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DISASTER CAPITALISM IN LATIN AMERICA By Manuel E. Yepe May 2010 Translated by Karen Louise Hoffmann Little- Original article in Spanish Edited by Brigid Burt, Argenpress, info, Argentina The two great disasters that nature had in store recently for Haiti and Chile, the no-less-sinister coup just a short time before in Honduras, together with the reaction of the superpower to these shocking situations, have raised justified fears that Latin America is fully involved in the application of the principles of the doctrine of disaster capitalism that writer, political scientist, and journalist Naomi Klein has denounced with so much international recognition. According to this outstanding Canadian figure, capitalism has triumphed in the world not because people have willingly accepted the virtues of the market, but rather because the ground rules of that system have been imposed in the form of liberal market policies, especially in times of disasters prompted by or used as a pretext for them. For the fundamentalists of capitalism, the countries hit by disasters and therefore in a state of shock, become conduits through which political influence can be exercised. Naomi Klein must be credited for having warned of this phenomenon and explained how calamities, natural or man-made, serve as venues for the implementation of neoliberal globalizing ideas.
Whatever you make of her theory, you can't help but grant that
calamities such as the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, the AH1N1 pandemic flu crisis and the devastation of New
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, have become mere "business opportunities" for
multinational corporations, fitting her hypothesis. It is also clear that the "reconstruction of Iraq" has injected billions of dollars into the economy of multinational entities, making them beneficiaries of the war. The "reconstruction of Afghanistan" provides something similar for large U.S. corporations. The military contingent of 3,000 Marines that Washington sent as aid to Haiti was seen by many Haitians and foreign observers as a symptom of an evil plan for domination, especially seeing how quickly that "help" came, compared to the slow and incomplete promised assistance of urgently needed food and medicine. Although Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world (as punishment for the audacity of its people in creating the precursor to Latin American independence), its desirable geopolitical location and its probable mineral wealth make it a coveted morsel. The same could be said about Chile after a calamitous series of earthquakes that hit the country shortly after Haiti's disaster, especially after a curfew was put into place and the military and police were ordered to the streets to exercise control of the civilian population, to maintain order and curb crime. It is known that the policy of social marginality implemented by the Chilean military dictatorship, unfortunately continued during the 20 years of the Democratic Coalition government, was characterized by retaining pockets of poverty in a country with the appearance of prosperity. It was this unjust order that provoked the accumulated anger of the people, which broke out in the form of looting and other violations. And, in turn, the general state of social disorder, magnified by the media in the hands of the right, served as grounds for military intervention and curfew in Santiago a few days after the change of command returned the right to power. The infamous scenes of the military patrolling the streets with amphibious tanks armed with machine guns and cannons to control the civilian population recalled the disastrous coup of Sept. 11, 1973, in which Salvador Allende was killed. In three countries in crisis — Honduras, Haiti, and Chile — the military are now on the streets. Imperial generosity could offer to save them at this critical moment by summoning the magnanimous multinational consortia (especially the Americans) to undertake the reconstruction of these nations, requiring only that they maintain "curfew" policies to keep down the social mobilization. Also, surely, juicy commissions would be promised to those who participated in rescue agreements. Pure disaster capitalism! March-May 2010
WALTER LIPPMANN Â Â |