Este domingo 14 de diciembre los chilenos deben volver a las urnas para elegir al nuevo presidente en una segunda vuelta que enfrenta a candidatos totalmente antagónicos. La candidata de la izquierda Jeannette Jara, y el postulante de la ultraderecha, José Antonio Kast, compiten por ser el sucesor del actual mandatario de izquierda, Gabriel Boric, que deja el cargo el 11 de marzo de 2026. Con esta elección, que se realiza con voto obligatorio para todos los chilenos habilitados en el padrón electoral, se pondrá fin a una extensa campaña que ha estado marcada por los temas de seguridad, economía y migración, además de las críticas a la gestión del Ejecutivo.

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La salud figura entre las principales preocupaciones de la ciudadanía chilena, según diversas encuestas. Esto no resulta sorprendente: el sistema de salud chileno arrastra desde hace años una crisis estructural que ha dejado al Estado en deuda con la ciudadanía. Tal como señalamos en el capítulo de salud del Informe Anual de Derechos Humanos 2025, esta crisis es multicausal. Su origen está en un modelo segmentado y discriminatorio según sexo, edad y nivel socioeconómico, en la falta de sostenibilidad financiera, en la desigualdad entre los sectores público y privado, en el bajo énfasis en la Atención Primaria como puerta de entrada al sistema, y en la opacidad y débil fiscalización del sector asegurador. Estos factores generan inequidades en acceso y calidad y perpetúan una lógica de mercado que privilegia la capacidad de pago por sobre el derecho a la salud.

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Canillo, hijo de una familia huilliche muy pobre, era muy flaco y nunca crecía; en su casa, sin embargo, había alimentos, pero desaparecían. Un día su familia se escondió y descubrió que Canillo era el que se comía todo. Se asustaron, creyeron que era el diablo y lo lanzaron al mar. Luego del crimen, o del intento de crimen, hubo una sequía que marchitó todas las plantas de la tierra y el mar. “La gente fue a entregar alimentos al abuelito Huentenao como ofrendas, pero Canillo voló hacia el sol y lo tapó con una rama de laurel. Para apaciguarlo, Huentenao le ofreció a su hija, si no la hambruna se esparciría. Luego de que Canillo contrajera matrimonio, el abuelito lo encerró en una roca para que no hiciera el mal”.

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El padre y representante de la popular cantante de la música tejana Selena, Abraham Quintanilla, ha fallecido a los 86 años, según ha dado a conocer su hijo, A.B. Quintanilla III, a través de sus redes sociales. “Con gran pesar les informo que mi padre falleció hoy”, publicó este sábado el músico en su cuenta de Instagram. Las causas de su muerte no han sido reveladas.

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La onda expansiva del crimen organizado ha cruzado esta semana la frontera entre México y Guatemala con una serie de hechos delictivos que ha dejado agobio y tensión en los pobladores de la frontera sur. El lunes se produjo un enfrentamiento entre bandas criminales, una de estas una célula del Cartel de Sinaloa, que afectó comunidades en los departamentos guatemaltecos de Huehuetenango y San Marcos. El choque de los narcotraficantes con rivales del Cartel de Chiapas y Guatemala dejó como saldo un muerto y un militar guatemalteco herido. Pero el episodio recuerda también que hay una guerra de baja intensidad en la zona limítrofe entre ambos países.

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Former Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora has been placed under preemptive arrest at the San Pedro detention facility in La Paz for five months, pending a corruption inquiry regarding the mismanagement of funds intended for indigenous projects when he served as Economy Minister under Evo Morales (2006-2019).

Bogotá, Colombia – The Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) has declared a 72-hour nationwide armed strike beginning on Sunday in protest against increased US military activity in Latin America.

In a statement, the group warned Colombians not to travel via the country’s roadways or navigable rivers during the three day window; while the group said it would not harm civilians, armed strikes are enforced through violence, with previous iterations involving vehicle burnings and civilian casualties.

The action will be the first national-level armed strike since 2022 and comes amid an ongoing U.S. boat bombing campaign – which the Pentagon says has targeted ELN members – as well as White House threats of further intervention, including land strikes in Colombia.

“We, the peoples’ forces of Colombia, protest the threat of imperialist intervention in our country as a new phase of Trump’s neo-colonial plan, which aims to sink its claws even deeper into Latin American and Caribbean territories,” read a decree emitted on Friday by the ELN.

On multiple occasions, U.S. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of striking drug production targets within Colombian borders; Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the ELN is known to be a key actor in the drug trade.

The communiqué said the strike would begin at 6:00 AM on Sunday, December 14 and last until the same time on Wednesday. 

While it instructed civilians not to travel by road or river during the three day window, it maintained that its “road control units will respect civilians and their property,” but advised regular people not to mix with soldiers in order to “avoid accidents.”

Although the measures are purportedly national, analysts say they are unlikely to affect the whole country.

“In practical terms, this is a national announcement, but it has a limited impact because the ELN does not have a national presence,” Gerson Arias, investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian think-tank, told The Bogotá Post.

Arias said the bulk of the effect will be seen in areas of ELN control, especially in Colombia’s northeast and in the western departments of Cauca, Nariño and Chocó.

The last time the ELN implemented a nationwide armed strike was in 2022, with incidents across 17 departments including vehicle burnings and road blockages intended to protest the Ivan Duque administration (2018-2022).

But the ELN regularly uses smaller scale armed strikes to exert control over specific areas, usually in rural regions. Experts say that the guerrillas often use the actions as a guise to secure drug transit corridors and facilitate the movement of soldiers and contraband.

Rights groups criticize armed strikes for producing a host of deleterious effects on affected populations, with forced confinement impeding access to education, food, and healthcare. 

While the ELN’s decree did not explicitly mention U.S. threats against Venezuela, the group is known to have a presence in the country and has recorded ties with the Nicolás Maduro regime.

Much of the guerrilla group’s territory lies on the border with Venezuela and any U.S. attack on Colombia’s neighbor would also threaten the ELN, according to FIP’s Arias. 

“The ELN is well aware that it may be affected by some of the measures taken by the United States,” said the analyst.

The group has already been directly impacted by Trump’s boat bombing campaign, with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saying an October 17 strike on an alleged drug vessel had killed three ELN members. The rebels denied the claim, insisting they do not smuggle drugs. 

The ELN’s armed strike declaration underscores the complex panorama of armed groups in the region and their ties to government, drug trafficking, and border zones. While the impact of the action is yet to be seen, the announcement shows the far-reaching consequences of the White House’s mounting military pressure in the region.

This article originally appeared in The Bogotá Post and was republished with permission.

Featured image description: ELN fighters.

Featured image credit: Brasil de Fato via Flickr

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The U.S.’s seizure of the oil tanker the Skipper in the Caribbean is just one more example of the inconsistencies, lies and ludicrous claims that characterize Trump’s justification for his actions against Venezuela. As Representative Gregory Meeks (NY), a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out, the seizure clearly demonstrates that the bombing of the 42 boats by the Southern Command has nothing to do with drug trafficking. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt describes the Skipper’s shipment as “black market oil” but that’s only because the U.S. sanctions don’t give Venezuela any alternative to export its oil. It’s like a judge who sentences a man to stop breathing and then when the man grasps for breath the judge declares he’s breaking the law. 

Simultaneously, Trump sanctioned 6 more shipping companies that transport Venezuelan oil. The groundwork is being laid for more seizures. The Financial Times now states “fifty-five sanctions-hit tankers have participated in Venezuelan oil trades in the last year.” Why doesn’t the Turmp administration just come out and say it? The U.S. is blockading Venezuela.

On the other hand, the Trump administration states that it’s the Skipper company that is being targeted because it allegedly finances terrorist groups, specifically Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. But the oil belongs to Venezuela, not the Skipper. According to that logic, the U.S. should return the oil to Venezuela. Not likely to happen.

Medellín, Colombia – The results of a UN forum, made public on December 3, revealed that Colombia abstained from taking a position on the statement urging Russia to guarantee the “immediate, safe and unconditional return of Ukrainian children who have been deported or forcibly removed” to Russian territory. 

Despite 91 countries voting in favor of the document, Colombia, which will sit on the Security Council next year, joined 57 nations – including Brazil, El Salvador, and China – refraining from supporting the measure. Meanwhile, 12 countries voted against it. 

The development has placed President Gustavo Petro’s government in the hot seat as opposition figures in Colombia criticize and question the decision while the administration, so far, refuses to comment publicly. 

The United Nations statement, proposed by Ukraine with the sponsorship of Canada and the European Union, urged the return of thousands of Ukrainian children who were transferred from their homes to Russian territory over nearly four years of war. 

The resolution also calls on the Russian Federation “to cease such actions without delay, and to end the practices of family separation and the ‘change of [children’s] personal status’ through citizenship, adoption, foster placement or indoctrination”, according to a UN press release on the approved resolution. 

Source: https://x.com/sherwiebp/status/1996326527492075996

Backlash following the abstention 

Colombia’s decision to abstain has drawn criticism from the opposition, who say it highlights inconsistencies in President Petro’s foreign policy. 

These voices point to Petro’s outspoken stance as a defender of human rights and his historically active role in international affairs, whilst demanding clarification as to why the government has avoided taking a concrete stance on Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation and the return of said Ukrainian children. 

Members of Congress from the Centro Democrático, the leading opposition party, have taken to social media to raise their concerns. 

Representative of the Democratic Center Andrés Forero, who urged, on X, that President Petro “must explain to the country why he ordered the Colombian delegation to the UN to abstain from voting on the motion urging Russia to return the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped”. 

Further dissent came from Senator Paloma Valencia who also took to X to question Petro’s government. 

There has been no explanation offered by either President Petro or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

According to Brazilian media, the vote reinforces the Lula government’s position of equidistance in the conflict but raises questions about seeking a position as a global mediator over prioritizing human rights. 

The Russian government has accused the UN of “distorting reality”. 

In a Facebook post, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs lashed out at President of UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock, accusing her of framing her speech in “Goebbels propaganda mould”.

Featured image description: United Nations Security Council.

Featured image credit: United Nations via Flickr.

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BY NAN ET Editor

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 12, 2025: New Caribbean music continues to surge with purpose, rhythm, and global appeal as several of the region’s most celebrated and emerging artists release new tracks this week, spanning dancehall, reggae, soca, and world music.

Sean Paul

Leading this week’s releases is Sean Paul, whose new single “Faith We A Keep” dropped today under Dutty Rock Productions, with exclusive licensing to Milk & Honey Records. Inspired by the resilience of the Jamaican people following Hurricane Melissa, the track delivers an uplifting message centered on perseverance, faith, and protection during challenging times. Blending emotional depth with Sean Paul’s signature delivery, the dancehall release is expected to resonate across radio playlists and inspirational programming.

“Faith We A Keep” was produced by Daramola and written by Sean Paul alongside Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor Henriques, Karen Amanda Reifer, and Abraham Olaleye. Recording took place at Paramount Studio and Dutty Rock Studio, with engineering by Kahlil “Tanned Jesus” Vellani and Andre “Suku Ward” Gray. The track is officially released on December 12, 2025.

LISTEN HERE

Anthony B

Veteran reggae and dancehall artist Anthony B also returns this week with his new single “Good Music,” now available on all major streaming platforms. Produced by GRAMMY Award-winning producer J-Vibe, the song delivers classic feel-good roots reggae vibes and marks the second release from Anthony B’s upcoming 2026 album on Ineffable Records. While Anthony B remains globally known for his iconic hit “World A Reggae Music,” his more recent track “Chill Out” from the 2023 album Bread & Butter has emerged as his top-performing digital release to date, signaling sustained audience demand for his sound.

MACHEL MONTANO

Soca fans are also being treated to a high-energy collaboration as Voice, Machel Montano, and litleboy lsbeats767 team up on “Bam Bam,” a track already gaining traction ahead of the 2026 Carnival season. Produced by litleboy lsbeats767, Precision Productions, and Machel Montano, with additional production by Mega Mick, the single blends modern soca with infectious hooks designed for both stage and fete settings.

The song features writing contributions from Aaron St-Louis (Voice), Machel Montano, Art Raoul Travis Philip, Foster Marcel Xavier, and Kasey Phillips, with recording sessions split between Trinidad studios. “Bam Bam” is released under Monk Music and is available on streaming platforms and YouTube.

Fay-Ann Lyons

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago’s soca powerhouse Fay-Ann Lyons teams up with producer GusBus on “Can’t Fling Mud To A Love Song,” a world-soca release blending lyrical reflection with melodic warmth. Written and performed by Lyons, the track is released under Bad Beagle with exclusive licensing to Diaspora Sound, continuing her tradition of pairing social commentary with Caribbean rhythms.

Adding to this week’s diverse offerings is the Guardians Riddim, released by Blackstarr Productionz under Larnox Global Entertainment Ltd, featuring a world and soca-driven soundscape designed for multiple artist interpretations.

Also new is “Earthquake” by YelloStone, released via Jahmari Records / Dimmie Joe Muzik, delivering contemporary Caribbean energy with crossover appeal.

Rounding out the week is rising Jamaican reggae artist Ras-I, who releases “Reggae Mountain (Feel No Way),” a modern take on uplifting roots reggae. The single marks the first release from his upcoming 2026 album on Ineffable Records. Ras-I, who won Best New Reggae Artist at the 2024 Caribbean Music Awards, continues to gain international attention following the selection of his song “Somewhere Wonderful” as the official theme for the Jamaica Tourist Board earlier this year.

Together, this week’s releases reflect the Caribbean music industry’s continued global influence – balancing heritage, innovation, and messages that resonate far beyond the region.

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By Jake Johnston

Research Associate, Center for Economic and Policy Research

It’s been nearly a decade since Haitians last went to the polls to elect a president. Even then, barely one in five participated. In a country with a majority of the population under 25 years of age, this means that, for most Haitians, voting for one’s leaders is a privilege never before experienced.

Haiti’s transition, precipitated by the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, is ongoing. For the better part of four years, progress toward elections has remained elusive. But that all appeared to change this fall.

“The Haitians need to come to an election and elect a president,” the US Charge d’Affaires, Henry Wooster said in September. Security and other challenges must not be a “red herring for taking action,” he continued. Speaking directly to Haiti’s de facto authorities, he warned: “In other words, you can’t stay in those jobs for life.”

The reaction, in a country where the political class remains more responsive to Washington than the population in Haiti, was swift. Two months later, a new electoral law has been established and a vote scheduled for next August. But does this present Haitians with a path out of the multiple, overlaid crises affecting the country? More than half the country is facing food insecurity, the economy is about to wrap up its seventh consecutive year of negative growth, and insecurity continues to dominate daily life.

In 2023, when asked if they had trust in the electoral process, fewer than one in four Haitians responded yes. It is hard to imagine that number is higher today. Though few would be sorry to see the much-loathed leaders atop the transition fall, a vote is not a path out of the current crisis.

The quick response to Wooster’s threats was not so much about elections. It was about a date much closer on the horizon: February 7, 2026. That is when the mandate of the nine-member presidential council — which was put in place with a strong push from the Biden administration, CARICOM, UN, and the OAS 18 months ago — formally ends. For months, debate has raged over what should come next. The political class is auditioning, not with the ten-plus million citizens of Haiti, but with the foreign diplomats and multilateral entities they see as key to their own survival.

And if there was any doubt about who would ultimately decide, it was put to rest in mid-November. Amid an effort from some on the transitional presidential council to, once again, replace the prime minister, the US embassy stepped into the fight.

“If you and your family value your relationship with the United States, I urge you in the strongest terms to desist from initiatives to oust the PM and to instead publish the electoral decree … This is not the time to test U.S. resolve,” Wooster texted Fritz Jean, one of the councilors. Days later, Jean’s US visa was revoked and the State Department publicly accused him, without providing evidence, of supporting armed gangs. The effort to replace the PM was stopped — at least for now. The next week, the electoral decree was published.

The “plan” is coming into focus, and it is a familiar one: stability at all costs, no matter how rotten the foundation. To enforce this notion of stability and allow for elections, the US has been quick to assure that more security support is on the way.

In September, the UN Security Council approved a Gang Suppression Force (GSF). Authorized for up to 5,500 soldiers, it is currently little more than a rebranding of the Kenyan-led Multinational Support Mission (MSS) that the UN authorized in 2024. No new troops have arrived and, while this new mission will have some level of UN support, operationalizing any of it is expected to take the better part of a year. 

The main difference then, for the 1,000 or so mostly Kenyan police on the ground in Haiti is that the rules of engagement have changed. The GSF, as its name suggests, is intended to be more “muscular,” by which its architects mean lethal. The newly drafted Concept of Operations outlines a mission with a simple goal: kill the bandits.

But while few have taken note, that has been the de facto authorities’ strategy for some time. So far this year, police forces have been responsible for well over half of the 4,500-plus killings in Haiti. Hundreds of civilians have been caught in the crossfire as police battle armed groups that exert influence over much of Port-au-Prince and have traumatized a nation. Drone attacks, led by a secretive police unit operating with Blackwater CEO Erik Prince’s private mercenaries, are also racking up civilian casualties and drawing growing condemnation.

The outspoken leaders of Haiti’s armed groups, however, only seem to continue to accumulate more power, political influence, and heavy weaponry. While some areas of the capital have seen tension ease, violence in the provinces is expanding by the day. Armed groups still control all the major arteries of the nation. More people are displaced today than at the height of the post-earthquake recovery.

The US has expressed its goal in Haiti as saving the state from imminent collapse, thereby avoiding mass migration or the further entrenchment of transnational criminal organizations. But while precious oxygen is consumed by raging debates over electoral timelines, transitional governance structures, and how quickly foreign soldiers can arrive, nobody has stopped to ask a basic question: is the current state worth saving?

The root of the tension that has paralyzed the country for much of the last decade is not a fight between violent gangs and the state. Simplistic narratives of good versus evil miss the mark. Rather, it is a fight over putting the train back on the tracks to save a rump state in the name of stability or to lay new tracks to create the foundations for a more representative state to rise from the ashes. It is not elections nor a foreign military force that will resolve this fundamental tension. In fact, history shows those two responses are more likely to consolidate the status quo.

The Haitian people need an opportunity to vote freely. They need to feel safe and secure in their communities. But what is missing is a plan to bring it all together, to begin restoring faith in a state that long ago lost the trust of the population; a plan to achieve peace, which is not just the absence of violence, but the presence of opportunity. What is missing is a vision that can inspire the population and bring the nation together around a common path forward.

A peace process can fill that gap. Such an endeavor does not mean legitimizing armed actors, condoning violence, or accepting impunity; rather, what it should mean is treating the situation holistically while centering the population and in particular victims of both state and non-state violence. A foreign military force and low-turnout elections are tracks Haiti has been down many times before. A peace process offers a chance at laying new ones. But first, what Haiti needs are political leaders responsive to the needs of the people and not simply to foreign embassies.

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News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. Dec. 12, 2205: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, (DHS), today gave Ethiopian immigrants in the US on Temporary Protected Status, (TPS), 60 days to leave the country as they ended the program by concluding that country conditions no longer meet the statutory requirements for the humanitarian designation.

The decision was announced today by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem following what DHS described as a careful review of current conditions in Ethiopia.

“Temporary Protected Status designations are time-limited and were never meant to be a ticket to permanent residency,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS,) spokesperson said in a statement. “Conditions in Ethiopia no longer pose a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Ethiopian nationals. Since the situation no longer meets the statutory requirements for a TPS designation, Secretary Noem is terminating this designation to restore integrity in our immigration system.”

TPS provides temporary relief from deportation and work authorization to nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions that prevent safe return. Ethiopia was designated for TPS amid concerns related to internal conflict and instability.

Under the termination order, Ethiopian nationals currently covered by TPS who do not have another lawful basis to remain in the United States will have 60 days to voluntarily depart the country.

DHS is encouraging individuals who choose to leave voluntarily to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP Home Mobile App to report their departure. According to DHS, the voluntary departure process includes a complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 exit bonus, and the possibility of future opportunities for legal immigration to the United States.

The department warned that enforcement actions will follow the conclusion of the grace period. After February 13, 2026, DHS may arrest and remove Ethiopian nationals who remain in the United States without legal status following the termination of TPS.

“If an alien forces DHS to arrest and remove them, they may never be allowed to return to the United States,” the agency cautioned.

Immigration advocates have historically raised concerns about TPS terminations, noting the potential impact on families, employers, and communities with long-standing ties to the United States. DHS, however, emphasized that TPS is intended as a temporary humanitarian measure and must be reassessed periodically based on current country conditions.

The termination of Ethiopia’s TPS designation comes amid broader efforts by the administration to tighten enforcement while promoting voluntary compliance with immigration laws.

By Nyan Reynolds

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 12, 2005: “In our country, we believe there should be no minority and no majority, just people.” – Steve Biko

The South African activist Steve Biko used these words to highlight how language itself can be a tool of division. Though Biko was speaking in the context of apartheid, his words hold relevance in the United States, where the categories of “minority” and “majority” remain central to how race is discussed and understood.

Few words in American racial discourse are as common or as unexamined as minority. The term appears in government reports, census categories, school curricula, corporate diversity statements, and daily conversation. Black Americans, along with Latinos, Asians, Indigenous people, and immigrants, are routinely described as “minorities.” The word is so deeply ingrained in the national vocabulary that it often goes unquestioned. Yet its history and social implications reveal a different story. Beneath its surface neutrality, minority operates as a marker of marginalization.

From Numbers To Status

The English word minority originally referred to being smaller in number or lesser in status. In political contexts, it described groups with less representation or less authority, such as a minority party in a legislature. In this setting, the meaning was both numerical and hierarchical: fewer members translated into less influence.

In the United States, this logic made its way into racial discourse. By the early to mid-twentieth century, as government agencies and social scientists studied racial and ethnic groups, “minority” became a shorthand for those outside the white mainstream. The U.S. Census, for example, tracked populations according to racial categories, but policy discussions increasingly referred to these communities collectively as “minorities.” The label appeared in debates on education, employment, and voting rights.

This was more than description. It was categorization. To call Black Americans a minority was not only to note their numbers but also to assign them a social position. It implied less power, less visibility, and less belonging. Over time, the word solidified into a label that carried assumptions of inferiority.

The Social Implications

The implications of this language extend far beyond statistics.

Defining by deficit. To be labeled a minority is to be defined by lack. It frames identity in terms of what is missing, population size, influence, resources, rather than what is present. For Black Americans and Caribbeans individuals, this framing compounds the legacy of slavery, segregation, and systemic exclusion, reinforcing a narrative of limitation.

Masking diversity. The category also obscures difference. By grouping together Black Americans, Latinos, Asians, those of Caribbean decent, Native peoples, and others under one label, the word erases the distinct histories and struggles of each. Black Americans, whose presence in the U.S. is rooted in enslavement and centuries of systemic discrimination, are placed in the same category as immigrant populations with very different experiences. The flattening of identity that results prevents deeper recognition of each community’s unique realities.

Sustaining hierarchy. The persistence of the word minority also reinforces a symbolic hierarchy. Even in places where Black and brown communities form the majority, cities like Detroit, Houston, or Atlanta, they are still labeled minorities. Nationally, demographic projections show that by mid-century, nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber whites, yet the label persists. This demonstrates that minority is less about numbers and more about social status.

Historical Usage In Policy And Education

The institutional use of “minority” has reinforced these implications. Civil rights legislation of the 1960s, while groundbreaking, often used the term “minority groups” to identify those entitled to protection. Affirmative action programs in higher education and employment were designed with “minorities” in mind. These policies addressed real inequities but also embedded the label into the structure of law.

In education, textbooks routinely referred to Black, Latino, and Asian students as minorities. For generations of children, growing up meant encountering a narrative that positioned them as small, lesser, and outside the center of American identity. The repetition of the label in classrooms normalized the idea of difference as deficiency.

In the workplace, “minority hiring” became a standard phrase. While meant to promote inclusion, it often created the impression that employees of color were tokens, exceptions granted space within institutions rather than central contributors. Again, the word framed belonging in terms of scarcity.

The Danger Of Internalization

Perhaps the most damaging effect of the word minority is its internalization. Many Black Americans refer to themselves as minorities without questioning the label. Over time, this acceptance can subtly reinforce a sense of smallness.

Research in social psychology has shown that repeated exposure to deficit-based language can shape self-concept. Children labeled as minorities may come to see themselves as outsiders in their own country. Adults who internalize the term may carry an unspoken sense of limitation, even as they succeed. This is not because they lack confidence or capability, but because the language itself imposes boundaries on how they are imagined.

The damage here is not always visible. It operates quietly, through the drip of repetition, until it feels natural. When people embrace the label for themselves: “I’m a minority in this country,” they may unknowingly reinforce the very hierarchy that the term was designed to describe.

Why The Word Persists

Despite its baggage, the term remains widespread. Bureaucracy plays a role. Government agencies and corporate diversity programs are still organized around categories like “minority representation.” Habit plays another role. Once embedded in textbooks, policies, and popular speech, words are difficult to uproot. Convenience also contributes. “Minority” is a single word that groups together diverse populations, offering an easy shorthand.

But convenience is not harmless. The continued use of minority allows the underlying hierarchy to remain unchallenged. It ensures that entire communities continue to be described, and therefore imagined in terms of what they are not.

Rethinking The Vocabulary

Reconsidering the word is not about semantics for their own sake. It is about disrupting the ways language sustains inequality. Several alternatives have been proposed. “Marginalized groups” highlights the active process of exclusion rather than suggesting an inherent lack. “Communities of color” emphasizes shared experiences of racialization, though it still groups diverse populations together. “Underrepresented populations” draws attention to gaps in visibility and influence.

Some advocates use the phrase “global majority,” noting that people of African, Asian, Indigenous, and Latin descent make up most of the world’s population. This term flips the perspective, reminding us that Black Americans and other groups are not minorities in any global sense.

None of these terms is perfect, but each offers a way of framing identity without reducing communities to symbols of smallness.

Beyond Language

Of course, changing language alone will not dismantle racial inequity. The structural barriers that Black Americans face, economic inequality, disparities in education and healthcare, systemic discrimination—require more than new vocabulary. But words matter because they shape the framework through which these realities are understood. Language is both a mirror and a mold. It reflects existing power structures while also helping to reinforce them.

Questioning the word minority is part of questioning the assumptions that sustain inequality. If Black Americans continue to be labeled as minorities, they are continually positioned at the margins of a society they helped build. Rejecting the term does not solve the problem, but it begins to shift the lens through which the problem is seen.

Conclusion

Steve Biko’s vision that there should be no minority and no majority, just people remains unfinished business in America. The word minority may appear neutral, but its history shows otherwise. For Black Americans, it has been less a description of numbers and more a marker of marginalization. It defines by deficit, erases diversity, sustains hierarchy, and quietly shapes self-perception.

The persistence of the word is a reminder of how deeply systems of inequality are embedded in everyday life. To keep using it uncritically is to accept a worldview where some people are always smaller, lesser, or secondary. To challenge it is to recognize that no group’s worth can be measured by numbers alone.

Reconsidering minority is not about erasing history or denying demographic reality. It is about refusing to let language dictate value. If the United States is to move toward genuine equality, it must begin with the recognition that no community is inherently minor.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nyan Reynolds is a U.S. Army veteran and published author whose novels and cultural works draw from his Jamaican heritage, military service and life experiences. His writing blends storytelling, resilience and heritage to inspire readers.  

The International Labour Organization (ILO) warned Thursday that informality continues to affect almost one out of every two workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, reporting a regional average of 47% in 2025.

By Dr. Isaac Newton

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Dec. 11, 2025: Some lives arrive quietly, yet they leave whole generations glowing. Teacher Gen was such a life. In Potters Village in Antigua, she became our first library, our first lesson, our first understanding of discipline wrapped in devotion. For more than seventy years, she taught us not only how to read and count but how to stand tall in the world.

Her classroom felt like a living garden. Desks opened like fresh soil. Chalk drifted like soft pollen. And we, small and curious, blossomed beneath her care. She could correct you with a look, steady you with a word, or prune you gently with that well-known belt that somehow felt like love disguised as firmness. She knew the balance between shaping and sheltering.

MEMORY

She remembered every family. She remembered who raised you, who taught them, and how you were expected to carry that legacy forward. Her reminders could sting, yet they settled in the heart like seeds that later broke open into wisdom. Her lessons were not just instruction. They were inheritance.

I spent some of my primary years beneath her watchful eye. Her expectations carved lines of purpose into me. Her affection strengthened me. Even in her later years, when she drifted into brief classroom naps, she still sensed everything. A whisper. A shuffle. A thought of mischief. She woke with your name ready on her lips, as if teaching flowed through her even in rest.

When I became a teacher, I asked her for guidance. She spoke with quiet authority.

“Love the children. Their parents may test you, but do not allow rudeness. You are preparing them for life and for heaven. And go to class prepared. You are shaping destinies.”

I carry those words into every room where learning and leadership meet.

Teacher Gen embodied the mind, the heart, and the hands of true education. Her knowledge was deep. Her compassion was wide. Her influence was lasting. Every Independence poem, every Easter recitation, every Christmas program bore her touch. Our village grew because she planted confidence and character in every child.

Today we stand in the shade of the great tree she became. Her branches reach across generations. Her roots hold our memory steady. We honor more than a teacher. We honor a life of luminous service. She showed us that greatness grows quietly, nurtures patiently, and endures beautifully.

So we celebrate our Queen of Education, whose presence shaped us, whose memory steadies us, and whose legacy will continue to bloom long after us.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Isaac Newton is a strategist and scholar trained at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. He advises governments and international institutions on governance, transformation, and global justice, helping nations and organizations turn vision into sustainable progress.

By Dr. Isaac Newton

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Dec. 11, 2025: Caribbean diplomacy must begin with a clear understanding of who we are and what we choose to become. Foreign policy is the outward expression of our identity. It carries our values, voice, and vision into the global arena. Strategy is the quiet discipline of listening beneath the noise of events and sensing change before it arrives. An asset is anything that grows in strength when used with intention. Transformation is the decision to rise into something greater than habit or history. When these ideas converge, foreign policy becomes the compass of national renewal and a foundation for a confident regional posture.

This vision resonates with the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, one of the most accomplished statesmen in the modern Caribbean. A former four term Prime Minister and now Minister of Foreign Affairs, Economic Development, International Trade, Investment, and Commerce, he guides national engagement where domestic aspiration meets global possibility. His portfolio demands clarity, discipline, and forward-looking imagination. It is from this vantage that he reminds us, “Foreign policy must not simply describe our world. It must shape the world we wish to enter.”

Norms And Competing Ambitions

The Caribbean operates in a world of shifting alliances, fragile norms, and competing ambitions. Powerful nations speak of rules while bending them and praise sovereignty while ignoring it when convenient. For small island states, this produces both vulnerability and opportunity for those who navigate with insight. Influence no longer depends on size but on resolve, relationships, and resonance. Caribbean diplomacy must move from reaction to deliberate direction, strengthening resilience, economic security, and regional standing.

Diplomacy reaches far beyond negotiating tables. It shapes the price of food, the strength of our borders, the health of our reefs, and the energy that powers our homes. Foreign policy becomes the bridge that determines whether opportunities land on our shores or drift elsewhere. To secure them, Caribbean ministries of foreign affairs must be at the center of national strategy, coordinating systems and sectors with focus and discipline rather than ceremonial visibility.

Looking Outward

Looking outward, partnerships with nations such as Indonesia, Africa, India, Brazil, the Middle East, and other countries with shared needs and compelling interests provide practical paths to renewal. These regions read the sea, the land, and the global economy as teachers rather than boundaries. Shared efforts in marine stewardship, climate resilience, renewable energy, technology transfer, and skills training can lift livelihoods and expand national capacity. These are immediate frontiers where cooperation turns potential into progress. The decade ahead invites the Caribbean to embrace a future powered by clean energy, guided by science, enriched by sustainable oceans, and led by citizens equipped for a complex world. If we meet this moment with clarity and courage, our diplomacy becomes not a mirror of global change but the instrument through which transformation takes flight.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Isaac Newton is a strategist and scholar trained at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. He advises governments and international institutions on governance, transformation, and global justice, helping nations and organizations turn vision into sustainable progress.

São Paulo, Brazil — Ex-President Luis Arce was detained by Bolivian police on Wednesday amid corruption allegations, according to a former member of his cabinet, María Nela Prada. 

In a video shared on her Facebook account, the former Minister of the Presidency, who appeared crying in the seat of a car, characterized the arrest as a “kidnapping.”

“I want to announce to the Bolivian people and the international community that former President Luis Arce has just been kidnapped in Sopocachi, in the city of La Paz,” said María Nela Prada.

“At this moment, I am addressing the FELCC (Special Force for the Fight Against Crime), which is where we have learned, through unofficial means, that he has been taken,” she added.

State-owned channel Bolivia TV claimed Arce, who governed the country between 2020 and 2025, was being investigated for the handling of an Indigenous public fund while he served as Minister of Finance from 2006 to 2017, during the administration of former President Evo Morales. 

According to Marco Antonio Oviedo, Bolivia’s current Interior Minister, the charges include facilitating illicit enrichment, issuing resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the laws, dereliction of duty, abuse of influence, and economic misconduct.

The damage of Arce’s alleged actions amounted to Bs 360 million (around USD$ 52 million), according to officials. 

Born in La Paz in 1963, Arce studied Economics at Universidade Superior de San Andrés (UMSA) and earned a Master’s in the same field at the University of Warwick in the U.K. 

He served for decades under Morales, a former union organizer and coca grower, and in 2019, after Morales was forced to resign amid allegations of electoral fraud, he followed the left-wing leader into a brief exile. 

A year later, amid increasing frustration over the interim President Jeanine Áñez’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Arce returned to Bolivia and won the presidency. 

He lost a bid for reelection this year to center-right Rodrigo Paz amid increasing concerns over the deteriorating security situation in the country. 

Featured image credit:
Image: Former Bolivian president Luis Parce 
Source: Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro has intensified diplomatic pressure on his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, calling for a "general amnesty" and the formation of a "transitional government with the inclusion of all" to resolve Venezuela’s protracted political crisis.

Former Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora was arrested in La Paz on Wednesday afternoon in connection with a major corruption case involving the now-defunct Indigenous Peoples Development Fund (Fondioc).

Honduran President Xiomara Castro has escalated the political crisis surrounding the undecided November 30 presidential election, condemning what she termed "interference" by US President Donald Trump and claiming an "electoral coup" was underway.

THE HAGUE – The Netherlands has issued an urgent warning advising against all travel to Venezuela due to a rapidly deteriorating security situation and rising geopolitical tensions. The Dutch government is also strongly urging Curaçao to avoid Venezuela and Venezuelan waters, citing increased security risks in the Caribbean Sea, including areas close to the island. […]

The post Dutch Government issues another urgent Travel Warning for Venezuela appeared first on New Jetpack Site.

By Lívia Peres Milani

Public Policy and International Relations Institute (IPPRI-Unesp)

National Institute of Science and Technology for the Studies of the United States (INCT-INEU)

President Donald Trump meets with Brazilian President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva during the ASEAN Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

On November 11th, the US announced a withdraw of the additional 40% tariffs it had imposed on many goods of Brazilian origin, including coffee, fruit, and beef. The tariffs, initially imposed on July 30th, are one among multiple dimensions of the current bilateral crisis. Besides commerce, the crisis also has a political dimension, initiated by the recent US decision to invoke the Magnitsky Act – an instrument ostensibly used to sanction corruption and human rights violations – against Alexandre de Moraes, one of the Brazilian Justices responsible for the conviction  of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro over his attempted  coup d’état. While the recent White House decision does not necessarily represent an end of the crisis, it represents a pause of sorts, and so, a timely moment to assess the relationship.  

The imposition of tariffs  

The White House’s initial imposition of tariffs may at first glance make little sense, since it appears to disregard its economic interests. The US enjoys a trade surplus with Brazil, and there is not sufficient production in the US of many of the tariffed products to meet national demand. That is the case for coffee, fruit, and a variety of industrial supplies. However, to understand the source of the crisis, it is necessary to consider its non-commercial dimensions. These include i) the transnational articulation of far-right movements, ii) Big Tech’s economic interests, and iii) US geostrategic considerations.  

Brazilian and US far-right currents are deeply connected. Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, has worked to promote the Brazilian radical right abroad. During his father’s trial, he took a leave from Congress to launch a pressure campaign in the US against the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) and the Lula government. With cooperation from sympathetic US leaders, he lobbied against the Lula administration, claiming that the trial was a “witch hunt,” his father was the victim of political persecution, and asking that the US government impose penalties on the Brazilian authorities responsible. This effort complicated Brazil’s relation with Foggy Bottom and the White House. Much of the language used by the White House to justify the new round of tariffs reflected this lobbying effort. 

Another factor that explains US policy toward Brazil are the interests of Big Tech companies. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court took up a case relating to the responsibilities of social media platforms for user-posted content, ruling that social media platforms should be civilly liable if they failed to remove undemocratic, discriminatory, or crime-inciting content. In response, the US Computer and Communication Industry Association (CCIA) welcomed the imposition of sanctions against Moraes. They argued that the ruling in Brazil violated “free expression,” a strategy often used by Big Tech actors, in conjunction with far-right political leaders, to oppose the regulation of social media in Brazil and elsewhere.  

Finally, larger geostrategic considerations are also in play. The current US administration seeks to reassert US regional and global hegemony. Brazil, for its part, wants to promote its Global South leadership, framed as part of a “multipolar world order.” Promoting the BRICS forum is an important component of Brazil’s approach. The new tariffs were announced a few days after the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, with the US president also threatening to impose tariffs on other countries that associate themselves with the BRICS+ group. This timing illustrates US opposition to the BRICS and pressure on Brazil to align with Western countries instead of its Global South partners. 

Tariffs backfire and the future of US-Brazil relations 

However, the Trump administration’s aggressive strategy against Brazil has not led to the expected results. Brazil’s government managed to control the domestic narrative, framing US tariffs as an attack on Brazilian sovereignty, a strategy supported by public opinion, as polls show. The US approach also became an incentive for Brazil to shore up its relations with Global South leaders. Following the tariffs, Lula reached out to the presidents of China and India to discuss the expansion of trade relations. The tariffs also proved unpopular in the US, and harmful for the White House, since they drove up the cost of coffee and other products. 

These several factors explain Trump’s subsequent decision to change direction. He opened a dialogue with Brazil, first announced at the UN General Assembly, and then confirmed his goodwill in a bilateral meeting in Malaysia. High-level negotiations, and the unpopular inflationary trend in the US, led to the recent removal of tariffs from many Brazilian products. It also signals an end to this most recent period of bilateral crisis. 

Nevertheless, there might still be consequences over the middle and long term. US sanctions communicate to the Brazilian government that, while a global power, the US is not a trustworthy partner, even when it comes to such non-strategic, everyday issues as the export of coffee and fruit. At the same time recent events have helped to cement the transnational partnerships of far-right leaders while also serving to illustrate how these relationships are impacting US government decision-making.  

On the other hand, the recent US decision to alleviate the tariffs is a signal for both partners that the US-Brazil bilateral relationship is an important one. Even if this relationship is imbalanced, given the US’s economy and global influence, the recent tariff episode illustrates that the US cannot simply dictate policy to Brazil, and that the two countries’ economic interdependence can function as a structural constraint upon the political will of far-right political actors.   

By Anjini K. Patel

A recent Telemundo survey reveals increasing pessimism from Latinos in the United States regarding their sense of belonging. Telemundo, in collaboration with Axios and Ipsos, surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 1,100 U.S. Latino adults from October 21 to 27, 2025. Conducted in both English and Spanish, the survey asked a variety of questions about their views on the American Dream, their sense of belonging in the US, and their optimism about the future of the country. Only 44% of respondents described the American Dream as achievable in 2025, a decrease from 61% in 2023. Similarly, 40% of 2025 respondents affirmed that the US makes them feel like they belong, and only 36% felt optimistic about the future of the US. This ​compares​ to 57% and 52%, respectively, in 2022. This survey provides an insight into the feelings of Latinos as they navigate the uncertainty of the current American political landscape.  

The survey also asked respondents about their anxieties related to being Latino/Hispanic in the United States. Compared with 39% in June 2022, 53% of respondents in 2025 reported feeling worried about themselves or a loved one being attacked because of their ethnicity. Two out of three (2/3) Latinos who identify as Republicans say it is a good time to be a Latino in the United States, while only one in ten (1/10) Latino Democrats agree. Seventy-one percent (71%) of those aged between 18 and 29 and 57% of those who are 50 and older, said it is a bad time to be Latino. 

Most respondents indicate that the Democratic Party, as compared to the Republican Party, better represents Latinos, cares more about them, and is better on economic and immigration policy. Additionally, most respondents agreed that the Republican Party takes Latino Americans for granted (39%) as compared to the Democratic Party (22%). Interestingly, more respondents describe the Republican Party as a good option for public safety compared to the Democratic Party, even in the face of increased fear and anxiety over being attacked for being Latino.  

What do experts say? 

Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, discussed this survey on Telemundo. As he states, the data from this poll are unsurprising given the very strong anti-immigrant rhetoric that Donald Trump and the Republican Party campaigned with and continue to use. Rather than focusing on people with violent criminal records, ICE raids and subsequent deportation, often without due process, have detained and deported people with all types of immigration statuses, and thus increased fear among Latinos. Castañeda points to comments by Justice Cavanagh and decisions by the conservative majority in the Supreme Court that made detaining someone based on their appearance and manner of speaking permissible, further blurring the lines between individuals with papers and those who are undocumented. In light of these violent mass deportations and detentions happening in public places, following stereotypes and racial profiling, it is no wonder that many Latinos report a decreased feeling of belonging in the United States. 

Regarding the impacts of these recent events, Dr. Castañeda explains that the feasibility of immigrants achieving the American Dream is decreasing. While people still arrive in the United States with high hopes that “they can come and work hard, send remittances, enjoy a better life, and that their children can go to university, in the United States right now, we see high underemployment rates, and many people are afraid to go to work because of mass raids. We are seeing inflation. It is harder to pay for health insurance, housing, and to save.” In this way, the American Dream is stalled. Since the end of the pandemic, the U.S. had seen a rapid and strong economic recovery, which Dr. Castañeda attributes largely “to the people arriving, especially from Latin America, seeking asylum—Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and others—which increased the US population by 1%, which was very significant.” With the border closing under the current administration and deportations by the dozens of thousands, businesses are unable to grow at the same rate. Dr. Castañeda underlines: “If there’s less migration, it doesn’t mean there will be more jobs for locals. It means there will be less work for everyone, and more people will lose their jobs because the demand for goods and services decreases, businesses cannot hire and grow, and therefore they stop hiring and start firing workers.” 

Additionally, research shows that immigrants are much more likely to start businesses and hire more workers than businesses started by native-born citizens. Therefore, the lack of immigration has a negative impact on the overall economic growth of the United States. As Dr. Castañeda describes, “the fact that Latinos aren’t going to work here means there are fewer nannies. There are fewer construction workers, fewer lawyers, fewer nurses… it also makes many Latinos afraid. They don’t go to the markets, they don’t go to the malls, they are spending less, which has an impact, and many immigrants, seeing that there’s no American Dream anymore, aren’t going to bring their families or many of them are thinking about returning to their country.” 

The decreased sense of belonging by the Latino/Hispanic community has affected numerous outlets that embrace these cultures. Some events honoring Hispanic Heritage Month were canceled. This hurt artists, folk dancers, and musicians, as well as the larger public, who did not have the opportunity to engage with these rich cultural traditions. “Latin restaurants are struggling,” Dr. Castañeda says. “Hundreds are closing because they can’t hire enough people; workers are afraid to go to work because food is so expensive. So, it’s no longer a profitable business for them. The decline of the Latino food business also means fewer dining options, fewer cultural spaces, and fewer opportunities for communities to enjoy Latino cuisine. This is a loss for the United States as a whole.” 

Hope and Resilience in the Face of Uncertainty 

How should the Latino community respond to the ever-changing political landscape in the United States? Dr. Castañeda urges people to “stay calm and continue with their daily lives. We often do this for our children and grandchildren​,​ who, I truly believe, will have a good future. This storm is temporary. This will pass.” Importantly, he points out that nearly 80% of Americans view immigration positively. Mass raids are not popular​, ​and vulnerable​​ communities are​ witnessing​ peaceful protests carried out by citizens who are physically placing their bodies between immigration agents and migrants ​​who are in the process of being​​ detained. The November 2025 elections indicate that a majority of Americans reject the current administration’s extreme policies on immigration and the mismanagement of the economy. The anti-immigrant sentiment is ​driven ​primarily by​​ the federal government under Donald Trump, not the American people. With a hopeful outlook, Dr. Castañeda says, “I think that once this nightmare is over, there will be a greater sense of belonging, so we have to have patience, have faith in your fellow citizens, and I do truly believe that this will pass and the future will be better for U.S.-born Latinos and those immigrants who are able to stay. There will be concrete actions that will tell Latinos that they belong because this is their home.” 

Anjini K. Patel is a Sociology Research & Practice MA candidate at American University (AU) and works as a graduate research assistant at the AU Inequality, Social Justice, & Health Lab. Her research interests include immigration, criminal legal system & housing justice, and artivism & community building.

High-end, luxury travel to Mexico City is made possible with a slew of private and VIP experiences.

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The Mexican writer Octavio Paz was the most prominent Latin American to understand, analyze, interpret and promote India intellectually and culturally  from a Latin American perspective in the twentieth century. He had first hand experience of India as a diplomat posted in New Delhi for seven years. He has written numerous poems and articles on India. His book "Vislumbres de la India" (In the light of India) is regarded as one of the best introductions to India among Latin American thinkers.  Some cultural visitors from the Spanish-speaking world travel around the country with Paz’s book as an ‘intimate guide’. They see India through his eyes, trying to grasp the immense complexity of India. 

The Washington Post has reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave the order to not only blow up a boat in the Caribbean back on September 2, but to kill all the men in them. Hegseth at first refrained from publicly denying the statement, though the Trump administration did. The New York Times is reporting that the boat on September 2 was struck at least twice. Military norms prohibit a second strike on a vessel that has been neutralized or shipwrecked and no longer represents a military threat. That’s because once the military objective is achieved, a second strike means certain death for survivors. Given the gravity of the accusation, it is incumbent on the Secretary of War to provide details of the transcripts of the orders that were given and other specifics. Instead, Hegseth jokes about the incident.

Religion, Hope, and Perseverance

By Tabby Ford

Migration is often a difficult process for those who leave their home country, both physically and emotionally. Whether their migration was motivated by finances, safety, or better career and educational opportunities elsewhere, leaving is not easy. The dangerous conditions of the journey and the uncertainty of what lies ahead deter many and can be overwhelming for those who proceed. For some migrants, religious belief gives them courage and strength to push forward, despite the stressful and hazardous obstacles they may encounter.

Many migrants and asylum seekers attribute their safety and the safety of others in their group to prayer and “God’s blessing” despite the dangerous conditions they faced on their journey to the United States. Especially for those who emigrate from Central and South America, the journey may require travel through multiple countries, often on foot or by car, and obstacles such as rough terrain, gangs, and hostile immigration agents. In some cases, migrants’ faith protects them from the emotional toll of potential danger. As one migrant from Venezuela states, when asked if he felt like he was in danger during his journey north, “No, we weren’t afraid. I mean, we knew we were going with God.” His faith kept him going during the long journey.

Migrants who encountered dangerous obstacles also attribute their successful journey to God. For Arturo, from Venezuela, the journey was incredibly dangerous. He crossed a 60-mile stretch of dense rainforest, known as the Darién Gap, with strangers, enduring hunger and exhaustion. Armed groups are known to extort migrants at gunpoint in this remote area, and those unable to pay sometimes never return. “We saw other people being kidnapped… thank God they didn’t catch us,” he recounted, describing the terror of running through the forest with a child in his arms and the relief of making it through. Eduardo, from El Salvador, recounts being shot at by immigration authorities at one point in his journey and how many members of his group survived due to their prayers; “Thank God, praying to God and the Virgin Mary, we hid [from] them … God already performed the miracle.” For one Honduran immigrant, Alma, her migration journey was shaped largely by religion. While she was born in Honduras, she was brought to El Salvador as a teen to attend a high school run by Catholic missionaries. Her religion, education, and physical location have long been intertwined. Although she has needed to move a lot and now must adjust to living in yet another new country, she says, “things happen for a reason. I always say, sometimes you feel lost, but God is showing you something… You gotta, you know, go forward.” She attributes her prayers and God’s plan to where she is in life, especially her education and career. For many immigrants, even though their faith and belief in God did not shield them from life-threatening conditions and the challenges of immigrating, their faith fueled their courage, guiding them along the way.

Houses of worship often play an integral part in assisting migrants, especially in the first few months after arrival, by providing a space for community building and cultural events. They also become sources of mutual aid. For instance, this can be seen in local Mosques and Ukrainian churches, where Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, respectively, utilize resources. For example, Oleg, from Ukraine, reports a lack of restaurants that serve Ukrainian food in the region he settled in. Despite this lack of places to go out and eat Ukrainian food, he says that “usually, [he] can get something from the church.” Although he is able to make Ukrainian food at home, the local Ukrainian church is Oleg’s only option for connecting with the wider Ukrainian community over a meal. Another example is Latif, a refugee from Afghanistan, who also utilized resources from local churches and mosques. In his efforts to further his education in the United States, he learned that a local mosque “had some funds to help some refugees get an education.” He used these funds to enroll in an IT certificate program, which helped him find a job that aligned with his career goals.

In addition to getting material resources from local religious groups and congregations, many migrants also rely on faith in God’s plan to get through the difficult transition and settling process. Once in the United States, religious migrants use their belief system as motivation to create a new life in their new community. They are able to leverage their belief systems for community engagement and to establish a sense of belonging. Many migrants also report celebrating religious holidays in local congregations and communities with similar cultural backgrounds or with other immigrants from their home country. Faith helps to form the lens in which people see the world through. As one Mexican woman states, “I practice my faith, […] I’m Catholic, so I ground myself a lot in just the human dignity coming from something beyond me.” Arturo, an immigrant from Venezuela embodies this mindset well, as his faith has helped him in adjusting to his new life and feeling a sense of belonging. As he states, “We are all equal as the children of God, we are all equal.” His belief system has given him an optimistic attitude about his new home and how he has been received.

Although it is taking him time to learn English, Arturo also thanks God for his ability to pick up enough English to get by in his work as a delivery driver and for his work permit allowing him to make money to send home: “Right now at this moment thank God at least I have the work permit, I have my partner and I am about to find a way to get my papers together.” He implies that process of finalizing his immigration papers will involve lots of time, money, and effort, but is hopeful and thankful to God for where he is and that he at least has a work permit. Similarly, Silvia, who immigrated from El Salvador in her 20s, implies that God’s work helped her in finding a job when she first arrived in the United States, saying “It was almost not difficult for me, thank God, because a lady gave me a job who had a business selling pupusas.” Arturo and Silvia both thank God for where they are in life now and have trust in their religious beliefs to carry them where they need to be.

For many people who undertake the process of immigration to the United States, their faith and religious beliefs are as essential to their journey and adaptation as it is to every other aspect of their life. Religion plays an important role in maintaining hope and resilience throughout the danger and uncertainty of both the journey and the destination. Once arrived, religious communities, positive outlooks, and faith in a bright future help immigrants settle and feel like they belong in their new home country.

Tabby Ford is a Research Assistant at The Immigration Lab and a Sociology Research & Practice MA Candidate at American University

Edited by Quinn Pierson, Sociology Research and Practice MA Candidate at American University, Ernesto Castañeda, Director, and Chris Belden, Research Assistant at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab.

In October of 2025, the Michelin tire company’s travel division announced which hotels in South America would be awarded a “Michelin Key” in their very first round of handing them out. Apparently our Luxury Latin America reviewers could have saved them some time with which places to consider, especially in Peru. All of the...

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Caracas, December 2, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Delaware District Judge Leonard P. Stark has approved the sale of Venezuela’s US-based refiner CITGO to Amber Energy, an affiliate of Paul Elliott Singer’s Vulture Management Fund @ a discount price of US $5.9 billion. Stark issued a sale order Friday to close a protracted process that saw multinational […]

The post USA authorizes Plunder Sale of Venezuela’s CITGO to broker Vulture Fund Elliott appeared first on New Jetpack Site.

The US military tensions have triggered a crisis in Venezuela’s air connectivity. On Wednesday, the Venezuelan government revoked flight concessions for Iberia, TAP, Turkish Airlines, Avianca, Latam Colombia and Gol, accusing them of joining the actions of terrorism promoted by the USA. Maiquetia International Airport in Caracas operated on Thursday with only seven scheduled departures […]

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President Trump, true to form, misses the real lesson from the tragic shooting of two national guardsmen in Washington. Trump announced that in light of what happened he will call on the Department of Defense (that’s still its official name) to call up 500 more National Guardsmen to Washington. The refugee program is also being revamped in order to avoid incidents like this from happening in the future. Just hours after the incident, the Trump administration announced it had stopped processing immigration applications from Afghanistan. The shooter, Rahmanulla Lakanwal, is an Afghan who was trained by the CIA to fight the Taliban in one of their strongholds. Apparently, Lakanwal acted in reaction to the gutting of much of the refugee program.

If you come to the bottom of Chile, you’ll probably take a boat ride or two at some point, getting up close to geographic features you don’t see back home, like Patagonia glaciers that date back to the last Ice Age and if you’re lucky, a few pengins too. For my travels as the...

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With US warships stationed off Venezuela’s coast and a new regional right-wing bloc forming under Washington’s tutelage, the Western hemisphere is entering a volatile phase. Yet today’s confrontation unfolds in a world very different from the one that allowed the US to dictate regional politics with little resistance in the past. China’s rise, the return […]

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When Trump assumed the presidency in 2025, the Pink Tide governments in Latin America were losing ground. The approval rating of Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reached the lowest of his three presidential terms while that of Colombia’s Gustavo Petro was a mere 34 percent. Furthermore, in the wake of the highly contested results of the July 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro found himself isolated in the region.

Now, less than a year later, the political landscape has shifted. Trump’s antics such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico, his weaponization of tariffs, and military actions in the Caribbean and Pacific have revitalized Pink Tide governments and the Left in general. Latin America has reacted to Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine with a surge of nationalist sentiment, mass demonstrations, and denunciations from political figures across most of the spectrum—including some on the center-right.

While the United States appears as an unreliable and declining hegemon, China positions itself as a champion of national sovereignty and a voice of reason in matters of international trade and investment. When Trump slapped a 50% tariff on most Brazilian imports in July, the Chinese stepped in to help fill the gap for the nation’s all-important soybean exports.

Lula versus Trump

Different scenarios are playing out in different nations, but with similar results: the strengthening of the Left and in some instances the weakening of the Right. One case is Brazil and Mexico, where Lula and President Claudia Sheinbaum have combined firmness with discretion, in contrast to Petro’s confrontational rhetoric.

In July, Lula responded defiantly to Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Brazil through punitive tariffs designed to secure the release of his ally and former president Jair Bolsonaro, jailed for involvement in coup and assassination plots. Unlike other heads of state, Lula refused to reach out to Trump, saying “I’m not going to humiliate myself.” Instead, Lula declared “Brazil would not be tutored by anyone,” at the same time that he recalled the 1964 Brazilian coup as a previous instance of U.S. intervention.

The face-off sparked mass pro-government demonstrations throughout the country which far outnumbered those called by the Right demanding the freeing of Bolsonaro. Lula’s supporters blamed the Right for the tariffs, and particularly Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo who campaigned for them after moving to Washington. Lula called Bolsonaro a "traitor" and said he should face another trial for being responsible for the so-called “Bolsonaro’s tax.” As a sign that Trump’s tariffs were a game changer and a boost for the Left, the 80-year old Lula announced he would run for reelection in October 2026, as his popularity reached the 50 percent mark.

Some analysts faulted Lula for having failed to use his 30-minute videoconference with Trump on October 6 to condemn Washington’s gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean. According to this interpretation of the call, Lula displayed naivete and gutlessness by combining “concern and accommodation with US imperialism” and believing that “negotiations will be guided by a ‘win-win logic.’”

In fact, Lula has spoken out against the U.S. military presence as a “factor of tension” in the Caribbean, which he calls a “zone of peace.” Lula, though, undoubtedly could have gone further, as urged by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) – which backed Lula’s last presidential bid – by explicitly declaring solidarity with Venezuela.

But Lula can hardly be accused of being submissive in his dealings with Trump. Venezuela’s former Vice Minister for North America Carlos Ron told me that both Lula and Sheinbaum have shown that they “know how to handle Trump” as they have “gotten much of what they wanted.” Indeed, at the same time that Trump retreated from his tariff threats toward both nations, he took to praising the two heads of state.

A United Front in the Making

In Brazil and elsewhere in the region, a new alignment is emerging, drawing in forces both to the right and the left of the government in reaction to Washington’s posture. One notable example was Lula’s appointment of homeless workers movement activist and former presidential candidate Guilherme Boulos as Minister of the Presidency in October. Boulos belongs to the Socialism and Liberty Party, a leftist split-off from Lula’s Workers’ Party that endorsed Lula’s 2022 presidential candidacy but had ruled out holding positions in his government.

Boulos, who was instrumental in organizing the recent protests against Washington’s tariff hikes, spoke of the significance of his designation: "Lula gave me the mission to help put the government on the street… and listening to popular demands." His appointment signals a leftist turn in which, in the words of the Miami-based CE Noticias Financiera, “Lula showed that he is going into the 2026 election ready for war. A war in his own style, using the social movements.”

 Venezuela is another example of political actors across much of the political spectrum converging on the need for a broad front to oppose U.S. aggression in the region. No other Pink Tide government has faced such a rapid succession of regime change and destabilization attempts as Venezuela under the Chavista (followers of Hugo Chávez) government of Maduro. The government’s response to these challenges has at times deviated from democratic norms and includes concessions to business interests, drawing harsh criticism from both moderate and more radical sectors of the Left.

One leader in the latter category is Elías Jaua, formerly a member of Chávez’s inner circle, whose leftist positions on economic policy and internal party democracy left him marginalized within the Chavista movement. In the face of the U.S. military threat in the Caribbean, Jaua has closed ranks with Maduro and decried the “psychological war” being waged against the President. He went on to say that in this critical moment it is necessary “to place the tranquility of the people above any ideological, political, or ulterior interest,” adding “the Homeland comes first.”

Other long-standing political figures who have supported Maduro’s call for a national dialogue to face the U.S. threat – while not letting Maduro off the hook for alleged undemocratic practices –   include some on the center and even center-right of the political spectrum, including former presidential candidates Henrique Capriles, Manuel Rosales and Antonio Ecarri.

Others are moderate leftists who held important posts under Chávez and/or belonged to the moderate left party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in the 1990s. One of the latter is Enrique Ochoa Antich who presented a petition signed by 27 leading anti-Maduro moderates that stated “it is disheartening to see an extremist sector of the opposition” supporting sanctions and other U.S. actions. Ochoa Antich proposed a dialogue with government representatives “over the best way to foment national unity and defend sovereignty,” while adding “being realistic, I’m not going to ask that the party-state, which is the core of the Chavista project, be abolished.”

This stance, which views Maduro as a partner in resisting U.S. intervention, stands in sharp contrast to that of the Communist Party (PCV), which broke with his government in 2020 over its business-friendly orientation and its sidelining of sectors of the Left. In the same breath that it denounces imperialist aggression, the PCV points to the “authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of Maduro’s government.”  While the PCV’s criticisms are worthy of debate, the party’s uncompromising hostility toward Maduro undermines efforts to face U.S. aggression. Indeed, the PCV’s position – supporting the Cuban government while denouncing Venezuela’s as undemocratic – appears inconsistent.

In Argentina, Trump came to the aid of the Right in what will most likely be a Pyrrhic victory. On the eve of the October 2025 legislative elections, Trump offered to bail out the Argentine economy to the tune of $40 billion but only under the condition that the party of right-wing president Javier Milei emerge victorious, which is precisely what happened. Trump’s blackmail was denounced as such by politicians from Peronist leaders linked to former Pink Tide governments to centrists who had been among their most vocal critics. Facundo Manes, leader of the centrist Radical Civic Union, was an example of the latter, declaring “the extorsion advances.” Meanwhile on the streets of Buenos Aires, protest banners denouncing Milei were marked by anti-U.S. slogans “Yankee go home” and “Milei is Trump’s mule,” as well as the burning of a U.S. flag.

This convergence around the need to confront Trump’s threats and actions creates an opportunity for progressives across the continent to unite. The call for such unity was taken up by the São Paulo Forum, a body that brings together over 100 Latin American leftist organizations that Lula helped found in 1990. At the outset of Trump’s first administration in 2017, the Forum drafted the document “Consensus for Our America” as a response to the neoliberal Washington Consensus and the escalation of U.S. interventionism in the hemisphere.

At the same time that it defended the pluralism of progressive movements and avoided the term “socialism,” the Consensus document foresaw the drafting of a more concrete set of reforms and goals. The expected step forward, however, never materialized. More recently, the Cuban ideologue Roberto Regalado lamented that, despite the urgent need for unity, “far from consolidating and expanding, the ‘Consensus for Our America’ has languished.”

Trump and the Latin American Right

Much of the Latin American right has tied its fortunes to President Trump. The right-wing presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay are Trump followers, as are Bolsonaro, the Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast and former president Álvaro Uribe in Colombia. In Venezuela, right-wing opposition leader María Corina Machado dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.

Machado’s fellow Venezuelan rightist Leopoldo López co-founded the National Liberty Congress in 2022 dedicated to regime change in nations that happen to be considered adversaries by Washington. The idea is in line with the idea of an International of the Right promoted by Trump strategist Steve Bannon, among others. Bannon founded The Movement in 2016 to unite the European Right, but it has been largely snubbed by much of the continent’s right-wing.

The “internationalism” on the right is even less likely to flourish in Latin America. While in the U.S., Trump plays on patriotism – or a bogus form of it – in the case of Latin America, nationalist sentiment and support for Trump are oxymorons, specifically when it comes to tariffs, threats of military invasion and the brandishing of the Monroe Doctrine. In Venezuela, for instance, Machado’s popularity has declined and her opposition movement fractured as a result of popular repudiation of Trump’s policies.

In the U.S., Trump plays to his fanatic supporters while his popularity steadily declines. In Latin America the same is occurring, with the difference being that his popularity couldn’t be much lower than it is. Pew Research Center reports that just 8 percent of Mexicans have “confidence” in Trump.

Trump has contributed to a major shift in the Latin America’s political landscape now marked by political polarization and leftist inroads. In many countries, the Left—which for decades remained on the sidelines—has become a major point of reference, rallying around the banners of national sovereignty, if not, anti-imperialism.

In Chile, a Communist, Jeannette Jara, received a surprising 60.5 percent of the vote in the primaries to represent the main anti-rightist bloc in the upcoming presidential elections. In spite of the cautious tone of her discourse, Jara addressed Trump, saying “No U.S. soldiers will enter. Chile is to be respected, and so is its sovereignty.” In Ecuador, despite harsh repression, the followers of ex-Pink Tide president Rafael Correa have come close to winning the last three presidential elections. And in Colombia, Petro has reinvigorated his movement’s base through his forceful denunciations of U.S. military operations and by leading a drive, begun in October, to secure two million signatures for a national constituent assembly.

Polarization often refers to a scenario in which the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum gain ascendancy. That is not what is happening in Latin America – at least on the left. Instead, there is a convergence of progressives of different political stripes both domestically and among Pink Tide governments in their opposition to Trump and all that he represents. The challenge now is to translate this convergence into organized forms of unity – through united fronts at the national level as well as in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other regional bodies.  

This article was originally posted by Jacobin.

Steve Ellner is an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over forty years. He is the author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict and the Chávez Phenomenon. 

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/trump-latin-america-left-opposition

Trump just announced, “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out.” Just about two weeks ago, Trump deauthorized Richard Grenell, who was his special envoy who said that no military incursion was being planned and that talks with Maduro were continuing. Now Trump says he’d like to continue talks with Maduro, even though Maduro all along has publicly indicated that he is open to talks and negotiations.

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By Cynthia McClintock*

Photographs from the early hours of the Generation Z protest in Peru, 2025
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Since 2021, democratic backsliding has been severe in Peru, and Peruvians are furious. Peru’s Congress is loathed. In 2025, the approval rating for Peru’s President, Dina Boluarte, fell below 3 percent and she became the most unpopular president on the planet. Finally, in October, Boluarte was impeached on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity”; it was the fifth time since 2018 that a president had been impeached or had resigned upon imminent impeachment.  Per Peru’s constitution, Boluarte was succeeded by the Congress Speaker, José Jerí. Presidential and Congressional elections are scheduled for early 2026.

Why are Peruvians so angry? What does their anger mean for the 2026 elections (with the Congressional elections and the first round of the presidential elections scheduled for April 12 and a likely runoff on June 7)? Is it possible that the elections can lead to a democratic recovery?

Why are Peruvians So Angry?

The key reason is not “the economy stupid,” but an escalation of organized crime and the perception that Peru’s political leaders are part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Between 2019 and 2024 the number of homicides doubled and the number of reported extortions jumped sixfold. Extortion is hurting huge swathes of lower-middle class Peruvians. Transport workers have been particularly vulnerable; so far in 2025, approximately 50 bus drivers have been killed for refusing to make extortion payments.

The reasons behind the crime escalation are various. Demand for cocaine remains high and, over the last decade, Peru’s coca cultivation has increased. As the price for gold jumped, so did illegal gold mining. Peru’s gangs are fragmented—and therefore hard to track—and they have developed nefarious new strategies such as using WhatsApp for extortion.

But, Peruvians believe, the reasons also include the government’s complicity. In part because illicit operators have provided campaign finance, in 2024 approximately half of Peru’s legislators were under criminal investigation; these same legislators have passed laws to impede investigations and prosecutions. Boluarte herself is under investigation for various crimes, including illicit enrichment. She sported a Rolex watch priced at $19,000, despite no evident financial means for such extravagance.

Further, from the start large percentages of Peruvians did not deem Boluarte a legitimate president. In 2021-2022, Boluarte was Vice President under President Pedro Castillo. Leading a far-left party in fraught elections during COVID, Castillo was an accidental, unprepared president. He was virulently opposed by the dominant right-wing forces in Congress, in particular Fuerza Popular, the party of Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori. As Vice President, Boluarte had said that, if Castillo were impeached, she too would resign, triggering new elections. However, in the event of Castillo’s December 2022 impeachment, Boluarte stayed on, despite massive protests and ubiquitous calls for new elections.

As President, Boluarte appeared indifferent to Peruvians’ concerns. Between December 2022 and February 2023, 49 civilian protesters were killed by the security forces. Boluarte’s response was support for an amnesty law. And, amid an October 2025 transport workers’ strike, Boluarte’s advice to Peruvians worried about crime was that they should not open text messages from unfamiliar people—placing blame for crimes on the victims.

What Does Peruvians’ Anger Mean for the 2026 Elections?

Peruvians’ anger spells difficulties for its incumbent parties and advantages for parties that can claim an “outsider” mantle. Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular is widely considered the dominant party in the Congress, and it will struggle against this perception. Its presidential candidate, Fujimori, is running for the fourth time and is likely to have worn out her welcome.

Not surprisingly, demands for an “iron fist” against crime are strong. The current presidential frontrunner is Renovación Popular’s Rafael López Aliaga (aka “Porky”), a Trump-like far-rightist who placed third in the 2021 election and was subsequently elected Lima’s mayor. López Aliaga promises a hardline strategy against organized crime, including implementing similar imprisonment policies to those of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. But Renovación Popular holds the fourth largest number of seats in Congress and it will be difficult for López Aliaga to claim an “outsider” mantle.

A candidate likely to claim an “outsider” mantle is Mario Vizcarra, running as a proxy for his brother, former President Martín Vizcarra. As President in 2018-2020, Vizcarra confronted the dominant parties in Peru’s Congress, building his popularity but ultimately catalyzing his impeachment. After a strong showing in Peru’s 2021 legislative elections, he was disqualified from holding elected office for ten years. Yet, Vizcarra’s government was far from without fault. There are other candidates, including the popular former clown, Carlos Álvarez, who could seize the “outsider” mantle.

Can Peru’s 2026 Elections Lead to Democratic Recovery?

The challenges to Peru’s elections are serious. In recent years Fuerza Popular and other illiberal parties in Peru’s Congress have allied to skew the electoral playing field in their favor.  Interim President Jerí is, of course, new to his position and his possible impact on the elections is unclear. (His first-month record was better than was first expected.)

As elsewhere in Latin America, Peru’s illiberal parties have strategized to achieve the disqualification of viable candidates. As indicated, this strategy is currently being used against Vizcarra; it could also be used against a rising new candidate.

Peru’s illiberal parties have calculated that a plethora of candidates is in their interest. Currently, 39 party lists are registered. Such a head-spinning number is problematic for journalists trying to cover the campaign and problematic for voters trying to identify their preferred candidate, especially because pre-election polls are more likely to be inaccurate. Yet, Peru’s Congress cancelled a provision for a preliminary round of voting, in which parties would have been required to secure 1.5 percent of the vote in order to qualify for the “first round.”

Still, there are grounds for optimism. The massive protests of recent years have shown that Peruvians want their political views heard. Peruvians recognize the importance of honest, capable leadership and want to find it.

*Cynthia McClintock is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University.

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The U.S. military buildup along South America’s northern rim is, Washington insists, aimed at Narco-Terrorists. A growing chorus of analysts aren’t convinced; they suspect what the Trump administration is really after is regime change in Venezuela. Nicolás Maduro, the country’s leader since 2013, is taking no chances. In recent weeks he responded to the Trump […]

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 Nicaragua, the “Republic of Poets” has become a “Republic of Clandestine Poets.”

Itamar Vieira is a young and upcoming Brazilian writer. Crooked Plow (Torto Arado) is his first novel. He has earlier written a short story collection.

While the Spanish and Portuguese colonized Latin America, the British have played a significant role in slavery, wars of independence, politics, lending, investment, railways and football in the region. These have been brought out by the author of the book who has done extensive research and travelled through the South American countries which had been impacted by the British. 

The Brazilian Supreme Court has convicted (on 11 September) and sentenced ex-President Bolsonaro for his crimes of coup attempt, plot to assassinate political and judicial leaders and incitement of mobs to destroy the buildings of the Supreme Court, the Presidential palace, and the Congress, after he lost the elections in 2022. The court also sentenced seven other military and political accomplices of Bolsonaro. Earlier, the court had convicted more than 600 far right extremist followers of Bolsonaro who had vandalized the iconic government buildings of Brasila. 

Bolsonaro has ignited a new gun culture in Brazil. His three politician sons have been fierce proponents of expanding gun ownership through policy proposals and social media posts. Eduardo Bolsonaro has spoken admiringly of the Second Amendment in the United States. He has lobbied to make the Brazilian market more attractive to foreign arms manufacturers, which he said would lower prices and provide gun buyers with more choices. Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator, made the promotion of gun manufacturing in Brazil the focus of his first project in the legislature. During his presidency,  Bolsonaro had loosened gun control to make more firearms available easily to more of his followers. Gun ownership rocketed by 98% during Bolsonaro’s first year as President.  Weapons newly available to the public now included semi-automatic rifles, previously only available to the army. In April 2020, Bolsonaro revoked decrees that existed to facilitate the tracing and identification of weapons and ammunition. One week later, he tripled the quantity of ammunition available for purchase by civilians, saying on record in a ministerial meeting, that he wanted “everyone” to carry guns.. Bolsonaro's signature favorite pose is gun shooting gesture. Bolsonaro reaffirmed in his inaugural speech, “Good citizens deserve the means to defend themselves through gun ownership”. His supporters in the Congress cheered and applauded him by pointing their fingers in the shape of a gun. 

Our present, however, is one of spiraling crises. Since the financial crash of 2008, the economic crisis converges with ecological collapse and the exhaustion of liberal democratic forms, reaching civilizational dimensions. In this context, the pandemic laid bare how, instead of disappearing, the divide between the center and periphery of the world system is as sharp and as meaningful as ever. 

With neoliberal hegemony fractured, other ways of thinking and practicing politics have reemerged from their intellectual exiles. Among these, dependency theory stands out as an original and revolutionary contribution of Latin American critical thought, offering tools for understanding uneven capitalist development and imperialism both historically and today. For an introduction to this unique framework, we turn to Dr. Jaime Osorio. 

When a military coup d’état in Chile overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, Osorio had already been accepted to begin his doctoral studies at the University of Chile’s Center for Socio-Economic Studies (CESO, in Spanish). The dictatorship’s advance brought him instead to Mexico, where today he ranks as Distinguished Professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in Xochimilico and as Researcher Emeritus by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). He is the author of many books, including Fundamentos del análsis social. La realidad social y su conocimiento and Sistema mundial. Intercambio Desigual y renta de la tierra. 

In this interview, Osorio speaks with Jacobin contributing editor Hilary Goodfriend about the Marxist school of dependency theory, its origins and principles, and its present-day applications.  

Dependency theory and its Marxist strain emerged from debates and dialogues about development, underdevelopment, and imperialism in the context of decolonization and the national liberation struggles of the twentieth century. What were the main positions and strategies in dispute, and how did Marxist dependency theorists position themselves in these arguments?

At the theoretical level, Marxist dependency theory [TMD, in Spanish] is the result of the Cuban Revolution’s victory in 1959. Latin American Marxism was moved by the island’s gesture. All the main theses about the nature of Latin American societies and the character of revolution came into question. 

A little over a decade after that event, which sharpened the debates, TMD reached maturity. In those years, some of the proposals that fed theories of dependency emphasized the role of trade relations, such as the “deterioration of the terms of trade” thesis put forward by the [Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean] CEPAL, which referred to the cheapening of primary goods against the rising prices of industrial products in the world market.

Orthodox Marxists highlighted the presence of internal “obstacles” that impeded development, like idle terrain in the hands of landowners, which also blocked the expansion of wage relations. Generally, in these proposals, capitalism wasn’t to blame. In fact, it was necessary to accelerate its spread so that its inherent contradictions would heighten. Only then could a socialist revolution be proposed, according to this stage-based perspective prevalent in the Communist Parties.

For the Cepalinos, their horizon was achieving advanced capitalism, which would be possible by means of a process of industrialization. This would allow the region to cease exporting primary goods and food products and importing secondary goods, which would now be produced internally, sparking technological development and stemming the outflow of resources. 

In both proposals, the industrial bourgeoisie had a positive role to play, be it in the medium or long term.

For Marxist dependency theory, the region’s so-called economic “backwardness” was a result of the formation and expansion of the capitalist world system, whose course produced development and underdevelopment simultaneously. Therefore, these divergent economic histories are not independent processes, nor are they connected tangentially. From this perspective, the fundamental theoretical and historical problem required explaining the processes that generated both development and underdevelopment in the same movement. 

This problem demanded, furthermore, a response that accounted for how this process is reproduced over time since civilization and barbarism are constantly made anew by the world system. 

Many of the acclaimed Marxist dependency theorists—Ruy Mauro Marini, Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Bambirra—share a trajectory of flight from South American dictatorships and exile in Mexico. You were also subject to this forced displacement. How did these experiences of revolution and counterrevolution influence the construction of TMD?

Four names stand out in the development of TMD: André Gunder Fank, Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Vambirra, and Ruy Mauro Marini. The first was a German-U.S. economist and the other three Brazilians, who shared readings and discussions in Brazil before the 1964 coup in that country. Subsequently, they found each other in Chile in the late 1960s in the Center for Socio-Economic Studies, until the military coup of 1973. During this period—at least in the case of the Brazilians—they produced their principals works with regards to TMD. I had the fortune of meeting and working with Marini in Mexico in the mid-1970s, before his return to Brazil. 

TMD offers no concessions to the local ruling classes, holding them responsible for the prevailing conditions in which they manage to reap enormous profits in collusion with international capitals, despite [international] value transfers. For this reason, it was hard for these theorists to find spaces for their knowledge in the academic world.

The 1973 military coup in Chile meant that the principal creators of TMD appeared on the search lists of the military forces and their intelligence apparatus. And this coup in Chile, which was preceded by the coup in Brazil in 1964, was followed by many more in the Southern part of the continent, which dispersed and disbanded working groups and closed important spaces in those societies. 

At the same time, this long counterrevolutionary phase, which was not limited to military governments, favored sweeping transformations in the social sciences, where neoliberal theories and methodological individualism came to reign supreme. TMD emerged in an exceptional period of recent history. However, subsequently and in general—saving certain moments and countries in the region—ideal conditions for its development and dissemination have not existed.

In his classic work, The Dialectics of Dependency, Marini defines dependency as a “relation of subordination between formally independent nations, in whose framework the relations of production of the subordinate nation are modified or recreated in order to ensure the expanded production of dependency.” What are the mechanisms of this expanded production, and how have they changed since Marini formulated his proposal in the 1970s?

When we talk about the processes generated by dependent capitalism, the “dependent” qualifier isn’t redundant. We’re talking about another way of being capitalist. That is to say that in the world system, diverse forms of capitalism coexist and are integrated, and they feed off each other and deepen their particular forms within the global unity of capital. 

The heterogeneity of the system can be explained, then, not by the backwardness of some economies, not as prior states [of development], not as deficiencies.  Each constitutes its full, mature form of capitalism possible in this system. 

In this way, with the stroke of a pen, TMD destroyed the hopes of the developmentalists, who supposed that the dependent economies could achieve higher states of welfare and development within this order constituted by capital. For them, it was just a matter of taking advantage of windows that regularly open. There is nothing in the prevailing dynamic to suggest that things are moving in that direction. To the contrary, what is produced and continues to emerge is the “development of underdevelopment,” so long as capitalist social relations prevail. 

The gap between underdeveloped and developed capitalism, or between imperialist and dependent capitalism is ever widening. Dependency deepens and more acute modalities are generated. In a world in which digital capitalism is gaining ground—the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, as an example—this isn’t hard to understand. 

Experiences like that of South Korea can’t be repeated at will. They are, instead, exceptions to the rule. Why did the IMF cut off and suffocate the Argentine economy and not extend its hand like imperialist capital did for South Korea after the 1952 war on the peninsula? It was the latter’s exceptional position in a strategic space, which was disrupted by the triumph of Mao’s revolution in China and the need to construct a barrier to prevent the expansion of socialism in Korea, that turned on the faucet of enormous resources, at least for Japan and the United States, and put blinders on those defenders of democracy and the free market when South Korea was governed by a succession of military dictatorships that ferociously applied state intervention, not the free market, to define plans and programs to define priorities for investment and loans. 

Today, all a government in the dependent world has to do is establish some rules for foreign capital, and the whole clamor and propaganda of transnational media demand that communism be stopped, impeding international loans, blocking access to markets, and seeking to suffocate those alleged subversives. 

The concept of superexploitation as a mechanism by which dependent capitalists compensate for their subordinate insertion in the international division of labor is perhaps Marini’s most original and polemic proposal. Some Marxists, for example, protest the possibility of the systematic violation of the law of value. This is a theme that you take up in your debate with the Argentinian researcher Claudio Katz. How do you define superexploitation, and why, or in what terms, do you defend its validity today?

With Marini’s short book, The Dialectics of Dependency, whose central body was written in 1972 and would be published in 1973, TMD reaches its point of greatest maturity. We can synthesize the nucleus of Marini’s thesis in the question: How is the reproduction of a capitalism that regularly transfers value to imperialist economies possible?

It’s possible because in dependent capitalism, a particular form of exploitation is imposed which means that capital isn’t just appropriating surplus value, but also part of workers’ consumption fund, which ought to correspond to their salaries, in order to transfer it to their accumulation fund. That’s what the category of superexploitation accounts for. If all capital eventually ends up being unpaid labor, in dependent capitalism, all capital is unpaid labor and the appropriated life fund [of the working class].

Marini’s response is theoretically and politically brilliant, because it allows us to explain the reasons for the multiplication of misery and the devastation of the workers in the dependent world, but also the reasons for which capital is unable to establish stable forms of domination in these regions, regularly expelling huge contingents of workers from its civilizational promises, thrusting them into barbarism and converting them into contingents that resist, revolt, and rise up against the projects of the powerful. 

Superexploitation has consequences at all levels of Latin American societies. For now, we can emphasize that it accompanies the formation of economies oriented to foreign markets. Following the processes of independence in the nineteenth century, and under the guidance of local capitals, the region’s economies advanced on the basis of exports, initially of primary materials and foodstuffs, to which we can add, recently, the production and assembly of luxury industrial goods like cars, televisions, state-of-the-art cell phones—products equally distant from the general consumption needs of most of the working population. This is compatible with the dominant modality of exploitation, which seriously impacts salaries, reducing workers’ consumption power and reducing their participation in the formation of a dynamic internal market. 

It’s relevant here to consider a significant difference with capitalism in the developed world. There, as capitalism advanced in the nineteenth century, it faced the dilemma that in order to keep expanding, which implied the multiplication of the mass of goods and products, it would need to incorporate workers into consumption. That was achieved by paying salaries with the purchasing power for basic goods such as clothing, shoes, utensils, and home furnishings. This balance was accomplished by introducing improved production techniques, which reduced the pressure to extend the working day by multiplying the mass of products thrown into the market. From there, we can understand the weight of relative surplus value in developed capitalism. 

But in Latin America, things worked differently. Nineteenth-century capitalism didn’t see the need to create markets, because they had been available since the colonial period in the imperialist centers. In addition, English capitalism’s takeoff increased the demand for primary materials and foodstuffs. For this reason, there wasn’t any hurry to change the kind of use values and products put on the market. They continued to be foodstuffs and primary goods. In this way, the emergent capitalism in our region was under no pressure to do something qualitatively different. The mass of salaried laborers expanded, but they don’t comprise the principal demand for the goods being produced, which was in Europe, the United States, and Asia.  

Through their insertion in the world market and when it comes time to sell products, Latin American economies transfer value [abroad] for the simple reason that the capitals that operate here have lower compositions and productivities than the capitals in economies that spend more on new machinery, equipment, and technology, allowing them greater productivity and the ability to appropriate value created in other parts of the world. This process is called unequal exchange. 

It's important to note that unequal exchange occurs in the market, at the moment of the purchase and sale of commodities. Apart from their low organic composition, this concept doesn’t tell us much about how these commodities were produced, and above all, what allows for a capitalist process to be reproduced over time in such conditions. That’s where super-exploitation comes in. 

That is the secret that makes dependent capitalism viable. And this calls all the more attention to the errors of people like Claudio Katz, who have formulated proposals that try to eliminate this concept and do so, furthermore, with grotesque arguments, like that Marx never mentioned it in Capital – he refers to [superexploitaiton] many times, in a variety of ways – because that would imply a dilution or a direct attack on his theoretical proposition since capitalism can’t annihilate its workforce. 

I’m not going to repeat those debates with Katz. I will simply reiterate that Marx’s Capital is a book that is central to the study of capitalism and its contradictions. But no one can claim that it accounts for everything, or that capitalism, in its spread over time, can’t exhibit theoretical or historical novelties of any kind. That is a religious reading, but Capital is not a sacred text. Such a position, furthermore, is an attack on a central dimension of Marxism as a theory able to explain not only what has existed, but also that which is new. For this reason, the only orthodoxy Marxism can claim is its mode of reflection.

It's also argued that the spread of superexploitation to the central economies following globalized neoliberal restructuring invalidates its character as a process unique to dependent capitalism. 

Superexploitation can be present anywhere that capital operates, be that in the developed or underdeveloped world, just like forms of relative surplus value and absolute surplus value. Of course, there is superexploitation in Brazil and Guatemala, just as there is in Germany and South Korea. 

But that’s not the problem. What’s relevant is to elucidate the weight of these forms of exploitation, which can be present in any capitalist space, in capital’s reproduction. So the central issue is different, and so are the economic, social, and political consequences. 

Setting aside periods of crisis, when the most brutal forms of exploitation can be exacerbated everywhere, can capitalism operate in the medium and long term without a market that generates salaries, or with extremely low salaries? Something like if, in Germany, the average salary of the Armenians and Turks was generalized for the entire working population, or if the salaries of Mexican and Central American workers in the United States were predominant there. I don’t think so. 

Finally, what tools or perspectives does Marxist dependency theory offer us in the face of today’s crises?

In its eagerness to deal with the acute and prolonged capitalist crisis, capital in every region seeks to accentuate forms of exploitation, including superexploitation. It seeks, once again, to reduce rights and benefits. With the war in Ukraine, it has found a good excuse to justify the increase in the price of food, housing, and energy, and its shameless return to the use of fuels that intensify pollution and environmental barbarism, as well as the increase in military budgets at the expense of wages and jobs. 

The great imperial powers expect the subordination of economies and states to their decisions in periods of this sort. But the current crisis is also accelerating the crisis of hegemony in the world system, which opens spaces for greater degrees of autonomy—which does not put an end to dependency. This is evident in Washington’s difficulties with disciplining the Latin American and African states to support their position in the conflict in Europe. 

The scenario in Latin America over the last few decades reveals processes of enormous interest. We have witnessed significant popular mobilization in almost every country in the region, questioning various aspects of the neoliberal tsunami, be it jobs, salaries, retirements, healthcare and education, as well as rights like abortion, recognition of gender identities, lands, water, and much more. 

On this deeply fractured terrain that capital generates in the dependent world, class disputes tend to intensify. This explains the regular social and political outbursts in our societies. It’s the result of the barbarity that capitalism imposes on regions like ours. 

One expression of this social force is manifested in the electoral terrain. But just as quickly as there have been victories, there have been defeats. These comings and goings can be naturalized, but why haven’t the victories allowed for lasting processes of change? 

Of course, this is not to deny that there have been violent coups of a new sort that have managed to unseat governments. But even then, there were already signs of exhaustion that limited the protests, with the clear exception of Bolivia. There is an enormous gap between the leftist voter and the person who occasionally votes for left projects. The neoliberal triumph was not only in the economic policies and transformations it achieved, but also in its installment of a vision and interpretation of the world, its problems, and its solutions.

The struggle against neoliberalism today involves dismantling privatization of every kind and putting a stop to the conversion of social services and policies into private businesses. That means taking on the most economic and politically powerful sectors of capital, with control over state institutions where legislators, judges, and military members operate, together with the main media, schools, and churches. We can add that these are the sectors of capital with the strongest ties to imperialist capitals and their assemblage of supranational institutions, media, and states. 

It's a powerful social bloc. It’s hard to think about attacking it without having to attack capitalism itself.  

Publicado em Revista Rosa, Vol. 6, No. 1 Septembro 2022. 

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News Briefs

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge rejected a complaint filed by President Jair Bolsonaro in which he accused another justice of abusing his authority, the latest in an ongoing battle between Brazil's executive and judicial branches ahead of October's presidential elections. 

• Covid-19 cases in the Americas surged 27.2 percent last week over the prior one. Central America saw the largest percentage rise in cases, with infections soaring by 80%. The Pan American Health Organization warned that Covid is on the rise again in the region as many countries have abandoned measures like masking and social distancing and many lag in vaccination rates. (Reuters)
  
  
• Experts who track Conti -- the Russia-based ransomware gang that has held Costa Rica's tax collection and export systems hostage for over a month -- said the group had recently begun to shift its focus from the United States and Europe to countries in Central and South America, perhaps to retaliate against nations that have supported Ukraine, reports the New York Times.

The U.S. Biden administration has slightly eased restrictions on Chevron's ability to negotiate with Venezuela's government. Senior administration officials said the move was intended to support talks between the government of President Nicolás Maduro and the U.S.-backed opposition, reports the Washington Post. 

 by LAP Editor, Steve Ellner

by LAP Editor, Jeffery R. Webber

Posted by SPECTRE Journal

With seven opposition presidential candidates imprisoned and held incommunicado in the months leading up to the vote and all the remaining contenders but one from miniscule parties closely allied with President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the results of Nicaragua’s November 7 presidential elections were a foregone conclusion. The government declared after polls closed that Ortega won 75 percent of the vote and that 65 percent of voters cast ballots. The independent voting rights organization Urnas Abiertas, meanwhile, reported an abstention rate of approximately 80 percent and widespread irregularities at polling stations around the country.

The vote was carried out in a climate of fear and intimidation, with a total absence of safeguards against fraud.The vote was carried out in a climate of fear and intimidation, with a total absence of safeguards against fraud. In a complete breakdown of the rule of law, Ortega carried out a wave of repression from May to October, leading the opposition to issue a joint statement on October 7 calling for a boycott of the election. Several dozen opposition figures—among them, presidential candidates, peasant, labor, and student leaders, journalists, and environmentalists—were arrested and detained without trial, while several hundred others were forced into exile or underground.

Among those exiled were celebrated novelist Sergio Ramirez, who served as Ortega’s vice president during the 1980s revolution. While the government charged Ramirez with “conspiracy to undermine national integrity,” his crime was provoking the ire of the regime by publishing his latest novel, Tongolele No Sabía Bailar, a fictionalized account of the 2018 mass protests that marked the onset of the current political crisis and the degeneration of the regime into dictatorship. The book was promptly banned in the country, with customs authorities ordered to block shipments at ports of entry.

The repression particularly decimated the left-leaning opposition party Democratic Renovation Union (UNAMOS), formerly called the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS). The MRS was formed in 1995 by Ortega’s former comrades in arms who either left the FSLN after the failure of their efforts to democratize it or were expelled for challenging Ortega’s leadership of the party. Among those UNAMOS leaders arrested and to date held incommunicado are legendary guerrilla commanders Dora María Téllez and Hugo Torres, as well as deputy foreign minister in the 1980s, Victor Hugo Tinoco, and party president Ana Margarita Vigil. Amnesty International condemned such detentions and incommunicado conditions as “enforced disappearance as a strategy of repression.”

As part of the crackdown the government also banned 24 civic organizations and professional associations—in addition to some 30 that it had previously banned, including three opposition political parties. The majority of these 24 organizations were professional medical guilds that had come under fire for criticizing the regime’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, including reporting that the government had concealed the number of infections and deaths. Vice President Rosario Murillo accused doctors of “health terrorism” and of spreading “false outlooks and news” on the impact of the contagion. During the early months of the pandemic the government convened mass public events under the banner of “Love in Times of Covid.” Nicaragua, together with Haiti, has the lowest rate of vaccination in Latin America, with only 4.9 percent of the population inoculated as of October.

In late 2020, the Sandinistas decreed a spate of laws that allows authorities to criminalize anyone who speaks out against the government. Among these are a Cybercrime Law that allows fines and imprisonment of anyone who publishes in the press or on social media what the government deems to be “false news.” Meanwhile, a “hate crimes” law allows life sentences for anyone considered to have carried out “hate crimes,” as defined by the government. Among the varied offenses listed by Sandinista prosecutors for the recent wave of detentions are “conspiracy to undermine national integrity,” “ideological falsehood,” “demanding, exalting, or applauding the imposition of sanctions against the Nicaraguan state and its citizens,” and “using international funding to create organizations, associations, and foundations to channel funds, through projects or programs that deal with sensitive issues such as sexual diversity groups, the rights of Indigenous communities, or through political marketing on topics such as free expression or democracy.”

A week before the vote, Ortega proclaimed that his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, was henceforth the “co-president” of the country. While his bizarre declaration has no legal basis or constitutional legitimacy, it was widely seen as a move to anoint her as his successor—the 76-year-old Ortega is known to be in ill health—and a further step towards the rule of a family dynasty. The ruling couple’s eight children already serve as advisors to the presidency and manage the family’s empire of private and ostensibly public media outlets, investment funds, and family businesses.

A mid-October poll by CID-Gallup—an independent pollster that has been conducting political opinion surveys in the country since 2011—found that 76 percent of the country’s electorate believed the country was moving in the wrong direction. The poll reported that 19 percent of the electorate planned to vote for Ortega, 65 percent stated they would favor an opposition candidate, and 16 percent remained undecided. A rival pollster contracted by the FSLN, M&R, showed Ortega with nearly 80 percent support. While all polls should be assessed with caution given the methodological limitations to surveys conducted amid political instability and civil conflict, it is noteworthy that Ortega’s support dropped to 19 from the 33 percent support reported by a CID-Gallup survey conducted in May of this year, which in turn was down from the high point of popular support for Ortega, 54 percent, registered in CID-Gallup’s 2012 poll.

Now that the votes have been cast, it is impossible to get accurate figures for the results given that the Sandinistas control the Supreme Electoral Council and exercise a near absolute control over reporting on the results. In addition, independent foreign observers were banned, and the threat of repression has dissuaded journalists and civic organizations from speaking out.

Ortega will now start his fourth consecutive term in office since the FSLN returned to power in 2007 in the midst of economic and political crisis. With its legitimacy shattered in the aftermath of the 2018 mass uprising and its violent repression, the regime has to rely more on direct coercion to maintain control. After the economy contracted each year from 2018 to 2020, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America estimates a 2.0 percent growth rate for the current year and 1.8 percent for 2022—not enough for the economy to recover from the three-year tumble. As the crisis has intensified, the number of Nicaraguans trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border climbed to historically unprecedented levels to exceed 50,000 this year, compared to just a few thousand in 2020. These numbers are in addition to the 140,000 who had already fled into exile since 2018, mostly to Costa Rica.

The International Left Remains Divided on Nicaragua

The international left remains divided on the Nicaraguan crisis, with some among it arguing that the Ortega-Murillo regime represents a continuation of the 1980s revolution and that the United States has been attempting to overthrow it. However, as I showed in an earlier NACLA article, there is little evidence to corroborate the claim that the 2018 mass uprising was instigated by Washington in an attempt to carry out a coup d’état against the government, or that the United States has since carried out a destabilization campaign aimed at overthrowing the regime.

It was not until the mass protests of 2018 that the co-government pact that Ortega had negotiated with the capitalist class, organized into the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), broke down.The Ortega inner circle hacked its way into the ranks of the country’s elite in the aftermath of the 1980s revolution and launched a new round of capitalist development starting in 2007. During this period, the Sandinista bourgeoisie set about to vastly expand its wealth. Leading Sandinistas grouped around Ortega heavily invested in tourism, agroindustry, finance, import-export, and subcontracting for the maquiladoras. Ortega and Murillo championed a program—dressed in a quasi-leftist discourse of “Christian, Socialist, and Solidarity”— of constructing a populist multiclass alliance under the firm hegemony of capital and Sandinista state elites. This model did improve material conditions until the economy began to tank in 2015. It was not until the mass protests of 2018 that the co-government pact that Ortega had negotiated with the capitalist class, organized into the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), broke down.

Washington would have liked to have a more pliant regime in place from the start, and the recent events have upped the ante in U.S.-Nicaragua relations. Nonetheless, successive U.S. administrations accommodated themselves since 2007 to the Ortega government, which cooperated closely with the U.S. Southern Command, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and U.S. immigration policies. Although the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has supplied several million dollars to opposition civic organizations through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID also granted several hundred million dollars directly to the Ortega government from 2007 until 2018.

On the eve of the Nicaraguan vote, the U.S. Congress passed the RENACER Act, which calls for targeted sanctions on Nicaraguan government officials found guilty of human rights violations and corruption. It also requires the executive branch to determine if Nicaragua should be expelled from the Central American Free Trade Agreement and to “expand oversight” of lending to Nicaragua by international financial agencies. In 2017 the U.S. government passed almost identical legislation, the NICA Act, which to date has resulted in sanctions slapped on several dozen top Nicaraguan government officials, affecting the assets they hold in the United States.

Apart from these sanctions on individuals, however, Washington did not enforce the NICA Act. It did not apply trade sanctions and has not blocked Nicaragua from receiving billions of dollars in credits from international agencies. From 2017 to 2021, Nicaragua received a whopping $2.2 billion in aid from the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (BCIE), and in 2020-2021 it received several hundred million in credits from the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

Some among the international Left condemn calls for sanctions on Ortega. Yet the U.S. and international Left broadly mobilized (unsuccessfully) in 1978 and 1979 to force Washington to impose sanctions on the Somoza dictatorship and block international financing because of the regime’s gross human rights violations. The worldwide Left similarly demanded sanctions against apartheid South Africa, sought to block U.S. and international financing for the Pinochet dictatorship, and currently calls for “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” against Israel.

Grassroots opponents of the Ortega-Murillo regime find themselves between the rock of an Ortega-Murillo dictatorship and the hard place of the capitalist class and its political agents among the traditional conservative parties. The Right—just as disturbed as Ortega by the outburst of popular protest from below in the 2018 uprising—tried to hitch mass discontent to its own agenda of recovering direct political power and assuring there would be no threat to its control over the Nicaraguan economy.

It was the government’s repression of the popular uprising of students, workers, feminists, and environmentalists that paved the way for the Right’s current hegemony over the anti-Sandinista opposition. The mass of Nicaraguans—beyond the Sandinistas’ secure base in some 20 percent of the population—have not shown any enthusiasm for the traditional conservative parties and businessmen that dominate the opposition and have no real political representation. Indeed, the October CID-Gallup poll found that 77 percent of the country’s electoral does not feel represented by any political party.