Independent
geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser reviews the Obama’s legacy of
destabilizing, militarizing, and exploiting Latin America.
by
Eric Draitser of stopimperialism.org
Part
5 - Good cop, bad cop: Obama’s policies on Cuba and Venezuela
Of course, no discussion of Obama’s actions in Latin
America would be complete without an examination of Washington’s
attempts to reassert its influence in the region with the
simultaneous thaw in relations with Cuba and the destabilization of
Venezuela.
Obama signed an executive order on Jan. 13 declaring
both Venezuela and Cuba “national security threats” despite no
evidence of any such threat. Isn’t it interesting that the
president being lauded as the man who sought to normalize relations
with America’s long-standing foe in Cuba still manages to not only
classify the country as a threat, but to expand that same status to
another geopolitical and strategic enemy in the region?
The Obama administration has attempted to undermine and
destabilize Venezuela using as pretexts everything from a border
dispute with neighboring Guyana to artificially created scarcity of
staple goods and speculation against the currency by elites who
control commodity distribution networks in the country, and whose
backers reside in Madrid, Miami, and Washington. Julio Escalona, an
economist and former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations,
told me in Caracas in 2015: “Our currency is not being devalued
by speculation, but by hyper-speculation.”
And, in signature Obama style, Washington has backed the
right wing, including many far right fanatics, in an attempt to wrest
political control of the country away from the ruling Socialist Party
(PSUV) led by President Nicolás Maduro (and in spirit by Hugo
Chávez).
Perhaps the best example is the targeted assassination
of numerous prominent members of the PSUV, including the 2014 killing
of Robert Serra, an up-and-coming Chavista legislator seen by many on
the Venezuelan left as the “next Chávez.” Serra was assassinated
by individuals connected to Álvaro Uribe, the former president of
Colombia and long-standing U.S. proxy.
Similarly, the well-respected journalist and prominent
Chavista Ricardo Duran was murdered outside his home in Caracas in
January of 2016. Likewise, Fritz St. Louis, international coordinator
of the United Socialist Haitian Movement and secretary general of the
Haitian Cultural House Bolivariana de Venezuela, was assassinated in
March of 2016. In all these killings, the hidden hand of the right
wing and its backers in the United States has been an open secret.
And where is the outcry from the liberals who continue
to laud Obama? Perhaps now that a Republican is in office they might
soon dust off their political consciences to raise their voices
against continued U.S. neocolonialism and imperialism in Latin
America? Apparently, their interest in human rights and peace is
dependent on the color of the tie worn by the man or woman in the
Oval Office.
Obama’s legacy in Latin America is, like that of all
other U.S. presidents of the last century, one of profit and
exploitation, death and destruction. This is surely no secret in
Latin America, where millions have raised, and will continue to
raise, their voices in opposition to the Yankee Empire.
Unfortunately, the myth of the Nobel Peace Prize winner
has become stronger than the reality of lived experience.
In this witching hour, the twilight of Obama’s
presidency, let us not be entranced by spells cast by the coven of
corporate media warlocks. Let us instead remember Obama’s legacy in
Latin America not as “Hope” and “Change,” but as “More of
the Same.”
Source:
***
Related:
Comments
Post a Comment