[In These Times' Salim Muwakkil argues that Hugo Chávez’s landslide reelection on December 3 reinforced Latin America’s status as the primary outpost of opposition to the neoliberal economic policies pushed by the West—the so-called Washington consensus. Perhaps just as important, Chávez’s win also energises the global movement of South-South integration that has been picking up steam in recent years. --Ed]
The Caracas Consensus
By Salim Muwakkil - In These Times
December 21, 2006
Hugo Chávez’s landslide reelection on December 3 reinforced Latin America’s status as the primary outpost of opposition to the neoliberal economic policies pushed by the West—the so-called Washington consensus (See “What Chávez’s Re-election Means,” p. 26). Perhaps just as important, Chávez’s win also energizes the global movement of South-South integration that has been picking up steam in recent years.
In his December 4 victory speech, Chávez made it clear that he intends to press his case. “Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists; it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger … another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the U.S. again.”
The labels “Mr. Danger” and “the devil” are Chávez’s jibing references to President George W. Bush and American dominance in general. While he deploys those epithets with a touch of humor, Chávez is deadly serious about his opposition to what he calls U.S. imperialism. His re-election gives him at least six more years to rally this opposition.
More than any other South American leader, Chávez stresses his continent’s link to Africa. Addressing the World Social Forum in Caracas last January, he said, “We [Latin Americans] carry Africa inside us. Africa is part of us. Latin, Caribbean America cannot be understood without Africa and the sacrifice of Africa and the grandeur of Africa.”
Since Chávez’s initial election in 1998, he has pushed to strengthen economic and cultural ties between the two continents. In the last two years, Venezuela has doubled its number of embassies in Africa and Chávez has personally visited several countries in recent months, firming up links long ignored or even nonexistent.
While attending the seventh African Union (AU) summit last July in the Gambia, for example, Chávez proposed an ambitious plan to deepen cooperation among the people of South America, Africa and the Caribbean.
Among his ideas were plans to develop an alternative energy system, called Petrosouth, to harness the power of oil as an instrument of social development. “It was used by the colonialists to oppress us,” Chávez told the summit crowd. “We are now going to use it to liberate our people.” He outlined similar ideas for alternative banking and communications institutions to replace exploitative western models.
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