Documental Cotrain sobre el caracazo (1/5)

clipped from: www.counterpunch.org
the origins of the global rebellion against neoliberalism
Seattle 1998
London's J18 protests earlier the same year
public emergence of the Zapatista movement on January 1st 1994
Caracazo
described by Fernando Coronil as "the largest and most violently repressed revolt against austerity measures in Latin American history."
Carlos Andrés Pérez
"bait-and-switch" reform
anti-neoliberal campaign
IMF as a "bomb that only kills people."
Pérez proceeded to implement the recently-formulated Washington Consensus to the letter
about-face
Pérez's neoliberal economic "packet" (the "paquetazo"
two weeks after the inaugural
signed with the IMF on February 28th
basic premises of the Pérez plan were laid out as follows:
a potent cocktail of stagnating incomes in the face of skyrocketing prices and monetary devaluation. As might be expected, poverty reached a peak in 1989
February 27th 1989 was a Monday
first stage
immediate 100% increase in
gasoline
Protests kicked off
early commute
fares had doubled
morning of February 28th

clipped from: www.counterpunch.org
At 6pm, Pérez
announce the fateful decision to suspend constitutional guarantees and establish a state of siege
Repression was worst in Caracas' largest barrios: Catia in the west and Petare in the east
neighborhood of 23 de Enero
the organizational brain of the rebellion
Former Chavista vice president José Vicente Rangel put it clearly: "Venezuelan history split into two
A clandestine revolutionary movement had formed within the armed forces years earlier, led by Hugo Chávez, Jesús Urdaneta, Raúl Isaías Baduel, and the late Felipe Antonio Acosta. 1982 to be precise
Caracazo caught them off-guard.
Young soldiers, largely drawn from the lower classes, were sent into the barrios to slaughter their own, and many refused to do fire
anniversary of the Caracazo was celebrated
in El Valle, one of the large barrios in Caracas
As Luis Britto García, radical poet and political writer (recently named to the presidential committee for constitutional reform) has long argued: "World War IV began in Venezuela. WWIII was the Cold War, which culminated in the fall of the Soviet Union and the apparent triumph of neoliberalism. World War IV began in Venezuela on February 27th 1989, with the first rebellion by an entire nation against a neoliberal package. As a result, we have discovered that a global extension of neoliberalism into the economic, social, political and cultural fields is impossible."

As the opening volley in the war against neoliberalism, the legacy of the Caracazo lives on as long as that struggle continues.

What does Obama have planned next for Latin America?

clipped from: onlinejournal.com

Obama’s Latin American policy resembles Richard Nixon’s Operation Condor and its assassinations and covert operations.

He has deploy thousands of Marines and dozens of Coast Guard vessels to Costa Rica, more military bases in Colombia and Honduras, authorized a coup against Zelaya. He is more threatening than the benign George W. Bush.

Thee are increasing reports of political assassinations, illegal detention of opposition figures and journalists in Colombia, Panama, and Honduras.

Pinochet supporters of the Chilean Senate recently charged by Venezuela with interference in elections. Under President Sebastian Pinera, Chile has become
with Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica U.S. base to destabilize progressive-led governments.

The current doctrine is found in CIA manuals for “PBSuccess,”

Brazil’s leftist President Joao Goulart, overthrown in a 1964 coup, died.

Chile’s Eduardo Frei Montalva. PBSuccess’s “Study of Assassination” talks about the machine gun option, to kill Allende.

renewed low-key Operation Condor appears to have taken shape under Obama

And Obama’s decision not to rescind George W. Bush’s re-establishment of the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet as part of the US Southern Command means that the United States can always resort to its old “gunboat diplomacy” to enforce its military might and will in Latin America.

For Obama, whose Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was a top officer in the armed forces of General Suharto, who carried out the CIA’s 1965-66 coup against President Sukarno and the Indonesian Communist Party, which saw almost one million accused Communists, as well as ethnic Chinese, systematically genocided, such re-imposition of covert activities in Latin America presents no moral dilemma to Obama, who first witnessed the CIA’s repression as an impressionable young boy of 7 and 8 years old while living in Jakarta. Soetoro was still a senior officer in Suharto’s army when Soetoro enrolled Barack Obama in 1967 as Barry Soetoro in Jakarta’s Fransiskus Assisi Catholic school. In 1967, the Indonesian army and its CIA handlers were still mopping up Indonesia’s left-wing opposition forces. Obama has studiously refrained from mentioning Indonesia’s CIA coup and has twice canceled presidential visits to the country.

Wolves and Revolution in Venezuela

That's Hugo Chavez Frias, a modern-day Don Quixote. With inexhaustible optimism, he's trying to keep the inexorable forces of Crony Capitalism from sweeping away his policies of government reform and redistribution of wealth. He is fearless and inspirational, and rightly blames the tragedy of December 1999 on the corrupt politicians and businessmen who allowed the shantytowns to be built in the steep valleys in the first place. He is right that the Capitalists don't give a damn about the 50,000 poor people, street vendors mostly, who perished; or the illiterate and malnourished people we saw on our visits to the missions. He is right to appropriate the land of the big companies, which have deforested much of Venezuela, and to give it to poor people to farm. He is right, even heroic, to thumb his nose at the little prick, George W. Bush, who would like nothing better than to dip his blood-soaked hands into Venezuela's oil fields.

I shall leave you with this thought, which was burned into my brain by mighty Gala. The Capitalists are hunting wolves around the world. They call it the war on terror, but in reality, it is simply cruel Imperial sport. They have set up their red flags everywhere, marking the boundaries of freedom. Through their cult of celebrity, and cosmetic materialism, they have destroyed the last vestiges of humanism in America. Bush's hunters are our pride and glory.

Like Maria, will America applaud when Bush gets Chavez in his crosshairs, and finally pull the trigger?

Is Chavez the archetypal hero, fighting the raging ocean waves with his sword? The gods drown the man who challenges nature. Like Hamlet, is he preparing to die?

Or will Chavez leap over the red flags and escape, and bring the Revolucion Bonita to the rest of the world? Can love triumph?

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL III

FROM LOUIS PROYECT

The Fifth International — let’s remember that the

• First International was established in 1864. Karl Marx with a number of other comrades called for the First International.

• Many years later Frederick Engels called for the establishment of the Second International at the end of the 19th century.

• And then at the beginning of the 20th century Vladimir Lenin with many other great revolutionaries established the Third International, and

• Leon Trotsky in 1936-37 established the Fourth International.

All of them had a context but remember that all four Internationals, experiments to unite parties and currents and social movements from around the world, have lost their way along the road for different reasons — some degenerated, lost their force, disappeared soon after their formation. But none of them was able to advance the original aims that they had set themselves…

Let us reclaim Rosa Luxemburg’s slogan “Socialism or barbarism”

Two Socialist Alliance members, Frederico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke, are reporting on location from Caracas and participated in the conference where Chavez issued his call. I would strongly urge reading Fuentes’s article that appeared shortly afterwards and that adds much to the excerpt translated by Jorquera above (Jorquera was formerly a member of the Democratic Socialist Party in Australia which dissolved into the Socialist Alliance.) Fuentes writes:

Hugo Chavez’s call for a Fifth International on November 19-21, 2009, it is difficult to find his actual words. you can read them here

One of the more interesting contributions comes from Carlos Fonseca Terán
of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)

But if nothing else comes out of it except the idea, that would be a step forward since as Chavez and Terán have correctly concluded, it is time for a brand-new movement.

We are living in a period in which very important attempts to break with sectarianism are being midwived by a growing economic and environmental crisis.

the idea of 21st Century Socialism and the call for a Fifth International forces us to think about the future rather than the past. It is about time.

THE NATURE OF CIA IN VENEZUELA - PHILLIP AGEE

Philip Agee is interviewed by Jonah Gindin – Venezuelanalysis.com

CIA PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS IN GUERRILLA WARFARE (PDF, MANUAL)


Philip Agee is a former CIA operative who left the agency in 1967
The book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, was an instant best-seller
In 1978
began publishing the Covert Operations Information Bulletin (now Covert Action Quarterly), as part of a strategy of “guerilla journalism” aimed at destabilizing the CIA and exposing their operations.
Agee sees a more cynical US strategy in Venezuela
Building on the work of scholar William I. Robinson on US intervention in Nicaragua throughout the 1980s
CIA’s strategy of “democracy promotion” is in full-force in Venezuela
a series of foundations
funding
private consulting firm
by the
(USAID)
Roger Noriega recently reaffirmed
goal the unification of Venezuela’s splintered opposition
these techniques, through the CIA, through AID, through the State Department
the National Endowment for Democracy, all follow a certain pattern
uniting the opposition
creating a civic movement
penetration and manipulation of political parties, trade unions, youth and student movements

QUESTIONS OF VENEZUELA

Venezuelan government
US is pursuing
war of attrition
Nicaragua in the 1980s
Chile under Allende
destabilization
political warfare
counterrevolutionary strategy
military threats
with psychological operations, disinformation campaigns, black propaganda, economic sabotage, diplomatic pressures, the mobilization of political opposition forces inside the country, carrying out provocations and sparking violent confrontations in the cities, manipulation of disaffected sectors and the exploitation of legitimate grievances among the population.
deft at taking
mistakes and limitations, such as corruption, clientalism, and opportunism
deft at aggravating and manipulating material problems, such as shortages, price inflation
to destroy
by making it unworkable
exhausting the population's will to
forge a new society
undermine the revolution's mass social base
collapse it in on itself
by undermining the remarkable hegemony
provoke
a crackdown
transform
democratic socialist process
into an authoritarian one
Chavez
removed

by constant war of attribution
through elections, a military putsch from within, an uprising, mass defections from the revolutionary camp, or a combination
military bases in Colombia
crucial platform for intelligence and reconnaissance operations
infiltration of counterrevolutionary military, economic sabotage, and terrorist groups
to harass
to provoke reactions
to synchronize armed provocation
mere threat
bases represent
powerful US psychological operatio
heighten tensions
force
extremist positions
"crying wolf,"
to embolden internal anti-Chavista and counterrevolutionary forces.
the military bases
part of the larger U.S. strategy
all of Latin America
a counteroffensive to
the
"Pink Tide."
Venezuela is the epicenter of an emergent counter-hegemonic bloc
Bolivia and Ecuador
region's burgeoning social movements
left political forces are
targets
coup in Honduras
provided impetus
Colombia
epicenter
bastion of 21st century fascism

MILITARY OCCUPATION OF HAITI

Watch the U.S. media and its coverage of the crisis in Haiti, and you get the impression that Washington is a benevolent power doing its utmost to help with emergency relief in the Caribbean island nation. But tune into al-Jazeera English or South American news network Telesur and you come away with a very different view. I was particularly struck by one hard hitting al-Jazeera report posted on You Tube which serves as a fitting antidote to the usual mainstream fare. The report is highly critical of the U.S., which according to the reporter has focused most of its energy on fostering stability and putting boots on the ground as opposed to rebuilding Haitian society.

The crucial test for Telesur was Honduras in 2009. Adriana Sivori, Telesur's correspondent in Tegucigalpa, was in her hotel room speaking on the telephone to her network when 10 soldiers arrived with rifles drawn. Sivori, along with producer María José Díaz and cameraman Larry Sánchez were taken to an immigration office, the authorities beat them...

Telesur went into Haiti and took a no-holds-barred approach. According to station manager Aram Aharonian. Telesur's Haiti coverage proved controversial with the Chilean, Argentine, and Uruguayan governments.

One of the first stories that Telesur broadcast, MINUSTAH, the United Nations' Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Latin American peace keeping soldiers were repressing the people. Now, in the wake of the earthquake Telesur has joined al-Jazeera

Telesur has focused on United States' misplaced priorities. Telesur focused on U.S. policy towards Haitian migrants, US to house the migrants at
Guantánamo. USS Carl Vinson to intercept Haitian boats

Telesur reported on European Union unhappiness. U.S. relief effort in Haiti,
more relief coordination and less of a foreign military presence

Reed Lindsay, Telesur's correspondent in Haiti, it is the U.S. military which decides who goes in and out of the Port-au-Prince airport and what kinds of humanitarian aid gets through

many who fear that the U.S. is using the crisis in Haiti to launch a military occupation. A report by Cuba's Prensa Latina, U.S. marines recently barred Venezolana de Televisión journalists from entering Haitian hospitals
Haitians seeking to help their loved ones inside were reportedly mistreated
marines stopped them from entering the facilities

USGS claims Venezuela sits on Earth’s largest oil reserves

Chavez recently approved construction of a massive oil REFINERY as a joint venture with China's CNPC. The project cost $6 billion USD, creates 10 percent of China's oil imports. Confucius say: I see a war in near future, with Haiti as base of operations.

OCCUPYING HAITI

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country.

"What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as US troops have already taken control of the airport," Ortega said on Saturday.

The Pentagon says it has deployed more than 10,000 soldiers in Haiti to help victims of Tuesday's earthquake.

This is while US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division took control of the main airport in the capital Port-au-Prince on Friday three days after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake brought death and misery to the impoverished nation.

The leftist Nicaraguan president denounced Washington's move in deploying military forces in Haiti, saying "It seems that the bases (on Latin America) are not sufficient."

"There is no logic that US troops landed in Haiti. Haiti seeks humanitarian aid, not troops. It would be madness we all began to send troops to Haiti," said Ortega.

"I hope they will withdraw troops occupying Haiti," he added.

Earlier on Thursday, Nicaragua sent 31 military doctors of the Humanitarian Rescue Unit (URH) and humanitarian aid for the victims of the calamity.

MILITARIZING HAITI

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States of taking advantage of the deadly earthquake in Haiti to occupy the Caribbean country.

Chavez on Sunday scoffed Washington's move to send thousands of American soldiers to Haiti, describing them as "Marines armed as if they were going to war."

CHAVEZ WANTS TO IMPROVE TIES

Chavez didn't explain what prompted his decision to try to improve relations just weeks after he accused the U.S. of planning to invade his country.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas could not be reached for comment Sunday. There was no immediate reaction from the U.S. State Department or the White House.

Chavez has accused the United States and Colombia of spying on Venezuela and conspiring to topple his "revolutionary" government. Tensions have been exacerbated by a recent agreement between Washington and Bogota granting U.S. troops expanded access to Colombian military bases.

THE OBAMA MILITARY BASE TO RETAKE THE SOUTH

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10620595&pnum=0

Patrick Cockburn says:

The US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganised US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Five years ago President Bush was famously mute and detached when the levees broke in Louisiana. By way of contrast, President Obama was promising Haitians that everything would be done for survivors within hours of the calamity.

LATIN AMERICA

mid-2008, the FARC drew criticism from Brazil's Lula and Venezuela's Chavez, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place."

brother Adan, in MIR a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla, later, Party of the, Venezuelan Revolution, an urban underground with Douglas Bravo.

Adan put it to Alan Woods, did not have contact with the masses, to allow the taking of power, needed influence within popular masses and Armed Forces

self-criticism of the Venezuelan Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN)
"infantile subjectivism...

Hugo Chavez attempted a coup in 1992, por ahora, Chavez converted his popularity into a mass movement. between 1992 and 1998 their gloom was evident.

Guerrilla warfare had ended by the mid-1990s, for the Maoists it was the Shining Path, Guzman, was captured, in 1991, in Ayacucho

The Venezuelan left was unable to see the barrios, the slums that ring the city

Against US pressure and machinations of the oligarchy, Chavez's movement held firm. It began the "long march through the institutions," and culminated in the revision of the Constitution. The new Bolivarian Constitution (1999) draws from the liberator Simon Bolivar, the Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui, and from Marxist theory (notably the remarkable Soviet jurist Evgeny Pashukanis). Provisions for deeper democracy at one level, and for the widest recognition of human rights.

Barrio Adentro, to provide healthcare. Now, the Constitution directs the government to provide healthcare funded by the oil revenues. It threatened the oligarchy with extinction and the US with the loss of its own power in its backyard

Distracted by the middle east, the US was unable to extend itself against the Bolivarians. US pushed for coup in 2002. The Bolivarians, they had been organized for just this eventuality. Chavez would not fall like Pinochet with support of the military and he had not allowed the population to remain demobilized, neighborhood committees, self-defense leagues, the time to unholster the gun, was not yet at hand

Lula was nineteen, the military deposed Joåo Goulart. The military rule that ran from 1964 to 1985. During this long era the urban middle class that leaned left went either into clandestine trade union organizational work or into gclandestine urban guerrilla units.

The most spectacular was Carlos Marighella's National Liberation Alliance
Marighella was the author of the influential Small Manual of the Urban Guerrilla (June 1969), a touchstone for the urban guerrilla from Montevideo to Mexico City. The police killed Marighella the same year as his manual came out (he was 57 years old, a veteran of the Brazilian CP who had broken with it over the strategy of violence)

The urban guerrilla did not influence Lula. The lessons went with him and the other labor activists into the Workers' Party (PT). In 1980 Brazilian campesinos formed National Confederation of Agricultural Workers and Movimiento Los Sin Tierra (MST), eleven million members. The fundamental constituents of the PT

Lula remained with mass organizing. this long campaign resulted in the Diretas Ja! (Direct Elections Now) movement of 1984 which toppled the dictatorship. Not once did Lula move to the gun. This despite the Roosevelt Corollary (1904), the right to intervene. From the 1846 invasion of Mexico
to the soft coup of 2009 Honduras it came equally with its Dollars and Free Trade Agreements clear Uruguayan Communist Party leader Rodney Arismendi by 1947 "Anglo-Yankee financial oligarchies," same tonic from the local oligarchs and their North American allies

deliverance came in 1959 with the Cuban Revolution. luck and pluck enabled them to enlarge their base (their foco), create alliances with urban mass movements which had been awoken by Castro. Che Guevara's call to revolt (his Guerrilla Warfare, 1961)

Regis Debray wrote a manifesto for Castroism 1965. Che Guevara ultimately went to Bolivia, to try out his method for the last time. Not only were the guerrillas isolated geographically, but also they were isolated from the people. this image provoked Teododo Petkoff of Venezuelan CP then of the MAS
In 1976 'stony eyes' of the Bolivian peasants.

guerrilla movements had dissolved into driblets took root in the Andes, Shining Path. FARC in 1964 rump group Colombian Communist Party (and led Manuel Marulanda, Tiro Fijo went deep Colombia profunda rural leadership Massive assault could not destroy it, 1980s Colombian Left signed a peace agreement with the oligarchy. FARC did not leave the mountains. The accord failed, politicians of the Left were killed. FARC restarted. It was FARC that pushed the Plan Colombia. The situation went to a stalemate. FARC pays little attention to the building up of mass struggles. Colombian activist and economist Hector Mondragon put it recently. Chavez and Lula's plea to FARC. They want the muscle of this organization to come above ground. The Bolivarian project to build electoral-parliamentary movements in concert with social movements power of the majority to seize state power

ALBAm the mechanism to bring the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution to the hemisphere. Chavez's callm a Fifth International, as "an instrument for the unification and the articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this planet,"

This is Marxism without the Blanquist move to the gun, using what institutions exist to move a progressive agenda

FINKLESTEIN AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Before I adduce what I think are other unmentioned, if not hidden, seminal factors contributing to this dismissal
Dr. Finkelstein has made significant contributions in the fields of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and established, almost single-handedly, the field of critical Holocaust studies, work which required considerable courage as it is contrary to the political position of the United States and the Israeli/Zionist lobby
His critique connected anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to Zionist protectionism with respect to Palestinians. For decades Israel and its apologists have insisted that a critique of Israeli policies and practices is always a cover-up for a deeply-seated and incorrigible anti-Semitism, the very same poison that led to the Holocaust. Thus anyone criticizing Israel, the Jewish state, is ipso facto an anti-Semite who wishes to bring about second Holocaust upon the Jewish people. The Roman Catholic Church has been in the Jewish firing line for decades

continuing to be charged with both a historical and an enduring anti-Semitism. That there was both collaboration between the Church and some Nazis
Of course it is also true that the Church and many of its members were persecuted by the Nazis, is not politically advantageous to the Zionists
another three factors connected to this scandal
Two are intra-Catholic issues: the issue of Catholic university autonomy and the issue and status of liberation theology. The third issue concerns the Church leadership and political Islam. The former may explain how the firing took place, as well as indicate future positions that will be taken in Catholic universities, while the latter two provide two reasons for it
Until 1991, a Catholic university enjoyed full autonomy as an independent institution
In 1991, Pope John Paul II issued his Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, known by its introductory latin phrase, Ex Corde Ecclesiae--from the heart of the Church
Two examples stand out
During the

Pope John Paul II, Prof. Fr. Hans Küng, at Tübingen University in Germany had his faculties as a Catholic theologian removed by Rome for daring to question the issue of papal infallibility, while Prof. Fr. Charles Curran, teaching about homosexuality in a questioning and opening manner that did not contradict any infallible statements made by the Pope, was dismissed from the pontifical Catholic university in Washington DC
The Finkelstein affaire seems to justify the deep felt fear of those who were originally against Ex Corde Ecclesiae and in a manner possibly more insidious than originally suspected
no longer confined to arcane doctrinal issues
but to issues of the wider political arena, which the Church hierarchy will either promote or defeat, depending on how it assesses its interests,
how the Church leadership is positioning itself in this changing world. Dr. Finkelstein's work, both academic and political, relates indirectly to the doctrinal issue of liberation theology

Rome had both condemned its focus, its approach and methods and some of its leading exponents
it has recently begun to raise its head once again
the state of affairs
has worsened exponentially in the more than two decades since it was first censured
it has now been explicitly referred to in the political arena of the new governments
in South America
and whose programs are threatening the status quo determined by the US
What was and is Roman Catholic liberation theology? And how does it affect Dr. Finkelstein?
the Roman Catholic Church
church of the empire, has been aligned with the rich and the powerful, or what is called at times "law and order
With respect to the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed
it developed the giving of alms
to relieve their suffering
With the development of sociology in the nineteenth century by Marx
and the modern phenomenon of an urban proletariat in the industrializing cities
a social phenomenon dependent upon capitalism
a new understanding of
poor
to understand the

poor either as a class, or as a level of society that was the outcome of particular political and social powers, institutions and structures.
Popes have condemned capitalism
they have completely shied away from taking any positions
liberation theology began to flourish after Vatican II
Church's confident entry into modern life breaking with its traditional, conservative, pre-modern, pre-industrial and pre-urban past
Vatican II took place both in the wake of, and during the time which the liberation movements in Africa and Asia brought about the dismantlement of the old empires
which surged visions of freedom and development for
populations
experienced oppression, deprivation and dispossession under the yoke of colonialism.
Liberation theology
went far beyond traditional metaphysical doctrines in its search of liberation of the individual. It recognized that if poverty, deprivation and oppression were the material conditions of a person's life
set as its goal to analyze the society in which such

Using Marxist tools of analysis, these studies revealed that these social conditions of poverty were the deliberate and predictable results of the structures and institutions of capitalist society, and not mere accidents
not as backward, incompetent lazy people, who brought their fate upon themselves, but rather as victims of institutional violence
"preferential option for the poor"
The focus of salvation swung
to consciousness-raising of the poo
the poor began to be empowered by running their own lives
Given that South America's economies were dominated by a capitalist United States
Two historical events occurred
to bring to a halt the spread of liberation theology
election of Pope John Paul II in 1978, and his appointment, in 1981, of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Both men were intractably anti-Communist
identified Marxism with the communism of the Soviet Unio
Pope from his experience living in Communist Poland

Cardinal Ratzinger as a result of the student uprising in Tübingen University in 1968
placing him firmly on the right in the conservative camp
the conservation of those structures of power that already exist for the sake of order
late 1970's, first under Carter
then under Reagan
began covert persecutions of political liberation movements, informed by liberation theology, in Central and South America, in particular Nicaragua and then El Salvador
collapse of the Somoza regime
result of the exposure of its huge corruption
to the funds that had poured into the country to aid in the reconstruction, following an earthquake that devastated the capital Managua
failure of a rightist, repressive, pro-US government to take power
The Sandinistas, with Catholic priests in leadership positions, espoused a political program to benefit the poor through government programs for literacy, medical care, housing, etc. and aided by Cuba, led the struggle for power in Nicaragua and won
In El Salvador, the violence

was being exposed by
Archbishop Oscar Romero
the horror of the violence brought about his political conversion
adopting a liberation theology stance, he used his church
in the struggle against the government's violence
Reagan government saw the liberation movements as being against the interests of the US
he labeled them both "communist" and "terrorist"
Rome began to seriously question liberation theology
at this time, the non-Communist trade union in Poland, led by Lech Walesa, was being supported openly by the Pope
contributed to the collapse of Communism in Poland
This assault led, in 1984, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under Ratzinger, issuing its first Instruction against liberation theology
many theologians were persecuted
the defection
Leonardo Boff, one of the leading Brazilian liberation theologians
liberation theology has come back to haunt
by politicians
most recent theologian to be condemned is Fr. Jon Sobrino, sj
In December, 2006, the Congregation
under its new prefect

the American, William Joseph Cardinal Levada, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI
issued a Notification
that have no bearing on the life of an ordinary Catholic, let alone
all those who have joined their ranks as a result of the unchecked, rapacious, capitalist imperialist policies of the US, Europe and their client states, such as Israel.
What served as the provocation at this time?
the Church does not act
without a policy
immediate effect of this censure on Sobrino
removed his teaching faculty
given the historical context, there is a much broader thrust
Sobrino is a Basque
teaching in the Jesuit University
in San Salvador, El Salvador, where four Jesuits, with whom he was living, were killed by an assassination squad in 1989
as part of the US supported murderous political repression of indigenous political liberation movements
Sobrino escaped
only because he was out of the country
Sobrino continued his work in liberation theology
a focus which is reflected in these new regimes in South America

It comes at a period when indigenous governments are actually standing up
First and foremost
Hugo Chavez
Rafael Correa
Evo Morales
Luis da Silva
Michelle Bachelet
Chavez has not hesitated to call upon the Jesus of liberation theology in support of his socio-political goals
domino effect
phrase coined by Chomsky
the "threat of a good example"
to wrest their fate out of the rapacious grip of US capitalism
This is what happened with Saddam Hussein who had both modernized and strengthened Iraq
regional power
influencing the surrounding countries
the confrontation of power that is lining up in South America is not for amateurs
the very highest stakes
control of resource and markets.
the intention of Sobrino's censure is to condemn these new leftist leaders
while aligning the Church
with the US
the problem for Dr. Finkelstein is that in the context of Palestine/Israel, he has addressed the same questions that liberation theology addresses, and has also taken the side of the "poor and the oppressed."

the same damning assessment of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and its ally, the US, as liberation theology draws about the oppressive regimes of Central and South America and their ties with the US.
It has not been remarked that there is an almost virtual identity of the repressive and violent Central and South American governments and the repressive and violent Israeli government
These governments
have not hesitated to conduct attacks in neighboring countries
it would not be unreasonable to expect progressive Arab and Palestinian movements to begin to make common cause with forces with the progressive governments of South America,
This nexus continues to maintain that Zionism is not colonialism, is not an integral part of the capitalist-imperialist hegemonic outreach in the Middle East, nor is it a loyal client for other capitalist ventures, eg Iran-Contra affair
to maintain the bluff of a legitimate Jewish state in Palestine, the Zionist/Holocaust narrative is promoted

with full force
Norman Finkelstein has challenged these positions
also
one of its supreme spokesmen, Alan Dershowitz
at this critical juncture in world politics
is what caused De Paul University
to either go along
The third factor
It is
a well-known fact that "Islamic fundamentalists" were invented originally by the US, in order to discredit and prevent the spread of Arab democratic secularism, which spearheaded Arab liberation movements. They naturally posed a threat to the capitalist, imperialist ambitions, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East, just in the same manner as the South American liberationist governments are doing at this time
it turns out that the Islamic liberationist movements are no less anti-US than the secular democratic ones were and therefore have been attacked
This anti-Islamic stance
has found a very deep resonance in the pronouncements of Pope Benedict XVI
He called Islam a "violent" religion
contrasting it
peaceful Christianity
Europe is a "Christian" continen
inappropriate
for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the European Union
this condemnation of Islam finds a resonance in attitudes towards Palestine, where the democratically elected Islamic Hamas government has been attacked and mortally undermined by Israel, the US and Europe
Hamas was elected because of the corruption of the pro-Western Fatah leadership
Hamas seems to function in Palestine pretty much as liberation theology functions in South America
serving society at its most basic level
providing material and communal services, while condemning the US-backed Israeli onslaught
Christians that many of them voted for Hamas because they are not corrupt and have been serving the people who they say they represent

Thus we have several interests converging in the demise of Dr. Finkelstein: the loss of autonomy of Catholic universities, the anti-liberationist position of the Church and its lining up with Western capitalist global interests and an anti-Islamic stance which harks back to a xenophobia one would have wished had disappeared from the world. Is it any wonder, then, that Dr. Finkelstein was booted from De Paul Catholic University?

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL II

the Fifth International must be “an instrument for the unification and the articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this planet”
It calls for an urgent mobilization against the new imperialist offensive in Latin America, by the US administration and the Latin American Right
to oppose the new US bases in Colombia, to support, in particular, the mobilization of the people of Honduras against the new dictatorial regime.
but it is decisive to learn together the lessons from Stalinism and social democracy, so that the tragedies and the errors of the past are not repeated
* An anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist programme of emergency demands
* Unity of action of all the organizations
against the attacks of the governments and the capitalist classes
* Independence of the social movements

* Solidarity with all struggles of peoples against all the imperialist powers.
* The fight against oppressions

Is not a step forward
http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/11/24/chavez-fifth-international-is-not-a-step-forward/

http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fuentes281109.html

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL

The League for the Fifth International has argued for many years that the assaults on the social and economic gains of the workers, carried out by the capitalist class under the banner of Globalisation, Neoliberalism and the War on Terrorism, urgently required an internationally coordinated fight back
to found a new global party of socialist revolution, a Fifth International.
Revolutionaries however cannot agree to entrust the initiative of founding a new workers’ international to the head of a bourgeois state
that defends capitalist ownership of the means of production and enforces this by a standing army and police force against the workers and poor of Venezuela
Chávez has clashed repeatedly with US imperialism
and has, under mass pressure, carried out important reforms for the popular classes in terms of healthcare and education
Venezuela remains a capitalist country and the state machine a capitalist one
An International tied to such a state would not be a working class International

committed to the socialist revolution, but one run by bourgeois nationalists merely dressed up as socialists
under
Chávez and his bourgeois regime, then it would never be able to chart a course of class independence
it might even include such overtly pro-imperialist enemies of the working class as the Mexican PRI or the Argentinian Peronists
Chávez recently supported and solidarised with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s brutal repression of the workers, women and youth of Iran who were fighting for democratic rights and with Robert Mugabe’s prolonged attempts to do the same in Zimbabwe
an era of a severe, indeed a historic, crisis of capitalism, strategic alliances with the “progressive” or “anti-imperialist” or national bourgeoisies, not to speak of a common International of workers and such bourgeois nationalists, would tie the working class hand and foot to a section of capital.
It would block the road to the socialist revolution
repeat the errors
crimes of the Communist International under Stalin.

Venezuelan president addressed a real need. A need felt by millions of workers, peasants and poor struggling against capitalist exploitation and imperialist rule. In order to repel the bosses’ offensives, in order to prevent the governments making the workers pay for the crisis and also to prevent reactionary nationalist “solutions” to it, the working class does indeed need a new, fighting, revolutionary International
They need it to repulse the attempts to make them pay the costs of the crisis. They need it to bring an end to the series of imperialist wars of conquest and occupation. They need it to bring succour to the oppressed nationalities like the Palestinians and the Sri Lankan Tamils.
The working class
the oppressed
are threatened by a period of deepening chaos for the capitalist system
massive environmental destruction
new conflicts between the major powers as they try to re-divide the natural resources and the exploitable labour of the world

CLINTON IRAN AND LATIN AMERICA

Clinton said the United States was well aware Iran had stepped up its diplomatic activities in the region, citing Venezuela and Bolivia in particular.

"We can only say that is a really bad idea for the countries involved," Clinton told a State Department briefing on Latin American relations.

"This is the major supporter, promoter and exporter of terrorism in the world today," she said. "If people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them. And we hope that they will think twice."

Clinton said Washington would continue to express concerns about Venezuela - where Chavez won a referendum in February that allows him to keep running for re-election - and about Nicaragua, where the Supreme Court in October opened the way for leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek a new term in a 2011 election.

"We all hope in the not too distant future to be able to see a democratic Cuba...something that would be extraordinarily positive for our hemisphere,"

COLOMBIA VENEZUELA WAR

US builds up its bases in oil-rich South America

From the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for 'full-spectrum operations' is escalating rapidly

By Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Sunday, 22 November 2009

The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia.
part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington's political and economic tutelage.
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela
bases agreement could mean the possibility of war with Colombia.
Evo Morales of Bolivia
called for the outlawing of foreign military bases in the region.
President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras
that US forces stationed at the Honduran base of Palmerola collaborated with Roberto Micheletti,
Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro,
US gets half its oil from Latin America
US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region's waters in 2008.

The fleet's vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines – a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.
Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament.
four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),
the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases,
risks a costly new arms race in a region.
rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.
US strategy
set out in May
US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010.
Palanquero,
"in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from... anti-US governments".

Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting "full-spectrum operations throughout South America.... It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent
if fuel is available
over half the continent if un-refuelled". ("Full-spectrum operations" is the Pentagon's jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)

Palanquero could also be useful in ferrying arms and personnel to Africa via the British mid-Atlantic island of Ascension, French Guiana and Aruba, the Dutch island off Venezuela. The US has access to them all.
The USAF proposal contradicted the assurances
That USAF proposal was hastily reissued
without the reference to "anti-US governments".
Civil strife in Colombia meant
number of displaced since 1985 to 4.6 million,
much-publicised one in Islamist-ruled Sudan where 2.7 million have fled from their homes.

Palanquero, which adjoins the town of Puerto Salgar on the broad Magdalena river north-west of the capital, Bogota,

FIDEL

To accuse Hugo Chavez, the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, of inciting a war against the people of Colombia and unleash an arms race, to portray him as the mastermind and promoter of drug trafficking, and accuse him of repressing the freedom of expression, violating human rights and other similar misdeeds is a repugnant and cynical action, as everything else that the empire has done, still does and promotes. We can neither ever forget nor stop reiterating realities. Objective and well-reasoned truth is the most important weapon with which we should ceaselessly hammer into the conscience of peoples.

THE THIRD FRONT, AGAIN

Throughout Latin America and much of the rest of the world, the coup in Honduras is seen as a dangerous example of what the imperial strategists are plotting for the region. As one country after another votes in leftist parties—the latest example is Uruguay, where a former guerrilla leader who spent 14 years in prison was just elected president—the U.S. is expanding its military bases in the region. It may still try to cover its dirty deeds with democratic phrase-mongering, but actions speak louder than words.