Yesterday and today, I spent many hours trying to follow events in the current outburst of fascist and anti-Bolivarian violence in Venezuela. In Managua, we have the luxury of cable news access via Telesur, Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan special TV programming, and also many radio sources.
Clearly, sections of the Venezuelan extreme right, some incubated by the EMBUSA [USA Embassy] are carrying out a big budget, high stakes agenda. Levels of deliberate, organized violence of this intensity have not been seen since the 2002 failed coup against President Hugo Chavez Frias. Likewise, mobilizations in defence of democracy and the Bolivarian revolutionary process are beginning to take on an accelerating dynamic. Huge actions are now being organized for tomorrow (Saturday, 15th). Bolivarian socialist leaders, including President Nicolas Maduro and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, have been issuing joint appeals (in the name of theĀ Bolivarian government and of the parties in the Patriotic Front including the governing PSUV) to mobilize to confront the fascists in the streets (āthe streets belong to the people, not the fascist thugs!ā). Simultaneously, they stress the crucial importance of avoiding provocations and traps set by criminal elements.
But whose agenda?
Those best suited, equipped and armed with detailed information, to probe for actionable intelligence to answer that vital question are already on high alert in Venezuela. They can, and are already counting on, extensive collaboration from their counterparts in allied ALBA countries, and allies operating in the new framework constructed by the CELAC — the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
In the aftershock of this new round of elite and foreign sponsored fascist violence and street mobilizations, messages of solidarity from ALBA, CELAC, and other foreign governments have already been received in Caracas.
No such messages have been received from Washington or Ottawa. Such thunderous silence echoes a gnawing silence in US President Obamaās āState of the Unionā address last week to the traditional Joint Session of the (Imperial) House and (Imperial) Senate.Ā Obama did not let even one word about Latin America or the CELAC slip through his teeth. As he began his all-important remarks, broadcast simultaneously around the globe, another Head-of-State ā Cubaās President Raul Castro ā was inaugurating the Second CELAC Summit in Habana. Guests included UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon and JosĆ© Miguel Insulza, General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The CELAC Second Summit, hosted by the revolutionary socialist government of Cuba, registered in spades that the new continental organization had successfully weathered not a few storms and cold fronts unleashed by Washington. President Castroās speech ā almost historic for its modesty and respect for the time restraints of such a gathering ā will perhaps most be remembered by future generations for CELACās Declaration of a Nuclear Free Latin America and the Caribbean.[1]
The anti-nuclear vote was unanimous ā enthusiastically so!
How would Canadian Prime Minister Harper have reacted to that vote had he been present with even consultative voice? His Queenās UK navy patrols the Argentine Malvinas Islands (which their colonial settlers call the Falkland Islands} with a flotilla that has nuclear arms.
Of course, thereās zero need to ask how Bush would have voted on anything to do with his nukes.
This is but one example of why the rest of the Americas decided that an organization consciously designed to exclude the two North American imperialist power centres ā Canada and the USA ā was now more than ever a necessity to enable the CELAC countries to better fend for themselves in the 21st Centuryās multipolar world reality.
So why did Obama say nothing, not even a grunt, about the LatinoāCaribbean world south of the Rio Bravo?
Of course, in self-defence, the Nobel Peace prize recipient and US Supreme Commander could have advanced the argument that he also made no mention of the political crisis in Egypt! In fact, he did not even once utter the name āEgypt.ā Ā He talked about his administrationās commitment to democracy ā not in Egypt, but in Tunisia, Burma, the Ukraine, and certainly not in Puerto Rico, a US Caribbean island colony just invited to join the community of Caribbean and Latin American nations at CELACās Havana Summit.
How to explain the exclusion of Latin America and the Caribbean ā and above all the CELAC (to speak of the ALBA would be tantamount to Obama announcing the āsecond comingā of Bolivarian hero Hugo Chavez Frias) ā from Obamaās survey of the State of Their Union?
I do not know for certain why the US presidentās speech writers and advisors decided to seal Obamaās lips on this big, really big issue. But I can hazard a guess.
Much evidence points to disarray in the White House and at State ā and in the so-called non-political strategists housed at the Pentagon, at the CIA-NSA, and at their most important think tanks, Foundations, and NGO-fronts such as the infamous NED.
Another possible explanation comes to mind. Was Obamaās Latino-Carib āomissionā really a ruse? Letās all breathe easy; weāre not even on his radar!
So many questions, but few answers!
What about Uruguayās decriminalization of marijuana? What to do about Chinaās new economic weight in the Americas? What to do about Nicaraguaās decision to build a Pacific-Caribbean canal mainly with Asian capital and expertise? How to bring down the Indigenous majority rule government in Bolivia without appearing to revive a de facto apartheid state? How to blow up the Cuban sponsored peace talks between the FARC and Bogota without appearing to want to revive a narco state in Colombia? Ā How to bring that uppity Dilma, president of Brazil, down to earth? She must be persuaded to cease all solidarity and collaboration with types like Julian Armstrong and that ātraitorā Edward Snowden.Ā How dare this ex-terroristĀ Brazilian leftist turn down the prize invitation to the yearās one and only White House State Dinner just because she regards the privacy of her phone conversations to be more important than whatever might have been on the menu of that affair. Ā More to the point, how can the CIA-NSA scuttle the initiative of the Brazilian government to hold in Sao Paulo, in April 2014, the Global Multisector Meeting on Internet Governance. And, aye, Mexico if only the Long Wall could really work! And what to do about the movements towards local self-arming by citizens trying to protect themselves from armed mafia thugs. Will Mexico become another of their failed states?
The White House and State have yet to work out a coherent response to CELAC-style unity and sense of new historic vision expressed at the Havana Summit.Ā President Raul Castro, in his inaugural remarks, said: āwe know that among us exist different thoughts and even differences, but the CELAC has emerged from two hundred years of struggle for independence and is based on a deep community of objectives. Therefore, the CELAC is not a series of mere meetings or pragmatic coincidences but a common vision of the Great Latin American and Caribbean Motherland that is due only to their people. ā
Is Obama’s Pacific Rim pipe dream really an acceptable counter vision to the new Caribbean-Latin American vision of a great, unifying dynamic throughout the non-imperialist continental zones? Not in a long shot.
Much, then, is left to haphazard reaction to events carried off by Southern Command experts and the countless Trojan horses the US has implanted in the foreign aid-NGO sectors in countries like Venezuela and Bolivia.
This spells danger.
Despite any momentary disarray in Washington at this turn of events ā and Obama really does have a lot of āeat crowā on his weekly world menu right now ā one consistent fact of US-Latin American-Caribbean relations remains crystal clear; and it has remained constant ever since its war against Sandino in the late 20s ā early 30s of the last century.
The Monroe Doctrine ā Kerryās buffoonery aside ā remains the core of US strategy on its southern flank and its great Caribbean Lake. Washington will ā and does ā act BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY to destroy the on-going process of unity around ALBA — the most advanced expression of popular desire and political will to break away from imperialist domination and capitalist disorganization and destruction of our Madre Tierra, our Pacha Mama.
Today, Cuba and Venezuela are the key targets.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow many hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and compatriots from up and down our Patria Grande will take to the streets to let the Venezuelan fascists know that the lessons of Europe of the 1930s, of the Spanish Civil War, and of Pinochetās long Chilean nightmare are not forgotten.
ChƔvez Vive! La Lucha sigue!
ChƔvez vive! La Patria Sigue!
Ā
[1] President Obama delivered his 2014 State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2014, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Transcript courtesy of Federal News Service. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-text-of-obamas-2014-state-of-the-union-address/2014/01/28/e0c93358-887f-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
President Raul Castro delivered his inaugural address to the Second CELAC SummitĀ in Havana on Jan. 28, 2014 See http://progresoweekly.us/20140128-celac-common-vision-great-motherland/
Ā
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1 Comment
What is happening in Latin America is exceedingly important, to expect the leadership class of the U.S. to truly understand and accept it would be to expect too, too much. Nonetheless, it will continue in its path of progress and independence. The spirit of Chavez’ reforms remain.