The notorious US private militia group Academi –
previously known as Blackwater – trained Brazilian security forces in
North Carolina in preparation for the current World Cup in Brazil, as reported by sportswriter Dave Zirin. Zirin pointed to the 2009 diplomatic cable released
by Wikileaks, which revealed that Washington viewed the expected World
Cup-related crises as opportunities for US involvement. Zirin wrote that
for Washington, “Brazil’s misery created room for opportunism.”
Capitalism’s bullets follow the World Cup just as they do Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs) signed with the US. Five years ago this month,
protests were raging in northern Peru where thousands of indigenous
Awajun and Wambis men, women and children were blockading roads against
oil, logging and gas exploitation on Amazonian land. The Peruvian
government, having just signed an FTA with the US, was unsure how to
deal with the protests – partly because the controversial concessions in
the Amazon were granted to meet the FTA requirements.
According to a diplomatic cable released
by Wikileaks, on June 1st, 2009 the US State Department sent a message
to the US Embassy in Lima: “Should Congress and [Peruvian] President
Garcia give in to the [protesters’] pressure, there would be
implications for the recently implemented Peru-US Free Trade Agreement.”
Four days later, the Peruvian government responded to the protest with
deadly violence, leading to a conflict which left 32 dead.
The US is infamous for its imperial history in the region. But
Washington isn’t the only empire in its backyard. Global and local
forces of capitalism, imperialism and modern-day colonialism are at work
across Latin America, from soccer stadiums to copper mines.
China has outpaced the US as
the primary trading partner with the region’s richest countries; most
of its business is in the area of natural resource extraction. And for
many nations in the southern cone, Brazil – now a world superpower
outpacing Britain as the 6th largest economy – is an imperial force,
utilizing much of the region’s natural wealth, land and hydroelectric
power to fuel its booming industries and population.
Capitalism has many faces and allies, and they’re not just based in
the global north or within these economic giants. As sociologist William
Robinson writes, “The
new face of global capitalism in Latin America is driven as much by
local capitalist classes that have sought integration into the ranks of
the transnational capitalist class as by transnational corporate and
financial capital.” From Mexico to Argentina, this local capitalist
class has created some 70 globally-competitive transnational
conglomerates.
Friends of empire and capital are found at the heights of power among Latin America’s political leaders. While the US has spied on Latin America for years, as recently made clear by Edward Snowden’s leaks, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet administration asked for the US government’s help in spying on Mapuche indigenous leaders defending land rights during her first term in office. While the US supported the coup against Fernando Lugo of Paraguay in 2012, before he was pushed out of office, Lugo himself called for a state of emergency in the countryside to expand repression of campesino activists fighting soy company incursions on their land.
For many indigenous communities in Latin America, the state, often in
alliance with transnational corporations, maintains a colonialist
worldview into the 21st century, particularly in the area of natural
resource extraction in mining, oil and gas industries. As Professor
Manuela Picq of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador writes,
“The unilateral expropriation of land for mining today is a
continuation of the Doctrine of Discovery. It conceptualized the New
World as terra nullis, authorizing colonial powers to conquer and
exploit land in the Americas. […] Today, the idea of ‘empty’ lands
survives in extractivist practices.”
Indeed, mining concessions have been granted on 80% of Colombia’s
legally-recognized indigenous territories, and 407,000 square kilometers
of Amazon-based mining areas are on indigenous land. As a part of this region-wide extractivist land grab, Picq explains that
200 activists were killed in Peru between 2006 and 2011, 200 people
were criminalized in Ecuador for protesting the privatization of natural
resources, and 11 anti-extractivist activists have been murdered in
Argentina since 2010.
The mining industry is also typically devastating for the
environment, whether it’s run by the state or the private sector. Picq
points out that Guatemala’s Marlin mine, owned by the Canadian company
Goldcorp, utilizes in just one hour the same amount of water a local
family uses over the span of 22 years, and the mining industry in Chile –
where the state owns the largest copper producing company in the world –
utilizes 37% of the nation’s electricity.
Capitalism, empire and 21st century colonialism come from afar and
descend on their victims in Latin America. But these forces are also in
the tear gas canisters that Brazil’s security forces use at the World
Cup, in the state that extracts natural resources on indigenous
territory, and in the free trade deals signed in blood.
by Benjamin Dangl from here
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