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Bolivia Wants MAS


“I will return, and I will be millions” -Tupac Katari


Introduction


Latin America has, since its first breath, represented a long tradition of decolonial and anti-imperialist struggles. The commitment of all its peoples to establish self-determination and sovereignty runs deep in the spirit of its lands. The many nations that form the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean find the constant forms of U.S aggression too familiar, whether it is from the sanctions and embargoes or the neo-colonial projects of the IMF and World Bank, these regions seem to remain under a constant state of assault. This fact is born from the long campaign held by the U.S to establish itself as the dominant (if not sole) economic and political force in the western hemisphere. The U.S’s imperialist nature show as early as the U.S’s refusal to recognize The Republic of Haiti until 1862 (long after it declared its independence on January 1st, 1804), as transparent as when it declared itself as the overseers of the western hemisphere in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, and up until to the multiple coup d'etat attempts we have seen in the last few years.

Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia represent three countries that have fallen under the boot of U.S aggression in the last three years. In Nicaragua, it was the protests that arose against the democratically elected Sandinista government triggered by the IMF austerity measures in 2018 (of which only accepted partial measures that have since been retracted), but have continued due to the National Endowment of Democracy ( NED) funded U.S auxiliary groups. In Venezuela, when Juan Guido’s self-declaration of presidency on January 23rd, 2019. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela headed by PSUV (Partido Socialist Unido de Venezuela/ The United Socialist Party of Venezuela) would claim victory over violent U.S sanctions (similar to those placed on Nicaragua today), military coup attempts, and assasination attempts all of 2019 and early 2020. Nicaragua with President Daniel Ortega and Venezuela with President Nicholas Maduro remain under the democratic rule, securing constitutional sovereignty and the push towards Eco-Socialism. Bolivia on the other hand has been taken over by a military junta backed by the U.S.


Bolivia’s fight to re-establish its right to self-determination and road to socialism is what this article will be concerned with. The goal is to offer an analysis of the current situation of Bolivia for the anglophone world and the proletariat in the settler nation of The United States, an analysis that is in favor of Movimiento Al Socialismo’s (MAS) return to power, as decided by the masses of Bolivians rising against the illegitimate interim-regime, which was formerly headed by Jeanine Anez and now is scrambling in disorder. Bolivia is a nation with the spirit of Tupac Katari and Tupac Amaru, a nation named after El Liberatador Simon Bolivar. Bolivia has had a socio-economic revolution that lasted from 2006-2019, until the political party of Evo Morales: Movimiento Al Socialismo- Instrumento Político para la Soberanía de los Pueblos Indígenas (MAS-IPSP- MAS and MAS-IPSP are used interchangeably) was ousted by a military coup.


MAS-IPSP as an Organization


To understand the will of the Bolivian peoples struggling to once again overcome Neo-Colonialism and Imperialism, we must look into the history of MAS and the political motion of the party. We will approach the development of MAS but focus primarily on its merger with IPSP.


MAS was founded as a left outbreak of Falange Bolivian Socialist in 1987 by Bolivian Lawyer David Añez Pedraza originally as MAS-U (Unzaguista).


Originally, it was proposed in addressing a coherent method of organizing the cocaleros (Coca farmer) unions as the primary means of combating the pro-imperialist national bourgeoisie. The cocaleros were organizing in amidst a U.S terrorist front, the “war on drugs”. The criminalization of their traditional coca leaf was a point of disrupting cocaleros and other industry union organizing. The DEA and CIA served as the primary means of installing a state of hybrid wars, in large part affecting the indigenous peoples of Bolivia’s Cochabamba area. It was in this violent political climate that Juan Evo Morales Ayma and other organizers would unite both cocaleros and miners through the formation of IPSP (the mining industry having a long tradition of Marxism in Bolivia, Evo Morales’ early Union work).


MAS-U proposed a more center left line titled “Andien Capitalism’ which would have a market economy with strong national development and protectionist characteristics, inside of the bourgeoisie superstructure. Or as others have described it, “resistant to neoliberalism, in defense of natural resources- especially that of coca leaf and gas- an important ethnic-cultural component of social struggles like political struggle.” Although this would shift, it is important to note. MAS understood, like all Bolivian Revolutionary movements, the centrality of the cocaleros and mass indegenous mobilizations as a revolutionary force in Bolivia.


It wasn't until 1995 that they would move past this theoretical approach and become the MAS that would later merge with Evo Morales' party and others left alliances many of which were run by women.


In 1997, for the coming elections an alliance of indegenous parties from the cocalero movement formed, of which MAS was one. Evo was initially elected by the congress alliance to run as president, but an interorganizational split between Asamblea Soberania de los Pueblos Instrumento Político (ASP-IP), founded by Alejo Veliz and Evo Morales led to the later creation of IPSP. Hervé do Alto defines IPSP to be “organized as a political party and a federation of social movements at the same time.” Alejo Veliz, ASP-IP ran for president although the majority of the votes in the alliance were for Evo Morales.


Evo Morales ran as parliamentary leader and humbly withdrew to the former's demand despite the coalition's request for him to lead. With the need to run under a registered party (MAS) he would run and win in Cochabamba. This would be considered the moment in which Evo Morales would become the sole commanding leader of the MAS-IPSP of today. Leonida Zurita Vargas, leader of the National Federation of Women Peasants in Bolivia states on the developing matters:


We continued with our mobilizations and marches to La Paz; Likewise, our vigils continued on different dates when necessary, always in defense of human rights. For the poor which was ours COCA, land, territory and for a life with dignity.


On July 8, 1999, in the municipal elections we obtained 3.3% of the vote of the 320 municipalities throughout the country; there we participated with our own acronym MAS and our flag with the colors: Blue representing the sky and the water; the White for purity, peace and hope and Black for mourning or the death of ancestors and martyrs. We only achieved 11 Mayors and we obtained 40 councilors in Cochabamba, 18 in La Paz, 10 in Potosí, 1 in Chuquisaca, 6 in Santa Cruz, 5 in Oruro and 1 in Tarija; a total of 81 Councilors throughout the country. And yet they didn't think we had won! In addition, after a year had passed, some councilors resigned from their parties and joined our ranks, so we had almost 100 councilors.


The beginning of the 21st century was one in which the Neo-liberal projects of Bolivian Bourgeoisie created conditions for revolution. The “Water Wars” of the 2000’s, an attempt of global capital to privatize Bolivia’s water and the battle for hydrocarbons in 2003 similarly an attempt to privatize these mineral deposits. On the latter, the Vice-President of Evo Morales, Álvaro García Linera says it "would be the second unifying factor of this society" and that "the debates over hydrocarbons are playing with the destiny of Bolivia."


It was in this backdrop that Evo would run for presidency in 2002 and lose obtaining 20.2% of the vote. Alvaro Garcia Linera was a co-founder of the Ejercito Guerrillero Tucaj Katar (EGTK; Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army) , who was imprisoned in the nineties as a political prisoner. He was a Marxist academic that joined MAS in the 2000s and become an ideological forerunner in the party. Alvaro would be chosen by Evo to run as his running mate in the 2005 election in which MAS would win with the second largest votes in Bolivian history; 54%. Evo Morales assumed power on January 22nd 2006 and becoming the first indigenous president in 500 years of post-conquest South America (Second in Latin America to Benito Juarez of Mexico, of Zapotec Nation)


MAS-IPSP Ideology


MAS-IPSP was able to bring the indigenous communal movements and the working-class movements of Bolivia together, how this was done will be discussed here. MAS describes itself as Bolivian Socialist, it is a part of the many Bolivarian Revolutions in Latin America from Venezuela to Nicaragua. Its practice will be summed up here using party documents, analysis from its party heads, and external commentary.


In 2003, MAS-IPSP grounds its ideological construction on the basis of its concrete conditions and has developed from the motion of those conditions. MAS’ ideological foundation understands that the people of Bolivia have been subjugated to the world outlook of the west for 500 years and in that time it has brought wealth to the nations of Europe and the US. The western worldview promoted imperialism and the exploitation of the land and the people leaving the nation undeveloped and impoverished. MAS understood the need for capital infrastructure to be the creators of their own history. But, the reality from colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism was that its cities lacked capital infrastructure, and its people lived in dire poverty. That is until MAS led in the development of the nation, which we cover later in the article.


MAS understood the state was a tool for the national bourgeoisie which adheres to the western outlook of internal colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism. The state was being used to repress peoples on the claim of national security distinct in their approach as history passed; first and foremost the ingenious peoples of the land, the communist, and the hybrid war against the coca and cocaleros.


MAS stood in the tradition of Africa, Asia and Latin America that to overcome poverty and underdevelopment that the nation could no longer be administered to the needs of imperialism. The environmental devastation of the imperialist nations that left the darker nations was one of inequality. That the territories of the traditional people governed by its peoples and not the imperialist tran-national corporations. In their own words:


One thing we know that the earth does not belong to man, it is man who belongs to the earth.

Of that we are certain. All things are related to each other like the blood that unites a family. Everything is related. What harms the earth, harms the sons and daughters of the earth as well. “It was not man who wove the fabric of life; he was just a thread of it. Everything he does with a plot he will do to himself” (An indigenous chief of the Redskins in the letter addressed to GEORGE WASHINGTON, President of the USA).

We have a sacred duty to humanity, to fight to retake the paradigm of a symbiotic society in total balance with nature, the highest expression of which is the Pachamama concept. On the contrary is Western industrialism will continue its task of destroying life on planet earth.

If the capitalist economy of exchange and accumulation, which also supposes the power of private property, has brought us extreme poverty, we have no choice but to replace our economic principles of reciprocity and redistribution, that is, to produce for the common good. With this, it is necessary to control the vertical and transversal of the ecological floors that will allow us to create abundance and quality of life. For a long period to carry out a Tink'u between the capitalist economy of exchange and accumulation with the economy of reciprocity and redistribution. In this framework, our municipalities must function under the philosophy of the Ayllu´, the Ayni, the Mink'a and the Minga in no case under the principles of the capitalist market economy.


Bolivian socialism is to be determined primarily by the development of Bolivia against imperialism, in regional emancipation of Latin America and as a political program for the development towards socialism with the particular characteristics of Aymara and Amazonian world outlooks.


Marta Harnecker and Federico Fuentes have written extensively on the indgenous national movement of Bolivia and have labeled MAS as the “new indgenous nationalism”.

MAS is a movement based primarily to combat the contradiction of neoliberalism and imperialism.


Evo Morales characterizes the socialism of Bolivia as one based in communal practice. MAS-ISPS approved the organizational congressional proposal titled “Communal Socialism for the Liberation of Bolivia from the Colonial State”. The ideological formation of the party is viewed as an intersection of the traditions of indigeneity, Katarismo, and leftist trends that range from Marxist to mild anti communism. Álvaro García Linera, has expressed of MAS in more recent years before the coup MAS-IPSP "An eclectic Indianism with the critical and self-critical traditions of the intellectual left that began to indigenize Marxism from the 1980s onwards." He has written many books on the development of Marxist Communalism developing from the MAS transitional government of “Andean Capitalism”, to is best to be understood as a transitional stage of socialism; state capitalism.


MAS-IPSP 2006-2019


When viewing the development of Bolivia under the leadership of MAS we will only be discussing the international implications of its governance; in their local, regional and global policy have both domestic and foreign implications. The former would be inappropriate to address as those are difficult for anyone on the outside looking in to be able to understand. It would be unprincpled to comment on policies that have little implications on life here on Turtle Island, let alone attempt to provide a resolution on such matters. Only the masses of the people can solve the dissolution in their struggles. So, the primary concern of the analysis of MAS-IPSP governance is in battle against imperialism.


In 2009 the people of Bolivia ratified a new constitution making it the Plurinational State of Bolivia.


Article 1: Bolivia is constituted as a Unitary Social State of Pluri-National Communitarian Law (Estado Unitario Social de Derecho Plurinacional Comunitario) that is free, independent, sovereign, democratic, intercultural, decentralized and with autonomies. Bolivia is founded on plurality and on political, economic, juridical, cultural and linguistic pluralism in the integration process of the country

Article 2: Right to self determination Given the pre-colonial existence of nations and rural native indigenous peoples and their ancestral control of their territories, their free determination, consisting of the right to autonomy, self-government, their culture, recognition of their institutions, and the consolidation of their territorial entities, is guaranteed within the framework of the unity of the State, in accordance with this Constitution and the law.


It was this that the Bolivian state became a tool for the sovereignty of originarios (a term used for the First Nation peoples in Latin America) in 500 years and with this constitution and other policies that the people moved forward their socio-cultural struggles.


In the time period of MAS leadership o f2006-2019, the achievements that the Bolivian people made for socialism, humanity and the earth itself are many. To list a few as they pertain to the long struggle against imperialism are as follows:



MAS and the 2019 Coup d’etat


As stated in the beginning of this paper in October 2019, a military coup was launched against Evo Morales on his 4th presidential election in which he was predicted to win. As of now all claims on electoral fraud have been disproven and/or shown to be tools of imperialism.


David Choquehaunco comments on the coup, “We were beginning to industrialize our natural resources, we wanted to industrialize our lithium, we were taking the first steps to industrialize our gas, and suddenly the transnationals began to organize a coup d’état. The other day one of Tesla’s representatives said it: ‘We have organized the coup with the United States government, and if we feel like it, we can intervene at any time in any other country.’” This reveals that the real imperialists are the owners of capital, that imperialism is economic rule of the global south. Imperialism positions resource extraction and the domination of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America at the center of all its socio-political activities.


The following year has been filled with ruthless violence against the people of Bolivia. The military ran Evo Morales and Álvaro García Linera out of the country, forcing them to flee to Mexico to save their lives. They would later relocate to Argentina after the election of President Alberto Fernadez and Vice President Cristina Fernedez de Kirchner defeating Argentinas neo-liberal goverment. The military junta kidnapped Patricia Arce, a mayor, paraded her in the streets barefoot covered in red paint after having her hair cut. The coup removed the national symbol of the Andien people, the Whipala, from the military uniforms and declared the religion and culture of the people of Aymara as satanic. Evo Morales was blocked from running as president and in the senate. This was done within the first few months of the coups. It would be a precursor to the year of violence against the people of Bolivia.


The year will be marked by Bolivians rallying under MAS against the policies, mismanagement and state violence of the military junta. In cities and in towns the people would confront imperialism’s new neo-colonial project in the streets with flags blue, black and white.


The elections were initially postponed till May, in which Evo Morales named Luis Arce and David Choquehuanco to run in the presidential election as running mates. The elections were once again delayed in September by Anes on the grounds of COVID-19. As if the pandemic didn't wreak havoc after the austerity measures of the coup destroyed the health system, and reintroduced $327 million in debt in IMF loans.


The national bourgeoisie of Bolivia is disunited and inconsistent. Military leader Jeanine Anez has withdrawn from the election. Fernando Camacho, a Evangelical extremist and Former President Carlos Mesa who resigned in 2005 due to a corruption scandal are running as separate candidates for Bolivia’s national bourgeoisie .


The coup has made something very clear that any discontent with MAS is being resolved in the struggle for state power. From the syndicalist that opposed Evo, to the Anarchist who work towards the weakening of the masses and the essential strengthening of imperialism like Silivia Rivera, “But the defeatism suggesting that there was a coup d’etat here and that everything has been lost is false. That would mean that we would have to think that the MAS is the only option we have for an interethnic, plural, pluricultural Bolivia.” MAS has proven to its critic that its governance is in the best interest of the nation and it has the support of the most powerful force in any nation; the people.



MAS has been chosen by the masses of the bolivian people and will move forward as delegated by the people.

As Luis Arce comments, “ MAS is a guarantee that lithium and all natural resources, including gas, minerals, will remain in the hands of the state. We are the only political party that guarantees the Bolivian people that not a molecule of our natural resources is going to be transferred so happily to transnational companies. Our policy proceeds through agreements where the state has an absolute majority in both the control over these businesses and the profits from them.”


Conclusion


As the workers of the United States scramble to create a social movement that can address the interior contradictions of empire characterized by; monopoly capitalism, No New Cold War politics, environmental destruction, hyper-incarceration, wage stagnations, the insecurities of housing, health and education, and the appartheid rule over Black and First Nation peoples and others of African, Asia, Latin America and Caribbean peoples. The resolutions and strides of the global south should be heeded to as to help us develop a true decolonial movement that confronts imperialism and places us as true internationalists combating our national bourgeoisie through a socialist praxis.


The lessons of Bolivia’s movement of cocaleros, originarios and working-class politics is an important lesson for the U.S. The Socio-cultural movement did not abandon the economic class character of their circumstances and instead developed a revolutionary socialist politics that positioned the Aymara and Amazonian world outlook at the center of a scientific approach of obtaining the state as a political instrument of sovereign development. Socialism is the science of the revolution and it is not western, it is a tool to abstract the particular truths of the world in order to transform it. The people of Bolivia have taken this science and traditional world outlooks to overcome imperialism and will once more do so.


In the U.S there is a disconnection of the subaltern peoples of the land with the working-class movement. Meaning, that the colonized people have not as of yet developed a political approach based on a scientific socialism based on their particular struggle in the U.S or better understood as particular struggles under empire. The counter-revolutionary trends of critical theorists, post-structural analysis and revisionist trends attempt to abandon revolutionary politics based on the betterment of the masses' material conditions led by the people. We must resolve the disunity in the working-class movement and decolonial projects of the people if we are to ever Free The Land.


This can only be determined by the masses own will and can not fear its own construction coming into contact with the real contradiction present in the world. Only its application can develop a praxis. It cannot abandon the goal of obtaining one of the most powerful tools of class warfare which is the seizure and/or creation of the state.


The U.S represents the highest form of imperialism in the age in which monopoly capitals crisis grows more volatile, the bourgeois tendency towards facism grows as the contradictions of the present are that which hold the proletariat and the global south at the boot of finance capital. All our efforts are to resolve the settler contradictions we face on the domestic front as the Imperialist attempt to confront the rise of proletariat self determination with the New Cold War and environmental devastation.


The settler state of the U.S is occupying the lands of Hawai’i, Borinquen, New Africa, Lakota, and many more. The colonized peoples must use the lessons learned from the working class movements; the socialist decolonial projects of Africa, Asia and Latin America to overcome the current occupation on our lands. The freedom of the land is dependent on the people of colonized lands rally with all working peoples with a working-class politics.


MAS understands that the indigenous movement alongside the urban working class movement united was the only way of exceeding the motion towards sovereignty. The imperialist force has only strengthened the resolve of the Bolivian people and united them under MAS to lead them to continue their development according to their own volition. Bolivia has taken the science and traditional world outlook to overcome imperialism. Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca Céspedes will lead the nation because the people of Bolivia have stated they want MAS.










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Troika Kollective Statement on Ukraine (Eng/Esp)

Updated: Mar 11, 2022


The Troika Kollective stands in solidarity with the people of Donetsk and Luhansk. We stand firmly against all wars of plunder, against NATO’s repeated military interventions, and against U.S. intervention. We recognize that the working-class of these two republics want peace and self-determination. We are in solidarity with the anti-war faction in Ukraine. The U.S. ruling class is only interested in maintaining post-2014 Ukraine as an economic and geopolitical pawn in it’s outdated attempt to hang on to a unipolar world (U.S. hegemony). Russia is one of many nations of the world today who, through their refusal to bend to U.S. imperialism, represent the deterioration of U.S. hegemony.


If you were to be asked when was the last time that the U.S. began a new war for moral reasons you would be left speechless. The U.S. government cares as much about the people of Ukraine as they cared about the people of their past wars. Did the U.S care about; the Korean people, the Vietnamese people, the Cuban people, the Nicaraguan people, the Libyan people, the Iraqi people, or the Afghan people when they invaded and/or funded proxy wars? Even here at home did they care about Afro-Americans during segregation or at the peak of the War on Drugs, did they care about Muslims at the peak of the War on Terror. In 2020 at the first peak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the nation rose against the brutal police lynching of George Floyd with hundreds of everyday people being imprisoned, beaten, and murdered by the police of the U.S. government. The rulers of the U.S. have never responded to a call for human life, they are only interested in maintaining global hegemony. This is why they have invested billions of american taxpayers money into providing lethal “aid”, weapons, to the Ukraine. The U.S. government has enough money for war but refuses to feed its poor. The U.S ruling class will send the working-class child to fight for foreign interests, but refuses to invest in improving the quality of life of working-class americans.


We must as workers and oppressed people in the U.S empire build-up a stronger anti-war movement. It is our duty to ourselves and our fellow humans that the working-class in every nation must stand up against its own ruling class. That being said, we have a duty to stand against the U.S. ruling class, which is occupying this homeland and other lands of origins, occupying our matrias and patrias.


There are two general trends in the anti-war movement: i) one that supports resistance to the empire and ii) those who will engage in lecturing and hand wringing the forces fighting back in Ukraine against imperialism and their proxies. We have no illusions about Russia, Putin, and the United Russia Party. It is important to thoroughly evaluate Russia as a social formation today. Russia is indeed capitalist with its own oligarchy, but one that is objectively in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism. We support the resistance that takes myriad forms challenging the class interests of the Russian bourgeoisie.


History does not develop along a straight line. We cannot glorify the loss of life anywhere, but we know that a people's right to sovereignty is an inalienable right to be defended at all costs. We put the blame squarely on the shoulders of NATO and their local henchmen in Kyiv who in their attacks on the people of Donetsk and Luhansk brought this war into motion. This has been building up since 2014.


In February, Russia announced before the world that it had had enough of NATO/U.S. war-mongering and expansion. In a speech full of half-truths and mischaracterizations, Putin signaled to the world that when poked and provoked enough, the Russian bear will defend itself and its own interests. The Troika Kollective is not afraid to say that Russia – as a country on a collision course with U.S. imperialism – has the right to defend itself. If it were not for the Russian intervention in the Donbas region, the 14,000 death toll since 2014 would surely have been higher and would continue to rise today. The corporate media only started caring about casualties twelve days ago when their underlings were on the run and it was clear a new government would assume power in Kyiv.


As people who have been forced into becoming part of a diaspora, we know all too well the devastating consequences of U.S. imperialism and NATO expansion. The ruling class has ravaged and exploited far too much already for us to be fooled. For this, we find ourselves in solidarity with the working and oppressed people of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic, as well as the working-class Ukrainians who have been held hostage by the Neo-Nazi regime installed by a U.S.-funded coup. And just like in Latin America, U.S. injerenecia, or illegal hybrid involvement in Ukraine, has had disastrous effects for the people of Ukraine, causing a civil war to break out. Young Ukrainian men, women, and people have fled their country as refugees to escape war.


In becoming a U.S. puppet state, Ukraine’s economy is plummeting, becoming the second poorest country in the region. The workers are always the ones who suffer at the expense of wars that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Ukraine is the largest country in Europe with rivers, bordering two seas, rich soil, coal, and gas. But in the hands of a fascist puppet government, Ukrainians find themselves seeking refuge out of a country so rich in history and resources.


In the 1920s, Ukrainians and Russians joined together in camaraderie to create the first state made by and for working people, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), overthrowing the brutal dictatorship of the Tsar that oppressed them both. In 1941, Russians and Ukrainians fought in arms against the German Nazi occupiers, freeing their homeland and the world from fascism, but if only momentarily. Now the grandchildren of the Communist liberators find themselves in an ethnic conflict against the nation who they once called a brother and under a new boot of a regime that created eugenics, the US ruling class and NATO who support Ukrainian Neo-Nazis.


In response to the installed puppet regime the people of Donbass, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk, who fervently remember and hold dear to their Soviet past took arms and declared independence from Kyiv up until the regime resigns. Instead, their own former compatriots rushed to their border to slaughter them for eight long years. The people of Donbass faced a deafening international silence, only finding solidarity and refuge in Russia.


This ethnic conflicts created by the NATO terrorist group is reminiscient of the violence created between another two ancestral siblings: Colombians and Venezuelans. Colombia, a partner of NATO, continues to wage economic and political warfare against their socialist neighbor Venezuela at the beck and call of their U.S.-E.U. overseers. Venezuelans, like Russians, have been attacked by the Colombian regime and subjected to extreme forms of violence. For example, illegal U.S. sanctions that killed 40,000 Venezuelans in 2014 alone, 6,000,000 forced to flee. The empire directs that war on Venezuelan sovereignty . The working people of Colombia, like in Ukraine, find no justice and dignity under the boot of NATO as we seen with last years #SOSColombia uprisings. Both are merely used as proxies in the West’s agenda of financial profits and global hegemony.


For this, we stand firmly with the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the working and oppressed of Russia and Ukraine against fascism, capitalism, and US-EU-NATO imperialism however much this situation escalates


Смерть фашизму, свобода людям! *


*Смерть фашизму, свобода людям! Translated means Death to fascism, freedom to the people. It is a Yugoslavian anti-fascist slogan


— (Espanol)


Declaración de Troika Kollective sobre Ucrania


El Troika Kollective se solidariza con el pueblo de Donetsk y Luhansk. Nos oponemos firmemente a todas las guerras de saqueo, a las repetidas intervenciones militares de la OTAN y a la intervención de Estados Unidos. Reconocemos que la clase obrera de estas dos repúblicas quiere la paz y la autodeterminación. Nos solidarizamos con la facción anti-guerra de Ucrania. La clase dominante estadounidense sólo está interesada en mantener a Ucrania después de 2014 como un peón económico y geopolítico en su anticuado intento de aferrarse a un mundo unipolar (la hegemonía estadounidense). Rusia es una de las muchas naciones del mundo actual que, por su negativa a plegarse al imperialismo estadounidense, representa una hegemonía en deterioro.


Si le preguntaran cuándo fue la última vez que Estados Unidos inició una nueva guerra por razones morales se quedaría sin palabras. El gobierno de Estados Unidos se preocupa por el pueblo de Ucrania tanto como se preocupó por el pueblo de sus guerras pasadas. ¿Se preocuparon los Estados Unidos por el pueblo coreano, el pueblo vietnamita, el pueblo cubano, el pueblo nicaragüense, el pueblo libio, el pueblo iraquí o el pueblo afgano cuando invadieron y/o financiaron guerras por poderes? Incluso aquí en casa, ¿se preocuparon por los afroamericanos durante la segregación o en el momento álgido de la Guerra contra las Drogas, se preocuparon por los musulmanes en el momento álgido de la Guerra contra el Terror? En 2020, en el primer pico de la pandemia mundial de COVID-19, la nación se levantó contra el brutal linchamiento policial de George Floyd, con cientos de personas corrientes encarceladas, golpeadas y asesinadas por la policía del gobierno de Estados Unidos. Los gobernantes de Estados Unidos nunca han respondido a un llamamiento por la vida humana, sólo les interesa mantener la hegemonía mundial. Por eso han invertido miles de millones del dinero de los contribuyentes estadounidenses en proporcionar "ayuda" letal, armas, a Ucrania. El gobierno estadounidense tiene suficiente dinero para la guerra pero se niega a alimentar a sus pobres. La clase dominante estadounidense enviará al niño de la clase obrera a luchar por intereses extranjeros, pero se niega a invertir en la mejora de la calidad de vida de los estadounidenses de la clase obrera.


Como trabajadores y personas oprimidas en el imperio estadounidense debemos construir un movimiento antiguerra más fuerte. Es nuestro deber para con nosotros mismos y para con nuestros semejantes que la clase obrera de cada nación se levante contra su propia clase dominante. Dicho esto, tenemos el deber de levantarnos contra la clase dominante estadounidense, que está ocupando esta patria y otras tierras de origen, ocupando nuestras matrias y patrias.


Hay dos tendencias generales en el movimiento antiguerra: i) una que apoya la resistencia al imperio y ii) los que se dedican a sermonear y torcer la mano a las fuerzas que luchan en Ucrania contra el imperialismo y sus apoderados. No nos hacemos ilusiones sobre Rusia, Putin y el Partido Rusia Unida. Es importante evaluar a fondo a Rusia como formación social hoy en día. Rusia es ciertamente capitalista con su propia oligarquía, pero una que está objetivamente en el punto de mira del imperialismo estadounidense. Apoyamos la resistencia que adopta innumerables formas que desafían los intereses de clase de la burguesía rusa.


La historia no se desarrolla en línea recta. No podemos glorificar la pérdida de vidas en ningún lugar, pero sabemos que el derecho de un pueblo a la soberanía es un derecho inalienable que debe defenderse a toda costa. Echamos la culpa directamente a la OTAN y a sus secuaces locales en Kiev, que en sus ataques contra el pueblo de Donetsk y Lugansk pusieron en marcha esta guerra. Esto se viene gestando desde 2014.


En febrero, Rusia anunció ante el mundo que estaba harta del belicismo y la expansión de la OTAN y Estados Unidos. En un discurso lleno de medias verdades y caracterizaciones erróneas, Putin señaló al mundo que cuando se le pinche y provoque lo suficiente, el oso ruso se defenderá a sí mismo y a sus propios intereses. El Colectivo de la Troika no tiene miedo de decir que Rusia -como país en curso de colisión con el imperialismo estadounidense- tiene derecho a defenderse. Si no fuera por la intervención rusa en la región del Donbás, la cifra de 14.000 muertos desde 2014 seguramente habría sido mayor y seguiría aumentando hoy. Los medios de comunicación corporativos sólo empezaron a preocuparse por las víctimas hace doce días, cuando sus subordinados se dieron a la fuga y quedó claro que un nuevo gobierno asumiría el poder en Kiev.


Como personas que se han visto obligadas a formar parte de una diáspora, conocemos demasiado bien las devastadoras consecuencias del imperialismo estadounidense y de la expansión de la OTAN. La clase dominante ya ha arrasado y explotado demasiado para que nos dejemos engañar. Por ello, nos solidarizamos con el pueblo trabajador y oprimido de la República Popular de Donetsk y Lugansk, así como con los ucranianos de clase trabajadora que han sido rehenes del régimen neonazi instalado por un golpe de estado financiado por Estados Unidos. Y al igual que en América Latina, la injerencia de Estados Unidos, o la participación híbrida ilegal en Ucrania, ha tenido efectos desastrosos para el pueblo de Ucrania, provocando el estallido de una guerra civil. Jóvenes ucranianos, hombres y mujeres, han huido de su país como refugiados para escapar de la guerra.


Al convertirse en un estado títere de Estados Unidos, la economía de Ucrania está cayendo en picado, convirtiéndose en el segundo país más pobre de la región. Los trabajadores son siempre los que sufren a costa de las guerras que hacen a los ricos más ricos y a los pobres más pobres.


Ucrania es el país más grande de Europa, con ríos, que bordea dos mares, un suelo rico, carbón y gas. Pero en manos de un gobierno fascista títere, los ucranianos se encuentran buscando refugio fuera de un país tan rico en historia y recursos.


En la década de 1920, ucranianos y rusos se unieron en camaradería para crear el primer Estado hecho por y para los trabajadores, la Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS), derrocando la brutal dictadura del Zar que los oprimía a ambos. En 1941, rusos y ucranianos lucharon en armas contra los ocupantes nazis alemanes, liberando a su patria y al mundo del fascismo, aunque sólo momentáneamente. Ahora los nietos de los liberadores comunistas se encuentran en un conflicto étnico contra la nación a la que una vez llamaron hermano y bajo una nueva bota de un régimen que creó la eugenesia, la clase dominante estadounidense y la OTAN que apoyan a los neonazis ucranianos.


En respuesta al régimen títere instalado, el pueblo de Donbass, que incluye a Donetsk y Lugansk, que recuerda fervientemente y se aferra a su pasado soviético, tomó las armas y declaró la independencia de Kiev hasta que el régimen renuncia. En cambio, sus propios antiguos compatriotas se abalanzaron sobre su frontera para masacrarlos durante ocho largos años. El pueblo de Donbass se enfrentó a un silencio internacional ensordecedor, y sólo encontró solidaridad y refugio en Rusia.


Este conflicto étnico creado por el grupo terrorista de la OTAN recuerda a la violencia creada entre otros dos hermanos ancestrales: Los colombianos y los venezolanos. Colombia, socio de la OTAN, sigue librando una guerra económica y política contra su vecina socialista Venezuela a las órdenes de sus supervisores de Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. Los venezolanos, al igual que los rusos, han sido atacados por el régimen colombiano y sometidos a formas extremas de violencia. Por ejemplo, las sanciones ilegales de Estados Unidos que mataron a 40.000 venezolanos sólo en 2014, 6.000.000 obligados a huir. El imperio dirige esa guerra contra la soberanía venezolana . El pueblo trabajador de Colombia, al igual que en Ucrania, no encuentra justicia ni dignidad bajo la bota de la OTAN como vimos con los levantamientos de #SOSColombia del año pasado. Ambos son simplemente utilizados como proxies en la agenda de Occidente de las ganancias financieras y la hegemonía global.


Por ello, estamos firmemente con el pueblo de Donetsk y Lugansk, y con los trabajadores y oprimidos de Rusia y Ucrania contra el fascismo, el capitalismo y el imperialismo de EEUU-UE-OTAN por mucho que esta situación se agrave


¡Смерть фашизму, свобода людям! *


¡*Смерть фашизму, свобода людям! Traducido significa Muerte al fascismo, libertad al pueblo. Es un eslogan antifascista yugoslavo.



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History of the Honduran Peasant Movement and the General Context of the Peasant Struggle




The following document is by Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo/ National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC) outlining the history of the peasant movement in Honduras. The symbol for the CNTC is tecomate (similar to a waterskin but made with a natural plant similar to a pumpkin, “tecomate” is a nahuatl word) with a machete. “The CNTC, created in 1985, is a peasant organization, trade union, and protest organization that fights for a just distribution of land. It is affiliated to the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH) and is part of La Via Campesina. Its purpose is to support affiliated peasant families so they have land and resources to develop the productive activities of agricultural, forestry, and agro-industrial production. Their aim is to contribute to social and economic development. The CNTC organizes protests, actions, develops educational processes, and manages resources for the implementation of profitable productive projects with a focus on gender and sustainable agriculture. In addition, it also conducts research and legal monitoring of cases: diagnostics, land legalization procedures, evictions, and accompaniment of victims prosecuted for these processes.” (from https://pbi-honduras.org/es/qui%C3%A9n-protegemos/cntc ) - Translated by Kahlil I. Sankara and Libre X. Sankara of Troika Kollective


In the 1950s, under the influence of leaders in the agricultural workers' unions of the banana companies on the North coast, an organized peasant movement emerged.


1. In October 1961, the former leaders of the strike of 1954; Lorenzo Zelaya, Gabriel David, and Clemente Gutiérrez organized peasants in the region of Guaymas under the name of COMITÉ CENTRAL DE UNIFICACIÓN CAMPESINA/CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF PEASANT UNIFICATION (COCEUCA). The peasants carried out land recovery actions in Quebrada Seca, Finca 41, Santa Inés, and other places. They also promoted the first march and peasant assembly on March 4, 1962, in El Progreso. Later becoming the "Federación Nacional de Campesinos de Honduras/ National Federation of Peasants of Honduras (FENACH)" on August 29, 1962. FENACH combativeness caused apprehensions in the administration of Villeda Morales.


On April 30, 1965, mobilized 15,000 peasants in El Jute, El Progreso, and Yoro and were repressed by Owaldo Lopez Arellano, killing several leaders including Lorenzo Zelaya.


2. On September 29, 1962 la Asociación Nacional de Campesinos de Honduras/ The National Association of Farmers of Honduras (ANACH) is created in affiliation with la Federación Nacional de Trabajadores del Norte de Honduras / the National Federation of Workers of Northern Honduras (FESITRANH).


3. La Unión Nacional de Campesinos/ The National Union of Peasants (UNC) was founded in the city of Choluteca in 1972, in affiliation with the General Workers' Central (CGT). UNC mobilizations increased the political presence of the peasants throughout the 70’s. The massacres of La Talanquera, Santa Clara, and Los Horcones encaptured the capacity of peasant mobilization, while also reflecting the anti-popular policies of the government(s) in power. The political vision of the UNC is framed in the Social Christian conception.


4. La Federación de Cooperativas de la Reforma Agraria/ The Federation of Agrarian Reform Cooperatives (FECOHRA) was founded on August 26, 1973 it was pushed by Owaldo Lopez Arellano. FECOHRA’s area of influence is only the northern coast of the country and has business projects in bananas, African palms, and sugarcane. FECOHRA is a pro-government organization.


5. The CNTC was created in 1985 as the result of a unitary project of five small organizations that were scattered throughout Honduras: UNCAH, UNACOOP, FUNCAH, FRENACAIN, the Peasant Association for Transformation and Services (EACTS, and La Másica). Defining itself as a trade union organization for the struggle and not for social stabilization. Its motto is: "Unity, land, justice, and freedom".


After its formation, the organization's first step was to promote the implementation of massive land recovery actions in fourteen departments of the country and the demand for a comprehensive agrarian reform process at the national level. All while waging an intense struggle against the Government and its institutions, especially the National Agrarian Institute. A struggle to obtain the opening and monitoring of land application processes presented by grassroots organizations throughout the country.


Mission


The mission of an institution is the definition of its reason for being and existence, it defines its nature, its purposes, the populations to which its work, and all its efforts are directed.


The CNTC is a peasant organization, trade union, vindicating, fighting for the fair distribution of land, and the reduction of latifundia and minifundia as a form of tenure. It functions with the purpose of supporting affiliated peasant families to have land and resources and develop various productive activities at the agricultural, forestry, and agro-industrial level with a business vision. With the purpose to contribute to their social and economic development.


Vision

The Vision is the future dream that we want to achieve thanks to the effort of the institutional work, oriented to achieve changes with the target populations. The positioning of the organization, financial sustainability, and internal teamwork. Our Vision is the following:


To be an organization consolidated in the political, economic, and social field with a presence throughout the national territory. To claim the rights of the peasantry, Food Sovereignty, a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform, and the exercise of equal power at the grassroots and in the direction of the organization.


Principles and Values


The principles and values of an organization become habits or behaviors that it assumes in its daily life; this helps to regulate coexistence and relationships both internally and externally.


In the CNTC, the fundamental principles and values that we practice are the following:


Principles


Justice


It is to respect the rights of others, it is to be impartial in all the actions of the CNTC.


Freedom


It is that everyone thinks and acts according to what they believe, what is convenient internally to the CNTC, and to say what they want to say.


Love


Is the sense of belonging we have for the CNTC and the dedication to work in a selfless manner to be demonstrated with actions.


Democracy


It is the right to participate, analyze, and make decisions in the CNTC.


Values


Unity


It is the harmonious behavior that prevails in the families affiliated with the CNTC.


Discipline


It is to submit to the rules and norms that exist in the Statutes and Regulations of the CNTC.


Solidarity


Is to be sensitive to the problems and difficulties of both other members and the community.


Transparency


Is the proper and efficient management of the CNTC's assets and resources.


Equity


Is to act fairly in decision-making and in the distribution of profits.


Loyalty


Fidelity to the principles and values of the Organization.


Socio-political Context


After 22 years since the coup d'état, the political crisis in Honduras is still ongoing. This crisis reveals deep cracks in the Honduran political system and reveals a tangled web of close and questionable relationships; between politicians, religious leaders, the military, and businessmen. It also reveals details that better explain the strange connections between people and groups linked to; politics, religion, media, and private enterprises. In Honduras, it is evident that it has symptoms of a deteriorated democracy threatened by a rule of law in crisis. Increasingly, political parties are delegitimized, while repressive bodies that have demonstrated innovation confronting old ghosts, take advantage of the civilian crisis.

On the other hand, in the exogenous sphere, Honduras is witnessing its most severe international economic crisis since the one suffered in 1929. The U.S. private financial system collapsed in 2008 as a result of financial speculation in real estate and with it systematically dragged down the entire financial system of industrialized countries. The so-called investment banking system began disappearing in the course of weeks. The commercial banking system moved towards being sustained with an impressive amount of public resources, which has led some to call it the nationalizing of the financial system.

The Honduran economy, which is growing through its exports and family remittances. 50% of exports are destined for the US market and remittance arriving from approximately one million Honduran migrants, accounts for almost 25% of the GDP. Our economy has begun to suffer the consequences. From GDP growth rates of up to 6% in the last 4 years, a reduced growth is expected to begin this year, with tendencies of stagnation and decline in the next two years. If we look around, exports have begun to plummet in value and volume alongside a stasis in remittances.

The crisis has shown both those who promote free-market policies and those who passively suffer them, are unsustainable. The gradual disappearance of public policies to regulate the market and intervene in it has begun to disappear. They’ve been disappearing since the world began to be governed by the neoconservatives of the 1980s. The crisis shows that both public policy and regulation are desirable and indispensable to stop the voracity and lack of scruples of the financial elites in their hunger for excessive profits, which has led to filling the vaults of the banks with euphemistically called "toxic assets".

Latin America has also changed: from neoconservative sectors to more neoliberal governments, with a little of its power in the United States, to center-left governments that emerged from electoral processes. Of course, with the sole exception of some countries on the continent. Even the United States itself had to change in the formulation of its domestic and foreign policy. We are witnessing the birth of the re-foundation of states and societies that seek to be conscious actors in globalization and not mere pieces. Pieces whose movements and futures are determined by those who defined, up until recently, without any discussion or opposition on what to do in poor and emerging countries.

In the endogenous sphere, as already mentioned, the national economy has begun to suffer the consequences of the international financial crisis, which will aggravate the indices reflecting the poverty that is affecting society nationally. It is possible that the small advances achieved may be reversible if alternative measures are not taken.


Rising Poverty and Inequality


Honduras was the second poorest country in Latin America in 2015. La Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe/ The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) points to Honduras as one of the countries with the highest poverty rate in Latin America. According to the "Social Panorama of Latin America 2014, the nation reached 70.5 percent multidimensional poverty.” This variable measures the precariousness of housing, overcrowding, basic services, education, employment, and social protection.

According to Instituto Nacional De Estadísticas Honduras/ Honduras Institute for National Statistics (INE), poverty in Honduras, measured in terms of households, increased from 58.8% in 2009 to 64.5% in 2013. In terms of extreme poverty, it went from 36.4% to 42.6.1% in the same period.

At the rural level, the most serious shifts are in terms of population in extreme poverty as a consequence of the process of land concentration that has been precipitated by structural adjustment policies. Policies highlighted by la Ley para la Modernización y Desarrollo del Sector Agrícola /the Law for the Modernization and Development of the Agricultural Sector that limited the Agrarian Reform Law and created incentives for the concentration of property.

Despite the fact that the rural sector contains the most serious shifts in indices of poverty and exclusion. The rural sector continues to be the sector that generates the most important part of the national product and it is also where the main resources are located. In this sense, Rural Development is a fundamental policy for the country and the population.

On the other hand, large amounts have been invested in the supposed activity of designing policies for the Honduran rural sector, but results have been ineffective. The fact lies in that agriculture is more impoverished in human resources after the rural flight to the cities; almost more than half of the population now lives in cities and surrounding areas with more than twenty thousand inhabitants each.

The labor market, using data from the same source (INE), confirms the impoverishment of the population. In May 2009, the per capita income in rural areas of the country was 1,578 lempiras (Honduran currency) per month and in May 2013 this income only increased by 121 lempiras per month (1,699 Lps) in the span of 4 years. It should also be recalled that the cost of the basic food basket in 2013 was 7,335.96 lempiras per month, according to the report of la Secretaría de Trabajo y Seguridad Social/the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.


Increased social conflict and government control with dialogue and repression; tendentially greater threats to the integrity of human rights.


In the post-coup context, citizens have the perception that conflict has increased. The government is the central target of social conflict. Either because the demands go directly to it or because it is self-claimed to play the role of intermediary. The most intense conflicts have been the struggle of the peasants of Aguan, the teachers' movements, and the workers' demands for an increase in the minimum wage. The government's response has been a combination of openness and repression.


The land tenure situation offers a discouraging panorama: 1% of the business owners own one-third of the land in Honduras, while 375,000 small farmers have no land on which to plant their crops. Faced with this inequality, peasant organizations demand a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform, to solve the problem. Whereas the response of the government in office was the repeal of Decree 18-2008 that legalized the land held by peasant groups for more than 20 years. The neoliberal government also acted in the non-approval of the Law on Comprehensive Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity for Food Sovereignty and Rural Development presented to Congress on April 9, 2016. Currently, there are around 5,000 imprisoned peasants (700 women) through alternative measures and 11 prisoners in different jails throughout the country for the struggle for land.

On the other hand, the removal of Honduras from the list of countries that violate human rights by la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos/ the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has been considered by government authorities as a great result. This response from human rights organizations is a consequence of the application of the IACHR rules of procedure in countries that accept an on-site visit by this inter-American organization. It in no way signifies a significant improvement in the respect for human rights.



The Preliminary Report of the IACHR's on-site visit to Honduras from December 1 to 5, 2014 offered an alarming panorama in the areas of violence against human rights defenders; violence against indigenous leaders; violence against children and adolescents; violence against journalists and the media; violence against women; violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGTB) people; violence against migrants; violence in the context of the Aguán agrarian conflict. In addition to these figures, the militarization of public security is a response to violence, impunity, and the deficient functioning of the justice system. The IACHR closed its reports touching on the structural violence expressed in poverty, inequality, and social exclusion.

Within this framework, a significant achievement of human rights organizations, and social and political sectors have undoubtedly been the rejection by the National Congress of the elevation of the military police. The elevation of the military police to constitutional rank, which would imply the direct command of the Executive over this military force. This fact represents a setback in militarization. This process would have led to the re-militarization of Honduran society. This achievement opens the possibility of the reconfiguration of a multi-party political opposition to the current government administration. It marks a new field of confrontation of the diverse political and social forces that display the political polarization of the country has not yet been overcome. The next battle will be for the approval or rejection of this initiative of the Executive. The battle can be regarded through the call for a plebiscite or "fourth ballot box" (in November 2017), where the population would pronounce itself in favor or against the constitutional rank of the military police.


Unequal access to Education and Health


In terms of access to education and completion of basic education, Honduras -together with Guatemala and Nicaragua- is one of the countries in the region with average graduation. Examining the primary level and low graduation at the secondary level; Honduras suffers from widespread illiteracy. The illiteracy rate is over 14% of the total population and 30% in rural areas. The problems for public education include a lack of schools, understaffed schools, precarious salaries for teachers, the high cost of subjects needed for these schools, and the poor quality of public education.

The gap in education negatively affects women, which can be explained by the impossibility of many women to continue with their formal studies. Many are forced to face alone the maintenance and care of their homes, becoming heads of households. The lack of access to education and the low quality of education available is one of the traps of poverty. Being one of the factors that prevent families from leaving low-productivity activities. On the other hand, it is also evident that the differences in gender themselves are a reason education does not have the same return for women as for men. For similar levels of education, women obtain less income for their work than men and the income gap is greater among the population with more years of education. This constitutes a disincentive for women 's higher education. In addition to gender gaps in education, gaps tend to persist in labor market opportunities, as well as in the ability to participate in public life and decision-making.

The health system in Honduras is mixed, i.e. there is a public and a private part, the latter is made up of; some hospitals, clinical laboratories, temporary medical clinics, private general and specialized medical offices, alternative centers, pharmacies, clinical laboratories, all of which are regulated and governed by the State. It is important to point out that there are deficiencies in relation to this and access (40% of the population does not have access to health services); there is the marked exclusion of ethnic minorities and rural populations. Health spending is among the lowest in the Central American region. There are also deficiencies in health care, as well as in the supply and clinical laboratory services (supplies, medicines, special exams: tomography, MRI, endoscopy, colonoscopy). Another aspect is the infrastructure, in many health units and hospitals the buildings do not provide adequate conditions for care, related to privacy and hygiene, which affects a low quality of care to the public in general, especially for women. Another relevant aspect to point out regarding social security is that more than 95% of the population is not covered by insurance systems.


Violence against Women


Femicide is one aspect out of all the things that happen in terms of women's human rights. Therefore, denouncing these facts also involves; denouncing inequality in public and private spaces, discrimination, domestic and intra-family violence, the lack of access to health and education, the absence of job opportunities and the precariousness of labor rights in all areas, the care economy (that always falls on women), women's limited access to land, and a group of people who have to risk their lives in the defense of their natural resources. It also involves revealing the repression and persecution of women who dream and fight for a different country, the violations of women's rights of Indigenous and Black peoples. As well as the existence of a government that is part of a coup d'état and responds to the interests of the oligarchy. All the while organized crime and drug trafficking take over neighborhoods, communities, and entire regions. All of these are pieces that painfully build a chain of violence that culminates in the murder of women for being women. According to data from the la Fiscalía de la Mujer/ Women's Prosecutor's Office, in 2009, 377 women were murdered, in 2010 there were 407 cases and between 2010 and 2020 the number of murders increased by 65%, with 95% of the cases going unpunished.


Natural Resources


The rate of deforestation has increased; water is dramatically lacking or is a danger where it is plentiful; pollution is on the rise due to discharges into watersheds and the trail of erosion from deforested highlands.


In short, the current public development policy is to reproduce the poverty of the rural poor with technological advancements. Bringing capital to those who already manage and have capital. In all these interventions, hidden, there is always the footprint of corruption.


Conclusions


Reviewing the actions of the CNTC throughout its 36 years of existence, we realize that the membership has not been stable because the peasant bases have not been stable.


That this process of providing land to peasants has been arduous (hard), risky and expensive in money and human lives.


That the leaders of the CNTC continue to be the most combative and capable of the peasant movement.


The strength of the work of the CNTC has been its fight for the acquisition of land and its training of affiliates. Its weakness has been the business side. However, in the last 5 years, we have made efforts to give it a turn in business development, making joint efforts to secure economic resources to be invested in economic development projects, entrepreneurship, and economic initiatives aimed at strengthening food security and food sovereignty.




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