> >>> dhenwood at panix.com 12/02/05 10:38 AM >>>
> joanna wrote:
> >I was asking a knowledgeable friend about how to account for the
> >Venezuelan army's swing to the left, when the military of so many
> >other Latin American countries swung in the other direction, and he
> >guessed that it had something to do with the fact that the officer
> >corps in Venezuela is not drawn from the elites but from the
> >aspiring lower classes of the countryside and the cities.
>
> Richard Gott has some good stuff on this in his book on Chavez. He
> points out that the militaries in LatAm do have strong left, as
> well as right, traditions. In a stunning phrase, Gott describes a
> Venezuelan officer as being Harvard-trained and of Trotskyist
> leanings.
> Doug
> <<<<<>>>>
>
> recall peruvian military of late 1960s, junior officers from
> 'lesser' social strata revolted against their role as agents of
> landed-elite used to repress rural indian insurgencies, they
> carried out successful revolt against gov't of balaunde terry
> (stereotypical liberal pol who made campaign promises he either
> could not nor intended to fulfill)...
>
> under leadership of velasco alvarado, military gov't initiated
> significant reforms, beginning with expropriation of land *and*
> establishment of worker cooperatives on large estates, velasco
> gov't also began nationalizing 'commanding heights' of the economy
> (including u.s. oil. copper, sugar interests)...
>
> gov't did not carry out comprehensive nationalization of private-
> owned industrial production, however, it required 'profit-sharing'
> and transfer of stock to workers until they controlled 50%, goal
> was to create worker/management 'co-determination'...
>
> cultural changes occurred as well with recognition of indian
> peoples, adoption of bilingualism with declaration of quechua as
> official language alongside spanish, and selection of tupac amaru
> as national symbol...
>
> above happened quite 'peacefully' until internal conflict among the
> officers resulted in ouster of velasco,
Left-republican movements in the military existed in the Middle East also: Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, etc.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>