Instruction: Write an article about: Peru rises up after coup against elected President Pedro Castillo. 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, Daniela Ortiz, Indigenous peoples, Keiko Fujimori, Pedro Castillo, Peru, racism

Output:
Peru’s elected left-wing President Pedro Castillo was overthrown in a coup by the right-wing-controlled congress. A Peruvian activist explains why the people are rising up and demanding a new constitution.

Peru’s democratically elected left-wing President Pedro Castillo was overthrown and arrested in a coup on December 7 by the right-wing-controlled congress, which has an approval rating of between 7% and 11%.
Castillo is a humble teacher and union organizer from a rural, indigenous-descent community in a country whose political system has long been dominated by racist elites.
As soon as Castillo entered office at the end of July 2021, far-right elements in the congress, loyal to the US-backed former dictator Alberto Fujimori, constantly tried to overthrow him and destabilize his government.
Multipolarista editor Ben Norton interviewed Peruvian activist Daniela Ortiz about the protests going on across the country calling for a new constitution and demanding that Castillo be freed from prison.

BEN NORTON: Hey, everyone. I’m Ben Norton. And today I have the privilege of being joined by an activist in Peru, Daniela Ortiz. She is an anti-racist activist, and also an artist.
And today, we’re going to be talking about the coup that happened against the elected left-wing president, Pedro Castillo, on December 7 there. This was wildly distorted in foreign media reporting.
And I’m going to ask you about this, Daniela, but there was essentially an attempt to have a congressional coup against the elected President Castillo by the right-wing-controlled congress. And the most recent poll from just a few days ago shows that the congress in Peru has an 11% approval rating.
And in response to the congressional coup attempt, we saw that President Castillo dissolved congress and called for a constitutional referendum, and that led to a coup against him.
And now there has been a new president that has been appointed, who is unelected, his vice president, Dina Boluarte, who has made a political alliance with the right wing and called for a government of national unity with the right wing.
Meanwhile, there are large protests going on in Peru demanding that Castillo, who was arrested by the police, be freed, and calling for new elections, and also calling to have a constituent assembly to create a new constitution.
?@VimermaM desde Espinar.#AdelantoDeEleccionesYa #QueSeVayanTodosYa pic.twitter.com/DwLkEI7LjX
— ?? Wayka? (@WaykaPeru) December 9, 2022

So, Daniela, can you talk about the situation that has happened in the past few days? What do you think about this coup? How is it being portrayed outside of Peru? And what do people not understand about what’s going on?
DANIELA ORTIZ: Thanks a lot for having me. What we’re seeing these days is the end of a long process that started the first day that Castillo was elected.
Since the first day, the right wing, together with the media – not only the national media, also the international media – have been creating a lot of strategies in order to take Castillo down.
Strategies that went from accusing not only Castillo, but everybody that was around him, of “terrorism”; several lawfare processes that happened against Castillo, against Vladimir Cerrón, who is the leader of Perú Libre, that was the party that Castillo entered with,
Then a lawfare that also was against citizens that only were at the polling tables during the election and the voting. And they were accused of committing fraud, what they called “fraud in the table,” like the fraud was committed by the people that were in charge of the tables during the elections, when Castillo won.
So this is one of the many attempts they had, all the “vacancy” impeachments and all these processes. And they finally did what they wanted.
That is not taking down Castillo; it is putting themselves in power, because it’s something also that we’re seeing from before.
This is not the first president to be taken out by the right wing; he is actually the third president.
And we’re not talking of just any right wing. We’re talking about the Fujimori right wing that wants to be in power and continue that dictatorship that we had with Alberto Fujimori.
But now where we have Keiko, his daughter, and all the people from Fuerza Popular, the party of Keiko Fujimori, that are aiming basically to take power and not let anyone be in the executive power.
Because it is not just now; it has been for many years that Fuerza Popular has been controlling the congress, and then also creating the laws, in order to be able to control executive power and not let the Peruvian people have the president that we have elected.
BEN NORTON: This is very important. For people who don’t know the modern history of Peru, there was a fascist dictator, Alberto Fujimori, who governed until 2000.
And both his son and his daughter are prominent politicians in the congress in Peru. And his daughter, Keiko Fujimori, was the other candidate who ran against Pedro Castillo in the second round of the elections.
And the Fujimori dictatorship committed genocide, sterilization of indigenous women. So they represent the far-right wing of Peruvian politics.
Now, you mentioned something very important, Daniela, which is that the right-wing-controlled congress has taken out multiple presidents.
In fact, Peru has had six presidents in five years, because of this Fujimorista constitution that allows the Congress to remove elected presidents because of “moral incapacity,” which really means whatever they want.
Can you talk about why the political system is so unstable, and why Castillo and also people in the streets right now have been demanding a new constitution where the elected president can actually be allowed to govern?
DANIELA ORTIZ: Another demand that is happening now is not only that we need a new constitution, not having the constitution that was imposed by Alberto Fujimori during the dictatorship in 1993, by a real a coup d’etat that he carried out.
He [Fujimori] closed the congress not in these conditions, not in this situation we are in now.
And they have been manipulating all the laws for many years, in order to impose power and to demand things like, for example, that the president has to ask permission from the parliament in order to travel.
So they, for example, didn’t allow Castillo to go to the inauguration ceremony when [Colombia’s President Gustavo] Petro won. And they decided not to let him go to that, but yes to Chile, for example.
So they have absolute and total control in regard to this.
All the proposals that come from the executive power in order to make the changes that we need – like, for example, in regard to gas, or that there is needed in regard to the second agrarian reform, that was one of the big promises of Castillo – these were, blocked by the parliament.
So then there is the accusation that Castillo is not doing anything, but he cannot do anything because he has a parliament that is operating in this way.
And then something really important that is happening in this context is the media power. There is a situation in which, if you listen nowadays, the media in Peru, they are claiming that Castillo was the one that carried out a coup d’etat, and they are using, literally, the word “dictator.”
So there is an absolute misconception, or manipulation of that situation.
And obviously there is no control over what is going on in the parliament.
But something good in regard to the media is that happens in Lima, and that is what people mainly from Lima or the big cities claim.
But if you go to the countryside, for example, and if you go to many places where Castillo has a lot of people that defend him, where they have more community radios – it’s not that there is no access to that media; it’s that people from the countryside, and people who are Indigenous, people who are mestizo, don’t feel identified with the media from Lima.
Therefore there is a possibility of having another type of information and another type of of a perspective, in regard to the situation of what is going on.
And that is why, since the beginning, people mostly outside Lima have been defending their vote. That is basically what is going on.
They [the opposition] haven’t accepted that Castillo won the elections until now.
And as you mentioned, also something really important, is that even the Fujimori party, Fuerza Popular, even they took down a right-wing president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
Because, as I said before, it’s not about not letting Castillo be in the presidency; it’s not about having only the right wing; it’s about having this extreme right wing that is a continuation of a dictatorship that has persecuted, killed, disappeared student, union leaders, workers, and people who were getting organized in the ’90s.
BEN NORTON: You mentioned the role of the media. In fact, there has been a video clip going viral on social media showing a right-wing TV presenter literally saying that the police should “shoot protesters in the head.”
So we see an incitement to a massacre.
En un canal peruano el conductor le pide abiertamente a la Policía que le "metan un balazo en la cabeza" a los manifestantes. La situación cada vez más crítica en Perú. pic.twitter.com/mL2qhC3OgT
— Marco Teruggi (@Marco_Teruggi) December 9, 2022

And of course, it was a massacre in 2019 of working-class Indigenous people in Bolivia that is what solidified the coup against Evo Morales.
And, of course, Peru and Bolivia have differences, but they also have a lot of similarities. And one of those similarities is that both countries have a very large Indigenous population that has been excluded from the bourgeois political system for many decades.
And Evo Morales in Bolivia was the first ever Indigenous president. And similarly, Castillo represents the Indigenous-descent communities in rural areas.
He himself is from a very humble background. He was a teacher in a rural area who led a teachers’ strike.
And the media coverage against him has often been very racist. Of course, in Peru, the political class has been dominated by many people of European descent who look down upon the Indigenous-descent majority.
So can you talk about the the racism that Castillo has dealt with, and also the classism, given that he represents the poor and working-class majority of the country who have been marginalized and excluded from politics for so long?
DANIELA ORTIZ: That comes from a media, and precisely with this Congress, that do not allow to have laws and to execute the laws that protect population from that media that is so aggressive, not only against Castillo, but all his ministers have been accused with racist arguments, classist arguments of not being capable.
That’s the the argument they usually use. And it’s absolutely normalized in the context of Peru, of saying they are not capable of doing this.
But also of really complex things like accusations of being “terrorists,” for example.
That was what we call “terruqueo,” the practice of claiming that somebody is linked to terrorism comes from the ’90s. And that has absolute impunity in the media.
And the level of racism, for example, going from comparing Castillo with animals. We saw one day that there was a party of the elite, that they were dressing up like Castillo, and making fun of him, and killing him.
This is the level of violence.
And we can see in Argentina, before the attempt of murdering Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner], there were a lot of contexts in which this violence was being represented. One was the media, but also in parties, and also in Twitter.
Everywhere there was this type of of aggressiveness, with absolute impunity.
And also, it’s not only Castillo. It’s all the people who entered into the parliament.
It’s the first time, for example, that we could have – before the use of Quecha in the parliament was like a symbolic thing. Like, for example, somebody saying hello and presenting in Quecha, or doing something symbolic in Quecha.
But in this moment, and this parliament, where some of the parliamentarians at the beginning were from Perú Libre, the party of Castillo, we saw figures like Guido Bellido, for example, giving full speeches in Quecha, making a political use of Quecha.
And that is frustrating white people who do not understand the language that is spoken by a great proportion of the population here in Peru, and that is one of the languages of Peru.
And they were even trying to file legal complaints because some politicians were using Quecha in the context of the parliament.
The level of racism at that moment was was really strong.
And then in the past few days we saw the humiliation of the family of Castillo. They had to take their things out of the presidential palace in bags.
And that is the image that the right wing and the elite from Lima wanted, because they cannot accept having in power somebody who comes from a rural area, who is a teacher, who comes from a humble background.
BEN NORTON: Absolutely. And I want to talk now about the complex situation in terms of the dissolution of the congress, the way in which Castillo temporarily at least tried to dissolve the congress.
We know from day one, as you mentioned, that the right-wing-controlled congress, which has an 11% approval rating, has constantly tried to overthrow the elected President Castillo.
In just over a year, they tried, they were on their third attempt to impeach him.
And unlike the impeachment system in other countries, if the congress has a majority vote to impeach the president, the president has to step down in Peru. It’s not like, for instance, in the United States where President Donald Trump was impeached, but he did not step down.
In Peru, it has led to six presidents in five years. And this is the context in which Castillo dissolved the congress.
And in fact, even ironically according to the the Fujimorista constitution, the president actually does have the ability to dissolve the congress in circumstances of obstructionism.
So can you talk about the misleading narrative that we see in corporate media, and also spread by the US embassy, claiming that Castillo was carrying out an “autogolpe,” a “self coup” against the government, when in reality of course it was the coup being carried out against him.
pic.twitter.com/cyDlKaxiC8
— Embajada EEUU Perú (@USEMBASSYPERU) December 7, 2022

DANIELA ORTIZ: Well actually the demand to close to close that Congress was a popular demand. Many of the marches, and the blockades, and the demonstrations recently were not against Castillo, but pushing him to make the agenda he entered with.
It was not for him to step down or to become more right-wing; it was for him to become more left-wing. That was a protest of the people: with Castillo, not against him but with him.
And what happened was that he did what the people was asking: to close the congress. Because everybody is conscious, and we can see it, as you mentioned it, that the congress has only 11% approval – and I don’t want to see what the number is going to be after what they did.
There is a general consensus in many contexts that the congress is interrupting.
And then also he did what [Martín] Vizcarra did, our last president. He also decided to close the congress. That was also a demand from the people at the moment.
And obviously what they came out to say is that it was a coup d’etat, and they were talking about a dictatorship, but, I mean, Castillo didn’t even appear with a military when he decided to close the congress.
And it was a policy that was closing the congress and not making a dictatorship or a coup d’etat, as what they were saying, every word, and the argument and the excuse in order for them to carry out a real coup d’etat.
What happened is that it seems that Castillo had information that the congress would have the amount of votes in order to do the impeachment and remove him.
That’s what it seems, because really, until this moment, there are many versions and theories, but nobody knows really what happened and why he took that decision.
But anyway, even though – because there are people saying that it was a mistake to do it at this time, and how he did it, and how he didn’t have support or wasn’t organized with certain groups or political groups, etc.
But the main point is that there was a general demand to close in the congress. That’s what he did.
And also something really positive is that, if you listen [to Castillo’s] message – and most people haven’t even listened to what he was saying – is that he said that he was closing the congress and was also going to open a constituent process in order to change the constitution.
That is one of the main demands.
And then the really complex thing is that, when the congress impeached him and they kicked him out of the government, the congress was already closed. They were working absolutely illegally.
So because Castillo already closed the congress, and then they took that decision, and he was detained – and even if we have these laws – they were not legal procedures.
And nobody knows what is happening in regard to him, because they are accusing him of starting a rebellion. But in the penal code that talks about this, it says clearly that you have to be armed. And Castillo was not armed.
He was basically alone. And he was detained alone. And he was not rebelling with arms.
So many of us understand that the detention of Castillo is absolutely illegal. Even under the rules that they have imposed.
BEN NORTON: Yeah, it’s almost comical in a way to see people accuse him of being a dictator when Castillo was clearly impeded in every single way.
He had no control over the political system and the congress, no control over the elite economic groups, the big corporations and oligarchs, no control over the media, which constantly attacked him every day, 24/7, and certainly no control over the military and police, which arrested him!
So this would be the weakest “dictator” ever.
DANIELA ORTIZ: And they were operating against him. We have been, for example, in the processes of lawfare in regard to supposed cases of corruption.
In one of them, they even entered his room. And actually it is the same policemen that detained him the other day.
And they even had the power to enter the room of the president, and to touch, remove, and take documents that are a secret of his state, that were not only his personal belongings, but they are part of that.
I mean, there is a law that protects the president and his belongings. And the police entered the presidential palace, and they were taking everything.
So obviously, we say, what type of dictatorship lasted three hours? That wasn’t a dictatorship.
But a dictatorship we really lived under was the Fujimori dictatorship. There were, for example, at the beginning – once he [Fujimori] was elected – there were conversations and audio recordings of Vladimiro Montesinos, who was the chief of the intelligence service, which was actually a form by the CIA.
And he [Montesinos] studied in the [US military’s] School of the Americas. And we know how many people in Latin America that were part of dictatorships studied there. And he was one of the main characters of the Fujimori dictatorship.
There were audio recordings of him [Montesinos] giving orders from prison on how to deal with the elections, in order to put in Keiko Fujimori. And nobody investigated that.
And what they were investigating [instead] – and I’m not making a joke – there was an investigation that was of how they paid for the food at Castillo’s birthday party in the palace, and who paid for the birthday party of his daughter.
That is the huge “corruption” information that they have.
And here we also have this figure of the protected witness, the person that can accuse you that you were part of a corruption process, and they have benefits in the legal process.
So there were many of these people, and many of them have been being linked to the Fujimoris’ party. And they were friends, and together with them.
And these same people – actually, one of the it protected witnesses that was accusing Castillo of being corrupt, in one of the corruption cases, she had the same lawyer as Fujimori!
How come they are not going to investigate that? This media that is so worried, how are they not going to investigate what are the links of the people that are accusing Castillo to the Fujimoris’ party?
BEN NORTON: Yeah, it’s quite incredible seeing the media and the right-wing opposition accuse Castillo of corruption.
Meanwhile, it’s in fact the Fujimori family – and especially in the infamous corruption scandal of the Mamanivideos, where we have concrete evidence; they have been proven to be engaged in corruption, bribing politicians to vote in their interests.
I mean, of course, corruption is nothing new in in Peru. But the accusations against Castillo remind me of the accusations of corruption against [left-wing President] Dilma Rousseff in Brazil that were being made by the most corrupt people in Brazilian politics.
DANIELA ORTIZ: And then with this logic of, well, now you have to prove [you’re not corrupt].
And people say like, “It’s really easy, yes, you have to prove that you are innocent.” But what they have been doing – and we see, we know how it’s a process of lawfare, and how long the process is to prove that you are not guilty.
And, for example, they detained the daughter of Castillo.
So that’s also really important to know how, in the lawfare processes in different contexts of Latin America, they kind of reinforce their strategies and create new strategies,
Something new that we have seen here – well, we also saw it in Argentina with Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner’s] daughter – but here they also detained the daughter of the president. And they opened a process against his wife.
But then, for example, with Vladimir Cerrón, the leader of Perú Libre, the party that entered the government together with Castillo, and then he stepped out – but, for example, [they targeted] the mother of Vladimir Cerrón, and all his family, everybody that is around him.
Actually one of the ministers of Castillo stepped down and he explained, almost crying, saying that he didn’t want to have – because they were starting to attack his daughter, and his ex-wife, and opening legal processes against him – and he said that he didn’t want to put at risk the well-being of his daughter, because they are detaining the families also, as a strategy of pressure.
And then they are let go, not guilty, but they have been already detained two years, or one year, or six months, and the media has already created huge headlines that then are never erased.
Because we have seen it with Lula [da Silva, president-elect of Brazil]. When everything is shown that he was not guilty, like in many other cases, for example, the media says almost nothing about that.
And then nobody is processed, or investigated, or denounced, or pays for carrying out these processes of lawfare. There is absolute impunity in regard to that.
BEN NORTON: Yeah, I mentioned earlier that there have been large protests going on demanding that Castillo be freed.
But they’re also demanding a new constitution, and specifically a constituent assembly.
And this is a tweet here from a left-wing member of congress, Guillermo Bermejo Rojas.
Can you talk about this demand for a constituent assembly, and what the people of Peru want to try to create a new constitution to get rid of the dictatorship-era constitution?
DANIELA ORTIZ: Well, like in many other countries, like Chile, for example, we have a constitution that comes from the dictatorship of Fujimori, that doesn’t allow, for example, the state to intervene in emergency situations – like the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, not nationalizing, at least momentarily, the medical services.
And for example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw that the government couldn’t do anything, because the constitution was created so the interests of companies, private entities, and the interests of transnational [corporations] are absolutely [the priority].
For example, with the gas situation, there is a problem that we cannot nationalize the gas. The price of the gas in Peru is amazing, when, at the same time we have gas; we are producers of gas.
But because of the constitution, it is really difficult to make a change in regard to that.
And now you can see it is even bigger, the demand that we need to change the constitution.
But more than changing the constitution, I think the most important thing is the process, and to think about what is going to be the process that we’re going to have in order to build that new constitution.
For example, a discussion here is also to have a plurinational state.
We have so many different communities, and people, and identities, and languages in the context of Peru that have been not only excluded, they have been basically almost persecuted.
Like we saw, as I said, in the parliament, people were speaking Quecha in the parliament, and they were almost trying to process them legally because the white people couldn’t understand what they were saying.
So we need a new way of getting organized in regard to this.
So I hope, many of us hope, that even though we have to go through this moment, it’s a moment that is going to strengthen in the streets, in order to demand this new constitution.
BEN NORTON: I am very grateful for this analysis.
Finally, just to conclude here, I know in moments like these, with a coup, it’s always the worst moment to criticize a leader who has been overthrown in a coup.
So I don’t want to ask this question to criticize Castillo in this very dangerous moment for him, but just for people outside of Peru, so they can understand the political context.
One of the narratives that we’ve seen, which is true, is that Castillo did alienate some of his former leftist allies.
You mentioned that he came in as president as part of the socialist party Perú Libre, and later had a split with the party.
And he also had multiple prime ministers, [known officially as] the president of the council of ministers – you mentioned some of them, Guido Bellido and others – and they kind of had falling outs.
So there were people in the Peruvian left who had criticisms of Castillo. Although it seems like, in this moment, the left is unified against the coup.
Just to provide that context for people to understand, how would you say the relationship of Castillo has been to the left and the social movements in Peru?
DANIELA ORTIZ: Well, I think it’s a general problem in many contexts in the Global South, and even Europe for example, that we have a problem with a unity of the left wing, many times.
And I think there is a problem in regard to that, that there is only unity when it comes to an emergency moment – like, for example, the election moment, or the moment of a coup d’etat.
We shouldn’t have allowed this to happen. And mostly we shouldn’t have allowed this to happen when the left wing didn’t have any problem.
Because, obviously, there were criticisms of Castillo, because he was not accomplishing most of the promises that he entered it with. But we also needed to understand that he had a parliament that didn’t let him approve any type of laws.
And then he had such a level of the media [opposition], that it is really difficult to create any type of changes, if what you have to do in your daily life as a president, as the government is just defending yourself.
I do think that it would have helped Castillo, for example, to be a stronger if he had the first group of ministers he had and keeping it that way, and not changing it, because then he was changing, every time there was some sort of attack from the media, then he would change the minister, thinking that the media was going to stop.
And I think he some way trusted or thought that if he would get less “radical,” they were going to stop. But it was even worse, because they wanted to take him out.
And then also something that I see as a problem – I lived in Spain for 13 years, and I saw it, I see it nowadays a lot, for example, with the racist speeches from the ultra-right wing from there – that we have allowed here to have a right wing that is setting the agenda.
If there is an accusation of corruption, everybody says, yeah, maybe he is corrupt. They’re not thinking that everything that the right wing says, and the media from the right wing says, is part of the agenda of kicking him out of power.
So I do think there have been several mistakes.
There is also, I think, a need to not only discuss how to stay in the government, but there is a need to have a political project that we hope goes through the constituent process.
But I hope really that after this situation, there is a deep reflection, in every space on the left wing, on the mistakes that have been committed.
That I think, basically, is not having the unity we need, not only in moments of election, or when a coup d’etat happens and we need to go to the streets, but in the process of building that.
Also, I do not think that a president alone is going to change things. I do not think that only a group in the congress is going to change things.
And I do think that, if there is a mistake from the government, it can count on other organizations and the people that want to contribute in this process of change, and that we are going to be there to defend our president.
BEN NORTON: Very well said. I think that’s a perfect note to end on. I want to thank you, Daniela Ortiz.
Daniela is an activist and an artist, and she is involved in the anti-racist movement and the feminist movement in Peru.
People can follow her on Twitter at @DanillaOrtiz.
Daniela, thank you so much for providing this context in this moment.
DANIELA ORTIZ: Thanks a lot, and take care. We hope we get support during these days of mobilization. Thanks.


Instruction: Write an article about: Imperialism and capitalism are ‘bleeding the world dry’: At UN, Nicaragua calls for global rebellion. 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: capitalism, Denis Moncada, imperialism, Nicaragua, UN, United Nations

Output:
At the United Nations General Assembly, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government called for a global rebellion against the “imperialist and capitalist system” that is “bleeding the world dry.” Condemning illegal sanctions and war, it urged a new multipolar order.

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government used its platform at the United Nations General Assembly to call for a global rebellion against the “imperialist and capitalist system” that is “bleeding the world dry.”

“It is time to say enough to the hypocritical imperialism that politicizes, falsifies, and denigrates human rights, that they themselves violate and deny every day,” declared Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.
“Imperialism and its coercive actions are anti-life, in all spheres, and because of this, they are contrary to international law,” he added.
In his September 26 UN speech, Moncada proclaimed, “A better, just, multipolar world” is “already being built, and we are here to keep creating it, and to defend it.”
“It is time to say enough, and to rebel and keep rebelling against the innate evil of capitalism, that suffocates the majority and brutally enriches a few.”
Nicaragua delivered the most revolutionary speech at the UN:
"It's time to reject criminal blockades; all illegal, arbitrary, aggressive sanctions," which expose "the perversion of an imperialist and capitalist system" that is "bleeding the world dry" ? pic.twitter.com/ALrbDt5hNc
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2022

Moncada continued:
“It is time to transcend the egoism that kills, that murders millions of human beings in the world, who are subjected to the cruelty of poverty and extreme poverty, by the barbarous instincts of the beasts, the great powers that seek to continue and perpetuate their dominion at the expense of hunger, lack of health, destruction of the climate, ignorance, war.”
“It is time to keep rejecting the criminal blockades; the aggressions of so-called sanctions, which are illegal, arbitrary, illicit; which clearly show the perversion of the imperialist and capitalist system and model, that continue punishing the bleeding the world dry, while organizations that should defend it just watch, doing nothing.”
“It is time to make important the principal of the sovereign equality of states in all international organizations and fora, so that multipolar and non-aligned world that we have so yearned for can be reality, can be strengthened, can grow and include all of us.”
“It is time to make important the world of dialogue and peace, of justice and solidarity, of brotherhood and good will.”
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government at the UN ?
“It’s time to say enough is enough, to rebel against the innate evil of capitalism, which suffocates the majority while brutally enriching the few”
Reject “the hypocritical imperialism” that violates human rights “on a daily basis” pic.twitter.com/TeVxR0w7KO
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2022

The Nicaraguan foreign minister emphasized the long history of his people’s struggle against foreign conquest.
“The heroic, dignified, sovereign, free people” of Nicaragua have worked with other peoples to “confront, throughout the centuries, the colonial and imperial avarice and greed that, from Europe and the north of this wounded continent [the Americas], has shown no mercy, attacking, intervening, invading, occupying our sacred lands,” he said.
“The invaders have left Nicaragua, expelled and defeated by the bravery of Nicaraguan patriotism,” he added.
“The assault, the robbery, the ignoble and abominable plunder, the larceny and genocides unleashed by the colonialists and imperialists of Earth, those are the true crimes, and those are the true criminals against humanity.”
Urging unity, Moncada stressed, “We should unite to keep confronting the great social, economic, climatic, cultural, and security challenges, which endanger the human family every day.”
Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Denis Moncada at the UN: "The assault, the robbery, the ignoble and abominable plunder, the larceny and genocides unleashed by the colonialists and imperialists of Earth, those are the true crimes, and those are the true criminals against humanity" pic.twitter.com/pZq6YhFB7c
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2022

At the United Nations, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government sent its “committed embrace of solidarity with dignified and brave Venezuela, with heroic Cuba, with the noble and historic battles of the Palestinian people, the Islamic Revolution of Iran’s families, the grand ongoing battle of the Russian Federation against fascism and for security, integrity, and peace.”
Moncada likewise stressed Nicaragua’s “embrace of solidarity with the admirable resistance and just development of the People’s Republic of China, that causes such discomfort, concern, and envy for the enemies of the common good.”
Nicaragua similarly reaffirmed its solidarity with “Syria, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Belarus, the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Our America and the Caribbean.”


Instruction: Write an article about: Nicaragua at UN: Pandemic exposes ‘irrational, oppressive capitalist system,’ US/EU sanctions are ‘savage’ crime against humanity. 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: capitalism, climate change, Denis Moncada, EU, European Union, imperialism, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, reparations, sanctions, UN, United Nations

Output:
At the United Nations, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government condemned US and EU imperialism, called for climate reparations and decolonization, and said the Covid-19 pandemic exposed “savage capitalism.”

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government used its platform at the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the unjust global capitalist system, and to call to create a new international economic model built on equality, solidarity, and peace.
Foreign Minister Denis Moncada delivered a fiery speech in the UN headquarters on September 27.
Moncada emphasized that the Covid-19 pandemic had exposed the “irrational and oppressive system of capitalist exploitation,” in which rich imperialist countries hoard vaccines while building more and more weapons of mass destruction.
“It is part of the heartless creation of savage capitalism, an insatiable desire for accumulation,” he said.
Nicaragua condemned the constant US meddling in its internal affairs, noting that the imperial attacks hinder its fight against poverty, “which is the world’s cruelest pandemic.”
“It is not the US empire that elects the government of Nicaragua; it is the Nicaraguan people,” Moncada declared.
The top Nicaraguan diplomat condemned the illegal, “savage” sanctions the United States and European Union have imposed on his nation and on countries around the world.
“In times of pandemic, these measures become a crime against humanity,” Moncada said.
Nicaragua affirmed its solidarity with the more than 2 billion people living in countries suffering under these US or EU sanctions.
Moncada reiterated his nation’s call for global de-nuclearization, warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons.
On the subject of climate change, Nicaragua emphasized that imperialist countries in the Global North, as the largest carbon emitters, are the most responsible, and thus must pay reparations and bear the majority of the burden in combatting the ecological “catastrophe.”
Moncada also addressed the crisis of people fleeing Central America (although Nicaragua does not contribute much to that migration crisis, and most of it comes from neighboring Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala). He called for respecting the rights of immigrants and refugees, while emphasizing that many are in fact fleeing due to Western-fueled wars and coups, as well as Western-imposed neoliberal policies that destroyed their local economies.
Nicaragua criticized the United States and Europe for “their culture of war.” It was an ironic jab at Western colonialists who spread racist tropes claiming people in the Global South have a “culture of violence.”
The Sandinista government likewise used its international stage to call for independence for Puerto Rico and an end to US and British colonialism in Latin America.
At the same time, Nicaragua affirmed its “total solidarity” with Palestine, Syria, Iran, the DPRK, Russia, and Western Sahara.
Translated highlights of Moncada’s speech follow below, in which Nicaragua calls to build a peaceful, multipolar international order based on multilateralism, non-intervention, and respect for national sovereignty.
At the UN, Nicaragua said the pandemic exposes "the irrational & oppressive system of capitalist exploitation"
Rich imperialist countries hoard vaccines while building more weapons. "It's part of the heartless creation of savage capitalism, an insatiable desire for accumulation" pic.twitter.com/Qypd3uuoQc
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 28, 2021

“This global health crisis continues to erode our efforts to overcome existing problems and challenges, such as poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, inequality, unemployment, and climate change, produced by the irrational and oppressive system of capitalist exploitation.”
“The inhumane hoarding of Covid-19 vaccines is unacceptable, on the part of developed countries, which prevents the fair and equal distribution for everyone, including developing countries. It is necessary and fair to guarantee technology transfers and financial resources, as well as declaring the vaccines a common good for humanity.”
“The pandemic that affects all countries on our Mother Earth has proven the need to create a new international economic model, fundamentally based on inclusion, equity, social justice, respectful equality between states and governments, prioritizing the eradication of poverty, and healthcare as a universal right for humanity, demanding that the resources that are used for war, aggression, and destabilization of countries are instead used, in a humanistic spirit, for life, for peace, for the security and progress of the people.”
“It is unacceptable that, in the middle of this pandemic, they continue modernizing weapons of mass destruction, putting all of humanity at risk.”
“It is part of the heartless creation of savage capitalism, an insatiable desire for accumulation, at the cost of peace, international security, and human life.”
Nicaragua condemned the constant US meddling in its internal affairs, noting that the imperial attacks hinder its fight against poverty, "which is the world's cruelest pandemic."
"It is not the US empire that elects the government of Nicaragua; it is the Nicaraguan people." pic.twitter.com/fEK22g9I8E
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 28, 2021

“Nicaragua is a free, independent, and sovereign state, but imperialist powers still attack our project of national development, and undermine our efforts, above all, our project to eradicate poverty, which is the world’s cruelest pandemic.”
“In Nicaragua, the first Sunday of November this year, the Nicaraguan people will elect our authorities with their vote, with the participation, with gender equality, of 15 political parties, both national and regional parties.”
“It is not the US empire that elects the government of Nicaragua; it is the Nicaraguan people, confirming its commitment to continue working for peace, security, and the tranquility of people, families, and communities.”
At the UN, Nicaragua condemned the illegal, "savage" sanctions the US and EU have imposed worldwide.
"In times of pandemic, these measures become a crime against humanity."
Nicaragua reaffirmed "our solidarity with the more than 2 billion people who suffer from these sanctions" pic.twitter.com/7XjhuHLOTh
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 28, 2021

“The illegal unilateral coercive measures must cease immediately, to guarantee stability, peace, and development, for families, peoples, and nations.”
“These coercive and aggressive policies of the empires constitute a savage obstacle for the eradication of poverty, and to advance to sustainable development.”
“In times of pandemic, these measures become a crime against humanity, on the part of those who impose them.”
“For Nicaragua, they are unacceptable; we reject them, and we reiterate our condemnation and our solidarity with the more than 2 billion people who suffer from these sanctions.”
Nicaragua called at the UN General Assembly for reparations to combat climate change.
It stressed that rich imperialist countries have caused the majority of environmental damage, and thus must contribute much more.
"The biggest emitters have that historic responsibility" pic.twitter.com/tvAlmgRXCR
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 28, 2021

“While our people work, resist, respond, and recover from the pandemic, we should not forget the challenges that the threat of climate change poses, and its devastating impact, particularly in developing countries, a threat that will continue even after overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic and recuperating the economy.”
“To preserve and defend our Mother Earth’s right to life, concrete results are needed in the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, that are based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, that strengthen the responsibility and fulfillment of the commitment to climate justice, and the indispensable policy of reparations, as a form of direct and unconditional cooperation.”
“If we allow time to pass without developed countries fulfilling their commitments, the damage to Mother Earth caused by global warming will be irreversible.”
“Being those who are historically responsible for this catastrophe, it is extremely important that the biggest [fossil fuel] emitters, who are responsible for the plunder, damage, and the imbalances recognize our losses and harm, contributing to the recuperation of our ecosystems.”
“The biggest emitters have that historic responsibility.”
Nicaragua's Sandinista government used its platform at the United Nations to call for an end to US and British colonialism in Latin America and the decolonization of Puerto Rico.
Cuba also joined Nicaragua in calling for Puerto Rico's independence and freedom. pic.twitter.com/L4agrK44gv
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 28, 2021

“Nicaragua advocates for the full decolonization of our continent, including the decolonization of the people of Puerto Rico, and the return of Argentina’s sovereignty over the Islas Malvinas [UK-colonized Falkland Islands].”


Instruction: Write an article about: Venezuela and Iran sign 20-year cooperation plan, Maduro pledges joint ‘anti-imperialist struggle’. 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: Algeria, Ebrahim Raisi, Iran, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela

Output:
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro visited Iran and signed a historic 20-year cooperation agreement involving energy, technology, and trade. He pledged solidarity against Western aggression in a joint “anti-imperialist struggle for a better world.”

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro took a historic trip to Iran and announced a 20-year cooperation agreement, pledging to more closely integrate the countries’ economies and work together in a joint “anti-imperialist struggle for a better world, of international respect and peace, without hegemonies.”
Maduro signed the pact with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran on June 11. It was described by the Venezuelan and Iranian governments as a “partnership agreement” and “cooperation agreement.”
The deal involves collaboration in science, technology, agriculture, oil and gas, petrochemicals, tourism, and culture, according to Tehran’s Press TV.
Iranian President Raisi said the document establishes formal “cooperation in the fields of energy, thermal power plants, repair and overhaul of refineries, exportation of technical and engineering services, economic, defense and military relations in the current government are indicative of the existence of many potentials and capacities in the two countries.”
Iran-Venezuela sign 20-year partnership agreement to bolster ties pic.twitter.com/ea3UiHRKeV
— Press TV (@PressTV) June 11, 2022

This agreement follows another historic 25-year cooperation plan that Iran signed with China in 2021, which has been estimated at $400 billion.
Top Iranian diplomats signed similar deals with Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in May.
Nicaragua signs historic agreements with Iran, discusses bartering to evade illegal US sanctions

These pacts are signs of growing South-South cooperation against Western imperialism, not only within Latin America and Asia, but even across the ocean.
Both Venezuela and Iran suffer from aggressive sanctions imposed unilaterally by the United States, which are illegal under international law.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always sought relations with independent countries in its foreign policy, and Venezuela has resisted the sanctions of the enemies and imperialism and has shown exemplary resistance,” Raisi said at the signing ceremony.
“There have been numerous sanctions and threats against our country over the past 24 years, but the Iranian nation decided to turn the sanctions into an opportunity for the sake of the country’s progress,” the Iranian leader added.
Maduro emphasized upon signing the agreement, “The youths of Iran and Venezuela must know that the world of the future is a world of equality and justice. We stand against imperialism, and together we must build the future.”
The Venezuelan president likewise tweeted his “love, solidarity, brotherhood” for Iran, referring to the country as “brothers and comrades in anti-imperialist struggle.”
El amor, la solidaridad, la hermandad, no tiene distancia y más cuando hemos logrado reconocernos con la República Islámica de Irán como hermanos y compañeros de lucha antiimperialista por un mundo mejor, de respeto internacional, Paz y sin hegemonías. pic.twitter.com/dgeBdipZle
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 10, 2022

Maduro announced that, as of July, there will be regular flights between Caracas and Tehran.
He added that a large oil tanker built by Iranian company Sadra was delivered to Venezuela. The vessel has a capacity of 800,000 barrels.
Iran has helped Venezuela circumvent illegal US sanctions, breaking the blockade that Washington has imposed on the South American nation, which makes it difficult to export oil and import the lighter petroleum and diluents that Caracas needs to process its heavy crude.
Recibimos la entrega del Tanquero Yoraco, construido por la Empresa iraní Sadra, y por la clase obrera de PDVSA, con capacidad de 800 mil barriles. Estoy más que agradecido por la construcción de este moderno buque que refleja la capacidad industrial de la hermana nación de Irán. pic.twitter.com/Q445kx3WHO
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 11, 2022

After meeting with President Raisi, Maduro sat down with Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sostuve un encuentro lleno de espiritualidad y sabiduría, con el Líder supremo de Irán, Ali Jameneí. Agradezco sus palabras, que fortalecen mi alma y nos brindan la fuerza necesaria para seguir transitando el camino del mundo de Paz y hermandad que queremos consolidar. pic.twitter.com/yztGAUvei8
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 11, 2022

“Iran and Venezuela have closer ties with each other than any other country. The Islamic Republic of Iran has proven that when dangers arise for its friends, Iran takes risks and helps its friends,” Khamenei remarked, according to a readout.
Iran & Venezuela have closer ties with each other than any other country. The Islamic Republic of Iran has proven that when dangers arise for its friends, Iran takes risks & helps its friends.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 11, 2022

“The successful experiences of Iran and Venezuela in standing up to US’s intense pressures and hybrid warfare have proven that the only way to confront the US is through resistance and persistence,” Khamenei said.
“The Venezuelan government and nation’s victorious fight against the US and its all-out hybrid war on Venezuela, plus Mr. Maduro the Venezuelan nation’s resistance, are invaluable. Resistance raises a nation’s and its leaders’ status and esteem. The US views Venezuela differently today,” Khamenei added.
Maduro vowed support for Palestinian liberation, and Khamenei praised the Venezuelan leader’s “courageous” stance “against the Zionist regime.”
Khamenei’s official Twitter account shared a metaphorical image of an Iranian oil tanker and a Venezuela jet destroying a US flag in the ocean.
Irán ha demostrado que en los momentos de riesgo se arriesga y estrecha la mano de sus amigos.
? https://t.co/LwLevaOdwp pic.twitter.com/CJkJCMWN3y
— Jameneí Multimedia (@JameneiM) June 11, 2022

Before his trip to Iran, Maduro also visited Algeria and Turkey.
In his meeting with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Maduro said the leaders discussed “our firm solidarity with Palestine, support for the Saharawi people, and shared concern about the situation in brotherly Libya.”
Durante la reunión con el Presidente de la República Argelina Democrática y Popular, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, coincidimos en tres temas: nuestra firme solidaridad con Palestina, el apoyo al pueblo Saharaui y la preocupación compartida por la situación de la hermana Libia. pic.twitter.com/zRFPBT8Z53
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 9, 2022

Maduro later tweeted, “Total success! We continue building a new map of strategic alliances, in benefit of the Venezuelan people. A new world is possible!”
Agradecidos con el pueblo y el gobierno de esta hermana nación, nos despedimos de la República Argelina Democrática y Popular. ¡Éxito Total! Seguimos construyendo un nuevo mapa de alianzas estratégicas en beneficio del pueblo venezolano. ¡Un Nuevo Mundo Es Posible! pic.twitter.com/P867kERRHW
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 10, 2022


Instruction: Write an article about: US kidnapped and imprisoned Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab for buying food. 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: Alex Saab, Camilla Fabri Saab, CLAP, Iran, sanctions, Venezuela

Output:
Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab was essentially kidnapped by the United States because he was buying food for the government’s CLAP food program, to feed the people of Venezuela.

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
“It’s not a crime to fulfill a diplomatic mission. It’s not a crime to evade sanctions that are harming an entire country. It can’t be illegal to help a people.” Camilla Fabri Saab made these impassioned remarks when explaining the situation behind the illegal arrest and extradition – the kidnapping, in essence – of her husband, Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.
Saab is virtually unknown in the United States, where he is currently languishing in a Miami prison, but he has been vital to Venezuela’s ability to survive the brutal economic war being waged by the U.S.
He is a political prisoner whose case has parallels to that of Julian Assange. Both have been subjected to extraterritorial reach by U.S. authorities, as neither are U.S. citizens, and their alleged crimes took place outside of the country. Assange is in jail for telling the truth. Saab is in jail for helping feed Venezuelans.
Saab faces a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering for his involvement in Venezuela’s housing program, and was sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2019 for his work with Venezuela’s CLAP, a program that sends food and other necessities to Venezuelan families.
Routinely referred to in the media as a Colombian businessman, Saab has dual Venezuela-Colombian citizenship and is a diplomat. He was appointed as a Venezuelan special envoy in April 2018, more than two years before his arrest.
Under the Vienna Convention and the U.S. Diplomatic Relations Act, a diplomat cannot be arrested by a foreign power. This includes diplomats who are in transit between the sending and receiving countries, Venezuela and Iran, in Saab’s case.
Alex Saab was flying from Venezuela to Iran when his plane stopped to refuel in Cabo Verde, an island country off the western coast of Africa. He was arrested without a warrant and held in Cabo Verde for nearly 500 days, as a protracted battle over his extradition to the U.S. played out in the courts.
He was beaten, denied medical care, and held in isolation. Cabo Verde ignored a ruling from a regional court ordering his release, as well as a decision by the United Nations Human Rights Committee suspending his extradition. Neither his family nor his lawyers were informed of his extradition until after it occurred.
In short, Saab was kidnapped twice: once when his plane was refueling and again when he was spirited to the U.S.
The U.S. government argues that the extradition was legal and that any violation of the Vienna Convention was committed by Cabo Verde. David Rivkin, one of Saab’s attorneys, says the fact that “Cabo Verde absolutely violated its legal obligation does not provide any excuse for the United States.”
Rivkin describes the case against Saab as “unprecedented,” given the broad and protective view the U.S. has typically held on diplomatic immunity. Saab has an April appearance in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on this very issue.
“The U.S. cannot have a world in which third countries can molest U.S. diplomats and if you establish a rule that says third country diplomats can be molested by the United States, it is inevitable that the same would happen to U.S. diplomats. This prosecution is not based on the law and is not in the long-term interests of the United States itself,” Rivkin explains.
Beyond the crucial issue of diplomatic immunity, the charges and case against Saab are clearly political. For years, the U.S. has gone after key figures in Venezuela, including putting bounties on President Nicolás Maduro and others, as part of its attempts to overthrow the government.
These attempts, which include waging a barbaric and illegal economic war that has decimated Venezuela’s economy, led to increased migration and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans. Camila Saab rightfully calls U.S. sanctions an “act of war against the entire Venezuelan population.”
Her husband played a key role in mitigating the disastrous consequences of the sanctions. He first became involved with Venezuela by winning contracts for the Great Housing Mission, a government social program that has built 3.9 million homes for working-class Venezuelans since 2011, the majority of those with the country under sanctions.
Saab later won contracts for Venezuela’s CLAP program, through which 7 million Venezuelan families receive boxes of food and essential goods each month.
The sanctions not only make life difficult for Venezuelans; they make it a challenge to do business with Venezuela. Banks refuse to carry out transactions, even when they’re perfectly legal. Insurance companies raise prices or back out altogether. Shipping companies raise rates. Vendors demand cash and won’t operate on credit.
Instead of pulling out from Venezuela, as many businesspeople did, Saab decided to stick with the Venezuelan people and went from the private sector into the public one, becoming a diplomat tasked with finding “practical solutions” to the “economic and financial blockade” imposed on Venezuela since 2015, which included brokering trade deals with Iran.
The economic relationship with Iran has been critical in helping with the recuperation of Venezuela’s oil industry, and by extension, its economy.
Saab played a critical role in trade agreements between Iran and Venezuela for everything from gasoline and spare parts to food and medicine. According to Forbes, Saab was a target of the U.S. because he had “the means and know-how to help discreetly keep an entire economy moving under the eyes of a watching world.”
Saab has denied the allegations against him, and points to a Swiss investigation that was dropped after three years due to a lack of evidence.
“The merits of the charges are weak on their face. They involve activities that did not take place in the United States and their connection to the U.S. is very tenuous,” says attorney David Rivkin.
Saab’s arrest in Cabo Verde, at the behest of the U.S. government, came just months after Trump announced a “maximum pressure” campaign on Venezuela. His extradition to the U.S. derailed the dialogue between the Venezuelan government and opposition.
The U.S. now plans to “pressure” Saab “to shed light on Venezuela’s post-sanction economic network,” according to Forbes. After enduring torture in Cabo Verde, the word pressure is an understatement.
“Since the day he flew to Iran, they have persecuted all of us. We have been harassed in the media, they have demonized us, they have not let us see him,” Camilla Saab said, describing what her family has been through.
A cancer survivor, Alex Saab hasn’t been able to take his daily medicines since his arrest. He has lost 65 pounds. His parents died of Covid-19 while he was imprisoned in Cabo Verde.
Saab’s family has been targeted too. His adult children were sanctioned by the Trump administration. His youngest daughter has never met him. Yet in all of his communications, Saab maintains his allegiance to the Venezuelan people.
In persecuting him, Camila Saab believes the U.S. is sending a message: “They’re trying to intimidate but the Venezuelan people resist and continue in their fight for sovereignty. The U.S. is not the world’s police force. Free Alex Saab!”


Instruction: Write an article about: Argentina plotted potential US-backed military invasion of Venezuela in 2019. 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: Argentina, Donald Trump, Horacio Verbitsky, Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López, Mauricio Macri, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela

Output:
Argentina’s right-wing Mauricio Macri government made plans for a military invasion of Venezuela in 2019, in coordination with the United States and Colombia, using “humanitarian” intervention as an excuse.

With the support of the United States, Argentina’s right-wing government made plans for a potential invasion of Venezuela in 2019, according to leaked documents from the South American nation’s military.
The military operation was called the “Puma” exercise, and was overseen by Argentina’s conservative President Mauricio Macri, who was closely coordinating with the Donald Trump administration.
Macri’s Argentina had rejected Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro and instead recognized Trump-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó, after the little-known politician declared himself unelected “interim president” in January 2019.
Macri continued supporting the US-led coup attempt in Venezuela until he lost the October 2019 election and was replaced by current center-left President Alberto Fernández that December.
Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky, of the independent media outlet El Cohete a la Luna, received materials from internal military sources exposing the Venezuela invasion plans.
Mientras EE UU apostaba al derrocamiento militar del gobierno venezolano, el general Martín Paleo planificó y ejercitó una invasión a Venezuela por la frontera con Colombia. La excusa fue una misión humanitaria.
Leé a @VerbitskyH en @elcoheteluna ??
➡ https://t.co/J0Hbk1esGo pic.twitter.com/8kj3VTBiLy
— El Cohete a la Luna ?? (@elcoheteluna) February 14, 2022

Between April and July of 2019, the Argentine military carried out the “Puma” exercise in seven sessions. The operation was overseen by General Juan Martín Paleo.
In addition to support from the United States, the Argentine invasion would have been coordinated with the military of Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia, which refuses to recognize President Maduro and backs coup leader Guaidó.
Colombia has a far-right government, closely linked to drug trafficking and death squads, and has been involved in numerous violent incursions into Venezuelan territory, including a botched invasion in May 2020 that coup-plotters say was backed by the Trump administration and the CIA.
The Argentine government was planning to used “humanitarian intervention” as an excuse for the invasion, claiming that Venezuela was blocking so-called “humanitarian aid” that the United States had been trying to force across the Colombian border.
Argentina’s military made plans for three potential paths to invade Venezuela, including by crossing the Colombian border. Verbitsky, the Argentine journalist, published a map of the Puma exercise scenarios.
Plans by Argentina’s military for a potential invasion of Venezuela in 2019
On April 30, Guaidó’s US-backed team launched a violent coup attempt. It failed, because only a few dozen soldiers rose up against the Venezuelan government.
But the soldiers who did rebel managed to free far-right Venezuelan oligarch and coup-plotter Leopoldo López, who was under house arrest at the time.
López sought refuge in the Chilean and Spanish embassies,  and eventually moved to Madrid, where he continues to live with the protection of the government of Spain, the former colonizer of Venezuela.
With the backing of the US and Colombian governments, López later helped to organize a failed May 2020 invasion of Venezuela, called Operation Gideon.
On April 30, the day of Guaidó’s attempt to create a violent mutiny within the military, Argentine President Macri showed his full support for the operation, tweeting in all capital letters, “WE SUPPORT MORE THAN EVER DEMOCRACY IN VENEZUELA.”
Macri reaffirmed Argentina’s recognition of unelected coup leader Guaidó, and demonized the elected President Maduro as a so-called “dictator.” Macri praised the release of López and wrote, “We join the struggle of the Venezuelan people to retake their freedom.”
Esperamos que este sea el momento decisivo para recuperar la democracia. Que la larga angustia que llevó al sufrimiento y al miedo a los venezolanos llegue a su fin y comience un período de libertad, sensatez y crecimiento. No será fácil, como bien sabemos los argentinos
— Mauricio Macri (@mauriciomacri) April 30, 2019

The Argentine journalist who exposed the Puma exercise, Verbitsky, noted that the former FBI deputy director under Trump, Andrew McCabe, revealed that the US president had wanted to control Venezuela’s oil.
According to McCabe, Trump said, “I don’t understand why we’re not looking at Venezuela. That’s the country we should be going to war with. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
The US government also backed other attempts to assassinate Maduro, including a failed operation using drones.
An image from the Argentine military’s plans for an invasion of Venezuela in 2019


Instruction: Write an article about: Brazil’s President-elect Lula calls to free Julian Assange from ‘unjust imprisonment,’ sends ‘solidarity’. 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: AMLO, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Brazil, Daniel Ortega, Julian Assange, Lula da Silva, Nicolás Maduro, WikiLeaks

Output:
Brazil’s left-wing President-elect Lula da Silva called for journalist Julian Assange to be freed from his “unjust imprisonment” and said he “sent my solidarity,” after meeting with his colleagues from WikiLeaks.

Brazil’s left-wing President-elect Lula da Silva has called for journalist Julian Assange to be freed from his “unjust imprisonment.”
Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing journalism publication WikiLeaks, has languished since 2019 in a maximum-security British prison, where he has suffered from prolonged torture that could threaten his life, according to the top United Nations expert.
The United Kingdom is preparing to extradite the Australian journalist to the United States, where he is facing up to 175 years in prison on politically motivated charges based in part on illegal CIA spying and threats.
On November 28, Lula met with Assange’s colleagues from WikiLeaks. The Brazilian president-elect said he “sent my solidarity” and expressed hope that “Assange will be freed from his unjust imprisonment.”
Estive com @khrafnsson, editor-chefe do WikiLeaks, e com o editor Joseph Farrell, que me informaram da situação de saúde e da luta por liberdade de Julian Assange. Pedi para que enviassem minha solidariedade. Que Assange seja solto de sua injusta prisão.
?: Cláudio Kbene pic.twitter.com/DuSvdEBQQY
— Lula (@LulaOficial) November 29, 2022

Lula tweeted a photo of his meeting with Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic journalist who serves as editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, and Joseph Farrell, another editor of the publication.
Hrafnsson said Lula expressed “his ongoing support for Julian Assange and the demand to end the persecution, understanding it can damage press freedom worldwide.”
The WikiLeaks chief called the Brazilian politician a “true man of passion, vision and sympathy.”
President-elect of Brazil Lula da Silva expressed, in a private meeting tonight, his ongoing support for Julian Assange and the demand to end the persecution, understanding it can damage press freedom worldwide. A true man of passion, vision and sympathy. Obrigado Lula pic.twitter.com/pq22nRYljD
— Kristinn Hrafnsson (@khrafnsson) November 29, 2022

Numerous prominent journalists and lawyers have sued the CIA for spying on them as part of its 24/7 surveillance operation targeting Assange.
The US spy agency even made plans to kidnap and murder Assange when he was trapped for years in Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Lula da Silva won the second round of Brazil’s presidential elections on October 30. He will officially become the head-of-state of the largest country in Latin America on January 1, 2023.
Lula is just one of several leftist leaders in the region who have called for Assange to be freed, along with Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, and Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.
A few days before meeting with Lula in Brazil, the WikiLeaks editors were in Bogotá, where they met with Colombia’s first-ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro.
Petro also expressed support for freeing Assange, and said he and other Latin American heads of state would pressure the US government and President Joe Biden to drop the charges against the journalist.
Colombia’s President Petro supports freedom for Julian Assange, meets with WikiLeaks editors


Instruction: Write an article about: Brazil’s President Lula is back – and Bolsonaro fled to Florida. 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: Brazil, Brian Mier, Florida, Jair Bolsonaro, Lula da Silva, MERCOSUR, Orlando, UNASUR

Output:
Lula da Silva returns as Brazil’s president, calling for fighting poverty and hunger, re-industrializing, strengthening the BRICS, and deepening Latin American integration. Far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro fled to Florida, fearing legal consequences for his corruption.

Lula da Silva has returned as president of Brazil, the world’s sixth-most populous country. This will cause a major geopolitical shift.
Meanwhile, far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro fled to Florida, fearing legal consequences for his corruption.
Multipolarista spoke with Brazil-based journalist Brian Mier about what Lula’s third government means for Latin America and the world.

In his speech before the congress at his January 1 inauguration, Lula stressed that everyone has the “right to a dignified life, without hunger, with access to employment, health, education.” He said his “life mission” is to guarantee that every Brazilian has three meals a day.
As president, Lula stressed that he is a “representative of the working class” who “promotes economic growth in a sustainable way and to the benefit of all, especially those most in need.” He committed himself to the “widest social participation, including workers and the poorest in the budget.”
“Our first actions aim to rescue 33 million people from hunger and rescue from poverty more than 100 million Brazilian men and women, who have borne the hardest burden of the project of national destruction that ends today,” Lula added, condemning the economic crisis left behind by Bolsonaro.

Lula was a co-founder of the BRICS bloc, bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
In his inauguration speech, Lula called for “strengthening the BRICS,” as well as deepening Brazil’s “cooperation with African countries.”
In a significant reversal of Bolsonaro’s staunchly pro-US foreign policy, President Lula also urged “the resumption of South American integration,” through the “revitalization” of regional institutions like UNASUR and Mercosur.
Bolsonaro only came to power in the first place due to two US-backed coups against Brazil’s left-wing Workers’ Party: the overthrow of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the subsequent imprisonment of Lula in the lead-up to the 2018 election, on false charges that were subsequently expunged by the country’s supreme court and condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Soon after he entered office thanks to this US meddling, Bolsonaro visited CIA headquarters. He also dedicated himself to sabotaging institutions of Latin American integration, withdrawing Brazil from UNASUR.
In contrast, as a symbol of his commitment to the Patria Grande (the project of Latin American unification), Lula waved the flag of Mercosur alongside that of Brazil at his inauguration.
Brazil's far-right leader Bolsonaro fled to Florida before Lula's inauguration, fearing consequences for his extreme corruption
So instead Lula was given the presidential sash by leaders of social movements fighting for the rights of Indigenous, Afro-Brazilian, & disabled people pic.twitter.com/g3nutP5793
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 2, 2023

Because Bolsonaro fled to Florida two days before his presidential term ended, he was not in the country to pass over the presidential sash to Lula.
So instead, Lula invited leaders of Brazil’s social movements, who fight for the rights of workers, Indigenous communities, Afro-Brazilians, and disabled people. They marched with Lula and gave him the presidential sash at the inauguration ceremony.
Lula's innauguration ceremony is still hours away and the line is already over 3 kilometers long pic.twitter.com/UMOlO0zQ29
— BrianMier (@BrianMteleSUR) January 1, 2023

While large numbers of Brazilians celebrated Lula’s return, Bolsonaro was in Florida.
The far-right former leader was filmed walking through a gated community in Orlando, posing for photos with his US-based supporters.
Bolsonaro fled justice, knowing that he was going to be investigated and likely charged by Brazil’s justice system over his flagrant corruption and his refusal to implement public health measures during the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to 700,000 deaths – one of the worst per capita death rates on Earth.
The US backed 2 coups in Brazil, installing far-right Bolsonaro in power
He stole huge sums of public money to fund his campaign and enrich his oligarch friends
Bolsonaro then fled justice and is now living in Florida
He just met with supporters in a gated community in Orlando pic.twitter.com/DPvfH75RVj
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 2, 2023

Lula’s inauguration was attended by left-wing leaders from across Latin America, including:
Together, they called for deepening the integration of the region.
Also present at Lula’s inauguration were representatives from fellow BRICS members, including China’s Vice President Wang Qishan and the chair of the Russian Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko.
China's Vice President Wang Qishan also attended Lula's inauguration in Brazil.
Both are cose allies and members of the BRICS bloc. In his speech, Lula called for strengthening BRICS pic.twitter.com/AUZT5Nr7C4
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 2, 2023


Instruction: Write an article about: Argentina adopting US dollar to fight inflation would be ‘insane’ neocolonialism, says economist Ha-Joon Chang. 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: ARENA, Argentina, Brazil, China, de-dollarization, dollar, Ecuador, El Salvador, FMLN, Francisco Flores, Guillermo Lasso, Ha-Joon Chang, Javier Milei, Latin America, Lula da Silva, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Taiwan

Output:
Right-wing politicians in Argentina want to adopt the US dollar as the national currency to fight inflation. Development economist Ha-Joon Chang said this is “insane”, warning dollarization would make the Latin American nation a “colony”.

Argentina is suffering from high rates of inflation, largely due to odious debt owed in US dollars to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Western vulture funds.
The South American nation sometimes suffers from a current account deficit, and relies heavily on imports of oil, technology, and medical equipment. Low revenue from its mostly agricultural exports means that Argentina faces a chronic shortage of foreign currency – and most of the dollars it gets end up flowing out of the country to paying interest on the unsustainable external debt, draining the country’s foreign-exchange reserves and making it difficult to stabilize the national currency, the peso.

National elections are approaching in October, and among the presidential hopefuls is far-right politician Javier Milei.
Milei describes himself as a “libertarian” and is running on an extreme neoliberal platform, pledging to slash all social spending, privatize the health system, sell off state companies, remove all currency controls, and abolish the central bank – while simultaneously militarizing the country, giving police more authority to arrest “criminals”, and building private prisons.
Despite his “libertarian” pretenses, Milei vowed to make abortion illegal as well, promising to take Argentina “back to being the thriving country that we were at the start of year 1900”.
Milei’s proposed solution to end inflation is for Argentina to abandon its monetary sovereignty, drop the peso, and adopt the US dollar as the country’s official currency.
His call for dollarization has been echoed by fanatical Austrian School economists like former Ronald Reagan advisor Steve Hanke, who is publicly supporting Milei and tweeted, “It’s time to dump the pathetic PESO and DOLLARIZE NOW“.
Prominent South Korean development economist Ha-Joon Chang has shot back, denouncing this as “the worst idea” and “insane”.
Chang warned that dollarization would turn Argentina into a US “colony”.
In an interview during a visit to Argentina this May, first reported on by Nick Corbishley at Naked Capitalism, Chang explained:
If you want to adopt the dollar as your official currency, you should apply to become a colony of the United States of America, because that’s what it makes you. Because this means that your macroeconomic policies will be written in Washington, DC.
Now, in a big country like the United States, actually, when the macroeconomic policies are made in Washington DC, there will be states elsewhere in the US that suffer, because the federal government might be tightening the economy, because in general there is inflation, but then in some regions there might already be recession, and then they’ll be in big trouble.
So the fact [that it is] a single country, what you do is you make transfers to these regions suffering from recession. And, most importantly, people in those regions in economic recession can move elsewhere, to take up jobs in the areas that are doing well.
A fiscal union and labor market integration are the necessary conditions for this to make the currency union viable.
And the reason why the Eurozone had such crisis was because they didn’t do this enough. The labor market is integrated, but there’s a language barrier; so it’s not perfect. There is no fiscal union, so they cannot make a transfer to the poor regions. So this is why they had such trouble.
Now, Argentina unilaterally accepting the US dollar as a currency is insane, because you don’t have labor market integration; you don’t have fiscal transfers.
It’s not as if the [North] Americans are going to say, ‘Oh you cute guys in Argentina, now that you want to use the dollar as your currency, we will accept more immigrants from you; we’ll give you some money’. No.
This is the worst idea.
Argentina is suffering from high inflation due to odious debt owed in US dollars to the IMF and Western vulture funds.
Argentine right-wingers insist the "solution" is to abandon monetary sovereignty, adopting the US dollar.
Economist Ha-Joon Chang said "this is the worst idea"… pic.twitter.com/MAvHN2RCwb
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 24, 2023

While Argentine right-wingers are calling for dollarization, the left across Latin America – and in many other parts of the Global South – are advocating for de-dollarization.
The government of Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has initiated research to develop a currency for trade within the region, which will tentatively be called the Sur.
This issue is clearly important for Lula, because he used his first foreign trip after returning to the presidency in January, a visit to Argentina for the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), to publicly announce the plans to develop the pan-Latin American currency.
Argentine’s current, center-left government has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative and signed several economic agreements with Beijing, including currency swap lines between the countries’ central banks, seeking to replace the dollar with the renminbi in their bilateral trade.
Argentina, which has the third-largest economy in Latin America, has also formally applied to join the BRICS bloc, joining its neighbor Brazil, which has the biggest economy in the region.
There are two countries in Latin America that already use the dollar as their national currency: El Salvador and Ecuador.
El Salvador dollarized starting at the end of 2000, under the conservative government of President Francisco Flores, from the far-right, staunchly pro-US ARENA party.
Flores was notorious for his extreme corruption, and when he died in 2016, he was under house arrest for stealing millions of dollars that were donated by Taiwan, in what was effectively a bribe to maintain diplomatic recognition. (El Salvador formally recognized the People’s Republic of China in 2018, under leftist President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the socialist FMLN party.)
Ecuador’s right-wing government surrendered its monetary sovereignty and adopted the dollar in 1999, in response to a banking crisis that devalued the national currency.
The economic minister who oversaw that dollarization was Ecuador’s current right-wing president, Guillermo Lasso.
Steve Hanke, the ultra-neoliberal Austrian School economist who is calling for Argentina to dollarize and publicly supporting far-right politician Javier Milei, took credit for Ecuador’s lack of monetary sovereignty, boasting on Twitter: “The only thing stable & reliable in Ecuador is its money: the USD. With an assist from yours truly, Ecuador dollarized in 2000”.
In May 2023, Lasso dissolved Ecuador’s unicameral parliament – the National Assembly, in which the opposition had a majority – and essentially declared himself a dictator.
He is now ruling by decree, and ramming through extreme neoliberal policies.
Lasso plans to impose laws that will cut wages, make new employees work for five months without benefits, and even force workers to pay back their employers a month of their salary if they are unilaterally fired (while making it significantly easier for companies to fire their employees).
The US government has strongly supported Lasso as he has dissolved parliament and declared a de facto dictatorship.
Full video with much more research here — US backs Ecuador dictator: Right-wing banker dissolves parliament to stop impeachment for corruptionhttps://t.co/n1yiZSNQdM
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 20, 2023


Instruction: Write an article about: Colombia’s new president reverses US coup, visits Venezuela, pledges unity in ‘spirit of Bolívar’. 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: Colombia, Donald Trump, Gustavo Petro, Iván Duque, Joe Biden, Juan Guaidó, Nicolás Maduro, Simón Bolívar, Venezuela

Output:
Colombia’s first-ever left-wing leader Gustavo Petro took a historic trip to Venezuela, pledging regional unity following the anti-imperialist model of Simón Bolívar. Meeting with President Nicolás Maduro, Petro said it is “suicidal” to divide the countries, “because we are the same people,” in “historically one single Bolivarian nation, reunited.”

Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro made history on November 1 by visiting his neighbor Venezuela, officially normalizing relations after years of hostility.
After a meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the two leaders signed a joint declaration pledging to unify the countries and integrate Latin America, following the anti-imperialist model of Simón Bolívar.

Petro said it is “suicidal” to divide the countries, “because we are the same people,” in “historically one single Bolivarian nation, reunited.”
The presidents symbolically posed for photos in front of large portraits of Bolívar, the revolutionary general who led a successful armed uprising against Spanish colonialism and established many of the modern states of South America.
Sostuve una amena reunión con el Presidente de Colombia, @petrogustavo, en la que tratamos temas de interés común entre ambas naciones; que fortalecen la cooperación, el encuentro y el bienestar a favor de nuestros pueblos. pic.twitter.com/13d9dYwnoi
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) November 1, 2022

Colombia’s previous administration had formally cut off diplomatic relations with Venezuela in 2019, when the United States initiated a coup attempt against the nation’s democratically elected leftist Chavista government.
The right-wing government in Bogotá at the time became Washington’s most important ally in its often violent attempts to overthrow President Maduro.
Petro is the first Colombian leader to travel to Caracas since 2011, when Hugo Chávez was Venezuela’s elected president. And in that year more than a decade ago, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos did not visit specifically to meet with Chávez, but rather to attend the international summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
En imágenes ? | Encuentro entre el Presidente de Colombia @petrogustavo y el Presidente de Venezuela, @NicolasMaduro. ???? pic.twitter.com/qfFSFIXXQO
— Presidencia Colombia ?? (@infopresidencia) November 1, 2022

Petro’s office said one of the main goals of the meeting was to “kickstart the economy of the region and socialize its agenda in the favor of the interests of the Latin American bloc and the protection of the Amazon.”
Venezuela called the historic visit the beginning of a “new era of cooperation.” Maduro declared, “We keep taking good steps toward integration!”
El destino común nos convoca a la unión por el crecimiento, el desarrollo y la Paz de Colombia y Venezuela. Trabajaremos firmemente por eso. ¡Sigamos dando buenos pasos hacia la integración! pic.twitter.com/pmYZjzUIae
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) November 2, 2022

The two countries signed a joint declaration pledging to advance “toward the union and peace of our countries, as our Liberators did in the same patriotic emancipatory achievement.”
Maduro and Petro wrote that they were “inspired by the historical legacy of union and the spirit of fraternity that we inherited from the Father Liberator Simón Bolívar and the brotherhood of our peoples, which now are geographically and politically two sovereign republics, but historically one single Bolivarian nation, reunited.”
Declaración conjunta de los presidentes de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela y de la República de Colombia. pic.twitter.com/e7v28xpJkG
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) November 2, 2022

The agreement emphasized the importance of economic relations between the neighboring countries.
The document called for cooperation in trade, transport, and agricultural production. It also proposed coordination of mining and exploration efforts.
Venezuela and Colombia share a massive, 2341-kilometer border. Colombia closed this crossing in 2015. It was temporarily unblocked in 2016, but later shut again, until Petro’s government agreed to re-open it this September 26.
The new joint declaration prioritized security cooperation on the border, in order to “fight against organized crime.”
Petro said, “We are here to start over on a path, which is difficult, but we must go down it. That path begins with rebuilding the border. The border is in the hands of mafias.”
“Aquí estamos para recomenzar un camino, que es difícil, pero que hay que andar. Ese camino comienza por reconstruir la frontera. La frontera está en manos de las mafias”: Presidente @petrogustavo. pic.twitter.com/58OCldVuG3
— Presidencia Colombia ?? (@infopresidencia) November 1, 2022

Petro called for Venezuela to be re-integrated into regional institutions.
The Colombian leader also pressured Maduro to hold a dialogue process with the opposition.
Petro said it would be “suicidal” to divide the countries: “It is not natural. In more human terms, it is anti-historical that Colombia and Venezuela be separated, because we are the same people.”
“Es antinatural, en términos más humanos, es antihistórico el que Colombia y Venezuela se separen porque somos el mismo pueblo”: Presidente @petrogustavo. pic.twitter.com/Y25T6gX2KV
— Presidencia Colombia ?? (@infopresidencia) November 1, 2022

In press statements on the historic meeting, Caracas criticized the “interventionist conduct” of the previous right-wing Colombian administrations and their “attack against the Venezuelan government.”
Petro’s predecessor, right-wing former President Iván Duque, had been Washington’s top asset in the US-led coup attempt against Venezuela’s elected leftist government.
In 2019, the Donald Trump recognized Juan Guaidó, a little-known opposition figure, as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.
Duque’s government immediately joined in backing Guaidó and sponsoring his gang of coup-plotters, many of whom were physically based in Colombia.
En fotos: Reunión del vicepresidente Pence con el presidente de Colombia, Iván Duque, y el presidente interino de Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, en Bogotá. pic.twitter.com/CzNyZpX0b8
— USA en Español (@USAenEspanol) February 25, 2019

The Trump administration sponsored a series of training camps in northern Colombia, where right-wing extremists prepared cross-border attacks and made plans to try to violently overthrow President Maduro.
Trump’s Defense Secretary Mark Esper revealed in a memoir he published after leaving office that senior US officials had often discussed launching military strikes on Venezuela.
After Trump met with Guaidó in the Oval Office in February 2020, Esper, Guaidó, and other coup-plotters talked about the training of far-right militants in Colombia and plans to invade Venezuela.
In May 2020, these terrorists launched a failed invasion of Venezuela, known as Operation Gideon. Top coup-plotters involved in the operation said they had the support of the CIA and Colombian intelligence services.
Trump’s Defense Secretary Esper revealed top US officials often discussed launching military attacks on Venezuela
After Trump met with Guaidó in the Oval Office, Esper and coup-plotters discussed plans to train terrorists in Colombia to invade Venezuelahttps://t.co/QBMYtJitX3
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2022

Still today, the Joe Biden administration technically recognizes Guaidó as Venezuela’s supposed head of state. Colombia, too, had still sponsored Guaidó, until Petro won the June 19 presidential election.
Petro immediately pushed to normalize relations with Venezuela. On June 22, Colombia’s then president-elect called Maduro to inform him that he prioritized restoring diplomatic and commercial ties as soon as possible.
Soon after entering office on August 7, Petro moved to re-open Colombia’s border with Venezuela.
In September, Venezuela also agreed to help mediate peace talks between armed socialist militia the ELN and the Colombian government. The parties signed an agreement formally initiating the diplomatic process in Caracas in October.
Venezuela had previously played a similar role in co-sponsoring successful peace talks between the Colombian government and another armed socialist militia, the FARC.
Firmamos una Declaración Conjunta Colombia – Venezuela que apunta al bienestar y el desarrollo para ambos pueblos. Rumbo hacia un 2023 de integración, fortalecimiento de relaciones de hermandad y entendimiento entre nuestros países. pic.twitter.com/DY2VvPbWTM
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) November 1, 2022

The historic meeting of Maduro and Petro and their pledge to pursue regional unity is reminiscent of the political integration of Egypt and Syria in 1958, under the revolutionary left-wing nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser signs an agreement with Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, unifying their countries in the United Arab Republic, on February 1, 1958


Instruction: Write an article about: ‘Western dominance has ended’, EU foreign-policy chief admits, warning of ‘West against the Rest’ geopolitics. 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: EU, European Union, Gaza, General Assembly, Global South, Josep Borrell, Sahel, Ukraine, United Nations

Output:
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, admitted that the “era of Western dominance has indeed definitively ended”. He warned that the EU must not divide the world into “the West against the Rest”, as “many in the ‘Global South’ accuse us of ‘double standards’”.

Europe’s top diplomat has acknowledged that the “era of Western dominance has indeed definitively ended”.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, wrote this in a blog post on the official website of the EU’s diplomatic service on February 25.
“If the current global geopolitical tensions continue to evolve in the direction of ‘the West against the Rest’, Europe’s future risks to be bleak”, he warned.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, along with the anti-colonial uprisings in Africa’s Sahel region, have “significantly increased this risk” of Europe becoming geopolitically irrelevant, Borrell said, lamenting that “Russia has managed to take advantage of the situation”.
The European foreign-policy chief revealed that “improving our relations with the ‘Global South'” is one of ” the four main tasks on EU’s geopolitical agenda”.
“Many in the ‘Global South’ accuse us of ‘double standards'”, he confessed.

Borrell is known for sporadically making frank comments, admitting inconvenient truths that most European diplomats leave unsaid.
In 2022, the EU foreign-policy chief confessed, “Our prosperity was based on China and Russia – energy and market”, with “cheap energy coming from Russia” and “access to the big China market” as the cornerstone of the European economy.
However, Borrell’s insistence that Europe must not divide the world into the “West against the Rest” was contradicted by his insistence in the same February 2024 article that the EU must expand its “cooperation with key partners, and in particular the US”.
The top European diplomat wrote that “recent months have reminded us how important NATO remains to our collective defence”, calling to strengthen the US-led military bloc.
In 2023, the influential think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations published a white paper titled “The art of vassalisation”. It warned of “Europe becoming an American vassal”, noting how the war in Ukraine had “revealed Europeans’ profound dependence on the US”.
The EU’s foreign-policy chief does recognize that it would be an error to pit “the West against the Rest”, yet he is simultaneously calling for deepening the trans-Atlantic alliance between the US and Europe, which only exacerbates that geopolitical division.
On the global stage, Europe frequently joins the United States in violating the will of the international community.
At the United Nations, the US and Europe often vote together, while the vast majority of member states, which are located in the Global South, vote against them.
Source: Alastair Iain Johnston, “China in a World of Orders: Rethinking Compliance and Challenge in Beijing’s International Relations”, International Security (2019)
The US only voted with the majority of the world at the UN General Assembly 32.7% of the time from 1983 to 2012.
In 1988, just 15.4% of overall UNGA votes coincided with the US vote.
Europe is the only region of the world that consistently votes with the US.

In November 2023, the West voted against the vast majority of the world in UN General Assembly resolutions concerning democracy, human rights, cultural diversity, mercenaries, and unilateral coercive measures (sanctions).
In April 2023, the West once again voted as a bloc against the other countries on the UN Human Rights Council, defending unilateral sanctions, which violate international law.
In December 2022, the West voted against the rest of the planet in UN General Assembly votes calling for a new international economic order.
West votes against democracy, human rights, cultural diversity at UN; promotes mercenaries, sanctions