The humanitarian army: Equator's g
The recent war with Peru brought two tendencies to the surface. Firstly, the Equator bourgeoisie is still incapable of playing a political as well as an economic role. Secondly, the response of the military elite is a populist social and political project, which is gaining ground. As Carlos Rojas
Reyes reports from Quito, the chauvinist atmosphere of the war is still strong, and the generals are gaining ground.
FOR SOME YEARS NOW the military has been building links to civil society. They have concentrated their efforts on the poorest sectors - where poverty threatens to provoke an explosive social crisis at any moment. From the Indian villages of the sierra to the shanty towns of Quito and Guayaquil, the army offers free labour, and builds roads and sanitation facilities. The arrival of the army means the dissolution, or cooptation of whatever popular organisations were already working in the district. In essence, the army is trying to block popular mobilisation, by taking the lead of the potentially most explosive sectors.
This paternalistic intervention has reduced the extremes of poverty. But building a social base like this implies a political project in the background. By presenting a general or two in elections, the army can take over the country by inserting the army into civil society.
The petty bourgeoisie might be attracted to such a strategy — the political climate is bleak, and it is clear which way the wind is blowing. There is no shortage of 'organic intellectuals' to support the soldiers. The country's "intellectuals' are already theorising the "new role" for the country's "illustrious army"
The background to all this, of course, is the historic inability of the bourgeoisie in Equator to transform itself into a political class. Unable to administer the state apparatus in a stable way, the bourgeoisie has accepted the leadership of one or another political fraction — hoping in vain that one wing of the right will rise above the others to represent the general interests of the class. This crisis has reached the point of massive disillusionment with the party system itself among the bourgeoisie. We can expect a generalisation of independent candidates in the run-up to the 1996 elections. Roldos has abandoned the Populist Party which made him the country's president, while Sixto Duran 22
International Viewpoint #2667 June 1995 dropped the Social Christian Party in order to be elected president!
The politicisation of the army and the de-politicisation of party politics are both responses to the same problem. Because the bourgeoisie is incapable of defining its common interest, different individuals and cliques compete to respond to and channel the frustrations of the bourgeoisie, but also the dissatisfied masses. At the same time, the senior figures of the key institution of the state are assuming a 'Bonapartist' role - above the factional differences of the bourgeoisie, and are ready to govern in the interest of the ruling class - despite itself. Militarism is back
The war with Peru brought back to life all the old monsters of Latin American society — at the same time as the debate on the consolidation of civil society, and on our fragile democracies was going on, the generals have found new arguments for strengthening their hand and coming back to centre stage.
There is no lack of unresolved border disputes. This is now becoming a reason for re-equiping the army with sophisticated technology, and preparing strategies for new kinds of war.
After apparently declining, militarism is back. The army is again 'solving' international disputes and ensuring national security' from internal threats; in other words, taking charge of repressing all attempts to protest against poverty, unemployment and marginalisation.
American imperialism is back too. So far only in the background, keeping an interested eye on the performance of new weapons and tactics that may prove useful elsewhere.
The US. will probably benefit from this little war. Defence Secretary William Perry used the war to argue for a continent-wide meeting of defence ministers. His goal is the creation of a common intervention force for solving'
PLAI "What a mess !! similar "problems' in the future. The US could soon be authorised to intervene militarily anywhere in Latin America, wherever the situation — defined so as to include any revolutionary or insurrectional movement - justifies.
During the war, all the political factions joined together against the common ennemy' Not surprisingly, the government and the dominant factions attempted to maintain national unity even after the end of armed confrontation. But how to realise the neo-liberal project without major political costs? Even during the armed conflict the government accelerated the process of privatisation, and proposed new legislation increasing the working week from 40 to 48 weeks. The bourgeois opposition is in a dilemma - they support these policies, but need to take their distance from them in order to win votes in 1996.
The legal left, including retired general Frank Vargas' APRE, was unable to regroup popular frustration after the war. Having taken the lead of the pro-war (and
generals prepare for 1996 elections
QUEL GÂCHIS !!
OH ovi !. Yes, lost market..." pro-government) movement, APRE has lost credibility. The social democratic Equator Socialist Party had not recovered from the defeat of their discredited Borja administration in 1994. They did not know how to reconstruct their social democratic, mainly electoralist project. And their internal divisions were becoming sharper and sharper. 'Independents' and Generals
General Gallardo, the Minister of Defence, used his wartime popularity to enter the political arena as an "independent". Ricardo Noboa reacted by abandoning the leadership of the Social Christians, in favour of a personal alliance with the general. He realised, even if his party was the single strongest bourgeois faction, that the new dynamic discredited all parties. He calculated, correctly, that by joining the 'independents' he would increase his potential base of support.
Before the war, Vargas' left bloc enjoyed the support of a good number of those dissatisfied with the rightist government and the discredited Socialist Party. But the 'independent plus military formula of the right has denied Vargas the potential to defeat the Social Christians. The army, particularly General Gallardo, is simply too popular. The media, too, continues to intoxicate people with chauvinist nationalism. the right was. The Socialist Party has merged with Vargas' own Equator Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRE). The Castroist Popular Democratic Movement (MDP, ex-Maoist) also supports this moderate left populist bloc. Events in Eastern Europe, and a range of internal crises have resulted in the disappearance of a range of small and medium sized left organisations. Apart from the Socialist Party, the only at least semi-legal left organisation is Democratic Left (ID).
The centrist elements of the bourgeoisie are even more bewildered and confused than before. Some try to hitch themselves to the prestige of the army. Others prefer to join with the populism of APRE. Others are trying to unify the centre as such.
The indigenous movement is now the spearhead of the struggle against the oppression of the proletariat, and against the consolidation of the neo-liberal project. Before the war, the indigenous population had begun to discuss their participation in the next elections. In 1994 Indian' organisations had passed agreements with a range of political organisations, feeling that they themselves could not present national candidates. Now, they were talking of running their own list in the elections. This shift in the political mood of the indigenous population had the potential to change the balance of forces in the country, and transform the nature of the Ecuadorian left. But the war slowed down the development of the indigenous alternative, and the movement as a whole is rather disoriented.
The war cut away the social base of the various social struggles, and continues to block any development. The main problem is not repression as such, but the wave of chauvinism and the demagogy of 'national unity'. It was impossible to organise for the demands of the oppressed, or to demand that the poor not pay the cost of the war. And the poor are paying the cost. There is a slow increase in social unrest, but the government is using the Law on National Security to repress all these embryonic forms of discontent.
The bourgeois government would like to maintain this 'internal war' as long as possible. But the different bourgeois factions will break ranks and seek the support of popular sectors sooner or later, as the 1996 elections approach. This should open up a limited political space for popular struggles, for the legal left, and for those sections of the indigenous movement which are linked to the urban milieu. Even so, the elite will always be able to invoke the spirit of national unity, or create a new scare of an external threat.
The way forward is difficult. More than ever before, the combination of popular struggles and legal campaigns is essential to re-launch the mass movement, and put the break on the bourgeois offensive.
Equator, April 1995 Bolivia: State of siege It is illegal for more than three Bolivians to gather together in public -- unless they are policemen. Under the state of siege declared on 19 April, special permits are also needed to travel between towns. Over 1,000 trade union activists were arrested on 19 April, in a crackdown in response to the massively successful General Strike called on 27 March. Workers and shopkeepers were protesting education cuts, wage cuts for teachers and other public sector employees, privatisation, and other anti-union regulations. Teachers' leaders José Luis Alvarez, Gonzalo Sorucco and Vilma de la Plata are still detained, and the offices of their detence committee are routinely raided. Protests should be sent to Presidencia de la Republica, Palacio de Gobierno, Plaza Murillo, La Paz, Bolivia. A Bolivian Union Solidarity Committee has been set up in Great Britain - write to BCM 7750, London WC1N 3XX, or fax 0171 978 9144
23 International Viewpoint #267 June 1995