U.S. Military Bases in Colombia: Uribe’s Constitutional Hopscotch

Updated on 24 November 2009 (for updates please scroll to the bottom of this post)

In one of Gabriel García Márquez’s novels, the narrator explains that the gringos have even taken the water from one of Colombia’s bays. Last week, the U.S. and Colombia signed an agreement that suggests that the gringos are now also after Colombia’s—and perhaps Venezuela’s—land and skies. The signing of the agreement confirms the news, first reported in this blog on 3 July 2009, that the U.S. military will use, and almost certainly acquire operational control over as many as seven Colombian bases (it seems that the number is going up every other month; although Colombia’s own Cambio magazine reported it could be five, international media said at first it was three, then four, then five, and now it is ‘at least’ seven). The bases in question range from the Palanquero Air Force Base near Bogotá to Colombia’s main naval bases on the Pacific and Caribbean. Apparently the until recently secret agreement also includes a clause that allows the U.S. military free use of all of Colombia’s civilian airports.

Alas, the move has required an intricate constitutional hopscotch on Uribe’s part. According to Colombian laws, Congress needs to approve new treaties and any agreement involving the movement of foreign troops through the country. Aware no doubt that members of Colombia’s legislative branch might not approve of U.S. use of Colombia’s bases, Uribe has come up with what looks, to this blogger at least, like a legal fiction that is as complex as it is misleading. His lawyers have argued that, far from involving a new treaty, let alone the movement of foreign troops across Colombian territory, the ‘Complementary Agreement for Cooperation and Technical Assistance in Defense and Security’ with the United States is no more than a kind of supplement to three or more existing treaties. Aspects of each of these pre-existing treaties allegedly provide the ‘framework treaties’ (‘tratados marco’) with which to implement the new agreement. Of course, the new U.S. bases are not being described as new bases, let alone as U.S. bases. Given that nothing has really changed, or so Uribe’s argument goes, the president of Colombia is entitled to use his powers as the director of Colombia’s foreign policy to give the U.S. military (and its ominous civilian contractors) what is, in effect, free use of Colombia’s military infrastructure.

We owe it to President Lula of Brazil to have cut through this argument in the course of the historic UNASUR meeting that took place in Argentina’s San Carlos de Bariloche on 28 August 2009. After Uribe claimed that the agreement with the U.S. did not constitute a significant change to existing policy, and that the U.S. had had access to Colombian bases for decades, Lula posed the obvious question: if that was the case, why was any agreement whatsoever required with the U.S.?

These and other interventions during the UNASUR gathering revealed the extent to which, less than a year after arriving to power, the Obama-Clinton presidency has managed to do what no other U.S. government has done in the 180 or so years since most South American countries obtained their independence from Spain: to unite South American countries in condemning U.S. policy in the region. It was extraordinary to watch live on television (UNASUR had live TV coverage at the insistence of Uribe himself), how leader after leader stood up either to express doubts about, or even to flatly condemn the U.S. bases in Colombia. Even Perú’s President Alan García, the other major U.S. ally in the continent, was forced to qualify his support for Uribe during the course of the televised meeting. One has to wonder, in this sense, who advised Uribe to insist on wall-to-wall TV coverage; perhaps Uribe thought that other leaders might be cowed into silence if they knew that the media spotlight was shining on them. The effect appears to have been exactly the opposite, which says something about the perceived strength of anti-American feeling across the continent.

As predicted by this blog, even before the agreement was formally signed, it was already providing further incentive for a beefing up of Colombia’s neighbours’ armed forces. In late July Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez went shopping for fighters and helicopters in Russia, and in September Brazil announced an agreement in principle to buy France’s Rafale fighters. For its part, Ecuador has accepted an offer by Venezuela to donate six of its older Mirage fighters to the Ecuadorean Air Force. While not all of the transactions can be attributed directly to the establishment of the U.S. bases in Colombia, there can be little doubt that the bases will fuel the concern of leaders throughout the region. Many will calculate that, at the very least, they must make it as difficult as possible for the U.S. (or its Colombian proxy) to launch the kind of strikes that Reagan launched against Libya in 1986. The hope must be that current or future U.S. leaders will hesitate to launch such attacks if there is a likelihood of U.S. casualties. Venezuela’s and Ecuador’s leaders most also be hoping that, if Uribe knows that his neighbours can strike back at him, he may be less eager to follow the instructions of his U.S. masters.

Unfortunately, this means that the U.S. bases are already paying rich political dividends for the Obama-Clinton presidency: whether this was the plan or not, precious resources that Venezuelan and other regional leaders ought to have poured into improving the lot of the poor are being devoted to the acquisition of advanced weapons systems. It seems likely that, sooner or later, arms traders will succeed in tempting one or more regional leaders with multi-million dollar bribes of the kind that have made Britain’s BAE notorious. If or when this happens, then the right-wing opposition of Chávez and other progressive leaders in the continent will have their work cut out for them.

Asked in a recent BBC World Service interview what he thought of President Obama, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa politely suggested that Obama was a very nice man, but that he was not in control of the U.S. military ‘machine’ or of the CIA. EcoLogics suggests that Obama is as much in control of these as any other U.S. president has been (which is not to say that he is completely in control); when it comes to the United States, it has always been the case that perorations of democracy on the home front have often been flatly contradicted by policies vis-à-vis countries that the U.S. considers to be a part of its ‘sphere of interest’.

Obama confirmed this practice when he effectively reversed his policy vis-à-vis Colombia’s appalling human rights record. Before the elections, and in a speech given to the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia on April 2nd, 2008, Obama said that he would ‘oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements’. Despite evidence provided by Human Rights Watch that Uribe’s government continues to tolerate, if not itself engage in murderous actions against left-wing activists, Obama now appears to have changed his mind about Colombia: in his remarks after a meeting earlier this year with Uribe, Obama was quoted as saying that

We discussed, most prominently, the interests of both countries in moving forward on a free trade agreement. This is something that has been discussed for quite some time. I have instructed Ambassador Kirk, our United States Trade Representative, to begin working closely with President Uribe’s team on how we can proceed on a free trade agreement. There are obvious difficulties involved in the process and there remains work to do, but I’m confident that ultimately we can strike a deal that is good for the people of Colombia and good for the people of the United States. […] I commended President Uribe on the progress that has been made in human rights in Colombia and dealing with the killings of labor leaders there, and obviously we’ve seen a downward trajectory in the deaths of labor unions and we’ve seen improvements when it comes to prosecution of those who are carrying out these blatant human rights offenses.

Obama’s comments came hard on the heels of the news of the new ‘complementary’ agreement. We can only deduce that Obama’s increasingly complimentary disposition towards Uribe is a function of a quid-pro-quo involving the U.S. bases in Colombia.

Updates (most recent first)

24 November 2009: Many of Uribe’s political opponents believe that he will stop at nothing—he even changed the constitution during his presidency to allow himself to get re-elected not once, but twice. The fruits of this change are finally becoming evident to Colombians themselves. Uribe is now trying to put an end to Colombia’s centuries-old system of checks and balances by brow-beating the one institution that has refused to be cowed: the Supreme Court. After the court failed to rubber stamp Uribe’s choice for a prosecutor general, Uribe has engaged in a war of words with the leading supreme court judge, accusing him of lying. The equivalent in the United States would be for Obama to accuse the chief justice of lying, an act with the greatest political and constitutional consequences. What next? Will Uribe accuse supreme court president Augusto Ibañez of being a ‘terrorist’ and sick the paramilitaries on him? As noted by Human Rights Watch, it would not be the first time that the ruthless politician accuses his political opponents of being ‘terrorists’.

Was the Obama Administration involved in the Honduran Coup?

We don’t know—though as noted by critical commentators throughout Latin America, the initial silence of the Obama administration spoke louder than words, and now Hillary Clinton isn’t exactly busting a gut to pressure Micheletti and his cronies to reinstate Zelaya.

Here is an article by Nikolas Kozloff in Counterpunch that sheds light on one possible motivation for direct U.S. involvement in the Honduran coup (beyond the more traditional corporate motivations)

Zelaya, Negroponte and the Controversy at Soto Cano: The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras

Obama: yes you can have it both ways

This blog recently praised Obama for his initial intervention in the wrongful arrest of Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates. Alas, in the end Obama felt compelled to engage in what amounted to a tactical retreat over the affair: the denunciation of the offending policeman was transformed into an opportunity to ‘drink a beer’ with him.

Earlier, this blog published a series of articles that chronicled another Obama retreat: in the days that followed the coup d’etat in Honduras, the Obama administration refused to recognise the event for what it was—a vintage coup on the part of Honduran oligarchy, led by a former member of congress turned dictator, Roberto Micheletti. As the leaders of Latin American countries took turns condemning the coup, a hitherto silent Obama was embarrassed into admitting that Zelaya was the rightful president, and that Zelaya should return to the presidency. Even after Obama accepted this, Hillary Clinton refused to call the coup a coup.

As noted in the post about the intervention of Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Zelaya’s return was blocked by Micheletti, his accomplices in the military, and the Honduran Roman Catholic Church. The last few weeks have seen a textbook example of hegemonic diplomacy: the U.S. agreed to let Óscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica, act as a mediator, and stood by as Micheletti refused to compromise on the power that he usurped on June 28. Each attempt by Arias to find a way forward has watered down the requirements for the Micheletti camp, even as it has reneged on the original objective of the full restoration of President Zelaya’s democratic powers. As noted by a number of critical commentators, the end result has been that Micheletti and Co. have had time to consolidate their grip on power, even as Zelaya has been left to fly around the continent, ineffectually trying to persuade the U.S. and other countries to force Micheletti out of power.

The subject of today’s post is the startling ideological inversion that Barak Obama has deployed to deflect criticism over the U.S.’s role in the coup—a role which at the very least has involved ‘looking the other way’, but which may well have involved direct U.S. government backing for the conspirators. The coup was at least a year in the making, and so may well have been planned with the assistance of the Bush administration.

According to news reports reaching EcoLogics, Obama is now saying that

‘”The same critics who say the US has not intervened in Honduras are the same people who say we are always intervening and Yankees need to get out of Latin America,” he said, accusing such opponents of “hypocrisy.”’‘”You can’t have it both ways”’.

EcoLogics wonders if Obama called the good Cardinal Rodríguez to ask him for advice on how to turn political reality on its head. Latin American history is littered with U.S. attempts to impose leaders that have been politically and economically convenient. It is, for example, now factually documented that this is what happened in Chile in 1973.

This being the case, there is no contradiction in suggesting that, as Obama puts it, the ‘Yankees’ should ‘get out of Latin America’ (if and when they meddle with the countries’ internal affairs); and suggesting that, if the U.S. really wanted to, it could either bring down the Micheletti dictatorship, or at the very least, make things so hot for the golpistas that they would have no choice but to negotiate with Zelaya.

The point is not to say that the U.S. should intervene, but rather, that it is disingenuous for the Obama administration to pretend that its hands are tied. This is the point that Obama has neatly dissimulated by accusing his critics of hypocrisy.

By way of a postscript: Obama should be careful about how he bandies about the H word: have a look at what Frank Rich has to say about Obama’s policy on healthcare; like a growing number of Democrats, Rich rightly warns Obama that unless he stops ‘punking’ his followers, he has less than four years left in the presidency.

La Postura Política de la Iglesia Católica en Honduras: el Cardenal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga

Actualizado el 16 de julio

Nota del traductor: este blog es una traducción del original en inglés, ‘The Honduran Roman Catholic Church’s True Colours: Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga‘, publicado por EcoLogics el 5 de julio del 2009. EcoLogics agradece a lectores latinoamericanos la sugerencia de una traducción de dicho texto, y su colaboración con la producción de la traducción.

Según los medios de comunicación, el jerarca de la iglesia Católica en Honduras, el Cardenal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, se opone al regreso del Presidente Manuel Zelaya, quien fue víctima de un golpe de estado perpetuado por un grupo de empresarios en dicho país. El diario El País en España informa que el gobierno instituído por el golpe transmitió el siguiente mensaje de Rodríguez Maradiaga por todas las cadenas de televisión: “[Dirigiéndose a Zelaya] Yo sé que usted ama la vida”, dijo el prelado, “sé que usted respeta la vida, y hasta el día de hoy no ha muerto ningún hondureño. Pero su regreso al país en este momento podría desatar un baño de sangre. Por favor, medite. Porque después sería demasiado tarde”(1).

Se trata de un mensaje extraordinario. Por una parte, incluso el Presidente Obama, cuyo gobierno fue criticado en un principio por apoyar implícitamente a los golpistas, terminó por admitir que Zelaya aún es el presidente de Honduras. De otra parte, el discurso empleado por Rodríguez Maradiaga culpa por adelantado a Zelaya por un baño de sangre que, de producirse, sería el resultado de las acciones de los golpistas liderados por Roberto Micheletti. En efecto, Rodríguez Maradiaga intenta impedir el regreso de Zelaya mediante una distorsión del verdadero órden político: Zelaya es víctima de las acciones de Micheletti y del grupo que este último lidera, pero el mensaje de Rodríguez Maradiaga procura transformar al presidente en agresor. Con razón que el gobierno ilegal de Honduras interrumpió las programaciones habituales y obligó a todos los canales a transmitir la intervención de Rodríguez.

Hecho que genera la siguiente pregunta: ¿quién es Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, y por qué se ha aliado con la oligarquía hondureña que apoya al golpe?

Cualquier persona que se informa sobre la trayectoria del cardenal bien podría llevarse la impresión de que Rodríguez Maradiaga es un lider religioso ‘progre’. Por ejemplo, si el lector se basa en la primera parte del artículo sobre el cardenal en Wikipedia [nota del traductor: se trata de la versión en inglés, ver notas a pie de página], ciertamente parece ser una figura en pos del bien: según Wikipedia, ‘Su campaña a favor de los derechos humanos y de los pobres se ha ganado la admiración de muchas personas. El Cardenal Rodríguez también es admirado como un sacerdote dinámico que ha forjado acuerdos de paz con grupos rebeldes y ha liderado esfuerzos por la reconstrucción luego de un desastre natural. No esconde su opinión que se debe cancelar la deuda del Tercer Mundo’(2).

También parece tener un intelecto formidable: según el mismo artículo en Wikipedia, el cardenal tiene un doctorado en filosofía, y además del castellano, habla inglés, francés, italiano, alemán y portugués. Como si eso no fuera poco, Rodríguez tiene un diploma en psicología clínica y en psicoterapia, ha enseñado química y física, e inclusive ha tomado cursos en piano clásico. En efecto, tiene el tipo de educación que tan solo las personas más privilegiadas en Latinoamérica podrían obtener.

Según El País, Rodríguez Maradiaga fue un mediador clave durante la pugna entre Zelaya, el presidente democráticamente elegido, y el sector que apoya a Micheletti: ‘Hay un hombre que influye mucho en Honduras y que hasta ahora había permanecido en silencio. Ese hombre asistió a todas las reuniones secretas que se celebraron en la Embajada de Estados Unidos para intentar evitar el golpe de Estado. En esos conciliábulos, el cardenal Óscar Rodríguez se mantenía siempre en una exquisita equidistancia’(3).

Ahora resulta que el buen cardenal no solo ha abandonado dicha ‘equidistancia’, sino que como se lo explicó antes, ha asumido una posición que lo vuelve cómplice de los líderes del golpe.

Y eso es precisamente lo que es Rodríguez: el cómplice de Micheletti. Un hombre con un doctorado en filosofía, y con un diploma en psicología clínica bien podría haber elegido cualquiera de varias formas de proseguir en su labor como mediador. En vez, escogió lo que puede considerarse como la manera más maquiavélica de impedir el retorno de Zelaya a Honduras: atribuyéndole por adelantado la responsabilidad por cualquier muerte que pudiera resultar de sus esfuerzos por volver a la presidencia. Por lo mismo, nos debemos preguntar una vez mas, ¿quién es Rodríguez Maradiaga, y por qué ha asumido dicha actitud?

Si se investiga con más cuidado la trayectoria de Rodríguez Maradiaga, se puede encontrar pistas que indican que Rodríguez Maradiaga no es tan ‘humanista’ como se le representa.

Primero, el cardenal ha asumido una postura manipulativa en lo que se refiere a los juicios a los sacerdotes católicos que han cometido actos de pedofilia en los Estados Unidos. Según el artículo de Wikipedia antes citado [nota del traductor, se trata un vez más de la versión en inglés], en una entrevista concedida en mayo del 2002 a la revista italiana-católica 30 Giorni, Rodríguez Maradiaga alegó que los ‘judíos’ habían manipulado a los medios, aprovechando la controversia sobre el abuso sexual por parte del clérigo para distraer a la opinión pública durante la crísis entre palestinos e israelíes. Sin duda que el estado israelí (a diferencia de ‘los judíos’ en general) es capaz de todo tipo de actos tramposos. Pero es ridículo intentar echarle la culpa a ‘los judíos’ por los informes en los medios sobre los escándalos de la pedofilia entre el clérigo católico. Parece más bien un esfuerzo pícaro por parte del cardenal por disimular los problemas de fondo que afronta la Iglesia Católica.

Segundo, la revista francesa Golias informó que, en lo que se refiere al tema del SIDA y el uso de preservativos, el cardenal supuestamente progresivo ‘es mas papista que el Papa’: ‘El Arzobispo Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga dijo [en la revista mensual Comboni] que estaba convencido que los preservativos no son eficaces en la campaña contra el virus del SIDA. ‘La batalla contra el SIDA no debería enfocarse en el uso de preservativos (…) El uso de los preservativos no previene toda transmisión del SIDA’(4). Puede ser que esta última frase es correcta si se la interpreta fuera del contexto mas ámplio del debate sobre el uso de preservativos. Pero en dicho debate, Benedicto XVI (y por lo visto el mismo Rodríguez) ha adoptado una postura totalmente ideológica. Es una postura que con toda seguridad contribuirá a más contagios, y por lo mismo, a más muertes por SIDA—muertes que, por lo visto, preocupan menos a Rodríguez que las que supuestamente causaría Zelaya si vuelve a Honduras.

Tercero, luego de ofrecer una perspectiva en la revista Time que muchos interpretaron como liberal en lo que se refiere a la excomunión de políticos a favor de legalizar el aborto, Rodríguez Maradiaga repentínamente cambió de parecer: como lo notó en su momento la Agencia de Noticias Católica,

…en declaraciones a Carlos Polo, reproducidas exclusivamente por la Agencia de Noticias Católicas, el Cardenal Maradiaga [sic], quien está en Aparecida participando en la V Conferencia General del Episcopado Latinoamericano, dijo que sus comentarios en la revista Time deberían de ser reformulados “a la luz de lo que enseña la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe en su documento, ‘Dignidad para recibir la sagrada comunión.’” Según el Cardenal, “Un político que apoya de manera pública el aborto, se excomulga a sí mismo. No es cuestión de recibir la sagrada comunión o no; él ya le ha hecho un daño serio a la comunión de la fe de la Iglesia, a la comunión de la vida moral, y por lo mismo la persona misma comete un acto que contradice lo que dice creer”(5).

Para quienes no conocen los intríngulis del Vaticano, la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe es el nombre moderno de lo que solía conocerse como el Santo Oficio, es decir, la Santa Inquisición. Bajo la prefectura de Joseph Ratzinger (el Papa actual, Benedicto XVI), la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe se volvió famosa por su persecución a lo largo y ancho del mundo de los católicos adherentes a la teología liberal, y más aún, a la teología de la liberación. Así es que la vuelta en U de Rodríguez Maradiaga respecto al tema del aborto se puede interpretar como un reconocimiento de que la línea dura de Ratzinger continúa imperando.

Una interpretación benevolente de la intervención de Rodríguez Maradiaga a favor de Micheletti es precisamente que el Papa le ha ordenado que asuma dicha postura. Sin embargo, el papel que desempeñó Rodríguez Maradiaga como presidente del CELAM (el Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano) sugiere que Rodríguez Maradiaga no es una ‘víctima del Vaticano’. En su momento el CELAM apoyó a sacerdotes progresivos que iniciaron un movimiento conocido como ‘teología de la liberación’. Los sacerdotes establecieron ‘Comunidades Eclesiásticas de Base’ con una orientación crítica, la cual exploró nuevas maneras de ayudar a los pobres a superar la explotación por los siglos de los siglos de grupos como el que promovió el golpe en Honduras. Los sacerdotes arguyeron que la Iglesia había defraudado a los pobres, y que hacía falta un replanteamiento radical en torno a las políticas de la Iglesia.

En un principio, el Vaticano toleró el reto de la teología de la liberación. Sin embargo, bajo el Papa Paulo VI, y luego bajo el archi-conservador Juan Pablo II, el Vaticano se opuso al movimiento y buscó eliminarlo mediate la imposición de presidentes conservadores en el CELAM. En dicho proceso, Ratzinger (ahora Benedicto XVI) emergió como la eminencia gris de la derecha católica. Desde 1995 hasta 1999, Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga fue uno de dichos presidentes; como lo notó el diario el Washington Post en su momento, ‘aunque ha criticado a las políticas a favor de mercados libres y defensa de los millones que viven en la pobreza absoluta en Centroamérica, Rodríguez Maradiaga se opone a la ‘teología de la liberación’ que en su momento apoyó a las guerrillas de izquierda y buscó modificar las reglas de la ortodoxia católica para acercar a la Iglesia a los grupos indígenas, y a los pobres’(6).

En el 2001, Juan Pablo II reconoció la lealtad de Rodríguez al nombrarlo el primer cardenal de Honduras, y en el 2005, Rodríguez se postuló como candidato para ser el nuevo Papa cuando Juan Pablo II murió. El artículo en la revista Golias se preguntaba si la postura de Rodríguez frente al uso de preservativos sería parte de una estrategia cuyo fin sería ganar el apoyo de la todo-poderosa derecha en el Vaticano. La actitud de Rodríguez frente a Zelaya suscita preguntas similares: será que Rodríguez desea ser el sucesor de Ratzinger, y que para ello está dispuesto a sacrificar a los grupos marginalizados en Honduras para fortalecer sus credenciales?

Lejos, entonces, de ser una víctima del Vaticano, hay buenas razones para pensar que Rodríguez Maradiaga es el tipo de lider católico que ha plagado a las sociedades latinoamericanas por siglos: un cardenal que, cuando le ha convenido a la Iglesia, ha criticado la avaricia de las élites; pero también un lider que, llegado el momento, ha comprendido muy bien que los intereses ideológicos del Vaticano están muy cerca de los intereses de las oligarquías que la misma Iglesia ha atacado de cuando en cuando. El hecho de que Rodríguez ha abandonado súbitamente una postura mediadora, y de que lo ha hecho de la manera antes descrita, nos sugiere que la Iglesia Católica hondureña vuelve a repetir una triste historia latinoamericana.

Actualización 6 de julio

Nos llegan noticias de que el gobierno ‘de facto’ en Honduras no solo ha prohibido el retorno de Zelaya, sino que ha matado a un hombre y ha herido a varios más en hechos que parecen ‘comprobar’ la lógica maquiavélica de Rodríguez Maradiaga. (Para actualizarse con la evolución de la noticias, ver el Latin America News Review.) EcoLogics le pide a los lectores que consideren lo siguiente: si Obama le hubiese dado un ultimatum a los empresarios hondureños, ¿se habría producido el golpe? Habría vuelto Zelaya al poder?

Actualización 10 de julio

Segun el diario Guardian de Inglaterra, la tercera encíclica de Joseph Ratzinger (Benedicto XVI) aparentemente sugiere que ‘La convicción de que la economía debe ser autónoma, y que debe protegerse de las ‘influencias’ de caracter moral, han llevado al hombre a abusar del proceso económico de una manera completamente destructiva’. ‘A largo plazo, estas convicciones han resultado en sistemas económicos, sociales y políticos que pisotean la libertad personal y social, y que por lo mismo son incapaces de promover la justicia que prometen’. EcoLogics estudiará la encíclica y publicará un artículo sobre el tema. Sin embargo, todo indica que la postura de la encíclica se parece mucho a la de Rodríguez Maradiaga: el Papa ciertamente maneja un discurso de condenación moral, pero cuando uno se fija en su historia, queda claro que Benedicto XVI buscó destruir a los sacerdotes que no solo plantearon los mismos problemas, sino que además buscaron hacer algo al respecto hace décadas en el contexto de la teología de la liberación.

Actualización 16 de julio

Varios artículos aparecidos en los últimos días confirman el análisis que ofrece este blog.

1) En un artículo en el diario argentino El Clarín, Rodríguez Maradiaga intenta negar su apoyo por Micheletti y el resto de los golpistas. Dice que no es un ‘cardenal golpista’, pero a la misma vez, no critica a Micheletti. EcoLogics sugiere que ‘quien calla otorga…’

2) El website de Radio Mundial—EcoLogics asume que se trata de una estación Chavista—publica un artículo aparecido en 1982 en el diario Tiempo, en el que un sacerdote que tuvo que huir de Honduras acusó a Rodríguez Maradiaga de ser cómplice de la represión militar. El siguiente texto es parte de lo publicado por Radio Mundial:

En sus declaraciones al momento de exiliarse, Milla denunció al coronel Oscar Armando Mejía Peralta, jefe del XII Batallón de Santa Rosa, como el principal responsable “de la represión desatada contra mi persona, así como contra otros agentes de la pastoral de la Iglesia”. Milla también denunció la complicidad con el ejército del actual cardenal Rodríguez Madariaga, que por entonces era obispo de la Diócesis de Copán: fue “cómplice de todo lo que los militares nos hacen”, afirmó. [...] El sacerdote exiliado acusó a Rodríguez de haber desmantelado toda la estructura de apoyo pastoral a los pobres y de lucha contra la represión que había favorecido su predecesor en el cargo, monseñor Jose Carranza. “Mi obispo más parece un coronel sin charretera, que un pastor”, sentenció, para luego concluir con una dura acusación: “Lo que uno no se explica es que nuestros jerarcas superiores, que firmaron documentos como el de Puebla, vengan a ponerse al lado de quienes ese documento de la iglesia condena por ser los interesados en mantener el régimen de la seguridad nacional que significa inseguridad para toda la población y solo seguridad para los dineros que ellos acumulan.

Aunque Radio Mundial incluye una foto del artículo original, EcoLogics no tiene manera de verificar estas acusaciones, las cuales ciertamente confirmarían lo argumentado en este blog respecto al rol de Rodríguez Maradiaga frente a la teología de la liberación. Por lo mismo agradeceremos la colaboración de cualquier lector que nos pueda enviar más información al respecto.

3) EcoLogics advierte a los lectores del blog que el artículo en Wikipedia (en inglés) sobre Rodríguez Maradiaga ha sido manipulado por Rodríguez (o por sus seguidores), luego de aparecer este blog—es posible, inclusive probable que lo mismo ha sucedido con la versión en español. Es la gran desventaja de Wikipedia, que a pesar de ser un excelente medio informativo, puede ser objeto de todo tipo de manipulaciones por partes interesadas.

Referencias

1) ‘La Iglesia pide a Zelaya que no regrese’, in El País, July 5, 2009, http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Iglesia/pide/Zelaya/regrese/elpepuint/20090705elpepiint_1/Tes, acceso el 5 de julio de 2009.

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Andr%C3%A9s_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Maradiaga, acceso el 5 de julio de 2009. Nota del traductor: el Wiki sobre Rodríguez en Inglés es mucho más crítico que el Wiki en español. Sería bueno que alguien actualizara la versión en castellano.

3) ‘La Iglesia pide a Zelaya que no regrese’, in El País, July 5, 2009, http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Iglesia/pide/Zelaya/regrese/elpepuint/20090705elpepiint_1/Tes, acceso el 5 de julio de 2009.

4) ‘L’enquête Caritas : Maradiaga déçoit’ in Golias, http://www.golias.fr/spip.php?article2853, acceso el 6 de julio de 2009.

5) Catholic News Agency, ‘Honduran cardinal clarifies interview on Communion and pro-abortion politicians’, May 18, 2007. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9402, acceso el 5 de julio de 2009.

6) ‘Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, Honduras’, Washington Post, April 16, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57842-2005Apr15.html, acceso el 5 de julio de 2009.

Gordon Brown’s Financierism and the Chilean ‘Miracle’ (updated)

NB. 17 October 2010. This post was originally published in March 2008. I am posting it at the top of the EcoLogics website to welcome to Britain Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique, the President of Chile. Piñera is currently surfing a wave of global goodwill following the rescue of the 33 miners in northern Chile.  I am no longer publishing full posts in this blog. But I urge readers to do a bit of research about Piñera to find out who he is. If they do so, they will learn that, even if he was not quite a ‘Chicago Boy‘ (Piñera was posher than that; he went to Harvard instead), he was teaching economics at the Pontificial Catholic University of Chile at the same time and in the same department that was the ‘base’ of the Chicago Boys. This is the same Piñera that bitterly attacked Britain for the house arrest of Pinochet, and the media-mogul billionaire that, shortly before the miners were rescued, was inviting the world to exchange images of Chile’s nefarious history under Pinochet for the media-massaged images of the ‘miraculous’ rescue. Just why Piñeras felt that one thing should be exchanged for the other is unclear. But readers may find some clues if they visit this article by Elizabeth Gavin, of the Council for Hemispheric Affairs, which reveals Piñeras’ links to the so-called ‘economic miracle’ of Chile, and indeed, to the Pinochet regime itself. Incidentally, during the rescue operation Piñeras was ‘overheard’ talking on the phone to ‘David’ (Cameron), telling ‘David’ what a wonderful job he was doing here in the UK. I suppose that history has a way of inverting certain relations: if Thatcher once sent her trusted ‘Cecil’ (Parkinson) to ‘look and learn’ from Pinochet’s economists, now it is Sebastian Piñeras that may be coming to ‘look and learn’ from Dem Tories’ machete attack on our welfare state.

*  *  *

Gordon Brown is an advocate of neoliberalism, which is another way of saying that his policies are Thatcherite in nature. Simplifying greatly, we can say that Thatcher borrowed her economic model from Sir Alan Walters, who in turn borrowed it from Milton Friedman, who himself first tried to apply his theories in Pinochet’s Chile. (This by way of the notorious ‘Chicago Boys’, a group of Chilean economists trained by Friedman at the University of Chicago.) One of the myths of contemporary British politics is that Brown’s neoliberalism has been successful—as successful in Britain as it was in Chile under Pinochet. According to this myth, we should thank Margaret Thatcher and Alan Walters for our own modest version of the economic ‘miracle’ that was made possible in Chile by Milton Friedman if not by Augusto Pinochet. As I have noted in another post, it is not surprising that Margaret Thatcher was so keen to visit mi General during his infamous house arrest in London; after Pinochet, Thatcher was the second ruler to sign up for Friedman’s neoliberal model and its bitter prescriptions. In one of the great ironies of the time, Thatcher’s own Cecil Parkinson is famous for having said in an interview that ‘It [the Chilean economic experience] is very similar to what we are trying to develop now in Great Britain.’

The following quotes, taken from a book written by Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, a leading Chilean economist, and published by the University of Michigan Press, provide a rather different perspective on the real effects of the monetarist experiment, an experiment which ultimately led to Pinochet’s nationalization of several of Chile’s main banks in 1983:

‘The increasing adherence to [a neo-liberal] orthodoxy from 1974 onward met its first severe obstacle in 1981, and in 1982 it suffered several notable setbacks… During 1982, GDP and manufacturing output fell by 14 and 21 percent, respectively; construction was cut by one-half, and open unemployment was affecting one of every three workers in 1983.’

‘The problems developing in the productive apparatus were closely linked to the functioning of the financial system and the indiscriminate trade opening. The model conceded a leading role to the financial reform. In fact, the financial system was transformed into the dominant decision-making center in the Chilean economy. In 1982, it became clear that indebtedness of firms and individuals was strangling economic activity and was growing rapidly owing to the prevailing high interest rates, while the revenue of enterprises was declining as a result of the domestic recession. The financial reform and the opening to capital flows constituted at first a determinant factor in the concentration of wealth and in crowing out of productive investment (Agosin 1998). Then, towards the end of the period, it revealed additional vulnerability that it had introduced into the national economy and the distortion of economic development created by the unbridled financierism [emphasis added] to which it gave rise.’

‘The results observed were actually the result of both intrinsic features of the model, and errors in its implementation […] The intrinsic components of the model are observable in three areas, which form the pillars of orthodox neoliberalism. These are the assumption (1) that privatization and the suppression of state intervention rapidly result in integrated, flexible, and well-informed markets and spontaneously generate dynamic development; (2) that adjustment processes are stabilizing and characteristically speedy; and (3) that “competition,” even among unequal competitors, leads to greater well-being for the majority. All three assumptions proved to be false in the Chilean experiment…’

‘First, the indirect and “neutral” economic policies were introduced in a context of “competition” between unequals, which intensified differences, so that institutions such as the cooperatives and a semipublic system of savings (SINAP) were discriminated against. The restraint on union activity accentuated the inequality between “suppliers” and “demanders.” As has been shown, the concentration of income and wealth was dramatic [emphasis added]. Second, the slowness of adjustment processes involves substantial costs because of the inefficient underutilization of resources and the disincentive it implies for capital formation… Third, although a mistaken interventionism also severely accentuates the structural segmentation and heterogeneity of markets, the extreme alternative option, consisting of the cessation of state action and the indiscriminate privatization of the means of production as fast as possible, disregarding the conjuncture and balance of benefits and costs, does not lead to the rapid integration and flexibility of markets…’

‘In summary, the neoliberal experiment produced a society with increased inequality on many fronts and a predominance of economicism over other human activities [emphasis added]. A highly productive segment coexisted with impoverished large segments of the economy. It markedly deepened the unemployment problem, discouraged investment, and in general favored speculative and financieristic trends to the detriment of activities likely to increase overall productivity and capital formation [emphasis added]. It intensified external vulnerability, as attested by the greater impact of the 1982 recession on the Chilean economy compared to the rest of Latin America.’

Quotes from Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Economic Reforms in Chile: From Dictatorship to Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. 51-52.

We have already seen how Gordon Brown’s own ‘financierism’ has created the conditions in which New Labour has been obliged to nationalise Northern Rock. The same process has taken place, albeit rather more covertly, with Bear Stearn (in the U.S., the Federal Reserve avoided an explicit nationalization of that bank thanks to a special deal with JP Morgan). The news today that yet another bank—HBOS—is rumoured to be on the ropes, as combined with the news that Sterling is, like the US dollar, losing value, suggests some striking parallels between Gordon Brown’s Britain in 2007-2008, and Pinochet’s Chile in 1982-83.

We can only hope that Pinochet’s ‘miracle’ will not also be Gordon Brown’s ‘miracle’. Given that the history of Chile’s experiment will have been well known to the Gordon Brown that once attacked Sir Alan Walters for his neoliberalism, why is Brown making the same mistakes all over again? Might it be that there is something in it for some of the politicians, if not for the New Labour Party as a whole?

Perhaps in Tony Blair’s new post as an advisor to JP Morgan we may find an answer to this question.