This section of the book “Open Veins of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano looks at the power games played by imperialists, especially the U.S.A and European countries, with regards to resources in Latin America. Vast amounts of mineral resources such as bauxite, copper, nitrates, manganese, guano, and many more in Latin America compounded by decreasing sources of minerals in the USA and Europe have made minerals a highly valuable commodity considering their numerous uses. For the United States particularly, the demand of these minerals largely for the advancement of their military capabilities have driven the country to a point where it will do almost anything to attain control of the minerals equating their availability and ownership to some form of power.
This section of the book shows how the United States and Britain have continuously interfered with politics and livelihoods in Latin America in efforts to maintain and increase their control of vital mineral resources in the mineral rich continent. The section offers the reader a glimpse into the dark side of politics and the fight for minerals and how it affects the everyday lives of the inhabitants of Latin America. The reader is able to see the real power plays and gets to know that the real power lies not in the elected governments of these Latin countries but the large multinational corporations in the US and Europe that control the mineral resources with the backing of their respective governments.
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Invisible sources of power can be taken to mean both the minerals in the soil that are actually a source of world power to they who control them and also the corporations that wield actual power and dictate how governments do their businesses from behind the curtains where the common citizen cannot see them. The section reveals a form of neo-colonialism where the masters are now the huge money-hungry corporations and the slaves are the mineral-rich, poor Latin America countries. The slaves are controlled by unfair economic practices where the rules are set by the corporations; political interference by the corporations where they use their money to bulldoze their way to their interests; and when push comes to shove, they are not afraid to sponsor rebellions, civil wars and coup-de-tats to ensure that their interests are safeguarded. The Latin American countries have been opened up and are being bled dry by these corporations hell-bent on using all the power they have to acquire more and maintain the status quo as is at the expense of the people in Latin America.
