South America

[blindpig]

Brazil Rejects Milei and Trump’s Bid to Head OAS
March 8, 2025


Lula (Center Right) and the newly appointed president of Uruguay, Yamandu Orsi (left), and the presidents of Colombia, Gustavo Petro (Center Left), and Chile, Gabriel Boric (Right). Photo: Alex Ibanez/AFP.

By Jamil Chad – Mar 5, 2025

Brazil, allied with progressive governments in the region, has managed to prevent the Organization of American States (OAS) from being led by an ally of the governments of Javier Milei and Donald Trump.

Brazilian diplomacy has forged an alliance with Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Bolivia over the weekend and announced its support for Suriname’s candidate, Foreign Minister Albert Ramdin, to occupy the post of secretary general of the organization. The election takes place on March 10.

The Brazilian offensive paved the way for the diplomat to also receive support from Mexico, Canada, Ecuador and other countries. Together with the votes from the Caribbean, which had already been obtained, his slate was practically unbeatable. His advisors believe that he already has 28 endorsements.

As a result, on Wednesday evening, the candidate who had been courting the White House, Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, withdrew from the race. He also had the support of Argentina, as well as El Salvador.

The conclusion is that, even with possible support from Washington and Javier Milei’s government, he would not have enough votes to be elected.



OAS: strategic for Trump’s ambitions
At the end of 2024, Trump received the foreign minister of Paraguay at his residence in Mar a Lago (Florida). Officially, the meeting took place so that the two could discuss the political situation in Latin America and specific contexts such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. But the trip had another purpose: to try to strengthen the Paraguayan’s campaign to succeed Luis Almagro at the head of the OAS.

Trump has not yet openly declared who he will vote for but Ramírez Lezcano was also with billionaire Elon Musk, a figure who has been gaining ground in the decision making of the Trump administration including US foreign policy.

To attract the US vote, Paraguay has moved closer to the American vote on other issues at the UN, as well as adopting a discourse similar to the White House’s position. This includes criticism of China’s offensive in the region, protection of Taiwan’s interests, warnings about Iran and even irregular immigration.

The Paraguayan’s position pleased Marco Rubio, Trump’s chief diplomat, who is the grandson of Cuban exiles and who, over the years, has adopted a harsh tone against progressive Latin American governments, especially Venezuela and Cuba.

Announcing the end of his foreign minister’s candidacy, Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña, launched a veiled criticism of Brazil.

“The candidacy was very well received and supported by many member states of the organization. However, in recent days and in an abrupt and inexplicable way, Paraguay has been informed by friendly countries in the region, with which we share a common space and history, that they have modified their initial commitment to our country and have decided not to support Paraguay’s bid,” said the president.

“Paraguay, throughout its rich history, has been a country that has always based its positions on such high principles and values, and will not renounce them because of a particular election or situation,” he said.

“Having analyzed all these elements, I have made the decision to withdraw the candidacy of Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, a diplomat of vast experience and well-deserved prestige, not only regionally, but worldwide, for the OAS General Secretariat,” added Peña.

If the OAS is viewed with suspicion by an important wing in Latin America and is not the key to Brazil’s regional integration strategy, the White House’s vision is to use the Washington-based organization to serve its interests in the hemisphere. 60% of the OAS budget comes from American contributions, and Trump’s advisors explained to UOL that they want to ensure that these resources fulfill the mission of strengthening their position in the region.

https://orinocotribune.com/brazil-rejec ... -head-oas/

Marco Rubio’s Secondary Role in the US Government
March 7, 2025


US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (left) sitting next to President Donald Trump (right). Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/file photo.


By Misión Verdad – March 7, 2025

Reviewing the first 40 days of Donald Trump’s current administration, Marco Rubio’s role as secretary of state appears diluted within a web of priorities set by the Republican president on foreign policy matters.

Though occupying one of the most important positions in the US government, Rubio’s influence seems overshadowed by the authority of special envoys, who have taken charge of crucial issues on Washington’s international agenda.

The image of the former Florida senator sitting in the Oval Office during the heated discussion between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Vice President JD Vance became fodder for social media jokes. Taciturn and visibly uncomfortable, Rubio was reduced to a diminished role during the diplomatic scandal at the White House.

Rubio’s subdued presence contrasted sharply with the energy and prominence of other officials in the room. Years earlier, he had been a Republican primary contender with presidential aspirations.

The secretary’s participation in key meetings and diplomatic tours reflects an effort to stay relevant, yet he has failed to solidify himself as a decisive player within the administration.

The shadows eclipsing Rubio: the special envoys
The Trump administration has nine special envoys, including figures like Richard Grenell, Steve Witkoff, Keith Kellogg, and, to some extent, Mauricio Claver-Carone.

These envoys have been the most active during the first 40 days of the administration, handling high-profile missions.

According to Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman, the Cuban-American secretary of state had already expressed dissatisfaction before Zelensky’s visit to Washington descended into chaos. The appointment of these envoys further diminished Rubio’s prominence, reinforcing the perception that his role is largely ceremonial.

Two sources close to the Republican Party confirmed to the magazine that the secretary of state was caught off guard when Trump appointed envoys to critical foreign policy missions, such as resolving conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and Venezuela.

This move underscored Trump’s priorities and highlighted his approach to international relations through trusted allies, sidelining the traditional role of the State Department and, by extension, Rubio’s influence.

The use of special envoys has been a flexible tool in US foreign policy. Not only do they advance presidential priorities, but they also allow focus on strategic issues requiring specialized attention.

As early as January, prior to Trump’s inauguration, Bloomberg reported that Rubio was the president-elect’s pick for secretary of state. However, in the weeks leading up to the inauguration, special envoys captured most of the attention, advancing their agendas while Rubio awaited Senate confirmation.

These envoys, appointed from Trump’s inner circle, operated with privileged access to the president, allowing them to seize diplomatic momentum while Rubio navigated bureaucratic hurdles.

Kori Schake, a former US official and current fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, explained this dynamic: “Substantive foreign policy experts like Senator Rubio are less likely to be influential with the president than business voices… I don’t think Trump will permit anyone but Trump to be the dominant voice.”

The secretary may also face tensions with his own spokesperson. Trump appointed Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce to the role, who once called Rubio an “inexperienced senator who’s never run a thing in his life” and compared him to “a kid waving frantically in the back of a room trying to prove relevance.”

Traditionally, the White House consults the State Department before appointing ambassadors or special envoys, but the Trump administration has disregarded this process. Gerald Feierstein, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, noted that Trump “is not going to spend an awful lot of time caring about what the State Department thinks about an issue.”

The magazine also notes that “all envoys have offices in the White House,” granting them direct access to Trump—unlike Rubio.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, the now-secretary of state asserted: “The way this will work, and how I anticipate it working, is that [envoys] will work for the president in coordination with us.”

Reality, however, contradicts his words. At Foggy Bottom—home of the State Department—the lack of coordination is evident. Special envoys possess firsthand information and credibility due to their direct dealings with the president, sidelining traditional diplomatic channels.

This approach has created a “short circuit” in the secretary of state’s traditional authority.

What has Rubio achieved so far?

The Central America tour
Rubio’s first trip as secretary of state took him to several Central American countries, focusing on two key issues: countering Chinese influence and managing migration. However, his efforts were marred by controversy and mixed results.

Amid Trump’s threats regarding the Panama Canal, Rubio traveled to Panama to finalize a preexisting agreement. During his meeting with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, the State Department announced that “US government vessels can now transit the Panama Canal without paying fees, saving millions annually.”

Yet, reality diverged sharply from this claim. Mulino categorically denied the existence of such an agreement, accusing the US government of spreading false information. He clarified that exempting any country from canal fees was a “constitutional limitation.”

While Rubio negotiated in Panama, Mulino held parallel talks with other US officials, exposing a lack of coordination. The public disagreement triggered direct communication with Trump, revealing that key decisions bypassed the State Department entirely.

In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele surprised Rubio by offering to house US detainees. Rubio praised the proposal as “incredible,” downplaying its legal complexities: “Obviously, there are legal issues involved… but it’s a very generous offer.”

The next country on his agenda was Costa Rica, where the head of US diplomacy focused his attention on two fronts: the fight against drug trafficking and the growing influence of Chinese technology companies in the region.

Raising the tone of Washington’s stance, he backed Costa Rican policies that restrict the participation of Chinese companies in the development of 5G technology. He also offered to strengthen security cooperation: “We are going to see how we can involve the DEA and the FBI to work together with their security teams here.”

In Guatemala, Rubio secured a deal with President Bernardo Arévalo to increase deportations of migrants by 40%.

Yet, as Rubio toured Central America, media attention shifted to Richard Grenell’s meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Rubio’s trip culminated in the Dominican Republic with a minor announcement: formalizing the presence of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on the island.

Despite addressing critical issues like Haiti’s crisis and drug trafficking, his visit garnered little attention. The symbolic “seizure” of a Venezuelan plane (in reality, a theft) in the Dominican Republic was presented as an achievement but instead highlighted Rubio’s desperation for media relevance.

It is striking that a secretary of state, one of the most important positions in the US government structure, ended up supervising the “confiscation” of an aircraft, an issue far from being a priority in diplomatic terms.

Rather than demonstrating authority, this gesture seemed like a desperate attempt to justify his position and draw attention to an administration in which other actors have monopolized the limelight.

Rubio’s tour of Central America made it clear that his influence is limited and that, instead of leading, he is running after a shadow.



Zelensky and Ukraine
Returning to Zelensky’s visit to Washington in light of Sherman’s comments to Vanity Fair, it is worth recalling that in 2022, Rubio had made his position on the Ukrainian crisis clear.

In an interview, when asked what kind of assistance the US should provide, he said Washington should maintain a relationship with a “real, legitimate Ukrainian state” and support it as long as the battle lasted. “I don’t know why we won’t openly say that we will support them as long as they are willing to fight, even if it’s only an insurgency,” he told Andrea Mitchell Reports.

However, Rubio also warned that this support should not lead to an “armed engagement” between the United States and Russia, as that “would be World War III.” Instead, he argued that Washington should continue to “supply and equip” Ukraine.

Shortly after Zelensky left the White House, Rubio effusively praised Trump on X. Then, on Sunday, in an interview with ABC News, he intensified his criticism of the Ukrainian leader, reinforcing his attempt to position himself within the US president’s inner circle, displaying an attitude that contrasts with his previous stance of support for the Ukrainian president.

This apparent contradiction could be interpreted as an attempt to align himself with Trump and preempt any narrative of tension between the two, according to the American outlet.

Ultimately, the former senator is trying to maintain his relevance, navigating between his past convictions and the need to adhere to Trump’s decisions, a balance that is not always convincing.

This highly ambitious and experienced foreign policy politician has been sidelined by the Trump administration. His tour of Central America, while ambitious, was marked by controversy and results that failed to achieve the expected impact. Meanwhile, special envoys have taken the lead on crucial issues and have consolidated their influence in the White House.

Ultimately, his role as secretary of state is more paperwork than substance. In an administration where Trump centralizes power and prefers advice from other officials, Rubio is struggling to remain relevant. His story is a reminder that in US foreign policy, it is not enough to hold a high office. What is crucial is to have direct access to and influence over the president. In that regard, the current secretary of state appears to be swimming against the tide.

https://orinocotribune.com/marco-rubios ... overnment/

Only way Trump does any good is by accident, side-lining this gusano punk fer instance.

[blindpig]

Argentina responds to the brutal repression of retirees’ march

After the violent repression of the retirees’ demonstrations, journalists’ unions and social organizations demanded the resignation of the Secretary of Security, Patricia Bullrich.

March 14, 2025 by Pablo Meriguet


Police in Buenos Aires drag away a journalist. Photo: SiPreBa

After the protests on March 12, more than a hundred people were arrested and dozens injured in the violent repression by Javier Milei’s government. The retirees are demanding an improvement in their living conditions and the pensions they receive, the vast majority of which do not allow them to cover their basic needs. The demonstrators blame the neoliberal measures of Milei’s libertarian government for having reduced their quality of life. Several unions, leftist political parties, and notably, fan clubs of football teams, participated in the protest on March 12, in support of the retirees who have been demonstrating every Wednesday for several weeks.

Luciana Lavila, journalist of Barricada TV, told Peoples Dispatch “Last Wednesday in Argentina we had a clear view of how Javier Milei’s government responds to a genuine and fair mobilization. I’m talking about a concentration…of retirees simply asking for an increase in their pensions and for the return of the medicines that this government took away from them.”

Bullrich files criminal charges
The Government of Javier Milei has accused the detainees and supporters of the retirees’ march of sedition, attacking the constitutional order, and illicit association. The criminal complaint was requested by the Secretary of Security, Patricia Bullrich. Among the accused are political and social leaders, mayors, and leaders of soccer fans who took to the streets to support the retirees’ demonstration. The subsequent repression by the security forces caused injuries to almost 50 people.

One of the government’s targets is Leandro Capriotti, leader of the Chacarita Junior fans, for being, according to the government, “the main organizer of the violent march”. The accusation also targets Mario Firmenich, former head of the political group Montoneros. Although Firmenich lives in Spain, Bullrich has accused him of being one of the organizers of the march based on a public video in which he asked people to come out to support the retirees in their demands for a more dignified life. Similarly, the two mayors of municipalities in Buenos Aires, Fernando Espinoza and Federico Otermín, opponents of Milei’s government, have been denounced for allegedly supporting violence.

Judge orders the release of the majority of prisoners
The complaint filed by Bullrich also questions the actions of Judge Karina Andrade, who ordered the release of almost a hundred people detained after the protests. According to Andrade, the arbitrary detention of the protesters endangers the constitutional rights to protest and freedom of expression.

Furthermore, Andrade affirmed that the detainees were not properly entered into the security system, so it was appropriate to release them. The “basic information on the detention of these people” was not specified, so due process was complied with in 114 cases. According to Andrade, “The elderly should be guaranteed freedom of expression, a constitutional right. That was the context [of the protest]. They were exercising a constitutional right. A criminal context [of the detainees] was not brought to me. They began to generate arrests that were not communicated to me and hours went by. Besides, when it was reported, we did not even have the data of the place.”

However, the Secretary of Security warned that she is evaluating the possibility of denouncing Andrade for prevarication and violation of the duties of a public official due to the freedom she granted to the detainees. Bullrich posted on her X account “We will demand the removal and background check of Judge Karina Andrade for releasing more than 100 detainees without verifying background or evidence, violating the Law of Reiteration.” Bullrich also said: “We detain the violent, and they release them so that next week they can return to crime. They are organized criminals, picketers, and militants who seek only one thing: to destabilize.”

Complaints against Bullrich
In turn, Bullrich was criminally denounced by one of those injured in the demonstration. Beatriz Blanco, a pensioner who was demonstrating against Milei’s neoliberal austerity policies when she was beaten by a policeman. She fell backward from the assault and suffered a head injury. Blanco denounced Bullrich for serious and aggravated injuries and other crimes.

This complaint is in addition to the one filed by the Procuraduría de Violencia Institucional (Procuvín) against Bullrich for the injuries to Blanco and photographer Pablo Grillo, who is still in critical condition. In a video that has gone viral, Blanco can be seen falling after being pushed by a security agent, after which she fainted.

On the force with which the Argentine police acted, journalist Luciana Lavila said, “Nothing mattered to the government, nor to those who were repressing. One of the most serious victims of this repression was Pablo Grillo, a photographer who was there to record what was happening, to make it visible, to denounce repression and institutional violence… An agent of the security forces shot him directly in the head with a long-distance gas gun, which caused a skull fracture. Today Pablo remains hospitalized and is still fighting for his life with a reserved diagnosis. This, of course, provoked a response from the press union in solidarity with Pablo, but also to denounce that every day it becomes more difficult not to fulfill the journalistic task.”

Reactions from journalists: “We demand that Bullrich resign”
After the repression of the march of retirees and other citizens, several social and trade union organizations have expressed their opposition to the actions of Milei’s right-wing government, especially the journalists’ unions, who state that in Argentina the practice of journalism is threatened by the actions of the Executive.


Journalists associations and unions outside Argentina’s Congress in an action denouncing the police attack on photojournalist Pablo Grillo. Photo: SiPREBa

The Press Union of Buenos Aires (SIPREBA) repudiated the actions of the forces of law and order against the demonstrators and journalists covering the events. “Neither protesting nor journalism can put our lives at risk. Javier Milei and Patricia Bullrich are responsible for the brutal repression on Wednesday 12 that caused the very serious injury suffered by photographer Pablo Grillo, a former student of ARGRA. We repudiate all the violence in the retirees’ march, promoted by the climate of war installed by the government, of which many comrades from different media were victims,” SIPREBA said in its communiqué.

For its part, the Argentine Federation of Press Workers (FATPREN), which groups together press unions from all over the country, repudiated how Milei’s government acted towards the demonstrators and demanded the resignation of the Secretary of Security, Patricia Bullrich: “We demand [Bullrich’s] immediate resignation and the urgent investigation to find those materially responsible. At the same time, we demand an end to the repression and attacks on press workers, which have only been on the rise since the arrival of Javier Milei’s government, a situation that we have been denouncing on repeated occasions.”

Likewise, in a press conference, the Association of Graphic Reporters of the Argentine Republic demanded the end of repression in citizen protests that affect citizens in general and journalists and photographers in particular: “We need Bullrich to resign and put an end to all his unconstitutional policies. We are photojournalists, we need freedom of the press and not to be assaulted. It is not only Pablo [Grillo], but we have been demanding for a year and a half that the security authorities do not hurt us anymore” said one of the journalists at the press conference.

On whether Wednesday’s march marked a historic event in the balance of forces in Argentina, Lavila told Peoples Dispatch, “These people know how to fight, they managed to break, somehow, the quietness that had been prevailing during these months in our country after the arrival of Javier Milei to the Government. We believe that this may become a turning point. And surely this will also cause the mobilization to be much bigger next Wednesday, in the concentration that the retirees will make.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/03/14/ ... ees-march/

******

Trump Demands ‘Military Options’ To Control Panama Canal – Media
March 14, 2025


Panama Canal. Photo: AP/Matias Delacroix.

The Pentagon was reportedly ordered to provide “credible” plans for securing US access to the key waterway

US President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to develop plans to “secure” the Panama Canal from alleged Chinese influence, following multiple threats to “reclaim” and “take back” the waterway, according to sources cited by Reuters, CNN, and NBC.

The Panama Canal, a vital maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, has been under Panamanian control since 1999 following the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which stipulated that it would remain neutral and open to all nations. Trump has repeatedly threatened to take back control of the waterway, citing the “ridiculous fees” and concerns over China’s increasing presence in the region.

Earlier this year, Trump refused to rule out the use of military force to take control of the canal, stating that all options are on the table to protect US economic and national security interests.

In an Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance memo obtained by CNN on Thursday, the White House formally asked the Pentagon to “immediately” provide options to ensure unlimited US access to the canal.

“Provide credible military options to ensure fair and unfettered US military and commercial access to the Panama Canal,” one of the directives in the memo reportedly stated.

US Southern Command is already developing potential plans, ranging from “partnering” closely with Panamanian security forces to a scenario in which US troops seize the canal by force, unnamed officials told NBC. Sources cited by Reuters also said the Pentagon had been ordered to explore military options to secure US access to the waterway.

Panamanian officials previously rejected Trump’s assertions and threats, while the Panama Canal Authority maintains that the canal is operated solely by Panamanians, with no evidence supporting claims of Chinese control.

President Jose Raul Mulino stated that the canal is part of Panama’s “inalienable patrimony” and stressed that Panama maintains full control of its operations. However, after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally delivered Trump’s ultimatum to Panama in February, Mulino made a concession to Washington by refusing to renew the country’s 2017 agreements with China under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

https://orinocotribune.com/trump-demand ... nal-media/

[blindpig]

“$Libra: The Scam of Milei”
By Hernán Viudes - March 15, 2025


Woman in Buenos Aires showing Javier Milei masks. [Source: foxnews.com]

“At 18:38 Argentina time on February 14, 2025, one billion units of the cryptocurrency $Libra were created. At 18:51, the market where $Libra could be bought and sold [known as the liquidity pool] was established. From that moment on, trading was possible, but no one had done it yet. The first transactions began at 19:01:00. There were 87 transactions from 74 different wallets, totaling USD 13.5 million. These first traders are known as ‘insiders’ because they intervene before the business becomes known, when the virtual currency had no value, or almost none, 0.0001. They evidently had information about what the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, was going to do 22 seconds later: Milei published a tweet promoting $Libra, which remained fixed for almost five hours, something he never does. It had the contract attached and linked it to his ‘Viva la Libertad’ project. These ‘privileged’ wallets with the information were also privileged in terms of profits: Some made four and even eight million dollars each in less than an hour when they withdrew the money.”

“It is impossible that such real and exorbitant profits with a virtual currency could have been made without the global visibility that Javier Milei gave it. In fact, among the 86% of investors who lost all their money, there are people from the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America in general, and from Argentina in particular. The scam ended up moving $4.6 billion when each unit reached a peak of approximately $5.20.”

The above was reported by the economics magazine Forbes in Spanish.

Milei’s partners in the cryptocurrency scam are U.S. citizens Hayden Davis and his brother Gideon, through their firm Kelsier Ventures. Gideon revealed the existence of a “LOI” (letter of intent) that “Argentina, at its highest levels, has just signed with us.”


Javier Milei and Hayden Davis. [Source: veintitres.com]

His testimony aligns with what was posted on X by Hayden’s lawyer, Yanina Nicoletti, who claims to have in her possession an agreement sealed with the president. Hayden has always maintained that he has $100 million from “Argentina” and is awaiting instructions on what to do with that profit from $Libra. He also stated that they were paying Karina Milei, the president’s sister and Secretary General of the Presidency, and that this allowed him to control Javier Milei: “I send money to his sister, and he signs what I tell him and does what I want,” Davis said in text messages.


[Source: Courtesy of Hernan Viudes]

Cryptocurrency specialist Santiago Siri revealed that three of the four wallets that received the $100 million have “Milei” in their name. Blockchain ensures the traceability of cryptocurrency purchases and sales. This alone does not necessarily mean they belong to him, but the judiciary could verify the ownership of these wallets. “The labels are ‘Milei,’ ‘Milei CATA,’ and ‘VladMilei,’” Siri stated.[1]

“A multisig [multi-signature] wallet is a crypto wallet that requires more than one signature to authorize transactions. The most common ones involve two or three signers, where at least two out of three must approve to move funds. This ensures security but also allows coordinated access between different individuals,” Siri added.

Many businesspeople have publicly reported that Karina Milei demands money in exchange for access to the president. Bribes are another issue stemming from the large-scale fraud.


Karina Milei [Source: eldiarioweb.com]

Charles Hoskinson, an engineer and mathematician who worked for the U.S. government, revealed a request for bribes to meet Milei at the Tech Forum: “Hey, give us something” (mimicking the gesture of counting bills), “we can set up a meeting, and oh, yes, magical things can happen.” The businessman realized that “this would violate FCPA regulations, and we can’t do that. It was a very frustrating experience.” The FCPA, or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit, is the U.S. agency that combats bribery-related actions.[2]

All of them, along with other cryptocurrency “businessmen” in Argentina, were front-row participants in the Tech Forum event organized by Javier Milei in October 2024. This event was part of a series of meetings aimed at setting up the $Libra business. There are at least 12 recorded entries of these individuals at the Casa Rosada and the Presidential Residence, where Milei lives, to meet with him and his sister. Photos and videos of their connections are widely available on social media, including on official presidential accounts.


Javier Milei at Tech Forum event in October 2024. [Source: x.com]

Milei has accumulated nearly 120 complaints in various parts of the world, including those filed in the U.S. In Argentina, there have been requests for his interrogation in Congress, though they have not progressed so far. However, the issue has firmly entered the political agenda and has begun to seriously impact the president’s image. The mid-term legislative elections will take place in October.

As if that were not enough, Milei attempted to defend himself in a televised interview with a pro-government journalist, but it turned into a parody that went viral worldwide. During the interview, his top adviser, Santiago Caputo, was caught on camera instructing journalist Jonatan Viale to change the question to avoid exposing Milei and coaching the president on what to say.

Although the government tried to suppress the footage, it had already spread on YouTube. In fact, a comedian in Spain even made a parody, mocking the presidential censorship. During the interview, Milei justified himself by saying, “I’m not an expert; even Davis himself says I know nothing about cryptocurrencies.” However, since 2020, he had been making money by giving cryptocurrency courses alongside two of his partners in the scam, Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy, through the consultancy firm N&W Professional Traders.

Javier Milei, ayer, en la conversación con Jonathan Viale, en la Casa Rosada; detrás de cámara, está Santiago Caputo, quien luego interrumpió la grabación
Javier Milei in now infamous conversation with journalist Jonatan Viale. [Source: lanacion.com]

One of the defining characteristics of Argentine society is the strong connection between economic and political power and the judiciary. It is unlikely that federal judge María Servini will truly investigate Milei, as his alliance with former right-wing president Mauricio Macri ensures his impunity. Here, the general feeling among the public and political leaders is that, with the Argentine judiciary, “nothing will happen.” However, expectations regarding the FBI and the U.S. SEC are entirely different.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/0 ... -of-milei/

******

Argentina: At Least 672 Injured, 114 Arrested After Repression On Retirees Demonstration


Members of the Argentine police arrest protesters last Wednesday in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: EFE/ Juan Ignacio Roncoroni

March 15, 2025 Time: 4:44 pm

The brutal crackdown on the march of retirees supported by football fans from different clubs, carried out last Wednesday, left a balance of 672 wounded and 114 people arrested who were released several hours after the arrest and are still accused, as reported by the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM).

The Provincial Commission for the Memory denounced a police operation with more than one thousand agents who violently repressed a protest, using rubber posts, tear gas, pepper spray and fire trucks.

The operation left 672 wounded and the CPM listed it as the most brutal repression since 2001, highlighting serious cases such as a photographer in critical condition due to the impact of a grenade, a retired woman beaten and a girl with gas burns.

In addition, the CPM denounces the arbitrariness and illegality of the arrests during the protests, while it points to the use of lethal weapons authorized by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich.


Police are accused of causing riots to blame the protesters, including incidents such as a policeman dropping a gun and an abandoned police car being vandalized.

In light of the criminal complaints against Bullrich, the UN calls for an investigation into the events and expresses concern about the health status of a wounded photographer.


“According to information received by the Office, participants in the demonstration were exposed to indiscriminate use of force by the authorities. Many protesters were elderly people who peacefully demanded social rights in matters of retirement and health,” the text reads.

So far, the Government has justified its repressive response to the peaceful demonstration by claiming that it was an alleged attempted coup d'état in addition to the systematic repression of the Milei Government, tends to criminalize social protests and citizens' demands for their neoliberal policies at the expense of the most basic human rights.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/argentin ... nstration/

[blindpig]

Milei surrendered to Trump
Leandro Morgenfeld

March 17, 2025 , 12:35 pm .


Javier Milei at the CPAC conference in Washington (Photo: LGI)

Argentina becomes an emblem of colonial genuflection before the United States, which reserves a cudgel for it.

The relationship between Donald Trump and Javier Milei is front-page news and the focus of global attention. Both are in their accelerationist phase, modifying their foreign policy and seeking to implement a regressive economic adjustment, facing strong internal and external resistance, embroiled in the cryptocurrency scandal, and showering each other with mutual praise.

Since winning the election in November 2023, Milei has traveled to the United States ten times, a record surpassing any other president in Argentine history. He was also the first to attend a presidential inauguration in Washington. His overreaction to Trump exposes a bilateral relationship with neocolonial traits, serving the economic and geopolitical interests of the White House and detrimental to Argentine sovereignty and the necessary Latin American integration, in a context of crisis of US hegemony and a transition toward a more multipolar world.

Milei's ten trips to the United States
Just days after winning the election, in November 2023, Milei traveled as president-elect to New York and Washington on a private plane paid for by billionaire businessman Gerardo Werthein, who would later be appointed ambassador to Argentina. There, he held meetings at the White House with Joe Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, and with his advisor for Latin America, Juan González, with IMF officials, and even with former Democratic President Bill Clinton, for a fee of several tens of thousands of dollars. "We have become a strategic partner of the United States," declared the libertarian upon his return to Buenos Aires, exposing the Copernican turn in Argentine foreign policy.

As acting president, he traveled to the United States seven times in 2024: on February 23, he was in Washington to participate in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he managed to take a backstage selfie with then-opponent Trump; from April 10 to 12, he was in Miami and Austin, where he met with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, and the Jewish institution Chabad House; on May 5 and 6, he traveled to Los Angeles for a Milken Institute event; from May 28 to 30, he visited San Francisco, where he held meetings with technology entrepreneurs Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg, with the highest authority at Stanford University, and with the director of the Hoover Institution, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; from July 12 to 14, he participated in the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference; From November 22nd to 25th, he traveled to New York to give his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, although he also had another meeting with Musk and participated in the opening of the New York Stock Exchange; and on November 14th and 15th, he went to the CPAC summit at Mar-a-Lago, where he met with the already elected Trump; on January 19th and 20th, 2025, he participated in the presidential inauguration events in Washington DC and then traveled again to the US capital to participate in the annual CPAC conference, held from February 19th to 22nd, an opportunity in which he had his official photo with Trump at the convention hotel, in addition to another meeting with the current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk—to whom he gave a colorful chainsaw—and with the head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva.

He thus completed the astonishing record number of ten trips to the United States in just 15 months, a symbol of Argentina's geopolitical realignment.

Why is Milei functional to Trump?
In May of last year, in the article " Milei and the neocolonial submission to the United States " that we wrote for Tektónikos , we explained that "Milei is very functional to the strategic objectives of the United States in Latin America and to the policy of dismantling political coordination at the regional level, that is why she attacks all non-aligned governments and ignores organizations such as UNASUR and CELAC, while ignoring the importance of MERCOSUR." And this was while Democrat Joe Biden was still governing.

With Trump back in the White House, submission reached a level never before seen in Argentine history.

Since coming to power, the eccentric Argentine president has shown clear admiration and political and ideological affinity with Trump. Furthermore, the over-reaction to his White House following is due to the fact that Caputo's economic plan—with an overvalued peso and a regressive adjustment to finance the currency flight and carry trade— relies on the Secretary of the Treasury's support for an IMF disbursement, despite the fact that his staff at the multilateral organization are demanding a devaluation, which Milei resisted for electoral reasons.

For Trump, Milei represents a key delegate in Latin America, a region where the United States has historically sought to consolidate its influence and which faces a group of unsympathetic governments in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Honduras, among others. Milei's anti-state and pro-market rhetoric coincides with the neoliberal agenda Trump promoted during his first presidency, especially with regard to economic deregulation, adjustments in social, health, and education spending, and tax cuts for the wealthy.

This affinity isn't complete, of course, since Trump is strongly protectionist and displays economic nationalism, using state power to subjugate other countries to the interests of large American corporations, threatened by the overwhelming advance of their Chinese competitors.

Milei, for his part, deploys "photo diplomacy," surrounding himself with far-right exponents from the United States, Europe, and Latin America, and cultivating an active international image, which is especially beneficial for his domestic political consolidation. He mocks those who described him as a "neighborhood phenomenon" and imagines himself, alongside Trump, as one of the two most important leaders of the "free world," leading the cultural war against the supposedly woke progressive agenda .

Libertarians maintain that aligning with Trump will help loosen the IMF's grip and attract US investment. However, Milei should carefully observe the descent of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who went from being a puppet of Washington when the globalist faction ruled, to being insulted by Trump and Musk a few days ago, and on Friday, February 28, directly rebuked publicly by Trump and Vice President JD Vance in an unusual live broadcast from the Oval Office of the White House. After having pushed for and financed NATO and Ukraine's escalation against Russia since 2014, the United States is now demanding that the devalued leader of kyiv hand over his strategic resources and accept the agreement Trump is discussing with Putin without even participating in the negotiating table, to the horror of European Union leaders.

In the case of Argentina, and without giving anything in return, the United States managed to get Milei to reverse Argentina's strategic entry into the BRICS group, canceled the agreed purchase of Chinese aircraft in favor of antiquated US-made F-16s, gave concessions to Musk to advance his business in the country, promised Laura Richardson, the head of the Southern Command, the construction of a joint military base in Tierra del Fuego, handed over control of the waterway, and promised US participation in the privatization of public companies. This is in addition to directly attacking Latin American governments not aligned with Washington and jeopardizing agreements such as Mercosur. In his March 1st opening speech of Congress, Milei again directly threatened to leave the bloc to sign an unlikely free trade agreement with the United States.

Diplomacy as a mechanism of political accumulation by Milei
For Milei, diplomacy is being prioritized as a mechanism for domestic political accumulation. His frequent trips to the United States and his meetings with figures like Trump and Musk were and are used to project his image as a global leader and reinforce his domestic legitimacy. Milei presents these meetings as evidence of his ability to attract investment and strengthen Argentina's position on the international stage, as a bastion of the global anti-progressive struggle.

This strategy has been effective so far in terms of political communication, as it allows Milei to present herself as a figure who stands out in the major leagues. However, such spectacular diplomacy also has its limits. Relying on her international image to consolidate her domestic leadership can be counterproductive if it doesn't translate into tangible improvements for the Argentine population.

Furthermore, this political accumulation through diplomacy has drawn criticism from sectors that believe Milei prioritizes foreign interests over domestic ones. The alliance with Trump and other conservative leaders has further polarized the Argentine political landscape, dividing society between those who support this alignment and those who see it as a threat to national sovereignty, not to mention the " aimless U-turns ," as occurred in the recent vote against Ukraine at the UN after hosting Zelensky in Buenos Aires in December 2023.

With the international scandal surrounding the Libra cryptocurrency scam, Milei is facing lawsuits in the United States and has made the front page of the New York Times and other influential media outlets in that country, which are advancing their own investigations, demolishing the international image that Milei cultivated.

In April, a class-action lawsuit will also be filed in the United States, driven by hundreds of victims. Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump's representative for Latin America, who maintains a personal grudge against Chief of Staff Guillermo Francos and has already publicly criticized Milei's economic plan, reiterated this weekend that Milei would be investigated for the crypto scam and that he did not see the feasibility of a bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Argentina. Trump, for his part, was more ambiguous on Monday, March 3, calling Milei an "exceptional leader" and, when asked, stating that he was willing to discuss any proposal the Argentine president might offer.

The loss of national sovereignty
One of the most worrying aspects of the relationship with the United States under the Trump and Milei administrations is the potential loss of national sovereignty. The almost automatic submission to Washington's interests has led Argentina to adopt policies that respond not to its own needs but to the strategic interests of the United States.

A clear example is the renegotiation of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund, on which Milei has placed her hopes, to receive a loan that would allow her to reach the October elections with a stable dollar and controlled inflation, her two economic achievements on which she still relies significant popular support despite the adjustments and economic recession. Financial dependence on the United States and the IMF has restricted the Argentine government's room for maneuver, generating criticism from sectors that advocate for a more independent foreign policy, coordinated with other countries in the region, and diversifying international economic and financial ties.

The subordination of Argentina's foreign policy to Washington's interests affects Argentina's ability to establish balanced relations with other global players, such as China, Russia, and other members of the BRICS group. This loss of sovereignty has not only economic implications but also political and strategic ones, as it limits Argentina's ability to define its own course on the international stage.

Based on his ideological blinders and political needs—which are now combined with his personal and judicial needs to prevent the crypto scam cases from moving forward in the United States—Milei is willing to undermine any Latin American strategy for cooperation and coordination aimed at expanding the margins of autonomy and defending the sovereignty of the countries in the region. On the contrary, Milei intends to advance, as he has publicly stated, by destroying Argentine state capacities to hand over market forces, that is, the main drivers of Argentine economic activity.

The incorrect geopolitical reading and the challenges for Our America
The United States found in the Argentine libertarian an obedient executor of its mandates. Milei attacks all political and social forces that resist imperial domination, progressive, national-popular, and leftist governments in Latin America—which contributes to regional disunity—and, on a global scale, countries that challenge US hegemony, particularly those that make up the BRICS group.

All of this takes place in a highly critical global context, where a Hybrid and Fragmented World War is deepening . Furthermore, it involves Argentina in distant military conflicts. This excessively dangerous overreaction breaks Argentina's historical tradition of maintaining equidistance and neutrality, the position that conflicts should be resolved peacefully within the framework of international organizations and not through the use of force. This unprecedented alignment involves us in external conflicts in which Argentina lacks the military capacity to participate due, among other reasons, to its enormous vulnerabilities in defense matters.

We can't expect anything good from this, and it could have very damaging consequences. Furthermore, it harms our chances of uniting with the rest of the world, with other blocs such as the G77+China—a group of nations in the global south, currently comprising 135 countries—in the UN, in regional organizations, in the BRICS group, which would allow us better conditions to advance the sovereign claim over the Malvinas Islands, for example. Indeed, the United Kingdom is NATO's second-largest partner, after the United States, and has a military base on our occupied South Atlantic islands.

The alliance with Trump reflects an incorrect geopolitical reading by the Argentine government. In an increasingly multipolar world, where China, Russia, India, and other global players are gaining influence, uncritical alignment with the United States is absolutely counterproductive. Argentina is missing opportunities to diversify its alliances and strengthen its position in the contested international arena.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has deployed a shift in U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean, in what I called the "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine , characterized by a lot of sticks and few carrots : threats, sanctions, and little to offer in terms of economic aid or access to its domestic market.

Milei's neocolonial foreign policy has also generated tensions with other countries in the region, such as Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, which have adopted more independent stances vis-à-vis Washington.

Regional integration, a key objective for Our America, has been weakened by Milei's alliance with Trump. Instead of strengthening ties with its neighbors, Argentina has opted for a foreign policy that prioritizes the interests of the United States, which has generated distrust and isolation in the region.

While the challenges facing Our America are significant, the alliance between Milei and Trump represents an obstacle to building a united and autonomous regional bloc. In a context of growing global competition, the lack of coordination among the countries of the region severely weakens their ability to defend their common interests.

While Broad Front member Yamando Orsi took office in Uruguay on March 1st, a gathering of Lula, Petro, Boric, Xiomara Castro, and other Latin American leaders, Milei, before a half-empty Congress, ratified the threat of abandoning Mercosur and chaining Argentina's future to a trade agreement with the United States. A true symbol of the folly of a submissive and dependent foreign policy that, if perpetuated, will further deepen Argentina's dependence and condemn it to strategic irrelevance.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/mi ... ante-trump

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Bukele consolidates his subordinate services with the White House
March 20, 2025 , 11:51 am


Bukele's method for being pampered by the White House consists of subordinating himself as an instrument of the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 (Photo: Archive)

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele became an icon for the Latin American far right after entering his country's Legislative Assembly in 2020, accompanied by heavily armed soldiers. Furthermore, between 2023 and 2024, he used a legal loophole to run for the presidency for the second time in a row.

The reasons he gave after the first case revolved around the approval and funding of $109 million for the Territorial Control Plan, which sought to increase punitive action as a method to eliminate the armed gangs plaguing El Salvador.

This plan is the basis for the well-known implementation of the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), to which 238 Venezuelans deported by the Donald Trump administration have been transferred . As of last August, the facility, which has a capacity of 40,000 inmates, held 14,500 . Most have been detained "illegally, arbitrarily, and through the use of violence," according to human rights organizations.

Today, El Salvador has the highest prison population in the world, with overcrowding reaching at least 130%. It's also no secret that torture is the law in the prisons that house 1.6% of the Salvadoran population, after tripling the number of prisoners. The Central American country went from having one of the highest homicide rates in the world to being the safest , according to the Central American president.

However, the US government, led by Biden, softened accusations against the Bukele administration in 2023. This despite a State Department human rights report detailing thousands of illegal arrests, surveillance of opponents and journalists, warrantless raids, political prisoners, mass online trials in which defendants cannot speak to their lawyers, inmates beaten to death by guards, pregnant prisoners suffering miscarriages due to lack of medical care, and babies dying in prison.

How to be pampered by the White House?
His political rise consisted of a strengthening of his image through social media and a supposedly innovative discourse that negated the existing allegations of corruption, nepotism, misogyny, and abuse of authority during his tenure as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán and San Salvador.

The decline of a political class riddled with vices and stuck in the old tensions of the civil war provided the breeding ground for the emergence of a young figure, and his authoritarian biases seemed more of a promise than a threat.

Paved by the transnational media as the region's first millennial president , he has implemented strategies based on new technologies, not only in communications but also in economic and financial matters. Hence, his most recent move involves the withdrawal of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador after four years of its use under that name.

A $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) "to balance the economy" was the reason why the Legislative Assembly, at Bukele's request, approved a reform to the "Bitcoin Law." This amendment eliminated the mandatory acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of payment and prohibited its use for tax payments.

The organization, a battering ram for the neoliberal ordering of global economies, set a condition of "mitigating the risks" of cryptocurrency, which, moreover, has not achieved widespread acceptance among the Salvadoran population. In essence, the potential illicit uses of this digital asset threaten the country's financial stability and consumer protection.

With this decision, Bukele aligns himself with the global financial elite and abandons one of his most important points of honor. A U.S. analysis described it as "extremely unlikely" that the Biden administration—which was already dissatisfied with the government of El Salvador—would ignore the fact that a highly indebted Latin American country was beginning to use the U.S. dollar less than before; and so it did.

The IMF, which was quick to react to Bukele's implementation of cryptocurrency as an exchange mechanism, has been cautious with Trump, who is giving it special prominence and is moving toward incorporating it into his country's strategic reserve.

This doesn't seem like the right time for Bukele to speak out against another example of the global funnel , given that his current agenda is based on being pampered in the White House as well.

The business of prison shock
The securitization of migration is an attractive policy for Trump, who lacks the cognitive or doctrinal resources to analyze the structural causes of this phenomenon. Therefore, Bukele's punitive policies fit him like a glove, and the coincidence becomes good business.

The Salvadoran president prefers to give his country's economy a neoliberal tightening, via IMF adjustments, rather than tax the accumulation of wealth among his country's wealthy classes. From the start of his first term, he unleashed a wave of mass layoffs and the criminalization of public sector workers under the pretext of "rooting out corruption."

Driven by his dogmatic vision, he dissolved many government agencies, including those responsible for social inclusion, citizen participation, governance, and transparency. However, he insists that for his compatriots, migration should be "an option, not an obligation."

Bukele explained the reception of the 238 deported Venezuelans in financial terms. He stated that these funds "will help make our prison system self-sustaining. Today, it costs $200 million a year." Various analyses highlight that the cost of holding an inmate at Cecot is less expensive than in the United States.

However, to turn El Salvador into a "prison state," it has relied on exceptionalism and discretion as a regime. This, combined with a permanent increase in the security and defense budget, becomes the perfect foundation for corruption. In the best style of the " shock doctrine ," it exploits the crisis to obtain political and financial advantages.

In the first year and a half of the state of emergency decreed by Bukele, more than 200 people died in prison without any sign of reparation for the harm done to innocent victims. By the end of 2024, the figure had already reached 349, with no government agencies showing any willingness to correct the structural causes of these losses. Much less sanctions or blockades from the "rules-based order" seeking to lecture the Salvadoran government.

Salvadoran Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said last December that they are continuing to investigate prison deaths, although in June 2023 he had said he had filed 142 deaths because "there was no crime to prosecute."

The Bukele administration maintains three officials sanctioned by the United States due to various accusations, including negotiating with gang leaders. In fact, along with the deported Venezuelans, some of them were extradited to El Salvador, and it's possible that they were part of the negotiation between the two governments, given their insistence that they not be extradited when Washington requested them.

In September 2020, a case dubbed "Catedral" revealed that government officials had been negotiating with the Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang for a year; the commission in charge of the investigation was later dismantled by Delgado. Other gangs, Barrio 18 Revolucionarios and Barrio 18 Sureños, also figure in a scheme in which the aforementioned officials entered prisons to establish agreements with the gangs.

What is described is not new in El Salvador; a chronology published by El Faro describes the method as dating back to at least 2012 and as part of "the old stuff" that the president rejects in his speeches.


Bukele's "war on gangs" propaganda has a backstory of business and corruption (Photo: Reuters)

Dangerous Game Sheet
Bukele's method for being pampered in the White House consists of anti-politics as an instrument. In addition to applying neoliberal mechanisms to transform the state into a business agency serving the geoeconomic interests of financial elites, it has become a pawn in favor of the United States' control and coercion of governments that do not align with its supremacist vision.

The use of "terrorism" as an excuse for interference persists, although, as in the case of the Islamic State, armed groups are instruments for exercising power in regions targeted for plunder and geostrategic positioning.

The narrative surrounding the Aragua Train is another such case: it is a device used to threaten Venezuela through half-truths and scandalous and illegal actions, such as the recent deportation. It may be that the route charted by Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, would involve adding our country to a list of state sponsors of terrorism to "legalize" any type of armed action and attack the "root" of the threat.

While the latter is merely a hypothetical scenario, the fact remains that Bukele has entered the ingratiated circle of Trump-branded geopolitics, with the revival of the Monroe Doctrine, and in this case, placing El Salvador in the orbit of a penal colony of the United States and of countries in debt to international institutions that promote dollar-centrism as a financial dogma.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/bu ... asa-blanca

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El Salvador’s BRP on the Violation of Salvadoran Sovereignty by Trump and Bukele
March 20, [/img]2025


One deported migrant during his arrival at the mega-prison in El Salvador. Photo: Government of El Salvador.

By Bloque de Resistencia Y Rebeldía Popular – Mar 18, 2025

El Salvador’s a Bloque de Resistencia Y Rebeldía Populr issues a statement following the transfer of Venezuelan migrants from the United States to the CECOT maximum security prison in El Salvador.

The following is a translation of the statement issued by the Bloque de Resistencia Y Rebeldía Popular, a group of organizations from the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-patriarchal popular movement of El Salvador.

We reject the criminaliz[/img]ation of the migrant population and the violation of Salvadoran sovereignty by Trump and Bukele.



As a Popular Resistance and Rebellion Bloc, we raise our voices to strongly denounce the flagrant violation of national sovereignty and human rights perpetrated through the agreement between the Donald Trump administration and the Nayib Bukele regime. This pact entails the forced arrival of 238 people into our territory, evidencing the complicity of a government that has decided to subjugate itself to the imperialist interests of the United States, as we have denounced on previous occasions.

We denounce that many of these people have been arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, without having been tried in due process and without conclusive evidence demonstrating their involvement in criminal activities in other United States. This arbitrary and dehumanizing act not only violates the basic principles of international law, but also makes our country complicit in the xenophobic and criminalizing immigration policy promoted by the Trump regime.

This constitutes an act that demonstrates the fascist, racist, and defiant nature of basic human rights conventions on the part of the Donald Trump and Bukele governments, who attribute to themselves the power to kidnap, deport, and imprison people simply for being Venezuelan and accuse them of belonging to a criminal group, without any evidence and without the right to defense.



Furthermore, it is alarming that among those deported are gang leaders who, according to journalistic investigations, were illegally released during the Bukele administration as part of agreements between the regime and the gangs to sustain the pact. These deportations seek to prevent these criminal leaders from revealing details about the pact Bukele maintains with these criminal groups. This situation not only demonstrates the Salvadoran government’s double standards, but also puts the security of our region at risk by allowing dangerous criminals to go free.

We express our deepest solidarity with the Venezuelan and other families whose loved ones have been arbitrarily arrested and accused of crimes they did not commit, as evidenced by pending legal proceedings and the constant complaints filed by the families of victims who have been falsely accused of being criminals simply for being migrants. This policy of mass persecution and criminalization, based on racial and xenophobic prejudices, seeks to stigmatize and persecute those fleeing poverty, violence, and oppression generated by the same imperialist policies that condemn them today.

We demand the immediate release of all those unjustly detained and unrestricted respect for their right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. We categorically reject the use of our territory as a detention camp for people who have been victims of a cruel and dehumanizing immigration system.

We call on all social organizations, grassroots movements, and the people in general to stand up and fight against these policies that violate our sovereignty and dignity. We will continue to denounce the imperialist intention to turn our country into an instrument where they can imprison people who are neither Salvadoran nor have committed any crime in this territory, and to continue violating the rights of migrants and their families.

For our sovereignty and that of the people!

For the freedom of those arbitrarily detained!

Against imperialism and the criminalization of migrants!

San Salvador, March 18, 2025

https://orinocotribune.com/el-salvadors ... nd-bukele/

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What Rodolfo Walsh Would Demand We Write in His Place: The Thirteenth Newsletter (2025)

As attacks on the media increase in Argentina and beyond, we reflect on the legacy of Rodolfo Walsh, a heroic journalist who fought the military dictatorship with his pen.

27 March 2025


Demetrio Urruchúa (Argentina), Nuevo orden (The New Order), 1939.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On an evening in September 2024, Argentina’s President Javier Milei stood before a large crowd in Parque Lezama in Buenos Aires. He wore his signature dark leather jacket and barked out his speech, the crowd devouring every word. ‘Here you have the trolls’, he said, ‘corrupt journalists, shady characters. These are the trolls’. Then, he pointed at the people in the crowd and said that they were invisible because the journalists had ‘the monopoly on microphones’. It was harsh language, a replica of Donald Trump’s statement that journalists are the ‘enemy of the people’ (which is itself an echo of US President Richard Nixon’s statement to his advisor Henry Kissinger in 1972: ‘The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it’). These statements do not come without cost. Since Milei came to office in December 2023, attacks on journalists have increased.

Argentina has a painful history. It has struggled with military rule for nearly a quarter of the past century: 1930–1932, 1943–1946, 1955–1958, 1962–1963, 1966–1973, and 1976–1983. The most disturbing of the series was the last, in which a military junta of the army, navy, and air force commanded the country for nearly eight years, disappeared (a polite way to say murdered) at least 30,000 people, and stole hundreds of babies from left-wing families. Almost all of my generation of the left was murdered by that dictatorship.

The dictatorship had a chilling name: the National Reorganisation Process. This ‘process’ meant the bloody removal of the entire country’s left wing, from trade unionists to communists to journalists (all the art in this newsletter is from Argentina’s communist painters and photographers, a tribute to their wide-ranging talent). In an astonishing letter to the country’s military leaders, the journalist Rodolfo Walsh wrote of the mass murders, ‘you plan them at the highest level, discuss them in cabinet meetings, order them as commanders of the three [military] branches, and approve them as members of the government junta’.



Forty-eight years ago, on 25 March 1977, fifty-year-old Rodolfo Walsh died in the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), where he had been taken after being shot repeatedly by a squad of soldiers at the intersection of San Juan and Entre Ríos avenues in Buenos Aires. Walsh had just posted several copies of his letter to the junta when they found and shot him. When one of the shooters, Ernesto Weber, was brought to trial decades later he said, ‘We took Walsh down. The son of a bitch took cover behind a tree and defended himself with a .22. We shot at him with bullets and he didn’t go down, the son of a bitch’.


José Antonio Berni (Argentina), Juanito ciruja (Juanito the Scavenger), 1978.

Several years ago, a young reporter wrote to ask me to send her a list of journalists whose writing I admired. I dug around in an old notebook and found the list I had made for her. It is not very long, with just ten names: Wilfred Burchett, Eduardo Galeano, Ryszard Kapuściński, Gabriel García Márquez, John Reed, Agnes Smedley, Edgar Snow, Helen Foster Snow, Rodolfo Walsh, and Ida B. Wells. A few features unite the work of these journalists: first, they rejected the stenography of the capitalist press and wanted to tell the stories of the world from the standpoint of the workers and the peasants; second, they not only described events but placed them within the great processes of our time; third, they did not only write but crafted their stories, their emotional palate informed by their sense of what the reader needed to know; and, finally, they did not only write from the standpoint of the beleaguered but believed them and wrote about the struggles of our world with sincerity and not irony. Burchett, an Australian, was the first non-Japanese person to enter Hiroshima and announce the actual effects of the nuclear bomb to the outside world; Márquez, a Colombian, ripped apart the lies of his government and told the true story of the men on the naval destroyer Caldas who died in the Caribbean in 1955; and Wells, from the United States, detailed the horrors of lynching, which became the way that racism continued the structure of chattel slavery even after it had been formally abolished. These were great writers with immense stories to tell. It is hard not to admire them.

Among these writers was Walsh. Though I only knew him for his book Operación Masacre (Operation Massacre, 1957) and the final letter he wrote before he was assassinated, that one book about that one incident was sufficient to cement his reputation.

Walsh was not intrinsically a man of the left. He liked chess and puzzles. One evening, at a café where he was playing chess, Walsh heard that there was a survivor of a brutal killing at the edge of Buenos Aires of some men accused of fomenting an armed revolt against the military officers who had overthrown President Juan Perón in 1955. A few days later, Walsh found the survivor, Juan Carlos Livraga, and heard his story. It changed everything. Walsh was now a journalist addicted to a story.

That story began on 9 June 1956 when several men gathered in the neighbourhood of Florída to listen to a boxing match on the radio. It was not any boxing match. Argentinian Eduardo Jorge Lausse, who would defeat the Cuban legend Kid Gavilan later that year, in September, faced off against the Chilean middleweight champion Humberto Loayza in Buenos Aires’ Estadio Luna Park. What the men listening to the radio did not know was that there was going to be an uprising that night led by military officers loyal to Perón. They had no part in it. Nonetheless, soldiers arrived at their street, arrested them, took them to a dump, told them to run, and then shot at them. Seven survived, running for their lives or playing dead among trash.

When Walsh got the tip, he hired the journalist Enriqueta Muñiz (1934–2013) to work with him on the story. Her notebooks, published in the 2019 Historia de una investigación. Operación masacre de Rodolfo Walsh: una revolución de periodismo (y amor), or History of an Investigation. Operation Massacre of Rodolfo Walsh: A Revolution of Journalism (and Love), details their methodological search for the survivors and their stories. They found out, for instance, that the arrests took place before a state of emergency was declared, yet the murders took place afterwards. This meant that the military had carried out a cold-blooded murder of working-class men who had nothing to do with the political events of that night. They just wanted to hear their guy, Lausse, put Loayza down on the mat.


Juan Carlos Castagnino (Argentina), Maizal (Maize Harvest), 1948.

No major outlet wanted Walsh’s story. He published a flurry of articles in a range of small periodicals, such as Mayoría and Revolución Nacional, until finally Ediciones Sigla brought out Operación Masacre (which he dedicated to Muñiz). Walsh and Muñiz wanted the men responsible for the murders arrested, but it simply did not happen. One of the culprits, police chief Colonel Desiderio Fernández Suárez, died unscathed in 2001.

In 1959, Walsh went to Cuba, found the revolution bracing, met his fellow Argentinian Che Guevara, and – with his love for puzzles – decoded the US signals that then warned the Cuban government about the invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. In Cuba, Walsh worked at Prensa Latina, the Cuban state’s news agency, before joining the editorial board of Problemas del Tercer Mundo (Problems of the Third World, run by dissidents of the Argentinian Communist Party) and then editing the newspaper of Argentina’s General Confederation of Trade Unions (CGT), which ran from May 1968 to February 1970. While working at the CGT, Walsh investigated the murder of Rosendo García on 13 May 1966. García, a leader of the metalworkers’ union, was killed in a shootout with fellow unionists led by Augusto Timoteo Vandor, who was himself shot to death in 1969. Walsh wrote two books about murders that defined Argentina’s politics: ¿Quién mató a Rosendo? (Who Killed Rosendo?, 1969), about the killing of García, and Caso Satanowsky (The Satanowsky Case, 1973), about the 1957 murder of the lawyer Marcos Satanowsky by the state intelligence agencies.


Lino Enea Spilimbergo (Argentina), La terraza (The Terrace), 1930.

In 1969, an interviewer asked Walsh about his politics. ‘Obviously, I have to say that I am a Marxist’, Walsh replied, ‘but a bad Marxist because I read very little: I don’t have time to educate myself ideologically. My political culture is more empirical than abstract’. This was an honest answer. Walsh’s instincts leaned toward the Cuban Revolution. He joined political organisations, but his heart was in journalism. When the military began to move in Argentina as part of the US government’s Operation Condor, Walsh started the Clandestine News Agency (ANCLA) with Carlos Aznarez (who now runs Resumen Latinomericano) and Lila Victoria Pastoriza (who was tortured for two years by the military junta and now writes in Revista Haroldo). When Walsh’s daughter María Victoria, who was in the armed struggle against the dictatorship, and Alberto Molina were cornered by the army in Buenos Aires, they put their hands up and said, ‘ustedes no nos matan; nosotros elegimos morir’ (you do not kill us; we choose to die) and shot themselves. Then Walsh took out his typewriter and began writing his long letter to the junta, which he sent on the anniversary of the coup. It should be compulsory reading for everyone.

The tone of the letter is both empirical and fantastic: ‘In August 1976, a local resident who was diving in the San Roque Lake in Córdoba discovered what was essentially an underwater cemetery. He went to the police station, where they did not take his report, and he wrote to the newspapers, which did not publish it’.


Adriana Lestido (Argentina), Madre e hija de Plaza de Mayo (Plaza de Mayo Mother and Daughter), 1982.

Newspapers do not publish the murders and imprisonments of our time either. They are starstruck with wonder at the Oscars and the Paris Fashion Week. They have no time for Milei’s libertarian madness, the destruction of institutions to benefit billionaires. If the media writes anything, the Mileis and Trumps call them ‘enemies of the people’, agents of this or that government.

Meanwhile, these monsters who wear human masks defraud their own people in the name of nationalism and deliver their national wealth to a class that no longer wants to share the planet with us. This is what Walsh would have written. It is what Walsh would demand we write in his place.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... argentina/

[blindpig]

Ecuador’s election – a critical analysis of class interests

As the ‘pink wave’ continues to wash over Latin America, the influence of private enterprise and US imperialism on bourgeois elections should not be forgotten.

Lalkar writers

Saturday 1 March 2025


As US imperialism’s crisis deepens, the battle for control of Latin America is heating up once again.

Perhaps you like to think of yourself as an internationalist. Someone who likes to maintain an interest in world events. In pursuit of said stimulation and education you might access traditional western or western-backed media outlets such as the Independent, the Times, the Economist, the BBC, the Washington Post and others, and you might follow various key influencers on X …

Wherever you get your information, it will be tainted by the bias of the institution or people who own it, fund it or manipulate it for their own purpose. Everyone has an agenda, a perspective, making it imperative to consider not just what is said but why, and whose interests are being served.

Being a socialist isn’t simply about aligning with a political ideology. It is being equipped to analyse geopolitics critically, assessing it from a class basis, in order to make a well-rounded assessment of a given situation. We mustn’t take anything at face value. Socialist or not, in the era of disinformation we must digest our news by asking a few basic questions: who is disseminating the information, whose interests do they serve, what’s at stake, what bias does it present?

A review of the recent elections in Ecuador is a case in point. Let’s analyse …

The facts
Eighteen months ago, the current president of Ecuador, 37-year-old Daniel Noboa, won the election, becoming the youngest man ever elected to the office. His victory followed a snap election giving him a limited mandate to serve out the remainder of his predecessor’s term.

This time, the winner remains in situ for a full four-year term, so the stakes are higher. The first round of voting took place on 9 February and, in line with Ecuadorian law, to win outright a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a 10-point advantage over the candidate in second place. If a candidate doesn’t pass the necessary threshold in the first round, a second round of voting featuring the top two candidates takes place.

The election was fought by 15 contenders, including left-wing lawmaker Luisa González (pictured above), Noboa’s main competition in the last election. The outcome of round one established that incumbent Daniel Noboa and the candidate of the opposition Citizen Revolution (RC), Luisa González, were technically tied, with Noboa receiving 44.36 percent of the valid votes and González 43.9 percent.

Voting was carried out at 4,339 polling stations with an historic turnout of 83.38 percent of the 13.7 million Ecuadorians registered. A total of 133,588 witnesses from political parties as well as 1,682 national and international observers were accredited, and security was provided by over 100,000 police officers and soldiers. According to government and electoral authorities, there were no significant incidents reported. (National Electoral Council of Ecuador: presidential elections to go to run-off, Orinoco Tribune, 10 February 2025)

As a result of the tie, round two of the elections will be held on 13 April between Daniel Noboa and Luisa González.

So who are the contenders? Whose interests do they serve? A deep dive into their respective backgrounds helps us build an understanding.

Daniel Noboa
Born in 1987, Daniel Noboa is a Harvard Kennedy School graduate and son of Álvaro Noboa, a billionaire and Ecuador’s richest banana magnate, who ran for president five times unsuccessfully, despite heavy corporate backing.

Daniel Noboa himself was a business executive overseeing the Noboa Group, a powerful agribusiness and export empire, before entering politics in 2021 and maintaining a low profile until being catapulted to the spotlight in the 2023 elections when he ran as a ‘centrist outsider’, positioning himself as a technocrat focused on fighting crime.

Noboa is a neoliberal whose policies are pro-business, anti-regulation and favouring the corporate elites. He pushes privatisation of state assets, benefiting Ecuador’s oligarchy, and strengthens Ecuador’s IMF debt dependency. He used the fear of rising crime rates as a key election issue, promising a militarised approach to fight drug cartels. He supports closer ties with the US military, including potential US security assistance in Ecuador, and aligns with Washington and US geopolitical interests.

A Noboa victory would result in a win for corporate interests, likely resulting in IMF-driven austerity and the strengthening of US authority in Latin America, undermining anti-US neighbours such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and others.

Luisa González
Born in 1978, Luisa González holds a law degree and a master’s in government and public administration. She served in various ministerial positions during Rafael Correa’s presidency (2007–17), including in the foreign affairs and labour ministries, and worked in the national assembly as a legislator for the Citizens’ Revolution, advocating for social justice, workers’ rights, and anti-neoliberal policies.

González defends labour rights and opposes pro-business deregulation. She is against IMF-imposed austerity and privatisation, and advocates for state-led economic development. She supports progressive taxation on the wealthy to fund social programmes, advocates for free healthcare, free higher education, and expanded social protections in line with programmes instituted previously by Rafael Correa.

In terms of foreign policy, González believes Ecuador should remain sovereign and takes an anti-imperialist stance, advocating for regional integration and opposing US economic control over Latin America. In line with this, she has criticised Daniel Noboa’s alignment with the USA, warning against Ecuador becoming a client state of Washington.

The history
Luisa González’s supporter, Rafael Correa, was Ecuador’s president from 2007 to 2017, a man the USA actively worked to destroy. His movement promoting Ecuador’s sovereignty was undermined by USAid, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and various NGOs that funded media manipulation and actions by right-wing movements to destabilise society, thus providing someone like Noboa with a seemingly legitimate platform of ‘reform’.

Entities like USAid and the NED serve as tools of soft power and regime change, funding opposition groups, media and civil society organisations to undermine democratic processes, and promote neoliberal policies and US geopolitical interests. If you are keeping up with recent events and Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAid you will have undoubtedly discovered said truth about these organisations.

The Monroe Doctrine, originally declared in 1823, was a US policy opposing European colonial interference in the western hemisphere but, while framed as a doctrine of sovereignty and self-determination for Latin America, it was in practice a cover for US imperial dominance over the region. It remains in force today. During his first term as president (2017–21), Donald Trump revived the Monroe Doctrine in an explicit, aggressive form, and he is continuing that policy in earnest during his latest tenure.

The present
The USA continues to meddle in Latin America, using a mixture of sanctions, false-flag events, coups and lawfare – the weaponisation of legal proceedings. Many Latin-American countries, from Ecuador to Brazil, from Bolivia to Honduras, have ben subjected to legal battles like this – strangely enough, always against the candidate who undermines US interests.

This Ecuadorian election was marked by irregularities, with the right-wing government of Noboa using millions of dollars from state coffers to fund his election campaign. Noboa did not stand down as president to stand as a candidate, as the law dictates. He was also surrounded by military personnel while other candidates had no security, and several provincial mayors and candidates were killed.

González made a claim in an interview with local channel Teleamazonas, saying that there were “inconsistencies” in the vote in certain provinces throughout Ecuador. “We do not trust CNE [the National Election Council],” she said. The general secretary of the Citizen Revolution Movement, Andrés Arauz, warned via social media: “We have received information about very serious false-flag operations and attacks with artificial intelligence that will occur this last week.”

Following González’s statement, Noboa claimed, without evidence, that the first round of the elections had been rife with “irregularities”, and even suggested that “armed groups” were forcing voters to cast their ballots for his opponent. After his interview, the OAS electoral observation mission, which had been monitoring the election, issued a statement denying irregularities in the result.

The stakes are high – so manipulation and counter-accusations of meddling will be rife.

What’s at stake?
The USA needs neoliberal president Daniel Noboa to win, and is prepared to manipulate, coerce and interfere in whatever way it needs to get the desired result. Why?

Strategically, it cannot tolerate another sovereign, socialist-leaning, Latin-American nation on its doorstep, undermining its imperial credentials and credibility, showcasing its culpability and strengthening Latin-American solidarity.

Economically, Ecuador is ripe for exploitation of its substantial oil reserves and natural gas deposits. Its mining sector offers growth with gold, copper and silver, and its fertile land supports diverse agricultural activities, including the cultivation of crops such as bananas, cocoa, coffee and maize. Forests provide timber, and a rich marine ecosystem yields significant fishery resources including herring and mackerel. In addition, its river systems and topography offer substantial hydroelectric potential, contributing to renewable energy production.

What’s at stake? More than $250bn of resources belonging to the people of Ecuador that US corporations demand the right to plunder, in addition to the extraction of billions more at the hands of neoliberal privatisation of state assets.

The opportunity
The elections are not an end in themselves, but an instrument in the struggle for power between classes. A win for Luisa González is a triumph for workers and an opportunity for them to gain greater influence in the decision-making process, building a system that favours their majority, rather than the Noboa privileged few.

The candidacy of Luisa González represents an opportunity to create a collective front of all progressive and leftist forces to oppose Noboa and those whose interests he represents, who want to subject Ecuador to neoliberal politics and unbridled exploitation.

In his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Frederick Engels reminded us not to rely too much on elections:

“Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.” (1884)

A resounding victory for Luisa González, if the election is free and fair enough for this to happen, will demonstrate that the Ecuadorian electoral masses have had enough of imperialist superexploitation. The hard part will be ensuring that Ecuador is able to rid itself of the imperialist parasites, which will involve a fierce struggle by the exploited masses against powerful, dangerous and ruthless enemies.

https://thecommunists.org/2025/03/01/ne ... n-america/

[blindpig]

As Elections Near, Ecuador’s Working Poor and Colonized Under Siege – Part III
Posted by Internationalist 360° on April 2, 2025
Clau O’Brien Moscoso


Ecuador armyArmy members patrol in southern Quito. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

As Ecuador heads into a very important run-off election on April 13, the issues of security, state violence and the economy remain at the forefront for many Ecuadorians. Dollarization, submission to U.S. dictates, the proliferation of arms shipments through privately owned ports, and the expansion of international drug cartels to justify military presence have all combined to make the living conditions of the poorest unbearable, especially for African and indigenous communities with a constant war directed at them from the militarized structures of the state, like the case of the Guayaquil Four .

Black Agenda Report contributor Clau O’Brien Moscoso interviewed Grayzone correspondent and documentary filmmaker Oscar León on January 6, 2025, less than a month after the disappearance and later confirmed death of the four Afro-Ecuadorian boys in Guayaquil at the hands of sixteen Air Force members. Below is the final part of the interview; part one here and part two here.

CO: So with this current state of emergency all the way through next month’s elections (first round), do you see that there’s a possibility the election may not even happen?

OL: Look at the Electoral Tribunal – it’s already stolen about 2 or 3 elections. Clearly Guillermo Lasso didn’t win in 2021. The indigenous candidate (Yaku Perez) won, and they stole it from him. And we now have the confirmation. It just came out that that’s exactly what happened. We won that one and they stole it. Then the next one, the Correista candidate,Andres Arauz, was going to win, and they came out with some scheme where it was alleged they received donations from narcos. So of course the media went nuts and they lost the election turned out later it was all a lie. (The man who alleged this has) been sued and everything.

Then the next election Luisa Gonzalez was going to win, even maybe in the first round and then the candidate Fernando Villavicencio was murdered, and they allowed the press to blame Correa, so they lost that one. So that’s three elections right there. And let me top this off with saying that the brother of the President of the Supreme Electoral Organization was designated by Daniel Noboa as the assistant to the US Ambassador. So basically, he’s in a cozy job in Washington. So between that, the press being 100% on their side, I think that there’s a bleak, bleak chance that there are actually clean elections in Ecuador. It’s yet to be seen.

The United States is counting because of the treaty they signed with Ecuador in 2022 , because it’s supposed to be for 10 years. There’s no way to kick the United States out of Ecuador. First of all, they can put bases there, and have US soldiers in Ecuador. They can go and kill anybody, and they will not respond to Ecuadorian law. They will respond to their own superiors and military law. But this is just to show how much is on the table for the United States in this election in Ecuador. Because if the left wins, they’re going to have to pack and leave. Do you see them leaving without a problem?

CO: Do you see this as a blowback to the so-called pink wave in the region of leftist and more popular governments? There are still the more explicitly socialist countries of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and those are being sanctioned. What role do you see Ecuador playing in either trying to reconstitute the Lima Group to try to overthrow Venezuela or even what they’re doing right now with Haiti. And Ecuador was pivotal in pushing forward the Multi Security Support Mission in Haiti, as a good little US puppet in the UN.

OL: What comes to mind is that before Moreno, there was UNASUR . It was like a European Union, if you will, but from South America where all the countries were, which was South America plus the Caribbean and Mexico. I was a journalist in Ecuador during this time, and in the presence of Chavez, Kirchner and the presidents that were there in the beginning, which directly challenged the United States. I heard them plan to create South to South institutions, meaning a South Bank that loans to Southern regions just for development, at no interest, and ruled South America. They wanted even a military union of the South. They had big plans for South to South development.

And now look at the situation thirteen years later. Correa is a fugitive in Belgium after a massive hunt, despite whatever his flaws, there is no reason for him to be persecuted. And now Evo Morales, he’s being persecuted. They tried to kill him. The other day we did an interview with him. They tried to kill him, Christina Kishner , went after Lula with lawfare. He came out of jail because the judge opened his mouth when he shouldn’t have in an interview and said that. Yeah, we have no evidence to put Lula away, and they had to release him. In the Ecuadorian case, Diana Salazar on CNN said it herself – “No, we didn’t have any evidence” and the CNN anchor responded, “How is that? You put him away.” and she is forced to say “We had some evidence, but it wasn’t as clear” so she tried to fix it.

Up to this point I thought he was guilty, but when she said that I started looking into it, and things started coming out. And now it’s pretty apparent that they set him up. A year ago I would not have said that myself, but now, I can tell you there’s plenty of evidence that they set him up. Chavez died with cancer – a very weird cancer. That’s what happened to those who put such an important geopolitical challenge to the US regime.

So translate that to now, thirteen years later you have Ecuador. First of all, Lenin Moreno destroyed UNASUR as soon as he got there. The first thing that had to go was all those plans to unite South American nations. In fact, I think the left lost. The cultural battle was clearly won by the right, especially in South America. So no, I don’t see them integrating any kind of union, as far as left wing or pro-workers governments.

Now you can expect Ecuador to support Israel, support Ukraine. Ecuador bought some Russian helicopters at some point and when Noboa got there, he wanted to look good to the Americans, I guess, or I’m not sure but they lied. “Oh, yeah, these helicopters are trash, and we’re just going to give this trash away to Ukraine.” They mentioned the word trash, and then it came out in the press that no, it turned out they weren’t trash. It was actually $100 million each helicopter and they were giving away 5 of those. Then Russia told Ecuador “You guys are giving our weapons to the Ukrainians.” So they started a boycott against Ecuadorian bananas, and guess who Ecuador’s biggest banana client is – Russia. So yes right now, Ecuador is basically an unrecognized and unofficial State of the United States without any rights.

CO: What about the country’s internal right wing? Aside from being in power within the Noboa Government. Do you see, for example, fascist groups, aside from these narco cartels, as a constituted right wing force?

OL: I don’t think there’s such a force in the right wing in Ecuador. it’s never had a radical right wing youth movement. Maybe right now you have the most likely thing which would be the youth voting for Noboa, which is in itself pretty significant. This is people who live in cardboard houses voting for the guy who’s the son of the guy who oppressed their parents all their lives. He pretty much is the reason why they live in those cardboard houses. But they vote for this guy, who has 50% of voter intention, or at least that’s what they say, but let’s say 30 or 40. It’s still a lot in a country that’s 90% poor, 90% indigenous or Africans; they have absolutely nothing in common with this Miami guy. (Noboa was born in Miami.) And his son was born in the US as well. The son of the President traveled to the United States to have a United States born son; there’s nothing in common between them and any worker, yet he’s about to win.

That tells you a lot about political manipulation, and the kind of confusion that the press manufactures, especially the resentment against the Correa government, particularly in the indigenous community. He was oppressing them because of the mines and that’s what I was saying before, the left is separated because if he hadn’t done that, the left in Ecuador would be 100% invincible. But the fact that Correa divided the left because of the mining conflict crushed the left’s chance to win.

But for the right – there’s the Miami side of the right wing that’s the old money using the US government to weaponize and gain power in Ecuador. Then you have the anti-Correismo which is in part because of Correa’s own faults, but partly because of the press. It’s a reactionary movement against Correismo. The fact that they are now supporting Noboa is shocking because a lot of those anti-Correistas are poor people, workers who are voting for their nemesis. That’s why in a country which has historically been racist like Ecuador, historically has been unjust with no recognition of human rights. Now you have this polarization that creates a new type of right wing, a right wing that is poor, voting against their own interest because figures like Milei or Trump managed to give it a certain flavor of radical revolutionary to right wing politics, where they are completely aggressive against their enemies.

That’s the radicalism that Lenin put into the Russian Revolution. In fact, Milei himself quotes Lenin saying that without a doctrine, there’s no revolutionary movement. So you see, that’s why the right wing has managed to drum together this new phase of the right wing, which is not the old money that’s in Miami. No, this is a new revolutionary right, mostly young who are tired of being oppressed, who were told “you’re poor because of your specific fault, it’s not a social fault, it’s your individual fault.” But they don’t want to recognize that anymore. It is someone’s fault, and it’s the people below them. That’s how Trump and Milei demonize the specific sectors who are the ones to blame for your unfortunate circumstances. That’s why they weaponize the poor. They say “no, it’s not your fault you’re poor it’s the Latinos in the United States, or the Arabs. That’s the genius of the right wing to pass the buck.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/04/ ... -part-iii/

*******

Ecuador: Forensic Report Confirms Guayaquil Children Were Executed by Shots to the Head
April 2, 2025


Young Ecuadorian football players mourn the disappearance and murder of four children from Guayaquil. Photo: X/@veropotes.

At the end of 2024, Ecuador found itself in suspense over the disappearance of four children in Guayaquil at the hands of the National Army, which has been on high alert and patrolling the streets of the city since President Daniel Noboa declared an internal conflict against drug trafficking groups.

A video that went viral on social media shows how the four minors were detained, beaten, and then loaded into a military van on December 8, 2024. The parents of the missing children launched a nationwide campaign to discover the whereabouts of the children. After several days of uncertainty, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that four charred remains found near Taura, in Naranjal, matched the DNA records of the four missing Afro-Ecuadorian minors: Steven Medina, Josué Arroyo, Ismael Arroyo, and Nehemías Arboleda.

“They were shot in the head and the back”
Thanks to the autopsy information to which the Permanent Committee of Human Rights (CDH) had access, it has been known that the four minors were shot before being burned, a technique used to hinder postmortem investigations.

CDH lawyer Fernando Bastidas told the news outlet Primicias: “The results are inconclusive, but it does affirm the existence of bullet impacts in at least three of the boys, in the case of Steven due to putrefaction it was not possible to identify. The expert clarifies that it cannot be ruled out or confirmed, but if the other three bodies were in the same condition, we consider that he had suffered the same fate as the other three… But reviewing the report of the four bodies we conclude that they were shot from behind, which caused the death of the boys.”



Who killed them?
Several forensic experts confirm one of the most probable and painful hypotheses: the children were executed from behind. According to the soldiers’ defense team, the four minors were left unharmed on the road. The defense blamed the death of the minors on an alleged criminal gang, Las Águilas. They have implied that the gang intercepted the children and killed them. In fact, on March 31, the police captured Bryan Alvarado, an alleged leader of Las Águilas, and he was accused as the mastermind and perpetrator of the murder of the four children.

However, several relatives of the children have questioned this hypothesis and hold the military, who illegally captured them, responsible for the tragic end of their children. For this reason, they have requested that the autopsy report be expanded on the cause of death of the minors; specifically, they want to know with certainty if there were acts of torture which the report seems to suggest (“injuries to the thorax and skull”) but does not categorically state.

On this point, Bastidas said to Primicias, “We have the right to request extensions and clarifications, and one of the extensions that we are going to ask is about the indetermination of the cause of death, as a main conclusion that the expert witness points out due to the state of putrefaction and carbonization of the bodies… [The forensic report] concludes that there is no evidence of torture, [although] in the case of Steven it indicates that there was a strong blow to the chest and head, which did not cause major damage, but that it happened while he was alive. This makes us conclude that there were blows and injuries in the context of the detention.”

Currently, the 16 soldiers involved in the events are under preventive detention, accused of forced disappearance, while the investigations and the trial advance. The Prosecutor’s Office has also included in the indictment a lieutenant colonel of the Air Force for allegedly covering up key evidence. Both President Daniel Noboa and Secretary of Defense Loffredo have tepidly condemned the events while supporting several military personnel who may have been involved.

https://orinocotribune.com/ecuador-fore ... -the-head/

******

Chileans Hold a National Strike


The banner on the left reads, “They want us like puppets.” X/ @VilasRadio

April 3, 2025 Hour: 11:34 am

The protest aims to express Chileans’ discontent and push for real development that benefits the entire population.
On Thursday, the Central Unitary Workers’ Union (CUT) will hold a nationwide demonstration to demand better working conditions and an improved quality of life for the population.

CUT Secretary Eric Campos emphasized that the protest aims to express Chileans’ discontent and push for real development that benefits the entire population, beyond just economic figures.

Among the main demands are the strengthening of collective bargaining by industry, the effective implementation of the 40-hour workweek in the public sector, and an end to the union persecution promoted by the Comptroller’s Office.

Additionally, demonstrators will call for the enforcement of the Karin Law against workplace harassment, a comprehensive reform of the pension system, and universal access to childcare facilities, as well as halting cuts to the social budget.

#ADInforma | En #Temuco comienza la marcha por calles céntricas en el día de Paro Nacional de #trabajadores del servicio público convocado por la #CUT.

► Más noticias en https://t.co/XYHZTOzy3g.#LaAraucanía #AraucaníaDiario #Noticias #Chile pic.twitter.com/SoXLND9zJQ

— AraucaniaDiario (@AraucaniaDiario) April 3, 2025

The text reads, “In Temuco, the march begins through downtown streets on the day of the national strike of public service workers called by the CUT.”
The Public Sector Board, which consists of 16 organizations affiliated with CUT, confirmed its participation in the strike to highlight demands such as strengthening public sector employment and creating incentives for permanent retirement.

The Association of Municipal Workers, the National Teachers’ Association, and other healthcare sector unions will also take part in the demonstrations.

The Teachers’ Association will raise issues such as excessive workload and violence in classrooms while ensuring that the protests do not drastically affect students by combining educational activities with marches and assemblies.

Ruben Salinas, president of the National Association of Small-Scale Mining of Chile, also criticized the 400 percent increase in the cost of licenses that small-scale miners are required to pay.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/chileans ... al-strike/

Panamanian Teachers Go on Strike to Demand the Repeal of the Social Security Law


A protest in Panama. Photo: EFE

April 3, 2025 Hour: 9:53 am

The Law 462 raises the retirement age required to access decent pensions.

On Thursday, the Teachers’ Action Front called for a 48-hour nationwide strike in Panama demanding the repeal of Law 462 on the Social Security Fund, which negatively impacts workers and their families.

Fernando Abrego, the secretary of the Association of Teachers of Panama (ASOPROF), specified that the strike opposes the government’s initiative, which, according to him, establishes the privatization of social security services for retirees and the misappropriation of its resources to benefit banks.

The Law 462, as explained by the ASOPROF leader, who is also a spokesperson for the Peoples United for Life alliance, raises the retirement age required to access decent pensions, considering the high cost of living.

Abrego urged parents not to send their children to school on Thursday and Friday but instead to attend workshops and seminars that will be held to inform them about the harm the initiative poses to current and future generations of workers, including students.


The text reads, “SUNTRACS announces support for the teachers’ strike and for actions approved this week by grassroots organizations. Tomorrow, April 2, national day of protest, 12 PM. Strike on April 3 and 4. Monday, April 7, condemnation of the visit by the head of the US Pentagon, who is coming to finalize military bases.”

The imposition of individual accounts, which contradicts the solidarity-based benefit accounts, is another aspect of the law that threatens the working class’s quality of life. Through legal representatives, the popular movement has filed a partial unconstitutionality lawsuit against the newly enacted Law 462 with the Supreme Court of Justice.

The union leader also denounced the upcoming eviction of residents in the Rio Indio territory, where the government plans to build a reservoir to support operations at the Panama Canal—without the consent of indigenous communities and farmers.

Other organizations, such as the National Union of Workers in the Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS), have indicated that they will support the teachers’ strike through their own actions, including rallies and road blockades.

Despite this, Education Minister Lucy Molinar stated that classes must continue as usual across Panama’s 16 school districts and that teachers who fail to report to work will not receive their salaries.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/panamani ... urity-law/

Argentina’s Senate Rejects Supreme Court Nominees: A Major Blow to Javier Milei’s Government


Image of Argentina’s Senate from a voting board during a session in the Senate of the Nation this Thursday, in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Apr 3rd, 2025 Photo: EFE


April 3, 2025 Hour: 9:10 pm

Argentina’s Senate rejects Javier Milei’s Supreme Court nominees in a historic 51-20 vote, escalating tensions between the president and Congress. The government calls it a ‘political attack.’

Argentina’s Senate dealt a significant setback to President Javier Milei’s administration on Thursday by rejecting the nominations of Manuel José García Mansilla and Ariel Lijo to the Supreme Court. In a decisive vote, García Mansilla’s nomination was dismissed with 20 votes in favor and 51 against, while Lijo’s received 27 votes in favor, 43 against, and one abstention.

Failed Negotiations and Political Tensions
According to Tiempo Argentino, last-minute negotiations involved multiple opposition factions, including senators and governors who appeared unlikely allies. However, these efforts collapsed amid the political tensions that have defined Milei’s presidency. The rejection came while Milei was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Despite the government’s attempts to delay the session and avoid a legislative defeat, the two candidates—appointed by presidential decree—failed to secure Senate approval.


Government’s Strong Reaction
In a sharply worded statement, Milei’s administration condemned the Senate’s decision, calling it “historically unprecedented.”

“For the first time in history, the Senate has rejected a president’s nominees purely for political reasons, not over qualifications,” the government declared. It accused the upper house of being a “refuge for the political elite” and acting against the interests of the Argentine people.

Broader Implications
The rejection marks a turning point in the strained relationship between Milei’s executive branch and the Senate, highlighting his struggles to advance his agenda amid rising polarization. The move also raises questions about the future of Argentina’s judiciary, now left with two vacant Supreme Court seats. and Milei’s ability to govern effectively without legislative support.

With this defeat, Milei faces mounting political challenges and must recalibrate his strategy to either propose new nominees who can gain Senate approval and double down on executive actions, risking further clashes with Congress.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/argentin ... overnment/

Leaders From 10 Countries To Attend the CELAC Summit in Honduras


Honduran President Xiomara Castro (C). X/ @Canal6Honduras

April 4, 2025 Hour: 9:00 am

During the upcoming event, Xiomara Castro will hand over the CELAC pro tempore presidency to Gustavo Petro.
On Thursday, Honduran President Xiomara Castro confirmed that 11 countries will be represented at the highest level at the 9th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which will be held on April 9 in Tegucigalpa.

RELATED:

Honduras Cancels CELAC Emergency Summit on Migration

Latin American leaders expected to attend the CELAC summit include Claudia Sheinbaum (Mexico), Bernardo Arevalo (Guatemala), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Gustavo Petro (Colombia), Ralph Gonsalves (Saint Vincent & the Grenadines), Luis Arce (Bolivia), Yamandu Orsi (Uruguay), Mark Anthony Phillips (Guyana), Miguel Diaz-Canel (Cuba), and Leslie Voltaire (Haiti).

Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina indicated that on April 6 and 7, there will be meetings of national coordinators who will work on the technical aspects of the summit’s draft declaration. On April 8, a meeting of foreign ministers will be held in preparation for the summit.

The CELAC summit will address topics such as migration, food security, trade, investment, financing by international organizations, the situation of women, agriculture, international cooperation, natural disasters, and climate change.

The Caribbean will have an opportunity to discuss more collaborations at the upcoming China-CELAC Forum which will be held in China later this year. https://t.co/BMTAJfQ3ia

— LoopNewsTT (@LoopNewsTT) March 27, 2025

For the past year, Xiomara Castro has held the pro tempore presidency of CELAC, an organization made up of 33 countries. During the upcoming summit, the Honduran president will hand over the pro tempore presidency of CELAC to Gustavo Petro.

CELAC was established in 2010 to deepen political, economic, social, and cultural integration among its member states. It aims to promote unity and cooperation among countries in the region, reduce dependence on U.S.-controlled international institutions such as the Organization of American States (OAS), and serve as a platform for coordinating policies on issues such as development, climate change, trade, and human rights.

Launched in 2011 in Venezuela, CELAC currently includes 33 countries that seek to strengthen regional integration and represent the region’s interests more independently on the global stage.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/leaders- ... -honduras/

[blindpig]

Bolivia Condemns Trump’s Tariffs and Seeks to Open Markets in BRICS Countries
April 7, 2025


Bolivian President Luis Arce addressing a crowd. Photo: Plurinational Legislative Assembly.

Bolivian President Luis Arce questioned the tariffs imposed by the US and explained that steps are being taken to open new markets in the BRICS countries. He added that Bolivia is also in the process of fully joining Mercosur.

“We completely condemn the imposition of tariffs that lack any technical study. It is a political decision that affects many countries. As the government, we have opened new markets in the BRICS countries, and we are in the process of fully joining Mercosur,” Arce emphasized during a press conference on Monday, April 7.



The Bolivian president noted that the tariffs imposed by the United States on its main trading partners, such as China and the European Union (EU), as well as South American countries, will cause a contraction in global trade.

“The Bolivian government’s vision is to focus on our region and not on other countries that impose these tariffs, which affect the entire planet. These types of tariffs are likely to have global consequences,” Arce stated.



On January 1, Bolivia was admitted as a BRICS partner state and is currently seeking to expand trade relations with member countries.

The tariffs imposed by Trump on April 2 range from a general 10% for countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil, to 20% for the EU and 34% for China.

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-cond ... countries/

******

What Is Blackwater Founder, Erik Prince, Doing in Ecuador a Week Before the Country’s Presidential Elections?
Posted on April 8, 2025 by Nick Corbishley

Prince is making bank as a security consultant for US-friendly governments in Latin America just months after trying to crowdfund a coup against a less friendly one.

With Donald J Trump back in the White House, business could soon be booming for Erik Prince, the former Blackwater CEO, arms trafficker, shadow Trump advisor and wannabe colonialist. According to Politico, Prince was among “a group of prominent military contractors” who had “pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of ‘processing camps’ on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a ‘small army’ of private citizens empowered to make arrests.”


Prince was also directly involved in the Trump team’s negotiations with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele that culminated in the highly controversial deal that would see the small Central American nation house allegedly violent US criminals and deportees in the legal blackholes of its mega-prisons.

As CNN Español reported in March, the agreement was confirmation that Prince, a former Washington pariah, had returned to the Trump fold. At the end of Trump’s first term, Prince had effectively been ousted and banned from the Pentagon and CIA by officials who felt that his ideas to use mercenary forces around the world overstepped the bounds of legality. But now he’s back on side, and making the most of it.

Combatting “Narco-Terrorism”

Prince is making bank as a security consultant for friendly governments in Latin America while trying to crowdfund coups against less friendly ones. Last year, he launched “Ya Casi Venezuela”, a social media-based fundraiser aimed at toppling Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro with an army of private mercenaries. Though the initiative fizzled to nothing, it did attract attention from opposition groups, bringing in millions of dollars in donations. But that money has magically disappeared while Maduro remains firmly in power.

Now, Prince is in Ecuador, currently the most violent country in Latin America, just as its citizens prepare to vote in the second round of neck-and-neck presidential elections. On Saturday, the Daniel Noboa government announced Prince’s arrival in the country in order to strengthen the country’s internal security, combat “narco-terrorism” — the term du jour in Washington and its vassal state governments in Latin America — and protect Ecuadorian territorial waters against the growing threat of illegal fishing, particularly from China.

In a tweet replete with flexed biceps emojis, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defence described Prince’s arrival as a “historic chapter for the security” of Ecuador:

The security bloc and US President Erik Prince are already on the ground fighting narcoterrorism.

From Portete in Guayaquil, we are carrying out operations against the mafias.

Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said Prince and his team are providing training and advice to Ecuadorian security forces, but added that their scope of action could be expanded. “They might not be limited to just those actions,” Loffredo said.

The timing of Prince’s visit is, to be put it mildly curious. Next weekend, Ecuador’s US-born-and-raised President Daniel Noboa will be facing off against Luisa González, the leader of the Correista Citizen Revolution Movement, in the second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections. And those elections look likely to go down to the wire: in the first round, held on February 9, the difference between first and second place was just 17,000 votes.

In recent weeks, González has pulled ahead in most of the polls. Crucially, her candidacy has received the backing of the Pachakutik indigenous movement, the political arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie). With the endorsement of its leader, Leonidas Iza, who obtained more than half a million votes in the first round of elections, could be enough to see González over the line.

The outcome of the election will have big ramifications for Ecuador’s social and economic development. During its 16 months in office, the Noboa government has applied orthodox neoliberal policies (privatisation of state-owned industries, elimination of public subsidies, anti-labour measures, deregulation…) with all too predictable consequences: surging poverty, high unemployment, rolling energy blackouts, and rampant insecurity. By contrast, Luisa González’s government is proposing standard fare social democratic policies (more state intervention, increased investment in social policies as well as judicial and security reforms).

The electoral outcome could also have major implications for US security interests in the region, which is why Prince’s arrival, fresh from his coup fundraising attempts in Venezuela, should be raising alarm bells. Lest we forget, Ecuador’s last elections were marred by the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

Together with Milei’s Argentina and Bukele’s El Salvador, Ecuador is one of the few countries in South America that has completely subordinated itself to US strategic interests in the region. One thing all three countries have in common is that they are all on the hock to the IMF for billions of dollars in emergency loans. Like Milei, Noboa has paid tens of thousands of dollars of presumably public funds to pay homage to Trump 2.0 at Mar-a-Lago where they were both given the silent treatment by Trump.

Internationalising Ecuador’s Security Crisis

The Noboa government has even violated Ecuador’s constitutional ban on foreign military bases in order to allow the US to use the Galapagos Islands, one of the world’s most precious nature reserves, as a military outpost. In March, Noboa invited the armies of the United States, Europe and Brazil to join his “war” against criminal organisations operating in his country.

A Luisa González government is unlikely to continue such policies — after all, it was her mentor, Rafael Correa, who made foreign military bases illegal in the first place. González has talked about cooperating with the US but has ruled out subordinating her government’s policies to US interests. She has also said she will recognise Venezuela’s Maduro government, which Erik Prince was trying to topple just a few months ago.

Since setting up his private security firm Blackwater in 1997, he has made it a habit of meddling in the security affairs of other countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and Venezuela, often with ugly consequences.

Most notoriously, Blackwater was responsible for the Nisour Square massacre in Iraq (2007) in which 17 civilians were killed. The four Blackwater Worldwide contractors prosecuted and found guilty in a US court of multiple criminal acts committed during that massacre were ultimately pardoned by Trump’s first administration in late 2020.

Prince has also been investigated for illegal arms trafficking, money laundering and, as already mentioned, has proposed the mass deportation of migrants using an army of loosely regulated private companies. If anything, Prince’s ideas appear to have hardened in recent years. Just over a year ago, he spoke on his aptly named podcast, Off the Leash, of the need for the US to “put the imperial hat back on” and take over and directly run large swathes of the globe. From The Intercept:

Here’s are Prince’s exact words:

If so many of these countries around the world are incapable of governing themselves, it’s time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we’re going to govern those countries … ’cause enough is enough, we’re done being invaded. …

You can say that about pretty much all of Africa, they’re incapable of governing themselves.

Prince’s co-host Mark Serrano then warned him that listeners might hear his words and believe he means them: “People on the left are going to watch this,” said Serrano, “and they’re going to say, wait a minute, Erik Prince is talking about being a colonialist again.”

Prince responded: “Absolutely, yes.” He then added that he thought this was a great concept not just for Africa but also for Latin America.

Having arrived in Ecuador just a few days ago, Prince has already begun meddling in the election.

“Next Sunday, the people of Ecuador can choose law and order and choose Daniel Noboa, or they can choose to make Ecuador look just like Venezuela, a narco-state with massive drug processing, with all the socialism and despair that comes with that,” Prince said in an interview on the streets of Guayaquil. “I hope that Ecuador chooses law and order, and we are here to help combat the gangs and provide the tools for the government to restore law and order, peace and prosperity.”



In another televised interview, Prince accused the opposition leader, Luisa González, of being “a surrogate” of former President Rafael Correa, of mothering one of his children and of serving the interests of Venezuela’s Chavista government.



You’ve got to hand it to Prince — it takes some chutzpah to go to a foreign country whose language you don’t even speak and tell the locals who they should vote for in the coming elections, especially when the family of the candidate you’re proposing is currently embroiled in a cocaine trafficking scandal. According to an investigative report by the magazine Raya, Noboa Trading Co., a banana producing and trading firm belonging to the Noboa family, one of the richest in the country, has been caught on three occasions concealing hundreds of kilos of cocaine in cargos of bananas destined for Europe.

This is the way by which much, or even most, of the cocaine transported from Ecuador reaches Europe: through the banana trade. Although the police seized the shipments in flagrante delicto, those allegedly involved, including members of the Noboa family, have not faced justice. From Progressive International:

“Part of the investigation was revealed last weekend by Ecuadorian journalist Andrés Durán, who, after disclosing several official documents containing reports on the drug seizure, had to leave the country due to death threats and legal harassment from the ruling political party, Movimiento Acción Democrática Nacional (ADN). In an interview with Revista RAYA, Durán spoke about his investigation and his departure from Ecuador:

“This is the first documented case in Ecuador’s history in which a presidential family is allegedly involved in cocaine trafficking. The Noboa family controls the entire chain of the banana export business, from planting and harvesting to transportation and private ports. There is no doubt that the death threats are closely linked to this investigation.”

When questioned about the scandal during the last presidential debate, Noboa denied having any direct links with the company in question but admitted that other members of his family did. Since then, an investigation by the Brazilian independent journalism agency Agência Pública has revealed that documents leaked in the Pandora Papers show that the majority shareholder of Noboa Trading Co, Lanfranco Holdings S.A., is joint-owned by Daniel Noboa and his brother, John.

As readers may recall, in January 2024, within weeks of coming to power, Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” against the country’s criminal gangs following a wave of violence in the country, labelling more than 20 of them as “terrorist organisations” and “belligerent non-state actors”. Noboa ordered the deployment of the country’s armed forces onto the streets of Ecuador’s cities to assist the Police in combating the drug cartels and restore law and order in the crime-ravaged country.

As we warned at the time, the result would be an even larger explosion of violence, just as happened in Colombia and Mexico when their governments declared all-out war on the drug cartels, in 1984 and 2006 respectively. And so it has proven: although the violence did subside in the first half of 2024, it has surged back to record levels in the first months of this year. As the Spanish news agency EFE reports, Ecuador just registered the most violent January of any year on record:

According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, 781 homicides were registered in January of this year, 276 more than the 505 recorded in 2024, and 247 more than the 534 in 2023, the year in which Ecuador led the rate of violent deaths in Latin America.

This latest surge in violence once again cements Ecuador’s position as the most violent country in Latin America, reports El País:

In the first 50 days of the year, the country has recorded 1,300 murders, which is equivalent to one crime per hour. This figure represents a 40% increase on 2023, a year that already holds the title of being the most violent in the country’s recent history. In the midst of this bloodbath, at least 50 minors lost their lives in January alone. Among them were at least three babies, victims of excessive violence that shows no sign of waning. With these figures, 2025 is shaping up to mark a new milestone in the tragedy of insecurity, getting closer and closer to a record number of deaths that no one wants to see…

Ecuador now faces a new configuration of criminal gangs, better armed, better trained and more violent than ever — an outcome that had already been anticipated by several security experts, when the government granted them the status of enemies of war, with the intention of stopping the advance of these organizations.

Noboa government may have massively escalated the War on Drugs in Ecuador since taking office in late 2023 while he and his family allegedly participated in the trafficking of cocaine from Ecuador to Europe, but the initial escalation was the brainchild of his presidential predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, a Guayaquil-based banker-cum-politician who left politics amid a cloud of scandal in late 2023 and is now living it up in Florida, just like Venezuela’s former “interim president”, Juan Guaidó.

Like Noboa, Lasso has been closely tied with drug traffickers, in this case the Albanian drug gangs that came to dominate the cocaine routes between Ecuador and Europe and which allegedly financed Lasso’s presidential campaign. Lasso also had the genius proposal of setting up a security agreement with the United States modelled on Plan Colombia. Unsurprisingly, Washington was happy to oblige.

Now, if there’s one thing most historians can agree upon, it is that “Plan Colombia”, the US government’s anti-narcotics drug-eradication program, was an unmitigated disaster — at least from an anti-narcotics perspective.

Signed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton and his Colombian counterpart, Andrés Pastrana, it burnt through $10 billion of US and other overseas funds over two decades, worsened the violence in Colombia, bathed more than a million hectares of farmland in a rich brew of toxic chemicals, including Monsanto’s “probably” carcinogenic weedkiller glyphosate and exacerbated organised crime — all while overseeing a significant upsurge in coca production.

Even the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee admitted in 2020 that Plan Colombia had been a resounding failure from a counter-narcotics perspective — but a counterinsurgency success. And that, I would argue, was always the main point. In 2024, the then-head of US Southern Command (SouthCom), Laura Richardson, described Plan Colombia as a raging success — so much so that it’s become an example for the rest of the region, starting with Ecuador.



So, to be clear here, despite his alleged ties to drug trafficking organisations, one of Lasso’s last acts in office was to sign an anti-narcotics security agreement with the US military. In October 2023, he attend a hush-hush meeting with senior officials of the US Coast Guard and Department of Defence in Washington in October 2023. The outcome of that meeting was two status agreements. AS far as I could tell, the only US media outlet to report on the meeting was the Washington Examiner.

From our article “First Peru, Now Ecuador: US Southern Command Escalates Its War on Drugs in South America“:

The ´[first status agreement allows] the deployment of US naval forces along Ecuador’s coastline while the other [permits] the disembarking of US land forces on Ecuador’s soil, albeit only at the request of Ecuador’s government.

All with the ostensible aim of combating drug trafficking organizations.

Obviously, that is not what this is really about. If Washington were serious about tackling the violence generated by the drug cartels, the first thing it could do is pass legislation to stem the southward flow of U.S.-produced guns and other weapons. But that would hurt the profits of arms manufacturers. And if it were remotely serious about tackling the major cause of the drug problem—the rampant consumption of narcotics within its own borders—it would never have let Big Pharma unleash the opium epidemic. And once it had, it would never have let the perps walk free with the daintiest of financial slaps on the wrists.

And let’s be honest here: the US, through its web of three-letter agencies, has done more to shape and influence the international drugs trade over the past 70 years than any other country on the planet. Back to that piece.

The primary goal of this latest escalation in the U.S.’ decades-old war on drugs, as with all previous escalations, is to achieve or maintain geostrategic dominance in key, normally resource-rich regions of the world while keeping the restive populace at home in line—or in prison, generating big bucks for the prison industrial complex.

This time round, it is Ecuador that is the starting point. According to plans obtained by CNN, the Noboa government is hurriedly laying the groundwork for US forces to arrive:

According to a high-level Ecuadorian official familiar with the planning, construction of a new naval facility in the coastal city of Manta is part of that preparation, with barracks-style housing and administration offices designed to support sustained operations and US military personnel. The official requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The construction of a new overseas US military base is controversial enough in and of itself, but in Ecuador it should be the mother of all scandals. You see, Ecuador is the only country, to my knowledge at least, that has voted democratically to evict all US military personnel from its territory.

In 2009, when the lease on the US base at Manta came up for renewal, the Rafael Correa government held a referendum on whether to maintain or close the base. An overwhelming majority of Ecuadorians voted in favour of closing the base, and within months all US military personnel had left the country. At a ceremony marking the American withdrawal, Ecuador’s then-Foreign Minister Fander Falconí made the following statement:

“The withdrawal of the American military is a victory for sovereignty and peace. Never again foreign bases on Ecuadorian territory, never again a sale of the flag.”

Now, Daniel Noboa, a fast-track president whose family is allegedly involved in the drug trafficking business, is not only trying to fast track the establishment of new US military bases on Ecuadorian soil, in direct violation of Ecuador’s constitution, but he is also opening the doors to US mercenary groups just days before make-or-break elections. Whether another US-backed coup is in the works, it is still too early to tell. But one thing is clear: Ecuador’s US-born and raised President, Daniel Noboa, is fast demolishing what remains of Ecuador’s sovereignty.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/04 ... tions.html

[blindpig]

The Argentine tragedy in data
April 8, 2025 , 5:55 pm .


Milei's adjustments restored balance to the public accounts, but at the cost of job losses, incomes eroded by inflation, and more than half the population plunged into poverty (Photo: BBC)

Argentine President Javier Milei is on the verge of signing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), even though his country owes the multilateral lending institution the most money in the world. The southern nation still has outstanding debts to the institution totaling more than 40 billion euros, almost three times as much as Egypt, the second most indebted state.

However, to date, there are no clear signs of the details of this new chapter between the IMF and the government of the libertarian economist who so criticized him. In 2022, when he was a congressman, he voted against the debt renegotiation promoted by his predecessor, Alberto Fernández, considering it "deeply immoral."

The leader of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) requested a disbursement of $20 billion under a new 10-year program, and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva approved the request. The initial contribution would be 40% of the loan, which the senior official described as "a reasonable request. They have earned it given their performance."

The Argentine tragedy is not only due to the rhetoric and counter-rhetorical statements of its president, who has implemented the "largest austerity in history," cutting monetary issuance to finance the Treasury and rebuild monetary reserves, without success. The data show a multifactorial crisis that cannot be hidden.

The financial storm: Recession, capital flight, and deindustrialization
On the economic front, Argentina is experiencing an unexpected rise in the financial dollar, and international reserves continue to plummet. A snapshot of the effects of Trump's wave of tariffs shows a loss of competitiveness in that country's production. Its main trading partners allowed their currencies to devalue: the Brazilian real fell 1.1%—more than the peso in an entire month—and the yuan fell 0.35%, both against the dollar.

In 2024, the South American country experienced the least growth in Latin America due to the shock generated by the adjustment implemented by Milei. This restored balance to public finances, but at the cost of job losses, incomes eroded by inflation, and more than half the population plunged into poverty.

After announcing that the recession had ended due to GDP expansion in the last quarter of that year, the world is now facing economic uncertainty due to geopolitical tensions that will surely drag down the southern nation due to its vulnerability, high debt, and low reserves.

The exchange rate imbalance continues as Milei refuses to officially devalue, and the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) participates in the financial cycle, where the dollar fluctuates less than the bank rate: 2% versus 8-9%. The population's savings evaporate when banks and financiers take advantage of the opportunity to empty their US dollar reserves by converting them to pesos, investing at current rates, and, at the end of the month, buying dollars again.

For their part, savers are accelerating the withdrawal of funds from safe deposit boxes, amid fears generated by the run that triggered the largest series of sales by the Central Bank and a drop in reserves of more than $4 billion this year alone.

The outflow of foreign currency deposits reached $5.352 billion between last November and February of this year, according to the latest Monthly Report from the Central Bank (BCRA). The money laundering policy promoted by Milei increased deposits to $35.7 billion at the beginning of the period in question, but since then, the outflow and withdrawals have not stopped.


Although the money laundering allowed in 2024 allowed a rebound in Argentina's international reserves, they continue to plummet due to measures benefiting financial elites (Photo: AFP)

Promises to reduce inflation are seen as a pipe dream, given that the loss of reserves would lead to the devaluation of the peso and, consequently, a spiral of inflation by making imports and goods produced with imported inputs more expensive.

The financial turmoil, driven by the shortage of foreign currency in the Argentine economy, is due to the austerity measures imposed by Milei and the political class that supports him. It has led to historic declines in investment and production:

The agricultural sector, a traditional economic engine, saw a 17% drop in machinery investment in 2024.
Last March, the country experienced 15 consecutive months of declining fuel sales, reflecting the collapse of domestic consumption.
A report by Misión Productiva revealed that Argentine manufacturing activity suffered a 9.4% year-over-year contraction in 2024, the worst of 79 countries analyzed. Key sectors such as non-metallic minerals, furniture, and machinery fell by up to 24%.
Even the man responsible for "the greatest financial, economic, political, and institutional crisis" in Argentina, Domingo Cavallo, has spoken out against the "withholding of people's dollars," which has exacerbated distrust in the financial system.

A cultural battle evolving into a social war
Dollarized inflation and the recession have led to a dismantling of the population's quality of life, with the middle class facing precarious conditions, so the impact on Argentine society is evident. Massive cuts in energy, transportation, and social benefits have left vulnerable families without support networks.

In response to the slogan "where there's a need, there's a right," Milei expressed disdain, saying, "The problem is that needs are endless, and someone has to pay for rights."

Social discontent over the austerity measures and the loss of purchasing power is such that the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) has called a 36-hour national strike from noon on April 9th ​​to the evening of the 10th. This is the third day of such protests under Milei's administration, rejecting the "economic policy" and the "floor on salary increases" imposed by the libertarian administration, and defending "the salaries and rights of retirees."

Social protests are not lacking, nor is the repression orchestrated by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich. There are weekly demonstrations against the government; last March, there was a large march of retirees in front of the National Congress, attended by fans of more than 30 soccer clubs, unions, social organizations, and the CGT, among others. The march was brutally repressed by security forces and left 46 injured, 15 of them seriously. Meanwhile, Bullrich justified the skull fracture inflicted on photojournalist Pablo Grillo by claiming that "he is a Kirchnerist militant."

Social confrontation, embodied in the precariousness of the working classes, is combined with a rhetoric that points to social war. Milei has insulted politicians, journalists, and economists more than a thousand times in over a year of office, while her supposed cultural battle is based on dismantling the socioeconomic rights of the population in favor of the financial elites.

Once again the IMF "solving" the political bankruptcy
The agreement with the IMF is not only a way to replenish reserves—only to empty them again—through the foreign currency flight spearheaded by its recurrent Finance Minister, Luis Caputo. The loan would help the government prepare for the upcoming midterm legislative elections on October 26th in a better position. These elections will renew half of the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate, 127 national deputies and 24 senators.

The multilateral institution already did so with former President Mauricio Macri in 2019. This time, Milei will have $11 billion to maintain exchange controls, postpone devaluation, and keep inflation at bay until after the election.

Ahead of the elections, the Liberal government's political base is showing signs of cracks. A survey conducted between March 29 and April 4, 2025, revealed that if legislative elections were held on that date, 31.6% would choose Unión por la Patria, the opposition political coalition led by Cristina Fernández. 29.3% would opt for LLA, 6.4% for Macri's PRO, and only 3.7% for the Unión Cívica Radical. However, 24.2% said they didn't know who they would support.


(Photo: Pollster Proyección/El Destape)

53.9% believe it is necessary to vote for "a candidate opposed to the Milei government to limit it," while 46.1% hope to "vote for a candidate who supports the Milei government so it can move forward with its reforms." On the remaining items surveyed, the Liberal Party receives a negative rating, although it retains significant support among voters.

Furthermore, as expected, Macri has distanced himself from the government—and vice versa—to the point that he declared that the economist "was convinced and manipulated by his environment toward a project of power, putting energy where it shouldn't be."

Milei's relationship with the Trump administration is not at its best. She didn't have the magnate's firm support during her lightning visit to Mar-a-Lago; there were no photos or public greetings. Furthermore, it was learned that White House advisor Mauricio Claver-Carone demanded that she return the Chinese swap , equivalent to $18 billion, because Washington is unwilling to lend money to Argentina to benefit Asians.

However, in the face of the trade war declared last week by his US counterpart, the Argentine president sided with him . His support for the tariff escalation threatens to isolate him in the region, as his neighbors would be affected if the IMF imposes more recessionary policies. This is without mentioning the ideological contradiction of a libertarian supporting protectionist measures.

Amidst the turmoil, precariousness, and uncertainty, the Argentine tragedy caused by the anarcho-capitalist president seems to show no light at the end of the tunnel. Although he claims to have ended poverty and recession, his strategy for navigating the storm is based on postponing the unavoidable and tempting fate by putting his country's governability at stake.

An explosive mix of more protests, capital flight, and dependence on the IMF is looming, with Milei insisting on targeting allies and opponents indiscriminately. Argentina has returned to a vicious cycle of increased debt and adjustment, similar to what it experienced in 2001, but in a less favorable global environment.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/la ... a-en-datos

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