In this post, William A. Booth, Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the UCL Institute of the Americas, reflects on Cuba after a recent visit to the island, where he attended a conference marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Tricontinental Conference.

 Cuba’s Past, Present, and Many Possible Futures 

 William A. Booth 

I have just returned from Havana, Cuba where I was taking part in a conference examining the ‘context, impact, legacy and future’ of the Tricontinental Conference on its sixtieth anniversary. This was hosted by the University of Havana and co-organised by the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research on Cuba, and attended by almost two hundred scholars from all over the world. It was covered by local and regional television stations. 

 It was an interesting and rather tense time to be in Havana – the morning after I arrived, two days of national mourning began for the thirty-two Cuban soldiers killed in Trump’s raid on Venezuela; the day after I left, their bodies were repatriated and Havana saw huge marches marked by sorrow, anger and defiance. The conference served as a timely reminder of the solidarity, co-operation and sacrifice associated with the Tricontinental; we heard excellent papers on education, health, construction and military training. One of the keynotes was given by Comandante Victor Dreke, veteran of anti-colonial struggles in Africa and former comrade of Amílcar Cabral. Now almost ninety years old, his incandescence over ongoing US intervention in Latin America was palpable.  (more…)

In this blog, Tom Hindley, a final-year undergraduate at the UCL Institute of the Americas, writes on the recent Institute of the Americas’ public seminar about Operation Cóndor.

 Lessons Learned from Fifty Years of Operation Cóndor

Tom Hindley

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the latest instalment in the Institute of the Americas’ public seminar series. As a student at the Institute, I regularly attend these seminars, which offer an opportunity to connect with my academic interests (and grab some of the best empanadas available in London). However, this particular seminar really stood out as both a cutting remembrance of an important historical process, the coordinated policy of repression across several South American countries by military regimes in the 1970s that came to be known as Plan Cóndor or Operation Cóndor, and a reminder of a poignantly current political trend towards authoritarianism.

Fifty years after Operation Cóndor, to some, may sound like a conventional retelling of a conventional Latin American Cold War history that elicits the usual senses of shock and disbelief which accompany a raw account of violence and human rights abuse. However, through the broad perspectives of speakers Karinna Fernández Neira, Philippe Sands and Sebastián Smart, the idea of a concluded history – or of anything conventional at all – could not be further from the truth. (more…)

US aggression against Venezuela: a war foretold?

Pablo Uchoa

 Save for a total change of heart in Donald Trump, it is hard to see  a reversal of the US military buildup off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.

Though Trump insists that this military muscle flexing is aimed at combating narcotrafficking, the approach taken indicates that the ultimate goal is regime change. Even with Venezuela representing a fraction of US-bound drug flow, the US administration effectively branded Nicolás Maduro a terrorist and a threat to US national security on 24 November, after designating the so-called “Cartel de los Soles” a foreign terrorist organisation with Maduro as its head. This gives US forces ample mandate to target the Venezuelan president. In October, Trump authorised the CIA to conduct lethal operations inside Venezuela, and added that his administration had been considering operations on land.

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