Thursday, September 17, 2020

Statues tumble, cops watch

 Protesters in Colombia toppled a statue of Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar in the south-western city of Popayán while the cops watched. So why don't you go through the legal process to move statues that disturb your sense of justice? BTW, protesters did you know that Benalcázar died while under indictment for the killing of one of his fellow Spanish leaders, Jorge Robledo.
I've been following  Latin American events at two  blogs for a few years.
Sept 20, 2020
 Interim President Anez has pulled out of the October 18, 2020 election in Bolivia in hopes of keeping Arce  of Morales party from winning in round 1.Recent polls show Arce has more than 40.3% , while Mesa, a Centrist has 26.2%,  Camacho, a conservative anti-Morales activist,  has 14.4% and Anez is at 10.6%. The election winner requires at least 40% of valid votes in the first round and a 10-point advantage over the closest competitor. 
Oct 1
 Chile's House of Representatives passed a bill that would punish people who “justify,” “approve” of, or “deny” the human rights violations committed during the country’s dictatorship between 1973 and 1990 with up to three years in prison. Its Senate hasn't taken up the bill, and it's great to see Human Rights Watch adding this caution : "but the criminalization of speech is not an acceptable way to pursue those aims."
Oct 19, 2020
It's going to get chillier politically in Chile after protesters set two churches  and a police station afire.
Oct 26, 2020
#LeopoldoLopez ,  arrived in Madrid, Spain on Sunday following  leaving the Spanish Embassy in Venezuela residence and escaping by sea to Aruba. Maduro quickly removed General Nestor Revero from his job overseeing SEBIN security outside the embassy. Let's see how how roughly Maduro treats Spanish embassy personnel.
Nov16
 #peru : #merino resigns due to deadly protests after taking over last week for the impeached Vizcarra.  What a clusterF! Meanwhile  Commie  Morales is welcomed back to #uruguay.  Same old sh^t in Latin America.
nov 23
#guatemala : Hundreds of people stormed into Guatemala's Congress building as part of protests against President Alejandro #Giammattei who responded via Twitter. that "he defended people's right to protest, "but neither can we allow people to vandalize public or private property." Does this sound familiar?
dec 6, 2020
This will be the new rage  from the Lefties: Argentina passes confiscatory tax on the wealthy "one- percenters"  to pay for virus measures. Those with assets worth more than 200 million pesos ($2.5m; £1.8m)  will have to pay.  #AlbertoFernandez
jan 11, 2021
Court allows Cape Verde to  expel #AlexSaab, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro ally, to the USA on money laundering charges. The US DoJ charged him two years ago with running a global multi-million dollar money laundering operation. 
Jan 29, 2021
A special tribunal in Columbia has accused eight former leaders of the Marxist group FARC of kidnappings civilians, including Americans, and extortion to finance its war to topple the Colombian state. Two of  those eight are now in congress and all. have 30 days to respond to the special tribunal’s indictment. In 2016 FARC signed a peace agreement, but I wonder if this news leads to sporadic riots.
Feb 15, 2021
 RIP #Menem , Argentina's president between 1989 and 1999, oversaw the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the UK, visiting Great Britain in 1998. That was a huge step after the Falklands war, but most of his career was filled with financial scandals.
Feb 19, 2021
 Vaccine Gate in  Peru:  Former President Vizcarra and his family, plus consultants, lobbyists, and  cabinet ministers were inoculated starting in September 2020 before the Covid vaccine was approved by Peruvian authorities.  Of course,  the Chinese embassy in Peru rejected the notion that the shots were a perk in exchange for the contract.
March 3
#LuisAbinader , the president of the Dominican Republic, has announced plans to build a fence along its border with Haiti, and claims the barrier will help curb illegal immigration, drugs, and the flow of stolen vehicles between the two countries.
April 8, 2021
Is this Communist tactic coming to your town?  Luis Duque,  a buddy of Maduro and the mayor of Sucre municipality in Yaracuy state in central Venezuela has been placing red warning symbols on the homes of people with COVID-19 and is threatening to cut welfare handouts for those breaking quarantine. 
April 13, 2021
A conservative wins  the Presidency in  the Ecuador runoff election. Lasso won 52.4% of the vote to defeat left-leaning economist Andres Arauz's 47.4%, according to the Election Council website. Arauz congratulated Lasso  then added this snide comment. " I only ask you to stop the lawfare, which destroys lives and families." Lawfare  is a term used to broadly label anyone who opposes the Left as purveyors of fake news and practitioners of  tactics to destroy democracy.
april 22, 2021
Kim Jong Un , the North Korean dictator ,calls President Miguel Díaz-Canel the new leader of Cuba, comrade . We get the message!
JUNE 1, 2021
After all the negative press Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil has received, COPA America is asking him to allow the Copa America soccer tournament to be played thereArgentina and Columbia were the original co-hosts, but Columbia was removed on May 20 due to wide-spread protests sweeping the country, and Argentina was removed a few days ago due to a spike in Covid cases.
June 7, 2021
Do you recall when Ortega was the darling of the  Left  during the  Iran- Contra hearings? Arturo Cruz is the second opposition presidential candidate to have been detained this week by Nicaraguan police. On Wednesday police took in Cristiana Chamorro, who leads the opposition to #danielOrtega, who has ruled since 2007,  in the polls.
June 11, 2021
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy: In 2019, when two rebel commanders of the Martin Villa Front  broke from the FARC peace pact  and fled Colombia, #Maduro called them leaders of peace and  welcomed them to Venezuela. Now the Venezuelan Army is locked in a battle with them in the Apure region.
june 30 2021
Protesters in Barranquilla, Colombia have toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus. The trend continues: 


July 12, 2020
 Home invaders assassinated #moise , who called himself “Banana Man,” and had ruled Haiti by decree f after his government postponed legislative elections in 2018. Hey Joe, just send Kamal and everything will improve. Or maybe the Clintons who have a foundation there?
Aug 30, 2021
In some parts of oil rich Venezuela, citizens are returning to  “stick gas” - wood stoves.
Aug 31, 2021
It  took newlyweds, Heydi Paco and Jhonny Pacheco, three days to climb to the top of the Illimani Mountain (21,125 feet above sea level) in the Andes from Bolivia's capital, La Paz. 
Oct 14, 2021
Backward  to Venezuela: #RaúlBaduel , an army general who helped Chavez survive a coup in 2002, became the 10th political prisoner to die in prison during Maduro's dictatorship.  He fell out of favor in 2007 when he opposed Chávez' efforts to change the constitution. He was convicted of graft charges in 2009,  and days before he was scheduled to finish his sentence in March, 2017, he was charged by Venezuelan military intelligence of holding clandestine meetings to stockpile weapons and conspiring against Maduro's government.
Nov 28, 2021
After 55 years of independence from the Brits, Barbados is completing the divorce and becoming a Republic. Of course, last year they had obligatory removal of a statue. This time it was of the statue of British Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson which stood in National Heroes Square for two centuries. However, Prime Minister Mottley invited Prince Charles to be the guest of honor this week, and to award him the Order of Freedom of Barbados, the highest national honor.
Dec 14, 2021
 Conservative Jose Antonio Kast is narrowing the gap in recent polling on his race to defeat leftist Gabriel Boric in the upcoming election for President in Chile. It looked like Boric was cruising to victory a few weeks ago.
dec 28, 2021
Chile elected the Lefty.
Nicaraguan Dictator Ortega seized the former embassy and diplomatic offices of Taiwan, saying they belong to China. Taiwanese diplomats had attempted to donate the properties to the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Managua. 
 But the Contras, not Ortega, were often shown as the bad guys in the USA media in the 1980s.
Jan 8, 2022
Sgt Victor Isasi, 42, a Paraguayan soldier, died from piercing injuries after he was attacked by a deer in the gardens of the country's presidential palace. The animal is an axis deer from India which is usually kept in a separate area and reacted when Isasi lifted his hand.
June 10, 2022
Venezuela's Opposition lawmaker Sergio Garrido, 54, defeated the ruling party’s candidate Jorge Arreaza, 48, who served as the country’s vice president and foreign minister and was Hugo Chavez’s son-in-law. This was a governor's race in Barinas,  a region ruled byChavez family for over twenty years. I'm sure Maduro will try to undo it.
Jan 29, 2022
No respect for Venezuela! Italy rejected a request by Venezuela for the extradition of Rafael Ramirez, a once powerful oil minister and former head of state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. Ramirez was tight with Chavez but was ousted as Venezuela's U.N. envoy in 2017 after publicly criticizing Maduro.  Ramirez was probably involved in some embezzlement and bid-rigging for oil contracts, but the Italian courts ain't sending him back because of human rights violations in Venezuela under Maduro and Chavez.
March 8, 2022
So rather than get the USA back to pumping its own oil, Biden is reaching out to Maduro, the commie dictator in Venezuela, for oil in exchange for easing sanctions. This ain't going over well with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)  who said the White House's efforts to unite the world against Russia's actions "should not be undercut by propping up a dictator under investigation for crimes against humanity in Caracas."
April 5, 2022
Why history matters! Landlocked Bolivia is back at The Hague battling for access to the Silala River in its search for fresh water. Bolivia lost its only coastline to Chile during an 1879-1883 war and has demanded ocean access since that defeat.
April 28, 2022
Do you remember when Ortega was everyone's darling? And the Contras were the devil in Nicaragua in the 1980s?
The real estate that occupied the offices of the OAS in Nicaragua has been declared a public utility and will be passed on to the State of Nicaragua according to Vice President Rosario Murillo, wife of Dictator Daniel Ortega.
jan 8, 2022
Watching a documentary on BBC select on the Alan Addis missing case. Tony Blake, David clark pop up. #falklands


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