Cameron Walker

Members of the Bush Administration regularly claim that the aim of American foreign policy is to spread ideals of democracy, freedom and liberty around the world. However, the actions of the US Government in its dealings with other nations regularly seem to contradict this.

We were all told the war on Iraq was to bring democracy to a nation suffering under Saddam Hussein. In the first year of the American occupation of Iraq, the nation came under the authority of the Coalition Provisional Authority and its American head Paul Bremer. During this time Bremer decreed 100 orders or changes Iraq had to make to its’ economy.

Instead of helping Iraqi people rebuild from decades of war these changes all strengthen American corporations at the expense of ordinary Iraqis. For example, Order 39 allows for 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories and also decrees that corporations may take 100% of their profit out of Iraq, instead of investing it in the local economy, which is in dire need of development. (Palast Greg Adventure Capitalism’)

Order 81 prohibits Iraqi farmers from saving seed from year to year. Instead they must fork out large amounts of money to buy new seed from American agribusiness corporations, such as Cargill. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 2002 97% of Iraqi wheat farmers saved their seeds. This process helped avert famine during the harsh sanctions on Iraq in the 1990’s. As the British magazine the Ecologist points out:

“The US, however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice, Iraqis don’t know which wheat works best in their own conditions, and would be better off with some new, imported American varieties. Under the guise, therefore, of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is setting out to totally reengineer the country’s traditional farming systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness.” (Smith Jeremy Order 81’)

No Iraqis were involved in making these decisions. They were forced on the war-wrecked nation in such an un-democratic way it would have made Saddam Hussein proud. An insider implementing the US government’s economic policies in Iraq told the American journalist Greg Palast: “They have [Deputy Defence Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz coming out saying it’s going to be a democratic country … but we’re going to do something that 99 percent of the people of Iraq wouldn’t vote for.”

The one of the few Saddam era laws retained by the American occupation forces in Iraq is the law that restricts union organising in public sector industries. Since 2003 Iraqi unionists have been busy actively opposing American moves to sell Iraqi industries to American corporations. As Hassan Juma’a Awad, a leading member of Iraq’s General Union of Oil Workers says:
“It was our duty as Iraqi workers to protect the oil installations since they are the property of the Iraqi people and we are sure that the US and the international companies have come here to put their hands on the country’s oil reserves”.

Iraqi unionists have had some big victories but also have had to suffer great costs. A general strike broke out in Basra when the British tried to install a notorious mayor who was a member of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. Oil workers forced US Vice President Dick Cheney’s company Halliburton to employ Iraqis to complete reconstruction work in one city where unemployment was as high as 70%, instead of importing Kuwaiti oil workers. (Bacon David Interview with Hassan Juma’a Awad’)

Unions suffered persecution under Saddam. Today they face repression by both the American occupying forces and the remnants of Saddam’s regime that make up part of the murderous insurgency’. Some unionists have been kidnapped and murdered.

While the US is bringing democracy’ and free market capitalism to Iraq at gunpoint, it is also using huge amounts of effort to undermine the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Chavez, described by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as “a negative force in the region [South America]”, won a landslide election victory in 1998 and was again popularly re-elected in 2000. In 2004 he won a recall referendum on his rule with 58% of the vote, which was declared free and fair by foreign observers including former US President Jimmy Carter.

In 2002 opponents of Hugo Chavez launched a coup in which the president was briefly overthrown and held under house arrest. The head of the Venezuelan Federation of Business, Pedro Carmona Estranga, appointed himself President.

Most nations around the world condemned the coup as anti-democratic and called for Chavez to be released and returned to office. The USA failed to condemn the coup and became one of the few nations in the whole world to recognise the coup government of Carmona. After a huge public outcry on the streets of Venezuela Chavez was returned to power.

In 2005 the pro-Bush US evangelist minister Pat Robertson said on his TV program, The 700 Club’ that the US should assassinate Chavez.

Why do the US government and its allies hate Chavez so much when he is a seemingly popular democratic leader? Well he has raised taxes on US oil companies and increased the price of oil exports to pay for large social programmes for the poor in urban slums, known as barrios. He vocally criticises US “free trade agreements” in Latin America as new world imperialism and also criticised the war on Iraq.

Despite its rhetoric the US government is quite happy to put corporate profit ahead of democracy.

SOURCES

Bacon David (September 2005) Interview with Hassan Juma’a Awad’ The New Internationalist, p33, issue 382

Hari Johann (August 26, 2005) Awaiting the hit’ in oil rich rogue state’, The New Zealand Herald, pB4

Palast Greg (October 26, 2004) Adventure Capitalism’

Smith Jeremy (February 2005), Order 81’, The Ecologist

MORE ARTICLES ON CHAVEZ

The Rise of America’s New Enemy by John Pilger

White House and Media Escalate War of Words Against Hugo Chavez by Scott Harris