Netpicks September 2019

Understanding Latin America

Selected food for thought about Latin America. Every month we trawl the web for in-depth analysis, research summaries and opinions we think particularly worth reading, and that you won’t find in the mainstream media.

As part of this month’s offering, you’ll find articles on: the negotiations between the Maduro government and the opposition in Venezuela; the defeat of the Macri government in the primaries, and the economy, in Argentina; the return to the past signified by the election of authoritarian conservative Alejandro Giammattei as President of Guatemala; two appreciations of the causes of the dramatic fires in the Brazilian Amazon; and an article about the new rise of right wing regimes in Latin America.

VENEZUELANS

“WHAT IS AT PLAY IN THE DIALOGUE IS OF INTEREST TO ALL VENEZUELANS”: RECTOR VIRTUOSO*

After months of negotiations between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition, President Maduro, who admits to have been involved in ‘secret’ negotiations with the US, abandoned the process. Maduro questions the opposition’s ability, in the case of agreement, to guarantee the lifting of the sanctions imposed by the U.S., and is apparently seeking the participation of that country in the negotiations, something that at this point in time seems unlikely. However, there is a possibility that the negotiations could continue under a different format. On August 23^rd a coalition of various sectors of Venezuelan society called for a continuation of the negotiations, urging all sides to find a solution and put an end to the country’s political and humanitarian crisis.

*José Virtuoso, Rector of the Catholic University Andrés Bello. Newsbeezer, 24^th August 2019, https://newsbeezer.com/venezulaeng/what-is-played-in-the-dialogue-interests-all-venezuelans-rector-virtuoso/

MACRI’S

MACRI’S YELLOW BALLOONS

Neither the return of Ex-President Cristina Fernandez or the fall of present President Mauricio Macri could be called a surprise, but the margin of victory of Ex-President Fernandez (now vice presidential candidate for this October’s elections) in the August primaries certainly was. The margin of 15 percentage points over Macri stirred a great deal of debate, and for most observers, barring a miracle, will represent a gulf impossible to bridge in the elections proper. Cristina Fernandez and her namesake Presidential Candidate, Alberto Fernandez, a one-time ally turned critic, are understandably acting as if they were already installed. In the meantime, Macri has hardly helped his cause by trying to blame everything on his predecessor and stating that, despite a 50 billion dollar plus IMF loan, Argentina is not in a position to honor its debts, and is therefore seeking to extend the country’s schedule of payments. How Macri managed to bury himself, and the country, and how Cristina Fernandez managed to resurrect herself, is the subject of this article by Graciela Monteagudo.

NACLA, 22^nd August 2019. https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/22/macri%E2%80%99s-yellow-balloons

GUATEMALA

IN GUATEMALA, OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE OLDER

Four years after the euphoria of the popular demonstrations that forced the departure of President Otto Molina, accused of corruption scams, the country’s population appears to be back where it started. Molina’s successor, Jimmy Morales, a comedian with no political experience whose election campaign was supported by a group of ex-military accused of crimes during the country’s 1980’s civil war, was no better. Morales turned out to be a right wing demagogue who was also involved in corruption scams, one including both his brother and son. Adding insult to injury, Morales not only expelled the UN anti-corruption commission from the country, but also signed the highly unpopular ‘Safe Third Country’ agreement with the United States, which will set up the country to receive deported asylum seekers from El Salvador and Honduras. Morales own successor, the four times candidate hard line conservative Alejandro Giammattei, who was finally elected on August 11^th, is a twenty year  political veteran, ex-director of the country’s prison system, and closely linked to military and business groups, credentials that hardly make him the ideal candidate to turn things around in a country awash with drug money and war criminals; he has, however, questioned the Third Country Agreement.

Vaclav Masek, NACLA, 12th August 2019 https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/12/guatemala-out-old-olderen-guatemala-los-dinosaurios-siguen-vivos

BRAZIL

THERE’S NO DOUBT THAT BRAZIL’S FIRES ARE LINKED TO DEFORESTATION, SCIENTISTS SAY. AMAZON FIRES ARE BOLSONARO’S POLITICAL CRIMES AND CALL FOR URGENT ACTION

The evidence is clear:deforestation is one of the major factors in the increase of the wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon. The Global Fire Emissions Database project, which includes NASA scientists, has registered double the amount of fires this year compared to last (41,000 – 22.000), the highest number since a drought ridden 2010; the dry season this year has been mild. A telling statistic is that the 10 municipalities with the highest level of deforestation this year, also register the highest number of fires; the fires are set by farmers ‘cleaning’ deforested land in order to turn it into pasture. Deforestation is also clearly on the rise in Brasil; according to the National Institute for Space Research, INPE , from January to the beginning of August some 6,800 square kilometers were cleared: 50% more than in the same period in 2018. A declaration published by the Political Ecology Working Group of Latin American Social Science Council (CLACSO), and signed by academics and researchers from 50 universities in Brasil, Europe and Latin America, calls the fires are extreme acts of human barbarism, threatening not only the forest but also peoples, cultures and species. The group lays the blame at the feet of Jair Bolsonaro, who since assuming the presidency of his country has promoted the removal of environmental regulations and indigenous people’s rights, thus encouraging environmental crimes and the consequent destruction of the Amazon.

Herton Escobar, Science, August 26^th https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/theres-no-doubt-brazils-fires-are-caused-deforestation-scientists-say and CLACSO Political Ecology Working Group, People’s Tribune, August 27^th http://www.peoplestribune.org/latest-news/2019/08/27/amazon-fires-political-crime/

LATIN AMERICA

WHAT THE NEW RIGHT WING BRINGS TO LATIN AMERICA

In this article, Maristella Svampa analizes the new rise right wing regimes in the region and their repercussions in regional and geopolitical terms. She diferenciate between a Neoliberal Right, updated with a neoconservative or post-political approach, and a emerging Radical Authoritarian Right. Svampa also speculates on what elements of the now defunct progressive cycle, may have paved the way for the type of right wing regimes we now see in the region. She views polarization, which was one of the tactics of progressive high intensity populism, as having a role in opening the door to both neoliberal conservative and authoritarian radical right regimes.  She concludes that we must stand by and mobilize democratic social forces more than ever, especially those that seek to open new horizons of social and environmental justice, that spur on the propagation of new rights, and that fight reactionary and anti-egalitarian ideologies.

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, August 2019. https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication/id/40900/what-the-rights-bring-to-the-latin-american-region/