Brazilian experts warn of the risk of western intervention in the Amazon region
By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 17, 2024
On June 11, an important debate took place in the Brazilian Congress which could have some interesting repercussions. The event, called the “Debate on National Sovereignty in the 21st Century,” was held within the scope of the Foreign Relations and National Defense Committee of Congress, organized at the request of Representative Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Bragança.
The debate, held within one of the most important committees of the Brazilian Congress (as it deals precisely with fundamental state issues), included the participation of important specialists in military and intelligence matters, such as Commander Robinson Farinazzo, officer of the Brazilian Navy, the defense analyst Albert Caballé, and Professor Ricardo Cabral, former professor at the Naval War College, among others.
Referring to statements by former NATO officers, presidents, and prime ministers of various countries connected to the Atlantic Alliance, Farinazzo highlighted the fact that the fate of Brazilian territories, especially the Amazon region and its rainforest, is discussed in summits held outside Brazil, without the representation of Brazilian interests.
As an example, Farinazzo recalled a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council, dated 2021, which aimed to categorize general climate issues as “security threats” that could be discussed, overseen, and operated within the framework of the Security Council. This draft was vetoed by Russia and India and did not have the support of China, which abstained.
Although the draft did not specifically mention the Amazon or Brazil, it is impossible to ignore the numerous references to the “internationalization of the Amazon,” seen as the “heritage of humanity,” in the context of the radicalization of ecoglobalist discourses created within the centers of knowledge and public policy of the Atlanticist West.
As jurist Carl Schmitt said, “whoever invokes humanity is trying to deceive.” Behind humanitarian discourse lie all the most brutal and nihilistic projects of the liberal Western elites. To prove this, we just need to look at how the narratives of “humanitarian intervention” were used in Libya, Iraq, and the Balkans over the past 30 years.
Indeed, in August 2019, American political scientist Stephen Walt published an article within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs speculating on the possibility of military actions legitimized by environmentalist discourse of defending “humanity” from “climate threats”. According to Walt, in the future, major powers might try to halt situations of environmental degradation through armed interventions in weaker countries, specifically mentioning Brazil as an example.
Less than a month later, The Guardian published an article by an author named Lawrence Douglas, in which he argued that the same logic applied to humanitarian interventions, such as the “Responsibility to Protect,” a globalist concept enshrined at the UN in 2005, should serve to legitimize the use of force against the geopolitical enemies of the Atlanticist West with a humanitarian/environmentalist veneer.
Indeed, at the event held in the Brazilian Congress, Stephen Walt’s article was specifically mentioned, along with many other pieces of evidence. It is necessary to recall, as Farinazzo did, that James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and former SOUTHCOM Commander, claimed that fires in the Amazon Rainforest represented a security risk for the U.S., legitimizing their intervention in Brazil. Emmanuel Macron (who was warmly welcomed by Lula in the Amazon a few months ago) and Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, have also publicly stated that the Amazon region does not really belong to Brazil, but rather is a “common good” of so-called “humanity.” David Milliband, Secretary of the Environment under Tony Blair’s government, even went so far as advocate for the privatization of the Amazon Rainforest in 2006.
All this was presented to the Foreign Relations and National Defense Committee of the Brazilian Congress with abundant evidence and sources.
If the issue of Amazon fires was the most “weaponized” against Brazil during the Bolsonaro government, now the topic that generates the most furious reactions from environmental NGOs in Brazil, as well as “concerned” comments from foreign bureaucrats, is the exploration of oil in the Equatorial Margin, as pointed out by Professor Ricardo Cabral in Congress.
This is a topic that is linked, as he pointed out, with the entire history of efforts to prevent or hinder the exploitation of Brazilian mineral and energy resources, usually under allegations of “environmental damage” or “violations of indigenous peoples’ rights” – narratives that put pressure for the loss of sovereignty over parts of Brazilian territory, which should, as the narrative goes, be under “international tutelage,” in a more refined and postmodern version of the old British privatization proposals.
The problem, as analyst Albert Caballé pointed out, however, is that the Brazilian defense industry is in crisis; a crisis that has lasted for several years already.
If until approximately the 1980s, Brazilian companies in the defense sector not only supplied most of the national military needs but were also exporters, especially to the Middle East and Africa, the neoliberal avalanche of the 1990s in a post-Cold War context led to a gradual dismantling of the sector and its denationalization, with several of the main Brazilian defense companies, such as Ares and others, coming under the control of multinational companies – almost always from the same Atlanticist countries that show interest in the “internationalization” of the Amazon.
The hypothetical scenario discussed in the Brazilian Congress for an interventionist action against Brazil, as presented by Farinazzo, mentions the possibility of a blockade of the main Brazilian ports by Atlanticist naval forces, in a sort of “anaconda strategy” (a tactic that is part of the manual of Admiral Mahan, the father of American geopolitics).
The concern of Brazilian experts and representatives specializing in defense and international relations, therefore, is that Western greed in an era of transition and geopolitical crisis could turn against Brazil – and that Brazil, if it does not quickly wake up to the contemporary risks and dangers, may not be able to face this challenge.
‘Until genocide stops’: Colombia to suspend coal exports to Israel
Press TV | June 8, 2024
Colombia has said it would stop its coal exports to the Israeli regime as long as the latter sustained its months-long genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
“We are going to suspend coal exports to Israel until the genocide stops,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a post on X on Saturday.
He also posted a draft decree, which said that coal exports would only resume if the regime complied with a recent order by the International Court of Justice that mandated that Tel Aviv withdraw its troops from the Gaza strip.
Data provided by Colombia’s National Statistics Department shows that the exports were worth more than $320 million in the first eight months of the last year.
According to the Colombian government, the export ban will enter into force five days after the decree was published in the official gazette.
On May 1, the Colombian head of state said the country had decided to cut its diplomatic relations with the Israeli regime over the war.
“And we here in front of you, the government of change, the president of the republic informs that tomorrow diplomatic relations” with the Israeli regime “will be cut,” he said at the time, adding, “[We cut diplomatic ties] because of them having…a genocidal president.”
More than 36,801 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in the war that began after Al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups.
Russia’s Growing Media Influence in the World Sparks Alarm in the West
Sputnik – 28.05.2024
Russian broadcasters such as Sputnik may be outperforming their Western counterparts in terms of media coverage abroad, UK-based non-profit called Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) claims.
In its written evidence submission to the UK Parliament International Development Committee’s Inquiry into Future funding of the BBC World Service, AIB stated that “the global distribution of Russia’s international [media] operations is possibly greater than that of Western broadcasters.”
Sputnik and RT TV and radio services are being broadcast in many of the Global South countries – “including, but not limited to Venezuela, Syria, Mexico, Guatemala, India, Pakistan and South Africa” – and these media operations help Russia spread its influence around the world, AIB laments.
All this praise, however, should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt, seeing how the main purpose of the AIB’s document appears to be securing more British government funding for the BBC.
What do pro-Palestine student protesters at Brazilian universities want?
By Eman Abusidu | MEMO |May 20, 2024
As pro-Palestine protests continue at US and European universities, thousands of students at Latin America’s most prestigious university, the University of São Paulo (USP), have joined the movement against Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. The Brazilian students from various faculties have set up tents in the History and Geography Building of the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences, flying a giant Palestinian flag and chanting “Free Palestine” as they call for an “immediate ceasefire”.
The protests by USP students are being organised by the Student Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People of USP (ESPP-USP), as well as Brazilian student union and other popular organisations which express their support within and beyond the university campus.
The students are demanding that the university should divest from Israeli companies and those which benefit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
They also want an academic boycott of Israeli institutions with the renunciation of current academic agreements or any other ties and an end all academic relationships with Israeli institutions.
In particular, they are putting pressure on the USP’s Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences to suspend agreements with the University of Haifa in occupied Palestine. A petition has also been drafted demanding that Brazilian institutions, universities and the government should sever relations with Israel. As far as the students taking part in the protests are concerned, the university’s agreements with Israeli universities and organisations, such as “Israel Corner”, help to develop the technology used in the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli Federation of São Paulo has expressed its dissatisfaction with these demonstrations and sees them as hate speech against Jews. Such allegations by Israel and its supporters are entirely predictable.
One of those taking part in the protest, João Conceição, explained the students’ demands to MEMO :
“We demand the immediate cancellation of the seven academic agreements that USP has signed with Israeli universities and the Israeli Consulate in São Paulo,” said Conceição. “President Lula and the Brazilian government need to break all relations with Israel, whether diplomatic, military or commercial. The solidarity with the Palestinian people must be within and beyond the university walls, in light of the ongoing genocide.”
He pointed out that the demonstrations at USP draw attention to the fact that the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza is the result of the ongoing genocide and massacre of the Nakba for over 76 years. “We believe that breaking relations with Israel is the practical answer that can leave Israel in international isolation as a global outcast.”
According to Conceição, the governments of Latin America have done very little in real terms, because, “The majority of them have direct or indirect associations with Zionist entities, and they are committed to the Israeli and international bourgeoisie to defend what is happening today in Gaza.” He was critical of Lula’s stance. “He speaks harshly and compares what happens in Palestine to the Holocaust, but the actions on the ground are different.”
Brazilian activist and member of the country’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Fabio Bosco, said that the student demonstrations are very important to gain public support for Palestine and send a message to the Palestinian people that they are not alone in their struggle for liberation.
“The protests at American universities, for example, are very positive and are cornering the US President, Zionist Joe Biden. Furthermore, they serve as a symbol of solidarity and humanity for the entire world,” noted Bosco. “Lula da Silva acknowledged that there is an ongoing genocide in Gaza and supported South Africa’s action against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and yet he maintained diplomatic relations with the occupation state and has bought Israeli military goods.”
He suggested that the main thing that the Latin American countries can offer to Gaza is to break economic and diplomatic relations and thus isolate the “criminal” Zionist entity. “We hope that the example set by the students in São Paulo inspires students across the country and expands solidarity activities with the Palestinian people within trade unions and social movements.”
The protests at the University of São Paulo are expected to be the first of many on the USP campus and other Brazilian universities to challenge any promotion related to the Israeli apartheid regime. Palestine solidarity movements are growing in strength within Brazilian universities despite the Zionist presence in Brazil. Palestinian and Brazilian activists have in the past succeeded in forcing the cancellation of the Israeli Universities Festival. It is hoped by activists that other successes will follow.
US losing ground globally to Russia and China – report
RT | May 9, 2024
While both China and Russia have improved their standing in the world over the past year, the US has seen its approval rating deteriorate in the Middle East and even in Europe, according to respondents from 53 countries.
Dubbed Democracy Perception Index 2024, the survey was compiled by the German company Latana, on behalf of Alliance of Democracies, a NGO headed by former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Russia and China are now viewed as positively as the US in most of the surveyed countries in Asia and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA), as Washington’s approval plummeted due to the conflict in Gaza. Things aren’t looking up for the US in Europe, either.
“For the first time since the start of the Biden administration, many Western European countries have returned to net negative perceptions of the US,” according to Frederick DeVeaux, the senior researcher at Latana.
The reversal of previously positive attitudes has been “particularly stark in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland,” DeVeaux said.
America’s global reputation took a beating since last year, in particular in Muslim-majority countries surveyed – Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, and Türkiye. The researchers attributed this to President Joe Biden’s unequivocal support to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Meanwhile, sentiments about Russia and China in every region except Europe are steadily getting more positive.
The European region is the only one besides the US that still supports cutting economic ties with Russia over the Ukraine conflict, while the rest of the world prefers to keep doing business with Moscow. The world is also divided “between the West and the rest” when it comes to possibly sanctioning Beijing if it were to “invade” the island of Taiwan.
The Democracy Perception Index is an annual survey carried out in 53 countries. This year’s research canvassed some 63,000 respondents for opinions about “democracy, geopolitics and global power players.”
Human Rights Experts and Activists: UNHRC Is Lending Support to US Regime Change Plans for Nicaragua
Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition | Alliance for Global Justice | April 18, 2024
Masaya, Nicaragua – Human rights experts and activists are expressing concern over a flawed and seriously unbalanced report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), released by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on February 24, 2024.
The UNHRC, says the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, is lending itself to the U.S. regime-change strategy against Nicaragua by highlighting only evidence supplied by opponents of Nicaragua’s government, while omitting highly pertinent information submitted to the GHREN by a number of individuals and groups.
An open letter has been sent to the President of the UNHRC, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General, pointing this out. Former UN Independent Expert on International Order, Alfred de Zayas, described the GHREN as set up for the purpose of “naming and shaming” the Nicaraguan government, not for objective investigation. Signed by leading human rights experts, 49 organizations and more than 300 individuals, the letter says that the GHREN’s report should never have been published.
Coordinator of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Barbara Larcom, said:
“The work of the UN’s so-called group of experts is a disservice to the Nicaraguan people. It has deliberately ignored considerable evidence sent to it which contests its findings. This unprofessional report should immediately be withdrawn by the UN Human Rights Council and the group disbanded.”
The Coalition, which represents individuals and organizations across Nicaragua, other Latin American countries, the US and Europe, notes that April 18, 2024, marks the sixth anniversary of an attempted coup in Nicaragua. According to considerable evidence, this was financed by US agencies intent on regime change. Since the failed coup, the US has continued to apply pressure via other methods, including the GHREN report, using these to justify sanctions against Nicaragua’s economy and society.
Link to open letter, online version (Spanish): https://bit.ly/NicaCartaONU2024
Link to open letter, online version (English): https://bit.ly/NicaLetterUN2024
See full list of signatories: https://bit.ly/NicaUN2024Signers
The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition is an international coalition of organizations and individuals in solidarity with Nicaragua, supporting its sovereignty and affirming its achievements. We are not affiliated with any governmental entity of any nation. We provide accurate, verifiable information and other resources about Nicaragua, and we work to counter misinformation about the country disseminated by the media, public events, and other sources.
Email: johnperry4321@gmail.com
NicaSolidarity.net
NicaraguaSolidarityCoalition@gmail.com
Colombia suspends Israeli arms purchases following attack on Palestinian crowd
The Cradle – March 1, 2024
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on 29 February announced the country would suspend all arms purchases from Israel in protest against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
“Asking for food, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Netanyahu. This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the [Holocaust] even if the world powers do not like to recognize it. The world must block Netanyahu. Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel,” Petro said via social media after the latest massacre of civilians by Israel in Gaza.
Israel has killed at least 30,035 and injured 70,457 others in Gaza while inflicting mass destruction and shortages of basic necessities on the strip.
Colombia is among the countries that fully supported South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Petro has also continuously condemned Tel Aviv for its indiscriminate attacks against Palestinians since 7 October, taking a similar stance as the leaders of other Latin American nations like Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
“If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we suspend them. We do not support genocides,” Petro said via social media on 15 October.
His comments came after Israel suspended all security exports to the South American country in response to Petro’s public stance on the genocide unfolding in Gaza.
Petro drew the ire of Israel after posting on social media: “Neither the Yair Kleins nor the Raifal Eithans will be able to say what the history of peace in Colombia is. They unleashed the massacre and genocide in Colombia.”
Former Israeli army colonel and mercenary Yair Klein in the 1980s was responsible for training fighters from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group responsible for multiple war crimes during Colombia’s internal war. Klein was later brought to Colombia to train the National Police.
Raifal Eithan, the former chief of staff of the Israeli army, served as an advisor to former Colombian president Virgilio Barco and once proposed killing the members of the Patriotic Union political party, which was born from the failed peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1984.
Far-right Colombian paramilitaries are responsible for killing tens of thousands of civilians, including social leaders, environmental activists, and campesinos, and forcing millions more out of their homes. Furthermore, all branches of the Colombian armed forces use Israeli weaponry as standard, and all have been trained by Tel Aviv in combat techniques.
Maduro Orders ‘Defensive’ Military Drills After UK Deploys British Warship Off Guyana Coast
Sputnik – 28.12.2023
CARACAS – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered on Thursday the armed forces to launch “the activation of a joint defensive action” in response to the deployment of a British warship off the coast of Guyana.
“I have ordered the activation of a joint defensive action of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” off the coast of Essequibo, he said in a state televised broadcast, but did not provide more information.
Earlier this month, the British media reported, citing a British defense ministry spokesman, that the United Kingdom would deploy a patrol ship off Guyana’s coast as a sign of support for the state in the territorial dispute over Essequibo. The head of Venezuela’s defense ministry, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, called it a provocation.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil had previously called on his British counterpart David Cameron not to interfere in the affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and to mind his own business.
“From Venezuela, we ask the infamous failure David Cameron, foreign minister of the former imperial power of the United Kingdom, to take his hands off our Latin America and the Caribbean and to take care of his own affairs, which are very complicated,” Gil wrote on social media.
Venezuela’s territorial dispute with Britain and Guyana, a former British colony, has been ongoing since the 19th century. The Bolivarian government stepped up its actions after Guyanese authorities began handing over fossil-rich areas of the disputed shelf to oil companies for development.
Caracas held a referendum on December 3 in which an absolute majority of participants supported the annexation of the territory west of the Essequibo River, and began legislative work to legally back its actions.
Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has since said that the country views Caracas’ actions as a threat to national security and intends to appeal to the UN Security Council as well as its international partners. During a recent news conference, Ali did not rule out that Guyana may go for a military base for its allies in the region, and on December 7, the US Army’s Southern Command carried out “flight operations” in the country.
The leaders of Venezuela and Guyana, following recent talks on the territorial dispute over Essequibo, pledged not to use force under any circumstances and to resolve it in accordance with the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
UK to Deploy Royal Navy Warship to Ex-Colony Amid Guyana-Venezuela Dispute
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 24.12.2023
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro met in mid-December under the aegis of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community to defuse tensions around the disputed region of Essequibo. The two agreed to “continue dialogue to resolve the dispute over the Essequibo territory.”
The UK has decided to re-task Royal Navy warship the HMS Trent and deploy it to Guyana after Christmas, according to British media reports.
Instead of scouring the Caribbean in search of drug smugglers, the warship will take part in joint naval exercises with the former British colony and Commonwealth member. The decision was reportedly prompted by the current flare-up of the territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.
“HMS Trent will visit regional ally and Commonwealth partner Guyana later this month as part of a series of engagements in the region during her Atlantic Patrol Task deployment,” a UK Ministry of Defense spokesperson was cited as saying.
The HMS Trent is a Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol vessel, named after the River Trent. Commanded by Commander Tim D. Langford, it is designed to carry out tasks that include “counter-piracy, anti-smuggling, fishery protection, border patrol, counter terrorism, humanitarian aid, search and rescue, general patrols and defence diplomacy,” as per the Royal Navy website.
The warship will stay in Barbados, the Caribbean region of the Americas, during Christmas, after which it will be heading for Guyana. Its activities will reportedly be carried out at sea, and will not involve docking in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.
Earlier in December, when Britain’s Foreign Office Minister for the Americas and Caribbean David Rutley visited Guyana, he was quoted as saying that the UK would work internationally “to ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld.”
The border between Guyana and Venezuela, which runs through the Guyana-Essequibo region, known for its abundant oil reserves, has been a source of territorial dispute for several decades.
Venezuela gained independence from Spain in 1845 and recognized Essequibo – a zone of 160,000 sq. km – as part of its sovereign territory. In 1899, however, the United Kingdom filed and won an arbitration claim to recognize Essequibo as part of its then-Caribbean colony of British Guiana. Independent Guyana referred the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2018. This came after Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro objected to former Guyanese president David Granger granting oil exploration rights off the Essequibo coast to ExxonMobil, the US-French oil transnational.
Venezuela held a referendum earlier this month in which almost 96% of the population voted in favor of incorporating the Essequibo region, which makes up two-thirds of the territory controlled by Guyana, into the country. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro put forward a proposal to the parliament, suggesting the establishment of Venezuela’s 24th state, named Guyana-Essequibo. He also produced a new map showing the disputed region of Essequibo as part of Venezuela. Besides referring to Essequibo as a “zone of integral defense,” Venezuela’s president proposed a deadline of three months for oil companies to halt offshore operations in the area. Last Sunday, a referendum was conducted to reaffirm Caracas’s claim to Essequibo. The majority of citizens voted in favor of establishing a state on the disputed territory.
According to Venezuelan media, President Nicolas Maduro has already officially signed decrees to incorporate the western region of neighboring Guyana into Venezuela, ratifying a total of six documents. In addition, Maduro signed a decree facilitating the creation of specialized units within the state oil and gas company PDVSA — PDVSA Essequibo and the Guyana Venezuelan Corporation — CVG Essequibo. To oversee the newly formed state, Major General Alexis Rodriguez Cabello was appointed as the sole head of the 24th state.
Venezuela and Guyana have since agreed not to threaten or use force in any circumstances to settle the dispute, as per a joint statement, published by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The sides also agreed to meet in Brazil within the next three months to “consider any matter with implications for the territory in dispute” and immediately establish a joint commission on the level of foreign minister and experts to address the dispute.
Venezuela, Guyana to hold talks on disputed Essequibo region
RT | December 10, 2023
The presidents of Venezuela and Guyana – Nicolas Maduro and Mohamed Irfaan Ali, respectively – will sit down next week to discuss a long-standing territorial dispute that has recently intensified, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has revealed. While Caracas has laid claim to the oil-rich Esequibo region since the late 19th century, President Maduro recently took steps toward gaining actual control over the area, which covers some 160,000 square kilometers.
Earlier this week, the Spanish daily El Pais reported that the Venezuelan government had deployed troops to the border with Guyana.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gonsalves, who also serves as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), broke the news after speaking with Maduro on Saturday, saying the negotiations would take place on Thursday.
The Venezuelan government has confirmed the planned talks, saying they hoped to “preserve our aspiration to maintain Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”
The Office of the President of Guyana, for its part, stressed that “Guyana’s land boundary is not up for discussion.”
Also on Saturday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Maduro, calling for dialogue and warning against unilateral measures that could escalate the situation. The Brazilian head of state has also been invited to take part in Thursday’s talks as an observer.
Speaking on Tuesday, the Venezuelan president said Caracas wanted the “peaceful rescue of the Guayana Esequiba,” which “has been de facto occupied by the British Empire and its heirs and they have destroyed the area.” Maduro also unveiled a new map of Venezuela that incorporates the disputed territory, and appointed a new governor to the region.
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, in turn, gave a televised address to the nation, accusing Venezuela of attempting to annex more than two thirds of his country.
“This is a direct threat to Guyana’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence, and a violation of fundamental principles of international law,” the leader stressed.
“The Guyana Defense Force is on high alert… Venezuela has clearly declared itself an outlaw nation,” Ali added.
The recent escalation followed Sunday’s referendum, in which 10.4 million Venezuelan voters backed Caracas’ claim to Guayana Esequiba.
The territorial dispute stems from the US’ decision in 1899 to assign the territory to what was then British Guiana – a move Venezuela never accepted as legitimate.
Henry Kissinger and the Assassination of Gen. Rene Schneider
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 4, 2023
The recent death of former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger provides an opportunity to revisit one of Kissinger’s most infamous acts — the role he played in the 1970 kidnapping and murder of Gen. Rene Schneider, the overall commander of the Chilean Armed Forces.
Let me emphasize one thing right off the bat: Schneider was an entirely innocent man. Why, he wasn’t even a communist. Instead, he was simply a man of great integrity who believed that he had a responsibility to support and defend the constitution of Chile. That’s what got him killed.
In the 1970 presidential election in Chile, a socialist named Salvador Allende received a plurality of the votes. Since he had not received a majority, the election was thrown into the hands of the Chilean congress.
U.S. President Richard Nixon, along Kissinger, together with CIA officials, decided that U.S. “national security” would be threatened by the election of a socialist president in Chile.
So, Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA conspired to produce a two-level plan to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. The first level involved the secret payment of bribes to the members of the Chilean congress, using, of course, U.S. taxpayer money. The second level was more ominous — to persuade the Chilean national-security branch to take charge of the Chilean government. (Chile was a national-security state, just as the U.S. had become.)
However, Gen. Schneider said no. He continued standing steadfastly in support and defense of the Chilean constitution, which did not provide for a national-security coup as a way to “save” the country from a president who, it was claimed, posed a grave threat to Chile’s “national security.”
Nixon, Kissinger, and CIA officials conspired to launch a violent kidnapping of Schneider to remove him as an obstacle to their plot. During the kidnapping attempt, which took place on the streets of Santiago, Schneider fought back. The kidnappers shot him dead.
The Schneider children later sued Kissinger for his role in the conspiracy to kidnap and murder their father. The federal courts threw them out on their ear. The courts held that when it comes to foreign policy, including kidnapping and assassination, the federal courts would never interfere.
Needless to say, the attitude of the Justice Department was the same. Even though there was clear and convincing evidence of a conspiracy involving felonious actions in Washington, D.C., and Langley, Virginia, the Justice Department never sought any indictments for the conspiracy to kidnap and murder an entirely innocent man. After all, it is important to keep in mind the U.S. felony-murder rule, which holds that if a person is murdered as part of a felonious action, all of the parties to the felonious action are criminally liable for the murder, even if they didn’t participate in it or intend it to happen.
Ironically, the Chilean people were so outraged over Schneider’s murder that the Chilean congress was pressured to elect Allende as president. Thus, the bribery part of the U.S. scheme didm’t work either.
Three years later, U.S. officials finally succeeded in ousting Allende from power through a violent U.S.-supported coup that left Allende and some 3,000 innocent Chilean people dead. It also left the Chilean citizenry to suffer under a brutal U.S.-supported military dictator, one in which 50,000 innocent Chilean citizens were violently rounded up and subjected to torture and rape at the hands of Pinochet’s goons. Kissinger had a close relationship with Pinochet and, in fact, visited him in Chile soon after the coup and offered him generous U.S. support for his brutal dictatorship.
For a detailed analysis of the Schneider murder, I recommend reading “The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination” on the website of the National Security Archive.
For a good summary of the lawsuit that Schneider’s sons brought against Kissinger — and the deferential attitude of the federal courts toward foreign-policy actions like kidnapping and assassination — see René Schneider et al. v. Henry A. Kissinger et al on the website of the International Crimes Database.
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From the Archives
Cuba: the Weight of a Long History
200 Years of US Interventionism
By MANUEL R. GÓMEZ | CounterPunch | February 27, 2015
… As far back as 1809, Jefferson tried to purchase Cuba. In 1820 he went further; he told Secretary of War J.C. Calhoun that the U.S. “ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba.” As President, John Quincy Adams predicted that Cuba would fall “like a ripening plum into the lap of the union.” These are but two of many prominent examples of a widespread ambition to annex Cuba, or at least to control its destiny, from very early in U.S. history. After “the West,” Cuba figured as a prominent second place in U.S. expansionist aims from the beginning of the Republic. … Read full article
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- Kushner floats cash-for-normalization with Israel to expand ‘Abraham Accords’
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
- Germany’s AfD Party Calls Debunked Climate Scenarios “Greatest Fraud In Human History”
- Researchers Find Rapid Global Warming Phase At End Of Last Ice Age (Ca.18,000 Years Ago)
- Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims
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