Category: Peru

Ecuador: Quasi Civil War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ecuador: Quasi Civil War

Los Choneros is tied to the Mexican drug Sinaloa Cartel and Los Lobos to Jalisco. Ecuador itself, together with Bolivia and Colombia, is part of the so-called cocaine triangle, which is the world’s largest producer of the drug. From Ecuador, it travels overland to Brazil and Peru and by sea to Mexico, European countries, and the African market.

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Finally, and thirdly, another version of the reason for the current conflict outbreak is the activation of the CIA and their agents who want to destabilize the entire Andean region (after all, the situation in Peru and Chile is also complicated). Although it sounds like a conspiracy, given the skills of US intelligence agencies and their networks in Latin America, it should not be dismissed, but more attention should be paid to the activities of State Department agents who do not want to lose the region.

Interestingly, when I highlight and look up, ‘cocaine triangle’, Apple brings up the Wikipedia page for ‘CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking’. 🤔

Related (Money & Front Organizations):

RT—Ecuador: 2 Days of Armed Violence, 14 Deaths, Several Kidnapped and Injured, Dozens Arrested (+Correa & Maduro)

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On the strategic relationship between Venezuela and China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

During a state visit to the People’s Republic of China in September 2023, Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro met president Xi Jinping and both agreed to strengthen the relationship of their countries by establishing seven sub commissions to elevate it to the level of ‘all-weather strategic partnership’. This is the culmination of a relationship that began with president Hugo Chavez’s first visit to Beijing in 1999, the very first year of his presidency.

On the strategic relationship between Venezuela and China

How the U.S. Drove Venezuelans North

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)2 Comments
A migrant father from Venezuela feeds his 15-month-old son in the lobby of a police station where their family has been staying since their arrival to Chicago on May 9, 2023. PHOTO BY SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

How the U.S. Drove Venezuelans North

When they request asylum in the United States, migrants have to say something against their government. But everyone in the Venezuelan community knows that it’s a lie. Venezuelan comedians in Florida, like George Harris, joke about the Venezuelans lying to the migration people just in order to receive asylum.

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And now, we have the current decision of the Biden administration to issue Temporary Protected Status only for foreign nationals from Venezuela, leaving out migrants from many other countries that have arrived in Chicago in the last few months, including large numbers from Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Honduras, Angola and Mauritania.

Related:

U.S. to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil for freer presidential election

The agreement comes days before Venezuela’s opposition parties plan to hold a primary vote to choose a single candidate to back against Maduro. The front-runner in the unofficial primary, María Corina Machado, is one of several opposition leaders the Maduro government has barred from running for office. The disqualification was sharply condemned by the U.S. government.

Argentina election 2023: what you need to know

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The vultures are ready to “make the economy scream” if Javier Milei wins!*

Argentina election 2023: what you need to know

Far-right libertarian Javier Milei is leading the polls ahead of Argentina’s Oct. 22 presidential vote, but it remains a tight race between the top three candidates, three surveys showed.

Related:

Argentina election: from peso to dollar?

But dollarisation would also mean immediate recession and slump. It would have to start with a massive devaluation of the domestic peso monetary base. In a very optimistic scenario, if Argentina received a loan of say $12 billion from the IMF and used $5 billion as a reserve for the banking system and $7 billion to dollarise the monetary base, the domestic peso monetary base would still have to be reduced by nearly 400%. Argentine salaries (then in US dollars) would become among the lowest globally and poverty would rise to unprecedented levels. And Argentina is already in a recession with real GDP expected to drop by around 2% this year. So either way: peso or dollar, Argentine households would pay the price in living standards.

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Desperation has driven many Argentines to consider a ‘libertarian, anarcho-capitalist’ as president. If this were to happen, it will be going down another blind alley. Argentina’s capitalist economy will continue to fail.

Just scratching the surface:

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Humor in the Headlines Over China in Latin America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times
“As China arrives with a splash in Honduras, the US wrings its hands”- Washington Post, October 2, 2023

In a break from its hysterical coverage of the existential threat posed by Donald Trump, the Washington Post – house organ of the Democratic National Committee – cautions us of the other menace, China. “When the leader of this impoverished Central American country visited Beijing in June,” we are warned, “China laid out the warmest of welcomes.”

Humor in the Headlines Over China in Latin America

Related (Archived):

The U.S. Defense Department’s Role in the Honduras Coup

Peru Won’t Force Contested Mining Projects on Communities

US Alarmed by China’s Big Steps in America’s Backyard

Former Venezuelan Coup Plotter, Greedo, Hired By Florida College to Speak on ‘Defending Democracy’ + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Juan Guaido was hired by Florida International University (FIU) to give a series of talks and mentor students. Guaido launched a coup attempt in Venezuela in 2019 but failed to gain any significant support within the country.

Former Venezuelan Coup Plotter Hired By Florida College to Speak on ‘Defending Democracy’

Related:

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó is teaching at FIU. But it’s only for a while

In April 2023, Guaidó said Colombian authorities threatened to turn him over to Maduro after entering the country for a forum about the Venezuelan crisis. The Biden administration helped Guaidó leave Colombia and come to Miami.

Two former Latin American presidents, a U.S. business leader and diplomat, and a European foreign minister named Senior Leadership Fellows at the FIU Adam Smith Center

Jamil Mahuad** [Fulbright Program, Harvard Kennedy School], president of Ecuador from 1998 to 2000.

Robin S. Bernstein*** [American University School of International Service, George Washington University School of Business]

Miomir Žužul [Harvard Kennedy School]

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AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

You might not know it by the relatively scant news coverage, but the U.S. congressional delegation, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that visited Brazil, Chile, and Colombia in August marked a big step forward in the development of a new U.S. approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the U.S. progressive left has to play in it.

AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

Related:

AOC urges US to apologize for meddling in Latin America: ‘We’re here to reset relationships’

Asked if the left needs to build a counterweight network, Ocasio-Cortez, whose trip to Latin America was branded “AOC’s socialist sympathy tour” by Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal newspaper, replied: “I absolutely believe that the battle for democracy must be transnational and it must be global, and it especially must be hemispheric.

Biden’s ally in Guatemala?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CHIUL, Guatemala − Life in Bartolo Báten’s village has been defined by corruption: A teacher who can’t get a job at the school until she pays a bribe. A water project that runs out of money before the pipes reached town. Sick residents who can’t afford the medicine that’s available elsewhere.

Insurgent candidate tells Guatemalans: Stay, don’t go to the U.S. This time, they’re listening. (archived)

Related:

Seven Decades After Guatemala Coup, Bernardo Arévalo Sees a Dramatic Rise (Will Freeman, CFR)

Arévalo and Semilla are centrists—but in a country where politics habitually skews right, they are often described as center-left. “Semilla has a social democratic element, but its program is centrist, and it also has some center-right followers,” said Lucas Perelló, a political scientist who has spent time studying the party’s formation. Arévalo says he wants to gradually universalize existing social assistance programs to include a greater share of poor Guatemalans, reduce the cost of medicines and healthcare, and link isolated parts of the country through new infrastructure—doable tasks, given Guatemala’s exceptionally low share of debt as GDP, and necessary ones, given the country’s soaring poverty and malnutrition rates.

On security issues, another major concern for Guatemalans, Arévalo promises to increase state presence in crime hotspots, reclaim jails from gangs, and use intelligence-gathering to dismantle mafias. He says Bukele’s anti-gang strategy is not applicable to Guatemala. He is also critical of human rights abuses in Venezuela and Nicaragua and Putin’s war on Ukraine and has no stated plans to recognize China over Taiwan. Asked for a leader he admires, he named the ex-president, José Pepe Mujica, of Uruguay, where he was born during his father’s exile.