November 1, 1993 Chomsky: That's putting it rather mildly. When President Aristide was overthrown (September 1991) by a military coup after seven months in office, the US essentially did nothing. We have been sitting there and we're still sitting there while the state terrorists are carrying out a very definite and perfectly obvious plan. It is namely to demolish and destroy the popular organizations. Haiti had developed, to everyone’s amaze- ment, an extremely vibrant and lively civil society based on popular movements —labour movements, women’s groups and neighbour- hood organizations and so on, which came out of nowhere. And it achieved this astonishing victory | in the December 1990 elections which swept Aristide to power. And now the military and the ‘kleptocracy, which runs the place and whom we established and maintained in the first place, are now demolishing it. They are tearing it to shreds so that, if Aristide ever does get back, he will basically be without a base of popular support. The whole structure is designed so that if he gets back at all, which is not so obvious, and stays alive, which is maybe even less obvious, power will be back in the hands of what are called ‘moderate’ elements of the business community. As the press explains, they are opposed to Aristide’s populist reforms. But they’re moderate because they don’t think that you should just murder everybody in sight. Q: Despite getting in a sympathetic con- servative government in Nicaragua in 1990, why does it seem that the US. is still bent on undermining it? Chomsky: In 1979, the traditional murder- ers, torturers and oppressors were finally thrown out, including their USS. affiliates, those who owned property in Nicaragua and who had worked together with Somoza in imposing a brutal and violent tyranny over the population and then robbing them. So their property was confiscated without what the U.S. called ad- equate compensation. First, we spent a decade running a murder- ous, terrorist war against Nicaragua and the US was condemned by the World Court. That didn’t make any difference. It just continued right through Bush. Finally, the US sort of got its way and got in the government what it wanted. In the meanwhile, it managed to ruin the country. Nicaragua is virtually down to the level of Haiti with tens of thousands of kids starving in the streets. But the U.S. won't relent. A couple of months ago, the Senate passed a resolution saying it [will] cut off the little trickle of aid going to Nicaragua unless they prove that they were not involved in interna- tional terrorism. That really takes arrogance. We carried out the biggest terrorist war in history to destroy Nicaragua and now we demand that they prove to us that they are not involved in interna- The Other Press tional terrorism and that they let the FBI go in to ensure that that’s true. But last week (September 22), the Senate surpassed it and passed a bill by 94 to 4, saying that there would be absolutely no aid to Nicara- gua at all unless they returned confiscated Somoza properties. Q: Do you think the recently signed NAFTA side deals on environmental and labour issues will make much of a difference or will they lower social standards in all three countries ? Chomsky: I read the side deals. It’s essen- tially meaningless without going into the details. NAFTA is not a North American Free Trade Agreement. The only true thing in that phrase are the words “North American”. ‘It’s not free, it’s not about trade, and it’s surely not an agree- ment. In fact, take a look at the polls (against NAFTA) in the United States and Canada or popular demonstrations in Mexico and you'll find out how much [of] an agreement it is. It’s highly protectionist so it’s not free. It goes way beyond trade so it’s not trade. The reasons that American corporations like it, and probably their Canadian counterparts, is pre- cisely because of its protectionist features. The few real advocates of free trade oppose it be- cause it is so highly protectionist. The whole agreement is carefully designed and delicately crafted to protect the rights of investors and to disregard the rights of working people and the general population and of future generations — that’s what ‘environmental concerns’ are. They had hoped to ram it through in secret. It was basically crafted in secret. Nobody knew about it. But to their surprise, grassroots organiza- tions and others got concerned and began to make a fuss about it and the thing came in the public domain. There's a lot of opposition. In fact, most of the population is opposed, maybe for the wrong reasons. But opposition is enor- mous. Q: What about the media coverage on the opposition to NAFTA ? Is it too much focussed on Ross Perot ? That’s right. They pick up Ross Perot. That's the only opposition that’s tolerated and the reason is that his objections to it are absurd. So you can make fun of them. On the other hand, what about the objections that were presented by the Congressional Office of Tech- nology Assessment, Congress’ main analytical branch. They gave a detailed, careful analysis of why this particular version of NAFTA is radically incorrect and will drive all three countries down to what they call a low-wage, low-growth equilibrium with harmonization downward. And they offered quite constructive proposals for a revision that would not simply be geared to >e 7 investor rights and try to consider broader social concerns. The press won't cover that! Q: What is the US. role in the peace process in El Salvador and in next March’s elections there? Chomsky: The U.S. wants top-down forms of democratic control which will keep in power elite elements that will establish what we call market societies. We will impose the discipline of the market, which we don’t accept for our- selves of course. But we'll impose it on these countries so that they can be exporters of raw materials, they can provide cheap labour, they can be places to which you can export pollution. What we want is for them to keep that service role. If it can be done under a electoral facade, fine. If it can’t, we'll come in and force them and murder them as we’ve been doing for seventy years. Q: There have been some small signs of a lessening of hostility with Cuba. Does this mean a gradual rapprochement with Cuba or there will be continued hostility ? Chomsky: There are two things which have to be achieved [for the US]. First, Cuba has to be restored to its traditional status, namely an American plantation which it was until 1959. Secondly, the world has to be taught a lesson that anyone who stands up to the godfather gets smashed. Cuba was able to survive for years and that’s intolerable [to the US]. The Third World has to understand that our vision of the world is totalitarian. Everyone succumbs, nobody stands up and if you do, you'll suffer. So the Cubans are going to suffer. For about 30 years, the pretext was that we're opposed to Cuba because it’s a Soviet outpost. That was a total fraud from the beginning. In fact, the decision to overthrow the Cuban government was formally taken by the Eisenhower administration even when there were no Russians in sight and Castro was quite anti-communist. The Russians then disappeared from the scene [last year], eliminating the pretext. The US response was to tighten the stran- gulation of Cuba. Under pressure from candi- date Clinton in the election campaign, Bush signed a bill advanced by liberal Democrats — the Torricelli Bill — which tightened the em- bargo. There were huge protests in Europe and Latin America, but who cares? That’s the way things work. Q: Do you see any reason for optimism for popular movements in Latin America ? Chomsky: The only hope for popular movements in Latin America is exactly what it has always been. If they get sufficient support from within the United States which will im- pede the exercise of US power, then they'll have a chance to survive. Otherwise not.