The Monroe Doctrine against Bolivarianism

The Monroe Doctrine is nothing more than the supremacist, expansionist and mercantilist ideology of the United States, a doctrine that has guided its foreign policy since it was constituted as a Republic to the present day. The declaration with which they made it public was made on December 2, 1823 in the message of President Jame Monroe, before the US Congress with the phrase: America for Americans, since the independence of the Republic of Colombia the great was completed, the United States recognized it in 1822 and decided to influence its policies, its institutions, to appropriate its trade, and especially to stop the advance of Bolivar and its republican, democratic and egalitarian conceptions and unionists; it should be noted that the North American governments have always denied their support for our independence process.

The expression “America for Americans” was interpreted by some heroes of Latin American independence: Francisco de Paula Santander among them, as an act of protecting the nascent Republics, from the threats of the Holy Alliance, a union of European powers to support Spain in the rescue of its colonies; but nothing could be further from reality. Let's see a quote from the historian Ydelfonso Finol:

Our Confederation must be like the nest from which all of America, as well as North and South, will be populated. But let's be careful (...) to believe that it is in this great continent's interest in expelling the Spaniards. At the moment those countries are in the best hands, and I only fear that they will be too weak to hold them together until our population has grown large enough to be snatched up piece by piece” Thomas Jefferson in 1786, third president of the United States.

It is worth clarifying that the war of independence of the United States was supported by Spain and France, especially Spain with money, weapons and troops, let's remember that Francisco de Miranda fought in it as an officer in the Spanish army.

The United States has not made any commitment nor has it made any promise to the governments of Mexico or South America or to any of them, assuring them that the United States government will not allow a foreign power to attack the independence or form of government of those nations, nor has instructions been given approving such commitment or guarantee. Or Quincy Adams himself, in a communication to Minister Anduaga, accredited by Spain to Washington, wrote:

By the fact of “recognition”, it should not be understood that we must prevent Spain from doing everything in its power to re-establish the empire of its authority in the colonies.

The United States declared itself neutral in the face of our war of independence, but in practice it always favored Spain with deeds; let's remember the North American schooners Tigre and Libertad, captured in 1817 in the Orinoco carrying weapons and other provisions to the Spaniards and all the times it refused to recognize the independence of Venezuela and then of Colombia the great, and the refusal to sell weapons to Venezuelan patriots.

The Liberator's distrust of the intentions of the United States was clear early on and he made many warnings about it:

In 1820, in a letter to José Rafael Revenga quoted by Herrera Torres:

Never has behavior been more infamous than that of the North Americans towards us: they already see the fate of things decided and with protests and offers, who knows if false, they want to flatter us in order to intimidate the Spanish people and make them enter into their interests...

On December 23, 1822, referring to the dangers that surrounded America, he wrote in a letter to Santander: “... Then I find that at the head of his great continent is a very powerful nation that is very rich, very bellicose and capable of anything”.

But Santander, quoted by Herrera Torres, had become an ally of the United States and in his message to the Congress of 1824, he said of the Monroe doctrine:

Such a policy, comforting the human race, can make Colombia a powerful ally if its independence and freedom were threatened by allied powers.

Then, on January 2, 1825, when presenting to the Colombian Congress the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Navigation and Commerce that he signed with the United States on behalf of the Government, he said:

With the United States, we maintain the most cordial relations (...). Colombia will have the laudable pride of being the first State in former Spanish America to present itself to the united world through public treaties with the most favoured nation of the genius of freedom.”

And he urged Colombians to recognize themselves as “younger brothers and “worthy disciples” of the United States and to give “thanks to Providence for having found the place of our joy in the same American continent.”

U.S. Interference against the Bolivar Project.

The expansionist plans of the United States had a major obstacle, which was Bolívar and his radical republican thinking, his conception of popular democracy, in particular the abolition of slavery and the unity of the new Republics, formerly Spanish colonies, in a “defensive and offensive League”, so that the North American government did the unspeakable to hinder the realization of these ideas, for which it had the support of the Creole oligarchies, mostly landowners and patriotic leaders with a feudal mentality who aspired to their plot of power political and economic above the interests of the peoples freed from the Spanish yoke, who aspired to achieve freedom, equality, peace with social justice for which they had fought and shed their blood.

The North American consuls, appointed to Bogotá, Lima, Chile and Mexico together with the English consuls, became conspiracy agents against Bolivar, promoted all kinds of intrigue and discrediting campaigns against him: slander, the accusation of a tyrant, who wanted to become emperor and co-opting generals caused wars between the newly liberated Republics, confrontation between Colombians and Peruvians, New Granada and Venezuelans; Peru invaded southern Colombia (Ecuador) and Bolivia, they promoted the From the provinces from the south of New Granada (Pasto), traditionally reactionary, until they achieved the destabilization of the region, the failure of the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama and the separation of Colombia the great one.

The call for the Panamanian Amphictyonic Congress was made by the Liberator on December 7, 1824, two days before the battle of Ayacucho, and he did so in the following terms quoted by Herrera Torres:

After fifteen years of sacrifice dedicated to the freedom of America to obtain the system of guarantees that, in peace and in war, is the shield of our destiny, it is time for the interests and relations that unite the American republics, formerly a Spanish colony, to have a fundamental basis that eternalizes, if possible, the duration of these governments.

Santander conspires to invite the United States, since the instruction expressed so many times and in many ways was to invite them to form a league of nations among what were formerly Spanish colonies, united by origin, language, religion and customs.

Santander is aware of the instruction, but does not comply with it, mocks it and responds, quoted by Herrera Torres:

It seems to me that it is our mutual interest that the Assembly be verified on the Isthmus of Panama, with the participation of all or most of the American governments, both belligerent and neutral.

Bolivar insists:

Never forget the three warnings I have dared to give you: first, that we should not admit Rio de la Plata to the league, second, the United States of America, and third, not to liberate Havana.

The Liberator was very interested in the liberation of Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Now let's see the adventures of the Yankis, quoted by Herrera Torres:

On May 27, 1823, the Washington government addressed Richard C. Anderson, accredited as U.S. minister in Bogotá, as follows:

For some time, the floating and indigestible purposes of that Great American Confederation have fermented in the imagination of many theoretical statesmen.

A report by the American consul in Lima, William Tudor, to the U.S. State Department, on February 3, 1827, quoted by historian Francisco Pividal, conveys his concern for Bolivar's abolitionist ideas, since their success in colonies such as Cuba, due to their proximity to the United States, could influence the mass of slaves on plantations in the South of that nation.

The hope that Bolívar's projects are now effectively destroyed is one of the most comforting. This is not a reason to be congratulated with regard to South America, freed from military despotism and projects of insatiable ambition that would have consumed all its resources, but the United States is also relieved of a dangerous enemy in the future. If it had triumphed, I am convinced that we would have suffered from their animosity- (...) its main faith to redeem itself before the world's liberal party is based on hatred of slavery and its desire to abolish it. Read her incendiary diatribe against her in the introduction of her indescribable Constitution... complete today's Haiti and Cuba (...) judge yourself and ask yourself if the “madman” from Colombia could have bothered us! Oh, Lord, this is a matter whose dangers are not limited to fearing him!

The harassment of Bolívar also goes beyond his abolitionist ideas and the unity of the new Republics, they also attack the Liberation Army because “the soldiers and many officers have no small mixture of African blood” and the Bolivarian Republican institutionality. The Russian historian Anatoli Shulgovski shows us this hostility in the following quotes:

Secretary of State Henry Clay, addressed the Liberator in a special letter (27X-1828). In it, I expressed concern that the hopes of the United States regarding the establishment in South America, as a result of the war of independence, of “free” state institutions, similar to those of the United States, that would guarantee “all the benefits of civil liberty”” all of us - added Clay - are eagerly looking forward to the achievement of that objective.

Shugovski continues, “as one of the fundamental requirements to achieve it, Clay insistently “recommended” Bolivar to “disband the Liberation Army.”

The author also refers to Poinsett, a North American agent in Mexico as follows:

Poinsett appears with the intention of philosophically basing the American right to spiritual and political leadership in the Western Hemisphere. He asserted that, possessing effective and almost perfect state institutions, the United States had the right to persuade Latin Americans to walk along the path of their northern neighbors, rejecting the pernicious influence of the “Spanish heritage” - in particular the Catholic religion - heritage that prevented the entry of young Latin American states into the world of progress and civilization.

He also tells us that for Poinsett one of the conditions for this to happen was that they “become buyers of North American goods”.

The United States criticized Bolívar's vision of a strong, centralized and parental state that he proposed in the Congress of Angostura, while criticizing the American Federal System, copied in the first Constitution of Venezuela, that of 1811, on the grounds that it did not apply to our reality. Bolívar proposed a centralized state to face the war and carry out the social reforms required by a colonial society and the achievement of the objectives of the independence revolution, “the supreme happiness of the people”. The commercial interest of the United States and England clashed with Bolivar's nationalist policies.

The North American criticism of the Spanish cultural heritage was a way of denying the appropriateness of the Bolivarian Republican Institutionality, which gave priority to general interests over individuals integrated into an organic whole, very different from the American one, which prioritized and prioritized private interest over the general interest and where attention to popular needs does not get space, while Bolívar took care of demanding from the Congresses the abolition of slavery and issued decrees for the education of the Indians and the blacks as well as from the distribution of land.

The Monroe Doctrine is deployed in America

The Americans celebrated the defeat of the Liberator's projects for continental unity and after his death and the separation of what was the original Colombia, they began their expansionist advance, namely:

1.-In the territory of the former colonies, among the first cases are the dispossession of half of Mexico's territory, the annexation of Cuba, the separation of Panama from Colombia, the invasions of Nicaragua, while England was advancing on the Malvinas in Argentina and on Guiana Essequiba in Venezuela. England and the United States have always been together and rely on their hegemonic plans. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the overthrow of Cipriano Castro, during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, they appropriated Venezuelan oil through another form of colonization, which they exploited for almost one hundred years in a disadvantageous relationship for the nation; overthrowing the governments that opposed him, including that of Hugo Chávez in 2002, restored to the presidency by the glorious reaction of the Venezuelan people in civic-military unity.

2.- The creation of the Organization of American States, (OAS) an organization of pan-American continental unity, that is, the unity of Latin American nations with the United States and Canada, a concept denied by our Liberator, and which Fidel Castro called: Ministry of the Colonies of the United States.

3.- They launched a cultural offensive against our peoples, imposing their values and customs to facilitate territorial advances and their influence on Latin American governments to obtain commercial advantages in a neocolonial relationship.

However, the Latin American peoples have not stopped fighting for almost two centuries, making progress in the recovery of occupied territories and in the defense of the sovereignty, freedom, popular democracy and independence of their nations, such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, the latter, with the Bolivarian Revolution, overcoming the siege to which it was subjected since the triumph of Commander Chávez, and which led to his death; likewise, Bolivia and Honduras defeated the coups against progressive governments, Mexico and Colombia with processes very interesting politicians. With less success, but still in battle today: Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Guatemala.

In the same vein of ideas, an institutionality of Bolivarian continental unity has been created without the United States or Canada: CELAC, UNASUR, ALBA and PETROCARIBE. These organizations emerged in the decade of progressivism in Latin America at the beginning of the 21st century, with the arrival of Chávez to the presidency of Venezuela. The counterattack by the United States was not long in coming, meaning attacks by the international right on these institutions, but they are currently recovering while the OAS and the United States are in decline.

Today, as in times of our independence, we need the unity of Latin Americans to overcome empires and their lackeys, considering as the Liberator said that: “God rewards perseverance”

Bibliography:

Finol Ydelfonso, Simón Bolívar: Ideology and Method of the Emancipation of Our America, Simon Bolivar Study Center, Bolivar XXI Caracas Collection, 2022.

Herrera Torres Juvenal, Bolivar, The Man of America, Volume II, Covivencias editions, Medellín, 2001.

Pividal Francisco, Bolivar, Precursor Thought of Anti-Imperialism, Editorial Ateneo de Caracas, 1983.

Shulgovski Anatoli, Bolivarism and Monroism, selection by Juvenal Herrera Torres, Bolivar Quijote de América, Editorial the Dog and the Frog, Caracas, 2006