MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Hyping up the threat of dangerous gangs of “super-predators.” Using
confidential informants, tattoos, and appearance to label people “gang
members.” Using that gang
affiliation to imprison and torture people. These draconian methods
are familiar to readers of ULK, and to those who’ve spent time
in U.$. prisons in general. The Trump regime has made this headline news
for the whole country.
In recent weeks, hundreds of Venezuelans have been deported from the
United $tates to a supermax prison in El Salvador. The Trump regime
justified this with the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which allows for the
deportation of non-citizens during wartime, and was last used during
WWII to deport Germans and Italians and roundup Japanese in internment
camps, seizing their assets for Euro-Amerikans. Trump claimed these
people were part of a gang conducting “irregular warfare” in the United
$tates, but there seems to be no evidence that Tren de Aragua is even a
widely functioning organization here. In February, the U.$. State
Department designated Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and a
list of Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
A federal court has ordered a halt to the deportations, but the
Department of Justice is defying the order. A legal battle continues,
while the executive branch continues to defy the courts.
Venezuela
has been a consistent target of U.$. imperialism since the rise of
Hugo Chavez to power in 1999.(1) As a result almost 600,000 Venezuelans
have been accepted into the United $tates with Temporary Protected
Status (TPS). Trump attempted to cancel TPS for Venezuelans, but a
federal court has deemed the move illegal. Without TPS, many from
Venezuela, Haiti, Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere could no
longer legally work in the United $tates and could be legally
deported.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is getting special attention as the
Trump administration admitted eir deportation was a mistake, and that
they can’t get em back from Salvadorean custody. This is despite a court
order that prevented em from being sent back to El Salvador, where ey
had fled gang violence as a youth. Abrego Garcia has no criminal
charges, for what that’s worth, but was labelled a member of MS-13 by a
pig citing a “confidential informant” during a round up of day laborers
some years ago. As a result, Abrego Garcia has been disappeared from eir
family and sent to a torture unit in the very country ey fled for safety
reasons.(2)
The ACLU obtained a copy of the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide” being
used to deport people.(3) Once establishing someone is over 14 years
old, of Venezuelan origin and without U.$. citizenship, a point system
is used to “validate” gang members. A “TdA” tattoo gets you 4 points
while 8 points are required to qualify as validated. The Homeland
Security guide lists photos of tattoos like crowns and stars that are
“TdA”. In addition, wearing Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan athletic
wear are listed. When was the last time you saw someone with Air Jordans
on and a star tattoo?
Student Activists Targeted
Educational institutions from Columbia University in New York to the
University of California system are enforcing the fascist repression on
their campuses, from expelling students during Biden’s Presidency, to
disappearing them off the streets and from their homes under the Trump
regime. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk is being detained for
writing an article criticizing the U.$.-I$rael genocide in Palestine.
Mahmoud Khalil, who was a respected negotiator between Columbia
University and the pro-Palestine student encampment last year, told eir
story in a recent statement from 18 March 2025:
“My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am
writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana… On March 8, I was
taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my
wife and me as we returned from dinner. …
“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free
speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in
Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire
now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds,
and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against
bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their
complete freedom.”
“… Columbia [University] targeted me for my activism, creating a new
authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence
students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by
disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump
administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension
of at least 22 Columbia students – some stripped of their B.A. degrees
just weeks before graduation – and the expulsion of SWC President Grant
Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
“If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the
student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian
liberation. …”(4)
Other targeted students have gone into hiding. At the same time,
students across the country are coming together to stand with and defend
those who may be targeted next. We commend the solidarity being shown.
Schools and prisons are somewhat unique in our society due to the
collective identities of their populations and their abilities to
organize. With the recent announcements from the Trump regime that they
will be deporting U.$. citizens with criminal records to the Terrorism
Confinement Center in El Salvador, prisoners need to be prepared to
stand together as students are learning to do. While there are many
recent examples to the contrary, there is a long history of U.$.
prisoners standing up for one another due to the group consciousness
that comes with facing a common oppressor every day.
Fascism Coming Home
The United
$tates has been using long-term solitary confinement for decades on a
scale not seen elsewhere in humyn history. Physicians for Human
Rights released a report in 2024 exposing the use of solitary
confinement in ICE detention centers contrary to government directives
to limit its use to absolute necessity. They documented at least 14,000
cases of people being put in solitary confinement by ICE from 2018 to
2023. Durations in solitary averaged 27 days, with 42 cases lasting over
a year. At the time, in 2024, ICE held over 35,000 people, making it the
world’s largest immigration detention system.(5)
Conditions are likely worse for those sent to El Salvador, where
President Bukele has stated that the only way gang members will leave
the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) ey built in 2023 is in a
coffin. With a capacity of over 40,000, there are 65 to 70 prisoners
held per cell. “CECOT prisoners do not receive visits and are never
allowed outdoors. The prison does not offer workshops or educational
programs to prepare them to return to society after their sentences.”(6)
Bukele has been promoting images of shaved gang members, dressed all in
white, being warehoused and man-handled by masked prison guards online
since the prison opened. This propaganda campaign has appealed to the
pro-fascist elements of Amerika. And with that support, Trump is
incorporating this prison into the Amerikan international prison system
and sending hundreds of people there from the United $tates. This is a
shift closer to home from the network of dark sites, and infamous
prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, that were used to torture
and hold without trial oppressed people across the Muslim world.
Most press sources are reporting the Amerikans paid $6 million for
238 prisoners to be held in CECOT, which some point out is much less
than what it would cost to imprison them in the United $tates. But it is
an amount that will greatly help El Salvador to fund their monstrosity
of a prison. It doesn’t make sense that the imperialists are paying to
have these prisoners held, but then claim they cannot return people like
Abrego Garcia back to their families.
In the 1980s, U.$.-sponsored death squads, trained at the School of
the Americas in Georgia, killed
and displaced countless people across Central America that were
fighting for socialism and to remove imperialism from their
countries.(7) Many children of this war in El Salvador were displaced to
Los Angeles where they joined Barrio 18 or formed the new Mara
Salvatrucha (MS-13), were persecuted by the state, and then exported
back to El Salvador. We’ve reported on efforts at peace
between these groups in 2013, which coincided with investment by
USAID and the building of new U.$.-inspired prisons in El Salvador.(8)
But conditions for the people of El Salvador did not improve, and they
voted for President
Nayib Bukele who both utilized the lumpen organizations in eir
political organizing and later turned on them as a scapegoat for the
ills of the country in a fascist repression campaign.(9)
The struggle against fascism in this country relies on the coming
together of people to defend migrant populations and students currently
under attack. As fascism rises, we see the campaigns of groups like the
ACLU coming closer to those of MIM(Prisons). As important legal battles
are taking place, we also see the spreading recognition that we can’t
rely on the courts to save us. We must have a plan B. We must build our
plan B.
On 4 August 2023, 8,000 military troops and police were deployed in
the countryside province of Cabanas, El Salvador in part of the campaign
to crack down on the MS-13 and Barrio 18 lumpen organizations (L.O.s) –
many of whom have fled to the region from the cities.(1) One thousand
police and 7,000 soldiers were deployed to set checkpoints blocking all
roads leading in and out of the area.(2) The congress of El Salvador
added new criminal codes as part of President Nayib Bukele’s war on the
two organizations that will enact mass trials based on what area they
lived in and which organization controlled that particular territory.(3)
These actions are merely an expression of Salvadoran President Nayib
Bukele’s war on lumpen organizations operating in El Salvador.
The Anti-Gang
Campaign Waged by the President
Bukele’s anti-gang campaign is best characterized as a set of “mano
dura” (“iron fist”, i.e. tough-on-crime) policies. Said policies reflect
an overall seven-phase plan offered to combat lumpen organizations known
as the “Territorial Control Plan”. As of 1 August 2023, only five of the
seven phases have made its way into the daily existence of Salvadoran
society. Those five phases are outlined as follows:
Preparation: Increased military and police presence in
municipalities with high degrees of L.O. presence.
Opportunity: Providing alternative opportunities to Salvadoran youth
(e.g. legal labor) to sway said youth from joining L.O.s.
Modernization: Modernizing (or rather, militarizing) the national
police.
Incursion: “Modernized” rehash of phase one.
Extraction: “Extracting” the remaining L.O. members continuing L.O.
activities.(4)
While Bukele spits out anti-establishment rhetoric – painting emself
as neither left nor right, criticizing both the dominant so-called left
and right wing parties of El Salvador to do so, and claiming to offer
“innovative” nonpartisan solutions that will take care of the societal
ills plaguing the masses – eir politics and so-called solutions do
nothing but feed into the development of a militarized far-right
state.(5) In fascist fashion, Bukele exploited the concerns of the
masses, offered them a scapegoat, and targeted symptoms rather than root
cause to the contradictions that produce violence in Salvadoran society.
Interestingly enough, Bukele seems to be fully aware of this and
seemingly embraces it in an ironic fashion by self-appointing emself as
the “World’s Coolest Dictator” on Twitter.(6)
One thing to make note is that the fascism of the Third World is
imported from the First World. Bukele has had big rise through eir
business career as a comprador-bourgeois businessman, and is now in the
comprador-bourgeois state itself. The crisis of these lumpen
organizations in El Salvador has shown that imperialism’s neo-colony of
El Salvador cannot rule the way it did before, and therefore a comprador
fascist movement has been exported onto it. While Bukele’s political
support was far less overt and hands on than the likes of Pinochet of
Chile and Syngman Rhee of southern Korea, the regime’s close ties to the
Trump administration shows this trend. Bukele’s regime is now rejected
by the left-wing imperialist faction of the U$A, the Biden
administration.
The Old Ideas of Nuevas
Ideas
We define fascism as the open terroristic violence of finance capital
during a time of crisis when the bourgeois state cannot govern itself in
the way it did before. Despite the constant police/military occupation
of the ghettos, barrios, and reservations (alongside the great reversals
of abortion rights); in the context of the United $tates, this has been
the standard method of strategy exert rule onto the oppressed nations
and uphold imperialist-patriarchy. Mass imprisonment, police/military
occupation, and protracted low-intensity genocide are not the exception,
rather the rule. We believe that when global political-economic crisis
threatens U.$. imperialism, U.$. imperialism will start to crack out the
real tests of open terrorism. It is out of that reasoning that the U$A
cannot be considered fascist at this time.
On the other hand, it is arguable that the bourgeois state of El
Salvador (due to the existing crisis of the two dominant L.O.’s: MS-13
and Barrio18) cannot rule itself the way it once did before, and with
that – Bukele’s rise could be considered a fascist movement. In El
Salvador (like many third world neo-colonies) the objective conditions
of the bourgeois state is much weaker than in the U.$. The fact
horizontal-structured L.O.s such as MS-13/Barrio18 are capable of
causing intense crisis exposes this. Another big difference is the
qualitatively different anti-people nature of the lumpen-proletariat
class of the Third World compared to the First World lumpen. In this
sense, Bukele’s political movement can be considered more fascist than
Trump’s on the crisis aspect – although Trump’s mass base of imperialist
country labor aristocracy is a much stronger fuel for a fascist movement
than the crisis-jaded proletariat and petite-bourgeoisie of El Salvador
who long for a single day where ultra-violent anti-people activities are
no longer an expectation of daily existence.
Despite the strongman militarization and self-identification as the
“world’s coolest dictator,” Bukele and eir government held secret
meetings with the leaders of these organizations to lower the crime
rates. The U.$. department of treasury states:
“In 2020, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s (Bukele) administration
provided financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street
Gang (Barrio 18) to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the
number of confirmed homicides remained low. Over the course of these
negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to
provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in
upcoming elections. Nuevas Ideas is the President’s political party and
won a two-thirds super majority in legislative elections in 2021. The
Bukele administration was represented in such transactions by Luna, the
Chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and
Public Security, and Marroquin, Chairman of the Social Fabric
Reconstruction Unit. In addition to Salvadoran government financial
allocations in 2020, the gangs also received privileges for gang
leadership incarcerated in Salvadoran prisons, such as the provision of
mobile phones and prostitutes.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Luna also negotiated an agreement with
gang leaders from MS-13 and Barrio 18 for the gangs’ support of
President Bukele’s national quarantine in gang-controlled areas.
Separately, Luna participated in a scheme to steal and re-sell
government purchased staple goods that were originally destined for
COVID-19 pandemic relief. These items were transferred to private
companies and then resold on the private market or back to the
government. Luna’s mother, Alma Yanira Meza Olivares (Meza), acted as
the negotiator in some of these transactions. Additionally, Luna and
Meza developed a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars from El
Salvador’s prison commissary system. They also created fraudulent job
positions within the prison system, in which supposed “employees” would
receive monthly paychecks and return most of the earnings back to Luna
and Meza.”(7)
Despite all the comprador-bourgeois fascism that came with Bukele’s
military strongman strategy to get rid of the crisis of
lumpen-proletariat violence in eir country, the independent leadership
of these anti-people L.O.s was an indispensable and unavoidable class
force in lowering the death rates. With all the talks about the
pragmatist “tough on crime” and “round them all up” narratives expressed
by the imperialist and comprador press, Bukele’s government gives money
and political immunity in exchange for political support and cooperation
of gangs. MIM(Prisons) will not be surprised if there are opportunist
and anti-people MS-13/Barrio18 members in the undemocratic injustice
system of El Salvador today who sees Bukele as their political-economic
patron and sponsor.
The facts presented above provide a case against Bukele’s
tough-on-crime policies as ineffective, yet bourgeois propaganda is a
powerful tool and these policies, due to their perceived success, may
find new homes abroad in Honduras and Guatemala.(8)(9) This sets
potential precedents for a new-wave of mano dura “solutions” throughout
Latin America.
As mentioned above, these policies (however popular and effective or
ineffective they may be) are aimed towards symptoms, not causes. However
qualitatively different the First World and Third World lumpen may be,
it is in this that there is a unifying struggle against the real cause
of their oppression – namely, imperialism. Bourgeois propaganda may be
powerful, but concrete conditions are concrete conditions and concrete
conditions require concrete solutions, not old ideas.
In social media, which Bukele’s regime has utilized greatly for
public image, whenever news reports of the humyn rights abuses in
Salvadorian prisons overcrowded with L.O. members were shown, the
comments were flooded with Amerikan chauvinists and Trump supporters
saying similar actions should be done against the oppressed nation
lumpen organizations in the United $tates. The truth is, U.$.
imperialism already often breaks their own bourgeois democratic values
when it comes to imprisoning and lumpenizing their oppressed nations.
Guilty by association policies has been a long standing practice against
Black and Latin@ masses to the point that merely being family related to
a lumpen organization member can get you labeled as part of that
organization by the pigs. The settlers/Amerikans will jeer at the
oppressed nations telling them that they don’t have it as bad as the
victims of Third World fascism while hoping and wishing for the day that
Third World fascist policies can one day become a reality within U.$.
borders. This issue’s topic of “Prisons Are War” seeks to highlight this
message and tell our readers that low
intensity genocide is already happening to them.
On 27 June 2022, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE) agreed in opening discussion with the Ecuadorian
government in solutions for the national strike that has paralyzed parts
of the country for two weeks.(1) Before declaring its openness to
negotiations with the government however, CONAIE rejected President
Guillermo Lasso’s move in calling for price cuts of gasoline for 10
cents in diesel.(2) Currently, the fuel prices of Ecuador has doubled
from 2020 with diesel going from $1 to $1.90 and gasoline from $1.72 to
$2.55.(3) From CONAIE’s “Agenda of National Struggle,” the first point
demanded:
“Reduction and freezing of the prices of fuel: diesel at $1.50 and
extra and eco gasoline at $2.10. Abolish Decrees 1158, 1183, 1054, and
focus instead on the sectors that need more subsidies: agricultural
work, farming, transportation and fishing.”
The demand was obviously not met, and CONAIE still continued to
blockade the roads with President Lasso claiming,
“Ecuadorians who seek dialogue will find a government with an
outstretched hand, those who seek chaos, violence and terrorism will
face the full force of the law.”(4)
Seeking to appease the rebellion in other ways, Lasso has lifted the
state of emergency for the nation. CONAIE leader Leonidas Iza who was
arrested by the national police on 14 June 2022, was rejected by
President Lasso who claimed that the indigenous leader was an
“opportunist.”
“We will not return to dialogue with Leonidas Iza, who only defends
his political interests and not those of his base. To our indigenous
brothers – you deserve more than an opportunist for a leader.”
Historical
Overview of Rebellions in Ecuador
Two years earlier, Ecuador faced another similar rebellion led by
workers and students which sparked on the International Workers’ Day of
1 May 2020. The political-economic crisis heightened by the COVID-19
pandemic revealed quite a few corrupt decisions made by the
government.(6) Workers and students demanded better wages, coordinated
sit-ins in medical facilities, and demonstrated in the streets with
rallies. The main goals were for better wages, and ousting of
then-President Lenin Moreno.
A year previous to the 2020 demonstrations, in October of 2019,
another rebellion raged in Ecuador as the month started with President
Lenin Moreno declaring 6 economic measures, and 13 restructuring
proposals which was part of an agreement the government took in a $4.2
billion loan with the IMF.(7) One of the key reform acts targeted by
demonstrators was a 20% cut in wages for new contracts in public sector
jobs, and a cut of a decades long fuel subsidies which led to an
increase of fuel prices.(8) The leading two groups of this rebellion
were the aforementioned CONAIE and the United Front of Workers
(FUT).
Prior to that, there was also a rebellion in 2015, a rebellion in
2012, and another nationwide crisis in 2010. CONAIE and other indigenous
national groups all played a role in these movements with varying
degrees of involvement. From 2010 to 2022, there have been 6 major
rebellions with the workers, students, and indigenous nations playing a
leading role in the movements. Crisis after crisis, what is causing this
trend? Every time the workers or the indigenous nations rise up
(oftentimes together) they are accused of staging a coup by the
government. In 2000, there was a short-lived coup, but the Amerikans
interfered to remove indigenous leaders from power. Despite this, they
have denied the accusations in recent protests, while also following
their word through with action. How come they seem to have no desire to
seek state power despite having the independent institutions and
subjective forces that are able to paralyze the country each time they
rebel?
After many years of regular protests against politicaleconomic
crisis in Ecuador, there was a rise of the social-democratic movements
in Latin America that became prominent in the mid-2000s. This trend was
strongly guided and inspired by the ideology of “Socialism of the 21st
Century”, which argued that societal change and shift from capitalism to
socialism can be done in gradual and non-violent means.(9) Prominent
leaders who have taken up this ideology include Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, and finally
Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
Rafael Correa, was the 45th president of Ecuador from 15 January 2007
until 24 May 2017. President Correa – leading the left-wing coalition of
the PAIS Alliance – began the “Citizen’s Revolution” in hopes to
reconstruct the country into a socialist state. The government ended its
relationship with the IMF, and took an active part in creating the “Bank
of the South” – a pan-South American monetary fund alongside the
political-economic bloc of the Union of South American Nations.(10)
The class character of this movement can clearly be seen as that of
the national bourgeoisie of South America: the bourgeoisie of South
America stunted by imperialism as opposed to requiring imperialism to
function as a class. With this national bourgeois led anti-imperialist
movement in Ecuador, we see another example of a failure in reformism
and social-democracy in history. With the PAIS alliance’s right-wing
turn under the next president Lenin Moreno, Correa distanced himself
from PAIS due to disagreements. Under Lenin Moreno’s presidency, and
through the political-economic crisis brought by social democracy (such
as national debt), the strategy of working within the system found
itself reversing all its progresses. By the time Correa left office in
2017, there have already been 2 major rebellions. The rebellion in 2012,
was part in reaction to the joint Ecuadorian-Chinese company
“Ecuaorriente SA” commencing a 25-year contract of extracting natural
resources on indigenous nations’ land.(11) So with the failures of
social-democracy and reformism came another lesson learned by the
Ecuadorian masses. Whether this lesson can be synthesized back to the
masses through a revolutionary lens is a question for the
revolutionaries of Ecuador.
During the rebellions, one can see in images hammer and sickles,
anarchist A’s, and myriads of other ideological imagery painted across
makeshift shields, helmets, and banners. With the tactics and strategy
of blockades and insurgencies the rebellions which seems to constantly
appear in the country seem to be eclectic and non-ideological. When
constantly accused by the regime that these groups are forming coup
d’états, CONAIE and organizations representing the workers and students
constantly deny the accusations of ousting any presidents. They follow
through with their actions as well. Short lived insurgencies don’t lead
to state power.
Lessons For Us To Learn
Fidel Castro has famously said that the reasoning behind his armed
action and revolution against the Batista government was because working
within the existing political system has been exhausted of its
effectiveness. Yet, when the new generation of Latin American leftists
and self-proclaimed “communists” came to prominence, Fidel Castro also
famously claimed that the new generation is lucky because they are in a
situation where power can be obtained through the ballot not the bullet.
Throughout his life, Castro kept representing the petty-bourgeoisie and
the national bourgeoisie of Cuba through its alignment with the
social-imperialists of the USSR: a similar move that Correa’s government
had done with the Chinese social-imperialists and the national
bourgeoisie of Ecuador. In the end of his life, Castro closely aligned
himself with the pink tide of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc.
The lessons we can learn from the failures of reformism or “Socialism
of the 21st century” can be standard lessons we have drawn from the
failures of all reformist or electoral methods of achieving proletarian
dictatorship/socialism. The state is a tool wielded by a class: the
bourgeoisie. Despite this, finance capital finds its ways to implement
social-democracy (or fascism) as a means of governing. Using the tools
of the enemy won’t get us state power. They will crush us as soon as we
cross their lines.
The lessons we can learn from the CONAIE and the various workers and
student organizations which rebel constantly in Ecuador are valuable as
well. One lesson is in regards to the distinction of having reforms
through violence in contrast to a revolution. Through a
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist lens, just because one uses violent tactics or
bears arms does not necessarily mean they are revolutionary or
conducting meaningful armed struggle. One can be just as reformist
through violent means as with electoral means. This highlights the key
idea that reform vs revolution isn’t a matter of strategies or tactics,
it is a question of the correct analysis of how the change from a
capitalist society to a socialist society happens. Thousands of masses
can rally on the streets throwing firebombs at the police, but if the
goal is to change laws and protest austerity measures then it is no
different in quality than reform. In similar methods, things that might
seem reformist at a shallow glance such as building independent
institutions and spreading public opinion against world imperialism
(advancing the objective and subjective forces) can be revolutionary if
the goals are aligned and preparing for proletarian dictatorship during
non-advanced stages.
Long live Ecuador!
Self-determination for all oppressed nations!
Notes (1) AP News, June 25, 2022, “Ecuador president:
Indigenous leader is trying to stage coup.” (2) Lina Vanegas, June
27, 2022, “Protesters Meet Ecuador Govt After Rejecting Fuel Price Cut,”
International Business Times. (3) Ibid. (4) Ibid. (5)
Ibid. (6) Rhonny Rodriguez, October 7th, 2022, “Ecuador, el peor
evaluado en la región sobre el manejo de la pandemia” Expreso (7)
Kimberly Brown, October 10th, 2019, “Ecuador unrest: What led to the
mass protests?” Al Jazeera (8) Ibid. (9) Socialism of the 21st
Century – Economy, Society, and Democracy in the era of global
Capitalism, Introduction by Heinz Dieterich (10) El Mundo, April
16th, 2007, “Ecuador cancela la deuda con el FMI y amenaza con echar al
representante del Banco Mundial” (11) Amy Silverstein, March 9th,
2012, “Ecuador natives begin two-week march to protest Chinese mining
company” The World
On 11 September 2021, Chairman Gonzalo has been reported to be dead
by the Peruvian prison service and the Peruvian government.(1) The
president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has tweeted in regards to Gonzalo’s
death:
“The terrorist ringleader Abimael Guzmán, responsible for the loss of
countless lives of our compatriots, has died. Our stance of condemning
terrorism is firm and unwavering.”
Born as Abimael Guzmán, Chairman Gonzalo was the leader of the
Partido Comunista del Perú(PCP) also known as the Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path in English). The PCP initiated People’s War in Peru in
1980, and waged a righteous struggle against the U.$.-backed regimes in
Peru until the capture of its leadership in 1992. Arguably the first
communist leader to explain Maoism as the next stage of communism,
Gonzalo was instrumental in pushing these ideas within the international
communist movement.
At age 86, Gonzalo had lived in complete isolation in a Peruvian
prison for 29 years. Long-term solitary confinement is a form of torture
used around the world to combat political dissent. It is used most
extensively within the United $tates, where in recent years over 100,000 people
languished in such conditions.
Religious Idealism Barks
Gonzalo was an infamous figure in Peruvian society. The revolutionary
violence of the PCP sparked hostile reactions especially from the petty
bourgeoisie, the middle-peasants, and the likes within Peru. One
outspoken figure which repeated these sentiments condemning Gonzalo on
his death day was Archbishop Eguren of the Catholic Church in Peru.
During a mass on September 12, a day after Gonzalo’s death, Eguren said
this referring to the Maoist ideology and the Maoists of Peru:
“Along with him fell the principal members of his communist,
terrorist, genocidal, and murderous gang, which caused the massacres of
entire communities of poor inhabitants of our Andes and jungle regions
in the 1980s and 1990s.”(2)
The Archbishop continued:
“The day Guzmán was captured was also one year after the start of the
campaign ‘Peace in Peru is well worth a Rosary.’ This campaign was
conceived and promoted by Bishop Ricardo Durand Flórez S.J., a great
Peruvian bishop who, throughout his life and ministry, worked hard for
the poor according to the Gospel.”(3)
After condemning Marxism through the usual Christian idealism,
Archbishop Eguren replaces the anti-capitalist vacuum with the Catholic
church’s historical response to poverty and capitalist ills:
distribution of wealth and charity to the poor. We Maoists do not
believe in the metaphysical notion that “the poor will always be with
us,” nor that walking across a homeless person on the street is a test
by god to prove ourselves of our good heart and soul. We believe poverty
– and the impoverished proletariat along with the rich bourgeoisie –
comes out of material phenomena: rise of capitalism through revolution,
class struggle, and change of production relations. Thus, the
elimination of poverty and capitalist ills will be done through the
proletarian revolution against capitalism, class struggle, and change of
production relations as well; not through wealth redistribution nor
through charity.
Along with condemning Marxism, Eguren used this chance to call for
the elimination of the politicians and bureaucrats of the current
Peruvian government who had historical ties to the Maoist movement:
“We Peruvians should not forget, for an instant what this
intrinsically perverse ideology embodies, as well as the immense
suffering it has caused in the recent history of our country, much less
allow it today to be able to seize total power. Therefore:
Mr. President, clean up your cabinet!”(4)
Reformism Barks
Chairman Gonzalo and the PCP’s legacy in Peru is often associated
with the “violent left.” So it is appropriate that one of the most
popular opportunist and reformist newsletters, Jacobin,
condemned Gonzalo by saying that Peru’s left is finally free to “move
forward.”(5)
In the article, “The Shining Path’s Abimael Guzmán Helped Keep Peru
in the Past,” Jacobin news cited the Lucanamarca massacre and the
violence of the PCP against the indigenous masses as one of the main
arguments against the PCP. The Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has
mentioned in their writings the attacks against the masses by the
masses, and how the state security used the differing class levels of
the peasantry against itself (poor peasants, middle peasants, rich
peasants). These tactics to divide the masses are used against the
communists of India as well. In the remote and countryside regions under
the leadership of the Communist Party of India (CPI-Maoist), the
capitalist lapdogs in India find it much more useful to use local
reactionaries against the guerrillas than using the army. If not the
local police, it is the paramilitary organizations of rich peasants,
middle peasants, lumpen-bourgeoisie, lumpen-proletariat, etc. that is
attacking the Maoists. In Peru, the majority of the PCP guerrillas were
indigenous themselves as the main population base in the communists’
base areas were indigenous.
When judging the legacy of a People’s War and a revolutionary party,
communists should know when to throw away the baby with the bathwater
and when to still keep it. Before the capitalist roaders overthrew
socialism in the Soviet Union, many of the errors of what would become
the capitalist line (commandism and economism) has been planted by
Stalin as well and other comrades. This did not cause Mao to throw away
Stalin’s legacy. In the same breath, when Fidel Castro liberated Cuba
from imperialism and semi-feudalism, his merits were part of a worldwide
movement for national liberation of the colonies at the time – it isn’t
until Castro’s selling out of the entire island to the Soviet
social-imperialists as a sugar factory that Maoists should throw Castro
away.
Heavier Than Mount Tai
It is well within the realms of material reality that the PCP’s
legacy among the general Peruvian society lies not only in the Peruvian
comprador bourgeoisie who propagate the ideas of the PCP as bloodthirsty
terrorists, but also within the bad lines and practices of the PCP as
well. It is an often repeated idea we hear that if the revolution fails,
it is the fault of the revolutionaries. In the same light, it’s the
internal characteristics not the external of a communist movement that
will ultimately decide its success and failures.
We must draw a clear line between us and those who condemn the PCP
because they waged People’s War. Whatever internal contradictions led to
the collapse of the Peruvian revolution, it was a shining example in
theory by leading the world to the concrete ideas of Maoism and in
practice in mobilizing the Peruvian people to control a majority of Peru
before their fall.
Communists should learn their lessons from their errors in history.
For the enemy to say, “Denounce Gonzalo!” is for them to also say “Don’t
learn your lessons! Give up revolution!” Nevertheless, no matter what
the Catholic idealists or the writers of Jacobin wish, the PCP
and Chairman Gonzalo’s legacy will not go away as easily as they
wish.
Long Live Chairman Gonzalo – Death Heavier than Mount Tai.
Notes1. RPP, September 11th, 2021,
“Murió Abimael Guzmán, el sanguinario cabecilla del grupo terrorista
Sendero Luminoso.”
2. David Ramos, September 13th, 2021, “Archbishop calls on
Peruvian president to rid his administration of ties to Shining Path.”
Catholic News Agency.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Miguel La Serna, September 15, 2021, “The Shining Path’s
Abimael Guzmán Helped Keep Peru in the Past.” Jacobin.
Tania La Guerrillera Y La Epopeya Suramericana Del Che (“Tania:
Undercover with Che Guevara in Bolivia” is the title of the English
translation) Ulises Estrada Ocean Press 2005
<P>Mention the name Che Guevara virtually anywhere in the world and images of Cuba, Fidel Castro and armed struggle come to mind. Travel to places like Cuba, Peru, Bolivia and Uruguay and say the name Che and another image comes to mind; that of Haydée Tamaia Bunke Bider, better known as "Tania the guerrilla", the only womyn to live, fight and die as part of Che Guevara's Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), National Liberation Army.</P><P>
The first time i came across the figure of Tania the guerrilla was in reading the book <I>Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life</I> by Jon Lee Anderson, which documents Che's extraordinary political life from childhood to his death. And while Jon Lee Anderson's book is unrivaled as far as political biographies goes, his emphasis was on Guevara, so his writing on Tania left much to be desired. In stark contrast, Ulises Estrada's present work casts much needed light on this figure little known here in the U.$.</P><P>
Tania the guerrilla was born Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider on 19 November 1937 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to Erich Bider, a German communist, and Nadia Bunke Bider, a Russian Jew (pg 157). The Bider's fled Nazi Germany in 1935 and settled in Buenos Aires, promptly joining the banned Argentine Communist Party (ACP) (pg 143). Nadia Bider recounts how Haydée was exposed to politics early on as the Biders hosted ACP meetings, hid weapons, stashed communist literature in their home and helped Jewish refugees (pg 162). Besides joining the ACP, Nadia and Erich also belonged to various anti-fascist organizations (pg 144).</P><P>
The Biders were to remain in Argentina for most of Haydée's young life and would not return to Germany until well after the Soviet Red Army smashed fascism there. Then in 1951, when Haydée was fourteen and after having spent two years in Uruguay, the Biders moved to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, part of the old Soviet bloc (pg 145). Haydée, having lived all her life in South America, did not want to leave her home and made her parents promise to let her return when she was older (pg 145).</P><P>
After arriving in the GDR, Haydée felt as if she'd experienced a "revelation" (pg 145). She immediately incorporated herself into political life. Having attended her first Free German Youth meeting, Haydée returned home with "great enthusiasm." According to Nadia, Haydée confirmed that the socialist system was superior to capitalism, because, among other things, she was allowed to speak freely and express herself politically (pg 145). No doubt that having lived in Argentina, a "democracy" where the communist party was banned and poverty and exploitation were rampant helped her make this materialist comparison.</P><P>
Apparently Haydée never forgot her beloved Argentina and, after having settled into German life, couldn't help but share with her new friends her preference for Argentinian folkloric music (pg 145). Like most girls raised in a capitalist democracy (Argentina, Uruguay), Haydée was socialized into dreaming of marriage and children. When she got older, however, even in adolescence, her priority was to one day join the revolutionary struggle in Latin America — this was to remain a focal point for Haydée (pg 145).</P><P>
At age 18, Haydée was admitted into the United German Socialist Party in the city of Stalinstadt. Due to Haydée's high level of political education and commitment, she was admitted into the UGSP after only a one-year waiting period instead of the mandatory two. This would be the only time in its hystory that this exception would be made (pg 258). Haydée first became familiar with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the struggle in the Sierra Maestra while attending the 5th annual World Youth Festival in the Soviet Union in 1957 (pg 145). Shortly thereafter, she decided she had to go to Cuba and the next two years in Germany were spent organizing for the trip (pg 146). Haydée was confident that in Cuba she'd learn the revolutionary methods with which to liberate Argentina from the imperialist stranglehold (pg 146).</P><P>
Haydée's participation in Che Guevara's ELN started sometime after arriving in Cuba. She was chosen from among two other Argentinian wimmin living on the island to take part in "Operation Fantasm", which was the code name given to the mission to infiltrate the Bolivian government at the highest levels, as well as to initiate a guerrilla insurgency there (pg 20). At the time Haydée was interviewed for this position, she was working as a German translator for the Cuban Ministry of Education (pg 22). She was also involved with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the World and the steering committee for the Woman's Federation (pg 22). In addition, Haydée also worked with the Rebel Youth Association, the Young Communist Union, she volunteered in various other serve-the-people type programs and was a member of Cuban Popular Defense Militia (pg 25). The author of this book, who was working in Cuba's Ministry of the Interior at the time and was vice-minister of "political intelligence" as well as one of the people to recruit Haydée for Operation Fantasm after Che himself recommended her, remembers how she swelled with pride whenever she wore her olive green uniform and service weapon (pg 25). Among other useful academic accomplishments of Haydée was her fluency in Spanish, English, German and French (pg 145). She'd also just received a Journalism Degree from Havan University and, at the time of her departure from the GDR, she'd just completed her first year as a philosophy major at Humboldt University in East Berlin (pg 25). It was also around this time Haydée met Carlos Fonseca, the founder and leader of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), to whom she'd confessed her wish to one day participate in the guerrilla struggle there (pg 25).</P><P>
After being vetted and being given the role in Operation Fantasm, Haydée began training for her position, which included cryptography and learning how to use various types of communications equipment (pg 27). Haydée was not given any specifics as to her mission other than the fact that she'd be functioning mostly as a technician, but under no circumstances should she rule out the possibility of actively participating in armed struggle (pg 28). At this point, Haydée asked that she'd be allowed to choose her own pseudonym for her mission. She chose the name "Tania" in honor of Zoja Kosmodemjanskaja, a Soviet womyn guerrilla who was killed after being captured and tortured by the Nazis during the German invasion of the USSR (pg 28). Days after her training was complete, she was taken to the Ministry of Industry, where she was met, much to her surprise, by Che himself (pg 28)! After congratulating her on her decision to take up this task, Che informed her that it was not too late to back out, as he understood the gravity of what they were asking her to do. Without hesitation, Tania stated that as a communist, it was her revolutionary duty to carry out whatever task necessary to liberate Latin America from imperialist exploitation (pg 29). Che then gave her his assessment of the political, economic, social and military situation in South America. He condemned Amerikan imperialism for siphoning the region's wealth and for its subordination of Latin American governments who they bought off with only a pittance of what they themselves stole. He then concluded his assessment by telling Tania that you couldn't be a revolutionary unless you were an anti-imperialist (pg 30). </P><P>
In preparing Tania for her mission, the author shared his views on guerrilla warfare with her. He said that according to his own experience in the Sierra Maestra, it would be very difficult for a guerrilla insurgency in the rural areas to maintain itself and succeed without the support of an organization in the city, especially during the insurgency's early states. Only after the revolutionary movement in the rural areas reached maturity could it then execute military and political operations with independence (pg 32). From a Maoist perspective, however, this political-military line is incorrect. Strategically speaking, it is completely backwards as the peasant masses make up the driving force of any revolutionary movement in agrarian societies. So before moving on with respect to this topic, let us be clear that as Maoists, we disagree with the Cuban political-military strategy known as Focoism. Focoism is defined as:</P><BLOCKQUOTE>
"The belief that small cells of armed revolutionaries can create the conditions for revolution through their actions. Demonstrated revolutionary victories, the success of the Foci, are supposed to lead the masses to revolution. Focoism often places great emphasis on armed struggle and the immediacy this brings to class warfare. Focoism is different from People's War in that it doesn't promote the mass line as part of guerrilla operations."
-From the <A HREF="https://www.prisoncensorship.info/glossary/">MIM(Prisons) Glossary</A>
So while as anti-imperialists we have great unity with the national
liberation movement that booted U.$. imperialism from Cuba, we also have
a variety of criticisms of Focoism, in particular the line being
espoused in this book. The line that says only the “urban population”
(industrial proletariat & left-wing sections of the
petty-bourgeoisie) in a Third World country are advanced enough to lead
the revolution is crypto-Trotskyist. The Focoists, while claiming to be
communist and claiming to follow in the footsteps of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, in fact prove themselves to disagree with the
philosophy of dialectical materialism in practice by attempting to prove
external forces as principal both in general and in particular. By
relegating the role of the masses as makers of hystory to mere
spectators in hystory, the Focoists display a lack of faith in the
masses and thereby uphold the bourgeoisie theory of hystory which they
also claim to struggle against in their individualist attempts to bring
about revolution. The Focoist political-military line upheld by the
author is therefore anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical materialist,
anti-communist and contradicts the entire hystorical process ever since
the emergence of classes and class struggle. It is no wonder that
Focoism has never succeeded in defeating imperialism anywhere in the
world with the exception of Cuba. Indeed the Cuban example has been the
exception and not the rule when it comes to the revolutionary
transformation of society.
On the other hand, if we look at all three major stages of the Chinese
Revolution: from the war of independence against Japan; to the
revolutionary war that ousted the KMT from China, including Amerikan,
British and French imperialism; to the struggle for New Democracy, we
can see how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of
Mao Zedong struggled shoulder-to-shoulder with the masses in order to
build dual power from inside the revolutionary base areas from which
they were able to encroach upon, encircle and challenge the cities of
China. This revolutionary war strategy is called People’s War
and it is the model for national liberation struggles all throughout the
Third World in the era of dying imperialism.
Once her training was complete, Tania’s handlers were confident she was
more than prepared to fulfill her role. They believed that during the
course of her training, she’d displayed many new character traits: hate
for the enemy, firm ideological grasp of the revolutionary task at hand,
discipline, vigilance, a disposition towards sacrifice in victory
without any personal ambition or gain and satisfaction in completing her
mission (pg 42). Tania soon departed for Prague under the alias “Maria
Iriarte” from Argentina (pg 62).
Once in Prague, she was briefed on the next stage of her mission by
Czech agents working in tandem with Cuban intelligence. Tania then
travelled to Italy and then to the Federal Republic of Germany, also
known as West Germany, which was split at the time between U.$., Briti$h
and French imperialism. Tania’s objective here was to deepen her cover
as Maria Iriarte so that she may then establish herself as “Vittoria
Pancini” of Italian origin (pg 62). It was in the course of these trips
that Tania was finally confronted with the on-the-ground reality of
capitalism and the class distinctions between the developed West and the
under-developed Third World. Here Tania was able to witness the
existence of poverty alongside the opulence that characterized the West;
the egoism of western society and various other social ills she’d only
learned about in school and her studies of Marxism. Whereas many people
newly arrived in imperialist countries have swooned at the sight of such
riches, Tania on the other hand found that her resolve was only
strengthened (pg 63). After a few months in West Germany, Tania was sent
to Italy to create another persona, that of “Laura Gutierrez Bauer”,
also from Argentina (pg 79).
On 5 November 1964, after returning to Italy from West Germany, Tania
arrived in Peru by way of Argentina on her next stop to La Paz, Bolivia
(pg 82). This is where Tania really proved her powers as a Cuban spy.
Through her connections she’d established with the Argentine embassy as
“Laura”, she was able to infiltrate the Bolivian dictator, General Ramon
Barrientos’s inner circle. Near the end of 1964, Tania managed to get
herself invited to a special banquet breakfast for Gen. Barrientos,
where she had a conversation with him and even had pictures taken
together (pg 84). Following this event, Tania abandoned her residence at
Hotel La Paz and moved into the guest house belonging to Alicia Dupley
Zamara, the wife of an important cement factory administrator. From
here, Tania was able to stockpile connections deep within the Bolivian
bourgeoisie as well as with various right-wing leaders and
organizations, reactionary Christian social-democrats and pro-fascist
organizations (pg 35). Next, Tania began to embed herself into various
government agencies, such as the Office of Criminal Investigations,
where she was able to collect information on the extent of Amerikan
imperialism’s penetration into the Bolivian penal and judicial system.
She also gathered intelligence on the local jail in La Paz known simply
as “the Panopticon” (pg 89).
Afterwards, Tania left Bolivia for Mexico City, where she was to meet a
member of Cuban intelligence who informed her of her next mission and
congratulated her for a job well-done. Tania had accomplished far more
than anyone expected. She was also informed that she’d been voted in
absentia into the Cuban “Communist” Party* (pg 76).
The next stage of Tania’s mission was to gain Bolivian citizenship so as
to better facilitate her cover and role in the Bolivian urban
insurgency. She was to be Che’s eyes and ears in the Bolivian
government. Tania gained citizenship by marriage to a Bolivian
university student, Mario Martinez (pg 105). On 31 December 1966, Tania
met with Che in the ELN’s base camp in the Bolivian mountains for the
first time since leaving Cuba. By all accounts it was a joyous reunion
and Tania celebrated the 9th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution with
the ELN guerrillas. Two days later, Tania left camp with explicit orders
from Che not to return to the camp and to refrain from any illegal
activities that might blow her cover. However, on 19 March 1967, Che was
angered to receive news that Tania had returned to camp. In Tania’s
defense, she stated there was no other member of the incipient urban
insurgency she yet trusted enough to deliver fresh soldiers to the ELN,
which was the task Tania was carrying out at the time. The timing,
however, could not have been worse as the ELN had just suffered the
desertion of two volunteers (pg 113). Che immediately ordered Tania to
return to the city. Before she could leave, however, they received
information that the Bolivian Army was aware of the ELN’s location and
were on the hunt. On 23 March 1967 combat operations began when, during
the course of an ambush initiated by the Bolivian military, seven
government soldiers were killed and 14 were taken prisoner. Four days
later, news reached the camp that Tania’s cover might have been blown
when government officials announced over the radio that they were
looking for someone matching Tania’s description with links to the ELN.
Around this same time the Bolivian police found identification belonging
to a “Laura Gutierrez” inside of a jeep of a home they’d raided in
search of possible connections to the ELN (pg 118).
On 31 August 1967 “Tania the guerrilla” was killed by government
soldiers during an ambush along the edges of the Rio Grande. According
to the only surviving member of the ELN, the group were trying to march
out of the zone known as the Bella Vista mountain range where the
military was attempting to confine Tania’s unit, which had split off
from Che’s. As Tania knelt down to touch the water a single shot rang
out. Tania had been shot through the arm. She immediately lifted her arm
over her head to reach for the M1 slung over her back, when she suddenly
collapsed. The single bullet traversed her arm and hit one of her lungs.
Tania fell into the Rio Grande and was swept away by the current as
shots raced back and forth between the ELN and the Bolivian Army (pg
124). Tania’s body was found three days later by government troops (pg
125). On 8 October 1967, Che Guevara was taken prisoner and summarily
executed the following day (pg 126). The bodies of all 33 fallen ELN
guerrillas would then be disappeared by government troops and would not
be found for nearly 30 years, when retired Bolivian general Mario Vargas
Salinas confessed to Jon Lee Anderson the true location of Che Guevara’s
remains (pg 132).
As late as 2005, the people of Vallegrande, near the site where Tania
was killed and where her remains were last seen, still held a special
Mass every Sunday for Tania the guerrilla (pg 138). Until the
dissolution of the GDR in 1990, there existed more than 200 juvenile
brigades and “feminist” groups with the name Haydée Tamar Bunke Bider.
Day care centers and elementary schools also bore her name in the GDR
(pg 261). Today, with the temporary triumph of imperialism in Germany,
none of these are still around. In Cuba, up until 1998, there were many
collectives and various other institutions with either the name Tamara
Bunke or Tania the guerrilla. And in Bolivia, the name Tania remains
very popular for girls. In Nicaragua and Chile there also existed until
1998 many institutions and organizations with any variety of Tania’s
names and aliases (pg 261).
It was Tania’s mother’s last wish that Tania’s remains be laid to rest
alongside her fallen comrades whenever she was found. On 30 December
1998 Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider; alias Maria Iriarte; alias Vitorria
Pancini; alias Laura Gutierrez Bauer; alias Tania the guerrilla finally
arrived to the Ernesto Che Guevara Memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba, where
she remains today (pg 273).
The role of wimmin in the annals of revolutionary struggle are not
confined to a few noteworthy names such as Tania the guerrilla. From the
Maoist struggle of the Naxalbari currently playing out outside the
cities and urban areas of India, where guerrilla wimmin battalions and
guerrilla units led by wimmin are some of the most feared by government
troops, to the overwhelming amount of leadership positions held by
wimmin in the Communist Party of Peru (aka “Shining Path”) in the era of
Gonzalo, to the national liberation struggles of the internal
semi-colonies of the U.$. empire, wimmin will remain a vital component
in the struggle for socialism-communism – this is what Mao meant when he
said “wimmin hold up half the sky.”
Indeed, the most effective road forward has already been paved.
Revolutionary accomplishments should be viewed as the product of many
peoples’ collective labor and not just a select few. Anyone attracted to
the Focoist theory of revolution need only look at the hystories of
oppressed peoples’ movements everywhere and learn from practice. What
has been more successful – Maoism or Focoism? The relationship between
mass movements and the individuals leading them is a dialectical one and
neither can carry out the task of revolution without the other.
The vast majority of the governments in the world lack popular support
because they serve the oppressive interests of U.$./European/Japanese
imperialism. Popular elections in Palestine (for Hamas) and Honduras
(for Zelaya) have been rejected by the United $tates, who put their
chosen leaders in power. Meanwhile, Afghanistan and Iraq are the most
hypocritical examples of U.$. “democracy building.” A decade of military
occupation, with all the murders, secret prisons and torture that
entails, and even the imperialists can’t claim any victory. Iraq has
split into multiple states, all of which are engaged in an ongoing hot
war. And a recent U.$. government audit of the $1 billion dollars spent
in Afghanistan over 10 years concludes that they have been largely
unsuccessful in establishing “the rule of law,” not to mention
“democracy.”(1)
Of course, that’s not to say that certain imperialist interests have not
been served in these projects. A destabilized Third World nation is
certainly better than a unified one, because the inherent interests of
the Third World are opposed to those of the imperialist nations. Any
successful organization of Third World nations to serve their own
interests is a blow against imperialism. And the ongoing wars grease the
gears of the military industrial complex.
Looking at the Middle East, West Africa or Central America, we cannot
say that the oppressed nations are winning. But the objective conditions
for successful resistance are certainly there and developing. Our
strategic confidence in the victory of the proletarian nations over the
imperialist nations comes from these objective conditions, principally
that the proletariat nations far outnumber the imperialist ones.
Honduras: Mass Protests and Collective Farming
10 July 2015 – tens of thousands of Hondurans marched in the capital of
Tegucigalpa with torches held high to call for the resignation of
President Juan Orlando Hernandez.(2) These protests have been going
strong for seven weeks, and they are the continuation of a six-year
struggle against the forces behind a coup d’etat backed by the United
$tates in 2009.
In this same period a movement to seize land by collectives of
campesinos has been ongoing. These collectives are highly organized and
participate politically in the national assemblies behind the mass
protests. In the countryside, these collectives have provided improved
housing, education and pay for their members. They are class conscious,
and addressing gender contradictions as well. The documentary
Resistencia (2015) shows the regular harassment and
assassinations these collectives face.(3) One community had all their
houses bulldozed while attending a rally in Tegucigalpa, yet they pull
together and rebuild, as one campesino says, because they have nowhere
else to go. While some collectives seem to have armed guards, generally
they depend on non-violent resistence at this time.
The United $tates recently deployed 280 Marines to Central America, with
most going to Honduras as part of their ongoing militarization of the
country in face of this continued mass resistance.(2) Meanwhile, many of
the top military personnel who are allied with the large landowners in
Honduras have been trained in the terrorist training camp known as the
School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.(3) For decades,
graduates of this school have carried out the most atrocious and brutal
military campaigns in Central America on behalf of U.$. interests.
Today, Honduras is considered the murder capital of the world.
Imperialists Slaughter Yemenis in Desperation
The United $tates has been waging low-intensity warfare in Yemen since
shortly after 11 September 2001. In that time they have carried out over
100 drone strikes in the country.(4) In mid-May of 2015, U.$. troops and
ambassadors were pulled out of the country following a popular
insurgency that threw out the U.$. puppet regime of Abdedrabbo Mansour
Hadi in late March. Hadi has since remained outside of Yemen with no
sign that he will be able to return.
Since the removal of Hadi, an intensified bombing campaign in Yemen has
been described as a “Saudi-led” effort, yet U.$. Deputy Secretary of
State Antony Blinken is behind the coordination center in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia and the United $tates expedited weapons deliveries to their ally
who they’ve already provided with a strong, modernized military.
On 6 July 2015 over 30 civilians were killed when invaders shot a
missile into a small market in the village of Al Joob. Other recent
strikes in the region killed 30 in Hajjah, and 45 just north of Aden.(5)
“In addition to some 3,000 Yemenis killed since March, the war has also
left 14,000 wounded and displaced more than a million people, according
to the [United Nations].”(6) Close to 13 million are lacking food due to
the war and the blocking of shipments into Yemen by the imperialist-led
coalition. Meanwhile preventable diseases like dengue, malaria and
typhoid are spreading.(6)
Like the people of Honduras, these horrific conditions leave the people
of Yemen with no choice but to keep fighting. In April, “19 Yemeni
political parties and associations rejected the UN Resolution 2216 [an
attempt to appease the resistance], stating that it encourages terrorist
expansion, intervenes in Yemen’s sovereign affairs, violates the right
of self-defense by the Yemeni people and emphasized the associations’
support of the Yemeni Army.”(7) In June, Najran tribes, in a Saudi
border region, declared war against the Saudi regime because of the
Saudis killing innocent people. This occurred after the House of Saud
attempted to bribe tribal leaders to support their war efforts in
Yemen.(8)
Yemen’s relationship to Saudi Arabia is similar to those of Mexico and
Central America to the United $tates. Yemen was once a nominally
socialist state after a Marxist-inspired national liberation army took
control after British colonialism ended in the region. So like Central
America, Yemen is no stranger to socialism and Marxism. Yet, while
militarily conditions are more advanced throughout the Middle East, we
do not see the class-conscious subjective political forces that exist in
places like Honduras.
Yemen risks falling into inter-proletarian conflict as has been ongoing
in Syria and Iraq. Yet, reports from the ground indicate a strong
recognition that the ultimate blame for their plight falls on the United
$tates (this is true in Honduras as well). Chaos does bring opportunity
for the objective forces of proletarian class interest to rise to
prominence. While conditions are dire in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, they
lend themselves to building dual power and ultimately delinking from
imperialism, which is what the oppressed nations must do to improve
their conditions. While there are multiple competing powers in Syria and
Iraq right now, no sustainable dual power can develop that is not built
on the class unity of the exploited classes as exists in Honduras. At
the same time, dual power must be defended, and the imperialists will
always respond to efforts at delinking with military intervention. It is
this military power that is lacking in Honduras to make their
collectivization efforts sustainable.
These are just some of the hotly contested areas of the world today. The
battle is between the imperialists and the exploited majority. While the
imperialists are the dominant force today, the exploited majority are
the rising aspect of this contradiction. As they rise in more regions of
the world, they undercut capitalist profits and imperialist militaries
become overextended. That is how the exploited majority will become
victors and gain control over their own destiny.
Book Review: Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and their
Godfathers By Anabel Hernandez 2014
Anabel Hernandez exposes the biggest drug organization: The U.$. and
Mexican government. Business men, and all branches of the government.
Although she doesn’t dig deeper into the Amerikan agencies like FBI,
DEA, DHS, ICE, etc., she does point out to the involvement of the CIA in
the drugs-arms trade in Central America during the civil wars focused on
destroying the communist movements.
Unlike other “conspiracy theory” books, Hernandez backs up the facts in
her book with evidence and information newly open and available to most.
Recent scandals of money laundering by banks like HSBC, HSMX, Bank of
Amerika, etc only reinforce the evidence Hernandez presents in her book.
The main criminals are those who benefit from this
politico-social-economic capitalist system.
As someone that grew up in the poorest section of Mexican society I can
say that this book is the most revealing one I’ve ever read regarding
the sad situation in Mexico, especially when speaking of the so-called
“War on Drugs.” Besides highly recommending this book to everyone and
especially my co-nationals; I want to make sure that everyone is aware
of the stupid idolization some people fall to. These “drug-lords” are
part of the system too. They are working together. As Roberto Saviano
puts it in the book foreword,
“Narco-land is not only an essential book for anyone willing to look
squarely at organized crime today. Narcoland also shows how…capitalism
is in no position to renounce the mafia. Because it is not the mafia
that has transformed itself into a modern capitalist enterprise - it is
capitalism that has transformed itself into mafia. The rules of drug
trafficking that Hernandez describes are also the rules of capitalism.”
People in the poor countries, like Mexico, get pulled to crime out of
necessity, no arguing about that. But once some of these people get
ultra-rich, or just rich, they become part of the problem. These people
have billions of dollars not just millions, and rather than use this to
educate and arm the people, they use it to buy private planes, yachts,
mansions and party and celebrate with the elites at the businesses and
governments.
In one way these drug lords are depicted as “bad” by the capitalist
government, and society. In another they are admired and discretely
shown as a roll model via brainwashing to the youth and uneducated, in
the movies (Scarface), TV series (Breaking Bad), and
so-called documentaries (Gangland), among many other sources.
Hernandez says “It has to stop [the Mexican drug-political system], and
the only ones who can stop it are ordinary citizens… It will only end
when Mexican society unites agains this immense ‘mafia.’ That means
overcoming fear and apathy, and above all the tacit assumption that
things can not be any different.” It’s up to us to be more political
conscious and do what we must. Whether “Drug-Lords” or “capitalists,”
they are the same ideology. Meanwhile kids are hungry and lack clothes
and education, the most basic needs.
Book also available in Spanish, as “Los Señores del Narco,” de Anabel
Hernandez.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This book review makes an important point
about class analysis and identifying our friends and enemies. While the
First World lumpen, individuals who may get pulled into small time drug
dealing, are a class that as a whole we can hope to win to the side of
revolution, the drug lords have moved out of this class, if they were
ever a part of it. They function as a comprador bourgeoisie, profiting
off the suffering of their people and working hand in hand with the
imperialists. Just because the drug trade is supposedly illegal does not
change this reality. And as this review points out, the governments that
have outlawed drugs are among the biggest players in drug dealing. What
is legal and what is criminal under capitalism is about politics, not
about justice or humyn rights.
Che Guevara, A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson Grove Press
Books 1997
From de-classed aristocrat, to social vagabond, to communist
revolutionary and legend, Che Guevara, A Revolutionary Life
takes us from Che’s early beginning as a sickly kid with a tremendous
appetite for reading to his miserable last days in the Bolivian
mountains trying to spark a revolution. As far as biographies of
political figures go this one is truly exceptional as Jon Lee Anderson
does an outstanding job of focusing this book not on Che the individual
but on Che the devoted servant of the people. There are just so many
aspects and stages of Che’s life which this book covers that I already
know I won’t have enough space to cover it all. Therefore I will stick
to covering not so much what we already know about Che but what hasn’t
yet been fully understood about him.
With that said, let us travel back in time to Argentina circa World War
II, a country caught between Amerikan imperialism and a rising fascist
influence. Ernesto “Che” Guevara was first turned on to politics as a
young child through his friendships with several other children whose
parents were Spanish migrants fleeing the Spanish Civil War. Che’s
family was also apparently very active in Argentina’s petty bourgeois
political circles. As a result of all these factors Che soon became
semi-political himself, proudly joining the youth wing of Accion
Argentina (Argentine Action), a pro-Allied solidarity group.(p. 23)
However, he wouldn’t really begin developing a critical view of the
world until his teenage years when he was shaped further by the
political turmoil in his own country as well as by his Spanish émigré
friends who had a measurable influence in his life. Years later they
would all belong to local anti-fascist youth cells formed by Argentine
students organizing against the militant youth wing of the pro-Nazi
Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista (National Liberation Alliance).(p. 33)
Besides this political organizing the rest of Che’s high school years
were spent devouring every book he could get his hands on, including
Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Che later revealed to his second wife
years later that at the time of reading Das Kapital he couldn’t
understand a thing. Of course this would all change.
After graduating from high school he began to study philosophy, both
inside and outside of college. He took engineering classes and enrolled
in medical school. He also became fascinated with psychology. It was
during this time that he began studying Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Yet during this time and the year that followed he continued to avoid
any serious political participation. Paradoxically, however friends and
family remember that Che began to debate politics with different
organizations as well as with his family who were all very political, as
if he was beginning to put his reading to the test.(p. 50)
During one of these discussions Che made his first anti-imperialist
condemnation of the United $tates, accusing them of having imperial
designs in Korea.(p. 50) It was not until his trips up and down South
and Central America that Che Guevara would start to become radicalized.
And it wasn’t books that did it, but “the injustice of the lives of the
socially marginalized people he had befriended along his
journeys.”(p. 63) It was also during this time that Che’s criticism and
hatred for the United $tates began to grow, as now more than at any
prior time in his life he was convinced that it was Amerikan imperialism
that was the root cause of all of Latin@ America’s problems.(p. 63)
Through subsequent trips up and down the Americas Che met various
Marxist intellectuals he had a high opinion of because they were
“revolutionary.”(p. 118) In addition, he began to openly identify with a
political cause, aligning himself and working within the leftist
government of Arbenz in Guatemala. Also, very interesting to note that
during this time Che began an ambitious project to write what would have
been his first book titled The Role of the Doctor in Latin
America(p. 135), a project he would unfortunately never finish due
to his preoccupation with other revolutionary activities. A shame too as
the ideas outlined for his book apparently dealt with the role of
doctors during times of revolution, and one can’t help but draw
parallels with Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth written
after, but around the same period of revolutionary upsurge in the Third
World. Wretched not only deals with the anti-colonial struggle
in Africa, but the role of the revolutionary psychiatrist.
As part of his preparation for this book, Che found it necessary “to
take his knowledge of Marxism further, as he deepened his struggle of
Marx, Engels, Lenin and the Peruvian Jose Carlos Marategui”(p. 136)
founder of the Peruvian Communist Party which decades later would
develop the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). He also discovered
Mao Zedong and read about the Chinese communist revolution, ascertaining
that their road to socialism had been different than the Soviet
Union’s.(p. 136) Guevara’s resolve as a revolutionary would only become
steeled in the ensuing chaos that followed the CIA-backed coup against
the Arbenz government. This is also when the CIA first took notice of
Che starting “one of the thickest (files) in the CIA’s global
records.”(p. 159)
After Guatemala, Che fled to Mexico where his political destiny would
become sealed after meeting the leaders of the July 26th Movement after
their failed focoist attack on a Cuban military base. The leaders were
Fidel and Raul Castro. Soon thereafter, the trio, along with a band of
other Cuban exiles, left Mexico and began their historic guerrilla war
against the Batista dictatorship. Their point of unification was that
“Batista was little more than a pimp, selling off their country to
degenerate foreigners…”(p. 170) But physical training and marksmanship
wasn’t enough for Che in preparation to liberate Cuba. Confident that
the revolution would succeed, Che intensified “his study of economics,
he embarked on a cram course of books by Adam Smith, Keynes and other
economists, boned up on Mao and Soviet texts…”(p. 189) Once in the
Sierra Maestra Che kept up his studies as he wanted to have a firm grasp
of political and economic theory.(p. 189)
After exhibiting exemplary fighting and leadership skills Fidel made Che
his “chief of staff.” After the guerrilla victory, and among many other
accomplishments and activities, Che concentrated on consolidating the
initial revolutionary power base – the new Cuban military. Like Mao, Che
sought to “raise the cultural level of the army.” In addition to basic
literacy and education, the new military academy under Che was designed
to impart political awareness to the troops.(p. 384) He even helped
start Verde Olivio (Olive Green), a newspaper for the
revolutionary armed forces.(p. 385)
Che was also made President of Cuba’s National Bank. Indeed, Che Guevara
was fully immersed in trying to build up Cuba’s independent socialist
economy. He recognized that in order to completely liberate itself from
imperialist dependency, the Cuban economy would have to break free from
the sugar industry which subsumed Cuba, turning it into a one-crop
fiefdom. Cuba would also have to industrialize. Che was also for
agrarian reform believing that the peasants who worked the land should
have more control and reap more from it. Fidel had similar ideas on
agrarian reform but not as far reaching as Che’s. As a matter of fact, a
thorn of contention between Che and Fidel was Che’s strong belief that
in order to succeed as a free and independent socialist state, Cuba
would have to develop its own productive forces and should bow to no
one, while Fidel preferred to play various imperialist powers off of one
another in order to receive assistance in modernization and military
equipment. And while Che would ultimately, though not always, come to
echo Fidel’s line on modernization, this seemed to be more because of
Che’s position as a head of state and diplomat.
To Che’s credit however he was the principal architect in designing
Cuba’s economy and re-arranging the military prior to the Soviet Union’s
involvement on the island. Many just don’t realize how much influence
and power Che had in Cuba and that the creation of the many progressive
institutions in Cuba can be directly attributed to Che’s influence on
Fidel and Raul. And while Fidel would name Raul as his political
successor, it was Che that many noted as Fidel’s true right-hand man
despite his not even being a native Cuban.
One also gets the sense from reading this book that after the initial
seizure of power, and as the political situation worsened for Cuba on an
international level, Fidel trusted no one else in certain situations and
so he ceded many matters of domestic and foreign policy to Che who had a
better grasp of political economy, diplomacy and military affairs. This
was the period in which the USSR, which had already taken the capitalist
road, began to take notice of Che, not only because of his influence,
but because of his strong peasant leanings and independent initiative,
for which they would begin labeling him pejoratively as a “radical
Maoist.” Che denied being a Maoist, but actions speak louder than words.
According to this book Che made two major criticisms of the Chinese
Communist Party. The first was in accusing China of playing hardball
with their rice for sugar assistance, accusing China of trying to starve
Cuba. The second criticism was in berating China for not doing more to
aid the Vietnamese in their struggle against Amerikan imperialism.
Besides these criticisms it was very well known that Che had a high
degree of unity with China which he very much revered for having a
“higher socialist morality” than the Soviets, who he would increasingly
and with frequency severely criticize over the remainder of his life.
Among other things Che criticized the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union for their bourgeois lifestyles which he witnessed first hand. More
importantly, he later publicly condemned the Soviet Union for what he
deemed collusion against Cuba with the United $tates. Later Che would
hold up China’s socialist revolution “as an example that has revealed a
new road for the Americas.”(p. 490) Furthermore, after returning from
one of his trips to China, Che was “invigorated” with a new sense and
deepened understanding of socialism, replicating some of China’s
volunteer work brigades. He called these programs “emulacion comunista”
(communist emulation).(p. 503)
Nearing his departure from Cuba for the last time Che began two more
books which like Role of the Doctor he never finished:
Philosophical Notes and Economic Notes. The latter
being an extended critique of the Soviet Manual of Political
Economy. On the eve of his final trek into the Bolivian mountains
he sent an outline of the text to the budgetary finance system (BFS) for
review indicating that he was ready to put his anti-Soviet line on
political economy into practice (Guevara was the head of the BFS).
According to the author, what Che had in mind was “a new manual on
political economy better applied to modern times, for use by developing
nations and revolutionary societies in the Third World.”(p. 696)
Furthermore, according to Anderson who interviewed former members of the
BFS who read Che’s critique, Che wrote in the manual that the USSR and
the Eastern Bloc were doomed to return to capitalism if they didn’t
reform their economies.”(p. 697) Apparently these documents were left to
a comrade who never found the time to push for publication in the
increasingly social imperialist dominated Cuba. Today they remain in
Cuba locked away along with other of Che’s documents, which Fidel deemed
too sensitive to publish.(p. 697)
In the end and throughout his career it is very well known that Che was
a focoist and was killed because of his ultra-left and idealized version
of what a popular war looked like. Yet I was surprised to find out that
Che’s war strategy for Latin@ America was somewhat similar to Mao Zedong
and Lin Bao’s conception of global “Peoples War” for the Third World. As
Che pointed out in Guerrilla Warfare: A Method, the liberation
of the Americas from Amerikan hegemony could only come about through a
virtual united front of guerrilla and other peasant forces that would
use the Andean mountains which stretch from the top of South America to
the bottom as a series of revolutionary base areas which they would use
to attack the cities and urban zones of Latin@ American countries,
slowly but surely wresting control of one country after another until
all of Latin@ America was free. This is akin to the
village-encircle-city strategy of Lin and Mao.
The story of Che Guevara and his iconic image has not yet been forgotten
by revolutionaries today, as it continues to inspire us in our own
struggles. It is truly a pity that Che succumbed to his focoist beliefs.
His story should not only serve as an example as to the type of
revolutionaries we should aspire to become, but should also serve as an
example of what can happen if we pick up the gun too soon. Focoism has
taken away too many good comrades, and in Che Guevara it took away a
great comrade! Let it not take one more. So on this day the
forty-seventh anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, (9 October 2014)
and the day commemorating and honoring Che, “The Day of the Heroic
Guerrilla” (8 October 2014) let us raise the red banner of revolution
just as Che continuously raised it and died holding it. Let us raise the
red banner for the proletariat, for our lumpen and for our nations! Let
us be like Che! Seremos Como el Che!
Much hype and media attention has been brought by the murder of the
runner up of the Miss Universe, Miss Venezuela. News pundits like to
point out that Venezuela had over 25,000 murders last year and is the
world’s murder capital. The killing of any person through murder and
greed is sad and tragic, but what the media fails to talk about is
Amerika’s own murder rate.
Statistics for 2010-2011 from the FBI’s Crime in the U.S.
report has murder and negligent manslaughter at 14,612. This is below
the 24,000 murders in Venezuela, but it doesn’t account for murders
committed by the U.$. armed forces around the globe. In the United
States the number of forcible rapes for 2010-2011 was 85,593. This does
not account for non-reported rapes as well as rapes in the military.
The government-mouthpiece media in the U.$. viciously portrays other
country’s problems and flaws in order to keep the prying eyes of the
world off the United $tates.
People the world over should strive to end crime in their communities.
But most importantly people should understand that the grandfather of
all criminals is the imperialist system here in Amerika.
El Salvador has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, and
marginalization runs deep causing orphaned children from disintegrated
households, and extreme poverty. The Salvadorian government has brought
gang members to the table to negotiate and find temporary solutions for
ending the violence, and eventually a “definitive pacification.” A peace
treaty between Mara Salvatrucha-13 and Barrio 18 has dropped the
homicide rate, in a country with a population of 6 million, to 5 down
from 14 daily. “Our conclusion is that the crime is only an expression
of a much deeper social problem,” says Raul Mijango, who is an
ex-guerrilla who fought against the government in El Salvador’s Civil
War, and is also a former legislative deputy of the government
established after the Civil War, he’s helping broker the deal.(1) Among
the gangs’ primary demands was a transfer of ranking leaders from max to
low security prisons, where family visits are permitted and limited
rehabilitation programs offered. He says gang members are subject to
worse-than-usual treatment in El Salvador prisons. Jeannette Aguilar,
director of the University Institute of Public Opinion in San Salvador
says, “…it’s a golden opportunity for the country to advance.” Some say
they need to treat the roots of the problem: marginalization, education,
and a lack of economic opportunity.
While El Salvador is working with the gangs on a “peace process,” the
United Snakes slithers in the mix and designates the Mara a
transnational criminal organization and imposes financial sanctions on
the gang. El Salvador’s president called this label “exaggerated.” In
reference to the “gangs” in question, Mijango says “…you don’t come
across a gangster with five bulletproof trucks and armed men – you just
don’t see it. You see a bunch of kids trying to figure out how to make
it. It’s a different reality…” Some analysts argue by doing such, the
United $nakes could sabotage the peace process. Economic opportunity is
crucial to a sustainable peace process, yet it is almost impossible for
gang members there to get jobs.
Comrades, why would they put financial sanctions on them at the exact
time that El Salvador is pushing for peace in their country? Could it be
the United $nakes is purposely trying to compromise this “peace treaty”
in order to keep the country in chaos? If these gang members get
educated, get jobs, and contribute to their country’s development,
maybe, just maybe, they would start taking over the jobs, and
undermining investments that U.$. imperialism has its tentacles wrapped
around. In my personal opinion, the United $nakes is looking after its
interest and long-term investments in the region for capital
accumulation and political hegemony, by purposely trying to compromise
the peace treaty between Salvadorian “gangs!”
MIM(Prisons) adds:We agree with the conclusion this comrade
makes. As we pointed out in our article
marking
the one-year anniversary of the peace treaty in El Salvador, the
United $tates has its bloody finger prints all over the state of affairs
in Central America. The “civil war” that led to mass migration to Los
Angeles and the formation of the lumpen organizations engaged in the
peace treaty was financed by U.$. imperialism to eliminate people who
were not a part of the imperialist system.
Just this week, Efraín Ríos Montt, former dictator of Guatemala, became
the first head of state in the Americas to face trial for genocide. This
U.$.-trained-and-financed puppet was part of a parallel war against
communist guerrillas and the masses of indigenous people in Guatemala in
the same time period, the 1980s. While there was armed resistance to the
imperialists, 93% of those killed by the state’s repression were
civilians. The trial this week came to a halt when information about
current president Otto Pérez Molina’s role in ordering mass executions
came to light, signaling that the the power structure in that country
has not left U.$. hands.(2) In both El Salvador and Guatemala in the
1980s, tens of thousands of mostly indigenous people, mostly Mayans,
were slaughtered by the U.$. imperialists to prevent them from achieving
their goals of land reform and economic socialization.
Amerikans try to demonize MS-13 and Barrio 18 and other lumpen
organizations (LOs) as killers. In reality, the Amerikans literally
trained the genocidal killers of Central American in their “School of
the Americas” in Fort Benning, Georgia. They then spent millions of
dollars to provide them with military equipment to murder tens of
thousands of people. After creating war in the region for decades, it is
no surprise that the Amerikans are now intervening to interrupt this
peace effort.
Another prisoner in Tejaztlán writes: To me the most relevant
question this article raises for the U.$. Lumpen prison population is
the “peace treaty.” These two LOs have had a bloody feud that has racked
the violent death toll to the thousands. If peace is possible for them,
there is no excuse wut so ever why the petty-penitentary-plex and tribal
warfare going on here amongst ourselves cannot be stopped.
Chiefly, i’m referring to the plex going on in the Texas prison
colonies. To everybody “puttin on for they city,” i’m barking at the
families, yall know who yall are. Sum gotta give, we ain’t getting
nowhere with this petty-plex. We’ve allowed hate and violence towards
each other to be the basis of our unity in relation to one another. So
long as we allow this petty-plex for who has the most dominance and
influence on these ranchos, and so long as we allow that hate and
violence against each other to dictate our relations to one another, our
identity, and our collective consciousness, we’ll never truly understand
the base of our plex and our common condition. Wut material forces have
given birth to and will facilitate the intensification of this plex i’m
speaking against? Can anybody explain to me wut it is, the base of it?
For all those engaged and involved, yall know who yall are and who this
slug is addressed to, and yall know exactly wut plex i’m referring to.
I recently withdrew my allegience to one of these LOs comprising the
biggest in Texas, because talk of peace is considered weak, and nobody
seems to understand wut’s at stake, or the genocide we’re committing
against each other. I now stand alone in an environment where lack of
affiliation renders you amongst the weakest, with no say so for even the
most trivial of things such as wut channel the pacifier goes on and
sometimes with no place to sit even to be pacified. I feel like Che in
his farewell note to the Cubanos, criticizing myself for not being a
better soldado, leader, and spokesman. But as i lay down the banner of
tribalism, i will lift the flame of revolutionary nationalism, striving
to better my understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and applying the
dialectic science to the material world around me, challenging the old
to build new perceptions, which shape our relations, and define our
reality. For those of us lumped together in these ranchos, it starts
with you and me individually as biological men assuming responsibility.
Let’s get it right. For those engaged in the peace initiatives between
Centro Americano LOs, from the comandante to the soldado, our efforts at
nation building do not go unnoticed. Don’t allow the prospects of
reintegration and cohesion to be sabotaged due to foreign interests. Too
much is at stake. To Sanchez of Homies Unidos en Los Angeles who
recently had federal RICO charges dismissed… stay stiff homie!
