June 2008 Newsletter Now Available

 

News Alerts

"You Have To Have Power In Order to Change It.”

Five Hours with Chávez

The Venezuelan president’s meeting with members of the “In Defense of Humanity” network"

By Pascual Serrano - Rebelión & www.pascualserrano.net

16/04/08 -- - Translation: Machetera

This past April 12th, some hundred intellectuals and artists met with Venezuela’s president during the international conference convened by the network of networks, “In Defense of Humanity” under the theme “Armed With Ideas.”

Over five hours, during which intellectuals posed a variety of questions, Hugo Chávez, in military dress following his participation in a military parade, spoke of the coup d’etat six years prior, the situation in Colombia, in Venezuela of course, their political principles and many other subjects. (Full Story).

NICARAGUA - WHAT HAVE THE SANDINISTAS ACCOMPLISHED?

By: ARNOLD H. MATLIN, M.D.

Daniel Ortega was inaugurated as President of Nicaragua on January 10, 2007.  What difference does it make to Nicaragua to have a progressive left-wing president instead of a reactionary right-wing president? (Full Story).

Destroying democracy at home and abroad

by Chuck Kaufman
Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network and National Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice. Talk in Rochester, NY, 2/29/08.

The United States spends hundreds of millions of US taxpayer’s dollars each year on so-called “democracy building” programs. Everyone is in favor of democracy, right? We’d like to see it spread to every country in the world.  I know I would.  So how do these programs work?  Let me lay out a couple of imaginary scenarios. (Full Story).

Representing Moussad

Protesting the Guantanamo Concentration Camp at the Supreme Court --
A Direct Action Organized by Witness Against Torture [www.witnesstorture.org] By Ed Kinane

On 11 January ’07, the fifth anniversary of the opening of the U.S. concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dozens of us solemnly assembled inside Federal District Court in Washington, DC. While we were allowed to do a liturgical program there, we were arrested for refusing to remove our bright orange Close Guantanamo T-shirts.  (Shouldn’t T-shirt slogans be protected speech?) Just outside the court building that day many other demonstrators, some in orange jump suits, were also arrested. (Full Story).

INTERCONNECT History

History / movement building

In Rochester, NY, by the 1980’s there were six groups working in solidarity with the people of Central America and the Caribbean.
With escalation of the US-backed wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with the clear threat of a US invasion of both countries, the six groups came together in the Rochester Central American Caucus. The Caucus developed the local chapter of the National Pledge of Resistance, aimed at warding off a US invasion of Nicaragua. This was a time when the US mercenary army, the Contras, was losing.

In 1992 Peter and Gail Mott raised funds to bring together 30 Central America organizers from across the US in the Central America Solidarity Roundtable. They met for three days in the Adirondacks.  The conference announced these efforts to be a movement, decided to work to build this movement and to change the focus from Central America to all of Latin America. The Roundtable also called for a national newsletter. The Motts began that newsletter as INTERCONNECT in 1995 and have co-edited it for 13 years.

In 1998 INTERCONNECT issued a call for the Emergency Strategy Planning Caucus on the War in Chiapas in Washington. Over 200 activists attended. The Caucus created the Mexico Solidarity Network.

In 2000 several of us created the LASC – Latin America Solidarity Coalition (see below).

the Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC)

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition was created from the planning committees for the first three national LASC conferences.

The LASC Coordinating Committee meets regularly by conference call, planning the future work of LASC, future conferences, national statements and actions, and supervising the working groups.

The LASC working groups are formed as needed to solve public policy problems. New members are recruited by each of the following four working groups:

• National Endowment for Democracy
• On the crisis in Venezuela, including the role of the AFL/CIO’s Solidarity Center in the attempted coup of 2002
• On the crisis in Haiti. (This working group began the planning of the Haiti Tribunal)
• US militarization in Latin America

LASC principles and priorities are summarized on the LASC website, as are the guidelines for a solidarity group to join the LASC and to have a representative on the Coordinating Committee.

National Conferences

The first Latin America Solidarity Conference (LASC) (planned by a group of activists from around the country) was held in 2000. Over 600 people came to Washington, D.C. to participate. An equal number had to be turned away for lack of space. This was an educational session with many speakers from Latin America, workshops planning shared strategies, and planning sessions developing an overarching analysis of US policy and hemispheric needs.

The second LASC was held a year later in Chicago. Over 200 participants worked for two days reviewing the pre-conference work of eleven task forces – each based on a hemisphere-wide issue (trade, globalization, militarization, indigenous and women’s issues, environment, etc). Workshops developed these proposals and plenary sessions adopted priorities, strategies, principles, and demands for the movement.

Four hundred attended the third LASC in 2002 in Washington, D.C. This conference was educational, with many speakers from the region. It also included a mass action for the boycott of Taco Bell – with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

LASC4 was held in April 2007 in Chicago. Over 300 people attended what became our most successful conference, combining speakers, strategies and organizing (see the July 2007 issue of INTERCONNECT on this website). A mass demonstration on the boycott of McDonalds’ had been planned; but a few days before the conference McDonalds agreed to all the conditions, so we held a celebration instead.