Published on
Tuesday, September 08, 2020
byCommon Dreams
Biden Urged to Adopt a Good Neighbor Policy Toward Latin America
Progressive groups see the need to push a new administration to make a
positive contribution to the well-being of people throughout the hemisphere.
byMedea Benjamin, Leonardo Flores
Protesters holding a banner reading, "U.S. Immigration Policy Is A Crime" at
a silent protest in January 2020.
Protesters holding a banner reading, "U.S. Immigration Policy Is A Crime" at
a silent protest in January 2020. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via
Getty Images)
Election season is a difficult time to develop good policies towards Latin
America, since both Democrats and Republicans cater to the small, but
organized, conservative factions of the Latinx community in Florida, vying
for their votes. But if Biden wins the White House, there is a chance to
reverse the Trump administration policies that have been devastating for
Latin America, policies that punish innocent civilians through harsh
economic sanctions, destabilize the region through coups and attempts at
regime change, and close our borders to desperate people fleeing north in
search of safety and opportunity, often as a result of U.S. security and
economic policies.
The Trump administration openly calls its Latin America and Caribbean policy
the Monroe Doctrine 2.0. The Monroe Doctrine - asserting U.S. geopolitical
control over the region - served as a pretext for over 100 years of military
invasions, support for military dictatorships, the training and financing of
security forces involved in mass human rights violations and economic
blackmail, among other horrors.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt distanced himself from this doctrine,
outlining a new vision for relations in the hemisphere. His Good Neighbor
policy temporarily ended the gunboat diplomacy that characterized U.S.
foreign policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the
policy had its flaws, such as FDR's support for the Somoza dictatorship in
Nicaragua, his administrations failures were often the result of not
adhering to the Good Neighbor principle of non-interference.
That is why over 100 organizations that work on issues related to Latin
America and the Caribbean sent a letter calling for the next administration
to adopt a new Good Neighbor Policy toward the region based on
non-intervention, cooperation and mutual respect. Among the organizations
calling for a new approach are Alianza Americas, Amazon Watch, the Americas
Program, Center for International Policy, CODEPINK, Demand Progress, Global
Exchange, the Latin America Working Group and Oxfam America.
The letter to the presidential candidates warns that in January 2021, the
U.S. president will face a hemisphere that will not only still be reeling
from the coronavirus but will also be experiencing a deep economic
recession, and that the best to help is not by seeking to impose its will,
but rather by adopting a broad set of reforms to reframe relations with our
neighbors to the south.
First among the reforms is lifting the brutal economic sanctions against
Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua that are causing widespread human suffering,
especially during a pandemic. These sanctions have not fulfilled their
objective of regime change; the past 20 years of U.S. wars in the Middle
East has taught us that U.S.-imposed regime change brings nothing but death
and chaos.
Another reform is to put a stop to the hundreds of millions of dollars of
police and military equipment and training that the U.S. provides Latin
American and Caribbean countries each year. In many cases, such as Honduras
and Colombia, U.S. funding and training have supported troops involved in
corruption and egregious human rights abuses, including numerous
extrajudicial killings and attacks targeting local activists and
journalists. Much of this militarized aid is transferred in the name of
the decades-long war on drugs, which has only fueled a vicious cycle of
violence. The letter asserts that the war on drugs is a counterproductive
way to deal with a US public health issue that is best addressed through
decriminalization and equitable legal regulation. It also calls for scaling
down US security assistance and arms sales, as well as the removal of US
military and law enforcement personnel from the region.
The letter points out that although the U.S. public has been rightly
condemning any sort of foreign interference in our own countrys elections,
the U.S. government has a history of flagrant interference in the elections
of our neighbors, including training political groups it favors and funding
efforts to marginalize the political forces it opposes. In Venezuela, the
Trump administration has gone to the extreme of anointing a legislator, Juan
Guaidó, as the unelected president of Venezuela and putting a
multi-million dollar bounty on the head of the UN-recognized president,
Nicolas Maduro. The letter denounces such blatant interference and calls on
the U.S. to respect the sovereignty of other nations.
The endorsing organizations also denounce U.S. intervention in domestic
economic policymaking, which occurs in large part through its enormous
influence within multilateral financial institutions like the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Bank. In order to
obtain credit lines from these institutions, governments typically have to
agree to austerity measures and other policies that lead to the downsizing
of welfare states and a weakening of workers bargaining power. Moreover, as
Latin American economies are reeling from the pandemic, the U.S. must cease
demanding the implementation of neoliberal models and instead support public
health, education and other basic needs.
Regarding human rights, the letter notes the U.S. has a role in advocating
for them across the hemisphere. However, it warns against the
instrumentalization of human rights for political gain, since too often
human rights violations in the U.S. or in allied countries are ignored,
while violations in countries considered adversaries are magnified. It says
the U.S. should focus - both at home and abroad - on the rights of
historically excluded communities, including indigenous and Afro-descendant
communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and migrants and refugees. It urges
the United States to speak out when human rights defenders, including
environmental and land rights activists and labor organizers, are in
dangera situation all too frequent in Latin America and the Caribbean
today. It also calls on the U.S. to help depoliticize and strengthen
existing multilateral institutions that defend human rights.
With respect to immigration, the letter insists that the next administration
must undo the brutal harms of theTrump administration, but also reject the
status quo of the Obama administration, which deported more people than any
administration ever before and built the infrastructure for the Trump
administration to carry out violent anti-immigrant policies. The next
administration must hear the demands for immigrant justice, including a
moratorium on all deportations; an end to mass prosecutions of individuals
who cross the border; the re-establishment of asylum procedures at the
border; an immediate path to citizenship for the Dreamers and for Temporary
Protected Status holders; defunding the border wall; an end to the
zero-tolerance (family separation) policy and other policies that
prioritize migration-related prosecutions; and an end to private immigration
detention.
As the region--and the world--anxiously awaits the outcome of the U.S.
presidential elections, groups in the U.S. are gearing up for the
possibility of a Biden win, and the need to push a new administration to
make a positive contribution to the well-being of people throughout the
hemisphere.
