Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.

Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.

Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.

guaido-despair guaido

Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Venezuela! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Article is in Spanish. I couldn't find any article in english, most articles are either in Spanish or Portuguese. But it seems some FMLN ex-guerrilas and a catholic priest spoke about this.

      Translation (Huge Article)

      One cannot forget the nefarious role played by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia (candidate for the presidency of Venezuela for the extreme right) in El Salvador, when he was the second in the Venezuelan Embassy, together with Ambassador Leopoldo Castillo, known as the Matacuras.

      This happened between 1979 and 1985, as part of the Condor Plan in El Salvador and the counterinsurgency project promoted by the Republican Ronald Reagan against the Salvadoran people to prevent the revolutionary forces from advancing, since the factor that prolonged the civil war was the US intervention.

      The mission of Ambassador Castillo and Edmundo Gonzalez was to be agents of death. In declassified CIA documents, in February 2009, Castillo was mentioned as co-responsible for the intelligence services that coordinated, financed and gave the order for the execution of Operation Centauro, which consisted of a series of violent actions by the Salvadoran army and the "death squads" to physically eliminate the religious communities gathered around the search, consistent with the theology of liberation, for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the war.

      "In the years when Castillo and Gonzalez were in charge of the embassy, the army and the squads left 13,194 civilians murdered, among them St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero, four Maryknoll nuns and the priests Rafael Palacios, Alirio Macias, Francisco Cosme, Jesus Caceres and Manuel Reyes. And although he was no longer a diplomat, he was still working as an advisor to intelligence structures (pentagonito) when the six Jesuits and two female workers were assassinated on November 16, 1989."

      The crimes supported by the management of Leopoldo Castillo and collaborators such as Edmundo Gonzalez are considered "crimes against humanity" and, therefore, are imprescriptible.

      The day will come when they will have to be held accountable to Spanish and Salvadoran justice for their participation in the extermination of religious men and women and peaceful communities that stood on the side of peace during the war that ravaged El Salvador. The terrible aftermath of their actions

      Bloodthirsty past of Edmundo Gonzalez revealed

      He was recruited by the CIA, sent to the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador when Leopoldo Castillo was ambassador, and death squads were unleashed against religious and children.

      Edmundo González Urrutia, the candidate of the right wing, participated in the financing and logistics of brutal acts in El Salvador, when he was an official of the Venezuelan embassy in that country, at the time when Leopoldo Castillo was the ambassador.

      This was revealed on Wednesday, by the first vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Psuv), Diosdado Cabello.

      The past of Edmundo González was made known by a former Colombian official, María Catalina Restrepo Pinzón de Londoño, through a letter sent to Cabello, who read it in the program.

      "Under Castillo's command and Gonzalez Urrutia's advice, the infamous death squads were unleashed. The reports from those days are chilling: from massacres of innocent civilians, to the persecution and assassination of teachers and community leaders. Not to mention the ruthless attacks against religious and children," reads part of the missive.

      It adds that "Edmundo was supremely committed to these atrocities, being an active part of the financing and logistics of these brutal acts. The situation was so serious that the Church itself and some international organizations were raising their voices against the violence, which was known to have the unrestricted support of the same embassy where this second-rate official worked".

      "The reality is that these types of stories remind us of the importance of looking critically at the past and the characters who, although in 'secondary' roles, played a crucial part in events that changed the lives of thousands. Edmundo, although perhaps a bit player on paper, was a key player in one of the darkest pages of Central American history. It is not surprising, therefore, that he is now the U.S. government's candidate of choice",

      Highlights the letter from the former Colombian official.

      Captured by the CIA

      The document indicates "that on November 24, 1976, Gonzalez Urrutia joined the Venezuelan embassy in the United States as a civil servant, in the middle of the development of Plan Condor; there he was captured by the CIA"...", and later, in July 1981 he was transferred to the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador, whose ambassador was Leopoldo Castillo.

      Massacres

      It is worth mentioning that the participation of the Venezuelan opposition journalist Leopoldo Castillo in the massacre of the six Jesuit priests and two female collaborators murdered in 1989 is still being investigated.

      According to several sources, in his capacity as Venezuelan Ambassador to El Salvador, Castillo would have supported and collaborated in the murder of Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Juan Ramón Moreno, Amando López, Joaquin López, Elba and Celina Ramos.

      Castillo currently resides in Miami, he is related to the extreme right, as well as his participation in the School of the Americas and his links and collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

      Source: CubaDebate