Corrección: La foto de Beny More aquí fue originalmente identificada erróneamente como el músico panameño Beny Romero.
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Pintura por Rembrandt que representa a Jeremías. (Museo de Amsterdam.)
La actual crisis político-social reclama profetas
por Leonardo Boff
El profetismo es un fenómeno no solo bíblico. Consta su existencia en otras religiones como en Egipto, en Mesopotamia, en Mari y en Caná, en todos los tiempos, también en los nuestros. Hay varios tipos de profetas (comunidades proféticas, visionarios, profetas del culto, de la corte, etc.) que no cabe analizar aquí. Son clásicos los profetas del Primer Testamento (antes se decía Antiguo Testamento) que se mostraban sensibles a las cuestiones sociales, como Oseas, Amós, Miqueas, Jeremías e Isaías.
A decir verdad, en todas las fases del cristianismo siempre ha estado presente el espíritu profético, como entre nosotros innegablemente con Dom Hélder Câmara, con el Cardenal Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, con Dom Pedro Casaldáliga y otros, por hablar sólo de Brasil.
El profeta es un indignado. Su lucha es por el derecho y por la justicia, especialmente en favor de los pobres, los débiles y las viudas, contra los explotadores de los campesinos, contra los que falsifican pesos y medidas, y contra el lujo de los palacios reales. Sienten una llamada dentro de sí, interpretada en el código bíblico como una misión divina. Amós, que era un simple vaquero, Miqueas, un pequeño colono, y Oseas, casado con una prostituta, dejan sus quehaceres y van al patio del templo o delante del palacio real para hacer sus denuncias. Pero no sólo denuncian. Anuncian catástrofes y después anuncian una nueva esperanza, un comienzo nuevo y mejor.
Están atentos a los acontecimientos históricos también a nivel internacional. Por ejemplo, Miqueas increpa a Nínive, capital del imperio asirio: “Ay de la ciudad sanguinaria, en ella todo es mentira. Está llena de robo, y no para de saquear. Lanzaré sobre ti inmundicias” (3,1.6). Jeremías llama a Babilonia “la metrópoli del terror”.
Debemos entender correctamente las previsiones de los profetas. No es que predigan las catástrofes, como si tuviesen acceso a un saber especial. El sentido es este: si la situación actual persiste y no se cambia la explotación, las prácticas contra los indefensos y el abandono de la relación reverente con Javé, entonces va a suceder una desgracia.
Lógicamente desagradan a los poderosos, a los reyes e incluso al pueblo. Se les llama “perturbadores del orden”, “conspiradores contra la corte o el rey”. Por eso los profetas son perseguidos, como Jeremías, que fue torturado y encarcelado; otros fueron asesinados. Pocos profetas murieron de viejos, pero nadie les hizo callar.
Evidentemente hay falsos profetas, aquellos que viven en las cortes y son amigos de los ricos. Anuncian sólo cosas agradables y hasta les pagan para eso. Hay un verdadero conflicto entre los falsos y los verdaderos profetas. Señal de que un profeta es verdadero es el valor de arriesgar la vida por la causa de los humildes de la tierra, que siempre grita por la justicia y por el derecho y que, incansablemente, defiende lo correcto y lo justo.
Los profetas irrumpen en tiempos de crisis para denunciar proyectos ilusorios y anunciar un camino que haga justicia al humillado y que genere una sociedad agradable a Dios porque atiende a los ofendidos y a los que han sido invisibilizados. La justicia y el derecho son las bases de la paz duradera: ése es el mensaje central de los profetas.
En nuestra realidad nacional y mundial vivimos hoy una grave crisis. Agrupaciones de científicos y analistas del estado de la Tierra nos advierten que si sigue la lógica de la acumulación ilimitada estamos preparando una grave catástrofe ecológico-social. No vamos hacia el calentamiento global. Estamos ya dentro de él y las señales son innegables.
Estas voces, de las más autorizadas, no son oídas por los “decision makers” ni por los hombres de dinero. En nuestro país, sumergido en una crisis sin precedentes, gobernado caóticamente por personas incompetentes y hasta ridículas, nos faltan profetas que denuncien y apunten caminos viables para salir de este atolladero.
En línea profética están las palabras de Márcio Pochmann: “Si se mantiene el camino abierto por el neoliberalismo de Temer y ahora profundizado por el ultraliberalismo que domina el confuso gobierno Bolsonaro, la evolución de Brasil tenderá a ser la de Grecia, con cierre de empresas y quiebra de la administración pública. Lo peor se aproxima rápidamente”. Otros van más allá: “si se imponen las reformas político-sociales, conformes a la lógica del mercado, meramente competitivo y nada cooperativo, Brasil podrá transformarse en una nación de parias”. Necesitamos profetas, religiosos, civiles, hombres y mujeres, o por lo menos que tengan actitudes proféticas, para denunciar que el camino ya decidido será catastrófico.
Valgan las palabras de Isaías: “El pueblo que vive en la oscuridad verá una gran luz. A los que habitan en regiones áridas, una luz resplandecerá sobre ellos” (9,1-2).
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Venezuela crisis: Trump threats to Maduro evoke bloody history of US intervention in Latin America
An officer from Venezuela’s National Guard lobs tear gas toward demonstrators during a standoff over humanitarian aid at the Colombian border on Feb. 23, 2019. Four protesters were killed. AP Photo/Fernando Llano
Violence erupted at the Venezuela-Colombia border over the delivery of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, killing four people and injuring 24 on Feb. 22.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that his “days are numbered,” and Trump officials reiterated that the United States is considering all options, including military action, to address Venezuela’s crisis.
Almost 80 percent of Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, who was reinaugurated for a second six-year term in January after an election widely seen as fraudulent. Since taking power in 2013, he has led Venezuela into a deep economic crisis.
Despite near global condemnation of Maduro, any US intervention in Venezuela would be controversial. The long US history of interfering in Latin American politics suggests that its military operations generally usher in dictatorship and civil war – not democracy.
Cuba, the focus of my history research, is a prime example of this pattern.
US-Cuban relations have never recovered from President William McKinley’s intervention in Cuba’s war for independence over a century ago.
Before waging what in the United States is known as the Spanish-American War in 1898, McKinley promised that “the people of the island of Cuba” would be “free and independent” from Spain and that his government had no “intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over said Island.”
In the end, however, Cuba’s independence from Spain meant domination by the United States.
For 60 years after the Spanish-American War, the White House made repeated military and diplomatic interventions in Cuba, supporting politicians who protected U.} economic interests in sugar, utilities, banks or tourism and who backed American foreign policy in the Caribbean.
By 1952, when the US-backed Fulgencio Batista overthrew President Carlos Prío Socarrás, Cuba’s government had effectively become protectors of American businesses, according to my research. Batista had a warm relationship with both Washington, DC and the American organized crime groups that used to control Havana’s tourist industry.
The Kennedy administration’s trade embargo against Cuba and the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion – in which the US military trained Cuban dissidents in an attempt to unseat Castro – only pushed Cuba further into the orbit of Soviet Russia.
For the past six decades, the United States and Cuba have remained locked in a Cold War, with a brief thaw under President Barack Obama.
A Cuban plane on fire after a US-led attack in the city of Santiago in 1961. AP Photo
Anti-communist coups
Fearing that communism would spread across the hemisphere, the US government repeatedly interfered in the politics of Latin American nations during the Cold War.
In 1954 the CIA worked with elements of the Guatemalan military to overthrow elected President Jacobo Árbenz, whom US policymakers considered dangerously left-wing. Decades of dictatorship and civil war followed, killing an estimated 200,000 people.
Then there is Chile’s U.S.-supported coup d’etat. In 1973, the US government covertly assisted right-wing elements of the Chilean military in overthrowing the socialist president Salvador Allende.
General Augusto Pinochet took power with the quiet financial and political support of the United States. His dictatorship, which lasted until 1990, killed tens of thousands of Chileans.
The Dominican Republic and Panama
US intervention in Latin America did not start or end with the Cold War.
During World War I, the United States was concerned that Germany could use the Dominican Republic as a base of military operations. So American troops occupied the Caribbean island from 1916 to 1924.
The mugshot of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega after his removal and arrest by US troops.
Though the American-led administration improved the finances and infrastructure of the Dominican Republic, it also created the national guard that helped to propel Gen. Rafael Trujillo into power. His 30-year reign was savage.
President George H. W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama is the rare exception when US intervention in Latin American affairs actually created stability.
On balance, though, US military operations in Latin America have rarely brought democracy.
But they have created strong anti-American sentiment in the region, which leftist leaders from Fidel Castro to Hugo Chávez have adeptly harnessed to vilify their political opponents as mere US puppets.
Support for the U.S. government is lower now than it has been in decades. Just 35 percent of Argentines, 39 percent of Chileans and 45 percent of Venezuelans view the United States favorably, according to the Pew Research Center.
President Maduro, too, has used anti-imperialist rhetoric. He denounces US sanctions and other efforts to isolate his regime as a “gringo plot.”
A safer way to restore democracy
This history explains why a US intervention in Venezuela would be viewed with skepticism. Though Maduro is unpopular, 65 percent of Venezuelans oppose any foreign military operation to remove Maduro, according to recent polling.
Rather than plan yet another coup d’etat, I believe US efforts in Venezuela should support the work of the Lima Group, a coalition of 12 Latin American countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil, plus Canada.
The Lima Group has ruled out military force in Venezuela. Its pressure campaign to force him out peacefully has included diplomatically isolating his regime and asking Venezuela’s soldiers to pledge loyalty to Guaidó.
A negotiated settlement leading to Maduro’s voluntary departure from office is their ultimate goal.
Regional diplomacy is much slower than foreign intervention. But it avoids further bloodshed and reduces the role of anti-Americanism in Venezuela’s crisis.
It may also open a new chapter in the history of US-Latin American relations – one in which the United States takes its lead from the region, and not the other way around.
Editor’s note: Reid, who is ailing with pancreatic cancer, chose not to seek another term in the US Senate. His constituents in the State of Nevada never actually voted him out at the ballot box.
https://youtu.be/F3BZBDhpj34
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San Antonio told Jeff Bezos to beat it over a year before New York sent him packing. Shutterstock photo.
The city that refused to play Amazon’s game
by Jim Hightower — OtherWords
The richest man in the world, who heads one of the world’s largest and richest corporations, is also filthy rich in arrogance and pomposity. Jeff Bezos of Amazon demanded that a city’s officials kowtow to him by handing billions of taxpayer dollars to his retail behemoth, essentially bribing him to locate an Amazon headquarters there. But — lo and behold — the city mustered its collective integrity and pride to say “no” to his devil’s bargain.
The city I’m bragging on isn’t New York City, which recently made national news by rejecting Amazon’s attempt to fleece its taxpayers. Rather, I’m saluting San Antonio, Texas, which in 2017 simply refused to play Bezos’s con game when he first rolled it out.
While 238 cities and states groveled in front of the diminutive potentate, San Antonio’s mayor and top county official sent a “Dear Jeff” letter kissing him off. They said their city has much to offer, but any development deal “has to be the right fit; not just for the company, but for the entire community,” adding that “blindly giving away the farm isn’t our style.”
The officials wrote that a key criterion for awarding any incentives was whether a company is “a good corporate citizen.” Noting that Amazon almost certainly had already chosen its preferred location, they called the national “search” a money-grubbing scam. “This public process is, intentionally or not, creating a bidding war amongst states and cities,” they charged.
Why should public officials anywhere be throwing billions of scarce public dollars at a pompous corporate prince who neither needs nor deserves such tribute?
City and state officials everywhere need to follow the example of New York and San Antonio, agreeing to stop bidding against each other in the corporate bribe racket.
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Among the 18 Internet or social media sites “suspended” by the Electoral Tribunal, two, the above page and the Movimientos Sociales de Panamá Facebook page, are associated with the constellation of groups that revolve around the semi-underground November 29th National Liberation Movement (MLN-29) and are associated with the Broad Front for Democracy (FAD) political party.
Electoral Tribunal gag order against 18 small media and candidates’ social media pages
by Eric Jackson
On March 25, without any prior hearings, citing “complaints,” the Electoral Tribunal issued edicts “suspending” 18 Internet sides, mostly on the social media. There are restrictions on political advertising and on political polling that have been issued and the tribunal says that these were violated. Some of the social media sites include those of presidential candidates José Isabel Blandón and Rómulo Roux. Some, like Frenadeso Noticias, are general news and commentary sites that have been around for years and whose content is mostly not about elections.
Not included were Ricardo Martinelli’s media empire, which includes major newspapers, a television station and radio stations. All of Martinelli’s media feature a notable political slant in favor the the jailed ex-president and candidate for Panama City mayor and legislator.
The Panama News, which is more than 24 years old, was never notified of anything by the Electoral Tribunal when it had it “consultations” about press rules. Nor was Frenadeso Noticias ever consulted in this process.
Notwithstanding the constitutional bar against discrimination according to social class, the tribunal only notified and heard the rabiblanco media, ignoring the small publications and especially those which operate predominantly via the social media. But now, in a break from past practices of pretending that the small media and social media do not exist, the magistrates are attempting to assert control. As these three functionaries represent the scandal-plagued major political political parties, it’s probably safe to presume that this is the latest move to suppress the #NoALaReelección movement to oust as many incumbent politicians as possible from their public offices.
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It would be unwise to accept either Nicolás Maduro’s or Juan Guaidó’s narrative of this event at face value. But we do have this anonymous drone picture and others from above the Colombian side of the bridge (Colombia in the lower left corner) and there are many other photos and videos from different angles as well. The crowd is Venezuelan opposition, perhaps with some foreigners among them. In the upper right corner, in front of the Venezuelan border check point, there are security forces loyal to Maduro holding their line. Notice under the bridge the wreckage of Venezuelan government barricades that the opposition tore town and threw over the side. It’s not entirely clear who set the trucks on fire. What we do know is that the opposition lost. There were only a few desertions from the Venezuelan police and military forces. Mr. Trump and his subordinates misled gullible media and dozens of nations into expecting either an easy opposition victory or a catastrophic Maduro blunder. Those things did not happen.
What next?
The Trump administration and its creation, self-proclaimed acting Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó, have been terribly embarrassed. They announced their confrontation well in advance, brought expensive military resources to bear, staged a big media spectacle — and lost.
It was not remotely close. They will not force regime change on Venezuela without an invasion that would kill thousands of people.
Where does that leave the government of Panama, which by political statements and the use of Panamanian territory were full-fledged participants in the losing effort? Now this country is possibly vulnerable to irate militants who have reason to consider us an enemy nation and our canal a tempting target. So much for the neutrality defense. Varela squandered that to pander to the embattled blowhard US president.
None of them are likely to address the issue on the campaign trail, but it would be interesting to know what those with real chances to succeed Varela by winning the May elections would do to repair the damage. Trump’s reputation could hardly get much worse but Varela’s standing in the world has been seriously debased by this foolhardy adventure. With military escalation, it could get worse for both the United States and Panama.
Let’s not have a war in the region. Let’s not have a pathetic exiled pretender using Panama as a base of operations. Panama should step out of this Lima Group, expel Guaidó’s diplomats and conduct those sorts of proper if not so warm relations that Panama has had with many a flawed government that does, however, actually rule its country. In Washington the US House of Representatives, far from cheering for Guaidó, ought to cut funds for pretenses and belligerent pressures in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt.
All of which is not to say that Maduro is the nicest guy. He’s a problem — but a problem for Venezuelans and not outside powers to address.
Bear in mind…
There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
Saint Theresa of Jesus
I have only one superstition. I touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
Babe Ruth
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
Rebecca West
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It’s not just kids who are getting their shots. Photo by the Ministry of Health.
Whooping cough breaks out of the comarca into the Metro Area, Cocle and Panama Este – two new deaths reported
by Eric Jackson
At the end of January the Ministry of Health announced that an outbreak of whooping cough – pertussis – in a mountainous area of the Ngabe-Bugle Comarca had infected 81 people and killed nine. All of those who died were small children. Plenty of people figured that it was just a problem in that remote region.
On February 20 the ministry issued an alarming update. In the comarca there were 14 new cases, without any new fatalities. But the disease outbreak has spread far away – seven new cases in the Metro Area, two in the part of Panama City between the Panama City / San Miguelito area and Darien, and two in Cocle province. Of these 11 people who were infected, two have died.
If you are a small child or in frail health, whooping cough can easily kill you. If you are a healthy adult, you may get very ill. It’s very dangerous to pregnant women and the babies they carry. It starts with cold-like symptoms and soon gets worse. For more information, visit the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s web page about the disease at https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/materials/everyone.html
It’s all quite preventable by vaccination, and if detected in time generally treatable with antibiotics. The problem with figuring that you are at low risk of death is that you can get the infection and then spread it to others. If you or members of your household have not been vaccinated – the inoculation lasts for about 10 years – get to a physician or outpatient clinic and get immunized.
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An officer from Venezuela’s National Guard lobs tear gas toward demonstrators during a standoff over humanitarian aid at the Colombian border on Feb. 23, 2019. Four protesters were killed. 
