(Anti) American caravan: an unreturned love

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The Migrant Caravan is knocking on the doors of the United States to warn them “it’s your fault we were forced to leave”. We have the last part of our journey through history to face.

We have seen a sick love between the United States and Latin America that has turned into a fierce jealousy. It is a story more than a century long. It is a story that begins in the early 1900s with the United States’ intent to establish itself as a regional and world power and to turn the Caribbean into a coveted “American Lake.” It is a story that saw Latin America’s dependence increase between the two world wars. It is a story of multinationals, investors, U.S. administrations, international organizations, doctrines, revolutions, coups and the myth of Pan-Americanism. It is also the history of the Cold War, drug trafficking, development projects, the CIA and terrorism. Our Caravan can now set off on a historical journey to discover a history where anti-Americanism has been transformed into hope.

After the fall of the Soviet bloc, a new phase began in the region that interests us here. This, however, began with an American intervention.

On December 20, 1989, 13,000 American soldiers joined a similarly sized contingent permanently assigned to the protection of American rights in the Panama Canal area with the objective of capturing Manuel Noriega, the notorious leader of the Panamanian Defense Forces who had proclaimed himself head of the government earlier that month. In early 1988, Noriega had been convicted by a federal court in Florida for money laundering and drug trafficking.

The Bush administration, identifying the Panama leader as a symbol of drug trafficking, launched “Operation Just Cause” without consulting the member states of the Organization of American States. Noriega was arrested, and later tried and convicted in Miami. There were widespread protests in Latin America and the American public welcomed the intervention as a victory in the so-called “War on Drugs”. The drug trade, however, continued to thrive throughout the 1990s.

Another major operation occurred in 1994 when U.S. Marines were called to intervene in Haiti. The Clinton administration had launched “Operation Defense of Democracy” following a mounting refugee crisis triggered by a series of repressive regimes on the island. Throughout the 1980s, previous administrations had deported Haitians seeking to escape the brutal regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier; only 28 of the approximately 23,000 Haitian “Boat People” were given asylum in the United States.

Duvalier was overthrown in 1986 and Jean Bertrand Aristide won the democratic elections in 1990. He was, however, deposed in 1991 by a military coup d’état condemned by the United States and the Organization of American States. This time, given the surge in the flow of refugees, the U.S. Coast Guard temporarily granted a safe haven to thousands of Haitians at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba. The prospect of up to 200,000 Haitians taking to the sea was beginning to create a serious political and humanitarian crisis. American troops were sent to Haiti to restore order.

So, what does this new phase consist of? Basically, there has been a change in logic. Both operations, while remaining an expression of the persistent American hegemony in the Caribbean, were dictated by domestic political considerations.

Economically, even in the 1990s, Latin America’s economic dependence on the United States was clear. In part this was due to the historic disparity in wealth.

The GDP of the United States was still seven times that of Latin America, but Latin America’s population was 75% larger. Latin America remained relatively poor and overpopulated, which was one of the reasons behind the massive illegal migration to the north. Even though transactions with the region declined overall between the 1970s and 1980s, the United States in 1990 remained the largest trading partner of all countries in the region.

The North-South relationship began to look quite different than in the past, but the anti-American spirit, which had always been prevalent in the region for the various reasons we have mentioned, intensified.

In a 2007 poll, more than half of Latin Americans say they have a negative view of the United States and exponents of anti-Americanism such as Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president until 2013, began to represent hope for many Latin Americans.

Today, anti-Americanism is still strong and Venezuelan hope is drowning in inflation, poverty, and violence.

Meanwhile, on October 13, a caravan of migrants set out with the intent of arriving in the United States. They started in Northern Honduras, crossed into Guatemala, and on October 20, with 4,500 human beings, knocked on the doors of Mexico.

From there the media attention went up. The first echo came from President Trump who, through a series of tweets, used this initiative as a campaign tool for the recent Midterm Elections.

At first, he threatened Guatemala with annulment of the aid granted if the government did not intervene to stop the caravan passing through its territory. Then, he ordered the deployment of armed forces at the border for protection against “invasion“. He ended by threatening the revocation of the recently renewed NAFTA.

The Caravan has, one way or another, managed to get to Tijuana, and on November 26, tensions escalated on the U.S.-Mexico border. American authorities used tear gas against the crowd. The migrants of the caravan denounce that the United States forced them to flee after having supported what is recognized as the coup d’état of 2009, against the Honduran President Zelaya, and having thrown in a strong instability, countries like Guatemala and El Salvador.

For us, this journey into a now exhausted love story, comes to an end. A swinging story made of difficult relationships. A story that wanted to illustrate the reason for such a strong feeling of anti-Americanism. Of course, the motivations are deeper and there are many more. Every love story is deeper than what we tell, what we understand and what we express. This is exactly why we will try to tell the situations of different countries in our country sheets and other articles. Keep following us, soon we will start a new journey.

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Petare, Venezuela: the most violent slum in the world

Dulce Nombre de Jesús de Petare is the full name of the suburb east of Caracas in Venezuela, known as one of the most populated slums in the world. Precisely, with its 369 000 inhabitants, Petare occupies the seventh place in the world ranking, second only to Neza-Chalco-Itza, (Mexico) in all of Latin America. Petare, like many other slums in the world, is composed of an informal and precarious housing conglomerate, located on the fringes of a metropolis (in this case Caracas, capital of Venezuela, with its 6 million inhabitants), which very rarely benefits from local and national public policies. Here, criminal gangs have therefore occupied the political vacuum by taking over local economies for illicit business. The city looks like a cluster of red brick buildings exposed or covered with colored plaster, held up by concrete structures to even out the difference in height caused by the slopes of the mountains surrounding the Venezuelan capital, on which the slum rises. The roofs, made of sheet metal and other makeshift materials, suggest a certain precariousness and poverty of the urban sector. The origins of the slum The area where Petare is located was first populated in the 16th century, following a land concession to one of the first conquerors. The various Spanish landowners who inhabited the area founded the town in 1621 under the name of San Jose de Guanarito. The name Dulce Nombre de Jesús de Petare derives from the 18th century church, with the same name, that formed a nucleus of the colonial settlement, and where a Franciscan friar settled to assist the Indian workers. The area was in fact very fertile and was dedicated to the production of coffee, cocoa and sugar cane. The town was quickly absorbed by the metropolitan area of Caracas, which over the years experienced a great growth of population due to people who poured into the city from the countryside in order to improve their economic conditions. However, the slum has retained its commercial core. It is also home to two universities: Universidad Santa María and Universidad Metropolitana. Venezuela’s most recent political history has seen millions of disenfranchised citizens recognize Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution as the chance for social, economic, and racial inclusion in a deeply unbalanced society. But now, with their lives disrupted by the economic and social disaster resulting from the implementation of Maduro’s policies, many of these citizens are turning against the president. Indeed, Venezuela’s economic decline has caused an exponential increase in the number of inhabitants of informal urban sectors (slums) such as Petare, due to the collapse below the poverty line of a large segment of the population. The most violent slum Petare is to be considered a city within the suburbs of Caracas, Venezuela, as it is itself divided into hundreds of neighborhoods. The narrow, nameless streets leave no room for visitors, making it an impregnable stronghold. Since the city is located at an altitude of almost one thousand meters, one of the few ways to access it is by Metrocable: a cable car that departs from the center of Caracas, located in the lowest part of the valley, and takes pedestrians to the highest points of the mountain. This type of transportation is integrated into the public transportation system of the municipality of Caracas, and is very common in the large mountain metropolises of Latin America. Survival is the daily challenge of the slum inhabitants: they live in extreme poverty in a country that can no longer  provide a reliable source of water or electricity. Some sectors of the Petare slum remain without water for periods of days on end, and blackouts rage nationwide, leaving the whole of Venezuela without electricity. Its unique urban conformation allows organized crime to proliferate. The Petare slum is one of the poorest areas of Venezuela, and the rate of armed robberies, murders and kidnappings reaches a very high figure here, making this area the most corrupt in Caracas. According to Business Insider’s report, the Venezuelan capital earned the title of the world’s most violent city in 2015. Although this number has been debated, the homicide rate stands at 119.87 per 100,000 inhabitants. The country’s shocking level of violence is directly related to its social, economic and political dysfunction, and also by the political-economic crisis Venezuela has lived since 2013. Petare is the “home” of organized criminal gangs and constantly fighting each other, it is where the reign of crime is accentuated without restraint. The real sectors that make up the slum are the subject of territorial dispute for the control of illicit activities. Wilexis’ mega gang Wilexis Alexander Acevedo Monasterios, a.k.a. “the Wilexis,” has begun to be frequently mentioned, since 2014, among Petare residents for his illicit activities, climbing the lists of the most wanted by the municipal and state police, the national police, and the Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas (CICPC). The young fugitive quickly distinguished himself from the other criminal gangs in Petare for his actions to control the territory. By establishing, unofficially, various sectors of the slum as “Zonas de Paz” in fact, he established himself in the criminal world, becoming the undisputed leader of the largest gang in the slum. As stated by an anonymous informant, the Peace Zones have enshrined the power of Wilexis, who has begun to equip more and more people with weapons and then affiliate them with his gang and poses “as if he were king of them all.” These areas are characterized by the absence of controls: the access to the inside of the slum is informally forbidden to the police and, in the rare occasions in which they try to enter inside the control zone of Wilexis, they are punctually forced to engage in violent clashes with the members of his gang. More than 200 criminals are part of the “Wilexis” gang. Its members range from 13 to 28 years of age and the crimes they are most frequently guilty of are: murder for hire, drug trafficking

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Extractive policies in Colombia: how do they impact on the environment and on human rights

In Colombia, as in all of Latin America, the intensification of land exploitation through extractive policies has a negative impact on the environment and on human rights, especially those of indigenous peoples, highlighting the shortcomings of a development model that is anything but sustainable. The extractive model The concept of extractivism is widely used in Latin America to refer to a mode of accumulation that began with the colonization of the American subcontinent, which envisages that some regions of the world are specialized in the extraction and export of raw materials, while other regions are dedicated to their consumption. In this sense, the activities considered extractivist are those that include the exploitation of large quantities of natural resources, such as minerals, oil, agricultural and forest products. Latin American countries are highly dependent on the extraction of their natural resources and their exportation abroad, following a model of export-led growth which does not allow for diversification of the economy and makes it dangerously dependent on the value that the raw materials in question have on the international market, an example is the case of Venezuela. Criticism of the extractive model is, however, primarily concerned with its effects on the environment. If the environment and its resources are considered exclusively as economic goods to be sold to the highest bidder and as means to increase development, and if the latter is understood as a mere increase in gross domestic product, it goes without saying that Latin American countries are experiencing a lack of protection and environmental degradation. The environmental conception of the indigenous people of Abya Yala Latin America or Abya Yala, as it is called by indigenous peoples, is an area that exemplifies how the unconditional exploitation of natural resources has consequences not only at the environmental level, but also in relation to the rights of those peoples closely interconnected with nature, the indigenous peoples, whose population is estimated at about 42 million in the South American territory. The contribution of indigenous peoples to the management and protection of the environment is now recognized internationally, just think that the so-called “protectors of the Earth” preserve about 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. The territory constitutes for indigenous peoples a spiritual and material basis inextricably linked to their past and future identity. From the 1990s onwards, a recovery of the indigenous environmental vision began starting with the spread of the Andean concepts of Pacha Mama and Buen vivire and their inclusion in some Latin American constitutions, such as those of Bolivia and Ecuador. The concept of buen vivir, sumak kawsay in the Quechua language, implies a life in harmony between individuals, communities and nature and is present with different terms in all Latin American indigenous cultures. In the indigenous cosmovision, well-being is only possible within the community and with respect for the Pacha Mama, so the essential element of buen vivir is the protection of nature. In this sense, it is an excellent alternative to modern environmental and development challenges. Given the inseparable link that indigenous peoples have with the environment and territory, on the one hand because of their spiritual and cultural characteristics, and on the other because most of them materially depend on natural resources, it can be said that their survival as indigenous peoples depend on the preservation and protection of the environment in which they live. On the other hand, since colonization these peoples have faced illicit appropriation of their ancestral lands, forced relocation of communities, and pollution of the natural resources on which they depend. Fortunately, Latin American indigenous movements are characterized by a historical solidity and strength that has led them to resist, as far as possible, the numerous attempts of extermination and assimilation that have been perpetrated against them since the period of European colonization.In the name of “development,” mining, hydroelectric projects and energy megaprojects, including renewable energy projects, are being implemented on indigenous territories, leading to the forced displacement of indigenous peoples, often without adequate compensation. The election of political leaders, such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who support land grabbing by multinational corporations can only make the situation worse. The mining industry, in particular, has devastating effects on indigenous communities, as these persist even when mining projects end. Mining projects have negative consequences on the cohesion of the indigenous peoples of the territory where they take place, due to forced displacement and community divisions. Moreover, they often prevent traditional agro-pastoral activities from taking place. The convergence between environmental protection and the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights is emblematic in the Amazon region, yet, in those very territories there are multiple mining and oil extraction projects. The impact of extractive policies in Colombia Colombia is also suffering from the consequences of the increasing increase in extractive policies, which fall primarily on the environment. Even though Colombia is part of the so-called “megadiverse” countries, that is the richest countries in biodiversity on the planet, and in fact has 311 ecosystems, what should be the main wealth to be preserved often becomes a bargaining chip to pursue neo-liberal policies. For this reason, the country is characterized by a high incidence of environmental conflicts involving above all the indigenous peoples, who represent about 3.4% of the population. In recent decades, Colombia has seen an increase in state development policies aimed at extractive activities and the development of mega-projects with high environmental and social impact. In departments such as Chocó, La Guajira and Amazonia, this has led to the forced displacement of indigenous communities, environmental pollution of territories and situations of violence and insecurity. At the same time, legislation has also been passed that favors large transnational investments. These include Law No. 685 of 2001, the so-called Código de minas, which favors the participation of private companies in the processes of exploration and exploitation of minerals and hydrocarbons, and a 2019 ruling by the Colombian Constitutional Court, which removes the mandatory nature of popular consultations in cases of mining projects that threaten to profoundly transform the land use

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The events of 2019 and their impact on the war in Colombia

In Colombia, the transitional phase that sees the incessant civil war acquiesce towards peace knows an abrupt halt during 2019, just three years after the signing of the bilateral agreement. What are the new obstacles standing in the way of the peace agreement between the government and the revolutionary armed group FARC – EP? To answer this question, we need to take a step back. Colombia entered the new millennium in a situation of great instability. The guerrilla groups that rebelled against the state, which was considered non-existent in large rural areas of the country, had reached the height of their power. Chief among these armed groups were the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo). With the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (not coincidentally nicknamed “the warlord”), the situation was quickly reversed. His controversial counteroffensive strategies, over the course of his two terms in office, brought remarkable results including the beginning of the FARC’s decline. Since his election to the presidency in 2010, Juan Manuel Santos has begun to depart from his predecessor’s political ideas by promoting dialogue with revolutionary forces until a peace agreement is reached. The bilateral treaty addresses numerous issues considered the fundamental causes of more than 50 years of internal conflict. The document lists the various measures that, by mutual agreement, must be taken by both parties to establish peace between the government and the FARC group. However, a few months later, the end of Santos’ term of office calls into question all the efforts made until then. The election of Iván Duque Márquez, a close ally of Uribe, and his manifest intention to modify the agreement, puts former FARC combatants on notice. In addition, the events that have been making the situation in Colombia even more tense since 2019 hint at a concrete threat of a return to war. The FARC: from armed struggle to political struggle and back again First of all, the disarmament of the guerrillas, supervised by a UN commission created ad hoc, is completed by the majority of FARC members, but not by all of them. Some thousands of fighters, in fact, have refused to come to terms with the government. These never came out of the jungle and never abandoned the armed struggle. Their actions have scaled down, in parallel with the number of their members, but their existence endures the peace process. The most recent information on this subject, claims that these groups have sought refuge in Venezuela, while some speculate that they may be affiliated with other guerrilla groups such as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). What is certain is that, due to the current circumstances of Colombian politics, the group of demobilized is growing stronger thanks also to the affiliation of those who, after embracing civilian life, have decided to return to live in the jungle as clandestine fighters. Critical issues in the peace process If implemented, the treaty could meet the demands of revolutionary groups and avoid further casualties. However, its implementation is encountering numerous obstacles, as has happened in the past in the history of the Colombian conflict. First of all, the political participation of the ex-members of the FARC has not been assured in the last elections. The new political party has had little prominence, perhaps due to the bad reputation the group has earned through the decades. More importantly, since embracing civilian life, many repentants have seen death at the hands of hit men. Now a widespread practice in Colombia; systematic assassinations of political opposition have claimed the lives of some 200 FARC members and more than 600 social leaders, indigenous tribesmen, and human rights activists since the signing of the treaty. Land cultivation and property management was the main issue that caused the outbreak and prolongation of the conflict over the decades. The Integral Rural Reform and the reconversion of lands previously used for cocaine cultivation are therefore at the core of the peace treaty. Nonetheless, implementation and financing are slow, and peasants are not benefiting at all from the new conditions. The shortcomings of the Truth Courts The issue of victims of the conflict is not being satisfactorily addressed. The frightening figures remain far-fetched, and there is speculation that the actual numbers are much higher. The Truth Commission, not being imperative with its sanctions, struggles to carry out its duties. And so, the victims remain without justice, the perpetrators unpunished and the corpses unnamed. But not only that; the greatest defect of the Integral System of Justice that has been established since the signing of the agreement is that it does not guarantee any kind of protection to those who want to testify for the truth, and the sad tradition of murders in Colombia makes this system seem like a trap for those who want to contribute to peace and justice. The circumstances listed so far make the period of dialogue and mutual concessions that characterized former President Santos’ two terms in office seem like a rip-off of Colombia’s violent rule. Instead of strengthening the foundations of peace, his successor and current president Duque directly undermines them, directing his political propaganda against the agreement with the FARC and financing it with the Fund for Peace, thus making use of international funds for electoral and personal purposes. The threat of a return to civil war in Colombia is therefore becoming more and more concrete as we move into 2019. Some encouraging signs Nevertheless, the support of the international sphere that the peace agreement with the FARC has received cannot be ignored. In addition to the UN and its Security Council, individual states have also been advocating for peace in Colombia, committing to the bilateral ceasefire and as members of the Truth Commission. In addition, there are the citizens who are showing that they have grown tired of the violence and of the systematic murder of the political opposition, which inevitably leads to the death of democracy. This part of the population, with a strong and fresh

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Venezuelan migrants in Colombia

With 4.6 million people leaving Venezuela as a result of the political and economic crisis of recent years, an unprecedented migration crisis is underway in Latin America. At a time of hostility, closure and the erection of walls, neighboring Colombia has absorbed some 1.8 million Venezuelan migrants, practicing, so far, a policy of solidarity obviously not without contradictions. The Venezuelan crisis Gone are the years of the Venezuelan economic boom, when the Caribbean country represented, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), one of the preferred destinations for Latin American internal migrants. The situation has reversed; now people flee from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Some 4.6 million people have done so in just a few years, and the UNHCR estimates that it will reach 6.5 million by the end of 2020, almost 20% of Venezuela’s population. The reasons for the exodus, second in the world only to that of Syria, seem obvious when one considers that the Venezuelan economy shrank by two-thirds from 2013 to 2019 and that the country has, in the last few years, entered a period of profound political, as well as economic, instability. Significantly, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, a sustainer of Hugo Chávez’s so-called Bolivarian socialism, is not recognized by most of the international community and last year the main opposition leader Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself president in a failed attempt to seize power. The causes of the current Venezuelan situation are complex and multiple: hyperinflation, sanctions dictated by the United States, debt accumulated over the years, lack of democracy in government policies and an economic system which has been based for a long time almost exclusively on oil production; fortune and doom of the country. The geopolitical roots of a crisis are never easy to trace in Latin America, perhaps the greatest terrain of ideological clash between capitalism and socialism, historically torn apart by hoarding, corruption, and external interference. What is certain are the facts: the political-economic crisis has forced Venezuela into a condition of extreme poverty and lack of basic necessities, such as food and medicine, and the population is abandoning the country en masse. Migration to Colombia Almost 80% of Venezuelan migrants are in Latin America and the country that has absorbed the most is neighboring Colombia, on the western border of the Caribbean country, followed by Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. According to official data from Migración Colombia, as of December 2019 there were more than 1,771,000 Venezuelans present in the country, of which about 220,000 were minors. Unlike other South American countries, Colombia was not used to receiving migrants, on the contrary it was Colombians who emigrated in search of a better life, far from the civil war that tore the country apart for decades. Venezuela, more than any other country, has welcomed Colombian refugees, who were attracted by its past economic prosperity. Although a 2019 UNHCR report shows how, in recent years, Colombian expatriates to Venezuela have increasingly returned home, Colombia’s people historical memory has not forgotten the welcome they received. The idea of returning the favor, linked perhaps to an awareness of the inevitability of the Venezuelan migration phenomenon, has led Colombia to adopt fairly open migration policies. In 2016, for example, Special Permanence Permits (Pep) were established, allowing Venezuelan migrants to enjoy basic rights, such as access to work, health and education. These permits were even more useful due to the inability of Venezuelans to renew their documents, given the halt of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela and the subsequent closure of the embassies. Dating back to the summer of 2019 is another measure of the Colombian government praised by humanitarian organizations, namely the granting of citizenship to 24 thousand children born in Colombia to Venezuelan women, with an ex-post effect also on births that will take place in the next two years. The figures that Colombia is investing to manage the recent migratory phenomenon are high, and difficult to sustain for a country facing the consequences of a die-hard conflict. Nevertheless, mechanisms have been established at the regional level to coordinate and facilitate the legal, social, and economic inclusion of Venezuelan citizens. In fact, the governments of the Latin American countries most affected by the arrival of Venezuelans have jointly launched the Regional Humanitarian Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants 2020 (RMRP), an instrument intended to coordinate and raise funds to manage the flow of migration. A delicate balance The Colombian population initially reacted positively to the reception of Venezuelan migrants, but it seems that cases of xenophobia and stigmatization have increased in recent months. In a society like Colombia, strongly striven by the armed conflict and by a growing social stratification, Venezuelan migrants have added  themselves to the most marginalized segment of the population, the one that populates the suburbs of the big cities. According to Colombian authorities, 90% of Venezuelans in Colombia work in the informal economy. On the other hand, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics, 47.2% of Colombians themselves work in informality and precariousness. The new emergency situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic has further complicated the situation of Venezuelan migrants. Colombian President Ivàn Duque on March 13, 2020 temporarily closed the borders to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, but the more than two thousand kilometers of border separating the two countries, in part isolated areas affected by armed conflict, are difficult to control. The risk is greater for migrants not legally registered in Colombia, about half of the nearly two million present in the territory, according to an estimate by Migración Colombia. The latter thus lack access to health care, in addition to being constantly at risk of violence, exploitation, child labor, recruitment by armed groups and trafficking. Lastly, a consequence of COVID-19, concerns groups of Venezuelan migrants who have been trying to return home in recent weeks. The quarantine measures adopted by the Colombian government, for the moment scheduled until April 27, have blocked the informal economy and some migrants, now

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The (anti)American caravan: the beginning of a sick love

The Migrant Caravan is knocking at the doors of the United States to warn them “it’s your fault we were forced to leave.” This is yet another chapter in a difficult relationship between the United States and Latin America. A story more than a century long. It is a story that began in the early 1900s with the United States’ intent to establish itself as a regional and world power and to transform the Caribbean into the desired “American Lake.” It is a story that saw Latin America’s dependence increase between the two world wars. It is a story of multinationals, investors, U.S. administrations, international organizations, doctrines, revolutions, coups, and the myth of Pan-Americanism. It is also the history of the Cold War, drug trafficking, development projects, the CIA and terrorism. Our Caravan can now set off on a historical journey to discover a history where anti-Americanism has been transformed into hope. American interventionism historically developed under the Monroe Doctrine, whereby the United States would not tolerate intervention by European powers in the Western Hemisphere’s affairs. The first major act, as a regional and emerging world power, was to wage war against Spain over the Cuban question in 1898. The war ended after 4 months and led to the acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. These outposts were vital to extend the American power in the Chinese market, where the Japanese rise had begun to threaten the liberty of trade in the region. Another important effect was to have a greater grip on the Caribbean with a de facto nominal independence of Cuba. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States between 1901 and 1909, added a corollary to the Monroe doctrine that claimed the right of the United States to intervene in the affairs of an American republic if it ran the risk of occupation or intervention by an European state. Roosevelt was a firm believer of the doctrines of Mahan and of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is a theory according to which the history of human societies responded to the logic of survival of the fittest. This theory provided the foundation for numerous theories of racial supremacy and for advocates of the “white man’s burden”, that is the role of the “white man” as a civilizer. The ideas of Mahan, a U.S. admiral, on the other hand, focused on the position of the naval power and on the assumption that the development of trade is essential in terms of power increase. He also believed that, because the sea is the fastest and cheapest means of transporting goods it is in the interest of a state to develop a commercial fleet and to ensure its security through an adequate navy that can prevent the routes from being destroyed by any external threat. These two theories have been translated, on the one hand, into the desire to export “progress” through investments and capital, and, on the other, to ensure that these investments were made in countries which were important from the point of view of trade routes. With these objectives in mind, the administration of the time, obtained the independence of Panama from Colombia with a treaty that authorized the United States to build and control what would later become the Panama Canal in 1913; fundamental to reduce the timing of trade routes. Moreover, to further consolidate the American dominance over the Caribbean, the Platt Amendment was included in the Cuban constitution. This amendment established the criteria for intervention in Cuban affairs and allowed the United States to maintain a naval base in Cuba (Guantanamo). The United States used this amendment by intervening in some Cuban affairs in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920. The amendment was repealed in 1934 but control of the Guantanamo military base remains to this day. The United States also took control of the finances throughout the Dominican Republic and Haiti – requiring these two countries to ratify the Platt Amendment. Woodrow Wilson’s administration (1913-1921) intended to abandon direct armed intervention in Latin America because it had not brought the desired results. Indeed, for instance, shortly before his election there had been an intervention in Nicaragua, which ended with the rise of General Chamorro. The intervention had been dictated by the need to protect the growing investments of the United Fruit Company, since 1984 Chiquita Brands, in the Caribbean region. Moreover, already in the second decade of the 1900’s the United States had succeeded in transforming the Caribbean into an “American Lake” and, to maintain control over the area, armed interventions had been necessary. The same fate occurred to Mexico, which saw the presence of armed troops from 1914 until 1917, the year in which new elections were held and a new constitution was ratified in which a strong anti-American sentiment was easily discernible. It should be noted that in the 1920’s the economic influence of the United States was relevant in Latin America. The United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company (today Dole Fruit Company) in fact, controlled most of the profits in the region. These two companies competed for dominance in the region and held strong control in countries that came to be known as the “banana republics”, namely: Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Time and again, Latin American journalists have accused the companies of bribing national governments for preferential treatment or to consolidate their monopoly. In addition, there have been accusations of environmental degradation, deforestation, drainage and depletion of water systems, and devastation of biodiversity. Moreover, they often practiced monoculture which, by exhausting the fertility of the land, eventually led to economic collapse as well as dependence on the export of that product. Exportation that often did not create profit for the nation. In Cuba, the United States owned 2/3 of the sugar production, practically the only product of the island. This logic also applied to raw materials and consequently the United States in Venezuela owned almost half of the oil and in Chile the price of copper,

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(Anti) American caravan: a jealous love

The Migrant Caravan is knocking on the doors of the United States to warn them: “it’s your fault we were forced to leave”. The sun is rising, and we must continue our journey through history. It is the story of a sick love between the United States and Latin America. It is a story more than a century long. It is a story that begins in the early 1900s with the intent of the United States to establish itself as a regional and world power and to transform the Caribbean into a coveted “American Lake.” It is a story that saw Latin America’s dependence increase between the two world wars. It is a story of multinationals, investors, U.S. administrations, international organizations, doctrines, revolutions, coups and the myth of Pan-Americanism. It is also the history of the Cold War, drug trafficking, development projects, the CIA and terrorism. Our Caravan can now set off on a historical journey to discover a history where anti-Americanism has been transformed into hope. With the end of World War II, the United States found themselves in position of dominance with respect to Latin America. The conflict had made commercial transactions between Latin Americans and the rest of the world virtually impossible, and the war had destroyed, or severely weakened, the power of nations that might have posed a timid threat to American supremacy in the region. Roosevelt wanted to translate this strong dominance into an international organization, and this theme flowed into the discussions of the Pan American Conference in Chapultepec, Mexico, in February 1945. Here it was declared that any attack on any American state represented an attack on all states in the region. The final act marked the first step in the direction of a post-war military alliance in the Western Hemisphere. All states at the Chapultepec Conference took part in the establishment of the United Nations Organization (UN). The United States believed that, prior to the conference, a historic conflict had to be healed: that between the Monroe Doctrine – according to which the United States did not tolerate intervention by European powers in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere – and what was supposed to represent the internationalism of the UN. Originally, in fact, the UN should have had strong powers on regional issues and the problem was that any intervention of the United States in Latin America could have been prevented by the veto of Great Britain or the Soviet Union. In the end, four articles, from 51 to 54, were inserted in the UN statute, which in effect safeguarded the ability of the United States to exercise its influence in the western hemisphere without breaking the rules of the new organization. The articles protected the right of regional collective organizations to resolve disputes and opt for individual or collective self-defense. In this regard, in 1947, with the United States at the height of its power, the American Republics signed the Treaty of Rio: a collective defense pact that became a model for many other military alliances formed by the United States in the first decade of the Cold War. The Rio Treaty thus legitimized American intervention and gave a new internationalist emphasis to the Monroe Doctrine. So in 1951 the Organization of American States was formally constituted to promote coordinated economic, political and military action and to resolve inter-American disputes. However, there was a strong problem for the United States: nationalism and anti-Americanism were growing in Latin American countries. For many, the logic of dependence and the dominance in the commercial sphere of American multinationals were considered the main culprits of the serious levels of inequality. For example, in 1950 the GDP of all of Latin America was one-seventh that of the United States which had the same population. In the same year, Latin America accounted for 28% of total exports and 35% of U.S. imports. It should also be noted that the American share of exports from Cuba, Nicaragua and Guatemala was between 70 and 80% of the total. In practice, the “South” depended on the “North” and this trend was destined to increase during the Cold War, even though the US gaze was focused on Asia and Europe to keep the Soviet Union at bay. Another important issue was the Soviet Union itself. The policy adopted by the United States was one of containment. This policy was coined by George Kennan towards communism as a whole and the main concept was to contain the USSR (i.e. to keep it within its current borders) in the hope that internal divisions, failure or evolution of the political context could put an end to what was perceived as the threat of a persistently expansionist force. In this perspective, it is worth mentioning the case, in 1951, of the new president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, who tried to introduce a progressive taxation system, a new welfare system and to increase workers’ wages. To this was added the expropriation of 400,000 uncultivated agricultural lands of the United Fruit Company, an American company with interests throughout Latin America which became Chiquita Brands in 1984.  The reaction of the company was to put pressure on the U.S. government with the result that the Eisenhower administration approved a CIA plan to overthrow the regime with the help of Guatemalan exiles trained by the U.S. in bases located in Nicaragua and Honduras.  In the same vein, between 1953 and 1954, the United States sponsored a resolution of the Organization of American States which declared that the communist control of any country in the Western Hemisphere was a threat to the security of all members. The resolution was passed by 17 votes to one-the vote of Guatemala. As a last desperate move, Arbenz turned to the Soviet bloc in search of weapons. In May 1954, Czechoslovakian-made weapons arrived, but the following month a small contingent led by Castillo Armas attacked from Honduras. Meanwhile, American planes bombed Guatemala City. Conseqeuntly, lands were returned to the United Fruit

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