U.S. military – COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE

_{^{Photo via People’s Dispatch}}

_{South Paris, Maine}

Joined by other U.S. officials, Laura Richardson, commander of the U.S. Army’s Southern Command, was in Ecuador January 22-25 to confer with government leaders there about U.S. military assistance. They included recently elected, and very wealthy, President Daniel Noboa. She mentioned to reporters an “investment portfolio…worth $93.4 million including not only military equipment … [but also] humanitarian assistance and disaster response, [and] professional military education.”

Prompting the visit was recently intensifying crime and turmoil manifesting as prison riots, escapes from prisons, and assassinations of political figures. A homicide rate of 5.8 per 100,000 persons in 2017 increased to 43 murders per 1000 Ecuadorians in 2023.

In the “grip of drug gangs,” Ecuador has been receiving cocaine and other illicit drugs produced and processed in countries such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. From Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, ports in Ecuador, the goods move on to U.S. and European consumers. The cartels’ former routes, through Central America and the Caribbean, are less active.

Ecuador’s government recently decreed a state of “internal armed conflict.” Its Army now has charge of domestic security. From 2017 to 2023, governments under presidents Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso arranged for privatizations, fiscal austerity, and a reduced package of state services. Resources are lacking to deal with powerful region-wide drug cartels now operating in the country. U.S. military intervention would fill the gap.

The U.S. so-called drug war, as waged in Latin America and the Caribbean, began during the Nixon administration. Notable examples are Plan Colombia from 1999 until 2015 and the Merida Initiative, applied to Mexico from 2007 until 2021. The U.S. media provocatively associates drug cartels with international terrorism. U.S. drug war spending has reached $1 trillion over four decades, says a report.

Ecuador’s situation has special features. Analyst Pablo Dávalos sees “convergence among political power, organized crime, and narcotrafficking to allow [Ecuador’s] use of the dollar as its national currency to enable money laundering.” Organized crime “controls vast areas” and Ecuadorians “refusing to pay extorsions are being systematically eliminated.”

Eloy Osvaldo Proaño of the Latin American Center of Strategic Analysis points out that the “neoliberal recipe reduces institutional presence, which weakens control of borders and facilitates penetration of criminal gangs.” What President Noboa has proposed “is part of a regional plan of paramilitaries occupying wide areas to instill terror, tear apart the social fabric and subdue populations.”

The “22 organizations declared [by Noboa] to be ‘terrorist groups’ … have a capacity of maneuver and omnipresence enabling them to control territories and prisons, even to penetrate the institutions [of the state].”

Ecuador recently became the leading recipient of U.S. military assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean area. More is on the way. Ecuador’s defense minister indicated the U.S. government will be “investing” $3.1 billion in military assistance over seven years.

Planning has been elaborate:

· The FBI in 2017 assisted the “lawfare” campaign of President Guillermo Lasso against President Rafael Correa, his progressive predecessor.

· The U.S. Congress on December 15, 2022, approved the United States-Ecuador Partnership Act of 2022.

· A memorandum of understanding was signed in Washington in July 2023. It covers U.S. efforts to strengthen Ecuador’s military capacities and combat the drug trade.

· A binational agreement was signed on August 16, 2023 for cooperation in building the capacity of Ecuador’s military, police, and judiciary.

· President Lasso in Washington on September 28, 2023 signed agreements allowing U.S. troops and naval personnel to deploy in Ecuador.

· Ecuador’s foreign minister signed a status of forces agreement with the U.S. ambassador on October 6, 2023 relating to privileges, immunities, and guarantees for U.S. armed forces personnel.

· Ecuador’s Constitutional Court on January 11, 2024 ratified the U.S.- Ecuador security agreement.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro in September, 2022 recalled an earlier conversation with General Richardson about “the failure of [U.S.] anti-drug policies.” He mentioned to her that, “It’s our obligation … to say that and also to propose alternatives that don’t allow a million more Latin Americans to die.”

Petro has company. Many progressives in the United States and elsewhere also regard the U.S. drug war as a failure. Facts are on their side:

· Narcotrafficking has increased despite drug war.

· Moneys spent on drug war is money not spent on preventative programs and poverty reduction.

· U.S.-assisted militarization of targeted countries undermines democratic renewal.

· Drug war means profits to weapons suppliers, narco-traffickers, and money-laundering banks and businesses.

· The United States, the great consumer of illicit drugs, bears responsibility for not reducing consumption.

This consensus resonated at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs – for Life, Peace, and Development that took place September 7-9, 2023 in Cali, Colombia. President Petro and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had called for the gathering. Attending were officials of 19 regional nations and representatives both of observer countries and international social organizations.

The object was “to rethink drug policies in response to the failure of the punitive strategy imposed by the United States.” The most impactful recommendations emerging were these:

· Change basic assumptions by recognizing the failure of the U.S. war on drugs.

· Contain the drug problem internally by dealing with structural causes of poverty, inequalities, lack of opportunities, and violence.

· Block drug trafficking through “principles of justice and through development.” Fight poverty by giving people opportunities, youth especially.

· Explore legal modes of drug consumption.

· Reduce demand through “universal prevention” and attending to mental health problems.

Why does the U.S. government fight narcotrafficking in Ecuador? Its agenda is full already. Its prohibitions on narcotics use at home are less than effective.

Here’s a hint. Indigenous peoples organized by Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) carried out week-long national strike in June 2022. At issue were labor rights, rescuing the environment, poor families’ unmet needs, and support for small farmers. A people’s political resistance movement evidently exists there.

Leonidas Iza, the CONAIE leader, now speaks out in regard to General Richardson’s visit. He told an interviewer that, “We struggle for the Ecuadorian people” and that, “We are ceding not only military sovereignty, sovereignty over our country but even more: we are submitting to their desire to control our resources.”

All is revealed. What’s happening is nationwide political resistance striking at U.S. economic and political interests abroad. The U.S. government characteristically takes protective action in such circumstances.

Drug war serves as a cover for putting U.S. troops and U.S. proxies on the ground for preventative purposes. In Colombia, under Plan Colombia, the U.S. military joined up with Colombia’s Army to confront leftist insurgencies. A U.S. military presence would have been handy in Peru and Bolivia to ward off indigenous mobilizations led, respectively, by former presidents Pedro Castillo and Evo Morales.

_{W.T. Whitney Jr.}_{is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.}

_{^{Starting from June 1, the United States will deploy its regular military units in Peru | Photo:gestion.pe. / https://orinocotribune.com/}}

Beginning in June, detachments of U.S. troops will be arriving in Peru and staying until December 31, 2023. Peru’s Congress, supported by only 6% of Peruvians, on May 26 approved a resolution introduced in January that “authorized the entry of naval units and foreign military personnel with weapons of war.”

U.S. military personnel are heading for Peru on a training and advisory mission. U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force troops will be active throughout that country. Most of them apparently will stay for less than the allotted seven months. They are bringing weapons and equipment. The U.S. Southern Command appointed a Peruvian general as “deputy commanding general-interoperability.”

They arrive following massive popular protests that erupted in reaction to Peru’s rightwing Congress on December 7, 2022 having ordered the arrest of the democratically-elected President Pedro Castillo. His politics were progressive. The protests provoked violent military and police repression; over 70 Peruvians were killed. Demonstrations peaked in February, but will revive in July, according to reports.

Castillo remains in prison, and his replacement, former Vice-President President Dina Boluarte, is widely reviled. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recently issued a report documenting “serious violations by the police and military” that took place shortly after she became president. Peru’s Public Ministry, investigating “the presumed crime of genocide,” required that Boluarte testify on June 6.

The U.S. troops will be arriving amid an upsurge of Peru’s underclass. Peru’s mostly rural, poor, and indigenous majority did elect the inexperienced Castillo as president in July 2021. They are now calling for Boluarte’s removal, new presidential elections, and a Constituent Assembly. Six of ten Peruvians regard the current political crisis as stemming from “racism and anti-indigenous discrimination,” according to a recent poll.

Resumen Latinoamericano reports that the U.S. forces heading to Peru will include 25 Special Forces troops arriving with weapons and equipment and 42 other Special Forces troops charged with preparing Peru’s intelligence command for “joint special operations;” 160 additional U.S. troops will be utilizing nine U.S. airplanes.

Eventually, 970 U.S. Air Force and Special Forces personnel will have taken part in the U.S. Southern Command’s so-called “Resolute Sentinel 23.” Previous U.S. military interventions in Latin America have been similarly named. The phrasing of this intervention’s official purpose is odd: “to “integrate combat interoperability and disaster response training in addition to medical exchanges, training and aid and construction projects.”

The coup government, under whose auspices the U.S. troops will be operating, is a creature of conservative political parties and the business establishment. In April it announced plans to privatize lithium mining, thus reversing President Castillo’s efforts to nationalize the processing of lithium. The government is easing the authorization procedures that enable foreign corporations to extract copper. Lawyer and former Castillo advisor Raúl Noblecilla cites control over Peru’s mineral wealth as to why U.S. troops are in Peru; their presence there indicates “how lackey and sell-out governments function.”

Academician Jorge Lora Cam states that “the usurper government” seeks to “deepen extractive plunder with blood and fire … unify the right with left-leaning elements infected by neoliberalism … and prepare for permanent political power.” He adds that under the auspices of “political criminals,” the country’s economy is newly “at risk because Peru’s foreign debt now amounts to $100 billion dollars.”

The imminent arrival of U.S. military forces provoked other criticism. Former foreign Minister Héctor Béjar insisted that, “the spurious government was using the presence of these troops to intimidate the Peruvian people who have announced new protests for July.”

A spokesperson for the Communist Party of Peru – “Patria Roja” explained that, “the entry of U.S. troops in Peru is an affront to our sovereignty and represents explicit backing by the U.S. government of the nefarious Boluarte regime, which is responsible for repression against the Peruvian people.”

The U.S. military, of course, has long interacted with its Peruvian counterpart. Instances include: military exercises in 2017, “Regional Emergency Operations Centers” in 2018, a “naval mission in 1920,” U.S. Army involvement “from 1946 to 1969,” and U.S. training of thousands of Peruvian military personnel from the 1940s on. TeleSur in 2015 reported that, “Hundreds of Peruvians protested Wednesday … against the [anticipated] arrival of 3,200 [U.S.]soldiers with ships, airplanes, and various kinds of weapons.”

Peruvians are hardly alone as a targeted people. Some 800 U.S. bases are distributed throughout the world, and “173,000 troops [were] deployed in 159 countries as of 2020.” The setting is of military intrusion extending over decades in Peru and now across the world. What’s the cost and how are payments arranged for?

The projected U.S. military budget for FY 2024 exceeds $1.5 trillion, according to a recent analysis. There are two sets of military activities and each requires its own funding approach. The U.S. government has to pay for potential war against enemies like China and Russia and for military operations elsewhere.

To portray China and Russia as threats to the U.S. status quo garners so much attention as to spark fellow-feeling for the military- industrial complex, and the funding flows. Rationales for the other kinds of involvement may lack crowd appeal. They are: shoring up the worldwide capitalist economy, serving corporate interests, and countering leftist insurgencies.

We conclude that congressional and tax-payer generosity in response to exaggerated threats to the U.S. status quo and to the worldwide capitalist system may translate into so much funding that enough is left over to pay for U.S. meddling in the other countries.

Panama may be one of them: The Biden administration may be on the verge of sending U.S. troops to the Darién region of Panama “to counter illicit drug trafficking, human trafficking, and irregular immigration.”

_{W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.}