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What
did Aeschylus write in "Daughters of Danaus"?
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Toni Solo • 20 October 2004
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The
US and its allies are teaching a new generation
of courageous, creative, generous people to harden
their hearts against them throughout the Middle
East. As the child-killing, family-destroying troops
and airmen of the mass murderers in Washington,
London, and Tel Aviv do their foul, reckless work,
many precedents come to mind. Like the Persian Emperor
Xerxes in Aeschylus' tragedy "The Persians", George
Bush and his allies Ariel Sharon, Tony Blair, John
Howard, Silvio Berlusconi and the rest, sully foreign
gods and know no measure.
But times change and while Xerxes may have lamented
his fallen captains, George Bush cannot be bothered
even to attend a funeral. Plataea, Marathon and
Salamis may be long forgotten, but for Thermopylae
we can now plausibly read Fallujah. You won't read
this interpretation of reality in the mainstream
media. But a new, militarily peerless barbarian
horde is living that reality just the same, as the
Persians had to against the Spartan infantry at
Plateaea and against the Athenian mariners at Salamis.
In this case, the barbarian horde seems to have
run up against the political limits of their countries'
military might. A look across the Latin American
satrapies of empire may be timely, as oil peaks
and its price pushes relentlessly upwards. The global
plutocrat elite are pinched between growing popular
determination to achieve decent living standards
and their own diminishing ability to access and
control energy and water resources. Something has
to give.
US
style "free market" democracy - from Iraq to Honduras
to Haiti
In
the maquila paradise of Honduras, the UN Food and
Agriculture organization reports that 15 people a
day die of hunger. The FAO believes there is a serious
prospect that the number will double in months to
come. 44% of people there live on less than US$1 a
day. But if one reads World Bank statistics, it is
clear we are not meant to worry.
Per capita income in Honduras is double that of neighbouring
Nicaragua. The starving Hondurans can take comfort
in that cosy macroeconomic statistic from the aristocrats
of poverty. In any case, no doubt their soldiers,
recently home from Iraq, will gladly explain they
should count themselves lucky to be the beneficiaries
of freedom made-in-the-USA. [1]
In Haiti, a short hop away from Palmerola-Soto Cano,
the US former Contra-terrorist air support base, the
staff in the morgue and hospitals of the capital Port
au Prince can no longer cope with the number of dead
from the UN supervised repression there. [2]
How unreasonable of them not to appreciate the privilege
of participating in the liberation of their island
from their own elected government. How insensitive
of them not to see the clear benefits to the steadily
accumulating cadavers of having been murdered under
the auspices of freedom loving powers like the United
States, Canada and France, with strong support from
President Lula of Brazil and His Royal Highness the
King of Jordan.
How many murdered Haitians will matter in the end
before some among the omnipotent plutocrats shed a
few tears? A few hundred? A few thousand? Freedom's
trumpeters in the mainstream media can't be expected
to waste newsreel and airtime on irrelevancies. We
owe what we know of the horror of the repression in
Haiti to a handful of incredibly brave journalists
like Kevin Pina of "Black Commentator"and many anonymous
brave Haitians. In their non-coverage of Haiti, the
mainstream news media have reached a new low - after
Iraq that hardly seemed possible. But it is a fact
that for the media heralds of empire, every infamy
is likely to be outdone.
Colombia
and Chile - US laboratories for experiments in repression
In
Colombia, another forgotten imperial catastrophe,
the full benefits of US style democracy have been
available to an ungrateful population for nearly 40
years. Only just recently on August 6th, three more
trades unionists, this time in the Arauca department,
discovered the essential truths underlying their country's
good fortune. They were murdered by members of the
"Reveis Pizarro" Mechanised Battalion of the US trained
and financed Colombian army.
Their deaths and that of campesino leader Pedro Mosquera
in October confirmed Colombia as the world champion
of trades union repression. This in its turn more
than explains the country's world ranking at number
three in terms of US military aid. US taxpayers and
their representatives clearly like nothing better
than a genuine commitment to "free trade" demonstrated
by the extermination of organized labor. [3]
Earlier this year, to emphasise the success of the
US war on drugs in their country, active drugs dealing
paramilitaries of the AUC terrorist group addressed
the Colombian national assembly. Several of these
acknowledged criminals, like Salvatore Mancuso, were
wanted by the United States authorities. Unappreciative
relatives of some of the thousands of people murdered
by the AUC protested - outside, duly supervised by
armed police.
For a judicial expos� of the real measure of the horror
of the criminality of the United States and its allies
one has to go to Chile. Remember how people like Tony
Blair's model Margaret Thatcher and renowned war criminal
Henry Kissinger fell over themselves to protect Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet from due process after he
was nabbed on a shopping trip to Harrods? Now judicial
investigations have revealed that Pinochet was a corrupt
crook, milking the Chilean State for millions of US
dollars that he stashed away in the prestigious top-drawer
Riggs Bank in the United States. He was unable to
cover his tracks for those crimes. [4]
Now too, the detailed truth about how he ordered the
murder and disappearance of thousands of political
prisoners is emerging. The judicial investigation
has discovered graphic testimony and material evidence
showing how victims were dumped in the sea from Chilean
military helicopters at different times during the
1970s. Some of the corpses had been recently killed,
usually tortured to death. Others were exhumed from
mass graves in a ghoulish military operation called
"Withdraw the Television Sets".
In either case, the bodies were tied up in sacks.
Short lengths of steel railroad track were fixed to
them to weigh them down and make the corpses sink.
This is how Chile was made safe for democracy US-mafia-style
by the CIA and its local proxies. That is what the
United States means to millions of people in Latin
America.
Continent
wide popular protest
Across
Latin America, more and more people are deciding they
have had enough of the graft, murder and mis-government
paid for and encouraged by the United States and its
European and other allies. In Peru, student demonstrations
have recently rocked the administration of US ally
President Toledo. In Ecuador, President Lucio Gutierrez,
who turned out to be a devoted lap dog of US Southern
Command General James T. Hill, suffered crushing defeat
in last week's municipal elections with his party's
share of the vote falling so low as to threaten its
very legality. [5]
In Bolivia, President Carlos Mesa has followed in
his disgraced predecessor's footsteps, fronting a
kind of foreign-energy-company representative oligarchy.
His government faces increasingly general rejection
of its attempts to sell off the country's resources
cheap to the Bolivian oligarchy's foreign backers,
including President Lula of Brazil. [6]
In Paraguay, nationally coordinated land occupations
are pressing the government for economic measures
to help thousands of farmworkers and their families
sustain their livelihoods.
In Argentina, the piquetero movement continues to
challenge President Kirchner's efforts to close down
options for worker's organizations. In Uruguay, another
country whose people are exhausted after years of
neo-liberal humbug-economics, opinion polls decisively
favour the left wing-opposition. Presidential elections
are due at the end of this month, just a couple of
days before the presidential vote in the US.
In Costa Rica, huge demonstrations have taken place
against the Central American Free Trade Agreement
and privatization-linked corruption. Privatization
friendly former President Miguel Angel Rodriguez was
forced to resign recently as Secretary General of
the OAS. Now he is back in Costa Rica facing trial
on charges of taking bribes from the French telecommunciations
company Alcatel. Costa Ricans are also furious at
revelations that Rodriguez received over US$1m in
payments from Taiwan while he was president. [7]
In Nicaragua, teachers and healthworkers, for so long
the victims of IMF imposed public sector cutbacks
are threatening national strike action. Their pay
is currently less than half what they need to meet
basic needs. Recent demonstrations against measures
preliminary to water privatization similarly indicate
growing opposition to the agenda the World Bank and
the IMF are trying to impose on this impoverished
people.
Right now, Nicaraguan President Enrique Bola�os faces
a constitutional procedure to strip him of the presidency.
The General Audit Office have formally accused him
of fraudulently using over US$20 million of government
money while Vice-President to finance his successful
presidential election campaign. This is the man senior
US government representatives have publicly praised
for his anti-corruption policies. [8]
The
view from Venezuela
People
don't forget. They remember. Is it any wonder that
in Venezuela, senior military officers believe the
US is fomenting military activity against their country?
Venezuelan army general Melvin Lopez, Secretary of
the National Defence Council, said at a public workshop
on the effects of neighbouring Colombia's continuing
anti-guerrilla offensive "the presence of North Americans
on Colombian territory training civilians and paramilitaries
is a cause for concern in Venezuela....The Plan Patriota
of the Colombian government and the United States
is in support of the Colombian armed forces and of
the paramilitaries, although the Washington government
has made efforts to neutralize them, more recently
they have been training them.... we suspect the paramilitaries
are involved in Plan Patriota."
His colleague Lt.-Colonel Hector Herrera said, "the
United States is trying to create a sort of social
and military frontier destabilization to justify UN
intervention and increased military spending on Colombia....we
are aware of the intentions behind Plan Colombia,
not just for that neighbouring country but for Latin
America and the negative effects they could have for
Venezuela." [9]
Nemesis
While
we may not know what Aeschylus wrote in his numerous
lost works like the Daughters of Danaus, it almost
certainly had to do with the deep interconnectedness
of things. Terrible crimes derived from lack of
respect for fundamental justice invoke relentless,
often wildly unexpected retribution. That's probably
why most people don't commit terrible crimes. We
have a rational dread of moral justice.
People like George Bush and Ariel Sharon , Tony
Blair and John Howard clearly believe they are immune
from that intuitive moral insight of the majority.
The modern twist they give to Aeschylus is that
their hubristic vainglory is only tragic for their
victims. Like Adolf Eichmann or Henry Kissinger,
they themselves are utterly banal. Their sinister
intent is to try and make all of us their accomplices.
We cannot afford to let them.
Toni
Solo is an activist based in Central America. Contact
via www.tonisolo.net
NOTES
1.
Mueren
15 hondure�os por hambre cada d�a 15/10/2004 [15
Hondurans die of hunger each day]
2. Death
squads rampage in Haiti
3. Rebelion.org
4. Rebelion.org
- and - Chile
21
5. Argenpress.info
6. Econoticias
Bolivia (passim)
7. "Ticos indignados
con Taiwan por grandes "pagos" a Rodr�guez " AFP,
ACAN-EFE 14/10/2004.
8. "Contralor�a cierra
salida al presidente Bola�os" La Prensa. October 13th
2004
9. Mandos
venezolanos acusan a EEUU. de entrenar militares y
paramilitares en frontera colombo-venezolana por
I�aki Etaio. 17/10/04
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censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging
current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress
is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and
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the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw
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