21st Century US Coups And Attempted Coups In Latin America

During the 21st century, the US, working with corporate elites, traditional oligarchies, military, and corporate media, has continually attempted coups against Latin American governments which place the needs of their people over US corporate interests. US organized coups in Latin American countries is hardly a 20th century phenomenon.

However, this century the US rulers have turned to a new coup strategy, relying on soft coups, a significant change from the notoriously brutal military hard coups in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries in the 1970s. One central US concern in these new coups has been to maintain a legal and democratic facade as much as possible. 

The US superpower recognizes successful soft coups depend on mobilizing popular forces in anti-government marches and protests.

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US Writes Belarus Into Its Familiar Regime-Change Script

Minsk, Belarus — Quietly, the U.S. national security state is turning up the heat on Belarus, hoping that the ex-Soviet country of 9 million will be the next casualty of its regime-change agenda. This sentiment was made clear in President Joe Biden’s recent speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Biden announced that the U.S. would pursue “relentless diplomacy” finding “new ways of lifting people up around the world, of renewing and defending democracy.” The 46th president was explicit in whom he meant by this: “The democratic world is everywhere. It lives in the anti-corruption activists, the human rights defenders, the journalists, the peace protestors on the frontlines of this struggle in Belarus, Burma, Syria, Cuba [and] Venezuela,” he said, putting Belarus first on the list of states in desperate need of a change in government.

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Roman Protasevich, Casualty Of The Ryanair Incident, Is Spilling The Beans

‘Western’ media, as well as other regime change activist claim that Protasevich must have been tortured to say what he says. However, aside from light handcuff marks at his wrists there is no evidence of that. Protasevich had previously been wounded when he fought in the fascist Ukrainian Azov battalion against the Donbas secessionists. He is a tough guy who will not be impressed by handcuffs which, by the way, police everywhere use for good reasons.

During the Korea war U.S. pilots, captured by China, admitted to dropping biological weapons on China. The U.S. long denied the use of biological weapons and claimed that the pilots had been tortured and made false confessions. Decades later secret files were released which proved that the claims the pilots had made had been correct.

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Will Andrés Arauz Be The Next President Of Ecuador?

In Ecuador’s presidential election held on February 7, 2021, Andrés Arauz won the largest number of votes but could not prevail in the first round against 15 other candidates; he won 32.71 percent of the vote, short of the 40 percent needed to win the election outright (a winner also requires a 10 percent lead over the second-place candidate, which Arauz did achieve). More than a week after that first round, it remains unclear which of the two candidates who most closely trailed Arauz will go head-to-head against him in the second round on April 11. Both of these candidates—Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez—each won around 19 percent of the vote and await a recount to verify who will face Arauz.

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Human Rights, Terrorism And Organized Crime

In Latin America, widespread abuses under right wing regimes in, for example, Colombia, Honduras, Haiti or Brazil get mentioned in low key terms, if at all, while false claims by US funded opposition groups in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are amplified and broadcast with minimal or zero effort at responsible corroboration. Neither the human rights industry itself, nor the communications media and academic industries which are its main consumers, make any serious effort at investigation because they too are funded by the same or similar corporate and government investors as their human rights industry brand name suppliers.

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Nicaragua Attacked For Using Same US Policies Against Foreign Meddling

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched another attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government last month, accusing President Daniel Ortega of being a “dictator” who is “doubling down on repression and refusing to honor the democratic aspirations of the Nicaraguan people.”[1] The State Department openly supports what it calls “a return to democracy in Nicaragua”, saying that “the people of Nicaragua rose up peacefully to call for change.”[2]

Pompeo’s accusations came in a month in which Nicaragua’s National Assembly made three new legislative proposals

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Canada’s Regime Change Efforts In Nicaragua Rife With Hypocrisy

A recently leaked USAID document highlights “the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021.” The stated aim is to replace president Daniel Ortega with “a government committed to the rule of law, civil liberties, and a free civil society.” HighlightingWashington’s aim, Ben Norton notes, “the 14-page USAID document employed the word ‘transition’ 102 times, including nine times on the first page alone.”

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For Democracy And Transparency In The Plurinational State Of Bolivia

We are witnessing the systematic destruction of democracy at the hands of the de facto government of Jeanine Añez and its allied forces of repression in the streets, on the highways, and the communities across Bolivia.
Through this letter, the members of the Progressive International demand that you take urgent action within your mandate to restore the fundamental rights of the Bolivian people to peace, protest, and democratic self-determination. In our message to you, we emphasize the urgency of your action to protect the integrity of the electoral process in the Plurinational State, to prevent the violent persecution of the indigenous population, and to ensure that similar coup d’états do not spread throughout Latin America and the world.

We are outraged that the de facto government has been permitted to continue its assault on the democratic institutions of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

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Belarus’s Options In The Midst Of A Color Revolution

A “color revolution” is a media term for a movement based on legitimate grievances only to be co-opted into a regime-change operation backed by the US and confederates. There have been so many – Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, Kyrgyzstan in 2005 – that they have run out of colors. Belarus is amidst the “slipper” color revolution. Belarus shows that any small state with a mildly socialist system and independent foreign policy invites subversion by the Yankee hegemon and its collaborators. Even if Belarus had met the highest standards of democracy and efficiency, a western-backed color revolution might not have been avoided. The US involvement in Belarus is not nearly as overt as it was in the Ukraine coup and, given the circumstances, may not need to be to achieve desired outcomes. Obama’s former deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, tweeted on August 11: “Americans have to recognize that the fight against Lukashenko in Belarus is our fight.”

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Bolivians Continue To Block Hundreds Of Roads

The national strike and nationwide road blockades, called for by the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB) against the postponement of general elections, have intensified across Bolivia. The number of interdepartmental and interprovincial highways and roads and interior streets in big cities blocked by citizens, to pressurize the coup-installed government to reverse its decision to delay the elections, increased from 24 to 140 within a week.

Social movements, trade unions, Indigenous and peasant organizations began the measures of protest last Monday, on August 3, to demand restoration of democracy and compliance with the decision to hold elections on the originally agreed date, September 6. Within the week, their demands also intensified. In addition to democratic elections, many people on the streets are also demanding the immediate resignation of the de-facto president, Jeanine Áñez.

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UK Decision On Venezuelan Gold Condemned: ‘It’s Daylight Robbery!’

The fact that the UK High Court cites the UK government’s recognition of Juan Guaidó as the reason for blocking access to the gold is farcical. The UK government has formally recognised Guaidó as “interim president”, but maintains full consular and diplomatic relations with Venezuela and its legitimate government. There is a Venezuelan ambassador in London and a British ambassador in Caracas.

Furthermore, the Venezuelan government had pledged that proceeds from the repatriation of the gold reserves would only be used, under supervision of the UN Human Development Program, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Venezuela.

By continuing to illegally withhold the Venezuelan gold, the UK is endangering lives in Venezuela.

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A Tale Of Two Protests

The rebellions in Hong Kong and Minneapolis have received vastly different responses from the U.S. ruling class. In Minneapolis, masses of people took to the streets on May 26th to express their outrage over the police murder of George Floyd and the many Black Americans who have shared a similar fate. The rebellion quickly spread to cities across the country with corporations, police stations, and even the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA all facing some form of property destruction. Protestors in Hong Kong have been treated with honor from the corporate media in stark contrast to the homegrown uprisings occurring in U.S. cities. 

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Venezuela: More Mercenaries Arrested

A number of mercenaries had been killed and others arrested in La Guaira on 3 May while trying to disembark in Venezuela as part of a plot against the Maduro government. On 4 May, another eight mercenaries were arrested in the coastal town of Chuao in Aragua state, amongst them two former US special forces veterans.

As we explained yesterday, one of the organisers of the plot is US mercenary and former US Army Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, who claims to have signed a contract with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to organise the military incursion. Goudreau claims that Guaidó reneged on the contract and that he was never paid but decided to go ahead with the plan regardless. According to Goudreau, who is currently in Florida where he runs mercenary agency Silvercorp US, those detained or killed on Sunday in Macuto, La Guaira, were part of a larger group of 60 mercenaries, mainly Venezuelan army deserters.

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US And Colombia Drive Drug Trade

Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Pino Arlacchi, the former Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Prevention, about the US decision to charge Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with drug trafficking. Arlacchi explains that in his 40 years of anti-narcotic work, he never came across evidence of Venezuela’s involvement in the drug trade – instead saying that the US and Colombia drive drug production and consumption. As an expert on the Italian mafia, Arlacchi says the US government is actually the party behaving like an organized crime unit in its treatment of Venezuela. Arlacchi also discusses his work at the UN, which included a push to end the heroin trade in Afghanistan. He says his efforts were undermined by US officials after the 2001 invasion of the country.

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