The war of 100 years: Latin america´s second independance or bust?
Christian Guerrero
[From the 25th anniversary edition of the Earth First! Journal. November 2005]

In Latin America, a war is brewing. Very soon, a worldwide resource grab led by the US will shake up this part of the world, just as it has in the Middle East, to supply the modernized consumer markets (rich countries) with cheap energy and labor for the next century to come. Enemies are being created, lines are being drawn, and the sentiments of the masses are being played on to ensure that there will be large revolutionary armies that will fight the US-led invasion. The allies, if they weren't already consolidated, are being bought for cheap, with merely the promise of being spared in this epic saga of the "War of 100 Years."

This phrase and premise are taken from a number of proclamations by the Venezuelan government and its charismatic president, Hugo Chávez Frías. As the story goes, the Bush administration is attempting to assassinate Chávez, in the hopes of replacing him with a US-friendly representative of the Venezuelan elite. If this plan succeeds, Venezuela is prepared to immediately cut off all shipments of oil to the US. Currently, Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest exporter of "black gold," supplying the US alone with 1.3 million barrels a day. With this checkmate move, George W. Bush would have no other choice but to knock over the chess board and invade Venezuela, bringing about the prophesied war to prevent the economic collapse of the US and the world's financial systems. And since Latin America is a region full of inspiring rebellions and strong social movements, which have been made to understand that they all have a common enemy, the people of this region will rise up in a war against the US to defend their fatherlands, their cultures, their indigenous heritage and their resources-for the next 100 years to come. But there may be something else going on behind the scenes of this too-inevitable tale.

In the last decades, América Latina has virtually exploded onto the stage of global politics, as if awakening from 500 years of forgetfulness and marginalization. All over the greater Latin continent, rebellion and resistance movements are standing up to their oppressors and the culture of political corruption, taking back their power long denied. From the resource wars for natural gas and water in Bolivia to the political deterioration in Ecuador and the massive uprisings in Argentina after its economic collapse, the pressure-cooker whistle of social politics is screaming, and the pot is red hot-and by the looks of things from the outside, it seems like the lid is about to blow off. For its part, the US government is constantly tightening its grip on the region through a three-fold submission-hold-political, economic, and military. And then there are the sketchy IFI-types, the international financial institution, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the other regional development banks that claim to be fighting poverty but, more often than not, are finding ways to squeeze timely debt payments out of impoverished countries.

If this isn't enough drama for the region, we can always tune in to the daily diplomatic soap opera and find out what Condoleezza said about Fidel, or what Hugo said about George, and who's sleeping with whom-the simplified protagonist-antagonist duality of the revolutionaries vs. the conservatives. We get to feel the bravado of David standing up to Goliath, and we get to wave our flag-colored pom poms, helping to beat the war-drums of resistance. In this way, we all get drawn into the polarized battle of ideas; we all get to choose our favorite characters and episodes. But this is not just a TV reality show; this is the fine line between entertainment and war. This is called Psychological Warfare 101. Most of the "independent media" covering the topic has, to a large extent, contributed to this warmongering by not offering a more critical analysis of the on-the-ground reality in Latin America, tending to just "report on" the hostile comments and retaliations made by the talking heads of the political show.

And what does this have to do with Earth First!? Well, in the story's plot, there's also a fine line between defending the Earth and defending your enemy's enemy. For many of us, the no-brainer that we have a common enemy in Bush makes it hard to accept that his enemy, Chávez, may not be a friend of the Earth either; it's even harder to speculate that they may even be on the same team. But when the ecological collapse draws a line in the sand, Bush and Chávez won't find themselves on opposite sides.

While the Bush administration accuses left-leaning governments in Latin America, especially Venezuela, of fanning the flames of the political instability in the region, and everybody seems more than convinced that the CIA was behind the business-led military coup that temporarily removed Chávez from power for 48 hours in April 2001, trade between the US and Venezuela has actually improved considerably. Aside from an increased flow in manufacturing and textiles, the last few years have also seen Chávez hand over major concessions of heavy crude and natural gas from the the Orinocno Belt and the large off-shore reserves of the Plataforma Deltana, respectively, to Shell, Chevron and other major US and European oil and energy companies.

Self-proclaimed leftist elected governments across Latin America, using the current "democratic openings" that their nations find themselves in, have recreated development plans and trade agreements with the same underlying neoliberal goals as their more right-wing neighbors like Colombia and Chile. Since Chávez's presidency began in 1998, unpopular industrial mega-projects-previously defeated by broad, national alliances-have been recycled, renamed and given a new opportunity within the newly created context of the "Bolivarian socialist revolution." Other so-called progressive, leftist governments-represented by populist leaders who have come from "our" ranks-have also replicated this pattern in their countries. While we turned our attention away from the struggles in these nations, believing that wild places and peoples were safe in the hands of these progressive leaders, record levels of deforestation, mining and oil exploitation have occurred-still in the name of Westernized progress, but now with the added rhetoric of revolutionary change.

To pick the most alarming example, while much has been written on Plan Puebla Panamá and the long-term master plan behind this regional development project, little attention has been given to the true mother lode of integration initiatives: the South American Regional Infrastructure Integration Initiative (IIRSA). Financed largely by the aforementioned iffy regional development banks and requiring continued investments and commitments from every country on the continent, IIRSA would tie together all the major industrial infrastructure across South America-heavy cargo transportation routes, water resource diversions, dams, industrial ports, hydrocarbon pipelines and long-distance energy grids and stations-all facilitating the massive exploitation and exportation of the continent's vast natural resources (see EF!, July-August 2005).

Using the legend of Simón Bolívar, the "Liberator" of the Andean countries, and his aspirations for a unified Latin America of sovereign republics, the script-writers of the Bolivarian Movement-who are more often Colombian guerrilla leaders than Venezuelan government officials-have plotted a new historical trajectory for the whole region, and have marketed it as Latin America's second independence. They have advertised regional energy-sector mergers such as Petrocaribe, Petrosuramérica and Carbosuramérica-joint ventures between state oil and mining companies and private Latin American firms-as the culmination of
Bolívar's dream: South America taking care of itself, sharing what it has between the countries in the region.

There are, however, a few inconsistencies to this "regional intergration" story. One is the relationship of governments with the US. For example, Colombia-the largest recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere-has made substantial progress in the projects outlined by IIRSA. It would be easy enough to call the projects in Colombia expansions of US imperialism, since they involve heavy investment in environmentally and socially destructive infrastructure for the sole purpose of extracting cheap raw materials (especially energy resources) from the most biologically diverse region in the world. But when we assess the motives behind the "regional cooperation" initiatives that are being developed within the IIRSA framework by the Venezuelan "Bolivarian" government, one must apply the same criteria to these development projects-continued investment in destructive industries for the majority benefit of northern consumers. In other words, IIRSA can't be US expansionism in one country and revolutionary integration in the other.

As the Zapatistas say in their recently released Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle, "The neoliberal globalization of capitalism is based on exploitation, plunder, contempt and repression to those who resist it-in other words, the same as before, but only now globalized." This is important for Earth First!ers to keep in mind when we hear about the need to blindly support romantic struggles throughout Latin America. There will be no stone left unturned in capital's search for profit, and every place on Earth is a sacrifice zone.

This "globalization" of the war on the Earth also has implicated our resistance, and we risk becoming its unwitting tools. Our movements and struggles have extended across national borders and continents. We are now defending the Earth on an international front; we are truly everywhere. And because of this reality, we in the Earth First! movement have aligned ourselves in solidarity with struggles that aren't necessarily Earth-centered, but are a part of the greater social struggle to end tyranny. However, there is a real cost to our Earth-centered movement when we identify with these wide-ranging social struggles around the world. We are aligning ourselves with objectives that may not be our own. While it's obvious that we must end the destruction of the Earth-primarily caused by the disproportionate level of material wealth consumed by industrialized countries-it's not so clear where most of us stand on the continued techno-industrialization of the "under-developed" countries.

While preserving a healthy environment may seem characteristic of the overarching political trend of progressive movements around the world, the leaders of Latin American, leftist political movements are not all necessarily convinced of putting the Earth first. In fact, what seem to be growing calls for the end to US and European expansionism in the region are really code words for: "We want the gringos to stop stealing the biggest piece of the pie, so that we may have it ourselves." To the majority of leftists in the "developed" world who want to build solidarity with the social struggles of the Global South, this demand is not only justified, but has been a long time coming.

But there's a grave flaw in this reductionism of thinking that it's only the gringos who perpetuate inequality. The South American elites have just as much intention of mining the Earth of all its resources for a profit as their northern counterparts. And the Latin American upper, middle and lower classes aren't all completely ready to forego 21st-century, automation and comfort. For us "radical ecologists," the dilemma is two-fold. On the one hand is the struggle to reduce the amount of natural resources consumed by the "First" World, so that there may be more natural resources for the rest of the world to use in its unhurried development. 

On the other hand is the struggle of most moderates and liberals to lift the "Third" World out of poverty and up to the "First" World's level of material wealth. Yet having a whole world consume on the same level as the US, Europe or Japan would mean sudden death for most life on the planet.

It's important for us to recognize how the masters of war will create and use each other as enemies to justify leading us toward the end of the story already written-the war for the remaining essential resources on Earth. Hugo Chávez has taken full advantage of this role, being one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration and the US government. Championing the fight to lift his corner of the world out of abject poverty, offering petro-dollars to any social initiative he can get his name and face on. With these politically conditioned gifts and declarations, Chávez and his Bolivarian revolution, are becoming the leadership and vanguard of all the social pressure building up south of the US.

But for Chávez's closest associates and investors-the biggest and most favored being the all-stars of Big Oil, such as Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil-this arrangement couldn't get any better. It's a virtual green light to accelerate the industrial development and exploitation of the largest reserves of crude oil, natural gas, coal and other minerals in the hemisphere-and sacrifice any forest, river, sea or living community that lives above them. Anybody who raises an objection or stands in the way is, by default, a counter-revolutionary and a Bush supporter.

There will be no war in Latin America, other than the ones already being fought. The broad sentiment for social change and justice expressed by la gente de América Latina is valid, and we should support it. But when Chávez offers subsidized heating oil and gasoline to the US poor, we should understand the political strings attached-he's buying our sentiments and loyalty with 10 to 20 percent "cheaper" oil. When Chávez calls Bush "Mr. Danger," we should have our laugh and agree that the US government is dangerous to the world. However, what we must remember is that all governments-leftist or conservative, socialist or fascist-work together to keep the machines of the global death system alive. Some, like the US and its allies, work with the obvious intention of entrenching the world deeper into their hegemony. Others work with the stated claim of reforming the system's shortcomings with "popular democratic participation"-but all of them are committed to their goal of industrial and economic growth, which means the continued destruction and deterioration of the Earth and all that is wild. Our revolution will not be funded by oil.

[Christian Guerrero is a thorn-in-the-side whistleblower of leftist sell-outs who believe that we're buying into their "capitalism with a human face"-compromised resistance culture.]