South America

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:28 pm

Thousands of Outraged Peruvians Continue to Arrive in Lima

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Police attack citizens in the streets of Lima, Peru. | Photo: Twitter/ @ElTequeno

Published 19 January 2023 (22 hours 29 minutes ago)

"The protesters, who mostly come from the poorer regions, vent their anger against Lima's political elite," Reuters reported.

Despite the obstacles that the Peruvian security forces have tried to set, thousands of workers, farmers, and students from various regions of the country continue to arrive in Lima.

Outraged by a State terrorism that has left at least 52 dead, they will join the "March of the Four Nations," which demands the resignation of Dina Boluarte, whom Congress appointed as president on Dec.7, 2022.

"Her administration has more deaths than days in power," is what people repeat in protests, as they also demand the closure of Congress and early general elections in 2023.

"The Peruvian political establishment is corrupt and classist. They do not accept elections in 2023 because mining concessions expire this year and there is a lot of money at stake in commissions," explained Fidias Roldan, a Latin American intellectual.

"The clashes mark the worst violence Peru has seen in over two decades," the Reuters agency reported from this South American country.


The tweet reads, "At this time protesters are marching through the streets of Andahuaylas. Some are preparing to travel to Lima to join the strike."

"The protesters, who mostly come from the poorer regions, vent their anger against Lima's political elite," it added, commenting that this copper-rich country's democracy is currently being put to the test.

Meanwhile, the head of the Lima Police Region, Victor Zanabria, reported that 11,800 agents will take to the streets to "guard" the popular mobilizations, which will have San Martin Square as their epicenter and are expected to go through the main avenues.

On Wednesday, snipers fired at citizens who were protesting in Macusani city, in the Puno region, where a 35-year-old woman died from a gunshot wound to the head.

A few hours later, the Ombudsman's Office informed that Salomon Valenzuela also died. This citizen was also shot in what people are beginning to call the "Macusani massacre."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Tho ... -0012.html

Peru: Protests in Arequipa Leave One Dead and 10 Injured

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Groups of people participate in the march called the "taking of Lima" today, in Lima (Peru). | Photo: EFE/ Paolo Aguilar

Published 19 January 2023 (13 hours 59 minutes ago)

One person was killed and ten injured Thursday in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa in clashes amid anti-government demonstrations, the Ombudsman's Office said on Twitter.

"Arequipa: We regret the death of a person during clashes on the Añashuayco bridge, a road located in the north of the city. We ask the Peruvian Prosecutor's Office for a prompt investigation of the facts to determine responsibilities," the entity said.

It added that ten people were injured and taken to health centers in the area.

Protests were taking place in several cities of the country following a call for a national strike.

In the country's capital, Lima, thousands of people were protesting for the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and several clashes with the police were reported.

Since December 10, several social protests have been taking place in Peru by citizen groups and organizations, demanding the resignation of Boluarte, appointed after the Congress dismissed her predecessor, Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), as well as the immediate call for early elections.

Until Wednesday afternoon, the Ombudsman's Office reported the death of 50 civilians in clashes with security forces, traffic accidents and blockades linked to the mobilizations, and one policeman who reportedly died as a result of violence by demonstrators.

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

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Snipers Shoot Peruvians and Kill a Woman in Macusani City

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The sign reads,"Constituent Assembly Now." | Photo: Twitter/ @LaJornadaMaya

Published 19 January 2023

Outraged by State terrorism, citizens set fire to the judicial headquarters and a police station in the Puno region.


On Wednesday, the Carabaya Health Network confirmed the death of a 35-year-old woman from a gunshot wound to the head.

This took place during the protests against President Dina Boluarte in the city of Macusani, in the Puno region, where police snipers recorded themselves shooting at citizens.

The most recent victim of State terrorism was Sonia Aguilar Quispe, who was transported to the San Martin de Porres Hospital. Another citizen identified as Salomon Valenzuela was taken to the hospital, where he remains with a "reserved prognosis" due to open chest trauma.

The military and the police have caused the death of 52 people since Dec. 7, 2022, when Congress dismissed Pedro Castillo and appointed his vice president as President of the Republic.


The tweet reads, "Macusani, Puno. The police record themselves moments before shooting from a window in Carabaya. A sniper would have caused the death of 35-year-old Sonia and seriously injured another citizen who is in ICU. This It is irrefutable proof of the Carabaya massacre."

On Wednesday afternoon and evening, the Macusani district was the scene of strong protests. Outraged by the repression that the Boluarte regime has allowed, the citizens set fire to the judicial headquarters and a police station.

Despite the brutal repression they have experienced in the last month, thousands of Peruvians continue to head towards Lima to participate in "The March of the Four Nations" (La Marcha de los Cuatro Suyos).

This symbolic act seeks the resignation of Boluarte, the dissolution of Congress, the immediate call for general elections, and holding a Constituent Assembly.

To support these citizen demands, the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) and the National Assembly of the Peoples (ANP) called a national strike this Thursday. Meanwhile, Boluarte maintains that she will not resign from office.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Sni ... -0001.html

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More Police Repression as Thousands March in Lima & Demand Boluarte Resign
JANUARY 20, 2023

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Protest banner showing a caricature of Boluarte holding a machine gun next to a caption that reads "Dina Balearte." Photo: Twitter/@renato_2026.

Caracas, January 19, 2023 (OrinocoTribune.com)—This Wednesday, for the second edition of the historic “March of the Four of Them” that, in 2000, with an unprecedented popular mobilization, demanded the departure of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, thousands of demonstrators continued to arrive in Lima, the capital of the country, to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte, de facto head of state after the overthrow of President Pedro Castillo.

Impressive images show the mobilization from the south of the country to the capital on the Pacific coast. The march occurs in the face of militarization country, marked by the attempt of security forces to create a perimeter around Lima, an action that has been denounced by the demonstrators joined by trade unions, campesinos, and social movements.

In just six weeks—two of them relatively calm due to a Christmas truce—more than 50 Peruvians have been killed by police and military forces, most of them murdered with live ammunition. Almost 30 of these lives were lost in massacres carried out by the coup regime in Ayacucho and Juliaca.

It is worth noting that the appointment of Boluarte, who was vice president of Pedro Castillo, as interim head of state, is being condemned by protesters as a stratagem perpetrated by the right-wing Fujimorismo that dominates Congress, widely repudiated by the majority of Peruvians who elected Castillo in 2021 as the first president not belonging to the power elites.


Castillo was deposed by the same Congress that appointed Boluarte, after torpedoing his administration even before he took office. During Castillo’s 18 months in office, Congress moved to vacate his presidency four times, with the final attempt occurring on December 7, the day President Castillo was overthrown and imprisoned.

Castillo’s arrest is classified as illegal and his ousting was labeled by several governments in Latin America as a coup. The Peruvian Judiciary has agreed to review a request for habeas corpus for Castillo, who has been imprisoned for 18 months without trial for alleged sedition.

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National strike until Boluarte steps down

The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) organized a general strike starting Thursday, January 19. It has called for mobilizations every Thursday until Boluarte resigns.

Intimidation from the government

CGTP stated that on Monday, the Police arrived at the headquarters of the telephone workers union, where the National Assembly of the Peoples (ANP) had been convened, and “intimidated those attending the assembly, and imprisoned the leader, Teresa Yamile Natividad Villegas Montoya, for an indictment in Cajamarca, a place he does not know.”

They also repudiated the arrest, last weekend, of Henry Mena, general secretary of the CGTP San Martín, alongside 14 leaders in a protest against the de facto government. Subsequently, it was announced that Mena was released.

Andahuaylas is already in Lima

The mobilization to Lima brought thousands of protesters from Andahuaylas, a city about 700 kilometers away from the capital, who complained of being intimidated before arriving in the capital. The buses that transported them were requisitioned by the police and the military, but they finally passed the militarized checkpoints after showing that they did not bring weapons to cause violence.

Security forces attempted to prevent the arrival of demonstrators at the historic “March of the Four of Them.” Another tactic used was the demand for drivers and occupants of the buses provide documentation before passing military checkpoints.


A significant number of those mobilized are concentrated at the University of San Marcos, the oldest on the continent, where the students offered shelter to those arriving in the capital, while the university authorities, it transpired, are requesting the eviction of the protesters.

Resignation of Boluarte, early elections, new Constitution, and dissolution of Congress
Everardo Cadillo, general secretary in Lima of the national union organization, stated that the union also demands the closure of Congress and immediate elections, the Peruvian press reported on Wednesday.

Cadillo stated that the national assembly of delegates of the CGTP, held on Saturday the 14th, with the agreement of the board of directors, approved the national strike as a measure to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte and the closure of Congress, which, they say, must be changed and its new members elected by consensus. He is also part of the protest demanding a consultation with the population, during the elections that must be held as soon as possible, on the possibility of rewriting the Constitution (one of the central promises of Castillo’s campaign). Meanwhile, grassroots movements continue to demand the immediate release of President Castillo.

Support in Lima for the “March of the Four of Them”

“The national assembly of delegates (from the General Confederation of Workers of Peru) agreed to hold vigils to collect resources to support brothers from the south or any compañero who comes to Lima, because they are coming in large numbers and every Thursday of each week we will mobilize,” explained Cadillo in an interview with the Regional Communication Network (RCR) of Peru.

“When Dina Boluarte convened the CGTP, we went to the Government Palace to tell her that she should evaluate her resignation [and] call new elections as soon as possible, so that in these elections the population can be asked if they want a new Constitution,” he added. “We told her face to face. She told us that she was going to think about it.”

More deaths in Puno

A second protester who was seriously injured after being shot with live ammunition on Wednesday during the protests in Macusani, in the Puno region, in southern Peru, died this Thursday, reported the Ombudsperson’s Office, according to AFP.

“After serious injuries, Salomón Valenzuela died this morning (Thursday, January 19) after not surviving an operation at the Macusani hospital,” a source from the Ombudsperson’s Office told AFP. His death marks the second fatality of the police repression against a road block in Macusani , capital of the province of the same name in the department of Puno, in the southeast of Peru.

Demonstrators received with more repression
More demonstrators arrived in Lima on Thursday and were met with armored vehicles deployed by the de facto authorities all over the Peruvian capital. Kawsachun News reported in a tweet: “Peru’s coup regime has deployed armored vehicles against protesters in Lima.”


During the night hours of Thursday, Wayka Peru also reported, on its social media accounts, how the police repression was launched against ordinary Peruvians tired of being neglected by the elite of Lima and the oligarchy. Wayka posted several photos showing demonstrators being subjected to extreme violence.


A few minutes later, Kawsachun News posted a video showing protesters still marching in the streets of Lima despite police repression. “Despite repression, anti-coup protesters in Lima, Peru, continue in the streets calling for the fall of the regime,” the Bolivian news outlet wrote.


Almost simultaneously, Telesur journalist Nacho Lemus reported a fire in a building near Plaza San Martín in Lima. He explained that protesters claimed the demonstration had been sabotaged. Other posts on social media platforms refer to the fire as an incident replicating the tactics used against protesters by Vladimiro Montesinos and Alberto Fujimori.


Many were expecting a televised address by Dina Boluarte and the Peruvian de facto authorities, hoping for Boluarte’s resignation but analysts remain doubtful.

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In a very suspicious move, the US embassy in Peru published, on Thursday night, a statement calling on the Peruvian de facto government to respect human rights and the right to protest. Many analysts are skeptical of this type of statement issuing from the US embassy, and some believe this may be an indication of a new US strategy.


Dina Boluarte, at the end of the night, did present a televised address, with the arrogant and supremacist tone she has been using for several weeks, accusing protesters of being “financed” to take the streets. Once again, Boluarte refused to perceive reality: that ordinary Peruvians are fed up with a political system that is anything but democratic.

Additionally, Boluarte dared to say that the agenda of the protesters is not the social agenda that Peru needs, and that the situation in Lima was “under control.” Not surprisingly, many Peruvians have begun referring to Boluarte as “Balearte,” which means “someone shouting at you” in Spanish.

https://orinocotribune.com/more-police- ... te-resign/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:43 pm

Ongoing Protests Demand Resignation of Peru’s President

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Protesters continue to gather in Peru's capital city of Lima | Photo: Radio Pachamama

Published 20 January 2023

Delegations from different regions have gathered in Lima's Plaza Dos de Mayo to join the march.


The mobilizations continue this Friday in Peru to demand the resignation of the president-elect, Dina Boluarte, as part of the second day of the March of the Four Own, also demanding the closure of Congress, new general elections and a Constituent Assembly.

In the capital, Lima, the delegations that arrived in the city from different regions of the country resumed the march to continue expressing their rejection of Boluarte's government.

According to teleSUR contributor Jaime Herrera, people from Puno, Cusco, Ayacucho, and Apurimac, among others, gathered in the Plaza Dos de Mayo in downtown Lima to march from there.


The day before, demonstrators had denounced the violent repression by the security forces of the march, which had moved peacefully through the streets of the capital and other towns.

In the region of Puno, a significant mobilization took place in support of the demands for justice and reparation for the victims of the violent repression of the demonstrations by the security forces.

In the region of Tacna, sectors of the population joined the national strike with peaceful demonstrations, carrying placards with different messages, including "The bloodshed will never be forgotten."

There were also events in other towns in the region to pay tribute to those who died due to the police and military repression of the anti-government and anti-congress protests.

Protests against the Peruvian government had intensified since December 7 last year, when Congress dismissed Pedro Castillo and swore in Boluarte as the new president.

According to the Peruvian Ombudsman's office, the security forces' repression of the demonstrations has left at least 50 people dead and hundreds injured.

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

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Peru: Demonstrators arrive in Lima to demand justice and democracy
January 21, 2023 Alejandra Garcia

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17 dead in Juliaca.

Today protesters against Peru’s unelected president, Dina Boluarte, began flooding into Lima after a month and a half of social unrest that has left more than 50 dead, mainly at the hands of police forces. The demonstrators, mostly farmers from the south of the country, spent the night on some university campuses and intend to march to the center of the capital while the state agents are trying to encircle their perimeter.

The crisis began last December 7, when former president Pedro Castillo, now detained in a federal prison, tried to dissolve the Congress after the continuous attempts of the ultra-right to overthrow his government.

On the day of its anniversary, Lima, the capital that often lives on the sidelines of what is happening in the rest of the country, received thousands of Peruvians demanding new elections and to be heard. It has been a long shot to get here, many protesters say.

The police have done everything to impede the advance of the march, called the Great March of the “Cuatro Suyos,“ an allusion to the social mobilization that put an end to the reactionary Alberto Fujimori’s regime in the early 2000s. Local newspapers report that the police have reinforced their controls on the highways to block the passage of the demonstrators, who come mainly from the Peruvian highlands.

At the moment, 11,800 troops, more than 120 pickup trucks, and 49 military vehicles are deployed on the streets, and there are also armed forces teams patrolling the communities of the capital, according to the head of the Lima Police Region, General Victor Zanabria. “The police are on maximum alert,” he added.

These words frighten the Peruvian people, who have already mourned the deaths of 54 people and a reported thousands more injured by police brutality in the ongoing protests, which have been going on for over a month.

“Peru hurts, and the people are not going to stop until they put an end to the injustice. If there is no dialogue, there will be more violence,” Stuardo Ralón, vice-president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, warned the local press.

The most recent death was reported in the Peruvian town of Macusani, in the southern region of Puno, where a 30-year-old man was seriously injured amid a demonstration against the country’s president, Dina Boluarte. The young man is just one in a long list of people killed, among them also a 51-year-old woman and a baby who died in the womb of his teenage mother, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.

Meanwhile, what does the government say? “My commitment is to Peru, not to that tiny group that is bleeding the country,” Boluarte has said, and that hurts it is a big lie; because this is not a tiny group but rather the overwhelming majority of Peruvians who oppose her in a determined way.

The eyes of the region and the world are on Peru. One image captures the attention of those of us in other latitudes trying to understand the pain of those fighting in the streets for justice and democracy: the photo of the burial of 17 protesters killed by security forces last week in Juliaca, in the southern region of Puno. The coffins were lined up on the public road, while dozens of protesters surround them. “We won’t forget them. We will be in Lima until justice is done,” protesters say.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... democracy/

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Violent police repression kills another protester in Peru, death toll rises to 54

Despite massive protests demanding her resignation, President Boluarte has refused to resign, while criminalizing social struggle and blaming protesters for inciting violence

January 20, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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On Thursday, January 19, tens of thousands of Peruvians mobilized across the country, demanding the resignation of de-facto President Dina Boluarte, the closure of the right-wing dominated Congress, early general elections, and a new constitution through a Constituent Assembly.

The capital, Lima, was the epicenter of the anti-government demonstrations. Indigenous and peasant communities as well as members of diverse social organizations and trade unions from all regions of Peru traveled in caravans to come to Lima as part of the second ‘March from the Four Corners.’ The march was organized to raise the demand of the marginalized masses of remote Peru for radical political changes in the country as well as to express their solidarity with ousted president Pedro Castillo. In the afternoon, under the banner of the ‘Takeover of Lima’, tens of thousands of people organized massive marches from different parts of the capital to the Plaza San Martín in central Lima. From there, the protesters marched towards Congress.

Massive peaceful mobilizations were also held in Arequipa, Cusco, Lambayeque, Puno, and Tacna, among other regions. Additionally, at least 145 roads and highways were blocked in 18 of the 24 regions. The nationwide mobilizations and roadblocks were organized as a part of a national civic strike called by the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) and the National Assembly of Peoples (ANP).


Repression
The Boluarte government customarily resorted to violent repression to respond to these peaceful demonstrations. The government deployed about 10,000 police and military officers just in Lima. The security forces used tear gas and pellets to suppress the protests across the country, leaving at least one dead in Arequipa and dozens injured in different cities.

In Lima, the anti-riot police fired swirls of teargas outside Congress to block protesters, injuring dozens of people. Despite the repression, thousands of people remained on the streets in the evening to continue their peaceful protests. However, the police also once again returned to repress them. Amid the clashes, a major fire broke out at a building near the Plaza San Martín. Firefighters arrived at the scene and began evacuating residents in the surrounding houses. The residents in the area said the fire was caused by tear gas bombs thrown by police.

“They threw tear gas bombs on the roof and the fire started,” said the son of the owner of the building that caught fire, blaming the police for causing the incident.



In Arequipa, the second largest city in the country, the police shot and killed at least one protester and injured ten others at the Añashuayco bridge, when the residents were en route to the local airport to occupy it. The victim was identified as Jhancarlo Condori Arcana, 30 years old, who received a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Meanwhile, the local media confirmed the death of another protester in the Puno department. The victim was 30-year-old Salomón Valenzuela Chua. He died at the San Martín de Porres hospital, in the city of Macusani, after being gravely injured the day before. On January 18, the police opened fire against protesters who tried to occupy a police station in the city as a measure of protest. Police shot Valenzuela on the right side of the chest. He passed away in the ICU and left four children orphaned.

Valenzuela was the second fatal victim of the brutal police repression from that day. On Wednesday, the local media reported the death of a 35-year-old woman, who police killed with a gunshot to the head.

With the latest victims, the death toll from state repression of anti-government protests rose to 54.

On Friday, January 20, thousands of people hit the streets in Lima, Puno and Tacna, rejecting the brutal police and military repression and demanding justice and reparations for the victims.


Boluarte refuses to resign, attracts criticism

Despite the massive protests, in a national address on Thursday night, Boluarte refused to resign, while criminalizing the social struggle and blaming protesters for inciting violence in the country.

Boluarte said that her government remains “firm”, calling on the protesting sectors to engage in dialogue. However, she also classified the demonstrations as “criminal acts and vandalism,” adding that those responsible for violence and vandalism would not go ”unpunished”. She further said that “this is not a peaceful march,” adding, “in their protests there is no social agenda that the country needs.”

Vladimir Cerrón, progressive leader and the founder of Free Peru party that sponsored Castillo’s presidential candidacy in 2021, rejected Boluarte’s response to the social protests.

“Dina Boluarte continues to blame the people for the acts of vandalism, without a minimum of self-criticism. We do not know who advises her, but each measure taken is a new bombshell,” he tweeted.

“Someone else is using Boluarte’s head to express themself, because no person in their right mind can have such steep pride with 52 deaths on their hands,” Cerrón wrote in another tweet.

“Boluarte does not understand that the people have not come for alms, but to recover their political power that the oligarchy thinks is their exclusive patrimony,” he added.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/20/ ... ses-to-54/

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Peru: Changing the rules of the game
January 19, 2023 Iroel Sánchez

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“America for the Americans,” is the phrase with which Pedro Castillo closed his speech at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in April 2022, which he attended without his traditional rural teacher’s hat. In the midst of the schism caused by the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the United States, Castillo was one of those who chose to attend and not mention the issue that became the focus of the event.

“America for the Americans” is the central slogan of the Monroe Doctrine, on which the United States has based its hegemonic relationship with Latin America since the beginning of the 19th century, in practice, “America for the Americans, of the North.” The fact that the then-Peruvian president uttered such a phrase was attributed to his ignorance and that of his advisors, including his Foreign Ministry, and it is very likely that this was the case. However, the fact that in his speech, there was not the slightest reference to the questionable policies of the United States towards the region, including the blockade of Cuba that several leaders present there condemned, nor to the exclusions imposed by the U.S. organizers, reveals a complacent or at least uncritical stance towards what the progressivism of the region considers “the America that is not ours,” as defined by José Martí.

Upon being elected, Castillo appointed the intellectual Héctor Béjar as Chancellor. Béjar, who lasted less than a month in office, was lynched by the media for some statements in which he accused the Peruvian Navy of initiating terrorism and of having been trained for it by the CIA. He failed to say state terrorism, like all the armies that collaborated with Washington during the Cold War in Latin America, but he was still defenestrated. With Bejar in office, Castillo would not have committed the folly he did in Los Angeles, but he preferred to accept the resignation of the leftist intellectual. The unusual thing is that after being dismissed and being already in prison, Pedro Castillo discovered the CIA and the United States -those of America for the Americans, of the North- and accused them of being behind the repression that the now President Dina Boluarte executes with Army and Police against those in the streets of Peru who are demanding elections and qualify Castillo’s former Vice President as a dictator.

Castillo was not clueless this time, too bad it is a little late. U.S. Ambassador to Peru, Lisa Kenna, who according to her official State Department biography worked 9 years at the Agency, met with the Peruvian defense minister shortly before the democratically elected “leftist” president was overthrown in a coup d’état and imprisoned without trial. Four days after the coup, the same ambassador met with Ms. Boluarte and proclaimed the U.S. government’s support for her.

Boluarte, Vice President-elect of Castillo, like Michel Temer of Dilma Rouseff and Lenin Moreno of Rafael Correa, chose to be more faithful to the embassy than to the program chosen by the voters. A program that, by the way, has not had the slightest chance to be implemented because, between media attacks and congressional sabotage, Castillo was not allowed to govern. And the latter, instead of mobilizing the people to pressure in the streets for the Constituent Assembly and the measures of social justice he promised, devoted himself to a confrontation with the Congress lost in advance, giving it, with his last bureaucratic and unipersonal effort, the pretext to declare it anti-democratic, discredit it and take it to prison. Nobody has asked Boluarte about the program of changes for which she was voted together with Castillo, including a Constituent Assembly that Peruvians are also demanding in their protests these days.

But there the people are, putting their skins to the bullets in the streets for a President who was not up to his task. Will this struggle result in the end of the oligarchic control over the politics and resources of Peru? Hopefully, but there does not seem to be an organized political force capable of doing so, and only a radical change in the rules of the game could allow it.

Trying to change something out of concern for not bothering those who control the media and those who from the North have been removing and putting governments in many Latin American countries for more than a century always ends in the same place: defeat.

Fernando Martínez Heredia, a Cuban thinker whom Pedro Castillo surely does not know, but Héctor Bejar most probably does, wrote in his last text, dedicated to Fidel Castro: “Capitalism hoists its discredited democracy, corrupt and directly controlled by oligarchies, and demands from timid rulers and respectful opponents to abide by its rules as articles of faith, an attitude that would be suicidal, because those rules are made to preserve the system of capitalist domination.” Martinez Heredia died without knowing of the existence of Pedro Castillo, but the latter perhaps could have done with knowing Fernando.

Source: Al Mayadeen, translation Resumen Latinoamericano

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... -the-game/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Sun Jan 22, 2023 6:41 pm

Violent police repression kills another protester in Peru, death toll rises to 54
Despite massive protests demanding her resignation, President Boluarte has refused to resign, while criminalizing social struggle and blaming protesters for inciting violence

January 20, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

Image

On Thursday, January 19, tens of thousands of Peruvians mobilized across the country, demanding the resignation of de-facto President Dina Boluarte, the closure of the right-wing dominated Congress, early general elections, and a new constitution through a Constituent Assembly.

The capital, Lima, was the epicenter of the anti-government demonstrations. Indigenous and peasant communities as well as members of diverse social organizations and trade unions from all regions of Peru traveled in caravans to come to Lima as part of the second ‘March from the Four Corners.’ The march was organized to raise the demand of the marginalized masses of remote Peru for radical political changes in the country as well as to express their solidarity with ousted president Pedro Castillo. In the afternoon, under the banner of the ‘Takeover of Lima’, tens of thousands of people organized massive marches from different parts of the capital to the Plaza San Martín in central Lima. From there, the protesters marched towards Congress.

Massive peaceful mobilizations were also held in Arequipa, Cusco, Lambayeque, Puno, and Tacna, among other regions. Additionally, at least 145 roads and highways were blocked in 18 of the 24 regions. The nationwide mobilizations and roadblocks were organized as a part of a national civic strike called by the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) and the National Assembly of Peoples (ANP).

Tens of thousands of Peruvians have arrived in Lima to protest against the coup government of Dina Boluarte and demand a new constitution as well as an end to the violent repression. Protests have also been registered in cities across the country.#ParoNacional #ParoNacionalPeru pic.twitter.com/j1AutOCrHn

— Peoples Dispatch (@peoplesdispatch) January 19, 2023

Repression
The Boluarte government customarily resorted to violent repression to respond to these peaceful demonstrations. The government deployed about 10,000 police and military officers just in Lima. The security forces used tear gas and pellets to suppress the protests across the country, leaving at least one dead in Arequipa and dozens injured in different cities.

In Lima, the anti-riot police fired swirls of teargas outside Congress to block protesters, injuring dozens of people. Despite the repression, thousands of people remained on the streets in the evening to continue their peaceful protests. However, the police also once again returned to repress them. Amid the clashes, a major fire broke out at a building near the Plaza San Martín. Firefighters arrived at the scene and began evacuating residents in the surrounding houses. The residents in the area said the fire was caused by tear gas bombs thrown by police.

“They threw tear gas bombs on the roof and the fire started,” said the son of the owner of the building that caught fire, blaming the police for causing the incident.

#LIMA | "¡El pueblo no se rinde, carajo!" arengan miles de ciudadanos que continúan manifestándose de manera pacífica en contra del Gobierno de Dina Boluarte y el Congreso. pic.twitter.com/CFomKwCe3G

🇵🇪 Wayka📢 (@WaykaPeru) January 20, 2023

#AHORA | Reprimen protesta que se desarrollaba pacíficamente en el óvalo de Miraflores. pic.twitter.com/Xpxt8I89Ss

🇵🇪 Wayka📢 (@WaykaPeru) January 20, 2023


In Arequipa, the second largest city in the country, the police shot and killed at least one protester and injured ten others at the Añashuayco bridge, when the residents were en route to the local airport to occupy it. The victim was identified as Jhancarlo Condori Arcana, 30 years old, who received a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Meanwhile, the local media confirmed the death of another protester in the Puno department. The victim was 30-year-old Salomón Valenzuela Chua. He died at the San Martín de Porres hospital, in the city of Macusani, after being gravely injured the day before. On January 18, the police opened fire against protesters who tried to occupy a police station in the city as a measure of protest. Police shot Valenzuela on the right side of the chest. He passed away in the ICU and left four children orphaned.

Valenzuela was the second fatal victim of the brutal police repression from that day. On Wednesday, the local media reported the death of a 35-year-old woman, who police killed with a gunshot to the head.

With the latest victims, the death toll from state repression of anti-government protests rose to 54.

On Friday, January 20, thousands of people hit the streets in Lima, Puno and Tacna, rejecting the brutal police and military repression and demanding justice and reparations for the victims.

"La sangre derramada, jamás será olvidada" se lee en carteles que sostienen ciudadanas/os que bailan al ritmo del Sikuri en el paseo cívico de Tacna como medida de protesta contra Dina Boluarte. #VocesComunitarias 2/5
📽️ Abelardo Chura pic.twitter.com/EElV9MAvqr

🇵🇪 Wayka📢 (@WaykaPeru) January 20, 2023


Boluarte refuses to resign, attracts criticism

Despite the massive protests, in a national address on Thursday night, Boluarte refused to resign, while criminalizing the social struggle and blaming protesters for inciting violence in the country.

Boluarte said that her government remains “firm”, calling on the protesting sectors to engage in dialogue. However, she also classified the demonstrations as “criminal acts and vandalism,” adding that those responsible for violence and vandalism would not go ”unpunished”. She further said that “this is not a peaceful march,” adding, “in their protests there is no social agenda that the country needs.”

Vladimir Cerrón, progressive leader and the founder of Free Peru party that sponsored Castillo’s presidential candidacy in 2021, rejected Boluarte’s response to the social protests.

“Dina Boluarte continues to blame the people for the acts of vandalism, without a minimum of self-criticism. We do not know who advises her, but each measure taken is a new bombshell,” he tweeted.

“Someone else is using Boluarte’s head to express themself, because no person in their right mind can have such steep pride with 52 deaths on their hands,” Cerrón wrote in another tweet.

“Boluarte does not understand that the people have not come for alms, but to recover their political power that the oligarchy thinks is their exclusive patrimony,” he added.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/20/ ... ses-to-54/

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Organisations Demand Release of Detained Students in Lima

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Several human rights organizations described the police operation as illegal and denounced that it was carried out without the presence of prosecutors and that defense lawyers were not allowed access to the detainees. Jan. 22, 2023. | Photo: Twitter: @KawsachunNews

Published 22 January 2023 (2 hours 32 minutes ago)

Human rights organizations denounced several violations to the integrity and rights of students by police officers.

A group of demonstrators mobilized on Saturday in the Peruvian capital to demand the release of around 200 students from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) who were detained during the police intervention at the school.

Peruvian media have reported that the demonstrators reached the headquarters of the Lima prefecture and the Directorate of Criminal Intelligence (Dirincri) where they were repressed by officers of the country's National Police.

Human rights organizations demanded the release of the detainees and denounced several violations of the students' integrity and rights by the police.


The National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH) pointed out that during the intervention at the UNMSM, a group of women were forced to undress, which represents an attack against their integrity.

They also denounced that four student leaders are being held at the Peruvian university.

Several human rights organizations described the police operation as illegal and denounced that it was carried out without the presence of prosecutors and that defense lawyers were not allowed access to the detainees.


The detainees affirmed that they were taken to the Lima Police headquarters and other facilities under mistreatment.

The Ombudsman's Office demanded the National Police to inform the public about the state of the detained students of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

A group of students from the National University of San Agustin (UNSA) together with other citizens mobilized in the city of Arequipa against the intervention of the PNP in San Marcos University.

Peruvian media reported that groups of demonstrators left on Saturday from several regions of Peru to the Peruvian capital in support of the students detained during the police intervention at the university in the Peruvian capital.

Protests in Peru have not ceased since the dismissal of the then president, Pedro Castillo, last December 7, and more than 50 civilians are reported dead so far.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Org ... -0001.html

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CIA veteran and US ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, with the country’s mining minister, on January 18, 2023

Peru’s natural resources: CIA-linked U.S. ambassador meets with mining and energy ministers to talk ‘investments’
By Ben Norton (Posted Jan 21, 2023)

Originally published: Multipolarista on January 19, 2023 (more by Multipolarista)

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)https://geopoliticaeconomica.com/2023/0 ... a-energia/

The U.S. ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, is a CIA veteran who supported a parliamentary coup in December 2022 that overthrew the South American nation’s democratically elected left-wing president, Pedro Castillo.

Castillo was subsequently imprisoned for 18 months without due process, setting off massive protests across Peru. The unelected government responded with extreme violence, killing approximately 50 protesters in just over a month.

One day before the December 7 coup, the former CIA officer turned U.S. ambassador met with Peru’s defense minister, who then told the country’s powerful military to turn against President Castillo.



Since then, Kenna has been quite busy, regularly meeting with top officials in Peru’s coup government, including unelected President Dina Boluarte and her ministers.

On January 18, the U.S. ambassador sat down with Peru’s minister of energy and mining, as well as its vice minister of hydrocarbons and vice minister of mining.

Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines boasted that they discussed “investment” opportunities and plans to “develop” and “expand” the extractive industries.


Peru is a country rich in natural resources, especially minerals. Spanish colonialists exploited the South American nation’s substantial silver and gold reserves, and today transnational corporations see it as a very profitable resource hub.

One of Earth’s top producers of copper, lead, zinc, tin, silver, and gold, Peru’s economy relies heavily on the mining sector, which represents more than half of total national exports and over 10% of GDP.

The world’s three largest transnational mining corporations—BHP, Rio Tinto, and Glencore—are heavily invested in Peru, along with other prominent companies from Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Britain, the U.S., Japan, and Australia.

Peru is the planet’s second-biggest copper producer (after its neighbor Chile), meaning it will become increasingly important in the global shift toward renewable energy technologies.

U.S. investment banking giant Goldman Sachs stated in 2022 that “copper is the new oil”, writing: “The critical role copper will play in achieving the Paris climate goals cannot be overstated… As the most cost-effective conductive material, copper sits at the heart of capturing, storing and transporting these new sources of energy”.

Peru is also a significant producer of liquified natural gas (LNG). Its LNG exports are largely overseen by foreign corporations like Shell.

Europe became the top importer of Peruvian LNG in 2022, after the European Union boycotted Russian energy over the proxy war in Ukraine.

While natural resources are not the only reason for these coups in Latin America, they are a significant factor.

Following the violent putsch in Peru’s mineral-rich neighbor Bolivia in 2019, a critic wrote to billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter, “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there”.

Musk replied, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it”.

Peru’s President Castillo: ‘We want our natural resources to directly benefit the people’
When he ran for office in 2021, left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo had made one of the central themes of his campaign the need to reassert popular control over Peru’s natural resources.

Condemning foreign companies for “pillaging” the country, he called to renegotiate contracts to ensure that 70% of all proceeds from mining went to the state, to fund social programs.

A few weeks before the presidential elections, Castillo said, “Let’s be clear: these decades of betrayal, corruption, and cynicism are the symptoms of this neoliberal system dedicated exclusively to the exploitation of our people and natural resources for the benefit of a few scoundrels”.

When he entered office, Castillo was very limited in what he could do politically. The right-wing opposition had a majority in the congress, and they were hellbent on destabilizing and eventually removing him with a presidential “vacancy”. They used Peru’s legislature and the heavily politicized and corrupt judiciary to launch constant attacks against Castillo, as part of a campaign of systematic persecution and lawfare.

But Castillo did what he could. The president announced a “second agrarian reform” and declared, “We are rescuing the resources of the country for all Peruvians”. He explained his goal: “We want our natural resources to directly benefit the people“.


Castillo’s government made plans with left-wing President Gustavo Petro in neighboring Colombia to develop gas infrastructure in Peru and expand internal use.

This was part of Castillo’s progressive economic model of import substitution industrialization, which aimed to grow local industry and boost domestic consumption, so Peru would not rely exclusively on low value-added exports.

Immediately after ousting Castillo, however, Peru’s coup regime returned to the neoliberal economic model of the Washington Consensus, prioritizing foreign corporate investment over internal development.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines tweeted on January 18 that it had just conducted a “high-level institutional dialogue between Peru and the United States, which addressed themes of development of the mining sector”.

U.S. Ambassador Kenna met with Peru’s minister of energy and mining, Óscar Vera Gargurevich; vice minister of hydrocarbons, Enrique Bisetti Solari; and vice minister of mining, Jaime Chávez Riva.


The ministry said they discussed “themes linked to the expansion of natural gas, mining investments, and the development of renewable energies in our country”.

It added that “Minister Vera was grateful for the support from the North American government in mining-energy issues, and he reiterated the will of the national government, whose priority is the expansion of natural gas, energy security, and the petrochemical development of the south of the country”.

Mining dominates Peru’s economy

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The Peruvian government itself has publicly stated that its economy relies heavily on mining and exporting minerals such as copper, zinc, gold, silver, lead, iron, and molybdenum.

Peru’s top exports in 2022 included copper, gold, and liquified natural gas (LNG).

The mining sector made up 58.7% of all of Peru’s exports, 57.1% of which were metals and 1.6% of which were non-metals, according to the most recent publicly available statistics, from January to October 2022.

Copper, gold, zinc, and iron represented 88.4% of the total value of Peru’s mineral exports, and 51.9% of the value of all of the country’s exports.

As of 2022, the largest corporate investor in Peru’s mining sector was the UK-based company Anglo American.

The second biggest investor was Compañía Minera Antamina S.A., a local firm that is majority owned by Australian and Swiss mining giants. The third was the U.S.-Mexican Southern Copper Corporation.

Local communities in the South American country, especially those of Indigenous descent, have long protested the mining companies that devastate their environment.

These rural communities were the base of support for President Castillo. Since the coup, they have organized massive protests, demanding that he be freed, that new elections be held, and that the government convene a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, to replace the current one that was inherited from the former U.S.-backed far-right dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori.

Europe becomes top importer of Peru’s LNG, following boycott of Russian energy

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Peru’s LNG exports in 2022, by region

After minerals, Peru’s other top export is natural gas—and more specifically liquified natural gas (LNG).

Peru’s gas sector saw a huge boom in 2022, with LNG exports increasing by 85% in the first eight months of the year, in comparison with the same period in 2021.

One of the main reasons for this surge was Europe’s sky-high demand for gas.

Before 2022, most of Peru’s LNG had gone to Asia (primarily Japan, South Korea, and China). But as tensions between NATO and Russia escalated in late 2021 and early 2022, and the EU moved to boycott Russian energy, this drastically shifted.

The vast majority of Peru’s LNG exports went to Europe in 2022, primarily to Britain and Spain.

In months like April, May, and August, all of Peru’s LNG exports went to Europe, according to data published by the state company Perúpetro.

Peru’s LNG exports are overseen by a consortium of foreign corporations including Britain’s Shell, the U.S. Hunt Oil Company, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation, and South Korea’s SK Group.

While Peru only exports a relatively small amount of LNG when compared to the United States—which quickly established itself as the world’s top LNG exporter in 2022—the South American nation has become an important energy partner for Europe.

In its attempt to reduce trade with Russia, Spain increased its imports of LNG from the Americas—including the U.S., Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago—by 77.4% in 2022. (Spain boosted its imports of U.S. LNG specifically by 93.4% in 2022.)

Ironically, by pledging to boycott Russian oil, Spain also ended up increasing its imports of more expensive Russian LNG by 37% in 2022.

At the same time, from the beginning of 2021 to mid-2022, the price of natural gas skyrocketed by 700%.

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Foreign companies have made a killing in Peru’s mining sector.

In promotional materials urging more foreign investment, the Peruvian government boasted that the planet’s three largest mining corporations are active in the country: BHP Group, of Australia; Rio Tinto, of Britain and Australia; and Glencore, of Switzerland.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines wrote with pride in 2018: “The world’s most important companies in the mining sector are making investments in our country. Due to our mineral reserves, Peru is a market that is always taken into account by these companies when they decide their investment budgets in exploration and exploitation”.

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Many local mining companies in Peru are owned by foreign corporate giants.

The second-largest investor in mining in Peru, the Compañía Minera Antamina (Antamina Mining Company in English), was 33.75% owned by BHP, another 33.75% owned by Glencore, 22.5% by Canada’s Teck Resources, and 10% by Japan’s Mitsubishi, as of 2018.

The Compañía Minera Antamina operates in Peru’s western Áncash region, and was responsible for roughly one-fifth of national copper production and 15% of national silver production in 2018.

Peru was the source of 20% of BHP’s global production of copper in 2017, as well as 50% of its global production of silver and 100% of its global production of zinc.

The British-Australian Rio Tinto corporation oversees the La Granja mining project in the northwestern Cajamarca region. Peru was the source of 15% of Rio Tinto’s global production of copper in 2017.

Other large transnational corporations active in Peru’s mining sector include the U.S. company Freeport-McMoRan and Mexican Southern Copper Corporation, both of which are based in Phoenix, Arizona; as well as Canada’s Barrick Gold.

| exploration investment | MR OnlineBut this is just to mention existing mining operations. Foreign companies are also heavily invested in exploration for new projects.

The top foreign countries whose companies are investing in mining exploration in Peru are Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Britain, the U.S., Japan, and Australia, according to a 2022 report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Companies located in Peru are responsible for 37.8% of investment in exploration, but this figure can be misleading because many of these firms are owned by much bigger transnational corporations.

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As of 2022, 43.4% of exploration investment went into looking for gold, 36.1% for copper, 11.2% for zinc, 8.3% for silver, and 1% for tin.

Mining exploration projects are taking place all across western Peru.

Many of these regions, which are underdeveloped and suffer from high rates of poverty, have seen large protests against the U.S.-backed coup regime and in support of Castillo.

https://mronline.org/2023/01/21/perus-n ... vestments/


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Tectonic Plates Move in the Peruvian Andes
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 20, 2023
Ollantay Itzamná
.
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The simultaneous, spontaneous and multitudinous social mobilization is not only against a usurper ruler such as Dina Boluarte, nor only against political corruption, but also against the neoliberal system that impoverishes the great majorities. In the end, these streets full of polychromatic wills express the dream or intuition of new horizons beyond impoverishing developmentalism or colonizing modernity.

We are at the gateway to the idyllic wonder of the world: Machupicchu. Specifically in the town of Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo, hanging Inca city that flourished in pre-colonial times, with the euphoria of the tourism industry promoted by Peru criollo, reflourished as a tourist attraction in the last neoliberal decades.

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A Quechua “Rondero” at the entrance of the spiritual Sanctuary. OI

The structure of ownership and control of the tourism industry in Ollantaytambo is the miniature expression of the national and planetary tourism industry. Foreigners monopolize the businesses around the Plaza de Armas. From there they sell online the sights and visits to the sacred (archaeological) sites to visitors thirsty for folkloric tourism.

The natives of Ollantaytambo, with their colorful and colorful costumes, barely “adorn” the cafes as maids, or are herded as porters/carriers of the luggage of “gringo” travelers along the Inca Trail to Machupicchu.

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Quechua, in Ollantaytambo’s Plaza de Armas. OI

In these days of national strike promoted by rural and popular sectors of the country, Ollantaytambo, like the rest of the apotheosic tourist destinations of Peru, recovers its presence and millenary personality.

The Sanctuary of Ollantaytambo recovers its silent mystical atmosphere. Without the phagocytized pilgrimage of foreigners looking to consume/possess everything.

Hundreds of Quechuas, coming from the surrounding communities, organized in Rondas Campesinas, impose with their mere presence: “Everything must be closed. We are on national strike”. And indeed, this order decided in a previous assembly is carried out without any resistance from the owners of the tourism businesses.

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Quechuas in the streets of Ollantaytambo demanding the closure of the stores. OI

The Quechuas, chicote in hand, roam the narrow cobblestone streets, enforcing the “paro seco”.

We saw how, chicote in hand, and in Quechua, they forced the municipal government managers to leave the sports field where, taking advantage of the strike, they were holding a soccer game.

Here, apparently, everyone suspects that something new is happening in the Peruvian Andes: The legitimate millenarian owners are beginning to regain awareness of their origins and belongings. The centenarian visitors have no choice but to silently accept this phenomenon.

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Quechua, weaving at the door of the Ollantaytambo Sanctuary. OI

The strike in southern Peru has been going on for more than three weeks. In the city of Cusco (captive city of the tourism industry), the tourism agencies and the local micro oligarchy tried to confront the mobilized Quechuas from the streets, squandering visceral racism. The Quechuas, from the digital platforms, overwhelmed them and stripped them naked…

It seems that the myth of modernity, via neoliberalism, has not managed to penetrate the spirit of the rural Andean populations. Thus, while some social niches in the cities are still indifferent to the corrupt plundering of the common goods in the territories, the peasants are confronting the main agent of neoliberal plundering: The neoliberal state/business, in force for more than three decades.

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View from the Puerta del Sol. OI.

In the end, the simultaneous, spontaneous and multitudinous social mobilization is not only against a usurper ruler such as Dina Boluarte, nor only against political corruption, but also against the neoliberal system that impoverishes the great majorities. Deep down, these streets full of polychromatic wills express the dream or intuition of new horizons beyond impoverishing developmentalism or colonizing modernity.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... ian-andes/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 24, 2023 3:44 pm

Peruvians to Carry Out Another Great March Against Boluarte

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Protesters occupy the streets of downtown Lima, Peru, Jan. 23, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @2001OnLine

Since December, the Boluarte regime has left 62 people dead and hundreds injured. State terrorism, however, has not intimidated Peruvians.

On Tuesday, thousands of Peruvians will participate in the "Great National March" to protest against President Dina Boluarte, whose resignation has been demanded by Indigenous peoples, workers, farmers, and students since Dec. 7, 2022.

The call will have its concentration point in Lima at the Dos de Mayo Square, where the headquarters of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) is located.

This demonstration will take place five days after the "Takeover of Lima" march, which brought together thousands of protesters from various regions of the country.

The Police unleashed harsh repression against the demonstrators and, in the middle of the march, a large fire broke out, which destroyed a building in the vicinity of San Martin Square, in an area considered a World Heritage Site.

State terrorism, however, has not intimidated Peruvians, who are demanding Boluarte's resignation, the closure of Congress, the calling of general elections for this year, and the start of a constituent assembly.


On Monday, the massive protests continued in the streets of Lima, where thousands of citizens who arrived last week from different regions remain.

Some areas in the country are beginning to report shortages of food and basic products due to the blockades of the main roads that have persisted for over two weeks.

From December to date, the repression of the protests ordered by Boluarte has left 62 people dead and hundreds injured, according to data recorded by international organizations.

Among the dead are four Haitians who could not receive medical assistance and an unborn baby whose mother could not reach a hospital on time.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0001.html

Protests Against Boluarte Won't Cease, Peruvian Unions Say

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A police officer attacks a citizen that takes part in an anti-government protest, Peru. | Photo: EFE

Published 23 January 2023 (19 hours 5 minutes ago)

The Federation of Civil Construction Workers condemned the Boularte administration's violence against protesters, 772 of whom have been injured during clashes with the Police.


On Sunday, Luis Villanueva, the secretary of the Peruvian Federation of Civil Construction Workers (FTCCP), announced that mobilizations demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and the celebration of immediate general elections will not cease.

“Boluarte is deceiving our people. Therefore, we ask for her immediate resignation,” Villanueva stated, arguing that she has sold herself to the Peruvian right since Prime Minister Alberto Otarola is the one who truly rules.

“The Congress should call elections as soon as possible,” the FTCCP Secretary insisted, adding that the official who leads the transition must have acceptance in the citizenry to guarantee a peaceful and democratic process.

He also stressed that the FTCCP will continue to back the protests called by the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) and welcomed 120 community members from the Angaraes province, 100 university students from the Puno department, and 1,000 people from Andahuaylas city will join these initiatives.


Villanueva also condemned the Boluarte administration’s violence against citizens. So far, 772 protesters have been injured during clashes with the Police. The Puno department has also registered 20 deaths of protesters, 17 of whom died in a single day.

Puno department Bishop Monsignor Ciro Quispe urged Boluarte and Congress President Jose Williams to “show concrete signs of detachment from power” and to convene negotiations with the new government to guarantee a lasting peace.

"Nothing justifies the murder of one Peruvian. The Justice system shall investigate and sanction Boluarte, who must, without doubt, end up in prison," Villanueva insisted.

[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1601655840733163520[/youtube]
Mining workers march from Chala to Lima, demanding the restoration of constitutional order in Perú

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Pro ... -0013.html

192 Peruvians Detained at San Marcos University Are Released

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Woman raises her voice against the Boluarte regime after being released, Lima, Jan. 22, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @zurdoBo7

[/b]On Saturday, two people died in protests in the city of Viru. So far, 62 people have died as a result of the actions of the Boluarte regime's security forces.[/b]


On Sunday, the Peruvian Prosecutor's Office announced that 192 out of 193 people detained at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos were released after the police investigations ended.

"Using force on Saturday, January 21, the Police entered the university campus, without the presence of the Ombudsman's Office or the representative of the Public Ministry. Therefore, we denounce the abuse of authority towards our students," the University authorities de San Marcos said and demanded the immediate release of the detainees.

The people were detained at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Directorate (Dirincri) and the Anti-Terrorism Directorate (Dircote). One person is still in custody because he had a complaint against him. However, the rest of the detained people regained their freedom to return to their cities.

The arbitrarily detained Peruvians were part of thousands of protesters who traveled from all regions of the country to participate in the demonstrations against President Dina Boluarte in Lima.


The tweet reads: "Peru is no longer a State of Emergency. It is State terrorism, which violates university autonomy. Over 200 protesters detained inside the National University of San Marcos. Military encircling the National University of Engineering."

San Marcos University authorities also denounced that the Police caused damage to their campus. The Public Ministry said that it will initiate investigations into the commission of crimes against university assets.

Over the weekend, the Peruvian police continued their brutal repression against people calling for Boluarte's resignation, the closure of Congress, and the holding of general elections in 2023.

On Saturday, two people died in protests in the city of Viru, in the region of La Libertad. So far, 62 people have died as a result of the actions of the Boluarte regime's security forces.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/192 ... -0001.html

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Peruvians will carry out a great national march to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte

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The mobilization in the capital Lima will be replicated in the main cities of the South American country. | Photo: EFE
Posted 24 January 2023 (4 hours 43 minutes ago)

Students, peasants, indigenous people and other popular groups announced that they will begin to gather at 4:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. GMT) in the 2 de Mayo square.

Thousands of Peruvians will carry out this Tuesday a new great national march demanding the resignation of the designated president Dina Boluarte, whom they blame for the repression of the protests that have left at least 62 people murdered.

Students, peasants, indigenous people and other popular groups announced that they will begin to gather at 4:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday in the 2 de Mayo square.

The mobilization in the capital Lima will be replicated in the main cities of the South American country.

The president of the Cusco Regional Youth Assembly, Mauro Marucho, interviewed by teleSUR, denounced that the police repression "is becoming more and more acute, there are 62 deaths from projectile impacts nationwide."

"As a Peruvian I feel sorry that a dictatorial government (...) at the point of bullets, is trying to calm the country, it is supposedly pacifying, that is why our brothers from all over the country, from all departments, have come to the capital Lima to be able to denounce the abuse and repression," he said.

He announced that this Tuesday, "university students, people and young people, at the national level, we are going to mobilize in the second national march in all departments."


Following the arrest of President Pedro Castillo, who on December 7 was dismissed by Congress, which appointed Boluarte in his place, Peruvians have mobilized in rejection of what they consider a coup against democracy.

However, the demonstrations have been responded by the Boluarte government with repression that has left a balance of 62 murdered and dozens injured and detained.

This Monday, protesters who arrived in the Peruvian capital last week for what they called the takeover of Lima, marched through the streets of the center, a protest that the police repressed, firing tear gas.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/peruanos ... -0001.html

Google Translator

BOLUARTE REQUESTS AUTHORIZATION FOR THE ENTRY OF FOREIGN TROOPS INTO PERU
23 Jan 2023 , 5:57 pm .

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The text makes a request to allow the entry into Peruvian territory of the Training Ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano (A-71) of the Spanish Navy and foreign military personnel (Photo: Presidency of Peru)

Dina Boluarte requested approval from the Peruvian Congress for the entry of foreign troops into her country. This is Official Letter No. 015 - 2023 that bears the signatures of the Peruvian president and the premier Alberto Otárola. The reception of the document took place on January 19.

The document reads:

"We are pleased to address you (...) in order to submit for consideration by the Congress of the Republic, with the approval vote of the Council of Ministers, the Draft Legislative Resolution that authorizes the entry of naval units and foreign military personnel with weapons of war to the territory of the Republic of Peru".

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The text makes a request to allow the entry into Peruvian territory of the Training Ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano (A-71) of the Spanish Navy and foreign military personnel. It should be noted that Spain is part of NATO.

The objective, according to Boluarte's request, is that this ship can make a stopover in the Port of Callao from April 15 to 20, 2023. The text indicates that "it is planned to enter the maritime domain on April 9 and from Peruvian jurisdictional waters on April 25, 2023.

This move, if confirmed by the Peruvian parliament, would accelerate the picture of internal war promoted by the Boluarte government after the coup against Pedro Castillo at the end of 2022, in addition to the foreign occupation in the South American country, even when the government denies the permanent establishment of foreign military personnel.

Said request is made in the framework of social protests in rejection of the new regime, where mobilizations are estimated in approximately 25% of the territory of Peru , a situation that has escalated to more than 50 deaths of civilians and hundreds of injuries due to the high degree of repression. police and military.

https://misionverdad.com/boluarte-pide- ... as-en-peru

(easy to tell which side she's on

HEAD OF THE SOUTHERN COMMAND LISTS THE RESOURCES THAT THE US WANTS FROM LATIN AMERICA
Jan 23 , 2023 , 3:00 p.m.

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Laura Richardson during an Atlantic Council forum (Photo: File)

General Laura Richardson, head of the United States Southern Command, participated on January 19 in a video-forum of the Atlantic Council, a think tank that serves as NATO's intellectual assistant, in which she gave the vision of the military establishment and , of course, government on Latin America. It is evident that the North American country sees the region as its "backyard" and a mine of millions of hectares (yards in its case) for its own supply of natural resources for its industries.

Richardson was very clear on this: "Why is this region important? With all its rich resources and rare earth elements, there is the lithium triangle, which is needed for technology today. 60% of the world's lithium It is located in the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile".

In addition, he referred to the concentration of "the largest oil reserves", including those of "light and sweet crude discovered off Guyana more than a year ago." And, of course, "they also have the resources of Venezuela, with oil, copper, gold," in addition to highlighting the importance of the Amazon: "the lungs of the world."

Richardson also mentioned that "we have (sic) 31% of the world's fresh water in this region," and concluded that the United States has "much to do" and that "this region matters" because it views its resources and problems as part his concerns about the "national security" of the United States.

https://misionverdad.com/jefa-del-coman ... inoamerica

Google Translator

The shameless need not make excuses....

A Roman senator(making a pitch for a lucrative proconsul's assignment...) might have said 'slaves and gold' but otherwise little difference.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:04 pm

Lula at CELAC: Brazil Shares a “Common Destiny” with Latin American and Caribbean Countries
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 24, 2023
Brasil de Fato

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United by a common colonial past, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean should join forces, said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) during the 7th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The meeting held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Tuesday (24) marks Brazil’s return to the regional bloc.


“Nothing should separate us, since everything brings us together. Our colonial past. The intolerable presence of slavery that marked our profoundly unequal societies. The authoritarian temptations that even today challenge our democracy”, highlighted the Brazilian president.

Opening the summit, the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, highlighted the return of Brazil to the bloc and emphasized that “a CELAC without Brazil is a much emptier CELAC”. Fernández received Lula on Monday (23) at the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Argentine government, and the two leaders defended the resumption of diplomacy and cooperation between the two largest economies in South America.

Brazil left the CELAC during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), a measure that Lula classified as “inexplicable”.

In his speech, the Brazilian president defended points that may collaborate for regional integration and a “peaceful world order”, such as the potential to participate in the energy transition of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

“We have in our territories some of the most important biomes; we have strategic natural resources, such as critical minerals; we preserve a significant portion of the planet’s biodiversity; and we are a power in aquifer resources, key to the future of humanity,” said Lula.

In the field of environmental policy, Lula defended Belém do Pará as the host of COP-30, in 2025, and the resumption of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA). “The cooperation that comes from outside our region is very welcome, but it is the countries that are part of these biomes that must lead, in a sovereign way, the initiatives to take care of the Amazon,” he said.

The Brazilian president also argued that it is necessary to “respect and protect our indigenous peoples” and “work so that skin color no longer defines the future of our young people.”

“Brazil looks again to its future with the certainty that we will be associated with our neighbors bilaterally, in Mercosur, Unasur and Celac,” Lula said. “It is with this feeling of common destiny and belonging that Brazil returns to the CELAC, with the feeling of one who is reunited with himself.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... countries/

Why President Maduro Canceled His Attendance at the VII CELAC Summit
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 24, 2023
Ernesto Cazal

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Argentine sovereignty is injured and its State will not provide security guarantees even to high-level politicians, both national and international ( Photo: Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters )

For many it has been a total surprise that President Nicolás Maduro has not traveled to Buenos Aires to participate in the VII CELAC Summit. It is an important event and this organization was primarily driven by Venezuela from its beginnings to the present, so government representation is essential in a context of challenges towards regional integration.

The context in which the trip was cancelled must be understood, under information that a plan of aggression against the Venezuelan delegation was taking shape.

Over the last couple of weeks, a negative campaign against the Venezuelan president has been on the rise in Argentina with political and judicial operators as protagonists, all of them from the opposition linked to the mutation of the “interim government” now known as “delegated commission” (supported by the United States) and mainly from the “Macrismo” party. The anti-Chavism there and here took the reins of the maneuver and said it was impossible for a “dictator” to touch the sacred soil of the liberal democracy of the southernmost part of the continent. The political opinionology was shown again in all its misery around that hackneyed topic for years.

To this was added the intention to prosecute the figure of Maduro on Argentine soil, should he land in Ezeiza. Two lawsuits were filed before the Buenos Aires courts and Patricia Bullrich, president of Propuesta Republicana (PRO), said a few days ago that “if Nicolás Maduro comes to Argentina he must be arrested immediately for having committed crimes against humanity”.

That a character such as Bullrich, who no longer holds governmental positions and, therefore, has no power to make her judicial dreams come true, endorses a political pressure and is capable of violating the context of the presence of the Venezuelan president in the VII Summit of CELAC, over the consent of Fernandez to participate, being the host of a summit of continental importance, clearly speaks of his lack of consistency as head of government and State and demonstrates his weakness before the rest of his peers.

In a recent article published in this tribune, it was suggested that the position of the government of Alberto Fernandez before the harassment against the Venezuelan president was ambiguous and, in addition, for the internal jurisdictions, lacked a worthy security framework for a Head of State who has had an arrest warrant from the FBI since the years of Donald Trump’s administration. The lack of firmness in the face of the threats surrounding the Chavista ruler caused Venezuela to replace the presidential delegation with the presence of Foreign Minister Yván Gil in Buenos Aires.

Given the events of the last few weeks, some contingency that could undermine the president’s participation was to be expected, taking into account the onerous history of the Fernandez administration to ensure the necessary security.

Let us take as an example the Emtrasur plane and its crew, a paradigmatic case of recent date; the former was hijacked with the permission of the FBI, in full compliance with the illegal sanctions and in tune with the asphyxiation framework that right-wing governments would be proud to comply with; with the additive that the crew members were prosecuted without evidence of any kind, unless rumors of “terrorism” by Israeli and American Zionism are qualified as evidence of any illegality involved.

Furthermore, the Fernández government could have vetoed the events of the Emtrasur case under the framework of Argentina’s own constitutional jurisdiction, therefore there was a component of negligence in the matter, however, the US will and the offensive of the Buenos Aires judicial sewers were more powerful than national sovereignty. There has been no reparation for what happened, and even so, the Venezuelan government has maintained stable relations with Argentina.

To this can be added the fact that they were unable to provide the necessary security to Cristina Fernandez, vice-president and top leader of Kirchnerism, when they tried to assassinate her in September 2022. The successive failures in her circle of protection occurred before the attack, and also afterwards, while she was still greeting her followers near her residence.

A state that cannot guarantee a ruler of its own country a minimum security framework for her protection, in view of the constant threats that Cristina Fernandez has been experiencing for some time, much less can it provide support to a criminalized president such as Nicolas Maduro.

The Argentine sovereignty is undermined and its State does not provide security guarantees even to high level politicians, both national and international, considering that human rights are one of the most sensitive issues to the official rhetoric of Alberto Fernandez; the fact that the Venezuelan president could not attend the VII Summit of CELAC is a clear indication of this.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... ac-summit/

I wouldn't trust Boric either...

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CELAC: Bolivia Condemns Right-Wing Attacks Against Democracy
January 24, 2023Bolivia

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce has called on the region to condemn the coup attempts that threaten Latin America in his speech at the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Buenos Aires.

“We request that this Latin American and Caribbean movement become a single voice to condemn, in the strongest and most energetic way, all these acts of violence, torture, terror, destruction of institutions, and destabilization, which threaten the countries of our region, their political systems and peaceful coexistence, and at the same time demand unrestricted respect for the popular will expressed through the vote,” said President Arce.

Citing examples of destabilization in the region, he said; “they attack democracy and its institutions, through violent acts, such as those that occurred in Brasilia and Bolivia in 2019, which ended with a coup d’état.”

He also mentioned the recent far-right riots in the city of Santa Cruz that followed the arrest of Fernando Camacho; “The peaceful mobilizations that we saw are not peaceful at all, they do not have the slightest respect for institutions that are at the service of the Bolivian people, or of the workers who are also citizens with the same rights as anyone else.”

Arce warned that these anti-democratic actions are carried out by oligarchic groups and right-wing political forces that seek to destabilize elected governments, “We cannot allow, as Latin American and Caribbean peoples, that they try to take by force what has not been won at the polls.”

By Kawsachun News

https://kawsachunnews.com/celac-bolivia ... -democracy

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BORIC ALIGNS WITH THE NEW US ROUTE OVER VENEZUELA
Jan 24, 2023 , 7:51 p.m.

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Chilean President Gabriel Boric called for "free, fair and transparent elections in Venezuela by 2024" (Photo: Marco Ugarte / AP Photo)

During his speech at the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Chilean President Gabriel Boric mentioned the dialogue process between the Bolivarian Government and the Unitary Platform of Venezuela, which represents a change in his line of habitual discourse on Venezuela, being the first time that he makes a direct mention of the negotiation process that takes place in Mexico.

Apart from describing the architecture of illegal "sanctions" of the United States against Cuba and Venezuela as "exclusion policy", he said he wanted to "collaborate in the dialogue between the different sectors of the country to find a way out". This in order to request "free, fair and transparent elections in Venezuela by 2024", since, according to the Chilean president, "outside of democracy there is no possible freedom or dignity (...) The dictatorship in Chile taught us abruptly with blood and fire the effects of relativizing democracy and human rights".

It is striking that Boric chose the context of the CELAC Summit to refer to the dialogue. Specifically, his mention of the electoral issue is in tune with the regular vocabulary (the mantra of "free, fair and transparent elections") of a sector of the Venezuelan opposition that participates in Mexico, and that now finds in Boric a box resonance, on the left, of their claims. Similarly, referencing the Venezuelan government as the equivalent of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, is in line with a statement made last week by the Macrista leader Patricia Bullrich, along the same lines, to criminalize President Maduro.

But, in addition, his statement is in tune with the new "road map" that is emerging from intellectual circles, with influence in the corridors of power in Washington, with respect to Venezuela, in which a redefinition of method and format to configure a strategy of soft pressure, adjusted to the current circumstances, establishing the change of the general parameters of vocation to regime change.

This was described by the Wilson Center, a think tank financed by the US Congress and corporations well associated with the US institutional brokerage, in a report entitled " Venezuela in 2023 and beyond: charting a different course ", which we analyzed in a previous work by MV .

We quote page 22 (bold are ours):

"A new feature of the landscape that could help strengthen the negotiations is the coming to power in Colombia, Chile and Brazil of left-wing governments that share many values ​​and historical experiences with Venezuela but, unlike the Maduro government, are committed to democracy and the protection of human rights In fact, they have sometimes been critical of the Maduro government and clearly favor a democratic transition The leaders of these governments (...) have democratic credibility and direct channels with the government of Maduro They should be encouraged to share relevant experiences from their countries. Their respect for democratic governance, full protection of political and human rights, institutional reforms to protect indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and other minorities, and social and economic policies to reduce poverty and exclusion could help Venezuelans to develop a vision and narrative for the future of their own country ."

The moral and politically instrumentalized discourse of human rights, modeled on the liberal worldview of the Democratic Party, by the Chilean president, is the position that motivates his argument to qualify the situation of the Venezuelan dialogue and negotiation table installed in Mexico. Since during his government the police repression against union sectors and the militarization of areas where the Mapuche people live has not ceased, for which reason he handles a double standard when issuing his opinion on the political context In Venezuela.

Added to this is the fact that the Wilson Center's recommendation is that the White House "encourage" the governments of Brazil, Chile and Colombia to "help strengthen the negotiations" with the aim of favoring "a democratic transition", in convergence with the request for "free, fair and transparent elections in Venezuela by 2024" by Boric. The think tank 's recommendations are beginning to be used, and it is the Chilean president who takes the first step towards their public application.

This would be a way of using rulers close to the Biden administration, from the left, as pivots for the installation of a favorable scenario of enveloping pressure on Venezuela. This would aim to influence the scenario of dialogue and negotiations between the Venezuelan government and a part of the opposition in accordance with US interests, taking advantage of the framework of ideological harmony between Boric and Biden.

https://misionverdad.com/boric-se-aline ... -venezuela

Google Translator

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CELAC's Buenos Aires Declaration Promotes LATAM Integration

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Presidents and heads of state of the CELAC countries in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jan. 24, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @centralpolitcs

Published 25 January 2023 (2 hours 56 minutes ago)

The Latin American leaders demanded the end of the U.S. blockade against Cuba and Venezuela.


On Tuesday, 33 countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) signed the "Buenos Aires Declaration," through which they pledged to deepen integration, climate action, democratic institutions, and multilateralism.

The 111-point agreement highlights the importance of consolidating Latin America as a zone of peace, advancing food security, and deepening cooperation in health.

At the close of the event, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, highlighted the efforts that Argentina and Mexico made to consolidate CELAC in 2022.

"We will work for peace, social justice, prosperity, and security for all," he said upon receiving the CELAC pro tempore presidency.

The Buenos Aires Declaration also points out the progress achieved in the CELAC's political dialogue with extra-regional partners, including the European Union, China, India, the African Union, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).


The tweet reads, "Protesters shout 'Dina murderess, the people disown you.' They reject the repression carried out by the Peruvian regime, demonstrating in Buenos Aires, the city where the 7th CELAC Summit is being held with the presence of the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi."

The 7th CELAC Summit also ended with unanimous applause in the presence of President Lula da Silva, who brought Brazil back to that regional forum three weeks after assuming the presidency of his country.

Besides demanding the end of the U.S. blockade against Cuba and Venezuela, the CELAC countries expressed their support for the dialogue between the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolas Maduro and the political opposition.

Finally, the Buenos Aires declaration also endorsed Argentina's legitimate rights to the Falkland Islands, which are currently occupied by the United Kingdom.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/CEL ... -0001.html

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Government decides to militarize the region of Puno, in southern Peru

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Hundreds of soldiers were moving on a campaign march towards the city of Puno through the hills of the Laraqueri district. | Photo: Screenshot (video)

Posted 25 January 2023 (1 hour 34 minutes ago)

A group of 46 Peruvian lawyers will file a complaint against President Dina Boluarte at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The Government of Peru extended the validity of the mandatory social immobilization in the department of Puno for 10 calendar days as of this Wednesday, January 25, for which all people must remain at home from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. following, while sending troops to the region.

The measure is complementary to the state of emergency imposed on January 15 due to the escalation of social conflict in Puno, which also included the regions of Lima, Callao and Cusco.

This announcement occurs when one of the most violent days took place this Tuesday in the historic center of Lima, hours after the designated president, Dina Boluarte, asked the protesters for a national truce, to start a dialogue.


Strong confrontations have been a constant in the midst of anti-government marches in this South American country, demonstrations calling for the resignation of Boluarte, the immediate holding of elections and the dissolution of Congress.

While Boluarte responded to the foreign press and warned that Puno was not Peru (for which he later apologized), hundreds of soldiers moved on a campaign march towards the city of Puno through the hills of the Laraqueri district.

The uniformed men who traveled in military units and private buses came from various battalions from the Tacna and Moquegua barracks.


On the other hand, the Prosecutor of Peru opened an investigation against the Minister of the Interior, Vicente Romero, for the alleged commission of a crime of functional acts by the police operation organized on the campus of the University of San Marcos (UNMSM), in Lima. , last Saturday.

"The National Prosecutor opens a preliminary investigation against Vicente Romero, Minister of the Interior, as the alleged perpetrator of the crime of omission of functional acts, to the detriment of the State, due to the events that occurred at the UNMSM facilities on January 21."

Faced with this climate of repression in Peru, a group of 46 lawyers will present a complaint at the International Court in The Hague against President Boluarte, for more than 60 deaths registered in the protests demanding her resignation, especially in the south of the country.


The resigning spokesperson, Clara Salinas Quispe, specified that the complaint will be for crimes against humanity committed through a systematic policy of repression in the protests that began last December and in a second wave that has been in place since January 4. latest.

The complaint includes Prime Minister Alberto Otárola and the head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, General Manuel Gómez de la Torre. Also former Interior Ministers César Cervantes and Víctor Rojas and extreme right-wing congressmen Jorge Montoya and Patricia Chirinos, among others.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/peru-pun ... -0008.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:49 pm

Peruvians protest against U.S. embassy in Lima
January 26, 2023 Kawsachun News

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Social movements from across Peru are protesting outside the U.S. embassy in Lima to condemn the U.S. role in the coup against Pedro Castillo. The main chant from protesters is, “Yanqui murderers, get out of Peru!”

“We’re here because we love our country (..) that’s why we’re here outside the U.S. embassy because we know that it was through the U.S. embassy that Dina Boluarte and [Prime Minister] Otarola made deals to be protected by that country,” said one protester from the Sandia province, Puno.

“The U.S. embassy has always tried to control us (..) we’ve had enough of being dominated by the U.S., we want to be a free country, a free Peru, with sovereignty. We mustn’t surrender, this mobilization is in defense of our natural resources, to close congress, the resignation of Dina Boluarte, a new constitution, general elections”, said another protester to Radio Pachamama.

The general strike in Peru, against the coup regime of Dina Boluarte, has been raging since January 4th, but protests have been ongoing since December 2022. In that time, Peru’s coup regime has killed more than 60 protesters.

Almost immediately after the coup against Pedro Castillo, the U.S. ambassador in Peru announced an $8 million grant to the regime, supposedly to fight drug trafficking. Her previous jobs include nine years at the CIA, senior adviser to Mike Pompeo, political adviser at the Pentagon, director of the State Department’s Iraq office, and Deputy Director of the Iraq political office.

Source: Kawsachun News

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... y-in-lima/

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Peruvian Production Minister Resigns From Office

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Sandra Belaunde took over as head of the Ministry of Production in Dina Boluarte's administration on December 10. Jan. 25, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@Shebas07

Published 25 January 2023 (10 hours 12 minutes ago)

Six ministers have already asked to leave their positions in Dina Boluarte's administration.


The Peruvian Minister of Production, Sandra Belaunde, resigned on Wednesday, as confirmed by the office of the Prime Minister, Alberto Otárola.

Belaunde took over as head of the Ministry of Production in Dina Boluarte's administration just a month and a half ago, on December 10.

In her letter of resignation, the outgoing minister thanks the President of the Council of Ministers, Alberto Otárola, and lists several reasons for her decision not to continue in office.

With this resignation, there are now six ministers who have asked to leave their posts since the start of Dina Boluarte's government on December 7, 2022.

Sandra Belaunde, Minister of Production of the Boluarte government in Peru, resigns. With this resignation, there are now six ministers who have left the current administration amid massive anti-government protests.

The Minister of Education, Patricia Correa, and the Minister of Culture, Jair Perez, were the first to resign on December 16, after protests in Andahuaylas and Ayacucho resulted in the deaths of at least 20 demonstrators.

Eduardo Garcia from the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion, Victor Rojas from the Ministry of the Interior, and Grecia Rojas from the Ministry of Women's Affairs also resigned.

This comes from ongoing protests in Peru against Boluarte and Congress, which have left at least 56 people dead.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0021.html

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Police repression in the Peruvian city of Ica leaves several injured

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The official repression of the demonstrations has left a balance of more than 60 people murdered, as well as dozens of injured and arrested. | Photo: EFE
Posted 26 January 2023 (4 hours 32 minutes ago)

The media published videos on the social network Twitter in which the detonations of firearms can be heard and people with gunshot wounds can be seen.

Protesters in the city of Los Álamos, Ica region, in south-central Peru, were attacked early Thursday morning by plainclothes police officers and members of private security agencies, resulting in several injuries, local media reported. communication.

The sources published videos on the social network Twitter in which the detonations of firearms can be heard and people with gunshot wounds can be seen.

The site La Lupa (@lalupa_pe) published a video showing a young man injured by the impact of a firearm.

“The clashes continue. Police launch gases and shots throughout the urban area near El Álamo, Pueblo Joven Señor de Luren,” he mentioned.


In the afternoon hours of Wednesday, the regional director of Health of Ica, Víctor Manuel Montalvo Vásquez, when offering a preliminary balance of the clashes between riot agents and protesters, said that there were a total of 24 injured, 14 members of the Peruvian Police and ten civilians.


For its part, the state news agency Andina reported a total of 63 injured (57 police officers and six civilians) as a result of clashes in various sections of the Panamericana Sur highway in the Ica region, located south of Lima, the country's capital. .

Peru has been experiencing days of popular mobilizations since December 7 to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte, who was appointed president of the country that day by Congress, which hours earlier had removed Pedro Castillo from the head of state.

So far, the official repression of the demonstrations has left more than 60 people murdered, as well as dozens injured and arrested.

In addition to Boluarte's resignation, the popular protest demands the closure of Congress, the convening of a Constituent Assembly and the release of Castillo, who is in pretrial detention accused of the alleged crime of rebellion.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/peru-rep ... -0003.html

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 28, 2023 3:22 pm

Peru Armed Forces Chief Announces Unblocking of Country’s Roads

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Protesters clash with the police during a new day of marches against the presidency of Dina Boluarte, today in Lima | Photo: EFE / Antonio Melgarejo

Published 26 January 2023

The head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, General Manuel Gómez de la Torre, announced today operations to clear roads blocked in various regions of Peru by opposition protesters.


In statements to reporters, the high military chief pointed out that “the forces of order have to reopen all our roads to the free movement of citizens.”

Regarding the sending of troops and armored cars to the South Andean region of Puno, the main stronghold of the protests, he said that they arrive “to complete the troops and fulfill the task” of unblocking the roads.

Asked about how he will manage to clear the blocked roads, which the Police have not been able to do, the military chief replied that it will consist on “talking to the people, convincing the people, explaining to the people and proceeding”, without further details.

He refrained from saying how long the unlocking will take and, regarding the situation in Puno, he said that events such as the burning of police stations have occurred there and there is a worrying outlook.

Extreme right-wing congressmen demand almost daily the Armed Forces, which have remained in the background with limited interventions, enter fully to impose order.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... -s-troops/

The Superintendence of Land Transport (Sutran) reported in its daily report that 88 roadblocks have been registered in 31 provinces and the Ombudsman’s Office reported concentrations and marches in five provinces and strikes in another five.

New blockades today closed the important Central Highway, which connects Lima with the Central Andean and Central Amazonian regions that supply the Peruvian capital with vegetables and fruits.

The protests demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, prompt general elections and a referendum on the possible calling of a constituent assembly.

In its two waves, the demonstrations of discontent accumulate a total of 46 deaths from firearms impacts, a policeman lynched and 10 civilian deaths.

Congresswoman Sigrid Bazán lamented the fact that the demands of peaceful protests are not met and the claimants have to resort to force and have to die to be heard.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0022.html

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Peru: Boluarte, in Favor of Early Elections in 2023

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President-designate Dina Boluarte ruled out a Constituent Assembly in the framework of early elections. Jan. 27, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@ElToqueDeDiana

Published 27 January 2023 (15 hours 8 minutes ago)

The South American country continues to live in a tough scenario of protests, blockades, and police repression that has resulted in the death of more than 50 people.

On Friday, Peru's president-designate, Dina Boluarte, asked Congress to bring forward general elections to December 2023, a proposal presented the day before by Congressman Hernando Guerra García.

"I call on Congress so that if (the parties) Fuerza Popular and Alianza para el Progreso are asking for what they had already presented (electoral advance to 2023), that this proposal, which has no conditions and which will get us out of the quagmire in which we are, be assumed in that sense," said Boluarte.

The President-designate recognized the initiative of Fuerza Popular (extreme right), the party organization of Keiko Fujimori. According to Boluarte, she had discussed the issue with the Justice Minister and with the Premier so that the elections could be moved forward in the electoral technical term, to December 2023.

In this regard, Boluarte said that a citizens' referendum to consult on the possibility of a Constituent Assembly within the framework of early elections is ruled out.


We call upon the Peruvian Congress within the framework of its powers and faculties, to prioritize and place the debate on advancing the elections in the shortest reasonable period of time, and in this way contribute to return social peace to the whole country.

The plenary of the Congress is scheduled to debate this Friday the advancement of the elections for this year. The legislature had already approved in the first vote such an advance to April 2024.

However, Peru continues to live a harsh scenario of protests, blockades and police repression that has resulted in the death of more than 50 people. The protests broke out on December 7, following the dismissal and arrest of leftist President Pedro Castillo and the inauguration of Dina Boluarte.

It is in this context that Boluarte called on Congress to reach a consensus on the issue. As soon as the Congress sets the advance of the elections "immediately we, from the Executive, will be calling those elections," said the president-designate noting the transitional nature of her government thus, "she does not want to perpetuate herself in power."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0017.html

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Bolivia Rejects De Facto Peruvian President’s Claims of Foreign Interference
JANUARY 27, 2023

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Photo composition showing Peruvian repressive forces shooting at protestors (Photo: Ernesto Benavides/AFP) blended with an image of a Peruvian protester holding a banner with a cartoon of Dina Boluarte stained in blood and a caption reading "asesina" (murderer). Photo composition: Orinoco Tribune.

Bolivian authorities reject Boluarte’s accusations of Bolivia sending ammunition to Peru and highlight human rights violations by the Peruvian de facto ruler.

On Tuesday, January 24, de facto Peruvian President Dina Boluarte said that her government had received “unofficial information” indicating that some of the deaths in Peru’s heavily repressed protests were the result of dumdum (expanding) bullets. She remarked that this type of weapon could have entered through the border with Bolivia.

Boluarte accused the Ponchos Rojos indigenous group of being involved in the entry of arms and ammunition from Bolivia to Peru to arm protesters.

On Thursday, January 26, Bolivian Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo declared that “there is no diversion of arms from the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the Republic of Peru. That version is totally untrue.”

Minister Castillo warned of the excessive use of violence during the protests in Peru and the “flagrant violation of human rights” by Boluarte’s regime, dismissing her accusations as a “smoke screen” to “hide” this situation.

How did the Peru-Bolivia tension begin?

Boluarte has been accusing Bolivia of interference since Bolivian President Luis Arce highlighted “the people’s struggle” to “recover democracy” in reference to the protests in Peru.

However, the Bolivian authorities have reiterated that they cannot remain silent in the face of the critical situation in Peru. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, 57 people have been killed since the protests began after the ousting of former President Pedro Castillo in December 2022.

On Thursday, January 26, Peru’s Congress declared former Bolivian President Evo Morales persona non grata for criticizing Boluarte’s repressive policies. In fact, on January 9, the Peruvian Ministry of the Interior prohibited the entry of Morales and eight other Bolivians at the request of the de facto president.

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-reje ... erference/

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US Lawfare and the Destabilization of Latin America
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 25, 2023
Brian Mier

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Brazil-based reporter and author Brian Mier outlines the strategy of lawfare and how it has been used in Latin America, particularly in the Lava Jato investigation.

“Lawfare is the use of the law as a weapon of war, and it is the newest characteristic of 21st Century Combat,” – Colonel Charles Dunlap


Lawfare is the weaponized use of the law to annihilate a political or business enemy. Common tactics used in Lawfare include: forum shopping – when public prosecutors transfer a case to a jurisdiction with a friendly judge; excessive use and abuse of coerced plea bargain testimonies which are often the only evidence presented; suppressing evidence beneficial to the defense; and close collaboration with the media to create a public spectacle. One example of the later tactic is the time Brazilian Java Jato judge Sergio Moro ordered former Economy Minister Guido Mantega to be forcibly removed from his wife’s chemotherapy session and tipped the press off in advance, to create a media circus around his arbitrary arrest on charges he was later ruled innocent of.

There are indications that US DOJ use of Lawfare was piloted in the US before being rolled out through Latin America. In July, 2008, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it was filing corruption charges against Senator Ted Stevens (R/AK) for allegedly receiving illegal reforms on a vacation property, damaging his reputation and causing him to lose his first election in over 36 years. Like future cases in Latin America, there was no material evidence presented, just a coerced plean bargain testimony made by a man who was trying to get out of jail. Months after the election, Stevens was ruled innocent, and in 2012 Judge Emmett Sullivan ruled two DOJ officials guilty of proprietorial misconduct. Nearly all of the tactics cited in the kangaroo court persecution of Ted Stevens would go on to be used against Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva within the ambit of the the US DOJ-backed Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation. Coincidence or not, it is clear that these tactics would soon be exported throughout the Americas and the World, especially through partnerships with local law enforcement officials within the ambit of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

What is Lawfare?

As two members of Lula’s defense team, Cristiano Zanin and Valeska Martins wrote with legal scholar Rafael Valim in their 2021 book Lawfare: Waging War through Law it first appeared as a military term in the 1970s, but gained popularity in a series of texts by US Air force Colonel Charles Dunlap starting in 2001, when he wrote, “Lawfare is the use of the law as a weapon of war, and it is the newest characteristic of 21st Century Combat.”

Originally described as a weaponized use of international human rights law to criticize military campaigns by the US and Israeli governments on human rights issues and to weaken support for things like the war in Iraq, it was alluded to in the in the Pentagon’s March, 2005 National Defense Strategy, which refers to law as “the weapon of the weak who use international legal cases and terrorism to usurp America.”

Soon, however, military strategists began suggesting that Lawfare could be more than just something that the US government had to defend against and that it could also benefit national security, being preferable to expensive and destructive forms of war, and more neutral definitions of the term began to emerge. Dunlap later wrote that Lawfare could be converted into a “strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve military objectives.”

In 2016, Orde Kittre published the book Lawfare: law as a weapon of war and, based on the ideas of Dunlap, tried to perfect the concept of Lawfare by breaking it into two elements: 1) the use of the law to create effects similar to those achieved in conventional military actions; and 2) actions motivated by the desire to weaken or destroy an adversary.

As international attention drew to the kangaroo court procedure initiated against former Workers Party Brazilian President Lula da Silva in 2016, his defense team began referring to it as a form of Lawfare. As Martins told this author in an interview conducted in 2018, “when people say we are politicizing the defense, this is a lie because, in reality, this is a technical diagnosis. When we understand that, technically speaking, there is no material evidence, that the accusations are illogical, that the legal arguments are misrepresented, we come to the unequivocal conclusion that we are dealing with a process of Lawfare.”

As they worked with international human rights lawyers to publicize Lula’s plight, Zanin, Martins and Valim created their own definition of the term: the abuse and misuse of the law in a violent manner to conduct political persecution.

The law was certainly abused during the political persecution of politicians throughout Latin America within the ambit of the Lava Jato investigation, which started in 2014 as collaboration between the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), the Swiss Federal Police and a local district attorneys office and judge based out of the conservative Brazilian city of Curitiba. The investigation crippled Brazil’s national development project, bankrupted many of its largest companies, transferred billions of dollars in fines to the United States and ultimately resulted in the illegitimate presidency of a neofascist former army captain named Jair Bolsonaro who is currently facing genocide charges in the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Initially presented to the US media as a legitimate partnership within the ambit of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) through a series of 2016 press releases by the Department of Justice itself, it later came out that investigators violated national sovereignty laws by engaging in secret, bilateral communications, including years of secret meetings between Brazilian prosecutors and a group of 18 FBI agents led by Leslie Bakshies.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977, is a US federal law that was originally conceived to prohibit US companies from committing acts of bribery overseas. Twenty years later, a modified version of the law was incorporated into an international treaty, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention of 1997, which enabled the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to act in any signatory nation in consort with local authorities. At this point, according to the modified terms of the law, these international partnerships enabled US authorities to investigate any foreign company or individual located in a Convention signatory nation that has a US bank account, owns real estate in the US, has stock traded in the US, or even that has ever conducted any type of transaction in US dollars, as long as the investigation is conducted in partnership with local law enforcement officials. It was the FCPA, for example, that enabled FBI agents to raid FIFA headquarters in Zurich in 2015 and arrest several non-US citizens on foreign soil.

In his academic paper, “The uncomfortable truths and double standards of bribery enforcement,” legal scholar Mike Koehler shows how the US government selectively uses the FCPA to advance its own objectives. According to Koehler, uncomfortable truths that weaken the US moral authority to act as international anti-corruption police include: how the US government actively participates in bribery; how the highest levels of the US government knowingly engage in and support private bribery; how the identity of the alleged bribe payer influences the US government’s enforcement of bribery laws; the subtle difference between US government and private sector attempts to influence foreign government action; and how the US government employs overblown and inconsistent rhetoric regarding bribery enforcement.

It’s common knowledge that the CIA gave away bags of money to government officials in Afghanistan. So why would the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the FBI be so worried about corruption in Latin America that the US government would prioritize the issue in the 2017 National Security Strategy if it isn’t political?

The fact that Brazil signed the Anti-Bribery Convention in 1997 enabled the DOJ to work as a partner—some critics argue it took the lead—in Lava Jato, levying billions of dollars in fines on Brazilian companies in civil cases, generally based in the Southern New York Court District. In 2015, Lava Jato judge Sergio Moro bankrupted Brazil’s five largest engineering and construction companies by refusing to treat them as too big to fail – like the US government did with Goldman Sachs during the subprime mortgage crisis – and paralyzed all of their operations for 6 months due to the alleged actions of a few of their business executives. Studies show that this arbitrary action by a district court judge in Curitiba caused 500,000 direct and 3.6 million indirect job layoffs and a 2.5% drop in GDP growth in 2015, severely damaging the reputation of President Dilma Rousseff during the lead up to the April, 2016 parliamentary coup, which was also helped by Lava Jato Judge Sergio Moro’s illegal wiretapping of a conversation between President Rousseff and former President Lula, which he edited to make her look as bad as possible then shared with Brazil’s largest TV network, O Globo, on the eve of the impeachment vote. The Lava Jato investigation was also responsible for the election-year, arbitrary political imprisonment of ex-President Lula for reforms to an apartment the prosecutors were unable to prove he ever owned or set foot in. Although the signs of judicial and prosecutorial overreach in Lava Jato were crystal clear by 2016, after hacker Walter Delgatti (who is currently facing a 300 year prison sentence) shared leaked Telegram conversations showing illegal collusion between Lava Jato prosecutors and the judiciary with the Intercept, Brazilian Federal Police, the Supreme Court and Lula’s defense team, all doubts about the criminal nature of Lava Jato were put to rest.

Lava Jato started in Brazil, but soon, with support from the US DOJ, it expanded across Latin America and Lusophone Africa and was used used to attack politicians in other countries where Brazilian engineering and construction companies like Odebrecht and OAS operated. Attempts to use it against Venezuelan politicians failed due to the wise decision of that government to never sign the FCPA agreement, but dozens of politicians in other countries were targeted. Here are a few examples:

Jorge Glas – Ex-Vice President of Ecuador

Arrested in October 2017, Progressive International board member Jorge Glas was sentenced to 6 years in prison by Ecuadoran Lava Jato prosecutors for allegedly receiving bribes from Odebrecht construction company, based on the plea bargain of a single, corrupt business executive, José Conceição Santos, who received a reduced sentence and partial asset retention in exchange for his testimony. He was released on parole in November, 2022.

Mauricio Funes – Ex-President of El Salvador

In June, 2018, a judge in El Salvador issued an arrest for former President Mauricio Funes and 30 top members of the FMLN, based on coerced plea bargain testimony transcripts supplied by Brazil’s Lava Jato task-force, taken from corrupt businessmen who received sentence reduction and partial retention of their illicit assets in exchange for their testimony. Already living in Nicaragua at the time, they were unable to arrest him and he lives there to this day.

Rafael Correa – Ex-President of Ecuador

In April, 2020, an Ecuadoran kangaroo court sentenced Rafael Correa to 8 years in prison and barred him from running for office for 25 years based in part on coerced plea bargain testimony from an Odebrecht executive that was shared by the Lava Jato Taskforce. With Ecuador currently in chaos, the former President has been living in political exile in Belgium since 2017.

Gleisi Hoffmann – President of Brazilian Workers Party

After Lula was illegally barred from running for President in September, 2018, one of the names cited to replace him was Gleisi Hoffmann. A rising star in the PT, the Lava Jato taskforce tried to annihilate her political career by frivolously accusing her of receiving illegal campaign donations from Odebrecht without any material evidence, while using illegal leaks to create a media circus over an arbitrary search and seizure operation in her house in 2016. Since Hoffmann was a Senator at the time, her case was taken directly to the Supreme Court where she was ruled innocent by a vote of 11-0, due to, as in the case of Lula and so many other victims of Lava Jato, a total lack of material evidence in a case that was entirely built on coerced plea bargain testimony by corrupt business executives who changed their story several times before receiving massive reduction of prison sentence, transfer to house arrest and partial retention of millions of dollars in illicit assets.

Lava Jato – an investigation which has now been proven to be critically flawed due to criminal collusion between chief judge and prosecutors – has spread its tentacles all over the world. In Mozambique, it resulted in the arrest of former Transportation and Communications Minister Paulo Zacula, and Lava Jato was also used to accuse prominent politicians of corruption in the Dominican Republic, Panama and Angola. As Lula defense lawyer Valeska Martins emphasizes, Lawfare is a tactic that can be used against any political enemy from across the political spectrum. Three right wing former Presidents of Peru were sentenced to prison due to coerced plea bargain testimonies by corrupt, imprisoned Brazilian businessmen, with former President Alan Garcia committing suicide on the day they were coming to arrest him him.

Conclusion

Although frivolous criminal investigations against politicians and business leaders as tactics to gain an upper hand over rivals has certainly been engaged in as long as politics and business have existed, the concept of Lawfare as a hybrid war tactic really begins in the 21st Century, in actions that seem to have been piloted by the US DOJ within the US itself before being applied selectively to advance US business and political interests abroad. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, initially created in the 1970s a means to reduce the ability of US companies to bribe foreign officials overseas – in theory strengthening sovereignty in countries around the world – has been transformed into a weapon used as justification to arrest foreign political leaders and bankrupt foreign competitors to US corporations. Furthermore, the we can see the toxic legacy of this imperialist strategy in the form of local initiatives, unrelated to the FCPA, that use similar Lawfare tactics to annihilate political enemies such as Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Kirchner. With a new round of electoral victories of the working class left in Latin America, it is more important than ever to develop defense strategies against Lawfare.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... n-america/

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Mass mobilizations continue in Peru against Dina Boluarte

According to the National Human Rights Coordinator of Peru (CNDDHH), in the past 50 days of social protests, 56 people, including seven minors, were killed and 912 people were injured

January 27, 2023 by Tanya Wadhwa

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Thousands of Peruvians held a new peaceful march in the capital Lima, demanding the resignation of de-facto president Dina Boluarte, early general elections, and a new constitution on January 26. Photo: Juan Zapata/Wayka

In Peru’s capital Lima, massive mobilizations have occurred daily for the past week to demand the resignation of de-facto president Dina Boluarte, the closure of the right-wing dominated Congress, early general elections, and a new constitution through a Constituent Assembly. Peaceful mobilizations were also recorded in Piura and Tacna regions.

On Thursday January 26, protesters marched along the Panamerican highway from the north of Lima to Plaza Dos de Mayo and Plaza San Martín. The marches in the capital have seen widespread participation from students and workers in the city, but have been largely composed of the delegations of peasant, Indigenous, and trade union organizations who arrived to Lima from Puno, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cusco, Huancavelica, and other regions to bring their demands to the seat of government. The regions which sent delegations have seen high levels of violent repression and high death tolls over the past month so they have also been calling for an end to the brutal police and military repression, justice and reparations for the victims.

The marches in the city center have also been met with violent repression. Day after day, the National Police have deployed hundreds of officers who launch tear gas canisters and fire pellets to disperse the crowd. Dozens, including human rights defenders and journalists, have been injured.


Boluarte calls for truce, but continues repression

On January 25, the de-facto government extended the curfew in the Puno department for 10 days, while increasing militarization of the region. The measure is a part of a 30-day-long state of emergency imposed on January 14, in Puno, Lima, and Cusco, among other parts. The decision came one day after Boluarte called for a national truce and urged the protesters to engage in dialogue, in an address to the nation.

Additionally, on January 26, the Defense and Interior Ministries announced that the National Police and the Armed Forces will carry out an operation to unblock the roads and highways that have been blocked by protesters across Peru as a measure of protest.

“We call on those who persist in these illegal measures to desist from it, allow the peaceful unblocking of the roads and avoid confrontations with the forces of order that will act in defense of legality,” the ministries said in an official statement.

Meanwhile, on Friday, January 27, Boluarte supported a bill presented the day before by far-right congressman Hernando Guerra García to advance general elections to December 2023. On Tuesday, in her address, she said that she would ask Congress for an earlier election date. On December 20, 2022, Peru’s Congress approved a bill to advance general elections to April 2024, and to conclude the presidential and legislative terms in July of the same year. The protesters are demanding that the elections are brought forward and organized in 2023.

The left-wing Free Peru party, in a statement on January 27, endorsed holding new elections, but also advocated holding a referendum for the Constituent Assembly.

“These roles and power relations, between those who govern and those governed, are reflected in the Political Constitution of each country, which is why we must change the current Political Constitution of Peru. The new Constitution must be born from a Constituent Assembly, where the people participate, propose, project and approve their laws that should govern society, seeking the well-being of all and not of the small minority,” said Free Peru.

Human rights violations in Peru

The National Human Rights Coordinator of Peru (CNDDHH), on January 26, presented a report on the extensive human rights violations committed by the security forces in the past 50 days of social protests. The report noted that 56 people, including seven minors, were killed and 912 people were injured in the past one and a half months. The report highlighted that of the fatal victims, 46 died “due to the direct responsibility of the state.”

The report documented the cases of extrajudicial executions that were committed in social protests, the use of prohibited weapons such as AKM rifles, by State agents, which denies the official version that “the protesters killed each other.”

Torture by the police was also documented and they highlighted a case from Andahuaylas, when a group of 8 people were detained on December 12 and were brutally beaten during their imprisonment.

The CNDDHH also warned that massive arbitrary detentions have been taking place. It reported that at the National University of San Marcos alone, 193 people were detained. It also reported that the authorities are using accusations of terrorism against those who mobilize, and the police are hindering the defense process of the detainees as well as the journalistic work.

Boluarte’s conflict with Honduras, and other neighboring countries
Despite the report and without critical reflection of its actions, on January 26, the Boluarte government withdrew the ambassador of Peru in Honduras after Honduran President Xiomara Castro expressed her concerns about the crisis in Peru.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry explained, in a tweet, that the measure was taken “in response to the unacceptable interference in internal affairs of President Xiomara Castro in her speech at CELAC, ignoring the constitutional Government of President Dina Boluarte.” The ministry added that the bilateral relations between the two countries will be maintained through the chargé d’affaires.

On January 24, Honduran President Xiomara Castro, during her speech at the 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), condemned the legislative coup in Peru and expressed her solidarity with ousted President Pedro Castillo, calling him “legitimate, elected” president and demanding his “immediate release.”

In addition to Castro, Bolivian President Luis Arce, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also criticized the brutal repression of the social protests and human rights violations in Peru.

On January 25, the ministry announced that it would call the ambassadors of Peru in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico for consultation, due to the “interference in internal affairs by the highest authorities of the aforementioned countries.” It also conveyed to the Chilean Ambassador the discontentment of the Peruvian government with President Boric’s statements at CELAC, describing them “disrespectful towards President Dina Boluarte.”

At the same time, the plenary session of Congress, with 74 votes in favor, 40 against and 4 abstentions, approved a motion declaring former Bolivian President Evo Morales a ‘persona non grata’ and prohibited him from entering Peru, considering that he makes statements and demonstrations that allege to be interference in Peruvian internal affairs.

The move to endanger diplomatic ties across the region has been widely condemned by leaders.

Condemnation of Boluarte regime at CELAC summit
Peru was a central topic of discussion at the CELAC summit, despite not making it into the final declaration.

President Arce said that “Bolivia is respectful, like all CELAC States, of International Law and non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” but added that “we cannot simply ignore a situation such as the serious political and social crisis that our brotherly people in Peru are experiencing.” He urged that the institutions of the Peruvian State work together with its people to “take the path of understanding to recover social and political peace in the country.”

President Boric asked the Boluarte government for a “change of course” in the face of the “unacceptable repression and violence.” “We cannot be indifferent when today in our sister nation of Peru, with the government under the command of Dina Boluarte, people who go out to march and claim what they consider fair end up being shot by those who should defend them,” said Boric.

President Petro also demanded the immediate release of Castillo, calling for an agreement on the basis of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to protect popularly elected heads of state who remain deprived of their liberty. “Why do we have to continue maintaining violations of the Inter-American system despite the fact that our governments signed the treaty in the past? Why do there have to be parliamentary and violent coups? Why are popularly elected presidents today in prison when they should be here at this table? Why are the political rights of any citizen violated by administrative and parliamentary authorities? when the letter that we all signed in 1972 does not allow the political rights of any citizen to be violated,” maintained Petro.

Similarly, President AMLO, in a video message sent to the summit, called for cessation of repression in Peru and the freedom of Castillo. “We must not leave the brotherly people of Peru alone, what they did with Pedro Castillo and the way in which they are repressing the people was an infamy. A communiqué must be jointly signed to demand that the repression cease, that dialogue be opened, that it be the people who decide in democracy, that is, in clean, free elections, about the destiny of Peru. No to authoritarianism and freedom to Pedro Castillo, because he is unjustly imprisoned,” said AMLO.

Castillo denounces repression, thanks leaders for solidarity in a letter
In a new letter shared on his Twitter account, Castillo denounced the repression and human rights violations committed by the Boluarte regime, and thanked regional leaders for their solidarity and condemnation expressed at the CELAC summit.

“I denounce the human rights violations that are being committed against my indigenous brothers, the repression in the streets by the military dictatorship of Boluarte, claiming more than 60 lives of compatriots and leaving 1,200 wounded. I pray that you raise your voice in all international forums, and do not allow a genuine space for Latin American integration to coexist with the current anti-democratic political regime that is usurping power in Peru today,” said Castillo.

“I appreciate the solidarity of the brother presidents who, in their speech, have kept in mind the human rights violations in Peru. To presidents Gustavo Petro, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya and Andrés Mauel López Obrador, for their firmness in condemning the dictatorship, my arbitrary detention and for demanding the constitutional guarantees of which I continue to be illegally deprived. To the presidents of Argentina, Cuba, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela, who expressed their concern about the serious situation in our country,” he added.

Castillo also thanked Morales and expressed his solidarity with him. “My solidarity and gratitude to my brother Evo Morales, politically persecuted by the Boluarte dictatorship, who was prohibited from entering Peru. Evo has been a consistent political leader in defending himself with democracy and denounces the fascist government of Dina Boluarte, responsible for the bloodshed that Peru is mourning today,” he wrote.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/27/ ... -boluarte/

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Peru Coup Government Opens the Door for Entry of U.S. Troops
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 27, 2023
W.T. Whitney Jr.

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Soldiers attack protesters outside the Alfredo Rodriguez Ballon airport in Arequipa, Peru, Friday, Jan. 20, 2023. Protesters are seeking immediate elections, coup President Dina Boluarte’s resignation, the release of ousted President Pedro Castillo, and justice for the protesters killed by police. | Jose Sotomayor / AP

Critics of U.S. interference in Latin America and the Caribbean may soon realize, if such is not the case now, that Peru has a compelling claim for their attention. The massive popular resistance emerging now amid the political crisis looks to be sustainable into the future. Meanwhile, a reactionary political class obstinately defends its privileges, and the U.S. government is aroused.

This new mobilization of Peru’s long-oppressed majority population manifested initially as the force behind left-leaning presidential candidate Pedro Castillo’s surprise second-round election victory on June 6, 2021. It exploded again following the coup that removed Castillo on Dec. 7, 2022.

The politically inexperienced Castillo, a primary school teacher and teachers’ union leader in rural northern Peru, espoused a program of resisting both Peru’s corrupt and oligarchical elite and foreign exploiters. Castillo had begun his 2020 presidential campaign prior to aligning with a political party. His affiliation eventually would the Marxist-oriented Peru Libre (Free Peru) Party, which abandoned him during his presidency.

Castillo was the first leftist to be elected president of Peru. The candidate he defeated was Keiko Fujimori, standard-bearer of Peru’s oligarchs and militarists and daughter of dictator and former President Alberto Fujimori.

Castillo’s forced removal from office prompted massive popular resistance. Since then, small farmers, indigenous communities, social organizations, students, and labor unions have sustained a national strike. Concentrated in Peru’s southern provinces at first, and later spreading throughout northern regions, strikers have been blocking highways, city streets, and access to government offices and airports.

In their “March from the Four Corners” of Peru, protesters on Jan. 19 occupied Lima in what they called the “Taking of Lima.” They have filled streets and plazas, marched, and impeded access to government offices. They say they will stay. Lima residents and social movements have stocked food for them and, with the help of schools and universities, provided shelter.

Anthropologist Elmer Torrejón Pizarro, from Amazonian Peru, was marching on Jan. 19. He writes: “I saw no criminals next to me, much less terrorists. I observed young university students and mostly peasants, women and men from the south. I saw their faces, furrowed by the pain of life and death. They were next to me, their faces hard and burned by blows from life, from Peru. They were faces expressing generational hibernation of a country that, as a state, has failed.”

The protesters are demanding:

*the resignation of de-facto president Dina Boluarte,
*the liberation of the imprisoned Pedro Castillo,
*and the dismissal of a Congress dominated by right-wing and centrist political operatives.

They want new elections in 2023 and a popular referendum on instituting a Constituent Assembly. They, like Castillo, want a new constitution.

Left-oriented news sources haven’t reported reactions to the strike from Peru’s leftist political parties. The few websites of those parties that are accessible add little. The Communist Party of Peru Patria Roja, an exception, on Jan. 16 condemned the coup government as a dictatorship, called for a transitional government, and expressed support for the demands outlined above.

Popular resistance is one aspect of this crisis situation. The other is political repression. For weeks, the police and the military have been assaulting protesters throughout the country with lethal force. They have killed over 60 of them, wounded hundreds, and jailed hundreds more.

In Lima on Jan. 21, almost 12,000 police were in the streets blocking demonstrations and harassing residents and students; 14,000 more were otherwise engaged. The police that day violated a university autonomy law and entered San Marcos University where they arrested strikers sheltering there and students, over 200 in all.

The security forces and their handlers are heirs to repressors who, from Spanish colonization on, have repeatedly victimized masses of impoverished, mostly indigenous Peruvians. Peru experienced three prolonged military dictatorships during the 20th century.

In dealing with Castillo and the threat he represented, forces of reaction turned to softer methods. These centered on congressional maneuvering aimed at harassing Castillo’s ministers and blocking his government’s program.

Finally, the Congress demanded that Castillo resign, and immediately soldiers seized the president. He was charged with “rebellion and conspiracy” and will remain in prison for at least 18 months. He is held incommunicado.

When interviewed, Wilfredo Robles Rivera, the deposed president’s lawyer, spoke of a “parliamentary coup, a slow coup, a prolonged one organized on several fronts.” He explains that “It was a strategy that began even before President Castillo took office. The right wing … was pressuring election officials to recognize electoral fraud. An electoral coup, therefore. The true parliamentary coup began when Castillo became president.”

An earlier article by the present author elaborates on this terminal phase of Castillo’s downfall. Robles Rivera’s perspective appears in one of the addenda below.

Lastly, there is that aspect of Peru’s mounting crisis that relates to North Americans: U.S. intervention is possible.

Gen. Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, spoke to the establishment-oriented Atlantic Council on Jan. 19. In regard to Latin America, she mentioned “rare earth elements,” “the lithium triangle—Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,” the “largest oil reserves [and] light, sweet crude discovered off Guyana,” Venezuela’s “oil, copper, gold” and “31% of the world’s fresh water in this region.” She concludes, crucially: “This region matters. It has a lot to do with national security. And we need to step up our game.”

On Jan. 18, de facto President Dina Boluarte and her Council of Ministers informed Peru’s Congress that they were submitting for approval a draft legislative resolution saying, in effect, that Congress would be “authorizing the entry of naval units and foreign military personnel with weapons of war” into Peru.

Who but U.S. troops and military machinery would be first in line? The U.S. military is already familiar with deploying in Peru. And the day prior to Castillo’s removal from office, U.S. ambassador Lisa Kenna, a CIA veteran, was in the office of Peru’s defense minister, conferring.

She is persistent. On Jan. 18, Kenna conferred with Peru’s minister of energy and mining and his associates. Journalist Ben Norton attests to that minister tweeting about “a high-level institutional dialogue that day between Peru and the United States.” The minister expressed pleasure at “support from the North American government in mining-energy issues” and mentioned his government’s prioritization of the natural gas and energy sectors.

Presently all liquified natural gas produced in Peru goes to Europe. Energy supplies there are precarious due to U.S. anti-Russian sanctions. We imagine U.S. applause.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... -s-troops/

Political Earthquake in Argentina: Judicial Meddling and Political Uncertainty
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 26, 2023
Juan Martin Gonzalez Cabañas


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Recent events in Argentina and Latin America reveal that the traditional players and forces have lost the strategic political initiative, and are in permanent pursuit of readjusting the political map of the region in their favour, writes Argentine political scientist Juan Martin Gonzalez Cabañas.

In the context of yet another chapter of judicial meddling in the regional politics of Ibero-America, a new political earthquake is taking place in Argentina, one that produces great uncertainty due to the statements of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in which she argued that she would be willing to renounce the continuation of her public aspirations

The events

On December 6, 2022, in the context of an already-altered Argentine political map, another earthquake was added: The Federal Court N°2, in an unprecedented verdict, sentenced Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) to 6 years of imprisonment in addition to a life sentence of disqualification to hold public offices. Such a conviction would be the result of a trial for irregularities in public works (specifically in the southern province of Santa Cruz).

Due to its characteristics, this judicial decision is unprecedented.

At the procedural level, the trial is flawed by irregularities. This aspect is, unfortunately, very common in the Argentine justice system, one of the institutions in the country with the worst image in the public opinion. In this latter regard, the Argentine public has recently been made aware of very serious, scandalous events.

These are the meetings at Lago Escondido and the football games at the hacienda “Los Abrojos”. At these scandalous gatherings and chats between judges, prosecutors, businessmen, and media operators, they openly plan judicial manoeuvres against political players in Argentina. Such levels of collusion undermine the fundamental principles of impartiality and transparency, principles that should govern the courts of the judiciary branch in a democracy. The latter events are irrefutable proof of the promiscuity and permeability of the judiciary institution to powers decoupled from the public interest and the general welfare as well as irrefutable proof of its corporative tendencies. Such incidents are evidence of what many Argentines already suspect and believe: that the judiciary is a caste.

CFK’s response

On the same day of the judiciary verdict, CFK replied with a speech in which, in addition to criticizing the sentence and denouncing the judiciary as a “Parallel State”, she stated that she would be absent from the Argentine political map, considering the legislative and presidential elections of 2023.

CFK’s possible “withdrawal” only increases the uncertainty of an already disarrayed Argentine political map on the eve of next year’s elections.

Political implications

The major question in this new chapter of judicialisation of Argentine politics is whether or not CFK is excluded from it. Therefore, an analysis of the level of damage or transformation that may be caused by the premature (and forced?) withdrawal of the main Argentine political leader of at least the last 15 years must be carried out.

In the event that CFK is excluded, how will the Argentine political map be ordered without its main protagonist of at least the last 15 years? A great compass would be lost; she has been a key figure for at least 20 years, to say the least. Who would be the main target of opposition criticism in Argentine politics, which is completely immersed in the logic of personalisation and high polarisation?

Scenario forecasting

The foregone scenarios presented are: the end of CFK’s electoral life (by decision or imposition), or an escalation of the confrontational political spectacularization so typical of our times. The latter would place CFK in an epic narrative of popular redemption, as has already happened in the cases of the forced ostracism of Perón, Lula and Correa.

A hypothetical definitive withdrawal of CFK

However, regarding the latter scenario, CFK’s reaction (a declaration of withdrawal from public life) could have been much more combative, considering such a legal-institutional measure. What is known at the moment is that CFK has excluded the possibility of an epic resistance plan. Her decision (at least temporarily) has left both players on the Argentine political map (the ruling party and the opposition) equally disoriented.

In the aforementioned speech, CFK affirmed her position: she does not want third parties (both ruling and opposing parties) to benefit from her judicial predicament. Such statements by CFK should be taken seriously, and the corresponding prospective scenarios should be carried out.

Recent Argentine political history has another case where a political renouncement implied a reset of the Argentine political leadership: Carlos Menem’s refusal to appear on the ballot in May 14, 2003.

“Kirchnerismo” is the result of the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina and Menem’s withdrawal from the 2003 vote, and originated as a new faction within the Peronist movement and the Peronist “world” (although often in tension with it), of which it would be one of the dominant sectors until the present day (with some notable exceptions of competition within Peronism itself).

Kirchnerism as a political phenomenon, to mention some of its most outstanding elements, was configured as a political platform more closely linked to the Centre-Left (as opposed to the classic Peronism position, which was more eclectic in its composition), and Progressivism, with an emotive national-popular narrative linked to progressive demands regarding topics such as human rights and minority rights, These political and cultural aspects were combined with an internal market economy project more traditional of classical Peronism.

In addition to the aforementioned elements, the rhetoric and ideological baggage associated with the militant left of the 1960s and 1970s were also added (elements that on more than one occasion came into tension with the classic guidelines of Peronism).

Due to a proactive internal market economy policy, the promotion of consumption, social assistance, and a good correlation of the terms of trade for Argentine exports, Kirchnerism managed to provide economic, social and political benefits to broad sectors of the popular classes, workers in the informal economy, salaried workers, as well as several sectors of the middle class. All these measures would gain Kirchnerismo great support and legitimacy in Argentine society, until the economic conditions which had been favourable to the Kirchnerist political project would be rapidly and strongly diluted starting in 2012.

But turning back to the argument of a concrete withdrawal of CFK from the Argentine electoral and political map, the previous and most recent case of a significant withdrawal from the Argentine political scene, Menem’s refusal to participate in the 2003 elections, (in combination with the financial and political crisis of 2001) was a turning point for Argentine political leadership.

This event marked the end of an entire political generation associated with the 1990s. The political renovation was significant: Kirchnerism and Macrism were the two emerging poles after Menem’s refusal to compete in the 2003 vote.

If CFK is absent from the 2023 round of elections, both the ruling coalition, Frente de Todos, (known for political heterogeneity, but with great leaders such as CFK) as the opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambios (also politically heterogeneous but anti-Kirchner), will have to face an arduous process of internal debate and strategic readjustment in order to avoid succumbing to the dispersion of energies.

Moreover, in a much broader analysis, CFK’s absence would force the Peronist movement to pursue a necessary (and always postponed) process of leadership renewal and internal debate.

Another scenario would be that of a CFK leader in the shadows, exerting influence without maintaining a formal presence on the Argentine political map. This isn’t an impossible scenario, but it’s highly improbable, considering the history of Argentine political leadership and the history of CFK.

Finally, another aspect to highlight is that such a scenario of CFK’s withdrawal from the 2023 ballot could be an opportunity for third forces, such as libertarians and the left. Both forces offer an anti-establishment discourse and have seen progressive electoral growth; both could use the internal disputes between the ruling party and the opposition to add significant electoral support.

But let us also discuss the possibility of an alternative scenario: an optical illusion, a smokescreen used by CFK to engage in a future counter-attack.

A smokescreen to prepare a counter-attack

Contemporary politics retains certain vestiges and elements of rationality (economic voting, for example), but also features some aspects of spectacularization (M. Edelman), which have been added and in some cases become practically dominant.

When politics becomes a spectacle, it turns elections into stories of good guys versus bad guys (polarization), with protagonists and plots that increasingly resemble a mix between Latin American telenovelas and Game of Thrones-style palace intrigues. It sheds its utility as a debate about the merits of various ideas and party platforms to attract independent voters. Social networks have only deepened this dynamic.

Therefore, the big issue of a definitive political renouncement by CFK is that, the history of CFK as a leader in general, and this year in particular (due to an assassination attempt and a judiciary conspiracy), already has elements of an epic plot. Such an already-established plot could be an opportunity to retake the strategic initiative after an apparent initial withdrawal.

The development of such a plot of epic proportions is beyond CFK’s own decisions; when historical forces are set in motion they are very hard to stop. The judicial case against her is prolonged and slow, and if the political scenario in Argentina becomes more complicated for the government (Frente de Todos), and if both CFK’s supporters and the people in the streets start to agitate in her favour, it’s very hard to imagine her remaining indifferent. A scenario with such events would force CFK to review her stance, and potentially to retake the strategic initiative.

But in this scenario, the great challenge for CFK would be to persuade her non-supporters that she is innocent. The strategies that CFK decides to implement in this respect would have transcendental implications.

A broader analysis

In a more regional and global analytical framework, this political earthquake in Argentina can be added to other destabilizing political processes present this year in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.

In these times of struggle for global hegemonic transition, considering the latest events discussed in Argentina, as well as other present processes, the concern for the planning and execution of an Operation Condor 2.0 in Latin and South America is no less worrying. This is the very rear guard of the United States, the “champion” superpower of the international system since at least 1991. In principle, such a plan to rearrange the “pieces” would have a new format: hybrid warfare (disinformation, lawfare, economic warfare, political destabilisation, and support for opposition groups against governments considered “not sufficiently” obedient).

Influence over Ibero-America is a major asset for the status of the United States as the undisputed global superpower, but as the empirical evidence demonstrates, at the economic level (China) and in other aspects such as the perception of public opinion (Russia), the U.S. cannot take its predominance over the region for granted.

Recent events in Argentina and Latin America reveal that the traditional players and forces have lost the strategic political initiative, and are in permanent pursuit of readjusting the political map of the region in their favour, through the use of hermetic and enduring power structures, such as the judiciary branch.

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:19 pm

[*]Fascism, Populism or Ultra-Right?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 29, 2023
Claudio Katz
Part I of the Series:Attacks and Failures of the Right in Latin America

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Anti-Bolsonaro Protest, Brazil

The new right is very different from classical fascism, which erupted in the first half of the last century in the face of the threat of socialist revolution, in a scenario of inter-imperialist wars. That danger of a workers’ insurrection against the tyranny of capitalism unified the ruling classes, which brutally defended their privileges against the workers.

Fascism was an unusual instrument, in the framework of great political actions of the wage earners and unprecedented warlike conflagrations between the main powers (Riley, 2018). For that reason it included extreme ideological modalities of absolutization of the nation and repudiation of progress, modernity or enlightenment.

None of those conditionings are present today. In the second decade of the 21st century, there are no glimpses of Bolshevik threats or consequent demands for immediate counterrevolution. Warlike tensions have reappeared, but without generalized wars between competitive blocs. The motivations that gave rise to classical fascism are not observed in the current situation.

PAST AND CONTEMPORARY MODALITIES

It is a frequent mistake to liken the ultra-right in vogue to its predecessors of the last century. Rather than the full-fledged fascism of that era, so far a potential proto-fascism is emerging, which could only become the preceding modality if the features of that model are generalized (Palheta, 2018).

Such a turn would imply the massification of violence, through paramilitary militias analogous to the brown gangs of the past. Hostility against minorities would be transformed into massacres, warnings against opponents would turn into assassinations and aggressive speeches would be transformed into savage actions. Such a course is a possibility, which would entail the conversion of the current formations into fascist forces.

Such a passage would also imply the abolition of the existing legal status, by means of a forceful increase in state authoritarianism. As long as the ultra-right organizations act within the institutional framework, they will maintain at most a neo-fascist profile, still far from the classic virulent modality. A totalitarian reorganization would also require drastic changes in the leaderships and movements that sustain the current reactionary course.

A fascistization dynamic would require greater plebeian sustenance, more identified internal enemies and a language of stark violence against opponents (Louçã, 2018). Such concretization would presuppose the total amputation of democracy (Davidson, 2010). Fascism is not a mere dictatorship, nor a simple authoritarian management. It introduces a political model marked by the methodical use of the stick and the consequent conformation of a totalitarian regime.

This characterization of the phenomenon centered on the political system is more accurate than the generic presentation of fascism as an epoch or an ideology of capitalism. It is also more accurate than its evaluation as a configuration counterposed to neoliberalism. These dimensions constitute, at most, complements to the political system that distinguishes fascism.

Liberals often shy away from this specific characterization, presenting fascism as a discourse or a program of violation of republican norms. With this simplified characterization they disqualify their rivals by denouncing fascists everywhere.

That magnification has been very common in the United States to justify aligning with the Democratic Party against the Republicans. With that view Trump was rejected postulating the convenience of sustaining Biden (Fraser, 2019). The same multiuse of the term fascist serves in other countries to approve alliances with the bourgeois establishment. The real battle against fascism never traveled along those paths.

But it is also true that the current ultra-right incubates the germs of fascism. For that reason it is not sensible to avoid the qualifier, arguing the absence of the missing links to complete that status. It is never irrelevant to denounce reactionary currents, which can push society into the monstrous scenario of the 20th century. The additives “post”, “neo” or “proto” help to specify the scope or proximity of this danger.

Today, the extreme right is already setting the agenda of many countries and governments. By relativizing (or naturalizing) this advance, its danger is diluted. The evolution of these processes is still open and tends to lead to traditional conservative dynamics, but a stormy renewal of the old fascism is not excluded.

We should distance ourselves from the thesis that restricts fascism to an exclusive drama of the middle of the last century. Nor is it correct to suppose that it would only erupt in response to a socialist revolutionary danger. This virulent process is periodically generated by capitalism, to counteract the discontent provoked by the inequitable, impoverishing and convulsive dynamics of that system.

The social subjects that are the protagonists of this reaction can mutate with the same parameters of their victims. The petty bourgeoisie that confronted the factory proletariat during Nazi Germany does not constitute an immovable prototype for any epoch or country. Fascism is a political process that does not follow immutable parameters. Recording this variability is particularly important for assessing its dynamics in Latin America.

DIFFERENTIATED PRESENCE IN THE PERIPHERY

The potential fascist outbreak of the ultra-right is not a danger confined to the United States or Europe. It is also a threat to the periphery. Events in the Arab world offer an indication of such an outcome. The great democratic revolt embodied by the Arab Spring of the past decade was bloodily crushed by dictatorships and monarchies, which were aided by fascist formations.

These militias deployed an atrocious counter-revolutionary action. They used the religious banner to carry out massacres that crushed all expressions of secularism, tolerance and democratic coexistence. That ferocious response to a youth uprising that spread throughout the Middle East confirmed that bloodletting with fascist overtones is feasible in any corner of the planet. It does not require the pre-existence of a socialist enemy or an organized industrial proletariat.

The same criterion applies to Latin America. Nor in this zone is fascism excluded by the peripheral character of the region. The old denial of that possibility because of the economic-social distance that separates the area from the centers is based on mistaken assumptions. It assumes that Hitler and Mussolini never had emulators in the Third World because of the intrinsically imperialist character of that modality.

But the fact is forgotten that this reactionary aspect adopted forms of dependent fascism, when the dominant classes of the periphery faced major threats to their domination. The chronological difference between the two scenarios does not alter these similarities. The peaks of fascism in the periphery occurred during the Cold War and not in 1930-45.

This shift in the virulent regressive responses was congruent with the geographical mutation of the popular uprisings and included massacres of the same magnitude as those recorded in Europe. Suffice it to recall, for example, that the crushing of communism in Indonesia claimed a million dead.

The magnitude of these massacres followed the pattern of the great genocides of the last centuries. These annihilations began with the conquest of the New World, consolidated with the devastation of Africa and continued with the Victorian holocausts in Asia, which ended up rebounding on European territory itself.

This succession of exterminations is not enough to explain the contemporary phenomenon of fascism. That traumatic process obeyed specific circumstances and political confrontations, which liberal thinkers never managed to comprehend (Traverso, 2019).

This theoretical tradition especially misinterpreted what happened in Latin America. It placed in the pigeonhole of fascism the nationalist movements or popular leaders in conflict in the metropolises, such as Perón, for example. It used formal arguments of discursive similarity and magnified minor diplomatic episodes to reproduce the biased U.S. denunciations against governments dealing with their domination. That sovereign resistance never had any kinship with fascism.

The proximity of fascism in the periphery was present in another terrain. It burst into Latin America with the counterrevolutionary regimes that tried to destroy the projects of the left. Several theorists of dependency investigated the peculiarities of this brutal reaction (Martins, 2022).

Pinochetism came to Chile supported by an anti-worker social base blinded by anti-communist fanaticism. But like Franco in Spain or Salazar in Portugal, the trans-Andean dictatorship did not forge a political system comparable to that of Hitler or Mussolini.

Uribism also propped up an oligarchic regime in Colombia, based after several decades on the methodical assassination of social militants. But it never completed the totalitarian reconversion of the political regime that fascism presupposes.

In Bolsonaro’s most recent experience this failure was greater and he did not manage to translate the reactionary verbiage of the military madman into a fascist system. The former captain got some support from plebeian sectors, but not the leadership of the entire bourgeois political arc. He favored the increase of violence, without achieving its generalization, and backed down in the attempts to replace the institutional system with a totalitarian power. The army supported him, but never agreed to get involved in adventures of greater scope. The disastrous management of the pandemic and the defeat he suffered with the release of Lula, closed all loopholes for his conversion into a dictator.

Fascism is also a danger in the current regional scenario and it is important to avoid underestimating this possibility. The weakness of the left or a reflux of workers’ struggles do not dilute this eventuality. The disregard of this horizon sometimes adopts the sophisticated modality of replacing the term fascist with vague allusions to Bonapartism.

More problematic is the trivialization of the phenomenon, through its identification with other types of misfortunes. Fascism is not equivalent to extractivism and even less to enduring forms of macho violence. It is a modality of political management of the State, to recompose the domination of the capitalist class with methods of extreme virulence.

It is important to situate the problem on this plane, in order to face the battle against fascism with tactics and strategies adapted to each country. In the generic universe of a misfortune generated by the decline of capitalism, civilizational regression or the empire of irrationality, there is no way to specify timely and successful anti-fascist policies.

BASIC AND ACCURATE DISTINCTIONS

The characterization of today’s ultra-right as fascist competes with its identification with populism, but the use of this term is particularly inconsistent in Latin America. In this region, references to populism were identified during the second half of the 20th century, with governments that granted social improvements (Löwy, 2019). The profile that in Europe embodied social democracy, was related in the New World with regimes that favored greater sovereignty and increases in popular income. To liken the current ultra-right with any of those predecessors is a major contradiction.

But the main confusion introduced by this identification is the mixture of progressive and reactionary leaderships, in the indistinct caratula of populism. In Europe, this combo pigeonholes Melanchon with Meloni, Crobyn with Len Pen and Pablo Iglesias with Orban. In Latin America, the same salad places Maduro with Bolsonaro, Evo Morales with Kast and Díaz Canel with Milei. The shortcomings of this mixture are obvious. The liberal press tends to insist on this type of absurd identifications and whimsical amalgamations.

Instead of reiterating this unproductive mixture, it would be more correct to retake the basic political barometer that contrasts the right with the left, in order to define the position of each force. The two poles are clearly distinguishable, without any need to add the populist adjective. With this guideline, it is very clear that the radical left is the main antagonist of the ultra-right. The usual concept of populism nullifies this distinction by assuming that both extremes have been dissolved in some kind of “twilight of ideologies”.

The notions of left and right have been rightly used for centuries. They distinguish courses in favor of social equality from courses in favor of the privileges of the oppressors. With this computer it is possible to grasp which are the social interests at stake in each conflict. It is very easy to note that Fidel Castro managed to the left of Menem, but it is impossible to determine how populist the administration of each was.

The political differentiation between the left and the right arose with the French Revolution and persists to the present day, because the social regime that cements this distinction subsists. As long as capitalism continues there will be left and right wing formations confronting each other for the primacy of social improvements or regressions (Katz, 2008: 59-60).

The specificity of the new right can be perceived with traditional trappings (ultra, extreme) or with more innovative complements (2.0). But whatever the denomination chosen, the essential thing is to underline its positioning in the field of reaction. Populism is a term that only adds to confusion.

THE POLYSEMY OF A CONCEPT

The concept of populism has been adopted with great enthusiasm by many analysts who highlight the “anti-systemic” imprint of this current, its opposition to conventional politicians and its disregard for institutionality.

But none of these characteristics define the currents that participate in the current reactionary wave. Their conflicts with the political system are secondary data, compared to their central purpose of transforming the current discontent into a systematic harassment of the underprivileged. This regressive objective of confronting the middle class (and part of the salaried workers) with the most unprotected sectors does not have the slightest kinship with populism.

Liberals use the term to disqualify any stance critical of individualism, the market or the republic. But the new right is neither alien to nor an enemy of these paradigms. It has simply gained ground with a discourse that objects to the stormy contemporary reality sponsored by neoliberalism. Nor does it place itself outside the institutional regime, when it questions with great demagogy the prevailing political parties.

Liberals equate right-wingers with the forces coming from the opposite pole of the left. They consider that populism amalgamates both sides in a similar position. In this way they present two opposing conglomerates as if they were complementary. They dissolve the evaluation of the contents in dispute and emphasize minor aspects of style or rhetoric. Through this analytical path, there is not the slightest possibility of clarifying any relevant feature of the new right wing.

The hegemonic media have generalized this view, which superficially disqualifies populism in order to relegitimize neoliberalism. From this point of view, they highlight the centrality of a particularly vague term, which mixes different historical meanings derived from dissimilar roots.

In its old American or Russian meaning, populism alluded to projects of popular protagonism or to exaltations of the healthy and friendly behavior of rural populations, which had been mistreated (and corrupted) during their conversion into urban wage earners. Populism claimed that initial purity and proposed to recreate it as a force for the transformation of society.

The current right-wing discourse picks up some facets of that longing, but modifies its regenerative, communitarian or friendly meaning. It uses it to develop a counterposition with hostile minorities. It usually exalts the working class punished by globalization and deindustrialization, attributing that degradation to the presence of immigrants (Traverso, 2016). No significant echo of the old purposes of brotherhood is present in the new ultra-right meaning.

The liberal denigration of populism has also motivated a symmetrical praising look. This vision defends the validity of this concept, to represent the oppressed sectors of society. It particularly highlights the consistency of this notion in nations with a fragile constitutional structure (Venezuela) or a long tradition of institutionalism (Argentina). He also vindicates the role of its leaders and justifies all the variants he observes of this modality (Laclau, 2006). This pro-populist approach is the reverse of the socio-liberal diatribe and does not provide clues to clarify the current imprint of the new right.

In order to understand the meaning of this space, it is necessary to investigate the social roots of its political action. The current reactionary wave is a project of sectors of the ruling classes to reestablish the corroded stability of capitalism. They intend to achieve this re-composition by generalizing aggressions against the most unprotected sectors of society.

This attention to the class substratum of the ultra-right is diluted in the ambiguous universe of observations on populism extolled by its defenders. They reject the evaluation of the interests at stake, because they ignore the leading role of social classes, pondering the alternative centrality of an indistinct variety of subjects with contingent identities, who achieve centrality through their discourses.

From this point of view, it is impossible to register which are the underlying social interests in the disputes of each political scenario. There is no way to understand why the ultra-right is currently bursting in and what are the economic forces that sustain its presence. This perspective investigates the discourses in themselves, without offering explanations of the way in which they are articulated with their social determinants. Because of these inaccuracies, they also fail to clarify the meaning of the reactionary ideology in vogue (Anderson, 2015).

CONTRASTING EXPERIENCES

Analysis of the ultra-right should enrich the struggle against this current. The evaluation of this space aims at achieving the defeat or neutralization of a force that threatens democracy and popular conquests.

In Latin America, recent experience evidences very different results, when decisive responses or hesitant reactions prevail. In the first case is the battle of the Venezuelan government against the coup, which at an enormous economic and social cost, managed to defeat the guarimbas of the reactionary gangs.

An attitude of the same type is emerging in Bolivia after the arrest of Camacho. Instead of passively accepting the provocations of the neo-fascist groups, the government went on the offensive and undertook a daring operation to contain a ruthless enemy. The defeat of the failed coup in Brazil with arrests of those involved, trials of those responsible and investigation of the financing is in the same direction.

These forceful positions have made it possible to stop the reactionary onslaught, in contrast to the conciliatory attitudes that facilitated the escalation of the coup against Lugo in Paraguay or against Dilma in Brazil. Castillo has repeated this same behavior in Peru, opening the way for a bloody civilian-military uprising.

These hesitations constitute a serious warning for countries where the right wing is groping for deadly incursions. In the case of Argentina, the consummation of the failed attempt to assassinate Cristina would have generated unimaginable consequences.

That aggression provoked a great democratic reaction of immediate demonstrations. But the government itself discouraged that response and promoted only occasional rejections with conservative figures. In the great experience of democratic battles in that country, consistent positions are crowned with clarifications (Mariano Ferreyra, Kostecki-Santillán) and attitudes of resignation lead to impunity (AMIA, Embassy of Israel and Rio Tercero).

Many links of Cristina’s failed assassins with quasi-fascist organizations have already been verified. If a path of mobilization prevails these complicities will come to the surface. But if the opposite course prevails, the right will again profit from the prevailing confusion (as happened with Nisman’s suicide).

Finally, the Chilean experience illustrates how the vacillations of the ruling party facilitate the vertiginous recomposition of an emboldened right wing. After three years of successive defeats, this force managed to impose the rejection of the constitutional reform project at the ballot box. It took advantage of the confusion, inaction and capitulations of the government. It recomposed its presence in the face of a president who deactivated the protest and ignored his electoral promises.

In Latin America, therefore, several successful and unsuccessful experiences of confrontation with the ultra-right have already been observed. This reactionary sector is just emerging and the priority is to crush it before it can establish its preaching (Colussi, 2022).

The authority of the left depends on its ability to demonstrate firmness in the face of an enemy determined to sweep away social improvements. Europe’s recent experience illustrates the self-defeating effects of shying away from the battle by looking the other way (Febbro, 2022).

The main terrain of that struggle is street mobilization against an enemy that also acts in that terrain. The naive belief that this field belongs to the left has been definitively refuted by the active presence of its adversaries in marches and demonstrations.

In some cases this intervention preceded the pandemic (Brazil) and in others it gained intensity with the irruption of the negationists (Argentina). The protagonism of these formations has grown in the confrontation with progressive governments (Bolivia, Mexico) and in the rejection of popular revolts (Chile, Colombia, Peru).

This dispute for street preeminence makes it necessary to carefully evaluate the progressive or regressive sense of the mobilizations that abound in the region. Calls with explicitly socialist or right-wing banners are as rare as events with a purely political profile. Characterizing the content of each event is vital to distinguish progressive actions from their reactionary antithesis.

There is no recipe for getting this evaluation right, not even by ascertaining the social composition of the participants in each rally. The barometer of the left and the right provides the basic instrument to draw some conclusion. It is not enough to register the legitimacy of the demands at stake. It is also necessary to observe who is driving them. The right tends to encourage popular irritation against progressive governments, while repudiating any struggle for the same aspirations when a conservative administration prevails.

But it is also true that many governments of popular origin resort to the ghost of right-wing conspiracy to justify anti-worker policies. This type of dilemma cannot be resolved with a manual and each case requires a concrete evaluation, starting from a characterization of current progressivism. We will address this evaluation in our next text.

ABSTRACT

The revolutionary danger and inter-imperial wars that determined classical fascism are not present today. The ultra-right converges with traditional conservative dynamics, but capitalism tends to recreate modalities of great violence and totalitarianism.

In Latin America the shadow of fascism did not emerge with nationalist leaders, but with counterrevolutionary actions to crush the left. It persists as a card of the powerful against popular uprisings.

Populism is not an enlightening concept of the right-wing wave. It places the exponents and opponents of this process in the same pigeonhole, dissolves its opposition to the left and obscures the interests at stake. The ongoing battle is fought in the streets and at the ballot box, avoiding the hesitations that embolden a dangerous enemy.

REFERENCES

Riley, Dylan (2018). What is Trump? New Left Review 114 January – February 2018.

Palheta, Ugo (2018). Our time is not immune to the fascist cancer”, kritica, 20 December, 2018, https://kritica.info/nuestro-tiempo-no- ... -fascista/

Louçã, Francisco (2018) Fascist populism has only just begun. 24/10/2018 https://vientosur.info/spip.php?article14282

Davidson, Neil (2010), “From deflected permanent revolution to the law of uneven and combined development”, International Socialist, n 128, autumn 2010.

Fraser, Nancy (2019). Can we understand populism without calling it fascist, 11-4-2019 http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos

Traverso, Enzo (2019). Interpreting the era of global violence South Wind, 23-04-2019.

Martins, Carlos Eduardo (2022) O ressurgimento do fascismo no mundo contemporâneo: história, conceito e prospective, Intelléctus, Ano XXI, n.2, 2022. DOI: 10.12957/intellectus.2022.71657

Löwy, Michael (2019). The Far Right: A Global Phenomenon, 19-1 2019 http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org

Katz, Claudio (2008) Las disyuntivas de la izquierda en América Latina, Ediciones Luxemburg, Buenos Aires.

Traverso, Enzo (2016) Espectros del fascismo. Pensar las derechas radicales en el siglo XXI, 2016 https://www.herramienta.com.ar/articulo.php?id=2555

Laclau Ernesto (2006). “La deriva populista y la centroizquierda latinoamericana”. Nueva Sociedad, n 205, September-October 2006, Buenos Aires.

Anderson, Perry (2015). Gramsci’s heirs New Left Review 100 Sep-Oct 2015.

Colussi, Marcelo (2022). Latin America and the new lefts https://rebelion.org/latinoamerica-y-la ... zquierdas/

Febbro, Eduardo (2022). The dilemma of the left https://www.pagina12.com.ar/501899-fran ... -izquierda

Translation by Miguel S. for Internationalist 360°

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... tra-right/

I would disagree with the contention that the above analysis supersedes Marxist analysis but it does complement it.

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Police in Peru repress protesters opposed to the Government of Dina Boluarte

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The protesters hold the government of Dina Boluarte responsible for the crimes committed against dozens of Peruvians during the mobilizations. | Photo: EFE
Published 28 January 2023

Several mobilizations that advanced towards the center of Lima are reported. Agents and motorcycles shoot and gas the demonstrators.

The Peruvian Police repressed this Saturday protesters who demanded the resignation of the designated president Dina Boluarte and tried to reach the headquarters of Congress.

Starting in the morning, thousands of people mobilized peacefully from the city of San Juan de Lurigancho and various points on the outskirts of Lima (capital) to the center of said city, when they collided with police units and were attacked.

Videos disseminated through social networks show uniformed and motorized men on Abancay avenue firing at protesters, who are also demanding the closure of Congress, the early elections, the call for a constituent assembly and the release of former President Pedro Castillo.


The agents used tear gas canisters. Several injuries are reported, as corroborated by images that show traces of blood from protesters who were taken to emergency services.

During this day, the demonstrators also rejected the decision of the Peruvian Congress the day before, when after a long debate it rejected a project to advance elections for October of this year.


This Saturday, the bodies of two community members who died there as a result of the repression perpetrated there on January 20 by the security forces were found at the facilities of the Anubi mining company, in the department of Apurímac.

Santos Rolando Hianquelagos and Wilman Chagua Oviedo came from the Chalhuahuacho area, in that department, and had been reported missing since that date.

In addition to Lima and the department of Puno, where demonstrations take place every day, mobilizations were also reported this Saturday in Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios department, in the southeast of the country.

There the demonstrators mobilized to the residence of the regional governor, Luis Otsuka, whom they urged not to meet with the national authorities and to represent the people, and he shot them.


For its part, the General Central of Workers of Peru called for mobilizations next Tuesday in the department of Arequipa, as well as in Puno and the cities of Andahuaylas and Abancay, located in Apurímac.

Until 4:00 p.m. local time this Saturday, 82 points with interrupted traffic were reported in nine regions of the country and 15 national roads affected by the blockades carried out by the protesters, according to information provided by the Superintendency of Land Transportation of People (Sutran).

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/peru-pol ... -0019.html

Federation of Coffee Growers of Peru will hold a strike to demand the resignation of Boluarte

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Boluarte offered a message to the nation this Sunday night in which he did not contemplate resigning from the presidency, as the citizens demand. | Photo: EFE
Posted 30 January 2023 (4 hours 38 minutes ago)

Saturday was one of the toughest days of the protests in Lima, the country's capital, as protester Víctor Santisteban, 55, died after the clashes.

The Federation of Coffee Growers and Farmers of Peru announced this Sunday the holding of a national strike starting this Monday to demand that the repression cease and the designated president Dina Boluarte resign.

The farmers, who also demand the closure of Congress and the call for a new Constitution, indicated that the stoppage will be indefinite.

Peruvians began a series of social protests since December 7, when Pedro Castillo -elected as president for a five-year term that began in 2021- was removed from office by Parliament, which appointed Boluarte in his place. , who served as vice president.



The demonstrations, which have taken place throughout the Peruvian territory, have been repressed by the police and military forces, which has left a balance of more than 60 dead and dozens injured and detained.

Saturday was one of the toughest days of the protests in Lima, the country's capital, as protester Víctor Santisteban, 55, died after the clashes.

The autopsy carried out established that Santisteban lost his life due to a blunt force that hit his head, however, family members ruled out this information and reported that he had died as a result of a bullet.

Likewise, various injuries were reported who were admitted to the La Victoria district hospital, including a man identified as Rolando Marca Arango, who is in intensive care due to the impact of a projectile on the head. His state of health is of reserved prognosis.


Boluarte insists on not giving up

Boluarte, meanwhile, offered a message to the nation this Sunday night in which he did not contemplate resigning from the presidency, as is the requirement of citizenship.

He reported that if Congress does not advance the elections for this year, his government will present a project for debate in order to insist that the elections take place this year.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/peru-fed ... -0003.html

Google Translator

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Majority of Peruvians in Favor of Holding Elections in 2023

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This Saturday night violent clashes between demonstrators and police in Lima left one person dead. Jan. 29, 2023. | Photo: AFP

Published 29 January 2023

In a recent poll, 75% of Peruvians favor the resignation of the president, and 74% agree with the closure of the current Congress.


As police repression against protesters increases in Peru, the majority of the population disapproves the management of President-designate Dina Boluarte, and they agree to bring forward the elections to this year 2023, a poll revealed this Sunday.

In a recent poll, 75% of Peruvians are in favor of the president resigning from office, and 74% agree with the closure of the current Congress.

The parliament failed to reach consensus to bring forward the elections when demonstrations are on the rise and the political situation in the South American country is going through a period of violence and uncertainty.


The latest survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) for the newspaper La República indicates that 73% of the population is in favor of holding such elections this year.

Continuing with the Executive, regarding the performance of Prime Minister Alberto Otárola, 71% of those polled disapprove of his performance as President of the Council of Ministers.

Regarding the disapproval of the Parliament, this seems to continue to rise. Eighty-nine percent of the population rejects the current parliamentary administration, a figure that has also increased by one percentage point in a matter of days.

In addition, 74% are in favor of closing the Congress.

Likewise, 76% of the citizens disapprove of the management of the President of Congress, José Williams, a percentage that has increased by 4 points compared to the previous survey. Only 14% approve of his management at the head of the Legislative.

This Saturday night violent clashes between demonstrators and police in Lima left one person dead, the first in the capital after weeks of revolts in southern regions of the South American country demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.

Security cameras show the murder of Víctor Yacsavilca Santiesteban after a bullet hit his head when he was walking with a group of citizens on one of the sidewalks of Nicolás de Piérola Avenue.

With Saturday's death there are now more than 60 dead -among them a policeman- in the context of the demonstrations that began in the second week of December, had a truce at the end of the year and resumed on January 4 in Puno, on the southern border with Bolivia.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Maj ... -0002.html

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Peru: Congress Rejects Early Elections Proposal Amidst Protests and More Deaths
JANUARY 30, 2023

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Peruvian police shooting at protesters in one of hundreds of rallies held across Peru demanding the end of the dictatorship imposed by the Congress since December 7. Photo: Antonio Melgarejo/EFE.

The Peruvian Congress rejected, at the last minute, to reschedule the presidential elections for 2023, in response to the proposal made by Hernando Guerra García, president of the Constitution Commission. Peru’s de facto ruler, Dina Boluarte, called on the Peruvian body to “lay down its partisan and group interests, and place the interests of Peru above all else.”

With 65 votes against, 45 in favor and two abstentions, the proposal made by Hernando Guerra García, president of the Constitution Commission and congressman of the People’s Power, was rejected by the country’s Parliament, as it did not obtain the necessary 87 votes.


In particular, the leftist bench rejected the measure, arguing that the new electoral process must include a Constituent Assembly and described the proposal of the Fuerza Popular party (right-wing, Fujimorista) as ” fraudulent.”

“I salute the 65 congresspeople that were aware of this trick and stopped it from deceiving the country. A reconsideration has been presented but we believe that the vote will be ratified,” reported Flavio Cruz, the congressman from the Perú Libre party.

Upon learning of the rejection, the president of Congress, far-right retired General José Williams, announced that a request for reconsideration had been raised that will be debated on January 30, when they will have to vote on the proposal again.

“We urge you to place the interests of Peru above all else”

Meanwhile, Dina Boluarte lamented that the country’s Congress failed to choose the date of the elections.

“We regret that the Congress of the Republic has not been able to agree to define the date of the general elections, when Peruvians will be able to freely and democratically elect new authorities,” Boluarte informed on Twitter.


The de facto president called on the benches to prioritize the interests of her country, while simultaneously encouraging the use of excessive force to reduce popular anger over the ousting of President Castillo, the dictatorship of Lima’s oligarchy and the general lack of democracy.

“We urge the benches to put down their partisan and group interests and place the interests of Peru above all else. Our citizens await a clear response promptly that will pave a way out of the political crisis and build social peace,” reads a message posted on social media platforms by the Peruvian Presidency.


The proposal was rejected after Congress approved, with 78 votes, the possible change of date of elections.

Boluarte, then vice president, took office on December 7 after the ousting of Pedro Castillo. New elections were scheduled for 2026, when Castillo, who took office in July 2021, was due to finish his term. Since December 10, citizen protests have started calling for Boluarte’s resignation and early elections for this year. Almost 60 people have lost their lives in clashes between protesters and security forces, according to Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office.

New victim during protests in Lima

Informacion Center reported the death of another Peruvian, this Saturday, January 28, during protests in Lima in the following terms:

“A body has just collapsed in front of the television cameras of a cable channel. It’s ten minutes to eight p.m, on Abancay avenue, in the center of Lima, and a group of protesters is on the sidewalk, watching the police. They are not throwing stones, bottles or anything. Behind a toxic smoke, is the image of a war scene. Then, a noise is heard and a man falls to the ground. People shout: “Bala, bala, bala,” (bullet) while a pool of blood begins to stain the sidewalk. Instead of reporting the attack, the camera director of Channel N changes the frame, and does not return to the scene.

The only images that are available are those posted on social media platforms by people on the ground. Then you can see how they take Víctor Santisteban Yacsavilca (55 years old) badly injured and unconscious on a stretcher, with a bandage that covers his entire forehead. He had been shot in the head and at close range. It has not yet been made public whether it was a bullet or a pellet, but it struck him down. The volunteer brigades took him to the Grau de El Salud Emergency Hospital. And it was there that a large group of demonstrators settled down, which half an hour later was dispersed by the police with canes.

Around nine p.m, Dr. Antonio Quispe, who held public office in the Ministry of Health and currently coordinates the medical brigades that are providing assistance in the mobilizations, confirmed the death of the protester who was shot in the head on live television: ‘We did what we could but the patient had a severe head injury with exposure of a brain mass. Basically, they blew his brains out,’ he lamented on his Twitter account.”

https://orinocotribune.com/peru-congres ... re-deaths/

Peru: Snipers Deployed at US Embassy in Lima
JANUARY 28, 2023

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Police forces in Lima deploy violent tactics in repressing mobilizations against the de facto government of Dina Boluarte. Photo: AP/Martin Mejia.

On Wednesday, January 25, the US embassy in Peru deployed snipers on the roof of its headquarters due to the alleged risk of mobilizations against Washington for its interference in Peru’s internal affairs.

Paradoxically, on the same Wednesday, Washington released a statement calling for respect for human rights and dialogue to resolve the crisis.

Police repression
During the occupation of the University of San Marcos in Lima, by students and demonstrators expressing their discontent and indignation against the interim government of Dina Boluarte, the police violently stormed the campus, according to one of the victims. “I thought they were going to kill us,” the victim stated.

On Saturday, December 21, at 9:30 in the morning, the Peruvian National Police (PNP) infiltrated the campus with TE-10415 tanks, aiming to arrest everyone on the premises.

The PNP without restraint assaulted people who were eating breakfast, unarmed and defenseless.

“They launched tear gas, even from the helicopter. The police began to capture people as if we were criminals. They struck my foot when they threw me to the ground,” described “Luis,” a student who preferred to remain anonymous after receiving threats.

192 detainees

“Luis” was one of the 192 people arrested on December 21, and, still in shock after the violent events, he explained that “most of the people who arrived from the province were near the doors, next to where all the food sent through donations was stored. There, the police seized most of them and forced them to lie face down and with their hands behind their backs.”

The people then demanded impeachment. Yesterday, a group of Congress members presented a vacancy motion against the appointed President Dina Boluarte for moral incapacity.

This initiative, presented by legislator Nieves Limachi of Perú Democrático and supported by other parliamentarians, emerges against the backdrop of protests recorded in several regions of the country demanding Boluarte’s resignation and the resulting violent repression by security forces against the mobilizations.

Among the reasons for this vacancy motion are the demonstrations carried out against the government demanding early general elections.

https://orinocotribune.com/peru-snipers ... y-in-lima/

Wow, straight out of the Maidan handbook.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 01, 2023 3:39 pm

7th Celac Summit: Between Evasion and Reality
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 31, 2023
Stephen Sefton

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The ambivalence inherent in the Final Declaration is also reflected in its support for decolonization and human rights without calling for the closure and withdrawal of the US military base at Guantanamo or condemning the permanent abuse of human rights the base represents as a center for illegal detention and torture. That omission indicates the level of the capture by the United States and its Western allies of the consciences of many leaders in the region. This was also seen unexpectedly in an outburst by President Lula da Silva at the margins of the summit.

Perhaps it was inevitable that the main achievement of the seventh summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Argentina is to have been able to happen at all, thus keeping alive the vision of a Greater Nation for all the peoples of the region. Compared to the tremendous dynamism and forthrightness of CELAC’s founders, the summit’s Final Statement exhibits a bland, mediocre agenda of evasion and hollow aspirations. On a positive note, the Declaration confirms the commitment of the member States to integration, unity and political, economic, social and cultural diversity as a community of sovereign nations and it also reaffirms the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

But the experiences of the last ten years show that in many respects the region’s reality runs contrary to most of the statements in the Declaration’s 111 points of the Declaration. Examples of this are the extensive presence of US military bases throughout the continent, the constant interventions of Western powers and interests in the region, the harassment and contempt towards indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, the application of “lawfare” against prominent political figures in several countries and the routine political manipulation of human rights institutions. More than anything, it has been electoral fortunes that have allowed the region to overcome initiatives aimed at sabotaging Latin American and Caribbean unity, such as the nefarious Lima Group.

Still, the underlying interventionist threat persists and the CELAC summit gave space to lamentable elements of what remains of the cruel interventions to damage Venezuela. The presidents of Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay attacked the government of Venezuela with the usual false accusations of lack of democracy and it is worth recalling that the Lima Group was supported or endorsed at one time or another by the following countries: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia under the coup regime, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia. Self-evidently, the power of manipulation and coercion in the region of the United States, and its allies among the NATO countries, persists and they simply wait for favorable conditions to be able to use it.

In the end, President Nicolás Maduro Moros decided not to participate in the summit because the Argentine authorities could not guarantee his protection against possible legal provocations based on the illegal coercive measures of the US government against Venezuela. The Final Declaration of the summit calls for the lifting of the illegal blockade of Cuba but not of the illegal unilateral measures against Venezuela, which now even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has had to condemn as an abuse of the human rights of the Venezuelan people. Nor does the Final Declaration mention the theft in broad daylight of the patrimony of the Venezuelan people, the company CITGO, the gold stored in London and billions of dollars in the European financial system, by the United States and the governments of the European Union.

The ambivalence inherent in the Final Declaration is also reflected in its support for decolonization and human rights without calling for the closure and withdrawal of the US military base at Guantanamo or condemning the permanent abuse of human rights the base represents as a center for illegal detention and torture. That omission indicates the level of the capture by the United States and its Western allies of the consciences of many leaders in the region. This was also seen unexpectedly in an outburst by President Lula da Silva at the margins of the summit. Lula made an absurd comparison between the illegal US aggression against Venezuela and the legitimate military operation of the Russian Federation in defense of Russian-speaking populations attacked by the government of Ukraine in alliance with NATO countries for eight years and counting.

Lula’s grossly foolish remark could be simply an attempt on his part to signal his ideological virtue to the elites controlling the US Democratic Party and its allies in the Brazilian elite who supported Lula in the presidential elections last October. On the other hand, the just recently announced decision of leaders such as Lula, Gustavo Petro and Alberto Fernández not to send weapons in support of Ukraine does honor the declaration of the region as a zone of Peace. Although it undoubtedly also has to do with the aspirations of Brazil and, especially, Argentina in relation to a future expansion of the BRICS group of countries.

In this global context, the eagerness of the ruling classes of the most powerful countries in Latin America to appease the US and European elites conflicts with the imperative of taking advantage of the economic benefits offered by the People’s Republic of China and the development of a multipolar world. In fact, President Xi Jinping greeted the summit via an online link and stressed that China is working to push relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean towards a new era based on respect, equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and well-being for all peoples.

While China demonstrates good faith with its extensive investment, cooperation and trade with the region, the regional policy of the United States has not changed since President Monroe’s declaration of December 2nd 1823. The recent frank comments of the head of the US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, confirm that the United States continues to regard Latin America and the Caribbean as a subaltern zone, a source and supplier of fabulous natural resources. In addition, General Richardson said in her remarks to the Atlantic Council, a NATO-funded think tank, that Latin America and the Caribbean “has a lot to do with our national security and we have to start our play”, as if the peoples of the region will not remember the brutal history of intervention and destabilization by the United States over two centuries.

In relation to the tension between the encouraging message of President Xi Jinping and the permanent interventionist position of the United States, the presidents of Brazil and Argentina announced the day before the summit in Buenos Aires a project for a common currency between the two countries. They claim the initiative will boost regional trade and reduce dependence on the US dollar, perhaps in the style of the European Currency Unit (ECU), introduced in 1979 as an accounting unit for cross-border financial transactions. The ECU was associated with the European Exchange Rate Mechanism that sought to stabilize sharp variations between the different currencies of European countries. In 1999 the ECU was replaced by the single European currency, the Euro.

One has only to look at the economic history of Europe of the last 20 years to understand the futility of the idea that such a common currency will reduce regional dependence on the US dollar. Quite simply, all the corresponding independent financial architecture is lacking, for example a robust payments system, independent insurance institutions and other key financial services, a regional system of rating agencies or a banking system capable of resisting aggressive speculation in international financial and commodity markets. The idea looks like another example of the superficiality and ideological dependence on the West of the region’s social democratic political classes. They seem to hope they can evade facing the implications of the fundamental truth they themselves recognize in relation to environmental issues and other issues, for example, volatile commodity prices or foreign debt, that Western capitalism harms the peoples of the region and the whole world.

The capitalist model of the mythical invisible hand of the free market and its neoliberal fictional corollaries is collapsing. Even so, most governments of the CELAC countries seem to want to apply that same economic model to promote their countries’development. This reality makes especially unconvincing point six of the Final Declaration, which affirms “the importance of prioritizing sustainable economic recovery with a cooperative, inclusive, equitable and solidarity-based approach.” But that economic model already exists in a well advanced form, thanks to the same revolutionary countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of our Americas (ALBA) that so many of the region’s governments attack and disparage without justification. This is the fundamental contradiction of CELAC and the biggest challenge facing Ralph Gonsalves, who now holds the pro tempore presidency of CELAC on behalf of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a member country of ALBA.

As President Comandante Daniel and our Vice President Compañera Rosario said in Nicaragua’s message to the summit:

“The world urgently needs justice and peace… Respectful and Supportive Cooperation. The world needs understanding, empathy and affection. The Better World that we all want to create, urgently needs Respect, Peace, Solidarity and the Ability to Live Together, sharing the Scientific and Technological Development that has cost us all so much…We sing and move in Life and Hope, striving, We Go Forward… Always Further On!”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... d-reality/

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THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF THE VII CELAC SUMMIT

william serafino

31 Jan 2023 , 11:57 a.m.

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More than for its final declaration , the agreements reached or the interventions of presidents and foreign ministers, the specific value of the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Buenos Aires fell on the faithful landscape that it drew on the state of Latin American integration, with its most pressing challenges. The event itself, what he demonstrated, is the fundamental key to thinking about the current geopolitical scenario, with the complexity that unites and separates the region's horizon.

THE CONTEXT AND ITS PARADOXES
In a first reading, the VII Summit strengthened the new balance of power in the region by bringing together almost all the leaders of the left/progressive spectrum, in all its gray scale, who occupy the forefront of continental politics in these moments. The participation of President Lula, who marked the return of Brazil to the Latin American geopolitical scene with his first attendance at an international diplomatic event, not only had a specific weight in giving relevance to the summit, but also expressed the shift towards a more geopolitical where the right is not hegemonic.

It is paradoxical that in a scenario favorable to integration, even more so in the case of a CELAC summit where a good part of the Member States are governed by the left -although this concept is not necessarily a synonym of homogeneity and common criteria-, the president Nicolás Maduro was forced to cancel his attendance given that minimum security conditions for his visit were not guaranteed. The Argentine opposition, activating its usual arms of power , the holy trinity of media-legislative-judicial power, made Maduro's trip the epicenter of a weekly agenda of confrontation against Fernández.

The weakness that Fernández exposed at the Summit regarding the assistance of the Venezuelan president, a continuation of the general fragility of his government in the face of delicate diplomatic situations such as the hijacking of the Venezuelan Emtrasur plane in the middle of last year, or of an internal nature, such as the attempted assassination of Vice President Cristina Fernández or the offensive to harass and demolish the Judiciary against her, reflects that the premise of a Brasilia-Buenos Aires axis, from which the relaunch of integration would orbit, lacks sufficient strength traction on the Argentine side.

Precisely, the widely publicized bilateral meeting between Lula and Alberto in Buenos Aires resulted in the attempt to position a new framework of leadership and management on CELAC centered on both figures, with the Brazilian president being the main actor. But it is difficult for the Argentine government, diminished in its internal political and institutional authority, to lead regional geopolitics together with Brazil, if Fernández's power is permanently challenged at home .

SATURATED RHETORIC AND FRAGMENTED CRITERIA
Above the continental map painted red as a result of the string of electoral defeats of the right in recent times, the scenario of regional integration is not homogeneous. The complexity of the current geopolitical framework lies in the fact that, although the balance of power is favorable to the left, within its ideological and programmatic universe, the divergences of criteria and particular interests limit the horizon of possibility of a renewed institutional architecture of integration and adjusted to the tectonic changes caused by the violent return of the logic of the Cold War in the metabolism of the world economy, its supply chains and sources of strategic resources.

This was clearly perceived in the discursive panorama of the plenary session of the Summit. Gustavo Petro indicated that it was necessary to refloat and update the inter-American human rights system belonging to the OAS, as a prior step to reach a "democratic pact where the right and left do not believe that when they come to power it is to physically eliminate their opponent ".

In a similar vein, Alberto Fernández focused his speech on the need to defend democracy in the region from CELAC, referring to the coup attempt on January 8 in Brasilia. He also condemned, once again, the application of sanctions and blockades against Venezuela and Cuba. Lula, for his part, pointed out that integration must be strengthened to reverse hunger and poverty, and that the region has great potential to contribute to the fight against climate change and produce clean energy.

Gabriel Boric, as was to be expected, attacked Nicaragua again and, in clear alignment with the recommendations of the US think tank Wilson Center (his report on Venezuela, which attempts to outline a new Washington policy towards Venezuela, was the subject of analysis in this forum) , amplified the manipulated narrative of "free elections" in Venezuela, in sync with the petition of the opposition coalition in Mexico.

Luis Arce, on the other hand, pointed out that CELAC must strengthen its place in the construction of a multipolar world and indicated that the organization must open relations with the BRICS, since the change of the international economic axis from the Atlantic to the Pacific implies a reconfiguration of the world economy where Latin America must participate actively.


AMLO, who did not attend the summit, urged CELAC to speak out and condemn the deposition of Pedro Castillo from the presidency of Peru and the widespread repression in the country. Although the chaos and instability of the Andean country appeared as a concern in some speeches, it was not possible to reach a consensus on how the body should address the situation and what institutional devices could be activated to contribute to a peaceful and constitutional solution to the political crisis. in Peru.

THE GOOD AND BAD
The record of speeches in itself is evidence that the relaunch of CELAC suffers from a reinvention of its unity frameworks and its planning instruments. At a rhetorical level, there is a general consensus that the organization should be repowered, but the practical proposals to achieve it are scarce, if not non-existent, to the extent that each country sees in this organizational impulse an opportunity to advance in particular agendas of a political or ideological.

A clear example of this is that the condemnation of coups d'état or attempts to break the constitutional order does not have firm commitments and tools for the body to act. The same lack of practical support, of shared geopolitical options, occurs when other problems of a regional nature are mentioned, such as financial blockades, energy weaknesses or the fragile economic integration of the countries of the region, except for the proposal of a "common currency". ", called "South", which for now only impacts the immediate interests of Brazil and Argentina

For this reason, the illusion of agreement and affinity left by the discursive balance of the event means that, one week after the Summit was held, it has not managed to maintain its international impact one week after its completion, since the base The origin of the fragmentation remains unchanged: the absence of renewed institutional instruments and mechanisms that invigorate the organization's functioning and grant it new mechanisms of geopolitical influence.

The election of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as president pro tempore is perhaps the most important result of the VII Summit. With the country led by Ralph Gonsalves, the Caribbean and the ALBA-Petrocaribe axis acquire geopolitical centrality in the organization's strategic orientations, acting as a counterweight to the classic pattern of placing the pro tempore presidency in countries whose economic and geopolitical power (the case of Argentina or Mexico ) increases internal competition for dominance of the organism.

In this sense, the fact that the Caribbean country is in charge of CELAC keeps alive the sense of historical opportunity to revitalize it, in accordance with its founding spirit: to act as an integration platform that allows the region to act as an autonomous geopolitical bloc, with international incidence and dynamic integration in multipolarity, currently led by the Eurasian axis of power.

A coherent agenda to relaunch CELAC must start from practical factors that originate, finally, in the existing general affinities, beyond their rhetorical coating. A reliable route in this direction could have within its compass the creation of a shared instrument or protocol against coups d'état, where the body is empowered to develop mediations and promote instances of dialogue and negotiation in countries that are affected by institutional crises. .

Economically, the great pending issue in terms of integration since the break with the Spanish empire, CELAC could advance in the configuration of consultation mechanisms where alternatives for commercial exchange and joint investment in strategic areas can explore their viability, allowing to bring together and give strength to initiatives in this regard, such as the "South" or an association of lithium exporting countries , just to give two examples that have generated enthusiasm.

As regards economic blockades, CELAC could well use its negotiating power as a block to expand the credit lines of organizations and financial institutions with the purpose of generating a reliable financing alternative, or speeding up the insertion of the region, through of the organization, within the new architecture of de-dollarization that is gaining more and more ground in Eurasia and the Global South.

The good thing is that everything is yet to be built, and for this there is an invaluable political opportunity.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/lo ... e-la-celac

Google Translator

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Lula Proposes BRICS Currency, but Makes Unfriendly Comments Towards Russia and China
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 31, 2023

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Editorial Comment: The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) praised Lula’s public condemnation of Russia’s “invasion and occupation of Ukraine” – something they claim Jair Bolsonaro would not do. Just prior to Lula’s trip to Argentina, “the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) and the Ukrainian-Brazilian Central Representation (UBCR) appealed to the president to increase support for Ukraine in 2023.” They also “condemned the coup attempt in Brazil on January 8, comparing the act of extremists in the capital to an idea promoted by the criminal regime of Putin.”

Their statements imply that they believe that their attempts to peddle influence were successful. One can only hope that Lula will prove himself immune to this kind political manipulation in future if he is to quash the agenda of the Nazis seeking to Ukrainize Brazil and fulfill his promises to the people who elected him.

Behind the Azov-Brazil Connection: How Neo-Nazis Are Pushing to “Ukrainize” Brazil
–A.V.

Lucas Leiroz

In the midst of the geopolitical transition towards multipolarity and Brazilian social chaos, his priorities should be to pacify the country internally and cooperate with Russia and China for the creation of a polycentric world order.


Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is advancing with his south-south international cooperation projects. However, the direction of these projects seems ambiguous, with unclear intentions. On his latest trip to Argentina and Uruguay, the Brazilian President announced his interest in creating a common currency for Mercosur and the BRICS, replacing the US dollar in international trade. However, at the same time, Lula made unfriendly comments towards Russia and China and showed willingness to align himself with the European Union. The case shows very well the current situation of the Brazilian president, as his government is evidently polarized between two antagonistic political tendencies.

President Lula recently began a trip to Argentina and Uruguay in order to discuss topics of strategic interest. As promised in his electoral campaign, one of his government’s objectives will be to revitalize Mercosur. For this, he showed interest in some bilateral cooperation projects between Brazil and Argentina, such as the building of a gas pipeline to transport shale gas in Argentina. Lula also guaranteed financing for Argentine gas exploration with money from the BNDS – a Brazilian state bank that funds infrastructure and social development initiatives.

Despite this type of dialogue evidently contributing to the improvement of relations between Brazil and Argentina which were very damaged during the Bolsonaro era, there are a number of criticisms against Lula, as the projects seem to be of little interest to Brasilia. The proposed gas pipeline apparently will not pass through the Brazilian territory. So, after the construction, Brazil’s participation in the gas pipeline will end and there will be no more employment opportunities for Brazilian citizens, thus being a short-term cooperation that benefits Argentina more than Brazil.

Obviously, in a country currently affected by so many social and economic problems like Brazil, with historical marks of unemployment and deindustrialization, the initiative to create complex projects that benefit neighboring countries more than the Brazilian population itself would not be welcomed. The political opposition has reacted with fury to the idea of the gas pipeline, which has further worsened the situation of polarization in the country.

However, one of the most interesting points of the events in Argentina was the fact that Lula announced that he plans to create a currency for international trade in Mercosur and the BRICS. The president’s plan appears as another step towards the de-dollarization of the global economy, which is already becoming a trend among emerging powers. In fact, it was previously expected that Brazil would somehow adhere to this trend, since within the BRICS the replacement of the US dollar is advancing significantly.

“If it were up to me, we would always trade with other countries in national currencies, so as not to be dependent on the dollar. Why not make an attempt to create a common currency for MERCOSUR countries or for BRICS countries? (…) I believe that over time, we will come to that. I believe this is necessary because many countries face challenges buying dollars”, he said.

Lula did not provide details about the currency, which makes it difficult to assess whether the project will really benefit the involved countries or whether it has strategic errors. Probably, new discussions about this currency will be made between diplomats and politicians in next few months. However, despite the optimism of this news, at other times Lula showed ambiguity in his alignment with the BRICS nations.


During a press conference in Argentina, Lula was asked by a journalist about his position on Venezuela. As expected, the Brazilian president condemned the sanctions imposed by the US against the country, but, on the other hand, he made hostile comments on Russia to justify his position.

“In the same way that I am against territorial occupation, as Russia did to Ukraine, I am against too much interference in the Venezuelan process”, he stated.

Obviously, Lula’s words are absolutely unsubstantiated. There is no comparison between one situation and another. Venezuela has suffered sanctions due to US interventionism, which does not admit the existence of a sovereign government in Latin America. On the other hand, Russia launched a special military operation to demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine, liberating territories of ethnically Russian population, and reintegrating them into the Federation through internationally recognized referendums. There was no Russian “occupation” of Ukraine. Furthermore, Russia is also a victim of US sanctions, as well as Venezuela, since the collective West has tried to “isolate” Moscow at the global arena.

And there were more controversial comments from Lula. In Uruguay, the president made it clear that his priority is to negotiate with the European Union and sign an international Mercosur-EU agreement. He emphasized that talks with China should only take place after signing an agreement with the EU, which is absolutely irrational, since China has a much larger economic involvement in Mercosur than the EU.

“It is urgent and extremely important for Mercosur to reach an agreement with the EU (…) We will step up our discussions with the EU and sign this agreement so that we can then discuss a deal between China and Mercosur”, he said.

There is only one way to explain Lula’s ambiguous positions: he is under political pressure from several groups. Some of his team’s members demand an alignment with the EU and the West, as well as criticism against the BRICS. On the other hand, he does not want to ignore his past and try to carry out projects of south-south cooperation, but he seems to make mistakes in the strategic evaluation of these projects.

In fact, in the midst of the geopolitical transition towards multipolarity and Brazilian social chaos, his priorities should be to pacify the country internally and cooperate with Russia and China for the creation of a polycentric world order.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... and-china/

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CELAC and the Peruvian Rebellion
JANUARY 30, 2023

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Peruvians stay mobilized. Photo: Aldair Mejia/EPA.

By Ángel Guerra Cabrera – Jan 25, 2023

Regarding the vigorous Peruvian rebellion, I believe it is essential to underline the decisive role of the peoples and their political and social struggles in the gestation and advancement of progressive governments. In the same way, this progress was indispensable in generating a network of regional and sub-regional organizations, among them CELAC, which sought the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. The emergence of Hugo Chávez, the first cycle of progressive governments, and the aforementioned network during the transition from the 20th to the 21st century had much to do with the Caracazo and, in general, a cycle of strong Latin American and Caribbean popular resistance against neoliberal policies. Through multiform popular mobilizations, these now managed to impose their hegemony through suffrage. Something unthinkable, with few exceptions, a few years earlier. The role of the armed movements and patriotic military movements in making it possible for revolutionary and progressive organizations to reach the government by electoral means has not yet been discussed in depth.

But the revolutionary, democratic and progressive forces face new and serious challenges today. The most important of them is the rise of the extreme right and neofascism, ready to use all means to overthrow or disregard the victories of the progressive forces. We have recently seen this in Brazil and Argentina with ominous events such as the attempted assassination of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the attacks against democracy by the judicial sector allied with Macri. Or, in the days prior to the 7th CELAC Summit, the provocations and acts of violence against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prepared by the political forces linked to former Argentinian President Macri and his Miami cronies, always associated with the US and Israeli embassies. It backfired on them as they were unable to achieve their goal of blowing up the meeting. And although President Maduro rightly refrained from traveling, the Venezuelan and Bolivarian presence at the summit was very active.

Meanwhile, in Peru, following political demand, the only popular movement mobilized on a national scale in the country’s entire history, as Hector Béjar, one of the most lucid intellectuals and social fighters in the country, described it, continues with the greatest strength. And he added: “We are in a process of dismissing the old system and forming a new one. And most likely… if this movement persists and grows, the demand for a Constituent Assembly and a new Constitution will continue to grow until it becomes hegemonic.”

In other words, the extreme right-wing parliamentary-military-media dictatorship fully installed in the Andean country after the coup d’état against the constitutional president Pedro Castillo has closed the political paths. But the fact of great political notoriety is that the creative Peruvian popular movement is demonstrating, with courage and intelligence, that despite the ferocious police and military repression of Mrs. Boluarte, it can reopen those paths and eventually impose its agenda through mass mobilization. After the defeat of the regional extreme right in its attempt to abort the CELAC summit in Buenos Aires, what could be another great defeat for it is brewing in Peru. This defeat could happen if the popular movement, as pointed out before, were to succeed in making its demands for the establishment of a Constituent Assembly and the drafting of a new Constitution to revoke the Fujimori Constitution currently in force hegemonic. It must be considered that the Quechuas and Aymara, fundamental protagonists of the Peruvian rebellion together with students, workers, small businesspeople and more and more regions and layers of the population that join them, cannot have failed to take note of the resounding victory of their Bolivian brothers against the coup and the dictatorship that tried to cut their emancipation process short.

The 7th CELAC Summit can be described as historic. The Argentinian presidency continued the path of reviving Latin-Caribbean unity and integration so brilliantly initiated by Mexico and, with the very important reincorporation of Lula’s Brazil, relaunched a very promising new stage of work. With the election of St. Vincent and the Grenadines as the new president pro tempore, this responsibility falls on the English-speaking Caribbean for the first time. Its experienced prime minister, the capable Ralph Gonsalves, will surely give it new momentum. The condemnations, reiterated in several documents, of the criminal blockade of Cuba and the demand that Washington exclude Cuba from its spurious and harmful list of countries allegedly promoting terrorism, another terrible turn of the blockade, were very notable at the summit.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0001.html


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Peruvian Congress Evades Advancing the Elections Again

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Peruvian soldiers head towards the places where people are protesting, Jan. 31, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @sinardailymy

Published 1 February 2023

On Tuesday, the police brutally repressed protesters who had come to Lima from different regions of the country.


Once again, the Peruvian Congress will try to meet on Wednesday to debate a bill to advance general elections to October.

The current legislature was to end on January 31. However, due to the intense and massive protests against President Dina Boluarte, Congress President Jose Williams decided to extend the current period of legislative sessions until February 10.

Over the last week, he has not been able to set up a plenary session to debate a bill whose most obvious consequence would be the end of the mandate for Boluarte and the legislators.

On Monday Williams postponed the parliamentary debate until the following day. On Tuesday, he again adjourned the morning parliamentary meeting to the afternoon.

However, it did not happen either because the legislative benches did not reach a consensus on the issues to be discussed. Faced with this third failure, the Congress President then proposed holding a plenary meeting today.


The tweet reads, "This image of the protests in Peru. It brings back memories of all the infamies that the Colombian right wing committed in 2021." The banner reads, "The State rules, the police kill, the press lies."

The bill to advance the general elections is not unanimously supported by right-wing legislators who control the parliamentary majority, which called for elections in 2024 and dismissed President Pedro Castillo on December 7.

As of that date, thousands of Peruvians began to take to the streets to demand the resignation of Boluarte, the holding of early elections in 2023, the establishment of a constituent assembly, and the release of Castillo, who is currently imprisoned.

For the bill to be approved, the favorable vote of 87 out of 130 lawmakers is required. Even if this were to happen, the decision of the plenary must be put to a vote again in the next legislature, since it implies constitutional reforms.

On Tuesday, thousands of people again took over downtown Lima, from where they tried to get closer to the Congress building. Once again, the police brutally repressed protesters who had come from different regions of the country.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... intensify/

Protests and repression in Peru’s capital intensify
January 31, 2023 Peoples Dispatch

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Mobilization in Lima, January 28, 2023. Photo: Juan Zapata / Wayka

55-year-old Víctor Santisteban Yacsavilca was declared dead on Saturday, January 28, after he was shot in the head with a pellet gun by the National Police of Peru. Yacsavilca is the first protester to die in Peru’s capital Lima since the protests against the coup began in December. Videos of him being shot show him standing with a group of journalists, medical brigade members, and other protesters and falling to the ground immediately when police begin shooting at the group. Subsequent videos show a large pool of blood on the ground where Yacsavilca fell.

His death occurred on one of the bloodiest nights to date in Peru’s capital. January 28 began with a mass march in the center of the city with traditional dances, songs, and chants, but after a couple hours, the events turned ugly. Once night fell, police ramped up their repression of the protests by shooting tear gas and pellet guns at protesters, press, human rights defenders, and medical brigades. Several people were rushed to the hospital with grave injuries, a large number of them cranial, including Yacsavilca’s.

Videos on social media have shown that police aimed tear gas canisters and pellets at people’s bodies, namely heads and chests, suggesting an intent to wound.

The night also saw a record number of attacks against journalists. Two journalists from Wayka Peru, Kevin Huamaní and Valía Aguirre, were attacked by police officers when they were recording the arrest of a citizen. The media outlet denounced that their equipment was taken and reported that the journalists were subsequently brought to the emergency room at Grau Hospital. A journalist from Comunicambio, Lucciano Balvin Ñahuis, was arrested while covering the protests, and remains in detention until today, according to the media outlet. A Spanish journalist from El Salto Diario was hit in the face with a projectile by the Police, narrowly missing his eye.

Following the violent repression, many human rights organizations, political activists, journalists, and members of Congress went to the hospitals and police stations to monitor the status of those injured and detained. At the Grau Hospital, where many of the severely injured were brought, police attacked those waiting outside with batons and tear gas. They also arbitrarily detained some of the people who were hospitalized.

The events of January 28 have been widely condemned by human rights organizations within Peru and internationally. On January 29, a vigil was held where Yacsavilca was shot, to honor the more than 60 fatal victims of the violent repression in the country. Several major marches are planned this week to continue demanding Dina Boluarte’s resignation, elections this year, and a constituent process.

Early elections

On Monday, January 30, the Peruvian Congress will be voting on a bill to hold early elections in October 2023. The bill proposed by Hernando Guerra García of the Popular Force party was voted upon on January 28 but did not receive sufficient votes to be passed. The session was suspended and reconvened for January 30.

In its current form, the bill proposes that the first round of elections be held in October 2023, with a potential second round to be held in December 2023. Accordingly, the new head of state would be sworn in on January 1, 2024, and finish their mandate on July 28, 2029, while parliamentarians would begin their mandates on December 31, 2023, and conclude on July 26, 2029.

Boluarte’s bills for early elections and constitutional reform

On January 29, in an address to the nation, de-facto President Boluarte requested the Congress to approve the bill presented by legislator Guerra García. She also announced that if the parliament does not reach a consensus to advance the general elections to 2023, the government will immediately present two urgent bills: the first for the elections to be held in October and the second seeking the “total reform” of the Constitution through the Legislature, instead of a Constituent Assembly as demanded by the majority of Peruvians.

“I announce that if the consensus in Congress does not prosper to advance the elections to 2023, the Executive will immediately present two bills, the first to debate a constitutional reform so that the general elections are held inevitably this year, 2023, the first round in October and the second, if applicable, in December,” said Boluarte.

Regarding the second bill, Boluarte said that “I am proposing that the next elected Congress entrust the Constitution Commission with the total reform of the 1993 Constitution. This bill fits perfectly into the expectation of the other sector of Congress that also wants to make political reforms through a constituent assembly.”

For many of the protesters on the streets, Boluarte’s proposal falls short, as she still refuses to resign. Lucía Alvites of the New Peru party said, “The exit from this crisis Ms. Dina Boluarte is only possible with your resignation, because no one with your political responsibility and almost 60 Peruvians killed, can continue in office. Stop the political acrobatics to try and make this illegitimate Congress solve this. Resign and face justice.”

Source: Peoples Dispatch

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... intensify/

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DEMOCRACY, PERU, UNCATEGORIZED
Peru: “It was a feast for the police!” – TAKE ACTION
January 26, 2023

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At least 60 protestors have been killed by police and military in Peru in the aftermath of the US supported coup that has plunged the country into martial law. Many more have been injured, thousands arrested, and there are even reports of forced disappearances. The Alliance for Global Justice’ Eduardo Garcia spoke with people on the ground in Lima: “Last night after our call I had a convo with a couple of comrades that participated in the National March and they said it was a feast for the police. They mentioned it took them over seven hours to get back home while they waited for police to stop chasing demonstrators, and saw many injured on their way. They have also heard of a few cases of what could be forced disappearances-according to what they said, there’s been testimonies of cars picking up demonstrators.”

We also spoke with George Ygarza, a Peruvian-US-er, solidarity activist, and candidate for PhD who is studying issues relating to mining and resistance in Peru. He told us that the level of police militarization that is being seen in the Andean and Amazonian provinces outside of Lima is unprecedented. Police militarization is one of the “security” measures being exported by the US to other countries, along with border militarization and mass incarceration.

We need to take urgent action now to show our solidarity with Peruvian workers and with indigenous and farming communities to stop the repression and to change the US policies that are behind it.

THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO:
Send an email to the Peruvian government demanding an end to the state violence and in soliderity with the people’s demands
https://afgj.salsalabs.org/crisisinperu ... index.html

Send an email to the US Congress to demand a halt to all aid to Peru’s coup government, especially for the military and police, and that Biden administration’s support for the coup be investigated.
https://afgj.salsalabs.org/HaltAidtoPer ... index.html

Contribute to the Mutual Aid for Victims of Peruvian State Violence Fund
https://www.gofundme.com/f/8gdsm-suppor ... a-massacre

https://afgj.org/peru-it-was-a-feast-fo ... ake-action
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: South America

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 02, 2023 2:39 pm

The Game Goes On: Peru's President Seeks Elections in October

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Indigenous dancer challenges the Peruvian police, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @lado_mx

Published 2 February 2023 (1 hours 20 minutes ago)

"By constitutional mandate, the bill must be processed urgently," Prime Minister Otarola said.


On Wednesday night, President Dina Boluarte sent a bill to the Peruvian Congress proposing the holding of early general elections in October. This initiative emerged after parliamentarians refused to hold elections in December.

"By constitutional mandate, the bill must be processed urgently," Prime Minister Alberto Otarola said, specifying that the first round of elections is expected to take place on Oct. 8.

The Ministers Council promoted this bill "in correspondence with the message of President Dina Boluarte, who warned on Sunday about the need to seek consensus in the country," Otarola said, emphasizing that Boluarte is not going to resign.

On Wednesday afternoon, however, parliamentarians refused for the second time to advance general elections to December, despite the fact that the Executive branch maintained negotiations with them for three days.


The tweet reads, "Yes we can, yes we can! Thousands of Peruvians firmly resist the repression in the capital city's downtown. When an injured person passes by, everyone applauds the brother who fell in the fight... Long live Peru, damn it! Long live the people!"

As a result of this new rejection, Congress President Jose Williams called a plenary meeting on Thursday to discuss once again the advancement of the elections and the holding of a popular consultation on a constituent assembly.

This new bill was presented by the legislator of the Free Peru party, Jaime Quito Sarmiento, who is trying to provide a way out of a political crisis that worsened on Dec. 7, 2022, when Congress removed Pedro Castillo from the presidency.

Since then, the Boluarte regime has kept Peru in a chaotic situation that has left 65 dead and hundreds injured. The population, however, continues to take to the streets and block roads.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/The ... -0001.html

Peruvian Judge Keeps Criminal Trial Against Pedro Castillo

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Peru's former President Pedro Castillo, Jan. 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @peruenlanoticia

Published 1 February 2023 (18 hours 46 minutes ago)

On Jan. 17, former President Pedro Castillo requested the charges against him be quashed because his dismissal occurred without a prior political trial having been carried out.

On Wednesday, the Preliminary Investigations Supreme Court decided to declare a petition made by former president Pedro Castillo as "unfounded", which means that he will continue to be subject to legal proceedings for rebellion.

Previously, during a hearing before Judge Juan Carlos Checkley on January 17, Castillo argued that his right to defense had been violated since his dismissal and detention occurred without the prior political trial having been carried out.

"My right to defense and evidence was violated by Congress... Why do I have to flee the country? Why would I have to leave the country? Where is the evidence that I want to leave? I have not killed , robbed or raped anyone," he said at the hearing.

“If I have to render accounts, I will always do it here. I have never even had the slightest idea of leaving the country because I assumed the most important and most sacred mandate granted by the people."


The tweet reads, "Wives and relatives of the people injured by the repression were attacked by the police outside the Grau Hospital in Lima last weekend."

On Dec. 7, 2022, Congress removed Castillo after he attempted to establish an emergency government, convene a constituent assembly, and dissolve Congress. Currently, he is being held in the Barbadillo prison near Lima.

Since then, thousands of Peruvians began to take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, the closure of Congress, the call for early general elections, and the establishment of a constituent assembly, and the release of Castillo.

So far, human rights defenders have recorded 65 people dead as a result of the repression unleashed by the Boluarte regime, which has the support of business and political elites.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0011.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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