Quintana: Latin America to Experience Phase II of the Cold War
Former Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana gave a talk on NATO and an analysis of the current conflict to the 6 Federations of the Trópico of Cochabamba (campesino union) and members of the community of Lauca Ñ (rural Cochabamba), at the request of Evo Morales. This 75-minute talk was given alongside other presentations on the occasion of the release of a new book, “Evo Operación Rescate”, authored by journalist, economist and Director of CELAG, Alfredo Serrano.
Evo, who leads as President of the 6 Federations union as well as the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) has called for internal workshop seminars on the history of NATO to deepen the understanding of campesinos who, like the rest of Latin America, will undoubtedly be affected by the conflict.
In his talk, Quintana expressed rejection of official narratives propagated by the hegemonic media, force fed from the north, and instead urged an examination of history. Quintana says that “gringo policy” towards Latin America will put in motion a “witch hunt in the region” in which Washington will say, ‘Either they’re with the West, NATO and the US, or they’re against us.’ Within this context, governments that opt for neutrality in the conflict will be put in the category of pro-Russia and subject to US blackmail, intimidation and pressure.
Below is a transcription of a small portion of Quintana’s presentation. Check our social media for subtitled videos from other parts of the talk.
Juan Ramon Quintana:
This conflict, comrades in Latin America, of course has effects. I would say that the first consequence here is that we are going to notice its geopolitical effects and we are going to experience the second phase of the Cold War. We are going to experience a cold war in a different way. What’s going to be the message of the West and what is going to be the gringo policy in the midst of this conflict?
‘Either they are with us or they are against us.’
‘Either they are with the West, with NATO and with the United States, or they are against us.’
And there is going to be a witch hunt in the region. Even governments that opt for neutrality in this conflict are going to fall into the category of suspicious and therefore pro-Russia.
And when this context occurs, the gringos more than anyone know that they have to use a policy of blackmail, intimidation and pressure against the countries that are considered pro-Russian. And what will happen to those countries, comrades? They’ll block loans. There will be unilateral sanctions, sanctions which are being developed at great speed. Unilateral sanctions are the masters of the world. Any measure with which the gringos do not agree with: unilateral sanctions. Sanctions against the Cuban people, sixty years; against the Venezuelans, twenty years; against the Nicaraguans, ten years. Today, more than a thousand sanctions against the Russians.
And who sanctioned the United States and the European Union for the brutality of the wars in the Middle East, in North Africa. Who imposed sanctions on them?
So, politics in Latin America is going to heat up. It’s going to heat up through militarization, comrades. We are not going to be exempt from new coups because there will simply be governments that do not align with Western and North American policies and the coups will come against the pro-Russians.
Surely the U.S. will find a term, like their “failed states”, for those governments that sympathize with Putin. And the coup, destabilization, interference, and the millions and millions of dollars from Europe and the United States will come to foment the destabilization of our democracies in Latin America.
The most direct consequence of this conflict, of this kind of geopolitical tsunami caused by this conflict, is going to be greater pressure on strategic natural resources: oil, gas, minerals. Consequently, we are going to continue to be, unfortunately, we are going to make our way into the category of victims of capitalist voracity to appropriate natural resources.
Comrade Evo said that the 2019 coup had to do with lithium and this conflict is proving that comrade Evo was right, because in 2019 they coup’d us so that lithium would become the property of transnational companies due to the energy conflict in Europe. The English, the Germans and the gringos all stuck their hands in here, all wanting the dictatorship to transfer Bolivia’s lithium to big transnational companies. Lithium will become, as they say, the most desired dish.
Comrades, and note that this conflict is shaking the stock market, it is affecting prices, it is changing the prices of oil, gas, and food, and this will have consequences in our region. We’ll need to prepare ourselves to face these consequences. Lastly, the obviously direct consequence is that in this game of power the right-wings are going to be most benefited, because today’s political corpses will be given a dose in order to resurrect the right-wing, obviously so that they will fight in favor of the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese project.
I haven’t dealt with the issue of China, but just as it’s happening with Ukraine and Russia, the same will happen in the case of Taiwan and China. I insist, the target today is Russia and China. They’ve forgotten about their ‘War on Terrorism’. What they are trying to do today is survive.
The West, European Union, United States, NATO. What they are trying to do is survive through their political, economic, financial and cultural crisis because the West has not given any answer to humanity. The West today is synonymous with war, destruction, weapons, atomic arsenals.
What is the culture of the West? We’re coming from, as comrade Hector (Arce) said; for 500 years they have been mutilating our ears, cutting off our noses, cutting off our hands, dismembering us, leaving horses to dismember us. That’s what the West left with us, comrades.
And that culture of destroying Nature, Mother Earth, does not cease. It does not cease in its compulsive materialistic appetite to wage war to appropriate other people’s strategic resources.
Therefore, there is a culture war. We are in the middle of a cultural war, brothers and sisters, and that implies the reaffirmation of our identity. That implies preserving the Plurinational State, this political project. That implies continuing to fight, dear colleagues, for our coca, to continue fighting for our lithium, to continue fighting for our gas, to continue fighting for the nationalization that has cost this country so many deaths, and to continue fighting for this political project, because this political project it is the antithesis of Western culture, which is a culture of death. It is a culture of war, it is a culture of confrontation, it is a culture of business over the corpses of humanity.
Juan Ramon Quintana’s 75-minute analysis of the role of NATO can be watched in Spanish on Radio Kawsachun Coca’s Facebook and YouTube. The presentation of the book “Evo Operación Rescate” can also be streamed on Facebook and YouTube.
By Kawsachun News
