Stella Calloni
In its plan to colonially control Latin America, the United States openly intervenes in the elections of the region through the Organization of American States (OAS) whose Secretary General Luis Almagro, who was at the head of the coup in Bolivia against President Evo Morales manipulating the results of the elections of October 2019, also acted in the elections of Ecuador, as he did in Peru and Mexico.
The whole range of covert intelligence agencies, Foundations and NGOs, that the US administrations have planted in our region, are in charge of the tasks of infiltration of various sectors, the receipt and distribution of money for the co-optation and purchase of politicians of center and right -including some wrongly called leftists- building alliances, under the advice of USAID (Agency for International Development) or the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, among other missions, works to prevent the emergence of popular governments that are not willing to accept the colonial submission of the empire and to destabilize countries through the political management of these coalitions.
In addition, in some countries with strong indigenous communities, they infiltrate or try to do so, as they did in Bolivia or Ecuador, trying to create their own indigenous candidates, to divide and gain followers.
In all the coups of various characteristics that have taken place in Latin America so far this century, both entities have played a key role, as demonstrated after the coup of April 2002 in Venezuela, which lasted little more than 48 hours, defeated by the people in the streets and the nascent patriotic armed forces. Investigations have documented where the millions of dollars from the U.S. went.
In Bolivia, it was also demonstrated in the 2008 coup attempt, in both cases with documentation that revealed to which parties and movements, newspaper companies and journalists the funds that arrived via USAID or NED were directed.
We are currently witnessing US interference in the elections in Peru and Mexico, at a time when the US media revealed to which groups and foundations the money destined for the coup against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in 2018 was sent, something that was previously known by revelations of US officials, but that never appears as information in the hegemonic media.
The fact is that management of the mass media, and the infiltration of the judicial structures – and within this a number of National Electoral Councils – other institutions and the security forces and armies, are part of the scheme of the counterinsurgency war that has its headquarters in the US Southern Command and the Pentagon and is applied with different characteristics in all the countries of Our America.
The lack of follow-up of U.S. plans towards our region, weakens the political leaderships in this historical period, especially after former President Donald Trump warned in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2018 that “here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the intrusion of expansionist foreign powers”, recalling that “it has been the formal policy of our country since President (James) Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs”, he added.
In this way, the doctrine presented by President James Monroe in 1823 against European colonialism in our region, summarized in that unforgettable phrase “America for the Americans”, or South America for the North Americans, was revived, establishing that this vast territory from the Rio Grande to the southern tip of the continent should remain under their dominion and that no other power would be allowed to compete with them.
This warning that was also mentioned by Secretary of State John Kerry at the end of the administration of Barack Obama as the return of the Monroe Doctrine concerning the “backyard” (our great homeland), did not even elicit a reaction in our countries.
Even less so when the “axis of evil” was drawn up (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua) under blockades, threats, coup attempts and invasions, which according to Washington’s cynical argument “threaten” U.S. security.
Inadmissible at this stage of the 21st century and even less so after the Covid 19 pandemic dropped all the masks of a savage capitalism in decay. Be that as it may, in the face of what has been experienced in the region since the beginning of the 21st century, when, as a product of the great anti-neoliberal rebellion of the Latin American peoples, a series of governments emerged that converged in the creation of integration institutions, producing in principle the rescue of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), which went from being only a customs issue to a political, economic and cultural project that went beyond.
From there, progress was made towards the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and, on the other hand, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), focused on the fight against poverty and the dramatic social exclusion in an attempt to create mechanisms to confront the asymmetries existing in the region.
From there, the way was open to create the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC), a unity in diversity that was formed in Caracas, Venezuela, in November 2011.
It was too much for the imperial power and its plans to advance in a kind of global governance towards the whole world, frustrated by the emergence of powers such as China, the Russian Federation and a whole emerging movement in other countries, which put an end to unilateralism and turned the “American” dream of bringing the world to its feet 180 degrees.
It was a matter of rapidly advancing the geostrategic project of recolonizing Latin America, returning to the coup d’états in the 21st century, within its project of colonially controlling the region, by means of the strengthened counterinsurgency tactics with the revolution of the new technologies.
In reality, the imposition of the coup perpetrators through strictly monitored elections, to prevent the return of popular governments, as in the cases of Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, using various counterinsurgency strategies and tactics, provoked with the passage of time and the obvious violations of human rights and the rights of the peoples, popular uprisings in various countries of the region, of an uncontrollable magnitude.
The Secretary General of the OAS, the Uruguayan Luis Almagro, has served as a diplomatic battering ram lacking all ethics and commitment to the self-determination of peoples, always pushing the neocolonial agenda ordered by the State Department.
For the U.S. government it was urgent to return with everything, trying to put out the fires and place the electoral processes under its control, while advancing militarily and unleashing economic and media wars that are already impotent on several fronts to control the region.
Since its creation in 1948 in Bogota, Colombia, coinciding with the assassination of the popular Colombian leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, carried out by the CIA, the Organization of American States (OAS) was considered a “ministry of colonies” and played that role in different periods of the history of the continent.
Now it is no longer disguised. Its Secretary General Luis Almagro deployed as a detonator – as was seen leading the coup against the government of Bolivia in 2019 – made it evident that the government of the United States, faced with undeniable imperial decline, hastened their advance over a Latin America that they urgently “need” to control, in view of the new world scenario.
Controlling the elections led the OAS to surround itself with “electoral observers” sought among the right-wing parties and alliances, which throughout the continent today depend on the money and advice of Foundations such as the NED.
The NED was created during the ultra-conservative government of Ronald Reagan in 1983, as a cover for the CIA and other intelligence agencies and to prevent money and orders coming directly from embassies and intelligence agents, which were exposed with the debate in the US Congress in 1975 for the involvement of the “agency” in the brutal coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile.
Since the partisan alliance created in Nicaragua after a terrorist war against the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) that liberated that country on July 19, 1979, initiating a revolutionary process, Washington was dedicated to form similar coalitions such as the one formed in Panama by the Cruzada Civilista, which then President George Bush Sr. used to destabilize the government and invade that small Central American country on December 20, 1989.
They slaughtered thousands of people and destroyed a country of a little more than two million inhabitants. It is worth mentioning that the “invaders” launched their planes from the Southern Command that divided Panama into two parts and whose role in the region was understood by Latin Americans in the torture chambers of our countries subjected to brutal dictatorships in the 70s and 80s and in the crimes against humanity, including forced disappearances.
All these episodes seem very distant, but it is impossible to ignore them because each of these elements was used for their recolonizing project of our region in this 21st century. Today we are living under a counterinsurgency war that has characteristics defined by the Pentagon according to the reality of our countries, now under severe crisis and chaos due to the Covid 19 pandemic with consequences that we must analyze exhaustively if we are to anticipate the events and not find ourselves politically defenseless.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 