Transnational Capitalism with a Brazilian Face?

To follow-up on the brief discussion of South-South relations yesterday, Reuters has a long report out this morning about Brazil’s entry into other parts of Africa – the report’s suggestion being that Brazil’s Africa development strategy could represent an alternative to a more exploitative Chinese model of resource extraction on the continent.

The argument for Brazilian difference is essentially two-fold:

First, whereas the Chinese have thus far preferred to import their own labor force to Africa (along with foreign capital), Brazil is making a concerted effort to create new employment opportunities for local populations while also promoting the transfer of technical skills.

Second, while the Chinese have largely extracted African resources for their own domestic consumption, Brazil’s focus has been on creating new markets. Adriana de Queiroz, Executive Coordinator at the Brazilian Center for International Relations, cites the role of Brazil’s state oil company in Africa as an example of this difference. Petrobras “is not going to Africa to bring back oil to Brazil,” she says, but rather is in Africa to “grow the company in other markets.”

(A third and less developed distinction between Brazil and China is the idea that the former’s investment is in some way culturally-distinct from the latter. According to one Brazilian diplomat: “Brazilians are well-received” in Africa. “We are a mixed country. We have cultures from lots of countries. We were a colony, so people see us as equals. They don't see us as a power that comes to colonize.”)

Left unexplored are at least two things. One is a question of scale. As Reuters notes, when compared to China (or even India), Brazil is still a marginal player in Africa. Chinese trade ($107 billion/year) is over five times that of Africa-Brazil trade ($20 billion/year). Chinese foreign direct investment in Africa has reached $13.5 billion (14 percent of total Chinese FDI) while Brazilian FDI in Africa between 2001 and 2008 added up to just $1.12 billion. Moreover, Brazil’s development banks, created with a focus on national development, continue to be more constrained than China’s in the area of international expansion.

Are Brazilian practices in Africa more a function of its limited investment capacity than a sign of distinct model of foreign capitalist development? What happens if Brazilian capacity for investment ever reaches Chinese levels?

Second is a question of whether or not Brazil’s desire to “form partnerships” and create “new markets” is really any less immune to social and political conflict than the Chinese model. Reuters notes that the Brazilian biofuels industry has become one of the principal industries with its eyes on Africa. It’s desire: “to secure a position as a global provider of ethanol.” But that project will require huge amounts of land, as international groups like Friends of the Earth have been quick to point out. Already there have been major protests after land acquisitions by foreign companies in Tanzania, Madagascar and Ghana. “Tensions” are rising in Sierra Leone as well, says Reuters.

Should the biofuel industry remain central to Brazil’s scramble across Africa, it’s hard to imagine how foreign capital with a Brazilian face will be any less susceptible to political struggle than any other form of capital, Chinese or otherwise.

To other stories:

· A new report from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission released Tuesday says at least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico from April to September 2010. The AP says 42 of the migrants kidnapped during that period were from Honduras, 16.2 percent from El Salvador, 11.2 percent from Guatemala, and 5 percent from Cuba. A similar study by the human rights commission between September 2008 and February 2009, revealed 9,758 had been kidnapped. And while the Mexican government recently pledged to improve its migration laws, a new immigration bill being discussed in the Mexican senate is already drawing criticism. That bill, says the AP, would “guarantee rights like education, health care and equal treatment for migrants,” but would also allow the federal police to detain undocumented migrants.

· The Wall Street Journal reports on a possible suspect in the shooting of a US ICE agent last week in San Luis Potosí. WSJ: “Jesús "El Mamito" Rejón, a former corporal in Mexico's elite forces who became a top leader in the violent Zeta cartel, is one of the people the U.S. believes may have been involved in the killing of [Jaime] Zapata last week.” Somewhat interestingly, Rejón has been fingered by his rivals, the Gulf Cartel, which issued a communiqué in the Brownsville Herald last week. The paper notes that Rejón was formerly the head Mexico’s federal police in Ciudad Miguel Aleman, a town in the state of Tamaulipas which was most recently in the news in November 2010 for having been a point of shelter for citizens fleeing Zeta violence in nearby Ciudad Mier.

· Meanwhile, in the US, The Hill reports that some lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee are “considering whether U.S. agents operating in Mexico should be allowed to carry weapons” in the wake of last week’s attack.

· AQ and AFP have wrap-ups of a deadly weekend in Acapulco while Reuters reports on President Felipe Calderon’s latest criticism of the US for what the president calls a lack of coordination among US intelligence agencies. Reuters: “In unusually critical remarks given strong U.S. support for Mexico's drug war, Calderon told El Universal newspaper on Tuesday the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the CIA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were constantly trying to outdo each other while evading responsibility. Calderon also slammed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual in the interview, saying the ambassador had shown “ignorance” about recent events in the country.

· In Venezuela, the AP says a three-week student hunger strike ended Tuesday after the Venezuelan government agreed to review the cases of over two-dozen Chavez opponents, who, anti-chavistas say, are being held as “political prisoners.” More on the specifics of the agreement reached, from El Universal.

· IPS reports on the “Haciendo la Paz en Colombia” forum organized by former senator Piedad Córdoba in Buenos Aires this week. Speaking to IPS, Córboda says “the most important thing” for Colombia today is the fact that the Santos government has shown a “hint of disposition…to achieve peace.” Argentine political scientist Atilio Borón, speaking about the role of the international community in the peace process, called the FARC’s unilateral release of hostages last week an “outstanding gesture” which the Santos government should respond to by sitting down with the FARC “as was done in Ireland, Guatemala or El Salvador.” There is also discussion about the possible role UNASUR might play in an eventual peace process, with Argentine human rights activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel challenging the regional body to “play a leading role in achieving peace in Colombia,” as it did when it rejected the creation of new U.S. military bases in Colombia.

· At the Huffington Post, the Latin America Working Group’s Lisa Haugaard on what Republican-proposed foreign aid budget cuts could mean for Latin America.

· New presidential poll numbers in Guatemala, from Borge and Associates: Otto Pérez Molina 42.9% Sandra Torres 11.1% Álvaro Arzú 6.7 %.

· The Guardian reports on major anti-mining demonstrations led by environmentalists, indigenous groups, and trade unionists in Panama. The protests follow recent mining law reforms which demonstrators say threaten indigenous land rights.

· On Latin America and Libya, the AP says Peru became the first Latin American nation to break ties with the Gadhafi government after violent crackdowns on protestors this week. Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega seems to be standing by the Libyan dictator. As Lucía Newman at Al-Jazeera reported yesterday – and the AP continues today, Hugo Chavez’s silence on the situation in Libya is perhaps most significant – and perhaps an implicit rejection of the terror Gadhafi has unleashed on his own people. For more on the Chavez-Gadhafi relationship, prior to this week, Wikileaks has some new documents of interest.

· And the Latin Americanist has a recap of some of the latest Wikileaks documents coming out in the latest dump of Latin America-related cables.