Cuba is the model of what can be achieved. Imagine how much more it could do without the economical and media blockade!”. These are the words of Claudia Camba, president of the UMMEP Foundation (“Un Mundo Mejor Es Posible”, “A better world is possible”) and coordinator of the Cuban missions in Argentina.
Che! You are one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th Century. You inspired tens of millions of people throughout the world to fight for justice, for their freedom and civil rights. You have left a vision of hope, of never giving up – a legacy of solidarity and of Venceremos! – we shall overcome.
After WWII, the West had one huge ‘problem’ on its hands: all three most populous Muslim countries on Earth – Egypt, Iran and Indonesia – were clearly moving in one similar direction, joining a group of patriotic, peaceful and tolerant nations. They were deeply concerned about the welfare of their citizens, and by no means were they willing to allow foreign colonialist powers to plunder their resources, or enslave their people.
Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism.
— Max Horkheimer, from the essay “The Jews and Europe”, December 1939
Over the past decade, Bolivia has managed some extraordinary achievements, for instance becoming the first country in the world to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals in terms of access to water. In spite of it, these news that could bring hope to people around the world are subjected to censorship from the dominant Latin American and western media. More than that, the media proceeds to relentlessly misinform and demonize all the leaders from the Global South that dare disobey the empire.
“Fidel Castro, October 12, 1987”. That is what Fidel wrote on my book, Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans living and working in the new Nicaragua, after reading it.
In 1980, I fell in love with a Danish woman, Grethe, and moved to her country. On my way to assist the rebellion in El Salvador, in 1987, we traveled to Cuba. This was my first visit to Cuba and my first book had just come out when I met Fidel.
Rodrigo Duterte, the outspoken President of the Philippines, has by now most likely joined the concealed, prestigious and permanent hit list of the Empire.
The hit list is very long; it has already been long for several decades. One could easily lose count and get confused: how many personalities have been marked and secretly condemned to death? How many of them actually died?
The Bolivian cooperatives’ protests and their August 25 killing of the Bolivian Vice Minister of the Interior Rodolfo Illanes requires us to question our assumptions about cooperatives. What are the Bolivian mining cooperatives? Most began during the Great Depression as miners banded together to work a mine in common. However, like many cooperatives in the US that arose out of the 1960s, they have turned into small businesses. Regardless of their initial intentions, cooperatives existing in a surrounding capitalist environment must compete in business practices or go under.
On April 16, Ecuador suffered an earthquake registering 7.8 on the Richter scale. One week later, the death toll stood at 656, with more than twelve thousand injuries reported and more than fifty people still missing. Hundreds of aftershocks, some very powerful, continue to shake the country’s northwest coast and cause more damage.
The day after the disaster, aid began arriving from Ecuador’s Latin American neighbors, including Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Bolivia. Quick responses were crucial, as hundreds of people were still missing, many trapped in crumbling rubble.
