Latin America POV: Latin American Leaders Socialist Rhetoric

Latin American leaders at the Seventh Summit of the Americas repeatedly, and with obstinacy, talked about the United States being imperialist and portrayed Latin American countries as victims of the US empire. A wrong  term to describe the United States, which has never been an empire. President Obama rejected the Latin American leaders notion that the U.S is to blame for all their problems.

 The real victims have been the Latin American people from corrupt power-hungry leaders like Nicolas Maduro, Cristina Kirchner, Rafael Correa, Fidel and Raul Castro, Evo Morales and others.  These so-called socialists leaders have brought more poverty and economic hardship to their countries than the so-called "imperialist” American government. The most interesting part is that none of these leaders has taken responsibility for the corruption, human rights violations, and abuses that happen in their nations on their watch.

Nicolas Maduro’s regime has stolen billions of dollars from the Venezuelan Petroleum Company, PDVSA and has committed the worse human right abuses in the history of Venezuela against its citizens. But Nicolas Maduro continues accusing the United States of waging an economic war against the country.

 Vladimir Lenin used the term  imperialism as "the Highest Stage of Capitalism in which imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism." For many, Lenin governed the early Soviet Union in the name of socialism as a dictator that carried out mass human rights abuses. Lenin was the creator of the Red Terror, an organized program of arrests, imprisonments, and killings. According to historian Michael Kort, "During 1919 and 1920, the Bolshevik regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000."

Joseph Stalin, Lenin’s successor in the Soviet Union,  caused a famine in the Ukraine that resulted in an estimated 7 million people dead. Stalin stole the food that the farmers  had cultivated with their hands.

This Leninist ideology can be traced in Central America through the turbulent modern political history of Mexico, and the total dominance of a single political party,  PRI (National Revolutionary Independent Party) for 70 years.  From 1929 to early 1990's PRI pilfered the money that could have been used to improve the quality of life for average Mexicans and converted the PRI into a nest of corruption and nepotism.

In El Salvador, in addition to poverty and a lack of the essential needs, the cruel civil  took 80,000 lives and destroyed most of the country’s infrastructure. It was a war between the leftist groups of the Frente Farabundo Marti and the Salvadorian military. Both sides committed great atrocities. Massacres of hundreds of innocent civilians took place.

Similarly, Fidel Castro’s socialist tyranny in Cuba killed thousands and imprisoned hundreds of thousands during more than half a century of oppression.

The birth and rise of the main Colombian terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionaries de Colombia, or FARC, offers a terrifying example of the destructive powers of extremist political ideology.  Since 1948, the conflict between  FARC  and the government has claimed more than 300,000 lives in Colombia.

In Peru, the leftist group  Sendero Luminoso and the Peruvian Army became  engaged in a cruel struggle that took 50,000 lives and has driven thousands of Peruvians away from the country. The list of conflicts between leftists guerrilla groups and the governments in Latin America is long.  Latin American leaders  should stop the blaming game and also take responsibility for the economic and social problems that their nations are facing today.

The United States economy, often referred as a free market economy, allows  consumers, producers, and the government to make decisions on a daily basis, mainly through the price system. Although not perfect, a free market economy is the engine that makes this country very successful.