From Palestine to Venezuela: The US is behind the door
Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Palestinian journalist Aseel Saleh reflects on the US attempts to destabilize nations across the world to achieve its interests, focusing on the current threats on Venezuela, a stalworth supporter of the Palestinian cause.
From Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, to the war against Vietnam between 1955 and 1975, the war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and countless more in between, the US war machine has claimed the lives of millions of people around the globe without batting an eye, using false pretexts every time.
This brutal machine has continued its lethal operations in subsequent periods, even if not directly, by fueling and igniting proxy wars in West Asia, during the Arab revolts, primarily in Syria and Yemen.
Providing Israel with unwavering military support, has also been a central strategy of the bellicose empire, through which it has tightened its grip on the region, since the Zionist state was established in 1948.
Wherever massacres and mass destruction exist, the US is definitely there. This is reminiscent of the words that Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote, decrying the US complicity in the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).
Despite not apparently having a direct role in the conflict then, the US supplied Israel with aircrafts and cluster bombs, which the latter used to commit horrific war crimes across Lebanon.
Darwish said:
“The US is atop the wall giving each child a cluster-death toy as a gift,
Oh you, the Hiroshima of the Arab lover (Beirut), the US is the plague, and the plague is the US.
We fell asleep, the aircrafts and the US awaken us,
and the US is only for the US,
while this horizon has become a cement for the aerial monster.
We open the sardines can, it gets shelled by canons.
We hide behind the curtains, the building shakes, the doors jump.
The US is behind the door, behind the door is the US.”
From Gaza to Venezuela, the US is still behind the door
The US was, is, and will always be behind the door of any country where it has economic or geopolitical interests. US President Donald Trump has acted like a landlord during his first and second terms, feeling entitled to take over the wealth of whatever nation he chooses, or expand his real estate empire anywhere he finds adequate.
Trump’s avarice has no limits, to an extent that has made his administration not only complicit, but a partner in Israel’s horrendous genocide in the Gaza strip and the deliberate starvation of the population. For him, the killing of over 70,000 Palestinian is insignificant as long as the genocide would make his dream of turning Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” true, due to its distinctive seafront on the Mediteranean.
Perceiving Gaza as a great potential for an illusionary real estate project, does not seem to be the only motivation for Trump to support Israel in its genocidal aggression. Media reports indicate that Gaza is rich with offshore natural gas, valued at up to USD 4 billion per year.
Taking over Gaza and its gas reserves will not be possible with the presence of the Palestinian grassroots and resistance groups, who have confronted the Israeli occupation and its US-supported colonial project in the region. Thus, launching a merciless war against the besieged enclave was the only way for the US to achieve these goals.
It is the same imperialist equation when it comes to the US aggression on Venezuela. Although the Trump administration claimed that it is waging a war against the Latin American country due to its alleged involvement in narcotic trafficking in the Caribbean sea, no evidence has been provided to validate the claim.
Read More: US deploys aircraft carrier and threatens invasion of Venezuela
Analysts suggest that the planned invasion is politically and economically motivated. The US is attempting to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, the leader of the anti-imperialist Bolivarian revolution that will never allow the US to exploit the country’s oil wealth, or become subordinate to it.
The US has repeatedly threatened to take military action directly against Venezuela after failing to subjugate the nation, despite imposing a crushing sanctions regime on it for many years. This was followed by unsuccessful bids to ignite infighting and destabilize the country through a US-guided violent opposition led by María Corina Machado.
Israel has implemented a similar strategy to pressure the Palestinian resistance in Gaza to lay down arms and surrender by imposing a stifling siege on the enclave since 2007, 16 years before it launched its two-year genocidal aggression on October 7, 2023. It has also enhanced the division between the two major Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, to undermine unity and spread chaos between Palestinians.
The Palestinian cause is Bolivarian
Both Palestinians and Venezuelans are fully aware that their struggle is the same in its confrontation with US-led Western imperialist hegemony and fascism. A concept which late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had always emphasized not only in words, but with actual continued support to the Palestinian people and their just cause.
“The Bolivarian revolution from day one stood by the side of the Palestinian people in their memorable struggle against the genocidal state of Israel that tramples on, kills and seeks to exterminate the Palestinian people,” Chávez said as he received Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Venezuela’s capital Caracas in 2009.
“The struggle for Palestine is a first-order struggle for the homeland of the Liberator (Simón Bolívar) and the Bolivarian revolution.” He added.
Maduro has maintained Chavez’s legacy of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which he considers as “the most sacred cause of humanity”. It has also been a daily concern of the Venezuelan people, who hold it deep in their heart.
Therefore, it is time for Palestinians, alongside internationalists and all people of conscience, to unite and rally around Venezuela in defense of its independence and sovereignty, because the defeat of one nation by imperialism undermines the will of all other nations.
Late Palestinian resistance leader Fathi Shaqaqi once said: “It is a war of genocide that has been imposed on us, during which it is a shame to fight dispersedly. It is either that we rise up together, or they will eliminate each one of us individually.”
Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Twenty years after “No to the FTAA”, Latin American movements reaffirm their anti-imperialist commitment
Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
The meeting in Mar del Plata paid tribute to the moment when several Latin American presidents defeated the US attempt to establish a regional free trade agreement.
In the same place where the regional free trade project was “buried” two decades ago, 150 delegates from various social movements in Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, Haiti, Palestine, Chile, Nicaragua, Peru, and Paraguay gathered to reaffirm the anti-imperialist spirit that led to the regional rejection of the FTAA project, they say.
“The world faces greater levels of inequality, injustice, and authoritarianism, with a growing concentration of financial and technological power that deepens poverty and limits the autonomy of countries in the Global South,” the delegates said in the event’s final declaration.
The meeting was also attended by the governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, who stated that the rejection of the FTAA in 2005 was a “new declaration of independence” for Latin American countries. “The rejection of the FTAA was a victory for Latin American sovereignty, voiced by a group of presidents with enormous courage, represented in our country by Néstor Kirchner. Twenty years after that historic milestone, we have a responsibility to continue building unity, because there is no possibility of development for our countries outside the framework of regional integration. We cannot afford not to have a project on behalf of our people, because Argentina and the countries of Latin America are not anyone’s backyard,” Kicillof wrote in X.
For his part, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA), Adolfo Aguirre, stated: “In this very place, in front of the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and before the eyes of the whole world, our peoples, workers, together with leaders such as Néstor Kirchner, Hugo Chávez, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, marked a turning point. We said no to surrender, no to dependence, no to the model that wanted to turn our America into the backyard of economic power.”
Twenty years ago, the anti-imperialist slogan was born
Twenty years ago in Argentina, several political leaders from the Latin American left gathered at a People’s Summit, whose fundamental slogan was the rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an initiative promoted, among others, by the George W. Bush administration. The FTAA sought to significantly reduce customs barriers between American countries.
According to popular and left-wing forces in Latin America and the Caribbean, the agreement would have promoted a regional market in which the United States would have had an enormous advantage over other countries and which, in the long run, would have led to the destruction of the still immature regional industry to benefit the interests of large US companies.
However, the economic and geopolitical project did not prosper due to fierce and coordinated opposition from several Latin American presidents, including Néstor Kirchner (Argentina), Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), among others. The political maneuver took place in Mar del Plata, during the Summit of the Americas, where Bush and his entourage suffered a severe setback. Thus, the proposal that had been in the works and planned since 1994 in Miami and was definitively defeated.
The Summit of the Americas is considered by several experts to be a turning point in the geopolitical relations of the American continent. New progressive and pro-sovereignty processes joined those of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, giving rise to an attempt at regional integration that to this day is pushed by progressivism and boycotted by Washington’s neoliberal allies.
While the summit was taking place, thousands of people from left-wing and progressive movements and political parties gathered at a parallel conference with the slogan “No to the FTAA,” which was eventually attended by several political leaders. Among them, Hugo Chávez made a statement in his speech that would go down in history: “ALCA (FTAA in Spanish), al carajo! (FTAA, go to hell!)”.
A historic event
The region has undoubtedly changed its political composition. The seemingly unstoppable rise of progressive governments is now fragmented due to the emergence of new right-wing and neoliberal projects, such as those of Javier Milei in Argentina and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, and the recent victory of the Bolivian right after more than 20 years of left-wing governments, among others.
However, in several countries, progressivism managed to regain government, as in the case of Lula da Silva himself, or managed to remain in power, as in the case of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Also, in other countries such as Colombia with Gustavo Petro and Mexico with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, progressive governments took office for the first time in their recent history.
In this sense, the dispute over governments in Latin America remains open, and much of the structure of that dispute can be found in what happened in Mar del Plata 20 years ago, where one regional project was buried and another was established, for almost a decade, as the model for regional integration around a position that, although it had its clear limits, always declared itself sovereign and independent.
Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Progressive popular movements and organizations stand in solidarity with the people of Sudan
Original article by Nicholas Mwangi republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Popular organizations and movements across Africa and beyond have condemned the ongoing massacre of the Sudanese people by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), calling for an immediate end to the violence. Urging support for the Sudanese people’s struggle for peace, justice, and democratic self-determination.
Across Africa and the world, progressive and popular organizations are raising their voices in solidarity with the people of Sudan, as they face one of the most brutal and protracted conflicts in the world today. From Ghana to South Africa, from international networks to grassroots movements, the message is unified in a call to end the massacres, open humanitarian corridors, and uphold the Sudanese people’s struggle for justice, peace, and sovereignty.
Amid mounting international condemnation for its war crimes, especially over the last several weeks, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have reportedly agreed to a three-month pause in the fighting. However, analysts and activists argue that the “humanitarian ceasefire” is far from a solution to the two-and-a-half-year war.
The Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) condemned the “genocidal conflict between factions of the militarized elite” that has terrorized the people of Sudan since 2023. In their statement, the movement expressed solidarity with the Sudanese people and their popular organizations, including the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), lauding their courage and political clarity in the face of devastation.
The SMG statement described the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF as a tragic consequence of elite rivalries and foreign interference. It denounced the “murky transnational corporate and resource-grabbing agenda of the United States, Western powers, and some Arab and East African countries” fueling the conflict.
“The people of Sudan clearly reject both warring factions and any national ‘solution’ based on military force or elite interests,” SMG declared, reaffirming that Sudan’s revolution, born out of the people’s 2018 uprising, continues to embody the demand for democracy, justice, and full sovereignty over national resources.
The International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA) and Pan Africanism Today (PAT) also issued a joint statement condemning the “brutal massacres currently unfolding in Sudan,” particularly in El-Fasher, Bara, Darfur, and Kordofan, describing the atrocities as genocide. They called for immediate international mobilization, demanding a ceasefire, protection of civilians, and independent investigations into war crimes.
“The Sudanese people face a destructive war machine, defending their dignity, communities, and right to live,” the statement read. It called upon trade unions, women’s movements, youth, and social movements worldwide to stand with Sudan through coordinated actions, educational events, and artistic expressions of solidarity.
Read More: A bloodbath visible from space: RSF’s massacres in Sudan’s El Fasher
Joining this call, South Africa’s Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement, representing shack dwellers and grassroots activists, issued a solidarity statement denouncing the ongoing massacres in El-Fasher and Darfur. The movement condemned the RSF’s atrocities; executions, mass killings, and the starvation of entire communities, financed by the United Arab Emirates and sustained by European complicity in migration control.
“The uprising that began in December 2018 was a democratic revolt of workers, women, students and the urban poor,” Abahlali’s statement reminded. “That uprising gave rise to new grass-roots forms of democracy through the resistance committees, which continue to provide food, medicine, and mutual aid amid war.”
Sudan’s struggle is our struggle. As the Socialist Movement of Ghana declared:
“Let us stand for unity, sovereignty, and development. Sudan’s struggle is Africa’s struggle.”
Original article by Nicholas Mwangi republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Day of the Salvadoran Trade Unionist: how El Salvador’s labor martyrs shaped a revolutionary tradition
Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
The October 31 commemoration links past revolutionary struggles with today’s fight for labor rights and democracy
October 31 in El Salvador is recognized as the Day of the Salvadoran Trade Unionist.
This year’s commemoration event brought together veteran organizers and a new generation of grassroots leaders, bridging past and present struggles for workers’ rights and social change.
“This date brings us back to the origin of labor organizing in our country,” asserted Marisela Ramírez, a leader of the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Bloc, at the rally at Cuscatlán Park in San Salvador, organized by the group.
“We remember with dignity, the history of struggle, resistance, and sacrifice, of the labor movement in El Salvador.”
A few hundred people gathered with placards, flags, and banners representing various organizations, like the Salvadoran Social and Labor Front (FSS), the Permanent Roundtable for Labor Justice, the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), and others.
Ramírez outlined the legacy that the day is tied to: the historic strikes of the 40s and 50s, the struggles for the 8-hour workday, for fair wages, and for the right to unionize. The event also paid tribute to “the thousands of women and men who, during the repression of the 70s and 80s, sacrificed their lives to defend justice and the dignity of the working class” against the US-backed Salvadoran government.
The Day of the Salvadoran Trade Unionist was established by Legislative Decree 589 (1990). It specifically honors the leaders of the National Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers (FENASTRAS) that were bombed by government forces on October 31, 1989.
Friday’s commemoration paid homage to prominent labor figure Febe Elizabeth Velasquéz and the nine other leaders martyred in the attack on the country’s principal organized labor front at the time.
A legacy of revolutionary struggle
The country’s trade groups have a long history of tying labor organizing to social change. These connections can be traced back to the formation of the Communist Party in 1930. Similarly, many of the 1989 FENASTRAS martyrs were affiliated with the National Unity of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), the main federation tied to the popular movement aligned with the left guerilla force, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
Legislative Decree 589 (1990) came two years before the 1992 Peace Accords, which officially ended the 12-year war between the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) and the US-backed Salvadoran state.
By 1990, faced with continued armed opposition and a popular movement (made up of unions, student groups, and peasant associations) that had endured heavy repression, the Salvadoran government was under tremendous pressure to negotiate and recognize the legitimacy of the country’s social movements.
The deadly attack on FENASTRAS’ headquarters was a major factor in this outcome. Less than two weeks after the massacre, the FMLN would launch their historic final offensive, named in honor of the martyred union leader: “To the Limit, Period. Febe Elizabeth Lives”.
The military operation was the largest and most intense engagement of the entire war. About 3,000 FMLN fighters engaged in coordinated assaults on key military and government installations in San Salvador, proving, in a way not done before, their capacity to wage war in urban environments.
The Salvadoran military responded with intense fighting and indiscriminate aerial bombardment of residential neighborhoods, allegedly to dislodge the guerilla fighters. One US-trained Atlacatl Battalion unit stormed the Central American University (UCA) campus and murdered six Jesuit priests. The priests were known to advocate for a negotiated settlement to the conflict and spoke out against the military’s human rights abuses. The government and military claimed they were the “brain of the guerilla”.
International condemnation of the Salvadoran government grew louder than ever.
The FMLN was ultimately forced to retreat from the cities, but not before making it clear that a decisive military victory for the government was impossible. Negotiations became inevitable.
Decree 589 (1990) represented one of the first concessions by the state. It opened democratic space and acknowledged the sacrifices of trade unionists persecuted, imprisoned, or killed over the previous decade for their association with the revolutionary left. The FENASTRAS bombing and the martyrdom of Febe Elizabeth Velásquez was etched in history as the Day of the Salvadoran Trade Unionist.
Following these events, the power of the revolutionary movement and organized labor in El Salvador would completely restructure politics in the country through key democratic reforms signed into law in the 1992 Peace Accords.
Historical continuity and labor setbacks under Bukele
At the rally at Cuscatlán Park, the Bloc emphasized that this day is not only about remembrance, but also historical continuity: “the defense of labor rights today is part of the same battle for social justice that those martyrs defended with their lives,” Marisela Ramírez proclaimed.
The event’s organizers asserted that today, the Salvadoran trade unionist faces a new wave of “persecution and criminalization” by the “authoritarian regime of Nayib Bukele”.
Read More: One more year of Bukele: tough on crime, struggling with poverty
“This regime has imposed a neoliberal and anti-union model that intends to eliminate all forms of independent organizing that defends labor rights,” says the Bloc leader.
The group has consistently denounced a systematic weakening of union structures by the Bukele regime. They claim that recently, dozens of union members have suffered arbitrary arrests, threats, and terminations without justification. Over 200 unions have been denied credentials.
Despite the increasing attacks, Ramírez tells Peoples Dispatch that the historic spirit of resistance in the Salvadoran labor movement is still alive.
“Just as before, today we see unionism as a collective and solidarity-based struggle, not only for economic improvements, but also for social transformation and justice,” she says.
Several Palestine flags were visible throughout the crowd, as well as placards that read “Respect our rights!” and “Freedom for political prisoners!” Some had photos of young men imprisoned or disappeared, asserting their innocence. Several placards displayed the image of Febe Elizabeth Velasquéz. Others, the image of Óscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, assassinated by government forces in 1980 after calling on the soldiers to disobey their orders amid escalating violence and massacres of civilians.
Eneida Abarca, mother of a disappeared young man named Carlos Abarca, spoke passionately about the historical continuity that the day represents.
“The impunity of yesterday is the impunity of today,” she declared.
“The only way to resist the impunity, the social injustice that we’re living under is through social struggle. We have to continue taking the streets and raising our voices.”
While the Bloc’s event was an act of protest against the current regime, the government-aligned Salvadoran Trade Union Unity (USS) held a separate commemoration event in San Salvador in collaboration with officials.
Rebuilding the labor movement in Bukele’s El Salvador
Ramírez says that what is lacking in the Salvadoran left is a political instrument that can “capture the discontent of the popular sectors and channel their demands towards a strategic commitment to social transformation.”
Amid Bukele’s “state of exception”, the challenge the new generation faces, she argues, is that of rebuilding and revitalizing Salvadoran trade unionism. Not just the infrastructure itself but the values and culture of historic movements. The new generation must promote “the active participation of women and young people in a process of organizational and ethical renewal that can re-articulate the labor struggles with broader social causes,” Ramírez says.
The Popular Resistance and Rebellion Bloc recently held a mass march on September 15, El Salvador’s Independence Day. It mobilized its various affiliated organizations, trade unions, civil society groups, and the general public against the human rights violations of the Bukele government.
A new generation may be doing just that: revitalizing the historic struggles of the Central American country.
As resistance grows once again, organizers across generations maintain that commemorations like the Day of the Salvadoran Trade Unionist are crucial in giving shape, identity, and historical memory to the social movements of today.
The labor leaders targeted in the October 31, 1989 FRENASTRAS bombing are the following:
Febe Elizabeth Velásquez – General Secretary of FENASTRAS and member of the National Unity of Workers (UNTS); killed.
Ricardo Humberto Cestoni – Recording Secretary of the ANDA Workers’ Company Union (SETA); killed.
Rosa Hilda Saravia de Elías – Member of the Union of Workers of the Cotton, Synthetic, Textile Finishing and Related Industries (STITAS); killed.
Julia Tatiana Mendoza Aguirre – Member of the Gastronomic Union (STITGASC); killed.
Vicente Melgar – Secretary of Social Assistance of SETA; killed.
José Daniel López Meléndez – Member of SETA and Secretary of Conflicts of FENASTRAS; killed.
Luis Gerardo Vásquez – Member of the General Union of Bank Employees (SIGEBAN); killed.
María Magdalena Sánchez – FENASTRAS member; killed.
Carmen Hernández – FENASTRAS member; killed
Unidentified male worker – Died later from injuries sustained in the explosion
Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.