News of the Restless

…by a Catholic priest from Nicaragua, no less…

Story by Aporrea:

“President Chávez is right with his idea that we have to prepare ourselves for war,” affirmed the ex-president of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, at the inauguration of the Leftist Parties Encounter in Caracas, Venezuela.

During the event, organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), D’Escoto assured that the installation of seven US military bases in Colombia constitutes “a hand-over of an entire country’s sovereignty to imperialism.”

“It is cynical of Colombia to say that Chávez has a bellicose attitude. It is time to put our feet on the ground and realize what are the true intentions of the United States and their interference in the peoples of Latin America,” D’Escoto said.

There is a dictatorship in the United States, and a demonstration of it is the politics of the Obama government, which promised change during the presidential campaign, which it has not brought about, according to D’Escoto, a Catholic priest and former Sandinista foreign minister from Nicaragua.

“President Obama is well aware of what will happen to him if he follows the route of ‘change’ he promised,” D’Escoto said.

Translation mine. Link added.

Notice that D’Escoto did not say that Obama was the dictator, but if anything, the dictated-to. This is quite clear to anyone who’s been following his actions–or lack of them, rather–regarding Latin America. Virtually everyone working in that sector of the State Dept. is a BushCo legacy. Their line is corporatist: Any Latin American government not willing to sell out to big business from abroad, and more specifically from the US, is to be deemed “hostile” and “bellicose”.

You will not hear those words from His Barackness, of course, or even from Hillary Clinton herself, but from the lower-level flunkies–sorry, “specialists” and “spokespersons”. (I almost wrote “spookspersons”, and I’m sure that slip was not just of my fast typing fingers, but of a Freudian nature. Heh, heh.)

It’s very tempting to think that a guy who promises hope ‘n’ change will actually follow through when it comes to LatAm, but I would never bet on it. Every successive US administration for over a century has done nothing there but deepen and further the capitalist exploitation. They will never get the message that it’s time to start treating the locals with respect and dignity; that it’s time to start talking to them as equals; that it’s time to negotiate in good faith, not with the old ever-failing “carrot and stick” approach.

It’s certainly not for lack of trying on the part of sovereign governments; every reasonable approach they’ve taken to initiating dialogue has been studiously ignored and even flat-out rebuffed, with insult added to injury. For example, Chavecito’s been in office for ten years; when he began his reign, Bill Clinton was still president of the US. What did the latter do? Tried to dictate (through a State Dept. flunkie named Peter Romero, of course) that Chavecito could have nothing to do with Fidel Castro if he wanted to meet with Clinton at the White House. The ‘Cito’s response? A very polite, diplomatic, but unequivocal fuck-you. He called the flunkie, Romero, back and told him that he was speaking to the president of a sovereign nation called Venezuela, and that as president of Venezuela, it was his prerogative to associate with whomever he damn well pleased, and that if Bill Clinton didn’t like it, too effin’ bad–he was going to Havana, with or without Washington’s blessing. Romero backed down, and Chavecito got to meet with both Fidel AND Bill Clinton–the latter, not through a full state visit (oh no, never that, not after meeting with Fidel) but rather, through the back door. The meeting was “informal”. How informal? Clinton didn’t even bother to put on a suit. Shoot, who needs that when you’re “only” meeting the elected president of Venezuela–a serious and seriously popular man–for a grand total of fifteen minutes?

And if you think that’s bad, remember–Dubya had no time for the ‘Cito whatsoever. He did, however, have time for this chirpy chupacabra of the opposition, named María Corina Machado:

…who got herself a full-dress state visit even though she is not and never will be a head of state anywhere in Latin America, much less in her native Venezuela. She is insanely rich, but all her dinero will never buy her an ounce of credibility. She is, at best, a media-friendly figurehead for the oligarchy. And yet Dubya saw fit to see her, but not the actual, elected president of Venezuela.

See what I mean by insult?

So now we’re hearing all this blah-blah from Washington about how those seven bases really belong to Colombia, how Colombia is really in charge of them, and the US troops are “only there to help”. Um, “help” with what, exactly? The War on Drugs is as abject a failure as ever, and is only growing more farcical by the year (especially when you consider how much more effective anti-drug police agents in Venezuela and Bolivia have been since Chavecito and Evo kicked the DEA the hell out.) Does anyone seriously believe that drug production and smuggling will be lessened by the presence of gringos? It’s not exactly a secret that the CIA was the US’s numero uno drug-running agency right around the same time that cheap, plentiful crack cocaine started devastating inner-city black communities all over the US, just twenty or so years ago. Remember that? Gary Webb wrote about it, and the only criticism I have is that he was entirely too modest in his scope. This problem was way bigger than he reported it. (I recommend this book for a fuller view of the big, ugly picture.)

Anyhow. Anyone with an eye can see that it’s not about drugs at all. Colombia is, as Chavecito says, not sovereign. How can it be, when its own president is deeply enmeshed with the right-wing paramilitaries and known even to the State Dept. as an old friend of the late drug lord Pablo Escobar? Does anyone seriously believe that this cat has changed his stripes?

And another thing: Who seriously believes that the gringos are going to take orders from Colombia? US militaries take orders only from their higher-ups in Washington. They’re not under the command of Bogotá. These guys are there as intermediaries between the Pentagon and the Colombian army. It will be Colombia co-operating with Washington, not the other way around.

And suddenly, it makes all the sense in the world that Chavecito’s bombing bridges being used by Colombian smugglers and paramilitaries to sneak into Venezuela. It also makes sense that he’s calling on soldiers and civilians alike to be vigilant against Colombian incursions on Venezuelan soi
l. It makes sense that he would reject “mediation” by the US in the alleged dispute with Colombia (this dispute is not with Colombia, it’s with the US!) And it makes sense that he’s mulling a law to make it possible for the Venezuelan military to shoot down any aircraft known to belong to Colombian drug smugglers. This isn’t bellicosity; it’s prudence. It’s also an exercise in national self-defence and sovereignty. And it’s something that no foreigner has any right to criticize, much less mischaracterize as Washington has been doing–just as much by crapaganda hacks of the Obama administration as by those of its predecessors.

The pattern is already clear in how they’re treating the Honduras coup–Obama is no better than Bush where LatAm is concerned.

In other words: Damn that crazy Chavecito, he’s right again!