SENZA CENSURA n.12
Italy, october 2003

50 YERAS OF CRIMES AND INPUNITY: THE AGGRESSION IS GOING ON

An introduction, of the "RI/BELLE" group of the "Panetteria Occupata" Social Center, to an exhibition about Latinamerica.

The United States national security and the war against the international terrorism are the new terms of the world capitalist system propaganda. The true target of this endless war are hidden behind the ideological cover of "the war against terrorism".
The real aim of United States is not to contrast the "terrorism emergency", which represents a useful instrument to reach the last stage of American globalisation. Really, they are trying to find a way out of recession and political crisis through by seizing raw materials, like oil or gas ( or rather, they think that the war is that the coin increases the value of their capital , the new programmable economic centrality in the formerly ordered world order), to come to a new worldwide war, where the winner increases its geopolitical control power, and above all, it gets the undisputed world rule.

The United States pursue this aim both by attacking the countries that are not completely subjected to the capitalist system (like Somalia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq), and reducing the working class rights, freedom and achievements in the imperialist countries.
So, a double front: one external, where wars are provoked against the countries placed in strategic areas according to the world control maps; and another one, internal, that is based on the even larger exploitation, and on the repression of any choice different to the exclusive thought of capital and free trade.

The U.S.A. history is studded with aggressions against people, beginning from South America countries which refused and still refuse to subject themselves culturally and economically. The same foundation of the United States (4th of July 1776) is the outcome of a true genocide of the native people. It was obtained through those offensive means which, today, are hypocritically condemned by the international community. Let's remember the mass exterminations in the concentration camps, the Indian reserves where the native people was deported and forced to feed on rotten foodstuffs, or the bacteriological war thanks to which they imported or spread, through infected coverts, deadly diseases, like variola, tetanus, trachoma, typhus, leprosy, yellow fever, as well as pulmonary, intestinal and venereal diseases.

South American countries have been the object of looting since the day of their "discovery". In order to get new raw materials and markets, Great Britain (in the 13 northern colonies), Spain and Portugal (in the southern) invaded and sacked the territory, exterminated and enslaved the native people. However it was only over the 18th century that the development of capitalism lead to a stronger renewal of the colonialism, in the outline of global partition made by the great powers. It is in this background that in 1831 the United Stated invaded the Argentine coast in order to conquest the Malvinas. This is one of the first aggressions and it still characterises our times.
In order to mantein their dominion, the U.S.A. have always reserved the right to intervene in the Latin-American countries. They used the armed forces and imposed puppet governments. The American interventions were justified by the excuse of the human rights defense and restoration of the democracy, but they were marked by the cruel ferocity and the imposition of military dictatorship.
Remember, for instance, the coup d'état in Brazil (1964), in Chile (1973) that overthrew the democratically elected Government, the military invasions of Grenada (1979), and Panama (1989), intervention in the Dominican Republic (1975), the so called "low intensity wars" against Nicaragua and Salvador in the course of the 80s.
And, even today, The United States need to attack Iraq. They are trying to justify their intervention with excuses, like the alleged Iraqi possession of war arsenal. However, in the course of the human history, none can forget about the two atomic bombs released by United States against the civil population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, during the World War II. The United States are the same that used the uranium exhausted in the Persian Gulf (1991) and in Yugoslavia (1999). They also armed the Israeli Government and thus supported, de facto, the military occupation of Palestinian territories and the criminal massacre of an entire population.

South America has not only been sacked, but also converted into an huge pool of cheap labour and in a consumption market where industrial investments have made profits only to the investors, in recent times it has also been converted into a dump for the toxic waste materials produced in the West. This policy of evident exploitation of the Latin American was made clear by the councillor Kissinger when he asserted that " Salvador Allende's the left wing experiment was destined to fail because South America had to be considered as the front yard to the United States.
But South American people attempted to react to the United States imperialistic policies. There were a lot of popular rebellions (1918 Mexico; 1954 Guatemala; 1959 Cuba...) and, often, free election allowed the coming of democratic government. These suggested the use of the country resources in order to create a national, independent and a more adequately wealth distribution (1970 Chile; 1981 Nicaragua..). But, every times the not-subservient (to the United States) Governments gained the direction of a country, they were soon fought and sabotaged through actions of terrorism and low intensity war.

Europe is also responsible for these aggression strategies. Let's think about the birth and the following broadening of the North Atlantic Trade Organisation (NATO) that let the United States form alliances that are even more flexible and functional to maintain the so called "pre-emptive war", which had previously been exercised as "a low intensity war", then, after the URSS collapse, as expansionist policy. Furthermore, let's think back to the profitable European financing of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These economic organisations are colonial in character and are entirely influenced by the neo-liberalism of the world economy. Let's remember that in 1982, when Mexico declared it could no longer pay its debts, the IMF intervened to save the credit banks. In exchange for the aid, Mexico was forced to bring about a series of reforms that converted the paying off the debt into the primary aim for the country. Thus, the Structural Adjustment Plans were created. They stated that, in order to pay the debt, it was necessary to earn a lot and avoid spending much. Particularly, it is necessary to:
-reduce public expenditure by rolling back the welfare state and introducing privatisation
-devaluate the currency, replace subsistence farming by producing agricultural products for the world agribusiness and exploit natural resources by supporting goods and raw materials export
-liberalise capital flows
-reduce duties and allow the free flow of products and services in order to open the local market to the foreign multinational companies. At the moment, these economic policies are financed and controlled even by Europe, Italy included. These produced harmful effects on the so called "needy" countries, where as a consequence of these interventions to counterfeit financial aid, there was an increase in poverty and a reduction in per capita social expense. It also meant a consequent rise in infant mortality (every minute a child dies of illness or starves to death), and unemployment (50 out of 280 millions of Latin-American people are unemployed or under-employed), a lowering of the educational level (nowadays there are one hundred million illiterates). Moreover, even if the most important Latin American markets, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, are more populated than any European country, they cannot reach, all together, the same consumption capacity of France and West Germany.

Just in this period, we are witnessing another mission of conquest by the American superpower .
The United States, in order to expand their Yankee control and get new energy sources, massacred the Iraqi people, that - we must remember-was worn- out by 12 years of trade embargo.
The U.S.A. have tried to get a widespread consent to this war standardising the world public opinion, thanks through media blow-ups and secret services misinformation. The secret services, from time to time, pointed to the enemies: at first, Bin Laden, and the Talebans, than Saddam and his alleged weapons. They aimed to mortally wound the Western countries and to raise social insecurity in order to push them to support the war.
Caution, however, because capitalist wars as well as release bombs and missiles, also weaken any possible social opposition and alienate our minds in order to destroy us as critical human being and reduce us to submitted robot who must "produce, consume and die".
We refuse this imperialist war. And we refuse, too, to accept a peace based on social injustice and repression. We say no to this war, and it also means we want to struggle daily against everything that produce it, and claim the rights for health, home, education and for leading a respectable life.
The great and peaceful demonstrations that are making our cities colourful cannot stop the war. This is an illusion. The result is to make the movements powerless and clean one's conscience, without impressing effectively on the eradication of the real reasons of the war.
The U.S.A. troops retreated from Vietnam for the Vietcong's rifles and not for the cannons' roses!

As members of the Collettivo Ri-belle we have decided to carry out this exposition. It shows the disgusting series of American imperialist aggressions against South America: military attacks, low intensity wars, imposed military dictatorships, trade embargo, economic interventions in opposition to the development of the national economy. Through these strategies they want to keep on Latin-America in a position of lasting subjugation and exploitation.
The instruments that American used to enslave Latin America are: armed attacks, biased economic policies and demagogy . Nowadays, they propose once again the same means to attack the Middle East, as it was shown in the recent development of the capital strategy. The U.S.A established their possession of South America on the Monroe Doctrine, while American anticommunist improves and makes "more democratic" what the nazism and the fascism had already declared. Perhaps, are they disconnected from the new national security strategy of Bush administration? The last one justifies the use of the armed forces against hostile countries and organisations and states that they want to close definitively the Cold War chapter. The handing over is clear. After the fall of the USSR, the ideological reason for attacking hostile countries is no more that of being communist, but favouring international terrorism. Against them, Bush has promised to fight with all means necessary.
We find ourselves facing the clear American attempt to extend its military supreme power, and, consequently, the economic-political one. They are trying to discourage any potential enemy in the oldest subjected areas of their dominion, as Latin America and in the whole world, from a improbable competition. The United States keep on attacking, massacring, destroying and imposing unable and collaborationist government, as if now the whole world was their front yard.

1831-2003: the aggression continues!
2003 September - Collettivo Ribelle.

ri.belle@libero.it