En medio de las dudas que se han venido sembrando sobre un posible fraude, en Colombia tenemos que prepararnos para jornadas difíciles como por ejemplo la toma del Capitolio Nacional a lo Trump o algo de similar gravedad
La saliente superintendenta ‘ad hoc’ para la Nueva EPS señala que los funcionarios designados en el sector no han podido frenar los abusos
A la espera de cerrar un acuerdo programático, las mayorías de la Alianza Verde cierran la puerta a respaldar a otros candidatos
A high-level delegation from Pakistan is to continue talks in Tehran to push for fresh US-Iran negotiations.
Follow DW for more.
Washington's decision to let Iranian and Russian oil waivers expire threatens to tighten India's crude oil supply, as New Delhi had relied on temporary relief to sustain imports.
DW has the latest.
An undercover investigation revealed how law firms and advisers are helping migrants pretend to be gay to stay in the UK
Britain will rejoin the popular Europe-wide student exchange program six years after leaving it.
From heat pumps to offshore wind, the UK’s net zero push is facing growing scrutiny.
Are rising costs undermining climate goals?
About 22,000 students in England were told they were given loans by mistake and must immediately pay the money back.
Fracttal, the Latin American intelligence company, has acquired TCMAN, Spain’s leading computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) provider in a move that hands the company a foothold in Europe at a moment when the market for AI-driven industrial maintenance software is expanding rapidly. Founded in Madrid in 1996, TCMAN built its reputation over nearly three decades […] The post Fracttal buys Spanish CMMS pioneer TCMAN in a bet on Europe’s industrial maintenance market appeared first on Latin America Reports.
By Robert Funk Associate Professor of Political Science Universidad de Chile José Antonio Kast always knew that his honeymoon would be short.
He did not expect it to last less than a month.
As a result, President Kast’s first few weeks in office have turned out to be something of an experiment.
Straight out of […]
Caracas, Venezuela — Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s government continues to make significant shake-ups within Venezuela’s institutions.
Late last week, her administration announced the appointment of Larry Devoe as attorney general and Eglée González Lobato as the new ombudsman.
Various NGOs have questioned the appointments on whether or not they show a willingness towards true political […] The post New attorney general, ombudsman appointments in Venezuela draw criticism appeared first on Latin America Reports.
By Felicia J.
Persaud News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds.
April 15, 2026: At a time when Americans are facing cuts to healthcare and rising costs for food, gas, and basic goods, a recent U.S.
Senate report reveals something deeply contradictory: millions of taxpayer dollars are being paid for deportations to Africa and other foreign […]
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds.
April 15, 2026: The Hard To Beat podcast has officially returned with its fifth season, introducing a new format that blends original music, business, and Caribbean identity into a single platform aimed at immigrant entrepreneurs.
Hosted by Caribbean immigrant entrepreneur and journalist Felicia J.
Persaud, the podcast opens its […]
A conversation between Kirsten Welker, moderator of NBC News’ talk show “Meet the Press”, and Miguel Díaz-Canel aired on Sunday, marking the first time that a major U.S.
media outlet has interviewed the current Cuban president. The discussion focused on the current state of U.S.-Cuba relations and saw Díaz-Canel insist that he would not resign […] The post Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s NBC interview: 5 key takeaways appeared first on Latin America Reports.
MONTREAL, April 14, 2026 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Canada’s bilateral development finance institution, FinDev Canada, announces a USD 30 million loan to Corporación Interamericana para el Financiamiento de Infraestructura (CIFI), a leading investment platform in middle-market infrastructure and energy delivering financial solutions across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This represents FinDev Canada’s second transaction with CIFI.
The loan will […]
For some bucket list vacations, there are not many variables.
If you’re planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands, however, you could quickly become overwhelmed and want to throw up your hands.
While the itineraries are regulated and only involve a few options, the ways to experience a Galapagos luxury cruise are almost as...
The post Ship Options for a Galapagos Luxury Cruise appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
Mexico has become the latest country to flip the switch on the end of anonymous communication — and the globalist architects of Agenda 2030 are threatening to roll out the plan in America next.
As of January 9, 2026, every single mobile phone line in Mexico — prepaid, postpaid, physical SIM, or eSIM — must […] The post Mexico forces every Phone User into Bio-metric Slave Grid activated in 2026 appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
Russian writer and publicist Zakhar Prilepin suggested that Russia should answer “tit for tat” if the United States supplies Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Prilepin: Match the Move with an Equal Gesture Prilepin cited a statement by U.S.
President Donald Trump, who reportedly said he might discuss with Vladimir Putin whether […] The post Tomahawk for Ukraine or Oreshnik for Cuba?
appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
By Michael M.
McCarthy Founder and Executive Director, Caracas Wire Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Roughly three months since US special forces forcibly extracted Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Venezuela seems to have settled into a tense calm.
Though the path to stability is not assured, and the critical issue of new Presidential […]
Mexico is no secret to North American travelers.
The Cancun airport is one of the most popular ones in the world that’s not a major hub and there are dozens of direct international flights a day landing in Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, and Mexico City.
They keep raising prices and putting in capacity controls...
The post Lesser Known Mexico Destinations: Heading Off the Beaten Path appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
The US regime has removed the sanctions on interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The move was announced on Wednesday and marks a significant policy shift as Washington builds closer ties with Caracas after kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
US President Donald Trump […] The post USA formally recognizes Venezuelan government appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
By Josse Martinez and Danjha León Martinez When the United States ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 57,000 Hondurans in July 2025 (effective September 8), the U.S.
government framed it as a routine administrative update.
But in humanitarian terms, it was something else entirely: the deliberate withdrawal of a critical protection mechanism in the middle […]
When heading to South America, you don’t have the wide range of choices you’ll find for Europe.
You’ve got the US carriers, three main South American ones, then a few serving just one or two countries.
The largest one is of those is LATAM Airlines, based in Chile.
Unlike Avianca, it has kept the...
The post Latin American Airlines: LATAM appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
• Fox-Dominion trial delay 'is not unusual,' judge says • Fox News' defamation battle isn't stopping Trump's election lies
La designación de la árbitra mexicana para el torneo 2026 revela los prejuicios y la violencia contra las mujeres en el fútbol
The government of Chilean President José Antonio Kast carried out its first deportation flight of irregular migrants on Thursday, expelling 40 people on a Chilean Air Force (FACh) Boeing 737 that made stops in Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia.
The 19 Colombians, the last group to disembark, arrived in Bogotá shortly after 8:00 p.m.
local time.
The 17 Bolivians and four Ecuadorians were dropped off previously in La Paz and Guayaquil, respectively.
Each deportee traveled accompanied by an officer from Chile's Investigative Police (PDI).
La destacada galerista muestra su inclinación por espacios donde se crea, se exhibe y se conserva el arte.
Pero también por sitios populares y concurridos.
“Ver Santiago desde el teleférico ayuda a entender la ciudad como un todo”, asegura
En 2025, un total de 5.212 inmigrantes sin papeles del país caribeño abandonaron el territorio sudamericano.
La Administración de derecha estudia facilitar este proceso, ya que Caracas no recibe a los expulsados
La legitimidad, imparcialidad y autonomía del CNE seguirán en entredicho mientras los magistrados sean elegidos por las bancadas del Congreso
El sicariato crece en la capital impulsado por la sofisticación del crimen organizado, el fácil acceso a armas y la falta de inteligencia para combatirlo
La renuncia de Citlalli Hernández deja en el limbo el proyecto emblema de la presidenta, principal impulsora de la dependencia que, aseguraba, tenía la misma importancia que el resto de sus ministerios de Gobierno
La presidenta pide a la hasta ahora secretaria de Mujeres Citlalli Hernández que se encargue el reparto de candidaturas y de hacer de puente con los socios del PT y PVEM, frente a los vaivenes dentro del partido a manos de Luisa María Alcalde y Andrés López Beltrán
El viaje relámpago de la mandataria mexicana a la cumbre de gobiernos progresistas en España coloca a México de vuelta al primer plano internacional, sella las paces con España y envía una señal de firmeza hacia Estados Unidos
Pintar como denuncia sería generar un segundo encierro y, peor aún, dos opresiones.
¿Por qué el artista va a decir lo que su cuerpo ya está expresando por él?
El también editor literario y periodista chileno publica ‘Huracán’, novela cuyo protagonista homónimo es un galgo a través de cuyos ojos los lectores se asoman al mundo que le tocó vivir
Laura Guerra Angulo, excuñada de Maduro, deja el cargo.
El anuncio se concreta luego del levantamiento de sanciones contra la banca pública por parte de Estados Unidos
La exalcaldesa de Tecámac, Mariela Gutiérrez, admite la muerte de los animales bajo su Gobierno tras viralizarse un video en el que discute con funcionarios estatales
EL PAÍS adelantó esta información el pasado 30 de marzo; tres funcionarios de la petrolera han sido separados de su cargo
Finaliza la primera misión aérea de deportación del nuevo Ejecutivo chileno.
Cuarenta personas fueron expulsadas, entre ellas 19 colombianos
La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos responsabilizó al Estado por la represión y abusos en mayo de 2006 y ahora, al revisar el cumplimiento de la sentencia, expone que la Fiscalía mexicana no ha avanzado en la investigación contra los policías
La Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano interpela a los grupos armados por destruir la paz y ha expuesto en un mensaje que “callar ante la inseguridad es traicionar al evangelio”
El Gobierno ruso señala la detención “ilegal” de Kristina Vladímirovna, de 17 años, en un centro de protección de menores, y critica la “inacción” de las autoridades mexicanas para concederle acceso consular
Washington acusa a mineras chinas de “ayudar a la dictadura a generar dinero y mantener el control político” en Nicaragua
España ha liderado la normalización diplomática con el país caribeño, según el vicepresidente Carlos Cuerpo
Washington acusa a mineras chinas de “ayudar a la dictadura a generar dinero y mantener el control político” en el país centroamericano
La Comisión Nacional Forestal pronostica que en los próximos dos meses habrá más riesgo y reporta que el Estado de México y Jalisco son los territorios más afectados en lo que va de año
El Güero, como también se le conocía, fue un hombre cercano a Emilio Azcárraga y el responsable de la primera llegada de Javier Aguirre a la Selección Mexicana
El candidato de Renovación Popular se encuentra a 10 mil votos del izquierdista Roberto Sánchez por el pase a la segunda vuelta en las elecciones peruanas
El candidato de Renovación Popular se encuentra a 10 mil votos del izquierdista Roberto Sánchez por el pase a la segunda vuelta en las elecciones peruanas
Los colectivos exigen que el Gobierno investigue el financiamiento del evento y critican que la convocatoria atenta contra el Estado laico
Una veintena de colombianos llegará al país tras el inicio de la campaña antiinmigratoria del Ejecutivo chileno, similar a la de Trump en EE UU
La protesta denuncia las precarias condiciones sociales de la población y pide a funcionarios estadounidenses un compromiso expreso con la transición
La presidenta dijo que el cierre del expediente sucedió en 2025 con el exfiscal Alejandro Gertz Manero por razones que ella desconoce
La presidenta de México evita entrar al choque con el presidente de EE UU en la antesala de la Cumbre de Gobiernos progresistas que se celebrará este fin de semana en España
La presidenta de México evita entrar al choque con el presidente de EE UU en la antesala de la Cumbre de Gobiernos progresistas que se celebrará este fin de semana en España
La seguridad es necesaria, sin duda.
Pero no es suficiente.
Un pórtico puede detectar un objeto, pero no puede reconstruir confianzas, ni generar sentido de pertenencia, ni ofrecer un proyecto de vida
Las personas mayores no solo necesitan apoyo material.
Necesitan seguir siendo parte, seguir teniendo algo que decir, seguir siendo miradas como sujetos con historia, con opinión, con valor
En medio de las dudas que se han venido sembrando sobre un posible fraude, en Colombia tenemos que prepararnos para jornadas difíciles como por ejemplo la toma del Capitolio Nacional a lo Trump o algo de similar gravedad
La saliente superintendenta ‘ad hoc’ para la Nueva EPS señala que los funcionarios designados en el sector no han podido frenar los abusos
A la espera de cerrar un acuerdo programático, las mayorías de la Alianza Verde cierran la puerta a respaldar a otros candidatos
Aunque la Corte ordena devolver unos 25.000 millones, los cálculos sobre el tamaño exacto del reintegro generan dudas
Una parte importante de la izquierda chilena simplemente no tolera que gobierne la derecha.
Acepta y aplaude los triunfos electorales propios, pero desestima sus derrotas por considerarlas contrarias a las demandas del “pueblo”
La mandataria echa mano de rectores, académicos y expertos para formar un comité que se perfila como aval de una estrategia energética en ejecución
¿Dónde está esa plata?
¿Por qué no llega a los bolsillos de los venezolanos?
Es la pregunta que circula desde que Estados Unidos irrumpió en Venezuela
El presidente de Brasil habla en exclusiva con EL PAÍS, en Brasilia, sobre el desorden mundial, las elecciones con otro Bolsonaro, su carrera y su visita a España para reunirse con Sánchez y otros líderes internacionales
Tras ser desplazado del segundo lugar por Roberto Sánchez, el ultraconservador llama a la insurreción
En cadena nacional, el mandatario anuncia más de 40 medidas con enfoque tributario, y responde a las críticas de la oposición sobre la rebaja al impuesto corporativo
The count in Peru's presidential election produced a dramatic reversal on Wednesday.
With 91% of ballots processed by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), leftist Roberto Sánchez (Juntos por el Perú) surged from sixth to second place, displacing ultraconservative Rafael López Aliaga (Renovación Popular) and positioning himself for the June 7 runoff against Keiko Fujimori (Fuerza Popular), who holds first place with 16.99% of the vote.
Juan Fraile, de Caracol Radio, explica cómo la candidata uribista suma apoyos de formaciones tradicionales
La Presidencia publicó la hoja de vida del exalcalde de Medellín, quien asumiría el cargo tras la renuncia de Bernardo Camacho
Fracttal, the Latin American intelligence company, has acquired TCMAN, Spain’s leading computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) provider in a move that hands the company a foothold in Europe at a moment when the market for AI-driven industrial maintenance software is expanding rapidly. Founded in Madrid in 1996, TCMAN built its reputation over nearly three decades […] The post Fracttal buys Spanish CMMS pioneer TCMAN in a bet on Europe’s industrial maintenance market appeared first on Latin America Reports.
By Robert Funk Associate Professor of Political Science Universidad de Chile José Antonio Kast always knew that his honeymoon would be short.
He did not expect it to last less than a month.
As a result, President Kast’s first few weeks in office have turned out to be something of an experiment.
Straight out of […]
Caracas, Venezuela — Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s government continues to make significant shake-ups within Venezuela’s institutions.
Late last week, her administration announced the appointment of Larry Devoe as attorney general and Eglée González Lobato as the new ombudsman.
Various NGOs have questioned the appointments on whether or not they show a willingness towards true political […] The post New attorney general, ombudsman appointments in Venezuela draw criticism appeared first on Latin America Reports.
By Felicia J.
Persaud News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds.
April 15, 2026: At a time when Americans are facing cuts to healthcare and rising costs for food, gas, and basic goods, a recent U.S.
Senate report reveals something deeply contradictory: millions of taxpayer dollars are being paid for deportations to Africa and other foreign […]
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds.
April 15, 2026: The Hard To Beat podcast has officially returned with its fifth season, introducing a new format that blends original music, business, and Caribbean identity into a single platform aimed at immigrant entrepreneurs.
Hosted by Caribbean immigrant entrepreneur and journalist Felicia J.
Persaud, the podcast opens its […]
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced on Tuesday in a national broadcast the launch of the second phase of Dr.
SV, a public health application developed with Google Cloud that incorporates artificial intelligence based on the Gemini model to detect, diagnose and monitor patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney conditions.
A conversation between Kirsten Welker, moderator of NBC News’ talk show “Meet the Press”, and Miguel Díaz-Canel aired on Sunday, marking the first time that a major U.S.
media outlet has interviewed the current Cuban president. The discussion focused on the current state of U.S.-Cuba relations and saw Díaz-Canel insist that he would not resign […] The post Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s NBC interview: 5 key takeaways appeared first on Latin America Reports.
El INPEC ha solicitado el cambio de los dispositivos del lugar donde están recluidos los cabecillas de las bandas criminales más peligrosas de Medellín y sus alrededores
MONTREAL, April 14, 2026 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Canada’s bilateral development finance institution, FinDev Canada, announces a USD 30 million loan to Corporación Interamericana para el Financiamiento de Infraestructura (CIFI), a leading investment platform in middle-market infrastructure and energy delivering financial solutions across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This represents FinDev Canada’s second transaction with CIFI.
The loan will […]
For some bucket list vacations, there are not many variables.
If you’re planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands, however, you could quickly become overwhelmed and want to throw up your hands.
While the itineraries are regulated and only involve a few options, the ways to experience a Galapagos luxury cruise are almost as...
The post Ship Options for a Galapagos Luxury Cruise appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
Mexico has become the latest country to flip the switch on the end of anonymous communication — and the globalist architects of Agenda 2030 are threatening to roll out the plan in America next.
As of January 9, 2026, every single mobile phone line in Mexico — prepaid, postpaid, physical SIM, or eSIM — must […] The post Mexico forces every Phone User into Bio-metric Slave Grid activated in 2026 appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
Russian writer and publicist Zakhar Prilepin suggested that Russia should answer “tit for tat” if the United States supplies Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Prilepin: Match the Move with an Equal Gesture Prilepin cited a statement by U.S.
President Donald Trump, who reportedly said he might discuss with Vladimir Putin whether […] The post Tomahawk for Ukraine or Oreshnik for Cuba?
appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
La región debe multiplicar entre tres y cinco veces la financiación en recursos hídricos y saneamiento.
El futuro de la producción de energía, alimentos e infraestructura digital depende de eso
By Michael M.
McCarthy Founder and Executive Director, Caracas Wire Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Roughly three months since US special forces forcibly extracted Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Venezuela seems to have settled into a tense calm.
Though the path to stability is not assured, and the critical issue of new Presidential […]
Mexico is no secret to North American travelers.
The Cancun airport is one of the most popular ones in the world that’s not a major hub and there are dozens of direct international flights a day landing in Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, and Mexico City.
They keep raising prices and putting in capacity controls...
The post Lesser Known Mexico Destinations: Heading Off the Beaten Path appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
The US regime has removed the sanctions on interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The move was announced on Wednesday and marks a significant policy shift as Washington builds closer ties with Caracas after kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
US President Donald Trump […] The post USA formally recognizes Venezuelan government appeared first on New Jetpack Site.
What ever happened to the "Cancel Culture" touted by MAGA right-wingers?
The same thing that happened to the prudish Republicans who were horrified by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the QAnon people who warned about the Washington-based child sex ring, and now support the pedophile running the government.
And the same thing as the far-right people who hated the federal government to the extent that they refused to investigate the blowing of the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City in 1995 (Yes, I’m talking about you Newt) and now support the centralization of power in the hands of the Executive.
And how about the Republicans who in the name of fiscal conservativism supported the strategy of “starve the beast” in order to reduce government spending and now support a President who boosts the federal debt and boasts of a trillion-dollar military budget.
The bottom line here is do and say anything to make the rich richer.
By Josse Martinez and Danjha León Martinez When the United States ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 57,000 Hondurans in July 2025 (effective September 8), the U.S.
government framed it as a routine administrative update.
But in humanitarian terms, it was something else entirely: the deliberate withdrawal of a critical protection mechanism in the middle […]
When heading to South America, you don’t have the wide range of choices you’ll find for Europe.
You’ve got the US carriers, three main South American ones, then a few serving just one or two countries.
The largest one is of those is LATAM Airlines, based in Chile.
Unlike Avianca, it has kept the...
The post Latin American Airlines: LATAM appeared first on Luxury Latin America Blog.
Some media commentators state that Trump will not pay any attention to these protests because as a sitting duck president he has nothing to lose.
This line of thinking is misleading.
And we’ve seen this before.
I remember the 1969 anti-Vietnam War March on Washington past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue when President Nixon told the press that he wasn’t aware of it because he was watching a football game, which after all, was more important.
Watergate demonstrated just how obsessed he was with the protests (the obsession is also depicted in Oliver Stone’s movie “Nixon”).
The main danger now is that the protest movement gets absorbed into the campaigning for Democratic Party candidates in the midterms.
Something similar happened with the Black Lives Matter protests leading into the Biden presidential campaign in 2020.
The protest movement needs to be independent of, and on occasions critical of, the Democratic Party, if for no other reason because the Democratic Party establishment approximates the pro-war positions of the Republicans.
Luiz Inazio Lula de Silva is not just another President of Brazil.
He is the first one to rise from abject poverty, breaking a long tradition of leadership dominated by political and economic elites.The oligarchic business families could not imagine the country being ruled by a leftist trade unionist from a poor family without college education.
Their reaction is brought out poignantly in this story.
During his first election campaign, Lula was passing by the side of an elite school in a rich neighborhood.
One of the students shouted “vote for Lula”.
Taken by surprise, Lula thanked the boy but asked him why was a boy from a rich family support a leftist candidate.
The boy replied, “Señor Lula.
My father is a wealthy businessman.
He says that if you get elected, you will ruin the business and the country with your leftist policies.
He has promised to shift the family to Miami, if you were elected as president.
I Love Miami”.Lula has become president for the third time, overcoming the initial apprehensions of the businessmen.
In fact, he has become a darling of the business community by promoting their interests both within and outside the country by including large delegations in his state visits.
There were over 300 businessmen who had accompanied President Lula during his latest visit to India in February this year.Richard Lapper, the author of the book, brings out vividly the long and incredible journey of Lula from a dirt poor family in the backward, arid and remote north east part of the country to the presidential palace in Brasilia.
Lula’s journey starts in an old beaten up truck through 2500 kms of rough roads from his native village Caetés in the impoverished region of Pernambuco to São Paulo.
Lula was seven years old during this 1952 journey along with his six siblings and mother as well as other emigrating neighbors.
Desperate to escape the poverty that had been exacerbated by two years of drought, his mother Dona Lindu was eager to rejoin her husband Aristides Inácio da Silva, who had made the same trip seven years earlier and got a job in Santos port near São Paulo .
She sold the family’s plot of land, the primitive shack, the cow and the donkey to make the trip and join her husband.
The difficult back-breaking journey, mainly over dirt roads, was an epic of endurance that would take 13 days. On arriving at Santos, Dona Lindu found that her husband was living with a new wife.
He was angry with the surprise arrival of his family.
While he gave some financial support, he became abusive and started beating up the first wife and her children.
So she moved away from the husband and started a new life with her children who started working.
Lula, joined one of his brothers in selling peanuts, oranges, and a coconut sweet called cocada on the streets in Santos.
After a few years of schooling, he found a part-time position as an office boy in a small company.Lula became a lathe operator after training in a public apprentice scheme and gradually got involved in a growing labour movement during the late 1960s, persuaded by his older brother Frei Chico who was a Communist Party member.
After founding and then leading the trade union-based Workers’ Party (PT), Lula stated his political career.
He stood in the election for membership of the São Paulo state legislature in 1982 and lost.
In 1986, he got elected to the Federal Congress.
He ran for president three times in 1989, 1994 and 1998 unsuccessfully.
After this, many had written off Lula, dismissing him as an old-style labour unionist, out of touch with the new, more liberal and market-friendly public mood.
But Lula surprised his critics.
He moderated his goals, dropped the rabble-rousing tone that had marked his first forays into politics, and then surged to success.
After winning the presidency twice successively in the 2002 and 2006, Lula left office in January 2011 with his popularity sky-high and as something of an international star.
His success in maintaining economic stability, reducing poverty, and improving living standards was applauded by the Brazilians.
He had evolved his own governance and development model called as Lulaism or Brasilia Consensus which was a balanced, pragmatic and mature mix of pro-poor and business friendly policies.
He believes that the country needs a vibrant private sector to create wealth and employment to supplement the government’s efforts.
He stood out as a role model for Latin America, polarized by the confrontation between left and right. Since the Brazilian constitution does not allow more than two consecutive presidential terms, Lula had got Dilma Rouseff elected to succeed him in 2010 and 2014.
But she let him down by her naive and arrogant political style and mismanagement.
She was impeached by the right-wing members of the Congress on a an insignificant budget management error.
Lula was put in jail on some trumped up charges by the judges and prosecutors with a political agenda to discredit Lula and PT.
This created an opportunity for Bolsonaro, the extreme rightist, to come to power as president in the 2018 elections. Bolsonaro went on to deepen political polarization and tarnish the country’s image, with his Trump-like combative, coarse and divisive policies..After spending 580 days in jail, Lula got exonerated and returned to politics .
He won the presidency again in the October 2022 elections and has announced his intention to contest in the October 2026 election. But Lula is now a fading star and his political party PT has lost lot of voters.
While Lula won in the last election, the PT suffered losses even in their strongholds.
There have been some corruption cases in recent years recalling the public memory of the notorious Car Wash scandal.
But Lula’s image got a boost after his successful stand against Trump’s tariffs and bullying.The country has changed drastically with the rise of the Bible, Beef and Bullet constituencies which control the Congress and move the political agenda of the country.
The poor who voted earlier for Lula have been hijacked by the new Evangelical churches, who have increased their sway over nearly one third of the population.
The powerful unions of the manufacturing industries have been overshadowed by the service workers of the digital economy.
Lula’s rhetoric does not appeal to the young population as it did to their parents.
On the contrary, the new generation has gone right consumed by the false narratives and fake news in the social media dominated by extremist rightists and influencers.So it would be challenging for the 80 year-old Lula to win in the coming election in October this year.
But he might defy the odds, as he had done many times in his life.Lapper has also give a detailed account of the rise of Marina Silva who has a similar story like Lula.
Born in a poor rubber tapper family in Amazon, she rose to become the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change for the first five and a half years of Lula’s presidency.
She even contested the presidential elections on her own in 2010, 2014 and 2018 but was unsuccessful.Lapper has narrated the journey of Lula in the larger context of the history of Brazil, starting from the colonial period to the current situation in 2026. He has given a fairly objective and balanced portrait of Lula in this book.
I found his earlier book Bible, Beef and Bullets: Brazil in the age of Bolsonaro”(published in 2021) also as informative and non-partisan.
My review of the book in https://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/2021/06/bolsonaro-bible-beef-and-bullets.htmlLapper’s perspectives are refreshingly free from the typical western prejudices.
This is because of Lapper’s own long journey.
As a British student he was fascinated by Marxism and the sociopolitical situation in Latin America.
He took to academia, and left-wing activism before becoming a journalist.
He had learned Spanish and worked as a correspondent for nearly two years in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, attracted by the excitement of the revolutions sweeping through those countries.
He was the Latin America editor of Financial Times for 10 years and had lived in Brazil between 2003 and 2011.
Most importantly, he is married to a Brazilian.
He had gained first hand knowledge of the Brazilians through interaction with the extended family and friends on his wife’s side.
Since leaving the FT, he has continued to visit Brazil regularly, spending up to a quarter of the year there. Lapper’s book, which has just been published in February 2026, is a valuable additional source for those following Lula, Brazil and Latin America.
Siamara, the founder of the Argentine Fashion brand this year, starts with this story, ”The brand reflects my personal story and the intersection of the cultures that shaped me.
Through Siamara, I combine Indian textiles, craftsmanship, and color with Argentine silhouettes and contemporary style.
The result is a collection of distinctive pieces that celebrate cultural fusion, individuality, and the beauty of textile traditions". The young up and coming fashion designer says, "My story is deeply shaped by two cultures.
My father is Indian, originally from Kerala, and my mother is an Argentine diplomat.
During my childhood, my mother was posted in New Delhi as the Deputy Chief of Mission, and our family moved there together.
Ilived in India for six years, between the ages of 10 and 16.
Those years were incredibly formative for me and played a major role in shaping my aesthetic and creative perspective.
Living in India opened my eyes to a world of textiles, color, and craftsmanship.
I became fascinated by the richness of Indian fabrics, embroidery, and traditional techniques.
What struck me most was the diversity of personal style that coexisted in the same place.
In a single city street you could see women wearing vibrant sarees and embroidered kurtis, while others walked by in jeans and a T-shirt.
Fashion felt expressive, layered, and deeply connected to culture.
During those years I developed a deep appreciation for textiles and the stories they carry.After our time in India, I returned to Argentina and finished high school in Buenos Aires in 2020.
Coming back after living in such a colorful and textile-rich environment made the contrast in fashion very noticeable.
In Buenos Aires, I observed that many women dressed in more neutral tones—mostly black—with simpler silhouettes.
Compared to what I had experienced in India, personal style often felt more restrained and less experimental.However, after the pandemic, I began to notice a shift.
Following long months of lockdown, people seemed eager to express themselves again through clothing.
There was a renewed interest in dressing well and exploring personal style, which made the fashion landscape feel more dynamic.In 2021, I moved to the United States to study Fashion Business Management at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.
The program gave me a strong foundation in the business side of fashion, from brand development and merchandising to marketing strategy and retail management.
At FIT, I learned how creative vision can be translated into a sustainable brand and how to build a fashion business from concept to market”. With the above story, Siamara Fashion has taken off blending Indian ingredients and Argentine creativity.Siamara’s website is https://siamara.com.ar/Siamara’s father Thomas Francis, born in Thrissur, Kerala, calls himself as an Indo-Argentine artist.
He went to Buenos Aires for textile business where he fell in love with Georgina Fernandez Destefano, an Argentine diplomat. This is yet another example of my joke, “The biggest risk of doing business with Latin America is…falling in love”.
I have dozens of such examples I quote in my lectures to Indian businessmen to motivate them to take the Latin American market more seriously. After the marriage, Thomas left his business and became a painter. He has held exhibitions in Denmark, US, Argentina and India during the postings of his wife in different countries.
Thomas says, “My first painting, titled “Prisoners of Paradise,” reflects that stage of my life, when I felt trapped despite having a happy personal and family life.
The idea developed through long conversations with other husbands of my wife’s colleagues who were experiencing similar circumstances”.
Thomas has used Indian and Argentine themes such as Rangoli and foot ball in his paintings. The young Siamara is following in the footsteps of two other Argentine fashion designers whose Indo-Argentine fusion labels have become success stories.Monica Socolovsky of Argentina ran a Sathya Fashion brand business.
As an ardent Sai Baba devotee, she had named her daughter and her brand as Sathya.
She visited India three times a year to source Indian fabrics and accessories and had done over 100 visits.
She exported her branded clothes to Latin America, Europe and the US.
Her brand was part of the Argentine fashion scene for over four decades, I had organized an Indo-Argentine Fashion Show in 2010 ( when I was ambassador to Argentina) with her collection along with those of two Indian designers Nachiket Barve and Anita Dongre from Mumbai. Monica had passed away in 2023. My blog on her https://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-faith-to-fashion-story-of-monica.htmlSayana Gonzalez of Argentina, married to an Indian businessman Gaurav Gupta, has a fashion brand “deWar”.
She lives in Delhi and is a member of The Fashion Design Council of India. Sayana had worked as an assistant designer, a print designer and as a production manager for a high end manufacturer in Delhi. She had inherited the brand from her grand mother who lived in Paris.
https://dewarworld.com/.I call Siamara, Monica and Sayana as the Tres Marias (in Spanish Three Marys) of Indo-Argentine fusion fashion
In the face of Trump’s steady decline in approval ratings, White House spokesman Davis Ingle claimed: “The ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.” OVERWHELMINGLY?
Trump received under 50% of the popular vote and only 1.5% more than Kamala Harris.
Does that make his triumph “overwhelming?” Of course not, but that doesn’t deter Trump and his allies from constantly conflating the popular vote and the electoral college vote in order to claim that 2024 was a landslide victory.
What has happened in Venezuela is not a surprise to those who have read the Magical Realism stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the other famous Latin American writers.
In this signature genre of Latin American literature, the writers blur the line between fantasy and facts, weaving magic into reality.Machado is Magic…Rodriguez is Realism..in the ongoing Magical Realism show of Venezuela choreographed by the US.Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Prize winner, had the Fantasy of flying in an American magic carpet and land on the Miraflores Presidential palace in Caracas after the kidnapping of President Maduro by the American forces.
Machado has been a relentless democratic activist fighting the Chavista dictatorship in the last two decades.
She wanted to wipe out the Chavistas with the military help of US.
But the Fact is that Delcy Rodrigues from the ruling Chavista (followers of Hugo Chavez who was President from 1998 till his death in 2013) regime has moved into the Presidential palace.
Machado has got a reality check from President Trump who ruled her out "as not having enough support or respect within Venezuela”.
He chose to let Delcy Rodriguez, the Vice President under Maduro, to continue as Acting President.
Rodriguez is better for Tump to get oil and other benefits.
Machado’s take over of power would have resulted in violent clashes between her party cadres and the Chavistas resulting in bloodshed and instability.
This would have complicated Trump’s agenda which was focussed on oil and not restoration of democracy, as imagined by Machado.This was not the first American Magical Realism Show in Venezuela.In 2019, the US had recognized Juan Guaido, another opposition leader, as the Real President of Venezuela between January 2019 and January 2023.
The US refused to recognize Maduro as President accusing that the 2018 election was rigged.
Over fifty countries followed the US dictat (some willingly and some under force) and recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate President.
Guaido assumed the role of President seriously, appointing cabinet ministers and ambassadors.
He and his appointees as well as his American lawyers and collaborators swindled and spent hundreds of millions of dollars of Venezuelan government funds seized by the US government.
Eventually, Guaido succumbed to the scandals and he was dropped as a useless luggage.
But despite derecognition of President Maduro, the US and other western governments continued to have official dealings with the government of President Maduro.
The devious Brits refused to hand over the Venezuelan gold in their Bank of England when Maduro wanted it back.
The excuse was that UK had not recognized Maduro as the President.
The Brits continued to deal with President Maduro officially and shamelessly and are holding on to the Venezuelan gold even now.There was a brief Magical Realism show in May 2020.
A group of ex-marine mercenaries of US hatched a plan code named “Operation Gideon”.
They attempted a sea borne raid through boats to land in Venezuela, capture President Maduro, take him to the US and claim the 15 million dollar bounty which was the going rate announced by Washington DC at that time.
The mercenaries were caught and some were killed and others jailed by Venezuelan authorities.
While the US administration claimed that it was not an official operation, they had got these criminals released through quiet negotiations and got them back to the US in 2023. Who stole the Venezuelan electionMaduro claimed to be the winner of 2024 election.
Trump and Machado claimed that Edmundo Gonzalez was the winner and accused Maduro of stealing the election.
Now Trump has ditched Gonzalez and Machado while jailing Maduro..
Trump says he will run Venezuela.
He has appointed himself as the " Acting President of Venezuela" in his social media post.So, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the real thief who has stolen the election is Trump..He refuses to give a timeline for election or transition and says that it would take years.
Restoration of democracy is not Trump’s priority. Trump says that the the interim government of Venezuela is “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.
They’re treating us with great respect.
We’re getting along very well with the administration that is there right now". The fable of a Monkey and two catsOnce upon a time, two cats were fighting over a piece of bread.
Each wanted more than the other.
A monkey saw this and offered a solution.
It brought a weighing scale and broke the bread in two unequal pieces deliberately and put on each side of the weighing scale.
When one side weighed heavier it took a bite from that and put the rest in the scale.
Then the other side was heavier and the monkey took a bite from the other side.
Eventually the monkey finished the pieces on both the sides and the foolish cats were left hungry.
Trump has done the Monkey trick to the Maduro and Machado cats.Trump has announced that he would extract Venezuelan oil from its huge reserves for years.
He has already begun to make money for the United States by taking oil that has been under sanctions.
He says that the US would obtain 30 to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil in the near future.
He talks of a deal with the Venezuelan authorities whereby America would market all Venezuelan oil “indefinitely”.
The proceeds “will be disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the US government”.
Trump adds that all the goods purchased for Venezuela in this way would be American.Maduro was not a dictator in the classical senseMaduro was not a classical dictator like Pinochet of Chile or Noriega of Panama.
He did not have absolute powers and control over others in the regime.
He was a just a public face of the collective leadership of the post-Chavez regime.
He had less power than Diosdado Cabello, the Interior Minister or Padrino Lopez, the Defense Minister and Army Chief or the Rodriguez siblings Delcy Rodrigues, the Vice President and her brother Jorge Rodriguez, the President of the National Assembly.
He could not take any major decisions without the approval of the other four.Maduro did not have the charisma or grassroots support or any personal vision or agenda, unlike Chavez.
Even in speeches, he tried simply to imitate the style and rhetoric of Chavez.
The other four powerful figures let him appear in the TV, sing and dance.
This was a clever move which paved the way for his being portrayed in the western media as a dictator responsible for rigging of elections and economic collapse. The Cuba angleMaduro was not the prime candidate to succeed Chavez.
It was Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister, who was expected to inherit the mantle of Chavez.
He had better credentials as the second strongest man after Chave.
But the Cubans had influenced Chavez to appoint Maduro as successor during the last days of Chavez in a Cuban hospital.
The Cubans did not warm to Cabello who was independent and did not share Chavez’s or Maduro’s admiration for Cuba.
After the coup against him in 2002 (in which a few dissident Generals joined), Chavez took on Cuban advisors for personal protection and intelligence services.
This system continued for Maduro also.
Since he had less power than the other quartet of power, Maduro relied even more on his Cuban advisors.
This was resented by the others.
That’s why they let the Americans kill 32 Cubans during the raid.Chavez considered Fidel Castro as his role model and mentor.
He gave free and subsidized oil besides monetary and other support to Cuba which was helpless after the withdrawal of Soviet assistance in 1991.
Maduro continued Chavez's policy of supporting Cuba with oil and money.
This was not to the liking of the other Chavista factions. The Americans have instructed Delcy Rodriguez to end the support to Cuba, which will become even more vulnerable and easier game for US.
This has pleased the Cuban-origin Secretary of State Marco Rubio who has been dreaming of liberating Cuba from Communism and claiming the properties owned by his family.
Rubio has already warned that the Cuban regime should be afraid.The capture and kidnap was just a stage-managed eventThe so called capture and kidnapping of Maduro was a stage-managed event.
Delcy Rodriguez and company had willingly offered the head of Maduro to appease the deities of Washington DC in return for the Americans allowing thousands of Chavistas to continue with their heads on their bodies.
There is bounty of 25 million dollars on interior minister Diosdado Cabello and 15m on defense minister Padrino Lopez.
Plus some more millions on other heads.
Trump is not pursuing them despite the trumped up charges and US court convictions against them.
If Machado/ Gonzalez had taken over power, they would have happily handed over hundreds of Chavista heads to the Americans. Delcy Rodriguez has been in touch with the Americans through Chevron which still operates in Venezuela.
As the minister in charge of oil sector, she had the excuse to deal with the Americans.
She is more pragmatic and better skilled in negotiations than Cabello or Lopez.
So, She was chosen by both the sides to do the deal of offering Maduro’s head and lot of oil to the Americans.
Even Maduro was willing to give oil and other things except his head.
But Trump wanted a trophy and a spectacular power display of his macho MAGA image.
Rodriguez agreed and let the Americans display the power of airforce jets, helicopters, high-tech weapons and skills of special forces.
It was all prearranged.It was not a Regime Change but a Regime ResetSo what has happened in Venezuela is not a Regime Change but a simple Regime Reconfiguration minus Maduro but plus Trump.
This arrangement suits the US better than letting Machado/ Gonzalez to take over the country.
If that was the case, the Chavistas (with their armed forces and militias) would have fought with the Machado government fiercely to save their heads and positions of power.
There would have been bloodshed.
Machado would not have been able to manage the situation and the American ground forces would have become necessary. Having learnt from the mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans did not want a repeat.
In any case Trump’s priority was not restoration of democracy. Trump’s priority is oil, not democracyVenezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves of over 300 billion barrels.
It was the American companies who had discovered the oil in 1914 and produced till the nationalization in 1975 by President Carlos Andres Perez.
He had paid them compensation through negotiations and after approval by the Venezuelan Congress.
In the 1990s the Venezuelan government had invited foreign companies back into the oil sector.
Some companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobile and Conoco Philps went back.
But when President Chavez came to power in 1998, he wanted these companies to form joint ventures with PDVSA, the national oil company holding majority shares.
Except Chevron, the other companies refused the terms and exited.
They claimed compensation but the amounts were exorbitant.
So they went to courts and arbitration.
These claims, with interest, now amount to 22 billion dollars.
The American companies would certainly plan to take Venezuelan oil against the dues, claimed by them.Despite the dispute over compensation disputes, Chevron has been operating in Venezuela all these years.
When the Americans imposed sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, Chevron got a special license to operate in the country.
It has been operating with repeated renewal of sanctions. In the meeting with President Trump on 9 January, the oil companies asked for change of Venezuelan laws on regulations as well as investment guarantees in order to go back to the country.
Because of sanctions, PDVSA’s production capacity has been crippled due to shortage of equipments and materials needed for repairs and modernization.
Billions of dollars would need to be invested to restore production to the pre-sanction level of over 3 million barrels per day.Oil is a resource curse for VenezuelaThe country has so much of fertile agricultural land, mineral resources including gold and diamond, hydroelectric potential, beautiful beaches and pleasant climate.
These resources are sufficient to be a prosperous nation, even without oil.
But when the easy money from oil started coming, the Venezuelans abandoned all the other resources and started living exclusively on oil income. The problems of Venezuela started when oil was discovered in 1914. In just a decade, the country had undergone a rapid transformation from an obscure agricultural backwater somewhere in the Andes to the world’s largest oil exporter and the second-largest oil producer after the United States. Since then, the Venezuelans have been infected incurably by the Dutch disease and resource curse.
Oil has spoiled both the rulers and the ruled.
The politicians stole and misspent the petrodollars during the high oil prices and let the economy slide into crisis when the prices went down.
The businessmen gave up productive industries and went into imports and quick ways of making fast buck.
Farmers neglected agriculture and moved into cities to share the luxury life style spawned by the oil boom. By 1930, while the world struggled with the Great Depression, Venezuelans began to enjoy enormous riches. Venezuela became a key supplier of the oil that fueled the Allied effort during World War II. The flood of oil revenue caused their currency bolivar to appreciate against the dollar.
The strong currency was a boon for Venezuelan consumers, who could suddenly afford to import what they used, wore, and ate every day.
Caracas became expensive.
A US diplomat earning 2000 dollars in Washington DC needed 5000 dollars to live in Caracas. Venezuela’s days of economic plenty did not last.
World War II disrupted global trade and pushed the import-dependent nation into economic disarray, plagued by product shortages.
Venezuela quickly went from a nation with enough purchasing power to import fine wines to a place where people struggled to find car tires.Venezuela had increased its oil revenue thanks to a smart Venezuelan, Pérez Alfonzo, the Minister of Development, appointed by the military rulers after the 1945 coup.
He changed the game of negotiations with the foreign oil companies.
He pushed them for fifty-fifty share in the profits the multinational oil companies derived from the sale of crude oil as well as refining, transportation, and sale of fuel.
He educated the sheikhs in the Middle East and helped them to get a similar arrangement with the foreign oil firms. Pérez Alfonzo worked with the representatives of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran and signed the agreement to create the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
From that point on, oil companies would have to consult with exporter countries before setting oil prices.In the period 1950-57 Venezuela accumulated huge foreign exchange reserves, thanks to the hike in oil prices after the coup in Iran and closure of Suez Canal.
In 1963, the country churned out 3.5 million barrels of oil a day.
The country’s per capita income was the highest in Latin America, and the currency bolivar remained one of the world’s strongest currencies.
Sears Roebuck had opened eleven stores in Venezuela.After the Arab oil embargo in 1973, Venezuela’s petrodollars tripled.
The flow of dollars from oil was too much for Venezuela’s economy causing a form of economic indigestion.
The newly elected president Carlos Andrés Pérez asked congress for special powers to better handle the avalanche of money.
Venezuela was in a state of emergency because it had too much cash.Venezuelans wasted no time in developing a taste for the finer things in life.
The country became known for having the best French and Italian restaurants in Latin America, many of them run by famed chefs.
Venezuela became one of the largest importers of premium alcohol, like whiskey and champagne, as well as luxury vehicles, like the Cadillac El Dorado.
Caracas became such a chic destination that Air France’s Concorde supersonic jet opened a Paris–Caracas flight in 1976.
The per capita income of Venezuelans rivaled that of West Germany. Chavez was a creation of the situation created by the Venezuelan oligarchsIn the 1980s, Venezuela faced a crisis after the fall in prices due to a global oil glut and lower demand.
Since Venezuelans had grown accustomed to generous governments, politicians continued to spend even in the face of less money coming in.
The country’s economy in 1989 went into its worst recession ever, with gross domestic product contracting nearly 9 percent.
Venezuela was forced to seek a financial lifeline from the International Monetary Fund and asked the U.S.
government’s help to renegotiate and reduce its outstanding debts.
People got frustrated with the austerity program of the government and took to the streets by the thousands to protest, riot, and loot for ten days.
Protesters set fire to cars and buses, and they clashed with the military.
When it was all over, the uprising that became known as El Caracazo had left three hundred people dead and material losses in the millions of dollars.
During the eight years ending in 1989, poverty had increased tenfold.
Inflation topped 100 percent in 1996. It was at this time that Chavez entered politics as an outsider challenging the two established political parties (AD and COPEI) run by oligarchs.
He asked a simple question to the audience during his election campaign; “ Venezuela is a rich country with the largest reserves of oil.
Why then 44% of the people are poor?”.
The masses voted for him overwhelmingly.
He won the subsequent elections and a constitutional referendum overwhelmingly.
He did not need to rig them.
Chavez started implementing his pro-poor and other socialistic policies.
He wanted PDVSA, which was a state within the state to reduce overdependence on US and diversify other markets. Overthrow of Chavez in a coup The two oligarchic political parties, who were wiped out in the elections, realized that they could not beat Chavez electorally.
So they went to Uncle Sam and organized a coup in April 2002 and overthrew Chavez with the help of a few dissident elements from the army.
The PDVSA employees went on a strike and crippled oil production, exports and even internal distribution.
There was severe shortage of gasoline.
Chavez was sent to jail in a remote island.
But the oligarchs started fighting against each other for spoils and refused to give any share to the generals.
So the generals freed Chavez and restored him as President after two days.
As Ambassador of India to Venezuela, I saw the coup and its aftermath.Chavez wanted to teach a lesson to those who were involved in and supported the coup.
He sacked 15,000 employees of PDVSA and put the company under the control of Chavistas.
He started destroying the business and industry of the oligarchs systematically.
He imposed strict controls on foreign exchange and business licenses.
He took over some factories and put the army in charge of distribution of essential supplies and some business.
He let the army commanders and militant followers to make money through corruption.
He brought democratic institutions, judiciary and the election tribunal under his control.
Since the opposition parties had become insignificant, he assumed more powers and became authoritarian.
This is how the country became a Chavista dictatorship which mismanaged the economy.
Inflation and devaluation of currency reached five digits.
The GDP contracted for several years.
This was the system inherited by Maduro when he was appointed as the successor after Chavez’s death in 2013.
The system worsened under Maduro who could not control the others involved in corruption and mismanagement.
He did not have the power or competency to arrest the deterioration.The US, with its bounties and sanctions, became the obstacle for free and fair electionsThe American sanctions starting from 2006 worsened the Venezuelan situation.
The sanctions on oil exports, started and intensified since 2017, crippled the Venezuelan economy.
Shortage of foreign exchange meant scarcity of essential items, more control, crime and corruption.
This triggered economic emigration of several million Venezuelans. Maduro and the Chavista party PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) would have definitely been voted out in the 2024 elections.
The people were angry and frustrated with the misery of daily life.
But Maduro was forced to rig the elections because of the fear of American bounties. The US had imposed bounties of 50 million dollars on the head of President Maduro, 25 million on Interior Minister Cabello and 15 m on Defense Minister Lopez besides several more millions on others.
This meant that if the pro-American opposition came to power, they would have sent all of the top Chavista leadership to American jails.
So, the Chavista regime could not hold free and fair elections which would have been their death warrant.
They had no option but to rig the elections to prevent the opposition from coming to power.
Thus, the US became the obstacle for free and fair elections in Venezuela. The political parties of Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay restored democracy in the 1980s by internal protests, guerrilla warfare and eventually negotiations with the military dictatorships who were supported by the US.
The political leaders offered amnesty to the perpetrators of human rights crimes only after which the Generals agreed to hand over power.
But Machado forgot this history of Latin America.
She made a dangerous move when she openly sought US military intervention.
She did not realize that it would come at a price.
Trump says he will run the country.
He finds that the Chavista regime is better suited for him to get oil and other benefits.
He is not going to allow elections in the near future, since he fears that Machado will come to power and complicate his agenda.
Thus, the US has again become the obstacle for restoration of democracy. American serial wars on Latin AmericaMachado has caused a dangerous problem for the Latin American region by her open invitation for US military intervention and the success of 'Operation Absolute Resolve’. She has whetted the appetite of US for further adventures in Cuba, Colombia and Mexico. The history of Latin America is filled with American invasions, occupations, military coups and destabilizations. It is like a Netflix serial.
Location shootings and subtitles change.
But the main plot through the episodes is the same; regime change to remove leftist governments and install pro-US regimes to promote American business and hegemony.
The wars are given different titles such as war on communism, war on drugs, war on terrorism and war on corruption.
The last one was used to bring down the government of the Workers’ Party in Brazil and some leftist presidents in the region. In the current campaign to oust President Maduro, the Americans started with the title “war on drugs” but changed it to 'war on terrorism’ and combined the two later to “ War on Narco-terrorism” to get more bang for the buck.
Venezuela and Maduro were not significant sources of drugs nor were they terrorist threats to the US. War on DrugsThe US has accused Maduro and his colleagues of involvement in drug trafficking to the US.
This is a false accusation.
Even according to American official sources, Venezuela accounts for an insignificant portion of drugs which go to the US. Secondly, drug is not a supply side problem.
Drug is a demand and consumer-driven multibillion dollar US business.
Out of every drug dollar, only 20 cents go outside US to the producers and traffickers, while 80 cents remain within the US.
Millions of Americans pay top dollars willingly and happily to get high on drugs from wherever they can get them.
Some years back, an American firm, Purdue Pharma, had aggressively marketed its opioid Oxycontin and made billion of dollars while thousands of Americans became addicts and ended up dead.
The DEA did not do a drug war against the company.
The Justice Department did a deal with it and the company got away with some fines. As long American consumers continue to demand and pay for the drugs, the business will go on.
The drug consumption in US has not decreased after the killing of Pablo Escobar or the arrest of Chapo Guzman.
Drug is simply and clearly an American domestic issue.
But the US has created a false and malicious narrative blaming other countries and the Hollywood has propagated this falsehood through films and the Netflix serial “Narcos”.There is a flip side to the drug issue.
The Latin American cartels have been empowered by illegally supplied American guns.
US is the main source of illegal guns to the cartels.
Mexico has only two gun shops for the whole country.
These are run by the Mexican military which has rigorous checking and control procedures.
But there are nearly 10,000 (yes, Ten Thousand) American gun shops in the border with Mexico.
About 200,000 American guns are supplied illegally to Mexico every year.
These guns cause more Latin American deaths than the drugs in the US.
While the drug is consumed by the user, the guns stay around for many years to kill lot of people.
The Americans refuse to recognize this issue and do not take any action to stop the gun trafficking.Simon Bolivar’s prophecySimon Bolivar, the Venezuelan independence hero and Liberator of South America, wrote in a private letter dated August 5, 1829, addressed to British diplomat Patrick Campbell, "The United States appear to be destined by providence to plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty”.
Venezuela is the latest example of misery caused by US in the name of liberty.
The Donroe Doctrine will cause only more misery to the Latin Americans in future.The article was published by The Wire magazine on 12 January 2026https://thewire.in/world/the-uss-magical-realism-show-in-venezuela
By Hilary Goodfriend- Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Riverside Latino and Latin American Studies Research CenterWhen neoliberalism began its bloody march across Latin America, its advocates insisted that the sacrifices of human labor and civil rights that tended to accompany its implementation would be compensated by an eventual global convergence that would free the region from underdevelopment.
Deregulation, privatization, and free trade, they said, would eventually close the gap between the decolonized world and their former metropolitan centers.Our present, however, is one of spiraling crises.
Since the financial crash of 2008, the economic crisis converges with ecological collapse and the exhaustion of liberal democratic forms, reaching civilizational dimensions.
In this context, the pandemic laid bare how, instead of disappearing, the divide between the center and periphery of the world system is as sharp and as meaningful as ever. With neoliberal hegemony fractured, other ways of thinking and practicing politics have reemerged from their intellectual exiles.
Among these, dependency theory stands out as an original and revolutionary contribution of Latin American critical thought, offering tools for understanding uneven capitalist development and imperialism both historically and today.
For an introduction to this unique framework, we turn to Dr.
Jaime Osorio. When a military coup d’état in Chile overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, Osorio had already been accepted to begin his doctoral studies at the University of Chile’s Center for Socio-Economic Studies (CESO, in Spanish).
The dictatorship’s advance brought him instead to Mexico, where today he ranks as Distinguished Professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in Xochimilico and as Researcher Emeritus by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT).
He is the author of many books, including Fundamentos del análsis social.
La realidad social y su conocimiento and Sistema mundial.
Intercambio Desigual y renta de la tierra. In this interview, Osorio speaks with Jacobin contributing editor Hilary Goodfriend about the Marxist school of dependency theory, its origins and principles, and its present-day applications. Dependency theory and its Marxist strain emerged from debates and dialogues about development, underdevelopment, and imperialism in the context of decolonization and the national liberation struggles of the twentieth century.
What were the main positions and strategies in dispute, and how did Marxist dependency theorists position themselves in these arguments?At the theoretical level, Marxist dependency theory [TMD, in Spanish] is the result of the Cuban Revolution’s victory in 1959.
Latin American Marxism was moved by the island’s gesture.
All the main theses about the nature of Latin American societies and the character of revolution came into question. A little over a decade after that event, which sharpened the debates, TMD reached maturity.
In those years, some of the proposals that fed theories of dependency emphasized the role of trade relations, such as the “deterioration of the terms of trade” thesis put forward by the [Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean] CEPAL, which referred to the cheapening of primary goods against the rising prices of industrial products in the world market.Orthodox Marxists highlighted the presence of internal “obstacles” that impeded development, like idle terrain in the hands of landowners, which also blocked the expansion of wage relations.
Generally, in these proposals, capitalism wasn’t to blame.
In fact, it was necessary to accelerate its spread so that its inherent contradictions would heighten.
Only then could a socialist revolution be proposed, according to this stage-based perspective prevalent in the Communist Parties.For the Cepalinos, their horizon was achieving advanced capitalism, which would be possible by means of a process of industrialization.
This would allow the region to cease exporting primary goods and food products and importing secondary goods, which would now be produced internally, sparking technological development and stemming the outflow of resources. In both proposals, the industrial bourgeoisie had a positive role to play, be it in the medium or long term.For Marxist dependency theory, the region’s so-called economic “backwardness” was a result of the formation and expansion of the capitalist world system, whose course produced development and underdevelopment simultaneously.
Therefore, these divergent economic histories are not independent processes, nor are they connected tangentially.
From this perspective, the fundamental theoretical and historical problem required explaining the processes that generated both development and underdevelopment in the same movement. This problem demanded, furthermore, a response that accounted for how this process is reproduced over time since civilization and barbarism are constantly made anew by the world system. Many of the acclaimed Marxist dependency theorists—Ruy Mauro Marini, Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Bambirra—share a trajectory of flight from South American dictatorships and exile in Mexico.
You were also subject to this forced displacement.
How did these experiences of revolution and counterrevolution influence the construction of TMD?Four names stand out in the development of TMD: André Gunder Fank, Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Vambirra, and Ruy Mauro Marini.
The first was a German-U.S.
economist and the other three Brazilians, who shared readings and discussions in Brazil before the 1964 coup in that country.
Subsequently, they found each other in Chile in the late 1960s in the Center for Socio-Economic Studies, until the military coup of 1973.
During this period—at least in the case of the Brazilians—they produced their principals works with regards to TMD.
I had the fortune of meeting and working with Marini in Mexico in the mid-1970s, before his return to Brazil. TMD offers no concessions to the local ruling classes, holding them responsible for the prevailing conditions in which they manage to reap enormous profits in collusion with international capitals, despite [international] value transfers.
For this reason, it was hard for these theorists to find spaces for their knowledge in the academic world.The 1973 military coup in Chile meant that the principal creators of TMD appeared on the search lists of the military forces and their intelligence apparatus.
And this coup in Chile, which was preceded by the coup in Brazil in 1964, was followed by many more in the Southern part of the continent, which dispersed and disbanded working groups and closed important spaces in those societies. At the same time, this long counterrevolutionary phase, which was not limited to military governments, favored sweeping transformations in the social sciences, where neoliberal theories and methodological individualism came to reign supreme.
TMD emerged in an exceptional period of recent history.
However, subsequently and in general—saving certain moments and countries in the region—ideal conditions for its development and dissemination have not existed.In his classic work, The Dialectics of Dependency, Marini defines dependency as a “relation of subordination between formally independent nations, in whose framework the relations of production of the subordinate nation are modified or recreated in order to ensure the expanded production of dependency.” What are the mechanisms of this expanded production, and how have they changed since Marini formulated his proposal in the 1970s?When we talk about the processes generated by dependent capitalism, the “dependent” qualifier isn’t redundant.
We’re talking about another way of being capitalist.
That is to say that in the world system, diverse forms of capitalism coexist and are integrated, and they feed off each other and deepen their particular forms within the global unity of capital. The heterogeneity of the system can be explained, then, not by the backwardness of some economies, not as prior states [of development], not as deficiencies. Each constitutes its full, mature form of capitalism possible in this system. In this way, with the stroke of a pen, TMD destroyed the hopes of the developmentalists, who supposed that the dependent economies could achieve higher states of welfare and development within this order constituted by capital.
For them, it was just a matter of taking advantage of windows that regularly open.
There is nothing in the prevailing dynamic to suggest that things are moving in that direction.
To the contrary, what is produced and continues to emerge is the “development of underdevelopment,” so long as capitalist social relations prevail. The gap between underdeveloped and developed capitalism, or between imperialist and dependent capitalism is ever widening.
Dependency deepens and more acute modalities are generated.
In a world in which digital capitalism is gaining ground—the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, as an example—this isn’t hard to understand. Experiences like that of South Korea can’t be repeated at will.
They are, instead, exceptions to the rule.
Why did the IMF cut off and suffocate the Argentine economy and not extend its hand like imperialist capital did for South Korea after the 1952 war on the peninsula?
It was the latter’s exceptional position in a strategic space, which was disrupted by the triumph of Mao’s revolution in China and the need to construct a barrier to prevent the expansion of socialism in Korea, that turned on the faucet of enormous resources, at least for Japan and the United States, and put blinders on those defenders of democracy and the free market when South Korea was governed by a succession of military dictatorships that ferociously applied state intervention, not the free market, to define plans and programs to define priorities for investment and loans. Today, all a government in the dependent world has to do is establish some rules for foreign capital, and the whole clamor and propaganda of transnational media demand that communism be stopped, impeding international loans, blocking access to markets, and seeking to suffocate those alleged subversives. The concept of superexploitation as a mechanism by which dependent capitalists compensate for their subordinate insertion in the international division of labor is perhaps Marini’s most original and polemic proposal.
Some Marxists, for example, protest the possibility of the systematic violation of the law of value.
This is a theme that you take up in your debate with the Argentinian researcher Claudio Katz.
How do you define superexploitation, and why, or in what terms, do you defend its validity today?With Marini’s short book, The Dialectics of Dependency, whose central body was written in 1972 and would be published in 1973, TMD reaches its point of greatest maturity.
We can synthesize the nucleus of Marini’s thesis in the question: How is the reproduction of a capitalism that regularly transfers value to imperialist economies possible?It’s possible because in dependent capitalism, a particular form of exploitation is imposed which means that capital isn’t just appropriating surplus value, but also part of workers’ consumption fund, which ought to correspond to their salaries, in order to transfer it to their accumulation fund.
That’s what the category of superexploitation accounts for.
If all capital eventually ends up being unpaid labor, in dependent capitalism, all capital is unpaid labor and the appropriated life fund [of the working class].Marini’s response is theoretically and politically brilliant, because it allows us to explain the reasons for the multiplication of misery and the devastation of the workers in the dependent world, but also the reasons for which capital is unable to establish stable forms of domination in these regions, regularly expelling huge contingents of workers from its civilizational promises, thrusting them into barbarism and converting them into contingents that resist, revolt, and rise up against the projects of the powerful. Superexploitation has consequences at all levels of Latin American societies.
For now, we can emphasize that it accompanies the formation of economies oriented to foreign markets.
Following the processes of independence in the nineteenth century, and under the guidance of local capitals, the region’s economies advanced on the basis of exports, initially of primary materials and foodstuffs, to which we can add, recently, the production and assembly of luxury industrial goods like cars, televisions, state-of-the-art cell phones—products equally distant from the general consumption needs of most of the working population.
This is compatible with the dominant modality of exploitation, which seriously impacts salaries, reducing workers’ consumption power and reducing their participation in the formation of a dynamic internal market. It’s relevant here to consider a significant difference with capitalism in the developed world.
There, as capitalism advanced in the nineteenth century, it faced the dilemma that in order to keep expanding, which implied the multiplication of the mass of goods and products, it would need to incorporate workers into consumption.
That was achieved by paying salaries with the purchasing power for basic goods such as clothing, shoes, utensils, and home furnishings.
This balance was accomplished by introducing improved production techniques, which reduced the pressure to extend the working day by multiplying the mass of products thrown into the market.
From there, we can understand the weight of relative surplus value in developed capitalism. But in Latin America, things worked differently.
Nineteenth-century capitalism didn’t see the need to create markets, because they had been available since the colonial period in the imperialist centers.
In addition, English capitalism’s takeoff increased the demand for primary materials and foodstuffs.
For this reason, there wasn’t any hurry to change the kind of use values and products put on the market.
They continued to be foodstuffs and primary goods.
In this way, the emergent capitalism in our region was under no pressure to do something qualitatively different.
The mass of salaried laborers expanded, but they don’t comprise the principal demand for the goods being produced, which was in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Through their insertion in the world market and when it comes time to sell products, Latin American economies transfer value [abroad] for the simple reason that the capitals that operate here have lower compositions and productivities than the capitals in economies that spend more on new machinery, equipment, and technology, allowing them greater productivity and the ability to appropriate value created in other parts of the world.
This process is called unequal exchange. It's important to note that unequal exchange occurs in the market, at the moment of the purchase and sale of commodities.
Apart from their low organic composition, this concept doesn’t tell us much about how these commodities were produced, and above all, what allows for a capitalist process to be reproduced over time in such conditions.
That’s where super-exploitation comes in. That is the secret that makes dependent capitalism viable.
And this calls all the more attention to the errors of people like Claudio Katz, who have formulated proposals that try to eliminate this concept and do so, furthermore, with grotesque arguments, like that Marx never mentioned it in Capital – he refers to [superexploitaiton] many times, in a variety of ways – because that would imply a dilution or a direct attack on his theoretical proposition since capitalism can’t annihilate its workforce. I’m not going to repeat those debates with Katz.
I will simply reiterate that Marx’s Capital is a book that is central to the study of capitalism and its contradictions.
But no one can claim that it accounts for everything, or that capitalism, in its spread over time, can’t exhibit theoretical or historical novelties of any kind.
That is a religious reading, but Capital is not a sacred text.
Such a position, furthermore, is an attack on a central dimension of Marxism as a theory able to explain not only what has existed, but also that which is new.
For this reason, the only orthodoxy Marxism can claim is its mode of reflection.It's also argued that the spread of superexploitation to the central economies following globalized neoliberal restructuring invalidates its character as a process unique to dependent capitalism. Superexploitation can be present anywhere that capital operates, be that in the developed or underdeveloped world, just like forms of relative surplus value and absolute surplus value.
Of course, there is superexploitation in Brazil and Guatemala, just as there is in Germany and South Korea. But that’s not the problem.
What’s relevant is to elucidate the weight of these forms of exploitation, which can be present in any capitalist space, in capital’s reproduction.
So the central issue is different, and so are the economic, social, and political consequences. Setting aside periods of crisis, when the most brutal forms of exploitation can be exacerbated everywhere, can capitalism operate in the medium and long term without a market that generates salaries, or with extremely low salaries?
Something like if, in Germany, the average salary of the Armenians and Turks was generalized for the entire working population, or if the salaries of Mexican and Central American workers in the United States were predominant there.
I don’t think so. Finally, what tools or perspectives does Marxist dependency theory offer us in the face of today’s crises?In its eagerness to deal with the acute and prolonged capitalist crisis, capital in every region seeks to accentuate forms of exploitation, including superexploitation.
It seeks, once again, to reduce rights and benefits.
With the war in Ukraine, it has found a good excuse to justify the increase in the price of food, housing, and energy, and its shameless return to the use of fuels that intensify pollution and environmental barbarism, as well as the increase in military budgets at the expense of wages and jobs. The great imperial powers expect the subordination of economies and states to their decisions in periods of this sort.
But the current crisis is also accelerating the crisis of hegemony in the world system, which opens spaces for greater degrees of autonomy—which does not put an end to dependency.
This is evident in Washington’s difficulties with disciplining the Latin American and African states to support their position in the conflict in Europe. The scenario in Latin America over the last few decades reveals processes of enormous interest.
We have witnessed significant popular mobilization in almost every country in the region, questioning various aspects of the neoliberal tsunami, be it jobs, salaries, retirements, healthcare and education, as well as rights like abortion, recognition of gender identities, lands, water, and much more. On this deeply fractured terrain that capital generates in the dependent world, class disputes tend to intensify.
This explains the regular social and political outbursts in our societies.
It’s the result of the barbarity that capitalism imposes on regions like ours. One expression of this social force is manifested in the electoral terrain.
But just as quickly as there have been victories, there have been defeats.
These comings and goings can be naturalized, but why haven’t the victories allowed for lasting processes of change? Of course, this is not to deny that there have been violent coups of a new sort that have managed to unseat governments.
But even then, there were already signs of exhaustion that limited the protests, with the clear exception of Bolivia.
There is an enormous gap between the leftist voter and the person who occasionally votes for left projects.
The neoliberal triumph was not only in the economic policies and transformations it achieved, but also in its installment of a vision and interpretation of the world, its problems, and its solutions.The struggle against neoliberalism today involves dismantling privatization of every kind and putting a stop to the conversion of social services and policies into private businesses.
That means taking on the most economic and politically powerful sectors of capital, with control over state institutions where legislators, judges, and military members operate, together with the main media, schools, and churches.
We can add that these are the sectors of capital with the strongest ties to imperialist capitals and their assemblage of supranational institutions, media, and states. It's a powerful social bloc.
It’s hard to think about attacking it without having to attack capitalism itself.
Por Joana Salém Vasconcelos, editora do LAP1Publicado em Revista Rosa, Vol.
6, No.
1 Septembro 2022. “Me inquieta o final desta luta: quem serão os ganhadores e quem serão os perdedores?”— Patricio Guzman, Mi país imaginário (documentário)No dia 4 de setembro de 1970, o povo chileno foi às urnas para eleger Salvador Allende presidente da República.
A vitória do socialista foi apertada, mas ainda assim referendada pelo Congresso, apesar das tentativas de golpe que já rondavam.
Mil dias depois da sua posse, numa terça-feira, 11 de setembro de 1973, o presidente Allende despertou apreensivo com os rumores de traição militar, mas ainda assim determinado a um objetivo: anunciar um plebiscito popular sobre a necessidade de uma Nova Constituição, que superasse os limites da carta vigente desde 1925.
Esta, por sua vez, havia sido escrita por uma cúpula de supostos “especialistas” no governo de Arturo Alessandri, latifundiário conhecido como “el León de Tarapacá”.
A velha Constituição bloqueava o programa revolucionário da Unidade Popular, ao assegurar os privilégios e poderes da classe proprietária.
E Allende era, como se sabe, um sério respeitador das leis.Foi para evitar que Allende convocasse o plebiscito popular para uma Nova Constituição (análogo ao que os chilenos de hoje chamaram de “plebiscito de entrada”) que os comandantes militares anteciparam o golpe de 1973, ordenando o bombardeio ao Palácio de La Moneda dois dias antes do planejado.
Foram informados das intenções presidenciais por Pinochet, chefe das Forças Armadas para quem, no domingo anterior, Allende havia confidenciado o anúncio do plebiscito em uma conversa privada na chácara de El Cañaveral.2 O plebiscito da Nova Constituição nunca foi anunciado.
Allende morreu, a Unidade Popular foi massacrada.
E a ideia allendista de um itinerário popular constituinte foi soterrada pela repressão.
A isso seguiu-se a ditadura com quase 4 mil chilenos mortos e desaparecidos, com 38 mil presos e torturados e também com a constituição de 1980, escrita por Jaime Guzmán, Sérgio de Castro e outros homens da elite ditatorial.
A carta teve a habilidade de projetar o “pinochetismo sem Pinochet”, fundando o Estado subsidiário e sua blindagem neoliberal que, por sua vez, foi perpetuada pelo pacto transicional de 1989, avançando por 30 anos de democracia.
As décadas de 2000 e 2010 foram de crescente luta social contra a constituição pinochetista - culminando com a revolta de 2019 e o tardio colapso total da sua legitimidade.Retomar esse percurso é importante para que se possa dimensionar o impacto histórico e simbólico do plebiscito de saída da Nova Constituição chilena ocorrido em 4 de setembro de 2022, cuja ampla escolha pelo rechazo ainda causa perplexidade e tristeza no movimento apruebista.
Era enorme a carga de simbolismo histórico presente nesse plebiscito, a começar pela sua data: o atual itinerário constituinte estava desenhado para exorcizar Pinochet no aniversário de 52 anos do triunfo eleitoral de Allende. Se supunha que a Nova Constituição (NC), escrita de junho de 2021 a junho de 2022, era a mais genuína representação dos anseios populares, a primeira a escutar verdadeiramente as profundas demandas sociais desde o bombardeio de 11 de setembro.
Mas não era.
Dessa vez não foi um golpe militar que derrotou o horizonte de igualdade, diversidade, solidariedade e justiça plasmadas na nova carta, mas sim o próprio voto popular, em um enredo que, por isso mesmo, ganhou ares trágicos.
Afinal, foi justamente aquele povo excluído e esquecido, invisibilizado e maltratado pelo Estado/mercado, o povo que a Convenção Constitucional acreditava representar de maneira profunda e inédita, que manifestou seu desagravo e gerou uma crise de legitimidade dos mecanismos democráticos mais inovadores do nosso continente. Como explicar a crise de representatividade do organismo supostamente mais representativo da história chilena?Voto popular contra a Nova Constituição por classe e territórioA Nova Constituição chilena foi escrita por uma Convenção Constitucional (CC) eleita em maio de 2021, com voto facultativo de 6,1 milhões de eleitores (41% de participação).
De maneira inédita, a CC foi composta por 50% de mulheres (lei 21.216)3 e 11% de povos indígenas (lei 21.298)4, e elegeu 32% de convencionales independentes,5 sendo considerada um organismo da mais alta representatividade popular.
Apesar do polêmico quórum de ⅔ para aprovação das normas constitucionais e da tensão constante entre movimentos populares e instituições, a crítica avassaladora que a revolta de 2019 produziu às classes políticas tradicionais se materializou em um organismo constitucional com rostos novos, formado por dezenas de “pessoas comuns”, ativistas e lideranças populares.
A CC mostrou a possibilidade de alteração rápida e radical da casta política, ao ser muito diversa do congresso nacional e dos profissionais de partidos que comandaram o “duopólio” das três décadas de democracia no Chile. O resultado foi um texto constitucional atrelado às lutas dos movimentos sociais e aos valores da solidariedade social opostos ao neoliberalismo, um dos documentos mais avançados em direitos sociais e promoção da diversidade dos nossos tempos. Em poucas palavras, eu diria que cinco eixos caracterizavam a Nova Constituição chilena como uma das mais progressistas do mundo: A plurinacionalidade intercultural, a representatividade política e o direito à autodeterminação dos povos indígenas, preservando-se a unidade do Estado chileno, conceito inspirado pelo novo constitucionalismo latino-americano inaugurado por Equador (2007) e Bolívia (2009); Os direitos da natureza e os freios à sua mercantilização, recuperando por exemplo o direito universal de acesso à água e suplantando o Código de Águas da ditadura, sendo a primeira constituição do mundo a reconhecer a crise climática como emergência global e nacional; Os direitos sociais de caráter universal, como a educação gratuita, a saúde pública integral, a aposentadoria solidária, pública e tripartite, a moradia e o trabalho dignos (incluindo o direito universal à greve inexistente hoje), bem como o direito à cultura, ao esporte, a ciência e ao tempo livre; Os direitos reprodutivos, econômicos e políticos das mulheres em sentido transversal, assegurando reconhecimento da economia do cuidado e do trabalho doméstico, o combate à violência de gênero e a paridade em todos os organismos oficiais, bem como uma perspectiva feminista no sistema de justiça e uma educação não sexista; A descentralização do Estado como forma de aprofundar a democracia, garantindo maior orçamento e atribuições às comunas, províncias e regiões, bem como criando organismos de poder popular vinculantes na formulação de políticas públicas locais e nacionais.Apesar da NC responder à maioria das demandas populares levantadas na revolta de 2019 e nas mobilizações das décadas anteriores, algo na Convenção Constitucional falhou para que o resultado desse grande esforço tenha sido tão amplamente derrotado.
Se por um lado foi evidente o peso das fake news e o volumoso aporte financeiro das elites chilenas na campanha do Rechazo, que recebeu quatro vezes mais dinheiro que a campanha do Apruebo,6 também é importante reconhecer que havia pontos cegos e fraturas na comunicação entre representantes constituintes e as maiorias chilenas.
Do contrário, a campanha de desinformação das direitas contra a nova carta não encontraria terreno tão fértil para se disseminar e prosperar. Chegou-se ao seguinte paradoxo: o voto popular matou o projeto político mais democrático da história do Chile.
O mesmo voto popular que desbancou as elites políticas tradicionais, rejeitou o suposto “amadorismo” dos convencionales, e com isso entregou o bastão da condução política constituinte novamente para o congresso. O voto obrigatório no plebiscito de saída foi certamente um dos principais fatores para essa guinada.
Diferentemente do plebiscito de entrada em outubro de 2020, com voto facultativo de 7,5 milhões de chilenos (50% de participação); da eleição dos convencionales em maio de 2021, com voto facultativo de 6,1 milhões de chilenos (41%); e do 2o turno das eleições presidenciais que deram vitória à coligação “Apruebo Dignidad” com voto facultativo de 8,3 milhões de chilenos (55,7%), o plebiscito de saída teve voto obrigatório com multa de 180 mil pesos (aproximadamente mil reais) para quem não comparecesse às urnas.
A obrigatoriedade punitiva do voto com essa altíssima multa, em um contexto de desemprego, inflação e carestia, deu origem a uma mudança de perfil do eleitor que escapou à percepção dos apruebistas.
Além de inédita, a participação de 13 milhões de chilenos (86%) no plebiscito de saída forçou a manifestação de mais de 5 milhões de absenteístas históricos, possivelmente o setor menos interessado em política da sociedade e os mais ausentes nas eleições da última década.
Não é nada desprezível o fato de que o plebiscito de saída tenha contado com mais que o dobro (216%) do total de votantes das eleições para os representantes convencionales.Este é um dos elementos explicativos mais importantes de tamanha quebra de expectativas e da guinada política entre eleições tão próximas.
A NC foi rechaçada por 7,8 milhões de chilenos (61,8%) contra 4,8 milhões de apruebistas (38,1%).
Os votos contrários de Rechazo no plebiscito, sozinhos, somaram mais do que o total de votantes no pleito que elegeu os convencionales.
Em números absolutos, o quórum de 4 de setembro de 2022 foi o maior de toda a história chilena. Tais números absolutos devem nos conduzir a uma análise dos votos por classes sociais e territórios, como alertou o historiador Sérgio Grez.7 Ao segmentar o total de comunas em quatro estratos de renda, o quintil que reúne as comunas mais pobres do país apresentou uma média de 75% rechazo, expressivamente maior que o resultado nacional.
As comunas com renda média-baixa rechaçaram o texto em 71%; as média-altas o rechaçaram em 64%; e o quintil de maior renda o rechaçou em 60%.
Quanto mais pobres as comunas, mais avassalador foi o rechaço. Em Colchane, por exemplo, a comuna de Tarapacá com mais altos índices de pobreza (24%)8 e que enfrentou a fase mais aguda da crise migratória do Norte, o rechaço obteve 94%.
Ao mesmo tempo, províncias com maiores índices de população indígena também demonstraram altos níveis de rechaço, ao contrário do que se poderia imaginar.
Foram as regiões de fronteira indígena - Ñuble (74%), Araucanía (73%), Maule (71%) e Biobio (69%)9 - que obtiveram os maiores níveis de rechaço em comparação à média nacional.
Já as regiões com maior aceitação da NC - a Região Metropolitana (RM) e Valparaíso -, ainda assim experimentaram a derrota do texto, com respectivamente 55% e 57% de rechazo.
Em termos nacionais, o Apruebo só obteve maioria em 8 de 346 comunas do país, sendo 5 em Valparaíso e 3 na RM.10 Entre elas, não está a comuna de Recoleta, na RM, governada desde 2012 pelo prefeito comunista Daniel Jadue, principal rival de Boric na coligação Apruebo Dignidad.
A Recoleta foi palco de experimentos importantes do PC governo, como a universidade popular, as livrarias populares e as farmácias populares, reunindo habitantes santiaguinos simpáticos à esquerda e entusiastas de Jadue.
Seus votos do plebiscito, porém, resultaram em inexplicáveis 51,9% pelo Rechazo.Além disso, como alertou Igor Donoso, nas comunas que “os ambientalistas denominaram zonas de sacrifício”11 por vivenciarem atividades de extrativismo e conflito socioambiental, o rechaço foi amplamente vitorioso, a despeito das diretrizes ecológicas da NC que asseguravam os direitos das populações dos territórios de mineração, pesca industrial, monoculturas florestais e outras atividades predatórias.
Nestas “zonas de sacrifício”, Donoso menciona o triunfo do rechazo em La Ligua (58,93%), Quintero (58,11%), Los Vilos (56,93%), Puchuncaví (56,11%), Petorca (56,11%), Villa Alemana (57,82%) e Freirina (55,54%).
Nas cidades mineiras afetadas pelo extrativismo e suas contaminações, o rechaço também venceu amplamente, como em Calama (70,64%) e Rancagua (60,63%).Emblemática dessa contradição territorial foi a comuna de Petorca, cenário de uma aguerrida luta popular pelo acesso à água na última década.
Ali, a desertificação prejudica os pequenos agricultores e a população em geral, que dependem de caminhões-pipa para obter a água necessária à sobrevivência e à produção de alimentos, enquanto grandes empresas monocultoras detém direitos de propriedade sobre a água inclusive das propriedades camponesas, uma vez que o Código de Águas de 1981 permitiu a bizarra desassociação dos mercados da terra e da água.12 A eleição de Rodrigo Mundaca, líder do Movimento pela Defesa do Acesso à Água, Terra e Proteção Ambiental (MODATIMA), a governador da região de Valparaíso em maio de 2021 indicava uma consistente orientação popular pela agenda ecológica e contra a privatização da água, princípios destacados da NC.
No entanto, Petorca derrotou o novo texto com 56% de rechazo,13 o que fez Mundaca declarar: “sinto a incerteza de não reconhecer o lugar que habito (...).
Parece bastante irracional a votação sustentada por esta comuna”. 14Pontos cegos da política constituinte: causas do rechazo popularSegundo pesquisa realizada pelo CIPER15 na semana seguinte ao plebiscito, com entrevista a 120 pessoas de 12 comunas com maiorias trabalhadoras, as principais razões do voto popular pelo rechazo foram, nesta ordem:O Estado se apropriaria das casas das pessoasOs fundos de pensão não seriam herdáveisO país seria divididoO governo merece críticas (voto castigo)Contrários ao aborto A pesquisa CADEM feita na mesma semana,16 questionou 1.135 pessoas com a pergunta “qual foi a principal razão pela qual você votou rechazo?” e obteve como resultado o gráfico abaixo.
Foram 40% de entrevistados que atribuíram seu voto a um processo constituinte “muy malo”, que despertou “desconfiança”; 35% de menções críticas à plurinacionalidade (um dos mais intensos focos de fake news); 29% de desaprovação do governo Boric; 24% de críticas à instabilidade e insegurança política e econômica; 13% contrários à suposta proibição de saúde e educação privadas (fake); 13% de referências a um “mal camino” do país associado à delinquência e ao conflito mapuche; 12% de menções contrárias a uma nova constituição e em defesa da reforma da carta da ditadura; e 8% de referências contrárias ao aborto e às mudanças do sistema político. Gráfico 1 - Razões para votar rechazo (CADEM)As principais fake news que abalaram o voto apruebista se relacionavam à ameaça contra a chilenidade: se disseminou que a plurinacionalidade era o fim da bandeira e do hino, que o Chile iria mudar de nome, que imigrantes venezuelanos e povos indígenas tomariam o poder e se tornariam cidadãos privilegiados, sem punibilidade pela justiça, e que os chilenos não poderiam mais circular livremente pelo seu próprio território (usando como pretexto o desastrado episódio da ex ministra do Interior, Iskia Siches, impedida de realizar uma reunião em Temucuicui, Araucanía, bloqueada por uma barricada mapuche na primeira quinzena de governo Boric).
Também os direitos reprodutivos, a constitucionalização do direito ao aborto e o direito à diversidade sexual ocuparam um lugar de destaque nas fake news, embora a pesquisa CADEM indique que este não tenha sido o ponto mais crítico impulsionador do rechazo. Além dos conglomerados midiáticos tradicionais da direita e extrema direita, dezenas de contas de Facebook, Youtube e Instagram não declaradas ao Servel propagaram, durante meses, uma série de mentiras sobre a NC, se aproveitando do sentimento de insegurança e instabilidade dos mais pobres, em função da crise econômica, do trauma da pandemia e do flagrante aumento da criminalidade.
Medo da violência, racismo, xenofobia foram dispositivos conservadores mobilizados em massa, mas que não teriam obtido sucesso se tais sentimentos não existissem no terreno da experiência social e das ideologias populares, como diagnosticou Jorge Magasich.17 Afinal, fake news não se propaga no vácuo.A opinião de que o processo constituinte foi “mal feito”, de que a Constituição não era uma obra tecnicamente viável e que a CC foi marcada por escrachos, anarquia e confusão é particularmente importante para um país que havia acabado de “demitir” sua classe política e convocar “pessoas comuns” para o centro da elaboração constituinte.
Há um paradoxo de difícil interpretação no fato de que a revolta de 2019 consolidou a crítica popular ao duopólio, às instituições tradicionais e aos profissionais dos partidos, mas que somente três anos depois o plebiscito de saída tenha desmoralizado os legítimos representantes do chileno comum, do lado de fora dos acordões e diretamente do chão das ruas.
Com isso, o plebiscito de saída devolveu a bola para as mesmas instituições de sempre, que o estallido social havia deslegitimado e declarado incapazes de governar. A ideia de uma Convenção amadora e caótica, que errou mais do que acertou, terminou sendo reiterada por declarações como de Marcos Arellano, convencional independente da Coordinadora Plurinacional, que pediu desculpas, em nome da CC: “é de exclusiva responsabilidade da Convenção como órgão”, declarou sobre o triunfo do rechazo: “vários convencionales tiveram condutas de soberba.
Houve falta de solenidade em alguns casos, uma série de performances que afetaram a credibilidade do órgão”.18 Arellano também expressou uma autocrítica sobre o uso excessivo das horas de trabalho dos convencionales das portas da CC para dentro, com evidente descaso e descuido com o trabalho de comunicação política de massas e experiência de base nas periferias em defesa do novo texto.
É fato inegável que os debates sobre justiça social, paridade e plurinacionalidade dos convencionales aconteceram em termos que alguns consideraram “acadêmicos” ou “pos-modernos”, distantes da realidade vivida pelo povo chileno e de suas subjetividades políticas.
Essa fratura é trágica, porque a CC se legitimou como organismo mais popular, representativo e democrático da história do Chile, mas terminou sendo desmoralizada pelo povo que alegava representar. Talvez a vitória retumbante de 78% pelo Apruebo no plebiscito de entrada tenha distorcido a percepção política sobre o plebiscito de saída, subestimando sua dificuldade.
O plebiscito de saída não era nenhum passeio.
Não era uma vitória a mais na coleção de triunfos da esquerda pós-estallido, mas sim outra montanha a ser escalada, dentro de uma correlação de forças móvel, que afinal ofereceu 3,75 milhões de votos à extrema direita com José Antônio Kast em dezembro de 2021.
A CN não estava ganha apenas pelos significados de justiça e solidariedade mobilizados pelo seu texto em si mesmo.
Ainda mais considerando o fator voto obrigatório e o ponto cego dos 5 milhões de absenteístas agora convertidos em votantes, que sequer se interessaram pelos pleitos anteriores.
Era preciso escrever a NC e ao mesmo tempo lutar pela sua comunicação popular nas poblaciones.Por outro lado, questionar a capacidade técnica e a seriedade de um organismo com independentes, mulheres, indígenas e líderes populares parece ser uma forma trágica de cair na armadilha das campanhas de deslegitimação arquitetadas pelas direitas (pinochetista e centrista), que buscaram a todo tempo desmoralizar um organismo que permaneceu fora do seu tradicional controle político.
Se levarmos em conta os relatos insuspeitos de uma brasileira, a constitucionalista Ester Rizzi, que esteve dentro da Convenção em fevereiro, os trabalhos estavam eficientes, técnicos, organizados e com assessoria de inúmeros profissionais competentes emprestados pelas universidades, em um processo constitucional com parcos recursos financeiros e pouco investimento público.19 Nesse sentido, a qualidade da NC foi quase um milagre, fruto de um esforço coletivo e técnico fenomenal em condições das mais adversas, que merece aplausos aos convencionales.Entre as possibilidades não aproveitadas pela CC estavam os plebiscitos intermediários, que inicialmente visavam contornar o bloqueio dos ⅔ de quórum pelo voto popular e superar a impossibilidade de amplos consensos entre convencionales recorrendo às maiorias simples do povo.
Talvez a impressionante vitória das esquerdas na eleição da CC em maio de 2021 tenha sido, no médio prazo, uma vitória de Pirro, ao gerar um excesso de confiança no procedimento interno do órgão, enfraquecendo a comunicação necessária com as maiorias sociais e descartando os plebiscitos intermediários em função dos consensos progressistas dos ⅔ de esquerda e centro-esquerda obtidos no caminho.
Assim, a CC se fechou em si mesma e se distanciou do processo mobilizador que a tornou possível. Terceiro Turno, derrota de Boric e o novo gabinete A coligação de Boric, Apruebo Dignidad, carregava no seu nome a opção governista pela NC.
Embora tenha se engajado na campanha tardia e timidamente, constrangido pelas imposições da Fiscalía que proibia a campanha oficialista para qualquer um dos lados, Boric utilizou a ideia de que a máxima participação no plebiscito seria em si mesmo um triunfo da democracia.
Será mesmo?Entre as causas mais relevantes do rechazo está a evidência de que o plebiscito representou o terceiro turno das eleições presidenciais.
A má avaliação do governo, por sua incapacidade de apresentar soluções compreensíveis aos problemas do país e melhorias rápidas da vida popular, somadas as contradições entre o comportamento de Boric antes e depois de se tornar presidente (sendo a posição contrária ao “quinto retiro” dos fundos de pensão o exemplo mais escancarado), fez cair a popularidade do presidente numa velocidade preocupante.
Entre março e setembro de 2022, a aprovação do governo Boric caiu de 50% para 33%, enquanto a reprovação subiu de 20% a 60%.
Não por acaso, a reprovação corresponde à votação no Rechazo, como mostra o gráfico abaixo.Gráfico 2 - Aprovação do presidente Gabriel Boric, mar-set/2022 (CADEM)Em termos numéricos, o voto Apruebo correspondeu de maneira quase exata ao voto em Boric no segundo turno (ganhando apenas 200 mil novos apoiadores, de 4,6 milhões nas eleições a 4,8 milhões no plebiscito).20 Territorialmente, a votação do Apruebo foi quase idêntica à de Boric.
Na RM, por exemplo, Boric teve 2,1 milhões e o Apruebo 2,2 milhões.
Em Valparaíso, 545 mil votos em Boric e 583 mil no Apruebo.
Na região de O’Higgins, respectivamente 252 mil e 244 mil.
As diferenças entre os votos do Boric e do Apruebo foi tão pequena que se conclui que os quase 5 milhões de novos votantes no plebiscito de saída se direcionaram quase integralmente para o rechazo. A incapacidade do Apruebo de ganhar votos entre o segundo turno presidencial (dezembro de 2021) e o plebiscito (setembro de 2022) diz muito sobre as dificuldades de dois setores das esquerdas em transferir suas agendas de mudança do plano da utopia e da imaginação política para a vida concreta das maiorias mais desinteressadas do país.
Tanto a esquerda centrista do governo com seu modus operandi continuista e até repressor de movimentos sociais, como as esquerdas de horizontes mais rupturistas que atuaram na CC (chamadas por Boric de maximalistas), por motivos diferentes, não conseguiram atingir o objetivo mais crucial de toda sua luta: superar o a Constituição pinochetista/neoliberal e abrir caminho constitucional para um Estado de bem estar social, com justiça distributiva e direitos assegurados. De tudo isso, se apreendeu que a relação entre as multidões mobilizadas no estallido (que encheram avenidas com milhões e demonstraram uma convicção impressionante) e as multidões silenciosas, absenteístas e invisibilizadas (que estiveram em casa nos últimos dez anos de eleições) é profundamente contraditória e muito mais complexa e tensa do que os apruebistas supunham.
As classes trabalhadoras são heterogêneas e nem sempre se entendem.A mudança de gabinete de Boric mostrou que das duas coligações que compõe o governo - Apruebo Dignidad e Socialismo Democrático - a segunda saiu ganhando.
A nova ministra do interior, Carolina Tohá (filha do ministro do interior de Allende, José Tohá) foi Secretária Geral da Presidência (Segpres) de Bachelet, entrou no lugar da polêmica Iskia Siches, que teve sua reputação derretida em cinco meses de governo, erros vergonhosos e excessivos pedidos de desculpas.
A nova Segpres, que substituiu Giorgio Jackson (o engenheiro da Frente Ampla), é Ana Lya Uriarte, que foi chefa de gabinete de Bachelet.
Enquanto Siches foi demitida, Jackson, que não poderia ficar fora do governo por sua enorme relevância na trajetória de Boric da FECH à presidência, foi deslocado para o ministério do desenvolvimento social.O governo Boric, dessa forma, aumentou o número de mulheres em seu comitê político tanto quanto de bacheletistas, se transformando em uma espécie de governo Bachelet 3.Buscando atenuar e naturalizar sua derrota, Boric discursou no 4 de setembro: “no Chile as instituições funcionam (…), a democracia chilena sai mais robusta”.21 Também apontou para mais um passo em direção à moderação, dizendo que “o maximalismo, a violência e a intolerância com que pensa diferente devem ficar definitivamente de lado”, como se algum tipo de radicalismo tivesse dado o tom da CC, o que não é verdade.
Afirmou ainda que “é preciso escutar a voz do povo, não só este dia, mas sim de tudo o que aconteceu nestes últimos anos intensos”.
E arrematou: “Não esqueçamos porque chegamos até aqui.
Este mal estar segue latente e não podemos ignorá-lo”. No mesmo tom de relativização da derrota, a ministra vocera Camila Vallejo, cujo cargo é o equilíbrio tênue que segura o Partido Comunista em uma coligação cada vez mais inconveniente, afirmou: “o compromisso do governo de impulsionar seu programa está intacto (…).
Não esqueçamos porque estamos aqui.
O que nos levou a ser governo foram anos e décadas demandando maior justiça social, aposentadoria digna, saúde digna, o direito à educação.
Temos um mandato a cumprir.
(…) Estes desafios estão em pleno trâmite”.22 Resta saber, ainda, como seria possível cumprir o programa de Boric sem a NC.
A verdade inconveniente é a adequação deste programa à velha ordem (Bachelet 3).Limbo constitucional e novo itinerário Até mesmo os politicos da direita tradicional, comemorando o resultado na sede do comando do Rechazo, afirmaram que a constituição de 1980 está morta.
Sua campanha esteve baseada em escrever uma “NC melhor”, “uma que nos una”, mais nacional e unitária, que não “dívida o país”, apelando à falsa compreensão do plurinacional como antagônico ao nacional. É certo que haverá um novo itinerário constituinte, mas não se sabe ainda quanto da Constituição de 1980 será contrabandeada para dentro do novo processo.
Fez parte dos acordos pós-estallido a ideia de uma NC a partir de uma folha em branco, contrária a reformar mais uma vez o texto de Pinochet.
Agora, como disse Boric e sua nova ministra Uriarte, o protagonismo será do congresso, o que contraria todo esforço da revolta de 2019 até aqui. Ainda havia a possibilidade de diferentes modalidades de golpe contra o resultado do plebiscito de entrada, que apontou inequivocamente para uma nova constituição e para uma convenção eleita para este fim, rejeitando que o congresso redigisse o novo texto para envernizar o velho.
No dia 12 de setembro, uma reunião entre lideranças dos partidos no Parlamento definiu que haverá sim um “organismo eleito”, possivelmente formado nos próximos meses, e acompanhado de um “comitê de expertos”,23 o que significa o triunfo do neoliberalismo pela tecnocracia. Ganha a interpretação de que a NC foi rechaçada por ser amadora, enquanto a nova carta deverá ser controlada por saberes tecnocráticos obviamente vinculados ao mercado e suas normativas típicas.
A questão é que se já era difícil combater o neoliberalismo com uma nova constituição (cuja aplicação seria desafiadora e dependeria da luta constante dos movimentos sociais), se tornou frustrante e falsificador combatê-lo submetido a uma tutela tecnocrática que emanará da racionalidade neoliberal. Mas a luta não terminou.
Segundo a declaração dos movimentos sociais após a derrota, “o aprendizado que construímos será fundamental, porque os movimentos sociais já não somos o que éramos antes de escrever esta Constituição.
Neste processo o povo aprendeu a auto representar-se, isso não é algo dado, depois de décadas de exclusão dos setores populares da vida política, poder representar a nós mesmas é um trabalho do qual não iremos renunciar”.25O Rechazo foi um bombardeio às avessas, quase tão inimaginável quanto o do dia 11.
O Palácio de La Moneda não foi avariado física, mas politicamente.
Dessa vez não de cima pela Força Aérea, mas “desde abajo” pela vontade popular, em um estranho paradoxo democrático. Para atravessar tempos de derrota histórica, os mapuche usam a palavra “marichiweu”, que significa “nunca vão nos vencer”, explica Elisa Loncón, a linguista indígena que presidiu a primeira metade da CC.25 Nos triênios de 1970-1973 e de 2019-2022, o Chile mostrou sua capacidade de entusiasmar a América Latina com criatividade política e projetos utópicos, que inspiram e iluminam povos vizinhos como miragens magnetizantes.
Suas derrotas doem, porque também costumam ser nossas.Notas:1. Doutora em História Econômica pela USP com uma tese sobre a história da reforma agrária chilena; editora da revista Latin American Perspectives; co-organizadora do livro La Vía Chilena al Socialismo 50 años después: Historia y Memória (2 tomos, CLACSO, 2020), entre outros livros, capítulos, artigos e ensaios sobre o Chile. 2.
Joan Garcés, Allende e as armas da política.
São Paulo: Scritta, 1993. 2.
Chile, Ley 21.216 sobre Paridad de Género para el proceso Constituyente.
Disponível em: https://www.bcn.cl/procesoconstituyente/detalle_cronograma?id=f_publicacion-de-la-ley-21-216-paridad-de-genero-para-el-proceso-constituyente 3. CHILE, Ley 21.216 sobre Paridad de Género para el proceso Constituyente.
Disponível em: https://www.bcn.cl/procesoconstituyente/detalle_cronograma?id=f_publicacion-de-la-ley-21-216-paridad-de-genero-para-el-proceso-constituyente4.
Chile, Ley 21.298 sobre Reserva de Escaños o Cupos en la Convención Constitucional a los Pueblos Indígenas y Participación de las Personas en Situación de Discapacidad.
Disponível em: https://www.bcn.cl/procesoconstituyente/detalle_cronograma?id=f_publicacion-de-la-ley-ndeg-21-298-reserva-escanos-o-cupos-en-la-convencion-constitucional-a-los-pueblos-indigenas-y-resguarda-y-promueve-la-participacion-de-las-personas-en-situacion-de-discapacidad 5.
Site oficial da Convenção Constitucional: https://www.chileconvencion.cl/convencionales/ 6.
Pablo Quejer, “Aportes económicos para campañas del Apruebo y del Rechazo en el plebiscito de salida superan a los 1400 millones de pesos”.
Novena Digital, Santiago, 29/08/2022.
Disponível em: https://novenadigital.cl/aportes-economicos-para-campanas-de-apruebo-y-del-rechazo-en-el-plebiscito-de-salida-superan-los-1400-millones-de-pesos/ 6.
O plebiscito de entrada deu início ao itinerário constitucional chileno em outubro de 2020 com duas perguntas: “¿Quiere usted una Nueva Constitución?” e “¿Qué tipo de órgano debe redactar la Nueva Constitución?”.
O plebiscito de saída dava a palavra final sobre a Nova Constituição com a pergunta “¿Aprueba usted el texto de Nueva Constitución propuesto por la Convención Constitucional?”. 7. Sergio Grez e Felipe Portales, ¿Por qué el Rechazo se impuso entre los trabajadores, los jóvenes y las mujeres?
Mate al Rey, Santiago, 11/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtItx7diOJc&feature=youtu.be8. CIREN/CHILE, Características demográficas y socioeconómicas, Comuna de Colchane.
Marzo, 2021.
Disponível em: https://www.sitrural.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Colchane_demografico.pdf 9. SERVEL.
Disponível em: https://preliminares.servelelecciones.cl/#/votacion/elecciones_constitucion/pais/8056 10.
Igor Goicovic Donoso, “La derrota reformista y el escenario del conflicto político”.
Rebelión.
Santiago, 06/09/2011.
Disponível em: https://rebelion.org/la-derrota-reformista-y-el-escenario-del-conflicto-politico/ 11.
Ibid. 12.
Ou seja, uma grande empresa pode deter títulos de proprietária da água do subsolo de uma pequena propriedade camponesa. 13.
SERVEL.
Disponível em: https://preliminares.servelelecciones.cl/#/votacion/elecciones_constitucion/comunas/2556 14.
Paola Valenzuela, “No reconozco el lugar que habito": Gobernador Mundaca tras el triunfo del Rechazo en Petorca”.
Radio Bío-bío Chile.
Santiago, 05/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-de-valparaiso/2022/09/05/amp/mundaca-tras-triunfo-del-rechazo.shtml 15.
Equipo Ciper, “120 residentes de 12 comunas populares de la Región Metropolitana explican por qué votaron Rechazo”.
Ciper, Santiago, 08/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.ciperchile.cl/2022/09/07/120-residentes-de-12-comunas-populares-de-la-region-metropolitana-explican-por-que-votaron-rechazo/ 16.
Rodrigo Valenzuela, “Cadem: Desaprobación del Presidente Boric sube a un 60%, mientras que un 67% está de acuerdo con una nueva Constitución”.
Radio Agricultura, Santiago, 11/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.radioagricultura.cl/nacional/2022/09/11/cadem-desaprobacion-del-presidente-boric-sube-a-un-60-mientras-que-un-67-esta-de-acuerdo-con-una-nueva-constitucion/ 17.
Jorge Magasich, “Por qué ganó el rechazo?: un intento de análisis”.
Le Monde Diplomatique Chile.
Santiago, 12/09/2022.
Disponível em: ttps://www.lemondediplomatique.cl/por-que-gano-el-rechazo-un-intento-de-analisis-por-jorge-magasich.html 18.
Cristóbal Fuentes, Marco Arellano, exconvencional: “Quiero pedir disculpas al país por el trabajo que se realizó”.
La Tercera, Santiago, 08/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-pm/noticia/marco-arellano-exconvencional-quiero-pedir-disculpas-al-pais-por-el-trabajo-que-se-realizo/O4BQRV2ECVFD5JXFRVYK54CWYU/ 19.
Ver a série de cinco artigos de Ester Rizzi sobre sua passagem por dentro da cc.
Ester Rizzi, “Empaparme de Chile”.
Consultor Jurídico (Conjur), fev/2022.
Disponíveis em: https://www.conjur.com.br/2022-fev-08/rizzi-brasileira-convencao-constitucional-chilena-parte1 20.
CELAG, Informe postelectoral del plebiscito chileno.
Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica, 5/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.celag.org/informe-postelectoral-del-plebiscito-chileno/ 21.
Chile: “El discurso íntegro de Boric tras el rechazo a la Constitución”.
El País, 04/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://youtu.be/SgqgMEy6RcM 22.
“Como debe escribirse una ‘nueva nueva’ Constitución?”.
El Café Diário, podcast de La Tercera.
Disponível em: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1QmL2N97eJK7sP8keOe3tI?si=_MPAF_tQS8S-dc0I4oyLdA 23.
Catalina Martinez & Graciela Pérez, “Partidos políticos acuerdan que Nueva Constitución sea redactada por una convención electa, pero apoyada por comité de expertos”.
La Tercera, Santiago, 12/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/partidos-politicos-acuerdan-que-nueva-constitucion-sea-redactada-por-una-convencion-electa-pero-apoyada-por-comite-de-expertos/E3M5ME6WZVG6HAGXIHVYROYWFM/ 24.
Movimentos Sociais chilenos lançam declaração sobre derrota do Apruebo: “já não somos o que éramos antes de escrever esta Constituição”.
Trad.: Bruno Rodrigues.
Esquerda Online, 5/09/2022.
Disponível em: https://esquerdaonline.com.br/2022/09/05/movimentos-sociais-chilenos-lancam-declaracao-sobre-derrota-do-apruebo-ja-nao-somos-o-que-eramos-antes-de-escrever-esta-constituicao/ 25.
Depoimento de Elisa Loncón no documentário “Mi Pais Imaginário”, de Patricio Guzman.
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Gang warfare in Haiti's Port-au-Prince has reached new peaks of intensity and brutality.
Experts say the scale and duration of gang clashes, the power criminals wield and the amount of territory they control has reached levels not seen before, reports the Associated Press.The UN said that between April 24 and May 16, at least 92 people unaffiliated with gangs, and some 96 alleged gang members, were reportedly killed during coordinated armed attacks in the sprawling Haitian capital.
Another 113 were injured, 12 reported missing, and 49 kidnapped for ransom, according to figures corroborated by UN human rights officers, although the actual number of those killed may be much higher.
(See today's Just Caribbean Updates)The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, said last week armed violence has reached “unimaginable and intolerable levels” in Haiti and that the surge in violence is being fuelled by heavily armed gangs in Port-au-Prince.
(United Nations)Gangs also are recruiting more children than before, arming them with heavy weapons and forming temporary alliances with other gangs in attempts to take over more territory for economic and political gain ahead of the country’s general elections, reports the Associated Press.The security situation has a direct impact on the country's political crisis, notes the Latin America Risk Report: "Even accepting some level of electoral weakness if Haiti holds elections this year, elections under the current levels of gang violence and influence would not be accepted by much of Haitian society.
Solving the security situation must be a priority."-------------------------Haiti's RansomNew York Times investigation -- The Ransom -- delves into the reparations paid by Haiti after it won its freedom from France.
"What if?
What if the nation had not been looted by outside powers, foreign banks and its own leaders almost since birth?
How much more money might it have had to build a nation? Persistent corruption is one reason for Haiti's apparently perpetual crisis.
But a history of crippling reparations and later extractivist policies by French financial institutions are critical to understanding Haiti's current woes.For more than a year, a team of Times correspondents scoured long-forgotten documents languishing in archives and libraries on three continents to answer that question, to put a number on what it cost Haitians to be free. For generations after independence, Haitians were forced to pay the descendants of their former slave masters, the world’s first and only country to do so.
Loans from French banks were used to finance these payments, what became known as Haiti’s “double debt” — the ransom and the loan to pay it — a stunning load that boosted the fledgling Parisian international banking system and helped cement Haiti’s path into poverty and underdevelopment, reports the New York Times, based on original historical records.A New York Times investigation into historical records uncovers how Parisian bank Crédit Industriel et Commercial, which in 1880 set up Haiti's national bank, choked Haiti’s economy, taking much of the young nation’s income back to Paris and impairing its ability to start schools, hospitals and the other building blocks of an independent country.
Crédit Industriel, known in France as C.I.C., is now a $355 billion subsidiary of one of Europe’s largest financial conglomerates.And the history continues to have significant repercussions: French diplomats admit that Jean-Bertrand Aristide's sudden calls for reparations in 2003, a bombshell that became a hallmark of his presidency, played a role in his eventual ouster in a coup supported by France and the U.S., reports the New York Times.News BriefsRegionThere’s no single trajectory for how Latin American countries came to legalize abortion -- recent examples include laws passed by Congress, Supreme Court decisions and, soon, Chile might include the right in a new constitution, writes Omar G.
Encarnación in The Nation.
But, broadly speaking, Latin American activists have framed the question as one of human rights, rather than personal choice as in the U.S.Despite these significant advances, millions still live in a horrendous reality, writes Diana Cariboni in Nacla.
Abortion is completely banned in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Suriname.
Raped girls and women are forced to give birth in the countries with total abortion bans, but also in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. There seems little hope of any change to abortion restrictions in Central America, but the next big win could come in the region’s most populous country, Brazil.CubaCubans have been hit by mass shortages of basic goods as part of its pressing economic crisis -- lack of milk is one of the most potent symbols of the country’s precarious state, reports the Washington Post.Regional RelationsThe U.S.
Biden administration is considering inviting a Cuban representative to attend the upcoming Summit of the Americas as an observer, reports the Associated Press.
It’s unclear if Cuba would accept the invitation — which would be extended to someone in the foreign ministry, not the foreign minister himself — and whether that would assuage concerns among Latin American and Caribbean leaders who have threatened to boycott the meeting over Cuba and Venezuela's exclusion.Guyana will be attending the upcoming Summit of the Americas to discuss high-priority matters, highlighting the dilemma countries in the region face, as they threaten a boycott over the likely exclusion by the U.S.
of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
(NewsRoom)BrazilEven if Brazilians deny President Jair Bolsonaro a second term in October, it will take a generation to dismantle his many negative legacies, from loosened gun regulation to attacks on democratic institutions.
But the most serious is Bolsonaro's example of negationism, write Conrado Hübner Mendes, Mariana Celano de Souza Amaral and Marina Slhessarenko Barreto in the Post Opinión.Some of the world’s biggest mining companies have withdrawn requests to research and extract minerals on Indigenous land in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and have repudiated Bolsonaro’s efforts to legalize mining activity in the areas.
(Associated Press)ColombiaFour of the six presidential tickets in Colombia's May 29 election have an Afro-Colombian vice-presidential candidate — a remarkable shift in a country historically led by men from a small group of elite families, reports the Washington Post.
But Francia Márquez, a Black environmental activist who has never held political office is by far the most visible: she won the third most votes in the country’s March presidential primary, and is now running alongside leftist frontrunner Gustavo Petro.PeruPeruvian President Pedro Castillo named four new cabinet ministers yesterday -- including Interior and Mining.
The latest of many Cabinet shuffles in less than a year in office comes amid rising tensions over protests in the country's mining regions.
(Reuters, Infobae)EcuadorEcuador's former vice-president Jorge Glas, who served 4.5 years in prison on a bribery conviction before being released last month, was arrested on Friday by police under a court order to return him to jail.
(Reuters)Critter CornerAn international team of 120 institutions has collected a massive archive of Amazon camera trap data— with records for over 150,000 snapshots taken between 2001 and 2020. It’s an attempt not just to get the information in one place but to enable researchers to study some of the biggest challenges that face the region.
Many — such as climate change, deforestation and fire — are human-caused, reports the Washington Post.Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take?
Let me know ...Latin America Daily Briefing
News BriefsRegional RelationsU.S.
failure to help Latin American democracies has contributed to the region's multiple democratic failures, and weakened U.S.
influence, writes Scott Hamilton in Global Americans.
Strengthening of democratic institutions and the promotion of democratic values should be the top U.S.
national security priority everywhere in the region, he argues, which would align the U.S.
with regional aspirations for democracy, economic opportunity, and social justice.
"U.S.
efforts to invest in security forces, nudge countries to “pick sides” in Great Power competition, or increase the use of sanctions for those that don’t follow its lead would only hasten the decline in U.S.
influence."The U.S.
Biden administration has several reasons for its newly announced (marginal) shifts towards moderation in its policies towards Cuba and Venezuela -- including concerns over migration and oil shortages related to conflict with Russia.
But officials could also be aiming to counteract the threat of a regional boycott of the upcoming Summit of the Americas, motivated by its stance towards these countries.
"Even if the Biden administration does not end up including Cuba and Venezuela in the summit, these new policies show that Washington is not unshakably wedded to a hard-line position toward the countries," writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
(See Wednesday's post.)U.S.
officials accused Cuba of creating controversy about its possible exclusion from the US-hosted Summit of the Americas next month to portray Washington as the “bad guy” and distract attention from Havana’s human rights record at home. Kerri Hannan, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said countries that have threatened to skip the regional meeting if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are not invited should attend or else they would lose an opportunity to engage with the United States, reports Al Jazeera.The Biden administration appeared set to renew its assessment that Cuba is among a handful of countries "not cooperating fully" with the United States in the fight against terrorism, reports Reuters.U.S.
National Security Council Senior Director Juan González, one of President Joe Biden's top Latin America advisors, dismissed calls for the US to unilaterally lift sanctions against Venezuela, saying that any relief should be accompanied first by the Latin American government taking more democratic steps, reports Bloomberg.
(See Wednesday's post.)Britain said it was launching talks over a free trade deal with Mexico, reports Reuters.MexicoMore than 100,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since records started being kept in 1964 -- but most victims were added to the list after 2006.
Activists, victims collectives and organizations of civil society reiterated calls to the government to respond to the crisis with integral policies, reports El País."Disappearances are the fear that sneaks in like fog and eats away at the social fabric." Quinto Elemento Lab illustrates the numbers and the deeper implications of Mexico's crisis of disappearances.El SalvadorEl Salvador's government negotiator with the MS-13, Carlos Marroquín, told the gang that he personally aided in the international escape of “Crook,” an MS-13 figurehead, despite a U.S.
extradition request.
The revelation is part of El Faro's investigation into the negotiations between the Bukele administration and the street gang, and how their breakdown led to a spate of record killings in March.
(See Wednesday's post.)GuatemalaGuatemalans are paying attention to the ups and downs of their country’s institutions like never before -- "a momentous change in public attitudes, with the potential to reorient the country’s politics," writes Claudia Méndez Arriaza in Americas Quarterly. President Alejandro Giammattei's decision to give attorney general Consuelo Porra a second term, earlier this month, has raised tensions among a public anxious to see the country's endemic corruption tackled, she writes.RegionalA new InSight Crime investigation delves into the illegal trafficking of cattle from the natural reserves of Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico.
This trade has resulted in the deforestation of thousands of hectares and numerous acts of violence against Indigenous communities.
The growing economy both satisfies the growing global demand for beef and helps to mask other criminal activities held in parallel, including cocaine trafficking and money laundering.AS/COA looks at cryptocurrency proliferation and regulation in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and El Salvador.BrazilProgrammed testing of Brazil's electronic voting system -- a three-day battery of attempted assaults by 20 would-be hackers -- ended last week without succeeding at disrupting the system, reports the Associated Press.
While the tests occur regularly, they have taken on particular relevance given President Jair Bolsonaro's insistent questioning of the electoral system's integrity.UruguayA spate of gang-related killings in Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo, alongside violence throughout the country, is raising debate about the alleged success of the government's hardline security strategies towards microtrafficking, reports InSight Crime.ArgentinaA landmark criminal trial in Argentina has found the state guilty of the massacre of more than 400 indigenous people nearly a century ago.
(BBC)ChileNearly 22% of Chile’s electricity is generated by solar and wind farms, putting it far ahead of both the global average.
But natural gas companies obtained government priority in the power market, undermining the country's push to renewables, reports the Associated Press.Chile's Constitutional Convention entered its final phase, a "harmonization" of the text put together by commissions and approved by the plenary of constitutional delegates.
The delegates carrying out this final task did not form part of the other commissions that proposed norms for the draft magna carta, reports La Bot Constituyente.Among the nerdier tasks, the Harmonization Commission heard from linguist Claudia Poblete who convinced delegates to jettison the legal text practice of excessive capitalization.
(La Bot Constituyente)Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take?
Let me know ... Latin America Daily Briefing
by LAP Editor, Steve EllnerPublished in NACLA: Report on the Americas.
Vol.
54, no.
1On April 14, 2002, the folly of the abortive coup staged against the government of Hugo Chávez three days earlier was clear, but the depth of its long-lasting impact was not.
The April 11 coup was a milestone event that shaped politics in Venezuela and the region for the next two decades.
Most important, the coup and the events that immediately followed it set off polarization marked by the radicalization of the government and the opposition, which impacted not only national politics but also government policy on all fronts.The year 2002 was thus a turning point in Venezuelan politics.
How did the nation reach such a defining moment?
In the initial period after gaining power, the Chavista movement, like Fidel Castro's Movimiento 26 de Julio in 1959, did not stand for thoroughgoing socioeconomic transformation, even though both movements originated in attempts to gain power using force.
Castro in 1959 denied being a leftist, and Chávez embraced the “third way” doctrine that stood between pro-capitalist and pro-socialist.In both cases, however, powerful adversaries viewed the movements as existential threats.
In Cuba’s case, the Eisenhower administration took steps to overthrow Castro shortly after he came to power.
And in Venezuela, the nation’s two main parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and Copei, joined forces in an eleventh-hour attempt to avoid Chávez’s triumph at the polls in 1998, while the business organization Fedecámaras staunchly opposed his candidacy.
Shortly after his election, the Catholic hierarchy claimed that Chávez had earned the wrath of God.
By 2002, Washington officials, who for the most part initially refrained from criticizing his government, questioned his democratic credentials and then, in effect, supported the April coup.
These developments intensified the polarization that has plagued Venezuela ever since.In our article “The Remarkable Fall and Rise of Hugo Chávez,” published in the July/August 2002 issue of the NACLA Report, NACLA director Fred Rosen and I showed how the radicalization of the opposition unfolded the day after the April 11 coup.
The article defined two contrasting positions within the opposition that, despite changing political terrain, have continued to this day: a hardline, right-wing strategy that on April 12 decreed the elimination of democratic institutions, and a centrist strategy of working through existing institutions.
The latter favored reaching an agreement with former Interior Minister Luis Miquilena and other disenchanted Chavistas to achieve regime change through the legislative branch and in a way that “broad sectors of the population would be represented,” we wrote.We pointed out that the hardliners, guided by “a well-conceived plan” that gave them an advantage over the centrists, seized control of the government in what we called “nothing less than a coup within the coup.” Economic policy lay just beneath the surface.
We noted that “as a member of the export-oriented business class, [provisional president Pedro Carmona] and his followers very likely wanted once and for all to remove all the obstacles to full-fledged, neoliberal formulas.” To do so required “a clean and violent break with the populist past.” In other words, to achieve pressing objectives, democratic principles had to be compromised.Carmona was set on implementing a radical neoliberal program, sometimes referred to as the “shock treatment,” consisting of harsh and swiftly implemented austerity measures.
He staffed his cabinet with members of the elite while excluding labor leaders of the AD-controlled Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), even though the CTV had made April 11 happen in the first place and its president, Carlos Ortega, was originally slated to head the provisional government, as Gregory Wilpert later noted in a piece for Venezuelaanalysis.The absence of leaders of AD, the nation’s largest party, which had wholeheartedly supported the mobilizations against Chávez, was not by accident.
Throughout the 1990s, a major faction within AD had opposed the shock treatment brand of neoliberalism, a position that partly explains the party’s decision to expel neoliberal ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1993.The neoliberal radicals, however, attributed Venezuela’s backwardness to the allegedly left-wing populist tradition associated with AD, which they blamed for Chávez’s rise to power in 1998.
On the eve of Chávez’s election, one prominent academic supporter of neoliberal reform, Aníbal Romero, ominously wrote in Latin American Research Review: “Venezuela is experiencing the agony of populism…and one cannot be sure of where it may lead.”Fast forwarding to the Maduro years, the polarization between the Chavista government associated with socialism and an intransigent opposition remained intact, as did the high stakes of Venezuelan politics.
Various features largely dating back to 2002 stand out.Most important, a dominant radical faction of the opposition continues to overshadow a moderate one.
The moderates, unlike the radicals, advocate electoral participation, favor recognizing the legitimacy of the nation's democratic institutions and the Maduro presidency, and oppose U.S.-imposed sanctions.As in 2002, radicals—headed by self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López of the Voluntad Popular party—have had a distinct advantage over moderates, this time due to decisive support from Washington.
The State Department demanded that the Maduro administration refrain from taking judicial action against Guaidó despite his numerous attempts to overthrow the government, and it influenced Maduro to privilege Voluntad Popular in the negotiations held in Mexico in 2021.
In contrast, Washington placed sanctions on four important moderates including Bernabé Gutiérrez, a long-time AD politician.
Radicals under Carmona prevailed the day after the April 11 coup even though they did not necessarily represent a majority of the opposition.
Similarly, hardliners have relied throughout the Maduro years on U.S.
support to maintain the upper hand over the rest of the opposition, even as most Venezuelans opposed sanctions and Guaidó’s popularity precipitously declined over the course of 2019 and 2020. Another overlap between 2002 and the current state of Venezuelan politics is the prospect of a revanchist wave should radical sectors of the opposition take power.
The first day of Carmona’s two-day rule saw efforts to round up leading Chavistas as "Wanted: Dead or Alive" leaflets with prominent Chavista names circulated.
Similarly, threats against Maduro supporters upped the stakes in the confrontation between him and Guaidó.
In an indirect threat against Maduro supporters in the armed forces, the opposition-controlled National Assembly headed by Guaidó introduced a law in 2019 that granted “amnesty” to officers who supported regime change.Blunders by opposition hardliners in 2002 repeated themselves over the next two decades, resulting in one fiasco after another.
In April 2002 the opposition lacked a fallback plan.
When sectors of the military, specifically among the high command, resisted the coup, the entire undertaking imploded.
Similarly, as the prolonged general strike of 2002-2003 faltered and its regime change objective seemed lost, opposition leaders failed either to take stock or change strategy, instead letting the protest peter out.
It was a pattern repeated in the months-long street protests known as La Salida (The Exit) in 2014 and later, during even more pitched protests against Maduro’s call for a Constituent National Assembly in 2017, as well as in numerous attempts at regime change undertaken by Guaidó beginning in January 2019.The events of 2002 also affected Chavista leaders.
Chávez reacted to the defection of his right-hand man and possible father figure Miquilena, and then the support of oil company personnel for the 2002-2003 general strike, by privileging political loyalty over competence and calling for unity at all costs.
Hence Chávez’s oft-repeated slogan: "unity, unity and more unity." This type of learning experience—which political scientists call “political over-learning"—downgraded the importance of technical expertise, prompting frequent cabinet shuffles under both Chávez’s and then Maduro’s governments with little or no consideration of the professional training of incoming ministers.The April coup also convinced Chávez and those closest to him of the need to prioritize social goals over economic ones to ensure the future support and mass mobilization of the popular sectors, so instrumental in defeating the coup.
The government’s failure to put the accent mark on economic diversification to sever economic dependence invited criticism from across the political spectrum.Another consequence of the 2002 events is that they exposed unreliable military officers as a result of their actions during the coup and general strike.
Subsequently, loyal officers were privileged with promotions to higher ranks, particularly those involving troop command.
The loyalty of the armed forces in the face of multiple efforts by the opposition and Washington to encourage rebellion has been a key factor in the Maduro government’s survival.
Indeed, the U.S.
strategy has backfired, as Washington failed to take into account the nationalist sentiment of military officers.The overthrow of a president who in the previous three years had won two presidential elections with 56 and 60 percent of the vote—and went on to win again with 63 percent in 2006—proved a fatal move for the opposition.
Refusing to recognize their error led to continuous insistence that the Chávez government was authoritarian and illegitimate, resulting in electoral boycotts and non-recognition of electoral results, even ones certified by international observers.
As a consequence, the opposition time and again forfeited its presence on elected bodies at the national, state, and municipal levels.The events of 2002 also locked Chavista leaders in a polarizing mindset of viewing Venezuelan politics as a faceoff between Chavistas and insurgent adversaries with little room for constructive criticism.
As I discuss in a forthcoming article in Science and Society, the resultant sectarianism toward critical allies on the left led to the exit in 2020 of various parties from the governing coalition, including the nation’s oldest one, the Communist Party.
Ultimately, what revisiting the April 2002 events shows is an urgent need for both chavismo and its opponents to take a step backward and critically analyze both the coup and its legacies, intended and otherwise, and examine their lessons against 20 years of hindsight.________________________________________Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela.
His latest books include his edited Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism and Resistance in Broad Perspective (2021).To cite this article: Steve Ellner (2022) The April 2002 Coup Through Time, NACLA Report on the Americas, 54:1, 16-19, DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2022.2045097To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2022.2045097