cuba’s defiance applauded at the summit of the americas · ap continued on page 2 cuba’s...

SPRING 2015

Archbishop RomeroCuba NormalizationAyotzinapa Families visit USEduardo Galeano rememberedAlliance For ProsperityWorld BankBerta CáceresTrans-Pacific PartnershipVenezuela SanctionsNicaragua CanalColombia Peace ProcessNew OAS Head

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PUBLISHED BY MARIN INTERFAITH TASK FORCE ON THE AMERICAS

INSIDE

Apr. 11, 2015, US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shakehands during their meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City.

AP continued on page 2

Cuba’s Defiance Applauded at the Summit of the AmericasBy: Medea Benjamin, founder ofGlobal Exchange and Code Pink

Ed. Note: In addition to celebratingmuch anticipating rapprochementbetween Cuba and the US, regionalleaders were nearly unanimous inrejections of Obama’s Executive Ordersanctioning Venezuela on March 9

For the small island of Cuba, the VII Sum-mit of the Americas in Panama marked a kindof “coming out” party. Banned from the for-capitalists-only gatherings from the time theybegan in 1994, Cuba was not only invited toparticipate in the Summit this year, it was thebelle of the ball. Cuba’s presence was heraldedin the speeches of every nation’s leader and thehandshake between President Obama and RaulCastro was the Summit’s Kodak moment.

In Raul Castro’s 48-minute speech, hejoked that because Cuba had been excludedfrom six prior Summits, he deserved six timesthe recommended eight minutes, and he gavea history lesson of past US attacks onCuba—from the Platt Amendment to sup-

porting the dictator Fulgencio Batista to theBay of Pigs invasion and the opening of theGuantanamo prison. But he was gracious toPresident Obama, saying he was not toblame for this legacy and calling him an“honest man” of humble origins.

President Obama certainly won praisethroughout the Summit for turning this page inthe Cold War. Some leaders insisted on clarify-ing, however, that Cuba was not at the Sum-mit because of Obama’s nice gesture; Cubawas there because the leaders of LatinAmerica insisted that there would not be an-other Summit without Cuba.

Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos,no lefty, recalled his position at the last sum-mit, which he hosted, that Cuba must be in-vited to the next one. Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ven-ezuela and others had threatened to boycottany new gathering without Cuba.

Argentine’s Christina Kirchner Fernandezwent a step further in taking credit away fromObama. She said Cuba was at the table be-cause it had fought valiantly and defiantly forover 50 years while suffering under the USblockade.

Ecuador’s Rafael Correa said that Obama’sopening was good, but not good enough. Heinsisted it was time to end the “inhumane andillegal blockade” that had so damaged the Cu-ban people and to return the “occupied terri-tory” of Guantanamo.

Bolivia’s Evo Morales dismissed any no-tion of the US as a benevolent force now com-ing to aid poor Cuba; instead, he said, the USshould just compensate Cuba for over 50 yearsof damages to its economy.

It’s hard for many Americans to under-stand the oversized significance Cuba has in thehemisphere. Colombia’s Santos thanked Cubafor its mediation of peace talks between hisgovernment and the FARC rebels. Other gov-ernments thanked Cuba for sending doctors totheir countries, treating patients in poor areaswhere their own doctors refused to go, or forsetting up medical schools or training their na-tionals in Cuban schools. There was praise forCuba sharing its successful literacy program.But what most Americans fail to understand isthe pride felt by so many people in LatinAmerica—even people who don’t like Cuba’s

2 • Marin Task Force on the Americas • Box 925, Larkspur, CA 94977 • 415-924-3227 • www.mitfamericas.org • Spring 2015

Task Force on the Americas Reportis published quarterly by the Marin In-terfaith Task Force on the Americas.

Newsletter Committee:

Editor: Dale SorensenColleen RoseCarol CostaLeslee CoadyCarissa Brands

Production: Mark Silva

L A T I N A M E R I C ASummit, continued from page 1

policies—that for over 50 years the tiny islandhas managed to fend off the attempts by the USGoliath to overthrow it.

From the very beginnings of the revolu-tion, the US government has used everymeans it could conjure up to overthrow FidelCastro—from poison cigars to funding sabo-teurs to diplomatic isolation. History is litteredwith CIA and exile-sponsored dirty tricks, in-cluding the October 1976 attack on a Cubanjetliner that killed all 73 people aboard. Evenin Panama, where the Summit took place,there was a plot in November 2000 to killFidel Castro by blowing up an auditoriumwhere he was scheduled to speak.

So the fact that Cuba has managed tothumb its nose at the US for all these years isseen by many as nothing short of a miracle. “Iwas in Cuba on vacation,” Gabriela Gomez, ateacher from Panama told me. “I found itseconomy in tatters, with buildings literallyfalling apart. And I don’t like the restrictionson free speech and free assembly. But I lovethe fact that Cuba has managed to survive asa communist nation in the face of so muchoutside aggression.”

But is the US government really accept-ing Cuba as a sovereign nation that has cho-sen a different path? Or is it simply trying tooverthrow the Cuban government by differ-ent means?

Reverend Raul Suarez, who runs the Mar-tin Luther King Center in Havana and inPanama for the Civil Society Forum that pre-ceded the Summit, sees the same old intrigue,interference and manipulations. “Just look atwhat has happened at the Civil Society Fo-rum,” he said. “The Americans paid for Cubandissidents who have no following in Cuba tocome to Panama and participate as Cuban rep-resentatives of civil society. Meanwhile, manyof the representatives of Cuba’s mass-based or-ganizations were not allowed in.”

Source: TeleSUR.com, April 14, 2015

“Half our delegationgot here only to find thatthey couldn’t get the cre-dentials they were prom-ised, and were shut out ofthe meetings,” saidGretchen Gomez Gonzalezof the Cuban Federation ofUniversity Students, “whiledissident Cubans whodon’t represent anyone butthemselves were given cre-dentials to represent Cubancivil society.”

Pro-government Cu-bans confronted the dissi-dents in the streets and atthe meetings, calling themmercenaries for taking USmoney and carrying pho-tos showing some of them embracing con-victed terrorist Jose Posada Carriles. Theyalso say that former CIA operative FelixRodriguez, blamed for killing revolutionaryhero Che Guevara, was at the Summit work-ing with the dissidents. The dissidents saidthey were being attacked by pro-governmentmobs simply for promoting free speech andfree assembly. The US State Department con-demned what it said was “harassment” and“use of violence” against participants.

The cordial meeting between Obama andCastro showed the positive face of the open-ing, while the clashes on the streets of Panama

City represent the rocky road ahead for US-Cuba relations. But at least the path forward isa new one, with fresh momentum emanatingfrom the Panama Summit.

Obama said the US opening could lead tomore American visitors, more commerce, moreinvestment and more resources for the Cubanpeople. If the US government could do thatwhile leaving it to the Cuban people themselvesto push for greater individual freedoms, thatwould be—to take a page from the Castrobrothers—truly revolutionary.

Archbishop Oscar Romero to be BeatifiedBy Joshua J. McElwee, NCR Vaticancorrespondent

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero,the murdered prelate of the people, is to bebeatified May 23 in San Salvador. The cer-emony will be in Plaza Divino Salvador delMundo, said Italian Archbishop VincenzoPaglia, chief promoter of the archbishop’ssainthood cause, at a news conference inSan Salvador. Paglia called the beatifica-tion a gift for the world, but particularlyfor the people of El Salvador.

Romero was archbishop of San Salva-dor during the bloody and tension-filledtime leading up to his country’s 1979-1992civil war. Shot dead while celebratingMass in 1980, the archbishop has longbeen considered a saint by many in LatinAmerica, but the official Vatican process

of sainthood had lingered for years. It’sspeculated that this was due to unease be-cause of Romero’s embrace of liberationtheology.

Pope Francis paved the way forRomero’s beatification in February whenhe formally decreed that the prelate wasassassinated as a martyr for the Catholicfaith.

Romero’s murder, Paglia said, was partof a “climate of persecution against a pas-tor that followed the evangelical experi-ence, the documents of the Second VaticanCouncil, of Medellin” and had chosen tocombat a government and a type of oppres-sion “that leaves the poorest without life.”

Source: National Catholic Reporter,March 11, 2015

Photo: Dale Sorensen

Gender Sub-commission of the FARC negotiating team whoserole is the review of the peace agreements with respect to thedemands of women and LGBT of Colombian society.

Marin Task Force on the Americas • Box 925, Larkspur, CA 94977 • 415-924-3227 • www.mitfamericas.org • Spring 2015 • 3

C A R I B B E A N

CUBA: Necessary Steps to NormalizationBy Marc Becker, professor of historyand member of Code Pink delegationto Cuba in February

Ed. Note: President Obama has decided tolift the US designation of Cuba as a statesponsor of terrorism, a decision that removesa principal impediment to the establishmentof diplomatic relations.The long-awaited action, which wasannounced in a message to Congress on April14, follows a pledge made by Obama andCuban President Raúl Castro last December.Congress has 45 days to consider Cuba’sremoval from the list before it takes effect butit cannot interfere with Obama’s decisionwithout voting on separate legislation.

Most Cubans are very optimistic by thethawing in diplomatic relations between theircountry and the United States. Despite the re-strictions that the US government has placedon interactions between the two countries, Cu-bans have long had intimate contact with USculture and welcome the opening.

Cubans, however, insist that the December17, 2014 announcement of US presidentBarack Obama and Cuban president RaúlCastro to re-establish diplomatic ties was onlythe first step toward a full normalization of rela-tions between the two countries. After morethan fifty years, at least three steps remain to betaken before interactions achieve the level thatthey should have.

First, the US must remove Cuba from itslist of state sponsors of terrorism. The StateDepartment includes countries on this list thathave “repeatedly provided support for acts ofinternational terrorism.” Only four countries areon the list: Iran, Sudan, Syria, and Cuba.

Ronald Reagan added Cuba to this list in1982 for providing safe haven for members ofthe Basque separatist group ETA andColombia’s FARC rebels, and for providingpolitical asylum to people such as AfricanAmerican activist and Black Panther Partymember Assata Shakur. George Bush subse-quently added a complaint that Cuba refused tojoin its so-called “war on terror.”

The Cuban government considers its inclu-sion on the list as hypocritical and unfair. Datingback to the 1960s the US has persistently vio-lated international law by engaging in terroristacts against Cuba. These include, for example,

Source: UpsideDownWorld, February23, 2015

Operation Mongoose that targeted Cubanleaders with assassination. In 1976, the CIAoperative Luis Posada Carriles blew up Cubanairlines flight 455 from Barbados to Jamaica,killing all 73 people on board. In 1997, PosadaCarriles bombed a series of Cuban hotels. To-day, the US harbors this terrorist operativewho walks free on the streets of Miami.

In contrast, no evidence exists that Cubamaterially supports any groups that the StateDepartment defines as terrorist. In fact, Cubacurrently hosts negotiations between theFARC and the Colombian government. Fortu-nately, Obama has instructed the Secretary ofState to review Cuba’s inclusion on this list.

Second, the US must end its blockade ofCuba. The US imposed a commercial, eco-nomic, and financial embargo on Cuba inOctober 1960 in response to Cuba’s nation-alization of US-owned oil refineries. The US

government has subsequently tightened theembargo through the 1992 Cuban Democ-racy Act and the 1996 Helms–Burton Act.This legislation restricts financial transactionswith Cuba with a goal of changing Cuba’sform of government.

Although the US has not maintained aphysical blockade of the island since the 1962Cuban Missile Crisis, Cubans insist that thislegislation in effect creates a blockade becauseof how it restricts trade with third countries.Every year since 1992 the United NationsGeneral Assembly has passed a resolution thatthe blockade is a violation of international law.In recent years, only Israel has joined the US invoting against the resolution.

Although Obama is dismantling the block-ade piecemeal through executive action, a full

repeal will take congressional action. In theface of a hostile Republican congress it will bedifficult to realize this objective. In the mean-time, the blockade creates unnecessarily oner-ous restrictions on Cuba.

A final demand is for the return of theGuantanamo naval base to Cuba.

In 1903, Havana and Washington signedan Agreement on Coaling and Naval Stationswhich granted the United States access toGuantanamo and Bahía Honda (although thelatter was never used) to do “all that is neces-sary to outfit those places so they can be usedexclusively as coaling or naval stations, andfor no other purpose.” The US military con-tinues to maintain and pay for this 117.6square kilometer area of a country with whichit has not had formal diplomatic relations formore than 50 years.

In a direct violation of the treaty, the UnitedStates uses the base to house political prisonersfrom its so-called war on terrorism. Further-more, Cubans consider the US occupation ofthe base to be a violation of their sovereignty,and the government refuses to cash the checksit receives every year as payment for the base.

Unfortunately, the Obama administra-tion has indicated that it will not consider areturn of the Guantanamo base to Cuba. Forsome observers, this is the strongest indica-tor of the motivation behind Washington’sovertures to Cuba.

The US government is not interested innormalizing relations with its neighbor, but insearching for new and more effective ways tomaintain the country under its imperial con-trol. With Cuba’s socialized economy thatprivileges human needs over private profit stillfirmly in place after fifty years, the US policyof regime change has clearly been a failure.Some critics worry that Obama’s policychanges will replace all that is good in Cubawith all that is bad in the US.

United States government and corpo-rate attempts to control Cuba’s destiny isnot in the interests of either the Cubanpeople or those in the US. It is our respon-sibility as citizens of both countries to as-sure that government policies reflect theconcerns of the people and not those ofwealthy private individuals.

Fernando Gonzalez, one of the Cuban Fiveand current V.P. of ICAP and Dale Sorensen.

Photo: Roger Harris


N O R T H A M E R I C A

Mexico: Ayotzinapa Families Bring Their Struggle to the USBy Ted Lewis Director of MexicoProgram for Global Exchange

In March, a dozen mothers, fathers,classmates, and teachers of the 43 disap-peared students from the Ayotzinapateacher’s college launched a major tour tobring their story and demands for justice to45 cities across the United States. March26th marked six months since the studentsforcibly disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero inSeptember. This atrocious attack set off acrisis that now pits Mexico’s ruling elitesagainst a powerful justice movement that di-rectly questions their legitimacy.

Just six months ago, Mexican PresidentPeña Nieto was riding a seemingly unstop-pable wave of political success. He had re-peatedly convinced super majorities in bothhouses of Mexico’s congress to pass sweep-ing, investor-friendly amendments to the Fed-eral Constitution and then rammed ratificationthrough state legislatures.

But Peña Nieto’s winning streak came toa swift halt last October amidst growing rageover the disappeared students and suspicionsthat local police and military were respon-sible. Enormous marches and protests, led bythe families of the Ayotzinapa disappeared,garnered massive support. Calls rang out forPeña’s resignation. The president’s standingwas also tested by reports unmasking anArmy cover-up of the June 30, 2014 Armymassacre of 22 unarmed detainees in thetown of Tlatlaya, in the president’s homeState of Mexico. Then came charges thatluxury housing was given to Peña’s wife inexchange for favors to foreign investors.

The shock waves from Ayotzinapaspread far beyond Mexico. Demonstrations insupport of the Ayotzinapa families—mostlyled by Mexicans living abroad—were held indozens of cities across North America, aswell as in capital cities in Europe and SouthAmerica. For a few weeks last November andDecember, Peña Nieto stumbled and seemedpolitically vulnerable in ways modern Mexi-can presidents seldom have.

But then President Peña Nieto got a re-prieve. He visited President Obama in Wash-ington on January 3, where, in an open at-tempt to restore business as usual, theAyotzinapa case and all the thorny issues sur-rounding it were avoided. Under intense pres-sure prior to the DC trip, President Peña

Nieto had agreed to ahigh-level, independent,on-the-ground investiga-tion by the Inter-AmericanHuman Rights Commis-sion (IAHRC) which, im-portantly, has a MexicanGeneral Secretary for thefirst time in its history.IAHRC General Secretary,Emilio Álvarez Icaza was aleader in and strategist forMexico’s Movement forPeace with Justice andDignity (MPJD) just priorto taking on the IAHRCjob. The impressive teamhe assembled arrived inMexico on March 1 with a mandate tothoroughly investigate the Ayotzinapacase and to look more broadly at the tensof thousands of enforced and other dis-appearances that have shaken Mexico inrecent years.

The presence of the IAHRC mission putsPresident Peña Nieto in a bind, as do thefindings of the highly respected ArgentineForensic Anthropology Team—that haveworked alongside the parents for months. Inpublic, the president must respect and evensupport these genuine efforts to dig for thetruth. Behind the scenes however, theshadow powers of the business and securityelites that keep President Peña Nieto inpower can’t afford to cooperate. They arenot big fans of truth and justice because theyhave a lot to hide.

The business and security elites wouldrather have authorities stick with the tradi-tional approach to politically charged cases inwhich investigators manipulate and destroyevidence, coerce testimony, manufacturefalse scenarios, and generally create enoughconfusion to secure doubt and impunity.That is how the murders of hundreds of stu-dents by Army units acting on presidentialorders were covered up in 1968 and it con-tinues to define how egregious official trans-gressions are handled today.

On February 14, Gerardo GutiérrezCandiani, the president of Mexico’s most in-fluential business group, the ConsejoCoordinador Empresarial (CCE) met withthe heads of Mexico’s Defense Departmentand Navy to sign an accord expressing busi-

ness community support for the ArmedForces. More explicitly, the CCE directly in-terfered in the Ayotzinapa case by supportingthe Army’s refusal to allow Ayotzinapa par-ent-investigators onto military bases. Duringthe meeting, Mr. Candiani praised the ArmedForces for doing things “that are not in theConstitution, but that are indispensable to oursecurity as Mexicans.”

Last fall, Global Exchange joined the callsof many other human rights organizations,commentators, newspaper editors and othersaround the world asking Mexico’s authoritiesto break the habit of impunity and to conductan honest and thorough investigation of thedisappearances of the 43 students.

Such an investigation would evaluatewhether there was any Army or Federal Po-lice involvement during or after the coordi-nated attacks on the students. The attackstook place at multiple sites across the city ofIguala, over the course of several hours—inthe immediate vicinity of a regional Armyheadquarters—on the night of September 26.Photos released three weeks ago indicate thatthe army definitely had contact with the stu-dents on the night of the disappearances.

Attorney General Murillo Karam, wholed the official investigation (until his resigna-tion in February), did order the arrest of morethan 90 people, 22 of them Iguala MunicipalPolice officers identified by students. Yet, de-spite the large number of arrests, MurilloKaram presented a case (that he arrogantlydubbed “the historical truth”) based on the

Caravan of Ayotzinapa family members visiting the USare hosted by the Community Media Center of Marin andthe Task Force on the Americas Photo: Chelis Lopez

continued on page 5


L A T I N A M E R I C A

testimony of just four of the detainees. Thesefour—all purportedly members of the localGuerreros Unidos gang—have allegedly con-fessed to murdering the students and then in-cinerating all 43 of their bodies in a massivebonfire in the rain. The Argentine forensicteam has steadfastly refused to corroboratethe government version or certify the unveri-fied “chain of custody” of the single bonefragment shown to have a DNA match withone of the missing students.

A confrontation looms. As the IAHRCinvestigation proceeds, the government is so-liciting foreign bids (for the first time since1938) to drill for Mexican oil deep under theGulf of Mexico. The investor class is eager topaint the Ayotzinapa movement as radicaland dangerous to scare away its supporters.

Meanwhile, questions loom over the fateof tens of thousands of other missing peopleacross Mexico. For each one of the 43 miss-ing Ayotzinapa students there are more than500 others who have been disappeared. Evenin Iguala the 43 abducted students are not themajority of those missing.

A new group calling itself Committee ofFamilies of Forced Disappearance in Iguala,“The Other Disappeared,” (Los OtrosDesaparecidos) has organized in Iguala,and already counts more than 300 familieswith disappeared loved ones amongst theirmembers. The group searches the hillsidesof Guerrero every Sunday, hoping to un-cover shallow and mass graves containingthe remains of their loved ones. They oftenbegin their searches where the AttorneyGeneral’s (AG) office claims to have al-ready thoroughly explored.

John Gibler, a freelance reporter who haswritten a detailed account of the events ofthe night of the disappearances, accompa-nied a group of these families as theysearched blazing hot hillsides for evidence ofmass graves. He told me that since the fami-lies began their searches in November, theyhave found 52 corpses and located scoresmore graves that still await excavation, somein areas where the AG had supposedly al-ready searched. They continue to search thehillsides every Sunday.

But the search for truth and justice haspowerful enemies in Mexico. Just last week,Carmen Aristegui, the courageous investiga-tive journalist, was fired after lending supportto “Mexicoleaks”, a new anonymous web

portal designed to allow whistle blowers tosafely provide information to a team of re-spected journalists. Aristegui’s reports onmilitary abuses and presidential-level corrup-tion have been groundbreaking.

The firing of Carmen Aristegui is a seri-ous blow to the free press in Mexico and isbeing interpreted by many journalists as aharbinger of a further crackdown. It under-lines why the families of the Ayotzinapa dis-appeared began travel to the US with theexplicit goal of internationalizing support fortheir movement.

The Ayotzinapa families make it veryclear that the disappeared students from theAyotzinapa College are neither the first, northe last, victims of a system that has institu-tionalized complicity between authorities andcriminal organizations. Like the victim fami-lies of the MPJD who caravanned across the

US in 2012, the Ayotzinapa families under-stand that the roots of Mexico’s violence andimpunity cross the northern border and areintertwined with the politics of the drug war.

In a petition directed to US officials, thefamilies, teachers, and classmates of the dis-appeared students accuse the Mexican gov-ernment, its military, and police of routinelyviolating the “human rights of its citizensthrough arbitrary arrest, torture, and even ex-trajudicial executions.” They “call upon theCongress of the US to halt all military andpolice assistance to Mexico until the Mexicangovernment fully adheres to international hu-man rights standards.”

We should heed their call.

Source: HuffPost, Latino Voices, March19, 2015

Eduardo Galeano’s Words Walk theStreets of a ContinentBy Benjamin Dangl, journalist and author

The world lost one of its great writersApril 13, 2015. Uruguayan author EduardoGaleano died at age 74 in Montevideo. Heleft a magical body of work behind him, andhis reach is as wide as his continent.

During Argentina’s 2001-2002 eco-nomic crisis, Galeano’s words walked downthe streets with a life of their own, accompa-nying every protest and activist meeting.Factories were occupied by workers, neigh-borhood assemblies rose up, and, for a time,revolutionary talk and action replaced a rot-ten neoliberal system. Galeano’s upside-down view of the world blew fresh dreamsinto the tear gas-filled air.

In the streets of La Paz, Bolivia, piratedcopies of Galeano’s classic Open Veins ofLatin America are still sold at nearly everybook stall. There too, Galeano’s historicalalchemy added to the fire of many move-ments and uprisings, where miners of thecountry’s open veins tossed dynamite atright-wing politicians, and the 500-year-oldmemory of colonialism lives on.

Up the winding mountain roads ofChiapas, past Mexican state military check-points, lies the autonomous Zapatista com-munity of Oventic. One day a few years ago,Galeano’s familiar voice floated over thefoggy, autonomous land, reciting children’s

stories over stereo speakers.At a World Social Forum in Porto

Alegre, Brazil, Galeano entered a steaminghot tent where hundreds had gathered to hearhim speak about the Uruguayan water rightsmovement in which the people had “votedagainst fear” to stop privatization. What I re-membered most about the talk is how muchhe made the crowd laugh.

And one night in Paraguay, with thesmell of cow manure and pesticides lingeringin the air, small farmers besieged by toxic soycrops gathered to tell stories of resistance,stories they linked to Galeano’s accounts ofthe looting of Latin America and strugglesagainst greed and empire that were centuriesin the making.

With the small mountain of books andarticles he left behind, Galeano gives us alanguage of hope, a way to feel rage to-ward the world while also loving it, a wayto understand the past while carving out abetter possible future.

“She’s on the horizon,” Galeano oncewrote of utopia. “I go two steps, shemoves two steps away. I walk ten stepsand the horizon runs ten steps ahead. Nomatter how much I walk, I’ll never reachher. What good is utopia? That’s what: it’sgood for walking.”

Source: Counterpunch, April 14, 2015

Ayotzinapa, continued from page 4


Alliance For Prosperity Plan Will Only Make Life WorseBy Dawn Paley, writer based in Mexicoand author of “Drug War Capitalism”

When Americans began noticing a delugeof unaccompanied migrant children flooding tothe US-Mexico border, the immediate US re-sponse was a stopgap. Youth were placed inshelters by the thousands, sometimes set up onmilitary bases, which critics likened to detentioncenters and emergency hurricane shelters.Later, kids were placed with sponsors whiletheir cases were processed.

Now, a longer-term response is takingshape. The Obama administration has re-cently jumped on board with the Alliance forProsperity, a plan that touts developmentand peace for Honduras, Guatemala and ElSalvador. It promises to address the violencethat’s forcing children to flee in such Biblicalnumbers. Vice President Joe Biden’s op-edin the New York Times last week confirmedthat President Obama would ask Congressfor $1 billion to fund the Alliance for Pros-perity, a name that recalls JFK’s controver-sial Alliance for Progress. “Confronting thesechallenges,” Biden wrote, “requires nothingless than systemic change …”

But the essence of what the Alliance forProsperity promises is that more of the same,more local spending on infrastructure to facili-tate foreign investment, more corporate taxbreaks and free trade zones and more regula-tory harmonization, will allow Central Americato pull itself up by its bootstraps. And, yes, thatoutcome is as unlikely as it sounds.

Driving the US support for the Alliance forProsperity is the ongoing humanitarian crisis ofchildren fleeing their home countries. BetweenOctober 2013 and October 2014, 60,000 unac-companied minors crossed the US-Mexico bor-der. Most of them were from Honduras, fol-lowed by Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.These arrivals marked a spike in Central Ameri-can minors trying to cross the border. (Thenumber of Mexican minors has remained rela-tively stable; Mexican children are deportedwithout a court hearing and thus not detainedfor significant lengths of time.)

Many of the youth held in custody by USCustoms and Border Protection (CBP) weresubjected to measures that would be consid-ered objectionable against anyone, convictedadults or otherwise. Accusations against theCBP, in a complaint filed in June on behalf of100 children by the American Civil Liberties

Union and other rights groups are truly gro-tesque. They include “denying necessary medi-cal care to children as young as five-months-old, refusing to provide diapers for infants,confiscating and not returning legal documentsand personal belongings, making raciallycharged insults and death threats, and stripsearching and shackling children in three-pointrestraints during transport.” The ACLU pro-ceeded to file a class action lawsuit in Octoberchallenging the federal government’s failure toprovide legal representation to the youth. Afterreaching a peak in June of 2014, the numberof unaccompanied minors arriving to the UShas fallen off from more than 10,000 to a fewthousand a month. This owes in large part toMexico deporting more Central American mi-nors. As fewer Central American kids arrivedat the US border, the issue and the plight ofthese children slid out of view.

Enter the Alliance for Prosperity. In his op-ed, Biden wrote that the Alliance for Prosperitypromotes security, good governance and eco-nomic growth in El Salvador, Honduras andGuatemala. (The plan was authored this pastfall by those countries’ presidents.) The secu-rity proposal is thin on specifics, but aims totrain and equip police, something the US hasbeen doing in the region for decades. The plantrots out classic promises to increase tax col-lection and transparency, toward improvinggovernment. It describes a renewed effort toinvest in education, a sector decimated by aus-terity programs, including by promising cash tostudents who stay in school.

But by far the most polished segment ofthe document details the sweetheart deals thethree countries will roll out for internationalinvestors. Biden compared the Alliance to akind of Plan Colombia for Central America.Plan Colombia was a six-year, $9 billion ex-periment that used anti-drugs policy as a pre-text for bettering investment conditions in Co-lombia, both through militarization and politi-cal reforms. In short, this is not a comparisonthat should necessarily inspire confidence forCentral Americans.

Plan Colombia was a foreign policy inno-vation that created a new blueprint for US in-tervention on behalf of the corporate sector,guised as an anti-drugs initiative. In fact, thesuccess of Plan Colombia has little to nothingto do with drugs, but could be measured byexamining growing levels of foreign direct in-

vestment and investor security. Biden’smemory of Plan Colombia confirms my argu-ment. Far from recalling an anti-drugs program,he lauds Plan Colombia such: “The Colombiangovernment cleaned up its courts, vetted its po-lice force and reformed its rules of commerce toopen up its economy.”

Today’s measure of success is distinctfrom the messaging about Plan Colombia atthe time. It is also distinct from what we aretold today about the Merida Initiative, the firstre-incarnation of Plan Colombia, this time inMexico. In an interview in 2007, former USAssistant Secretary of State Robert Charlesexplained: “The aim of ‘Plan Colombia’ was toreduce overall cultivation in the country in thefirst five years by 50%. We’ve actually re-duced it by more than 50%.” Plan Colombiabegan in 2000, and ran through to 2006, afterwhich US funding to Colombia began to de-crease and shift towards Mexico and theMerida Initiative, beginning in 2008.

The US State Department hawked theMerida Initiative as a way to strengthen courtsand improve police odds in their fight againstdrug traffickers. Instead, those institutions’ fail-ures and cruelties have only deepened as USlargesse, to the tune of over $2.35 billion, hasfostered increased violence across the country.Meanwhile, on the metrics that matter mostdirectly to investors and politicians, the MeridaInitiative has been a success: Mexico has passedreforms in finance, education, labor and energythat have cleared the way for foreign invest-ment. But to people living here in Mexico, theMerida Initiative has only exacerbated an al-ready grim daily reality.

Biden’s op-ed failed to mention the MeridaInitiative, or its current incarnate in CentralAmerica, the Central America Regional Secu-rity Initiative (CARSI). When the Merida Initia-tive began, part of the funding was destined forCentral America. In 2010, the Central Americaprogram was separated from the Merida Initia-tive, and re-packaged as CARSI. But CARSIdid little to stem the violence or to reduce thetide of migrants. If anything, it did the opposite.In Honduras and Guatemala, homicide ratesclimbed steadily as US funding for militarizationvia CARSI began to flow. Remember thatHonduras sent the largest number of kids to theUS border, followed by Guatemala. In 2012,

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Source: New Republic Magazine, LatinAmerica, February 5, 2015

two solid years into CARSI, there were 7,172recorded homicides in Honduras, marking themost violent year in the country’s recent his-tory. (That is, a country with five percent of theUS’s population generated 56% as many mur-ders as the US saw that year.)

Central America has been here before.Many of the features of CARSI and previousUS initiatives in Central America are recycledin the Alliance for Prosperity, albeit with a big-ger budget and a more explicit focus on im-proving conditions for foreign investors. “Ob-viously the neoliberal program was not struc-tured to reduce poverty, or to generate em-ployment, or so that there would be no mi-

grants,” Guatemalan researcher Luis Solanowrote in an email interview. “But the publicdiscourse was that of the famous ‘trickle downpolicy,’ a trickle down that never arrived ex-cept to the handful who benefited.”

Far from providing new opportunities forregular people in Guatemala, Honduras and ElSalvador, the measures proposed in the Alli-ance for Prosperity are likely to worsen thesocial and economic realities for the region’spoor majority. This is likely to lead CentralAmericans (adults and children alike) to con-tinue to seek out survival heading north.

World Bank Admits It Ignored Its Own RulesBy Sasha Chavkin and Mike Hudson,International Consortium ofInvestigative Journalists

The World Bank, created to fight pov-erty, has admitted that it’s failed to follow itsown rules for protecting the poor peopleswept aside by dams, roads and other bigprojects it bankrolls.

This conclusion, announced by the bank onMarch 4, amounts to a reversal of its previousefforts to downplay concerns raised by humanrights activists and others working on behalf ofthe dispossessed—people evicted from theirland, sometimes in violent ways, to make wayfor World Bank-financed initiatives.

It comes days after the International Consor-tium of Investigative Journalists and TheHuffington Post informed bank officials that thenews outlets had found “systemic gaps” in thebank’s protections for people who lose homes orjobs because of development projects.

The World Bank, which is controlled bythe United States and other member countries,had failed to respond to the news organiza-tions’ repeated requests over the past severalweeks for an interview with Jim Yong Kim,the president of the World Bank Group, theparent institution. The news outlets have beenpressing the bank for months for answers toquestions about how well it enforces its own“social and environmental safeguards.”

The bank said in a news release that its con-clusions followed internal audits conducted overthe past two years. “We took a hard look at our-selves on resettlement and what we found causedme deep concern,” Kim said in a statement.

Under its current rules for safeguards, theWorld Bank and its borrowers are supposed tomake sure that people physically or economi-cally displaced by a project are identified, con-sulted and provided new homes, jobs or otherhelp that restores them to living conditions thatare equal to or better than before.

The World Bank said that it did not knowhow many people its projects had uprooted,and that it did not do enough to keep track ofprojects that push communities off their land orcost people their livelihoods. ICIJ, HuffPostand other media partners that have examinedthe issue found that projects backed by theWorld Bank have displaced millions of peopleover the last decade.

The World Bank also said it is taking stepsto fix the problems with its oversight of

projects that cause “involuntary resettlement.”The bank will increase the number of stafferswho oversee social and environmental protec-tions, and will build a new database to trackpeople displaced by bank projects, the lendersaid in a press release.

The bank’s announcement comes in themidst of a multiyear revision of its safeguardpolicies, including its policy on resettlement.The bank’s guidelines set a global standard forsocial and environmental protections in develop-ment aid that is often followed by regional de-velopment banks and private lenders worldwide.

An initial draft of the revision, released inJuly 2014, was widely panned by human rightsexperts and civil society groups as a dramaticrollback of the bank’s standards. Critics said theproposed rules would reduce borrowers’ obliga-tions to plan in advance for displacement andother harms to local people and the environ-ment, and instead allow borrowers to ignoreproblems until the harm is already done.

Ted Downing, the president of the Interna-tional Network on Displacement and Resettle-ment, said the bank’s statement was meant todivert attention from the larger issues at stake.“The purpose is to distract people,” Downingsaid. “The big question is which policies, thatare being rearranged, is this staff enforcing.”

Stephanie Fried, executive director of theUlu Foundation, an environmental group thatadvocates for forest communities, said thebank’s promise to do a better job of enforcing itssafeguards won’t do much good if its safeguardsare going to be “radically diluted.” A seconddraft of the safeguards revision is expected to be

released later this year.A bank spokesman denied that the bank’s

release of its action plan on Wednesday hadanything to do with the questions being askedby media organizations. The bank said that itsaction plan on resettlement was meant to ad-dress the urgent issues identified in its re-views without the additional delay of waitingfor a new policy. “We’re not going to waituntil that process is through to implement thisaction plan,” the spokesman said. “This workneeds to happen now.”

Human rights activists who have criticizedthe bank for its failure to live up to its own stan-dards for years said they were taken by surpriseby the sudden release of the audits, and thebank’s avowals of reform.

Natalie Fields, the executive director of theAccountability Counsel, a legal group that repre-sents indigenous peoples in disputes with theWorld Bank and IFC, said the plan to address theproblems seemed “slapped together.”

The reforms announced don’t include mea-sures to hold bank staff accountable for not do-ing a better job of identifying and helping dis-placed people, she said. “It’s a positive that thebank is acknowledging problems, but in manyrespects this is the same old story,” Fields said.“They have come up with their own plan forhow to address the issues, without consultingpeople who have spent years of their lives onresettlement, and without consulting with thecommunities themselves.”

Source: TheWorldPost (HuffingtonPost), March 5, 2015

Prosperity, continued from page 6

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Honduran Indigenous Rights Campaigner wins Goldman PrizeBy Jonathan Watts, Guardian reporter

The odds of survival, let alone success,could hardly be more stacked against BertaCáceres, the Honduran indigenous rights cam-paigner who has been declared the winner of thisyear’s Goldman Environmental Prize. Cácereshas won the world’s leading environmentalaward for her campaigning against the construc-tion of the Agua Zarca dams.

Working in the most murderous country inthe world for environmental activists, the motherof four is facing down one of CentralAmerica’s biggest hydropower projects,powerful landowners, a US-funded policeforce, and a mercenary army of private se-curity guards. She has received threats ofrape and death, been followed, and severalof her supporters have been killed, yetthose suspected of such wrongdoings havewalked free while Cáceres has been forcedinto hiding and courts have twice issuedwarrants for her arrest.

The Goldman prize, the world’s lead-ing environmental award, is recognitionfor the courage she has shown in a longand effective battle to stop construction ofthe Agua Zarca cascade of four giantdams, in the Gualcarque river basin. Theproject, which is being built by local firmDesa with the backing of international en-gineering and finance companies, wouldchoke the main source of irrigation and drinkingwater for the community.

As the coordinator of the National Councilof Popular and Indigenous Organizations ofHonduras (known by its Spanish acronymCOPINH), Cáceres first led a fight against illegalloggers, then plantation owners and is now at thehead of a campaign against the dams, which shesays are being built without the prior consulta-tion required by international law.

The often bloody campaign struggle hasachieved notable successes. In 2013, China’sSinohydro—the largest dam builder in theworld—backed out of the Agua Zarca project,saying it was concerned about “serious con-flicts” and “controversial land acquisition andinvasion” by its local partner. InternationalRivers and Friends of the Earth are callingupon a German company, Voith Hydro, to endall involvement in the scheme, which has yetto begin construction.

Cáceres scored another victory when the

World Bank’s private sector arm, the Interna-tional Finance Corporation, also withdrew fromthe project, citing concerns over human rightsviolations. She said the award would strengthenthe group’s campaigns. “It is an opportunity togive higher visibility to the violence of plunder,to the conflict, and also to the denunciations andresistance,” she said in an email response toquestions by the Guardian. “It is an honor andan acknowledgement of the enormous sacrificeand commitment made by COPINH and itsplanetary contributions.”

The prize coincides with a new report thatidentifies Honduras as the most dangerouscountry in the world for environmental and landactivists, particularly those from indigenousgroups. Between 2010 and 2014, 101 cam-paigners were killed in Honduras, a higher deathtoll relative to population than anywhere else,according to the study "How Many More?" byNGO Global Witness.

The group said Honduras was at the fore-front of a disturbing rise in murders worldwide.Last year, it documented 116 killings of activistsacross the globe, 20% higher than in 2013. Fourin ten of the victims were from indigenous com-munities who resisted development projects orthe encroachment of farms on their territory.

“In Honduras and across the world environ-mental defenders are being shot dead in broaddaylight, kidnapped, threatened or tried as ter-rorists for standing in the way of so-called ‘de-velopment’,” Billy Kyte, a campaigner at Glo-bal Witness, said in a statement. “The true au-

thors of these crimes—a powerful nexus of cor-porate and state interests—are escaping unpun-ished. Urgent action is needed to protect citizensand bring perpetrators to justice.”

Cáceres is all too familiar with the dangers.In 2013, a fellow leader of COPINH, TomásGarcía, was shot and killed by a Honduran sol-dier—whose commanders are trained in the USSchool of the Americas—during a demonstra-tion against the dam at Rio Blanco. The killerwas put on trial but released on the grounds thathe acted in self-defense. Last October, while

Cáceres was in a meeting with PopeFrancis, she said another campaigner—14-year-old Maycol Rodríguez—was tor-tured and murdered after his father, a lead-ing activist, received threats. No suspectshave been identified.

In part this reflects the broader vio-lence of Honduran society, which hassome of the world’s worst levels of mur-der, organized crime, drug trafficking, gunuse, inequality and corruption. But Cáceressays indigenous environmental campaign-ers are particularly at risk because they areup against powerful political and eco-nomic interests who have grown used toexploiting their land with impunity.

“These are centuries-old ills, a productof domination. There is a racist system inplace that sustains and reproduces itself,”she says. “The political, economic and so-

cial situation in Honduras is getting worse andthere is an imposition of a project of domination,of violent oppression, of militarization, of viola-tion of human rights, of transnationalization, ofthe turning over of the riches and sovereignty ofthe land to corporate capital, for it to privatizeenergy, the rivers, the land; for mining exploita-tion; for the creation of development zones.”

Police and the courts are a threat ratherthan protection, she says. Cáceres has been de-tained twice: once for illegal possession of afirearm (which she says was planted in her carduring a police check) and once for allegedlyconspiring to damage property (a charge shesuccessfully denied). She has also been fol-lowed and threatened by guards from the hy-dropower plant. There are four times as manyprivate security employees as police in Hondu-ras, according to Global Witness.

Most of the killings have taken place in Bajo

continued on page 9

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Honduras' Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prizewinner for South & Central America recieving her award.

GEP


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Aguán valley, where campesinos trying to de-fend their land have been targeted byagribusiness companies, particularly since thecoup of 2009 replaced the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, with PorfirioLobo from the conservative national party. Thecurrent president, Juan Orlando Hernández, acoffee magnate from the same party who isbacked by big landowners, won power in 2013with the promise of a “soldier on every corner”.Many opponents of agribusiness in Bajo Aguánhave “disappeared” in a chilling echo of theright-wing death squads that operated in LatinAmerica during the military dictatorships of the1970s and 80s. Cáceres also heads a groupdedicated to raising the cases of those whohave gone missing.

After a visit to the region in December, theInter-American Commission on Human Rightssaid there was a “a complete absence of themost basic measures to address reports of gravehuman rights violations in the region” andnoted the possible participation of the nationalgovernment in the incidents of violence. De-spite these concerns, the United States contin-ues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars inthe country in the name of the “war on drugs”and the State Department has issued statementssupporting plantation owners against what itcalled “squatters.”

Margaret Sekaggya, a former UN specialrapporteur has warned that environmental de-

fenders in Honduras are being branded by theauthorities as “members of the resistance, guer-rillas, terrorists, political opponents or crimi-nals,” with dangerous ramifications.

International civic rights, anti-poverty andenvironmental groups, including Amnesty In-ternational, Human Rights Watch, and Friendsof the Earth, have condemned the Hondurangovernment for the situation faced by cam-paigners like Cáceres.

By naming her as this year’s winner andreleasing a video about her life’s work, theGoldman Prize has also added to the pressure onthe country before the periodic review ofHonduras’s record by the UN Human RightsCouncil on May 8.

Cáceres, though, says it is important to seeher struggle as more than a single-country issue.Behind the killings are powerful external forces,including international capital, the influence ofthe United States (which has six military basesin Honduras) and a global drive to clear moreforest and exploit more resources despite thegrowing risks of climate change.

“We must undertake the struggle in all partsof the world, wherever we may be, because wehave no other spare or replacement planet. Wehave only this one, and we have to take action,”she says. “The Honduran people, along with in-ternational solidarity, can get out of this unjustsituation, promoting hope, rebellion and organiz-ing ourselves for the protection of life.”

Source: www.theguardian.com, April 20, 2015

On March 25, WikiLeaks released the “In-vestment Chapter” from the secret negotiationsof the TPP agreement. The document adds tothe previous WikiLeaks publications of thechapters for Intellectual Property Rights (No-vember 2013) and the Environment (January2014).

The TPP Investment Chapter, published to-day, is dated 20 January 2015. The document isclassified and supposed to be kept secret forfour years after the entry into force of the TPPagreement or, if no agreement is reached, forfour years from the close of the negotiations.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor said:“The TPP has developed in secret an unac-countable supranational court for multinationalsto sue states. This system is a challenge to par-liamentary and judicial sovereignty. Similar tri-bunals have already been shown to chill theadoption of sane environmental protection,public health and public transport policies.”

Current TPP negotiation member states arethe United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada,Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru,Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei. The TPP isthe largest economic treaty in history, includingcountries that represent more than 40 per centof the world’s GDP.

The Investment Chapter highlights the in-tent of the TPP negotiating parties, led by theUS, to increase the power of global corpora-tions by creating a supra-national court, or tri-bunal, where foreign firms can “sue” states andobtain taxpayer compensation for “expected fu-ture profits”. These investor-state dispute settle-ment (ISDS) tribunals are designed to overrulethe national court systems. ISDS tribunals in-troduce a mechanism by which multinationalcorporations can force governments to paycompensation if the tribunal states that acountry’s laws or policies affect the company’sclaimed future profits. In return, states hopethat multinationals will invest more. Similarmechanisms have already been used. For ex-ample, US tobacco company Phillip Morrisused one such tribunal to sue Australia (June2011 – ongoing) for mandating plain packag-ing of tobacco products on public healthgrounds; and by the oil giant Chevron againstEcuador in an attempt to evade a multi-billion-dollar compensation ruling for polluting the en-vironment. The threat of future lawsuits chilledenvironmental and other legislation in Canadaafter it was sued by pesticide companies in

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)2008/9. ISDS tribunals are often held in secret,have no appeal mechanism, do not subordinatethemselves to human rights laws or the publicinterest, and have few means by which otheraffected parties can make representations.

The TPP negotiations have been ongoingin secrecy for five years and are now in theirfinal stages. In the United States the Obamaadministration plans to “fast-track” the treatythrough Congress without the ability of electedofficials to discuss or vote on individual mea-sures. This has met growing opposition as aresult of increased public scrutiny followingWikiLeaks’ earlier releases of documents fromthe negotiations.

The TPP is set to be the forerunner to anequally secret agreement between the US andEU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Invest-ment Partnership). Negotiations for the TTIP

were initiated by the Obama administration inJanuary 2013. Combined, the TPP and TTIPwill cover more than 60 per cent of globalGDP. The third treaty of the same kind, alsonegotiated in secrecy is TISA, on trade in ser-vices, including the financial and health sectors.It covers 50 countries, including the US and allEU countries. WikiLeaks released the secretdraft text of the TISA’s financial annex in June2014.

All these agreements on so-called “freetrade” are negotiated outside the World TradeOrganization’s (WTO) framework. Conspicu-ously absent from the countries involved inthese agreements are the BRICs countries ofBrazil, Russia, India and China.

Source: WikiLeaks Press Release, March25, 2015

Berta Cáceres, continued from page 8


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Call for Obama to Retract Executive Order Against VenezuelaEd. Note: The Task Force on theAmericas is a member of the VenezuelaStrategy Group

In an open letter addressed to PresidentBarack Obama, over 100 US academics, ac-tivists and NGOs called on their head of stateto rescind his Executive Order declaring Ven-ezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat toUS national security”. On March 9, 2015,President Obama invoked his executive pow-ers to decree a national emergency based onthe alleged “threat” represented by Venezu-ela. The Executive Order also imposed sanc-tions on Venezuelan officials with potentiallyfar-reaching consequences.

US citizens and NGOs are joined by lead-ers from over 138 countries and prestigiousmultilateral organizations worldwide in theirdemand for President Obama to rescind hismeasures against Venezuela. Latin Americanand Caribbean nations have unanimously re-jected President Obama’s Executive Orderagainst Venezuela and have firmly called for itsreversal. A powerful statement issued March26, 2015 from the Community of Latin Ameri-can and Caribbean States (CELAC) which rep-resents all 33 countries in the region, expressed“its rejection of the Executive Order issued bythe Government of the United States ofAmerica on March 9, 2015,” considering thatthis Executive Order should be reversed.

The United Nations G77+China group,which represents 134 countries, also issued afirm statement opposing President Obama’sExecutive Order against Venezuela. “TheGroup of 77+China deplores these measuresand reiterates its firm commitment to the sov-ereignty, territorial integrity and political inde-

pendence of the Bolivarian Republic ofVenezuela...The G77+China calls on the Gov-ernment of the United States to evaluate andput into practice alternatives of dialogue withthe Government of the Bolivarian Republic ofVenezuela, under principles of respect for sov-ereignty and self-determination. As such, weurge that the Executive Order be abolished.”

In addition to regional organizations suchas the Union of South American Nations(UNASUR) representing 12 South Americanstates, the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoplesof Our America (ALBA), representing 11Latin American and Caribbean nations, andthe Common Market of the South(MERCOSUR) issuing powerful condemna-tions of President Obama’s measures againstVenezuela. One hundred British parliamen-tarians have also repudiated the Executive Or-der and called on the US government to re-scind its actions against Venezuela.

More than 9 million people have signed apetition in Venezuela and online, calling onPresident Obama to retract his Executive Or-der of March 9, 2015, and to cease interfer-ence in Venezuelan affairs. Even prominentmembers of the Venezuelan opposition haverejected Obama’s designation of Venezuela asa threat to US national security.

In a letter to the US president by Larastate governor Henry Falcon, known for hisanti-government position, he writes, “Let meexpress to you clearly that Venezuela can’t beconsidered a threat to any other nation on theplanet. We have serious internal problems butwe will solve them between Venezuelans.”

This overwhelming international supportfor Venezuela comes just days before Latin

American leaders will meet with PresidentObama at the Summit of the Americas inPanama City, on April 9-10. While originallythe summit was staged to be a historicalevent where Cuba would reunite with theorganization after its forced exclusion by theUS over fifty years ago, now the forum willbe overshadowed by Obama’s latest moveagainst Venezuela.

Heads of State from the region have madeclear that they will not stand for US govern-ment aggression against one of their neighbors.Bolivian President Evo Morales warned,“These undemocratic actions of PresidentBarack Obama threaten the peace and securityof all countries in Latin America and the Carib-bean,” while Ecuadorian President RafaelCorrea scoffed, “It must be a bad joke, whichreminds us of the darkest hours of our region,when we received invasions and dictatorshipsimposed by the US...Will they understandLatin America has changed?”

Despite being the aggrieved party, Presi-dent Maduro has repeatedly expressed his de-sire for “respectful dialogue on equal terms”with the Obama administration and has re-quested Ecuador, as chair of CELAC, play akey role in mediating these efforts. The up-coming Summit of the Americas may justprovide the type of environment that couldenable such a dialogue.

In their letter to Obama, US citizens andNGOs encourage their head of state to improveregional relations and show “our Latin Americaneighbors that the US can relate to them inpeace and with respect for their sovereignty.”

Source: Venezuela Strategy Group, 4/1/15

Nicaragua’s Grand Canal ControversyBy Mark Burton, criminal defenseattorney and Chuck Kaufman, AFGJco-coordinator

Nicaragua is on the verge of beginningconstruction of a trans-isthmus canal, a dreamthat goes back to the colonial era. The canalwill supplement the Panama Canal and willhandle the largest ships which can’t fit inPanama’s locks. Nicaragua has made a sover-eign decision on how it is going to develop andit is now under attack. Just like many peoplein the US supported Nicaragua’s sovereignright to defend its territory in the 1980s, and to

decide who is going to be their president(President Ortega remains quite popular in histhird term), solidarity activists should supportthe sovereign right of Nicaraguans to developtheir country as they see fit.

We are sensitive to important environ-mental issues raised by the construction of amegaproject such as a new canal connectingthe Pacific to the Caribbean. However, muchof the environmental criticism seems to becoming from the United States, and somefrom Europe. It is more than a little ironicthat North Americans, who have hardly 2%

of their original forest cover left, and producemore pollution per capita than any othercountry on earth, are lecturing Nicaraguanson the environment.

It is also true that quite a number of thepeople marching in Nicaragua against theproject are from the opposition which opposeseverything that the democratically-elected gov-ernment of the FSLN tries to do. Oppositionparties, including those of former Sandinistas,are scared to death that the FSLN will con-tinue to increase employment and decreasepoverty. They are concerned that development

continued on page 11


C E N T R A L A M E R I C ACanal, continued from page 10

spurred by the canal will increase the FSLN’spopularity and further marginalize their ownelectoral ambitions.

Nicaragua loses 70,000 hectares of forestper year to slash and burn agriculture bypeople who are desperately poor and just ekeout a living in the countryside, or due to large-scale agriculture and ranching interests. Betterenforcement and decreasing levels of poverty,thanks to government programs, did reduceforest loss to 63,000 hectares in 2013. How-ever, Nicaragua has long been the third poor-est country, after Haiti and Honduras, in LatinAmerica and it simply doesn’t have the moneyto sustain Nicaragua’s forests.

The Nicaraguan government can only af-ford to reforest 15,000 hectares peryear. Presidential advisor Paul Oquist says thatthe only conceivable source of money for morereforestations is revenue from the canal. If theUS would pay Nicaragua the $17 billion (plusnearly 29 years of interest) that it was orderedby the World Court to pay as reparations in1986 for the damage caused by its illegal Con-tra War, Nicaragua wouldn’t need the canal inorder to achieve sustainable development.

As Panama learned, a canal is absolutelydependent on a healthy watershed, which re-quires unbroken expanses of healthy forest. Soconstruction of the canal will actually improvethat important environmental health factor.The Nicaraguan government also points outcorrectly that poverty is the greatest destruc-tive force on their environment and jobs cre-ated by construction and operation of the canalwill reduce poverty and increase revenue.

The government of President DanielOrtega has a proven record as one of the fore-most governments in the world working toadapt to and mitigate the effects of climatechange. Last year Nicaragua passed 50% ofelectricity production by renewable sources,and government policies have opened the wayto 90% green energy production by 2020. Weonly wish we had a government in the US asconcerned about the environment as Nicara-gua. Those who argue against the canal treatthe areas that the canal will go through as ifthey are pristine rainforest and wetlands—thisis simply not ture. Anyone flying from West toEast over what once were vast and impen-etrable forests will see that decades of agricul-tural frontier advancement and illegal clear cutlogging have left hollow shells of trees aroundnearly adjoining squares of bare earth.

The wetlands have also been highly de-graded by pesticide run-off and commercialshrimp farming. As a result of public com-ments about the need to protect an importantwetland area, canal planners added a longbridge to the plan to reduce impact. Indeed,many changes to the plan, including the routeitself, have been made as a result of an ongo-ing environmental impact study and consulta-tions with the communities the canal will af-fect. The argument by canal opponents thatthe process has been opaque and that peoplehave not been consulted rings hollow andsmells of political opportunism.

There are good and sincere reasons to beconcerned about the environmental impact ofthe canal, especially pertaining to threats towater quality in Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nica-ragua). The “great lake” is the largest reser-voir of fresh water in Central America. Thecanal will cross it and the plan calls for seriousdredging. Supporters of the canal point to thedredged topsoil as a resource to recover landdenuded by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.Whether the dredged soil will be free enoughof heavy metals and other pollutants, we don’tknow, but neither do the canal’s opponents.

However, we are suspicious that oppo-nents of the canal are playing right into thenarrative of forces that care nothing about theenvironment and everything about the mainte-nance of US hegemony over the countries ofLatin America and the Caribbean basin. Thecanal will be a big blow to US imperialism andhegemony. Apart from making Nicaraguawealthier and more independent, it alsopunches a hole in the strategic value of theTrans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP is an attempt by the US andtransnational corporations to create depen-dent countries that are beholden to theUnited States and which also agree to isolate

China. The canal bypasses this attempt to iso-late China as the large ships carrying Chinesegoods will be able to trade efficiently withBrazil, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.China is one of these countries’ largest for-eign trade partners. The canal will save mega-barrels of oil burned because the biggest shipsmust travel thousands of miles around the tipof South America because they are too bigfor the Panama Canal.

China is now the third largest foreigninvestor in Latin America, (the first in Bra-zil) and often makes trade and aid deals onbetter terms and without the strings attachedby the US and Europe. China has given fi-nancial, technological, and diplomatic sup-port to the cooperative trade group, ALBA(Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of OurAmericas) which includes Cuba, Nicaragua,Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and severalCaribbean island nations.

Our job as solidarity activists is to exposeand oppose US intervention in the sovereignaffairs of Nicaragua, Latin America, and in-deed the world. It is not our job to criticize orlecture other countries on the sovereign deci-sions they choose to pursue in the interest ofeconomic and social justice. As residents of acountry that cut down its own great hardwoodforests and continues to poison its, and theworld’s water and air, we should show a bit ofhumility before hectoring other countries onenvironmental issues. Besides, we find theclaims that the canal will have positive environ-mental impacts to be at least as persuasive asthe arguments for its negative impact. In thefinal analysis, we argue that it is up to Nicara-guans to decide whether or not the benefitsoutweigh the risks.

Source: www.liberationnews.org, Dec.16, 2014


S O U T H A M E R I C A

COLOMBIA: US to join ‘Peace Process’ in HavanaBy Berta Joubert-Ceci, activist, editor,photojournalist, member Colombiapeace process delegation

The US State Department announced onFeb. 20 that it would send a representative tothe peace talks between the Colombian gov-ernment and the FARC-EP (RevolutionaryArmed Forces of Columbia-People’s Army)to be held in Havana, Cuba. That same day,the Peace Delegation of FARC—which isthe revolutionary opposition to the Colom-bian government—issued a statement salut-

ing this step and saying in part, “We con-sider it a necessity, given the presence andthe permanent impact that the United Stateshas in the political, economic and social lifeof Colombia, that the US would now beable to contribute to the establishment ofsocial justice and true democracy, and toovercome inequality and poverty, which isthe right way to open the path to peace.”

During a meeting in December 2014, Co-lombian President Juan Manuel Santos askedof US Secretary of State John Kerry that theUS “take a more direct role in and be moredirectly in support of the peace process.” TheUS chose Bernard Aronson, former assistantsecretary of state for Inter-American Affairsfrom 1989-93, who was involved in the peaceprocesses in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In El

Salvador, Aronson refused to sign an order tocut US funding for death squads. In Nicaraguahe is notorious for his statement: “The greatmyth of the 20th century is that left-wing fas-cism is different from right-wing fascism.”

Aronson is on the Board of Directors ofthe National Democratic Institute, an organiza-tion created by the US government through theinfamous National Endowment for Democracythat provides funding for opposition right-winggroups in Latin America. He also has financialconnections, having served as director for theinvestment firm Goldman Sachs and havingfounded his own firm, ACON Investments.

But it was Aronson himself during the Feb.20 press conference who revealed the US rolein Colombian negotiations. By saying that theUS will stand by the Santos government, healready made its partisan intent clear. He rein-forced that stance by declaring that it is timethat the FARC forever renounce violence,without even mentioning the violence of theColombian state. He ended his talk by referringto the riches of Colombia, saying, “The WorldBank said that Colombia is the best place inLatin America to do business.”

While the US presence is important for thepeace process, for the reasons stated by theFARC, it is essential to briefly review the roleof US intervention in Colombia in order toclearly highlight its character.

To show how extensive the US role is,it is only necessary to mention a few factsto remind us that much of the suffering ofthe Colombian people was conceived of inthe White House, the Pentagon and the of-fices of the major mining, petroleum andchemical transnational corporations, as wellas the US agricultural monopolies, with thecomplicity of the Colombian elites and theColombian government.

This started with the violations and mas-sacres of banana farmers by the United FruitCo. in 1928, when some 2,000 workerswere killed. It continues to the most recentterrorist acts of Chiquita, Dole, Del Monteand Coca Cola corporations, which payparamilitary squads to beat up and evenmurder their workers.

The suspected role of the CIA in the assas-sination of the popular political leader JorgeEliecer Gaitan in 1948 is still under investiga-tion. At issue is the CIA’s refusal to disclose

Ed. Note: Task Force members met withColombia peace process negotiators andguarantors as part of an AFGJdelegation April 11 – 18.

Simon Trinidad, Essential to Peace ProcessBy W. T. Whitney, Jr., political journalist (article excepted)

Ricardo Palmera, alias “Simon Trinidad,” is a political prisoner and more. Even as such, hissixty-year sentence and constant solitary confinement are extraordinary. Post- sentencing legalservices are not always available. His mail is blocked, visitors are limited, and he is shackledwhen they see him. Trinidad occupies a “Supermax” cell in the United States, in Colorado. InColombia he’s an enemy of the state.

Simon Trinidad was a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)with responsibilities for political education, financial overview, and peace negotiations. Heparticipated with the FARC in talks with the Colombian government in 1998-2002. In Ecuador,prior to his capture in January 2004—with CIA help—he was preparing to meet with UnitedNations representative James Lemoyne to review the situation of FARC prisoners of war.

Opon being detained, Trinidad was moved to Colombia. Then, on December 31, 2004, hewas extradited to the US. Colombia had asked US authorities to request his extradition. TheUS, at the time, had no outstanding charges against him and Colombian officials had to fashionallegations. Later, Colombian courts convicted Trinidad in absentia, and he faces jail time there.

Trinidad, although imprisoned in the US, remains a political force beyond prison walls. TheFARC’s negotiations with the Colombian government to end civil war there began in Cuba inNovember 2012. The FARC still regards Trinidad as one of its leaders, and at the outset of thetalks, the guerrillas named Trinidad as one of their five accredited representatives to thenegotiations. In group photos he stands with other FARC negotiators as a life-sized “cut-out”image.

The FARC has repeatedly demanded his release from prison so he can serve as a negotiator.Rumors circulated recently that Colombian officials, listening to the FARC, are asking UScounterparts for Trinidad’s release. His signature is essential to finalizing the peace agreement.

Source: Counterpunch, April 7, 2015

continued on page 13

TAKE ACTION!

Please Call the White House: 1-202-456-1414, with the following message:“Free Simon Trinidad (previously know as Ricardo Palmera). Support theColombia Peace Process.”


S O U T H A M E R I C A

Colombia, continued from page 12

classified documents about that murder, whichopened the door to what is known as the“Great Violence,” which has lasted until today.

Also important is the US role in the estab-lishment of the paramilitary forces themselves,even before the founding of the FARC-EP, andthe so-called LASO Plan of bombings and an-nihilation used against peasant resistance inMarquetalia province, which led to the found-ing of the FARC insurgency.

We should not forget Washington’s PlanColombia, which began in 1999 and has re-sulted in an escalation of social conflict withenormous implications in terms of increasingpoverty, disease, violations of human and laborrights and massacres; mass poisonings and de-struction of food crops by Monsanto chemi-cals; and the internal displacement of millionsof Colombians. It is because of this US respon-sibility for perpetuating the war against the Co-lombian people that Washington must be partof the peace process.

The talks began with exploratory meet-ings in 2011. They have brought hope to theColombian people that they will finallyachieve the peace that they seek, which hasbeen so elusive. It has been a unique processwith breakthroughs as well as huge obstaclesand difficulties.

Up to now, the talks have achieved par-

tial agreements in the areas of agriculturaldevelopment, political participation of theinsurgency in Colombia’s future and a solu-tion to the problem of illicit drugs. Cur-rently they are discussing questions involv-ing the victims of the conflict.

How the peace process has developed de-serves a separate article. However, it is neces-sary to mention the active participation of sev-eral organizations and of the Colombianpeople themselves, including victims of theconflict, who have enriched the discussionswith their contributions. Five groups of victimstraveled to Havana on several occasions tointervene directly in the process.

During these years various forums wereheld in Colombia to provide suggestions. Asubcommittee on gender was formed to en-sure that the new Colombia arising out ofthese dialogues is a country without genderdiscrimination. There have been special hear-ings with organizations of women and the les-bian, gay, bi and trans population in Colombia.A Historical Commission on the Conflict andits Victims was established to study the causeswith a view toward ending the conflict. TheFARC has proposed holding a constituent as-sembly where the people decide the future ofthe implementation of the agreements.

Although the process is making gains, itstill confronts powerful forces. The FARC has

demanded a bilateral ceasefire so that negotia-tions can be held in an atmosphere of peace. Sofar, the government has rejected this proposal.On Dec. 17, however, the FARC insurgencyannounced a unilateral and indefinite ceasefireto demonstrate its desire to achieve peace.

While in Spain, President Santos said, “Weare nearing the time for starting the discussionof a bilateral ceasefire. On March 2, five active-duty generals and an admiral will go to Havanato initiate this process.”

On Oct. 24 in Havana, the FARC brought18 new members to serve on the TechnicalSubcommittee on bilateral ceasefire and sur-render of weapons. Their aim is “to contributeto the analysis of experiences, generate and dis-cuss initiatives and proposals [and] give input,expedite and facilitate discussions of the pleni-potentiaries of the national government and theFARC-EP, to permit the implementation ofagreements leading to the end of the conflict.”

As stated, the talks are at a crucial stagewhen solidarity movements, particularly in theUS, have an essential role to express solidaritywith the insurgency and the Colombian people,expose the criminal role of the US, and pres-sure the White House to abandon any attemptto undermine the negotiations.

Source: Workers World, March 5, 2015;resistencia-colombia.org

Uruguay’s Almagro Elected to Head OASBy Fulton Armstrong and Aaron Bell,Guest bloggers, Center for LatinAmerican and Latino Studies

Ed. Note: Article was excerpted

Uruguayan diplomat Luis Almagro,elected secretary general of the Organizationof American States (OAS) last [month], sayshe wants to revitalize the hemispheric organi-zation—a herculean, if not impossible task.

Mr. Almagro was the only candidate re-maining after Guatemalan Eduardo Stein andPeruvian Diego García-Sayán withdrew fromthe race—the former for health concerns, andthe latter due to a perceived lack of supportfrom his government. Almagro previouslyserved as Foreign Minister under formerpresident José Mujica and is a member ofhis Movimiento de Participación Popular,whose left-leaning sympathies led observers towonder whether Almagro could draw suffi-cient backing, even running unopposed. But

Almagro received formal support from sev-eral prominent nations ahead of time, includ-ing Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and the UnitedStates, and he got 33 of 34 votes (Guyanaabstained) to secure his election. In his accep-tance speech, Almagro stated that he intendsto rise above the role of crisis manager andfacilitate “the emergence of a revitalizedOAS,” but major challenges await him.

Almagro seems to have the experienceand temperament to be an excellent choicefor the job, and his coming from Uruguay,whose offices have credibility virtually every-where, may serve the OAS well. But thechallenges will be daunting. He faces severalongoing crises, particularly in Venezuela, andongoing splits within the region over theOAS’s role. One tempting option would befor Almagro to try to distance himself and theorganization from Washington—a difficulttask at best. Not only is his headquarters sev-eral hundred meters from the White House

and the State Department, but the US govern-ment (and to a lesser extent Canada) providessubstantially more funding for the OAS’s gen-eral fund and through special donations thanany other member state.

Almagro’s actions will also be watchedclosely by US conservatives who, stung byPresident Obama’s move toward diplomaticrelations with Cuba, are looking for a fightover Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, andeven on some issues with Brazil. WhateverAlmagro does, it will be with the black cloudof the OAS’s financial difficulties over him,and the possibility that failing to successfullybalance all of these issues may weaken theOAS and benefit regional organizations likeCELAC and UNASUR, which are smallerand less well established, but independent ofNorth American influence.

Source: Christian Science Monitor,April 1, 2015

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Venezuela Solidarity Delegation July 4 – 11 or 15, 2015Celebrate Venezuelan Independence Day on July 5

Venezuela is facing challenging times. In the past two years thenation has collectively faced the death of their beloved leader,Hugo Chavez; a crippling rash of violent riots orchestrated byextreme opposition elements openly seeking the overthrow of ademocratically elected president; and finally, a collapse of theglobal price of oil—the source of 90% of Venezuelan’s income.As the nation rolls up its sleeves to re-boot national productionand overcome shortages of food and basic supplies complicatedby economic sabotage by powerful economic cartels, theresponse of the Obama administration has been to declare thatVenezuela is a threat to US National Security, allowing the USgovernment to impose immediate sanctions and threatens more.The reaction within and without Venezuela has been athunderous rejection of Obama’s executive decree. Over 10million citizens, including many members of the opposition,have signed a petition asking Obama to rescind his decree. Allthe nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, includingUNASUR, CELAC and ALBA, have rejected a decree thatthreatens US/Latin America relations.Dozens of neighboring countries have been able to developmassive social programs thanks to Venezuela’s numeroussubsidized oil programs. Venezuela has been a key force in the

promotion of regional collaboration, leading to numerous political,economic and social agreements among the countries of LatinAmerica and the Caribbean. Venezuela has raised the standard ofliving for all its citizens, and created the most egalitarian society inthe continent.Maybe these are reasons why Obama perceives Venezuela as athreat. The threat that another world IS possible, not the one basedon the rule of of the 1%, but a world based on respect for thedignity and sovereignty of each nation and individual, the collectiveuse of national resources to improve the quality of the lives of allcitizens, and participative democracy.Come to Venezuela to find out if Venezuela is a threat, aninspiration, or something in between. Join Venezuelans incelebrating their Independence Day on July 5th as they remindthe US government that they will continue to choose the leadersand system that works for them.Meet the people of the Bolivarian Revolution, officials of thenational and communal governments, judiciary and electoralsystem. Meet the press. Tell them that Obama’s decree does notrepresent you! Meet with members of the opposition. See what themedia actually is saying. Is there censorship? Are people goinghungry, losing social security benefits?

Delegation feeDelegation feeDelegation feeDelegation feeDelegation fee: is $1000 plus required visa from a Venezuelan consulate. For additional information, contactDale Sorensen, 415/924-3227, [email protected] or Teri Mattson, 415/259-9626,[email protected].

4-Day Sanare Extension $250 additional to visit Lisa Sullivan’s retreat center and surrounding area.

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