WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean

On November 30, 2021 in an overnight ceremony in the capital, Bridgetown, Dame Sandra Mason was sworn in as president.

The new era for Barbados ends Britain's centuries of influence, including more than 200 years when the island was a hub for the transatlantic slave trade.

Dame Sandra Mason, 72, the island's governor-general since 2018, was named as president-elect of the nation following a vote in parliament last month. She now replaces the Queen as the head of state.

Barbados announced its plan to become a republic last year, but it will remain within the Commonwealth.

It was one of England's first slave colonies. English settlers first occupied the island in 1627 and, under British control, it became a sugar plantation economy using enslaved people brought in from Africa.

Slavery was abolished in Barbados in 1834 and the country became fully independent in 1966.

With a population of about 285,000 people, Barbados is one of the more populous and prosperous Caribbean islands.

Joining us this episode to celebrate the newly created Republic of Barbados is David Denny, General Secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, President of Cuban-Barbadian Friendship Association and General Secretary of Friends of Venezuela Solidarity Committee Barbados

Today I am joined in conversation with my friend and CODEPINK team mate Leonardo Flores. Leo holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Maryland and he dropped out of a master’s program at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy to work as an analyst of U.S.-Venezuela relations. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that have transformed the country over the past twenty years. In this episode, we will focus on the November 21 Mega Elections in Venezuela where I served as an internal observer and of which Leo has written a terrific article: Why the Left Won in Venezuela in Five Steps

This episode was recorded live in Managua, Nicaragua on November 10, 2021, three days after President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo won re-election. The November 7 Presidential elections in Nicaragua were the first in a series of elections throughout Latin America and the Caribbean over the course of the month.

Joining the conversation are delegates who traveled to Nicaragua in October to observe conditions prior to Election Day and others who were on-the-ground serving as international observers on November 7.

Guests include:

Yoav Elinevsky, Latin America Working Group of Massachusetts Peace Action

Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity

Michelle Munjanattu who accompanied the November 7, 2021 elections as a member of the Friends of the ATC observation delegation.

The month of November 2021 is filled with elections across much of Central America beckoning many of us to say that the hemisphere will look very different economically and politically at the end of the month versus how it is comprised today.  

This month we will witness elections on:

November 7: Presidential Elections Nicaragua

November 14: Legislative Elections in Argentina

November 21: Presidential Elections in Chile and Regional and Municipal elections in Venezuela

November 28: Presidential Elections in Honduras

This episode will focus on the upcoming elections in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Honduras.

My guest co-host for this episode is Fred Mills, Deputy Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Professor of Philosophy at Bowie State University. We are most fortunate to be joined in conversation by three knowledgeable representatives of each country. 

The first elections this month are in Nicaragua on November 7. These will be Presidential elections with incumbent Daniel Ortega the front runner. Commentary is provided by Camilo Mejia. Camilo is a Nicaraguan activist based in Miami, Florida. Camilo is a veteran and conscientious objector of the war in Iraq, where he witnessed crimes against humanity by the U.S. military.

Next we discuss Venezuela where regional and municipal elections will take place on Sunday, November 21. Leonard Flores of CODEPINK's Latin America team leads the discussion. Leo holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Maryland. He dropped out of a master’s program at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy to work as an analyst of U.S.-Venezuela relations. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that have transformed the country over the past twenty years.

In closing we discuss the November 28 Presidential elections in Honduras. Lucy Pagoada-Quesada joins us for this segment. Lucy is a NYC Department of Education teacher, Human Rights Defender, The Coordinator of The LIBRE Party US-Canada and The Producer of the program ‘Voices of Resistance' at WBAI 99.5 fm NY. Sunday’s at 1pm ET

Guest: La Jornada journalist Angel Guerra Cabrera

This episode is bi-lingual: Spanish and English

On October 18-19  in Qingdao, Cuba was introduced as a new member of the Belt and Road Energy Initiative Partnership during the partnership’s second ministerial conference.

Cuba joins Bolivia, Venezuela and Suriname as the fourth Latin American country to become a member of the energy partnership.

In 2019, officially joined the then four-year old Belt and Road initiative, which is planning to disburse $8 trillion for infrastructure projects mostly in developing nations around the globe.

On October 20, 2021:  

A shipment of the Cuban Abdala and Soberana Covid-19 vaccines was received in Nicaragua. Health Minister Martha Reyes reported that "the shipment contains 1.2 million doses authorized by MINSA for voluntary immunization of children and adolescents between the ages of 2 and 17. " The Minister also noted that the Soberana and Abdala vaccines have a triple dose application protocol showing an efficacy rate above 90% in preventing severe cases. This is the first shipment of the 7 million doses purchased by Nicaragua through the Cuban organization of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries (CUBAFARMA). 

November 15: the Cuban government will fully open its borders to tourism by expanding arrivals from around the world including the United States.

To discuss these recent developments and more, we are joined by La Jornada journalist Angel Guerra Cabrera who is from Cuba and currently lives and works here in Mexico City

Guest: Todd Miller, author of Build Bridges, Not Walls and Empire of Borders

In this episode, we are joined in conversation with Todd Miller, author of Build Bridges, Not Walls and Empire of Borders. Todd has been reporting from international border zones for over 25 years. He writes a weekly post for The Border Chronicle. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places.

Miller has authored four books: Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019), Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).

He’s a contributing editor on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its column “Border Wars”.

This episode was inspired by Leslie Salgado who leads Friends of Latin America. FoLA is a broadcast partner of WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean. Todd joins Leslie and Teri to discuss two of his books: Build Bridges, Not Walls and Empire of Borders.

BUILD BRIDGES, NOT WALLS: In Build Bridges, Not Walls, he invites readers to join him on a journey that begins with the most basic of questions: What happens to our collective humanity when the impulse to help one another is criminalized?

A series of encounters—with climate refugees, members of indigenous communities, border authorities, modern-day abolitionists, scholars, visionaries, and the shape-shifting imagination of his four-year-old son—provoke a series of reflections on the ways in which nation-states create the problems that drive immigration, and how the abolition of borders could make the world a more sustainable, habitable place for all.

EMPIRE OF BORDERS: The United States is outsourcing its border patrol abroad—and essentially expanding its borders in the process.

The twenty-first century has witnessed the rapid hardening of international borders. Security, surveillance, and militarization are widening the chasm between those who travel where they please and those whose movements are restricted. But that is only part of the story. As journalist Todd Miller reveals in Empire of Borders, the nature of US borders has changed. These boundaries have effectively expanded thousands of miles outside of US territory to encircle not simply American land but Washington’s interests. Resources, training, and agents from the United States infiltrate the Caribbean and Central America; they reach across the Canadian border; and they go even farther afield, enforcing the division between Global South and North.

Additional links mentioned in this episode:

Tropic of Chaos

Guest: Monisha Rios, Puerto Rican psychologist and social worker

The inspiration for tonight’s episode came during the VI Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Mexico City on September 18. A result of the Summit was a: “SPECIAL DECLARATION ON THE QUESTION OF PUERTO RICO." The declaration includes two points:

1. Reaffirm the Latin American and Caribbean character of Puerto Rico and, recognizing the efforts made and the resolutions adopted by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations about the situation on Puerto Rico, the most recent on June 18, 2021, and reiterate that it is a matter of high interest to CELAC, as was emphasized at the highest level at the V Summit in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, held on January 25, 2017. 

2. Undertake to continue working in the framework of international law, particularly of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV): Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of December 14th, 1960, to put an end quickly and unconditionally to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations in the Latin American and Caribbean Region.

Joining us today to talk about Ending US Colonialism of Puerto Rico is Monisha Rios. She is a Puerto Rican psychologist, social worker and US army veteran.

Guest: Venezuela Vice Minister Yvan Gil

Since 2017, the private Portuguese bank NovoBanco, 75% of which is owned by US private equity firm Lone Star, has withheld roughly $2 billion USD belonging to the Venezuelan state’s Economic and Social Development Bank (BANDES). BANDES is requesting that NovoBanco transfer roughly $25 million of the $2 billion directly to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to pay for emergency medical supplies for the people of Venezuela. These supplies include: polio vaccines, yellow fever medicine, and thousands of syringes to address a critical shortage in the country.

The government of Venezuela directed BANDES to apply for a transfer of funds from its accounts in NovoBanco to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as of 22 July. These funds were temporarily frozen, but recently have been unblocked by Portuguese legal authorities. And, yet, Novo Banco has issued no response.

To talk more with us about this disturbing and criminal withholding of funds is Yvan Gil, Vice Minister for Europe of the People’s Power Ministry for Foreign Relations.

Episode Title: Understanding Venezuela's Anti-Blockade Law

Guests:

Margaret Flowers of Popular Resistance, SanctionsKill and the Embassy Protection Collective

William Castillo, Venezuela Vice-Minister for implementation of the Anti-Blockade Law

Background:

To combat the U.S. economic war on Venezuela, a new strategy was unveiled on Sept. 29. 2020 by President Nicolás Maduro, called the “Anti-Blockade Constitutional Law for National Development and Guarantee of Human Rights,” or anti-blockade law for short. 

It was approved in a session of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC by its Spanish initials) on Oct. 8, 2020. The ANC has served as an interim legislative body after the right-wing-led National Assembly was declared in contempt for illegal election practices and other violations. May of 2021 Venezuela's National Assembly ratified the law. The current assembly was elected in December 2020.

The siege by the U.S., Canada and its European allies against Venezuela includes the U.S. seizure of CITGO and other Venezuelan properties, the withholding of the country’s gold and money reserves by Britain and Portugal, and a severe sanctions regime.  

Sanctions (or more correctly known as Unilateral Coercive Measures) have cut off Venezuela’s ability to import spare parts and critical chemicals for the oil and mining industries, particularly imports from the U.S., with its dominance in oil technology.  

Part of the anti-blockade law is a legal framework to guarantee foreign investments and shield economic agreements from U.S. sanctions and sabotage with countries that are defying the sanctions to trade with Venezuela. Investments by domestic entities will be allowed as well.  

With expected economic improvements, the government will be able to raise the real wages of the workers, pensions for seniors, and benefits for the population.. 

The government can also strengthen vital social programs such as the CLAP food boxes, health care, education and more. The country’s infrastructure — water, electricity and gas, transport, and telecommunications — also needs rehabilitation. 

In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas, original broadcasts of WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean can be viewed every Wednesday at 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET on CODEPINK YouTube Live

Guest: Carlos Ron, Venezuela Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America

On July 24, the 238th Anniversary of Simon Bolivar's birth, Mexico's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador addressed an audience of foreign ministers and international dignitaries saying: 

Let’s initiate a relationship in our hemisphere based on the premise of George Washington, according to which “nations should not take advantage of the misfortune of other peoples”.

I am aware that this is a complex issue that requires a new political and economic outlook. The proposal is no more and no less than to build something similar to the European Union, but in accordance with our history, our reality, and our identities. In this spirit, the replacement of the OAS by a truly autonomous organization, not a lackey of anyone, but a mediator at the request and acceptance of the parties in conflict, in matters of human rights and democracy, should not be ruled out.

Serving as President Pro Tempore of CELAC, AMLO re-convened members of the organization in Mexico City on September 18 after a four year "pause". President Nicolas Maduro attended the Summit representing Venezuela's democratically elected government. Much of the Summit's conversation focused on creating a unified Latin America and Caribbean economic bloc, similar to the European Union, free to trade in a multi-polar global framework.

September 21 the world witnessed the opening of the 2021 United Nations General Assembly Debate. Thursday morning, 18 countries including Venezuela gathered to sign a declaration to uphold the founding principles of the United Nations. The countries are collectively known as the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter.

And, late September Venezuela Dialogue resumed in Mexico City for a third round. It has been a powerful and evolutionary summer in the Americas!  Join us for an informative and inspiring conversation about how unity and multilateralism are shaping current day Latin America and the Caribbean.

(this episode was recorded between two international locations and contains occasional audio lapses).