FOR those who still had doubts, I think that they must have been dissipated. United States imperialism, represented on this occasion by the fundamentalist Republican administration of George W. Bush, is prepared to do anything to avoid the development of national-liberation processes taking place with increasingly greater strength in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Nicaragua are in the sights of Washington which, prevented by the regional scenario – and not forgetting the existence of Brazil, Honduras, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina – from directly using its military forces like so often in the past, has turned its hand to the most barefaced interventionism and to million-dollar support for the discredited but still powerful political forces which, by majority decision, were displaced from government. Spearheads that imperial interests are trying to plunge into the very heart of those peoples.

Sowing chaos, making the region ungovernable, terrorizing the masses with assassination plots, buying those who have not as yet understood the reach of the processes of change on account of their class position or as a result of the manipulation and distortion of reality by the private and transnational media, are some of the weapons selected by Washington in a confrontation that, at this stage of events is of unpredictable consequences.

Nor should we forget the rearming of paramilitary groups of a fascist and racist nature which, in the case of Bolivia, have left a total of dozens of fatal victims and incalculable material damage, and have provoked the uncontainable anger of the majorities who, this time around, cannot be deceived, because they know that this is a war to remove them from decision making and the benefits denied them over centuries and which they are now winning after long years of struggle.

These native emulators of the Blackshirts are, moreover, being protected by the Yankee 4th Fleet, which is navigating with impunity the waters bordering the above nations in a display of bravado and threat.

Moreover, it is a war in which – as I have just read in another press commentary – "as was the case in Salvador Allende’s Chile, the most reactionary dominant national classes are Washington’s infantry, directed by not-very-remote control."

The U.S. embassies in the capitals of those countries have turned into the lairs and command headquarters of the unpatriotic imperial hordes. The rich world, however, is contemplating in silence the dirty and interventionist activities of the U.S. government which, in its final term of office, is no longer fooling anyone with its ambiguous rhetoric and its hypocritical defense of democracy and constitutional order.

The powerful neighbor to the North has deliberately ignored the fact that the governments that it is aspiring to bring down in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Nicaragua are the most genuine fruit of popular will. Some of them have been re-legitimized more than once via the ballot boxes and with unheard of degrees of acceptance on the part of the electorate.

All that flailing of the drowning is nothing more than the irrefutable expression of the empire’s awareness that the national-liberation process which has begun to consolidate and extend in Latin America and the Caribbean has put the model of domination in check and is aiming to defeat it.

Those processes are the fruit of the particularities of each nation, where the diversity of the political-ideological panorama is not braking the search for unity and consensus among them. On the contrary, the common denominator that identifies them is based on the founding principles of Simón Bolívar and José Martí, who sought in the defense of independency and sovereignty the common trunk from which each one of our peoples could freely grow.

Just a few days ago and before completing one month at the head of Paraguay’s future, President Fernando Lugo publicly stated that Colorado Party forces were plotting a coup against him. And the reasons? The external government program of the former bishop that contemplates Paraguay’s insertion in the new integration process, whose bases are solidarity and cooperation in relation to imbalances, and economic complementariness.

In the internal plan, the search for new contracts in Itaipú and Yaciretá, which will allow the state a larger income derived from hydroelectricity to be reinvested in social justice programs. It also seeks to do away with non-productive latifundia, bribery, sinecure, political and judicial administrative corruption, and the privileges of the elites to the detriment of the excluded majorities. Aspirations that, sooner or later, will clash with the interests of that exploited minority that remained entrenched in power for 61 years or were represented by it and who cannot come to terms with having lost it.

In Ecuador, the cards are on the table. There too, Washington has utilized provocations by neighbors that are its allies to block the process of change. There, as in Bolivia, the Yankees are betting everything on anti-patriotic separatism. They cannot forgive President Rafael Correa for not extending the contract to continue operating out of the Manta base, an espionage center for the region, and who is opening speaking of the viability of 21st century socialism.

In Nicaragua, the U.S. administration is trying to revert to its old tricks. It cannot overlook the fact that the Sandinista win opens a wedge in the up until recently docile Central America, where Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is beginning to leave the fold and, just a few days ago, in solidarity with his Bolivian counterpart, postponed acceptance of the incoming U.S. representative in Tegucigalpa, a position that, without any doubt, will prompt a response from Washington. Zelaya knows that and is seemingly prepared to run the risk of defending his sovereign stance.

This scenario is inhabited by governments like those of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay which, with their own peculiarities, have joined this process of change in the context of integration, and with a clear political will to consolidate the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR), so that they can respond from a position of unity to the threats and dangers that are tarnishing this historical moment that Latin America and the Caribbean is experiencing.

In relation to the gravity of the Bolivian conflict, UNASUR members met in the Chilean capital on September 15 to adopt a shared position on the illegal actions of the Media Luna separatist prefects, on the basis of respect for that sister republic’s sovereignty and self-determination and a clear recognition – with no conditions – of the government of President Evo Morales. It is heartening that the framework for expressing that solidarity is that of the UNASUR rather than the Organization of American States (OAS).

Attitudes such as those have met with the rejection of the empire, which is trying to create wedges and fissures among them, smacking of the old policy of divide and rule. Hence it has raised the specter of alleged Brazilian hegemony, and other stories like that of differences between Presidents Hugo Chávez and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Within those countries Washington’s hand is also manipulating the strings of fabricated discontent in certain sectors of society. The dispute between the Argentine government and the soy agribusinesses, or protest demonstrations in the education sector in Chile are evidence of that.

Venezuela and Bolivia merit a mention apart, given that they are the priority objectives of the empire and their leaders are facing revived assassination plots and actions of open warfare.

Because Washington fears a new defeat in the November 23 elections, when Venezuelans will vote in regional elections involving all the government structures, plus several hundred mayoralties and other posts.

In Bolivia because on August 10, President Evo Morales emerged fortified from the recall referendum with a vote of 67.41% at national level. On that occasion also, it could not down "el indio," as he is disparagingly known.

Just a few days ago a conspiracy was exposed in Venezuela, and some of those involved have been arrested. A conspiracy that coincides with increasing popularity of President Chávez and various candidates of the Revolution in relation to important governmental positions.

Once again, Washington is turning to retired and active military personnel – but without the command of troops – to present an image to the world that the Army does not support the Bolivarian process.

On this occasion the "La Hojilla" program broadcast by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) presented recordings of retired high-ranking officers talking not just of a coup d’état but of assassination.

They are Vice Admiral Carlos Alberto Millán Millán (former inspector general of the National Armed Forces), General Wilfredo Barrosos Herrera, former chief of staff of the National Guard, and Aviation Brigade General Eduardo Báez Torrealba, who was involved in the April 2002 coup.

According to the source, one of the officers can be heard saying, "Here there is just one objective: we’re going to take Miraflores Palace, the television stations… all efforts to where the man is (a reference to Chávez). If he is in Miraflores, all efforts in that direction."

Gustavo Rangel Briceño, defense minister, warned that one of the objectives of the plot is to force the suspension of the November elections and make it look as if there is a deterioration within the armed forces. "They want to divide us, separate us, they don’t want to see us as a team, as a solid bastion supporting the Bolivarian Revolution that is proposing a new country in which all of us will have opportunities."

Faced with such events, Venezuelans from all over the country have come together in their hundreds of thousands and taken to the streets to demonstrate their support for the president and the Revolution, while five Integrated Defense Strategic Military Regions – grouping the different states – have been activated.

Of course, the lower the popularity of the pro-coup and counterrevolutionary sectors in the ratings, the greater the plots to prevent the elections. In the midst of such actions, the leadership of President Hugo Chávez is growing in both a national and international context. Not only are links within the country being reinforced, but cooperation with Russia and others nations is being extended, and relations with the government of the United States, the promoter of destabilization and interference, are being dispensed with in a gentlemanly way.

Bolivia is the other immediate objective of the empire and its domestic lackeys. The attempted illegal separatism of the prefects of the rich and racist eastern Media Luna has acquired such a degree of gravity that the government of the Movement Toward Socialism has been obliged to respond by applying the law and fresh calls for dialogue.

The massacre in Pando of campesinos and indigenous communities, promoted and sanctified by Prefect Leopoldo Fernández, the Civic Committee and paramilitary groups armed with Washington money, left 30 people dead and countless wounded last week. The victims were demonstrating against the violence generated by the anti-constitutional stand of the Pando authorities, which also led to the seizure of oil installations and other public installations.

The Evo Morales government decreed a period of national mourning for the massacre victims and ordered a state of emergency in that region.

In Santa Cruz, having confirmed that the violence engendered by himself, the Civic Committee and the Santa Cruz Youth had gotten out of control, Rubén Costa, its prefect and most visceral enemy of the process of change, ordered the protection of institutions after the looting and virtual destruction of headquarters of the National Agrarian Reform Institute and the national telecommunications Company, among others.

Terror, fanaticism, vandalism and violence are added ingredients to destabilizing actions in Bolivia on the part of the opposition, protected and uplifted by the U.S. embassy in La Paz, which is why the MAS government declared Ambassador Philip Goldberg persona non grata.

At the time of writing the South American governments comprising UNASUR were meeting to express their support for and solidarity with the government of President Evo Morales, a symptom of the new times, and the prefect of Tarija had agreed to dialogue.

The will to defend the constitutional mandate given to him by the people has increased the Bolivian president’s prestige in the midst of a difficult and critical situation which, if not addressed with responsibility and maturity, could provoke a bloodbath.

The days to come will witness fresh provocations by an opposition that has decided to launch a continental crusade against the forces of change, which are, in the final analysis, the forces of life and hope.