 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast Thursdays at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern right here on YouTube Live, including YouTube channels for the ConvoCouch, Popular Resistance, and Code Pink. Post-broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, and now at radindemedia.com and under Podcasts at PopularResistance.org. Today's episode, Columbia and Venezuela, Brother Nations Reunite, and I'm so happy to have today to introduce to all of you, those of you who are watching on the ConvoCouch met Dan earlier this week, but for the rest of you, here is my friend Dan Kovalec talking to us live from Moscow, and we're so thankful to have your time, Dan. I'm just really, really pleased and pleased to have you back on our show. Let me tell the audience a little bit about you. This is an impressive resume, everyone, so listen up. Dan is an American lawyer and human rights advocate who currently teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. From 1993 until 2019, he served as in-house counsel for the United Steel Workers. While with the United Steel Workers, he worked on Alien Tort Claims Act cases against the Coca-Cola Company, Drummond, and Occidental Petroleum, with cases arising out of egregious human rights abuses in Columbia. Dan is the recipient of the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law, as well as the Project Sensor Award for his article exposing unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Columbia. He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and US foreign policy, including several books, one of which is The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, how the US is orchestrating a coup for oil. You can see that Dan's like the perfect person for us to have to talk with this evening. I also want to mention to all of you that Dan is a Senior Research Fellow with the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, also known as COHA, COHA is a broadcast partner of this program. Before I have Dan share with us what happened last week in Caracas, let me give all of you a little bit of background. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met in Venezuela's capital of Caracas on Tuesday, November 1, two months after formally re-establishing diplomatic relations, and a month after resuming trade between the two neighboring countries. This is three months after the inauguration of Gustavo Petro, which was 5 August. This was the first time that Petro and Maduro met since the mending of bilateral relations in late August. It was a historic meeting as it marked further strengthening of the diplomatic ties between Colombia and Venezuela, which got increasingly worth with the intensification of attacks against Venezuela by the United States and the support for this campaign by far right Colombian President Iván Duque. Colombia and Venezuela officially broke diplomatic relations in February of 2019. After Duque, after then President Duque, recognized the US-backed self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader. Dan, you and I were in Venezuela shortly after all that happened in February, March of 2019. Everyone here is, I want you all to welcome Dan Cavalliq live from Moscow. Maybe Dan, we should start with why a little bit of historical context for the audience to what this relationship between Venezuela and Colombia is. Because both governments, presidents, ambassadors, and citizens refer to each other as brothers. This is a really important historical fact to understand why they refer to each other that way. Yeah. Well, because the region, the Andean region there, is they consider themselves a unified peoples that Spain divided arbitrarily and that Simón Bolivar, the great liberator wanted to reunite. He helped liberate Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, and what are the other countries? Maybe Peru. What is now Peru? Bolivia. Yeah. Bolivia from Spanish reign. And also what is now success. Right. But well, because Panama was part of Colombia. Exactly. Well, that's a whole nother coup story there. That's a whole nother story. But what he wasn't able to do, ultimately, was his dream of unifying all those countries, right? Which we know is Colombia. Yeah. And so, you know, Colombia and Venezuela in particular, I'd say of all those countries, really looked at Bolivar as their spiritual leader. Right. And so, you know, when he go to Venezuela, of course, it's the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Right. And the bones of Bolivar are there. You can visit, you know, his remains there. But in Colombia, they also, you know, have a reverence for him. They have, in fact, Gustavo Petro was inaugurated in Plaza Bolivar in Bolotá. And as you know, I know you know this. And I was there. I was there. I know. I forgot to tell the audience so that this, yes, I was there to the inauguration on 5 August. Cause the inauguration for about 15 to 20 minutes while the sword of Bolivar was gathered from the museum and taken to the inaugural stage. Right. This was a huge political act. Right. And he was denied. Petro was denied that by the outgoing president. Well, in the military opposed it, but he did it anyway. So it was his first executive order. It really was. He says by order, order the sword of Bolivar brought here. By the way, I should mention that when he was in the M19 guerrilla group, they had stolen the sword of Bolivar out of the museum, saying that it would be restored when Colombia was truly free. But they did give it back, you know, when they signed a peace deal with the government. That was a little back, very interesting back. You know, that's a whole, I think that that whole Bolivar sword is a whole episode that we should do in and of itself, just the whole history of that sword. Yeah. But you understand that Bolivar is very important to those two countries. And again, his dream was to reunite this whole region as one nation, right? One country. And for years, it's been anything but united, particularly Colombia and Venezuela, have been, you know, incredibly divided because under Chavez, you know, with his presidency beginning in 1999, I guess he was elected in 98, came out, president of 99, you know, he went a very independent path from the United States. And again, under the constitution that he, he initiated the referendum in the constitutional assembly that gave birth to the new constitution under that constitution that the people approved in Venezuela. It was renamed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, right? Which is the fifth republic. What's that? It's the fifth republic of Venezuela, this constitution they're working with now. Meanwhile, next door in Colombia, it was being run, well, really beginning in 2002, I guess, by Thugs, you know, by right wing Thugs, beginning with Alvaro Uribe, who were one very much connected to the United States, but also to right wing death squads in Venezuela. And at that, you know, so from 2002, up until Petro's, you know, inauguration as president, Colombia really eschewed their Bolivarian roots, right? That was not something they were striving for. They were striving to be like the 51st state of the United States. And they became a partner of NATO. They're the only partner of NATO in Latin America or the Caribbean, right? So... And that's the key word Caribbean in NATO is North Atlantic organization. Exactly. Yeah. And of course, Colombia also has a Pacific border as well. And, you know, so during this period in the 2000s, Venezuela and Colombia could not have been at morades and there were border disputes and there were border incursions, particularly by the Colombian military and paramilitary forces into Venezuela. And the Venezuelan government with, you know, evidence claim that Colombian paramilitaries engaged in assassination attempts of Nicolás Maduro in successful assassinations of some other politicians. So things have been very bad at that border between Colombia and Venezuela. And all came to a head in 2019, of course, when Trump recognized Juan Guaido and they had this kind of, you know, pretense of a humanitarian aid shipment between Colomb, a bridge between Colombia and Venezuela. And then, you know, the Colombian side set those aid trucks on fire and blame Venezuela for it. So this was, and then the borders were shut down for a time between Colombia and Venezuela. So now Petro comes to power and again, he symbolically wields the sort of olivar. He didn't take it out of the case. That would have been awesome. He left it in the case in front of him, but he did wield it in a certain way. And now, and then he opened the border with Venezuela, right? Very quickly, he recognized Venezuela, recognized Nicaragua, recognized Cuba, which his predecessor had refused to do, right? And now he's met with Maduro, and now they're talking. They exchanged ambassadors very rapidly too, like within the first week. With all those three countries, I just mentioned, right? And then he's now met with Maduro and they're now working towards at least more economic integration between the two countries, more border openness. So this is a huge, huge thing. I mean, it's very exciting. I'm very excited about it. No one thought this was possible on the Colombian side for a long time. I mean, Colombia seems sewn up by the right wing and Petro comes in, you know, and he's mixing stuff up. So that's all good, all to the good. Last week, so this was November 1st. And the timing was crucial because they clearly waited until after the election results in Brazil, which was appropriate and give Brazil its moment. And then- Which also shares a border with Venezuela. Yes, a very, a large one, a very large one as well. Very large, yeah. I think the border with Colombia and Venezuela is 2,000 miles. 2,000 plus miles, is that about right? And even longer with Brazil. So last week, a few of the things that Petro and Maduro talked about were stabilizing the opening of the border, continuing to expand trade and also working on the immigration issue between the two countries. And they also talked about with the urging of Gustavo Petro about climate change. And since then, COP 27 has started in Egypt, I think November 6th, the 6th or the 18th of November. And I noticed in yesterday's news that Nicholas Maduro spoke about the Amazon, which was extraordinarily encouraging and Gustavo Petro made a great talk also at COP 27, how climate change is not gonna be solved by the capitalist system, it's the capitalist system that created, has at least exacerbated climate change. So that was really wonderful to see the two of them really more or less speak in a united front for the Amazon and for the Andes. And I would say for Latin America and the global South as a whole. And so with this reuniting of these two brother nations, this reopening of diplomatic relations and more, how does this play out for the rest of the Americas in your opinion? Well, look, I just think this is part of an overall trend. You mentioned a little of being elected in Brazil, re-elected after many years. And elections in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. I mean, all of Latin America is shifting to the left and to independence from the United States and challenging the Monroe doctrine. And I think that, yeah, Colombia is a big piece in that puzzle and Colombia and Venezuela, working together to do that is a huge piece in that puzzle. And again, it will be bolstered and it will be buoyed by the election of Lula in Brazil. So I think you will see Latin America more and more go its independent path. Ambo in Mexico as well. Remember, he refused to send himself for any high ranking officials to the summit of the Americas because Biden banned Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from that. So do you see more and more independent acts in the region? Ambo was such a huge voice this time, well, September of last year when he reconvened the Salah Summit after a four year pause and really articulating from here in Mexico city or I'm talking to all of you from regional integration. And that for the audience, that entire five hour Salah Summit can be viewed on YouTube and it's really worth watching because I don't know, 32 of the 35 Salah members, Salah is all of Latin America and the Caribbean with the exception of US and Canada. They were never invited to join. This was a project vision of Hugo Chavez as well. But that whole integration of the Americas was the prevalent predominant theme of last year's Salah Summit and it did include agreement with even some of the right wing governments like Ecuador that the regional integration working as a region, a united region, it certainly at least economically is the dream. And it isn't necessarily exclusive of the America, of the United States, as Amla was so good. And I do think Petro is key to this as well, is making sure the United States, both of them are very clear about making sure the United States knows there is room for its participation. But the United States participation is gonna depend on the United States evolution in recognizing national sovereignty and in recognizing sovereign nations as equals. Right. Yeah. And I don't know that that evolution is possible in this moment at the States among young people, I think it clearly is among the current government of the States, I'm not sure that it is, but that's gonna be key. It isn't necessarily, let's move forward without the US, there are these overtures from both Amla and also from Gustavo Petro who include the US assuming the US is capable of evolving. Well, yeah, yeah, no, of course, that's always been the case. I mean, people have to understand that when you look at some of these Caribbean countries in particular, like Venezuela, like Cuba, like Nicaragua, they have more in common with the US than they do with, say, Russia or China. They like baseball more than they like soccer. They like the colonial sport. I mean, they just as, you know, they would just as well want to be dealing with the US. They feel a certain simpatico with the United States and the American people. But as you say, only if the US is willing to be one of many nations amongst equals and deal with them with respect. And that's what they've made very clear. You know, you wanna come to us with respect and we're equals, then we'll deal with you. Otherwise, you know, not. We're moving on without you. And they clearly are. The evolution is in place. It has been born and it is growing rapidly. I agree with you. It's really, really exciting to see what's unfolding. You mentioned the Caribbean and Cuba. Let's talk about Cuba and Colombia's relationship that's particularly regarding the peace accords and how Petro has reached out to the Cubans to reestablish those negotiations. What's happening with that? Well, if you're talking about the peace accords between the Colombian government and the guerrillas, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela played a key role in sponsoring those talks that led to a peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, the biggest and oldest guerrilla movement, not just in Colombia, but I think maybe in the world. But there still are the ELN guerrillas out there. So Petro wants to make a deal with them. And again, the Cubans are there ready to help with that. And Petro has requested and he has accepted for President Maduro to negotiate on behalf of the ELN, to represent the ELN at the negotiating table. Is that correct? That is correct as well. Yeah. And so Venezuela and Cuba will both play key roles in the negotiations. Which is necessary. I mean, all parties need to be at that table for it to be effective and a lasting peace, I would think. Yeah, and especially because the ELN does sometimes take refuge within Venezuela, right? So to be totally truthful. So it's important that the Venezuelan government be a part of all that. Let's talk about, I just wanna, since we're talking about the Colombian peace accords in Cuba and thing for our audience, there's one thing happening now. Well, it actually happened last year, but on the heels of the UN vote to condemn the US blockade on Cuba, which was last week, Thursday the 3rd, I believe, 182 nations voted to condemn the US blockade on Cuba. Two voted against it, US and Israel. And two abstained. One being Brazil and I forget the other that abstained, Ukraine. But last year Cuba, and this is a little bit of a digression for the audience, but this is also why it's so important that Colombia is reestablishing the peace accords and the negotiations. Last year or during the Trump administration, excuse me, Cuba was put on the state sponsor terrorism list because after the first, was it 2016 Dan, the first Colombian peace accords that Havana sponsored, several of the guerrillas remained in Cuba. And because they are still there, that was how the US State Department finagled the state sponsor of terror designation on Cuba, which is devastating for Cuba because that means aside from a terrible sanctions regime, now as a state sponsor of terror, they can participate in any way shape or form in the international finance or marketplace. No, and it becomes very difficult for Americans to support Cuba because you're supporting a terrorist, a designated terrorist organization, which is illegal. It's criminally illegal. So yeah. So this is, do you have any idea how the Colombian government, the new government is what its position is on that? Or how to work around those people, those Colombians still being in Havana? It's very complicated. I mean, it's a catch 22 really for the Cubans. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't know the details. What I do know is Petro is a very careful person, a very pragmatic person, and I'm sure he will work to do workarounds, but in a way that does not provoke the US. It's very clear that he's acting in a way so as not to provoke the United States, because if the US turned on him in a big way, they could destroy him. I mean, they have, the US is very embedded with the Colombian military and paramilitaries, and Petro knows this. So he's in a very precarious position. So whatever he does is gonna tread lightly doing. Well, and for the audience, there are seven, now eight, and eighth under construction US military bases in Columbia. So yeah, so here you are a president of a sovereign nation with your neighbor to the North having all these military bases in your own country. So yeah, it's somewhat precarious for him. And you can say, oh, well, he should just kick the US out, but how do you do that? They're a weaker. Seven, one base would be one thing, but seven is one another. Yeah, I think it's tough. It's tough for him. And I give him a lot of leeway to do that, because I think he's in a tough position. Can you just share before I let you go, because I know it's very, very late in Moscow, and I am so thankful you made time to talk with us today. Can you share with the audience some of your work in Columbia because you have such an impressive and fascinating resume in your human rights and labor rights work in Columbia for so many years is significant. And is there hope now with the new government that a lot of the things that you've been working on, the human rights abuses, the labor rights abuses to the point, I mean, you've worked with people who have been under the threat of assassination. Is there hope now that this is gonna change, or what do you say to all that unfolding? So I've been working in Columbia since 1999, and I've been working with, yes, labor organizations, also Afro-Columbian organizations. And these are some of the most oppressed peoples in Columbia, in addition to indigenous peoples, I've also worked with. And I think that, yes, there is hope for all those folks and there is hope for the violence against them to decline. At the same time, people have to understand, Columbia has a military with a mind of its own. I like the thing as well of military, that works for the people. Exactly, like after the coup against Chavez in 2002, he thoroughly vetted and purged that military, right? And now they're all loyal. So that's true in Nicaragua, that's true in Cuba. It is not true in Columbia. In fact, I've compared or contrasted Petro with Salvador Yende, you know, Salvador Yende, he was overthrown in a coup in 1973 by, you know, a general, General Pinochet with the U.S. backing. He at least had a couple loyal generals, like Letzlier, right? He was killed in Washington in 1976. Exactly, yeah. I don't know if Gustavo Petro has one loyal general. I mean, he is now, you know, he is starting behind the April. So I do think change is gonna come to Columbia, but it's gonna be slow and it's gonna require Petro to navigate, you know, the military, the paramilitary death squads that work with the military and the United States. They hold a lot of cards in Columbia. And so he's gonna need all the solidarity he can get to do that. And that means for Americans, in terms of our solidarity pressuring our own government to stop supporting, you know, the paramilitary organizations in Columbia, really to stop funding the military, right? Which is the reactionary force in Columbia. And instead to do, you know, development funding and funding of other peaceful projects. So, but I do have some optimism. I do that the change can come. Well, I think that's like, it's such a hope for all of South America, well, Latin America as a whole, but this is so, Columbia specifically being such that historically being such the US base, literally and then politically, economically and militarily the US base in South America and the Caribbean that to see what is possible now is really, really exciting. Is really, really exciting. And the reparation that we're pairing the relations with Venezuela is one part of that. But super, but so huge, symbolically, economically, politically and hopefully for integration in peace for the region. It's just huge. And it's very, very exciting. Very, very exciting. So what else should we share with the audience before I let you go? I promised you 30 minutes and we're like on 42 minutes now. So, well, I would just say people need to keep paying attention to Latin America, which is the point of your whole show. And I do think Latin America is the hope for the world. I've thought that for a long, long time. I still think it in, and of course now that hope and faith has been just reaffirmed by recent events. And I think in the case of Columbia, people need to be patient with Petro. He really has a lot to confront. He's not always going to, he may disappoint people at times because he's gonna have to make compromises. But I do think his heart's in the right place. You know, I know Petro, I've known him for a long time. I know that's how you got invited to the inauguration. Yeah, so I have faith in Petro and I think other people should too. So, but I do think there's a lot of hope in Latin America and we need to keep hope alive. This is Jesse Jackson used to say. We need to keep supporting that. Yeah. Absolutely. That's our job. Okay, everyone, I just want, I want you all to just give Dan a huge thank you for joining us from Moscow. It's like midnight there I came for you. So again, I'm so thankful for you joining us. And you know, just on a personal note, you're like one of the first people that got me so focused on, on the Bolivarian Revolution. Wow. Thank you, Terry. You were plugged into that, you know, in the very early, early days of Chavismo and you were a great, you know, inspiration for me to, to get involved and explore all of that too. And it's been, it's been a, yeah, it's been quite a ride while the last 20 years, watching all of this unfold and now really leading to something very, very constructive for the Americans. Absolutely. Yeah, so. Okay, everyone, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Dan. I just want to remind all of you, you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are a weekly broadcast of popular resistance. You can watch us on YouTube live every Thursday, 7 30 p.m. Eastern, 4 30 p.m. Pacific on the Convo Couch YouTube channel, a popular resistance YouTube channel and Code Pink YouTube live as well. So we'll see you all next week. Thank you so much, everyone.