Tuesday, 15 January 2002
.....
During the Summit of the Americas last April, more recently at the World Economic Forum in New York, and during meetings of other supra-national organizations (WTO, IMF, World Bank), pundits often claimed that since the meetings are of elected representatives, protestors who oppose the meetings are anti-democratic. Police and intelligence agencies are also fond of using this justification to stifle protests. This common claim hides a false assumption: that the countries involved are democracies. If one believes that mere elections do not make democracy, this is trivial to prove.
But the claim hides another assumption that is even more false: that we in developed countries like the USA or Canada are playing a proactive role in helping "fledgling democracies" like Nicaraugua, Peru, or even Afghanistan blossom into full-fledged democracies. Encouraging the aspirations of birds of a feather, if you will.
The truth is, we do nothing of the sort. In fact, we do quite the opposite. The US, through its direct support of numerous brutal regimes, and Canada, in its complicity with this support, prevent democracy from happening all over the world.
A poignant example is El Salvador. Until the 1970s, El Salvador was ruled by a series of US-supported dictators. In the mid-70s, church groups and peasant organizations began to question their corrupt government. Similar social networks have played a role in throwing off the yolk of repressive regimes. In the late 70's, the brutal regime, its army funded and trained by the US, proceeded to assassinate priests in mid-sermon, massacre demonstrators, rape women, murder children, often decapitating victims and leaving the corpses in the most gruesome states imaginable. Approximately 10,000 were killed in 1980, and the toll increased to 13,000 in 1981, Reagan's first year in office.
A similar pattern emerged in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas, a socialist guerilla group with widespread popular support, overthrew the corrupt dictatorship under Somoza, who fled to Miami with funds stolen from the treasury. The US provided massive funding and training to what was left of the Somoza regime, now called the "Contras", to attack the Sandinistas. While the Sandinistas were in power in the 1980s, the World Bank called its development projects there "extraordinarily successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere else in the world." But it was not to be. Success on terms not dictated by US policy was unthinkable, and what was needed was to "turn Nicaragua into the Albania of Central America", according to one State Department report. This was accomplished by cutting off aid from the World Bank and other countries through diplomatic pressure, continued funding of Contra attacks, which forced the Sandinistas to use funds for arms that might otherwise have been used for development; and, finally, a US promise to cut funding to the Contras in exchange for allowing international observation of the elections was in fact followed up with a tripling of weapons funding and shipments.
Present day policy has hardly changed. Colombia has received over $1 billion USD in military aid under Clinton's "Plan Colombia" and is regarded as a "leading democracy". Considering that Colombia's human rights record is nothing if not deplorable -- some 300,000 refugees are driven from their homes annually and demonstrators are regularly massacred -- one might question whether Colombia is a democracy, much less a shining example. In the late 1990s, an opposition party was allowed to run for various public positions, but suffered setbacks when over 3000 of its activists, including presidential candidates, were assassinated. Democracy indeed.
Chile has suffered for the last two decades after a US-backed coup which put the Pinochet dictatorship into power. In addition to his penchant for suppressing dissent by murdering members of opposition groups, Pinochet was enthusiastic about free trade, which in the case of developing countries like Chile means selling off public resources (e.g. water) and contracting public services to multinational corporations.
Even countries that aren't direct targets of US-funded terrorism are still affected by US policies. The most damaging of these policies is the constant US refusal to stop or decrease its international arms exports, for which US suppliers account for more than 50% worldwide. It is hard to believe that even a small fraction of these arms will be used to fight for justice or democracy of any reasonable definition.
These facts have deep implications for any development efforts that we, as developed nations, might wish to pursue. If development efforts are at all analogous to the practice of medicine, we would do well to first, above all else, do no harm. Insofar as we are willing to forego the benefits that we attain through our brutal policies -- benefits that go to the very rich through lucrative government contracts and exploitation of labor -- we should pressure on our governments to either cease their death-dealing activities and to cease tolerating it in other countries.
Many of the policies of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO are clearly detrimental to the countries they claim to be helping, and there is undoubtedly a debate to be had regarding the our role in the "development" of poorer nations. However, the egregious and permanent damage that we have done and continue to do must be dealt with before any meaningful debate on issues of development can happen.
Indeed, before we try to stop the brutal policies currently in place, we must admit that they occur and that they are wrong. If that ever happens, there will be ways of rectifying the situation, through reparations or other compensatory policies. Until it happens we will continually undermine any efforts to help the developing world.
See also The Global Privileges of Whiteness <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/764>
This is How We Hate Democracy <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/807>