The crisis of the trapped combatant constitutes one of 393 Israeli violations of the truce agreement, which came into effect on October 10.
Hamas warned in a statement issued on Wednesday, November 26, that Israel’s killing and arresting of its resistance fighters, who have been trapped in tunnels in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip for weeks, would jeopardize the ceasefire deal.
The Palestinian resistance movement considered the pursuit of the trapped fighters a “blatant violation” of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.
Hamas also clarified that it “made great efforts during the past month with different political leaders and mediators to solve the problem of the fighters, and secure their return to their homes by providing certain ideas and mechanisms” to address the crisis.
The statement was released one day after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) announced that it killed four Hamas fighters and arrested two others, while they were getting out from underground tunnels in Rafah, within the Israeli-controlled “yellow-line” zone.
It is worth noting that around 200 fighters affiliated with Hamas have been trapped in Rafah since the ceasefire deal came into force on October 10. This is despite the fact that the Palestinian group as well as mediators have demanded a safe passage for the fighters to areas inside Gaza not controlled by Israel as part of the agreement.
On Sunday, November 30, family sources confirmed that Abdallah Hamad, who is the son of Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official and member of the movement’s negotiation delegation, was among the trapped Al-Qassam fighters that were killed by the IOF in Rafah.
Moreover, the IOF announced in a statement that same day that it has killed over 40 of those fighters inside the tunnels during the past week, but Hamas has not confirmed the claim yet. The Israeli military further stated that it will intensify efforts to demolish the remaining tunnels in eastern Rafah and eliminate the trapped combatants therein.
The pursuit of Hamas combatants, one of over 393 Israeli violations
Israel’s continued pursuit of Hamas fighters constitutes one of at least 393 reported Israeli violations since the ceasefire took effect.
United Nations rapporteurs warned in a statement issued on Monday, November 24, that Israel’s flagrant infringements of the truce agreement resulted in the killing of 339 Palestinians, including more than 70 children, and the injuring over 870 others.
As Israeli violations continued in the days that followed the statement, the death toll increased to 352 based on the latest information provided by medical sources in Gaza, on Thursday, November 27.
These sources added that the tally of Palestinian fatalities since Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, has risen to 69,799, most of them children and women.
Israel responds to Hamas’s warning by offering a surrender proposal
An Israeli official was quoted by local media on Thursday, declaring that his government had sent a proposal to Hamas through mediators last week, suggesting that the trapped combatants should hand themselves to the Israeli authorities if they want to avoid being killed.
Arab and Palestinian sources: “no progress is visible” in implementing phase two of Gaza ceasefire
Israeli media reports surfaced on Thursday, regarding talks on the implementation of phase two of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited Arab and Palestinian sources familiar with the negotiations, saying that no progress in the talks is visible as Hamas refuses to disarm before Israel withdraws from Gaza and a detailed plan to hand over its weapons is brought forward.
Meanwhile, Israeli Channel 14 said it was told by an official at the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) for Gaza that first troops of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) are expected to arrive in Gaza next January.
The channel added that the “disarmament process” in the war-torn strip will be completed by the end of April.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
On November 29, hundreds of thousands marched across Europe in support of Palestine and against government complicity in Israel’s genocide.
The Palestine solidarity movement in Europe again brought record numbers to the streets on the UN’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, November 29, reaffirming demands for an end to government complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. Hundreds of thousands marched across the region, with demonstrations in London and Rome each reaching an estimated 100,000 participants.
“On this day, people around the world express their support for the inalienable rights that are currently denied to Palestinians: the right to live free from discrimination, the right to self-determination, and the right to return to their lands,” the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) wrote on social media. “Despite this Britain continues to arm Israel and refuses to implement meaningful sanctions or end its diplomatic support. It still provides parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, used to bomb Palestinians in Gaza and maintains contracts with Israeli weapons manufacturers like Elbit Systems.”
Saturday’s demonstration was the 33rd national march for Palestine in Britain. In addition to local activists, it also welcomed international guests who have stood with Palestinians since the beginning of the genocide, including Belgian MEP Marc Botenga of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA), French parliamentarian Nadège Abomangoli of France Unbowed (LFI), and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. While addressing the crowd in London, they emphasized the internationalist character of the mobilization and echoed demands that could be heard in their home countries around the same time.
As thousands marched in Paris and Dublin, they insisted on the need to continue organizing despite political obstruction and attacks. Irish actor Liam Cunningham, a vocal supporter of Palestine, helped lead Dublin’s demonstration. Responding to artists being de-platformed for speaking out against genocide, he said: “If anyone doesn’t want to employ me because I’ve taken a stand against injustice, against the refusal to give self-determination to a group of people who are politically, culturally on the same track that my country was on for 800 years […] they’re not going to be very good at their job, because they’ve no soul.”
Another recurring message across Europe refused the mainstream media allegation of a “ceasefire” in Gaza. “There’s no ceasefire just because it’s written on a Western media banner,” Cunningham added. “Let’s come up with another word, ‘ceasefire’ is not working.”
In Italy, the central mobilization followed a successful day of general strike organized by the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). The march welcomed UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and Freedom Flotilla activists Greta Thunberg and Thiago Ávila. Dockworkers and firefighters affiliated with USB, who have played key roles in earlier protests and faced reprisals for this, also formed notable protest blocs. The response of Italy’s political establishment to growing support for Palestine mirrors that of other European governments: attempting to suppress dissent and insisting that further militarization is the only path forward.
Palestine solidarity march in London, November 29, 2025. Source: Marc Botenga/Facebook
“Today we see what this path has created: a genocide, broadcast live, carried out with the complicity of Western governments; massacres in the Mediterranean; NATO wars; bombs across the world,” said Marta Collot, spokesperson for the left party Potere al Popolo, during the Rome demonstration. “But something has changed too. The September mobilizations, the three general strikes called by USB that brought everything to a halt, and our march today show that they were wrong […] Our demonstration is the message coming from Palestine, from socialist Cuba resisting, from Venezuela. It shows that an alternative path is not only necessary, but that it’s possible.”
“Today there are two Europes,” Marc Botenga emphasized in London. “There is the Europe of the establishment, the Europe of the governments that have funded this genocide, that have supported this genocide, and that are continuing to do so. And then, there’s the other Europe, there’s the Europe that we incarnate here today. That is the Europe of liberation, the Europe that says no to occupation.”
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Presidential candidate Fernando Dias da Costa of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS) in a pre-election meeting. Photo: JAAC / Facebook
Claiming to be under arrest, President Embaló has left the country while his opponents remain in custody after a military coup a day ahead of the announcement of the final results
The military coup in Guinea-Bissau on November 26 was not directed against the outgoing president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, but orchestrated by him to thwart the return to constitutional order, opposition parties and members of the dissolved parliament allege.
Claiming to be arrested by the coup leaders – while still communicating with the French media – Embaló flew to neighboring Senegal the following day. His opponents, on the other hand, are still held in military custody.
The coup came on the heels of the long-delayed elections on Sunday, November 23. Both domestic and international observers had reportedly agreed that Embaló was voted out of the presidency.
“Why would anyone do a coup against a losing candidate?” asked Imani Umoja, Central Committee member of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).
Having led the country’s liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism under the leadership of the Marxist revolutionary Amilcar Cabral, PAIGC is the country’s largest party. Its presidential candidate, Domingos Simões Pereira, Embaló’s main opponent, was barred from contesting the election by the Supreme Court, whose legitimate president had been replaced in 2023 by militias of the presidential guard under Embaló’s command.
“We had three options. One was to boycott the election,” which would have only handed over power to Embaló for the second term without a fight, Umoja told Peoples Dispatch. “Or we could have taken the streets in protest, but that is what the regime wanted. They would have killed us and postponed the election,” further extending his rule that had already continued beyond his term.
“So we decided to back one of the candidates approved to contest. Dias was our natural choice,” because he is the head of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS) – a splinter from the PAIGC. “There is no great ideological difference between us,” he added, explaining the split was over tactical differences, overcoming which the two parties had often collaborated on broader struggles.
Although the leadership of the PRS identified the party as “social-democratic” as opposed to PAIGC’s “socialist” identification, the rank-and-file of both parties are Cabralists.
“So we were able to reach an agreement that once Dias becomes the president, he would reverse all the unconstitutional decrees by Embaló.”
An unconstitutional regime
Swearing himself in as the country’s president at a hotel guarded by soldiers in February 2020 after a disputed election against the PAIGC leader Pereira, who was barred from contesting this time, Embaló had the president of the Supreme Court replaced, practically at gunpoint, in November 2023. Then, in December that year, he unconstitutionally dissolved the parliament, where the PAIGC had the majority, justifying the action by citing a coup attempt he had allegedly staged himself.
Removing the ministers constitutionally chosen by this parliament, he replaced them with a so-called “Government of Presidential Initiative.”
Thus, grabbing all power and dismantling democratic structures, Embaló has allegedly been signing away in secret valuable natural resources and lucrative infrastructure projects to France and the neighboring West African states under its neocolonial yoke.
A reversal of this neocolonial penetration was set to begin under Dias’s presidency, starting with the restoration of the dissolved parliament, the National People’s Assembly, dominated by the PAIGC and presided by its leader and barred candidate, Pereira.
According to the vote count from each region published by the Regional Electoral Councils, Embaló bagged around 43% of the votes, while Dias had won with about 53%, said Umoja.
A staged coup
However, one day before the National Electoral Council was set to publish the final results, summing up the nationwide count and the votes from the diaspora, gunfire erupted near the presidential palace.
“But there was no fighting. Soldiers were shooting in the air,” said Umoja. Embaló then told the French media that he had been removed from power in a coup led by a group of soldiers who had put him under arrest. “It was all staged. The coup was not against Embaló, but Dias… the president-elect.”
Opening fire near the National Election Council, “another group of armed people from the Ministry of Interior, accompanied by some soldiers, barged into its office and seized the phones of all the workers there, including the representatives of the candidates,” he added.
“A group of heavily armed militias associated with the Presidential Palace” also “invaded the campaign headquarters of the presidential candidate [Dias],” said Ruth Monteiro, Director of the Office of the President of the National People’s Assembly, namely Pereira.
Pereira was arrested with Dias’s National Representative, Octávio Lopes, and several others, Monteiro added. Dias himself managed to escape arrest “through a back door,” he later said in a video message.
Shutting down the radio, the officers who carried out the coup read out a statement on television, declaring themselves in charge, christening their junta as the “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order.”
Announcing the closure of borders, they ordered the suspension of the electoral process “until further notice”, ostensibly to thwart the “capture of Guinean democracy” by “narcotraffickers”.
Labeling this as “a self-coup orchestrated by Umaru Sissoko Embaló, who was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls,” the West Africa People’s Organization said: “The very clear aim is to prevent the electoral body from announcing results that are unfavorable to this well-known agent of the neo-colonial system.”
On November 27, when General Horta Nta Na Man swore in as transitional president for one year, the junta announced that it “strictly prohibits any demonstration, march, strike or action that disrupts peace and stability.”
Protests
“We cannot fold our hands while our leadership is imprisoned unjustly. When our leader and candidate was barred from contesting, we chose to avoid” a confrontation by not taking to the streets, backing another candidate instead. “But now we have run out of options. We have to protest.”
The Amílcar Cabral African Youth (JAAC) posted videos of protest marches in some neighborhoods around the Ministry of Interior. Large-scale protests are at high risk at the moment in Guinea-Bissau. A large section of “our leadership is still in hiding,” Umoja added.
However, the diaspora is mobilizing. In Dakar, the capital of Senegal, progressive Senegalese activists protested alongside the diaspora outside the Guinea-Bissau embassy against hosting Embaló in the country. “Dictators are not wanted anywhere!” Umoja remarked.
JAAC Portugal and Firkidja di Pubis, an organization of Guinean students and workers abroad, protested in Lisbon, capital of their former colony, outside the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), chaired by Embaló.
“The CPLP and the so-called international community” is complicit with Embaló, who “orchestrated a fake coup d’état with the sole purpose of derailing the electoral process in which the people had defeated his dictatorship,” Firkidja di Pubis accused. Protesters demanded the “completion of the electoral process in which the people chose Fernando Dias da Costa as their President.”
Should the junta not pay heed, Umoja warns, “Embaló’s followers in the military are only those who are paid” for their loyalty, but the bulk of the rank-and-file soldiers are unpaid.
The PAIGC denounced on Saturday, November 29, that a group of masked and armed men raided their headquarters, attacking party leaders and those present. In statements released, the party alleges that the objective of the raid was to plant weapons in the office to later serve as evidence against them. The party called on the international community to “follow these events closely and support all of the efforts to preserve democratic legality.” The party has also called for authorities to release Pereira and all others arrested amid the coup plot.
Indigenous seed exchange. Photo: Seed Savers Kenya
The landmark ruling secures farmers’ right to save, share, and exchange indigenous seeds, by decriminalizing it and safeguarding traditional farming heritage.
In a historic judgment, Kenya’s High Court on November 27, 2025, declared the Seed and Plant Varieties Act unconstitutional, delivering a significant victory for smallholder farmers and advocates of food sovereignty across the country. The case, filed in 2022 by fifteen smallholder farmers from various regions of Kenya, challenged provisions in the law that criminalized the long-standing tradition of saving, sharing, and exchanging indigenous seeds, practices at the heart of Kenyan agriculture for generations.
The lawsuit was supported by civil society organizations, including Greenpeace Africa, the Seed Savers Network, and the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya (BIBA). It was argued that the Act imposed unfair restrictions on informal seed systems, which form the backbone of smallholder farming, and disproportionately penalized farmers who rely on indigenous seeds for sustenance and livelihood.
Under the law, farmers risked fines of up to KSh 1 million (USD 7,734) or two years in prison for participating in informal seed exchanges. The legislation also granted breeders exclusive economic rights over seed production, sale, and exchange, effectively restricting farmers to commercial seed markets and increasing their vulnerability to corporate control. Legal experts and activists argued that such provisions violated constitutional guarantees, including the rights to culture, non-discrimination, food security, and fair administrative action.
Hamisi Omolo, an ecological farming activist, described the ruling to Peoples Dispatch as “a wake-up call for farmers and grassroots activists to organize and strengthen structures that advance the struggle for land, food, and freedom.” Omolo reiterated the importance of indigenous seeds, noting that “the culture of sharing seeds must continue, not only to preserve biodiversity but also to support herbal medicine and traditional knowledge that benefit entire communities.”
The decision is a relief and expected to have an impact for food sovereignty and agricultural sustainability in Kenya. Smallholder farmers, who account for over 70% of agricultural production in the country, often rely on farmer-saved seeds adapted to local climates and conditions. By affirming their right to maintain and exchange these seeds, the court has reinforced the role of farmers as custodians of biodiversity and protectors of sustainable agricultural practices.
Grassroots and organizations fighting for food sovereignty welcomed the ruling, calling it a major step toward protecting farmers’ rights and resisting corporate monopolies over seeds.
This decision empowers farmers to safeguard their seeds, culture, and livelihoods,” Omolo added. “While it’s only the start, it is a reminder that food sovereignty is not just about growing crops, it is about protecting our way of life, our traditions, and our future.”
And the need for active engagement and organized campaign to ensure that future policies support, rather than undermine, the agricultural practices that sustain the livelihoods of so many Kenyans.
Argentine President Javier Milei, Brazilian legislator Eduardo Bolsonaro, and Chilean far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast at CPAC Conference in 2022. Photo: Eduardo Bolsonaro / X
The far right in Latin America is angry. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Argentina’s Javier Milei always look furious, and they always speak loudly and aggressively. Testosterone leaks from their pores, a toxic sweat that has spread across the region. It would be easy to say that this is the impact of Donald Trump’s own brand of neo-fascism, but this is not true. The far right has much deeper pedigrees, linked to the defense of the oligarchical families that have roots in the colonial era across the virreinatos (viceroyalties) from New Spain to Rio de la Plata. Certainly, these far right men and women are inspired by Trump’s aggressiveness and by the entry of Marco Rubio, a furious defender of the far right in Latin America, to the position of US Secretary of State. This inspiration and support are important but not the reason for the return of the far right, an angry tide that has been growing across Latin America.
On the surface, it looks as if the far right has suffered some defeats. Jair Bolsonaro is in prison for a very long time because of his role in the failed coup d’état on January 8, 2023 (inspired by Trump’s own failed coup attempt on January 6, 2021). In the first round of the presidential election in Chile, the candidate of the Communist Party, Jeannette Jara won the most votes and will lead the center-left bloc into the second round (December 14). Despite every attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro remains in charge and has mobilized large sections of the population to defend the Bolivarian Revolution against any threats. And, in late October 2025, most of the world’s countries voted for a UN General Assembly resolution that demands an end to the blockade on Cuba. These indicators – from Bolsonaro’s imprisonment to the vote on Cuba – suggest that the far right has not been able to move its agenda in every place and through every channel.
However, beneath the surface, there are indications that Latin America is not seeing the resurgence of what had been called the Pink Tide (after the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998) but is experiencing the emergence of an angry tide that slowly has begun to sweep the region from Central America down to the Southern Cone.
Elections in South America
The first round of the Chilean presidential election produced a worrying result. While Jara of the Communist Party won 26.85% of an 85.26% turnout, the far right’s José Antonio Kast came in second with 23.92%. Evelyn Matthei of the traditional Right won 12.5%, while the extreme right candidate who was once with Kast and now to his right, Johannes Kaiser, won 14%. It is likely that Jara will pick up some of the votes of the center, but not enough to overcome the advantage of the far right which looks to have at least more than 50% of the voters on its side. The so-called social liberal, Franco Parisi, who came in third, endorsed Kast in 2021 and will likely endorse him again. That means that in Chile, the presidency will be in the hands of a man of the far right whose ancestry is rooted in German Nazism (Kast’s father was a member of the Nazi Party who escaped justice through the intercession of the Vatican) and who believes that the dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990 was on balance a good idea.
North of Chile, in Bolivia, the new president Rodrigo Paz Pereria, son of a former president, beat the far right’s Jorge Tuto Quiroga (a former president) in the second round of the election. This round had no candidate of the left, after the Movement for Socialism governed Bolivia continuously from 2006 to 2025. Paz’s own party has a minority position in the legislature and he will therefore have to align himself with the Quiroga’s Libre coalition and he will likely adopt a pro-US foreign policy and a libertarian economic policy. Peru will have its own election in April, where the former mayor of Lima – Rafael López Aliaga – is expected to win. He rejects the label far right but adopts all the generic policies of the far right (ultra-conservative Catholic, advocate for harsh security measures, and favors a libertarian economic agenda). Iván Cepeda of Colombia is the left’s likely candidate in their presidential election in May 2026, since Colombia does not permit second terms (so President Gustavo Petro cannot run again). Cepeda will face strong opposition from Colombia’s oligarchy which will want to return the country to their rule. It is too early to say who Cepeda will face, but it might be journalist Vicky Dávila, whose far right opposition to Petro is finding traction in unexpected parts of Colombian society. It is likely that by the middle of 2026, most of the states along the western edge of South America (from Chile to Colombia) will be governed by the far right.
Even as Bolsonaro is in prison, his party, the PL (or Liberal Party), is the largest bloc in Brazil’s National Congress. It is likely that Lula will be re-elected to the presidency next year due to his immense personal connection with the electorate. The far right’s candidate – who could be possibly Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo state, or one of the Bolsonaro’s (wife Michelle or son Flavio) – will struggle against him. But the PL will make inroads into the Senate. Their control over the legislature has already tightened the reins on the government (at COP30, Lula’s representative made no proposals to confront the climate catastrophe), and a Senate win will further their control over the country.
Common agenda of the angry tide
The Angry Tide politicians who are making waves have many things in common. Most of them are now in their fifties – Kast (born 1966), Paz (born 1967), Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado (born 1967), and Milei (born 1970). They came of age in the post-dictatorship period in Latin America (the last dictatorship to end was in Chile in 1990). The decade of the 1990s continued the economic stagnation that characterized the 1980s: the Lost Decade (La Década Perdida) that convulsed these countries with low growth rates and with poorly developed comparative advantages forced into globalization. It was in this context that these politicians of the Angry Tide developed their common agenda:
Anti-Communism. The far right in Latin America is shaped by an anti-left agenda that it inherits from the Cold War, which means that its political formations typically endorse the era of US-backed military dictatorships. The ideas of the left, whether from the Cuban Revolution (1959) or from the era of the Pink Tide (after 1998), are anathema to these political forces; these ideas include agrarian reform, state-led finance for industrialization, state sovereignty, and the importance of trade unions for all workers and peasants. The anti-communism of this Angry Tide is rudimentary, mother’s milk to the politicians and used cleverly to turn sections of society against others.
Libertarian Economic policies. The economic ideas of the Angry Tide are shaped by the Chilean “Chicago Boys” (including Kast’s brother Miguel who was the head of General Augusto Pinochet’s Planning Commission, his Minister of Labor, and his head of the Central Bank). They directly take their tradition from the libertarian Austrian School (Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard as well as Milton Friedman). The ideas were cultivated in well-funded think tanks, such as the Centro de Estudios Macroeconómicos de Argentina (founded in 1978) and the Chilean Centro de Estudios Públicos (founded in 1980). They believe the State should be a force to discipline the workers and citizens, and that the economy must be in the hands of private interests. Milei’s famous antics with a chainsaw illuminate this politics not only of cutting social welfare (the work of neoliberalism) but of destroying the capacity of the State itself.
Culture Wars. Drawing on the wave of anti-gender ideology and anti-migration rhetoric, the Angry Tide has been able to appeal to conservative evangelical Christians and to large sections of the working class that has been disoriented by changes seen to come from above. The far right argues that the violence in working class neighborhoods created by the drug industry is fostered by “liberalism” and that only tough violence (as demonstrated by El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele) can be the solution; for this reason, they want to strengthen the military and police and set aside constitutional limitations on use of force (on October 28, the government of Bolsonaro ally Cláudio Castro in Rio de Janeiro sent in the police who killed at least 121 people in Operation Containment). It helps the far right that it adopted various conspiracy theories about how the “elites” have spread “globalized” ideas to damage and destroy the “culture” of their nations. This is a ludicrous idea coming from far right and traditional right political forces that champion full-scale entry of US corporations into their society and culture, and that have no respect for the histories of struggle of the working class and peasantry to build their own national and regional cultural worlds. But the Angry Tide has been able to construct the idea that they are cultural warriors out to defend their heritage against the malignancies of “globalization”. Part of this culture war is the promotion of the individual entrepreneur as the subject of history and the denigration of the necessity of social reproduction.
It is these three elements (anti-communism, libertarian economic policies, and the culture wars) that brings together the far right across Latin America. It provides them with a robust ideological framework to galvanize sections of the population to believe that they are the saviours of the hemisphere. This Latin American far right is backed by Trump and the international network of the Spanish far right (the Foro Madrid, created in 2020 by Fundación Disenso, the think tank of the far right Vox party). It is heavily funded by the old elite social classes, who have slowly abandoned the traditional Right for these new, aggressive far right parties.
Crisis of the Left
The Left is yet to develop a proper assessment of the emergence of these parties and has not been able to drive an agenda that sparkles with vitality. A deep ideological crisis grips the Left, which cannot properly decide whether to build a united front with the traditional right and with liberals to contest elections or to build a popular front across the working class and peasantry to build social power as a prelude to a proper electoral push. The example of the former strategy (the electoral alliance) comes from Chile, where first the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Concertación) formed in 1988 to keep out the parties of the dictatorship from power and second the Apruebo Dignidad formed in 2021 that brought Gabriel Boric of the centrist Broad Front to the presidency. But outside Chile, there is little evidence that this strategy works. The latter has become harder as unionization rates have collapsed, and as uberization individualizes the working class to erode working class culture.
It is telling that Bolivia’s former socialist Vice President Álvaro García Linera looked northwards to New York City for inspiration. When Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race, García Linera said, “Mamdani’s victory shows that the left must commit to boldness and a new future.” It is hard to disagree with this statement; although, Mamdani’s own proposed agenda is mostly to salvage a worn-out New York infrastructure rather than to advance the city to socialism. García Linera did not mention his own time in Bolivia, when he tried with former president Evo Morales to build a socialist alternative. The left will have to be bold, and it will have to articulate a new future, but it will have to be one that emerges from its own histories of building struggles and building socialism.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
