Consensus, not conflict, is the key for Rafael Correa

By David Roberts




Following last week's attempted "coup" in Ecuador (we use the speech marks because it is far from clear if the protest over bonuses by some disgruntled sections of the military and police ever seriously threatened, or was even intended to bring down the government, and President Rafael Correa's claim that he was "kidnapped" in a hospital and threatened with death seems dubious to say the least) some fear the left-leaning leader may be inclined to clamp down on the opposition and impose a more radical and/or authoritarian form of government similar to what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela after the coup attempt there in 2002.



The initial signs are not so positive, with Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo Patiño saying "what we can expect after an episode like this is the radicalization, the strengthening of the revolution." If Correa does take that path, using the coup attempt as a pretext, it would be a big mistake. Although considered a close ally of Chavez, along with Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, the Ecuadorian president has to date governed in a much less confrontational manner than the Venezuelan leader. What Latin America needs less of is the kind of polarization of society seen in Venezuela, and one thing the region needs more of is stronger democratic institutions, the need for which is evidenced by the eroding of certain democratic freedoms in Venezuela (for example the closure of opposition TV channels), and events like last year's coup in Honduras and last week's unrest in Ecuador.



Leaders such as Chavez, Morales, Ortega and to a certain extent Correa - who has actually overseen a fair degree of stability in what is a notoriously volatile country - need to realize that once in office, a government has to be the government of all the people, and not just those who voted that government into power, or the factions who support it. Consensus, not confrontation, is the key to good government. As Brazil's outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Morales last year in explaining his own success:



"Evo, the political lesson and the lesson for life here is important. I don't govern only for the poor or the workers. They're my priority, but I govern for all the people."



But given the history of political instability in Ecuador, and realizing how fragile his own situation is, hopefully Correa will be wise enough to tread carefully and avoid excessive confrontation, despite his own inclinations. Since the protests, his government has announced pay rises for the police and military, albeit claiming the move was not related to last week's incidents.



Which brings us conveniently to Brazil, where Dilma Rousseff looks set to continue along a similar road to that taken by Lula in his two terms in office, assuming she wins the presidential run-off vote at the end of October. Whether she will enjoy the success that Lula has had, both in terms of the domestic economy and positioning Brazil on the world stage, obviously remains to be seen. The odds, however, must weigh heavily in Rousseff's favor given the solid base that Lula - once considered a leftist hothead himself - has laid and the positive forecasts for Brazil's economy, buoyed further by the healthy majority she is expected to enjoy in congress.



But Rousseff's Brazil will, of course, face massive challenges, such as in the areas of infrastructure (especially with the World Cup and Olympics coming up), in tackling corruption, in reducing further the unacceptably high poverty rate and in improving wealth distribution.

bnamericas

Bahamas Blog Internaional

Venezuela: “Only Ecuadorans Can Neutralise Coup Attempt”

By Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com:


Mérida, September 30th 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – As a coup attempt takes place in Ecuador, Venezuela and regional organisations of Latin America have come out in solidarity with Ecuador, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on the people and military of Ecuador to defend President Rafael Correa and their country’s democracy.

Ecuador is a close ally of Venezuela, and a fellow member of the progressive Bolivarian Alliance of the People of Our America (ALBA).

Early this afternoon the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry released an official statement condemning the coup attempt and expressing its solidarity with President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadoran people.

The statement said, “A few minutes ago President Hugo Chavez Frias talked with President Rafael Correa, who is being held in the National Police hospital in Quito. President Correa confirmed that what is taking place is a coup attempt, given the insubordination by a section of the National Police towards the authorities and the law”.

“Commander Hugo Chavez expressed his support for the constitutional president of our sister, the Republic of Ecuador, and condemned, in the name of the Venezuelan people and the Bolivarian Alliance of the People of Our America (ALBA), this attack against the constitution and the people of Ecuador,” continued the statement.

“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela expresses its confidence that President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadoran people will overturn this coup attempt and, together with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, we will be alert and accompanying them with solidarity in this historic moment,” the statement concluded.

Later this afternoon, Chavez talked on the telephone with Telesur, commenting on the coup attempt as he prepared to travel to Argentina to meet with other presidents of UNASUR and discuss the situation in Ecuador.

“According to what our ambassador [in Ecuador] has reported, the airports have been taken. It’s an operation that has been prepared. They are the forces of... the extreme right,” he said.

“The president [of Ecuador] is alone [in the hospital] with just an assistant and a few security members. Our ambassador Navas Tortolero tried to enter the hospital but they impeded him. There is a lot of police violence and its clear they received instructions from above.”

Correa “told me, ‘I’m ready to die, I’m not going to give up’,” Chavez said.

Chavez argued that a peaceful march needs to support the president, and the military needs to guarantee the peace. “Only Ecuadorians can neutralise the coup attempt... and can save democracy in Venezuela,” he said.

“Correa is a man of great dignity, we’ve seen him confront this situation despite his physical condition, his knee [which was operated on recently]... I have faith in President Correa, who has already suffered attacks from outside Ecuador in the sad case of Colombia’s incursion... he knows how to respond and how to plant peace in Ecuador,” Chavez said.

Chavez also commented that it was “strange that the military hasn’t appeared... their president is kidnapped... they aren’t letting him out, hopefully there’ll be a reaction... I’ve talked with Venezuelan military in Ecuador who tell me that the military there are in their barracks but they aren’t active... the situation is very very bad.”

Chavez called on the Ecuadoran military to “not allow them to massacre the Ecuadorian people” and to “rescue President Correa.”

“It’s a coup attempt against ALBA... the countries who have raised the banner of democracy... the [coup] masters... we know where they are, they are in Washington,” he concluded.

Already, Venezuelans are mobilising outside the Ecuadorian embassy in Caracas.

Regional Response

The Organisation of American States (OAS) is holding an emergency meeting and ALBA and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) are making arrangements to hold emergency meetings.

However, Chavez commented on Telesur that the OAS is “impotent” in the face of such situations. “Beyond chest beating”, nothing will come out of it, he argued, sighting the case of Honduras.

To date in the OAS meeting, all government representatives who have spoken, including those from the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay, have said they reject the coup attempt.

Cuba, the European Union, the general secretary of the United Nations, Mexico, France, and Bolivia also declared their support for the democratically-elected Ecuadoran government.

The US ambassador to the OAS, Carmen Lomellin, stated, “We condemn any attempt to violate or alter the constitutional process and constitutional order in Ecuador”.

ALBA has also released a formal statement, manifesting “solidarity with the legitimate government of President Rafael Correa and with the sovereign people of Ecuador”.

Nestor Kirchner, general secretary of UNASUR, expressed his total support for and “absolute solidarity” with the Ecuadorian government.

Events in Ecuador

This morning police forces in Quito, Ecuador, took over strategic sites, including an airbase, airports and parliament. President Correa immediately went to the military base to work out a solution. Police claimed they were protesting a law passed on Wednesday that allegedly would reduce their work benefits.

Correa argued that his government had doubled police wages and that rather the law just restructured the benefits.

He also denounced that ex-President Lucio Gutierrez, who, following large protests, was removed from office by a vote of the Ecuadorian congress in 2005, was behind the protest and using it to justify a coup.

Police forces attacked Correa with tear gas and the president was hospitalised shortly after in a military hospital, which coup forces subsequently surrounded. Since then he has not been able to leave.

Supporters have gathered around the presidential palace, and the Ecuadoran government has declared a state of emergency.

In a nationally televised press conference, Ecuador’s top military officials declared their support for the constitutional order of Ecuador. The top commander, General Ernesto González, demanded the police cease their subversive activities. However, the military has yet to intervene to end the police’s occupations, and only Ecuadoran civilians have taken to the streets to confront the police.

The coup attempt is not the first against an ALBA country, countries which challenge US domination in Latin America. In June 2009, Honduras, an ALBA member at the time, was subject to a coup d’état that forced its president Manuel Zelaya from power. In 2004, a coup similar to the one in Honduras was carried out in Haiti with US backing. In 2002 Venezuela was also subject to a coup, but a huge mobilisation by Venezuelans combined with military support for Chavez, defeated the coup.

venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

Washington Still Has Problems With Democracy in Latin America

By Mark Weisbrot - CEPR:

Imagine if Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise to “end business as usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.”

Imagine if he had rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that led to the economic collapse - such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees running the Treasury Department - and instead appointed Nobel Prize-winning economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz to key positions, including the Federal Reserve chairmanship.

Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine if he had chosen Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) for secretary of state, or someone else interested in fulfilling the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan.

Imagine a real health-care reform bill instead of the health-insurance reform we got - one that didn't give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.

It goes without saying that Obama would be vilified by the major media outlets. The seething hostility of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream news organizations, which would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and engaging in dangerous demagoguery.

With most of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would face a constant battle for political survival - although he might well triumph through direct, populist appeals to the majority of voters. This is what a number of left-of-center Latin American leaders have done:

In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was reelected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country’s media.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country with a tradition of governments that didn’t last more than a year. And he has done so in spite of the most hostile media in the hemisphere, as well as unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia’s traditional elite.

And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has survived a military coup attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each one by a larger margin.

All these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises.

Morales, the first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized fossil-fuel industries, created jobs through public investment, and won approval of a more democratic constitution. Correa doubled spending on health care and canceled $3.2 billion in foreign debt that he declared illegitimate. Under Chavez, who took control of his country’s oil industry, poverty was cut in half, and extreme poverty dropped by more than 70 percent.

These presidents faced another obstacle to delivering on their promises that Obama would not: the opposition of the most powerful country in the world. The same was true of former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund to implement his economic policies, which made Argentina the fastest-growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.

Chavez, of course, has been the most demonized in the U.S. media. That is not because of what he has said or done, but because he is sitting on 100 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don't follow orders - whether they are dictatorships (Iraq), theocracies (Iran), or democracies (Venezuela).

All of these leaders had hoped Obama would pursue a different, more enlightened Latin American policy, but that hasn’t happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with the dictators and oligarchs who ran the show in the region for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former “back yard.”

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on economic policy, especially on Latin America and international economic policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also co-writer of Oliver Stone’s current documentary, “South of the Border,” now playing in theaters. He can be reached at weisbrot@cepr.net.

Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

July 19th 2010

venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International