This Thursday, within the framework of the sixth edition of the Ibero-American Journalism Meeting held by elDiario.es at Casa América in Madrid, Ignacio Escolar, director of this newspaper, interviewed Jon Lee Anderson, renowned writer and journalist specialized in Latin American politics and director of the medium BOOM, a new exchange platform that starts with an eye on migrations.
With the focus on migrant narratives in Latin America, the meeting began with the screening of the documentary film ‘The damned Darien’produced by Anderson himself and the BOOM platform, an audiovisual document as well as in the form of a podcast that the American has described as “a nightmare.” “It hits hard,” acknowledged Anderson, who added: “It’s like a nightmare and we wanted to leave that feeling.”
Jon Lee Anderson explained in this interview that they chose to address the issue of migration because it was “the elephant in the room.” “It is the big issue, since on the one hand it demonstrates a little the collapse of entire systems and countries, of their rule of law, in some cases in Latin America, and on the other hand it has been the trigger for xenophobia and the extreme right, for the appearance of someone like Trump,” the journalist reasons.
Anderson remembers that “no one” has found the solution to this impasse and considers that “to a certain extent” we are “participants” by belonging to the affected Western societies. The writer points out Donald Trump as the main person responsible for placing the issue “on the front pages” during his first presidential candidacy: “he attacked Mexicans as rapists, murderers and thieves. And from there a political power has been built and we are all in suspense with that drama.”
The journalist recounted during the interview how thirty years ago he himself crossed the Darién on foot, the jungle area that connects Panama and Colombia, “in a semi-adventurous plan” following in the footsteps of Núñez de Balboa, how he came across “some outlaw” and that the area was almost entirely indigenous territory.
“It is the navel of the Americas, what unites the north and the south, and it is the only part not joined by a highway,” explains Anderson. However, as you remember, in the last three years more than a million people have passed through there on their way to the United States. The writer questions how the states responsible for this border, which separates Central America from South America, ignore the migration problem and, in turn, leave it in the hands of organized crime.
The person in charge of BOOM points directly to the Colombian government for its negligence: “The government does not get involved. There is a criminal organization that is in charge of profiting and protecting, at least on the Colombian side, these migrants,” says John Lee Anderson, who adds: “Petro has ceded territorial control to the Gulf clan.”
Asked by the director of elDiario.es, Ignacio Escolar, about the role of progressive governments in Latin America, the veteran informant highlighted the case of Chile, where Gabriel Boric’s executive has had to face the arrival of more than 800,000 Venezuelans in recent years.
Anderson has told a case related to Venezuelan immigration in Chile after several of these migrants were arrested for different crimes and the Chilean government, based on the law of the South American country, ordered their deportation to Venezuela. “Maduro did not accept them,” explained the journalist, who detailed how the Venezuelan president requested help with Guyana: “I accept the plane if you help me with Guyana. “That’s how transactional, that’s how crude.”
The role of the revolutionary left and the rise of Milei
John Lee Anderson argues that the Latin American left “has to look in the mirror” and that, in many countries, the revolution “has only been a self-proclaimed revolution.” “I met Chávez and he had some revolutionary ideas at the beginning. Nicaragua is like a South Park meets the Ceaucescu and Cuba because it can no longer sustain itself,” details the journalist, who remembers the exodus of between 10 and 20% of the Cuban population from the island in the last two and a half years or the Venezuelan migration.
“The left with revolutionary rhetoric has failed,” maintains Anderson, who insists that “they use revolutionary slogans to legitimize themselves, to legitimize their presence in power and to insist on a coercive power in which no one else participates because the revolution is sacred.” .
The American journalist recalls that there are “other lefts that are a bit far-fetched” in reference to the Mexican left (“ni chicha, ni limoná”), or the “pragmatic” left of Lula da Silva in Brazil, whom he defends as someone with training and humanist leftist instincts, but with a problem: “It has a divided country like the US and the armed forces against it.”
Faced with the situation that he describes in the revolutionary left, Anderson believes that, until he stops to reflect, he will not be able to rethink and have answers to the vicissitudes of his people to confront the “siren songs” of the “ new rebels”, whom he defines as “reactionary right-wing people” who display “the dynamism of the moment”. “They are the ones who inspire and encourage young people. And that is a challenge that they currently have on the left, not only in Latin America,” insists the writer in reference to the Argentine president, Javier Milei.
Elon Musk and his new role as a member of the US government
Jon Lee Anderson has acknowledged that he thought Elon Musk “had too much power” before taking ownership of the social network Twitter (now with Donald Trump “he almost becomes co-president.”
Regarding the drift of the social network, the journalist asks to “see what” Musk has done since he took control: “He invited back the worst kind,” he said, and detailed the return of characters such as the “misogynist” Andrew Tate , the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or the British racist Tommy Robinson.
“They were expelled for spreading hate messages on Twitter and he has brought them back for the sake of freedom of expression,” said Anderson, who recalled that “the people are not in charge of anything on social networks” and that “not only the has brought back” but rather “has made them rich” is worth anything and that the people were in charge of separating the wheat from the corn (from the chaff). The people are not responsible for anything on social networks.
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