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[Teneb]

but we're also on the eve of what is likely to be the most cuthroat and heated election we've ever had.

Shit, no kidding. Marielle Franco, city councillor of Rio de Janeiro, politician human rights activist, and feminist was shot dead in the streets yesterday.

Yeah. Likely a militia reprisal, considering she was big against those.

For the uninformed, while the word militia does have the same meaning in both english and portuguese, in the context of organized crime it takes a different form. It means a paramilitary organisation made up of corrupt cops, ex-cops, ex-soldiers, mercenaries and the odd hitman. While they do make money off drugs, it is not their main focus, relying instead of extortion and protection rackets. Another difference is that smuggler factions use masses of armed addicts and thieves as their "troops", while miltia troops are fewer in number, but make up for it in training and equipment.

Marielle's assassination, according to the police, was preceded by her car being stalked by another for 4km before the assailants' car lined up with hers, opened fire, and sped away. Much like a stereotypical mafia hit, instead of the flashy and public killings favoured by smugglers.

[Egan_BW]

Does that not qualify as "flashy and public"?

[Teneb]

Does that not qualify as "flashy and public"?

The aftermath? Sure. But it was a quick and pragmatic hit, not drawn out.

[thvaz]

but we're also on the eve of what is likely to be the most cuthroat and heated election we've ever had.

Shit, no kidding. Marielle Franco, city councillor of Rio de Janeiro, politician human rights activist, and feminist was shot dead in the streets yesterday.

So far nothing indicates it has anything to do with our heated political debates. As Teneb later said, it is most likely she was killed by militias she was constantly complaining about.

[Magistrum]

Brazilian here, can confirm that the most common notion (at least in circles where people follow news not from facebook) is that she was assassinated by a member of the PMERJ (Military Police of Rio de Janeiro). It is well known that the PMERJ has organized crime between it's ranks, and the famous movie "Tropa de Elite" is inspired in that.

[martinuzz]

In Nicaragua, protests against censorship and oppression are spiraling out of control.
For days, there have been mass protests in various cities. At least 10 people have been killed already, and hundreds are wounded.

And now Ortega has decided to deploy the army to Esteli to crush the protests. More deaths expected to follow.

It's almost like South-America is having it's own Arab spring. Let's hope IS doesn't take advantage and settles somewhere where it has a land connection to the US.

[Kagus]

It's almost like South-America is having it's own Arab spring. Let's hope IS doesn't take advantage and settles somewhere where it has a land connection to the US.

Somehow I kinda doubt that they'd get much of a foothold amidst all the Catholics. Might be entertaining to watch them try though... Can you imagine some mullah trying to put the hijab on a stereotypical Latina?

That said, economic and social destabilization tends to have an effect on people's faith, whether strengthening or weakening. All the same, I don't see enough big Muslim religious support happening to allow for the kind of fundamental fanaticism that IS requires to function.


I've been trying a little bit to keep up with what's going on in Venezuela, but the major Yurpean news outlets don't seem particularly interested in covering South America. Not when Meghan Markle is wearing things (although the alternative would likely generate even more attention, so eh).

[Reelya]

There's also the big deal that direct intervention in Venezuela because of the failing situation there would justify other nations to have intervened in e.g. Colombia during the Uribe administration when there were cases of mass-killings of peasants, human rights group, and basically kidnapped teenagers who were dressed up as guerillas after their executions - by the state security forces. Recent estimates are that around 6000 people were murdered by Colombian army units, so they could be dressed up as rebels, so that officers could gain promotions and monetary bonuses. And this only covers the period 2002-2008, when Uribe came to power, and implicated everyone personally right up to the head of the entire armed forces of Colombia, who had gain promotions by personally commanding these actions:

There is mounting evidence that many senior army officers bear responsibility. Yet the army officials in charge at the time of the killings have escaped justice and even ascended to the top of the military command, including the current heads of the army and armed forces, according to Vivanco.

It stands to reason that the right-wing leaders in Colombia don't want to set a precedent of military intervention in each other's affairs. Because if it comes down to setting standards which justify intervention then the Colombians would have a very difficult time creating objective standards that justify intervention in Venezuela but somehow don't justify other nation's giving a shit about what happens in Colombia, and the fact that people responsible for ordering mass-killings of civilians so they could boost "combat" reports of victories are still in command positions in their armed forces.

Colombia has a large number of current senior people involved in serious warcrimes and various human rights abuses - really too long to catalog, but for instance the case in which Colombian journalist Claudia Duque who was investigating the murder of another journalist, received death threats against her and her family, asked for protection, received "protection" from the department of security (DAS), but then the death threats were traced back to a training manual FROM the department of security - with her contact details pasted on the front, which later fell into the hands of the attorney general's office. The head of the DAS was later arrested for ordering the murder of the original journalist.
https://pbicolombia.org/accompanied-organisations/claudia-julieta-duque/
Note, that she's recently won a case against the DAS agents involved, and one related case is a defamation case against President Uribe himself, for personally linking her to FARC. So, you have journalists investigating abuses, and the attempts to derail the free press go right to the president himself. And this is just one example of similar cases where Uribe himself was accused of trying to defame people who were receiving death threats from Neo-Nazi type paramilitary groups. So, Uribe's family had known links to death squads, and Uribe himself is on TV - repeatedly - trying to blacken the names of death squad targets. Maduro is just "Mini-me" to Uribe's "Dr Evil".

The last thing Colombia would ever want to do is create a precedent where other nations hold each other accountable.

Here's a good overview of the Uribe issues from the UNHCR:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/4dec82db2.html

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...
Lopez spent months searching for government data that might corroborate his warning. Comparing election results with statistics on paramilitary violence, she discovered that the members of Congress she had seen applauding Mancuso (a drug lord turned government collaborator) had been elected with highly atypical majorities in districts controlled by the AUC. The paramilitaries, it seemed, had fixed the elections.
...
[Uribe] denounced the Supreme Court's investigations, likening them to a FARC abduction, and accused the justices of abetting terrorism. In Colombia, such incendiary accusations can be life-threatening. Several justices began receiving death threats. They were insulted by strangers in the street and shunned by friends. Some stopped going out in public.

But the court did not stop investigating parapolitics. If anything, Uribe's attacks only strengthened its resolve. By April 2008, the court's investigations had put dozens of elected officials behind bars-including Senator Mario Uribe, the President's second cousin and one of his closest political allies.

Within weeks of his relative's arrest, President Uribe surprised the court by rounding up fourteen top paramilitary leaders (including Mancuso) and flying them to the United States to face drug charges. For Uribe's backers in Washington, the mass extradition was crowning proof of his commitment to bringing the paramilitaries to justice.

But for those who had been struggling against the paramilitaries in Colombia, it showed just the opposite. After years of shielding the AUC commanders from extradition, Uribe packed them off to the United States only after they began collaborating with local investigations.

 This suspicion was reinforced in early 2009 when the Colombian news magazine Semana revealed that the country's national intelligence agency (DAS), which answers directly to the president, had been carrying out extensive illegal surveillance against Supreme Court justices, including allegedly bugging their chambers and stealing case files, as well as against other public figures who had questioned Uribe's policies. Leaked DAS files subsequently revealed that the agency had sought to smear Uribe's critics by generating suspicions of guerrilla ties, corruption, or adultery. The files also showed that the DAS had been making death threats. Its instructions for dealing with the journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, for example, included this:

    Make the call near the installations of police intelligence. Don't stutter, or take longer than 49 seconds.... Greeting: Good morning (afternoon).... Señora, are you the mother of María Alejandra (wait for answer). Well I have to tell you that you've left us no other option.... Now we have to go after what you love most, for being a bitch and for sticking your nose in what's not your business....

Duque, who fled the country after receiving this threat, said the caller faithfully followed the script, and added that her ten-year-old daughter would be raped and burned alive, and the child's fingers scattered around her home.
...
 The paramilitary commanders had begun confessing to increasingly sinister forms of collusion with his subordinates. Some dated back to the mid-1990s, when Uribe was the governor of the central northwestern state of Antioquia, at the height of paramilitary expansion in the area. According to paramilitary confessions, Uribe's chief of staff met repeatedly with them to coordinate the creation of civilian militias, which served as paramilitary fronts and committed atrocities. The commanders had even informed the chief of staff of a major massacre beforehand, Mancuso said.

Paramilitaries also confessed to judicial investigators that they had collaborated extensively with military officers, both before and during Uribe's presidency, including two generals Uribe chose to lead branches of the armed forces. Perhaps most damning was evidence of collaboration with top DAS officials-including the President's intelligence chief, who allegedly supplied the AUC with names of trade unionists who were then assassinated. Other troubling allegations involved Uribe's younger brother-who has been accused of running a paramilitary group in Antioquia-and the use of his own cattle ranch as a meeting place for paramilitaries.
...
Uribe and his top officials have denied all those allegations. The people who would know the full extent of whatever collaboration took place on Uribe's watch are the ones he extradited to the US. Since the extradition, however, they have essentially stopped cooperating with Colombian investigators. Several-including Mancuso-have explained that if they revealed all they know, they would be unable to protect their families from reprisals in Colombia.
...
As recently as 2007, analysts estimated that the paramilitaries had killed 50,000 people. Colombia's attorney general's office now estimates that this number is more than 140,000.

Then there is the scope of collusion. A third of the 2002 Congress-and half of Uribe's coalition in the Senate-has come under criminal investigation for alleged paramilitary ties. More than two dozen legislators have been convicted. Hundreds of local officials-including governors and mayors-have also been implicated.

Finally, there is the scope of the paramilitaries' ambitions. López's book shows that the Ralito Pact's reference to "refounding the nation"-from which the book takes its title-was not merely pompous rhetoric. Rather, it reflected a broader objective shared by the AUC commanders and local politicians and landholders: to legalize the enormous wealth and power they had amassed during years of paramilitary expansion.

The paramilitaries had driven more than one million poor farmers off their lands, preparing the way for what the authors refer to as a "counter-agrarian reform." Large landholders and investors-including paramilitaries and other traffickers-acquired the land, and corrupt officials helped them obtain title. As one former paramilitary put it: "We went in killing, others followed buying, and the third group legalized."
...
With the help of the paramilitary collaborators in Congress, Uribe passed laws allowing him to run for reelection in 2006, and again in 2010. This upset the country's system of checks and balances, of which the one-term presidency was an essential feature. If Uribe served a third term, his ability to control the justice system-and derail the investigations-would only increase.
...
 Santos surprised many when, as his first official act as president, he met with the Supreme Court and promised a new era of respect for the judiciary. This rapprochement could have merely reflected the fact that Santos, who came from the old Bogotá establishment, brought a far less confrontational approach to politics than the cattle rancher from Antioquia.

But soon he went further in marking his distance from Uribe. He announced that his top legislative priority would be a sweeping "Victims Law" that would, among other things, help displaced people reclaim their stolen lands. Uribe had vehemently opposed similar legislation.
...
The plan's most glaring omission is any mention of the powerful armed groups, led largely by former AUC members, that continue to kill trade unionists and, increasingly, leaders of displaced communities seeking to reclaim their lands. These groups no longer present themselves as a national counterinsurgency movement, but they do continue to traffic illegal drugs and terrorize civilians the way the AUC once did. They are the legacy of Uribe's approach to "justice and peace."

Maduro has made a right mess of things, but ... Uribe is on a whole other level of evil.

[Dorsidwarf]

but venezuela has the communism everyone knows thats the evilest thing of all

[martinuzz]

After 11 dead (according to the government, or 25 dead and 43 disappeared, according to human rights organisations), Nicaraguan president Ortega has given in to the demands of the protestors, and scrapped the new proposed laws to decrease pensions and social support funding.

The riots started when retired elderly took to the streets to protest the announced pension cuts, and were soon joined by students, and labour union members.
The government repsonded with teargas, rubber bullets, and real bullets including snipers.
Yesterday, a reporter was shot dead while livestreaming, further increasing tension.

[Reelya]

idk about the snipers thing. Similar incidents have occurred in other nations and turned out to be right-wing elements trying to discredit left-wing leaders. People in power don't need to use snipers in these situations since they control the defense forces directly. You use snipers when you want to obscure what actually happened from the chain of command.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

People out of power, but who want to be in power, are the more likely ones to shoot you from the shadows, where identity of the shooter is necessarily obscured. Shooting a journalist with a sniper during a live broadcast isn't the type of PR that governments enjoy receiving, so it's illogical that Ortega's side ordered that.

We have prior examples where pre-placed snipers shot at opposition demonstrations, but were proven to be highly likely to have been orchestrated by opposition leaders. One is the 2002 Venezuela coup. The coup leaders had pre-recorded their outrage statements which specifically mention "snipers" shooting at protestors: on an unplanned surprise route taken by marchers. e.g. they told everyone they were marching along one route, then partway along, several opposition leaders were suddenly adamant that the march must be re-routed, and only after they made the detour, the sniper shooting started and they played the pre-recorded (recorded several hours before the first shooting, but somehow knowing in detail that it was sniper fire) statement video on TV while the coup leaders enacted their takeover plan.

When talking about the right-wing in Latin America you need to realize the type of people we're talking about here. We're not talking armchair conservatives like most of the GOP supporters in America, we're talking about guys who would have fit right in with the Italian or German fascists of the 1930s - guys wearing a badge, who will shoot you in the back, then dress you up as their enemy so they can claim cash bonuses, militias who will chainsaw villager's children in half as a warning, or get you to go to one of their rallies, then have you shot at from the shadows so they can blame someone else for it, and take power through violence.

So there's a pattern to these things: Nicaragua for example has a strong history of right-wing terrorism, with the Contras et al. And in the current situation, you have the right-wing clearly setting fire to things and then trying to say the left-wing did it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/22/journalist-among-25-killed-as-unrest-escalates-in-nicaragua

In the city of León, university offices were torched after riot police broke up a peaceful protest. The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front’s digital publication El 19 Digital blamed the fires on “groups of vandals”, but protesters claimed they were started by government sympathisers to justify its increasingly repressive measures.

e.g. the elected party's web journal just says that the university was set on fire by just "vandals" - a fairly non-politicized statement. But the opposition is going the full conspiracy route saying that pro-government groups set it on fire as a false-flag operation. But if it was a false-flag operation designed to enact draconian powers, then the government would have blamed it on opposition parties, not just downplayed it as random vandalism. If you give it a bit of thought, it's the opposition who are trying to leverage the violent incident for political gain, here. What happened was that the original protest wasn't broken up with enough force to be used in the media, so the protestors escalated it to setting things on fire, and when the government then downplayed the fires, the opposition had to escalate again to calling the whole thing a false-flag operation. It's a classic situation you see by reactionaries who seek to create a coup scenario - the government is merely responding to events of the opposition's design, but if they don't respond enough then things escalate to try and provoke them, and then at the end of the day you create conspiracy theories to try and say the government orchestrated the whole thing.

Also, there seem to be an odd bias of these left-wing governments only blowing up left-wing institutions during these supposed false-flag operations. e.g. they set fire to universities and free medical clinics, never banks or corporate HQs. e.g. in these types of incidents someone trashes public education institutions and public health infrastructure: but banks and other corporate infrastructure are very rarely targeted.

All the available evidence, and some basic logic, says right-wingers did it, but the right-wingers (and pro-right media, basically Latin American versions of Fox News) turn around then says "clearly the left-wing government did it".

Makes me think of the Honduras situation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

, e.g. the USA and UK were pro-coup for that. The BBC for example is almost always more pro-right wing when it comes to Latin America than almost any media in Europe. One example is their general coverage of the Honduras coup. They manage to mention all the accusations against the ousted leader but somehow whitewash all the bad things that the coup leaders did. e.g.:

Mr Zelaya's removal came as he pressed on with plans to hold a non-binding public consultation on 28 June to ask people whether they supported moves to change the constitution. This would have meant adding a question to the ballot papers for November's presidential election on setting up a body charged with redrawing the constitution. Mr Zelaya's critics said the move was aimed at removing the current one-term limit on serving as president.

However they fail to make a single mention that the coup was unconstitutional and what happened to constitutional human rights afterwards. e.g.:

De facto President Roberto Micheletti ordered a curfew ... the curfew law was not published in the official journal La Gaceta and was not approved by Congress.  ... Amnesty International ... stated that the curfew implementation is arbitrary, with curfew times announced on radio stations, changing randomly each day and between different regions of Honduras. ... suspending four constitutional guarantees during the hours the curfew is in effect ... suspended civil liberties including freedom of transit and due process, as well as permitting search and seizure without a warrant.

The ambassadors of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua said that on 29 June that they were detained and beaten by Honduran troops .... Also, allies of Zelaya, among them several government officials, were taken into custody by the military ...

And in the BBC you can read that:

In May 2007, Mr Zelaya ordered all of the country's TV and radio stations to carry government propaganda for two hours a day, accusing them of giving his government unfair coverage.

But somehow they don't think it's newsworthy to mention that:

Reuters on 29 June 2009, describing the situation in Honduras as a "media blackout", reported that the military had shut down several TV stations, radio stations, and newspaper's websites. Among the TV stations closed were CNN en Español, TeleSUR, and "a pro-Zelaya channel". Reuters said that "the few television and radio stations still operating on Monday [the 29th] played tropical music or aired soap operas and cooking shows," and "made little reference to the demonstrations or international condemnation of the coup. . . ." A government health worker interviewed by Reuters said that the anti-Zelaya newspapers El Heraldo and La Tribuna, and "some television channels controlled by the opposition" were the only ones still broadcasting on the morning of the 29th.[85][86] The Miami Herald reported that the "crackdown on the media" began before dawn on the 28th. It said that only pro-Micheletti stations were allowed to broadcast and that they carried only news friendly to the new government.[87] On 29 June, four Associated Press personnel were detained and removed from their hotel, but then released.

e.g. this is a common pattern, and happened in Venezuela as well. The left's "censorship" down south is generally of the kind: "you only show one side of things! So we're going to ask that you also give us airtime to give a response". Then, you have the right-wing in Latin America, and the first thing they do when they get power is to send goon squads to get rid of "disloyal" newspapers, and radio and TV stations, only leave party-approved media on the air.

This is the very reason Zelaya ordered the stations to carry his speeches unedited. you're dealing with people who have no ethical issues whatsoever with becoming mouthpieces for a fascist takeover of society. They do tricks like cutting up your speeches and editing them in misleading ways: misquoted, paraphrased and distorted. If it's optional to cover the speech you can't win that battle. The only way to win this type of conflict is to make them cover the speech, in its entirety. It's not propaganda, it's just trying to get your message out there without fascist assholes who control the media distorting your arguments.

More balanced coverage is given by The Guardian here. While the left has issues, this is an example of what happens if you let the media have its way and topple that leader by force. These are the type of people waiting in the wings:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/hillary-clinton-honduras-violence-manuel-zelaya-berta-caceres

Meanwhile, the crackdown was brutal, said Karen Spring of the Honduras Solidarity Network. “People were beaten, tortured, disappeared, jailed illegally. There were no conditions for free and fair elections; there was no peaceful transition.”

New elections that November went ahead without any international observers – apart from a delegation from the US Republican party – and were boycotted by large sections of society. The independent candidates, and some from Zelaya’s Liberal party, pulled out.

The new government swiftly unveiled a collection of pro-business policies and aggressively pursued a sell-off of natural resources.

As community leaders like Cáceres fought back against mining, logging and agri-business projects, Honduras became the most dangerous country for environmental activists, with at least 118 killed since 2010, according to the latest data from Global Witness.

The deaths came amid a general deterioration in human rights. Between 2009 and 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued 41 protective measures covering hundreds of union workers, lawyers and LGBT, environmental and indigenous activists who were facing imminent risks. Only Colombia and Mexico – both of which have much larger populations – received more during the same period.

One of Zelaya’s most controversial policies had been to order an investigation into the entrenched land conflicts in the Bajo Aguán region where campesinos were pitted against palm oil conglomerates. After the coup, campesino groups started occupying land illegally as Zelaya’s land reform plans were shelved. The region was rapidly militarised and more than 110 campesinos were murdered.

Violence against the LGBT community has also escalated since the coup. Since 2009, 229 LGBT people have been murdered – an average of 30 every year, according to the NGO Cattrachas. This compares to an average of two murders a year between 1994 and 2008.

The current president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was elected in 2013, has pushed forward with his own agenda to overhaul the country’s political system – and allow him to stand for re-election. Hernández created a new militarised police force while institutions such as the supreme court, electoral commission and congress are dominated by figures loyal to him and his party.

Oh, right, so now they have a neo-fascist leader who wants re-election, the very same thing Zelaya was accused of, but that's perfectly ok because he sold off everything that wasn't nailed down to the multi-nationals

[smjjames]

I’d have expected that from FOX, but to have generally center left publications saying that seems surprising to me.

[Reelya]

BBC isn't center-left. It's "establishment" England. Remember it's entirely government-owned with a government appointed administration. Sure, there's some flexibility in viewpoints, but that reflects the diversity in viewpoints of the e.g. Oxford/Cambridge elite of England.

It gets amusing sometimes. For example, the one story that started making me skeptical of BBC coverage was the Nepal / Maoist story.

I was following the Nepal "maoist" story for a few years back before the elections (2008?), and the BBC coverage was fairly constant, and where I was getting my news at the time. It was pretty consistently "maoists bad" "everyones hates maoists" "nepalese scared of maoists". Then, there were the first free elections, with the Maoists winning by a landslide, and how does the BBC characterize it?

As the Maoists surge towards victory ...  There are many ways to interpret what is going on. ... the Nepali electorate ... cannily thought of a way to prevent the former rebels going back to conflict.

Oh right, so there are "many ways" to interpret the Maoist's landslide victory. But "people are supporters of the Maoists" isn't one of them. Everyone apparently conspired with a "nudge nudge wink wink" strategy to stop the Maoists by electing them.

Then, in a typical bit of BBC coverage, when the Maoists didn't win an election they were suddenly newsworthy again after several years of zero coverage: 2013 story "Why Nepal rejected Maoists". Hang on, where were your reporters when Nepal wasn't rejecting the Maoists?

What they somehow manage to avoid saying is who actually won this election. The headline and article merely implies that Nepal rejected Maoists, and therefore communism. In fact, the big winners were the Nepali Congress party, who are members of the Socialist International, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist). e.g. both fairly "commie" parties won - replacing the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre). The BBC decided for you that these weren't things you needed to know, you just needed to know that Nepal "rejected Maoists". However, when the Maoists beat those same parties, the BBC decided to make it clear that the beaten parties were also commies.

The point here isn't about whether such parties are good, it's just showcasing that the BBC are untrustworthy commentators, who frame stories according to a pre-planned narrative, omitting important details from stories, or entirely failing to report on major events, if they don't fit the narrative.

This last point is also relevant to e.g. coverage of Venezuela. Almost all the opposition parties to Maduro are also members of Socialist International, which puts them further left than any party in the US and UK, with the single exception of the UK's Social Democratic and Labour Party. Basically, when one socialist party loses to another socialist party, the right-wing corporate media hails it as a rejection of socialism, while conveniently omitting to mention who actually won.

[Sheb]

This last point is also relevant to e.g. coverage of Venezuela. Almost all the opposition parties to Maduro are also members of Socialist International, which puts them further left than any party in the US and UK, with the single exception of the UK's Social Democratic and Labour Party. Basically, when one socialist party loses to another socialist party, the right-wing corporate media hails it as a rejection of socialism, while conveniently omitting to mention who actually won.

To be fair, most of the western centre-left parties are or were until a couple years ago members of the Socialist international. Labour was in there until 2013. It's not the single most radical of grouping.

[martinuzz]

Indeed, nothing radical about Socialist International, they're just a normal political organisation for European standards, except they're not national but supra-national.
Dutch SP (Socialist) is also a member of the SI, as is or was the PvdA (Labour). Not sure about Groen Links (Greens), I do believe that at least their youth league also has affinity with SI.