Latin America is defined by a series of paradoxes that befuddle commentators, from the economy and popular support for leftist movements, to profits, growth and hunger, writes James Petras.
Venezuela ’s President Hugo Chavez remains the world’s leading secular, democratically elected political leader who has consistently and publicly opposed imperialist wars in the Middle East, attacked extra-territorial intervention and US and European Union complicity in kidnapping and torture.
Hunger continues to be a problem in South America, barely contained by the safety nets created by government programmes and networks of civil society groups, as deep-rooted inequality nourishes the ranks of the poor despite economic growth and an abundance of food.
Five years after U.S.-funded groups were associated with a failed coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the U.S. government's political aid programs continue to meddle in Venezuelan domestic politics. A new focus of the "democracy builders" in Venezuela and around the world is support for nonviolent resistance by civil society organizations.
As the people of Latin America build democracies from the bottom up, the symbols of power are changing. What used to be emblems of poverty and oppression—indigenous clothing and speech, the labels “campesino” and “landless worker”—are increasingly the symbols of new power.
