No. 41
July 2024
U.S. Elections
• Disastrous U.S. Presidential Debate
Britain
• Fictitious
"Landslide" for Pro-Zionist, Pro-NATO and
Anti-Labour
Government
• Canadian Foreign
Influence in British Election
Considered a Good
Thing
Cuba Dismantles Another Terrorist Plot Organized from the United States
• Oppose Targeting Revolutionary Cuba! Defend Its Sovereignty, People, Territory and Right to Be!
Bolivia
• Swift Popular
Action and Firm Government Stand Defeat
Attempted
Military Coup
Broad Opposition to NATO Summit in Washington, DC
TML Supplement Coming Soon
United States
Disastrous U.S. Presidential Debate
U.S. President Joe Biden, aka
Genocide Joe, continues to face
insurmountable difficulties since the U.S. presidential debate
held on
June 27, which is universally called a "disaster." More
Democrats are
openly calling for him to quit the campaign, those backing
Vice-President Kamala Harris are
openly "strategizing" for her to be the pick to replace him, and
on it
goes. When all is said and done, it certainly appears that the
debate
was a set-up to get him to quit. Lots of media emphasis before
the
debate was that he couldn't afford to stumble and focused on
that; then
after, a lot about
how he did just that.
Debates normally take place after the summer nominations, in September and October and there was no need for Biden to debate now. It looks like even those within his campaign, as well as big donors are maneuvering to get him out. While most of the Democrats coming out openly for him to quit are from the House of Representatives and not especially significant, simply the fact that more are doing so is important. Top people in the Senate, long Biden's base, are so far not coming out in support. Reportedly leaders in both the Senate and House are holding meetings to discuss Biden and options to replace him, highly unusual and further indication that there will be increasing efforts to get him out. The timing of a June debate, before the August nominating convention, also provides time for a new candidate to gain national recognition while preventing a publicly divisive and destructive convention. Biden so far has said he will not quit but demands for him to do so not only continue but are increasing.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi publicly expressed reservations. Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are still supporting and campaigning for Biden, though Obama is also expressing "concerns" about his ability to beat Trump. In Las Vegas, Michelle Obama still remains the odds-on favorite. She is not campaigning for Biden and has not commented recently on running although she is on the record as saying she will not run. But of course, she can count on the Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders machinery if she does and is really the only one among the various forces with national name recognition, despite the fact she has never held any office at any level.
Keep in mind that unlike Obama and Sanders, who both used primaries to create and develop their own independent machinery, Biden still depends on the machinery of the Democratic Party, which itself is far more splintered and less powerful than in the past. This means he needs the backing of the various state parties for his campaign and must therefore cater to their demands which contend with the federal powers. He likely also will rely on the Zionists' AIPAC machinery, which is significant in some states. AIPAC and allied billionaires just spent $23 million in a Democratic primary race in New York City to defeat Jamaal Bowman, who has taken important stands regarding Palestine and on other issues.
One reason Biden was put forward in the first place and why the main party machinery is generally sticking with him is the fear that absent his candidacy, all out open gang warfare will break out within the party. So far, the main governors considering running (Gavin from California, Whitmer from Michigan, and Pritzker from Illinois) and current Vice-President Harris have not succeeded in emerging as a champion that could lessen the divisions and divert the broad public opposition to Biden, especially on the support of the ruling class for the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. The movement that emerged using the vote to reject Biden and stand against genocide is still organizing in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. So are many of the students who remain strongly in support of Palestine and are angered by the repression and system of rule through police powers in general.
The debate was also characterized by its completely non-political nature, with both candidates mainly calling each other names, talking about golf and refusing to provide any serious information or solutions to problems of concern to the people, such as genocide inside and outside the country. The absence of politics reflects the reality that neither party is political but rather both are part of a mafia-like cartel, with factions brutally vying for power to serve the private interests of the oligarchs.
Factionalism has been inherent to the system of government and party rule since the U.S. Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788. In fact, the system of governance in the U.S. is informed by the philosophy and political thought known as Covenant Thesis first put forward by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan, published in April 1651. Hobbes devised a system to ensure the factional fights which had given rise to civil wars at home and foreign wars would end. His theory of the transcendence of the state based on Covenant Thesis was to ensure "one-nation politics," cooperation between the factions, peace, order and good government. But these no longer function because of the clash between the conditions, demanding empowerment of the people, and the authority serving the very few.
Thus, the means devised in the past to prevent civil war at home no longer exist. They are a fiction. As for foreign wars of aggression, the use of force to resolve conflicts has been the new normal since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the declaration that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation" whose hegemony must be recognized on pain of destruction through regime change and wars of destruction.
While elections were always a means to disempower the people by embroiling them in choosing a party government, they did provide a way for the rulers to have peaceful transitions from one government to the next. Since the last U.S. civil war, elections have helped prevent civil war at home and permitted foreign conflicts to end in negotiations because they were considered to be "politics by other means."
Today, as the debate and campaigns show, there are no politics, thus there are no negotiations and no peace accords. Elections are not only unable to prevent civil wars at home and foreign wars but are actually associated with them. The threat of open violent civil war can be seen in the fact that both candidates repeat that a loss would mean the end of "democracy," and is unacceptable. Presidential debates are also held to determine who will make the best "war president," including repression of the people at home, which is why Biden calls himself a war president.
The train-wreck of a presidential debate shows the factional fights are every day more intense with open gang warfare erupting with no power able to control the situation at home or abroad. It appears evident that Biden cannot hold the union together or control rogue U.S. proxies such as Israel and many others it has held in thrall for decades. U.S. rulers now hope that by replacing him there will be a way out which not only brings the factions together but also suppresses the movement for change which pervades all of life throughout the United States, as it does in France, Britain and all the countries based on Covenant Thesis. The forms of quelling the revolt of the people and regulating the factional interests within the ruling class no longer function. The real challenge facing the rulers is to quell the growing resistance to and rejection of the system and the organized emergence of what the founding fathers called the biggest faction – the one comprised of the propertyless, meaning today the working people.
Part of the concern among the rulers is which of the problems – open violent civil war or keeping the people in line – is more important at this time and how to control both which is not really within their power to achieve. And there are also their arrogant miscalculations concerning control of either. Thus far, since the fall of the Soviet Union at which time the U.S. was supposed to show the superiority of liberal democracy, whatever the U.S. has done, at home and abroad, has been a failure. The U.S. president can exercise no control over international developments, and only the working class and peoples can open a path which achieves their demands for peace, freedom and democracy, which also holds true worldwide.
The World As Is Has No Takers
The World As It Should Be Has Billions of Makers
A dangerous situation exists in the United States because change keeps eluding the people, with elections playing an important role in blocking the people from empowering themselves to govern and decide. This time around, it takes the form of diverting the discussion into who can replace Biden to win over Trump or – what amounts to the same thing – that unless Biden is replaced Trump will win and we need to defeat Trump no matter what. In this way everything is done to make the people believe that change is not possible and there is no alternative. All discussion is to start with the vantage point of the rich, focused on who to vote for; and not on the vantage point of the people, focused on how to advance the struggle for peoples' empowerment.
But change is not only possible, it is the necessity. It can be done by the people basing their actions on their own outlook imbued with necessity for change.
Britain
Fictitious "Landslide" for Pro-Zionist, Pro-NATO and Anti-Labour Government
Mass
demonstration in London, July 6, 2024, as the British people demand the newly-elected government stop arming Israeli genocide.
Just 59.9 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots in the United Kingdom's general election, on July 4. This is the lowest turnout ever since the vote was granted to all adults over 21 in 1928, according to the report issued by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank. This is dismal, yet nonetheless, headlines and airwaves of the ruling class declared that the Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, won the elections "in a landslide," "taking the second largest majority in the House of Commons in British history."
Labour won 412 of the 650 seats, almost 65 per cent of all seats. While monopoly media are touting this as the "second largest majority in the House of Commons in British history," its share of the votes cast was a mere 34 per cent which, given the 59.9 per cent participation rate, means it got all these seats with 20.37 per cent of the registered voters. In fact, its share of the vote was lower than in the previous election in 2019 (32 per cent) and even less than in 2017. Its mandate is the lowest of any British government since at least the First World War.
The incumbent Conservative Party received 24 per cent of the vote share, which amounts to 14.38 per cent of the eligible vote, and on this basis acquired 121 seats. At the same time, the Liberals got 72 seats with 12 per cent of votes cast while the Reformist Party with 14 per cent of votes cast only got four seats! It is no wonder the system of party government based on a first-past-the-post method of counting votes cast which gives rise to a very unrepresentative number of seats per party, lacks credibility and legitimacy as never before. To say the Starmer government has an overwhelming majority to do whatever it pleases is a legitimacy crisis from the get-go.
On a positive note, Sinn Féin is now the north of Ireland's largest party at Westminster. The party already became the largest in the devolved assembly at Stormont in 2022 and at local council level in 2023.
Sinn
Féin does not take its seats at Westminster due to the party's
policy
of abstentionism which refers to its refusal to take the oath of
allegiance to the English monarch. Sinn Féin does not accept the
right
of the Westminster parliament to rule the north of Ireland. The
vote
result confirms
the wish of the Irish people for Ireland to be united.
This election was also marked by the participation of a large number of independent candidates (459), who received over half a million votes in total. Former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, who stood as an independent, deserves particular note for winning in Islington North by a huge margin (24,120 to Labour's 16,873). His removal as Labour Party Leader by current Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer and a vicious lying campaign accusing him of anti-Semitism engineered by the Zionist lobby in whose service Starmer is, will forever condemn Starmer's pro-NATO, pro-Zionist genocide and anti-labour party. Not surprisingly, the Labour Party lost five seats to independents, due in large part to its stance on the genocide in Gaza. It is also noteworthy that the Workers' Party garnered over 210,000 votes but not a single seat which includes losing the seat George Galloway won in the 2024 Rochdale by-election. Reports inform that other parties with a smaller share of the votes did nonetheless get seats, again due to the first-past-the-post method of counting votes, as well as an electoral system which is anything but representative of the change the people are striving for.
Despite media attempts and those of the rulers to present Starmer as an alternative, and a left-wing one at that, he is known for his anti-labour, pro-Zionist genocide and pro-NATO stands. As soon as he became Prime Minister, he declared he wants an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and will continue the British policy to back Israel's genocide. He attended the NATO Summit in Washington, DC and took his place as a warmonger second to none.
Elections in France have shown similar results. No party has a majority but government will be formed by an alliance of parties that did not receive majority votes. All this reveals that people want fundamental change.
But it's business as usual and this includes the fact that change is a casualty in both these elections.
It
also reveals the necessity for the renewal of the political
process. The ensemble of relations between humans and humans and
humans and nature precisely reveal the need to empower the people.
Renewal and renovation based on modern definitions are the necessity of
this historic period of transition. Attempts to govern which do not
empower the people will lurch from crisis to crisis. This is what is
already happening in France due to factional fighting amongst those
elected and the machinations of President Macron and will happen in
Britain as well. The role the people play to speak out in their own
name will be decisive.
Canadian Foreign Influence in British Election Considered a Good Thing
Reports
that Canadian economist and banker Mark Carney played a role in the
British Labour Party's election preparation is another example of the
kind of foreign interference which the ruling circles favour a great
deal. Carney was the governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013
and the governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. He is now
chairman, and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management
since 2020, and was named chairman of Bloomberg Inc., parent company of
Bloomberg L.P., in 2023.
Canadian political journalist and
author Paul Wells, informs that Carney endorsed Rachel Reeves, who also
once worked for the Bank of England, in a video message to last
fall's annual Labour conference and that he worked to bring forward
Reeves to present the Labour Party as "A government that respects
business, wants to partner with business, and is open for business. In
an uncertain world, Britain is a place to do business." Reeves has
since the general election which brought the Labour Party to power been
appointed the new British finance minister.
Reeves announced "a new National Wealth Fund, with a remit to invest -- and so to catalyse private sector investment -- in new and growing industries," Wells informs. He added that Carney is leading a task force on the establishment of the "National Wealth Fund."
It is a revised libertarian scheme to divert the attention of Canadians and, by the looks of it, the peoples of the UK, from the dismal state of the economy because governments borrow from private banks with ever greater alacrity, divert all monies which should go to social programs to paying interest on the debt, along with fresh borrowing and ever higher payments on interest, while also stealing pensions and other funds to pay the rich schemes in the name of greening the economy and financing private interests to build infrastructure projects and the like. The scheme promoted by Carney talks up public-private investment and a more open offensive against trade unions, which are labelled as hurting the economy with the "high cost of labour and workplace rules."
It is not a coincidence that The Globe and Mail reported on July 11 that there are tensions between Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland, that senior officials in the Prime Minister's office do not think Freeland has been "effective in delivering an upbeat economic message" and that a 'government source' said there have been internal discussions about recruiting Carney as Finance Minister. According to the Globe, Trudeau's office responded that he has full confidence in Freeland and Freeland's office did not comment. The Globe added that Carney has criticized the recent budget as not adequately focusing on fostering economic growth.
In other words, the Trudeau cabal are working seriously to rescue their dismal standings in the polls by distancing themselves from Freeland's budget. The new mantra is not unlike the one Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre spouts that government high taxes and bureaucratic regulations (red tape) are hurting established enterprises and blocking new enterprises and investments from developing. They say they are even hurting poor people and others dependent on social programs because of the lack of available public funds that are flying out the window to pay the debt caused by government overspending and interference and a stagnant economy.
To reinforce their argument of how desperate the situation has become, they flaunt the reality that the entire annual revenue from the GST goes to pay the annual interest payments on the debt. How ridiculously bad is that, they cry!!
But what to do? They cannot call for a moratorium on servicing the debt because that goes against their yeoman's service to pay the rich and especially sacred is the private property of the global imperialists. But to show they are mulling over the debt problem and racking their brains as to what to do they suggest no further government borrowing although how to achieve this remains vague other than "growing the economy means more taxes coming in resulting in more government revenue."
They describe the problems to prettify their schemes, which essentially are a rehash of the same line to pay the rich to mitigate risks to investment especially in the green economy and to attack the working class thereby growing the economy. In the end the larger and more productive economy which is supposed to materialize because they wish it so will provide enough money from taxes to pay for social programs.
They decry a leveling off of productivity. For them, increased productivity does not mean more disposable time for working people to humanize the natural and social environment which would include engaging in all aspects of life including politics and to raise the social and cultural level of society. Certainly not. For the ruling elite, higher productivity is a means to dispose of workers and their dreaded "cost of labour" and constant disruptions to their businesses through organized class struggle.
The problem they seek to obscure is the issue of who controls the economy and the produced social product and ultimately the politics. They cannot bring themselves to utter the truth of the matter (and much less take action) that global neo-liberal imperialist interests dominate and their mission in life is to skin the proverbial economic ox over and over and ensure their stranglehold over the polity and its governing institutions so as to enhance their narrow private interests and not damage them.
Nonetheless, their schemes only serve to exacerbate the crisis. With the further concentration of social wealth in fewer hands a problem arises for the rulers of fewer allies who have a stake in the system, in particular small and medium-sized enterprise owners. This is a strata which tends to no longer have confidence that their interests will not be sacrificed by the current rulers but who, in conditions of retreat of revolution, have yet to express confidence in the working class. The champions of neo-liberalism need that strata or they will become even more isolated with more and workers staking their claims and organizing themselves for a new aim and direction of the economy and country to serve the people and not the rich.
With the starving of social programs, the vulnerable and dispossessed and wider sections of the working class facing insecurity are becoming increasingly worried and unstable regarding their conditions and they are looking for change. It is a foregone conclusion that the narrow private interests which enrich the likes of Mark Carney and his ilk will do nothing but plunge Canada's increasing war economy into further crisis. And so too in the United Kingdom.
Cuba Dismantles Another Terrorist Plot Organized
from the United States
Oppose Targeting Revolutionary Cuba! Defend Its Sovereignty, People, Territory and Right to Be!
Despite the failure of repeated vile attempts by the U.S. government to crush the Cuban revolution by any means possible, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT) recently dismantled yet another terrorist plot against Cuba, organized and financed from the United States.
In a report published by the
Cuban newspaper Granma on July
7, the Ministry informs that the investigation carried out
by MININT's
special forces led to the arrest of a person named Ardenys
García
Álvarez, who had illegally entered Cuba by sea, with firearms
and
ammunition, along with
other people involved who reside in Cuba. Prior to this, García
Álvarez
had entered the U.S. illegally in 2014.
The plot is part of a new recruitment plan to carry out violent actions, says the MININT report, which recalled that in December 2023, the Cuban government published in the Official Gazette of the Republic the list of people and entities sponsoring terrorism against Cuba.[1] The ministry is carrying out specific work on all persons and entities that have been the subject of criminal investigations and sought by the Cuban authorities, due to their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of acts perpetrated on national territory or in other countries, which includes the perpetrators of terrorist acts against Cuba from 1999 to the present day.
The swift action of MININT's forces prevented plans conceived, directed and financed, once again, from the United States, and generated an investigation process focused on the facts and the people involved.
On April 13, Granma revealed plans by U.S. intelligence agencies to provoke a social upheaval this summer, around July 11, under the name "Operation 11.7.24." Tactics include recruiting criminals to commit acts of terrorism on the island. The government remains vigilant against any attack on its sovereignty and that of its people.
The U.S. is stepping up its disinformation propaganda against Cuba, namely that it will be a spy base for China and Russia, that it is involved in human trafficking with Cuban medical brigades around the world, and many other such lies repeated ad nauseam. The U.S. government's annual State Department report on human trafficking keeps Cuba in the worst category of all — the thief who shouts, "Stop Thief!"
The fact that the United States, considered the world's biggest terrorist country, lists Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism is rejected by the peoples of the world.
The United States accepts neither the defeat suffered by the Batista regime that led to the triumph of the Cuban revolution, nor its failure over 60 years to force Cuba into submission by imposing a brutal all-sided economic, financial and commercial blockade on it. The unwavering determination of its people under the leadership of Fidel Castro and subsequent Cuban leaders and governments to affirm Cuba's sovereignty and right to be have prevailed all these years even as the U.S. pushed its failed policy to new extremes.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has called on all Canadians and Quebeckers to extend and step up their actions in support of Cuba. There is presently a petition calling on the Canadian government to demand the lifting of the blockade and removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, that is open for signatures until October 16, and then will be presented to the House of Commons later in the fall. Everyone is called on to go onto the House of Commons Parliamentary website and sign the petition and call on all friends and sympathizers to also sign without delay. Make a point of getting as many signatures as possible between now and July 26, Moncada Day celebrated as National Rebellion Day, commemorating the assault by Cuban revolutionary youth on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks of the Batista regime, led by Fidel Castro. The Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks were a symbol of the Batista regime's vicious dictatorship in the service of U.S. imperialism. The assault played a decisive role in galvanizing the struggle of the Cuban people to affirm their sovereignty, ultimately leading to the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
U.S., Hands Off Cuba!
Long Live Revolutionary Cuba!
Note
1. On December 7, the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba published Resolution 19/2023 of the Ministry of the Interior, which refers to the national list of persons and entities criminally investigated and sought by the Cuban authorities, due to their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of acts perpetrated on national territory or in other countries, which includes the perpetrators of terrorist acts against Cuba from 1999 to the present.
The judicial cases underway concerned attacks on hotels and other tourist centers in Havana, infiltration along the coast to carry out violent actions, attacks on the President of the Republic and other public officials, as well as the promotion of military manoeuvres against the island, as well as those responsible for inciting, organizing and financing actions that affect the social order in Cuba, through violent acts against public officials and the normal functioning of entities.
Among the terrorists mentioned in the publication are Santiago Álvarez Fernández Magriñá, Ramón Saúl Sánchez Rizo, Ana Olema Hernández, William Cabrera González, Michel Naranjo Riverón and Eduardo Arias León, as well as Yamila Betancourt García, Alexander Otaola Casal, Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, Eliecer Ávila, Liudmila Santiesteban Cruz, Manuel Milanés Pizonero, Alain Lambert Sánchez (Cuban Paparazzi) and Jorge Ramón Batista Calero (Ultrack).
The participation of these individuals in acts of sabotage and other punishable actions, through the recruitment of people in digital space, is highlighted by the appearance in the document of Alexander Alazo Baró, subject of investigation file 27/2020, opened for the armed attack on the Cuban embassy in the United States.
The legal basis for the Resolution 19/2023 can be found in UN Security Council Resolution 1373 on the prevention and fight against terrorism and its financing, in the Cuban Penal Code, as well as in Decree-Law 317 of the Council of State and Resolution 16 of the Minister of the Interior, for the detection and fight against money laundering, terrorist financing, arms proliferation and illicit movement of capital.
(Gaceta Oficial)
Prior Revelations
On April 13, the Cuban newspaper Granma revealed the plans of American intelligence agencies to provoke a social explosion this summer, around July 11, as a repeat of those disturbances which were financed and promoted from the United States in 2021. Evidence of what U.S. intelligence agencies call Operation 11.7.24 was revealed following a meeting at the home of counterrevolutionary Marcel Felipe, by the online platform against media terrorism, Razones de Cuba.
According to the information revealed, the attacks planned at this stage had as a priority target the national electricity network, due to its impact on the quality of life of the people, Razones de Cuba said. This also reveals an attempt to generate sabotage and reinforce their destabilizing media offensive, the media platform adds. To this end, the U.S. has "tripled its budget" and anti-Cuban U.S. Senator Marco Rubio played a decisive role in this decision.
Tactics used include the recruitment of criminals to commit acts of terrorism on the island while continuing attempts to manipulate issues such as relations between Cuba and Russia, presenting their cooperation as a way for Russia to obtain soldiers from Cuba, which is patently false. The conspirators also plan to use U.S. sanctions against Russia to worsen the situation in Cuba by reducing fuel and food deliveries.
Razones de Cuba exposed the existence of a new counterrevolutionary organization, known as Cuba First, linked to the preparation of terrorist actions against the island. Among its founding members is Manuel Milanés Pizonero, known for having financed violent actions in the past.
New U.S. Embassy Funds for Subversion in Cuba
The Cuba por Siempre website, which promotes global solidarity with Cuba, also revealed further interference by the U.S. Embassy in Havana to create chaos in Cuba. The embassy has launched a new fund called the "Acelérate Fund for Independent Media and Content Creators." It was launched with some $68,800 provided by the United States.
Reports indicate that the projects are to focus on producing content addressing Cuba's "challenges." According to Cuba por Siempre, this involves subsidizing "independent media" to "create relevant and accessible content for people with disabilities, in order to increase their participation in the democratic process," "the development of mobile applications or other technologies for the promotion of democratic values," "the connection and strengthening of networks of independent content creators in Cuba, and the financing of research studies that evaluate the situation of independent media" on the island.
It is truly cynical that those who seek to suffocate the island by depriving it of food, medicine, investment, business opportunities and everything Cubans need to live and progress, now claim to care about people with disabilities in Cuba. First they claimed to care about young people, then women, and now it is people with disabilities.
The United States recently approved more than $50 million for its subversive actions. Of this sum, $25 million is for the Office of Broadcasting to Cuba, responsible for the subversive Radio Martí and TV Martí, and $25 million for "programs to promote democracy in Cuba."
The need is to intensify work against this so-called promotion of democracy in Cuba by the United States and against any conciliation with malicious claims that Cuba does not respect human rights and is not democratic.
While the United States is fueling anarchy and violence in Latin America and intensifying foreign interference in Haiti, it is very important to step up activities which provide information, and aim to put an end to any attempts to promote the U.S. counterrevolutionary aims to violate the sovereignty of the Cuban people.
(Prensa Latina, MINREX, Razones de Cuba, Cuba Por Siempre)
Petition on Ending U.S. Blockade and
Removing Cuba from U.S. List of State Sponsors
of Terrorism
On June 18 petition e-5014 on the Parliament of Canada website opened for signatures. The petition, below, was initiated by Pierre Hivon from Ste-Marcelline and is sponsored by Bloc Québécois MP for Joliette Gabriel Ste-Marie. The petition is open for signatures until October 16.
All Out to Get 2,000 Signatures by Moncada Day!
End the U.S. Blockade
of Cuba!
Get Cuba Off the List of Terrorist States!
Petition to the Government of Canada
Whereas:
The Quebec and Canadian people have numerous and significant economic, historical and cultural ties with the Cuban people;
The blockade of Cuba has lasted for 60 years and Canada is opposed to it;
The international community has repeatedly shown its support for the Cuban people, particularly through votes at the United Nations General Assembly;
The embargo has led to more severe shortages that affect the daily lives of Cuban residents; and
American economic sanctions and the economic blockade against Cuba violate international law, as well as the right to self-determination and the human rights of the Cuban people.
We, the undersigned residents of Quebec and Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
1. Ask United States representatives, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to lift the blockade against Cuba as well as to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism;
2. Reaffirm the importance of the Cuban people's human rights, which must be respected, and denounce the blockade against Cuba as one of the key barriers to the Cuban people's full enjoyment of their human rights;
3. Act immediately to preserve the sovereignty of Quebec and Canada, ensuring that Quebec and Canadian corporations and other entities, particularly governmental ones, do not participate in the American economic sanctions against Cuba; and
4. Ensure that Quebec and Canadian relations with Cuba continue to be based on equality and respect for sovereignty, independence and the right to self-determination.
To sign the petition, click here.
Bolivia
Swift Popular Action and Firm Government Stand Defeat Attempted Military Coup
Bolivians take to the streets to defend their elected government
from coup attempt, June 26, 2024
On June 26, a coup attempt against the constitutional government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia was carried out by a section of the country's military. It was foiled by the people who took swift action to defend their rights and their democratically elected government, resulting in the coup plotters backing down.
On
the afternoon of June 26, General Juan José
Zúñiga, who the day before had been relieved of his
duties as head of the Army by President Luis Arce for making
pronouncements of a political nature inconsistent with his military
role, forced his way into the government palace where President Arce
and his cabinet were meeting at the time. Using one of the armoured
vehicles he had summoned to occupy and block access to Murillo Square
facing the palace to ram down the door, he declared that his intent was
to "take over the Executive and Legislative branches" and "restore
democracy" in the country. He also made known earlier that he would
free all “political prisoners” starting with the coup
president Jeanine Anez and her violent co-conspirator Luis Fernando
Camacho, both serving prison sentences for their roles in the 2019 coup
d’etat.
Zúñiga and the now also
former heads of the Navy and Air Force, who appeared together at the
entrance of the building wearing bullet-proof vests, were confronted
head on by President Arce and his cabinet. An angry Arce asserted his
authority as Captain General of the Armed Forces and ordered the
insubordinate general to stand down and immediately withdraw the tanks
and heavily armed troops from Murillo Square where they were attacking
the youth and other organized social forces with tear gas to prevent
them from reaching the government palace -- which he would not do.
When it was apparent that support the conspirators thought or hoped they had from other sections of the military had not materialized, and that workers and other sections of the organized people were mobilizing all over the country against them, the ringleader Zúñiga turned around and walked away. Within the hour a new commander of the Army had been sworn in and ordered the troops back to their barracks.
By the time three hours had elapsed since the coup forces made their move, Arce and his cabinet were on the balcony of the presidential palace greeting and thanking the thousands of people filling the square and streets outside where they had congregated to celebrate the defeat of the short-lived coup attempt. So far 24 people, including the former commanders of the army, navy and air force, have been detained and are expected to be tried for armed uprising against the security and sovereignty of the State, terrorism, attacks against the security of the president and other State dignitaries, destruction or deterioration of State property and national wealth, and misuse of public property and services. Bolivia's ambassador to the Organization of American States reported that around 200 military officers took part in the failed uprising.
Mass rally July 12, 2024
Canada's Response
Unlike the leaders of many countries of the Americas who issued statements condemning the coup attempt as soon as they heard about it, Canada's prime minister and foreign minister remained silent. It was left to the Canadian ambassador to the OAS to include a few sentences in his intervention at the organization's General Assembly taking place in Paraguay when the attempted coup took place. He said that June 26 represented "a watershed moment for democracy" in Bolivia and that Canada "welcomed the upholding of the constitutional order of Bolivia and remained steadfast in its support for the democratically elected government and people of Bolivia."
The national news network, CBC, however did not hesitate to put forward what it called an "analysis" of the situation barely one day after the events of June 26, headlined as "Staged Coup? Why the Bolivia coup attempt may not be what it seems." The 11-minute video narrated by journalist Andrew Chang was run hourly on the June 27 edition of the National News. Like the pro-imperialist media in the U.S. and elsewhere CBC seeks to raise doubts by amplifying the disgraced general's pathetic "explanation" for his treasonous talk and actions as he was about to be arrested: that everything was staged at the request of President Arce as a means to shore up his popularity; in other words, the failed coup was not an attempt by a section of the military to seize power, it was a self-coup organized by the president.
The CBC's disinforming "analysis" completely ignores who has been behind virtually every coup or attempted coup, whether military or electoral, all over Latin America and the Caribbean since the end of World War II. That includes the last one in Bolivia which Canada helped the U.S. and its instrument the OAS instigate in 2019, to overthrow the elected president of the day, Evo Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism -- Instrument for the Sovereignty of the People (MAS-IPSP) government. That coup was reversed a year later, but not without causing great harm to the Bolivian people, who turned out in record numbers in 2020 to elect the current president Luis Arce, also of the MAS-IPSP, by an overwhelming majority and give the party a majority of the seats in both houses of the legislature. That victory is what the people defended by immediately going into action to block the new coup attempt by remnants of the last one who thought nothing had changed since 2019.
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