South America

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Thu May 26, 2022 2:11 pm

CARICOM Urges Summit of the Americas to Be Inclusive

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The Twenty-Fifth Meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) of the Community of Caribbean States called for an inclusive Summit of the Americas. | Photo: Twitter @CARICOMorg

Published 26 May 2022

The organization rejected the unilateral decision of the United States to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the Summit.

The Community of Caribbean States (CARICOM) reiterated on Wednesday its request that the XI Summit of the Americas should be an inclusive meeting that brings together all the countries of the region, an event to be held from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles, United States.

Following a meeting of the Council on Foreign and Community Relations, the organization stressed its position condemning the selective exclusion of countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the IX Summit of the Americas by the United States.

During the Summit, the Community would push for the discussion of several priority issues in order to promote a sustainable recovery, in accordance with the central theme of the event Building a Sustainable, Resilient and Equitable Future.

"As a representative of Trinidad and Tobago I will be attending the summit and I hope that, if not all, most of my CARICOM colleagues will be there, we have important issues to engage the United States on," said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley.

#CARICOM condemned the blockade imposed by the United States on #Cuba and the selective exclusion of countries from the 9th Summit of the Americas. https://t.co/sQBKurTA99

— CUBAONU (@CUBAONU) May 25, 2022


CARICOM Foreign Ministers requested that IX #CumbreDeLasAméricas be inclusive, ensuring the participation of all countries in the hemisphere and reiterated CARICOM's support for the termination of the US economic, financial and commercial blockade against #Cuba
The arbitrary exclusion of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua was communicated in advance by the U.S. State Department.

Accordingly, this unilateral decision generated speeches in protest to the measure by governments and political leaders, such as the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce, who refused to participate in the event in view of the exclusion of nations from the hemisphere.

It is worth mentioning that this will be the first time that the U.S. organizes the Summit of the Americas, since the initial session in 1994, which was held in Miami.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/CAR ... -0005.html

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President of Cuba affirms that in no case will he attend the Summit of the Americas in the US.

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"In the conditions in which all these processes have taken place (...) I can assure you that I will not attend the Summit, in any case," said Díaz-Canel. | Photo: @DiazCanelB

Published May 26, 2022 (6 hours 42 minutes ago)

He argued that the intention of the government of US President Joe Biden was to exclude several countries, including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, denounced that the United States (USA) from the beginning conceived the IX Summit of the Americas, to be held next June, with a non-inclusive character and assured that in no case will he attend the conclave.

"We all know that the Government of the United States conceived, from the beginning, this Summit of the Americas in a non-inclusive manner," said the Cuban head of state in the framework of the Council of Ministers held this Wednesday, statements that he later summarized in his twitter account.

He argued that the intention of the government of US President Joe Biden was to exclude several countries, including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, this "despite the strong regional demand that the exclusions end."


After learning that the US will not invite these three nations to the summit to be held in the US city of Los Angeles from June 6 to 10, several countries, including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and the Caribbean Community ( Caribbean) demanded the inclusion of the three excluded States.

"In the conditions in which all these processes related to the Summit have taken place and due to the attitude maintained by the Government of the United States, I can assure you that I will not attend, in any case, the Summit of the Americas," he said. Diaz-Canel.

However, the Caribbean leader said he was aware and convinced, as always, that "Cuba's voice will be heard at the IX Summit of the Americas."

The president also stressed that the US has carried out "intense efforts" and has exerted "brutal pressure to demobilize the just and firm demands of most of the countries in the region that the Summit should be inclusive."

In this context, Díaz-Canel thanked "the brave and dignified position of the countries that have raised their voice against exclusions at the Summit of the Americas" and said he shared the regional position that everyone must be invited on an equal footing.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/cuba-pdt ... -0001.html

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President of Peru Yet to Make Announcement About Attending Summit of the Americas

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President of Peru, Pedro Castillo. File Photo.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry of Peru announced that the country will be represented at the Summit of the Americas, scheduled for June 8–10 in Los Angeles, California, USA; however, it did not specify whether President Pedro Castillo will participate or not.

“In this vein,” continues the statement from the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, “Peru expresses its aspiration that all countries of the region will participate in the Summit to make possible an open and inclusive dialogue to overcome differences.”

Peru thus joins the countries of the region that disagree with Washington’s unilateral decision to exclude from the Summit of the Americas Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries towards which the US maintains a policy of political and economic hostility.

Professor Ramiro Escobar, a Peruvian expert in international relations, commented that the exclusion of these three countries from the summit makes no sense.

On May 19, the Ambassador of Cuba to Peru, Carlos Rafael Zamora, said at a ceremony hosted in homage to Cuban national hero José Martí, that the region’s general condemnation of US attitude is an example of Martí’s pro-Latin American legacy.

Besides widespread criticism of the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas, the presidents of Bolivia, Mexico and Honduras have announced that they will not attend the summit in Los Angeles if the discrimination persists. Countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have also announced a boycott of the summit. Even the presidents of US allies Brazil and Guatemala have indicated that they may not attend the summit.

https://orinocotribune.com/president-of ... -americas/

President Maduro: Venezuelan Voice will be Present in the Summit of the Americas

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President Nicolas Maduro (center) with part of his cabinet during the closing of the colloquium on the Pichincha Battle bicentennial. Photo: Presidential Press.

On Tuesday, May 24, during the closing ceremony of the colloquium on the Battle of Pichincha bicentennial, the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, rejected the discriminatory nature and exclusion of the United States, whose government decided not to invite Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to the Summit of the Americas scheduled for June in Los Angeles.

“The Summit of the Americas is the summit of the protest against anti-imperialist exclusion. They try to exclude us because they are afraid of the voice of the Bolivarians, they do not want the voice of Bolívar and Chávez to reach them,” he denounced at the closing of the colloquium at the Municipal Theater of Caracas.

He asserted that it is an “unjust, totally unjustified, and discriminatory exclusion” in which the imperialist discriminatory role is imposed “against the peoples who fight for our ideas.”

He indicated that there has been great protest by more than 25 governments in Latin America and the Caribbean over Washington’s attempt to exclude the three leftist countries.

At this point, whatever they do in Washington, the voice of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, will reach Los Angeles in the great protests of Los Angeles. Our voice will be present at the summit, regardless of what the US government says,” he assured.

Maduro thanked the prime ministers of the Caribbean islands and their counterparts Luis Arce (Bolivia), Alberto Fernández (Argentina) and “in a very special way” Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico) for “their courage, solidarity and support” for the inclusion of Venezuela in the Summit.

“Imperialist gentlemen: they have not been able and will never be able to defeat us. They have not been able to exclude us. There will be surprises. I am buying my ticket. I’m going to walk to a big march in Los Angeles,” he said.

After reflecting on the union that must prevail in the region and the role played by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Maduro affirmed that the path must be one of “union, diversity, democracy, the right of all peoples to demonstrate their own opinions.”

In turn, he indicated that the project of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was hit by the right, but – he said – sooner rather than later it will be resumed and “will re-emerge like the phoenix.”

https://orinocotribune.com/president-ma ... -americas/
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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Fri May 27, 2022 2:35 pm

ALBA-TCP Summit to Take Place in Cuba on Friday
May 26, 2022

The 11th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) will take place this Friday in Havana, according to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs web page.

At the forum, the nations that make up the alliance “will share common development strategies and analyze the regional political situation,” the announcement said.

The meeting will be attended by leaders of Latin American and Caribbean countries that are members of the group, founded in 2004 at the initiative of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, then presidents of Cuba and Venezuela, as a response to the neoliberal project that Washington intended to impose on the continent.

In addition to Cuba and Venezuela, the partnership also includes Nicaragua, Bolivia, Suriname, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia.

ALBA-TCP emphasizes the fight against social exclusion through mechanisms of solidarity, collaboration, and mutual respect.

ALBA has many significant projects that it initiated in that spirit, including the almost five million people who gained literacy through ALBA-TCP programs, and more than 3.6 million people who recovered their sight through the Miracle Mission.

Medical cooperation among the nations in the ALBA members stands out, particularly in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic, with the dispatch of medical brigades, vaccines and medical supplies.

The summit in Havana will take place just days before the 9th Summit of the Americas begins in Los Angeles, California, whose host, the United States government, excluded Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

This unilateral decision was rejected by governments of the hemisphere, which demanded that the Summit of the Americas be inclusive of all the countries of the Americas.

Some leaders, such as the presidents of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Bolivia, Luis Arce, announced that they will be absent from the Californian meeting if the exclusion of third nations is confirmed.

The significance of ALBA-type formations during this period is increased, as the US continues to try to order the countries into line using bribes and threats, as.it has done for decades.

https://orinocotribune.com/alba-tcp-sum ... on-friday/

The People’s Summit for Democracy Offers a Progressive Vision to Counter US Dominance in the Region
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 26, 2022
Sheila Xiao, Manolo De Los Santos


Parallel to the exclusionary Summit of the Americas organized by the Biden Administration, people’s movements and organizations have organized the People’s Summit for Democracy to uplift diverse voices from across the region and engage in necessary dialogue

In a recent interview, Brian Nichols, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, was asked the question that is on everyone’s mind ahead of the June 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California: Will three particular countries in Latin America (Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) be invited? Nichols responded with neither hesitation nor equivocation that the answer was no. Speaking on behalf of President Joe Biden, he further added that countries whose “actions do not respect democracy”—as the US government views these three countries and others like them—“will not receive invitations.” Nichols’ seemingly offhand comment, said with the usual arrogance of US officials and calling the three countries “regime[s that] do not respect [democracy],” sent a shockwave through the region that the US was likely not expecting.

Throughout Latin America, the reaction was immediate. Leaders such as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Bolivian President Luis Arce, and Honduran President Xiomara Castro, as well as several heads of state from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) including Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne and Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley, all expressed that they would not participate in the summit if the exclusions of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were maintained. CARICOM has called for a summit that ensures “the participation of all countries of the hemisphere.”

Biden’s insistence on continuing the US policy of exclusion and aggression against Latin America has made his summit a failure before it has even begun. Mired in controversy and criticism, the Biden administration has not been able to build consensus around any common agenda because of the double standards it creates.

While the US may have already moved on, the memories of recent coups and interventionist plots by the US government in the region are still fresh. The US and the Organization of American States (OAS) both helped engineer a coup in Bolivia in 2019 that overthrew a democratically elected government.

There is no Americas without Cuba

The summit since its inception has been met with skepticism by progressives across Latin America due to the outsized or, more accurately, domineering role played by the US and the OAS with regard to invitations, agenda, and vision. However, this year the US seems to have underestimated the important political shifts in the region and their impact on the political legitimacy of the US

The US does not seem to have anticipated any challenges to its leadership of the summit, but the pushback against US hegemony comes as no surprise to most Latin Americans and those around the world who have been following the region’s politics of late. Since the last summit in 2018, the political map has undergone radical transformations. Not only are progressive governments outnumbering reactionary ones across the region, but many of them emerged precisely out of a deep rejection of US-backed governments and policies, and the conditions that they create for the people.

Across the region, countries whose public sectors were undermined for decades by US- and IMF-imposed neoliberal policies saw their societies and economies devastated during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the extreme poverty rate in the region rose from 13.1 percent in 2020 to 13.8 percent in 2021, representing a setback of 27 years. At more than 2.7 million deaths from COVID-19, the Americas represent 43.6 percent of global COVID-19 deaths despite constituting only 12 percent of the world population.

The outliers in this general trend of economic crisis and humanitarian emergency were Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which suffered some of the lowest rates of deaths from COVID-19 in the region and the world due to their comprehensive strategies of, above all else, putting the health and well-being of their citizens before profits.

This policy extended beyond their national borders. From as early as March 2020, Cuba was already sending medical brigades to countries across the region and the world to support their responses to COVID-19. With Cuba’s development of five vaccines against COVID-19, the country has worked closely with other global south countries to distribute vaccine science and technology to promote localized production and distribution; meanwhile, US pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies like Pfizer and Moderna were turning record profits. At the height of the pandemic in Brazil, Venezuela sent oxygen to the city of Manaus, which had run out of the vital supply despite pleading for federal aid from the Brazilian government under President Jair Bolsonaro.

It has become glaringly clear that countries in the region have everything to gain from maintaining cooperation and partnerships with the countries the US declares to be its enemies.

Democracy for whom?

The US excuses its aggressive policy against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua by citing these countries’ alleged human rights violations and the so-called threats that these countries pose to democracy.

However, many have started to question what kind of democracy exists in a country where 1 million people have died from COVID-19, 2.2 million people are in prison (accounting for more than 20 percent of the world prison population), where police kill an average of three people a day (with Black people being 2.9 times more likely to be killed by police than white people), and where $801 billion is spent on the military (the US makes up 38 percent of global military spending).

The majority of people in the Americas have rejected this hypocritical moral high ground and the premise that the US has the right to decide who participates in what forum and with whom. This is why a coalition of more than 100 organizations from across the region have come together to organize the People’s Summit for Democracy to counter the improperly named “Summit of the Americas.”

The People’s Summit carries forward the legacy of movements against neoliberal capitalism and US imperialism that have organized counter-summits every time the US organizes its Summit of the Americas. The People’s Summit will be held in Los Angeles, California, on June 8-10, and seeks to bring together the voices of people whom the US would prefer to silence and exclude. Immigrant organizers in Los Angeles will take the stage with landless rural workers from Brazil to discuss their visions of democracy for all. Feminist organizers from Argentina to New York will share strategies of how to fight for abortion access and counter the reactionary right-wing attacks on women and LGBTQ people.

These unprecedented times call for more cooperation and less exclusion. While unfortunately the US government also denied the visas of a 23-person delegation of Cuban civil society to the People’s Summit, the bonds between the Cuban people and the people of the Americas are unbreakable, and despite their best efforts, the US cannot silence the aspirations of the people.

For the Americas, which are on the cusp of transformative times, the age of the Monroe Doctrine is over.

Sheila Xiao is a researcher and community organizer. She is chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the ANSWER Coalition and the co-founder of the peace organization Pivot to Peace. She is a co-coordinator of the People’s Summit for Democracy.

Manolo De Los Santos is the co-executive director of the People’s Forum and is a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He co-edited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2020) and Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2021). He is a co-coordinator of the People’s Summit for Democracy.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/05/ ... he-region/

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And Then There Was No More Empire All of a Sudden: The Twenty-First Newsletter (2022)

MAY 26, 2022
Español Italian

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Bisa Butler (USA), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 2019.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Empire denies its own existence. It does not exist as an empire but only as benevolence, with its mission to spread human rights and sustainable development across the world. However, that perspective means nothing in Havana nor in Caracas, where ‘human rights’ has come to mean regime change, and where ‘sustainable development’ has come to mean the throttling of their people through sanctions and blockades. It is from the standpoint of the victims of empire that clarity comes.

US President Joe Biden is to host the Summit of the Americas in June, where he hopes to deepen Washington’s hegemony over the Americas. The United States government understands that its project of hegemony faces an existential crisis caused by the weaknesses of the US political system and the US economy, with limited funds available for investment within its own country, let alone for the rest of the world. At the same time, US hegemony faces a serious challenge from China, whose Belt and Road Initiative has been seen in large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund’s austerity agenda. Rather than work alongside Chinese investments, the US is eager to use any means to prevent China from engaging with countries in the Americas. Along this axis, the US has revitalised the Monroe Doctrine. This policy, which will be two centuries old next year, claims that the Americas are the dominion of the United States, its ‘sphere of influence’, and its ‘backyard’ (although Biden has tried to be cute by calling the region the US’s ‘front yard’).

Along with the International Peoples’ Assembly, we have developed a red alert on two instruments of US power – the Organisation of American States and the Summit of the Americas – as well as the challenge that the US faces as it tries to impose its hegemony in the region. The red alert is featured below and is available here as a PDF. Please read it, discuss it, and share it.

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What is the Organisation of American States?

The Organisation of American States (OAS) was formed in Bogotá, Colombia in 1948 by the United States and its allies. Though the OAS Charter invokes the rhetoric of multilateralism and cooperation, the organisation has been used as a tool to fight against communism in the hemisphere and to impose a US agenda on the countries of the Americas. Roughly half of the funds for the OAS and 80 percent of the funds for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an autonomous organ of the OAS, come from the US. It is worth noting that – despite providing the majority of its budget – the US has not ratified any of the IACHR’s treaties.

The OAS showed its true colours after the Cuban Revolution (1959). In 1962, at a meeting in Punta del Este (Uruguay), Cuba – a founding member of the OAS – was expelled from the organisation. The declaration from the meeting stated that ‘the principles of communism are incompatible with the principles of the inter-American system’. In response, Fidel Castro called the OAS the ‘US Ministry of Colonies’.

The OAS set up the Special Consultative Committee on Security Against the Subversive Action of International Communism in 1962, with the purpose of allowing the elites in the Americas – led by the US – to use every means possible against popular movements of the working class and peasantry. The OAS has afforded diplomatic and political cover to the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as it has participated in the overthrow of governments that attempt to exercise their legitimate sovereignty – sovereignty that the OAS Charter purports to guarantee. This exercise has gone all the way from the OAS’s expulsion of Cuba in 1962 to the orchestration of coups in Honduras (2009) and Bolivia (2019) to the repeated attempts to overthrow the governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela and ongoing interference in Haiti.

Since 1962, the OAS has openly acted alongside the US government to sanction countries without a United Nations Security Council resolution, which makes these sanctions illegal. It has, therefore, regularly violated the ‘principle of non-interference’ in its own charter, which prohibits ‘armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements’ (chapter 1, article 2, section b and chapter IV, article 19).

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Diego Rivera (Mexico), Liberación del Peón (‘Liberation of the peon’), 1931.

What is the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)?

Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chávez, initiated a process in the early 2000s to build new regional institutions outside of US control. Three major platforms were built in this period: 1) the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in 2004; 2) the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in 2004; and 3) the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2010. These platforms established inter-governmental connections across the Americas, including summits on matters of regional importance and technical institutions to enhance trade and cultural interactions across borders. Each of these platforms have faced threats from the United States. As governments in the region oscillate politically, their commitment to these platforms has either increased (the more left they have been) or decreased (the more subordinate they have been to the United States).

At the 6th Summit of CELAC in Mexico City in 2021, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested that the OAS be disbanded and that CELAC help to build a multilateral organisation at the scale of the European Union to resolve regional conflicts, build trade partnerships, and promote the unity of the Americas.

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Tessa Mars (Haiti), Untitled, Praying for the visa series, 2019.

What is the Summit of the Americas?

With the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the United States attempted to dominate the world by using its military power to discipline any state that did not accept its hegemony (as in Panama, 1989 and Iraq, 1991) and by institutionalising its economic power through the World Trade Organisation, set up in 1994. The US called the OAS member states to Miami for the first Summit of the Americas in 1994, which was subsequently handed over to the OAS to manage. The summit has convened every few years since to ‘discuss common policy issues, affirm shared values and commit to concerted actions at the national and regional level’.

Despite its stronghold over the OAS, the US has never been able fully to impose its agenda at these summits. At the third summit in Quebec City (2001) and the fourth summit in Mar del Plata (2005), popular movements held large counter-protests; at Mar del Plata, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez led a massive demonstration, which resulted in the collapse of the US-imposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement. The fifth and sixth summits at Port of Spain (2009) and Cartagena (2012) became a battlefield for the debate over the US blockade on Cuba and its expulsion from the OAS. Due to immense pressure from the member states of the OAS, Cuba was invited to the seventh and eighth summits in Panama City (2015) and Lima (2018), against the wishes of the United States.

However, the United States has not invited Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela to the upcoming ninth summit to be held in Los Angeles in June 2022. Several countries – including Bolivia and Mexico – have said that they will not attend the meeting unless all thirty-five countries in the Americas are in attendance. From 8–10 June, a range of progressive organisations will hold a People’s Summit to counter the OAS summit and to amplify the voices of all the peoples of the Americas.

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Rufino Tamayo (Mexico), Animals, 1941.

In 2010, the poet Derek Walcott (1930–2017) published ‘The Lost Empire’, a celebration of the Caribbean and of his own island, Saint Lucia, in particular as British imperialism retreated. Walcott grew up with the economic and cultural suffocation imposed by colonialism, the ugliness of being made to feel inferior, and the wretchedness of the poverty that came alongside it. Years later, reflecting on the jubilation of the retreat of British rule, Walcott wrote:

And then there was no more Empire all of a sudden.
Its victories were air, its dominions dirt:
Burma, Canada, Egypt, Africa, India, the Sudan.
The map that had seeped its stain on a schoolboy’s shirt
like red ink on a blotter, battles, long sieges.
Dhows and feluccas, hill stations, outposts, flags
fluttering down in the dusk, their golden aegis
went out with the sun, the last gleam on a great crag,
With tiger-eyed turbaned Sikhs, pennons of the Raj
to a sobbing bugle.


The sun is setting on imperialism as we emerge slowly and delicately into a world that seeks meaningful equality rather than subordination. ‘This small place’, Walcott writes of Saint Lucia, ‘produces nothing but beauty’. That would be true of the entire world if we could get beyond our long, modern history of battles and sieges, warships, and nuclear weapons.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... -americas/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Sat May 28, 2022 2:19 pm

ALBA-TCP Denounces Exclusion at Washington’s Summit of the Americas
MAY 28, 2022

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Heads of State and ministers of member countries of the ALBA-TCP in Havana, Cuba, for the 11th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the bloc. Photo: Twitter/@ALBATCP

The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro defined as “erratic” the Summit of the Americas organized under the hegemony of the United States government, which has unilaterally announced that it will not invite ALBA-TCP member countries Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Maduro made this comment on Friday, May 27, during his participation at the 11th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the ALBA-TCP, held in Havana, Cuba.

In this vein, President Maduro compared the US-imposed imperialist dynamics with the vision of cooperation among equals and the concepts of unity and equality that ALBA-TCP and other progressive integration blocks cultivate.

“We call it erratic because it is intended to exclude the peoples of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from that meeting in Los Angeles,” said President Maduro. On the other hand, he expressed that ALBA can show multilateral organizations concrete results of its working agenda since its foundation in 2004.

“We can show a unionist, Bolivarian, Latin American, Caribbean doctrine of countries, governments and peoples, that we unite among equals and we see each other face to face, with affection and with love,” he emphasized. “Where no one considers themselves the hegemon, the dominant, the one who excludes.”

Protest against exclusion
In the face of Washington’s exclusivist agenda for the upcoming Summit of the Americas, President Maduro highlighted how the voices of CARICOM emerged in a united and forceful manner in rejection of the exclusion.

He also recognized “in a very special manner” the position of the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has raised his voice in defense of the rights of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, “in defense of truth, union, brotherhood, and democratic debate.”

He also thanked the President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, and her Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce, as well as all those leaders who have been clear in condemning the exclusion of the peoples of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

“We have seen in the course of these years the expansion of the concepts of unity, equality, fraternity, the Latin American-Caribbean doctrine here in the 21st century,” he added. “We have seen as well as the birth and consolidation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) which is our community, our space.”

The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, host of the ALBA-TCP meeting, stated that at the 9th Summit of the Americas “the US is trying to adopt interventionist concepts, without taking into account the criteria of all, and excluding countries that have much to contribute to the announced central themes of that event.”



Featured image: Heads of State and ministers of member countries of the ALBA-TCP in Havana, Cuba, for the 11th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the bloc. Photo: Twitter/@ALBATCP

(RedRadioVE) by José Manuel Blanco Díaz

https://orinocotribune.com/alba-tcp-den ... -americas/

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ALBA: Regional Integration Is an Imperative - Cuban President

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Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas-People's Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) meet in Havana, Cuba, to take part in the XXI ALBA-TCP Summit. May. 27, 2022. | Photo: Telesur

Published 27 May 2022 (13 hours 42 minutes ago)


"Fragmented, each of our representatives could be ignored, but united, no one will be able to silence us," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said at the opening of the XXI Summit of Heads of State and Government of ALBA-TCP.

The XXI Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) opened today in Havana, Cuba. This summit provides member nations of the Alliance with an opportunity to share common development strategies and analyze the regional political situation.

"Now, as never before, it is imperative to unite wills to build consensus and make progress in regional integration and political coordination," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel told the heads of state, government and representatives of the ALBA-TCP member countries.

Stressing the importance of achieving a Latin America with an independent voice that coordinates its development strategies and the defense of sovereignty, the Cuban president said that "fragmented, they could ignore each one of our representatives, but united, no one will be able to silence us."

In relation to the great challenge posed to the entire world by the Covid-19 pandemic, Díaz-Canel recognized the achievement of Cuban biotechnology with the production of anti-COVID-19 vaccines. The president ratified Cuba's willingness to put its scientific capabilities and achievements at the service of the member countries of the Alliance.


Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez stated this Friday in Havana, during the XXI Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our ALBA-TCP, that the Government of the United States does not have the moral or political authority to exclude any country from the Summit of the Americas.

In his speech, Díaz-Canel also condemned the U.S. decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the upcoming IX Summit of the Americas. While professing to promote democracy, Washington cannot guarantee a plural space. "They pretend to be interested in a constructive relationship with our region, but they do not respect differences," the Cuban leader said.

"The practice of excluding is not new and confirms the interest of the U.S. to control the Inter-American system in order to use it for hegemonic objectives and impose the power to control democracy. Neither politically nor morally do they have that right," he said.

The president acknowledged the strong opposition of several Latin American and Caribbean governments to an exclusive summit. "Our America has changed; exclusions are no longer possible." The Cuban president added that the decision not to invite everyone is a historical setback, and all countries must be "invited on equal terms," the Cuban president added.



ALBA-TCP, founded in 2004 by the late Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, is a regional organization focused on the fight against poverty and social exclusion based on solidarity and cooperation among its members. Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis make up the integration alliance.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/ALB ... -0020.html

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ALBA-TCP Summit of the Americas Declaration
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 27, 2022
Kawsachun News

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ALBA-TCP Heads of State and Government meet in Havana. May 27, 2022. Photo: Presidencia de Cuba

Cuba has once again hosted the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that make up the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) for their 21st Summit.

The main objectives of Friday’s meeting, held at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, was to share common development strategies and analyze the regional political situation.

ALBA-TCP is currently made up of 10 countries, following the reincorporation of Saint Lucia in the last edition of these summits, also held in Havana: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia.

The XXI ALBA-TCP Summit takes place days before the IX Summit of the Americas, to be held, amid uncertainties, in Los Angeles, California, after the United States all but announced that it would not invite Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela to the meeting. Several countries of the continent have condemned the exclusion of countries from the region.

Below is the text of the declaration from the Summit denouncing discrimination the the U.S. and OAS.

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Declaration of the 21st Summit of Heads of State and Government of ALBA-TCP

“ALBA-TCP REJECTS EXCLUSIONS AND THE DISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT IN THE SO-CALLED SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS IN LOS ANGELES”

The Heads of State and Government and the Heads of Delegations of the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), gathered in Havana, Cuba, on May 27, 2022, at its 21st Summit:

1.Ratify their commitment to strengthen ALBA-TCP as an instrument of union of our peoples, based on the principles of solidarity, social justice, cooperation and economic complementarity; with the genuine regional integration led by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC); and with the postulates of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

2.Support the demands of the countries of Our America to materialize a change in the hemispheric relations, based on the Charter of the United Nations and the International Law, including the principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in the internal affairs, non-use or threat of use of force, peaceful settlement of disputes and self-determination of peoples.

3.Reaffirm their support to multilateralism, as the main instrument to address multifaceted and complex global challenges through collective action.

4.Denounce the pretensions of imperialist domination over the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean to maintain the region divided according to their hegemonic interests.

5.Reject the arbitrary, ideological and politically motivated exclusion of several of our countries from the so-called Summit of the Americas, to be held in June in Los Angeles, United States. Such unilateral decision constitutes a serious historic regression in the hemispheric relations and an outrage to the Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

6.Support the right of all countries of the continent to be invited and to participate in said event on an equal footing and underscore that the host country of the meeting of Los Angeles has no right to impose exclusions or conditions in violation of their sovereignty and independence.

7.Denounce the discriminatory treatment by the Unites States as the host country of the so-called Summit of the Americas against numerous representatives of the genuine civil society of our continent.

8.Emphasize that this kind of exclusionary meeting, does not contribute to the solution of any of the urgent integration challenges or the global and regional threats.

9.Support and thank the courageous and dignified standing adopted by governments, social actors, organizations and the brotherly peoples of our continent, which have rejected, overwhelmingly and in different ways, the exclusions from the meeting of Los Angeles.

10.Reject the imposition of coercive unilateral measures against Venezuela and Nicaragua, and the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba in violation of the principles and purposes enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the International Law.

11.Vindicate the national dignity of our peoples, based on the respect for the ideals of the national heroes and founding fathers of Latin America and the Caribbean.

12.Support the genuine efforts to foster a respectful dialogue, tolerance and peaceful coexistence and cooperation among the countries of our Americas, without exception, in order to find effective solutions to major problems affecting our hemisphere.

Havana, May 27, 2022.

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https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/05/ ... claration/
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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:05 pm

NicaNotes: The Summit of the Americas Could be Biden’s Next Foreign Policy Embarrassment
May 26, 2022
By John Perry

(John Perry is originally from the United Kingdom and has lived in Nicaragua for the last 20 years. He writes on Central America for the London Review of Books, COHA, Counterpunch. Popular Resistance, NicaNotes and elsewhere.)

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The last fully attended Summit of the Americas was in Panama in 2015. Note the presence of Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro, and Nicolas Maduro.

The grandly named Summit of the Americas is due to be held in Los Angeles next month, if the Biden administration can decide who to invite and what to talk about if they turn up. As things stand, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras and most of the Caribbean states have said they will not attend if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are not included. Although Biden no longer calls them the ‘troika of tyranny’ like Trump did, the governments of these three countries are still ostracized by Washington. But in Latin America, Biden’s threat to exclude them from the party has not gone down well. While it might be Washington’s turn to host the summit, the invitation list is supposed to include every state in the two continents, regardless of political disposition. Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, one of those threatening to stay away, asked ‘How can a summit be “of America” without all the countries of America?’ He’s now been joined by several other countries calling on Biden to reconsider. Even Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro says he’s not going to Los Angeles, although this may be more to do with US criticisms of his attempts to undermine Brazil’s October elections.

So far, the summit lacks not just an invitation list but also an agenda. Biden’s priorities seem to be threefold. One is to find ways to stem the flow of migrants crossing the Rio Grande. While he might reach some sort of agreement that he can offer to a skeptical US public, the chances of it having any effect on migration numbers are slim. A year ago, Kamala Harris was charged with producing a migration strategy that would address its “root causes”, but nothing that would achieve this has yet emerged. For example, concern about numbers arriving from Cuba has only triggered some very modest easing of US sanctions, even though Cubans are leaving because of harsh economic conditions caused partly by the US embargo and made worse by the pandemic and its effect on tourism. Until the recent concessions, Biden had been stepping up the pressure on Cuba by making trade, financial dealings and travel even more difficult.

Biden’s second objective is to urge Latin American countries to stop building close ties to China and Russia, but he faces a hard battle to shift Latin America’s international allegiances. Unlike China, he’s not able to offer major investment without political strings attached. Nor can he overcome Latin American sentiment that Russia’s attack on Ukraine has been provoked by US and NATO expansionism in eastern Europe. Biden is said to listen to General Laura J. Richardson, head of U.S. Southern Command, who seems to have persuaded him that a new Cold War must be fought in Latin America. However, as Marcos Fernandes has pointed out, it’s not a picture recognized by many governments, who see their links with China, Russia, India and other eastern economies as productive partnerships, helping to revive their post-pandemic economies. China, in particular, was quick off the mark in supplying anti-Covid vaccines to Latin America, vastly outstripping the US response. Meanwhile, Biden spends $billions on a proxy war and is as indifferent to escalating food prices and food insecurity in southern countries as he is to similar problems in the US.

NATO’s recent overtures to Colombia, even though it is hardly part of the “North Atlantic,” are part of this proxy war. Washington sees Colombia as emblematic of a successful relationship with a Latin America country. Glossing over its government’s recent history of killing peaceful protesters, US National Security Adviser Juan González said in April that “Colombia symbolizes all the best” of Biden’s vision for the continent. He added that “we are talking about one of the most vibrant democracies in the hemisphere.” When he promised that the US would not “measure, evaluate or punish a country like Colombia,” he was offering the usual free pass available to Washington’s allies, regardless of their human rights record.

In the same month, Latin Americans were given another reminder of US hypocrisy when former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, was extradited and imprisoned in New York. He had left office only in January, having been Washington’s closest ally in Central America for a decade, despite staying in power via two fraudulent elections and violently suppressing any dissent. As well as turning his country over to North American extractive industries which destroyed local communities, Hernández spurned advances from China and backed US foreign policy, even relocating Honduras’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (to follow the move made by Trump). But he’s now served his purpose: he will likely spend the rest of his life in US prisons after the US belatedly admitted that he had been running a narcostate.

Biden’s third aim is to separate off Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the rest of Latin America, hoping that even though the continent has shifted to the left he can maintain US influence over governments such as President Xiomara Castro’s new administration in Honduras and President Gabriel Boric’s in Chile. But even a firm US ally like Colombia may soon have a more open agenda if Gustavo Petro wins May’s election, given that he has already promised to re-establish relations with Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. If Lula wins in Brazil in October, he will call for the US to recognize Maduro as the legitimate Venezuelan president and end the farce of pretending that Juan Guaidó is the real head of state. He will also want more open relations with Nicaragua and Cuba. Costa Rica has a new president, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, still a firm ally for Washington, but who has promised better relations with neighboring Nicaragua. In the Caribbean, the countries in the regional grouping CARICOM are insisting that Cuba be invited to Los Angeles, even though it is not a CARICOM member.

I recall that when the US-inspired coup toppled Manual Zelaya as president of Honduras in 2009, almost all Latin America leaders met shortly afterwards in Managua. Even right-wing leaders joined Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega in condemning the coup. This show of Latin American unity only lasted a few more years, until the US installed a US puppet, Luis Almagro, as head of the Organization of America States in 2015 and put together its “Lima Group” of allies in 2017. But now, US influence in the region is waning again: it has no ambassador in eight of the countries, the OAS is discredited, the Lima Group is falling apart and electorates are voting in new administrations which, at best, are wary of US intentions. By late this year Latin America’s four biggest economies could all have left-wing presidents.

At the previous summit in 2018 in Lima, it was only Donald Trump who failed to attend. The last fully attended summit was in 2015 in Panama City, when the brief rapprochement between the United States and Cuba led to a presidential handshake between Obama and Raúl Castro. Since then, relations between Washington and its southern neighbors have worsened. But Biden’s agenda of appeasing domestic opinion on migration, pandering to right-wingers in Florida who want Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela ostracized and pursuing a proxy war against Russia has little to offer Latin Americas who want peace and economic recovery after the pandemic. Biden seems to want the Summit of the Americas to address his concerns, not those of Latin America. If the event is a flop, it will be his fault.

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-05-26-2022

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PM Gonsalves Urges CARICOM States Not To Attend US-Led Summit

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Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. | Photo: Twitter/ @NewsBreadfruit

Published 31 May 2022 (12 hours 35 minutes ago)

He condemned that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were excluded from the Summit of the Americas, which is supposed to promote policies of understanding for the Americas.

On Tuesday, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves asked the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries not to attend the 2022 Summit of the Americas to protest against the U.S. exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the event.

"President Joe Biden has no right to decide who or what countries are invited to the Summit, which is supposed to promote policies of understanding for the Americas," Gonsalves explained.

"We are left with no other option than to refuse attending the meeting," he said, stressing that CARICOM governments' relations with the United States must be grounded in respect for the self-determination of peoples.

On Friday, U.S. lawmakers from Congress warned that the omission of the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the Summit could undermine the position of the United States in this region.


"If not everyone is invited, a representation of the Mexican government will attend the Summit. But I would not go. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard would represent me," Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) confirmed, stressing that this decision is a protest message.

Bolivian President Luis Arce also acknowledged that he would not participate in the event since it does not comply with his country's international relations principles, including respect for sovereignty and the collective construction of a culture of dialogue and peace.

CARICOM leaders held a virtual meeting last week to discuss their countries' participation in the Summit of the Americas. Although they could not establish a consensus over this matter, they rejected that the Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido will attend the event.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/PM- ... -0016.html

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The Impasse of the Latin American Left
By Steve Ellner (Posted May 30, 2022)

Originally published: North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) on May 27, 2022 (more by North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)) |

Can the firebrand Hugo Chávez with his embrace of ”21st century socialism” be placed in the same category as the pragmatic Lula? Writers across the political spectrum make a sharp distinction between the two as well as between other radicals like Bolivia’s Evo Morales as opposed to moderate leftists like Uruguay’s Frente Amplio government. Anti-leftist writers like Jorge Castañeda, as well as some moderates, lauded Lula while denigrating Chávez (who Castañeda labelled the “bad” or “populist” left) and his followers. Others further to the left upheld the opposite position.

To a degree, the authors of The Impasse of the Latin American Left, Franck Gaudichaud, Massimo Modonesi, and Jeffery R. Webber, can be located in the opposite camp from that of Castañeda. The authors view the radical 21st-century Latin American governments more favorably than those of the moderate left. They credit Chávez for being largely alone in achieving certain structural economic changes through expropriations. In contrast, Brazil, according to the authors, became a “sub-imperial” power with 80 percent of its exports going elsewhere in the region in the form of “industrialized products of high or (mostly) medium grade technology,” largely in return for natural resources and other primary products from its neighbors.

In spite of the obvious differences between the radicals and the moderates, many authors place both groups of governments in the same category and view them as part of the same phenomenon, referred to as the Pink Tide. After all, Pink Tide leaders all followed a fairly nationalistic foreign policy and privileged social programs targeting the non-incorporated sectors of the population. Another common denominator is that, in the words of the authors, Pink Tide governments “represent a significant break with neoliberalism.”

Finally, Pink Tide governments, both those committed to socialism and those which weren’t, were subject to considerable hostility and threats from Washington and its allies. Brazil, one of the “moderates,” is an example. The hearty reception received in the U.S. capital by former federal judge Sergio Moro, whose “clandestine collaboration with state prosecutors” led to Lula’s jailing, is just one manifestation of Washington’s preferences.

Gaudichaud, Modonesi, and Webber, while recognizing these key differences among moderate and more leftist governments, argue that the theory of “passive revolution” first formulated by Antonio Gramsci is applicable to the entire Pink Tide phenomenon, even Venezuela. Viewed through this lens, the Pink Tide governments are not “direct expressions” of either the dominant classes or the popular sectors and thus enjoy a relative autonomy, but they are dedicated to achieving a “reformist conservative project.”

In the framework of passive revolution theory, the feature most emphasized in the book is the Pink Tide’s tight control and demobilization of social movements. Popular movements were essential elements in the rise to power of the Pink Tide: in the case of Brazil and Bolivia, Lula and Morales emerged from them, and in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina, they forced presidents out of power. The book’s authors allege that Pink Tide governments and parties ended up taming and disciplining social movements and in other cases marginalizing them.

The authors point to a “polarization” among analysts on the left regarding the Pink Tide phenomenon. On the one hand, a pro group includes “unconditional and uncritical apologists.” On the other are the critics. The latter camp, what the authors call “a rainbow of critics from the left,” consists of the defenders of different isms, including anti-capitalism, libertarian autonomism, environmentalism, and postcolonialism (emphasizing Indigenous rights and communities). The anti-capitalist critique, which most resembles the views of the authors, highlights the Pink Tide’s class alliances with sectors of the bourgeoisie. Along these lines, the authors point to the alliance between the older landed oligarchies and agribusiness multinationals, which cemented the “structural continuities” between the neoliberal years and the Pink Tide period. The most anti-Pink Tide critique comes from the champions of “libertarian autonomism,” as represented by Uruguayan author Raúl Zibechi, who views the Pink Tide as a “step backward” and denies its anti-neoliberal character.

The book’s critique of the Pink Tide is thorough and backed by solid evidence. The errors and flaws of the Pink Tide included the failure to significantly reduce the levels of corruption that characterized the previous neoliberal period; the tendency toward deindustrialization; the ecological damage that accompanied the extractivist model; the failure to consult rural communities including Indigenous ones; and the failure to respect social movement autonomy. Considering the book’s empirical strongpoints, its shortcomings are not so much what it says but what it leaves out or downplays.

First, in spite of its discussion of the devastating impact of U.S. interventionism, the book fails to factor imperialism into the analysis of the causes of the Pink Tide’s allegedly erroneous policies and strategy. To take an extreme example, Washington’s hostile actions against Venezuela turned into a virtual war on Venezuela beginning with Barack Obama’s 2015 decree declaring the nation a threat to U.S. national security and then with the Trump administration’s suffocating sanctions and support for military actions. In the face of these seemingly insurmountable challenges, the authors would have had the Chavista governments go on the offensive. Along these lines, they point out that the countries that most confronted imperialism (i.e. Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador) were precisely the “ones that have restored revolutionary symbolism to prominence,” thus implying a correlation between imperialist offensives and Pink Tide radicalization. But the opposite could be argued, namely that in the face of such ruthless actions by the world’s most powerful nation in history, a defensive strategy was in order. This is precisely the current line of thinking of Nicolás Maduro’s followers, some of whom point to Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) as an instructive precedent. In a war-like situation, expectations of change need to be tempered by the realities on the ground, and this reality needs to be taken into account in any analysis of demobilization, the curtailment of democratic liberties, and extractivism, all at the center of the authors’ concerns. To give one example: Venezuela’s failure to diversify the economy was undoubtedly related to the imperative of countering destabilization campaigns by stimulating active support among the popular sectors. Ambitious social programs, more than economic structural transformation, promised to achieve this in the short run.

Without going so far as to advocate one policy over another, I would criticize the book for failing to address the issue of how strategies have to be crafted on the basis of different conditions on both international and national stages.

Second, as the authors show through the prism of the theory of passive revolution, the Pink Tide leaders in power attempted to control the social movements that were initially sympathetic to their governments. What the authors largely pass over is that this exertion of control was a tendency, but not one that completely demobilized the movements to the extent that they lost all vitality or were completely alienated from the government.

The most striking example is the events in Bolivia that were partly underway at the time of the writing of the book. Social movement activists and leaders who had adamantly opposed Morales’s extractivist policies—even the one furthest to the left, Felipe Quispe—joined forces in opposing the right-wing government of Jeanine Añez. They forced new elections and supported the Pink Tide MAS party in the presidential contests of October 2020. Another example is the active support by Brazil’s iconic Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), in partnership with the Pink Tide’s Workers’ Party (PT), for Lula’s candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections slated for October 2022. Still another example is the election of the leading figure of Venezuela’s commune movement, Ángel Prado, as a mayor in 2021 on the ticket of the Pink Tide’s United Socialist Party (PSUV), in spite of the bitter clashes between the two in the past.

Third, the authors are totally opposed to the Pink Tide government alliances with “one or more ruling-class fractions,” but they fail to distinguish between strategic and tactical alliances. The differences between the two couldn’t be greater. Some of these arrangements were, at least at first, tactical in that they were pragmatically motivated with a short-term time frame. In Venezuela and Bolivia, for instance, they were designed to counter violent and economically devastating disruptions actively supported by powerful business organizations in order to bring about regime change. In many Pink Tide countries there was a practical consideration: why should government contracts go to businesspeople who were set on regime change? So alliances were formed with those businesspeople who, for whatever reason they may have had, did not join the unprincipled and ruthless attacks on the government. In short, the issue of alliances was a complex one. The authors recognize the diversity of the alliances “according to different national contexts,” but fail to discuss diverse government motivations, some of which were hardly opportunistically driven.

Fourth, the authors are sympathetic to and frequently cite leftist intellectuals, activists, and organizations, but ones that for the most part lack a significant political following in their respective nations. Indeed, they have failed to make inroads to fill the gap on the left created by Pink Tide defeats after 2015. Argentine former president Cristina Fernández famously pointed to the marginal status of many of the leftist critics of her government, saying “You know what there is to my left? Nothing but the wall.” Gaudichaud, Modonesi, and Webber recognize the weakness of those they support and partly blame it on Pink Tide leaders for calling them “traitors” and “sham revolutionaries.” The criticism is well founded as Pink Tide leaders in Venezuela, Ecuador, and elsewhere have displayed a degree of sectarianism in their dealings with critics to their left.

Criticisms notwithstanding, the Pink Tide’s staying power over the last two decades is impressive. Its recent comeback has been due to the electoral gains scored by moderate presidential candidates who follow a pragmatic approach rather than the hardline one proposed by the authors. This has occurred in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Honduras (plus Andrés Arauz’s near victory in Ecuador).

The Impasse of the Latin American Left presents a valuable analysis that contributes to the understanding of the Pink Tide phenomenon, but, in my opinion, doesn’t tell the whole story. Errors and shortcomings have to be contextualized not by simply recognizing the existence of adverse conditions but by addressing the issue of the feasibility of options. To the authors’ credit, however, the theory of passive revolution effectively frames the key issue of demobilization which should be the point of departure of any serious analysis of the topic from a leftist perspective. The lessons of the Pink Tide, rigorously explored by the authors, have become increasingly relevant now that it is making a comeback—a comeback that can only be understood in the context of recognizing the well-conceived policies implemented by those governments as well as their errors.

https://mronline.org/2022/05/30/the-imp ... ican-left/

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PEOPLE'S SUMMIT

Press
The People’s Summit is being brought together by a diverse coalition of organizations with the intention of ensuring that the voices of the poor and dispossessed in our hemisphere are heard. Check out our latest press releases and other press updates to learn more about our goals and how our communities are anticipating and gearing up for this convening.

To understand more about the realities and conditions that our people are facing, download our factsheets for basic and essential information about poverty, houselessness, hunger, and other issues that our convening organizations have been addressing locally and nationally.

(EN) Download Digital Toolkit + Graphics https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_nE ... sp=sharing
(ES) Descarga guia digital y gráficas https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_P5 ... sp=sharing
Contact the Summit’s Media Team press@peoplessummit2022.org

https://peoplessummit2022.org/press

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May 30, 2022 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LAPD refuses to grant permit for march against the Summit of the Americas
Organizers from the People’s Summit for Democracy have raised the alarms in response to the move
by the US government to block permit for mobilization
Los Angeles - The Los Angeles Police Department has refused to grant a permit for a legal mass
march scheduled to coincide with the Summit of the Americas on Friday, June 10, 2022.
Organizers for the People’s Summit for Democracy say that, “the LAPD conduct constitutes an
illegal denial of constitutional rights for those engaged in first amendment protected activity.”
They vow to demonstrate regardless on June 10.
Organizers of the People’s Summit filed a permit request on February 25 for a free speech
protected activity. 95 days have passed, and the LAPD has dragged its feet and not responded
with any concrete steps to move forward in the application process. The LAPD has attempted
to shift the blame about the delay in issuing the permit to the Secret Service and the Federal
Government, but we know this is a stalling tactic.
This egregious violation of free speech and the infringement on our democratic right to protest
goes against the very values that Joe Biden and the US government claim to uphold in the
Summit of the Americas. Further, the maneuver threatens to undermine a principal avenue for
progressive people in this country to advocate for social justice.
Angelica Salas, Executive Director of CHIRLA expressed, “The People's Summit will lift up all
those issues important to our people but left out of that other presidential summit across
town: the rights of immigrants, women and workers, the rebuilding and protection of
democratic norms, the security of families. We will present a different vision of the Western
Hemisphere as a place of peace, freedom and prosperity for all that excludes no country, no
faith, no race, and no gender."
Regardless of the outcome regarding the permit request, the people of the Americas will
march on the streets of Los Angeles on June 10 to Biden’s Summit of Exclusion and make our
voices heard. We will see you at Los Angeles Technical Trade College from June 8-10 and in the
streets on June 10!
Follow the People’s Summit on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and our website.
For press inquiries and interview requests contact: press@peoplessumm

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... rights.pdf

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Chamber of Deputies of Chile declares Mapuche organizations as terrorists

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The Mapuche Malleco Resistance, Mapuche Lafkenche Resistance and Weichan Auka Mapu groups were also outlawed. | Photo: camara.cl
Published June 1, 2022 (4 hours 35 minutes ago)

The Chilean Government underlined its commitment to provide a substantive solution to the problems of the people who live in the southern zone.

The Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved on Tuesday a draft resolution that declares the Arauco Malleco Coordinator (CAM) and other Mapuche organizations as illegal and terrorist associations.

Along with the CAM, the groups Resistencia Mapuche Malleco, Resistencia Mapuche Lafkenche and Weichan Auka Mapu were also included in the category of illicit terrorist associations.

The draft resolution was adopted after the plenary session analyzed the statements made by the CAM leader, Héctor Llaitul, about organizing an armed resistance in the so-called Southern Macrozone of the country in the face of the government's declaration of a state of emergency.


The lower house also asked Chilean President Gabriel Boric for criminal prosecution of the aforementioned groups in accordance with the provisions of Law 18,314, on terrorist behavior.

Likewise, it asked the president to instruct the counterterrorism office of the United States Department of State (USA) and the Council of the European Union to declare the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator, its armed wing Organs of Territorial Resistance and Weichán Auka Mapu, as terrorist organizations.


The Ministers of the Interior, Izkia Siches, and of Defense, Maya Fernández, participated in the legislative session, representing the Executive Branch, who explained the actions that the State has taken to normalize the situation in the south of the country.

"The government and this minister are deeply committed to the fundamental solutions of the problems of the people who inhabit this territory, but we will not limit ourselves to attacking only the symptoms, but our commitment has asked us to face the root of them," Shiches said.

He added that this “undoubtedly requires the unity of all the political forces represented in this Parliament (...) Addressing this conflict requires State policies, but there are also no shortcuts. There are no easy or short solutions other than being able to agree on a strategy and a plan."

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/chile-ca ... -0003.html

These phony 'pinkos' like Boric will continue to disappoint.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 03, 2022 2:24 pm

South America’s ‘Business Friendly’ Bloodbath
By BRASILWIRE
May 12, 2021

International Business and Banking support for the most repressive regimes in Latin America is even more evident than it was during the original cold war. Now, Wall Streetʼs three main men in South America all face charges of crimes against humanity, even genocide, at the International Criminal Court.

Whilst the anglosphere regularly attacks governments of the left in Latin America on human rights grounds, it is its pliant business friendly U.S. regional allies; Brazilʼs Bolsonaro, Chileʼs Piñera, and Colombiaʼs Duque, who face being sent before the Hague.

All three countries face crucial elections over the next eighteen months.

Colombia: See no evil

A graduate of Georgetown University, the notorious hotbed for CIA recruitment, Colombian president Ivan Duque and members of his government will now face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

In April 2021, Trade Union-organised protests began in Colombia against planned tax reforms which threatened to hit the country’s poorest hard. Demands for “simplified tax code” are often a euphemism for an easier ride for foreign investors and the wealthy.

What followed was a campaign of state terror; repression of the protests, violence and killings, involving both state forces and paramilitaries.

According to human rights organisations Temblores and Indepaz, from 28 April to 8 May, violent actions of the state security forces resulted in the death of at least 47 people, the arbitrary detention of 963 people, 28 victims of eye-related injuries, and 12 victims of sexual violence. In total, they registered 1,876 cases of police violence.

Media coverage was subdued compared to that which accompanies demonstrations in neighbouring Venezuela, with reporters complaining that international media outlets were not interested in the story.

Laura Capote and Zoe Alexandra write: “After several nights of terror, the silence of the international community was broken. The United Nations Human Rights Office released a strong statement on the morning of 4 May expressing that it is ‘deeply alarmed’ at what is happening in Cali where ‘police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against tax reforms, reportedly killing and injuring a number of people.’”

As a result, Colombian politicians and human rights groups are preparing an official complaint to the International Criminal Court against the Ivan Duque regime. Kawsachun News reports: “Senator Iván Cepeda Castro announced that he would be relaying the information alongside the organizations Defender la Libertad, Temblores, and La Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos, “informing the possible responsibility of President Duque, Uribe, Minister Molano, Gr. Zapateiro and Gr. Vargas in crimes against humanity committed during the strike.””

In 2012 the Wall Street Journal celebrated Colombia as a new Latin American tiger economy, in a report noted by CIA think tank CSIS. Long the biggest recipient of military aid in the hemisphere, on the pretext of fighting the so called war on drugs, Colombia occupies a very special position for the United States in the region. Plan Colombia, the multi-billion aid package which ran for fifteen years, means that US Southern Command now enjoys free use of military facilities in the country, although a formal agreement to establish seven permanent bases was struck down by legislators in 2010 as unconstitutional. Despite this, US presence in Colombia is key to its strategy to suppress progressive movements in the region, and in 2017 it became a NATO partner member, with its adjunct think tank the Atlantic Council, speaking glowingly of the US-Colombia partnership. This partnership has resulted in a blind eye being turned to state abuses in the country.

In spite of international condemnation which followed the Duque regime’s violent reaction to the protests, Brazil’s foreign ministry chose that moment to reaffirm its shared values with Colombia, whilst Wall Street lobby and think tank Council of the Americas, the main conduit between private corporations and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, attempted to deflect blame onto armed left-wing groups such as FARC and ELN for the violence.

A recent Amnesty International report “Why do they want to kill us?” observes that murders of Colombian human rights defenders have intensified under Duque, and the 2016 peace deal between the government and FARC guerrillas. As the FARC moved out, the remote areas became more dangerous: “Things have got even worse, particularly for those living in geographically strategic and natural resource-rich areas,” said Amnesty’s Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas. According to the UN, at least 107 social leaders and human rights activists were killed in 2019. This number doubled in 2020.

Multinationals are known to collaborate with Colombian paramilitaries in the extermination of those opposing land seizure for projects such as mining.

Council of the Americas member Chiquita, formerly the hated United Fruit Company, has a infamous history of political interference and abuses in Latin America. In Colombia, Matt Kennard writes that Chiquita “[…] were giving millions of dollars to mass-murdering paramilitaries, who had been emboldened by political protection during the civil war […]The major paramilitary group in Colombia, the AUC, has a long history of violence against peasants, trade unionists, Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities. Chiquita has admitted that it made at least 100 payments to the AUC in the period from 1997 to 2004, a total of $1.7 million.” The AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) was designated a terrorist group by the US in 2001, and was responsible for grotesque and widespread abuses including kidnapping, extortion, murder, and rape.

Council of the Americas’ vice president of policy, Brian Winter, was ghostwriter for Duque’s predecessor and mentor, former president Alvaro Uribe, president of Colombia from 2002-2010. In the WSJ review of ghostwritten autobiography ‘No Lost Causes’, Uribe is depicted as the “man who saved Colombia” and it served to whitewash the former president’s image abroad.

A Council on Hemispheric Affairs report however called Uribe “the most dangerous man in Colombian politics” and notes the Uribe’s administration’s ties to the far right paramilitary AUC. His own brother Santiago was jailed for right-wing paramilitary involvement.

US intelligence documents declassified during his presidency revealed Alvaro Uribe listed among “important Colombian narco-traffickers”, in a 1991 communique which noted his dealings with the Medellin Cartel, and his close personal friendship with Pablo Escobar. As a key partner in the war on drugs, the cable was damaging to Uribe, as he mobilised Plan Colombia’s massive military aid in an effort to crush the FARC, who just years earlier looked on the brink of winning the civil war.

The Colombian Peace Tribunal (JEP) has recently released findings that, during Uribe’s crackdown on the FARC and other groups, the army murdered 6,402 civilians and presented them as guerrillas killed in combat between 2002 and 2008, in the ‘false positives’ scandal.

But Uribe is now under house arrest on charges relating to other massacres, which left between 150 and 200 people dead during his time as governor of Antioquia province. The series of massacres, which took place between 1996 and 1998, have been declared crimes against humanity by the Colombian Supreme Court. Despite his right wing paramilitary links being revealed in State Department cables during his presidency, the United States opposes Uribe’s investigation.

Left wing Senator Gustavo Petro, the ex-mayor of Bogota and one time member of revolutionary group M-19, who was defeated by Ivan Duque in the 2018 presidential runoff, currently leads polls for the 2022 election.

Chile: The blueprint

Chile was of course the original blueprint for US-enforced neoliberalism in South America.

Current President Sebastian Piñera was a supporter of General Augusto Pinochet and the bloody 1973 coup which installed his dictatorship with the help of the CIA and Council of the Americas, whose staff and functions were interchangeable, as documented in Seymour Hersh’s Price of Power. It was the threat that a democratic and socialist Chile could set an example to the region which motivated US plans for the coup against Salvador Allende, and it was instead turned into an open laboratory for Milton Friedman’s laissez-faire economic theories. Council of the America’s Brian Winter once called neofascist Pinochet “a revolutionary” rather than U.S. backed neofascist dictator.

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady, a backer of Latin America’s far right governments, had long championed Piñera, who upon taking office promised to privatise Chilean copper interests which lay behind the 1973 coup.

Some members of Piñera’s coalition served in the Pinochet government, and the New York Times reported that “his brother, José Piñera, helped install the nation’s neo-liberal economic program as the general’s labor minister and today is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group in Washington.”. With hundreds of women kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered under the Pinochet regime, Piñera enraged Chile’s feminist movement by naming the General’s great niece, Macarena Santelices, who has has praised the “positives” of the dicatorship, as minister for women.

In 1998, Sebastian Piñera opposed Judge Balthazar Garzon’s attempt to have Pinochet extradited to Spain to face trial for human rights violations during his dictatorship, for which he had been implicated in over 300 criminal charges.

Following his security forces’ violent repression of mass protests which exploded around Chile in 2019, Sebastian Piñera himself now faces charges of crimes against humanity, following in the footsteps of Pinochet.

Earlier in 2019, a delegation representing the Mapuche indigenous people presented a petition at the Hague accusing the Piñera government of genocide. Six months later as mass demonstrations erupted across the country, their brutal repression led to further charges at the ICC.

And it was again Baltasar Garzón who filed the accusation before the International Criminal Court against Piñera for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the 2019 protests.

”Garzón, the Chilean Human Rights Commission (CCHDH) and other organizations today sent a letter to the attorney general of the International Criminal Court (ICC), lawyer Fatou Bensouda, in the Dutch city of The Hague for the court to investigate, accuse and initiate a trial of President Sebastián Piñera for crimes against humanity that have been committed since October 2019,” reported the Center for Journalistic Investigation (Ciper).

It called for the prosecution of Piñera and all officials and members of the security forces involved in the repression of the 2019 protests, in the belief that widespread and systematic crimes against humanity were committed, and contained more than 3,000 cases of human rights violations Repression of the protests left about thirty dead, 460 people with eye injuries and more than 8,800 complaints about crimes committed by state security forces.

The complaints were confirmed by reports from the United Nations, Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and the National Institute for Human Rights.

Progressive International writes: “There have been a series of systematic violations of human rights in Chile, especially during the period of the “social outbreak”. National and international human rights organisations have recorded eye injuries caused by the impact of rubber bullets, torture, deaths, sexual abuse and a series of other abuses and serious violations. These have been compiled into a dossier of evidence to take Sebastián Piñera to the International Criminal Court.”

The violence meted out to protesters was particularly horrific, with a police strategy to target the eyes of demonstrators with rubber bullets, designed to terrorise the population and clear the streets.

Senator and Chilean Upper House Human Rights Commission president, Alejandro Navarro, insisted that President Piñera “will not die without first paying for his responsibility.” after Santiago’s 7th Court of Guarantees admitted a complaint of crimes against humanity against Piñera. “He will be punished with imprisonment in any of its grades, the maximum degree being a penalty ranging from 15 to 20 years,” Navarro said.

Council of the Americas personnel tried to insinuate that “foreign forces” were behind the Chilean protests, and those which rocked Ecuador in the same period, without presenting evidence. In contrast, when these kind of allegations happens under left governments or those not allied to the United States, skeptics are frequently accused of “denying agency” by questioning what might be behind such destabilising movements, such as the involvement of foreign or foreign funded non-governmental organisations.

In October 2020, one year after the protests, 78% of Chileans voted to rewrite the constitution – one of the vestiges of the Pinochet era.

The Communist Party’s Daniel Jadue, currently mayor of Recoleta, leads most opinion polls for Chile’s 2021 presidential election.

Brazil: The image problem

In May 2019 the United States’ biggest banks sponsored a lavish New York gala event for Brazil’s new president Jair Bolsonaro, held at the Marriott Marquis hotel. Six months later Bolsonaro faced the first of a series of charges at the international criminal court, for crimes against humanity and incitement of genocide.

The New York event was sponsored by Council of the Americas patron member Citigroup whose CEO Michael Corbat defended its sponsorship of the gala in the face of a well organised protest campaign to cancel it. It was originally scheduled to take place at the American Museum of Natural History but was cancelled due to public outrage that the museum would host a man intent on dismantling protections of the Amazon for foreign mining and agribusiness corporations.

Whilst other companies withdrew, Council of the Americas members who sponsored the event included Credit Suisse Group AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., BNP Paribas SA, HSBC, Bank of America. and Morgan Stanley. Corbat told CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla: “We spend a lot of time making sure our people understand the values of our company, and I hope in the case of that, there’s no question in terms of our support, our unwavering support, for our LGBT community,” in an attempt to pinkwash their endorsement of Bolsonaro’s necropolitics.

Bolsonaro’s well publicised history of not only homophobic, but violent, racist, misogynistic and genocidal statements made a mockery of these corporations facile appeals to LGBT customers, and they knew full well what he was before he was elected. On two occasions he made threatening rape related remarks to Workers Party congresswoman Maria do Rosario.

Despite this, Council of the Americas normalised Bolsonaro extreme right positions by calling him an “arch-conservative”. In 2017, following behind closed door meetings with the Bolsonaro clan at COA New York headquarters, Brian Winter referred to what assumedly were its members, as “some previously skeptical business leaders, in Brazil and abroad, were starting to come around. One described Bolsonaro as a “defense of last resort” if Lula were not prevented from running by his legal troubles and still led polls by mid-2018.”. Operation Lava Jato prosecutor Deltan Dellagnol called the jailing of Lula, “a gift from the CIA“.

“No room for feelings” the investors said, of a man who claimed on television that 30,000 needed to be killed for Brazil to function properly.

Council of the Americas member, Barings Bank, could not contain their enthusiasm for the election of Bolsonaro, calling it “a new frontier”. “Jair Bolsonaro’s election as Brazil’s president in October 2018 was momentous: this was the first time since the establishment of the country’s 1988 constitution that a clear right-leaning mandate had won a national vote. Many market commentators have recognized that his appointment has the potential for positive economic transformation,” it proclaimed.

The propaganda-laden statement paid gushing tributes to Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and now disgraced Justice Minister Sérgio Moro, even lauding his politically-motivated imprisonment of former President Lula da Silva, which enabled Bolsonaro’s victory.

Guedes “Pro-Business” economic policies, delivered by a monster like Bolsonaro, was acceptable to them, as it had been many times in the past. A veteran of Pinochet’s Chile, Paulo Guedes reduces the atrocities under his rule to a “political point of view”.

The Wall Street Journal explicitly endorsed Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 election, and lauded his spurious anti-corruption rhetoric.

The magazine gloated: “Global progressives are having an anxiety attack over the near-triumph Sunday of Brazil’s conservative presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. After years of corruption and recession, apparently millions of Brazilians think an outsider is exactly what the country needs.”

“[…] Mr. Bolsonaro, who has spent 27 years in Congress, is best understood as a conservative populist who promises to make Brazil great for the first time. The 63-year-old is running on traditional values and often says politically incorrect things about identity politics that inflame his opponents. Yet he has attracted support from the middle class by pledging to reduce corruption, crack down on Brazil’s rampant crime and liberate entrepreneurs from government control. He has stopped short of promising to fully privatize Petrobras, the state-owned oil giant, but his chief economic adviser says he would sell its subsidiaries, deregulate much of the economy and restrain government spending. On crime he has promised to restore a police presence in urban and rural areas that have become lawless.”

On May 5, Jair Bolsonaro met new Rio de Janeiro governor Cláudio Castro at his official residence, the Laranjeiras Palace. Castro took office after the impeachment of far-right Wilson Witzel, whom he served as vice.

The next day saw the worst massacre by Rio de Janeiro police in history, with 28 killed at the Jacarezinho favela. The previous worst was the Vigário Geral massacre in 1993, with 21 victims.

Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court ordered suspension of police operations in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in June 2020, but the state government has failed to comply. Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil said: “It’s completely unacceptable that security forces keep committing grave human rights violations such as those that occurred in Jacarezinho today against residents of the favelas, who are mostly Black and live in poverty.”

Bolsonaro’s rhetoric on police killings has been a trademark , with the motto “a good thief is a dead thief”, and advocating clearing favelas of gangs with gunfire from helicopters. During the 2018 election he also spoke of machine gunning Workers Party members at a campaign rally.

He congratulated Rio de Janeiro police following the Jacarezinho massacre. Whilst Rio police abuses have continued for decades, Brazil has never had an elected president who celebrates them.

An admirer of Chile’s Pinochet, it is with the Brazilian president’s brazen necropolitics that those promoting the interests of Wall Street investors have their major image problem in South America. Their 2018 pick soon became an international bogeyman, and distancing from the neofascist by those who once lauded his “good ideas” has been visible since the moment he took office.

As even the CIA embarks on a cringeworthy corporate embrace of “diversity”, that image problem has led to the financial press now attempting to instead bracket Brazil’s Bolsonaro together with left wingers Mexico’s Amlo and Argentina’s Fernandez, classifying them all as “populists”, when in fact he is in open ideological alliance with their preferred regional leaders, such as Chile’s Piñera and Colombia’s Duque.

With Bolsonaro’s support from the Atlantic Council, a pledge to make it a NATO associate member, and broadening of cooperation with Southcom, Brazil, like Colombia, is central to any U.S. strategic plans in South America. Bolsonaro became the first Brazilian leader in history to visit CIA headquarters, two months after his inauguration.

Latin America’s largest economy has been in steep decline since the U.S.-backed lawfare operation Lava Jato first froze its civil construction and energy sectors in 2015. Already suffering from the global commodities slowdown, this economic sabotage was overlooked, and instead used to build a secondary pretext for the removal of Dilma Rousseff, along with the systemic corruption the same Lava Jato was supposedly pursuing. As many predicted then, this was used to turn Brazil’s vast public sector into low hanging fruit for private and foreign investors.

Brazil’s situation was depicted bombastically as the worst economic crisis in history when it was nothing of the sort. Bridge to the future was to be the “solution” to this crisis when it was classic economic hit job of the wrong policy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Rousseff calls her impeachment the opening act, or the original sin of Brazil’s catastrophe. Michel Temer admitted at a special Council of the Americas meeting in September 2016, shortly after her ouster, that she had been removed for her refusal to adopt ‘bridge to the future’, an austerity policy manifesto, and not for the minor budgetary infraction for which she was officially impeached.

Bridge to the future, which was suspected to have been drawn up by Council of the Americas and Paulo Guedes’ Instituto Millenium, enforced a twenty year freeze on Brazil’s public education and health investment. These policies continued and intensified under COA darling Guedes, which has exacerbated the country’s Coronavirus pandemic. At the time of publication, 1 in 500 Brazilians have already died of Covid-19. A University of São Paulo report conducted with NGO Conectas found that the Bolsonaro government had encouraged pandemic deaths through intentional spread of the virus and refusal of measures to control it, up to and US encouraged including suppression of vaccines. Guedes ally Solange Viera who had been involved in pension reforms pushed the previous year, remarked in a meeting: “It is good that deaths are concentrated among the elderly … This will improve our economic performance, as it will reduce our pension deficit”. There is now a Senate inquiry into Brazilian government handing of the pandemic which could yet sink the Bolsonaro-Guedes regime.

In 2019, Council of the Americas’ Brian Winter told World Economic Forum attendees to “prepare to be dazzled” by Bolsonaro’s new Minister of the Economy. The economy tanked, dazzlingly, long before the Coronavirus pandemic, with flat to negative GDP, capital flight and devaluation of the Real.

Now, Council of the Americas and the same Wall Street interests which backed Brazil’s coup of 1964, Chile’s in 1973, Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, the jailing of Lula da Silva and the election of Bolsonaro and Guedes, now seek continuation of the ultraliberal project with a ‘Bridge to the future 2.0’, this time seeking to solve the image problem by marrying it to a more acceptable face.

Former president Lula of the Workers Party leads polls for the 2022 election commandingly, as he did before being removed from the race in 2018.

Rebuilding hegemony

Redemocratised Latin America eventually rejected both the IMF-enforced neoliberalism which terrorised the region economically, and its past subservience to U.S. foreign policy.

Since the defeat of the FTAA or free trade area of the Americas, and the ascendence of the so-called pink tide, there have been ongoing efforts to establish a new hegemonic order to succeed the Washington consensus of the 1990s through economic and strategic blocs like the Pacific alliance, the Lima Group, and direct intervention through the U.S. dominated Organisation of American States.

These have stood counter to regional integration efforts like UNASUR, ALBA and CELAC, the protagonists of which were depicted by financial press as the “bad” South America; one of “populism” and “statism”, i.e. obstacles to low wages and privatisation.

From Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay in 2012, there have been a succession of coups, coup attempts, destabilisations and reversed elections; Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua. The failure of Argentinian neoliberal Macri to be re-elected punctured U.S. vision for the southern cone, as did the overthrow of the Bolivian coup regime both they and the IMF backed. The coup government led by CIA-connected Jeanine Añez now face punishment for massacres and torture during their putsch.

In Ecuador, home to the U.S. Manta airbase, and under the shadow of Council of the Americas patron Chevron, a combination of lawfare, proxy spoiler/splinter opposition, and disinformation against the left candidate most recently helped bring COA-lauded banker Guillermo Lasso to power. Lasso, neoliberal former head of Ecuador operations for the Coca-Cola company, succeeds ‘Shakespearean villain’ Lenin Moreno. Moreno was elected on a left-wing ticket to succeed Rafael Correa, only to quickly switch to a U.S. allied position once in office, engage in persecution of former allies, and encourage brutal repression of anti-austerity, anti-IMF protests. This led him too to face a lawsuit from indigenous organisations for crimes against humanity.

Two new Brazilian books ‘Ninguém regula a América‘ by Ana Penido/Miguel Enrique Stédile and ‘Brasil no espectro de uma guerra híbrida‘ by Piero C. Leirner both detail how beneath a veneer of public diplomacy, lawfare, encouragement and utilisation of the far right, along with other components, have been used by the United States over the past decade or more to wage an undeclared hybrid war across the region, in order to install governments aligned with U.S. interests; put simply it is the old empire with new weapons.

Anti-Corruption in particular went from a standing start in the early 1990s to become a principal tool of US statecraft, capable of swinging elections and toppling presidents. In Brazil’s case this had global dimensions via BRICS and its relations with China and Russia.

These kind of campaigns in Latin America are backed by Council of the Americas, NATO’s Atlantic Council, AEI, Transparency International, the libertarian Atlas Network and other NGOs, think tanks, and foundations, which act as US / FVEY government cutouts, providing strategic planning, material support, and editorial cover via clusters of locally stationed flacks. There has been little distinction between governmental agency and outsourced corporate activity in this area.

It is wrong to assume there was ever pause from the role U.S. corporations played in the horrors of 1960s and 70s Latin America, when the very same organisation that binds them, Council of the Americas, has been a constant, pulling political strings to provide an environment that is friendly to business, and swimming in blood, ever since.

With elections imminent in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, this malign influence should be central to any serious reporting.

https://www.brasilwire.com/south-americ ... bloodbath/

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LAPD Refuses to Grant Permit for March Against the Summit of the Americas
JUNE 2, 2022

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Los Angeles Police Officer. Photo: Bill Hackwell.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has refused to grant a permit for a legal mass march scheduled to coincide with the Summit of the Americas on June 10, 2022. According to the organizers of the People’s Summit for Democracy, a counter-summit to Washington’s exclusionary Summit of the Americas, “the LAPD conduct constitutes an illegal denial of constitutional rights for those engaged in First Amendment-protected activity.” They vow to demonstrate on June 10, despite not receiving the police permit.

Organizers of the People’s Summit filed a permit request on February 25 for an activity protected by free speech legislation. However, 95 days have passed, and the LAPD dragged its feet and did not respond with any concrete steps to move the application process forward. The LAPD has attempted to shift the blame about the delay in issuing the permit to the Secret Service and the Federal Government, but this is considered to be a stalling tactic.

This egregious violation of free speech and the infringement on democratic right to protest goes against the very values that Joe Biden and the US government claim to uphold in the Summit of the Americas. Further, the maneuver threatens to undermine a principal avenue for progressive people in the US to advocate for social justice.

Angelica Salas, Executive Director of Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) expressed, “The People’s Summit will lift up all those issues important to our people but left out of that other presidential summit across town: the rights of immigrants, women and workers; the rebuilding and protection of democratic norms; the security of families. We will present a different vision of the Western Hemisphere as a place of peace, freedom and prosperity for all, that excludes no country, no faith, no race, and no gender.”

Regardless of the outcome regarding the permit request, the people of the Americas will march on the streets of Los Angeles on June 10 to Biden’s Summit of Exclusion and make their voices heard. The People’s Summit for Democracy will take place at Los Angeles Technical Trade College from June 8-10, and the march will take the streets on June 10.

https://orinocotribune.com/lapd-refuses ... -americas/

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About 3,000 workers laid off at Peru’s Las Bambas as mine shutdown drags on
Reuters | June 2, 2022 | 11:49 am Latin America Copper

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Las Bambas is one of the world’s largest copper mines. Credit: MMG.

About 3,000 workers have been laid off in Peru due to the suspension of operations at MMG’s Las Bambas copper mine, which has dragged on for over 40 days, a mining union said on Thursday as workers took to the streets to protest.

Las Bambas, one of the world’s largest copper mines, was forced to halt operations in April due to protests from neighboring indigenous communities in the Peruvian Andes, two of which entered company property and held a sit-in protest at the mine, triggering the shutdown.

Erick Ramos, the president of the union, said in a letter to the government seen by Reuters, that the 3,000 workers all work for contractors that provide services to Las Bambas. It added that “hundreds” of direct mine employees have also been furloughed.

On Thursday morning, hundreds took to the streets in Lima, with satellite protests taking place in the cities of Cuzco and Arequipa. This is the union’s second protest since the mine’s stoppage.

Reuters images showed marchers waving the red and white Peruvian flag and holding up signs, which read: “We demand a solution” and “we want to work.”

MMG employs about 2,700 people directly in Peru and a further 6,000 people through third-party companies, according to corporate disclosures.

These “labor measures will keep worsening due to the continuing social conflict,” Ramos said in the letter.

The government of left-wing President Pedro Castillo has repeatedly tried and failed to broker a truce between the protesting indigenous groups – who demand better community redistribution of mining profits – and the mine’s management, which could allow for a restart of operations.

Peru is the world’s No. 2 copper producer and mining is a key source of tax revenue.

https://www.mining.com/web/about-3000-w ... -drags-on/

OTOH....

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Peru: PM Holds Meeting With Bambas’ Worker’s Representatives

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Peruvian Prime Minister said held a meeting to solve the Las Bambas' issues. Jun. 2, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@pcmperu
Published 2 June 2022 (8 hours 21 minutes ago)

On Thursday, the Peruvian Prime Minister met with the representatives of the Las Bambas Workers Union.

Anibal Torres, Peru's Prime Minister, held a meeting on Thursday with Erick Ramos, the secretary of the Las Bambas Workers Union. The session was carried out at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM).

During the session, the attendants expressed their gratitude for the State's efforts to resolve the conflict with the mining company.

According to what the PCM posted on Twitter, the meeting participants called on the Peruvian authorities to take the necessary measures to establish the public order.

During the summit, the Torres was attentive to the requests made by the workers of Las Bambas to prevent events that may be harmful to workers' physical integrity and life and community members.


Premier Torres: The Executive Power is working to find a prompt solution to the situation in Las Bambas and recover the rule of law in the area

"We understand the situation. We have made every effort to resolve this conflict through dialogue. We have to restore the rule of law," said the Peruvian Prime Minister.

The communities involved in the conflict with the minin project of Las Bambas are: Nueva Fuerabamba, Huancuire, Pumamarca, Choaquere, Chila, and Chuicuni.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0024.html

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Chile: Congress Declares Mapuche Organizations as Terrorists
JUNE 2, 2022

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Indigenous Mapuche activist in a street protest holding a banner that reads: "We are not terrorists! Justice and freedom for Mapuche political prisioners." Photo: IWGIA.

The Chilean government underlined its commitment to providing a substantive solution to the problems of the people who live in the southern zone.

On Tuesday, May 31, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved a draft resolution declaring the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM) and three other Mapuche organizations as illegal and terrorist associations.

Along with CAM, the groups Resistencia Mapuche Malleco, Resistencia Mapuche Lafkenche and Weichan Auka Mapu were also included in the category of illicit terrorist associations.

The draft resolution was adopted after the plenary session analyzed the statements made by CAM leader, Héctor Llaitul, about organizing an armed resistance in the Southern Macrozone of the country in the face of the government’s declaration of a state of emergency there.


The lower house of the Chilean parliament also asked Chilean President Gabriel Boric for criminal prosecution of the aforementioned groups in accordance with the provisions of Law 18,314, regarding terrorist activities.

Along with the resolution, President Boric was asked to apply the anti-terrorist law against the four Mapuche organizations. “The President of the Republic is requested to criminally prosecute [the organizations] in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 18,314 on terrorism,” states the resolution, approved by 66 votes in favor, 43 against, and 13 abstentions.

Likewise, it asked the president to request the counter-terrorism offices of the US State Department and the Council of the European Union to declare the CAM, its armed wing Órganos de Resistencia Territorial, and Weichán Auka Mapu, as terrorist organizations.


The draft resolution, presented by the deputy of the southern region Miguel Mellado from Renovación Nacional (RN), received support from all the deputies of the region, except Deputy Ericka Ñanco who voted against it, and Deputy Jorge Saffirio, who abstained.

The Ministers for the Interior, Izkia Siches, and for Defense, Maya Fernández, participated in the parliamentary session, representing the Executive Branch. They explained the actions that the State has taken to normalize the situation in the south of the country.

“The government and this minister are deeply committed to the fundamental solutions of the problems of the people who inhabit this territory, but we will not limit ourselves to attacking only the symptoms, rather our commitment is to address their roots,” Minister Siches said.

She added that this “undoubtedly requires the unity of all the political forces represented in this parliament… Addressing this conflict requires State policies, and there are no shortcuts. There are no easy or short solutions other than agreeing on a strategy and a plan.”

Recent polls show a sharp decrease in President Boric’s support, and many experts have remarked that a move against the Mapuche people, who have historically been under attack by Chilean oligarchs and transnational corporations to strip them of their land, will not improve his approval ratings.

https://orinocotribune.com/congress-in- ... errorists/

Another phony leftists....

There is no honest compromise to be had with the capitalists and anything short of a clean break seems doomed unless we can separate the Bosses from the means of production and their immense wealth.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:03 pm

ALBA is Best Alternative for Unity of the Americas, Declare Heads of State in Havana Summit
JUNE 4, 2022

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The heads of state of ALBA countries, at the 21st ALBA-TCP meeting in Havana, Cuba. Photo: Yaimi Revelo.

Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua found an alternative and inclusive platform where they could freely express their ideas and advocate for a true Latin American union, contrary to the Summit of the Americas being convened by the administration of US President Joe Biden in Los Angeles.

Ten days before the hemispheric meeting organized by Washington, Havana hosted the conference of the leaders of the ten nations that make up ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.

Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—countries that the United States has tried to exclude from the meeting, as if they were not part of the American continent—showed Washington an inclusive route to follow to achieve sustainable and balanced development in Latin America.

“These are times to unite, not divide; to dialogue, not confront,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel affirmed during the inauguration of the ALBA Summit.

At the event, Díaz-Canel made it clear that the 9th Summit of the Americas will be a setback in hemispheric relations if the US refuses to invite all the sovereign states of the continent. Although the Cuban president stressed that he will not attend the event under any circumstance, he assured that no country should be left outside just because of Washington’s political whim.

“I appreciate the stance of the Latin American and Caribbean countries that have rejected the White House’s attempts to divide us,” said the Cuban president in his inaugural speech. “The Summit of the Americas should be for all the nations of the Americas, without exclusion, and not a meeting between the United States and its guests, depending on Washington’s political sympathies.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros noted that “the ALBA meeting is our lifeboat. It will help us focus on working to improve life and achieve the development of our countries.”

“ALBA already has a heritage, a clear doctrine of the relationship between our peoples,” said the Venezuelan president. “It can show concrete results of our work since its foundation on December 14, 2004.”

The heads of State of St. Lucia, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines also took part in the event, some of them by video conference. They offered their support to Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela’s demands in the face of hostilities from Washington.

The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Everard Gonsalves, announced that his country received the US invitation to the 9th Summit of the Americas. “However, I can assure you that I will not attend unless all of us get an invitation,” he stated.

In summary, the regional leaders agreed that it is time to build the Patria Grande, the one dreamed of by Simón Bolívar and José Martí, and this will only be possible through regional integration mechanisms, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and ALBA-TCP.

“The United States has not yet understood that Latin America and the Caribbean have changed forever,” Díaz-Canel concluded. “We are strong. We are united.”



(Resumen Latinoamericano – English) by Alejandra García

https://orinocotribune.com/alba-is-the- ... na-summit/

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Date: April 13, 2018 Place: Lima, Peru (Credit: Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS)

A second left-wing progressive wave is emerging in Latin America
By Manolo De Los Santos, Gisela Cernadas (Posted Jun 06, 2022)

Ideology, Movements, Political Economy, StrategyAmericas, Latin America, United StatesCommentary9th Summit of the Americas, Featured
The 9th Summit of the Americas, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles in June, remains uncertain. Since the Biden administration has not invited the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela on the grounds of “democracy issues”, the leaders of Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, and other countries have expressed the possibility of refusing to participate. Although some countries may eventually go to Los Angeles under pressure from Washington, one cannot help but notice that in Latin America, which has always been regarded as the “backyard of the United States”, the geopolitical winds seem to be changing.

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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attends a news conference after nearly 92% of voters backed him to stay in office in a recall election with a low turnout, according to results from Mexico’s electoral institute, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico April 11, 2022. REUTERS/Gustavo Graf

More telling than the signs from the Summit of the Americas is the silent emergence of left-wing forces in Latin American countries. Left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro won the largest number of votes (40.32%) in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election, although the situation in the second round on June 19 remains unclear. If both Petro and Brazilian presidential candidate Lula da Silva, who is currently leading in approval ratings, win this year’s elections, the seven most populous countries in Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and Chile, accounting for 80% of the region’s population) will all be governed by left-wing leaders. This would be an important turn in the history of the region.

Since the 15th century, the history of Latin America has been closely linked to colonialism and the slave trade. In the 19th century, U.S. President James Monroe declared the entire Americas to be the sphere of influence of the United States, and since then the U.S. strategy towards Latin America has never changed: complete political and military control of the region along with economic plunder of its natural resources. The U.S. expropriated from Mexico the territories of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, western Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico; and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico remain U.S. colonies to this day. In January, Biden said that Latin America is not “America’s backyard, but its front yard”, which is probably the biggest disagreement among the U.S. political elite about the status of Latin America.

There is an old joke that goes: Why don’t military coups ever happen in Washington D.C.? Because there is no U.S. embassy there. The joke couldn’t be more relevant in Latin America, where Mexico, in 1846, was one of the first victims of the Monroe Doctrine. Since then, the U.S. military has carried out more than 100 interventions, invasions, and coups in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the 1970s, the CIA carried out a series of military coups throughout the region to overthrow left-wing and independent governments. In a secret program known as Operation Condor, the CIA worked closely with military dictators to suppress left-wing activists and prevent the rise of communism among the local populations.

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Handout photo released by the Argentinian Presidency of Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez during a visit to the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City in Beijing on February 5, 2022. – fernandez is on official visit in China. (Photo by ESTEBAN COLLAZO / Argentinian Presidency / AFP)

In 1964, a coup d’état supported by the U.S. government in Brazil overthrew President João Goulart of the Labor Party, leading to 20 years of military dictatorship in Brazil. In 1973, Nixon and Kissinger supported Pinochet’s coup in Chile, which resulted in the death of elected President Allende at the presidential palace, the arrest of 38,000 Allende supporters, and the execution of 4,000 others. Subsequently, Chile became a laboratory for neoliberal economics and the “Chicago Boys”, such as Milton Friedman, were brought in to implement comprehensive privatization reforms. In Argentina, Kissinger supported Jorge Videla’s 1976 coup in which 30,000 people were tortured and executed and neo-liberal economics was implemented through his Minister of Economy, Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz. Paraguay (1954), Bolivia (1971), and Uruguay (1973), among others, also suffered from U.S.-backed right-wing coups.

In the 1980s, the United States furthered its neoliberal policy by means of the Washington Consensus. As Latin American countries were forced to take on huge debts in the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Washington Consensus, through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, set policies to drastically cut public benefits, privatize state-owned enterprises, deregulate business and capital markets, and fully liberalize finance and trade. As a result of neoliberal reforms and the Washington Consensus, 50 million people in Latin America fell into poverty from 1970 to 1995, and the poverty rate grew from 35% (1970) to 45% (2001). During this period, external debt tripled from $67.31 billion (1975) to $208.76 (1980), 60% of which was public debt. The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 3% (1970) to 8.5% (1989), further stifling the possibility of economic development. The effects of holistic privatization and the destruction of the industrial structure continue to this day as these countries struggle to escape the position of underdevelopment and indebtedness in which they were placed.

In fact, back in 1985, few state leaders could clearly understand, let alone question, the debt traps that most Third World countries were forced into. Former Cuban President Fidel Castro had called for a debt moratorium because it was morally irrational and mathematically impossible to pay off these debts. His comments generated widespread interest in international public opinion. In contrast, today’s leaders in Washington are actively advocating a new Marshall Plan for Latin America, which would mean more increases in its debt. As Vijay Prashad denounced at COP26 in Glasgow, imperialist powers plundered their colonies of the wealth that then returned to developing countries in the form of loans. The Latin American countries produce to pay off their debts, and in turn sign more debt contracts with the very countries that have plundered wealth from the colonized countries. This is the debt trap: the economy and politics of these countries prioritize serving debt repayment over their own economic and social development, and the lack of development leads to more debt.

In 1999, a progressive wave began in Latin America with the election of Hugo Chavez as President of Venezuela. This reflected the discontent of the Latin American people with neoliberalism and U.S. hegemony. In less than a decade, progressive and left-wing parties in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Paraguay won elections consecutively. For the first time in Latin American history, a group of popular regimes came to power through democratic elections. Chavez advocated the “Bolivarian Revolution”, created the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and initiated the process of deep integration in Latin America. Subsequently, several regional multilateral organizations, such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), were established, and Brazil helped to bring about the BRICS Summit.

The U.S. response to this progressive wave started a period of counterrevolution marked by economic sanctions, instigated coups, and hybrid wars. The new round of U.S. intervention brought setbacks to popular regimes and progressive parties in Latin America. In 2012, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was impeached in a “constitutional coup” and in 2013, the CIA fomented violent street protests in Venezuela and was suspected of being involved in the mysterious death of Chavez. In 2016, Brazil’s President Rousseff was subverted by a legal persecution, and former President Lula, who belonged to the same labor party, was unable to run for office due to corruption charges (which were later proven to be utterly fabricated). In 2019, the U.S.-led Organization of American States (OAS) claimed the Bolivian election was fraudulent; this was followed by a coup d’état that led to the resignation of President Morales.

The U.S. has used different hybrid war tactics according to the different situations of Latin American countries. In the case of Venezuela, a regional leader in progressive thinking, the tactics are simple and brutal: prolonged economic sanctions to keep worsening its economy, exclusion of the country from the SWIFT system to prevent it from conducting normal international trade, and outright freezing and seizing of the country’s gold and foreign exchange reserves. These tactics are much the same as those imposed on Russia today.

And for Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy and a key player in geopolitics, the United States employs a more comprehensive hybrid war strategy that included the impeachment of former President Rousseff. Former President Lula also suffered judicial persecution, having been arrested and imprisoned for nearly two years on suspicion of embezzlement; the judge in charge of the case, Sergio Moro, was later appointed Minister of Justice in the Bolsonaro administration. The case went through the entire judicial process until Brazil’s Supreme Court found Lula not guilty of any crime.

In Argentina, the neoliberal government of former President Mauricio Macri left the country with tens of billions of dollars of IMF loans, and the country remains in a debt trap to this day. Similar to the situation in Brazil, judicial persecution of left-wing and progressive leaders escalated after Macri’s ascension to the presidency. Former President Cristina Kirchner was accused of more than a dozen crimes; some of her ministers and collaborators were charged with corruption, illegal association, and other crimes; and even former Vice President Amado Boudou was “preventively” imprisoned. All of these people were victims of U.S.-sponsored lawfare, and all were acquitted by their own judicial systems years later.

A second wave of popular governance is currently building in Latin America. It began with the election of López Obrador as president of Mexico in 2018. He has pushed for social reforms and recently nationalized Mexico’s lithium industry, elevating lithium to a strategic mineral and declaring its exploration, extraction, and use to be the exclusive right of the state. In 2019, the Frente de Todos (Popular Front), a coalition of left-wing, Kirchnerist, and Peronist parties, won elections in Argentina, with Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner elected president and vice president, respectively. In 2020, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) returned to power in Bolivia with a new president, Luis Arce, who had served as economy minister in the Morales government. In 2021, Pedro Castillo in Peru and Gabriel Boric in Chile won presidential elections in their respective countries. Also last year, Xiomara Castro, the female representative of the left-wing party Liberty and Refoundation, was elected President of Honduras.

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Unlike the wave of progressivism and left-wing governments two decades ago, today’s global geopolitical environment is undergoing a quiet and dramatic change. The U.S. empire is declining from its pinnacle. Although the U.S. military had to withdraw from Afghanistan, the U.S. political elite still arrogantly believes that the empire can contain both Russia and China, intervene in a proxy war in Ukraine, provoke China with Taiwan, and ratchet up sanctions against Russia and tensions with China, while still maintaining “order in the yard” on the American continent.

At the same time, China’s influence on Latin America in terms of investment, trade, and regional cooperation is rapidly increasing. The BRICS summits, which began in 2008, the China-CELAC Forum, which began in 2014, and the Belt and Road Initiative, which has attracted widespread interest, are all demonstrating China’s growing influence in Latin America. Unlike the progressive waves of the past, Latin American people can now expect a stronger China. Today’s China advocates multilateralism and a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, rather than war or intervention. It is also an opportunity for governments that aim to catch up with developed countries in terms of economic development and technology, because China is now the second largest economy after the United States and is expected to become the largest one by 2028.

While the left in Latin America is on the rise, that does not mean victory is within reach. The economic and political realities facing today’s elected progressive governments are far worse than they were in 1999 when the first wave of popular parties rose to power. The task before these governments is awe-inspiring. At the same time, Washington is acutely aware that destabilizing Cuba and Venezuela is key to destabilizing the rest of the Latin American continent, and they will continue to use hybrid wars and lawfare to try to subvert both countries.

The White House and the State Department are concerned about the situation created by the crisis of the Summit of the Americas. This is not the first time that Latin American countries have complained about the U.S. exclusion of Cuba, but in the context of the rise of the left across the continent, such complaints are now eroding U.S. influence in Latin America while pushing left-wing leaders to take more radical positions. So, we can definitely expect to witness an aggressive U.S. media offensive against Cuba and López Obrador – the same Mexican president who has driven the debate on whether Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua should participate in the summit.

Pressured by the United States, Latin American heads of state may still end up attending the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Colombia’s right-wing could still form a coalition to defeat Petro in a runoff vote. Even Lula could still be backstabbed by the U.S.-led hybrid war and lose the Brazilian presidential election. After all, the past 12 months have seen U.S. National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Newland, and CIA Director William Burns all express concern about the Brazilian election – an election that, in the discourse of the U.S. political elite, will be “the most critical one since the restoration of ‘democracy’ [in Brazil] in the 1980s”.

The rejection of imperialism by the progressive left-wing movements in Latin America suggests the goal of an independent path, and the strengthening voices of the working classes against neoliberalism. But the construction of socialism takes time and international cooperation. Thus, the struggles of the political parties and movements representing the people after winning elections are not only about the development of their own countries, but also about the defeat of U.S. intervention. Looking ahead, Latin America will not sail smoothly towards socialism, but will endure a tortuous process. In this process, China has a key role to play in supporting these countries on the path to full independence by promoting peace, multilateralism, and friendship among the people across the world.

https://mronline.org/2022/06/06/a-secon ... n-america/

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ECLAC: Ukrainian Conflict Fuels Economic Distress in Latam

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Acting Executive Secretary of ECLAC, Mario Cimoli. Jun. 6, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@eclac_un

Published 6 June 2022

ECLAC warned that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has accelerated inflation, economic slowdown and poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, issues already posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Acting Executive Secretary of ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), Mario Cimoli, said at a press conference that "the region is facing geopolitical contexts and scenarios that have meant a strong economic slowdown, increases in inflation and a slow and incomplete recovery of labor markets, which will increase poverty levels."

Acknowledging that the Ukraine crisis is a driving factor behind the deteriorating economic situation in the region, the official said that the pandemic, along with the 2018 U.S.-Ukraine trade war, had affected the region long before.

"This is not a single crisis; it is a sequence of crises and reading the Ukraine conflict as a problem on its own is a mistake," Cimoli said.

The United Nations agency forecasts economic growth in the region of only 1.8% for 2022, well below last year's rate of 6.3 percent. Brazil, Paraguay and Chile are the countries most affected by low GDP growth rates, according to ECLAC.

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Inflation rates have already increased due to the pandemic, which has been compounded by the conflict in Ukraine with a strong impact on food and hydrocarbon trade. Annual inflation in the region reached 6. 6 percent at the end of 2021, moving up to 8.1 percent in April 2022.

According to ECLAC, in 2022, regional poverty will reach 33.7 percent, 1.6 percentage points higher than projected in 2021 for this year, whereas extreme poverty will reach 14.9 percent, 1.1 points higher than last year's estimate.

In this sense, Cimoli said that inflation in Latin America and the Caribbean is a phenomenon that requires special attention since "our central banks have a role that, although not marginal, does not have the same weight," he said, drawing a comparison with the European and U.S. economies.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/ECL ... -0029.html

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The Empire’s “Front Yard” and the Monroe Doctrine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 3, 2022
Erica Caines

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We used to talk about, when I was a kid in college, about “America’s backyard.” It’s not America’s backyard. Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard. And we’re equal people. We don’t dictate what happens in any other part of that — of this continent or the South American continent. We have to work very hard on it. But the trouble is: we’re having great difficulty making up for the mistakes that were made the last four years, and it’s going to take some time.

Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference JANUARY 19, 2022


The claims levied by Biden about America’s “front yard” – an attempt to make Donald Trump’s presidency responsible for the horrific and deadly foreign policies plaguing Latin America and the Caribbean, rooted in the racist Monroe Doctrine – have obfuscated the reality of the US empire’s longstanding imperialist relationship with the the Americas. In Biden’s first year, he has recognized Jovenel Moïse’s illegitimate presidency before his assassination as well as deported more than 700,000 Haitians. Many may recall Kamala Harris being sent to Guatemala to advise migrants, “do not come” to the US. Last summer, Biden’s administration actively pushed for regime change in Cuba while refusing to end the blockade nor the devastating sanctions. The Nicaraguan elections were viciously attacked with attempts by the U.S. to interfere. Biden also continued harsh sanctions on Venezuela and refused to recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president. The absurdity of the Biden Administration’s “front yard” rhetoric does nothing more than expose that the U.S. still views the region, the entire Americas, as its own. Imperial tactics in the region have always been a fixture implementation in US foreign policy.

The Long Arm of Soft Power

Institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) instigate students and youth into taking stances against their left-wing governments in potential color revolutions. NED, a private nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world, began as the Reagan administration’s solution to the storm of negative publicity following The Church Committee. Established in 1983, NED’s initial use was undermining Eastern European governments in the name of “ democracy and freedom of speech.” Yet once the Soviet Union fell, NED’s purpose changed to projecting U.S. government interests everywhere. Some Current examples of NEDs work includes the 2014 Maidan protest in Ukraine, the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and the 2021 Cuban protests.

The USAID is a private international development agency that funds NED. USAID is used to advance U.S. national security and economic prosperity providing leadership training for its preferred political candidates worldwide. Although the USAID claims to be a human rights organization, funds are allocated to back opposition insurrections pushing for regime change, globally. As co-founder of the NED, Allen Weinstein, told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”NED and USAID are two examples, but are not the only imperial tactics that the US has been and continues to subject the region to.

For instance, the Organization of the American States (OAS) is a multilateral association of 34 states representing the American hemisphere. As such, the OAS is a tool of imperialism meddling in elections supporting pro- U.S. right-wing governments and engaging in diplomatic chicanery. Because the U.S. provides 60% of the organization’s funding, OAS is at the whims of U.S. economic and ideological influence in efforts to expand Western hegemony. This makes OAS nothing more than an organization of colonial rule as it acts on behalf of Western powers to overthrow democratic governments and destabilize the region.

The Core Group is another example. The Core Group was set up to coordinate the various branches and elements of the United Nations occupation in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in 2004. The Core Group is a self-styled council consisting of the diplomats of foreign countries with political and economic interests in Haiti, combined with the representatives of a number of multilateral organizations and agencies (including the IMF and World Bank). While working to extend and protect the foreign economic interests in Haiti, it has consistently intervened in Haiti’s sovereign political affairs, often without the collaboration or consent of the Haitian government.

These examples of soft power coordinated and wielded by the west, with the U.S. leading the charge, have been foundational to U.S. foreign policy long before Trump. The notion that Biden is in opposition to, and not continuing, those policies because he understands the region to be his “front yard” not only confuses the people but allows for a particular apathy around the effects of U.S. foreign policy in that region— until it arrives on US borders.

Militarization and Western Hegemony

US meddling in its “front yard” is not limited to soft power, however. Often it is remarked that the US has carved the entire world up into military commands. CENTCOM, INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND, AFRICOM, NORTHCOM— there’s even a SPACECOM. But one of the least discussed and most impactful of the US military commands, because it is happening in our direct hemisphere, has been the U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND (SOUTHCOM).

Its mission statement says “SOUTHCOM deters aggression, defeats threats, rapidly responds to crises, and builds regional capacity, working with US allies, partner nations, and U.S. government (USG) team members to enhance security and defend the U.S. homeland and our national interests.” SOUTHCOM works to extend US military influence throughout the Americas and to promote militarism in line with US interests relying on spurious claims of “humanitarian assistance/disaster relief” and counter-narcotics operations to increase U.S. control over the region to advance capitalist interests.

The lie of benevolent and democracy driven “humanitarianism” is made evident by simply looking at the operations SOUTHCOM has been involved in. From the building of the Panama canal to being revitalized under the Reagan administration during the 1980s because of claims of “communist insurgents” operating in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Bolivia and alleged threat of drug cartels and narcotrafficking, SOUTHCOM has always been a necessary tool in the advancement of U.S hegemony.

Some examples of SOUTHCOM’s use:

Operation Just Cause, launched in 1989, is one of the most prominent military engagements in which SOUTHCOM has been involved. This operation was in response to the accession to power of Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Noriega following the death of General Omar Torrijos. This Operation led to people being crushed by tanks, captured Panamanians were executed on the street, and bodies were piled together and burned. The best estimates are at least 2,000 to 3,000 Panamanians, but this may be a conservative figure, according to a Central American Human Rights Commission (COEDHUCA) report. The report stated that “most of these deaths could have been prevented had the US troops taken appropriate measures to ensure the lives of civilians and had obeyed the international legal norms of warfare.” Several days after Noriega’s removal, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the invasion. But the United States — joined by allies Great Britain and France — vetoed it. American and European officials argued the invasion was justified and should be praised. When asked at a news conference whether it was worth sending people to die (Americans, of course, not thousands of Panamanians) to capture Noriega, President George H.W. Bush replied: “Every human life is precious. And yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it.”

With Operation Plan Colombia the United States rapidly increased intelligence, logistics, and training in Colombia in the fight against “drug trafficking” and illegally armed right-wing groups. Under ‘Plan Colombia’, government troops and associated paramilitaries were given a free rein to kill whom they liked, later framing their victims as FARC guerillas. As Joe Biden proudly proclaimed, he is “the guy who put together Plan Colombia Biden worked with Republicans to push for a hardline strategy warning that if the bill was not passed, the hemisphere would turn into a haven for terrorists and drug dealers. The result? Over 10,000 innocent people — many of them farmers’ union leaders, afro and indigenous activists — were slaughtered. The government only later admitted they had no connection to FARC. The U.S. directly funded the slaughter; the more dead “narco-terrorists” that were reported, the more money and weapons the U.S. would supply. Under Plan Colombia, the country became the most dangerous place to be politically on the left, establishing the reputation of “The Israel of Latin America.” The Biden administration is proposing a plan for Central America based on his Colombian model.

Operation Unified Response was a SOUTHCOM led response to the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. SOUTHCOM immediately responded and took its place as a leader in the global community seeking to aid the Haitians.Three days after the earthquake, SOUTHCOM deployed a force of 22,268 soldiers and staff to Haiti. This was in addition to the 14,000-strong MINUSTAH deployment already in the country. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport and the country’s airspace were fully under US command. Similarly, for the most recent 2021 earthquake that hit the southern peninsula of Haiti, Joe Biden’s response to the earthquake was to put war hawk Samantha Powers in charge of U.S. relief efforts in Haiti. Powers then announced that she would be working with SOUTHCOM and the Department of Defense to come up with a relief strategy. Cuba sends doctors, Venezuela sends food, the US sends SOUTHCOM.

Operation Tradewinds is a collusion of militarized white supremacy and Black Neocolonialism in the Caribbean with participation from nations like Guyana, Brazil, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Operation Tradewinds is “a US Southern Command sponsored combined joint exercise conducted with partner nations to enhance the collective ability of defense forces and constabularies to counter transnational criminal organizations, conduct humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations.” Caribbean nations participated in this region-wide military exercise with army personnel from SOUTHCOM, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and the Netherlands. Terms like “transnational criminal organizations,” “humanitarian assistance” and even “disaster relief operations” should be understood as euphemisms for the neo-colonial presence of the US empire and its European allies throughout the region. Military exercises and CIA manuals are a vital part of the operation ensuring the continued strength and influence of the West. Resisting neo-colonialism in the region (like the uprisings in the French-Caribbean colonies, and labor protests) will more frequently be met with state repression, extra-judicial killings, and imprisonments.

The U.S. Fallacy of Democracy

The centuries attempt, by the US (and its allies), on controlling the region through soft and hard power foreign policy tactics led to the 33 members of The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declaring the Caribbean and Latin America to be a “Zone of Peace” on January 28- 29, 2014 in Havana, Cuba. During the summit, CELAC declared:

1.Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace based on respect for the principles and rules of International Law, including the international instruments to which Member States are a party to, the Principles and Purposes of the United Nations Charter;

2.Our permanent commitment to solve disputes through peaceful means with the aim of uprooting forever threat or use of force in our region;

3.The commitment of the States of the region with their strict obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

4.The commitment of the peoples of Latin American and Caribbean to foster cooperation and friendly relations among themselves and with other nations irrespective of differences in their political, economic, and social systems or development levels; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors;

5.The commitment of the Latin American and Caribbean States to fully respect for the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social, and cultural system, as an essential conditions to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations;

6.The promotion in the region of a culture of peace based, interalia, on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace;

7.The commitment of the States in the region to guide themselves by this Declaration in their International behavior;

8.The commitment of the States of the region to continue promoting nuclear disarmament as a priority objective and to contribute with general and complete disarmament, to foster the strengthening of confidence among nations;

The state department’s recent decision to exclude Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba from participation in The Ninth Summit of The Americas is absurdly hypocritical. However, the Summit of The Americas is coming at a time of a left political shift in the region as nations move towards multipolarity seeking strategic and economic alliances with competing powers like Russia and China, isolating the West more and more. The summit also creates a space for organizations like The Black Alliance For Peace to revive the civil society element of the “zone of peace” by popularizing the declaration and building popular support across our Americas.

For the U.S, democracy and human rights are no more than ideological props. Excluding Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from the summit is not about supporting democracy. It must be understood that these nations pose a serious ideological threat to the expansion of U.S/Western hegemony in the region. For Africans here, basic human rights are distant dreams. As Ajamu Baraka noted, these relatively poor nations, under sanctions, can “build public housing and eliminate homelessness, offer free education and universal healthcare, guarantee that no one will be allowed to go hungry, and can build democratic structures with the protected right of popular participation.” These kinds of human rights are unrealizable for the people of the U.S. despite “lesser evil” electoral propaganda that dances around the critical issue of imperialism. Africans within the U.S. are being crushed under the weight of austerity policies with broken promises from an administration hellbent on focusing on controlling its front yard (and the rest of the world).

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... -doctrine/

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President Maduro: US Killed any Chance of Success at Summit of the Americas
JUNE 6, 2022

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Photo composition with a photo of Atilio Borón (left) and President Nicolás Maduro (right). Photo: Venezuela News.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said that Washington has forfeited any chance of a successful Summit of the Americas by excluding three countries from the region. “The US government itself was in charge of killing the possibility of success of this summit,” said President Maduro in an interview with Atilio Borón, host of the Argentine radio program Dialogo Internacional, on National University of Avellaneda Radio and Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association Radio.

Maduro thanked those countries of the Americas, numbering over 25, that expressed solidarity with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, by condemning, in some form or another, the divisive and exclusionary policies of the US exceptionalist government.

“It is claimed that a summit is being held, but it is not a summit, much less of the Americas,” said President Maduro. “Almost 90% of the governments of the continent have had the courage, in different ways, to voice a protest against exclusion.”

“The meeting in Los Angeles, where they intend to hold a Summit of the Americas, is a contradiction,” said Maduro. “That is not a summit, it is a meeting!”

Recently, the United States, host country of the summit to be held in the city of Los Angeles from June 6 to 10, withheld the invitations of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Washington claims that its decision is due to the fact that the governments of these three countries do not respect human rights. The decision of the Biden administration sparked criticism from various heads of state and government, as well as political and social leaders and international organizations. Most of the 14 countries that make up the Community of Caribbean States (CARICOM) warned that they will not attend the diplomatic meeting.

CELAC

Venezuela’s president noted that the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, will attend the Summit of the Americas on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). “It seems very good to me that he brings the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean to the meeting of the Americas,” President Maduro said.

Venezuela’s head of state said that he had recently spoken with Fernández in “a friendly conversation, full of good energy, I could say.” Maduro referred to Fernández as “a colleague who wants to help Venezuela and the region,” and added that “in all his trips, he talks about the need to lift the sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba.”

https://orinocotribune.com/president-ma ... -americas/

AMLO Will Not Attend Summit of the Americas, Counter-Hegemonic Events on the Rise
JUNE 7, 2022

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A photo showing Joe Biden's virtual meeting with his national security team (cropped). Photo: White House.

Caracas, June 6, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)—The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), confirmed this Monday, June 6, that he will not attend the 9th Summit of the Americas because several countries of the hemisphere were excluded.

AMLO stated during his usual morning press conference that he is “not going to the summit because not all the countries of America are invited. I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries: exclusion, wanting to dominate for no reason, not respecting the sovereignty of countries. There can be no Summit of the Americas if all countries of the American continent do not participate.”

Meanwhile, two important grassroots summits are happening in parallel to counter the exhausted imperialist approach of the US. The People’s Summit is being held from June 8 to 10 in Los Angeles, California; and the Worker’s Summit of the Americas from June 10-12 in Tijuana, Mexico, a few miles south of the US border. Many activists point to the two counter-hegemonic events as a demonstration of the power of anti-imperialist movements and peoples both north and south of the border.

Prior to the summit, US President Joe Biden vetoed the attendance of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which has generated negative reactions. So far, several Latin American presidents have joined the repudiation of the exclusion of these three countries for political reasons.

Like Mexico, the nations of Bolivia, Guatemala, and Honduras maintain that their heads of state will not participate in the summit that is to start this Monday, June 6.

The Summit of the Americas, which until recently represented a high-level political meeting in the Western Hemisphere, has now become a failed event after losing prestige due to the decision of the United States to exclude several countries and the lack of leadership of the United States on the world stage.

Since the announcement of the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, López Obrador make clear that he would not attend the summit, and would instead send his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard. Immediately, US diplomacy started exerting pressure on the Mexican government to push AMLO to participate.

Washington sent Christopher Dodd, special advisor for the Summit of the Americas and main organizer, to Mexico City. Dodd, alongside US Ambassador Ken Salazar, met with Mexican authorities on May 18. After the meeting, Washington tried to play down the exclusion of the three socialist countries, but evidently it was not enough to avert the fiasco for US diplomacy.

However, the Mexican president added during his press conference that his US counterpart, Joe Biden, is a “good person” and considered Biden’s decision not to invite certain countries as the result of “a lot of pressure from the Republicans as well as some Democrats” exerted against him, “which has to do with the Cuban community in Florida.”

Some US Department of State (DoS) inside jokes have leaked to the press, and one of them says that President Biden himself threatened the organizer committee in the DoS that he would not attend the summit if they did not untangle the mess they created in its organization.

https://orinocotribune.com/amlo-will-no ... -the-rise/

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Cuba’s voice will be heard in the People’s Summit for Democracy despite U.S. hostilities
June 6, 2022 Alejandra Garcia and Bill Hackwell

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The United States insists on denying Cuba’s participation in the two most important political events to be held in the region this year: the Summit of the Americas and the People’s Summit for Democracy.

In early May, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced that Washington had left the Caribbean island out of the initial preparations for the Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Los Angeles this week. Rodriguez also rejected The White House’s intentions to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the continental event.

“The U.S. government is calling for a limited and exclusive Summit in Los Angeles due to the pressure put on it by the hemisphere’s far-right-wing. It excludes Cuba from discussions on issues that occupy an important place in the bilateral and regional relationship, such as migration,” the foreign affairs minister said.

Almost immediately, over 25 governments expressed their public discontent and demanded that all the countries of the Americas be invited. “Are Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua part of another continent, another planet, another galaxy?” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador asked and asserted that he would not attend the meeting if all nations were not present.

Today, President Joe Biden, despite all his maneuvering, will have a very difficult time making a success of that Summit. He says he plans to address crucial issues such as migration, human rights, and democracy without the leaders of not only Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua but also Honduras, Guatemala, Bolivia, among others. How can Biden turn around U.S. political relations with the hemisphere before an empty auditorium? Is Biden becoming the Emperor who has no clothes?

Parallel to this failing event, there will be the People’s Summit that is a promising coming together of now over 225 progressive groups from all over the US along with representatives of political organizations and leftist social movements from Latin America and the Caribbean. This gathering is taking place not that far away from Biden’s Summit at the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and will be an important convergence of progressive forces who are emerging from the post covid quarantine with a sense of urgency. The convergence will take on June 8, 9, and 10 with plenaries, panels, workshops and musical performances culminating with a march to the Summit of the America’s location on the last day.

The thrust of the Peoples meeting is an effort to put the Americas on the same geopolitical path of regional co operation outside the clutches of the imperialism that was pushed in the era of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and other Latin America leaders.

However, Cuba will not be able to participate in this event either. Recently, the organizers of the Peoples’ Summit denounced that the U.S. government denied visas to the Cuban delegation that were invited and planning to attend this alternative meeting in Los Angeles.

This is an affront to the very democratic values that the U.S. government claims to defend, said the coordinators of the continental meeting.

“The policy of the U.S. government is cruel to the Cuban people and also to the people of the United States, who are denied the right not only to travel to the island but to be able to speak and dialogue directly with the Cuban people,” one of the coordinators of the summit and The People’s Forum director, Manolo De Los Santos, told the press.

Among the 23 people from Cuban civil society whose visas were denied by the US were renowned Cuban scientist and physician Tania Crombet Ramos, Olympic medalist Reineris Salas Perez, queer Christian student leader Jorge Gonzalez Nunez, and many others, including journalists, artists, trade unionists, and community leaders.

Joe Biden’s Summit of the Americas is marked by exclusion and the imposition of a political agenda the exact opposite of the parallel Summit that is striving for inclusiveness by bringing together diverse voices from across the Americas.

Despite the efforts coming from Washington Cuba will be represented because they have many friends who will defend Cuba and bring Cuba’s accomplishments despite, the over 60 year old blockade, to the Summit of the Americas and also to the Peoples Summit for Democracy.

The people of Cuba can be reassured that, “Cuba’s voice will be heard in the world, despite Washington’s efforts to prevent it,” as Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel asserted.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericno – English

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... stilities/

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US govt’s Summit of the Americas fails: Boycott by presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala


As the US government’s Summit of the Americas opens in Los Angeles, California, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, and Guatemala have refused to attend, protesting the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.


ByBenjamin NortonPublished16 hours ago

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The US government’s Summit of the Americas started on June 6 in Los Angeles, California. And the event proved to be a major diplomatic failure for the Joe Biden administration.

Washington refused to invite the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

So to protest this exclusion, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras boycotted the summit. Guatemala’s president also chose to skip the conference.

This means heads of state representing Latin American countries with a total population of more than 200 million people – a significant percentage of the Americas – refused to attend Washington’s Summit of the Americas.



Mexico’s President AMLO boycotts the summit

The most significant absence was Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly by the acronym AMLO.

“I am not going to the summit because not all of the countries of the Americas were invited,” AMLO explained in his morning press conference on June 6.

“I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries, the exclusion, the desire to dominate, the lack of respect for the sovereignty of the countries and the independence of every country,” the Mexican president explained.


“There cannot be a Summit of the Americas if all of the countries of the American continent do not participate,” López Obrador continued. “We consider that to be the old policy of interventionism, of a lack of respect for nations and their peoples.”

AMLO criticized the US Republican Party for its “extremist” positions against Cuba and racist policies against immigrants. But he also pointed out that some prominent figures in the Democratic Party, such as New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, have also contributed to “hate” against Cuba and hawkish meddling in Latin America’s sovereign affairs.

“I don’t accept hegemonies,” AMLO added. “Not of China, not of Russia, not of the United States. All countries, no matter how small they are, are free and are independent.”

López Obrador said that Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, would instead attend the Summit of the Americas.

AMLO’s absence is especially significant given that, in addition to being neighbors with a 3,000-kilometer border, the United States and Mexico’s are each other’s top trading partners.

Mexico is the second-largest country in Latin America, in terms of population. It also has the second-biggest economy in the region.

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce boycotts the summit

Joining AMLO in condemning the US government’s policy of exclusion was Bolivia’s socialist President Luis Arce.

Bolivia’s foreign ministry confirmed on June 6 that Arce is not joining the summit either. Instead, the country’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Héctor Arce, is attending.

In a Twitter thread the week before, Arce insisted that “it is time for the government of the United States to put an end to the senseless and criminal economic, commercial, and financial blockade that weighs on Cuba, as well as the more than 500 unilateral coercive sanctions imposed on Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

The Bolivian leader added, “With blockades and sanctions, a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future will never be able to be built in the hemisphere, as the next Summit of the Americas is proposing.”


Honduras’ President Xiomara Castro boycotts the summit

Honduras’ new left-wing President Xiomara Castro is boycotting the Summit of the Americas as well.

On May 28, Castro tweeted, “I will only attend the summit if all of the countries of America are invited without exception.”

On June 6, the Honduran president made good on her promise, and her government confirmed that Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina would attend instead.


Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei boycotts the summit

While the majority of the leaders not attending the Summit of the Americas are left-wing, even Guatemala’s right-wing president, Alejandro Giammattei, announced that he will not be present.

Several officials from Giammattei’s government have been sanctioned by the United States, and he is protesting the Biden administration’s policies with his absence.

Protests planned against summit

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which represents 15 states, similarly threatened to boycott the summit if Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were excluded.

Several countries in the Caribbean did confirm they are attending, however. It is not clear how many are boycotting.

Brazil’s far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, had initially threatened not to attend the summit. Washington responded by promising Bolsonaro that it would welcome him to the White House and give him one-on-one meetings with Biden.

The far-right Brazilian autocrat thus changed his mind and decided to attend.

Bolsonaro is joined by the right-wing leaders of Colombia, Uruguay, and Ecuador, as well as the centrist leaders of Chile and Argentina.

The Summit of the Americas was first convened by the United States in 1994, after the end of the first cold war, as a way for Washington to expand its hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean.

That same year, the US government signed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a neoliberal deal with Mexico and Canada, which devastated Mexico’s local economy and fueled a wave of mass migration.

Numerous grassroots organizations, left-wing social movements, and labor unions have organized an alternative People’s Summit for Democracy to protest the US government’s Summit of the Americas.

The People’s Summit is hosting a series of demonstrations, panels, concerts, and cultural activities in California from June 8 to 10.

https://multipolarista.com/2022/06/06/u ... o-boycott/
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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:01 pm

Summit of the Americas: Imperialist domination and exclusion
June 7, 2022 Struggle - La Lucha

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Statement by the Revolutionary Government

Havana, June 6th, 2022.- The US Government, abusing its privilege of being the host country, decided at a very early stage to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the 9th Summit of the Americas to be held in the city of Los Angeles this month of June. It has refused to attend to the just claims of many governments to change that discriminatory and unacceptable stand.

There is no single reason that justifies the anti-democratic and arbitrary exclusion of any country of the hemisphere from this continental meeting, as warned by the Latin American and Caribbean nations at the 6th Summit held in Cartagena de Indias in 2012.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez announced last May 25 that he would not attend the meeting. This was Cuba’s final decision if all countries of the hemisphere were not convened on an equal footing.

Arrogance, fear of inconvenient truths being voiced, determination to prevent the meeting from discussing the most pressing and complex issues in the hemisphere, and the contradictions of its own feeble and polarized political system are behind the US government’s decision to once again resort to exclusion in order to hold a meeting with no concrete contributions yet beneficial for imperialism’s image.

It is a well-known fact that the US Government has engaged in intensive high-level efforts with governments of the region seeking to reverse the intention of many of not attending the meeting unless all countries are invited. Such efforts included immoral pressure, blackmail, threats and dirty deceptive maneuvers. These are all common practices that reflect imperialism’s traditional disdain for our countries and deserve the strongest rejection.

Cuba appreciates and respects the honorable, brave and legitimate stand of many governments in defense of the full and equal participation of all countries.

The leadership of Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador deserves special recognition. We highlight the clear stand of CARICOM member countries from the outset against such exclusions, as well as the firm stance of Bolivian president Luis Arce Catacora and of the president of Honduras Xiomara Castro. The position of Argentine as chairman of CELAC expresses the majority view of the region against a selective Summit, as expressed, both publicly and in private, by many governments of South and Central America.

Such genuine and spontaneous solidarity in reaction to this US discriminatory action against countries of the region reflects the sentiment of the peoples of Our America. The United States underestimated the support Cuba enjoys in the region, when it attempted to impose its unilateral and universally rejected hostile policy towards Cuba as a consensus regional position, however, the debate on the invitation process proved them wrong.

The 21st ALBA Summit held in Havana last May 27, showed the unequivocal repudiation of exclusions and discriminatory and selective treatment.

Such exclusions confirm that the United States conceived and uses this high-level dialogue mechanism as an instrument to further its hegemonic system in the hemisphere, just like the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) and other bodies established in the 20th century to curb independence, limit the sovereignty of nations in the region and thwart Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration aspirations.

They are part of the efforts to implement the Monroe Doctrine and promote exclusion as a dividing strategy for clear political, electoral and domination purposes.

One cannot speak of “The Americas” without including all the countries of the hemisphere. Our region demands cooperation, not exclusion; solidarity, not meanness; respect, not arrogance; sovereignty and self-determination, not subordination.

It is known that the documents to be adopted at Los Angeles are completely divorced from the real problems facing the region and that beyond the effort to grant the OAS supranational prerogatives to decide upon the legitimacy of electoral processes and to compel Latin American and Caribbean governments to impose repressive, discriminatory and excluding actions against migrants, these documents are useless and vague.

We know that, like in the past, the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean will resound during those days in Los Angeles with the admirable and principled absence of relevant leaders who enjoy political and moral authority and the recognition of their people and the world.

We are also fully confident that the leaders of the region, who choose to attend, will argue with dignity that the United States cannot treat our peoples as they used to in the 20th century.

Cuba supports the genuine efforts to promote integration throughout the hemisphere based on civilized coexistence, peace, respect for diversity and solidarity. Cuba has a widely acknowledged record of unreserved support and contribution to all legitimate proposals for actual and concrete solutions to the most pressing problems faced by our peoples. The reality we are presented with today is far from such aspirations.

(Cubaminrex)

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... exclusion/

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Biden’s Summit of the Americas Is Unfruitful - Evo Morales

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Bolivia's Former President denounced the exclusion of Latin American countries from the Summit of the Americas. Jun. 7, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ejutv

Published 7 June 2022 (13 hours 36 minutes ago)

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales said that the IX Summit of the Americas was "stillborn" due to the decision of the Biden Administration not to invite everyone to the meeting.

Evo Morales, Former Bolivian President, described the IX Summit of the Americas as a "stillborn" event because U.S. President Joe Biden decided to exclude several Latin American countries.

"The latest version of the misnamed Summit of the Americas is born dead by the absence of several brother presidents who reject the arbitrary and unilateral exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua by the United States," Morales posted on his Twitter account Tuesday.

On the other hand, the Andean leader has praised the decision of some presidents of the region not to attend the summit, which began on Monday in Los Angeles. According to international media reports, at least eight presidents would not participate in the event in protest against the U.S. exclusion policy, among them Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the actual Bolivian President Luis Arce.

Morales has also accused the current U.S. administration of charging him with provoking division instead of promoting integration. This Tuesday, Joe Biden's Administration confirmed that it had not invited any political representative from Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela to the summit.


The IX Summit of the Americas, which takes place in the U.S., was stillborn. U.S. President Joe Biden dividing instead of integrating the region's countries denounced former Bolivian President Evo Morales (2006 -2019) on his official Twitter account.

After the United States, host of the IX Summit of the Americas, announced in early May its initial decision regarding the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, countries it accuses of not respecting "democracy," the Mexican president was the first to threaten to boycott the event, should any member be excluded. Other Latin American leaders joined López Obrador's step.

On Monday, López Obrador, in addition to refusing to attend the Summit of the Americas, blamed U.S. authorities for the failure of the meeting for having "a policy of closed-mindedness and not openness."Despite Biden's attempts to avoid the summit's failure, experts predict that the event could become an embarrassment for the U.S. president due to the high-impact boycott.

Regarding the agenda of the event, detractors and strategists have questioned what progress can be made at the summit - in which migration will be a central issue - if Mexico and some of the Central American countries are the source of most of the irregular migration to the U.S. are absent.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bid ... -0016.html

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ALBA and Nicaragua: Defending Solidarity in a Divided World
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 6, 2022
Stephen Sefton

Controversy has dogged this June’s United States government organized Summit of the Americas. Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela had already given up on the OAS, seriously damaging the credibility of the Organization of American States as a trustworthy hemispheric forum for the countries North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. However many countries decide in the end not to attend the event, the fact that Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the Caricom countries have called their own participation into question has no doubt shaken even the sinister, implacable ideologues running US foreign policy. That policy remains firmly rooted in the Monroe Doctrine, endowing the US practically feudal rights over all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

If anyone is curious about what the US, Canada and their European Union allies want for the region, one has only to look at Haiti. There, the Western model of democracy and freedom, of free market neoliberalism, of United Nation’s and OAS run elections, of wholesale NGO managerial interventions, have had a free rein for almost twenty years. The horrific results are self-evident: economic impoverishment, political instability, extreme inequality, appalling public health outcomes, chronic citizen insecurity and similar outcomes in terms of practically any other social and economic indicator. If they were to get the chance, those levels of immiseration and exploitation are what the US and its allies have in mind for Latin America and the Caribbean.

However the determined and resilient impulse for emancipation in the region continues as strong as ever. The leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) countries held a summit meeting in Havana at the end of May this year. Of the four biggest ALBA-TCP countries, Bolivia has recovered from the 2019 US backed coup Nicaragua and Venezuela have both overcome recent US organized coup attempts. Cuba has survived 60 years of US trade and financial blockade while Venezuela and, so far to a lesser degree, Nicaragua are both subject to damaging illegal coercive economic measures. Even so, despite all that relentless US and allied aggression, this was the 21st such summit of the ALBA-TCP countries.

The summit issued a Declaration reaffirming the ALBA-TCP principles of “solidarity, social justice, cooperation and economic complementarity; with genuine regional integration led by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)”. The declaration also reaffirmed support for multilateralism and its opposition to efforts at imperialist domination, denouncing the US government’s discriminatory behavior over the June Summit of the Americas and too its economic aggression against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Important Caribbean island nations supported the declaration, including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The survival, endurance and resistance of the ALBA-TCP countries combines now with other factors that belie the feudal seigneurial assumption of the US ruling class that time is on their side and that if they apply sufficient coercion over sufficient time they will prevail. That assumption is no longer valid, if it ever was. Just as they have failed to subdue the liberation and emancipation impulse in Latin America and the Caribbean so too they have failed elsewhere. The debacle in Afghanistan, the failure to overthrow the government of Syria, let alone Iran, the practical expulsion from West Africa of US allied French forces, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and China’s no nonsense rejection of US meddling in Taiwan, all mean one thing: time is fast running out for the US ruling elite and their allied network of vassal states across North America, Europe and the Pacific.

Irrational US and European trade and financial sanctions against Russia and Belarus have deepened the developing global energy and food crisis already in train resulting from measures introduced to address Covid-19 over two years starting in early 2020. But instead of seeking to de-escalate this developing crisis, slow down their relative decline and accommodate to new global realities, the US and its allies have increased ultimately ineffective sanctions against Russia and are wantonly menacing China. The majority world watches as the US teeters on feet of clay toward a truly comprehensive and deeply ignominious strategic political, economic and ultimately military defeat. In that global context, the ALBA-TCP summit is yet another example of the global division the US and its allies have provoked which is leaving them steadily more isolated.

Voting patterns in the UN General Assembly this year have reflected this reality while also suggesting a multifaceted and radically nuanced range of interest-based policy decisions rather than any kind of clear-cut set of allegiances like those of the Cold War. That said, and in the context of the Americas, it may be helpful to identify what seem to be two clear ideological poles towards which different countries and their governments in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean tend currently to gravitate one way or another. The US and its allies group around an imperialist pole, while the ALBA-TCP countries embrace anti-imperialism. It may be helpful to summarize that opposition as follows.
Imperialist pole Anti-imperialist pole
counter-productive greeddeluded by false beliefs cooperative goodwillreality focused

corporate centred human person centred

sustaining racist marginalization promoting inclusive emancipation

preferential alignment with the West commitment to multipolarity

regional collaboration of capital regional integration of peoples

elite enrichment national wealth creation

speculative opportunism productive investment

socio-economic oligarchy socio-economic democratization

neocolonial dependence sovereign independence
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the US is unable to suppress resistance to their imperialist policies. By contrast, the Bolivarian Alliance countries in particular have successfully challenged US regional policies and their local elite enforcers. Nicaragua’s case bears out ALBA’s overall regional example. Since taking office in January 2007, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have decisively prioritized social and economic policies centred on the needs and aspirations of the human person.

Regional autonomy, infrastructure investment, active promotion of cultural identity and diversity have all radically empowered Nicaragua’s indigenous and afro-descendant peoples. Nicaragua’s foreign policy long ago stopped favoring the interests of North America and Europe. By re-opening its relations with the People’s Republic of China last year, developing its relationship with Iran and reaffirming its historic relations with Russia, Nicaragua is simply deepening its commitment to a multipolar world based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations.

Within Central America and the wider region Nicaragua has worked constantly since 2007 towards integration favoring the needs and aspirations of the region’s peoples based on the ALBA-TCP principles of solidarity and complementarity. The main factors blocking the development of the Central American Integration System are the recalcitrance of Costa Rica, US intervention in Honduras and Guatemala and Nayib Bukele’s reactionary position representing El Salvador. The neocolonial collaboration of local elites in Central America with their foreign patrons contrasts increasingly starkly with Nicaragua’s commitment to creating sovereign national wealth via productive investment. Especially since the failed coup attempt in 2018, Nicaragua has been the country in the region where grass roots social and economic democratization has most clearly prevailed against the local foreign-aligned oligarchy.

In all these dimensions and senses, Nicaragua accompanies Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela. Under the redoubtable leadership of President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has miraculously overcome more than a decade of relentless US aggression so as to remake its economy and society. Bolivia’s President Luis Arce and his team have steadily made good the huge damage and deep social and economic wounds inflicted on the country and its people by the US backed coup of 2019. Against all odds, revolutionary Cuba survives and looks forward to a better future, despite the crushing burden and difficulties of 60 years of continuing genocidal blockade by the US authorities. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, in the Americas the ALBA-TCP countries have demonstrated that the United States and its allies have acted above all to isolate themselves, while the rest of the world goes on advancing without them towards a better future of peace and prosperity.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... ded-world/

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Cuban Foreign Minister describes the Los Angeles Summit as a failure

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The Cuban foreign minister recognizes the relationship of respect and equality of Latin American nations. | Photo: Rebel Youth
Published June 7, 2022 (11 hours 44 minutes ago)

Latin American presidents and regional integration bodies have spoken out against the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, described this Tuesday the Summit of the Americas as a failure, a product of the moral discredit of US foreign policy and "the crisis of its hegemonic Pan-American system."

Through his account on the social network Twitter, the Cuban foreign minister pointed out that our America, referring to the nations that do not share the imperial policy of the summit, "has changed and only accepts a relationship of equality and mutual respect, without interference, no exclusions.

Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were excluded from participating in the meeting that has been in session since Monday in the city of Los Angeles, California, which caused dissimilar reactions in several presidents of the region.

The leaders of Mexico, Bolivia and Honduras confirmed that they will not attend either in the face of discriminatory policy on the part of Washington, which prevented the legitimate representatives of three countries from participating.


The Network for the Defense of Humanity, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP), the Puebla group, and the Community of American States and Caribeños (Celac), also spoke out against the decision.

In this sense, the president of Argentina, Carlos Fernández, confirmed on Monday his presence at the summit as a representative of CELAC, to carry the voice of the excluded nations.

In recent weeks, statements have been made by the presidents of the excluded nations, condemning the undemocratic and arbitrary nature of the event, and expressing their lack of interest in participating.

The ninth edition of the summit began with meetings between representatives of civil society, the private sector and other meetings prior to the high-level segment.

International observers agree that the event was organized with little transparency on the part of the United States; for the way in which he negotiated a so-called Health and Resilience Action Plan for the Americas until 2030; that presents shortcomings with respect to the real demands of the nations of the continent.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/cancille ... -0042.html

Argentina will bring the voice of the excluded to the Summit of the Americas

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"We are going to defend the unity of Latin America. Unity is not declared, it is exercised, and the best way to exercise it is not to segregate anyone," stressed the Argentine president. | Photo: Telam
Published June 8, 2022

President Alberto Fernández lamented the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the next Summit of the Americas.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said on Tuesday that he will participate in the next IX Summit of the Americas, in the United States, to defend the rights of the countries of the region and carry the voice of excluded nations.

"We are going to defend the unity of Latin America. Unity is not declaimed, it is exercised, and the best way to exercise it is not to segregate anyone," stressed the Argentine president about the position that he will take to the Los Angeles summit as president pro- tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

Regarding the exclusion by the US of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, Alberto Fernández lamented the absence of those countries that were not invited and announced that he, as head of the regional bloc, will try to "carry the voice" of those nations.


Due to the exclusions decided by the US, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Bolivian Luis Arce and the Honduran Xiomara Castro announced their decision to attend the next Summit of the Americas.


The spokeswoman for the Argentine Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, pointed out that the president's decision to participate in the meeting is the result of a dialogue with the representatives of the CELAC member states.

According to the agenda released by the Casa Rosada, Alberto Fernández will leave on Tuesday night for the city of Los Angeles.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/presiden ... -0005.html

Google Translator

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‘No Longer US’ Backyard,’ Latin America Sends United Message
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 7, 2022

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Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announces he will not attend the Summit of Americas as the US did not invite all the governments of the region during the daily morning press conference in Mexico City on June 6, 2022. Photo: AFP

The Summit of the Americas scheduled to be held in Los Angeles between June 6 and 10 will face an awkward situation with many countries in the region skipping the US-held summit due to Washington’s refusal to invite leaders from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua on the excuse of “democracy,” while many leading countries in the region like Mexico expressed opposition.

Chinese analysts said this proves that Latin America is not a “backyard” of the US, and compared to the last time the US held such summit in 1994, declining US hegemony today means Washington is unable to prevent the continent from seeking autonomy and development based on Latin American countries’ own interests.

The Biden administration has made a final decision to exclude the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas, people familiar with the matter said, despite threats from Mexico’s president to skip the gathering unless all countries in the Western Hemisphere are invited, Reuters reported on Monday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a routine press conference on Monday that the current situation proved that the US mindset driven by the “Monroe Doctrine” and its trick of using “democracy” as a tool to interfere with and divide countries are not welcome in the continent.

“Latin America is neither a ‘front yard’ nor a ‘backyard’ of the US, and the Summit of Americas is not ‘the Summit of America.’ As the host of the summit, the US needs to stop all of its hegemonic approaches, provide concrete respect to the Latin American and Caribbean countries, humbly listen to the voice of justice from the majority of this continent, make the summit focus on the shared concerns of the continent, boost cooperation and unity, and improve happiness among the people,” Zhao noted.

Guo Cunhai, an expert on Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday that the situation comes against the backdrop of the recent left turn in Latin America and Caribbean, which is unprecedented and influences more countries in the region than in the past, adding that countries in the region are more united and keen to rid the continent of US control and make more independent decisions based on their own interests.

“Currently, not just Mexico and Argentina, but Brazil is also very likely to see a left turn in the election this year, and even Colombia, a country that used to have close ties with the US, is likely to see left-wing leaders. This proves that the US’ policy of Latin America has failed to take care of regional countries’ interests, and has only made them feel bullied and pressured,” Guo said.

Chinese experts said the people of almost every Latin American country have bad memories of US hegemony, as Washington has directly or indirectly supported drug trafficking, arms sales and corruption in many countries in the region, and when the US used to be powerful enough, it wouldn’t care about the sovereignty of those countries, and would launch invasions, color revolutions and even assassinations to overthrow the regimes it doesn’t like.

When US hegemony is declining and has no more resources with which to play the game of “carrot and stick”, these countries will get united and seek more autonomy, and Biden administration has used the wrong approach in the first step of the effort to reset ties with Latin America – treating Latin American countries differently based on US preferences, said experts.

Declining US hegemony

According to the VOA, when the United States said last year it would host the 2022 Summit of the Americas, “officials had high hopes the event would help repair Trump-era damage to relations and reassert US primacy” over China’s growing influence in Latin America.

But these high expectations have been dashed. Even the VOA acknowledged that “ideological discord over who to invite, skepticism about US commitment to Latin America, and low expectations for major accords on issues such as migration and economic cooperation have already tarnished the event, officials and analysts say.”

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he would not attend unless all governments in the Americas are invited, whatever their political stripes. The leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and several Caribbean states have also declared that they won’t go for the same reason, and will instead send lower-profile delegations.

Heinz Dieterich, a world renowned German sociologist and political analyst working in Mexico, told the Global Times that “the ruling US power elites are totally out of touch with today’s reality” as it faces this awkward situation in dealing with the countries in the Western Hemisphere.

The US decision is formally based on Article 19 of the Inter-American Democracy Charter, imposed in the Organization of American States in Lima, 2001, by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The article states that “any unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order in a state of the Hemisphere constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the participation of that state’s government in the Summits of the Americas process”.

“The historic truth is that there is no other state in the hemisphere that has destroyed more democratic governments and institutions in the hemisphere and globally than Anglo-American imperialism: the US and the UK, through direct interventions, color revolutions, economic sanctions, blockades, et cetera,” Dieterich said.


Cuban Ambassador to China Carlos Miguel Pereira told the Global Times that if the US still wants to take Latin America as its own backyard, such an idea won’t work now, because Latin America is no longer what the US has imagined, and the region has ushered in new changes.

He noted that the US’ move to exclude countries including Cuba from this summit has doomed it to fail, and what the US is trying to achieve through this summit won’t have any real impact on the Latin American region.

Guo said the US has failed to receive support from most Latin American countries for its sanctions and accusations against Russia after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, which proves that the countries in the region are seeking a path of autonomy rather than blindly following the US on every issue.

Washington has always used China’s rising influence as a pretext to scare and pressure countries in the region, and to mobilize its internal resources to compete with China there, but in fact, this offends Latin American countries, because compared to the US hegemonic approach in the region that only serves US interests, most countries have found the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and other cooperation with China to be truly mutually beneficial and does not disrespect the region’s countries, said analysts.
China will surely be more welcomed in the region, and the US effort to disrupt the development of ties between China and Latin America is actually challenging the relevant countries’ autonomy, and places its hegemony over the interests of other countries, experts noted.

According to Ricardo Guerrero, an analyst and legal expert from Mexico, “Whatever the outcome (of the Summit of Americas), a controversial and conflictive summit is expected to be marked by the schism between Latin America and the US… Latin American countries are also confronting the US to demonstrate they ‘no longer want to be anyone’s backyard.’ The message has been sent: If Latin America is assembled as a whole, it is a piece to be reckoned with on the world geopolitical chessboard.”

Global Times

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... d-message/

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U.S. govt’s Summit of the Americas fails: Boycott by presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala
By Ben Norton (Posted Jun 08, 2022)

Originally published: Multipolarista on June 6, 2022 (more by Multipolarista)

The U.S. government’s Summit of the Americas started on June 6 in Los Angeles, California. And the event proved to be a major diplomatic failure for the Joe Biden administration.

Washington refused to invite the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

So to protest this exclusion, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras boycotted the summit. Guatemala’s president also chose to skip the conference.

This means heads of state representing Latin American countries with a total population of more than 200 million people–a significant percentage of the Americas–refused to attend Washington’s Summit of the Americas.


Mexico’s President AMLO boycotts the summit

The most significant absence was Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly by the acronym AMLO.

“I am not going to the summit because not all of the countries of the Americas were invited,” AMLO explained in his morning press conference on June 6.

“I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries, the exclusion, the desire to dominate, the lack of respect for the sovereignty of the countries and the independence of every country,” the Mexican president explained.


“There cannot be a Summit of the Americas if all of the countries of the American continent do not participate,” López Obrador continued.

We consider that to be the old policy of interventionism, of a lack of respect for nations and their peoples.

AMLO criticized the U.S. Republican Party for its “extremist” positions against Cuba and racist policies against immigrants. But he also pointed out that some prominent figures in the Democratic Party, such as New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, have also contributed to “hate” against Cuba and hawkish meddling in Latin America’s sovereign affairs.

“I don’t accept hegemonies,” AMLO added.

Not of China, not of Russia, not of the United States. All countries, no matter how small they are, are free and are independent.

López Obrador said that Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, would instead attend the Summit of the Americas.

AMLO’s absence is especially significant given that, in addition to being neighbors with a 3,000-kilometer border, the United States and Mexico’s are each other’s top trading partners.

Mexico is the second-largest country in Latin America, in terms of population. It also has the second-biggest economy in the region.

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce boycotts the summit

Joining AMLO in condemning the U.S. government’s policy of exclusion was Bolivia’s socialist President Luis Arce.

Bolivia’s foreign ministry confirmed on June 6 that Arce is not joining the summit either. Instead, the country’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Héctor Arce, is attending.

In a Twitter thread the week before, Arce insisted that “it is time for the government of the United States to put an end to the senseless and criminal economic, commercial, and financial blockade that weighs on Cuba, as well as the more than 500 unilateral coercive sanctions imposed on Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

The Bolivian leader added,

With blockades and sanctions, a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future will never be able to be built in the hemisphere, as the next Summit of the Americas is proposing.


Honduras’ President Xiomara Castro boycotts the summit

Honduras’ new left-wing President Xiomara Castro is boycotting the Summit of the Americas as well.

On May 28, Castro tweeted,

I will only attend the summit if all of the countries of America are invited without exception.

On June 6, the Honduran president made good on her promise, and her government confirmed that Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina would attend instead.


Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei boycotts the summit
While the majority of the leaders not attending the Summit of the Americas are left-wing, even Guatemala’s right-wing president, Alejandro Giammattei, announced that he will not be present.

Several officials from Giammattei’s government have been sanctioned by the United States, and he is protesting the Biden administration’s policies with his absence.

Protests planned against summit

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which represents 15 states, similarly threatened to boycott the summit if Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were excluded.

Several countries in the Caribbean did confirm they are attending, however. It is not clear how many are boycotting.

Brazil’s far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, had initially threatened not to attend the summit. Washington responded by promising Bolsonaro that it would welcome him to the White House and give him one-on-one meetings with Biden.

The far-right Brazilian autocrat thus changed his mind and decided to attend.

Bolsonaro is joined by the right-wing leaders of Colombia, Uruguay, and Ecuador, as well as the centrist leaders of Chile and Argentina.

The Summit of the Americas was first convened by the United States in 1994, after the end of the first cold war, as a way for Washington to expand its hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean.

That same year, the U.S. government signed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a neoliberal deal with Mexico and Canada, which devastated Mexico’s local economy and fueled a wave of mass migration.

Numerous grassroots organizations, left-wing social movements, and labor unions have organized an alternative People’s Summit for Democracy to protest the U.S. government’s Summit of the Americas.

The People’s Summit is hosting a series of demonstrations, panels, concerts, and cultural activities in California from June 8 to 10.

https://mronline.org/2022/06/08/u-s-gov ... cas-fails/

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Ralph Gonsalves: “Latin-Caribbean integration is necessary, but it has been discontinuous”
Originally published: Resumen Latinoamericano and the Third World on June 6, 2022 by Laura Capote and Leticia Garziglia (more by Resumen Latinoamericano and the Third World) (Posted Jun 08, 2022)

The small island countries of CARICOM have given a demonstration of dignity and sovereignty, maintaining firm positions on the U.S. interference policy against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Here is an Exclusive interview with Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “Comrade Ralph”, as he is known to his supporters and countrymen, is the main leader of the Labor Unity Party, and is serving his fifth consecutive term in office, after winning the 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 elections.

In addition to being an active campaigner for the republic and full sovereignty, Gonsalves is a renowned intellectual figure. An economist and Master in Public Administration from the University of the West Indies, and Doctor in Administration from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, he has written on trade unionism, Marxism, neocolonialism, political economy, Africa, the Caribbean and the problems of integration and development, among other topics. Some of his most outstanding books are “The Specter of Imperialism: The Case of the Caribbean” (1976); “History and the Future: A Caribbean Perspective” (1994) and “The Non-Capitalist Path to Development: Africa and the Caribbean” (1981).

Currently, Gonsalves is one of the main promoters of the policy of reparations to Afro-descendant populations for the crimes of slavery and trafficking, as well as an active promoter of the integrationist policies of CARICOM and ALBA-TCP.

Question: How do you analyze the global and continental geopolitical situation? What projects and forces are in conflict? What are the main trends?

Ralph Gonsalves: We are in an extremely complex period of the global political economy, flooded with multiple contradictions. One of the constants is the advance of monopoly capitalism, which has spread across the globe. The asymmetrical link between global monopoly capitalism, the governments of North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and what are known as “emerging markets” is visible. Of course, within the major monopoly capitalist countries there are national factions, so there are contradictions within the European Union itself and between them and the United States, even though they all share capital’s historic mission.

Monopoly capitalism has become “casino capitalism”, which generates its own set of contradictions as it no longer has a direct relationship with the real production of goods and services. Then there are the links between these capitalist countries and the groups and classes that are related to them in the emerging countries: hence the tensions we see in Mexico despite having a progressive government. Or we could mention the cases of Argentina, Chile, Honduras and even Bolivia. Also within those countries we are seeing the workers’ demand for more rights.

It has been seen all over the world–but much more so in the periphery of the metropolitan centers–the unequal degree of development generated by the monopoly capitalist mode of production; the response of the people who oppose this type of domination has also been uneven. In metropolitan countries, the struggle against the 1% can take on an ethnic dimension, as for example with the Black Lives Matter movement. In the midst of this tangle, there is also China, a country governed by a Communist Party, which is not exempt from contradictions.

These are the major contours, among which we see characteristic problems of the global political economy that affect us all. We see for example that the issue of climate change, biodiversity, desertification, land degradation, drought and public health emergencies -currently with the COVID pandemic-, all have conspired to create immense problems, the response to which depends on their location in the global division of labor and how they organize their production.

In Latin America–and also in Asia and Africa–although there is resistance, it is still incipient. And where resistance is becoming more organized, as for example in Cuba or Venezuela, we see the action of responses that violate international law, such as unilateral sanctions and the use of the financial system as a weapon by the United States. This generates tremendous instability. On the other hand, there are particular regions of the world with issues that have not yet been resolved, such as what is happening in Russia, in Crimea, in Georgia, in Ukraine itself.

In the midst of all this panorama there are islands, like us. Small island states have special challenges, in relation to the global political economy and also on specific issues such as climate change, pandemic, education and security issues. To address this we must practice principled multilateralism, based on true internationalism, which will enable us to deal with interference in our internal affairs by other countries, who use trade, banking, shipping and the like as weapons. Unfortunately, this is a pitched, never-ending battle. Small countries, like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we have to make room for ourselves among these cross challenges, and establish alliances that allow us to breathe, to govern, to guarantee the welfare of our people. The world is a very complicated place and its inequality is very striking.

What we progressive forces need is a clear idea of what is happening, and a narrative of our own about development, which includes diverse groups and classes, including elements of the progressive national bourgeoisie who want to work together to find solutions to the problems of the periphery. What we need is to carry out these actions in an internationalist and multilateralist manner, leaving aside unilateralism. Men and women make history but only to the extent that the circumstances of history allow them to do so. Of course, leadership and organization can rise above the circumstances themselves and create the conditions to achieve relevant changes, as for example Fidel Castro did in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and as happened in several other places. In any case, what is clear is that today more spaces are being created for progressive national activity, so that the countries of the periphery can confront monopoly capitalism and imperialism, to guarantee well-being and for the peoples to have greater control over their own collective lives.

Q: In recent years the impetus for continental integration that developed strongly since the beginning of this century has waned. Do you think it is possible at this time to give new impetus to the processes of regional unity? What are the keys and what are the obstacles you perceive to this?

RG: Integration has been an irregular process, there has been an ebb and flow. For example, CELAC, after the heyday of the previous period, had a decline. But in the last two years we have seen Mexico seeking to put some things in common, in line with the original objectives and goals of the organization. But at the same time you have right-wing governments trying to hinder that space, because it is against what the U.S. wants in our hemisphere. Clearly, the North Americans want to stop the advance of CELAC and sustain the OAS, of which they have control through their funding and location, and also through Luis Almagro, its Secretary General. Almagro deceived a lot of people. Personally I always felt uncomfortable with him. I met him a little before he took office and I accompanied that election with great caution. Regarding CELAC, Argentina assumed the pro tempore presidency in January and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is ready to succeed him in 2023. We believe that between Argentina’s current leadership and our own role we can give it some additional momentum.

Within our own region we see progress being made in CARICOM and the Association of Caribbean States is also doing useful work, prioritizing as it has five issues: trade, transportation, tourism, technology and disaster preparedness. In Africa we see the work of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with echoes in West Africa and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). We see that there are ebbs and flows. We also see that Britain has brought out all the weaknesses in Europe.

There are unevenness and discontinuities in all these processes, but the progressive forces have to look for spaces to advance in the interest of the people. And for that, we have to keep in close communication with the people, with the popular masses and their organizations. ALBA-TCP has suffered from the lack of resources, due to the way in which the United States has imposed restrictions on Venezuela and Cuba. The impact of COVID has further aggravated that situation, but we have just come out of a very positive meeting in Havana, at the ALBA-TCP Summit. As you can see in the declaration, there are many positive things. If indeed we see that there have been setbacks in some areas, in others we have seen progress. That is why I say that integration is necessary, but it has been discontinuous.

Q: In recent years, while a conservative offensive against integration has been developing in the continent, we have seen most Caribbean countries take a clear position on non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. However, we have also seen some differences. How do you analyze this situation? What is the specific contribution that the Caribbean can make to integration and unity at this stage? What forces and sectors do you perceive as allies?

The Caribbean governments, in general, are under very intense pressure from the hegemonic countries, where monopoly capitalism rules. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of independence of thought and conscience in the people to confront imperialism. For example, from the Caribbean as a whole we have maintained firm positions in relation to non-interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The same in relation to Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. But as soon as those statements are made, the U.S. government -and in some cases, the European Union- call each government one by one, seeking to make it back down. That was the case with the absurd recognition of Juan Guaidó as “president” of Venezuela.

We are seeing how in every continent progressive movements are returning to government. We see the Venezuelan opposition losing the elections overwhelmingly, and we see on the other hand the unity of the progressive sectors and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which has made it very difficult for imperialism. We see that in Honduras, twelve years after the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya orchestrated with the support of the United States, its movement is again in the vanguard and in Nicaragua, another example with being re-elected Daniel Ortega. But we also see how they are responding with Almagro and the Americans working together to stage coups d’état, through the cover of electoral observation missions. But also there, in Bolivia, Evo Morales’ party was able to return to power after a two-year coup. And what is happening in Peru, which was a center of anti-progressive activity, which supported a conservative coalition with the United States behind it, and which now has a progressive government. These are interesting changes. The government of St. Lucia has just been at the ALBA-TCP Summit as a full member, while the previous government had distanced itself from the organization.

But make no mistake; in each of these countries there is an intense struggle. In our own country the same thing is happening, the opposition here would like us to withdraw. They don’t like our relations with Venezuela and Cuba. They have a completely neocolonial perspective, but also significant mass support. But we continue to do our work, in conjunction with progressive forces around the world, while at the same time engaging with governments subjugated by the monopoly capitalist mode of production.

Q: In relation to the Caribbean and the processes of decolonization, Barbados recently proclaimed its character of Republic. In other countries, such as St. Lucia and Jamaica, the voice of those calling on their governments to follow this path is already being heard. Do you think it is possible that the example of Barbados could have a “domino effect”, or that there could be “a new wave” of decolonization in the Caribbean? On the other hand, what would be the next challenges for countries like Barbados: how to achieve, along with political sovereignty, economic independence?

RG: I think what we are going to see is not exactly a wave of removal of the queen as nominal head of state. I think what is coming is a continuing struggle to get parliamentary republics, with non-executive presidents and with a place of centrality for Prime Ministers. And I say this because of the constitutional arrangements that exist in countries such as Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In these five countries, to achieve republic status, you need two-thirds in the House and in the Legislature and two-thirds in favor in a referendum. In Barbados, only two-thirds in the House were needed, without a referendum, because its constitution is different.

What happened in the other territories? There are four countries that became independent between 1962 and 1966. Trinidad and Tobago had the queen as nominal head of state. That changed in 1976 because the constitution did not require a referendum, only a special majority, which they got, and it allowed them to achieve a republican form of government. At independence, Guyana already had a republican form of government, but what they did was to change it to an executive presidency. Dominica became a republic the moment it received its independence from Great Britain. And now we have the case of Barbados. But the other countries, the five that I named, located in the northern Leeward Islands, began their process towards independence in 1974. Grenada was the first with Eric Gairy. The British granted independence at a high price: that of having very little chance of changing the fundamental aspects of the Constitution. So when we tried in 2009 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we failed, although a year later I won my third consecutive term.

Colonialism is still alive in the minds of the people. When you go to a referendum, there are significant sectors of society that do not want to take on the republic, so getting a two-thirds majority is extremely difficult. It is true that the Jamaican government has looked at moving towards a republican form of government. What happened in Barbados shows that there are many people who are anti-monarchist, but do not expect this to become a regional movement. Given the constitutional arrangements and also the political circumstances, this does not necessarily mean moving towards the elimination of the monarchy to embrace republicanism. But that is something we aspire to, because as much as you respect the royal family of Great Britain, they are British, they are not Caribbean. This is a fiction that has existed for too long and should be eliminated.

Q: If you had to outline three ideas that represent the challenges facing the region, what would they be?

RG: The challenge of the hegemony of monopoly capital, and all that this implies. The challenge derived from climate change. And the challenges related to public health.

Q: If you would like to close the interview with something we have not asked, or perhaps with some message addressed to the popular movements of the region?

RG: I would ask people, mainly young people, to show solidarity with clearly defined principles. That they commit themselves to defend and promote our independence, our sovereignty, equal opportunities, the improvement of living conditions. There will always be vanities involved, but I believe that what I have just described is the main thing: we must not be distracted by secondary spectacles, by what Lenin called “infantilism”. If we show solidarity, we will succeed.

Source: Alai, translation Resumen Latinoamericano–English

https://mronline.org/2022/06/08/ralph-gonsalves/

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President Maduro Asks Alberto Fernández to Convene CELAC Summit and Invite Biden
JUNE 7, 2022

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during a meeting with members of his cabinet at Miraflores Palace in Caracas on June 6, 2022. Photo: John Zepra/AFP.

The Venezuelan president stressed that the 9th Summit of the Americas is “a total failure” as it does not focus on “matters of interest to the peoples.”

On Monday, June 6, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, asked his Argentine counterpart and pro tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Alberto Fernández, to convene a meeting of the regional body in which all countries of the region participate. President Maduro also suggested that the US head of state should be invited.

“It will have to be CELAC President Alberto Fernández … who convenes, with an agenda of urgent issues of maximum interest for our people, sooner rather than later, a summit meeting in which the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean attend—and invite President Joe Biden to listen to the dignity of our peoples and our history,” President Maduro said during a broadcast. In addition, President Maduro again denounced the host country of the Summit of the Americas, held in Los Angeles, USA, beginning this Monday, for refusing to invite Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Venezuela’s head of state also indicated that the proposed CELAC summit would “be a way to start a new path, as President López Obrador proposed today and in the reflections he has been making in recent weeks … a new body where all the countries of what is America, our America, participate, without exclusion.”

President Maduro referred to the Summit of the Americas as “a total failure” which is not raising “matters of interest to the peoples.”

“Unfortunately, it is the US government itself that killed the alleged summit,” said President Maduro. “It is a total failure. It has no agenda, no theme, no decisive points. It has nothing to link the meeting to the problems and issues of interest and priority for the peoples of the Americas.”

The Venezuelan president described the actions of the US government as “an act of discrimination against three peoples, with three governments.” However, he reiterated his assertion that “the voice of the rebellious peoples of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” will be heard at the summit.

“Our voice will be there in different ways … in the streets as a protest, in the meeting room,” said President Maduro.

https://orinocotribune.com/president-ma ... ite-biden/
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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 09, 2022 1:59 pm

The People's Summit begins in Los Angeles, USA.

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The holding of the event takes place in the midst of the weakened Summit organized by the US president, Joe Biden, who unilaterally did not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. | Photo: @PeoplesSummit22

Published June 8, 2022 (15 hours 42 minutes ago)

Among the most relevant issues, the Summit will address the importance of sovereignty and the impacts left by US intervention in Latin America.

Social, union and political organizations began this Wednesday the People's Summit in Los Angeles, United States (USA), which runs until June 10 with various topics for debate and study.

In addition to the cultural exchange, the People's Summit will refer to the humanitarian impacts left by the US invasion in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, the fight for democracy, the rejection of the blockade against Cuba and gender policies.

At the same time, the attendees of the Summit will also highlight solidarity as a pillar value in the resistance against the US onslaught, as well as the role of social movements to maintain their cultural identity, the importance of food sovereignty and climate justice.



Another of the key issues that will be addressed at the People's Summit is the importance of respect for International Law (IL), specifically the sovereignty and self-determination of countries, in that item the importance of the economic independence of the peoples will be alluded to. .

The holding of the event takes place in the midst of the weakened Summit organized by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who unilaterally did not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, a decision that has been rejected by Mexico, Honduras, Argentina , among other countries.


Recently, the executive director of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP), Sacha Llorenti, stated that the IX Summit of the Americas, as long as all the nations of the region are not invited it is a failure, "this Summit failed before it started," he added.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/eeuu-cum ... -0026.html

Google Translator

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Another world is possible, but we have to make it so: Building a People’s Summit

The People’s Summit for Democracy is far beyond an alternative to Biden’s Summit of the Americas. It is a call for something entirely new

June 09, 2022 by Natalia Marques

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A glimpse of the proceedings on the opening day of The People's Summit for Democracy in Los Angeles. Photo: Midianinja

The People’s Summit for Democracy began in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 8. However, it is much more than just an alternative to the Biden administration’s and the Organization of American States’ Summit of the Americas.

The Summit of the Americas has historically been a place for the United States, which plays a central role in the OAS and which continues to exploit the Americas for resources and markets, to present its own agenda for the region.

But this year, beginning with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, many Latin American leaders across the continent decided to boycott the summit entirely. The boycott was a protest against the exclusion of the Latin American nations that the United States is most hostile towards: Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. Although this is not the first time certain countries have been excluded from the summit, it is the first time those exclusions have been met with such a strong response.

This poses a distinct challenge to the organizers of the People’s Summit: how to organize a counter summit, when the original summit is a failure?

Luckily for the People’s Summit, the organizers set out with creativity and optimism to create far more than an alternative summit. Instead, the People’s Summit is something entirely new.

Volunteers from convening organizations such as the ANSWER Coalition and The Peoples Forum arrived in Los Angeles from across the country with one purpose: to build a successful People’s Summit. As soon as the Los Angeles Trade Technical College’s graduation ended at 9 pm on the night of June 7, volunteers set about unloading materials for the next day’s summit. Teams carried cinder blocks and wooden planks, while others passed down bins of material in an assembly line. They were told to expect to stay until midnight or later, but finished an hour earlier, sent off with chants of “high discipline, high morale!”

At six in the morning the next day, these same activists were back on campus to build the summit in time for the opening ceremony at 11 am. By opening time, trash and chairs were picked off of the graduation ceremony field, an art exhibition was constructed, a vendor’s tent was set up, rooms were equipped, and a hall was prepared to seat hundreds of guests.

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Photo: Midianinja

The opening ceremony began with a mística, or a ritual of collective reading that is popular in Latin America. A poem was read by three activists, in three different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, and English. The last line read: “Hope has the name of liberation.”

The Summit of the Americas’ failure was brought up many times throughout the day. Palestinian scholar Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi said during a panel on solidarity, “People struggling for their right to self determination, for the right to their freedom, for the right justice, for the right of peace, and for their children and so on, don’t really care much about what the United States, or what Biden or this failed Summit that he’s going to be holding with many no-shows, is thinking. ” She added, “The United States has no place to actually teach anybody around the world about democracy, about human rights.”

But equally present was the idea that the central mission was to build something different, something new. People’s Summit organizer and activist Claudia de la Cruz, said of the US during that same panel on solidarity, “They are responsible for spreading war and misery. And we must be responsible to defend our people from that misery and that war. We must take on the responsibility to uplift, promote, and defend life. Because capitalism and imperialism are extraction, and their proposal has been, and will always continue to be, death.”

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Photo: Midianinja


“We all agree, I think, that another world is possible. But we have to make it so.” said Dr. Abhulhadi.

The stark differences between both summits could not have been clearer for Mara Luna, a consultant from Argentina who specializes in forced migration. Luna had attended the Summit of the Americas, but left to come to the People’s Summit.

Luna told Peoples Dispatch, speaking of the OAS’ exclusion of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, “By excluding those governments, Biden or the administration is excluding the people that live inside of those countries. So how can we find solutions for transnational issues such as forced migration, climate change? All of these topics that are being discussed at the summit are of a transnational nature, they are not national. They are not within national borders. We all share them, which means that we need to share this solution. We cannot find solutions if three countries are excluded.”

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Photo: Midianinja

“Here [at the People’s Summit] is where we can have the real conversations that are going to move the needle,” she continued. “And this is why the people’s summit is so important, because these are discussions that we need to have if we want real social change.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/06/09/ ... es-summit/

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People’s Summit Kicks Off in Los Angeles, US

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The People's Summit in Los Angeles will focus on the sovereignty of countries and the impacts of U.S. intervention in Latin America. Jun. 8, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ariasmoro

Published 8 June 2022 (8 hours 42 minutes ago)

[b\]The People's Summit, which will last until June 10, kicked off this Wednesday in Los Angeles, U.S. [/b]


During the summit, social, trade unions, and political organizations will address the importance of sovereignty and the impacts of U.S. intervention in Latin America.

The People's Summit will also address the humanitarian impacts of the U.S. invasion on Latin American and Caribbean countries, the struggle for democracy, the rejection of the blockade against Cuba and gender policies.

Solidarity as a fundamental value in the resistance to the U.S. onslaught and the role of social movements in maintaining their cultural identity, the importance of food sovereignty and climate justice will also be discussed on this occasion.

In addition, the importance of respect for international law, notably the countries' sovereignty and self-determination, including the economic independence of peoples, are among the key issues to be addressed at the meeting.


Various political and social movements from Latin America and broad participation of different sectors in the U.S. will meet in Los Angeles, California, to celebrate the People's Summit. That will be the true transcendental political event for our peoples.

The People's Summit takes place amid the IX Summit of the Americas, from which the U.S. government decided to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua under the accusation of not respecting the Democratic Charter of the Americas.

Several Latin American countries have rejected such an unjust move, including Mexico, Honduras, Argentina and Venezuela.

"This Summit failed even before it began," the executive director of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP), Sacha Llorenti, recently said about the failure of the U.S. to invite all the region's nations.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Peo ... -0020.html

Summit: Mexico Proposes Re-establishing Inter-American Order

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Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard speaks today during a press conference | Photo: EFE/Mario Guzman

Published 8 June 2022

The Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, proposed on Wednesday to re-found the Inter-American order in a speech delivered within the framework of the IX Summit of the Americas being held in the U.S. city of Los Angeles.


"Because of the new reality, the proposal that Mexico wishes to make and submit to you, is that we form a working group to present the project of re-founding the inter-American order because if we have been discussing the same thing for ten years, we have not solved it and everything urges us to solve it," said the head of diplomacy before a regional forum of ministers.

Ebrard pointed out that the terms of the discussion are stuck at the same point as ten years ago in reference to the 2012 Summit held in the Colombian city of Cartagena, in which it was concluded that it should be stated in the final declaration that all nations should be invited when the country excluded was Cuba.

The Chancellor also questioned how the Organization of American States (OAS) acts, recalling the "shameful role" in Bolivia's recent coup d'état.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Sum ... -0014.html

Peru's President Attends Summit of the Americas

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The Peruvian President attends the Summit of the Americas, alongside Ministers and representatives. Jun. 8, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@presidenciaperu

Published 8 June 2022 (9 hours 1 minutes ago)

On Wednesday, the Peruvian President arrived in the U.S. to attend the Summit of the Americas.

In the scenario of the Summit of the Americas, celebrated in Los Angeles, the U.S., the Peruvian President, Pedro Castillo met with his relative Colombian President, Ivan Duque on Wednesday morning.

During the event, President Castillo was accompanied by the Peruvian Economy-Finance Minister Oscar Graham, Peru's Permanent Representative to the OAS Harold Forsyth, and Peruvian Ambassador to Spain Oscar Maurtua.

The Peruvian President had arrived in the U.S. on Wednesday morning for participating in the IX Summit of the Americas which is expected to last until June 10.

The complicated agenda of the Peruvian head of state, includes meetings with presidents of the regional representatives of international organizations and businesspeople, for finding new investments for the Andean nation.


As part of his activities at IX Summit of the Americas, the president Pedro Castillo spoke with senior representatives of Citigroup, one of the world's largest financial companies, and Freeport-McMoRan, a major global mining company.

Before going to the U.S., President Castillo said that he was traveling to bring positive news in favor of the country and the integration of the peoples at the Summit of the Americas.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0019.html


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Puebla Group denounces exclusions at the IX Summit of the Americas

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For the entity, the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela for ideological reasons goes against the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of the States. | Photo: groupdepuebla.org
Published June 9, 2022 (3 hours 47 minutes ago)

The Puebla Group thanked Argentina for its role as president pro tempore of CELAC in the face of exclusion.

The Puebla Group denounced this Wednesday the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the IX Summit of the Americas, which takes place from June 6 to 10 in the US city of Los Angeles, California.

READ ALSO:

Puebla Group supports Caricom request on Summit

“The Puebla Group expresses its concern about the development of the Summit of the Americas, which is currently taking place in the city of Los Angeles, United States,” the organization said in a statement rejecting the actions promoted by Washington against these nations.

According to the entity, the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela for ideological reasons "contradicts the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of States and understands the legitimate decision of other countries to absent themselves from the event out of solidarity with those excluded."


In this sense, he highlighted the convening role of the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, as representative of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) against exclusion.

“President (Joe) Biden should take advantage of the Summit to renew the commitments made by the Obama administration at other Summits, and his own commitments in relation to normalizing relations with Cuba, supporting democratic dialogue in Venezuela, facilitating migrations from Central America”, adds the text.

“In addition, we ask President Biden to help prevent the abundant arms trafficking in the United States to Latin American cartels and mafias,” he assured.

Among the leaders who will not attend the conclave are Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Bolivian Luis Arce and Honduran Xiomara Castro.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/grupo-pu ... -0003.html

Google translator

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What are the Summits of the Americas Remembered For?
JUNE 7, 2022

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Chavez gives Obama, a book to read about imperialism in Latin America at the V Summit

By Gustavo Maranges – Jun 2, 2022

The 9th Summit of the Americas is about to start. The event is being held between June 6-10 in Los Angeles, California. This gathering been deemed a space to discuss matters of regional concern, but its historical results are very poor and forever tilted towards the developed northern part of the hemisphere. The most important events related to these summits have come from parallel forums called the People’s Summit, where the real leaders go to discuss the harsh reality of the continent. Given its not-so-encouraging track record, it would be interesting to make a brief analysis of the past Summits to help us in our expectations of this one coming up.

The First Summit was held in 1994 in Miami at the Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, where 34 leaders from the Western Hemisphere attended. Cuba was the only country excluded, since it was not a member state of the OAS [Organization of American States]. Cuban President Fidel Castro called the Summit a “colossal deception” of the peoples of the region, since it promised economic prosperity that never came. The Summit was President Bill Clinton’s pretext to consolidate a regional bloc and zone of US influence after the end of the Cold War. For the first time, the creation of a regional free trade zone, the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas], was discussed.

The next meeting was a special summit that took place in Bolivia in 1996. It was known as the Summit on Sustainable Development, and at least it was able to finally include some modest achievements on environmental issues among the topics to discuss. However, 26 years after that glimmer of hope, Latin America is still one of the planet’s regions most affected by climate change. Not to mention that the world’s largest ecosystem, the Amazon rain forest, continues to rapidly deteriorate year after year.

The 2nd Summit of the Americas was held in the Chilean capital on April 18-19, 1998. The main issues to be discussed were the preservation and strengthening of democracy, justice, and human rights, as well as economic integration, free trade, and the eradication of poverty and discrimination. In spite of it, few of the 27 initiatives approved have had any real effect so far. According to the United Nations, 2020 was the sixth year in a row of growing poverty and reached the highest levels in 27 years.

In April 2001, Western Hemisphere leaders gathered in Quebec, Canada to hold the 3rd Summit of the Americas. In response to the event, over 15,000 people marched against the globalization of neoliberalism, and particularly the FTAA promoted by US President George Bush. The criticism even reached the main room, where Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso directly rejected Bush’s position and called for sharing the benefits of free trade. The Canadian police repressed the demonstration, but the indignation and impetus of people were such that they broke through the security barrier. Fidel Castro, who was attending, expressed his support for the demonstrators and described the act as “heroic”. The Summit also served to prepare the reactionary Inter-American Democratic Charter, which has been used to hijack democracy in the interests of local elites, instead of strengthening it.

Three years later, in 2004, Latin America was going through a precarious situation after more than 15 years of neoliberal policies. At that time, 44% of the region’s population was living under the poverty threshold, which speaks for itself about the effectiveness of the three previous Summits. Therefore, another extraordinary Summit was held in Nuevo Leon, Monterrey, Mexico, on January 12-13. Despite the critical situation, the event did not go beyond declarations. Fighting poverty and inequality to ensure proper governance and democracy continued to be off limits for many of those countries attending the Summit.

The follow up to that was the 4th Summit held the next year on November 4-5 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. That Summit has gone down in history as the “defeat of the FTAA”, immortalized in Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s phrase “FTAA, go to hell!” during his speech at the 3rd People’s Summit.

Since the Miami Summit in 1994, the US government had been striving to establish the FTAA, its neoliberal economic shackle on Latin America. However, the pressure of the regional progressive forces led by Hugo Chávez, the 2005 host Nestor Kirchner, and the presidents of Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay prevented the approval of a final declaration aiming at economically enslaving the continent, demonstrating what a problem the emergence of the progressive wave of the 90s was for the empire.

Trinidad and Tobago hosted the 5th Summit in 2009, as the world was going through its worst economic recession since 1929, and the impact on regional economies and poverty levels was devastating. This reality determined the issues to discuss, namely tackling the economic crisis, as well as energy security and environmental sustainability. In addition, for the first time in the history of the summits, the US blockade against Cuba was a topic of debate, which marked the first step toward re-inserting Cuba into the meetings. This summit is best remembered for Hugo Chávez’s clear message to US President Barack Obama, when Chávez gave him a copy of Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano, showing Obama that times had changed, and clearly indicating that the traditional position of the US would not be tolerated anymore.

The decline of US hegemony over the region was evident and has only grown since 2009. In 2010, the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) emerged as an alternative to the OAS. CELAC became a space for dialogue and consensus without exclusions, and its summits threatened to eclipse the traditional Summits of the Americas altogether.

The 6th Summit in Cartagena de Indias in Colombia was planned for 2012, and Cuba’s participation was going to be an important issue again. ALBA members requested to bring Cuba in, but the Colombian Foreign Ministry refused after arguing it was a bureaucratic matter. However, the real intention was to avoid a diplomatic conflict with the United States. As a result of this refusal, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega decided their countries would not attend an event marked by the intentional and unjustified veto on Cuba by dominant countries.

Three years later, in 2015, Panama hosted the Summit, and Cuba was formally invited as a result of enormous pressure from progressive governments. The Summit also went down in history because it marked the first time a Cuban and a US president held an official meeting in over 50 years.

As a result of the tension between opposing forces, it was impossible to agree on a final declaration. As in Cartagena, the US and Canadian delegations broke the consensus of the Final Declaration. The reasons were quite clear: the region was dominated by leftist and progressive forces, which held positions incompatible with the imperialist interests of the wealthy developed countries of the North.

The meeting is also remembered for the large presence of political organizations and social movements that re-created the massive People’s Summit of Mar del Plata (2005). The 2015 People’s Summit declaration strongly condemned the US blockade on Cuba and the interference of the US government in the region. Likewise, the participants denounced the OAS’s attempt to supplant Cuban civil society by inviting terrorists and anti-Cuban elements.

Finally, the 8th Summit took place in Lima amid the regional right wing’s siege against Venezuela and the exclusion of the country, which was fraudulently represented by members of the opposition to President Nicolás Maduro. Amid the re-emergence of right-wing forces on the continent, the intention was to condemn Venezuela, but the opposition of several governments prevented such an outrage.

On this occasion, civil society forums debated the most important matters, which were formally addressed by the official delegations. There was an overwhelming rejection of the exclusion of Venezuela and the destabilizing agenda of the US towards the South American country and other progressive governments in the region.

For this 9th Summit, the Biden administration, completely ignoring the reality of the region, has decided to keep Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua out, which marks a historical setback not even seen during Trump’s tenure. This announcement has backfired on Washington and has caused massive opposition to the event itself.

Over half of the regional leaders have declined the invitations in protest against Washington’s unconstructive attitude and decrees. Likewise, it has been reported that the United States has refused to process visas for a group of 23 Cubans who were formally invited to attend the People’s Summit for Democracy being held nearby from June 8-10. However, it did agree to issue visas for some Cuban spokespersons representing the extremist lobby from Florida.

Once again, the parallel People’s Summit for Democracy seems to be the event where the real matters will be discussed by those who actually care about humanity and are intent on building a progressive movement. Some 200 US civil society organizations have confirmed their participation in the event that mainstream media is trying to ignore. Our Resumen team in the US will be there covering the People’s Summit to help show the world the reality that the elites try to hide—for more information go to Peoples Summit for Democracy.

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

https://orinocotribune.com/what-are-the ... bered-for/

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For the Peoples of our Region, the Failure of Biden’s Summit of the Americas Would be a Welcome Event
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist 08 Jun 2022

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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico (Photo: Pedro Gonzalez Castillo/Getty Images)

The Summit of the Americas is not the property of the host nation. The U.S. has no right to exclude, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but has done so in disregard of their sovereignty. The U.S. is not fit to judge others or to be responsible for bringing nations together. Every leader in the hemisphere should boycott what has become a farcical event.

I applaud the decision by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to attend this week’s so-called Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and hope that by Wednesday a majority of the nations in our region would have joined him. However, I am hoping that unlike President Lopez Obrador who is still sending the Mexican foreign minister, other nations demonstrate that their dignity cannot be coerced and stay away completely. Why do I take this position?

If the threat by the Biden Administration as host of the Summit not to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all sovereign nations in the Americas’ region, was not outrageous enough, the announced rationale that the administration did not invite these nations because of their human rights record and authoritarian governance is an absurd indignity that cannot be ignored.

I firmly believe that the U.S. should not be allowed to subvert, degrade, and humiliate nations and the peoples of our region with impunity! A line of demarcation must be drawn between the nations and peoples who represent democracy and life and the parasitic hegemon to the North which can only offer dependence and death. The U.S. has made its choice that is reflected in its public documents. “Full spectrum dominance,” is its stated goal. In other words – waging war against the peoples of our regions and, indeed, the world to maintain global hegemony. It has chosen war, we must choose resistance – on that, there can be no compromise!

The peoples of our region understand that. It is historically imperative that the representatives of the states in our region come to terms with that and commit to resistance and solidarity with the states that are experiencing the most intense pressure from empire. The rhetorical commitment to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is not enough. The people want actions that go beyond mere denunciations of imperialism. The people are ready to fight.

And part of this fight includes the ideological war of position. We cannot allow the U.S. to obscure its murderous history by dressing that history up in pretty language about human rights.

The idea that the U.S., or any Western nation for that matter, involved in the ongoing imperialist project, could seriously see itself as a protector of human rights is bizarre and dangerous, and must be countered. The fact that the U.S. will still attempt to advance this fiction reflects either the height of arrogance or a society and administration caught in the grip of a collective national psychosis. I am convinced it is both, but more on that later.

A cognitive rupture from objective reality, the inability to locate oneself in relationship to other human beings individually and collectively in the material world are all symptoms of severe mental derangement. Yet, it appears that this is the condition that structures the psychic make-up of all of the leaders of the U.S. and the collective West.

It is what I have referred to as the psychopathology of white supremacy:

A racialized narcissistic cognitive disorder that centers so-called white people’s and European civilization and renders the afflicted with an inability to perceive objective reality in the same way as others. This affliction is not reducible to the race of so-called whites but can affect all those who have come in contact with the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.

How else can you explain the self-perceptions of the U.S. and West, responsible for the most horrific crimes against humanity in the annuals of human history from genocide, slavery, world wars, the European, African and Indigenous holocausts, wars and subversion since 1945 that have resulted in over 30 million lives lost – but then assert their innocence, moral superiority and right to define the content and range of human rights?

Aileen Teague of the Quincy Institute points out that the U.S. position on disinviting nations to the Summit of the Americas because of their alleged “authoritarian governance,” is “hypocritical” and “inconsistent,” noting the U.S. historical support for Latin American dictators when convenient for US policy.

Yet is it really hypothetical or inconsistent? I think not. U.S. policymakers are operating from an ethical and philosophical framework that informed Western colonial practice in which racialized humanity became divided between those who were placed into the category of “humans” which was constitutive of the historically expanded category of “white” in relationship to everyone else who was “not white,” and therefore, not fully human.

The “others” during the colonial conquest literally did not have any rights that Europeans were bound to recognize and respect from land rights to their very lives. Consequently, for European colonialists they did not perceive any ethical contradictions in their treatment of the “others” and did not judge themselves as deviating from their principles and values. This is what so many non-Europeans do not understand. When Europeans speak to their “traditional values,” it must be understood that those values mean we - the colonized and exploited non-Europeans are not recognized in our full humanity.

Is there any other way to explain the impressive solidarity among “white peoples” on Ukraine in contrast to the tragedies of Yemen, the six million dead in the Congo, Iraq – the list goes on.

That is why it was so correct for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) to call for a boycott of the Summit of the Americas by all of the states in our region. BAP argued that the U.S. had no moral or political standing to host this gathering because it has consistently demonstrated that it did not respect the principles of self-determination and national sovereignty in the region. But even more importantly, it did not respect the lives of the people of this region.

A boycott is only the minimum that should be done. However, we understand it will be difficult because we know the vindictiveness of the gringo hegemon and the lengths it will go to assert its vicious domination. In the arrogance that is typical of the colonial white supremacist mindset, the Biden White House asserts that the “summit will be successful no matter who attends.”

Yet, if Biden is sitting there by himself, no manner of will or the power to define, will avoid the obvious conclusion that the world had changed, and with that change, the balance of power away from the U.S.

And the people say – let it be done!

https://www.blackagendareport.com/peopl ... come-event

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OAS ‘Murderer’ Almagro Confronted on Bolivia Coup
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 8, 2022
Kawsachun News

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OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro had a meltdown on Tuesday as he was confronted by a U.S. activist of the Party for Socialism and Liberation on his role in the 2019 coup in Bolivia.

Almagro was called a murderer, not only for backing the dictatorship of Jeanine Añez, but was also condemned for his role in trying to install failed coup leader Juan Guaido in Venezuela and for pushing for unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela.

Multiple counter-summits and a series of actions are being held in Los Angeles this week to counter to Biden’s collapsed Summit of the Americas. We’ll be reporting around Los Angeles on anti-imperialist mobilizations and events throughout the week. Our on-the-ground reporting can be supported on Patreon.

The full video of the disruption of Almagro’s event at the ASU California Center can be watched on our YouTube and Facebook pages. Below is a quick transcript of what was expressed by the activist.



“Luis Almagro, you have blood on your hands! Because of your lies there was a coup in Bolivia. A coup against a democratically elected government. And that dictatorship that you helped install massacred 36 people, 36 innocent people who were protesting the restoration of democracy, the restoration of the independence of their country. In the towns of Sacaba and Senkata, people were protesting peacefully, indigenous people, workers, women, students, demanding the restoration of that democracy that you helped destroy. Destroy so that the United States could plunder their resources. Gold, all of the mineral resources, the gas of Bolivia, and corporations and Wall Street and the United States will loot the resources of Bolivia.

You helped install a dictatorship that would facilitate that looting. In Sacaba and Senate, dozens of people were massacred by (..) dictatorship. One of the people that your dictatorship murdered was a journalist, Sebastian Moro, he was a journalist, who was exposing the lies that you are telling and exposing the truth, the truth about the coup that you orchestrated. And he was beaten to death in his apartment. And now you come here and dare to lecture about freedom about democracy, about human rights. You have no shame. You’re a murderer, you’re a puppet of the United States. A puppet of the United States. In Venezuela too, you dared, you dared to support the coup attempted that Juan Guaido ridiculously, outrageously tried to attempt and declare himself the president of Venezuela. What a lie. What a lie.

The majority of people in Venezuela had never even heard of Juan Guaido and yet you said that he’s the president and I believe you still ridiculously say that Juan Guaido is the president of Venezuela. That is an outrageous insult and insult to the democracy and the sovereignty of the people of Venezuela. How dare you do this? You murderer, you murdered people in Bolivia. You murderer who supports the sanctions on Venezuela. You are nothing, nothing but a murderer and you have no shame here to come and talk about human rights to lecture the whole world, the whole hemisphere. You lecture the whole hemisphere about democracy and freedom of the press when Sebastian Moro, an Argentine journalist was in Bolivia, an Argentine journalist was in Bolivia was telling the truth about the coup and he was killed. You’re here to lecture about media freedom when you installed a dictatorship that murdered journalists and innocent people; workers, indigenous people and students..”


https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... ivia-coup/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 10, 2022 2:42 pm

Summit of the Americas Marked by Brutal Police Repression
JUNE 10, 2022

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Unidentified US activist being beaten by policeman in Los Angeles. Photo: Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty.

The opening day of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, was stained by brutal police repression of demonstrations.

The meeting has already been marred by controversy surrounding the White House’s refusal to invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, giving rise to boycotts and complaints from many other nations of the Americas. Perhaps most notable was the refusal of Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to attend.

News outlets and social media platforms shared numerous videos of the scene in which a towering Los Angeles police officer violently attacked a woman who was speaking into a bullhorn, tackling her onto the pavement and delivering blows to her face. At that time, US President Biden’s presidential motorcade was passing through the area of the event now being referred to disparagingly as the “Friends of America Gathering” or the “Summit of Exclusion.”


During the beginning of Biden’s speech at the inaugural ceremony of the summit, shouts of protest and loud booing could be heard for several minutes from protesters opposed to the hegemonic foreign policy of the US. President Biden stopped his speech for several seconds, and then spoke over the tumult, which continued unabated.

The White House press office claimed that there were two people who tried to interrupt Biden’s speech, but did not specify what they were saying. “President Biden began speaking at 6 p.m. and was booed almost immediately by two of the attendees,” read a brief report.


The White House did not back down from its decision to exclude Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua from the summit due to alleged human rights and democracy concerns, despite objections voiced by representatives from most of the countries of the Americas. According to an analysis presented by Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel on June 8, the US promotion of these values constitutes a great hypocrisy.

“The promotion of democracy and human rights are just chimeras in a political system in which the interests of producers and marketers of weapons of war take precedence over the lives of children, the right to health and education,” President Díaz-Canel said. The violent takedown of a seemingly peaceful demonstrator only served to corroborate Díaz-Canel’s assertion.

The Summit does not represent the Americas

As the summit wraps up in Los Angeles, it appears that it will prove to be, as ALBA-TCP Executive Secretary Sacha Lorenti said, “neither a summit, nor … one of the Americas,” without the presence of many heads of state from the Americas.

Alongside the self-styled Summit of the Americas, more than 200 social, political, and community organizations celebrated the People’s Summit. In addition, in Tijuana, Mexico—less than 250 miles from Los Angeles—the Workers Summit of the Americas is starting on Friday.

For this reason, California also became the meeting point for progressive forces that condemn the exclusion imposed by Washington upon the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. The participants have given workshops and held conferences and debates, opening spaces for political reflection through art and culture.


(RedRadioVE) by José Manuel Blanco Díaz, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/summit-of-th ... epression/

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President Argentina criticizes exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua at Summit of the Americas

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President Alberto Fernández invited his US counterpart Joe Biden to the next CELAC summit. | Photo: @Joseescorcia_19
Published June 10, 2022 (7 hours 26 minutes ago)

The Argentine president condemned the blockades against Cuba and Venezuela, and rejected the OAS' attitude of support for destabilization in the region.

The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, strongly criticized this Thursday the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the IX Summit of the Americas, which takes place in Los Angeles, United States (USA), by asserting that being the host allows to impose "right of admission".

“We definitely would have wanted another Summit of the Americas. The silence of the absent challenges us. So that this does not happen again, I would like to make it clear for the future that the fact of being the host country of the Summit does not grant the ability to impose a 'right of admission' on the member countries of the continent”, Fernández pointed out in his speech at the plenary meeting of the hemispheric conclave.

The dignitary spoke on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), of which he serves as president pro tempore, and stressed that in this community coexists within the diversity of criteria and respect, because although points of view can vary, the concerns are very similar in such a complex context.


Likewise, the head of state of the South American country lamented that all nations have not been able to attend the conclave, which should be a space for debate.

Condemns blockades imposed on Cuba and Venezuela

“Latin America looks with pain at the suffering endured by two brother peoples. Cuba endures a blockade of more than six decades imposed during the Cold War and Venezuela tolerates another one. With measures of this type, the aim is to condition governments, but in fact, only the people are harmed,” Fernández pointed out.


In this sense, the Argentine president urged his US counterpart Joe Biden to support a regional, fraternal, respectful opening to favor common interests.

“The years prior to his arrival in the Government of the United States of America were marked by an immensely damaging policy for our region deployed by the administration that preceded him. It is time for these policies to change and for the damage to be repaired”, said the top leader of the Executive of the Latin American country.

Invitation to Biden to the CELAC plenary

In his speech at the plenary session of the IX Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles, California, United States, the Argentine head of state invited his US counterpart to participate in the next plenary meeting of CELAC.



“President Biden. I'm here trying to build bridges and tear down walls. As president of CELAC, I want to invite you to participate in our next plenary meeting”, he stated.

The Argentine president expressed his desire for the region to have a future without divisions in pursuit of prosperity and equality: “I dream that in a fraternally united America, we commit ourselves to the fact that all human beings who inhabit our continent have the right to bread, to the land, to the roof and to a decent job”.

Changes in the functioning of the OAS
"The Organization of American States (OAS), if it wants to be respected and return to being the regional political platform for which it was created, must be restructured by immediately removing those who lead it," added the Argentine chief executive.

In this sense, he criticized the use of the regional organization to promote destabilization actions in the area, such as the support shown for the coup d'état in Bolivia (2019).


“The OAS has been used as a gendarme that facilitated a coup in Bolivia. They have appropriated the leadership of the Inter-American Development Bank, which was historically in Latin American hands. The actions of rapprochement with Cuba were disrupted,” Fernández pointed out.

Similarly, the dignitary made reference to the intervention of former US President Donald Trump before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which led to unsustainable indebtedness in order to try to prevent his political force from coming to power.

“In this Summit we must analyze the present and project tomorrow in pursuit of a creative reconstruction of multilateralism. A single thought cannot be imposed in a world that demands symphonic harmony in the face of common dramas”, he underlined.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/pdte-arg ... -0031.html

Cuba at the Summit of the Peoples: damages of the blockade to women

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The representative of the FMC, Gretel Marante, participated through a video, given the US refusal to grant visas to members of Cuban civil society. | Photo: @FMC_Cuba
Published June 10, 2022

The blockade is a form of violence against the Cuban people and women, according to the FMC representative.

Cuba denounced this Thursday the impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States (USA) on the Caribbean nation on the lives of women, within the framework of the People's Summit, a forum parallel to the IX Summit of the Americas that meets this week in Los Angeles (California).

The member of the secretariat of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), Gretel Marante, participated in the panel End of patriarchy: Gender violence and the struggle for liberation and detailed how coercive measures prevent the development of a national economic program.

According to Marante, the blockade is the greatest form of violence suffered by the people of the island, especially women, and also constitutes the main obstacle to the development of their life projects.


Similarly, it showed that women's participation in the economic, political and social life of the nation is active, but warned that the blockade prevents the empowerment of women, in a way that slows down the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) , especially number five, referring to gender equality.

Marante commented that what has been achieved materializes in the stories of each Cuban family and highlighted that in the largest of the Antilles there is a policy of zero tolerance for gender violence in all its forms.

Approached the approval of the National Program for the Advancement of Women through a presidential decree, a gender agenda at the state level with the aim of dealing with gender violence as a discriminatory expression.

In this regard, the representative of the FMC commented that the advance policy has a specific section for legislation and law, in addition to stressing that the Council of Ministers also approved a strategy that guarantees a comprehensive response to acts of violence.


Marante's participation was through a video, since the US government refused to process in Havana the visas for the 23 representatives of Cuban civil society who would participate in the people's summit.

The event, where representatives of organizations and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean also attend, began on Wednesday and will close its sessions this Friday.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/danos-bl ... -0004.html

Google Translator

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Belize Calls Venezuela and Cuba’s Veto at Summit “Inexcusable”

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Prime Minister of Belize John Briceno delivers a speech during the opening of the first plenary session of the 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California | Photo: EFE/EPA/ETIENNE LAURENT

Published 9 June 2022

On Thursday, the Prime Minister of Belize and current president of Caricom, John Briceño, described it as "incomprehensible and unforgivable" Washington's decision not to invite Venezuela and Cuba to the IX Summit of the Americas as " incomprehensible and unforgivable.

In his speech during the first plenary session and in front of U.S. President Joe Biden, Briceño said, "the summit belongs to all the Americas."

"It is incomprehensible that we isolate countries of the Americas that have provided strong leadership and have contributed in the hemisphere on critical issues of our times," he stressed.

He stressed that "Cuba has provided constant cooperation in health to two-thirds of the countries in this hemisphere, including Belize."

"The illegal blockade against Cuba is an affront against humanity. The time has come, Mr. President, to lift the blockade," he added, addressing Biden, standing a few meters away.

As for Venezuela, the Belizean prime minister said that the country "has done much for energy security in the Caribbean region," and its absence from the summit is "unforgivable."

"The Summit of the Americas should have been inclusive. Geography and not politics define the Americas," he asserted in his tough speech.

The countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), currently led by Briceño, hesitated until the last moment whether to boycott the summit in protest of the absences of Cuba and Venezuela.

Finally, some countries such as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Guyana decided to attend, while other Caricom members are not participating.

In his speech, Briceño urged a commitment to "build an America with social justice" and said that "a turning point" had been reached on many issues.

Among them, he cited the vulnerability of Caribbean countries to climate change, debt crises and vaccination against covid-19.

The Prime Minister of Belize called for the IX Summit of the Americas, which runs until Friday in Los Angeles, to have positive results: "With firm commitments, we can move forward."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bel ... -0026.html

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The Summit of the Americas: The Things No one Wants to Talk About
By Gustavo A Maranges on June 9, 2022

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the scene 2 blocks from Biden’s exclusive Summit. photo: Bill Hackwell

The Summit of the Americas has begun in Los Angeles and the Tower of Babel that Biden built is already tottering. Since June 6, the civil society forums have been in session and clashes between those who support the hegemonic role of the United States and those who defend the sovereignty of the Latin American peoples have not ceased.

In these spaces, the discourse of hatred towards those arbitrarily excluded by the U.S. government has prevailed. It was a scenario prepared down to the smallest detail since not only were the governments of Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela excluded, but their civil society representatives.

At this point, the most visible case is the 23 Cuban artists, scientists, and social leaders whose visas were not processed to prevent them from attending the Peoples’ Summit. The objective is to make the reality of Cuba and the other states invisible, to replace it with a different one that justifies the permanent aggressions these peoples suffer. That’s why the organizers have invited other political actors, disguised as civil society activists, whose speeches are not only in line with the U.S. policy of interference but are designed in the State Department or the office of some Senators and Congressmen.

After seeing this staging, it is understandable that what happened yesterday took both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro by surprise. Neither was prepared to hear the truth so close up.

As Blinken was pretending to give lessons on democracy and freedom of the press when he crashed with two stones, two journalists who know very well the double standards of American politicians. Both Abby Martin (The Empire Files & Media Roots News) and Eugene Puryear (Break Through News) reminded Blinken that the United States has no moral high ground to offer lessons about those issues when it turned the blind eye after the murders of journalists Sheerin Abu Akala and Yamal Jashogyi . Both were U.S. citizens, and since the alleged perpetrators are U.S. strategic allies, freedom of the press can wait.

On the other hand, Puryear questioned the Biden administration’s parameters for measuring democracy. He wondered how is it possible to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua because they are considered “anti-democratic countries” while inviting Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was not democratically elected and is even suspected of being linked to the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Something similar happened to Almagro, who was unable to articulate a coherent response when a member of the audience reminded him of all the attacks against democracy and freedom of the press he has taken part in. Among the most recent ones are the Sacaba and Senkata massacres, where 36 people were murdered for peacefully demanding the return to democracy after the coup d’état in Bolivia, with which Almagro actively collaborated.

In the same context, journalist Sebastián Moro was beaten to death in his apartment. The simple fact of exposing the truth about the human rights violations during the coup government of Jeanine Añez and the hidden powers behind the coup d’état cost him his life.

The most curious thing about all these facts is that although those were live events, none of the present mainstream media reported them. Now it is visible how real freedom of the press is in the professor’s home.

The IX Summit of the Americas is already a resounding failure for Biden, and all those who still believe that the important issues of the region can be solved there. However, it would be unfair not to recognize that the Summit also has a positive side: it has provided the perfect excuse for more than 250 social organizations to meet in the same city to hold the real summit, the People’s Summit for Democracy. Here is where the real problems of Latin America will be discussed by those who suffer the consequences, the poor and marginalized majorities of the region.

Perhaps this will be the opportunity for those who still doubt to choose which cause is more just, whether that of a handful of politicians whose only objective are profits or the social movements that cry out for justice and equity.

Source: Resumen Latinoamricano – English

https://www.resumen-english.org/2022/06 ... alk-about/

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Storms at the Summit of the Americas

June 7 was a bad day for the secretary-general of the Organization of American States. During the Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an instigator of the coup in Bolivia.

June 10, 2022 by Rosa Miriam Elizalde

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The 9th Summit of the Americas, in Los Angeles. (Photo: Summit of the Americas via Twitter)

June 7 was a bad day for Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS). During the ninth Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an assassin and puppet of the White House, instigator of the coup in Bolivia. He said that Almagro cannot come to give lessons on democracy when his hands are stained with blood. In another room at the summit in Los Angeles, Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to be doing no better: several journalists rebuked him for using freedom of the press to provide cover for the murderers of journalists and for sanctioning and excluding certain countries from this meeting. “Democracy or hypocrisy?” could be heard over the loudspeaker that day.

In reality, this stormy summit began with a large diplomatic stumble for the United States, when several Latin American presidents announced that they would not participate in the summit because of the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, as dictated by the White House, while the U.S. State Department still claims the open and unrestricted nature of the meeting’s call. Its website says, “Throughout, the United States has demonstrated, and will continue to demonstrate, our commitment to an inclusive process that incorporates input from people and institutions that represent the immense diversity of our hemisphere, and includes Indigenous and other historically marginalized voices.”

Hypocrisy seems to be the glue of this summit, and mainstream U.S. media and analysts declared the June 6-10 meeting a failure before it even started. On June 7, the Washington Post assured readers that “This week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles will be remembered for its absences rather than its potential agreements,” focusing its attention on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was the most mentioned political figure in U.S. networks and media on June 7 and 8, even more than U.S. President Joe Biden, according to statistics from Google Trends. Richard N. Haass, who was the adviser to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and director of policy planning for the State Department, summed up the disaster superbly in a tweet: “The Summit of the Americas looks to be a debacle, a diplomatic own goal. The U.S. has no trade proposal, no immigration policy, and no infrastructure package. Instead, the focus is on who will and will not be there. Unclear is why we pressed for it to happen.”

As can be expected of a meeting for which the invitation list had not been declared just 72 hours before it began, apathy seems to dominate the debate rooms, to which almost no one goes, according to witnesses. Even so, the United States government did not miss an opportunity to secure the appearance of participation by the civil society groups on which it bets, and it met with the envoys from Miami, paid for by USAID, and awarded them with more money. During the summit, Blinken promised a new fund of $9 million to support “independent journalism” to those who already receive $20 million a year for promoting “regime change” in Cuba.


This political pageantry is happening in what is essentially a bunker, because the Los Angeles Police received more than $15 million to police the summit and militarize a city famous for its homelessness and belts of poverty. The U.S. Democratic Party elite, meanwhile, remain out of touch with the reality of their own country, shaken by daily massacres, increasingly powerless to meet the expectations of citizens, and with most decisions and legislative projects stalled. They are replicating the clichés of the Monroe Doctrine—America for the Americans—and demonstrating what appears to be a commitment to isolationism with respect to Latin America.

The United States rarely takes into account the differentiating features of its Latin American neighbors: cultural, linguistic, religious, and traditional—in short, those that grant and promote a genuine way of understanding life and its miracles. It might seem incomprehensible at this point, but the U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America is articulated and carried out from exclusively ideological approaches, with simplistic decisions that end up harming everyone—including and especially the United States itself.

Defying the storm, the People’s Summit for Democracy has been installed at the doors of the meeting of the friends of the White House. Sponsored by some 250 organizations, most of which are local unions, the counter-summit is marching through the streets of Los Angeles on June 10, whether or not the authorities, who have done everything possible to silence the alternative meeting, give permission. But the media blockade is not having the expected success. Almagro and Blinken have gone viral on social media for reasons beyond their control, and they will not be the last to prove firsthand what the outrage of the excluded looks like.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/06/10/ ... -americas/

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‘Summit of the Gringos’ set to be a lonely affair
The following article, by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez, is a slightly expanded version of a piece written for Global Times and published on 1 June 2022. Carlos discusses the forthcoming Summit of the Americas and the public relations crisis it is creating for the US, with a significant number of key politicians in Latin American and the Caribbean refusing to attend, in protest at the unilateral decision by the US to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The article concludes that the US should give up on its idea of Latin America as a “back yard”, and instead follow China’s example, developing an international relations strategy based on mutual respect, mutual benefit, equal treatment and non-interference.
The Ninth Summit of the Americas is due to take place from the 6th to the 10th of June in Los Angeles, the first time it has been hosted in the United States since President Bill Clinton convened the inaugural Summit in Miami in 1994. It comes as Joe Biden, 16 months into his presidency, is working on multiple fronts to rebuild a stable US-led imperialist alliance following four erratic years with Donald Trump in the White House.

When Biden announced in his first major foreign policy speech as president that “diplomacy is back” and that the US would “repair its alliances”, this was merely a promise to carry forward the century-old project of domination and hegemonism. So much is obvious from the proposed expansion of NATO, the fierce attempts to weaken Russia, the creation of AUKUS, the revival of the Quad, the flagrant encouraging of Taiwanese secessionism, and the recent launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity – a comically hopeless attempt to isolate China.

In this context, the Summit of the Americas 2022 provides an opportunity for the US to reassert its leadership in what it has considered its “back yard” for the last 200 years.

However, things are not going to plan. In response to a unilateral announcement by the US that the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would not be invited to the Summit, multiple leaders in the region declared they refuse to attend. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated bluntly: “If everyone is not invited, I will not go.” In spite of a concerted lobbying effort from Washington, López Obrador stuck to his position, asking: “Is it going to be the Summit of the Americas or the Summit of the Friends of the US?”

Bolivian President Luis Arce echoed the sentiment of his Mexican counterpart, saying that he would not participate if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were excluded. Likewise Xiomara Castro, the recently-elected leftist President of Honduras stated: “If all the nations aren’t there, it isn’t a Summit of the Americas.”

It may well be that the entire CARICOM – an intergovernmental organisation with 15 member states in the Caribbean – boycotts the Summit, with Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the US, asserting that “if the United States insists on not inviting Cuba to this meeting, it will immediately cause the CARICOM countries not to attend.” Biden is so concerned about the possible complete collapse of the Summit that he dispatched his envoy Christopher Dodd to Argentina to convince President Alberto Fernández to attend. Fernández did not confirm whether or not he would go to the Summit, but he did take the opportunity to reproach Dodd, saying “it’s shameful that the US maintains a blockade against Cuba and Venezuela.”

It is impressive to see so many Latin American and Caribbean leaders standing united in defence of their collective dignity and rejecting what senior Venezuelan politician Diosdado Cabello has characterised as a “summit of the gringos.” This is a reflection of a rising and irreversible trend towards sovereign development; an assertion of both independence and regional unity.

The Monroe Doctrine, first articulated by President James Monroe in 1823, denounced European colonialism and interference in the Western Hemisphere, not on the basis of any anti-colonial principle but as an assertion of the US’s exclusive rights to exploit the continent. Since that time, the US’s relationship with the countries of Central and South America has largely been characterised by neocolonialism, and the region’s land, natural resources, labour and markets have been subservient to the needs of US monopoly capital.

When the US has been unable to secure its interests through quiet pressure and economic coercion, it has not hesitated to use force. The 1954 coup d’état in Guatemala, overthrowing the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz, was engineered by the CIA (an interesting historical footnote is that this incident helped to radicalise Che Guevara, who was living in Guatemala City at the time). In 1961, the US orchestrated an invasion of Cuba, with a view to overturning the Cuban Revolution. The US backed brutal military coups in Brazil (1964), Chile (1973) and Argentina (1976). Following the Sandinista Revolution, the US financed and supported right-wing narco-terrorist militia in waging a decade-long civil war in the 1980s.

This tragically violent dynamic has not remained in the distant past. In 2002, the CIA backed a coup attempt against the Chávez government in Venezuela. The US supported the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff’s progressive government in Brazil (2016) and the coup that brought down the Evo Morales government in Bolivia (2019). Meanwhile, the US maintains harsh unilateral sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

But as hard is it might try, the US cannot stem the tide of multipolarity. The peoples of the region are simply not willing to accept the Monroe Doctrine any longer. Speaking in January this year, President Biden clearly thought he was presenting Latin America a valuable gift by upgrading its status from “back yard” to “front yard”. However, the peoples of the region are no longer willing to be any type of yard.

China’s rise has been an important boost to Latin America’s attempts to break its dependency on the US, with bilateral trade increasing from just 12 billion USD in 2000 to 315 billion USD today. Of the 33 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region, 21 have signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. As veteran US peace activist Medea Benjamin noted recently: “China has surpassed the US as the number one trading partner, giving Latin American countries more freedom to defy the United States.”

With the expansion of investment, trade, aid and diplomatic ties with China, Latin America has a historic opportunity to climb the ladder of sovereign development, to improve the living standards of its people, and to affirm its status as a key player in an increasingly multipolar world. For this reason the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, speaking with Hu Jintao in Beijing in 2006, spoke of China’s relationship with Latin American as a “Great Wall against American hegemonism.”

As Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated recently, Latin America is neither a front yard or a back yard of the US. “And the Summit of the Americas is not the Summit of the United States of America.” If the US wants to improve its relationship with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, it should follow China’s example and adopt an international relations strategy based on mutual respect, mutual benefit, equal treatment and non-interference. In short, it should give up on the Project for a New American Century and come to terms with humanity’s trajectory away from hegemonism.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/06/02/s ... ly-affair/

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NicaNotes: ALBA and Nicaragua – Defending Solidarity in a Divided World
June 9, 2022
By Stephen Sefton

[Stephen Sefton has served as a community worker in Nicaragua for 28 years. Since 2008, he has coordinated the web site Tortilla con Sal which follows events in Nicaragua and the region.]

The leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) countries held a summit meeting in Havana at the end of May this year which showed that the aspiration for solidarity and freedom in the region remains strong.

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At their May summit, ALBA-TCP leaders demanded all countries in the continent participate “on an equal footing” in the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles (Twitter / @BrunoRguezP)

On the other hand, controversy has dogged this June’s United States government-organized Summit of the Americas with its exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. These three countries had already abandoned the OAS, seriously damaging the credibility of the Organization of American States as a trustworthy hemispheric forum for the countries of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. However, several countries decided in the end not to attend the event. The fact that Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and the Caricom [Caribbean Community of 20 nations] countries have called their own participation into question has no doubt shaken even the sinister, implacable ideologues running US foreign policy. That policy remains firmly rooted in the Monroe Doctrine, endowing the US with practically feudal rights over all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Instead of inviting the governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela, the US authorities invited individuals and opposition media outlets that they trained, organized and funded to carry out coup attempts and destabilization in those countries.

If anyone is curious about what the US, Canada and their European Union allies want for the region, one has only to look at Haiti. There, the Western model of democracy and freedom, of free market neoliberalism, of United Nation’s and OAS run elections, of wholesale non-governmental organization (NGO) managerial interventions, have had a free rein for almost twenty years. The horrific results are self-evident: economic impoverishment, political instability, extreme inequality, appalling public health outcomes, chronic citizen insecurity and similar outcomes in terms of practically any other social and economic indicator. If they were to get the chance, those levels of immiseration and exploitation are what the US and its allies have in mind for Latin America and the Caribbean.

However, the aspiration for emancipation in the region continues as strong as ever as shown by the summit meeting in Havana of leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) countries last month. Of the four biggest ALBA-TCP countries, Bolivia has recovered from the 2019 US-backed coup; Nicaragua and Venezuela have both overcome recent US-organized coup attempts. Cuba has survived 60 years of US trade and financial blockade while Venezuela and, so far to a lesser degree, Nicaragua are both subject to damaging internationally illegal coercive economic measures known as sanctions. Even so, despite all of that relentless US and allied aggression, this was the 21st such summit of the ALBA-TCP countries since 2004.

The summit issued a Declaration reaffirming the ALBA-TCP principles of “solidarity, social justice, cooperation and economic complementarity; with genuine regional integration led by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)”. CELAC includes 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and does not include the US and Canada. The declaration also reaffirmed support for multilateralism and its opposition to efforts at imperialist domination, denouncing the US government’s discriminatory behavior over the June Summit of the Americas and its economic aggression against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Important Caribbean island nations supported the declaration, including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The survival and resistance of the ALBA-TCP countries combines now with other factors that belie the feudal seigneurial assumption of the US ruling class that time is on their side and that if they apply sufficient coercion over time they will prevail. That assumption is no longer valid, if it ever was. Just as they failed to subdue the liberation and emancipation impulse in Latin America and the Caribbean, so too they have failed elsewhere. The debacle in Afghanistan, the failure to overthrow the government of Syria, let alone Iran, the practical expulsion from West Africa of US allied French forces, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and China’s no nonsense rejection of US meddling in Taiwan, all mean one thing: time is fast running out for the US ruling elite and their allied network of vassal states across North America, Europe and the Pacific.

Irrational US and European sanctions against Russia and Belarus have deepened the developing global energy and food crisis already in train resulting from measures introduced to address Covid-19 starting in early 2020. But instead of seeking to de-escalate this developing crisis and accommodate to new global realities, the US and its allies have increased ultimately ineffective sanctions against Russia and are wantonly menacing China. In that global context, the ALBA-TCP summit is yet another example of the global division the US and its allies have provoked which is leaving them steadily more isolated.

Voting patterns in the UN General Assembly this year have reflected this reality while also suggesting a multifaceted and radically nuanced range of interest-based policy decisions rather than any kind of clear-cut set of allegiances like those of the Cold War. That said, and in the context of the Americas, it may be helpful to identify what seem to be two clear ideological poles towards which different countries in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean tend currently to gravitate one way or another. The US and its allies group around an imperialist pole, while the ALBA-TCP countries embrace anti-imperialism. It may be helpful to summarize that opposition as follows.

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In Latin America and the Caribbean, the US is unable to suppress resistance to their imperialist policies. By contrast, the Bolivarian Alliance countries in particular have successfully challenged US regional policies and their local elite enforcers. Nicaragua’s case bears out ALBA’s overall regional example. Since taking office in January 2007, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has decisively prioritized social and economic policies centred on the needs and aspirations of the human person.

Regional autonomy, infrastructure investment in the Caribbean [education, health care, electricity, water, sewage, roads, bridges, ports and more], 90% food sovereignty, great increase in renewable energy sources, active promotion of cultural identity and diversity have all radically empowered Nicaragua’s Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. Nicaragua’s foreign policy long ago stopped favoring the interests of North America and Europe to benefit the majority of Nicaragua’s people.

By re-opening its relations with the People’s Republic of China last year, developing its relationship with Iran and reaffirming its historic relations with Russia, Nicaragua is simply deepening its commitment to a multipolar world based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations as well as assuring the future well-being of its people.

Within Central America and the wider region, Nicaragua has worked constantly since 2007 towards integration favoring the needs and aspirations of the region’s peoples based on the ALBA-TCP principles of solidarity and complementarity. Nicaragua initiated the agreement for a zone of prosperity and peace in the Gulf of Fonseca supported by both Honduras and El Salvador, until Nayib Bukele became the Salvadoran president.

Similarly, Nicaragua has been an active member of both the Central American Integration System and the Association of Caribbean States. In both those organizations, Nicaragua has actively promoted coordination and cooperation on issues like disaster prevention and mitigation, combatting organized crime, developing tourism, improved food security and tackling climate change. In contrast to Nicaragua’s positive and proactive approach, the main factors blocking the development of the Central American Integration System are the recalcitrance of Costa Rica, US intervention in Honduras and Guatemala, and Nayib Bukele’s reactionary position representing El Salvador.

Neocolonial collaboration of local elites in Central America with their foreign patrons contrasts increasingly starkly with Nicaragua’s commitment to creating sovereign national wealth via productive investment. Nicaragua is recognized as having the best highway system in the region. The country now has over 99% electricity coverage. It has a very ambitious program of investment in water and sewage infrastructure. Other investment programs include major improvements to the ports of Corinto and Bluefields. Taken together, the new highway from Siuna to the North Caribbean Regional capital Bilwi, the national program of bridge construction, and the building of 25 new hospitals have no parallel anywhere in the region.

Especially since the failed US coup attempt in 2018, Nicaragua has been the country in the region where grass roots social and economic democratization has most clearly prevailed against the local foreign-aligned oligarchy. Economic policy has prioritized agricultural and livestock producers previously starved of credit and technical support enabling the country to develop even more as a major regional food exporter. By creating the Ministry of the Family, Cooperative, Community and Associative Economy (MEFCCA) the government has encouraged and supported micro, small and medium- scale farmers and businesses across many productive sectors of the economy. Another example is how, up until 2018, Nicaragua’s Institute of Tourism dramatically supported the development of local tourist businesses across the country and subsequently helped the industry refocus from international to regional tourism – a move which also helped the industry survive through the global collapse in tourism from 2020 on.

In these dimensions and others, Nicaragua accompanies Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela: Under the leadership of President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has miraculously overcome more than a decade of relentless US aggression so as to remake its economy and society. Bolivia’s President Luis Arce and his team have steadily made good the huge damage and deep social and economic wounds inflicted on the country and its people by the US-directed coup of 2019. Against all odds, revolutionary Cuba survives and looks forward to a better future, despite the crushing burden and difficulties of 60 years of continuing genocidal blockade by the US authorities. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, in the Americas the ALBA-TCP countries have demonstrated that the United States and its allies have acted above all to isolate themselves while the rest of the world goes on advancing without them.

(more...)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-06-09-2022

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China Displaces US in Latin American Trade
JUNE 9, 2022

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China’s President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan with Panama’s then President Juan Carlos Varela and First Lady Lorena Castillo in December 2018 on Panama Canal facilities. Photo: Carlos Jasso/Reuters.

China has beaten the US in trade in much of Latin America during the presidency of current US President Joe Biden.

An exclusive analysis by the British news agency Reuters, based on UN trade data between 2015 and 2021, reveals how the United States is being pushed away from Latin America.

According to the analysis, except for Mexico, which is Washington’s main trading partner, China has surpassed Washington trade with Latin America and has widened the gap more than ever, especially since Biden took office at the beginning of last year.

The report, citing some Latin American politicians, has underlined that the White House has been slow to take concrete steps to fill the growing gap and that Beijing, a major buyer of grains and metals, has simply offered more to the countries of the region in terms of trade and investment while the United State is increasingly using extortion and threats to keep alive its regional influence.

In this sense, former ambassador of Peru in China Juan Carlos Capuñay has stressed, as the article details, that “the most important commercial, economic and technological ties for Latin America are definitely with China, which is the main commercial partner of the region, well above the US.”

The latest available data shows that total trade flows, both imports and exports, between Latin America and China reached almost $247 billion in 2021, well above the $174 billion with the US.

This gap in trade between the US and the region first began to be more noticeable under former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021), and has grown since Biden came to power in January 2021.

So far, Biden has failed to bridge or narrow the gap, despite his promise to restore Washington’s role as world leader and refocus attention on Latin America, after years of what he once described as “neglect.”

(HispanTV) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/china-displa ... n-america/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 11, 2022 2:09 pm

Protest Against Exclusions at Summit of the Americas in LA

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Large crowds protesting against exclusion at the Summit of the Americas | Photo: People's Summit - @MidiaNINJA

Published 10 June 2022

Crowds gathered in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday to protest the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the IX Summit of the Americas being held in this city.

"We are here today in front of the Convention Center protesting against the Summit of the Americas and particularly the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is not really the Summit of the Americas if a large part of that continent and the peoples of Latin America are excluded from the Summit," Answer Coalition director Brian Becker told Sputnik.

They also demand an end to the blockade of Cuba, he added.

The demonstrators shouted chants directed at U.S. President Joe Biden for his decision to leave out these three nations. Participants also carried Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan flags and banners.

"Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela," "Stop the U.S. destabilization campaign and media lies," and "End all U.S. sanctions and blockades" were some of the phrases read on the demonstrators' placards.

The protest was peaceful and speakers took turns addressing the rally with their speeches demanding an end to sanctions and wars.

The IX Summit of the Americas was overshadowed by the controversy of exclusions, which led several presidents, such as the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, not to attend the continental meeting or complain to the U.S. about its decision.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Pro ... -0016.html

Americas Summit Focused On Rejection of Exclusion, Maduro Says

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told the Iranian channel Hispantv in an interview that there have been many speeches rejecting the exclusion of countries from the IX Summit of the Americas. Jun. 10, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@MariscalSucreLK

Published 10 June 2022

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro recognized that the IX Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles, U.S. has been marked by the rejection of the U.S. decision to exclude Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.

Interviewed by the Iranian channel Hispan TV, the president said that "there have been mostly courageous speeches, there has been a repudiation of this intended unfriendly, shameful exclusion against these three countries such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela."

Maduro listed three central themes of the meeting: exclusion, the protest stance of more than 14 countries, and the absence of a theme.

The summit in Los Angeles "has had no theme (...) this has been a bland meeting, lacking in theme, without priorities, what was in the past the Summit of the Americas has been totally blurred with this summit," the president said.

Maduro praised the interventions of the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, together with that of the Prime Minister of Belize, John Briceño. In this sense, he expressed his appreciation for the invitation extended by Fernández to the U.S. President to participate in the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), of which Fernández is president pro tempore.


President Nicolás Maduro: the voice of excluded peoples reverberates at the Los Angeles summit. The meeting that takes place until this Friday has been characterized by criticism and rejection of President Joe Biden's policy of exclusion.

Maduro also said some slight advances have been made in the dialogue with the United States, noting that Venezuela's progress and stability do not depend on those steps."

The U.S. excluded Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas under the accusation that their governments do not respect the Democratic Charter of the Americas.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ame ... -0015.html

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Biden faces discord at LA summit
By HENG WEILI in New York | CHINA DAILY/XINHUA | Updated: 2022-06-11 08:24

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Migrants taking part in a caravan heading to the US, walk from Huixtla to Escuintla, Chiapas state, Mexico, on June 9, 2022. [Photo/Agencies]
Migration gets top billing at meeting as US leader eyes plan to manage impact

While the ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles contains all the pomp of a major international gathering, it takes place against the backdrop of an ongoing crush of migration to the United States' southwest border.

The US Department of Homeland Security plans to transport migrants awaiting immigration proceedings from US cities along the southern border farther into the nation's interior, starting with Los Angeles in the coming weeks, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.

The plan, officials said, would help alleviate overcrowding along the border, at times leading the Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, to release migrants on the street.

The new model would use federal funds to send migrants to shelters in cities farther inside the country before they go to their final destinations. They will also be sent to Albuquerque, Houston, Dallas and other cities.

US President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 pledging to reverse many of the hard-line immigration policies of his predecessor Donald Trump. But he has struggled to contain record numbers of border crossings.

The CBP encountered migrants for a record 234,088 times in April. Through April this year, there have been close to 1.5 million encounters.

"The Biden administration's total lack of leadership has isolated the few governments that were working with us to curb illegal immigration just a few years ago. Those countries perceive weakness in the Biden administration, so there is no incentive to cooperate on US interests," Mateo Haydar, a research assistant on Latin America at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital.

"It's also delusional. The Biden administration claims to be signing a 'historic migration declaration'. What it expects to negotiate or agree on without the presidents of Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries is totally unclear."

Biden was expected to close the summit on Friday with a declaration on migration.

Some nations were poised not to sign the summit declaration, according to a Reuters report citing a person familiar with the matter. Some Caribbean countries would not approve it, an official at the summit said.

The boycott of the summit by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador over the snubbing of the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela over political ideology highlighted the divide in the region.

Also not attending the June 6-10 event were the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador-countries of origin for much of the migrant flow to the US.

'Crime against humanity'

Biden heard even more direct criticism from one of the hemisphere's smallest nations, Belize, whose representatives told him it was "inexcusable" not to invite all countries and called the half-century US pressure campaign against Cuba a "crime against humanity".

Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno also questioned if Biden would follow through financially on lofty promises.

"We know that money is not the problem. In less than three months, two countries in this hemisphere committed $55 billion to Ukraine," he said, referring to the US and Canada.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who was persuaded to attend by Biden, said: "Being the host country of the summit doesn't grant the ability to impose a right of admission on member countries of the continent."

For Daniel Kovalik, a lawyer who teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, the summit illustrates the hegemonic power's shrinking impact on the Western Hemisphere, exposing the fact that "the Emperor has no clothes".

"The truth is the US influence has been declining for a long time. The only way it's maintained its influence is by sheer brute force. That's true now pretty much throughout the world. All it has is brute force, and that's not working because you can't control everyone all at once. I think the US will continue to find its influence waning in Latin America," the expert added.

Agencies and Xinhua contributed to this story.

hengweili@chinadailyusa.com

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 620db.html

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Biden watches as Latin American leaders criticize his decision to exclude some nations from Summit of the Americas
Maegan Vazquez
By Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 8:01 PM EDT, Thu June 9, 2022

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President Joe Biden speaks during the opening ceremony at the Summit of the Americas Wednesday, June 8, 2022, in Los Angeles.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
CNN

President Joe Biden on Thursday watched on as Latin American leaders lambasted his decision to exclude autocratic leaders from the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, just moments after the President had delivered remarks underscoring his belief that the future of the Western Hemisphere should be a democratic one.

Belize’s prime minister, John Briceño, said on the stage of a summit plenary Thursday afternoon, “The future of the Western Hemisphere is a question for all of the countries of this hemisphere. Irrespective of our size, our GDP, our system of governance – we all have a shared interest in a sustainable, resilient and equitable future.”

As Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watched Briceño speak from mere feet away, he added that it is “inexcusable that all countries of the Americas are not here and the power of the summit (is) diminished by their absence.”

Briceño called the isolation of certain countries who were not invited “incomprehensible” and specifically called on Biden to end its blockade on Cuba, calling it “un-American” and “an affront to humanity.” And he called Venezuela’s absence “unforgivable.”

Argentine President Alberto Fernández said during a speech later in the program that rules of future summits should be changed to prevent nations from being excluded. He also criticized measures taken against Cuba and Venezuela, such as the embargo.

“I am sorry that all of us, who should have been here, are not present,” Fernández said.

“We definitely would have wished for a different Summit of the Americas. The silence of those who were absent is calling to us,” he added.

The direct criticism from some of the Biden’s fellow heads of state contradicted days of statements from the administration that the summit would be unaffected by the absences of the leaders of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Bolivia, and the exclusion of three autocratic nations. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador boycotted the summit over the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all autocratic nations. The snubs from key leaders have loomed over the summit, despite the administration’s attempts to downplay their significance.

Earlier, Biden opened the plenary telling leaders and delegates at the summit that the conference has already produced “a lot of strong and constructive diplomacy.”

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/09/politics ... index.html

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Chile’s Boric Suppresses Civil Liberties in Mapuche Region While Talking About Human Rights in US
JUNE 10, 2022

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Chilean President Gabriel Boric with his wife during a private ceremony in La Moneda with some members of the Mapuche ethnic group during his inauguration. For many it was just a simple protocol. Photo: Twitter/@elmostrador.

This is the third time that the State of Exception, which reduces civil liberties to a minimum, has been extended in the Mapuche region of Chile.

The government of Chilean President Gabriel Boric is set to ask Congress to extend the State of Exception that has been in force since May 17 in the South Macrozone, which covers the Mapuche region of La Araucanía and the provinces of La Arauca and BíoBío.

According to joint statements from the Moneda Palace (the seat of the President of Chile) with Minister of Defense Maya Fernández, the Carabineros, the Investigative Police, the Ministry of the Interior, and Vice President Izkia Siches, this decision is intended to reduce crime in the Mapuche region. Yet the crimes they are referring to are the protests of the Mapuche people, who for years have suffered the violation of their most basic human rights.

During a press conference, Vice President Siches declared that “this State [of Exception] has allowed us to reduce acts of violence by 42%, in their different manifestations. That is why we have decided to suggest to the President to extend this extension.”

Meanwhile President Boric is in Los Angeles, talking about alleged human rights violations in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, while not mentioning the historical struggle of the Mapuche people and their basic human rights, which he promised to defend during his presidential campaign.


On Tuesday, June 7, representatives of the forestry unions and authorities, both from the government and from the general area, met to analyze the effects of the military deployment, which according to the Truck Owners Association have effectively reduced attacks “by 50%.”

According to the news agency EFE, the representative of the Truck Owners Association in the southern region, Freddy Martínez, stated, “The figures say the same thing that Minister Siches says, that this has dropped by practically 50% or very close to it. This clearly supports our request, which was made during the last mobilization in the southern region.”

If approved, this would be the third extension given to the State of Exception. The last one was granted on May 30 in response to what the oligarchy refers to as acts of violence. However, this is just an attempt to cover up the complex reality of a century of aggression, human rights violations and systemic violence; a historical process which Mapuche organizations have responded to in recent weeks.

The State of Exception –a measure rejected by Boric while he was a presidential candidate– has already claimed the life of one Mapuche worker, on May 24.

(Últimas Noticias) by Ariadna Eljuri, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/chiles-boric ... hts-in-us/

Another fake leftist like that scum Lenin Moreno. I expect that Petro guy in Columbia is cut from the same cloth.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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