Latin
America and the Caribbean
In 2020 Step Up Anti-Imperialist Solidarity with the Peoples of Our America!
- Margaret Villamizar -
First monthly picket of the year, Ottawa, January 17, 2020.
The year that just ended was marked by important
advances as well as setbacks on different fronts for the people's
forces in Latin America. The coming year promises to be one in which
countries and peoples resisting U.S. imperialism's increasingly brutal
attempt to assert its hegemony over the entire region will continue to
face serious challenges. But it also holds promise in the sense that
the people's forces are courageously doing battle with the forces of
retrogression led by the U.S., in some cases under very dangerous and
difficult conditions. They are building their unity and organization in
the course of asserting their rights and putting forward their demands
for a society that guarantees the rights of all and a future for all
free from the disastrous economic and social ills bred by the
neo-liberal remedies the international financial oligarchy has imposed
on their countries.
Deserving of special mention is the fact that the
peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, united around their
governments, have been able to defend and strengthen their revolutions
in the face of every kind of infamy directed against them by the U.S.
in its quest to foment counterrevolution, overthrow their elected
governments and put an end to their sovereignty and independence. The
inability of the U.S. imperialists to bring the people and governments
of these three countries to heel after years of subversive activity
means they will step up attempts to accomplish their criminal aim, no
matter how unlikely the prospects of success.
Picket in Montreal, January 22, 2020, stands in solidarity with the
Chilean people's resistance to neo-liberalism.
Pompeo's Sabre-Rattling Tour
During the week of January 19-25, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited three
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The first was Colombia,
whose government led by the neo-liberal and peace-destroying president
Ivan Duque, has been the closest collaborator of the U.S. in its
attempts to destabilize neighbouring Venezuela and overthrow the
government of President Nicolás Maduro. It was therefore not
surprising that Juan Guaidó, the fake "president" of Venezuela,
was smuggled into the country to appear alongside Pompeo at a meeting
of foreign ministers from the hemisphere and later meet there with a
gang of Miami-based counterrevolutionaries who, according to reports,
expressly requested that he ask Pompeo for a U.S. military intervention
in Venezuela.
 Pompeo
also arranged for Guaidó to go on a European tour immediately
afterwards so he could spew out his lies and plead for more punishing
sanctions against his country to anyone who would listen there. In this
he was given a hand up by Canada, whose mission to the EU Parliament in
Brussels hosted a meeting on January 22 for him to meet with members of
the Lima Group, its EU-led counterpart, the International Contact
Group, the G7 and ambassadors of EU member states. In keeping with its
racist, colonial tradition, the Canadian government reported it as a
meeting of "the international community."
Guaidó was also allowed to make his
pitch to the filthy rich gathered at Davos for what is called a "world"
economic forum. Everything makes clear that the imposter's only real
support is outside the country, not inside it. That fact was further
driven home by his failure to muster enough votes from opposition
factions that previously supported him to be re-elected president of
the National Assembly. He then resorted to organizing his own
counterfeit "election" in front of the media on the premises of an
opposition newspaper so he could once again proclaim himself the
elected president of the legislature and therefore also of the country.
This is the basis on which his foreign handlers, the Trudeau government
among them, keep promoting the farcical notion that he is still
Venezuela's "legitimate president."
From "Humanitarian" to "Anti-Terrorism" Card
Officially, Pompeo went to Bogotá to
attend the Third Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial on January 20, for
which he had a specific agenda as well, using it as a platform to push
the notion that Venezuela harbours terrorist groups and supporters of
terrorist groups. He made special mention of the Lebanese organization
Hezbollah, which he called "the Iranian regime's top terrorist proxy."
Pompeo's message to governments that had not yet done so was to get on
with designating Hezbollah as a terrorist group and start taking action
against suspected individuals.
 He then said to
the 20 or so foreign ministers in attendance that the U.S. had done its
part to "take down the threat of Iran's proxies" and "eliminated Qasem
Soleimani." A few sentences later he said that "neutralizing terrorists
is one of President Trump's top national security priorities." He
followed this with an offer to partner with their countries "in every
way possible," calling it burden-sharing. Pompeo was not explicit about
what kind of actions the partnership on offer might apply to, but given
the pains he took to link Venezuela and "Maduro" with Iran and
Hezbollah, one can only wonder what this former CIA director, who brags
about the lawless "neutralizing" of opponents, had in mind. It appears
that for the U.S., playing the "humanitarian crisis/intervention" card
and "responsibility to protect" may have run their course, having gone
nowhere. So now the stage is being set to switch from that pretense to
another one: terrorism in the name of fighting terrorism.
Pompeo's verbal sabre rattling at the badly named counterterrorism
ministerial was followed three days later by the arrival in Colombia of
paratroopers from the 82nd U.S. Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C
and other members of U.S. Army South to participate with the Colombian
military in what is described as an airborne anti-terrorism
exercise. A second exercise will begin January 29 involving
fighter jets and helicopters.
Pompeo's second stop was in Costa Rica on January 21, which borders
Nicaragua, another U.S. target for destabilization and regime change.
In public remarks there he again singled out Venezuela for attack but
honed in on Nicaragua's Sandinista government, issuing warnings to it.
While there he met openly with Nicaraguan anti-government opposition
groups his government no doubt funds. They, like Guaidó, called
for more sanctions against their homeland.
Attempt to Divide CARICOM
Pompeo's third stop was Jamaica, for more dirty
work -- in this case attempting to divide Caribbean countries and split
their organization CARICOM, only some of whose members were invited to
meet with Pompeo. The 15-member organization has served as an effective
block to attempts by the U.S. and its allies to use the discredited
Organization of American States (OAS) as a political weapon against
Venezuela by denying them the number of votes needed to take action
against Venezuela in the name of the OAS. This led the U.S. and Canada
to set up the illegitimate Lima Group outside the OAS for the purpose
of advancing their illegal regime change project.
CARICOM Chair Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of
Barbados, said the meeting organized by Pompeo in Jamaica was an attempt
to divide the region and for that reason Barbados would not be
attending. "As chairman of CARICOM," she said, "it is impossible for me
to agree that my foreign minister should attend a meeting with anyone
to which members of CARICOM are not invited." Prime Minister
Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago followed her lead, saying as head
of CARICOM Mottley also spoke for him. Grenada declined to attend as
well, leaving only six countries for Pompeo to lecture about
strengthening ties with the U.S. and its fraudulent project for a "free
hemisphere."
Pompeo’s public speech in Kingston again targeted
Venezuela, this time adding Cuba, Russia and China to the list. He
accused Russia and Cuba of continuing "to meddle in the sovereign
affairs of nations, trying to destabilize democracies," and "easy
money" from China of feeding corruption, undermining countries' rule of
law, ruining their environment and not creating jobs for their
people.
Part of Pompeo's time in Jamaica was spent meeting
separately with Prime Minister Holness and senior members of his
cabinet, where he again viciously attacked the government of
Nicolás Maduro, later declaring publicly that Holness agreed
with him on that. It is not known how that was received by Holness. He
urged Holness to exercise "leadership" in CARICOM and to encourage the
rest of its members to re-elect the U.S. henchman Luis Almagro as OAS
Secretary-General in March, and by implication, facilitate the OAS
acting officially against Venezuela.
There can be no doubt that the U.S. is stepping up
its offensive in Latin America and the Caribbean on different fronts --
against the government and peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in
particular, to discourage others from following their "bad examples" --
and against the people fighting for their rights in many other
countries as well. The machinery is already in action to prevent the
Bolivian people from freely and democratically electing their choice of
president later this year, while the U.S. hails the "democratic" coup
government of Jeanine Añez as it metes out state terror and
lawfare against leaders and supporters of the former governing MAS
party and criminalizes dissent.
The U.S. modus operandi for carrying out its offensive
against popular and democratic forces and governments in Latin
America and the Caribbean involves defamation, slander,
creating division and issuing warnings and threats – both in
words and in deeds. The panorama unfolding for the
year ahead indicates that 2020 will require vigilance
and stepping up anti-imperialist solidarity based on building
the unity of all the peoples of Our America for peace, freedom,
democracy and rights.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 1 - January 25, 2020
Article Link:
: In 2020 Step Up Anti-Imperialist Solidarity With the Peoples of Our America!
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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