Economic sanctions against Cuba were discussed in April 1960 by the U.S. government. If the U.S. found it impossible to counter the Cuban Revolution, a memorandum with the subject “The Decline and Fall of Castro” stated, economic hardships should be imposed on the island. “If such a policy as adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

The memorandum noted that the lowest estimate of support for Fidel Castro in 1960 was 50%, and that the majority of Cubans supported their leader.

On February 3, 1962, ignoring the Cuban popular support for the revolution and influenced by the defeat the U.S. and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suffered at the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proclaimed the trade embargo between the United States and Cuba, stressing that the U.S. “is prepared to take all the necessary actions to promote national and hemispheric security by isolating the present Government of Cuba and thereby reducing the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers.”

The U.S. loss of influence in Cuba and later in the region is one major reason why the blockade was imposed. Grassroots support for the Cuban revolution long before it triumphed existed, as the July 26 Movement took up the fight against the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Sixty years later, U.S. President Joe Biden shows no sign of revoking even the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, let alone broach the subject of the illegal U.S. blockade on the island. The international community fares no better. As long as the majority of UN member states vote annually against the illegal blockade, passing non-binding resolutions that have failed to dent U.S. policy towards Cuba.

On the 60^th anniversary of the blockade, the National Security Archive (NSA) has published a selection of declassified documents, among them a CIA document which states, “In our judgment, the U.S. and OAS economic sanctions, by themselves or in conjunction with other measures, have not met any of their objectives. We also believe that western economic sanctions have almost no chance of compelling the present Cuban leadership – mostly guerrilla warfare veterans in power since the late 1970s – to abandon its policy of exporting revolution.”

Indeed, the Cuban revolution remained a reference to emulate in the region, later eclipsed by then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s concern that Chile’s example – socialist revolution through democratic elections – would pave the way forward in Latin America.

In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, which outlined U.S. plans for Cuba and specifically stipulated that the illegal blockade would only be lifted once Cuba holds democratic elections and moves towards a free market system. It also made a provision for U.S. interference in Cuban affairs through a so-called “assistance, through appropriate nongovernmental organizations, for the support and organizations to promote nonviolent democratic change in Cuba.”

Two years ago, in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the world lauded Cuba and temporarily called for a lifting to the blockade. Briefly, the world hailed Cuba for thriving under such restrictions, its medical interventions became mainstream news, while the medical brigades brought much needed help to severely impacted countries, including in Europe. When the vaccine race commenced, Cuba was left in the margins even as it developed its own vaccines under difficult circumstances and secured provision for its citizens and countries in the region. The cry to end the blockade was forgotten, diplomacy once again followed the Western model of capitulating to U.S. interests, and Cuba was left once again to fend on its own, as it also did when the U.S. once again attempted to destabilize Cuba through protests and the world ignored the blockade in its haste to appease the U.S.

Is the U.S. in a position to maintain the embargo upon the pretext of bringing democracy to Cuba with its record in destabilising secure states, even those upholding democracy, such as Chile under Salvador Allende for example, and more recently, Bolivia? Proclaiming human rights through atrocious acts constitutes subversion and it is unlikely that Cubans, with or without Fidel Castro, will forget the U.S. treachery in a hurry.

By Ben NORTON

Transcript

BEN NORTON: This is Ben Norton with The Grayzone. I am in Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry, and I just sat down for an interview with Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.

We talked about Nicaragua’s historic decision to leave the Organization of American States, and other regional issues here in Latin America.

And we discussed how Nicaragua is part of a movement of countries around the world that are trying to create a new political and economic architecture, resisting US unilateralism and sanctions.

Good morning, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you for the interview.

On November 19, you announced that Nicaragua is leaving the OAS. Can you explain why Nicaragua made this historic decision?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, thanks a lot Ben, and greetings also to your readers, listeners, or viewers in this case. I want to say that Nicaragua made this decision, the government of President Ortega took the decision to denounce the OAS charter.

And the reason for that is it is a decision that concerns the dignity of the Nicaraguan people, the dignity of the government of reconstruction, of reconciliation and national unity, the government of President Ortega, truly to defend the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

Because we, in our foreign policy, we are open. We truly seek communication, bilateral relations, and also multilateral relations.

But we have been very clear, and we say that we do not accept foreign interference, nor interventions, that try to meddle in the internal concerns of our country.

And the reason that we have denounced the OAS is because of the policy and attitude, primarily by the United States and the countries subordinated to it, that try to direct and impose the internal policies of Nicaragua and maintain a permanent policy of interference and interventionism, disrespecting the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

And that truly says why Nicaragua, the government of Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan people, and it has been demanded by the Nicaraguan people, and the institutions and powers of the state have suggested and urged the president of the republic to denounce the OAS charter.

That is to say, ending the state of Nicaragua’s relationship with the OAS, suspending relations. And this is precisely why we sent the statement to the secretary general of the OAS, at the instruction of the president of the republic, Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra, saying enough is enough.

BEN NORTON: And you said in the letter to the OAS, and to the secretary general of that organization, Luis Almagro, you said that the OAS is an “instrument of interference” of the United States that seeks to impose US hegemony in this region.

The OAS says it is independent. But you don’t think that is true?

DENIS MONCADA: It is not a matter of what I think; it is a matter of what is the concrete, true, objective reality.

The OAS was designed, created precisely by the United States as a way to impose its political decisions, which is defined by the policy of the Monroe Doctrine.

And when the OAS was created, I believe it was Commander Fidel Castro who described it as the “ministry of the colonies.” And truly, that concept, which has already been said for decades, is exactly what defines the OAS.

And think about it, Ben, the OAS, where is it located? It is located, one, in Washington, its permanent location. The OAS is captured there, like a prisoner of the United States.

But in addition to being in Washington, where exactly it is located? A few blocks from the White House, and on the other side a few blocks from the State Department.

If we understand even the geographical location of the OAS in the city, in a building that was built more a century ago, it clearly says that this is a US political and diplomatic instrument, one that supports the main strategic decisions of the United States in relation to the power and hegemony that it tries to maintain over Latin America and the Caribbean.

I think that is the clearest way of explaining why the OAS is not an independent organization, but rather a strategic, political, diplomatic instrument of the United States, that decided to bring together, there near the White House and the State Department, the representatives of all of the states of Latin America and the Caribbean – excluding Cuba, excluding Venezuela, excluding Nicaragua, which is precisely why it is denouncing its charter – so that there the US can simply make its commands and “agreements,” in scare quotes, so that they do what the North American empire decides to do with Latin America and the Caribbean.

BEN NORTON: Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the OAS, because of the coup d’etat in Bolivia in 2019, and because of the role of the OAS in publishing false accusations of supposed electoral fraud.

Moreover, we have seen that Juan Guaidó, who has never won a single vote to be so-called “president” of Venezuela, he represents Venezuela at the OAS, in Washington.

The OAS, in its charter, says that it is against interference, and in fact it says in its charter that interference in the internal affairs of member states is a violation of the OAS charter.

So, do you think that the OAS violates its own charter?

DENIS MONCADA: Definitely. And there is an interesting element to think about, because the charter of the OAS, if one looks at it in theoretical and conceptual terms, according to the text, it could seem like the charter aligns with the interests of countries, in terms of defending their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states, if the OAS did not have more powers than those that are clearly established in its charter.

If you look at it from the conceptual and theoretical point of view, we could say that the founding charter of the OAS has some elements that could be valid. But the concrete truth, the reality is precisely [the opposite]. You mentioned the case of Bolivia, for example.

That is to say, when those policies are actually carried out in the countries of Latin America, of the peoples defending their own rights, exercising their sovereignty, of self-determination, protecting their historic and fundamental rights, that is what the United States does not like.

And that is precisely when they, in the most intense ways, keep making policies to destabilize and overthrow governments, legitimate, constitutional, democratic governments.

And then the figure of the OAS appears, in very active ways, trying to fulfill the orders of the United States.

If there is a progressive government, if there is a revolutionary government, if there is an advanced government that goes down the path of trying to strengthen the rights of the people, defending itself from aggressor countries, then they act.

The United States orders the OAS to act. And the OAS, we already saw exactly how it acted to destabilize Bolivia and bring about the overthrow of President Evo Morales, in such an unjust, arbitrary, barbaric, savage way.

BEN NORTON: You mentioned that Cuba, the revolutionary government of Cuba, has long criticized the OAS. Commander Fidel Castro said that the OAS is the “ministry of the yankee colonies.” And Venezuela also left the OAS two years ago.

But more and more, it is not just the revolutionary governments in the region, but even liberal governments, like the Argentine government, the Mexican government, they also have criticized the OAS for the coup d’etat in Bolivia.

And this September there was a meeting, a summit of the CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, in Mexico City. You participated in the summit in Mexico.

More and more, there is debate in Latin America about the CELAC being an alternative to the OAS. Do you think that the OAS could serve as an alternative?

DENIS MONCADA: In fact, the CELAC emerged precisely as an alternative for the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, excluding the United States and Canada, which do not participate in the CELAC.

That was precisely the vision of heads of state and governments, and above all the peoples of Latin America, of having an autonomous, independent forum, which responds to the concerns, to the vision, and to the historical needs of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

So the CELAC is a real alternative to the OAS. And in fact countries have made an effort precisely to maintain the continuity of the CELAC.

And separately we know that the United States and other countries, including also countries in Europe, are doing everything to neutralize, to stop, to prevent countries from creating and sustaining their organizations that make it possible for them to take a different path, with a vision of strengthening their rights, their policies, their freedoms, and their struggles for independence in defense of sovereignty and self-determination.

BEN NORTON: Three days after the November 7 elections here in Nicaragua, US President Biden signed the Renacer Act, and later imposed more sanctions against Nicaragua, and not only against government officials but also against institutions like Nicaragua’s public prosecutor’s office.

What do you think about these sanctions?

DENIS MONCADA: We do not recognize the extra-territoriality of the laws that the United States approves, whether it be through the Congress or ratified by the US president.

Its laws are laws for its country, for its state, but not for other countries. Nicaragua does not recognize that extra-territoriality.

Nevertheless, we are very clear that we are speaking about the same topic, and we see another factor, another facet of how the empire tries to expand its hegemony, creating laws, with the president approving them, and then trying to apply those laws in other countries.

This includes imposing unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), which we already know are illegal, arbitrary, absurd, and in the case of Nicaragua we have said it, we don’t accept them, we reject them, we condemn them.

It is a form of the empire continuing to exercise the role it believes it has in the world, of being a judge, of being a prosecutor, of playing a role that the international community did not assign to it.

Nevertheless, we see how there is a kind of consistency in that attitude, in that imperial behavior, using all of its different instruments, like the OAS, like the Congress, of passing a resolution and then the empire tries to impose it everywhere.

That is why Nicaragua, our government, the government of President Ortega, has maintained what we say is an anti-imperialist policy, but measured.

And when we say anti-imperialist, it is because we are clear that those who exercise power is a small group of extraordinary power, that even affects the North American people themselves.

The empire is not the North American people. The North American people are not part of the empire. The empire consists of the large organizations, the large economic powers, industrial and military powers, that try to impose themselves on the world to exploit it, to pillage it, to colonize it again.

And it does this to maintain a lifestyle, that is not imposed by the North American people, but rather by the powerful interests, through aggression, through robbing the wealth of countries, in an incredible, shameless way.

BEN NORTON: Currently, one-fourth of the global population lives in countries sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. That is to say, one-fourth of humanity lives in countries under sanctions.

So is there an attempt by sanctioned countries, like Nicaragua and Venezuela and other countries, to build an alternative to this financial system dominated by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, that is a struggle that has gone on for many decades, because we have to change international relations and systems, among them the international financial system and the international order.

And Nicaragua is part of the countries that are fighting to make those transformations in the international community of nations, and to redesign, redefine, restructure the financial system, the international order in general, of political relations, diplomatic relations too, and above all having peace as a central point.

Truly, what the international community wants is peace, stability, security, work, progress, so that our peoples, all over the world, are able to make the effort to be happy. That is what all humanity wants and desires.

No wars, no conflicts, no tensions, no aggressions, but rather peace, stability, respect between states, respect between governments, respect between peoples.

And to continue advancing, fighting against poverty, strengthening programs of human development. In short, that is what humanity wants.

And doubtlessly we have to strengthen the common struggle of all peoples to change the system.

BEN NORTON: Nicaragua is one of the members of a new group in the United Nations which is called the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. There’s Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, Palestine, Eritrea, various countries.

What is this group, and what is the importance of an alliance of countries sanctioned by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: The essence is to defend the UN charter. And the group of countries was formed precisely with that objective.

Why the UN charter? If we are discussing UN reforms and also transforming the system, in the UN charter you find precisely the basic principles that allow for peaceful coexistence, respect between states, attaining and strengthening peace, stability, international security, cooperation between developing countries, to achieve a comprehensive development, to make all of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development possible.

So that group of countries thinks that we truly need to come together and defend those principles and those values, those fundamental declarations that are established in the UN charter, to be able to thrive as independent states, as sovereign states, and the keep reinforcing the work to maintain, sustain, and strengthen peace, international security, the right of all peoples to live in their own ways, with self-determination and mutual respect.

So it is a group of friends in defense of the UN Charter, which is very important. It has had meetings already in New York and also in Serbia, taking advantage of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In short, it is keeping that important cause going, that position of countries, of the international community, of defending life and humanity, of having peace, of strengthening peace, and continuing to advance in a positive sense, in a sense of tranquility for all of humanity.

BEN NORTON: Another member of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations is Iran. And you attended the inauguration of President Raisi, the new president of Iran.

What is the importance of relations between Nicaragua and Iran, and in general with the countries of West Asia? Do you think it is important to strengthen relations between anti-imperialist forces in West Asia and progressive forces here in Latin America?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, Nicaragua and the government of President Ortega has said very clearly that we maintain broad relations with the entire world. Because they are relationships of friendship, of brotherhood, of fraternity, of cooperation, of solidarity.

And the world should live, should share its interests, its objectives, its needs, in its emergencies, in its pandemics, which is not just Covid-19 but also economic pandemics, political pandemics, pandemics of aggression, pandemics of neo-colonialism.

In this area, we are strengthening and widening our relations with Iran and with other countries in Asia, and in Africa too. Because there are common interests, common visions, shared rights between countries.

And combining together our forces, conversing, holding dialogue, we strengthen our bilateral relations, and multilateral relations.

We are now leaving the OAS, but we are going to strengthen and keep strengthening our communication with the CELAC, our communication and relations with the ALBA-TCP, our relations with other organizations, with the Non-Aligned Movement, with the UN as well.

In short, the relations with Iran and other countries are framed precisely around that vision of widening and strengthening relations with all the countries of the world, a vision that Nicaragua has, and that has been set out by Commander Daniel Ortega.

BEN NORTON: Today in our discussion, there is a theme that links together all of the themes, there is an issue, and that is imperialism. You mentioned that the foreign policy of Nicaragua is an anti-imperialist foreign policy, and internationalist.

In the Sandinista movement, what is the importance of this, of internationalism and anti-imperialism?

DENIS MONCADA: It is important, because if the empire wants to dominate you, it wants to subjugate you, it wants to make you into a colony, as historically has happened in many places, the peoples are conscious of the fact that they have a right to exist as peoples, as countries, as nations, as states, and that they have the right to defend those principles, those values, and that right.

Imperialism wants to dominate you. Internationalism is the relation between states. Anti-imperialism is resisting with justice, with dignity, with strength against this hegemonic policy, which continues to be carried out by the United States and European countries.

BEN NORTON: A few years ago, Nicaragua made an agreement with a Chinese company to build an inter-oceanic canal. And we have seen that this topic, this issue of the inter-oceanic canal, became a major point of conflict in international politics.

We have documents that show that the United States funded opposition groups to organize protests against the inter-oceanic canal. The United States has a long history of trying to build its own inter-oceanic canal.

So what is the importance of this project for Nicaragua?

DENIS MONCADA: Nicaragua has geographic conditions that have made it possible and still make it possible to build a route of inter-oceanic communication, that is to say, a form of facilitating international communication and commercial exchange, everything that a route of communication make possible, of cutting distances, and saving fuel, and making the transportation of consumer goods more efficient from all over the world.

And well, that is Nicaragua’s right. We are building a canal in our territory, sovereign territory, the territory of the Nicaraguan people. And with a vision also of sharing that geography to create a route of communication that benefits the entire world, with Nicaraguan control and management.

The construction of the canal, it keeps moving forward, with investigations being conducted into feasibility and the effects on the environment. In short, with all of the elements, in a responsible way, that say that a state should build a project of great significance, like an inter-oceanic canal.

BEN NORTON: To conclude, in the United States, we speak more and more of the idea of a new cold war, that is to say, the second cold war, but this time not only against Russia, but also against the People’s Republic of China.

In the United States, everything today is about Russia and China. They say that Moscow supposedly stole the election. They say that China created the coronavirus. There is a lot of propaganda in the United States about this.

And here in Latin America, we have seen that this region is part of this so-called new cold war. The United States says, “Latin America is ours, and we don’t want Russia and China to have relations and to do business with the countries here.”

So for Nicaragua, what could the role of Nicaragua be in this so-called second cold war? And what do you think of this conflict between Washington on one side and Moscow and Beijing on the other?

DENIS MONCADA: The United States is an empire. It has been an empire for a long time. Empires try to prevent themselves from disappearing or losing their hegemony. And they will use all instruments, all forms, to maintain their level of power and control.

And obviously they try to stop other countries from developing, growing, expanding their capacities, their possibilities in economic and commercial terms, in the development of their peoples, in the strengthening of their rights, in having a voice on the international stage, in having more responsible relations, that are not invasive, not interventionist, not meddling.

All of this changes the mentality and the perception of humanity as a whole, and shows the precise difference between a hegemonic empire, dominating, intervening, invading, destroying nations and countries, states, and humanity; and between other countries that develop, that resolve their own problems of their population, and socialize in some way their progress, their advances, their technology, their commercial exchange, and of sharing with other countries as well in a very respectful manner, their advances and their development.

And contributing, in a responsible and supportive way, to the facilitation with other countries as well of a plan of cooperation, of investment, of solidarity, to keep advancing, to keep developing and resolving countries’ economic problems which in a way, or very substantially contributes to consolidating peace, stability, security in every country.

And that is precisely the way that we avoid massive irregular migrations, and all of those problems that people are worried about.

So cold war, no, what humanity needs is peace, stability, cooperation, friendship, coexistence.

It is because of that type of tensions that are generated by powers like the United States, or Europe through NATO, that we now see moving to Latin America with the participation of Colombia, which is truly foolish.

So it is a war waged by one power, combined with the powers in Europe, that want to sustain, maintain their control over the world, their hegemony, and to try to prevent other countries from advancing, from developing, from having responsible state policies and sharing with humanity their development, their progress, and moving toward advancing the development of the peoples in a way that is peaceful, friendly, and cooperative, of mutual benefit for these countries that are developing themselves and the countries that are on the path toward developing in search of a better future.

BEN NORTON: Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you so much for the interview.

DENIS MONCADA: Many thanks to you, Ben, and a cordial greeting as well to all of your friends, comrades, and audience.

BEN NORTON: Thank you.

thegrayzone.com

Recently declassified British files reveal how the Foreign Office prepared for a possible military coup in Colombia by secretly training the country’s armed forces in psychological warfare.

In 1970, Britain’s Cold War propaganda arm, the Information Research Department (IRD), secretly provided two weeks of counter-insurgency instruction to high-ranking Colombian military officials.

Part of the course was held at the Joint Warfare Establishment at Old Sarum in Wiltshire, where the Colombian officers were given special instruction in psychological operations.

At this time, the British ambassador encouraged the provision of military assistance to Colombia so as to “not find ourselves without lines to the government” in the case of a coup.

Eliminating Subversive Groups

In 1969, General Ricardo Charry Solano, the head of Colombian military intelligence, requested a British military training program for two high-ranking Colombian military officials.

General Charry was already known to British planners. In 1964, he became the first head of Colombia’s intelligence and counter-intelligence unit (BINCI), later known as the Charry Solano Military Intelligence Battalion.

Thereafter, he was a regular recipient of British propaganda material until his death in 1970.

According to Colombian newspaper El Espectador, BINCI was “created as a strategy to persecute and eliminate those who belonged to subversive groups, were from the left, or did not agree with the state model of the time.”

BINCI left a brutal legacy in Colombia. According to a report submitted to Colombia’s Truth Commission, human rights groups were already condemning the unit during the mid-1960s.

Between 1977 and 1998, BINCI was responsible for a series of homicides, forced disappearances, and cases of torture.

A U.S. cable released in 2007, for instance, revealed that during the 1970s BINCI “secretly created and staffed a clandestine terror unit […] under the guise of the American Anti-communist Alliance (AAA or Triple-A). The group was responsible for a number of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations against leftist targets during that period.”

One of the commanders assigned to BINCI during this operation was Mario Montoya, who was pictured in 2008 alongside Foreign Office official Kim Howells.

Coup Preparations

Carlos Lleras Restrepo, president of Colombia from 1966-1970, speaking, at right, in undated photo. (Iván Marulanda, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

General Charry selected two high-ranking Colombian military officials, Colonel Calixto Cascante and Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Botero Restrepo, for secret British training.

While Botero was relatively unknown to British planners, IRD field officer Keith Morris described Cascante as “the most experienced and best qualified intelligence expert the Colombian Armed Forces possess.”

One of Britain’s key objectives in providing the training was to curry favour with the Colombian military in the case of a coup. As British Ambassador to Colombia William H. Young noted, “with the military so much in the news elsewhere in the continent it is worth having a look at some recent moves at the top of the Colombian Armed Forces.”

Colombian soldiers. (Alejoturola, Pixabay)

Young continued, “one of our tasks here must clearly be to keep contact with the Army so that if they do intervene, we will not find ourselves without lines to the government.”Since the beginning of the 1960s, the military had seized power in neighbouring Brazil, Ecuador and Panama, as well as in Argentina and Bolivia. Britain had supported the coup in Brazil and played no small role in propaganda operations designed to insulate the dictatorship from criticism.

He added: “In this context it is very important that we should be able to fulfil an offer we have made to the Army, through General Charry, to send two intelligence officers to the U.K. next year”.

In 1967, Keith Morris, the IRD field officer in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, outlined Britain’s other commercial and strategic interests in Colombia. The country “has considerable untapped resources” and “Communist guerrillas based in Colombia could threaten the Panama Canal (a Colombian Communist Government might renew Colombian claims to Panama) and could easily create chaos in the Venezuelan oil fields which are in the frontier region.”

Secret Training in ‘Psychological Warfare’

London’s Carlton House, original home of the Information Research Department’s propaganda activities. (Suedwester93, Wikimedia Commons)

The Foreign Office agreed to provide Cascante and Botero with three months of training at the School of Military Intelligence in Ashford, Kent, followed by a fortnight of secret training with the IRD.

The training with the IRD was so secretive that not even the Colombian embassy in London was informed about it. Instead, the embassy was told that the officers would be taking a two week “holiday in London.”

Cascante and Botero’s training with the IRD lasted between June 22 and July 3,  1970. “The basic purpose of the course,” wrote senior IRD official Elizabeth Rosemary Allott, “is to equip them with sufficient specialist knowledge to set up a small IRD-type unit within the [Colombian] Ministry of Defence.”

Part of the training included a session at the psychological operations section of the Joint Warfare Establishment at Old Sarum — a military base which offered extensive training in psychological warfare and covert operations.

According to one document produced by the Joint Warfare Establishment, the aim of psychological operations was to:

“Support the efforts of all other measures, military and political, against an enemy, to weaken his will to continue hostilities and to reduce his capacity to wage war.”

It added:

“Psychological warfare relates to an emergency or a state of hostilities, and it is with the further subdivisions of strategic psywar, tactical psywar and psychological consolidation that its employment can best be examined.”

Similar training had already been given to two members of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1969, and plausibly included instruction in “special interrogation” techniques – an allusion to torture.

Britain & Colombia

Guards outside Buckingham Palace during a rehearsal for the Colombian state visit in 2018. (Defence Imagery, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

British involvement in Colombia’s counter-insurgency conflict thus began long before it became publicly known. This training supplemented wide-ranging U.S. counter-insurgency measures, which during the 1960s involved recommending the use of “counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions [and] as necessary [to] execute paramilitary, sabotage, and/or terrorist activities”.

During Tony Blair’s government, British military collaboration with Colombia reached new heights, and seemed to replicate Britain’s secret Cold War military assistance.

In 1999, U.K.  Defence Minister John Spellar told parliament that “advisory visits and information exchanges” had taken place between Colombia and Britain, focussing “on operations in urban theatres, counter-guerrilla strategy, and psychiatry.”

At this time, oil corporation BP was one of Colombia’s largest foreign direct investors. As Declassified U.K.  recently revealed, British military collaboration with Colombia is ongoing, with the army assisting in Colombia’s internal security operations, despite massive human rights abuses.

Declassified UK via consortiumnews.com

Through his administration’s recent policies towards Haiti and Haitian migrants, President Joe Biden is carrying out a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, this represents continuity in a decades-long, bi-partisan policy toward Haiti.

Biden recently ordered the breakup of a camp of 15,000 mainly Black Haitian migrants under a border bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The migrants—many of whom had traveled thousands of miles—had fled to the U.S. in the hopes of being granted asylum from the horrific oppression and exploitation they face in Haiti, Chile, Brazil, and other states in the region.

In scenes that evoked the history of U.S. slave catchers, Border Patrol agents on horseback used their reins as whips to beat the refugees they chased down and captured. Eager to join the racist frenzy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the National Guard and Texas police to form a miles-long “steel wall” of patrol cars and military vehicles to block migrants from escaping Biden’s dragnet.

When these horrific scenes were caught on camera, Biden had the gall to condemn the Border Patrol for carrying out the orders he had given. But he did not rescind his policy to expel and deport the encamped Haitians based on Title 42, which Trump had previously invoked to close U.S. borders to all migrants during the pandemic. In fact, this was another in a series of actions that exposed the lies of Biden’s pre-election promises to establish a “humane migration system” and combat “systemic racism.”

From the Del Rio encampment, Biden expelled 8,000 migrants to Mexico, deported 7,000 to Haiti (many of whom had not been in the country for a decade), and admitted about 12,000 from the camp and Mexico into the U.S. Many migrants remain detained and others have been chained with tracking devices while they apply for asylum.

They will likely be denied for being so-called economic migrants, not political refugees, or for having residence in a third country, and then face deportation. Once the camp was cleared of human beings, the bridge was reopened for commerce.

Biden carried out this racist repression to send a signal to tens of thousands of Haitians, who are making their way north through the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia, that the border is closed to migrants. The Mexican state collaborated every step of the way, clearing out the encampment on its side of the border in Ciudad Acuña, deporting many to Haiti, shipping others back to southern Mexico, and promising to stop Haitians from reaching the U.S.

The manifold crises driving Haitians from their country are not natural or some quirk of history; they were caused in large part by U.S. imperialism. Instead of helping Haitians overcome those crises, the Biden administration is compounding them, shoring up the morally repugnant elite that runs Haiti, and blocking migrants’ escape routes with Washington’s racist, regional border regime.

The Imperialist Origins of Haiti’s Crises

The mainstream media present the crises in Haiti that are driving migration—its poverty, so-called natural disasters, political corruption, and gangsterism—in sensationalized fashion with ritualistically repeated and neutered phrases like “poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” They pathologize the country as if there is something inherently wrong with it.

In fact, blame for most of these crises lies with the U.S. and other imperialist powers’ intervention in the country. From the Haitian Revolution right down to today, these powers have waged an unrelenting attack on the Haitian people’s struggle for liberation, democracy, and equality.

When the enslaved Africans overthrew their French oppressors in 1791 and declared Haiti’s independence in 1804, the great slave-holding powers of the time—France, Spain, England, and the newly independent U.S.—did everything in their powers to destroy the new Black republic. France, Spain, and England all deployed armies in a vain attempt to prevent the revolution’s victory.

After their defeat, they moved to isolate Haiti and stop it from becoming a precedent and inspiration for revolutionary risings of the enslaved in the region. France only recognized the country’s independence in 1825 on the condition that Haiti repays their former masters in reparations for the loss of their “property,” that is, their land and enslaved human beings.

To pay this “debt,” Haiti had to take out loans at usurious interest rates from French and U.S. banks, stunting its economic development. In today’s money, they shelled out $21 billion for recognition by the great powers. Even then, the U.S. did not acknowledge Haiti’s independence until the middle of the Civil War in 1862.

The imperialist powers of the 19th century shackled Haiti with debt until its last payment in 1947, isolated it from the world system, and blocked its independent development. They made the country pay an enormous price for its liberation—poverty and structural adjustment from its birth.

Washington: Haiti’s Twentieth Century Overlord

After the U.S. rose as a new imperial power at the end of the nineteenth century, it viewed the Caribbean as an “American lake.” It aimed to prevent its European rivals from encroaching on its fiefdom and treated the region’s states as vassals to be commanded and, when insufficiently obedient, subjected to military intervention and occupation.

Haiti was one of its prime targets, with devastating consequences for that country’s politics and economy throughout the twentieth century and to this day. Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines to occupy Haiti from 1915 to 1934, seizing control of the country’s financial and economic assets as compensation for the government’s failure to make loan payments. Wilson also wanted to ensure that U.S. corporations, and not those of Germany, would control the country’s economy.

The U.S. handpicked the country’s leaders, imposed forced labor on peasants, brutally repressed the Cacos rebellion, and, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ripped up the country’s revolutionary constitution and imposed a new one that allowed foreign ownership of the country’s land. To ensure “order” when it left, the U.S. created and backed the dreaded Haitian military, the Forces Armées d’Haïti,  whose only function was to repress the country’s people.

During the Cold War, the U.S. backed the brutal dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier as an anti-communist counterweight to Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The Duvaliers ruled from 1957 to 1986 through state terror carried out by its murderous paramilitary, the Tonton Macoute. With Washington’s tolerance, if not encouragement, the father-son dictatorship killed as many as 60,000 people, especially socialists and advocates of democracy and social reform.

Washington used Baby Doc’s regime to impose one of the most predatory structural adjustment programs in the region. It promised to remake the country’s economy by privatizing state-owned industry, dismantling its welfare state, opening it up to international agribusiness, and employing displaced peasants in urban sweatshops run by multinationals. This neoliberal prescription was so life-threatening that Haitian activists called it “the plan of death.”

Damning the Flood of Social Reform

In one of the first rebellions against neoliberalism, Haitians rose up in a mass movement called Lavalas (“the flood” in Haitian creole) to topple Baby Doc from power in 1986. This led to the country’s first free and democratic presidential election in 1990 won by Jean Bertrand Aristide. A liberation theologist, Aristide promised to rip up the roots of the old order and implement a program of social democratic reforms.

Threatened by these reforms, the Haitian army, backed by the country’s ruling class and Washington, carried out a coup against Aristide in 1991. The administrations of George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton stood by while the military carried out mass repression and murder.

Infamously, then-Senator Joe Biden argued that intervening to stop the bloodshed in Haiti was not a priority and that the U.S. should ignore the humanitarian catastrophe. He stated that “if Haiti quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.”

Clinton only agreed to intervene and return Aristide to power in 1994 on the condition that Aristide abandon much of his social democratic agenda and implement “neoliberalism with a human face.” He did manage to abolish the army and resist the worst of the neoliberal program, but his hand-picked successor, Rene Preval, implemented much of it between 1996 and 2001.

Aristide again ran for and was elected president in 2001 on promises of social reform and securing reparations of $21 billion from France for the debt it imposed on Haiti to be paid on the 200th anniversary of its independence in 2004. The U.S. under George Bush Jr. imposed an aid embargo on Haiti, stopping Aristide from implementing even a modest version of his program.

The blockage of reform demoralized the Lavalas movement and gave space for right-wing paramilitaries to mount increasingly violent opposition, which Aristide confronted with his own paramilitaries. With the country on the brink of a conflagration, the U.S., France, and Canada organized a second coup against Aristide, kidnapping and exiling him to the Central African Republic until he secured asylum in South Africa.

The U.S. deployed the UN to occupy the country from 2004 to 2017. While of course sold as a humanitarian mission, the UN forces proceeded to repress popular protest, rape women, and introduce cholera into Haiti, killing 10,000 people in an epidemic.

Meanwhile, the U.S. backed a succession of weak, quisling presidents from Rene Preval for a second time to Kompa band leader, Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, to the widely despised and recently assassinated, Jovenel Moïse. Each won office in elections with collapsing voter turnout, had little to no popular support, and were widely viewed as illegitimate.

Each administration introduced increasingly draconian neoliberal programs that hollowed out the Haitian state, which was so incapacitated that it barely could be said to be in control of the society, let alone regulate it and provide any services to socially reproduce it. That void of service provision has been filled by privatized services for the rich and international NGOs for everyone else.

Those NGOs were in no way beholden to the Haitian people, but to the corporations and imperialist states that bankrolled them. Indeed as Mark Schuller, Haiti became a republic of NGOs, and one under an occupation entirely controlled by foreign capitalist powers.

Neoliberal Disasters and Creation of a Dependent Aid State

U.S. imperialism’s incapacitation of the Haitian state set the country up to be devastated by so-called natural disasters. Haiti had few to no regulations to ensure that buildings were capable of withstanding earthquakes, few remaining trees to absorb winds and rain from hurricanes, and no state services ready to provide relief and reconstruction.

So, when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Port au Prince in 2010, it laid waste to the capital, flattening the presidential palace, destroying homes, killing as many as 300,000 people, and impacting millions more. Over the next decade, a succession of hurricanes and tropical storms ravaged the country’s deforested land turning rivers into torrents that flooded lands and wiped out buildings. And, to top it all off, this August another magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the island’s south, killing 2,200 people, injuring another 12,000, and destroying 7,000 homes.

While people of the world responded with the utmost generosity, they sent money mostly to the corrupt NGOs like the Red Cross that had collaborated in the incapacitation of the Haitian state, and much of the funds never made it to the people in need but got diverted into other projects and the salaries of bureaucrats. Meanwhile, the U.S. state and its imperial accomplices  promised billions to “build Haiti back better.”

Predictably, they launched yet another neoliberal development plan overseen by Bill Clinton. The states funneled $13 billion into building more sweatshops, setting up walled-off tourist resorts, and funding more NGOs to provide services and aid. While billions were spent, conditions only got worse for the country’s majority; 60 percent of the country lives in poverty, 46 percent of the population lives in acute food insecurity, and 217,000 children face moderate-to-severe acute malnutrition.

Haiti became what Jake Johnston has called an “aid state,” a government entirely dependent on funds from imperial states and international donors. For the people to survive, they depend increasingly on remittances sent from their relatives working in low-paid jobs in other Caribbean countries, Latin America, and the U.S.

Corruption, COVID, and Political Chaos

When the UN occupation ended in 2017, this dependent aid state descended into ever-worsening corruption and infighting between factions of the political elite over who would steal a bigger slice of the aid pie for their own enrichment. Their theft stoked mass anger in a population desperate for reforms to alleviate their plight.

The Petrocaribe Scandal is the worst example of the venal elite’s corruption. Venezuela allowed Haiti to borrow oil from it to be paid back in 25 years. That freed up over $3.2 billion that was intended for reforms to improve people’s lives. Instead, the political elite, including President Moïse,  simply pocketed more than $2 billion for themselves and their cronies. With the money gone, Haiti still is on the hook to pay Venezuela back. Revelations of this corruption sparked mass protests, calling for Moïse’s resignation.

Despite the spiraling crisis, Trump and then Biden continued to support Moïse, even after he dissolved parliament and opted to rule by decree after his term expired. With Washington’s backing, he became for all intents and purposes a dictator, who deployed cops, paramilitaries, and gangs against his opponents.

At this moment of complete political chaos, COVID-19 struck a country without a functioning healthcare system and with only 64 ventilators in a country of 11 million people. Up until this summer, the government had no plans for mass vaccinations amidst relatively low rates of infection and death.

When the delta surge struck, the U.S. and the Haitian government finally started a program of vaccinations, but they still only have half a million doses for a population of 11 million. Even worse, the global economic crisis triggered by the pandemic threw Haiti into a sharp contraction cutting Haitian living standards, a fact only compounded by drops in remittances from Haitians abroad who had lost their jobs during the recessions in Latin America and the U.S.

With the society coming apart at the seams, gangs began to emerge, some with the backing of the government. Armed with guns, mainly imported from the U.S., they built mobster-like fiefdoms, ran extortion rings, stole aid, kidnapped people demanding ransom often from relatives abroad, and carried out revenge killings against their rivals.

With Haiti spiraling into social and political chaos, Moïse was assassinated in July by a group of foreign mercenaries made up mostly of former soldiers from the Columbian military, many of whom had been trained at the School of the Americas. While it remains unclear who ordered the murder, it has all the hallmarks of a hit ordered by Moïse ’s opponents in the ruling class. To maintain some semblance of government, the U.S. has appointed Ariel Henry as president, a man who aided and abetted Washington’s second coup against Aristide.

Washington’s Border Regime Deployed Against Haitian Migrants

U.S. imperialism’s interventions and support for reactionary Haitian governments are the cause of the waves of migrants that have fled the country. The Washington-backed Duvalier dictatorship drove out hundreds of thousands of people, the first coup against Aristide sent tens of thousands out of the country, the 2010 earthquake drove tens of thousands more abroad, and now the complete social crisis in Haiti, as well as deteriorating conditions in Latin America, is triggering a new wave of tens of thousands of people fleeing to the U.S.

While U.S. imperialism was causing mass migration, it was at the very same time building an immense border regime to buttress global capitalism’s state structures, block people from entering the U.S., and criminalize those that successfully evaded the border cops as racialized cheap labor in everything from agribusiness to meatpacking. Washington has used its border regime to block most Haitian refugees, only granting partial exceptions when faced with political pressure and protest.

It has subjected Haitians to xenophobic, racist, and politically discriminatory treatment. This has led to them having the lowest rate of asylum of any nationality with high rates of application.

During the 1970s, Jimmy Carter, despite his self-proclaimed support for human rights, applied a double standard to migrants from Haiti and Cuba. Because Washington supported the Duvalier dictatorship as a Cold War ally, Carter denied Haitian migrants refugee status, arrested them when they arrived in Florida, and deported them back to Haiti, while it admitted all mostly lighter-skinned Cubans fleeing the Castro regime which the U.S. opposed.

Ronald Reagan, who pushed for the neoliberal program in Haiti in the 1980s, deployed the Coast Guard to interdict undocumented migrants at sea and applied the new policy mostly to Haitians. The U.S. intercepted boats with Haitians before they reached U.S. shores, denied them the chance to apply for asylum, and returned them to Haiti. In 1987, Reagan introduced a ban on anyone with HIV from being allowed into the U.S., even if they qualified for asylum, and used it against Haitians in particular.

Jailing and Repatriating Refugees from Washington’s Coups

After Washington’s first coup against Aristide in 1991, George Bush Sr. blocked boats filled with Haitian refugees and jailed 34,000 in vast concentration camps set up in Guantanamo, Cuba. He repatriated most of them to Haiti, some to certain death at the hands of the coup regime.

He did grant a third of them asylum, but he used Reagan’s ban on HIV-positive migrants to keep 270 Haitians in a segregated camp even though they qualified for asylum. While Bill Clinton campaigned against Bush’s policy, once in office he broke his promise and kept the concentration camp open. A court case forced him to finally admit the 270 HIV-positive asylees into the U.S.

After Washington’s second coup against Aristide in 2004, George W. Bush threatened to interdict and repatriate any migrants fleeing Haiti. He deputized the UN to lock people in place and impose “order” on the country.

The Obama administration, infamous for deporting more migrants than any in U.S. history, treated Haitians little better. While he granted 60,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians in the U.S. after the 2010 earthquake and stopped deportations, it was open to review every 18 months. While he renewed TPS, Obama re-started interdictions and deportations in 2016.

Trump’s Unleashes the Border Regime’s Racism and Xenophobia

Trump’s America First agenda made explicit and more radical all the xenophobic and racist features of Washington’s border regime. He placed all migrants, including Haitians, in Washington’s crosshairs.

In a flurry of executive orders, some upheld by the courts and others struck down, Trump imposed a Muslim ban, implemented Remain in Mexico that forces those applying for asylum at a U.S. port of entry to return to Mexico while they await their hearings, and then in the wake of COVID-19 imposed Title 42, shutting down the borders to all migrants. He unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to go after migrants, restricted to 15,000 the number of refugees the U.S. would grant asylum in 2021, and gutted the asylum system to make it difficult to process even that tiny number of applicants.

Trump attacked TPS for Haitians, Salvadorans, and several African countries, raving “why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” After noting his preference for white migration from countries like Norway, Trump raved “Why do we need more Haitians. Take them out.” He ordered the termination of TPS for 400,000 people in the U.S., including 60,000 Haitians. Only court rulings blocked that attack.

Haitian migrants faced similar assaults in Latin America where they had fled after the earthquake to find jobs during the region’s China-fueled commodity boom. With that ended by the Chinese slowdown and global recession triggered by the pandemic, Haitians lost their jobs and became the objects of racist scapegoating in Brazil and Chile where they were concentrated in the largest numbers.

Facing desperate conditions, Haitians closely watched the U.S. presidential elections. When Biden won, they began the long trek by foot and bus to the U.S. in the hopes that they would now be welcomed.

Biden’s Betrayal of Migrant Justice

Tragically, they were soon betrayed. In reality, there was little basis in Biden’s record to expect him to treat Haitians or any other migrants differently than his predecessors. His fingerprints are all over the creation of Washington’s border regime and, when he was last in office under Obama, he was an accomplice to his boss as the Vice-Deporter-in-Chief.

But, under pressure from activists who had protested Trump’s unconscionable policies, and faced with liberal challengers in the Democratic primary, Biden verbally tacked left, mouthing promises to repeal the worst of his bigoted predecessor’s executive orders, replace them with a new “humane immigration policy,” pass so-called comprehensive immigration reform, and redress the causes of migration in Central America. At the same time, however, Biden made clear that he would pair such reform with border enforcement and expansion of the border regime into Central America.

Once in office, Biden did repeal some of Trump’s executive orders, but he has enforced the closure of the border under Title 42 and Remain in Mexico. He has used these to intercept 1.5 million at the border, expel 700,000, and place tens of thousands, including families with children, in what under Trump had been called concentration camps.

While Biden introduced a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform, it included onerous and punitive conditions for citizenship and was paired with even more border enforcement, including plans for a new virtual border wall. It was a far cry from the movement’s call for unconditional legalization for all and abolition of the border regime.

Without even a fight, Biden let this bill die in Congress where it never even came up for a vote. And when the parliamentarian blocked an attempt to include it in the reconciliation bill, the Democrats capitulated obeying an unelected bureaucrat’s non-binding judgment.

With reform dead in the water, Biden abandoned his promise to impose a moratorium on deportations when it was blocked in the courts and started to repatriate people. He deputized his Vice President, Kamala Harris, herself a child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, the new “Immigration Czar” to carry out all this border enforcement.

On her junket to Washington’s vassals in the Northern Triangle and Mexico, Harris told migrants, “Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders. If you come to our border, you will be turned back.” She also announced a new initiative for Central American countries that combines neoliberal development aid, support for so-called “democratization”, and assistance for them to build up their own border regimes.

Haitians Collide with Biden’s Border Regime

Haitian migrants collided directly into Biden’s border regime. Biden did extend TPS for another 18 months, but that only applied to 150,000 Haitians who had been in the U.S. before May 21st of this year, not new arrivals.

When Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas announced the administration’s decision, he declared “Haiti is currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.” Despite these conditions, Biden has continued to deport Haitians, the first planeloads on the first day of Black History Month.

But Haitians in Latin America observed that some were getting through the border and so continued to head north. That led 30,000 mostly Haitians at the border to try and cross into Del Rio Texas with 15,000 getting through and setting up a camp under a bridge, hoping to apply for asylum. As the world witnessed, Biden treated them with callous brutality.

To stop the next wave of Haitian migrants, he has deputized Mexico to deport Haiti from the northern border region, relocate others to Tapachula, Chiapas, and deploy its National Guard there to block Haitian and other migrants’ passage up from Latin America. The Northern Triangle states have similarly started to crack down on migrant’s passage.

Biden has also ordered the Coast Guard to intercept migrants fleeing Haiti in boats, detaining hundreds in recent days. Ominously, he has also sought out a contractor to establish a camp for migrants in Guantanamo staffed with Haitian creole speakers. Joining the quarantining of people in Haiti, the Bahamas and even Cuba has started seizing and repatriating Haitians in the Caribbean.

Time to Rebuild Protest Against the Border Regime

With Biden breaking his promises of reform, deporting Haitians and other migrants, and enforcing a closed border policy, the migrant justice movement must rebuild independent mass struggle with a program of immediate reforms and long-term border abolitionist goals.

Without protests against Biden’s attack on Haitians and all migrants, he will only face pressure from xenophobic Democrats and racist Republicans. Already, Republican Governors led by Texas’ Abbott and his Operation Lone Star have started to encroach on federal authority and implement their own rogue border policy.

The GOP plans to make immigration a central issue in the midterm elections, portraying Biden as soft on border enforcement, even though the administration is overseeing a closed border. Without protest from the migrant justice movement, Biden will double down on racist, border enforcement to neutralize Republican attacks, selling out migrants in the process.

Already there are positive signs of protests emerging, demanding justice for Haitians and all migrants. There are demonstrations calling for Biden and Senate Democrats to override the parliamentarian and include legalization in the reconciliation bill. And the Haitian Bridge Alliance has called for a national day of action on October 14th for Haitians.

In these protests it is vital that we demand justice for Haitians and all migrants, and not allow our enemies to divide us, pitting different migrant groups against one another. For Haitians, we should demand that Biden extend TPS to all in the country and grant them unconditional, permanent legalization.

For Haitians arriving at the border, we must demand that they all be let in, granted asylum, and provided any assistance they need to rebuild their lives. We must also call on Biden to stop all deportations of Haitians back to their country amidst the full-scale political, social, and economic crisis the U.S. has caused. Instead, the U.S. should pay reparations to Haiti and its people and allow them to determine their own destiny without interference from Washington or any other imperial power.

We must force Biden to scrap Title 42 and open the border immediately. If the U.S. is concerned about COVID-19, then it should end its vaccine apartheid and provide the shots and the capacity to make them to governments in Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the rest of the Global South.

The border regime, capitalist patents on life-saving medicine, and hoarding of vaccines are the problem, not migrants. For all those migrants, we must demand unconditional legalization.

In the fight for these immediate reforms, we must raise the guiding goals for the whole movement—the defunding and abolition of ICE, the Border Patrol, and the entire border regime. Only when we win open borders can we establish a society where no human being is illegal.

The Tempest Magazine via counterpunch.org

For the second consecutive year, Latin America has been established to be the most dangerous region for environmental activists. According to a recent annual report by Global Witness titled “Last Life on Defence”, 227 environmental activists and indigenous leaders were killed in 2020, with three out of every four killings occurring in Latin America.

Colombia once again led the statistics in the region with 65 environmental activists murdered, among them indigenous and afro-descent individuals, as well as small scale farmers. In Peru and Brazil, almost three quarters of the murders took place in the Amazon regions of the respective countries, indicating that indigenous populations remain in the crosshairs of attackers. Nicaragua’s increase in killings – from 5 in 2019 to 12 in 2020, made the country the most dangerous in the region per capita in terms of  environmental activists.

The report notes, “It may sound simplistic, but it’s a fact worth considering – the process of climate breakdown is violent, and it manifests not just in violence against the natural world, but against people as well.”

Over one third of the documented killings were linked to resource exploitation. This statistic is also reflected in the fact that indigenous activists accounted for over a third of fatalities, as the report notes, “despite only making up 5% of the world’s population.” The direct targeting of indigenous populations was noted in a 2012 report which stated, “All governments are chasing a dominant development paradigm in which today minorities and indigenous peoples don’t really have a place and that is a problem.”

For people not to have a place, dispossession is the outcome. The targeting of individual activists is the means through which to intimidate indigenous communities. Indigenous leaders remain a major target due to their presence, which stands as a main opposition to the exploitation of land and resources by governments and corporations.

In April this year, the Escazu Agreement came into force in Latin America. It is the first treaty in the region to deal with the environment and to offer protection for environmental activists. Notably, Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia have not signed the agreement, despite their initial involvement in the negotiation process which led to the agreement’s adoption in 2018.

The Escazu Agreement enshrines the provision of access to environmental information, public participation in the environmental decision-making processes, access to justice in environmental matters and the protection of human rights defenders in environmental matters.

Article 9 of the agreement calls upon the signatories “to prevent, investigate and punish attacks, threats or intimidation that human rights defenders in environmental matters may suffer while exercising the rights set out in the present agreement.”

However, the provisions set out in the agreement are in contradiction with the exploitative politics embraced in the region. Besides the fact that not all countries are on board – besides Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Peru and Colombia have not ratified the agreement – the links between governments and multinational corporations take precedence, resulting in widespread impunity when it comes to the  political violence employed against both land and indigenous communities.

The Global Witness report calls out the culpability of business and governments in terms of violence, yet its recommendations testify to a recurring cycle that places responsibility to protect on the same entities which engage in exploitative business ventures against environment, activists and indigenous communities. The UN may be treated as distinct from governments, yet its composition brings together the same neoliberal practices which have destroyed land and people. With nothing to hold governments or the UN accountable, protection remains elusive when juxtaposed against the reassurance of neoliberal profit.

Not content with conning the gullible natives in Ecuador to elect its favoured candidate to the Presidency (assuming the vote was honest and Dominion had nothing to do with counting it) the empire is now focusing its resources to undermine, and if possible politically destroy, the recently elected government of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

The insistence of native peoples on acquiring a semblance of political influence in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia – countries carved out by criollos after the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire, where descendants of the conquered Incas still constitute the decisive majority of the population – is anathema not just to the local white ruling class but also to its North American protectors.

The balance of power between the politically unsophisticated native peasantry and their experienced criollos overlords, who wield effective mechanisms of social control developed over centuries of successful minority rule, is shifting constantly. If social democracy is defined as a system where interests of the majority are acknowledged and respected, after the seeming electoral defeat of the popular alliance rooted in the policies of Rafael Correa in Ecuador earlier this year that country has definitely regressed to oligarchic rule. Bolivia, which for more than a decade was led by populist President Evo Morales, was briefly reconquered by the oligarchy in 2019. The operation was a crude and blatantly illegal coup in which the rapacious North American robber baron Elon Musk played a leading part. But to the surprise of many, in Bolivia the coup regime eventually was defeated electorally and a government respectful of the traditions and interests of the governed, to the chagrin of Washington, is now again in place.

Until the recent election of Pedro Castillo, Peru was traditionally ruled either by military dictatorships reflecting at various times both extremes of the political spectrum, or by conservative civilian coalitions representing the interests of the entrenched criollo oligarchy. The mostly poor and disenfranchised native population had no significant say in the governance of their country. With the election of Castillo, a school teacher of humble background but intense dedication to redressing the historical grievances of the poor, darker skinned majority the political balance in Peru has shifted drastically.

President Pedro Castillo has the unpleasant distinction of being the current target of the imperial Andes rollback campaign. The heavy artillery barrage is being led by the nearly forgotten writer Mario Vargas Llosa, the 2010 recipient of the mostly devalued Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1990 neoliberal presidential candidate who lost in the run-off to crook Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori’s daughter Keiko was the candidate Castillo defeated in the presidential election in June of this year.

The reason for the globalist empire’s predilection for Llosa as its standard-bearer in this smear campaign is easily discerned if we recall his self-description, as quoted in an Atlantic magazine puff piece a few decades ago: “…Vargas Llosa presented himself as a champion of enlightenment in a sad, benighted land. He explains in his memoir: ‘Although I was born in Peru (“through an accident of geography,” as the head of the Peruvian Army, General Nicolás de Bari Hermoza, put it, thinking that he was insulting me), my vocation is that of a cosmopolitan and an expatriate who has always detested nationalism, which strikes me as one of the human aberrations that has made the most blood flow.’”

That having been said, Llosa’s obnoxious put-down of the Peruvian native Castillo as a “profesor de segundo de primaria,” a nasty play on words meaning “a second rate primary school teacher” who “has no ideas and does not even realize where he’s ended up,” clearly was delivered in the context of racial tensions inherent in the Peruvian society. Regrettably Llosa, with a rather modest literary opus to his credit, lacks the self-critical objectivity of Somerset Maugham who, in a moment of candour, honestly described himself as “a writer in the very first row of the second-raters.”

Whatever one may think of Maugham’s talents, the English writer’s humble self-appraisal in fact fits Llosa perfectly.

Predictably, the principal issue that has emerged in Llosa’s ideologically neoliberal critique of the Castillo government is the future of Peru’s mining industry, which accounts for about 15% to the country’s GNP and constitutes about 60% of its exports. Obviously, it is an attractive booty for the transnationals and they are loath to tolerate interference with their profit taking by peasant “deplorables” and their elected President Pedro Castillo. Similar points of contention had emerged in Ecuador with oil exploration conducted on land inhabited by the native population and in Bolivia, with regard to the mining and marketing of lithium. By resolving these disputes in favor of the indigenous people, presidents Correa and Morales respectively had largely sealed their political fate.

It is apparent that Castillo is taking a similar approach toward Peru’s mining industry by indicating that he would veto mining megaprojects favoured by foreign transnationals unless they obtained the support of the native populations whose habitat could be disrupted by their implementation. Ominously, Castillo has invoked also the concept of “social utility” as a criterion for approving future industrial mining projects, a retrograde philosophy that endears him neither to his neoliberal critic Llosa nor to the rapacious transnationals who are eager to extract Peru’s natural resources and run away with the profit.

Concomitantly with Llosa’s neoliberal tirades, the new and clearly uncooperative Castillo government is being subjected to a series of political ambushes designed to hobble it. Insinuations are being spread that the real power behind Castillo’s throne is political operative Vladimir Cerrón and that “inept” Castillo serves as no more than his front man. A senator aligned with the oligarchic bloc is publicly disparaging prime minister Guido Bellido Ugarte, alleging that he is incompetent and the laughing stock of members of his own cabinet. The “approved” Ipsos polling agency, the imperial deep state’s favourite propagator of public opinion survey disinformation, has announced that 61% of Peru’s population believe that Castillo lacks leadership capacity and is incapable of solving the country’s problems. It makes one wonder whether anyone actually voted for Castillo only a couple of months ago.

There are also hints that reliable imperial pawn Llosa is being cultivated as the new Latin American “elder statesman” who will be entrusted with whipping errant colleagues into line. The dubiously elected Ecuadorean government just last week decorated its Peruvian kindred spirit with the Order of Merit of the Grand Cross. Armed with such shiny awards, Vargas Llosa launched into another tirade, well beyond the territorial limits of his Andean turf, against Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, accusing him of plotting re-election to a second term. It is a not so veiled allegation against López Obrador, who has been in the imperial crosshairs for some time. Students of Mexican history are well aware that an attempt to engineer another term in office is what led to the political downfall of President Porfirio Díaz early in the twentieth century.

It remains to be seen how much longer Llosa will continue to clown around, obeying his master’s voice and casting stones at others. His name has been noted on the long list of corrupt “investors” who were outed after the Pandora Papers scandal broke out. It is hardly surprising to see neoliberal adept Llosa in such distinguished company.

It is all a question of “values,” of course.

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On the same day Chileans remembered the 48^th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup which ousted President Salvador Allende, the National Security Archives (NSA) published heavily redacted documents which prove Australia’s involvement in the coup, at the formal request of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

A request by former Australian Army military intelligence officer Dr Clinton Fernandez to the National Archives of Australia to release documents pertaining to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) role in Chile between 1971 and 1974 was at first rejected. Albeit limited, there was public knowledge of Australia’s involvement in Chile. As Fernandez stated in his appeal, “In my submission, the publicly available evidence will show that ASIS has undertaken operations and that these operations took place at a time the U.S. was involved in undermining the Allende government.”

In contrast to the U.S., which declassified documents pertaining to its role in the coup and its aftermath, Australia had been reluctant to reveal documents, claiming a possible jeopardising of “the security, defence or international relations of Australia.”

However, the documents which have now been made public affirm the previously known snippets of information regarding Australia’s involvement in Chile. In 1973, Australia’s Labor Party Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ordered ASIS to shut down its operations in Santiago – according to documents because Whitlam was worried about how Australia could justify its presence in Chile if ASIS’s role was exposed. Whitlam, however, was also concerned about the U.S. reaction to his decision. As one declassified memo states, Whitlam was “most concerned that the CIA should not interpret this decision as being an unfriendly gesture towards the U.S. in general or towards the CIA in particular.”

ASIS, known by the code MO9 in the declassified documents, had operated a station in Santiago between 1970 and 1973 at the CIA’s request. While details still remain scant – what was revealed leans towards more mundane details rather than the actual operations Australia undertook for the CIA – the documents confirm what Whitlam himself had acknowledged in 1977 – “when my government took office, Australian intelligence personnel were still working as proxies and nominees of the CIA.” Documents also reveal that ASIS used the British Embassy’s secure pouch for delivery of secret documents – such use indicates Australia’s concern to conceal its clandestine operations in Chile.

In 2000, the Clinton administration in the U.S. declassified thousands of documents, but none that detailed the U.S.-Australia collaboration in Chile. According to author and journalist Nicky Hager, discussions between both countries would have taken place to ensure that information regarding Australia’s role in Chile would remain shrouded in secrecy.

Australia had opened its doors to both Chilean refugees and pro-dictatorship individuals – among the latter members of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s secret services. While exile remains a prominently discussed aspect in terms of Chileans in Australia, the presence of dictatorship agents testifies to the global surveillance network which Pinochet operated to quash any possible grouping of political dissent.

The secrecy with which Australia is treating its involvement in Chile has been questioned and challenged by Fernandez. “National security should be a goal not an alibi. It should mean the safety of the Australian public. It shouldn’t mean protecting policymakers from democratic accountability.”

The documents are a stain on Australia’s purported democratic approach to foreign policy and relations. Proof of Australia’s involvement in Chile depicts the willing complicity in overthrowing a democratically-elected government to be replaced by a brutal dictatorship which tortured, killed and disappeared thousands of Chileans. A host country for refugees having contributed to destabilising Chile has much to answer for, both in terms of political violence and in terms of accountability towards the refugees whose safe haven turned out to be a political accomplice with the CIA and Pinochet.

A 471-page report by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia (GIEI-Bolivia) recently presented to Bolivian President Luis Arce in La Paz on Tuesday this week confirms the U.S.-backed coup’s persecution of opponents, including “systematic torture and summary executions” in 2019. The report is based on interviews with 400 victims of the Anez regime and other witnesses, as well as 120,000 files related to abuses between September 1 and December 31, 2019.

The findings prompted Bolivian prosecutors to charge the self-styled “interim leader” Jeanine Anez with genocide. Anez faces charges over the massacres in Sacaba and Senkata, where 20 protestors were killed by the security forces.

At the announcement of her arrest in March this year, Anez tweeted, “They are sending me to detention for four months to await a trial for a ‘coup’ that never happened.”

Yet the U.S. was swift to recognize Anez as interim president as well as to endorse the Organization of American State’s (OAS) report in 2019, which alleged electoral fraud in Bolivia with the intent to keep Evo Morales in power.

The former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s address to the OAS office in Washington gives quite a succinct summary of U.S. interference in Latin America – a twisted narrative of alleged democratic intent trickling down from the U.S., when the facts speak otherwise. Pompeo spoke of the U.S. role in recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and how members of the OAS followed suit, as well as a historical overview which attempted to disfigure the leftist movements in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s as “producing repression for their own kind at home.”

Pompeo also described Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as the countries through which “we face stains of tyranny on a great canvas of freedom in our hemisphere,” before moving on to praise the OAS for its role in ousting Morales. And as is typical of the U.S., with its long history of supporting military coups in the region, not a word was uttered about Anez’s persecution of the indigenous in Bolivia.

Yet the OAS report was denounced by the New York Times as having “relied on incorrect data and inappropriate statistical techniques.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Co-Director Mark Weisbrot declared, “If the OAS and Secretary General Luis Almagro are allowed to get away with such politically driven falsification of their electoral observation results again, this threatens not only Bolivian democracy but the democracy of any country where the OAS may be involved in elections in the future.”

The GIEI report has established that the Anez regime committed summary executions, torture and sexual violence against indigenous people. Through the report, the Sacaba and Senkata massacres were revisited and will once again form part of Bolivia’s most recent memory of U.S.-backed violence. Just a day prior to the Sacaba massacres, on November 14, 2019, Anez signed a decree which established impunity for Bolivia’s armed forces.

Contrary to the rushed way in which the Trump Administration had recognised Anez as Bolivia’s legitimate leader, the U.S. is reluctant to comment on the GIEI report findings which established the U.S.-backed regime as having committed human rights violations. In March this year, however, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement in March after Anez’s arrest, stating he was “deeply concerned by growing signs of anti-democratic behavior and politicization” with regard to Bolivia’s quest for justice.

Of Bolivia’s quest for justice now, the U.S. can hardly be expected to voice support. Yet the report goes a long way in overturning the U.S. intervention narrative. Bolivia’s victims are victims of a U.S.-backed coup, and U.S.-funded political violence should equally share the spotlight now highlighting Anez’s short-lived legacy of human rights violations in Bolivia.

Why does the U.S. illegal blockade on Cuba conveniently disappear from the EU’s narrative in the context of the protests against shortages in the country, and in which dissidents have been funded by the U.S.?

At the UN, where the blockade is routinely condemned through non-binding resolutions which of course allow the U.S. complete impunity over extending its violations against the island, the Political Coordinator for the U.S. Mission, Rodney Hunter, defended the sanctions as “one sent of tools in Washington’s broader effort towards Cuba to advance democracy, promote respect for human rights, and help the Cuban people exercise fundamental freedoms.”

Not a single EU member state voted against the UN General Assembly’s resolution to end the blockade last June. Yet since the protests in Cuba commenced, the EU has quietly dissociated itself from the stance it takes at the UN, treating the protests and the illegal U.S. blockade as unrelated, despite U.S. memorandums since the early days of the Cuban revolution stating that crippling the island economically was one imperialist method to bring about governance change in Cuba.

The EU’s High Representative Josep Borrell’s statement is testimony to the chosen narrative which the bloc has now adopted. There is no mention of the 243 restrictive measures imposed on Cuba by the Trump Administration, which did its best to slander Cuba at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and when the island’s medical brigades were offering their help across the globe, including in Italy. Neither does Borrell mention the fact that U.S. President Joe Biden has chosen to retain all the sanctions imposed by the previous administration and added more of its own, not to mention the refusal to remove Cuba from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list. This despite the fact that in January this year, the EU appealed to Biden to take a different stance with Cuba than Trump – at a time when diplomats were still under the impression that Biden would follow in Obama’s footsteps as regards U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba.

Is it surprising that Cubans are protesting? Definitely not, but for the U.S. and the EU to impose their narrative excluding the decades-long illegal blockade does not aid the Cuban people. And the truth is, the U.S. and the EU care little for democratic representation but fully endorse non-democratic measures to force countries into subjugation. That Cuba has survived against all odds has put a toll on the population, but that toll is directly linked to the blockade which almost no government wants to talk about now.

Spontaneous protests need no external funding and Cubans affected by shortages have differentiated between their grievances and the foreign interference, funded under specific programs by the U.S. Not to mention the media manipulation of the protests narrative by using imagery taken from the 2018 May Day rallies in Cuba, as even Reuters has confirmed. If the reporting was not able to produce the correct images, what is missing from the narrative about the Cuban protests? The Cuban narrative itself – that of the people who have resisted against all odds – was absent from mainstream media reporting, keen as it is to promote yet another purportedly democratic narrative, now that the Arab Spring hype has long declined.

The question of whether the EU really wants an end to the blockade on Cuba naturally arises. Considering the non-binding nature of UN General Assembly resolutions, governments are not held accountable for their fluctuating policies. If the U.S. determines, and funds, Cuban dissidents to stage discontent, the EU follows suit in its narrative. It is noteworthy that the EU, despite its purported policy of peace and human rights, kept silent about the calls emanating from Miami urging for U.S. foreign military intervention against Cuba. If the EU truly prized democracy, it would lobby for an end to the illegal blockade and U.S. interference, rather than partake in the U.S.-funded misrepresentative narrative against Cuba.