by Mark Vorpahl
July 19, 2010
from
GlobalResearch Website
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Mark Vorpahl is a union steward as well as an anti-war and Latin American
Solidarity activist. He can be reached at Portland@workerscompass.org.
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Nestled between Panama to its south and Nicaragua to its north, Costa Rica
is a Central American nation roughly the size of Rhode Island.
If another nation were to send Rhode Island a force of 7,000 troops, 200
helicopters, and 46 warships in an effort to eradicate drug trafficking, it
is doubtful that the residents of Rhode Island would consider this offer
"on-the-level." Such a massive military force could hardly be efficiently
used to combat drug cartels.
The only logical conclusion is that the nation
whose troops now are occupying this other country had another agenda in mind
that it didn't want to share.
In early July, by a vote of 31 to 8, the Costa Rican Congress approved the
U.S. bringing into their nation the same military force described above,
justified with the same dubious "war on drugs" rationale. According to the
agreement, the military forces are supposed to leave Costa Rica by the end
of 2010.
This begs the question, however, if such an over the top display of
military muscle is needed now to combat the drug cartels, what will be done
in the next few months to make their presence unnecessary?
The history of
such U.S. military deployments around the world suggests a more credible
outcome than what the agreement states. Once the U.S. moves such massive
forces into a country, they rarely move them out.
When push comes to shove, the political machinery in Costa Rica is
subservient to U.S. government and corporate interests. Nevertheless, there
are many in Costa Rica who are declaring that the agreement is a violation
of their national sovereignty and is unconstitutional. (In 1948 Costa Rica
abolished its army, which was sanctioned in its constitution.)
Legislator
Luis Fishman has vowed to challenge the decision of the Congress in the
courts.
Shifting Strategy and Tactics
The buildup of U.S. armed forces in Costa Rica is part of an escalating
pattern that indicates a shifting of strategy and tactics for the U.S. in
controlling what the Monroe Doctrine infamously described as the U.S.'s
"backyard" - that is, all of Latin America.
Since the U.S. government
inspired covert coup d’etats and political reversals of popular governments
and/or movements in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in
previous decades, U.S. rulers had figured they had things stitched up to
their liking in Latin America. The political elites in Latin America were
uniformly in the pockets of the U.S. corporate empire and appeared to be
more or less in control of their people.
They commonly outlawed strikes and
at times even trade unions, eliminated minimum wage laws, and gave enormous
tax breaks to U.S. corporations.
Therefore, the U.S. Empire builders could use their political and economic
might alone to subjugate these neo-colonies to a very profitable neoliberal
agenda. This agenda included allowing U.S. corporations easy access to
pillage these nations’ public sectors through privatization, letting
multi-national corporations overrun these nations’ local markets and farms
through the elimination of trade barriers, and increasing the exploitation
of their workers and the devastation of their natural resources by tossing
out national labor and environmental standards.
Because of the profits
enjoyed by a few as a result of these measures, they carried the day, though
they, in turn, created a simmering spirit of rebellion in the semi-colonies'
peasantry and workers that would inevitably find expression.
As the U.S. began to set its sights on and send its resources to other parts
of the world, most notably the Middle East and Asia, the web they had
wrapped around Latin America began to unravel. This was most apparent in
Venezuela where a U.S.-backed coup attempt in April of 2002 failed because
of the massive mobilizing of the Venezuelan people in defense of their
democratic rights.
All subsequent attempts of the Venezuelan oligarchy, in
collusion with the U.S. State Department, to get rid of Chavez resulted in
their humiliation because of the constant support and organizing of the
country’s lower classes. It became apparent to the U.S. ruling class that
they could no longer rely on the Venezuelan oligarchy, which had lost direct
control over the political situation.
What is more, the popular upsurge
witnessed in Venezuela in the past decade, opened up floodgates for
anti-imperialist organizing across the continent, resulting in the election
of a number of left-wing presidents.
Not only was the neoliberal agenda of the U.S. being blocked, an alternative
to the U.S. Free Trade policies was being set up. The Bolivarian Alternative
for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), which was initiated by Venezuela
and Cuba, began to build a trading block based on exchange according to
different nations' needs rather than U.S. corporate profits.
While ALBA
needs to be more substantially developed in order to fulfill its promise,
especially in regards to organizing grassroots control to determine its
priorities, it is a challenge to U.S. corporate and political dominance in
the region.
U.S. Military Moves
As a result, the U.S. government began to shift its reliance from solely
economic and political means to control Latin America towards taking
military measures, even while engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What
have been some of these measures?
-
In 2006 the U.S. conducted military exercises off the coast of Venezuela
called "Operation Partnership of the Americas." This exercise involved four
ships, 60 fighter planes, and 6,500 U.S. troops.
-
In 2006 the U.S. State Department classified the islands of Aruba, Bonaire,
and Curacao, with their military bases jointly contracted to Holland and the
U.S., as "The Third Frontier of the United States." U.S. aircraft carriers,
war ships, combat planes, Black Hawk helicopters, nuclear submarines, and
thousands of troops began to build up in Curacao in particular. In 2009 a
U.S. military plane was intercepted in Venezuelan airspace that had flown
from Curacao's base.
-
In 2008 the U.S. reactivated the Fourth Fleet to patrol Caribbean waters.
This fleet had been out of commission since 1950. Now it operates with the
potential of acting as a floating base for the U.S. to conduct military
strikes throughout Central and South America.
-
In 2009 the U.S. made a deal with Colombia to build up its military personal
in seven bases, from 250 to 800 American troops with 600 civilian
contractors, effectively taking control over these installations. This was
widely denounced throughout Latin America as an action aimed at intimidating
Venezuela. In December of that year a U.S. drone plane flying from one of
these Colombian bases violated Venezuelan airspace.
-
From 2009 to 2010 the U.S. worked behind the scenes to legitimize a military
coup in Honduras against lawfully elected President Zelaya, who had aligned
the nation with ALBA. Part of the U.S.'s motivation behind its actions was
to maintain control of Soto Cano's Airbase, with its 550 U.S. troops and 650
U.S. and Honduran civilians. In the 1980's the U.S. had used this base for a
training ground and launching pad for the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and
El Salvadorian death squads opposed to the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN). There is good reason for concern that this Airbase
will again be used for similar operations today.
-
In 2009 the U.S. and Panama agreed to open up two naval bases in Panama,
which will be the first time U.S. military forces will be based in this
nation since 1999.
War on Drugs?
Most of these measures have been justified on the grounds of combating drug
trafficking, including the military buildup in Costa Rica.
However, they
have not curtailed this problem at all. Such U.S. military buildups have
generally been accompanied by an increase in drug trafficking, as has
happened in both Columbia and Afghanistan. Based on this record it can only
be concluded that the "War on Drugs" rationale is a red herring for public
relations consumption, not the actual motivation.
This military build up in Costa Rica is the latest in a series of moves the
U.S. has made in Latin America that seeks to use threats and arms to reverse
the strength of popular anti-imperialist forces across the region. The U.S.
is playing with the possibility of erupting a continental conflagration for
the sake of corporate profits.
While it is doubtful that the U.S. wants to directly engage in a military
conflict with, most likely, Venezuela right now, preparations for this
possibility are being made.
What is more likely in the short term is that
the U.S. military will use its forces to engage in sabotage and intimidation
in hopes of reversing support for the nations aligned with ALBA. It is also
very possible that the U.S. military will help to support proxy armies, such
as Colombia's, in military conflicts that align with U.S. interests.
However, this is a dangerous game.
Even in the short term, the U.S. ruling
class may drag the nation into another direct conflict, in spite of their
intentions, that could spread to involve numerous other nations.
Peace and International Solidarity
While U.S. workers are suffering from unemployment, insufficient health
care, drastic cuts to education and social services, as well as
environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico created by the
Obama
governmental collusion with BP, the priorities of the U.S. ruling class are
elsewhere.
They are more concerned with pouring money into military buildups
that threaten war.
The target of such a war or wars would be the popular
working class movements in Latin America, whose only crime has been to
struggle to liberate themselves from super exploitation and political
repression. It is the same economic and political elite in the U.S. that are
denying U.S. workers what is rightfully theirs that are opposing the efforts
of workers and peasants throughout the continent to empower themselves.
It is the task of the anti-war movement not only to oppose the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, but also to prevent future U.S. wars in Latin America.
Wherever anti-war activists seek to mobilize people against war, they should
also seek to educate about the U.S. empire's military moves in Latin
America.
Furthermore, it will require international solidarity to combat what the
U.S. elite is doing in Central and South America. There was recently an
event that could go some way towards preparing this solidarity.
In Sanare,
Venezuela, from June 21-25, a series of meetings were held entitled
"Encuentro of the Americas: Resisting Militarization and Promoting a Culture
of Peace."
It consisted of delegates of organizations from 19 nations across
the continent, including School of the Americas (SOA) Watch of the U.S.
You
can read more about this at
http://www.soaw.org/