Latin America breaks away from the tutelage of the US, which has increasing difficulties in managing itself

The presence of the United States, the former great dominating power in Latin America, is constantly shrinking and disappearing

After World War II, the US became the main power, both from a military, economic and political point of view.

In July 1944, when the Second World War was practically defined, a Monetary and Financial Conference was held with the assistance of 730 delegates from the 44 allied nations in the conflict at the Mount Washington Hotel, located in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, seeking regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of the War.

These were the bases for the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The following year, once the war was over, the United Nations Organization was founded, initially made up of 51 founding member states, now there are 193.

Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as the UN itself established their headquarters in the United States where they still are.

The World Bank is currently headquartered at 1818 H Street NW. Washington, DC, US and is made up of 189 countries.

For its part, the IMF has its headquarters at 720 19th Street, NW, in Washington, DC and has 190 member states.

Similarly, the UN, founded on October 24, 1945 in San Francisco, California, established its headquarters at 760 United Nations Plaza, Manhattan, New York City. Originally there were 51 Member States in 1945 today there are 193

The World Bank Group or World Bank Group, which was created in 1944 as part of the Bretton Woods Agreements, also has its headquarters in the city of Washington at 1818 H Street NW in the US capital. It is made up of 189 countries.

For their part, at the regional level and shortly after the end of the War, in 1948, the countries of the American continent also agreed to establish an international organization. This was finalized at a meeting in Bogotá, where the Organization of American States was created. As it could not be otherwise, they also established the headquarters in Washington.

on 17th Street corner Constitution Ave of that city.

It is currently made up of 35 member states.

In addition to the OAS, on April 8, 1959, the Inter-American Development Bank was created and, of course, its headquarters were located at 1300 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. The IDB currently has 48 members.

All these institutions that in a certain way shaped and shape a leadership spectrum at the highest economic and political level of a global and continental character. They are all located in the US and of course that way the US is in the best position to control them.

And we must insist that it is in these institutions that strategies, incentives and limits are defined for everyone, and

much more particularly for the entire American continent.

Due to this historical and circumstantial context, the control that the US exercised and to a certain extent still exercises over all the states of Latin America was almost total, leaving no room for the governments of the area to make their own decisions.

100 years before they had taken over half of Mexico, from 1898 they occupied Cuba for more than two decades, Haiti was also occupied from 1915 to 1934, the occupation in the Dominican Republic lasted 8 years, from 1916 to 1924 and Puerto Rico that was occupied in 1898 and whose occupation still continues 125 years later,

In 1903 the US promoted the separation of Panama from Colombia in order to build the interoceanic canal including a territorial strip on both sides of it.

In that period, they defined and even directly designated most of the governments of Mesoamerica, bloodily opposing the revolutionary attempts that occurred. In that period including the Mexican revolution of the decade of 1910-20, and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua from 1927 to 1933.

With the creation of the OAS, US policies in relation to Latin America did not change, OAS officials acted as if they occupied a lower level secretariat in the US government itself.

In 1954 the US had overthrown the progressive Jacobo Arbenz government in Guatemala and a few years later, in 1961, they tried to carry out a coup in Cuba where a revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro had been established since 1959, failing completely.

The attempts continued in the following years, they invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965 against another government that was not to their liking, they started a war to overthrow a revolutionary government in Nicaragua in 1979 to 1990 which they only partially succeeded in, they also invaded the small island Grenada in 1983 to displace a government that made them uncomfortable, and in 1989 they invaded Panama kidnapping its president. The president of Panama named Manuel Noriega was taken to the US to stand trial and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, which was later reduced to 20. He was finally extradited to France and Panama, continuing in prison until his death in 2017. ,

Everything seemed to indicate that this almost total US domination over Latin America would continue indefinitely. But things have been gradually changing.

Incredibly, the government of the Cuban revolution has been resisting sanctions and sabotage for 63 years, in 1998 there was a change of government after which Hugo Chavez took office, who was a president clearly opposed to the interests of the United States in Venezuela and his successor Nicolás Maduro also it resists despite sabotage and sanctions and at the same time Nicaragua was returning to its revolutionary Sandinista roots.

To continue weakening US control in recent years, the left recently won several elections, first in Mexico with López Obrador, also in Bolivia, with Evo Morales and Luis Arce, then in Argentina with Alberto Fernández, and more recently in Chile with Gabriel Boris, in Peru with Pedro Castillo and in Honduras with Xiomara Castro.

At this time, it is thought that Brazil and Colombia are about to change their governments, electing leaders with clear progressive orientations who could continue to expand this trend.

Political evolution does not seem to stop, rather it accelerates. No Latin American country followed the US and Europe in sanctions against Russia, and now, recently, most Latin American states did not attend or were reluctant at the continental Summit organized by the US in Los Angeles.

It seems that the influence of the United States in the Latin American subcontinent is weakening, and that there is no longer that all-powerful economic and political influence that was the rule in the past.

I don't know if this situation reflects the empowerment of Latin American countries or the accelerated weakening of North American power. Maybe both.

We do not know what will happen in the next few years, but we will probably witness a continuation of these processes and perhaps, hopefully, we will witness a radical and historical insubordination of the South Americans who may finally be able to become masters of their own destinations.

 

 

The challenge of Latin America, a failed continent

Although there are multiple definitions of what can be a failed State - Thürer, Chomsky, Clapham, Woodward, Duffield ... -, we can conclude that a State has failed when it is not able to guarantee security nor has the capacity to provide basic services, when the Corruption and institutional instability are high and legal deficiencies constant. Given these elements, Latin America is a failed continent.
Proof of this would be the last months, with crisis in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico and Bolivia. The balance is terrible: two presidents self-proclaimed in an accomplished coup d'etat and another failed, dozens dead, multiple complaints of rapes, sexual abuse and killings. To this disturbing scenario we should add the cases of Brazil - commanded by an ultra-rightist with weaknesses from the past dictatorship -, Argentina - in a situation of extreme economic fragility - and Mexico - with the sound of sabers. It is the portrait of a continent near the collapse.
The origin of this failure in Latin America can focus on the many consequences reported - corruption, institutional instability, lack of judicial independence ... - but that would be a mistake. We must turn to the cause: the liberalism imposed by the United States. The Latin American continent has been subjugated since the middle of the last century to liberal economic principles - Chicago Boys, for example -, which were imposed thanks to the saber of the generals - Pinochet, Videla, Figueiredo, Stroessner ... - in an endless flight of the condor "Kissinger."
Of all the consequences reported, the most important is inequality. The wealth generated in Latin America does not revert in its citizens but in the elites and the big companies - many of them North American in part or in its totality. This generates that the poor every day are poorer and the rich, increasingly rich, so that social progress, although existing, is so scarce that it is essentially broken.
The war - and the contenders - has been the same in all the battlefields, equally during the last decades than during the last months: in Venezuela or Cuba its leaders must be overthrown to plunder the country; in Bolivia the coup d'etat has already taken place and soon the condor will destroy what it finds in its path, but not before leaving its trail on the asphalt; in Chile and Ecuador, the military has defended the elites with great brutality; in Brazil, the extreme right rides and the army cleans the streets as in good times; in Colombia, the positives return to the front line; in Mexico, the sabers of the generals sharpen after the detonations of the criminal gangs ... The elites want to end the redistribution of the wealth of the progressive governments and, of course, prevent this from happening where the liberals govern.
Integration, the first step
At this point, the descriptive exercise has little value if it is not accompanied by proposals, because it is necessary for Latin America to find a remedy for the main problems that plague it and one of the few solutions that exist, if not the only one, passes for Latin American integration and the creation of an army.
An integration that includes judicial, economic and fiscal institutions, with corrective measures for the redistribution of income and the reduction of both inequality and poverty and territorial imbalances. A model similar to that adopted by the European Union, but that goes much further - in Europe they stayed in business - and overcome the pitfalls that Europeans have not been able to overcome.
An integrated Latin America would generate multiple benefits. First, it would be a turning point to solve two of the most pressing problems: the lack of internal security and the lack of political stability. Fighting organized crime and avoiding coups among all will be simpler than separately, it is something that has been achieved in Europe. A continent in which today it is unthinkable to suffer problems of these characteristics, but that during the last century received considerable attacks - Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany ... -.
Secondly, he would become a geopolitical actor, which would give Latin Americans a greater degree of independence, in the same way as in Europe. In addition, it would allow negotiating with the rest of the powers - the US, China, Russia, Europe - from a more advantageous position, be they economic, environmental, war or other matters.
The problem, as is the case in the European Union, is that integration by itself - especially if it is based on economics - can solve problems of crime and stability, but it is not enough to deal with the other two major problems: the subordination to the US - and the elites and large companies - and the inequalities generated by liberalism.
Liberalism cannot be confronted - due to its globality - from national or regional coordinates, it will surely collapse on its own and we are already contemplating the first failures, but the degree of dependence with the US does have a solution: a single army. The possibility of creating an army has been promoted - without success - in Europe due to the opposition precisely of the Americans, who continue to claim that the Old Continent is a modern protectorate at their service.
The unique army, the end of independence
However, this should not cause discouragement, much less abandon the idea. Integration and the single army must be the objectives to get Latin America to stop its journey to collapse. To leave the edge of the cliff.
In a context of modern colonization in which the vast majority of Latin American and European countries are modern protectorates, because they can make decisions internally — provided they are liked by the United States. or else they will have problems - armies have only one real reason to exist, at least in the way they currently exist: they are the engine of the arms industry - the US is the main supplier of weapons on the planet.
According to different sources, the ten most numerous armies in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Ecuador) total about 1.2 million military personnel. But does Latin America need so many military? If we verify that the United States, deployed throughout the world and with great operational needs, has 1.3 million military personnel and that Russia, also with great deployment and operation, has between 500,000 and 750,000 troops, it is not difficult to answer that question: no. Latin America does not need so many military; but the arms industry and the United States - as long as the armies are not united - yes. Therefore, Americans would be the main obstacle that Latin Americans would encounter.
Because a united continent that had an army would only need between 500,000 and 800,000 military, with the savings that would entail. In addition, a Latin America with a single army would be much more difficult to control from the US as is the case today and would allow the entire continent to provide institutional stability and internal security that it now does not have.
But not everything is bad news. Latin America has allies and must rely on them. Both Russia and China, for a matter of geopolitical balance, and Europe, for their own spirit of independence, are powers that can and should help to travel the road.
Latin America has more than 22 million square kilometers and more than 620 million inhabitants. Too large and too populated to be a failed continent that the United States uses as if it were a backyard. They must decide: modern protectorate close to collapse or solid geopolitical power.
Author
Luis Gonzalo Segura
Nov 20, 2019
Reference:
https://actualidad.rt.com/opinion/luis-gonzalo-segura/334296-latinoamerica-continente-fallido-integracion-ejercito-unico