Instruction: Write an article about: Catholic Church backed violent coup attempt in Nicaragua, meddles in politics. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Catholic Church, FSLN, Nicaragua, religion, Sandinistas

Output:
Foreign media outlets falsely accuse Nicaragua’s Sandinista government of repressing the Catholic Church, while ignoring its role in supporting a violent coup attempt in 2018 and sponsoring extremist opposition groups.

A deluge of misleading stories claiming that the Nicaraguan government has repressed the Catholic Church have appeared in international media, but not one has accurately explained what is happening.
In the article below, Becca Renk, who has lived and worked in sustainable community development in Nicaragua since 2001, explains the country’s complex relationship with the Catholic Church and shows how Western media reporting is extremely inaccurate.
Credit: Casa Benjamín Linder
(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
Colonization: The Catholic Church first came to Nicaragua with the Spanish colonizers and, as elsewhere in the world, the hierarchy and much of the clergy facilitated colonial conquest through conversion.
In Nicaragua, the indigenous population was utterly decimated: most of the population was killed, died of disease, or were abducted and sold into slavery.
With the notable exceptions of some individual priests like Antonio Valdivieso, the Church was not only complicit but actively participated in the horrors of colonization.
Insurrection: Post independence, the Church hierarchy and Nicaragua’s wealthy elite ran the country together. For generations, each powerful family had a son who became a priest.
In the 20th century, the Catholic hierarchy supported the bloody Somoza dictatorship during the almost 45 years of their rule, and only at the very end did some in the hierarchy support the people’s liberation.
Revolution: Unlike in Cuba, the Nicaraguan revolution was never secular – in fact, the Sandinista Revolution was so influenced by liberation theology that in the 1980s there was a popular saying was, “Between Christianity and revolution there is no contradiction.”
There were priests in the Sandinista government – several ministers – but they were not the priests of the Church hierarchy; they were working to improve the lives of the poor majority.
The Catholic hierarchy was openly opposed to the Sandinista Revolution. Pope John Paul II came to Nicaragua and chastised the priests in government, and the Vatican later censored them.
When the Sandinista Front party came back into power in 2007, it formed the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity (GRUN). In an attempt to unite the country and prevent new conflict, the new government sought not only to work with former enemies from the war – the Contra’s political wing joined the Sandinista alliance and nominated the vice president for that term from within their ranks – but also included the Church, big business, and trade unions in the planning and management of government programs. The Church was given a place at the governing table.
But big business and the Catholic Church effectively ended that model when they conspired to overthrow the elected government in 2018, and used their role in society to try to turn the people against the government.
In April 2018, protests began that were ostensibly against proposed reforms to the social security system. It quickly became obvious, however, that the protests were about something else: an attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
Armed opposition groups set up hundreds of roadblocks which paralyzed the country and became epicenters of violence. The roadblocks lasted for nearly three months. Some 253 people were killed, and many more injured.
While opposition sources blamed the government for nearly all deaths, a careful study by the Nicaraguan Truth, Justice and Peace Commission showed otherwise.
Journalists’ investigations have shown that the U.S. government was funding the violence through USAID, NED, and IRI – all “soft arms” of the CIA.
Although the U.S. was funding the attempted ousting of Nicaragua’s democratically elected Sandinista government, the Catholic Church hierarchy in Nicaragua was instigating it.
Catholic bishops join a right-wing anti-government protest in Nicaragua during the violent coup attempt in 2018
In this article, I documented first-hand accounts of priests initiating violence, including in neighborhoods of Ciudad Sandino.
While the Bishop’s conference was supposedly “mediating” a national dialogue, its own priests were calling for violence. At these “roadblocks of death,” as they came to be known, Sandinista supporters were identified, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered – with priests watching and sometimes participating in the violence.
Although hundreds were arrested and convicted of violent crimes in 2018, opposition demanded the release of what they called “political prisoners.”
In the interests of peace and reconciliation, the Nicaraguan government declared a general amnesty and freed everyone who had been charged in conjunction the attempted coup, including known murderers, on the condition that they not reoffend.
The hierarchy’s participation in the failed coup attempt in 2018 has had consequences for the Catholic Church: the Nicaraguan government has reduced by half its financial support for cathedrals, churches and maintenance of the Bishops’ Conference facilities.
But the Church has also lost its people. I have talked to many Catholics who no longer go to mass because their priests continue to promote violence and seek political ends from the pulpit.
These people have not lost their faith – they continue to pray at home and take part in religious celebrations outside the Church – but they no longer attend mass.
This sentiment is widespread. Recent polls by respected firm M&R Consultores show that only 37% of Nicaraguans today identify as Catholics, as opposed to 50% in 2014.
The decline of Catholicism in Nicaragua over time (Source: M&R Consultores)
So what is going on now that has caused so many inaccurate headlines? The first week of August, Nicaraguan authorities dismantled the network of communication outlets (five radio stations and a local television channel) owned by Rolando Álvarez. Álvarez is bishop of Estelí and Matagalpa, but he is also a political actor, and was one of the leaders involved in the violent coup attempt in 2018.
Alvarez’s discourse has created a climate of confrontation, in an attempt to destabilize Nicaragua’s government in the run-up to November’s municipal elections.
Alvarez’s private media outlets were closed because they are alleged to have been used to launder money to pay for street violence to feed destabilization attempts.
Following the closure of his media outlets, Alvarez was placed under house arrest while he is under investigation for a series of crimes.
Even following his arrest, however, Alvarez continued to foment violence which threatened the safety of the population of Matagalpa.
In August he was moved to house arrest in Managua, where he will remain while he is being investigated. He is receiving visits from his family and from the cardinal, with whom he has spoken at length.
Rolando Álvarez
Alvarez isn’t the only priest to be arrested in Nicaragua in recent months. Nicaraguan authorities have arrested, tried, and convicted a priest who raped a 12-year-old girl and another who beat his partner. (The Nicaraguan public didn’t blink an eye at the fact that the priest had a partner, but they were outraged that he beat her.)
Interestingly, we have not seen international media using the cases of the rapist and wife-beating priests of Nicaragua to claim religious persecution the way that they are for Alvarez, but all three are cases of Nicaraguan authorities holding Catholic priests accountable for their individual actions, just as they would anyone else.
Religious persecution is defined as societal or intuitional attacks on people specifically for their religious beliefs. What we have seen in Nicaragua’s recent events is the investigation and arrest of individuals who have broken the law, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Religious persecution can also be defined as attacks on religious institutions, of which the international press also accuses the Nicaraguan government. Few concrete examples are given – most are alleged defacements of churches that cannot be attributed to the government or its institutions.
The most often cited incident is a fire in July 2020 in the Managua cathedral, which destroyed the image of the blood of Christ. Church authorities claim it was caused by a firebomb attack on the Cathedral. In their investigation, however, the Nicaraguan police and the fire department found no evidence of a firebomb, and concluded that the fire was caused by a spray bottle of alcohol used for sanitizing hands, which was left too close to an open flame in the poorly ventilated chapel.
Eyewitnesses saw no suspicious activity. There were only two people in the cathedral at the time of the fire.
Regardless of the results of the investigation, the Church hierarchy maintains their claim of “persecution” and has left the chapel as it was following the fire, encouraging visitors to pray to the charred crucifix.
Not only is there no religious persecution in Nicaragua, but there is an atmosphere of thriving religious expression.
For proof of this, one just had to look out a window in Nicaragua this August. August is patron saint festival season in this country.
While international media has been printing tales of religious persecution, dozens of Nicaraguan cities and towns were busy celebrating their Catholic saints in festivals supported economically and logistically by municipal governments.
Our own village celebrated the Virgin of the Nancite. And in Ciudad Sandino we celebrated Little Santo Domingo.
Nicaraguan Catholics celebrate the virgin of the Nancite, in the community of Cuajachillo No. 2, in Ciudad Sandino, in August 2022
The largest celebration of all was tens of thousands of people who walked and danced freely through Managua’s streets on two separate public holidays dedicated to Santo Domingo.
In Nicaragua, the Church hierarchy may be sequestered inside walls, but the church of the people is in the street, joyfully celebrating its faith.


Instruction: Write an article about: US legally owes Nicaragua reparations, but still refuses to honor 1986 Int’l Court of Justice ruling. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: CIA, Contras, Daniel Ortega, ICJ, International Court of Justice, Nicaragua

Output:
37 years after a 1986 International Court of Justice ruling, the United States still refuses to pay Nicaragua the reparations it legally owes. Today, the Nicaraguan government is demanding that the United Nations take action.

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
The International Court of Justice in the Hague ruled in 1986 that the US government had violated international law in its attacks on Nicaragua and that it owed the Central American nation reparations.
June 27, 2023 was the 37th anniversary of this ruling, and Washington still to this day refuses to pay Nicaragua the money that it legally owes it.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the judicial arm of the United Nations. (It is not to be confused with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is independent of the UN. The ICJ was founded in 1945, in order to settle disputes between states; whereas the ICC was only formed in 2002, in order to prosecute individuals.)
In 1986, the ICJ determined that the US repeatedly violated international law by:
Nicaragua’s current government has publicly called on the US to meet its obligations under international law.
This June 26, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega sent a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres demanding that Washington pay reparations.
“There exists a historical debt with the Nicaraguan people that 37 years later has not been settled by the United States”, Ortega said. “It is an obligation clearly established in a final judgment of the highest international judicial authority, the International Court of Justice”.
The Nicaraguan president wrote:
The list of direct damages includes human damages, direct material damages, defense expenses, losses caused by the embargo. Also other damages such as social losses in education, health, work, social security, as well as potential losses for development and production.
From all points of view, the nation’s right to development was irreparably affected.
…
The estimated value of the damages in March 1988, the date on which the Report was presented along with all supporting documentation, was estimated at $12 billion. This amount does not reflect damages after said date, the consequences of which are currently verifiable.
For example, to this day, the country’s social security system continues to pay pensions to those injured in the war and their relatives, including those who were part of the counterrevolutionary forces illegally financed by the United States, which never assumed the social cost of said illegalities.
Adjusted for inflation, $12 billion in 1988 would be more than $31 billion in 2023.
Following the triumph of Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista Revolution in 1979, the United States created a far-right terror army that sought to violently overthrow the new revolutionary government.
The CIA armed and trained death squads known as the Contras – short for “Counterrevolutionaries”.
With US backing, the Contras systematically used terrorism to destabilize Nicaraguan society.
A former Contra leader from one of the country’s most powerful oligarchic families, Edgar Chamorro, published an open letter in the New York Times in 1986 admitting that “terror is the most effective weapon of the ‘contras’“.
It “was premeditated policy to terrorize civilian noncombatants to prevent them from cooperating with the Government. Hundreds of civilian murders, mutilations, tortures and rapes were committed in pursuit of this policy”, he recalled.
Referring to the Contras as “CIA puppets” and “a proxy army controlled by the U.S. Government”, Chamorro wrote that “the ‘contras’ burn down schools, homes and health centers as fast as the Sandinistas build them”.
Chamorro said that US-backed Contras seized poor villages, then “selected those civilians they suspected of sympathizing with the Government and shot them in cold blood as a lesson”.
US President Ronald Reagan with Contra leader “Doctor Henry” outside the White House
In 1984, the Nicaraguan government filed a case with the United Nation’s judicial organ, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), demanding legal action against the United States for its attacks.
The US government refused to represent itself in court, boycotting the case. In doing so, Washington refused to accept the legitimacy of the UN-backed ICJ, undermining the so-called “rules-based international order” that the US claims it supports.
The ICJ case was officially called “Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)”.
The judges wrote in 1986 that the court:
Decides that the United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State;
…
Decides that the United States of America, by certain attacks on Nicaraguan territory in 1983-1984, namely attacks on Puerto Sandino on 13 September and 14 October 1983 ; an attack on Corinto on 10 October 1983 ; an attack on Potosi Naval Base on 4/5 January 1984 ; an attack on San Juan del Sur on 7 March 1984 ; attacks on patrol boats at Puerto Sandino on 28 and 30 March 1984 ; and an attack on San Juan del Norte on 9 April 1984 ; and further by those acts of intervention referred to in subparagraph (3) hereof which involve the use of force, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to use force against another State;
…
Decides that, by laying mines in the internal or territorial waters of the Republic of Nicaragua during the first months of 1984, the United States of America has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State, not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce;
…
Finds that the United States of America, by producing in 1983 a manual entitled Operaciones sicológicas [sic] en guerra de guerrillas, and disseminating it to contra forces, has encouraged the commission by them of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law;
…
Decides that the United States of America, by the attacks on Nicaraguan territory … and by declaring a general embargo on trade with Nicaragua on 1 May 1985, has committed acts calculated to deprive of its object and purpose the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 2 1 January 1956;
…
Decides that the United States of America is under a duty immediately to cease and to refrain from all such acts as may constitute breaches of the foregoing legal obligations;
…
Decides that the United States of America is under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by the breaches of obligations under customary international law enumerated above.
The ICJ ruling only considered the crimes that Washington had committed against Nicaragua in the 1980s.
The United States has a history of invading and militarily occupying the Central American nation, on multiple occasions.
After decades of military occupation, the US Marines were expelled from Nicaragua in 1933, due to an armed rebellion led by revolutionary General Augusto Sandino.
To maintain its political and economic control over the country, Washington left behind a National Guard led by Anastasio Somoza García. Somoza murdered Sandino, before later taking state power for himself, with US support.
The Somoza dynasty ruled Nicaragua as a brutal right-wing dictatorship. Somoza García’s son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, followed in his father’s footsteps and ran the country with an iron fist, until he was overthrown in the 1979 Sandinista Revolution.
US President Richard Nixon with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1971
In the 1980s, Nicaragua’s civilian population suffered the horrors of the US-sponsored terror war, as well as a devastating economic blockade, which caused hyperinflation and led to a shortage of many goods.
Washington’s threat to continue waging this war and imposing the blockade led Nicaraguans to vote in the 1990 election for right-wing presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro, from the wealthy oligarchic dynasty that has long sought to control the country (in alliance with the US).
Chamorro’s electoral victory was the result of massive US meddling and manipulation. The CIA and other US government agencies spent millions of dollars creating, supporting, and advising Chamorro’s campaign.
Violeta Chamorro addresses the US Congress in 1991
In 1991, Chamorro’s US-installed government told the ICJ that it did not plan on continuing with the case against Washington.
However, Chamorro’s decision to discontinue the case was a direct result of the very same US violations of international law and attacks on Nicaraguan sovereignty that the ICJ had ruled on in the first place.
Nicaragua’s sovereign government has the right to return to the ICJ case today and demand that its legally binding ruling be implemented.
In his letter to the United Nations secretary general, President Daniel Ortega pointed out that, in 1991, Chamorro’s government in “Nicaragua discontinued the proceedings before the Court to determine the amount owed, but at no time did it waive the payment of the debt, that is, the right to receive compensation“.
Ortega’s letter made it clear that Chamorro’s decision not to proceed with the case does not change Washington’s legal obligation to pay reparations.
The current Nicaraguan president wrote to the UN:
Nicaragua never received anything to which it was not entitled (such as the right not to be attacked) in exchange for discontinuing the trial before the Court.
Instead of receiving compensation as it morally and legally corresponds, Nicaragua continues to be the object of a new type of aggression. It is in this context, in which Nicaragua has once again been the victim of attacks, now euphemistically called sanctions, and the victim of an attempted coup, that the people of Nicaragua remember the historic sentence of the International Court of Justice.
…
Nicaragua takes this opportunity to recall that the judgments of the International Court of Justice are final and of inescapable compliance, and therefore the United States has the legal obligation to comply with the reparations ordered by the judgment of June 27, 1986.


Instruction: Write an article about: Trump boasts he wanted to take Venezuela’s oil after overthrowing its government. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: coup, Donald Trump, Hugo Chávez, John Bolton, Juan Guaidó, Nicolás Maduro, oil, PDVSA, Republican Party, Syria, Venezuela

Output:
Former US President Donald Trump boasted at a Republican Party rally that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela, and “we would have gotten all that oil”. This confirms the sinister motives behind Washington’s 2019 coup attempt to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro and install Juan Guaidó.

Former US President Donald Trump gave a speech in which he boasted that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and exploit its large oil reserves.
“When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door”, Trump said.
“But now we’re buying oil from Venezuela. So we’re making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it”, he added.

Trump made these remarks on June 10, at a speech for a convention organized by the North Carolina Republican Party.
The US government initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela in 2019. The Trump administration appointed a little-known right-wing opposition politician, Juan Guaidó, as the supposed “interim president” of the South American nation, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.
Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves – although its crude is very heavy, and in order to be used it must be mixed with lighter crude or diluents, which the country is often incapable of importing due to illegal, unilateral US sanctions.
As president, Trump made it clear that Washington seeks to control the natural resources of foreign countries.
In a January 2020 interview on Fox News, Trump boasted that he was militarily occupying Syria’s crude-rich regions in order to “take the oil”:
DONALD TRUMP: And then they say he left troops in Syria. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil.
The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil.
…
Maybe we should take it. But we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil.
So they say he left troops in Syria. No, I got rid of all of them, other than we’re protecting the oil. We have the oil.
Here's irrefutable video evidence of Trump "fighting the deep state" ?
"I left troops [in Syria] to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They're protecting the oil. I took over the oil… We have the oil. Right now, the U.S. has the oil" pic.twitter.com/IYaep53GP5
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 31, 2023

Other members of the Donald Trump administration made similar comments.
Trump’s neoconservative National Security Advisor John Bolton stated clearly at the beginning of the coup attempt in January 2019, in an interview on Fox News, that Washington and US corporations wanted to profit off of Venezuela’s oil:
JOHN BOLTON: We’re looking at the oil assets. That’s the single most important income stream to the government of Venezuela. We’re looking at what to do to that.
We want everybody to know. We’re looking at all this very seriously. We don’t want any American businesses or investors caught by surprise. They can see what President Trump did yesterday. We’re following through on it.
…
We’re in conversation with major American companies now, that are either in Venezuela or in the case of Citgo here in the United States. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here.
You know, Venezuela is one of the three countries I called the “Troika of Tyranny”.
It’ll make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and  produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.
It would be good for the people of Venezuela. It would be good for the people of the United States.
We both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way.
Trump's neoconservative National Security Advisor John Bolton made it clear from the beginning of the US coup attempt against Venezuela in January 2019 that US corporations wanted to exploit its massive oil reserves, which had been nationalized by President Hugo Chávez.
Bolton… pic.twitter.com/gp7pkzweHT
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 13, 2023

Venezuela’s massive oil reserves were nationalized by former President Hugo Chávez, who launched the country’s leftist Bolivarian Revolution.
Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA used the revenue from the oil sales in order to fund social programs, public housing, transportation, health care, and education.
Academic studies have found that countries with large oil reserves are more likely to suffer wars and foreign military interventions.
In April 2002, there was a briefly successful military coup which overthrew democratically elected President Chávez. But the leader was so popular that the people of Venezuela stormed the streets, overthrew the coup regime, and demanded that Chávez be reinstated as president.
The George Bush administration was deeply involved in supporting this 2002 coup in Venezuela.
Since then, Washington has sponsored several more coup attempts, including violent riots in 2014 and 2017, culminating in the 2019 designation of Juan Guaidó as supposed “interim president”.
The fact that this was a coup attempt was admitted by Trump’s national security advisor himself.
In a 2022 interview on CNN, Bolton boasted of how difficult it was to organize the coup attempt:
JAKE TAPPER: One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.
JOHN BOLTON: I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here, but, you know, other places. It takes a lot of work.
JAKE TAPPER: I do want to ask a follow up. When we were talking about what is capable, or what you need to do to be able to plan a coup, and you cited your expertise having planned coups.
JOHN BOLTON: I’m not going to get into the specifics, but uh…
JAKE TAPPER: Successful coups?
JOHN BOLTON: Well, I wrote about Venezuela in the book. And it turned out not to be successful – not that we had all that much to do with it. But I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president, and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable. But I think there’s another –
JAKE TAPPER: I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me, though.
JOHN BOLTON: I think – I’m sure there is.
Bolton’s 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened”, mentions Venezuela and Venezuelans more than 300 times, and has a 35-page chapter recounting the coup attempt in the country, titled “Venezuela Libre” (Free Venezuela).
Bolton wrote that President Trump had repeatedly asked for a military attack on Venezuela.
Trump advisor John Bolton admits planning US coups in Venezuela and beyond

This was further confirmed by Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who wrote in his 2022 memoir “A Sacred Oath” that “Trump had been fixated on Venezuela since the early days of his administration”.
“Again and again, Trump would ask for military options” to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro, Esper recalled.
Trump’s National Security Council meetings on Venezuela “always began with the consideration of military options, rather than on the other end of the spectrum—diplomacy”, Esper wrote.
Trump wanted US military attacks on Venezuela, Defense Secretary Mark Esper details in book

There in fact was an attempted invasion of Venezuela in May 2020, known as Operation Gideon.
The figures involved in planning this botched invasion admitted they had the support of the Trump White House and were in contact with the CIA, other US government agencies, and Colombian intelligence services.
CIA backed failed 2020 invasion of Venezuela, top coup-plotter says

In response to Trump’s admission in June 2023 that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and its oil, the country’s foreign minister, Yvan Gil, responded: “Trump confesses that his intention was to take over Venezuela’s oil. All the damage that the United States has done to our people, with the support of its lackeys, here has had one objective: to steal our resources! They were not able to, and they will not be able to. We will always overcome!”
Venezuela’s vice minister for North America, Carlos Ron, declared, “What further evidence do we need? Here’s Trump confessing that his aim, all along, was to take over Venezuela’s oil. The Biden [administration] keeps his illegal sanctions policy still in place. Venezuela has and will continue to prevail!”
What further evidence do we need?
Here’s Trump confessing that his aim, all along, was to take over Venezuela’s oil.
The Biden Administracion keeps his illegal sanctions policy still in place.
Venezuela has and will continue to prevail! https://t.co/kLO3INnm57
— Carlos Ron (@CarlosJRonVE) June 11, 2023

Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, stated, “Trump took the mask off of 60 satellite countries, the international propaganda, and all of those politicians and intellectuals who supported a puppet [Juan Guaidó] to govern Venezuela. The only aim has been to pillage the oil of the Venezuelan people. How shameful! This is the confession of a criminal”.
The “60 satellite countries” that Moncada referenced were those that joined the United States in formally recognizing unelected coup leader Guaidó as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela.
Venezuela’s former foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who served during the 2019 coup attempt, said Trump’s confession was legal evidence that the US was motivated to try to steal his country’s natural resources.
“The international justice system must act”, Arreaza implored.


Instruction: Write an article about: Peru’s coup-plotting congress has 6% approval, 91% disapproval (but full US backing). Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Alberto Fujimori, coup, Dina Boluarte, Pedro Castillo, Peru

Output:
A polling firm found that Peru’s coup-plotting, right-wing-controlled congress has 6% approval and 91% disapproval. Unelected leader Dina Boluarte has 15% approval and 78% disapproval. But they have the full support of the US, Canada, and foreign mining corporations.

A study by a leading polling firm in Peru found that the country’s coup-plotting congress has an approval rating of just 6%, with a staggering 91% disapproval.
The South American nation’s unelected president, Dina Boluarte, has the approval of just 15% of Peruvians, with 78% disapproval.
In December 2022, Peru’s democratically elected leftist President Pedro Castillo was overthrown in a congressional coup. The military arrested him, and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, without due process.
The US ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, is a CIA veteran who strongly supported the coup against Castillo, and has collaborated closely with Boluarte.
Boluarte’s heavily militarized regime has violently cracked down on widespread demonstrations, killing more than 60 protesters.
The mainstream think tank the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) has conducted regular opinion surveys. IEP’s March poll showed that the unelected coup regime is extremely unpopular among all parts of society.
In January, February, and March, Peru’s congress had 89%, 90%, and 91% disapproval ratings, respectively.

The IEP study found no differences between urban and rural areas; in every part of the country, on average, at least 90% of Peruvians oppose the congress, while just 6% support it.
Peru’s unicameral congress is notoriously corrupt, and dominated by the country’s right-wing oligarchs. Recent controversies like the 2018 Mamanivideos scandal exposed how common it is for members of congress to accept bribes to vote in a particular way.
Among Peruvians who identify as left wing, only 4% support the congress and 93% oppose it, whereas among right-wingers, 10% support the congress and 88% oppose it.
Peru’s unelected president, Boluarte, faced 76%, 77%, and 78% disapproval in January, February, and March, respectively.

Boluarte has slightly more support among Peruvians in the capital Lima, who tend to be much wealthier. But even in the Lima metropolitan area, she still only has 18% support, with 72% disapproval.
In other cities in Peru, Boluarte has 14% support and 80% disapproval. In rural areas, she has mere 11% support and 81% disapproval.
Interestingly, although some of the very few people who back Boluarte have cynically exploited feminist rhetoric to justify her unelected rule, the same study found that only 11% of women support her, while 79% of women oppose her.
In fact, Boluarte is slightly more popular among men, although just 18% support her, while 76% of men oppose her.

The Institute for Peruvian Studies think tank that conducted this survey is in no way sympathetic to Castillo. In fact, it had been quite antagonistic to him when he was in power.
The Lima-based organization represents the country’s economic elites. Ironically, the IEP is funded by many of the same Western governments and CIA-linked organizations that have supported the coup, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), British embassy, World Bank, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation, among many others.
But despite the sources of its finances, IEP’s polling could not ignore the reality of Peru, which is that opposition to the unelected coup regime is so widespread it is nearly universal.

At least 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the coup in Peru, expressing support for President Castillo, including some of the most populous countries in the region, such as Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina.
Yet, despite the overwhelming lack of democratic legitimacy for Peru’s coup regime, it has the full backing of the United States and Canada.
A day before Castillo was overthrown, in fact, CIA agent turned US Ambassador Lisa Kenna met with Peru’s defense minister, who ordered the military to disobey Castillo’s orders when the democratically elected president cited article 134 of Peru’s constitution to temporarily dissolve the coup-plotting congress and hold new elections and a constituent assembly.
Castillo wanted to organize a democratic process to rewrite Peru’s constitution, which was drafted by the far-right US-backed dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori. The United States had a significant influence on the creation of Peru’s current, Fujimorista constitution, which incorporated neoliberal economic policies into the country’s legal fabric.
Today, US, Canadian, Swiss, and Australia corporations have significant mining interests in Peru, and great influence over the country’s politics.
Since the parliamentary putsch, the US ambassador has met with Peru’s mining and energy ministers to discuss foreign corporate “investments”.
Castillo had proposed increasing taxation on foreign mining corporations, and wanted to use the proceeds to fund healthcare, education, and social programs. Members of the socialist Perú Libre party, with which Castillo had ran for office, had called for nationalizing the country’s substantial mineral reserves.
Peru is the world’s second-biggest producer of copper, representing 10% of global output (exceeded only by neighboring Chile).
The South American nation also has large reserves of gold, zinc, silver, lead, and iron.
Peru is likewise a leading producer of natural gas, and has increasingly exported its energy to Europe, to make up for the drop of Russian gas supplies due to Western sanctions on Moscow.
Peru has large reserves of copper, gold, zinc, silver, lead, iron, and natural gas.
After a coup overthrew left-wing President Pedro Castillo, the US ambassador, CIA veteran Lisa Kenna, met with mining and energy ministers to discuss foreign “investments”https://t.co/rPkQk6lceR
— Geopolitical Economy Report (@GeopoliticaEcon) January 22, 2023


Instruction: Write an article about: La CIA respaldó la fallida invasión a Venezuela en 2020, dice el principal golpista. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: golpe de estado, Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López, Nicolás Maduro, Operación Gedeón, Venezuela, Voluntad Popular

Output:
Un desertor del ejército venezolano que planificó la fallida invasión de mayo de 2020, Clíver Alcalá, dijo que los golpistas estaban en contacto con la CIA y otras agencias del gobierno de EEUU, y tenían su aprobación para tratar de derrocar violentamente al presidente Nicolás Maduro.

(You can read this article in English here.)
Un desertor del ejército venezolano que ayudó a planificar una fallida invasión a Venezuela en mayo de 2020, Clíver Alcalá, dijo que los golpistas estaban en contacto con la CIA y otras agencias del gobierno de Estados Unidos.
Según Alcalá, altos funcionarios estadounidenses aprobaron la operación, que buscaba derrocar violentamente al gobierno chavista del presidente venezolano Nicolás Maduro, quien fue elegido democráticamente.
Los abogados de Alcalá hicieron esta revelación en una presentación judicial ante la corte de EEUU el 28 de enero, informó el Associated Press.
Jordan Goudreau
El 3 y 4 de mayo de 2020, decenas de insurgentes venezolanos de extrema derecha y dos ex comandos de operaciones especiales del Ejército de EEUU intentaron invadir a Venezuela, con planes de secuestrar al presidente Maduro y llevarlo a Estados Unidos.
El complot, conocido como la Operación Gedeón, fue un desastre. Rápidamente fue frustrado por el gobierno venezolano, con la ayuda de pescadores socialistas de la comunidad, y los invasores fueron arrestados.
La invasión había sido organizada por una empresa de mercenarios, con sede en la Florida, llamada Silvercorp USA. Esta empresa fundada por un ex comando de las fuerzas especiales del ejército de EEUU, quien se llama Jordan Goudreau.
En una demanda legal por incumplimiento de contrato, Goudreau dijo que había discutido el plan golpista con dos funcionarios del gobierno de Estados Unidos en un campo de golf en Miami que pertenece al ex presidente Donald Trump, donde se le dio luz verde.
Pero cuando las autoridades venezolanas frustraron la operación, el gobierno de EEUU abandonó inmediatamente a Goudreau y su equipo.

El 26 de marzo de 2020, unas semanas antes de la invasión, el gobierno de EEUU ofreció una serie de recompensas multimillonarias por las cabezas de altos funcionarios actuales y anteriores del gobierno venezolano. Uno de ellos fue el ex general Clíver Alcalá.
Esto sorprendió a Alcalá, porque había sido durante varios años un acérrimo opositor del gobierno venezolano del presidente Maduro.
De hecho, en 2018 Alcalá se había mudado al norte de Colombia, a la ciudad de Barranquilla, cerca de la frontera con Venezuela, donde comenzó a entrenar a militares venezolanos desertores y paramilitares anti-chavistas, haciendo planes para emprender una insurgencia armada contra el gobierno venezolano.
En el norte de Colombia, Alcalá trabajó junto a Goudreau, el mercenario estadounidense que dijo contar con el apoyo de la administración Trump, para crear un ejército guerrillero contra Venezuela.
Estados Unidos había estado apoyando los esfuerzos de Alcalá para tratar de derrocar violentamente a Maduro. Entonces, cuando Washington ofreció la recompensa, Alcalá cumplió y voluntariamente se entregó a las autoridades estadounidenses en Colombia, donde residía. Aceptó ser informante y ser extraditado a Estados Unidos.
Posteriormente, los abogados de Alcalá dejaron claro en sus declaraciones a las autoridades estadounidenses que las operaciones de Alcalá habían sido aprobadas por Washington.
“Los esfuerzos para derrocar al régimen de Maduro han sido bien conocidos por el gobierno de Estados Unidos”, escribieron los abogados de Alcalá en una carta de noviembre de 2021, citada por el Associated Press.
La “oposición de Alcalá al régimen y sus supuestos esfuerzos para derrocarlo fueron reportados a los más altos niveles de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia, el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional y el Departamento del Tesoro”, agregaron sus abogados.
Yacsy Álvarez
Esta no es la primera vez que alguien involucrado en la fallida invasión a Venezuela de 2020 dice que el gobierno de Estados Unidos estuvo involucrado.
Una venezolana de derecha que ayudó a organizar la Operación Gedeón, Yacsy Álvarez, dijo que se reunió con funcionarios del FBI y la DEA en Florida y que las agencias estadounidenses sabían exactamente lo que estaba planeando.
Álvarez trabajó como traductor y asistente de Goudreau, mientras que él y Alcalá entrenaron a militantes anti-venezolanos en Colombia.
Según Álvarez, el gobierno colombiano también apoyó el fallido complot de invasión. El presidente de extrema derecha de Colombia, Iván Duque, y el ex presidente Álvaro Uribe estuvieron involucrados en la operación, ella reveló.
Y la Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DNI) de Colombia sabía todo, confesó Álvarez.
Sin embargo, así como Alcalá fue detenido por las autoridades estadounidenses con las que había estado colaborando, Álvarez fue detenido por las autoridades colombianas con las que ella había estado colaborando.
Sus abogados acusaron a las agencias de espionaje de Colombia de hacer una “trampa” para culparla cuando la operación salió mal.
Juan Guaidó y Leopoldo López
El principal líder de la oposición venezolana de extrema derecha, Leopoldo López, también estuvo involucrado en la fallida invasión.
López es visto en Venezuela como el verdadero poder detrás de Juan Guaidó, quien era una figura poco conocida cuando Estados Unidos lo nombró el supuesto “presidente interino” en enero de 2019.
En un artículo de junio de 2020 titulado “Venezuelan Opposition Guru Led Planning to Topple Maduro” (“El gurú de la oposición venezolana lideró la planificación para derrocar a Maduro”), el periódico estadounidense el Wall Street Journal informó que López “estuvo detrás de un esfuerzo de meses para contratar mercenarios para derrocar al presidente Nicolás Maduro” y había “considerado al menos seis propuestas de contratistas de seguridad privada para llevar a cabo incursiones militares para estimular una rebelión en las fuerzas armadas de Venezuela y derrocar” al gobierno chavista.
López, Guaidó y otros miembros de su partido político de extrema derecha, Voluntad Popular, contrataron a Silvercorp USA y trabajaron con Goudreau y Alcalá para planear la invasión.
A pesar de su clara participación en un intento de invasión a su país de origen y su papel protagónico en violentos intentos de golpe de estado, López vive hoy cómodamente en Madrid. Tiene la protección del gobierno español, mientras continúa organizando la oposición extremista venezolana desde el exterior.
La administración de Joe Biden, por su parte, ha continuado con la política de Trump de reconocer al golpista Guaidó, que nunca fue elegido, como el supuesto líder de Venezuela – aunque, a partir de enero de 2022, menos de 15 países se niegan a reconocer que Maduro es el verdadero presidente.


Instruction: Write an article about: Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) supports Peru’s President Castillo against coup, denounces lawfare in Argentina. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: ALBA, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivarian Alliance, Bolivia, Caribbean, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Latin America, Nicaragua, Pedro Castillo, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela

Output:
The left-wing Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) uniting countries in Latin America and the Caribbean met for its 18th anniversary summit, condemning the coup d’etat in Peru against “Constitutional President Pedro Castillo,” denouncing the “unsubstantiated judicial processes (lawfare)” in Argentina against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the left-wing economic and political bloc uniting countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, has forcefully opposed the coup d’etat in Peru and expressed its support for the country’s democratically elected President Pedro Castillo.
ALBA member states released a joint declaration stating that they “reject the political trap created by the right-wing forces of that country against the Constitutional President Pedro Castillo, forcing him to take measures that were later used by his adversaries in parliament to oust him from office.”
The alliance condemned the violent “repression by the law enforcement agencies against the Peruvian people who are defending a government democratically elected at the polls.”
ALBA likewise denounced “the politically motivated judicial actions” that led to a judicial coup in Argentina, showing solidarity with former President and current Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The alliance said that Kirchner, like Castillo, is victim of “unconventional warfare strategies against democratically elected governments and leaders in the region using the politically motivated and legally unsubstantiated judicial processes (lawfare).”
The members of ALBA include Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and the Caribbean nations Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia.
Representatives of ALBA members met in La Habana on December 14 for their 18th anniversary summit.
Attending the conference were Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, Bolivia’s President Luis Arce, Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell, Foreign Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Everly Chet Greene, and Finance Minister of Saint Lucia Wayne Girard.
Leaders of ALBA member states meet in Cuba on December 14, 2022
They published a joint declaration calling for the “defense of national sovereignty without any foreign interference.”
“We reject the colonialist and interfering postulates of the Monroe Doctrine, used to justify destabilizing and interventionist practices in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the Bolivarian Alliance wrote.
ALBA nations stated:
[We] express our solidarity with the brotherly Peruvian people that has been subjected to a continuous institutional crisis, resulting in a series of events that threaten the stability and the welfare of the majority.
We reject the political trap created by the right-wing forces of that country against the Constitutional President Pedro Castillo, forcing him to take measures that were later used by his adversaries in parliament to oust him from office; we repudiate the repression by the law enforcement agencies against the Peruvian people who are defending a government democratically elected at the polls and we call for dialogue, understanding and maturity of all political, economic, and social actors of the Republic of Peru, as well as we raise our voices to guarantee the fundamental rights of this brother people.
The alliance also declared that it rejects “the destabilizing plans and actions fueled by powerful external factors and national oligarchies that have managed or are attempting to disregard the will of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples, which has been democratically and legitimately expressed at the polls.”
In this vein, ALBA said:
[We] denounce the use of unconventional warfare strategies against democratically elected governments and leaders in the region using the politically motivated and legally unsubstantiated judicial processes (lawfare), to defeat political and ideological opponents while condemning manipulation for political and destabilizing purposes of human rights, the disinformation and propaganda campaigns; the malicious use of the information and communication technologies; and cyber attacks, among other methods undermining the sovereignty and will of the peoples.
In this regard, we express our firmest rejection of the politically motivated judicial actions against our fellow Vice President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a key leader of the integration processes in Latin America and the Caribbean.
ALBA also called for Caribbean nations to receive “reparations for the damages caused by native genocide, colonialism and slavery.”
In the joint statement, the Bolivarian Alliance urged “to increase international solidarity with the brotherly people of the Republic of Haiti.”
And the alliance praised the peace talks being held between Colombia and the armed socialist militia the ELN.
The ALBA was founded in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela, under the leadership of Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.


Instruction: Write an article about: West votes against democracy, human rights, cultural diversity at UN; promotes mercenaries, sanctions. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: democracy, General Assembly, human rights, mercenaries, sanctions, unilateral coercive measures, United Nations

Output:
The West voted against the rest of the world on United Nations General Assembly resolutions, opposing democracy, human rights, and cultural diversity, while supporting mercenaries and unilateral coercive measures (sanctions).

Western governments frequently claim that their foreign and domestic policies are motivated by “human rights” and “democracy”. They often even lecture their adversaries for purportedly failing to respect these concerns.
But on the international stage, Western capitals have shown their commitments to be merely rhetorical, as they have consistently voted against these noble causes and refused to support measures that would tangibly protect them, in flagrant violation of the will of the vast majority of the international community.
These stark double standards were on display on November 7 in the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee, which is devoted to social, humanitarian, and cultural issues.

In this three-hour session, the West opposed draft resolutions that called for promoting democracy, human rights, and cultural diversity, while  simultaneously supporting the use of mercenaries and the application of unilateral coercive measures, commonly known as sanctions.
The extended West voted against the rest of the world on these issues. Its positions were virtually uniform as a bloc, led by the United States, including Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan.
In fact, the chair of the General Assembly’s Third Committee is Austria’s representative to the United Nations, Alexander Marschik, and even he could not help but laugh in the session at the constant protestations of the US representative, who dominated the debate, speaking out against nearly every resolution to explain why the world should join with Washington in voting against it. (Marschik could not contain his laughter despite the fact that his own country, Austria, voted along with the US on each resolution.)
Geopolitical Economy Report has created maps that illustrate the clear political divide between the West and the rest.
In the November 7 session, nations debated a draft that condemned unilateral coercive measures, or sanctions, for violating the human rights of civilians in targeted countries.
The resolution passed with 128 votes in favor and 54 against, and no abstentions.

The General Assembly’s Third Committee likewise considered a measure that called for the “promotion of a democratic and equitable international order”.
The resolution passed with 123 votes in favor and 54 against, plus 7 abstentions (from Armenia, Chile, Costa Rica, Liberia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay).

Another resolution sought to promote “human rights and cultural diversity”.
The measure passed with 130 votes in favor and 54 against, and no abstentions.

The Third Committee deliberated a draft that called for the “promotion of equitable geographical distribution in the membership of the human rights treaty bodies”.
The resolution passed with 128 votes in favor and 52 against, and no abstentions.

Another measure condemned the “use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination”.
The resolution passed with 126 votes in favor and 52 against, plus 6 abstentions (from Kiribati, Liberia, Palau, Mexico, Tonga and Switzerland).

The United Nations published a full video of the Third Committee’s session on November 7, in the 48th plenary meeting of the General Assembly’s 78th session.


Instruction: Write an article about: At UN, Bolivia presents revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform world. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Bolivia, capitalism, imperialism, Luis Arce, socialism, UN, United Nations

Output:
Bolivia’s leftist President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to propose a revolutionary 14-point program to transform the world.

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to propose a revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform the world.
“Today we find ourselves facing a wide-ranging, systemic capitalist crisis that increasingly endangers the life of humanity and the planet,” he warned.

Arce continued: “We should not only reflect on the economic, social, food, climate, energy, water, and trade crises, but also identify with clarity the origin, in order to change a system that reproduces domination, exploitation, and exclusion of the large majorities, that generates the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and that prioritizes the production and reproduction of capital over the production and reproduction of life.”
“Alongside the wide-ranging, systemic crisis of capitalism, we see the final gasp of the unipolar world,” the Bolivian leader added, warning of the dangers of war.
“But unfortunately we are seeing the gradual deterioration of the multilateral system, because of the whims of the capitalist powers that will not accept the existence of a multipolar world with a balance of power.”
Bolivia at the UN: "As we face multiple systemic crisis of capitalism, we see the final chapter of the unipolar world"
"However, unfortunately we see the deterioration of the multilateral system due to the capitalist powers' refusal to accept the existence of a multipolar world" pic.twitter.com/9EtUfrD2Ku
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2022

Luis “Lucho” Arce represents Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. A trained socialist economist, he served as economic minister under former President Evo Morales.
Morales was overthrown in a violent coup d’etat in 2019, which was sponsored by the US government and led by far-right extremists. But after nearly a year of popular rebellion, Bolivia’s social movements defeated the coup regime, and Arce won October 2020 presidential elections in a landslide.
At the UN, Arce delivered a comprehensive 4000-word speech outlining his ambitious vision for changing the global capitalist system, with 14 concrete proposals.
1. Declare the world to be a zone of peace
Many armed conflicts are “promoted by transnational war corporations, but also by the desire to impose a political and economic order that serves the interests of capitalism,” Arce said.
He called for a concerted campaign to ensure world peace. The Bolivian leader emphasized the importance of “reaching a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine, making sure the historic rights of the state and people of Palestine are respected, and that NATO stops thinking about expansionist plans.”
2. Substitute the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with just compensation for the poor people of the world
Nuclear weapons threaten life on the planet, Arce warned.
He proposed to “substitute military spending on the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with a just economic compensation that the countries at the core of capitalism owe, morally and historically, to the countries of the periphery and the poor people of the world.”
3. Against the commercialization of health care, systems of universal health care
The Covid-19 pandemic “exposed the vulnerabilities and inequalities in the health systems of all of the world, as well as the global financial and economic system,” the Bolivian leader said.
He insisted that the state has an “obligation to protect and guarantee collective rights” and “reduce the effects of the world economic crisis on the most vulnerable sectors of the population.”
4. Global program of food sovereignty, in harmony with Mother Earth
World hunger is getting worse, not better, Arce warned.
In 2021, 828 million people suffered from hunger, representing 9.8% of the world population.
He proposed a program to strengthen food sovereignty by supporting small-scale agricultural producers, giving peasants and farmers all the seeds, fertilizers, technology, and financial support they need.
5. Rebuild the productive and economic capacities of the country of the periphery hurt by the logic of the unrestrained concentration of capital
The Bolivian president warned of the damage being done to the world by the inflation crisis and the rapid increase in the price of energy, fertilizers, and raw materials caused by the proxy war in Ukraine.
He called for debt relief for the Global South, maintaining, “The restructuring of the world financial architecture is vital for the relief of external debt on the global scale, so that we developing countries have the space to implement sovereign social policies from the perspective of integral and sustainable economic and social development.”
“And, as has always been a cry from the countries of the South, we must balance the trade relations that currently keep benefiting only the North,” he said.
Arce then explained how his government helped to stabilize Bolivia and recover its economy after the chaos of the US-backed far-right 2019 coup d’etat.
“Following the recovery of democracy in 2020,” he recalled, Bolivia returned to its “social, communitarian, productive economic model, a sovereign economic model in which we don’t accept and we will not accept impositions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
Arce explained that this economic model “is based on the active role of the state in the economy, in the nationalization of our strategic natural resources, the articulation of all forms of economic organization, the strengthening of public investment, import substitution industrialization, the dynamization of the internal market, productive diversification, security with food sovereignty, redistribution of revenues, the struggle against poverty and inequalities.”
He added that this economic model is also influenced by Bolivia’s Indigenous communal traditions.
Arce boasted that this model has been so successful that Bolivia had a rate of just 1.6% inflation in August. The country has the lowest inflation rate in all of Latin America, and one of the lowest in the entire world.
“We regret that, while the countries at the core of capitalism gamble on war with large sums of money, negligible contributions are made for integral and sustainable development, for decolonization and depatriarchalization, for the eradication of poverty and economic and social inequalities,” he said.
As an example of this irresponsible behavior, Arce pointed out that, in just a few months, 20 times more financial resources have been spent on the proxy war in Ukraine than have been invested in the Green Climate Fund in a decade.
6. The climate crisis requires responsibility, solidarity, and harmony between human beings and nature, not usury
Arce warned that the climate “crisis is passing into an ecological collapse.” But he lamented that “the countries that have the means to change their patterns of production and consumption do not have the political will to do it, and those of us who have proposed ambitious goals have not received the means of implementation pledged in the [Climate] Convention and the Paris Accords.”
The Bolivian leader also pointed out that the international climate agreements that do exist do not “take into account the historic responsibilities of the developed countries, or the capacities and limitations of developing countries.”
On a sarcastic note, he added, “Perhaps the historic climate debtors want us all to worry only about the future, to avoid discussing in the present the broken promises made to developing countries about financing, technology transfers, and strengthening capacities.”
The “centuries of bad capitalist development” have done a lot of damage, Arce lamented.
“We are convinced that a future low in emissions and resilient to the climate is not possible if we keep concentrating wealth and incomes in a few hands,” he asserted. “Therefore, to reverse the climate crisis we need to resolve the economic, social, and political contradictions caused by the capitalist model, as well as those that exist between human beings and nature.”
7. The industrialization of lithium, for the benefit of the peoples and a fundamental pillar for the energy transition
Noting that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium on the planet, Arce pledged to use those resources “with much responsibility,” “guaranteeing that its use is of benefit to humanity, as a fundamental pillar of the just global transition to a future low in emissions, respecting Mother Earth.”
“We want our lithium reserves not to follow the path of other natural resources that, on the conditions of colonialism and capitalist development, only serve to increase the wealth of a few and make the people hungry,” he said.
“In this sense, we affirm the sovereignty over our natural resources such as lithium, its industrialization, and the benefit oriented toward the well-being of the peoples, not of transnational corporations or a small privileged group, and the sovereign appropriation of the economic surplus to be redistributed, especially among the low-income population,” the Bolivian leader promised.
Citing a statement by the commander of the US military’s Southern Command (Southcom), Arce warned that South America’s “Lithium triangle,” made up of Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, “is in the sights of the United States.”
U.S. SOUTHCOM Commander:"This region is so rich in resources.. it's off the charts rich."
"60% of the world's lithium is in the region; you have heavy crude, you have light sweet crude, you have rare earth elements, you have the Amazon.." pic.twitter.com/33dQ6EXKAo
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) July 20, 2022

8. From nationalization to regionalization of the struggle against drug trafficking
Early in the day on September 20, a few hours before Bolivian President Arce spoke at the United Nations, Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro used the General Assembly to declare that “the war on drugs has failed.”
Petro criticized the US government’s violent approach and its militarization of Latin America, as well as its internal system of racist mass incarceration of Black Americans.
Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro gave a historic UN speech declaring, “The war on drugs has failed”
He warned capitalism is destroying the environment, with its “addiction to money and oil,” and called for Global South debt reliefhttps://t.co/ka4iI5TEKq
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2022

When Arce took to the podium at the UN, he made similar comments.
“It remains clear that the war on drugs, principally the one unleashed by the United States, has failed,” the Bolivian leader said. “Therefore there is an imperative need that this country [the US] does a deep analysis about changing its policy, with attention to the fact that it has become one of the main consuming countries, which has resulted in the lamentable death of more than 100,000 people by overdoses and drug addictions inside of its territory.”
“We must change the focus in the approach of the struggle against drug trafficking. To keep emphasizing supply and not demand has only served as a pretext for militarization and for the waging of the international war on drugs,” Arce added. “That has affected peasants in the South, and left absolute impunity for the large criminal groups, never publicly identified, in the countries whose populations largely consume all types of drugs.”
“The international war on drugs criminalizes and leads to unilateral sanctions against countries of the South, but it shields money laundering and facilitates drug trafficking and other crimes connected to the countries of the North. It can no longer continue this way.”
Arce proposed the “regionalization” of the struggle against drug trafficking, with an “integral focus that is less militarized and more socio-economic.”
9. Strengthen international mechanisms for preferential treatment for landlocked countries
In his UN address, Arce proposed the idea that countries have a “right to the sea.”
For landlocked nations like Bolivia, “We face grave difficulties in accessing the sea and using its resources, keeping in mind that marine spaces make up zones of great potential for the development of countries, especially developing countries,” he explained.
“All countries have the right to access and utilize oceanic space and marine resources,” he argued. And to protect those habitats, “We should ensure the just distribution of rights and responsibilities with respect to marine wealth.”
10. Widen our restricted vision of human rights and democracy
“We need to widen our restricted concept of human rights and their relation with democracy,” Arce implored.
“Neither one of the two exists,” he argued, “when the preservation of the privileges of a few is done at the cost of the effective unfulfillment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the majorities.”
As an example of how this can be done, Arce held up Bolivia’s plurinational model, which provides equal representation for the 36 Indigenous peoples that make up the country.
11. Intergenerational solidarity
The Bolivian leader also called to protect older populations who are sometimes forgotten by society.
“This vibrant and productive generation must show solidarity with those who built the first foundations of our houses,” he said.
“One cannot assure equity with future generations if we do not show equity between the present generations.”
12. Declare the decade of depatriarchalization to struggle against all forms of violence against women and girls
Arce condemned “the persistence of violence against women and girls, and in particular Indigenous women and girls who are in poverty.”
“The pandemic and the structural crises of capitalism are deteriorating the conditions of life, especially of women, of the countryside and the cities,” he said. “Those women continue confronting complex and intersectional forms of violence.”
The Bolivian government officially declared 2022 to be the “Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization: For a life free of violence against women,” Arce noted.
“We are advancing policies oriented not only at strengthening regulatory goalposts but also attacking the structural causes of violence, from education, strengthening economic autonomy of women, and also through cultural processes, to transform that lamentable reality, rooted in patriarchy, as the oldest system of oppression, that has a feedback loop with colonialism and capitalism.”
13. Reject unilateral sanctions
Condemning the imposition of sanctions, Arce declared, “It is inconceivable, in a world rocked by crises and the pandemic, that unilateral coercive measures are still applied with the goal of subduing governments, at the expense of people’s hunger and suffering.”
The Bolivian leader denounced the US government’s “inhuman and criminal commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, that puts at risk the lives of millions of citizens.”
“It is a crime against humanity to maintain that type of measure,” Arce said, blasting Washington for adding Cuba to its list of so-called sponsors of “terrorism.”
Every year, more than 95% of the 193 member states of the United Nations vote to oppose the unilateral US blockade on Cuba, yet Washington has maintained it for six decades.
The impunity that the United States enjoys despite these illegal forms of aggression show “how the decisions taken by the majority each year in this [General] Assembly are not fulfilled by certain countries,” Arce lamented.
14. Guarantee the full validity of the UN charter and the principle of multilateralism
“The multidirectional crisis that the planet is going through as a result of capitalist ambition, far from being overcome will get even worse if urgent measures are not taken,” Arce warned at the end of his speech.
“Only through a strengthened multilateralism will we be able to reach greater dialogue and cooperation in search of solutions to that crisis.”
The Bolivian leader affirmed that his country is waging a “revolution” that is dedicated “to overcome the current polarization of the world architecture, to overcome the capitalist order that has put us in dizzying, dangerous, and limitless race of consumerism that puts humanity and the planet at risk, and to instead build a more just, inclusive, and equitable world, for everyone.”


Instruction: Write an article about: It is not Nicaragua that is ‘isolated’; it’s the US and EU. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: China, FSLN, India, Japan, Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, sanctions, Sandinistas, Turkey, Vietnam

Output:
Western corporate media claims Nicaragua’s Sandinista government is “isolated,” but it has support from countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America representing billions, while US fights with EU

This January 10 was the inauguration of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, the leader of the socialist Sandinista Front. Western corporate media outlets are pushing a ridiculous narrative that Nicaragua is “isolated” from the so-called “international community” — by which they mean “the imperialists in the United States and European Union.”
The Economist, the coup-supporting mouthpiece of British billionaires and Western intelligence agencies, published an article that epitomizes this propaganda narrative, claiming the Nicaraguan “president is leading the country into increasing isolation.”
The piece — anonymous, like most of The Economist’s articles — happily chirped that “Dozens of countries refused to recognise the result of elections in November.” Reminder: there are 193 sovereign nations recognized by the United Nations, so a few dozen, predominately Western, countries is a small fraction of that.

The US and EU rejected Nicaragua’s November elections as “fraudulent,” and responded with economic warfare. (I’m still waiting for presidential elections to be held in the US/EU-sponsored Gulf monarchies.)
The Western imperialist powers then responded to Ortega’s January 10 inauguration with more economic warfare. Coordinating together, the US and EU jointly imposed new sanctions on top Nicaraguan government officials, as well as its military, its telecommunications institute, and a state-owned mining company.
Yet if we look past Western media distractions, we quickly see that, in reality, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has many allies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, representing billions of people, including the largest nations on Earth.
Representatives from the following countries greeted the inauguration of President Ortega:
Western corporate media propagandists truly think everything on Earth revolves around the roughly 15% of the global population in the US and EU, which they dub the “international community.” They ignore the vast majority of humanity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
When you stop seeing the world that way, it is very liberating — and you begin to realize how authoritarian and tightly controlled Western capitalist so-called “democracies” are.
It is not Nicaragua that is isolated, but rather the US and EU, who more and more keep losing their allies. Even France, a longtime colonial power, says it cannot trust the United States. And Washington threatened Germany with sanctions over its Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia.
While Western imperialists impose illegal sanctions across the planet — and fight among themselves — Asia continues to advance at a rapid pace, Latin America and Africa are gradually developing, and mechanisms of South-South integration are strengthening.
You want to know what real isolation is? More than 95% of UN member states voting every year at the General Assembly, over three decades, to condemn the illegal US blockade on Cuba. Now that’s international isolation.
For the 29th year in a row, basically the entire world voted at the United Nations against the illegal, murderous US blockade on Cuba.
184 countries voted to end the US blockade.
Only 2 voted for it: the USA and Israel.
3 US client regimes abstained: Colombia, Ukraine, and UAE pic.twitter.com/roZsqCu0NG
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 23, 2021


Instruction: Write an article about: Invocando la Doctrina Monroe, diputado de EEUU dice que Argentina es una ‘amenaza’, tras sus acuerdos con China. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Alberto Fernández, Argentina, China, Doctrina Monroe, Matt Gaetz, Rusia, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping

Output:
El congresista derechista Matt Gaetz, un aliado de Donald Trump, calificó a Argentina como una “amenaza” para la “seguridad” de EEUU, y se quejó de que su alianza con China desafía la colonialista Doctrina Monroe.

(You can read this article in English here.)
Un influyente diputado estadounidense invocó la colonialista Doctrina Monroe en el pleno del Congreso y calificó a Argentina de “amenaza” debido a su alianza con China.
El congresista republicano Matt Gaetz, un aliado clave del ex presidente Donald Trump, dijo en un discurso en la Cámara de Representantes el 7 de febrero que existe una “amenaza significativa para nuestra nación que se acelera rápidamente cerca de casa”.
“Argentina, una nación y economía importante en las Américas, acaba de unirse al Partido Comunista Chino al sumarse a la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta”, declaró Gaetz.
Invocando la colonialista Doctrina Monroe, el congresista derechista Matt Gaetz, un aliado de Donald Trump, calificó a Argentina como una “amenaza” para la “seguridad” de EEUU, debido a su alianza con China.
Lea más aquí: https://t.co/AWRPXrh6IP pic.twitter.com/2fzI6IhUui
— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) February 8, 2022

El legislador de la Florida estaba reaccionando a la noticia de que el presidente de Argentina, Alberto Fernández, visitó Moscú y Beijing para reunirse con los mandatarios Vladimir Putin y Xi Jinping el 3 y 6 de febrero, respectivamente.
Al explicar sus viajes, Fernández dijo, “Argentina tiene que dejar de tener esa dependencia tan grande que tiene con el FMI y los Estados Unidos, y tiene que abrirse camino hacia otros lados”.
Argentina se sumó a la campaña de infraestructura internacional de Beijing, la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta, y China le ofreció a la nación sudamericana $23.700 millones de dólares en inversiones y proyectos de infraestructura. Moscú se comprometió de manera similar a fortalecer los lazos políticos y económicos con lo que llamó “uno de los socios claves de Rusia en América Latina”.
Argentina está atrapada con $44 mil millones de deuda odiosa del FMI.
Buscando alternativas a la hegemonía de EEUU, el presidente Alberto Fernández viajó a Rusia y China, formando nuevas alianzas y incorporándose a la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Rutahttps://t.co/h7Eg59LRjM
— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) February 6, 2022

El representante Matt Gaetz describió con enojo los crecientes vínculos de Argentina con China como “un desafío directo a la Doctrina Monroe”.
La Doctrina Monroe, que data de 1823, fue un mensaje a los colonialistas europeos de que Estados Unidos considera a América Latina como su propio territorio colonial.
Hace dos siglos, el secretario de estado John Quincy Adams creó la doctrina, y el presidente James Monroe la convirtió en política de gobierno, insistiendo en que EEUU no intervendría en las esferas de influencia de las potencias coloniales europeas mientras reconocieran que Centroamérica y Sudamérica eran parte de la esfera de influencia imperial de Washington.
Esta actitud de que Latinoamérica es propiedad colonial de EEUU sigue muy viva hoy en día, y es completamente bipartidista en Washington.
Varios altos funcionarios de la administración de Donald Trump invocaron la Doctrina Monroe para justificar su intento de golpe en Venezuela, incluido el ex director de la CIA y secretario de estado, Mike Pompeo, más el asesor de seguridad nacional, John Bolton.
Este enero, el presidente Joe Biden se hizo eco de la retórica colonial de la Doctrina Monroe al referirse a América Latina como el “patio delantero” de Washington.
Si bien Matt Gaetz, al igual que su mentor político Donald Trump, a veces critica de manera oportunista a otras facciones de derecha como los “neoconservadores”, propone una política exterior imperialista igualmente agresiva.
Una constante en prácticamente todos los discursos de Gaetz es su demonización obsesiva de China. Aboga firmemente por una nueva guerra fría para contener a la superpotencia asiática.
Mientras muchos neoconservadores e intervencionistas liberales quieren una política agresiva contra Rusia, el mensaje de Gaetz es esencialmente que China es la verdadera amenaza para Estados Unidos, no el Kremlin, y que Washington debería buscar la guerra con Beijing en lugar de la guerra con Moscú.
En su discurso ante el Congreso, en el que declaró a Argentina como una “amenaza”, Gaetz reiteró este tema y afirmó que “China es una potencia en ascenso. Rusia es una potencia en declive. Concentrémonos, para que no nos unamos a ellos en ese destino eventual”.
Gaetz, que representa el Panhandle del noroeste de Florida, se unió a la administración Trump para apoyar firmemente el intento de golpe de estado en Venezuela.
El legislador republicano también pide con frecuencia el derrocamiento del gobierno de Cuba, mientras difunde noticias falsas que afirman que “los matones venezolanos, con algunos rusos, ahora son ‘escuadrones de la muerte’ que recorren los hogares. Están masacrando adultos y secuestrando niños”.
Gaetz está estrechamente relacionado con la extrema derecha. En 2018, invitó a un notorio bloguero nacionalista blanco, que ha promovido el revisionismo del Holocausto, al discurso del estado de la unión de Trump.
Además de su política extremista, Gaetz ha sido investigado por las autoridades estadounidenses por el presunto tráfico sexual de una niña de 17 años.


Instruction: Write an article about: In fiery UN speech, Honduras condemns colonialism, neoliberalism, coups, corporate exploitation. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Cuba, Honduras, UN, United Nations, Venezuela, Xiomara Castro

Output:
In her first UN speech, Honduras’ left-wing President Xiomara Castro denounced colonialism, “neoliberal injustice,” and the foreign corporations that have exploited her country. Calling for multipolarity, she declared, “Never again will we carry the stereotype of a banana republic.”

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
Honduras’ new left-wing President Xiomara Castro delivered a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly denouncing colonialism, “neoliberal injustice,” and the foreign corporations that have exploited her country.
Calling for a multipolar world, the Honduran leader declared, “Never again will we carry the stereotype of a banana republic. We will put an end to monopolies and oligopolies that only impoverish our economy.”

“Honduras will only have a future if it takes firm steps to dismantle the neoliberal economic dictatorship,” she asserted.
Castro (of no relation to Cuba’s Fidel Castro) also condemned the violent right-wing military coup that the United States sponsored in Honduras in 2009, which overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya – Castro’s husband.
“We poor nations of the world will no longer tolerate coups d’etat; we will no longer tolerate the use of lawfare, or color revolutions, which are usually organized to plunder our extensive natural resources,” she proclaimed.

The September 20 speech was the first time the Honduran president addressed the United Nations since coming to power this January.
Wearing a bright-red suit – the color of her socialist political party, the Liberty and Refoundation Party, or Libre (“Free”) Party for short – Castro stressed, “It is time to seriously discuss multipolarity in the world.”
She demanded an end to the US government’s “despicable and brutal blockade” on Cuba, and added that “the aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela must stop.”
Castro also decried the US-dominated international financial institutions that have trapped her country in unpayable odious debt and imposed devastating neoliberal austerity policies.
“It is clear that today, for our country to survive, we must reject this so-called austerity, which awards those who concentrate wealth in a few hands, and favors those who exponentially increase inequality,” she said.
Following the US-backed 2009 coup, Honduras became one of the most violent countries on Earth. This created a crisis that turned hundreds of thousands of Hondurans into refugees and migrants.
Castro used her UN speech to explain the importance of her landslide victory in the November 2021 elections and her efforts to reverse this social catastrophe:
I stand on this international platform in what for my country is an historic event, not only because I am the first woman to have the honor of leading our Central American nation, but also because I represent the first democratically elected government after our country went through 13 years of dictatorship.
The 2009 coup, which saw us mired in cruel murders and death squads, two fraudulent elections, a pandemic, and two hurricanes – it is impossible to understand the Hondurans and the huge caravans of migrants without recognizing this context of cruel suffering which we have been forced to endure.
However, electoral democracy is not enough to guarantee the material and spiritual well-being of our people. 13 years of dictatorship, overseen by the international community, led to the country multiplying its public debt by six times, and saw the country reach a 74% poverty rate, the highest ever seen in the history of Honduras.
Five of every 10 of my compatriots live in extreme poverty. However it is my firm belief that none of these figures will astound anyone in a world which today lives under a monetary dictatorship, which imposes on the poorest of people draconian measures of fiscal discipline, which increases the suffering of the left-behind majority, in which speculative capital has no limits.
The Honduran leader was especially critical of international institutions that did nothing as the US-backed coup regime stole numerous elections over 13 years.
“None of the observers of of the fraudulent elections of 2013 and 2017 were unaware of what they were dooming our people to. Instead, they showed themselves to be indifferent to the worst plague which has ever ravaged our country,” she said.
“The arrogance of capital and petty self-interest led many to choose deceit, while organized crime brought the country to the abyss,” she added.
At the UN, Castro emphasized how the US-backed coup regime had trapped her impoverished nation in debt.
Multipolarista previously reported on Castro’s inauguration speech on January 27, in which she blasted the coup regime that had “submerged” the state in debt, leaving it in “bankruptcy” and “economic catastrophe.”
At the time of the coup in 2009, Honduras had $2.48 billion in external debt. By the end of 2021, its external debt skyrocketed to $9.25 billion – a 373% increase.
Honduras’ internal debt also grew drastically, from roughly $810 million in 2009 to around $7.3 billion by the time Castro took power in January 2022.
With a GDP of just $23.8 billion, and more than $16.5 billion in debt, this means Honduras’ debt is 70% of its entire economy.
Castro denounced this odious debt as illegitimate and unpayable, noting it already consumes 50% of the government’s budget.
US-backed coup regimes trapped Honduras in unpayable odious debt, warns new President Xiomara Castro

At the UN, Castro said wealthy countries in the Global North trap nations in the South in debt, extract wealth from them, and use it to live “lifestyles of excess.”
“The world’s industrialized nations are those responsible for the grave degradation of our environment, but they make us pay for their lifestyles of excess. And to do that, they spare no effort to embroil us in their plans, and in an endless crisis, to ensure that our hands and feet are tied,” she declared.
“Public policies endorsed by the rent-seeking model on the part of the international financial community over the last 13 years have pulled us into a world full of violence and poverty, with failed and abandoned projects, corruption, looting, and drug trafficking,” she added.
Castro emphasized that this extreme economic exploitation fueled rampant poverty and violence, which pushed many Hondurans to leave the country.
“Every caravan of migrants that fled the dictatorship that imposed itself for more than a decade is a painful loss for our country and for their families. The numbers show us that this exodus, caused by neoliberal injustice, creates more unemployment and traps us in an undesirable dependency,” she lamented.
The Honduran president outlined her government’s ambitious goals to transform the country.
She said her administration is cracking down on tax evasion, strengthening the internal market, and using import substitution industrialization to develop the local economy.
Emphasizing the need for food sovereignty, Castro said Honduras is renegotiating free-trade agreements, while expanded social services and subsidizing energy bills for poor people.
She outlined her party’s revolutionary program:
In Honduras, my government has begun a process of refoundation and deep change, which is based on four fundamental pillars:
One, the revolutionary transformation of education, to elevate the human spirit and end with colonialism.
[Two], to build an alternative economic model which is deeply sovereign.
Three, to build a system whose very core is the exaltation of humanism, solidarity, integration with brotherly peoples, peace, and respect for human rights.
Four, the gradual de-privatization of public services, such as healthcare, drinking water, electrical energy, and the internet.
Although the 2009 Honduran coup was finally reversed in November 2021, Castro warned that capitalist oligarchs are once again plotting against her elected government.
“Conspiracies are being planned by the same sectors which looted the country and their pro-coup allies, emboldened by a shameless anti-democratic attitude, which sometimes disguises itself as diplomacy,” she cautioned.
Castro called on foreign powers to stop meddling in her country’s sovereign affairs.
“I’m using this platform to demand that you respect us. We want to live in peace. Stop trying to destabilize Honduras, and imposing your measures upon us, and choosing who we can have relations with. The people are sovereign,” she said.
These comments in particular seemed to be a reference to Washington’s new cold war on China.
Honduras is one of just 13 countries in the world that recognize Taiwan as an independent country. But before the November 2021 elections, Castro had pledged that, if she won, should would break off ties and instead recognize the People’s Republic of China.
Taiwan and its US sponsors have put heavy pressure on Honduras to maintain its formal diplomatic relations.
Castro condemned the arrogance of powerful imperialist countries in the Global North, that treat nations like Honduras as “third and fourth class.”
“What is unacceptable to us is this arbitrary world order in which there are third- and fourth-class countries, while at the same time those that think of themselves as civilized never tire of launching invasions, waging wars, engaging in financial speculation and crucifying us with their inflation, time and time again,” she said.
The Honduran leader added, “Every millimeter of the homeland that they pillaged in the name of the sacrosanct freedom of the market and other systems of privilege was tainted with the blood of Indigenous peoples.”


Instruction: Write an article about: Nicaragua’s Sandinista gov’t expels OAS, calling it US ‘colonial instrument’ of coups and invasions. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Denis Moncada, Nicaragua, OAS, Organization of American States

Output:
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government withdrew from and expelled the coup-supporting Organization of American States (OAS), denouncing it as a “deceitful agency of the State Department of yankee imperialism” and US “Ministry of the Colonies.”

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has expelled the Organization of American States (OAS), calling it “one of the US State Department’s political instruments of intervention and domination.”
Managua also declared its immediate withdrawal from the organization, stating clearly, “Nicaragua is not a colony of anyone, therefore it is not part of the Ministry of the Colonies.”
The OAS was founded by the United States in 1948, at the beginning of the first cold war, as a coalition of right-wing anti-communist countries in the Americas. Among its founding members was Nicaragua’s US-backed military dictatorship, run by the brutal Somoza dynasty.
The OAS is based in Washington, and still today receives the majority of its funding from the US government.
In Latin America, the OAS has earned an infamous reputation for supporting numerous coups d’etat, including the violent overthrow of Bolivia’s elected socialist President Evo Morales in 2019.
In November 2021, Nicaragua announced its decision to leave the OAS, after the US-dominated body refused to recognize the Sandinista Front’s victory in the elections earlier that month.
This initiated a formal withdrawal process that would have taken two years. But in a fiery speech on April 24, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada declared that Nicaragua was leaving the OAS immediately, blasting it as a “deceitful agency of the State Department of yankee imperialism.”
Nicaragua leaving US-controlled, coup-plotting OAS: ‘We are not a colony’

“The people and government of Nicaragua have not recognized and do not recognize this instrument of colonial administration, which does not at any time represent the sovereign union of Our America and the Caribbean, and that, on the contrary, is an instrument of yankee imperialism, to violate rights and independence, supporting and promoting interventions and invasions, legitimizing coups d’etat in various forms and modes,” Moncada said.
“We will not have any presence at all in the organizations of that diabolical instrument of the badly named OAS,” he added, referring to the organization’s officials as “employees of the Yankee State Department.”
By denouncing the OAS as the “Yankee Ministry of the Colonies,” Moncada was referencing a phrase famously coined by Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962, while US-backed right-wing dictatorships were welcomed in the organization.
In 2017, Venezuela’s elected Chavista government announced its decision to leave the OAS as well, condemning the organization for supporting violent US-backed coup attempts.
The OAS then went on to recognize US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela, despite the fact that he never won a single vote in a presidential election.
Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Moncada affirmed in his April 24 speech, “By denouncing and rejecting that infernal mechanism, from which we are leaving immediately with absolute dignity, we ratify, definitively, our respect, affection, and recognition of heroic Cuba and Venezuela, and the peoples that bravely wage their struggles, and that have accompanied us and accompany us in the battles that they have fought and fight for justice, the peoples’ rights, sovereignty, dignity, and peace.”