Unfolding Events in Latin America
and the Caribbean
Resistance Grows to Neo-Liberal Wrecking, State Terror and Imperialist-Inspired Coups
- Margaret Villamizar -
March held in Anzoátegui, Venezuela, November 15,
2019, in support of Evo Morales and against
the coup in Bolivia.
The past two weeks have seen the people of
Bolivia and Chile continue their courageous fights
to affirm their rights in the face of the brutal
repression unleashed against them by state forces.
On November 21 they were joined by Colombians who
staged a massive national strike in cities and
towns across the country against the anti-social
offensive of the neo-liberal, warmongering
government of Iván Duque. They were also met with
a violent response at the hands of the army and
the militarized police, especially the hated riot
squad. Large demonstrations have continued every
day since then.
As the clash between the Old and New intensifies
in the region, the youth and working people in
particular are rising to the challenge and, in the
process, winning over middle sections to join the
cause of those who are fighting for their rights
and the rights of all. This can be seen having an
effect as all attempts by the foreign-backed
oligarchs to wield exceptional measures and their
monopoly on state power to terrorize the people's
forces in hopes of making them submit are not
working. The killings, injuries inflicted,
arbitrary detentions, disappearances and
persecution of all types have only served to
increase the people's indignation and
determination to keep resisting and pressing their
demands until they secure justice.
Chile
Banner at November 16, 2019 demonstration in
Santiago, Chile, reads "Chile Will Be the
Tomb of Neo-liberalism."
A general strike took place on November 26 and
27, the third since mass protests began six weeks
ago. Workers from different sectors of the economy
joined social movements and political forces
organized as the Social Unity Roundtable in
marching through Santiago and other cities and
setting up roadblocks in some areas. It is
reported that hundreds of thousands of workers
participated, including those working in mining,
on the docks and in the education and
transportation sectors.
The Secretary General of the Unitary Workers'
Central of Chile, Nolberto Díaz said the strike
was called because the government, contrary to
what it announced, had not engaged in dialogue
with the social movements or met any of their
demands. He added that if President Sebastián
Piñera and the parliamentarians were incapable of
providing a solution for what Chileans were
demanding, they should step aside and call early
elections.
Gabriela Flores, President of the National
Federation of Municipal Health Officials said, "We
workers are not going to sit with our arms folded,
nor is the population. How is it possible that
[Piñera's] advisors can be so blind and so deaf
that they don't hear what the people are asking
for and just push legislation to increase the
repression?"
 On November 26, a
day in which the Interior Ministry reported that
police arrested 915 people, Piñera introduced
legislation to permit use of the military to
"protect critical public
infrastructure," widely interpreted to mean
returning them to the streets without the need to
declare a state of exception as he was required to
do when he militarized the streets in anticipation
of the first protest action on October 18.
Thereafter, for nine straight days the armed
forces operated alongside the police (carabineros),
using deadly force, torture, rape and other
extreme measures against the youth in particular,
who the president portrays as an enemy that has to
be defeated.
Over the past 10 days both Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch have released damning
reports documenting the brutality with which
Chile's police and military have attacked
protestors and others who simply happened to be in
the vicinity of street actions, both during and
after the lifting of the state of exception. In a
statement released on November 21 Amnesty
International wrote:
"'The intention of the Chilean security forces
is clear: to injure demonstrators in order to
discourage protest, even to the extent of using
torture and sexual violence against protesters.
Instead of taking measures to curb the very grave
human rights crisis, the authorities, under the
command of President Sebastián Piñera, have
pursued a policy of punishment for over a month,
adding yet more people to the staggering number of
victims, which is continuing to rise to this day,'
said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at
Amnesty International."[1]
Then on November 26, Human Rights Watch issued
its report documenting similar police abuses and
violations of human rights as well as statistics
provided by different Chilean authorities. It
indicated that the Attorney General's office was
investigating 26 deaths that occurred during the
protests and cited a report of the Ministry of
Health indicating that emergency medical services
were provided to 11,564 persons injured between
October 18 and November 22. Of these, 1,200
sustained grave injuries. It said the use of
pellet guns aimed at people's faces was the
main cause of the more than 220 eye injuries
documented up to November 17, with 16 people
having lost sight in one eye and 34 having severe
eye injuries that could result in partial or total
blindness. Since then there are reports of people
having been blinded in both eyes and at least one
case of a young person whose eyes were physically
destroyed.
Human Rights Watch reported that police
detained more than 15,000 people from October 18
to November 19, and "held" an additional 2,000 for
violating the curfew imposed during the state of
emergency. It said as of November 21 the National
Human Rights Institute had filed 442 criminal
complaints with prosecutors on behalf of victims
for injuries, cruel treatment, torture, rape,
killings, and attempted killings allegedly
committed by security forces. It said there were
hundreds more who reported being subjected to
mistreatment and humiliation inside police
stations. Separately, Reuters reported on November
26 that prosecutors said they were studying 2,670
complaints of abuse by security forces.
The conclusion reached by Human Rights Watch,
widely considered to operate in tandem with the
U.S. State Department, was only that Chile was in
urgent need of "police reform," which no doubt
allowed Piñera to breathe a sigh of relief as he
already had his sacrificial lamb. The day before
he met with Human Rights Watch regarding its
recommendations, he fired his discredited Interior
Minister and cousin Andrés Chadwick, who already
bore political responsibility for the
extrajudicial assassination by police over a year
ago of Mapuche community leader Camillo
Catrillanca, and more recently referred to
protesters as "criminals." On November 27, Chile's
House of Representatives voted to impeach Chadwick
as well.
In spite of everything to which they are being
subjected, Chileans have not been cowed and
continue to come out into the streets in large
numbers to fight for their just demands, including
punishment of those responsible for the harm
inflicted on so many citizens, reparations for
those killed and injured, and for the convoking of
a constituent assembly that empowers the people to
write and approve a new constitution for the
country to replace the one currently in force. The
current constitution was imposed by the Pinochet
dictatorship, enshrining the neo-liberal economic
and social model they reject.
Bolivia
 Mass demonstration in El Alto,
Bolivia, November 16, 2019.
The week that ended November 23 was marked by a
massacre in which at least 10, mainly young men,
were shot and killed by state security forces who
attacked a peaceful blockade at the Sekata gas
plant in El Alto. Witnesses have said they believe
many more were killed and their bodies simply
disposed of by state forces to reduce the number
of deaths reported. The gas plant blockade was set
up as one of many on roads around the country that
formed part of the nationwide resistance to the
coup. It prevented fuel from leaving the plant to
supply the nearby capital city, La Paz.
 That week was also
marked by large daily mobilizations around the
country of outraged Bolivian working people and
families demanding justice for those murdered in
El Alto and a similar massacre perpetrated the
week before against workers supporting Evo Morales
in Cochabamba. That massacre took place just one
day after the self-proclaimed "interim president"
Jeanine Áñez issued a decree exempting members of
the armed forces from criminal responsibility for
actions carried out in the course of
"re-establishing public order." Adding insult to
injury, a large funeral procession in which
grieving people were carrying the coffins of those
killed in El Alto, was attacked and forcibly
dispersed with tear gas.
Those bearing the brunt of the repression --
which has to date included over 30 documented
killings, hundreds of injuries and over a thousand
detentions and disappearances -- are Indigenous
youth, campesinos and other working people whose
organizations are the main base of support of the
country's rightful president, Evo Morales. The
dictatorship, calling itself an interim
government, meanwhile has issued warrants for the
arrest of Evo and other leading members of the
Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) on invented
charges of sedition, terrorism and the instigation
of criminal acts. That is on top of the mayors and
other local elected officials affiliated with MAS
already forced out of office and/or detained
during the coup. It is being described by people
on the ground in Bolivia as a generalized witch
hunt.
Media censorship is part of the mix. Two days
after the El Alto massacre, on which it reported
extensively, TeleSUR received notice from the
state-owned telecommunications company Entel that
its signal was being taken off the air effective
immediately. RT en
español has since been told by its
private provider to expect the same as of December
2. Similar attacks on national and international
media organizations and journalists are reported
as being widespread, with Bolivians being accused
of sedition if they dare to present the coup
forces in a negative light.
For more than a week now negotiations have been
taking place in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies
of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of
Bolivia on legislation proposed by the MAS
majority to constitute new national and regional
electoral tribunals and to call a general
election. Agreement was reached and the Exceptional
Temporary Electoral Law for the Realization of
General Elections was promulgated on
November 23. Currently the imposter president Áñez
and the legislature are engaged in the process of
naming (in her case) and electing (in theirs) new
electoral authorities. They will have 120 days to
call an election once the new national and
regional tribunals are established and have drawn
up a calendar for their work. Neither Evo Morales
nor Álvaro García Linera are permitted to stand
for re-election.
Complicating the ability of other MAS members to
exercise their right to participate in the
election, or politics generally, is the fact that
passage of a companion law to guarantee the
constitutional rights of all Bolivian citizens is
being blocked by Áñez, who contemptuously refers
to it as an "impunity law." The legislation would
outlaw arbitrary detentions and political
persecution, including those her coup government
has been carrying out from day one, and which
those behind her have no intention of stopping.
One need only recall how effective "lawfare" was
at keeping Lula out of the last presidential
election in Brazil, and the fact the same is being
attempted against former President Correa of
Ecuador.
On November 26 the Commander in Chief of the
Armed Forces presented Áñez with its Great
Military Merit award and conferred on her the rank
of captain general for services rendered. For her
part of the show, Áñez said she was grateful to
the armed forces for not hesitating to join the
coup and that their presence contributed to
"pacifying" the country. She assured the commander
that in spite of the temporary nature of her
"mandate" it was her intention to restore to the
military the role and prestige that has always
characterized them and would work with friendly
countries to bring back the highest level of
training programs for them. A day later it
was announced that Bolivia had restored diplomatic
relations with Israel.
Also on November 26, a national assembly of
social movements in resistance to the coup d'état
was held in Cochabamba at the headquarters of the
coca growers' federation, of which Evo is the
president. There, a resolution was adopted which,
among other things, reaffirmed participants' moral
and material support to their brother Evo Morales
Ayma, President of the Plurinational State of
Bolivia; reaffirmed the ongoing state of emergency
and announced a temporary halt to their protest
actions to see if the coup government honours its
signed commitments and other agreements entered
into with mobilized social sectors of the country;
called on the legislative assembly and executive
of the de facto government to immediately
approve the law guaranteeing the exercise of basic
civil, political and constitutional rights for
elected political authorities and union leaders;
demanded the immediate freeing of detainees and an
end to all illegal persecution and detentions; and
committed themselves to unity in the political and
social struggle for social justice.
The vice-president of the host organization, the
Six Federations of the Trópico
de Cochabamba, said there was a whole strategy in place
to make the MAS lose the next election. Given
the difficult situation, he called on all
sections of the party to prepare to fight the
elections without wearing the movement down in
protests and blockades. An emergency
meeting of the MAS has been called for this
weekend to discuss who will be its candidates.
Colombia
Bogotá, Colombia, November 21, 2019.
The huge demonstrations that have taken place
daily in the capital city of Bogotá and other
parts of Colombia since November 21 are said to
have reached dimensions not seen in decades. What
started out as an initiative mainly of the
country's trade union centrals, students and
pensioners to hold a one day national strike to
demand an end to the neo-liberal paquetazo
(package) of austerity and privatization measures,
rampant corruption and unfulfilled commitments of
the Duque government, soon took on wider
dimensions, with tens of thousands continuing to
take to the streets and banging on pots day and
night. People are demanding an end to the
criminalization of protest, that the military be
removed from policing and that the hated riot
squad be disbanded; that the government take
action to end the impunity for the rampant
killings of social leaders and former FARC
guerrillas; and that it implement the peace
agreement with the FARC and re-open negotiations
with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Teachers call for the riot squad to be disbanded,
Bogotá, November 27, 2019. Banner reads: "We did
not choose to be teachers to see our students die"
The straw that broke the camel's back regarding
the riot squad was its killing of an 18-year-old
student who was shot in the head with a projectile
-- all of it captured on video. The killing has
sparked outrage in the country. Dilan Cruz was due
to graduate from high school on November 25 and
had joined the protest to oppose the underfunding
of public education after being denied a loan he
applied for to be able to attend university. One
of his friends told Colombian daily El Espectador
that "'we were marching and the ESMAD threw stun
grenades and tear gas canisters at us. Dilan went
to the front to kick back a tear-gas canister,
because it had landed next to old people, that's
when he was shot at, they say it was a rubber
bullet,' his friend added." Forensic reports later
said it was a beanbag filled with lead pellets
shot at close range. He was the fourth person to
be killed by security forces during the protests.
But the repression carries on. Duque, like his
equally unpopular Chilean counterpart Piñera,
hopes he can weather the storm by using force,
buoyed by the pat on the back he got from U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier this week
who congratulated him over Twitter for his
handling of the protests.
On November 28, those demonstrating in Bogotá
were joined by members of the Indigenous Regional
Council of the department of Cauca (CRIC). Members
of their Indigenous Guard plan to converge on the
capital city from different parts of Cauca in the
coming days to add their voices to the demands
being raised by others.
Ninth consecutive day of protests, Bogotá,
November 29, 2019.
Hands Off Dominica!
The latest target of Organization of American
States (OAS) Secretary General Luis Almagro
appears to be the Caribbean island state of
Dominica, where a general election is scheduled to
take place December 6. Dominica's Minister of
Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Francine Baron,
informed a special meeting of the Permanent
Council of the OAS on November 19 that the
opposition United Workers' Party, which obstructed
attempts to discuss proposals for electoral reform
earlier as requested, was at the last minute
spreading lies about general unrest and lack of
safety on the island. At the same time it is
trying to incite violence itself to create the
impression the country is in chaos and
ungovernable and that conditions do not exist to
hold the election. In an interview with teleSUR on
November 27 Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit left
little doubt that the foreign agents egging on the
opposition were the U.S. and OAS. He said:
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit
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"They [the OAS] are targeting certain member
states. Dominica is one such country that they're
targeting and my government is one such government
that they are targeting. So it is not about free
and fair elections -- it is not about the
electoral process. [The OAS] have waited for this
opportunity to implement this strategy, so, it is
something that has been in the making for three or
four years," he stated.
Skerrit went on to say that he believes the main
motivating factor behind the OAS crusade to
delegitimize his government is to punish it for
consistently voting against non-interference in
the region, and more specifically, against OAS
resolutions on Venezuela.
Minister Baron informed the OAS in her
presentation that Dominica plans to invite
CARICOM, the [British] Commonwealth, the UN and
the Carter Center to observe its election and was
open to including the OAS. But she asked it first
to issue declarations condemning all use of
violence in this and any election and calling for
all parties to refrain from statements that could
be construed as interfering in the sovereign
affairs of countries. And in the case of member
states that do not implement OAS recommendations,
against deeming their elections not to be free and
fair.
Baron said she was containing her outrage at the
attempts to destabilize Dominica and the election
just as it has been making a huge effort to
overcome the terrible effects of Hurricane Maria
and get the country back on its feet,
acknowledging the assistance received from many of
those in the room.
Addressing a rally of his supporters on November
23, Prime Minister Skerrit emphasized that
Dominica was not for sale and nobody can tell it
what to do, repeating several times, "Hands off
Dominica!" He reminded Dominicans that there was a
dangerous situation in the region with the
imposition of an unelected "government" and coup
attempt in Venezuela and a coup in Bolivia, both
of which Almagro supported. He said the fight this
time is not about himself winning re-election but
standing up for the country against foreign
interests that care nothing about the people but
seek to take control of the country.
The just stand of patriotic Dominicans, as
expressed by Prime Minister Skerrit and Minister
Baron, has received the support of the Bolivarian
Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP),
which in its statement of November 21 expressed
its members' "uneasiness in face of the statements
by the OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, who
pretends to impose an Electoral Mission of the
aforementioned Organization in Dominica, which
constitutes not only an intolerable act of
interference in Dominica's internal affairs, but
also an unacceptable overreach in the exercise of
his functions." The statement went on to refer to:
"The controversial performance of the most recent
OAS Electoral Observation Mission in Bolivia,
plagued by actions of doubtful political
impartiality, which severely question its
technical authority and openly discourages its
intervention.
"[...] In that sense, the ALBA-TCP member
countries warn and denounce before the
international community, and in particular the
Caribbean community, the application of the same
format of violence and death used in Bolivia,
against the Commonwealth of Dominica whose
purposes and objectives seem to be aimed at
forcing an unconstitutional change of the
government of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit."
In its statement of support, CARICOM reminded
that no member state has the obligation to invite
the OAS to observe its elections. Other Caribbean
leaders, including Gaston Browne, Prime Minister
of Antigua and Barbuda and Ralph Gonsalves, Prime
Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines also
spoke out in support of the Dominican government's
stand. Prime Minister Gonsalves added that
the OAS and its Secretary General, Luis Almagro
were enemies of the democratic and progressive
forces of the continent.
Paraguayan Youth Prevent OAS Secretary General
from Speaking
 Earlier this month
social, political and student organizations took
the wind out of Luis Almagro's sails by preventing
him from speaking at Pacific University in
Asunción where he was supposed to deliver an
address on "Democracy and Development." As the
vehicle carrying him approached the meeting venue
people carrying signs and flags surrounded it and
shouted that he was not welcome, that he was
responsible for the coup in Bolivia and had blood
on his hands. Almagro thought better of trying to
proceed under the circumstances and left without
getting out of the vehicle.
Note
1. The full report can be
seen here.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 29 - November 30, 2019
Article Link:
Unfolding Events in Latin America
And the Caribbean: Resistance Grows to Neo-Liberal Wrecking, State Terror and Imperialist-Inspired Coups - Margaret Villamizar
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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