Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements & Political Alternative

Author Roberto Regalado
Regalado analyses the issues underlying the conflict between Latin America and the US, and explores how the strengthening of popular movements.
Publisher: Ocean Press | ISBN no: 978 1 920888 71 8 | Year: 2006

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It’s rare to read a contemporary Cuban view on the profound changes rocking Latin America.

But Roberto Regalado’s latest book has not only been translated into English, it has found a publisher willing to break the US blockade and distribute the text in this country.

And a key reason why I enjoyed the book is precisely because it offers an insight into how the crushing string of electoral victories scored by the Left in Latin America is viewed by Cubans.

Regalado, who is section chief in the Department of International Relations of the Cuban Communist Party and a former diplomat in the U.S. and Nicaragua, begins with a surprisingly easy-to-read summary of imperialism’s economic development.

He goes onto review the political struggles within the Latin American left and discusses the social movements, social-democratic parties and the broad electoral fronts that have led to the elections of “left” candidates or parties across the continent.

Regalado believes the major dilemma faced by the U.S. is that neo-liberalism continually narrows popular support for the system, wipes out the middle class and leaves workers destitute.  As the neo-liberal model engineer’s ever fiercer opposition, the U.S. finds it necessary to intervene more directly in order to protect its interests, as in Haiti, Venezuela and Mexico.

“Left political alternatives,” concludes Regalado, “will have to include the struggle for revolution... (And) the use of some type of revolutionary violence will be inevitable, because those holding power in the world will cling to it to the very end.”