Ecuador
Marco Teruggi: Ecuador Elections: State of Emergency in the Aorta of Latin America A review of how the Lenin Moreno government is trying to disrupt an Arauz win; also going into anti-Correa attacks taken by Lenin Morena since his 2017 victory. Correa movement relations with the indigenous movement, Conaie, as well as progressive social movements.
Ecuador emerges on the continental map with the possibility of a new progressive government. It could be the fourth victory in three years: the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, the Argentine Alberto Fernández in 2019, and the Bolivian Luis Arce in 2020.
Peoples Dispatch:Rising tensions ahead of second round elections in Ecuador The lead up to the second round elections in Ecuador have been marked by misinformation campaigns, a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and fears of manipulation and fraud. Fortunately the leader of CONAIE is supporting Arauz’ candidacy. Also is another indigenous organization FENOCIN. The announcement was widely celebrated as an important step in building working-class unity and unity across sectors behind the UNES project against banker Guillermo Lasso.
Venezuela
Adán Chávez Frías: Peoples of the World, Unite! or How Preparations are Advancing for the Bicentennial Congress of the Peoples of the World A set of preparatory meetings for the Bicentennial Congress of the Peoples of the World were held to commemorate the 200 years of the Battle of Carabobo, in the coming month of June. During the Congress, we will be able to interact with personalities and representatives of political, parliamentary, indigenous, peasant, working class, youth, student, and women’s organizations, as well as communicators from around the world, including members of the Afro-descendant movement, for housing and sex-diversity, among other instances of popular power. Carabobo summons us again and the Venezuelan people are ready, as they were on June 24, 1821, to relive this heroic feat, of which we are celebrating the bicentennial this year. We also celebrate the popular victory of April 13, 2002 over the opposition coup and the epic of May 2020, in the small fishing port of Chuao.
Webinar April 15: Armed Conflict on the Venezuela-Colombia Border: The Battle of Apure José María Romero, known as “Chema” is the mayor of the Páez municipality, Apure state, and a central figure in this new battle in defense of the Bolivarian revolution. He will be talking with us about the events that have occurred in recent weeks on the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
Resumen: Tension and Mendacity Surround the Colombia-Venezuela Border Conflict For the last two weeks, Colombia’s drug trafficking and paramilitary groups have been engaging in border incursions into Venezuela. The rising tensions in the state of Apure, which borders Colombia´s Arauca department, are making headlines in local and international media. A group of armed Colombians have set up clandestine camps with the intent to further penetrate Venezuela in the hopes of generating chaos and violence.
Venezuela has declared a state of alarm, and it has reinforced its military presence in over 700 of the 2,200-kilometers-long border with Colombia. Members of the National Armed Forces (FANB) and the Navy have joined efforts to put an end to the conflict that has caused the death of at least eight Venezuelan soldiers.
Orinoco Tribune: This is How the Venezuelan Army Dialogues Face-to-Face with those Returning to Apure from Colombia Faced with the media attacks that have generated fear and anxiety in the populations of Apure state, on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) has held people’s assemblies with the returnees. The intention is not only to accompany them after what they have experienced after fleeing the violence of Colombian paramilitary groups, but to clarify that the military body is positioned as a guarantor of the comprehensive protection of the inhabitants, and not the other way around.
Venezuelanalysis videos: The Che Guevara Commune (Part 1) (Part 2)
Orinoco Tribune: Venezuela Receives 13th Shipment of Medical Supplies from China This included China’s donation of 500,000 doses of its Sinopharm vaccine. The government has also spent US $200 million on 10 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
Pasqualina Curcio: Global Proposal Against the Economic Blockade When food company “X” from, for example, Mexico wants to trade with company “Y” from Venezuela (a sanctioned country), the US government, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sends a little message and says: “if you sell food to Venezuela, we will freeze all the bank accounts you have in the world financial system. Therefore, if Venezuelan company “Y” pays you for the food, you will not be able to dispose of that money, nor the money already in your accounts. Don’t even bother to transfer it to another bank account because we will block it as well. Oh, and if you put it in the name of another person or company, we will block that one too.”
The US government can block financial resources because it is the owner of the purse strings of all financial transactions made in dollars in the world. Through the Swift (global payment clearing system) the US has the power to decide what financial transactions are made, when and under what conditions. With that power it instills fear, threatens, blackmails, “sanctions” and blockade.
Nicaragua
AFGJ: Urgent Action to Stop More Illegal Sanctions Against Nicaragua! Send a letter to your Congressperson: U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would apply more sanctions against Nicaragua on top of those in the 2018 Nica Act. Menendez is joined by Senate co-sponsors Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), The bill includes various aspects; but the most harmful to the population, especially in time of pandemic, is that it would make it even harder for Nicaragua to get development assistance.
FAIR: With Nicaragua, Scary Covid Projections Are More Newsworthy Than Hopeful Results When, as the death toll in other countries grew alarmingly, Nicaragua “flattened the curve” of virus cases more quickly than its neighbors, its apparent success was ignored. Despite the importance of identifying how poorer countries can contain the virus effectively, measures used by Nicaragua remain uninvestigated by the international media. All the neighboring countries used the pandemic to become more authoritarian, provoking demonstrations often violently repressed by the police; Nicaragua’s measures were all advisory, not compulsory.
Recent and Upcoming Webinars and Events
webinar video: The Human Cost of Sanctions on Venezuela UN Special Rapporteur, Alena Douhan, who found sanctions against Venezuela had an “enormous impact over all categories of human rights, including the rights to life, to food, to health and to development”, and urged the countries to end sanctions. Also Don Davies, Member of Canadian Parliament.
Webinar video: Ecuador’s Presidential Election: Socialists Set for Victory – Democracy Under Attack Organised by Friends of Ecuador and Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America
April 9: US/Canada Hands Off Venezuela!
April 11: Why there are no George Floyds in Cuba
April 13: Venezuela-US Relations, with Carlos Ron, Maria Paez Victor
April 13: Perspectives from Havana in a Year of Covid and Embargo – A Series of Weekly Conversations Like the rest of the world, Cuba have just completed the first full year of Covid 19. It has done so with the full force of the U.S. embargo on its neck. From the Perspective of an Economist – Estéban Morales. Following in the series: Apr 20, Apr 27, May 4, May 11
April 15: Armed Conflict on the Venezuela-Colombia Border: The Battle of Apure José María Romero, known as “Chema” is the mayor of the Páez municipality, Apure state, and a central figure in this new battle in defense of the Bolivarian revolution. He will be talking with us about the events that have occurred in recent weeks on the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
April 19: Bolivia – People Power, Hope & Solidarity Ollie Vargas, Jeremy Corbyn, Miriam Colque (Bolivian activist in London), Alex Main
April 22: Confronting Covid-19 Cuba’s Approach to Healthcare to All Helen Yaffe and Valia Rodriguez, producers of the film “Cuba and COVID-19,” for a transnational conversation on how Cuba is defeating this deadly coronavirus. Cuba spends only 4% of the dollars per patient as the US health system. Yet the Covid-19 case rate is 50+ times higher in the U.S. than in Cuba, and the death rate is 85+ times higher. What lessons can we in the U.S. learn from Cuba’s remarkable system of health care for all?
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