I am writing this from the highly sought-after hotel shared computer in Santiago, Chile where I have been living for the past week as a member of a delegation of SOA Watch activists from the United States. I was already beyond U.S. borders when it was declared that Obama won the election last week - I was, in fact, nervously watching states turn blue and red on the only television displaying CNN in the Toronto airport on election night.
Chile is not Colombia or Mexico or Bolivia, and therefore not, I think, a significant recipient of U.S. anti-narcotrafficking "aid." But wherever we go and whoever we meet, we are soon asked about Obama, what we think of him, whether he will be a friend of Latin America. Certainly Obama could not be less of a friend than President Bush has been, our analysis has to go deeper than that, no? Drug war funds in Latin America are used - behind a thinning veil - as a means of military control, as I think can be said for our own country.
My flight left the U.S. before the election was over, so I can not speak to the mood in my community, but at least in the lead-up, there was more engagement, more political energy than I had ever seen. That is a good sign, and something that social movements for sensible drug policies and those working for human rights in Latin America need to build on. Maybe what we can learn from our compañeros in Chile is something about the incredible coalition building I have been witnessing in this past week. Obama is going to have a full plate as he takes office, with countless causes and organizations asking him to take progressive action. Let us find ways to work together and demand that action with a unified, powerful voice, for the future of our own communities and with those struggling to resist U.S. policies around the world.
Posted by Vera Leone