US hypocrisy on democracy in Latin America

By SJ Otto

All year long, and before that, our government, that is the government of President Donald Trump, has demanded that Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela step down and hold new elections. They have even recognized Juan Guaido, who has never been elected.

It needs to be pointed out that nearly every elected member of the US congress, Republican and Democrat, have whole-heartedly supported Trump in this effort. There are a few progressives, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat from Minnesota.

Maduro is constantly labeled a dictator. Conservatives have accused some progressives of being anti-American for saying anything positive or defensive about Maduro.

The accusation is that Maduro is really a dictator, even though he was originally elected. He has made some changes in the political system that gave him an advantage. So leaders here in the US have labeled him a dictator and have claimed the only solution to Venezuela’s problems is for him to step down and allow Guaido to act as an interim president until new elections can be held.

Suddenly everything changed in Bolivia and a very popular president, Evo Morales, was removed by a coup. The military forced him to resign. Bernie Sanders is about the only big time US Senator to label the actions in Bolivia a coup. He has been ridiculed by both parties for calling the firing of Morales a coup.

Bolivia’s new President Jeanine Anez, was appointed to the military. She is supposed to hold elections for a new president, but she hasn’t held them yet.

According to Al Jazeera:

 

“Black remnants of scorched tires still stained dozens of Bolivia's main streets on Monday, after nearly two weeks of marches and road blockades by protesters furious with the government's decision to delay the presidential rerun election once more, amid the country's worsening coronavirus outbreak.

Thousands of protesters allied with the former leftist president Evo Morales had set up nearly 150 roadblocks nationwide demanding elections be held on September 6 - paralysing the Andean nation, causing food shortages and delaying the transport of critical medical supplies.

A cautious calm has now taken hold, and on Monday, markets were slowly being restocked after Bolivia's electoral tribunal last week enacted a law that mandated a presidential election must be held on October 18, citing the need to avoid a September projected peak in COVID-19 infections.

"After two weeks of violent protests and roadblocks, the country is now recuperating its sense of normalcy, after guarantees that elections can be held on October 18," said Raul Penaranda, a journalist and political analyst based in La Paz.”

So once again we see that the real position the US holds on democracy. And that is; it has to be right-wing and/or conservative. Unlike Venezuela, where Maduro’s rule has disintegrated into class warfare, Morales did a good job of taking care of everyone. He was very popular. But to the right in both that country and here at home, that was not enough. He was a socialist, part of the Bolivarian Revolution that Maduro was a part of. Because of that Trump felt Morales had to go. So the US has not said a single thing about the fact that Anez has avoided elections. If she held them today she might lose. Trump does not want that to happen. He made it clear that he wants to remove socialism from all of Latin America. The Democrats in Congress have not opposed him at all. They are all yes men and women when it comes to the Republican foreign policy. They are so pro-Republican that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama just kept the Republicans on, during their reign, which were in charge of foreign policy. This country has had a mono-foreign policy supported whole-heartedly by both parties—until this year. Now we have a few progressives, such as Omar. She has been an outspoken critic of our foreign policy in Latin America. Because of this, she has been labeled everything from being a Moslem Terrorist to an anti-American. However she was recently re-elected in her Democratic primary. Since she is in a Democratic stronghold, she is almost a shoe in. That has been a bitter pill for all of the conservatives who were so sure she would be voted out in the next election.

So there are no surprised in our Latin American policy on democracy—which, of course, is really a policy of hypocrisy.