Part 1: The Left Will Reemerge, Part 1: The Short Term Clarification

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Second Phase (2026–)

The second phase is characterized by more intense imperial interference against the democratic institutions of target countries, combining institutional manipulation with extra-institutional actions—whether violent or not—that involve gross violations of international law. It is also characterized by two new forms of interference: political Christianity and Israel’s increasingly invasive involvement. Hence the term “hybrid war.” The scale of reactionary interference increases exponentially in this phase; its instruments are so sophisticated that they reduce the sovereignty of nations to children’s toys or coffee-shop jokes, and the number of countries involved continues to grow. A vast process of recolonization is underway, taking the political form of global fascism. A far-right International is in the making, with Latin American and European countries as its primary targets.

Given the secretive nature of these plans, we can only identify the tactics and strategies indirectly, through their concrete application in the field of counterinsurgency operations. It is quite possible that their scope is much broader than what is detectable in known instances of interference. Right at the start of 2026, three cases deserve special mention: Venezuela, Honduras, and Colombia. The fact that we have witnessed three such diverse—yet equally intense—interventions in such a short time reveals a very ambitious intervention plan. In this vast laboratory, the department of oppression is working at full throttle.

Venezuela

What has occurred in Venezuela since January 2026 is unprecedented in the recent history of Latin America. Imperial interference in Venezuelan domestic politics has a long history and has intensified significantly since Hugo Chávez launched the Bolivarian Revolution at the beginning of the millennium. Despite Chávez’s strong anti-imperialist rhetoric, trade relations with the U.S. continued, particularly in the oil sector. A charismatic figure, Chávez made clear from the outset his intention to exercise full sovereignty over the country’s natural resources, using the proceeds to improve the living conditions of populations that until then had not benefited from the immense national wealth. Extensive social redistribution programs were created, among which the misiones—initiatives in areas such as health, education, and infrastructure, organized outside the bureaucratic rules governing state intervention—would come to stand out. Thus, a form of parallel state emerged that earned Chávez immense popularity while simultaneously exacerbating internal opposition from the social classes that had until then benefited, directly or indirectly, from the oil revenues generated and distributed by the “Magical State,” as it was termed by the great Venezuelan social scientist Fernando Coronil. In previous writings, I have analyzed—with both solidarity and criticism—the Bolivarian process, led by Chávez until his untimely death in 2013 and subsequently by his successor, former Vice President Nicolás Maduro.

In this text, I will merely note that the regional and international policies of Chávez and Maduro crossed several red lines set by U.S. imperialism. Unprecedented, concrete solidarity with Cuba. A regional policy that promoted the organization of the subcontinent’s countries outside U.S. tutelage. Privileged political and commercial relations with China, Russia, and Iran. An oil management policy that could potentially threaten the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency.

The imperialist response was swift. From the outset, it included the instruments of interference that are now commonplace: a coup d’état, assassination attempts, embargoes, sanctions, the confiscation of reserves deposited abroad, the delegitimization of the elected president, and the international promotion of a puppet president—a farce in which the European Union gleefully participated. Since none of this worked, the military component of the interference intensified, with the bombing of small boats in Venezuelan territorial waters under the pretext that they were transporting drugs. Thus was born the characterization of the Bolivarian state as a narco-terrorist state. It was the first major expansion of the concept of terrorism, to be followed by others, as we shall see.

On January 3, U.S. special forces captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife during the night, killed more than two dozen members of the presidential guard—mostly Cubans—and took the couple to the U.S. so that Maduro could face U.S. justice for alleged links to drug trafficking. They also neutralized the entire air defense system. “Normality” was quickly restored, with Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assuming the presidency of the republic.

It soon became known that management of oil production and trade had been transferred to U.S. companies and that oil revenues, instead of going into the Venezuelan Treasury, would go into the U.S. Treasury, from where they would be distributed to Venezuela according to criteria defined by U.S. authorities—that is, by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In a matter of weeks, the anti-imperialist Venezuela of the Bolivarian Revolution had been reduced to the status of a U.S. protectorate, managed by Viceroy Marco Rubio.

It is astonishing that this unprecedented violation of the integrity of a sovereign country has not provoked any reaction in the so-called Western world, not even in Latin America, where criticism has not gone beyond vague statements of protest.

As for the UN, it’s best not to speak of it, lest we weep. It has vanished, its whereabouts unknown, and efforts to rescue it are being scaled back, given the slim hope of finding it alive.

The intensity of imperial interference in the second phase is thus qualitatively greater than that of the first. It is difficult to determine how far it will go. The signs are disturbing. Even more disturbing is the fact that Israeli influence in the intervention is becoming increasingly visible. I’ll give three examples—for what they’re worth—from which I do not intend to draw definitive conclusions.

As misfortune never comes alone, two violent earthquakes struck Venezuela on July 24. Several countries offered humanitarian aid, and it is understandable that Venezuela could not choose between them. It is nonetheless curious, however, how much visibility was given to the aid provided by the Israeli military. The military forces responsible for the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza were now displaying all their zeal in rescuing Venezuelan children from the rubble. Without downplaying the aid provided, this seemed like an image-cleansing operation or, quite simply, an emphasis on the “banality of evil” committed in Gaza. I couldn’t help but recall that Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi leader responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Jews, would enter his home through the back door so as not to wake the canary.

The second example concerns the International Criminal Court. It is well known that Israel, with the complicity of the U.S., has been waging a fierce campaign against the Court ever since it sought an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders, with Netanyahu at the forefront. On July 24, Venezuela announced its “firm and irrevocable” withdrawal from the ICC. Whatever our assessment of the ICC over the course of its existence—and mine is quite critical—the timing and circumstances of Venezuela’s decision do not suggest a mere coincidence. It should be noted that Chávez criticized the ICC for being an “arm of the U.S. empire.” It is not credible that these are the reasons behind the Venezuelan government’s decision at this time.

Finally, the composition of the delegation of U.S. members of Congress who visited Venezuela in late July speaks volumes about what is to come. Two of them, Brian Mast and Randy Fine, are closely associated with the Israeli lobby in the U.S., AIPAC. One congresswoman, Kat Cammack, specializes in homeland security, border issues, and defense. Another congressman, Jonathan Jackson, son of Jesse Jackson, advocates for an end to sanctions against Venezuela and the unfreezing of the country’s international reserves. The Israel factor—with investments and involvement in the defense of rare minerals—and the revamping of Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” project, with Venezuela’s possible participation, appear to be the topics under discussion in the near future.

Honduras

As I mentioned earlier, Honduras was the first country to suffer the return of imperialist coups to the subcontinent in 2009. In April 2026, audio recordings were made public containing exchanges between the current president, Nasry Asfura, and former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is imprisoned in the U.S., having been sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and pardoned by President Trump in 2025. The two politicians belong to the same conservative party, and the messages revealed the conditions for the former president’s return to the country as part of an international plan led by the U.S., Israel, and Argentina to destabilize the progressive governments of the subcontinent—particularly in Colombia, under Gustavo Petro, and in Mexico, under Claudia Sheinbaum. The plan included the use of evangelical churches for ideological manipulation, new military bases, U.S. investments, and the creation of special economic zones—and we are already familiar with the private city of Próspera on the island of Roatán, financed by Peter Thiel of Palantir. It also called for a digital journalism unit to spread fake news aimed at destabilizing progressive governments and a legal framework that would favor artificial intelligence companies from the U.S. and Israel.

New audio recordings, released on July 26 by Diario Red (https://www.diario-red.com) in an article by Valeria Duarte Galleguillos, revealed plans to “take back institutions,” such as the Supreme Court and the leadership of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. But what is most disturbing about the new leaks—if confirmed—is a vast espionage and cyber-surveillance operation carried out by Israeli companies, in collaboration with the telephone operators Claro and Tigo, targeting politicians, human rights activists, and ordinary citizens.

Voice note from Nasry Asfura (audio 168): “The Israelis stated that, as long as people communicate within Honduras using numbers located in Honduran territory, it is possible to obtain certain information, such as who they are communicating with and other data. The software they have is limited exclusively to collaboration with Tigo and Claro.”

Apparently, none of this is new, since during Hernández’s presidency, the interception of phone calls—without leaving a trace for the user—was detected using Peter Thiel’s Palantir technologies, and Pegasus, the program developed by the Israeli NSO group, is also not new to the subcontinent. In 2011, Mexico was the world’s first buyer of Pegasus, still under the presidency of Felipe Calderón, and with it, under Enrique Peña Nieto, it reportedly conducted cyber-surveillance on 15,000 people, including journalists, anti-corruption activists, and lawyers representing victims (https://www.france24.com/es/am%C3%A9rica-latina/20210720-pegasus-espionaje-mexico-pena-nieto). The same is said to have occurred in Colombia under President Iván Duque.

Added to the espionage is the disinformation industry.

On August 2, 2026, the Times of Israel reported that Facebook had banned dozens of accounts, pages, and groups—many of them linked to Israel’s Archimedes Group—for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, with the aim of “shaping reality according to the client’s interests” (https://www.timesofisrael.com/facebook-takes-down-network-of-fake-accounts-pages-linked-to-israeli-firm/).

Their operations always rely on the same combination: technical capacity for surveillance—which requires legislation that allows for the elimination of anonymity on social media and on phones—and tools to fabricate “facts” and narratives.

The massive use of espionage combined with disinformation appears to be one of the preferred tools of this second phase of interference in sovereign countries with progressive governments.

Colombia

Colombia is the third example of the operations aimed at interfering with and destabilizing progressive governments that characterize this second phase.

Last May’s elections resulted in a victory for far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer for drug traffickers and armed paramilitary groups—the “autodefensas”—who holds dual Colombian and U.S. citizenship and resides in Miami. His campaign, actively supported by Donald Trump, shifted the public arena to digital platforms. It wasn’t just better funded. It relied heavily on disinformation and the manipulation of voters.

According to journalist Lucas Ospina in La Silla Vacía, most of the operation took place on computer servers and in WhatsApp groups organized by levels of “recipients,” with algorithmically generated videos tailored to each voter’s profile. To the staunch Uribist, the candidate appeared as “El Tigre” crushing guerrillas. To the evangelical, he appeared surrounded by pastors. To the young person outraged by Gustavo Petro, the leftist president, the meme transformed De la Espriella into an omnipotent feline leaping over the ruins of Petro’s palace. To the single mother and head of household, the video portrayed him as a biblical provider-husband. To the new middle-class voter dreaming of order, an epic video set to superhero music was presented, in which the tough-on-crime candidate arrives in a region ravaged by violence to capture the evildoer and bring prosperity.

I quote this article at some length because it sheds light on the strategies of manipulation and disinformation used today around the world. Resisting them requires understanding them:

A study by the Social Media Observatory at the Catholic University of Colombia found that De la Espriella’s campaign was the one that most forcefully dominated the virtual space by presenting “social problems as urgent threats,” creating “the need for immediate responses,” and reinforcing “his message of authority.”

De la Espriella’s campaign platform was called defensoresdelapatria.com and operated according to the same pyramid scheme logic as gruposrodolfistas.com, the right-wing candidate’s site in 2022: personalized referral links, its own QR code, a points dashboard, and a downloadable “Battle Kit.” The campaign even launched a contest promising trips to the 2026 World Cup for the activist who gathered the most contacts. A Herbalife-style multi-level marketing scheme complete with a tricolor flag and jersey.

But the declared expenditure is only the tip of the iceberg. An investigation by the blog Hyperconectado documented an active Google Ads campaign, with 600 simultaneous ads on the display network—visible on any monetized website in Colombia—that direct users to a form for collecting personal data: full name, age, email address, WhatsApp number, department, and city. The advertiser registered with Google identifies as “Luisa Portela,” with no verified identity. The declared financier of the advertising expenditure is another person, “Juan Esteban Méndez,” whose identity has also not been verified. The form did not include a privacy policy or a consent mechanism, violating Law No. 1581 of 2012 on data protection and External Circular No. 002 of 2026 issued by the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce.

Everything is cleverly presented as a “citizen initiative.”

Someone now has a database containing the WhatsApp numbers and geolocation data of thousands of Colombians who clicked on a Google ad. It is unknown who manages it or with whom it is shared. But its operational value is clear: a list segmented by department and city is exactly the asset that completes the multilevel network’s circuit—its network of contacts, consumption levels, education, and location. It’s the difference between firing a machine gun and firing a sniper rifle, in the words of digital operator Lester Toledo, who helped bring Bukele to the presidency of El Salvador, when he reduces every human being to an electoral algorithm: “A citizen is someone with a cell phone.”

(https://www.lasillavacia.com/opinion/el-pequeno-abelardo-te-esta-mirando-o-como-la-empresa-electoral-de-de-la-espriella-hackea-tu-cerebro/)

Another new factor in the second phase of interference is political religion. Merchants of faith capitalize on the religious beliefs of impoverished populations to offer them a supposed sense of fulfillment that in no way alters the statu quo of inequality and social precariousness. It is a new factor due to the intensity with which it is now employed, though it has been in use since the 1969 Rockefeller Report, following the failure of the Alliance for Progress to contain the progressive momentum that the Cuban Revolution had injected into the working classes. Shortly thereafter, evangelical pastors—primarily Pentecostals and Neo-Pentecostals—flooded the subcontinent. Their well-funded churches and radio stations gradually transformed the progressive Catholicism that then dominated—that of the base ecclesial communities, grounded in Liberation Theology—into an agent of “the satanic atheism of communism.”

The first sign of their power came from Guatemala, when General Efraín Ríos Montt, a member of the neo-Pentecostal church El Verbo, came to power through a coup d’état with the support of Ronald Reagan. Nearly forty years later, in 2019, Jeanine Áñez assumed power following the coup d’état against Evo Morales and against the Plurinational State of Bolivia, brandishing the Bible and proclaiming that “the Bible returns to the Palace.”

De la Espriella’s victory in Colombia cannot be explained without this religious factor. In the June 29, 2026, edition of Diario Red, one can read a detailed analysis of the significance of the religious phenomenon, using one of the country’s regions as an example:

The real quantum leap at the polls came through the Association of Pastors of Bucaramanga and Santander and the network of allied megachurches, which eventually spread throughout the country. The religious bloc launched a quiet but fierce campaign of voter education from the pulpits. Unlike the opinion vote, which fluctuates depending on the debates or scandals of the week, the coordinated religious vote responds to guidelines aimed at preserving identity. Sources close to the region’s pastoral unions confirm that the narrative shared in the weeks leading up to May 31 equated De la Espriella’s platform with “the defense of the family and freedoms against the progressive agenda.” This sector-based network provided an unshakable electoral base of more than 35,000 highly mobilized votes in the Bucaramanga metropolitan area and served as a driving force and guardian of the votes at the polling stations on election day.

(https://www.diario-red.com/articulo/colombia/colombia-voto-religioso-que-abrio-puerta-fascismo/20260629100000072122.html)

Colombia is the first major Latin American country where the most sophisticated engineering of manipulation and disinformation of public opinion—combined with the conservative politicization of Christianity—is being applied with the greatest intensity. The three political pillars of this interference are U.S. imperialism, Israeli Zionism, and political Christianity. Everything suggests that the next target countries will be Brazil and Mexico. If this strategy is fully successful, it will, for now, bring the cycle of progressive policies on the subcontinent to a close. Two centuries after its first proclamation, the Monroe Doctrine is reaching its fullest realization.

The intensity of manipulation and disinformation means that, in many cases, the debate over whether or not electoral fraud exists becomes meaningless. Fraud is not committed during the counting of votes. Rather, it is committed beforehand, when public opinion is freely and massively misinformed. The famous phrase, perhaps inspired by Umberto Eco and Pier Paolo Pasolini, takes on its full meaning: “People vote for a true fascist thinking he is a fake, out of fear of a fake communism that they believe to be real.”

Conclusion

Some left-wing Latin American social scientists—whose names I will not mention so as not to embarrass them—have for years harshly criticized the progressive countries and governments that, for over a decade, have been the target of an increasingly sophisticated imperial attack. To summarize their criticisms, they coined the concept of “progressivism,” which they used pejoratively to characterize these governments. Implicitly—and at times explicitly—they argued that such governments were not left-wing. In recent years, the far right has capitalized on the delegitimization coming from these very “allies” to deepen the destabilization. As so often in the past, these social scientists served as the useful idiots of strategies that transcended them. Why is it that a well-meaning left is always more mistaken than a right that doesn’t think?

I am convinced that the liberation department of the great Latin American laboratory is not completely deactivated, but for now, only ruins are visible. I am certain that these are ruins that serve as seeds—simultaneously a reminder of a past of struggle and resistance and a harbinger of a future of dignified life, for both human and non-human beings.

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