The communication organizations and social collectives grouped in the Forum on Communication for the Integration of Our America alert the peoples of the region to the concerted strategy driven by economic power groups, media monopolies and a servile faction of judiciary power, with the objective of preventing popular leaders from participating in upcoming elections.

These groups thus hope to eliminate any possibility of the processes of regional change begun in the previous decade from continuing and being further developed.  Moreover, they are aiming to discredit politics as a channel for social transformation, seeking to dismantle people’s organizations and to replicate the neoliberal theses of the Washington consensus, according to which the State is an unsuitable actor for the development of the economy and hence for “public life”.

The sentence against Brazilian ex-President Lula dictated by judge (Sergio) Moro, a media personality, without any clear evidence having been presented to corroborate the accusations, is a demonstration of the systematic persecution to which they aim to submit popular leaders that threaten the current business totalitarianism.

It is measure that fits perfectly within the anti-popular logic of laws and measures undertaken by the government that overthrew constitutional president Dilma Rousseff through a huge parliamentary farce. Such logic is likely to culminate in the renunciation of the de facto president, Temer, who may even be condemned, so they can claim to be “fulfilling the law”, thus leaving the way open for a “clean”– and supposedly apolitical – candidate supported by the business sector and promoted by the hegemonic multimedia outlets.

In a similar vein, we should understand the anticipated veto of the Paraguayan electoral courts against the candidacy of (Fernando) Lugo and the legal proceedings against Argentine ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, for unlikely causes.

Similarly, a jurist connected to the largest Colombian media group alleges that Gustavo Petro could not present himself as a candidate in the presidential elections of 2018, due to supposed debts, in a judiciary sentence of responsibility in the public budget.  Other journalists are doing the dirty work in Uruguay aiming to link ex-president Mujica to former terrorist attacks.

Not to mention the global media avalanche that the Bolivarian revolution has been facing even since Chávez’ times, and that today is brought to a paroxysm by all the mainstream media and news agencies, that only show the opposition version of the news and condemn a priori any measure or proposal introduced by the legitimate elected government of Nicolás Maduro?

This offensive follows the same model against vice-presidents or ministers in a chain of responsibilities that recall fascist practice.

Moreover, leaders of people’s movements and truly independent journalists are being assassinated, gaoled or intimidated, in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil and various other points in the region.

This is the consummation of the gagging of critical expression, creating a public shielding of policies dictated by these same groups of concentrated power, which in addition are seeking a geopolitical realignment of the region based on an outmoded and decadent imperialist map.

As activists and communicators of the popular camp, we reject and actively oppose this new media-judiciary Plan Condor.

We are therefore calling for democratic organizations to come together in defence of the people’s majority, so as to further regional integration under the sign of sovereignty and to demonstrate unequivocally against the retrograde designs that threaten our free right to choose the path that we want for our societies.

FORO DE COMUNICACIÓN PARA LA INTEGRACIÓN DE NUESTRAMÉRICA

12/07/2017

The Forum is an initiative of media networks and outlets and social coordinating bodies, committed to the integration of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.