America:
Counterinsurgency in Colombia
With one of the world’s highest rates of economic inequality, Colombia is also the largest recipient of US aid outside the Middle East and Afghanistan. It receives one-third of all US
assistance to Latin America, and 80 per cent of that “assistance” is military.14 Anti-terrorism
means counterinsurgency, and the main emphasis of US support is precisely on the military,
with economic and social assistance lagging considerably behind.

Washington’s simplistic anti-terrorism policy reduces the possibility of finding a political solution to the three-decade-old violent conflict between the government and the armed extreme left. A conflict that is further complicated by the activities of paramilitary rightwing groups, drug traffickers and criminal groups.
Following his election in May 2002, President Álvaro Uribe unleashed a massive heavy-handed assault on the guerrillas and the drug trade. He pushed for constitutional changes to allow him to run for a second term, winning a strong mandate in May 2006. By the end of the year,however, there came embarrassing revelations of paramilitaries connected to his own party, government, and even cabinet members. The US-backed strategy generated a new state crisis as manifested in the degree to which drug cartels and paramilitaries had “infiltrated” the government, making Colombia, said critics, a narco-state or “para-state”. As of April 2007, eight pro-Uribe congressmen, a governor, and the president’s former top intelligence chief
had been arrested. Nearly 20 other current or former members of Congress, most of them allies of the president, were being investigated by the Supreme Court and the attorneygeneral’s office. That some branches of government took on the investigations only underscores the extent of governmental incoherence.

Uribe claims he is fighting all of Colombia’s illegal armed groups, denying links to paramilitaries,including those responsible for imposing a reign of terror in certain parts of the country. It is a fact, however, that tens of thousands of “paras” were the creation not only of drugtraffickers and landowners, but also of the army and some politicians, ostensibly to fight the guerrillas but also profiting from extortion and criminal activities. Uribe’s critics claim he seeks a return to the legalized, centralized, authoritarian governance practices of the past, also known as the national security state.

While trends toward the recentralization of power also appear in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela,these are driven by another logic altogether and are the product of an electoral mandate free from the influence of the elite and the armed forces. Unsurprisingly, the US government supports state centralization in Colombia, but attacks it in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. This probably has much to do with the fact that the Colombian government is eager to sign a Free Trade Agreement with the US, something rejected by its three neighbours who are also in the process of challenging foreign-owned oil and gas companies while Colombia puts out the welcome mat. According to William Drennan of Exxon Mobil, Colombia now offers “among the best fiscal terms in the world”.15

State reconfiguration in Colombia seeks to place the government and its armed forces in a better position to battle the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia / Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia), even at the expense of an already deteriorated human rights
situation. Uribe and the military leaders are making the most of the GWOT to secure material
resources and political legitimacy for the counterinsurgency plan and to maintain the
traditional elite in power. Notwithstanding inherent limitations of a strategy based on external support, President Uribe has echoed US rhetoric, aligning his national and foreign policies with the US, to the detriment of relations with some of Columbia’s neighbours.

A new US-Colombian drive known as Plan Patriota is intended to redress state “fragility” by providing massive military assistance to the Colombian government to fight the guerrillas, and to a lesser degree the drug cartels and criminals. However, that framework is facilitated by the absence of civil and political control over the security bodies — something that should, in fact,
be an indicator of a failing state. There is moreover a danger that a new US-protected securityfirst regime in Colombia will become aggressive toward Ecuador and Venezuela.

Addressing State Fragility in Latin America:Reinventing the State in Ecuador

In Latin America there are two sources of state power: one stems from US economic and
military favours, while the second emerges from a mobilized electorate demanding greater self-respect and social sensitivity from elected officials. Serving either master is difficult enough and can generate fragility; trying to serve both is a recipe for failure.

In Ecuador, as in Bolivia, the elections were clean and the platforms clear as to the intention to push radical state and socio-economic transformation. There are numerous ambiguities and tensions in such a process, beginning with the fact that the traditional ruling elites, and the United States, do not take kindly to the process and throw obstacles in its path.

Governments also face the temptation to deal with opponents (and their press organs) in a high-handed manner. Nonetheless, defenders of the state-transformation process believe that a new concentration of power may be necessary in order to effect constitutional change that will institutionalize state and societal overhaul, legalizing new forms of popular participation in decision-making and government.
Mandates and majorities are built, to no small degree, on the basis of failed US and donor policies, from the social cost of Washington Consensus programs to the presence of the US military.

In Ecuador this included a general dislike for the presence of foreign oil companies and the US Forward Operation Location (FOL) base in Manta, as well as memories of the ten thousand peasants who, in September 2001, filed a lawsuit against DynCorp for indiscriminate fumigation with untested chemicals, which ruined their food harvest, poisoned adults,and killed children and livestock.16 The goal is to throw out the policies and mentalities that sustained injustice in Ecuador, kept it from diminishing its poverty rate, kept it from asserting greater governmental control over its resources and territory, and forced it to tolerate a foreign military presence. In and of themselves these are not necessarily anti-US steps; European, Canadian, and even Brazilian resource extraction corporations are also being questioned. But in the larger hemispheric context, there is no question that the US is the principal country being affected by the recuperation of state authority over national resources, along with the country’s self-respect.

In different ways and to different degrees, governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador are gearing the state to be more attuned to the aspirations of the majority of the people. Elected in November 2006, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is no wild-eyed demagogue but a serious politician; a US-educated economist and former minister of finance who ran on a platform of ending traditional politics characterized by subservience to foreign corporations, the IFIs, and the Pentagon. As with Morales in Bolivia and to a lesser extent Chávez in Venezuela, Correa embodies a social demand for the overhaul and further democratization of the entire state apparatus.

Three policy shifts underscore the determination of the Ecuadorian government to strengthen the role of the state in a democratic, legal, and accountable manner. And having sufficient political support and clout, there is no need to appeal to populism or political overkill. The first is the announcement, upon taking office, that the government would not renew a 1999 bilateral agreement with the US that allowed for the presence of US military forces at the Manta air base on Ecuador’s Southern coast. In a remarkable example of previous state fragility, the agreement had circumvented congressional approval, yet few officials challenged
its legality. Humiliation grew after the US Navy took to detaining and even destroying local fishing vessels in the name of anti-drug trafficking and anti-terrorism.

The new government brought a new security perspective: “There can be no sustained security policy if there is not full sovereignty at all levels. The public position of the government is not to renew the Manta base agreement,” said the defence minister on March 5, 2007.17

Broad consensus in favour of closure had existed for years, to a large degree shared by the military and state authorities inasmuch as the Manta base hosted US operations against the Colombian guerrillas and, ostensibly, against the illegal drug traffic. US support for the military and police became conditional on the maintenance of base rights and this too caused resentment. US officials insist that Ecuador’s best interests are met through the continuation of the antidrug
effort. Correa’s government, in contrast, perceives that national security is at risk by the possibility of becoming involved in the Colombian war.

Second, the new government is making good on its pledge to define a people-oriented
development model in open contravention of the IMF neo-liberal parameters. Between
1960 and 2000, Ecuador received 16 standby loans from the IMF and had suffered considerably,including the decision to abandon its own currency in favour of the US dollar. Beginning in 2002, loan conditions included the forced reduction of teacher salaries and big increases in fuel and electricity prices. On January 22 of that year protestors from the indigenousco mmunities occupied the Congress as thousands stood vigil and demonstrated outside. When President Jami Mahaud ordered 35,000 troops and police to confront the demonstrators, the leaders of the armed forces and the congressional opposition forced the resignation of the president in favour of vice-president Gustavo Noboa.

Bowing to US and banker pressure, Noboa decided he would “stay the course” with IMF
reforms. In May teachers again went on strike to protest salary reductions and the government sent in the riot police. Defiant organizations then called a general strike and government employees, doctors, oil workers, and unions joined in. Two more confrontations followed. The army was summoned but the dispatched unit, under Colonel Lucío Gutiérrez, took sides with the indigenous protesters and attempted an unsuccessful coup. Gutiérrez became a hero and, in November 2002, was elected President. However, by February 2004 the indigenous confederation was back on the streets demonstrating against the “traitor” Gutiérrez who by then was embracing the IMF and the US. On April 20, 2005, it was Gutierrez’s turn to flee the
protests and go into exile. “Whatever respite it now enjoys, Ecuador’s democracy is deeply discredited,” said the Economist following the April 2005 “street coup”.18

Rafael Correa won the election in November 2006. His inaugural speech called for an opening to the “new twenty-first century socialism,” earlier proclaimed by Hugo Chávez. He declared the need to end “the perverse system that has destroyed our democracy, our economy, and our society”. Having refused to field parliamentary candidates, Correa pushed through with his promise to reinvent the state, then still dominated by what he and his followers regarded as a corrupt pro-US and pro-free trade political and economic oligarchy.

Correa’s election and his state “reinvention” program is rooted in a militant mass movement that has long demanded an end to the political oligarchy and economic inequality. Referred to as the “partidocracia,” the Ecuadorian political system has been run by splintering political parties dominated by a small corrupt elite that controls much of Congress, the Supreme Court, as well as the presidency, until Correa’s election. Even Michel Camdessus, the former IMF chief, once
commented that Ecuador was characterized “by an incestuous relation between bankers, political, financial pressure groups, and corrupt government officials.”19 The goal is to end the dysfunctional state, reinvent not only the state but the country as a plurinational participatory democracy, reasserting Ecuadorian sovereignty and mandating the state to advance social and economic policies that benefit the majorities, regardless of what the old elite and the IMF would say.

In stark contrast to the conservative IMF-dictated fiscal policy of his predecessors, Correa ordered more government spending on social programs instead of repaying parts of the foreign debt he denounced as illegitimate. Until then some 90 per cent of all oil revenue (the chief source of revenue) was assigned to debt repayment. He also made good on the campaign promise to end negotiations with the United States for a Free Trade Agreement. Elected authorities and the social
movements believe that an FTA, however beneficial for big capital and exporters, would prove disastrous for the small producer. Ecuador and Bolivia instead have asked the US to maintain the preferential trade agreement tied to the anti-drug trafficking concerns.

As with Bolivia, Ecuador is fortunate to have the support of Venezuela, which in no small degree is deflecting US attention away from the rest of the “pink tide”. A new regional network may be able to provide markets and capital, through a Bank of the South, which, in some degree,would make the country less dependent on the usual providers.20 Joining the regional trend toward increased state control over natural resources, Correa ratified the previous government’s cancellation of a contract with the US oil giant Occidental and announced that the Manta base agreement would not be renewed. Trade unions and the indigenous movement claimed their year-long mobilization had yielded victory.

The third innovation is the decision to call a referendum on the election of a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution. Ecuador’s “institutions have collapsed,” he said, “after overcoming neo-liberal dogma” a new constitution was needed to “prepare the country for the 21st century…. To overcome the political and social impasse in which the country is bogged down.” When a group of legislators attempted to block the referendum, a broad civil society coalition joined together to back Correa and to prepare for the constitutional discussions around the creation of new political, legal, and economic structures in Ecuador.

Social movement leaders are insisting that the upholding of sovereignty, the nationalization of natural resources, the defence of biodiversity, and promoting agrarian revolution all become part of the new Constitution. Correa for his part said he would consider resigning if the initiative was rejected by the voters.
On April 15, 2007, the referendum approved the proposal by a landslide victory with
78.1 per cent of voters in favour. The Constituent Assembly will be installed in mid-
November following the election of its 130 members. That same week Correa announced the country had paid off its entire debt to the IMF and would henceforth sever ties with the financial institution: “We don’t want to hear anything more from that international bureaucracy.”21 The World Bank representative was told to pack his bags and leave.

Reclaiming National Sovereignty and Public Sector Responsibility

If it drew on the positive changes in Latin America, the state failure/fragility debate could acquire greater legitimacy than it now enjoys. State strengthening could be addressed in terms of mass mobilization, new forms of democratic participation, and sovereign re-nationalization of basic resources and public services.

But globalization in its economic and military components — with its own version of state failure and state weakness — continues to manifest in practice (and often in theory) a deepseated aversion to both democracy and sovereignty. Debt conditions have allowed the US, the IFIs, corporations, and “donors” to liberalize economic activity to the point of losing control over foreign investors who are usually in complicity with local elites. To which we now add the security demands posed by the GWOT, but also the war on drugs and against the Colombian insurgents. Small wonder that states become fragile and even collapse in the face of such pressures, or simply step up repressive tendencies in order to survive.

Although unlikely, local militaries could take over in light of state breakdowns. Before that happens, however, some international preventive action would be contemplated. Wheremass human rights violations are the case, should some external liberal intervention be mounted? The trouble with this argument, aside from the implicit double standard (Venezuela yes, Israel no) is that it might still prove counterproductive. Susan Woodward points out: “If outsiders do take political positions, as occurs in the labelling of their favoured politicians
and parties as ‘moderates,’ ‘reformers,’ and pro-Westerners [or fragile states], this tends actually to worsen the asymmetry by substituting local legitimacy with international legitimacy and making them an easy target of nationalism or frustration with international demands at home.”22

In short, notions of state failure and state fragility are of little analytical and political utility, if not understood in terms of what a majority of a country’s citizens expects of its government. Labelling is risky, particularly where, as argued, radically different expectations of the state confront each other. New majorities in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela gave elected leaders a mandate for state restructuring — yet the democratic mandate and its implementation is cause
for alarm in imperialist quarters, still very much linked to the old regimes and the protection of their “minority” rights. But the GWOT cannot demand that democratic expectations be placed on hold, lest they provoke the US or be subsumed under the terrorist label. States can and must undergo profound change, sometimes, by definition, upsetting the old institutionalism and international relationships. Democracies must either deepen or decay.

Take for example the obligation of the state to ensure minimal public services to its citizens. In many places, people and governments come to the conclusion that the free market and the private sector have not guaranteed quality and accessible services — the state of public infrastructure in Latin America, as in Africa, so testifies. Public Services International defines public services as “those which are universally provided to the public and available equally to all; they affect life, safety and the public welfare and are vital to commercial and economic development;
they involve regulatory or policy-making functions; the service is incompatible with the profit motive or cannot be effectively or efficiently delivered through market mechanisms …and to promote quality public services as essential in building fair and inclusive societies, where all people have equal access and opportunity.”23 A violation of “economic freedom” and “common sense economics”?

Failure to secure the adequate provision of minimal resources should be considered a form of state failure, rather than an invitation for foreign corporations to step in, deregulate, and privatize left and right. The goal is to take back the public commons and, where warranted, revert privatizations that are inimical to the public interest.

The New Imperialism and Sub-sovereignty

One government in particular is disproportionately responsible for the sorry state of global affairs:the United States, invoking a war against terror, has embarked on a new cycle of global warfare and expansion. Such is the central reality of contemporary international politics. Michael Ignatieff, formerly of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, summed it up: “This new
imperialism… is humanitarian in theory but imperial in practice; it creates ‘sub-sovereignty,’ in which states possess independence in theory but not in fact. The reasons the Americans are in Afghanistan, or the Balkans, after all is to maintain imperial order in zones essential to the interest of the United States. They are there to maintain order against a barbarian threat.”24

But the barbarian threat hiding within fragile states is yet another ideological construct. Does refusal to follow the free market model and cater to US security demands constitute barbarism and merit sub-sovereignty? Is a nation refusing to follow that model a threat to Western civilization and doomed to “failure” — and therefore subject to regime change? Such is the logic of the War on Terror but also of the expansion of capitalist colonialism bent on securing more markets, more access to cheap labour, more raw materials, and more investment markets. Must states, economies, and even societies be structured so as to better take
their global place in the era of US supremacy?

In the final analysis, the question is whether states and electorates in the South and elsewhere will be denied the right to determine the future of their own countries and be trusted to exercise that right in a responsible and legitimate manner, nationally and internationally. As long as there is no respect for this right, then trauma and disorder will continue affecting not only a few states but the entire international system. And it is the system — imperialism— which must give way, not democracy.

State-building prescriptions are not a matter of taste, judgment, or of adopting the latest business model requiring World Bank-driven re-engineering. The issue is much deeper, societal, and global. Where is the “international community’s” concern for state failure and legal indecency in the United States? How can one change behaviour that is not the result of a temporary lapse of rational thinking, or a cognitive wrong turn in the road, or even an “understandable response” to the blow of 9/11? If we are going to engage in a discussion of failed states, we should not limit
it to the South.

Many US citizens are the first to demand that US “allies” not reinforce Washington’s
self-conception as a state economy that easily corrects itself and eventually will. The idea that the world can talk the US out of its behavioural disorder is not satisfactory. It disrespects human beings in nations suffering the daily cruelty of intervention. There are factors at work that go beyond elections. Corporations and bankers cannot abandon the bottom line and will not promote justice by force of will or reason any more than a leopard can change its spots. One can always hope that there is a small, still rational part of the brain of the social
polity that will recognize there is a state, or community of states, suffering from serious control issues, and that the current obsession with consumption and security are but its symptoms and not its cause. Force-feeding is not an option, but neither is the continued appeal to good intentions while maintaining a shocking disregard for the human beings concerned.

States, Sovereignty, and Democracy

Although a necessary step, a diagnosis is not the same as treatment. But good science dependson focusing the research in the right direction and in collecting the pertinent data. If liberated from its captors in the Security Council, the UN can still play a healthy role in a nation’sreco nstruction and development, particularly if it can help deliver what is most needed —resources and not rationalizations.
A check needs to be placed on patronizing explanations of state disorder that feature societal dysfunction or plain native ignorance as causes. Also unwelcome are political therapists from the North promising to expunge the traumas, inner needs, and attachment disorders of the South.

States are told they are too lean in security terms and must be force-fed, or too fat in social spending and require being starved for a while. To see through this deception one must remember that it is not simply a matter of countries needing to be “fixed” or people being occasionally “consulted” or “included,” but that people are at the centre of the entire equation — it is their nation and their people. Countries in the South should not be testing grounds for other people’s ideologies or research hypotheses.

By the same token, societies in the South cannot simply heap all blame on external factors. Although an often convenient hook on which to hang the misery of day-to-day life, blaming the outsider is no substitute for confronting the internal factors that generate a dysfunctional state in human security terms. When rich nations are failing in so many respects as functional democratic states, there is a danger that illegitimate and illicit security-first clandestine coping methods will be exported to the rest of the world, North and South.

From a Latin American perspective, US behavioural flaws were not substantially greater in the days after 9/11 than they were the day or decades before. Countries in trouble have the right to get support, long before they need hospitalization, but the choices should not be between being treated like children or dealt with as rogue elements, infantilized and criminalized in equal and patronizing measure. “Surgeons” from abroad must also be held accountable,principally to the “patients” enduring their intervention. State-building support is for the purpose of protecting the state for and not from the people.

Are there “lessons” Latin America can offer policy makers? Two issues should be acknowledged from the outset. First, many of us in this region have trouble, and will continue to have trouble,distinguishing between the United States and the rest of the “donor” community (Europe,Canada, and Japan). The overwhelming historical, political, and commercial weight of that country in our region is the principal reason. One might detect different tactics, but there is a common bottom line around what constitutes “good governance” and a belief in the superiority of the capitalist, investor-privileging model of economic growth.

Second a Latin American visualization of what constitutes a failed state is considerably different from the pictures emerging from Central Asia, the Middle East, or Sub-Saharan Africa. There may be disagreements as to definitions, but these should not blind Latin Americans to the need to contribute more intelligent and pragmatic responses to failure where it affects human beings, whatever the causes. Nor can our region be insensitive to real or credibly impending human rights disasters, including the use of a state’s territory for proven (as opposed to suspected)terrorist operations.

A formidable Latin American contribution could be to demand clearer answers to questions about the criteria of intervention, who judges and how, and who responds and how. Based on our region’s considerable history of endured interventions, we would highlight the importance of legal (UN yes, NATO or OAS no) collective decision-making mechanisms and collective responses characterized by a strong preferential option for political means with regional involvement.

So, for example, the fact that none of Sudan’s neighbouring governments favours Northern military “humanitarian” responses makes it difficult for non-African states in the South to support intervention unauthorized not simply by the African Union but by the UNSC. The arrogant and illegal military overthrow and removal of the Aristide government has not been forgotten. Unlike their governments, key social movements and churches in Latin America support the demand of their Haitian counterparts in denouncing the UN occupation of that country. After all, non-intervention as an international legal norm was born in Latin America —
coming up with a list of exceptions will be hard, particularly when someone powerful
seems restive.

It should go without saying, that NATO war planes or soldiers killing innocent civilians, as in Afghanistan, thoroughly discredits concurrent state-building initiatives. It is shocking that some believe they can do development as usual in an occupied country. What much of the population in Afghanistan, along with many in the South, witnesses is merely the civilian wing of an ongoing military counterinsurgency effort. Under these circumstances, Washington’s partners should not ask for the benefit of the doubt, particularly if the UN Security Council
is bypassed.

Alternatives to intervention or alternatives to US modalities of intervention? Many in the North will lean toward the latter — and refraining from following the Pentagon is always commendable. But people’s movements and many Southern governments will focus on the first question, inviting their Northern associates, within and outside the US, to do so also. Policy and political discussions may need to be differentiated, and colleagues in the South should at least be sympathetic to the complexities faced by Northern counterparts forced to deal with both worlds and deal with their own government’s multi-faceted intervention.

All intervention areas need to be scrutinized, but the growing fragile state industry is by and large operating within “safe” parameters. Other colleagues believe that genuine peacebuilding requires a clear denunciation of military intervention and rejection of the current script whereby US military steps in, gets bogged-down, and then dumps the problem in the laps of its allies
or the UN, while, of course, retaining strategic and operational control.

Externally-driven state-building exercises capable of generating inclusive and participatory governance? External military interventions that incorporate genuine peacebuilding (as opposed to pacification and stabilization) and gender awareness? Democracy in an occupied country? Perhaps easier to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Finally, beyond the contextual issues, and in order to better analyze them, it is important to review the roles of ideology and paradigm. One can give credit to the challenge, within and outside the US, to Washington’s increasingly discredited position and pretension to act unilaterally whenever or wherever it decides. But there is a larger proposition. Does unfettered capitalism and corporate-friendly “good governance” produce freedom, democracy, and state stability? By definition perhaps, policy-making circles will not easily recognize the constraint,
let alone tackle it. Those outside the bureaucracies may simply take a pass on this question.

But that is an unaffordable luxury for many in the South because, as events in Ecuador,Bolivia, and Venezuela are showing, the failure of the capitalist neo-liberal state to deliver basic necessities can be taken as a failure not simply of the state, but of democracy itself.

Linking neo-liberal capitalism to democracy is a precondition for either the deepening or the discarding of democracy altogether. In the short run, however, the capitalism/democracy confusion, often openly propagated by Northern democracy assistance programs and our own Southern elites, creates a contradiction in people’s minds that can have disastrous consequences for democracy (and security). If the failed/fragile states discussion chooses not to deal with the dichotomy then it will follow the course of the international mainstream debate on governance and development, becoming reduced to simplistic, undemocratic, and insensitive
propositions of what kind of government and policies are needed to fit into the global market.

The same can be said about a “hard power” response to bringing about “democratic states” but which fuel a backlash against democracy (and democracy promotion work). Although the terminology is not helpful, failed/failing states demand a different international response: one that strengthens the principles and values of democracy and helps make the state newly relevant to people; democracy you can feel; a state that belongs to you. Responses to failed states that continue to exclude those previously excluded from decision-making will get us nowhere. The real question will then be how to promote sovereign, participatory, self-determined,democratic processes in the face of globalization’s military and economic onslaught.


Alejandro Bendaña is President of the Center for International Studies,
Managua, Nicaragua. During the 1980s, he served as Nicaragua’s Ambassador to
the UN. He has a Ph.D. in historyALEJANDRO BENDAÑA from Harvard University. He is the author of
various publications on international relations, peacebuilding, development and
history. He has worked as an consultant on demobilization and reintegration
issues in Central America, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Indonesia.

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Endnotes
1 A variation on the theme is Canada’s announced “re-engagement” with
Latin America in the form of diplomatic support for countries that are
outside the Venezuelan sphere of influence: “There are questions about
whether Harper is mainly trying to help Bush, whose last visit to Latin
America sparked widespread protests, and lend encouragement to freemarket
governments in the face of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s
push for a new leftist, anti-capitalist consensus in the region.”
Whittington, Less. “PM sees payoff in adding Americas to foreign
agenda,” Toronto Star, June 22, 2007, p. A14.
2 Mariano Aguirre, “Failed states or weak democracies? The State in
Latin America,” January 17, 2006, http://www.opendemocracy.net/
democracy-protest/state_violence_3187.jsp, accessed June 2007;
Kees Koonings & Dirk Kruijt’s (eds.,) Armed Actors: Organized Violence
and State Failure in Latin America (London: Zed Press, 2005).
3 World Bank Group, The Independent Evaluation Group, Engaging
with Fragile States (Washington, 2005). http://www.worldbank.org/
ieg/licus/download.html. Accessed June 2007.
4 The Reality of Aid, The Reality of Aid 2006: Focus on Conflict, Security
and Development Cooperation (Manila: Ibon Books, 2006) p. 9.
http://www.realityofaid.org/roa.php?id=34. Accessed June 2007.
5 Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden, Why the West’s efforts to aid the
rest have done so much ill and so little good (Penguin Press: New York,
2006), p. 218, drawing on state failure data in Richard Rotberg,
When States Fail: Causes and Consequences of State Failure (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2002).
6 Easterly, The White Man’s Burden, pp. 216−217.
7 Quoted by Kyriakou, Niko. “Chavez’s Market Vision,”
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/14/
chavezs_market_vision.php. Accessed June 2007.
8 “Blurring the lines,” Washington Office on Latin America,
http://www.wola.org/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=2.
9 Grandin, Greg. Empire’s Workshop, Latin America, the United States
and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Henry Holt, 2007),
pp. 214−215.
10 Ibid., p. 215.
11 Quoted in Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Expansionismo
Económico y Militar de Estados Unidos en América Latina y el Caribe
(Managua: Centro de Estudios Internacionales, 2007), p. 36.
12 Klein, Naomi. “The Daily War,” Guardian, March 17, 2003.
13 Isaacson, Adam. “United States Security Cooperation Policy in
Latin America,” The Reality of Aid, p. 165.
14 “How to boost the coca crop,” The Economist, May 22, 2007,
https://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8888847.
Accessed June 2007.
15 “Oil in Colombia,” The Economist, February 1, 2007,
https://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8633187.
Accessed June 2007.
16 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, p. 221.
17 Cited in Edwards, Sandra. “The US FOL in Manta: The Ecuadorian
Perspective,” Washington Office on Latin America, March 30, 2007.
www.wola.org.
18 “A coup by Congress and the street,” The Economist, April 26, 2005,
https://www.economist.com/agenda/
displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PRJPSPT. Accessed June 2007.
19 Burbach, Roger. “Ecuador’s Nascent Leftist Government Victorious
in Confrontation with the Right,” ZNET, March 25, 2007,
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12412.
20 Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “COHA to Ecuador’s Rafael Correa:
Tread carefully so your detractors don’t have an easy target,”
Press release, May 29, 2007, www.coha.org/2007/05/09.
21 Associated Press, April 16, 2007.
22 Woodward, Susan. “Institutionally Fragile States, Prevention and
Post Conflict: Recommendations,” FRIDE (Madrid), Failing States or
Failed States? The Role of Development Models, Working Paper 19
(February, 2006), p. 21.
23 Public Services International, Focus on the public services;
Vol. 8 No. 4, 2001.
24 Ignatieff, Michael. “The Challenges of American Imperial Power,”
Naval War College Review, cited in John Bellamy Foster, Naked
Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006), p. 12.