March 18, 2024

How the United States Fuels Militarization in Mexico

… and why an invasion is a terrible idea.

COMMENTARY
WORDS: JAMES CHABIN
PICTURES: ADAM JONES
DATE: MARCH 18, 2024

In the past year, prominent Republicans have made headlines for endorsing the use of United States military forces against drug cartels on Mexican territory. While many have pointed out the flaws in this plan, few have noticed that US influence has already made Mexico a more militarized country in recent years.

Between 2006 and 2021, the Mexican military took over 246 civil functions, including some in health, education, and social programming. The rate of military expansion into civil life has increased since 2018 under the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In addition to an expanding footprint in domestic security, the military has been involved in managing ports of entry, developing infrastructure projects, and running the Maya Train.

Despite its prominence in domestic affairs, the Mexican military has come under scrutiny from human rights organizations for actions carried out on Mexican soil. According to Human Rights Watch, the military has tortured, executed, and arbitrarily detained civilians. In a particularly shocking case, the armed forces refused an order from López Obrador to turn over documents relating to the 2014 Ayotzinapa college student disappearance.

Corruption and impunity reach the highest levels of the Mexican military, as evidenced by the US authorities’ arrest of former Defense Minister Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, who was exonerated in Mexico after López Obrador took exception to the US meddling in what he perceived to be domestic affairs.

More:
https://inkstickmedia.com/how-the-united-states-fuels-militarization-in-mexico/

March 18, 2024

Haiti's Proud Boys

Mar 18, 2024
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

If we measure a failed state by the cracks in the edifice of its power, reflected in brewing ideological civil wars, deadlocked assemblies, and increasingly insecure public spaces, we must recognize that the United States is not so unlike Haiti. Both have given rise to violent gangs with political ambitions.

LJUBLJANA – The way things are going in Haiti, violent gangs might not only gain an official government role; they might actually become the government. Following the gangs’ seizure of critical infrastructure and the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, Haiti is exhibiting all the familiar features of a failed state. Its people are left with a tragic choice: continued rule by a corrupt “democratic” elite, or direct rule by gangs who present themselves as “progressive.”

With law and order having collapsed, CARICOM, the Caribbean regional intergovernmental organization, has announced an agreement to create a transitional council aimed at representing a wide swath of Haitian political and civil-society groupings. The council would wield some powers that typically belong to the (vacant) office of the president, including the power to name an interim prime minister. The resulting government would be expected eventually to hold elections, thus achieving a complete political reset.

But whom will these new arrangements include? Haiti has been under a state of emergency since armed groups attacked the country’s largest prison earlier this month, killing and injuring police and prison staff, and allowing nearly 4,000 inmates to escape. The gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier – himself a former police officer – took credit for the attack and called for the government to be overthrown. Gangs now control 80% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, having seized the country’s main airport to block Henry’s return from a diplomatic mission to Kenya, where he was hoping to secure police reinforcements.

The CARICOM agreement bars anyone with prior criminal convictions or sanctions against them, thus disqualifying Chérizier. But Chérizier has long been known to harbor political aspirations. He is not only a gang leader but also a populist politician, telling an interviewer in 2019: “I would never massacre people in the same social class as me.” Earlier this month, he said: “We won’t lie to people, saying we have a peaceful revolution. We do not have a peaceful revolution. We are starting a bloody revolution in the country.”

Chérizier has likened himself to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and even Robin Hood. But he also admires François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, the right-wing dictator who ruled Haiti with an iron fist from 1957 to 1971 (and who also terrorized Haitian society with armed paramilitary groups, led by the infamous Tonton Macoutes).

More:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/haiti-gangs-seizing-power-resemble-proud-boys-trump-effort-by-slavoj-zizek-2024-03

March 17, 2024

Brazil's Bolsonaro 'Not Afraid of Any Trial' Over Plot Accusations

March 16, 2024 9:27 PM
By Associated Press



FILE - Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro waves as he greets supporters at Salgado Filho International Airport as he arrives in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, June 22, 2023.


RIO DE JANEIRO —

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Saturday he was "not afraid of any trial," a day after documents released by the Supreme Court revealed that two top military leaders said the populist plotted to remain in power after losing the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro avoided commenting on the content of any of several investigations targeting him, but claimed he was a victim of "persecution" for causing trouble for the country's political left. Authorities in February confiscated Bolsonaro's passport.

"I could very well be in another country, but I decided to come back here at all costs. I'm not afraid of any trial, as long as the judges are impartial," Bolsonaro said in Rio de Janeiro, speaking at a campaign event in the city's mayoral race.

The court documents released Saturday included testimony from Bolsonaro's former army and air force commanders to police, who said they refused the former leader's demands and would arrest him if he tried to stay in power.

More:
https://www.voanews.com/a/brazil-s-bolsonaro-not-afraid-of-any-trial-over-plot-accusations-/7530999.html

March 17, 2024

Brazilian president warns democracy in danger due to fascism

People are offended ‘fascism, Nazism, rabid, ignorant, brute extreme right,’ says Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Sinan Doğan |
17.03.2024 - Update : 17.03.2024



Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

BOGOTA, Colombia

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva warned on Saturday that democracy in the world is in danger due to fascism.

He said democracy is in danger as people are offended by "fascism, Nazism, rabid, ignorant, brute extreme right.”

“Who is against the system today? Who criticizes everything? Is (President Javier) Milei in Argentina. He even wants the central bank to close. He wants to cut everything with a buzz-saw," Lula said at the announcement ceremony for the reconstruction of the Gaucho municipalities.

Arguing that far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro still does not accept defeat in the presidential election, Lula said Bolsonaro is not aware of how he lost.

More:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/brazilian-president-warns-democracy-in-danger-due-to-fascism/3166448

March 15, 2024

In Election by His Own Rules, Four-Fifths of Salvadorans Give Bukele a Second Term

Over 97 percent of Salvadorans in the U.S. voted for Nayib Bukele, who claimed a commanding electoral victory Sunday with over 80 percent of total votes. Opposition parties have been reduced to a minimum, capping an unconstitutional process totally controlled by the ruling party.



Carlos Barrera

Monday, February 5, 2024
Roman Gressier and José Luis Sanz

“According to our numbers, we have won the presidential election with more than 85 percent of votes, and a minimum of 58 out of 60 deputies in the Assembly.”

It was Nayib Bukele who broke the news over X at 6:56 on Sunday night: He won. By a stratospheric margin only seen in recent elections in Cuba, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

It is fair to say, too, that in Guatemala in 1944, Juan José Arévalo, Bernardo Arevalo’s father, won with 86.3 percent.

The numbers reduce any partisan opposition to irrelevance in decision-making. And just as transcendentally, Bukele self-proclaimed victory without awaiting any official result.

Yesterday, the TSE that signed off on Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection bid had its worst performance since El Salvador recovered its democracy. Dozens of polling center volunteers reported that official computers were double- or triple-logging ballots, that paper was missing to make copies of the vote count, and that the heads of voting centers —most of them from ruling party Nuevas Ideas— kept the only copy.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202402/el_salvador/27235/in-election-by-his-own-rules-four-fifths-of-salvadorans-give-bukele-a-second-term

March 12, 2024

HONDURAS, 2009. LEGACY OF A COUP UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 7, PART 2

(There is a podcast in this link. I just saw this episode today for the first time, and discovered the other episodes are available, as well. What they can do for anyone is provide an excellent review of US policy toward the Americas South of the border as it really happened, not as it was portrayed through the US corporate media. The people of the Americas are very keenly aware of what has been happening all these years, unless they identify with the predator class in each country. )

The list of the other podcasts in the series is linked at the bottom of this post.


Police occupy the National Institute of Agrarian Reform in Tegucigalpa on September 30, 2009. Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images

POSTED IN UNDER THE SHADOW

HONDURAS, 2009. LEGACY OF A COUP | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 7, PART 2

Honduras’s return to democracy after the 2009 U.S.-backed coup is a heroic story of popular resistance.

In June 2009, Honduras faced a devastating coup that shattered the country’s fragile democracy and sunk the country into violence, repression, and a decade-long narco-dictatorship.

But the people fought back.

In this continuation of Episode 7, host Michael Fox looks at the fallout of the 2009 coup in Honduras, walking from 2009 into the present. He takes us to Tegucigalpa to dive into the fraudulent U.S.-backed elections that ushered in a narco-dictatorship, and also the resistance movement that, after years of struggle, ultimately did what it set out to do: remove the dictatorship and return democracy to Honduras.

This is Part 2 of a two-part episode looking at the 2009 coup in Honduras and the aftermath.

Under the Shadow is a new investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present.

In each episode, host Michael Fox takes us to a location where something historic happened — a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum. But every place he takes us was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives, and left deep marks on the world.

Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.

This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

TRANSCRIPT
Michael Fox: Hi, I’m your host, Michael Fox.

Two things I want to say before we get started. First, today’s episode is Part 2 of Episode 7, where we look at the 2009 US-backed coup in Honduras. We ended up breaking this episode into two parts because there’s just so much to dig into here. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, I suggest you go back and do that first. It’ll set the scene for everything we dive into today.

Second, many portions of today’s episode deal with harsh themes from the years following the 2009 coup in Honduras. If you’re sensitive to this, or you’re in the room with small children, you might want to consider another time to listen. OK. Here’s the show…

So the Brazilian embassy is down this this side street in this residential neighborhood, kind of a northern Tegucigalpa. You can tell that this is a spot with many embassies here because literally the street just adjacent to it is the Republic of Panama, and this one we’ve got Balboa Street, but on my Google Maps it actually says Brazil Brazil St.

And then these two-story buildings kind of go back. It’s behind this gate. So it almost looks like a gated gated neighborhood. Many of the, you know, it’s tree lined streets. Pretty, Quaint. You tell this has been kind of an upscale. Section of Tegucigalpa for a long time. Cars rumble back and forth. There’s a Chinese restaurant right here. That can actually smell the Chinese food from where I’m standing. Just half a block away from the Brazilian embassy behind this fence. And it was here that Manuel Zelaya was was holed up. For months.

Four months total. Back in late 2009, there was a constant line of state security forces outside the embassy. Meanwhile, Zelaya, his wife, Xiomara Castro, and their daughter lived in the cramped two-story home, alongside four dozen embassy workers.

It’s really wild being here because a lot of the different episodes that I’ve been working on are things that happened way in the past. But right here, was the 2009 was the coup against Manuel Zelaya. I remember this moment. I was following what was happening very, very closely from Brazil. Had friends on the ground. And so it’s really strange to be here now and to see this up close and be thinking of this as history, because it’s so present. It’s still so present, right?

Zelaya arrived at the Brazilian Embassy in September 2009, returning from exile in Costa Rica. The calculation at the time was that Zelaya’s return would keep the spotlight on Honduras and the internationally condemned coup that removed him from power three months earlier.

More:
https://therealnews.com/honduras-2009-legacy-of-a-coup-under-the-shadow-episode-7-part-2

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Under the Shadow

A podcast on US intervention and revolutionary resistance in Latin America, and all the ghosts that still linger, from independent journalist Michael Fox. Co-produced by The Real News Network and NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America).

https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/under-the-shadow--5958129

March 12, 2024

Hondurans cheer a rare win over their corrupt politicians, far from home

A US court convicts former right-wing President Juan Orlando Hernandez of narco-trafficking.

By Jared Olson
Published On 11 Mar 2024
11 Mar 2024

New York City, New York – The defendant, greying and pale after two years in a jail cell, lowered his head in a final prayer as the verdict was read.

For almost three weeks, defence lawyers for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez had tried to persuade jurors in a federal courtroom here that the state’s witnesses of convicted drug traffickers and murderers were liars and their testimony – that they operated under the former president’s protection as part of a “narco-state” – was untrustworthy.

But Hernandez’s prayers would go unanswered and his attorneys’ words unheeded as jurors found the ex-president guilty on all three counts of drugs and weapons charges, concluding a fall from grace so epic that it mirrors that of late Panamanian President Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was convicted 32 years ago in a federal courthouse in Miami of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Medellin drug cartel.

Like Noriega, Hernandez was once a staunch United States ally in its “War on Drugs”. Representing a deeply conservative Honduran political party, Hernandez portrayed himself as a law and order candidate in his 2013 presidential campaign, promising to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into the country and the violence that stemmed from it.

He did neither, according to the Honduran people, and instead ushered in a period of state repression targeting dissidents and the country’s Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean population, the most notable of whom was the environmental activist Berta Caceres, who was assassinated in 2016 by a local business executive with ties to the government.

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/11/hondurans-cheer-a-rare-win-over-their-corrupt-politicians-far-from-home




Berta Cáceres, murdered by Honduran oligarchs, cherished, respected by Honduran citizens.

March 5, 2024

Brazil's Supreme Court Justices: Amnesty for Bolsonaro Illegal, Predicted to Fail

Former congressman Daniel Silveira's pardon veto reinforces view that crimes against democracy aren't eligible for benefits

Mar.4.2024 1:30PM

Matheus Teixeira

BRASÍLIA
Supreme Court (STF) justices assert behind the scenes that there is no chance for a possible amnesty for Jair Bolsonaro (PL) or those convicted for involvement in the January 8 attacks to be valid and implemented to absolve the former president and his allies from potential trial in the court.

In private conversations, justices assess that the former president's proposal for Congress to approve such a measure is another tool to rally the Bolsonaro base and pressure the court. They say that an amnesty, even if approved by Congress, would have no practical effect because it would surely be annulled by the Supreme Court.



São Paulo, SP, BRASIL, 25/02/2024: Pro-Bolsonaro Rally on Avenida Paulista (Foto: Bruno Santos/ Folhapress)

Supreme Court members assert privately that the precedent set in the annulment of the pardon granted to former congressman Daniel Silveira is a parameter to analyze the case and indicate that the court would have a comfortable majority to invalidate an amnesty.

At the time, the court decided that crimes against democracy are not eligible for amnesty, clemency, or pardon.

Thus, Bolsonaro could be granted amnesty in a congressional project regarding the investigation of the jewels and the forgery of a vaccination document, for example, but not in the case investigating a plot to impose a coup d'état to prevent President Lula (PT) from taking office after the 2022 elections.

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2024/03/brazils-supreme-court-justices-amnesty-for-bolsonaro-illegal-predicted-to-fail.shtml

March 4, 2024

Brazil's Lula pulls off trick twice, wooing Wall Street and the poor

Andrew Rosati and Maria Eloisa Capurro | Bloomberg
22 hrs ago

In his first spell as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva managed to keep both low-income voters and Wall Street investors happy. In his first year back in power, he has pulled off the same rare trick.

The $2 trillion economy expanded close to 3% in 2023 - triple what analysts were expecting in January when Lula returned to office. Inflation has slowed and polls show the president’s supporters, predominantly poorer Brazilians, feel that he’s delivering. Meanwhile, the stock market jumped to an all-time record and the country’s credit rating was improved.

Now the question is if the set of economic ideas that made the Brazilian leader successful - which can be loosely defined as Lulanomics - can go through 2024, a year when slowing activity, looming fiscal constraints and a difficult midterm election will pose a major test to his strategy.

The Lula of two decades ago rode a multi-year commodity boom that generated cash for his trademark poverty-fighting programs while undertaking big infrastructure projects and doling out cheap public loans - all without scaring investors who fret about budget blowouts or government interference with the central bank.

More:
https://www.postguam.com/the_globe/world/brazil-s-lula-pulls-off-trick-twice-wooing-wall-street-and-the-poor/article_eff52e26-d8a2-11ee-a362-479be8fd09fa.html

March 2, 2024

This article should be noted by people who need to start recognizing actual lies told by people who know they're lying:

If it's not 100% obvious to you, it's time to get busy and realize it's all total crap. You need to look for the truth, which most of us learned is much harder to see, concerning Latin America and what is passing as "news" in the corporate media all these long, long years. No time like the present.



Squad members Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal called 'communist sympathizers' and 'anti-American' for their secret trip to Cuba and bid for regime to be taken OFF state-sponsored terror list

By JON MICHAEL RAASCH, POLITICAL REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C., FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:30 EST, 1 March 2024 | UPDATED: 17:30 EST, 1 March 2024'


Following a secretive visit to communist Cuba, two top progressive 'Squad' members are catching flak for being anti-American.

Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the top two leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, made an unpublicized trip to the Caribbean island in February while the House was in recess.

The congresswomen, who are longstanding critics of the U.S. embargo on the island nation, said they were there to 'meet with people from across Cuban civil society.'

. . .'

The progressive lawmakers led a delegation of about a dozen people including a staffer from the office of California Rep Barbara Lee's office, the Miami Herald reported.

A spokeswoman for the 100-strong Congressional Progressive Caucus gave a brief explanation for the visit by its chair and deputy chair.

'Representatives Jayapal and Omar traveled to Cuba last week, where they met with people from across Cuban civil society and government officials to discuss human rights and the US-Cuba bilateral relationship,' she said.

There are strict restrictions on travel to the island which was placed back on the list of state sponsors of terror by President Trump in January 2021.

More:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13147163/squad-ilhan-omar-pramila-jayapal-secret-cuba-trip-critcism.html


~ ~ ~

The reactionary hard right has been bellowing this same package of pure BS since the beginning of the 1960's, without taking a breath, even though the rest of the world believes the US should drop the hostilities immediately, and has said so for decades.

As a former Head of the US Interests Section in Havana, Wayne S. Smith said,

“Cuba seems to have the same effect on American administrations that the full moon once had on werewolves.”

I have NEVER supported the right wing filthy war on this tiny island as anyone knows who's attended the same message boards I have, starting in 1999 with CNN's message board system at the time, the Miami Herald, etc., etc., etc.

~ ~ ~

Here's a more responsible article, written by the Jimmy Carter US Interests Section Head in Havana, Wayne Smith:

Bush and Cuba: Still the Full Moon

Wayne S. Smith
September 25, 2007

If I am remembered at all (which isn’t likely), it will probably be for having said in my first op-ed piece in the New York Times after leaving the U.S. Foreign Service back in 1982 that “Cuba seems to have the same effect on American administrations that the full moon once had on werewolves.” Twenty-two years later, that is unchanged. Indeed, as one analyzes the Bush administration’s policies toward Cuba, one imagines a distant (and distinctly irrational) howling!

The cold war is long since over. Our own Pentagon acknowledges that Cuba poses no threat whatsoever to U.S. security. There is no evidence that Cuba is or has been in any way involved with terrorist efforts against the United States. On the contrary, Castro has offered to cooperate fully in the fight against terrorism and even proposed signing agreements to that effect with the United States. But none of that has softened Bush’s approach one bit. Instead, his is the harshest policy yet against the island nation. Bush indeed seems to have entered the White House with the intention of getting rid of the Castro regime, not to negotiate with it or to reach some modus vivendi. As Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega put it to Congress on October 2 last year: “The President is determined to see the end of the Castro regime and the dismantling of the apparatus that has kept him in office for so long.”

This past January, Bush closed all channels for dialogue, even suspending the twice-yearly migration talks. He also appointed a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba to recommend ways, first, of bringing about “an expeditious end of the dictatorship,” and then to develop a plan for assisting the Cuban people in “a post-dictatorship Cuba.”

For 45 years now, Washington has used pressure and threats against Castro. The embargo has been in place for 44 years, travel controls of one kind or another almost as long. So now Bush simply proposes more of the same, only in strengthened doses.

The first thing that must be said is that it won’t work. It takes us in exactly the wrong direction. There is a hard-and-fast rule that no U.S. administration has understood (or at least accepted): the more we threaten and pressure, the more we try to choke Cuba economically, the more defensive will be the reaction of the Cuban government, and the more it will call for greater internal discipline and for all to rally around the flag against the threat from the Colossus of the North. In other words, it leads not to liberalization but to tighter internal controls. We must remember that since at least 1902, when the Platt Amendment turned Cuba into a U.S. protectorate, Cubans have seen the United States as the principal threat to their sovereignty and independence. They react to our policies accordingly.

More:
https://nacla.org/article/bush-and-cuba-still-full-moon