Este artículo originalmente fue publicado en Anticonquista el 4 de febrero de 2021.
En cuestión de días, el 7 de febrero, Ecuador acude a las urnas para elegir a su próximo presidente y 137 representantes para la Asamblea Nacional. Hay tres grandes candidatos que buscan ganar la carrera en este país andino de 17 millones. Andrés Arauz y su candidato a la vicepresidencia, Carlos Rabascall, representan a La Unión por la Esperanza (UNES), lo que era Alianza País liderada por el expresidente Rafael Correa antes de la escisión del partido en 2017. El banquero de Guayaquil Guillermo Lasso y Alfredo Borrero son los candidatos a la alianza conservadora Creando Oportunidades (CREO).
La elección representa un enfrentamiento entre diez años de la Revolución Ciudadana (2007-2017) y los últimos cuatro años desastrosos de neoliberalismo desenfrenado. A partir de ahora, las encuestas muestran que Arauz, el candidato de Correa, está claramente a la cabeza, con un 37 por ciento y Lasso con un 24 por ciento.
Los avances de La Revolución Ciudadana
La victoria presidencial de Correa en 2006 fue una parte clave de la Marea Rosa y el esfuerzo sudamericano para hacer realidad el sueño de Simón Bolívar de integración económica y política regional e independencia de la dominación extranjera. Como Ministro de Economía y Finanzas en 2005, Correa se distinguió por oponerse a los préstamos del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), abogar por la planificación social y proponer una Asamblea Nacional para aprovechar el poder de los diversos sectores laborales de Ecuador.
Durante los dos mandatos de Correa, Ecuador vio aumentos en el salario mínimo y los beneficios de la seguridad social, un impuesto progresivo a los ricos y mayores inversiones en educación y programas sociales, todo mientras se lograba el crecimiento económico. Por esta razón, los intereses tradicionales y sus patrocinadores estadounidenses se opusieron a Alianza País y buscaron coser divisiones internas y solidificar alianzas con secciones de la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, CONAIE.
La historia de un vendepatria
La dirección y las bases de Alianza País entendieron que Lenín Moreno, quien se había desempeñado como vicepresidente de Correa durante seis años, estaba mejor posicionado para llevar adelante el Correísmo. Sin embargo, pocos meses después de ganar la presidencia en 2017, Moreno incumplió sus promesas de campaña. En uno de los grandes cambios en la historia de América del Sur, Moreno traicionó al movimiento y adoptó un modelo neoliberal para Ecuador. Bajo Moreno, Ecuador también se retiró de la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA) en 2018 y se retiró de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR) en 2019, debilitando dos de los instrumentos más importantes de unidad continental.
A lo largo de los vaivenes y contradicciones de la lucha de clases ecuatoriana, la dirección de la Revolución Ciudadana ha mantenido una postura autocrítica. Después de la elección de Moreno, Alianza País se dividió en tendencias pro-Moreno y pro-Correa. Secciones de CONAIE han sostenido críticas legítimas al Correísmo, incluyendo preocupaciones sobre el impacto ambiental de la explotación de recursos y proyectos de infraestructura. Estos son problemas que la dirección correista sigue abordando y muestra la importancia de la formación revolucionaria de una nueva generación de ecuatorianos.
“Construir Poder Transformador: Debate Latinoamericano”, un libro de Ricardo Patiño, Arauz y otros líderes de la Revolución Ciudadana, expone las trampas de confiar demasiado en el carisma de Correa e indica algunos de los desafíos que se avecinan (Patiño es el exministro de Relaciones Exteriores bajo la presidencia de Correa). La dirección de base de la UNES afirma la importancia de construir todo un movimiento que pueda defender independientemente sus intereses: “El problema fundamental ha sido la ausencia de una ideología contrahegemónica sólida y profunda que oriente las decisiones, prácticas y relaciones de los sectores populares como así como líderes políticos”.
Carlos “Yacu” Pérez es el candidato del Partido Indígena Pachakutik. Muchos del campo de Correa han cuestionado el compromiso genuino de Pérez de defender a las comunidades indígenas y recuerdan que algunas facciones del Partido Pachakutik se han alineado, en el pasado, de manera oportunista con la derecha contra el Correísmo. Un ejemplo flagrante de política de identidad con esteroides, Pérez también ha insultado a Venezuela y ha apoyado el golpe de Estado en Bolivia.
¿Cambiará la marea de nuevo?
En un ejemplo de cómo se dio la vuelta a la realidad en 2017, el gobierno entrante de Moreno acusó de inmediato a la Revolución Ciudadana de corrupción sin sentido. Al igual que en los ataques de las oligarquías que demonizaban la Marea Rosa en Brasil, Paraguay, Venezuela, Bolivia y en todo el continente, este fue un caso clásico de guerra legal. Los neoliberales, temerosos de la enorme popularidad del Correísmo, libraron una guerra por la vía judicial. Jorge Glas, ex vicepresidente de Correa, todavía está en la cárcel por cargos falsos y recientemente contrajo el COVID-19. Ricardo Patiño y la presidenta de la Asamblea Nacional Gabriela Rivadeneira siguen exiliados en México. El propio Correa está expulsado de su tierra natal y enfrenta años de cárcel por cargos de corrupción muy dudosos. Una victoria de Arauz volvería a abrir el país a quienes ponen la vida humana en comunidad antes que la acumulación privada y llevan adelante una agenda que apunta a los verdaderos culpables de la corrupción.
Los bancos estadounidenses temen al correísmo. Los préstamos del FMI a la región y los países explotados han sido durante mucho tiempo una táctica neocolonial para extraer riqueza de los países en desarrollo. Como dice el viejo proverbio: “los que prestan, mandan”. Bajo el disfraz de ayuda humanitaria con la devastadora pandemia, el FMI otorgó préstamos a un gobierno de Moreno demasiado dispuesto por una suma de $6.5 mil millones justo antes del cierre de 2020. Como siempre, el FMI estipuló la austeridad, la desregulación del Banco Central y venta de gasolina y diesel sin subsidios ya precios del mercado mundial. Lasso ha indicado que si es elegido presidente, no negará el acuerdo con el FMI. Arauz promete desafiar al FMI.
Una de las acciones de 11 horas de Trump antes de dejar el cargo fue supervisar un préstamo de la Corporación de Desarrollo de Estados Unidos a Ecuador por 3.500 millones de dólares que requiere que el gobierno privatice una importante refinería de petróleo y partes de la red eléctrica del país, y excluye a China de su desarrollo de telecomunicaciones. Washington está alarmado por la creciente influencia china en América del Sur y el Sur Global y ve a Ecuador como una importante cabeza de puente para perseguir esta “Nueva Guerra Fría” a través del programa Crecimiento en las Américas (CRECE).
Lo que está en juego
En octubre de 2019, un movimiento de protesta masivo sacudió el país. El mundo observó con gran expectación cómo un movimiento de base opuesto a las medidas de austeridad ocupaba Quito y casi derrocaba al gobierno de Moreno. El gobierno intentó aplastar las protestas, dejando al menos diez muertos, más de 1.000 detenidos y más de 1.300 heridos. Cuando la represión no logró sofocar las protestas, Moreno rescindió un programa respaldado por el Fondo Monetario Internacional, conocido como Decreto 883, que elevó los precios de los combustibles, demostrando nuevamente el poder de un pueblo unido y movilizado.
El año 2020 marcó el comienzo de una nueva tragedia para Ecuador. El gobierno de Moreno no respondió adecuadamente a la pandemia de COVID-19 de una manera unificada y seria. Los cadáveres abandonados se alinearon en las calles de Guayaquil en abril pasado, exhibiendo ante el mundo entero el engaño de la ciudad más grande de Ecuador, gobernada durante mucho tiempo por políticos neoliberales. Estas imágenes deshumanizadoras resumen lo que han significado para la gente común tres años de la agenda económica y política de Moreno. El 29 de enero, la policía de Quito cerró una clínica para distribuir 70.000 vacunas falsas. El presentador de televisión Efraín Ruales, quien había informado sobre la corrupción en la actual administración, fue baleado y asesinado el 27 de enero. A la fecha, hay 249.779 casos de coronavirus en Ecuador y 14.851 muertes.
Este es el telón de fondo para las elecciones de esta semana, no solo para los 17 millones de personas de Ecuador y millones de personas en la diáspora, sino para el futuro de la Marea Rosa en América Latina. ¿Seguirá Ecuador por el camino de la subordinación al imperialismo, o retomará la Revolución Ciudadana y se reincorporará al movimiento de integración e independencia continental? Esta elección decisiva determinará la dirección de Ecuador durante los próximos cuatro años y más.
When the Hands are Many is an effort to uproot the stereotypes cast upon the Haitian peasantry by outsiders seeking to rationalize its poverty. Jennie Smith tells us how the most marginalized in Haiti have organized themselves into work collectives and local associations—such as atribusyon, sosyete, kominotè, and gwoupman tèt ansanm—in order to empower themselves collectively and transform a world of exclusion.
Although more than 700 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operate in Haiti, far too few Haitians benefit from their so-called aid. According to different studies, between 79 and 90 cents of every USAID dollar bound for Haiti is actually spent in the United States, the author notes. So-called experts cannot help anybody in Haiti if they aren’t equipped with the humility and spirit necessary to gain the confidence of the people they are there to assist. Because the “aid-intervention world is a site of tension-filled encounters between discontinuous and contradictory knowledges,” we should invest in the Haitian people and the grassroots organizations they themselves have created, Smith argues.
One rural leader calls the notion of Western democracy Demo-krashe (literally “Democra-spit”). He points to the exclusionary and humiliating results that global economic development has brought to Haiti. “If I can eat and another person can’t eat, how are we supposed to build a democracy on that?” he asks.
The only effective way to critique other models is to provide an alternative with one’s own actions. Smith lives among the peasants she is studying in the mountains of Haiti’s southwestern Grand’Anse region, learning their language, forming a part of their everyday lives, and listening to their testimonies. The descriptions of the rural organizations provide the reader with images of the strength and beauty of an impoverished people surviving and battling forward.
Smith’s mission is to “re-present the Haitian peasantry” through their own songs, triumphs, tears, and aspirations. She provides fascinating case studies of different peasant organizations and work collectives that provide valuable insight into peasant life and the struggle for democracy. Refusing to glorify peasant social relations, Smith examines the root causes of the envy, competition and divisions that also form part of their everyday reality. She describes with sincerity her dilemma as she deliberates whether or not to buy more rum in appreciation for a kòve (cooperative work group) that her neighbors organized for her. Smith’s practices Zepòl Sou Zepòl (shoulder to shoulder) ethnography. Grounded in solidarity, the scholar walks and grows alongside the people. The peasants recognize her humility and told her “that it was about time a foreigner had come to listen instead of lecture and to ‘discover the reality we’re living in.'”
Smith brings hundreds of kreyòl voices and visions to the surface so that we too can listen to these messages from one of the most marginalized sectors of our global society. Her translation of a collection of hymns, songs, and proverbs is an invaluable contribution to the uplifting of Haitian kreyòl, a tongue that has been neglected and silenced. The ideas and proverbs that underlie the “yonn ede lòt” (one helps another) philosophy force us to reconsider how we look at one another and our own priorities within a world dominated by inequalities. When the Hands are Many will serve readers as an entry into this “underground spring” of hope and resistance that all of us must explore in order to begin to rebuild Haiti.
Originally published at Morning Star on May 13, 2025
The latest headline on Haiti is that Trump is threatening to send Haitian gang leaders to Nayib Bukele’s Terrorism Confinement Centre, where 252 Venezuelans are currently kidnapped. On May 2, the State Department designated Haitian paramilitary gangs Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as Foreign Terrorist Organisations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
The truth is that the paramilitary gangs are merely a symptom of the true problem plaguing Haiti — US and Core Group neocolonial rule. If the State Department was honestly interested in alleviating mass Haitian suffering, it would begin by jailing the true puppet masters, mainly themselves.
The US embassy, the Central Intelligence Agency, Colombian drug lords and the other overt and covert international actors are responsible for the flow of drugs and guns into the hands of these gangs of alienated youth sacking, raping and burning down what is left of Port-au-Prince.
The traumatisation of Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince, a capital city of the Western hemisphere, has been under siege by paramilitary gangs since at least 2021, the year of a massive social upheaval against neocolonialism. The capital of some 3.3 million is now an occupied city and a city on the run, the West Bank of the Caribbean.
The author stayed in different popular neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince a year ago, parts of which were still bustling and liveable, before the sophisticated, drugs and arms-smuggling alliance called Viv Ansamn conquered more territory. This translates as “living together,” so named because the armed groups no longer fight against one another but have rather united to turn their guns for hire onto the defenceless and voiceless Haitian masses. In a play on words, Haitian intellectual and spiritual leader Ezili Danto calls Viv Ansanm Viv Nan San, or “living in blood.”
Over one million Haitians now live as refugees in their own country.
The gangsterisation of Haiti
The Haitian intelligentsia and everyday people understand that this is a “co-ordinated and organised assault on the nation’s centuries-long quest for self-determination.” They speak of the ongoing “gangsterisation” of their homeland to demobilise the popular movement that has fought tooth and nail against the PHTK government since secretary of state Hillary Clinton first installed benighted criminal Michel Martelly as president in May 2011.
According to hundreds of Haitian leaders and their families that the author has talked to, the Haitian and US bourgeoisie have armed and unleashed their warlords, child soldiers and mercenaries for hire on an unarmed populace. Haitian scholars and activists Mamyrah Douge-Prosper, Ernst Jean-Pierre, Georges Eddy Lucien and Sabine Lamour meticulously document this consistent campaign of violence in their prodigious study of the paramilitary groups, Haiti’s Long Struggle: Military occupation, gang violence, and popular uprising.
“Between November 2018 and March 2024, ‘gangs’ led over 25 massacres and other armed attacks, involving the murder of over 1,500 people, the collective rape of over 160 girls and women, the disappearance of dozens of people, the maiming of hundreds of people, and the destruction of more than 450 homes, resulting in the internal displacement of more than 500,000 people. While at the beginning of this period, these armed groups acted in isolation and in competition with one another, in August 2020, nine armed groups federated under the leadership of former police officer Jimmy Cherizier, an effort commended by Haiti’s National Commission of Disarmament, Dismantlement and Reinsertion. In January 2024, Cherizier consolidated the rest of the gangs in the capital to launch a ‘revolution,’ taking control of the international airport surroundings to prevent Henry from returning to Haiti after his trip to Kenya. Over the next few months, the group bulldozed police stations and prisons, burned down public hospitals, universities and libraries, and killed several hundred people. They destroyed the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Disputes offices where government spending receipts are archived, including the dossiers concerning the PetroCaribe arrangement with Venezuela.”
Analysts of Viv Ansanm put the word “gang” in quotation marks because, as popular radio host Rudy Sinon points out, the old gangs had “kreyol guns, like .38 Smith and Wesson Specials or .45 automatic handguns. These paramilitary units have the most sophisticated weapons of war to seize territory, prevent any resistance and make the police scatter.”
Sinon, the voice of Kanapeve, is both irate and deeply sad: “We can’t even bury our dead when they attack us and uproot us. We have to abandon the dead against our traditions.” While Sinon laments the enormous loss of life, assault on infrastructure and the burning of nature, which he shows for 10 minutes during this broadcast, he and millions of others are doing everything to defend the last communities that are still resisting.
Defend Kanapeve
Kanapeve has traditionally been a relatively privileged and secure section of the capital city. It is now under siege, surrounded by the mercenaries of Izo and Ti Lapli, two warlords who specialise in cocaine trafficking and kidnapping.
A former police officer, Jimmy Cherizier, or “Barbecue,” is the leader of the violent gang alliance now in control of some 85 per cent of Port-au-Prince. A France 24 documentary, The Iron Grip of the Gangs, shows the contrast between the displaced and traumatised residents and their occupiers who set up mansions and pool houses over the ashes and unburied. ImagINAN, named after a Haitian lwa (god or goddess), gives a voice to displaced Haitian organic intellectuals to reflect on the inner dynamics of the armed groups.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Walno, a young lawyer and community leader in Kanapeve, talked about the importance of ongoing protests and unity against paramilitary violence. The crowd of hundreds of thousands of refugees and frustrated inhabitants chanted, “Kanapeve will not fall like Solino or Kafou Fey. Kanapeve will not be lost territory to the gangs.” Solino and Kafou Fey are massive complexes with neighbourhoods of tens of thousands of families that recently fell to Viv Ansanm looting, raping and burning.
There have been many mass protests against the security crisis, with the main demand being that the Haitian state defend the defenceless communities. The hungry and trapped sea of humanity chanted for government officials to stop “the terrorists.” The kleptocracy in Petionville, the rich area of Port-au-Prince, plays lip service to the masses’ needs, forcing citizens to take justice into their own hands.
As the gangs expanded, the masses of Kanapeve captured and burned 10 suspected gang members in 2023, inaugurating the citizens’ self-defence movement, known as Bwa Kale. The foreign occupation, so highly touted by former president Joe Biden, secretary of state Marco Rubio and lackey President of Kenya, William Ruto, mostly stays clear of the paramilitary aggression, though two Kenyan police officers have recently been killed by Viv Ansanm.
Veterans and survivors of four US invasions and occupations in the past century, Haitians distrust foreign powers, who they see as the true sponsors of the gangs. Trapped between death squads, occupying mercenaries and a fractured, corrupt Haitian state, who are the masses supposed to turn to?
If Trump, Bukele and other mouthpieces of imperialism want to send the true terrorists to Cecot, the Spanish acronym for El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre, they would have to begin by incarcerating themselves and dismantling the very colonial machinery that has the Haitian masses trapped between two forms of occupation, both spawned by US foreign policy.
Este artículo originalmente fue publicado en TRT World el 8 de mayo de 2025.
El Banco Mundial clasificó a Haití como uno de los países más corruptos del mundo: ocupó el lugar 179 entre 190 naciones evaluadas. También lo consideró uno de los lugares más propicios al soborno, donde un funcionario de aduanas gana menos de 10 dólares al día, según worldsalaries.com. Un escenario de indefensión que deja a un país ya sumergido en hambre, caos y criminalidad, en manos de pandillas armadas hasta los dientes que trafican drogas, y donde EE.UU. tendría un triste papel que pocos conocen, y que es responsable por la opresión de los haitianos.
La Guardia Costera de Estados Unidos emite constantemente declaraciones sobre la prevención de la llegada irregular de haitianos a EE.UU. en embarcaciones, pero ha guardado silencio sobre el flujo de armas en la otra dirección. Se han identificado pistas de aterrizaje improvisadas en zonas rurales utilizadas por los traficantes, pero las autoridades no han regulado ni investigado los puntos de entrada ilícitos. Son las élites dueñas de estas pistas y puertos. El gobierno haitiano ha prohibido la entrada de productos extranjeros por la frontera con la República Dominicana para frenar dicho tráfico.
Para complicar aún más la lucha contra el contrabando, Haití cuenta con 1.777 kilómetros de costa. La Policía Nacional afirma tener unas pocas lanchas patrulleras en funcionamiento, pero la mayoría de los haitianos entrevistados por este cronista afirmaron que dichas embarcaciones no existían.
Haití es vulnerable al contrabando de todo tipo, pero sin duda el que más perturba la paz es el contrabando de armas. Un informe de las Naciones Unidas subrayó el papel de Estados Unidos en la violencia armada en Haití y exigió medidas para detener el flujo de este cargamento mortal.
Tales declaraciones son poco significativas ante la masacre cotidiana. Un grupo de académicos y activistas haitianos documentaron meticulosamente esta constante campaña de violencia en un estudio sobre los grupos paramilitares. Entre noviembre de 2018 y marzo de 2024, según el estudio, las pandillas lideraron más de 25 masacres y otros ataques armados, que implicaron el asesinato de más de 1.500 personas, la violación colectiva de más de 160 niñas y mujeres, la desaparición de decenas de personas, la mutilación de cientos de personas y la destrucción de más de 450 viviendas, lo que provocó el desplazamiento interno de más de 500.000 haitianos.
La crisis de armas en EE. UU. es la crisis de armas de Haití
Cientos de miles de armas de fuego adquiridas legalmente han llegado desde Estados Unidos a Haití con poca o ninguna oposición de Washington, dejando a las autoridades haitianas, señaladas de corrupción, encargadas de detener la oleada de armas de guerra. Diversas investigaciones sobre el tema señalan a Estados Unidos como el origen de casi todas las armas en Haití. Otra consecuencia poco estudiada y poco reportada de la fabricación no regulada de armas en EE.UU. es la desestabilización de la isla.
La violencia armada en Haití se ha descontrolado a medida que el país se tambalea por la dominación neocolonial de EE.UU., sus socios como Canadá y Francia, los desastres naturales, los golpes de Estado patrocinados por el extranjero, la amenaza de otra invasión, y la ocupación liderada por Washington. Los “testaferros” compran armas legalmente en estados con regulaciones laxas y las venden a contrabandistas, a menudo pertenecientes a la comunidad haitiano-estadounidense, quienes a su vez las venden a compradores en la islacon enormes ganancias.
El autor Danny Shaw acompaña a Domine Resain de MOLEGHAF (Movimiento por la Igualdad y Fraternidad de Todos los Haitianos) en una reunión comunitaria.
A pesar de expresar periódicamente su consternación por la situación de la violencia armada y la pobreza en Haití, los legisladores estadounidenses se muestran reacios a actuar para interrumpir el flujo de esta exportación letal. Aún con los constantes aumentos del gasto en defensa, que este año alcanzó un trillón de dólares, el Pentágono se muestra reacio a actuar para garantizar la seguridad de las fronteras haitianas y caribeñas.
Sirviendo al poderoso lobby de las armas, los políticos estadounidenses socavan activamente los esfuerzos para reducir el número de muertes a ambos lados del mar Caribe. El gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, aprobó una ley el 12 de mayo que dificulta el rastreo de armas a empresas e investigadores.
La crisis de armas de Estados Unidos es la crisis de armas de Haití. Cada estado tiene una crisis de armas, al igual que cada ciudad y pueblo.
El último siglo de intervención de Washington ha demostrado que no es la primera vez que la acción e inacción de Estados Unidos han sido responsables de la proliferación de la violencia en Haití. El pueblo haitiano dice “no” a los paramilitares, a otra ocupación militar extranjera, y “sí” a la recuperación de la riqueza nacional y a las reparaciones tras siglos de explotación extranjera.
Este artículo originalmente fue publicado en TRT World el 24 de diciembre de 2024.
La República de Haití no es solo el país más pobre del hemisferio occidental: es el más explotado, el más incomprendido y el más desigual.
Haití tiene la tasa de millonarios más alta de cualquier país de América. En una entrevista titulada “Las familias gobernantes haitianas crean y matan monstruos”, el veterano autor, analista y activista haitiano, Jafrik Ayiti, pone la lupa sobre una decena de oligarcas de piel clara que controlan las principales actividades económicas y políticas de la nación caribeña.
“Familias” que se mantienen fuera de la atención de los medios internacionales, a los cuales sólo les preocupa la “crisis que genera la violencia de las pandillas”. Los paramilitares representan al lumpenproletariado de Puerto Príncipe, que empuñan armas y abrazan la violencia en un intento por controlar franjas cada vez mayores de los crecientes guetos de la capital. Aunque, sin duda, no son los peces más gordos.
Este, sin embargo, es un error epistemológico intencional. La mayor parte del análisis debería centrarse en las tres fuerzas principales detrás de la crisis paramilitar de Haití: 1) una pequeña camarilla de magnates que detentan el poder económico y político; 2) la clase política corrupta, encabezada por los funcionarios antipopulares del Partido Haitiano de los Calvos (PHTK), y 3) lo más importante, el Estado imperial estadounidense que, durante más de un siglo, ha definido a Haití como una de sus colonias.
El Estado dentro del Estado: los señores de la guerra
Los Bigio, Apaid, Mev, Brandt, Boulos y un puñado de otras familias multimillonarias, junto con sus políticos contratados por el gobernante Partido Haitiano de los Calvos (PHTK), como Ariel Henry, Michel Martelly y el asesinado Jovenel Moïse, forman un Estado dentro de un Estado. Gran parte de lo que ocurre en la política haitiana, desde golpes políticos, llamados a intervención militar, hasta asesinatos selectivos, se remonta a la lucha de poder que ocurre entre los diferentes grupos rivales títeres del Core Group.
Es importante identificar y demarcar quiénes son los señores de la guerra, en su mayoria blancos, completamente aislados de las necesidades y la realidad del 99,9% de la población haitiana. Sólo esta pequeña camarilla bien conectada tiene los aeropuertos, puertos y contactos fronterizos privados necesarios para contrabandear armas y otros objetos de contrabando a Haití.
Echemos un vistazo a otras familias poderosas en Haití y su historiales en materia de “democracia”.
La familia Bigio: lo más ricos y dueños de un puerto señalado por tráfico de armas
El sitio web Ayibo Post informa sobre la amplia cartera económica de la familia del multimillonario haitiano Gilbert Bigio, incluido su propio puerto privado recientemente construido de Lafito, justo al norte de la capital.
Hay acusaciones de que los grupos paramilitares que destruyen al Estado haitiano han empleado el puerto para importar armas pesadas necesarias para superar a las del estado. Por ello, Canadá ha sancionado a Bigio, el ciudadano más rico de Haití, por su presunto papel en la financiación del tráfico de armas y de las pandillas. Lo que hace que estas acusaciones sean aún más interesantes es el señalamiento de que el presidente dominicano, Luis Abinader, tiene relacionescon Bigio. Pablo Daniel Portes Goris es el director general de la empresa GB Energy de Bigio y asesor financiero de Abinader. Walkiria Caamaño y Joan Fernández Osorio también son ejecutivos de Bigio y trabajan para el presidente dominicano.
Individuos como Bigio han sido históricamente intocables en ambos lados de la frontera. Las élites dominicanas no son antihaitianas cuando se trata de trabajar con sus oligarcas que representan un 0,01% de Haití, y quienes facilitan el drenaje de las riquezas del otro tercio de la isla. La clase política y económica dominante de República Dominicana históricamente se ha asociado con líderes haitianos corruptos contra el 99,9% de Haití y ambos poderes en la isla inciden en las situaciones políticas de ambos países.
La familia Apaid: contactos con Coca-Cola, “donaciones” de presidentes y talleres clandestinosç
Los Apaid, una de las familias más ricas de Haití, son propietarios de GMC Zone Franche (Zona de Libre Comercio) y Alpha Industries. Como la mayoría de las familias ultrarricas haitianas no viven en Haití.
Según las autoridades constitucionales de Haití y de toda la región, el mandato presidencial de Jovenel Moïse finalizó el domingo 7 de febrero de 2021, pero al día siguiente, el periódico Le Moniteur publicó un decreto presidencial, en el que Moïse regalaba 8.600 hectáreas de las reservas de tierras agrícolas del país y 18 millones de dólares en subvenciones, al empresario Andre Apaid. Coca Cola contrató al multimillonario haitiano para cultivar stevia en el departamento de Artibonite, 80 kilómetros al norte de Puerto Príncipe. Esta exuberante tierra es ahora el hogar del proyecto de zona franca agroindustrial Savane-Diane, propiedad de Apaid, que paga a los haitianos salarios miserables para producir aguacates, stevia y otros cultivos de exportación. Los sindicatos haitianos realizaron protestas el 1 de mayo contra los Apaids, propietarios de talleres clandestinos, declarando: “Denunciamos la inestabilidad planificada y los miserables salarios de la tuberculosis”.
André Apaid fue el fundador del Grupo 184. Después de que Jean Bertrand Aristide ganara nuevamente las democráticas elecciones presidenciales en 2001, creó el Grupo 184 para oponerse a la agenda del nuevo presidente, que incluía un salario mínimo más alto y 21.000 millones de dólares en reparaciones de parte de Francia.
Las mismas familias, hoy sancionadas por Canadá, son las que siempre han trabajado contra cualquier verdadero sentido de democracia popular en Haití. Sólo una exposición exhaustiva de estos individuos, muchos de los cuales han trabajado estrechamente con el gobierno y las finanzas estadounidenses, revelará quién está armando y financiando a las pandillas en Puerto Príncipe.
La familia Boulos: dueña de medios, cadena de supermercados, hoteles y concesionaria de autos
Reginald Boulos es otro ejemplo vivo de un oligarca sombrío e intocable. Nacido y formado principalmente en Estados Unidos, este inversor de 68 años se convirtió en presidente del Intercontinental Bank S.A. en 1996. En representación del grupo familiar Boulos Investment Group, supervisó en 1998 la fusión de su empresa con Sogebank, uno de los bancos más grandes de Haití. El Sogebank obtuvo en 2020 las mayores ganancias de toda la banca en el Caribe. A medida que la economía mundial y caribeña se contraía con la crisis económica generada por la pandemia de COVID-19, Sogebank vio cómo sus márgenes de beneficios aumentaban en un 40%.
Al igual que en Estados Unidos, existen muchos lazos entre la propiedad privada y los medios de comunicación. Boulos es uno de los propietarios claves de Le Nouveau Matin, uno de los diarios más antiguos de Haití. Es uno de los vástagos más ricos de Haití y también es propietario de la cadena de supermercados Delimart, de Autoplaza, una importante concesionaria de automóviles, de Megamart, tiendas de comestibles y el famoso hotel El Rancho.
En cualquier conversación formal o informal en Haití, la gente se apresura a recordar que Haití no produce armas ni drogas. En un informe del pasado año la ONU reconoció que las armas que llegan a las agrupaciones paramilitares en Haití salen de puertos en Miami, e incluso llegan a usar puertos dominicanos para penetrarlos a Haití.
La población define la crisis paramilitar (“pandillas”) como una crisis planificada y organizada por estos principales actores detrás de escena, el caos dentro del caos es planificado. Recuerdan con entusiasmo a cualquiera que esté dispuesto a escuchar que ellos no dirigen las aduanas ni la seguridad fronteriza. Tienen claro de dónde provienen todas las armas que alimentan los ataques indiscriminados de los escuadrones de la muerte contra la vida civil.
Un pueblo contra los mafiosos de traje y corbata
El pueblo haitiano se apresura a señalar que la principal contradicción no es con los ignorantes buscones que obedecen a intereses extranjeros. Los paramilitares son maestros en denunciar las masacres pero no a los culpables. No importa cuántos dedos y cabezas corten, de algún modo se presentan como los más inocentes de los 16.000.000 de haitianos que habitan el planeta Tierra.
El pueblo haitiano dice que su batalla no es contra “los mafiosos en chanclas”, sino contra los “mafiosos de traje y corbata”. Ven que Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, líder de una alianza de los 9 grupos pandilleros más poderosos de la isla, es como un estafador de medio pelo. La contradicción central es con los amos que pagan, secuestran y arman a Barbecue y al resto de agrupaciones paramilitares.
Barbacue no es más que un lacayo ruidoso en una conspiración mucho más amplia contra Haití. Muy por encima de Barbecue, los Gobiernos de Haití, República Dominicana y Estados Unidos presiden una elaborada conspiración que lleva siglos en marcha contra la autodeterminación de Haiti. Y las familias de multimillonarios en la isla, seguirán moviendo cielo y tierra para que esa conspiración siga en marcha por toda la eternidad.
All names are fictitious to protect the privacy of the families I work with.
Lucas is 17. His parents reached out to my agency in search of a Sober Companion because Lucas threatened them and turned violent every time they tried to limit his screen time on his phone and laptop. He was addicted to pornography, which he consumed for hours, day and night. Two weeks into working with Lucas and seeking to implement structure and top-line behaviors in his life, I confiscated both of his devices and locked them in a safe1. When I walked down from their upstairs guest bedroom where I slept and left the safe, Lucas had his 47-year-old mother in a headlock with a knife to her throat.
Hassan and Kathleen were set to be married on the weekend of July 4th in Malibu. Kathleen caught her fiancé of 10 months using pornography for the fourth time in their two-year relationship, a week before the big day. She called off the marriage and moved out. Despondent and suicidal, Hassan contacted me to help guide him through withdrawal from a powerful drug that impacts an estimated 40 million Americans – pornography.
Francisco is a 26-year-old successful model. He has landed gigs and billboards from Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing to New York City’s Time Square. He knew intrinsically that porn was draining, misdirecting and siphoning off his energy and affecting his work performance. An insomniac and occasional bedwetter since he was first sexually abused by a family “friend” at nine, Franscisco scrolled through porn for hours. He told me — embarrassed but curious — that he was not even aroused by the merry-go-round of naked, defenseless zombies. But he was transfixed. And most importantly, numbed. No different than an anorexic or an overeater, he had found his fix.
Marty was addicted to child pornography. We did an intervention at his sister’s request because the FBI was patrolling him and closing in on him. Surely 99 percent of readers have already condemned Marty for his addiction. Marty was mildly autistic. He was bullied, sexually abused and tortured as a child. No one ever cared about “the local retard.” Do you hate Marty or do you hate the sexual trauma he was reenacting?
The drug matters little; the escape itself is the fix.
I work as a Sober Companion supporting other men and teenagers through one of the most simultaneously harrowing and liberating human processes – Withdrawal. The majority of withdrawals I assist in are from benzos, alcohol, opioids and other drugs. But increasingly, the United States is waking up to an addiction that has been on the rise since the advent of the internet and social media age and has destroyed untold lives and relationships – pornography.
Porn, in its current expression, is the exploitation of frozen images and vulnerable, dehumanized, captured, inanimate bodies. One 12-step recovery group explains pornography as participating in another’s trauma.
How do we understand and confront this modern-day plague, arguably the most global of all?
Misogyny is Big Business
This essay is not a moralistic commentary on what we should or should not watch. Porn is not the root problem. It is a symptom. Like the suicide epidemic, “random” mass shootings, more that 200 just on the first day of this year, and Black Death Porn2, pornography is part and parcel of the normalization of a general societal demoralization.
Pornography is a $100 billion dollar industry. For comparison, all social media nets $231 billion in annual revenue. Sex tourism produces $20 billion in revenue for the global overlords of Thailand, The Dominican Republic and other sex tourism neocolonies. Pornography is the most profitable manifestation of the hyper-sexualization of our society and youth.
Veteran sex workers warn about the growing trend towards rape porn and other violent porn. They recounted how porn was comparatively more “lovey dovey” in the past. One BBC study indicated that 88 percent of porn videos contain physical aggression towards women. As any addict knows, addiction is progressive. I have sponsored and worked with men who started with “soft porn” and descended into Dante’s lower rungs of porn that shows illegal material, content with underage young people, children, rape scenes and seemingly endless variations of violence, humiliation and misogyny. The porn pandemic has long been out of control. Racist fetishes like “the submissive Asian” or “spicy Latina” dominate porn menus. For many men, this reinforces their racism and misogyny and may be their only “interaction” with these demographics. For many women, they measure themselves according to the metrics of their abusers and oppressors, internalizing dominant “beauty” standards and concluding that they will never measure up.
Who Cashes in on Porn?
Porn critic Amy Leather writes: “Cable companies and distributors like Time Warner Cable in the U.S. make millions from adult video on demand and pay per view sales. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo make money from people accessing porn. So the porn industry has links to mainstream finance, media and communications businesses. It has powerful allies.”
Not satisfied with the damage done to men and teenage boys, the porn industry targets ever younger audiences through the use of Artificial Intelligence, avatars and cartoons. They strategically place advertisements on movie and videogame websites to lure more vulnerable minds into their grip.
@OnlyFans presents yet another modern form of sexual exploitation and an artificial form of human connection. The $2.5 billion dollar British startup delivers cheap parasocial dopamine hits for mostly male clients and an abundance of risks for the sex workers seeking to put food on the table. Younger women or girls look up to their more-experienced peers and are forced to compete in the free market of sexual exploitation. Such videos can be leaked and later used to discriminate against women workers. The need for immediate gain and survival stares down the reality of systemic sexism and permanent consequences.
Pharmaceutical companies also cash in on the hyper-sexualization trends. Barceloneta is a small town in PR that twenty years ago produced pineapples. Today the pueblo is America’s top viagra producer. On March 27, 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer’s miracle drug for limp pensises, raking in how many tens of billions of dollars in profits in the past quarter century plus? There are natural cures for Erectile Dysfunction but doctors encouraging people to study nutrition and exercise is not profitable. Dependency and addiction are.
Survival in Hostile Neoliberal Economic Terrain
Sex workers did not create the plague of unemployment, the gigification of the economy and inflation. No Brazilian or Filipino woman determined that their currency would be worth a fraction of an American or European’s money. No Honduran or Haitian woman decided that sex work could pay much more than vanishing sweatshop jobs making clothes for Western fashion behemoths like Victory Secret or Nike. Victim-blaming and victim-shaming is the capitalist art of deflecting blame from the origins of these myriad manifestations of violence against women and children.
A pathological society can only produce pathological people.
The research questions before us are not a matter of when a woman in New York City will be harassed or a child in Oakland will be traumatized. These two phenomena are inevitable under the prevailing social relations we inhabit. The relevant research questions are at what rates is this transpiring? Only the Marxist researchers will go deeper and dare to ask how we can transcend this insidious chapter of human prehistory.
Take Back Your Dopamine
What happens when the dark web and other murky corners of the internet become your sex education? There is a competitive campaign of shock and awe to get likes, with necrophilia, gore porn, bestiality and beyond at the center of the new soul harvesting. 50 percent of videos on Pornhub contain incestuous content. Like the 3-headed cerberus, the beasts of desensitization offer infinite dopamine hits, stealing any sense of self-respect and sexualizing children. All obnoxiousness is a cry for help. Our children are warning us in 1,000 ways. Spikes in autism, school shootings and other forms of addiction are our sons and daughters wailing “enough!”
Will we heed the warnings contained within their screams?
The United States of Porn promotes further isolation. It is a centerpiece of Incel culture.
The Hollywood blockbuster “Don Jon” starring Scarlett Johansson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks at a relationship interrupted by the protagonist’s addiction to porn. In the 2013 movie “Her,” Joaquin Phoenix’s character “Theodore” falls in love with a woman created from artificial intelligence on his computer. Porn is but one part of a much larger pandemic, Sex Addiction. Strip clubs, the dark web, massage parlors, sex work, sex tourism and child trafficking belong under the same umbrella of sexual exploitation and sexually acting out. Capitalism and patriarchy have taught us men to sexualize our rage, isolation, sadness, low self-esteem and trauma. Perhaps the most common male character defect and socially-sanctioned emotion, since we are not allowed to grieve and be vulnerable, is rage. Anger is the superficial facade hiding our deep-seated sadness, pain and trauma. The Old Norse word for anger is “angra,” meaning grief. Porn, in its addictive form, is but one soother we use to repress what often needs to come up from our childhoods.
Located somewhere between coffee and cocaine on the dopamine scale, a sexual release floods the brain with this bewildering chemical. According to Dopamine Nation author Dr. Anna Lembke, coffee increases dopamine flow by 50 percent, sex by 100 percent and crystal meth by 1000 percent. From the outside, colleagues, family members and friends can objectively observe addicts’ compulsive need to continue to chew on shiny razor blades, but from the skewed viewpoint of the addict, they are trapped in the quest for the next hit. Dr. Lembke’s book, well-known in recovery circles, takes up big, necessary questions related to dopamine fasting, self-binding and healthy sources of substitute dopamine for the addict experiencing “loss.”
How many of us could benefit on the life journey from dopa-mean to dopa-serene3?
Withdrawal: The War to End All Wars
Men are 543 percent more likely to be addicted to porn than women. Just in one year, there were 109,012,068,000 videos watched on Pornhub, that is enough for every human being to have watched 4 porn videos. “Porn addicts” collectively consumed over 5,824,699,200 hours of porn just on Pornhub in that same year. These were 6 billion hours that were not spent studying different cultures, languages and peace. 4 out of 5 Americans only speak English, but how many are fluent in the language and cruelty that characterizes the porn industry. We are what we eat. We are both enveloped by and devoured by the insidiousness.
Has any pandemic ever been so global? Pornhub, XVideos, and XNXX alone receive 134,491 visits per minute. Porn is miswiring humanity.
This crisis will not heal itself. What is the way forward?
Withdrawal is the Way
The withdrawal symptoms from pornography mirror what any of us addicts who have tried to quit know all too well – anxiety, insomnia, depression, stomach issues, haunting, ruminating obsessions. Young men talk about how when they don’t get their P&M fix (porn and masturbation), they “get the jitters.”
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense explained, struggled and died to establish that Capitalism + Dope = Genocide. Similarly today, Capitalism + Social Alienation = A Porn Plague. The Porn Plague – like “mass shootings,” sexual violence and addiction in general – are reflections of a sick society. The largest economy in the history of the world – with an unprecedented Gross Domestic Product of $25.46 Trillion – specializes in producing alienation. We are disconnected from the work we do, estranged from the products of our labor, one another and from ourselves. In a society based on hyper-profits, materialism, individualism and conquest, are we really surprised as the social pandemics that surround us? As Malcolm X accurately told us in 1964, “the chickens are coming home to roost.” The multiple plagues we are living through, unprecedented in human history, are easily explained through the social sciences4. The only logical conclusion the social sciences can draw is that at this rate, our days are numbered. Capitalism is the end of life. Our choice, as Rosa Luxembourg told us, is between Socialism and Barbarism.
From Shame to Grace: The Revolution within the Revolution
We have dwelled on the problem long enough; recovery teaches us we must live in the solution.
There are many anonymous 12-step programs that speak directly to this particular addiction from different angles – Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Sexual Recovery Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Codependents Anonymous and Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. There are online and in-person meetings for different communities across the country. Fusing recovery and Marxist language, top line behaviors are the only solution for empty negation. As every addict let’s go, let’s g-o-d5 and let’s good, they dive into new activities, hobbies, travels, languages and beyond. Recovery cannot be experienced as loss. We are only as dark as our secrets. Porn use is often wrapped up in a web of lies and secrecy. Open up to a friend, spiritual leader, therapist or fellow.
Again, this is not an attack on pornography and a human being’s right to participate in what could under a different societal power arrangement, arguably, reflect art. For example, there are women directing porn to prioritize women’s pleasure. The new forms of human and sexual interactions that will be ushered in by a system of egalitarianism are mere fantasies at this point on the human timeline. The German documentary “Do Communists Have Better Sex” makes the argument that emancipation in the economic realm reverberates to all areas of social life, even the bedroom. Professor of Russian and Eastern European Studies, Kristen R. Ghodsee argues in her book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism that collective creches and state support freed up human beings from economic duress so they could at last stop surviving, and begin living…
Withdrawal from porn, as with withdrawal from all addictions, represents a journey from Shame to Grace…
1. This is recovery talk for substitute activities we addicts implement to replace the lost dopamine hits that come from our DOC, Drug of Choice, whatever it may be. ↩︎
2. Black Death Porn refers to the sensationalistic violence pushed by mainstream television and corporate-dominated social media. As a society, how many images are we exposed to everyday showing images of decontextualized “senseless” horizontal violence in Black America, Haiti and some African countries? There is no “Black-on-Black crime.” There is only Oppressed-On-Oppressed internalized violence promoted by the power structure. ↩︎
3. An anonymous quote from an anonymous sober men. ↩︎
4. Some people mistakenly call the modern social sciences “Marxism.” Should we then call Physics “Einsteinism?” Marx was but the ultimate synthesizer of centuries of accumulating contributions to a knowledge base the Hegelian dialectician built upon. ↩︎
5. The traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous which all other 12-step programs descend from encourage fellows to connect with a g-o-d of their own understanding. For some, it is nature. For others, the universe. For others, a deity or deities. Recovery is in no way religious, but it is spiritual in that we believe there is something beyond our own selfish needs and self-seeking behavior. ↩︎
Originally published at Covert Action Magazine on April 22, 2025
[Certain names and details have been changed to protect the on-the-ground organizers who met with the author.]
Black America has the term “Uncle Tom” for sellouts. In South America, a “vendepatria” is someone who is willing to sell their homeland to the highest bidder. Simón Bolívar, José Marti and Jan-Jak Dessalin conceived of a united, integrated Americas, or “la patria grande,” “the big fatherland;” and fought against enemies from within and without who sought to break that unity.
What can one say in 2025 of a South American president who attacks Caracas more than Washington, D.C., and Havana more than Tel Aviv? What social class and foreign forces does such a president serve when he hides behind “progressive” and “leftist” rhetoric and frequently beckons his credentials as a former “student leader”?
Gabriel Boric Font, Chilean president since 2022, is no friend of the working-class causes he has claimed to champion. With one year left in his presidential term, he has proven to be a loyal, “leftist” mouthpiece for the Chilean military and economic brass and their foreign backers.
Similar to the Democrats, Boric claims to represent an alternative. Similar to the Democrats, he presents the far right, and not the capitalist system, as the problem. After a social upheaval in 2019 that left dozens of Chileans dead and maimed, similar to the Democrats, Boric represents a safe, acceptable escape valve for the Chilean establishment and foreign capital.
The Boric lesson is that imperialism is quite willing to pivot toward a “new leftist” where it is convenient, especially given that by definition they prioritize identity politics over class politics. This offers cover for a neo-liberalism that continues to favor the ten richest families in Chile who are unsurprisingly the most connected to international finance.
Boric: The Backstabber and Betrayer
A look at the Chilean president’s relationship to the state reveals even more about his class loyalties.
The Boric administration boasts of 60 new “anti-terrorist” laws. Grassroots movements, such as Radio Plaza de la Dignidad, consider the new legislation an attack on their rights to organize and mobilize:
“The ‘improvement’ of the previous repressive law now allows the arbitrary criminalization of popular fighters, imposing a much more aggressive and arbitrary category of ‘terrorist.’ Not even the Pinochet dictatorship dared to do so much. Such laws include the trigger-happy law, the critical infrastructure law and the anti-occupation/anti-poor law. With the excuse being the fight against crime, the legal-repressive framework has been strengthened, unleashing a brutal threat against the entire Popular Movement in Struggle.”
Boric has put teeth behind this legislation, training 1,300 new carabineros (militarized police). Amnesty International has critiqued the absolute impunity for the police force after the massive clampdown on the 2019 rebellion.
Chile’s patagonia continues to function as a refuge for Zionist war criminals with areas that cater to them in modern-day Hebrew, the official language of the occupiers of historic Palestine.
The 39-year-old, 37th president of Chile brazenly claims that the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not leftists. No different than Milei, Noboa, Trump and other reactionaries in the hemisphere, he pushes unfounded claims blaming Venezuela’s leadership for insecurity, crime and traffic of arms and drugs in the region. Why would a “leftist” promote a right-wing view of the countries most in the crosshairs of imperialism? However, Boric did not hesitate to recognize “the victory” of “president” Daniel Naboa and the Ecuadorian narco-state last weekend, on April 14.
Here in the United States, we know such leftists well. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and their ilk have long functioned as the sheepdogs of the Democratic Party to lasso in the more radical elements.
The Borics of U.S. politics with Obama and others. [Source: nytimes.com]
In the summer of 2024, Boric and Minister of Defense Maya Fernández Allende and Chief of the Chilean Military Joint Staff Vice Admiral Pablo Niemann hosted the U.S. Southern Command cooperation joint meetings. General Laura Richardson warned of “authoritarian, communist governments attempting to seize all they can here in the Western Hemisphere.” The neoliberal military and economic partners touted themselves as “Team Democracy” for the region.
U.S. Air Force General C.Q. Brown, Jr., former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Army General Laura Richardson, commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and U.S. Ambassador to Chile Bernadette Meehan, meet with Chilean Minister of Defense Maya Fernández Allende in Santiago on August 28, 2024, to discuss “bilateral security cooperation.” [Source: southcom.mil]
To his credit, Boric has condemned the Zionist genocide but has attempted to find a half-way point between the Palestinians and the genocidal Zionist entity. He has also not hesitated to give full support to the U.S.-NATO proxy war on Russia and Ukraine. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier just wrapped up a visit to Chile, condemning the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship, as the West cheers on and funds their seven decades old, so far impregnable military base in the Middle East, known as “Israel.”
While China continues to be Chile’s top trading partner. The Boric administration has turned its back on and undermined Bolivarian and BRICS initiatives to build a more multipolar world. While Chile remains strongly in the Western imperialist sphere, the second-longest country in the world depends on strong trading partnerships with Brazil, South Africa and Russia.
The global astronomical community is condemning U.S. energy behemoth AES Corporation for polluting some of the clearest skies in the world above Chile’s northern desert region.
Venezuelan Ambassador Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein discusses Boric’s opportunism and quotes President Allende in his final words: “Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment in which betrayal tries to prevail.”
Chile Ablaze
Wallmapu is the Mapuche name for their historical homeland which stretches across the Andes between modern-day Chile and Argentina. Currently, there are 22 forest fires burning through Wallmapu, where two million Mapuches live on the Chilean side of the Andes. Licarayen of the local Temuco Mapuche leadership explained that Spanish colonizers used similar tactics to push her ancestors off their lands and set up their cash crops, like wheat.
A group of her colleagues showed the author the prehistoric Araucania trees that were around during the epoch of the dinosaurs and are now at risk of extinction. Boric’s Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, accused the ancient, local communities of being behind the blazes. The Coordinator of Wallmapu Territories rejected the customary vilification from state power, “blaming the crisis on capitalist logging interests” and characterizing as “ridiculous the political classes’ claims.”
Chile is South America’s California. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forests are burning as Chile faces some of the worst droughts in its history due to climate change. Licarayen explained that the spiritual toll the fires are taking on the community is leading to more despair, alcoholism and suicides. She compared the dire social indices and resistance of the Mapuche to the historical struggles of native communities in the U.S. and across the hemisphere.
Boric is all bark and no bite. Currently there is a struggle to prevent a statue of Piñera from being built. Boric visited Antarctica to discourage the further exploitation of Chile’s neighbor to the south. Yet, as Wallmapu burns, it is clear how powerless the president himself is to stop the ongoing repression of the historic Mapuche community.
There are over one hundred political prisoners denied their constitutional rights because they have stood up in defense of their land and way of life.
Boric is all bark and no bite when it comes to meeting his promises of redressing the deep grievances of Chile’s Mapuche people. [Source: las2orillas.co]
Pinochet’s Constitution: Boric’s Great Failure
There is a basic leftist consensus on why Boric and the left failed to overturn the Constitution in 2023.
Working-class districts wanted economic and social rights, but were arguably turned off by the greater emphasis in the Constitutional Convention on feminism, environmentalism, or plurinationalism. These same woke politics with no economic teeth are one of the key reasons why the Democrats have lost twice to the MAGA movement.
Light liberal left identity politics over class politics combined with a vicious right-wing media campaign to defeat the constitutional plebiscite. There was intense red-baiting and fear-mongering of Chile becoming “Chilezuela,” complete with the right-wing media promoting sensationalist images of Venezuelans forced to eat stray dogs to survive. The true power brokers resorted to Trump and Musk-esque rhetoric exclaiming “Abortion will be allowed at whatever stage of pregnancy”; “All border controls will be lifted”; and “The law will protect criminals over victims.”
The barrage of propaganda harkened back to the 1970s’ anti-communism of the CIA-backed Pinochet regime which convinced many Chileans that the return of socialism in Chile would mean the end of all freedoms, including the right to be Christian.
The failure to pass an updated constitution transcending the 1980 Pinochet-era one is arguably the greatest setback of the “New Left.” The right wing continues to win the war of narratives. Mega and Chilevisión convinced more than 60% of voters that the new constitution would mean Mapuche supremacy over Chile’s majority European-descendent population.
Javiera Manzi, a leader of La Coordinadora Feminista 8M, denounced the Pinochet continuity, highlighting the 2011 student mobilization, Apruebo Dignidad movement and “radical tenderness” as the way forward. Valparaiso-born journalist Pablo Vivanco summed up the collective disappointment: “Boric has not delivered on his main promises. There has been no new constitution. There is no pension, education or tax reform. He told us: ‘Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism and it will be its tomb,’ but that is not the case.”
Resistencia: Another Way Forward for Chile
In contrast to Boric, political prisoner and Communist Party leader Daniel Jadue represents another vision for Chile and la patria grande. Jadue is the former mayor of Recoleta, the northern area of Santiago and home to the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East. A spokesperson for the mass rebellion, he was the potential next president of Chile. In this interview with #AVosPatria (To You Homeland) and Radio con Aguante (Radio with a Punch), he, explains why the bourgeoisie got behind the feckless Boric.
Currently, there is a lawfare campaign against the former mayor of Recoleta. Jadue is a political prisoner because he carried out socialism on a local level, implementing programs such as the Popular Pharmacy, the Popular Optician, Open Schools, Salud en tu Barrio, Popular Real Estate, the Open University of Recoleta, the Popular bookstore “Recoletras” (a word play on the historic Palestinian neighborhood of Santiago), the “Energía Popular,” the popular dentist, the Common Pots, the Communal Public Security Plan with a focus on Human Security, among many others.
The ruling class recognizes that Jadue and the Chilean Communist Party are the real threat, whereas they are willing to work with Boric beyond the liberal-conservative divide over secondary issues. Political analyst Leonel Poblete Codutti predicts that his “alliance and agreements with the class enemy will clear the way for the extreme right to win the elections next year, similar to what happened to the Democrats in the U.S.”
Despite the attacks, the popular leader asserts there can be no change “without a people, without mobilization, without a transformative spirit that is felt.” Boric is a key part of the campaign against the true left, the inheritors of Miguel Enriquez, the Revolutionary Leftist Movement (MIR) and Victor Jara.
Inequality with a “Progressive” Mask
Labor leader Luis Mesina is the founder of the “No + AFP” (No More AFP) movement to defend pensions. He explained: “In the end, [Boric has] been subjugated to the power of financial markets.” He explains how such privatization schemes of social security and other benefits for the people have been siphoned off to foreign capital to the tune of $90 billion, characterizing Chile as “the most neoliberal country in the world.”
Hugo Fazio, Chilean economist and former vice president of the Central Bank under Salvador Allende, denounced the new pension laws as a further bamboozling of workers. Fazio argues that the pact reflects further collaboration between anti-worker sectors and the left of pacotillas (cheap sellouts) and farándula (show business). The cold reality for many retirees is that they have to continue to look for other jobs because they cannot survive. Jadue explained: “We are gifting them [foreign investors] five to seven billion more dollars every year in capital markets. That is who is most celebrating this law.”
Private mining interests that control 70% of the surplus, or profits, recently announced their largest investments in Chile’s copper and lithium resources in the past decade because their taxes have been so low. The president had promised progressive taxes on the country’s elite but has again cowered before his history’s strong demands. Iris Fontbona, of the Luksic mining dynasty, is worth $26 billion. Julio Ponce Lerou, president of the Chemical and Mining Society of Chile (SQM) and son-in-law of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, is another billionaire.
Julio Ponce Lerou, Pinochet’s son-in-law, and a billionaire. Boric promised to raise taxes on him and his class but has failed to deliver. [Source: theclinic.cl]
As absurd as it sounds, social spending under the “left-wing” Boric is lower even than under Chile’s last president, the reactionary billionaire Sebastian Piñera.
Boric: The Impotent Tip of the Iceberg
While there were big expectations in 2022, and Boric’s victory was heralded as a historic win, Boric is not Allende. His moderate positions were never a real threat. He is a deterrent to regional solidarity, echoing imperial policy on the Bolivarian-bloc countries. While it is easy to wail about Boric’s lack of class instincts and anti-imperialist fight, he is merely an Obama, the most convenient puppet for the moment.
The Chilean power structure with its media and banking arms is the same one that overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973.
Now-deceased media baron Agustín Edwards Eastman and his heirs received covert payments from the Nixon government to plot the coup against President Allende. The National Security Archive recently published declassified documents showing Edwards’ secret meetings with Henry Kissinger, Attorney General John Mitchell and CIA Director Richard Helms in Washington, D.C. To this day, the Edwards heirs are the owners of Chile’s largest newspapers El Mercurio and La Segunda, Radio Corazón and an endless array of other mouthpieces for the rich.
Álvaro Saieh—who Forbeshas listed as the 729th wealthiest person in the world and 4th wealthiest in Chile—is the chairman of CorpGroup, a conglomerate with investments in finance, retail, real estate, hotel and media businesses. Saieh owns Publimetro, Diario La Hora, Revista Paula, Radio Carolina and a web of other media outlets. Saieh, a Chilean Colombian of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian roots, also owns the banking conglomerate Itaú CorpBanca, Banco Cóndel, Unimarc supermarkets, 60 strip malls, three power plants, Hyatt Hotels and seemingly infinite other businesses.
Here we have but two of the managers and molders of Chilean public opinion.
Chile—no different from any other capitalist country, whether shrouded in social-democratic or hard-right camouflage—is run by a tiny clique of families connected to international finance. Similar to us here in the U.S., arguing over who is worse, Republicans or Democrats, the Chilean bourgeoisie presents a fake contest between two contenders, confident under their Neoliberal “democracy” paradigm their interests are untouchable. Chile continues to be the society of the cuicos and flaites (local slang for rich and poor). Boric knows who his masters are and dares to question them only so much.
Boric and Obama: Two Pseudo-Progressive Peas in a Pod
Malcolm X presciently explained how the ruling class swings the political pendulum in front of us:
“The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the ‘smiling’ fox.”
In an interview with the author, Chilean journalist Pablo Jofré Leal clarifies: “In reality, Boric was never a standout ‘student leader.’ It was the Chilean media that artificially created him and inflated his leftist credentials. It is not the first time they have done this. He went from being a ‘student leader,’ to Congressman to President in no time. He never had any real base in the labor movement or the left.” The right wing catapulted his career forward because he was the counterweight to the communist student movement. A decade later, while the stakes are higher, the dynamics of the fake vs. fighting left remains the same.
Gabriel Boric delivering a speech as a student leader in 2012. [Source: time.com]
The right wing recognizes that Boric represents a break from Bolivarian politics and true class struggle. Libertad y Desarrollo (LYD), a conservative think tank charts Boric’s meteoric rise through politics precisely because he condemned the historic left focused on class struggle. His pivot toward the “new left” and identity politics ensured that he was not a threat to the entrenched political and economic establishment.
The Chilean elite’s “Boric strategy” is reminiscent of the “Obama phenomenon.” Both faux “progressives” were touted as representing “change” and were elevated to the summits of bourgeois power almost overnight. Both are phonies. High finance uses such lapdogs at times as mouthpieces, or at other times as distractions, and at all times as faux “resistance.”
For Chile, it was the 2019 social explosion (el estallido social). For the United States, it was the deep-held anger against the unpopular, Bush-era wars on Iraqi and Afghani sovereignty. The aging Piñera and Bush were seen as the personification of “the old way.”
A significant wing of capitalist power succeeded in presenting the youthful Boric and Obama as proof that the system can be changed from within.
The memories of the militant social rebellion in Chile and U.S. anti-war, left-liberal protest movement in the U.S. 2001-2008 were buried in what has long been the institutional graveyard of social movements—capitalist elections.
Originally published at Liberation News on April 20, 2015
Haiti’s calendar is emblazoned with glorious dates of popular victory over slavery, racism and foreign occupation.
Jan. 1 of this year was the 211th anniversary of the Haitian people’s triumph over the French empire and their colonial allies who attempted to reestablish slavery in Haiti. July of this year will mark the 100th anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the steadfast resistance of the Haitian masses led by the Caco leader Charlmagne Peralte. April 20 marked the 25th anniversary of a massive movement that erupted in the Haitian American community in 1990 after the Center for Disease Control published a study blaming Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs and heroin users for the transmission of AIDS in the United States.
In the heart of the Brooklyn, there was an evening of commemoration to remember the mass movement that came into the streets 25 years ago to demand that Haitians be removed from this list. A passionate panel of speakers remembered the intensity of the April days and the campaign to unite everyone against the prevailing racism at the time which equated Haitians with AIDS. According to the research of medical anthropologist Dr. Paul Farmer and others, American tourists introduced AIDS into Haiti, but this was never convenient for the mainstream news, long-accustomed to unscientific claims which scapegoated African and African-descended peoples for the spread of disease. [1]
Half a million Haitians and their supporters came into the streets on April 20, 1990, marching through their Flatbush neighborhoods in Brooklyn to City Hall making the Brooklyn Bridge shake as it had never shook before. Due to the massive mobilization and pushback, the CDC was forced to retract their racist claim. Racism was turned back by the power and unity of the people.
Community leaders and journalists reminded the crowd: “We are at war. Haiti is at war. They have never stopped waging war against us. They cannot forgive us for overthrowing their rule and demanding our freedom.” He drew a parallel to the introduction of cholera into Haiti by UN troops who today illegally occupy Haiti. The outbreak of cholera has thus far left over 4,000 Haitians dead and the UN has yet to recognize its role in polluting the Haitian water supply and spreading this disease.
Haitian women leaders who were in high school at the time remembered the intense anti-Haitian sentiment that they confronted on a daily basis. One Haitian nurse exclaimed: “They made us ashamed to be Haitian. They said HBO stood for Haitian Body Odor. Haiti was only mentioned in association with coups, violence, hunger and disease. We had to learn to love ourselves. We had to stand up. This mobilization was a key part of our learning to love ourselves and be proud of our identity when we were attacked from all angles.” Waving her fist defiantly, she concluded, “Again we had to teach our detractors: You don’t mess with Haitians!”
April 20 and all of Haiti’s history reiterates the timeless adage that has rung true from Belfast to Port-au-Prince to Ho Chi Minh City: “Repression breeds resistance. Resistance brings freedom.” We salute the Haitian people for all that they have sacrificed and won for oppressed people everywhere and pledge to stand strong against our common enemy here in the belly of the beast!
