Balaguer, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba and head of the party's Department of International Relations, was addressing the opening session of the 10th meeting of the São Paulo Forum, held here December 4–7. The Forum is made up of political parties from across Latin America and the Caribbean that define themselves as anti-imperialist and against neoliberalism.

A decade ago, Balaguer noted, the Soviet Union was disintegrating; Washington had recently invaded Panama and led a devastating assault on Iraq. The imperialist rulers were proclaiming a "New World Order" and promised a "spillover effect" that would eventually benefit the oppressed nations of the world.

Today, he noted, it is evident that the concentration of wealth and technological superiority "did not help imperialism find the panacea to overcome the sharpening of its antagonistic contradictions." They have driven it to a new crisis.  
 
Marxism is a guide for action
The Cuban leader pointed to the devastating consequences in Latin America and the Caribbean: growing unemployment, attacks on workers' pensions and other social gains, assaults on union rights, and the ruinous effects of establishing the U.S. dollar as official currency in some Latin American countries.

These developments show that "the ideas of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Vladimir Lenin have proven to be as valid as ever, demonstrating that Marxism is not a dogma but... a guide for revolutionary action," he insisted.

The meeting of the São Paulo Forum drew more than 500 delegates and guests from 84 countries, representing 74 member organizations from the region and 127 invited groups. The almost yearly gatherings, which have taken place in different Latin American countries, originated in a 1990 meeting in São Paulo, Brazil.

Especially notable at this year's meeting was the substantial participation from the Caribbean, and the large number of guests from parties outside the Americas.

The São Paulo Forum encompasses a wide range of political currents and operates on the basis of consensus. Thus proposals for action coming out of its meetings are limited. But the Forum has proven itself useful as a platform for Latin America-wide discussion among anti-imperialist forces. The Working Group, the São Paulo Forum's organizing body, includes the Workers Party (PT) of Brazil, Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Mexico, Communist Party of Colombia, Organization of the People in Struggle (OPL) of Haiti, Broad Front of Uruguay, and Communist Party of Cuba.

The largest delegations were from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, with about two or three dozen delegates each. Some 20 were from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean.

A significant number of representatives of organizations outside Latin America and the Caribbean attended as invited guests. These included about 75 from Western Europe, with the largest delegation from Spain, and another 20 from North America, Japan, and Australia. The nine U.S. guests included representatives of the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party USA, Workers World Party, and Freedom Socialist Party. From Canada, the Communist League, Communist Party, and Communist Party Marxist-Leninist were represented.

Unlike some previous meetings of the Forum, this one gave voice to the guests. A large number of them spoke during the two and a half days of plenary sessions, from a European Union parliamentary deputy to a representative of the government of Laos.

The gathering also included sessions of the regional sub-secretariats--for the Southern Cone; the Andean region; and Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean--that brought proposals to the plenary for consideration. A meeting of the Youth Commission also took place, with young people from 25 organizations in 15 countries. It was the third time a Youth Commission had met at a conference of the São Paulo Forum, and was the largest so far. On the last day, the delegates discussed and adopted a Final Declaration and a number of motions.  
 
Antiterror drive: cover for militarization
Balaguer, who gave the main talk at the opening session, emphasized that "throughout the course of history, U.S. imperialism has taken advantage of every opportunity to extend and deepen the domination and subordination of Latin America and the Caribbean." It has always maintained a "big stick" policy toward the countries of the region. And since September 11, he noted, "the stick has been the Bush Doctrine: 'You're either with us or you're with the terrorists.' This means that all those who do not support the unjustified aggression of which the people of Afghanistan are victims--and of which other peoples of the world may perhaps be victims as well--will be considered terrorists and treated as such, in the way Uncle Sam deems appropriate.

"This is a blatant attempt," Balaguer added, "to step up a longstanding imperialist tactic: that of criminalizing those who oppose its dictates, particularly the left and progressive movements. It is also a no less blatant attempt to pressure the governments of the region into finally giving in to all the demands of its new system of domination, including the revival of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or Rio Treaty, one of the first instruments of continental domination created by imperialism after the end of World War II. This is the very same treaty the U.S. government prevented Latin America from invoking during the [1982 British assault on Argentina in the] Malvinas War."

U.S. imperialism, he explained, seeks to "impose a broad and vague definition of terrorism, which mixes in drug trafficking, national liberation struggles, social protest, and migratory flows."

Washington's threats and military intervention--carried out under the guise of combating "terrorism" or drug trafficking--are aimed at social struggles brewing across the continent, he noted. Today they are centered in the volatile Andean region.

As numerous delegates emphasized, one aspect of this growing U.S. military presence is "Plan Colombia"--now renamed the Andean Initiative--under which Washington is directing billions of dollars in military aid to the Colombian regime. The program provides for increasing the number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia as well as expanding the U.S. military presence in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru under the cover of "drug interdiction."

This stepped-up military intervention, Balaguer remarked, goes hand in hand with Washington's efforts to establish the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as a trade bloc that will allow the U.S. rulers to plunder more freely the wealth and labor of the region--a move that undermines the national sovereignty of all the oppressed countries in the Americas.

In the discussion, one Venezuelan delegate described Plan Colombia as "the armed wing of the FTAA."

In accepting the FTAA, the Cuban leader said, "the Latin American and Caribbean bourgeoisies are deluded into believing that there can actually be 'free trade' in a world where the market is controlled by monopolies, and that there can be equality in trade relations between the biggest superpower in the world and a group of nations that, regardless of their different levels of relative industrialization, are all by definition undeveloped."

In this world, Balaguer concluded, the Cuban Revolution shows that it is possible to stand up to imperialism. "This small nation, blockaded, attacked, isolated, with no major natural resources and lacking in sources of external financing, was able to endure and overcome" the economic challenges of the past decade. "We have yet to overcome all of our difficulties, but we are the masters of our destinies." The Cuban people draw strength from their "spirit of self-sacrifice, solidarity, and internationalism; they know where they are headed, and are certain they will reach their goal."  
 
Fight against U.S. military in Vieques
Contributions to the discussion from Latin American and Caribbean organizations tended to focus on opposition to the FTAA, one of the main positions held in common by the members of the São Paulo Forum. Washington's assault against Afghanistan, its broader militarization drive, and the sharpening aggression by the Israeli rulers against the Palestinian people, which reached a new crescendo as the meeting was under way, were referred to by many delegates, but were less central to the discussion.

One of the strongest points of the gathering was the focus on the Puerto Rican struggle to get the U.S. Navy out of the island of Vieques. The 40-person Puerto Rican delegation, representing several pro-independence and socialist organizations, played a prominent and active role in the event.

Addressing the conference, Carlos Zenón, president of the Vieques Fishermen's Association, declared, "In Vieques, World War II never ended." He pointed out how Washington, "in the name of national defense, has used Vieques to attack other peoples around the world" by conducting bombing practice, war maneuvers, and mock invasions on that tiny Puerto Rican island.

Zenón described the tenacious resistance in Puerto Rico to the U.S. Navy's control of Vieques. Like more than 1,000 other people over the past two years, he has been arrested for holding protests on Navy-occupied land. In fact, he had to leave the conference after addressing the plenary session in order to appear in a U.S. court in San Juan to face trespassing charges.

The fisherman explained that he was in Havana in defiance of a U.S. judge who had ordered him not to leave Vieques. By standing up to Washington, Zenón remarked, Cuba "is like a splinter in their eye."

The discussion at the São Paulo Forum on the imperialist militarization drive--under the banner of fighting "terrorism"--registered the differentiated responses of the broad spectrum of political parties present. Some considered it important to begin by establishing their own credentials as "antiterrorist."

Others, especially delegates from political currents in Central America and Colombia--who have been in the recent past or are today in open armed conflict with imperialist-backed regimes and have themselves been labeled terrorist--most clearly addressed the question of imperialist military intervention and the capitalist rulers' use of the "terrorism" banner to attack the workers movement and its allies.

Schafik Handal of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which in the 1980s waged a guerrilla struggle against a brutally repressive U.S.-backed regime, said of Washington's propaganda campaign: "The terrorists accuse us of terrorism." Representatives of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) pointed out that the U.S. government has for years been using "antiterrorism" as a pretext to intervene militarily in their country.  
 
'Triple Border' on U.S. 'terrorism' list
Ligia Pietro of the Authentic Radical Party in Paraguay described the anti-Muslim witch-hunt being waged in the area of the "Triple Border," where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet. The Paraguayan regime, like its U.S. imperialist master, is conducting interrogations, detentions, and brutalization of people of Arab descent in towns such as Ciudad del Este, which has a substantial population of Lebanese and Syrian background.

The Triple Border--which is near areas in northern Argentina where sustained working-class protests against government austerity measures have taken place--is one of the areas of the world, from Somalia to the Philippines, that U.S. officials have labeled "a base for al-Qaeda" and put on their list of potential military targets. U.S forces have been training dozens of Brazilian, Paraguayan, and Argentine cops in "fighting terrorism" in that area.  
 
Sharpening confrontation in Venezuela
The sharpening political conflict in Venezuela also received special attention from the Latin American and Caribbean delegates. Many speakers expressed support for recent actions taken by the government of President Hugo Chávez. Brazilian PT presidential candidate Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva left the Havana conference after the first day and traveled to Venezuela in order to lend support to Chávez prior to the December 10 reactionary bosses' strike. The Venezuelan employers reacted with hostility to the government's land reform, oil exploration, and other laws. The agrarian reform measure calls for government review of the holdings of wealthy landowners and the expropriation of idle land, while the oil exploration law increases royalty taxes on private companies seeking to exploit the country's enormous oil reserves.

The Final Declaration presented for adoption on the last day of the meeting did not refer to these or any other concrete political struggles. The delegates from Puerto Rico and Martinique, however, insisted that the declaration give explicit support to the anticolonial struggles in the Caribbean. The fight to remove the U.S. military from Vieques and the independence struggles in Guadeloupe and Martinique, Netherlands Antilles, and other French and Dutch colonies were incorporated into the statement. Separate, brief resolutions opposing the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan, supporting the five Cubans framed up in the United States on espionage conspiracy charges, and on several other issues were also approved.  
 
'Coming period will be decisive'
Fidel Castro, who attended the plenary sessions every day and occasionally joined the discussion, gave the closing speech of the conference.

"The coming period will be decisive for the world," he stated. It will lead either to a new system of social justice or to a worldwide catastrophe. Capitalism offers no solutions to humanity, he said. "They are bereft of ideas."

Over the past decade, Castro explained, revolutionary Cuba confronted a "Special Period," the term used here for the exceptionally harsh economic conditions the island faced after the collapse of the Soviet bloc regimes and the end of aid and trade at preferential rates from these countries, which abruptly forced Cuba to face more directly the exploitative terms of trade imposed by the imperialist-dominated world market. This squeeze was compounded by the intensified U.S. economic war on Cuba.

The revolution survived this challenge and has come out stronger, Castro said.

Pointing to the accelerating international economic and social crisis, the Cuban leader said that today it is "imperialism, neo–liberalism, and capitalism that find themselves in a Special Period."

He described the growth of "the enormous balloon" of speculative capital throughout the 1990s, in which, like the alchemists of old, the capitalists acted as though they could "turn paper into gold."

This deepening disaster is exemplified by Argentina, he said, which is virtually bankrupt and unable to meet its payments on the ever-mounting foreign debt to imperialist banks. The brutal "austerity" measures and the de facto devaluation come down hardest on working people, who have responded with strikes and protests.

Today, Castro pointed out, the United States is in a recession that, like the Argentine debacle, began well before September 11 and has only deepened since then.

He reiterated the Cuban leadership's stance of opposing the imperialist war on Afghanistan as well as rejecting terrorist actions.

In face of this situation, Castro said, those who are resisting imperialist exploitation and oppression set an example: from the Palestinians refusing to buckle in face of the Israeli regime's escalating military assault, to the Puerto Ricans standing up to the power of the U.S. military, courts, and government.

Cuba shows what "an authentic revolution" can accomplish, he noted, from the internationalist solidarity demonstrated by the 3,000 Cuban volunteer doctors serving abroad, to the steps being taken today to deepen access to culture and education among millions across the island in city and country.

"Socialism is the only system that can bring about the highest justice to society," drawing on the capacities and talents of ordinary human beings, Castro said.

Conference organizers announced that the 11th meeting of the São Paulo Forum will be in Guatemala City in November 2002.  
 
 
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