Sanders Says He 'Welcomes Hatred of Crooks Who Destroyed Our Economy' After Blankfein Suggests He May Vote Trump Over Bernie

"I don't like that at all," the billionaire former Goldman Sachs CEO said of Sanders' wealth tax proposal.


Jake Johnson, staff writer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/21/sanders-says-he-welcomes-hatred-crooks-who-destroyed-our-economy-after-blankfein







Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday said he welcomes "the hatred of the crooks who destroyed our economy" after former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein suggested he might vote for President Donald Trump in November if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination.

"I think I might find it harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump," Blankfein, a life-long Democrat, told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday. "There's a long time between now and then. The Democrats would be working very hard to find someone who is as divisive as Trump. But with Bernie they would have succeeded."

Sanders quickly responded to Blankfein's comments on Twitter:


Blankfein said Sanders' proposed wealth tax on the ultra-rich is "just as subversive of the American character" as Trump's demonization of "groups of people who he has never met."

"I don't like that at all," Blankfein said. "I don't like assassination by categorization. I think it's un-American. I find that destructive and intemperate... At least Trump cares about the economy."




Blankfein, who has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion, told FT that he is not rich, but "well-to-do."

"I can't even say 'rich,'" said the former banker. "I don't feel that way. I don't behave that way."

The FT interview was not the first time Blankfein has spoken out against Sanders, a longtime critic of Wall Street. Following Sanders' victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary earlier this month, Blankfein tweeted that the Vermont senator is "just as polarizing as Trump and he'll ruin our economy and doesn't care about our military."

Blankfein's past criticisms of Sanders earned the former banker a spot on the senator's "anti-endorsement list" released last September.

"Lloyd Blankfein became a billionaire after his investment bank received an $824 billion taxpayer bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, paid over $5.5 billion in fines for mortgage fraud, avoided paying any federal income taxes in 2008, and lectured Congress to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," reads Blankfein's section on Sanders' anti-endorsement page.

A Tax Haven Called Puerto Rico

Abner Dennis. Little Sis. February 19, 2020

Puerto Rico has become a tax haven. But the tax haven is bankrupt.

On the one hand, the central government and several of its public corporations are bankrupt. For three years, Puerto Rico has suffered the imposition of an oversight board that implements severe austerity measures that impoverished people every day. Massive cuts in public spending are intended to save money to pay bondholders, primarily so that Wall Street vulture funds can rake in millions in profits.

On the other hand, the government grants tax exemptions to large corporations and multi-millionaire investors who take advantage of the precarious situation in the country. In 2017 alone, the fiscal cost of all tax exemptions was estimated at over $20 billion.

There is hardly any public discussion about the magnitude of these exemptions. The country has long remained in the dark about who the beneficiaries of these exemptions are. However, the government is taking affirmative steps towards greater transparency.

The Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) published the list of individuals and companies benefiting from several of the tax exemptions that currently exist. Each record in the data set includes the law that authorizes the exemption, the name of the beneficiary, and the date the incentive was approved.

This article highlights some of the beneficiaries included in the list.

Among the most notorious of these laws are Acts 20 and 22. Act 20 imposes an income tax of only 4% on companies that export their goods or services outside of Puerto Rico. Act 22 frees individuals that move to Puerto Rico, particularly investors, from paying taxes in dividends and capital gains. The list also includes one of the most important tax exemption laws, Act 73 of 2008, known as the Economic Incentives for the Development of Puerto Rico Act.

The list published by the DDEC records 1,924 Act 20 designations from 2012 to 2019. In the case of Act 22, it has helped generate a kind of gentrification on a larger scale, where millionaires move to Puerto Rico to pay almost no taxes while thousands of families emigrate from the country due to poor living conditions. According to a study published by the DDEC, from 2012 to 2019, 2,612 designations were approved under Act 22. Meanwhile, the census numbers show that in those same 8 years Puerto Rico lost around 440,000 inhabitants.

However, the tax cost of Acts 20 and 22 is negligible if we compare them with those provided by the Economic Incentives for the Development of Puerto Rico Act.

The tax haven cost: $20 billion

In 2017, while Ricardo Rosselló’s administration closed 183 public schools and, under the auspices of the oversight board, approved a cut of more than $500 million to the budget of the University of Puerto Rico, the government granted $20 billion in tax concessions.

This number emerges from a report published by the Puerto Rico Department of Treasury in September 2019, when it first disclosed the expenses incurred by the government in granting each of the existing tax concessions (reductions in taxes payable) in the country. The “Tax Expenditure Report for the 2017 Tax Year” details all tax concessions (exemptions, credits, etc.) granted by the government in 2017 and its fiscal cost. In other words, the report identifies each tax concession and the amount of money that the Treasury stopped entering for them.

The cost of all tax concessions for 2017 was over $20 billion. To get an idea of ​​the magnitude of this loss, it is more than double the operational budget allocated to the government for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. This in a country with a bankrupt government and with 43% of the population living below the federal poverty level.

It must be mentioned that some of these companies do business in Puerto Rico just because they enjoy these tax exemptions. With the publication of this report the debate on the effectiveness of the exemptions becomes more important.

The largest slice was to pay for Act 73 of 2008, known as the Economic Incentives for the Development of Puerto Rico Act. According to the report, Act 73 had a cost of over $15.6 billion, that is, about 75% of the total cost of all tax concessions. The report also states that 98% of the income subject to tax under this act, as well as under the Tax Incentives Act of 1998, comes from foreign corporations.

It is important to highlight that this report does not include information on Act 154 of 2010 that imposes a 4% excise tax on foreign corporations, mainly multinational companies that manufacture in Puerto Rico. Revenues from this tax for 2019 were $2 billion, which represented 18% of all revenues of the Puerto Rico Department of Treasury. These companies pay the 4% in Puerto Rico but deduct it in their federal payroll as a tax credit. The tax was supposed to be a temporary one, so the US Department of the Treasury is pressuring the local government to get a substitute and eliminate the credit.

Negotiations between the government and the multinational companies to evaluate alternatives to the 4% excise tax are taking place with little to no public disclosure and transparency.

Every penny that does not enter the public treasury as a result of these tax exemptions is money that cannot be invested in improving schools, hospitals and roads, or for the payment of pensions and salary improvements to teachers, among others.

The report on the cost of tax concessions for 2018 is stated to be published in March 2020.

Some names in sight

At the time of publishing this article, the DDEC list contains ten laws and about 10,800 names of individuals and companies. From the exam we did of the list we highlight the following names:

Pietrantoni Méndez & Álvarez (PMA): PMA is one of the largest law firms in Puerto Rico and in September 2014 they received an Act 20 decree. They are most known for their corporate practice. Several multinational corporations stand out on their website as clients, as do the three local banks, Popular, FirstBank and Oriental Bank. Furthermore, PMA is one of the law firms that has benefited most from the creation of Puerto Rico’s debt. Documents of the offering statements of bond issuances of the government and its public corporations show that, between 1997 and 2014, PMA participated as legal advisor in at least 56 bond issuances. Together, these issuances totaled over $40 billion. It is not possible to know how much PMA profited for its services in these transactions from the current publicly available documents.
Rushmore Loan Management Services LLC: Rushmore is a firm that invests in the real estate market, particularly in the administration of mortgage loans. The firm announced the start of its Puerto Rico business in August 2014. By November 2015, Rushmore already enjoyed the benefits of Act 20.
Meanwhile, according to the Puerto Rico Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions, between 2014 and 2019 Rushmore executed 2,369 mortgages. A report by Hedge Clippers showed that Rushmore is a subsidiary of Roosevelt Management Company LLC, which in turn is affiliated with TPG Capital, one of the largest private equity funds in the United States. TPG manages a total of $119 billion in assets.

The Ferré Rangel Family: The Ferré Rangel family stands out as one of the richest families in Puerto Rico. In addition to owning multiple companies, they also belong to several boards of directors of nonprofit organizations, such as the Ponce Museum of Art, the Sor Isolina Ferré Center, and the Center for a New Economy, among others. They also have interests in Banco Popular since María Luisa Ferré Rangel is a director and shareholder of Popular Inc., the bank’s parent company.
The Ferré Rangel family has at least three corporations that benefit from Act 20. They are GFR Media LLC, the company that owns El Nuevo Día and Primera Hora newspapers; GFR Services Inc., a company that, according to its 2018 financial statement, offers administrative services to the other companies of the Ferré Rangel; and Linkactiv Automotive LLC (now Linkactiv North America LLC), a call center and marketing company.

Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico LLC: Microsoft is one of the largest companies in the world. The technology giant is mainly dedicated to the development of programs and operating systems for computers, such as Windows and Office. According to Forbes magazine, the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, is the second richest person in the world, with a net worth of over $100 billion. Last year, Microsoft reached a market value of $1 trillion (a 1 followed by twelve zeros). However, one of its subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico LLC, has enjoyed the benefits of Act 20 since December 2018 and of Act 73 since May 2019.
Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico LLC is key to Microsoft’s strategy to pay less taxes through transfer pricing, which is when two affiliated companies make transactions with each other. According to a report by ProPublica, Microsoft has transferred at least $39 billion in profits from the United States to Puerto Rico since 2005. To achieve this, Microsoft sold the exclusive rights of its technology for the production of CDs with its programs for the North and South American markets to Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico LLC. The earnings were then reported in Puerto Rico, where they pay almost a 0% tax rate, instead of reporting them in the United States, where they would have paid a 35% tax rate.

Nicholas Prouty: Prouty, an Act 22 beneficiary since October 2013, is a businessman known for being the owner of Ciudadela in Santurce. Ciudadela is a housing project for wealthy people and its construction was made possible by the forced expropriation of the San Mateo community. Prouty was not part of that expropriation process, as they were before his purchase of Ciudadela in 2012 through Putnam Bridge Funding. Recently, Ciudadela was mentioned in former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher’s second arrest by the FBI. Keleher is accused of assigning land from a public school to Ciudadela in exchange for benefits in terms of rent and purchase of an apartment in the project.
Brian Tenenbaum : Tenenbaum, an Act 22 beneficiary since December 2014, is the chief operating officer of The Morgan Reed Group in Puerto Rico. Tenenbaum’s name appears in a contract with the Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP) for the purchase of what was a public school by Mr Blue Ocean LLC. The name of the administrator and the emails that appear on the certificate of incorporation of this company are related to The Morgan Reed Group, a real estate firm with properties in several states of the United States and Puerto Rico. An examination of several contracts registered by the DTOP at the Comptroller’s Office shows that corporations related to The Morgan Reed Group bought at least four public schools in 2019. Here are the contracts: Mr Blue Ocean LLC, Shinrai Holdings LLC, and this one and this one from Mr Bull LLC.

U.S. reiterates call for elections in Haiti as U.N. Security Council receives grim report

JACQUELINE CHARLES. Miami Herald. February 20, 2020

If the U.N. Security Council hoped to hear about improvements in Haiti four months after it permanently removed its 15-year peacekeeping mission from the troubled nation, it received a grim awakening Thursday.

Both U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ representative in Haiti, Helen La Lime, and Marie Yolene Gilles, a leading human rights activist in the country, painted a climate of deteriorating human rights and disappearing rule of law. Gilles said Haitians are subject to raging malnutrition, kidnappings for ransom, rapes and gang violence that have forced the courts in Port-au-Prince to be closed since September.

“The two associations of magistrates in the country have deserted the tribunals until safety returns,” she said.

“The freedom of movement is not guaranteed; neither is the right to physical integrity and the dignity of the human person,” she said, addressing the council via video conference from Port-au-Prince. “Roads are dangerous, the fiefdoms of armed gangs have become inaccessible to law enforcement officers. ... We witness odious killings, decapitations, rapes, robberies, embezzlement, the diversion of supplies, abductions and kidnappings. Fear reigns over university students, school pupils and the civilian population in general.”

Gilles’ disturbing look at the situation in Haiti — and La Lime’s admission that attempts by her office, the representatives of the Vatican and the Organization of American States in Port-au-Prince to break the political gridlock have failed to yield a political accord between President Jovenel Moïse and opposition groups — led the Dominican Republic’s U.N. ambassador to issue a stark rebuke.

Haiti’s deepening economic, social and political crisis, Ambassador José Singer said, is precisely why his nation, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, opposed the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers in October.

“Today we can sadly see the chaos that has resulted,” said Singer, who is in charge of U.N. Security Council matters for the Dominican Republic. “What are the results? A deep constitutional crisis, rampant violence fueled by illicit traffic and the excessive accumulation of small arms, weapons and ammunition, which has significantly contributed to the spread of organized crime including gangs.

“These gangs have conducted, assaults and killings and homicides, putting at risk the progress achieved over the past 15 years by a peacekeeping mission and subjecting the population to extremely high levels of insecurity,” he said.

The meeting in New York was the first since the Security Council agreed to pull out the last of its specialized, heavily armed U.N. foreign police units that had brought stability to Haiti, and replace the mission with a much smaller special political mission with human rights investigators and 25 police advisers.

As head of the U.N.’s Integrated Office in Haiti, La Lime recently oversaw the publication of a report on human rights violations and abuses by gangs and police in Port-au-Prince’s Bel Air neighborhood in November. The report, which looks at the expansion of lawlessness in the impoverished neighborhood, accused Haitian authorities of not protecting Bel Air residents from corrupt officers and gang leaders.

But most of La Lime’s focus since the creation of the new mission has been on leading the unsuccessful political negotiations.

During two rounds of negotiations in mid-December 2019 and late January with moderate members of the opposition, Moïse representatives and members of his political PHTK party, La Lime said a consensus emerged on the contours of a political agreement based on four elements: the criteria for forming a government; the contents of a reform agenda; a constitutional reform process; and the establishment of an electoral calendar.

“Despite progress regarding the nature of the reforms to be undertaken, including that of the Constitution, political actors have yet to settle on a formula that would lead to the designation by President Moïse of a consensual Prime Minister and the formation of a new government,” she said. “The lack of agreement on this matter, as well as on the remaining length of President Moïse’s term, threatens to needlessly prolong a situation that has already lasted too long.”

Haiti, La Lime noted, is about to enter its second year with a caretaker government with an economy that’s forecast to sink deeper into recession and 4.6 million Haitians facing a humanitarian crisis.

The terms of all but 10 members of the Haitian Parliament have expired, leaving Moïse to rule by executive order as the population struggles with a rise in crime. Meanwhile, the country’s 15,000 U.N. trained and U.S.-backed Haiti National Police force is facing an implosion as some members take to the streets in violent protests to decry their miserable working conditions and poor pay, and demand the right to form a union.

“The crisis endured by Haiti is first and foremost a political crisis,” said France’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Anne Gueguen. “Haiti is currently lacking all forms of parliamentary representations and Haiti’s political history tells us that that situation is untenable.”

Gueguen called on Moïse and Haiti’s other politicians to commit to “a genuine dialogue” — a call reiterated throughout the session by Security Council members — in order for legislative elections to be held.

Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., reiterated the Trump’s administration’s push for democratic order to return to Haiti and addressed Moïse’s push to overhaul the constitution. She said Haiti needs to hold legislative elections as soon as it’s feasible so that a fully functioning government can be formed to respond to the needs of the people.

“The Haitian people must have a voice in selecting its leaders. And further, while constitutional reforms are necessary and welcomed, they must not become a pretext to delay elections,” Kraft said.

The session ended with Haiti’s representative, Fritzner Gaspard, addressing the council. He acknowledged that Haiti is facing a very difficult time that is threatening its social order.

The domestic currency, the gourde, depreciated 22 percent last year against the U.S. dollar; tax revenues decreased 4.3 percent compared to the previous year, and there has been a massive loss of jobs, Gaspard said. The violence and political unrest that blanketed the country last year, he said, meant that the government could not achieve its projected 3.4 percent growth from agricultural, tourism and infrastructure investments.

“In this regard, the government of the Republic of Haiti has taken note of all concerns expressed in this report by the secretary-general and also supports the main observations,” Gaspard said about the written report U.N. Secretary-General Guterres submitted to the council ahead of the discussions.

Gaspard said Moïse, who just started the third year of his five-year term and has balked at calls to reduce his mandate by a year as part of the negotiations, remains committed “to reaching an agreement between the main players in the country, notably those of the opposition, in the business and civil society.”

“The discussions will continue this week,” Gaspard said. “A global agreement has not yet been reached between the players. However, it is clear that significant progress has been obtained: that of pushing the main political actors to put themselves around a table for a dialogue centered on the need to get out of the current political deadlock.”

On Thursday, Haiti’s justice ministry announced the creation of a five-member commission to address police grievances and gave it 48 hours to come up with recommendations. Moïse later announced the commission will have 24 hours.

Protests continue in the Dominican Republic amid e-vote scandal

JIM WYSS. Miami Herald. February 19, 2020

Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the Dominican Republic again late Wednesday, as anger grows after the Caribbean nation was forced to cancel Sunday’s municipal election amid glitches with its electronic voting system. And police said there were indications of “sabotage” or ballot manipulation that may lead to more arrests.

Waving flags and beating pots and pans in front of the Central Electoral Board, protesters chanted “They must go! They must go!” On Tuesday, a similar demonstration was broken up by tear gas.

So far officials say they are staying despite the simmering outrage and indications that authorities were trying to manipulate the vote.

Roberto Saladín, one of the members of the Central Electoral Board, said neither he nor his colleagues will step down.

“The Dominican people deserve for this entity to organize these elections and not abandon this process in the middle,” he said Wednesday, according to the Listin Diario newspaper. “We are not going to resign, we can’t do it.”

Saladín said that if the people wanted them ousted they should take them to court.

The protests come after the nation of 11 million had to halt municipal elections on Sunday after just three hours amid widespread problems.

Authorities said that about half of polling places using the electronic ballot machines reported problems. While the machines were only being used in the capital and 17 out of 158 municipalities, they were in some of the most populous regions of the country, the Associated Press reported.

ELECTION DO-OVER
As opposition parties complained that some of their candidates were not appearing on the electronic ballots, the government took the unprecedented step of scrapping the vote and calling for a new, manual vote, on March 15.

Late Wednesday, National Police Spokesman Frank Félix Durán Mejía said that police Col. Ramón A. Guzmán Peralta and Manuel Antonio Regalado, a technician for the Claro telecom company, had been detained for trying to derail the vote. However, he suggested they were simply following orders and “collaborating with the principal authors.”

Durán did not name other people, saying the investigation was ongoing.

The problems come as electronic voting systems are coming under scrutiny around the world. Results from this month’s Iowa democratic primary caucus are still unknown after the e-voting system there failed.

The Dominican Republic is asking outside organizations to audit the electronic voting system.

The Organization of American States said it’s considering keeping observers in the Dominican Republic until the new vote is held.

“The mission recognizes that, given the tension in the country, the different actors have expressed their commitment to peace,” the OAS said in a statement. “The mission considers it essential to intensify the dialogue between the political parties and the electoral authority in order to guarantee credible, reliable and transparent elections.”

President Danilo Medina has called for calm and demanded a thorough investigation to make sure the electoral system is reliable and transparent for the new election and the presidential vote in May.

“It’s time to reflect, to fix our errors and bring out the best in ourselves,” he said in a nationally televised address this week. “That’s what the country needs right now. We all must be patriots.”

El Bukelazo: Shades of Dictatorship in El Salvador

Hilary Goodfriend. NACLA. February 19, 2020

On Sunday, February 9, armed soldiers in full camouflage entered the Salvadoran legislature. They fanned out across the half-empty chambers, stationing themselves behind startled deputies and lining the hallways. Outside, snipers perched atop government buildings. President Nayib Bukele marched into the occupied chambers and took his seat in the Assembly President’s chair. “Now I think it’s quite clear who has control of the situation,” he said.

The chilling spectacle recalled the darkest days of Salvadoran military dictatorship, and marked a stark contrast to Bukele’s carefully cultivated image as a youthful, post-ideological reformer. The ease with which the so-called millennial president demolished the fragile institutional consensus of the 1992 Peace Accords that ended the 12-year civil war only confirmed what Bukele’s critics have long warned: The president is flirting with fascism.

The Crisis

The constitutional crisis began on February 6, following lawmaker’s reticence to approve a $109 million international loan requested by the Bukele administration for security equipment. Bukele, who campaigned on the slogan “There’s enough money when nobody steals,” claimed the funds were necessary for the implementation of “Phase Three” of the government’s “Territorial Control Plan” against gang violence.

For the first time in Salvadoran history, the president invoked Article 167 of the Constitution, which empowers the executive to convene the legislature in emergency situations. Bukele called an extraordinary legislative session for 3:00 PM on February 9 and invited the public to rally outside “to defend the country’s security and give our soldiers and police the conditions they deserve.” “If the deputies do not attend,” he tweeted, “they will be breaking with the constitutional order and the people will have the power to apply Article 87 of the Constitution,” which governs the people’s right to insurrection. If the legislators refused, Bukele claimed the power to dissolve the congress.

Bukele, who campaigned to victory in 2019 against both parties after his 2017 expulsion from the FMLN, rallied his followers against the lawmakers as traitors to the nation and complicit with the gangs.But the two largest parties in the Assembly, the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party and the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), rejected the president’s authority. Bukele, who campaigned to victory in 2019 against both parties after his 2017 expulsion from the FMLN, rallied his followers against the lawmakers as traitors to the nation and complicit with the gangs.

On Friday, February 7, Bukele sent a sobering message to the legislators, dispatching the National Civil Police and Armed Forces to their homes to strip the deputies of their government-assigned security detail. The next day, the Armed Forces announced their fealty to Bukele, declaring: “All our troops have sworn loyalty to the President of the Republic and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and we await his orders.” State security forces surrounded the legislature. They ousted Congress’s security guards and rebuffed members of the press who tried to gain access. Government workers began assembling a stage platform outside the legislature’s gates.

As opposition lawmakers and civil society groups raised international alarms, the notorious right-wing coup apologist and president of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, offered his support to Bukele: “I spoke with El Salvador’s Foreign Minister by phone. She expressed her administration’s respect for the constitution and institutionality, and reaffirmed President Bukele’s government’s commitment to security policies that have yielded positive results.”

On Sunday, hundreds gathered at the government center in downtown San Salvador. The president’s recently-formed New Ideas party mobilized attendees using government buses. Many of those present, clad in Bukele’s signature baby blue, were public employees. White canopies lined the street, under which state workers handed out bottled water. Vice President Félix Ulloa and members of the cabinet rallied with supporters.

Inside, only 28 of 84 legislators obeyed the president’s summons, not enough for a quorum. Deputies of the right-wing GANA party, which sponsored Bukele’s 2019 presidential bid after he failed to register New Ideas in time, presented themselves, as did three dissident ARENA legislators and members of smaller conservative parties. The FMLN, which was celebrating its 40th annual convention, was the only party to boycott the Sunday session entirely.

The mood in the chambers was congratulatory at first. But the Armed Forces’ sudden entrance appeared to distress the assembled representatives. After taking his seat in the occupied legislature, Bukele raised his hands to face in silent prayer. Then he stood and, military escort in toe, strode out of the building and onto the awaiting stage. “I asked God,” he told the rapt audience, “And God said to me, ‘Patience.’” He gave the legislators a week to approve the loan.

Fallout

The reaction to the so-called “Bukelazo” was swift and resounding. Feminist groups rallied the following day, shouting the now-famous Chilean refrain: “¡El Estado opresor es un macho violador!” On Saturday, February 15, community organizations held a vigil for peace in downtown San Salvador.

Major Salvadoran social movement organizations, including the National Alliance Against Water Privatization and the Roundtable for Food Sovereignty, issued a joint statement: “The images of soldiers and police invading the chambers recall the dictatorial and repressive past that the president’s millennial democracy seeks to revise. The Bukelian performance included the flagrant violation of the secular state: The president spoke to God, surpassing even the Bolivian coup president Jeanine Áñez who carried the Bible into the presidential palace. […] As popular organizations, we condemn and denounce this serious setback in our national history, and we demand that it not remain impugn.” The groups called on the Attorney General’s Office and Supreme Court to take action and urged the legislature to take up longstanding measures of public interest beyond public safety that have been sidelined by right-wing parties, such as the enshrining of water as a public good and a human right, the de-privatization of the pension system, and progressive tax reform.

The FMLN filed suits with the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, and international bodies against the administration and called for the resignation of the heads of the PNC and Armed Forces. “We want to tell the president that we have already confronted thugs, with power and with guns. We are prepared to resist however necessary for democracy. We are prepared to fight against dictators,” declared FMLN General Secretary Oscar Ortiz.

Outcry sprang from within the ranks of Bukele’s coalition as well. “Militarizing the chambers was not necessary. We came in good faith,” a representative of the GANA party told the press outside the legislature Sunday. Key backers of the administration balked. The top representatives of Salvadoran capital issued a stern rebuke, concerned that Bukele’s actions “sent a signal that you should think twice before coming to invest in El Salvador.” “I do not approve of the presence of the Armed Forces in the legislature,” the U.S. Ambassador warned.

The Attorney General opened investigations into the incident. And on Monday, February 10, the Supreme Court announced it had accepted a suit of unconstitutionality against the administration. The magistrates issued an injunction invalidating any extraordinary legislative session and ordering the president to “abstain from using the Armed Forces in activities contrary to those constitutionally established and from putting at risk the republican, democratic, and representative form of government, the pluralist political system, and in particular the separation of powers.” The injunction also ordered the Minister of Defense and Director of the National Civil Police “not to exercise functions and activities other than those constitutionally and legally mandated.”

Damage Control

In response to the injunction, Bukele tweeted: “We will fight this. With the help of God, the people, our Armed Forces, and our National Civil Police. No matter how many resolutions they issue. We know they will try to protect the system. We are ready to give everything, even this position, which just like life itself, is only borrowed.” But his administration scrambled to contain the damage. The office of the presidency issued a statement entitled “Bukele calls for calm in the face of the demand for insurrection,” and in a subsequent communique committed to respecting the Court’s mandate.

As international outcry swelled, including denunciations from U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and leading members of the Progressive Caucus, the administration continued to revise its version of the events. In a February 15 op-ed in the Miami Herald, Bukele wrote: “My administration was deeply concerned about a popular uprising of frustrated Salvadorans mobilized against the National Assembly. This is why we asked the military to be present, should violence erupt as tens of thousands of Salvadorans gathered outside the National Assembly calling for the removal of its members.”

In the op-ed, Bukele doubled down on his law and order rhetoric, writing that the leadership of the “pro-Maduro FMLN” and “the right-wing death-squad sponsor ARENA” parties is “actively engaged with terrorist groups in El Salvador,” citing a recent investigation implicating ARENA politician Norman Quijano in deal-making with gangs. Bukele claimed his security strategy was responsible for the reduction in the official murder rate under his tenure, and that without the loan, “our law enforcement and military officials will be left vulnerable to the terrorist organizations financed by members of the National Assembly.”

Bukele’s repressive anti-gang policing plan is no innovation—his strategy is a continuation of the very same U.S.-backed zero-tolerance strategy that has dominated Salvadoran security policy for decades.The cynicism of Bukele’s spin is hard to overstate. Bukele’s repressive anti-gang policing plan is no innovation—his strategy is a continuation of the very same U.S.-backed zero-tolerance strategy that has dominated Salvadoran security policy for decades. Indeed, these measures have only escalated the violence over time, radicalizing and fortifying the gangs while criminalizing poor Salvadoran youth. Analysts have raised serious questions about the official homicide figures, pointing to a rise in disappearances and extrajudicial killings by state security forces. Others, like researcher Janette Aguilar, suggest that Bukele, who negotiated with gangs as Mayor of San Salvador, is employing the same tactics today.

A Turning Point

Bukele appears to have overplayed his hand, alarming human rights defenders and oligarchic elites alike. The administration hastened to minimize the offense, but Bukele’s dictatorial disposition has been laid bare.

Whatever its outcome, the crisis, calculatingly contrived by the president, marks the radicalization of his project. Bukele campaigned as a Silicon Valley-style disrupter, positioning himself against a corrupt political class encumbered by outdated ideological divisions and pledging to mobilize international investment to catapult El Salvador into the 21st century. Rapidly, however, he assembled all the signifiers of the ascendant fascist right. By exalting and politicizing the Armed Forces, conflating any opposition with “terrorist” criminal gangs, and embracing evangelical Christian fundamentalists, Bukele is aligning himself and his base with the region’s most reactionary forces.

In his June 2019 inauguration speech, Bukele claimed to have “turned the page on the postwar.” On January 16, his administration became the first not to commemorate the anniversary of the UN-negotiated Peace Accords that demilitarized the state and established a fraught neoliberal democracy in El Salvador. The events of February 9 confirmed in the most frightening terms Bukele’s contempt for that struggle—both its modest achievements and many unmet demands.

Polling shortly before the crisis showed that six months into his term, Bukele remained broadly popular. His consolidation of power comes—not coincidentally—as the electoral Left is at its weakest in decades. El Salvador’s social movements and dissidents face the formidable task of cultivating a mass opposition to the president’s agenda where little exists. As Bukele challenges the key tenets of the peace accords, though, the stakes for the country’s nascent postwar democracy have never been higher.

Colombia: Colonel Involves General in Extrajudicial Killings

TeleSUR. February 20, 2020

Colombian Colonel Alvaro Amortegui said that General Mario Montoya ordered him to kill 17 civilians captured in an operation and make them appear as if they were guerrilla fighters killed in combat.

"In 2001... I captured 17 guys inside a house. [Montoya] called me on my cell phone and told me, 'I've already sent you the bracelets.' Then I replied, 'don't send me the bracelets... I captured these men alive and they stay alive'," said Colonel Amortegui during an interview with Caracol Radio in which he also reported the theft of ammunition, uniforms and other Army material.

This senior officer mentioned that all this happened when he returned from Sinai, a peninsula in Egypt where the Colombian troops are part of the peacekeeping mission of the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO).

Given the implications of his claims, the Caracol Radio journalists asked Colonel Amortegui to better explain what happened with General Montoya, who was commander of the Colombian Army between 2006 and 2008, during the Presidency of Alvaro Uribe, a far-right politician who has been investigated by the Supreme Court.

"Colombia.-Colonel Alvaro Amortegui said that while he was under the command of Gen. Mario Montoya in 2001, he suggested that he put 17 detainees under" casualties "in combat with FARC guerrillas. After he refused to To do so, Montoya snapped at him: "You are a coward. You disgust me." The meme's photo includes former President Alvaro Uribe (L) and Gen. Mario Montoya (R).

In his response, Amortegui indicated that General Montoya was referring to the bracelets used by the militants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

"He sent me FARC bracelets. Because [the 17 captured] were not FARC [fighters]," the colonel said.

The journalists insisted that Amortegui provide more details about what the General was asking for, to which he replied that Montoya "was asking me to kill them. What else do you want?."

Eight days ago, Retired General Montoya declared for the first time before the Special Justice for Peace (JEP), although his appearance was described by the victims of state terrorism as "a mockery."

"It was a mockery before the transitional justice mechanism, which has the task of investigating the most serious crimes committed amidst the armed conflict," said lawyer Jose Alvear Restrepo who represents the victims of state crimes.

Between 1988 and 2014, the "false positives" was a practice whereby the military cheated poor young people, even those with disabilities, with promises of employment and then took them to distant places to execute them.

The bodies of these civilian victims used to be later presented to the authorities as if they had been killed-in-combat guerrilla fighters, which allowed the military to obtain benefits from their superiors.

So far, the Colombian Prosecutor's Office has investigated about 5,000 cases of extrajudicial killings. At least 1,500 officials and troops were involved in these illegal practices.

Colombia's Public School Teachers Start Two-Day Strike

Reuters. February 20, 2020

BOGOTA — Public school teachers in Colombia launched a two-day strike on Thursday to protest violence against the profession and killings of activists and other community leaders, leaving more than 7 million children without classes.

The teachers' protest precedes a general strike planned for March 25. The action is part of three-month-old protests organized by unions and student groups against the social and economic policies of President Ivan Duque.

The Colombian Federation of Education Workers (Fecode), the largest teachers' union in the country, said 300,000 teachers were taking part in the strike.

"Our teachers continue to be threatened and attacked," Fecode head Nelson Alarcon told Reuters, adding that so far this year, one teacher has been killed and 240 have received threats.

"This government is indolent. It isn't taking measures to protect their lives," he said during a protest in Bogota.

The teachers, who were taking part in marches in the South American county's major cities, denounced the killings and threats against human rights activists, indigenous leaders, labor figures and other social leaders.

Teachers called on the government to honor agreements to improve their medical care and increase resources for public education.

According to Indepaz, a think tank focused on peace-building, 51 social leaders have been killed in Colombia this year. In 2019, 253 social leaders were killed.

The government blames the killings on dissidents of demobilized guerrilla-group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and drug-trafficking criminal groups.

Education Minister Maria Victoria Angulo said the government has met teachers' demands and moved staff who have received threats in insecure regions.