July
2020
IS
REGIONAL SOLIDARITY LOST IN LATIN AMERICA?
Recent
developments suggest this may be the case.
By
Roberto Bissio
Montevideo, 1 Jul – During a publicly live-streamed dialogue with
former Brazilian President Lula da Silva recently, Argentinian president
Alberto Fernandez said he misses the regional solidarity that Latin
America had when he was Chief of Cabinet of President Nestor Kirchner
back in 2003.
"Now it's only Andres Manuel [Lopez Obrador] in Mexico
and me" he explained, after Lula's description of the close ties
he had as president with many other heads of State in the region and
how they dared to say "no" to US president George W. Bush's
proposal of a Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2005.
As a contrasting example, Fernandez quoted the proposal of President
Donald Trump to name his Latin American advisor Mauricio Claver-Carone
to lead the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The unwritten gentlemen's agreement since the creation
of the IDB at the time of the Eisenhower administration was that the
regional development bank would have its headquarters in Washington,
but always with a Latin American citizen as its head.
All presidents rushed to support Trump - explained Fernandez
- leaving Mexico and Argentina alone in opposition.
Former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil,
Ricardo Lagos from Chile, Juan Manuel Santos from Colombia and the
Mexican Ernesto Zedillo also opposed the designation in a public letter,
calling it "a new aggression from the US government against the
multilateral system, based on rules agreed by the members".
Even Uruguayan foreign relations minister Ernesto Talvi
opposed the initiative, which was supported by the Uruguayan president
Luis Lacalle and his finance minister.
Meanwhile, another major debate around development banks
and nominations has been kicked off in Latin America by Brazilian
president Jair Bolsonaro appointing his former Education Minister
Abraham Weintraub as Executive Director at the World Bank.
An economist and former investment banker, Weintraub used
a diplomatic passport to travel to the US on 20 June, the day before
his resignation as Education Minister was announced, and thus escaped
a Supreme Court order to seize his normal passport so that he could
be interrogated in two pending investigations about racism and mismanagement.
The Brazilian Executive Director does not only represent
his country on the board of the World Bank, but also speaks on behalf
of a constituency that includes Colombia, the Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, the Philippines, Surinam and Trinidad and
Tobago.
A letter was sent to the Ambassadors of these countries
in Brazil, signed by dozens of influential opinion-makers, warning
them "about the potential irreparable harms that he would cause
to your country's standing within the World Bank".
Rubens Ricupero, a former head of UNCTAD, was among the
signatories.
Weintraub is accused by civil society of "odious
behaviour and lackluster performance as Minister of Education".
The Speaker of the House has called him "disqualified"
for the job, adding that having him in the position is a "pity
for Brazil", and the Chinese Embassy in Brazil vehemently condemned
one of his posts on Twitter, accusing his words of being "completely
absurd and despicable, with a strong racist character".
In theory, any member of the constituency can break the
consensus around their Executive Director nomination, but since most
of them are the same countries that supported Trump's nomination (of
Claver-Carone) to head the IDB, it is unlikely that they will have
the determination to oppose the will of Trump's imitator and loyal
ally in the biggest South American country.
This episode is just one more spot in the complete chaos
which is Brazil right now, a country without a health minister while
thousands die every day from COVID-19; with the Supreme Court and
the federal police chasing after corrupt senators and a government
in the hands of "wild conservatives, religious fundamentalists
and psychopaths", according to the rather sober description of
an objective commentator.
Yet, in a document sent to the UN as a summary of the
"regional dialogue of the Americas", Venezuela is the only
country named as an example of a situation where "civil rights
have been attacked and severely reduced".
The document, written by three officers of the Washington-based
Stimson Center, synthesizes "on a not-for- attribution-basis"
inputs into an on-line dialogue with participation of several missions
to the UN and representatives from the Organization of American States
(OAS), ECLAC, NGOs and foundations.
The strong endorsement by this summary of a closer collaboration
between the UN and the OAS led several organizations and influential
journalists from the region to write a common rebuttal, starting with
the point that "the Americas" is not a UN-recognized region,
but Latin America and the Caribbean is.
The Stimson Center document is presented as a contribution
to the "conversation" about the future of the UN convened
by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. But it reads more as an outline
for future US Hemispheric policy, with the OAS as its main tool, than
a blueprint of a regional view, which would necessarily have ECLAC
at its centre.
The rebuttal letter argues that "the chapter on "Promoting
Human Rights, Justice, and Humanitarian Action" does not even
mention the Escazu Agreement (Regional Agreement on Access to Information,
Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin
America and the Caribbean), which has been signed by 22 countries
of the LAC region and has ECLAC as its technical secretariat."
The signatories add that for a document issued or endorsed
by peacekeeping and Human Rights institutions, it is surprising that
it ignores completely some recent major UN achievements in the LAC
region, such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala
(Comision Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala, CICIG),
while in its section on migration, the movement of people is not seen
as a source of hope for migrants, or of additional revenue for their
countries of origin, but as "an additional source of insecurity".
"Migration out of Venezuela is the only development
mentioned and is identified as creating "cross-border instability
and violence", without a thought about the human rights situation
along the border that divides the LAC region from the rest of "the
Americas"."
Finally, the signatories observe that the document they
challenge only mentions twice the word "women". And in both
cases it does so after the adverb "including", grouping
women with other actors like youth and the private sector.
"Workers" are never mentioned as actors and
minorities of African origin are also ignored.
The authors conclude that "Instead of bringing regional
concerns and consensus to the attention of the UN, the document, if
its suggestions were to be implemented, undermines the role of the
United Nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, downplays the contribution
of women as one more of the "marginalized groups" needing
to be empowered, exacerbates geopolitical conflicts, demonizes migrants
and ignores workers. This is clearly NOT the United Nations that citizens
from Latin America and the Caribbean want." – Third World Network
Features.
-ends-
About
the author: Roberto Bissio is a Uruguay-based civil society activist
and coordinator of the international secretariat of Social Watch,
an international network of citizens' organizations.
The
above article is reproduced from South-North Development Monitor
(SUNS) #9151, 2 July 2020.
When
reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features
and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in
the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings. And
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