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Latin America

200 Years Of The Monroe Doctrine

December 2, 2023 marked two hundred years since U.S. President James Monroe’s address to Congress, which came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. It has become a household name for U.S. foreign policy over the past several centuries and will likely continue to be used indefinitely into the future. Although it was periodically supplemented by other doctrines and concepts. However, it was under James Monroe when it was categorically stated “America for the Americans”, and the European powers had no business there, even though they had overseas possessions.

ExxonMobil Wants To Start A War In Latin America

On December 3, 2023, a large number of registered voters in Venezuela voted in a referendum over the Essequibo region that is disputed with neighboring Guyana. Nearly all those who voted answered yes to the five questions. These questions asked the Venezuelan people to affirm the sovereignty of their country over Essequibo. “Today,” said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, “there are no winners or losers.” The only winner, he said, is Venezuela’s sovereignty. The principal loser, Maduro said, is ExxonMobil. In 2022, ExxonMobil made a profit of $55.7 billion, making it one of the world’s richest and most powerful oil companies.

Activists Hold Mock Funeral On UVA Grounds For Monroe Doctrine

It was 200 years ago that President James Monroe delivered a speech that would later become the framework for the Monroe Doctrine. Activists around the world are now trying to bury the document. Some of those activists met on UVA Grounds Saturday, December 2, for a mock funeral service to put the doctrine and its ideals to rest. “This idea that somebody doing something the U.S. government doesn’t like thousands of miles away is a threat to U.S safety? That means you can go and attack Iraq and call it defensive, and this has been done for 200 years,” World Beyond War Director David Swanson said.

New Mood In The World Will Put An End To The Global Monroe Doctrine

Every day since 7 October has felt like an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, with hundreds of thousands gathering in Istanbul, a million in Jakarta, and then yet another million across Africa and Latin America to demand an end to the brutal attack being carried out by Israel (with the collusion of the United States). It is impossible to keep up with the scale and frequency of the protests, which are in turn pushing political parties and governments to clarify their stances on Israel’s attack on Palestine. These mass demonstrations have generated three kinds of outcomes.

Latin America Is Leading The Way In Standing Up To Israel

As anger increases in the United States, Canada, and Europe over their leaders’ refusal to take a firm stand against the ongoing Israeli atrocities against Gaza, it is Latin America that is leading the way. On October 31, Bolivia announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with Israel — the first country in the Americas to do so since the beginning of the “al-Aqsa Flood” some three weeks before. In a statement, the nation’s foreign ministry explained that this was “in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive occurring in the Gaza Strip, which threatens international peace and security.” Announcing the decision before the General Assembly of the United Nations, its spokesperson added that Israel is a state “that is disrespectful of lives, of peoples, of international and humanitarian law.”

Intimate Embrace Between Liberalism And The Far Right

One of the curiosities of our time is that the far right is quite comfortable with the established institutions of liberal democracy. There are instances here and there of disgruntled political leaders who refuse to accept their defeat at the ballot box (such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro) and then call upon their supporters to take extra-parliamentary action (as on 6 January 2021 in the United States and, in a farcical repetition, on 8 January 2023 in Brazil). But, by and large, the far right knows that it can attain what it wants through the institutions of liberal democracy, which are not hostile to its programmes.

Provocations By US State Department Chill Press Freedom In Latin America

The headline is provocative: “The Kremlin’s Efforts to Covertly Spread Disinformation in Latin America.” This was a statement on the US State Department website, posted on November 7, 2023. The United States government accused two companies—Social Design Agency and Structura National Technologies—of being the main agents of what it alleged is Russian-backed disinformation. The statement named the heads of both of the firms, Ilya Gambashidze of Social Design Agency and Nikolay Tupkin of Structura. On July 28, 2023, the European Union sanctioned several Russian individuals and firms, including SDA and Structura.

Why Africans / Black Folks Should Oppose Zionism

Political Zionism is a racist ethno-nationalist imperialist ideology and movement founded in the late 19th century that mis-uses Judaism to justify the settler colonial occupation of Palestinian land as a state reserved only for Jews.[1] Christian Zionism, which actually preceded political zionism, is the belief that the biblical land of Israel should be controlled by Jews thereby ensuring the second return of Jesus which will bring salvation to Christians.[2] Zionism in Africa long preceded the founding of Israel, and the relationship goes back to at least the South African Zionist federation founded in 1898[3].  The Zionist movement considered east African countries for resettling Jews before agreeing on Palestine.

Bolivia Severs Ties With Israel Over Crimes Against Humanity

Bolivia becomes first Latin American country to cut ties with Israel since October 7

Latin America Meets To End US Hostile Policies That Drive Migration

Migration is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, the world’s population has moved from one place to another with a common motivation: the search for a better future. However, in recent decades, the numbers have soared dramatically and dangerously, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of opportunity, poverty, violence, climate change, and, especially, the rise of unilateral sanctions by great powers against their “rival” nations, which are almost always at an economic disadvantage. Dialogue on this issue cannot be postponed. The humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border is growing by the day.

Humor In The Headlines Over China In Latin America

In a break from its hysterical coverage of the existential threat posed by Donald Trump, the Washington Post – house organ of the Democratic National Committee – cautions us of the other menace, China. “When the leader of this impoverished Central American country visited Beijing in June,” we are warned, “China laid out the warmest of welcomes.” Apparently in a grave threat to US national security, the president of Honduras attended a state banquet and actually ate Chinse food. What next for the country the Post affectionately describes as “long among the most docile of US regional partners”?

‘Silent Coup’: How Capitalism Defeated Decolonization

The 20th Century saw a great global uprising against European imperialism as the former colonial countries shook off their shackles and rose up for independence. More than a half century later, global inequality is sharper than ever before. To understand the current predicament of the vast majority of the world’s people, we must understand the intervening decades. Matt Kennard and Claire Provost‘s book, Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy, looks inside the international architecture of global corporate governance that exists to flout and crush any attempts by the former colonial world to enact development on their own terms. Matt Kennard joins The Chris Hedges Report for a look at this intriguing and essential history.

Latin America’s Progressive Bloc Lines Up Against Washington Sanctions

The shift to the left that is currently taking place in Latin American governments could be felt in the presidential speeches at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UN), which is being held this week. These governments were particularly unified in their disagreement with the application of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba. There was also a consensus among them to protest the inclusion of Cuba in the “list of countries sponsoring terrorism” maintained by the U.S. Government. Since the inauguration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, criticism of these policies has become common in this type of forum.

Imperialism Has Nothing To Offer Us, Only Threats

The event, which has brought together over 230 representatives of social movements, trade unions, and left parties from 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, takes place amid tectonic geopolitical shifts. In the last year, tensions between imperialist powers of the Global North and emerging Global South economies have intensified significantly. This was evident in the context of the recent BRICS Summit, which was met with significant skepticism and alarm from Washington and the European Union, which continue their campaign of aggression and encirclement against Russia and China, and all those that work with them.

Poorer Nations Break The Cycle Of Dependency That Has Inflicted Grief

In late July, I visited two settlements of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) on the outskirts of São Paulo (Brazil). Both settlements are named for brave women, the Brazilian lawmaker Marielle Franco – who was assassinated in 2018 – and Irmã Alberta – an Italian Catholic nun who died in 2018. The lands where the MST has built the Marielle Vive camp and the Irmã Alberta Land Commune were slated for a gated community with a golf course, and a garbage dump, respectively. Based on the social obligations for land use in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, the MST mobilised landless workers to occupy these areas, build their own homes, schoolhouses and community kitchens, and grow organic food.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.