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DEP: Diplomacy, Strategy & Politics / Raúl Prebisch Project no. 6 (april/june 2007).
Brasília : Raúl Prebisch Project, 2007.
Three–monthly
Published in portuguese, spanish and english.
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1. South America. 2. Argentine, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana,
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D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Number 6 April / June 2007
Summary
5
15
35
48
59
73
88
Reality of Argentina and the region
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Diplomacy for life
Pablo Solón
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Guido Mantega
Regional integration: factor of sustainable development
Emílio Odebrecht
The quest for development with equity
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
Colombia: challenges until 2010
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
A plan for Ecuador
Rafael Correa Delgado
ads:
Cultural identity & creolization in Guyana
Prem Misir
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Milda Rivarola
Coloniality of power, globalization and democracy
Aníbal Quijano
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Subhaas Punwasi
Mercosur: project and perspectives
Luis Alberto Lacalle de Herrera
About the utmost importance of a party
Hugo Chávez
Guayasamín by himself
94
105
127
173
186
194
221
5
Reality of Argentina
and the region
*
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner *
T
his invitation by FLACSO is not only an honor but also a great moment
in human and political terms. You mentioned my participation in numerous
fora and academic and institutional spaces. Most of them were located in the
self-named rst world where the categories of thought often cannot decode
the reality of such a complex and mistreated region as Latin America.
A moment ago I was speaking to the FLACSO director who, in between
the small talk, complained of the fact that many of his professors have left
because they are now part of the new government. I say he should not
complain – this is good. This means FLACSO provides critical thought to the
governments of the region that during so much time had thoughts removed
and often contrary to the interests of their countries, products of other
intellectual schools of thought that do not respond exactly to the interests
of this region.
Thus, I believe that it is time that new winds blow in the Latin American
region. And my presence here has to do with the double approach I intend
to make this afternoon, here, in Quito, Ecuador. On the one hand, we have
* Conference in FLACSO-Quito, March 21, 2007.
** Senator of the Argentine Republic.
kirchner@senado.gov.ar
D
iplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
Reality of Argentina and the region
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
6
the Argentine experience, not as a sort of model to follow – I believe in
the experience of each country, society, government – but simply because
Argentina, just like the rest of Latin America, had similar processes in terms
of institutional interruptions by de facto governments simultaneously, an
perhaps, along with Ecuador, more than no other, in terms of experiments of
intellectual developments that did not precisely have to do with the interests
of the country and of the peoples. So, with this brief clarication, that we
do not intend to become a Mr. Know-it-all, or to teach, although we are in
a university, what we do want is to contribute with the Argentine experience
after almost four years of President Kirchner’s administration.
In a few days, on March 24, my country will have one more anniversary
of the last military coup d’état, similar to so many others in the region, and that
politically, economically, and socially had devastating effects. Just to mention
some gures: at the moment of the coup, on March 24, 1976, the workers of
my country had approximately a 48% participation in the GDP. It was almost
the fty-fty proposed by Perón’s justicialismo. The next elections were coming
up in a few months, that is, when the people would once again decide. I am
not going to delve into a process that caused cultural, moral, economic, and
social devastation, along with the disappearance of 30 thousand Argentines,
the imprisonment of others, torture, humiliation in exile, etc. – a situation that
did not only occur in Argentina, but that can be observed in the past history
of the entire region.
Democracy returned during the 1980s. Basically, this process was
accentuated when the Berlin wall fell, which created a rupture in the bipolar
world, and therefore, it was no longer necessary to have the national security
doctrine in the region. The development and return of the democratic
process must be analyzed critically to understand, also, that the rst steps
of this democracy were perhaps the agreement of what I will call corporate
governance.
To accord with the different power sectors of the societies in order
to make countries governable is, I believe, a true contradiction in the
development of democracy. The development of democracy basically
entails the development of citizenship, citizen participation, and basically,
representation, by those who have institutional opportunity acquired through
electoral processes, of the interests of the national majorities. In democracy,
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
7
often these processes did not occur, because of ideological changes in those
who reached government representing ideas, projects and principles, and
ended up executing projects, ideas, and management that were the opposite
of what they had supported historically prior to their arrival in government,
or because of weakness, incapacity, lack of managerial skills. The fact is that
at a certain moment in time, democracy also begins to establish itself in Latin
America as an efcient source for solving problems and improving the quality
of life of the population.
There were a lot of crises and instability in the region. I am not going
to tell you, Ecuadorians, the meaning of institutional instability as a result of
the major economic and social crises.
2001 is an impressive year for my country, when it seemed to almost
disintegrate itself. There was an intense representation crisis, and the Argentine
society had placed its trust on a government from the alliance that spoke of a
governmental program and executed, exactly, a continuity of what had been
developed to that point. This institutional instability meant that no government
could conclude its own constitutional term, which, for example, also happened
here, in 1996. So we see that recurrent economic and social crises are factors
of institutional rupture, institutional instability, and essentially of the lack of
democratic development.
What is the diagnosis of President Kirchner and the political arena,
of which he is a part, and of which I am obviously a part? Our term began
on May 25, 2003. First, in the governments of the region there was a strong
dissociation between institutional legality and political and social legitimacy.
What does this mean? It means that electoral processes were won because of
projects, platforms, political representations, and the exact opposite was done.
There was even a president in my country who stated that if he said what he
would do he would have lost the elections. This crisis between legality and
legitimacy means efcacy, not only in complying with what was stated in an
electoral platform during the electoral process, but also that what was stated
and applied have the desired result. Because in fact, politics is all about result.
We can have the best ideas, the best projects, but if they are not carried out
effectively, with veriable and quantiable results in the quality of life of our
people, our citizens… people can speak of a profound intellectual honesty,
that these steps have been decided and complied with, but we are speaking
Reality of Argentina and the region
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
8
of the efcacy of the Government and the development of democratic
administration.
Therefore, this was the rst matter we decided to address, with respect
to the fact that legality and legitimacy could not be dissociated and, therefore,
governance was not corporate governance, with agreements with corporations,
but fundamentally, we would follow through with the citizenship commitments
demanded by the Argentine society economically and fundamentally in the
role of the State, because, in fact, we, political militants who participate in
democratic electoral processes that are plural and open, are demanding political
initiative in the State to move forward with a project and an administration. This
is what is at stake during an electoral process. A political group, on behalf of
a system of ideas, a representation that is presented to the citizens, submitted
to consideration with respect to its political and social projects and foreign
policy, and then executes this project, this system of ideas.
This system of ideas that we presented was completely opposite to
what had been presented to us during the 1990s in the entire Latin American
region, which was the neoliberalism, or what become known as the Washington
Consensus. Based on this, there were four or ve main pillars, along with
common matters, such as impunity or violation of human rights. It was stated,
for example, that those who had caused the disappearance, torture, and the
humiliation of 30 thousand Argentines and many others that had to seek out
exile in the countryside or abroad could not be punished. It was said that this
could not be done. And when it was done, they then said that in fact, now
it could be done because the tougher moment had already passed and so it
became easier. Events that moved us very recently, almost six months ago,
with the disappearance of one of the key witnesses on the main lawsuits
and raise questions in terms of human rights as a matter of the State, that
do not belong to a political sector or a political idea. We must live with those
responsible for such atrocities.
But there was a system of ideas that said that the adjustment policies
were permanent. That we could not say no to the guidelines proposed by the
International Monetary Fund with respect to renegotiation, sovereign debt
or internal policies; that we had to restrict consumption because along with
everything else, it caused ination. It was funny, because this was said by
the capitalist schools of thought. And then someone would say: what is this
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
9
capitalism that does not want consumers? Because if anything, this is what
characterizes capitalism. Capitalism, as a system of ideas, before what existed,
opposing what was on the other side of the curtain, did not vanquish only due
to economic, military, technological, or scientic power. It was much simpler.
Those on the other side wanted to live like the ones on this side. This, in
fact, was what brought down the wall as a system of ideas and a functioning
system. It was an emblematic place of the meaning of another system of
ideas, another way of functioning. However, it was said that it was necessary
to live with permanent adjustment, with internal consumption restriction,
and that whoever dared to steer away from these policies, which in fact were
the guidelines of the International Monetary Fund, would fall under Jupiter’s
lightning, or something similar to Jupiter, or someone who believed to be
Jupiter.
We believed that a different path was possible. We believe that a different
path is possible. It is possible to renegotiate, as was done by Argentina when
it renegotiated its foreign debt. Currently, all our payments have been made,
resulting in a 75% saving. We have explained this in many international
fora when people told us: do you believe it is right to speak of this in the
international fora linked to the major international nancial centers? And I
would answer: in the nancial world, while the world put in money with 3%
annually, Argentina did so with up to 15 or 20% annually, an authentic nancial
gamble. Anyone who puts in this money in the nancial world with this interest
rate knows the risk, because capitalism is also a risk. And, therefore, those
who take the risk also take the risk of participating in this authentic casino
economy, or nancial gambles, as we call it because there is no other way of
expressing this participation, and also, in the results of this policy.
The issue of the dollarization of the economy, which initially was an anti-
inationary instrument in an economy and society with a strong inationary
culture, became an objective of its own, emptying out and almost destroying
national industry.
Another item in the governmental agenda was the need to recreate
national industry, to once again develop the need for national entrepreneurship.
This was not to oppose foreign investment, but rather, because every country,
every economy needs the development of a national bourgeoisie that plays the
role assigned to it by capitalism and that reproduces goods and services, and,
Reality of Argentina and the region
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
10
fundamentally, an economy that also deals with social responsibility. With all
of this, public administration also conceived the new role of the State, which
could no longer be a removed State proposing neoliberalism, or a corporate
State, as in the beginning of Peronismo, but rather a regulating State, coordinating
market and society, public and private, essentially, without abandoning the
representation of national interests and the majorities. Basically, this was
our proposal on March 25, 2003 when President Ernesto Kirchner took
ofce with 22% of the votes and a 27% unemployment rate. As he recently
mentioned during a trip to France, a President that had a greater unemployed
population than votes, a suffocating foreign debt of one and a half times the
GDP, with poverty levels of approximately 57 or 58%, inexistent industry, no
competitiveness, the one for one exchange rate made production and tourism
impossible: an unviable country.
This was the situation on May 25, 2003, when we initiated what I call
a system of ideas. Along with it was the necessary renovation in another
inexion point in Argentine policy, the Supreme Court in the country, where
for the rst time in the history of my country, since the 1853 Constitution, a
President renounces his constitutional right of unilaterally proposing, without
being submitted to any consideration to be member of the Supreme Court,
only the Senate, by the number of required votes, and introduces a system
where proposals are submitted to public consideration. They can be impugned
not only in the executive branch, but also in the legislative branch. Another
action was to appoint people who not only had perfect judicial, academic,
intellectual records, but who also did not know the President personally, with
only one exception, Dr. Safaroni, who was President Kirchner’s severe critic
when he was Governor of the Santa Cruz province. This is the administration
developed in the period beginning on May 25, 2003.
Many said we were crazy. Crazy was actually one of the softer adjectives
used considering the criticism, which everyone has the right to make, coming
from our party, the opposition, the media, anywhere. But once, with time, they
noticed that the criticism and forecasts made of the results of policies and the
administration did not occur, and quite the opposite, concrete results appeared
in the exact direction of the original proposals, this required intellectual honesty
on the part of the critics to acknowledge their mistake. They did not need to
do so for the President, or a Congress member, or the political party I belong
to, but simply to the citizens, to which we all owe, no matter what role we
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
11
received with the elections. Current administration or opposition, we all have
a commitment of intellectual honesty, not with the government, the media,
but before the citizens.
Today, four years into an administration that initiated with that situation
in the management of the public debt, unemployment, poverty levels, we have
an increase in exports, growing economic activity, industrial activity and a
growing and ever more important presence of manufactured products exports,
not just commodities, unemployment levels that reached in the last quarter
a single digit after almost a decade and a half of double digits, and I believe
that INDET also announced today single digit poverty rates. For the rst time
in a long period, Argentina has had a reduction in poverty rates to 27-28%,
an unprecedented change in minimum wage compared to the last decade and
a half. Not to mention the Argentine social security system with over 8 or 9
increases in the liabilities sector, an increase that had not occurred since 1990
or 1991. Unemployment improved in the last quarter, there was a growth
in exports, a tourism boom with revenues that even surpassed grains, with
diversied availability of tourism, a real estate boom, also very important for the
country because it participated and was a fundamental pillar in the recreation
of the Argentine reality, and which we supported during the campaign. This
was also one of the neoliberalism myths – the idea that infrastructure and
public construction could reactivate the economy.
I remember President Kirchner, when he was still candidate, insisting
and pounding on this – and this is the adequate term. He pounded on the
importance that we gave to public construction, infrastructure, as a movement
that multiplies economic growth. This is the only way we see the dogmatic and
theoretical levels. As Governor of Santa Cruz, some of this was experimented,
but the rest was copied from the New Deal, basically following the example of
United States’ response to the 30s crisis. Precisely with Roosevelt, and public
construction, there was a strong reactivation of the economy, a multiplying
effect economically and socially: economically, as the mother industry – I do
not need to speak of what it means and everything that surrounds construction,
but also because it brings in basic infrastructure that is needed for economic
activity and for entrepreneurs to be able to develop their activity through
railways, means of communication, airports; and socially, through hospitals,
schools, drinking water, housing – it is a virtuous cycle that also rebuilds the
Reality of Argentina and the region
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
12
trust the country has in itself. This was also a key aspect in the diagnosis we
had of the situation in Argentina.
Legality, legitimacy, enough of impunity, but essentially, we knew that the
intense processes we had lived since 1976 had touched on essential issues for
society: trust in its own strength to move forward and the idea of no individual
salvation, but rather the development of a collective project requiring individual
and collective effort that could not be carried out by the same people who had
been punished for over two decades – sectors with lower resources, those who
could not access minimal services, or those who could access these services
yet not pay for them. That is why we were so rigorously criticized. They said
that this way we were scaring off the investors who would ee the country.
I still remember very unruly meetings in the beginning of the
administration during some or other trip abroad to some or other rst world
country with considerable investments in our country. It was as if the world
was falling apart and everyone was leaving. Today, they make investment
proposals and acknowledge that they are proting more than before. Some,
for the rst time in 5 or 7 years are sending funds back to their headquarters
because, of course, when you have more users, more consumers, the economy
grows for everyone.
What happened was that Argentina was more and more restricted to
user and consumer sectors and the middle class, who could not remove itself
from this, was drowning. And in great extent, the middle class was precisely
the one that withstood the specic weight of the crisis along with the sectors
excluded from the productive model who could not even hope for a tomorrow
or a government that would change things. For that reason, it was necessary
for the economy, culture, and credibility to advise that the serious business
of every capitalist is that more users exist, more and more consumers with
greater purchase power to sell more of whatever is produced: goods, services,
etc. It took a long time for this to be understood, but I believe that many are
starting to understand. That is why we have growing investment rates. Today,
Argentina is seen as a business opportunity, and that is why this process exists
in the Argentine experience. I repeat, there is no intention of stating a formula
– by conviction and attitude, we do not believe in ready-made formulas without
ending up in the same Latin American process. As I was saying earlier when I
was speaking to Bonilla and other professors from this important study center
that is FLACSO, new winds are blowing in the region.
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
13
I was recently in Paris meeting with the main political directors both
from the government and opposition from Parliament and Executive Branch.
Everyone kept asking me: What is going on in Latin America? After so many
electoral processes we have Kirchner, Bachelet, Evo Morales, President Chávez,
here in Ecuador, President Correa. And I say that for the rst time in Latin
America, the governors look like the governed. I believe that this is a very
unique moment in America. I believe that in this historic moment, with these
unique governments, it is impossible to interpret a leader such as Kirchner
comparing him to any other or vice-versa – Correa with Kirchner, Chávez
with Bachelet, Bachelet with Evo Morales, because each one of them responds
to the realities, idiosyncrasies, and history of their own country. What for us,
Latin Americans, is easy to understand, for the European schools of thought,
it is often much more difcult.
But I honestly believe that we are living through a unique period in
Latin American history where integration is a duty. It is the greatest challenge
that all with institutional responsibility have. With different instruments – as
you know, along with Brazil and now Venezuela, we are part of Mercosur.
It is important to take into account that each of our countries, each of our
economies, has a degree of complementarity that we must take advantage
of and increase when facing a world in constant debate about foreign policy,
confrontation, or subordination. We must propose an integration model, with
complementarity and solidarity in Latin America, which must be an inexion
point. We must present this not just as a theoretical proposal, in the important
research centers or in institutional spaces, but also in specic and concrete
administration, in governmental administration.
Our presence here in Ecuador, with this mission formed by Argentine
businesspeople, lead by my country’s Minister of Finance, the Minister of
Foreign Relations, and the Minister of Planning is not by chance. We, Latin
Americans, have never before visited each other and known each other as we
are doing now. We have never before spoken as much about our problems and
how to solve them. We have never spoken before of a Southern Bank as an
instrument to fund our own projects without seeking out funding sources lled
with requirements that have little to do with growth and social development
programs. Because of this, I believe that we, fellow Latin Americans, are going
through a very special moment. Let us use it wisely. As I have said before on
numerous occasions in institutional and academic events, we have the matter
Reality of Argentina and the region
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
14
of instability in the region. The main cause for instability in Latin America has
been poverty and extreme poverty. Those are the main causes for instability.
And I believe that all of us who wish to build a stable democratic society in
which each citizen can exercise his or her rights must understand that the
representation of interests that we currently carry out from this system of
ideas is not a dogmatic or ideological matter. We have merely veried, in
practice, that the other system of ideas that was proposed to us only caused
hunger, misery, pain, and had a devastating effect. Therefore, it is time that
this system of ideas, in which we can demonstrate specic and concrete results
that have an impact over the quality of life of our fellow citizens have the
historic opportunity in Latin America it deserves.
DEP
Translation: Cynthia Garcia
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
15
Diplomacy for life
Pablo Solón*
E
very system is developed through processes tending towards balancing
unbalances existent amongst its components and surroundings, and then
reaching new balance, which generates new unbalances. Foreign policies are
not removed from this logic. Their nal objective is to overcome unbalances
present in various levels (economic, social, environmental, territorial, cultural,
etc.) obtaining new unstable balances that become the basis for new unbalances
that need to be balanced through new approaches, instruments, and policies.
With this in mind, there is nothing more harmful to international policies and
especially to diplomacy than inertia and routine in a dynamic and permanently
changing world.
Today, it is clear that the object of foreign policies does not merely
include the relationship between States. Obviously we negotiate and sign
agreements, treaties, policies, and actions between States, but the meaning
of said agreements goes way beyond interstate relations. The concept that
through diplomatic actions one only defends the interest of one’s nation is
reductionist and ahistorical. The advocacy or promotion of certain specic
national interests has repercussions over unforeseen areas, and what at rst
glance might seem to be a merely “technical” measure might have very serious
global consequences.
* Ambassador. Republic of Bolivia.
Diplomacy for life
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
16
The various levels of balances and unbalances in the world are multiple,
interlaced, juxtaposed, and change through time. This report will reect on
four of them: the planet-mother earth, economy, relations between states,
and social interaction.
Mother earth
Ten or twenty years ago, the perspective of indigenous peoples was
considered a phenomenon of the past, something to preserve and showcase
for experts to study. The general attitude towards indigenous peoples was
paternalist, with commiseration and the idea of protecting pieces of history.
The appreciation of their existence occurred mainly through dance, music,
clothing, and the wrongly named “folklore”, and rarely, if at all, with the
exception of highly specialized academic circles, was it an appreciation of
their culture and vision.
However, after 500 years the indigenous peoples have regained a situation
of power, the government of a Latin American country, and they did so not
only as an expression of popular and social movements, but also as indigenous
peoples that restate their own conceptions of life, nature, and the world.
This perspective is reected in the letter sent by President Evo Morales
on October 2, 2006, to his regional colleagues on the occasion of the II
Summit of the South American Community of Nations: “Our integration
is and must be an integration of and for the peoples. Trade, energetic
integration, infrastructure, and funding must all exist to solve the larger
problems of poverty and the destruction of our region’s nature. We cannot
reduce the South American Community to a partnership that builds highways
or develops credit projects than end up essentially favoring the sectors linked
to the world market. Our goal must be to develop a true integration to ‘live well’.
We say ‘live well’ because we do not aspire to live better than others. We do
not believe in the line of progress and unlimited development at the cost of
others and nature. We must complement each other and not compete against
one another. We must share and not take advantage of our neighbors. To
‘live well’ does not mean to merely think in terms of per-capita income but
rather to think of a cultural identity, a community, harmony amongst us and
with our mother earth.”
Pablo Solón
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
17
From our perspective we are all part of a single unit; human beings,
plants, animals, mountains, rivers, the sky, and the wind. We all interact with
one another. We all relate to one another. We all communicate with each other.
Sometimes we get angry and react. The rocks on our path are not lifeless beings;
they also have a history, a function, a series of transformations. Human beings
are one more; one more component of mother earth. Human beings are not
above others and cannot mold nature at will. If anyone is above others it is
“mother earth”, the system of which we are a part of and without which we
cannot exist. We must respect the “pachamama” and everything we do must
be to “please her” to maintain the balance with her. For that reason, before
withdrawing minerals or preparing the earth to be seeded we must ask her for
permission and show respect because her internal harmony is being altered.
Basically this perspective is: a) total, it sees the system globally, as a
whole, b) presumes that all elements have life and react to one another, and
c) acknowledges that human beings are a part of this.
A few decades ago, progress was measured exclusively by the amount
of square meters of cement and steel in a country or region. The example of
progress used to be, and still is in a certain way, the classic photos of large
cities lled with rising chimneys. Those were, and still are the times in which
men considered themselves capable of dominating nature, moving mountains,
changing the course of rivers, inventing seeds, in other words, creating life…
with no problem; with no reaction from mother earth, without nature getting
angry and defending itself.
Luckily, climatic change has been a tough blow and now over 5,000
experts in the world are ringing warning bells. “Things cannot continue to be
this way”. As time goes by there is more awareness that a very large unbalance
with nature is being produced. But why did we reach this situation and what
can we do to x it? We are far from reaching consensus on this matter. The
reason for that is that this diagnosis implies accountability and leads to formulas
that will affect some more than others.
From our perspective, this problem will not truly be solved unless we
change the consumer standards created by the capitalist system. While we live
in a system that needs to stimulate and promote irresponsible consumption
to solve its cyclic crises, we will have no solution. In other words, the law to
respect nature must come before the market law. The law of selling more
Diplomacy for life
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
18
and more, producing more and more, only to prot more and more, without
taking into consideration that we only have one blue planet is leading us to
the abyss. We rmly believe that the “free market” has reached certain limits
in which its coexistence with nature is unsustainable.
Neoliberalism wants to do business with the tragedy it provokes. To
limit its supposed misuse a price tag must be put on water, to compensate the
“pollution” of major industries, carbon credit certicates must be purchased,
to preserve elds subsidies must be given…to the farmers of rich countries.
Neoliberalism can be summed up in the concept “a price tag must be put on
the environment so that it is not destroyed because people take care of things
that have a price”. But what happens to those who cannot pay the established
price to access this piece of nature? In what way is this a feasible solution
for all humankind? And this leads us to an even more painful question: is it
possible to preserve a blue enclave in a planet destroyed by the exploitation
of its resources?
The indigenous perspective does not mean going back to the Egyptian
plow as the prophets of modernity vulgarly say. Science, technology, industry,
market are all elements of a system that can be managed within certain
parameters and balanced with nature. The problem is that some of them no
longer exist for the common good but rather have started to seek out greater
protability. They then become insatiable for markets, consumers, energy,
natural resources.
There is no easy solution. While we speak of precautions, the capitalist
system’s dynamic pushes towards following China’s indicators and grow at a
pace of 8%. What would be the future of our planet if we all (including China
as a whole) grew at such a pace?
We are at the beginning of change in foreign policies surrounding the vast
problem of balance with nature. We believe that a radical and profound change
is necessary in the WTO and the free trade agreements because to this point
the logic has been to subordinate environmental components to trade rules.
With the exception of the United Nations Security Council, the WTO is the
only multilateral organization that has a dispute settlement mechanism capable
of sanctioning incompliance. The correct situation would be if environmental
conventions such as the Kyoto protocol and others had more hierarchy and
Pablo Solón
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19
regulating capacity than trade agreements. If we do not progress down this
path no true modication will take place with regards to climatic changes.
The economy
Unbalances with and in nature are intimately linked to unbalances in
wealth distribution. The 200
1
largest companies in the world control one
fourth (26.3%) of global production and grow at a pace that is double the
Gross Domestic Product of the 29 OECD countries. The added production
of these 200 companies is greater than the production of the 100 developing
countries ranked at the bottom.
According to Forbes magazine, 587 multimillionaires have a fortune that
is double the wealth of an entire country such as Spain and about one fth
of the American economy.
At the other end, 2.8 billion poor people survive in this planet with less
than two dollars per day according to the 2005 UN report. 840 million people
do not have access to basic food stuffs and an average of 6 million children
of less than 5 years of age die of malnutrition every month.
According to ECLAC, in Latin America we have about 220 million poor
people (43.4% of the population) of which 95 million are under the poverty
line (18.8% of the population).
In terms of social and environmental sustainability, it is impossible to nd
a balance unless measures are taken to correct the situation. For us, the future
of humankind depends on the capacity that countries have to regulate and
develop mechanisms to contribute to wealth redistribution. Private initiative,
per se, is not bad. But when it reaches certain extremes it is transformed into
a considerable factor for unbalance. It no longer matters was is good for the
planet, my country, or the people, but rather what is good for my company,
my private interests. Much is said about free competition; however, we are
living a concentration of economic power. In other words: a competition
1
Some of the largest non-nancial transnational companies: Shell, General Motors, Ford, Exxon, IBM, AT&T,
Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Merck, Toyota, Philip Morris, General Electric, Unilever, Fiat, British Petroleum, Mobil, Nestlé,
Philips, Intel, DuPont, Standard, Bayer, Alcatel Alston, Volkswagen, Matsushita, Basf, Siemens, Sony, Brown
Bovery, Bat, Elf, Coca-Cola... amongst the classic; Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, amongst the new. Banks include:
IBJ/DKB/Fuji, Deutsche, BNP/Paribas, UBS, Citigroup, Bank of America, Tokyo/Mitsubishi...
Diplomacy for life
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20
between monopolies where the majority of the population is not involved and
yet suffers its impacts. A concentration of such levels is not only a danger
for balance with nature but also for the livelihood of millions of people and
for the true exercise of democracy. In the end, when foreign agreements are
being approved the interests of these power sectors come rst.
The consequences of this unbalance manifest themselves in different
levels. One of great concern and resistance by the indigenous peoples is
cultural homogenization. Evo Morales says in his letter: “The greatest wealth
of humanity is cultural diversity. To uniform or commercialize for prot or
domination is an assault against humanity. In education, communication,
justice, the exercise of democracy, territorial ordainment, and the management
of natural resources we must preserve and promote cultural diversity in our
indigenous peoples, mestizos, and all other populations that migrated to
our continent. We must also respect and promote economic diversity, which
includes forms of private, public, and social-collective property.”
For the major companies we are no longer citizens and have become
consumers, subjects that must be molded according to market. Within this
context, needs are created, fashions are promoted, the family space is invaded
by publicity, ctions of life are created by reality shows, consumer standards
are created, children are used to promote new products, and leisure spaces such
as sports and theater become market goods. Even schools are following this
logic and the major transnational companies have gone from being sponsors
of cultural events to “creators” of culture.
Resistance to this cultural alienation is extremely difcult because it
takes place everyday through multiple channels. When a culture is lost, a piece
of humanity that can never be recovered is lost. Advocacy and promotion
of cultural diversity must be included in our foreign policies with as much
importance as environmental preservation.
The indigenous perspective does not wish to make everything the
same. In the abovementioned text, Evo Morales does not refer to the
exclusion of private property, but rather the possibility of complementing
it with public and social-collective property. It is not a matter of choosing
one or the other but to acknowledge that there are more than two options,
– social-collective property also exists –, and to seek a balance between the
different forms of property.
Pablo Solón
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21
The relation between States
Over 50% of the global trade and 75% of foreign capital investment is
concentrated in United States, Japan, and the European Union. The Financial
Times report of May 2002 states that 48% of the largest companies and banks
in the world come from the United States, 30% come from the European Union,
and only 10% from Japan. In other words, 90% of the transnational companies
that dominate the economy are American, European or Japanese. Africa and
Latin America are completely marginal to these groups of economic power.
No one questions the fact that the interests of these mega corporations
are at stake in foreign policy through diplomatic relations between countries.
In many cases “national” interests cover up or guard the interests of economic
power groups before citizen needs or requests. Many of the conicts between
nations have more to do with the struggle between these interests than true
conicts between peoples. The relations between countries will be more
constructive when the economic power of these mega corporations begins
to decrease. To contribute to this process it is essential to have transparency
and awareness as to the interests that are truly represented in an international
negotiation.
During the past century we went from a bipolar world to a single poled
world under crisis. None of these relations of power have been healthy for
the world and humankind. The system developed in the United Nations is far
from expressing a true balance between nations. The current situation is of
a handful of countries with the power to dene and legalize direct military
intervention. A more balanced world is impossible without the development
of a multi-polar world.
Sovereignty as a country’s right to dene its own destiny is more and
more relative in current times. The capability of a country that represents
0.07% of the global economy of inuencing the world and having its rights
and perspective respected is almost an impossible mission. Within this context,
it is essential to progress towards the continuation of regional blocks that
allow us to reach a multi-polar world, a more balanced world. Evo Morales
states in his letter addressed to his South American colleagues: “The South
American Community of Nations can be a great stand to defend and state
our sovereignty in a globalized and single-poled world. Individually, as isolated
countries, some might be more easily susceptible to external pressure and
Diplomacy for life
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22
conditions. Together we have greater possibilities to develop our own options
in different international scenarios.”
The Andean indigenous perspective is not local. Perhaps this is due
to the fact that it always remembers its long history of belonging to a larger
civilization that transcended the ve countries formed by breaking apart the
Andean territory to preserve the interests of determined local oligarchies
and certain reigning empires. The idea of overcoming borders and moving
towards a larger nation is not an expression of an expansionist intent on the
part of the indigenous peoples but rather a rm conviction that recomposing
the territorial tissue is necessary. It is not about going back. The assumption
is that the future is only possible with an overcoming integration.
The development of regional blocks as an afrmative mechanism to
exercise sovereignty must be accompanied by a group of policies to overcome
the major asymmetries existent within the integration processes. Unity is
impossible with great inequalities between countries and regions. The idea
of development in certain areas amidst a sea of poverty is not socially,
economically, or environmentally sustainable.
Just like the environment, asymmetries are also being discussed in foreign
relations and in the diplomatic discourse. However, we are still undergoing an
embryonic stage of its effective implementation. This is understandable, though
not justiable, because a true treatment of asymmetries leads to redirecting
part of the funds that used to benet privileged regions. It is necessary to
develop innovative mechanisms that can effectively overcome asymmetries
such as percentages of the common customs income, of specic progressive
taxes for determined areas, considerable structural funds, preferential and not
reciprocal mechanisms and norms.
In this process for the integration and solution of asymmetries we must
acknowledge our diversity and progress taking into account the necessary time
frames for each country. For that reason, Evo Morales states: “I am aware of
the fact that the South American nations have different processes and paces.
For that reason I propose an integration process of different speeds. We should
design an ambitious yet exible path. In this way it will be possible for all to
participate while each country commits itself to what it can allowing those
who want to go faster to do so, all towards the formation of a true political,
economic, social, and cultural block. Other integration processes in the world
Pablo Solón
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23
have developed in this manner and the most adequate path is to progress in
the adoption of supranational instruments respecting timeframes and the
sovereignty of each country.”
Social interactions
The greatest social unbalance that currently exists is that democracy has
emptied itself of content, or, perhaps, has not lled itself with content and
expectations of the population when democratic liberties were conquered.
The overthrow of dictatorships was followed by a broad process to recover
democracy in our countries, but just like in other regions, democracy was
transformed into a rhetoric space for the majority of the population that feels
their participation only happens every 4 or 5 years during elections. After that,
power relations between the various social players change and those that have
most economic power also exercise more power.
Out of all the analyzed factors, this is the most determinant for us human
beings because we can act directly on it and when we do so inuence the other
levels of balance between countries, economic sectors, and with nature.
Within this context we must be openly ask ourselves: how much of
foreign diplomacy tends to the interests of nations, their populations, and
democracies and how much is conditioned or guided towards promoting the
interests of specic sectors of economic power? Should we not move into
a phase in which to save life in this planet we must democratize the exercise
of foreign relations?
In Bolivia, we use the phrase “diplomacy of the peoples”, which is a
broad concept under construction that includes the fact that in foreign relations
a country must give priority to all interests of our peoples, including the fact
that we can often progress more substantially through a close relationship with
our peoples, who do not feel or know borders, rather than by the mere work
of the foreign relations departments often lled with a conservative nature.
Many mistakes would be avoided if we listened to what social, women’s,
indigenous peoples’ movements say. For example: the Via Campesina, a network
of eld workers and indigenous organizations in the world, has said that we
should not speak of “bio”fuels but rather of “agro”fuels. Life should not be
compared to energy. Under certain parameters a portion of the energy we use
Diplomacy for life
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
24
can come from agricultural products, but obviously with certain limitations
otherwise, to produce the necessary energy we will end up destroying the
environment, forests, using more water, and eroding land.
We do not wish to exclude business sectors from trade negotiations or
negotiations of any other kind. We wish our departments of foreign relations
to listen to each other especially those less heard.
Evo Morales says: “After years of being victimized by the incorrectly
named ‘development’ policies, today our peoples must participate in the
solutions for the serious problems in health, education, employment, unequal
income distribution, discrimination, migration, exercise of democracy,
preservation of the environment, and respect of cultural diversity.”
This search for diversity in all levels is what we have come to call
“Diplomacy for life” in Bolivia.
Pablo Solón
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
25
Annex I – Proposal made by President Evo Morales*
Let us build with our peoples a true South
American Community of Nations to
“
live well
”
La Paz October 2, 2006
Brothers, Presidents and peoples of South America,
In December 2004, in Cuzco, the Presidents of South America committed
themselves to “develop a South American integration on political, social, economic and
environmental aspects, and infrastructure” and stated that “the South American integration
is and should be an integration of the peoples”. In the Ayacucho Declaration freedom,
equality, solidarity, social justice, tolerance, and respect to the environment were highlighted as
fundamental pillars for this Community to obtain social and economic sustainable
development “that takes into consideration the urgent needs of the poorest as well as the
special requirements of the small and vulnerable economies of South America”.
In September 2005, during the First Meeting of the Heads of State of the
South American Community of Nations, which took place in Brazil, a Priority
Agenda was approved including, amongst others, the following topics: political
dialogue, asymmetries, physical integration, the environment, energetic integration, nancial
mechanisms, economic trade convergence, and the promotion of social integration and justice.
In December of that same year during an Extraordinary Meeting in
Montevideo, the Strategic Commission to reect on the South American
Integration Process was formed to draft “proposals intended to drive forward the
South American integration process in all its aspects (political, economic, commercial, social,
cultural, energetic, and infrastructural, amongst others).”
Now, during the II Heads of State Summit, we must deepen this
integration process from the top and from the bottom. We must do so with our
peoples, social movements, productive businesspeople, ministers, technicians,
and representatives. For that reason, during the next Presidential Summit that
will take place in December in Bolivia, we are also pushing forward a Social
Summit to carry out dialogues and jointly build a true integration with the social
* [email protected].br
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26
participation of our peoples. After years of being victimized by the policies
of the incorrectly named “development”, today our peoples must participate
in the solutions for the serious problems in health, education, employment,
unequal income distribution, discrimination, migration, exercise of democracy,
preservation of the environment, and respect for cultural diversity.
I am convinced that during our next meeting in Bolivia we must move
from declarations onto actions. I believe we must progress towards a treaty that
transforms the South American Community of Nations into a true South American block
at a political, economic, social, and cultural level. I am sure that our peoples are closer
to each other than our diplomacies. With all due respect, I believe that we, the
Presidents, must shake off the dust of our Foreign Relations Departments so
they might get rid of their routine and to tackle this great challenge.
I am aware of the fact that the South American nations have different
processes and paces. For that reason I propose an integration process of different
speeds. We should design an ambitious yet exible path. In this way it will be
possible for all to participate while each country commits itself to what it can
allowing those who want to go faster to do so, all towards the formation of a
true political, economic, social, and cultural block. Other integration processes
in the world have developed in this manner and the most adequate path is to
progress in the adoption of supranational instruments respecting timeframes
and the sovereignty of each country.
Our integration is and must be an integration of and for the peoples.
Trade, energetic integration, infrastructure, and funding must all exist to solve
the larger problems of poverty and the destruction of our region’s nature. We
cannot reduce the South American Community to a partnership that builds
highways or develops credit projects than end up essentially favoring the sectors
linked to the world market. Our goal must be to develop a true integration to “live
well”. We say “live well” because we do not aspire to live better than others.
We do not believe in the line of progress and unlimited development at the
cost of others and nature. We must complement each other and not compete
against one another. We must share and not take advantage of our neighbors.
To “live well” does not mean to merely think in terms of per-capita income
but rather to think of a cultural identity, a community, harmony amongst us
and with our mother earth.
To progress in this path my proposals are:
Pablo Solón
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
27
Social and cultural aspects
1) We must free South America of illiteracy, malnutrition, malaria, and
other afictions of extreme poverty. We must establish clear goals and
mechanisms for follow-up, support, and compliance of these
objectives that are the basis to initiate the development of an
integration at the service of human beings.
2) We must build a South American public and social system to ensure access to
education, health, and drinking water for the entire population. By combining
our resources, capabilities, and experiences we will be able to better
guarantee these fundamental human rights.
3) M
ore employment in South America and less migration. Our most valuable
asset is our people and we are losing them because of lack of
employment in our countries. Labor exibilization and a smaller
State have not brought more employment as was promised decades
ago. Our governments must intervene in a coordinated manner
with public policies to generate sustainable and productive jobs.
4) M
echanisms to reduce social inequalities and iniquity. While respecting the
sovereignty of all countries we must commit ourselves to adopt
measures and projects to reduce the gap between the rich and the
poor. Wealth should and must be distributed in a more equitable
manner in the region. To do so we must develop several scal,
regulatory, and redistributive mechanisms.
5) A
continental struggle against corruption and maas. One of the most
serious problems that our societies face is corruption and the
establishment of maas that penetrate the State and destroy the
social tissue of our communities. We should develop a transparency
mechanism at the South American level and a Committee to ght
against corruption and impunity to follow-up the more serious
cases of corruption and illicit enrichment without harming the
jurisdictional sovereignty of the countries.
6) S
outh American coordination with social participation to defeat drug trafcking.
We will develop a South American system with the participation
of our States and civil societies to support each other, coordinate
with one another, and eliminate drug trafcking from our region.
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The only way to beat this cancer is with the participation of our
peoples and the adoption of transparent and coordinated measures
amongst our countries to confront the distribution of drugs, money
laundering, precursor ingredient trafcking, and the production
and cultivation for these purposes. This system should certify the
progress in the struggle against drug trafcking overcoming the
evaluations and “recommendations” of those who have failed in
the struggle against drugs.
7) A
dvocacy and stimulation of cultural diversity. The greatest wealth of
humanity is cultural diversity. To uniform or commercialize for
prot or domination is an assault against humanity. In education,
communication, justice, the exercise of democracy, territorial
ordainment, and the management of natural resources we must
preserve and promote cultural diversity within our indigenous
peoples, mestizos, and all other populations that migrated to
our continent. We must also respect and promote economic
diversity, which includes forms of private, public, and social-
collective property.
8) De
penalization of the coca leaf and its production in South America. The
struggle against alcoholism cannot lead us to penalize barley;
therefore, the struggle against narcotics should not lead us to
destroy the Amazon looking for psychotropic plants. We must
stop persecuting the coca leaf, which is an essential cultural
component of the Andean indigenous peoples and must promote
its production for benecial purposes.
9) Let
us advance towards a South American citizenship. We should give
greater speed to measures that facilitate migration between our
countries, ensuring the full effectiveness of human and labor rights
and tackling all types of trafcking until we are able to establish a
South American citizenship.
Economy
10) Our economies should complement each other and not compete disloyally. We
should steer away from the path of privatizations and support
and complement each other to develop and potentialize our state-
Pablo Solón
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
29
owned companies. Together we can develop a South American
state-owned airline, a public telecommunications service, a state-
owned energy network, a South American industry for generic
medication, a mining-metallurgic complex – in other words, a
productive apparatus that can meet the fundamental needs of our
population and strengthen our position in the global economy.
11) F
air trade at the service of the South American peoples. Fair trade should
excel within the South American Community to benet all sectors
and specically small-sized companies, communities, craftspeople,
economic organizations for farmers, and producer associations. We
must move towards the convergence of the CAN and Mercosur
with new principals of solidarity and complementation that
overcome the precepts of trade liberalization that have mostly
beneted transnational companies and some exporting sectors.
12) Ef
fective measures to overcome asymmetries in the countries. On one side
of South America we have countries with a Gross Domestic
Product of 4,000 to 7,000 dollars per inhabitant per year and on
the other countries that barely reach 1,000 dollars per inhabitant.
To face this serious problem we must effectively comply with all
provisions approved within the CAN and Mercosur in favor of
less developed countries and develop a group of new measures to
promote industrialization processes in these countries stimulating
added value exports to improve the terms of exchange and prices
in favor of smaller economies.
13) A
Southern Bank for change. If we create a Development Bank for the
South American Community with 10% of the international reserves
of South American countries we would have a starting fund of 16
billion dollars, which would allow us to effectively aid productive
development and integration projects with nancial recovery and
social content. This Southern Bank could also be strengthened
with a security mechanism based on the updated value of the raw
materials present in our countries. Our “Southern Bank” must
overcome the problems of other “development” banks that charge
commercial interest rates, fund essentially “protable” projects,
condition credit access to a number of macroeconomic indicators
or to hiring specic providing and executing companies.
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30
14) A fund for the compensation of social debt and asymmetries. We must
develop innovative funding mechanisms such as the creation of
taxes on airline tickets, tobacco sales, weapons trade, and nancial
transactions of major transnational companies that operate in
South America to create a compensation fund that might allow us
to solve the serious problems in the region.
15) P
hysical Integration for our peoples and not just of exports. We must
develop highway, waterway, and infrastructure corridors not only
and not so much for exporting more to the world, but especially to
connect the peoples of South America to one another respecting
the environment and reducing asymmetries. Within this context,
we must also review the Initiative for the Integration of Regional
Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) to take into consideration
the concerns of those who wish to see roads in development areas
and not highways through which export containers travel amidst
sidelines of poverty and an increase in foreign debt.
16) E
nergy integration between regional producers and consumers. A South
American Energy Commission should be formed to:
• e
nsure supply to all countries giving priority to the consumption
of existent resources in the region;
• ensure
, through joint funding, the development of necessary
infrastructure so that energy resources of producing countries
reach all of South America;
• d
ene fair prices that combine the international price parameters
with solidarity criteria for the South American region and
redistribution in favor of less developed economies;
• cer
tify our reserves and no longer depend on the manipulation
of transnational companies, and
• strengthen
integration and complementation between our oil
and natural gas state-owned companies.
The environment and nature
17) Social participation in public policies to preserve the environment. We are
one of the most privileged regions in the world in terms of the
Pablo Solón
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31
environment, water, and biodiversity. This forces us to be extremely
responsible with these natural resources that cannot be treated
as goods. We must not forget that life and the existence of the
planet itself depends on them. We are obligated to develop an
alternative sustainable management of natural resources recovering
the harmony with nature of our indigenous peoples and ensuring
social participation of the communities.
18) South
American Environmental organism to draft strict norms and impose
sanctions upon large companies that do not respect said norms. Political,
local, and current interests cannot come before the need to ensure
the respect for nature. For this reason I propose the creation of a
supranational organism that is capable of dictating and enforcing
environmental norms.
19) South American Convention for the right of humans and all living beings to
access water. As a region that is blessed with 27% of the drinking
water in the world, we must discuss and approve a South American
Convention that ensures all living being the access to this vital
resource. We must preserve water in all its different uses from
privatization processes and the mercantile logic imposed by trade
agreements. I am convinced that this South American treaty on water
will be a decisive step towards a World Convention on Water.
20) P
rotection of our biodiversity. We cannot allow our plants, animals, and
living material to be patented. The South American Community
must apply a protection system that on the one hand avoids
piracy of our biodiversity, and on the other, ensures our country’s
domain over these genetic resources and collective traditional
knowledge.
Political institutional aspects
21) Let us give greater depth to our democracies with more social participation.
The only way to guarantee that our South American Community
of Nations will be able to progress down a good path is by being
more open, transparent, and including the participation of our
peoples in decision-making processes.
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32
22) Let us strengthen our sovereignty and our common voice. The South
American Community of Nations can be a great stand do defend
and state our sovereignty in a globalized and single-poled world.
Individually, as isolated countries, some might be more easily
susceptible to external pressure and conditions. Together we
have greater possibilities to develop our own options in different
international scenarios.
23) A
Commission for Permanent Convergence to draft the South American
Community of Nations treaty and guarantee the implementation of
agreements. We need an agile, transparent, non-bureaucratic organism
with social participation that takes into consideration the existent
asymmetries. To effectively move forward we must create a
Commission for Permanent Convergence with representatives of
the 12 countries so that by the III Presidential Summit they might
draft the South American Community of Nations treaty taking into
consideration the specicities and paces of the different countries.
This Commission for Permanent Convergence, through groups and
committees, should coordinate itself and work along with the CAN,
Mercosur, ALADI, ACTO, and different sub regional initiatives to
avoid doubling efforts and enforce the commitments made.
Hoping that this letter might strengthen the reflection and the
development of proposals for an effective and positive II Summit of the
Heads of State of the South American Community of Nations, I would like
to nalize reiterating my invitation to our meeting on December 8 and 9, in
Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Sincerely,
Evo Morales Ayma
President of the Republic of Bolivia
Pablo Solón
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33
Annex II
Letter to the Presidents of the European Union
La Paz January 30, 2007
Esteemed Prime Minister,
During the conclusion of the initial phase to launch negotiations between
the CAN and the EU, I wish to express the fundamental proposals made by
Bolivia on numerous occasions so that these negotiations might move forward
in a successful manner beneting all parties involved.
First, it is necessary that the negotiations take into consideration the
existence of the enormous differences in wealth and industrial development
between the two blocks as well as within the CAN. Bolivia has repeatedly stated
that it is essential to take into consideration said asymmetries and consider
special and differentiated treatment for the CAN countries and specically
for Bolivia. We consider the Partnership Agreement between the CAN and
the EU an excellent opportunity to develop a trade relation with solidarity
between the two blocks giving the example of what should be a true special
and differentiated treatment given to one of the least developed countries in
the Andean region.
Second, it is extremely important to consider the ongoing process for
change and revaluation of the State taking place in the Andean region and
specically in Bolivia, respecting these policies in the negotiation process
between the CAN and the European Union. After three decades Bolivia has
obtained a double scal and trade surplus thanks to the recovery of property
and control over its natural gas resources, practicing greater regulating capacity,
in accordance to the promise of nationalizing without expropriating, ensuring
the legal safety of companies that are in compliance with our norms. This
economic strengthening of the State is allowing us to go through a wealth
distribution process that is reducing the huge gaps of inequality and injustice in
our country. It is also reinforcing the sense of community of our population,
Diplomacy for life
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
34
which was previously stied by the logic of prot and competitiveness. For this
reason, during the “joint valuation” process for the CAN – EU Partnership
Agreement, Bolivia reiterated that it discarded the possibility of including
topics into the negotiation that lead to a reduction in the role of State and
public services or that hinder economic, social, environmental or cultural
public policies.
Third, we hope that the environment will be treated in a true and
integral manner. Usually the concern for our planet’s future tends to be
reduced to an adornment in trade agreements. We want this Partnership
Agreement with the European Union to give priority to the protection of
our life conditions bringing awareness to the seriousness of environmental
matters. These considerations are essential for “living well” as proposed by the
indigenous peoples to all human beings. Productivity and protability must
be subordinated to these considerations. Consequently, we cannot consider
agriculture, environmental services, biodiversity, and knowledge mere goods
from a trade agreement.
We hope that a strategic alliance will emerge from these negotiations
between the European Union and the Andean Community of Nations without
reproducing neo-colonial exchanges, contributing to improve the development
of our peoples in harmony with nature, taking advantage of the possibility to
compliment our regions in a human, environmental, and energetic level that
goes beyond mere trade exchanges based on a competitive logic.
We want to promote a new moment in the economic relations between
the two blocks. We want to develop a partnership based on solidarity to
compliment one another and that is not at the service of global liberalization.
We hope that the reality of our country and indigenous peoples of the Andean
region will be understood and reected adequately in the negotiation guidelines
adopted by the European Union.
Sincere greetings,
Evo Morales Ayma
President of the Republic of Bolivia
DEP
Translation: Cynthia Garcia
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
35
Brazil 2007:
ready to grow again
Guido Mantega*
T
hroughout the 20
th
century and especially from the 50s on, the Brazilian
economy was one of the most expanding economies in the world. Just like
China and India nowadays, or the so-called Asian Tigers a few years back,
Brazil literally meant growth.
At a certain point even a “Brazilian miracle” was mentioned. With all
due respect to the known religious faith of our people, it was not a miracle.
We were living through a period of intense growth, of great investments
in infrastructure, intense industrialization in various sectors, accelerated
urbanization, that is, modernization.
Between 1930 and the end of the 70s, we ceased being an agricultural
economy, known overall as an important coffee exporter, and transformed
ourselves into an industrialized nation with a diversied and complex economy.
Although agriculture is still one of our greatest strengths, the mainly rural
country was substituted by a predominantly urban society.
In a short amount of time, if we consider the usual time periods of
history, Brazil was elevated to one of the biggest economies in the world.
* Minister of Finance of the Federative Republic of Brazil.
secretarias[email protected].br
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
36
Such a trajectory – and this observation will be especially useful to younger
readers –, however, followed a different path to that adopted a short time later
by other emerging nations. By our own decision, but also as a result of how the
international economy was then structuring itself, we adopted a development
model in which the state allied itself to national and foreign private investors not
to transform the country into the world’s barn or manufacturing plant, but rather,
giving priority to the needs of our large domestic market and its expansion.
Our development model, generally denominated import substitutions,
was perfectly compatible with the prevailing ‘globalization’ of mid 20
th
century.
More than compatible, that model was the main driving force for the greater
insertion of Brazil into the international economy, not through foreign trade; of
course, since our growth mainly took place in the domestic market, but through
the attraction of massive investments that helped transform our society.
At that time there was no contradiction between foreign investment and
domestic market protection mechanisms. Quite the opposite, trade barriers
were a requirement of the companies that established themselves here in the
various sectors, and for a long time, Brazil was the favorite destination of
foreign direct investment coming from more advanced economies. The rules
for economic internationalization were different.
Therefore, unlike what many state, Brazil was never a closed economy.
We went through centuries in which the main source of wealth was the export
of natural products that succeeded each other in cycles, to an industrialization
in which the so-called transnational companies played an essential role. I
would like to highlight, as an example, the case of the implementation of the
auto industry, which began in the 1950s and increased in the 1990s with the
arrival of numerous Asian and European companies who were absent from
our market at that point.
Brazil, especially because of its territorial and demographic dimensions,
but also because of choices made in the last century, many, I insist, consequent
of the international economic ordainment then present and the opportunities
available for the development of a country such as ours, was a relatively
introvert economy; that is, it had a natural tendency of growing over itself (even
though when in this path it counted on considerable foreign investment). Such
introvert characteristic is typical of countries of such monumental proportions,
including the United States of America, for example.
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
37
At this point, however, the most important aspect to remember about
the economic history of Brazil is that it was characterized during a large part
of the 20
th
century by accelerated growth and modernization.
On the other hand, another point to consider is that from the 1980s on,
Brazil’s economy began having an insufcient growth average, not growing
at all some years.
This phenomenon cannot be attributed merely to the exhaustion of a
model or cycle, but rather, as usually happens in history, to multiple elements
combined together that lead to a period that we only recently started to emerge
from in which Brazil’s economy stopped expanding at the necessary speed
for its development.
Although there is no intention of listing all of these elements here, some
can be given as examples: the ination outbreaks that with greater or lesser
intensity were present in our daily lives from at least the 1970s on; the lack
of discipline in the administration of public accounts originated earlier; the
two ‘oil crises’(1973 and 1979); the successive expansions and contractions
of international nancial liquidity and its often devastating effect over the
country’s foreign accounts; scal impact on social security, for example,
consequent of the reconstruction of our social-political order following
the return of democracy in 1985; the pressures from the transformations to
liberalize the world economy that imposed harsh adjustments for Brazilian
companies especially in the industrial sector.
These are just a few factors associated to Brazil’s insufcient economic
growth. Two observations must be made for the sake of historical justice.
First, many problems that arose from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to stie
Brazil’s growth were originated in more remote periods of our history.
Although objectively arguable, it is common, for example, to associate the
origin of Brazilian ination to the construction of Brasilia, inaugurated in
1960. Second, many of the conditions that currently lead to the perspective
of a new accelerated growth cycle began to be set long before. It is important
to remember that the Plano Real (Real Currency Plan) was launched in 1994,
initiating a process to overcome decades of macroeconomic instability in Brazil.
Similarly, in 1986, over twenty years ago, the National Treasury Secretariat
was created marking the beginning of the organization of public accounts
in our country.
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
38
Therefore, if we are ready, as we effectively are, to initiate a new growing
cycle for our economy, this is due not only to the efforts of the current
administration, whose results will be summed in the following paragraphs, but
also to the contribution of successive administrations, including the state and
municipal levels, and, overall, the effort and talent of our business community
and workers, who, each fullling their own role, have for a long time been
trying to balance out Brazil’s most important challenge.
The past four years
Although with not as an intense pace as we would like, Brazil’s economy
has been growing in a sustained and sustainable manner since 2003. Last year’s
growth was 3.7% and the average for 2003-2006 was 3.4%. These gures
should increase from now on as the 2007 indicators demonstrate. This growth
is based on three fundamental pillars: price stability, scal responsibility, and
a reduction of foreign vulnerability.
For a country that reached ination rates of 70% a month in the 1990s, it
is noteworthy that in the last years we have decreasing rates compatible with the
ination goals determined for the monetary authority. These goals, for the rst
time in our recent economic history, are also meeting the market expectations.
Accordingly, Brazil’s ination, which was 3.14% in 2006, is low and under
control, and economic agents trust that this environment will be maintained.
This is extremely important because, as is known, one of the worse effects
of macroeconomic instability is compromising the possibility of planning for
the future and making sure investment decisions. There is no doubt, as was
stated above, that the macroeconomic instability that Brazil went through for
a long time is one of the main causes for the insufcient growth of the nal
years of the 20
th
century.
The public account results are also encouraging and contribute to a
favorable environment for growth. The public sector net debt that reached
52% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2003 has reversed its seven
year growing trend and has been dropping signicantly. It was 45% of the
GDP in 2006. Relying on the continuity of the rigorous compliance of the
primary surplus goals, as has been invariably occurring, the public debt/GDP
ratio should maintain its declining trajectory.
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
39
The third pillar of the new cycle of growth is the reduction of the
foreign vulnerability of Brazil’s economy. This is an important data in stable
and prosperous times such as the ones we are living especially because it tends
to reduce costs and increase access to foreign funds, as well as attract more
investments. This data becomes crucial in tormented times. The fact that Brazil
was one of the emerging economies least affected by the international nancial
turbulent episodes that occurred this year and in 2006 was not left to chance.
Since 2003 Brazil has more than doubled its exports that went from US$
73 billion in 2003 to US$ 137 billion in 2006. Although our imports have grown
at an even greater speed, Brazil has obtained elevated trade balances, amounting
to US$ 46 billion last year. Thanks to this performance and the inux of foreign
investment, we currently have exchange reserves of over US$ 100 billion.
Also as a consequence of good results in short term transactions, the
foreign debt and export ratio, a signicant vulnerability indicator, is currently
the lowest in 35 years. Accordingly, the National Treasury’s foreign debt,
for the rst time since the adoption of the oating exchange rate in 1999, is
currently lower than the international net reserves, an essential measure of
Brazil’s solvency.
The stability of Brazil’s economy before the world is reected in the
immense drop, since 2003, of the additional risk rates charged by the international
nancial market. These rates reached about 2,500 base points at the end of 2002
moving on to 2003 and are currently lower than 200 base points. That is, the
nancial spread dropped from 25% to less than 2% in four years.
In this way, Brazil has been able to reduce the risk of being more harshly
affected by adverse situations in the foreign environment not by closing its
economy, with less presence of international economic ows, but quite the
opposite, by a more vigorous and competitive performance both in trade and
in the international nancial markets.
In other words, we have known how to enjoy the moment of the world
economy to increase our capacity of crossing less favorable international
periods in the future, which will unfortunately occur. This way the growth
that we are trying to accelerate will become more sustainable.
Amongst many of its obligations, societies must learn from the lessons
taught by history, especially those lessons learned leading to setbacks,
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
40
frustration, and suffering. Brazil has learned from the adverse experiences
it has been through. Domestically, for example, we realized that the belief
we collectively nurtured for years that it was possible to contain and control
the harmful effects of living with elevated ination levels and with a lack of
more rigorous control of public accounts, was wrong. Externally, we suffered
the effects of improvidence with which, in certain moments of our remote
and recent history, we sought out and contracted international funding for
our development.
Yes, Brazil has learned these lessons. And these lessons were learned
as a part of the maturity process of our vigorous democracy. Brazil has
learned that even in a country in which the most urgent needs are way
beyond the available resources, society, and its political leaderships, must be
capable of dening priorities and limits, and to establish timeframes for the
accomplishment of objectives.
Using automotive imagery, we have learned not to try to reach higher
speed before having safer, more sustainable equipment that is solid enough
to face the bumpier stretches of the road ahead. In the past, this logical order
was inverted and did not produce good results. Consequently, we paid an
elevated price for the combination, sometimes simultaneous, others successive,
of imprudence and incompetence.
The economic policy of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s
administration is the best proof that Brazil is effectively not about to repeat
past mistakes. During his rst term, from 2003 to 2006, President Lula rst
dealt with reinforcing the structural stability of our economy and eliminating or
reducing most of its weak points, while accentuating its domestic and foreign
credibility making it more attractive for national and foreign investors.
However, this endeavor was successful following the abovementioned
logic – equipment rst, speed later – without repeating another past mistake
founded in the notion that to share the benets of growth it was necessary
to rst increase the amount to only later try to share it.
This incorrect idea was challenged and for the rst time in our history
we were able to overcome the false dilemma that has occupied so much of
our economic debates. The dilemma of choosing between two supposed
alternatives: growth or distribution? In fact, both are indispensable sides of the
same coin in democratic societies that have chosen a free market economy.
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
41
Today, as was observed earlier, economy grows steadily, although not
yet in the intense manner needed by the country, but already allowing the
poorer segments of the population to gather the fruits of this progress, and
at a greater pace than the GDP growth rate. In other words, we are truly
distributing income and lowering inequalities.
The unemployment rate has been constantly dropping going from 12.3%
in 2003 to 10% in 2006. This decrease, especially in 2006, was not greater
because the speed in which better perspectives increased attracting more people
to search for employment was higher than the growth of new jobs. In 2006,
for example, the number of jobs increased 2.3%, while the economically active
population increased little over 2.4%. The formalization of employments has
been even more considerable. From 2003 to 2006 over 4.6 million formal
jobs were created reecting signicantly over the nancial balance of social
security and the personal value of workers and safety made available by their
incorporation into the benets of the social protections network.
In addition to the number of jobs, there was an elevation of the real
income due to a decrease of ination rates. The combination of more
jobs and greater income generated a signicant increase in the real rate of
population that receives wages, which, since 2005, has been increasing at
rates higher than 5% yearly.
The increase in consumption capacity that comes from growth and
price stability has been reinforced by the unfolding of a true credit revolution,
one of the areas that most suffered with the corrosive effects of decades of
high ination.
The so-called consigned credit, in which loan payment installments are
deducted from workers paychecks, is merely the most ostensive aspect of this
revolution that has been driven by the government through several reforms
and measures.
The gures speak for themselves: the total credit operations balance
of the nancial system went up 20.7% in 2006, repeating the same nominal
growth rate of 2004. This expansion was even greater when observing the
credit operations balance for individuals, which increased 24.8% in 2006 and
has more than doubled in nominal terms since 2003.
Also worth mentioning is the development of the capital market where
a growing number of companies release debentures and stock.
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
42
The increase in consumer income and easier and cheaper access to
credit generate, amongst other results, an expansion of retail trade. In 2006,
retail product sails grew 6.2%. Information and communication technology
equipment sales alone grew 30%.
This increase in the demand was reected in a vigorous expansion of
family consumption, which grew 4.3% in 2006 and generated, consequently,
greater demand for industry and service sector products, which increased
their investments.
The gross formation of xed capital increased 8.7% in 2006 compared
to 2005 and drove forward the industries of capital goods, building trades,
and, indirectly, employment in these sectors with a multiplying effect over
the increase in production and income throughout the economy. The GDP
growth reached 3.7% in 2006. 2006’s last quarter registered a 4.8% increase
compared to the same quarter in 2005. In other words, an increase in the speed
of growth could already be identied.
This virtuous cycle, combining stability, growth, and income distribution,
has beneted greatly from the government’s social policies, since they improve the
distribution of wealth and have helped increase the population’s purchase power,
stimulating the family consumption, especially in less developed regions.
Since 2004, federal government transfers to families have grown at yearly
rates over 8% and have beneted tens of millions of needy Brazilians.
Since this publication is also destined to non-Brazilian readers, it seems
useful to explain how “Bolsa Família”, the largest and most well known income
transfer program, works and what its impact is.
This program benets over 11 million families in all 5,562 municipalities
in Brazil. Families living under poverty or extreme poverty conditions receive
cash benets that vary according to the monthly per capita income of these
families, the number of children, pregnant women, and women breastfeeding.
As a condition for continuing in the program, families must in exchange
commit themselves to: keep children and adolescents of 6 to 15 years of age
in school; regularly take children of up to 7 years of age to get vaccines and
be medically examined; and have pre-natal and maternal health care.
The fact is that as part of this new development cycle the dreams
of economists and Brazilian citizens are coming true. We are effectively
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
43
incorporating millions of people that were previously excluded from the
benets of economic progress into our domestic market as true consumers.
This change is just barely identied in statistics so far, but can already be
felt clearly in the streets of our largest and smallest cities; in the behavior of our
consumers, especially those of more limited income; and in the daily life of our
companies that are adjusting themselves to new challenges and opportunities
consequent of this ‘revolution’ in the various sectors of the economy.
This transformation is also reected in the country’s considerable political
renewal and in the strengthening of our vigorous and dynamic democracy.
Finally, in a country with a population of over 180 million, with growing
support of accurate data, we can speak more and more of mass consumption.
We can be proud of the fact that we are consolidating and broadening a market
economy that in this new growth cycle progresses to integrate our population
as a whole into the national economic life.
The imperative of accelerating growth
Growing in a balanced manner, distributing income, and reducing
inequalities are conditions that are necessary, but not sufcient, to respond to
the legitimate expectations of the majority of Brazilians in our society. It is
necessary to do so in a speedy fashion. We cannot comfort ourselves by arguing
that longer timeframes in history exist. Quite the opposite, we must establish
our actions according to the urgency that comes from the shorter period given
for people to live. We must work for the future, but also for the present.
For that reason, President Lula chose as his rst initiative of his second
term for which he was reelected by the majority of the population, to launch
the Acceleration of Growth Program – PAC. During a ceremony on January
22 of
this year he summed up his inspiration in a few lines:
“During our rst term we were able to implement a development model
based on stability, growth in employment and wages, decrease in poverty, and
in improving income distribution.
Our challenge now is to accelerate the growth of the economy while
maintaining and increasing these and other conquests obtained in the past
years. Above all, it is time to break barriers and overcome limitations. (…)
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
44
We want to continue growing properly, however, with greater acceleration.
To grow properly is to grow decreasing inequalities between people and regions,
distributing income, knowledge, and quality of life.
To grow in an accelerated fashion means to yank away the restraints and
to drive the country into a pace more compatible to its capacity and strength.
To grow correctly is to grow with scal balance and the reduction of debt and
external vulnerability. To grow in an accelerated fashion means to generate more
employment and produce greater wealth. To grow properly is to grow without
ination and price control. To grow in an accelerated fashion is to stimulate
industry, agriculture, and the service sector in all its scales and congurations.
To grow properly is to grow maintaining and increasing civil liberties and
democratic rights. It is to implement a production and labor culture that
reinforces the fundamental values of Brazilian society.”
Fortunately, there is no consensus amongst economists. If there were,
soon the profession would no longer exist. However, there are broadly shared
diagnoses. With regards to Brazil, and specically to the explanation of our
insufcient growth in the last decades, most tend to state low investment rate
as one of the main causes for the problem.
This is not a new diagnosis. However, tackling the issue more directly
was, in a manner of speaking, postponed throughout time. First, because of
the priority given to the difcult search for and conquest of macroeconomic
stability based on the assumption that in an environment of chronic elevated
ination, conditions for investment really did not exist. Later, and in this
respect there are various lines of thought, as a result of the expectation that
the investment levels would ‘naturally’ increase responding to the improvement
in the domestic and also international economic situation.
The prophecy, as we now know, did not fulll itself. And, although
admittedly there is not much consensus on this point, this fact seems to indicate
that more than merely seeking better macro and microeconomic conditions
and business environment, essential but not sufcient requirements, it also
seems to be necessary that the government produce more specic incentives
along with pointing out priority areas for investment.
This was the idea that guided the development of the Acceleration
of Growth Program (PAC): a) it is necessary to grow quicker; b) to do so,
elevating the investment rate in our economy is indispensable; c) in this sense,
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
45
the government is responsible not only for consolidating and improving the
macro and microeconomic environments and regulatory frameworks, but
also for promoting, mobilizing, and inducing investments in key sectors of
the national economy.
The PAC actions and goals are organized as a broad group of investments
in infrastructure and private investment stimulating and facilitating measures.
The program also includes an improvement in the quality of public expenditure
by containing the growth of current expenditures and perfecting public
administration, both in the scal budget and in social security.
The PAC establishes for four years investments in infrastructure of R$
504 billion, including transportation, energy, sanitation, housing, and water
resources. This amount is subdivided in approximately R$ 68 billion from
the federal government budget and R$ 437 billion from state-owned federal
companies and private sector.
These investments include the following sectors: logistics – highways,
railways, ports, airports, and waterways; energy – electric energy generation
and transmission, oil and natural gas, renewable fuels; social infrastructure
– sanitation, housing, urban transportation, broadening of access to energy
(“Light for All” program), and water resources.
The Acceleration of Growth Program also includes amongst its
objectives the maintenance of credit expansion, especially housing credit and
long term credit for infrastructure investment. In this eld the PAC includes
measures destined to elevate long term funding with more favorable conditions,
especially on the part of the Caixa Econômica Federal (the Federal Savings Bank)
and the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (the National Bank
for Economic and Social Development).
With the intention of favoring greater availability of funds for
development, the PAC includes measures destined towards perfecting the
business environment and regulatory frameworks by streamlining and
facilitating investments in infrastructure. This includes regulation and the
business environment, which in this case includes regulation to defend
competition. In this respect, important bills of law drafted by the government
are already going through National Congress. To complement these changes
there are measures to stimulate regional development guided especially towards
Brazil 2007: ready to grow again
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
46
the North and Northeast regions. It is worth mentioning that the PAC includes
amongst its objectives not only the rectication of social inequalities, but also
the unbalance between regions.
The Program also includes tax exemption measures, as well as actions to
make tax administration more modern and dynamic. Tax exemption is intended
to stimulate investment in building trades and the acquisition of capital goods,
promote technological sectoral development of semiconductors and digital
television, and, stimulate the formalization and growth of micro and small-
sized companies. The changes on tax administration are intended to reduce
bureaucracy, and modernize and rationalize tax collection.
Finally, the scal measures included in the PAC intend to contain the
expansion of federal government expenditure with personnel, for which a
maximum annual growth is established at 1.5% over the ination. Along
with that measure, the Program foresees the implementation of a long term
policy for readjusting the minimum wage, which, as is known, directly impacts
social security expenditures. With regards to the social security issue, the PAC
establishes the creation of a forum, which has already been implemented, to
carry out nationally wide debates.
Going back to President Lula’s statement, it is important to emphasize
that the decision of trying to grow in a more accelerated fashion in no way
implies that we will stop growing properly.
Thus, all action and measures included in the PAC were dened in
such a way as to make the investment of foreseen funds compatible to the
maintenance of scal responsibility and the continuity of the gradual reduction
in the next years of the public debt/Gross Domestic Product ratio.
The gures detailed in the scal consistency scenario in which the
Program is based are being reviewed in light of the new methodology to
calculate the GDP. The growth acceleration made possible by the increase
of investments, however, combined to the reduction in the basic interest rate
expected in the next years should allow the public debt/GDP ratio to reach
35% by 2010. The nominal decit in the public sector should also continue
dropping tending towards zero.
Basically, the more accelerated growth of Brazil’s economy will not
sacrice, but rather, favor an even more solid and healthy scal consistency.
Guido Mantega
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
47
It will be healthier because growing in an intense pace is a vital necessity
for Brazil. Taking into consideration the dimension of the challenges we work
so actively to overcome, especially those related to poverty and inequalities that
still dene our prole as a society, we have no choice. It is the only way for us to
generate the employment needed, to expand savings, investment and credit, to
increase funds for health, education, infrastructure, public security, environmental
preservation, research, science, technology and culture. In a nutshell, to improve
the life conditions of our citizens and our development capacity.
Essentially, Brazil cannot merely grow at the speed considered as a healthy
expansion for developed countries. We need to respond to our greatest needs
and urgencies with more growth. An accelerated growth for our country is not
just an economic necessity; it is a social, political, and moral imperative.
DEP
Translation: Cynthia Garcia
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
48
Regional integration:
factor of sustainable
development
Emílio Odebrecht*
T
he meeting of 2.500 scientists on the state of the world last February at
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the initiative of the United
Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, made clear to countries,
organizations and individuals, in all its bluntness, the urgent need for achieving
sustainability in all human activities. South America has an historic opportunity
to meet this challenge, shared globally according to the responsibilities of each
nation: the largest biodiversity of the planet is concentrated in this region, as
well as enormous reserves of minerals, potable water and arable land where
the resources needed to provide a large part of the world’s food and energy
needs can be produced.
Governmental endeavors and the commitment of businesses and citizens
should provide adequate answers to this challenge. However, we have known
for a long time that isolated or sectorial action, often lled with the best
intentions, almost always result in solutions either palliative or responding to
*
Civil Engineer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Odebrecht S.A., holding company of Odebrecht
Organization.
versal@versal.com.br
Emílio Odebrecht
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
49
ad hoc interests. We are facing a crisis of potential global proportions, for whose
solution innovative strategies must be found and above all joint action is needed.
But while we all have to be on the alert, the world must follow its course.
For the South American countries, the imperative of development is not only
a way to solve their serious social problems, but also a requirement of the
highly competitive global scenario. To harmonize badly needed growth with
the protection of the environment is one of the tasks that must be faced in a
spirit of solidarity by the ensemble of nations in the continent.
Human integration
Mercosur – the Southern Common Market – formally established on
March 26 1991 in Asunción, Paraguay, provides the tools for that action. The
program of commercial liberalization, with progressive tariff reductions and
the elimination of non-tariff restrictions, has stimulated the economy of the
region. Although in the recent past the full harmonization of macroeconomic
policies has not been possible, including on account of the number of members
of the regional bloc and its diversity, the member States have endeavored to
discharge their common responsibilities.
But the building of a common market in South America must be based
on optimistic, albeit realistic, premises. At 16, Mercosur is mature enough
in order for its protagonists to shake off a number of illusions, such as the
tenet “everything unites us and nothing separates us” and look instead for
convergence in their differences. As in the natural environment, so in human
relations diversity should be seen as wealth.
In this connection, Mercosur must become more than the timely
conjunction of business interests. While the advantages of geographic
proximity and economic complementariness cannot be discarded, we Latin
Americans must include in the count of reciprocal gains the value represented
by the cultural wealth of the region, the quality of the people that make up
our populations, their ability to generate knowledge and the unique history
of peaceful solution of controversies, as well as the emerging solutions for
our common problems.
The challenge to create and share economic and social wealth by preserving
natural wealth cannot be met without the broadening of business relations
Regional integration: factor of sustainable development
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
50
through the search for the integration of our peoples. As organizations strive
to exercise their share of responsibility in building development, communities
must also be encouraged to strengthen their cultural values and improve the
care for their basic needs, in order to be able to contribute wholly to the
enrichment of the socio-cultural complex, which belongs to all.
Obviously, integration cannot happen in a straight line. Each country, each
community, is at a specic stage of involvement in the process of adaptation
to the business environment, in which national and individual interests must
be harmonized within the largest picture of the common interests.
One of the reasons for this is that Mercosur today is much more than
the free trade zone agreed by its founders in 1991. The establishment of
the Common External Tariff, on January 1 1995, set forth the political will
of its members, pointing to the path that national economic policies would
consolidate. New participants joined recently, and the scope of the bloc,
originally conned to the Southern Cone, was widened to encompass the whole
continent, bringing about a new reality. We are now 312 million citizens, with
a GDP of approximately 2 trillion US dollars.
The new conguration brings Mercosur to a new level of complexity and
requires even greater determination from leaders and public agents, business
organizations and public opinion. Eventual divergencies regarding the form or
pace in the implementation of some measures, as well as misunderstandings
that always creep up in complex systems, must be dealt with in a climate of
openmindedness, in view of the higher objectives that up to now have guided
all decisions.
Sustainable development
Just as the entry into force of Mercosur’s Permanent Court of Review
and Arbitration in 2004 increased legal security for the members and their
trade partners worldwide, one must always be aware that we are not dealing
only with production and trade, but rather with a choice based on democratic
principles, keeping in mind what was agreed in the Ushuaya Protocol, so that
the full validity of democratic institutions remains “the essential condition for
the development of the integration processes of the States Parties.”
In this connection, the institutional strengthening of Mercosur is
essential, together with the consolidation of its organs and representative
Emílio Odebrecht
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
51
instances. There must be a political effort to reduce bureaucratic restrictions
still pending. Likewise, the communication process among the parties must
be made swifter, taking advantage of the quick expansion of new information
and telecommunication technologies in the continent.
Commercial integration, visible in agreements on agriculture, energy
and transportation, and which recently is taking shape as a process of political
convergence, is starting to facilitate the search for common ground in areas
such as education, culture and justice. The validation of academic degrees,
the protocols on cooperation in legal matters and the encouragement to the
exchange of culture also serve the objective of social integration, without
which Mercosur would become vulnerable.
Such a wide range of potential exchange mentioned nds its zenith in
this endeavor. When culture, justice and education stemming from different
nationalities are able to come together in a common environment, we can say
that true integration is being realized. Initiatives limited to customs questions or
to infrastructure investment would not have been enough for the consolidation
of the common market.
The same can be said of the integration of the production chains of
the participant countries; although this represents an essential step, it would
not by itself ensure a sound future for Mercosur. Obviously, the integration
of the processes of production enhances the competitiveness of member
States in the global market, chiey through the creation of swift nancial
instruments and encouragement of investments. But this is still not enough
to ensure sustainability.
Such a future can only be secured through the integration of society and
the reduction of inequalities.
While permanent observance of all protocols and constant tracking
of day-to-day practices is useful, some of the remaining asymmetries must
be evaluated in a deeper time frame, considering that an experiment of this
scope will naturally exhibit a certain degree of cyclical behavior, and that
the balance in regional trade and political alignment shall be reached in a
longer perspective.
Together with business and political initiatives, educational projects based
on new models must prosper, and these must embody the essential values for
sustainable development.
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These are the values that provide steadfastness and exibility, values such
as respect for cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, enjoyment of learning,
tolerance for different world views developed by human beings according to
their history and their physical and social environment.
Just as the protagonists of negotiations among organizations must
be educated for a better performance, respecting their partner in a win-win
process, so the integrated communities must have the chance to grow in the
understanding of the possible intentions and benets, valuing the cooperative
spirit that is a condition for the existence of common markets.
Learning integration
Free of border problems, South American countries have for a long
time nurtured the tradition of trade and exchange of knowledge. Many
native ethnic groups live on both sides of a boundary, and each assumes
its nationality. Likewise, mirror cities live side by side and complement each
other in several points of the continent, occasionally showing language
differences but developing common expressions that are specically used for
that exchange.
Medical services, schools, leisure equipment and festivals are also part of
that convergence, without requiring that one community or the other relinquish its
own culture, beliefs, customs and preferences. With or without the formalization
of a free trade agreement between their governments, with or without business
contracts between corporations, the continent’s society is traditionally used to
living together peacefully and protably among neighbors.
Instead of exacerbating differences on account of temporal interests, the
representatives of member States and managers of corporations must draw
inspiration from the long history of harmonious relations, which has been
responsible for the maintenance of a peaceful environment in the continent,
so that they may take up the common effort to achieve prosperity on the
foundation of that peace.
The amount of trade among the countries in the region increased from 3
to 30 billion dollars in the 16 years of the existence of Mercosur. Besides this
obvious factor of growth, regional trade has helped many companies to develop
the appropriate culture needed for their insertion in the global market. The
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relationship among the South American partners provides worthwhile lessons
on negotiation everyday, putting together an invaluable basis of knowledge
for the expansion of worldwide business.
Up to the coming into being of the Asunción Treaty, which dened the
creation of a free trade zone between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay,
companies in the region in general were concerned with their own internal
markets. In this new scenery many of them – including Odebrecht Organization
– developed the qualications needed to participate in the international market.
The relationship with suppliers and partners in the regional market provided
a new way to expand that knowledge and develop competences for making
business in different political and cultural environments.
Likewise, the makers of public policy could combine their national
interests with the bloc’s common interest, in order to stimulate the development
of joint and complementary industrial policies. Obstacles and possible periods
of difculty must be seen as challenges in this learning process. A lesson to
be learned is that the generation of knowledge should not be separated from
the generation of wealth.
The quest for better qualication has contributed to shaking businesses
out of the idleness engendered by the comfort of domestic markets. The
need for development of new competences has instilled new life and inspired
the search for the mastery of more advanced knowledge, not only in terms
of technology, but mainly in the management processes. The challenge of
insertion in the regional market is a powerful encouragement to constant
improvement and innovation, and South American companies must understand
this, by focusing on opportunities. In this connection, it is a legitimate endeavor
for businessmen to enlist the vigor of their country and of the competent
structures within their governments having in mind the objectives of their
corporations, within the perspective of the common good represented by the
generation of wealth to be shared by society and by the practice of socially
responsible entrepreneurship.
Public security and education
There are still large obstacles to be overcome. One of them is the
lack of security, perhaps the biggest threat that may disturb the conciliatory
spirit that still is our distinctive mark. The existence of communities that
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lack resources of their own and become hostage to organized groups of
criminals cannot be ignored by the leaders who are building Mercosur. These
populations must be rescued and brought into the environment of healthy
companionship and deserve the chance of being integrated into the project
of common development.
The highly sophisticated structures of organized crime that defy the
most elaborate public security policies can only be dismantled through internal
action, by severing the supply and labor lines that feed them.
Organized crime does not thrive on poverty itself, but rather on poverty
without hope, poverty that does not know opportunity, a condition in which
a whole generation – especially at the time when the individual awakens for
independent life – cannot discern a glimmer of dignity in the horizon. Rescuing
these citizens enslaved in the wrong side of the law must be effected through
education and opportunities for personal development.
In this domain, education is the keyword
Obviously we do not mean only education as a task for the State, with its
network of schools and its own choice of didactic policies. We are talking of
the educative mission that is incumbent on every citizen and all institutions and
organizations, public and private. The latter, being institutions that by denition
cannot subsist without relying on educated and qualied professionals, without
whom they would not have a chance to grow not even in the internal market,
should assume the role of sources for quality education.
It is expected from the business organizations that they do not limit
themselves to social investments whose objective is education and culture,
but rather that they become, both institutionally and in the public face of
each of their leaders, in centers of irradiation of knowledge. Each contact,
each negotiation, each contract and each stage of a job must be seen as an
opportunity for this exchange of knowledge that means educating and being
educated.
Commerce has always been linked with this phenomenon, in which not
only goods and services are exchanged, but mainly knowledge and world views.
Culture, beliefs, science and language have crisscrossed the world through this
subtle interchange that leaves its mark in expressions whose origin often can
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be traced back to the other side of the planet and to an era lost in time. Once
again, the building of a common market means much more than mere trade
advantages and becomes a civilizing and humanizing mission of education.
Social responsibility
Just as in business organizations concerned with sustainability, the
management of this process of integration must take into account the elements
of knowledge that contribute to the success of any endeavor. In all Mercosur
countries there are cutting edge, individually successful organizations, thanks
to the development of appropriate strategies based on effective corporative
technologies that respect the human being and the environment and are
supported by sound principles.
This cutting edge entrepreneurial culture must be instilled in the structural
system of Mercosur through the give and take among public managers and
professionals of private organizations. The basis of such a relationship must
be the premise that there are common objectives to be achieved, rather than
the mere view that one side asks and the other decides.
Likewise, this entrepreneurial culture of sustainable development
must be communicated to the communities through programs of social
and environmental responsibility that take into consideration to a large
extent the several existing cultural and ethnic features, inclinations, desires
and qualications that may be developed in each one of them. The eld
of knowledge, a discipline deeply enshrined in organizations that look for
sustainability, must be stimulated in the inner core of communities, mainly
among their younger populations, so that they may nd the way toward better
living conditions without having to turn their energies away to other centers,
in search of opportunity.
Contact with these communities should be planned to prevent cultural
values extraneous to them from overwhelming traditions. Tradition often
keeps local societies wholesome and being thus strengthened it allows them
to connect with the global environment without being engulfed by the mass
culture that many times is dominant. Individuals from each community must
be taken into account, since the ensemble of knowledge, beliefs and values
of that society is realized and perpetuated in them.
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The idea of a common market is linked to the potentiality of production
in large scale, but this will not be satisfactorily realized if its construction
and realization are not based on respect for the individual. Similarly, the
search for each country’s or each organization’s competitiveness through the
combination of powers, talents and competence joined together in a common
market, nds its synthesis in the individual. The individual will be located,
identied and valued in the process by means of the practice of an open and
democratic relationship, in which the common objectives are clearly shown
and opportunities are offered to each one’s initiative.
We have thus come full circle back to the starting point. The state of the
world, as described by the 2.500 scientists who have studied climate change,
does not exhaust the list of bad news in the roster of environmental problems.
The very same system of indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources that
gave rise to the serious physical crisis of the planet, brought about another
challenge, namely the social gulf that separates human beings. By neglecting
the individual, we are paving his path towards social marginalization.
In this connection, special attention should be given to the treatment
of indigenous communities present in almost all countries of the region.
Being the keepers of timeless knowledge, chiey regarding the relationship
between man and nature, they do not share such knowledge with the rest of
the society and are denied access to goods and services that – without harming
their lifestyle – would ensure for them the benets of human development
and scientic and technological progress.
Common development project
Mercosur has been able to increase the ow of its trade. Similarly, the
process of political integration is being consolidated, despite some divergencies
and the natural differences of interpretation regarding issues related to
development models. We have rivers and forests in common and our borders
only experience instability where crime still rules. We have been able to produce
agreements and national instruments to preserve this heritage, but for this we
rely on the commitment of the communities to this mission.
Without the communities no State will be capable of defending and
preserving its natural wealth. This is an additional argument in favor of the thesis
that the main goal is social integration. The more our relationship is integrated
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in our communities, the more productive and sustainable they will be. Thus,
it is imperative to stimulate interpersonal relations among Latin Americans,
bringing into civil life what has already been obtained in political and business
relationships. By knowing each other better, we shall be able to identify the
larger convergences that unite us and put the differences in proper context,
mutually learning the worth of the diversity that enriches our continent.
Our students must be encouraged to engage in regional exchanges and
community leaders must have the opportunity to exchange experiences, so
that the best practices be quickly disseminated throughout all countries.
Regional tourism must grow, by publicizing destinations less sought in
the regular itineraries, and this shall make us know each other better. To this
end, infrastructure investment must increase. However, common roads should
not be a means to carry poverty from one place to another. They must be
recovered and rendered useful, together with projects of support to producers,
so that the roads not only serve the needs of transportation of the production
from one community to wider markets, but also more advanced knowledge
circulates through them to every corner.
Examples of excellence, such as the results of high quality and useful
research achieved by the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Research
Company – EMBRAPA – should be made available to rural producers in
the whole continent, so that the development of agriculture, livestock and
industry promoted by such results is equitably spread. Supported by advanced
technologies, traditional cultures may acquire competitiveness and generate
wealth, this helping to reduce migrations compelled by poverty.
Similarly, projects of digital inclusion must march in tandem with bilingual
education, so that what can be gained with the information technology can
grow exponentially. In the case of our continent, the Portuguese and Spanish
languages must nd a common terrain, for familiarity with other languages
encourages people to seek understanding of the cultural universe contained
in each language.
This means learning citizenship, world citizenship that is not to be
rejected; on the contrary, it must be proud of its origin, it must be central to
an integration project within Mercosur. We must still struggle against brutal
inequality, but we can count on our natural curiosity about the other human
being, our passion for color and rhythm, the acceptance and enjoyment of
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our musical and artistic wealth, our good nature and a healthy national pride.
These are the elements of a sustainable equation.
Our choices must be guided by the premise that together we can
broaden even more the commercial and political success hitherto achieved,
and translate it into benets for the widest spectrum of our populations. In
this way we shall be able to enhance individual capabilities, making available to
each one the opportunity to stamp his or her personal mark on the common
development project.
Human beings are driven by their perception of well being. If we succeed
in joining the recent gains of our economies in partnership and the fruits
of the process of consolidation of our economies with a positive feeling of
improvement of our societies, then we shall associate the communities to the
struggle for the sustainable development of all of Latin America. Without
renouncing our beliefs, the course each one of us may give to his or her own
existence, the setting of common objectives and the wider sharing of its
benets may lead the whole continent, in a relatively short delay, to a prominent
position in the world stage, thus relegating to History all the blemishes of
underdevelopment.
DEP
Translation: Sérgio Duarte
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The quest for
development with
equity
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis*
O
ver a decade and a half of reforms implemented under the so-called
“Washington Consensus” has yielded mixed results in Latin America. On
the one hand, notable progress in controlling ination, better equilibrium in
scal balances, and surge of exports. On the other hand, though, in respect
of what is fundamental, namely, economic growth and equity, performance
has been mediocre. During the 1990-2005 period, gross domestic product
(GDP) grew only 2.7 percent a year, with a per capita increase of barely 1.0
percent during the same period, which is insufcient for narrowing the gap
with the developed countries. As a matter of fact, the gap with the United
States widened during this period. Current performance is also reected in
the fact that in 2005 the continent had about nine million more poor people
than in 1990.
In brief, a twofold divergence occurred. Per capita GDP did not converge
with the GDP of developed countries, while the regressive gap among high-
* Economics Professor at the University of Chile and CEPAL Advisor.
ricardo[email protected]
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60
income and low-income groups widened. Currently, Latin America’s per capita
GDP is only a fourth of the per capita GDP of the richest countries (G-7),
while the equity gap is twice as wide as in those economies. The challenge is
how to grow, but with much more equity (see Graph 1).
Graph 1
Latin America vs developed countries, per capita GDP
& income distribution, 2005 (PPP dollars)
Source: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database (2006) and
Source: International Monetary Fund, world Economic Outlook Database (2006) World Bank,
World Development Indicators Database (2006.)
This article presents a summary overview of the reforms implemented
since the nineties (Part 1), the achievements (Part 2), the failures (Part 3), and
the challenges of this new decade and the need to undertake what we call a
reform of the reforms (Part 4).
1. Economic reforms in Latin America
Are reforms necessary? Certainly! In 1990 Latin America was in need
of profound reforms. Economies subjected to over-intervention, a restricted
private sector, excessive interventionism, and rules that had little transparence.
However, massive privatization and intense trade liberalization entailed changes
that were too abrupt, leading to mistaken measures that were not adapted to
each country’s specicity and were fraught with serious aws.
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In general, these reforms have been linear. They have tended to move in
the same direction, with each reform being seen as an end instead of the means
it actually is. It is thus vitally important not to move toward reform in itself but
to carry out functional reforms aimed at greater growth with more equity.
In the spirit of the Washington Consensus, the reforms pursued tended
to lead to right prices that were friendly to the market. I fully concur with these
two principles. The results went in the opposite direction, though. On the one
hand, the key macroeconomic prices – the exchange rate and the interest rate
– tended to misalignment, and became very instable after the reforms of the
nineties. This was hardly friendly to the market, as it put strong pressure on the
productive sector. On the other hand, demand or the population’s purchasing
capacity experienced marked highs and lows occasioned by volatile capital
ows and highly uctuating exports prices. This resulted in mediocre growth
accompanied by much inequity.
As we will see, results have fallen quite short of the neoliberal reformers’
expectations.
2. Achievements
Some of the major achievements were as follows:
a) Trade. Exports experienced a marked growth. This has been a
generalized phenomenon in Latin America since the nineties. During the 1990-
2005 period, Export volumes substantially increased at an average yearly rate
of 7.9 percent in real terms. The average exporting impetus in Latin America
signicantly exceeded the rate of increase in world exports in the same period,
which was 5.7 percent.
b) Fiscal balances. Latin America showed very high scal imbalances in
the eighties, when some countries recorded decits ranging from 10 percent to
17 percent of GDP. The nineties saw noticeable progress in budget balances
in Latin America, when several countries maintained scal surpluses for many
years. In the average, Latin America amply met the Maastrich criterion of 1.5
percent of GDP before the Asian crisis.
c) Ination control: in this regard, Latin America experienced a remarkable
improvement, as the hyperination episodes of the preceding decades ended.
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In the eighties, some countries experienced ination upwards of 1,000
percent a year, which had a highly damaging effect on both enterprises and
people. This was the mortal enemy of investment, innovation, equity, and
social harmony. Since the nineties, such levels of ination receded, giving
way to one-digit rates (a regional one-digit average rate since 1997 and 6.1
percent in 2005).
3. Failures
Reforms have also suffered from serious shortcomings, including the
following:
a) Financial and macroeconomic volatility
Volatility is one of the main problems of Latin American economies.
Despite major efforts to achieve macroeconomic equilibrium, particularly in
the areas of scal balance and ination, there was a marked inability to foresee
problems stemming from external nancial imbalances and the effects of real
disequilibria (both economic and social) caused by nancial reforms based
on ideology.
In effect, the external disequilibria of the nineties reected an external
capital supply tainted by periods of excessive optimism or excessive pessimism.
The region’s experience in the periods of peak external nancing – between
1990 and 1994 and between mid-1995 and mid-1998 – point to a strong growth
of external decits and exchange lags spurred by massive capital inows,
which unquestionably engenders vulnerability. As a result, Latin America
experienced the 1995 Mexican crisis and, beginning in 1998, the Asian crisis
and its expansion into the Argentine crisis. During a full six-year period (1998-
2003), the region as a whole went through a recession stage, when per capita
GDP declined, as it had during the debt crisis (the lost decade). These nancial
cycles have also determined productive cycles, giving rise to wide gaps between
the economy’s actual performance and its potential.
Graph 2 shows this roller coaster dynamics of alternating boom and
crisis. As we shall see, these cycles had lasting adverse consequences for social
development and productive investment. This was due to the disequilibria that
resulted from the way macroeconomic, trade, and particularly nancial policies
are carried out (See Ffrench-Davis, 2005). A conict, or trade-off, has arisen
between excessive, short-term “nancialism” and weak “productivism.”
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
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63
Graph 2
Latin America (19): GDP instability, 1990-2005
(annual variation percentages)
Source: CEPAL, based on ofcial data.
It is amazing that the mistakes made in the nancial and exchange reforms
of Argentina and Chile in the seventies – for which they had to shoulder
enormous economic and social costs when the debt crisis occurred – should
have been replicated in other countries of the region since the mid-eighties and
in Asian countries in the nineties. They have in common not only precarious
prudential oversight but also boom scenarios in respect of short-term capital
and domestic savings displacement, marked exchange lags, and nancial crises
that entailed high scal and social costs.
Owing to the course of globalization, nancial intermediation experts
– a microeconomic specialization – have become very important in respect
of the macroeconomic disequilibria of emerging economies. In developing
economies, which partially base their development strategy on exports
diversication, an exchange rate determined by short-term capital movements
shows a clear policy inconsistency. A good economic system accompanied
by growth and equity requires, rst of all, improved productivity rather than
speculation, and long-term instead of short-term foresight.
Consequently, the integration of capital markets has major repercussions
on the governability of domestic policies. Indeed, most leaders of emerging
countries are experiencing a two-constituency syndrome. They are elected by the
voters of their own countries but have to seek the backing of those that “vote”
through their nancial investments. The nancial market cycles in the last third
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of a century show a noticeable contradiction between these two constituencies,
in a game with a negative score, with the countries caught in a nancial trap.
The recent, prolonged recession – 1998-2003 – bears witness to this.
b) Low aggregate value exports
Greater exports impetus – in itself a positive thing – has not translated
into greater dynamism in the economy as a whole. In many cases, abrupt trade
liberalization processes carried out in the context of a little competitive exchange
rate weakened the efcient production of tradable goods, leading to a high
increase in imports. As a result, notwithstanding the dynamism of the exports
sector, disequilibria of great signicance occurred in the external accounts.
In addition, Latin American countries have made little progress in
diversifying their exports basket toward products with higher aggregate value.
On the contrary, despite some progress, the region still exports mainly products
based on natural resources, whose international demand has little dynamism,
and at prices vulnerable to the seesawing of the world economy. Surges in
the international prices of natural resources is a welcome palliative but do
not solve the failure of the exports’ performance, which provides very fragile
chains and externalities for the rest of our economies.
Some obvious progress was made in the nineties in this respect, thanks to
the strengthening of intraregional trade, which permitted a vigorous expansion
of the exportation of manufactures with a higher aggregate value (CEPAL,
2002). Nevertheless, the macroeconomic volatility of the region’s major
economies since the 1998 Asian crisis has had a signicant negative impact on
regional trade, especially on Mercosur, although the latter is now recovering.
c) Fiscal balance that fails to give priority to productive and social modernization
In the scal area, although newly balanced budgets have been adopted,
investment in human capital, infrastructure, and innovative production is still
insufcient. There is great insufciency of public goods. Resources should be
invested in improving the quality of the educational systems with a view to
future citizens. But it is also necessary to meet the requirements of increased
human capital in the current labor force and the entrepreneurial sector. This is
essential for ensuring greater possibilities of economic growth, while achieving
greater equity in the distribution of opportunities and productivity.
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
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65
As regards the budget’s other face – that of scal revenue – major
gaps in tax systems and too much tax evasion still prevail in comparison with
developed economies. The prevailing systems have incorporated one of the
vices of globalization, which stresses the tax burden of less mobile work and
productive capital, and favors mobile, speculative capital.
d) Poor distribution of opportunities and productivities: the challenge of equity
According to CEPAL estimates, in 2005 there were 209 million poor in
Latin America (about 40 percent of the population), 9 million more than in
1990 (see Table 1). This is partially explained by the 1999 recessive adjustment
and by the Argentine 2001-2002 debacle. A conclusion to be drawn from
the experience of the nineties is that crises affect our societies in a markedly
recessive manner. There are very interesting works, including those by Rodrik
(2001), Ocampo (2005) and Bourguignon and Walton (2006) that reinforce
the conviction that each nancial crisis intensies poverty and distributive
regression. Crises are not neutral in relation to sectors; in different ways, they
affect numberless enterprises and individuals, consumers and producers, with
a regressive bias, as they have a greater impact on the lower-income quintiles.
Subsequent recovery is not automatic; it is slow, and imposes a signicant loss of
income and assets on the poorer groups, leaving a regressive trail on household
assets and on the balance sheet of small and medium enterprises.
Table 1
Latin America: social indicators, 1980-2005
Source: Ffrench-Davis (2005, Chap. I) and CEPAL.
e) Insufcient productive investment
One aspect in which reforms show a more mediocre performance is
insufcient productive investment and the attendant poor economic growth.
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In the nineties, Latin America invested 5 percentage points of GDP, on the
average less than in the seventies and only some decimal points more than in
the lost decade of the eighties (see Graph 3). As a consequence, GDP grew very
little from the eighties on, peaking only at 2.7 percent since 1990 (see Table 32).
This means that in 1990-2005, the region’s per capita GDP (1.0 percent) grew
less than the world’s (1.2 percent) and the United States’ (1.8 percent).
Graph 3
Latin America (19): gross xed capital formation rate,
1971-2005 (GDP %, at 1995 prices)
Source: CEPAL, based on ofcial data.
Table 2
Latin America: GDP growth, 1971-2005 (average annual rates, %)
Source: Ffrench-Davis (2005, Chap. I) and CEPAL.
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
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67
Investing more and better is essential to sustainable growth. One is
frequently deluded by high growth rates that are transitory, as they are often
related to economic activity recovery processes rather than to a vigorous
expansion of productive capacity (Chile, 1985-89; and Argentina, 1992-94
and 1997; most of Latin America, 2004-06, after the 1998-2003 recession). It
is important to take advantage of recovery following a recession, but what is
essential is to reactivate economic activity in such a manner that investment
and improved productivity will ensure that high growth will be sustained after
reactivation’s completion.
Chile was an interesting exception in Latin America in the nineties.
Between 1990 and 1998, Chile grew 7 percent (Ffrench-Davis, 2004). A
decisive factor in this sustained growth was the democratic regime’s reforms
of the dictatorship’s neoliberal reforms. Reference is often made to “applying
the Chilean model.” We have shown (see Ffrench-Davis, 2004) that with the
resumption of democracy substantial changes took place, particularly in the
early nineties. We have also documented how even under the dictatorship
signicant changes took place in the seventies (a more extremist neoliberal
model) and in the eighties, with several interventions in the market, albeit with
a regressive bias as well (a sort of regressive pragmatism).
Another highly relevant variable was the level of the productive
investment rate. In the nineties, Chile invested 10 percentage points of
GDP, more than under the Pinochet government (1974-89). As pointed out,
Latin America invested 5 percentage points less than in the seventies (see
Graph 3). This is a major reason why Chile (despite the decline of its growth
after the Asian crisis beginning in 1998) grew and average 5.2 percent, while
Latin America grew only 2.7 percent in 1990-2005.
f) Concentration of property and economic power
Concentration is a generalized phenomenon that is reected in the
deterioration of income distribution in Latin America. In general, privatizations
had a regressive impact on economic power distribution.
Intense privatization processes took place in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru,
and Mexico, among other countries. By 1994, the number of public enterprises
in Mexico had dropped from 1,155 to less than 80 (see Morley, Machado and
Pettinato, 1999).
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Chile undertook massive privatization during the Pinochet regime, 1974-
1980.
1
The sale of enterprises occurred to a large extent during periods of
recession and very high interest rates on the domestic market. As a result, few
actors had the capacity to buy, which was one of the causes of the intense
property concentration observed in those years. The limited direct participation
of transnational enterprises in this process was notorious. Nevertheless, a
massive surge in external credits and their dominance over national banks
accounted for a substantial share of the nancing the economic groups needed
to purchase the enterprises that were being privatized.
Although the privatization processes were one of the causes of power
concentration, the other reforms – trade, nance, capital account, taxation,
labor legislation – were responsible for a substantial regressive effect. To this
were added the successive macroeconomic crises and their intense, regressive
impact. Curiously enough, it is often said that the region learned to practice
macroeconomics. What it did learn instead was to control ination without
learning to practice macroeconomics in a manner consistent with productive
development and with combating inequity.
4. How to improve performance?
The need to reform the reforms
Given the heterogeneous results of the economic reforms with their
positive and negative aspects, it is crucially necessary to make changes aimed
at preserving their sound characteristics and at redressing their more serious
mistakes. In essence, it is a question of reforming the reforms.
As democracy was reinstated in Chile in 1990, various reforms of the reforms
occurred. They included a tax reform to offset an increase in social spending;
a labor reform to reestablish (not eliminate) workers’ rights; substantial
macroeconomic reforms to ensure a more sustainable economy, which meant
going against the trend to indiscriminately open the capital account. Prudential
macroeconomic regulations were adopted to discourage the excessive entry
of short-term nancial capital; prudential supervision of the nancial system
was improved; a systematic application of a copper stabilization fund was
1
See Ffrench-Davis (2004, Chap. II), which includes extensive bibliography.
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
69
adopted; an effort (feeble though it may have been) was made to develop the
capital market’s long-term segment; and active exchange and monetary policies
were applied, together with a highly responsible scal policy: each new social
expenditure was effectively nanced (see Ffrench-Davis, 2004).
a) Sustainable real macroeconomy
There is broad consensus that “sound macroeconomic fundamentals” are
a determinant variable. Yet, there is a signicant lack of understanding about
their denition and how to achieve and maintain them. A proper denition
should include – in addition to low ination, balanced scal accounts, and
dynamic exports – sustainable external decits and net debts; sustained
investment in human capital; intense, efcient investment in physical capital;
reduced net liquid external liabilities; aligned real exchange rate; and strict
regulation and prudential supervision of the nancial system. During recessive
periods, the following would also be included: (i) implementation of structural
scal balance (recognizing that during recession scal revenues are unusually
low and that, under certain circumstances, public spending should not follow
taxes in their downward trend and that, on the contrary, they should play an
offsetting or countercyclical role); and (ii) a strong impetus of real demand,
with decisive policy changes, if domestic activity is clearly below its productive
capacity (see Ffrench-Davis, 2005, Chap. VI).
As I mentioned earlier, we need friendly reforms, with a friendly market
and right prices, two factors that are obviously essential to growth. However,
the current weak performance indicates that friendliness has not been reliable
and that the macroeconomic prices have been often dislocated from the
equilibrium. These disequilibria clearly hamper the evaluation of projects for
recourse allocation, promote speculative investment instead of productive
investment, and contribute to the deterioration of the nancial institutions’
portfolios, as well as impeding the access of small and medium enterprises
to nancing.
For this reason it is essential to ensure that these macroeconomic prices,
which affect the ensemble of economic agents and the aggregate demand,
remain relatively stable and are not excessively misaligned or imbalanced. This
depends on economic policy variables and on how markets are organized. The
choice of the exchange regime, for instance, is of utmost importance. The
The quest for development with equity
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
70
exchange rate determines how competitive exports and the enterprises that
compete with imports will be; thus, its level and volatility have a huge impact
on the productive sector and on external accounts. Currently, the choices
that are more in fashion are limited to two extremes: on the one hand, a xed
exchange rate or dollarization, which implies abandoning the national currency
and implementing exchange and monetary policies; on the other hand, a totally
free exchange rate, which is tremendously sensitive to swallow capital ows, which
are quite volatile. The consequence is a notoriously unstable exchange rate.
One must look beyond the fashion for a pragmatic answer to the problem.
In Ffrench-Davis (2004) we have shown that a better global performance is
possible through recourse to an efcient system of administered exibility of the
exchange rate that would allow relative price adjustments, and to a monetary
policy that would avoid extreme price-xing and facilitate the transition
between boom and scarcity periods of external nancing. But a requirement
for the success of such policy is the existence of a consistent set of scal,
banking supervision, and capital account management policies endowed with
countercyclical and prudential elements. Also required is equilibrium between
objectives such as ination control and jobs creation to overcome the current
predominance of an anti-ination concern at the expense of productive
development. In this connection, one can see once again the importance of a
comprehensive approach and of consistency of objectives with means.
b) Sustained development and social investment
To achieve sustained growth, new productive capacity must be created:
capital and labor in greater quantity and of better quality, organization, and
functioning institutions. This is necessary for taking advantage of globalization’s
opportunities and avoiding its dangers. In this respect, education and labor
training have a major role. Labor training is fundamental for increasing
productivity and is the “progressive” way to ensure market exibility from
the supply side. Workers that have quit the educational system and that have
already been in the work force for forty years cannot return to elementary or
secondary school; they must receive training during their working life. An issue
with similar shadings is technological dissemination, particularly among small
and medium enterprises. In respect of labor training and technology there
are substantial externalities and market aws that have not been corrected
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
71
with determination: this is one of the differences between development and
underdevelopment.
As we have seen, during a crisis, individuals and enterprises with fewer
economic resources are less able to protect themselves; as a result, poverty
increases and income distribution tends to worsen. This imposes a heavy
responsibility on macroeconomic management.
It is ethically and technically imperative to create better conditions for
overcoming poverty and improving income distribution, so as to prevent the
emergence of tensions and greater internal deterioration in our countries.
It is necessary to participate in globalization, by integrating rather than
disintegrating ourselves internally. We want to make our globalization. Latin
American integration is one of the effective instruments to reach this goal.
c) Development’s comprehensive nature
To achieve vigorous, sustainable development, a consistent set of far-
reaching economic and social policies is required. The central objective of
improving the welfare of the entire population cannot be achieved without
signicant progress in the consolidation of dynamic, competitive policies
capable of meeting the challenges of a globalized world. Equity and economic
development are elements of one and the same strategy (see CEPAL, 2002).
Social development cannot rely solely on social policies, just as economic
policies cannot by themselves, apart from the social policy design, ensure the
achievement of socioeconomic objectives. Some of the elements that link
economic and social development are: sustainable jobs creation and income
generation; elimination of structural productive heterogeneities, inherited or
recently created, so as to enable small and medium enterprises to develop;
allocation of more resources for upgrading human capital; and comprehensive
poverty combating programs that assign priority to distributing productivity,
consistently with sound scal policy.
Economic development models are not “neutral” in social terms.
Macroeconomic policies that generate sustainable equilibriums in the real
economy and productive development policies that are consistent with better
opportunities and productivity distribution throughout society are essential for
achieving that elusive objective, namely, economic development with equity. At the
same time, social development, the reduction of inequity, and the elimination
The quest for development with equity
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
72
of various forms of discrimination create conditions conducive to economic
development as a result of investment in human capital and in the construction
of “social capital,” which favor the systemic competitiveness of the economies
in a globalized world.
Equity is achieved not through mere ex post facto action but by being
incorporated into the productive system. As people and small and medium
enterprises learn to operate better each day, economic and social development
– growth with equity – is achieved.
Bibliography
Bourguignon, F. y M. Walton (2006), “Is greater equity necessary for higher long-
term growth in Latin America?”, in R. Ffrench-Davis y J.L. Machinea (eds.),
Economic Growth with Equity: Challenges for Latin America, Palgrave Macmillan,
Londres.
CEPAL (2001), Crecer con estabilidad, Naciones Unidas, Santiago.
CEPAL (2002), Globalización y desarrollo, Naciones Unidas, Santiago.
Ffrench-Davis, R. (2004), Entre el neoliberalismo y el crecimiento con equidad, J.C.
Sáez Editor, Santiago, cuarta edición, 2007, and Siglo Veintiuno, Argentina,
Buenos Aires.
_______. (2005), Reformas para América Latina: Después del fundamentalismo
neoliberal, Siglo Veintiuno, Argentina, Buenos Aires.
Morley, S., R, Machado y S. Pettinato (1999), “Indexes of structural reform in Latin
America”, Serie Reformas Económicas, Nº 12, CEPAL, January.
Ocampo, J. A. (2005), Retomar la Agenda del Desarrollo, Santiago.
Rodrik, D., (2001), “Por qué hay tanta inseguridad en América Latina?”, Revista de
la CEPAL Nº 73, April.
Stallings, B. y W. Peres (2000), Crecimiento, empleo y equidad: el impacto de las reformas
económicas en América Latina y el Caribe, Fondo de Cultura Económica/
CEPAL, Santiago.
DEP
Translation: João Coelho
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
73
Colombia: challenges
until 2010
Álvaro Uribe Vélez*
P
eace, defense and security
1. Insist on useful dialogue with outlawed armed groups with national and
international facilitation. Obtain political support and resources for the
peace processes from international cooperation. Increase to 10 the number
of regions beneting from Programs of Development and Peace.
2. Strengthen the program of Re-incorporation into Civilian Life for those
re-inserted in all phases; psychological assistance, academic or occupational
training and employment.
3.
Extend the presence of the Police to 236 corregimientos. Increase permanent
police presence in the streets of the cities.
4.
Implement a single telephone number for attention to the citizens.
5. Strengthen mechanisms of civic cooperation in the ght against crime,
in the cities as well as in the countryside.
6.
Reduce the number of murders and kidnappings.
7. Improve protection to property.
* President of the Republic of Colombia.
[email protected]ob.co
Colombia: challenges until 2010
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
74
8. Strengthen the production of strategic intelligence and counter-intelligence
of the Nation and its institutions.
9.
Create a specialized unit for decent and timely legal defense for servicemen
and policemen accused of crimes committed on the performance of their
operations and services.
10. Balance the increase of public forces with its own welfare, offering
oportunities for housing, health and education.
11.
Bring 25.000 displaced children to the Batuta musical program.
12. 1.000.000 children playing chess to improve analytical capacity, ability to
solve conicts and the work discipline of the population of vulnerable
children.
Human rights, interior and justice
1. Deepen and extend to all civil servants the training programs in human
rights and humanitarian international law for judges, prosecutors,
servicemen and policemen.
2.
Present an amnesty draft bill to benet without cost Colombians over 25
years of age from I, II and II strata whose military situation is irregular.
3.
Promote social security agreements with countries receiving Colombian
immigrants in order to improve their standards of living.
4.
Build a drug-free country, by developing an active campaign of prevention
of drug addiction and penalizing consumption with sentences different
from deprivation of freedom.
5.
Reduce the number of hectares planted with coca crops, with special
emphasis on illicit plantations in national parks.
6.
Maintain and defend the institution of extradition as one of the main
instruments of legal international cooperation in the ght against drug
trafcking.
7.
Strengthen the policy of urban and rural citizen security.
8. Strengthen legal international defense of Colombian interests.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
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9. Widen the national availability of penitentiary and penal space and the
construction of new prisons. Reduce prison overcrowding.
10.
Enhance the Creation of Justice Houses, Living Together Centers and
Conciliation Houses in the different regions of the country.
11.
Create new mechanisms of community justice, promote equanimity in
judicial decisions.
12.
Promote justice brigades that allow for the movement of judges to
municipalities and sections of the cities.
13.
Adopt a unied code of conduct to promote orality as a general rule, in
all areas and jurisdictions.
Economy: trust for investments
1. Follow a macroeconomic policy that supports a 6% annual growth rate,
keeps ination and scal decit at low levels and reduces net public debt.
2.
Reform the Organic Budget Law to include notions such as evaluation
of expenditures and result-base budgeting.
3.
Promote a tax reform for growth, with a simple, fair and competitive
system that encourages savings and investment.
4.
Carry out the “Second Microcredit Revolution” ensuring wider nancing
for micro-entrepreneurs through the spending of Bancoldex resources
and keep beneting Micro, Small and Medium-sized companies with the
Fund for Micro, Small and Medium-sized companies.
5.
Create the “Bank of Opportunities” as the managing agency for mass
popular credit.
6.
Humanize credit information by changing habeas data legislation in order
to balance reports on micro businesses to risk central ofces.
7.
Promote credit for projects of association among small and medium-sized
companies to help acquisition and commercialization of imported inputs
and goods.
8.
Open the nation to foreign investment by encouraging bilateral agreements
for the promotion and protection of investment and general agreements
to avoid double taxation.
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76
Industrial development and tourism
1. Encourage different forms of alliance or association for the formation
of enterprises.
2.
Eliminate obstacles to access to nancing.
3. Increase the percentage of exporting enterprises by strengthening the
national export capacity through Proexport.
4.
Prioritize nationally produced goods and services in procurements by the
institutions of the State.
5.
Modernize the Statute of Consumer Protection.
6. Establish a long-term policy of intellectual property through a single
authority.
7.
Organize and regulate the use of beaches and recover ocean front areas
in strategic cities for tourism, such as San Andrés and Santa Marta.
8.
Double existing projects for tourist inns in different regions of the country.
9. Progress in certication programs for tourist ventures.
10. Consolidate the routes of Vive Colombia.
11. Strengthen tourist police (infrastructure, equipment).
12. Arrange special rates for students, people with disabilities and senior
citizens to have access to tourist services.
Agriculture and rural development
1. Implement the “Agro, Ingresso Seguro” (Agriculture, Sure Income”) Program
as an integral strategy of response to needs in the agrarian sector.
2.
Push forward the Agroindustrial Revolution as a pillar of the nation’s
productive development in products where Colombia has comparative
advantages, with high technological knowledge content and of utilization
of the biodiversity.
3.
Consolidate the country of rural landlords not only by granting land
ownership titles but also with productive projects under an associative
management plan.
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77
4. Design and promote a social entrepreneurial organization of the
agricultural and livestock production.
5.
Consolidate the nancing for the sector by promoting granting of
land title, microcredit and the ICR, keeping the incentives CIF for
reforestation, increasing placements by Finagro and the cover of the
“Fondo Agrupecuario de Garantias” (Agrarian and Livestock Guarantee
Fund) and encouraging risk capital for the development of large scale
production plans.
6.
Encourage the incorporation of land t for production in a framework of
integrated rural development. Recover 593 thousand agricultural hectares
and create 140 machinery banks.
7.
Generalize the integral fulllment of the national sanitary and phyto-
sanitary program. Push forward to free Colombia from the foot and
mouth disease.
8.
Put focus on new projects of irrigation and draining infrastructure for
the country in the light of the needs of the agricultural and husbandry
sector, by stimulating the private sector to invest in the construction of
irrigation facilities.
9.
Increase the area given to goods submitted to extinction of domain by
DNE, since their expropriation, to professional peasants and agricultural
technicians.
10.
Prioritize rural health, by encouraging municipalities to implement mobile
health units and the EPS in order to have more alternatives available to
render effective service.
11.
Widen the education coverage and improve the quality of the education
in rural areas.
International trade and integration
1. Promote the change in the objectives of CAN in order for it to function
as a regional market with a true free trade zone.
2.
Deepen trade and cooperation agreements with Mercosur.
3. Make free trade agreements (TLC) with Central American countries
(Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala), Canada and the European Union.
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78
4. Become a full edged member of the Panama Plan Puebla instead of
observer.
5.
Promote economic cooperation with China and Japan. Stimulate commercial
and cultural closeness with other Asian countries and markets.
6.
Consolidate the Foreign Trade Single Counter.
7. Strengthen human resources as a competition tool through training in
foreign trade, agricultural and industrial production.
Infrastructure: transportation
1. Progress in construction and maintenance of the great route corridors.
2. Promote associations among territorial entities to invest in tertiary
routes.
3.
Conclude 8 projects of Integrated Systems of Mass Transportation for
16 cities.
4.
Realize the integral development of port infrastructure, especially those
of Santa Marta and Buenaventura. Promote the development of a deep-
water port on the Pacic coast.
5.
Rescue strategic railway corridors to move production to the main ports.
6. Follow up the growth of river transportation on the Magdalena and Meta
rivers.
7.
Ensure modernization of the main airports in the country.
8. Construction of protection for La Mojana del Rio Cauca and the lower
Magdalena.
Telecommunications and informatics
1. Strengthen the development of industries that lean on the informatics and
telecommunications infrastructure and on the professional capabilities of
human talent.
2.
Establish the program Colombi@ Puerto de la Información (Colombi@
Information Port) in order for the country to become a leader in the
attraction of companies devoted to the Spanish-speaking market through
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
79
the connection with the submarine cables of both oceans and the
development of TIC industries.
3.
Every Colombian shall have access to the Information Society either
directly or through centers of community access:
• Count
on 10.000 centers with at least 200.000 computers connected to
wide band Internet;
• Car
ry out a massive informatics literacy and training plan, entrusted to
Sena and the Ministry of Education, in primary, secondary and technical
education, also for adults and teachers, and
• C
reate a special line of credit of Icetex, buttressed by Findeter, in order
to provide for every college student a private computer and the access
to the inter
net.
4. Eliminate IVA for buyers of low cost computers.
5. Strengthen projects of Connectivity Agenda, especially those related to
the development and effective use of Internet II.
6.
Offer incentives for citizens to use the Internet to follow their dealings
with the State.
7.
Develop a normative and institutional plan to allow for the sustainability
of the universal postal service.
8.
Develop an institutional and normative system that allows the sustainability
of public television, of the national operator and the regional operators.
9.
Put together a National Plan of Telecommunications and Informatics built
under the coordination of the Government with the active participation
of the users, the productive sector, academia and territorial entities.
Energy and mines
1. Promote commercial strengthening in international market of the high
value added mineral products, such as the industry of coal and the
production of oil and its by-products.
2.
Develop an aggressive petroleum policy to add 1.500 million barrels to
the reserves before 2010 with high incentives and participation of private
capital and Ecopetrol.
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80
3. Establish an adequate framework to exploit all mineral elds.
4. Strengthen the development of the natural gas market by linking 300.000
new users.
5.
Improve the interconnection of the natural gas infrasctructure by seeking
optimal regionalization, nationally and internationally. Stimulate the
construction of the Colombian-Venezuelan gasoduct.
6.
The expected coverage of electricity is expected to reach 95% by 2010.
Recuperate electric plants so that there are proprietors who generate value
with quality services and universal coverage.
7.
Increase the energy transmission capacity to neighboring countries giving
priority to future interconnection with Ecuador and Panama.
8.
Implement 5 new projects of construction of hidro-electric plants in
Guapi, Mitú, Araracuara, Juradó, Unguía, Niquí and La Chorrera.
9.
Make use of the advantages of TLC (zero tariff) for mass production and
export of biofuels in free trade zones.
10.
To increase production from 550.000 liters of fuel alcohol daily to
3.500.000 liters daily in 2010.
Social and redistribution policy
1. Increase to 1.5 million the beneciaries of the Famílias en Acción (Families
in Action) program.
2.
Harden penal legislation dealing with crimes against family and children.
3. Establish a compulsory social service as a graduation requirement for
some professions whose target are children under 5 years of age.
4.
Widen nutrition programs to the whole child population under 5 years
of age of Sisben I and II.
5.
Increase to 180 per year the number of days of operation of the school
restaurants.
6.
Set in motion full health coverage for the families of community mothers.
7. Widen basic coverage to 900.000 vulnerable seniors.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
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8. Increase the percentage of working people covered by social security, in
the formal, informal and independent sectors.
9.
Guarantee universal health coverage for the populations of Sisben I, II
and III.
10.
Create special hospital zones with a view to strengthening the rendering
of health services and stimulate medical tourism.
11.
Improve the efciency and transparence in the health sector:
• b
y consolidating the Unied System of Social security Information;
• b
y redesigning the Superintendency of Health;
• b
y concentrating the auditing of all resources of social security in a
Unied Entity of Social Security revenues;
• b
y maintaining the policy of corruption-free public hospitals, without
politicking and union excesses, so that they serve the community, and
• b
y controlling the evasion and fraud in the payment of contributions
to social security and similar entitites.
12.
Speeding up the processes of acknowledgement and transparency of the
management of pension funds by merging public banks charged with
their administration and creating an elite decongestion group.
13.
Widen coverage increasing to 100.000 the number of enterprises afliated
to professional risk.
14.
In the development of the Second Sena Revolution, promote efcient
articulation between the offer and demand of labor:
• b
y strengthening the system of employment information;
• b
y making further efforts to make training pertinent;
• b
y seeking to ensure access to credit for Sena graduates, and
• b
y strengthening the National System of Labor Training in order to
certify all technical and technological institutions to gain access to the
resources of Sena for training.
15.
Making a great social pact so that workers with permanent jobs receive
open-ended contracts.
Colombia: challenges until 2010
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16. Promote Territorial and sectorial Empolyment Pacts.
17. Ensure positive real salaries.
Education
1. Strengthen the training process of human capital through the articulation
of educational levels based on competence, training programs and
preparation for basic education.
2.
The Educational Revolution shall deepen scientic and technological
knowledge and massive use of information and communication
technologies for teaching, learning and development of creativity.
3.
Support improvement of the competence of teachers and students as
central actors in the construction of a society based on knowledge.
4.
Universal coverage for basic education in the third year of government.
Reduce the desertion rate in higher education to 40% by class and the
inter-annual rate by 8.4%.
5.
Increase the Icetex portfolio to a minimum of 2 billion to nance access to
higher education, seeking to include besides registration also maintenance
for the strata I and II.
6.
Finance housing for professionals with doctor or master degrees through
30-year credits with FNA resources.
7.
Organize the education system so that B.A. holders get basic knowledge
of English as a second language.
8.
Increase the offer of higher education programs in the regions of the
country through virtual programs.
9.
Generate more incentives for teachers:
• b
y rewarding performance;
• b
y ensuring fair work conditions for teachers hired by agencies that
render services to the State;
• b
y updating the lists of personnel to improve their income, and
• b
y giving access to housing credit through the National Savings Fund.
10. Improve infrastructure and resources for public education.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
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11. Consolidate decentralization, granting more autonomy to educational
institutions and strengthening institutionally the Education Secretariats.
12.
Carrying out the “Second Sena Revolution” by promoting efcient
articulation between offer and demand for training:
• stim
ulate massively “technical training with diploma”;
• allo
w exibility between medium level technical, higher technological
and professional levels;
• S
trengthen national training programs for labor with a view to certifying
technical and technological institutions so that they may accede to Sena
resources, and
• S
trengthen Sena training for reinserted people and people with
disabilities.
Knowledge for development
1. Promote scientic and technological development as well as innovation as
pillars for the insertion of Colombia in the knowledge society and allows
the generation of sustainable, productive social development.
2.
Reach a total investment of 1% of the GDP for 2010, at least half from
private sources.
3.
Push forward knowledge-intensive sectors that contribute to productive
development.
4.
Articulate science, technology and innovation policies with higher
education policies.
5.
Increase doctorates and masters degrees in research through repayable
credit.
6.
Stimulate Colombian brains abroad to start businesses in the country to
support higher education and enterprises.
7.
Keep the ag program of creation and consolidation of Centers of
Research Excellence to end up by nancing 12 centers in 2010.
8.
Encourage scientic and technological parks as articulators of actors in
scientic, technological and innovative development.
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84
9. Promote professionals with doctorates to participate in the productive
sector and push forward research and development projects.
10. Double resources from the credit line Bancoldex-Colciencias to stimulate
entrepreneurial innovation.
11.
Deepen Scientic Diplomacy to promote scientic and technological
cooperation in the international cooperation agendas.
Housing, public utilities and the environment
1. Increase the lower end of the budget for social housing from $150.000
to $350.000 million.
2. Increase the mechanisms of the Banco de Materiales for improvement and
construction of popular housing for the masses. The municipalities shall
contribute by making available plots with public utilities and the Cajas de
Compensación Familiar shall supervise the project.
3.
To mothers who are heads of the household beneciaries of the Banco
de Materiales a minimum wage will be granted for 2 months in order to
permit them to devote themselves to improving their home.
4.
Consolidate the system of granting of subsidies through the Cajas de
Compensación Familiar, which must follow up and intervene strictly in
urban and rural housing.
5.
Push forward the legalization of titles to benet properties of poor and
good faith people.
6.
Grant title to housing of social interest built on property of the nation
or the territorial entities.
7.
Democratize property and stimulate community micro business in the
water supply, sewer and sanitation services.
8.
Promote a new water culture to reach an integrated management of hydro
resources according to the different thermal levels, regions and ecosystems
in Colombia.
9.
Create a system of accreditation that ensures the quality of water supply,
sewer and sanitation.
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Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
85
10. Manage efciently solid and liquid waste by declaring of public utility
areas that may become regional waste deposits.
11.
Stimulate the ght against desertication and drought according to the
lines of PAN (National Action Plan).
12.
Defend the biological and ecological heritage of Colombia. This entails:
• S
trengthen the system of protected areas, especially regarding scientic,
operational and institutional consolidation of the System of National
Natural Parks;
• S
upport the Network of Civil Society reserves and other similar
organizations and encourage private efforts aimed at preserving natural
vegetation;
• Establish
a national program of preservation of endangered species
and support current projects;
• Impro
ve the control of natural wooded areas, and
• Strengthen
incentives for conservation of forests and the planting of
new forests.
13.
Exercise strict control over the illegal national and international trade on
species of plants and animals native of Colombia and the introduction of
exotic species in the country, especially those that are potentially invaders.
Culture and sports
1. See to the enactment of the Patrimonial Act and the Underwater
Patrimonial Act.
2.
Follow through with the National Library Plan with a view to creating or
strengthening one public library in each Colombian municipality.
3.
Push forward the National Music Plan to make musical instruments
available to 260 municipal bands in the country.
4.
Complete the recuperation of 38 historical centers. Consolidate the project
of enlargement of the National Museum and restoration of the Cristobal
Colón Theater.
5.
Widen the program of scholarships and artistic residence abroad.
Colombia: challenges until 2010
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
86
6. Afliate 10.000 artists and culture workers to the social security system.
7. Consolidate Señal Colombia as an educational and cultural TV channel.
8.
Build storage places for the preservation of the lm patrimony.
9. See to the enactment of the Convention for the protection and promotion
of the diversity of cultural expressions.
10.
More people practicing sports, more people with access to recreation and
physical education, more opportunities through the development of the
public infrastructure.
11.
More physically active people, a physically t population and a Colombia
with physical culture.
12.
Better preparation and achievements for high performance sportsmen and
women in events of the Olympic cycle with economic, social and cultural
benet.
13.
Organize national and international events on sports and leisure with
social, economic and cultural benets.
14.
Improve the sports infrastructure of San Andrés and Cali, which will
house the next National Games.
Efciency and transparency of the State
1. Promote the participation of the citizenry as a tool in the ght against
corruption by stimulating tips through rewards, “visible contractors”,
“visible auditors”, for privileges and the “Subsidy Window”.
2.
Focus the ght against corruption on four key sectors: Health, Pensions,
Privileges and Public Works.
3.
Push forward a legislative agenda to implement the International
Conventions of Fight Against Corruption.
4.
Establish a system of internal follow-up (Control Agencies, Public Attorneys
and Government) so that the territorial entities account for the resources
granted to them.
5.
Reform Law 80 and adoption of good governance practices to prevent
arbitrary contracting, eliminate bureaucracy and promote hiring small and
medium businesses.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
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87
6. Organize the priority entities in the plans of government which require
deep institutional change.
7.
Strengthen management aimed at results as a managerial instrument by
promoting the evaluation of some national and territorial programs.
8.
Sharpen the system of evaluation of performance and pay of public
servants, revise wage curves and make possible variable compensation
according to performance.
9.
Progress in administrative careers for temporary employees, replacing
examinations with experience and establishing a special career system for
civil servants of the Ministry of Defense, its decentralized agencies, the
Armed Forces and the Police who are not in uniform.
10.
Adopt a system of transfers for full health and education coverage.
11. Deepen associative decentralization.
12. Push forward the enactment of a law to modernize territorial taxes.
DEP
Translation: Sérgio Duarte
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
88
A plan for Ecuador
Rafael Correa Delgado*
W
hen one speaks in abstract terms about Peace, Justice and Equanimity,
the discourse tends to become blurred by rhetoric or insubstantial lyricism. In
order that thought, word and action become links in the chain of a conduct, of
ethical behavior, there must be a humanist category, more than a consequence,
since there are ideologies, policies, practices and doctrines that cannot be changed;
but war and hatred can and must be eradicated from the face of the Earth.
History records postures like those of Jesus Christ, Ghandi, Mandela
or Luther King to face the dark pyrotechnics of armed conict. They placed
their wagers on love, daring contemplation and utopia.
Our fatherland rises today rebellious and optimistic. One must stress its
pacist inclination throughout its history, for despite having suffered aggression
in the past, it has never invoked war as a solution to conicts. Accordingly, in
presenting today (April 24, 2007) “Plan Ecuador” we bring forth our vision
of present and future and not a catalogue of past resentments.
We have proclaimed the right of peoples to self determination, as stated
in the Charter of the United Nations; we have placed in our hearts and in
the horizon of America and the Universe our right and duty to defend our
sovereignty; we have decided never to militarize our external policy and we
have defended our right to peace.
* Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador.
Rafael Correa Delgado
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
89
Because of all that, supported by justice and by our resolve and
patriotism, we propose today “Plan Ecuador” before the world, a State policy
for the Northern boundary that conceives human security as the result of
peace and development; an equitable and solidary international relations policy
and a defense policy based on the protection of the population and of the
resources belonging to its patrimony together with an effective control of the
national territory.
“Plan Ecuador” is guided by three principles:
• t
he universal principles of peace and cooperation as a system of
coexistence among States;
• r
epudiation of aggression, non–intervention in internal affairs of
other States and sovereign equality in its relationship with neighboring
States, and
• cooperation
and co–responsibility among the different institutions
of the Ecuadorian States with wide participation by the citizenry.
The Plan envisages the strengthening of the economy of border regions,
encouraging their social development and improving the standards of living
of our countrymen and women.
The elementary principle of non–intervention prevents an academic,
social or historical analysis of regional or universal conicts, although a briey
reection on the current suffering of the Colombian people is in order. We
witness this situation because of our territorial and historic neighborhood.
Our memory is full of episodes through which we have known and
admired the brotherhood between two peoples with a common origin: Ecuador
and Colombia.
Eugenio Espejo and Antonio Nariño have shared their talent and republican
ardor, and also, with Miranda, their role as precursors of independence.
Bolívar’s hand took us to freedom; we are heirs of Sucre’s temperament;
the Colombian battalions that fought for our liberty left the imprint of their
heroism on the Ecuadorian soul.
Almost forgotten by ofcial history are the names of Colombian ghters
who participated in the 1895 Revolution under general Eloy Alfaro: colonel
Carlos de Janón Gutiérrez and major José Manuel López Arbeláez, among
* Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador.
info@rafaelcorrea.com
A plan for Ecuador
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
90
other internationalists. And José Maria Vargas Vila, also a Colombian, was
Alfaro’s passionate defender after Hoguera Bárbara.
The reason for this brief summary of brotherhood is the fact that Ecuador
has been a historic ally of Colombia in the conquest of independence and in
the strengthening of both countries’ respective sovereignties. Today, when the
Colombian conict reverberates beyond its borders, it is necessary to mention
in the context of “Plan Ecuador – a project that transcends specic situations
and circumstances – also certain effects deriving precisely from that conict:
1. The risk that groups and organizations devoted to illegal activities enter
the Ecuadorean territory, cause damages to persons or to public or private
property, jeopardize internal stability and distort the bilateral relationship;
2. The permanent increase of displaced persons and refugees from Colombia
into our three border provinces, Esmeraldas, Carchi and Sucumbius, and its obvious
inuence on others, such as Imbabura, Pichincha and Orellana. The exodus
resulting from violence in Colombia causes humanitarian problems and their public
expressions such as access to health, education, food and protection;
3. The increase in the movements of persons and the growth of poverty,
which generate new forms of crime and violence, and
4. The harmful, unhealthy impact of aerial sprinklings of glifosate on
the environment in border zones.
We have stated on several occasions that human rights can be interpreted
in different ways according to one’s political bias, and may have many
ideological or geopolitical slants.
In April last year, the report of the Head of the Ofce of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (ACNUR) for America,
Philippe Lavanchy, mentioned precisely a kind of categorization of conicts,
as well as of displaced persons and refugees, chiey when the incidence or
original populations is greater.
One of the problems is that donors of nancial resources also act in
accordance with geopolitical priorities, because our region is not located in the
center of the concerns of the international community. The conict is said to have
lasted for over 40 years and its impact has waned, meaning that since people have
become used to it, there is greater lack of sensitivity toward this problem.
Rafael Correa Delgado
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But the question is not one of news, current events, scandal: we are
speaking of suffering human beings whom certain war plans are determined
to ignore.
This conict, which we have never sought and in which we have not
intervened, erupted for us in the Northern provinces, in the Amazon region,
in Esmeraldas. Maybe this historic situation was scarcely noticed because of
the indifference of rulers who chose to keep silent and submit to other plans
instead of caring for our own people.
There is no reason, therefore, to forget the nature of this war that we did
not deserve to inherit. It is not a self contained conict, protected by borders
and high walls: it is the agony of peoples that ll with anguish, uncertainty and
violence their neighbors and brethren. In the urgent search for peace we must
discover and expose those who benet from the suffering of others.
Objectives of “Plan Ecuador”
The main objective of the Plan is to bring forward an integrated process
of peace, development and security, focused on the human being, for which
the participation of the citizens is indispensable in order to establish the
peaceful coexistence of the population settled at the border region, generating
communications networks that afrm the presence of the State and the social
fabric capable of preventing conicts, in absolute respect of human rights.
“Plan Ecuador” reconciles different State institutions. The conict
should not be exclusively centered on the ministries of Defense, Government
or External Relations, so that actions may focus on gender equality, on the
strengthening of the participation of citizens and nally on the consolidation
of the bi–national relationship between Ecuador and Colombia.
Plan Ecuador counters war with peace, violence with justice. For this it
is imperative that Parochial Boards, provincial and municipal governments,
non–governmental organizations and obviously the institutions of the State
work together to create networks of civic coordination.
The Plan shall provide a policy of employment and productive
reactivation in activities like crafts, sheries, farmers, sustainable tourism and
transportation. To say “the Fatherland belongs to everyone” is not a slogan;
A plan for Ecuador
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92
it is the symbol of a new Ecuador, where not only the wealth is shared, but
also the decisions.
Micro–credit lines, qualication, support to small and medium–sized
units that generate production chains, low interest credit, legal consolidation,
improvement in the basic social infrastructure, sustainable management of
natural resources, promotion of environmental projects, administration of
justice and control of unlawful acts; this huge responsibility does not fall
exclusively to a President, to a Cabinet or to a government, but to the people
as a whole, who must be, as they have been until today, permanently vigilant
in order not to permit that its achievements are taken away.
Obviously, “Plan Ecuador” intends to reach the international community,
since Ecuador had turned its back, perhaps intending to live away from it.
In order to raise one’s head to contemplate the future it is necessary to
clear one’s sight, and Plan Ecuador is the expression of our wager before the
international community that is present today in the Diplomatic Corps and
special guests: a new, self–reliant, sovereign and generous Ecuador.
Generous must we be, because in international politics to be generous
is to be human. When we think of the Colombian refugees we also recall the
Ecuadorians who left the country because of poverty, lack of employment
and opportunities or faith in the future. Just like the refugees and displaced
Colombians, these Ecuadorians have left everything behind: their memories,
their ag, the winds of their people. They left behind their families, their loves,
their children, their songs.
The displaced Colombians cannot turn back to look, not for fear of being
changed into salt statues, but for knowing that if they do they shall forever
become a forgotten tomb, a lost memory. For this reason, and not in search
of rewards, Ecuador also protects the displaced Colombians. Because we see
ourselves in their mirror of suffering, we cannot have the double standard of
demanding fair treatment to our compatriots and at the same time forgetting
refugees from other peoples. We believe that there are no illegal human beings,
only illegal, unhealthy and violent practices.
For a long time we have argued in favor of free transit for persons, but
we have routinely faced the immoral decision of neoliberals who only care for
the free transit of capital and for free trade treaties, relegating the human being
Rafael Correa Delgado
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
93
to the last rung in the social scale; men and women to whom all is forbidden,
especially when they are poor.
“Plan Ecuador” has 135 million dollars to nance these security projects
in the border regions and we hope soon to double that amount with the
support of the international community. The coordination of “Plan Ecuador”
is entrusted to the Ministry for Coordination of Internal and External
Security with the direct participation of the ministries of External Relations,
Defense and Government, plus the Vice–Presidency of the Republic through
the Northern Development Unit, UDENOR. This unit has participated
permanently in the elaboration of the Plan. Such interdisciplinary endeavor
is devoted to peace, not as a myth or utopia, but as our people’s greatest
requirement. For this reason the Ecuadorian government, recalling its heroes
and its legacy, has activated UNASUR, the desired Union of South American
Nations with common origin and destiny.
Let us recall the images of war, of orphaned children, the photographs of
human misery. “Plan Ecuador” stands against the vultures of war; against arms
trafckers; against those who during their accursed wars speak of freedom;
against mercenaries and tyrants.
“Plan Ecuador” supports peace and the right to equality and fraternity.
It favors women and their right to their own life and that of their children; it
favors education, wages, employment. It favors the elds cultivated by farmers
in the border regions; it favors craftsmen and their fabrics made of stars.
“Plan Ecuador” wishes to proclaim that peace has exploded in El Chical,
Maldonado, Tobar Donoso, El Carmelo, Tuño; “Plan Ecuador” shall infuse
new hope at Cascales, Cuyabueno, Shushundi, Lago Agrio, Gonzalo Pizarro,
Putumayo and Sucumbios; “Plan Ecuador” wants to hear marimbas and cununos
at Esmeraldas, instead of bullets and hand grenades.
Ecuador puts up this beacon of hope in opposition to war; it makes an
offer of peace in place of bones and plunder.
The Ecuadorian government shall follow the path of peace, solidarity
and justice.
DEP
Translation: Sérgio Duarte
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
94
Cultural identity &
creolization in Guyana
Prem Misir*
T
he world has become more ethnically diverse. And ethnic nationalism is
in vogue for those countries with a traditional multiethnic framework. National
unity, unquestionably, if only to rid society of ethnic dominance, has to be a
strategic, mandatory, and premium goal for all developing multiethnic societies;
a national unity eliciting inputs from minority cultures.
The notion of societies miniaturizing minority cultures, making them
subordinate to a single dominant cultural identity really is not the way to
go in search of national unity. A national and regional unity, a product of
one dominant identity, where minority cultures have no inputs, is false; and
absorption of minority cultures into a dominant culture would produce a
cultural loss to each minority group.
In the grand design of slavery in the Caribbean, White planters separated
African slaves of similar tribal and linguistic groups, a plot to guarantee
the demise of African cultural traditions. And through total acculturation,
Africans lost most of their African heritage to take on a creolised variant of
European culture. This absorption process really is cultural assimilation at
* Pro-Chancellor at the University of Guyana.
ug_consec@telsnetgy.net
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
95
work where a minority group, either through force or voluntarily, surrenders
its cultural tradition to become enveloped into a different and invariably
dominant culture. Assimilation, especially forced, creates and strengthens
ethnic dominance.
The Caribbean is a picture of ethnic diversity, ranging from the European
variants – Hispanic, Anglo-Saxon, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Africans, the
Indians from India, Amerindians, Chinese, Javanese, Syrian, Lebanese, Jews,
Mestizos and Mulattoes. The Creole culture today, the dominant cultural force,
is commonly presented as the source of Caribbean identity; ethnic diversity
allocated minimum primacy in the search for a Caribbean identity.
Caribbean identity is difcult to understand and to develop a sociological
imagination, past, present, or future, without applying race, ethnicity, class, and
gender as major descriptive and analytical categories. These categories depicting
the individual’s social world provide a microcosmic sense of the society’s
institutions. Does a particular race, ethnicity, class, or gender dominate these
institutions? Does a particular type of cultural identity impact the functioning
of these institutions? Do some groups’ perceptions indicate an exclusion of
cultural identity in the shaping of these institutions? The book (“Cultural
Identity and Creolization in National Unity: The Multiethnic Caribbean,”
2006) here annalysed, attempts to provide some response to these questions
through examining the cultural dominance of Creolization, a creolised variant
of European culture.
Professor Norman Girvan notes that “The reality is diversity, and surely
this is to be welcomed, indeed celebrated. It would be a boring Caribbean
indeed if we were all the same. For the same reason I believe it is mistaken to
think of creating a specic Caribbean identity by means of something called
“cultural integration.” Indeed it might even be dangerous, for this lofty ideal
begs the question of integration into what, on whose terms, and who will
be the arbiter of what constitutes the integral Caribbean culture. Would it
not be far more sensible to speak of cultural understanding, interaction and
exchange; of mutual respect for, and tolerance of, cultural differences; and
of the practice of cultural compromise and consensus?”
1
Girvan explains
that there is a current conversation that sees Creolization as the source of
1
Girvan, N. Cooperation in the Greater Caribbean. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publication, 2006.
Prem Misir
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
96
Caribbean identity. Creolization, according to Girvan, is perceived as involving
the melding of other ethnic identities into the Creole culture. Therein lies the
problem with the Creole Caribbean identity, an identity with groundings in
cultural integration and cultural loss. Indeed, cultural loss creates disadvantage
for those who do not control the levers of political and economic power; those
with little leverage have limited access to the society’s rewards.
Clearly, the dominant Creolization framework endangers national unity,
good governance, and political stability. In the Caribbean, Africans inhabit the
Eurocentric-rooted Creolization and Indians the Indian culture; Indians are not
located on the same cultural continuum as Africans and Whites. The dominance
of Creolization, a colonial legacy ignores the Caribbean multiethnic mosaic;
and Creolization is not the same in each Caribbean society. However, there is
need to acknowledge the presence of other cultures in addition to Creolization,
to create a framework for mutual cultural appreciation and institutionalization
of all cultures in the pursuit of national unity.
According to Paulo Freire
2
, minority ethnic groups are not living ‘outside’
the society. These groups have always been ‘inside’, that is, inside a dominant
structure that may have made them ‘beings for others’. Given a great mosaic of
Caribbean cultures, the way forward is not to integrate minority cultures into
a structure of domination, but to transform that structure, so that minorities
will become ‘beings for themselves’. The alternative is cultural integration,
cultural loss, and ethnic dominance, inimical to national unity; indeed a
‘coming together’ lacking in the Caribbean today. Ethnic dominance ignores
and manipulates minority identities to camouage a fundamental unity of
interests of both Indians and Africans in the Caribbean. Understanding this
fundamental unity of interests will facilitate multicultural policies, programs,
and projects in the pursuit of national unity.
Through a series of readings, this book makes the point that ethnic
dominance applied through Creolization is antithetical and challenging to
nation building; producing and reproducing itself through competition for
national space, cultural integration, ranking, working-class fragmentation,
politicization of ethno-cultural categorization, racialization of consciousness,
cultural imperialism, the ‘political’ race card, and ethnic dominance.
2
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. NY: The Continuum Publishing Corporation, 1977.
Cultural identity & creolization in Guyana
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Figure 1
Barriers to national and regional unity
The ow diagram in Figure 1 demonstrates how the readings are
connected. The diagram tells the story of the multiethnic Caribbean where
the barriers theoretically produce and reproduce Creolization to inhibit the
growth of national and regional unity.
Creolization as a social practice is produced and reproduced; and the
theory of structuration
3
explains this process. Structuration determines the
conditions impacting the continuity and dissolution of structures. Structuration
has three components: structure, system, and the duality of structure, as
propounded by Giddens
4
. Structure refers to rules and resources; system
denotes reproduced relations between people or collectivities, organized as
recurrent social practices; and the duality of structure means that people
and/or collectivities create the structures and simultaneously these structures
are the medium and outcome of this creation.
3
Giddens, A. New Rules of Sociological Method. London: Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd., 1976, 1977.
4
Ibid.
Prem Misir
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
98
Table 1
Duality of structure in social interaction
Meanings Power Norms
Interaction Communication Power Sanction
(Modality) Interpretative scheme Facility Norm
Structure Signication Domination Legitimation
Source: Giddens, A. New Rules of Sociological Method. London: Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd.,
1976, 1977.
In Table 1, the top row classies interaction; the bottom row classies
structure; and the ‘modalities’ represent the middle ground between structure
and interaction.
Table 1 shows how Creolization is produced and reproduced. In the
second column, the communication of meaning involves the use of symbols
through which people understand what each does and says; the use of these
symbols depends and draws from the Creole culture; but while drawing from
this Creole culture, the symbols recreate that culture; the symbols are the
means through which Creole culture is reconstituted. Likewise, the power of
Creolization to dominate involves some control over resources; the capacity
to dominate depends and draws from institutions shaped by Creolization; but
while drawing from these institutions, the control over resources recreates those
institutions; control over resources is the means through which the Creole
institutions are reproduced. Again, the ethical constitution of Creolization
contains rules which emanate from some moral order; but while drawing from
this moral order, the rules recreate that order; these rules are the means through
which the Creole moral order is reproduced. Clearly, through the duality of
structure, people apply Creole symbols, use Creole institutions, and Creole
morality to produce and reproduce Creolization. In a macro sense, it is the
European-African cultural continuum that creates and recreates Creolization;
but not all Caribbean people subscribe to Creolization.
In Chapter 1, Brinsley Samaroo shows that Indian culture is part of
Caribbean identity inasmuch as Creolization is. Samaroo demonstrates an
enduring India-Indian Diaspora connection, the reality of Indian cultural
persistence in the Caribbean. He notes that the consistent practice of Caribbean
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Indians’ sustained communication with India and Pakistan from the late 19
th
century to the current period. Persisting Diaspora links have transformed these
initial contacts into political bonds between Diaspora Indians and the ancestral
land. The persisting India-Indian Diaspora connection emerged, too, with strong
roots through the indomitable spirit and work of the Indian National Congress;
displaying considerable concerns for and relating to the disquiet of the Indian
Diaspora, championing the land rights of Indians in South Africa and Kenya,
and the Caribbean Indians’ right to vote and for greater participation in the
public service during indentureship. Samaroo notes, too, the possible benets
India stands to derive from fostering links with the Indian Diaspora in the post-
Independence period; the substantial overseas Indian community can be both a
source for investment and a ready-made market for India’s products; overseas
Indians, a good number in inuential positions, can be unofcial ambassadors
for India representing India’s concerns at world fora. India is now in the
Caribbean, with extended linkages to other parts of the Indian Diaspora.
Percy Hintzen in Chapter 2 reinforces the argument that the minority
status of Indian and other cultures attributable to Creolization retards
Caribbean unity. Hintzen argues that Caribbean identity is located along
a continuum, ‘pure’ European at one end, and ‘pure’ African at the other
end, that is Europe at one pole and Africa at the other. However, Caribbean
‘oneness’ is still elusive, notwithstanding the universality of Creole identity;
Caribbean ‘oneness’ is fragile largely due to historical differences shaping
different constructions of Creole culture in different territories; new diasporic
communities, such as Indians, are outside of the European-African continuum;
and White Creoles vary in number and signicance across the Caribbean.
The new diasporic communities with origins outside of Africa and Europe
are outside of Creole society; specically, a dialectic is created as the major
Creole institutions impinge on the Indian social world; a dialectic manifestation
where Indians comply with the Creole rule of law and simultaneously strive
for cultural purity. Caribbean Indians aggressively compete for inclusion in
the nationalist space through resisting Creolization; an attempt to legitimize
their inclusion in a redemptive counter-discourse to Afro-Creole nationalism.
Hintzen notes that representations of cultural purity particularly in the
case of Indians have won through amid the presence of hybridity. But the
consequences of this triumph have produced debilitating dilemmas: notions of
White purity continue to bolster globalized dependency; Creolization continues
Prem Misir
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100
to conceal the prevalence of domestic racial capitalism. The answer to these
dilemmas is to replace Créolité.
In Chapter 3, Verene Shepherd deliberates on the possibilities of
integrating Indian culture via Coolitude into Creole culture. Shepherd presents
Coolitude as an ethnic identity theory. And indeed to see whether Coolitude can
make Creolization inclusionary, incorporating other ethnic identities, including
Indian culture. Shepherd’s paper exposes existing difculties to insert Indian
culture into a culture that is substantially Euro-African. She believes that
cultural integration has begun, but not yet complete, even in those countries like
Jamaica with a small Indian population. Shepherd concluded that no idealized
fusion exists among Indian, African, and European cultures. Coolitude seeks
cultural integration, not workable in developing a Caribbean identity from a
differentiated whole; all cultures need a space of their own.
Patricia Mohammed in Chapter 4 dismisses cultural integration.
Mohammed shows that Indians in Trinidad view Creolization as an indication
of cultural loss. In the pre-Independence period, Indians saw Creolization as
being similar to Afro-culture. She referred to this process as ‘acculturation’. This
is a process whereby one ethnic group adopts the cultural traits and practices
of another’s. However, in the post-Independence era, Indian discomfort with
Creolization still is a factor in the psyche of Trinidadians, a rejection of cultural
integration, a rejection of cultural loss.
Walter Rodney acknowledges the concept of cultural differentiation in
Guyana (formerly British Guiana) in Chapter 5. Rodney shows that race in
19
th
century British Guiana was always a factor in the differentiation between
Creoles and immigrants. Indians and Africans brought large cultural legacies
from their respective countries of origin. The Creole culture eventually became
a barrier to sustaining Indian culture. And Rodney noted that Indian and
African culture also included their work environment where Creole culture
was the dominant force. However, planters of the 19th century manipulated
the work environment to control the masses, a strategy for fragmenting
working-class unity and diluting both Indian and African cultural identities.
Notwithstanding the planters’ strategy of fragmentation and dilution, the case
for racial division is exaggerated. Indian and African cultural legacies still are a
precondition for national unity; a clear case against cultural integration, which
is a manifestation of cultural loss.
Cultural identity & creolization in Guyana
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Cheddi Jagan in Chapter 6 points to the utility value of cultural
differentiation in the pursuit of national unity. Jagan notes that race was never a
serious problem in Guyana. He believed that the problem was one of class. The
early division of labor produced and reproduced racial antagonism and cultural
loss to divide and exploit the working class. In fact, Indians as indentureds were
perceived as outcasts, culturally different, and economically subservient. The
1928-53 period struck a blow to Guyanese unity through the British divide-and-
rule techniques, with accompanying racial alignments and divisions. In the early
1920s, there was no Indian public servant higher than a Third Class Clerkship.
In 1931, Indians only held 8 percent of the public service positions when they
comprised 42 percent of the population. And in the 1960s, Burnham’s defeat at
successive elections produced a greater emphasis on African-raceconsciousness,
a unied African front, with Indians as the common enemy. Clearly, these
descriptions of the facts were acrimonious to promoting cultural identity,
an acrimony not primordial to Indians and Africans but constructed and
manipulated by politicians. Here, too, political institutionalization of each ethnic
group’s culture may dissipate the emotive language of race and race conict
and contribute to national unity. Jagan really advanced the case for apportioning
political space to all cultures in the drive toward national unity.
Vidia Naipaul in Chapter 7 sees cultural imperialism as a serious barrier to
national unity. Naipaul notes that a colonial administrator sees the local people
as having no distinctive qualities, and that all of them can be compartmentalized
into one cultural non-distinguishing brownish mass. Naipaul rejects this
colonialist’s assertion. The European colonialist’s conception of national
unity was the compartmentalization of all the locals into one cultural group,
resocializing them to show deference to Anglo-culture and to subscribe
to American and Anglo-conformity. This colonialist’s thinking and action
amounted to cultural imperialism; with Creolization a manifestation, sustaining
the European-African continuum.
John La Guerre in Chapter 8 explains the changing connection and
conguration between culture and politics in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago,
and Guyana. La Guerre notes the salience of ethnic consciousness among the
groups in these countries. His thesis is that there is a connection with primordial
instincts, but that resort to ethnic appeal and weapons is integral to the political
struggles in these nation states. The political struggles address questions of
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102
identity, but only in the context of seeking political recognition and reward.
La Guerre shows how political parties represent communal interests, creating
the perception that the party occupying the seat of power will exclude those
not afxed to its ethnic interests. But Indian critics argue that former T&T
Prime Minister Basdeo Panday with a majority of Indian support, applied a
policy of appeasement ‘so as not to appear as a Caroni’. Prime Minister Patrick
Manning, however, rejects any policy of appeasement for Indians. La Guerre
concluded that the salience of ethnicity is a manifestation of the condition
of politics in these Caribbean countries.
Prem Misir in Chapter 9 attempts to unravel the encumbrances in the
pursuit of national unity through addressing salient questions: Is Guyana a
deeply divided society? Is ethnic conict primordial? Is class utilized to enhance
an understanding of ethnic conict? Is there ethnic dominance? Is there a
prevalence of ethnic insecurity and mistrust? Do politicians push the race-
ethnic card? Does the history of Guyana show a history of ethnic alliances?
Misir notes that a subdivision of politicians and the private media plus hate
literature power race-ethnic conict and ethnic polarization in Guyana. And
this ethnic conict is dialectically shoved against an underlying fundamental
unity of interests between the Indian and African working class.
Anton Allahar in Chapter 10 notes that a raging debate on how the
Caribbean is dened focuses on the questions pertaining to racial, ethnic,
cultural and national identity, and belonging. The colonizers’ imprint of a
racialization of consciousness persists today, as different groups create and
recreate cultural space for themselves. The common experience of sugar,
slavery, indentureship, exploitation, and dependent capitalism has failed to
produce a common Caribbean identity. Two perspectives in studying the
Caribbean include the plural notion of the Caribbean, and Creolization; both
are limited; both perspectives tend to homogenize the Caribbean as if cultural
differentiation were practically non-existent; the Caribbean is presented as
having a single process, that of Creolization. The level and differentiation
of Creolization varies from one Caribbean society to another. In the post-
colonial era, the legacies of race and stratication have persisted, impacting
Caribbean identity; and indeed, the racial politics of Afrocentrism and
Hindutva further compound the problem of national and regional identity
in the Caribbean.
Cultural identity & creolization in Guyana
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
103
Bhikhu Parekh in Chapter 11 argues for cultural pluralism. Parekh makes
the case for multiculturalism, the conuence of a cultural mosaic, a rejection of
ethnic dominance. He notes that many modern societies are multicultural; and
shows that their cultural diversity emanates from several sources: globalization,
the disintegration of traditional moral consensus, the liberal emphasis on
individual choices, and immigration. Multicultural societies have to seek out
ways of resolving their seemingly conicting demands, as they cannot squelch
diversity nor dispense with unity. Integration is a reciprocal process. It’s hard
for immigrants to integrate in a new society if the other people reject them.
Both groups – immigrants and the host society – would need to extend a hand
to each other and to accept their mutual obligations. New immigrants must
demonstrate commitment to the new society and become culturally competent,
a precondition for relating to the society’s major institutions. The host society,
in their turn, must accept the immigrants as equal and legitimate members
of the society and develop a program of integration, involving eliminating
discrimination and creating equal opportunity, inter-ethnic spaces, inter-cultural
dialog, and multicultural education. Common interests and justice are necessary
but not sufcient to hold a society together; developing emotional bonds also
would assist the process of a national identity.
Prem Misir in Chapter 12 argues against ethnic dominance. Misir makes
the case for institutionalizing multiple cultural identities in the quest for national
unity, in the process an acceptance and inclusion of all cultures; and a rejection
of Creolization as a form of cultural dominance. He notes that cultural
dilution and cultural hegemony are twin evils for inciting ethnic tensions in
any multiethnic society. But people will resist any attempt at weakening their
culture. Misir points out that a dominant ethnic group generally conspires
to reduce the signicance of some cultures, in order to maintain its own
dominance. As a response to this dominance, some ethnic enclaves defend
and preserve their cultures through ‘cleavage’’ type behaviors. Under those
conditions, ethnic dominance retards national unity.
Caribbean Creolization or Creole nationalism has been fashioned
and refashioned for political purposes from the colonizers to modern-day
political power groups. Creolization has produced a cultural identity that is
both pervasive and persuasive. In this sense, the omnipresence and inuence
of Creolization in each Caribbean territory express some form of militant
Prem Misir
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
104
cultural nationalism, excluding and subordinating minority cultures; minorities
whose dress, language, and general appearance were alien to the guardians and
inhabitants of Creole culture; thus a creation of ‘us’ and ‘them’; xenophobia
constructing this differentiation.
Edward Said, referenced through Sen
5
, notes that “In time, culture comes
to be associated, often aggressively, with the nation or state; this differentiates
“us” from “them”’ almost always with some degree of xenophobia. Culture in
this sense is a source of identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in
recent “returns” to culture and tradition. These “returns” accompany rigorous
codes of intellectual and moral behavior that are opposed to the permissiveness
associated with such relatively liberal philosophies as multiculturalism and
hybridity.”
Modern Creole nationalism manufactures and sustains Said’s ‘us’ and
‘them’, presenting an insular culture posing as national and regional culture;
not a national culture as should be practiced, but as it is perceived or imagined;
books, pamphlets, newspapers, lms, etc., articulate the Creole imaginings of
the Caribbean; the sustained dominant Caribbean cultural identity. However,
those excluded from the Creolization continuum generally present different
imaginings to sustain their ‘pure’ identity; creation of a cultural dialectic
between Creole and minority identities. Appadurai
6
sees this changing notion
of culture as: “The modern state in this view, grows less out of natural facts-
such as language, blood, soil and race-but is a quintessential cultural product,
a product of cultural imagination.” Pervasive Creole practices and imaginings,
possibly bigoted at the core, have transformed Creolization into a monolithic
culture; Creolization, the reproducer of dominant cultural norms securing
political agendas and controlling the distribution of society’s rewards.
DEP
5
Sen, Geeti. India: A National Culture? New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, 2003.
6
Appadurai, Arjun. Patriotism and its Futures, Public Culture, 5, No. 3:414, 1993.
Cultural identity & creolization in Guyana
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
105
Paraguay:
State patronage
and clientelism
Milda Rivarola*
O
ne of the ways Latin Americans dene their own countries is by
presenting them as unique. They are different in some specicity, whatever it
is, but the fact is that their country cannot be compared to others. In Paraguay
we have a good excuse to adopt this point of view: we survived a gruesome
war against three neighboring countries in the 19
th
century, we had the
longest dictatorship of the 20
th
century, and to top it off, at the beginning of
a millennium dened by such rapid changes, we are the only country that has
had six decades governed by the same political party, in a democratic transition
with no change in power.
Other interesting phenomena have occurred such as a former general
leader of the coup d’état that became candidate and currently having a former
bishop as President. The sum of these unique aspects added to the general use
of the guaraní language give us the image of pays exotique and we are considered
unpredictable by diplomacy and international mass media. What was it that a
* Member of the Paraguayan Academy of History.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
106
French consul said in his mail from Asunción? “In this country what was incredible
yesterday is a certainty tomorrow”.
I do not intend to continue repeating common knowledge. I would
rather discuss a unique element of the Paraguayan political system that is
arising in other Latin American countries due to growing inequalities and
their own political traditions. I would not like to present you an exceptional
country, but rather a country that shares processes with its region. Since
Paraguayan political clientelism took paradigmatic shapes and extensions
during the transition, its study can illustrate a phenomenon that threatens
Latin American democratic order.
During a quick search through the Internet we will nd studies about
contemporary clientelism in Mexico, Central American countries (Nicaragua,
Guatemala, Costa Rica), in many Andean countries (Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, Chile), and in Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay).
Countries we would not expect to appear in such a list such as Spain and
United States also present these relations in their political life.
Weber in Paraguay
Patron-client relationships with citizens cannot be established by any
State. In fact, in the Welfare State, the active exercise of citizenship makes it
impossible to distribute as favors the rights acknowledged and guaranteed by
these systems, much less request as compensation political party or electoral
loyalties. But a State to which this temptation is permitted still exists.
Max Weber develops the concept of patronage State:
“We speak of a State-patronage organization when those in power organize
political power in the same way as domestic power (…) Mostly, the patronage
power lacks the bureaucratic distinction between the ‘private’ and ‘ofcial’
spheres, since political administration is considered personal for those in power
(…) and, therefore, the way in which power is exercised depends entirely on
their free will, as long as the sanctity of tradition does not impose limits, as
often happens…”
1
1
Max Weber. Economia y Sociedad. Mexico: Economic Culture Fund, 1994, pp. 759 and 774.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
107
Historians specialized in 19
th
century
2
Paraguay dene the State of
Francia and López as patronage States, where the colonial structure was
maintained with minimal republican innovations and the legality of the Spanish
empire was replaced by the ‘revolutionary’ free will of a personal power, with
no Constitution, Parliament or Judiciary. The property of land and industry
in the country, the quasi monopoly of its trade, and the power of extracting
servant labor from the population gave literal characteristic to this denition
of a State that is patron, arbitrary, owner and master of lives and farms.
The liberal order in effect since the post war of the Triple Alliance (1870)
until the Chaco (1936) brought severe limitations to the Paraguayan State
patronage with a constitutional framework, the formation of independent
judges, parliamentary development, and the acknowledgement of a certain
amount of autonomy of society before State. But since the 1940s, with statism
and the personalist nature of nationalist regimes (military and/or colorado), it
returned with new shapes reaching its maximum expression during the stronist
third of the century.
“Under Stroessner’s control, patronage was present in the State’s operation
– undoing the borders between public and private property, presenting
discretionary authority standards, serving as the main path towards wealth
and as a fundamental source of clientelism for the Colorado Party that behaved
as ‘owner’ of the State. Then, as today, the appointments and promotions in
public ofce were based essentially on political loyalty and personal relations,
more than merit”.
3
Clientelism has greater chances of growing where those in power have
effective control of the desired resources and are not constrained by bureaucratic
norms to make personal use of them and when they wish to break apart
(socially disarticulate) the voters.
4
In Paraguay, as in the rest of Latin America,
the State owns companies, has high levels of corruption, and is lacking in
institutions, which favored the expansion of clientelism, with the distribution
of public jobs in a State bureaucracy with low levels of training and wages.
2
Work by Whigham, Jerry Cooney, Barbara Potthast-Jutkeit, etc.
3
WORLD BANK, Paraguay, Social Development Topics to alleviate poverty, Social Analysis of the Country,
Gacitúa Marió, E., Silva-Leander, A. and Carter, M., January 2004. What is underlined is ours.
4
Clapham, Christopher (ed.): Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State.
St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1982.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
108
Many processes that occurred during the democratic transition – initiated
when Stroessner was overthrown, in 1989 – allowed this system to survive.
First, State reform was minimal and privatizations affected few public
companies: airlines, an alcohol corporation, and a steel corporation. Public
employment has had sustained growth in the past seventeen years. During
a prolonged economic crisis (between 1995 and 2002 the GDP dropped an
average of 2.3 annually) and the scal decit, the Paraguayan State continued
maintaining its patronage characteristic.
According to a World Bank report:
“the Paraguayan transition faced two basic challenges. On the one hand (…)
one challenge was to democratize the regime creating the conditions to ensure
adequate political discussion and citizen participation in the elections of the
main governmental authorities. On the other, due to its strong patronage legacy and
the political party appropriation of State, it was necessary to modernize the State
and promote signicant public sector reforms. In general terms, Paraguay has
had modest success in the democratization of its regime, but the attempts of
State level innovation have been relatively inefcient.”
5
Public employment progression, 1989/2005
Source: HDO-UNDP, Paraguay, in Ministry of Finance database, 2006.
5
World Bank, Paraguay, op. cit.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
109
On the other hand, the Colorado Party – the same that restructured
patronage and established clientelist links with the population from mid 20
th
century on – continued governing throughout the entire transition with no
internal pressure to drive it to transform its political practice. Simultaneously,
the growing poverty (1.5 million poor in 1998, and over 2.2 million in 2005
– 38.2% of the population) favored the growth of a clientelist mass, ready
to identify the electoral process with opportunities of obtaining part of the
economic income and basic services urgently needed.
GDP growth rate per capita (in %)
1980/90 1990/2000 2000/05
Paraguay -1.7 0.0 -0.5
Region (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia,
Chile, Py, Uruguay)
-1.2 1.1 0.6
Sources: Fernández and Monge Economic Growth in Paraguay, IDB, Economic and Social Study Series,
May 2004, and ECLAC 2000/5 Statistical Reports.
Some anthropologists explain this relationship between Paraguayan men
and women with political power. Bartomeu Meliá states the “ore mboriahú”
(we are poor) as one of the nuclei of the Paraguayan identity: the community
identies itself in the need for an equitable distribution of resources. But in
fact, what happened was a particular and discriminatory distribution (clientelist
and guided by political parties) of the resources, partially extracting them from
the State organization itself.
“Is it not a historic practice of hunting and gathering that has been
systematically applied in Paraguay for centuries and with greater intensity in
the last years? (…) The entire country has been transformed into a hunting
and gathering ground and the State has the biggest and easiest hunting reserve
to which citizens are forced to give their most necessary resources.”
6
Governments (and consequently, the government’s political party) do not
become legitimate because of their democratic origin or their administrative
efciency, but rather their predisposition in distributing “help” to the poor,
public jobs to the unemployed, land to eld workers, subsidies for industries,
6
Melia, B., El Paraguay inventado, Cepag, Asunción, 1997
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
110
etc. According to Manuela Schmundt, eld workers currently relate to the State,
political parties, and even to NGOs with this “hunting-gathering” logic.
The State organization is the largest eld for the collection of goods
and services, and development projects and electoral processes are seen as
hunting prey.
7
One hunts the animals from a herd knowing that in the future,
following a natural cycle, other animals will appear in the same place. Therefore,
hunting and gathering survive as political logic in the 21
st
century with clearly
predatory traits. According to Meliá:
“In much of its collective imagination, Paraguay has become a hunter-gatherer
(…) it no longer is industrial and is ceasing to be agricultural (…) we are not
even in the most civilized phase of savagery, but rather in a phase prior to
hunting and gathering, precisely in the stickters. They are terrible predators
(…) destroy everything, and do not even eat all that has been hunted (…) this
attitude has gone from [politics] to society (…) we are hunters and gatherers
with no rituals or rules.”
8
Did the military dictatorships give better response to this “redistributing”
collective imagination? Economic interventionism, the accelerated growth of
the State, and the economic peak during the 1970s seem to have t better into
the State’s “helping” function than transition governments, judging by the good
assessment the dictatorship continues receiving from public opinion.
Government qualication by population percentage
Rating Stroessner Rodríguez Wasmosy
Cubas
Grau
González
Macchi
Duarte
Frutos
Terrible or bad 14 22 73 64 71 40
Regular 18 27 13 13 8 24
Good/excellent 64 39 10 11 5 34
Source: A. Vial, Political Opinion and citizen participation Survey, CIRD-USAID, 2005.
Some failures in the functioning of the State pointed out by local and
international organisms – the absence of the power of law, inefciency of civil
service, systemic corruption, etc. – dene the characteristics of patronage. In
7
Oral Source, M. Schmundt, Institut für Etnologie der Universität Bern, 1995 The prey can easily be identied
because it arrives at the community in the “entire eld”.
8
Meliá, Conferencia ante el colectivo Visión Paraguay, UNDP Project -Fundación en Alianza, San Bernardino,
September 2001.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
111
fact, corruption is nothing else but the practical manifestation of the elements
pointed out by Weber: the lack of distinction between public and private and
the discretionary use of power. These are institutional terms that express
the initiation of the predatory hunting logic mentioned by anthropologists.
Assessment of the effort made by your government to ght
corruption by population percentage
Assessment
Very efcient or
efcient
Inefcient or is not
ghting against it
Stimulates
corruption
Argentina 21 60 14
Bolivia 40 46 7
Chile 20 68 8
Paraguay 4 56 40
Source: Transparency International, Global Barometer of Corruption, 2006.
Do ut des
The patronage State maintains clientelist relations that legitimate it
before society. Initially studied in its contemporary format in the southern
Italy, Asian and Central American societies, clientelism is dened by a social
exchange relation of instrumental characteristic where:
“an individual with higher socio-economic status (patron) uses their own
inuence and resources to provide protection or benets or both to someone
of lesser status (client), who in return offers the patron general support and
assistance, including through personal services”.
9
Brought from the old world of landowners and tenant farmers to
contemporary politics, clientelism articulates itself over the hierarchical
differences of the players involved, specicities, weak legal framework, and
institutional instability. Loyalties are not born out of respect for the qualities
of those in power nor trust in their governing capacity, but rather out of
material incentives. The exchange ow follows the principal of reciprocity
amongst the unequal: the “patron” (caudillo politicians) delivers goods and
services requiring votes and loyalty as a counterpart from their clientele.
9
J. Scott, “Patron-Client politics and political change in Southeast Asia”, quoted by J. Auyero, La doble vida del
clientelismo político, en Sociedad Nº 8, Bs. As, April 1996.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
112
It is a relation between individuals (taking place between two people
or little more), which is quite different from the one maintained by the State
bureaucracy with collective or social groups. Collective interests and citizen
demands for rights (of a general, legal and stable nature) are disarticulated
since this is the myriad of relations that supply employment, money or social
services, informally, in the format of favors.
Clientelism is fed “from the top” by corruption, since funds, goods, and
services shared during electoral campaigns come from private businesspeople
(soon receiving privileges during tender bidding processes, tax exemptions, etc.,
by “their” elected politicians) through political party undisclosed accounting
(trafc of inuence, illegal collection from ministry and other entity employees)
or with sinecurist jobs in the State organization.
These practices, an exception in democratic systems, are present in a
proportion that includes three fths of the poor voters in Paraguay (eld
workers or those living in urban outskirts) or one third of total voters. During
a survey made amongst public service users, 27% of the people admitted to
receiving material incentives in exchange for their vote
10
, and according to
another study, 32.5% of the voters were taken to vote by political operators
during municipal elections in 2001.
11
Regional comparative sources agree on this proportion of votes that are
not autonomous or free.
12
The transportation to vote is the nal act from a long
clientelist chain; and Pedro Velazco, a church priest from a populous neighborhood
in the capital city asked himself during the 1998 national elections:
“What kind of participation is this when voters were brought to attend the rallies
after receiving construction material for their homes, food or medical care or the
promise of employment? (…) it is sad to see taxis and all kinds of vehicles picking
people up at their homes when the voting area is less than four blocks away”.
13
10
Quoted by UNDP-IIG, Diagnóstico Institucional de la República del Paraguay, Asunción, UNDP-IIG, 2002, p. 86.
11
Roberto L Céspedes R., Capacidades y libertades, Participación en las elecciones municipales de 2001 en
Paraguay, in Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Humano No. 22 y 23, June/July 2006.
12
31% of the Parguayans answered yes to the question: Do you know someone who in the last presidential
elections was pressured or received anything to vote in a certain way? Only the Dominican Republic rated
higher than Paraguay with 51%. See Latinobarómetro 2005-6, in www.latinobarometro.org.
13
During interview given to ABC Color, Asunción, 05.24.1998, quoted by M. Lacchi in Recolección de fondos y
gastos electorales en las elecciones municipales, Informe de Investigación, Transparencia Paraguay-Alter Vida-Desarrollo
En Alianza-USAID. Asunción, October 2005.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
113
The rst damaging consequence of clientelism to democracy is the return
of a restricted electoral system of sorts. Through these relations, in practice the
poorer population, which coincides with the populations of lower educational
levels and those who speak guaraní, is denied their both passive (they cannot
become candidates themselves because they do not have the necessary funds
for campaigning) and active (lose electoral autonomy and freedom) rights.
At the other end of the spectrum, a reduced group of “major voters” is
reinforced along with private campaign funders (businesspeople contracted by the
State or beneciaries of licenses and tax exemptions), public authorities, political
directors or congress members positioned within the State in such a way as to be
able to be candidate “godparents”, providing goods, services or public jobs.
Transportation to voting area according to income, 2001
Source: Céspedes, R., Capacidades y libertades, in Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Humano No. 22
and 23, June/July 2006.
The high amounts invested in elections, which are barely monitored,
make the magnitude of this clientele likely.
14
In the 1992 colorado primaries, each
presidential pre-candidate spent approximately 5 million dollars and in 2002,
one of them admitted to investing 7 million. Every mayor’s ofce candidate
14
See M. Lacchi, op.cit. Radio and written press echo this data very naturally during electoral campaigns. During
those years, the legal minimum wage was under US$200.00 monthly.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
114
must spend approximately 30,000 dollars of their own funds or of friends
or “godfathers”, and in larger cities; the total investment for a political party
(mayor plus council members) reaches 100,000 dollars. In the mayor’s ofce
campaigns for Asunción, these amounts reach much higher levels.
Therefore, it is no wonder that only 20% of the Paraguayan population
considers the elections to be clean. It is the lowest rate in Latin America: 83%
in Uruguay; 69% in Chile, and 47% in Argentina trust the transparency of the
rallies
15
, and 4 of every 5 Paraguayans suspect fraud.
Both in regional terms and with respect to the size of the Paraguayan
economy, the exaggerated investment in electoral campaigns contradicts the
low levels of Social Public Expenditure in Paraguay: last year it reached 9.3%
of the GDP, less than half the rate invested in fellow Mercosur countries.
This means US$ 142 per capita annually, ve times less than the average Latin
American social expenditure, which is US$ 696.
16
The “privatization” or inuence of political parties in social assistance,
public health services, employment promotion, and basic services is another
consequence of this system, built upon the insufciencies and failures of the
State. Far from ensuring, through electoral competition, greater coverage and
quality of public services, clientelist practices reinforce its needs as a condition
for its persistence and development.
Regional social indicators comparison
Indicators Argentina Brazil Chile Uruguay Paraguay
% illiteracy, 15 years of age or
more (2005)
2.8 11.1 3.5 2.0 5.6
% institutional births (2003) 100 88 100 100 71
% households with water (2004) 98.6 82.4 92 98.8 52.4
Source: Processed using ECLAC data: Latin America and Caribbean Statistical Report, Social Statistics
in www.cepal.org
15
See Latinobarómetro Report 2006, in www.latinobarometro.org
16
Flora Rojas, Los gastos de cohesión social en el Paraguay, presentation during the International Seminar: the Legitimacy
of Social Cohesion Public Expenditure, ECLAC-Santiago de Chile, 2007. This percentage has dropped slightly
in the past years. It was 9.6% in 2002.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
115
History and culture
Clientelism, however, cannot merely be seen in contractual terms, as an
informal exchange of goods and services for political loyalties. Its strength
and amplitude would not be understandable beyond the Paraguayan cultural
and historical context. Its current format originated during the General
Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) dictatorship when the Colorado Party allied to
the Armed Forces, worked as a “single party” or “State-party” appealing to
a totalitarian logic.
With its intention of controlling the entire Paraguayan society, the
dictatorship repressed pre-existent social organizations. Since the mid 1950s,
unions, business corporations, student or professional associations had to
organize themselves under the protection of the Colorado Party and were co-
opted by the State.
The disarticulation of civil society occurred along with the full presence
of the political party in the State bureaucracy (including security forces, Army,
and Police forces) by means of the National Republican Association, which
left a strong and negative legacy for the democratic transition.
Since President Juan Carlos Wasmosy (1993-1998), the governance
pacts allowed the Armed Forces to be separated from the political party,
however a multitude of partisan systems (through political quotas) emerged
in the State organization: in the Judiciary Branch, the Electoral Court, Foreign
Relations, etc.
In the next elections, the opposing parties won some regional elections
(governors and mayors) and during the González Macchi (1999-2003)
administration with the National Unity Government, even integrated the
Executive branch. The absence or instability of the parliamentary majority
lead the government’s party to secure loyalties of opposing groups through
public employment “quotas” for their members.
During the dictatorship the State-party model was imposed. In the
democratic transition, on the other hand, the spoils system, a system that awards
partisan services with public employment, was generalized throughout the
political party spectrum. This contaminated the electoral race giving it the
characteristic of struggling to obtain or maintain public employment and
contracts with the State. In many ways, it also contributed to increasing political
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
116
clientelism. During the second decade of the 20
th
century, the liberal thinker
Eligio Ayala stated that in Paraguay:
“Political and partisan objectives […] were to reach (the most important public
jobs). The Executive Branch is the distributive power of public jobs ensuring
the possibility of obtaining and maintaining them. For that reason, this Branch
is the nal objective of political activity. In Paraguay, political parties struggle
to acquire and maintain the power of the State. The effective engine of this
power is the Executive Branch, considered the nal objective, a source of
distinction, social prestige, and a source of prot and funds.”
17
The clientelist practices were and are accepted as natural by almost all
parliamentary parties
18
, and only a few religious and civil society organizations
question the right parties have of returning the favor of member electoral
loyalty with public employment or the vote of poor with material goods or social
services during electoral campaigns. This complex exchange of favors, sanction
of power hierarchies, and corruption maintains itself stable and unpunished.
The other strength of Paraguayan clientelism is its profound cultural
presence. According to the sociologist José N. Morínigo
19
, this system is based
on values and lines of conduct present in traditional Paraguayan society. The
eld worker social structure was historically “centered in the oré relations system,
a solidarity lled community perspective restricted to family, friendships, and
neighbors, based on kinship and dealing with one another daily”.
20
This structure of belonging was taken to the political power arena as
practices of the clientelist oré and the orekueté, a more closed and excluding
relations system, where clientelism offers advantages, privileges, and immunities
to the group members within a context of reciprocal obligations.
The candidates use the pre-existent relations networks in urban
neighborhoods or rural regions to establish their oré loyalties community that
17
Eligio Ayala, Migraciones, Santiago de Chile, 1941. Eligio Ayala, who wrote this publication in 1915, was
President of Paraguay between 1924 and 1928, and is remembered as one of the greatest statesmen.
18
With the exception of those recently formed, which after some years of political-parliamentarian practice
accept the same logic.
19
Morínigo, José Nicolás, Clientelismo y Padrinazgo en la práctica patrimonialista del gobierno en el Paraguay, USAID,
Asunción, 2004.
20
Ibid. Guaraní has two or three ways of using the rst person plural: ñandé is ‘we’ including the other, whereas
oré excludes the other. This can be emphasized meaning ‘we, without you, the listener’ in orekueté implying ‘only
and exclusively us’.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
117
will lead them to public ofce during the electoral campaign. To do so, they use
the brokers or mediators: the political operator (referente or puntero depending on
the amount of votes they secure), that act on behalf of the candidate through
a network of promises, help and favors, satisfying the needs of the poorest
voters. The clientele built in this manner integrates through the operator a
network of reciprocal obligations with the solidarity, and even moral, load
unique to the oré.
Brokers versus political party section members
The electoral legislation during the democratic transition made direct
voting mandatory for all organizations (political or otherwise) in 1990, and had
constitutional effect in 1992. This system, obligating all candidacies and ofces
to be lled by vote by all organization members far from “democratizing”
the stied political party directories, in fact exponentially added to the
electoral clientelism
21
, generating greater lack of discipline and parliamentary
weakness.
The power of political party authorities, regional caudillos, and section
Presidents was gradually substituted by the power of these political operators
that decide campaign results and deal only with the candidate they work
for, without major loyalties to the partisan structure.
22
Consequently, this
“feeling of belonging to a political party that has always been a tradition in
Paraguay...”
23
is disappearing.
Professionalization lead many operators to work indistinctively for
candidates from any political party in the same way that a considerable portion
of registered voters is afliated to two or more political parties participating
of more than one primary. The operators reinforce their candidate’s electoral
promises with concrete and immediate actions that benet their voters, to the
point of even cosigning urgent loans.
They are local caudillos or neighborhood leaders known in their
community, according to P. Bordieu, owners of “social capital” (with relation
21
USAID-Alter Vida-Desarrollo En Alianza, Clientelismo y Padrinazgo en la práctica patrimonialista
del gobierno en el Paraguay, paper, 2007.
22
Ibid.
23
M. Lacchi, op. cit.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
118
networks, friends, acquaintances, godparents, etc.) who one can reach out to
in situations of need and not only during campaigns. By daily helping their
neighbors or members of their community, these operators can transfer their
own credibility to the candidates they work for.
The operator of an opposing political party explains:
“...since politics in our country is social assistance and not politics, that is,
due to the failure of the State, we sort of play the social role (…) we have
to act as social assistants in all aspects, the social aspect of health, education,
and all sorts of legal matters, criminal, civil, childhood rights, and especially
economic and health”.
24
Clientelism has many levels and all types of exchange and retribution.
The highest point in the chain (the orekueté), the candidate’s political godfathers
(members of Parliament, ministers, or State heads of departments) offer them
packages of public jobs, State goods and services, and less often, money. Once
elected, the candidates pay them back with the support from their electoral
community (oré) for their godfathers future candidacies (or reelections).
The business godfathers make contributions in cash, sometimes raw material
(for construction, for example), and vehicle eets to transport voters. As
counterpart, they ensure tender privileges or future public procurement, tax
reduction and even protection (impunity) in the case of minor offences and
scal irregularities.
25
The candidate gives retribution to the work made by the operators
with promises of public employment (or with effective appointments from
the package already established by the political godfathers), or security of
maintaining their current public employment. If an opposing candidate
wins, part of the existent employees will be red and replaced by these
operators.
26
The last point of this chain is when the operator makes “home” visits to
possible voters, and tends to their most urgent needs, paying delayed bills for
24
Quoted in Ibidem.
25
In the case of uncertainty as to results, these godfathers fund many candidacies (rivals) ensuring posterior
acknowledgement of the elected candidate, whomever it is.
26
The Asunción mayor’s ofce has had a change in its political party four times, each time adding 1000 to
2000 new employees.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
119
basic services, obtaining medical care and medication or cofns for the dead,
helping in matters pertaining to the State bureaucracy, etc. Simultaneously, the
operator tells them of the promises of their candidates, commits their vote,
and is in charge of making it effective (ensuring transportation and control
of the voting sessions) during political rallies.
27
This complex exchange network requires the confusion between public
and private, which is a characteristic of the patronage State. However, the
clientelist relations anchored in history and the Paraguayan culture and largely
expanded in the past years provoke a generalized rejection of politics, political
parties, and the protagonists of the democratic system.
Afliated and mistrusting
How is politics lived and understood in the current Paraguay? Formally,
the population is one of the most politicized or “partisanized” in the world
with four fths of the voting population afliated to a political party.
28
After
the dictatorship, the political parties became in charge of standardizing their
members (many of which did not even have an identity card). This function
today is potentialized by the party primaries: each wing demonstrates its power
by contributing with thousands of new afliated members.
This new electoral mass comes from the poorest and most vulnerable
regions, does not participate of partisan life, does not know its doctrines and
principles, and naturally, does not contribute with maintenance quotas for the
organization. Knows the operator that got them “involved”, and during each
campaign, the candidate the operator works for, but knows little if anything
about the rest of the parliamentary list elected with their vote.
29
If the universal exercise of political rights is central to the democratic
system, the tendency of voting abstention expresses in Paraguay the failures
generated by the conjunction of the patronage State and clientelism. Since
1993, when electoral standards were improved and more reliable statistics
27
M. Lacchi, op. cit.
28
See the distribution by political party of the 2.405.101 registered voters, in Ultima Hora, Asunción, 19/20
April 2003, p. 4.
29
A survey carried out just after the national rallies of 2003 demonstrated that 81.5% of the voters did not
know the number and identity of the parliamentary candidates they were voting for. See GEO, Estudio sobre
Abstencionismo Electoral, survey carried out by STJE, Asunción, 2004.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
120
emerged, participation grew until the 1998 national elections, when four fths
of the population could vote.
Type of election Abstention
1991, Municipal 27 %
1993, General 31 %
1996, Municipal 17 %
1998, General 20 %
2001, Municipal 45 %
2003, General 36 %
Source: Data from the Higher Electoral Court, 2003; Flecha, V.J. and
Martini, C., Historia de la Transición, Asunción, UUHH, 1994.
However, this trend was reversed later. In the 2001 municipal elections,
participation dropped radically maintaining low rates for the 2003 national
elections, when only 54% of the registered colorado voters participated, and 47%
from the liberal party, that had a tradition of maintaining greater discipline. If
hidden abstention (unregistered youth, who, therefore, do not have the right
to vote) is added to these gures, voter abstention is even higher.
Sources detect other forms of political rejection, and especially,
rejection of political party activity. This behavior has historical roots: at the
end of Stroessner’s dictatorship, political activity was what least interested
the population (only 3.4% of those surveyed compared to 30% interested in
labor, 25% in family, etc.), who considered it dangerous and removed from
the population’s needs.
30
Current opinion surveys demonstrate that only one tenth of the population
is “very interested” in politics, compared to over half of the participants
who said they have no interest in it at all. This rejection can be explained by
inefciency and lack of morality: politics would be considered unable to solve
personal, communitarian, or national problems, or was “dirty”.
30
Morínigo, J.N.; Silvero, I. & Villagra, S., Coyuntura electoral y liderazgos políticos en el Paraguay. Asunción,
UCA-Histórica-F.Naumann, 1988.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
121
Would you say politics interests you? 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Not at all 54.1 50.9 38.5 46.8 55.3
A little 33.7 33.3 44.4 41.1 33.6
A lot 12.2 15.4 17.2 11.9 10.9
Source: A. Vial, Political Opinion and Citizen Participation Survey, CIRD-USAID, 2005.
As expected, Paraguayan political parties systematically receive the worst
qualication in terms of reliability, although this perception currently also
characterizes other Latin American societies. In 2005, 73.4% of the Paraguayans
considered political parties the least reliable organization, followed far behind
by another political organism, the “Colorada Seccional” (local representations
of the political party), with 4.3%.
31
Certain political phenomena typical of transition are in tune with this
perception. The new political parties and movements adopt an anti-partisan
discourse (at least in their origins), obtaining considerable acceptance with this.
This repeats itself throughout the ideological spectrum from the left (Asunción para
Todos, 1990 and Tekojojá, 2007, which currently supports Fernando Lugo) to the
center (Encuentro Nacional, 1992, Patria Querida, 2001) and right (Unace, 1996).
The Paraguayan system is close to what A. O’Donnel calls Delegative
Democracies, where voters are “mobilized by clientelist, populist, personal
(more than programmatic) relations; and where political parties and interest
groups, that is, organized civil society, are weak and fragmented”.
32
This gradual divorce between political parties and citizenship was pointed
out by institutional diagnoses as a serious obstacle to governance. From
transition to democracy, a Paraguay was developed where:
“the partisan and social spheres are more and more separated, institutions
are farther away from the people, with a consequent lack of legitimacy and
fragmentation with respect to politics, and within the same society to manage
their own development”.
33
31
A. Vial, Survey on political culture and democratic governance 2005, Asunción, CIRD, 2005.
32
Transcript by the UNDP-IIG diagnosis, op. cit.
33
Ibidem.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
122
Democracy: what for?
This conjunction of indicators – doubts as to the cleanliness of the
electoral game, rejection of the partisan system, weak political participation
– gave way to a much more dangerous behavior: the rejection of democracy as
a governing system and political life. Almost one third of the population prefers
authoritarian regimes, and a similar proportion declares itself indifferent.
Options 2001 2005
Democracy is preferable to any other type of government 33 32
In some circumstances an authoritarian government can be
preferable
43 33
For people like us, it makes no difference if it is a democratic
government or not
19 31
Source, Alejandro Vial (Coord.), Cultura Política y Gobernabilidad democrática, Asunción, CIRD, 2006, p. 35-37.
This data requires a more complex analysis. When asked how democratic
is your country, Paraguayans give their country the worst rating in the Latin
American context (3.9 in a scale where 1 means Is not democratic, and 10, Is
completely democratic). This appraisal goes from 5.9 (Brazil) to 7.2 (Uruguay) in
the other Mercosur countries.
34
More than rejection, we are dealing with a growing dissatisfaction with
respect to the system that during the transition established some of its formal
elements, without structuring power or the true reality of political practices.
If there is a growing trend to value the functioning of democracy in the
region (with a rupture in 2000-2001), Paraguay is once again moving in the
opposite direction.
Satisfaction with the functioning of democracy,
percentage of the population (1996-2006)
Countries 1996 2006
Uruguay 51 66
Argentina 34 50
Brazil 20 36
Chile 28 42
Bolivia 25 39
Paraguay 21 12
Source: Based on data from the Latinobarómetro report 2006.
34
Latinobarómetro report 2006.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
123
How are governments with periodic electoral processes, democratic legal
and constitutional framework, and a relative division of powers perceived?
Today, how does society see the Paraguayan State? The rst perception is
of a completely distant State that governs for its own benet (to benet the
President and those who support him, ministers and members of Parliament,
the rich and the powerful) without belonging to collectiveness or representing
the interests of the entire country.
Percentage of the population that believes the
government governs for the good of everyone
Country Percentage
Uruguay 43
Bolivia 38
Brazil 36
Chile 27
Argentina 22
Paraguay 16
Source: Based on data from the Latinobarómetro report 2006.
The State seems to be the manager of the interests of minorities, and
more serious, growingly submitted to the power of criminal groups. Recent
surveys determined the “maa” to be the organization with most power in
the country, having more power than the government, political parties, and
Parliament. Three fourths of the people surveyed believe this hegemony has
strengthened itself in the last years.
35
The relationship between governmental organisms and crime is possible
through the clientelist system. The progressive restriction of the passive
electoral right generated by the investment necessary to be positioned in
electoral lists ends up making public jobs open to crime. One operator from
the Colorado Party says:
“They will take the best spots. There is a pyramid (…) whomever contributed
with 1 million dollars gets the most important job, 300 thousand dollars gets you
a less important job, and 100 thousand dollars an even less important job”.
35
73% of the people relieve that its power is increasing in Paraguay, see A. Vial, op. cit, 2005.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
124
This opinion is shared by a former opposing member of Parliament:
“Today, it is impossible to launch a candidacy for congress in the primaries if
you do not have 250 or 300 thousand dollars to spend…”
36
In the best of scenarios, if this investment comes from the candidates’
own funds (or loans made for this purpose) there still is the problem of paying
it back or replacing it during the exercise of ofce for which the candidate
was elected. And here is where the predatory logic comes into play:
“public employment is an important source in a patronage system that
electorally helps the political class (…) Appointments (…) are often seen as
spots to sell or buy access to inuence before being considered professional
career vocations”
37
According to the political specialist Alejandro Vial, “the meta-report of
the universal aspects of democracy, when the payment of money or favors
is decisive for the placement in the lists for elective jobs”, nds obstacles in
regulating the Paraguayan political culture.
38
Some authors use the “predatory
State” concept, a variant of patronage in which the State is a sort of agent for
a group that uses public funds for its own benet.
“The predatory States tend to create government systems that do not work
well – systems that do not stimulate productive activities. (…) the predatory
characteristic is based on interfering on market mechanisms instead of
increasing their efciency. Usually, property rights are not well dened and
political decisions frequently take the place of those of a decentralized market.
(…) The consequence of this is that on the one hand, resources are allocated
inefciently and there are low (or negative) growth rates. On the other hand,
income is redistributed in favor of the dominant group [and] in detriment of
the majority of the population.”
39
36
Both in Grupos Focales, quoted by M. Lacchi, op. cit.
37
Richards, Donald. ¿Es posible un Estado para el Desarrollo en el Paraguay in Abente, D. & Masi,
F. (Eds.), Estado, Economía y Sociedad. Una mirada internacional a la Democracia paraguaya, CADEP,
Asunción, 2005.
38
Alejandro Vial, “La crisis de conanza en las instituciones democráticas” in CIRD-USAID, Transición en
Paraguay, Cultura Política y Valores democráticos, Asunción, 1998, p. 124/5.
39
Mat Lundahl, Inside the Predatory State: The rationale, methods, and economic consequences of kleptocratic
regimes, in Nordic Journal of Political Economy
, 1997, 24, quoted by Diego Abente in Estatalidad, Burocracias
e Identidad, consultancy for UNDP-HDI Paraguay 2007.
Milda Rivarola
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
125
A governance variable analyzed by the World Bank
40
covers this concept
partially: the “control of corruption”, dened as the measure in which public
power is exercised to obtain private prot, including small and large forms
of corruption, and where the State is ‘captured’ by elites and private interest.
Paraguay’s position in a regional perspective is quite eloquent.
Control of corruption, comparison between
selected countries (2005)
Country Range (de 0 a 100) Number of registries/surveys
Argentina 41.9 12
Brazil 48.3 11
Chile 89.7 12
Paraguay 7.4 10
Uruguay 74.4 10
Source: Kaufmann D., A. Kraay, and M. Mastruzzi 2006: Governance Matters V: Governance
Indicators for 1996-2005.
The paths for the future
Some authors
41
state that clientelism requires a certain amount of political
development, in places where direct participation is limited, since it becomes
possible to bring closer together “center” and “outskirt regions”, along with
elites and excluded masses, increasing awareness and political participation
of involved players. Clientelism would be a phase in the transition of pre-
modern societies, submitted to patriarchal control with severe exclusions, into
democratic regimes, that is, it would have a function in this process.
Within this perspective, Gino Germani thought that between the oligarchic
State (patronage) and the modern State (democratic and social rule of law) an
intermediary stage existed in which the excluded population was integrated
to the political demand through specic mechanisms (clientelists, or the so-
called ‘populism’). Only after going through a democratic learning process, this
‘populism’ (particular and arbitrary) would become more political and civil:
the demand for rights would substitute the clientelist demand for favors.
40
In http://info.worldbank.org/governance/kkz2005/mc_chart.asp
41
Boissevain, Powell, Weingrod, Silverman, citados por Auyero, Javier, op. cit.
Paraguay: State patronage and clientelism
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
126
Whichever the case, the end of patronage and the substitution of
clientelist practices face complex challenges in Paraguay. The State, which
has the necessary legal and institutional power to face this, is precisely the
subject and agent of these phenomena. The impunity of these practices, their
“dispersion” in the partisan political spectrum and the presence they maintain
in the collective mentality make this task even harder.
However, if Paraguay went from a government based on political force
to others partially based on the exchange of loyalties for goods, it is expected that
while the force is not reestablished, society will learn from this experience
to use its freedoms to build forms of self-determination, both personally and
collectively. Somewhere between the utopian optimism and cynic pessimism
lies a diversity of possible democratic paths.
DEP
Translation: Cynthia Garcia
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
127
Coloniality of
power, globalization
and democracy
Aníbal Quijano*
Introduction
M
y main purpose in this essay is to address some key questions that
in my view have not yet been sufciently explored in the debate about the
process called “globalization” and its relationship to the current tendencies of
the institutional forms of domination, and the modern Nation-State in particular.
Though circumscribed as here, all discussion of these questions implies a
theoretical and historical perspective on the question of power. It is thus
appropriate to point out some major features of the perspective that informs
this exploration.
Every form of social existence that reproduces itself in the long run
presupposes ve basic components without which it could not exist: sex,
work, subjectivity, collective authority, and “nature.” The ongoing dispute
for the control of these components gives rise to power relations. From
* San Marcos University, Lima, Peru.
quijanoanibal@yahoo.com
Coloniality of power, globalization and democracy
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
128
this perspective, the power phenomenon is characterized as a type of social
relationship consisting of the coexistence and permanent interactivity of three
elements: domination/exploitation/conict. This characteristic affects all
the basic components of a social existence and it results from and expresses
the dispute for their control: (1) sex, its resources and products; (2) work,
its resources and products; (3) subjectivity/intersubjectivity, its resources,
and products; (4) collective (or public) authority, its resources and products;
(5) relation with the other forms of life and the rest of the universe (all that
in conventional language is commonly called “nature”).
The forms of social existence in each component area do not issue
from one another, but do not exist nor can they exist or operate separately or
independently from one another, except occasionally and precariously. This
is the very reason why the power relations originating in the dispute for the
control of these areas or spheres of social existence are not born or derived
from one another either. That is, they make up a structural complex that
behaves as such, but in which relations among the different areas do not have,
nor can they have, a systemic or organic
1
character, as each area of a given
social existence has specic origins and conditions. Although they belong in
a structural conguration common to the power model, power relations in
each area also behave in accordance with different rhythms, manners, and
degrees within the movement of the whole structure. The specic elements
and the respective degrees to which they interconnect in each area and
within the whole structure derive from people’s specic behaviors, i.e., they
are always historical and specic in their origin, character, and movement.
In other words, it is always a question of a given historical power model.
2
Thus, the conict model is, of course, historical and specic, in respect of
both the power model as such and each one of its constituent spheres and
dimensions.
1
On systemicism and organicism in the discussion of the question of the whole in knowledge production, see
Quijano, Aníbal, particularly Coloniality of Power and Social Classication, originally published in Festschrift for Immanuel
Wallerstein, Journal of World-Systems Research, VI, 2. Fall/Winter 2000, Colorado, pp. 342-388. Special Issue.
Giovanni Arrighi and Walter Goldfrank, eds. Colorado, USA.
2
On the power issue, I have suggested some proposals in “Poder y Derechos Humanos,” in Carmen Pimentel
Sevilla, Comp. Poder, Salud mental y Derechos Humanos. Lima. CECOSAM, 2001, p. 9-26.
Aníbal Quijano
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
129
Coloniality of the today’s power model
Today’s world power model consists in the rst place in the structural
association of central axes:
1)
A new system of social domination that consists, rst of all, in
universal, basic social classication of the planet’s population around
the idea of race, regarding which all previous forms of domination
redene themselves, particularly the sex, intersubjectivity, and authority
control manner. This idea and the social (or “racist”) classication
based on it originated ve hundred years ago with America, Europe,
and capitalism. They are the most deep-rooted and lasting expression
of colonial domination and were imposed on the planet’s entire
population during the expansion of European colonialism. Since
then, under the current world model of power, they have pervaded
every area of social existence and constituted the most profound and
effective form of social, material, and intersubjective domination. For
this very reason, they are the most universal intersubjective political
domination base in the current power model.
3
2) A new system of social exploitation or of labor control consists in
the merging of all historically known forms of exploitation – slavery,
serfdom, small, simple mercantile production, reciprocity, and capital
– into a single structure to produce goods for the world market, based
on the hegemony of capital, which accounts for the characterization
of the whole as capitalist. From this angle, the capitalism category
refers to the entirety of this structural merge. Capital is a specic
form of work control, which consists in the mercantilization of the
labor force to be exploited. Owing to capital’s dominating position in
this structural whole, it determines the latter’s key feature, i.e., makes
it capitalist. Historically, though, it does not exist, has never existed,
3
See Quijano, Aníbal, “Colonialidad del Poder, Eurocentrismo y América Latina” in Edgardo Lander, Comp.
Colonialidad del Saber, Eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales. Buenos Aires: CLACSO-UNESCO, 2000, pp. 201-246.
It is worth noting that the terms “coloniality” and “colonialism” refer to different phenomena and issues.
“Colonialism” does not refer to the basic universal social classication and to the forms of social domination
grounded on it, which has existed in the world for ve hundred years, nor to the structural relation among all
forms of exploitation and labor control under Capital’s hegemony. Rather, it refers to the political and economic
domination of some peoples over other peoples and precedes “coloniality” by thousands of years. The two
terms are obviously related, as the coloniality of power would not have been historically possible without the
specic colonialism imposed around the world since the late 15
th
century.
Coloniality of power, globalization and democracy
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
130
and will probably never exist independently from the other forms of
exploitation.
4
Control of collective authority, subjectivity, and sex is
organized along these two axes. For the purposes of this essay, what is
most important is to discuss the question of the control of collective
authority and the subjective dimension of social relations.
Control of subjective authority is exerted primarily through the institution
known as the State. This is a very old institution, although it has never been
rmly established when and under which historical conditions it was imposed
as the central, universal form of control of collective authority and political
domination; and when, how, and where it became a Nation-State is even less
known. On the other hand, we know quite well that the Modern Nation-State is
relatively recent and that it has been consolidated only in few state domination
spaces called countries. Its specic features are, in the rst place, citizenship or
formal presumption of juridical and political equality of those that dwell in its
domination space, notwithstanding the inequality prevailing in the other areas
of power; and in the second place, political representativeness, on which basis
the State is assigned responsibility for the entire citizenry and not only, as in
other variant forms of State, for a particular or sectoral social interest. The
Modern Nation-State took form during the period known as Modernity, which
began with America and in association with the process that led to capitalism’s
and modernity’s Eurocentrism. It has acquired its current dening traits
since the 18
th
century and was admitted in the 20
th
century as the worldwide
hegemonic model, which does not mean that it has been adopted worldwide.
In the current phase of colonial/modern/capitalist power, its “globalization,”
particularly since the mid-1970s, tends to diminish its original, specic traits
and even to revert its processes, especially in respect of the institutionalization
of the social conict about the expansion of social equity, individual freedom,
and social solidarity.
5
The production and control of subjectivity, i.e., of social imagery,
historical memory, and key knowledge perspectives nds expression and
takes shape in Eurocentrism. This is what I call the mode of production and
4
See “Colonialidad, Eurocentrismo y América Latina”, article cited.
5
This is discussed in Quijano, Aníbal, “Estado-Nación, Ciudadanía y Democracia, Cuestiones abiertas”, in
Schmidt, Heidulf and Gonzáles, Helena, Eds. Democracia para una nueva sociedad. Caracas: Ed. Nueva Sociedad,
1998, pp. 139-15. Also in “El Fantasma del Desarrollo”, in Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, 2,
2000. Caracas, Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Aníbal Quijano
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
131
control of intersubjective relations that has been systematically established, i.e.,
worked into a theory in Europe since shortly before the mid-17
th
century, as
an expression and part of the process whereby the colonial/modern/capitalist
power model became Eurocentric. In other words, as an expression of the
experiences of a given type of colonialism and of the coloniality of power,
of the needs and experiences of capitalism, and of the conversion of the
power model into an Eurocentric model. This expression was imposed and
admitted worldwide in the following centuries as the only legitimate rational
view, or in any case, as the hegemonic rational view, the dominating mode of
knowledge production. For the purposes of this essay, some of the elements
worth pointing out are principally the radical, Cartesian dualism in its original
regional formulation, which makes a distinction between “reason” and “body,”
as well as between “subject” and “object” in the production of knowledge.
This radical dualism is associated with the reductionist, homogenizing tendency
to dene and identify phenomena or “objects”, particularly as regards the
perception of social experience, whether in its atomistic and ahistorical version,
which perceives phenomena or objects as isolated and separate and thus does
not require an idea of the totality, or in the version that admits an idea of an
evolutionist, organicist or systemizing totality and presupposes a historical
macrosubject. This view of knowledge is currently facing one of its critical
periods, as is the whole Eurocentric version of modernity.
6
This power model began to take form with the conquest and colonization
of what is today called America, the rst id-entity of the colonial/modern
period,
7
and developed further, giving rise to Western Europe as a new,
historical id-entity and central control hub of the new power model, i.e., an
Eurocentric and colonial power model that has expanded worldwide since the
18
th
century, following the same course as the expansion of Western Europe’s
colonial domination over the rest of the world. It was thus a product of the
historical destruction of preexistent historical worlds during the Conquest of
America, as well as of new forms of domination, exploitation, and conict
under the violence of colonization. All along the last ve hundred years, this
6
See “Colonialidad del Poder, Eurocentrismo y América Latina”, article cited; also, by the same author, Towards
a Non-Eurocentric Rationality, as yet unpublished document from the Symposium on Subalternity and Coloniality,
Duke University, October 1998; and “Colonialidad del Poder y Clasicación Social”, in Festschrift for Immanuel
Wallerstein, op. cit.
7
On the relation between coloniality and modernity, see Aníbal Quijano: Colonialidad y Modernidad/Racionalidad.
Originally published in Perú Indígena, 13, 29, 1992: pp. 11-20.
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model maintained the same basic fundaments that originated it. In other words,
it has not ceased – nor could it have ceased – to be grounded on colonially
produced elements. In this particular sense, coloniality is the key, inherent feature
of the current power model and the idea of race, its original cornerstone.
8
Owing to its characteristics, this was the rst power model with a global
character and propensity in known history. What is now called “globalization”
is without doubt a moment in the historical process of development of such
a power model, marking perhaps its culmination and transition, as has been
suggested by many.
9
Of course, all these proposals and categories are open questions. Their
systematic investigation and debate are just beginning. This does not mean
that the proposals I formulate in this work are arbitrary. I shall return to them
as investigation and debate develop further.
Globalization’s key issues
What is called “globalization” today in fact encompasses a cluster of
questions about which there is much debate and a vast and growing literature.
The most widespread idea associated with this term is possibly that of a steady,
increasing economic, political, and cultural integration of the world. In practice,
this means that there are phenomena and processes that affect the entire world
immediately as well as simultaneously, that is… globally. And the “scientic
and technological revolution” in the means and systems of communication
and transport is seen as the main historical determinant of this process.
Originally, ‘globality” referred to a drastic change in the relationship
between space and time in subjectivity as a result of the velocity of the ow of
information produced by the new scientic and technological resources, so that
it became possible to learn about events anywhere in the world simultaneously
8
Domination and “gender” discrimination are perhaps the oldest manifestations in mankind’s history. In today’s
world power model, they have been subordinated to the coloniality of power. While there has been prolonged
discussion and an inexhaustible literature about the former exists, an emphasis on the issues of authority and
subjectivity is appropriate here.
9
In a way, the Hegelian proposal, as developed by Kojéve and resumed by Fukuyama (The end of history) implies
this idea of culmination of this power model. See Quijano, Aníbal: “¿El Fin de Cuál Historia?”, in Análisis Político,
Revista del Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales, 32, Bogotá, Universidad Nacional de
Colombia. Sept-Dec. 1997: pp. 27-32.
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with their occurrence. In our subjectivity and intersubjective relations, we
perceived not only that the world had shrunk but also that this happened
because it had been integrated timewise, becoming simultaneous. The famous
“global village” image was undoubtedly the original mental construction that
successfully grasped this subjective relationship of time and space.
10
For many people, these images are perhaps the ones most closely
associated with “globalization.” It has to be admitted, though, that they are
being submerged by more recent ones, which, for some, seem already to have
the consistence of genuine conceptual categories, although they resist leaving
their media habitat: “virtual reality,” “virtual society,” and the “new economy”
(which could similarly be called “virtual economy”). “Virtual reality” has decisive
implications for the discussion about knowledge production. It puts into relief
particularly the fact that with current technology, not only are existing images
and sounds in nature or in “reality” reproduced, combined, or used, but the
new visual and sound elements are produced, manipulated, and disseminated,
and that new images are produced with these new elements, which together
constitute a “virtual” world. This “virtual” world superimposes itself on the
“real” world, displacing and replacing it, to the point that in many areas it is
not easy to distinguish between the two, with implications for the question of
perception, knowledge, and knowledge production. “Virtual society” is an idea
that prolongs this image and suggests that social relations occur increasingly
within and closely linked to “virtual reality” and have somehow the same
consistence. The “new economy,” the most recent, also has its origin in the
media and points to the idea that the current world economy has become or
is becoming a single network for trading goods and value. This might be the
emblematic expression of the world economy’s global integration, based on
and closely linked to “virtual reality” and “virtual society.”
This debate does not always succeed in eluding a tendency towards
mystication. In the media jargon, “globalization” has virtually become
synonymous with a vast and impersonal, systemic machinery that exists and
operates independently from human decisions, in a somewhat natural and as
10
On the implications of the “scientic and technological revolution” it is enlightening to follow the course
that goes from the studies of Radovan Richta’s collective in Praha before the invasion of the Russian tanks in
1969 to McLuhan’s visionary “global village.” See, for instance, Quijano, Aníbal, “Tecnología del Transporte
y Desarrollo Urbano”, in the compilation Aproximación crítica a la Tecnología en el Perú. Lima: Mosca Azul
Editores, 1982.
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such inevitable way, and is capable of encompassing and explaining all human
actions today.
But the “world” – if with this term one implies human social existence
associated with a specic historical totality – whether “globalized” or not,
cannot be understood apart from the fact that it is a specic power model that
imbues it with its “world” character, without which any idea of “globalization”
would be simply useless. Otherwise, the communication, information, and
exchange networks would exist and operate in a historical vacuum. It is thus
not only pertinent but also theoretically necessary to investigate each of the
current areas of social existence control, for bringing into light the possible
meanings “globalization” has or may have at the empirical level. Within the
bounds of this work, I shall do no more than broach the issues I deem to be
central to two main areas: work and public authority control.
Capitalism and globalization
A careful look at capitalism’s current trends – capitalism in light of the
power coloniality concept – will show undeniably impressive data both on the
political geography of the distribution of income, goods, and basic services
as well as capital ows, and on relations among forms of capital or between
capital and work. As such data are generally available, for the purposes of this
inquiry sufce it to point out just some of the main trends:
1.
In 1800, 74 percent of the world population (944 million) had access
to 56 percent of world output (in 1980 US$ = 229,095,000,000),
while 26 percent of the population concentrated 44 percent of
world output. In 1995, though, 80 percent of the world population
(5,716,000,000) had access to only 20 percent of world product (in
1980 US$ = 17,091,479,000,000), while 20 percent concentrated 80
percent of world product.
2.
The 9-to-1 difference between the average income of rich countries
and that of poor countries widened to 60 to 1 in two centuries. In
the meantime, the rich countries’ population increased 50 percent,
while the population of poor countries increased 250 percent.
11
11
Nancy Birdsall, “Life is Unfair: Inequality in the World”, Foreign Policy, Summer 1998, pp. 76-93. Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. See also Robert Grifths. Ed. Developing World 99/00. Guilford. CT. USA:
Dushkin-McGraw Hill, 1999, pp. 25-34.
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3. In respect of world output, in 1999, according to the World Bank’s
2000 Report, the G-7 countries, with less than 12 percent of the
world population and 16 percent of the earth’s surface, accounted
for 65 percent of world output, 3 percent more than in 1980.
4.
In consonance with the same historical movement, the gap between
rich and poor in each country has also widened. In 1970, the United
States, the richest country on earth, had 24.7 million people living
in extreme poverty (11.6 percent of the population); by 1997, this
gure had jumped to 35.6 million (13.3 percent of the population
– a 43-percent increase in less than 20 years. A recent study shows
that between 1977 and 1989, 1.0 percent of families accounted for
70 percent of the total increase in family wealth and their income
had risen by 100 percent. Since 1973, income differences in Latin
America have widened: the average income of 20 percent of those
earning an income is today 16 times higher than the remaining 80
percent. In Brazil, this difference is 25 to 1, as compared with 10
to 1 in Western Europe and 5 to 1 in the United States. A similar
difference is noticed between the salary of “qualied” workers and
the other countries. For instance, this difference increased by more
than 30 percent in the nineties in Peru and by more than 20 percent
in Colombia.
12
5. Under these circumstances, the world’s three richest individuals
have a fortune larger than the GDP of the 48 poorer countries,
or a fourth of the world’s countries. As regards Latin America, for
instance, in 1996 General Motors sales totaled 168 billion dollars,
while the combined GDP of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras,
12
See Krugman, Paul: “The Right, the Rich and the Facts: Deconstructing the Income Distribution Debate,”
in American Prospect, Fall 1992; Bruno, Michel; Ravallion, Martin; and Squire, Lynn: Equity and Growth in Developing
Countries, Washington: World Bank, 1996, cited in Nancy Birdsall, op. cit., Developing World 99/00, op. cit.: 33. On
Brazil, see more recent gures: “The Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute-IBGE, a federal agency, has
just released frightening indicators that serve as a statement of these last ve years and four months of the FHC
government: the wealth in the hands of 1.0 percent of the population exceeds 50 percent of the wealth of the
other Brazilians. That is, about 1.6 million individuals possess a fortune larger than the sum of the goods of 83
million Brazilians. The monthly income of 19.6 percent of families is equivalent to a maximum of half a minimum
salary.” Frei Beto: “Los rumbos de la oposición,” in ALAI: América Latina en Movimiento, 314, May 23, 2000: 2-3.
And in Venezuela, according to a CEPAL report, the income of the 40 percent poorest urban segment fell from
16.8 percent in 1990 to 14.7 percent in 1997, while that of the 10 percent richest urban segment climbed from
28.4 percent to 32.8 percent in the same period. (CEPAL, Panorama Social de América Latina, 1998: 64).
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Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay,
and Uruguay totaled only 159 billion dollars.
6.
And yet, according to the 1998 UNDP Report, 4 percent of the
225 largest fortunes in the world would be sufcient to meet the
basic needs of the entire world population. And to meet sanitation
and nutrition needs (in 1998 four million people in the Third World
had no access to potable water or electricity, while 50 percent of
children suffered from malnourishment), 13 billion dollars, i.e., 13
percent of what the United States and Europe spend annually in
perfume would be sufcient.
7.
If one observes the direction of capital ows, one notices that
between 1990 and 1995, for instance, 65 percent of the total ow
of direct investment (FDI) went to the “center” while the rest went
to few of the so-called “emerging countries.” Between 1989 and
1993, only 10 of these countries received 72 percent of this FDI
rest (China, Mexico, Malaysia, Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil,
Nigeria, Venezuela, and South Korea).
13
A crucial problem with
world capital ows is the fact that the Third World’s debt climbed
from 615 billion dollars to 2500 billion dollars. As anyone knows,
this is literally a never-ending story, as this debt can never be paid.
It is, above all, a tragic story.
14
8. Moreover, of the 6 billion people that make up the world population
as the new century begins, some 800 million do not have a salaried
job. And this is a conservative estimate, as statistics refer only to
those that look for employment; the gure should be multiplied by
at least ve, if one considers the number of family and household
members that depend on nonexistent salaries. The unemployed and
subemployed make up approximately half of the world population, as
three billion people live with less than two dollars a day. Economists
have adopted the concept of “structural unemployment” to refer to
the tendency that leads to increasing unemployment worldwide.
13
Developing World 99/00, op. cit., p. 46.
14
“This past year (1996.AQ) the government of Uganda spent only $3 per person on health care, but spent $17
per person on repaying its foreign debt. Meanwhile, one in ve Ugandan children will not reach its fth birthday
as a result of diseases that could be prevented through investment in primary health care.” Marie Griesgraber,
“Forgive our Debts: The Third World’s Financial Crisis,” in The Christian Century, January 22, 1997: 76-83.
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Not few of them are now endorsing the idea of the “end of
work” to account for the implications of this tendency.
15
9. In addition, although specic research is not sufciently advanced
and data are thus provisional, the world population in a slavery
situation is estimated at 200 million.
16
Statistical data have not
yet been established about serfdom and reciprocity.
1
0. All these tendencies in the distribution of capital, employment,
production, income, goods, and services in today’s world are
associated with the changed relations among the various forms
of capitalist accumulation, which favor speculative accumulation’s
absolute hegemony. Accordingly, world exchange transactions,
which totaled more or less 20 billion dollars in 1970, had already
reached 1.3 trillion dollars by 1999. In 1980, nancial assets in
the United States alone totaled 1.6 trillion dollars, including
pension and common funds, and insurance and life insurance
companies, equivalent to 60 percent of the country’s GDP. By
1990 these assets had climbed to 5.2 trillion dollars, equivalent
to 95 percent of GDP, and by 1993 they totaled 8 trillion dollars,
equivalent to 125 percent of GDP. The nancial predominance
is seen also in the so-called “nanciarization” of corporations,
as their productive investments steadily lose terrain to nancial
investments. The same thing can be noticed in the hypertrophy of
nancial gains on the “periphery” and in “emerging countries”
15
See, for example, Rifkin, Jeremy: The End of Work, New York: Jeremy Tarcher Inc., 1996. Also Meda,
Dominique: Le travail, une valeur en voie de disparition. Paris: Champs, Flamarion, 1995. Studies about tendencies
in relations between work and capital refer exclusively to salaried employment. Their ndings have produced a
numerous family of categories: “exibilization,” “precarization,” “subcontracting,” the return of the “putting-out
system,” and “informalization” are some of the main categories of an abundant literature. In respect of Latin
America, see, for instance, V.E. Tokman y D. Martínez, eds.: Flexibilización en el Margen: La reforma del contrato de
trabajo, ILO, 1999, and Inseguridad Laboral y Competitividad de Contratación, ILO, 1999. See also the studies of the
Primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Estudios del Trabajo. Carlos Santiago, Ed., Revista de Administración Pública,
Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1996.
16
In 1991, ILO recognized the existence of some 6 million people living in a slavery condition in the world.
The United Nations then appointed a Commission to study the problem. In 1993, the Commission indicated that
200 million people in the world were slaves. See the interview with José de Souza Martins in Estudos Avançados,
Revista do Instituto de Estudos Avançados da Universidade de São Paulo-USP, 31, 1997. São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Since then the documentation on the expansion of the slave trafc and the associated social ethics has increased.
Recent legislation prohibiting slave work has been enacted, as is the case in Brazil since 2004.
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In 1983, stock exchange gains on theperiphery totaled 100 billion
dollars, as compared with 1500 billions in 1993.
17
This mass of information allows some inferences that, although possibly
provisional, are no less pertinent.
I)
There is an ongoing process of re-concentration of the control of
resources, goods, and income in the hands of a reduced minority
(no more than 20 percent currently).
II)
This means that there is an ongoing process of increasing
social polarization of the world population into a rich minority
– declining in proportion but increasingly richer – and the vast
majority – declining in proportion but increasingly poorer.
III)
There is an ongoing process of overexploitation of the larger mass
of workers in the world, as, in tandem with the re-concentration of
income and wealth, there is a growing salary distance among salary
earners and a rising proportion of unemployed, marginalized from
the centers of the accumulation structure. This leads to a steady
decline in average salaries.
IV)
There is an ongoing process of capital’s diminishing interest and
capacity to convert the work force into merchandise, particularly
at the technologically more advanced levels of the accumulation
world structure.
18
V) As a result, the non-salaried forms of work control are expanding.
Also expanding are slavery; personal serfdom; small-scale,
independent mercantile production; and reciprocity. The salaried
segment is still the form of work control that most expands but,
to use a familiar image, as a slow watch.
17
These data show that today’s nancial capital has a nearly opposite character of the one it had in the pre-crisis
period. Formerly, it served to promote productive investment; now it is almost purely parasitic, or predatory.
18
The study and discussion of these tendencies began in Latin America in the mid-sixties with the discussion of
marginalization. On this view, see particularly José Nun: “Sobrepoblación Relativa, Ejército Industrial de Reserva
y Masa Marginal” in Revista Latinoamericana de Sociologia V. 2, July 1969. See also Quijano, Aníbal in Imperialismo y
Marginalidad en América Latina, Lima: Mosca Azul Editores, 1977; and from the same author, “Crisis Capitalista
e Clase Obrera” in Crisis Clase Obrera, comp., Mexico: ERA, 1975.
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VI) There is an ongoing crisis in one of the basic dimensions – that
of relations among specic forms of exploitation – incorporated
into the capitalist work control model; there is a decline of the
mechanisms that during the historical development of capitalist
accumulation split the population into salaried and non-salaried,
capital and no-capital; those mechanisms are being replaced by
action mechanisms that possibly indicate, to an as yet unmeasured
degree, the beginning of a reverse tendency.
VII)
World capitalism’s conguration, i.e., the structure of relations
between capital and each one of the forms of work control and
of relations among all these forms, is undergoing drastic changes
that may imply that the system is in a process of transition.
VIII)
In this specic sense and dimension, it seems that the work
exploitation structure may be in the process of a global social
re-classication of the world population.
IX)
Be as it may, there is an ongoing, worldwide process of re-
concentration and re-conguration of work control and of work’s
resources and products – in brief, of relations between capitalism
and work.
X)
These processes seem to be associated with drastic changes in
the capitalist accumulation’s world structure, and linked to the
new position and predominance of speculative and nancial
accumulation in this structure, especially since the mid-1970s.
19
Those tendencies were not new or unpredictable. Neither were they
the last ones. They indicate a moment, a degree, or a level of maturity and
development of tendencies that are inherent to capitalism’s character as global
pattern of work control and which have been the subject of much theorization
19
In Latin América, although the general debate about the capitalist crisis was already on since the mid-1970s,
the Brazilian Celso Furtado was probably the rst to call attention to the nancial capital’s hegemony and its
implications. See Quijano, Aníbal, Transnacionalización y Crisis de la Economía en América Latina, in Cuadernos del
Cerep, San Juan, Puerto Rico: 1984. On the recent debate from the standpoint of capitalism’s dependent and
peripheral areas, see Kalvajit Singh: Globalization of Finance, London/New York: Zed Books, 1999; and from the
same author, Taming Financial Crisis: Challenges and Alternatives in the Era of Financial Globalization, London/New
York: Zed Books, 2000.
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since Karl Marx.
20
Thus, there is little sense in discussing these processes
and the attendant problems as if they were quite new, or still worse, as if they
were the consequence of a phenomenon called “globalization,” different or
separate from capitalism, as if it resulted solely or mainly from technological
innovation and its capacity to thoroughly change our relations with space/
time, rather than from the capitalist character of the dominant work control
structure and from the development of its tendencies.
There is no doubt, though, that these basic tendencies of capitalism have
intensied and accelerated, and are accelerating even further. The question is
thus the following: What gives impetus to the acceleration and intensication
of these tendencies of capitalism? Or: Why has capitalist exploitation become
deeper and somewhat easier?
No one can exploit anyone else if one does not dominate the other, and
much less do it in a stable, lasting manner. It is thus necessary to broach here
the question of the relationship between domination and exploitation in the
current power model. Force and violence are requirements of domination;
in modern society, though, these are not resorted to in an explicit, direct way
– at least not continuously; they are covered by institutionalized structures
of collective or public authority, legitimized by ideologies that make up
intersubjective relations among the various sectors of the population’s interest
and identity. As pointed out in this work’s beginning, we know these structures
as the State. Accordingly, it is necessary to inquire about what has happened
to relations between the capitalist exploitation model and the various levels
of the domination model, the State, and power’s coloniality.
20
In his Capital and in his now no less famous Grundrisse, Marx went remarkably far in his thinking, as far as it was
possible without breaking away from a Eurocentric view of knowledge. He dened the debate’s bases and major
issues. The tendency of the conversion of the labor force into merchandise to exhaust itself when a superior
productive force might permit production’s automation has been the main open question since as early as 1858,
when it was addressed in the chapter about the contradiction between the basic principle (measure of value) of
bourgeois production and its development. See Fondements de la Critique de l’Economie (French translation of Grundrisse),
vol. 1: 220-231. Anthropos, 1968, Paris. It is certainly not by chance that the bourgeoisie’s economists themselves
and the functionaries of the main bodies of capital’s international administration were surprised to discover how
closely did Marx’s theoretical previsions coincide with the “globalized” capital’s keenest tendencies, particularly
as regards capital concentration and global social polarization, for so long simply denied by the bourgeoisie’s
economists. See, for instance, John Cassidy’s note in “The Return of Karl Marx”, The New Yorker, October 20-27,
1997. Nancy Birdsall, Executive Vice-President, Inter-American Development Bank-IADB, does not hesitate in
starting her statement by saying: “Exactly 150 years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, inequality looms large
on the global agenda,” op. cit.: 25. See also my “Crisis Capitalista y Clase Obrera” in Fernando Claudin, K.S. Karol;
Quijano, Aníbal and Rosanda, Rossana: Crisis Capitalista y Clases Sociales. Mexico: ERA, 1974.
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Capitalism and State
The relation between capitalism as a global work control structure and
its organization into particular domination spaces, as well as the organization
of specic collective authority structures in these spaces, remains an open
question. In general, relations between domination and exploitation are not
always clear, much less systemic or organic.
Although the way modern colonialism – born with America – shaped the
context conducive to the formation of capitalism seems to have been better
studied and theorized, a question that has not been broached or clearly studied
is why this kind of capitalism associated itself, within the same movement
and a the same time, with various types of state in various domination spaces.
This happened with the modern/absolutist/imperial state (all the states of Western
Europe, save for Switzerland, between 1500 and 1789; the modern imperial/colonial
Nation-State (France and England, for instance, from the late 8
th
century until
after World War II); the modern colonial state (North America before 1776 and
South America before 1824, as well as Southeast Asia and Africa until the mid-
20
th
century); the modern despotic/bureaucratic state (the former Soviet Union and
the Eastern European states until the late eighties; their Nazi and Fascist rivals
in Germany, Japan, and Italy between late 1939 and 1945; and China today);
the modern democratic Nation-State (today’s states of Western Europe, North
America, Japan, Oceania); the modern oligarchic/dependent state (those of Latin
America before the late sixties, except for Mexico, Uruguay, and Chile since
the late twenties); the modern dependent-national state (in various degrees, all states
of Latin America, most of Asia, and some of Africa, especially South Africa);
and the modern neocolonial state (many or perhaps most states of Africa).
Although this classication, with its illustration, is a working hypothesis, it
should not be seen as arbitrary. It allows putting into question the Eurocentric
historical and sociological perspective, whereby the type of State corresponding
to capitalism is the modern Nation-State (Ralph Miliband), while all the other
types would be “exceptions” (Poulantzas) or “pre-capitalist” or “in transition”
(virtually all the “historical materialism” authors).
21
21
Miliband, Ralph: The State in Capitalist Society, New York: Basic Books, 1969 was specically suggested as a
study of the state in the so-called “Western” countries. See also Poulantzas, Nicos: Poder Político y Clases Sociales en
el Estado Capitalista, Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores, 1969. A valuable review of the literature prior to the eclipse of
“historical materialism” for the worldwide debate is by Tilman Evers, El Estado en la Periferia Capitalista, Mexico:
Siglo XXI Editores, 1979 and 1985.
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In my view, we cannot have a historical theory that truly accounts for the
relations between capitalism and state as long as the question of the coloniality
of power is not integrated into appropriate historical and theoretical research.
But this is neither the place nor the time to go deeper into this crucial issue.
Be as it may, the recent debate about the relationship between “globalization”
and state, from the dominant (Eurocentric) perspective, is limited solely to the
crisis of the Modern Nation-Sate under the impact of “globalization.”
22
Capitalism, globalization, and the modern Nation-State
What capitalism’s current tendencies and particularly the hegemony of
nancial capital and the predatory action of the speculative accumulation
mechanisms have abruptly made visible is the fact that modern capitalism, as
one of the main axes of the power model that predominates worldwide today,
has been associated with the modern Nation-State only in some domination
spaces, while most of the world has been associated with other forms of state
and political authority in general.
It is thus more pertinent and productive to attempt to bring to light
the more dynamic tendencies of the relationship between current changes
in capitalism’s shape and the changes in collective authority and political
domination structures.
In this respect, it is possible to distinguish the following main tendencies:
1)
Formation of one Imperial World Bloc consisting of the modern
Nation-States at the ‘center’ of the world system;
2)
Fight for regional hegemony among the dependent-national
states, associated or in conflict with the Imperial Bloc in the
most conflict ridden areas, such as in the Middle East (Israel
on one side, and Syria and Iraq on the other); in South America
22
This subject has not failed to produce a vast literature. For part of the debate in Latin America, see,
for instance, Delgado, Daniel García: Estado-Nación y Globalización, Buenos Aires, ARIEL, 1998; Francisco
Capuano Scarlato et al. Globalização e Espaço Latino-Americano, São Paulo: Hucitec-Anpur, 1993; and in relation
to political processes associated with cultural ones, see Parga, José Sánchez: Globalización, Gobernabilidad y
Cultura, Quito: Abya-Yala, 1997; Mato, Daniel, Crítica de la Moderna Globalización y Construcción de identidades,
Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1995; Néstor García Canclini, Coord., Culturas en Globalización,
Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 1996.
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(Brazil, Chile, Argentina); in Asia (India, Pakistan at one extreme,
and China South Korea at the other); and, albeit in a more uid
manner, in Africa, where differentiated regions similar to the
ones mentioned do not seem to exist, except for South Africa.
3)
Steady erosion of the democratic-national space, or the steady de-
democratization and de-nationalization of all the dependent-national
states where consolidation of the modern Nation-State has not
occurred.
4)
Gradual conversion of the less national and less democratic states
into local centers of world nancial capital’s administration and
control and of the Imperial World Bloc.
It is not my intention to undertake a systematic, exhaustive exploration
of these tendencies individually or as a whole. For our purposes, we need to
dwell above all, for the moment, on the formation of the Imperial World Bloc
and on the de-democratization and de-nationalization of the dependent states
and their progressive transformation into some sort of political-administrative
agencies of the world nancial capital and of the Imperial World Bloc, because
these two tendencies, more clearly than the others, express the re-concentration
of world control of public authority, the latter’s re-privatization, and the virtual
shadow of a global domination space.
The imperial world bloc and local states
There is no denying that few of the modern Nation-States (the Group of
Seven, now Group of Eight with the late, subordinate admission of Russia),
being stronger and, in some cases, headquarters of the modern colonial
empires and, in all cases, headquarters of capitalist imperialism in the 20
th
century,
23
now constitute a genuine Imperial World Bloc. In the rst place,
because their decisions are imposed on the ensemble of the other countries
and on the nerve centers of economic, political, and cultural relations in the
world. Secondly, because they do so, although they have not been elected or
even appointed by the other states, which they do not represent and thus do
not have to consult before making their decisions. They are virtually a public
world authority, although not an actual world state.
23
In Hobson’s and Lenin’s sense.
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This Imperial World Bloc does not consist only of globally hegemonic
Nation-States. It is rather a sort of imperial institutional web made up of
these Nation-States, the intergovernmental entities that control and exercise
violence, such as NATO, the intergovernmental and private entities that
control the global nancial ow in particular (the main ones being the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Club of Paris, and the
Inter-American Development Bank), and the large global corporations. As a
matter of fact, this institutional web does already constitute a sort of invisible
world government.
24
In other words, this is a global re-concentration of public authority’s
control. And this is, in my view, the most salient phenomenon of the so-called globalization
of the current world power model.
The emergence of the Imperial World Bloc – perhaps it would be
better to call it Global – obviously implies that the other sates are subject to
a gradual reduction of their autonomy. This is particularly the case of those
states or societies that have not yet completed or advanced the process of
becoming modern Nation-States. If one observes what happens to society
and to social, cultural, and political differences as a result of the worldwide
imposition of neoliberalism as the economic policy matrix, both internally
and among countries, one can easily notice that this ongoing erosion of
the autonomy (or sovereignty) of these states consists above all in the de-
democratization of society’s political representation in the State. This makes
absolutely clear the structural linkage of nancial capital needs, speculative
accumulation mechanisms, and the tendencies of world re-concentration
of public authority’s control, whose major expression today is the World
Imperial Bloc.
Nevertheless, these paired, interdependent processes do not imply that
the World Imperial Bloc’s public authority is directly and explicitly exercised
in all the other domination spaces or “countries” in these spaces (save
exceptionally and transitorily, as was the case of the invasion of Panama and
Noriega’s arrest), although they clearly tend in this direction, as shown by
24
Thomas M. Callaghy coined the concept of “transgovernance” to account for the fact that State institutions
are indispensable for applying to or imposing on individual countries the standards and behaviors that serve
the interests of capital and the market, as well as for the fact that these State institutions are intertwined with
capital’s specic ones. See “Globalization and Marginalization. Debt and International Underclass,” in Current
History, November 1997: 392-396 and in Developing World 99/00, cit.: 50-54.
Aníbal Quijano
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recent actions in Kosovo, Chechnya, Africa, and now Colombia and potentially
South America’s entire Andean-Amazon region (“Colombian Plan”).
25
At least for the moment, the World Imperial Bloc needs the local
states to impose its policies in each country. Some of these states are thus
being converted into institutional structures for the local administration of
world interests, while others are making more visible the fact that they were
already discharging such function. This process implies a local and global
re-privatization of such states,
26
as they serve increasingly less the political
representation of all social sectors of each country. They thus form part of
this world web of public authority, state, and private institutions that together
begin to form a sort of invisible world government.
27
Re-privatization of the control of collective authority
This re-concentration of world control of public authority on a global
scale implies essentially a re-privatization of the control of a central area of
social existence and its respective institutional sphere. The control of collective
authority was recognized as being public in the modernity period, particularly
from the 18
th
century on. The modern Nation-State emerged precisely as the
embodiment of the public character of collective authority – public in the
specic, explicit sense that it admitted equal participation by all “citizens”
and was legitimized above all by this very reason.
28
However, although an
increasingly secondary, basically symbolic part of this institutional universe is
still admittedly public, the fact is that these institutions’ dominant nuclei are
private, such as the global corporations, or the administrative technocracy of
the nancial organizations and of the states’ economic policies, even in the case
25
Since this essay was completed, this global re-colonization tendency has been clearly illustrated by the imperial/
colonial invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States and England, with the explicit or debated support
of the whole Global Imperial Bloc.
26
As regards relations between the public and the private sphere in the makeup and exercise of collective and
particularly state authority, I have proposed some ideas in “Lo Público y lo Privado: Un enfoque Latinoamericano,”
in Quijano, Aníbal, Modernidad, Identidad y Utopia in América Latina, Lima: Ediciones Sociedad y Política, 1988.
27
After delivering my lecture and nishing revise its text, I read Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,
Cambridge, Mass/London, England: Harvard University Press, 2000. The author’s main thesis is that we are
already living in a Global Empire, with historical and structural characteristics similar to those of the Roman
Empire, and that the era of Imperialism and the Nation-State, which they view as reciprocally corresponding
institutions, has ended. This idea was already present in George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, New York,
1998. Readers will remark my disagreement with these proposals.
28
See Quijano, Aníbal, “Lo Público y lo Privado, un enfoque Latinoamericano,” op. cit.
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of supposedly public organizations, such as the intergovernmental nancial
capital institutions – the IMF and what is known as the World Bank.
In the ongoing world debate about this tendency of continuous, increasing
erosion of the weaker states and societies because their democratization/
nationalization process was not completed and did not become sufciently
rm, the most widespread theoretical proposal presents said tendency as a
trend to the actual decline of the modern Nation-State.
29
This is a clear demonstration of the dominance of the Eurocentric
knowledge perspective. True, the modern Nation-State, together with the
bourgeois family, the capitalist enterprise, and Eurocentrism,
30
is one of
the fundamental institutions of each area of the world power model of the
modernity period and begins with America. The modern Nation-State is also
the worldwide hegemonic institution within the universe of institutions that
operate in the world in conict over the control of public authority and its
resources, particularly violence. But it is certainly not true that the modern
Nation-State really exists in all the domination spaces known as countries. It
is equally not true that all the current states of all countries or spaces of
domination have the character of modern Nation-States, although they may
present themselves as such or be admitted as such in the imagery or symbolic
universe of each country.
Coloniality of power and Nation-State
The dening difference between the processes that found completion
and afrmation in modern Nation-States and those that did not lies in the type
and extent of their respective relationship with the coloniality of power. In
respect of the former, the coloniality of power did not make itself immediately
present in the domination spaces in which the democratization of social
relations occurred and which form and dene the character of the processes
of nationalization of society and its State. This is what occurred in Western
Europe from the last third of the 18
th
century until the end of World War II.
29
The literature on this subject is already extensive and grows with each day. See, for instance, the references in
Delgado, Daniel García: Estado-Nación y Globalización. Fortalezas y Debilidades en el umbral del Tercer Milenio. Buenos
Aires: Ariel, 1998.
30
On this issue, see Quijano, Aníbal: La Colonialidad del Poder y sus Instituciones Hegemónicas, the rst part of which
was published under the title “Poder y Derechos Humanos” in Carmen Pimentel, comp., op. cit.
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However, the coloniality of power has been and continues to be very
active, as it forms part of the global context in which occur the processes
that affect all the specic domination spaces. The concentration of the
democratization and nationalization of Western Europe’s modern states until
the 20
th
century shows precisely the worldwide imposition of the coloniality
of power. The Eurocentrism of the colonial/capitalist power model was not
caused only by the dominant position of the world market’s new geography, but
above all by the basic social classication of the world population around the
idea of race. The concentration of the process of formation and consolidation
of the modern Nation-State in Western Europe could be neither explained
nor understood outside this historical context.
31
The other face of the process of constitution and consolidation of the
modern Nation-State was the colonized world, such as Africa and Asia, or
the dependent world,
32
such as Latin America. In this part of the world, the
coloniality of power not only was and still is present in the global context of the
world power model, but directly and immediately operates within the respective
domination space, hampering the processes aimed at the democratization of
social relations and at their national expression in society and in the State.
Should anyone think that the difference lies in the fact that some spaces
were colonized and others were not, sufce it to compare the processes in
Western Europe and in Latin America, the two most representative scenarios
of each side of the difference of these processes, which moreover occurred
simultaneously between the end of the 19
th
century and the 20
th
century.
33
Differently from Europe – owing exactly to a different distribution of the
coloniality of power in the two spaces – in Latin America, precisely at the end
of the so-called Independence Wars, the most notorious historic paradox in
the Latin American experience could be observed: the association between
independent states and colonial societies in all of our countries. Although
31
See “Colonialidad del Poder, Eurocentrismo y América Latina”, article cited.
32
About the concept of “dependence” implied in this proposition, see “Colonialidad del Poder, Eurocentrismo
y América Latina”, article cited. Also “Colonialidad del Poder, Cultura y Conocimiento en América Latina”, in
Anuario Mariateguiano, IX, 9, 1997:113-122.
33
I have discussed these questions before in various writings, particularly in “Colonialidad del Poder,
Eurocentrismo y América Latina,” cited article; in Estado-Nación, Ciudadanía y Democracia: Cuestiones Abiertas; in
Schmidt, Heidulf and Gonzáles, Helena, comps., op. cit.; in “El Fantasma del Desarrollo,” Revista Venezolana
de Ciencias Sociales, 2, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2000; in “Colonialidad, Ciudadanía y Democracia,” in
Amérique Latine: Démocratie et Exclusion. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994; in “América Latina en la Economia Mundial,” in
Problemas del Desarrollo, Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, UNAM, XXIV, 95, México, 1993.
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fractured and permanently, if erratically, contested, this association presided
over social and state relations in all Latin America.
Looking at Latin America, one cannot strictly see as fully formed and
consolidated modern Nation-States the states/societies of the so-called
“Andean” area or of Brazil, for instance, unless one admits them as national
societies and states explicitly founded on coloniality of power relations. Uruguay
and Chile have advanced further in constituting modern Nation-States, but at
the cost of the genocidal extermination of the aborigine populations and of
a relatively less concentrated appropriation of their territories.
This occurs within insurmountable limits, unless there is a radical
decolonization of relations with the populations that descend from the
surviving aborigines, something that, as everyone knows, is already stirring in
both countries.
In Mexico, a social revolution between 1910 and 1930 started this
process of decolonization of power relations; its radical tendencies, though,
were soon defeated and the process could not become sufciently profound
and encompassing to permit the full afrmation of a national and democratic
society and state. It did not take long for the consequences of this defeat to
be felt in the gradual choking of society’s decolonization and in the current
tendencies that guide the reconstitution of the association between capitalism
and the coloniality of power. However, Mexico is the only place in Latin
America where society and State have for a long period advanced in the process
of power decolonization and of democratization and nationalization. In the
other countries, the revolutions pursuing the same goals between 1925 and
1935 were all defeated. Since then, processes in all these parts have been erratic,
partial, and ultimately precarious. The civil wars in Central America from the
1950s until fairly recently, which obviously were moved by the same conicts
and interests, showed the undeniable illegitimacy and conictive nature of
the coloniality of power in those countries and in all others, but the social
decolonizing forces were also routed.
In realistic terms, only in the “center” countries rst, and then in those
where profound social revolutions triumphed, such as China, or where wars and
defeats made possible relatively signicant social democratization processes,
such as in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand, can one
see processes of development of Nation-States, albeit in different degrees of
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afrmation and maturation, toward becoming modern Nation-States. China,
for instance, is today a central State that has become stronger after 1949. What
is not yet absolutely sure is whether it has already fully become a national
society, as it exists within the same space of a colonial empire and has by no
means ceased to be a bureaucratic despotic regime.
Remarkably, it is not in those countries, particularly in “center” countries
(United States, Western Europe, Japan) where one can observe the decline of
the modern Nation-States’ institutionality. The process of political unication
of the Western European countries does not signify an erosion of the
modern Nation-State but rather the constitution of a new, broader space of
domination. Or would anyone suggest that the size of the domination space is
the factor that determines the nature of a state? Or that the European Union
will become a new absolutist, despotic state only because of the expansion
of its domination space?
It is only in all the countries where the process of democratization and
nationalization of societies and states or of formation of modern Nation-
States was not completed that one can observe the erosion of what had been
accomplished in this direction.
The discussion here is about the processes of de-democratization of
society and state and thus of their de-nationalization owing to a world tendency
toward the re-concentration of world control of public authority institutions,
i.e., of the state in the rst place, and the gradual constitution of a world web
of institutions, both state and private, of public authority, that would apparently
function as an invisible but real world government.
Capitalist globalization: a global counterrevolution
Few times in the history of modernity has there been such a noticeable
degree of re-concentration of power control, particularly in the area of work
and public authority. This extreme is comparable to what occurred with
European colonialism between the 16
th
and the 19
th
centuries.
34
The beginning of this process could be situated in the mid-1970s, when
capitalism’s world crisis broke out, and its acceleration in the late-1980s, as of
34
An overview of colonialism and anticolonialism in the last 500 years is provided in the monumental work by
Stavrianos, L. S.: Global Rift. The Third World Comes of Age. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1981.
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the famous “fall of the Berlin Wall” in 1989. Quite remarkably, this implies
a truly dramatic change as compared with the previous period, which can be
generally situated between the end of World War II and the mid-1970s.
A comparison between the two periods shows the decisive, historical
signicance of this drastic change. Briey, as this history is common knowledge,
I will limit myself to mentioning the more salient lineaments and facts of the
period between 1945 and 1973:
1)
Political decolonization of Southeast Asia (India, Indonesia,
Indochina, Ceylon), Eastern Asia (China, Korea), most of Africa
and the Middle East, as well as the Antilles and Australia and New
Zealand.
2)
Triumph of profound social revolutions in China, Vietnam, Bolivia,
and Cuba, and expansion of revolutionary movements of a “socialist”
or “national liberation” orientation, including “African socialisms.”
In some cases, this meant the military defeat of the hegemonic
States, as in Korea, Vietnam, and Algeria. And fall of authoritarian,
colonialist regimes, as Portugal’s.
3)
Expansion of the Welfare State regime in Europe and the United
States.
4)
Movements and regimes of a national-democratic tendency in Latin
America, which produced social and political reforms aimed at the
democratization of social and political relations, including statization
of production factors (Peronism, Velasquism, and Allendeism).
5)
Development of social movements that were radically democratic,
anticapitalist, anti-authoritarian, and anti-bureaucratic in Europe,
United States, and some areas of Asia and Latin America, which,
particularly in the second half of the 1960s, produced revolutionary
waves in France, Germany, United States, China, and Mexico.
6)
Expansion of social movements of radical democratization, labeled
“liberation,” in sexual, gender, “racial”, “ethnic”, and age relations.
7)
Beginning of systematic criticism of Eurocentrism as a knowledge
perspective, particularly in Latin America in the beginning, but soon
extended to Europe, Asia, and Africa.
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All these processes entailed: a) a marked de-concentration of public authority
control, with part of this control being snatched from European colonialism
and from European and United States imperialism; b) a relative but signicant
redistribution of work control between imperialist, capitalist groups and locals; and
c) an equally relative but equally signicant redistribution of benets and income
through Welfare State mechanisms in the “central” countries or through the
provision of public employment and services (particularly education, health,
and social security in Latin America, India, etc.); d) to a much lesser extent, a
relative redistribution of the control of work resources, particularly through “agrarian
reform” in various countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Latin America;
and e) last but not least, expansion of anticapitalist criticism and political
movements, as well as of other movements that radicalized anticapitalist
struggles, so as to pose a virtual threat to the world power model as a whole.
These processes, movements, and conicts created an unmistakably
revolutionary scenario and, regardless of the different ways and degrees that
varied according to regions or problems, it was the world power model in
the guise of exploitation or domination, or both, that was in question and, at
certain moments, such as in the late 1960s, truly at risk.
The defeat of this entire context through a combination of re-
concentration of the control over work, which took place during capitalism’s
worldwide crisis; the defeat of the movements called “anti-systemic” by
some, owing at rst to an alliance of rival regimes within the system; and the
defeat and subsequent disintegration of the more inuential rival regimes (the
former Soviet Union and the European “socialist camp”) were the factors
that allowed the more powerful Nation-States of the world power model
to undertake, swiftly and with relative ease, the re-concentration of public
authority control and, in many cases, a clear re-privatization of the State, as
in Peru under Fujimore’s regime.
35
What is this “globalization” thing?
The preceding warrants some cogent conclusions: “globalization” consists
above all in a reconguration of the institutional forms of Coloniality of Power, which
has the following implications: 1) an ongoing, rapid re-concentration of world public
35
My theoretical and political views about these processes were summarized in “¿El Fin de Cuál Historia,”
article cited.
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authority, or strictly speaking, a re-privatization of the control of collective authority; 2)
this leads to the intensication and acceleration of the basic tendencies of the capitalist
system of work exploitation and control;3) the corresponding institutional manifestation
in the “center” is the emergence of a World Imperial Bloc, consisting of the Nation-States
that already enjoyed worldwide hegemony under the predominance of the principal one of
them and of the bloc of nancial capital world corporations; 4) the World Imperial Bloc is
structurally intertwined with the control and administrative institutions of world nancial
capital, particularly with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the
Club of Paris, and with the control and administrative entities of international, social,
and political violence, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Inter-
American Regional Defense System; 5) the whole of this institutional, state, and para-state
web tends to operate as an invisible world government; 6) on the “periphery,” the foremost
institutional expression of the process is the de-nationalization and de-democratization of
the states with a national tendency and, in this specic case, there occurs a steady erosion
of their autonomy (or sovereignty) and of tendencies toward the formation or consolidation
of a modern Nation-State in capitalism’s noncentral areas; 7) to the extent that the
ensemble of these processes results from the worldwide defeat of regimes, organizations,
and movements that were rivals of or antagonists of the Eurocentric, colonial/modern
capitalist world power model, the current “globalization” of this power model has the
character of a counterrevolutionary process on a global scale.
This basically political character of the so-called “globalization” shows
that, contrary to its mythical image, this is not some sort of inevitable “natural”
phenomenon with inescapable consequences. It is rather the outcome of a vast,
prolonged conict over power control, from which the forces that represent
coloniality and capitalism came out victorious. “Globalization” is thus an
unavoidable arena of conict both between winners and losers and among
the winners themselves, which means that other results are possible.
In passing, it is worth pointing out that the re-concentration of control
over work and authority has not entailed a similar re-concentration of global
control over all other power areas, especially in the area of intersubjective
relations of social dominance, and in the areas of race and gender as well as in
the way knowledge is produced. Racism and ethnic bias, the bourgeois family,
and Eurocentrism continue to be undeniably hegemonic worldwide. But in
these dimensions of the current power model and in its respective institutions,
the crisis has become only more profound and explicit.
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From a national to a global perspective?
In this eld also there is something that albeit not exactly new may
nevertheless seem a novelty for many students of the subject, namely, the
changed perspective implicit in the idea and the image associated with the
term “globalization.” After a long time, it is now possible, and this is almost
a consensus, to face power and above all capitalism in their true, permanent
global scale.
True, not only Marx but practically all those that dealt with these issues
after him until just before World War I had in mind the idea of world capitalism.
Afterwards, though, and until after the world crisis that began in the mid-1970s,
capitalism’s global view as world model of work control shifted toward the
so-called national view, linked to the concept of Nation-State.
This shifting of perspective necessarily implied also a shifting of
problems or, in other words, of the most important questions to be asked
from experience (or from “reality”) and of the meaning to be attributed to
observations, discoveries, or verications.
This shifting of perspectives and problems occurred with the hegemonic
imprint of Eurocentrism as the basic view of knowledge. Otherwise, the
privileged reference to the European-style Nation-State would make no sense,
as it had not become – and has not yet become – the actual structure of the
“perifphery’s” public authority.
Although in different ways and degrees, this shifting affected all sides
of the debate, i.e., not only the advocates of capitalism and its related forms
but also those that criticized it from a theoretical and political standpoint or
that were inclined to do so. While it became easier for the former to make the
theoretical defense of their system, for the latter the result was theoretically
and politically disastrous. In the rst place, the ahistorical dualist/evolutionist
view was perpetuated among those known as pre-capital and capital supporters.
Secondly, lost from sight was the global character of the fundamental relations
between domination and exploitation processes and social classication
processes and their relations with the particular spaces of domination, with
or without reason called national.
Under these conditions it was not possible to recognize – as they could
not be seen then – capitalism’s tendencies that are now visible to all and that, for
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this main reason, are assumed to be new. These tendencies included particularly
the world population’s global social polarization between a rich minority and a
growing, vast majority that remains continually poor; the steady concentration
of capital; the continuous revolution of the means of production; and the
tendency, as yet barely studied systematically, toward the exhaustion of the
interest in and necessity of converting the work force into merchandise.
This view took the Nation-State, real or presumed, not only as a study
subject but also as a theoretical and methodological perspective to investigate
capitalism’s general tendencies and processes. This view of knowledge could
not be but reductionist. Accordingly, it was not difcult to demonstrate that
in the modern Nation-States of the “central” countries, the global tendencies
that are now evident to everybody had no place or were not as visible as today.
Thus, the difculties faced by capitalist development in the other countries
was a question of “modernization,” i.e., of following the same path as the
more “advanced” ones; or of the timing and correctness of economic policy
measures for those that had already entered the path. Be as it may, it was not
a problem of world power or of world capitalism.
Coloniality and Nation-State in Latin America
Latin American nationalism was conceived and exercised on the basis
of the Eurocentric view of Nation-State and nationalism as loyalty to an
identity established or assumed by the beneciaries of the coloniality of
power, apart from and often contrary to the interests of those under colonial
and capitalist exploitation/domination. For this reason, rst Latin American
liberalism of the 19
th
century, then “developmentism” and “modernization”
after World War II got boggled down in the chimera of modernity without
social revolution. “Historical materialism” went under into another bog, of
an equally Eurocentric nature: the idea that the dominators of these countries
were by denition “national, progressive bourgeoisies.” Victims became thus
confused and their struggles for democratization/nationalization of their
societies went astray, a situation in which social, material, and intersubjective
decolonization, or strictly speaking, des-coloniality of power is the sine qua non
of every possible democratization and nationalization process.
The des-coloniality of power is the necessary foundation of any profound
social revolution. For a vigorous development of capitalism in these countries
Aníbal Quijano
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this revolution/des/colonization was also necessary, as witness the fate of
this region in the world economy and today’s useless, innocuous projects and
discourse related to markets “integration”, whether under the Andean Pact
or in Mercosur.”
36
As long as these conditions prevail, national sovereignty cannot but
consist in defending the interests of the owners of the state of a colonial
society and of the control of work and its resources and products; former
minor partners of imperial interests, today they are but their administrative
agents in the domination space called national. This is contrary to the interests
of the vast majority of workers. Fujimorism is the utmost expression of this
perverse experience.
37
Under today’s conditions of counterrevolutionary “globalization,” the
development of Nation-States after the European fashion is a dead end. The
discourse whereby we are multiethnic, multicultural societies does not imply
and can never imply actual decolonization, in the sense of des/coloniality of
society and the State. In many cases, among which Fujimorismo in Peru is the
prime illustration that serves to juggle the pressures for the re-legitimization
of racism/ethnicism and to depreciate the social struggles against these forms
of domination.
38
For the countries where coloniality of power is the real foundation
of power relations, citizenship, democratization, and nationalization cannot
really exist, save precariously, on the Eurocentric Nation-State model. We, the
Latin American peoples, must nd an alternative course. The community and
the association of communities as public authority’s institutional structure
are already rising over the horizon and have the potential of being not only
the most appropriate framework for democratic quotidian relations among
people but also the strongest and most effective institutionalized structures
available to the State for discussing, deciding about, planning, and executing
36
See América Latina en la Economía Mundial, op. cit. See also El Fantasma del Desarrollo en América Latina, op. cit.
37
I have discussed this in several writings, including El Fujimorismo y el Perú, Lima, 1995; “Fujimorismo y
Populismo,” in El Fantasma del Populismo, Burbano de Lara, Felipe, Caracas: Ed., Nueva Sociedad, 1998; “El
Fujimorismo, la OEA y el Perú,” in América Latina en Movimiento, July 25, 2000. Quito, Ecuador.
38
The Supreme Court, controlled and manipulated by the National Intelligence Service and at the service of
the country’s speculators and corrupt businessmen, decided for the legality of this discrimination imposed by
local night entertainment businesses in Lima. See my article “Qué Tal Raza,” originally published in Cambio
Social y Familia, CECOSAM, Lima: 1999, 186-204, reproduced in Revista Venezolana de Ciencias Sociales, 2000, 6,
1, January-April: 37-45; an in Ecuador Debate, 49, Quito: December 1999, 141-152.
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[initiatives] in defense of the world population’s interests, needs, jobs, and
large-scale projects.
The democracy question
39
In today’s world – in the world model of colonial/modern/capitalist/
Eurocentric power – the meaning of the term democracy applies to a specic
phenomenon: a system of institutionalized discussion of the limits, the conditions, and
the modalities of exploitation and domination, institutionally embodied in the modern
Nation-State.
This system’s touchstone is the idea of juridical and political equality
of unequals in other areas of social existence. It is not difcult to perceive a
historical implication of this, namely, three converging, interwoven processes:
a) bourgeois secularization and its new Eurocentric rationality; b) the
confrontations between the new power model and the “old order” over the
distribution of collective authority’s control; and c) the confrontations over the
distribution of control of work and its recourses and products in competitive
capital’s period, particularly among the bourgeois groups themselves, and
thereafter, in the monopolist period, particularly between capital and labor.
Apart from this historical conuence it would not be possible to
explain or understand the idea of social equality, individual freedom, and
social solidarity as key elements in social relations and as the expression of
rationality in the modernity period. The desacralization of authority in the
genesis of subjectivity, which endowed the individual with inner autonomy,
is part of the secularization of subjectivity, the new mode of imbuing people
with subjectivity, and is the foundation of individual freedom. On the other
hand, though, the needs of the capitalist market and the struggles for the
control of work, its resources and products, forced the recognition of the
social equality and solidarity of all participants. This conuence of the ideas
of social equality, individual freedom, and social solidarity provides the very
basis for admitting that in society all have the same possibility of participating
in work control as well as in collective authority’s control, which, for the rst
39
On my historical and theoretical proposals about these issues, see particularly the already cited “Colonialidad
del Poder, Eurocentrismo y América Latina;” “Estado-Nación, Ciudadanía y Democracia: Cuestiones Abiertas”;
and “El Fantasma del Desarrollo.”
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time, became public. Democracy was thus being established as an emblem
and compendium of modernity.
However, two elements have a decisive role in these processes. First,
the new power model had a modern but at the same a colonial and capitalist
character. Thus, not only rationality and modernity but also social inequality
[was] founded in both the new, racial and sexual domination system and in the
new capitalist social exploitation system, i.e., in the coloniality of exploitation and
domination. As a result, the market set both a threshold and a limit to equality,
but only in those domination spaces or countries where the coloniality of racial
and sexual domination was not immediately present or was only marginal. The
market sets on the same formal equality footing agents from unequal social
conditions. Likewise, inner autonomy could not be equally unlimited for all
individuals in any area of social existence in which power is compromised,
particularly in the area of sex, its resources and products. Accordingly, not
even in “central” countries did women acquire inner autonomy; they could
not participate in public but only in private life, the realm into which family,
sexual activity and its products – pleasure and offspring receded. The same
thing applies to work, its resources and products. The losers in the struggle
for their respective control, who had nothing but their own working force to
participate in the market, could not achieve equality except within the market’s
limits, nor be individually free beyond the limits of their subaltern condition.
Be as it may, from then on social relations would have a new character:
their intersubjectivity became marked by the dominance of this new rationality
and their materiality became marked by the capitalist market. Further on, social
conict would consist above all in the struggle for the materialization of the idea
of social equality, individual freedom, and social solidarity. While the rst put
exploitation into question, the other two questioned domination. Democracy
thus became the central area of conict of interest in the new power model.
The whole historical process of this specic power model has consisted in
the manifestation of this contradiction: on the one hand, the social interests
ghting all the time for the continuing materialization and universalization of
social equality, individual freedom, and social solidarity. On the other hand, the
interests that ght to limit these and as far as possible to reduce or even eliminate
them, except for the dominators. So far the result has been the institutionalization
of limits to the modality of domination, and citizenship is its precise expression. On the
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limits of citizenship depends the negotiation of exploitation’s limits and modalities. This
institutional universe that resulted from these negotiations is the so-called Modern Nation-
State. Under the current power model, this is what is known as democracy.
The new power model was colonial and Eurocentric. That is, it rested on
the coloniality of racial classication as the basic, universal social classication
and for this very reason was Eurocentric. Owing to these characteristics, for
nearly two centuries – from the late 18
th
century until the mid-20
th
century
– this specic, foundational contradiction of democracy could not fully take
hold in Western Europe. In the rst place, this was because in those countries
the coloniality of social classication was not as directly and immediately present
as today, precisely because of the coloniality imposed on the “Europeans” and
on the other members of the species. Secondly, mercantilization of the work
force had been concentrated in Europe, so that capital was seen as the universal
social relation. Thirdly, the modality of feudal domination no longer existed in
them. However, elsewhere on the planet, as European colonialism expanded,
coloniality was imposed as the basic classication, an thus the dominant form of
exploitation tended to exclude salaries until the late 19
th
century, and the forms
of authority control had to be of a state, colonial, and or seigneurial nature .
Be as it may, full institutionalization of the negotiation of the limits and
modalities of domination and exploitation seemed consolidated in “European”
societies (Western Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand),
where “globalization” begins to be on the defensive, though. Its success has
been late and clearly limited in societies that have not resulted from European
colonialism and the colonialtiy of power, such as Japan, Taiwan, and South
Korea. Most other societies still had a way to go or to nish, particularly in
Latin America.
Globalization and democracy
An idea running through current political debate is that democracy
is being fully afrmed all over the world. This idea is due to the fact that
most governments today have been elected. The vote is thus assumed to be
democracy’s only dening institution.
40
40
On this discussion, see the references in my “Estado-Nación, Ciudadanía y Democracia: Cuestiones Abiertas,”
in Schmidt, Heidulf and Gonzáles, Helena, Comps., op. cit.
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This idea of democracy is an expression of the increasingly technocratic
character of bourgeois and Eurocentric rationality and masks two problems:
rst, the fact that all government, particularly that of states that are not
democratic or national, or not fully national, is increasingly run by non-elected
technobureaucracies totally disconnected from the voters’ will, or worse,
against it.
41
This clear tendency is masked by grossest intellectual contraband,
an argument that, although almost ridiculously absurd, has been imposed as
virtual common sense: the management of economic affairs in particular and
of State affairs in general is not a political but a technical problem! Secondly,
this relation between state politics and votes could not be explained apart from
“globalization, i.e., from the current process of re-concentration of the control
of public authority, which reduces or seeks to reduce any citizen participation
other than through the ballot, so as to allow the local, not always well-concealed
working of a kind of technocratic world government or “transgovernance.”
As vitally important as the vote is, without democratic conditions in basic
social relations, it can not only lend itself to fraud, manipulation, and swindle
but, even if exercised in perfect consonance with the law, it cannot ensure
that voters will have the control of public authority’s institutions, as these are
separately controlled, and increasingly so, against the voters’ explicit will.
Given these circumstances, it cannot be admitted that democracy in
experiencing worldwide expansion and afrmation. Quite the opposite is
true. Financial capital and unbridled speculative accumulation have taken over
world capitalism, the entire world accumulation structure. They dominate it by
means of the most advanced technological resources and put rationality and
knowledge production at the service of their own purposes and interests. This
is a current structural tendency of colonial/capitalist power in the world. Its
development requires the reduction of democratic spaces in society, as these
spaces necessarily imply an equally democratic distribution of access to and
control of work and its resources and products, of sex and its resources and
products, of subjectivity, and above all of knowledge. For all this, democratic
distribution of public authority’s control, i.e., of the state is essential. The
41
The most scandalous case in Latin America, of course, is that of Fujimore in Peru, whose victory in 1990 was
due to massive opposition to neoliberal Vargas Llosa’s economic program by the electorate, which immediately
imposed the most extreme, perverse version of neoliberalism against their express will. Since then, Fujimore
has stood in place, resorting to coups and to elections fraud condemned by the whole world. That is, once again,
against the voters’ will.
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modern Nation-State’s tendency is to be formed this way and on these
foundations. Yet, the current needs of speculative accumulation also necessarily
require the reduction of such spaces and, as far as possible, their elimination
or depreciation of their institutions, such as citizenship and the ballot.
The capitalist character of the power now being “globalized” and the
dominion of speculative capital in capitalism’s current phase are contrary
to society’s democratization and, to a certain extent, to its nationalization,
as every modern Nation-State is national only in so far as it is the political
organization and representation of a democratic society. This “specic”
form of “globalization” increasingly unmasks the fact that it is contrary to
nationalization/democratization processes in every society and state, ever
more immediately and drastically contrary to the afrmation of “peripheral”
Nation-States, particularly where the coloniality of power governs social
relations, as is the case of Latin American countries.
But, despite its recognized distorting capacity, Eurocentric rationality had
to admit criticism and debate of its distorting elements and, more recently,
of its coloniality. It was thus one of the main fundaments of the worldwide
legitimization of the ideas of social equality, individual freedom, and social
solidarity, which in turn legitimized the ght of the exploited, the dominated,
and the discriminated not only against their oppressors but also to change their
placement in the sphere of power, as well as their ght against oppression itself
and any embodiment of power. But since the worldwide crisis of the mid-1970s,
exploitation’s needs and interests have militated against this rationality.
Current capitalism’s predatory tendencies and the re-concentration of
world control of power by the Imperial World Bloc give room to all forms of
fundamentalism, prejudice, and myth on which social hierarchies rest. They
press for an exclusively technocratic use of knowledge, science, and technology
for the specic, exclusive purpose of reinforcing exploitation and domination,
which now include technological intervention in human biology to perpetuate
racial/ethnic discrimination, in the service of privileges imposed by colonialism
and imperialism on the majority of mankind.
There is worldwide pressure toward the de-modernization of people’s
life, not in the sense of criticism and elimination of the colonial character
of the Eurocentric version of modernity but of the re-legitimization of the
most oppressive forms of power. Power has been eliminated as an issue
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of research, debate, and particularly criticism, save in a technocratic and
administrative sense. This legitimizes a cynical attitude toward daily conduct,
as power cannot be really excluded from social relations.
42
Financial capital
presses for the radical mercantilization of the control of all knowledge, while
the Imperial World Bloc seeks the militarization of the control of scientic
and technological research.
43
Speculative capitalism, which is the sign of this
“globalization” phase, exacerbates all these tendencies.
In this sense, “globalization” entails risks that are more serious and
decisive than at any other time in the last two hundred years. Now it is not
only a question of authoritarian tendencies, such as Nazism, Fascism, or
Stalinism, contrary to the strongest democratic tendencies that were still part
of modernity’s historical context and that involved not only the exploited and
dominated but also a major part of the world bourgeoisie. This was because
capitalism’s tendencies had not yet reached their current extremes, owing to
worldwide resistance, conicts between rival powers, and worldwide struggles
against the current power model. Such struggles, though, were lost, while the
conicts and rivalries over worldwide hegemony have been brought under
control, giving way to the Imperial World Bloc. All this has unfortunately led to
tendencies, which seem to be stirring inside this power model’s very society and
culture, toward the formation and reproduction of a new universal common
sense, according to which power, social hierarchies, the unequal control of
work, its resources and products, the unequal, concentrated control of authority
and violence, and the repressive, mercantile control of sex, subjectivity, and
knowledge are admitted as legitimate and, especially, as being natural.
Capitalism’s latest processes require Eurocentric rationality’s full
instrumentation. They thus lead to the re-legitimization of the inequality
entailed by the extreme social polarization under way, the reduction of the
democratic margins of access to the control of work, its resources and products
as well as the control of the creation and management of public authority
institutions and their resources, particularly violence.
As long as capitalism remains one of the basic elements of the central
axis of the current world power model, with processes that will necessarily
42
On these aspects of the so-called postmodern debate, see, for instance, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner:
Postmodern Theory Critical Interrogations. New York: Guildford Press, 1991.
43
For a provocative discussion of these issues, see Virilio, Paul: La bombe informatique. Paris: Editions
Galilée, 1998.
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heighten its current needs or interests, its needs regarding particularly political
and cultural domination will move in the same direction. Under way now
are political and technological efforts of the world “transgovernment” to
concentrate the control of communication and information – precisely
what fascinates its intellectuals and propagandists as an indication of world
“integration” and the world’s shrinking.
New prospects: conict and violence
According to the mythical image of “globalization” disseminated by the
publicists of capitalism and the Imperial World Bloc, we are immersed in a
process that is impervious to people’s intentions and decisions. It is a natural
phenomenon and thus any intentional intervention in it would be useless. The
image oating around everywhere about “globalization” is that opposing it
would be as the same as an individual trying to stop a speeding train by placing
himself in front of it. As this is a question of the world’s economic, political,
and cultural integration, one has to admit that it is a question of a systemic
whole from which it is impossible to escape or to defend oneself.
In view of the preceding, though, it is pertinent to observe, rst, that
there is no such thing as globalization, as no power model can be totally
homogeneous, systemic, mechanical or organic, or a historical whole. Given
the historical and structural heterogeneity of every power model, the areas of
social existence and respective forms of control inherent in them cannot have
systemically or organically corresponding rhythms. What happens in regard
to the “economy,” “politics,” and “culture” or to work, sex, subjectivity, and
collective authority is a historically and structurally discontinuous relation
– and this applies to any specic area. Today it is thus possible to verify if
there are any gaps and contradictions in the “economy,” particularly between
the “speculative bubble” and the production of new material value; or in
“politics,” in the relations between the Imperial World Bloc and the processes
linked to the current struggle for autonomous spaces and national, ethnic,
or other national identities; and, obviously, between such “economies” and
“politics,” or between the Eurocentric rationality’s crisis and the tendencies
toward the re-colonization of intersubjectivity; or yet between the crisis of
the social classication models and the tendencies toward a re-classication
of the world population on a global scale. These considerations have led some
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scholars to suggest that one should think rather in terms of “globalization”
in each area and in different periods.
44
Secondly, the basically political character of what is called “globalization,”
as has been shown, particularly in respect of the sequence of a period of
changes and revolutionary risks, whose defeat allowed the Imperial World
Bloc to impose itself, reects the curious idea that “globalization” is a sort
of natural phenomenon and not an avatar of power disputes and as such
subject to people’s intentions and decisions, regardless of the conicts’
duration and outcome.
Thirdly, one of the inherent problems of the structure of power that
occurs in ‘globalization”, both in exploitation and in domination relations, is
extreme conict between capital and a more heterogeneous work universe of
less controllable consequences; between nancial capital and a working mass
trapped between the lack of salaried jobs and income and the inescapable
need to survive on the market; between the increasingly richer rich and the
increasingly more numerous and poorer poor; between the Imperial World
Bloc and the local states and their national and regional tendencies; and among
states ghting for regional hegemony; between those that ght for reduced or
simple democracy and those that ght for democracy’s political consolidation
and its expansion in society; and, lastly, between the growing technocratic
reductionist tendencies in the manner of producing knowledge and the world
tendencies toward another, non-Eurocentric rationality.
45
Although the preceding is in no way an exhaustive listing, it throws light
on the unstoppable, surfacing tendencies toward conict that may become
open ght. The current world power model’s inherent proneness to conict
signals the impossibility of stability. These conditions cannot have any other
meaning than an equally inherent and extreme potential for violence, whose
ferocity has been made all too clear in the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa,
Rwanda-Burundi-Congo, the Balkans, the Middle East, the former Soviet
44
Notwithstanding their focus on the cultural area, it is pertinent to check the ideas set forth by Göran
Therborn in “The Atlantic Diagonal in the Labyrinths of Modernities and Globalizations” in his Globalizations
and Modernities, Stockholm: FRN, 1999:11-40.
45
There is an extensive literature on the capitalist economy’s globalization process. Some texts of greater interest
are Alvater, Elmar and Mahnkopf, Birgit: Grenzen der Globalisierung, Ökonomie und Politik der Weltgesellschaft, Ed.
Münster, Germany: Verlag Westfällisches Dampfboot, 1996; and Boyer, Robert and Drache, Daniel (dir.): States
against Markets. The Limits of Globalization. London/New York: Routledge, 1996.
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Union – such as in Chechnya – or Latin America, in Colombia and all the
Andean-Amazonian region. Most likely, this violence is only beginning.
And we have not even touched upon the possible, more violent conicts
that seem to be brewing in the foreseeable future: the disputes between the
Imperial World Bloc and China (and eventually China-India-Russia; within the
Bloc, between the United States and the European Union, and between each
one of these or both of them and Japan or Russia. Given these prospects, it is
difcult to admit the mystied images running around in the communication
and information universe controlled by global nancial capital.
In sum, the “globalization” of the world power model threatens to
carry to extremes social polarization, the re-concentration of world power
control in the hands of a small minority, as a result of the re-colonization of
the world under an imperial domination structure at the service of the worst
forms of exploitation and domination, and concomitant de-democratization,
or de-modernization of social, material, and intersubjective relations, as well
as the extreme technocratization of knowledge. For the rst time, this brings
explicitly to light the old Eurocentric threat of a technical barbarism.
Alternative options
The rst thing that can be clearly established is that the worldwide
integration of communication, data processing, transport, and trade in goods
and services, together with the changes in our relation to time and space, does
not have to be necessarily linked to increased exploitation and domination in
the world or with the intensication of the proneness to conict and violence,
as seen in globalized capitalism’s current trends. Thus, what is in question is
not world integration but the capitalist, predatory, and counterrevolutionary
character of the current world power that is being “globalized.”
The world’s democratic integration is one of mankind’s loftiest and most
enduring dreams. What matters, thus, is not to hinder world integration but
rather to allow its full development, to free it from the systematic proneness
to conict and the perverse violence that trigger capitalism’s current trends, so
that the diversity of human beings cease to be a reason for social inequality, and
that the planet’s population may become integrated into a world of relations
among socially equal and individually free people with different identities.
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Accordingly, our rst concern should be to rid the world integration
process of the tendencies of capitalism and the Imperial World Bloc. This
necessarily implies a worldwide redistribution of power, i.e., of control of
work, its resources and products; of control of sex, its resources and products;
of control of collective authority, its resources and products; and of control
of subjectivity and above all of the mode of producing knowledge. This
redistribution means returning the control of each vital sphere of social
existence to the daily life of men and women on this earth.
It is true that for more than two decades the disintegration of the European
“socialist camp,” the worldwide defeat of the “antisystem movements,” the
eclipse of “historical materialism” as the legitimating discourse of “socialism,”
two of the main elements that came unraveled with the world crisis of the
mid-1970s, allowed world integration to occur in the form of a globalization
of imperialist domination. Political defeat was accompanied by the social and
political disintegration of the work world and its associates. It gave origin to
political demoralization and inactivity, if not downright political dissolution
of the losers. Among the latter, it produced a profound, worldwide social
identity crisis, the fragmentation and dispersion of their social and political
groupings, the supplanting of the new social discourse of those dominated
and exploited, as well as the reshaping their memory matrix. Meanwhile,
nancial capital succeeded in carrying out, practically with no resistance,
its predatory action against dependent societies and states and against the
overwhelming working majority. This period, though, seems to be coming to
a close. Resistance is stirring the world over. For Latin Americans, sufce it
to look around, as social struggles have already created crises and instability
throughout all of Latin America.
Every defeat of the exploited and dominated allows time for those that
have power control to make profound changes in social power relations and
many of these changes are drastic and irreversible. Any attempt to ght for
the mere restoration of that which has been destroyed or changed would be
useless, or even worse, fated to be defeated. Nostalgia does not have the same
face nor does it look in the same direction as hope. But in the absence of a
sound, admitted proposal that recognizes reality and the actual options of
change in favor of the victims of power in similar periods, resistance ghts
begin almost always with recalling what has been lost and the attempt to recover
the few concessions wrenched from the exploiters and dominators.
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What has been lost in these years is much and very weighty: stable
employment, adequate income, public liberties, and, in most countries, the
spaces of democratic participation in the formation and management of public
authority. In other words, exploitation has become more intense and domination
more direct. Resistance ghts the world over aim precisely at recovering jobs,
salaries, democratic spaces, and participation in State management. The
problem, though, is that given capitalism’s current tendencies, there are no
conditions for the expansion of salaried jobs; on the contrary, these are being
continuously reduced.
46
If this is correct, fragmentation, dispersion, the
heterogeneity of social, ethnic, and cultural identities of the world’s working
population will but increase. Under these circumstances, the erosion of the
spaces gained in the democratization and nationalization of “peripheral” local
states is probably irreversible in most cases.
47
Capital’s current needs, including in “central” countries, press for the
reduction of democratic spaces for negotiation of the limits to exploitation
and domination and to the depreciation of their purposes, by identifying
democracy solely with the ballot. On the vast “periphery,” the coloniality of
power has blocked the full democratization and nationalization of societies and
states, while today the pressures of the Imperial World Bloc are continuously
reducing the spaces conquered and in many cases have managed to practically
eliminate them. And without control of public authority or at least full, rm
participation in its construction and management, it is not possible to control
the limits to exploitation or to society’s current polarization.
The struggle for democratization and nationalization of societies and states
is certainly a task of worldwide signicance in the defense of gained or regained
rights. But it must be admitted that this will be a limited course if the Eurocentric
view of the modern Nation-State is maintained. In any case, it is now evident that
in the most modern, democratic and national states democracy has not ceased
to be nor can it be other than a space for negotiated institutionalization of the
conditions, limits, and modalities of exploitation and domination.
46
See Quijano, Aníbal: El Trabajo al Final del Siglo XX – public lecture delivered as invited speaker on the occasion
of the celebration of the First Centennial of the Foundation of the Puerto Rico Workers’ Conference, Puerto
Rico University, Rio Piedras, October 1998; published in Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua, Sams Dine Sy, and Amady
A, Dieng, (comps.): Pensée Sociale Critique pour le XXI Siècle. Mélanges en l’honneur de Samir Amin. Forum du
Tiers Monde, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003:131-148.
47
I have advanced some suggestions for discussion in “Globalización y Exclusión desde el Futuro” in La
República, Lima, August 18, 1997.
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On the other hand, given the tendency toward increasing limitation of
the mercantilization of the work force and of the creation and expansion
of salaried work, the heterogeneity, fragmentation, dispersion, and the
multiplication of local interests and identities militate ever more decisively
against the organization and mobilization of workers in the forms established in
the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries. Under these circumstances, the struggle for control
of the state is a limited course that may lead to a dead-end. That is, the more
or less democratic control of the state and citizenship as a juridical equality
of unequals in power has not led – nor could it have been otherwise – to a
continuous expansion of social equality, individual freedom, and social solidarity
– in brief, to democracy. The spaces gained are now in question in the “center”
and are being ceaselessly eroded on the “periphery.” Under current social and
political circumstances and in view of probable or certain development of the
already addressed tendencies, the struggles of those dominated for control of
the state can succeed only exceptionally and precariously.
Prolonged experience has abundantly shown that it is useless to attempt
imposing on reality our desires and aspirations, no matter how attractive and
plausible they may seem. Instead, it is essential to observe in today’s world
scenario the actual and possible tendencies that could entail other forms of
organization, workers’ identication, and society’s organization.
From this standpoint, it can be demonstrated that it is capitalism’s very
processes and the imperial domination tendencies that are driving alternative
tendencies. In the area of control of work, its resources and products, owing
to limitations in the mercantilization of the work force and to the attendant
crisis in the creation of salaried employment, the return of slavery, serfdom,
and modest independent mercantile production is more ubiquitous than ever
and is the heart of the so-called “informal economy.” As regards control of
authority, the formation of the Imperial World Bloc and the erosion of the local
Nation-State processes on the “periphery” are associated with the replication
of local, pre-modern forms of authoritarianism, society’s hierarchization, and
limits to individuation, as occurs with fundamentalist trends the world over.
However, there is also an expansion of reciprocity in the organization of work
and in the community as a public authority structure.
These tendencies must be studied and discussed in relation to their
potential for expanding and consolidating social equality, individual freedom,
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and social solidarity on a global scale. It is already known that under slavery or
serfdom, any vestige of democracy is nil or exists only for a reduced minority.
What salaried employment and capital permit in terms of democracy has been
extensively proven, just as have their growing limitations and likely dead-ends
will be in a not very distant future. On the other hand, reciprocity consists
precisely in the socialized interaction of work and the work force, its resources
and products. And the community as authority’s structure is undoubtedly the
form of full socialization or democratization of the control of the creation
and management of public authority. Both tendencies are current in the new
urban world, in the central scenario of capitalism’s and modernity’s society
and culture, consisting of free relations among free individuals.
48
The Eurocentric theory of democracy sees the authority arrangements
among the slave masters of the Athenian polis in the 5
th
century B.C. as the
source of the Western European lineage of democracy; and it views the
institutionalization of power arrangements among the feudal lords and the
English Crown in the 13
th
century under the famous Magna Carta and later
under the Parliament as the new beginning of its history. This is no mere
accident; rather, this permits the perpetuation of the myth of the isolated
individual, concentrated in himself, and apart from society, as well as of the
myth on which the Eurocentric version of modernity is founded, i.e., the myth
of the state of nature as the starting point of the civilizing trajectory, whose
culmination, of course, is the “West.”
This theory, though, hinders the perception of another historical lineage
of democracy, undoubtedly more universal and profound: the community as
an authority structure, i.e., the direct, immediate control of collective authority
by all the occupants of a given social space. This lineage is not missing from
Central Europe’s own history. In the 13
th
century, the peasant communities
of the Helvetian area got together and agreed to associate into the Helvetian
Confederation to defend themselves from both feudal and imperial despotism.
Today’s Swiss Republic is the adaptation of this trajectory to the conditions of
capitalism and the modern Nation-State, while maintaining two key institutions
of direct democracy: the referendum, i.e., consultation of the citizenry on
48
For an initial discussion of these issues, see Quijano, Aníbal: La “Economía Popular” en América Latina. Lima:
Mosca Azul Editores, 1998; and Modernidad, Identidad y Utopia en Améria Latina. Lima: Ediciones Sociedad y
Política, 1988.
Aníbal Quijano
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
169
any decision that may signicantly affect collective life, and the absence of
professional armed forces, separate from the citizenry’s control. Foreign
defense and internal security are carried out in a direct, institutionalized manner
by the community. It is not without reason that Switzerland has been recognized
as a particular model of advanced democracy under capitalist conditions.
These are of course suggestions for investigation and discussion. They
are not arbitrary, though, as the tendencies pointed out are alive and vigorous
in today’s world. With the formation of communities and regional associations
of communities as genuinely democratic structures of public authority and
forms of popular self-government in many urban and semi-urban areas,
particularly on the “periphery,” and with reciprocity as a form of organization
of work and democratic distribution of its resources and products, partially
associated today with the so-called “informal economy” the world over, a new
horizon is emerging for the struggle for a new society, in which democracy
will not be just the institutionalized negotiation of conict between winners
and losers but the quotidian way of reciprocity and solidarity among different
but socially equal and individually free people.
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Translation: João Coelho
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
173
Drug trafc combat
in Suriname
Subhaas Punwasi*
1. The combating of drug related organized crime
in Suriname:
C
ombating drug-related organized crime in Suriname cannot be seen as
separate from the drugs problems in the world. Suriname is itself not a producer
of hard drugs, but the Surinamese territory is used by national and international
criminal organisations to ship drugs from drug-producing countries, sometimes
through other countries, into our country. These drugs are then transshipped to
their nal destinations, including Europe. Drugs-trafcking is for that reason
seen as a form of transnational organized crime.
As a result of the involvement of violent rebel groups like FARC in
drugs production and providing protection for that, the trafcking of drugs
and trafcking of re arms and ammunition for the rebels are closely knit.
Different criminal investigations have shown that Suriname is not just used as
a transshipment country for drugs, but also for transshipment of re arms and
ammunition, where re arms are traded for drugs. In this manner, weapons that
* Attorney-General of the Republic of Suriname.
proc.gen@sr.net
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
174
were stolen from ammunition depots of the National Army and Police found
their way to the rebel groups mentioned. That these transnational criminal
organisations are a threat to our States is no longer at issue. The threat comes
in many forms, including a threat to the economy of the State, as the primary
goal of these international criminal organisations is to gather capital outside
legal and acceptable structures.
They are well organized on a national and international level, have
advanced communications and other means available and are capable of
inltrating legal government and private institutions. They try to maintain and
strengthen their power and inuence through nancial support of political
and social organisations. They do not shrink from using violence, intimidation
and bribery. Suriname is not an exception when it comes to that.
Thus, the transnational and national criminal organisations form a threat
to our national security: socially, politically and economically. Transnational
criminal organisations benet from free global trade and the fading away of
borders in the world. Within the CARICOM context, with its free movement
of people, we will have to take this sufciently into account.
The international criminal organisations benefit from the weak,
ineffective organisation of our government institutions, of the poorly
developed democratic traditions, the political instability and the relative
poverty in our countries. They succeed in establishing a strong infrastructure
in specic parts of the country and under certain layers of society so that they
can operate freely. The local population benets from their activities and is
not eager to collaborate in the investigation of illegal activities. Recently one
of the local newspapers in Suriname blamed the economic deterioration on
the Government’s drastic measures to combat drugs criminality and money
laundering.
Drugs and drug-related organized crimes are a global threat and they
merit a global response, for that reason I congratulate the Minister of
Justice and the Government of Suriname with the initiative to organize this
international Anti-Narcotics Conference.
The production, transhipment and destination or consumption countries
have in this global response a joint and shared responsibility. I hope that this
thought will be a guiding principle during this conference.
Subhaas Punwasi
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
175
2. National and international cooperation to ght
transnational organized crime:
The awareness has sunken in that because of the global character of
the drugs issues, international cooperation is necessary to effectively deal with
it. For a good international cooperation it is therefore necessary, that we are
informed of each other’s institutions that are responsible for dealing with the
drugs issue.
According to our Constitution (Article 133) the Judiciary is formed by
the Court of Justice and the Public Prosecutions Department.
The Judiciary (the High Court of Justice and the Public Prosecutions
Department) is organisationally housed in the Ministry of Justice and Police.
That means that the Minister of Justice and Police bears political responsibility
for the Judiciary. The Government determines according to (Article 148
of) the Constitution the general prosecution policy and in concrete cases the
government can order the Attorney General in respect of prosecution in the
interest of State Security.
The Public Prosecutions Department, excluding any other body, is
charged with the responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of all
punishable acts pursuant to the Constitution (Article 145), and is headed by
the Attorney General appointed for life. The Constitution thus emphasizes
the independent position of the Public Prosecutions Department and its
investigative and prosecutions tasks.
The Attorney General is also charged with the Investigation Department
of the Police Force and he gives instructions to this Investigation Department
in relation to the investigation of offences. The Constitution prohibits any
interference in the investigation and prosecution and in matters pending
in court.
The Suriname Police Corps has an Investigation Department, the so-
called judicial police that is charged with special and specialized investigations.
The Investigation Department has a number of specialized
-units that are
charged with the combating of the more serious forms of crime, including
drugs crime, money laundering, trafcking of persons and corruption. The
Investigation Department is charged with the investigation of crimes having
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
176
a national as well as a transnational character, whether or not this involves
organized crime.
The Investigation Department of the Suriname Police Corps was headed
by Mr. Santokhi from 1989 until his appointment as Minister of Justice
and Police. Under his competent leadership the Investigation Department
developed into a vital link in the ght against drugs and drug-related crimes.
The success can be attributed, amongst other things, to the establishment and
strengthening of small specialized units, the strengthening of international
cooperation and the investment in intelligence.
The units that are specically charged with combating drugs and drug-
related organized crime are: the Anti Narcotics Squad (Anti Narcotica Brigade),
the Special Investigation Team (Bijzondere Opsporings Team (B.O.T.)), the
Narcotics Intelligence Unit (N.I.U.), the Judicial Intelligence Service (de
Justitiële Inlichtingen Dienst (J.I.D.)) and the Arrest Squad, our A-Team
(Arrestatie Team (A.T.)).
In the ght against transnational organized drugs crime, it is also
important that a country is equipped with effective legal instruments that
enable it to inict serious blows to drugs organisations.
In 1992 Suriname became party to the Vienna Convention of 1988. On
the 12th of February, 1998 our new Narcotics Act was enacted, which was
completely based on the Vienna Convention of 1988. The prison sentences
and the penalties were signicantly increased and it is even possible in some
cases to impose a life sentence.
It is also important that preparatory actions and conspiracy have now also
been penalized, and the law is also applicable to anyone who outside Suriname
in international waters is guilty of certain drugs crimes on board of a vessel.
With the penalization of money laundering, the introduction of criminal
dispossession legislation and the Reporting Desk for Unusual Transactions,
Suriname has almost completely met its international obligations under the
Vienna Convention, which are further elaborated in the recommendations of
the FATF and the CFATF. The legislation on the control of precursors and the
penalization of terrorism and its nancing is not yet enacted in Suriname.
Our dispossession legislation is based on criminal forfeiture, for which a
convicting criminal sentence is required before anything can be dispossessed.
In practice we often encounter the phenomenon of ctitious constructions
Subhaas Punwasi
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
177
in which the illegally obtained moveable and immoveable property are kept
out of the hands of justice and police by placing them under foundations or
persons. The dispossession act needs to be amended so that this phenomenon
can be adequately addressed.
In 2002 legislation was also passed to protect threatened witnesses
(witness protection). We do not have a “witness protection program” as in
America. Suriname is in the process now to join the CARICOM “Agreement on
Regional Justice Protection”. We have chosen for the conception that not only
witnesses should enjoy protection, but all actors involved in law enforcement
who are threatened, such as police ofcers, public prosecutors and judges.
A Treaty for Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Cases and Extradition
exists with the Netherlands since 1976. There is an intensive cooperation in the
eld of the ght against drugs between Surinamese and Dutch law enforcers.
A conscious effort is made for a successful approach of the drugs issue
to expand and intensify the international cooperation; in most cases initiated
by the Investigation Department of the Suriname Police Corps. Most of
the drugs (cocaine) transshipped through Suriname nds its way to Europe
through the Netherlands.
The presence of almost 300,000 persons of Surinamese origin in the
Netherlands and the intensive movement of persons between the Netherlands
and Suriname is a good basis for organized drugs trafcking between Suriname
and the Netherlands. Drugs are transported in freight, by plane and boat, as well as
the human body from Suriname to the Netherlands and other European nations.
From the Netherlands XTC is transported to Suriname, and is then
transshipped to other countries, including the United States of America.
3. Problems, successes and constrainst in eliminating
the drugs related crimes
In the past years we have succeeded in arresting hundreds of people, who
are involved in this trade and to seize large quantities of drugs. In some cases,
in which we were not able to intercept the drugs transports to the Netherlands,
the Dutch police authorities were informed of an alleged drugs transport.
On the other hand, information from the Netherlands on intercepted drugs
transports from Suriname to Europe led to parallel criminal investigations
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
178
in Suriname. This intensive cooperation was successful, not only in the ght
against drugs trafcking, but also for the mutual trust that is necessary for
international cooperation.
As a result the cooperation between the Netherlands and Suriname has
in the past few years gone beyond information exchange and support of each
other’s investigations.
For example, several years ago the so-called FICUS agreement was
signed between the Surinamese Investigation Department and the Public
Prosecutions Department and the Dutch Public Prosecutions Department and
the National Investigation Department to engage in a joint investigation into
the involvement of the so-called Yokohama group in large-scale organized
drugs crime and money laundering.
This involved an international criminal organisation, of which the key
gures were located in the Netherlands and Suriname. Their eld of operation
covered several countries, in the region, Europe and the Far East. In the
investigation of the people directly involved, the judicial and police authorities
of Suriname and the Netherlands worked together intensively. This resulted in
the arrest of dozens of persons in the Netherlands and Suriname, for which
Suriname extradited a number of main suspects to the Netherlands. They have
been convicted in the meantime.
The leaders of this organisation in Suriname are directly involved in the
foreign exchange and casino business. In the Netherlands they ran a border
exchange ofce and they were in the process of setting up a bank. There
are indications that they have nancial inuence in one or more political
organisations in Suriname.
In this case there was also fear for a physical threat against Surinamese
law enforcers.
The success of this method favoured our decision to conclude a second
agreement so that we could jointly investigate a criminal organisation consisting
of persons in Suriname and the Netherlands with contacts in Colombia,
who are trafcking huge quantities of drugs from Colombia to Suriname for
transshipment to the Netherlands
. This investigation is ongoing.
Several years ago we obtained information that a criminal organisation
consisting of Dutch and Surinamese persons had established an XTC lab
Subhaas Punwasi
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
179
in Suriname with equipment, means and raw materials originating in the
Netherlands. In terms of production capacity this XTC lab would be capable
of supplying the complete Caribbean market and even beyond with XTC.
The organisation was dismantled in close collaboration between the
Dutch and Surinamese police and the persons involved were given long prison
sentences. We need to stay alert, because there are signals that new attempts
are made to set up an XTC lab in Suriname.
The cooperation between Suriname and the Netherlands in the ght against
organized drugs crime between Suriname and the Netherlands is successful.
The strict inspections at our international airport Johan Adolf Pengel and
at Schiphol in the Netherlands resulted in a signicant drop in drugs exports
and imports through the respective airports.
Following the example of the HATO Team of the Netherlands Antilles,
Suriname is now establishing a so-called JAP Team at our airport, in which
the different services operating at Johan Adolf Pengel will participate in the
ght against drugs exports through our international airport. The so-called
JAP Team will establish a cooperation between the Investigation Department
of the Suriname Police Corps, the Military Police, Customs and the Airport
Security Services under the direction of the Public Prosecutions Department.
The Netherlands has committed to support this integrated drugs ghting
unit at our airport. The goal is to put a halt to the drugs exports through our
airport with this team or to minimize these considerably.
The Netherlands and Suriname several years ago established a joint
Steering Group and a joint Working Group to Fight Drugs. The Steering Group
and the Working Group meet annually, alternately in the Netherlands and
Suriname. The Steering Group and Working Group consist of representatives
of the Public Prosecutions Department, the Investigation Department, the
Customs Service, the Military Police and the Ministry of Justice.
The Surinamese section of the Steering Group is headed by the Attorney
General, while the Working Group is presided by the Solicitor General.
Except by air, cocaine is also transported to Europe on board vessels
that call in at the port of Suriname.
The thugs are hidden in rice, logs, ballast tanks of the ship, in objects
welded to the exterior of the ship, etc.
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
180
In different countries in Europe drugs from Suriname have been
intercepted. Except for the Netherlands, we can mention Belgium, England,
Portugal and Norway.
The need to expand the cooperation to other drugs destination countries
in Europe for combating drugs trafcking is evidenced by this.
It is after all necessary to search, arrest and prosecute the persons
responsible in Suriname after drugs have been intercepted abroad. There is a
suspicion that Dutch and Surinamese organisations are mainly responsible for
these drugs transports that are intercepted also in other destination countries.
Suriname often has to fall back on Dutch support, which is also obtained.
In many cases we succeeded in tracking down, prosecuting and sentencing
the organisations and persons in Suriname, which were responsible for the
drugs transport, to long prison sentences, either after obtaining legal assistance
or a few times by means of a rogatory commission.
The drugs are sometimes already aboard a ship that calls in at the
Surinamese port, for example to load rice for export to Europe. Currently,
a case has been brought before the court, in which ballast tanks of a ship
belonging to a Surinamer, that had transported cement from Venezuela to
Suriname and left Suriname with rice for Europe, contained a large amount
of cocaine. This case was investigated in close consultation between Suriname
and the Netherlands, and the investigation shows that the cocaine was probably
placed on board in Venezuela.
There are indications that drugs are also placed on board vessels
that anchor in our coastal waters. The chances of being caught are almost
non-existent, because there are hardly any patrols; however, the sharing of
intelligence has resulted in interceptions.
As I stated earlier, Suriname does not produce any hard drugs.
Suriname is used as a transshipment country for cocaine, mainly from
Colombia and XTC from the Netherlands. The cocaine arrives through
different routes in Suriname.
The rst large cocaine capture in Suriname was in 1984, known as the
Tibiti case. An airplane had transported 200 kg of cocaine from Colombia.
The police were able to arrest the pilot of the plane, as well as all persons in
Suriname who were involved, including the former head of our Anti-Narcotics
Subhaas Punwasi
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
181
Squad and a number of business people. They were all prosecuted and were
given prison sentences that were signicant at the time. It was the rst time
that a drugs plane was seized in Suriname.
The Mungo Case, in which almost one thousand (1000) kg of cocaine was
seized in 1990, also attracted a lot of attention. Then there was the Redi Doti Case
where in 1996 almost 1200 kg of cocaine was brought into Suriname by plane.
Formerly, it was mainly the interior of Suriname that was used as landing
place for drugs planes and the organisation of the landing of the plane and the
transport of cocaine was a completely Surinamese matter. That has changed
over the years and we see that these days the foreigners not only take care
of the transport of cocaine, but also set up their organisations in Suriname.
The foreigners that are involved in these imports and have been arrested are
Brazilians, Colombians, Argentineans, Venezuelans and Guyanese.
In the meantime, the international organisations that bring drugs into
Suriname have expanded their eld of operation. Except for the interior they
now also use the populated coastal zone and the unpopulated parts of our
coastal zone for drugs planes landings.
They use illegally constructed airstrips and airstrips that are built on
agricultural elds for airplanes that are used for agricultural purposes.
-Sometimes
a road is used as airstrip. There are also droppings from planes in the sea along the
coast and in our inland rivers. Cocaine is also brought into Suriname by boat.
By systematically mapping the organisations that are involved in drugs
trafcking and their leaders, the continuous strengthening of the specialized
drugs ghting units of the Investigation Department of the Suriname Police
Corps, and the strengthening of the Arrest Team, investments in intelligence
and an intensive cooperation with the D.E.A., we have been able to show
successes in the past years in the ght against drug imports to Suriname.
Dozens of persons, including foreigners, have been arrested and
thousands of kilos of cocaine and several airplanes have been seized. With
the arrests we succeeded in dismantling 8 criminal organisations and sent
their leaders to jail for many years. The contribution of the D.E.A. in these
successes has been invaluable.
We were on the verge of dismantling the ninth large criminal organisation
that is involved in drugs trafcking. After we received information from the
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
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D.E.A. that drugs were to be brought in by plane and we had been able to
track down the landing place, the A-Team turned out to intercept the plane
and its load and to arrest the persons involved.
This operation failed, because the leader of the organisation received
a tip from within the A-Team and the airstrip where the landing was to take
place, was blocked at the last moment.
The A-Team that was on location in hiding saw the drugs plane circle
the airstrip and then leave.
The plane nally landed in the Maratacca area, in the concession of an
entrepreneur. An airstrip had been constructed and there were clear indications
that more landings had taken place. The persons that were arrested had
different nationalities: Surinamers, Guyanese, one Brazilian, an Argentinean
and a Colombian.
Two airplanes and a big catch of drugs were seized. The persons
apprehended were given long prison sentences up to 15 years.
A beautiful, successful operation by the Investigation Department of the
Suriname Police Corps with information provided by the D.E.A. was the 2004
Commewijne drugs case, in which 25 suspects were arrested, including one of
the biggest drugs barons, who liked people to call him Pablo Escobar.
The cocaine was trafcked by means of airplanes and landed on illegally
constructed airstrips on Wia Wia bank on the sea coast, after which the cocaine
was transported further by boats to the District of Commewijne. The D.E.A.
provided us information on the supply of drugs by airplanes in that area. In this
case, the whole chain of foreign and Surinamese organizers and persons involved
in the transshipment and storage of the drugs, as well as the nanciers and buyers
were arrested and the local organisation was completely dismantled.
These are only a few of dozens of successful operations that were
executed in Suriname. As a result of these successes, in which important
leaders of the drugs trade were arrested and given long prison sentences,
and big amounts of cocaine were seized, we have seen a shift of the supply
of drugs to Guyana and we now see an enormous supply of drugs from
Guyana to our country. The number of seizures of drugs transports from
Guyana by land, where the Corantijn river, marking our border, is crossed,
speaks volumes.
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We recently rounded up a large drugs organisation in the border district
with Guyana that was involved in a lively trade between Suriname and Guyana
in weapons, ammunition and cocaine.
The case of Roger Khan made the world headlines. Seizures of large
amounts of cocaine in Paramaribo and the arrest of several persons from
whom the drugs were seized, led to the arrest of two Surinamese entrepreneurs,
Roger Khan and several other Guyanese.
The investigation indicated that the cocaine originated likely from Guyana
and that Roger Khan was responsible for the import of the drugs to Suriname.
Roger Khan was being monitored by the judicial and police authorities because
of his criminal background and his contacts with the underworld in Suriname.
He was also seen as a threat to Surinamese law enforcers, because of alleged
support to Surinamers with violent plans against law enforcers.
Because of the threat he posed to the public order and the fact that
his involvement in the drugs seized could not be adequately proven, he was
deported from our country as an illegal alien through Trinidad.
As is known, he ended up from Trinidad in the United States of America,
where he will be prosecuted for the organisation of drugs transports from
Guyana to America. The arrest and deportation of Roger Khan must have
been a hard blow to Surinamese criminal organisations and their defenders,
considering the fact that they resorted to providing false information to the
public and the National Assembly that Roger Khan would have been drugged
by Americans and kidnapped to the United States of America with the
cooperation of the judicial and police authorities. The deportation of Roger
Khan is a clear signal to international criminal organisations.
Years ago, Carlos Bolas, a person linked to FARC, was also deported
from Suriname because of his illegal status. Finally, he was prosecuted in the
United States of America for drugs trafcking and other criminal activities.
4. Some perspectives in combating international
drug trafcking:
Suriname has undeniably achieved great results in its ght against
drugs trafcking. These successes are on the one hand the result of the own
well organized ght against drugs and the emphasis that has been given to
Drug trafc combat in Suriname
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systematically mapping and dismantling the national and international criminal
organisations that are active here. On the other hand, the international
cooperation with other countries, such as the Netherlands and the support
of the D.E.A. enabled us to achieve these successes. We will have to ght the
drugs organisations on different fronts. We must deal a blow to the power
of the drugs organisations and the responsible persons through criminal
nancial investigations and the dispossession of what they obtained illegally.
Suriname has in this respect a capacity problem. We do not have sufcient
skilled staff. We are not only talking about lawyers, but also nancial experts,
such as bookkeepers and accountants.
The basic legislation is available, but we simply do not have the capacity
to conduct criminal nancial investigations on a large scale to dispossess the
illegally acquired wealth.
The D.E.A. assisted us in mapping the illegal airstrips in Suriname.
What now needs to happen is that these airstrips are made useless. Means and
possibilities to achieve that are lacking.
The international drugs organisations are in the meantime not dormant,
and they are inventing new methods to bring the drugs into Suriname and
transship these to the destination countries, mainly in Europe. The wide
expanse of our interior, our rivers, and the unpopulated coastal zone, the
coastal waters, our uncontrolled borders with Guyana, French Guiana and
Brazil are ideal to bring drugs into Suriname unnoticed, in addition, Suriname
has limited means and possibilities.
We are not capable of protecting our airspace from illegal drugs planes.
We do not have helicopters to quickly go to the inaccessible areas (sites) the
cocaine is transported to. We are insufciently equipped to monitor the inland
rivers and maritime zone. We also do not have a well-equipped maritime unit
in the Investigation Department of the Surinamese Police Corps that can be
quickly on location in case of a dropping in the maritime zone. With the scarce
means and the support of our foreign partners we almost perform miracles
in our ght against drugs.
The successful ght against drug-related crime depends on the extent
in which the chain of production countries, transit countries and destination
or consumption countries are willing to work together on the policy and
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operational level, while continuously exchanging information and initiating
joint investigations, if necessary.
Against this background I applaud the recent establishment of Dutch
and D.E.A. police attaches in Suriname and I understand that the arrival of
a French police attaché will also be forthcoming. Currently, discussions are
being held about stationing a Brazilian police attaché as well.
In this manner the anti-narcotics services will be able to communicate,
exchange information and initiate parallel investigations and provide support
through short communications lines.
With the signing of an M.O.U on Judicial and Police cooperation
between Suriname, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles in January 2006 a good
foundation was laid for a more intensive cooperation between the anti-narcotics
units of these countries. This will be implemented in the short term.
The agreement concluded between Suriname and Colombia in 1993
concerning the Prevention of the consumption, controlling and ghting of the
illegal production and trafcking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances
offers sufcient room to cooperate on a policy and execution level against
transnational organized drug-related crime.
It is also necessary that the CARICOM countries, including Suriname,
accede to the Caribbean Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in Serious criminal
matters. This Treaty provides a good basis for cooperation in the ght against
drugs and for support of each other’s investigations.
Agreements alone are not sufcient. They should form the basis for
further cooperation and support on policy and operational levels.
Bilateral talks were held in 2002 in mixed working groups by judicial
and police authorities from Suriname and Venezuela and from Suriname and
Brazil. It is desirable that we pick up where we left off, and create structures
for consultation and information exchange concerning the international ght
against drugs.
DEP
Translation: Sérgio Duarte
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Mercosur: project
and perspectives
Luis Alberto Lacalle de Herrera*
1. Previous developments
A
s President of Uruguay during the period 1990-1995 I was linked,
together with other members of that administration, to the process that gave
birth to Mercosur. It is in this capacity and in that of member of the board
of the National Party that I develop the present reections. They stem from a
geopolitical conception of the Plata River and of the interests of my homeland
which has been held for over 170 years by the main actors belonging to that
political orientation. They were expounded and defended during the years of
my government by two illustrious diplomats, such as doctors Hector Gros
Espiell and Sergio Abreu, who, together with other representatives of the
interests of Uruguay, participated in the negotiations that resulted in the birth
of the regional organization under examination here.
It is worth noting that in my country the entry into Mercosur was
preceded by internal political agreements that encompassed all political
forces represented in the Congress and which unanimously supported the
government’s decisions. For this reason, in the case of Uruguay, one may state
that it was an authentic national decision.
* Former President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.
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The fact that I no longer hold any ofcial government position makes
clear that the opinions developed here are entirely my responsibility.
2. The circumstances of the inception of Mercosur
In July 1990 the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry learned that Brazil and
Argentina were prepared to sign a treaty establishing a common market
between both countries. As will be easily understood, for Uruguay this was
tremendously important news in the political and commercial elds, affecting
the most important relationship of our external policy, to which we could not
afford to remain indifferent.
In these circumstances we decided that our representatives should come
before the negotiators meeting in Brasília in order to formalize our wish to
participate in that future organization.
Faithful to a global conception of the Plata basin and persuaded that
its balance is a desirable and healthy goal for all parties, we proposed that the
government of Paraguay be invited to participate in the new entity. A pair
of small countries was seen as a way to complement the presence of two
big nations, to better articulate the countries involved and to strengthen the
Paraguayan sense of belonging to a commercial mechanism that might improve
its landlocked condition and contribute to its greater progress and prosperity.
3. The aims of Mercosur
Both from the documents that were signed and from the will of the
Uruguayan government it is clear that the exclusive objective of the new
organization was to promote trade among the partners. It is worth to recall this
today, when one of the most notorious and harmful deviations of Mercosur
is to intend to give it a political content.
The essential programmatic document for our purposes is the Treaty of
Asunción, a true “road map” of the newborn organization. The preamble of
that international instrument is especially clear and must be taken very much
into account when interpreting the will of the parties.
We shall avoid a long and tedious textual reproduction of said pages, to
which we make reference. In any case, we must recall a few concepts which
show the exclusive objective we have mentioned.
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From the start, the goal is very clearly set: “...the broadening of the present
dimensions of their national markets through integration, is a fundamental
condition to accelerate their processes of economic development with social
justice”. Some of the mechanisms for that are immediately established:
“a more efcient use of resources”; “preservation of the environment”;
“improvement of the physical links”; coordination of macroeconomic
policies”; “complementation of the different sectors of the economy”. The
meaning is complemented by stating that in view of “the consolidation of
large economic spaces” Mercosur is a way to achieve “an appropriate response
to such developments”.
As can be seen, the objectives were – and are – clear. Even more when
in Article 1 it is explained what the Treaty “implies”: free circulation of goods,
services and factors of production with the elimination of customs duties
and non-tariff restrictions; establishment of a common external tariff and a
common trade policy toward third parties; coordination of macroeconomic
policies; and harmonization of legislation in pertinent areas.
It remains clear and is undoubted that the countries concerned agreed
to form an exclusively economic and commercial organization and the
agencies and institutions created at that moment as well as those established
in subsequent stages were instrumental to the original objectives.
On the other hand and from a political standpoint, for our part we
would never have supported or carried out a negotiation that would result in
disregarding the political independence of our country.
This is then the Mercosur that we have founded. Any other interpretation
is alien to the letter and spirit of what was agreed.
4. The functioning of Mercosur
After a period of transition the new organization started to function
fully on January 1, 1995.
The difculties of broadening markets and open the economies are well
known. When commercial, industrial or agricultural interests of any country
are affected, the sectors involved exert maximum pressure on the authorities,
seeking to defend their positions. This is natural and legitimate, just as it is
legitimate and necessary for governments to be able to see beyond what is
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adjective and particular in order to promote the general interest and above all
comply with international commitments entered into. This is not an easy path
as witnessed by the constant emergence of trade conicts within NAFTA and
even the European Union. The task of those regional organizations is precisely
to solve such conicts and gradually achieve the harmonization of interests
and the effective compliance with the original aims of each of them.
It is not true that Mercosur is a commercial failure. The increase in
reciprocal trade and the entrepreneurial integration achieved are a proof of
this assessment. Individual conicts that have occurred and will continue to
occur should be attended to by governments and must be solved by complying
with the agreements in good faith. For this end a jurisdictional instance has
been established, whose decisions must be translated in reality.
Neither is it true that all is working well. We will not mention specic
problems that are well known. But we shall say that it is much more important
that Uruguayan bicycles can be sold in Argentina or that the entry of our rice
in Brazil is not periodically disturbed than are compensations for asymmetries
which were well known beforehand.
More than concessions, Uruguay and Paraguay need that the commercial
precepts in force are complied with, that what is written on paper becomes true.
If there are countries that must ask themselves about the future of Mercosur,
these are the two larger partners, who have legitimate global interests – which
we smaller parties also have – and it is necessary that they indicate with concrete
deeds what priority they assign to the regional organization.
5. The deviation
In our view our trade organization faces a dual predicament. On the one
hand the weakening of the regional institutions due to the bilateral Brazilian-
Argentinean relationship; on the other the introduction of political integration
factors alien to the nature of what was previously agreed.
The magnitudes of all kinds that differentiate the smaller parties from
the larger ones are a matter of reality. Before signing the treaties we knew that
our neighbors were large and powerful. For this very reason rules such as that
of unanimity for the decisions of the Council were agreed. To take away from
Mercosur institutions decisions that are adopted bilaterally is an inrmity of
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the treaty. Smaller countries have a signicant responsibility for this situation
because they consented in a distorted functioning of the common agencies.
The introduction of political elements in the agreed commercial relation
is an even more serious development. This deviation has several faces. One of
them, apparently the least harmful, is the corporative adoption of international
political decisions. By this we mean episodes such as voting for or against
decisions at the United Nations. Nothing forces that a “block” opinion be
automatically expressed, beyond what could freely coincide with the autonomous
will of each nation. The same can be said of attempts – fortunately thwarted
– at military coordination, which our country considers inadmissible.
At this level of analysis the establishment of the so-called “parliament”
of Mercosur is particularly worrisome. The Ouro Preto protocol established
the Joint Parliamentarian Committee as a reasonable instance of legislative
coordination charged with complying with the provision of Article 1 of the
Treaty of Asunción which indicates that States party should “harmonize their
legislation in the pertinent areas to achieve the strengthening of the integration
process” (our emphasis). Signatories clearly understood the parliamentarian scope
of what they agreed to. Parliaments should follow the process of integration
within their competences seeking to harmonize legal norms relating to trade and
the economy. Nothing more and nothing less. Being a project independent from
the original Mercosur, the establishment of the so-called “parliament” is alien
to the original treaties and – we daresay – shall only generate more problems
instead of contributing to their solution. It is obviously harmful for the smaller
countries to belong to this “parliament” where they will always be in minority.
But a similar reasoning can be applied to participation in this organization by
countries like Brazil, which possesses a very strong national and nationalist
personality and a peculiar, characteristic external policy as well as the will to act
in the highest international levels. What would happen the day a decision by the
“parliament” of Mercosur goes against the interests of Itamaraty? Well, as all
of us believe and know, Brazil will ignore that decision.
A similar error is to create the category of “political partner” of
Mercosur, an opinion that we voice regardless of whether it today deals with the
incorporation of Venezuela. We would hold the same opinion if the question
were raised in relation to Colombia or Peru. Moreover, we do not consider that
there is a full “political” link among the founding members of the organization;
there are only commitments of this kind regarding the commercial matters that
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are the object of existing agreements. We do not conceive of a total political
association among nations for the simple reason that the interests of each one
are not – and could not be – identical. Ontologically, no country can be like any
other. Not even the long lasting alliance between the United Kingdom and the
United States, one of the soundest in history, leads to a confusion of national
interests. We can hardly nd any political tie between ourselves and Venezuela.
In the commercial eld anything would be convenient once the pertinent
negotiations, which were omitted in this specic case, are completed. This
is the biggest problem of Mercosur, its lack of agreement about its essential
nature, the lack of compliance with its norms when adjective and circumstantial
considerations apply. The main aw is the hemiplegic view of the organization.
It does not work to allow Uruguayan products to enter Argentina or Brazil, even
in violation for lack of compliance with regional jurisdictional decisions; but it
does work to prevent dealings between our country and the United States.
The present conict between Argentina and Uruguay provides another
example of performance or non performance. The blockades carried out in
the approaches and bridges over the Uruguay River violate the right of free
transit of persons and goods, and consequently also violate the Treaty of
Asunción. Nevertheless, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry did not hesitate to
argue that this is a bilateral issue with which Mercosur is not concerned. The
strength of the bilateral relationship of the two biggest countries has prevailed
over international commitments.
Either Mercosur works fully or it does not work, and in this case it is
empty, only exists on paper.
6. The historic eagerness
Among the worst historic defects of our society one can list the tendency
to make progress on paper, forgetting reality. We also pay tribute to abstract
political theories, to the realm of voluntarism. We believe that in order for
something to exist it is enough to wish for it, to write it on a piece of legislation
or on a treaty. The history of our republican nations of Spanish extraction is
the permanent clash between “what one wants and what is possible”, between
wish and reality. Brazil seemed to have escaped this temptation through a
wiser national process. Today we are alike in sowing illusions. Mercosur has
not yet performed correctly in the commercial eld and already we want
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192
it “political”; more that this, we want a Confederation of South American
Nations when many of our countries are not yet capable of a sustainable and
just self government that integrates its social layers and has institutions that
are alive in the day to day reality.
Haughtiness lies constantly in waiting. It is especially prone to striking
those who wield power. Any President who is aware of the time limits of
the mandate, that he or she will inexorably – and it is t to be so! – be again
converted into a mere citizen, feels entitled to change the world with the
time of the mandate. No! what each one may nish is what the previous one
started, to watch over what is already working or to start a task that the next
incumbents will complete. We must avoid the historic eagerness.
We must mention some proposals that cause concern not only for
their content but also for the intellectual and political importance of their
proponents. I mean Helio Jaguaribe and Carlos Alvarez. The former is one of
the most powerful contemporary thinkers of Brazil, the latter is the Chairman
of the Council of Representatives of Mercosur.
Each of them has published essays in Convivencia y buen gobierno (Editorial
Edhasa, Buenos Aires, 2006) containing positions that cause alarm, beyond
views already well known and repealed by those like us who defend the
sovereignty of our country and that of all others.
Jaguaribe assigns to the Brazil-Argentina axis tutelage over South
American nations, adding today the incorporation of Venezuela to the group
he calls ABV which would be charged with leading not only Mercosur but all
of South America. This is a dangerous position, only endorsed by the patriotic
enthusiasm of the distinguished thinker. With all due respect, the countries
mentioned have still a lot to do internally before offering themselves, with no
bidding from anyone, as ready to take charge of our destiny. In several areas
of their internal activities, Argentina and Venezuela show too large a decit
in political, institutional and democratic matters, in the validity of the State
of Law and capacity to represent their own entire society to still be able to
use their energy in other endeavors.
Mr. Alvarez mentions the circumstance that at present the Presidents
of some nations in our continent “belong to a common family of ideas” and
this, in his view, would facilitate the political integration adventures we have
commented upon. This is serious and very mistaken concept. Governments
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193
go and national interests remain. It would be a serious matter for our countries
to embark in supranational political unions on account of the mere existence
of ideological similarities among Messrs. Kirchner, Lula da Silva, Chávez and
Tabaré Vazquez. Such similarities still remain to be proven, at least in their
practical results.
7. A path
Much of what is good in Mercosur should be rescued and can be rescued.
For that it is necessary to bring illusions back to reality and to be capable of
feeling big by doing only what is possible, which is a measure of greatness for
statesmen. The possible Mercosur, good and positive for the peoples, is one
that brings prosperity, and this comes with investment and employment.
Obviously this implies that the absence of hindrances to trade is a veriable
truth. That an investor can establish himself in Uruguay and be sure that his
products can be sold in Brazil and Argentina. That if regional courts decide
in favor of a company from one country this decision will be complied within
another. That one can travel from one country to another over bridges without
the risk of gangs cutting trafc under the passive behavior of the authorities.
That in spite of whatever afnities may exist among the governments of the
big countries they will not be enough to exclude the rest of the partners.
All this is not true today. As long as it is not true there will not be a complete
Mercosur, fully in force and alive. Likewise, there will not be grounds on which
to think of other and more elaborate and complex forms of association.
To nd a solution for the problem of natural gas would be a way to
exercise the statesmenlike quality of our present rulers, more useful for all, a
more modest but no less important goal for economic integration.
There is a sea of gas in neighboring Bolivia. Nevertheless, Chile
contemplates bringing it in liquid form from Indonesia, and Brazil from Dubai.
Here is an appropriate task to prove the integrationist spirit with something
concrete, more concrete than presidential declarations and much more useful
for the development of our countries. In this way we may see, in domain of
reality, how true is the spirit of integration.
Whither Mercosur? We do not know. We must know.
DEP
Translation: Cynthia Garcia
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About the utmost
importance of a party
*
Hugo Chávez**
Conception of a new paradigm
“
W
ood that grows crooked will hardly be straightened.” Let us keep
in mind, my brothers and sisters, that a tree is aborning and that we are
its fathers, mothers as well as midwives. Let us take care of it, lest it grow
crooked. Let it be born fully developed. Let our Party be a truly new party
that makes a break with all the schemes of political partisanship, which has
prevailed both in Venezuela and elsewhere in previous decades.
The old party and partisanship paradigm has exhausted itself. We have
to invent a new paradigm. Referring to Simón Rodríguez, someone said:
“We either invent or fail.” We have to invent this new Party of ours – which is
tremendously necessary from a political, social, strategic, and tactical standpoint. We
must create a powerful instrument, a novel, powerful organization that is at the same
time exible, dynamic, unied, and united.
* Unied Socialist Party’s Foundational Address, March 24, 2007.
** President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
hugo.chav[email protected]
Hugo Chávez
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
195
Speaking of the body, Antonia
1
asked: “How does a nail resemble
an ear? And yet, the two are necessary. Body parts display a great diversity, a
formula that produces one result. I say this because, unfortunately, there are
some, not necessarily from the opposition, who are saying that they do not
agree to just one mode of thinking. But who has spoken of just one mode of
thinking? No one. Diverse modes of thinking, exibility, comprehensiveness,
a holistic, integral, and systemic vision – this is a new concept. Moreover, I
have not come here to push a primer produced by a small group or by myself
as a Party manual. No. The invitation I have extended to you and which still
holds – those who have doubts, which we respect, should reect and do so
while it is time, lest they may have regrets later on – is for constructing the great
Socialist, Revolutionary, and Bolivarian 21
st
Century Party of Venezuela. I invite you
to become constructors on a parity basis, to join together and to contribute
your views to all this we have initiated – the Five Engines, the Seven Major
Lineaments, the Simón Bolívar Project, the new phase, the beginning of the new
government, and all that is provided for under the enabling legislation, the
constitutional reform, the new power, morals, and enlightenment geometry,
and the surge of communal power.
This task of coordinating movements and parties at the time of dening
the slates for the election of deputies, regional deputies, and governors is a huge
task – what with the Fourth Republic still alive and kicking, party exclusivism,
sectarianism, and ‘how much do I get out of it...’
This has to end, my fellow Venezuelans... the ‘how much do I get out of it.’
We are all equal, we are all honest people. I am not into pointing ngers
at the time of discussions among parties and making decisions about
selecting gubernatorial candidates: Listen, shall we reelect this one or look
for another? I myself have had to say: listen, hold your horses... Look at all
the many regional conicts, the regional factors to be taken into account,
the inside enemy sabotaging the government, raising I don’t know how
many accusations from within its own ranks, only to bring down the other
so that his own party may clinch the election for Governor or mayor.
Attacks against ministers – good ministers, at that, both male and female
– have often been directed from inside the government itself, one party
1
Antonia Muñoz, Governor of the State of Portuguesa.
About the utmost importance of a party
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
196
inveighing against another party to bring down someone and raise someone
else instead. Can we make a revolution thus?
Just look at the damage done to Salvador Allende, the martyr President,
by the sectarianism of the popular unity parties. Such sectarianism has done
us much damage also. It may happen that someone assumes a ministry and
begins to replace everybody so as to bring in almost his entire party to take
over the ministry. This must not be so. No party can claim a territory as its
own. We must throw all this in the trash bin. How can we do it? By forming a
truly unied Grand Bolivarian and Revolutionary Socialist Party.
In some cases, internal opposing factions go out seeking signatures of
supposed allies to bring down a Governor, without any grounds or debate.
In a not very distant future, when we shall have our Great Party – so
I believe – a party should evaluate a Governor, but not to apply to him for a
commission, or seek from him a contract for a brother’s or a friend’s business,
so as to pocket a commission. This must not happen.
And you know better than I that there is still much of this going on.
Now, in a not very far future, if a party has objections against a Governor,
we will discuss the matter, and produce evidence, but all in an organized,
disciplined manner.
Should someone, such as a minister, a Governor, a mayor, or anybody
else be subjected to a political judgment, a political investigation shall be done
and a political sanction shall be applied.
But not as a result of personal, party, or sectarian rivalries. These are
vices inherited from the Fourth Republic, which still persist. But I do believe
that with the Unied Party we will blow out all these little candles, as Antonia
Muñoz says.
We must thus be careful and start well, taking the rst steps in the right
direction. This is why among these 2,398 male and female promoters we are
swearing in today and the other 15,000 to be sworn in on April 19 to spread out
countrywide to perform their task, there should be, according to Antonia, no
hypocrite, self-seeker, or sectarian: war to sectarianism, war to self-importance,
war to self-seeking and to ambition.
We must have here the best revolutionaries, both men and women, new
men and new women, so let us prove it. I have great faith in you and know that
Hugo Chávez
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
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you will not disappoint me; nor will we disappoint our people and betray our
history. I know that all of you are aware of the great task we are undertaking.
This is why at the beginning I mentioned the important work done by
the Promoting Commission, social leaders, and the various social movements
during these rst weeks of recruitment of promoting battalions with a view to
establishing socialist battalions and socialist districts and to holding the Unied
Socialist Party of Venezuela’s founding conference. By working together we
shall have established the Party by end-2007. This is a must, given the moment
we are experiencing internally in Venezuela.
Let each one of us be a living ame to illuminate and a sharp sword so
that no one will be mistaken, should we have to unsheathe it to defend the
interests of our people, of the Revolution, and the supreme interests of the
Bolivarian Republic.
Before February 27, we who were engaged, experienced anguish and,
despite our many efforts, were never able to unite the elements with which we
were in contact. It proved impossible to arrive at a Unied Platform around the
plans, not as a putsch, a coup d’état. It was not a civilian-military rebellion. Where
did the students show up? Only in Valencia. We met with student movements
and what did we hear? We are not so many students – 3,000 students and
workers on the West Coast, oil workers. We lived an illusion, we thought that
we represented a civilian-military rebellion, but on February 4, 1992 only the
Valencia students and other civilian fellowmen followed us.
The same thing happened to people from other parties and groups,
who alleged they had former trained guerrilla combatants. We felt that we had
support, as we had soldiers, young men aged 19-20, who were not trained for
this type of war and had no political training either; peasants, and the children
of peasants and workers, many of whom gave up their lives that early morning.
They did not hesitate, no one retreated, and no soldier withdrew – all of
them forged ahead.
The political movements, however, did not put in a presence, not a single
one. And nearly all of them knew. Many were the contacts we had with the
old Movement towards Socialism-MAS. We sent direct and indirect messages
through students of Venezuela’s Central University in La Morita. We sent
messages to the State of Bolívar, where commitments had been made to bring
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out the steelworkers, the Guayana union workers, the working mass. They
claimed to have thousands of workers ready to come out in support of the
insurrection. We remained alone, save for the heroic exception of the Carabobo
University students that joined the soldiers in Carabobo, in Valencia.
Four of them died heroically, including a woman, Columba, who
remains with us and whose memory we carry with us day and night as a life
commitment. And the soldiers who died there! Now, what was the reason for
that? It was the fact that we could never agree to a meeting and also because
we tired of proposing it. We met someone here and someone there in the Air
Force. The meetings had to be on a one-to-one basis, do you remember? But
we were going to have a meeting. We did not, because some came with old
hatreds left over from the armed struggle, while others just said no, because
our Party is new and does not want to be contaminated by the old. Any type
of excuse was used.
“Bochinche, bochinche, esta gente sólo sirve para el
bochinche” [Noise, noise, these people are good for
nothing but making noise]
Need for a political consciousness
I remember that I had brought a truck laden with ries and parked it at
a place where we had been told to wait for some combatants. As I was being
led as a prisoner, I passed by the truck. Not one soul had come, not one. The
ries were there, untouched. “There is the truck,” I said.
And the soldiers, my soldiers, the truck driver and two soldier guards had
already been arrested. In fulllment of their mission, they had stopped there to
wait for people who never showed up. This lled us with deep pain.
One of the reasons for that, or rather the main reason, was the profound
division. Do you remember, Francisco? That difcult December 2001, under
the famous San Antonio agreement, Bandera Roja and other groups inltrated
a group of ofcers, who were manipulated, naive, and without political
experience. These, in good faith and behind their commanders back, signed
the San Antonio agreement and arrived in Maracay with the signed agreement,
which I tore to pieces and threw into the trash can. I do not recognize agreements
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that are not the outcome of debate, discussion, or command. This is anarchy. I recalled
then Miranda’s words: “Noise, noise, these people are good for nothing but noise,”
whereas what is at stake is making a revolution.
An anti-imperialist, socialist Revolution. The night of February 4 an order ran
through the ranks, in the dark, in the shadows: Chávez must be killed. That
December they had failed to kill me by a hair. The plan to kill me was hatched
by inltrated political groups, as we found out later, after we had been arrested,
when things that happened behind our backs began to come to light.
In Yare, I cast thousand invectives against such infamy and stupidity on
the part of some people who call themselves revolutionaries or leftists. Noise,
nothing but noise. Lies, nothing but lies.
This is why I thought that the small parties would be the ones to be more
in favor of this proposal for a Unied Party. But I have realized that some
people see the Party as an end, whereas it should be an instrument.
A revolutionary unity
What a villainous attitude! This is the old party sectarianism. This is why
from this podium I once again invite all – particularly the parties, including the
Venezuelan Communist Party, the Patria para Todos Party, and the Podemos
Party – to give a demonstration of unselshness toward the Revolution. Let all of us
join in constructing a true revolutionary Party, a true socialist Party.
The attitude expressed by some leaders in their speeches has caused
me great frustration. Nevertheless, I keep urging them to reect. I have read
that the Patria Para Todos Party will not dissolve itself. It is not a question
of dissolving or not dissolving, it is not a question of the Patria Para Todos
Party, the Podemos Party, or the Fifth Republic Movement. It is the Revolution,
my fellow Venezuelans.
This is why the people… I do not want the political leaders to stand
there as heads of an empty shell, but this is what is going to happen to them,
I warn them. They will remain as heads of an empty shell. They should go
out on the streets and listen to what the people are saying, I insist.
The Fifth Republic Movement is a party born in response to a given
situation and I think it lasted for a rather long period. It came into being because
our organization, the former Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement, was not
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allowed to be registered with the Electoral Council under the legislation, the
bourgeois electoral legislation of a bourgeois State, whereas we had a large
number of people willing to support the presidential candidate. Thus, after
much debate, we decided… It should be recalled how the Fifth Republic
Movement was born and how it grew to achieve a degree of consciousness.
Our Party could have many aws. But listen, as soon as the decision about the
Unied Socialist Party was announced, it was accepted. No one anywhere in
the country came out to express disagreement, because I had been discussing
this for more than ten years, since I was released from prison, to the point
that I got tired of so many meetings, of meetingnitis.
Endless meetings and each one with a different discourse. We often spent
a whole day discussing and then someone would ask: “All right! What about
the plan of action?” “We will continue tomorrow,” was the answer. Until one
day I said: “If we really want to do something, let us skip these meetings, let
these people go on with their meetings while we go out on the streets and to
the neighborhoods to talk with the people, to organize, to listen.” And this is
what we have done.
The world is lled with the ambition to take possession of a movement,
of a process, and to impose a leadership.
Had we waited for the leftist parties to unite before February 4, we
would still be waiting and February 4 would never have happened. And the
worst thing is that many of these parties have accused us of staging a coup.
And I thought: “How far can these people go, as until a month ago we were
meeting and now they accuse us of staging a coup and condemn us, just as
what happened on November 27.” What a terrible thing! The hour has struck
and I will no longer look back nor retreat a single step. Let us move forward with
the establishment of the Party!
Some people have difculty in acknowledging leadership – my leadership,
which is circumstantial. I am not here because I planned to be. I am the product
of a circumstance and will remain so as long as the situation allows it. Chávez
was not Chávez, was not me. Chávez was a hope born that early morning.
Long live February 4! Long live the February 4 martyrs! Long live November 27! Long
live the November 27 martyrs!
Karl Marx said that men and women make history, but only as long as
history allows it. So, I am not responsible for my being here, nor am I here
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because I wanted to be. This is due to an objective situation and to subjective
conditions, and to a large extent this is due to chance, which also plays a role.
I seek to do my job, to play the role assigned me, but no one, no man
is indispensable. If Bolívar had not been born, would there have been a
Revolution in 1810 and 1811? Of course! If Lenin had died as a child or had
been a bourgeois intellectual, would the Russian Revolution have happened?
Of course, it would have happened, perhaps with variations and with tactics,
speed, and intensity appropriate to the moment. But sooner or later it would
have happened.
This is why I want to point out and recall that this was how the Fifth
Republic Movement was born. We, the military, gave birth to the Bolivarian
Revolutionary Movement, with the help of some civilians, who, for the most
part, lacked political experience. A second phase followed, marked by an
avalanche and the adhesion of notable leaders and trends of every kind.
Let us aim at integration as we ght destabilization
Revolutionary and socialist
If we look at the other leftist parties and at how they were born, we see
that the PPT resulted from a schism of Causa R, which in turn resulted from
a previous schism – divisions resulting from divisions that resulted from other
divisions, and so on and so forth. Hopefully they will not split again, with some
going in one direction and others in another direction, as all kinds of things
result from divisions. The same thing applies to MAS, which also resulted from
previous divisions and whose further division gave origin to the Podemos Party.
The People’s Electoral Movement also originated from a split, an offshoot of
which was the Socialist League, also a result from division, founded by Jorge
Rodríguez, our Vice-President’s martyr father and our companion.
These parties, which were born this way, have left us their martyrs, their
banners, and their history.
Despite my criticism, I recognize the contribution by all these parties to
the popular battles fought in Venezuela in the sixties, seventies, and eighties.
The labor unions’ and peasants’ battles, the marches, the women’s ght
– all this must be recognized. Both I and the people ascribe the highest value
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to all this. Who could forget Argelia Laya, the leader of the Movement toward
Socialism when it was a party?
Or José Vicente Rangel, chosen as presidential candidate three times
by that party and a party coalition. He could tell about his frustrated efforts
to unite the left; he was never a MAS militant, but was nominated by the
left as its candidate. All this must be looked into. Some of our companions
from other parties may have wavered, allowing themselves to be drawn by
two tendencies expressed in some speeches. One of these tendencies was
reformism, characterized by a distancing. When someone says homeland, democratic
socialism, and life, he is certainly establishing a distance – a word to the wise is enough.
Beware of reformist trends that are afraid of a true revolution.
Let’s cast off any fears; let us not be blackmailed by the enemy, the
empire, the oligarchy and their media. I couldn’t care less about what they say.
You, the promoters, be careful. One of the conditions to become a Socialist
Party’s militant, combatant member and a comrade is to be a revolutionary and a socialist.
Those in doubt please do not join us. You must be very careful, as we need true
revolutionaries, honest people to help construct [our Party], as I have said a hundred
times, on a parity basis, as equals. I do not come here in my capacity as
President, but as another companion and comrade.
Reformism becomes counter-revolution
Simply put, there are two tendencies under way. Beware of these
tendencies. Reformism may go along with revolution for a while, but there
is a point at which reformism becomes counter-revolution, and this is what
is happening here. Reformists don’t like the participation of country folks;
this is a peasant’s revolution, but some people do have connections with or
commitments to landowners, the regional or national elite. This makes them
afraid to be called this or that by the papers or the radio, as whoever has skirts
of straw needs fear the re.
Reading Lenin, who called upon the Russian people to ght against
the meat and bread monopoly, we observe that after one hundred years the
same situation occurs. It is the old capitalist State still alive here, although I
do not mean the State as such, but the capitalist order of things, the system,
particularly as regards the economy. This is part of the issue; socialism has
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to encompass the economic sphere, otherwise what we are doing is neither
socialism nor revolution.
A revolution within Revolution
The weapon we use is very similar. Centuries go by and in Russia or
Nicaragua or Venezuela the same thing occurs. The capitalists still own a
considerable portion of industries and production factors, beginning with
land and cattle; they still own the means of transportation and have taken
over the slaughterhouses, which by law should belong to the municipalities.
I urge all mayors to repossess the slaughterhouses and place them under the
responsibility of the communal councils and the people and not to leave them
in the hands of the capitalists [Applause], who have a hold on the packing
houses and the supermarkets. Thus empowered, they subject the people to
a scarcity policy in an attempt to destabilize the government and undermine
support for it, and then launch their attack. This is part of the moment we
are living. This makes the adoption of a series of measures crucially necessary. One of
such measures is the formation of our Unied, Socialist, Bolivarian, and revolutionary
party. This is necessary because the situation will become more acute in the
coming months, more contradictions will emerge, simply because we have no
intention of stopping the Revolution’s advance. Quite the opposite, its advance
will proceed in great strides as the Revolution becomes more thorough and
extensive. Some as yet hidden contradictions will surface, become sharper and
more intense because they involve the economy, and there is no doubt that
nothing hurts a capitalist more than his wallet. Be as it may, we must tackle this
subject; we cannot escape it. We are making progress through the Robinson,
the Ribas, and the Vuelvan Caras Missions. All this is socialism, but we shall
not have full socialism unless we begin to transform the capitalist economic
model that still holds in Venezuela.
This will mean a revolution within the Revolution. This is why the
empire and the afuent classes are fearful and are beginning to resort once
again to the theory of a coup d’etat and to destabilization, so as to give rise
to an intervention by the United States through international organizations,
as has occurred in Haiti and in many other countries, which are kept under
their tutelage. It is the empire in action. Plans in this direction are regaining
force, both here and abroad.
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The people’s unied force is the Bolivarian
Revolution’s “life insurance”
One great party: one great people
One of the best “life insurances” in this case is the people’s united force.
Why? Simply because the oligarchy fears a people that roars in unison. For this reason, it seeks
to divide us, to minimize our popular support with campaigns that distort our discourse and
endeavor to demonize me. If they had succeeded in debilitating us, in dividing the
people, confusing the country, and weakening the revolutionary force, you may
rest assured that they would come back to attack us with all their might. But if
we are able to increase our united force, they will think twice. Why was Cuba
never invaded? Because the Cubans united into one great Party and one great people
and stand rm today defending their leader and their revolution. Some analysts
say that a change of government is not possible in Cuba but the proof to the
contrary is that although Fidel was hospitalized in a very critical condition for
weeks on end, Cuba did not budge one inch under any hurricane, which means
that there is leadership, one party, and political and moral discipline.
This is why, in our internal situation, the Revolution must be deepened
in the political area, as can be done through the communal councils, self-
government, and popular, communal government. When I announce certain
things, there are alleged allies who begin to hold meetings but do not dare to
talk to me face to face, and start seeking other contacts.
One of the instructions I have given the Minister of Health, for instance,
is that the National Government must reclaim the management and control
of all the country’s major hospitals.
I know that some governors – not from the Fifth Republic Movement but
from another party – have said no, this is madness; great democratic progress
was achieved under Caldera. But what they did was to make a shambles of
what little remained of the Venezuelan health system.
Formation of genuine revolutionary cadres
Who would now come out and defend the Fourth Republic’s so-called
decentralization? Anyone who would do this would be defending reformism
and opposing the revolution. These are vices and tumors that jeopardize our
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Revolution as contact networks are being established, often with Government
funds. They often manage to have Revolution decisions neutralized by a judge
or court, or even by the Superior Court of Justice-TSJ, behind the back of
the leader of the Revolution and acting against the Revolution from within.
This, I repeat, is a betrayal of the people and of the Revolution.
This is one of the greatest threats we face, which comes from within.
It is like cholesterol, the silent assassin, as some call it. It is the counter-revolutionary
reformism within our own ranks. The Party must be able to detect it and get rid
of it, giving rise to genuine revolutionary cadres from among the people, the
working class, the peasantry, the students, the youth groups, and women as
part of the popular mass and the multitudes, thereby giving impetus to the
revolutionary process. This should be one of the most important tasks to
be performed by our Party, which we must create, build up, and nourish. We
must begin to nourish our Party, to shape it, worship it, and to prepare it for
the delivery to come.
Now, think of this question of scarce meat supply and price regulation.
Not one of the existing parties addresses this issue because they lack the
will and the capacity to do it and are always depending on something else.
As a result, the Government goes one way and the parties go another
way in cahoots with other puny governments that are set up. Often local
authorities are also involved, as instead of following a leader, they follow
parallel commands in the parties. Mayors also follow their puny parallel
governments.
We must get rid of all this and forge a great national, revolutionary unity.
The goal: deepening the Revolution
The people guided by the party and the party guided
by the people
Before these divisive, reformist, and counter-revolutionary factors put
us into disarray, stop us, or distort the movement and thus gradually put an
end to it, we must deepen the Revolution, and do it now, as tomorrow may
be too late. Let us act now, with determination, intelligence, and willpower,
undaunted by internal or external obstacles or resistance. We need the Party; the
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Party must guide the people and be in turn guided by it. We must be together
in this; and the peasants must be properly organized and informed.
I often make decisions about which the people remain uninformed
because there is no one to relay them to the people. I myself have to do it
of a Sunday for ve or six hours, because there is no party to serve as an
intermediary to pass on information and to direct the policies set by the
President or by the Government. Not a single party to do this. Parties devote
themselves to other things, some of which are good, but the Government
goes its way and the parties act as if this did not concern them.
I myself have to attend to government institutions, trying to keep up
with, paying continuous attention lest partisanship and sectarianism will hamper
the transformation of the State. As I have said, many parties begin to split up
a ministry among themselves; but we keep going deeper and creating a new
State, new institutions. Much as it costs, we keep moving forward.
We are sending a group as a civilian-military commando to each one of
these buildings and because some of their occupants are brazen-faced, we
are sending in the National Guard together with Government technical staff
and peasants.
Project development according to a development plan
At each ministry we must design agriculture and livestock projects and
implement them in accordance with a development plan. The Party must
participate in this task, not to cut the pie into slices or to see how many cows
will be my share and how many will be someone else’s share, and to sell a cow
and buy a little house for the party somewhere and hoist the party’s banner
on it. No! One must dispossess oneself from everything in the interests of the Revolution,
which are the interests of the people.
In brief, we are going to deepen the Revolution in every sense and this
is why I say that the creation of our Party and unity is indispensable.
On the international front, people may think that the United States
President’s trip was a casual junket. No, it was part of a plan. The current U.S.
administration has two years left and we know that it is capable of anything.
It is run by true assassin maas with a criminal record. Not everybody may
be such, but those who make fundamental decisions are. In two years, having
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recognized that they have been defeated by us, they will be capable of anything.
On his trip, the United States President passed through here on his way to
Brazil and stopped in Colombia on the way back – reaching Venezuela’s two
extremes. The trip was part of a plan, under which Venezuela ranks rst as
the empire’s target.
At the same time, we notice the increasing support for Venezuela and
for our project on the part of other countries of South America, Central
America, and the Caribbean. This reinforces our conviction about the utmost
importance of a party.
You have no idea of how many leaders in the world have asked me:
“What about the Party? Where are the parties? With whom can we talk over
there?”
China bets on us and we are entering China at full tilt with a set of
projects that will undoubtedly sharpen contradictions at the international
level. Why? Because we have proposed to supply oil to China. It used to be
said that this was impossible because China is too far away and that all our oil
should go to the United States. We are showing that this was a great fallacy by
shipping oil to China. We ended last year with the daily shipment of 300,000
barrels. Joint-venture enterprises are being planned here in the Orinoco Strip.
China is even proposing the establishment of a joint-venture enterprise here
to produce up to one million oil barrels.
China has also proposed that Venezuela Petroleum-PDVSA and China’s
National Petroleum Corporation-CNPC join together in building three major
reneries. Naturally, we immediately agreed. We want to go to China to build
these three reneries with China’s national corporation.
China has also presented another proposal for the establishment of
a joint-venture enterprise on a parity basis – 50 percent Venezuelan and 50
percent Chinese – as a shipping company whose supertanks will be made in
China to cross the seven seas carrying Venezuelan oil to China and other countries.
Marketing is to be done jointly.
Of course, this project will sharpen divergences with the United States
Empire, which does not lose hope of regaining Venezuela and making it again
into what it was until 1998 and even later. Even in our rst years, when the old
PDVSA ran a parallel government. Venezuela was a United States colony. In
respect of oil, whatever Washington decided was done here. Thus, the United
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208
States – both the government and the elite – view these developments with
deep concern.
The Revolution’s foreign policy must remain in the hands
of the Revolution
Thus, the attacks against the Bolivarian Government and the Bolivarian
Revolution from within and from without will certainly intensify. The
emergence of allied, popular, and sympathetic governments – as those of
Ecuador, Argentina, and more recently Nicaragua, to cite only three – requires
that the Party open its arms to Latin America. Here, however, each party goes
its own way. At times, when I go to Argentina, they tell me: “Listen, some
leaders of such and such a party were here. Did you know that?” No, I knew
nothing. How should I know? They are playing their own game.
Here, one of the parties allied to the Government announced an
international seminar and invited I don’t know how many people. I had to ask
the organizers to cancel it because the timing was not appropriate from the
standpoint of the Government’s and the State’s foreign policy.
The Revolution’s foreign policy must remain in the hands of the
Revolution. It is absurd that there are parties here engaging in foreign policy
behind the back of the leaders of the Revolution and the Revolutionary
Government, placing alliances at risk, giving opportunity to the enemy even
to attack me on the personal and the political levels. This is sheer absurd,
don’t you think?
Once, in Moscow, I ran into a party leader. Of course, I was glad to see
him there. But then I asked him: “What are you doing here?” And he said:
“Making some contacts.” I asked him how they could be making contacts
there without the government’s knowledge and demanded to learn about it,
as the foreign minister knew nothing about that. Engaging in foreign policy!
How do we appear before the world? As nothing but noise makers, to use
Miranda’s expression.
If one asks them for information, they often get annoyed. Not because
their party has its own policy. Just imagine that! Then, it is better for them
to go their way, to set up their own shop in a transparent way, so that we can
know it for sure.
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Shaping ideology and consciousness
Our great revolutionary party
I have to demand respect for the Revolutionary Government and
for the decision made by the people. Any internal or external analysis shows the
urgent, imperative need to form our Great revolutionary party, a Party that ies socialism’s
banner, a Party with a clear ideology. If a party is allied to the government, it
cannot give precedence to its own ideas over the Government’s. This cannot
be so, out of loyalty. The socialist banner must come rst. However, we are
not propounding here the dogmatic scheme that prevailed in Russia in the
twenties and thirties. So, this is not a Stalinist or a Marxist-Leninist project.
Should Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin come back to life, I am sure that the
theses they would conceive would be not totally but somewhat different from
the ones they conceived nearly a century and a half ago. But there are people
here who grasp a little book and say: “This is a catechism and we don’t deviate
from it.” This, I say in all respect, was written by those ideologues and great
revolutionaries around 1800, 1900. But the world has changed, as you know.
Counter-revolutionary dogmatism
This is the second trend to which I want to refer. The rst is reformism,
which ends up by being counter-revolutionary. The second is dogmatism,
which also ends up by being counter-revolutionary.
I have great respect for all communist parties in the world, but it should be
recalled that many Latin American communist parties withdrew their support
from Revolutionary Cuba in the sixties and seventies. In some quarters they
betrayed Che Guevara, refused to support him. Even here. You know that I
have a great respect for the Venezuelan Communist Party-PCV but I was one
of those that had the foresight to demand that the Fifth Republic Movement-
MVR allow room for the Communist Party. Whenever I was consulted on
this, I consistently said yes, such as in the matter of lling a position, because
I know that they have cadres of great value. I have great respect for them.
Pedro Ortega Díaz is my witness – may God keep him in the revolutionaries’
Heaven, an example of constancy, humility, and wisdom.
Who would deny the Communist Party’s contribution to the struggles
in Venezuela? Yet I remember that when I was released from prison, there
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was a strong faction in the Communist Party that said that I was a messiah, a
caudillo, and that my presence on the streets was harmful.
Dogmatism becomes counter-revolutionary. These two tendencies
– dogmatism and reformism – both end up by being counter-revolutionary.
Beware, some of our companions may be allowing themselves to be swayed
by these two tendencies and may be straying from course and losing their
compass.
I know that in both camps there are good people, good companions that
may be feeling confused at the moment, and who have followers that are good
and act in good faith, giving them credence. I urge them to think carefully, to
cast away their doubts, and to join us.
Freedom of debate: a multifront party
Here we have full freedom of debate and free debate should be a marked
characteristic of our Party, beginning at the grassroots, as debate is not restricted
to an elite, a summit, or the top leaders. Consultation, participation, engagement,
debate. After a decision is arrived at, comes discipline. If a decision is made,
although I may have a different opinion, I have to submit to it, as this is a
Revolution. What is at stake is the life of the homeland, the future of Venezuela.
This Party must be conscientious. As to the endless discussion about
whether it should be a mass party or a party of cadres, Antonio Gramsci used
to say: “In my humble opinion, it should be a mass party that is able to form
extraordinary cadres.”
This is the Gramscian view of the Party. And I think that this should be
our direction. This should not be a party to control the people; on the contrary,
it should be a party controlled by the people. It should not be a conglomerate
of acronyms. We do not want a parties’ front, but rather a Party with many
fronts – we should have workers’, peasants’, women’s, students’, and youth’s
fronts. Oswaldo Vera
2
pointed to these expressions or to this view in Beyond
Capital, Itsvan Mezsaros’s extraordinary book.
Listen, this is part of the capitalist, bourgeois State’s trap. For many years
I have heard labor leaders say that a union cannot be dependent on the party.
The party is one thing and the union is another thing.
2
Deputy and union leader.
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On this subject we should read Rosa Luxemburg, for instance, or Lenin.
Mezsaros raises this issue again for our discussion. He says that a body needs
both an industrial and a political arm – the Party and the unions –, but not two
arms going in different directions. No. Unions are autonomous, and so are the
parties. Every party wants to have its own command and administration and
to make its decisions with autonomy, as this is democracy. Moreover, unions
act as parties, have their own administration, make their own decisions but
establish no direction or strategic lineaments. This must not be so. This is
noise, but we are not here to make noise. We are here to make a Revolution.
This is what we are doing and what we must accomplish.
So, this Party needs an industrial arm. Some unions wish to continue
being themselves. OK. Nearly all of them have been taken the same poison,
union autonomy, as they represent the working class. And where is the working
class? It is totally disoriented, totally divided, and not even their internal factions
can agree with each other.
It has been a long time since I met with union leaders. Why? Because
I know that they are quarreling among themselves and that if you meet with
one you must also meet with this one and that one, and so on and so forth.
Unity is what we want and what we need.
Now, if each labor leader wants to preserve his little party – as unions
have become little parties – let them be, while we will go directly to the
factories to talk to workers about unity, about becoming a powerful arm – the
workers’ front.
They don’t know the harm they do to the Revolution, the Government,
and the Venezuelan people by their attitudes. So, pay attention to the women,
who have launched their Unity Platform, which I hope will be the socialist
women’s front of the Great Party. They should be seen as an example.
Let the Party have many arms, but only one head, said the Negro Antonia.
Only one head, which must be directed. Obviously, I have to play a role in its
direction for a while – I don’t know for how long. One seeks to give, to divest
oneself from nearly everything, and give oneself wholly to the Party. So, what
is my comfort? My comfort is the people. Any bad feeling leaves me when I go out
on the streets and throw myself in the arms of the people.
This is the truth and God bears me witness. But how much envy and
vitriol one must also endure, as I am not a rock beaten by the waves. I am
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esh and bones, just like you, and blood runs in my veins. I appeal to the
union leaders to join us in unity – or to get out of the way. And appeal to the
working class, that it may ensure the working class’s unity.
Because the same pattern of party sectarianism occurs in this area also.
The students often fall into this trap also. Not because there is a command, as
Ali Primera said. Here are the most radical, there are the reformists, and over
there are the Maoists, and farther away is I don’t know who else. It sounds like
an Ali Primera song. What a terrible thing! This victory has to be ascribed to
the Empire and to the oligarchy that have divided us. This is why the effort
must be enormous. I am not inclined to beat in retreat, quite on the contrary.
And with your help we shall achieve unity.
A word to the Revolution promoters: unity and more unity
Revolution heralds
Unity is indispensable, as Bolívar used to say, and our unity draws
much inspiration from Bolívar and his thinking, which is for me a spiritual
bridge to the people. Unity is what we certainly lack to complete our regeneration’s
work. Yet, this unity will not come through divine miracles but through sensible effects
and well-oriented efforts.
This applies to me now as well as to you, promoters, who will go out
on the streets to enlist the socialist battalions and create the socialist districts.
These will be the major tasks you will perform in your communities. You will
set up a register and organize the socialist districts. You must be the heralds
of these ideas and convince those that may be confused about the need for
this unity project. Bolívar’s thinking is very helpful to those that are in doubt,
who could adopt it as a guide and compass. I have irrefutable proof of the
people’s good sense for important resolutions. This is why I have always
preferred to listen to the people rather than to the scholars. If one has doubts,
just listen to the people, for the people know. Should we ask the Venezuelan
people today what they want: to preserve the A, B, C, X, Y, Z political parties
as a patriotic fulcrum, or I know not what, or to create a single great socialist,
revolutionary party, I know what the people would want. There is no need
to ask them. The people want unity because they know that from such unity depend their
future and their fate.
Hugo Chávez
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Now, this unity should not be bureaucratic. It must be real, organic, and profound.
It should deepen revolutionary democracy, as Bolívar said in Jamaicá in 1815, fteen
years after being expelled from Venezuela, having suffered an assassination
attempt in Bogotá and resigned from Government, after which he left for
the Cartagena area. What was the great cause? He was not mistaken when
the said:
“Only union is lacking us to complete our regeneration’s work.” On another
occasion, he said that unless we fuse the national soul into a whole, the national body
into a whole, and the national spirit into a whole, society will become a body-to-body, man-
to-man ght for survival, and our legacy to posterity will be a new colonialism.
On yet another occasion, he said: “Unity, unity, unity. Let us unite, lest
we become our Homeland’s executioners.” In Santa María, where he died, he said:
“…Should my death contribute to putting an end to parties and to consolidating union,
I would peacefully go into my grave.” Bolívar did not manage to achieve unity and
Venezuela fell into chaos. Instead of a great victory, our peoples sustained
twenty defeats and all of them ended up defeated, divided, and dominated.
A two-centuries old Revolution
We are approaching a bicentennial. In three years, we will be observing
the two-hundredth anniversary of April 19 and July 5. What better way of
celebrating those events than, in the height of revolution, bringing in the best
offering we can bring those that gave us the Homeland – the martyrs, their
bones and memory, their tears and blood.
Let us remember the Cosiata separatist movement and the reaction led
by Páez and Santander against Bolívar. We must prevent the repetition of
that tragedy, when Bolívar’s and his people’s history moved from greatness
to tragedy. Are we going to allow the same thing to happen to the second
Bolivarian epopee and let it become another Bolivarian tragedy? If we want
to prevent this, we must heed Bolívar’s word, according to which we would
bequeath to our children and grandchildren a new colonialism, should we fail to fuse the
national soul, the national body, and the national spirit into a whole. Let us, from this
moment on, prevent this from happening. I believe that we are in a better
position than Bolívar, although the enemies we face are much more powerful
than those faced by him, as the Spanish Empire wasn’t even a pale reection
of what the United States Empire is today, although what Navarro said is quite
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true.
3
But we should not be too optimistic because for over one hundred years
there has been talk of capitalism’s terminal phase and the nal crisis never
comes. Although there may be signs of a capitalist crisis, of the way capital
and capitalism operate, imperialism and capitalism still remain very strong.
This has to do with the form of capital reproduction, an inner process, which
Mezsaros refers to as metabolism. We have not achieved this metabolism
here: some Venezuelans to whom we have given a tractor and a parcel of
land for them to implement a socialist project have ended up by occupying
the house with their family and tying the tractor to a post, so that nobody
else can use it. Old customs, corruption, greed to reap economic gain for
oneself – these are terrible enemies. These last few years I have seen people
who were believed to be fantastic revolutionaries, but whose revolutionary
spirit unfortunately did not resist their stint in power, because of a check
of I don’t know how many millions. Great many of our companions and
I have been put to this test, but each individual holds to its own values. Be
strong, as the enemy stalks our camp – not only the declared enemy, but the
enemy hidden inside ourselves and in old customs. Through a character in Les
Misérables, Victor Hugo speaks of the French Revolution, which despite all its
heroic feats came down and was replaced by the restoration, the Empire, and
counter-revolution, in the following terms: “We thought we had changed the
world, but we forgot something – to change customs”. One of the ercest
enemies of any revolutionary attempt can be illustrated by what happened in
the Soviet Union: the high-sounding “power to the Soviets” motto ceased to
echo after a few years. Lenin nally realized it, but he was very sick and died
a few years later. Instead of power to the Soviets, what prevailed was power
to the Party’s elite and to the new political class. Our new Party must avoid
this tendency to replace old structures with a reborn, elitist, privilege-seeking
one. Zero privilege for us. Let us rid ourselves of selshness and set an example of
unselshness and revolutionary humility.
Now, the old Leninist model is not good for us. We have to create our
own model. In his work on Karl Marx and Marxism, whose Spanish translation
was published in Caracas in 1974, Iring Fletscher says that it is neither necessary
nor possible that this mistake have a place in the revolutionary consciousness. He means
that this mistaken conception must not prevail in a great industrial proletariat.
3
Reference to Héctor Navarro, a member of the Unied Socialist Party’s Promoting Commission, who said
that capitalism has entered a terminal phase.
Hugo Chávez
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According to him, the existence of a new species of this type in the political
elite and in the party is sufcient for the class’s political conscience to
disconnect itself from its political substratum and to become the exclusive
property of a minority that covets the leadership. We ought not to fall into
this error. María León
4
is right when she says that “All of us here are workers,
we are all equal and have the same duties and the same rights.” This is why I say that
none of the companions – to whom I am very grateful for having assumed
this far from easy task as members of the Promoting Commission – has the
pretension of leadership, and they all know this. We are only promoters and
drivers. The leadership must be elected by the grassroots segments, with which
it must remain in permanent contact and from which it should never dissociate
itself. Ours must be a mass Party, a grassroots Party with the best cadres. But
these cadres ought not to transform themselves into a new political elite or
into new summits. One must break the representative model and for this one must ght
with greater vigor than usual. One must create new customs, new realities, new
ideas, new scenarios, and a new, moral Party. As Antonia was saying, there
is no place for hypocrites here. For instance, a man who beats a woman does not
belong here; he cannot be a revolutionary. There is much of this in our society, but
a chauvinist cannot be a revolutionary or a socialist. A latifundium owner does not belong
here and a corrupt individual should never be allowed in the Party and neither should an
inuence peddler.
Thus, think of the awesome commitment you promoters are undertaking
to orient the bases. I am quite condent that just as the communities and
communal assemblies are electing the Communal Councils, the best spokesmen
for the bases will be elected to form part of the Socialist Party’s structures.
A party of morals and enlightenment
The only way I could be a Party leader at any level would be if I were
elected by the bases. Otherwise, I should hold no leadership position. This
is how the Party should be, a Party of morals and enlightenment, a Party
of students, as all of us must study, invent, research, propose ideas, discuss
and debate. A Party of morals and enlightenment. As Christ said, we should
be the light of the world and salt of the earth. How do they call those who
scatter or sprinkle salt on things? They are called salters. We have to be a
4
Leader of the Unied Socialist Party of Venezuela.
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moral party ghting corruption. Morals are the salt that prevents rotting. Ours
must be a Party of morals and enlightenment as well as a multifront Party
that encompasses indigenous peoples, workers, Blacks, Afro-descendants,
students, young people, peasants… It must have many arms, solid arms. The
Party’s foremost trait, according to Alfredo Maneiro,
5
should be political efciency
and revolutionary quality. A party or a political movement must meet these two
requirements. It must be politically efcient. It must be efcient in organizing
itself and in working to win elections when elections must be won.
Revolutionary quality. Ours must be a Party that establishes cadres
and that, according to Antonio Gramsci’s view, penetrates the masses, the
multitudes. Like dissolving sugar, the Party should be able to dissolve itself in
the superior mass, i.e., the people. Instead of imposing itself on the people, it
submits itself to it. As Simón Rodríguez said, material force lies in the mass,
the popular mass. Moral force lies in the mass movement, but to move a mass
must be impelled and this is the promoters’ role. It must also have leadership;
otherwise it tends to lose itself and to disperse. This is Negri’s mass, according
to his theory of the multitude. There is a difference between mass and multitude,
between open mass and closed mass, as shown by extensive mass psychology
studies. A mass grows but carries within itself its own end. It may disappear
from one moment to the next. Not so, the multitude. A mass organized into
multitudes should have orientation, impetus, leadership, and moral force to move it forward.
This is why Master Robinson said that the mass has material force, to which
he adds the moral force shown in movement, organization, consciousness,
strategy, and tactics.
The revolutionary party has to concern itself with all these things
– ideological conception, strategy, tactics, impetus, mass and multitude
orientation; it has to be able to open up, to close doors, to attack and defend,
and always to triumph and win. Still more, it has to be a Party for peace but, if necessary,
it will be an army ready and able to go to war, together with our soldiers, peasants,
and workers to defend the sacred Venezuelan Homeland from imperialist
attacks and the impetus of our Revolution. A Party for peace, capable in any scenario
of being exible, broad-minded, dynamic, and characterized by morals and enlightenment.
Revolution’s sharp sword and living ame – this is what our Party must be.
5
Alfredo Maneiro (1937-1982), a Venezuelan revolutionary militant.
Hugo Chávez
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Establishment of socialist battalions
I know that you promoters, both men and women, have been meeting by
region and sector, carrying out a sound debate. I also know that you have come
here on the basis of merit. I’m sure that you will not deceive our people and
miss the unique opportunity we now have to build that to which we aspire.
You have to participate in and encourage the establishment of the
socialist battalions and the socialist districts in your respective geographical
areas. Part of the work of the Promoting Commission as well as of yours is to
prepare your group’s own plan in line with this strategy. You will be elected in
each socialist district and a socialist battalion must be established and operate in
each territory. In these districts spokespersons, both men and women, will be
elected by popular assemblies according to a process similar to what occurs in
the Communal Councils. The spokespersons elected by the popular assemblies
will choose across the country the delegates and spokespersons to represent
each region and each state at the Party’s Foundational Congress.
Spokespersons and delegates must be elected by popular assemblies in
their respective socialist districts. I thus ask to be registered in the socialist
district where I live. Then you will tell me how many of us you have there, how
and where the meeting will be held, and where I have to appear and elect our
spokespersons for the district, who in turn will participate in a second election
to elect the spokespersons for the region, parish, municipality, state, and then
on to the foundational congress. This process will last the next few years.
Two major tasks
a) Formation of socialist battalions and establishment of their jurisdictions
Today, you are the rst 2,398 promoters from all the country’s basic
sectors to be sworn in. I congratulate you. You should know that a great
responsibility is laid upon you, as you will contribute to the training and
induction of the 14,000 promoters to be sworn in next April 19. You will
induct and give impetus to other promoters.
The Commission has fully to devote itself to providing detailed
information and answering questions. This must be done in full detail and an
explanatory pamphlet should become available.
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Keep up your work to help the training and induction of new promoters.
Next April 19, we will swear in 14,000 promoters, who, with you, will bring
the total to 16,500. We have a lot of work to do, as we should arrive at 70,000
promoters in three months to accomplish two main missions.
You shoulder this primary responsibility toward the popular bases.
Starting on April 19, this army of 70,000 promoters shall accomplish many
things, particularly two essential tasks or main missions. One of them is
the establishment of socialist battalions in their respective socialist districts.
This is similar to, although not quite the same as we have done at the Santa
Inés battle. Do you remember the patrols? Each battalion or battle unit was
responsible for one district. This model was successful in that battle and
there is no reason why it shouldn’t be in the current one. We already have
experience, so let us stand rm on the community’s territory. Obviously, the
latter must encompass the factories and the workers, not only the quarter or
neighborhood. This group of young people is an army. High school students,
particularly from the fourth and fth grades, as well as from the UBV, Unefa,
and UCV universities should not be left out. The ideological battle should be
waged under the Ribas, the Sucre, the Robinson II, the Vuelvan Caras, and the
Madres del Barrio Missions. This means occupying not only physical spaces
but also social sectors that are operating where we work or study and within
the neighborhoods.
b) Electoral census-taking
These are two central, fundamental tasks: the establishment of these
socialist battalions in each district and the voters’ census taking for the electoral
process, beginning from the base. These voters will be the Party’s future
militants. From their ranks will rise the militants of a thoroughly dynamic, agile,
and novel Party in respect of its conception, banner, and program, strategy,
and different battle tactics – a very exible, quite different Party. One should
reach to the Venezuelan middle class; there is no reason it should be counter-
revolutionary. By targeting it, we will reach many people, as the middle class is
everywhere, encompassing technicians, liberal professionals, and intellectuals,
particularly organic intellectuals, as Antonio Gramsci called them, committed
to the popular cause and to the Revolution.
Now, census taking is already a means of establishing battalions. As you
proceed with this territorial and social survey or fabrics’ survey, do go to the
Hugo Chávez
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
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smallest public and private enterprises. Talk to the workers, including those
of Pdvsa, Pequiven, CVG, Venalum, Alcasa, Sidor, etc, as well of nascent
enterprises, such as Inveval.
There are workers at the new enterprises and endogenous nuclei, such
as the Fabricio Ojeda Endogenous Development Nucleus. Everywhere you
must, in the barracks language, explore the terrain and comb it, yes, comb it.
This is a beautiful task; I wish I had time to do it.
Integrating committees
The promoting Commission has a set of working teams, including the
Ideas, Logistics, and Technical Committees. The latter, which is to receive
information from the promoters, must be well organized, as it will make the
necessary adjustments and ensure the dynamics of the process. One must
beware of inltrators because the enemy may dispatch inltrators. There is no
one better than you to prevent this. The best vaccine against this threat is the people.
The people know the actual residents, those that work for the community, are
honest, and work hard.
The Technical Committee must review the information, make
adjustments, and relay it back to you. It should clarify any doubt in relation
to any socialist district or jurisdiction, the establishment or registration of
battalions, or the militants’ census.
Foundational Congress
In three months the battalions should have been denitively established
and the spokespersons should have been chosen by the bases. The election
of base spokespersons and of the delegates to the Party’s foundational
Congress is scheduled for July 29, subject to these stages’ completion. That
is, spokespersons and delegates should have been elected starting from the
bottom. We expect to install the Congress on August 15, a memorable date
recalling the Monte Sacro Oath and the Great Victory at the Santa Inés Battle,
as well as that historic referendum on the same date.
Between August 15 and mid-November, one must actively work and
discuss the Party’s bylaws and program, the form it should take, its name,
and its colors.
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On Sunday, December 2, we wish to convene the millions of militants
already registered at their bases for a national consultation. This congress
will make decisions regarding the Party’s name, bylaws, and program. These
decisions will be submitted to the Party bases, which will ratify them or not.
Once ratication is achieved, on December 2, the national consultation will
formally install the Party and the foundational congress may designate from
within its ranks or outside them a provisional board that must be approved
by the bases, and another meeting will be held still in 2008 for the national
election of permanent authorities.
This is the scheme we have designed. You are responsible for impelling it
forward with us; hence, the name of promoters and the socialist battalions and
socialist districts in the neighborhoods, communities, and factories. All will
depend on our Party’s being born as it should – strong, solid, well-oriented,
so as to become one of the great promoters, alongside the people, of the
Bolivarian Revolution in the coming years and decades.
DEP
Translation: João Coelho
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221
Guayasamín by himself
I
have always painted as if I were desperately shouting, and my cry
joins all the cries that express the humiliation and anguish of the times in which
we have to live. I paint with the hope of being able to build a world in which
the cultures shaped by the peoples – as the potter makes his jug – receive the
same care that the peasant lovingly gives to the earth and his seeds”.
Child’s Head (1975)
Oil on canvas, 61 x 61cm
“
Guayasamín by himself
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
222
“I am aware that we come from an ancient culture around which a
civilization that reached magnicent moments was formed.
When we know that they had a different idea about time, life and death;
when we think of Quitumbe who, three thousand years ago, founded Quito
as the Divine City of the Sun, exactly in the middle of the world; when we
learn that they knew that the Earth is round; when we see their buildings, their
pottery, their stones wonderfully carved; their amphorae that give out magic
sounds, their jars that stay up straight when they are full of liquid and quietly
fall asleep as they are emptied; when we are aware that they knew physics,
astronomy and medicine, all that within the frame of an original, humanistic
socialism, in which silos were built to keep the harvests that were then shared
according to the needs of each family and each village;
When we nally come to grips with this universe, how can we not
feel pride and admiration in thinking that our present possesses such
transcendental roots”.
“I remain at the same point but always deeper. Always knocking from
the inside. Searching. Latin America has its own roots that must be found and
stirred so that we can express ourselves with our own voice that comes from
the depths of the earth and then blossoms.
The nightmare of widespread hunger, fear of a nuclear war, terror and
death sown by military dictatorships, social injustice that hurts deeper and
deeper, racial discrimination that kills; all that erodes slowly and hard the spirit
of men on Earth.
The hope of peace, ancient and far away, remains our only support
in anguish.
If we do not have the strength to hold all the hands, if we do not have
the tenderness to take in our arms all children in the world, if we do not have
the will to cleanse the Earth of all armies, this little planet will be a dry, dark
body oating in the dark space”.
Guayasamín by himself
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
223
“An artist absolutely cannot run away from his time. There is no other
option. No creator can be a mere onlooker. If he does not take part in the
drama, he is not a creator.
To paint is a form of prayer, but it is also a cry. It is almost a psychological
attitude and the highest consequence of love and solitude. This is why I
want everything to be net, clear, that the message be simple and direct. I do
not want to leave anything to chance. I want each gure, each symbol to be
essential because a work of art is a constant search to try to be like everyone
else without looking like anyone”.
“My grandfather was a man full of colors. He wore green ponchos, red
ponchos. The clearest souvenir I have from him is to have seen him one day
standing on a mound of clay, barefoot and with his trousers pulled up, making
crude bricks to close off his plot, I believe.
He played the organ, had a harmonium at home and every Saturday,
every Sunday I sat respectfully by his side to listen. He was the organist at the
Sangolqui church.
I also remember him coming home on horseback from an arduous
journey and bringing me a very loud and bright green hat that I was not brave
enough to wear.
Such was my grandfather: an Indian able to read music with fantastic
prowess, to bake his own bricks, to knead the clay under his own feet and to
offer me such a violent color in a very small hat.
My paternal grandmother’s name was Zoila Corredores. She was a healer.
I can see again clearly in my childhood my busy grandmother caring for many
sick people who came from everywhere to be healed with herbs, wise advice,
imposition of hands and prayers. It was at the same time a bit of witchcraft
and a kind of medicine. Today, we know that all that was part of an essential
medicine in the ancient world of America that still is, in our own time, rst
class medicine.
My father was a hard, resolute man. In the last few years of his life we have
been very close, but in silence. I believe we never understood each other.
Guayasamín by himself
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
224
My mother was made of poetry. She was always pregnant. She played the
guitar and sang admirably. She taught me the rst chords, the rst voices.
I recall that as a child I tried to reproduce a reddish, tormented sky.
Obviously I could not make it shine, and my mother, understanding my anxiety,
squeezed a bit of milk from her breast into an earthenware cup and gave it
to me, to see whether I could get the right light by mixing it to my paints. My
mother was like bread just out of the oven. She gave me the two lives I have.
She was, she still is and always will be a tender poem.
As long as I live, I shall remember you.
I will always come back, keep a light on”.
Source: Velasco, Alejandro and Madriñan, Eduardo (orgs). Guayasamín. L’époque où il m’a fallu vivre.
Quito: Fundación Guayasamín, Instituto de Cooperación Ibero-americana. Poligraca Division
Editorial, 1988.
DEP
Translation: Sérgio Duarte
Oswaldo was born in Quito, capital city of Ecuador, on July 6
th
,
1919. He graduated as painter and sculptor in the Fine Arts School
of Quito. He held his rst exhibition in 1942, at the age of 23. In
his youth Oswaldo was awarded with all the National Prizes and in
1952, at the age of 33, with the Great Prize of the Biennial of Spain
and later with the Great Prize of the Biennial of São Paulo. He died
on March 10
th
, 1999, aged 79.
Guayasamín held more than 180 individual exhibitions and had a
copious production ranging from paintings and murals to sculptures
and monuments. His murals can be found in Quito (Legislative and
Government Palaces, Central University, Provincial Council); Ma-
drid (Barajas Airport); Paris (UNESCO Headquarters).
Source: www.guayasamin.com
Guayasamín – Self-portrait
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
225
Construtora
Norberto Odebrecht
Economic and social implications of
infrastructure projects in Ecuador
Project Santa Elena (Ecuador)
www.odebrecht.com.br
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
226
T
wenty years ago, Construtora Norberto Odebrecht started its first
project in Ecuador. It can now chalk up a total of ten large-scale projects
in the country in the areas of transport, irrigation, energy, and sanitation,
already completed or under implementation. The first project under this
partnership was executed in the Santa Elena region, a peninsula north of
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. It was designed by the Study Commission
for the Development of the Rio Guayas Basin (Cedegé) to bring into
production the lands on the Santa Elena Peninsula through the irrigation
of 42,000 hectares. In addition, it made possible the supplying of various
cities and localities of the region with drinking water and sewerage systems.
The project, of great socioeconomic impact, allowed significant progress
in the partial realization of the country’s vast development potential. That
initiative was the first step toward a lasting relationship between Odebrecht
and Ecuador, as well as making an equally significant contribution to the
intensification of the Ecuador-Brazil partnership.
This example is a clear demonstration of how physical infrastructure
plays a leading role in both bilateral and regional integration, while bringing
numerous benefits to all those involved. One of the consequences of this
kind of investment is the incorporation and valorization of communities
that directly or indirectly benefit from the projects. Moreover, such
initiatives illustrate the connection between investment by regional
partners and the marked improvement in the conditions of local and
national production.
The great potential of these undertakings is recognized by
international organizations such as the Andean Development Corporation-
CAF. By end-2006, CAF had invested no less than US$4 billion in physical
infrastructure projects in South America. CAF’s motivation for investing is
the same that prompts the steady approximation among South American
countries: the determination to improve the continent’s infrastructure
network. There is consensus that by bringing about the integration of
regional productive chains we may create economies of scale, thereby
improving the competitiveness of South American products.
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Ultimately, it is a question of recognizing the need to work continuously
to reduce regional vulnerabilities. Both in the area of economy and in the eld
of energy we are faced with two issues that impose strategic imperatives on
all South American countries, including Ecuador, of course.
Project Santa Elena (Ecuador)
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Currently, Ecuador’s main source of energy is thermoelectric plants.
These plants, though, are insufcient to meet local needs, forcing the country
to import electricity from Colombia. Thus, the San Francisco Hydroelectric
Project in the Baños region, in the Tungurahua Province, stands out as a
strategic undertaking to offset Ecuador’s electricity decit. It is estimated that
this project will save the Government over US$30 million a year. This gure
equals that of the oil used in the thermoelectric plants, which may be exported
when the hydroelectric plant is operating at full capacity of 212 MW.
The consortium in charge of executing the work – which includes making
underground tunnels, galleries, and caverns – is formed by Odebrecht, Alstom,
and Vatech. The project, considered to be of high complexity, demands
much from the workers, who, in their majority, are residents in the area and
had no previous experience of working on major projects. Training courses
were offered to help them develop new skills and to orient and guide them
in the performance of their tasks, while keeping in mind the top-priority of
workplace safety.
San Francisco power plant (Ecuador)
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The ongoing training programs, which form part of other community
support projects, create many opportunities for the residents both during
the execution phase and after Odebrecht has left the region. One example
of this ongoing activity is the tourism and environmental conservation
project implemented in Baños. The town is famous for its waterfalls and the
Tungurahua volcano, at 5,016 meters above sea level. The two attractions draw
in tourists. Under the projects implemented, residents have received training
for working on the ecotourism market and can now welcome visitors that
come to enjoy the beauty of the region’s natural resources. This parallel work
with the community, aimed at a synergic interaction with the infrastructure
works carried out by the consortium, has signicantly improved the residents’
overall living conditions.
This active involvement stems from the enterprise’s traditional
commitment to the community were its projects are executed. More than
a socially responsible stand, this involvement is guided by the notion that
effective integration depends on the capacity of those involved to fully enjoy
the benets of the infrastructure provided for them.
The concept of providing infrastructure, coupled with the spirit of
interaction with the community, can also be observed in the other Odebrecht
projects in Ecuador. An example worthy mentioning is the project implemented
in Manabí in the Ecuadorian West. The region – Ecuador’s province with the
third largest population – suffered from lack of water in the dry periods and
from ooding in the winter. The problem was solved by the work done in the
Carrizal-Chone System. Part of the Manabí Canals Integrated System, this
project consisted in the construction of irrigation channels that benet 120,000
people. The objective was achieved not only with the project’s completion
but also with the execution of social responsibility programs. The initiatives
aimed at training young people for job opportunities to be open. Even more
important, the ultimate objective was to contribute toward the thorough
eradication of poverty and hunger in the area affected. As an immediate result
of these activities, local farmers were able to increase their earnings and this
has allowed them to diversify their products and subsequently sell them to both
national and international customers. The overall socioeconomic conditions of
the region has thus improved, so that the province, formerly known for high
emigration incidence, can now offer better work opportunities to its residents,
thereby encouraging them to remain in place.
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This highlights infrastructure investment’s crucial importance for the
South American community as a whole, as continental integration is the nal
goal. To sustain our joint efforts and achieve positive shared results, each
part must have its own strength. To ensure the success of such a complex
initiative as South America’s integration, the importance of each project must
be stressed and its economic and social implications must be properly analyzed.
Only when all of us are aware of this, can we work toward bringing all South
American nations and communities, effectively and on an equal basis, into the
continental integration project.
Translation: João Coelho
Carrizal-Chone system (Ecuador)
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* Ricardo Castanheira is the Director of Latin America Coordination of Andrade Gutierrrez.
www.agsa.com.br
Catapata (Bolivia)
Grupo
Andrade Gutierrez
Latin America: opportunities, challenges, and progress
Ricardo Castanheira*
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232
B
razilian engineering is up to international quality standards. And,
Andrade Gutierrez is proud to be one of the companies responsible for this
achievement. This was probably the main reason that a 100 per cent Brazilian
company managed to open doors in neighboring countries. The rst step,
taken in 1984, was getting to Bolivia. Today, Latin America plays a key role in
the expansion strategy laid out by Construtora Andrade Gutierrez, and is part
of the company DNA. The experience acquired in building large works, on
technological innovation and in overcoming challenges is part of the essence
of Andrade Gutierrez, and gave rise to the values cherished by company
employees and the quality of AG’s projects.
Created in 1948 with the foundation of Construtora Andrade Gutierrez,
the Andrade Gutierrez Group established itself among the most important
in the country. Internationalization came in 1983, in the form of a great
challenge: to build a road in Congo, 130 kilometers long, going deep into the
African jungle.
After conquering its space in Brazil, spreading its brand over a myriad of
works throughout the country on various segments, and with the successful
enterprise in Congo, the company decided to look to Latin America and
signed its rst contract in the region: building the Chimoré–Yapacani road
in Bolivia.
The Latin American dimension
The search for new business, together with a macroeconomic scenario
that was favoring the consistent growth of Latin American countries, formed
the basis for the region’s attractiveness. The company therefore embraced
the new challenge and began increasing investments in this market. With a
host of 55 projects executed in the American continent, the Construction
Company currently has seven ofces operating in 15 countries, and with 12
contracts underway in Latin America alone. Our expansion project foresees
US$ 1 billion in sales to be reached in 2016, representing a yearly growth in
excess of 15 per cent in Latin America.
During these long decades operating in Latin countries, the Construction
Company faced difculties that were important factors in building a signicant
portfolio. Natural challenges – from intense cold to extreme heat – are an
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
233
integral part of the projects developed over the Andean region, in deserts and in
dense jungles as it is the case in the Peruvian Amazon. In this outreaching work,
Andrade Gutierrez became face to face with cultural differences. Although
these are neighboring countries, each has its own peculiarities and differences,
whether political, economic, or social, especially regarding corporate culture
and legislation. The adaptation to local habits was another important step to
establish the company in the region. The adaptable and exible nature of our
company, as well as the understanding and concern for the society and culture
of the countries in which we operate were great facilitators of the integration
into different panoramas and to deliver successful projects.
Our prole of a really strong solution engineering company shattered
economic and logistical barriers. Andrade Gutierrez has always worked
harmoniously with clients, communities and governments. Partnerships with
local businessmen established the Construction Company’s brand not as a rival
but as a key partner in fostering business. This proximity with local companies,
Aqueduct (Dominican Republic)
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234
in addition to the strong investment in local labor, was decisive in allowing
Andrade Gutierrez to become a regional player – not a foreign company.
Operating in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico,
Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, El Salvador and Honduras,
Andrade Gutierrez conserves an important infrastructure, as well as strong
relationships, that enable its long-term and continued growth in the region.
Our ofce staff includes regional labor, directors, and management. Currently
the company employs 5,000 local personnel – some of them for over 15 years
now. Our business expansion also results in around 100 Brazilians living and
working in other Latin American countries where the Construction Company
has projects underway. Our investments in the region include continuous
professional empowerment programs, and social and environmental
sustainability programs.
Successful cases
Andrade Gutierrez has a clear understanding of its role in the building of
Latin American infrastructure, in executing works that reach beyond time and
space. These are constructions made to last generations, having a fundamental
impact in the lives of populations. Infrastructure, urbanization, sanitation,
transportation, and energy projects. We help create environments that make
the difference in the day-to-day of people: airports, ports, roads, bridges,
hydropower plants, aqueducts, subways, reneries, thermal power plants.
Each of these projects has a history, represents an obstacle that was
overcome. Soil adversities, tidal cycles, structural complexities, were all factors
in the construction of the Guayaquil Bridge, an emblematic work in Ecuador
that today connects the cities of Guayaquil, Samborondon and Duran to the
rest of the country.
Ecuador is also the setting of another landmark project. Considered
one of the most strategic projects due to its large scale and importance in
the region, and representing the largest international investment – US$ 600
million – the construction of the Quito Airport began in 2006 and includes
a concession to operate the airport for 35 years granted to AG Concessões,
associated to Canadian construction company AECON. A total of 3.6 million
passengers are expected to go through the airport every year.
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235
Peru, an important country in the expansion of Andrade Gutierrez
through Latin America, presents great opportunities. The Construction
Company came to the region 15 years ago, and today operates mainly in
transportation, such as in the North Interocean and South Axis roads, the latter
expected to connect Brazil with the Pacic Ocean. Still under construction
under an uninhabited region, the consortium is facing many logistical challenges
to haul equipment and materials over long distances. Another factor is the
high altitude: a large portion of the work takes place at altitudes over 3,500
meters above the sea level.
Andrade Gutierrez will bid for the enlargement works of the Panama
Canal, which is considered one of the largest projects underway in the world.
This will be a unique experience, an integrated effort that includes Brazilian,
French, and Chinese engineering, which are parties in the consortium. The
worldwide experience of the Construction Company in water works was a key
factor that led to its inclusion in the project. Our relationship with Panama
dates back from the duplication of the Bridge of the Americas, which leads
us to believe in the success of this enterprise.
Other very signicant countries included in the Andrade Gutierrez
portfolio are the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Venezuela. In the rst
Quito airport
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
236
one, the Construction Company is executing one of the largest infrastructure
works in the country, the Las Placetas hydropower plant. In Venezuela and in
Argentina, we are developing important plans in the oil sector.
Brazilian know-how: global reach
In specic segments, Brazilian engineering, in addition to being highly
qualied, is a true leader. Therefore, there are some business areas in which
Andrade Gutierrez has greater weight: hydropower plants, aqueducts, large
roads, reneries, thermal power plants, sanitation, ports, subways, airports. These
are niches in which the company can add value to the client’s business.
Panamerican roadway (Peru)
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237
The current infrastructure buildup model requires that the support
or solution begins in the nancial structuring of the project, and Andrade
Gutierrez becomes a strategic partner of its clients. Our experience in
concessions, infrastructure operation, project finance, as well as our
relationship with various multilateral and aid organizations in Latin America
allow Andrade Gutierrez to nd structural solutions that join our capability
and credibility in delivering works on time and with the necessary quality to
fulll their operational goals.
In almost 60 years, the Andrade Gutierrez Group has renewed itself,
evolved, conquered new markets and achieved values that today make it a
national and international reference. The Group is a brand of excellence,
not only in the Heavy Construction market, but also in Concessions,
Telecommunications, Transportation, and, most recently, Energy, with the
acquisition of Light, the energy company in the State of Rio de Janeiro.
Experience and excellence are indeed the door to conquering new worlds.
Translation: JR Maramaldo
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
239
Embraer – Empresa Brasileira
de Aeronáutica S.A.
Embraer goes international
I
ntroduction
Airspace industry, of which Aeronautics is the most signicant segment,
has a wide range of highly demanding characteristics that make it special and
differentiated.
Few industries in the world are faced with such an array of awesome
challenges as aeronautics – from the simultaneous employment of multiple
advanced technologies to highly qualied manpower to the requirements
of a global industry by denition to the requisite exibility to respond to
abrupt scenario changes to the enormous amounts of capital required for its
operations.
Based on the experience amassed in over three decades of activity in
this competitive, aggressive, and sophisticated market, we at Embraer like to
say that the aeronautics business rests on ve major pillars, which in turn rest
www.embraer.com.br
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
240
on a single foundation – our clients’ satisfaction, the source of the results
that will ensure our stakeholders’ gains and the enterprise’s continuity over
time. These pillars are as follows:
• Advanced technologies: in view of the highly demanding operational
requirements pertaining to safety, drastic environmental changes, and
weight and volume restrictions, the aeronautics industry employs a
wide range of point technologies and serves as a lab for their ne-
tuning before they are passed on to other productive segments and
activities. Complex, sophisticated technologies are involved not
only in the product but also in the development and manufacturing
methods and processes, in addition to the use of the best practices
available in nancial and human resources management.
• Highly qualied manpower: to ensure the efcient, productive, and
consistent use of these advanced technologies, it is essential
that qualied personnel be available at all levels of the industry’s
operations: computer-supported projects, relations with suppliers
and clients around the world, manufacturing using sophisticated
numerical control machines, and the devising of elaborate nancial
solutions with international institutions.
• Flexibility: abrupt scenario changes that affect the world economy
and the geopolitical order, the most recent example of which were
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have immediate impact
on the air transport industry and thus on aircraft manufacturers.
Flexibility in adapting to such changes with a minimum loss in terms
of efciency and costs is of crucial importance for ensuring survival
and preservation.
• Capital intensity: owing to the massive investment required for
developing new products and raising quality and productivity, coupled
with long development and maturation cycles, capital intensity
is another major feature of this business sector. For example: the
development of the Embraer 170/190 aircraft line required an
investment of US$1 billion and the new A350 Airbus plane should
require no less than US$15 billion!
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241
• Global industry: low output and the high cost of production
makes the aeronautic industry an exporting and global concern
by nature, as regards both its client and supplier base and the
nancial institutions that back it. The same Embraer 170 aircraft
that operates under the ag of Finnair, Finland’s airline, in the
severe Scandinavian winter must also stand the high humidity and
temperature levels of southern United States, where it operates
under United Express’s ag. In both cases, Embraer must be
permanently available to its clients, providing local technical
support and immediate access to parts and components, thereby
honoring its commitment to the success of their business and
aiming always at their full satisfaction, which will in turn ensure
additional orders in the future. At the same time, Embraer must
experience the different environments in which it operates, so
as to detect positive or negative tendencies and changes in the
scenarios and to be able to provide a speedy response.
Legacy 600
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242
All these characteristics make the aeronautic industry into a fascinating as
well as a high-risk business. Failure of a new product may make the enterprise
that developed it unviable and force it out of the market. The disappearance
of traditional enterprises, such as the Dutch Fokker’s and the Swedish Saab’s
exit from the civil aeronautic market are two examples of this harsh reality.
Notwithstanding the major risks involved, developing an autochthonous,
strong, and autonomous aeronautic industry has been part of the strategic
agenda of many nations, which invest heavily in its development over the
years, recurrently supporting it by various schemes – celebrating major
Defense systems and products contracts, nancing new aircraft development
programs under favorable terms, and providing all sorts of tax incentives.
Embraer goes international
Aware that winning new markets, which are essential for is growth and
consolidation will become effective only if backed by its physical presence
in these markets, through industrial plants or units for rendering post-sale
services and support to clients, Embraer has, since its privatization in 1994,
gradually extended its operations internationally as a strategic objective.
Far from losing its Brazilian identity and distancing itself from its origins,
Embraer will, through internationalization, ensure new business deals, the
strengthening of its trademark, and the generation of higher-qualication
jobs in Brazil, in proportionately higher numbers than in its subsidiaries and
controlling enterprises abroad.
In 1997, as it regained strength after introducing in the market its
ERJ 145 commuter jet, Embraer launched its internationalization strategy
by adopting measures that included (1) expanding or opening sales and
marketing ofces and replacement parts distribution centers; (2) participating
in joint ventures; and acquiring traditional, renowned enterprises specializing
in aeronautic services.
United States and Europe: consolidated presence
Embraer has long been active in the United States and in Europe –
since 1978 and 1983, respectively – through sales and marketing ofces and
client support units (parts and services).
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
243
The two units have had and continue to have a vital role in the expansion
of its operations in those two main commercial aviation markets in the world.
Including Brazil, 950 commercial jets, in addition to 800 turboprop planes as
well as military planes made by Embraer are now ying. The U.S. and the
European markets account for 95 percent of its total exports.
Facilities at the U.S. unit, located in Fort Lauderdale, FLA have been
expanded to keep up with Embraer’s operation since it delivered the rst ERJ
145 commuter jet in December 1996 in that market. In November 2006 it
had 234 employees and a spare parts stock of over 50,000 items.
With the increase of its business and client base in Europe, Embraer
decided to concentrate into one place, located in Villepinte, near the Paris
Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, its sales and marketing and client support
units, including a major spare parts warehouse, one of which was already
located in Villepinte while the other was previously located at the Le
Bourget airport. The new integrated facilities should enhance the operational
efciency of a body of 194 employees charged with managing assets totaling
172 million euros and providing services to 37 clients.
Phenom 100 and Phenom 300
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244
China and Pacic-Asia: strategic markets
Given the importance of its economy, which has steadily grown at high
rates for the last two decades, as well the strategic signicance of air transport
as and integrating factor and a development engine on a continental-size
territory, China has been selected by Embraer as a strategic goal, which
requires specic, differentiated treatment in view of its cultural characteristics,
far removed from the Western world.
Embraer’s presence in China started in May 2000, with the opening of
a sales and marketing ofce in Beijing, followed soon after by the opening of
a spare parts distribution center in the same city.
In 2001 and 2002, it negotiated an agreement with Chinese authorities
under which it would be allowed to install an industrial plant to make ERJ
145 family aircraft for the Chinese market.
Finally, in December 2002, an agreement was signed with Aviation
Industry of China II (AVIC II), establishing the Harbin Embraer Aircraft
Industry (HEAI), a joint venture controlled by Embraer, which holds 51
percent of voting shares.
In February 2004, Embraer announced its rst sale in China through
HEAI: six ERJ 145 jets sold to China Southern. Other signicant sales
followed: the same number of the same model sold to China Eastern Jiangsu
in March 2005 and to China Eastern Wuhan in January 2006.
In August 2006, Embraer announced the sale of 50 WRJ 145 planes and
50 EMBRAER 190 jets to the HNA Group, China’s fourth largest air company.
This deal was the rst sales contract of an E-Jet on mainland China, with a list
price of US$2.7 billion. ERJ 145 delivery will start in September 2007. The
50-seat jet will be made by HEAI in Harbin, in the Heilongjian Province.
By end-2006, HEAI will have delivered 13 ERJ 145 planes, which,
together with the ve sold in 2000 to Szechuan before the establishment of
the joint venture, will bring to 18 the total number of these jets currently
operated by Chinese airlines.
As regards the Pacic Asian region, in December 2000 Embraer opened
a sales and marketing ofce in Singapore, entrusted with implementing the
enterprise’s trade strategy for the region’s markets, including the Indian
subcontinent.
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
245
The Indian aeronautic market is undergoing a deregulation process
and shows bright growth prospects. In this context, Paramount, a recently
established company, has announced the start of its operations, based on the
operational leasing of two jets: Embraer 170 and Embraer 175.
Also in India, Embraer has signed a major contract with the government
for the sale of ve Legacy 500 jets, particularly adapted to meet the comfort
and safety requirements of that country’s authorities.
Expansion of Embraer’s client services and support base
Embraer plans to continue expanding its client services sector not only
to ensure that its clients will achieve excellent dispatchability rates for their
aircraft eet but also to provide them with other services, such as aircraft
maintenance and repair, to their full satisfaction, which is essential for the
achievement of our goals and the growth of our operations.
Embraer’s Headquarters. São José dos Campos
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
246
Thus, in addition to consolidating its client services in Brazil through
the transfer of its Services Center to the Gavião Peixoto Unit, it has
expanded its services operations in the United States, with the addition of
the new facilities of the Embraer Aircraft Maintenance Services-EAMS, in
Nashville, Tennessee, and in Europe, with the acquisition of OGMA-Indústria
Aeronáutica de Portugal S.A., in Alverca, Portugal, announced in December
2004, at the completion of its privatization process.
Early in 2005, EAMS expanded its facilities at the Nashville International
Airport to raise its services capacity, in view of the growing eet of Embraer
aircraft in the United States. This major decision led to the progressive hiring,
as of 2005, of additional EAMS employees, bringing their total to 277 by
November 2006.
Since its establishment in 1918, OGMA has devoted itself to aircraft
maintenance and is today a major representative of the European aeronautic
industry, providing maintenance and repair services for civil and military
aircraft, engines and components, and modication and assembling of
structural components, as well as engineering support.
Its main clients are the Portuguese, the French, and the U.S. Air Forces
and the U.S. Navy, Nato’s Maintenance and Supply Agency, and the Dutch
and Norwegian Navies, among others. In the trade area, OGMA also provides
services to airlines such as TAP, Portugalia, British Midland, and Luxair, and
to enterprises, including Embraer and Rolls-Royce.
In addition to doing maintenance work, OGMA also manufactures
structural components and composite materials for Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed
Martin, Dassault, and Pilatus. By November 2006, its work force totaled 1,606
employees, which makes it Embraer’s largest unit and subsidiary.
Preserving culture, values, and attitudes – an enduring
challenge
The velocity of Embraer’s expansion since 1996, when its ERJ 145
aircraft went into operation, has brought with it formidable challenges in
respect of the preservation of culture, values, and attitudes, a concern that
continues to guide the enterprise’s actions.
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
247
To illustrate the magnitude of such a challenge, sufce it to mention
that in April 1997, Embraer had only 3,200 employees scattered through ve
operational units – three in Brazil and two abroad. Today, nine years later,
it has 18,670 employees, scattered through thirteen operational units – ve
in Brazil and eight abroad. In just one of its units, located in France, 26
nationalities and 19 languages are represented in a work force of 194.
One of the managers’ top priorities is to recognize the worker’s ethnic
and cultural diversity and their different working environments, including
specic labor legislations, while developing their maximum potential by
directing their energy toward the business’s objective, in perfect consonance
with the enterprise’s ethical and moral values.
The main element for the achievement of this intent is the so-called
Management Methodology through Action Plan. Each year Embraer
prepares an Action Plan based on a ve-year perspective and follows a
strategic planning model that takes into consideration markets, competitors,
the enterprise’s capabilities, opportunities, and risks, priorities, and results,
among other factors.
EMBRAER 170/190 family
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
248
The Enterprise’s Action Plan is based on the equivalent internal plans
for each corporate, functional, and business area, reaching down all the way
to the plant oor, all in accordance with the general guidelines issued by the
enterprise’s top management. The enterprise’s variable pay policy, encompassing
all employees, takes into account the targets agreed by the leaders and the led
along the entire chain of command. The Action Plan is thus the key instrument
for the management of the business, and for all the employees’ alignment with
and commitment to the agreed targets and results.
In addition to the Action Plan Methodology, Embraer maintains
a strong Internal Communication culture aimed at integration with its
employees and their families and at disseminating Embraer’s central values
and concepts.
Internal Communication works in a global, integrated manner, through
the use of tools that are both modern of highly attractive to the employees:
• Embraer’
s Director and President has his own tool for communicating
with employees, called Em Tempo, issued simultaneously in Portuguese
and in English. More recently, Em Tempo has been issued in special
editions on video;
• Embraer
Intranet is a tool of corporate reach and our employees’
main source of information, which is accessed an average of 24,500
times a day;
• Some
600 internal communiqués are issued annually and made
available to employees through Intranet and bulletin boards; 25
percent of these communiqués are of corporate reach;
• T
he Embraer Notícias [Embraer News] is devoted to issues that
are essential to Embraer’s culture: the Management Methodology
through the Action Plan, the importance of cost discernment and
contention, combating waste, team rallying around Embraer’s broad
entrepreneurial objectives, etc.;
• Inter
views with Embraer’s top executives are translated and sent
to the units located abroad. As they consistently address market
evaluation and the enterprise’s strategies and objectives, they are well
heeded by employees;
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
249
• Articles published in the national and international media on themes
of interest to Embraer’s business are translated and made available
to employees.
Armed with this vision and determination, grounded on ethical and
moral values, and having integrity as the spring of it actions, Embraer
embarks upon an extremely challenging and competitive entrepreneurial
activity. And in so doing it brings to the markets the image of an efcient,
agile Brazilian enterprise known for its quality products and technological
state-of-the-art.
Version: João Coelho
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
251
D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Number 5 January / March 2007
Summary
5
25
35
39
54
74
82
Ideas, ideologies, and foreign policy in Argentina
José Paradiso
Infrastructure integration in South America:
stimulating sustainable development and regional
integration
Enrique García
Elections and patience
Antônio Delm Netto
The outlook for Chile-Bolivia relations
Luis Maira
Colombia’s strengths
Fernando Cepeda Ulloa
Foreign policy and democratic and human security
Diego Ribadeneira Espinosa
Cheddi Jagan’s global human order
Ralph Ramkharan
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
252
88
103
123
137
171
179
Paraguay’s economic situation and prospects
Dionisio Borda
A strategic regional view of Peru’s foreign policy
José Antonio García Belaunde
Suriname by its authors
Jerome Egger
Mercosur: quo vadis?
Gerardo Caetano
Full Petroleum Sovereignty
Rafael Ramírez
Silvano Cuéllar – Allegory of the Nation
María Victoria de Robayo
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
253
D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Number 4 April / June 2006
5
16
27
44
66
84
100
Summary
Objectives and challenges of Argentina’s foreign policy
Jorge Taiana
Bolivia, a force for integration
Evo Morales
The brazilian economy’s challenges and prospects
Paulo Skaf
Program of government (2006-2010)
Michelle Bachelet
The trap of bilateralism
Germán Umaña Mendoza
The Amazonian Cooperation Treaty Organisation
(Acto): a constant challenge
Rosalía Arteaga Serrano
Guyana – linking Brazil with the Caribbean:
potential meets opportunity
Peter R. Ramsaroop
Eric M. Phillips
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
254
Paraguay’s political crossroads
Pedro Fadul
The great transformation
Ollanta Humala
Suriname: macro-economic overview, challenges
and prospects
André E. Telting
Uruguay’s insertion into the world economy:
a political and strategic view
Sergio Abreu
“There is another world and it is in this one”
José Vicente Rangel
Pedro Lira
Milan Ivelic
118
131
151
164
200
226
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
255
D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Volume I Number 3 April / June 2005
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
256
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
257
D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Volume I Number 2 January / March 2005
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
258
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
259
D E P
DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA
Volume I Number 1 October / December 2004
Diplomacy, Strategy & politicS – april/June 2007
260
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