Fidel Castro & the Latin American debt

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Poster of Latin American - Caribbean Trade Union Conference on Foreign Debt held in Havana, Cuba. The conference voted overwhelmingly to make Oct. 23 a continental day ‹ "IMF austerity measures amount to a declaration of war against the people of Latin America."

New theoretical supplement Our October íssue of Socialist Action will feature our first issue of the Socialist Action Theoretical Review, a special eight-page supplement to our regular edition.

Our first Theoretical Review will contain the following articles: "The SWP's Deepened Attacks on Trotskyism and the Fourth International, by Sean Flynn; "The Meaning of the 12th World Congress of the Fourth International, an interview with Daniel Bensaid; "The Stakes in the Discussion on Central America, an edited version of the resolution approved by the first national convention of Socialist Action; documents of the Peruvian Workers Party, and other Protest against IMF-imposed austerity. Sao Paulo, September 1983. 16 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1:

In the last eight weeks, the Cuban government has organized five international gatherings in Havana on the critical issue of the Latin American debt to the imperialist banks and lending agencies.

The latest and most sizable gathering, held from July 30 to Aug. 3, was the Meeting on the Foreign Debt of Latin America and the Caribbean. This continental meeting brought together more than 1300 delegates from 31 countries.

Among the delegates were more than 100 trade union leaders and representatives of peasant organizations, 115 heads of political parties and other political organizations, 90 delegates from religious groups, 40 military officers, numerous large capitalists and landowners, journalists, artists, scientists, and others.

Even the Argentine government, which recently decreed a brutal set of austerity measures as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, sent an official representative to the Havana. meeting.

"The debt is unpayable"

Although the continental meeting did not issue a final declaration on how to confront the debt crisis, the overwhelming majority of the delegates agreed that the $360 billion debt is "unpayable and uncollectible." Rodomiro Tomic, leader of Chile's Christian Democratic Party, stated this point succinctly: "The debt is unpayable because we simply don't have the money."

Still, the inability to draft a final declaration reflected the wide range of strategies put forward to resolve the problem of the debt.

Some, such as Carlos Emmanuel, the representative of the Ecuadorian government, argued that the debt should be renegotiated with the creditor banks. "We think the debt should be repaid, Emmanuel stated, "but in such a way that does not affect the democratic and social stability of our countries."

Others, such as the ex-president of Colombia, Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, pointed to the Peruvian example as a realistic and correct road for the debtor nations. Last month, the newly elected president of Peru, Alan Garcia, decided to earmark a maximum of 10 percent of gross export earnings for yearly interest payments on Peru's $14 billion debt.

Still another position was taken by Anselmo Sule of Chile, head of the Latin Ameri233153 Rick Reinhard can Bureau of the Socialist International. "We have a responsibility to pay back only about one third of the [$360 billion] debt to the creditor banks" Sule said.

In this Sule echoed the views presented by Willy Brandt, exprime minister of West Germany and president of the Socialist International, in an interview with the Mexican daily Excelsior on May 9. Brandt then stated:

"The foreign debt of the poorest nations of the Third World must be cancelled. They must be freed from paying their debts.

For the other nations I call for a system that significantly reduces the severe burden of the debt."

In the Excelsior interview Brandt also called on the Latin American governments "to reach a common position to put pressure for the renegotiation of the debt and for a reform of the international monetary system."

"Cancel the debt"

By far the most radical position on the debt, however, was presented by Fidel Castro in his closing speech to the meeting. "The debt is a cancer, Fidel stated, "a cancer that multiplies, that spreads throughout the body, that destroys the body. It requires a surgical removal. Nothing short of surgery can solve the problem."

Reiterating a proposal he has made frequently in recent months, Fidel urged the cancellation of the debt and the formation of a debtor's cartel of Latin American governments. Fidel explained at length why any other solution-such as paying 10 percent of foreign export earnings— "is simply not facing reality."

For the first time, though, Fidel also called on the Organization of American States (OAS), to intervene in finding a solution to the Latin American debt crisis. "It would be magnificent if, for once, the OAS did something useful and helped to resolve this problem" Fidel stated.

The OAS, it must be remembered, was created by and is totally subservient to the U.S. government, which utilizes it to promote its own interests in Latin America.

Further Fidel noted that Cuba is not opposed to the AIXO- O- DESEMPREGO Cartagena Group [which represents the governments of the 11 biggest debtor nations in Latin America and the Caribbean], but that its "only objection is that the Group has not expanded to include the other countries in the continent."

Finally, affirming that his proposals are not counterposed to anyone or any group seeking to find a solution to the economic problems of the region, Fidel stated that Cuba "is in agreement with and supports the idea of a meeting of Latin American heads of state, as was originally proposed by Argentine president, Raul Alfonsin, and later by his Peruvian colleague, Alan Garcia."

New economic order Despite the differences on strategy, most of the conference's participants also agreed that the cancellation of the debt was only one of the problems facing the Latin American economies.

Throughout the conference, speakers insisted on the need to tie the issue of the Latin America debt to the demand for structural changes in the relations between the developed and underdeveloped nations.

The most commonly stated position, which was also Fidel's position, was the call for "a new world economic order" based on the principles approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1974. This proposal was submitted by then president of Mexico, Luis Echeverria Alvarez, and has been endorsed by nearly all of the bourgeois governments of the semicolonial countries.

These principles affirm the need to eliminate "the unequal exchange, the unjust practice of protectionism, the uncontrolled actions of the transnational companies, and the monetary and financial manipulations that establish high interest rates and favor the overvalution of the dollar."

Without such modification in international relations, it was repeatedly stated, the situation would be the same or worse than it is now-even if the debt was cancelled.

An incorrect framework One of the central theses underlying Fidel's position on the debt is that the immense burden of interest payments is (1) a brake to economic develizing factor in the region.

All of these are, of course, true. The austerity measures demanded by the IMF as a precondition for rescheduling the debt payments (severe wage cuts, drastic reductions in public spending, devaluation of the currency, etc.) amount to a virtual declaration of war against the people of Latin America.

And these measures are surely destabilizing the capitalDEUDA EXTERNA UNIDAD BANA gainst the imperialist debt.

ist system. Today millions of oppressed people in the region, with the independent trade unions taking the lead, are rising up and saying, "We cannot tolerate this situation any longer." As Fidel stated in one of his recent interviews, Latin America has become a powder keg about to explode.

Mass food riots against the IMF have already broken out in the Dominican Republic. The nationwide strike waves of the Brazilian metalworkers and of the Bolivian mineworkers for higher wages and against layoffs is another sign of the revolutionary ferment developing in the region. A revolutionary situation is in the making throughout the continent. (See Socialist Action, July 1984, pp. 9-12.)

Yet, while he has very correctly launched a continental campaign to cancel the debt, Fidel has made the important mistake of placing this struggle within the framework of a "two-stage" strategy for revolution in Latin America.

"Socialism is not on agenda"

One of Fidel's main points in his many interviews and speeches on the Latin debt is that the preconditions for socialist revolution do not exist today in Latin America. In an interview published in the Dec.

short articles.

JU000 0984 i protest a26, 1984, issue of ian, Fidel states:

"In Latin America socialism is not the question...Proposing socialism would not only clash with objective economic realities, it would also create obstacles to the revolutionary movement in the rest of Latin America ...I do not believe that socialism is on the agenda. What is on the agenda is national liberation."

Given that socialism is not on the agenda, according to Fidel, it is therefore necessary to urge a policy of "national unity" with the national bourgeoisies to confront the IMF and U.S. imperialism. Only by removing the burden of the debt payments and by reforming the international economic order, Fidel affirms, will the objective conditions exist for the socialist revolution.

"I consider the struggle for a new world economic order to be the most important thing the Latin America and Third World countries can do now, Fidel told the Mexican daily Excelsior, "because it can lead to the creation of conditions needed for real independence, real sovereignty, and even the right to carry out social (continued on page 17,

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"The conference was able to diagnose the disease but "The foreign debt was contracted by the governments of the Latin American countries on the backs of the people. In this manner, these governments demonstrated their incapacity to advance the economic and social progress of our peoples; a task which can only be accomplished by a sovereign break with imperialist oppression, as was demonstrated by the historic -Excerpts from a resolution presented by Victor Cuadros, president of the National Mineworkers and Metalworkers Union of Peru and a leader of the Peruvian Workers Party, to the Latin American and Caribbean Trade Union Conference on the Foreign Debt held in Havana, Cuba, on July 15-18, 1985. [Full text will be published in our next issue.] SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1985 17 (continued from page 16) changes-and not only the right but the objective possibility of doing so."

In his speech to the closing session of the conference on the "Situation of Latin American and Caribbean Women Today, Fidel put it this way:

"Well, two, three, four, 10 revolutions in Third World countries, what would they mean on their nwn? I think it is more important right now for all those countries—1 say so in a calm and objective manner-to solve the problem of the debt, the new international economic order, and create real conditions for development, because social change alone won't =-1..- danceradasso solve ine tremenaous accumulation of economic and social problems."

An accurate formulation is in the making Fidel's strategy is presented in the Aug. 5, 1985, issue of Frontline newspaper. Fully supporting Fidel's views, the author of the article, Ethan Young, writes the following:

"One ~ reason for Cuba's improved relations with other Latin countries is that while Castro has been using his rising prestige to set a pro-Latin, anti-imperialist pole on the political scene, he has also been stressing the need for political and economic stability in the current period of post-military governments and warning against any tendency to seek instant revolution out of the ruins left by the crisis."

Fidel, Young writes, is concerned about bringing together "a Latin Americanist front uniting everyone to the left of Augusto Pinochet" with the purpose of establishing increased democracy and economic independence.

Revolutionary nationalism The theoretical underpinnings of Fidel's overall strategy on the debt question were formalized at the International Theoretical Conference held in Havana in April 1982.

The conference's keynote report was presented by Antonio Diaz Ruiz-Soto, head of the Cuban Communist Party's Department of Internal Education (Cuba Socialista, No. 3, June 1982). In it he advocates the need to create the "broadest anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic democratic fronts" with the national bourgeoisies and the "patriotic" military.

Such broad alliances must "counterpose the defense of patriotic and revolutionary nationalism to the ravenous policies of imperialism and its internal allies"" Ruiz-Soto explains.

"It is a historical reality," Ruiz-Soto continues, "that sectors of the national bourgeoisie in Latin America, due to their contradictions with imperialism, are adopting positions which converge with those of the proletariat, the peasantry, and other non-capitalist sectors in the anti-imperialist struggle and for the conquest of economic independence and complete national sovereignty."

Ruiz-Soto then notes that "no less important in this alliance is the group of progressive military [men] who are honest and who have spoken out for profound political and social change and have led important popular movements in defense of national sovereignty."

Anti-imperialist united front There is nothing wrongquite the contrary-for Fidel and the Cuban Communist Party to urge a limited (not strategic or programmatic) front with sectors of the national bourgeoisie for the cancellation of the debt to the imperialist banks. Such a tactic is called the anti-imperialist united front.

But it is a serious mistake to advocate a policy of "national unity" with the national bourgeoisie in the framework of so-called "anti-oligarchic" fronts. These formations necessarily subordinate the interests of the workers and peasants to the needs of the national capitalISts.

The national bourgeoisie in the semicolonial countries is a semi-oppressed class. It has no independent access to the world market and receives only a small portion of the immense amount of surplus value produced in their own countries. Its contradictions with imperialism are real.

The national bourgeoisies will inevitably recoil at the outrages of the imperialist overlords and will try to seek a larger share of the pie for themselves. This is the meaning of their call for a "new international economic order."

There is no better example of this resentment and anger than the scores of "anti-imperialist" declarations made by prominent bourgeois figures at the continental conference in Havana.

But as the history of the entire 20th century has taught us, the national bourgeoisies of Latin America and of the semi-colonial world will inevitably pull back from a fight against imperialism.

At all times, the national Victor Cuadros bourgeoisies of the region have demonstrated that they fear the revolutionary upsurge of the masses more than they dislike Yankee imperialism. They have fully demonstrated their inability to offer any solutions to the pressing problems of the oppressed nations.

Indeed, the national bourgeoisie is above all a ruling class which lives off the labor of the workers and peasants. The class antagonisms between workers and bosses, and peasants and landowners, in the semicolonial nations cannot be brushed aside or relegated to some future time.

The key purpose of the tactic of the anti-imperialist united front is precisely to win the oppressed majority away from the national bourgeoisie and to propel the working class in alliance with the poor peasantry into the leadership of the struggle for the uncompleted national-democratic tasks of the revolution: democracy, national liberation, agrarian revolution, and development.

The workers' movement can march alongside the bourgeoisie against the imperialist debt and the IMF, but it must do so under its own independent class banner. In this way, as the bourgeoisie refuses to champion the demands of the workers and peasants and as it retreats from the fight against the imperialist debt-as it will invariably do—it will be thoroughly exposed before millions of people.

In Latin America today, the only correct framework for pursuing a campaign for the cancellation of the debt is the struggle to promote and build independent workers' parties— such as the Brazilian Workers not to provide a cure."

Party (PT)-throughout the continent.

Only this orientation can channel the mass sentiment against imperialist and capitalist exploitation into an organized revolutionary force capable of wresting power from the ruling classes and establishing a new state based on the democratic institutions of the workers and peasants.

In early June, a delegation of Peruvian trade union leaders and members of the Provisional Committee for a Workers Party traveled to Brazil, where they toured the mining region of Santa Catarina in the Cuban Revolution. " company of Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula), the president of the Brazilian PT.

During this tour, Lula gave an interview to the daily O Estado De S. Paulo in which he stated: "Since the time we founded the PT, we have awaited the emergence of parties similar to ours because there are identical problems in the rest of Latin America."

On June 19, the Folha of Sao Paulo printed a press release from the Brazilian PT which stated, "The Workers Party announced yesterday that it will support and collaborate in the founding of the Peruvian Workers Party on Aug. 16-18 in Lima during the congress of the Peruvian workers."

The extension of PI-type, independent, class-struggle formations marks a tremendous step forward for the revolutionay movement in Latin America. It is a course that can and must be extended beyond these two countries.

The example of the Cuban revolution The fight against the imperialist debt and for a break with the IMF and its policies has been given a big boost at the recent conferences in Havana. Fidel's call for a debtors' cartel has brought the issue of the debt and of imperialist domination to the attention of millions of workers and peasants in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is entirely progressive.

But for the call to cancel the debt to genuinely serve as a lever to move the workers' and peasants' movements forward on a revolutionary course, it must break out of the "two-stage" framework.

This "two-stage" framework at best fuels illusions in the ability of the national bourgeoisie to lead a fight against imperialism. At worst it can derail the campaign for the cancellation of the debt by misorienting the only political force-the working class in alliance with the poor peasantry— that is capable of consistently fighting to break with the IMF and its policies.

The vehicles for advancing the struggle against the debt are not the Organization of American States, the United Nations 1974 resolution, or even an expanded Cartagena Group. These can only sidetrack the In the epoch of imperialism, as Leon Trotsky explained, the tasks of national liberation and economic development are inextricably bound up with the socialist revolution. In other words, without a socialist revolution there can be no national liberation and development in Latin America.

The example of the Cuban revolution itself is the best proof of the validity of this theory.

At the closing of the continental conference in Havana, Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula) told a journalist of the Mexican magazine Proceso that the five-day meeting "was able to diagnose the disease but not to provide a cure."

Lula then went on to explain what is at the heart of revolutionary strategy in Latin America: "The most important thing, though, is not what we all say here but what we do when we return to our own countries.... The key task before us is to take this issue to our people. Without mobilizations of the masses, nothing will happen."

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OUR REVOLUTIONARY CONTINUITY ATH

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opment, (2) a threat to national sovereignty, and (3) a destabil-

THEORY AND DEBATE "A revolutionary situation is throughout the continent."