Voices from Latin America is a project of the Democracy Center and our friends both North and South to bring Latin American perspectives into the U.S. debate.
Intervention in Reverse: Success Stories in Global Activism
"We do control the destinies of Central America and we do for the simple reason that national interest absolutely dictates such a course. …Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those we do not recognize and support fail.
-- U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Olds, 1927
Not just Central America, but all of Latin America, has long been considered by policy makers in the United States as "the U.S.'s backyard". From the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to the arming of the Nicaraguan "Contras" in the 1980s, from the invasion of Cuba a century ago to the more recent Washington demand for neoliberal economic reforms, – the U.S. has viewed Latin America as a place where interventions of all kinds have been justified in the name of U.S. 'national interest.'
The current fruit of this approach by U.S. policy makers is that nearly 90% of those surveyed in the region give U.S. President Bush a failing grade for his government's handling of U.S./Latin American relations. Under a new U.S. President, U.S. policy toward Latin America will be looked at anew and it is essential that this time, the voices of people in Latin America be a part of that process. After centuries of U.S. intervention in Latin American politics, the time has come for Latin Americans to intervene in U.S. politics – not with guns or coercion, but with ideas and opinions.
It is time for progressive, social justice voices in both Latin America and the U.S. to join together to push for a new approach based on equality between the two regions instead of exploitation by one of the other. Voices from Latin America is about intervention in reverse.
Why Intervening in U.S. Politics in 2008 Can Make a Difference
Elections are a moment in the U.S. in which citizens focus their attention on their nation's public policies, in ways that both educate the country as a whole and also have an impact on what those policies will be under new governments. The deeply unpopular U.S. War in Iraq has especially increased citizen interest in U.S. foreign policy, new interest which can be spread to U.S./Latin American policy as well.
The current election season in the U.S. offers many opportunities to influence U.S./Latin American policies by influencing the public debate over those policies – from immigration to trade. Some of these opportunities include:
- Affecting U.S. media coverage of Latin American issues
- Engaging U.S. groups that have a particular impact on Latin American policy
- Engaging U.S. political candidates, for the Presidency and the Congress
- Joining in solidarity with people in the U.S. to create a cross-border force for progressive political change.
That begins with people in Latin America being able to express themselves to U.S. audiences on two basic questions:
1. How does U.S. policy affect your life or the life of your nation?
2. What is the most important thing that the U.S. ought to change in its approach to Latin America?
And that is what Voices from Latin America is most about.
Examples of U.S./Latin American Solidarity that Have Made an Impact
Recent history between the U.S. and Latin America is full of good examples of how social justice activists have joined hands across the north/south divide in the Americas to make a difference. Here are two – one dealing with war and peace and one dealing with economic justice – that demonstrate how much can be won by working together.
Ending U.S. Aid to the War in El Salvador
Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. government provided billions of dollars to successive right-wing governments in El Salvador, to finance the country's war against leftist rebels FMLN). That war making went well beyond just protecting the government. Military units financed by the U.S. were involved in vast atrocities against the Salvadoran people and others, including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the massacre of El Mozote, and the killing of four U.S. churchwomen. Despite al of this, opponents to U.S. aid in the U.S. could not even get the U.S. Senate to schedule a debate and vote on the issue. An emboldened Salvadoran military used this as license to wage war for nearly a decade and refuse all efforts at negotiation.
That changed when an array of social justice forces, in the U.S. and El Salvador, joined together to enlighten U.S. public opinion and apply pressure on U.S. policymakers to cut off aid. Peacemakers in El Salvador hosted thousands of U.S. visiting delegations to help them understand the true impact of the War and of U.S. aid. Salvadoran refugees in the U.S. joined with religious communities and solidarity groups to raise awareness in the U.S. Citizens met with members of Congress and made pitches to journalists to write stories about the war.
All of that work, by thousands of people in both countries, finally bore fruit under tragic circumstances in 1989, after the Salvadoran Army brutally killed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, in attack at their university home in San Salvador. Because of the analysis, media work and lobbying of public officials done over so many years, the tragedy turned overnight into a broad public call for an end to U.S. aid. Faced with new opposition in the U.S. Congress, the government of El Salvador finally agreed to UN-mediated peace talks with the FMLN and its allies, producing a peace settlement in 1990. Joint work by activists in Latin America and the U.S. made all the difference.
Battling Bechtel in a World Bank Trade Court
In April 2000 the people of Cochabamba, Bolivia won a historic battle in the fight against economic policies imposed from abroad, when they took back their pubic water company from the U.S. corporate giant, Bechtel. The corporation had been handed a 40-year contract to control the region's city and rural water supplies, under a privatization scheme coerced on Bolivia by the World Bank.
Within weeks of taking over, Bechtel raised water rates by an average of more than 50%, sending thousands of Bolivians into the streets, in a wave of protests that eventually forced Bechtel's departure. Less that a year later, Bechtel came back against Bolivia, filing a $50 million legal action against the people of Cochabamba in a secretive trade court operated by the World Bank.
In Bolivia and across five continents people mobilized to fight the Bechtel case. They filed legal petitions, collected support from more than 300 organizations in 43 countries, used civil disobedience to shut down Bechtel's California headquarters, and picketed the houses of corporate officials. They also documented the facts of the case in media stories across the U.S. and Europe, doing serious damage to the corporation's valuable public image.
In January 2006, Bechtel officials announced that they were dropping the case, for a token payment equal to thirty cents. A negotiator at the heart of the process said later that Bechtel was responding directly to the pressure it had suffered at the hands of a united campaign of Latin America/U.S. solidarity. Again, citizens uniting together, across country lines and in a strategic way, made all the difference.
Voices from Latin America builds on these legacies of public impact, to take on the challenge of re-making U.S. policy in Latin America.