Articles and opinion columns by Latin American analysts who take an unwavering stand for freedom, including members and directors of the IID.
To confirm that in Peru crimes committed in the second round of presidential elections are covered-up and that those elections were neither free, nor fair, it is enough to read the resolutions and rulings issued by the National Jury of Elections (JNE in Spanish) rejecting the invalidity of votes cast at voting precincts where, as formally exposed and proven, there was “counterfeiting of signatures” of alleged voters. Using the argument that counterfeiting of signatures is not under their purview and asking that this matter be sent to a penal legal process, the maximum electoral authorities reject justice and accept the fraud for the final vote count.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims “fundamental for human rights to be protected by a legal system in order for men not to be compelled towards the supreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression”. Both the national and international system are based on the respect for human rights but 21st century’s dictatorships violate these with prisoners, victims of torture, persecution and exiles. Today, Nicaragua’s dictatorship repeats the crimes committed in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia where oppressors hold power with total impunity. The peoples of the Americas, who are in a situation of defenselessness, are being forced towards the use of the supreme recourse of rebellion.
And, those of us that fought the Castro regime in the underground resistance and from exile, often felt like Kafka’s isolated protagonists facing bizarre and surrealistic predicaments, and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers.
In these dark days there truly was no room for someone like Ms Fiallo who through her sheer talent successfully faced the challenges of economic distress; political upheaval in home country Cuba and uprooting into a country that had no interest in the literary genre she was beginning to master. One by one she defeated every monster that blocked her way to success as a telenovela writer. Talent, kindness and faith in her ability to conquer the TV world were her only weapons.
We also hear young people vociferously equating capitalism with fascism. Apparently, they are unaware that it was Hitler’s National Socialism, not “National Capitalism,” that sought to subordinate Germans to a collectivist society with the state as the sole face and arbiter of the common good.
Mr Biden stood tall and with the support of centrist democrats negotiated with Republicans a deal that will bring to America the much needed initial impetus to enter the 21st century in the area of infrastructure. The $1.2 trillion bill contemplates $109 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects, $55 billion for water infrastructure and $73 billion for the nation’s power structure.
Elections must be “free, fair, and clean” and when these features are questioned only the “audit of the official count of votes, with verification of each precinct’s ballot reports, statistics, process and chain of custody” will legitimize the winner and will salvage democracy. Peru must ask the Organization of American States (OAS) an urgent electoral audit.
What is now happening in Nicaragua, has already happened and is also happening in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. It is extremely serious, but dictators know they are immune because they protect themselves by force, violence and fear and bet that the peoples’ defenselessness, along with the international solidarity, censorship, declarations, and some sanctions will be ineffective and be something they will be able to circumvent or deactivate.
In short, we empathize more with people who are “like us” than with “them.” We are not alone in this divide; psychologists have shown that a mouse seeing another in pain, is more likely to mimic the hurting if it knows the other mouse. And Capuchin monkeys will help out another monkey only if they are in a friendly relationship. Keep this empathy gap and the Us-Them divide in mind as we explore the complex topic of justice.
Indeed, 50 year after President Nixon launched the war on drugs results are discouraging. The US has spent since 1971 $ 1Trillion in the war against drugs. That exactly was TOC’s income levels attributable to drug trafficking in 2020.
