The Caribbean Peace Movement (CPM) is disgusted and outraged by the latest episode in the orchestrated illicit right-wing oligarchical campaign to target and "bring down" by foul means the most outstanding and respected leaders of Latin America's 21st century Socialist Movement: namely, the conviction by a powerful right-wing Judge of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva (former President of Brazil) on trumped up corruption charges, and Lula's incarceration on a 12 year prison sentence.
We Caribbean people find it almost beyond belief that a respected and revered people's champion like Lula -- the highly principled President who lifted millions of downtrodden Brazilians out of miserable poverty and who gave Brazil a new and outstanding image in the international community -- could be so brazenly attacked and victimized in this manner by the Brazilian capitalist establishment and their traditional right-wing collaborators in the U S State Department.
For us in the countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to arrive at some understanding of the injustice and infamy of this conviction and imprisonment of Lula, we would have to imagine our greatest and most revered historic political leaders -- Barbados' Errol Barrow and Jamaica's Michael Manley for example -- being hounded down by corrupt and vindictive establishment Prosecutors and Judges and railroaded into Prison!
As profoundly difficult (if not impossible) as it is for us to contemplate such a scenario in our Caribbean Community, this is precisely what has been unfolding in Latin America over the past five years or so!
We need to recall that an historic Latin American Socialist Movement emerged in the early years of the 21st century, and that by the year 2012 several outstanding socialist or progressive nationalist leaders had been elected to power by the Latin American masses throughout the region :-- Hugo Chavez in Venezuela; Evo Morales in Bolivia; Rafael Correa in Ecuador; Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina; Fernando Lugo Mendez in Paraguay; Lula in Brazil ; Jose "Pepe" Mujica in Uruguay; Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. And of course they joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary Cuba, which had been carrying the banner of Socialism in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1959!
This was a truly historic development, and constituted the high point of the centuries long historical struggle of the masses of working-class and impoverished Latin Americans to transform the unequal, elitist, oppressive, capitalistic and oligarchical societies that had been foisted upon them ever since the Spanish imperialists had colonized the region in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Here then was a tremendous socialist breakthrough in the progressive, working-class Movement to develop new, just, equal and inclusive Latin American societies. And the impressive results were there for all to see in the millions of people who were lifted out of poverty, and the hundreds of new socially uplifting programmes and institutions that were birthed in virtually all of the countries in question, but especially in Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
But of course, the powerful traditional Latin American oligarchical classes and institutions (and their North American and European masters and collaborators) did not simply fade away!
Rather, they (in partnership with the powerful U S State Department and the international Capitalist establishment ) have carried out a vicious and unprincipled counter-offensive in which they have deployed every conceivable weapon -- ranging from physical assassination, to economic sabotage, to trumped up corruption and impeachment charges -- against the Latin American socialist leaders and their governmental administrations.
The tragic outline of this treasonous political, economic, and judicial insurgency campaign against the Latin American Left is as follows:
(1) 2012 -- the impeachment of Paraguay's Fernando Lugo Mendez on ridiculous charges of "insecurity" and "nepotism";
(2) 2013 -- the suspected assassination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez;
(3) 2016 -- the impeachment of Brazil's Dilma Rousseff on ludicrous charges of so-called "administrative misconduct" and "disregard for the federal budget";
(4) 2016 -- the effort by the fascist Opposition in Venezuela to launch impeachment and recall processes against President Nicolas Maduro;
(5) 2017 -- the prosecution of Argentina's Cristina Kirchner on a trumped up charge of "trying to defraud the government"; and
(6) 2017 -- the prosecution and conviction of Lula on an equally trumped up charge of accepting a bribe when he was President of Brazil.
And it should be noted for the record that the witch hunts against both Lula and Cristina Kirchner are also "preemptive strikes" that are designed to eliminate them from contesting up-coming Presidential elections that they are both highly favoured to win!
We in the Caribbean Peace Movement fully comprehend that nothing less than a "war" is being waged against the socialist, nationalist, and other progressive forces of Latin America and the Caribbean, and that a variety of legal and constitutional processes are being twisted out of shape, bastardized, and prostituted, and used for illicit political purposes.
At this time however, we wish to place our focus squarely and specifically on Brazil.
We hereby denounce the egregious injustice that has been inflicted on Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva! We wish him, the officers and members of the Workers Party of Brazil, and the masses of working-class Brazilians to know that we are with them in this struggle.
The Caribbean Peace Movement (CPM) hereby CALLS upon the governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and indeed upon ALL nations and Governments that have a commitment to decency and justice, to raise their voices and publicly demand that Lula be freed and that he be permitted to contest the upcoming Presidential election in Brazil.
We say: "FREE LULA !"
SIGNED:
David Comissiong
Coordinator
Caribbean Chapter
International Network In Defense of Humanity
Hope Mc Nish
President
Jamaica Peace Council
David Denny
General Secretary
Caribbean Movement For Peace and Integration
Gerald Perreira
President
Organization for the Victory of the People (Guyana)
Robert "Bobby" Clarke
General Secretary
Clement Payne Movement (Barbados)
Lalu Hanuman
President
Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine
Trevor Prescod MP
President
Israel Lovell Foundation (Barbados)
Khafra Kambon
Coordinator
Caribbean Pan-African Network
Garcin Malsa
President
International Movement for Reparations (Martinique)