Campaign | 200 years against imperialism: Bolivar vs. Monroe

This coming December will mark the 200th anniversary of the proclamation issued in 1823 by the President of the United States, James Monroe, known as “America for the Americans”, and characterized since then as the Monroe Doctrine, by various revolutionary processes and governments promoted in Latin America and the Caribbean since the beginning of the 19th century, beginning with the Haitian Revolution and the different independence campaigns that this revolution inspired regionally. At that time, the Liberator Simón Bolívar himself warned in 1829 that “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty.”

From then on, the United States advanced within our continent its imperialist vision of “Manifest Destiny”. In the past and also today, history has shown the inexorable contradiction between, on the one hand, the Monroe Doctrine project that sought to install Pan-Americanism in our region as a place of expansion, influence and subjugation of the region to US interests. And on the other hand, Simón Bolívar and the hundreds of liberators of our Patria Grande, with their project of American republics and continental unity with a fundamental principle of sovereignty and anti-imperialist integration. 

To this day, the United States has continued its process of imperialist expansion with concrete material expressions ranging from the militarisation of our territories with its effects on communities –and in particular on women–, through the violent forced displacement of indigenous and peasant communities, as well as the indebtedness of our economies, to the current projects of the United States Southern Command in our region, through its expressed interest in the  lithium, gas, gold and oil reserves and that of other cultural and natural resources of our region.

ALBA Movements, together with the International Peoples’ Assembly and various international networks and articulations, are launching the Campaign “200 years against imperialism: Bolivar vs. Monroe”. The aim of the campaign is to promote the anti-imperialist struggle throughout our America, visible and current, through the accumulation of mobilizations and actions at the regional level which the organizations already carry out in their daily struggles. Also to demonstrate through these actions the consequences of the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America and the Caribbean, with its different dimensions that involve political, economic, military, social, cultural and other disputes, as well as to show the validity of the Bolivarian project as a sovereign response to the imperialist advancement presented by the Doctrine 200 years ago.

The Campaign, which will take the form of different artistic, cultural, communicational and educational expressions, will have its materials available to be used and disseminated widely by all the organizations and movements that identify with the anti-imperialist struggle of more than 200 years that, in keeping with the Bolivarian tradition of sovereignty and independence, have been defending our Patria Grande from imperialist voracity.

#BolívarVsMonroe

#200AñosAntiimperialistas

#UnidadContinental

#NuestraAmérica