The Colombia/Ecuador/Venezuela Mess or Let's Place Bets on How Long Before the U.S. Backs a Colombian War With Venezuela

the OAS claims irregularities in the trend both from 84% with 95% onwards being particularly bad. the MIT report finds that the entirety of the final result is explainable by the trend before that.

anyway regardless of the substance of any irregularities, in the vote trend or otherwise, there's still absolutely no justification for the military coup that occurred which is the ultimate principle.

I agree on the second point. But the thread was bumped because of the MIT report, so that is of course what I'm writing about. And the first point is just wrong. The OAS report goes into detail on irregularities in specific districts happening right as the count hits 95%, this just simply can't be explained by voting trends happening elsewhere at earlier times. It's bad use of statistics.

The MAS is favored to win the new election, and the nightmare right-wing government will hopefully soon be over. A lot of things can be true at once, and believing that 1) perpetual reelection is bad and Morales should have never stood and 2) the OAS report is more credible than the MIT report, and the evidence of fraud is very convincing, does not mean I can't also believe that 3) right-wing coups are bad and 4) MAS is better than the opposition.

Yup, comfortably holding all thoughts from my big chair in Copenhagen.

Bumbling idiots: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/venezuela-us-transition-plan-maduro-guaido

It's an April's fool from the US

The article is from yesterday

Lol I knew you were going to say that

The Venezuelans don't trust the US? B-b-but, I heard you should always trust Elliot Abrams!

when you are so bad at everything you fail even at emulating failure

a “Star Wars summit of anti-Maduro goofballs"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/05/06/bay-pigs-style-fiasco-venezuela/

just reading about this. what a world

my brother sent me that story along with many Red Zone Cuba jokes

a very reasonable doubt everyone had was "c'mon is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition really signing a Microsoft Word template contract for like $250 million with a crossfit merc group to do a revolution and topple a government"
well, apparently, yeah seems so

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) May 7, 2020

AHAHAHA HOLY SHIT, Those Silvercorps morons stole their terms and conditions from @masterclass

They even failed to do the find and replace correctly!!! https://t.co/du7WqcSWH4 pic.twitter.com/fCe5NLlav1

— zedster (@z3dster) May 5, 2020

Full(ish) contract here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-attachments-to-the-general-services-agreement-between-the-venezuelan-opposition-and-silvercorp/e67f401f-8730-4f66-af53-6a9549b88f94/

One of the first articles this organisation uploaded on its website is by Claire Wordley, the very person who in the months in the run up to the coup in Bolivia was pushing the lie that Morales = Bolsonaro & that he was to blame for fires in the Amazon. https://t.co/GmlepVcuwQ

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) June 9, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/world/americas/bolivia-election-evo-morales.html

A close look at Bolivian election data suggests an initial analysis by the O.A.S. that raised questions of vote-rigging — and helped force out a president — was flawed.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

someone i went to hs with shared a fundraiser for her troop-husband's friend who was apparently one of the ppl who attempted the coup in venezuela lolllllllllllllllll

Lol.

I'm happy to admit I got it wrong in dismissing those calling this a 'coup' earlier.

This WAS a coup.

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) June 17, 2020

7/ Then, it got real embarrassing. In April 2019, we tried to organize a kind of coup, but it became a debacle. Everyone who told us they’d rally to Guaido got cold feet and the plan failed publicly and spectacularly, making America look foolish and weak.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 4, 2020

this coup's going in my cringe compilation

On the Colombian protests and strikers:

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/police-colombia-acab/tnamp/?

Oh nothing, just Juan Guaidó and friends attempting to appropriate $40bn of Venezuelan state money from foreign banks in return for kick-backs down the road. https://t.co/mfqUv4uGbx

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) January 3, 2021

Ecuador's govt are trying to ban leftist @ecuarauz from standing in the 2nd round, even though he WON the 1st round. In Bolivia too, the coup tried to ban the largest party from standing. Its a deseperate measure taken by US-backed tyrants who've lost the consent of the governed.

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) February 13, 2021

The latest round of protests against Colombia's right-wing government have seen a brutal crackdown, leading to at least 43 deaths – but the mass movement for social change is only growing stronger. https://t.co/0IWKqGMpoo

— Tribune (@tribunemagazine) May 23, 2021

Colombia, Celag poll:

Presidential election

Petro (PH, left): 38%
Fajardo (CC, centre): 18%
J.M. Galán (PLC, centre-left): 9%
De la Calle (PLC, centre-left): 8%
...

Fieldwork: 13 May-8 June '21
Sample size: 1,945#Colombia pic.twitter.com/Vxl87gvz6W

— America Elects (@AmericaElige) June 11, 2021

Bolivia’s recent interim government led by Jeanine Áñez persecuted opponents with “systematic torture” and “summary executions” by security forces following ex Pres. Evo Morales’s resignation in 2019, according to a new report by OAS human rights experts. https://t.co/Gatf5cPbGO pic.twitter.com/kfsR6gA8ji

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 20, 2021

quiet thread these days

it seems this Roth fellow called the fascist coup a “transitional moment” at the time, so much for watching human rights.

I see the OAS is suddenly trustworthy.

do you care about this

fucking lol

By the way, I don’t see a problem with what happened in Bolivia

IIRC

“Compared to that other person on a messageboard whose views I disagree with, I am on the right side of history and he is not”

It is going to take a lot of imagination for an ideologue of Milo’s or Left’s kind to understand this but one can believe that Morales ‘president forever’ approach to politics is extremely bad all the while not supporting Añez human rights abuses at all. Or are we a little too attached to the schtick of making wild assumptions about someone we disagree with in order to show the world how virtuous we are? In any case I hope this sort of behavior is exclusive to the internet, because geez, must be tough to make friends irl with that sort of intransigeance.

lol, you didn't "see a problem" with the fascist coup last month

I am not going to spend hours trying to explain the vast complexity of politics in a country of 12 millions citizens and how not everyone will subscribe to your us against them/black and white narratives. Mainly because I know your raison d’être is to chastise anyone contradicting or stepping out of your one viewpoint and to get as many ‘gotchas’ as you can to pat yourself on the back and ultimately it’s just very very sad to witness.

I’ve never expressed support for any politician but I’m clearly a massive evo for life stan because I implied the coup is bad or something, wild assumptions indeed. to the charge of ideology check out this mirror

and to get as many ‘gotchas’ as you can to pat yourself on the back and ultimately it’s just very very sad to witness.

― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 28 August 2021 bookmarkflaglink

As if you don't do this.

VHS, from what I could tell, your nuanced view of the situation was that it was all basically fine because it worked out in the end with a transfer of power to a legitimately elected leader who wasn't Morales. You treated the year of Anez's rule like a speed bump that was necessary because Morales had to step down, even if he won the election and the reports of fraud were false and dozens of protestors were killed by Anez's forces. Maybe this is the mature, realpolitik way of looking at things, but it's also completely devoid of any context of the history of leftist leaders in South America and the right-wing response to them.

VHS do you work for Canada’s version of the Brookings Institute or what

Ideally the Ecuadorians should be allowed to sort this out internally without interference, but reflexive US interventionism is so deeply entrenched in our foreign policy that such an ideal will not be achievable any time soon. We will always throw our weight behind some faction in every contest for power in Latin America and even our rare, well-intentioned efforts seldom produce happy results and they have already caused so much disruption of the internal politics in Ecuador and other Latin nations that merely ceasing to interfere is insufficient to remedy the problems caused by our past intervention.

I don't particularly care whether the observation above is 'mature' or a sound reflection of realpolitik, or wide open to criticism that I am not doing enough to assist the Ecuadorian people in their struggle, mainly because no position I have ever adopted toward Latin American foreign policy has ever made any substantive difference in that policy. All I know is that the Monroe Doctrine has wrought much more evil than good in the world.

"merely ceasing to interfere is insufficient to remedy the problems caused by our past intervention."

Just don't interfere ffs.

I promise not to.

As a 'mature' citizen that's what you should do.

Maybe this is the mature, realpolitik way of looking at things, but it's also completely devoid of any context of the history of leftist leaders in South America and the right-wing response to them.

As of yet, Luis Arce has had very little resistance from US foreign policy, the imprisonement of Añez being really the only voiced criticism so far, same for Diego Castillo who is part of a self described Marxist party, same for Fernández in Argentina, and seemingly (I might be wrong there!) same for AMLO. I’m not denying that there has been resistance to left wing politics by American’s FP in Latin American history, I just don’t think it’s the case for the Morales situation. I would rather see what happened and see if it fits the narrative than start from the narrative and make assumptions.

And one the biggest assumption is that the OAS report was an element of American interventionism to displace Morales. I don’t see it that way. Morales asked for that audit because he trusted the organisation, Diego Castillo trusted the OAS enough to audit the Peruvian elections too and it certified his victory, all the while knowing of what happened in Bolivia in 2019. Cuba is a full contributing member of the organisation, and the OAS also just released a full report on Añez human right crimes, this is not exactly the behavior of an organisation hell bent on the destruction of left wing politics and the promotion of right wing autocrats. Really, no one has full proof that there was ill intent, mistakes can happen, we see them all the time, the political situation was jumpy to begin with, a lot of people were done with Morales before the elections. Anti-Morales protests can happen without foreign intervention, Añez can be an interim despot without the help of Americans, you see similar situations all the time outside of the Western Hemisphere, but when it happens in Latin American it is obviously an extension of the Monroe doctrine? Bolivians have enough agency that it would more precise to see their actions first rather than just assume ‘it’s all America’.

Good piece.

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/colombia-statues-conquistadores-toppling/

Bulletin #12 (5:05PM) with 97.06% of tables counted: pic.twitter.com/FVAcWYoy8l

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) June 19, 2022

love to see it

Venezuela and Colombia have left-wing leadership, and Ecuador has had a week's worth of strikes ✅✅✅

Felcitades Senor President, socialista!

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) June 19, 2022

I kept hearing earlier how the fascist guy was a "political outsider" from bbc coverage - that old chestnut. With this result and Macron losing his parliamentary majority it's not a bad night at all. Time to savour some sour grapes.

The Colombian embassy is on the same street as my local bookstore; the streets have closed for every primary or whatever in the last year. They hate the left wing guy.