A bailout in exchange for wage and benefit reductions, especially retirees' pensions and health care benefits -- that's the ruling-class program for auto workers . . . and all other workers, union or non-union, in the primary labor market in the United States.
Even while the ruling class deviates from the neoliberal orthodoxy in monetary and fiscal policies, lowering interest rates, monetizing debt, and creating temporary jobs and extending temporary benefits in an attempt to stimulate the economy, it continues to push to structurally transform labor in its neoliberal image (the strongest weapon of neoliberalism is its ability to pit the workers in the primary labor market -- the public sector and oligopolistic industries -- against workers who are excluded from it to begin with, weakening the former even while extending thin new benefits to the latter to maintain the neoliberal hegemonic bloc, at which Brazil's Lula and Turkey's AKP for instance are expert). That is what the ruling class did to workers in Japan, increasing poverty and aggravating inequality.
Needless to say, making labor more precarious is a recipe for prolonging rather than exiting deflationary stagnation, no matter how much fiscal and monetary stimuli the government applies at the same time. The crisis doesn't automatically bring an end to neoliberalism. It's up to the working class to end it, or else the economy won't even recover.
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Getúlio Vargas
24 August 1954
Río de Janeiro
Getúlio
He puts himself on the side of wages, not profits. At once, businessmen declare war.
So that Brazil shall cease to be a sieve, he stops the hemorrhage of wealth. At once, foreign capital begins sabotage.
He regains control of oil and energy, which are national sovereignty as much as or more than the flag and the anthem. At once, monopolies, offended, retaliate with a ferocious offensive.
He defends the price of coffee without, as was the custom, burning half the harvest at the stake. At once, the United States cuts its purchases by half.
In Brazil, journalists and politicians of all regions and persuasions add their voices to the chorus of outrage.
Getúlio Vargas has governed on his feet. Forced to go down on his knees, he chooses the dignity of death. He picks up his revolver, aims it at his own heart, and fires.
The text above is a translation of an excerpt from Eduardo Galeano, El siglo del viento (Siglo XXI, 2000), pp. 188-189. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Uruguayan Writer Eduardo Galeano Apologizes for the War That Devastated Paraguay
Uruguayan Writer Eduardo Galeano Apologizes for the War That Devastated Paraguay
Asunción, 15 August (EFE) -- Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano today publicly apologized to Paraguayans for the war that his country, allied with Argentina and Brazil, fought against Paraguay between 1865 and 1870.
"Let me take this opportunity to apologize as an Uruguayan, because that [imperialist] punishment [for the crime of protecting the workers and products of the nation] was inflicted through three neighboring countries of Paraguay," Galeano said at a press conference in which Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo participated.
The author of Open Veins of Latin America regretted his country's participation in a war "that was said to last three months" but lasted five years "and exterminated the entire adult male population of this country."
"That model was misnamed 'free trade,' which, as we know well, is a freedom that imprisons people, a big lie, because that's the name that the global North gives to everything that it preaches but doesn't practice," said the Uruguayan.
For his part, Boff expressed how pleased he was to have taken part in the civic festival in Paraguay today on the occasion of the inauguration of Lugo and said: "I think all who are at this table are for liberation, and for me, who comes from that theology, this is an extremely happy moment."
He reminded all that the purpose of this religious current "is to practice not so much theology as liberation, because what matters to God is not theology, it is the concrete liberation of individuals" and stressed that "the pressure of the poor has given a very powerful force to a government that realizes the dreams denied for so many generations."
Cardenal spoke in the same vein, describing Lugo as "true bishop of liberation."
Moreover, he said: "We are celebrating the rise to power of one more liberator of Latin America."
"A few days ago I was in Bolivia, and there I saw a miracle: an Indian president of Bolivia. Now I have seen another miracle here, too: a bishop president," said Cardenal.
In the end, Lugo said he was honored to have shared "a feast" with Galeano, Cardenal, and Boff and reaffirmed that he doesn't feel any fear about his friendly relation with the politics of Chávez, Morales, and Correa.
"People say: Don't be close to Chávez or Evo. I'm not afraid of Chávez, I'm not afraid of Evo, I'm not afraid of anyone. Latin America is living a different moment," said Lugo, who put an end to 61 years of the conservative Colorado Party hegemony in government.
The original EFE dispatch in Spanish was published in Yahoo! Noticias on 16 August 2008. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
Asunción, 15 August (EFE) -- Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano today publicly apologized to Paraguayans for the war that his country, allied with Argentina and Brazil, fought against Paraguay between 1865 and 1870.
"Let me take this opportunity to apologize as an Uruguayan, because that [imperialist] punishment [for the crime of protecting the workers and products of the nation] was inflicted through three neighboring countries of Paraguay," Galeano said at a press conference in which Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo participated.
Fernando Lugo, Presidente de Paraguay
con Leonardo Boff, Eduardo Galeano, y Ernesto Cardenal
The author of Open Veins of Latin America regretted his country's participation in a war "that was said to last three months" but lasted five years "and exterminated the entire adult male population of this country."
Guerra do Paraguai / Guerra del Paraguay
"That model was misnamed 'free trade,' which, as we know well, is a freedom that imprisons people, a big lie, because that's the name that the global North gives to everything that it preaches but doesn't practice," said the Uruguayan.
For his part, Boff expressed how pleased he was to have taken part in the civic festival in Paraguay today on the occasion of the inauguration of Lugo and said: "I think all who are at this table are for liberation, and for me, who comes from that theology, this is an extremely happy moment."
He reminded all that the purpose of this religious current "is to practice not so much theology as liberation, because what matters to God is not theology, it is the concrete liberation of individuals" and stressed that "the pressure of the poor has given a very powerful force to a government that realizes the dreams denied for so many generations."
Cardenal spoke in the same vein, describing Lugo as "true bishop of liberation."
Moreover, he said: "We are celebrating the rise to power of one more liberator of Latin America."
"A few days ago I was in Bolivia, and there I saw a miracle: an Indian president of Bolivia. Now I have seen another miracle here, too: a bishop president," said Cardenal.
In the end, Lugo said he was honored to have shared "a feast" with Galeano, Cardenal, and Boff and reaffirmed that he doesn't feel any fear about his friendly relation with the politics of Chávez, Morales, and Correa.
"People say: Don't be close to Chávez or Evo. I'm not afraid of Chávez, I'm not afraid of Evo, I'm not afraid of anyone. Latin America is living a different moment," said Lugo, who put an end to 61 years of the conservative Colorado Party hegemony in government.
The original EFE dispatch in Spanish was published in Yahoo! Noticias on 16 August 2008. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
International Capital Dominates Brazilian Agriculture
International Capital Dominates Brazilian Agriculture
by João Pedro Stedile
The Movement of Financial Capital
In recent years, there has been an intensive, continuous process of concentration and centralization of corporations operating and controlling the entire production process of global agriculture.
Concentration is the concept used in political economy to explain the movement of large corporations to combine, accumulate, and become large groups. Thus, in every sector of production, a situation of oligopoly is being created, with a few corporations controlling the sector. The second movement of capital is centralization, in which a single corporation comes to control several sectors of production, sometimes even the sectors unrelated to one another. These two logical movements of capital have been accompanied in the agricultural sector with a process of internationalization of control of the market and trade at the global level. In other words, some corporations have come to operate in every country and control the global market.
This dual movement of capital -- which was very much noticeable, from as far back as the theory of imperialism, in large industrial enterprises -- also came to dominate the agricultural sector in the last ten years. And what is most dangerous, now under the hegemony of financial capital, the velocity and volume of capital invested in agriculture were much faster and greater than had been the case in other productive sectors through the course of the twentieth century. That is because much capital in the form of money, i.e. financial capital, accumulated in rich countries in recent years. This capital was shifting to the purchase of shares in the most profitable corporations of the primary sector as well. Thus, in just a few years, as an effect of the investment of this financial capital in stock purchases, concentration and centralization became extraordinary.
Result
Today, almost all branches of agricultural production are controlled by groups of oligopolistic corporations, which coordinate among themselves. Thus, Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, Dreyfus, and Bunge alone are responsible for 80% of the total world production of and trade in grains such as soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and sunflowers. Monsanto, Novartis, Bayer, and Syngenta control the entire production of transgenic seeds. In the dairy products and derivatives sector we come up against Nestlé, Dannon, and Parmalat. Here in Brazil, the entire production of raw materials for fertilizers is controlled by just three transnational corporations: Bunge, Mosaic, and Yara. Only two corporations, Monsanto and Nortox, produce glyphosate, a raw material for agricultural pesticides. AGCO, Fiat, New Holland, etc. oligopolize the agricultural machinery sector.
This movement, which had begun to develop in the 1990s, accelerated in the past two years with the crisis of capitalism in the United States. Interest rates in the core countries fell to an annual rate of 2% and, given the inflation rate, reached the point where banks would lose money. Then, financial capital shifted to the periphery of the system to protect itself from the crisis and maintain its profit rates. Over the past two years, nearly 330 billion dollars of money poured into Brazil. A part of that capital was invested through local banks, to encourage the buying of real estate, household appliances, and cars on credit, at the average annual rates of 47%. Sheer madness, compared with the rates in developed countries.
Another part of capital was destined to the purchase of lands. One report in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper estimated that foreign capital bought more than 20 million hectares in recent years, especially in the midwest regions and the new agricultural frontier of the so-called Ma-pi-to (Maranhão, Piauí, and Tocantis), where land prices were much lower. Yet another part headed to the Amazon in search of mining areas, hydroelectric projects, and possession of huge areas of biodiversity which later will bear fruit if they are exploited by their laboratories.
In the cellulose sector, three large groups -- Aracruz (Norway), Stora Enzo (Sweden-Finland), and International Paper (US) -- moved their entire production to the rich soil and climatic conditions found in Brazil. So, the expansion of eucalyptus monoculture throughout the region stretching from Bahía in the south to the Uruguay border and six new factories are being planned. Thousands of hectares of industrial eucalyptus plantations will destroy everything, creating a veritable green desert.
Likewise, there was a major investment of foreign capital in the expansion of sugarcane monoculture for ethanol production and export. The sugarcane area increased from 4 to 6 million hectares. There are 77 projects for new ethanol plants, which will be built along four major alcohol pipelines projected to transport alcohol from the midwest to the ports of Santos and Paranaguá and from the Palmas region (Tocantins State) to the port of São Luis (in Maranhão State). Two of these alcohol pipelines are owned by Petrobras and the other two will be owned by foreign investors.
Foreign capital also speeded up its investment in the production and multiplication of transgenic seeds, especially maize. Hence Syngenta, Monsanto, and Bayer are lobbying and pressuring the government to allow their varieties of GM corn. Some of these varieties are banned in Europe, but here . . . anything goes!
Agribusiness
This avalanche of foreign capital to control our agricultural production and inputs and to expand production for export was made possible only by the alliance of the aforementioned corporations and the big landowners. The landowners with large tracts of land are getting in on the action as subordinate associates of big corporations, plundering the environment, overexploiting agricultural labor, and sometimes even using slave labor.
This agricultural model, which is called agribusiness, is the marriage of transnationals and big landowners. In it there is no room for peasant family agriculture or agricultural labor, for it uses herbicides and high-tech mechanization at all levels.1
The result is already visible in statistics. Brazil is turning toward large-scale monoculture for export. A kind of agro-export re-colonization, reminiscent of the days of empire. Of the 130 million tons of grain produced, no less than 110 million tons are just soybeans and corn. In cattle production, 300 million hectares are for export production. And what's left is an immense green desert of eucalyptuses. That's the Brazilian model! It will be profitable to some landowners and a few foreign corporations. But the Brazilian people will be left with environmental liability, unemployment, and poverty.
Contradictions Emerge Rapidly
The contradictions of this perverse model come to the surface quickly. Food prices soared, as a result of financial capital's speculation at the stock exchanges and oligopolistic corporate control of the market. The dollar prices of food doubled over the past year. Food is increasingly contaminated by the intensive use of pesticides. Agribusiness fails to produce healthy food, without herbicides. Only peasant family farming succeeds in doing so. The intensive production of ethanol through sugarcane monoculture does not solve the problem of global warming -- on the contrary, it aggravates it. The biggest problem concerning fuels is not just oil -- it is, above all, the individual form of transportation promoted by financial capital to push for increased sales of cars on credit. They are transforming our cities into a hell.
This form of monoculture depletes natural resources, soil and groundwater, and affects the quality and location of water. Monoculture destroys biodiversity and upsets the environmental balance of the region.
Faced with this situation, social movements, assembled into Via Campesina of Brazil, resolved to unite and amplify their protests. In recent months, peasant protests multiplied in all states, against the model and operation of transnational corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, Syngenta, Bunge, Bayer, etc. These protests have served as a kind of pedagogy of masses -- a warning to Brazilian society that it must wake up given the gravity of the problem and its future implications.
The Response of Businesses. . . .
Foreign corporations and their Brazilian guard dogs are aware of the social and environmental problems that they are causing. Since they don't have right on their side in the way they dominate nature, they have resolved to confront the movements of Via Campesina by combining a variety of tactics. First, million-dollar PR campaigns featuring famous artists in the press. Second, right-wing sectors' manipulation of the judiciary and the Public Ministry, which stand by them ideologically, in order to criminalize, with many prosecutions, social movement leaders and activists. And where none of these solves the problem, resort to repression, particularly in the states ruled by right-wing parties such as Río Grande Do Sul,2 São Paulo, Rio, and Minas Gerais, where the state governments do not hesitate to use the military police to violently repress the movement.
It is nothing but self-deception to believe that this type of problem can be solved with PR or repression. This is a historic conflict between two ways of producing food. One seeks only profits, even at the cost of poisoning nature and its products. The other is geared to the production of healthy food as a right of all people. There will be many battles -- that is certain.
1 For the Brazilian model of agriculture, see Via Campesina Brazil, "Queremos producir alimentos" (We Want to Produce Food), , 10 June 2008.
2 In the State of Río Grande do Sul, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) faces powerful judicial persecution: the Public Ministry has come to seek its dissolution, and several militants of social movements have been prosecuted. See Frei Betto, "Suprimir el MST o el latifundio improductivo?" (Suppress the MST or the Unproductive Latifundium?), 8 July 2008.
João Pedro Stedile is a National Coordinator of Via Campesina Brazil. The original article in Portuguese, "O capital internacional esta dominando a agricultura brasileira," was published on the Web site of the Agencia Latinoamericana de Información on 29 July 2008 and the Spanish translation "El capital internacional está dominando la agricultura" appeared on 30 July 2008. English translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
by João Pedro Stedile
The Movement of Financial Capital
In recent years, there has been an intensive, continuous process of concentration and centralization of corporations operating and controlling the entire production process of global agriculture.
Concentration is the concept used in political economy to explain the movement of large corporations to combine, accumulate, and become large groups. Thus, in every sector of production, a situation of oligopoly is being created, with a few corporations controlling the sector. The second movement of capital is centralization, in which a single corporation comes to control several sectors of production, sometimes even the sectors unrelated to one another. These two logical movements of capital have been accompanied in the agricultural sector with a process of internationalization of control of the market and trade at the global level. In other words, some corporations have come to operate in every country and control the global market.
This dual movement of capital -- which was very much noticeable, from as far back as the theory of imperialism, in large industrial enterprises -- also came to dominate the agricultural sector in the last ten years. And what is most dangerous, now under the hegemony of financial capital, the velocity and volume of capital invested in agriculture were much faster and greater than had been the case in other productive sectors through the course of the twentieth century. That is because much capital in the form of money, i.e. financial capital, accumulated in rich countries in recent years. This capital was shifting to the purchase of shares in the most profitable corporations of the primary sector as well. Thus, in just a few years, as an effect of the investment of this financial capital in stock purchases, concentration and centralization became extraordinary.
Result
Today, almost all branches of agricultural production are controlled by groups of oligopolistic corporations, which coordinate among themselves. Thus, Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, Dreyfus, and Bunge alone are responsible for 80% of the total world production of and trade in grains such as soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and sunflowers. Monsanto, Novartis, Bayer, and Syngenta control the entire production of transgenic seeds. In the dairy products and derivatives sector we come up against Nestlé, Dannon, and Parmalat. Here in Brazil, the entire production of raw materials for fertilizers is controlled by just three transnational corporations: Bunge, Mosaic, and Yara. Only two corporations, Monsanto and Nortox, produce glyphosate, a raw material for agricultural pesticides. AGCO, Fiat, New Holland, etc. oligopolize the agricultural machinery sector.
This movement, which had begun to develop in the 1990s, accelerated in the past two years with the crisis of capitalism in the United States. Interest rates in the core countries fell to an annual rate of 2% and, given the inflation rate, reached the point where banks would lose money. Then, financial capital shifted to the periphery of the system to protect itself from the crisis and maintain its profit rates. Over the past two years, nearly 330 billion dollars of money poured into Brazil. A part of that capital was invested through local banks, to encourage the buying of real estate, household appliances, and cars on credit, at the average annual rates of 47%. Sheer madness, compared with the rates in developed countries.
Another part of capital was destined to the purchase of lands. One report in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper estimated that foreign capital bought more than 20 million hectares in recent years, especially in the midwest regions and the new agricultural frontier of the so-called Ma-pi-to (Maranhão, Piauí, and Tocantis), where land prices were much lower. Yet another part headed to the Amazon in search of mining areas, hydroelectric projects, and possession of huge areas of biodiversity which later will bear fruit if they are exploited by their laboratories.
In the cellulose sector, three large groups -- Aracruz (Norway), Stora Enzo (Sweden-Finland), and International Paper (US) -- moved their entire production to the rich soil and climatic conditions found in Brazil. So, the expansion of eucalyptus monoculture throughout the region stretching from Bahía in the south to the Uruguay border and six new factories are being planned. Thousands of hectares of industrial eucalyptus plantations will destroy everything, creating a veritable green desert.
Likewise, there was a major investment of foreign capital in the expansion of sugarcane monoculture for ethanol production and export. The sugarcane area increased from 4 to 6 million hectares. There are 77 projects for new ethanol plants, which will be built along four major alcohol pipelines projected to transport alcohol from the midwest to the ports of Santos and Paranaguá and from the Palmas region (Tocantins State) to the port of São Luis (in Maranhão State). Two of these alcohol pipelines are owned by Petrobras and the other two will be owned by foreign investors.
Foreign capital also speeded up its investment in the production and multiplication of transgenic seeds, especially maize. Hence Syngenta, Monsanto, and Bayer are lobbying and pressuring the government to allow their varieties of GM corn. Some of these varieties are banned in Europe, but here . . . anything goes!
Agribusiness
This avalanche of foreign capital to control our agricultural production and inputs and to expand production for export was made possible only by the alliance of the aforementioned corporations and the big landowners. The landowners with large tracts of land are getting in on the action as subordinate associates of big corporations, plundering the environment, overexploiting agricultural labor, and sometimes even using slave labor.
This agricultural model, which is called agribusiness, is the marriage of transnationals and big landowners. In it there is no room for peasant family agriculture or agricultural labor, for it uses herbicides and high-tech mechanization at all levels.1
The result is already visible in statistics. Brazil is turning toward large-scale monoculture for export. A kind of agro-export re-colonization, reminiscent of the days of empire. Of the 130 million tons of grain produced, no less than 110 million tons are just soybeans and corn. In cattle production, 300 million hectares are for export production. And what's left is an immense green desert of eucalyptuses. That's the Brazilian model! It will be profitable to some landowners and a few foreign corporations. But the Brazilian people will be left with environmental liability, unemployment, and poverty.
Contradictions Emerge Rapidly
The contradictions of this perverse model come to the surface quickly. Food prices soared, as a result of financial capital's speculation at the stock exchanges and oligopolistic corporate control of the market. The dollar prices of food doubled over the past year. Food is increasingly contaminated by the intensive use of pesticides. Agribusiness fails to produce healthy food, without herbicides. Only peasant family farming succeeds in doing so. The intensive production of ethanol through sugarcane monoculture does not solve the problem of global warming -- on the contrary, it aggravates it. The biggest problem concerning fuels is not just oil -- it is, above all, the individual form of transportation promoted by financial capital to push for increased sales of cars on credit. They are transforming our cities into a hell.
This form of monoculture depletes natural resources, soil and groundwater, and affects the quality and location of water. Monoculture destroys biodiversity and upsets the environmental balance of the region.
Faced with this situation, social movements, assembled into Via Campesina of Brazil, resolved to unite and amplify their protests. In recent months, peasant protests multiplied in all states, against the model and operation of transnational corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, Syngenta, Bunge, Bayer, etc. These protests have served as a kind of pedagogy of masses -- a warning to Brazilian society that it must wake up given the gravity of the problem and its future implications.
The Response of Businesses. . . .
Foreign corporations and their Brazilian guard dogs are aware of the social and environmental problems that they are causing. Since they don't have right on their side in the way they dominate nature, they have resolved to confront the movements of Via Campesina by combining a variety of tactics. First, million-dollar PR campaigns featuring famous artists in the press. Second, right-wing sectors' manipulation of the judiciary and the Public Ministry, which stand by them ideologically, in order to criminalize, with many prosecutions, social movement leaders and activists. And where none of these solves the problem, resort to repression, particularly in the states ruled by right-wing parties such as Río Grande Do Sul,2 São Paulo, Rio, and Minas Gerais, where the state governments do not hesitate to use the military police to violently repress the movement.
It is nothing but self-deception to believe that this type of problem can be solved with PR or repression. This is a historic conflict between two ways of producing food. One seeks only profits, even at the cost of poisoning nature and its products. The other is geared to the production of healthy food as a right of all people. There will be many battles -- that is certain.
1 For the Brazilian model of agriculture, see Via Campesina Brazil, "Queremos producir alimentos" (We Want to Produce Food), , 10 June 2008.
2 In the State of Río Grande do Sul, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) faces powerful judicial persecution: the Public Ministry has come to seek its dissolution, and several militants of social movements have been prosecuted. See Frei Betto, "Suprimir el MST o el latifundio improductivo?" (Suppress the MST or the Unproductive Latifundium?), 8 July 2008.
João Pedro Stedile is a National Coordinator of Via Campesina Brazil. The original article in Portuguese, "O capital internacional esta dominando a agricultura brasileira," was published on the Web site of the Agencia Latinoamericana de Información on 29 July 2008 and the Spanish translation "El capital internacional está dominando la agricultura" appeared on 30 July 2008. English translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Petrobras
If you spend it (money), you'll find it (oil), pace peak oil theorists. Take Petrobras, "the third biggest company in the Americas by market value, surpassing American outfit Microsoft, and the world’s sixth biggest based on the same criterion":
If the US power elite were motivated by the fear of oil demand outstripping oil supply, one of the smart capitalist things to do would be to create their own national oil company on the model of Petrobras, rather than engaging in the imperialism of fools that is their Middle East policy.
1 Excited by a spate of big oil finds, Brazil, too, may be soon following the path of resource nationalism, however: Bernd Radowitz, "Oil Finds Reportedly Prompt Brazil to Consider Changing Energy-sector Rules," MarketWatch, 18 April 2008.
. . . Petrobras is ramping up its deep-water drilling capacity at a furious pace. This week, the company, which has already leased about 80% of the world fleet of vessels capable of drilling in deep water, announced plans to lease 40 more drilling vessels and semi-submersible oil platforms starting in 2017. Petrobras also has announced that it will hire 14,000 more workers and set up a new management division for drilling through salt. (John Lyons and David Luhnow, "New Find Fuels Speculation Brazil Will Be a Power in Oil," Wall Street Journal, 23 May 2008, B1)If maximizing oil investment and future oil output were the goal, a pro-capitalist1 state enterprise of a nation whose economy is not dependent on oil export, like Petrobras (32% state-owned), combining the advantages of state and capital, would likely find it easier to achieve it than both oil majors (which would rather spend profits on stock buybacks than exploration and development) and the national oil companies of such populist oil states as Iran and Venezuela (which tend to massively subsidize domestic energy consumption and often employ more workers than strict business calculations would allow).
If the US power elite were motivated by the fear of oil demand outstripping oil supply, one of the smart capitalist things to do would be to create their own national oil company on the model of Petrobras, rather than engaging in the imperialism of fools that is their Middle East policy.
1 Excited by a spate of big oil finds, Brazil, too, may be soon following the path of resource nationalism, however: Bernd Radowitz, "Oil Finds Reportedly Prompt Brazil to Consider Changing Energy-sector Rules," MarketWatch, 18 April 2008.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A Victory for Hezbollah
Washington leaned on "Lebanon's governing coalition" to disarm Hizballah, just as it pushed the "Iraqi government" to disarm the Mahdi Army. Both moves failed to achieve their goals -- more spectacularly in the case of Lebanon:
Politics is more ambiguous in Brazil, India, Turkey, and South Africa, the key nations in their respective regions, whose popular classes have hitherto backed the parties that have played both sides of the game. These are the key swing votes determining the fate of socialists in Latin America and Islamo-Leninists in the Shia crescent.
Lebanon’s governing coalition on Wednesday night formally reversed two decisions that had provoked the militant group Hezbollah, bringing the country a step closer to resolving the week-old political crisis that set off the worst factional violence since the nation's 15-year civil war.Washington has trouble winning in the so-called Shia crescent, as well as in Latin America, because the nature of its imperial project compels it to ally only with the pro-American, upper-class factions against organizations based in lower classes.
The announcement was made after a day of intensive meetings between Lebanese leaders and an Arab diplomatic delegation led by the foreign minister of Qatar. Rescinding the decisions was a victory for Hezbollah, the Shiite group backed by Syria and Iran that has been trying to wrest more political power from the government. After it was announced, shortly after 11 p.m., loud bursts of celebratory gunfire echoed across the city for almost an hour from Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s stronghold.
Lebanon’s information minister, Ghazi Aridi, said the cabinet reversed the two decisions -- which challenged the militant group’s private telephone network and the job of a Hezbollah ally who directs airport security -- "in view of the higher national interest." (Robert F. Worth, Lebanon Reverses Decisions That Prompted Violence," New York Times, 15 May 2008)
Politics is more ambiguous in Brazil, India, Turkey, and South Africa, the key nations in their respective regions, whose popular classes have hitherto backed the parties that have played both sides of the game. These are the key swing votes determining the fate of socialists in Latin America and Islamo-Leninists in the Shia crescent.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Interview with Bolivian Vice President García
Interview with Bolivian Vice President García:
"Brazil and Argentina's Support Restrained Adventurists' Plans in Bolivia"
by Pablo Stefanoni
Evo Morales' Vice President believes that regional backing neutralized the most radical sectors among secessionists.
The 10oC "summer" weather in Bolivia's capital city is strongly felt in Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera's house, which has no heating, like nearly all the houses in La Paz.
For almost an hour we went over the conjuncture of a week of uncertain negotiations between the government and opposition, in search of an anxiously awaited national accord. "The media inflate political tension," he said.
Clarín: Is a political accord close?
Álvaro García Linera (AGL): On the part of the government there is an open, frank, and determined search for an accord. We have demonstrated great flexibility and broadmindedness regarding the issue of the distribution of the hydrocarbon taxes and the reopening of discussion on the new constitutional text in order to correct errors and see how we can make it compatible with the sensible proposals of regional autonomy. But there are opposition sectors that are reluctant to accept this.
Clarín: Not long ago you spoke of a "point of bifurcation." How do you negotiate in these conditions?
AGL: I took the idea from the Nobel physicist Ilya Prigogine, the idea of an order arising out of chaos. A system can evolve towards one of two possibilities: it can return to the original state of equilibrium (in the political terrain, to the old state) or else it begins to self-organize until it constitutes a new structure.
A point of bifurcation is a point of tension between forces, which in 1952 occurred in the form of a civil war. In 2008, President Evo Morales is wagering on resolving it by the ballot box (a constitutional and revocation referendum) and an agreed-upon solution.
Clarín: And if no accord is reached, how tense could the situation become?
AGL: It is difficult to predict. But some are betting on regionalized entrenchment, violating laws with a de facto autonomy by means of an illegal referendum. And if they accompany this with the occupation of institutions, they will enter into the path of illegality without exit. If that is the case, the government will use the constitutional means available to guarantee institutionality.
Clarín: There has been even talk of civil war -- do you consider it possible?
AGL: It was thought that on 15 December [when the four eastern departments declared autonomy] the civil war would erupt. The media greatly inflate political tension. Stop watching the media for a week, and you can size up the real dimension of the confrontation.
Today there is a common sense, whether you are from the Left or the Right, about the protagonist role of the state in economy, redistribution of wealth, equality between peoples, and decentralization and autonomy. There are a national project and regionalized resistances. There are no longer two national projects. In this process of replacement of elites, those who used to have national power are today bunkering down in the regions.
Clarín: Could secessionist ideas tempt some radical rightist groups?
AGL: There is a democratic right wing and a fascist right wing that burn houses, draw up blacklists. . . . Within the authoritarian Right, there are small minority groups of a secessionist character, with a desperate intent to preserve their privileges. They don't constitute a real danger, but they are there.
Clarín: Do they have influence on regional governors?
AGL: Yes, but a very marginal influence.
Clarín: On what must Santa Cruz yield?
AGL: People voted for autonomy in the referendum, but the statute establishes a federal and more than federal regime. They must respect what was voted on 2 July 2006.
Clarín: How do you evaluate the importance of regional support for the stability of Bolivia?
AGL: Very important. Brazil and Argentina, and also Chile, gave a very strong message of support for democracy and hope in the transformations. I believe that this has temporarily neutralized the most extremist sectors that perhaps thought they could find some external support for their adventurist plans. The signal was very clear.
Clarín: Does the recent change in the commander of the armed forces have any significance?
AGL: Institutionally, this is meant to occur after the second year. This is the first military general staff in decades that has resulted from observance of the norms. The rotation between forces is custom and usage of the armed forces, and we have respected it by naming a member of the air force.
Clarín: Does the government have confidence in the institutional fidelity of the armed forces?
AGL: Definitely.
The interview originally appeared in the 13 January 2008 issue of Clarín. Translation by Federico Fuentes and Yoshie Furuhashi.
"Brazil and Argentina's Support Restrained Adventurists' Plans in Bolivia"
by Pablo Stefanoni
Evo Morales' Vice President believes that regional backing neutralized the most radical sectors among secessionists.
The 10oC "summer" weather in Bolivia's capital city is strongly felt in Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera's house, which has no heating, like nearly all the houses in La Paz.
For almost an hour we went over the conjuncture of a week of uncertain negotiations between the government and opposition, in search of an anxiously awaited national accord. "The media inflate political tension," he said.
Clarín: Is a political accord close?
Álvaro García Linera (AGL): On the part of the government there is an open, frank, and determined search for an accord. We have demonstrated great flexibility and broadmindedness regarding the issue of the distribution of the hydrocarbon taxes and the reopening of discussion on the new constitutional text in order to correct errors and see how we can make it compatible with the sensible proposals of regional autonomy. But there are opposition sectors that are reluctant to accept this.
Clarín: Not long ago you spoke of a "point of bifurcation." How do you negotiate in these conditions?
AGL: I took the idea from the Nobel physicist Ilya Prigogine, the idea of an order arising out of chaos. A system can evolve towards one of two possibilities: it can return to the original state of equilibrium (in the political terrain, to the old state) or else it begins to self-organize until it constitutes a new structure.
A point of bifurcation is a point of tension between forces, which in 1952 occurred in the form of a civil war. In 2008, President Evo Morales is wagering on resolving it by the ballot box (a constitutional and revocation referendum) and an agreed-upon solution.
Clarín: And if no accord is reached, how tense could the situation become?
AGL: It is difficult to predict. But some are betting on regionalized entrenchment, violating laws with a de facto autonomy by means of an illegal referendum. And if they accompany this with the occupation of institutions, they will enter into the path of illegality without exit. If that is the case, the government will use the constitutional means available to guarantee institutionality.
Clarín: There has been even talk of civil war -- do you consider it possible?
AGL: It was thought that on 15 December [when the four eastern departments declared autonomy] the civil war would erupt. The media greatly inflate political tension. Stop watching the media for a week, and you can size up the real dimension of the confrontation.
Today there is a common sense, whether you are from the Left or the Right, about the protagonist role of the state in economy, redistribution of wealth, equality between peoples, and decentralization and autonomy. There are a national project and regionalized resistances. There are no longer two national projects. In this process of replacement of elites, those who used to have national power are today bunkering down in the regions.
Clarín: Could secessionist ideas tempt some radical rightist groups?
AGL: There is a democratic right wing and a fascist right wing that burn houses, draw up blacklists. . . . Within the authoritarian Right, there are small minority groups of a secessionist character, with a desperate intent to preserve their privileges. They don't constitute a real danger, but they are there.
Clarín: Do they have influence on regional governors?
AGL: Yes, but a very marginal influence.
Clarín: On what must Santa Cruz yield?
AGL: People voted for autonomy in the referendum, but the statute establishes a federal and more than federal regime. They must respect what was voted on 2 July 2006.
Clarín: How do you evaluate the importance of regional support for the stability of Bolivia?
AGL: Very important. Brazil and Argentina, and also Chile, gave a very strong message of support for democracy and hope in the transformations. I believe that this has temporarily neutralized the most extremist sectors that perhaps thought they could find some external support for their adventurist plans. The signal was very clear.
Clarín: Does the recent change in the commander of the armed forces have any significance?
AGL: Institutionally, this is meant to occur after the second year. This is the first military general staff in decades that has resulted from observance of the norms. The rotation between forces is custom and usage of the armed forces, and we have respected it by naming a member of the air force.
Clarín: Does the government have confidence in the institutional fidelity of the armed forces?
AGL: Definitely.
The interview originally appeared in the 13 January 2008 issue of Clarín. Translation by Federico Fuentes and Yoshie Furuhashi.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Rumsfeld in Brasília and Buenos Aires
Donald Rumsfeld courts Brazil and Argentina, praising their contributions to regional "security" and "stability" and lobbying them to contain Venezuela.
What is more important, in response to Washington's attempt to attack Venezuela through Colombia (using such means as the abduction of Rodrigo Granda), Brazil, as well as Spain, played the role of mediators: Humberto Márquez, "Politically Disparate Leaders Find Common Cause" (Inter Press Service 29 Mar. 2005); and Humberto Márquez, "New Four-Country Alliance Emerges at Summit" (Inter Press Service 29 Mar. 2005). Granted, multilateral regionalism is more beneficial to Brazilian and Spanish capitalists than Colombian and Venezuelan masses in the short term -- "While they helped bring about a diplomatic solution to the conflict, the left-wing governments in Brazil and Spain negotiated arms sales to both Colombia and Venezuela" (Márquez, "New Four-Country Alliance . . . ," 29 Mar. 2005) -- but that may be the price they must pay to keep Washington from sabotaging the political and economic integration of Latin America.
Indeed, after the US-backed coup that overthrew the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, Brasília and Buenos Aires sent in troops to "keep the peace in Haiti," i.e., to keep the "Haitian Intifada" in check.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (R) shake hands with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before their meeting at Planato Palace in Brasilia, March 23, 2005. Rumsfeld is in Brazil for brief 24-hour official visit to discuss regional security and a law allowing Brazil's government to shoot down drug trafficking aircraft. (Jamil Bittar/Reuters)
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (R) and his Argentine counterpart Jose Pampuro review an honor guard at the Ministry Defense building in Buenos Aires, March 22, 2005. Rumsfeld and Pampuro discussed the possibility of restarting combined military exercises, the radar network installation plan in the country's main airports and Argentina's role in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti. (Enrique Marcarian/Reuters)
Leftists in Brazil and Argentina naturally greeted Rumsfeld with protests:
U.N. Brazilian peacekeepers checks civilians as they surround a stronghold of ex-soldiers on the road in Terre Rouge, Haiti, Monday, March 21, 2005. (Ariana Cubillos/AP)
UN soldier from Argentina searches two men at a checkpoint in Gonaives. Two soldiers serving with UN forces in Haiti, one from Sri Lanka and one from Nepal, have been killed during separate security operations. (Thony Belizaire/AFP)
Mourners attend the funeral of three men, including two allegedly shot to death by police during a Feb. 28 protest to mark the first anniversary of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in right poster, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday March. 18, 2005. The poster at center shows jailed former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. (Rood Cherry/AP)
Supporters of the ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide march through the streets calling for his return and to mark the 18th anniversary of the ratification of Haiti's 1987 constitution in Bel-Air a slum in Port-au-Prince in Haiti,Tuesday, March,29, 2005.(Ariana Cubillos/AP)
Supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide yell 'Aristide or death' during a remonstration of several thousand of his supporters on March 29, 2005, the 18th anniversary of the country's constitution, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where the called for Aristide's return. (Daniel Morel/Reuters)
The record of MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, in light of human rights and international law is a disaster, unequivocally condemned in a new report co-authored by the Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Centro de Justiça Global, a Brazilian human rights organization:
Effigies of US President George W. Bush (news - web sites), right, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are seen during an anti-war protest in downtown Sao Paulo for the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion on Iraq (news - web sites), Brazil, Saturday, March 19, 2005. The banner on the left reeds 'Brazilian troops out of Haiti.' (Alexandre Meneghini/AP)
Left-wing militants and members of human rights organizations burn a US flag in protest at the arrival in Argentina of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld arrived to hold talks with his Argentine counterpart on the situation in troubled Haiti and Washington's concerns over shoulder fired missiles in Central America. (Pablo Cuarterolo/APF)
In the eight months since the U.N. peacekeeping troops disembarked in Haiti, . . . they have failed to uphold either the letter or the spirit of their mandate, as prescribed in Security Council Resolution 1542. Despite one of the strongest human rights mandates in the history of U.N. peacekeeping operations, MINUSTAH has not effectively investigated or reported human rights abuses; nor has it protected human rights advocates. Charged to train and reform the Haitian National Police, MINUSTAH instead has provided unquestioning support to police operations that have resulted in warrantless arrests and detentions, unintended civilian casualties and deliberate extrajudicial killings. (Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Centro de Justiça Global, "Keeping the Peace in Haiti? An Assessment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti Using Compliance with Its Prescribed Mandate as a Barometer for Success," March 2005, p. 48)What prompted Brasília to take the leading role in MINUSTAH? Brasília is motivated by its ambition to bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, the bid that it believes is supported by Washington:
Brasília says recent US and French support for Japan's permanent membership on the Security Council was a promising sign for its own bid. "It means they are backing the 'group of four'," says a foreign ministry spokesman, referring to Japan, Germany, Brazil and India, who back each other's candidacies.At the same time, walking a "diplomatic tightrope," Lula has drawn a line: "Brazil’s President Lula Defends Venezuela’s Right to Sovereignty" (Venezuelanalysis.com 30 Mar. 2005). And so has Néstor Kirchner.
Brazil also believes backing Japan indicates the US and France support proposal "A" for adding six new permanent members and three non-permanent members to the Security Council. (Raymond Colitt, "Brazil Steps Up Drive for Seat on Security Council," Financial Times 29 Mar. 2005)
What is more important, in response to Washington's attempt to attack Venezuela through Colombia (using such means as the abduction of Rodrigo Granda), Brazil, as well as Spain, played the role of mediators: Humberto Márquez, "Politically Disparate Leaders Find Common Cause" (Inter Press Service 29 Mar. 2005); and Humberto Márquez, "New Four-Country Alliance Emerges at Summit" (Inter Press Service 29 Mar. 2005). Granted, multilateral regionalism is more beneficial to Brazilian and Spanish capitalists than Colombian and Venezuelan masses in the short term -- "While they helped bring about a diplomatic solution to the conflict, the left-wing governments in Brazil and Spain negotiated arms sales to both Colombia and Venezuela" (Márquez, "New Four-Country Alliance . . . ," 29 Mar. 2005) -- but that may be the price they must pay to keep Washington from sabotaging the political and economic integration of Latin America.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Argentina and Brazil: Regaining Sovereignty
Good news for Argentina. Judge Thomas Griesa sided with Argentina, lifting "a freeze on $7 billion in bonds" challenged by NML Capital Ltd. (Erin McClam/Associated Press, "Judge Sides with Argentina in Debt Case," BusinessWeek 29 Mar. 2005). It's not all over yet, as the judge "stayed his own order until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can review it" (McClam, 29 Mar. 2005). Argentina’s government, however, "said it was pleased with the ruling," so it must have a good reason to believe that it will gain "a quick and favorable verdict from the Appeals Court" (Reuters, "Argentine Bonds Unfrozen But Held for Appeal," Financial Times 30 Mar. 2005).
Larry Elliott said earlier that "[t]hree things worked in Argentina's favour" in bargaining with creditors: "Firstly, [Nestor] Kirchner's hand was strengthened by the good performance of the economy. Secondly, the IMF was heavily exposed and knew that any deal was better than no deal. Finally, Wall Street had moved out of Argentina before the crisis, and it was the European banks which were left holding the baby. The US treasury was therefore under no real pressure to take a tough line with Argentina, and was apprehensive that Kirchner might forge a powerful populist front with president Lula of Brazil" (Larry Elliott, "Who Needs the Hand of God?" The Guardian 7 Mar. 2005). Judge Griesa's ruling in favor of Argentina, too, is probably due to the same three reasons that Elliott explains above.
Meanwhile, Brazil declared that it would "not renew a $41.75 billion loan accord with the International Monetary Fund when it expires this month, braving global financial markets on its own for the first time since 1998" (Andrew Hay, "Brazil to End IMF Support for First Time since '98," Reuters 28 Mar. 2005). More symbolic than anything else, since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, assuming office in January 2003, "raised budget surplus goals above those stipulated by the IMF accord and renewed the deal for an extra 15 months in November 2003" (emphasis added, Hay, 28 Mar 2005) and, even without the IMF, "[t]he [Brazilian] government would maintain its current primary budget surplus target of 4.25 per cent of gross domestic product" and "continue to pursue the structural reform agenda it announced late last year," according to Finance Miniser Antonio Palocci (Raymond Colitt, "Brazil Ends $40bn IMF Loan Accord," Financial Times 29 Mar. 2005)? Nevertheless, the decision creates a political opening for the left, as the government can no longer say that the IMF made it do it when it confronts oppositions to its own neoliberal policy.
The rest of the world now has three precedents of defaults -- Russia, Brazil, and Argentina -- followed by economic recovery. According to Prensa Latina:
Larry Elliott said earlier that "[t]hree things worked in Argentina's favour" in bargaining with creditors: "Firstly, [Nestor] Kirchner's hand was strengthened by the good performance of the economy. Secondly, the IMF was heavily exposed and knew that any deal was better than no deal. Finally, Wall Street had moved out of Argentina before the crisis, and it was the European banks which were left holding the baby. The US treasury was therefore under no real pressure to take a tough line with Argentina, and was apprehensive that Kirchner might forge a powerful populist front with president Lula of Brazil" (Larry Elliott, "Who Needs the Hand of God?" The Guardian 7 Mar. 2005). Judge Griesa's ruling in favor of Argentina, too, is probably due to the same three reasons that Elliott explains above.
Meanwhile, Brazil declared that it would "not renew a $41.75 billion loan accord with the International Monetary Fund when it expires this month, braving global financial markets on its own for the first time since 1998" (Andrew Hay, "Brazil to End IMF Support for First Time since '98," Reuters 28 Mar. 2005). More symbolic than anything else, since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, assuming office in January 2003, "raised budget surplus goals above those stipulated by the IMF accord and renewed the deal for an extra 15 months in November 2003" (emphasis added, Hay, 28 Mar 2005) and, even without the IMF, "[t]he [Brazilian] government would maintain its current primary budget surplus target of 4.25 per cent of gross domestic product" and "continue to pursue the structural reform agenda it announced late last year," according to Finance Miniser Antonio Palocci (Raymond Colitt, "Brazil Ends $40bn IMF Loan Accord," Financial Times 29 Mar. 2005)? Nevertheless, the decision creates a political opening for the left, as the government can no longer say that the IMF made it do it when it confronts oppositions to its own neoliberal policy.
The rest of the world now has three precedents of defaults -- Russia, Brazil, and Argentina -- followed by economic recovery. According to Prensa Latina:
Mexico praised Brazil and Argentina for effectively negotiating their debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and drawing a line against abusive economic policies.With sovereignty -- i.e. national governments taking "social needs into their own hands" -- comes political responsibility. Enemigos (published in October 2004) -- Argentine journalist Ernesto Tenembaum's interview with former director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department Claudio Loser -- has been a bestseller in Argentina.
La Jornada daily said that despite differences both countries turned into a powerful weapon by pleading defaults of 28 and 3.1 billion US dollars respectively.
The daily claims they have set a key precedent for Latin America to successfully stay sovereign by taking their social needs into their own hands despite huge debts with the IMF. ("Brazil and Argentina Praised for IMF Dealings," 30 Mar. 2005)
In the next economic turmoil, whom will Argentines and Brazilians see as their primary enemy?
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