WINTER 2019-20 PUBLISHED BY MARIN INTERFAITH TASK FORCE ON THE AMERICAS “The US Appears to be Destined by Providence to Plague the Americas with Misery in the Name of Freedom.” -Simón Bolívar, 1829 LATIN AMERICA: 2019, Year of Revolt of the Dispossessed was also arrested months later on a ficti- tious assault charge. Colombia receives more US military aid than any country in the hemisphere. It leads the world in cocaine production and extra-judicial killings of journalists, union leaders and environmentalists. The government has repeatedly broken the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC. Death squads targeted former FARC militants, and some of them have returned to the guerrilla struggle. But rightist President Iván Duque‟s party suffered defeats in October‟s regional and municipal elections. Left-leaning Claudia López became the first woman and first lesbian mayor of Bogotá. On entering office in 2017, Ecuador‟s President Lenín Moreno turned sharply to the right, betraying his own party. He had been vice president under leftist Rafael Correa who campaigned for him. Moreno jailed his own vice president and put out an arrest warrant for Correa Bolivians fight back against coup repression. Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt (now in exile). Moreno delivered Wik- ileaks‟ founder Julian Assange from asylum in Ecuador‟s London embassy By Roger Harris and Roger Stoll, Task coup failed. Massive popular demons- Force Board members trations rallied in support of the Maduro continued on page 2 government. In October, despite US ire, In 2018, National Security Advisor the legitimate government of Nicolás John Bolton invoked the 1823 Monroe Maduro was voted onto the UN Human Doctrine, claiming all territory south of Rights Council. CONTENTS the Rio Grande as the US “backyard”; in In Washington, North American soli- 2019, the dispossessed revolted against darity activists dubbed “Embassy Pro- this barbarism of imperialism and neo- tectors” blocked an embassy takeover by Latin America 2, 3 liberalism. Guaidó‟s collaborators. With the permis- 3, 10 The Andean Nations: US sanctions sion of the Venezuelan government and Bolivia against Venezuela began in 2004 and in defense of international law, they pro- Haiti 4 now constitute a total blockade. In 2017- tected the embassy for 37 days, until Cuba 5 2018, sanctions took 40,000 lives. In expelled by the US Secret Service. For Honduras 6 January obscure Venezuelan politician their good work, Margaret Flowers, Juan Guaidó, acting under White House Kevin Zeese, Adrienne Pine and David Mexico 7, 9 tutelage, declared himself Venezuela’s Paul are being tried on bogus charges. Action Alert 12 They face stiff penalties. Journalist Max president and was recognized by the US and a handful of allied nations. Yet the Blumenthal, who covered the events, L A T I N A M E R I C A continued from front page Chileans launched a general strike Cuba were always bipartisan projects, against austerity. Over a million in the and the blockade continues to be into the hands of the British police. He streets chanted “neoliberalism was born tightened. Yet Cubans show no sign of took Ecuador out of ALBA, the regional in Chile and will die here.” Police killed capitulating. In April, President Miguel organization founded by Venezuela and two dozen and jailed or disappeared Diaz Canel presided over ratification of Cuba, recognized the US puppet thousands. Right-wing billionaire Presi- the new constitution, in a strikingly “President” Guaidó, and put a US dent Sebastián Piñera suspended the rule democratic process involving virtually airbase on the Galápagos. He forgave of law with a “state of exception,” under every Cuban adult, including 780,000 $4.5 billion of corporate debt, then took the constitution fashioned by former suggestions, 9,600 proposals and a $10 billion International Monetary dictator Augusto Pinochet. Despite the 133,000 community meetings. Fund (IMF) loan, requiring austeri- Puerto Rico and Cuba were seized ty measures. The indigenous CO- by the US in the 1898 Spanish- NAIE organization led mass pro- American war; Puerto Rico remains a tests, forcing Moreno to rescind poverty-ridden colony. Hurricane some of the measures and tempo- Maria worsened its plight. Mass rarily flee the capital. protest and a general strike forced In April 2019, Peru’s former governor Ricardo Roselló to resign. President Alan García shot himself In Haiti, a determined social move- before he could be arrested for ment brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide corruption. Former presidents briefly to the presidency after three Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro decades of brutal US-backed Duvalier Toledo also faced prison. Former dictatorships. A US-authored coup President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, ousted and exiled Aristide in 2004. ex-US citizen and ex-IMF official, Since then, US-backed presidents have resigned in the face of corruption imposed socio-economic conditions and election fraud allegations. even less humane than under the dicta- The current moderate-right torships. President Martín Vizcarra Youth led uprising in Chile. Photo: Luis Hidalgo After the 2010 earthquake, billions dissolved Congress; Congress in disaster relief and Venezuelan Pet- impeached the executive. While elites repression, the people remain in the rocaribe funds nearly all disappeared squabbled, mass anti-corruption protests streets. into the pockets of corrupt politicians. decried the dysfunctionality of decadent Argentina’s President Mauricio Protests continued, calling for a new neoliberalism. Macri imposed textbook neoliberal republic of justice and democracy, with Bolivia boasted the hemisphere‟s economics to make payments on its $56 the chant: chavire chodyè a (“overturn greatest economic growth and greatest billion IMF loan and the economy failed the cauldron”). For months the people of reduction in poverty. Tragically, despite spectacularly, with 55% inflation, food Haiti have been in perpetual protest -- or because of -- this success, a US- shortages and capital flight. Even the against the hated US-sponsored Presi- backed military coup ousted President middle class joined the uprisings of the dent Jovenel Moïse. Evo Morales in November after he won dispossessed. Central America: In Honduras, pro- re-election the month before, followed In October, center-left President Al- tests have continued against the corrupt, by the illegal government launching a berto Fernández and Vice-President narco-state of US-backed President Juan wave of repression against the indige- Cristina Fernández were elected. They Orlando Hernández, unindicted co- nous and poor, killing many. will take Argentina out of the regional conspirator in his brother‟s US cocaine The Southern Cone: Brazil has the anti-Venezuela Lima Group, tipping the smuggling conviction. One sign of hope largest economy in Latin America. It‟s hemispheric balance of power leftward. is the release from prison of political the “B” of the BRICS (with Russia, In- Daniel Martínez, presidential activist Edwin Espinal, aided by an in- dia, China, and South Africa) which candidate of Uruguay‟s ruling center-left ternational solidarity campaign. forms a counter-weight to US imperial- party, Frente Amplio (FA), won a In Guatemala, the dispossessed rose ism. Jair Bolsonaro is president solely plurality in the October election but lost in protest against the rightist, neoliberal because of the 2016 parliamentary coup the runoff, ending FA‟s fifteen years in rule of President Jimmy Morales. Tens ousting leftist President Dilma Roussef office. of thousands marched on Guatemala and the fraudulent imprisonment of al- The Caribbean: The 1959 Cuban City, including the indigenous Xinkas. lied predecessor, Lula Ignacio da Silva, Revolution ousted US-backed dictator Scars remain from the US-authored dirty who would have run and beaten Bolso- Fulgencio Batista and in 1961 declared wars of the 1980s, which targeted the naro in the presidential race. itself socialist. Under President indigenous, taking 200,000 lives. Bolsonaro dismantled social welfare Kennedy, the US invaded Cuba but El Salvador, another victim of US programs, cut government jobs, lavished failed to overthrow its government. dirty wars, saw the first hundred days of favors on multinational corporations, Kennedy then imposed an embargo (now President Nayib Bukele‟s administration and blamed everyone for the Amazon a blockade), intending to starve the bring a shift to the US-favored neoliber- fires except his anti-environmental poli- Cuban people into renouncing their own al right, away from the politics of the cies. Inevitably, the popular sectors rose. government and submitting to US previous FMLN administration. Lula is now out of prison. The struggle domination. continues. US regime-change operations against continued on page 3 2 ● Marin Task Force on the Americas ● Box 925, Larkspur, CA 94977 ● 415-578-7930 ● www.taskforceamericas.org ● Winter 2019-20 L A T I N A M E R I C A continued from page 2 After decades of right-wing rule and from reaching the US southern border or serial election theft, left-of-center An- face tariffs that will wreck the Mexican Bukele seeks to privatize public health, drés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) economy. Earlier, carefully phrased water and utility services. He‟s slashed became president last December. His threats issued from the US-dominated public employee jobs and closed the MORENA party swept local and region- IMF, warned AMLO not to resist ne- Cuban-sponsored vi- oliberal privatization. As nineteenth sion clinics of Misión century Mexican President Porfirio Milagro which treated Díaz lamented: “Poor Mexico, so far those who couldn‟t from God and so close to the United otherwise afford it. States.” Invariably the US A New Year’s message: 2019 corporate press ignores brought a hard right turn to Brazil and US imperial practices Ecuador and now the Bolivia coup, yet that produce the repres- the resistance to imperialist sion, violence and in- neoliberalism grew. Regime-change humane governance operations failed in Venezuela, Cuba that drive the asylum and Nicaragua. US-preferred seekers out of Guate- candidates suffered losses in Mexico, mala, Honduras and El Colombia and Bolivia (hence the Salvador.