Oh, wait, I guess that can't really be true, can it?
boddi
On 12/3/05, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> Michael wrote:
>
> > >>> 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>
>
>
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