3 Counter Summits Called on Public to Stand Against Biden Administration’s ‘Failed’ Summit of the Americas

Julie Varughese June 15, 2022 Julie Varughese Admin, Americas, Archives
Anti-imperialist organizations taking part in the Workers’ Summit of the Americas gathered June 12 in Tijuana at the Mexico-United States border in solidarity with the Sandinista, Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions, in repudiation of the U.S./OAS-organized Summit of the Americas / credit: Kawsachun News / Twitter
Anti-imperialist organizations that took part in the Workers’ Summit of the Americas gathered June 12 in Tijuana, Mexico, at the Mexico-United States border in solidarity with the Sandinista, Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions and repudiating the U.S./OAS-organized Summit of the Americas / credit: Kawsachun News / Twitter

After the Biden administration announced it would exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from participating in the Summit of the Americas—held last week in Los Angeles—organizations based in the United States began collaborating with international organizations to organize counter actions.

Many people on the left had followed the activities of the People’s Summit for Democracy, the well-publicized counter event to the summit the Biden administration hosted. The Summit of the Americas was denounced as a “failure” for not coming up with a plan to address climate change, the debt crisis facing many countries in the Western Hemisphere, as well as increasing inflation and white-supremacist violence in the United States, among other issues.

What some may not know is anti-imperialists held two other counter summits last week: One coalition of mainly Los Angeles-based organizations hosted the Anti-Imperialist People’s Summit of Nuestra América on June 4 as well as a June 8 rally in the city, while another coalition organized the Workers’ Summit of the Americas June 10-12 in Tijuana, Mexico.

The following organizations sponsored the June 4 and June 8 Los Angeles-based anti-imperialist events: Unión del Barrio, Raza Unida Party, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), Frente Sandinista de Liberación Naciónal (FSLN), Socialist Unity Party, American Indian Movement Southern CA (AIM SoCal), Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Bayan SoCal, Palestinian Youth Movement, Witness for Peace Southwest, Progressive Asian Network for Action, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), Los Angeles Movement for Advancing Socialism (LA MAS), Canto Sin Fronteras, Zapata-King Neighborhood Council and Guardianes de la Tierra.

Meanwhile, more than 250 organizations involved in liberation struggles convened and/or endorsed the People’s Summit.

The Workers’ Summit of the Americas in Tijuana was the only event Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan officials could attend. The following organizations sponsored the event: Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación de Baja California (CNTE-BC), International Action Center (IAC), Plataforma de la Clase Obrera Antiimperialista (PCOA), Unión del Barrio, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Black Lives Matter – Oklahoma City, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), CODEPINK, Central Bolivariana Socialista de Trabajadores (CBST), Boston School Bus Drivers Union – Local 8751, Fire This Time (FTT), University of Tijuana, Movimiento Magisterial Popular Veracruzano, Federación Bolivariana de Trabajadores del Transporte – Sectores Afines y Conexos (FBTTT), Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), FUNDALATIN, Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), Task Force on the Americas and Centro Community Service Organization.

Both the People’s Summit for Democracy and the Workers’ Summit of the Americas issued declarations (here and here). The Tijuana summit’s declaration announced plans for constituting a committee to convene annual meetings, among other actions.

Below are videos that can be viewed to learn more about each event:

 

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

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A map of countries where the United States has militarily intervened / credit: Congressional Research Service
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U.S. Launched 251 Military Interventions Since 1991, and 469 Since 1798

Benjamin Norton September 14, 2022 Benjamin Norton Admin, Americas, Archives
A map of countries where the United States has militarily intervened / credit: Congressional Research Service
A map of countries where the United States has militarily intervened / credit: Congressional Research Service

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Multipolarista.

The United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022.

This is according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a U.S. government institution that compiles information on behalf of Congress.

The report documented another 218 U.S. military interventions between 1798 and 1990.

That makes for a total of 469 U.S. military interventions since 1798 that have been acknowledged by the Congress.

This data was published on March 8, 2022, by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in a document titled “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2022.”

The list of countries targeted by the U.S. military includes the vast majority of the nations on Earth, including almost every single county in Latin America and the Caribbean and most of the African continent.

From the beginning of 1991 to the beginning of 2004, the U.S. military launched 100 interventions, according to CRS.

That number grew to 200 military interventions between 1991 and 2018.

Countries US military interventions

The report shows that, since the end of the first cold war in 1991, at the moment of U.S. unipolar hegemony, the number of Washington’s military interventions abroad substantially increased.

Of the total 469 documented foreign military interventions, the Congressional Research Service noted that the U.S. government only formally declared war 11 times, in just five separate wars.

The data exclude the independence war been U.S. settlers and the British empire, any military deployments between 1776 and 1798, and the U.S. Civil War.

It is important to stress that all of these numbers are conservative estimates, because they do not include U.S. special operations, covert actions, or domestic deployments.

The CRS report clarified:

The list does not include covert actions or numerous occurrences in which U.S. forces have been stationed abroad since World War II in occupation forces or for participation in mutual security organizations, base agreements, or routine military assistance or training operations.

The report likewise excludes the deployment of the U.S. military forces against Indigenous peoples, when they were systematically ethnically cleansed in the violent process of westward settler-colonial expansion.

CRS acknowledged that it left out the “continual use of U.S. military units in the exploration, settlement, and pacification of the western part of the United States.”

The Military Intervention Project at Tufts University’s Center for Strategic Studies has documented even more foreign meddling.

“The U.S. has undertaken over 500 international military interventions since 1776, with nearly 60 percent undertaken between 1950 and 2017,” the project wrote. “What’s more, over one-third of these missions occurred after 1999.”

The Military Intervention Project added: “With the end of the Cold War era, we would expect the U.S. to decrease its military interventions abroad, assuming lower threats and interests at stake. But these patterns reveal the opposite—the U.S. has increased its military involvements abroad.”

Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez denounced a new attempt on her life on January 10 / credit: Francia Márquez / Twitter
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Another Assassination Attempt Against Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez

Peoples Dispatch January 12, 2023 Peoples Dispatch Admin, Americas, Archives
Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez denounced a new attempt on her life on January 10 / credit: Francia Márquez / Twitter
Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez denounced a new attempt on her life on January 10 / credit: Francia Márquez / Twitter

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.

Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez, on Tuesday, January 10, denounced a new attempt on her life. Márquez reported on Twitter that her security team had found a highly destructive explosive device near her family home in the Yolombó village, in the Suárez municipality, in the Cauca department during a security check before her visit. Márquez also reported that the device had been destroyed in a controlled explosion by bomb disposal experts.

“Members of my security team found a device with more than 7 kg of explosive material on the road that leads to my family residence in the village of Yolombó, in Suárez, Cauca. It was destroyed in a controlled manner by anti-explosive personnel from the SIJIN,” Márquez tweeted along with photos of what appeared to be an improvised explosive device.

The Vice President and Minister of Equality, in another tweet, shared a police report about the incident, and said that “the attached report shows that it was another attempt on my life.”

Márquez, an environmental activist who became the first Black woman vice president of Colombia against all odds, added that “regardless, we won’t stop working every day, day after day, until we achieve Total Peace that Colombia dreams of and needs. We will not give up until it is possible to live in true harmony in each territory.”

Márquez had planned to visit her hometown in Yolombó from January 7 to 9. For this reason, a prior inspection was carried out in the areas close to her residence, when the explosives were found. Due to the characteristics and location of the device, intelligence and security personnel concluded that this was an attack against the vice president.

This was not the first time that Márquez had her life threatened. In May 2022, before the presidential elections, during a campaign rally in the capital Bogotá, Márquez was pointed at with a laser when she was on stage addressing a multitude of supporters. At that time, her bodyguards immediately covered her with bulletproof shields to protect her and prevent an attack against her life.

In April 2022, the far-right paramilitary group, Águilas Negras or Black Eagles, issued death threats against several members of the left-wing Historic Pact coalition, including Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez, who were candidates at the time.

It was the third death threat that Márquez had received in less than a month. The Águilas Negras had issued two other death threats to Márquez and other progressive political and social leaders in March 2022.

Márquez, who rose to prominence for her struggle against illegal gold mining in Suárez, took office with President Gustavo Petro last year on promises of fighting inequalities, corruption, impunity, drug trafficking, paramilitarism and consolidating peace.

Violence against environmentalists, land defenders, human rights defenders, Afro-descendent, Indigenous, peasant and social leaders like Márquez is not uncommon in Colombia. Paramilitary and drug trafficking groups have been targeting those who work to defend land and natural resources in their territories and pose a threat to the organization’s illegal operations.

Colombia has lived through almost 60 years of internal armed conflict over territorial disputes between paramilitary groups, drug traffickers, the army and guerrillas, which has killed around 450,000 people and displaced over 8 million.

Colombia’s first leftist leaders, President Petro and Vice President Márquez, are determined to bring total peace to the country. The Petro-Márquez government has called on all irregular armed groups operating in different parts of the country to negotiate peace agreements.

According to Colombian human rights organization, the Institute of Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), so far, at least 23 irregular armed groups have expressed their intention to  engage in dialogue and “accept legal benefits in exchange for peace and definitive non-repetition of violence.”

The government has already begun negotiations with four groups including the dissident groups of the demobilized FARC guerilla group: the Estado Mayor Central, the Segunda Marquetalia; and the drug cartels Clan del Golfo and Los Pachencas. The peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) which began under the government of Juan Manuel Santos, but was suspended during the term of Iván Duque, was also restarted and the first round of talks was held in Caracas, Venezuela in December 2022.

A group of the U.S. solidarity activists who traveled with the People's Forum met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on May Day, or International Workers' Day on May 1 / credit: Estudios Revolución
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Cuban President Spoke with Solidarity Activists Who Traveled for International Workers’ Day

Prensa Latina May 4, 2023 Prensa Latina Admin, Americas, Archives
A group of the U.S. solidarity activists who traveled with the People's Forum met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on May Day, or International Workers' Day on May 1 / credit: Estudios Revolución
A group of the U.S.-based solidarity activists who traveled with the People’s Forum met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on May Day, or International Workers’ Day on May 1 / credit: Estudios Revolución

Editor’s Note: The following Prensa Latina article was originally published in Granma.

HAVANA, MAY 1—The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, spoke here today with nearly 300 friends of the island from the United States and accompanying the fight against the blockade.

At the Palace of the Revolution, the participants spoke about their commitment to Cuba, to fight with more force against the inhuman U.S. blockade, to add more young people to this battle, about socialism and the example that the island represents.

A group that traveled with the People's Forum and U.S. Hands Off Cuba included Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls / credit: Estudios Revolución
A group that traveled with the People’s Forum and U.S. Hands Off Cuba included Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls (back row, second from left) / credit: Estudios Revolución

During the dialogue, U.S. activist Manolo de los Santos said that the experience of these days in Cuba has been wonderful, because they live the truth of the people, in the midst of the difficult economic times they are going through, detailed the Presidency of the Republic on Twitter.

The 2023 May Day Brigade that traveled with the U.S.-based National Network on Cuba visited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in the presidential palace / credit: Estudios Revolución
The 2023 May Day Brigade that traveled with the U.S.-based National Network on Cuba visited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in the Palace of the Revolution / credit: Estudios Revolución

“We have witnessed the great strength of the Cuban people, how they resist and bring out the best of their creativity,” stressed the co-executive director of The People’s Forum.

U.S.-based participants visited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in the presidential palace on May 1, International Workers' Day / credit: Estudios Revolución
U.S.-based participants visited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in the Palace of the Revolution on May 1, International Workers’ Day / credit: Estudios Revolución

Our commitment upon returning, he said, will not only be to raise our voice, but to organize a different political project in the United States, and we will always be by Cuba’s side.

Shirts worn by May Day Brigade participants, who traveled to Cuba through the U.S.-based National Network on Cuba / credit: Estudios Revolución
Shirts worn by 2023 May Day Brigade participants, who traveled to Cuba through the U.S.-based National Network on Cuba / credit: Estudios Revolución

Since April 24, one of the largest delegations to visit the country in decades has been in the Caribbean nation, with the aim of renewing the ties of solidarity between the people of Cuba and the United States despite the aggressive foreign policy of U.S. President Joe Biden.

It is made up of young people who are visiting Cuba for the first time and others with a long history of solidarity and accompaniment towards the Cuban Revolution.