Humanitarian Aid

As the United States and its allies put pressure on Venezuela, a poem by the Salvadoran radical Roque Dalton (1935-1975) clarifies the structure of politics in Latin America. Dalton came from one of Latin America’s smallest countries, El Salvador, which he used to call the little finger (pulgarcito). A deeply compassionate poet, Dalton was also a militant of the People’s Revolutionary Army, whose internal struggles claimed his short life. El Salvador, like so many other Latin American states, struggles to carve out its sovereignty from the tentacles of U.S. power.

The first trucks carrying the so called humanitarian aid for Venezuela have arrived at the Colombian border city of Cúcuta where a standoff is taking place. Together the European Union and the United States plan to send $60 million in aid, despite the fact that the Venezuelan government is demanding the return of more than $23 billion dollars frozen in accounts being held in the U.S., Canada and Europe that they consider stolen from their  public treasury; money that could have been spent on the necessary import of food and medicine for the benefit of the entire population.