Americas

Subterms

    Latest story

    213 Shares199 Views

    Bernie Moreno says he fled socialism in Colombia for the US in 1971. What does history say?

    by

    Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio who expected to mount a stern challenge to Sherrod Brown, the incumbent leftwing Democrat, says his family fled socialism when they came to the US from Colombia in 1971, when he was four years old.Though such statements formed a central part of Moreno’s campaign message on his way to securing the Republican nomination with support from Donald Trump, they do not withstand historical scrutiny.In an interview in 2020, about his success as a car dealer in Ohio, Moreno described himself as “somebody who moved to this country a long time ago to escape what happens in most South American countries, which is socialism and the absolute prison of those ideas”.In 2021, as Moreno moved into national politics with a first run for a Senate nomination, the Cleveland Plain Dealer said he “says he came to the United States as a child with his mother and siblings to flee socialism in their native Colombia. He believes that same ideology is rising in the United States, and he wants to fight back.”But when Moreno was born, on 14 February 1967, Colombia was nine years into the 16-year period of National Front government, in which conservative and liberal parties alternated being in power as a way to avoid violence between the two factions.Furthermore, the first leftwing Colombian government in modern times is the current one, headed by Gustavo Petro and in power since 2022.Colombia has long been home to leftwing guerrilla groups. As described by the US Congressional Research Service, when Moreno lived there, the country was home to “leftist, Marxist-inspired insurgencies … including the Farc, launched in 1964, and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which formed the following year”.Such groups, the CRS says, “conducted kidnappings, committed serious human rights violations, and carried out a campaign of terror that aimed to unseat the central government in Bogotá”.Moreno, however, has described an early childhood far removed from such worries.By his own description, his father was secretary of health under Misael Pastrana, a conservative and the last National Front president between 1970 and 1974.“We had a very, very, very, very incredible lifestyle in Colombia,” Moreno said in 2019, at a business event in Cleveland, adding that his mother moved the family to the US – initially against his father’s wishes – because she “didn’t want us to be raised as pampered indoor cats”.The move was “a jump”, Moreno said, “but it was this idea of no fear”.Contacted for comment on Wednesday, Moreno’s communications director, Reagan McCarthy, said: “No where in the [first] quote cited does Bernie say his family came to America because Colombia was a socialist country or that his family was escaping a socialist country at the time.“He very clearly was stating that many South American countries fell to socialism and his parents came to America to ensure their kids would grow up in a free society, out of fear that Colombia would eventually move towards socialism.”As indicated by McCarthy’s reference to “many South American countries [falling] to socialism”, Moreno has also spoken of a fear of being “surrounded” by socialist governments.In 2021, writing in the Toledo Blade, he said: “I was born in South America, surrounded by socialist ideology.”The same year, Moreno told the Landscape, a Cleveland podcast: “I think the [US is] going off [in] a very dangerous direction. It’s a direction I recognise. I grew up surrounded by socialist ideology, whether it’s Venezuela or Cuba [or] now Peru, and I know where this movie ends.”And in a campaign ad, also from 2021, Moreno said: “I came from a country surrounded by the ideology of radicals like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, who promised to give everyone all they needed and solve all their problems, just like [Vermont senator] Bernie Sanders and AOC [New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] are doing today.”Such claims also shake under scrutiny.Cuba has indeed been governed from the left since 1959, when Castro and the Communist party took power after a long fight. Castro was assisted by Guevara, a revolutionary from Argentina – who was killed in October 1967, when Moreno was eight months old.In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Moreno was a young child in Colombia, Venezuela was governed by Rafael Caldera, a Christian Democrat who moved to end conflict with leftwing guerrillas. Ecuador, which also borders Colombia, was also governed by a centrist at that time.Between 1968 and 1975, Peru was led by Juan Velasco Alvarado, a general who seized power in a coup d’état but governed from the political centre. The current president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, is a former member of a Marxist party now governing with the support of rightwingers.Between 1970 and 1973, Chile – more than a thousand miles south of Colombia – was governed by Salvador Allende, its first socialist president. He died on 11 September 1973 as the rightwing Chilean military led by Gen Augusto Pinochet attacked the presidential palace, in a coup backed by the CIA.After coming to the US in 1971, Moreno became a US citizen at 18. In her statement on Wednesday, McCarthy, the Moreno aide, accused the Guardian of failing to celebrate “what could potentially be the first South American-born senator”.The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Brown declined to comment. More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in UK Politics

      Nigel Farage tells right-wing US event that ‘religious sectarianism’ is new threat in UK

      by

      Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightFormer Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage appeared to forget a large part of British history on Wednesday when he told a gathering of American conservatives that “religious sectarianism” was a new problem in British politics.Speaking at an “international summit” held on the eve of the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference alongside former British Prime Minister Liz Truss and other right-wing international figures, Mr Farage told attendees that Western nations are facing now a “huge internal problem” that he described as a “new phenomenon”.That phenomenon, which he said was “beginning to dominate British politics,” was “religious sectarianism”.Mr Farage was referring to the pro-Palestinian voices protesting outside the House of Commons as Parliament debated the Israel-Gaza war, and he complained about “religious hatred” that “exists against Israel, against the Jewish people” and blamed “successive labour and conservative governments” for having “pursued completely irresponsible immigration policies” and not encouraging integration by Muslim immigrants.”Now we have radical Islam is becoming mainstream in British politics. We will have by the 2029 general election, we will have a radical Islamic party represented in Westminster and this is why borders, you can’t be a proper country, unless you control your borders,” he said. “The internal threats of religious divide and sectarianism, that happening to us first, but if you’re not very careful … all of us will face it”.Mr Farage’s comments about religious sectarianism appeared to whitewash centuries of British history and leave out important moments such as the 16th century English Reformation, during which Henry VIII broke the Church of England away from the authority of the Catholic Church. The former Brexit Party leader and Ukip MEP also appeared to leave out of his analysis the bloody English Civil War, the beheading of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, all driven by causes including sectarian disputes between Catholics and Protestants.Former UK prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage at CPAC in Washington DCHe also did not seem to count in his analysis the three decades of The Troubles, during which Catholic Irish Republicans, Protestant Unionists and British troops fought a quasi-guerilla war over the status of Northern Ireland which killed more than 3,500 people, the majority of whom were civilians.The decades of violence only came to an end with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which established a power-sharing devolved government in Belfast.Asked if he wanted to clarify his comments, Mr Farage – who has appeared at rallies with Donald Trump – told The Independent that he believed sectarianism was indeed a new phenomenon in Britain.“We’ve had it in Northern Ireland, we’ve seen the baleful effects of it, and it’s now coming to England. I’ve never seen it in my lifetime,” he said. More

    • 238 Shares109 Views

      in UK Politics

      Trump boosters, Biden attacks – and a Liz Truss speech: What to expect at Republicans’ CPAC event this week

      by

      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailOnce again, a throng of conservative activists, Republican elected officials and young right-wingers will descend on National Harbor just outside of Washington, DC for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.CPAC has served multiple purposes throughout the years. It often showcases new conservative talent, sets the tone for what major policies conservatives will champion in the next election and often allows potential candidates for president to test the waters. Indeed, in 2011, Donald Trump gave his first political speech at the conservative gathering. It debuted his conservative star turn and laid the groundwork for him becoming the Republican nominee for president in 2016 and winning the presidency. This year, though, with Mr Trump being the presumptive nominee, CPAC – which runs from Wednesday to Saturday – will have a different tone and will serve as a booster for his campaign against Joe Biden in the general election.Here’s what to expect this week at CPAC.All Trump all the timeSince Mr Trump spoke at the conference in 2011, he and CPAC have become inseparable. Its host Matt Schlapp and his wife Mercedes, who served in Trump’s administration, became two of his most indefatigable defenders. In a reflection of how non-competitive the Republican presidential primary is, it will not feature other presidential candidates, as was the case when former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley spoke at the conference last year shortly after she announced her candidacy. Vivek Ramaswamy gave a barn-burner speech that previewed his campaign as a right-wing gadfly. This time around, there will be a heavy focus on Donald Trump, with sessions titled “Trump: Our Ace in the Hole” and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s panel entitled “What You Talkin Bout Fani Willis,” a dig at the Fulton County District Attorney who has investigated Mr Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. In fact, one panel will be entitled “Cat Fight? Michelle vs. Kamala,” as if to pit two female hate figures for the right against each other. Similarly, former Trump administration officials including counselor Steve Bannon, former deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka and former deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley and former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson will speak.The Apprentice AuditionWith Mr Trump’s nomination a foregone conclusion, the real spectacle will be the slate of speakers who want to be his running mate. Representative Elise Stefanik, the formerly moderate New York Republican who is Mr Trump’s woman inside House Republican leadership, will speak on Friday, as well South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Ohio Senator JD Vance, the white-working-class-explainer-turned-Trump-critic-turned-apologist, will also make an appearance on Friday. But absent from the slate as of right now are Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican and former presidential candidate.Similarly, Jim McLaughlin, who typically runs the CPAC Straw poll, will reveal who movement conservatives want to be the running mate for Mr Trump. Last year, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won the staw poll. But given that she is now running for Senate in what’s expected to be a knockout race with Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and Senator Kyrsten Sinema if she runs, she is likely out of the running. Battling on the border and BidenomicsMany polls show Mr Trump leading Mr Biden ahead of November. But Mr Trump remains incredibly unpopular with general election voters. That means they will need to find a winning message. Judging by the agenda, the battle plan seems fairly clear: hit Mr Biden on immigration and the economy. The first day will feature a panel entitled “Trump’s Wall Vs. Biden’s Gaps” that will feature Tom Homan, who served as the director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, who last week announced he was leaving Congress after the House successfully impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In the same token, there will be panels entitled “Bidenomics: Bad for America’s Health,” with some of Mr Trump’s former economic advisers. Of course, there are some holes in this. While Americans still feel lousy about the economy, their sentiments are slightly changing and unlike in 2012, unemployment remains low. In the same token, while inflation is still ticking upward, prices are not rising as rapidly as they did in 2022. Similarly, the special election in New York’s 3rd district showed Republicans paid a price after Mr Trump and House Republicans blew up the bipartisan agreement that would have swapped restrictions for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. This might also be why plenty of the events focusing on combating antisemitism might ring hollow as wellCPAC goes globalCPAC has also not only become a showcase for Republicans wanting to boast about their conservative credentials. In recent years, it’s become a showcase for other right-wing politicians who might not find as receptive of an audience in their own home countries or as a way to show that American-style conservatism can win abroad. In this vein, Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, will speak as well as the controversial newly-elected Argentinian President, Javier Millei. In the same vein Nigel Farage, a champion of Brexit and a mainstay of CPAC, will also speak. But more peculiarly, Liz Truss, the former British prime minister whose tenure lasted only 50 days, will appear as part of her larger effort to reach out to American conservatives and rehabilitate her image. More

    • 200 Shares109 Views

      in UK Politics

      Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses David Cameron of calling Republicans ‘Hitler’ as she doubles down on row

      by

      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailMarjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on her mistaken assertion that British Foreign Secretary David Cameron compared Republicans unwilling to support further aid to Ukraine to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. “Well, number one, I really could care less what Lord Cameron has to say. I just don’t care,” she told The Independent on Thursday. “And number two, he was calling us Hitler and calling us horrible names and that is extremely rude and he needs to stop making that association.“He needs to consider what he’s actually saying,” she added. “So I just don’t care. He really needs to worry about his country. I think over there, they’re having all kinds of problems, they’re entering a recession. They need to worry about their problems and leave our country alone.”This comes after the hard-right Republican congresswoman said Lord Cameron “can kiss my a**” on Wednesday after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House.In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”“I don’t want to read it, I know the British embassy wanted me to read it – I have way too many other things to do than read his op-ed,” Ms Greene said on Thursday. James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene on Wednesday: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader.Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks.Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked.“I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added.During a visit to Poland on Thursday, the foreign secretary said that he is not someone who wants “to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do”, but he added, “We really do want to see Congress pass that money to support Ukraine economically, but crucially militarily in the months ahead.”Speaking at a press conference, Lord Cameron said: “We have to do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine can succeed in this year and beyond.“We must not let Putin think he can out-wait us or last us out, and that’s why this vote in Congress is so crucial.”He added: “And I say this as someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do.“I say it as someone who has a deep and abiding love of the United States – of their democracy, of their belief in freedom – [and] as someone who really believes in the importance of our alliance.” More

    • 200 Shares139 Views

      in UK Politics

      Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses David Cameron of ‘calling us Hitler’ as she doubles down on insult

      by

      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailMarjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on her mistaken assertion that British Foreign Secretary David Cameron compared Republicans unwilling to support further aid to Ukraine to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. “Well, number one, I really could care less what Lord Cameron has to say. I just don’t care,” she told The Independent on Thursday. “And number two, he was calling us Hitler and calling us horrible names and that is extremely rude and he needs to stop making that association.“He needs to consider what he’s actually saying,” she added. “So I just don’t care. He really needs to worry about his country. I think over there, they’re having all kinds of problems, they’re entering a recession. They need to worry about their problems and leave our country alone.”This comes after the hard-right Republican congresswoman said Lord Cameron “can kiss my a**” on Wednesday after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House.In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”“I don’t want to read it, I know the British embassy wanted me to read it – I have way too many other things to do than read his op-ed,” Ms Greene said on Thursday. James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene on Wednesday: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader.Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks.Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked.“I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added.During a visit to Poland on Thursday, the foreign secretary said that he is not someone who wants “to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do”, but he added, “We really do want to see Congress pass that money to support Ukraine economically, but crucially militarily in the months ahead.”Speaking at a press conference, Lord Cameron said: “We have to do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine can succeed in this year and beyond.“We must not let Putin think he can out-wait us or last us out, and that’s why this vote in Congress is so crucial.”He added: “And I say this as someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do.“I say it as someone who has a deep and abiding love of the United States – of their democracy, of their belief in freedom – [and] as someone who really believes in the importance of our alliance.” More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in UK Politics

      Marjorie Taylor Greene lashes out over Cameron’s Nazi appeaser comparison: ‘Frankly he can kiss my a**’

      by

      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailHard-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said British Foreign Secretary David Cameron “can kiss my a**” after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War. The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House. In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.”“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader. Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks. Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked. “I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Two dead after vehicle explosion at US-Canada border checkpoint

      by

      A speeding car crashed in flames on the bridge linking New York state and Ontario at Niagara Falls on Wednesday, killing two people in the vehicle and sparking a security scare that closed four US-Canadian border crossings.Hours later, federal and state authorities said investigators had found no evidence of an act of terrorism, though circumstances surrounding the crash on the Rainbow Bridge remained murky, leaving it to be determined whether it was accidental or intentional.Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said there was “no indication of a terrorist attack” in the explosion which happened on the US side of the Rainbow Bridge, which connects the two countries across the Niagara River.“Based on what we know at this moment,” she said, “there is no sign of terrorist activity in this crash.”The FBI said in a statement it had concluded its investigation. “A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified,” the FBI said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.Video of the crash caught on security camera and posted online by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency showed the car traveling from the U.S. side at high speed, then hitting an object and flying into the air before crashing to the ground and exploding in flames. A CBP officer suffered minor injuries in the incident. He was treated at a hospital and released, an agency official said later.Chuck Schumer, the senior senator from New York, tweeted: “I was just briefed by the FBI on the incident at Rainbow Bridge. Initial reports indicate the two people killed were in the car but nothing’s been determined on their identity or motive. They continue to investigate – law enforcement remains on heightened alert over Thanksgiving,” he wrote.Justin Trudeau excused himself from question period in Canada’s House of Commons to be briefed further, saying: “This is obviously a very serious situation in Niagara Falls.”“We are taking this extraordinarily seriously,” the Canadian prime minister added.The Rainbow bridge and three other crossings at Lewiston, Whirlpool and Peace Bridge – were closed soon after the blast, although the other three were reopened later on Wednesday.The White House said it was “closely monitoring the situation at the US-Canada border crossing”, and that law enforcement officials were on the scene and investigating.Photos and video taken by news organizations and posted on social media showed a security booth that had been singed by flames.Videos showed the fire was in a US Customs and Border Protection area just east of the main vehicle checkpoint.Speaking to WGRZ-TV, Mike Guenther said he saw a vehicle speeding toward the crossing from the US side of the border when it swerved to avoid another car, crashed into a fence and exploded.“All of a sudden he went up in the air and then it was a ball of fire like 30 or 40ft high,” Guenther told the station. “I never saw anything like it.”Ivan Vitalii, a Ukrainian visiting Niagara Falls, told the Niagara Gazette that he and a friend were near the bridge when they “heard something smash”.“We saw fire and big black smoke,” he told the newspaper.From inside Niagara Falls state park, Melissa Raffalow said she saw “a huge plume of black smoke” rise up over the border crossing, roughly 50 yards (45m) away from the popular tourist destination. Raffalow told AP in a message that police arrived soon after, urging visitors to disperse as they began cordoning off the street.Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, which borders New York state, said: “Our provincial law enforcement is actively engaged in assessing the situation. They are working with local law enforcement and are providing support as required.”About 6,000 vehicles cross the Rainbow Bridge each day, according to the US Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory. About 5% is truck traffic, according to the federal data.With Reuters More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in UK Politics

      Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson sees Julian Assange at Belmarsh prison

      by

      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Tucker Carlson visited Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London’s Belmarsh Prison, the former former Fox News anchor announced on social media. Carlson did not elaborate on the reason for the visit […] More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Fifty years on: the lasting tragedy of Chile’s coup

      by

      Fifty years on, the wounds left in Chilean society by the coup of 11 September 1973 are still very much open. Justice is a long way from being served, secrets remain untold, and the bodies of many of the victims are yet to be found.Last Wednesday, the government announced a new national initiative to find the remains of 1,162 Chileans who vanished under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and remain unaccounted for. In most cases, the best their families can hope for are fragments or traces of DNA.After ousting a democratically elected socialist, Salvador Allende, Pinochet rounded up opponents, social activists and students in Santiago’s national stadium and other makeshift detention centres, where nearly 30,000 were tortured and more than 2,200 were executed.Allende’s body was pulled out of the bombed wreckage of the presidential palace, La Moneda. He is generally thought to have killed himself rather than be captured by soldiers loyal to Pinochet, the armed forces commander he had appointed a few weeks earlier.Almost 1,500 others simply disappeared, and since the end of the junta in 1990, only 307 have been identified and their remains returned to their families. Anticipating the reckoning to come, Pinochet had ordered the bodies of the executed to be dug up and dumped at sea, or into the crater of a volcano. Investigators now hope that modern technology might help pinpoint massacre and temporary burial sites that might still yield vestiges of the dead.Ariel Dorfman had been working as a cultural and press adviser in La Moneda, and was lucky to survive. Most of Allende’s staff were executed in the first days after the coup.“This was a tragedy for Chile, for Latin America and for the world, because we were trying to open a way to a more just, radical society without violence,” Dorfman, a novelist, playwright and academic, told the Observer.Trials are under way in a last-gasp effort at accountability before the perpetrators die of old age. On Monday, seven former soldiers aged between 73 and 85 were finally jailed after the criminal chamber of the Chilean supreme court upheld their convictions for the murder of Victor Jara, a celebrated folk singer and Allende supporter who was tortured and then shot 44 times.Many of the details of the 1973 coup and the ensuing dictatorship remain unknown. Pinochet and the junta were efficient when it came to destroying evidence and the US has been grudging in declassifying its own records, which have emerged in a dribble over the years. Under pressure from Chile’s current president, Gabriel Boric – a 37-year-old former student activist – and from progressive Washington Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US has declassified two new documents: presidential intelligence briefings given to Richard Nixon on the day of the coup and three days earlier.It was hard to understand why they had been withheld for so long. They confirmed what had already been generally established: that the CIA had not directly stage-managed the 11 September coup. The presidential daily brief for 8 September contains reports of a plot by naval officers, but adds: “There is no evidence of a tri-service coup plan.”“Should hotheads in the navy act in the belief they will automatically receive support from the other services, they could find themselves isolated,” the intelligence briefer told Nixon.Even on the day of the coup itself, Nixon was told that, although some army units appeared to have joined the effort, “they may still lack an effectively coordinated plan that would capitalise on the widespread civilian opposition”.Jack Devine, who was serving as a CIA clandestine officer in Chile in 1973, was eating lunch in an Italian restaurant in Santiago on 9 September when he got a message to call home. It was his wife, who told him a coup was coming.One of Devine’s sources, a businessman and former naval officer, was leaving the country and had been unable to find the CIA man, so had gone to his house and told Mrs Devine to pass on his tipoff: “The military has decided to move. It is going to happen on September 11.”Devine told the Observer: “That is the first clear sign that a coup was coming, just a couple of days ahead of time. We were caught by surprise. That’s the first evidence that something was coming. And many of the people still didn’t believe it in Washington and the CIA.”There is no question, however, that the US had helped set the stage for the military takeover. From the time of Allende’s election on 4 September 1970 at the head of the Popular Unity alliance, the White House, led by Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, began plotting to get rid of him.The CIA planned a putsch the following month, before Allende could even hold his inauguration. US spies found willing officers and supplied them with guns, cash and guarantees of US support for a military government. The plot led to the murder of the commander-in-chief, René Schneider, who had stood by the incoming president, but it fell short of toppling Allende when plotters in the military pulled out.In a telephone conversation on 23 October, Kissinger told Nixon that there had been “a turn for the worse”.“The next move should have been a government takeover, but that hasn’t happened,” he said, describing the Chilean military as “a pretty incompetent bunch”.“They’re out of practice,” Nixon replied.After the failure of the 1970 coup, Devine said, “Nixon sent out specific instructions to the CIA that there be no more coup plotting.” The US administration focused instead on undermining the Allende government, which had been elected by a slender margin and was facing substantial internal opposition. Washington coordinated with its allies in Latin America to block Chile’s access to international finance, persuaded US companies to leave Chile, manipulated the global price of copper, Chile’s principal export, and helped foment strikes within the country.The Nixon administration was also quick to throw its support behind the junta. When shocked US diplomats sent reports of the slaughter that had followed the coup, Kissinger told his aides: “I think we should understand our policy – that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was.”Pinochet found another powerful friend on the world stage when Margaret Thatcher was elected in Britain in 1979. She restored Chile’s export credits and dropped an arms embargo on the regime, selling it jet fighters and training its troops.A succession of Tory ministers visited Chile, admiring the high economic growth rate and the wholehearted adoption of the absolutist monetary policy extolled by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. A group of Chilean economists who had studied there, known as the Chicago Boys, took top positions in Pinochet’s government, and the country became a test case for the policies of privatisation, deregulation and tight control of the money supply. Complicating social factors, such as trade unions and popular resistance, had been taken out of the picture.“The Chilean coup was a triumph of the anti-communist movement in the United States and Latin America. You can’t get around the fact that it led to the defeat of democratic and progressive governments all over the region,” said John Dinges, who lived through the violent early years of the Pinochet era as one of the few US journalists to remain in the country after the coup.“There was a youth-oriented revolutionary movement, which was sometimes quite extreme, advocating armed struggle, and that was also physically eliminated. So the violence was successful,” Dinges, the author of two books on the Pinochet regime, said. “More than 80% of the population of Latin America was under rightwing military dictatorships by the end of 1976.”The Pinochet regime coordinated with fellow military-run governments in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil to eliminate leftwingers and social activists in Operation Condor, a concerted slaughter across the region. It had US support, in the form of technical support, training and military aid, through the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, all in the name of fighting communism.The coup’s lasting legacy around the world has been defined mostly by the international backlash to its shocking cruelty. It galvanised the human rights movement in Europe and the US. In Washington, the US’s involvement shocked politicians such as Senator Frank Church, who oversaw the first congressional hearings on the CIA’s covert activities which ultimately led to constraints on its future operations.The martyrdom of Allende and his experiment in democratic socialism inspired a generation of leftwing political activists around the world.The record of the Allende government is complicated. The Popular Unity alliance never commanded a parliamentary majority and was deeply split. Rapid nationalisation and blanket pay rises for workers brought with them mismanagement of state enterprises and hyperinflation. But because it was violently cut short, many different myths grew up around what might have been.“It became like a Chilean mirror. People read into Chile what they wanted to see,” said Tanya Harmer, associate professor in Latin American international history at the London School of Economics.“Across the world, the diverse groups on the left learned the lessons they wanted to learn from the coup. Social democrats viewed it as constitutional democracy overthrown, so it was about the rule of law. The more radical left read it as evidence that you could never have a revolution without an armed struggle.”Dorfman argues the Allende government and its destruction changed the course of progressive politics. “There were lessons to be learned and they have endured: the need for vast coalitions to effect that structural change, and the way in which Chile’s suffering created a consciousness about human rights violations,” said Dorfman, who has written an assessment of the Allende legacy in the New York Review of Books, and a novel about Allende’s death, The Suicide Museum.Inside Chile, the coup’s legacy is still being fought over. A recent Mori poll found only 42% of Chileans thought it had destroyed democracy, compared with 36% who said it had saved the country from Marxism.Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington, who has led the pressure on the US government to declassify its documents on the coup, warned that denialism about the atrocities of the Pinochet era was strengthening, along with the rise of the far right.“It is a Rosetta Stone for the discussion over the threat of authoritarianism versus the sanctity of democracy,” said Kornbluh, who is the author of a book based on the documents declassified so far, The Pinochet File. “And Chile is having that debate about its past because it’s dealing with this threat right now – and a number of other countries including the US, and countries in Europe, are facing the same issue.“The coup in Chile was really the repression of a lot of hopes and dreams around the world, and I think that dynamic still resonates and is still relevant today.” More