Neocommunist rise:
The São Paulo Forum and the Strategical Unity of the Latin-American Left
[Excerpts]

Presentation delivered at the
Intelligence Summit 2006
Arlington, VA, Feb. 17^th -- 20^th

Olavo de Carvalho

The usual distinction between a “totalitarian Left” and a “democratic Left” has been for at least ten years a founding premise of the American vision of Latin America. The rise of leftist parties to power in many Latin-American countries in recent years has been insistently focused under such a perspective, and even President Bush's visit to Brazil last November was guided by the persuasion that the only venomous snake in Latin America was Hugo Chavez and that the virtual antidote to its bite was Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

That the radical and totalitarian Left's acension to power could and should be thwarted by the strenghtening of the democratic Letf became some sort of common wisdom both in American media and in American foreign policy.

However valid in general and abstract terms, both that distinction and any diagnosis of Latin American politics that are based on it are completely out of purpose under the present circumstances. Most of the continent's leftist parties are affiliated to the São Paulo Forum, the general headquarters of Latin-American neo-communism, founded in 1990 by Fidel Castro and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. The Forum held twelve general assemblies, whose proceedings were long time supressed but can now be acessed at my electronic newspaper www.midiasemmascara.org . Its resolutions, invariably signed by the unanimity of the members, have a mandatory character for all the affiliated organizations of the São Paulo Forum. They outline the blueprint for the conquest of total power over the continent.

Even a perfunctory examination of these papers (most of them in Spanish) shows the strategical unity behind the different lines followed by the several leftist parties and organizations in Latin America. Crime, drug dealing and guerilla warfare are not therein opposed to legal democratic politics, but skilfully articulated to it for the best overall success of the general strategy, intented, as declared at the occasion of the 4. São Paulo Forum assembly, to “reconquer in Latin America all that was lost in East Europe”.

The contents of the resolutions were publicly confirmed by the Brazilian president himself. In a very important speech delivered last July, to which both the international midia and the American government seem to have played only little attention if any, he detailed some of the ways the Forum interferes decisively in the domestic policy of several Latin-American countries.

In fact, none of the parties affiliated to the Forum has ever made any explicit condemnation to the use of violence as a means for ascension to power. Many of them originated in guerilla organizations, and the most generous concession they have been able to do to the democratic requirements was to admitit that violence was not necessary any more and should be provisorily put aside in favour of electoral fight.

Not only the cult of the guerilla heroes is still a living tradition in Latin American parties, but everywhere still prevails in leftist circles the old leninist rule that legal and illegal tactics should be cleverly articulated according to circumstances.

That Mr. Lula could become under American eyes the living incarnation of the democratic alternative to the totalitarian Left is even a little bit paradoxical, since he was the founder and for twelve years the president of the São Paulo Forum. In that capacity he personified for more than one hundred and eighty parties belonging to the Forum precisely the unity of the Latin American left, that is, the strategic solidarity between revolutionary violence and democratic electoral fight.

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Of course there are Fernando Henrique Cardoso's social-democrats, whose close ties to Felipes Gonzales, Gerhart Schroeder and Daniel Jospin seemed to make them the most reliable types of “democratic leftists” envisaged by the aforementioned distinction. But, on one hand. There is no need to stress the fact that European democratic Left has been for many years a strong fortress of anti-Americanism. To support the growth of its Latin American extension amounted to strenght the enemies of America. No matter how democratic and legalist it could be, the fact is that often its opposition to America took the form of direct pro-terrorist policies. On the other hand, look to what happened in the Brazilian 2002 election. The four candidates were uniformly leftists, each one trying to show how faithful he was to leftist revolutionary traditions in Latin America and acusing the other three of not being sufficiently so. Three of them represented parties belonging to the São Paulo Forum: Lula's Workers Party, the Brazilian Socialist Party and the former Brazilian Communist Party under a new name. The fourth candidate, José Serra, whose Social-Democratic Party did not belong to the Forum, was fully aware of the fact that the other three were linked to one another by the agreement to a common strategy, but to the last day he refused to denounce the farce because he was afraid this could make him look like a traitor to the continental unity of the Left. It is more than obvious that the revelation of the ties between the Workers Party and illegal and violent organizations such as the colombian narcoguerrilla or the Chilean MIR would instantly frustrate Lula's victory, but Serra was decided rather to disgrace his own candidacy than betraying their secret. This sample is enough to give you a measure of the unity of Latin American left.

As to Lula himself, the fact that once in charge he kept his predecessor's economic policy seemed to many people in the USA an evidence that he was a changed man, that he was no longer a political partner to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. But if the goals and the strategy of a ruler could be grasped from his economic policy alone, Vladimir I. Lenin would have been reputed a Russian forerunner of Margaret Thatcher.

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Far from being a possible U. S. ally in any political effort intended to stop the neocommunist rise in Latin America, Brazil has been for many years the real strategical center wherefrom communist action spreads to the neighbouring countries. The very decision to found the São Paulo Forum was taken by Fidel Castro in a meeting where, to his own exception, everyone present was a Brazilian: Lula, Frei Betto and Bernardo Kucinsky. Lula, a Brazilian, presided the organization for twelve years. The Forum's official magazine, America Libre , is run by a Brazilian, Emir Sader, while in the editorial board most of the members are Brazilian. The main political articulator of the Forum's meetings is also a Brazilian, Marco Aurelio Garcia. If Lula is right to say that the many victories obtained by the Left in the continent are due to the Forum's secretive actions, so they are, in substance, a result of Brazilian political planning.

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A lovely sample of the leftist profiteering of the premeditated confusion born from general disinformation in Brazil is Mr. Lula da Silva's recent speech at the Brazilian Section of the World Council of Churches. The Council, as nobody ignores, has a strong presence in the World Social Forum and is generally aligned with pro-communist and anti-American movements everywhere. The president's speech shows very clearly the friendly ties that link the Brazilian leftist government to the Council. By another side, among the anti-American military and in ultra-nationalist circles in general, the Council is often cited and comdemned as an instrument of American imperialism and even a collaborator of a suspicious operation of cultural invasion of the Amazonian area by means of teams of missionaries that in reality are, according to that version, American government's agents in disguise. All this is, of course, pure urban legend, but in Brazil there are many people in high places and in the media that believe it candidly. So the Council is, for the Brazilian left, useful in a double measure. As a real organizational power, it helps the left to implement the World Social Forum and to spread anti-Americanism; as a myth, it can be used in leftist propaganda as a symbol of the heinous American invader himself.

NB – The remaining parts of this presentation were summaries from my speech delivered at Atlas Foundation.