Why Venezuela's Neighbors Are Hoping For A Chavez Win Sunday

[Peace Patriot]

13. Paraguay's fascists used the Honduran template--a fake "constitutional crisis"--

to oust the elected president of the country, the beloved "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo. The fascists then immediately rescinded Lugo's decision NOT to have U.S. troops on the ground in Paraguay. So U.S. bribery, in my opinion--promise of lots of military aid to help keep the extremely poor Paraguayan majority poor--was a big factor. This coup provides a staging ground, right in the heart of leftist South America, for U.S. interference in the region--just as Honduras has been used in the past, in Central America, and is being prepped to be used once again, with the big, post-coup U.S. military build-up in Honduras.

The fascists and corporatists are picking off the weaker leftist governments--the ones where a leftist president got elected but without strong social/labor union organization, and without getting enough seats in national assemblies to support the president's policies. The victim countries so far--Honduras and Paraguay--had conditions of desperate poverty in which the majority of people were completely fed up with pro-U.S., pro-corporate, pro-uber-rich policies, and managed to elect a leftist president (Paraguay), and, in the case of Honduras, managed to convince a "centrist" president to pull left and advocate the reform that the labor unions were calling for, but lacked the grass roots organization that we have seen, for instance, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil and other countries.

Honduras' strong leftist movement basically came into its own in the wake of the coup. It was strong enough to influence a president but it was not strong enough to prevent the country and its democracy being smashed to pieces. And, since the coup, rightwing death squads have been very active in Honduras--operating with complete impunity--assassinating numerous leftists--trade union leaders and others--and journalists. And the coup government has had the active support of the U.S. State Department which arranged and held a phony election, under martial law, to legitimize fascist control of the country. It's going to be a while, I fear, before Honduras' progressive movement, which represents most Hondurans, can successfully organize and win elections in their very rigged system.

In Paraguay, it was evident early on that Bishop Lugo did not have much of a political organization. He was drafted to run as president as the only figure in Paraguay capable of pulling together Paraguay's very fractious leftist parties, to win an election. He had spent his entire life as a Catholic bishop, living in poverty with Paraguay's poorest people. It's possible that he was not quite suited to the role of political leader, policy-maker and administrator. But he did some great things. For instance, with the help of the leftists president of Brazil and Argentina, he managed to renegotiate the hydro-electric contracts with Brazilian mega-corporations, to get a much fairer deal for Paraguay. I imagine that those mega-corp CEOs also had a hand in getting rid of him, but, meanwhile, guess who gets to dispense the increased profits, which Lugo, of course, had hoped to use for social programs? The Left creates it; the Right loots it. That seems to be the way of things in our Corporate-run world.

Hydroelectric power is Paraguay's only export besides soy. Paraguay sits on the biggest aquifer in South America. That is another reason that the U.S. wants to control Paraguay, in its efforts to steal basic resources on behalf of our transglobal corporate rulers and war profiteers.

As Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, stated, in his last speech in office, in 2010, "The U.S. has not changed." (He was speaking of Obama, and with Honduras much on his mind--a coup that Brazil fought to overturn but failed to do so.) Brazilians then elected Lula's chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, to succeed him as president. She is, if anything, even more leftist than Lula. (She was horribly tortured by the U.S.-supported fascist junta, in her youth.) The basic, widespread Leftist success in South America has been chipped at, but not significantly reversed, by these damnable coups in Honduras and Paraguay. I think the blowback will ultimately reinforce the leftist democracy trend in the region--and the trend toward Latin American regional cooperation, unity, independence and sovereignty. But it has been murderously awful for Honduras and could get that way for Paraguay, before it gets better. (Note: That is one reason why Lugo--who was given only 24 hours to prepare a defense against impeachment--decided to resign, instead, i.e., to avoid any bloodshed. But Paraguay could still pretty easily go the way of Colombia, Honduras and other U.S. client states, into massive lawlessness, murder and mayhem by the right, backed up by the U.S. military.)

Also, I'm a bit worried about Nicaragua and El Salvador--both with leftist presidents, and with the U.S. military buildup in Honduras right next door; and about Peru, which only recently elected a leftist president. I have no doubt at all that U.S. covert agencies, the State Dept., the Pentagon and private corporate operatives are working to overthrow these leftist governments, one way or another.

I believe it was Albert Camus who said, "I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice."

I wish I could report that our country loves justice in Latin America--given that we have a president who could not have become president except for the extremely difficult struggles for justice that preceded him. Those struggles, including the part of it that occurred in our lifetimes, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, are exactly the same as the struggles occurring in Latin America today, by the poor and the brown, by the farm worker and the sweatshop worker, by the have-not's and the excluded, who are coming into their own, politically, and are, at long last, electing governments that are truly "of, by and for" the people. Though there are some limited signs that Obama policy is not quite as bad--and certainly not as twisted and utterly corrupt and murderous--as Bushwhack policy, that really isn't saying much. Transglobal corporations and war profiteers still rule U.S. policy in Latin America, and that policy is anti-democratic and anti-social justice and driven by goals of domination, oppression and grand theft.

It is a different world though, in Latin America. That "sleeping giant" has, at last, stood on its feet--not to bash others but to assert democracy! Wonder of wonders! And it is NOT going to submit to re-conquest. It's a wonderful thing when a people gets that fire in their hearts for self-government, sovereignty and justice. That's what is happening in Latin America. Don't be fooled by the slanders of the Corporate Media. This is a genuine, widespread, unstoppable political revolution for democracy and social justice. It is bound to suffer setbacks. It will not be defeated, believe me. The fire has been lit.