-At the ten years of its foundation- On the past July the 3rd, it has been ten years since the foundation of a political organization named the Sao Paulo’s Forum (SPF), which gathers almost all of the leftists from Latin America, including the armed guerrilla groups. It was so called because its first meeting was held on that Brazilian city. Although Luis Ignacio (Lula) Da Silva, a leader of the Workers’ Party (WP) from Brazil formally summoned the SPF, the initiative belonged to Fidel Castro, in response to the fall of the Berlin’s Wall and to the collapse of the communism at the former Soviet Union. According to its directors, there were 68 political forces that attended to the first meeting, belonging to 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries, joining as observers delegations from the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union. However, since then the SPF has notably grown up. At the 6th Meeting in 1996, there were present 187 delegates, belonging to 52 member organizations, 144 invited organizations represented by 289 assistants and 44 observer members of 35 organizations from America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Between the member organizations are counted: the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces from Colombia (FARC), the Workers’ Party (WP) from Brazil, the United Left from Peru, the Farabundo Marti’s Front for the National Liberation (FMLN) from El Salvador, the Sandinista’s Front for the National Liberation from Nicaragua, the Communist Party from Cuba, the Ample Front from Uruguay, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the Zapatista’s Army for the National Liberation (EZLN) from Mexico, the Lavalas Movement from Haiti, the Free Bolivia Movement and the National Revolutionary Union from Guatemala. The SPF does not have a known headquarters, but since its creation they have held nine annual meetings in different cities: Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Managua, La Havana, Montevideo, San Salvador, Porto Alegre, Mexico City and Managua, respectively. The SPF argue "it is not and does not pretend to become a new international, neither an organic structure which imposes dispositions to those who participate, nor a transmitter of unanimities" (1). It is true that there does not exist total unanimity between its members, as neither does at any other political organization in the world, but it really functions as an international and it has indeed a very well organized structure. It has a permanent communication media, a coordination and centralization system for its activities, a fully owned magazine called America Libre (America Free) and, what it is most important, it has a common objective clearly defined: to take the power in Latin America. - The communism has not disappeared at all - The fall of the Berlin’s Wall deeply affected to the Latin American leftists, and they entitle that not as "a simple fact, but as a determinant event. Without analyzing its consequences, it would not be possible to advance". But not for that fact they consider that the communism has been a failure. Nevertheless, they think that the socialist experiment at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe simply "did not achieve its social conquers into a feasible economical structure and a political infrastructure" to guarantee its permanence. "In the socialist field not everything has fallen apart" – they assure – "China, Viet Nam, Laos, North Korea and Cuba remain standing up and they are working in the development of their own projects to improve the socialist alternative" (2). Despite of all the contrary evidences, they affirm that the Cuban communist model is still successful: "Cuba makes outstanding efforts to overcome the crisis derived from the falling of the Soviet Union, leaning on fundamentally and mainly in the tremendous conscience and revolutionary will of their people, and also operating the levers of the socialist revolutionary power. The Cuban Revolution began the reform and reactivation of the socialist stated enterprises in the search for efficiency; at the same time, they started economical measures that in recent years have contributed to solve the acute shortage of foreign exchange and to bring their economy out of the backing down and stagnation" (3), attributed them not to their own mistakes, but to the North American blocking. They resent critics to socialism based on the fall of the Soviet Union consider them as "intellectually dishonest and disloyal". "We have listened to regional presidents to reject all alternative option speaking about a model already dead in the world, referring to the so-called real socialism, taking care of not talking about the disasters that reproduced themselves on all the planet, including the countries that they govern. They do not want to accept the possibility of a world more fair and worthy for everyone; they avoid to recognize that the socialist experiences exist, progressive and democratic alternatives, national and popular ones in capacity to change the life of so many postponed people". "The neoliberalism is falling down" Practically the only flag that has been raised high by the Sao Paulo’s Forum since its foundation has been the severe criticism, many times truthfully, to the "neoliberalism". In fact, what caused the summoning of the WP that gathered them on the first time was, by one side, "the crisis of the model of socialism that led to the falling of the Soviet Union" and on the other side, "the neoliberal pressure that was making ravages all over the continent, demolishing social conquers and extending poverty" (4). They argue "the neoliberal model conceives the development as the state in which the elites can accumulate more wealth at the expense of the increasing of the poor, marginalized people and the exclusion of a bigger fringe of the world’s population". Armed with statistics, people from the SPF talk about the failure of modern capitalism: "while in 1960 the 20% more richest of the world’s population disposed of an income 30 times higher than the one from the 20% more poorest, nowadays that relation is 82 to one! There are actually 358 people, the richest in the world, whose annual income is superior to the income of the 45% of the poorest inhabitants, that is, 2.600 million people…30 million people annually die by famine and more than 800 million people are undernourished". They have all the reason, although the accountability of the vertiginous increasing of poverty and social injustices does not stand for an exclusiveness of their own; even the responsible organisms for the prevailing economical models, such as the International Monetary Fund, admit that cruel reality. The Sao Paulo’s Forum goes beyond: they argue, truthfully, that such contradictions can not sustain any longer and that, more sooner than later, the neoliberal model will collapse, in doing so giving way to another chance for the communism and its variables. "The wave of neoliberal triumphalism that, with sound of trumpets and stimulated by the falling of the Berlin’s Wall, pretended to pass above all, must now overcomes even more stronger resistances. There is an ample and increasing social rejection to a globalization conceived as planetary pillage". This "world order that is destroying the planet" - they argue – "puts us to face new social explosions", that the SPF people think to take advantage of, by using new and varied forms of fight, to accomplish their project. -New ways to fight- "From the contradictions of this world order, or better said, of this world disorder, they will outcome, as from right now are doing so, the new voices of the civil society, the opposite forces to neoliberalism…. Yet the signals do not only outcome from sectors that have been the support of the leftists". "It deals about social processes, clearly different than what really is the specific activity of political organizations; however, they must be assumed and bear in mind by them, since our scenario for mobilization and accumulation of forces is not other than that society in process of changing". This regrouping of flexible character has allowed them to grow rapidly. According to their leaders, inside the organization there are "leftists forces of many different sources, some of them with eight decades of history and others recently created; both Marxists or not; with social Christian – some of them identified with the Liberation Theology -, nationalist groups or with anarchist root; groups with or without socialist definition with democratic, advanced and progressive attitudes; sectors loosened from old liberal historic parties, social democratic or Christian democratic; organizations with extended trajectories inside the legal political system of their respective countries, others forced to long runs throughout the clandestine ways, among them some that in determined periods have undergone by the armed way; government forces, such as the Communist Party of Cuba, or that are in charge of city councils from important cities, such as it happens in Brazil and Uruguay, or that have been pretty close to win the national elections and have transformed them into clear options of government" (5). "On this period – the SPF says – "we assist to an organization and advancing process of the forces opposed to the neoliberal prevailing ideas at the end of the eighties. In Latin America and the Caribbean the Sao Paulo Forum reflects this process from its first meeting in 1990, so much in the advances of many political forces representative of them on their respective countries, than in the political work up as a whole". - Immediate objective: the taking of power in Latin America - SPF’s members show the advance that they have reached in the region by analyzing it country per country: "in Brazil – they say – "the erosion from Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s government was gone together with a social mobilization process that creates the conditions for the going deep into the leftists’ unitary politics. The democratic and popular front in Brazil is considered fundamental to defeat the actual governments’ politics, to win the municipal elections of 2000 and to prepare the presidential alternative for 2002". In Venezuela, "the continuous winnings of president Hugo Chavez and the leftists and popular forces that support him are expressions from that new situation". "In Uruguay, the Ample Front became the first force of the country, removing from that place the two historical parties that have ruled for almost 170 years". Emphasizing that the presidential elections were almost won by the candidate from the Sao Paulo Forum, Tabare Vasquez. "It is not diminished the end of the Menem’s era in Argentina, one of the most implacable regimes for the application of the neoliberal orientations, displaced by an alliance in which leftist and progressive sectors". They refer specifically to the Frepaso, organization member of the Sao Paulo Forum, whose maximum leader, "Chacho" Alvarez, is nothing less than the vice president of that nation. "In Ecuador" - they continue – "the various factors of the social and political crisis are intensified, increased by the ruling neoliberal model, frame into which are introduced measures like the dolarization of the national economy, and there is a continuous denying and disregarding of the wealth distribution for the national majorities. The unchaining of the social explosions is the right response from the people, the Indian movement and their leftist forces to this situation". In fact, those forces linked to the Sao Paulo Forum already caused a state coup, that deposed president Mahuad and everything seems to indicate that they promote another one against the actual President. By these means, the SPF describes with deeply optimism the advance that has accomplished, mentioning also Colombia (FARC, ELN), Mexico (PRD, zapatists), Nicaragua (sandinists), El Salvador (Farabundo Marti’s Front), etc. According to its evaluations, to the extent of very few years, with the support they give to each other, the members of the Sao Paulo’s Forum could access to the power on the most important countries of the region, whether it be by electoral voting or by use of arms. That is why – they conclude – "the time has come to give a new quality jump in order that starting from the year 2000, a change in the political map of the continent will be produced, with the general advance of the popular movements and the triumph of progressive and leftist governments". - They do not offer any solutions - Paradoxically, in front of the vocation for power that they proclaim, the members of the Sao Paulo Forum do not offer any solutions to the problems they raise: "In many of our countries" – they say – "it is observed a mature grade of the economical, political and social crisis that demands objectively the implementation of an alternative model, without the leftists and the progressive forces have both reached the organization rank, the mobilization, the ability to structure political alliances and formulate proposals that allow them to take advantage of that situation". "What is missing in many cases" – they explain further – "are concretions, to lower down to earth those directions from the alternative model. It is neither the purpose to indicate from this scope what program must have each front or party member of the SPF, nor the way to implement it. But even to the level of these instances of interchanging, we must be more precise about the criteria to impulse these measures already sketched". The sub commander Marcos, leader of the Zapatist Army for National Liberation, expressed it in an even more cruel way, in an article published in august this year: "It is known that our specialty is not the solution of problems, but to create them. Yes, our specialty is to propose problems" (6). If they know it, and even they admit it publicly without blushing, it results irresponsible, to say the least, that members of the SPF aspire to power so anxiously; but that is not their only contradiction. - The contradictions of the Forum - If it is really true that the SPF people oppose verbally to the injustices of the capitalist system, when their sympathizers and members arrive to the power, such as in the case of President Chavez in Venezuela, they continue implementing the same IMF’s recessive programs, even more rigorous, making even deeper the poverty of our populations. In all their documents they state democracy as a bastion, but at once they defend and even propose as a model the Cuban system, rejected throughout the world precisely for being an implacable dictatorship, where dozens of thousands of opponents have been murdered and imprisoned, also the freedom and free expression of their citizens have been cut down without any consideration. They strongly criticize terrorism and violence, but inside their files exist radical guerrilla groups, such as the FARC and the ELN, that daily practice terrorism and violence as fighting tools. Equally they criticize drug traffic, but there are irrefutable proofs of the links of some of their militant organizations to narcotic selling, being the most conspicuous the Colombian guerrilla movements. They say they reject the State dismantling, but generally they look to eliminate the established institutions, such as the Army and the Catholic Church, simply because they are opposed to their projects, particularly to utilize criminal procedures, such as using arms, terrorism, kidnapping, extortion, and murder. They criticize corruption and say they defend honesty, but their documents do not show a glimpse of moral basis to firmly sustain the project they defend. It seems that the fight against the injustices of neoliberalism would be enough argument to support their activities and justify their rise to the power. Probably because of this reason they have not wiped out corruption in the places where they have reached the power and, on the contrary, they have increased it many times. For sure not all the members of the SPF identify themselves with armed fighting and with the illegal procedures used by the most radicals groups of the Forum. However, instead of disentail from them and denounce them publicly, they sit together on the same table and share the same strategy of action, which shows the lack of solid principles and the pragmatics that moves them on, identically to the traditional political groups they say to adverse. In conclusion, everything indicates that the only objective of the members of the Sao Paulo Forum is the taking of the power, not to solve the problems of the marginal people, whose exclusive representation they claim to be exclusive of them, but to use for their personal benefit. Ironically, if they succeed in their aspirations, the poorest people will be the most damaged who, beside of suffering a new disappointment, they will continue experimenting the penuries of underdevelopment, but to an extent even higher. Note: The quotations have been taken, except when indicated otherwise, from the basic document for the Ninth Meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum, held in Managua, Nicaragua on February this year. This document is available at the Ample Front Website: |