foreign capital in the region.
Farmers who have had their crops
destroyed by aerial fumigation or have been
threatened with it are offered "alternatives", but alternatives that are in line with
US policy. The US has long encouraged
farmers abroad to specialise in products in
which they have an unassailable advantage
over the US - i.e. climate.
It the height of the war in El Salvador the to think a
(I) produced a document that • • argued the country should cultivate melons and strawberries for the US market. The fall in production of staple foods would be made up for with the sale of cheap US imports - which would be bought with the dollars earned from the sale of fruit. Thus the US gets a cheap supply of tropical fruit and off-loads a significant part of its grain reserves - and the dollars still end up in the US.
It is not just all economics though, Santa Fel and Il both stress that countries with agricultural surpluses i.e. the US can effect changes in other governments' internal policies by simply cutting off the food supply. They made no bones about this.
Colombia will now be very vulnerable. Peasants are on the brink of starvation after their land has been fumigated by US antinarcotics planes and now they are offered enticements to grow African palm, rubber and coffee. These products have one thing in common, over-production and crisis.
The peasants end up with enorThey are bound themselves through purchase-sale contracts to specific companies for 12-25 years. (After this the palm tree has to be replaced anyway). Peasants will default on their contracts because of falling prices making it even harder to pay the loans (2).
The Palm Oil companies meanwhile have in one fell swoop (with aid from the EU and the US) divested themselves of all of the costs of raw material production. These are now passed onto the peasants.
Not content with this a number of projects have been set up to "help" workers form their own companies. Workers then pick up all the costs, social security, tools, medical costs etc. and tender for contracts with the lowest priced winning.
One of the main players in all of this is the Programme for Peace and Development in Middle Magdalena, a church-backed body (1) Santa Fe is a right wing think tank specialising in Latin America and comprising academics and former diplomats including Lewis Tambs, former US ambassador to Colombia. It is close to the Republican Party, though its policy proposals have been implemented by all US administrations including Clinton's. (2) An initial loan would be in the region of $7,000 dollars, rising to $14,000 after just four years. During the unproductive period for Palm, the farmer does not have to make payments but the interest accumulates nevertheless and must be paid off once the initial four years is up. (3) Michael Deal of USAID stated in a press conference in May 2002 that there had to be a credible threat to make the farmers sign up to their proposals and that this existed in Colombia. See www.ciponline.org
The US can effect changes in other governments internal policies by simply cutting off the food supply that received over 32 million euros from the EU last year.
The plan is to sow an extra 660,000 hectares of African palm mostly concentrated in areas where there is more conflict with the guerrillas. This will completely change the nature of farming and destroy the guerrillas' support bases.
It is not only agriculture. Mining legislation has also changed to facilitate the entry of US mining companies and puts in legal limbo the rights of small craft miners sitting on some of the largest deposits in the
These economic aid proposals aim 1 to destroy local organisation, to
change forever the economic landscape - creating a dependent class of serfs up to their eyes in debt with the companies that they once freely traded with. Although foreign aid might be expected to alleviate the situation for the poorest, it actually has the opposite effect.
This is quite deliberate. The foreign aid is just one more weapon in a war on peasant organisations. Paramilitaries are obliging people to grow African palm at gunpoint. They have stated that they aim to hand over the gold mines to foreign companies that would "make a more rational use of them".
So an anti-narcotics strategy paves the way for US involvement in the conflict and the social aid that goes with that strategy fits nicely into the FTAA. The paramilitaries enforce the "aid package" destroying any opposition along the way (3). The EU and the aid agencies sign up to it all with their own aid, with nice reports, charts and conferences.
Meanwhile the peasants pay the price for the dovetailing of strategies and interests and lose their land and livelihood in the name of development. Phil Hearse B Sanchez de Lazado resigned on olivian president Gonzalo
October 17, brought down by a
month-long mass uprising. Forced to flee the presidential palace by helicopter, he found refuge in Miami and bitterly complained that the United States had abandoned him.
The previous day had seen a million protestors on the streets, including a quarter of a million in the Plaza de San Francisco, near the presidential palace in La Paz-and this in a country with less than nine million inhabitants. A general strike was called by the central trade union federation, the COB, while police stations and universities were occupied in the cities and the coun tryside. The poor El Alto barrios overlooking La Paz were literally in a state of insurrection.
Another key centre of the uprising was Cochabamba, recently a centre of mass struggle against water privatisation. During the uprising more than 70 people were killed by the army and police. In several waves of protest since Sanchez was elected in September 2002, around 700 people have died at the hands of the security forces.
Sanchez, contemptuously dubbed Goni' by the protestors, was brought down because of his plan to sell vast amounts of the country's underground natural gas supplies to the United States. The plan involved building a pipeline to a port in Chile, from where it would have been shipped north.
For millions of Bolivians, this was one more slap in the face from neoliberal globalisation, and another sorry episode in the long history of imperialist plunder of the nation's natural resources.
The political content of the protests is highly significant. First was the simple issue of imperial robbery. Numerous placards and banners on the demonstrations said "El gas no se vende, el industrializa" - a rough translation might be "the gas is not for sale, it will industrialise us" (literally "it industrialises"). No equivocation here on the issue of economic growth, and how could there be in this ultra-poor country? On the other hand, the pipeline which would have gone through indigenous farming areas, raised major environmental concerns. Anti-Sanchez mobilisations grouped together a wide spectrum of political and social forces, among whom indigenous people, tin miners, urban workers and sections of the middle class were prominent.
Key leaders of the movement were Felipe Quispe, leader of the United Confederation of Workers and Peasants of Bolivia (CUTCB) — the union of indigenous Aymara peasants and farm workers; and Evo Morales, leader of the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) who narrowly lost to Gonzalo Sanchez in the September 2002 presidential election.
Morales is the leader of the country's coca farmers, in a country where the United States is pressuring the government to suppress the trade. However Quispe is seen as a more radical figure.
La ollowing Sanchez's departure for Miami, the Congress chose his
deputy Carlos Mesa as replace. ment President.
The pipeline may be as good as dead, but few people think Mesa will bring anything other than continued subordination to neoliberal austerity in general and Washington in particular. Immediately following Sanchez's removal, US ambassador David Greenlee insisted America would demand no let up in the fight to end the coca trade - ie ruin the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Bolivian peasants.
This response has, however, led to debate in Washington over the correct course to pursue in relation to Mesa - and Evo Morales.
Political commentator Marcela Sanchez, writing in the October 25 issue of the Washington Post, urged the state department to adopt the "Lula solution' -ie forget about Mesa and back Evo Morales, despite the 'socialist' bit in the name of his party
This would then start the process of shifting the Bolivian opposition to the political centre and a new accomodation with Washington - a real Lula solution. However, it would involve some conce sions on the question of the coca farme and some assistance with Bolivia's crushin budget deficit.
New president Mesa has prom ised to organise a referendu on the issue of the pipelin which will doubtless be defeated. But th pipeline issue, important in its own righ was really a focal point for the massiv resentment in a population where ha the people live on less than $2 a day, ar where the indigenous majority are we organised and remain mobilised.
During the uprising and general strike the COB union federation raised demand for higher wages, better pensions, com prehensive land reform and Bolivia's with drawal from the planned Free Trade Are of the Americas. These demands w remain at the centre of the continuin struggle.
The COB held a meeting on lE October with 20 different industrial anc commercial sectors represented
They vowed to continue their indefinite general strike until the government guar antees not to export the gas and repeal: the law governing the sale of hydrocar bons.
The COB also demanded a judicia inquiry into police murders of the protes tors, and an end to privatisation. These demands will remain at the centre of the continuing struggle.
Local reaction and its imperial masters in Washington will try every trick in the book to try to rob the Brazilian people o their huge victory in bringing dowr Gonzalo Sanchez.
The workers, peasants and indigenous people will have to be on their guard against the twin dangers of repression anc co-option from those in the ruling class they have humiliated
page 20 of the scan
••. 20 socla st resistance Winter 2003 Contributions from Socialist Resistance forum 'New Struggles, New Alternatives', held in London October 25 something that appears to us today in a new form.
The second reason for their failure wa