Self-Government in Times of Blockade: Luisa Cáceres Commune (Part I)

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com

Despite sanctions, a commune finds novel ways to survive through collecting and recycling waste in one of Venezuela’s coastal cities.

Communal Resistance Series

Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi communards. (Voces Urgentes)

Eastern Venezuela is home to extensive petroleum extraction and processing operations which have their hub in the cities of Barcelona and Puerto la Cruz in Anzoátegui state. The Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi Commune, one of the most advanced communes in the country, grew up in the shadow of this multibillion-dollar business in one of Barcelona’s working-class neighborhoods. This is a rapidly-growing commune – remarkable because of its success in an urban context – which focuses on recycling and waste disposal to maintain itself. In Part I of this two-part series, Luisa Caceres’ communards explain the challenges of building a commune in a country besieged by US imperialism.

History, Productive Projects & Organization

The Luisa Cáceres Commune has its headquarters in an abandoned lot that was cleaned up by the communards and put at the service of the community. It is a multi-space that serves as the epicenter of the commune’s recycling work, the home to a communal garden, and a site for meetings and assemblies. Near a splendid mural showing independence heroin Luisa Caceres and renowned 20th-century writer Aquiles Nazoa, the communards met with us to explain the history of their organization.

Carlos Herrera is a parliamentarian, a member of the commune’s executive committee, and the coordinator of the recycling company. Ingrid Arcila is the commune’s parliamentarian for public services. Arturo Aguache is a communal parliamentarian. Johann Tovar is a communal parliamentarian and part of the Communard Union’s direction. Rosa Cáceres is the public services spokesperson for her communal council; she is in charge of the Pablo Characo Nursery. Manuel Cherema is the commune’s security coordinator and Chief Supervisor of the Bolivarian Police in Anzoátegui. (Voces Urgentes)

HISTORY

Carlos Herrera: We began laying the basis for the commune some eight years ago, but the process really picked up steam in the past four years. We are advancing in the right direction – I think – and that means moving toward popular self-government.

Of course, this is not easy. As a dear comrade says, “If it is hard to agree about things at home, then we shouldn’t be surprised to find communal organizing to be hard.” This is even more true in a capitalist society in crisis, where individual interests tend to impede collective goals.

Little by little, however, we are building a space where the collective is center stage and the commune becomes the base for the construction of the new society. The construction process involves a great deal of work and sacrifice

Arturo Aguache: It was in 2018 that we fully registered the commune in legal terms. Since then, we have been advancing through trial and error, with some moments more marked by institutional cooperation, and others by friction with the state institutions.

In the past few years, with the sanctions weighing hard on us, we discovered that, as an urban commune, our focus should be services: that is what we have done. But our goal is not just to solve problems. Our real aim is popular empowerment through self-government, in a democratic manner, and outside the logic of capital.

Johan Tovar: The commune has the name “Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi” in honor of a great patriot. During the Independence Wars, the royalists killed her husband and imprisoned her. In the dungeons, Caceres was offered her life if she would appeal for royal clemency, pledge allegiance to the king, and abide by the law. Unwilling to do that, she took a gun from one of the officers and shot him. Of course, she was locked down after that, but Luisa Caceres never bowed down to them. She was a true patriot, who stood by her principles. That is why our commune bears her name.

PRODUCTIVE PROJECTS

Herrera: Our commune is in the middle of an urban center, in what Rubén Blades called “the concrete jungle” [selva de cemento]. That location, of course, brought some challenges with it, since there are no communal lands here and what “grows” here are shops and alienation. So in its early days, the commune had a hard time finding ways to produce.

Around 2018 or 2019, the crisis and the sanctions began to hit us hard. All the powers that be were aligned against the Venezuelan people and its government. [Lorenzo] Mendoza, the owner of the Polar food conglomerate, was also battling against our people: Harina PAN [Polar cornmeal] was hard to get and people were going hungry.

So we decided to build a small cornflour processing plant. Our dream was to supply our community with it. The plant worked for a while, but eventually the price of corn skyrocketed, fuel was nowhere to be found, and we were not able to keep the plant going.

While this project failed, we learned about supply chains and about the need to plan our production. We kept on dreaming… Now there are two Communal Property Enterprises [EPS]: one for trash collection and another for recycling.

Tovar: Chávez always emphasized the importance of science and technology to solve the problems that our society faces. Our experience shows that he was right: we need commitment and organization, but we also need to acquire knowledge and organize production efficiently.

Chávez also taught us that a communal society comes with a new geometry of power and a new organization in both the economic and the political spheres. Self-government is at the core of that proposal.

Here at the Luisa Cáceres Commune, we are advancing in that direction. Our highest governing body is the assembly, which is a space of deliberation and collective control of the accounts: the assembly is the seed of self-government.

Meeting at the Luisa Cáceres Commune. (Voces Urgentes)

ORGANIZATION

Herrera: When it comes to the organization of the Luisa Cáceres Commune, we basically follow what is laid out in the Organic Law for Communes. Let’s walk through it step by step: our first organ for deliberation is the Communal Parliament. That parliament is made up of one spokesperson per communal council [there are 24] and three parliamentarians representing the communal enterprises, plus the Communal Bank’s spokesperson.

The parliament meets on the first Saturday of every month to talk about operative and organizational issues, review planning and resources, etc.

The commune also has an Executive Council made up of three spokespeople as well as Economic, Comptroller, Planning, and Administration councils. The latter coordinates issues such as public services, healthcare, housing, culture and education, and territorial defense among other responsibilities.

Tovar: We hope that our commune will give birth to a new material reality and a new consciousness. Following Chávez, we understand the commune as the key to solving the contradictions and problems in our society, and we think that we are inching forward in that direction.

Gas distribution at the Luisa Cáceres Commune. (Voces Urgentes)

Impact of the Blockade vs. Communal Solutions

Far from being passive during the crisis, the Luisa Cáceres Commune has developed a range of creative responses to difficulties as they emerge. In this way, they are demonstrating that communes can provide a popular, sovereign solution to the crisis.

Herrera: The impact of the blockade has been enormous, and it has also hurt grassroots organizations, particularly in the early days of the crisis. When people struggle to get enough food on the table for their families, it is very difficult to maintain grassroots organizations active.

During the worst of the crisis, many had to walk kilometers to get to work because they had no money to pay for bus fare, while others, particularly younger people, left the country. Others simply died because they couldn’t afford to buy the medicines they needed. This was all very painful.

The blockade affects everyone, from the young to the old. It is a criminal policy.

Manuel Cherema: The early days of the blockade were very hard for everyone, including the commune, but we didn’t sit still. In fact, our first communal enterprise was a small cornflour-making processing plant, and we were able to sell the cornflour at an accessible price. That enterprise is not active right now, but we learned a lot with the project.

Tovar: The blockade hit us hard, but the truth is that the hardest years of the crisis have been when we began to expand as a commune.. Interestingly, this also happened at El Maizal Commune and Che Guevara Commune. El Maizal took over productive spaces, the Che Guevara built industrial plants and greenhouses, and we took over waste collection and began the recycling work.

In our case, this all happened while the institutions were dormant during the pandemic. The commune was able to give an efficient response to people’s needs regarding a growing public health problem due to trash accumulation.

Herrera: Indeed, we were able to expand as an organization during the crisis. Why? Because we went on working and couldn’t count on getting economic support from the state. In fact, the state’s lack of attention served as a kick in the pants to communal organization.

HEALTHCARE

Ingrid Arcila: We soon felt the impact of the sanctions and the blockade in our very bodies. Around 2016 food became scarce: we had to stand in lines for hours on end. Then came the medicine shortages: basic drugs such as diazepam were hard to get.

Now medicines and food are available, but prices are exorbitant. This situation becomes particularly complex when a loved one has to get an operation. Hospitals are short on supplies, so families have to get everything from gauze and latex gloves to sterilizers and antibiotics.

That is where the commune comes in: we often work to open institutional channels so that people with low resources will get support from the municipality or from another public office. This helps, but unfortunately, we have lost many people in the commune due to this situation.

In the future, when the commune’s means of production are consolidated, a part of our surplus will be earmarked for such emergencies.

Tovar: Here in the commune, the sanctions, the blockade, and the crisis limited our access to healthcare. The local CDIs [a community-based medical system begun under Chávez] started to collapse during the worst times.

When we saw that this was happening, the community got organized to better administer the medical personnel and the limited resources available. We started communal voluntary work days to paint and sanitize the spaces of the local CDI. However, we also organized so that the institutions would fix problems such as broken air conditioners. This was very important because many operating rooms had no AC, which made them useless.

The community likewise organized successfully to stop the theft of medicines. This may surprise you, but in situations of crisis, contradictions become more visible. That is why the community itself worked to supervise, introduce complaints, and establish strict monitoring of healthcare.

The blockade took many lives, and that was very painful. But it is even more painful when the situation is compounded by problems among us. Individualism takes control of a part of society when things get really hard. When that happens, there is one way forward: more organization, more communalization.

Luisa Caceres Commune Headquarters

Luisa Cáceres Commune headquarters. (Voces Urgentes)

FUEL AND SERVICES

Herrera: The sanctions on [state oil company] PDVSA had a devastating impact on society as a whole: production and distribution became a problem, and people had difficulties getting to work and even to the hospital.

For the commune, when the diesel shortages began, we faced an additional problem: we could not proceed with our trash collection schedule, and garbage piled up in the streets.

Tovar: When the fuel shortages were at their worst, another contradiction emerged: large capitalist enterprises had favorable agreements and would get very generous gas rations, whereas the commune would get a very small monthly allowance that was far below what was needed to do waste collection in the territory.

That is why we had to begin a public campaign: we let it be known that the Commune’s truck was not doing garbage collection because we had no fuel. Eventually, local cadres of the [PSUV] party heard us, and we reached an agreement.

Rosa Cáceres: About two years ago, getting cooking gas became a very serious problem as well. Since we are in an urban area where cooking with firewood is not an option, we had real problems. After a few months, we organized and reached an agreement with PDVSA Gas. Now the commune coordinates gas distribution, and it is working very well.

Here, at the commune, we look for collective solutions to our collective problems… and we have learned that popular power is very efficient in solving the day-to-day problems of the community. Of course, institutions also have a role in solving the problems that the pueblo faces day-to-day.

Arcila: The blockade had a huge impact on public services, particularly electricity, water, gas, and transportation. Lack of maintenance led to blackouts, irregular water supply, and poor public transportation.

For example, the water processing plant here often comes to a halt because it’s not possible for the state to acquire replacement parts. That means that we have sometimes gone up to seven days without running water here.

Another problem that we face is the telephone service. Phone cables are very expensive and theft is common, but CANTV [national phone company] cannot purchase replacements due to the blockade. Right now, more than 70% of the people in the commune have no telephone service.

Finding solutions to all these problems isn’t easy, but the commune has a Public Services Committee that works with public institutions to tend to the problems we have.

We have also organized “brigades.” A very active one is the Water Brigade which works on problems such as broken pipes, so that the water supply will be a bit more regular.

Tovar: Transferring city services to communes is viable. The Water Brigade is solving many problems at a local level. In the past, when we had a problem such as a broken water main, we would have to wait for the city to send a professional. That could last days, weeks, or even months.

Now, when there is a problem in the commune, we activate the brigade. The brigade is a communal initiative, but it is financed by the regional office of the Water Ministry. That institution provides the salaries, but the commune autonomously organizes the work. We have found this to be a very efficient method.

The communal project has been empowering people, through initiatives such as this. The fact that we can solve problems stimulates organization and gives people hope. Although we don’t have financial autonomy, we are moving toward self-government in the commune’s territory.

Aguache: Because ours is an urban commune, deteriorating public services due to the blockade became an enormous problem. However, that situation led us to organize and look for solutions. In so doing, the commune became a beacon or model in the community. It also became clear to us that communal organization could – if responsibilities and resources are transferred to it – solve our own problems.

We cannot celebrate the sanctions in any way, shape, or form, but we have learned a few things along the way: as an urban commune, when we take over services originally assigned to the state, we can do it efficiently and in a self-organized way.

Cáceres: Organization has been key to solving some of our problems, but there is still a lot to do. I should add, however, that the CLAP [subsidized food distribution] structure, which is alive and well in our region, has been a very useful tool. It has allowed us to reach those in the community who are not necessarily committed to self-organization.

SECURITY

Arcila: Any crisis will bring social problems with it. When the crisis here was at its height, theft went up and other social problems intensified, so we began to think about what to do.

That is why we are promoting the creation of Security Brigades in the communal councils here. Our idea is not to police each other, but to strengthen our commune: to build a society where peace and solidarity prevail.

Cherema: We are participating in a communal security pilot plan that former mayor [and current Anzoátegui governor] Luis José Marcano has proposed. Four communes in total are participating in this plan, which is a step toward building the communal city. The aim of the initiative is to rethink and implement a security plan from the grassroots. In fact, this is a legacy from Chávez: he talked about the need to move towards a communal police system that would not come from the outside.

New conceptions of peace and security should replace the old policing practices. Chávez also said that the police should be closer to the people, it should not be an external force. Following his guidelines, we are setting up communal brigades to learn about security, popular intelligence, and defense of what is held in common in the territory.

The communal security plan goes hand in hand with the National Bolivarian Police [PNB] but it is not an appendix of that governmental body. Each security brigade will have a spokesperson that coordinates its activity and, if needed, can work with the PNB. There will also be people in charge of intelligence, and we will establish the figure of the peace mediator. Our communal security plan is not punitive but rather conciliatory.

Creative Tensions in the Communal Project: A Conversation with Hernán Vargas (Part I)

Recently named Vice-minister of Communal Economy, Hernán Vargas is a longstanding activist of the Pobladores movement in defense of the right to housing. In this two-part interview, Vargas reflects on a variety of themes including the tensions that have emerged between the state and grassroots groups, the exhaustion of the rentier economic model, and the Communes Ministry’s role in the project of communalizing society.

In a process of transformation, contradictions are destined to emerge. However, in the Bolivarian Revolution, some of the contradictions between the state and the grassroots movements might be seen as “creative tensions” [a term coined by Álvaro García Linera]. As a person who comes from a grassroots movement but now has a role in the ministry, what creative tensions do you see operating in Venezuela today?

Although it has been transformed at many levels over the past twenty years, the Venezuelan state continues to carry an institutional baggage inherited from the colonial model based on looting and dispossession. This contradiction operates in all Latin American countries where there are progressive processes of transformation.

When the communalization of society – the emergence of grassroots democracy, self-government, and new social relations centered on life – began to take shape, a clash between the old state and the emerging model could not be avoided. This situation can become more or less acute depending on the correlation of forces.

The Venezuelan state has different spheres of action, from the local to the national, and certain class interests may enter into contradiction with communal initiatives at the regional level. At the end of the day, we are talking about a struggle between the old and new model. Such a struggle will emerge in any revolution.

However, it’s also worth highlighting that the Bolivarian Process has long been characterized by the transformative power of its creative tensions. In fact, creative tensions are at the very origin of the Chavista project, and I would even dare to say that they are the root of the communal model. As such, many of the contradictions that emerge should not be interpreted as a limit or a barrier, but as a spark.

From my point of view, what looms over us today is the absence of a debate to get rid of false contradictions. This debate is necessary so that Chavismo can turn its internal contradictions into productive, creative tensions.

el_maizal.png

A communal assembly at El Maizal Commune. (VTV)

What are the policies that you are currently promoting from the Ministry of Communes?

The ministry’s orientation now is a line of work aimed at triggering the reactivation of popular power. In 2006 Chávez talked about the “explosion [flourishing] of popular power.” In so doing, he initiated a new era where communal councils (and later communes) were at the center of the political sphere. That is not to say that there weren’t grassroots organizations before 2006, but most of those developed and intermingled with the new communal project.

The main challenge of the Ministry of Communes is to promote communal power in the current conditions, marked by a blockade and exhaustion of the rentier model. We cannot attempt to mechanically duplicate what Chávez did in his time. With his 3R.nets [an initiative to address the pressing problems in Venezuela], President Nicolás Maduro is pointing to a new era with radically different material conditions, but with the same historical objective.

The end of rentierism [overreliance on oil profits] is becoming a reality in Venezuela, but the rentier “model” is alive and well. That is, the majority of the people hope for a recomposition of rentierism and the same can be said for the political class. Indeed the country should aim toward the recovery of some of our oil exploitation – as it does – but the old rentier model is not viable.

In the midst of this sea-change, [Communes Minister Jorge] Arreaza has been calling for the renovation of communal councils while pushing for the activation of citizens’ assemblies [the governing body in communal councils]. In so doing, we are wagering on socialism. However, beyond activating the communal model on a political level, we are working to activate the communal economy. In the next few months, our plan is to go to the communes, listen to the people, and see what is going on there. Based on that research, we will build a comprehensive plan.

For the communal project to develop, there has to be a life-centered economic project to sustain it. In other words, the economic model for the communes cannot reproduce the logic of capital.

We are exploring mechanisms to encourage the emergence of an economic model based on life. Of course, there will be contradictions and some will try to get a “good deal” out of it, but we see our role in the ministry as accompanying the communes and other communal organizations, and fostering channels so that conditions for the reproduction of life outside of the logic of capital can flourish.

arreboles_de_barinas.png

Renacer de Chávez, formerly known as Arreboles de Barinas, is an indirect communal social property enterprise. (Vive TV)

These aims are admirable, but what are your concrete plans?

Chávez talked about social property and also economic forms that would be steps in that direction, including Indirect Communal Social Property Enterprises [EPSIC for its initials in Spanish]. Over the years, the Ministry of Communes has registered over 300 EPSICs. EPSICs are a hybrid between state and communal property.

We have begun to survey these EPSICs to learn about their current situation. We do all this to reactivate a transition model.

One such case is Arreboles de Barinas, a lumber mill that was recently reorganized and renamed “Renacer de Chávez” [Chávez Reborn]. When we visited it, we discovered that it was privately managed. This is actually illegal, but things like this do happen in times of crisis.

The idea is that those EPSICs should be provisionally co-managed by the state and the people, but eventually the community – organized in communal councils or communes – will take control of the administration of these enterprises.

When the crisis was most intense, the state had almost no capacity to manage such companies. A lumber mill requires raw materials and a variety of inputs, and when the country’s oil profits dropped from 50 billion US dollars a year to 700 million, the resources to keep the mill operative disappeared.

Our objective now is to reorganize the administration of the EPSICs, to bring them in line with the law. In so doing, the state and the organized communities will be direct participants in administering the enterprises. There, the enterprises’ income will be administered so that it is destined for wages, maintenance, and raw material purchases, but a social investment fund will also be established. This fund will be oriented towards communal development – or, as I said before, towards life.

Going back to the Renacer de Chávez lumber mill, the “surplus” will be distributed among the local communes so that they are able to solve infrastructure problems in the community. This is a virtuous cycle because, due to the exhaustion of the rentier model, the state has no resources. In such circumstances, companies like Renacer de Chávez can be the solution to the local problems.

We are also financing communal crops on a small scale and promoting “Economic Communal Circuits.” Our idea is that the production should enter a distribution circuit that ensures that the crops go to the people directly, without intermediaries. In the current cycle, we are focusing on supplying food to school canteens, popular kitchens [casas de alimentación], and communal markets.

In other words, we are aiming to promote the production of use values that will be distributed outside the capitalist market.

John Parker’s Fact-finding Trip to Russia and Ukraine

May 22 2022

https://blackagendareport.com/john-parkers-fact-finding-trip-russia-and-ukraine

Black Agenda Report · John Parker’s Fact-finding Trip to Russia and Ukraine

John Parker is a member of the Socialist Unity party and a senatorial candidate on the Peace and Freedom party ticket in California. He just returned from a fact-finding trip to Russia and Ukraine. He is also a member of Black Alliance for peace. He joins us from Los Angeles.
Margaret Kimberley and John Parker will discuss Russia and Ukraine in a webinar  entitled “Eyewitness Donbass and Russia”, on Sunday, May 29 at 5pm ET. 

The Rise of NATO in Africa

Source: Internationalist 360

May 29 2022

Civilian casualties of US bombing in Somalia

Anxiety about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Russian border is one of the causes of the current war in Ukraine. But this is not the only attempt at expansion by NATO, a treaty organization created in 1949 by the United States to project its military and political power over Europe. In 2001, NATO conducted an “out of area” military operation in Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years, and in 2011, NATO—at the urging of France—bombed Libya and overthrew its government. NATO military operations in Afghanistan and Libya were the prelude to discussions of a “Global NATO,” a project to use the NATO military alliance beyond its own charter obligations from the South China Sea to the Caribbean Sea.

NATO’s war in Libya was its first major military operation in Africa, but it was not the first European military footprint on the continent. After centuries of European colonial wars in Africa, new states emerged in the aftermath of World War II to assert their sovereignty. Many of these states—from Ghana to Tanzania—refused to allow the European military forces to reenter the continent, which is why these European powers had to resort to assassinations and military coups to anoint pro-Western governments in the region. This allowed for the creation of Western military bases in Africa and gave Western firms freedom to exploit the continent’s natural resources.

Early NATO operations stayed at the edge of Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea being the major frontline. NATO set up the Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH) in Naples in 1951, and then the Allied Forces Mediterranean (AFMED) in Malta in 1952. Western governments established these military formations to garrison the Mediterranean Sea against the Soviet navy and to create platforms from where they could militarily intervene in the African continent. After the Six-Day War in 1967, NATO’s Defense Planning Committee, which was dissolved in 2010, created the Naval On-Call Force Mediterranean (NOCFORMED) to put pressure on pro-Soviet states—such as Egypt—and to defend the monarchies of northern Africa (NATO was unable to prevent the anti-imperialist coup of 1969 that overthrew the monarchy in Libya and brought Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power; Gaddafi’s government ejected U.S. military bases from the country soon thereafter).

Conversations at NATO headquarters about “out of area” operations took place with increasing frequency after NATO joined the U.S. war on Afghanistan. A senior official at NATO told me in 2003 that the United States had “developed an appetite to use NATO” in its attempt to project power against possible adversaries. Two years later, in 2005, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, NATO began to cooperate closely with the African Union (AU). The AU, which was formed in 2002, and was the “successor” to the Organization of African Unity, struggled to build an independent security structure. The lack of a viable military force meant that the AU often turned to the West for assistance, and asked NATO to help with logistics and airlift support for its peacekeeping mission in Sudan.

Alongside NATO, the U.S. operated its military capacity through the United States European Command (EUCOM), which oversaw the country’s operations in Africa from 1952 to 2007. Thereafter, General James Jones, head of EUCOM from 2003 to 2006, formed the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008, which was headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, because none of the 54 African nations were willing to give it a home. NATO began to operate on the African continent through AFRICOM.

Libya and NATO’s Framework for Africa

Libya after NATO bombardment

NATO’s war on Libya changed the dynamics of the relationship between the African countries and the West. The African Union was wary of Western military intervention in the region. On 10 March, 2011, the AU’s Peace and Security Council set up the High-Level ad hoc Committee on Libya. The members of this committee included then-AU Chairperson Dr. Jean Ping and the heads of state of five African nations—former President of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Mali’s former President Amadou Toumani Touré, former President of South Africa Jacob Zuma and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni—who were supposed to fly into Tripoli, Libya, and negotiate between the two sides of the Libyan civil war soon after the committee’s formation. The United Nations Security Council, however, prevented this mission from entering the country.

At a meeting between the High-Level ad hoc Committee on Libya and the United Nations in June 2011, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations during that time, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, said, “It is unwise for certain players to be intoxicated with technological superiority and begin to think they alone can alter the course of human history toward freedom for the whole of mankind. Certainly, no constellation of states should think that they can recreate hegemony over Africa.” But this is precisely what the NATO states began to imagine.

Chaos in Libya set in motion a series of catastrophic conflicts in Mali, southern Algeria and parts of Niger. The French military intervention in Mali in 2013 was followed by the creation of the G5 Sahel, a political platform of the five Sahel states—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger—and a military alliance between them. In May 2014, NATO opened a liaison office at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. At NATO’s Wales Summit in September 2014, the alliance partners considered the problems in the Sahel that entered the alliance’s Readiness Action Plan, which served as “[the] driver of NATO’s military adaptation to the changed and evolving security environment.” In December 2014, NATO foreign ministers reviewed the plan’s implementation, and focused on the “threats emanating from our southern neighborhood, the Middle East, and North Africa” and established a framework to meet the threats and challenges being faced by the South, according to a report by the former President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Michael R. Turner. Two years later, at NATO’s Warsaw Summit in 2016, NATO leaders decided to increase their cooperation with the African Union. They “[welcomed] the robust military commitment of Allies in the Sahel-Sahara region.” To deepen this commitment, NATO set up an African Standby Force and began the process of training officers in African military forces.

Meanwhile, the recent decision to eject the French military is rooted in a general sensibility growing in the continent against Western military aggression. No wonder then that many of the larger African countries refused to follow Washington’s position on the war on Ukraine, with half the countries either abstaining or voting against the UN resolution to condemn Russia (this includes countries such as Algeria, South Africa, Angola and Ethiopia). It is telling that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said that his country “is committed to advancing the human rights and fundamental freedoms not only of our own people but for the peoples of Palestine, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Syria and across Africa and the world.”

The ignominy of Western—and NATO’s—follies, including arms deals with Morocco to deliver Western Sahara to the kingdom and diplomatic backing for Israel as it continues its apartheid treatment of Palestinians, bring into sharp contrast Western outrage at the events taking place in Ukraine. Evidence of this hypocrisy serves as a warning while reading the benevolent language used by the West when it comes to NATO’s expansion into Africa.

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This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Puebla Group Celebrates Triumph of Gustavo Petro in Colombia

Source: TeleSUR

May 30 2022

Gustavo Petro (L) and Francia Marquez (R), May, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @GreenLeftOnline

His victory fills Latin America with hope. The people begin to breathe new airs of dialogue, social equality, and integration,” it said.

On Monday, the Puebla Group welcomed the victory of the Historical Pact candidates Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez in the first round of the Colombian elections held on May 29. In a statement entitled “Long live Colombia!, the one that begins to live ‘tasty’ from today,” the Latin American intellectuals and politicians described their victory as an expression of “the hopes of change of Colombian progressivism.”

The Puebla Group also celebrated “the democratic spirit and the civic and peaceful will that was expressed on election day, especially due to their participation levels.”

The victory of Historical Pact candidates reflects “the enormous work of young people who dream of a new Colombia, where all the men and women excluded be recognized,” it added.

The Puebla Group also invited to respect the results of the elections in order to “build a fair, democratic, and peaceful Colombia” because the “victory of Gustavo Petro fills Latin America with hope. The people begin to breathe new airs of dialogue, social equality, and integration.”

Prior to the first round, progressive Latin American leaders demanded that President Ivan Duque provide security and stop questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process.

The Puebla Group was founded in 2019 by over 40 progressive Latin American leaders. They include President Alberto Fernandez (Argentina) and former presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva (Brazil), Jose Mujica (Uruguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Ernesto Samper (Colombia), Evo Morales (Bolivia). Spain, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Martin Torrijos (Panama), and Leonel Fernandez (Dominican Republic).

60 years of the criminal US imperialist blockade against the Cuban Revolution

Source: marxism.com

by Jorge Martin 09 February 2022

On 3 February 1962, US president Kennedy signed proclamation 3447, decreeing an embargo on all trade with Cuba, which was to enter into effect on 7 February. This marked the official beginning of a 60-year blockade (though the imperialist assault had started earlier), which has progressively been strengthened and tightened.

The aims of this campaign of imperialist bullying were openly declared in an April 1960 secret memorandum by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lestor Mallory. The memorandum, optimistically entitled “The Decline and Fall of Castro”, starts by establishing the following fact: “the majority of Cubans support Castro”. What’s the problem, one would think? There is a government in Cuba that has the overwhelming support of the population. Why should this worry the US? Ah, but, as Mallory points out: “Fidel Castro and other members of the Cuban Government espouse or condone communist influence.”

Image: National Archives

That is the problem. “We cannot allow a country go Communist just because the population supports it!”, is what he seems to be saying. This line of reasoning sums up the total worth of Washington’s references to the US defending “democracy” in its dealings with Cuba. The Cuban people can give itself any government it wants… as long as that is the government US corporations want.

Punishing Cuba with hunger

Incidentally, at the time of writing this secret memorandum, 6 April 1960, the Cuban Revolution had not yet made any statement nor taken any measure which could be described as socialist or communist. It had implemented agrarian reform and had taken steps to reassert its national sovereignty (both national democratic measures). It was only later that same year and in response to US provocations (the refusal to purchase an agreed sugar quota, and the refusal to refine oil at US-owned refineries) that the Cuban Revolution proceeded to expropriate US property on the island, moving very quickly towards the abolition of capitalism. And it was not until a year later, on the eve of the US-sponsored Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) invasion, that Fidel Castro talked of the socialist character of the revolution.

But let’s return to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mallory and his memorandum. Not only is Castro’s government extremely popular and has communist leanings, he says, furthermore “there is no effective opposition”. He then considers the question of foreign intervention, which he seems to discard: “militant opposition to Castro from without Cuba would only serve his and the communist cause.” This is, of course, a sharp insight, but also a piece of cynicism. By this time, the US was already working closely with reactionary forces in Cuba and in Miami, sponsoring a campaign of terrorism, sabotage, aerial bombardment and counter-revolutionary insurgency in Cuba. Perhaps what Mallory was trying to say was that these methods were proving counter-productive, which is true.

Not that this appraisal would prevent the US imperialism from organising the counter-revolutionary disembarkment at Playa Girón in April 1961, which was swiftly defeated by the armed workers and peasants of Cuba.

What conclusion does Mallory draw from his observations? He writes: “The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” To achieve that, he then proposes “a line of action which… makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government” (my emphasis).

So, there you have it in black and white, from the horse’s mouth. If the Cuban people have the temerity to overwhelmingly support a government that “condones Communist influence”, then they should be punished, by bringing hunger and desperation until they change their minds and overthrow the government. This is the reasoning behind the policy of aggression US imperialism has followed for 60 years towards the Cuban Revolution. It is a criminal policy based on punishing a whole people for having dared to free themselves from imperialist domination and abolished capitalism.

The refusal of US-owned refineries to process oil bought from the Soviet Union led to their state intervention of Texaco, Shell and Standard Oil refineries between 28 June and 1 July 1960. To this, the US replied with a cut in the sugar quota they had agreed to purchase from Cuba, in what was known in Cuba as the “Ley Puñal” (“Dagger Law”, as it was stabbing the revolution in the back). But the Cuban Revolution did not retreat in the face of economic blackmail. On the contrary, it responded by nationalising (between July and October 1960) all US owned corporations On the island. US president Eisenhower then imposed a ban on all US exports to Cuba, except food and medicine.

The 1962 presidential proclamation by Kennedy, imposing “an embargo on all trade with Cuba,” was therefore not the first measure of economic aggression against Cuba, but it represented a qualitative turning point in the campaign of US imperialism against the Cuban Revolution. It imposed a blanket ban on all US imports from and exports to Cuba, which Washington had earlier calculated would deprive Cuba of hard currency earnings of 60 to 70 million US dollars (about US$650 million in today’s currency).

The decision was also informed by the complete disaster of the attempted Playa Girón invasion the previous year and was part of a broader programme of sabotage and paramilitary attacks launched from the United States, organised and coordinated by the CIA, aimed at regime change. These activities, under the name of Operation Mongoose, included the infiltration of armed counter-revolutionaries in the island, saw funding of several million dollars, were coordinated at the highest level, by presidential authority, and were supposed to culminate in the overthrow and assassination of Fidel Castro by October 1962.

Kennedy had wanted economic action against Cuba to be taken jointly by the Organisation of American States (OAS). At the January 1962 OAS summit in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Washington put pressure on all countries to expel Cuba from the body and subject it to an economic blockade, but did not get unanimity. When it realised it would not get unanimity, it then settled for a two-thirds majority of 14 votes and a watered-down resolution. In order to achieve the necessary 14 votes, Washington agreed to resume aid to Haiti, then ruled by the brutal dictator François Duvalier in exchange for a favourable vote at the OAS. The whole operation, clearly, had nothing to do with “democracy” nor “human rights”, but rather with containing “communism” and revolution throughout the continent. There was not even a pretence that it was about anything else.

Under instructions from their masters in Washington, the OAS countries expelled Cuba, and 14 of them also agreed to different measures of economic sanctions. It was not until 1964 that the OAS as a whole, under pressure from the US and with the excuse of Cuba’s support for guerrilla struggle in Venezuela, agreed to a trade blockade against Cuba, with only Mexico voting against. The resolution talks of Cuba having put itself outside the “Christian and democratic traditions of the American peoples” (!!) But of course, no such action was ever taken by the OAS against ruthless dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua (which was ruled by Somoza at the time of agreeing the Cuba blockade), etc. Perhaps these dictatorships did not violate the “Christian principles of the American peoples” …

While European countries did not formally join the US blockade, they also sharply curtailed trade with Cuba.

It is significant to note that the blockade was originally put into law under the Democratic administration of Kennedy. The failed military invasion of Playa Girón was also carried out under his watch. This should be enough to dispel any illusions that the Democrats in power have a somehow more “humane” foreign policy. The foreign imperialist policy of the US is bipartisan, as both parties defend the interests of the ruling class.

The Cuban revolution responded to Kennedy’s blockade on 4 April 1962, with a mass rally at which Fidel Castro proclaimed the Second Declaration of Havana, expressing continued defiance against US imperialism and calling for revolution across Latin America.

Resilience of the revolution as embargo tightens

It is a testament to the resilience of the Cuban Revolution that the blockade has failed to destroy it. There was a short period of time in the 1970s when there was an attempt at normalising relations between Cuba and the US, and there was a partial easing of economic measures, but that came to nothing, and under the Reagan administration in the 1980s the blockade was tightened again.

For a whole period of time, the close alliance with the USSR propped up the Cuban economy, though that came with strings attached. But after the collapse of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, the Cuban Revolution was left on its own, suffering a massive economic collapse.

It was precisely at this time that new pieces of legislation were introduced by US imperialism, widening the scope of the blockade. The 1992 Torricelli Act, sponsored by a Democrat, backed by Bill Clinton and signed by George W Bush, reintroduced the blockade for subsidiaries of US-based companies and prevented ships that had docked in Cuban harbours from docking in US ports for 180 days.

Trump introduced 243 separate measures to tighten the blockade on Cuba, and Biden has continued this policy / Image: Michael Vadon

Then came the even-worse Helms-Burton Act of 1996, initiated by Republican representatives and signed by Bill Clinton, which made the US blockade extraterritorial by threatening non-US companies with legal action in the US if they traded or invested in Cuban assets confiscated by the revolution.

Later on, particularly between 2002 and 2014, the Venezuelan Revolution provided both a political and an economic lifeline to Cuba, proving the point that, ultimately, the fate of the Cuban Revolution will be resolved in the arena of world class struggle. But the economic crisis in Venezuela has also had a negative knock-on effect on Cuba.

60 years later, a section of the US ruling class has admitted that this policy has not worked and has not achieved its aims. The Obama thaw represented an attempt to pursue the same objectives (to smash the revolution) by different means (through the battering ram of world capitalism).

Trump put an end to that policy and introduced 243 separate measures to tighten the blockade, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which had been left in suspension. These had a catastrophic impact on Cuba. It is calculated that, in 2020 alone, the blockade has caused US$9bn worth of damages. It should be noted that not a single one of these measures has been repealed by Biden.

The US blockade is a criminal policy, which is designed, as clearly explained in the 1960 Memorandum, to punish the Cuban people with hunger for having dared to defy imperialism and having abolished capitalism.

The blockade has been consistently condemned by the United Nations General Assembly for the last 30 years. In 2020, only two countries voted against a motion condemning the blockade, the US and Israel. In its report to the United Nations, Cuba estimated the cumulative cost of the embargo over six decades at $148 billion dollars.

However, 30 years of UN votes have not changed the position of the US one single inch. This is a demonstration of how toothless of a talking shop this body is. The UN can pass any resolutions it wants. If US imperialism doesn’t agree, nothing will be done. On the other hand, if US imperialism thinks it can use the UN as a fig leaf for imperialist intervention, then it will; as in the case of the Congo in the 1960s, the first Gulf War in 1991, or more recently the UN intervention in Haiti.

Not all the problems the Cuban Revolution faces stem from the blockade. The isolation of the revolution on a small island with limited economic resources and the existence of a bureaucracy in the state are serious obstacles to building socialism. But certainly, the blockade is a factor of the first order of importance.

It is the duty of all revolutionaries, but also all consistent democrats, to wage a consistent struggle against this criminal imperialist blockade and unconditionally defend the Cuban Revolution.

Sudan: This is our covenant with the martyrs – resist until we win or they rule an empty country

Source: Internationalist 360

by Sara Abbas

Following the murder of revolutionaries this week, Sudan’s resistance committees called for civil disobedience and a general strike. Sara Abbas writes about the massacre of revolutionaries on 17 January. We also include the joint statement of the Khartoum State Resistance Committees Coordination.

This week has been incredibly painful for Sudan. On Monday seven revolutionaries were killed in the protests, and many other protestors are badly injured and are fighting for their lives. Since the coup on 25 October 2021, 71 revolutionaries have been killed. The photo above is of five of the young revolutionaries killed on 17 January.

The military is ramping up the violence, and it is only going to get worse. Hospitals in Khartoum have been getting attacked for weeks now, medics are regularly beaten, tear gas deployed inside the premises, and injured protestors arrested (as in kidnapped from their beds). A massive hike in electricity prices recently shows the regime has a cash problem. The recent killing of a police officer was blamed on a young revolutionary, who has been arrested. It’s clear to most Sudanese that the killing was carried out by elements of the regime to justify the barbaric use of violence, including the use of anti-aircraft weapons, against human bodies, sound bombs, live ammunition, and the deliberate firing of tear gas canisters at the heads and faces of protestors (on Monday this week all the deaths were by bullets but a lot of deaths in recent weeks have been due to trauma from the impact of gas canisters to the head). Resistance committee members in the last week have faced a more aggressive than usual campaign of arrests.

In response to the bloody day, and the escalating repression, the revolutionary forces on Monday announced two days of mass civil disobedience, which started on Tuesday 18 January in preparation for a general strike. Doctors’ unions also announced full withdrawal for three days (18-19-20 January) from all military and security owned hospitals, and a strike of three days from “cold” non-urgent cases in all hospitals.

Please see the link to the original Arabic text here.

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Khartoum State Resistance Committees Coordination joint statement (17 January 2022)

We cannot retreat, the price of this journey was and still is our lifetimes, and know, revolutionaries of the world, that we are still steadfast, and we are still victorious, and we are still confident that we will win our battle and the revolution against the rotten bloody regime.

Men and women revolutionaries, Our Rebel People: 

A new massacre has been added to the massacres of the military coup d’état against the Sudanese people. Until now, we have lost seven revolutionaries [today] and we consider them martyrs who live among us. Until this moment, we are still counting our wounded; there are many serious injuries with live bullets and tear gas canisters aimed at the faces of the revolutionaries. Daily, the coup council and its militia allies reveal to the world and to the Sudanese who wrongly imagine some good will come out of this, that the council are just gangs that call themselves a state. They steal our resources to kill us, they arm their soldiers at the expense of bread, health, and education in order to spread bullets in the streets. This is not our army, they are the enemies of the Sudanese, and it is necessary to resist them until we win, or they rule an empty country after they have killed us all. This is our covenant with the martyrs.

We call on all the revolutionaries to completely close Khartoum and erect barricades everywhere. Our barricades terrify them and remind them that we are the strongest and largest army in this country. We call on all professionals, employees and workers everywhere to establish their committees in the workplace, and to coordinate well between those committees and the resistance committees in preparation for the general strike and the implementation of civil disobedience on 18-19 January.

We call on the revolutionaries in all the neighborhoods of the country to prepare for a long battle in which we defeat the militias, based on our good preparation of our organization, on the continuation of the announced [civil disobedience] schedules, and on the arrangement of ad-hoc schedules according to what the women and men revolutionaries see [happening] in their neighborhoods.

We will publish our next steps in response to 17 January massacre. This massacre will not go unnoticed. We are the generation that was destined to write the end of the military coups, and we will not postpone this battle. The action is what you see and not what you hear.

Bolivia Achieves Record Levels of Economic and Social Growth in 2021

Bolivian president Luis Arce during his visit to Humatoma school in the capital La Paz on December 22. Photo: Luis Arce/Twitter

Under the rule of President Luis Arce and vice president David Choquehuanca of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, Bolivia recovered from the economic losses suffered during the coup regime of Jeanine Áñez

After suffering deep economic setbacks during the de-facto rule of coup-installed president Jeanine Áñez, Bolivia’s economy not only recovered but achieved new levels of economic and social growth in 2021. Under the rule of President Luis Arce and vice president David Choquehuanca of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, the country’s exports grew at record levels, the unemployment rate fell sharply, the lithium revenue generated historic income, and the economy is estimated to grow by over 5% in 2022.

President Arce, on January 2, reported that the country’s exports until November 2021 exceeded 9.9 billion USD, the highest figure in the last three years. “With hope, work and, above all, with unity, that’s how we started 2022. As of November 2021, our exports exceeded 9.9 billion USD, the highest in three years, with a trade surplus of 1.7 billion USD. It’s just the beginning! We are moving forward,” tweeted the head of state.

At the same time, the vice minister of foreign trade and integration, Benjamín Blanco, reported that the country is set to beat another record, with 10 billion USD until December, a figure that has not been reached since 2014. “Exports are going to reach around 10 billion USD. It is a figure that has not been reached since 2014, we are going to break a record after many years in exports and that also leaves us with a positive trade balance of more than 1.5 billion USD, after eight years we did not have a credit balance for our country,” he said.

Blanco also reported that not only was there a growth in the value of exports, but also their volume increased. He highlighted that the country obtained international recognition for the quality of cocoa, which will allow it to be exported at better prices. He also said that the country intends to reach the European market with Bolivian wine in 2022.

Meanwhile, on January 4, the minister of economy and public finance, Marcelo Montenegro reported that between May 2020 and October 2021, more than 1.1 million Bolivians got jobs, and unemployment decreased from 11.6% to 5%. “The economy has recovered, the growth rate of six percent is not negligible, with falling unemployment, inflation and deficits controlled, the positive trade balance and exports are growing,” said Montenegro.

He said that in 2022, the government will continue working to generate jobs for Bolivians in various sectors. “The prospects for 2022 management have a tendency to continue improving in employment and income, as well as greater dynamics in construction, transportation, manufacturing, mining and other sectors,” he said.

On January 5, the ministry of hydrocarbons and energies reported that the Bolivian Lithium Mineral company (YLB) generated a historic income of around 28 million USD from sales in 2021. It said that it is the result of the sales of potassium chloride and lithium carbonate in the national and international markets.

The main countries that demand Bolivian lithium carbonate are China, Russia and the United States, while those that require potassium chloride are Chile and Brazil, according to data from YLB. Apart from exports, both products are also marketed to small producers in the national market through the company’s outlets in Uyuni and Cochabamba cities.

Based on the positive indexes registered in 2021, such as the 6% increase in the country’s GDP as compared to a -8.8% in 2020, Bolivian economic analysts have forecasted an economic growth of 5.1% for 2022.

“We must keep hold of the strike weapon:” Sudanese court workers and bank workers demand dignity

Source: MENA Solidarity Network

January 8 2022

Mass meeting of striking court workers – picture via SWAFRTU on Facebook

Huge protests are continuing to shake Sudan through the mass movement demanding civilian rule and democracy led by the Resistance Committees. Despite increasing repression and the regular killing of protesters by the security forces, tens of thousands are still joining demonstrations opposing the military coup. Alongside the protests in the streets, important struggles have developed in some workplaces, and activists are starting to make links between the fight for economic dignity and the battle for democracy and political freedom. 

The court workers’ movement is nationwide – picket line in North Darfur. Picture via SWARFTU on Facebook

Justice workers’ walkouts shut down courts across Sudan

Thousands of court workers took part in strikes between 2-6 January to demand a rise in their bonuses in order to meet the spiralling cost of living. Workers in the Judicial Authority organised national action coordinated by strike committees in every province, which reported up to 100 percent participation in some areas, according to the Sudanese Workers Association for the Restoration of Trade Unions (SWAFRTU). Khartoum, Omdurman, Port Sudan, Gedaref, North Darfur and West Kordofan were among the provinces where the whole workforce walked out. 

“We must keep hold of the strike weapon – it is the strongest to achieve our just demands,” wrote court worker and trade unionist Mohammed Abd-al-Majid on the SWARFTU page. “Workers and employees used every legal and legitimate means to obtain their rights, including negotiations and follow-up meetings, but when all doors were shut in their faces as a result of the dissolution of trade unions by the coup leader, they resorted to strikes.” 

Mass sackings at Bank of Khartoum as workers challenge corrupt bosses 

Over 200 workers at the Bank of Khartoum have been dismissed, and over 500 more face the sack as management clamps down after months of mobilisations demanding improved conditions at work and opposing the military coup. The bank was privatised in 2010, when the government sold most of its shares to the private sector, with the Bank of Abu Dhabi buying 70 percent. Businessmen close to the old regime also made a fortune out of the bank’s privatisation. Fadl Mohamed Khair, who was arrested in a crackdown on corruption in the dying days of the Bashir regime is reported to have pocketed over 1.9 billion Sudanese pounds from the Bank during 2018 alone. 

Since the beginning of the revolution in December 2018, Bank of Khartoum workers have begun to fight back. They are demanding a pay rise to match the spiralling cost of living and campaigning to get rid of managers who are pushing through job cuts to maximise profits for the bank’s foreign and local bosses.  

Some Resistance Committees are mobilising solidarity for the sacked bank workers – picture via SWARFTU on Facebook

Solidarity grows

The battles in the courts and at the Bank of Khartoum have begun to spark solidarity campaigns and efforts to bring together striking workers and activists from the Resistance Committees. Zakaria Yunis Musa, a court worker in West Darfur called for solidarity with the bank workers in an open letter published on the SWAFRTU Facebook page. “The court workers and Bank of Khartoum workers must coordinate and stand in solidarity with each other,” he said, “in order to expose the feudalists and capitalists. Workers and wage earners are most able to feel each other’s pain and through solidarity and unity they will succeed in winning their human, material, economic, social, cultural and political rights.” 

Some Resistance Committees have put out statements in solidarity with the court workers, bank workers and other strikers. The December Revolution Coordination in Ombada, a district on the Western edge of Omdurman, urged activists to mobilise in support in a statement on 5 January. 

“Let us stand in solidarity with the workers at the Bank of Khartoum, the judicial institution, and Centroid Company in order to restore their rights. We must root the principle of mutual solidarity among all the forces of resistance in order to bring about a revolution in the institutions and housing. This will lead to the overthrow of a regime which established economic policies based on sacking workers and denying them their rights. We need to build a national economic system based on nationalising all the public properties and institutions which have been privatised through the same reactionary policies.” 

What you can do

• Rush messages of support to the court workers via https://www.facebook.com/SWAFRTU 
• Pass a resolution in your trade union branch 

Where to train doctors for the people who need them the most?

October 1 2014

Gail Reed: I want to tell you how 20,000 remarkable young people from over 100 countries ended up in Cuba and are transforming health in their communities.  Ninety percent of them would never have left home at all if it weren’t for a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba and a commitment to go back to places like the ones they’d come from — remote farmlands, mountains, ghettos — to become doctors for people like themselves, to walk the walk.

Havana’s Latin American Medical School: It’s the largest medical school in the world, graduating 23,000 young doctors since its first class of 2005, with nearly 10,000 more in the pipeline. Its mission, to train physicians for the people who need them the most: the over one billion who have never seen a doctor, the people who live and die under every poverty line ever invented. Its students defy all norms.

They’re the school’s biggest risk and also its best bet .  They’re recruited from the poorest, most broken places on our planet by a school that believes they can become not just the good but the excellent physicians their communities desperately need, that they will practice where most doctors don’t, in places not only poor but oftentimes dangerous, carrying venom antidotes in their backpacks or navigating neighborhoods riddled by drugs, gangs and bullets, their home ground .

The hope is that they will help transform access to care, the health picture in impoverished areas, and even the way medicine itself is learned and practiced, and that they will become pioneers in our global reach for universal health coverage, surely a tall order .