We’ve come a long way from John Kennedy’s high popularity among Latin America. He’s still revered from his pillar of martyrdom, but the USA has lost its shine among la gente (regular folk). After Chile’s Salvador Allende was couped out of his life along with 20,000 other Chilean voters by Augusto Pinochet with US support in the 1970's, the leftward movement has been relatively quiet. But recently, there has been a leftward tilt among Latin American democracies. The US MSM villainizing Venezuelan Hugo Chavez and slanting coverage of his lurching programs towards state owned oil, gas and other natural resource industries. The falling price of gas has not yet destabilized Chavez’ populist regime, much to US chagrin. But Bolivia presents a different picture after the jump.
Bolivia is the poorest country of Latin America, and has been historically considered the most ripe for socialist populism. Che Guevara thought so, and died there in 1967 for his premature, carpet-bagging audacity. It’s not that Bolivians weren’t ripe for a revolution, just that the centralized government was too strong, with US support, to be defeated by a mountain guerilla movement like had worked in Cuba. Then along comes Evo Morales, a local indian, coca grower, who epitomizes the class differences between the indigenous population and the more Spanish-blooded elites. He obtains wide-spread indigenous support at the polls. His support is the lowest among the eastern towns of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija called the media luna (half moon) where the elites have concentrated their population. So what does the US do? Support democracy, like it did in Iraq? Nope.
Recently released documents show a classical imperialist response by the US that is certain to stick our foreign policy head further up our "Latin America is our backyard" (Wilson) ass. Here's the link to all the docs: http://www.jeremybigwood.net/...
Allow me to summarize some of the important issues. USAID has a slush fund of $85 Million annually which it is using to encourage separatism in Bolivia:
Support for decentralized democratic governments, in particular departmental governments and selected municipalities. USAID was the first donor to provide support to the democratically elected departmental governments in order to strengthen decentralization.
It would be like Venezuela brought over some of its petro dollars and supported our Texas’ governor in seceding from the US. WTF We also ran a recall election of Morales in 2004; it failed. So we ran an initiative, that was of questionable validity, to try and split off the elite areas from President Morales’ central government. It failed. USAID has repeatedly tried the usual donations to opposition parties (That we didn’t like when the Chinese tried it on us), intervening in the electoral process with delegitimizing claims of election fraud for elections certified as fraud-free by the Organization of American States (Ironically a group fostered by Kennedy), and seeking out indigenous leaders to carry our policy torch. One declassified document clearly outlines the necessity to give:
"more support to USAID and Embassy indigenous interns to build and consolidate a network of graduates who advocate for the US Government in key areas."
Nothing has worked so far. Our money has bought us a big nada. Will Obama bring us more of the same?
I would cite the Cuban model of how to export good will. For decades, Cuba has trained and exported a large number of doctors to the world, even some to Africa. Many of these people reside throughout Latin America. Anecdotally, I recently needed stitches on a remote island and was stitched up by a Cuban medical provider who the locals thought was a great guy. When I was visiting a newly excavated Mayan village called Cancuen in Guatemala, the only doctor available was Cuban, and the locals thought he provided good care. This is truly "Doctors Without Borders". It is no wonder the hearts and minds follow where the health care goes. We should take our $85 Million annual fund and use it to provide micro-loans to the population in need. Barack, are you listening?