Important political changes are taking place in Latin America. In Brazil, the front formed by a center-left coalition under the leadership of the Workers Party and the Communist Party of Brazil that stood behind a program of change, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva won the Presidency of the Republic of the largest country in the continent, arousing a strong feeling of hope in the 170 million Brazilians who - according to the phrase coined after the release of the results of the election in October 6 - overcame fear.

In Ecuador, where political and economic instability prevails - combined with a shocking deterioration of the people's living standards- ex-colonel Lúcio Gutiérrez, who also led a broad coalition of political and social forces, won the presidential election, leaving behind candidates representing oligarchies and imperialists. Gutiérrez is known for his participation in the Indian-popular rebellion in January 2000, an extensive and deep civic-military movement that brought down the government, giving room to a perspective of revolutionary change in the Andean country.

Brazil and Ecuador, each one with its own particularities, constitute eloquent signs of a strong trend that will certainly mark the political scenery in the continent for a long time. Such trend points to the growth of the struggles and the cry for deep changes in the state of affairs. It was manifested in a different way and by different routes in Argentina in the occasion of the thundering demise of the administration of Fernando de La Rua and in the appearance of a new social movement, a distinct and progressive trait amidst the open chaos and the ruined institutions; in the memorable Bolivian electoral campaign of Evo Morales, the convergence point of the national and popular will, particularly of the Indian peasantry, against the domination of the oligarchies and the country's dependency; in Venezuela, where the coup attempts, sabotage and direct interference of the United States still were not able to stop the changing impetus aroused in the population by the Bolivarian revolution; in Uruguay, where the Broad Front became the main political force of the country with great chance of also winning the government; in Paraguay, a country lacerated by successive crises with tragic endings, where the peasant movement, the urban struggles, the regrouping of the left-wing forces and the military all objectively join forces; in Peru, where true popular uproars were staged against the privatizations and where Toledo's populist administration has just suffered a severe defeat in the elections; and in Colombia, where the generalized attack perpetrated by Uribe's right-wing administration against the civil liberties with the pretext of fighting the guerillas make it even harder to find a fair and lasting solution to the conflict that worsened during more than four decades.

Add to all that the unified movement that is being built against the FTAA based on the same national consistence that repudiates the privatizations and the payment of debts to the expense of the famine of peoples. The two referendums held in Brazil - in 2000 regarding the foreign debt and in 2002 regarding the FTAA and the Alcântara Rocket Lauch Center -paradigmatically characterize that feeling.

It is certain that the trend of changes in Latin America needs time to take roots as it is also marked by the intermediary character of the most distinguished political forces. It is variegated in its tangible form and routes, its rhythm is uneven in different countries and its intensity still corresponds to a relation of forces conditioned by the defeat of socialism as a world system and by the exercise of hegemonism by the American superpower. But the developing phenomenon is revolutionary in its core.

Latin America undergoes the end of a cycle that coincides with the crisis of neoliberalism and an unfair and iniquitous international order that must perish in order to open the way to social progress. The dramatic degradation of the living standards of our peoples is and expression of that fact. According to ECLA, more than 210 million people live in poverty in the continent, of which 90 million are considered to be mendicants. Stagnation, dependency and foreign vulnerability constitute the main characteristic of the economic situation.

The arguments of the early 90's, reproducing the clauses of the Washington Consensus", are past. Demanding from Latin American countries and peoples more open markets and privatizations, permanent fiscal adjustments and the strict payment of foreign debt is throwing fuel to the fire. The limit of the bearable was reached and only non-economic measures, such as the incursion in an anti-democratic and interventionist drifting from the United States, could refrain the objective trends in course. That is clear in the Venezuelan crisis and in the behavior of the Colombian administration. And that is what is suggested in the veiled threats found in the declarations of Otto Reich regarding Brazil and Ecuador: "Lula and Gutiérrez may be leftists, but as long as they are democratic and ready to be friends with their neighbors and the United States, we can work with them to contribute to the liberty and safety of the hemisphere." These are threats that we must take into account and only the struggle of the masses can curb them.

The left-wing forces are trying to tune up with the new trends. The Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle against the FTAA that takes place this week in Havana and the 11th Meeting of the São Paulo Forum in Antigua, Guatemala, may be moments and environments suitable for thinking over the sense of the current changes and for improving the understanding of the processes of creating new political and economic alternatives to neoliberalism, now in crisis, and also for resistance against the hegemonic US policies, for gathering forces and for the formulation of contents and methods adequate to the demand of granting broadness and a mass character to the struggle for democracy, independence and social progress in Latin America.

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