Dear friends,
As I have mentioned to you, we are working on the creation of a Latin American Saker Blog. The person in charge is organizing an multi-country team of volunteers (if you are interested, please email me) and I will tell you that from my exchanges with this person I have very high hopes for the Latin American Saker Blog. Not only will this add a huge audience to our community, but Latin America is, I strongly believe, extremely important for the future of the anti-imperialist resistance and even the future of the planet. It is no coincidence that Russia is placing such a huge and sustained efforts into developing ties with Latin America.
The Latin American Saker Blog is not quite ready yet, but the folks working on it have sent me a first Latin American SITREP and I hope that this will become a regular feature of my blog. In other words, there will be a Latin American Saker blog and a regular Latin American SITREP in English on this blog. In other words, this will be a lot of work for the volunteers who will be working on this and I want to express my enthusiasm and my deepest gratitude to all of them.
Finally, I want to add this: the authors of this SITREP are all local people, many with strong political views and active participants in the political processes in their countries. To those of you might not share their political opinions I will say this: their voice is not the voice you agree with, their voice is the voice of the local anti-imperialist movement. Yes, it is clearly politically defined, and I find that a huge plus and not an issue because I don't believe that there is such thing as "objectivity": objectivity is a delusion which prevents people from seeing the truth. When the person in charge of the Latin American Saker blog "warned" me that "I am a committed Chavista" my reply was "fantastic! this is exactly what I was looking for" :-)
I hope that you will find this first SITREP interesting.
Cheers,
The Saker
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Some caveats, greetings and pointers: foreword
Hopefully this will be the first of many Latin America SITREPS. The Saker has given us a valuable opportunity to speak out and offer you our view on the current stories developing in our continent.
Mainstream MSM, as we all know, have done a well known job on misinforming, deforming and distorting the last 15 years of Latin American awakening, it’s key importance and fundamental role in the constitution of the Global South (a non-geographical, global entity) and the negation of the historical subject that has been the central nerve of the Latin American epoch change: the poor of the earth, as Cuban patriot and apostle José Martí once said.
Latin America’s dynamics are deeply entwined, and each and every situation in any of its countries have an influential effect on the rest of nations. This has been this way for centuries: the actual process of spiritual re-unification, the establishing of common political views on trade, foreign relationships, military and security cooperation; the resurgence of continental common history and present struggles will always be related to the first independence cycle and its postponed (betrayed) liberation project. And also the common (and global) struggle for hope, dignity, equality and justice in our own terms and means to get there, no different from people at any other place in the world.
Its a complex, unbalanced process that implies different and mixed local issues and situations; it’s not the same stage of struggle in places like México, Honduras or Colombia (with governments fully aligned with the Anglozionist imperial dictat), than Brazil and Argentina, or the Alba nations on the other side, but even at this level, for several reasons, we’re dealing with a continental nation that due to British and north American interest’s made common cause with local “caudillos” with monetarial self interest back stabbed
Libertadore’s political, unified projects through all 19th century.
Former liberation generals became local warlords/landowner under separate, oligarch “independent” small , bipartisan (conservative/liberal “representative” democracy) and mutilated small parcels of nations instead of the Latin American imagined community that promised land reforms: same nations that decades after would become natural resources suppliers to central capitalist powers (mainly US and Great Britain). Our abundances still works as a blessing and as a curse.
Over these subjects and their meaning in Latin America’s present historical moment we will constantly find ourselves in the need to come back to the place where everything started (once more).
But for the time being, let us give a few “operational” (long) caveats over some terms, factors and concepts that will always come forth:
-Saker’s AngloZionist characterization works with same accuracy like each territory that embodies imperial resistance (Russia, Syria, Zimbabwe), but alongside to the imperial, deep-state 1%ers hegemon there will always be another key player and permanent subordinated ally: regional oligarchical puppets, with their own narrative, it’s historical background (direct heirs of unproductive spanish “hidalgos” turned into criollo local elite with same parasitic unproductive features that “evolved” throughout centuries and became contemporary middle-high class political and economic establishment), the passive accomplice of national hand over till this day. The ruling class that still today claim themselves owners of land and lives across the continent.
-There’s no such thing as underdevelopment. Local oligarchies truly weren't able to become themselves a productive class able to go through capitalist bourgeoise revolutions, but these didn’t meant at all that in those places where foreign interests need to build up the basic necessary infrastructure to take Latin America’s natural resources didn’t took place, being itself a “capitalist reform” that only focused on extraction, setting aside manufactural/industrial building, land reform or majority centered social policies.
So, in a way, peripheral capitalism did developed extraction routes that would ease their way over metropolitan power bases. So a traumatized, malformated, totally dependent version of capitalism did what meant to be done. We had anti development. They told us that our destiny would be only as providers, as mines -never as nations. From oligarchical republics in the 19th century up to the end of the 20th century’s neoliberal reforms (and foreign debts) this was supposed to be that way. Until Hugo Chávez at first won the 1998 venezuelan elections, and a few years later Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da silva in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina got into office and started a common process of taking our countries and people out from neoliberal hell. The first major common step was taken in Mar del Plata (Argentina) in 2005 where the IVth Summit of the Americas took place and this three key players stood together in a common ground against US’s Latin America Free Trade Agreement.
These political movements lead by Chávez, Lula and/or Nestor Kirchner (and Cristina Fernández); Evo Morales, Rafael Correa or Salvador Sánchez Cerén express a new paradigm on Latin America’s road to real liberation and independence: these are all broad base, grass-root movements, that implied massive popular mobilizations that involved political formations with a different standpoint and different social features: along with conventional political organizations such as Trade Unions (Brazil), traditional left parties (with the trotskyist exception) indigenous movements, military popular, sovereignist participation and leadership (Chávez), slum organized communities and common citizenship fed up with political decay consolidated electoral means to reach power without violence: real democratic revolutions, peaceful democratic uprisings. An epochal change. (And also Salvador Allende’s historical triumph: peaceful electoral revolution).
Since mid 20th century, the Latin American revolutionary paradigm was that of the Cuban Revolution, one of the major turning points of the past century, worldwide: broad based national liberation fronts alongside armed movements that would seize power by military means setting conditions for radical (and swift) political and economical transformations. Actual political paradigm evolved from the Cuban experience to this phase, and each and every of the Latin American countries will always be in gratitude and debt for what the Cuban Revolution has accomplished in the past and in present time giving expertise in various urgent fields of human necessity like health care programs, tackling illiteracy and analphabetism and a large (and grateful etcetera). The 2004 Cuba-Venezuela Cooperation Agreement synthesise that historical continuity, confirming Cuba’s central renewed role in actual events.
For those who might find some estrangement on what is said immediately above (mostly due to the 50 year old classical demonization spin), Fidel Castro’s Cuba controversy can be summed up in two major global facts (both African related):
-Angola’s 1987 Kuito Canavale battle where Cuban and Angola’s People Liberation movement troops (and armor) gave the decisive military blow to Apartheid South Africa brought the South African dictatorship first major strategic defeat setting up the bases for the whole southern Africa liberation (Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe) and Apartheid’s definitive collapse.
-On past october the 2nd, a Cuban medical brigade (165 doctors) arrived at Freetown International Airport in Sierra Leone to counter the Ebola spread in West Africa. You can simply make an obvious contrast with western militarized search and destroy “response” to “fight” the Ebola virus.
At the present time we’re going through a new wave of interconnected oligarchical restoration attempts that establishes a common ground on Anglozionism’s methods mixed with local puppet replicas. The restoration movements from within can be summarized in two major trends (with their local differences) that collide and can be outlined as follows: traditional bypartisan former political establishments (conservative and socialdemocrat parties, trade unions aristocracy: real politik players) and emergent financial related turbocapitalism, neofascist anti-political movements globally connected with other forms of factic power (media power, Chicago Boys/Wall Street sharks, “colored” revolutions, Soro’s Open Society Foundation “global citizenship” movements and NGO’s of various sort, mostly NED/USAID trained and funded, but also EU sponsored) that also describes the organical entwinement of Latin American historical ruling class (the exact opposite model of unity) with the AngloZionist hegemon (as serfs).
Albeit, these apparent trends or political tendencies share the same target and thay can go without much trouble the way the one of the two has the opportunity or more favorable conditions to upfront de liberation camp.
It can be said the same, partially, about the inner composition of the resistant movements, none of them lacking of all sort of political contradictions.
In any case, both share same general wise political agenda: on one side as part of the multipolar option (the BRICS) and on the other the Washington Consensus on steroids with its shock and awe doctrine, disaster capitalism, etc.
The oligarchs have also learned from their several and continuous tactical defeats, adjusting themselves to the actual context, mimetizing “grass-root” popular movements (astroturfing), hypocritical “progressive” speech, fake social concerns, developing copycat strategies on how they should place themselves in the political spectre with a “pueblo” (people) disguise. And parallel to that, all out media, economical and irregular warfare. And this is where we stand right now.
One final pointer to readers from other latitudes: Latin American conservatism, conventional and generally speaking, cannot be automatically associated to other forms of conservative stances going on in other places: it has nothing to do with traditionalist conservatives views, or any other form that also opposes Empire and oppression: it is mostly related to economically based status quo combined with fake catholic morals (more or less similar to franquismo) and has nothing to do with real spiritual preservation of the best of people’s soul. There’s also a popular (grass-root) form that appeals to demagogical popes such as John Paul II and the actual narcotic effective (Latin American) Francisco the First.
But also, throughout history, another form of christianity have had fertile ground taking an indispensable and indisputable role in people’s struggle for justice, freedom, equality, dignity and nature’s rights: from Paraguayan Jesuit Missions to Liberation Theologist such as Camilo Torres Restrepo, Elder Cámara, Leonardo Boff as frontline figures that represent a myriad of anonymous slum and campesino based priests and nuns that are part of common and poor people sufferings and struggles.
Faith will always be related with political struggles in Latin America, there’s no such separation between spirituality and concret, on the ground, justice. If, as it's sometimes said, God died in the West, this, on the contrary, is the land of magical realism, and against to what is usually conceived as a tropical dependence metaphysics it actually stands for the proper opposite, being the essence of every real form of cultural and spiritual source of dignity, identity and resistance. We’ve learned self respect.
And at the present moment we stand on the common struggle for time: time that needs to be used in reinvention. Left/right, liberal/conservative paradigm are insufficient.
Hopefully, there will also be time to address all of these subjects and topics. But at this point we urgently need to get into business: the Latin America SITREP based on hardcore direct facts in present time. This delivery will be Venezuelan and Brazilian situation centered. In the near future we will send another SITREP based on Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Venezuela: political violence surge
Throughout 2014, Bolivarian Venezuela has been going through all front destabilization actions. The other side of hegemonic anglozionist MSM that happened at the first trimester of the year specially after the february 12th opposition “La Salida” (The Exit) mobilization lead by political figures Leopoldo López (a fully branded oligarchichal-anglozionist pet), María Corina Machado (our very own Yulia Timoshenko “criollo” version) and Antonio Ledezma, one of (many) Caraca’s mayors commonly known as “the vampire” or “Grandpa Monster”, a former pre-chavismo establishment well known figure, can almost be described, generally speaking, the exact opposite way: where CNN and co. say that Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship” it’s brutally repressing angelical freewilling students you can perfectly say violent colored movement attempts composed by a student cannon fodder facade, infiltrated with organized crime elements and colombian paramilitary trademarked “sicarios” (hit-men), execute a well prepared and designed regime change attempt based on political violence, informational (remember Venezuela already had a postmodern US supported coup d’ etat in 2002 with a spurious 47 hour dictatorship defeated by main street, bringing back al Comandante Chávez to retake he’s constitutional mandate) and economical warfare, with irregular warfare tactics involving selective murders, an artificial increase of abductions and common robbery, using organized crime and several sort of foreign assets.
Where the MSM spin talks about the economical crisis you could perfectly say the artificially enforced economical tension, part of a multidimensional action that implies productive sabotage, planified massive smuggling of basic goods (ranging from beauty articles to basic alimentary rubles of the -deformed- Venezuelan diet) through the Venezuela-Colombia border straight to Colombian supermarkets, prize speculation, controlled hoarding, currency devaluation, excessive food imports opposed to a consolidated agro productive apparatus, most of them hypertrophied developments of real economical blind spots or weaknesses.
Venezuela’s economic activity up to this day still is 95% oil centered and dependent. Since middle 20th century, oil revenues has always been the central nerve of Venezuela’s well known wealth (also having the largest crude oil reserves in the world). And oligarchical and anglozionism is still strong on the financial and economic front.
So both situations embody a conflict frame where the liquid venezuelan war takes place.
The past october the 1rst, chavista, Socialist United Party of Venezuela (PSUV, in spanish, Chavez founded party) 27 year old MP Robert Serra, and his companion and assistant María Herrera, were brutally murdered in their home in Caraca’s locality of La Pastora, a working class neighborhood (called barrios) in one of chavismo’s most well known political bastions. They were tied and stabbed several times bringing wide commotion among Venezuela and Latin America public opinion.
Serra was the youngest MP in the National Assembly (Venezuelan parliament) and a rising political star as a representative of the new chavista generation (one that grew up and was formed during chavismo). At the time being he was the head legislative investigator of the Lorent Saleh plot: a wide, lush conspiracy involving several senior political figures of the right winged “political” opposition, businessmen and also a wide Colombian branch openly related to “uribismo” ( Colombian ex president and White House’s dearest Álvaro Uribe Velez political and military transnational connections). (Delusional) Álvaro Uribe is by far the most outright anti Venezuelan international spokesperson, with a proven active role in each and every conspiracy dealing with ousting chavismo from power and utter existence.
After Serra’s death, MSM intoxication has been rising, simbolically murdering Serra’s memory and promoting the spin of an inside job, a common crime case and in some cases openly celebrating or justifying Serra and Herrera’s assassination in a “depolitization” spin attempt that tries to impose the common crime narrative and the “failed state” fable as the only cause to the crime. The same procedure took place when last april another key historical political figure was brutally murdered: Eliécer Otaiza, one of the military cadres that participated in Chavez’s first military uprise in 1992, that became a grass-root social activist and Caraca’s main city council at the time he was murdered. Both murders occur during political moments when the heat was relatively downtoned.
This last week also witnessed an armed confrontation between a alleged “colectivo” and Venezuela’s scientific investigative police force. Colectivos, to make story short, are emergent grass root social organizations, mostly in main city's barrios, who combine daily local social activism but also (some) armed self-defense structures mostly advocated against drug dealing and other organized crime gang activities where their social activity takes places. This can be traced back to pre-Chávez years, where they also had to use self defense tactics against police and para-policial violence in the recent past. There hasn’t ever been open confrontation with the Bolivarian Government although at certain moments relations haven’t gone so smoothly. George Ciccariello-Maher’s piece gives a very good description of what they are and what effect causes over the oligarch terrified psique for the english readership. (Of course, for the AnlgloZionist spin, colectivos are chavismo’s paramilitary force and nothing else).
Colectivos are a key line of defense of working class population in barrios and communities, but they also share weak spots and inconsistencies where infiltration and some organized criminal organizations disguise themselves also as social activist, giving them cover for plain criminal activities or infiltrations of all sort. This sort of groups aren’t a majority, and, “conveniently” it was this type of colectivos that got the leading role in a immediate MSM coverage with it’s selfmade full “definitive” version of what was going on. From several sources, including official ones, we’ve learned that this group was mostly composed of ex cops related to the extinct Metropolitan Police, a symbol of lumpenized security force that took an active role, among other malfeasances, in the April 2002 Coup d’ Etat.
It had a tragic outcome, five of their members got killed (three of the scientific police were previously kidnapped, and were rescued afterwards). But media coverage suggests other details: 1) the colectivo leader and spokesperson gave several statements warning that anything that happened will hold the minister of interior, justice and peace responsible, 2) they were under investigation for two homicide cases and held no relations with real colectivos, 3) a colectivo secretariat stated by twitter that they support the actions that were taken, 4) four pictures posted on the “colectivo” leader twitter account that showed him with some government senior political figures, posted on 2013 september the 4th made the case for the mainstream spin as a Bolivarian Government internal conflict plot, with our very own “hurray-patriotist” branch that at some extend support this specie. Infowar at large.
Security officials also informed that there was no relation whatsoever between Serra’s murder and thursday’s the 7th confrontation. But timing was evident.
On october the 9th evening, adding insult to injury, a Southern Florida twitter/keyboard warrior” @federicoalves (Harvard economy graduate and Amnesty International activist, Oh so civilized) offered “leaked” pictures of Serra and Herrera bodies at the morgue in an infamous attempt to make those pictures go viral. Several anonymous and some known accounts posted some of the pictures being immediately suspended by Twitter. A very suggestive simbolical agression that implies a broad message and sets the tone of how things they are willing to turn over themselves.
At Robert Serra’s funeral, President Nicolás Maduro said: Lets always go for peace, even if crying, with wounds, but with the certainty that they won’t lead us into war”.
Brazilian presidential election run-up and rise and fall of the Third Way
Once again, as it happened in the last 12 years, the traditional brazilian left and right will fight against each other on the second round of the presidential election, on October the 26th. On president Dilma Rousseff’s side, there are more than 43 million brazilians (41,59%) who have voted for a continuation of the social and economical benefits that completely transformed the country -- known in the past for its enormous social gap and poverty. On Aécio Neves’s side (33,55%), is the pure reflection of Brazil’s old oligarchy, sustained by the market and the media.
But this scenario, which at first seems as the same one as the other three times (2002, 2006 and 2010) that the Worker’s Party (PT) and the social-democrats (PSDB) met, has the spice of the emergence of what it was called the “Third Way” in Brazil, embodied by PT’s old integrant, Marina Silva. As it happened in many so called “spontaneous springs” and with “new stream” politicians throughout the world, and that have direct examples in Venezuela and Argentina too, George Soro’s “Open Society” movements, a way to make the right more palatable, has gained ground in this recent south american election.
And, to understand why Marina’s votes, more than 23 million, and her trajectory during the campaign, are so important for this second round, it’s mandatory to look at the not so far away past: june of 2013.
What it was at first a student’s protest against high bus fares in the city of São Paulo, soon developed to large scale demonstrations throughout the country, stimulated by scenes of violent repression by the state police, controlled by governor Geraldo Alckmin, one of PSDB’s main strategists. For the record, he was re-elected yesterday in the first round, even though there is a water crisis in SP (he announced water rationing is starting today) and outrageous numbers of police murders, a “security” body known for its cruelty.
After the savagery in São Paulo, a wave of apparent discontent spreaded, and millions of people went to the streets. While private media, in Brazil and outside, celebrated the “wake up” of the brazilians, the gates of hell were opened. All the pieces of a very well constructed reaction, again, inspired by George Soros’s puppet “revolutions”, came to place. First, YouTube videos started to plant the first seeds to the foreign public, alongside intense social media activity. This video, named #ChangeBrazil, got over a million views.
Almost immediately, right wing slogans such as “Down with politics”, and “Kill the left” emerged from those “pacific” protesters, whose official uniform was the brazilian flag’s colors, a traditional conservative code.Anyone who wore red clothes or looked left wing was promptly attacked. Scenes of complete mayhem erupted in cities like Brasília, Brazil’s capital, where the foreign office was about to be burned if it wasn’t for the local security forces.
Later, president Dilma Rousseff addressed the nation in a open chain speech on TV, managing to calm things down, after weeks of destruction. She promised change and called the people to participate in a deep reform of the political structure -- the only way to tackle the main problems the country still faces. Since then, many politicians worked to tie themselves to the june protests, voicing that more than pure displeasure with how things were, the population wanted PT out. The main ambassadress of this wave was Marina Silva.
Leader of a movement called “Rede” (Web, in english), she managed to construct a political platform bolstered by elements supposedly friendly to once PT voters, who were disappointed with Dilma’s government. With a neo-hippie-technological approach, binding together environment, the Internet and the youth, Marina presented herself as the only one who could “break” the “polarization” between PT and PSDB -- following strictly the Soros School. She also had the “asset” of being born poor, in the innards of the Amazon jungle -- a perfect example of someone who had everything to fail, but succeeded.
But she didn’t manage to form a party, due to lack of signatures. Thwarted, she accepted to join Eduardo Campos, a prominent political leader -- who, as her, once was part of the petista government -- in the presidential race. Being his vice-president was better than nothing, she thought. However, they only had 8% on the exit polls, staying way behind Aecio and Dilma. In 2010, when Marina runned for president with the Green Party (PV), she got almost 20% of the votes, staying in third. Then, on the morning of August the 13th, Campo’s airplane, with him and political advisors inside, crashed in the city of Santos. All the passengers and crew died. Subsequently, Marina was chosen as the head of the PSB (Campo’s party) candidacy.
An accident or a well designed plot to change the curse of the election? Not few people rapidly felt the smell of Washington and the tentacles of anglozionism in the death of Campos, like US’s investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen. “Silva is being touted as Brazil's ‘Third Way’ candidate. Third Way is an international movement that has been used by corporate politicians, many of them financed by Soros, to infiltrate and take over historically pro-labor, socialist, and progressive parties”, he reminded.
Sergio Massa candidate in Argentina and well known human rights NGO’s like Venezuelan Provea could work as other examples.
At first, in the brazilian presidential campaign, the Third Way plan was successful. According with the exit polls (a key-subject of manipulation in this election, which will be discussed further ahead) Marina would be right behind Dilma on the first round and would beat the president in the second. The media and the markets could not hide their joy, and at the same time unloaded all their weapons against the PT candidacy.
Nonetheless, as the campaign developed, both Marina’s incompetence to camouflage her true intentions (plus her total submission to evangelical church leaders, very influential conservative characters in brazilian politics), and PT’s strong programmatic debate of ideas on TV and on the streets, drained this artificial bubble. And again, the market and the media reacted, doing what they do best: speculate. Portraying a chaotic scenario, newspapers yelled that Brazil is sinking in rampant inflation and lack of growth, even though unemployment remains in a historic low, 4%, and the GDP should reach 0,7% in 2014.
(As Paul Krugman stressed, the “inflation cult” is very much used as a weapon of blackmail by the market. Before the first round, the US Dollar grew from R$ 2,24 (reais) in early september do 2,45. One day after the vote, the market “celebrated” Aecio’s rise by returning the currency to it’s old value.)
Soon, in late september, Marina was a card off the table. Just like they used her, they discarded her. The only viable chance to beat PT was trusting the job to the old partner, PSDB, who, even though has lost strength in the brazilian political panorama, embodies the conservative agenda without any guilt. The majority of june’s protesters, whose main slogans pointed at the overthrow of the government, already have their preferred candidate.
And then, there are the polls. Yesterday, journalists from the main TV chains faked surprise as the result of the first round was released. Why didn’t the polls showed such a different panorama before? How could Aécio win so many votes in such a short time? The example of São Paulo’s election for government is unclouded and symbolic: PT’’s candidate appeared with 8% on the polls, while on Sunday he won 16% of the total votes. What if the population of SP knew of this situation before? Certainly the outcome could be very different.
On Thursday (02/10), when the last televised debate between the presidential candidates took place, Aécio gave a cheerful and “messianic” interview saying he was confident of his place on the second round. And, just three days before the election, when yet no one was 100% sure of his second place, predicted that tomorrow, Tuesday 7th, a poll will show him on the lead towards becoming Brazil’s next president. In the end, it is not confidence nor magic: just the old way attacking again, with it’s equally old tactics.
***
Tomorrow Presidential Elections in Bolivia will take place, and Evo Morales is on a roll
***
October the 7th 2012 was Chavez’s last massive electoral triumph. 13 victories out of 14 electoral processes in 14 years. Pepe Escobar wrote a good piece about what those elections meant. Here’s another one on El Comandante’s death. That was two years ago.
Chávez vive, la lucha sigue.
As I have mentioned to you, we are working on the creation of a Latin American Saker Blog. The person in charge is organizing an multi-country team of volunteers (if you are interested, please email me) and I will tell you that from my exchanges with this person I have very high hopes for the Latin American Saker Blog. Not only will this add a huge audience to our community, but Latin America is, I strongly believe, extremely important for the future of the anti-imperialist resistance and even the future of the planet. It is no coincidence that Russia is placing such a huge and sustained efforts into developing ties with Latin America.
The Latin American Saker Blog is not quite ready yet, but the folks working on it have sent me a first Latin American SITREP and I hope that this will become a regular feature of my blog. In other words, there will be a Latin American Saker blog and a regular Latin American SITREP in English on this blog. In other words, this will be a lot of work for the volunteers who will be working on this and I want to express my enthusiasm and my deepest gratitude to all of them.
Finally, I want to add this: the authors of this SITREP are all local people, many with strong political views and active participants in the political processes in their countries. To those of you might not share their political opinions I will say this: their voice is not the voice you agree with, their voice is the voice of the local anti-imperialist movement. Yes, it is clearly politically defined, and I find that a huge plus and not an issue because I don't believe that there is such thing as "objectivity": objectivity is a delusion which prevents people from seeing the truth. When the person in charge of the Latin American Saker blog "warned" me that "I am a committed Chavista" my reply was "fantastic! this is exactly what I was looking for" :-)
I hope that you will find this first SITREP interesting.
Cheers,
The Saker
-------
Some caveats, greetings and pointers: foreword
Hopefully this will be the first of many Latin America SITREPS. The Saker has given us a valuable opportunity to speak out and offer you our view on the current stories developing in our continent.
Mainstream MSM, as we all know, have done a well known job on misinforming, deforming and distorting the last 15 years of Latin American awakening, it’s key importance and fundamental role in the constitution of the Global South (a non-geographical, global entity) and the negation of the historical subject that has been the central nerve of the Latin American epoch change: the poor of the earth, as Cuban patriot and apostle José Martí once said.
Latin America’s dynamics are deeply entwined, and each and every situation in any of its countries have an influential effect on the rest of nations. This has been this way for centuries: the actual process of spiritual re-unification, the establishing of common political views on trade, foreign relationships, military and security cooperation; the resurgence of continental common history and present struggles will always be related to the first independence cycle and its postponed (betrayed) liberation project. And also the common (and global) struggle for hope, dignity, equality and justice in our own terms and means to get there, no different from people at any other place in the world.
Its a complex, unbalanced process that implies different and mixed local issues and situations; it’s not the same stage of struggle in places like México, Honduras or Colombia (with governments fully aligned with the Anglozionist imperial dictat), than Brazil and Argentina, or the Alba nations on the other side, but even at this level, for several reasons, we’re dealing with a continental nation that due to British and north American interest’s made common cause with local “caudillos” with monetarial self interest back stabbed
Libertadore’s political, unified projects through all 19th century.
Former liberation generals became local warlords/landowner under separate, oligarch “independent” small , bipartisan (conservative/liberal “representative” democracy) and mutilated small parcels of nations instead of the Latin American imagined community that promised land reforms: same nations that decades after would become natural resources suppliers to central capitalist powers (mainly US and Great Britain). Our abundances still works as a blessing and as a curse.
Over these subjects and their meaning in Latin America’s present historical moment we will constantly find ourselves in the need to come back to the place where everything started (once more).
But for the time being, let us give a few “operational” (long) caveats over some terms, factors and concepts that will always come forth:
-Saker’s AngloZionist characterization works with same accuracy like each territory that embodies imperial resistance (Russia, Syria, Zimbabwe), but alongside to the imperial, deep-state 1%ers hegemon there will always be another key player and permanent subordinated ally: regional oligarchical puppets, with their own narrative, it’s historical background (direct heirs of unproductive spanish “hidalgos” turned into criollo local elite with same parasitic unproductive features that “evolved” throughout centuries and became contemporary middle-high class political and economic establishment), the passive accomplice of national hand over till this day. The ruling class that still today claim themselves owners of land and lives across the continent.
-There’s no such thing as underdevelopment. Local oligarchies truly weren't able to become themselves a productive class able to go through capitalist bourgeoise revolutions, but these didn’t meant at all that in those places where foreign interests need to build up the basic necessary infrastructure to take Latin America’s natural resources didn’t took place, being itself a “capitalist reform” that only focused on extraction, setting aside manufactural/industrial building, land reform or majority centered social policies.
So, in a way, peripheral capitalism did developed extraction routes that would ease their way over metropolitan power bases. So a traumatized, malformated, totally dependent version of capitalism did what meant to be done. We had anti development. They told us that our destiny would be only as providers, as mines -never as nations. From oligarchical republics in the 19th century up to the end of the 20th century’s neoliberal reforms (and foreign debts) this was supposed to be that way. Until Hugo Chávez at first won the 1998 venezuelan elections, and a few years later Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da silva in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina got into office and started a common process of taking our countries and people out from neoliberal hell. The first major common step was taken in Mar del Plata (Argentina) in 2005 where the IVth Summit of the Americas took place and this three key players stood together in a common ground against US’s Latin America Free Trade Agreement.
These political movements lead by Chávez, Lula and/or Nestor Kirchner (and Cristina Fernández); Evo Morales, Rafael Correa or Salvador Sánchez Cerén express a new paradigm on Latin America’s road to real liberation and independence: these are all broad base, grass-root movements, that implied massive popular mobilizations that involved political formations with a different standpoint and different social features: along with conventional political organizations such as Trade Unions (Brazil), traditional left parties (with the trotskyist exception) indigenous movements, military popular, sovereignist participation and leadership (Chávez), slum organized communities and common citizenship fed up with political decay consolidated electoral means to reach power without violence: real democratic revolutions, peaceful democratic uprisings. An epochal change. (And also Salvador Allende’s historical triumph: peaceful electoral revolution).
Since mid 20th century, the Latin American revolutionary paradigm was that of the Cuban Revolution, one of the major turning points of the past century, worldwide: broad based national liberation fronts alongside armed movements that would seize power by military means setting conditions for radical (and swift) political and economical transformations. Actual political paradigm evolved from the Cuban experience to this phase, and each and every of the Latin American countries will always be in gratitude and debt for what the Cuban Revolution has accomplished in the past and in present time giving expertise in various urgent fields of human necessity like health care programs, tackling illiteracy and analphabetism and a large (and grateful etcetera). The 2004 Cuba-Venezuela Cooperation Agreement synthesise that historical continuity, confirming Cuba’s central renewed role in actual events.
For those who might find some estrangement on what is said immediately above (mostly due to the 50 year old classical demonization spin), Fidel Castro’s Cuba controversy can be summed up in two major global facts (both African related):
-Angola’s 1987 Kuito Canavale battle where Cuban and Angola’s People Liberation movement troops (and armor) gave the decisive military blow to Apartheid South Africa brought the South African dictatorship first major strategic defeat setting up the bases for the whole southern Africa liberation (Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe) and Apartheid’s definitive collapse.
-On past october the 2nd, a Cuban medical brigade (165 doctors) arrived at Freetown International Airport in Sierra Leone to counter the Ebola spread in West Africa. You can simply make an obvious contrast with western militarized search and destroy “response” to “fight” the Ebola virus.
At the present time we’re going through a new wave of interconnected oligarchical restoration attempts that establishes a common ground on Anglozionism’s methods mixed with local puppet replicas. The restoration movements from within can be summarized in two major trends (with their local differences) that collide and can be outlined as follows: traditional bypartisan former political establishments (conservative and socialdemocrat parties, trade unions aristocracy: real politik players) and emergent financial related turbocapitalism, neofascist anti-political movements globally connected with other forms of factic power (media power, Chicago Boys/Wall Street sharks, “colored” revolutions, Soro’s Open Society Foundation “global citizenship” movements and NGO’s of various sort, mostly NED/USAID trained and funded, but also EU sponsored) that also describes the organical entwinement of Latin American historical ruling class (the exact opposite model of unity) with the AngloZionist hegemon (as serfs).
Albeit, these apparent trends or political tendencies share the same target and thay can go without much trouble the way the one of the two has the opportunity or more favorable conditions to upfront de liberation camp.
It can be said the same, partially, about the inner composition of the resistant movements, none of them lacking of all sort of political contradictions.
In any case, both share same general wise political agenda: on one side as part of the multipolar option (the BRICS) and on the other the Washington Consensus on steroids with its shock and awe doctrine, disaster capitalism, etc.
The oligarchs have also learned from their several and continuous tactical defeats, adjusting themselves to the actual context, mimetizing “grass-root” popular movements (astroturfing), hypocritical “progressive” speech, fake social concerns, developing copycat strategies on how they should place themselves in the political spectre with a “pueblo” (people) disguise. And parallel to that, all out media, economical and irregular warfare. And this is where we stand right now.
One final pointer to readers from other latitudes: Latin American conservatism, conventional and generally speaking, cannot be automatically associated to other forms of conservative stances going on in other places: it has nothing to do with traditionalist conservatives views, or any other form that also opposes Empire and oppression: it is mostly related to economically based status quo combined with fake catholic morals (more or less similar to franquismo) and has nothing to do with real spiritual preservation of the best of people’s soul. There’s also a popular (grass-root) form that appeals to demagogical popes such as John Paul II and the actual narcotic effective (Latin American) Francisco the First.
But also, throughout history, another form of christianity have had fertile ground taking an indispensable and indisputable role in people’s struggle for justice, freedom, equality, dignity and nature’s rights: from Paraguayan Jesuit Missions to Liberation Theologist such as Camilo Torres Restrepo, Elder Cámara, Leonardo Boff as frontline figures that represent a myriad of anonymous slum and campesino based priests and nuns that are part of common and poor people sufferings and struggles.
Faith will always be related with political struggles in Latin America, there’s no such separation between spirituality and concret, on the ground, justice. If, as it's sometimes said, God died in the West, this, on the contrary, is the land of magical realism, and against to what is usually conceived as a tropical dependence metaphysics it actually stands for the proper opposite, being the essence of every real form of cultural and spiritual source of dignity, identity and resistance. We’ve learned self respect.
And at the present moment we stand on the common struggle for time: time that needs to be used in reinvention. Left/right, liberal/conservative paradigm are insufficient.
Hopefully, there will also be time to address all of these subjects and topics. But at this point we urgently need to get into business: the Latin America SITREP based on hardcore direct facts in present time. This delivery will be Venezuelan and Brazilian situation centered. In the near future we will send another SITREP based on Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Venezuela: political violence surge
Throughout 2014, Bolivarian Venezuela has been going through all front destabilization actions. The other side of hegemonic anglozionist MSM that happened at the first trimester of the year specially after the february 12th opposition “La Salida” (The Exit) mobilization lead by political figures Leopoldo López (a fully branded oligarchichal-anglozionist pet), María Corina Machado (our very own Yulia Timoshenko “criollo” version) and Antonio Ledezma, one of (many) Caraca’s mayors commonly known as “the vampire” or “Grandpa Monster”, a former pre-chavismo establishment well known figure, can almost be described, generally speaking, the exact opposite way: where CNN and co. say that Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship” it’s brutally repressing angelical freewilling students you can perfectly say violent colored movement attempts composed by a student cannon fodder facade, infiltrated with organized crime elements and colombian paramilitary trademarked “sicarios” (hit-men), execute a well prepared and designed regime change attempt based on political violence, informational (remember Venezuela already had a postmodern US supported coup d’ etat in 2002 with a spurious 47 hour dictatorship defeated by main street, bringing back al Comandante Chávez to retake he’s constitutional mandate) and economical warfare, with irregular warfare tactics involving selective murders, an artificial increase of abductions and common robbery, using organized crime and several sort of foreign assets.
Where the MSM spin talks about the economical crisis you could perfectly say the artificially enforced economical tension, part of a multidimensional action that implies productive sabotage, planified massive smuggling of basic goods (ranging from beauty articles to basic alimentary rubles of the -deformed- Venezuelan diet) through the Venezuela-Colombia border straight to Colombian supermarkets, prize speculation, controlled hoarding, currency devaluation, excessive food imports opposed to a consolidated agro productive apparatus, most of them hypertrophied developments of real economical blind spots or weaknesses.
Venezuela’s economic activity up to this day still is 95% oil centered and dependent. Since middle 20th century, oil revenues has always been the central nerve of Venezuela’s well known wealth (also having the largest crude oil reserves in the world). And oligarchical and anglozionism is still strong on the financial and economic front.
So both situations embody a conflict frame where the liquid venezuelan war takes place.
The past october the 1rst, chavista, Socialist United Party of Venezuela (PSUV, in spanish, Chavez founded party) 27 year old MP Robert Serra, and his companion and assistant María Herrera, were brutally murdered in their home in Caraca’s locality of La Pastora, a working class neighborhood (called barrios) in one of chavismo’s most well known political bastions. They were tied and stabbed several times bringing wide commotion among Venezuela and Latin America public opinion.
Serra was the youngest MP in the National Assembly (Venezuelan parliament) and a rising political star as a representative of the new chavista generation (one that grew up and was formed during chavismo). At the time being he was the head legislative investigator of the Lorent Saleh plot: a wide, lush conspiracy involving several senior political figures of the right winged “political” opposition, businessmen and also a wide Colombian branch openly related to “uribismo” ( Colombian ex president and White House’s dearest Álvaro Uribe Velez political and military transnational connections). (Delusional) Álvaro Uribe is by far the most outright anti Venezuelan international spokesperson, with a proven active role in each and every conspiracy dealing with ousting chavismo from power and utter existence.
After Serra’s death, MSM intoxication has been rising, simbolically murdering Serra’s memory and promoting the spin of an inside job, a common crime case and in some cases openly celebrating or justifying Serra and Herrera’s assassination in a “depolitization” spin attempt that tries to impose the common crime narrative and the “failed state” fable as the only cause to the crime. The same procedure took place when last april another key historical political figure was brutally murdered: Eliécer Otaiza, one of the military cadres that participated in Chavez’s first military uprise in 1992, that became a grass-root social activist and Caraca’s main city council at the time he was murdered. Both murders occur during political moments when the heat was relatively downtoned.
This last week also witnessed an armed confrontation between a alleged “colectivo” and Venezuela’s scientific investigative police force. Colectivos, to make story short, are emergent grass root social organizations, mostly in main city's barrios, who combine daily local social activism but also (some) armed self-defense structures mostly advocated against drug dealing and other organized crime gang activities where their social activity takes places. This can be traced back to pre-Chávez years, where they also had to use self defense tactics against police and para-policial violence in the recent past. There hasn’t ever been open confrontation with the Bolivarian Government although at certain moments relations haven’t gone so smoothly. George Ciccariello-Maher’s piece gives a very good description of what they are and what effect causes over the oligarch terrified psique for the english readership. (Of course, for the AnlgloZionist spin, colectivos are chavismo’s paramilitary force and nothing else).
Colectivos are a key line of defense of working class population in barrios and communities, but they also share weak spots and inconsistencies where infiltration and some organized criminal organizations disguise themselves also as social activist, giving them cover for plain criminal activities or infiltrations of all sort. This sort of groups aren’t a majority, and, “conveniently” it was this type of colectivos that got the leading role in a immediate MSM coverage with it’s selfmade full “definitive” version of what was going on. From several sources, including official ones, we’ve learned that this group was mostly composed of ex cops related to the extinct Metropolitan Police, a symbol of lumpenized security force that took an active role, among other malfeasances, in the April 2002 Coup d’ Etat.
It had a tragic outcome, five of their members got killed (three of the scientific police were previously kidnapped, and were rescued afterwards). But media coverage suggests other details: 1) the colectivo leader and spokesperson gave several statements warning that anything that happened will hold the minister of interior, justice and peace responsible, 2) they were under investigation for two homicide cases and held no relations with real colectivos, 3) a colectivo secretariat stated by twitter that they support the actions that were taken, 4) four pictures posted on the “colectivo” leader twitter account that showed him with some government senior political figures, posted on 2013 september the 4th made the case for the mainstream spin as a Bolivarian Government internal conflict plot, with our very own “hurray-patriotist” branch that at some extend support this specie. Infowar at large.
Security officials also informed that there was no relation whatsoever between Serra’s murder and thursday’s the 7th confrontation. But timing was evident.
On october the 9th evening, adding insult to injury, a Southern Florida twitter/keyboard warrior” @federicoalves (Harvard economy graduate and Amnesty International activist, Oh so civilized) offered “leaked” pictures of Serra and Herrera bodies at the morgue in an infamous attempt to make those pictures go viral. Several anonymous and some known accounts posted some of the pictures being immediately suspended by Twitter. A very suggestive simbolical agression that implies a broad message and sets the tone of how things they are willing to turn over themselves.
At Robert Serra’s funeral, President Nicolás Maduro said: Lets always go for peace, even if crying, with wounds, but with the certainty that they won’t lead us into war”.
Brazilian presidential election run-up and rise and fall of the Third Way
Once again, as it happened in the last 12 years, the traditional brazilian left and right will fight against each other on the second round of the presidential election, on October the 26th. On president Dilma Rousseff’s side, there are more than 43 million brazilians (41,59%) who have voted for a continuation of the social and economical benefits that completely transformed the country -- known in the past for its enormous social gap and poverty. On Aécio Neves’s side (33,55%), is the pure reflection of Brazil’s old oligarchy, sustained by the market and the media.
But this scenario, which at first seems as the same one as the other three times (2002, 2006 and 2010) that the Worker’s Party (PT) and the social-democrats (PSDB) met, has the spice of the emergence of what it was called the “Third Way” in Brazil, embodied by PT’s old integrant, Marina Silva. As it happened in many so called “spontaneous springs” and with “new stream” politicians throughout the world, and that have direct examples in Venezuela and Argentina too, George Soro’s “Open Society” movements, a way to make the right more palatable, has gained ground in this recent south american election.
And, to understand why Marina’s votes, more than 23 million, and her trajectory during the campaign, are so important for this second round, it’s mandatory to look at the not so far away past: june of 2013.
What it was at first a student’s protest against high bus fares in the city of São Paulo, soon developed to large scale demonstrations throughout the country, stimulated by scenes of violent repression by the state police, controlled by governor Geraldo Alckmin, one of PSDB’s main strategists. For the record, he was re-elected yesterday in the first round, even though there is a water crisis in SP (he announced water rationing is starting today) and outrageous numbers of police murders, a “security” body known for its cruelty.
After the savagery in São Paulo, a wave of apparent discontent spreaded, and millions of people went to the streets. While private media, in Brazil and outside, celebrated the “wake up” of the brazilians, the gates of hell were opened. All the pieces of a very well constructed reaction, again, inspired by George Soros’s puppet “revolutions”, came to place. First, YouTube videos started to plant the first seeds to the foreign public, alongside intense social media activity. This video, named #ChangeBrazil, got over a million views.
Almost immediately, right wing slogans such as “Down with politics”, and “Kill the left” emerged from those “pacific” protesters, whose official uniform was the brazilian flag’s colors, a traditional conservative code.Anyone who wore red clothes or looked left wing was promptly attacked. Scenes of complete mayhem erupted in cities like Brasília, Brazil’s capital, where the foreign office was about to be burned if it wasn’t for the local security forces.
Later, president Dilma Rousseff addressed the nation in a open chain speech on TV, managing to calm things down, after weeks of destruction. She promised change and called the people to participate in a deep reform of the political structure -- the only way to tackle the main problems the country still faces. Since then, many politicians worked to tie themselves to the june protests, voicing that more than pure displeasure with how things were, the population wanted PT out. The main ambassadress of this wave was Marina Silva.
Leader of a movement called “Rede” (Web, in english), she managed to construct a political platform bolstered by elements supposedly friendly to once PT voters, who were disappointed with Dilma’s government. With a neo-hippie-technological approach, binding together environment, the Internet and the youth, Marina presented herself as the only one who could “break” the “polarization” between PT and PSDB -- following strictly the Soros School. She also had the “asset” of being born poor, in the innards of the Amazon jungle -- a perfect example of someone who had everything to fail, but succeeded.
But she didn’t manage to form a party, due to lack of signatures. Thwarted, she accepted to join Eduardo Campos, a prominent political leader -- who, as her, once was part of the petista government -- in the presidential race. Being his vice-president was better than nothing, she thought. However, they only had 8% on the exit polls, staying way behind Aecio and Dilma. In 2010, when Marina runned for president with the Green Party (PV), she got almost 20% of the votes, staying in third. Then, on the morning of August the 13th, Campo’s airplane, with him and political advisors inside, crashed in the city of Santos. All the passengers and crew died. Subsequently, Marina was chosen as the head of the PSB (Campo’s party) candidacy.
An accident or a well designed plot to change the curse of the election? Not few people rapidly felt the smell of Washington and the tentacles of anglozionism in the death of Campos, like US’s investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen. “Silva is being touted as Brazil's ‘Third Way’ candidate. Third Way is an international movement that has been used by corporate politicians, many of them financed by Soros, to infiltrate and take over historically pro-labor, socialist, and progressive parties”, he reminded.
Sergio Massa candidate in Argentina and well known human rights NGO’s like Venezuelan Provea could work as other examples.
At first, in the brazilian presidential campaign, the Third Way plan was successful. According with the exit polls (a key-subject of manipulation in this election, which will be discussed further ahead) Marina would be right behind Dilma on the first round and would beat the president in the second. The media and the markets could not hide their joy, and at the same time unloaded all their weapons against the PT candidacy.
Nonetheless, as the campaign developed, both Marina’s incompetence to camouflage her true intentions (plus her total submission to evangelical church leaders, very influential conservative characters in brazilian politics), and PT’s strong programmatic debate of ideas on TV and on the streets, drained this artificial bubble. And again, the market and the media reacted, doing what they do best: speculate. Portraying a chaotic scenario, newspapers yelled that Brazil is sinking in rampant inflation and lack of growth, even though unemployment remains in a historic low, 4%, and the GDP should reach 0,7% in 2014.
(As Paul Krugman stressed, the “inflation cult” is very much used as a weapon of blackmail by the market. Before the first round, the US Dollar grew from R$ 2,24 (reais) in early september do 2,45. One day after the vote, the market “celebrated” Aecio’s rise by returning the currency to it’s old value.)
Soon, in late september, Marina was a card off the table. Just like they used her, they discarded her. The only viable chance to beat PT was trusting the job to the old partner, PSDB, who, even though has lost strength in the brazilian political panorama, embodies the conservative agenda without any guilt. The majority of june’s protesters, whose main slogans pointed at the overthrow of the government, already have their preferred candidate.
And then, there are the polls. Yesterday, journalists from the main TV chains faked surprise as the result of the first round was released. Why didn’t the polls showed such a different panorama before? How could Aécio win so many votes in such a short time? The example of São Paulo’s election for government is unclouded and symbolic: PT’’s candidate appeared with 8% on the polls, while on Sunday he won 16% of the total votes. What if the population of SP knew of this situation before? Certainly the outcome could be very different.
On Thursday (02/10), when the last televised debate between the presidential candidates took place, Aécio gave a cheerful and “messianic” interview saying he was confident of his place on the second round. And, just three days before the election, when yet no one was 100% sure of his second place, predicted that tomorrow, Tuesday 7th, a poll will show him on the lead towards becoming Brazil’s next president. In the end, it is not confidence nor magic: just the old way attacking again, with it’s equally old tactics.
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Tomorrow Presidential Elections in Bolivia will take place, and Evo Morales is on a roll
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October the 7th 2012 was Chavez’s last massive electoral triumph. 13 victories out of 14 electoral processes in 14 years. Pepe Escobar wrote a good piece about what those elections meant. Here’s another one on El Comandante’s death. That was two years ago.
Chávez vive, la lucha sigue.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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