América Latina & Caribe

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52622

Javier Milei’s government took office in December 2023 with a strong rhetoric about the need to expand freedom. However, rather than expanding it, his economic policy reduces it. Neoliberal policy advocates a model of free enterprise, free trade, and free movement of capital that favors the extraction of national surplus toward core countries, limiting the possibilities for local development and reinforcing the conditions of societal impoverishment.

Tricontinental’s Political Economy Substack, The Financial Leash, analyzes the mechanism by which the capitalist system deepens the dependence of peripheral countries through the global financial system, describing the channels through which a country’s surplus is applied (productive investment) and through which it flows out of the country. The latest balance of payments report from the BCRA (Central Bank of Argentina) shows how this dynamic has intensified in Argentina under the current government.

Record outflow of profits and dividends

One of the channels for surplus extraction is financial rent sent abroad: interest on external debt plus profits and dividends repatriated from foreign direct investment. In Argentina, this channel was partially closed for years due to exchange controls.

BCRACommunication A 8226, published in April 2025 as part of Phase 3 of the economic program, blew it wide open: it authorized access to the free exchange market for the payment of dividends to non-resident shareholders.

Data from the balance of payments clearly shows the effect. Between December 2023 and December 2024, outflows for profits and dividends averaged just USD 24 million per month: a reflection of the fact that access to the foreign exchange market was restricted. In the first quarter of 2026, that average reached USD 333 million. And in March 2026, it was USD 882 million – the highest level recorded since 2010, equivalent to approximately 30 months’ worth of profit and dividend outflows under the previous system.

During March, the Energy sector (primarily the oil industry) was the month’s main beneficiary, with USD 460 million in profit outflows, followed by Base Metals and Manufacturing (USD 132 million) and Food, Beverages, and Tobacco (USD 106 million). These are not marginal companies: they are the most dynamic sectors of Argentina’s real economy and the ones on which the current economic model relies exclusively. Liberalization opened the possibility for them to take out of the country the profits generated during years of controls, and they did so on a massive scale.

Interest payments on the debt, though less spectacular in relative terms, remain structurally enormous.

In the first quarter of 2026, they totaled USD 4.07 billion.

The externalization of savings

The third channel is the accumulation of foreign assets by the non-financial private sector: what the BCRA currently refers to as purchases of banknotes and foreign currency for non-specific purposes. The numbers tell a story of fluctuating control policies. Between November 2019 and November 2023, following the reimposition of controls that the Mauricio Macri administration had previously liberalized, the non-financial private sector purchased a total of USD 5.5 billion. During 2024, however, with exchange controls in place and the adjustment underway, the sector was a net seller of dollars as a result of de-saving.

Following the lifting of foreign exchange restrictions for individuals and companies – with no limits on amount or destination – the flow reversed dramatically: between April and December 2025, foreign currency purchases reached USD 32.8 billion, with a sharp increase in September and October due to the approaching elections. In the first quarter of 2026, this amount reached USD 6.643 billion, surpassing the cumulative total for the entire previous administration.

The BCRA report estimates that in March, part of that demand went toward current consumption via credit cards and tourism, and about USD 600 million was deposited in local banks in foreign currency. But the scale of the phenomenon, and its abrupt surge following liberalization, is difficult to attribute exclusively to consumption. What the data show is an accelerated dollarization of savings. With the Argentine peso at the bottom of the international monetary hierarchy, dollarization is not an anomaly: it is the most rational strategy for preserving value in a system that structures instability as a permanent condition.

Capital flight: export a lot, accumulate little, and borrow more

The central tension of the model is exposed in a single comparison: since December 2023, Argentina has generated a trade surplus of USD 47 billion, net investments of USD 650 million, and received external financing (IMF, international organizations, and private loans) totaling another USD 46 billion. However, the increase in reserves – that is, revenue from debt issuance and corresponding principal payments to the national government – amounted to only USD 14.7 billion. The difference, approximately USD 78 billion, was absorbed by net interest payments (USD 25.3 billion), the net outflow of profits and dividends (USD 1.6 billion), net foreign exchange purchases by the private sector (USD 36.3 billion), and other public and financial sector operations (USD 14.2 billion).

It is noteworthy that total foreign investment received during the period does not offset the remittance of profits and dividends.

As mentioned in the Tricontinental article, the mechanism is self-reinforcing: the country must maintain high interest rates and dollar reserves to sustain the confidence of financial markets, but that very position generates opportunity costs and structural outflows that prevent the real accumulation of reserves and investment in productive sectors and infrastructure. The visible result is a country risk rating of around 500 points – the lowest level since June 2018 – achieved at a high cost: higher debt and a narrower margin for economic independence.

Lucia Converti holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Master’s degree in Latin American Social Studies from the University of Buenos Aires. She also holds a certificate in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence from UNSAM. She has worked as a researcher at various social and geopolitical research institutes. She is currently a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

This article was produced byGlobetrotter.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52224

On May 21, at least 20 people were massacred in the community of Rigores, in the Colón Department of Honduras. The victims were killed on an African palm plantation where they worked.

According to the media, the killings occurred as the workers were preparing to begin their workday and were praying. At that time, several heavily armed men wearing Honduran police uniforms opened fire on the workers.

President Nasry Asfura said in a message: “Tonight I speak to you with sorrow. And before saying anything else, I want to address the families of the victims from the village of Rigores in Colón. There are no words, neither mine nor anyone else’s … This will not be forgotten, and it will not go unpunished.”

The crime, which Asfura described as “yet another wound that Honduras does not deserve,” will be investigated, according to the president, by “the Ministry of Security, the National Police, the Armed Forces, the Police Investigation Directorate (DPI), and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, all of which are working together at every stage of the investigation.”

Who is to blame?

It is still unknown who is behind the massacre. On one hand, the area is located in a region disputed by two rival gangs fighting for control of drug trafficking routes, although many doubt that the massacre was the result of a gang dispute.

The peasants’ struggle to secure a plot of land to farm in that area has been met with a violent response from armed groups. In a statement, the social organization La Vía Campesina, “strongly condemns this brutal act that has shaken the entire country and demonstrates the vulnerability and lack of security in which our peasant communities live.”

According to some reports, nearly 200 people have died in the context of the agrarian conflict in the area.

In the statement, La Vía Campesina also stated: “The lives of young people, children of members of the peasant enterprises of the Rigores Peasant Movement, have been taken. To date, 17 men and 3 women (5 of whom were minors) have been cowardly murdered. The violence cannot continue. Impunity in this country cannot continue.”

Furthermore, it demanded that the state:

• conduct a thorough independent investigation,
• immediately apprehend the perpetrators and masterminds,
• provide security guarantees for the victims’ families and the Rigores community,
• ensure a state presence in the area affected by state-sponsored conflicts,
• suspend legislation that criminalizes defenders of peasant and indigenous territories
• public recognition of the link between land concentration by agribusiness and the violence suffered by rural Honduran populations.

La Vía Campesina’s statement concludes by affirming: “The struggle for land is legitimate. Defending life is not a crime. As long as agribusiness continues to be valued more than the peasantry, we will remain standing, organized. Justice for the victims of Rigores! The land belongs to those who work it! The peasant struggle does not stop!”

Unstoppable violence

Hours after the massacre of farmers, five police officers were killed in Corinto, in the Department of Cortés, near the border with Guatemala. Two suspected criminals were killed in the clash, according to Edgardo Barahona, spokesperson for the Honduran Ministry of National Security.

The incident occurred during a raid carried out by the Anti-Maras, Gangs, and Organized Crime Police Directorate (DIPAMPCO) in the community of Corinto, which was seeking to locate the leader of a criminal gang involved in drug trafficking in the area. When the police entered, they found themselves outnumbered, so they were captured and then executed. The bodies were found on a nearby road.

The raid was widely criticized due to the lack of intelligence prior to the operation, which forced the ministry to suspend the Director, Deputy Director, and Chief of Operations of DIPAMCO to investigate them regarding the events.

Honduras is a country with a high rate of violence. The recently inaugurated president based a significant portion of his campaign platform on his pledge to drastically reduce violence in the country, which currently stands at a rate of 23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants; however, for now it appears that violence continues to prevail in the Central American nation.

The post At least 20 farmers massacred in Honduras appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52073

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, who is facing calls for his resignation as Indigenous and labor organizers lead protests across the country, could declare a "state of exception"—described by local reporters as "essentially martial law"—as soon as Monday night after the country's Senate overwhelmingly voted to overturn a law regulating the government's ability to crack down on protests.

According to Bolivian reports, the Chamber of Senators on Sunday overturned Law 1341, which since 2020 had imposed strict time limits on emergency measures, ensured certain violable rights could not be suspended under a state of exception, required legislative oversight, and made the president criminally liable for exceeding the law's perimeters.

"Abrogating Law 1341 does not remove the state of exception from Bolivia’s legal architecture," according to The Rio Times. "It removes the apparatus that prevented that constitutional clause from being exercised at the executive’s sole discretion."

Joseph Bouchard, who has reported for Drop Site News and The Intercept from Latin America, said far-right groups linked to the 2019 coup in Bolivia have demanded "a return to martial law, to use lethal force against opposition with impunity, and crack down on opposition as much as possible."

"Many of these groups are openly fascist and white supremacist," said Bouchard.

The law was overturned about three weeks into nationwide protests against Paz, who took office about six months ago. Protesters allied with former President Evo Morales have expressed anger over the administration's decision to end a fuel subsidy that was essential for working people amid an economic crisis. The demonstrators—comprised of a broad coalition which includes Indigenous groups, labor unions, and farmworkers—have demanded higher wages and an end to privatization and the broader neoliberal project under Paz.

The protests have been met with a crackdown by police, in La Paz and at the sites of dozens of road blockades around the country.

Last week, the country's public prosecutor issued arrest warrants for at least two organizers, including Mario Argollo, executive secretary of the top Bolivian labor union, Central Obrera Boliviana (COB).

On Monday, TeleSUR reported that COB refused to engage in talks with Paz's government until the charges against Argollo are dropped.

Bouchard reported that if Paz's government implements a state of exception, "the measures would mean security forces could arrest anyone, for any reason, and use extraordinary measures against all opposition."

The overturning of Law 1341 struck down limits on "the use of lethal force by the security forces," he said.

Only three senators aligned with Vice President Edmand Lara voted against repealing the law.

According to The Rio Times, Lara "has been politically distancing himself from Paz almost since inauguration."

"No measure can stand above human life," said Lara, expressing "profound concern and indignation" over the Senate vote.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51959

Caracas, May 24, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan grassroots organizations took to the streets on Saturday to protest the US holding “rapid response” military drills in Caracas.

Dozens of activists from multiple collectives belonging to the ALBA Movimientos coalition gathered in the morning in front of the Indigenous Resistance monument in Plaza Venezuela and read a statement expressing “outrage” at the US holding an exercise in Caracas less than five months after its January 3 bombings and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

“As Venezuelan popular organizations, 141 days since the brutal US military attack and kidnapping of President Maduro and Deputy Cilia Flores, […] we repudiate yankee militarist imperialism and are outraged that the US is executing military exercises in our country,” the organizations expressed.

Speakers, including National Assembly deputies Rigel Sergent and Oliver Rivas, condemned the US-Israel war against Iran and the growing threats against Cuba while reiterating support for the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Also on Saturday, several leftist organizations held a rally in Chacaíto to protest the violation of the country’s sovereignty and denounce the Venezuelan government’s accommodation of US impositions.

“This exercise is extremely serious because it makes concepts like sovereignty appear hollow for younger generations,” trade unionist Adelmo Becerra told those present. “Our challenge is to maintain the idea of sovereignty alive in collective memory.”

Demonstrators painted posters reading “Yankee go home!” and chanted slogans such as “We refuse to be a US colony!” Participating organizations included the Communist Party (PCV), Corriente Comunes, and the Socialist Workers’ League (LTS).

A third rally, called by members of the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), took place in Plaza Bolívar, with participants shouting anti-imperialist slogans and burning posters of US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

On Saturday morning, US forces flew two Osprey MV-22B aircraft over Caracas before landing near the embassy compound in the southeast of the capital. The tiltrotor transport aircraft took off from the USS Iwo Jima, one of the warships that participated in the January 3 attacks and where Maduro and Flores were airlifted to after being kidnapped by US special forces.

“Ensuring the military’s rapid response capability is a key component of mission readiness, both here in Venezuela and around the world,” a social media statement from the US embassy read.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander General Francis Donovan oversaw the military drills and visited Caracas for a second time. He flew in on an Osprey alongside a marine contingent.

According to US officials, Donovan met with “senior” Venezuelan government leaders at the embassy. At the time of writing, there is no public information on which officials were present. Donovan’s previous visit in February saw him hold talks with Rodríguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and then-Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

In a statement, SOUTHCOM reiterated US forces’ commitment to the Trump administration’s “three-phase plan,” which ends with a political “transition.”

For its part, the Venezuelan government did not comment on the US military drills. Caracas issued a statement on Thursday announcing that it had authorized “evacuation exercises” for eventual “medical emergencies and catastrophic events.” Foreign Minister Yván Gil read the communiqué in a video published through official social media channels.

However, amid fierce public backlash, Venezuelan authorities deleted the statement and video from all accounts. A similar incident occurred in late February when the Foreign Ministry published a statement that criticized Iran’s response to the US-Israeli aggression and then withdrew it following outcry from grassroots and solidarity movements.

On Saturday night, the Communications Ministry posted a video stressing the importance of “controlling emotions and waiting for the right moment.” Though making no reference to the US exercises, it stressed that the priority is safeguarding “the existence and the security of the state.”

Since the January strikes, the Trump White House has exacted major concessions from the acting Rodríguez administration, including taking control of Venezuelan oil revenues, auditing its Central Bank, pushing pro-business legislative reforms, and securing the handover of former diplomatic envoy Alex Saab to face money laundering charges in Florida.

Saturday’s military exercises also elicited strong anti-US reactions on social media from Chavista and opposition figures alike. Writer José Roberto Duque, a staunch government supporter, urged people to paint patriotic murals and express their repudiation of “imperialist arrogance.”

Claudio Fermín, a longtime opposition politician, expressed his “outrage” in a social media message, comparing US forces to “cats marking their territory.” Jesús “Chuo” Torrealba, former secretary-general of the opposition MUD coalition, argued that the US actions appeared to be a “demonstration of military prowess.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

The post Venezuela: Popular Movements Protest US Military Drills in Caracas appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51893

Statement by the Communist Party of Venezuela on U.S. Air Military Maneuvers over Caracas and the Deepening of Imperialist Tutelage:

"The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), elected at its 16th National Congress (November 2022), categorically rejects the U.S. military air maneuvers scheduled to take place over Caracas on Saturday, May 23.

These military operations represent a dangerous escalation of imperialist interference in Venezuela and a direct affront to national sovereignty. 

At a time when the country is already suffering the consequences of growing foreign domination and political subordination to U.S. interests, the presence of American military aircraft over the Venezuelan capital constitutes an unacceptable act of intimidation and provocation.

The PCV warns that these maneuvers are taking place amid the deepening of policies aimed at favoring transnational capital through the handover of strategic energy and mineral resources, the flexibilization of labor rights, administrative opacity and increasing restrictions on democratic freedoms. According to the Party, the current situation reflects an intensification of imperialist tutelage over Venezuela under the guise of “stabilization” and “security cooperation.”

The Party stresses that the Venezuelan people must reject all forms of foreign military interference and defend the country’s sovereignty, democratic rights and national independence against imperialist aggression.

The PCV also denounces the role of both domestic and international political sectors that seek to normalize the growing U.S. military and political presence in Venezuela, warning that such developments threaten to further undermine the country’s sovereignty and deepen the crisis affecting working people.

Reaffirming its anti-imperialist position, the Communist Party of Venezuela calls on workers, peasants, youth and popular sectors to remain vigilant and organized against foreign intervention, militarization and all attempts to subordinate Venezuela to the strategic interests of U.S. imperialism."

 IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©      

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51876

In Bolivia, the working masses are continuing to mobilize against the government of Rodrigo Paz. Roadblocks are intensifying, and new social sectors are joining the conflict. Amid this intensification, President Paz addressed the nation in a press conference on Wednesday, May 20.

The president adopted a conciliatory tone toward the mobilized sectors, whom he had referred to as “hitmen” just a few days earlier. He hinted that there was a possibility of lifting the arrest warrants against dozens of union leaders, including Mario Argollo, the executive secretary of the COB, the largest trade union federation in Bolivia. Paz also said it was impossible to uphold the so-called “Anti-Blockade Law,” spoke of a cabinet reshuffle, and reinforced his calls for dialogue.

He also hinted that the government was already in negotiations with COB leaders who, notably, had disappeared from the streets despite having announced a miners’ mobilization for last Wednesday.

While we categorically reject this government’s repression, persecution, and criminalization of the leadership of various sectors, we note that the COB leadership, by completely disappearing from the streets and following the executive’s statements, raises serious suspicion that these bureaucrats are negotiating behind the backs of the mobilized rank and file. If confirmed, this would mean the leadership is flagrantly ignoring the resolutions of hundreds of union, peasant, neighborhood, student, and community assemblies.

The disappearance of the COB from the streets and of the expected miners’ march from Colquiri raises the alarm about a possible new betrayal and takes us back to January, when Argollo sat down with Paz’s pro-business government to draft a new austerity decree aimed at imposing a gas price hike on working people.

In this new phase of the struggle, beginning with the march of the peasant and Indigenous communities of Pando and Beni, we have been warning against trusting the union bureaucrats. While these individuals employ increasingly radical rhetoric under pressure from the rank and file, in practice they refuse to implement essential measures voted on at the May 1 town hall meeting attended by over 6,000 people, such as the indefinite general strike.

That is why, at every roadblock, in every new effort to set up self-organized blockade committees, there is a growing concern about new leadership and a rejection of leaders who only seek to negotiate and betray the struggle.

We must call for grassroots assemblies to reaffirm the continuity of the plan of struggle, deepening coordination with the sectors determined to continue the fight and confronting the lukewarm and cowardly union leaderships. The hundreds of self-organized protesters at Puente Vela and dozens of blockade points in Senkata and Río Seco are already setting an example of this, as are rural teachers and sectors of urban teachers who, a week ago, rejected the negotiations of their national leaderships.

We urgently call for these assemblies and town hall meetings to be held immediately, denouncing the attempts at negotiation and calling for the strengthening of coordination at the roadblocks and mobilization sites.

We must demand that the indefinite general strike with a work stoppage be put into effect and strengthen unity and solidarity to sustain the struggle.

Immediate freedom and the dropping of charges for all those detained for fighting!

Down with the cowardly union leaders!

No negotiations behind the backs of the rank and file!

For the democratic coordination of all mobilized sectors to prepare for the general strike and the downfall of the corporate and repressive government of Paz and the entire right wing!

Originally published in Spanish on May 21 in La Izquierda Diario.

The post Bolivia: Working People Stay in the Streets to Protest Paz amid Labor Leadership Absence appeared first on Left Voice.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51814

Originally published in Spanish, we present an English translation of an interview with Emilio Albamonte on the prospects of the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) and the socialist Left in Argentina. Albamonte is a leader and founder of the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, today the Permanent Revolution Current – Fourth International, and of Argentina’s Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS, Socialist Workers Party). He is coauthor of the books Socialist Strategy and Military Art and Debates and Foundations on the Struggle for Socialism Today.

You may be interested in: “How to Fight (and Win) against the Right: Lessons from the Workers’ Movement in Milei’s Argentina”

***

How would you characterize the political phenomenon developing around Myriam Bregman and the Left? Why is it happening, and what are its roots in Argentina’s political reality?

The first thing to say is that the phenomenon is not essentially electoral — although several polls give Myriam between 9 and 14 percent voting support as a presidential candidate — but above all one of political sympathy, or what pollsters call “image.”

You may be interested in: “Meet Myriam Bregman, the Revolutionary  Congresswoman in Argentina More Popular Than Milei”

This phenomenon cannot be understood without starting from the class struggle under Milei’s government, which recently included the battle against the labor reform, in the context of which we carried out an enormous agitation campaign, the biggest I can remember of any left-wing organization here outside an electoral period.

The struggle against the reform was an important experience. We could say that the political phenomenon now developing is a political expression of the conclusions that broad sectors of the working class — young people, the feminist movement, as well as sectors of culture and intellectuals — have been drawing from these two years of struggle against this government, during which they saw Myriam and the PTS on the front lines, while much of Peronism and the trade union bureaucracy maintained the balance that allowed Milei to advance.

One of the most commented-on facts was the poll by the Brazilian consulting firm Atlas Intel — the same firm that anticipated Milei’s rise — in which Myriam has a 47 percent approval rating and 46 disapproval rating, making her the only figure in Argentinean politics with a net positive image. She ranks above Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof, former president Cristina Kirchner, Senator and former minister Patricia Bullrich, and President Milei himself. The University of San Andrés poll also places Myriam among the four political leaders with the best image in the country. But it’s not only about the polls, right?

No, what the polls reflect is something we had already been seeing in the streets for quite some time: the sympathy generated by Myriam and Nicolás “Nico” del Caño heading the Workers’ Left Front (FIT-U) tickets. It goes beyond Myriam herself as an individual political figure. She is the main expression of a broader phenomenon. For example, in the University of San Andrés poll you mentioned, Nico appears fifth among opposition political figures with the highest positive image.

What is new here, even though these are “image” measurements, is that this is now a national phenomenon. We had already seen in Jujuy that Alejandro Vilca won 25 percent for national deputy in that province in 2021; later, even though he was not reelected, he maintained a high vote share of around 10 percent.

We should also mention Christian Castillo, Luca Bonfante among the youth, and our comrades who are leaders in their workplaces, universities, and workers’ struggles — all of them are part of the same broader fabric.

We have every right to think that this phenomenon — which is also a continuation of what happened in 2025, when the Buenos Aires Province list headed by Nico won two national deputies and Myriam reached 9 percent in the City of Buenos Aires — will also express itself in the class struggle.

How do you situate this phenomenon in the international context, and how would you define the particularity of the Left in Argentina?

Since the 2008 crisis we have seen political phenomena emerging not only on the right but also on the left, although unfortunately the overwhelming majority ended up being channeled through neoreformism. There is a constant we can observe in the history of the workers’ movement: many times, when it cannot find an outlet through direct action in the class struggle, it expresses itself politically.

For example, at the end of the 19th century, after the defeat of the Paris Commune, the European workers’ movement created the great social-democratic workers’ parties and trade unions. The paradigmatic case was German social democracy, which first developed as an enormous semi-clandestine organization under Bismarck’s “anti-socialist” laws.

Dick Geary, in an interesting book on workers’ and socialist movements in Europe before 1914, explains very well how harsh the struggle against employers at the factory level was — lockouts, factory closures. In that context, political organization also responded to the impossibility of advancing solely through workplace struggles, to the need to fight collectively. It is what Rosa Luxemburg summarized by saying that trade union struggle was a kind of Sisyphean task.

The bourgeois regime’s response to this process of organization — which also had an international extension — was to modify the political structure of state domination. We have studied Antonio Gramsci, among other reasons, because he best analyzed this process. The bourgeoisie created an “expanded state” — what Gramsci calls the integral state, meaning dictatorship plus hegemony — in order to go beyond passively awaiting consent, and developed a whole series of mechanisms to organize it, with the institutionalization of mass organizations and the expansion of bureaucracies within them being one of the fundamental elements, with the dual function of “integration” into the state and fragmentation of the working class. In Argentina this process took place under the first Peronist government.

This is not just history. Over the last decade and a half, we have seen dozens of generalized class struggle processes in different countries, most of which took the form of revolts, as well as processes of political mobilization, especially among the youth (Occupy Wall Street, the indignados in the Spanish State, the Tahrir Square movement in Egypt, etc.).

There is a relationship between these movements and the development of neoreformist political phenomena because, as I said before, when the workers’ and popular movements cannot find an outlet through direct class struggle, this expresses itself as political action. Neoreformism tries precisely to separate politics from class struggle. We saw this with Podemos in the Spanish State, Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, and Syriza in Greece.

Something similar happened here after the December 2001 uprising, when a diversion began with President Duhalde’s mega-devaluation and ended up being capitalized on by Kirchnerism, which incorporated much of the social and human rights movements into the state. It was part of a post-neoliberal cycle that developed across the region from Venezuela to Argentina.

If we take the period from 2008 to today, we see, in the heat of mobilizations and revolts, the emergence of these neoreformist projects or “left populisms” that end up betraying the expectations of the mass movement. Cyclical processes of mobilization and institutionalization emerge, in which the energy unleashed by revolts is dissipated or assimilated by established powers without giving rise to new revolutions.

The particularity of what is happening in Argentina is that it has a Trotskyist Left as its reference point. And this did not emerge out of nowhere. Fifteen years ago, the political Left created the Workers’ Left Front (FIT-U) in Argentina in order to overcome the fragmented stage that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. The FIT-U is an achievement insofar as it established a pole of class independence within the national situation after years marked by the collapse of the MAS (Movement toward Socialism) party in the 1990s.

What is happening today is, in a certain sense, the culmination of a long process. In 2011, the PTS (Socialist Workers Party), the PO (Labor Party), and IS (Socialist Left) formed the Workers’ Left Front with a program culminating in the struggle for a workers’ government (before the PO accepted, we had formed a front with IS and Nuevo MAS). Never before had the Trotskyist Left in Argentina maintained such a continuous presence on the national political scene. But the example of the Workers’ Left Front cannot be understood without its correlation with the class struggle: for example, the major confrontations on the Pan-American Highway, with struggles such as Kraft in 2009 and Donnelley and Lear in 2014 under Kirchnerist governments.

How did the PTS and its leading figures build the political presence they have today? What elements would you highlight?

There are three terrains which for us are interconnected: economic struggle, political struggle, and theoretical struggle — the three levels proposed by Engels.

To begin somewhere, let’s take the moment when the PTS came to lead the FIT-U. In 2015, after the PO refused to accept Nicolás del Caño as Altamira’s vice presidential candidate, we went to primaries and del Caño won those elections. This cannot be understood without taking into account the enormous participation of the PTS in the very hard struggles taking place at that time, around which del Caño emerged as a left-wing leader. Nor can it be understood without the launch and development of La Izquierda Diario as the first digital newspaper of the Left, using all the possibilities offered by the new technologies available at the time.

Specifically, in 2014 there was a wave of conflicts, whose emblem was the Lear struggle, which struck at the heart of the alliance between the trade union bureaucracy and the government. The conflict included 21 blockades of the Pan-American Highway, 16 national days of struggle with pickets throughout the country, five instances of brutal repression by the police, two weeks of employer lockout, and the government organizing the importation of wiring to break the strike. Also in 2014, workers occupied and restarted production at the Donnelley printshop, now Madygraf, following the example of Zanon. That is why we laugh when some ultra-leftists say we are electoralists …

At the same time, in 2014 we launched La Izquierda Diario, establishing the first digital newspaper of the Left in order to have our own voice on the national scene, competing with the bourgeois media. But this was not only a national initiative. We launched it together with our international current, today the Permanent Revolution Current — Fourth International. We built a network of 14 newspapers in seven languages. Unfortunately, to this day, it remains unique among the revolutionary Left internationally.

Let me give some figures our comrades from La Izquierda Diario passed on to me. Today, LID in Argentina alone gets around 1 million page views and more than 500,000 unique users per month. On Instagram, in February for example, it reached more than 3 million followers and achieved 27 million views. On TikTok it has nearly 200,000 followers and more than 5 million likes. On X, nearly 100,000 followers. We also have a radio program, El Círculo Rojo, hosted by Fernando Rosso on a commercial radio station (Radio con Vos), listened to by thousands every week. And for the past two years we have built LID+, with several weekly political and cultural programs, national and international. The LID+ YouTube channel alone had 327,000 views in February of this year.

But it’s not only that. There are also theoretical journals such as Ideas de Izquierda, where all kinds of theoretical questions are discussed and debated, with many intellectuals contributing beyond the PTS itself, and the youth ideological monthly Armas de la Crítica. There is the CEIP León Trotsky, which is a reference point on Trotsky’s work throughout Latin America. We established Ediciones IPS, a publishing house with more than 100 titles, publishing not only Marxist classics but also works on current debates across various subjects — labor history, political theory, ecology, feminism, economics, and philosophy. One of the latest works published is Paula Bach’s book addressing the principal debates around new technologies.

I do not want to go on too long, but the concept I want to stress is that for us, this is not only about political figures, nor only struggle, nor only political agitation, nor only ideological struggle, but all of it together. We reject electoralism, crude trade-unionism, or student politics detached from a broader perspective. The objective is far more ambitious: to educate the workers’ and youth vanguard, to shape the vanguard through revolutionary Marxism.

This is the great task we face, with all the difficulties implied since the fall of the Berlin Wall. For us, it is precisely this work that is beginning to achieve some success and show results now. It is strange that some intellectuals or journalists impressed by the Myriam phenomenon treat it as something new that the Argentinean Left is Trotskyist. This did not fall from the sky but demonstrates the enormous revolutionary determination of Trotskyists not to yield to all those who denigrated and still denigrate the Leninist tradition of party building.

The phrase often attributed to the great American Marxist Fredric Jameson — that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism — has penetrated so deeply into the minds and attitudes of the Left that it has liquidated the will to revolutionize society and even to build a revolutionary party.

In the discussion over how to take advantage of the Left’s new situation, several intellectuals have participated, and we received a letter from comrades proposing “committees of struggle for a workers’ government: Myriam Bregman for president.” In her May Day speech, Myriam proposed creating committees throughout the country to organize the support we are receiving. Based on what Myriam said there, how do you concretely imagine these committees? What kind of activity should they develop?

I’ll tell you how I imagine them, but what these committees actually become will depend on the comrades who join them, the proposals they bring, whether we succeed in attracting many people, the ideas they contribute, and the synthesis we manage to achieve. What I can give you is, of course, a partial version — my own and the PTS’s. It is an initial response, but then we have to see what discussions emerge. The synthesis of what we ultimately do will arise from that exchange with those who join the committees.

I think it is very important that several left-wing intellectuals, faced with this new situation, have proposed actively collaborating in building something that advances the Left. With many of them, we are discussing launching the committees together. It is a process that is only beginning. These are the first steps. An exciting period of discussion is opening up to see what kind of synthesis we can achieve.

Returning to the question: the situation of passivity promoted by Peronism, the trade union bureaucracy, the student bureaucracy in universities, etc., is very serious. Milei is deteriorating, but every day he continues to go on the offensive. Take the university question, where the government not only has the luxury of refusing to comply with the law but, worse still, announces new cuts. Faced with this, the various bureaucracies do not organize assemblies or encourage organization but instead stage peaceful and orderly marches every so often. Meanwhile, teachers have already lost nearly 40 percent of their wages. That is the legacy of passivity strengthened by Kirchnerism and, above all, by the experience of Alberto Fernández’s government.

That is why our discussion with every comrade who joins a committee has to begin there: explaining the role of the parties and organizations that have been betraying people, and arguing that we must build organizations capable of transforming the skepticism and demoralization created by the bureaucracies into our own institutions capable of promoting direct action to stop Milei.

The committees we propose have nothing to do with meetings aimed at waiting for the 2027 elections. If people trust Myriam Bregman, Nicolás del Caño, the Left, and join the committees, then our task is to persuade them to create fighting organizations that drive the government crazy and prevent the trade union or student bureaucracies from betraying struggles the way they are doing now — organizations that make life impossible for the traitors supporting the right wing’s plans of attack.

Either we become a ferment for creating confidence and developing mobilization against the government’s permanent attacks, or we will not even live up to the current standing of the Left. If pacifism without action prevails, or actions that change nothing, then even electorally the “lesser evil” could advance, represented by anyone promising to remove Milei.

That does not mean falling into sectarianism — quite the opposite. We have to take advantage of the new situation and integrate many comrades who are enthusiastic about the Left’s current standing, even if at first they think of their support in purely electoral terms. We have to be patient with them, but without abandoning our political line. The committees must be anything except meetings devoted merely to propaganda. They must make concrete decisions for action.

And where there are no open struggles, we have to think hard about what kind of activity can inspire more comrades, what activity can politicize people, advance organization, and mobilize them. They do not necessarily have to be struggles in the strict sense. They can involve ideological discussion or social activities.

How does the perspective of the committees connect with the proposal for a party of the new working class?

We believe an important part of the committees’ activity should be discussion of program and strategy. We are going to publish a manifesto in which we develop some axes that we consider fundamental for discussing a program and a strategy capable of advancing the cause of the working class. In addition to action, the committees must devote time to debating a program that responds to the needs of the working class, against the dictatorship of big business and the right wing.

Alongside the committees, within the PTS we have begun discussing concrete proposals for spaces of programmatic and strategic elaboration in which we want to invite comrades who wish to collaborate, beginning with the intellectuals already participating in the discussion on how to take advantage of the Left’s current position in the national situation.

Through all this programmatic and strategic discussion, and through the shared experience we develop in the committees, we will see to what extent we converge in a common party. For us, this would be the relationship between the proposal for committees and the proposal for a party of the new working class. The development of the committees, their expansion, and shared practice in the class struggle, in addition to programmatic elaboration, will pose the next steps.

In Myriam’s speech she also proposed another way to make use of the phenomenon, linked to promoting different levels of united fronts. Could you elaborate on that and explain how it connects to the proposal for committees?

Of course. The key, if we do everything I described earlier with the committees, is to channel it toward united fronts capable of breaking the passivity of the bureaucratic organizations. That is the real test for a committee: whether it serves to promote concrete struggles and advance the united front. In this regard, there are indeed different levels.

A starting point is that the vanguard of the working class needs its own centers of gravity, its bastions — places where militant accumulation and vanguard organization make it possible to truly influence the balance of forces within political and social struggles. The classic historical example is the Putilov factory in the Russian Revolution, the largest concentration of metalworkers in Petrograd, which became a stronghold of the Bolshevik Party and proved decisive for the victory of the October Revolution in 1917.

Allowing for all the differences, without these kinds of centers of gravity — among teachers, health workers, industrial sectors, universities — there is no way to intervene in the class struggle beyond propaganda. That is why we attach so much importance to building bastions, and why we say the committees should pay particular attention to strengthening these places.

A second level involves united front institutions: struggle committees, regional coordinating bodies, assemblies of self-organized activists, coordinating tables with trade union, student, feminist, environmental, disability rights, neighborhood organizations, etc. In other words, organizations that constantly articulate sectors in struggle and working-class political organizations.

Here we draw inspiration from Trotsky’s idea of “action committees”: institutions of unification and coordination capable of preventing the energy unleashed by the movement from being dissipated in isolated and discontinuous battles, and serving as a lever to blow apart the bureaucratic structure that weighs down the workers’ and mass movements. In other words, it is not only about “fighting together” but also about establishing permanent organizations that bypass the bureaucracy.

At this level, there are also anti-bureaucratic fronts, such as the Multicolor coalition, which allowed the Left to win SUTEBA Matanza [a teachers’ union] and maintain key positions in the cities of Tigre and Bahía, even while including agreements with more conciliatory tendencies such as Azul y Blanca in Matanza. There is a major struggle underway to recover the unions, whether from within, as we have been doing among teachers, or by striking from outside, where that is not possible. We have to revolutionize the unions so they stop being empty shells for administering healthcare funds. We also have to recover student centers so they stop functioning as support-service structures for university deans.

A third level is using all this to effectively fight to impose the workers’ united front on the major unions, or make them pay the full political cost of their complicity with the government. This is properly the tactic summarized by the Third International in the formula “march separately, strike together.”

But imposing the united front requires forces. That is why the three levels I mentioned are completely interconnected. The bastions are the starting point for concentrating forces. The coordinating bodies and action committees serve to articulate the strength of the vanguard and the most active sectors of the masses, and this force becomes the lever for imposing the united front in every major struggle, such as the fight against the labor reform, where, despite everything we did, we still lacked the strength to impose a united front capable of defeating it.

Without that linkage, the current phenomenon of sympathy toward us will remain trapped in electoralism. But with that articulation, we can transform it into a lever allowing the Left to play a qualitatively different role in the class struggle.

In an interview you did a few months ago with Fernando Rosso, you raised the problem of “creating community.” What does that mean, and why do you think it is such an important issue today?

In Trotsky’s time, revolutionaries had to contest the spaces of socialization that already existed within the working class itself — trade unions, cultural spaces, etc. — which in most cases were dominated by the trade union bureaucracy and the social-democratic and Stalinist apparatuses, expressions of bourgeois ideology within the proletariat.

Today, we could say we are one step further back. Workers’ and student organizations have been hollowed out as institutions of socialization. Those spaces have been replaced by social networks, streaming platforms, and so on, in relation to which the working class is atomized and placed, as a collection of isolated individuals, under the constant influence of the ideology of the ruling classes. At the same time, capitalism has rooted the idea of individual fulfillment through consumption. Today, however, the consumerist ideal — unlike what might have existed during the Fordist era — has become practically unattainable for the majority.

Faced with this situation, we raise the need to “create community” on the basis of the enormous power of cooperation as the distinctive force of the working class, which makes the world move but is expropriated by capital. “Creating community” ranges from developing spaces of sociability to building every form of solidarity against the atomization of the proletariat, promoted both by bourgeois ideology and by the trade union bureaucracy itself.

When I say “communities,” I also mean forging centers of gravity for the class struggle — linking together bastions that bring together teachers, industrial workers, students, etc. If we do not wage this battle at the grassroots level, the Left will have very shallow roots. It is part of developing a critical culture against the bourgeois order.

When we argue for promoting coordinating bodies, grassroots assemblies, and institutions of self-organization, we are thinking about this as well: places where different sectors of the working class, youth, the student movement, the feminist movement, intellectuals, and so on, can come together from below.

Peronism will never tell you that self-organization is necessary, or that this self-organization grows out of the cooperation that already exists in workplaces but has been expropriated by capital, and that this cooperation must become conscious cooperation so that the working class can take the country’s major problems into its own hands. This is what Marx meant when he said that the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves. If we do not proceed this way, the Left will become not an organic phenomenon but a purely conjunctural one.

What role does the FIT-U play in all this?

First of all, we have always been promoters of the FIT-U and consider it, as I said earlier, a decisive political achievement insofar as it allowed the Left to overcome the fragmented stage into which it had been trapped as a result of accumulated defeats, and ended up constituting a space for combative left politics in Argentina.

Today, the political landscape is made up of the Right, with Milei’s Far Right and Macrism, and Peronism. A center-left of the old FREPASO type no longer exists. Against all predictions, what has emerged is something nobody expected: a clear sector of the combative Left. In that sense, we view the development of the FIT-U very positively.

From an electoral standpoint, we have to consider how to integrate comrades who agree with the program to ensure it doesn’t remain a closed preserve of the four parties that compose it, provided there’s programmatic agreement.

Our position, however, is that the FIT-U, as a coalition of organizations carrying out agitation and propaganda around a combative and socialist program, was and remains very positive — but it isn’t enough. We can’t be satisfied with a coalition of four relatively small groups that often disagree even in the class struggle and that carry out electoral agitation once every two years.

Our central point is that the Left’s new position raises the need both to advance toward a revolutionary vanguard party — making qualitative leaps in that terrain — and furthering class struggle. And that is our proposal to the FIT-U as well.

Some comrades within the FIT-U propose holding a congress of the front as the horizon. For us, that would amount to marking time in the same place. Either we transform sympathy for our leading figures into organization — as we’ve argued throughout this interview — or we won’t rise to the level required for the combative left to decisively influence reality.

On the other hand, it would never occur to us to conceive of building a revolutionary party in Argentina separately from an international party. This is a very important debate within the FIT-U, which also includes significant differences, for example over the war in Ukraine, on which we have publicly argued on repeated occasions.

Within the discussions over how to take advantage of the Left’s current standing, there has been debate over the hypothesis that several revolutionary parties might simultaneously lead a revolution. What would you say about that?

Salvador Dalí once said he was a monarchist because monarchy was the only regime that solved the problem of succession. Paraphrasing Dalí a bit jokingly, we could say that to this day no organization has emerged capable of fulfilling the role of a vanguard party directing revolutionary processes — a party organizing the most perceptive and intelligent sectors of the working class and aiming to lead millions.

As Nahuel Moreno pointed out, in the 20th century, beyond the Russian experience of a Leninist party governed by democratic centralism, we also saw other “party-army” type organizations — bureaucratic organizations that led revolutionary processes, as in China or Vietnam. But what we have never seen anywhere is the resolution of the immense tasks involved in taking power and organizing revolutionary power without some form of centralization — bureaucratic or democratic.

We, of course, defend democratic centralization. There are no victorious revolutions that have expropriated the bourgeoisie without a party, simply because the problem cannot be solved any other way. The bourgeois apparatus is centralized, and if you don’t have a centralized organization confronting it, it crushes you. That’s the material issue at stake.

The Russian Revolution was led by the Bolshevik Party, which was precisely the organization capable of attracting groups such as Trotsky’s Interdistrict Organization and other revolutionary fractions. Here, we need to distinguish between two levels in order to avoid confusion.

We defend multiparty democracy within institutions of workers’ democracy, such as soviets or councils in the framework of a revolutionary transition. We support multipartyism because we recognize that there are class fractions that the vanguard party of the working class does not reflect — for example, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, with whom the Bolsheviks formed an alliance that later broke down after they assassinated the German ambassador.

What we do not believe, however, is that there is anything justifying the fragmentation of the workers’ vanguard rather than forging a great party. Here, I refer back to the conclusion Trotsky drew in the theory of permanent revolution: that the realization of the revolutionary alliance is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard organized in a revolutionary party.

We are proposing a movement for a party of the new working class. When we speak of a working-class party, we mean a party that reflects the historical interests of the working class, not one pretending to sociologically represent the class as a whole — that would be a complete fiction. As Trotsky said, classes are heterogeneous. They are made up of different layers, some looking forward and others backward. That is why, for us, the discussion of the program such a party would have is crucial.

We are proposing the FIT-U program as a starting point for debate — a program of class independence that raises the struggle for a workers’ government. Within that movement for a party of the new working class, we fight for the party that emerges to truly become the party of the working-class vanguard, engaging with and seeking to influence the working class as it exists today, engaging with different sectors through institutions of self-organization, in the struggle to recover the unions, promoting the united front, and fighting in perspective for institutions of workers’ democracy like soviets or councils. A party that engages, organizes, influences, and seeks to lead the whole.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We will see in the coming weeks and months whether we can bring many of Myriam’s sympathizers into the committees that, as I said, we are discussing launching jointly from the outset with many comrades, intellectuals, cultural figures, and so on.

The question is whether we can open a new situation for the Left, not only electorally but so that the Left becomes decisive in the class struggle itself. As I said earlier, these are some of my own views and the product of an initial discussion we have held within the PTS. The final form all this takes will depend greatly on the debates we have, the ideas brought by the comrades who join the committees, and the syntheses we can reach.

Our aim is to give these committees — beyond the electoral arena, which will of course be a major task — an integral revolutionary content. I think an exciting discussion is opening up over how to take advantage of the current situation in order to win decisive influence, surpass Peronism and its politics of class collaboration, and open up a revolutionary perspective.

This article was originally published in Spanish on May 17 in Ideas de Izquierda.

The post Making the Most of the Left’s Position in Argentina: An Interview with Emilio Albamonte appeared first on Left Voice.

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The SSPE (State Department of Public Security) is already running a state-of-the-art surveillance operation—known as Plataforma Centinela, or sentinel platform—out of a command center in Juárez that monitors data from surveillance cameras, license plate readers, drones, helicopters, public panic buttons, and other intelligence-gathering technology.

At least one of the surveillance floors of the Centinela Tower began operating earlier this month. SSPE officials estimate the rest of the tower will be fully operational in June, the spokesperson confirmed to Drop Site. Officials did not give an exact date for when the U.S. agencies will begin working out of the tower.

Chihuahua’s secretary for SSPE, Gilberto Loya Chávez, told Drop Site in October that they were working on signed agreements for the U.S. agencies’ collaboration. The agreements would at first be more informal processes between the agencies and Chihuahua, Loya specified, rather than formal agreements navigated through Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry.

this is the way of the future, all the surveillance information outsourced to good boys in the usa, and then stuff happens sometimes.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50477

In the six months since Rodrigo Paz was elected president, his administration and the business elite have demonstrated their true agenda: to dispossess peasant and Indigenous lands, plunder natural resources, privatize public companies, and throw the country into debt, all while cutting taxes for big business. It’s no wonder that protesters are crying “Out with Paz!” during recent marches and blockades.

Workers, farmers, teachers, and neighborhood associations have taken to the streets, organizing against cuts to healthcare and education, land dispossession, and wages that do not keep pace with inflation. Protesters have faced a violent response from military and police, which which left four dead on May 16. Just as the working people resisted the de facto regime of Jeanine Áñez in Senkata and Sacaba, today we resist at every roadblock.

In the initial battles against Paz’s neoliberal austerity policies, such as the fight against Decree 55031One of the main decrees that ignited the current uprising in Bolivia, Decree 5503 doubled fuel prices overnight by eliminating state subsidies, imposing unaffordable costs on the country’s workers and peasants. and Law 17202Law 1720 is a land privatization effort, enabling small agricultural landowners to convert their holdings into larger commercial properties., some labor leaderships have betrayed the mobilized rank and file, colluding on decrees and bonuses and attempting to demobilize them.

We demand: No more backroom deals! We need open assemblies in every union, federation, and from the Bolivian Workers’ Center3The largest trade union federation in Bolivia (COB) as the centralizing bodies for the struggle of all sectors in movement and for the control of the grassroots. Every agreement must be approved by the rank and file in an open assembly.

We must strengthen the mobilization by incorporating into the COB’s unified platform the demands of various sectors in conflict, such as the demands for job security and against layoffs for workers at the Saca Churo and La Paz Limpia landfills in La Paz, the Trebol plant in El Alto, cable car workers, La Francesa and Incerpaz factory workers, SABSA (NAABOL) airport workers, and other isolated struggles.

Only by uniting and coordinating our struggles can we successfully impose our demands on employers and the government. In every workplace, in every mine, in every factory, we must engage in a general strike. We call for the organization of Action and Defense Committees to coordinate the struggles for the COB’s list of demands with the demands of peasants, Indigenous peoples, and students.

Business Owners Must Pay for the Crisis

We fight against austerity measures, the gas price hike, Law 1720, the defunding of education and healthcare, and tax cuts for the wealthy. We also fight to address the underlying problem which is the capitalist crisis. And those who must pay for it are the business owners, not the working people.

In this sense, we not only defend the collective gains that are currently under threat, but also assert that there is another way out: a state monopoly on foreign trade, nationalization of the banks under collective workers’ control, and nationalization of private mining under workers’ and community management. We propose the reversal of large landholdings and the nationalization of agribusiness, so that the land is managed collectively by Indigenous and peasant communities. We also demand full respect for the right to self-determination of all Indigenous and native peoples and nations.

The struggle we propose from the revolutionary Left is to expropriate the big businessmen who benefit from thousands of hectares of land — like Branko Marinkovic who, as a minister in the Áñez government, facilitated the titling of 33,000 hectares in favor of his family company, Laguna Corazón. These businessmen also flee capital to tax havens (between 2009 and 2024, the private sector registered a negative balance of $32 billion) and benefit from the bankruptcy of banks like Banco Fassil.

It is also crucial to consider how we transform experiences of self-organization into a democracy based on the power of workers, in the management of factories, mines, agribusiness, banks, and the country. There is no way to generate profound transformations from a sham democracy that prohibits the electoral participation of some political forces.

This is about opening up political participation. All elected officials must be subject to recall, public servants must earn the same salary as a teacher, and there must be full freedom of organization and political participation for workers’, peasants’, Indigenous, and popular organizations.

It is urgent to advance the self-organization of all sectors in struggle, resisting repression and promoting the self-defense of mobilizations and our families against repression and the criminalization of protests .

For a Provisional Government of Workers’ and Peasants’ Organization

As long as big business, bankers, and agribusiness remain in control, they will continue to place the burden of the crisis on the shoulders of the working people. After all, what electoral solution can we discuss with an electoral body tailored to the wealthy, which outlaws peasant, Indigenous, and workers’ organizations while proclaiming the governor of La Paz without a runoff? The Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP) acts in defense of the interests of agribusinessmen like Marinkovic and big businessmen like Doria Medina.

We, the workers, must begin to discuss a fundamental solution, so that the crisis is not paid for by the workers and the people, but rather by the rich and the capitalists. This must come from a struggle for a government of the workers and the people, based on our own forms of democratic self-organization.

The solution won’t come from above but from below, from the organizations of workers, peasants, Indigenous people, urban working-class sectors, youth, and women who are fighting against austerity and plunder. History itself teaches us that when the MAS leadership4The original version of this statement referred to the country’s center-left party (which governed throughout the 2000s and 2010s) as the MAS-IPSP, but the translator changed this as the party is mainly known in the United States simply as MAS. negotiated an electoral solution with Áñez in 2020, the consequence was the Arce government. In 2003, the negotiation put Carlos Mesa in the presidency, who refused to enact the Hydrocarbons Law. Neither the vice president nor the senators nor the representatives are going to break with the interests of big business and the International Monetary Fund.

The most important precedent for this possible solution lies in the Cochabamba Water Coordinating Committee of April 2000, or even earlier, in the experience of the People’s Assembly5In 1971, in response to a military coup, the Bolivian people formed an assembly consisting of various sectors of society and led by workers and left-wing organizations to organize their struggle against the military regime. It was one of the most advanced expressions of a self-organization in a Latin American country and holds relevance to the country’s revolutionary tradition. We must demand that the COB, the Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia, and all labor and social organizations begin preparing to convene and organize this People’s Assembly, thus providing the struggle plan with a fundamental solution to the capitalist crisis.

This is not about transitioning between one government serving the business sector and another serving the same sector. For the rich to pay for the crisis, and in the face of Paz’s potential fall, we must establish a provisional government of organizations that have emerged and been built on the foundation of worker, peasant, and popular struggle and self-organization.

For this, the struggle for the political independence of the working class is fundamental — independence not only from the government but from all political expressions of the ruling classes. This independence is central not only so that workers can fight freely for their own rights and interests but also so that they can fight for the collective interests of oppressed sectors.

The struggle for the political independence of workers is fundamental to advancing the construction of a socialist and revolutionary hegemony, capable of dismantling all the mechanisms and safeguards of capitalist society.

This article was first published in Spanish on May 18 in La Izquierda Diario

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| ↑1 | One of the main decrees that ignited the current uprising in Bolivia, Decree 5503 doubled fuel prices overnight by eliminating state subsidies, imposing unaffordable costs on the country’s workers and peasants. | | ↑2 | Law 1720 is a land privatization effort, enabling small agricultural landowners to convert their holdings into larger commercial properties. | | ↑3 | The largest trade union federation in Bolivia | | ↑4 | The original version of this statement referred to the country’s center-left party (which governed throughout the 2000s and 2010s) as the MAS-IPSP, but the translator changed this as the party is mainly known in the United States simply as MAS. | | ↑5 | In 1971, in response to a military coup, the Bolivian people formed an assembly consisting of various sectors of society and led by workers and left-wing organizations to organize their struggle against the military regime. It was one of the most advanced expressions of a self-organization in a Latin American country and holds relevance to the country’s revolutionary tradition |

The post Declaration: For a General Strike in Bolivia Until the Paz Government Falls appeared first on Left Voice.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/49471

In the kitchen of Alnice Poxo Munduruku, fresh fish keeps the ancestral traditions of those who live along the vast Tapajós River alive. As the fire burns, the family cleans the fish while keeping a close eye on 11-year-old Aleckson. Born with cerebral palsy, which limits his mobility and speech, he has needed continuous care since birth. Like everyone here, he loves fish.

But the village’s food carries an invisible danger. Tests by scientists from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, or Fiocruz, show that Aleckson, his parents, and nearly everyone in neighboring communities have mercury levels above the safe threshold. Research by Fiocruz indicates that the contamination stems from gold mining, where mercury is used to separate the metal and then spreads through the rivers into the food chain.

This poisoning results not only from illegal mining but also from decisions and omissions by the Brazilian government. An exclusive InfoAmazonia investigation has found that Brazil’s National Mining Agency, or ANM, still maintains mining permits with signs of irregularities, such as reported gold production with no evidence of extraction consistent with the declared volumes — a practice identified by oversight bodies as illegal gold laundering.

Aleckson has cerebral palsy, a condition that restricts his mobility and speech. He has required continuous care since birth. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

Created in 1989 to regulate mining during the Tapajós gold rush that ran from the late 1970s to the 1990s, Garimpeiro Mining Permits (PLGs) were meant to be a simplified authorization for supposedly small-scale, low-impact operations. Decades later, what began as artisanal mining has become industrial-scale extraction involving heavy equipment, dredges, and mercury. These permits now give a veneer of legality to large-scale illegal mining in Tapajós, sidestepping legal limits.

For more than a decade, oversight agencies have warned the mining authority about the irregular use of PLGs. In 2022, the Comptroller General of the Union uncovered a series of illegalities in an audit. The following year, Operation Sisaque — carried out by Brazil’s Federal Police (PF), Federal Revenue Service, and Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) — exposed one of the Amazon’s largest gold-laundering schemes, which relied on PLGs in Tapajós. In 2025, the Federal Court of Accounts reached similar conclusions, identifying structural flaws that enable gold of illegal origin to be legalized.

Even so, our reporting found that between 2022 and 2026, of the 540 PLGs that declared gold sales in the Tapajós River basin, nearly half (263) showed no evidence of extraction consistent with the amounts reported. This suggests these permits may be used to launder gold extracted illegally elsewhere — a practice known as “gold laundering.”

Roughly 70 percent of the mining activity in the region lies within 10 kilometers of the PLGs that declared gold production. This proximity suggests that illegal mining operations, including those operating inside conservation areas and Indigenous lands, may be using these permits to bring their gold into the formal market.

Nearly 60 percent of the gold from legalized mining in Brazil has passed through a Tapajós PLG over the past four years, totaling $2.03 billion (10 billion Brazilian reais) in declared production in the basin during that period.

The information for this investigation comes from the VEIO (Verification and Investigation of Gold Origin) platform, which cross-references mining and deforestation data with mineral production taxes and gold export figures. The tool was developed by InfoAmazonia in partnership with Instituto Dados, with support from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

The PLG is a “sham document” that sustains this system despite the Brazilian government’s inability to put an end to gold mining in the Amazon, according to Danicley Aguiar, coordinator of Greenpeace Brasil’s Indigenous Peoples Front. “It is environmentally impossible for these permits to meet even minimal conditions. Yet they continue to exist because they are part of a structural problem,” he says.

Gold mining along the Tapajós River impacts the health of communities in the Sawre Muybu Indigenous territory. Here, a dredger operates in an area linked to mercury contamination. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

PLGs have become the backbone of illegal mining in Tapajós: Without them, gold would have to be transported through clandestine routes, often across borders, before entering the formal market. With them, gold can be declared as legally sourced and leave the Amazon already carrying a stamp of legitimacy.

Multiple mining fronts

Gerson Harlei Selzler, president of the Minuano Cooperative of Miners and Prospectors, previously headed the Cooperativa dos Garimpeiros do Brasil, whose members were investigated in Operation Sisaque for “gold laundering.” Among them were his father, Nelson Selzler, accused of supplying gold to the scheme using falsified documents, and Lillian Rodrigues Pena Fernandes, who, according to the PF, owned a company used to launder gold and ran the operation with her husband, Diego de Mello.

Although not indicted in Operation Sisaque, Gerson reported selling $548,780 (2.7 million Brazilian reais) in gold in 2023 through a PLG whose area shows no signs of extraction, such as deforestation characteristic of mining activity. He also jointly administered a PLG with Nelson Selzler in which InfoAmazonia identified declarations of gold unsupported by evidence of exploitation.

Fragmented into seven individual permits, the Minuano Cooperative garimpo authorized inside the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area (APA) reports gold overproduction in only two PLGs, shown in red. Planet Inc. (09/2025). Source: ANM

Founded in 2022, Minuano began declaring production only in 2024, coinciding with when the main suspects in Operation Sisaque stopped reporting gold transactions. Since then, the cooperative has declared roughly $9.76 million (48 million Brazilian reais) in gold production linked to two PLGs inside the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area (APA), where it operates without authorization from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, or ICMBio, the office responsible for managing federal protected areas in Brazil. According to VEIO’s analysis, the volume declared in these PLGs exceeds by a factor of 10 the extraction estimates cited in studies, which suggest around 20 grams of gold per hectare explored.

The two PLGs used by Minuano are part of a group of eight permits held by the cooperative inside the Tapajós APA. Seven of them are contiguous, extending along the Creporizinho River, a tributary of the Crepori and Tapajós rivers, which run through the conservation unit.

Satellite images show an operation functioning as an integrated whole, despite being formally divided into parcels of up to 50 hectares, the maximum area allowed for individual mining under an ANM resolution issued in 2025. As a result, the work falls under more permissive environmental rules, since each parcel has its own authorization and environmental license issued by the city government of Itaituba. This arrangement enables large-scale extraction under simplified requirements, and satellite images reveal that the mining has already altered the river’s course.

The February meeting in Brasília regarding PLGs in the Tapajós region brought together, from right to left, Diego de Mello (accused by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office of “gold laundering”), Fernando Lucas (president of the Federation of Garimpeiros Cooperatives of Pará), state legislator Wescley Tomáz (Avante), and José Fernando (director of the National Mining Agency — ANM).
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Minuano holds 15 PLGs in total, including the eight within the Tapajós APA, covering 2,200 hectares. According to ICMBio, the cooperative has requested authorization to operate inside the conservation unit, but the application remains under review.

Beyond Minuano’s PLGs, Gerson also holds mining permits as an individual. He recently obtained from the ANM the transfer of rights to conduct gold prospecting on a 3,200‑hectare area, also within the Tapajós APA. For that area, VEIO found that mining was already underway, yet no production had been reported to the regulator.

Despite mounting evidence and repeated warnings, the ANM continues to engage with suspicious actors in the sector. In March of this year, under the banner of expanding mining legalization in the region, the Pará state government backed the Legal Mining Expedition, an initiative supported by the mining agency and cooperatives.

Itaituba, a city in the Tapajós region, is home to Brazil’s largest mining front. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

Diego de Mello, accused by the Federal Police of running the laundering scheme revealed in Operation Sisaque, attended a meeting in Brasília alongside ANM director José Fernando. The expedition held meetings in mining areas and opened channels to help legalize PLGs with applications already filed with the agency.

Mining concentrated in the hands of a few

There are currently 9,101 mining applications to exploit the Tapajós APA, including 6,255 PLGs. This report found that 21 individuals control more than half (3,382) of these applications. Some have declared gold production in more than 30 different PLGs, a situation the Federal Court of Accounts described as a “real circumvention of the area limits established by law.”

One such figure is lawyer José Antunes, who chairs the Environmental Law Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association in Itaituba and holds 162 PLGs of 50 hectares each within the conservation unit, more than 8,000 hectares in total.

José Antunes holds 162 PLGs in the Tapajós APA, spanning more than 8,000 hectares. In 31 of them, highlighted in red, he has reported production — including in areas with no detectable mining activity. Planet Inc. (09/2025). Source: ANM

Between 2022 and 2023, Antunes reported $13 million (64 million Brazilian reais) in gold sales across 31 PLGs. In several of them, there is no evidence of mining activity; in others, the extraction appears to extend beyond licensed boundaries. In December 2024, inspectors from Ibama, Brazil’s environmental regulator, documented active, unauthorized mining in areas covered by Antunes’s PLGs, including illegal mercury use, river alteration, and deforestation in Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs).

Hot gold on the market, mercury in the body

Aleckson was born already contaminated with mercury. He has never walked, uses a wheelchair, and depends on his mother, Alnice, for nearly every task. Soon after birth, he was diagnosed with spastic tetraparesis, a neurological condition that causes weakness and muscle stiffness in his limbs. The disability was attributed to a lack of oxygen during a long and painful labor.

In his most recent test, Aleckson had 6.9 micrograms of mercury per gram of hair (µg/g) in his system, three times the upper safe limit of 2.3 µg/g defined by the World Health Organization and Brazil’s Ministry of Health.

Indigenous residents prepare fish for a meal in the Sawre Muybu Indigenous territory. Luis Ushirobira/InfoAmazonia

“We eat fish almost every day. It’s very hard to change that, because this is how we were raised,” says Alnice, as her son devours a stew of surubim and barbado prepared by her sisters. In one of her tests, Alnice recorded 9 µg/g of mercury, more than four times the safe limit.

Researcher Isabela Freitas Vaz, from Fiocruz, has followed the case since the first tests. “The signs we’ve observed, not only in Aleckson’s case but in many children, point to a high-risk scenario,” she says.

Although a definitive causal link between mercury exposure and the observed clinical conditions has yet to be proven, researchers say the warning signs are consistent: people with high exposure levels exhibit indicators associated with the potential development of mercury-related diseases.

“The next step is to establish this causal connection between contamination levels and the symptoms we are seeing, so it can guide public policy,” explains Isabela Vaz.

A pregnant woman from the Sawré Muybu Indigenous territory participates in a Fiocruz study with researcher Isabela Freitas Vaz on the effect of mercury on Munduruku health. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

The Tapajós basin lies in western Pará state, extending into northern Mato Grosso and southern Amazonas. It consists of the Tapajós River and major tributaries such as the Jamanxim, Teles Pires, and Juruena, which converge toward Santarém. Mining is concentrated in the Tapajós Gold Province, centered on Itaituba and including Jacareacanga and Novo Progresso. This area is home to Brazil’s largest active mining front.

In February, InfoAmazonia traveled along stretches of the rivers feeding the basin and accompanied Fiocruz researchers as they collected samples from pregnant women and newborns of the Munduruku people.

The researchers are investigating how mercury contamination in the Tapajós may be linked to Minamata disease, a severe neurological syndrome caused by acute exposure to methylmercury, the metal’s most toxic form.

Identified in the 1950s in Minamata, Japan, the disease struck thousands who were acutely poisoned by large volumes of industrial mercury waste dumped into the fishing bay. Many victims were left with lifelong impairments, and more than 900 died.

A sample of a baby’s hair is collected for Fiocruz research into the effect of mercury on Munduruku health. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

Unlike the disaster in Minamata, scientists say contamination in the Tapajós occurs slowly and persistently. It is chronic rather than sudden, and its effects can take years to appear.

“The main source of contamination in the Amazon today is fish consumption. The mercury used in mining enters the river, becomes organic [methylmercury], and accumulates in the food chain,” says Pedro Basta, an analyst with the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health and a member of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Pregnant Women and Newborns Exposed to Mercury in the Amazon.

Because the metal accumulates over time, it remains in the environment for decades, even in places where mining has ceased. In the Tapajós basin, it is most concentrated in carnivorous fish such as barbado, surubim, and tucunaré, species widely consumed by local communities.

Since 2019, when studies began in some villages, nearly half of the children examined have shown heavy metal levels above the safe limit. Among pregnant women, concentrations reach up to five times the recommended threshold, passing the substance to the fetus. “Mercury causes irreversible brain damage. It can cause tremors, numbness, muscle weakness, and long-term neurological problems,” says Basta.

The most significant harm may not be visible deformities but progressive neurological impairment, including delayed development, cognitive difficulties, and reduced learning capacity. For those with levels above 6.9 µg/g, considered high risk, the recommendation is to reduce fish consumption. In practice, that means altering the dietary foundation of entire communities.

Pedro Basta, an analyst with the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health and a member of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Pregnant Women and Newborns Exposed to Mercury in the Amazon.
Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

In the Tapajós between the Sawré Muybu and Sawré Bap’in Indigenous lands, the water no longer retains its natural color. When we visited in February, a dozen mining rafts churned the river’s emerald green into a murky brown, five operating within a 6,700-hectare PLG authorized by the National Mining Agency (ANM) for the Cooperativa dos Garimpeiros da Amazônia, or Coogam. One raft worked less than a kilometer from the Daje Kapap village.

The area Coogam exploits along this stretch of the Tapajós forms a kind of barrier between the two territories, where the noise and movement of the mining barges are nearly constant. According to ANM records, the cooperative’s PLG authorization (850.796/2009) expired in January 2025; its environmental license expired in June 2024 and was resubmitted only early this year. Even so, the barges continued operating. ANM scheduled a task force to inspect this and other PLGs on the Tapajós, but says the inspection never occurred because of a lack of funds.

A mining dredger releases sediment into the Tapajós River during gold extraction near the Sawré Muybu Indigenous territory. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

Between 2022 and 2026, this PLG reported $5.49 million (R$27 million) in gold sales. Coogam holds 32 PLGs in the Tapajós region and has declared $22.97 million (R$113 million) from seven of them over the past five years.

‘Regulatory permissiveness’

In December 2024, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) filed a public civil action seeking to suspend all mining permits within the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area (APA). According to Federal Prosecutor Gilberto Batista Naves Filho, who filed the lawsuit, the permits were issued without prior ICMBio analysis, a requirement explicitly stated in Article 17 of Law 7.805/1989 for activities in conservation units.

“We are facing an evident lack of mercury control, an unacceptable risk for rivers and public health, especially for Indigenous and vulnerable populations who depend on the region’s rivers for their survival,” Naves Filho states in the civil action.

ICMBio told InfoAmazonia that mining activities within the Tapajós APA require prior authorization from the environmental agency, which has not been granted in most cases.

While gold miners use mercury, Indigenous communities in the Tapajós basin consume fish contaminated by it. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

The result, according to the MPF, is an ongoing environmental collapse. With 83,000 hectares already affected, an area larger than New York City or Chicago, the Tapajós APA has become Brazil’s federally protected area most heavily degraded by mining, according to MapBiomas data compiled by Greenpeace at InfoAmazonia’s request.

ICMBio reports that at least 829 PLGs have been authorized by ANM within the Tapajós APA without any review by the management body. ANM interprets the law differently and argues in the MPF lawsuit that environmental authorization is required only when exploration begins, not when permits are issued.

For the MPF, this interpretation nullifies environmental oversight and turns mining permits into tools that give a veneer of legality to illegally extracted gold. The agency describes ANM’s actions as “merely notarial,” issuing permits without assessing environmental feasibility or the cumulative impacts of hundreds of mining fronts.

The lawsuit seeks $20.33 million (R$100 million) in collective moral damages from the ANM. After an unsuccessful conciliation hearing in March, the case awaits a ruling from the Federal Court.

The Federal Court of Accounts reached similar conclusions. In an audit completed in July 2025, the court identified “regulatory permissiveness” and systemic failures in oversight of the gold supply chain. The report notes that ANM’s omissions enable PLGs to launder illegal gold and artificially fragment areas, making large-scale operations viable under rules intended for small-scale mining.

Children play in the Sawré Muybu village. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

The court ordered ANM to cancel irregular authorizations within 90 days. That deadline has passed.

On the ground, the pattern repeats. Between December 2024 and January 2025, Ibama ordered the suspension of 342 PLGs in the Tapajós APA after an operation against illegal mining. Inspectors found multiple violations, including lack of ICMBio authorization, destruction of vegetation, mining in permanent preservation areas, and extensive mercury use.

For Ibama’s director of environmental protection, Jair Schmitt, the issue goes far beyond isolated violations. Even permits considered “regular,” he says, contain structural illegalities, from municipal-level licensing, contested by the federal agency and MPF, to lack of meaningful environmental oversight.

“There is no mercury legally available for mining in Brazil today,” Schmitt says. “For this reason, even PLGs considered regular are not, because there is likely no lawful mercury available for their operations.”

Ibama estimates that producing one gram of gold requires roughly one gram of mercury. But after the Minamata Convention took effect in 2017, Brazil stopped importing the substance and sharply restricted its use. According to Schmitt, this means the current scale of mining cannot be reconciled with any legal scenario.

Although the agency claims it has no authority over the need for prior authorization for exploration in the Tapajós APA, it has begun notifying PLG permit holders within the conservation unit that they must secure ICMBio approval before starting exploration. Still, there is no news of any permits operating within the conservation unit being revoked.

The management plan for the Tapajós APA, in development since 2020, is expected to be completed this year. The proposal includes creating zoning areas within the territory, including an urban-industrial zone, the largest in the unit, to organize landscapes already heavily degraded by mining and deforestation, where ICMBio says there may still be potential for mining. The plan’s drafting has been marked by pressure from groups linked to the mining sector, pushing to formalize the activity within the conservation unit, a move environmentalists criticize because of its environmental and social impacts.

‘Water becomes like milk’

In September 2025, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Santarém recommended annulling 15 PLGs granted in areas adjoining the Sawré Muybu, Sawré Bap’in, Munduruku, and Sai-Cinza territories, including the Coogam PLG documented during our February reporting trip.

According to the MPF, these permits were issued without prior consultation with Indigenous communities, as required by International Labor Organization Convention 169. The agency also notes that barge and mining operations near the villages violate measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to contain mercury contamination. “It is unacceptable for state-licensed projects to inflict the same harm on Indigenous people as illegal mining,” prosecutor Thais Medeiros da Costa wrote in a recommendation sent to ANM in September 2025.

Chief Juarez Saw Munduruku from the Sawré Muybu Indigenous territory. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

“When the prospectors arrive and start working, the water becomes like milk,” said Chief Juarez Saw Munduruku of the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Land. “We can’t bathe anymore; it causes itching. It used to be joyful; children played along the riverbank. Today that’s over,” he says.

According to the chief, mercury exposure has become part of daily life for families, with symptoms resembling those researchers are investigating as possible effects of poisoning.

“My son’s contamination level has reached the limit. He already feels numbness in his legs and arms. We keep wondering … could this be what’s causing these symptoms?” the chief asks.

Deivison Saw Munduruku, the chief’s son, is among the cases with the highest contamination levels recorded by researchers, nearly 10 times above the safe threshold.

Aldira Akai Munduruku, deputy coordinator of the Pariri Indigenous Association and a teacher in Sawré-Muybu village, believes contamination may be linked to some children’s learning difficulties. “We notice that some children struggle to learn, and this is not normal,” she says.

A classroom at the Sawre Ba’ay school in the Sawré Muybu village. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

In 2019, the Pariri Association approached researcher Paulo Basta — the father of analyst Pedro Basta and coordinator of Fiocruz’s “environment, diversity, and health” research group — after the death of environmentalist Cássio Beda, who had lived among the Munduruku and developed a severe neurological condition. While mercury poisoning has not been confirmed as the cause, the physician who treated him noted the possibility of “secondary motor neuron disease and mercury intoxication” in a July 2017 report, as reported by Repórter Brasil.

“We monitor the results and try to warn people. But it’s not only the Munduruku who can change this. We need more effective public policies,” Aldira says.

Among the Indigenous residents interviewed, suspected miscarriages, numbness in the limbs, memory lapses, and tremors appeared frequently, symptoms the medical literature associates with high mercury levels.

Aldira Akai Munduruku, vice coordinator of the Pariri Indigenous Association and a teacher in the Sawré-Muybu village. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

For Paulo Basta, who coordinates research in the region and is working to determine which symptoms are linked to mercury exposure, one conclusion is clear: continual exposure, combined with precarious living conditions in the villages, creates extreme vulnerability. In this setting, he says, mercury exacerbates existing inequalities, hindering child development and shaping the entire life trajectory of affected populations.

“A child with mental deficits today becomes an adult with mental deficits tomorrow. They will struggle in school and later in the job market,” Basta explains.

Paradoxically, when the Tapajós River swells during the Amazon’s winter rains, access to water becomes even more limited. As the river floods, contamination spreads into the streams supplying the villages, bringing mud and mercury.

Indigenous residents swim, bathe, fish, and wash clothes in the Tapajós River. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

On February 13, a federal court ruling underscored the severity of the health crisis in the Tapajós, ordering the federal government to provide drinking water to Indigenous communities and recognizing the structural abandonment aggravated by mining-related contamination.

The National Mining Agency (ANM) stated that PLGs with environmental licenses are considered valid and that it is not the agency’s role to “question the validity of the documentation submitted,” saying it relies on licenses issued by other authorities. Regarding the Tapajós APA, the agency acknowledged the requirement for ICMBio approval and said it is working to identify and regularize permits lacking it. The agency maintains it is not responsible for identifying illegalities because it received the licenses “in good faith.”

On the issue of irregularities, ANM said it does not authorize mercury use in PLGs. It acknowledged knowing of evidence of the laundering of gold, a practice linked to weaknesses in the self-declaration system, and said it uses inspections, data cross-checking, and satellite monitoring to detect inconsistencies between explored areas and reported production.

The Sawré Muybu village. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

“There are ongoing administrative investigations, some confidential, others public, into indications of irregularities in the gold production chain, including possible cases of laundering,” the ANM stated.

The agency also said it has discussed prior consultation with Indigenous peoples but noted there is no automatic ban on mining within 10 kilometers of Indigenous lands, considered a direct-impact zone. In a statement to InfoAmazonia, it said it had no knowledge of the so-called “Legal Mining Expedition,” supported by the Pará state government, and did not comment on the meeting between representatives of the initiative and one of its directors.

The report also contacted Coogam president Tânia Oliveira Sena, who declined to be interviewed. We also reached out to the defense of Nelson Selzler, who declined to comment on his mention in the Federal Police investigation and the activities of the Minuano Cooperative in the Tapajós APA. The report was unable to reach Gerson Harlei Selzler, Diego de Mello, or his wife, Lillian Rodrigues Pena Fernandes.

Lawyer José Antunes has contested oversight authorities’ findings that no signs of mining were present in the PLGs where he declared production. He argues that the satellite images used to reach this conclusion “are not reliable for the Tapajós biome.” He also disputes the irregularity arising from lack of ICMBio authorization, saying his operations were licensed by Pará’s state environmental agency. Regarding the concentration of PLGs, Antunes claims it “represents almost nothing compared to the area of the Tapajós APA” and insists they “are all fully up to date.”

Aerial view of the Tapajós River beside the Sawré Muybu village. Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia

Responding to Ibama’s citations for illegal mercury use in the area of his PLGs, Antunes said in a statement that the violations “were committed by miners who have no link to me, as they themselves stated.” He also criticized what he called sweeping generalizations in the investigations and argued for greater legal certainty for the sector, insisting he acts in good faith and within the law.

For Danicley Aguiar of Greenpeace, the state’s failure to address the region’s economic dependence on mining ensures the activity will continue to thrive, even under a veneer of legality, while inflicting ongoing environmental and social harm.

“Mining violates human rights in a widespread and systematic way. How can the state tolerate such an activity? How can it claim this is essential for regional development?” he asked. For the Munduruku, the distinction between “legal” and “illegal” areas does little to change daily life. Mining continues to contaminate the river, and the river remains the center of their existence.

Methodology

VEIO uses data from mining processes (SIGMINE) and mineral production declarations (CFEM), both provided by the National Mining Agency for the Legal Amazon. The tool cross-references this information with georeferenced data from DETER/Inpe deforestation alerts, Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and gold export figures from Comex Stat, Brazil’s foreign trade statistics system, to automatically analyze and flag potential irregularities. These alerts are updated weekly and indicate whether illegal activity is affecting Indigenous Lands, Quilombola Territories, Conservation Units or Rural Settlements.

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Translated from the Portuguese original by Matt Sandy.

This investigation was carried out with support from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Brazilian government keeps giving out mining licenses in the Amazon – in spite of evidence of gold ‘laundering’ on May 14, 2026.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50040

The US oil blockade against Cuba continues to cause enormous hardships for the Cuban people. Following the attack on Venezuela by US forces on January 3, 2026, Cuba has received only one fuel shipment, which provided nearly 100,000 tons of crude oil thanks to Russia’s cooperation.

In fact, following the attack, the United States has banned the export of Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba. Furthermore, it has threatened other countries with economic sanctions if they sell oil to Cuba, which has deterred other governments from selling crude oil to the island, with the notable exception of Russia.

However, the crude oil delivered by the Russian tanker in March – which provided temporary relief to the civilian population and helped maintain certain basic services (health care, transportation, and essential production) – has run out.

This was reported by Vicente De la O Levy, Cuba’s minister of energy and mines, who warned at a press conference about the critical situation resulting from the sanctions and the economic, commercial, and energy blockade that the Trump administration has decided to intensify.

“Once again, we will discuss the situation of the national power system, which is so acute and critical. It is fundamentally due to the ironclad energy blockade we are living under. An energy blockade that follows a blockade we endured for many years, and which served to further exacerbate and strain the country’s economic and energy situation,” said De la O Levy.

In light of this situation, the minister of energy reported that fuel and diesel reserves have been exhausted, and that there is only a small amount of fuel left to keep certain critical social services, such as hospitals, operational.

Several weeks ago, the United Nations, through the Officer of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Edem Wosornu, declared that the situation in Cuba, driven by Washington, is a “humanitarian crisis” affecting the most vulnerable: “Without sufficient fuel and more funding, the most vulnerable people – children, the elderly, and pregnant women – will suffer the most,” said Wosornu.

For his part, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has been emphatic in stating that the cause of the severe energy crisis is “the genocidal energy blockade to which the U.S. subjects our country.” Díaz-Canel is referring to a series of news reports claiming that the crisis is the fault of the government and its administration, to which the president responded: “The best proof of what we are saying lies in the noticeable improvement in service during April. The arrival at a Cuban port of just one fuel tanker – out of the eight needed each month – allowed us to reduce the deficit and, with it, the blackouts, which, although they did not disappear entirely, were mitigated.”

In this regard, he added: “What the spokespeople for the US regime are trying to portray to the world as a direct consequence of the Cuban government’s mismanagement is, in reality, the result of a perverse plan aimed at pushing the people’s hardships and difficulties to extreme levels. Neither the blockade imposed more than six decades ago nor the 243 measures of intensification imposed by the previous Trump administration were able to destroy the Revolution.”

Faced with this critical situation, and despite threats of an armed intervention that would supposedly be justified by “saving Cuba” from a problem that those same powers have caused, Díaz-Canel said: “Our response remains the same: always open to dialogue on equal terms, we will continue to resist and build, increasingly convinced that it is up to us to overcome these enormous difficulties through our own efforts, united as a nation, and steadfast in facing the toughest challenges. The homeland must be defended.”

Regarding the possibility of an invasion of Cuba, which Trump has mentioned on numerous occasions, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said: “A U.S. military aggression against Cuba will generate a true humanitarian catastrophe, a bloodbath. Both Cuban and U.S. citizens would lose their lives, something which only the politicians who do not send their children and relatives to war are betting on.”

He also stated: “There isn’t the least reason, not even the least pretext for a superpower such as the United States to launch a military attack against a small island that does not pose any threat, only because it is the mere aspiration of a few to change its political system or its government.”

The post Cuba announces that its fuel reserves have been depleted as a direct result of the US blockade appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50038

Barely a week after the US military attack against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026, Trump with his usual bombast told Cuba to “make a deal or face the consequences.” Trump set his sights on overthrowing the Cuban government.

Led by Marco Rubio, Florida’s Cuban gusanera and US government officials always saw the toppling of President Maduro as a key piece in the domino effect required to destroy the Cuban Revolution. In fact, “Rubio has long sought to push out Maduro. … [His] calculus is that toppling Maduro will weaken the regime in his ancestral homeland, Cuba.”

Expert commentators William M. Leogrande and Peter Kornbluh, writing for Foreign Policy – a US establishment journal covering strategic foreign policy issues – on November 2025, months before both the US attack on Venezuela and the US naval blockade on Cuba, argued that “the real aim – of deploying the war fleet in the Caribbean Sea – is to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government and then, by cutting off the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, fulfill the Republican right’s decades-long dream of collapsing the Cuban government.”

Leogrande and Kornbluh added, “It’s a strategy that John Bolton, national security advisor in the first Trump administration, tried without success in 2019, but Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio now intends to try again.” Prophetically they argued “if Washington manages to unseat Maduro, then his successor would very likely cut off oil shipments to Havana [cut off by the US naval blockade, actually], striking another blow to an already reeling Cuban economy. US success in Venezuela could also threaten Cuba’s national security if the Trump administration, intoxicated with the win, decided to expand its aggressive military interventionism.”

Rubio has played a central role in shaping Trump’s policies towards Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Rubio’s strategy fits nicely with Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine“ since it specifically (though not exclusively) targets these three radical governments with sanctions, threats and efforts to overthrow them for having strong commercial and political links with non-hemispheric actors (China, Russia and Iran), links that the “Donroe Doctrine” seeks to break by military means.

Trump’s failure to separate Venezuela from Cuba

No sooner had Delcy Rodriguez been appointed Interim President of Venezuela than a corporate media smear campaign was launched against her depicting her as a “Trump asset”, mendaciously alleging her appointment had been the result of “prolonged negotiations” or that she had participated in meetings with others to conspire to betray President Maduro leading to his kidnapping.

This Trumpian tactic aims obviously at dividing Chavismo. On January 14, 2026, Trump doubled-down by referring to Delcy Rodriguez as a “terrific person“. But previously, on January 4, 2026, he had posted “she is willing to do what is necessary” and comply with US wishes – or else she could face a “very big price”. An “asset” that needs to be threatened with lethal force? 

This narrative deliberately created the impression that Delcy Rodriguez would not only distance Venezuela from Cuba but would completely abandon it to its own fate at the mercy of a bullish Hegemon that is threatening Cuba with “serious consequences“ if it did not surrender.

However, despite the dangerous situation Delcy Rodriguez’s government faces, which has led her to make some unpalatable policy adjustments and receive unsavory US visitors, Bolivarian solidarity with Cuba, though practically constrained – no oil shipments – has remained strong.

Delcy Rodriguez government’s first political act was to pay tribute to the 32 Cuban combatants who gave their lives whilst carrying out cooperation and defense missions in Venezuela. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, issued a statement on January 4, 2026 praising the 32 Cuban heroes who died as “a consequence of the criminal and infamous attack perpetrated by the Government of the United States against Venezuelan territory.” Gil thanked Cuba’s President Diaz-Canel and Raul Castro for their support and solidarity, adding that the combatants’ “sacrifice strengthen the historic links of fraternity, sovereignty and shared struggle of [Cuba and Venezuela]”.

On January 11, 2026, Trump’s renewed threats against Cuba: “there will be no more oil or money for Cuba. Zero!”, adding “Cuba lived for many years, on large amounts of oil and money from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, but not anymore!” Venezuela’s unambiguous response, issued on the same day, reaffirmed its right to the long-standing relations with Cuba in accordance with the UN principle of the “**free exercise of self-determination and national sovereignty”; relations historically based on “brotherhood, solidarity, cooperation, and complementarity.”

On January 23, 2026, President Diaz-Canel reaffirmed support and solidarity with Venezuela and its people by strongly condemning the United States’ military aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Diaz-Canel stressed Cuba’s decision to continue strengthening the historic bonds of brotherhood and cooperation that unites both nations.

Venezuela’s unbreakable solidarity with Cuba

Trump is, however, determined to do “regime change” in Cuba and increased the pressure with more sanctions. His Executive Order declared that “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The E.O. threatened to apply tariffs against any country that dared to sell oil to Cuba. Venezuela’s foreign minister condemned Trump’s decision seeking to impose punitive measures on countries that maintain legitimate trade relations with Cuba. The foreign minister’s statement expressed Venezuela’s “solidarity with the people of Cuba” and called “on the international community to take collective action to address the humanitarian consequences arising from acts of aggression of this nature.”

In February 2026, after further threats against Cuba, including a US naval blockade, a solidarity campaign – “Love is paid with love”, title of José Marti’s famous play – was launched in Venezuela. It seeks to raise awareness about the defense of Latin America as a Zone of Peace and opposes militarization and foreign interference. The national campaign has three stages: 

1. Saving Lives: aimed at collecting medicines, health inputs and medical equipment;
2. Light and Hope for Our Brothers and Sisters: that will seek donations from organizations, political parties, and citizens to purchase solar panel systems to be installed (in hospitals, schools, laboratories) as decided by the Cuban government; and
3. Corn from the Patria Grande: to collect non-perishable foodstuffs and arrange vessels for the sea transport to Havana.

On April 18, 2026 Bolivarian Venezuela went further by hosting “A Song for Cuba“ to protest the US blockade. The concert, part of the “Love Is Paid with Love” campaign, was organized by the Simon Bolivar Cultural Brigade Institute for Peace, the University of Communications, and the Future Movement. The PSUV, the Venezuela-Cuba Mutual Friendship and Solidarity Movement, and ALBA Movements also participated. 

The concert brought together prominent singers and artists, such as Grupo Madera (Venezuelan and Caribbean folk rhythms and political lyrics), Elena Gil, Iván Pérez Rossi, the Barlovento Black Theatre, and soloists such as Marta Doudiers, the troubadour Leonel Ruiz, as well as members of the Simón Bolívar Cultural Brigade, all paying tribute to Cuban resistance. The funds raised will finance the installation of solar panel systems in Cuba. Cuba’s ambassador to Venezuela, Jorge Luis Mayo Fernández, was in attendance.

On May 1, 2026, Trump imposed further sanctions ratcheting up the pressure against the besieged island. Trump’s new E.O. included more restrictions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It imposes new sanctions on entities, persons, or affiliates that support Cuba’s security apparatus. It also authorizes new sanctions on covered persons, entities, or financial institutions that have conducted or facilitated transactions with persons or entities sanctioned under the order.

On May 7, 2026, the US “sanctioned the Business Administration Group (GAESA, a mega Cuban state company), its director Ania Lastres, and the mining company Moa Nickel, a joint venture with the Canadian firm Sherritt International.” Sherritt announced “the immediate suspension of its direct participation in joint ventures in Cuba, exacerbating the economic impact of the U.S. sanctions on strategic sectors.” Marco Rubio said the sanction aims to deprive the Cuban government access to “illicit” assets, “claiming that this mining joint venture benefits from assets expropriated from U.S. corporations after the Cuban Revolution.”

One day later (May 8, 2026), a “shipment of nearly six tons of food from Venezuela arrived in Havana as part of the “Love Is Paid With Love” campaign. It was the sixth such shipment. This was in addition to a shipment of 25 tons of food and medicine from Venezuela that arrived in Cuba sent in April 26. “Shipments are coordinated through collection centers in all 24 Venezuela states and are transported by [Venezuela’s] airline Conviasa.”

US aggression against Cuba continues

Trump is persistently threatening Cuba with a military takeover. It is clear Trump’s aggression against socialist Cuba seeks to “subdue the Cuban population through starvation and desperation.” US sanctions and the oil blockade “have undermined the Cuban energy system, and thus impacted Cuba’s ability to care for the sick, pregnant women, newborns, and people requiring surgery, not to mention the millions affected by the paralysis of the productive, commercial, and food systems on a small island of just over 10,000,000 inhabitants that bears the brunt of pressure from the world’s most powerful country.”

As with other US imperialist endeavors, the US would relish Cuba’s economic collapse triggering a massive humanitarian crisis, no matter how high the number of casualties. In this regard, a survey “revealed that one in three Cuban households reported hunger in 2025, an increase of 9.3 percentage points compared to the previous year.” According to the Food Monitor Program, by April 2026, “96.91% of the population lacked adequate access to food.” All caused by US strangulation of Cuba. Faced with such onslaught, Cuba’s President Díaz-Canel described the United States as an “aggressor power” and Cuba as the “island under attack.” Diaz-Canel insisted that Cuba does not fear defending its independence.

In case there was any doubt as to the strength of the unbreakable solidarity and fraternal links of Bolivarian Venezuela with Cuba, Blanca Eekhout, president of the Simón Bolívar Institute, stated: “The children of Simón Bolívar will not abandon Cuba, because our America is one. The destiny of one is the destiny of all, and the destiny will be one of victory, unity, solidarity, and love. … Cuba is hope, it will never be a threat; [Cuba] is dignity and example.”

Francisco Dominguez is head of the Research Group on Latin America at Middlesex University. He is also the national secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign in the U.K. and co-author of “Right-Wing Politics in the New Latin America” (Zed Books, 2011).

The post Bolivarian Venezuela’s unbreakable solidarity with Cuba appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency met with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday after the island nation's government said it had completely run out of fuel due to the Trump administration's oil blockade.

The CIA's X account posted photos of some of Director John Ratcliffe's meetings, blurring the faces of US intelligence officials who accompanied the agency chief. In a statement, the CIA said it met with Raúl Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro; Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas; and the head of Cuba's intelligence services.

Havana, Cuba pic.twitter.com/7S7TtJPyf5
— CIA (@CIA) May 14, 2026

"This is one of the most sinister and ominous social media posts I've ever seen," legal scholar Maryam Jamshidi wrote in response to the CIA photos.

Ratcliffe, the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Cuba, decided to visit "to personally deliver President Donald Trump's message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes," the CIA said.

A CIA official told NewsNation that "while the director emphasized that President Trump prefers dialogue, the Cubans should have no illusions that the President will not enforce red lines."

Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize Cuba by force, describing the island country as his next military target after Venezuela and Iran. Fears of an imminent military attack have grown in recent weeks amid Trump's belligerent rhetoric and surging US surveillance flights off Cuba's coast.

"I think I can do anything I want with [Cuba], if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in March. "A very weakened nation."

"This failed policy needs to end immediately. Every day, we are contributing to immense suffering in Cuba and a worsening humanitarian crisis."

The spy chief's trip came a day after Cuba's energy minister announced that months after Trump imposed an oil blockade on the island, "we have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel."

The same day, the US State Department dangled "$100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people." Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said Cuba's leadership is "willing to hear the details of the offer and the manner in which it would be implemented."

"We hope it is free of political maneuvers and attempts to exploit the shortages and suffering of a people under siege," he added. "The best aid that the US government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this or any time is to de-escalate the measures of the energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade, intensified as never before in recent months, which severely affects all sectors of the Cuban economy and society."

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel echoed that sentiment, writing in a Thursday social media post that "the damage could be alleviated in a much easier and more expeditious way by lifting or easing the blockade, as it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced."

Progressive lawmakers in the US are imploring the Trump administration to end US economic warfare against Cuba, engage diplomatically with the country, and drop any plans for a military assault.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who has come under attack from Republican lawmakers for visiting Cuba in April, said Thursday that "Cuba has run out of diesel and fuel oil and is enduring some of the worst blackouts in decades because of the US’ cruel oil blockade."

"This failed policy needs to end immediately," said Jayapal. "Every day, we are contributing to immense suffering in Cuba and a worsening humanitarian crisis."

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Historical vertigo. That is what I felt when the official White House account posted an image of Venezuela covered by the U.S. flag and labeled it the “51st State.” Not because I believed annexation was literally imminent, but because of what the image symbolized: a strange sensation of watching two centuries collapse into a meme.

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In one crude graphic, the deeper logic that has shaped Washington’s relationship with Latin America for over two centuries was revealed: the idea that the hemisphere ultimately exists within the orbit of U.S. power.

And perhaps nowhere does that contradiction become more historically charged than in Venezuela.

Venezuela was born out of one of the foundational anti-colonial struggles of the modern world. Independence leader Simón Bolívar did not simply lead a war of independence against Spain. He envisioned the liberation of Latin America as a civilizational project: a sovereign bloc capable of resisting domination from any empire, European or otherwise. Bolívar led campaigns that liberated what are now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia.

Bolívar understood very early on that the newly rising power in the north could become as dangerous to Latin America as the old European empires. In 1829, he warned that the United States seemed “destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

Bolívar was identifying an underlying contradiction: that a powerful republic–the United States–could use the language of freedom while pursuing domination. Two centuries later, that contradiction remains central to hemispheric politics.

Historically, mature great powers have often preferred informal empire to formal annexation. After achieving domination, they often prefer indirect control: favorable trade arrangements, military alliances, debt structures, sanctions regimes, intelligence partnerships, elite cooptation, and cultural influence. Formal annexation is expensive, politically risky, and often unnecessary.

Trump’s “51st state” discourse is less a realistic policy proposal than a symptom of anxiety inside a declining unipolar order.

To understand why, one must first understand how U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere historically functioned.

The Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1823, was initially framed as a warning to European powers against further colonization in the Americas. Latin American independence leaders had just defeated the Spanish Empire across much of the continent. On paper, the doctrine appeared anti-colonial.

In practice, however, the doctrine gradually transformed into something else entirely: a declaration that Latin America belonged inside an exclusive U.S. sphere of influence.

Throughout the twentieth century, Washington rarely needed formal territorial annexation to achieve regional dominance. It developed far more efficient instruments.

In Central America and the Caribbean, the United States deployed military occupations and direct interventions, but left U.S. puppets to govern. In South America, especially after World War II, the preferred mechanisms evolved into financial leverage, intelligence operations, elite alliances, and NGOs at the service of Washington.

The goal was not necessarily to govern countries directly - and even less to promote democracy - but rather to ensure that governments remained compatible with U.S. strategic and economic interests.

When governments moved too far outside those boundaries, intervention followed. Guatemala in 1954 after land reforms threatened United Fruit interests. Brazil in 1964. Chile in 1973. Nicaragua throughout the Contra war. Panama in 1989. The methods differed, but the logic remained remarkably consistent: political sovereignty was tolerated only insofar as it did not disrupt hemispheric order under U.S. leadership.

For decades, this system functioned because the United States occupied an overwhelmingly dominant position within global capitalism. But that world is changing.

The emergence of China as a major economic actor transformed Latin America’s geopolitical environment. For the first time in generations, countries historically dependent on Washington acquired alternative partnerships. China finances infrastructure, transportation systems, energy projects, telecommunications networks, and commodity integration across the Global South. Russia provides military and energy cooperation. Iran creates alternative trade channels under sanctions. BRICS institutions increasingly position themselves as mechanisms outside traditional Western financial control.

None of these actors are altruistic. But together they create something historically significant: options.

And hegemons become anxious when monopolies disappear.

That matters enormously for Venezuela because Venezuela is not only an ideological problem for Washington. It is a geoeconomic one. Venezuela possesses the largest proven oil reserves in the world. For most of the twentieth century, Venezuelan oil flowed comfortably inside a U.S.-dominated hemispheric order. When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, he disrupted the assumption that strategic resources in the hemisphere would remain aligned with Washington indefinitely.

The Chávez project attempted to transform oil sovereignty into geopolitical autonomy. That was the real threat.

Sanctions became Washington’s primary instrument after regime change efforts failed. But sanctions reveal an important contradiction of modern U.S. power: they function best when no viable alternatives exist. The more fragmented the global economy becomes, the harder it is to permanently isolate states through economic coercion alone.

The recent annexation rhetoric reveals a symptom of anxiety inside a declining unipolar order. The fear that coercive measures may no longer guarantee long-term geopolitical alignment in a multipolar world.

Under Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela became one of the clearest examples of a state subjected to relentless external pressure aimed at forcing political and economic realignment: sanctions, asset seizures, recognition of a parallel government and repeated regime change operations. Yet, despite years of maximum pressure, Washington still failed to reassert uncontested control over Venezuela, revealing the limits of U.S. dominance in an increasingly multipolar world.

That contradiction helps explain the escalation that followed: the 2026 kidnapping of President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, growing pressure on Interim President Delcy Rodriguez and renewed efforts to restructure Venezuela’s political and economic order more directly around U.S. strategic interests.

For many Latin Americans, the “51st state” image activated a painful historical memory: occupations, coups, sanctions, protectorates, debt dependency, military interventions, and repeated attempts to subordinate regional sovereignty to external power.

The discomfort many Venezuelans felt was not merely ideological. It was historical. Because regardless of one’s position on the Venezuelan government, there is something profoundly unsettling about watching the homeland of Bolívar, a nation born from an anti-colonial war for sovereignty and self-determination, casually imagined by the White House as territory to absorb under another empire’s flag.

Add your name to the international solidarity letter to let Maduro, Cilia Flores and the Venezuelan people know they are not alone. Send a message of solidarity to Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores

Michelle Ellner is the Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK.

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An economic crisis and the repeal of a crucial gas subsidy, fuel shortages, and a law that opponents say will allow the encroachment of corporate interests on Indigenous and peasant lands are among the central concerns of thousands of miners and other workers who have joined a march from Bolivia's northern Amazon territories to La Paz, with a major miners union in the capital joining the protest on Wednesday.

The Federation of Mining Cooperatives of La Paz and an influential peasant union met land workers and Indigenous representatives this week as they arrived in the capital after having marched 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) "for over 20 days from the tropics into freezing high-altitude terrain, many wearing nothing more substantial on their feet than plastic sandals," as Olivia Arigho-Stiles reported at Jacobin.

At least 50 marchers required medical treatment last week for exhaustion, dehydration, and other ailments, but the unions are showing no sign of ending the general strike that was begun by Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), with the mass mobilization also including at least 70 road blockades around the country, according to the Bolivia Highway Association.

TeleSUR reported that the entry of the miners union signified "a substantial increase in pressure" on right-wing President Rodrigo Paz, whose resignation some workers' organizations are calling for.

The Federation of Mining Cooperatives joined the ongoing marches and protests after Paz failed to attend a scheduled dialogue. Miners have been alarmed by the scarcity of fuel, "a dire shortage of essential explosive material, and significant delays in the liberation of new areas designated for mining exploitation," reported TeleSUR.

The broader protests began in response to stagnant, low wages as well as Law 1720, which the government has claimed will benefit small-scale farmers by allowing them to obtain mortgages after converting their smallholdings into "medium-size" businesses.

But Roger Adan Chambi, an Aymara lawyer and specialist in Indigenous land law, told Jacobin that the measure was passed "without consulting the sectors it was supposed to benefit (peasants and small producers), jeopardizing legal security and constitutional guarantees regarding land ownership."

“Far from being an opportunity for small producers to access credit, this law weakens the property rights of peasants and Indigenous communities, especially those resisting on the agricultural frontier,” Chambi said. “Structural insecurity and the lack of basic services will, in the future, force them to mortgage or sell their plots, facilitating dispossession and the transfer of land to corporations.”

Oscar Cardoza, a peasant union leader and a representative of the marchers, declared at a public gathering in La Paz this week: “Our life is collective, not individual. The land must be respected; it’s not for sale.”

Al Jazeera reported that the end of a fuel subsidy, which was cut after Paz took office last year during what he called an "economic, financial, energy, and social emergency," also pushed COB to issue the call for a general strike.

The subsidy had been crucial for working Bolivians, and the cut has made quality fuel increasingly inaccessible.

"Starting today, a general, indefinite, and active strike is declared, until the government understands the people’s demands,” COB secretary-general Mario Argollo told a group of 1,000 supporters on May 1.

The union is also calling for a 20% increase to the nation’s minimum wage, which currently sits at 3,300 bolivianos ($477.71) per month.

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“If the world allows Palestine to be erased, then it was never meant for everyone, only for some. If the law can’t protect Palestinians, it can’t protect anyone,” said Nadya Rasheed, the Palestinian ambassador to Mexico. She added that in two years of genocide, more than 62,000 Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli army. Among them, more than 20,000 children.

In a keynote address, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh on her shoulder, the diplomat demanded “a permanent ceasefire to stop the genocide. We demand unrestricted humanitarian aid for Gaza; we demand the release of all [prisoners in Israeli cells].” In this regard, she asserted that “anything less than this is not peace; it is preparation for the next massacre.”

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The Mexican state’s third recent food product, after Bienestar Coffee and Bienestar Chocolate, has arrived. Pure, multifloral honey produced as part of the Alimentación para el Bienestar program. The aim of the program is to make quality, nutritious food available to the population at affordable prices, while supporting small agroecological collectives and producers across the country and the overall goal of Mexican food sovereignty.

The Bienestar Honey will be available in two formats: the first, a squeezable plastic container of 350g retailing for 45 pesos, and the second, a glass jar of 370g which will sell for 93 pesos.

The first batch of the honey has been produced by beekeepers from Chocholá, Yucatán, and they will soon be joined by producers from Calakmul, Campeche.

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You'd think literally everyone would do this, it's such an easy low effort thing to say it's not even really that controversial among Israelis since they love making him their sin eater

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) made it clear yesterday that the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo will not allow the participation of U.S. armed forces in operations within Mexican territory, emphasizing that bilateral collaboration on security matters will always be carried out with unrestricted respect for national sovereignty.

The Foreign Ministry’s position was issued in response to statements made hours earlier by the United States ambassador to Mexico, retired Colonel Ronald Johnson, who affirmed that both countries are united as sovereign allies in confronting criminal cartels.

In its seven-point statement, the Foreign Ministry maintained that collaboration with the United States is based on principles such as mutual trust, shared responsibility, sovereign equality, respect for territorial integrity, and cooperation without subordination.

He rejects Trump’s ultimatum as U.S. tariff hike on Brazil looms On Wednesday, The New York Times published an interview with President Lula da Silva, in which he stated that Brazil “will never negotiate as if it were a small country against a big one,” just two days before a 50% retaliatory tariff on Brazilian imports is set to take effect.

“We are aware of the United States’ economic power. We recognize its military might and technological size… But that doesn’t scare us. It concerns us,” the Brazilian leader said.

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump will impose an additional 50% tariff on Brazilian imports. The Republican president has tied the implementation of this decision to the dismissal of charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently being prosecuted by Brazil’s Supreme Court for a coup attempt in 2023.

The Brazilian government has stated it will not negotiate matters of national sovereignty or judicial responsibilities. It also urged the United States to engage in dialogue to resolve the trade dispute. Lula stressed that Brazil treats everyone “with great respect,” and demands the same in return.

“Lula, referring to Bolsonaro, says: ‘He tried to stage a coup to prevent me from taking office. He had no courage. He ran away like a rat. He sent his son to Washington to ask Trump to intervene in Brazil. It’s a lack of character. Pay for the shit you did and respect the Brazilian people’.”

“Democracy is sacred,” he said, showing no indication of yielding to the U.S. President’s pressure regarding Bolsonaro’s criminal cases.

“Brazil has already lived through dictatorships… We don’t want that again,” Lula said, reaffirming the importance of respecting the separation of powers and the rule of law.

Two days earlier, Lula had said that Brazil has no conflict with any country and that his intent is to negotiate peacefully with the U.S. “What’s preventing that is that no one wants to talk. We have requested that contact,” he said, referring to communications with the Trump administration.

In statements to the press on July 11, Trump said of Lula, “Maybe at some point I’ll talk to him. Right now, no.” The Brazilian president called it “shameful” that Trump threatened him via Truth Social.

“Trump’s behavior departed from all standards of negotiation and diplomacy… When there is a commercial or political disagreement, you make a phone call, you schedule a meeting, you talk, and you try to resolve the issue. What you don’t do is impose tariffs and issue an ultimatum,” Lula said.

The Brazilian president also lamented the shift “from a 201-year diplomatic relationship where everyone wins to a political relationship where everyone loses,” noting that as a result of Trump’s actions, Americans will now face higher prices on coffee, beef, orange juice and other Brazilian products.