Category: News

Poland Demonstrates Faux Military Strength for Geopolitical Posturing

On August 15th, Poland conducted its most significant military parade since the Cold War era. This elaborate exhibition of military capability was likely a deliberate strategic move aimed at signaling their willingness to assist Ukraine if the need arises amidst the ongoing conflict with Russia. The elaborate event was marked by open hostility towards Russia, especially due to its timing on Poland’s “Armed Forces Day,” a date chosen to commemorate Poland’s perceived victory over the Red Army of the Soviet Union in 1920. Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak stated, “This is an opportune day to showcase our strength and demonstrate that we have forged a potent armed forces capable of resolutely safeguarding our borders.” The military hardware showcased prominently featured weaponry and vehicles from various NATO allies, including the United States and South Korea.

In recent years, the Law and Justice Party, the dominant political force in Poland since 2015, has actively propagated anti-Russian narratives and policies. One illustration of this occurred in June when the party successfully introduced and passed a bill designed to scrutinize the actions of politicians who held office between 2007 and 2022, with the aim of determining whether any decisions made by them were influenced by the Kremlin. Polish citizens offering their services as mercenaries have been entering Ukraine to provide assistance against Russia’s Special Military Operation.

What Has Happened to the Warsaw Pact Nations?

After World War Two, Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov remarked, “We freed Europe from fascism, yet they will never pardon us for it.” Many interpreted this statement as referring to people in Western Europe who initially supported the Third Reich financially and later sided with the Soviet Union against Hitler. However, while resentment toward Soviet history and present-day Russia persists in Western European countries, the animosity from former Warsaw Pact nations is even stronger and more prone to violence.

The Warsaw Pact, formed in 1955 by Eastern European countries led by the Soviet Union, was a response to NATO’s creation. It aimed to collectively defend its members against potential aggression, especially from Western nations. The pact dissolved in 1991 after the Cold War ended and Eastern Europe underwent rapid political changes. This period saw a resurgence of Nazism and attempts to downplay the USSR’s role in fighting fascism. Ukraine has taken a leading role in dismantling Soviet symbols and honoring figures who opposed communism as national heroes.

In a recent move, Ukraine removed the hammer and sickle from its “Mother Ukraine” monument, originally meant to celebrate its victory in World War Two. Ironically, the monument now portrays Mother Ukraine with a shield bearing a trident, a symbol associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. This group, led by Stepan Bandera, cooperated with the Nazi regime, turning the Soviet-built monument into a tribute to those who aided fascists during the war.

Poland has actively cultivated anti-Russian feelings, and the Baltic states have aligned themselves with Western interests, even at potential risks. By 2004, these nations had all joined NATO, showing their shift toward the West and efforts against Russia. Joining the Western sphere involves adjusting policies to align with U.S. directives, regardless of potential harm to their economies. Poland faced this reality when Russia banned EU agricultural product imports in response to EU sanctions due to Crimea’s alignment with Russia. In 2014, Poland was the world’s second-largest apple producer; the Russian ban caused surplus apples to go to waste and left farmers unpaid. This resulted from the Polish government ceding sovereignty to NATO at the expense of its working class.

The Baltic Quest for Independence: Unforeseen Outcomes

Throughout the era of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states stood out with their significant independence movements among the various Soviet Socialist Republics. Factions within these three countries consistently asserted that they had been subjected to “Soviet annexation.” The United States capitalized on this perspective as the USSR showed signs of impending dissolution. Specifically, regarding Lithuanian independence, the United States Government acknowledges, “The U.S. played an important role in supporting Lithuania’s struggle for freedom from the Soviet Union, but that story has not been adequately told in Lithuanian popular media.” It further asserts, “The U.S. aimed to help refute false narratives in Russian language media in Lithuania that seek to undermine Lithuania’s friendship with the U.S. and to distort history by suggesting that the Soviet occupation of Lithuania was, in fact, a welcome alliance.”

This drive for “independence” culminated in the Singing Revolution of 1989, encompassing all three Baltic states. The series of protests gained attention in the West, particularly due to the “Baltic Way,” a human chain spanning over 430 miles across the Baltics. This event was met by massive support from Western imperialist media and played a pivotal role in the beginning of the end for the USSR. With the direct assistance of the United States, Lithuania became the first nation within the USSR to secede, declare “independence,” and subsequently gain it, followed promptly by Latvia and Estonia.

However, how has the pursuit of ostensive independence fared for those who participated in the Singing Revolution? Presently, Latvia leads in terms of inflation within the Eurozone, with prices experiencing a year-on-year increase of 20.7% in December, slightly surpassing the rates observed in Lithuania (20%) and Estonia (17.5%). Restrictions on importing Russian natural gas have also led to soaring energy prices across the Baltics. Despite limited economic progress, these nations refuse to strengthen ties with Russia, persisting in their adoption of more anti-Russia measures. During the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s onset, Latvia even compelled its Russian-speaking citizens to renounce their allegiance to Russia and take a state language test or risk forfeiting their right to reside in the country they have long called home.

Was it Worth Turning Your Back on the East?

The geopolitical divisions that once segregated Europe into the Western-led NATO sphere and the Eastern domain under the Warsaw Pact have largely dissolved. Currently, Russia and Belarus are seemingly the only nations maintaining robust economic and cultural connections. In the wake of the USSR’s collapse, aligning with NATO and the emerging European Union appeared as the optimal course. However, those who steadfastly clung to their sovereignty have encountered unforeseen challenges, yet they retain the autonomy to recalibrate their foreign relations when opportunities like BRICS arise.

Despite Lithuania’s potential weariness from escalating inflation and energy costs, it lacks the political sovereignty to engage in significant infrastructure projects with China or secure affordable natural gas from Russia. Reflecting on their choices, one might wonder if any participants in the Baltic Way human chain ever ponder if they would have been better off staying home that day.

Aristotle famously starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “all men by nature desire to know.”[1] For Dubois, if there are a people in the U.S. who have immaculately embodied this statement, it is black folk. In Black Reconstruction, for instance, Du Bois says that “the eagerness to learn among American Negroes was exceptional in the case of a poor and recently emancipated folk.”[2] In The Souls of Black Folk, he highlights “how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn.”[3] This was a stark contrast with the “white laborers,” who unfortunately, as Du Bois notes, “did not demand education, and saw no need of it, save in exceptional cases.”[4]

Out of the black community’s longing to know, and out of this longing taking material and organizational form through the Freedman’s Bureau, came one of the most important accomplishments of that revolutionary period of reconstruction – the public schools and black colleges. It was these schools and colleges, Du Bois argued, which educated black leaders, and ultimately, prevented the rushed revolts and vengeance which could have driven the mass of black people back into the old form of slavery.[5]

This year marks the 120th anniversary of Dubois’s masterful work, The Souls of Black Folk. In this essay, I will be concentrating my analysis on the fourth chapter, titled “Of the Meaning of Progress,” where I will peruse how the subjects of education and progress are presented within a greatly racialized American capitalism.

The Tragedy of Josie

The chapter retells a story which is first set a dozen or so years after the counterrevolution of property in 1876. It is embedded in the context of the previous two decades of post-emancipation lynchings, second class citizenship, and poverty for those on the dark side of the veil.

Du Bois is a student at Fisk and is looking around in Tennessee for a teaching position. After much unsuccessful searching, he finally finds a small school shut out from the world by forests and hills. He was told about this school by Josie, the central character of the narrative. Along with a white fellow who wished to create a white school, Du Bois rode to the commissioner’s house to secure the school. After having the commissioner accept his proposal and invite him to dinner, the “shadow of the veil” fell upon him as they ate first, and he ate alone.[6]

Upon arriving at the school, he noticed its destitute condition – a stark contrast to the schools he was used to. The students, while poor and largely uneducated, expressed an insatiable longing to learn – Josie especially had her appetite for knowledge “hover like a star above … her work and worry, and she,” Du Bois says, “studied doggedly.”[7] While certainly having a “desire to rise out of [her] condition by means of education,” Josie’s quest for knowledge also went deeper than that.[8] It was, in a sense, an existential longing for education – a deeply human enterprise upon which a life-or-death struggle for being fully human ensued. “Education and work,” as Du Bois had noted in the Talented Tenth, “are the levers to uplift a people;” but “education must not simply teach work-it must teach Life.”[9] “It is the trained, living human soul,” Du Bois argues, “cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.”[10]

Josie understood this well. She strove for that kind of human excellence and virtue the Greeks referred to as arete. But her quest was stopped in its track by the shadow of the veil; by the reality of poverty, superexploited labor, and racism which characterized the dominant social relations for the black worker.

A decade after he completed his teaching duties, Du Bois returned to that small Tennessee town. What he encountered warranted the questioning of progress itself. Josie’s family, which at one point he considered himself an adopted part of, had gone through a “heap of trouble.”[11] Lingering in destitute poverty, her brother was arrested for stealing, and her sister, “flushed with the passion of youth … brought home a nameless child.”[12] As the eldest child, Josie took it upon herself to sustain the family. She was overworked, and this was killing her; first spiritually, then materially. As Du Bois says, Josie “shivered and worked on, with the vision of schooldays all fled, with a face wan and tired,—worked until, on a summer’s day, someone married another; then Josie crept to her mother like a hurt child, and slept—and sleeps.”[13]

In his youth Du Bois had asked: “to what end” might “[we] seek to strengthen character and purpose” if “people have nothing to eat or, to wear?”[14] Josie’s insatiable thirst for knowledge required leisure time, i.e., time that is unrestricted by the labor one does for their subsistence, nor by the weariness and fatigue which lingers after. Aristotle had already noted that it “was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured,” that philosophy and the pursuit of science “in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end… began to be sought.”[15] Josie’s quest for knowledge, her longing for enlightenment, was made impossible by capitalist relations of production, and the racialized form they take in the U.S. As dilemmas within her family developed, she was forced to spend every ounce of her energy on working to sustain the meagre living conditions of the household. Afterall, as Du Bois eloquently says, “to be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”[16]

It is true, as Kant said, that “all that is required for enlightenment is freedom;” but it is not true that, while being necessary, “the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters” is sufficient![17] This freedom presupposes another – the freedom to have the necessaries of life guaranteed for oneself. What good can be made of the right to free speech by the person too famished to think properly? What good is this right to those homeless souls with constricted jaws and clenched teach in the winter? The artifices intended to keep people down, as Kant calls it, are also material – that is, they refer not only to the absence of opportunities for civic and political participation, but also to the absence of economic opportunities for securing the necessities of life.[18]

The great writer can emanate universal truths from their portraits of individuals. Du Bois accomplished this with Josie, who is a concrete manifestation of black folk’s trajectory post-emancipation. In both Josie and black folk at the turn of the century, the longing to learn, the thirst for knowledge, is met by the desert of poverty common to working folk, especially those on the dark side of the veil, where opportunity doesn’t make the rounds. As an unfree, “segregated servile caste, with restricted rights and privileges,” it is not only the bodies, but the spirit and minds of black folk’s humanity which were under attack.[19] It is a natural result of a cold world – one that beats black souls and bodies down with racist violence, superexploitation, and poverty – that a “shadow of a vast despair” can hover over some black folk.[20] And yet, Du Bois argues, “democracy died save in the hearts of black folk;” and “there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes.”[21]

A Universally Dehumanizing System

Although intensified in the experience of poor and working class black folk – especially those in the U.S. – the crippling of working people’s humanity and intellect is a central component of the capitalist mode of life in general. This was already being observed by key thinkers of the 18th century Scottish enlightenment (e.g., Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, et. al.). For instance, in Smith’s magnus opus, The Wealth of Nations, he would argue that the development of the division of labor with modern industry created a class of “men whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations,” of which “no occasion to exert his understanding” occur, leaving them to “become as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.”[22] “His dexterity at his own particular trade,” he argues, is “acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues.”[23] “In every improved and civilized society,” Smith observes, “this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.”[24]

Writing almost a century later, and hence, having the opportunity of observing a more developed capitalist social totality, Marx and Engels saw that the degree of specialization acquired by the division of labor in manufacturing had even more profound dehumanizing and stupefying effects on the working class. “A labourer,” Marx argues, “who all his life performs one and the same simple operation, converts his whole body into the automatic, specialized implement of that operation.”[25] In echoing similar critiques brought forth by Ferguson and Smith, Marx explains how the worker’s productive activity is turned into “a mere appendage of the capitalist’s workshop,” and the laborer themself is converted into “a crippled monstrosity.”[26] It is a form of relationality which reduces working people to “spiritually and physically dehumanized beings.”[27] As Engels noted, capitalist manufacturing’s division of labor divides the human being and produces a “stunting of man.”[28] Alongside commodity production is the production of fractured human beings whose abilities are reduced to the activities they perform at work.

This mental and physical crippling of the worker under the capitalist process of production provides an obstacle not only to their human development, but to their struggle for liberation itself. No successful struggle against the dominant order can take place without educating, without changing the minds and hearts, of the masses being mobilized in the struggle. Education aimed at the acquisition of truth is revolutionary, that is why ignorance is an indispensable component of capitalist control. The “Socratic spirit,” as I have previously argued, “belongs to the revolutionaries;” it is in socialist revolutionary processes where education is prioritized as a central component of creating a new, fully human, people.[29] As Du Bois put it, “education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know.”[30] “The final purpose of education,” as Hegel wrote, “is liberation and the struggle for a higher liberation still.”[31]

“How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies?”

In the capitalist mode of life, this contradiction between the un-development of human life and the development of the forces of production has always gone hand in hand. From the lens of universal history, this is one of the central antinomies of the system. Progress of a certain kind has always been conjoined with retrogression in another. Du Bois says that “Progress, I understand, is necessarily ugly.”[32] He is quite correct in a dual sense. Not only has class society – and specifically, capitalist class society – always developed the productive forces at the expense of the un-development of human life in the mass of people, but also, when progress has been achieved in the social realm, it has never been thanks to the kindness and generosity of owning classes, it has never been the result of anything but an ugly, often bloody, struggle. As Fredrick Douglass famously said, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”[33]

However, it is the first sense in which Du Bois’s statement on the ugliness of progress is meant. He asks, “how shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies?”[34] What is our standard for progress going to be? Human life and the real capacity for human flourishing? Or the development of industrial technologies and the accumulation of capital? Under the current order, all metrics are aimed at measuring progress in accordance with the latter. As I have argued before,

The economist’s obsession with gross domestic product measures is a good example. For such quantifiability to take place, qualitatively incommensurable activities must transmute themselves into being qualitatively commensurable… The consumption of a pack of cigarettes and the consumption of an apple loses the distinction which makes one cancerous and the other healthy, they’re differences boil down to the quantitative differences in the price of purchase.[35]

This standard for measuring progress corresponds to a mode of social life where, as the young Marx had observed, “the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion [to] the devaluation of the world of men.”[36] In socialist China, where the people – through their Communist Party – are in charge of developing a new social order, metrics are being developed to account for growth in human-centered terms. As Cheng Enfu has proposed, a “new economic accounting indicator, ‘Gross Domestic Product of Welfare,’”[37] (GDPW) is needed:

GDPW, unlike GDP, encompasses the total value of the welfare created by the production and business activities of all residential units in a country (or region) during a certain period. As an alternative concept of modernization, it is the aggregate of the positive and negative utility produced by the three systems of economy, nature, and society, and essentially reflects the sum of objective welfare.[38]

While forcing the reader to think critically about the notion of progress, it would be incorrect to suggest that Du Bois would like to entirely dispose of the notion. His oeuvre in general is deeply rooted in enlightenment sensibilities, in a belief in a common humanity, in the power of human reason, and in the real potential for historical progress. These are all things that, as Susan Neiman writes in Left is Not Woke, are rejected by the modern Heidegger-Schmidt-Foucualt rooted post-modern ‘woke left,’ and which stem, as Georg Lukács noted in his 1948 masterpiece, The Destruction of Reason, from the fact that capitalism, especially after the 1848 revolutions, had become a reactionary force, a phenomenon reflected in the intellectual orders by a turn away from Kant and Hegel and towards Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, Nietzsche, and various other forms of philosophical irrationalism.[39]

Instead of rejecting the notion of progress, Du Bois would urge us to understand the dialectical character of history’s unfolding – that is, the role that the ‘ugly’ has played in progress. He would urge us to reject the mythologized ‘pure’ notion of progress which prevails in quotidian society and the halls of bourgeois academia; and to understand the impurities of progress to be a necessary component of it – at least in this period of human history.

Du Bois would also urge us to understand that, while progress in the sphere of the productive forces has often not translated itself into progress at the human level, this fact does not negate the genuine potential for progress in the human sphere represented by such developments in industry, agriculture, and the sciences and technologies. Progress in the human sphere that is left unrealized by developments in the productive forces within capitalist relations ends up taking the form, to use Andrew Haas’ concept, of Being-as-Implication.[40] As Ioannis Trisokkas has recently elaborated, beyond simply being either present-at-hand (vorhandenseit) or absent, implication is another form of being; things can be implied, their being takes the form of a real potential capable of becoming actual.[41]

It is true, under the current relations of production, that the lives of people get worse while simultaneously the real potential for them being better than ever before continues to increase. This is the paradoxical character of capitalist progress. When a new machine capable of duplicating the current output in a specific industry is introduced into the productive process, this represents a genuine potential for cutting working hours in half, and allowing people to have more leisure time for creative – more human – endeavors. The development of the productive forces reduces the socially necessary labor time and can therefore potentially increase what Martin Hägglund has called socially available free time.[42] This is the time that Josie – and quite frankly, all of us poor working class people – need in order to flourish as humans. The fact that it does not do this, and often does the opposite, is not rooted in the machines and technologies themselves, but in the historically constituted social relations which mediate our relationship with these developments.

We can have a form of progress which overcomes the contradictions of the current form; but this requires revolutionizing the social relations we exist in. It requires a society where working people are in power, where the telos of production is not profit and capital accumulation in the hands of a few, but the satisfaction of human needs – both spiritual and material. A society where the state is genuinely of, by, and for the people, and not an instrument of the owners of capital. In other words, it requires socialism, what Du Bois considered to be “the only way of human life.”[43]

References 

[1] Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: The Modern Library, 2001), 689 (980a).

[2] W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (New York: Library of America, 2021), 766.

[3] W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, in Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1986), 367-368.

[4] Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, 770.

[5] Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, 770.

[6] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 407.

[7] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 406-407.

[8] Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, 766.

[9] Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth, In Writings, 861.

[10] Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 854.

[11] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 411.

[12] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 411.

[13] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 411.

[14] Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 853.

[15] Aristotle, Metaphysics, 692 (982b).

[16] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 368.

[17] Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment,” in Basic Writings of Kant (New York: The Modern Library, 2001) 136.

[18] Kant, “What is Enlightenment,” 141.

[19] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 390.

[20] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 368.

[21] Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, 40; Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 370.

[22] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations Vol II (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1910), 263-264.

[23] Smith, The Wealth of Nations Vol. II, 264.

[24] Smith, The Wealth of Nations Vol. II, 264.

[25] Karl Marx, Capital Volume: I (New York: International Publishers, 1974), 339.

[26] Marx, Capital Vol. I, 360.

[27] Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (New York: Prometheus Books, 1988), 86.

[28] Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1976), 291.

[29] Carlos L. Garrido, “The Real Reason Why Socrates Was Killed and Why Class Society Must Whitewash His Death,” Countercurrents (August 23, 2021): https://countercurrents.org/2021/08/the-real-reason-why-socrates-is-killed-and-why-class-society-must-whitewash-his-death/. In every revolutionary movement we’ve seen the pivotal role education is given – this is evident in the Soviet process, the Korean, the Chinese, Cuban, etc. As I am sure most know, even while engaged in guerilla warfare Che was making revolutionaries study. Education was so important that, as he mentioned in the famous letter Socialism and Man in Cuba, under socialism “the whole society… [would function] as a gigantic school.” For more see: Carlos L. Garrido and Edward Liger Smith, “Pioneros por el comunismo: Seremos como el Che,” intervención y Coyuntura: Revista de Crítica Política (October 11, 2022): https://intervencionycoyuntura.org/pioneros-por-el-comunismo-seremos-como-el-che/

[30] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 385.

[31] G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 125.

[32] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 412.

[33] Fredrick Douglass, Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. by Philip S. Foner (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1999), 367.

[34] Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 414.

[35] Carlos L. Garrido, “John Dewey and the American Tradition of Socialist Democracy, Dewey Studies 6(2) (2022), 87.

[36] Marx, Manuscripts of 1844, 71.

[37] Cheng Enfu, China’s Economic Dialectic (New York: International Publishers, 2019), 13.

[38] Enfu, China’s Economic Dialectic, 13.

[39] Susan Neiman, Left is Not Woke (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023). Georg Lukács, The Destruction of Reason (Brooklyn: Verso Books, 2021). For more on the modern forms of philosophical irrationalism, see: John Bellamy Foster, “The New Irrationalism,” Monthly Review 74 (9) (February 2023): https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/ and my interview with him for the Midwestern Marx Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4uyNEzLlRw.

[40] Andrew Haas, “On Being in Heidegger and Hegel,” Hegel Bulletin 38(1) (2017), 162-4: doi:10.1017/hgl.2016.64.

[41] Ioannis Trisokkas, “Being, Presence, and Implication in Heidegger’s Critique of Hegel,” Hegel Bulletin 44(2) (August 2023), 346: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/hgl.2022.3 Trisokkas here provides a great defense of Hegel from Heidegger’s critique of his treatment of being.

[42] Martin Hägglund, This Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 2019), 301-304.

[43] W. E. B. Du Bois, “Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Communist Party of the U.S.A., October 1, 1961,” W. E. B. Du Bois Archive: https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b153-i071
​

Author

Carlos L. Garrido is a philosophy teacher at Southern Illinois University, editor at the Midwestern Marx Institute, and author of The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism and Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview.

Part 1

Author

Marius Trotter is a writer residing in Massachusetts. He comments on history, politics, philosophy and theory. He can be reached by his email trottermarius@gmail.com

How did fascist Javier Milei win with over 30% the Argentinian primary elections? Who is behind him? And how many far-right candidates also received financing from these oligarchs?

On August 13th, the progressive world looked on with horror as the Argentinian elections were infiltrated by fascist sharks. The word fits as these self-described “sharks” from the Atlas Network are financially backing Javier Milei and his Fascist Party, La Libertad Avanza. They also underwrote his far-right competitors from Juntos Por El Cambio—both Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. The Atlas Network has also provided funding and support to Mauricio Macri in the past, as well as to many far-right politicians in Latin America and around the world.

Another sponsor of far-right extremism is the hate speech-infested, oligarchic media monopoly known as Grupo Clarín. The Atlas Network has strong ties with Grupo Clarín, a conglomerate that owns over 80% of the TV, radio, press, and digital newspaper coverage in Argentina. This same media monopoly collaborated with the Videla Dictatorship during the 1970s.

So who is Atlas Network?

The persistent processes of political destabilization in Venezuela against the government of Nicolás Maduro, the displacement through impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, and the coup d’état against Evo Morales in Bolivia are among the events that had the veiled but active participation of Atlas Network through their local contacts. The propagation of fake news against the constitutional leaders also made a significant contribution. The libertarian cadres in economics and ultra-conservatives in regional politics that the NGO formed accompanied various dismissal processes.

Tightly-organized and generously funded by the imperialist United States pharmaceutical, oil, and tobacco industries, the “libertarian” network brings together politicians, businessmen, and media determined to “extend the reign of the market to all areas of social life.”

They have been conspiring for years, yet they went unnoticed by the collective imagination. Their strength is rooted in a certain discretion, aimed at not revealing their true nature as fascist pressure groups. They operate under the guise of a think tank. Among all of them, Atlas Network is the most ubiquitous network that influences Latin America. Atlas receives generous funding and interacts with hundreds of satellite organizations.

The network receives financial support from other foundations: large corporations (Pfizer, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, and more), to which it occasionally provides “market surveys” and “investigations”; billionaires, such as brothers Charles and David Koch, members of one of the ten wealthiest families in the world; and the US State Department and its National Endowment for Democracy, an organization based in Washington and funded by Congress which is considered the soft power arm of the CIA. This organization states on its website that, since its establishment in 1983, “it has remained at the forefront of democratic struggles worldwide.” In 1985, shortly after becoming operational, the network had 27 associated institutions in 17 countries. By 2021, that number had grown to over 500, spanning 98 countries. Brad Lips stated in January 2020 that the Atlas Network’s aggregate annual budget was nearly $909 million, with an average contribution from its members of just under $500,000.

It was established in 1981 under the name Atlas Economic Research Foundation by Antony Fisher, a British devotee of ultra-liberal Austrian Nobel Prize winner in economics Friedrich von Hayek and a Thatcherite guru. The Atlas Network functions as a federation of foundations, think tanks, and academic institutions with the goal of disseminating free market policies globally. Fisher’s lifelong mission was “upholstering the world with pro-free market think tanks.” Key objectives of its main leaders include reducing taxes for corporations (or maintaining them at exceptionally low levels to supposedly incentivize job creation), privatizing public companies and the educational system, minimizing the role of the State, diminishing the power and influence of unions, and dismantling social security systems. In brief, they constitute The Fascist International.

They supported in part the anti-quarantine demonstrations worldwide, spanning from Madrid to Buenos Aires and from the United States to Brazil. These protests were fueled by right-wing opposition forces or sitting presidents such as Trump and Bolsonaro, rekindling the network’s visibility. The pioneer of this movement, Fisher, passed away in 1988, but he entrusted his legacy to an Argentine who chaired the foundation from 1991 to 2017: Alejandro Antonio Chafuen. Chafuen is a figure with extensive experience in the economic and academic realms of the US, who also made his mark in Argentina through his involvement in the liquidation of the financial company Coimpro. In 2005, he was handed a sentence by the National Court of Appeals in Federal Administrative Litigation.

Fisher’s ideological legacy is not minor. In 1955, he founded the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London, a precursor to what would evolve into Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Revolution during the 1980s. Another product of his vision, the Atlas Network, stands as a hub that now encompasses over five hundred foundations, NGOs, and lobbying groups, all equipped with substantial resources in service of the ultraliberal ideology that advocates for minimizing the state’s role. On his résumé, Chafuen, who waxes nostalgic for the ’76 military dictatorship, asserts that he contributed to the distribution of over thirty million dollars in private donations to economic research institutes through the network. The Argentine Subsidiary of Atlas – now appended with “for a free society” in its name – is under the leadership of Eduardo Maschwitz, a banker who routinely directs Comafi and endorsed the initiative of its founders Guillermo M. Yeatts and José Esteves. This organization boasts a lengthy history, having been established on November 9, 1998.

On the international front, Atlas maintains connections with the upper echelons of the US government. Their affiliations with the State Department and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) are evident in their own publications, despite their disavowal of state intervention in the economy. Spanish social networks expert Julián Macías Tovar provided a revealing X-ray the group established by Fisher in ’81 during an interview conducted by Gustavo Sylvestre on his radio program in 2021: “There is a network, the Atlas Network, which comprises more than 580 foundations, and some of them joined the Macri project in 2014. They possess an economic libertarian nature but also maintain numerous ties with the extreme right.”

Macías Tovar oversees the Digital Pandemic site, which analyzes the conduct of accounts, trolls, bots, and disinformation operations within this digital framework. During the interview, he also proposed that “there is an Operation Condor 2.0 with financing from the United States. And in Argentina accounts that support Trump or Bolsonaro, some of them also have an affectionate reminder of Videla.”

Chafuen remains aligned with that viewpoint. In 1979, at the age of 25, he penned an essay titled “War Without End,” in which he drew a comparison between left-wing groups and the Manson Clan, the perpetrators of the murder of Sharon Tate, the actress and wife of film director Roman Polansky, in Beverly Hills. He also expressed his perspective on Argentina, stating that “the army had acted out of necessity to prevent a communist takeover of the country.”

Few analysts have delved into Atlas and its enduring influence across various countries. Aram Aharonian and Álvaro Verzi Rangel, from the Communication and Democracy Observatory of the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE), highlighted in a publication dated October 9, 2017: “The capitalist international exists, it is mobilized by the extreme right-wing libertarian movement and, obviously, it is very well financed: it works through an immense conglomerate of foundations, institutes, NGOs, centers and societies linked together by barely detectable threads, among which stands out the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, or the Atlas Network.”

The investigative journalism outlet The Intercept also took an interest in the Atlas Network. One of its top journalists, Lee Fang, recounted how during a meeting held in Argentina in May 2017 at the Brick Hotel in the Recoleta neighborhood, Chafuen revealed that his work over so many years had begun to bear fruit. Following this gathering organized by Atlas and the Argentine branch of Fundación Libertad, internationally chaired by Mario Vargas Llosa, Fang wrote: “For many, Chafuen from his position at Atlas has been a mentor, a financial sponsor and a beacon that guided them towards new political models.”

Chafuen gave a clue in that note from The Intercept: “I was in the street demonstrations in Brazil. Suddenly, I realize that a boy I had known as a teenager was now in the bed of a truck leading the protests. Crazy!” said the Argentine economist, photographed wearing a Brazilian team shirt during the protests against Dilma. A few years later, he was active on his Twitter account, interchangeably supporting ads by Mike Pompeo and Jair Bolsonaro. For its part, the US-based organization maintains that “any report that claims or implies that the Atlas Network is responsible for or has sought to bring about political change in the US or in any other country is patently false and indefensible.” Nevertheless, the evidence of its influence in the region and the extent of its engagement with the State Department suggest otherwise.

The Ecuador Libre Foundation, established by the current de facto president of Ecuador and banker, Guillermo Lasso, and previously recognized by the Atlas Network for its “contributions” to “free market solutions for poverty,” features a document on its website that encapsulates the viewpoints of individuals and organizations affiliated with this framework. “Unfortunately, within our Latin idiosyncrasies, hatred of the rich is very common. […] The discourse of our politicians moves sensitive fibers that exacerbate hatred of the rich and wealth, exploiting the class struggle to obtain votes and/or popularity. […] Hatred of the rich and of wealth seems to be part of the Latin American DNA and contributes enormously to the backwardness of our countries. […] I wish we understood that the accumulation of wealth is positive and is the only sure way to reduce poverty,” concludes the article, signed by Paola Ycaza, a bourgeois Ecuadorian who directed the Center for Economic and Social Studies for the Development of the Espíritu Santo of Quito University.

Three years earlier, the then director of the network, the Argentine Alejandro Chafuen – a businessman with strong ties to his country’s military dictatorships and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, an ultra-liberal think tank created by Von Hayek himself – had been very clear about the definitions of the network: “We are a non-profit organization that was born to propose private solutions to public problems.”

For a long time the Atlas Network remained in the dark. Then, in mid-2017, Lee Fang published a detailed investigation in The Intercept which shed light on its origins, financing, structure, definitions, links, and exponential growth, especially in Latin America. Other reports – such as those by journalists Aram Aharonian and Álvaro Verzi Rangel and the Spanish branch of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Público, 24-V-21) – subsequently provided new data on the network.

Fang wrote: “The Atlas model spreading across Latin America is based on a method honed over decades in the United States and the United Kingdom, in which libertarians strove to stem the tide of post-World War II favoring the welfare state.” In March 2017, the journalist covered the Forum for Freedom in Latin America, a lavish meeting organized by the Atlas Network at the secluded Brick Hotel in Buenos Aires, in which proponents of the new regional political, social, and business right-wing participated. The forum had three special guests: the Argentine president at the time, Mauricio Macri; the Peruvian writer and president of the International Freedom Foundation, Mario Vargas Llosa, and the former Minister of Finance of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Hernán Buchi. For the director of the Atlas Network at the time–Argentine Chafuen, who was retiring from the scene after almost two decades of leading the organization–the forum represented “a blend of homecoming and triumphant celebration,” he said.

Fang explained: “Chafuen […] had spent his adult life discrediting left-wing social movements and governments in South and Central America, and promoting, in their place, a business-friendly version of libertarianism. For decades it was a lonely job, but not anymore.”

The gathering at the Brick Hotel prompted the network to make the decision to establish a dedicated presence for this region, where it had a growing but uncoordinated influence. It took this step near the end of 2018 when the Center for Latin America was established. It was led by the Mexican businessman Roberto Salinas León, from Grupo Salinas, the owner of TV Azteca.

By mid-2020, as pointed out by the Ecuadorian Miguel Ruiz Acosta in a note published on the website Rutakritica, the network already encompassed approximately a hundred organizations in this region. While most of its affiliated institutions continue to be located in central countries (204 in the United States and Canada, and 135 in Europe), Latin America stands today as one of its main growth hubs. In Uruguay, it maintains connections with the Center for Economy, Society and Business, the Center for the Study of Economic and Social Reality, the Center for Development Studies, and the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America, as well as affiliations with the University of Montevideo and the newspapers El País and El Observador.

The network is cautious about directly funding established political organizations. “It is not adequate or effective,” Chafuen stated at the time. However, it operates discreetly within the orbit of liberal governments, providing support for the implementation of pro-market policies. The Intercept showed how Atlas had close ties with think tanks and organizations related to the Honduran, Venezuelan, and Brazilian coups. It maintains them with Fujimorismo in Peru, the entourage of the Colombian Expresident, Iván Duque, and is carnally linked to the Ecuador Libre Foundation, Macrismo in Argentina, and Trumpism in the United States.

In the previous US administration, there were notable members of the Atlas Network. Republican Proposal, for instance, originated from Fundación Pensar, one of the branches of Atlas in Argentina. The Honduran Fundación Eléutera, for its part, was highly active in providing support to the governments following the 2009 coup against Manuel Zelaya. Its “experts” served as inspiration for the establishment of special development zones in that country, managed by private businessmen with blatant disregard for national laws. Additionally, it backed the governments of Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro in their liberal reforms and their endeavors to economically undermine Brazilian unions.

Fang exposed the nature of the “persuasion work” advanced by proponents of the network. Both Fisher and Chafuen, among others, were cognizant that libertarianism didn’t hold a favorable reputation: its associations with the affluent were glaringly evident. It needed to be “democratized,” reshaped into an “ideology of the common good,” “concerned about the situation of the poorest,” encouraging the charitable and philanthropic undertakings of its members. All the while, it needed to persistently advocate for “the idea of freedom” and persistently criticize advocates of the welfare state, without a moment’s pause.

“95% of the Atlas foundations bear the word freedom in their name,” just as the events (forums and seminars) it arranges, remarked the researcher Julián Macías, who contributed to a report on the new Spanish right prepared by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Public, 25-V-21). Progress and democracy are further labels of those established by Fisher, whom Margaret Thatcher acknowledged as one of the intellectual instigators of her resolute conservative revolution.

Key members of the Atlas Network convened in Ecuador to witness Lasso’s inauguration. Prior to the ceremony, the network – by means of three of its affiliated foundations: Fundación Ecuador Libre, under Lasso’s ownership; the International Foundation for Freedom, overseen by Vargas Llosa; and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom from Germany – orchestrated the Ibero-American Forum Challenges to Freedom at a Hilton hotel in Quito.

Among the in-person and virtual speakers were the Colombian Duque, the Peruvian Keiko Fujimori, the Venezuelan coup leader María Corina Machado, and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

On the sidelines of the forum, José María Aznar, the historical leader of the most ultra wing of the Spanish Popular Party, announced the establishment of a Latin American branch of the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES), of which he is the chairperson. FAES Latam will be overseen by former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, a hard-wing right-winger who advocated for Plan Colombia and opposed peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. During the meeting, Aznar did not conceal his concern about the downfall of the Chilean right, the situation in Colombia, and the potential for Pedro Castillo’s victory over Fujimori in Peru (which has since occurred, though subsequently thwarted by the same oligarchs). He emphasized the need to vigorously defend the Duque government (later defeated by current President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez), as well as the government of Ecuador – the new bastion of liberalism in the region (which will see the return of Correismo aka Revolución Ciudadana in 2023). Pastrana and Atlas were mistaken then, and their stance today remains misguided.

There are now left-wing governments in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Honduras, and it seems that Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay will soon have their own. These oligarchs have amassed wealth and power, but they will ultimately fail in their greedy aspirations. Latin America has awakened and united against these malevolent forces. We, as a continent, understand that the Multipolar World is a reality that is being collaboratively pursued on a daily basis, with various initiatives like the BRICS and its New Development Bank being integral to this goal of a liberated world.

We eagerly await the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 22-24. We are aware that our comrades worldwide are fighting and laboring just as diligently as we are to achieve complete liberation from imperialism and fascism. We will succeed; victory belongs to us! Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific – we stand as the vanguard against US and European imperialism. Workers of the World, Unite! Hasta La Victoria Siempre! Venceremos! ✊🏽

This article was republished from The Cradle 

While the wholesale theft of Syria’s natural resources continues under the watch of illegal US troops, the Russian project of resurrecting ISIS-destroyed Palmyra stands as a stark reminder that ruins can rise again – if Syria’s friends help pave the way.

On August 9, it was discovered that the Lisbon District Court had instructed the New Bank of Portugal to reimburse 1.5 billion dollars to Venezuela. These were currencies that had been deposited in the bank and were unlawfully withheld from the Venezuelan State in 2019, a few weeks after the United States and its European Allies recognized Juan Guaidó as the supposed president – an opposition leader whom almost no one knew in Venezuela and who declared himself president one day in 2019. Despite being a move entirely outside the law, the truth is that they attempted to justify the embezzlement of Venezuelan assets abroad, the total of which reaches 31 billion dollars.

The ruling by the Lisbon Court stipulates that these funds must be returned to the Venezuelan Government, and that late-payment interest must also be paid.

From Caracas, they celebrated this decision and clarified several things:

First, that these resources will be utilized for social investment.

Secondly, that this country will persist in undertaking all actions at its disposal to reclaim all resources that rightfully belong to the Venezuelan people and that remain illicitly obstructed in foreign financial entities.

Thirdly, Venezuela reserves the right to pursue appropriate measures for the damages inflicted on the population by these unlawful maneuvers.

And although the money that Nuevo Banco was ordered to unfreeze has not yet been returned to the Venezuelan government, the judicial decision represents a significant victory for this country and for legality.

Firstly, because it acknowledges that there is no interim government and that the only president is the one whom the majority of the population voted for, namely, Nicolás Maduro.

It asserts that this money belongs to the Venezuelans.

It affirms that the only entities that should receive and manage those funds are the ones that opened those accounts – that is, the Economic and Social Development Bank of Venezuela.

Because Venezuelans do not forget that in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, when the government asked them to release part of those resources to be able to buy vaccines and medicines, that bank refused, as did others who bet on the collapse of this country.

President Nicolás Maduro had retaliated during that vile attack aimed at blocking the purchase of medicines and food:

“It is not money from Maduro. It is money from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela! The vast majority of it was already allocated for medicines that the people need. Government of Portugal. Medicines that the people need! Food that the people need!”

Venezuela still has to recover many of its assets abroad. Among them are the CITGO Refinery and the 31 tons of gold deposited in a Bank of England. And although it seems like an uphill path, the victory against the New Bank marks an important precedent. A victory that gives strength to the fight of Venezuela to recover everything that opposition leaders in alliance with foreign powers tried to steal from this country.

In response to this decision, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Iván Gil expressed on his official account:

“Venezuela wins a lawsuit and recovers a large part of the assets in Portugal. This is the result of long work and above all the resistance of the Venezuelan people and the Government of Nicolás Maduro, who do not allow themselves to be subdued by threats from imperialism and the coup’s surrender .”

President Nicolás Maduro exclaimed:

“Venezuela has not renounced, nor will it renounce, the fight to reclaim all the money that belongs to the Venezuelans, all the assets that belong to the Venezuelans! We have not renounced, nor will we renounce, and when the physical recovery of that money is achieved, along with other funds, we Venezuelans know that it must be directed towards guaranteeing the social rights of the people, ensuring public services for the people! All Venezuelans know that we have not given up and will not give up on reclaiming that money which rightfully belongs to the Venezuelans and was stolen from us. It is an unequivocally unjust decision against international public law!”

The people and the Bolivarian Revolution have heroically resisted all the attacks by imperialism. With their own work and effort, this socialist revolution has diversified its production to the point of reaching almost total self-sufficiency. The leadership of the PSUV, headed by President Nicolás Maduro, has wisely navigated these last 8 years of hybrid warfare and economic conflict. Venezuelan diplomacy and the high positions of the Bolivarian Revolution have continued to serve as an example throughout Latin America. As a result, significant strides have been taken towards the Latin American union. Our Commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías sowed millions of seeds that today have grown into fertile trees within the revolution. Socialist men and women are building the great homeland of Bolívar.

On this journey, CELAC, founded in 2013 at the initiative of Commander Chávez and Commander Fidel, is integrating into the multipolar world as a heavyweight willing to collaborate alongside BRICS, the Arab League, and Pan-Africanism to deliver a definitive knockout blow to imperialism and its centuries of genocide, looting, invasions, bombings, massacres, and other atrocities. 21st-century socialism is drawing closer to becoming the new global economic system, with the next step being the BRICS Summit from August 22-24, now in Johannesburg, South Africa. We are achieving the union of the peoples of the world, and our comrades such as Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel, Che, Chávez, Tomás Sankara, among many others, would be pleased to see it. Workers of the world, unite! Long live the revolution! Long live the multipolar world!

Almost 2,000 ceasefire violations were registered in eastern Ukraine by monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Saturday, a diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday. Ukrainian government and separatist forces have been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

As early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun shelling the civilian population of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem or stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.

… This is what he explained in his speech on February 21.

On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.

The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.
​
In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public, we deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware. Jurists will judge.

They’ve been saying we’ve been shelling ourselves for 9 years.

Author

​Daniel Kovalik is an Author and International Human Rights Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

The new multipolar order will of course not be without its own conflicts and growing pains…

The Global Majority is free to choose two different paths to counteract the rabid, cognitive dissonant Straussian neocon psychos in charge of imperial foreign policy; to relentlessly ridicule them, or to work hard on the long and winding road leading to a new multipolar reality.

Reality struck deep at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, with its astonishing breadth and scope, reflected in the official declaration and key facts such as Russia writing off no less than $23 billion in African debt, and President Putin calling for Africa to enter the G20 and the UNSC (“It’s time to correct this historical injustice.”)

Three interventions in St. Petersburg summarize the pan-African drive to finally get rid of exploitative neocolonialism.

President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki:

“They are printing money. They are not manufacturing anything at all, it’s printing money. This has been one of their weapons globally – the monetary system… sanctions here, sanctions there… We need a new financial architecture globally.”

President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, the face of a resurgent Global South and the world’s youngest leader:

“A slave that does not rebel does not deserve pity. The African Union (AU) must stop condemning Africans who decide to fight against their own puppet regimes of the West.”

President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni:

“One facet of neo-colonialism and colonialism was Africa being confined to producing only raw materials, crops, like coffee, and minerals (…) This issue is the biggest factor why the African economies are stunted; they do not grow, because all the value is taken by other people (…) So, what I want to propose to Russia and China is to discourage as a policy the importing of raw materials from Africa, to instead work with the Africans to add value at source.”

In a nutshell: pan-Africa should go all-out creating their own brands and value-added products, without waiting for “approval” from the West.

The South African drama

South Africa is an immensely complex case. Under extreme pressure from the usual suspects, Pretoria had already succumbed to the collective West hysteria related to Putin’s attendance of the upcoming BRICS summit, settling for the physical presence of Foreign Minister Lavrov and Putin via videoconference.

Then, during a personal meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa decided to speak in the name of all African leaders, thanking Russia for the offer of free grain, but stressing they had not come to “receive gifts; Africa proposes the return of the grain deal.”

Translation: this is not about free grain offered for several African nations; this is about Pretoria wanting to cash in on the deal, which privileges globalist oligarchs and their Kiev vassal.

Now compare it with the Russian position. Putin once again made it very clear: fulfill our demands and we return to the grain deal. Meanwhile, Russia remains a leader in wheat production – as it was before; and while prices keep rising on global markets, Moscow will share the income with the poorest African nations.

Tensions inside BRICS, as illustrated in this case, are painfully real, and come from the weakest nodes. For all the devious rhetoric, the fact is India and Brazil prefer BRICS+ to proceed slowly, as sherpas confirm off the record.

Among the over 40 nations – and counting – which are dying to become part of the club, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are very well positioned to be accepted in the first tier of BRICS+ members, unlike Argentina (which basically paid an IMF loan so it can continue to be paying IMF loans).

Reality is dictating the slow approach. Brasilia – under extreme pressure from the “Biden combo” – has a minimalistic margin of maneuver. And New Delhi is proposing first an “observer” status for prospective members, before full admission. Very much like in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose recent summit was decided by New Delhi to be held online. For a very simple reason: India did not want to sit on the same table with China.

What’s worrying is that the practical, gargantuan work schedule for both BRICS and the SCO is being slowed down by a toxic mix of internal squabbles and foreign interference. Yet the Russia-China strategic partnership must have anticipated it – and there are contingencies in place.

Essentially, broader discussions are accelerated while minor partners get their act together (or not…) What’s clear is that, for instance, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia possibly being admitted to BRICS+ will immediately change the internal balance of power, and the weak links will necessarily have to catch up.

EAEU to the rescue

St. Petersburg also demonstrated something crucial in the evolving multilateral organization front: the renewed importance of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is fast expanding beyond Central Asia towards Southeast Asia (a free trade agreement with Indonesia is imminent), Africa and crucially, the DPRK: that was discussed in detail during Defense Minister Shoigu’s rock star welcome in Pyongyang.

All that spells out a road map like this: the EAEU in the vanguard, in parallel to China’s BRI (crucial forum coming up in Beijing in October) until BRICS+ and SCO gridlock is solved.

Only one BRICS member without which is impossible to build Eurasia integration has serious problems with China: India (and that includes rivalry for influence in Africa, West Asia and Central Asia).

Simultaneously, there’s only one BRICS member capable of influencing India: Russia.

Now that’s a challenge for the ages. Yet Moscow does have the potential – and the competence – for regulating the whole new, emerging system of international relations. The timing for implementing what will be in fact a new world system is now, and immediately ahead: from 2025 to 2030.

So Russia-India relations will arguably become the key to fully unlock BRICS+. Issues will include an iron-clad Russian oil road to India via Rosneft; solving the Afghanistan riddle (with Moscow keeping Beijing and New Delhi in sync); a more muscular presence within the SCO; closer security deliberations among the three Ministries of Defense; including Chinese and Indian observers in the Russia-Africa process; and all of the above micro-managed by Putin himself.

If China-India competition is already a big deal, we should expect it to become even more complex after 2030. So here’s Russia facing yet another primordial historical/cultural mission. This goes way beyond the Himalayas. It spans the full arc of China-India competition.

And don’t forget to call the Steel Kitten

It’s always immensely enlightening to follow BRICS-related analyses by Sergey Glazyev, the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics at the EAEU’s Economic Commission.

Glazyev, in two major interviews, has confirmed that a “sanction-proof” BRICS digital unit of account is under discussion, based not only on BRICS national currencies but also a basket of commodities.

He also confirmed that “we” are working to establish an internal BRICS group to design and establish the new system (by the way, these discussions within the EAEU are way more advanced).

According to Glazyev, a payments system outside of SWIFT can be set up through a network of state-run digital currencies – not to be confused with cryptocurrencies backed only by private speculators.

Glazyev also forcefully defends the adoption of the digital ruble. He argues that’s the way to track blockchain transactions and prevent non-intended use of funds – as in diversion into speculative markets.

Apart from all the huge challenges, the optimal path ahead spells out EAEU and BRICS+ observing international law and slowly but surely building the payments system capable of circumventing massive imperial choke points. A new BRICS currency can wait. What matters is the evolution of so many interconnections as the new system’s infrastructure is being built.

And that brings us once again to North Korea.

The Shoigu visit de facto cleared the path for the DPRK to totally align with the Russia-China strategic partnership in the massive Eurasian integration/development/mutual security process.

Oh, the ironies of “post-everything” History. The Hegemon may have actually been trapped into destroying NATO as a credible military force just as Russia-China reinvigorated a major ally in Northeast Asia and the Far East – complete with nuclear power, ballistic missiles, and a hyper-productive industrial military complex.

So the Straussian neocon psychos want to expand their unwinnable Forever War to rabid hyena Poland and the Baltic chihuahuas? As in first we go to Moscow, then we take Beijing? Be our guest. But first be sure to place a call to Global South powerhouse DPRK. Steel Kitten Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, will be delighted.

Throughout its history, the United States has frequently engaged in the manipulation of foreign leaders and entire countries to advance its interests, often discarding them once their utility diminishes. This fact raises further bewilderment regarding why any nation would place their confidence in the United States, given its history of deceit and interference in the domestic matters of other countries as soon as they display a semblance of sovereignty. While the United States have crossed members of the Global South for decades, the most recent victims of American betrayal have been in Europe.

“Zelensky will repeat the fate of Saakashvili.” This was stated by Vyacheslav Volodin, recalling the events of August 2008, when Georgia attacked South Ossetia. From the outset, the administration led by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia displayed a distinct ‘Russophobic’ stance. It garnered backing from the European Union and NATO, and received weaponry assistance. Subsequently, as he ceased to serve Western interests, Saakashvili found himself incarcerated. Volodin continued, “History repeats itself, but now with Zelenskyy. The West is already tired of him and the insatiable Kiev regime. His ingratitude has become the dominant feature of European politics. This is openly stated at the official level both in Britain and even in Poland.”

Same Tactics on a New Russian Border

The parallels between the 2008 Georgia-Russia conflict and current circumstances are unsettling and should raise concerns for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, especially given that so many have been in similar positions. Mikheil Saakashvili earned praise from the U.S. and NATO for championing liberal democratic principles in the face of Russian-backed separatist factions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Amidst the conflict, Saakashvili penned an article for the New York Times titled “The War in Georgia is a War for the West,” advancing the narrative that countering Russia was imperative to safeguard the ‘democracy’ of the West. “It concerns not only Georgia, it concerns the U.S. and its values. We are a freedom loving country which is being attacked,” Saakashvili said.

The 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest played a crucial role in seeking endorsement for the inclusion of both Georgia and Ukraine within the military alliance. Former U.S. President George W. Bush extensively campaigned for backing, especially in the case of Georgia. The United States had recently supplied military assistance to Georgia following their deployment of 2,000 troops to Afghanistan, aiming to foster a stronger path towards membership. The most notable distinction between this gathering and the latest NATO Summit was the apparent resilience of Europe against yielding entirely to the United States’ desires. Notably, France and Germany emerged as primary critics of Georgian inclusion, ultimately leading to the absence of any intentions to provide a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for either Ukraine or Georgia.

Was Saakashvili perceptive enough to anticipate the unfolding events and attempt to mitigate tensions with Russia? He insisted that he had proposed relinquishing the contested regions to the separatists during a meeting with Putin but that the Russian leader promptly rejected the idea. Regardless of whether he had in fact attempted a compromise with Russia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, his decision to align with NATO’s support sealed his fate. Rising swiftly in Western esteem, Saakashvili’s downfall was equally so. The Russia/Georgia conflict concluded within a week, resulting in Georgia’s loss of all contested territory and casting a shadow on his second presidential term, barely a year into office. As his tenure neared its end, he hastily departed Georgia in the face of criminal allegations for orchestrating an assault on a political adversary and for granting clemency to the murderers of another political foe. He resided in the United States and Europe until October 2021, when Georgian authorities apprehended him for attempting to clandestinely enter the country, concealed within a dairy truck.

Zelenskyy Should be Worried

Saakashvili now languishes in a Georgian prison, his health declining, while ambitions of that country’s European integration are eroding. On February 15th, the European Parliament endorsed a resolution by a vote of 577-33, urging the Georgian authorities to release him. In contrast, the United States has remained quiet. Backing Saakashvili holds no strategic value for the United States, as their attention has shifted to favoring the Ukrainian president as their latest pawn deployed against Russia.

Discussions between United States and Ukrainian officials have already begun regarding a scenario in which Ukraine operates without Zelenskyy. While they of course attribute the need for such plans to his potential assassination by Russia, in fact his own government would be more likely to liquidate him, once the flow of U.S. assistance diminishes. Ukraine’s ill-fated engagement in a counteroffensive doomed to failure is a further signal that his days in power are limited. If Zelenskyy were smart, he would start seeking U.S. permission for a comfortable exile in that country, so as to follow the well-trodden path of other tarnished Western pawns, perhaps writing another book and teaching political science at an Ivy League college. Considering his previous career as a comedic actor, there would be serious doubts about his qualifications for either of these pursuits, but that hasn’t stopped other equally unqualified pawns from being richly rewarded, should they survive death.

The Fourth Amazon Summit was historic. For the first time the popular movements participated in this forum. With the Amazon Dialogues 27,000 people, including 800 Indigenous Leaders, were brought together in a process of formulating proposals that served as the basis for the debates of the Representatives of each Country at the Summit. Countries around the world are preparing for the COP28 that will be held between November 30 and December 12.

During the meeting held in Belém do Pará, Brazil, the presidents and representatives of the Amazon countries made a declaration to protect tropical forests worldwide, which is reproduced in the following lines:

“We, the Presidents and Heads of Delegation of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Indonesia, Peru, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Venezuela, gathered in Belém do Pará , on August 9, 2023,

1. We recognize the invaluable contribution of indigenous peoples and local communities as well as women and youth for the conservation of tropical forests.

2. We note that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6), “Climate change is already affecting tropical forests around the world, including through changes in the distribution of forest biomes, changes in species composition, biomass, pests and diseases, and the increase in forest fires.

3. We reaffirm our commitment to preserving forests, reducing the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, conserving and valuing biodiversity, and seeking a just ecological transition, convinced that our forests can be centers of sustainable development and sources of solutions for national and global sustainability challenges, reconciling economic prosperity with environmental protection and social well-being, especially of indigenous peoples and local communities, including through the development of innovative mechanisms that they will recognize and promote the functions/services of ecosystems and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

4. We express our concern over the failure by developed countries to meet their commitments to provide official development assistance equivalent to 0.7% of their gross national income, and to provide $100 billion in climate finance per year in resources new and additional contributions to developing countries, and we call on developed countries to meet their climate finance obligations and contribute to the mobilization of $200 billion a year by 2030, as set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, to support the implementation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans through the provision of new, additional, predictable and adequate financial resources.

5. We also express our concern over the failure by some developed countries to meet their mitigation targets, and we reiterate the need for developed nations to take the initiative and accelerate the decarbonization of their economies, achieving greenhouse gas emissions neutrality. greenhouse effect without delay and preferably before 2050.

6. Noting that international cooperation is the most effective way to support our sovereign commitment to reduce the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, we condemn the adoption of measures taken to combat climate change and protect the environment, including unilateral ones , which constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade.

7. We reiterate our understanding that preferential access for forest products to the markets of developed countries will be an important tool for the economic development of developing countries.

8. We invite other developing countries with tropical forests to engage, in preparation for UNFCCC COP-28 and CBD COP-16 and other relevant international conferences, in a dialogue, based on solidarity and cooperation, on the issues outlined in this Communication.

9. We also call on other developing countries that hold a significant part of the world’s biodiversity to advocate for our countries to exercise greater influence in the management of resources for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

10. We take note of different initiatives promoted by developing countries relevant to the conservation and sustainable use of forest ecosystems, such as the Trilateral Cooperation on Tropical Forests and Climate Action of Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, and the initiative, by the Republic of the Congo, to host a Summit of the Three Basins of Biodiversity Ecosystems and Tropical Forests.”

Press release No. 333 was published through the website of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, August 9, 2023. Belém do Pará, Brazil.

Statements to the Press by Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the Resolution of a Document with a Common Agenda for the OTCA members after the Amazon Presidents’ Summit 2023

“Let me address this press that I love so much, but very quickly, because I still have three bilateral meetings.

What I want to tell you is that everything that has happened here in the last four days has been very important. This summit actually began on Saturday with the participation of civil society and we have had a wonderful dialogue with an incredible ability to discuss these issues. This society, which is often anonymous because it is not always seen, has shown an extraordinary capacity for discussing Amazonian issues.

I also want to refer to the extraordinary fact of having brought together for the first time the presidents of South America from the Amazonian countries to find a joint solution. To discuss the same topic in international forums, as in the UN, in the discussion regarding funds, and to tell them that it is not Brazil that needs money, nor Colombia, nor Venezuela, but Nature.

To tell them that now they have to pay for the industrial development that they carried out for 200 years and which has polluted the world. They have to pay their share, so that we can fix what they have ruined. Nature is the one that needs money, nature is the one that needs financing. For this reason I said yesterday that wherever we go, everyone everywhere talks about the Amazon, and in this meeting it is the Amazon that is speaking to the world to give it an answer to what we need.

If you allow me, I will make the statement and then I will return to my activities, the last of which is eating. Just like you, because you need to eat. Journalists are usually always on their feet but they have to eat, so don’t forget to eat.

Yesterday we met with the presidents of the Amazon countries to build a new edition of sustainable development for the region. It had been 14 years since the presidents of our countries last met. The Belém Summit takes place at a very different time from the three summits that preceded them in 1989, 1992 and 2009.

Today, denying the climate crisis is foolish, and highlighting and valuing the forest means not only maintaining and recovering its dignity, but also that of the almost 50 million inhabitants who live in the Amazon. And we are going to do that by offering sustainable opportunities, employment and income generation, through the promotion of science, technology, innovation, socio-bio-economy and the appreciation of indigenous peoples and traditional communities and their ancestral knowledge.

The Belém Declaration, which we adopted yesterday, brings together very concrete initiatives to face challenges shared by our eight countries. We are going to work together fighting against deforestation and illegal activities through the creation of mechanisms that finance regional and national actions for sustainable development, in the creation of a scientific technical panel, and in the creation of new instances of coordination and participation. It will therefore be essential to have the ACTO strengthened by regular meetings of presidents and authorities, and with a greater participation of citizens and indigenous peoples and the structuring of the Amazon Parliament.

Today we have expanded the dialogue, by involving leaders of developing countries that also have tropical forests, such as: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines representing CELAC. We have included France due to French Guyana, and Norway, a country that supported the Amazon Fund from the very beginning. The president of the COP 28 in Dubai has also participated, as well as representatives of multilateral organizations and multilateral entities.

We have identified enormous convergences with other developing countries that have tropical forests and we are convinced that our joint action is urgent in international forums. We demand more representativeness in the entities related to us as well as that the climate commitments of developed countries are met.

We have two important action fronts. One is to work for the definition of an international concept of socio-bio-economy that allows us to certify forest products and generate employment and income. Another is to create mechanisms that fairly and equitably pay for the environmental services that our forests provide to the world. Protectionist measures disguised as environmental concern by rich countries is not the way to go.

The Belém declaration and the joint communiqué, which we adopted during these two days of the Summit, are a step towards the construction of a common agenda with developing countries that have natural forests. And they are going to pave our way towards COP 30, when we will be again in the city of Belém in 2025. Lastly, I want to record that Brazil, as the venue for this meeting, will continue to value the intense dialogue with civil society that we have had the last few days.

Almost 30,000 people participated in the Amazon dialogues, in which we heard the voice of indigenous peoples, river communites, quilombolas, women and youth, and all others who risk their lives to preserve the Amazon. You can be sure that this Summit will produce many fruits and will be remembered in the future as a milestone for sustainable development.

What we have done at this summit is tell the world that we will not accept any more ideas that are not put into practice. We are heading to COP28 with the aim of telling the rich world that, if they really want to preserve what is left of the jungle forests, they have to invest resources not only to care for the forests, but also for the people who live there and who want to study and eat and live decently. Only by taking care of these people are we going to take care of the forest, because the example we have in Brazil is that some of the most preserved lands in this country are indigenous lands. This demonstrates that we already have natural inspectors who take care of the forest; we just have to respect them and ensure that they have decent living conditions.

We are going to deploy even more federal police to take care of the borders. We will sign agreements with all the bordering countries. You know that Brazil has more than 16 thousand kilometers of dry borders; it is not a small border, and to protect it, we have to deploy the armed forces, the police, and everyone. So just as we are fighting to preserve the forest, we are going to fight to remove and expel drug traffickers, arms dealers and organized crime from the jungle. It is a task that we are going to assume, and in the next meeting, you will be able to ask us for an update. Thank you very much and I send you all a kiss.”

“I think it is important, after listening to all the presentations and reflections, to highlight what the Amazon basin means for our region and for the world. It must be something well-known to our peoples. The Amazon Basin, as you have already said and many other presidents, is the basin with the world’s most biological diversity.

This basin, with one of its largest rivers, discharges 20% of its fresh water into the Atlantic. It also represents 40% of the world’s tropical forests as well as 25% of biodiversity and the largest number of fish species in its fluvial spaces. It is, as the president of Bolivia said, a great thermal regulator and capturer of 10% of the carbon emitted worldwide, supplying 16% of the oxygen for humanity.

These numbers have placed on our shoulders the responsibility for the existence of human life on the planet; not only for our peoples, for the peoples of our countries, but also for all of humanity. Today, I want to expose the serious threats that are close to our countries in our region.

Firstly, on the very clear message from President Nicolás Maduro and his proposal to address this situation:

His first point is that we declare a regional emergency for the Amazon countries. We find ourselves in the midst of a genuine crisis, as we witness the magnitude of the significance of and harm done to the Amazon Basin. President Nicolás Maduro is putting forth the idea of establishing a powerful ACTO Environmental Task Force. This task force would be comprised of representatives from various chancelleries, ministries of environment, ministries of defense, as well as coordinating bodies and unions. The objective is to collectively tackle a situation beyond our individual capacity to address and which demands a collaborative approach.

In his second initiative, President Nicolás Maduro is advocating for a zero-deforestation strategy. The question of negotiation arises: what percentages of deforestation should we consider acceptable? Should it be over 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, or even 70%? This is akin to asking, what is the value of life? It’s the very inquiry we are facing here: what is the price of life? Can life be assigned a monetary value? Urgent attention is required on this matter. This proposed zero deforestation plan holds the potential to pinpoint critical zones, accurately measure deforestation rates, assess forest coverage, comprehend the scale of greenhouse gas emissions, and establish sustainable practices as viable economic alternatives. Just yesterday, President Lula emphasized that “this region cannot remain a mere sanctuary; rather, it necessitates balanced economic advancement.” We also echo this sentiment of sovereignty and ecological consciousness; this is what President Lula alludes to with the idea of harmonious and equitable progress for the communities inhabiting this region. This pertains to the 400 indigenous communities who share this space, this verdant lung of our planet.

President Nicolás Maduro’s third point introduces a reforestation and rejuvenation blueprint for the Amazon region. This proposal underscores the paramount importance of establishing an Amazonian seed bank that safeguards the region’s biodiversity. Furthermore, it advocates for the creation of an Amazon-focused entity tasked with combating forest fires and instituting safeguard zones.

I think that this moment requires us to think about Amazonian identity. This entails strengthening institutions but also thinking about what the Amazonian identity means, which is why in his fourth point he also calls for eliminating the use of heavy metals in mining activities. This would mean a total prohibition and the very important articulation of an Amazonian Parliament.

Similarly, his fifth point involves the eradication of illegal mining and its substitution with responsible mining practices.

We have also heard the sixth initiative, namely to create an Amazon Research Center that would provide instruments and mechanisms to monitor the real crisis that we face. Science has already coined concepts such as the abrupt climate crisis, where the only thing that reigns and explains is uncertainty. But when the abrupt climate crisis arrives, towns will have practically no possibility of defense. So this Amazon Research Center is a scientific compass which also conforms to an Amazon Scientific Council and which allows for the preservation of biodiversity and ancestral and community knowledge that has preserved biodiversity.

President Maduro’s seventh point proposes the launch of an Amazonian satellite that allows us to remotely monitor our region.

The eighth point involves an ecological and sovereign sustainable development plan. We already know that the Amazon has lost 20% of its size due to illegal activities, due to the anarchic activities of cattle ranching and logging. The peoples truly require a sustainable, sovereign, ecological economic plan, in harmony and in balance with the rights of nature.

And finally, his ninth axis deals with this organization as an institution. Many have raised this and we really can integrate all the options that have been presented here to allow us to reaffirm our sovereignty and address the serious threats facing the Amazon Basin today.

We must create councils for ministers of the environment, science and technology, health, defense, security, economy, indigenous peoples, social movements, and institutionalize all the potentialities of the states in a way that does not postpone a plan of action in the defense of the Amazon. But here we have to be frank and speak with the heart and the mind, and seek a good understanding. There are serious threats that we cannot avoid and that we must address. President Petro called to talk about the disagreements, but there are many practical proposals on which we agree.

We identify the voracity of transnational pharmaceutical and food emporiums as serious threats. 14 large food companies and 11 large pharmaceutical companies concentrate the capital the world today and as well as markets. If a reality caused the pandemic and is causing the war, it is a greater concentration of capital and a greater concentration of the market that favors very few in the world and creates profound social inequalities with the peoples of this planet.

The second serious threat is the outsourcing of the function of the states. That is why I say that the path is not to decentralize the states but rather to strengthen the capacities and functions of the state. Do not hand it over to non-governmental organizations that are ultimately instrumentalized by the large pharmaceutical, food, and energy empires to seize the great biodiversity of our Amazon Basin.

The third major threat is the aspiration of NATO to commodify the biodiversity of the Amazon Basin. And here we have to call ourselves to reflect. Because sooner or later, and I would say sooner rather than later, there will come a time when the interests of this organization will conflict with the interests of the North Atlantic empires. So how can we let US, European, and NATO military bases exist in our countries? We know that the countries of the North Atlantic already have their sights set strategically on the resources, the water, and the biodiversity of this expanse of territory that, as we said, represents 40% of the tropical forests on the entire planet.

So we believe that this organization should be at the service of the political, economic and territorial sovereignty of the countries that make up ACTO. Hopefully, never again will any instance or structure of ours be used to ignore legitimate governments or to endorse economic blockades that prevent the true defense and protection of the resources of our Amazon. We pray that this sad page in the history of our organization will never again be repeated.

Ultimately, President Lula, what is present here is a profound debate between a criminal international economic order with obscene profits and a sustainable development model that guarantees a true balance between the land, the oceans and the atmosphere.

I want to take advantage of this space to denounce the North’s attack against progressive nationalist governments in our region and particularly against the countries of the Amazon Basin. Every time we receive news about death threats against President Lula, we know that behind these are the interests of those who prefer to have a government in Brazil and in the Amazon Basin that is complacent towards illegal activities and the destruction of biodiversity, and which accommodates the interests of the North. Given this, what do we have left? We are obliged and called to coordination and union. If we want to preserve this environmental soul of humanity and the planet, there is no other way.

Of those 8 flags that we see there, President Lula, 5 countries were liberated by Our Father Simón Bolívar. And I want to close with words from his Letter from Jamaica, in which he wrote: ‘Surely unity is what we lack to complete the work of our regeneration.’ Well, we are in a vital regeneration to preserve and take responsibility for life itself on Our Planet. The message of Venezuela is: ‘Union, union and more union!’ Thank you very much, President.”

Thank you Comrade Lula for giving me the floor. Greetings to all the brother Presidents who are with us. I also greet, of course, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Environment who are present in this room, all the distinguished attendees, the Secretary General of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, Sister Alexander Moreira, and all distinguished attendees. I bring an affectionate greeting from the Bolivian people.

It is an honor to address all of you and express my sincere thanks. First, to comrade Lula for the initiative of convoking this timely and urgent Amazon Summit. I also take this opportunity to thank the people of Belém for their hospitality and kind welcome.

We gather here today with a deep sense of urgency and responsibility because our common home, Mother Earth, is facing a serious and unprecedented crisis. In the history of the Amazon, we have not experienced a situation quite like the one we are going through right now. The Amazon, our forests, rivers and jungles also face a structural crisis that threatens life. It has never been more necessary to raise awareness of this situation and act accordingly.

The world is going through multiple and systematic structural crises which show that the overexploitation of nature, carried out mainly by the so-called developed countries of the West, deeply affects vulnerable populations, food systems and life systems. Capitalism is putting its two sources of wealth generation, humanity and nature, at risk. Their ways of generating surpluses try to extract the greatest benefit from the labor force, without creating the conditions for its reproduction, while exploiting nature as if it were infinite. But in addition, capitalism, faced with the impossibility of reproducing itself through economic means, resorts to forms of primitive accumulation which, in the 21st century, means accumulation by dispossession.

Marx argued that capitalism came into the world dripping with mud and blood. Now in the 21st century, nearly two centuries since this statement, everything seems to indicate that this way of seizing the natural resources of the peoples is still in force. That is why it is in the interest of imperialism to militarize the Amazon directly and indirectly. Our Amazon covers approximately 7 million square kilometers, equivalent to almost 40% of the territory of South America and 6% of the planet’s surface. Today, it faces an economic model based on maximizing economic growth that prioritizes short-term interests, such as the expansion of the agricultural frontier and the exploitation of natural resources, without adequately considering the long-term environmental and social consequences.

This imbalance, which affects the environment and endangers the health of ecosystems and life on the planet, has put at risk more than 390,000 species of plants and 16,000 species of trees in the Amazon. This model dragged us to the contamination of a region that is of vital importance for humanity and the preservation of the global environment. However, today we come with the firm commitment to protect the union of the Amazon, its peoples and its biodiversity! Our determination is to ensure the preservation of this unique ecosystem as well as to promote sustainable development, in harmony with Mother Earth. We believe that this is the path we must follow and we can only proceed through coordinated work and sustained cooperation.

It is estimated that the Amazon produces around 20% of the planet’s oxygen, which has led it to be known as the lungs of the world. Therefore, in addition to producing oxygen, the Amazon also absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide, helping to mitigate climate change and regulating the global climate. Bolivia has been a pioneer in recognizing Mother Earth as a living being and in establishing a holistic approach to environmental protection. This approach, based on the indigenous and native worldview, highlights the interconnection between all living beings and the need to live in harmony with nature to ensure a sustainable future for generations to come. This contribution of a renewed conception of life comes precisely from our original indigenous peoples, the first victims in the Amazon when the industrial world demanded the rubber from our jungles. Its exploitation meant the disappearance of more than a hundred ethnic groups and peoples along with their respective languages and cultures.

In the particular case of the Amazon region, Bolivia is home to a significant part of this invaluable ecosystem. Our country is proud of the unique biodiversity found in the Bolivian Amazon and the fundamental role it plays in regulating climate and maintaining hydrological cycles. However, the Amazon faces a series of critical challenges that threaten its existence and its role as the lungs of the world. Deforestation in the Amazon has reached alarming levels in recent decades. Ancient forests are being devastated at an accelerated rate, ancient trees are felled illegally and without planning. This is one of the biggest challenges facing the Amazon: the felling of trees for agriculture, livestock and mining, which have led to the loss of millions of hectares of forest.

Deforestation in the Amazon not only threatens biodiversity but also the global climate. The rainforest is a powerful climate regulator, making it all the more valuable by absorbing carbon dioxide in this time of climate crisis. The climate crisis is another critical challenge that threatens the existence of the Amazon. It is occurring at an alarming rate, driven primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human and industrial activity. The Amazon is facing a series of climatic challenges, such as increasingly intense and prolonged droughts, altered rainfall patterns, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of forest fires. These extreme events threaten its unique biodiversity, its indigenous peoples, and its ability to remain as an essential climate regulator.

The fact that the Amazon is such an important territory does not imply that all the responsibility for the consequences and effects of the climate crisis should lie in our hands, in our peoples and in our economies. This global climate crisis has not been generated by us. The framework of the common but differentiated responsibilities indicate the responsibility of those industrialized countries, which have greatly influenced the emission of carbon, greenhouse gases and other pollutants worldwide, and that they must cooperate to a greater extent in the management of this phenomenon. It is therefore very important to reaffirm our commitment to the principles of equity and climate justice.

The exploitation of natural resources also represents a challenge for the Amazon. This activity can cause significant environmental and social damage, such as water pollution and soil degradation. We also cannot fail to recognize that the Amazon is home to thousands of indigenous communities, whose traditional knowledge–that is, the science of indigenous peoples–has been essential for the balance of nature on our Mother Earth. The indigenous communities that have inhabited the Amazon for centuries face territorial conflicts, displacement and threats to their traditional ways of life. Recognition of and respect for the rights of these communities are essential for the preservation of the Amazon. That is why we reaffirm our commitment to the conservation of the Amazon and the sustainable use of its resources, in collaboration with local communities and indigenous peoples who have protected these territories for generations.

The Amazon is also known as a humid tropical forest and is one of the richest regions for water resources in the world. The Amazon is crossed by an intricate fluvial system, formed by several important rivers. The Amazon River, the largest and mightiest river in the world with a length of approximately 6,400 km, is a key source of fresh water in the region, not only for the region’s wildlife and indigenous communities, but also for transportation. For this reason, the conservation and protection of these water sources in the Amazon are fundamental for the hydrological cycle of the earth, and their preservation is essential to ensure a sustainable future for all.

The Amazon is not exempt from illegal activities that affect the communities that inhabit it, and which have a negative impact on nature and on the legal economic activities that take place in that environment. Among the main illegal activities are illegal mining that relies on pollutants and a labor force that reproduces in inhumane conditions. The same can be said of drug trafficking, since the use of this route not only produces fear in the communities but also incorporates them by force in order to cover up their activities, which in their own way affect the balance of nature.

The Amazon is home to strategic natural resources, such as minerals and freshwater sources. Latin America and the Caribbean is a priority for the US National Security Strategy, which means that it is not only in the interest of the Department of State, but also of the Department of Defense. The installation of military bases in the region and within the Amazon is something that should draw our attention. But in this vision, it is worrying that Europe is in the same position, although in different ways. Some want to control the Amazon through military, while others use NGOs. We do not accept open or covert forms of external control over the Amazon! For this reason, I want to draw your attention to the statements made by Mrs. Laura Richardson of the United States, Southern Command. She said. “Latin America is rich in mineral resources rare earths the lithium triangle is in that region; there are many things that this region has to offer.”

Although we recognize the relevance of the Amazon and its natural resources for security and sustainable development, it is essential to address this issue from a perspective that respects the sovereignty and self-determination of the countries of the region. In the case of Bolivia, it is worrisome that the geopolitical vision of some foreign powers could jeopardize the well-being, not only of local communities and the wealth of their ancestral knowledge, but also those strategic components such as freshwater sources or the biodiversity of the Amazon. We emphatically reject any attempt to dominate or exploit the region by foreign powers, as well as the implementation of geopolitical interests that put the harmony of the Amazon at risk!

We are now living through a crucial moment in the history of a world that is going through a geopolitical reconfiguration; for this reason we must promote an effective, pragmatic and robust multilateralism which allows us to face these critical challenges, because the role of cooperation is essential. Our position in the international arena is clear and we advocate for regional and international cooperation in order to face the environmental and social challenges of the Amazon region. Bolivia is willing to work together with other Amazon countries to share knowledge, best practices, and develop initiatives that promote sustainable development that respects the environment.

The Amazon countries have the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization as a space for dialogue and sustainable management of the Amazon. I would like to highlight the work carried out in recent years by the Permanent Secretariat, which expanded its work with new international cooperators, with whom ACTO had not previously worked, including the Andean Development Cooperation or the Inter-American Development Bank. In the same way, I highlight the political and strategic position that ACTO has had in various multilateral forums, such as its recognition before the United Nations general assembly as a permanent Observer, or the joint position of the Amazon Countries in negotiations during the Biodiversity Convention or the Forum of United Nations Forests.

We greatly appreciate that our countries now finally have their own ACTO structure and headquarters. We hope that the Permanent Secretariat and the ACTO instances will continue their work addressing challenges that are increasingly complex for our region. The environmental crisis certainly reflects a deeper crisis of values and culture, in which consumerism, excessive competition and lack of connection with nature have prevailed over care and respect for the environment. The overexploitation of natural resources and pollution are testaments to this disconnection with Mother Earth. For this reason, we highlight the progress we have created the declaration that we intend to adopt, within the framework of this Summit.

In Bolivia, we promote the creation of a mechanism of presidents who are able to meet periodically, with the purpose of strengthening ACTO as an institution. Thus, we highlight and appreciate that a mechanism for Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon has been established. This is a recognition of the ancestral wisdom of indigenous peoples, and their fundamental role in the conservation of biodiversity and knowledge of ecosystems.

The declaration must also promote food production systems based on traditional and family agriculture and call for actions to guarantee the human right to drinking water and sanitation. This also means an honest and responsible review of the extensive and intensive forms of agricultural and livestock exploitation which are now widening the frontier, to the detriment of the forests and life itself. We believe that these, among other advances, are necessary to move towards a sustainable development model that recognizes the value of the ecosystem services provided by the Amazon and seeks a balance between economic development, environmental conservation and respect for the human rights of local communities and indigenous peoples.

For this reason, from Bolivia, we also propose seven lines of action that we should follow:

•1: Strengthen the institutional framework of ACTO to improve regional cooperation as the sovereign management organization for the territories of the Amazon.

•2: Demand non-reimbursable and direct financing, innovative technologies with the release of patents, development of capacities that guarantee the development of the Amazon region and the people who inhabit it.

•3: Actively participate in regional integration mechanisms, such as CELAC, to enact policies with the objectives of developing the scientific research and technological innovation that would preserve our Amazon.

•4: Lead alternatives for sustainable development of the Amazon, of the forest, of life systems and the indigenous peoples. The active participation of our people generates proposals and policies based on the real needs of the people so that we provide for the needs of people who live in the Amazon, including the right to social and basic services

•5: Promote regional integration in order to collectively face the critical challenges of the Amazon that require comprehensive and coordinated actions at the national and international levels. We must move from national policies to regional policies.

•6: Deter any form of foreign militarization or interference by NGOs with priorities different from those of countries in the Amazon region.

•7: Construction of a subregional agenda that confronts illegal mining, drug trafficking and organized crime. These issues are no longer merely to be handled by police, but are instead deeply political and economic, due to their multidimensional impact on the environment and human beings.

The Amazon is invaluable, not only for the eight countries, but for humanity as a whole. It is our responsibility to protect and preserve it. Its conservation is our responsibility, and this demands that the commitment of governments, organized civil society, local communities and the international community work together to protect this invaluable natural heritage for present and future generations. It is time to act because Mother Earth cannot wait any longer. Our commitment to the conservation and protection of the Amazon today must be firm and determined! We have no doubt that in the face of these serious crises, each and every one of us will act to save Mother Earth. Taking care of Mother Earth and defending humanity are two necessary and urgent historical tasks that we must assume. Thank you very much.

Arguably the single most egregious display of war propaganda in the 21st century occurred last year, when the entire western political/media class began uniformly bleating the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On February 23 of last year, the day before the invasion began, the New York Times editorial board wrote that “an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign European state is an unprovoked declaration of war on a scale, on a continent and in a century when it was thought to be no longer possible.”

After the war began, the Biden White House released a statement titled “Remarks by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken shared Biden’s statement on Twitter with the comment “Russia’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine blatantly disregards the lives of innocent men, women, and children, Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and international law.”

Russia’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine blatantly disregards the lives of innocent men, women, and children, Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and international law. My thoughts are with all Ukrainians. We remain #UnitedWithUkraine. https://t.co/QQsHtr71XC

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 25, 2022

In early March of last year, the New York Times editorial board wrote that western sanctions against Russia in retaliation for the invasion “have demonstrated that there are consequences for unprovoked wars of aggression.”

In April of last year the New York Times editorial board again repeated this slogan, writing that Putin had “ordered an unprovoked war to satisfy his ambitions of empire and the destruction of a neighboring nation.”

In May of last year the New York Times editorial board reiterated that “Ukraine deserves support against Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”

According to analyst Jeffrey Sachs, the New York Times used the word unprovoked “no fewer than 26 times, in five editorials, 14 opinion columns by NYT writers, and seven guest op-eds.”

As Jeffrey Sachs explains, the #Ukraine war “was provoked by the US in ways that leading US diplomats anticipated for decades”, yet Western media claim the war was unprovoked. The NY Times has claimed that the war was “unprovoked” at least 26 times.https://t.co/ZV0Ty1p5Zs #NATO

— Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris) June 8, 2023

But it wasn’t just the Paper of Record singing from the same hymnal as the US government on Ukraine. The Guardian editorial board wrote that “Mr Putin’s unprovoked war against a smaller, democratic neighbour has resulted in 1.7 million people fleeing their homes.” The LA Times editorial board wrote that the “most conspicuous victims of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are the people who will lose their lives in defending their country against a brutal (and nuclear-armed) neighbor.” The Chicago Tribune editorial board made reference to “Putin’s audacious, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” The Financial Times editorial board made reference to “Putin’s unprovoked assault on Russia’s neighbour.” The Washington Post editorial board made reference to “Moscow’s disastrous, unprovoked invasion” and to “Russia’s unprovoked invasion” in two separate pieces.

Everywhere you looked, that word was being uncritically regurgitated by the western press. CNN saying “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has devastated the country, killing hundreds of civilians, sparking a humanitarian disaster and resulting in a wave of sanctions from the West.” Time babbling about “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.” The New Yorker saying “Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” NBC News saying “Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine began Thursday, after weeks of buildup.” CNBC talking about “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”

This is just me citing a few of the basically limitless examples I can point to of this war sloganeering throughout the mass media. The western press uphold themselves as impartial arbiters of truth, purporting to be superior to the state media propagandists of nations like Russia and China, and claiming a legitimacy that ordinary people using social media don’t have. And yet here they are uncritically parroting the talking points of the US government and taking sides against Russia.

Leaving aside the substantive question of whether the war was "unprovoked" or not, it's enormously creepy that they're all using the exact same word as though it was programmed directly into their brains pic.twitter.com/64RqFaQSiw

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 25, 2023

The western media claim to report the facts, but the way they’ve fallen in line behind the “unprovoked” narrative reveals that their actual job is to frame world events in a way that serves the information interests of their government. Which would be bad enough if that narrative was just a biased framing of a contentious issue, and not the bald-faced lie that it actually is.

During an interview last year with the Useful Idiots podcast, Noam Chomsky argued that the reason we keep hearing the western press using the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is because it absolutely was provoked, and they know it.

“Right now if you’re a respectable writer and you want to write in the main journals, you talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have to call it ‘the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Chomsky said. “It’s a very interesting phrase; it was never used before. You look back, you look at Iraq, which was totally unprovoked, nobody ever called it ‘the unprovoked invasion of Iraq.’ In fact I don’t know if the term was ever used — if it was it was very marginal. Now you look it up on Google, and hundreds of thousands of hits. Every article that comes out has to talk about the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”

“Why? Because they know perfectly well it was provoked,” Chomsky said. “That doesn’t justify it, but it was massively provoked.”

Indeed, you can disagree with Russia’s invasion or believe that Putin overreacted to the situation, but what you can’t do is legitimately claim that the invasion was unprovoked. It’s just a well–documented fact that the US and its allies provoked this war in a whole host of ways, from NATO expansion to backing regime change in Kyiv to playing along with aggressions against Donbass separatists to pouring weapons into Ukraine. There’s also an abundance of evidence that the US and its allies sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in the early weeks of the war in order to keep this conflict going as long as possible to hurt Russian interests.

The best advice to solve the Russia-Ukraine Conflict was given by John J. Mearsheimer in 2015 which nobody listened.

"The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked" pic.twitter.com/MW7ce4N6Km

— Richard (@ricwe123) May 23, 2023

We know that western actions provoked the war in Ukraine because many western foreign policy experts spent years warning that western actions would provoke a war in Ukraine. There’s footage of John Mearsheimer back in 2015 urgently warning that “the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” And that’s exactly how it played out.

The reason foreign policy “realists” like Mearsheimer were able to correctly predict the war in Ukraine is because they held at the forefront of their analysis the fact that great powers will never accept threats from other great powers on their borders. This is a key point to understanding the major conflicts of the 2020s, not just between the US and Russia but between the US and China as well — and the US is the one amassing the threats on the borders of its enemies in both instances.

“The thesis of the war being unprovoked is very strategic,” foreign policy analyst Max Abrams recently tweeted in response to my commentary on this subject. “It whitewashes the role of NATO expansion, meddling in the Maidan uprisings and siding with far right extremists in the civil war. Not only does it exonerate America but it helps vilify Russia and sell the war as wholly good.”

The thesis of the war being unprovoked is very strategic. It whitewashes the role of NATO expansion, meddling in the Maidan uprisings & siding with far right extremists in the civil war. Not only does it exonerate America but it helps vilify Russia & sell the war as wholly good. https://t.co/O8yCxw3ZPO

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) August 8, 2023

The reason the mass media have been bleating the word “unprovoked” in unison with regard to this war is because the mass media are propaganda organs of the US empire. Their repetition of this war propaganda slogan exploits a glitch in human cognition known as the illusory truth effect, which makes it difficult for our minds to tell the difference between the experience of hearing something many times and the experience of hearing something that’s true. Just repeatedly inserting the word “unprovoked” into Ukraine war commentary across the board causes people to assume it must have been launched without provocation, because the illusory truth effect can circumvent reason and logic to insert a narrative into the collective consciousness of our civilization.

The fact that all mass media outlets began doing this in unison, against all journalistic training and ethics, shows you just how united the mass media are in service of the US empire. When the need to push a narrative is particularly urgent, the facade of journalistic impartiality and independence drops away, and we see the true face of the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed.

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The city of Belém do Pará, Brazil, recently concluded the Amazon Dialogues of Organized Civil Society. This event serves as a prelude to the Summit of Amazon Presidents 2023, which is set to commence today and extend until August 9th.

Starting from August 4th, the capital of the Amazon region has played host to numerous social movements originating from various corners of the region. These movements have congregated to deliberate on matters pertaining to the reinforcement of safeguards for indigenous Amazonian communities, the rights of workers, and the preservation of the biome.

More than 400 indigenous communities hailing from the eight countries constituting the Amazon (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela) have unified their demands, proposals, and strategies that have emerged from these days of discussions. The intention is to present these points to the Presidents of the Amazonian Countries during the upcoming Summit scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. The focal point of these deliberations is the Indigenous Working Class, along with the Proletariat and Peasantry, all of whom are steadfastly tied to ancestral principles that guide the future. These diverse populations have each pioneered their own interpretations of green economies, agro-ecology, and other academic concepts.

Leaderships and authorities express their unwavering commitment to invest in the well-being of native and traditional peoples, underscoring that this investment is indispensable for achieving equilibrium and preserving our shared humanity.

The Road Towards the Amazonian Presidents’ Summit

Within the organizations, a committee representing the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) has announced the roster of demands to be presented during the upcoming Summit of Presidents. These demands encompass a range of issues, including ensuring complete legal and physical security for the collective property of indigenous territories, designating the Amazon as a climate emergency zone, halting the expansion of the agricultural frontier, holding accountable those responsible for the displacement and dispossession of Amazonian territories, and conferring the status of rights-bearing entities upon the rivers, lagoons, lakes, and aquatic systems of the Amazon.

Belém do Pará is regarded as the “gateway” to northern Brazil and serves as the primary entry point to the Amazon due to its strategic location at the mouth of the Amazon River. It ranks among the ten largest and most influential cities in Brazil.

The city will assume the central role as the host of the Summit of Amazonian Presidents on August 8 and 9. During this event, the leaders of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela will convene to “reaffirm” the principles outlined in the Amazon Cooperation Treaty of 1978. For the Amazonian peoples, as well as their respective nationalities, organizations, and social movements, the Summit of Amazonian Presidents presents a significant opportunity to bring their concerns and alternative proposals to the forefront of the discussion agenda.

On August 8, President Lula is set to welcome the Amazonian Presidents for a meeting, and on the 9th, a larger gathering is scheduled to take place involving other countries from the Global South with jungles, namely the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Africa, as well as Indonesia from Asia.

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The Technical and Scientific Reunion prior to the Amazonian Presidents’ Summit

During the preceding month in Leticia, Colombia, a plenary session transpired, attended by Gustavo Petro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, representatives from the governments of Brazil and Colombia, the Ministers of Environment of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Perú Suriname and Venezuela, the European Union, civil society, and academia. The proceedings culminated in a series of discussions and agreements.

Álvaro Leiva, Colombia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, extended a warm welcome to the participants and underscored the importance of incorporating the perspectives of the Amazon’s inhabitants into the formulation of an agenda to benefit the region. He emphasized the imperative of forming a unified front and championing environmental integrity to safeguard the Amazon. The Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister explicitly articulated the necessity to “cherish our Amazon, our Common Home.”

From the perspective of organized civil society, the conclusions derived from the technical-scientific meeting held on July 7th have been unveiled. These conclusions have placed emphasis on specific actions that need to be undertaken. These actions include ensuring access to clean water as a means to attain food security, approaching resource management with a blend of scientific insight and ancestral wisdom, democratizing the knowledge possessed by indigenous communities and facilitating its integration into the decision-making processes.

Civil society organizations have underscored the necessity of envisioning sustainability over the long term, illustrating this with concepts like the bond economy. Furthermore, there has been discussion about establishing a fund aimed at injecting resources into the Amazon, thereby addressing the creation of a future-oriented perspective and a comprehensive set of requisites for the Biome.

Conversely, it has been firmly established that governments should actively involve local and departmental authorities as well as indigenous governance structures in the management of resources. The organizations have extended an invitation to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) to formalize mechanisms that would enable continuous participation.

The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) has appealed for the effective safeguarding of 80% of the Amazon and has advocated for the inclusion of indigenous peoples through processes of prior consultation and other democratic forums. The plenary session has also served to uphold the Escazú Agreement and extol the concept of bioeconomy as a viable alternative to deforestation.

In her address, Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, reiterated the central goal of averting the critical juncture referred to as the “point of no return,” emphasizing it as the core of the Amazon Summit. Muhamad’s added, “We need an economy and ways of life that regenerate the forest and do not destroy it.”

In her concluding remarks, Susana Muhamad unequivocally emphasized the necessity of harmonizing scientific knowledge with the ancestral wisdom of the Amazon’s inhabitants. Furthermore, she issued a call for collaborative efforts aimed at conserving the forests.

During his speech, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil, addressed several crucial aspects, including:

• The imperative of ensuring a reliable water supply for both human consumption and economic endeavors.
• The circumstances facing indigenous peoples and their relationship with the concept of bio-economy.
• The tangible outcomes stemming from environmental violations.

Lula made it clear that a new ACTO will emerge from the Belém summit, incorporating representatives from local communities and organizations. This newly established space will amalgamate the academic research processes with the invaluable knowledge held by the Amazon’s inhabitants. Concluding his speech, President Lula expressed gratitude to the Colombian commission for spearheading the advancement of the technical-scientific arena.

In the final segment of the plenary, Gustavo Petro, the President of Colombia, emphasized that the pledges made during the COP gatherings in Paris and Copenhagen have fallen short of fulfillment. He firmly asserted that the harm inflicted upon the jungle equates to harm inflicted upon humanity itself, highlighting that “the planet is in constant flux and maintains its own equilibrium.” President Petro underlined unequivocally that “defense of the Amazon is a defense of life.”

LAC’s Anti-imperialist Character and Preparation for a Multipolar World

Last month, following the events in Leticia, both the CELAC-EU Summit and La Cumbre de Los Pueblos took place in Brussels, Belgium. These gatherings featured impactful speeches by Presidents Gustavo Petro, Lula Da Silva, and Luis Arce, as well as by Venezuela’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, and Venezuela’s Chancellor, Iván Gil.

The Cumbre de Los Pueblos witnessed active participation from numerous social movements and left-wing parties worldwide. It served as a platform for workshops, conferences, and a variety of events. A unanimous denouncement was voiced against the Illegal Genocidal Sanctions and Blockades imposed on Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

During the CELAC-EU Summit, the 33 member countries of CELAC called out Europe for what they perceived as hypocrisy and double standards in denouncing human rights violations in Ukraine. They highlighted Europe’s history of multiple interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as their imposition of punitive and genocidal sanctions on Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The CELAC also emphasized that Europe has not fulfilled its commitments and obligations regarding the Climate Crisis and the Amazon region.

The upcoming gathering of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union is slated to convene in Bogotá, Colombia, in the year 2025, under the presidency of Gustavo Petro. Ahead of this, Petro arrived in Brussels with a proposition aimed at decarbonizing trade. He elaborated, “The European side has proposed trade in products free from deforestation in their production. However, deforestation has impacted all agricultural processes. This should not be the sole criterion for trade. The focal point should be the carbon footprint.” Petro further articulated that the prevalent capitalist notion of wealth measured by carbon consumption needs to be replaced by the concept of decarbonized social prosperity.

These recent events have underscored the unity prevailing among the CELAC members as they position themselves on a higher ground within the context of the Multipolar World.

The main buyers of Russian grains were Saudi Arabia (578,000 tons), Turkey (518,000 tons), Egypt (467,000 tons), and Israel (345,000).

Yelena Tiurina, head of the analytical department of the Russian Grain Union, reported that Russian grain exports increased by 60 percent in July compared to the same month in 2022.

Grain exports amounted to 5.68 million tons. Of that volume, 4.54 million tons corresponded to wheat, which represents an increase of 50 percent.