The close relationship between the Chilean and Argentine militaries and the US Armed Forces goes back decades, including during the fascist dictatorships under Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Gen. Rafael Videla in Argentina. In Chile, those ties continued seamlessly after the Pinochet regime and are being renewed in Argentina by the fascistic Milei administration, which is attempting to refurbish the legacy of the murderous military junta that ruled the country between 1976 and 1983.
In May and June of this year, Chile’s Navy participated in the US-led “Rim of the Pacific” or RIMPAC24 Indo-pacific exercises together with personnel and ships of 28 other nations [Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador , Canada, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom, the United States]. The theme of this naval exercise was “Partners: Integrated and Prepared.”
For the first time in RIMPAC history, a member of the Chilean Navy, Commodore Alberto Guerrero, served as deputy commander of the exercise’s Command Task Force, working in the command center alongside officers from the US, Japan, Canada and Australia.
Boric, elected in 2021 in the aftermath of the savage repression of student protesters in 2019, with the support of the Morenoite pseudo-left and the Stalinist Communist Party, has betrayed all of his promises of democratic and social reform. In 2023, he rammed through draconian police state measures against workers and immigrants, which so far have been more extreme than those being imposed by his “partner” Milei on the other side of the Andes.
Earlier this year in Switzerland he warmly embraced Ukrainian dictator Volodymir Zelinsky. While critical of the genocide in Gaza, Boric did not oppose that the Chilean Navy partnered with its Israeli counterpart in RIMPAC24.
President Boric and Milei have not yet embraced each other. Milei denounces Boric and other nominally “left” leaders across the world. Nonetheless, so-called leftists Boric, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, Lula da Silva in Brazil, and others in Latin America have lined up with US imperialism together with extreme rightists and fascists such as Milei, Zelinsky and Netanyahu.
Boric and Milei are both militarizing their own societies in partnership with the US Southern Command and strengthening their military partnerships with US imperialism, which has implications for Latin America, NATO’s war on Russia, the brutal war in the Middle East and the naval provocations against China.
The militarization of Chile, Argentina and Latin America, and the growing influence of the US Southern Command are clear signs of a developing global third world war, which threatens to destroy human civilization. At the same time, the close relations being forged between the Pentagon and the Latin American military commands is creating the foundations for a new wave of US-backed coups, whenever Washington sees them as necessary.
It is imperative that the working class on both sides of the Andes mountains and across the Americas unite in struggle to stop war and the threat of dictatorship through the fight for a world socialist revolution.
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Publish date : 2024-09-02 11:36:00
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