From Santo Domingo to Mexico:
The Changing Face of Intervention
As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the U.S.
invasion of the Dominican
Republic, we are witness to a new
display of U.S. power in the hemi-
sphere, this one long in the making,
but brought to a head by Bill Clin-
ton’s signature on a loan-guarantee
form. The Mexican “rescue” is
more complex and ambiguous an
exercise in U.S. power-and on the
surface a good deal less brutal-but
it has no less profound an effect on
a sister country’s sovereignty, is no
less concerned to show U.S. resolve
to the world, and is no less motivat-
ed by a need to bolster a U.S.-dom-
inated world system.
Clinton has been criticized–
from the right as well as the left–
for having the interests of wealthy
investors in mind with his Mexico
rescue package, but this criticism is
misplaced. Clinton did not inter-
vene to save a few wealthy U.S. cit-
izens, but to salvage a system of
global investment and production–
a system upon which U.S. wealth
and power rest. Mexico had been
the bright shining star in what has
come to be called the “Washington
Agenda” for developing-now
known as “emerging”-nations.
Demand from new markets like
Mexico is meant to be the motor
force of the U.S. export-led future.
Low-wage Mexican industry is
meant to act as a high-return stimu-
lant for U.S. investment funds. A
massive outflow of those funds
would not only dim the luster of the
Mexican star, but would severely
damage the entire Agenda. It would
trigger an outflow of confidence–
and capital-from the dozens of “emerging markets” around the
world dependent on those same
investment funds, and playing the
same role vis d vis U.S. capital.
These investment flows have
severely constrained national sov-
ereignty, holding the policy mak-
ing process hostage to the dictates
of transnational capital and to the
mass-psychology of the financial
marketplace. The salvation now
being proposed for Mexico–
already effectively adopted in
Argentina-is known as a “curren-
cy board.” This is as sovereignty-
depriving a measure as having the
U.S. Marines in charge of your
army. A currency board is a scheme
to prevent virtually all budget
deficits, prevent the printing of
pesos not fully backed by dollar
reserves, fix the value of the peso
to the dollar, and make pesos fully
convertible, upon demand, into
dollars. It would effectively
remove all discretionary power
from fiscal and monetary authori-
ties. This is the face of the new
dependency: He who holds the dol-
lar calls the tune.
Thirty years ago this April 28,
President Lyndon B. Johnson
effectively robbed the
Dominican Republic of its sover-
eignty by sending 23,000 troops to
subdue a popular uprising. The
insurrection sought to restore Juan
Bosch, the country’s social-democ-
ratic-but independent-president,
to power, and was opposed by the
United States not so much on its
merits, but as a way to demonstrate
to the other countries in the hemi-
sphere the lengths to which Wash-
ington was willing to go to prevent “another Cuba” in Latin America.
The Dominican invasion radical-
ized a nascent “new left” in the
United States, and midwifed the
birth of NACLA. Coming in the
midst of the escalation of, and
growing opposition to the war in
Vietnam, the invasion was both a
spur and a revelation to a sector of
the U.S. public already angry,
uneasy and politically active. In the
invasion’s wake, a radical move-
ment grew up in the United States
focused largely on the question of
U.S. military domination of other
countries. The invasion was also
more evidence that the anti-war
movement was up against a sys-
tem-a new kind of imperialism.
Over the past 30 years, much has
changed and much has remained
the same. Today, as progressives
view the effects of what the Pope
has called “savage capitalism,” the
range of options seems a good deal
narrower. The Cold War is over-
settled not in the Third World, but
for the Third World; there will not
be “another Cuba” for some time to
come. Revolutionary struggle has,
for the most part, reached the stage
of the negotiation of scaled-down
demands; the call for socialist
transformation has given way to an
attempt to salvage basic rights and
protections. The dictators have
stepped to the background; the
investment brokers have moved to
the fore.
But just as Lyndon Johnson kept
an insufficiently anti-Castro
Dominican social democrat out of
office 30 years ago by force of
arms, the logic of the world system
now encourages Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo to hunt down the
reform-minded Zapatistas because
they make investors nervous. While
the basic dynamic that shapes inter-
American relations has changed, it
maintains a familiar cast. We are
still up against a system which, as
the recent events in Mexico have
shown, lets good neighbors live
together as long as it’s clear where
the servants’ quarters are.
Menu
