News Which Is Overlooked: Oscar Romero

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 29, 2011 -- The Third News Story

The crises in Libya and Japan are currently attracting much of the global news attention, but there are other stories of monumental importance. In particular, President Obama's trip to El Salvador, meeting with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, is a major news story that will have long-reaching ramifications for the United States, El Salvador and Central America. The trip has its low and its high points: Obama seems to be behaving with conciliation given the disastrous role of the United States-backed regime, and is hitting many of the right notes, but the fundamental nature of the trip may be a betrayal of both the Salvadoran and the American peoples.
Obama hit a note that no other US President has even tried to ring out: Visiting the grave of slain progressive Archbishop, Oscar Romero. Romero was assassinated in 1980, yet Reagan, Bush I, Clinton nor Bush II scheduled time to visit the grave. El Faro, a Salvadora news website, commented at the extraordinary symbolic nature of this gesture. Romero was killed by a death squad connected to American-backed big business. This sign of contrition is a symbolic gesture that Obama is willing to pursue a new path in US-Salvadoran relations.

The visit is about tremendously important issues for the entire Western Hemisphere. There are not only trade talks, but immigration and security talks. Funes is a left candidate, and he was very frank in his March 8 meeting with Obama, when he remarked after the meeting, “We have a big challenge on our hands, and one of our challenges is to have better tax collection in order to have more resources for the use of our government. This has been going on for many decades, but basically what we're looking for is funding for the poor and small and medium enterprises in order to be able to create a better economic situation in El Salvador” [as translated from Spanish]. The emphasis is on strategic partnership. Funes identified drug trafficking, organized crime, poverty and security, tying them together by claiming that the security issue in El Salvador can be resolved far more easily if “ the people will have better social well-being”, denying “fertile grounds” to terrorists and cartels.
Funes' government is the first left government to come to power in decades. His election was due in no small part to the Marxist guerillas who fought the death squads. El Salvador's prior conservative governments were staunch US allies in the region. Funes and Obama are thus trying to insure that the change of regime will not lead to a decline in US-Salvadoran relations. There were fears that this might occur, and Obama's visit is extraordinarily well-timed. It undoubtedly helps that Funes and Obama are both the liberal or left Presidents of their country.

Obama's trip is drawing some criticism as being a distraction from Libya and Japan, as he visits not only El Salvador but also Brazil and Chile. Yet this is an extraordinarily short-sighted view. The last ten years have not been good for US-Latin American relations. Concerns about Venezuelan dictatorship on the US side and Venezuelan concerns about an allegedly-backed US coup attempt has caused a crisis-level breakdown of those countries' relations. And the Bolivaran Revolution is continuing to sweep across Latin America, with anti-corporate-globalization protesters and groups like the World Social Forum having a strong foothold, Cuban-Venezuelan cooperation, changes in Colombia and Ecuador, etc. The case of Argentina attempting to free itself from IMF control and leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales have been particular thorns in the side. A leftist South America during the Bush years saw U.S. ambassadors expelled, sanctions imposed by the US on government officials in Venezuela, and so forth. The election of Obama did resurrect hopes for improved interaction between the United States and Latin America. This trip tries to capitalize on this opportunity.

However, there are concerns in the region that Obama is no different from Bush, pursuing policies that are just as unpopular. Bill Van Auken expresses this fear when he alleges, “This largely consists of the imposition of free trade agreements and “free market” policies of scrapping barriers to foreign capital, deregulating financial markets and privatizing what remains of state enterprises for the benefit of US-based banks and corporations. At the same time, it involves the promotion of the twin wars on drugs and terrorism as a means of asserting US military and political hegemony in the hemisphere”. It is important to note, however, that Funes has been very amicable with Obama, refusing to blame the United States for Salvador's problems and seeking reconciliation. Nonetheless, eyes will be on both leaders, as well as Brazil and Chile, to see if US interests for free trade can be balanced against Latin American concerns about corporate overreach, privatization of essential utilities, and so forth. The famous Bechtel catastrophe, on which the recent Quantum of Solace was based, has been a rallying cry for those in Latin America and in the West who are concerned about the IMF, World Bank, WTO and G-8 role in the region and about utility privatization. These critics include US-born UK investigative journalist Greg Palast and former IMF economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Indeed, there are many signs that Obama's visit might be an attempt to paper over a “more of the same” policy. Obama has continued the decades-long embargo against Cuba. This embargo is almost politically untouchable in US politics, as Cuban-Americans are a powerful bloc that both parties court. But Cuba is increasingly popular in a leftist Latin America, and Cuban-Venezuelan cooperation in efforts like Operation Miracle, which restored one million patients' vision, as well as general Latin American-bloc initiatives to incorporate Cuba's medical expertise into an economic bloc that includes immense oil wealth and natural resources, have been great successes. Obama's claim to multilateralism rings false to many due to his failure to pursue a more amnesty-oriented immigration policy (though he did not acquiesce to Arizona's attempt to trod onto traditionally federal prerogatives to manage immigration) and due to what can be charitably described as a “lukewarm” reaction to the Honduran coup against Michael Zelaya, according to George Monbiot. Worse, the US has built new military bases in Honduras and has trained local police, which seems to be a strong sign to the new order that the coup is kosher to the United States. This particular decision is especially galling to Latin Americans, who have a long experience with US-backed or US-ignored coup attempts.
In particular, Obama no doubt wants to combat sentiments like those expressed by former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had hailed Obama yet had become disillusioned before he left office for saying and said that “nothing had changed” and accused Obama of being imperialist. These sentiments express not only working class frustration in Latin America with Obama, but middle-class and bourgeois frustration as well, worrying that US policies are cutting into profits.

Of course, both countries have closely tied shared interests. Immigration issues concern both premiers. Salvador and the US economy are highly connected, especially due to the large number of Salvadoran ex-patriates who continue to provide a $3.5 billion lifeline to the country. And security issues might actually eclipse trade concerns in this round of talks between the leaders. Mexico's drug war has revitalized concern all over the Western Hemisphere, in government and among the populace, in safety and in controlling the drug trade. Of course, the United States being one of the major markets for drugs, providing the supply-side “pull”, must be mentioned alongside the “push” factors of corruption and poverty in Latin America in terms of generating the drug trade.
While Libya and Japan are “sexy” stories, Obama's trip is no less important for the long-term security of the Western Hemisphere.

Additional Reading
Action 10 News. March 19, 2011. “El Salvador: Obama visit dispels fears over ties”.
Bill Van Auken. March 19, 2011. “Obama trip aimed at salvaging US interests in Latin America”. WSWS.
El Faro Editorial. March 20, 2011. “A special visit”.
Los Angeles Times. March 21, 2011. “Obama to visit grave of slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero”.

Marc Frank. “Analysis – Cuban-Venezuelan ties boom under Raul Castro”. July 21 2008. Reuters.
Mark Weisbrot. “Does the US back the Honduras coup?” July 1 2009.
MSNBC News. September 12, 2008. “U.S. relations with leftist Latin America chill”.
Raquel B. Tejada. June 2008. “Cuba's Operation Miracle”.

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El Salvadore     Obama     Obama state visit     Oscar Romero     US and Latin America     US foreign Relations