Regardless of Castillo presidency’s evident shortcomings and mistakes, his ouster represents a grave setback for democracy in Peru and Latin America as a whole. His election last year took place on the back of an almighty crisis of credibility and legitimacy of a political system rigged with corruption and venality in which presidents were forced to resign on corruption charges (some ended in prison), with one committing suicide before being arrested on corruption charges. In the last six years Peru has had six presidents.

The rot was so advanced that no mainstream political party or politician could muster sufficient electoral support to succeed in winning the presidency in 2021 (the main right-wing party, Fuerza Popular’s candidate got less than 14% of the vote in the first round). It goes a long way to explain why an unknown rural primary school teacher from the remote Andean indigenous area of Cajamarca, Pedro Castillo, would become the 63^rd president of Peru. In Cajamarca, Castillo obtained up to 72% of the popular vote.

Castillo’s election offered a historic chance to bury Peruvian neoliberalism. I myself penned an article with that prognosis, which I premised on Castillo’s commitment to democratize Peruvian politics via a Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution as the base from which to re-found the nation on an anti-neoliberal basis. A proposal that, in the light of recent experience in Latin America, is perfectly implementable but whose precondition, as other experiences in the region have shown, is the vigorous mobilization of the mass of the people, the working class, the peasantry, the urban poor, and all other subordinate strata from society. This did not happen in Peru under Castillo’s presidency.

Ironically, the mass mobilizations that broke out in the Andean regions and in many other areas and cities in Peru when they learned of Castillo’s impeachment solidly confirms that this was the only possible route to implement his programme of change. The mass mobilizations throughout the nation (including Lima) are demanding a Constituent Assembly, the closure of the existing Congress, the liberation, and reinstatement of Castillo to the presidency, and the holding of immediate general elections.

This would explain the paradox that right-wing hostility to president Castillo, unlike other left governments in Latin America, was not waged because Castillo was undertaking any radical government action. In fact, opposition to his government was so blindingly intense that almost every initiative, no matter how trivial or uncontroversial, was met with ferocious rejection by Peru’s right-wing dominated Congress. The Congress’ key right-wing party, was Fuerza Popular led by Keiko Fujimori, daughter of Peru’s former dictator, Alberto Fujimori. In Peru’s Congress of 130 seats, Castillo counted on 15, originally solid, votes from Peru Libre, and 5, not very solid, votes from Juntos por el Peru. In the absence of government mobilization of the masses, the oligarchy knew Castillo represented no threat, thus their intense hostility was to treat his government as an abhorrent abnormality sending a message to the nation that it should never have happened and that would never recur.

One example of parliament’s obtuse obstructionism was the impeachment of his minister of foreign relations, Hector Béjar, a well reputed left-wing academic and intellectual on 17^th August 2021, who, barely 15 days after his appointment and less than a month after Castillo’s inauguration (28^th July 2021), was forced to resign. Béjar’s ‘offence’, a statement made at a public conference in February 2020 during the election – before his ministerial appointment – in which he asserted a historical fact: terrorism was begun by Peru’s Navy in 1974 well before the appearance of the Shining Path [1980]. Béjar was the first minister out of many to be arbitrarily impeached by Congress.

Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), an extreme guerrilla group, was active in substantial parts of the countryside during the 1980s-1990s and whose confrontation with state military forces led to a generalised situation of conflict. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that, after the collapse of the Fujimori dictatorship, investigated the atrocities perpetrated during the state war against the Shining Path, reported that 69,280 people died or disappeared between 1980 and 2000.

Congress’ harassment aimed at preventing Castillo’s government from even functioning can be verified with numbers: in the 495 days he lasted in office, Castillo was forced to appoint a total of 78 ministers. Invariably, appointed ministers as in the case of Béjar, would be subjected to ferocious attack by the media and the Establishment (in Béjar’s case, by the Navy itself) and by the right-wing parliamentary majority that was forcing ministers’ resignation with the eagerness of zealous witch hunters.

Béjar was ostensibly impeached for his accurate commentary about the Navy’s activities in the 1970s but more likely for having made the decision for Peru to abandon the Lima Group, adopting a non-interventionist foreign policy towards Venezuela and for condemning unilateral sanctions against nations. Béjar made the announcement of the new policy on 3^rd August 2021 and the ‘revelations’ about his Navy commentary were made on August 15^th. The demonization campaign was in full swing immediately after that which included: soldiers holding public rallies demanding his resignation, a parliamentary motion from a coalition of parliamentary forces essentially for ‘not being fit for the post’, and for adhering to a ‘communist ideology.’

Something similar but not identical happened with Béjar’s replacement, Oscar Maurtúa, a career diplomat, who had served as minister of foreign relations in several previous right-wing governments from 2005. When in October 2021, Guido Bellido, a radical member of Peru Libre, who upon being appointed Minister of Government, threatened the nationalisation of Camisea gas, an operation run by multinational capital, for refusing to renegotiate its profits in favour of the Peruvian state, Maurtúa resigned two weeks later. Guido Bellido himself, was forced to resign ostensibly for an “apologia of terrorism” but in reality for having had the audacity to threaten to nationalise an asset that ought to belong to Peru.

On 6^th October 2021, Guido Bellido, a national leader of Peru Libre, who had been Castillo’s Minister of Government since 29 July, offered his resignation at the president’s request triggered by his nationalization threat. Vladimir Cerrón, Peru Libre’s key national leader followed suit by publicly breaking with Castillo on 16^th October, asking him to leave the party and thus leaving Castillo without the party’s parliamentary support. Ever since, Peru Libre has suffered several divisions.

Worse, Castillo was pushed into a corner by being forced to select ministers to the liking of the right-wing parliamentary majority to avoid them not being approved. All took place within a context dominated by intoxicating media demonization, accusations, fake news and generalised hostility to his government but with a Damocles sword – a motion to declare his presidency “vacant” and thus be impeached – hanging over his head.

The first attempt was in November 2021 (a few weeks after Bellido’s forced resignation). It did not gather sufficient parliamentary support (46 against 76, 4 abstentions). The second was in March 2022 with the charge of ‘permanent moral incapacity’, which got 55 votes (54 against and 19 abstentions) but failed because procedurally 87 votes were required. And finally, on 1^st December 2022, Congress voted in favour of initiating a process to declare ‘vacancy’ against Castillo for “permanent moral incapacity.” This time, the right wing had managed to gather 73 votes (32 against and 6 abstentions). The motion of well over 100 pages, included at least six ‘parliamentary investigations’ for allegedly ‘leading a criminal organization’, for traffic of influences, for obstruction of justice, for treason (in an interview Castillo broached the possibility of offering Bolivia access to the sea through Peruvian territory), and even, for ‘plagiarising’ his MA thesis.

By then Castillo was incredibly isolated surrounded by the rarefied, putrid and feverish Lima political establishment that were as a pack of hungry wolves that had scented blood: Castillo would have to face a final hearing set by Peru’s congressional majority on 7^th December. On the same day, in an event surrounded by confusion – maliciously depicted by the world mainstream media as a coup d’état – the president went on national TV to announce his decision to dissolve Congress temporarily, establish an exceptional emergency government and, the holding of elections to elect a new Congress with Constituent Assembly powers within nine months. US ambassador in Lima, Lisa D. Kenna, immediately reacted on that very day with a note stressing the US ‘rejects any unconstitutional act by president Castillo to prevent Congress to fulfil its mandate.’ The Congress’ ‘mandate’ was to impeach president Castillo.

We know the rest of the story: Congress on the same day carried the ‘vacancy’ motion by 101 votes, Castillo was arrested, and Dina Boluarte has been sworn in as interim president. Declaring the dissolution of the Congress may not have been the most skilful tactical move Castillo made but he put the limelight on the key institution that obstinately obstructed the possibility of socio-economic progress that Castillo’s presidency represented.

Castillo had no support whatsoever among the economic or political elite, the judiciary, the state bureaucracy, the police or the armed forces, or the mainstream media. He was politically right in calling for the dissolution of the obstruction of Congress to allow for the mass of the people through the ballot box to be given the chance to democratically remove it. An Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP in its Spanish acronym) survey in November showed the rate of disapproval of Congress to be 86%, up 5 points from October, and staying on 75-78% throughout the second half 2021.

What was not expected with Castillo’s impeachment was the vigorous outburst of social mobilization throughout Peru. Its epicentre was in the Peruvian ‘sierra’, the indigenous hinterlands where Castillo got most of his electoral support, but also in key cities, including Lima. The demands raised by the mass movement are for the reinstatement of Castillo, dissolution of Congress, the resignation of Boluarte, the holding of immediate parliamentary elections and, a new constitution. Demonstrators, expressing their fury in Lima, carried placards declaring “Congress is a den of rats”.

In light of the huge mass mobilizations one inevitably wonders why was this not unleashed before, say, one and a half year ago? Castillo, heavily isolated and under almighty pressure, hoping to buy some breathing space, sought to ingratiate himself with the national and international right by, for example, appointing a neoliberal economist, Julio Valverde, in charge of the Central Bank, tried to get closer to the deadly Organization of American States, met Bolsonaro in Brazil and, distanced himself from Venezuela. To no avail, the elite demanded ever more concessions but would never be satisfied no matter how many Castillo made.

The repression unleashed against the popular mobilizations has been swift and brutal but ineffective. Reports talk of at least eighteen people killed by bullets from the police and more than a hundred injured, yet mobilizations and marches have grown and spread further. Though the ‘interim government’ has already banned demonstrations, they have continued. Three days ago they occupied the Andahuaylas airport; an indefinite strike has been declared in Cusco; in Apurimac, school lessons have been suspended; plus a multiple blockading of motorways in many points in the country. It is evident the political atmosphere in Peru was already pretty charged and these social energies were dormant but waiting to be awaken.

Though it is premature to draw too many conclusions about what this popular resistance might bring about, it is clear that the oligarchy miscalculated what it expected the outcome of Castillo’s ouster would be: the crushing defeat of this attempt, however timid, of the lower classes, especially cholos (pejorative name for indigenous people in Peru), to change the status quo. Peru’s oligarchy found it intolerable that a cholo, Castillo, was the country’s president and even less that he dared to threaten to enlist the mass of the people to actively participate in a Constituent Assembly entrusted with drafting a new constitution.

The appointed interim president, Dina Boluarte, feeling the pressure of the mass mobilization announced a proposal to hold ‘anticipated elections’ in 2024 instead of 2026, the date of the end of Castillo’s official mandate. However, it has been reported that Castillo sent a message to the people encouraging them to fight for a Constituent Assembly and not fall into the ‘dirty trap of new elections.” Through one of his lawyers, Dr Ronald Atencio, Castillo communicated that his detention was illegal and arbitrary with his constitutional rights being violated, that he is the subject of political persecution, which threatens to turn him into a political prisoner, that he has no intention of seeking asylum, and that he is fully aware of the mobilizations throughout the country and the demands for his freedom.

We’ll see how things develop from here. Castillo’s ouster is a negative development; it is a setback for the left in Peru and for democracy in Latin America. Latin America’s left presidents have understood this and condemned the parliamentary coup against democratically elected president Pedro Castillo. Among the presidents condemning the coup are, Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Honduras’ Xiomara Castro, Argentina’s Fernandez, Colombia’s Petro, Mexico’s Lopez Obrador, and Bolivia’s Arce.

More dramatically, the presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Bolivia issued a joint communiqué (12^th December) demanding Castillo’s reinstatement that in its relevant part reads, “It is not news to the world that President Castillo Terrones, from the day of his election, was the victim of anti-democratic harassment […] Our governments call on all actors involved in the above process to prioritise the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. This is the way to interpret the scope and meaning of the notion of democracy as enshrined in the Inter-American Human Rights System.  We urge those who make up the institutions to refrain from reversing the popular will expressed through free suffrage.” (my translation)

At the XIII ALBA-TCP summit held in Havana on December 15^th, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Saint Lucía, St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and Cuba condemned the detention of president Pedro Castillo which they characterised as a coup d’etat.

It is very doubtful that Peru’s oligarchy will be able to bring political stability to the country. Since 2016 the country has had 6 presidents, none of whom has completed their mandate, and the impeachment of Castillo has let the genie (militant mass mobilizations) out of the bottle and it looks pretty unlikely they will be able to put it back. The illegitimate government of Boluarte has on 14^th December declared a state of emergency throughout the national territory and, ominously, placed the armed forces in charge of securing law and order. The armed forces, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated the dirty war between the Peruvian state and the Shining Path guerrillas (1980-1992), were responsible for about 50 per cent of the 70,000 deaths the war cost. It is the typical but worst possible action that Peru’s oligarchy can undertake.

The demands of the mass movement must be met: immediate and unconditional freedom of president Castillo, the immediate holding of elections for a Constituent Assembly for a new anti- neoliberal constitution, and for the immediate cessation of the brutal repression by sending the armed forces back to their barracks.

About the Author

Francisco Dominguez is head of the Research Group on Latin America at Middlesex University. He is also the national secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign and co-author of Right-Wing Politics in the New Latin America (Zed, 2011).

A few days ago, when neofascist candidate José Antonio Kast was winning the first round of the country’s presidential elections, Chile’s 2019 rebellion aimed at burying neoliberalism appeared to be at an end. However, it has been greatly reinvigorated with the landslide victory of the Apruebo Dignidad¹ (I Vote For Dignity) candidate, Gabriel Boric Font, who obtained 56 percent of the vote in the second round, that is nearly 5 million votes, the largest ever in the country’s history. Gabriel, age 35 is the youngest president ever.

That result would have been greater had it not been for the policy of the minister of transport, Gloria Hutt Hesse, deliberately offering almost no public transport services, especially buses to the poor barrios, aimed at minimising the number of pro-Boric voters, hoping they would give up and go back home.² Throughout Election Day, there were constant reports on the mainstream media, especially TV, of people in the whole country but particularly at Santiago³ bus stops bitterly complaining for having to wait for 2 and even 3 hours for buses to go to polling centres. Thus, there were justified fears they would rig the election, but the determination of poor voters was such that the manoeuvre did not work.

Kast’s campaign, with the complicity of the right and the mainstream media, waged one of the dirtiest electoral campaigns in the country’s history, reminiscent of the US-funded and US-led ‘terror propaganda’ mounted against socialist candidate Salvador Allende in 1958, 1964 and 1970. Through innuendo and the use of social media, the Kast camp spewed out crass anti-communist propaganda, charged Boric with assisting terrorism, suggested that Boric would install a totalitarian regime in Chile, and such like. The campaign sought to instil fear primarily in the petty bourgeoisie by repeatedly predicting that drug addiction – even implying that Boric takes drugs, crime, and narco-trafficking, would spin out control if Boric became president. Besides, the mainstream media assailed Boric with insidious questions about Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, for which Boric did not produce the most impressive answers.

To no avail, the mass of the population saw it through and knew that their vote was the only way to stop pinochetismo taking hold of the presidency, and they had had enough of president Piñera. Their perception was correct, they knew that in the circumstances the best way to ensure the aims of the social rebellion of October 2019 was by defeating Kast and his brand of unalloyed pinochetismo.

As the electoral campaign unfolded, though Kast backtracked on some of his most virulent pinochetista statements, people knew that if he won he would not hesitate to fully implement them. Among many other gems, Kast declared his intention as president to abolish the ministry for women, same sex marriage, the (very restrictive) law on abortion, eliminate funding for the Museum in the Memory of the victims of the dictatorship and the Gabriela Mistral Centre for the promotion of arts, literature and theatre, withdraw Chile from the International Commission of Human Rights, close down the National Institute of Human Rights, cease the activities of FLACSO (prestigious Latin American centre of sociological investigation), build a ditch in the North of Chile (border with Bolivia and Peru) to stop illegal immigration, and empower the president with the legal authority to detain people in places other than police stations or jails (that is, restore the illegal procedures of Pinochet’s sinister police).

Kast’s intentions left no doubt as to what the correct option was in the election. I was, however, flabbergasted with various leftist analyses advocating not to vote, in one case because ‘there is no essential difference between Kast and Boric’, and, even worse, another suggested that ‘the dilemma between fascism and democracy was false’ because Chile’s democracy is defective. My despair with such ‘principled posturing’, probably dictated by the best of political intentions, turned into shock when on election day itself a Telesur correspondent in Santiago interviewed a Chilean activist who only attacked Boric with the main message of the feature being “whoever wins, Chile loses”.⁴

The centre-left Concertación coalition⁵ that in the 1990-2021 period governed the nation for 24 years, bears a heavy responsibility for maintaining and even perfecting the neoliberal system, expressed openly its preference for Boric, and assiduously courted support for im in the second round. Hence, those who believe there is no difference between Kast and Boric, do so not only from an ultra-left stance but also by finding Boric guilty by association, even though he has not yet had the chance to even perpetrate the crime.

This brings us to a central political issue: what has the October 2019 Rebellion and all its impressively positive consequences posed for the Chilean working class? What is posed in Chile is the struggle not (yet) for power but for the masses that for decades were conned into accepting (however grudgingly) neoliberalism as a fact of life, until the 2019 rebellion that was the first mass mobilization not only to oppose but also to get rid of neoliberalism.⁶ The Rebellion extracted extraordinary concessions from the ruling class: a referendum for a Constitutional Convention entrusted legally with the task to draft an anti-neoliberal constitution to replace the 1980 one promulgated under Pinochet’s rule.

The referendum approved the proposal of a new constitution and the election of a convention by 78 and 79 per cent, respectively in October 2020. The election of the Convention gave Chile’s right only 37 seats out of 155, that is, barely 23 per cent, whereas those in favour of radical change got an aggregated total of 118 seats, or 77 per cent. More noticeably, Socialists and Christian Democrats, the old Concertación parties, got jointly a total 17 seats. The biggest problem remains the fragmentation of the emerging forces aiming for change since together they hold almost all the remaining seats, but structured in easily 50 different groups. Nevertheless, in tune with the political context the Convention elected Elisa Loncón Antileo, a Mapuche indigenous leader as its president, and there were 17 seats reserved exclusively for the indigenous nations and elected only by them; a development of gigantic significance.

The mass rebellion also obtained other concessions from the government and parliament such as the return of 70 percent of their pension contributions from the private ‘pension administrators’, which rightly Chileans see as a massive swindle that has lasted for over 3 decades. This has dealt a heavy blow to Chile’s financial capital. A proposal in parliament for the return of the remaining 30 percent (at the end of September 2021) failed to be approved by a very small margin of votes. I am certain the AFPs have not heard the last on this matter.

The scenario depicted above suddenly became confused with the results of the presidential election’s first round where not only Kast came out first (with 27 percent against 25 for Boric), but which also elected Deputies and Senators for Chile’s two parliament chambers. Though Apruebo Dignidad did very well with 37 deputies (out of 155) and 5 senators (out of 50), the right-wing Chile Podemos Más (Piñera’s supporters) got 53 deputies and 22 senators, whilst the old Concertación got 37 deputies and 17 senators.

There are several dynamics at work here. With regards to the parliamentary election, traditional mechanisms and existing clientelistic relations apply with experienced politicians exerting local influence and getting elected. In contrast, most of the elected members of the Convention are an emerging bunch of motley pressure groups organised around single-issue campaigns (AFP, privatization of water, price of gas, abuse of utilities companies, defence of Mapuche ancestral lands, state corruption and so forth), which did not stand candidates for a parliamentary seat.

A most important fact was Boric’s public commitment in his victory speech (19 Dec) to support and work together with the Constitutional Convention for a new constitution. This has given and will give enormous impetus to the efforts to constitutionally replace the existing neoliberal economic model.

What the Chilean working class must address is their lack of political leadership. They do not have even a Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) as the people of Honduras to fight against the coup that ousted Mel Zelaya in 2009. The FNPR, made up of many and varied social and political movements, evolved into the Libre party that has just succeeded in electing Xiomara Castro, as the country’s first female president.⁷ The obvious possible avenue to address this potentially dangerous shortcoming would be to bring together in a national conference, all the many single-issue groups together with all social movements and willing political currents to set up a Popular Front for an Anti-Neoliberal Constitution.

After all, they have taken to the streets for two years to bury the oppressive, abusive and exploitative neoliberal model, and it is becoming clearer what to replace it with: a system based on a new constitution that allows the nationalization of all utilities and natural resources, punishes the corrupt, respects the ancestral lands of the Mapuche, and guarantees decent health, education and pensions. The road to get there will continue to be bumpy and messy, but we have won the masses; now, with a sympathetic government in place, we can launch the transformation of the state and build a better Chile.

By means of sheer resistance, resilience, mobilisation, and organisation, they have managed to defeat Juan Orlando Hernandez’s narco-dictatorship at the ballot box. Xiomara Castro, presidential candidate of the left-wing Libre party (the Freedom and Refoundation Party), in its Spanish acronym), obtained a splendid 50+ percent—between 15 to 20 percent more votes than her closest rival candidate, Nasry Asfura, National Party candidate, in an election with historic high levels of participation (68 percent).

The extraordinary feat performed by the people of Honduras takes place under the dictatorial regime of Hernandez (aka JOH) in an election marred by what appears to be targeted assassinations of candidates and activists. Up to October 2021, 64 acts of electoral violence, including 11 attacks and 27 assassinations, had been perpetrated. And in the period preceding the election (11-23 November) another string of assassinations, mainly of candidates, took place.

None of the fatal victims were members of Hernandez’s National Party. The aim seems to have been to terrorise the opposition, and particularly their electorate, into believing that it was unsafe to turn out to vote—and that even if they did, they would again steal the election through fraud and violence, as they have done twice already, in 2013 and 2017.

Commentators correctly characterise this as the ‘Colombianisation’ of Honduran politics—that is, a ruling gang in power deploys security forces and paramilitary groups to assassinate opposition activists. In Honduras, the most despicable act was the murder of environmental activist, feminist, and indigenous leader Berta Caceres by armed intruders in her own house, after years of death threats.

She had been a leading figure in the grassroots struggle against electoral fraud and dictatorship, and had been calling for the urgent re-founding of the nation, a proposal that has been incorporated into the programme of mass social movements such as the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). Since 2009, hundreds of activists have been assassinated at the hands of the police, the army, and paramilitaries.

The Colombianisation analogy does not stop at the assassination of opponents. Last June, the Washington Post explained the extent of infiltration by organised crime: ‘Military and police chiefs, politicians, businessmen, mayors and even three presidents have been linked to cocaine trafficking or accused of receiving funds from trafficking.’

US Judge Kevin Castel, who sentenced ‘Tony’ Hernandez, JOH’s brother, to life in prison after being found guilty of smuggling 185 tons of cocaine into the US, said: ‘Here, the [drug]trafficking was indeed state-sponsored’. In March 2021, at the trial against Geovanny Fuentes, a Honduran accused of drug trafficking, the prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig said that President JOH helped Fuentes with the trafficking of tons of cocaine.

Corruption permeates the whole Honduran establishment. National Party candidate Nasry Asfura has faced a pre-trial ‘for abuse of authority, use of false documents, embezzlement of public funds, fraud and money laundering’, and Yani Rosenthal, candidate of the once-ruling Liberal party, a congressman and a banker, was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison in the US for ‘participating in financial transactions using illicit proceeds (drug money laundering).’

The parallels continue. Like Colombia, Honduras is a narco-state in which the US has a host of military bases. It was from Honduran territory that the Contra mercenaries waged a proxy war against Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s, and it was also from Honduras that the US-led military invasion of Guatemala was launched in 1954, bringing about the violent ousting of democratically elected left-wing nationalist president Jacobo Arbenz. Specialists aptly refer to the country as ‘USS Honduras’.

So cocaine trafficking and state terrorism, which operates as part of the drug business in cahoots with key state institutions, is ‘tolerated’ and probably supported by various US agencies ‘in exchange’ for a large US military presence—the US has Soto Cano and 12 more US military bases in Honduras—due to geopolitical calculations like regional combat against left-wing governments. This criminal system’s stability requires the elimination of political and social activists.

Thus many US institutions, from the White House all the way down the food chain, turn a blind eye to the colossal levels of corruption. In fact, SOUTHCOM has been actively building Honduras’ repressive military capabilities by funding and training special units like Batallion-316, which reportedly acts as a death squad, ‘guilty of kidnap, torture, and murder’. ‘Between 2010 and 2016, as US “aid” and training continued to flow, over 120 environmental activists were murdered by hitmen, gangs, police, and the military for opposing illegal logging and mining,’ one report explains.

The legacy left by right-wing governments since the violent ousting of Mel Zelaya in 2009 is abysmal. Honduras is one the most violent countries in the world (37 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, with 60 percent attributable to organised crime), with staggering levels of poverty (73.6 percent of households live below the poverty line, out of which 53.7 percent live in extreme poverty), high levels of unemployment (well over 12 percent), and even higher levels of underemployment (the informal sector of the economy, due to the effects of Covid-19, grew from 60 to 70 percent). Its external debt is over US$15 billion (57 percent of its GDP), and the nation suffers from high incidences of embezzlement and illegal appropriation of state resources by this criminal administration.

The rot is so pronounced that back in February this year, a group of Democrats in the US Senate introduced legislation intended to cut off economic aid and sales of ammunition to Honduran security forces. The proposal ‘lays bare the violence and abuses perpetrated since the 2009 military-backed coup, as a result of widespread collusion between government officials, state and private security forces, organised crime and business leaders.’ In Britain, Colin Burgon, the president of Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America, issued scathing criticism of the British government’s complicity for ‘having sold (when Boris Johnson was Foreign Minister no less) to the Honduran government spyware designed to eavesdrop on its citizens, months before the state rounded up thousands of people in a well-orchestrated surveillance operation.’

To top it all off, through the ZEDES (Special Zones of Development and Employment) initiative, whole chunks of the national territory are being given to private enterprise subjected to a ‘special regime’ that empowers investors to establish their own security bodies—including their own police force and penitentiary system—to investigate criminal offences and instigate legal prosecutions. This is taking neoliberalism to abhorrent levels, the dream of multinational capital: the selling-off of portions of the national territory to private enterprise. Stating that the Honduran oligarchy, led by JOH, is ‘selling the country down the river’ is not a figure of speech.

It is this monstrosity, constructed since the overthrow of President Mel Zelaya in 2009 on top of the existing oligarchic state, that the now victorious Libre party and incoming president Xiomara Castro need to overcome to start improving the lives of the people of Honduras. The array of extremely nasty internal and external forces that her government will be up against is frighteningly powerful, and they have demonstrated in abundance what they are prepared to do to defend their felonious interests.

President-elect Xiomara’s party Libre, is the largest in the 128-seat Congress, and with its coalition partner, Salvador, will have a very strong parliamentary presence, which will be central to any proposed referendum for a Constituent Assembly aimed at re-founding the nation. Libre has also won in the capital city Tegucigalpa, and in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city. More importantly, unlike elections elsewhere (in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia), the National Party’s candidate, Asfura, has conceded defeat. Thus, Xiomara has a very strong mandate.

However, in a region dominated by US-led ‘regime change’ operations—the coup in Bolivia, the coup attempt in Nicaragua, the mercenary attack against Venezuela, plus a raft of violent street disorders in Cuba, vigorous destabilisation against recently elected President Castillo in Peru, and so on ad nausea—Honduras will need all the international solidarity we can provide, which we must do.

The heroic struggle of the people of Honduras has again demonstrated that it can be done: neoliberalism and its brutal foreign and imperialist instigators can be defeated and a better world can be built. So, before Washington, their Honduran cronies, their European accomplices, and the world corporate media unleash any shenanigans, let’s say loud and clear: US hands off Honduras!

This article first appeared in Tribune.

It is defended” – Cesar Augusto Sandino

It is an irrefutable fact that the United States orchestrated, financed and unleashed the violent coup attempt in 2018 against the democratically elected FSLN government. Spokespeople of the U.S. establishment, from former president Trump, extreme right-wing senators and deputies, all the way down the food chain of its formidable ‘regime change’ machinery, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and, of course, USAID, repeatedly stated their aim was to bring about ‘regime change’ in Nicaragua. In this connection, the significance of U.S. Nicaraguan proxies is ephemeral and purely utilitarian (does anybody remember Adolfo Calero, Miami-based Contra leader?). Such proxies are activated to sow chaos, violence and confusion to facilitate a U.S.-driven ‘regime change’ intervention, but for the huge U.S. democracy-crushing machine, when plans do not work, its proxies are disposable human assets. In the 2018 coup attempt, the operatives on the ground, disguised as civil society bodies committed to the rule of law, democracy, civil liberties, human rights and other fake descriptions, were in fact U.S.-funded proxies entrusted with the task to bring down the FSLN government by means of violence. The resistance of the Nicaraguan people defeated the coup and thus the nation will go to the polls in November 2021, prompting the U.S. ‘regime change’ apparatus to launch, in despair, an international campaign aimed at demonising the electoral process itself.

The brutal ‘regime change’ machinery

The US, through open and shady channels, disbursed millions to pay, organise, and train thousands of the cadre that would carry out the coup attempt in 2018. Between 2014 and 2017 the U.S. funded over 50 projects in Nicaragua for a total of US$4.2 million. Furthermore, William Grigsby, an investigative journalist, revealed that USAID and the NED distributed over US$30 million to a range of groups opposed to the Nicaraguan government who were involved in the violence of 2018.¹

A pro-U.S. commentator, writing in NED-funded magazine Global Americans (1 May 2018), admitted that these resources had been deployed to lay the ‘groundwork for insurrection’: “Looking back at the developments of the last several months it is now quite evident that the U.S. government actively helped build the political space and capacity of Nicaraguan society for the social uprising that is currently unfolding”.² Furthermore, millions of U.S. taxpayers’ money also went into financing a Nicaraguan coup-plotting media.³

The ingredients of U.S. ‘regime change’ operations are buttressed by illegal unilateral coercive measures (aka sanctions) aimed at isolating internationally the target government and causing as much havoc as possible to its economy so as to destabilise it thus bringing about a crisis, leading to the ousting of the government, and to a U.S.-led transition. For example, since 2016-17, the U.S. has applied 431 and 243 sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba, respectively. With the NICA Act and the RENACER bill, the U.S. is piling up sanctions against Nicaragua’s economy and FSLN government officials. The strategy is invariably complemented by a worldwide intoxicating corporate media demonization campaign labelling these governments ‘authoritarian’ and ‘dictatorial’, sometimes going as far as charging them as ‘fascists’ and, in the case of Nicaragua, even of ‘Somocismo’.⁴

This technique has been used in the efforts to violently oust the government of Venezuela (including the recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president”), and also in the recent violent push to overthrow the government in Cuba⁵. U.S. National Security Adviser, John Bolton identified Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua (“a troika of tyranny”) as target governments to be overthrown. In the speech (1 Nov 2018), he also praised Bolsonaro as one of the “positive signs for the future of the region”).

U.S. war on Latin American democracy

Reams have been written about U.S. interventions in Latin America (and the world) both by U.S. sycophants and detractors, who, despite their antipodal viewpoints, agree that notwithstanding the altruistic pronouncements of U.S. officialdom and their accomplices, they have never led to the establishment of democracy and, in most cases, such as in Salvador Allende’s Chile, ended in its total destruction. Thus, the 1954 U.S. military invasion of Guatemala leading to the violent ousting of democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz, was celebrated by U.S. president Eisenhower as a “magnificent effort’ and “devotion to the cause of freedom”, an event that was followed by decades of US-supported and US-sponsored slaughter of well over 200,000 Guatemalans. El Salvador did not have the ‘benefit’ of a U.S. military invasion but in the 1980s, U.S.-funded, US-trained and U.S.-armed death squads, would slaughter about 80,000 mostly innocent civilians.

Nicaragua has been the target of many U.S. interventions, the largest being the military invasion of 1926-1933 that was heroically resisted by General Sandino’s guerrillas. It did not lead to anything resembling democracy but to the 43 years-long Somoza dictatorship that ended in 1979, when the Sandinista revolution implemented democracy for the first time in the country’s history. Sadly, the U.S. sought to prevent Nicaragua from pursuing an alternative, democratic, sovereign pathway by unleashing a destructive war by proxy through organising, funding, training, arming and directing the Contras under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. The war led to the obliteration of the economy, the electoral defeat of the FSLN in 1990, and to well over 40,000 people killed.⁶ The Sandinistas respected the election result – even though it had been obtained under U.S.-led war conditions – did not engage in violent confrontations during the 16 years of neoliberal governments (1990-2006), and participated in all electoral processes during that period, dutifully recognising unfavourable election results in 1990, 1996, and 2001.

Neoliberalism in Nicaragua was socially and economically disastrous: by 2005, 62% of the population was below the poverty line with high levels of extreme poverty (14% in 2009); 85% had no access to healthcare systems; 64% of the economically active were in the informal sector with no pension or health cover; the level of illiteracy was 22% even though it had been eradicated during the 1979-1990 Sandinista government⁷, and so forth, mirroring neoliberal wreckage elsewhere in the region.

Unsurprisingly, the FSLN gathered electoral strength: winning the presidency by 38% in 2006; re-elected in 2011 with 63% and again with 72% in 2016. The return of the FSLN to government in 2006 led to a reduction of poverty to 42.5% and extreme poverty to 7% in 2016, on the back of a 4.7% average rate of economic growth, one of the highest in the region. The country’s social economy, driven primarily by the informal sector, was given a gigantic impetus making Nicaragua 90% self-sufficient in food (a dream for nations under U.S. siege, such as Cuba and Venezuela). By 2018-19 poverty had been halved, 1.2 million children were taken out of food poverty, 27,378 new classrooms had been built, 11,000 new teachers had been employed, 353 new healthcare units had been created including 109 birth & childcare facilities, 229 health centres, 15 primary hospitals, plus social housing, social security, the mass inclusion of women earning the nation the 5th world position on gender equality, and much more. So why would the FSLN, enjoying an electoral support of 70%+, resort to state violence in 2018 when the economy was going well, social indexes were improving and standards of living going up? Why would the FSLN turn viciously against its own people by becoming a dictatorship overnight?

Demonization, prelude to aggression

The intense, intoxicating and well-orchestrated worldwide demonization campaign against the FSLN government has inevitably influenced and obfuscated the vision of many individuals of goodwill who may have a healthy concern about the media-generated torrent of allegations of undemocratic behaviour attributed to the Nicaraguan government. Many also believed that Evo had fathered an illegitimate child – which, The Guardian (24 June 2016) labelled a scandalous “telenovela of sex lies, and paternity claims” – that was an undeniable factor in Morales narrowly losing a referendum in 2016. However, the child never existed but was ‘materialised’ by the world media just before the referendum was held. No media outrage was elicited by such grotesque fabrication. So, never underestimate the power and impact of U.S.-led psychological warfare carried through the world corporate media, especially when it comes to Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, or any government targeted by U.S. ‘regime change’ plans.

Psychological warfare and its concomitant media demonization have the function to alienate progressive public opinion support from U.S. targeted governments or individuals. Lula and his party, for example, were subjected to such media demonization managing to persuade many primarily in Europe and the U.S. of his culpability in the Lava Jato corruption scandal that rocked Brazil, for which he was tried and convicted on [T]rumped up charges that led to his illegal and unjust imprisonment for over 580 days. No media outrage has followed Brazil Supreme Court’s verdicts of his being innocent of all the charges. Nevertheless, the damage done is pretty hefty: the lawfare against Lula prevented him from being a presidential candidate, creating propitious conditions for the election of fascist Bolsonaro.

The demonization of Evo seems to have been part of a broader plan aimed at his ousting, which was achieved in November 2019 thanks to the corrupt intervention of OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, who, with the support of the European Union ‘electoral mission’ in Bolivia, falsely reported ‘irregularities’ implying election fraud. The coup brought to power the de facto racist and fascist government led by Jeanine Añez, that unleashed brutal police repression and persecution against the social movements, perpetrated several massacres, and engaged in vast amounts of corruption. No media outrage has followed Almagro’s disgusting behaviour, not even after him being publicly denounced by Bolivia’s president, Luis Arce, and Mexico’s foreign minister.

Actually, the plot thickens: the Bolivian government with the help of the government of Argentina, have produced irrefutable evidence that in November 2019 right-wing former president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, sent to Bolivia a war arsenal of thousands of rounds of ammunition, 70,000 anti-riot cartridges, thousands of rubber bullets, many long and short weapons, including machine guns, as a ‘contribution’ to the coup that ousted president Morales. No media outrage has followed this either; instead, most of the corporate media has opted for omitting it.

In Venezuela, President Maduro has denounced several attempts on his life, one of which in 2018 was televised; yet it led to no corporate media condemnation. In May 2020 Venezuela was subjected to a mercenary attack with the perpetrators publicly admitting it, yet it led to no media condemnation either. At least the brutal assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moise by a hit squad of Colombian mercenaries that appear to be connected to the Colombian authorities, has received a modicum of media condemnation and there is some journalistic probing into Colombia’s involvement in it. Haiti’s gory magnicide (Moise was first tortured then killed with 12 bullets) shows the U.S. and its allies in the region are prepared to go to any lengths to obtain results. There is no reason to think Nicaragua, as the 2018 coup attempt shows, would be treated differently.

The empire’s desperation

Right now the issue for the U.S. interventionist machinery in Nicaragua is the coming election to be held on 7 November 2021 with the likely victory of the FSLN. The people of Nicaragua will elect president, vice-president and 90 national assembly deputies. The U.S. is desperate to discredit these elections by orchestrating a stream of media-oriented provocations that may allow it not to recognise the results (though, after the embarrassing experience with corrupt primus inter pares, Juan Guaidó, it is unlikely to proclaim a Nicaraguan ‘interim president’; though I wouldn’t hold my breath). The desperation of the U.S. interventionist establishment, especially its extreme right-wing (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, the NED, USAID et al), manifests itself in a media-driven effort to discredit the coming election by seeking to influence international progressive public opinion with a narrative of disillusionment with the FSLN (labelled Orteguismo), aimed at creating the impression the FSLN is isolated, thus resorting to dictatorial measures, and that it has betrayed Sandinismo. Apart from being malicious this is thoroughly false.

Under president Daniel Ortega and vice-president Rosario Murillo Nicaragua has successfully defended the nation’s sovereignty by restoring the social gains of the 1979-1990 revolution, by defeating the U.S.-orchestrated violent coup attempt of 2018, and by deepening the progressive socio-economic measures implemented since 2006. A good gauge of what would have happened had the 2018 coup attempt been victorious are the Añez government actions in Bolivia, Bolsonaro’s fascist brutality and recklessness, Guaidó’s criminal “interim presidency”, and Almagro’s abject servility to imperial objectives, whose common factor is the United States. Had the coup succeeded, the structural connection between Nicaragua’s socio-economic developments and national sovereignty, on which the latter rests, would have been brutally demolished, including the repression and murder of many Sandinistas and social leaders. The atrocities perpetrated during the coup attempt in 2018 (torture, burning people, setting fire to houses, health centres, radio stations, and generalised violence), are irrefutable proof of this.

The FSLN government is not isolated; it not only enjoys majority support in Nicaragua but it also has the robust solidarity of the Sao Paulo Forum, the Latin American body that brings together 48 social and political organizations. Among these are the Cuban Communist party, Venezuela’s PSUV, Bolivia’s MAS, Brazil’s Workers Party, Argentina’s Frente Grande, and Mexico’s MORENA – just to mention the most important ones – parties that command literally well over 120 million votes, and are or have been in government. The Forum (16 June 2021) has issued a robust statement in support of Nicaragua’s sovereignty stating as false the allegations of “arbitrary detention of opposition figures”.⁸

The Puebla Group, a body that assembles a large number of regional political leaders set up jointly by Lopez Obrador and Alberto Fernandez, presidents of Mexico and Argentina, respectively, issued a manifesto in February 2021 expressing support for Nicaragua (as well as Cuba and Venezuela) and condemning the aggression, external interference, and destabilisation these nations have been subjected to by the U.S.⁹ Among the Group’s members are Lula, Dilma Rousseff, Evo, Rafael Correa, Fernando Lugo, Ernesto Samper, Leonel Fernandez, Luis Guillermo Solis and Jose Luis Zapatero, former presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Spain, and many other prominent politicians.

Furthermore, the Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Sacha Llorenti, also condemned the aggression and the illegal sanctions against Nicaragua (and Cuba and Venezuela). Llorenti praised the “lessons of dignity given by the Nicaraguan people to the world” and paid tribute to them for the “achievements [of]the Sandinista Revolution.”¹⁰ He was attending the 42nd anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution held in Caracas. ALBA-TCP is a radical coordination founded in 2004 that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Grenada and the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Though in Europe opposition to U.S. aggression is strong, it is less so than in Latin America. Foreign affairs are dominated by the European Union’s abject and systematic capitulation to U.S. foreign policy (on Latin America, and the world). Thus we have witnessed the shameful spectacle of Europe’s recognition of Guaidó as Venezuela’s ‘interim president’, and the European Parliament, led by the nose by Spanish extreme right-wing Vox party, to issue condemnations of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia. The latter for the temerity of bringing Jeanine Añez to justice, key player in the 2019 coup against Evo and directly responsible for the persecution, repression and massacres perpetrated against Bolivians during her illegal 11 months in office.

Since the EU supports every violent assault against democracy in the Americas, it would be coherent to have supported the Trump-inspired assault on Washington’s Capitol. On January 6, 2021, U.S.’s extreme right applied techniques of “regime change” at home as the televised violent storming of the Capitol showed. The assault was carried out by armed, extreme right-wing (white supremacist) thugs, almost identical to U.S.-led efforts in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba, which involved non-recognition of election results, incessant spread of fake news, questioning the credibility of state institutions, fanaticization of supporters, all aimed at bringing about a crisis seeking to prevent the proclamation as president of the real winner.

Conclusion

Supporting any form of U.S. interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation under U.S. attack, by calling for ‘the international community to act’, or by (un)wittingly parroting U.S. State Dept. narrative on that nation, is tantamount to legitimising U.S. policy of “regime change”.

Were it not for U.S. aggression and interference, countries such as Nicaragua would have taken off and developed democracy and social progress, as the short national sovereignty intervals (1979-1990 and 2006-2018) have demonstrated. Cuba, for example, is an educational, sport, medical and biotechnological power, even though it has lost US$144 bn. (that is, the equivalent of 10 Nicaraguan economies at current prices) in the past six decades due to the U.S. blockade. Imagine how Cuba could have developed and multiplied its generous solidarity contribution to the world if it had not had to endure the criminal Yankee blockade.

Taking from its 1909 intervention, the U.S. maintained Nicaragua militarily invaded from 1912 until 1933, exerted direct control during the Somoza dictatorship until 1979, then when the Contra War (1980-1990) and the neoliberal governments (1990-2016), are added, the U.S. systemically curtailed or annulled Nicaragua’s national sovereignty for 97 years in the 20th century! If we add U.S. aggressive 19th century expansionism in the Caribbean, including the U.S. mercenary incursion of William Walker in 1856 –when he took power by military force and restored slavery – poor Nicaragua has been under the U.S. imperial thumb for over 140 years!

Nicaragua is entitled to embark on its own alternative path of development that, as a matter of sacrosanct moral principle, must be determined by Nicaraguans only without any external interference, and above all, in peace.

U.S. hands off Latin America, U.S. hands off Nicaragua!

With 100% of the votes counted, Castillo, candidate of left-wing coalition Peru Libre, won with 50.14 % of the votes, against Keiko Fujimori, daughter of infamous and disgraced corrupt dictator, Alberto Fujimori and right-wing candidate of Fuerza Popular, a coalition supported by the country’s oligarchic elite, obtained 49,86%.

To many, Castillo’s electoral robust performance in the first round with 18% of the vote was a surprise, since up to that point, the main contender for the left was Veronika Mendoza, candidate of the Juntos por el Peru coalition, who obtained slightly less than 8%. Below we examine the main events and developments that would culminate in this extraordinary victory for the Peruvian and Latin American Left.

The ongoing crisis of legitimacy

As it typifies oligarchic rule in Latin America, whenever the elite faces a serious challenge to its dominance it resorts to authoritarian methods, including brutal repression and if need be, mass murder. This is what the Peruvian elite did when in the early 1990s it faced mass opposition to the imposition of neoliberal impoverishment; one of the most extreme manifestations of opposition was the Shining Path guerrilla insurgency. State repression was substantially intensified with the election of Alberto Fujimori as president in 1990.

Fujimori’s dictatorial regime lasted a full decade (1990-2000) but it fell under the weight of its own corruption, engulfed in a constitutional crisis of legitimacy caused by his contempt for democratic procedure: he closed down congress, usurped judicial authority, promulgated a neo-liberal constitution and governed brutally and autocratically. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in killings and kidnappings by death squads during his government’s military campaign against leftist guerrillas.

Fujimori’s successor, president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) fared no better, even though, unlike Fujimori, he did not resort to underhand and brutal methods during his presidency. Nevertheless, he is under house arrest in San Francisco, awaiting extradition on charges of receiving multimillionaire bribes.

Then it was the turn of Alan Garcia, leader of APRA, an originally progressive populist party, who succeeded Toledo for the period 2006-2011, and who committed suicide in 2020 as the police came to arrest him for personal graft and corruption during his administration.

Ollanta Humala, briefly depicted as a sort of Peruvian Chavez and even publicly supported by the Comandante himself, defeated Keiko Fujimori at the 2011 elections thereby becoming the country’s president for the 2011-2016 period. But at it seems to befit Peru’s presidents, in 2017 he and his wife were arrested on charges of corruption and money laundering associated with it. Both are banned from leaving Peru and are awaiting trial.

The 2017 election crowned Pedro Pablo Kuczynski as the country’s president for 2016-2021, but he was not to break with the ‘cultural tradition’ and was forced to resign in 2018 (to avoid impeachment procedures began in 2017) for lying to congress and for receiving bribes in exchange for government contracts. Kuczynski also claimed to suffer from heart problems (as Fujimori, Toledo and Humala have done) thus benefiting from house arrest. It is evident that being the tenant of the House of Pizarro (the popular name for Peru’s presidential palace) is a tough job full of so many exciting incentives that can gravely affect their cardiac system.

Kuczynski had to be replaced by his vice-president, Martin Vizcarra, who launched an offensive against corruption but was impeached by congress in November 2020 for taking bribes on several occasions in 2014 in exchange for awarding public work contracts. It is widely believed his impeachment was prompted by his decision to close down congress for obstructing the investigations against corruption.¹

Vizcarra (who has not as yet claimed heart problems) accepted the congress decision and was replaced by the Congress’s President, Manuel Merino, as caretaker leader with a cabinet dominated by the business elite. Merino’s brief 6-day government sent strong hints of ignoring popular demands for the reform of the political and judicial systems and even entertained postponing the scheduled 2021 elections justified by the problems brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The country exploded in huge mass demonstrations that were met by brutal police repression with two dead, dozens injured and many more arrested. Merino was forced to resign on 15 November 2020 and Congress then appointed Francisco Sagasti (who had voted against Vizcarra’s impeachment) as interim president, and was entrusted with the task of organising the presidential elections in April 2021.

Thus since Peru’s elite had for decades undermined the rule of law and the credibility of the nation’s institutions, the state key positions had been filled in by corrupt or corruptible members of the political class (involving all mainstream political parties), in a system overwhelmingly dominated by finance capital, mining concerns, raw materials exporters, one media monopoly, and multinational companies. These powerful groups pay almost no taxes whilst taking away the nation’s wealth, leaving the agricultural sector in a state of total neglect. Such was the context surrounding the election that elected Pedro Castillo as president of Peru.

The consequences of Peru’s neoliberal dictatorship

In the last two decades, the country’s economic performance has been impressive receiving praise from the IMF: “Peru continues to be one of the best-performing Latin American economies. With annual real GDP growth averaging 5.4 percent over the past fifteen years, Peru has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, which enabled it to make significant progress in reducing poverty.”²

However, a deeper look into it produces a different impression. In 1970 Peru’s level of poverty was 50%, and by 2000 had slightly increased to 54.1%;³ by 2006 poverty had barely declined to 49.1%, and though it went down to about 20% in 2019, with the pandemic it has gone right back up to 30%⁴. In short, half of the country’s population have remained in a state of poverty for almost two generations and about one third for the last decade. However, 30% is deceptive since the level of labour informality in the country’s economy is a staggering 70%, of people who live day to day as street vendors; they and their families have gone hungry during the lockdown.⁵

The two decades of macroeconomic economic success and social horror correlate to the coming to office of Alberto Fujimori who successfully defeated Mario Vargas Llosa’s comprehensive neoliberal privatisation plan, at the 1990 election. Fujimori’s government systematised the use of counterinsurgency state terror to purge society from rebellious constituencies, such as those in the Sierra (Peru’s highlands), inhabited predominantly by indigenous people. Already by the end of the 1980s the departments of Ayacucho, Apurimac and Huancavelica were under martial law.

The military campaign against the Left was aided by the combination of extreme sectarianism, intense dogmatism, and the insurrectionary and violent methods practised by the Shining Path, a splinter group from the Communist Party. They enjoyed strong support precisely in the highlands departments mentioned and by the early 1990s had made considerable inroads into Lima’s shanty towns not only challenging the state but also waging a vicious campaign against the rest of the country’s Left.

The government response was the Fujimorazo, a self-coup carried out on 5 April 1992, with the president dissolving Congress and dismantling the judiciary, assuming full executive and legislative powers. He also used these powers to decree stringent and repressive labour laws that destroyed the remnants of an already seriously weakened labour movement. Under Fujimori labour legislation was crafted so as to make Peru a paradise of labour flexibility, management’s right to fire, casualization of labour contracts and workers’ unionisation and collective bargaining action, difficult.⁶

By 1993 Fujimori had increased the provinces under a military state of emergency from 52 to 66 and by 1994, nearly half of the population lived in such zones, areas where the security forces repressed the whole of the Left not just the Shining Path. It is estimated that by 1995 “insurgents, state security forces, drug traffickers, death squads, and civilian paramilitaries had killed more than 27,000 Peruvians.” And according to Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission the number of fatal victims of internal strife between 1980 and 2000 was 69,000.⁷ Peru had become a killing field.

The brutal state counterinsurgency offensive launched in 1980 had not only halted but also reversed the development of a Left that was becoming politically and electorally stronger. In the 1980 election it had obtained a combined vote of about 12-15%, though divided between 5 candidates, but in the 1985 election, a united left candidate got an impressive 24%. However, in the 1990 election the Left went down to 12% split between two candidates; it had almost no presence in the elections in 1995, 2000, 2006, and 2011 and began to painfully recover only in 2016.

Fujimori’s 1993 neoliberal structural reforms (the ‘Fuji-shock’) included the elimination of price controls, total deregulation of markets, privatisation of state-owned companies and activities, and a tight monetary policy. The privatisation programme attracted foreign investment (particularly from the US) in natural resources, finances and consumer markets. This resulted in intense concentration of ownership by foreign concerns thereby shrinking the influence and leverage of national industrial capital.⁸

Over time the country’s income distribution drastically worsened thus by 2019 the top 1% and 10% of income earners got 29.6% and 56.6% of GDP, respectively; 40% of middle income earners got 35.8% of GDP, whilst 50% of low income earners only received 9.4% of GDP; one of the most unequal in the world.⁹ No wonder Covid-19 has wreaked havoc among the poor, since one lockdown day at home for the 70% working in the informal sector (this is millions of people and their families), means one day without income. Decades of neoliberal privatisation and cuts in state expenditure (health, education and the like) having thrown millions into precariousness and hardship made them the unavoidable victims of Covid-19: by 4 June Peru had the highest mortality rate in the world per million people (188,000 with 1,998,056 confirmed cases).¹⁰

Castillo’s Long March

It was reported that when it was announced that a teacher had won the first round of elections, the staff at CCN scrambled to obtain information about, and get hold of a photo of Pedro Castillo because they did not have even a picture of him in their database. How did Pedro Castillo and Peru Libre, managed to win the presidency, even though by a whisker? Castillo’s manifesto makes it even more puzzling since the key tenets of his government programme include a frontal attack on neoliberalism, proposes the election of a Constituent Assembly to draft and promulgate a new constitution to substitute the dominant neoliberal economic model, land reform, the nationalisation of the nation’s natural resources ensuring most of the wealth they produce remains in Peru so as to eradicate poverty, increase state expenditure on social services (health and education), and implement income redistribution.¹¹ Even worse (or better) Castillo declares himself a Marxist and a mariateguista (follower of Peruvian intellectual, Jose Carlos Mariátegui, perhaps one the most original and influential Latin American Marxist thinkers).¹²

The Partido Nacional Peru Libre (PNPL) places political emphasis on the specific demands of Peru’s peasantry: land reform, social rights, education and health, thus expressing the demands and aspirations of the deep, rural, indigenous Peru. Mariátegui, writing in the 1920s, posited there would not be bourgeois revolution in Peru because there was no social class interested in carrying it out, thus the only concrete possibility of society’s structural transformation would come from a socialist revolution, the precondition of which was bringing in the indigenous people as a fundamental agent of such change.

This framework is still basically correct in 2021 Peru. Keiko Fujimori got strong support in key cities (for example, Lima and Callao, with 65% and 67%, respectively), but Castillo got a landslide in the Andean (indigenous) provinces such as Puno (89%), Huancavelica (85%), Cusco (83%), Ayacucho (82%), Apurimac (81%), Moquegua (73%), Cajamarca (71%), Huánuco (68%), and Pasco (66%). It was an indigenous victory¹³ that is not identical to a victory of rural against urban Peru, as some in the media have portrayed Castillo’s victory. After all, 73% of the population live in cities whilst only 27% live in rural areas, that is, the Marxist teacher could not have won without substantial support in the urban centres. The validity of the PNPL central tenet of refounding the nation as a Plurinational State along the basic lines of Ecuador and Bolivia is therefore undeniable: in Peru there are 4 indigenous languages in the Andes (Quechua, Aymara, Cauqui and Jaqaru) and 43 more in the Amazon region, 500 years after the Spanish Conquest.

The implementation of brutal neoliberal policies coupled with the DEA-inspired ‘war on drugs’ principally in the Amazon region (La Selva) from the 1990s onwards, meant that communities in Amazonia suffered the brunt of the ‘dirty war’ against the Shining Path and the army-led fight against drug trafficking, whilst in the Andes, indigenous communities were further marginalised by aggressive mining from the operation of multinational companies. The racism that supplemented these twin aggressions led to organised resistance and, therefore, to the rise of popular, communitarian and indigenous leaderships.

Hence, for example the election of some of these emerging leaders to the governorships of Puno, Junín and Moquegua. Many more such leaders were elected to lead provinces and municipalities with teachers playing a protagonist role in them (Castillo himself had been mayor of his town, Anguía, in Cajamarca).¹⁴ Thus, resulting from a decades-long political development, PNPL is a well-organised, militant, political outfit with strong territorial support in key areas, and with solid association and collaboration with peasant and indigenous communities and organizations (such as the ronderos¹⁵), and trade unions, especially, but not exclusively, among teachers. Castillo himself led the 2017 teachers’ strike to defend wages and demand budget increases in education.

In short, the PNPL has had access to local resources, has enjoyed an institutional presence in local, provincial and regional governments, and, since 60% of Peruvians do not have access to internet, for its election campaign it has relied on community radios, personal visits to small towns, and cultural events. Thus, in the context of the 2021 election (first and second rounds) Castillo was not only the outsider, but a breath of fresh air who, in the midst of a criminally managed pandemic and the deep institutional crisis the nation faced, gave hope and voice to the rural and urban downtrodden.¹⁶

The tasks ahead

The election result was incredibly tight: 8,883,185 for Castillo against 8,783,765 for Keiko Fujimori. Furthermore, the PNPL got a minority of 37 seats that together with the 5 obtained by Juntos por el Peru, president Castillo will command 42 out of the 130 seats in Congress, whilst Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular and the other right wing electoral coalitions have a combined parliamentary strength of at least 80 seats. The latter, with the full complicity and support of the country’s media, ran an intoxicating electoral campaign of fear charging Castillo with being a Shinning Path sympathiser, a “terruco”, pejorative slang term that means ‘terrorist’ used by Peru’s establishment to stigmatize the Left.

Days before the second round, Keiko deployed arch-reactionary Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa and Venezuelan extreme right-winger and outlawed coup-monger, Leopoldo Lopez, to support her electoral campaign so as to defeat Castillo’s “communism”. Keiko, with no evidence whatsoever, has persisted in accusing the PNPL of election fraud demanding the annulment of the votes of more than 800 voting points in the country’s interior. Then she mobilised 22 right-wing ex-presidents of Latin America and Spain (with Aznar and Uribe being prominent) who issued a statement making similar allegations, demanding Castillo was not proclaimed the winner. In desperation then, she staged marches to military barracks and to the Ministry of Defence (9 June 2021) to request the military to act to prevent the “victory of communism.” However, barely hours after Castillo proclaimed himself the winner, the Defence Ministry issued a statement confirming the political neutrality of the armed forces and calling for respect for the election results.

Such threats have been met with large demonstrations in Lima and the rest of the country with the ronderos promising a march on Lima if through electoral fraud, Castillo’s electoral victory is stolen. On 22 May 2021 the National Coordination of Army, Navy, Air Force and Police Reservists (Retired) – CONAFAP – issued a strong statement warning against any possible election fraud in the second round and in support of Pedro Castillo. Though it is not clear how strong Castillo’s support may be within the armed forces, there is a historic left-wing nationalist influence in them that stems from the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975)¹⁷; many of PNPL’s proposals strongly resemble those of Velasco.

With his clean victory, Castillo and his programme of progressive structural change are now being noticed by millions of the poor in the main urban centres, particularly Lima (with 10 million out of a total population of 32). The more his government engages, mobilises and commits to the poor in supporting the implementation of his policies, the greater the chances of being adopted by them as their own political social objectives. This will allow him to prepare the ground for a referendum for a Constituent Assembly to draft an anti-neoliberal constitution as the basis for the creation of a Plurinational State, the premise for the carrying out of a mariateguista socio-economic transformation of Peru.

Contrary to media misrepresentation, the PNLP programme also includes, among many other interesting policies, the decriminalisation of abortion, a head-on attack on the traffic of persons – especially women, the elimination of patriarchy and machismo in state and society, the respect and promotion of women’s reproductive rights and the promotion of the self-organization of women at every level.¹⁸ This contrasts sharply with Keiko’s defence of her father’s legacy that among other stains, has his Eugenic plan that led to the forcible sterilization of about 350,000 mainly peasant and indigenous women carried out to deal with the nation’s ‘Indian problem’ (higher birth rates among indigenous people than Peruvians of European descent).¹⁹

Castillo’s immediate concern is to ensure a smooth transition of presidential power to guarantee the country’s governability, prevent a run on the currency, prevent financial panic, violent street demonstrations, destabilisation plans and such like that have characterised many electoral victories of presidential candidates of the Left in Latin America. A major cause for concern is the Biden administration’s ‘Trumpian inertia’, maintaining pretty much unchanged US’s aggression against governments of the left in the region of his predecessor, despite his promise to, for example, restore Obama’s constructive policies towards Cuba.

On the other hand, the coming Peru Libre administration does and will benefit from a changing relation of forces for the better in the region with robust left victories in neighbouring Argentina, Chile and especially Bolivia. Castillo has already received the open support of Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba and from the mass parties of the Latin American Left organised in the Sao Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, with the latter two issuing strong statements of support calling to respect the will of the Peruvian people. Castillo has also in his favour, the visible deterioration of the US regional machinery of intervention with Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of the American States (OAS), suffering massive discredit after his disgraceful and criminal complicity in the coup d’état that ousted Evo Morales in 2019 and facing a criminal accusation from Bolivia in the International Criminal Court. He has been openly and publicly repudiated by the governments of Argentina and Mexico, and with the US-inspired Lima group (set up to overthrow the Bolivarian government of Venezuela and led by Almagro) just having lost Lima to a party whose programme includes Peru leaving the OAS and going back to UNASUR. To top it all, the PNLP programme includes strong support for Cuba and Venezuela.

Our job in the imperialist North is to tell the truth about Pedro Castillo’s progressive, anti-neoliberal programme aimed at reversing decades of neoliberal policies to support his beleaguered nation and people by counteracting the unavoidable mainstream media misrepresentations; to remain vigilant and denounce and reject any external or domestic attempt to undermine the victory of the people of Peru by foul means (violence, coup d’état, lawfare, economic blockade, extra-territorial legislation, sanctions, the usual European Union shenanigans, and such like); and to help construct the broadest solidarity movement in their support.

The Comite Ciudadano (Citizens Committee), a right-wing coalition led by Bolivia’s ex-vice-president, Carlos Mesa, and Luis Fernando Camacho, a multimillionaire entrepreneur, leading the extreme right-wing pressure group Comite Civico (Civic Committee) of Santa Cruz, jointly launched a brutal wave of violence in many areas of the country aimed explicitly at ousting democratically elected president Evo Morales.

The violence is carried out by paid, armed thugs whose main target has been public buildings, organisations associated with the government (trade unions, co-operatives, poor communities and neighbourhoods suspected of being pro-Morales bastions, community radio stations and such like), individuals linked to the government (ministers, mayors etc), and especially persons of indigenous origin who have endured the brunt of their racism. They have targeted indigenous women the most.

This is a re-enactment of the racist wave of violence launched in 2008, aimed both at ousting democratically elected Morales and the partition of the state into two, seeking to set up a non-indigenous country in the territory’s eastern region, exactly where the rich gas and oil deposits lie.

At the time, US ambassador Phillip Goldberg played a central role in the operation. The US, as with the oil in Venezuela, has not abandoned laying its hands on such riches, with the additional incentive that Bolivia has the largest deposits of lithium in the world.

What prompted this was the electoral defeat Bolivia’s right wing suffered at the national election on October 20 2019. The results gave the victory to Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) with 47.08 per cent, against Carlos Mesa with 36.51 per cent and another candidate who got 8.78 per cent. Additionally, MAS won absolute majorities in both the Congress and Senate. The right-wing opposition refused to recognise the results and, in typical Latin American right-wing fashion, alleged fraud.

Elections in Bolivia are entirely manual. So the right wing seized on the normal delay in Bolivian elections to give the definite results, due to the time it takes for the mainly indigenous, rural vote to be counted and its outcome to be sent to La Paz for the vote aggregation by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), as evidence of foul play.

The right wing launched an intoxicating media campaign (with full support of the world corporate media) that fraud had been committed.

Then the coup offensive began in earnest and by October 22, right-wing thugs went on the rampage and, among other barbarities, set fire to three electoral offices across Bolivia claiming “vote rigging.”

Their violence massively intensified when the TSE announced Morales’s victory on the constitutional principle that if any presidential candidate obtains over 40 per cent and at least 10 points above the runner-up there is no need for a second round.

In order to defuse the tense situation Morales asked the TSE to invite the Organisation of American States (OAS) to conduct an audit on the election. Mesa, Camacho and their followers rejected this outright, and instead demanded new elections and the resignation of Morales, whilst continuing to egg on the racist thugs to conduct a nationwide witch-hunt against MAS supporters.

Social media has been full of horrible images of racist violence against indigenous women and men, such as the case of the MAS Mayor of Vinto, in Cochabamba, Patricia Arce, who was detained by thugs who shaved her hair, doused her with red paint (the colour of the right wing in Bolivia), forced her to walk barefoot through the city, kneel down by and ask for forgiveness for supporting Morales’s government.

She, bravely, refused to apologise, stood her ground and was eventually rescued by law and order forces. In the meantime, other armed racist thugs set the Vinto Town Hall on fire.

Similarly, the Town Hall of Oruro was also set on fire by opposition thugs, so was the house of Victor Hugo Vasquez, Oruro governor, and the same fate met the house of Esteban Urquizo, MAS governor of Sucre in Chuquisaca.

Additionally, Victor Borda, president of Bolivia’s Congress, resigned his post and even his position as an MP because armed oppositionists in the city of Potosi kidnapped his brother.

He resigned to preserve his brother’s life and to contribute to the country’s peace. This is a technique that has been used against other prominent members of MAS, hence a number of resignations, presented as a crisis inside of MAS. Even Bolivia’s right-wing media are reporting this method.

In another racist outrage, the house of Esther Morales Ayma, Evo Morales’s sister, in the city of Oruro, was also set on fire.

Right-wing mobs violently occupied the premises of Bolivia TV and Nueva Patria Radio, both pro-government media, where they forcibly expelled all the workers. Not a whisper from the corporate media about this blatant attack on freedom of the press.

In another act of aggression, right-wing demonstrators took Jose Aramayo, director of the Peasant Confederation’s radio station, hostage after occupying the Confederation premises. He was brutalised and tied to a tree in the street.

The wave of violence is almost identical to the US-led coup attempts and extreme right-wing violence unleashed in Venezuela in 2014 and 2017 — and in Nicaragua in 2018.

What made it easier for the thugs to operate freely and with impunity is that important sections of the police force, in what appears to be a coordinated action, raised a number of economic demands (equalisation of salaries to the armed forces’ level), retreated to their barracks, and left the civilian population at the mercy of racist thugs going on the rampage. Communities and Morales supporters have organised their own defence, thus increasing the tension.

Most of the worst outrages have been carefully omitted by the world’s corporate media who are presenting the crisis as a rebellion against Morales’s government for the defence of democracy, a far cry from the reality on the ground.

The government has correctly characterised it as a coup attempt led by the country’s right wing with racist and fascist thugs perpetrating wanton violence with the sole aim of ousting Morales.

On November 10 Morales called for fresh elections with a totally renewed TSE aimed at bringing an end to the racist violence, and called the opposition to a dialogue.

However, Carlos Mesa in a public statement said that both Morales and his vice-president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, cannot continue in their positions and must resign — nor can they be candidates in any fresh election.

He also encouraged the opposition to continue and intensify the pressure in the streets that has already inflicted so much pain — primarily on the indigenous majority — and has brought the nation to the verge of a civil war.

This was the real game plan. Not since 2008 has Bolivian democracy been so much under threat. Then the army’s commander-in-chief called on Morales to resign. Now Morales and vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera have gone on TV and tendered their resignations, seeking to bring about peace. The coup has been consummated.

We call upon the British labour movement to condemn the right-wing coup and support democracy in Bolivia and Morales’s call for fresh elections as a democratic and peaceful means to resolve the crisis the coup has thrown the country into. No more Pinochets in Latin America!

Francisco Dominguez is Chilean academic and activist 

On October 18-19, 78 metro stations, some banks, 16 buses and a few public buildings were set on fire by mysterious hooded men who were able to operate with impunity. On October 19, Eric Campos, President of the Metro Workers’ Union, declared, “strange that the Police who were supposed to have been guarding the stations, were not there when they were set on fire.”¹

On Oct 18, Piñera declared a state of emergency (not used since 1987 under Pinochet), which included a curfew and, in typical neoliberal fashion, brutal police repression. He deployed the army against the civilian population. Next day Piñera promised to freeze the metro price hike hoping, unsuccessfully, to defuse the protests. Demonstrations kept growing, so on October 20 he expanded the state of emergency to most of the country. He said his government was “at war against a powerful and implacable enemy.” Repression intensified massively, with many killed by both police and the military. This infuriated Chileans thus making the demonstrations stronger, larger, more militant and spreading the length of the country.

No matter how brutal the repression, defying state of emergency and curfew, they continued to demonstrate in ever-larger numbers and involving growing sections of the middle class. Actors, pop artists, celebrities, and football players joined.

Mainstream journalists spread fake news, broadcast lies, attributing all violence and the crisis to vandalism, delinquency and ‘external forces.’ They became the target of hostility from protestors. Grotesquely, Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, issued a statement blaming Venezuela and Cuba for the events in Chile.²

Soldiers and police officers perpetrated gross violations of human rights, including shooting demonstrators at point blank, beating them to death, firing live ammunition, and torturing, denigrating, degrading, beating and raping women and detainees. There are thousands of videos filmed by bystanders, protestors, and the victims themselves of these atrocities (videos show, for example, police officers stacking a patrol car’s boot with plasma TV sets; another shows soldiers throwing the body of a dead detainee from a moving police van, and threatening neighbours not to look).³ Chileans were not intimidated and continued to stage demonstrations defying the curfew, the military, the police, and the government.

On October 23, a thoroughly deflated Piñera, went publicly to apologise for “not having understood” that millions of Chileans were complaining about the unacceptable levels of social and economic inequality. He announced the suspension of the austerity package and the implementation of some palliatives.

This ‘Chilean model’ involves some impressive macroeconomic figures such as a GDP per capita of around US$19,000 and a reduction of poverty from 38,6% in 1990 to about 8% in 2019. However, this rather than being an “oasis” is in fact, a mirage.

Most Chileans have very low pensions; in 2013, 1,031,025 pensioners got an average pension of 183.213 pesos (87% of the minimum wage). Women pensioners are paid even less. Meanwhile, pension companies continue to extract contributions monthly from about 10 million workers.

Inequality in Chile is gross: the richest fifth of households receive 71% of GDP, whilst four fifths receive the remaining 29%.⁴ Half of salary earners in Chile take home 350.000 pesos monthly (US$481), with 74.3% earning less that 500.000 pesos (US$688).⁵

Health is privatized through a health insurance system with highly restrictive policies that benefit powerful companies. In 2018, through price hikes the key six companies made as much profit in one quarter as they did in the whole of 2017.

The public system of health serves 80% of the population, but is ramshackle, deficient, short of resources, and has extremely long waiting lists for operations and/or specialised treatment. Three national chains of pharmacies control 92% of the sales⁶, charge prices arbitrarily and, illegally collude to fix prices to the detriment of consumers, patients and the poor.

The transport system is one of the most expensive in Latin America, is inefficient and unable to resolve the transport needs of Santiago (city of six million); it generates annual deficits for being linked to a private bus service that gets most of the proceedings. Water, gas, electricity, and telephone have been privatised leading to constant and arbitrary price increases.

There is a recent gratuity for university education for about 60% of the population, but the system remains elitist. Working class kids go to poor schools, get poor-quality education, and are unlikely to be equipped to get into higher education. Thus, there is little social mobility leading most people to end up in the 80% that earn less than 500.000 pesos.

People find a way out by getting into debt, irresponsibly and widely available at exorbitant interest rates. Supermarkets and retail chains issue credit cards for purchases in their stores. Thus in 2019, 55% of household national debt is from consumption (21% from mortgages).⁷

Chileans have also seen how easy is for the rich to evade taxes; have witnessed major corruption scandals among politicians (mainly, but not exclusively from the right), but also the massive embezzlements in the Army and Police Force, with generals pocketing millions of public money.

No wonder Chileans were on the move. On October 23 Chile’s trade unions declared a general strike, and on Friday 25, people staged the largest demonstration in Chile’s history with 1.2 million in Santiago plus huge rallies in cities throughout the country. They demanded Piñera resign.

On Saturday 26 October Piñera announced he had asked for the resignation of all his ministers pointing out that a new cabinet (and government) was being formed, promising to lift the state of emergency. The defeat of his austerity package was complete and the question is how will the change of the neoliberal model be carried out. The mass movement has no apparent leadership, and it has no tangible political vehicle to articulate its demands. Even more interesting, Allende’s generation, their children, and their grandchildren marched and resisted together.

Allende’s image became common in thousands of the mobilizations, and the people adopted Victor Jara’s beautiful song “The right to live in peace” that he composed back in 1971 in homage to Ho Chi Minh and the people of Vietnam, as their hymn. Allende’s dream is very alive and the masses have not forgotten the moral debt Chile’s Pinochetista Right owes society for the coup in 1973, the assassination of their president and, the 17 years of atrocities under their dictatorship.

They will not forget the atrocities committed in October 2019 either, and Piñera is likely to face a constitutional accusation over them. The latest toll is 25 dead; 41 gravely wounded by firearms, 23 people gravely wounded by having been run over by police or army vehicles; 62 with severe eye trauma; more than 1700 injured; and 5845 arrested.

Chileans came onto the streets to bring the oppressive, abusive and exploitative neoliberal model to an end, but it is not yet clear what they will replace it with. A reasonable proposal involves a Constituent Assembly to replace Pinochet’s constitution, nationalization of all utilities and natural resources, punishment for corruption, respect for the ancestral land of the Mapuche, and decent health, education and pensions.

One of the biggest effects has been the well-deserved demystification their mobilisation brought on Chile’s “neoliberal miracle”. The dent they have inflicted on the already diminished prestige of neoliberalism (especially after Macri’s Argentine catastrophe and Moreno’s defeat in Ecuador) is irreparable. The New Battle for Chile will be tough and difficult, but their victory will help us the world over. All our solidarity with the struggle against neoliberalism of the Chilean people!