Latin America

By Marce Cameron

Every year since 1992 the overwhelming majority of UN member countries have voted for Cuba’s resolution demanding an end to the US economic blockade against the Caribbean socialist state. On October 29, the UN General Assembly voted for the 17th consecutive year in favour of Cuba’s motion. This year, the resolution was approved by the highest margin ever, with 185 of 192 UN member states voting in favour, one more than last year.

By Roberto Jorquera

While capitalist governments around the world have responded to the freezing up of the capitalist financial system by turning trillions of dollars of public funds over to bankrupt bankers, the revolutionary government of Venezuelan socialist President Hugo Chavez has continued to take steps to redistribute wealth to Venezuela’s working people.

By Marcus Pabian

On September 17, former Venezuelan vice-president Jose Vicente reported to the country’s National Assembly that the US government was at the centre of a foiled coup plot planned for October 15 to violently overthrow the elected government of President Hugo Chavez that is leading a socialist revolution in Venezuela. The coup would have come just weeks before state elections on November 23.

By Marce Cameron

“A nuclear strike” is how Cuban leader Fidel Castro described Hurricane Gustav, which roared across Cuba’s Isle of Youth and the western province of Pinar del Rio on August 30. A week later Cuba was hit by the even more destructive Hurricane Ike, which gouged a swathe of devastation from one end of the Caribbean island to the other.

By Maria Julia Mayoral, Havana

The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for 50 years is the main obstacle to Cuba’s development, the well-being of the Cuban people and, under the current circumstances, all the work involved in recovering from the extensive damage caused by hurricanes Gustav and Ike, stated Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque in Havana.

By Jose Ramon Machado

[The following is the address given by Cuban Vice-President Jose Ramon Machado to the UN General Assembly on September 24. It has been slightly abridged.]

We are living a decisive moment in the history of humankind. The threats looming over the world put the very existence of the human species at risk. The promotion of peace, solidarity, social justice and sustainable development is the only way to ensure the future. The prevailing world order, unjust and unsustainable, must be replaced by a new system that is truly democratic and equitable, based on respect for international law and on the principles of solidarity and justice, putting an end to the inequalities and exclusion to which the great majorities of the population of our planet have been condemned. There are no alternatives.

By Gonzalo Villanueva, in La Paz

On the eve of the 35th anniversary of the September 11, 1973, CIA-backed military coup that overthrew the elected social-democratic government of Chilean president Salvador Allende, Washington was again attempting to orchestrate a coup against a left-wing government in South America. The target this time was Bolivian President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president.

By Jorge Jorquera

[The following article is based upon a Direct Action forum held in Melbourne on September 26.]

There is one song in my life that invariably draws tears: Inti Illimani’s “Cancion del Poder Popular”. This song was one of the hymns of the 1970-73 Popular Unity (UP) government of “Marxist” President Salvador Allende. More than any other song, it symbolised the hopes of the Chilean workers and the political illusions their leadership had sown. The tragedy these illusions led to brings back much anger and the hope that such a path will not be walked again.

By Shua Garfield

“Chavez makes a new power grab” screamed an August 6 Wall Street Journal headline. The following day, in an article titled “The autocrat of Caracas”, the London Economist claimed that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was “violat[ing] the constitution”. An editorial in the August 9 Los Angeles Times described Chavez’s “latest power grab” as an “attack on democracy”. On August 14, Miami Herald syndicated columnist Andres Oppenheimer opined that Chavez was “violating the most basic democratic rules”.

By Marcus Pabian

“I naively took as a reference point Tony Blair’s proposal for a ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism — capitalism with a human face”, Hugo Chavez, told Time magazine in 2006, reflecting on his own views before he was elected Venezuela’s president in 1998. Since then, Chavez’s views have dramatically changed. During a visit to Havana this June, he declared that his country and socialist Cuba were undergoing “one and the same revolution” aimed at replacing capitalism with socialism.