Anarchism in Latin America (English) // L’anarchisme en Amérique latine (Français)

Nelson Méndez

I'll try to give here a comprehensive introduction to the history, characteristics and prospects of anarchism on our continent. For this, I will consider four historical moments:

1) The 19th century: its European origins and its implantation in Latin America

2) The first third of the 20 th century: the rise of anarcho-syndicalism and the libertarian presence in social struggles, political dynamics and cultural and intellectual scene on the continent.

The book _Venezuelan Anarchism: The History of a Movement_ is now available in English

Redacción
 

Venezuelan Anarchism: The History of a Movement covers Venezuelan anarchism and its partisans from the first appearance of anarchist ideas in the period prior to independence through today. Venezuelan political histories have focused almost exclusively upon the various Venezuelan governments and political parties. Venezuelan Anarchism shifts the focus to those opposed to those governments and political parties, those who until now have been nearly forgotten. The book also explains in some detail their ideas, publications, and actions in opposition to Venezuela's ruling political elites and, more recently, Venezuela's authoritarian populists.

Venezuela: confronting the deceits and deceivers (translated to English)

Redacción

* English translation of ‘Venezuela: Frente a los fraudes embaucadores’ https://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com/2019/02/venezuela-frente-los-fraudes.html
Written by El Libertario, Caracas, Venezuela, February 2019.
Translated by the Anarchist Federation (Britain) http://www.afed.org.uk.

[Introductory note: Anarchists from across the world have requested a text that summarises, from a libertarian perspective, what is happening in Venezuela, especially to dismantle the lies that authoritarians of all varieties have said about it. In response, we have prepared the following, which is already being translated and disseminated in various languages, with the intention of putting forward our perspective and unmasking the deceitful positions that have been widely disseminated about what is happening in this country.]

Anarchists of the Caribbean and Central America on the Neo-Liberal and Militaristic “Madurization” of Chavismo (English)

Federación Anarquista de Centroamérica y el Caribe

From Where and Whom We Support

For us, as anarchists who live in lands adjacent to Venezuela, what is going on in that country doesn’t seem distant or is indifferent to us. Our dependent economies have received for almost two decades the generous fuel subsidies from PetroCaribe agreements with Venezuela. That is why almost all States and a large portion of the civil society actors of the Caribbean region now offer a complicit silence regarding the neo-liberal, authoritarian, repressive, and militaristic apotheosis resulting from the government of Nicolás Maduro.

A call from Venezuela to the anarchists of Latin America and the world: Solidarity is much more than a written word (in English)

Editorial Collective of the anarchist newspaper El Libertario

We address all the expressions of the libertarian movement, particularly those of this continent, not only to draw their attention to the situation we are living in Venezuela since April 2017, but by what we understand as urgency for the international anarchism expresses more emphatically on these dramatic circumstances, with positions and actions consistent with what has been the preaching and practice of the anti-hierarchic (actual word used here is “Ácrata”.^N.delT.) ideal in its historical walk.

It is deplorable that, while on the one hand the Chavista government -today headed by Maduro- together with its sounding boards from the outside and, on the other, the opponents from the right and the social-democracy, are in disgusting campaigns for selling to world opinion their equally biased visions and charged with interests of power, many anarchist voices outside of Venezuela have maintained a mutism that is in some way tacit acceptance of what one or other of the hungry contenders for state power want to impose as "truth." We know that sympathetic voices do not have the access to most media, as it sits ready at the order of statists, and that comrades face complex realities where there are issues and problems that, due to their proximity, demand their immediate concerns, but we understand that this difficulty should not be an obstacle so that, in some modest way, attention, interest and solidarity are expressed both for what happens in Venezuela and for what the anarchism in this region divulges.

Opinión: Bolívar City and Venezuela in Ruins (English)

Venezuela is breaking into pieces, and the violence in Bolívar City may be just the beginning.

Crossly (libcom.org)

The first victims of a riot are the rioters. That’s what the people of Bolivar City in Venezuela are learning right after the riots that took out 90% of its grocery stores in a matter of hours the weekend of December 16-18. Since 80% of the work force is dependent upon commerce, in addition to hunger, the population now faces a horrifying level of unemployment.

The reason for the riots? Look to the government of Comrade President Nicolas Maduro, “son of Chávez” and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, who has ruled by decree for most of this year. The direct cause of the riots, however, began the weekend before.

Opinión: Venezuela after Chávez (English)

[Nota previa del autor: el texto a  continuación se escribió con el propósito de presentar una opinión personal desde una perspectiva libertaria y antiautoritaria sobre la situación en Venezuela. Esto, a petición de un articulista de la página web Krapuul.nl. Se encuentra escrito al inglés a modo de facilitar su traducción a cualquier otro idioma, dado a que originalmente el artículo sería traducido y publicado en neerlandés. Con esta consideración, tomo el momento para disculparme por cualquier error gramático o semántico que pueda contener.]

Javier Bastardo

Cumaná, Sucre, September 13th 2016

It is undeniable what, for some, the cultural phenomenon of the “Socialism of the XXI Century” meant when it arrived by the incisive hindsight and sharp tongue of the charismatic late president, Hugo Chávez Frias.

Anarchism in current Latin America: The challenge of abandoning our crutches

Rafael Uzcátegui (member of the editorial collective of El Libertario, Venezuela)

If anarchism is forged in its fighting practises against the concrete domination, we wouldn’t be able to reflect upon the situation in Latin America without describing the socio-political movements that have occurred in these last years and how the libertarian universe has responded to these ever-changing situations.

[English] Interview from France to the staff of El Libertario

Ballast Magazine (http://www.revue-ballast.fr/)

1. You published a book about the history of anarchism in Venezuela. Let’s discuss the 20^th century in particular. What role did the anarchist movement develop during the period of the Punto Fijo Pact and the “Caracazo” of 1989?

The presence of anarchist groups during the democratic period prior to the Chavist reign can be divided in two parts: one that goes from 1958 to 1970, where the Spanish exiled presence is a notable characteristic until the dismantling of the experience in the Central University of Venezuela, and another part which began from that event and lasted until the early decade of 1990.

USA-Venezuela Crisis: Among the White House arrogance, Miraflores demagoguery and imperialist brawls (English)

El Libertario newspaper

Data and facts deny the claim that the "imperialist" interests were threatened in Venezuela with the arrival of the so-called Bolivarian government. As reality shows, the presidencies of Hugo Chavez and Maduro have deepened the extractive role assigned to the country by capitalist globalization, which together with financial and speculative capital, continue to earn big profits in Venezuela. Just two examples. The first a looks at the report Chevron: The Bolivarian connection (in English at http://www.mediafire.com/download/a4hn36jffk7c3lj/ChevronVzla_english.pdf), expossing the fabulous expansion of this US transnational under the so-called "Socialism of the XXI Century". The second is evident in what the "fracking" issues, denounced by the president of PDVSA as a "weapon of capitalism" but unabashedly used in Venezuela by state oil (in Spanish see http://bit.ly/1E4AZoi and http://bit.ly/1l0RBr2).

The US government uses the excuse of human rights to punish officials of a regime that is diplomatically inconvenient, while restored relations with the government of Cuba. Both manouvers being both played almost simultaneous and both sought to please various factions of ruling power in U $ A. Such sanctions prompted the Venezuelan official response, requiring visas for all American origin people trying to visit the country (as Brazil and Bolivia settled before) and the entry prohibition of some US officials. The replica of Obama administration was oversized: Declaring Venezuela as "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy for the United States", activating mechanisms under the  International Emergency Economic Powers Law, whereby the president can impose economic sanctions without the approval of Congress. In recent years, USA has qualified Iran, Burma, Sudan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Syria, Belarus and North Korea in similar ways. A whole hyperbole that not even the American Chief believes. Moreover, sanctions are announced for low profile figures of the Venezuelan state bypassing the most relevant.

As Latin American libertarians we can not forget all imperialist intervention initiatives undertaken by the United States against the countries of the region from the S. XIX. Each and every one of them - military invasions with subsequent territorial occupations, coups, financing paramilitary compulsive collections of alleged debts, among the most serious - have originated a loud and clear rejection from anarchism. The same repudiation would be if such situations happend in the future against any area of ​​Latin America.

The Venezuelan government and its apparatus of national and international propaganda claim that this sanctions constitutes a "declaration of war" against Venezuela and is the prelude to a very unlikely "American military attack". However, despite this alarmist forecast, Miraflores takes no consistent political-diplomatic action according with what it preaches, the split of relations, closure of their embassies and consulates in US territory or the suspension of bilateral business. Obama said that trade ties, which is well known and documented so large they are (in Spanish see http://bbc.in/1EyLWDP) is not interrupted.

Indeed, the reaction of the White House is profitable for Nicolas Maduro, at a time when the Venezuelan president has the lowest rates of popularity since 1999, the country suffers the highest inflation in the world and is being implemented a progressively economic package unloading the cost of the crisis in the population. Maduro use the argument of "imperialist invasion" as an excuse to increase repression to silence any dissent and implement structural adjustment, masked with anti-imperialist rhetoric to warm the political theater and false polarization, making time to try to convince the increasingly distrustful inherited Chavez about the benefits of a project that claims to be socialist but dragging the worst vices of his opponents assumptions clearly state capitalism popular support. At the request of the enabling "anti-imperialist" law to the National Assembly underlies the probability intensify measures left on the backs of the majority the weight of the crisis, overlapping trasdeclaraciones type Cipriano Castro [economic minister] urgent decisions topping national assets such as financial swap to materialize with the gold of the Public Treasury (in Spanish see http://bit.ly/1xc0d1q).

Venezuela suffers imperial meddling, silenced by the Bolivarian propaganda apparatus but clear whoever wants to see them: the handover of territory to Chinese capital for his outrageous exploitation and the exorbitant arms purchases to the Russian Federation are two examples. In that same vein, I would not be surprised if after this fuss of embassies and foreign ministries, Washington preventive response to the action carried on several fronts in Latin America its potential adversaries imperial hegemony is concealed. The real understanding of the current dynamics of global capitalism involves understanding that while the US is the center of the network flows political, economic and financial power, that role is fulfilled amid tensions with other large states aspiring to the throne or at least a bigger slice in the pie of oppression and exploitation.

Moreover, and as we have always done from El Libertario we denounce to this sector of the opposition that welcomes any initiative from the Yankee government and aspires to its most active and direct involvement in the Venezuelan situation [militar intervention]. Given this and other proposals that are build on the statist tradition our choice is clear: we reiterate the need to build a social libertarian alternative facing not only the Bolivarian authoritarian capitalism but to the restructuring of the traditional political parties - also pro-capitalist - and its cheats games with the electoral representation excuse.

Colectivo Editor de El Libertario – Caracas, March 11,  2015

[The original text in Spanish in http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com/2015/03/crisis-ua-venezuela-entre-la.html. See also another recent statement by El Libertario translated into English in http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com/2015/02/venezuela-2015-crisis-no-to-military.html.]

[Thanks to Pablo Heraklio for this translation!]

Venezuela - 2015 crisis: No to the military and the politicians. Self-management is the way!

El Libertario Editorial Collective - February 2015

The opinion and proposals of the people of El Libertario regarding the economic, social, political and moral crisis that plagues Venezuela today.

1) We reject the existing view in some sectors of Chavism and the opposition that the military is the solution to the crisis, or the belief that a messianic leader spawned from the barracks will resolve it. Always anti-military, we anarchists have condemned and will continue to condemn any coup, be it the traditional deployment of tanks in the streets and uniformed obese people in the presidential palace, or the XXI century kind hiding behind constitutional subterfuges and forced resignations. It is a fiction that the high and middle military classes, today opportunistically "socialist", guardians of large scale oil and food contraband, who benefit from access to dollars at preferred rates, involved with drug and strategic mineral trafficking, have the virtue to lead the country, via the coup, towards situations that benefit the majority. It would be like the "Fujimorazo" in Peru, a bombshell like Bordaberry in Uruguay or the sacking of Isabelita y Lopez Rega in Argentina in the 70's that didn't change the country's situation at all.

2) We reject the economic package promoted by Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello which puts the cost of the crisis on the backs of the community. While the bolibourgeois traffickers, recipients of more than 20 billion dollars for ghost enterprises enjoy impunity, the workers are punished with scarcity and hyper-inflation of foods and medicine, the brutal decay in basic services and the imposition of neo-liberal taxes such as the value-added tax.

3) We strongly condemn the emergence of a police state built upon an authoritarian judiciary system with the excuse of an economic and media war, but which in the short, medium or long term will be used to repress collective struggle and protest. This police state consists of: Popular System for the Protection of Peace, a law that forces citizens to become "cooperative patriots" (euphemism for informants and snitches); the security zones where the right to strike and demonstrate is prohibited; the "fighting groups"; the Hugo Chavez Battalions ; the Ministry of Defense resolution # 8610; and the use of the para-military against the population. The Supreme Court has ruled that public protest depends upon governmental authorization and is not regarded as a right.

4) We absolutely reproach the "Bolivarian" hierarchy's business dealings with transnational capital based upon the creation of mixed enterprises and the so-called Special Economic Zones, colonized territories for maquiladoras and investments by Russian and Chinese imperialism, fully protected. Likewise we point to the process of capital legitimization for the bourgeoisie who, faced with the possibility of losing political hegemony, make fabulous secret investments, such as the acquisition of the media, real estate and sport teams, to say nothing of their hiding places in fiscal paradises such as Switzerland, Panama and some Caribbean islands.

5) We denounce the existence of the state's communication hegemony after acquiring private media using anonymous front men who act as the voice of the bolibourgeois and the military in power. Those affected are not the political opposition parties which have access to the internet and international media, but the popular sectors in struggle.

6) We qualify the opposition political parties as a false alternative, heirs to the exclusion and injustices of the past, who negotiate with the principles they claim to defend and are harbingers of a populist oil development project which differs little from Chavism- Madurism. It suffices to review the oil program of Leopoldo Lopez to understand it is the same old extractive profiteerism. As far as the Mesa de Unidad Democratica (MUD, a coalition of opposition right wing and social-democratic parties) their almost total silence on these topics is eloquent, since their pretensions are not very different from what we have today. In this electoral year they will promise castles and villas, we insist they deserve only scorn and abstention.

As anti-authoritarian activists we will work towards deepening the representation difficulties of the political parties, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) as well as the MUD and its derivatives, taking up the struggle in the street as the way to reclaim public spaces, autonomy and direct action, pushing for the expansion of solidarity and mutual aid outside and against politicians' control. We will promote cooperative economic initiatives and self-management as the immediate answer to the crisis, as well as experiments to exercise direct assembly democracy. We will take collaborate with communication platforms and social networks where freedom of expression and information exist, backing the people's struggle against the established authoritarian powers.

Finally, we call for the fight against this political and economic model, rotted to the core with corruption, authoritarianism and militarism.

http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com

www.nodo50.org/ellibertario

www.facebook.com/ellibertario

@pelibertario

ellibertario@nodo50.org – ellibertario@hotmail.com

[See the original text in Spanish in http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com/2015/02/2015-en-crisis-ni-con-militares-ni-con.html.]

¿Sacudón al ambiente en el Ecosocialismo venezolano? (Texto en castellano / English translation)

María Pilar García-Guadilla  (activista ambiental y profesora USB, Caracas, Venezuela ) 

Resulta paradójico que un país de la importancia ecológica de Venezuela y que además se tilda de paladín de las causas socio- ambientales (sea la pobreza, sea el cambio climático) borre de un plumazo el Ministerio del Ambiente que fue el  primero  de este tipo fundado en toda la América. El día 2 de septiembre, el presidente Maduro expresó los lineamientos para seguir profundizando el proyecto chavista y se refirió a la revolución territorial-ecosocialista que propugnará el Estado Comunal y que supuestamente debe ser construido de forma “sustentable”; para ello, propuso integrar el Ministerio de la Vivienda  y del Hábitat con el del Ambiente de forma que las viviendas cumplan con los requisitos integrales de calidad.

Desconocemos quien asesoró al presidente ni de dónde sacó el “Ecosocialismo” para referirse a “desarrollismo”; con toda seguridad que no fue ni de los movimientos  sociales ni de los expertos en ordenamiento del territorio y  ambiente puesto que tal propuesta  ya ha sido fuertemente cuestionada por las  organizaciones y ONG’s ambientalistas.  De sopetón se desdibuja lo que debía ser uno de los ministerios más importantes en Venezuela y se le somete a los lineamientos desarrollistas de la Misión Vivienda. Se ignora lo que no sea el ambiente construido, fundamentalmente urbano, en uno de los países más diversos del planeta; también se deja de lado a las comunidades indígenas y sus hábitats severamente amenazados en sus derechos por la minería y el desarrollismo.

Quizás la razón para este desvarío sea la falsa premisa que el Capitalismo es la causa de todos los males socio-ambientales -incluida la pobreza y el cambio climático- y que por tanto, en un gobierno socialista, no se requiere de un ministerio que se ocupe del ambiente pues éste se cuida solo. De esta forma, el gobierno continua siendo complaciente con las invasiones a los parques nacionales como el Henry Pittier, apropiándose de las Fundaciones Científicas ecológicas como la de Los Roques, acallando las demandas indígenas por la demarcación de sus tierras ancestrales como en el caso de los Yukpas de la  Sierra de Perijá y descuidando la protección debida que exige la constitución a sus demandas frente a la voracidad del extractivismo. Todo en nombre del Plan de la Patria, un plan de desarrollo económico y social desarrollista donde los derechos indígenas y ambientales se desconocen en nombre del extractivismo rentista.

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Jolt to the environment in the Venezuelan Ecosocialism?

María Pilar García-Guadilla  (Envirnmentalist activist and professor USB, Caracas, Venezuela)

It seems paradoxical that a country of the ecological importance of Venezuela and that furthermore calls itself a champion of socio - environmental causes (whether poverty or climate change)-  erase in one fell swoop the Ministry of the Environment, which was the first of its kind founded in all of America.  In September 2, President Maduro stated the guidelines to further deepen the chavista project and referred to the Territorial-Ecosocialist Revolution who advocates the Communal State and it should supposedly be "sustainable"; to do this, he proposed to integrate the Ministry of Housing and Habitat with the Ministry of the Environment so that the housing programs of Misión Vivienda, comply with “comprehensive” quality requirements.

We do not know who advise the President on that idea or where it took on "Ecosocialism" to refer to "developmentalism"; surely that wasn't from social movements or from the experts in environmental issues or the management of the territory since this proposal, which has already been challenged by environmental NGOs and social movements.   Suddenly becomes blurred what had to be one of the most important ministries in Venezuela and the environment is subjected to the developmental guidelines of the Housing Social Mission ignoring the natural and cultural environment in one of the most diverse countries on the planet; It also let aside the indigenous communities and their habitats which are severely threatened by mining and the “Socialist development”.

Perhaps the reason for this madness is the false premise that Capitalism is the cause of all socio-environmental evils including poverty and climate change, and that therefore a Socialist Government, does not require f a Ministry Of Environment because Nature cares by himself.  Under this premise, the Government continues to be lenient with the invasions of national parks as the Henry Pittier, appropriating ecological scientific foundations as the Los Roques, silencing the indigenous demands for the demarcation of their ancestral lands, as in the case of the Yukpas of the Sierra de Perijá and neglecting the attention of their Constitutional rights against the voracity of extractivism. All in the name of the Plan de la Patria, a developmentalist economic and social development plan for the period 2013-2019 where the environmental and indigenous rights are neglected on behalf of the accentuation of Extractivism.