cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/37112

As the Trump administration continues to bombard Iran, a top Pentagon official revealed that U.S. wars in the Western Hemisphere are also expanding, unveiling an effort dubbed “Operation Total Extermination.”

Attacks on Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, told members of the House Armed Services Committee last week.

Humire indicated that many more strikes in Latin America are on the horizon. The comments came a day after President Donald Trump again teased American annexation of Cuba. “I do believe I’ll be the honor of — having the honor of taking Cuba,” Trump said last week. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”

Humire announced that the Department of War supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept. “The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.

The U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign has already strayed into Colombia after a farm was bombed or hit by “ricochet effect” on March 3, leaving an unexploded 500-pound bomb lying in Colombia’s border region. In response to a request for comment, U.S. Southern Command referred The Intercept to a statement on X by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense confirming the bomb landed in Colombia.

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Humire referred to the attacks as “joint land strikes” and said that America was providing Ecuador with “capabilities that they otherwise would not have.” The U.S. has since conducted at least one more strike with Ecuador. “Yes — as @POTUS has said — we are bombing Narco Terrorists on land as well,” self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on March 6, announcing the new strike. Days later, in a war powers report announcing the introduction of U.S. armed forces into “hostilities” in that country, the White House informed Congress of “military action taken on March 6, 2026, against the facilities of narco-terrorists affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.”

The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 46 attacks since September 2025, destroying 48 vessels and killing almost 160 civilians. The latest strike, on March 19 in the Pacific, killed two more people and left one survivor. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.

“Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

“This Administration is barely paying lip service to the constitutional or international law governing the use of force. But we have these rules for a reason,” said Rebecca Ingber, a former State Department lawyer and now a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York. “Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

Gen. Francis Donovan, the SOUTHCOM commander, told lawmakers last week that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even larger campaign. “What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

Humire could not say how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”

The Office of the Secretary of War did not respond to a request to clarify how great that increase might be.

Humire said the U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign was “setting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.” The word “deterrence” has become a popular Pentagon euphemism for the use of lethal strikes, in contrast to previous efforts to U.S. government efforts to marshal economic, diplomatic, and military means to convince adversaries to abandon a specific course of action. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements,” Humire claimed.

Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2026.  Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images

In January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. It now rules the country through a puppet regime. Federal prosecutors have reportedly drafted a criminal indictment against Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, threatening her with corruption and money laundering charges if she does not continue to do the bidding of the Trump administration. Trump also recently teased the possibility of making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state.

The Trump administration is reportedly undertaking a regime-change operation in Cuba, attempting to push out President Miguel Díaz-Canel as a requirement for negotiations between the U.S. and that island nation. U.S. officials are said to favor Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of 94-year-old Raúl Castro, the former Cuban president and brother to Fidel, the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008. Díaz-Canel referenced U.S. plans to “seize the country” on X late Tuesday and said the U.S. would be met with “impregnable resistance.”

“I am holding Cuba,” Trump said recently, noting his costly regime-change war in the Middle East takes precedence at the moment. “We’re going to do Iran before Cuba.” Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in January, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. The island’s national electrical grid has already collapsed three times this month, with one blackout lasting more than 29 hours. U.N. human rights experts have condemned Trump’s fuel blockade on Cuba as “a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.”

Trump, who has repeatedly spoken of “taking” Cuba, is the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. During the Cold War, the CIA launched the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The agency also tried to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times. The U.S. also conducted a covertcampaign of bombing Cuban sugar mills and burning cane fields, among other acts of sabotage.

In the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Pentagon prepared top-secret plans to pave the way for an attack on the island. In the spring of 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a top-secret memorandum titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba.” It described numerous false-flag operations that could be employed to justify a U.S. invasion, including a plot to “sink a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)” and even staging a modern “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and blaming the incident on Cuba. Other U.S. plans for covert action on the island specifically prioritized attacking Cuba’s electrical grid.

Asked if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved in analogous actions today, spokesperson Maj. Annabel Monroe referred The Intercept to Southern Command, who then referred The Intercept to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

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Humire said that the War Department was “currently focused on partner-led deterrence operations,” but would not rule out unilateral U.S. strikes across Latin America. He said that, in addition to Ecuador, the U.S. had forged agreements with 17 partner-nations in the Western Hemisphere, as part of the so-called Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. This international body, formally announced by Trump at his Shield of the Americas summit earlier this month, will focus on “bi-lateral and multi-lateral operations against cartels and terrorist organizations.”

Humire was asked if any of the 18 nations were concerned about issues of sovereignty regarding the U.S. potentially conducting attacks in their countries. “Members of the coalition specifically signed a joint security declaration mentioning that they want this support and most of them all are looking for this,” he replied. But the barebones statement they signed is astonishingly vague and offers little of substance on the subject.

Humire indicated that the U.S. had leveraged gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela to strong-arm Cuba and assist in “gaining compliance from Nicaragua,” as well as “shifting the Caribbean in a favorable direction toward U.S. interests.”

Recent official leaks about the potential U.S. indictment of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia on drug charges — the official reason for Maduro’s kidnapping, and the means reportedly used to keep his successor, Rodriguez, in line — suggest the U.S. may employ that tactic as leverage or an eventual pretext for military action. (Petro has denied ties to drug traffickers.)

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“It sounds as if Petro is potentially on the chopping block,” a former defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his current employment, told The Intercept. The source said leaks about the potential indictment of Petro, coupled with the U.S.–Ecuadorian attack, which has stirred up tensions along the South American nations’ border, increasingly look like a coordinated campaign to foment “discord” if not conflict. Asked in January about attacking Colombia, Trump responded: “It sounds good to me.”

The U.S. attacks on the Colombia–Ecuador border come as America has recently established a “permanent FBI presence in Ecuador,” joining agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Just before the U.S. began attacks on the Ecuador–Colombia border, Donovan traveled to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, to meet with President Daniel Noboa and senior Ecuadorian defense officials.

Last August, Lt. Col. Phillip Vaughn — the commander of an Expeditionary Task Group overseeing Air Force Special Operations in the Caribbean and South America — coordinated meetings to increase “interoperability between U.S. and Ecuadorian forces” to “counter illicit actors operating along Ecuador’s northern border” with Colombia including “operational planning scenarios, execution of close air support procedures,” and “multiple topics on Joint Terminal Attack Controller support,” which relates to targeting and airstrikes.

America’s Western hemisphere blitz is part of what Trump and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine”: a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. While President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Trump has wielded his variant as a license for America to do exactly that.

The National Security Strategy, released late last year, decrees the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere.” Humire defined “America’s immediate security perimeter” as “Alaska to Greenland in the Arctic to the Gulf of America and the Panama Canal and surrounding countries.” Trump has also threatened to annex Greenland (and possibly Iceland), turn Canada into a U.S. state, and conduct military strikes in Mexico. Humire also detailed efforts to strong-arm Panama to cut ties with China to ensure access to the Panamanian-owned canal that he nonetheless called a U.S. “national asset.”

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In addition to his wars in the Western hemisphere, Trump has also launched attacks on Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during his second term — most of them sites of U.S. conflicts during the war on terror.

Smith, the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, told Humire that Trump’s wars in the Americas also appeared to be morphing into a new “forever conflict” with no clear goal or “end point.” Asked what “level of achievement” would be necessary to “stop kinetic action,” Humire responded with a wall of words about border security, terrorism, and cartels. When Smith interrupted to clarify if the boat strikes would continue unabated, Humire confusingly replied: “No, correct.”

The post Pentagon Reveals Attacks in Latin America Are Just the Beginning appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/35175

On a dirt road that cuts through the Rio Novo settlement in the southeast of Pará state, battered motorcycles carry small loads of organic food to sell in the city, while passing trucks loaded with minerals for export.

Parauapebas, Brazil’s so-called “mining capital,” hosts numerous rural worker communities, including the 5,000 families of Terra e Liberdade, the largest landless encampment in Brazil. The city is also home to the largest open-pit iron ore mine in the world, in addition to other valuable deposits.

The scene of historical land conflicts, such as the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, in which 21 people died after being shot by military police during a protest in 1996, southeastern Pará is now witnessing a new front of dispute.

Driven by the energy transition, mining companies are eyeing land in already established agrarian reform settlements, seeking deposits of three minerals essential to the arms and high-tech industries: copper, manganese, and nickel. These elements are used in equipment such as chips, wind turbines, electric cars, military jets, and warships.

An exclusive survey by Repórter Brasil in partnership with Mongabay, based on data from the National Mining Agency, or ANM, identified 676 mining processes for copper, manganese, and nickel in Carajás since 1969. A quarter of them, 166, were filed in the last five years (2021–25).

Mongabay / Repórter Brasuk

Of the total number of requests, 292 (43 percent) relate to 82 agrarian reform settlements, distributed across nine municipalities in southeastern Pará. The analysis includes only valid mining applications, both in operation and in the planning phase. Some were filed before the settlements were formally established. All of them, however, are currently located on public land designated for agrarian reform, where 14,852 families of small-scale farmers now live, according to INCRA, the national land reform institute.

The findings are part of the Energy Transition Observatory, a data journalism project by Repórter Brasil, in partnership with INESC (Institute of Socioeconomic Studies) and PoEMAS (Research and Extension Group on Politics, Economics, Mining, Environment and Society), which monitors the impacts of renewable energy projects on conservation units, traditional peoples, and agrarian reform settlements.

For this analysis, the report extracted the coordinates of rural settlements from the databases of INCRA and cross-referenced them with the geographic references of mining applications on the QGIS geoprocessing platform.

The analysis was conducted by Repórter Brasil with support from PoEMAS, a network of researchers from public teaching and research institutions.

The survey considered mining processes in operation (mining application, right to apply for mining and mining concession) and in planning (research application, research authorization and artisanal mining application).

Vale leads the search for critical minerals in Carajás

With an approximate area of 55,000 square kilometers (21,235 square miles), according to the Brazilian Geological Survey, Carajás concentrates some of the world’s largest mineral deposits, notably iron, gold, copper, manganese, and nickel — the latter three considered strategic minerals for the energy transition and the defense and aerospace industries. They are also known as electrification minerals.

Copper is essential due to its high electrical conductivity, used in solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and transmission networks.  Manganese is fundamental to lithium-ion batteries and electronic equipment, as well as being used in alloys for armored vehicles and warships. Nickel is used in the composition of alloys for engines and structures of military jets, in addition to allowing for batteries with greater autonomy and being important for energy storage systems.

Brazil’s largest mining company, Vale (VALE3 in Brazil’s stock market), leads the race for these minerals in Carajás: There are 201 applications for copper, nickel, and manganese, of which 80 (40 percent) currently overlap with rural settlements. The applications are in the name of the company and its subsidiaries Vale Metais Básicos, Salobo Metais, and Mineração Onça Puma.

Iron ore mining pit in the Parauapebas region, southeastern Pará; the region is home to some of the largest mining deposits on the planet. Cícero Pedrosa / Repórter Brasil

Last year, at an event attended by Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the mining company launched the Novo Carajás Program, an initiative to expand the production of copper and high-grade iron. The projected investment is 70 billion reais ($13.5 billion) by 2030.

“In the medium and long term, critical minerals will have a relevance to the world just as oil has had in the last 100 years,” stated Gustavo Pimenta, CEO of Vale, at another business event held in June 2025.

When questioned about the impacts of mining on settlements, Vale stated that “the granting of a mining right does not mean the effective realization of a project, whose implementation depends on social, environmental, legal, regulatory, technical, and economic viability.”

The mining company also said that the settlements “are established on rural properties that have been expropriated, acquired, or reverted to public ownership because they do not fulfill their social function” and that it “complies with Brazilian legislation applicable to the subject.”

The mining company did not respond to how it acts to mitigate the impacts on the settlements.

View of the MST Terra e Liberdade camp in the Parauapebas region, southeastern Pará. The camp is the largest landless occupation in Brazil, housing more than 5,000 families. Cícero Pedrosa / Repórter Brasil

In the Serra dos Carajás region, the activities of the Brazilian multinational are being questioned. Mineração Onça Puma, a subsidiary focused on nickel mining, is facing a lawsuit from the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, or MPF, for suspected contamination of Indigenous people in the Xikrin do Cateté Indigenous Territory by heavy metals.

A study by the Federal University of Pará analyzed 720 Xikrin Indigenous people and found that 98.5 percent of them were contaminated. In Feb. 2026, the MPF requested the court to freeze 60 million reais (11.6 million) from Vale to finance technical studies on the contamination of the Cateté River and environmental remediation actions.

Vale has always denied any connection between its operations and the contamination of the Cateté River, claiming that studies conducted by a court in Pará indicated that Onça Puma’s activities are not the source of contamination. (Read more about Vale’s position).

In May 2024, Sumaúma news outlet reported that Vale bought, irregularly, 24,000 hectares (59,305 acres) of INCRA land that should be destined for land reform. The report also mentions that Vale pressured landless rural workers to demobilize social movements in the region.

Settlers fear contamination of river near copper mine

The Onça Puma operation takes place within the Tucumã Settlement Project, according to data from INCRA and ANM cross-referenced by the Energy Transition Observatory, a network of environmental organizations from Brazilian civil society.

Neighboring the Xikrin territory, the settlement is the agrarian reform area with the highest number of requests for electrification minerals in Carajás. There are 62 in total: 42 for copper and 20 for nickel.

In addition to Vale’s nickel operations, the area houses the copper mining venture of Ero Brasil, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Ero Copper.

Truck transporting minerals for export on a dirt road that cuts through a settlement in southeastern Pará. Cícero Pedrosa / Repórter Brasil

In recent months, while copper prices reached record highs on the global market, driven by high demand and supply constraints — such as the drop in Chilean production caused by water scarcity — residents of the Tucumã settlement decried potential environmental impacts on the territory. Last December, images of large quantities of dead fish in the Carapanãzinho River circulated on social media, causing apprehension in the community.

Two settlers, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals in the region, said they suspect that the river has become polluted due to the activities of Ero Brasil.

Copper extraction in Tucumã began in mid-2024 and plays a “critical role” in the company’s operations, according to the company’s sustainability report.

The document attributes the success of the undertaking to its “ability to work with communities.” Among its sustainability guidelines, the mining company highlights that it is “committed to the responsible management of tailings and mining waste in all its operations” and that it has a “proactive” stance to mitigate potential environmental impacts.

However, the settlers reported that the copper mine is causing problems such as constant dust, structural damage to houses (due to explosions), water scarcity, and fish mortality. “When detonation happens, a cloud of dust covers everything,” one of the settlers said. “We can’t even see the mountain range.”

Members of the MST camp in front of the Parauapebas city hall during a protest for better health and education conditions in August 2025. Cícero Pedrosa / Repórter Brasil

The residents interviewed for this report say that the Tucumã environmental agency collected fish and water samples, but it hasn’t released results yet.

They said that the mine operation initially brought hope for jobs and infrastructure to the region. However, they said the accumulated impacts have made life in the area unviable.

According to residents, a relocation plan for the P7 community is being discussed between Ero Brasil and the Tucumã City Hall, which would include compensation for the properties. However, the promise they heard is that this will only happen in 2027.

Ero Brasil and the Tucumã City Hall were questioned about the relocation plan and collection of fish and water samples, but haven’t responded.

“We are worried, because staying here for another two summers … we will suffer too much,” one of the settlers said. “We are waiting, without really knowing if anything will happen sooner, if it will only be within that timeframe.”

INCRA was also questioned about the relocation of settlers from the Tucumã Settlement Project, but did not respond.

Mining advances into areas that were ‘shielded’

Mineral extraction in agrarian reform areas was facilitated after a new norm that was published during far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s (2019-22) government. The regulation relaxes rules for mining, energy, and infrastructure projects in settlement areas.

The text establishes that a mining company must request approval from the regional INCRA unit, which must analyze the compatibility of the economic activity with the National Agrarian Reform Program, managed by INCRA, and establish conditions for coexistence between the activities.

In case of impacts on agrarian reform, the regulation provides for compensation to INCRA and settlers, profit sharing, infrastructure improvements, support for productive activities, resettlement, or relocation of affected families, among other obligations.

The instruction defends “respect” for the rights of settlers, but does not establish any form of consultation with rural workers.

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INCRA was questioned about mining activities within settlements, the impacts of the projects on communities, and ways to mitigate them. The federal agency stated only that “granting mining rights anywhere in the national territory is not within the purview of INCRA.”

“The fact that a regulation from the Bolsonaro government has not yet been revoked, even with the articulation of social movements, is quite worrying and revealing about the influence that mining has in the Lula 3 government,” assesses Maurício Angelo, director of the Mining Observatory, an investigative journalism center that covers mining, referring to Lula’s ongoing third term.

“They are advancing precisely into areas that until now were shielded from the market, such as community lands, border areas, conservation units, and agrarian reform settlements,” said Juliana Neves Barros, author of a book about mining conflicts in Carajás.

According to Bruno Malheiro, a geography professor at the University of the State of Pará, Carajás and the Amazon as a whole are at risk of becoming a “sacrifice zone” for the energy transition.

“Throughout history, mineral processes have always developed through the suspension of regulations, the deregulation of rules, and even the disobedience of the legal framework regarding mining and other regulations,” Malheiro said. “Now, with critical minerals, to expand extraction processes, the entire legislation is being changed.”

Impoverished population

Neighboring Tucumã, the municipality of Parauapebas has been the top collector of CFEM, a tax collected on mining activity, for at least 20 years. Only last year did it lose this title to its neighbor, Canaã dos Carajás. Both collected more than 1 billion reais ($193 million) in mining tax in 2025.

In 2021, at the peak of iron ore prices, Parauapebas had a per capita GDP which placed the city among the 40 richest in Brazil. Even with the fall in prices of its main mineral in the following years, in 2023 the city still ranked among the 300 richest, considering the per capita GDP of the 5,570 Brazilian municipalities, according to official data.

However, the high revenue is barely felt by a significant portion of the population.

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In June 2022, a year after the municipality collected a record 2.4 billion reais ($464 million) in CFEM, 40,367 families in the city, with a population of 268,000 people, were registered in Brazil’s registry that identifies low-income families so they can access social programs.

Of these 40,367 families, 14,402 were in extreme poverty, while 7,223 were in poverty. The data is taken from a report from Territories in Network, an initiative of the Vale Foundation.

In August 2025, members of Brazil’s powerful Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) held a protest in front of the city hall, demanding better conditions for rural education and repairs to a secondary road affected by mining activity.

“It’s frightening to think how a city so rich, which some even call the ‘mining capital,’ is so poor in public policies and benefits for the population,” Valbiane Thaís Pantoja da Gama, educator and MST representative, resident of the Terra e Liberdade encampment, said. “It’s our wealth that’s just going away. Only misery remains for the population.”

Diego Junqueira*, from*Repórter Brasil, collaborated on editing and data analysis.

The Energy Transition Observatory project is supported by the INESC, Ford Foundation, and the Pulitzer Center.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Mining rush for critical minerals threatens Amazon land reform settlements on Mar 14, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/35241

On Thursday, Chile’s new right-wing president, José Antonio Kast, confirmed that his government is considering using the presidential power of pardon to grant leniency to police officers and military personnel convicted of crimes committed during the 2019 social uprising.

The statement reopens the debate on the state’s responsibility for the repression of the protests that began in October 2019, when millions of people took to the streets to protest inequality, the cost of living, and the abuses of the neoliberal economic model.

During the social uprising, thousands of arrests were made, hundreds of people were injured, and numerous complaints of human rights violations were filed. Various international reports documented cases of eye injuries, torture, and other abuses committed by state agents, leading to legal proceedings and convictions against members of the Chilean National Police and military personnel.

The government and right-wing groups have attempted to justify the measure by arguing that the officers acted in a context of violence and public disorder. However, human rights organizations warn that granting pardons to officers convicted of these crimes could represent a serious setback for justice and reparations for the victims of repression.

For the victims’ families and social organizations, the debate highlights the deep political divisions surrounding the legacy of the social uprising and the role played by the state’s repressive forces during that period.

Dauno Tótoro, leader of Left Voice’s sister group, the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of Chile (PTR) and author of the book “Así mataron en octubre” (How They Killed in October), stated that “Kast is considering pardoning uniformed officers convicted in cases related to the uprising. This cannot be allowed! They just want more impunity.”

Kast estudia indultar a uniformados condenados por causas del estallido. Y en campaña dijo que no indultaría criminales. Parece que la "emergencia" del gobierno de emergencia era dejar libres a condenados por brutales crímenes.
¡No se puede permitir! Sólo quieren más impunidad.

— Dauno Totoro (@DaunoTotoro) March 13, 2026

At the same time Kast made this announcement of impunity for the officials who repressed protestors, he forcefully launched his xenophobic policy against migrants. A joint police operation carried out identity checks targeting exclusively migrants in the heart of Santiago. About 45 people were taken to a police station to have their immigration status checked.

According to La Izquierda Diario de Chile, officers conducted identity checks targeting exclusively migrants who were present at the scene. An official from the Policia de Investigaciones (PDI; Chile’s civilian investigative police force) stated that the purpose of the procedure was to verify the immigration status—both legal and illegal—of those who were checked.

At around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, after an operation lasting approximately an hour and a half, about 45 people—the maximum capacity of the PDI’s official bus on site—were transported to a civil police station. According to the same official, their immigration status would be reviewed there and the relevant information recorded, after which they would be allowed to leave.

During the procedure, some of the bystanders present reacted by applauding and cheering the police action as the migrants were loaded onto the institutional bus.

As Teresa Melipal, editor of La Izquierda Diario in Chile and member of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PTR), points out, “In the face of these attempts to downplay or erase responsibility for the 2019 repression and the xenophobic advances of the Kast government, it becomes more urgent than ever to resume organizing from the bottom up. We must organize in workplaces, schools, and communities; build militant unions, student centers, and independent activist groups capable of confronting the attacks being prepared against workers and the people. We cannot passively wait for the government’s measures to advance or for the far right to continue gaining ground. Only mobilization and grassroots organizing can stop these attempts to impose impunity. We must resume organizing in workplaces, schools, and communities, and strengthen unions, student centers, and activist organizations—without waiting for the attacks from the government or the far right to pass, as this will only embolden them further.

This article was first published in Spanish in La Izquierda Diario on March 13, 2026

The post The New Government in Chile is Already Repressive appeared first on Left Voice.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/35212

The administration of US President Donald Trump has launched a series of military and political offensives in the last several months in different corners of the globe. The goals of Washington’s various military and diplomatic actions have been the subject of heated debate. Are they aimed at reestablishing a threatened hegemony? Do they strive to secure a unipolar position that was never really in danger? Or are these the dying (and most violent) breaths of an empire in decline?

What is certain is that these actions have had a major impact on the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, as the US government appears eager to secure key territories and/or to conquer natural resources that are indispensable for the geopolitical and military conflicts it anticipates.

The Monroe Doctrine has now been revived under the so-called Donroe Doctrine. Washington has demonstrated that it will secure hemispheric control at all costs, whether by imposing new tariffs (as it did against Brazil), directly supporting a presidential candidate (as happened with Nasry Asfura in Honduras), or the granting of USD 20 billion to save an ally (such as the far-right libertarian government of Javier Milei in Argentina).

This is how Miguel Ruiz, professor at the Central University of Ecuador and scholar of international relations between the United States and Latin America, understands this current moment. Ruiz spoke with Peoples Dispatch to understand this phenomenon:

“The world is undergoing a profound geopolitical transition that, like an onion, has several layers, some more visible than others. On the surface, we can see aspects such as Trump’s tariff offensive; a radical shift to the right in various parts of the world besides the United States itself, such as in some countries in Europe and Latin America; the increase in US belligerence in Latin America (Venezuela, Cuba); the aggression of Israel and the US toward Iran, etc. All these more visible aspects are merely symptoms of deeper processes, among which I would highlight two fundamental ones:

a) the so-called ‘fourth technological revolution’ (AI, robotics, manufacturing 4.0) that the world is undergoing is redefining the strategic branches and priority geographical areas of the global economy;

b) parallel to changes in the productive forces, there is another no less important trend: the emergence and consolidation of new centers of accumulation on a global scale, such as China and India.”

Regarding the consequences of these factors, Ruiz asserts that they are causing fundamental economic transformations:

“The combination of both factors, to which we must add the relative decline in the competitiveness of the US economy, is driving the most visible transformations in global geopolitics, such as the opening of new resource frontiers, the struggle for control of critical minerals, attempts by the declining power to delay its decline and, in the case of our continent in particular, the updating of the Monroe Doctrine with the Trump Corollary, which aims to reinforce control over Our America while undermining the good economic and diplomatic relations we have with China and other leading countries in the emerging multipolar world.”

Cuba in Trump’s strategy

As is well known, Trump’s project in Latin America goes beyond simple diplomacy and economic pressure. Military action began in the Caribbean Sea in September 2025 against dozens of small vessels, extrajudicially executing over 140 Venezuelans, Colombians, and Trinidadians. “Operation Southern Spear”, it was later dubbed, culminated in a military attack against Venezuela on January 3, 2026, “Operation Absolute Resolve”. In the January 3 operation, the US carried out airstrikes across areas of Venezuela, killing 100 people, and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the First Lady Cilia Flores, who now sit in a prison in New York. Now, through gunboat diplomacy, the US has tacit control over Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Read more: Tactical retreats: Why Venezuela’s revolution still stands

In the aftermath of this operation, Trump triumphantly declared that Cuba was next. To this end, in addition to depriving the island of Venezuelan oil, a lifeline for Cuba in the 21st century, he threatened to increase tariffs on any country that sends hydrocarbons to Cuba. This has provoked a serious humanitarian crisis in Cuba, whose energy grid depends heavily on fuel to function.

Ruiz thus asserts that the war on Cuba appears to be a unifying link for US interests in the region: “Cuba has been inconvenient from the point of view of the US power elite, but not because it poses a threat to US security, far from it, as those same interests often argue. It has been inconvenient because since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba has become a beacon of what the United States has been boycotting in Latin America for 200 years: a commitment to recovering sovereignty (political, economic, cultural) that has always been threatened by colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as a permanent effort to build Latin American integration that is not subordinate to the interests of the empire.”

“Although the pretext for suffocating the Cuban people was (and continues to be) the fight against socialism,” Ruiz remarks, “what really terrified the US elites from the beginning of the Revolution was its ability to call on the rest of the region to embark on emancipatory paths of a sovereign and anti-imperialist nature.”

When asked what the United States hopes to achieve with the fall of Cuba’s revolutionary government, the professor at the Central University explained: “In more general terms, a first objective would be to bury once and for all that counter-example that they want to avoid at all costs in a region that, like Latin America, remains particularly important to control.”

Another main objective, Ruiz outlines, is that the US government dreams of somehow replacing the political structures of Cuba with one controlled by the US. This would allow them to “regain control of the island as a space to secure and expand the economic and geopolitical interests of the power factions that currently rule the US. These factions have interests in certain branches of accumulation (both legal and illegal) for which Cuba could be useful: real estate, tourism, casinos, and even drug trafficking. In other words, they would seek to turn Cuba back into what it once represented for the US economy, but under the new conditions of the 21st century.”

Read more: Countries step in to supply oil to Cuba as US considers limited opening of sales

Is it possible to take action in the face of imperialism?

Given this reality, it may seem impossible for progressive and left-wing social and political movements to offer any kind of resistance to US power in relation to Cuba. However, Ruiz believes that, despite being a very complex challenge, it is not impossible: “A first line of action involves the well-founded denunciation of the ongoing aggressions. This denunciation must be accompanied by organization and mobilization in all possible arenas, including the streets, the media, institutional spaces, and parliaments. It is essential to acknowledge that we are currently at a moment in which, in most Latin American countries, progressive movements are on the defensive. So, continuing to defend ourselves against oligarchic and imperial attacks is the number one priority.”

But Ruiz also explains that progressive and left-wing movements must not only resist, but also act proactively: “We should also aspire to change the balance of power so that, where possible, we can regain important areas of power that we had in the not-too-distant past, such as state powers. The challenge now is to do so in broader coalitions than before, including a plurality of social actors who do not necessarily agree on the entirety of a program, but who do converge on its essential aspects of defending national and regional sovereignty, to build a horizon that allows Our America to stand on its own two feet. It is also imperative to resume the project of non-subordinate integration, as well as to maintain measures of solidarity with the countries that suffer most from imperial aggression, as is the case with Cuba at the moment.”

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Amid months of threats by US leaders to attack drug gangs in Mexico, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum slapped back Monday against President Donald Trump's assertion that her country is the "epicenter" of cartel violence by urging him to stem the flow of illegal arms across the border—and domestic demand for illicit narcotics.

“If the flow of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico were stopped, these groups wouldn’t have access to this type of high-powered weaponry to carry out their criminal activities,” Sheinabum said during her daily press briefing, citing a 2025 US Department of Justice report showing that approximately 3 in 4 guns used by Mexican criminal organizations were illicitly trafficked across the international border.

“There’s a very important aspect that needs to be addressed, which is reducing drug use in the United States,” she added.

In a separate interview with W Radio, Sheinbaum took aim at Trump's Saturday speech at his so-called "Shield of the Americas" summit with mostly right-wing Latin American leaders, during which he called Mexico the "epicenter of cartel violence" and announced a "brand-new military coalition" to tackle drug gangs.

“The epicenter of cartel violence is not Mexico, it’s the United States,” she said. “The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos throughout Latin America.”

In the latest in a series of threats to attack criminal organizations in Mexico—a scenario vehemently opposed by the Mexican government and most Mexicans—Trump said Saturday that allied right-wing Latin American governments have made “a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks.”

Mexicans are wary of US interventions, having lost half their national territory to the United States in an 1846-48 war that two US presidents—Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant—said was waged under false pretext to conquer territory and expand slavery. The US also invaded and briefly occupied the port city of Veracruz in 1914 and launched a punitive invasion targeting the revolutionary Pancho Villa's forces in 1916-17.

Sheinbaum's remarks came after Mexican troops, supported by US intelligence, killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel chief Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes—known as “El Mencho”—during a raid last month. The operation sparked a wave of retaliatory cartel violence in some Mexican states.

Mexico has also arrested hundreds of suspected drug traffickers, destroyed numerous secret narcotics labs, and handed over dozens of alleged cartel criminals to US authorities in recent months.

Last year, the US Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against US gun manufacturers, unanimously ruling that Mexico did not plausibly show the companies aided and abetted illegal arms sales.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33884

Last Updated on March 9, 2026 Elite networks in Guatemala are using social media platforms to orchestrate coordinated online smear campaigns against anti-corruption activists, environmental defenders and Indigenous leaders, Global Witness today reveals. A new report by the investigative organization details how popular social media platforms including X, Facebook and TikTok are being flooded with thousands of abusive, hateful, defamatory and misleading posts targeting activists and Indigenous leaders in the country.

Drawing on interviews with Mayan leaders – including some who are imprisoned or in exile – the report examines how these smear campaigns lay the groundwork for spurious criminal charges that threaten victims with decades in jail.

Repression

The investigation maps the powerful networks of political and economic interests behind many of the attacks, which campaigners say are helping silence dissent and undermine Guatemala’s fragile democracy.

Corrupt networks, particularly within Guatemala’s justice system, have spent years working to erode democratic institutions and repress legitimate opposition in the Central American country.

The report uncovers how these same forces are now mobilizing fake news sites and anonymous online accounts to spread disinformation that defames their political and ideological opponents and threatens them with criminal charges.

Campaigners say these online attacks are not isolated or spontaneous. Rather, they form part of a wider strategy to discredit dissent, intimidate communities, criminalize activists and protect entrenched power.

Source

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33420

Lee en español aquí

The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa’s government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Security crisis and abandonment of the public sphere

Noboa lost all four questions in the November 2025 referendum: there will be no Constituent Assembly, no foreign military bases will be installed (at least officially, although in practice several secret agreements with the United States allow the presence of US security personnel on Ecuadorian soil) political parties will continue to receive public funds, and the number of assembly members will not be reduced. With the democratic facade fallen, the government is seeking to impose the agenda it lost at the polls by other means: reduction of public spending, legal reforms, decrees and ministerial agreements, but also militarization.

Since coming to power in 2023, Noboa has been cutting state spending. Two examples of the current effects: patients are dying in public hospitals where they cannot receive dialysis because these hospitals have only 30% of the supplies they need, and the budget for universities has been cut by USD 128 million, or 12.7%. Public health and education, which are essential for a minimally democratic society, are being systematically dismantled.

The year 2025 was the most violent since statistics have been kept:51 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants,six coastal cities among the 10 most dangerous in the world, and 183people killed in prisons, with a total of 500 since 2021. Ecuador, which was one of the safest countries in the region until 2017, is now one of themost dangerous not only in Latin America but in the world. The economic crisis that has been dragging on since the pandemic, the reduction in public spending, and collusion with drug trafficking explain these figures.

Job insecurity

On February 19, 2026, the Ministry of Labor issued a ministerial agreement establishing 12-hour workdays. This measure represents a historic setback in terms of workers’ rights and continues the series of measures to increase job insecurity determined in the agreements signed with the IMF, favoring the interests of capital over the well-being of workers.

Defunding of local governments

Decentralized autonomous governments (GAD), in some cases the only safeguard for public policies aimed at the population and not at capital, will be hit by a recently approved law that requires them to allocate a minimum of 70% of their budget to infrastructure. It sounds good, but it is a trap: it seeks to force them to stop investing in education, culture, and other social programs, and to lay off staff. The bill imposes central government control over the GADs, undermining their autonomy and contradicting the principle of decentralization. If they fail to comply, a penalty reduces their transfers to the constitutional minimum, which would paralyze their operations. There is also obvious cynicism in this area: the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador hasreported that the central government itself owes USD 543 million to the GADs, suffocating their finances.

Extractivism without environmental controls

Noboa also managed to pass, as an urgent economic measure, the Law on Strengthening Strategic Mining and Energy Sectors. Among its most dangerous provisions: the environmental license will be replaced by a simple “environmental authorization,” private military protection in mining projects will be legalized, prior consultation with indigenous peoples will be eliminated, and the fragmentation of mining concessions and mining in the Galapagos Islands, a supposedly protected nature reserve, will be allowed. Complemented by Executive Decree 273 of December 2025, this law paves the way for the reopening of the Mining Registry and the massive expansion of concessions without environmental regulation or respect for the rights of the affected populations. Noboa and his family have links to mining companies that have already received licenses or are in the process of obtaining them.

Criminalization of politics and popular organization

Judicial persecution is a systematic tool of the regime. In the 2023 referendum, citizens voted to stop oil exploitation in the Yasuní ITT, but the government has done nothing to comply with that mandate; the response to environmentalists’ demands has been repression and lawfare. The attacks against the Citizen Revolution (Correísmo) that began in 2018 continue unabated. On February 4, 2026, the homes of four leaders of the movement were raided for an alleged case of corruption. They attempted to revoke the mandate of the mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, against whom they fabricated a false case of corruption, and imprisoned the mayor of Guayaquil, Aquiles Hervas, also of the Citizen Revolution, on the basis of another fabricated case.

The repression also affects the indigenous movement. Leonidas Iza, former president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and current president of Ecuarunari (an organization of indigenous peoples of the Sierra), faces multiple investigations and reports of covert police surveillance. Nayra Chalán, former vice president of Ecuarunari, and the Kitu Kara peopledenounced the deactivation of their bank accounts. During the 2025 National Strike, the accounts of 21 social organizations were frozen without a court order. Unfounded proceedings have been brought against them for financing terrorism and illicit enrichment, using a narrative of narco-terrorism similar to that of Trump, who, without any evidence, extrajudicially executed more than 80 people on boats in the Caribbean.

Corruption in the presidential entourage

While criminalizing the opposition, Noboa’s entourage is riddled with scandals. Six people are being prosecuted after 2.6 tons of cocaine were found in a container belonging to Blasti S.A., a company linked to the presidential circle. This case, one of several, highlights the strategy of a government that prosecutes social leaders and political opponents while coexisting with drug trafficking networks in its inner circle, as well as several other cases of corruption.

Submission to US imperialism

At the time of writing, the Noboa government has just expelled the Cuban ambassador and all Cuban diplomats from Ecuador, declaring them persona non grata and giving them 48 hours to leave the country. The reason? Nothing more than obedience to the orders of the Trump Administration and its illegal hybrid war against Cuba. At the same time, the US Southern Command said on X that Ecuadorian and US military forces “launched operations against designated terrorist organizations,” setting an example of cooperation for the region in the fight against narco-terrorism. This concept is the same label that Noboa uses against all social movements that oppose his policies.

The analogy with Trumpism is not rhetorical: like his US counterpart, Noboa governs for capital, seeking to destroy the public sector and reduce the state to its bare minimum, using militarization and political violence as instruments to achieve this, and submitting absolutely to US dictates. The difference is the context: in Ecuador, this model is applied to a society already battered by violence, poverty, precariousness, and a lack of basic services, which multiplies its capacity for harm. Stopping these attacks is a necessary condition for Ecuador’s survival as a democracy.

Pilar Troya Fernández is an Ecuadorian anthropologist with a master’s degree in gender studies, and a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. She was an advisor to the National Secretariat of Planning, an advisor to the National Secretariat of Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation, and Deputy Secretary General of Higher Education in Ecuador. She currently resides in Brazil.

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This article originally appeared in the March 9, 2026 edition of RT en Español.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded on Monday to her US counterpart, Donald Trump, who over the weekend announced the creation of a continental military coalition against drug cartels and asserted that Mexico has rejected his help in combating organized crime.

“It’s good that President Trump publicly says that when he has proposed that the United States Army enter Mexico, we have said no, because it is the truth, and we proudly continue to say no ” the President stated at a press conference.

“We collaborate and cooperate in intelligence and other security-related activities, but operations in Mexico are carried out by the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Security, the National Guard, state police forces, and prosecutors’ offices,” she added.

Sheinbaum added that one thing Trump can help Mexico with is stopping arms trafficking, since the State Department itself has acknowledged that 75% of the arsenal used by the cartels is American. “If the United States stops the flow of weapons, they won’t have these kinds of high-powered weapons anymore,” she noted.

On Saturday, Trump led the Shield of the Americas Summit in Miami , which was attended by 12 far-right leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean who joined an unprecedented interventionist strategy that has the alleged objective of fighting organized crime.

There, Trump asserted that Mexico is the “epicenter” of drug cartel violence. “The cartels run Mexico . We can’t allow it. Too close to us. Too close to you,” he declared, warning that he could send missiles directly to other countries in the region to eliminate the groups that produce and traffic illegal drugs.

He also spoke about Sheinbaum in a contradictory way, on the one hand praising her, but on the other he asserted that she does not want the U.S. to help Mexico fight drug traffickers.

“I like the president very much . She’s a very good person. She has a beautiful voice. A beautiful woman, with a beautiful voice,” he said. He then claimed that he had already asked her to allow him to “eradicate the cartels,” to which the president supposedly replied, “No, no, no, please, Mr. President.” In his account, Trump even tried to imitate Sheinbaum’s voice.

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Just over two months after US forces bombed and invaded Venezuela and abducted its alleged drug-trafficking president, the Pentagon on Tuesday announced the launch of a joint campaign with Ecuador to combat "narco-terrorists" in the South American nation.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced the operation, which, with the deployment of ground troops, opens a new front in the Trump administration's Operation Southern Spear targeting alleged drug traffickers. The campaign had previously consisted of dozens of airstrikes against boats that the US military claimed were transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. More than 150 people have been killed in such bombings.

Right-wing Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa—a close ally of US President Donald Trump whose family shipping business is allegedly linked to cocaine trafficking—hailed the joint operation as "a new phase against narco-terrorism."

However, many Ecuadorian leftists denounced the operation.

"How can our armed forces allow so much?" asked former President Rafael Correa, who expelled the US military from Ecuador and famously said that he would let the US renew a lease on a controversial air base in Manta only if "they let us put a base in Miami."

Last year, Ecuadorian voters rejected a proposal by Noboa to reopen US military bases in the country that were shuttered by Correa's refusal to renew their leases.

Former National Assembly president and Imbabura Province Gov. Gabriela Rivadeneira noted in a television interview that Ecuador has "the only constitution in the world that prohibits foreign military presence" within its borders.

“As the US militarization advances, organized crime and drug trafficking advance further; this country was safer without foreign bases," she contended.

The announcement of the joint campaign also prompted criticism around the world.

"As Trump deploys US troops in Ecuador, there's a real danger that he'll authorize them to summarily shoot rather than capture drug suspects as legally required," former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said on social media. "In short, to commit more criminal murders."

US climate campaigner Elise Joshi said on X that "Ecuador's corrupt billionaire president Noboa just gave Trump permission to carry out a military operation in the country as he guts public services, Indigenous rights, and free speech."

"Noboa sold out Ecuador to Trump's war against the [Latin American] people," Joshi added. "Shameful."

My sense is that some in the administration have been itching to put US military boots on the ground somewhere for an operation against “narco-terrorists” and then publicly brag about it and Ecuador was more amenable than say Mexico.
— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) March 3, 2026 at 7:11 PM

Others questioned the US explanation for the intervention.

"Why is Trump attacking Ecuador?" the leftist magazine In These Times wrote on its X page. "Same reason he’s in Iran + Venezuela: oil 'secured' by force, sold as fighting a 'dictatorship' and/or 'drugs.' Ecuador’s Indigenous organizers forced a pullback in drilling in 2019. Now they face the US military."

Once one of Latin America's most peaceful countries, Ecuador in recent years has become what many observers call a "cocaine superhighway" via which the majority of drugs produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru are shipped to the United States and other international markets. The booming drug trade has sparked a fierce turf war between traffickers that has plunged areas of Ecuador, especially in the coastal province of Guayas, into violence and terror.

The Trump and Noboa administrations have forged closer ties since the US leader's return to office last year, much to the chagrin of many Ecuadorian leftists—who point to the long history of US military invasions and other interventions throughout Latin America, including a CIA-backed coup in Ecuador in 1963.

The Ecuador operation comes amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has killed more than 1,000 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Iran is the 10th country bombed on orders from US President Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "president of peace," who has also attacked Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

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This article by Erick Manuel Pastén Rozo originally appeared in the February 21, 2026 edition of La Silla Rota.

2026 began with a bang, with a show of force by the United States unseen since the second half of the 20th century. The violent invasion of Venezuela, accompanied by the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, was followed by threats of invasion against Mexico, Colombia, and Greenland. Added to this was the intensification of the economic (now oil-related) blockade against Cuba. While this start to the year arrived with a bang, let’s remember that last year Trump had already threatened to negatively impact the Honduran economy if the country’s electorate did not vote for his chosen candidate, Nasry Asfura. Or how the former host of “The Apprentice” imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil due to the decision to convict the former coup-plotting president, and Trump’s personal friend, Jair Bolsonaro.

This intensification of US interventionist policies in Latin America is nothing new and stems from what has been called the “Monroe Doctrine.” It is an apparent divine mandate that grants the United States the right to manipulate our policies and economy as it sees fit. What is new, however, is the lack of a coordinated response from the continental left-wing opposition to the onslaught of this new imperialism . The 1970s and 80s, with their broad anti-imperialist mobilizations —organized, coordinated, and led in most cases by socialists and communists —served, at the very least, as a pressure group against the subservient and collaborationist policies of regional governments.

The end of the Cold War and the subsequent dismantling of international solidarity and collaboration networks has left the continent, even in an era so interconnected thanks to social media, isolated in its own struggles.

But what motivated these people, most (though not exclusively) of them young students, workers, and peasants, to try to change the situation on the continent? The answer has already been mentioned: their activism in socialist organizations . It is worth remembering that one of the basic principles of this ideology was what is called “Proletarian Internationalism.” This concept, the foundation of Marxist thought, states that since capitalism is a global system, the working classes must act together, as individual national struggles are actually part of a single, larger struggle.

Socialists, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, understood that there was little they could actually do to change the material conditions of their countries. It wasn’t until after the formation and consolidation of the Soviet Union that the first global support and solidarity networks began to be created, such as International Red Aid. This organization was formed by the Communist International and its objectives were the material and political support of communist prisons around the world. The preeminence of organizations affiliated with or directly connected to the Soviet government declined once the second half of the 20th century began. However, in their place, new organizations appeared, built from the ground up by the socialist militants themselves in different countries.

Whether in support of the liberation of the Palestinian people, the reconstruction of the governing structure in the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, or an unwavering stance of solidarity with the socialist bloc, communists worldwide —and in our case, in Mexico in particular—took a position on the international stage. It must be said, however, that this support was not without controversy or contradiction. Ultimately, it was a somewhat blind support, guided by a sense of moral and political empathy.

But returning to the topic, of all these cases, perhaps the one that mattered most to them was that of Latin America. Whether in support of refugees and exiles from Central America and the Southern Cone, through the Guatemalan Committee of Patriotic Unity, the Mexican Committee of Solidarity with the Argentine People, or the Permanent Committee of Solidarity with Latin America (COPESAL). Marches, rallies, and the distribution of propaganda, the holding of conferences and the screening of documentaries, as well as the frequent meetings of continental socialist and communist youth , were commonplace, promoted not as an ambiguous and isolated solidarity project, but as part of a complex internationalist political network.

One of the defining events of Proletarian Internationalism in the first half of the 1980s was the unique support that socialists gave to the Salvadoran Revolution and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. Mexican socialists and communists saw in their Central American neighbor’s struggle an ideological and strategic beacon to follow. In this sense, the Salvadoran Revolution—or Salvadoran Civil War, depending on who you ask—mobilized the Mexican revolutionary left of the 1980s much as the Cuban Revolution had done decades earlier. Large contingents filled the streets of the country for a little over five years; important events such as the International Meeting of Solidarity with the Salvadoran Revolution took place. The global revolution was just around the corner, but that corner was getting farther and farther away.

The end of the Cold War and the subsequent dismantling of international solidarity and collaboration networks has left the continent, even in an era so interconnected thanks to social media, isolated in its own struggles. While more than three decades have passed since the Soviet Union dissolved, no new regional solidarity organizations have emerged to replace those formed throughout the 20th century. Moreover, in this era where far-right positions are being revived and reinterpreted by several national leaders on the continent, the outlook is rather bleak. However, what we do have in abundance, ultimately, are examples from the recent past of people whose conviction to fight for a better world was more than enough to build contacts, alliances, and relationships with their comrades in other parts of the world. What we cannot lose are our dreams. In the words of singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat: “Without utopia, life would be a rehearsal for death.”

Fidel Castro & Che Guevara in prison in Mexico City, 1956

Erick Manuel Pastén Rozo holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Sonora and a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the Colegio de Sonora. He is a doctoral candidate in Modern and Contemporary History at the Instituto Mora. His main lines of research are the sociability and memory of semi-clandestine left-wing political organizations in Mexico during the 20th century. He has taught various courses, including the Workshop on the History of Guerrilla Warfare in Mexico and the Northwest of the country.

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Following the US armed attack against Venezuela on January 3 – in which more than 100 people were killed, and President Nicolás Maduro was taken prisoner (and later transferred to New York) – Venezuela’s oil sales to Cuba were suspended. The Caribbean island has been under an economic and commercial blockade imposed by the US for more than 60 years.

But the Trump administration went further. In an attempt to strangle Cuba even more, Washington warned that any country that sent oil to Cuba would be punished with a 10% increase in tariffs on products from that country entering the United States, which deterred countries such as Mexico that had also been sending oil to Cuba.

Faced with this reality, Cuba has found itself in serious economic straits. Venezuela had been the island’s main supplier of hydrocarbons for 25 years, so Washington’s tacit control of Venezuelan oil has caused difficulties that have particularly affected the civilian population. Tourism, one of Cuba’s main sources of income, has declined significantly due to the shortage of fuel, including that required to refuel planes arriving on the island.

Likewise, Cuba’s energy system, which is highly dependent on oil for its operation, has resulted in extraordinary blackouts throughout the country. This jeopardizes not only the production and distribution of basic goods, but also the very functioning of basic services in hospitals and schools.

Solidarity with the Cuban people

Many leaders from various countries have harshly criticized the measure, considering it a violation of the human rights of Cubans and a threat to their lives and dignity. This was expressed by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who asked the United States to reconsider its decision in favor of the Cuban people. In addition, the Mexican government sent tons of food, personal hygiene products, and other basic subsistence items to Cuba following the intensification of the economic and commercial blockade measures imposed on Havana.

Movements in Latin America have also sought to address the fuel crisis by putting pressure on their governments. Oil workers in Brazil have helped launch the “Oil for Cuba” initiative to call on Brazil to immediately send fuel to the Caribbean island and break the de facto energy blockade imposed by the United States. 

The Single Federation of Oil Workers of Brazil (FUP), which sent a letter to the state-owned oil company Petrobras, stating: “Given the recent tightening of trade and energy restrictions that have directly impacted supplies to [Cuba], creating humanitarian risks and compromising essential services, we believe that institutional dialogue is essential to discuss viable alternatives, regulatory and operational aspects, as well as possible avenues for cooperation that can be built on the principles of solidarity, sovereignty, and social responsibility.”

United States announces partial sale of oil to Cuba

For its part, Washington has just announced that it will authorize the sale of oil to Cuba under conditions controlled by the United States. According to the Treasury Department, the United States will allow oil to enter Cuba as long as the fuel is handled on the island by private citizens and companies, thus attempting to wrest control of not only its energy security from the state, but also to strengthen the private sector.

In addition, Washington clarified: “To be authorized, exports must be for the use of the Cuban private sector and for private economic sector activities, including humanitarian needs.” The agreement stipulates that oil and gas sent to Cuba must necessarily leave from the United States, even if its origin was Venezuela or another country.

This does not mean that Washington is ruling out the possibility of increasing tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, but rather that the United States now seeks to ensure absolute control over fuel imports to the island, which could be seen as an attempt by the Trump administration to control Cuba’s energy future.

A few weeks ago, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced that Cuba has always been willing to engage in dialogue under conditions of equality and without threats. For now, it remains to be seen whether Cuba will accept this proposal from the United States.

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Images of burning buses, blocked highways, plumes of smoke, and people fleeing in terror from airports and markets in Mexico were plastered across the front pages of the world’s largest newspapers and news sites on Monday. Mexican states such as Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Colima, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Aguascalientes, and Oaxaca reported disruptions, road blockades, and violent actions. The scenes followed the federal operation that culminated in the killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

In response to this violence, much of the international press reproduced the false narrative of Mexico as an ungovernable territory dominated by all-powerful cartels. But this narrative obscures the fact that the security policy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government toward the cartels is part of an imperialist hemispheric architecture promoted by Washington under the banner of the “war on drugs.”

The War on Drugs as a Tool of Regional Domination

Since 2006, Mexico has formally adopted an internal war strategy aligned with U.S. guidelines. The so-called “Kingpin” strategy — focused on capturing or eliminating leaders of criminal organizations — was designed in coordination with U.S. agencies and implemented by the PRI, PAN, and — despite its nationalist rhetoric — Morena governments.

Far from strengthening Mexican sovereignty, this strategy only consolidated mechanisms of interference: intelligence sharing, operational presence of U.S. agencies such as the DEA, diplomatic conditions, and increasing security integration under trade frameworks such as the USMCA.

The result has not been the defeat of drug trafficking, but its violent reconfiguration. The fragmentation of organizations has led to bloodier disputes for territorial control. Meanwhile, international financial capital — including banks operating between Mexico and the United States — continues to absorb and launder billions of dollars from illicit economies.

The “war on drugs” thus functions as a device for social control and regional discipline, justifying military expansion, surveillance, and political subordination in the name of security.

But this dynamic cannot be separated from the new extractive cycle that is beginning to take shape in Mexico and Latin America. In recent months, strategic agreements on critical minerals — lithium, copper, and rare earth elements — have been announced and negotiated within the framework of the geopolitical dispute between the United States and China. Mexico appears as a key piece in the North American supply chain, especially under the USMCA and Washington’s new industrial policies.

In several regions of the country, the expansion of mining, energy, and infrastructure projects coexists with the presence of organized crime groups that control territories, extort money, manage precarious labor, or even participate directly in legal and illegal extractive economies. The relationship between mining, land dispossession, and criminal structures has been documented in states such as Michoacán, Guerrero, and Zacatecas.

Thus, the militarization of the “war on drugs” is part of a broader attempt to build and guarantee the stability of logistical corridors, megaprojects, and strategic mining areas for transnational capital. The cycle of violence and the extractive cycle are not separate phenomena: they are part of the same territorially dependent reconfiguration.

Permanent Militarization and the Working Class

For the Mexican working class, the militarization of the U.S.-backed “war on drugs” has meant the normalization of checkpoints, permanent patrols, and a constant expansion of the power of the Armed Forces in civilian tasks. At the same time, they are forced to live alongside shootouts and patrols by cartel cells vying for control of the territory and fighting against state forces. In the states and areas where the Mexican National Guard is deployed, a regime of “exceptionality” is established in which democratic rights are subordinated to military logic.

In Mexico there have been more than 300,000 homicides and tens of thousands of missing persons reported since the start of the war on drugs in 2007. The victims overwhelmingly come from among the working class and poor, while the business and financial structures that sustain the cartels remain untouched, as do the pro-business politicians associated with organized crime groups.

The roadblocks and fires following the operation are not proof of an “absent state,” as liberal analysts have repeatedly claimed. They are evidence of the consequences of a profound militarization (demanded and imposed by imperialism) that has devastated entire regions, combining illegal economies, extreme job insecurity, and military violence.

Against the Imperial Narrative: an Internationalist Perspective

Reducing the situation to a struggle between the state and the cartels obscures the fact that Mexico’s security policy is inseparable from its structural dependence on imperialism. Economic integration under the USMCA and security cooperation are part of the same mechanism that subordinates Mexican domestic policy to Washington’s strategic interests.

From a socialist and internationalist perspective, the solution lies neither in further militarization nor in increased imperial oversight. Experience demonstrates that the “war on drugs,” while failing to substantially address the drug trade, has served as a means to promote militarization against the peoples of Latin America, strengthening repressive apparatuses and weakening democratic rights.

In response, it is necessary to build an alternative independent of the parties of the bosses, based on the organization of the working class, international coordination, and the struggle against imperialism and financial capital that sustains both the legal and illegal economy.

Only an emancipatory perspective, which questions structural dependency and aims for a socialist transformation of the region, can confront the economic and political roots of this permanent militarizing offensive.

Originally published in Spanish on February 23 on La Izquierda Diario, Mexico.

Translated and adapted for Left Voice.

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The kidnapping of a sitting head of state marks a grave escalation in US-Venezuela relations. By seizing Venezuela’s constitutional president, Washington signaled both its disregard for international law and its confidence that it would face little immediate consequence.

The response within the US political establishment to the attack on Venezuela has been striking. Without the slightest cognitive dissonance over President Maduro’s violent abduction, Democrats call for “restoring democracy” – but not for returning Venezuela’s lawful president.

So why didn’t the imperialists simply assassinate him? From their perspective, it would have been cleaner and more cost-efficient. It would have been the DOGE thing to do: launch a drone in one of those celebrated “surgical” strikes.

Targeted killings are as much a part of US policy now as there were in the past. From Obama’s drone strikes on US citizens in 2011 to Trump’s killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, lethal force has been used when deemed expedient. And only last June, the second Trump administration and its Zionist partner in crime droned eleven Iranian nuclear scientists.

The US posted a $50-million bounty on Maduro, yet they took him very much alive along with his wife, First Combatant (the Venezuelan equivalent of the First Lady) Cilia Flores.

The reason Maduro’s life was spared tells us volumes about the resilience of the Bolivarian Revolution, the strength of Maduro even in captivity, and the inability of the empire to subjugate Venezuela.

Killing Nicolás Maduro Moros appears to have been a step too far, even for Washington’s hawks. Perhaps he was also seen as more valuable to the empire as a hostage than as a martyr.

But the images of a handcuffed Maduro flashing a victory sign – and declaring in a New York courtroom, “I was captured… I am the president of my country” – were not those of a defeated leader.

Rather than collapsing, the Bolivarian Revolution survived the decapitation. With a seamless continuation of leadership under acting President Delcy Rodríguez, even some figures in the opposition have rallied around the national leadership, heeding the nationalist call of a populace mobilized in the streets in support of their president.

This has pushed the US to negotiate rather than outright conquer, notwithstanding that the playing field remains decisively tilted in Washington’s favor. Regardless, Venezuelan authorities have demanded and received the US’s respect. Indeed, after declaring Venezuela an illegitimate narco-state, Trump has flipped, recognized the Chavista government, and invited its acting executive to Washington.

NBC News gave Delcy Rodríguez a respectful interview. After affirming state ownership of Venezuela’s mineral resources and Maduro as the lawful president, she pointed out that the so-called political prisoners in Venezuelan prisons were there because they had committed acts of criminal violence.

Before a national US television audience she explained that free and fair elections require being “free of sanctions and…not undermined by international bullying and harassment by the international press” (emphasis added).

Notably, the interviewer cited US Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s admission made during his high-level visit to Venezuela. The US official brushed aside demands for short-term elections, instead arguing that they could be held by the end of 2027. In contrast, Rodríguez stressed that Venezuela’s electoral calendar is set by the country’s Constitution.

As for opposition politician María Corina Machado, the darling of the US press corps, Rodríguez told the interviewer that Machado would have to answer for her various treasonous activities if she came back to Venezuela.

Contrary to the corporate press’s media myth, fostered at a reception in Manhattan, that Machado is insanely popular and poised to lead “A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity: The Global Upside of a Democratic Venezuela,” the US government apparently understood the reality on the ground. “She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” was the honest evaluation, not of some Chavista partisan, but of President Trump himself.

Yader Lanuza documents how the US provided millions to manufacture an effective astroturf opposition to the Chavistas. It is far from the first time that Washington has squandered money in this way – we only have to look back at its failed efforts to promote the “presidency” of Juan Guaidó. Its latest efforts have again had no decisive result, leaving Machado in limbo and pragmatic engagement with the Chavista leadership as the only practical option.

Any doubts that there is daylight between captured President Maduro and acting President Rodríguez can be dispelled by listening to the now incarcerated Maduro’s New Year’s Day interview with international leftist intellectual Ignacio Ramonet.

Maduro said it was time to “start talking seriously” with the US – especially regarding oil investment – marking a continuation of his prior conditional openness to diplomatic engagement. He reiterated that Venezuela was ready to discuss agreements on combating drug trafficking and to consider US oil investment, allowing companies like Chevron to operate.

That was just two days before the abduction. Subsequently, Delcy Rodríguez met with the US energy secretary and the head of the Southern Command to discuss oil investments and combating drug trafficking, respectively.

Venezuelan analysts have framed the current moment as one of constrained choice. “What is at stake is the survival of the state and the republic, which if lost, would render the discussion of any other topic banal,” according to Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein. The former government official, who was close to Hugo Chávez, supports Delcy Rodríguez’s discussions with Washington – acknowledging that she has “a missile to her head.”

“The search for a negotiation in the case of the January 3 kidnapping is not understood, therefore, as a surrender, but as an act of political maturity in a context of unprecedented blackmail,” according to Italian journalist and former Red Brigades militant Geraldina Colotti.

The Amnesty Law, a longstanding Chavista initiative, is being debated in the National Assembly to maintain social peace, according to the president of the assembly and brother of the acting president, Jorge Rodríguez, in an interview with the US-based NewsMax outlet.

As Jorge Rodríguez commented, foregoing oil revenues by keeping oil in the ground does not benefit the people’s well-being and development. In that context, the Hydrocarbon Law has been reformed to attract vital foreign investment.

The Venezuelan outlet Mision Verdad elaborates: “The 2026 reform ratifies and, in some aspects, deepens essential elements of the previous legislation…[I]t creates the legal basis for a complete strategic adaptation of the Venezuelan hydrocarbon industry, considering elements of the present context.”

As Karl Marx presciently observed about the present context, people “make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances.” The present US-Venezuelan détente is making history. So far – in Hugo Chávez’s words, por ahora – it does not resemble the humanitarian catastrophes imposed by the empire on Haiti, Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan.

But make no mistake: the ultimate goal of the empire remains regime change. And there is no clearer insight into the empire’s core barbarity than Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich conference with his praising of the capture of a “narcoterrorist dictator” and his invocation of Columbus as the inspiration “to build a new Western century.”

Washington’s kidnapping of Maduro was intended to demonstrate the empire’s dominance. But it also exposed its limits: the durability of the Bolivarian Revolution and the reality that even great powers must sometimes negotiate with governments they detest. The outcome remains uncertain.

With minor edits by Venezuelanalysis.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

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Caracas, February 20, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration is forcing all royalty, tax, and dividend payments from Venezuelan oil production be paid into accounts managed by Washington.

The mandate reinforces the White House’s control over Venezuelan crude export revenues in the wake of the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, as well as a naval blockade imposed in December.

The US Treasury Department updated its FAQ section on February 18 to clarify conditions on recently issued sanctions waivers allowing expanded participation in Venezuela’s oil sector to Western corporations.

Under the licenses, only “routine payments of local taxes, permits, and fees” to Venezuelan authorities are permitted.

“Other payments, including royalties, fixed per-barrel production levies, or federal taxes to blocked persons, such as the Venezuelan government or (state oil company) PDVSA, must be made into the Foreign Government Deposit Fund,” the text read.

The acting Rodríguez administration has yet to comment on the new restrictions.

Since January, Washington has imposed control over Venezuelan crude exports, with proceeds deposited in a US-administered account in Qatar. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced recently that funds will now be deposited directly in a US Treasury account. Senior administration officials have stated that the arrangement gives the White House “leverage” to condition Venezuelan government policies, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Caracas must submit a “budget request” to access its own oil revenues.

At least US $500 million, out of an initial deal estimated at $2 billion, have been returned to Venezuela and offered by banks in foreign exchange auctions. Venezuelan authorities have also reported the import of medicines and medical equipment from US manufacturers using “unblocked funds.”

On Thursday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 50A allowing select firms to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity. The document mirrors General License 50 issued on February 13 but added French firm Maurel & Prom to a list including BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol, and Shell.

Maurel & Prom’s main project in the Caribbean nation is a minority stake in the Petroregional del Lago joint venture, which currently produces 21,000 barrels per day (bpd). The company’s executives recently held a meeting with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of Caracas’ efforts to secure foreign investment.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has issued several licenses to boost US and European involvement in the Venezuelan energy sector, with imports of diluents, inputs and technology now allowed. General License 49, issued on February 13, demands that companies apply for a special license before striking production and investment deals with Venezuela.

The US Treasury issued sanctions waivers while maintaining existing coercive measures against the Venezuelan oil industry in place, including financial sanctions against PDVSA. The licenses likewise block any transactions with companies from Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

The selective flexibilization of sanctions followed the Venezuelan National Assembly’s approval of a pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform grants private corporations expanded control over operations and sales, while opening the possibility for disputes to be taken to external arbitration.

The reformed law also allows the Venezuelan executive to arbitrarily reduce royalties and a new “integrated tax,” capped at 30 and 15 percent, respectively. The executive is likewise entitled to grant reductions to the 50 percent income tax set for the oil industry if deemed necessary for projects to be “internationally competitive.”

According to US-set conditions and the reformed law, minority partners such as Repsol are authorized to sell crude from Venezuelan joint ventures before depositing the owed royalty and tax amounts, as well as dividends belonging to PDVSA, to US Treasury-designated accounts.

The initial crude sales as part of the Trump-imposed arrangement were conducted via commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura, which lifted cargoes at Venezuelan ports before re-selling them to final customers. However, according to Reuters, US-based refiners including Phillips66 and CITGO are looking to secure crude directly from Venezuela to maximize profits.

CITGO, a subsidiary of PDVSA, is close to being taken over by vulture fund Elliott Management following a court-mandated auction to satisfy creditor claims against the South American country. The company has been managed by boards appointed by the US-backed Venezuelan opposition since 2019.

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By Rosa Miriam Elizalde – Feb 13, 2026

Option Zero was the revolutionary government’s contingency plan for the moment of total blockade from abroad—and therefore—the complete loss of oil in the country.

On July 26, 2010, in the small theater of the José Martí Memorial in Havana, a convalescent Fidel Castro, dressed in olive green and recovering from several surgeries, walked down the aisle greeting those in the nearby seats. He said conspiratorially to the woman sitting next to me: “There’s Rosa Miriam… Do you know that one day she asked me if we were going to survive the Special Period?”

He had just recalled an afternoon in 1990, 20 years earlier, when, as a newly graduated journalist, I was assigned to report on a routine event at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), which Fidel suddenly attended. For more than four hours, he explained what Cubans would experience after the disappearance of the USSR, a historic moment that was called the Special Period because, as the commander-in-chief said at the time, “no one knows what kind of practical problems may arise.”

Cuba lost a third of its gross domestic product between 1991 and 1994, and the U.S. blockade was opportunistically tightened, first by Republican George H.W. Bush (senior) and then by Democrat Bill Clinton. Among all the hardships we endured, perhaps the hardest was the epidemic of optic and peripheral neuropathy linked to a sharp drop in caloric and nutrient intake: from almost 4,000 calories a day, to just over 1,000. Real, daily hunger left physical and psychological scars on millions of Cubans that still linger today.

But at the CIGB, on that afternoon in 1990, it was the first time that the Cuban leader described in great detail the harsh economic restrictions that were coming, and there was talk in Cuba of Option Zero. Fidel, who always spoke the truth, was so graphic—communal pots, bicycles and carts as the only means of transportation, blackouts, food rationing more than usual—that we were all in shock. And when he finished speaking and approached the journalists, a passionate question came from my heart: “Do you really think we will survive?”

He explained again that Option Zero was the revolutionary government’s contingency plan for the moment of total blockade from abroad and, therefore, the complete loss of oil in the country. A strategy was designed for that scenario, and every link in society was organized to maintain a minimum of economic activity, as well as vital education and health centers, with provisions for an even worse situation: that of military aggression. The people would even be trained to survive without water and electricity for many days.

I remember the patience with which Fidel explained that this plan was not a propaganda slogan, but a defensive planning tool. It psychologically prepared the country for an extreme scenario, sent a signal that the state was organizing itself even for the worst outcome, and expressed an explicit willingness not to capitulate, even under extreme material conditions.

President Díaz-Canel Assesses Preparations for Cuba’s Defense

At a recent press conference, President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that the national survival protocols conceived during the hardest years of the Special Period not only exist, but have been revised, modernized, and are ready to be activated if necessary.

In the 1990s, Cuba faced a sudden collapse without a “manual,” while today it faces a severe crisis with more experience, more tools to withstand shortages, and some technological and sectoral capabilities—including some domestic crude oil—that allow it to resist with greater resilience, although the weak point remains the same core: energy, foreign currency, and imports.

Added to this is the fact that Trump’s sanctions and threats have united the country. When explicit threats become so visible in their daily effects, they leave less room for the idea that “it’s all just a story” and begin to operate like any other pedagogy of violence.

Harassment and pain awaken the survival instinct, generate more solidarity, strengthen social tolerance for extreme measures, and affirm the common sense that a dispute like this is not only domestic, but geopolitical and coercive. Seeing Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Miami congressmen celebrate the damage they are doing, while shouting “zero oil, zero remittances, zero food and medicine shipments,” has outraged even the stones in Cuba.

But they do not calculate the powers of history. After I asked Fidel the question in Biotechnology, he spent almost two more hours explaining to me why Cubans would emerge from the Special Period and the Zero Option. He closed with a phrase that answered that question from the heart: “We will survive by resisting, resisting, and resisting. As we have done before.”

Twenty years later, at the José Martí Memorial Theater, Fidel finished his speech and walked back down the aisle he had entered. When he passed by my seat, he paused for a moment: “Did you see, my daughter, that we were able to resist?”

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/29093

This article by Luis Hernández Navarro originally appeared in the February 17, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Simultaneously farce and tragedy, the feud between Marx Arriaga and Mario Delgado reveals the consequences of using public education as a fiefdom to repay political favors. Despite their attempts to cloak themselves in the defense of the New Mexican School (NEM) and free textbooks, what’s at stake in this farcical spectacle is a matter of self-interest.

Both the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) and the head of the institution’s General Directorate of Educational Materials are disgraceful. Even if they cloak themselves in the noble mission of educating children, Delgado’s offer of the Costa Rican ambassadorship to Arriaga (an updated version of Álvaro Obregón’s infamous 50,000-peso bribes to his detractors) in exchange for his job at the SEP demonstrates the pedagogical depth of this clash.

The current Secretary of Education has consistently betrayed the teaching profession. As a senator for the PRD party in late 2012 and early 2013, he placed himself at the beck and call of Claudio X. González to approve Peña Nieto’s education reform. According to the businessman, on December 12, 2012, the Senator called him jubilantly to tell him that the new legislation had been approved with his vote in favor.

On September 13, 2018, already a Morena party deputy, Delgado announced: “The education reform will be overturned, not a single comma will remain.” A lie. The approved education legislation not only preserved the commas, but entire paragraphs of the old text and, above all, its neoliberal core.

And now, working from Vasconcelos’s office, he has dedicated himself to forging close alliances with business groups like Lego and Femsa, opening the door to private interests in terms of approaches and content. He wants to implement STEM education within the New Mexican Education Model (NEM), a flawed and unoriginal pedagogical fad used to attract funding and to promote initiatives and educational materials worthy of the Pleistocene era. Incidentally, he promotes a teacher training program that is utterly devoid of critical thinking.

Engaged in this approach, Delgado promoted the development of “supplementary” workbooks by the SEP (Ministry of Public Education) in collaboration with international organizations. Furthermore, he spearheaded the creation of a coalition called Alianza México (Mexico Alliance), which, as Mauro Jarquín has explained, is essentially a classic model of philanthrocapitalism in education, and has a presence in several states. In addition, local authorities, particularly in northern states, tend not to distribute books or collections published by Marx’s office.

Marx Arriaga suffers from severe personality disorders. He is a civil servant who fancies himself a teachers’ union leader; a state employee with preacher aspirations; a philologist who dreams of refounding an ethereal and ambiguous liberating pedagogy; a colonel without troops, but with a salary, who fantasizes about taking heaven by storm; a street fighter whom stylists knock out; an unelected apostle of Obradorism; a missionary who proclaims the new world in a strident and vociferous manner.

His time in the education sector has been fraught with controversy. Since his appearance at a morning press conference on April 26, 2023, announcing a new educational model, the scandals surrounding him have been relentless. The combination of his penchant for championing fervent causes with the kind of rhetoric worthy of a lay evangelist, and his inability to ground his pedagogical pronouncements in simple examples, has earned him widespread criticism from academics, teachers, and journalists.

His curriculum reform is a hodgepodge of good intentions and few concrete steps. He’s had indigestion from decolonial theory. He’s indulging in empty rhetoric that has fueled the right wing’s fear of communism. His verbosity ultimately drives away any possibility of sympathizing with what he claims to defend.

Until his latest scandal, he was a powerful figure. He held that position during President López Obrador’s six-year term, when all his erratic behavior was tolerated. He also held it throughout the first year of Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration. He traveled the country as if he were accountable to no one. He said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without any repercussions.

Things started to heat up when, at the end of December last year, he called for the formation of “Committees for the Defense of the New Mexican School and its Free Textbooks.”

Beyond his role as a civil servant, Marx has his own political capital comprised of teachers, some of whom are followers of critical pedagogy. They are concentrated in Chihuahua, Baja California, Michoacán, Querétaro, Guerrero, the State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Puebla, Coahuila, and Mexico City.

The Freirean Bonfires he organized and the Insurgent Bonfires he convened (a kind of study circle) would become the embryos of his committees. He held 300 Freirean Bonfires in which just over 3,000 teachers participated. At the beginning of this year, some 1,500 teachers were registered for the Insurgent Bonfires project, which was scheduled to hold 200 bonfires. The number of attendees could reach approximately 3,000 education workers.

The poet Nadia López García was appointed as Arriaga’s replacement. In 2018, President Enrique Peña Nieto presented her with the National Youth Award. The wounds of Ayotzinapa were still raw. In her acceptance speech, the current head of educational materials told the president: “Rest assured that today you have planted, in this generation, the seed for all our dreams to grow in Mexico.”

Unfortunately, the dispute at the SEP is not a fight between good and bad for the defense of public education, but a brawl between rival power groups for control and the collection of political rents from a pedagogical project that has not yet been born.

• 

  Analysis

  A Circus at Mexico’s Education Secretariat

  February 17, 2026February 17, 2026

  The dispute is not a fight for the defense of public education, but a brawl between rival power groups for control and the collection of political rents from a pedagogical project that has not yet been born.

• 

  Analysis

  A Bigger Plan

  February 17, 2026

  López Obrador’s fear of Mexico’s abrupt return to the right still applies today. The Brazilian case is instructive.

• 

  Analysis

  Mexico Needs a Macroeconomic Policy for Growth, not the Finance Sector

  February 17, 2026

  While the Mexican government attempts to curry favour to receive preferential treatment in USMCA negotiations, it ignores the fact that the Trump administration violates all established international norms and makes decisions only based on US interests.

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The president of the Colombian Communist Party (PCC), Jaime Caicedo, expressed his solidarity with the people of Cuba and also demanded respect for the rights of those who defend its Revolution.

He also called for an end to the repression and violence against activists who defend Cuba in the United States, whom the US administration demonizes, and for respect for the integrity and rights of Latin American migrants persecuted by the current government.

The political secretary of the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC) in Bogota, Carlos Garcia, stated that the party expresses “its solidarity and support for the heroic struggles of the Cuban people, who are resisting the onslaught and direct threat of U.S. imperialism and the continuation and intensification of the criminal economic, financial, and commercial blockade.”

“Today we demand respect for the autonomy, independence, and principle of sovereignty of peoples, as well as recognition of the heroic struggles of those who resist and fight for their dignity,” he exclaimed in a message obtained by Prensa Latina.

Recently, writer and former Colombian Minister of Culture, Arts, and Knowledge Juan David Correa asserted that Cubans are suffering because of a “totalitarian, authoritarian, and inhumane policy on the part of the United States government.”

Currently, the Colombian Movement of Solidarity with Cuba is promoting a donation drive, collecting non-perishable food, medicine, medical supplies, and electrical goods as a sign of support for the Caribbean nation.

Several statements of support were also signed by dozens of organizations in Colombia, including the Minga Association for Alternative Social Promotion, the Somos Defensores Program, the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective, the Corporation for Support of Popular Communities, and the Lazos de Dignidad Foundation, among others.

jdt/rc/ifs

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The Guatemalan government announced the termination of the medical collaboration agreement with Cuba under which Cuban health professionals worked in remote and impoverished areas of the country since 1998.

On Tuesday, February 10, the Guatemalan Ministry of Health announced that the 412 Cuban medical collaborators currently working in the country, of whom 333 are specialist doctors, will be replaced “gradually” by “national human resources.”

The decision, justified by a “technical analysis” to “strengthen the national healthcare system,” comes amid US pressures on Cuba and the rise of right-wing governments in Latin America that are aligned with this policy.

US persecution against a symbol of solidarity
Cuba’s international medical collaboration, with over six decades of history and a presence in 56 countries, follows the principles of solidarity and South-South cooperation.

However, this mission has been a specific target of a US campaign to suffocate and discredit it, which has intensified since Donald Trump’s first administration.

The US narrative, which accuses these programs of “modern slavery” and “human trafficking,” is aimed at undermining one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Cuba, as well as depriving vulnerable populations of medical care.

The Cuban international medical mission began in 1960 with the dispatch of a first brigade to Chile, devastated by an earthquake. It was forged in the following decades as a pillar of Cuba’s foreign policy.

International Activists Announce Flotilla Mission for Cuba Solidarity

The mission was later strengthened by large programs, such as the Barrio Adentro Mission in Venezuela or the Mais Médicos program in Brazil. It gained recognition by responding to global health crises, from the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone to sending doctors to the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

The continued US economic and political aggression against Cuba has entered a new and brutal phase of energy asphyxiation, with the recent executive order threatening sanctions on third countries for supplying fuel to Cuba. This escalation is a brutal act of aggression aimed at provoking hunger and despair among the population, as openly declared by the Trump administration. However, Cuba, its political leadership guided by the ideals of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary continuity with President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and its people, has had the resilience to defend the nation’s right to self-determination and sovereignty.

(Resumen Latinoamericano)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28616

This article by Arturo Sánchez originally appeared in the February 15, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, expressed his emotion yesterday for the Mexican solidarity with the island and thanked the citizens for their response to the campaign to collect medicines and food organized by the Militant Solidarity Collective Va por Cuba and the José Martí Association of Cubans Residing in Mexico.

“I am deeply moved by the response to the call to help the Cuban people, who do not deserve the injustice and cruelty that the United States inflicts upon Cuba. Thank you is all I can say, for the generosity and humanity of the Mexican and patriotic Cuban people,” the diplomat declared.

“I am deeply moved by the response to the call to help the Cuban people, who do not deserve the injustice and cruelty that the United States inflicts upon Cuba. Thank you is all I can say, for the generosity and humanity of the Mexican and patriotic Cuban people,” the diplomat declared.

From early morning, the flow of people was constant. Young people, families, retirees, workers, office workers, and teachers arrived with bags, boxes, and packages to join the slogan that Cuba is not alone.

The collection center – located almost at the corner of Corregidora and Plaza de la Constitución – will remain open until February 22, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and accepts non-perishable food items, as well as essential medical supplies.

Francisco Rosas López, from the organizing group, described the response as “formidable.” He noted that although they had expected good participation, the volume of donations exceeded their initial projections. As he spoke, vans provided by the city government departed for a storage warehouse loaded with boxes and sacks.

Rosas emphasized that this is a “people-to-people” campaign that will later be supplemented by shipments from the federal government. She added that similar collection centers are being prepared in Puebla, Celaya, and other locations throughout the country, with the goal of expanding the solidarity network in the coming weeks.

Among the donors, anger toward Washington’s policies was a constant theme. Retirees María Paz Arroyo and Patricia Galicia arrived together with 60 kilos of rice, 60 kilos of beans, 20 packages of milk, and two boxes of sardines. “It bothers me that Trump is doing such awful things. We are Latin American countries, and we have to help each other,” said Arroyo.

Galicia, for its part, emphasized that its support is also a form of gratitude towards the Cuban doctors who have worked in remote communities in Mexico.

Additionally, graduate students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will open an extra collection center to support the island. Donations will be accepted on February 17 and 18 at the Graduate Studies Unit in University City, and on February 19 and 20 at Las Islas in University City, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Without fanfare, but with consistency, the day in the capital’s Zócalo showed an uninterrupted flow of support and a shared conviction: that Cuba, insisted the organizers and donors, is not alone.

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  News Briefs

  Cuban Ambassador Expresses Gratitude for Mexican Solidarity

  February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

  The Mexico City collection center – located almost at the corner of Corregidora and Plaza de la Constitución – will remain open until February 22.

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  February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

  Our weekly roundup of stories in the English and Spanish language press on Mexico and Mexican politics. Kurt Hackbarth, Trump Is Using Mexico’s Oil to Put the Squeeze on Cuba Jacobin. The alternative, however, is to let Cuba starve: the process of Gaza-ification brought into this hemisphere. If this were to succeed, and Mexico were…

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28628

Caracas, February 15, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump is considering a visit to Venezuela, though he did not specify when the trip might take place or what agenda it would entail.

“I’m going to make a visit to Venezuela,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday.

The US President addressed the press ahead of a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to meet soldiers who participated in the January 3 military attacks against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Questioned by a journalist, Trump stated that Washington recognizes the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s legitimate authority.

“We are dealing with them, and they have done a great job,” he stated. The White House refused comment on whether the recognition was the administration’s official stance.

In 2019, the first Trump administration recognized the self-proclaimed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate authority, prompting the Maduro government to sever diplomatic ties. The US later transferred its recognition to the defunct opposition-controlled National Assembly whose term expired in January 2021.

Since the January 3 attacks, Caracas and Washington have fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement, with US Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu arriving in the Caribbean nation in early February. An official recognition of the Rodríguez acting government could pave the way for the restructuring of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt.

In his Friday press remarks, Trump further described relations with Venezuelan leaders as being “as good as one could hope for,” and added that “the relationship with Venezuela today is a 10.”

Trump additionally highlighted progress in Venezuela’s oil sector.

“Oil is flowing, and other nations are paying a lot of money for it, and we are handling it. We are refining it,” he said. Since January, the White House has imposed control of Venezuelan oil exports, with proceeds deposited in bank accounts in Qatar before being partly rerouted to Caracas under US-set conditions.

Earlier last week, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez emphasized in an NBC interview that Maduro remains the country’s legitimate president. She also disclosed that she has spoken twice with Trump and has had “more frequent” contact with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and expressed “gratitude” for the “respectful and courteous” nature of the talks.

Venezuela’s acting president went on to announce that she has likewise been invited to visit the US. “We are considering going once we establish cooperation and can move forward with everything,” she said.

The invitation reportedly arose during a recent visit to Caracas by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was hosted by Rodríguez at Miraflores Palace on Wednesday.

Wright and Rodríguez later toured the Petroindependencia crude upgrader, a mixed venture between Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA and Chevron, in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

The Trump administration official announced that Chevron would invest US $100 million to modernize operational facilities, with the goal of “doubling [Petroindependencia’s] productive capacity within 12 to 18 months and quintupling it within five years.” Petroindependencia has a current output of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

US issues new oil licenses

Following Wright’s Venezuela visit, the US Treasury Department issued two general licenses, 49 and 50, aimed at boosting conditions for Western multinational corporations to operate in Venezuela’s energy sector.

The first license allows for the negotiation and signing of future investment contracts, contingent upon the potential issuance of a specific license. The second waiver authorizes Chevron, BP, Eni, Shell, and Repsol to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity.

Repsol (Spain) and Eni (Italy), like Chevron, participate in oil and gas joint ventures in the South American country, whereas the UK-headquartered Shell and BP are set to lead offshore natural gas projects alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) in Venezuelan waters.

However, GL50 requires that any contracts fall under US jurisdiction and mandates that all payments to “blocked” entities—as sanctions against PDVSA and Venezuela’s banking system remain in place—be made to accounts designated by the US Treasury.

It also explicitly prohibits transactions involving any person or entity linked to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or China, as well as vessels sanctioned by Washington.

The Trump administration has loosened restrictions against the Venezuelan energy sector, including allowing the import of US diluents, inputs and technology, following a recent pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform granted expanded benefits for private corporations, including reduced fiscal responsibilities and expanded control over operations and sales.

Upon leaving Caracas, Energy Secretary Wright claimed that “structural reforms” would continue in Venezuela, with changes to “labor laws, the court system and the banking system.”

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz from Caracas.

The post Trump Announces Venezuela Visit as US Treasury Grants Licenses to Western Energy Giants appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28178

This Wednesday marked the first round in the battle against Argentina’s regressive labor bill as the legislation moves toward the Chamber of Deputies. While media outlets attempted to demonize the protests to obscure growing social opposition, a renewed militancy emerged, signaling a new stage in the fight against the law.

The day’s struggle took shape between two poles: on one side, the unpopular policies of the government and its economic backers; on the other, the perceived betrayal of the bureaucracy of the CGT — Argentina’s largest labor union federation —and the complicity of Peronism. Despite these obstacles, sectors were determined to resist push the movement forward. The Left has seen its role strengthened in this process, and the central challenge now lies in forcing an active national strike when the bill is debated in the lower house — a key step toward a broader popular mobilization and a general strike.

The Media Campaign vs. Social Reality

Even before the day had ended, major media outlets — alongside Senator (and former Security Minister) Patricia Bullrich — launched a fierce campaign to demonize the movement. Their goal was to hide the obvious: deepening social anger toward an economic plan that is pushing large sectors of the working class into increasingly precarious conditions, and a renewed willingness among workers and youth to fight back.

The government — which in just over two years has implemented “chainsaw” austerity, repressed social protest, passed laws concentrating economic power, and subordinated the country to the IMF — attempted to cast itself as a victim. Meanwhile, it continues to advance a reform that attacks the right to organize, facilitates layoffs, eliminates overtime, fragments vacation time, and extends the workday while reducing employer contributions to the national pension fund.

By evening, the government’s narrative began to unravel. After the initial crackdowns, thousands returned to the area around Congress, joined by workers arriving after work. They were met with indiscriminate repression, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests.

While the government managed to pass the bill in the Senate, it failed its central objective: projecting an image of governability and calm to financial markets. The government and media operation have been widely questioned, revealing deep tensions. Rising inflation, combined with austerity, declining consumption, and job losses undermined official claims of stability. The streets were anything but peaceful. From social media, PTS (Socialist Workers’ Party) Deputy Myriam Bregman argued that brutal reforms inevitably generate resistance, and that the violence lies not in protest, but in imposing austerity through state repression.

The mobilizations expressed a rejection not only of the labor reform but of the government itself. Thousands took to the streets despite the CGT leadership, which has spent months negotiating with the government without calling for a national strike. Their limited call for mobilization — offered without a strike and granting “freedom of action” to individual unions — aimed to contain social pressure. Nevertheless, many workers and youth mobilized independently, even after working hours and amid the ongoing repression.

The protests were nationwide. In Córdoba, repression occurred under Peronist governor Martín Llaryora, while in the Senate, the reform advanced thanks to the quorum provided by the UCR, the PRO, and sectors of Peronism — the same actors who enabled previous measures like the “Omnibus Law.” These senators, maintaining privileges far removed from the daily reality of millions, reflect a political regime increasingly disconnected from the population.

A government marked by crisis and sustained by imperialist finance capital, alongside a fragmented and often complicit opposition, has led to the emergence of new combative sectors.

The Path Forward Is Working-Class and Youth Organization

What occurred on Wednesday was merely the first round of a broader confrontation. Even if the labor reform is ultimately approved, it will face fierce resistance wherever the state attempts to implement layoffs or precarity, as seen in ongoing conflicts at Lustramax and Garrahan Hospital.

In this context, the working class and youth can rely only on their own strength. The immediate challenge is to deepen organization in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods, pushing from below for an active national strike. The PTS and the Left Front place themselves in this perspective, participating in ongoing struggles and building on months of solidarity with retirees, healthcare workers, disability collectives, and other sectors in this conflict.

The labor struggle was not resolved on Wednesday; rather, a new stage has begun. The nascent networks built in recent months will shape the next phase of mobilization as the debate moves to the Chamber of Deputies and social resistance continues to grow.

Originally published in Spanish on February 14 in La Izquierda Diario.

The post Argentina: Anger and Class-Struggle Confront Milei’s Reactionary Labor Reform Law appeared first on Left Voice.

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URGENT: SEND SOLAR GENERATORS & PANELS TO CUBAN HOSPITALS!

Trump’s fuel blockade is starving Cuba of power, crippling hospitals and schools, and attempting to induce a famine.

We are rushing solar generators and panels to our neighbors 90 miles away so that hospitals can keep their doors open and their lights on. Your donation helps ensure patients receive the essential care they need.

This crisis does not have to exist. It was created by the Trump Administration and should be reversed immediately.

Until these cruel policies end, as neighbors, we must act and send aid.

Help us stop the Trump Administration from creating famine in Cuba.

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