US ‘undermining’ South American governments: Analyst
The United States has sought to interfere into the affairs of - and undermine - South American governments that reject Washington’s colonial policies for well over a century, an American activist and academic says.
“The US has been intervening in Latin America for the better part of the [last] 150 years,” said James Petras, a retired professor of sociology at Binghamton University and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
“With the rise of the new technology, it’s expanded its intervention beyond military and economic intervention into engaging in spying on a massive scale,” Petras told Press TV on Wednesday.
“I think the US is deeply involved in trying to undermine some of the progressive governments that have come to power over the last decade and a half, particularly Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and to a lesser degree Argentina and Brazil,” he added.
Petras made the remarks following reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts nearly all communications in the South American continent.
"Ninety-eight percent of Latin American communications are intercepted by the NSA while passing through the United States to the world," Assange told the Chilean media on Tuesday.
The revelations fueled a deterioration of bilateral ties created by a similar disclosures in 2013, when Brazilian President Dilma Roussef’s communications were also revealed to have been tapped.
“What is striking is that Washington has been ineffective despite its spying and its pressures on the region and that’s largely because the [South American] governments had a very solid mass base and they had diversified their markets away from the US and had benefited from large commodity prices,” Petras said.
“With the decline of the US-backed governments in Latin America with the weakening economic leavers, Washington is relying more on its covert intelligence operations,” he added.
The Cuban Revolution in the 1950’s has served as an “inspiration” and “model” for Latin American nations to reject US neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism, analysts say.
“The Cuban Revolution, despite any faults and imperfections, has served both as a model and inspiration for countless scores of both nationalists and left-wing movements in Latin America,” Joaquin Flores, the director of the Center for Syncretic Studies in Belgrade, Serbia told Press TV earlier this year.
The revolution, which lasted from 1953–1959, inspired the so-called Pink Tide in Latin America, which in turn influenced voters and Latin American countries to “reject US neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism in the whole region,” he added.
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