Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalColombia shocked by two massacres on one day as Duque goes mute
by Adriaan Alsema November 23, 2020
Colombia’s far-right President Ivan Duque went mute on Sunday after two massacres made it painfully clear how his government is sinking the country into violent chaos.
A massacre in Betania, a small town in the southwest of the Antioquia province, became the 76th this year and left seven people dead and three people injured.
. . .
Duque’s “Peace with Legality”
The peace process is fiercely opposed by the president’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, a former Medellin Cartel associate who is being investigated for his alleged complicity in three massacres.
Instead of implementing the peace process, Duque created a so-called “Peace with Legality” process, which appears to be sinking historically violent regions like Antioquia and Cauca into violent chaos.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-shocked-by-two-massacres-on-one-day-as-duque-goes-mute/
Brazil's Largest City May Soon Have a Socialist Mayor
BY HUGO ALBUQUERQUE
Brazil is still dominated by Jair Bolsonaro’s unhinged reactionary politics. Which makes it all the more incredible that the leftist housing organizer Guilherme Boulos recently defied all expectations by making it to a runoff in São Paulo’s upcoming mayoral election.
On November 15, housing rights activist and rising star of the Brazilian left Guilherme Boulos made it into the runoff elections for the mayorship of São Paulo — the largest city in all the Americas and the financial center of Brazil. A member of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), Boulos ran alongside vice mayoral candidate Luiza Erundina, a veteran socialist who in the 1980s served as the first woman mayor of São Paulo.
With scant resources and electoral rules stacked against his party, Boulos defeated the Bolsonaro-backed far-right candidate Celso Russomanno to the second-place spot. That upset also means that the runoff election will take a sharp leftward turn, leaving out the influential Jilmar Tatto from the more social-democratic Workers’ Party (PT).
The conclusions to be drawn from Boulos’s victory are several. For one, it proved that a radical left-wing platform could overtake far-right forces both on social media and in the streets. Just as importantly, Boulos’s success suggests that the old pro-Lula / anti-Lula dichotomy that has so divided the Brazilian left in recent years may finally be drawing to a close.
Regardless of whether Boulos can clinch the November 29 runoff elections, when he will square off with the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) candidate Bruno Covas, his campaign has been an unqualified success. It has shifted the tectonic plates of Brazilian politics and put forward a strategic, technological, and ideological alternative that could very well pave the way forward for the Brazilian left.
More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/brazil-runoff-elections-guilherme-boulos-psol-pt-lula
Very helpful background in article.
Paraguay: Corruption And Violation Of Human Rights - OpEd
November 21, 2020
By Peter Tase
. . .
On another front, Paraguayan Supreme Court leadership have not provided legal support nor respected human rights when it comes to improving the wellbeing of indigenous communities in Paraguay, including the Guaraní, Ayoreo, Toba-Maskoy, Aché and Sanapaná communities in Caaguazú, San Pedro and other provinces. Lack of documentation among indigenous teenagers and adults, should in no case be a barrier to the highest quality of healthcare. Indigenous people are less likely to carry an ID document in Paraguay, and they are totally subjugated from the government officials in the country, as the latter have a vested interest to turn indigenous communities’ ecosystem and forests into arable land and transgenic soy plantations. Consequentially, Indigenous population is decimated in the country, has become ever more vulnerable and is not able to access various social programs and receive healthcare treatment.
With the ongoing public health pandemic; all COVID-19 care should be provided free of charge to those who cannot afford to pay; and indigenous communities in Concepcion, San Pedro and Amambay, are extremely vulnerable and have not access to public health services nor basic hygiene resources.
In Paraguay, indigenous women can access maternal health care less than other women and some of these women have expressed concern about the fact that cost is a factor in securing a good medical treatment. Another pending matter is the lack of information resources made available to indigenous communities in their own language (to prevent disease and fatigue) ; for example in rural Paraguay there are no health care materials available in Guarani language nor in Ache or Ayoreo indigenous languages.
The Government of Mario Abdo Benítez has not pursued policies that improve nutrition and access to food among indigenous communities and their kids, while it is publicly known that the Ayoreo and other communities are living in extreme poverty situations and their kids have become vulnerable to child labor, sexual abuse and other psychological disorders. The National Strategy for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor and Protection of Teenage Workers is simply a grossly ignored policy that is not being implemented.
Paraguay continues to be a failed state, its leaders have become a laughing stock in the world stage while its rural indigenous communities, although deeply succumbed into poverty, are the nation’s only source of dignity, ethics and moral when it comes to respect for the rule of law and their willingness to consolidate democratic governance; meanwhile Paraguay’s Supreme Court is ruled by some of the worst and corrupt judges of Latin America and the country’s Former Vice President has died in captivity since late September 2020, meanwhile local media refuses to acknowledge this fact. Asuncion needs a new breed of leaders that are encouraged by patriotism, hard work, by a great sense of integrity and ethics.
More:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/21112020-paraguay-corruption-and-violation-of-human-rights-oped/
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Paraguay was ruled for 35 years by a fascist dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, with the blessings of the U.S., particularly the right-wing.
Wikipedia:
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (Spanish: [alˈfɾeðo estɾozˈneɾ]; November 3, 1912 – August 16, 2006) was a Paraguayan Army officer who was dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. He ascended to the position after leading an army coup in 1954. His 35-year-long rule, marked by an uninterrupted period of repression in his country, is the longest in modern South American history.
. . .
Soon after taking office, Stroessner declared a state of siege, which allowed him to suspend civil liberties. The state-of-siege provisions allowed the government to arrest and detain anyone indefinitely without trial, as well as forbid public meetings and demonstrations. It was renewed every 90 days until 1987, except for a brief period in 1959. Although it technically only applied to Asunción after 1970, the courts ruled that anyone charged with security offenses could be brought to the capital and charged under the state-of-siege provisions—even if the offense took place outside the capital.[2][3] Apart from one 24-hour period on election days, Stroessner ruled under what amounted to martial law for nearly all of his tenure. A devoted anti-communist who brought Paraguay into the World Anti-Communist League, he justified his repression as a necessary measure to protect the country.
Paraguay enjoyed close military and economic ties with the United States and supported the US invasion of the Dominican Republic.[4] The Stroessner regime even offered to send troops to Vietnam alongside the Americans.[5] The United States played a "critical supporting role" in the domestic affairs of Stoessner's Paraguay.[6] Between 1962 and 1975 the US provided $146 million to Paraguay's military government and Paraguayan officers were trained at the US Army School of the Americas.[7] Although the military and security forces under Stroessner received less material support from the United States than other South American countries, strong inter-military connections existed through military advisors and military training. Between 1962 and 1966, nearly 400 Paraguayan military personnel were trained by the United States in the Panama Canal Zone and on US soil.[8] Strong Paraguayan-U.S. relations continued until the Carter Administration emphasized a foreign policy that recognized human rights abuses, although both military and economic aid were allotted to the Paraguayan government in Carter's budgets.[9] The Reagan Administration restored more cordial relations due to Stroessner's staunch anti-communism, but by the mid 1980s relations cooled, largely because of the international outcry over the regime's excesses, along with its involvement in narcotics trafficking and money-laundering.[10][11][12] In 1986, The Reagan administration added his regime to its list of Latin American dictatorships.[13]
. . .
Operation Condor
Paraguay was a leading participant in Operation Condor, a campaign of state terror and security operations officially implemented in 1975 which were jointly conducted by the military dictatorships of six South American countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil) with the support of the United States.[21][22][23][24] Human rights violations characteristic of those in other South American countries such as kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings were routine and systematic during the Stroessner regime. Following executions, many of the bodies of those killed by the regime were dumped in the Chaco or the Río Paraguay. The discovery of the "Archives of Terror" in 1992 in the Lambaré suburb of Asunción confirmed allegations of widespread human rights violations.[25]
Pastor Coronel was the chief of the Department of Investigations, or secret police. He would interview people in a pileta, a bath of human vomit and excrement, or ram electric cattle prods up their rectums.[26][27][11] In 1975, the Secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party, Miguel Ángel Soler [es], was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone.[26][28][29][30] The screams of tortured dissidents would often be recorded and played over the phone to family members, and sometimes the bloody garments of those killed were sent to their homes.[14]
Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the Aché Indian population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of U.S. and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines and grazing lands.[31][7] The Aché Indians resided on land that was coveted and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Aché into slavery. In 1974 the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide. Only a few hundred Aché remained alive by the late 1970s.[7] The Stroessner regime financed this genocide with U.S. aid.[7]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner
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In Paraguay, a Quaint Inn with a Dark Nazi Past
By Paolo Manzo / La Stampa Thursday, Nov. 03, 2011
SAN BERNARDINO — Experiencing the Nazi legacy in South America costs just $40. This is the rate to spend a night in the best room of the Hotel del Lago, founded in 1888 on the shores of the Ypacaraí Lake, in Paraguay, in the small town of San Bernardino, 50 kilometers east of the country's capital, Asuncion.
(Read a brief history of Nazi fugitives.)
Given that Paraguay does not have access to the sea, the lake is the trendiest destination for a vacation. San Bernardino, however, is notorious as the place that sheltered Joseph Mengele, the Angel of the Death, a German SS officer and physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
After Germany's defeat in World War II, Mengele fled to South America where he hid for decades.
According to unproven theories, Mengele, one of the most wanted Nazi war criminals, died in San Bernardino, not in Brazil, as usually reported. Regardless, there are plenty of other phantoms from the past in this small town, which was founded in 1881 by five German families, and still hosts a German Mennonite colony.
The hotel is still very popular and has a cultural center that promotes local craftsmanship. But behind its quiet façade and tropical setting, this village hides a long string of connections with Nazism.
. . .
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2098534,00.html
~ ~ ~
WHERE NAZI REFUGEES FOUND THE CLIMATE TO THEIR LIKING
By Alan Riding
June 16, 1985
IF forensic experts prove that a body exhumed here 10 days ago is that of the Auschwitz death camp doctor Josef Mengele, as his son, Rolf, affirmed last week, the most-wanted Nazi would have lived in South America for 30 years without being caught. If the bones are not his, Dr. Mengele could still be at large.
In either case, he was not alone. Tens of thousands of Nazis escaped to Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil after World War II. In 40 years, one war criminal was murdered, another was kidnapped and just three were extradited to face trial in Europe. Dr. Mengele was widely hunted, but Brazilian police believe he lived undisturbed in the Sao Paulo area from 1961. Other fugitives, many in their 70's and 80's, have little reason for fear.
The Nazi flight to South America was no accident. Large, long-established German colonies quickly absorbed the new wave of immigrants. Some Nazis changed their names, yet surprisingly few felt a need to do so. Many fared well on farms, in industry - not infrequently in West German multinational companies - and even occasionally as police and military advisers.
The political mood was not hostile. Responding to domestic fascist movements, several governments leaned toward Germany and Italy until their defeat became certain. Even after the war, pro-Nazi sympathies survived. Argentina's President Juan D. Peron welcomed fleeing Nazis. When General Peron was ousted in 1955, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the grandson of Bavarian immigrants, opened Paraguay to the fugitives.
During his early years in the region, even Dr. Mengele felt safe. He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1949 and made little attempt to hide his identity. He was married under his own name in Uruguay in 1958 and, as ''Jose Mengele'' in 1959, became a citizen of Paraguay, where he lived briefly in a German colony and was befriended by local Nazi sympathizers.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/16/weekinreview/where-nazi-refugees-found-the-climate-to-their-liking.html
Panama court orders new trial for ex-President Martinelli in spying case
By Metro US
Posted on November 20, 2020
FILE PHOTO: Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli waves during an anti-drugs summit at the Santo Domingo Hotel in Antigua
PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – A Panamanian court has ordered a new trial of former President Ricardo Martinelli in a case alleging he unlawfully spied on politicians, union leaders and journalists during his 2009-2014 presidency, the country’s top prosecutor announced on Friday.
The appeals court threw out Martinelli’s 2019 not guilty verdict, but did not set a date for the new trial.
Prosecutor Ricaurte Gonzalez cited what he described as “an incorrect assessment of much of the evidence” presented at the previous trial.
A supermarket tycoon who sought a political comeback in 2019, the ex-president was accused of ordering the interception of telecommunications without judicial authorization for some 150 individuals.
Martinelli maintained his innocence and accused his successor and one-time ally Juan Carlos Varela of conspiring against him.
https://www.metro.us/panama-court-orders-new/
(Short article, no more at link.)
You may recall when he feared the law was coming after him, he ran to Italy and hid out for a time with his dear friend, Silvio Berlusconi, who else?
Martinelli, with Trump, who owned a hotel in Panama
Berlusconi, lucky host to fellow grifter Martinelli and son
Martinelli, sharing a mild "stink eye."
Moment of self-mockery, gesturing he will win.
G'bye!
~ ~ ~
A tender Panama-Trump story from a few years ago:
CROWNING MOMENT: Donald Trump crowned
Justine Pasek of Panama Miss Universe in
September, 2002. Pasek later acted as a
spokesperson for the Homes Real Estate
Investment & Services company in Panama.
REUTERS/Chip East
Ivanka and the fugitive from Panama
Exclusive: How an alleged fraudster in Panama, working with Donald Trump's daughter, helped make Trump's first international hotel venture a success. The broker was in business with a money-launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union. Then he fled.
By NED PARKER, STEPHEN GREY, STEFANIE ESCHENBACHER, ROMAN ANIN, BRAD BROOKS and CHRISTINE MURRAY Filed Nov. 17, 2017, noon GMT
PANAMA CITY/TORONTO - In the spring of 2007, a succession of foreigners, many from Russia, arrived at Panama City airport to be greeted by a chauffeur who whisked them off in a white Cadillac with a Donald Trump logo on the side.
The limousine belonged to a business run by a Brazilian former car salesman named Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, who was offering the visitors a chance to invest in Trump’s latest project – a 70-floor tower called the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower. It was the future U.S. president’s first international hotel venture, a complex including residential apartments and a casino in a waterfront building shaped like a sail.
“Mr Nogueira was an outgoing and lively young man,” remembered Justine Pasek, who was crowned Miss Universe by Donald Trump in 2002 and was acting in 2007 as a spokesperson for Nogueira’s company, Homes Real Estate Investment & Services. “Everybody was so impressed with Homes as they seemed to be riding the top of the real estate boom at the time,” she said.
One of those Nogueira set out to impress was Ivanka, Trump’s daughter. In an interview with Reuters, Nogueira said he met and spoke with Ivanka “many times” when she was handling the Trump Organization’s involvement in the Panama development. “She would remember me,” he said.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-panama/
Racist murder in Brazil: Little has changed in the 325 years since Zumbi's killing
In 2020, Black Awareness Day is marked by the brutal death of João Alberto Silveira Freitas, beaten by two security guards in a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre.
Manuella Libardi
20 November 2020
Demonstrators in defense of black lives, against racism, fascism and against the government of President Jair
Bolsonaro in São Paulo, June 7, 2020 | Marcelo Chello/Zuma Press/PA Images
In 1695, Zumbi – a warrior and leader of former Black slaves – was captured in his last hiding place between the mountains of Barriga and Dois Irmãos, in Northeastern Brazil. For a year and a half, he survived in the bush, fleeing the Bandeirantes – led by Domingo Jorge Velho – who destroyed Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest of colonial Brazil.
On November 20, Zumbi dos Palmares, 40, was decapitated by captain André Mendonça de Furtado and his displayed on a spike. Zumbi was tortured and killed for liberating himself from enslavement and protecting those who had done the same.
As a result of his violence and persecution, Domingo Jorge Velho received “a vast amount of land” to intensify the settlement of the region with the help of his associates. His "services" earned him the rank of "Master of the Field".
. . .
In 2020, late on Thursday, on the eve of the holiday that celebrates the worth and contribution of Black people to the country, João Alberto Silveira Freitas was beaten to death by two security guards in a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, an event recorded by several cellphones and shared on social media. Like Zumbi, João Alberto Silveira Freitas was a 40-year-old Black man.
More:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/racist-murder-brazil-black-awareness-day-zumbi/
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Before brutal murder, oão Alberto Silveira Freitas.
O Globo Newspaper
633K subscribers
João Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, was brutally beaten to death by two security guards at the exit of a Carrefour supermarket in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. Videos circulating on social networks show him being grabbed by the back by one security guard and attacked by another with several punches to the head. Beto, as the victim was known, died on the spot before the help arrived. Carrefour spoke about João Alberto's death at dawn on Friday. He informed that the employees, hired by an outsourced company, were dismissed and 'upon learning of this inexplicable episode, we started a rigorous internal investigation'. The case draws even more attention because it happened on the eve of Black Awareness Day, and the video causes revolt on social networks.
Colombia's far-right threatens senators, journalists and protest organizers
by Adriaan Alsema November 20, 2020
Far-right group Aguilas Negras sent out a death threat to senators of Colombia’s opposition, journalists and the organizers of anti-government protests on Thursday.
The mysterious group, which is believed to be associated with the security forces, reiterated its support for far-right former President Alvaro Uribe.
. . .
Unlike paramilitary groups like the AGC and “Los Caparrapos,” the Aguilas Negras are not a paramilitary group, but a far-right group with presumed ties to an intelligence agency and the National Army.
The group additionally is believed to work with regional elites and businesses.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-far-right-threatens-senators-journalists-and-protest-organizers/
Newly revealed documents show Nixon, Kissinger plotted Allende overthrow from day one November 17, 2
November 17, 2020 11:21 AM CST BY MARK GRUENBERG
Newly revealed documents show that President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were plotting the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende essentially from the moment he took office. Their plans were realized in the bloody military coup of 1973 led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. | AP
WASHINGTON—Almost from the very minute elected Socialist/Marxist President Salvador Allende took office in Chile in November 1970, Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon and his top officials were scared of his example and his impact—and determined to oust him.
That’s the conclusion that can be drawn from a new group of memos on the U.S. campaign to oust the Chilean president, released this week, on the 50th anniversary of Allende’s inauguration, by the non-profit investigatory National Security Archive at George Washington University in D.C.
The memos and notes show top U.S. officials were scared not just that Allende would successfully implement what they believed were anti-American and anti-corporate policies in Chile, but that other nations in Latin America and Europe would see he had been elected to do so—and follow suit.
So they concocted plans to get rid of the Chilean leader—plans which ultimately resulted in the U.S.-crafted coup against Allende three years later.
The newly released, declassified documents from 1970 show Nixon’s National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, plotted in detail with the Central Intelligence Agency on how to destabilize and ultimately overthrow Allende. The CIA even tried to prevent Allende’s nomination before the Chilean election.
More:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/newly-revealed-documents-show-nixon-kissinger-plotted-allende-overthrow-from-day-one/
Can Ivan Duque govern Colombia without terror?
by Adriaan Alsema November 16, 2020
Anyone in Colombia is free to criticize far-right President Ivan Duque as long as they are willing to die or live in terror for anti-opposition violence.
A surge in assassination and death threats is making it clear that an increasing number of allies of Duque and his far-right Democratic Center party no longer tolerate democratic opposition.
Terrorizing opposition to Duque
Native Colombian Senator Feliciano Valencia said that a bomb exploded 50 yards from his farm in the southwestern Cauca province on Saturday, two weeks after the politician’s car was taken under fire.
Eleven supporters of opposition Senator Gustavo Petro, Duque’s opponent in the 2018 elections, have been assassinated so far this year in an unexpected surge in deadly violence against Colombia’s most popular opposition movement.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/can-colombias-ivan-duque-govern-without-terror/
The five families who own the news in Colombia
by Adriaan Alsema November 13, 2020
Five families control almost all of Colombia’s media, using them to amplify their political clout and promote their business empires’ products and services.
. . .
Ardila Clan
Carlos Ardila Lulle is Colombia’s fourth richest man, according to Forbes, whose financial growth in the 1990’s has been marred by allegations of being a major sponsor of paramilitary death squads.
Ardila’s news media became controversial after they were used by leaders of paramilitary AUC to justify terrorism. Several of Colombia’s most controversial and notoriously dishonest journalists spent much of their career with Ardila’s news media.
Ardila controls much of the food chain of his food an beverage industry, from sugar plantation to sugary drinks. The controversial oligarch has been at odds for occupying indigenous lands for sugar plantation and has been scolded for using indigenous children suffering malnutrition as human Guinea pigs for one of his products.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/the-five-families-who-own-the-news-in-colombia/
Trump Team Holds News Conference Outside Drab Landscaping Firm, Next to Adult Book Store
By DANIEL POLITI
NOV 07, 20206:30 PM
Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media at a press conference held in the back parking lot of a landscaping company on Saturday in Philadelphia. Chris McGrath/Getty Images
On Saturday morning, shortly before the AP and other news outlets called the election for Joe Biden, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce that his lawyers would be holding a “big press conference” in Philadelphia. But there seems to have been some major confusion about where it would be held. First Trump tweeted it would take place at the “Four Seasons, Philadelphia.” Trump later corrected himself and said that the news conference was going to be held at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping. And the Four Seasons Hotel sent out its own tweet, making sure everyone knew that the news conference would not be held there but rather at the landscaping business that has “no relation with the hotel.”
https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/status/1325088747675922432
https://twitter.com/SlexAxton/status/1325141204418191361
When journalists arrived at the site of the news conference, they were flabbergasted by the scene and many quickly speculated that someone in the Trump campaign made a serious mistake. After all, the parking lot of a landscaping business in the outskirts of the city in an industrial part of town was a drab backdrop for a news conference by a president who wanted to convince Americans he still had a chance of winning. And making matters even stranger, the landscaping business was between an adult bookstore and a cremation center. The location led to lots of mockery online, and many people were very happy with the scene that was ripe for mockery, and some saw as a poignant metaphor of the failure of the Trump campaign.
More:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/four-seasons-total-landscaping-trump-team-news-conference.html
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