The radical Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi provides a Latin American perspective on the changing of the guard in Washington. While the Latin American left puts Trump behind it, it will have to contend with the Biden team’s efforts to gain acquiescence in Latin America through more subtle means, Zibechi argues. He warns the left to be on the lookout for Washington’s attempts to promote “regime change” in Latin America through quasi-constitutional means that he likens to the “color revolutions” that the U.S. government supported to install pro-U.S. governments in Eastern Europe. This article, translated to English by Lance Selfa, originally appeared here.
The form change, but the substance remains the same. Instead of Trump’s overheated rhetoric about the wall that Mexico will pay for and restrictions on immigration, we’ll hear all the “right” declarations about democracy, the rights of women, and Black lives from Joe Biden. And in place of saber-rattling, we can expect “color revolutions” from the Soros Foundation’s Open Society playbook to promote “regime change”in U.S. interests.
We got a hint of what to expect from Thomas Shannon’s January 1 open letter to the Brazilian media. Shannon was U.S. ambassador to Brazil in the Obama administration. He had also served as undersecretary for Western Hemisphere affairs with George W. Bush.
Shannon’s letter, headline as “The delicate truth about an old alliance” was published in the online magazine Crusoé, which plays the part of an anti-Bolsonaro “independent” publication today, but whose founders, then operating from the influential site El Antagonista, played a prominent role in the legal persecution of Lula that led to his imprisonment and to the impeachment and removal of President Dilma Rousseff. [This article provides good background on these events.]
Shannon opens his letter by assuring readers that “the relationship between Brazil and the United States is one of the fundamental pieces of diplomacy in the 21st century.” He then reviews the similarities between their societies, to conclude that “the president-elect (Biden) knows Brazil and Latin America well,” assuring that “no U.S. president began his term with as much knowledge and experience in the region.”
In the second part of the letter, Shannon launches a fierce attack on the government of Jair Bolsonaro, because “he has done almost everything possible to complicate the transition in the bilateral relationship,” by expressing his preference for Trump in the recent elections and for criticizing Biden, who asked in a debate for more energetic action by Brazil against Amazon deforestation.
For Shannon, it is unacceptable that Bolsonaro has “repeated the unfounded accusations of fraud by President Trump in the US elections.” He interprets Bolsonaro’s antics as an attack on US democracy and the future government of Biden.
But the worst comes later. Shannon tells the Brazilian government what to do about three issues (the pandemic, climate change, and the position toward China regarding 5G networks) and then issues a threat:“This is something that will not be easily forgiven or forgotten,”he concludes.
Some—even some on the left—may be happy that the new US government is putting Bolsonaro under its thumb. For my part, both the silence of the Brazilian Workers’ Party, and of Lula himself, show the left’s difficulties in light of the changing of the guard in the White House.
This is not in the main about Jair Bolsonaro. It’s about Latin America and the sovereignty of nations. The president of Brazil must be judged and removed by his own people. What he has done has more than justified mass mobilization to be rid of him. But if the Empire is threatening new “color revolutions,” that’s terrible news. They may now have far-right governments in their sights, but they will roll over everything that stands in their way, whether conservative or progressive.
The operation to overthrow Bolsonaro already has considerable media and establishment support. The Brazilian Bar Association, which played a despicable role against Lula and asked for Dilma’s dismissal, is now calling for Bolsonaro to be removed. Its president, Felipe Santa Cruz, declared that “the pace of the process will be dictated by pressure from the streets,” calling, in fact, for popular mobilization.
For the “democratic” center-right, the one that proposes cosmetic reforms in the defense of the environment, and that fills Biden’s cabinet with women and people of color—all the while continuing to uphold the system of oppression and police violence—the time has come to draw a line against the ultra-right. Bolsonaro and his followers did the dirty work against the left, but they’ve outlasted their usefulness. It’s likewise with Trump.
To get our heads around this shift in Washington, we should remember the Central American wars, when the Pentagon first supported genocidal militaries, and then promoted “centrist” options, like the Christian Democrats, to reclaim the initiative from the far right in Guatemala and El Salvador.
If Trump’s term was abominable, Biden’s will be no less so. Let’s remember that the war in Syria, the liquidation of the Arab spring, and the invasion of Libya were promoted and managed by the team that is now returning to the White House.
In Latin America, the illegitimate removals (“coups,” according to others) of Manuel Zelaya (2009), Fernando Lugo (2012) and Dilma Rousseff (2016), took place under the “progressive” government of Barack Obama (2009-2017). Let’s not forget Trump. But neither should we forget that, thanks to Biden, people like the loathsome Victoria Nuland, organizer of the coup and subsequent war in Ukraine, are back in power.
Raúl Zibechi (born January 25, 1952 in Montevideo, Uruguay) is a radio and print journalist, writer, militant and political theorist.
