[1]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress



I just returned from an amazing trip with several of my colleagues to
Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.

Our hope was that this visit could help chart a new course for the
relationship between the United States and Latin America. Rather than
continuing the old Cold War mentality, we want the two regions to build a
relationship of trust and respect — so that we can work on shared
challenges like migration, climate change, and threats to democracy.

Here are some highlights from the trip…

I led the first all Spanish-speaking delegation from the U.S., which
included Representatives Nydia Velázquez, Greg Casar, Maxwell Frost, and
Joaquin Castro. Nearly every meeting our delegation took was conducted in
Spanish — even in Brazil, given the amount of diplomacy they engage with
in the region most of their representatives speak Spanish as well as
Portugues. It makes a huge difference having a U.S. congressional
delegation where every member is fluent in a language spoken by the folks
we are visiting. Completely changes the dynamic!

We learned a lot about community organizing. In Brazil, our delegation met
with the Landless Workers Movement and the Homeless Workers Movement. Both
groups engage in radical, direct actions like land occupation. At the same
time, they are deeply pragmatic movements. They have community kitchens to
support their members, and have built markets to sell workers’ goods that
finance their operations. It was a good lesson in how idealism and
pragmatism can, and should, coexist in our progressive organizing.

Ahead of our visit to Chile, we helped declassify documents detailing U.S.
involvement in the Pinochet coup,^1 which overthrew Chile’s government in
1973 and was one of the first coup d’etats caught on TV. The U.S., under
President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, launched a campaign of
economic warfare and covert operations in Chile in order to destabilize
the region after the country elected its first socialist president,
Salvador Allende. After ousting Allende, the new Pinochet regime — with
support from our government — tortured and murdered over 40,000 Chileans,
and forced over 200,000 more to flee the country. For years, the U.S. has
refused to disclose the extent of its involvement, and while there are
still many documents that should be declassified, this was an important
first step.

We met with Colombia’s first leftist President, Gustavo Petro, and
discussed his efforts for peace. The endless stream of disinformation
around the globe — including Fox News and the far-right in the U.S. —
flattens the perception of Colombia to a hazy picture of violence, narcos,
and guerrillas. The reality is that the Colombian people are extremely
motivated towards peace, and efforts by Senator Marco Rubio and other
Republicans to block ambassadorships — and other normal diplomatic
relationships — with Colombia only serves to further destabilize the
country.

We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries. My hope is
that the trip also demonstrated that the U.S. is more than the right-wing
extremism that dominates headlines, and that we are a diverse nation not
only in identity, but also in our openness towards the world — and
especially Latin America.

Thank you for reading,

Alexandria



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1 - [ [link removed] ]Latin Post: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Other Hispanic Lawmakers,
Call On US Government To Declassify Involvement in 1973 Chile Coup


 


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