One of the more important developments globally over the last several years has been the movement of South America away from US hegemony and toward the left. In his online radio commentary, Rahul Mahajan points out that even the usually compliant OAS (Organization of American States) is starting to openly reject U.S. plans for the region. On Sunday, Condoleezza Rice addressed the OAS General Assembly, proposing the creation of a committee to hold accountable "leaders who are elected democratically" to make sure that they exercise their "responsibility to govern democratically." Rice stated that the OAS needs to be able to better respond to "fragile democracies" in South America, a statement understood to mean the Chavez government in Venezuela. Chavez responded with his usual forthrightness, pointing out that "If there is any government that should be monitored by the OAS, then it should be the US government." The OAS rejected Rice's proposal for a permanent committee to "monitor the exercise of democracy in the hemisphere."
In response to this development, Bush traveled to Florida to address the OAS. In his speech he spent a large amount of time promoting the benefits of "free trade", particularly the impending Central American Free Trade Agreement. Bush also noted that next week Honduras will sign a Millennium Challenge compact for a $215 million program that will help Honduran farmers grow better crops", and to build highways for the benefit of "opening markets."
Although partly due to the US being overextended globally, this leftward swing in South America is primarily due to ordinary people's discontent with, and rejection of, the "neo-liberal' economic model forced on most of the Americas over the last two decades. In an interesting piece on CounterPunch, James Petras discusses the Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America. In the article he notes that;
An article by Gustavo Gonzalez points out that the U.S. is using the "War on Terror" to target indigenous people in Latin America. Considering that many of the peasant based social justice movements in the Americas are composed of indigenous peoples, along with the US's sordid history of oppressing it's own indigenous population, it is hardly surprising that the U.S. would seek to target indigenous peoples throughout the hemisphere. According to the new report "Global Trends 2020 - Mapping the Global Future" study by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), growing indigenous activism in Latin America and Islamic radicalism are both depicted as threats to the security and hegemony of the United States. As these peasant and indigenous movements continue to successfully challenge US corporate domination in througout Central and South America, it is almost certain that the US will attempt to characterize these people as "terrorists" in order to justify US actions against these popular movements.
A careful analysis of the peasant movement experience over the past 25 years with different political strategies leads me to the conclusion that direct action methods have been far more effective and positive than electoral strategies in securing short and medium term peasant goals, regardless of the stated 'formal' identity of the electoral party.
On the other hand when the movements relied on electoral 'center-left' politicians, the results were wholly negative: In Brazil, the MST (Rural Landless Workers Movement), under the Lula regime, witnessed a significant decline in land expropriations, increased pressure from and displacements by agro-export elites and high levels of repression.
