I was pleased to join 12 past
presidents and more than 200 members of
the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in signing a letter to
Barack Obama urging him, as president, to respect and support the
movements for progressive change in Latin America. We also called on
him to dramatically reform U.S. policies toward the region.
Why were we so concerned? For most of the 20th century, the United
States was the preponderant power in Latin America; after the end of
the Cold War, it was the sole power. During the late 1980s and early
1990s, the United States pushed and prodded Latin America to the
adoption of what was called "the Washington Consensus" — namely, free
markets and neoliberalism. In most countries, the result was a further
concentration of wealth in an already severely unequal region and
frequent financial crises — but disappointing economic growth.
At the same time, however, Latin America's democracies were becoming
more robust. Gradually, movements representing indigenous peoples and
the poor began to help elect leftist leaders who sought to develop
alternative economic models: Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998;
Evo
Morales in Bolivia in 2005; Rafael Correa in Ecuador in 2006; and
Fernando Lugo in Paraguay in 2008. A particular goal was to secure the
benefits of natural-resource wealth for citizens. Additionally,
presidents such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and
Michelle
Bachelet in Chile didn't reject neoliberalism outright but were much
more committed than their predecessors to anti-poverty initiatives,
political and social inclusion, and diverse global alliances.
So it should come as no surprise that the association wrote this letter
to the new president shortly before his election. Founded in 1967 amid
a U.S. obsession with communism that abetted the rise of repressive
military regimes in many Latin American countries, and focused on a
region with the world's most severe inequalities, LASA has long been
committed to a progressive agenda. Most recently, for example, the
association decided to hold its congresses outside of the United States
in good part because of U.S. restrictions against scholarly exchange
with Cuba.
The key goal of our letter was to encourage President-elect Obama to
consider the "new Left" in Latin America as part and parcel of the
movement for change in the United States. As we point out in the
letter, Latin America's grassroots are rejecting its traditional elites
for the same reasons that the U.S. "Main Street" is rejecting its "Wall
Street."
2002 Coup Attempt
Unfortunately, as the letter states, "Washington's tendency to fight
against hope and change has been especially prominent in recent U.S.
responses to the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and
Bolivia;" for most Latin Americanists, the nadir of Bush administration
policy toward the region was its welcoming of the 2002 coup attempt
against President Hugo Chávez. There had been no question for
the
Organization of American States, the Carter Center, or any other set of
international observers that Chávez had been freely and fairly
elected,
and so Washington's support for a coup was blatantly hypocritical and
odious. In both Venezuela and Bolivia, the Bush administration has
allied with government opponents, many of whom have not been committed
to the democratic rules of the game.
Does Obama recognize the parallel between the movements for a just and
fair society in the United States and in Latin America? It seems clear
that he does. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he writes of his
experiences in Indonesia, where General Suharto had unleashed a massive
purge of leftists just as the six-year-old Obama arrived. Obama writes
of Suharto's harshly repressive rule, the International Monetary Fund's
insistence on draconian measures hurting the poor during the country's
1997 financial collapse, and the worsening gap between rich and poor
(pp. 271-279). He also criticizes U.S. foreign policy in general for
its "tireless promotion of American-style capitalism and multinational
corporations" and its "tolerance and occasional encouragement of
tyranny, corruption, and environmental degradation when it served our
interests" (p. 279).
Also, in Obama's comments about the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and the proposed free trade agreement with Colombia, he has
made clear that he seeks to protect workers' rights not only in the
United States but around the globe. Obama has been passionate in his
call for a dramatic increase in U.S. aid for "bottom-up development,"
which would emphasize microfinance, vocational training, and the
Millennium Development Goals, as well as debt cancellation for
impoverished countries and reforms to the International Monetary Fund.
In his campaign speeches, Obama called for change first in localities
and then the United States and finally the world and ended with the
pledge: "We can change the world."
Yet — and this is the premise of LASA's letter — if President Obama is
to act on his recognition of the parallel between the two movements,
it's almost certain the encouragement, and indeed the prodding, of LASA
and the spectrum of progressive groups will be needed. Latin America
won't be Obama's top foreign-policy priority. There are only 24 hours
in every day with which to counter well-financed, entrenched interests
such as the arms industry, investors and exporters seeking unregulated
markets, the Cuban American National Foundation, the farm lobbies, and
the National Rifle Association.
Concerns
In the campaign, Obama's positions on Latin America were many times
more progressive than Republican nominee John McCain's, but for us at
LASA they still fell short. Whereas McCain excoriated Chávez as
a
dictator and ridiculed Obama's openness to dialogue with him, Obama
said that "it's important for us not to over-react to Chávez….we
are
interested in having a respectful dialogue with everybody in Latin
America in terms of figuring out how we can improve the day to day
lives of people." Yet, in September, Obama's national security
spokesperson Wendy Morigi said that Obama was "very concerned" about
President Evo Morales' decision to expel U.S. Ambassador Phillip
Goldberg from Bolivia and suggested that Morales was "attempting to lay
blame on outsiders." She also said that Obama was "profoundly troubled
by President Hugo Chávez's unprovoked expulsion of U.S.
Ambassador
Patrick Duddy."
With respect to U.S. policy toward Cuba, Obama but not McCain supported
unlimited family travel and remittances to Cuba (which was in fact U.S.
policy prior to George W. Bush's presidency). During the primaries,
Obama indicated he would meet with Cuban president Raúl Castro,
but
then conditioned this offer upon the freeing of political prisoners in
Cuba. Obama has said he will maintain the U.S. embargo against Cuba "to
provide us with the [necessary] leverage" — even though there has been
no evidence of any such leverage for almost 50 years. Nor has Obama
promised to renew U.S. scholarly exchange with the island, which was
severely limited under the George W. Bush administration. Previously,
most policy analysts and LASA had expected that, given that there was
no longer an alliance between Cuba and the Soviet Union, the Clinton
administration would replace the long-standing policy of U.S. isolation
of Cuba with a policy of engagement. This expectation was dashed amid
the Republican takeover of congress in 1994 and the even tighter
restrictions on trade and investment in Cuba in the 1996 Helms-Burton
legislation.
In contrast to McCain, Obama supported comprehensive immigration reform
that included strict employer and border enforcement but also support
for equitable development in Mexico and a pathway to citizenship. Obama
has cited his father's coming to the United States in search of
opportunity to show his understanding of immigration. However, Obama
doesn't acknowledge that, in recent years in many Latin American
countries, the process for securing visas to the United States has
become extremely onerous and only applicants with bank accounts in the
$10,000 range are accepted. Many applicants are treated arrogantly by
overworked U.S. embassy staff. Today, it's unlikely that his father (or
other smart and ambitious young people lacking significant resources
such as Alejandro Toledo, who became president of Peru) would have been
granted a visa for study in the U.S.
Obama's signals have been particularly mixed on the issues of the "war
on drugs" and security. Obama has emphasized that "we have to do our
part" in the "war on drugs," and called in particular for greater U.S.
efforts to reduce the demand for drugs, and to stop the southbound flow
of guns and gangs. But Obama has supported both Plan Colombia and Plan
Mexico (a newer and similar initiative), although he has questioned the
"mix" of military and development components. Many of us at LASA
believe that the "war on drugs" is hopeless and has worsened violence
in the region. We would opt for the decriminalization of some drugs and
focus on treatment and education. Interestingly, a recent
Zogby/Inter-American Dialogue survey suggested that roughly half of U.S
voters might also consider such an approach.
Perhaps most worrisome for us at LASA was Obama's enthusiastic approval
of Colombia's 2008 military incursion against Colombian guerrillas in a
camp in Ecuador, without approval of the Ecuadorian government. On the
one hand, given Obama's support for a similar U.S. military incursion
against Osama bin Laden, it would have been hypocritical for him to
repudiate the Colombian government's action. Yet, Obama's comments were
unusually one-sided, showing little concern for international law.
In key respects, U.S. policy toward Latin America has changed little
since the late 1980s. Interests, lobbies, and bureaucracies are deeply
entrenched. Yet, Obama's promise to change the world has excited LASA
and millions of people around the globe. Our letter is the
association's effort to signal to the president-elect the urgency of
change and our willingness to work with him to fulfill and, indeed,
extend his promises.
Cynthia McClintock, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is a
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George
Washington University. She served as President of the Latin American
Studies Association from 1994 to 1995. |
