The Secretariat of the Continental Cry of the Excluded to the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean on October 12 [2017].

October 2017 brings in its breast the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Che Guevara, as well as the Centenary of the Russian Revolution. Both events, more than simple memories, are constant and renewed invitations to ask questions now, challenge the limits that the system imposes and to continue the struggle for social transformation, for Justice, Work and Life for all.

The world is going through a complex wave of authoritarian and fascist ascent that is linked to the economic violence exercised by the moneyed elites against the greater part of the world population, even in the countries called “developed”. The perversity of the dominant neoliberal, ultra-elitist economic model, is manifested in a dramatic form in the abysmal social inequality and in the environmental crisis without precedence in human history, unleashed by the “success” of a model that only serves boundless accumulation and the pornographic concentration of wealth, sacrificing, in the modern “satanic mills” (to employ an expression that has renewed relevance), more than 90% of humanity and an entire planet and its multiple forms of life, that are now threatened or already extinct from the face of the Earth.

Thus, fifty years after the martyrdom of Che Guevara we recall that his struggles continue to be our own, in spite of all the changes; and 100 years on from the Russian Revolution, we recall that only a popular mobilization is capable of bringing deep transformations in history, in the quest for a society inclusive of all the differences and visions in the world (especially those that were historically marginalized), and where we finally learn that we cannot destroy our mother Gaia, Pachamama, with impunity, but rather we face the penalty of putting an end to the conditions of existence that make our life in this world possible. Once again, it is becoming clear that the society that must be constructed will be post-capitalist and profoundly democratic, or it will not be a society at all.

This October 12, a date of popular, indigenous and peasant struggle and resistance, arrives in a scenario in which the Latin American rightwing has gained a great part of the initiative, coming back to impose a neoliberal model with a blank slate in countries such as Brazil and Argentina. The incessant putschist cycle initiated in 2002 in Venezuela, continued in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012) and more recently in Brazil (2016), has not only announced but has already materialized great threats for our continent, showing that true change will only be possible with more struggle and popular organization, including the strengthening of our Latin American and Caribbean bonds .

This October 12 finds us, also with the cruel drama of Puerto Rico totally devastated (as well as other Caribbean islands), not only by hurricanes, but by the long imperialist night, that has lasted over a century and has submitted the Puerto Rican people to a long and systematic pillage of their natural resources, of their rights and their right to free self-determination. The situation of Puerto Rico after the hurricanes Irma and Maria is not explained only by the disproportional force of these events (always stronger with the destruction of nature by capital, as the saying goes), but that it has its origins in the American imperial influence, the absurdity of which came to an extreme with the declarations of Donald Trump in which he blames Puerto Rico for the present calamity and guarantees to “Wall Street” that the Puerto Rican “debts” will be paid, as the country is sinking and the indifference of the Empire harasses us with nearly infinite insolence and despising, yet will not succeed in conquering Puerto Rican dignity, today submitted to perhaps the greatest trial of its whole history.

This October 12 we are urged to defend the Cuban Revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, since both processes are strongholds of our history and our contemporary struggles and it is there where a great part of our history is at stake over the next 20 or 30 years. This without forgetting the extraordinary relevance of Bolivia and Ecuador and the many expressions of resistance that take place across the whole extent of the continent, that often arise in the face of disproportionate forces, against historical enemies or “recent arrivals”, as Our America and its resources are disputed by the great actors of the savage capitalism of our days: the United States, Europe and China (and their corporations), this latter power increasingly active in the region and whose presence we need to analyze in a critical and counterhegemonic way, including the not very clear relations that have been established with the governments in all our countries through foreign trade, works and “cheap” financing.

We are looking at an increasingly asphyxiating dominance of financial capital on a global scale, that today is over 15 times greater than all the wealth of the global economy but that in great part is fictitious capital, pure paper that is valued in the great speculative casino of the Stock Markets, carrying with it the land, water, biodiversity and the means of life and work of billions of people, not only in the “third world” as they depreciatively see us, but also in Europe and the United States, where the big lie of a “welfare state” society leaps to our eyes in its crudest form.

The imposition of this brutally concentrated model is only possible through the establishment of an ever greater militarization of daily life, whether this takes the form of “the war on terror” or “the war on drugs”. The victims are increasing numbers of civilians and at the global level, those who kill and destroy most are not the terrorists, nor the drug-traffickers, but State terrorism that in every country controls the military apparatus or assigns millions of dollars for the contracting of mercenary armies that act in a decentralized and out-sourced army against the poor and excluded of the world. The wars in Libya and Syria have left thousands of people dead, wounded and disappeared, to cite two recent examples, and now we struggle with the US prepotency with respect to North Korea, putting more wood on the fire.

All these tendencies are seen in Latin America and the Caribbean in particular and complex ways, demanding a common response from our movements and organizations. For some years, the struggle against the FTAA and militarization united us in a common front that had in the Cry of the Excluded one of its most relevant actors, together with many other continental or regional networks that brought great contributions to the struggle. We mobilized in the Americas Social Forum, in the Mesoamerican Peoples Forum, in the Assembly of the Peoples of the Caribbean, in the Continental Encounters against Militarization and against the FTAA. But today we must reinvent our meeting spaces and come together under unitary banners, capable of giving us a new impulse and strategic path.

Because of this we do not want to let this October 12 pass without a call to action, among our people, in our town, so that it is within reach, including digital activism but overflowing into the plazas and streets. Also, at the continental level, the Cry of the Excluded considers that we should propose taking up once again the platforms of coordination that will enable us to come together and reformulate our strategies, evaluate our action and construct a programme of common struggles for the coming years. Instead of each network or platform having to seek resources to unite us, we propose that we unite these forces to promote a great continental encounter of social movements to discuss our common route in the present situation, a meeting that could take place in October of 2018, so as to have a year of preparation, from now until then.

This October 12, let us raise the following banners

1. For a Latin America and the Caribbean free of imperialist interference, corrupt governments, predatory corporations that feed on our work and nature.

2. For the abolition of imperialist laws that submit Puerto Rico and for the definite independence of our sister country.

3. In defense of the Cuban Revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution.

4. Land for peasants, territory for native and traditional peoples, the right to housing and urban and agrarian reform now! In defence of rivers, of the land and the Pachamama.

5. Against the militarization of daily life, against State terrorism, against the banalization and violence against the poor, women, blacks and the indigenous.

6. For the right to sexual diversity, against the violence and discrimination suffered by the LGBTQI in Our America and the world.

7. For the right to come and go of all migrants in the world and for Universal Citizenship.

8. Rejection of the coups in Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay and in any country in our region, in favour of democratic radicalization at all levels. More democracy and participation, less violence and authoritarianism.

9. In support of the 7^th Assembly of the Caribbean Peoples that will take place in the Dominican Republic from the 26 to the 30 October, in an extremely critical context for the whole Caribbean.

These banners are not exclusive and we invite you to add the specific demands of your movement, community or country and to actively take part in the 18th Day of Continental Mobilizaction October 12, for Work, Justice and Life for all.

https://gritodelosexcluidos.org/article/la-secretaria-del-grito-de-los-excluidosas-contine/