«National Struggles Against the Violence of Global Imperialism»

From a Workshop at the Disarm NOW! For Peace and Human Needs Conference, 1 May 2010, Riverside Church, New York City. 

Speech by Socorro Gomes, President

Brazil Peace Council (CeBraPaz) and World Peace Council

Comrades, 

The development of the situation in Latin America is now one of the main issues for peace movements and organizations of international solidarity, such as the WPC.

Two years ago the Fourth Fleet of the US Navy was reactivated to sail the seas of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The military presence in the region is already colossal. With the Fourth Fleet this presence is significantly increased. First, we should highlight the existence of military bases: seven bases were installed in Colombia, a decision that caused instability and political crises, aggravating problems involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. Iquitos (Peru), Queen Beatriz (Aruba), Hato (Curazao), Comalpa (El Salvador), Guantanamo (Cuba), Soto Cano (Honduras) and the new bases in Panama are among the American military facilities in the region. Add to that the fact that there are plans to reopen the Vieques base in Puerto Rico, which was shut down in 2004 after the heroic struggle of the movement for independence, and to build a new base in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. There has also been intense pressure to turn the military airport of Marshal Estigarribia, in Paraguay, into a military base. We must remember that not a long time ago, in the 1990’s, they tried to turn the satellite-launching base of Alcântara, in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, into a military base in Brazilian territory. Apart from the bases, the United States exert its military presence by means of exercises in Cabanas, Aguila, Unitas, Céu Central, Novos Horizontes, among others. The militarization of the Falkland Islands by Great Britain is also a source of preoccupation, as much as the trend to renew military agreements between governments, of which the signature of a military agreement between the United States and Brazil in April this year is a disastrous example.

The existence of the Fourth Fleet is directly related to the new political situation in Latin America, which, since the first election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and president Lula’s in 2002, has become a “rebellious continent” where the rise of democratic and progressive forces are taking power in many countries. From north to south, democratic and popular governments are in power in Latin America. In Venezuela there is a revolution going on with a popular and democratic character, proclaiming socialism as its goal. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua political processes are developing with a trend to consolidate the new experiences of popular governments. In Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and El Salvador progressive forces move on and take steps to support the struggle for broadening and improving democracy, national sovereignty and social justice.

The militarization carried out by the United States in the region has a clear objective: curb the advances of countries and peoples in the continent and the achievement of democracy, national sovereignty and social progress, control natural resources, such as the Amazonian biodiversity, water sources, such as the Guarani aquifer, large mineral deposits and oil. Add to that the control of markets and regional geopolitics.

Interventionism is a permanent characteristic of the policy of the United States regarding Latin America since the end of the 19^th century to our days. After the hard interventionism of Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” came a period when, despite diminishing direct interventions, great enterprises acquired a decisive hold on the Department of State. The 20^th century also witnessed Woodrow Wilson’s “missionary diplomacy”, the formation of the Pan-American system, the “dollar diplomacy,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “good neighborhood” policy, the “doctrine of national security” in the second half of the 20^th century and finally, after the Cold War, the “hemispheric security” policy. All those policies and stages had a common denominator – interventionism, tutorship and Latin America’s and the Caribbean’s submission to strategic interests of the United States – and none of those excluded the military option.

The first victims of such militarized interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean were Cuba and Puerto Rico, under the pretext of fighting Spain in the last days of the colonial period.

Another precocious target of that interventionism was Panama, in 1903. The US marines entered Panamanian territory in different occasions in the first half of the 20^th century – 1917, 1918 and 1925. More recently, they invaded again that country in 1989.

From 1915 to 1934 the United States sent their marines to Haiti.

Neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the same island with Haiti, was another Caribbean country to suffer military intervention by the United States, which remained in that country from 1916 to 1924. Since 1930, the United States sponsored one of the cruelest, long-lasting and corrupt dictatorships of the 20^th century in Latin America.

The marines occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1926 and were fought by Augusto Cesar Sandino, the “general of free men.”

Mexico, which had a great part of its territory stolen during the process of formation and expansion of the United States during the 19^th century, also endured several interventions in the 1910’s and 1920’s.

The period after World War II saw the United States intervening once again in Latin America and the Caribbean to impose itself as a dominant power. In 1947, allied to treacherous sectors of the Armed Forces, the Venezuelan government of Romulo Gallegos was unseated. In 1954 the election of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala was followed by a coup d’état. In 1961 Cuba was invaded, and the marines were repelled by the revolutionaries under the command of Fidel Castro in Playa Girón. In 1965 the Dominican Republic was invaded with the support of the Brazilian military dictatorship.

From 1964 to mid 1980’s, beginning with the military coup in Brazil, the United States sponsored, supported and offered financial aid to coups d’état and cruel dictatorships such as those of Pinochet in Chile, and Argentinean, Uruguayan and Brazilian fascist generals. In that period counter-revolutionary wars were waged in Central America, Grenada was invaded in 1983.

That history of interventions indicates the permanence of interventionism in Latin America, which assumes new traits in the present time with the Fourth Fleet and military bases.

Thank you very much,

Socorro Gomes, President of the World Peace Council