Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Donald Trump appointed Elliott Abrams as “Special Envoy to Venezuela” to help facilitate regime change in that country by the United States. This nod marks Mr. Abrams’ third assignment in U.S. Republican administrations. The following is a brief background of his career, summarized by
Rachel Bruhnke.
As we see another coup against Venezuela’s democratically-elected government, we revisit the 2002 coup attempt in the documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup), which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland’s Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002.
An attempted coup is underway in Venezuela, call it what you like. While the Bolivarian Revolution has had its problems, U.S. sanctions have devastated its economy and people. Negotiations led by Mexico, Uruguay, and the Vatican are the only sane way forward.
Today’s attempts to malign Haiti stand as only the latest in a long line of hegemony and oppression against this Caribbean island nation. January 1, 1804 is Haitian Independence Day, and Haitian attorney Ezili Dantò honors and remembers Janjak Desalin (Jean Jacques Dessalines), Haiti’s Liberator and founding father, as well as the indigenous army, and women who influenced him. Janjak’s ideals and legacy lives on – Nou la!
The November 2017 election-fraud, dictatorship-today, U.S.- and Canada-supported, crisis in Honduras has considerable historic precedence, elucidated by anthropologist Rosemary Joyce. Not a pretty scenario, with no easy solution to preventing Honduras from repeating past horrors and falling into a lasting period of military dictatorship that brutalizes people and ecosystems.
Berta Cáceres was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. She fought for indigenous peoples’ power and for control over their own territories. She was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to power.
In the nightmare of corruption, murder and impunity that is post coup d’état Honduras, many political and economic sectors of the “international community,” foremost the U.S. and Canada, maintain beneficial relations with drug trafficking and related enterprises. Rights Action ?shares Karen Spring’s dissection of a recent U.S. money laundering bust in Miami of the Rosenthals, one of Honduras’ elite families.