Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalThe Second Implosion of Central America
BY
William I. Robinson, NACLA
PUBLISHED
January 29, 2019
Some three decades after the wars of revolution and counterinsurgency came to an end in Central America, the region is once again on the brink of implosion. The Isthmus has been gripped by renewed mass struggle and state repression, the cracking of fragile political systems, unprecedented corruption, drug violence, and the displacement and forced migration of millions of workers and peasants. The backdrop to this second implosion of Central America, reflecting the spiraling crisis of global capitalism itself, is the exhaustion of a new round of capitalist development in recent years to the same drumbeat as the globalization that took place in the wake of the 1980s upheavals.
Lost in the headlines on Central American refugees fleeing to the United States is both the historical context that has sparked the exodus and the structural transformations through capitalist globalization that has brought the region to where it is today. The mass revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s did manage to dislodge entrenched military-civilian dictatorships and open up political systems to electoral competition, but they were unable to achieve any substantial social justice or democratization of the socioeconomic order.
Capitalist globalization in the Isthmus in the wake of pacification unleashed a new cycle of modernization and accumulation. It transformed the old oligarchic class structures, generated new transnationally oriented elites and capitalists and high-consumption middle classes even as it displaced millions, aggravated poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, and wreaked havoc on the environment, triggering waves of outmigration and new rounds of mass mobilization among those who stayed behind. Hence the very conditions that gave rise to the conflict in the first place were aggravated by capitalist globalization.
Despite the illusion of “peace and democracy” so touted by the transnational elite in the wake of pacification, the roots of the regional conflict have persisted: the extreme concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of elite minorities alongside the pauperization and powerlessness of a dispossessed majority. With the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, the massacre of peaceful protesters in Nicaragua in 2018, and the return of death squads in Guatemala, this illusion has been definitively shattered.
The Transnational Model of Capitalist Development
As Central America became swept up into globalization from the 1990s, a new breed of transnationally-oriented capitalists and state elites forged a neoliberal hegemony in consort with Washington and the international financial institutions (IFIs, principally the US Agency for International Development, the IMF, and the World Bank). They imposed privatization, austerity, deregulation of labor markets, new investment regimes to facilitate transnational corporate access to the region’s abundant natural resources and fertile lands, and free trade deals including the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2004.
More:
https://truthout.org/articles/the-second-implosion-of-central-america/
Why so many Central Americans risk detention, child separation and even death for a chance to enter
CBC · February 1
Thousands of Central American asylum seekers languish on the Mexican side of the United States border, where they still await processing by American officials, months after making their epic journey through Mexico as part of last fall's so-called migrant caravan.
That has not deterred thousands of people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador from travelling together in the longest caravan yet, now wending its way north toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. President Donald Trump has fulminated against the caravans, claiming they're rife with criminal gang members, opportunists who want to exploit Americans' generosity, and even terrorists. The president has used the alleged threat posed by the migrants as an argument for building the border wall on which he's staked so much of his political career.
But according to Elizabeth Oglesby, an associate professor in the School of Geography and Development and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, migration to the US from Central America is not new. In an interview with Sunday Edition host Michael Enright, she pointed out that vast numbers of people fled the civil wars and dictatorships that plagued El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are riven by gang violence, political instability, corruption and desperate poverty -- conditions that are in large part the legacy of American foreign policy that fomented civil wars and installed and supported repressive dictatorships in Central America during the Cold War.
More:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/why-so-many-central-americans-risk-detention-child-separation-and-even-death-for-a-chance-to-enter-the-u-s-1.4998451
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016225811
Why so many Central Americans risk detention, child separation and even death for a chance to enter
CBC · February 1
Thousands of Central American asylum seekers languish on the Mexican side of the United States border, where they still await processing by American officials, months after making their epic journey through Mexico as part of last fall's so-called migrant caravan.
That has not deterred thousands of people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador from travelling together in the longest caravan yet, now wending its way north toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. President Donald Trump has fulminated against the caravans, claiming they're rife with criminal gang members, opportunists who want to exploit Americans' generosity, and even terrorists. The president has used the alleged threat posed by the migrants as an argument for building the border wall on which he's staked so much of his political career.
But according to Elizabeth Oglesby, an associate professor in the School of Geography and Development and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, migration to the US from Central America is not new. In an interview with Sunday Edition host Michael Enright, she pointed out that vast numbers of people fled the civil wars and dictatorships that plagued El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are riven by gang violence, political instability, corruption and desperate poverty -- conditions that are in large part the legacy of American foreign policy that fomented civil wars and installed and supported repressive dictatorships in Central America during the Cold War.
More:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/why-so-many-central-americans-risk-detention-child-separation-and-even-death-for-a-chance-to-enter-the-u-s-1.4998451
Larsen ice shelf: Mission to explore uncovered Antarctic ecosystem
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
4 February 2019
- video -
The 5,800 sq km frozen slab broke away from the continent in 2017, exposing ocean floor that had been covered for at least 120,000 years.
A German-led expedition wants to see what's living in this opened ecosystem.
The researchers will need luck on their side, however. The region they are targeting in the Weddell Sea is notorious for thick sea-ice.
This could prevent their ship, RV Polarstern, from getting anywhere near their desired destination.
But if the team succeeds, it could catalogue a bounty of novel specimens, says Dr Huw Griffiths from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47111057
Climate change: Blue planet will get even bluer as Earth warms
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent
4 February 2019
They found that increased heat will change the mixture of phytoplankton or tiny marine organisms in the seas, which absorb and reflect light.
Scientists say there will be less of them in the waters in the decades to come.
This will drive a colour change in more than 50% of the world's seas by 2100.
. . .
As well as turning sunlight into chemical energy, and consuming carbon dioxide, they are the bottom rung on the marine food chain.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47092201
Climate change: Warming threatens Himalayan glaciers
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent
Climate change poses a growing threat to the glaciers found in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges, according to a new report.
The study found that if CO2 emissions are not cut rapidly, two thirds of these giant ice fields could disappear.
Even if the world limits the temperature rise to 1.5C this century, at least one third of the ice would go.
The glaciers are a critical water source for 250 million people living across eight different countries.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47122641
Brazil's Government to Cut Over 20,000 Federal Jobs
The greatest potential for reducing commissioned positions will come from the merging of departments and ministries.
By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s federal government plans to save R$209 million per year, by cutting over 20,000 commissioned jobs, according to the Special Secretariat for Debureaocratization, Management and Digital Government of the Ministry of Economy.
“We are still closing the numbers, but the goal is the same (20 thousand positions),” guaranteed Secretary Paulo Uebel last week when welcoming the new Congressional legislators.
President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to sign the decree later this month decree added Uebel.
The Ministry of the Economy, however, did not detail the distribution of the changes by departments or types of positions. The change will not necessarily mean that 20,000 people will be fired.
More:
https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-business/brazils-government-to-cut-over-20000-federal-jobs/
Vale Executives Knew About Risk Of Dam Collapsing But Dismissed It
The emergency plan showed that Vale managers were aware that the mine's main building and cafeteria would be hit in the case of an accident
Feb.1.2019 4:03AM
RIO DE JANEIRO and SÃO PAULO
Documents show that Vale knew that a possible dam collapse at its mining operation in Brumadinho (MG) would destroy many facilities, including the cafeteria and the office. That's where many employees were when the dam did collapse, on Friday (25th).
The information is part of the dam's emergency plan, written on April 18th, 2018.
Aerial view taken after the collapse of a dam which belonged to Brazil's giant mining company Vale, near the town of Brumadinho in southeastern Brazil, on January 25, 2019 - AFP
Vale refused to grant Folha access to the document, which had been requested since Monday (28th). The reporters got it through a government agency which had it on file.
The collapse was so violent that it destroyed the sirens and alert systems that were supposed to warn the employees so they could escape the premises. The flow of mud also killed the employees responsible for coordinating alerts and employee communication.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/02/vale-executives-knew-about-risk-of-dam-collapsing-but-dismissed-it.shtml
"Mud Caucus" In Brazilian Congress Stall Bills To Improve Security In Dams
Lawmakers received campaign money from mining companies, but deny they defend the industry's interests
Feb.4.2019 12:48PM
Reynaldo Turollo Jr.
Marina Estarque
BRASÍLIA and SÃO PAULO
A small group of Brazilian house representatives, which received campaign donations from mining companies, have worked actively at legislation regarding mining activities in the countries. They have proposed changes in laws that resulted in less inspection, they occupy vital positions in House commissions and they exert a massive influence in House proceedings that concern the mining industry.
The biggest name in the group, that has been nicknamed "Mud Caucus" due to the Brumadinho dam collapse, is Leonardo Quintão (MDB-MG). Quintão received R$ 2.1 million (US$ 570,000) in donations from the mining industry in 2014, almost half of the amount he raised for his campaign.
He wasn't reelected in 2018, but he is now an aide in the Bolsonaro administration.
But other nine Congress members similarly active in mining matters kept their seats, like Paulo Abi-Ackel and Domingos Sávio (PSDB-MG); José Priante (MDB) and Joaquim Passarinho (PSD-PA) and Evair Vieira de Melo (PP-ES) e Sergio Vidigal (PDT-ES).
In 2017, when the House approved the creation of a National Agency of Mining (ANM), it also eliminated a fee that would allow for physical inspections of security conditions at mines and dams.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/02/mud-caucus-in-brazilian-congress-stall-bills-to-improve-security-in-dams.shtml
While Leading The Senate, Renan Calheiros Discussed Political Appointees With JBS Executives
Audio recordings show a close relationship between senator and businessmen
Feb.1.2019 4:30AM
Camila Mattoso
BRASÍLIA
Federal Police wiretaps reveal that, during his time as leader of the Brazilian Senate, Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL) talked to Joesley Batista, owner of meatpacking conglomerate JBS, to discuss an appointment to the Ministry of Agriculture, a government department crucial to Batista's business.
Folha had access to the phone recordings, in which, for the first time, the senator's voice can be heard during conversations with JBS executives, in a way that denotes that Calheiros and the businessmen were close.
The Federal Police made the wiretaps in 2014. In 2017, Batista, along with brother Wesley and five other JBS executives entered a plea deal in which they acknowledged having paid millions of Brazilian reais in kickbacks to several lawmakers, in exchange of advantages for the company.
Calheiros, who is again up for election as Senate leader on Friday (1st), is among the politicians cited by the Batista brothers, who say they paid the senator R$ 9.9 million (US$ 2.72 million) as a slush fund.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/02/while-leading-the-senate-renan-calheiros-discussed-political-appointees-with-jbs-executives.shtml
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