Forwarded from Anthony (reply to Josh)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Lou!

Josh asks a great question which I have been asking leftists in the USA and
Latin America for more than a decade without ever recieving a really
satisfactory answer.

The superficial answers I have received most often are, "It's not a popular
demand in Panama or Colombia", and "I guess we never thought about it".

The Morenoist current, including their party in Panama which had a seat in
Panama's Congress in the 1980's, called for the "Socialist United States of
Central America" - including everything south of Mexico and North of
present day Colombia. This is a platform point that makes sense
geographically, a little less sense culturally, and not much sense
historically.

This particular demand was developed as a way of advocating the unity of
the revolutionary processes going on in the late 1970's and early 80's in
Central America.

The Morenoist current also included in its program the slogan of a
"Socialist United States of South America".

I personally think the slogan with the most historic, cultural, and
political resonance is for the reunificaiton of Gran Colombia - which would
include present day Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

I will write a longer piece onthis topic.

As to the answer to "why the left did not call for the reunificaiton fo
Panama and Colombia" I suspect the real reason lies in the Popular Front
and Gaitanismo in Colombia. Through the former the Communist Parties of all
of the countries of the Americas - from the USA to Argentina allied
themselves with US imperialism through an alliance with FDRs New Deal -
interrupted briefly by the Stalin Hitler Pact.

Gaitinismo was a national variant of Marxism in Colombia which believed in
building a workign class and peasant movement within the Liberal Party - to
the effect that it also had its hands tied to an international alliance
withe "liberal imperialism" through the Colombian Liberal Party.

As for why Trotskyists never raised the issue, I have to say the fault lies
with Morenoism. When Trotskyism grew in Panama and Colombia, it was under
the tutelage of Moreno and a bunch of other exiled Argentinians who saw the
world through the particular rose colored glasses of porteños - meaning
that the history of Latin America got fuzzy for them as it went North of
the Rio de la Plata (River Plate to you football fans.)

Anthony.


Louis Proyect
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