Latin American unity efforts continue despite left-wing setbacks

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/latin-american-unity-efforts-continue-despite-left-wing-setbacks/

In the 19 years since the election of Chávez in Venezuela, many of the countries participating in the Bolivarian project have made great strides toward meeting those goals, especially those that relate to the well-being of their poorest citizens. ALBA and the Bolivarian movement was also successful in blocking George W. Bush’s neoliberal “Free Trade Area of the Americas”.

A receding pink tide?

However, since the onset of the world financial crisis that began with the U.S. mortgage disaster in 2007-08, the Bolivarian “pink tide” has run into strong headwinds. The fall in commodities prices has greatly stressed several of the countries including, crucially for ALBA, Venezuela. Left-leaning governments were removed by a military coup in Honduras in 2009 and by constitutional coups in Paraguay in 2012 and Brazil in 2016. And center-left forces were ousted in the Argentine elections in December 2015.

It goes without saying that transnational monopoly capital and the governments of the United States and other wealthy capitalist countries have not lost an opportunity to exert maximum disruptive pressure against the left-wing governments, with Venezuela currently being the target of an imperial “full court press.” The new right-wing governments of the region have made it clear that they intend to turn back the clock and return to the neoliberal, so-called “free trade” approach to international commerce.

But the Latin American left is not giving up. Rather, it is moving to create and reinforce mechanisms of unity between leftists in power and people’s grassroots organizations which share the same goals. That way, even if there are more reverses at the level of the national government, the leftward movement can continue in every country, fueled by grassroots organizing and people’s struggle.

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