The arrival of Venezuelans seeking better lives has strained the economies—and societies—of Latin American host countries

Venezuela’s Migrants Bring Economic Opportunity to Latin America

By Marco Arena, Emilio Fernandez Corugedo, Jaime Guajardo, and Juan Francisco Yepez

By promptly integrating migrants, the economies of host countries stand to increase their GDP by as much as 4.5 percentage points by 2030

More than 7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, with 6 million settling in other Latin American countries.  The region’s largest migration episode in history is driven by the collapse of the country’s economy, which has left Venezuelans struggling to meet their basic needs.

Between 2013 and 2021, Venezuela’s gross domestic product is estimated to have declined by more than 75 percent, the most for a country not at war in the last 50 years.  The COVID-19 pandemic compounded the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis, and in 2020 more than 95 percent of Venezuelans were living below the poverty line.

The arrival of Venezuelans seeking better lives has strained the economies—and societies—of Latin American host countries that are already balancing tight budgets, especially since the pandemic.

Colombia, which has received the most Venezuelan migrants, estimated spending about $600 per migrant in 2019.  This covered humanitarian aid, healthcare, childcare, education, housing, and job-search support.  With more than 2 million arrivals, this translates into $1.3 billion in assistance.  In 2019, this cost peaked at 0.5 percent of Colombia’s GDP.

In the long term, however, this investment has the potential to increase GDP in host countries by up to 4.5 percentage points by 2030, as we find in our latest research on the spillovers from Venezuela’s migration.

To reap the benefits from migration, host countries need to integrate the new arrivals into the formal labor force—and society—by promptly offering them work permits and access to education and healthcare.

Migration flows

After a brief interruption during the pandemic, when many countries closed their borders, migration from Venezuela has resumed and is expected to continue in the coming years, although at a slower pace.

We estimate that Venezuelan migrants will number around 8.4 million by 2025—more than 25 percent of the country’s population in 2015.

 

The characteristics of migrants have evolved as the economic crisis intensified.  The first wave of migrants were mostly professionals with high levels of education.  The second consisted of middle-class young people with a university degree.  Since the economy collapsed in 2017-2018, migrants have tended to be from low-income households and with lower levels of education.

Overall, the demographic profile of Venezuela’s migrants is like that of the local population in host countries.  Almost two-thirds are of working age and almost half are female.

Most have settled in other Latin American countries, while some have migrated to North America and Europe, mainly the US and Spain.

While Colombia remains the main destination, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru have also received sizable flows, with their combined number of migrants exceeding 2 million, more than 3 percent of the local population on average.

Effect on labor markets

Our research finds that Venezuelan migrants—many of them more educated than the local populations—face higher unemployment, are more likely to initially work in the informal sector, and earn less than the local workers. 

We didn’t find evidence that migrants are displacing domestic workers, although we have seen downward pressure on wages in the informal sector.

The wage gap between domestic and migrant workers grows with the level of education, which suggests a misallocation of human capital—workers’ skills, knowledge, and expertise—as educated migrants tend to only find unskilled jobs.  On average, domestic workers earn about 30 percent more than migrants.

Cost and benefits

Our analysis finds that providing migrants with humanitarian assistance and access to public services carries a sizable fiscal cost and puts pressure on the budgets of host countries, as the Colombia example shows.

 

But the analysis also identifies large medium-term gains in productivity and growth resulting from an increase in the labor force and better alignment of migrants’ human capital with jobs.  These gains are greater for countries that receive larger and more educated migrant flows relative to the domestic population.

We estimate that, with the right support and integration policies, migration from Venezuela has the potential to increase real GDP in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile by 2.5 to 4.5 percentage points relative to a no-migration baseline by 2030.

 

We also project that the cost of integrating migrants would narrow over time as migrants join the labor force, increasing economic activity and expanding the tax base.

Continued support

Early in the migration crisis, countries in Latin America welcomed Venezuelan migrants and provided support in the form of visa waivers, mobility cards, and access to humanitarian assistance, healthcare, education, and childcare.  Migrants also received work permits and credentials to help them integrate into the labor market.

However, in 2018 and 2019, we saw a shift in policies as migration flows intensified.  While some countries introduced new programs to facilitate the integration of migrants, others made it harder for Venezuelans to enter by requiring additional documentation.

Countries should continue supporting migrants and helping them integrate into the formal sector so they can find jobs that are in line with their human capital and increase productivity in the economy.

This will require improving transitional arrangements and asylum systems, bringing in migrants into the health and education systems, and formalizing migrant workers by giving them work permits and accelerating the accreditation of skills and education.

To cover the costs of implementing these policies, countries should seek help from donors and international institutions.  The IMF is analyzing the impact of migration and coordinating with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant agencies to help countries access funding sources.

Countries in the region should also agree on a coordinated response to the migration crisis, in which each one contributes its fair share to the support and integration of migrants.

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The Haitian Revolution was the worse nightmare of colonial powers with possessions in the Caribbean - the ghost of Saint-Domingue disturbed the sleep of slave holders for years

Cuba, Haiti, the Helms-Burton and the crime of insubordination

Empires never forgive rebels; an insubordinate rebel plants a seed that can sprout many generations later

By Raúl Antonio Capote

The Haitian Revolution was a breeding ground of revolutions

Haiti was the first free nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the first nation in the modern world emerging from a slave revolt, and the second most long-standing republic in the Western Hemisphere.  The Haitian people overthrew the French colonialists in 1804, abolished slavery, and declared independence.

Their revolution was worse nightmare of colonial powers with possessions in the Caribbean - the ghost of Saint-Domingue disturbed the sleep of slave holders for years.

The imperial powers imposed a rigorous cultural, economic and political blockade on the new Haiti, to prevent the extension of its example.

Two decades after independence was proclaimed, in 1825, French warships returned, blockaded the young nation and issued an ultimatum: pay compensation or prepare for war.

An emissary from King Charles X delivered the message.  France demanded payment for properties confiscated by the Haitian Revolution: 150 million gold francs, some 21 billion dollars today, payable in five installments.

According to the colonial empire, the young nation was obliged to compensate French planters for the property and slaves they had lost.

On April 17, 1825, Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer signed the Royal Decree presented by Charles X, who promised French diplomatic recognition in exchange for a 50% reduction of tariffs on French imports and the outrageous compensation.

For Haiti the figure was impossible to pay, given the conditions of its economy, ravaged by the French naval blockade and a devastating war, but the "generous" colonialists made a proposal "they couldn’t turn down."

A group of French banks offered Haiti a loan to cover the compensation, resulting in a double debt that, along with the interest, bled the small country to death, over the course of the 122 years required to pay off its "independence debt."

What’s more, The New York Times recounts in a recent five-part series of articles, when the U.S. army invaded Haiti in the summer of 1915, a group of Marines entered the national bank and stole some 500,000 dollars in gold, that days later made its way to a Wall Street bank vault.

The United States, using the financial and political chaos the island was experiencing as a pretext, occupied the country militarily, continuing its longstanding policy in the region.  Haiti was to be governed by a U.S. military proconsul.

For more than ten years, a quarter of all Haitian income went to pay off debts to the National City Bank, incurred by the country to cover the expense of "assistance from the U.S. government," according to The Times.

ANOTHER ISLAND DARES TO CHALLENGE THE EMPIRE

In January 1959, another small Caribbean island, Cuba, defying U.S. imperial power, declared itself the first free territory of the Americas and dared to announce its decision to build the first socialist nation in the hemisphere.

The "crime of insubordination" committed required immediate action by the "superpower.”  Since then, all variants of war have been waged against the rebel island, including the economic, without success.

As an essential part of the plan to break the soul and subsequent extermination of the Cuban people, a monstrosity known as the Law for Cuban Democratic Freedom and Solidarity was concocted.

What similarities can be seen between this legal atrocity and the one foisted on Haiti by the French empire? 

Let's skip some frightening sections of the Helms-Burton Act, as it is also known, and consider the plan it envisions.

Let’s imagine two hypothetical scenarios, totally impossible for those of us who have confidence in the capacity for resistance and courage of our people.

First: The imperialist enemy and his allies, making use of their military power, would manage to occupy most of the country and establish a transitional government, after proclaiming the end of the Revolution.  Second: Division, deception, and discouragement sown by the enemy would lead to betrayal, another Baraguá, and we would “let the sword fall,” as in 1878.

Would we then have "free and democratic" elections?  No, the transitional government, handpicked by the occupying forces, would not call elections until the United States Congress approved such a move.  

The U.S. President or his proconsul, appointed for this purpose, would prepare a report to Congress every six months outlining progress being made in the transition process on the occupied island.

How long would this process supposedly last, if they are requiring a report every six months?  How long would Yankee troops remain in Cuba?

The answer to both questions is “Who knows?” (Reading the Bush Plan is recommended.)

Finally, after who knows how many years, the U.S. Congress would approve elections.  

What about the economic, commercial and financial blockade?  Would it be lifted when the end of the Revolution was proclaimed?

No, this is not part of the plan; the blockade is to remain intact during the transition, as an ironclad mechanism to apply pressure.

Once the elections were held in U.S. occupied Cuba, with the Revolution removed from power, we would have a president and government, in the style of the imperialists and to their liking.

Insistent questions remain: Would the blockade be lifted?  Would the economic war end?  The answer is no, that's not what the Helms Burton proposes.

The new Cuban "president" would verify to Congress that all U.S. citizens who were “former owners” had been compensated with the full value of all properties nationalized or confiscated in accordance with revolutionary laws and in line with international law, including those Cubans who, after 1959, became “Cuban-Americans.”

The “indemnity” or “compensation,” according to U.S. experts in 1997, would have an approximate value of 100 billion dollars.

The empire has a solution that would allow the Cuban government to pay for the legal procedures, compensation and debt: loans from U.S. banks, the IMF, etc., which would generate ever-increasing interest payments and create an endless spiral of plunder.

Cubans, like Haitians years ago, would spend decades paying off a practically impossible debt.  How could a country devastated, depleted, impoverished by war and occupation, a country that had lost a good part of its population of working and productive age, afford to do so? 

It must be clear that they could never occupy our island, without defeating a Cuban people determined to defend every inch of our homeland.

We would be left in the hands of our hangmen, ready and willing to drain every last drop of our national wealth.

Thomas Piketty, one of the economists consulted by The New York Times, in his work on Haiti, referred to this policy as "neo-colonialism by debt."

The "crime of insubordination" is the greatest "sin" that a people can commit.  Empires never forgive rebels. 

An insubordinate rebel plants a seed that can sprout many generations later.

The Haitian Revolution was a breeding ground of revolutions.  The punishment, the viciousness of the colonial master, could not erase its example. Inspired, Our America rose up to fight for its independence, again and again, as tireless as the courageous Haitians who defeated Napoleon’s best generals, in the first years of the19th century.

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Do Not Exclude Cuba from the Summit of the Americas

Cuba denounces U.S. government exclusion of Cuba from preparations for Ninth Summit of the Americas

Excerpts from statement to the press by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla

I am obliged to denounce the fact that the U.S. government has decided to exclude the Republic of Cuba from preparations for the Ninth Summit of the Americas set to take place in Los Angeles, June 8-10; and is currently exerting extreme pressure on numerous governments in the region that have privately and respectfully opposed this exclusion.

The U.S. government is misleading the public and governments of the hemisphere by saying that it has not yet made decisions regarding invitations.

I respectfully urge Secretary of State (Anthony) Blinken to say honestly whether or not Cuba will be invited to the Ninth Summit of the Americas.

A central axis, according to preparations for the event, will be health.  And I must inform our people and international public opinion that there are currently negotiations underway, conducted in an unclear manner, with quite a few neoliberal elements, and many shortcomings, in relation to the real needs of the peoples regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the structural causes of precarious health systems that have led to tragic consequences and caused an extremely high number of deaths in our hemisphere, including the United States of America, and have avoided substantial cooperation and basic financing to address these consequences, and are now negotiating in an opaque manner a so-called Health and Resilience Action Plan for the Americas through the year 2030.

I must note that these negotiations are being held, in an obscure manner, with the exclusion of Cuba and other member states of the Pan American Health Organization, which are participating in these processes, in violation of their own mandates.

Cuba has always, in a modest but altruistic and persistent fashion, provided the possibility for international cooperation in health, which has been recognized worldwide.

There are Latin American vaccines against COVID-19 which are Cuban. The medical brigades that responded to the COVID emergency in the region, in the hemisphere in more than 50 countries on the planet, have been Cuban.

It would be convenient to take into account during this process, and benefit our peoples, Cuban medical presence in confronting natural disasters and epidemics in the past, the provision of tens of thousands of medical scholarships for low-income Latin American, Caribbean and United States youth, the existence of the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Operation Miracle that returned the sight of millions of low-income persons, Cuba's ability to establish cooperation, transfer state-of-the-art technology, provide pharmaceutical products, vaccines and novel treatments, the ability to share advanced protocols and medicines in the field of health…


Another central axis of the Summit, from which Cuba is intended to be excluded, is emigration.  A document with a long title: Letter of Understanding on Migration Management and Protection of Migrants is also being negotiated behind the back of international, US, Latin American and Canadian public opinion.  It is a code that seeks to force Latin American and Caribbean States to repress migration, to absorb the migrants that the United States decides to process outside its territory, which incorporates elements of the racist, xenophobic and plundering U.S. vision of our migrants.  It does not address in any way the real causes of migration, but it does, however, offer palliatives, stimuli, financing and economic incentives to countries that send migrants to the U.S. and are closer to its borders, to attenuate this process.

With Cuba, however, his recipe is the extreme tightening of the blockade, causing deprivation to Cuban families, the application of Undersecretary Mallory's stark memorandum: "depressing wages, causing hunger, despair and the overthrow of the Government," is the American prescription in relation to Cuba…
The exclusion of Cuba from the Ninth Summit of the Americas would constitute a serious historical setback in relation to the two previous editions.  In Panama, in 2015, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz led the delegation from our island which participated on equal footing, and raised his firm, dissenting voice, but always serene, respectful and constructive…

A third axis of the Summit of the Americas is that of democracy and human rights.  In the obscure negotiations taking place today, the intention is to establish the Organization of American States to certify all elections in the region.  This is the same OAS of the coup in Bolivia, and the intention of the United States, historically responsible for coups in our region, and also responsible for the coups in recent decades against progressive governments.

How can a Summit take place, centered on democracy, having excluded, at the arbitrary whim of the host, certain countries of Latin America and the Caribbean?  Can anyone think of something more undemocratic?
The U.S. has no moral authority to set itself up as a model in this matter or to criticize others…

The Ninth Summit of the Americas could still be an opportunity if, in an inclusive manner and on equal terms for all countries, it debated, without exclusions and with sincere commitment, the most pressing problems that affect the continent.

Cuba supports the genuine efforts to promote dialogue, links and cooperation between Our America, the America of Bolivar and Martí, and the United States, between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the United States government…

Cuba, which firmly defends the unity within the diversity of Our America, today expresses our profound gratitude to the peoples and governments that maintain a courageous, dignified, solidary position, demanding of the U.S. government that Cuba not be excluded from the Ninth Summit of the Americas.

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Defending Latin American and Caribbean dignity

 

Anti-Cuban maneuver in the Organization of American States (OAS) defeated

...the OAS - an organization with no moral authority and a long history of betraying the peoples of Latin America

Author: Internacional news staff | informacion@granmai.cu

A call for a meeting made by the United States to the Organization of American States (OAS) to "analyze the situation in Cuba," no doubt to justify interference, failed miserably due to the refusal of the majority of its member countries.

Party Political Bureau member and Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla posted a tweet yesterday, July 28, describing the events as a defeat for the U.S. within the pro-imperialist entity.

"Anti-Cuban maneuver in the OAS defeated. Rejection by a majority of member states forced suspension of a Permanent Council meeting," the Foreign Minister stated, adding that the President pro tempore of the Council admitted the failure through a "pathetic letter insulting Cuba."

Rodríguez Parrilla also thanked the countries which "defended Latin American and Caribbean dignity," refusing to support the maneuver.

According to a report by Russia Today, Washington Abdala, president pro tempore of the Permanent Council, reported that, after receiving statements from several countries, it was decided to postpone the meeting to conduct consultations that could be useful.

Abdala added that he has asked the organization's Secretariat for Legal Affairs to prepare a report on the situation in Cuba in relation to the OAS - an organization with no moral authority and a long history of betraying the peoples of Latin America. He said the document will be shared with OAS members when it is available.

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“Economic Genocide” in Latin America: The Unspoken Legacy of Wall Street and the IMF. President Cristina Fernandez

United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014: Argentina's President Fernandez de Kirchner Denounces Economic Terrorism

By Carla Stea

Dazzling and supremely erudite, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner denounced as terrorism the economic policies that have been strangling the developing world during the past century, and are continuing these criminal actions today, the legacy of Milton Friedman’s Chicago Boys’ gangster economic policies. These policies, implemented by the infliction of “shock therapy,” institutionalizing torture, murder and disappearances of individuals, groups, and often heads of state who defy these barbaric economic models, are policies which are more accurately described as global economic theft, sanctioned by the theory that “might makes right.”

The IMF’s “conditionalities” were described, in sanitized language, as “structural adjustment programs,” demanding the obliteration of free national education and health care programs, causing the destitution of majorities of citizens in the developing countries, and resulting in the gross indebtedness of collaborating governments to parasitic interests of multinational corporations, banks, hedge funds, vulture funds and their ilk. The Milton Friedman Chicago Boys policies were described by one of Friedman’s most brilliant students, the German born economist Andre Gunder Frank, as “economic genocide.”

President Kirchner described her late husband, President Nestor Kirchner’s success in rebuilding Argentina, despite the total bankruptcy into which decades of the Chicago Boys policies had plunged a devastated Argentina. She described the earlier chaotic situation, in which Argentina had five presidents in one week during 2001, a disaster rivaled, perhaps, only by Bolivia, which, similarly hostage of the Chicago Boys, had three revolutions in one afternoon, finally resulting Bolivia’s progressive presidency of Juan Jose Torres in 1970. President Torres was overthrown, ten months later, by fascist General Hugo Banzer, with the blessing of Washington, and was then murdered in Argentina in 1975.

The earlier history of Argentina described by President Kirchner, a history common to almost all Latin America Southern Cone governments hostage to the Chicago Boys’ policy of economic genocide, is succinctly summed up by Professor John Dinges in his work “The Condor Years,” (Pages 154-155).

[By 1975], “Inside the U.S. embassy Legal Attache Robert Scherrer quickly developed information that the Torres murder was part of the new security forces cooperation among the military governments…the bloody reality of mounting repression and the assassination of three prominent figures – the Uruguayan Senators Michelini, Gutierrez and Bolivian President Torres who had sought protection in Argentina… .Slowly, among those reading the most secret intelligence traffic about Latin America – in the embassies, in the CIA, in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and the State Department there was an awakening to a flow of hard evidence that was soon to become a flood: that by 1975 the government of Argentina was committing human rights violations on a massive scale never before seen in Latin America, and the six military governments of the Southern Cone were cooperating to assassinate one another’s opponents.”

This was the Argentina in which Presidents Cristina and Nestor Kirchner spent their earliest years. This was the environment in which the Chicago Boys’ murderous economic policies were forced down the throats of the majority of Argentina’s citizens, utilizing torture, murder and “disappearances” to facilitate the “privatization” of the country’s resources in the organized theft of the nation’s patrimony. This theft was engineered by one of history’s most deadly mobs of criminals, the Chicago Boys, trained by the sociopath Milton Friedman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in a decision grossly discrediting the legitimacy of the Nobel Committee.

President Kirchner described the economic and social recovery steered by her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, a program of social and economic inclusiveness which made education widely available to Argentina’s majority, which decreased unemployment while establishing social safety nets, a program in which Argentina’s economy began to thrive, as Nestor Kirchner weaned Argentina’s economy from the IMF ‘debt trap’ (the title of the superb book by economist Cheryl Payer), and made arrangements to pay off the astronomical debts amassed during the previous period of economic domination by the Chicago Boys, (debts for which Nestor Kirchner’s government was in no way responsible). President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner spoke with legitimate pride of Argentina’s success in reducing widespread poverty, despite the financial disaster engineered by the thugs of the international financial system who are currently still attempting to hold Argentina hostage.

President Kirchner voiced the concerns of the greater part of the developing world, which voted on September 9, 2014, for the United Nations General Assembly resolution: “Toward the Establishment of a Multilateral Legal Framework for Sovereign Debt Restructuring Process.” Argentina’s Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman (whose father, the great journalist and human rights advocate, Jacobo Timerman, had been imprisoned and tortured for two years in Argentina during that same “dirty war” of 1976 described earlier) introduced that resolution, “establishing an ethical political and legal pathway to end unbridled speculation.” The resolution was adopted, with 124 nations supporting it, eleven nations opposing it, and forty one abstentions…The scandalous profits made by parasitic “vulture funds” are funneled into campaign and lobbying to prevent change in the current viciously unjust economic architecture. The Cuban delegate stated the appalling fact that “Developing countries had paid many times the amounts originally received as loans and that devoured resources essential for development.” The distinguished American economist Joseph Stiglitz has repeatedly emphasized precisely this same fact.

President Kirchner denounced U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa, whose currently strangling injunctions, prohibiting Argentina’s repayment of 92.4 percent of the debt until the “vulture funds” are paid in full, would force the return of Argentina’s economy to destitution, totally destroying the new economic and social programs which are empowering Argentina’s majority, and would quickly restore the earlier squalor of the economically colonized Argentina into which Milton Friedman’s thugs and the IMF had forced Argentina to subsist for decades of Kirchner’s earlier life.

In her masterpiece, “The Shock Doctrine,” exposing the criminal thuggery of Friedman’s Chicago Boys, Naomi Klein states:

“In the early nineties, the Argentine state sold off the riches of the country so rapidly and so completely that the project far surpassed what had taken place in Chile a decade earlier. By 1994, 90 percent of all state enterprises had been sold to private companies, including Citibank, Bank Boston, France’s Suez and Vivendi, Spain’s Repsol and Telefonica. Before making the sales, (former President) Menem and (former Finance Minister) Cavallo had generously performed a valuable service for the new owners: they had fired roughly 700,000 of their workers, according to Cavallo’s own estimates; some put the number much higher. The oil company alone lost 27,000 workers during the Menem years, An admirer of Jeffrey Sachs, Cavallo called this process “shock Therapy.” Menem had an even more brutal phrase for it: in a country still traumatized by mass torture, he called it “major surgery without anesthetic.”*

“* In January 2006, long after Cavallo and Menem were out of office, Argentines received some surprising news. It turned out that the Cavallo Plan wasn’t Cavallo’s at all, nor was it the IMF’s: Argentina’s entire early-nineties shock therapy program was written in secret by JP Morgan and Citibank, two of Argentina’s largest private creditors. In the course of a lawsuit against the Argentine government, the noted historian Alejandro Olmos Gaona uncovered a jaw-dropping 1,400 page document written by the two U.S. banks for Cavallo in which “the policies carried out by the government from ’92 on are drawn up…the privatization of utilities, the labour law reform, the privatization of the pension system. It is all laid out with great attention to detail

….Everyone believes that the economic plan pursued since 1992 was Domingo Cavallos’s creation, but that’s not the way it is.” In the long term, Cavallo’s program in its entirety would prove disastrous for Argentina.

…So many jobs were lost that well over half the country would eventually be pushed below the poverty line.”

As President Fernandez Kirchner charges, today it is obvious that U.S. Federal Judge Griesa’s ruling is an attempt to destabilize Argentina, using a new imperialist tactic devised by the current gangsters of international capitalism who thrive by devouring the lives and patrimony of the majority of citizens of the developing world, and, indeed, impose these tactics upon the “99%” percent of citizens within the countries of the developed world.

President Fernandez Kirchner explicitly denounced as economic terrorists the “vulture funds” which, supported by the United States’ judicial system, are attempting to destabilize and ultimately overthrow her government. She stated: “Not only those who place bombs are terrorists, but also those who destabilize the economy of countries, and cause hunger, misery and poverty from the sin of speculation.”

Judge Griesa is attempting, in fact, to fine Argentina $50,000 per day for not complying with his ruling, and declaring Argentina in contempt of court.” In response to his brutal arrogance, President Kirchner cited a quote from former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who described such “creditors” as immoral, preventing countries from tackling problems of education, health and poverty.

Argentina’s president spoke fiercely of such engineered poverty and destitution as creating fertile breeding ground for terrorist leaders recruiting among those who have lost all hope of lives affording them options for fulfillment and dignity, and her voice echoed, 35 years later, the speech delivered on August 27, 1980 at the United Nations Eleventh Special Session on Economic Development: “Toward a New International Economic Order”: Joaquim Chissano, then Foreign Minister of Mozambique addressed the General Assembly, decades ago, and stated:

“The existing economic order is profoundly unjust. It runs counter to the basic interests of the developing countries…we see the perpetuation of underdevelopment in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The peoples of those continents are forced to face hunger, starvation, poverty, nakedness, disease and illiteracy increasingly. We denounce any kind of economic prosperity or independence for part of mankind built on the dependence, domination and exploitation of the rest of mankind…the developing countries have warned the world about the need to take measures to eliminate the main obstacles to emancipation and progress of the peoples struggling for a proper standard of living which would meet the basic needs of life.

…During the colonial period we were branded as rebels and insurgents when we demanded the restitution of our status as human beings. When we demanded independence we tried to talk peaceably with our masters, but no one would listen. The dialogue of force was imposed upon us. We took up arms. Much blood was spilt. But only in that way were we able to win.”

Twenty-nine years later, at the 64 Session of the United Nations General Assembly, on September 24, 2008, Stjepan Mesic, President of the Republic of Croatia, and the last President of Yugoslavia stated:

“Our world is finally still dominated by an economic model which is self-evidently exhausted and has now reached a stage where it is itself generating crises, causing hardship to thousands and hundreds of thousands of people. If one attempts to save this already obsolete model at any cost, if one stubbornly defends a system based on greed and devoid of any social note worthy of mention, the result can be only one: social unrest harboring the potential to erupt into social insurgence on a global scale.”

Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, President of Argentina today raises her powerful voice in, once again, the noble call for economic and social justice. Those who are guilty of perpetuating the injustices she and so many other world leaders abhor walked out of the hall as she spoke. And those are the ones who may ultimately pay the fatal price for ignoring her warning.

October 25, 2014

The Centre for Research on Globalization

Democracy in Latin America: The left marches on?

By David Roberts



Latin America's democratic credentials go on display once again in October, with presidential and other elections taking place in three countries – Brazil on the 5th, Bolivia on the 12th and Uruguay on the 26th.

While no one would seriously question the strength of democracy in Brazil and Uruguay – despite all the institutional and governance issues, particularly in the former – the same cannot be said about Bolivia. The country has enjoyed relative political stability since Evo Morales became president in 2006, and in recent years strong economic growth too, but democratic practices have lagged behind and his socialist party's stranglehold on the state apparatus is expected to give him a clear advantage in the polls. What is more, some question whether Morales should be allowed to stand for a third term at all, as that is forbidden by the constitution. Morales is managing to get round that minor inconvenience by maintaining that his first term didn't count as it was before the current constitution was introduced.

Even so, few would doubt the popularity of the incumbent and the voting process itself is expected to be clean.

Left-leaning candidates will also probably triumph in Brazil and Uruguay, although run-off elections are likely. In the former, the contest between leading candidates President Dilma Rousseff of the workers' party and Marina Silva of the "soft left" socialists is neck and neck, while in Uruguay former president Tabaré Vàsquez, who has the backing of current left-wing head of state José Mujica, is ahead in the polls.

So does this mean the shift to the left in Latin America continues unabated? Maybe, but increasingly less so in the manner of a few years back when the Bolivarian Alba left-wing bloc of countries led by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez on the one hand and liberal pro-market nations on the other were seriously polarizing the continent. In fact, Venezuela's influence in the region has waned, and was doing so even before Chávez's death in March last year. With its own economy in disarray, and oil exports falling (at least according to independent accounts), Venezuela has become an increasingly less attractive model to follow.

At the same time, those governments on the left of the political spectrum that have emerged in recent years, from El Salvador to Uruguay, are a mixed bag where socialist ideology has taken a distinctly back seat role. What path Brazil chooses if Silva does win – she's expected to adopt a more liberal, outward-looking approach on issues such as trade – will perhaps be the key to how things develop in the continent in the years ahead.

In any case, this tendency to move away from polarization is to be welcomed, as is the current strength of democracy in the region, as evidenced by the upcoming elections.

September 23, 2014

BN Americas

Latin America: Fertile ground for Russian President Vladimir Putin's foray

LatAm: Fertile ground for Putin's foray

By Christian Molinari

Business News Americas:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to step foot in Latin America on a tour of a region that seems to be getting cozier with the Kremlin's courting.

The approach is in stark contrast to US President Barack Obama's lukewarm advances, as Washington has disregarded its southern neighbors in favor of the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.

Add to that US secretary of state John Kerry's end-2013 announcement that "the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over" and you have a forsaken emerging market region, parts of which may be ripe for Putin's picking.

The Russian leader's serenades may largely fall on deaf ears in Latin America's western countries grouped under the Pacific Alliance, which remain fairly aligned with the US, but other traditionally left-leaning nations are eager for attention.

First stop on Putin's itinerary, unsurprisingly, will be Cuba – a staunch ally with whom the relationship has just been sweetened by the Russian parliament's agreeing to write off 90% of the US$35bn in Cuban debt, which was racked up in Soviet-era times. (All the more magnanimous considering that Russia's government is looking to tighten its belt to offset Western sanctions as a result of the Ukraine crisis.)

The debt forgiveness will speak volumes in the next stop on Putin's tour: Argentina, where President Cristina Fernández is currently measuring her options in whether to negotiate with bond holdouts or face another debt default.

Putin will then end his tour in Brazil to participate in the BRICS summit to be held there, while at the same time President Dilma Rousseff will hand-off World Cup hosting responsibilities to the leader of Russia, home of the 2018 tournament.

The tour comes on the heels of news proclaimed by Russia's defense minister, Sergei Shogu, that Moscow is looking to build military bases in a number of countries, including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Testing the waters, so to speak, a Russian warship docked at a Havana naval base a few days after the February announcement.

What's clear is that for better or worse, US influence is waning in Latin America.

With a single focus on its strategic economic interests in the region, China has stepped in to fill part of that vacuum. The Asian giant, however, is facing an economic slowdown of its own – and slower Chinese growth will have significant implications for Latin America.

Coming into its own with a vast emerging middle class, regional giant Brazil is also taking a historic place on the Latin American stage. But the country has been plagued by high inflation and low growth.

And struggling for position, the Kremlin is eager to take advantage of economic opportunities in the region. Russia's big oil and gas companies want a piece of the Latin American pie, getting involved in Venezuela but also looking into the famous Vaca Muerta shale play.

Perhaps he will fall short in his goals of restoring the defunct Soviet Union's reach and glory, but Putin's actions will at least serve as a thorny, troublesome bush in 'Washington's backyard'.

July 08, 2014

BN Americas

USAID Subversion in Latin America Not Limited to Cuba

By Dan Beeton- CEPR

A new investigation by the Associated Press into a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project to create a Twitter-style social media network in Cuba has received a lot of attention this week, with the news trending on the actual Twitter for much of the day yesterday when the story broke, and eliciting comment from various members of Congress and other policy makers. The “ZunZuneo” project, which AP reports was “aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government,” was overseen by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). AP describes OTI as “a division that was created after the fall of the Soviet Union to promote U.S. interests in quickly changing political environments — without the usual red tape.” Its efforts to undermine the Cuban government are not unusual, however, considering the organization’s track record in other countries in the region.

As CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot described in an interview with radio station KPFA’s “Letters and Politics” yesterday, USAID and OTI in particular have engaged in various efforts to undermine the democratically-elected governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Haiti, among others, and such “open societies” could be more likely to be impacted by such activities than Cuba. Declassified U.S. government documents show that USAID’s OTI in Venezuela played a central role in funding and working with groups and individuals following the short-lived 2002 coup d’etat against Hugo Chávez. A key contractor for USAID/OTI in that effort has been Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI).

More recent State Department cables made public by Wikileaks reveal that USAID/OTI subversion in Venezuela extended into the Obama administration era (until 2010, when funding for OTI in Venezuela appears to have ended), and DAI continued to play an important role. A State Department cable from November 2006 explains the U.S. embassy’s strategy in Venezuela and how USAID/OTI “activities support [the] strategy”:

(S) In August of 2004, Ambassador outlined the country team's 5 point strategy to guide embassy activities in Venezuela for the period 2004 ) 2006 (specifically, from the referendum to the 2006 presidential elections). The strategy's focus is: 1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez' Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.

Among the ways in which USAID/OTI have supported the strategy is through the funding and training of protest groups. This August 2009 cable cites the head of USAID/OTI contractor DAI’s Venezuela office Eduardo Fernandez as saying, during 2009 protests, that all the protest organizers are DAI grantees:

¶5. (S) Fernandez told DCM Caulfield that he believed the [the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps'] dual objective is to obtain information regarding DAI's grantees and to cut off their funding. Fernandez said that "the streets are hot," referring to growing protests against Chavez's efforts to consolidate power, and "all these people (organizing the protests) are our grantees." Fernandez has been leading non-partisan training and grant programs since 2004 for DAI in Venezuela."

The November 2006 cable describes an example of USAID/OTI partners in Venezuela "shut[ting] down [a] city":

11. (S) CECAVID: This project supported an NGO working with women in the informal sectors of Barquisimeto, the 5th largest city in Venezuela. The training helped them negotiate with city government to provide better working conditions. After initially agreeing to the women's conditions, the city government reneged and the women shut down the city for 2 days forcing the mayor to return to the bargaining table. This project is now being replicated in another area of Venezuela.

The implications for the current situation in Venezuela are obvious, unless we are to assume that such activities have ended despite the tens of millions of dollars in USAID funds designated for Venezuela, some of it going through organizations such as Freedom House, and the International Republican Institute, some of which also funded groups involved in the 2002 coup (which prominent IRI staff publicly applauded at the time).

The same November 2006 cable notes that one OTI program goal is to bolster international support for the opposition:

…DAI has brought dozens of international leaders to Venezuela, university professors, NGO members, and political leaders to participate in workshops and seminars, who then return to their countries with a better understanding of the Venezuelan reality and as stronger advocates for the Venezuelan opposition.

Many of the thousands of cables originating from the U.S. embassy in Caracas that have been made available by Wikileaks describe regular communication and coordination with prominent opposition leaders and groups. One particular favorite has been the NGO Súmate and its leader María Corina Machado, who has made headlines over the past two months for her role in the protest movement. The cables show that Machado historically has taken more extreme positions than some other opposition leaders, and the embassy has at least privately questioned Súmate’s strategy of discrediting Venezuela’s electoral system which in turn has contributed to opposition defeats at the polls (most notably in 2005 when an opposition boycott led to complete Chavista domination of the National Assembly). The current protests are no different; Machado and Leopoldo López launched “La Salida” campaign at the end of January with its stated goal of forcing president Nicolás Maduro from office, and vowing to “create chaos in the streets.”

USAID support for destabilization is no secret to the targeted governments. In September 2008, in the midst of a violent, racist and pro-secessionist campaign against the democratically-elected government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Morales expelled the U.S. Ambassador, and Venezuela followed suit “in solidarity.” Bolivia would later end all USAID involvement in Bolivia after the agency refused to disclose whom it was funding in the country (Freedom of Information Act requests had been independently filed but were not answered).  The U.S. embassy in Bolivia had previously been caught asking Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars in the country to engage in espionage.

Commenting on the failed USAID/OTI ZunZuneo program in Cuba, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) commented that, "That is not what USAID should be doing[.] USAID is flying the American flag and should be recognized around the globe as an honest broker of doing good. If they start participating in covert, subversive activities, the credibility of the United States is diminished."

But USAID’s track record of engaging in subversive activities is a long one, and U.S. credibility as an “honest broker” was lost many years ago.

Source: CEPR

April 08, 2014

venezuelanalysis

Latin America and the Caribbean moving forward

By Laura Bécquer Paseiro:

With the foundation three years ago of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the dreams of a region, which for years had been deferred, re-emerged. Great challenges and great hopes are both a reality for the new regional organization. Its success depends on the degree to which the 33 member countries, all south of the Río Bravo, are able to focus on the search for unity, despite their differences.

Time has shown that only by following the route of unity emphasized by our forefathers, without denying the rich diversity which differentiates us, will the reality of Latin America and the Caribbean be changed and our true, definitive independence secured.

When, in 2008, regional leaders sat down to discuss unity and draft the first outline of what CELAC would become, they did so committed to change the face of the planet’s most unequal region, which paradoxically possesses the world’s greatest reserves of natural resources - the object of foreign powers’ voracious appetite, leading to centuries of struggle. They did so to change the present and future of the 600 million who inhabit the region’s 20 million square kilometers.

Cuba’s national hero, José Martí, said in 1891, "The peoples who don’t know each other must hastily do so, like those who will be fighting together." This fight is no longer against colonists who came across the Atlantic in droves, to impose their way of life, but rather against the inequalities which hold us back, against a common enemy always looking for opportunities to again subject us to domination and dependence. CELAC’s 33 nations are committed to emphasizing what we have in common, to move toward the creation of a structure of our own.

Many accomplishments have been achieved in the social and economic arenas as a result of policies implemented by governments devoted to improving citizens’ living conditions and the positive experiences of regional alliances such as ALBA, Petrocaribe, Mercosur, Unasur and Caricom, which have made an important contribution to the development of collaborative solidarity and complementary economic policies across the region.

Nevertheless, there is much work to do in Latin America and the Caribbean to rise above our dependent, neoliberal past. CELAC has, therefore, proposed action plans directed toward establishing Latin American and Caribbean sovereign control of resources, to ensure that sustainable development is achieved.

This region which possesses the world’s third largest economy, a fifth of the planet’s oil reserves and the greatest biological diversity, is also the most unequal, with 164 million persons living in poverty, including 68 million in extreme poverty.

The launching of CELAC in December 2011 changed forever the geopolitical map of the region. An organization now existed, focused on strengthening international relations through a multilateral system which respects national sovereignty and self-determination.

The Community has made a commitment to respect the equality of states; to reject threats and the use of force; to abide by international law; to promote human rights and democracy, while moving forward with a shared regional agenda within international forums. The organization was founded with the intention of respecting currently existent integration efforts, not replacing them, as all are working toward a common objective.

Cuba, as CELAC pro tempore president, has undertaken the group’s work respecting each and every one of the principles established in the Declaration of Caracas, fully conscious that the organization is precisely the instrument the region needs to resolve differences, just as President Raúl Castro said at the 2011 founding summit in Venezuela.

The emergence of CELAC is recognized as the most important institutional event in Latin America and the Caribbean over the last century, the realization of the dreams of unity, justice and sovereignty held by the great men and women of these lands.

The fact that the region has its own voice, and this voice is gaining attention on the complex world stage, is, in and of itself, a great step forward.

As the Community of 33 nations is preparing for the Havana Summit, January 28-29, the strengths developed over the last few years are evident. Also evident are the enormous challenges which must be faced, many of them inherited from the past. The shared commitment to meet these challenges reflects the new times in Our America. To paraphrase a great leader, the peoples of Latin America have said, "Enough" and begun to move.

January 22, 2014

Granma.cu

Mandela is an unsurpassable example for Latin America and the Caribbean

• Speech given by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, at the funeral honors for the historic leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in Johannesburg, December 10, 2013, Year 55 of the Revolution

President Jacob Zuma:

Family members of Nelson Mandela:

High ranking dignitaries:

Sister people of South Africa:

Full of emotion, we pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, who is recognized as the supreme symbol of dignity and unyielding dedication to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and justice; as a prophet of unity, reconciliation and peace.

Together with his comrades in struggle, he led his people in the battle against apartheid, in order to open the way to a new, non-racial South Africa, united in the search for happiness, equality and the well-being of all its sons and daughters, and to overcome the consequences of colonialism, slavery and racial segregation.

An example of integrity and perseverance, he then led the effort directed toward the elimination of poverty, the reduction of inequality and the creation of opportunities for all.

Mandela is an unsurpassable example for Latin America and the Caribbean, which are advancing toward unity and integration to the benefit of their peoples, respectful of their diversity, with the conviction that dialogue and cooperation are the way forward for the solution of differences and civilized cohabitation among those who think differently.

Humanity cannot respond to the colossal challenges which are threatening its very existence, if it does not do so through a new coordination of efforts among all nations, such as the life of Mandela extols.

Cuba, which has African blood in its veins, rose up in the struggle for independence and for the abolition of slavery and, subsequently, has had the privilege of battling and building together with African nations.

We shall never forget Mandela’s moving tribute to our common struggle when he visited us on July 26, 1991, and stated, "The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa."

A symbol of the sisterhood between Africans and Cubans, I recall his close friendship with Fidel Castro, who affirmed, "Nelson Mandela will not go down in history for the 27 consecutive years he spent incarcerated without ever renouncing his ideas; he will go down in history because he was able to expunge from his soul all the poison that such an unjust punishment could have created; for the generosity and wisdom with which, at the hour of the already uncontainable victory, he was able to so brilliantly lead his self-sacrificing people, knowing that the new South Africa could never be constructed on the foundations of hatred and vengeance."

Eternal honor and glory to Nelson Mandela and the heroic people of South Africa!

Thank you very much.

December 11, 2013

Granma.cu 

Bahamas Blog International