From Che to Chavez: Latin America revolts against the empire

[XXPANTHAXX]

Stuart Munckton

On October 8, 1967, the Argentinean-born socialist revolutionary Ernesto
“Che� Guevara was murdered by a CIA agent in Bolivia. Having helped
lead the successful Cuban Revolution, Che was in Bolivia attempting to
spread the struggle against imperialism. Nearly 40 years later, on
December 18, Evo Morales — a poor indigenous coca farmer and radical
leader of the Movement Towards Socialism — was elected Bolivia’s new
president.

The February 12 Sydney Morning Herald ran an article by David Segal
entitled “Viva Che, the comandante of capitalism�, which argued that the
widespread use of Che’s iconic image by corporations to sell products
amounts to the “nails in Che’s coffin�. The revolutionary ideals Che
fought for are dead, Segal argued; “capitalism won�.

Someone must have forgotten to tell this to the impoverished workers and
peasants across Latin America, who have probably never heard of — and
couldn’t afford anyway — Magnum’s
“Cherry Guevara� ice-creams. Clearly Morales never got the message.
Asking for a minute’s silence for Che and “the millions of human beings
who have fallen in all of Latin America�, Morales said in his
inauguration speech that the struggle he is leading is “a continuation
of the fight of Che Guevara�.

In recent years several pro-US and pro-corporate governments have been
brought down by popular revolt in Latin America, and a growing number of
governments have been elected on platforms that challenge Washington-pushed
neoliberal policies. An opinion piece in the February 13 LA Times by
Niall Ferguson argued that “while the United States has become fixated
on the Muslim world, a region much closer to home has been quietly
spinning out of American control�.

The increasing isolation of the US in the region was demonstrated at the
Summit of the Americas meeting in November, where the US failed to
force through its key project for a Free Trade Area of the Americas,
which would further expose the continent to domination and exploitation
by US corporations.

In the 1980s and ’90s, the US and international financial institutions
forced severe neoliberal policies onto Latin America, impoverishing
millions of people.

The first signs of the regional revolt came in Venezuela in February
1989, when the poor spontaneously rose up against International Monetary
Fund-imposed price rises on basic goods. Through the 1990s, movements
against neoliberalism grew. In Bolivia, a mass revolt stopped the
attempt to privatise the nation’s water in 2000. In 2003 and 2005, mass
revolts overthrew pro-US governments in Bolivia in battles that centred
on the demand, supported by Morales, to nationalise Bolivia’s gas
reserves.

In most countries the mass movements, while putting governments on the
back foot and forcing concessions, are yet to win power. But in
Venezuela, the struggle has gone beyond periodic revolts and into an
ongoing revolution to transform the nation. The government of socialist
President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, has led the poor majority in a
battle to take control of Venezuela’s resources and put them to use to
overcome crippling poverty and underdevelopment. When Chavez began
introducing reforms that benefited the poor over the rich, the local
elite and multinationals — backed by the US government — responded with
repeated attempts to overthrow the government.

The resistance to any encroachment on their power by the capitalist
elite has radicalised Venezuela’s poor, who have come to realise that it
is impossible to achieve change simply by electing a government and
getting it to enact reforms. The Venezuelan people have been forced to
take the road of revolution and fight for popular power on the streets.
In the process, many have drawn the conclusion that capitalism cannot be
reformed.

In Venezuela, the revolution has raised the banner of socialism again,
well after it was declared dead and buried with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. The Venezuelan revolution is working to build a “new
socialism of the 21st century�, based on principles of democracy and
humanism. And it is working: poverty is decreasing (by 3 million people
last year alone) and the poor are winning more and more power.

Imperialism is yet to be defeated in Latin America, but it is being
pushed onto the back foot. From Bolivia to Venezuela to Cuba, people are
putting paid to the notion that the only spirit Che Guevara represents
today is the vodka that the Smirnoff corporation uses his face to flog.
The exact opposite is true: the revolutionary socialism that Che fought
and died for is alive and well — and advancing.