On Wednesday 3 March, the Revolutionary Communist Group hosted an informative online meeting ‘Latin America 2021: Resistance and Revolution’. Over 150 participants from Britain and many countries around the world heard from a brilliant line-up of speakers who gave presentations before answering participant questions.
Cat Alison introduced the meeting by outlining the importance of the popular resistance to imperialist neoliberalism that characterised Latin America in 2020. Next, Ria Aibhilin spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Group about Latin America’s recent history – looking at the gains made by the left during the so-called ‘Pink Tide’ movement in the early 2000s up to the current struggle between US-backed right-wing neoliberalism and more progressive national development and social welfare initiatives. A new round of resistance emerged in Latin America at the end of 2019, beginning with the student led protests in Chile in October 2019 and subsequent renewed struggles against capitalism and imperialism in Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. The coronavirus pandemic has exemplified the stark choice facing Latin America: socialism or imperialist barbarism.
This was followed by Jaqueline Castillo, President of Mafapo. Mafapo is an organisation of mothers and other relatives of people the Colombian state has murdered extrajudicially and dressed up guerilla fighters, ‘false positives’, in attempts to justify their killings. These mothers are not victims, but fighters who are challenging the Colombian government and army to demand justice. On 17 February Mafapo won an important legal victory when an inquiry found the Colombian state guilty of the murder of 6,402 people passed off as enemy combatants. On 16 March Mafapo presented a Bill to Congress to honour the fight against false positives. The RCG joined the protest in London on the same day and our comrades sent messages of solidarity from all over the country, drawing attention to this struggle. Ana Maldonado from Frente Fransisco de Miranda (FFM) then addressed the meeting to talk about the communal project in Venezuela, which now sees 2,600 communal councils organised into 110 communes in Caracas alone. Maldonado explained how the most important purpose of the communal councils is the building of socialism and outlined the methods used by FFM to educate and raise revolutionary consciousness from the grassroots: from popular education using a variety of platforms including social media, to political education and critical history in economics, Marxism and Bolivarian thought.
Finally, we heard from Jacob Dexter of Rock Around the Blockade, a campaign set up by the Revolutionary Communist Group in solidarity with socialist Cuba. Cuba’s response to the coronavirus pandemic exemplifies what is possible under a socialist system. In stark contrast to capitalist Britain and despite the genocidal US blockade, Cuba’s free, community-based healthcare system has meant that since the start of the pandemic multiple door-to-door checks have been undertaken by healthcare professionals; its state-funded biopharma sector has allowed the development of new drugs for treatment of Covid patients and the development of multiple vaccine candidates; its internationalist solidarity has seen the Henry Reeve Brigade assist over 40 countries around the world in the battle against Covid. We uphold the banner of Cuban socialism to show people in Britain that socialism is the only system that can provide for humanity.
While Ollie Vargas, a journalist with the indigenous run Kawsachun News in Bolivia, was unable to connect, the meeting saw a video report from Vargas on the resistance of the Bolivian masses. Poor and indigenous Bolivians successfully mobilised to remove the imperialist-backed coup regime that seized control of the country in the 2019 coup and returned to government the Movement Towards Socialism in late 2020. Following the presentations there were contributions ‘from the floor’ by Candice Sterling of the RCG and Bob Witanek of the ‘forty for Ecuador’ campaign. This global campaign is calling for forty days of action to oppose foreign intervention in Ecuador’s democratic process. After some important discussion on Haiti and looking at Venezuela’s communal project in more detail, we spoke about the need to step up our internationalist solidarity with the anti-imperialist resistance and the struggle for socialism in Latin America. This must be practical, uncompromising and reach out to wider forces in Britain willing to challenge the imperialist system.
End the blockade of Cuba! Hands off Venezuela! Victory to the popular resistance in Chile, Ecuador, Peru! Victory to the MAS in Bolivia! End the dirty war in Colombia! Hasta la victoria siempre! Venceremos!
