WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean

EPISODE: National Strike, Day 40: A Conversation with Human Rights Activists in Peru

NOTE: This is a follow-up conversation to our February 2 Episode with Peruvian activists Anahi Durand and Eliana Carlin. I have since visited Peru on a human rights observation delegation with Mision de Solidaridad Internacional y Derechos Humanos

Interpretation provided by Jill Clark Gollub

GUESTS:

Clau O'Brien Moscoso. She is an organizer with the Black Alliance for Peace in the Haiti/Americas Team. Originally from Barrios Altos, Lima, she grew up in New Jersey and now lives between both countries.

Hiam Leyner Ayala Basilio: Leyner works in the legal area of the organization Human Rights without Borders, Cusco - Peru. It is a non-governmental organization that is part of the National Coordinator of Human Rights of Peru, which works in the defense, promotion and education of human rights in the region of Cusco, also, the organization is carrying out legal processes related to the criminalization of protesters by State repression.

BACKGROUND:

On December 7, 2022 a right-wing coup removed Perú’s President Pedro Castillo Terrones from power. The predominantly poor indigenous rural and Amazonian communities resoundingly and overwhelmingly voted for Castillo, rejecting outright the neoliberal regime installed by the previous governments. Violence not seen since the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship (1990-2000), has been led by the Peruvian Armed Forces, under orders of coup-leader Dina Boluarte, the Fujimorista Fuerza Popular Party, and other political factions. 

It’s been over 67 days since the parliamentary coup led by the right-wing forces of Fuerza Popular with their puppet Dina Boluarte, now commonly referred to as “usurper assassin,” at the helm. (Black Agenda Report 15 February)

FOLLOW OUR GUESTS:

Clau O’Brien Moscoso

https://twitter.com/PiolinSghost

Black Alliance for Peace

https://www.facebook.com/BlackAllianceforPeace

https://www.instagram.com/blackallianceforpeace/

https://twitter.com/Blacks4Peace

Derechos Humanos sin Fronteras-Cusco

https://www.facebook.com/derechossinfronteras.pe

https://www.instagram.com/derechossinfronteras/

https://twitter.com/dhsfcusco 

Misión de Solidaridad Internacional y Derechos Humanos

https://www.facebook.com/MisionDdhh

https://www.instagram.com/misionddhh/

https://twitter.com/MisionDdhh

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Black Agenda Report: Report from Lima, Peru

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean: Peru National Protest Advances to Lima  

Plaza 2 de Mayo, Lima (February 9, 2023 - Marcos Sierras, Photographer)

Juliaca to Cusco - Manuel Ortiz, Photographer

Short Delegation Synopsis (Lima & Cusco Visits)

Mision de Solidarida Internacional y Derechos Humanos

Preliminary Report: Peru February 2023 (Spanish)

OUR BROADCAST PARTNERS:

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team; CODEPINK: Women For Peace; Common Frontiers; Council on Hemispheric Affairs; Friends of Latin America; IRTF - The InterReligious Task Force on Central America; Massachusetts Peace Action; and Task Force on the America

EPISODE: “So They Can See Us” Peru’s National Protest Advances to Lima

GUESTS:

Anahi Durand is a sociologist, former Minister of Women & Vulnerable Populations for the Castillo Presidency and founder of Mujers por Una Nueva Constitución (Women for a New Constitution); and,

Eliana Carlin is a Peruvian political scientist, lecturer and researcher. She is also Co-founder of Heroinas Peruanas and No a Keiko (Peruvian Heroines and No to Keiko)

Note: This episode is in Spanish with English translation. Interpretation provided by Carmelo Velasquez of Velasquez Translations, Buenos Aires

BACKGROUND:

Deadly protests have gripped Peru since Congress expelled the country's first working-class president, Pedro Castillo.

Timeline of events since December 7, 2022:

Dec 7, 2022: The surprise winner of the July 2021 presidential election, Castillo comes under immediate attack from the right. On December 7 he attempts to dissolve Congress before it can debate a third impeachment motion against him and says he will form an emergency government and rule by decree. Lawmakers vote overwhelmingly to remove him from office for "moral incapacity" to exercise power. He is arrested for "rebellion". Vice President Dina Boluarte becomes Peru's first woman president. She says she intends to serve out the rest of Castillo's term, until July 2026.The United States pledges to work with Boluarte.

Dec 10: Pro-Castillo protests spread, with demonstrators blocking roads and burning tires across the country.

Dec 11: Two people are killed in Andahuaylas in the south.

Dec 12: Hundreds of protestors temporarily block the airport runway in Peru's second biggest city, Arequipa.

Dec 14: Peru announces a 30-day nationwide state of emergency.

Dec 15: Castillo's pre-trial detention is prolonged for 18 months.

Dec 16: The pro-Castillo protests spread to the town of Cusco, the gateway to Peru's top tourist attraction, the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, with rail services, road and air links closed.

Dec 20: As the death toll rises, Congress votes to bring forward the general election from 2026 to April 2024.

Jan 9, 2023: Eighteen people are killed in clashes with security forces triggered when demonstrators try to storm an airport in the southeastern city of Juliaca. The prosecutor's office says it will investigate Boluarte for genocide over the protests. The next day Peru's government declares a state of emergency in Lima and three other regions.

Jan 19: Clashes with police punctuate a march by thousands through the capital for a large anti-government rally.

Jan 21: Peru closes Machu Picchu

Jan 24: Lima sees its most violent clashes since the start of the crisis.

Jan 26: The government says police and soldiers will dismantle roadblocks erected by protesters on the nation's highways.

Jan 28: Congress rejects a request by Boluarte to advance elections to December 2023.

Jan 31: The Peruvian Foreign Minister led, in Washington DC, a meeting between Peruvian businessmen and their counterparts from the US Chamber of Commerce. Representatives of multinational companies from mining, finance, technology, and health, among other sectors attended the event. .

FOLLOW OUR GUESTS:

Anahi Durand: Twitter

Eliana Carlin: Twitter

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

House Democrat letter to President Joe Biden asking him to halt security assistance to the government of Peru

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean: Lawfare, the Case of Argentina and Peru

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE: CELAC 2023-Latin American Integration includes the Voices of the People

GUEST:  Alejandro Rusconi, Secretary of International Relations for Evita Movement

Spanish to English interpretation provided by Carmelo Velasquez of Velasquez Translations, Buenos Aires

BACKGROUND:

Founded in 2011,.CELAC, or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, is a multilateral group of 33 countries from across the Western Hemisphere that excludes Canada and the United States It was created to be an alternative forum for Latin American countries. Inaugural leaders, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, envisioned the group as a counterweight to the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), which they viewed as dominated by the United States. CELAC, unlike the OAS, allows Cuba to be a member. Its stated goals are to promote regional integration and cooperation. CELAC represents 600 million people.

The Seventh Summit of CELAC leaders was held Tuesday, January 24 in Buenos Aires hosted by CELAC President Pro-Tempore Alberto Fernandez, current President of Argentina.

The seventh summit witnessed two firsts:  

1.  At the invitation of CELAC President Alberto Fernandez, the United States was invited and sent US Special Presidential Advisor for the Americas Christopher Dodd U.S. Special Presidential Advisor for the Americas 
2. The Summit was preceded by a joint proposal of social and trade union organizations. The Social Summit took place Monday, January 23 in the city of Buenos Aires, at the former Naval Mechanics School, a former secret detention center during the military dictatorship, which today functions as a space resigned from the perspective of human rights. With the presence of about 300 leaders of social organizations, unions and popular movements from all over the region, the meeting was a forum to discuss the most relevant issues affecting the different countries in the context of the Conference of Heads of State and Government.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ale_rusconi

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

CELAC

Declaracion de Buenos Aires

Social and Union Organizations Meet the Day before the CELAC Summit in Argentina

Argentina Hosts 7the CELAC Summit amid New Presidential Landscape

Argentina and Brazil Relaunch their Strategic Alliance

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE: Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry

GUEST: Adrienne Pine, Author and Medical Anthropologist. For the past 17 years, she has worked in US federal asylum courts as a country conditions expert for Honduran asylum seekers in more than 100 asylum cases.

BACKGROUND:

On the heels of last week’s North America Trilateral Summit, from which not much changed within the migratory system, today’s episode will focus on migration as a for-profit industry which has turned migrating humans into commodities.

Our guest Adrienne Pine is co-editor of the book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry published by PM Press in November 2020. Here is brief description:

Through essays, artworks, photographs, infographics, and illustrations, Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry regards the global asylum regime as an industry characterized by profit-making activity: brokers who facilitate border crossings for a fee; contractors and firms that erect walls, fences, and watchtowers while lobbying governments for bigger “security” budgets; corporations running private detention centers and “managing” deportations; private lawyers charging exorbitant fees; “expert” witnesses; and NGO staff establishing careers while placing asylum seekers into new regimes of monitored vulnerability. Humanity is not for sale, and no one is illegal.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adriennepine

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry

Open Letter to US Ambassador: Stop the Assault on Honduran’s Human Rights

Social Struggle in Neoliberal Central America

Climate Change, Displacement and the Border Industrial Complex

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE: North America’s Trilateral Summit

GUESTS:  

Marco Castillo, Co-Executive Director of Global Exchange

Jim Hodgson, Canadian Journalist

BACKGROUND:

The North American Leaders' Summit (NALS), sometimes called the Three Amigos Summit in the popular press,[1][2][3] is the trilateral summit between the prime minister of Canada, the president of Mexico, and the president of the United States.[4] The summits were initially held as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), a continent-level dialogue between the three countries established in 2005, and continued after SPP became inactive in 2009.[5][6]

The United States, Mexico and Canada on Tuesday, January 10 vowed to tighten economic ties, producing more goods regionally and boosting semiconductor output, even as integration is hampered by an ongoing dispute over Mexico's energy policies.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Mexico City and pledged to beef up supply chains after weathering serious disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We're working to a future to strengthen our cooperation on supply chains and critical minerals so we can continue to accelerate in our efforts to build the technologies of tomorrow - right here ion North America," Biden said in a joint news conference with his fellow leaders after their meeting.

Lopez Obrador said the region would promote economic development by creating a committee for import substitution to make North America less dependent on other parts of the world.

The White House said the three countries would improve legal pathways for migrants, and Lopez Obrador again urged Biden to press Congress to enact measures that would regularize the migration status of millions of Mexicans in the United States.

Trudeau portrayed Canada as an original architect and the principal guardian of free trade on the continent as he called for a new era of three-way growth. And, he called on would-be investors to take a leap of faith similar to the one the NAFTA pioneers did in the early 1990s.

FOLLOW OUR GUESTS:

Marco Castillo:

https://www.facebook.com/marco.castillo.188

https://twitter.com/MarcoAnCasMar

Jim Hodgson:

https://www.facebook.com/jim.hodgson1

Global Exchange:

https://www.facebook.com/GlobalExchange

https://twitter.com/globalexchange

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Solving Immigration Starts with Helping Families Feel Safe at Home

https://www.newsweek.com/solving-immigration-starts-helping-families-feel-safe-home-opinion-1771414

https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2023/01/10/declaration-north-america-dna

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE:  219 Years of Haitian Independence, a history of the first revolution in The Americas

GUESTS:  Pierre LaBossiere, Judith “Mirk” Mirkinson and Seth Donnelly of The Haiti Action Committee

BACKGROUND:

On January 1, 1804, Haiti became an independent republic, following the revolution which had begun 13 years earlier as a rebellion of enslaved people against slavery and French colonialism.

Previously known as Saint-Domingue, it was the most profitable colony in the world, generating greater revenue than all of the continental North American colonies combined. This immense wealth was generated by the sweat and blood of enslaved Africans who were being worked to death in their tens of thousands on coffee and sugar plantations.

Shortly after the French revolution, which supposedly espoused the ideals of "liberty, equality and fraternity," on August 22, 1791 enslaved people rose up, demanding those ideals be realized, and slavery and colonialism abolished. Over the coming years, the rebels successfully defeated the combined armies of the world's biggest colonial powers: France, Spain and Britain. The 1804 declaration of independence abolished the colony of Saint-Domingue and reinstated the Indigenous Taíno name of Hayti. Europe and the US then promptly ostracized the fledgling republic, causing severe economic hardship.

In 1825, France finally agreed to recognise Haiti's independence, provided it compensate former enslavers to the tune of 150 million gold francs ($21 billion today) - a ransom which deeply impoverished the government and was not fully repaid until 1947. The United States only recognised Haitian independence in 1862, but this did not prevent it from invading and occupying it in 1915.

FOLLOW HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/HaitiActionCommittee

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/HaitiAction1

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Haiti Action Committee  https://haitisolidarity.net

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund  https://haitiemergencyrelief.org/

 The Lasalin Massacre and the Human Rights Crisis in Haiti

https://haitiliberte.com/the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

TODAY’S EPISODE: Saab Oral Argument Focuses on Legitimacy of Maduro Government 

GUEST: Author, labor attorney and human rights activist Dan Kovalik of Council on Hemispheric Affairs

BACKGROUND:

On December 20, in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, Judge Robert N. Scola heard oral arguments on Alex Saab’s motion to dismiss the case against him. The factual issue for the Court to decide was “whether Mr. Saab was a special envoy from Venezuela to Iran traveling on a mission when he was detained in Cape Verde and extradited to the U.S. and, therefore, entitled to diplomatic immunity.” Dan was present for the hearing and will discuss, in detail, the hearing results. WTF has been following The Case of Alex Saab since his detainment on Cape Verde 12 June 2020. Today is our third update.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dan.kovalik.9

Twitter: https://twitter.com/danielmkovalik

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Judge Scola Decision Denying Alex Saab’s Right to Diplomatic Immunity

Statement by the Venezuela Government on the US Ruling Against Alex Saab

Saab Oral Argument Focuses on Legitimacy of Maduro Government, Daniel Kovalik

Saab Hearing Proves He Deserves Diplomatic Immunity, Exposes Prosecution’s Duplicity, Daniel Kovalik

Alex Saab: A Kidnapped Diplomat. Film Screening followed by Q & A (WTF Episode 2)

Alex Saab, Sanctions and the Extra-Judicial Reach of the U.S (WTF Episode 1)

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE: Deconstructing the Anatomy of "Forgetting"

GUEST; Journalist, activist and educator Roberto Alvarenga Lovato

Roberto Lovato is the author of Unforgetting (Harper Collins), a “groundbreaking” memoir the New York Times picked as an “Editor’s Choice.” Newsweek listed Lovato’s memoir as a “must read” 2020 book which the Los Angeles Times listed as one of its 20 Best Books of 2020. Unforgetting was also shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Lovato, a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is also a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Guernica, Le Monde Diplomatique, La Opinion, Der Spiegel and other national and international media outlets. A recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has reported on numerous issues-violence, terrorism, the drug war and the refugee crisis-from Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, France and the United States, among other countries.

I am honored to call Roberto my friend and am certain you will enjoy this compelling, informative and deeply personal conversation from September 9, 2020.shortly after the launch of his book Unforgetting: a Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roberto.lovato

Twitter: https://twitter.com/robvato

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Website: https://robertolovato.com/

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

TODAY’S EPISODE: Lawfare: Judicial & Legislative Coups in Argentina and Peru

Joining me today is my friend and co-host Raul Burbano. Raul is the Program Director for Common Frontiers based in Toronto. Common Frontiers is a WTF broadcast partner

GUESTS: Aníbal Ibarra and Daniela Ortiz.

Anibal is the former Mayor of Buenos Aires and Federal Prosecutor. Anibal is currently a criminal defense lawyer and member of the Broad Front political party.  

Daniela Ortiz is a peruvian artist and antiracist militant who lives in Urubamba, Peru. She was part of the Campaign against immigrant detention centers in Catalunya from 2009 until 2012, The Espacio del Inmigrante in Barcelona from 2012 until 2016, during the pandemic she was part of the Red de Cuidados Anti Racistas in Barcelona and was founder of the Madrecitas Colectiva against judicialization of motherhood and childhood of migrant families and the removal of custodies. She now is part of the Frente de Lucha Materna in Peru where she currently lives.

BACKGROUND:

Argentina:

On Tuesday, December 6, An Argentine court sentenced Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to six years in jail and disqualified her from holding public office in a high-profile corruption case.

The vice president, who has temporary immunity due to her current role, will not face immediate prison time and is expected to appeal the sentence, with the case likely to spend years winding through higher courts.

Technically, she could run for office while the appeals are pending, but she said on Tuesday that she "would not be a candidate for anything" in next year's general election.

Fernandez de Kirchner, who served as president for two terms between 2007 and 2015 and commands rock-star crowds of supporters, faced charges of alleged corruption in the awarding of public works during her presidency

The court acquitted her on another count of "illicit association".

Peru:

The crisis in Peru has reached the streets, after Congress dismissed former President Pedro Castillo on December 7 for wanting to dissolve Parliament and establish an emergency government.

 The appointment of Vice President Dina Boluarte as President of the Republic, far from bringing calm, has led to a wave of protests in Lima and in the interior of the country.

Faced with this situation, Boluarte declared yesterday a 30-day state of emergency throughout the country and presented to Congress a proposal to advance the general elections to April 2024, two years ahead of schedule. Now possibly 2023.

Many defend the return of Castillo -now detained in preventive detention-, but there are at least three other claims on the streets.

1. The resignation of President Dina Boluarte
2. Closing of the Current Congress
3. A Constituent Assembly

FOLLOW OUR GUESTS

Raul Burbano

Anibal Ibarra

Daniela Ortiz

Frente de Lucha Materna

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Argentina's Vice President Faces a "Media-Judicial Firing Squad"

Peru Goes to the Polls: 2021 Presidential Elections

Pedro Castillo Assumes the Presidency of Peru

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.

EPISODE: Decolonization, Multipolarity & the Demise of the Monroe Doctrine 

GUEST: Frederick Mills, professor of philosophy at Bowie State University and Deputy Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. He researches and writes on ethics, philosophy, U.S. --Latin America relations and has recently published a book, Enrique Dussel's Ethics of Liberation: An Introduction.

BACKGROUND:

December 3, 2023 will mark the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. It will also mark its obsolescence in the face of popular resistance and the Pink Tide of progressive governments in Latin America that have been elected over the past two and a half decades. The prevailing ideology of these left and left of center movements rejects the “Washington Consensus” and opts for a new consensus based on the decolonization of the political, economic, social and cultural spheres. This consensus is accompanied by encounters and conferences that advance liberatory traditions developed since the 1960’s as well as those deeply rooted in indigenous cultures. It is Washington’s failure to respect and adjust to this political and ideological process of transformation that precludes, at this time, a constructive and cooperative U.S. foreign policy towards the region.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

Frederick B. Mills:

Council on Hemispheric Affairs:

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Decolonization, Multipolarity and the Demise of the Monroe Doctrine

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.