Indigenous Resistance to Globalization [View All]

[mom cat]

Indigenous Resistance to Globalization

......... by toni solo June 26, 2004


“Negotiating a free-trade agreement with the U.S. is not something one has a right to - it's a privilege."1 This quote from US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick came to mind when the BBC reported former head of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, US army General Karpinski on policy at the US concentration camp in Guantanamo. Karpinski quoted former Guantanamo commander Major General Miller saying , "At Guantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing that they have." She went on, "He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them." 2

Lessons from that kind of psychological and physical torture are very evident in US government efforts to force through coercive “free trade” deals on weaker trading partners in Latin America. Disorientating high-pressure timetables, meagre incentives and seriously damaging penalities underlie the superficial, businesslike bonhomie. Over these trade-in-your-sovereignty negotiations hangs constantly the perennial imperial Damocles' sword - “comply.... or else”. In the background, national and international media sound the endless confidence-eroding drip, drip, “there's no alternative....what choice do you have?....no alternative.....”.

The idea that the poor majority in Latin America are unaware of the crude aggression and blunt contempt for their needs and interests on the part of the United States or complacent at their own governments' canine roll-over responses is false. Resistance is widespread to US government attempts to extend and consolidate imperial control of Latin America's resources on behalf of giant multinational corporations. One would never know that from the corporate-owned mainstream media. If it's bad news for US allies, it's a non-event - Colombia

Only the most inescapable signs of that resistance in Latin America make the corporate media. The list of important events barely covered outside the countries where they happened reveals how popular protest is neglected. For example, the successful 37 day strike by national oil company workers in Colombia this year received virtually no coverage at all. Organized to resist continuing attempts to privatize the State oil company to favor multinational giants like BP-Amoco and Occidental Petroleum, initially the strike was declared illegal. Over 200 workers were fired. Seventeen strike leaders were arrested. The government militarised petroleum installations throughout the country. 3


Similarly, on May 18th around half a million public workers held a national strike. A massive protest in Cartagena was brutally repressed by the army. None of this received coverage in the North American or European media in any way comparable to the coverage given to the 2002 Venezuelan opposition lock-out. Army and paramilitary massacres in Colombia, such as those this May in Guajira and in Arauca, that would be headline international news if they happened in Venezuela, are simply not reported.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=52&ItemID=5785