Organization of American States

When the Venezuelan elections are held on May 20, much of the world’s media, trailing the U.S. Department of State, will have already denounced the elections as “non-democratic” before they have even taken place.
Mainstream media in the United States repeatedly called for early elections during the months of Venezuela’s violent guarimba protests in 2017. A State Department official said March 29 of last year that “President Maduro… should hold elections as soon as possible.”

Ramping up interventionist rhetoric and policy against progressive governments in the region, United States Vice President Mike Pence said working for “freedom” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is a priority for Donald Trump’s administration during a ceremony in which new U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, was sworn in.
“We will stay by the side of those who long for freedom and we will confront their oppressors,” Pence said during the event in the White House.

Recent disturbances in Nicaragua have served as a kind of who’s who, separating anti-imperialists from cynical phonies both inside and outside the country. The tsunami of disinformation has swamped the usual suspect mainstream corporate media outlets and their alternative accomplices, but also other news sites that are generally anti-imperialist on issues such as Syria and Palestine, Russia and Iran.

QUITO, ECUADOR — Bolivia plans on struggling hard to maintain the unity of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), after half of its member states declared the indefinite suspension of their participation in the regional organization, President Evo Morales told reporters yesterday.
“We are going to make all the efforts to reach consensus to overcome this problem,” the Bolivian leader said upon arriving at the airport in Havana, Cuba, where he is meeting the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — The March 3 arrest of a Honduran business executive, for allegedly orchestrating the 2016 murder of renowned environmentalist Berta Caceres, has not inspired widespread public confidence in law-enforcement, according to one activist. To the contrary, Karen Spring, the coordinator of Honduran Solidarity Network, told MintPress News, the arrest — two years to the day after Caceres’ death — has been met chiefly with cynicism from the Central American country’s poor and working class.

A woman holds a candle covered by a picture of late Mexican Anastasio Hernandez during a protest at the San Ysidro border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, June 3, 2010. (AP Photo)
SAN DIEGO – In the first case of its kind, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has given the United States three months to respond to charges of abuse of human rights, from the family of a man killed by Border Patrol agents in 2010.
Border watchers consider it a major test of the Trump administration’s stand on immigration, crime and law enforcement.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, left, talks with Bolivia’s President Evo Morales during a welcome ceremony for presidents attending a meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, July 4, 2013. (AP/Juan Karita)
Bolivian President Evo Morales on Thursday slammed ongoing right-wing opposition protests in Venezuela, claiming they serve the interests of multinational elites looking to privatize the country’s oil resources.

By Dan Beeton | CEPR | March 7, 2014