[Marxism] Ecuador, the death rattle of a model of state

[Fred Fuentes <fred.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx>]

Progreso Weekly - May 12, 2005
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Augusto_Zamora&otherweek=1115960400

Ecuador, the death rattle of a model of state

By Augusto Zamora R.

Agencia de Información Solidaria (AIS)
http://www.infosolidaria.com

The fall of former Col. Lucio Gutiérrez, the third on a list of
Ecuadorean presidents overthrown by popular movements, is the latest
episode of a crisis that is deeper than expressed by events. It is the
effect of a cause that the internal and external powers refuse to
acknowledge: the total exhaustion of a model of state that's cracking
everywhere and whose stubbornness will only multiply the chaos and
increase the ruination.

Since the 19th Century, Latin American states have functioned on the
basis of an alliance between the national oligarchies and the foreign
empires. The oligarchies permitted -- and benefited from -- the plunder
of their own homelands, while the foreign empires supported the
oligarchies and, whenever necessary, intervened to keep them in power.

The alliance implied the exclusion of a vast majority of the population,
which suffered a double exploitation: by the oligarchies and by the
empires. That alliance is the principal cause of the backwardness and
poverty of Latin America and explains the awful inequality between the
poor and the rich.

The pseudo-democratic systems were built on this structure, so democracy
has been reduced to ritual elections, where the politicians -- during
their campaigns -- offer social justice and a campaign against the
nation's woes but -- once in office -- apply the same politics and use
power to enrich themselves and their relatives.

National armies used to guarantee order and the repression of the
discontented. If, by a flaw in the system, the progressive forces won an
election, the oligarchy, the army and the empire would join hands to
overthrow them and reestablish the old system. Anticommunist hysteria
served magnificently for that purpose and all processes of change were
destroyed. Witness Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965,
Chile in 1973 and Nicaragua in 1990.

The end of the Cold War, the downfall of military dictatorships and the
consecration of democracy as the cornerstone of the inter-American
system, along with the free-trade interplay promoted by the wealthy
countries, are factors that paradoxically have eaten away the
foundations of the prevailing model of state.

Once the pretexts had disappeared, the repression that stifled the
people disappeared. Liberated from fear, they demonstrated on the
streets that they were not willing to continue enduring systems that
only propagated misery and plunder.

In Venezuela, Chávez set the pattern to follow, because he demonstrated
that within Latin American armies -- protectors of the U.S. interests --
obedience disappeared and made way for social ideas and forces willing
to overthrow the decrepit system. Popular mobilization and the backing
of the army frustrated the coup against Chávez, which was more than just
a barracks uprising. It was an effort to uproot a dangerous example.

Social struggles have acquired an unexpected force, toppling some
presidents and electing others, as in the case of Kirchner in Argentina.
The mobilizations have common denominators: a struggle against the
multinational corporations that steal the nation's wealth, destroy the
environment and devour the national economy; the removal of a corrupt
and discredited political class; the reconstruction of a state that was
dismantled by neoliberalism; the resistance to the free-trade agreements
that ruin the countryside and worsen the pillage of the nation's
resources, etc.

The alarm spreading through the rich countries is not over the future of
democracy but over the risks that loom over their multinational
corporations and the rapid crumbling of the structures of plunder. From
Mexico to Argentina, social and popular resistance against plundering is
growing and multiplying.

The desperate acts of the circles of power -- as happened in Mexico with
the ouster and attempted trial of leftist leader Manuel López Obrador,
whom polls identified as the next president -- prove that democracy in
Latin America works only if it allows the same people to win, so
everything may go on as usual.

The fall of Lucio Gutiérrez was the consequence of his betrayal of the
social and indigenous forces that carried him to the presidency. He
promised social justice and wasted no time signing an obscene accord
with the International Monetary Fund. He promised to bring justice to
the indigenous people and months later broke his alliance with the
Pachakutic Movement. He swore he would dismantle the corrupt system and
surrendered to the oligarchy.

He promised to rebuild the institutions and did not hesitate to destroy
the scant foundations of legality and impose a Supreme Court that
forgave the ousted presidents who paid for his support. He talked about
sovereignty and converted Ecuador into a great military base for the
United States.

In sum, he was ousted for betraying the hopes of his nation, for not
doing in Ecuador what Chávez did in Venezuela, that is, to bury a rotten
system and build a new one, taking advantage of its oil riches -- not as
big as Venezuela's but enough to propel a process of development,
particularly now that the prices of oil have skyrocketed.

The cry of "Out with all of them!" shouted earlier in Argentina is
directed at more than a political class. It is a cry that means the end
of a model of state and the demand for another: a new model that returns
to the nation its usurped wealth and gives the people dignity, hope and
a future.

The Ecuadorean crisis, like the crises in so many other countries in the
region, will not be resolved with new, ritual elections, which will mean
more of the same. Nor will it be resolved with repression as De la Rúa
tried in Argentina and Toledo in Peru. What's needed is to bury the model.

In this sense, Hugo Chávez sets the pattern. The United States finds
itself isolated and turns to Spain as a possible partner in the
construction of a common front of multinationals. But the region has
started to move and it will be difficult to halt its march, unless they
want to go back to the coups d'état and the criminal repression, which
does not seem viable.

Besides, the United States is not the best partner for a stroll through
Latin America.

[Augusto Zamora R. teaches Public International Law and International
Relations at the Autonomous University in Madrid.]

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