carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (12/07/84)
----- Jeff Hull, blessed be he, writes: > And don't tell me the domino theory doesn't work, tell it to the people in > Cambodia, Laos, etc. The domino theory doesn't work. I heard it from the people in Thailand, Malaysia, etc. > Now will all of you who want to lobby, protest, etc., against American > military involvement in Central America please start coming up with some > substantive suggestions about ANY positive actions the US or the > Contadora Group or ANYONE can take to relieve the situation there. With pleasure. To avert a wider war in Central America, the US should take the following short-range steps: NICARAGUA: Cease backing the counterrevolutionary forces based in Honduras and Costa Rica, and support Contadora efforts to normalize relations between Nicaragua and its neighbors. EL SALVADOR: Cut off military aid, and support efforts for a negotiated settlement involving power-sharing among the contending forces. HONDURAS: Dismantle the US bases in Honduras, withdraw US troops and warships and participate in development aid. GUATEMALA: Express disapproval of the government's repressive policies toward indigenous people, maintain the cutoff of military assistance and provide aid for Guatemalan refugees in Mexico who have fled from the violence there. COSTA RICA: Oppose militarization and extend economic assistance. CUBA: Begin a process designed to achieve normal diplomatic and commercial relations. A longer-range program for development: AID: US economic assistance should flow towards those regional programs and governments that are narrowing the gulf between rich and poor, as well as to grassroots institutions and projects that diversify the economic base of each country. TRADE: US trade should be liberalized alongside support of limited commodity agreements to help Central American countries stabilize earnings from their commodity exports. DEBT: The US should support regional plans for renegotiation of external debt. WORKERS AND MIGRANTS: The US should develop programs to compensate and retrain US workers affected by liberalized imports and guarantee rights to immigrant workers. The above program is to be found in _Changing Course_ by a group called Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA). This is the best short (~100 pp.) analysis of the Central American situation that I know of. It also contains a response to the Kissinger Commission's report. With all due respect to Dr. Kissinger, he is the last person who should have been chosen to head the commission, with the possible exception of Gen. Pinochet. His disposition to see world politics as a chess game between the superpowers prevents him from understanding Central America (and much of the Third World). He once told the Chilean foreign minister, "You come here speaking of Latin America, but this is not important. Nothing important can come from the South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance." Deep thinker, that Henry. The Reagan Administration continues to commit the classic error of post-WWII American foreign policy, which has been well described by Richard J. Barnet in _Intervention and Revolution_: "Revolutionary movements grow in the soil of exploitation and injustice.... The danger in treating local revolutions as part of a worldwide conspiracy and not as expressions of nationalistic feeling and indigenous political sentiment is that so faulty an analysis cannot be the basis of a practical strategy. That lesson became clear in Vietnam and, I fear, will be taught to us again. Where the greatest power in the world scares itself with a set of beliefs that have at best only a tangential connection with the reality of revolution, that nation becomes a menace to itself and to others." Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
jhull@spp2.UUCP (12/12/84)
In article <247@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >----- >Jeff Hull, blessed be he, writes: >> And don't tell me the domino theory doesn't work, tell it to the people in >> Cambodia, Laos, etc. > >The domino theory doesn't work. I heard it from the people in Thailand, >Malaysia, etc. > By your logic, I could claim the domino theory doesn't work because Iran isn't communist. (:-) Seriously, the domino theory relates to interlocking socioeconomic structures, and, while Thailand was a part of the structure referred to, Malaysia was not. A discussion of why Thailand didn't fall to the communists would be a) beyond me, b) very lengthy, c) inappropriate here. The domino theory predicted the fall of Cambodia, Laos, the massive killing there and in South Viet Nam, North Viet Namese dominance in the area, and the falling out between the North Viet Namese and the Red Chinese. Not a bad track record. >> Now will all of you who want to lobby, protest, etc., against American >> military involvement in Central America please start coming up with some >> substantive suggestions about ANY positive actions the US or the >> Contadora Group or ANYONE can take to relieve the situation there. > >With pleasure. To avert a wider war in Central America, the US should take >the following short-range steps: > Thank you very much. This kind of response provides the basis for why I bother reading net.politics at all. I placed these general comments here so I could also comment specifically on each of the suggestions immediately adjacent to it. These suggestions seem to me to offer a sound basis for debate here in net.politics to become the basis of an alternative US policy in Central America. Each one seems to me to eminently supportable. I am somewhat disturbed by these suggestions (taken as a group), because they seem to withdraw support from governments that are or feel threatened by external forces, e.g., El Salvadoran guerillas supported by Nicaragua (at least I have never heard that Nicaraguan support of El Salvadoran guerillas was predicated and preceded by US instigation of guerilla activity against Nicaragua based from El Salvador.) I do not claim ANY expertise in Central American affairs and my information about situations there is pretty much limited to what I hear & read in the US media (I occasionally read some major European English language papers, but no Central or South American ones.) Still, I have not heard anyone, even on this net, suggest that the US, rather than Cuba, is the prime exporter of revolution and terrorism in this area. I remember, bitterly, the activities of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in mobilizing the country against our support of South Viet Nam followed by silence from them when the North Viet Namese and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia began slaughtering their conquered opponents. >NICARAGUA: Cease backing the counterrevolutionary forces based in >Honduras and Costa Rica, and support Contadora efforts to normalize >relations between Nicaragua and its neighbors. > I can wholeheartedly support this suggestion. I feel it should be contingent on Nicaragua ceasing their support of guerillas and terrorists anywhere in Central America, especially El Salvador. >EL SALVADOR: Cut off military aid, and support efforts for a negotiated >settlement involving power-sharing among the contending forces. > I don't know about this one. A lot of what I read indicates that the guerillas are not willing to adhere to non-violent methods even when that possibility is available. I DO NOT support offering anyone a larger piece of the pie simply because the pick up a gun to ask for it. Likewise, when people are denied legitimate rights, I support their demanding those rights by any means necessary. What is the truth here? The stuff I read indicates the government of El Salvador is moving to expand civil liberty and trying to provide the basis for a fair and representative government and that the guerillas are holding out for a larger share of the goodies than they will get under a fair and representative government. >HONDURAS: Dismantle the US bases in Honduras, withdraw US troops and >warships and participate in development aid. > I wholeheartedly support this idea. >GUATEMALA: Express disapproval of the government's repressive policies >toward indigenous people, maintain the cutoff of military assistance and >provide aid for Guatemalan refugees in Mexico who have fled from the >violence there. > I have no opinion. I haven't been following events in Guatemala. >COSTA RICA: Oppose militarization and extend economic assistance. > I wholeheartedly support this idea. >CUBA: Begin a process designed to achieve normal diplomatic and >commercial relations. > I support this idea but I think it should be combined with agreements to prevent further Cuban military adventurism and to reduce current Cuban military involvement in Central America (notice that I ignore Cuban involvement in Africa. I think that is a separate problem that should NOT be linked to Cuban participation in the Western Hemisphere community). I think continued advocation of and financial and military support to violent overthrow of other governments is adequate justification for ostracism of Cuba. Note that I do not advocate ostracising Cuba. Far from it! I think that getting Cuba back into the mainstream of Caribbean and Central American activities (has she ever really been out of it?) should be a prime goal of US foreign policy. I just don't like Cuba supporting violent revolutions in other countries. >A longer-range program for development: > >AID: US economic assistance should flow towards those regional programs and >governments that are narrowing the gulf between rich and poor, as well as to >grassroots institutions and projects that diversify the economic base of >each country. > I think US aid should flow toward those regional programs and governments that support the principles on which this country was founded, and those have NOTHING to do with "narrowing the gulf between rich and poor." Those principles revolve around providing equal opportunity for each individual to make whatever he or she wants to make of her life. They include the notion of minimal government interference in the lives of individuals and the domestic economy. For some time to come, this direction will coincide with that suggested above because the entrenched power structures in these countries is and will continue to resist change. But we should never forget the basic goal (which I think should be as I have stated above). >DEBT: The US should support regional plans for renegotiation of external >debt. > Perhaps for renegotiation of repayment of external debt, but not for renegotiation of the debt itself. >TRADE: US trade should be liberalized alongside support of limited >commodity agreements to help Central American countries stabilize earnings >from their commodity exports. > >WORKERS AND MIGRANTS: The US should develop programs to compensate and >retrain US workers affected by liberalized imports and guarantee rights to >immigrant workers. > These two must be considered together. They also have significant impact on US domestic policy which should be carefully considered. This is a call for comments from everyone. The following quotation is so important, I have included it. > >"Revolutionary movements grow in the soil of exploitation and injustice.... >The danger in treating local revolutions as part of a worldwide conspiracy >and not as expressions of nationalistic feeling and indigenous political >sentiment is that so faulty an analysis cannot be the basis of a practical >strategy. That lesson became clear in Vietnam and, I fear, will be taught >to us again. Where the greatest power in the world scares itself with a set >of beliefs that have at best only a tangential connection with the reality >of revolution, that nation becomes a menace to itself and to others." > _Intervention and Revolution_: Richard J. Barnet -- Blessed Be, jhull@spp2.UUCP Jeff Hull trwspp!spp2!jhull@trwrb.UUCP 13817 Yukon Ave. Hawthorne, CA 90250