The
developments there are now routinely described
as ‘institutional’ coups d’état, with popular
presidents removed from power and replaced by
neoliberal functionaries, enjoying almost
unhidden support of the US government and
American financial capital.
“What we see in the world now is an attempt by
the so-called historic West to preserve its
dominance in international affairs,”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov
said at a conference on Latin American
development, held in Moscow.
“Latin America is not an
exception to this global trend. We see attempts
by the United States to interfere directly into
the internal affairs of some countries in the
region… Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela are just
the most recent examples.”
Last
week, Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff
was removed from power by a very unpopular group
of senators, despite having the votes of 54
million citizens, who expressed their will a
year and a half ago. Rousseff was removed
because of accusations of corruption. However,
even the mainstream media in the United States
did not consider these accusations to be well
founded.
The New York Times,
on the eve of Rousseff’s ousting, called
accusations against her “debatable” and
added that “Ms.
Rousseff is right to question the motives and
moral authority of the politicians who were
seeking to oust her.”
In
2014-2015, a similar campaign of personal
attacks and ‘character assassination’ took place
in Argentina against that country’s leftist
president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
In both
cases, the US-preferred candidates somehow
managed to get to power posing as the only
viable alternatives to the ousted women leaders.
In Brazil, the former vice-president Michel
Temer took the reins of power without elections.
Mr. Temer, whose popularity in Brazil is in
single digits, has already started what RT’s
expert on Latin America Juan Manuel Karg called
a “realignment” of Brazil’s foreign
policy. That “realignment” is supposed
“to move Brazil closer to the United States
and to the EU with or without Mercosur” (a
bloc integrating the markets and economies of
Latin American countries).
“It
is worth noting that the foreign policy program
of Temer’s party PMDB from 2015 does not even
mention BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa – an important bloc of countries
which Brazil played an important role in
founding in 2009,” Juan Manuel Karg writes
on RT’s Spanish page.
PMDB,
which stands for the Party of Brazilian
Democratic Movement, is a loose union of
centrist and rightist forces, which never took
more votes than Ms. Rousseff’s Workers’ Party.
Temer himself has a disapproval rating of 58
percent in Brazil.
New
Argentinian President Mauricio Macri also did
not seem to be keen on following Fernandez de
Kirchner’s policy of discovering new horizons
for Argentina in China and Russia. During her
tenure between 2007 and 2015, Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner several times met with Russian
presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev,
allowed RT Spanish to be included in the set of
TV channels accessible for Argentina’s broadest
television public, and expanded trade ties with
Russia. This policy so far has not been
continued under Macri.
In
Venezuela, the situation is even clearer: the US
makes no secret of its support for the
“anti-chavista” opposition to President
Nicolas Maduro, the successor to leftist leader
Hugo Chavez, who gave his name to “chavizmo,”
an ideology combining oil sales to the US with
spending the proceeds from these sales on social
development.
The American media gives full support to
anti-chavista opposition, despite its role in
violent street protests, which have claimed the
lives of several dozen people. “The US
policy of support for violent protests is
inexcusable, since Venezuela is not a
dictatorship. The country has many anti-Maduro
media outlets, people have been given a chance
to elect the majority of President Maduro’s
critics into parliament,” explains Andres
Izarra, a cabinet minister in Mr. Maduro’s
cabinet in 2014. “The
Venezuelan government suggested dialogue with
the government of the United States, we wanted a
compromise. But Washington simply has no policy
towards Latin America except the so-called
regime change.”
But why
is Russia concerned with US pressure on Latin
American countries? Seemingly, Moscow’s economic
interests are not focused on that region. The
share of Latin American countries in Russia’s
foreign trade, with the notable exception of
Venezuela, remains relatively small; it is still
dwarfed by Russia’s trade with the EU or with
China.
But the
point is that in recent years it became
absolutely clear to Russian diplomats that the
policy of “regime change” in Latin
America, Syria, Ukraine and – last, but not
least – Russia itself, is conducted by the same
people in Washington D.C. and in Brussels, and
the same technology is being used for the
purpose. Therefore, the events in faraway Brazil
may have a direct impact on the developments in
Russia.
“Attempts to “seat out” US-led
color revolutions in other countries are simply
not wise,” says
Joshua Tartakovsky, a US-based foreign policy
analyst, who recently visited both Venezuela and
Ukraine. “Sooner or later, the American
enthusiasts of regime change plan to go after
all the regimes which even potentially can
challenge American domination. First, they will
do it in the Western hemisphere, but it won’t
take long before they come to Russia, China and
India too. The only way to survive for BRICS is
to come together and act together – before it is
too late.”
Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, unlike the
official representatives of India and China,
openly says that he sees the West’s attempting
to bring about a “regime change” in his
country. In Latin America, only the Venezuelan
foreign minister has similar courage to face the
facts, while the others prefer the Tartakovsky-described
tactic of “seating out” the storms of
Washington-inspired revolutions.
“I listened to the Western
leaders who announced economic sanctions against
Russia,” Lavrov said
at a meeting with foreign policy experts in
autumn 2014. He referred to the aftermath of the
US-sponsored Ukrainian coup in 2014, which
ousted the centrist Ukrainian President
Yanukovich and led to a civil war.
“These Western leaders openly said that
sanctions should be applied in a way that would
cripple Russia’s economy and lead to popular
protests. So, the West is sending us a message:
we don’t even want to change the policy of the
Russian Federation; we want to change the
Russian Federation’s regime. In fact they are
not even denying that desire of theirs.”
How far
will Russia go in its support for independence
of Latin American countries? Who and how can
shield them from the policy of “regime change”
conducted by their powerful northern neighbor?
Obviously, Lavrov is not under the illusion
Russian can guarantee such independence alone. At
the 69th General Assembly of the United
Nations in autumn 2014, the Russian foreign
minister suggested making a special UN
declaration on the inadmissibility of the policy
of “regime change” and on
“non-recognition of coups as methods of changing
state power.”
At the
time, the Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff did
not openly support Lavrov’s suggestion, even
though she was present at that UN General
Assembly. Earlier, in 2013, she even made an
indignant speech at the United Nations about the
NSA’s eavesdropping of Brazil’s representatives
at the UN and even on the office of the
president of Brazil.
Rousseff might regret not seizing the
opportunity to act against “regime change”
then. Now it appears to be too late – for her
and, most likely, for Brazil.