United in solidarity

Len McCluskey is General Secretary of Unite the Union 

Len McCluskey

The continent of Latin America is changing rapidly and the good news is that it is the people of Latin America themselves that are driving this progressive agenda. For the first time the people of the continent are taking control of their own resources and their own destinies, and this model of continental self-determination is one we should all applaud and support.

For too many years the vast majority of the Latin America population has been subjugated by a wealthy elite empowered by the multinational corporations predominantly based in the United States. Illiteracy, ill health and overriding poverty was the norm for most people, with any wealth generated quickly being exported northwards to bolster the profit margins of US based corporations.

This social progress and resistance to the global advance of neo-liberalism has been lead by the countries of ALBA, (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and includes Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Some of the advances won by the people of these countries are truly remarkable on any scale:

• Better life expectancy and infant mortality in Cuba than parts of the US
• The expansion of adult literacy in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua at a rate seen nowhere else in the world
• International health programmes such as Mission Milagro (Mission Miracle), where nearly 2 million people have had their eyesight improved or restored more
• More than 2,000 doctors graduated through the Latin American School of Medicine and 6,000 students part of this new medical training program that emphasises internationalism and humanism.
• The creation of the ALBA Bank with a capital of $1 billion and a stated aim ‘to boost industrial and agricultural production among its members, support social projects as well as multilateral cooperation agreements among its members’

So why are the advances of the people in countries such as Cuba and Venezuela not more widely publicised throughout the world? The answer is of course the fear of the good example.

If socialism can be seen to be delivering for the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, where does this leave the trickle down theories of neo-liberalism that encourages extremes of wealth and argues that if the rich get even richer, some of the excess will trickle down to us?

This is the reason that even the soft centre Obama government has not yet been able to reverse the policies of containment and aggression towards progressive Latin America.

First and foremost among this aggressive policy is the nearly 50 year old illegal blockade of Cuba which has been condemned by almost every country of the world at the United Nations. How disgraceful – so much for the rule of law!

Initially just a trade embargo, the system has been extended to include third countries so that if a British company does business with Cuba it may find its US subsidiary interests sequestered by the US, even when it’s perfectly legal for an EU firm to do business with Cuba.

Secondly, there is the outrageous case of the Miami 5. Working purely at uncovering terrorist activities against Cuba emanating from Miami – these five brave Cubans went to the US and reported back to the Cuban Government who passed on the details to the FBI. Instead of arresting the terrorists the FBI arrested the five men. Then in a completely unjust trial which has been condemned by Amnesty International, they were imprisoned for long sentences including one receiving double life. So much for the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Now, to add to the terrible injustice and against the normal rights given to the families of prisoners, the US government has refused two of the men’s wives the chance to visit their husbands for over 10 years.

My union Unite can feel proud of its work in the campaign to Free the Five. We have been pre-eminent in organising major fringe meetings at the TUC Congress and Labour Party Conference to open up the case of the Five to a wider audience. At the same time we have arranged for the families of the Five to meet the most senior Government ministers to make the case for UK support for their claim to the humanitarian right to visit their loved ones in jail.

And what of Venezuela?  At the moment it seems doubly blessed - it has socialism and it also has oil. For 12 years, Hugo Chávez has led revolutionary change in Venezuela and has proved inspirational to others in Latin America.

Millions of working people are now enrolled in literacy programmes, Cuban medical teams are taking health care into the barrios for the first time, and basic food stuffs are widely available at subsidised prices. Without doubt socialism in Venezuela is making a material difference to working people in all aspects of their lives.

The success of Chávez has been an inspiration to other socialist leaders in Latin America, most notably Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, who are forging ahead with their own socialist visions.

Using Venezuela’s oil wealth, Chávez has been at the forefront of the creation of the new economic bloc in the region, ALBA, not based on neo-liberalism as is the US led Free Trade Area of the Americas, but offering support for Latin America, for the Latin American people, based on the principles of social justice. Little wonder that in 2002, the US was implicated in the short lived coup against Chávez.

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and all the ALBA countries, are dangerous for the US because they show an alternative. They show how society can be structured differently, shifting wealth and power away from the rich and powerful and towards working people and their families.

Here in Britain I am proud of the support that Unite and the British trade Union movement has been able to give to support social progress in the region. We work in partnership with Latin American solidarity campaigns for Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and Colombia.

Their work has been exemplary. This magazine Adelante, and the hugely successful annual Latin American conferences, are a real testament to the collective workings of these campaigns and I am proud to be part of that long history of international solidarity.

The power of international solidarity is immense. When workers join hands across nations and oceans, justice will prevail. I hope you will join us. Venceremos!