The Right-Wing Alliance of Latin America Against Communism

As I’ve written in articles like this one here, here or this one here, you sometimes can find examples of the Latin American left aligning itself somehow with the left of other countries.

Either the alignment is purely symbolic without much substance (like some declaration of “solidarity” with nothing more) or it could be substantive like offering financial resources.

The same could be said of the Latin right where you can find similar examples that are either symbolic or substantive.

Of which we'll discuss some interesting examples that have come out recently of the Latin right identifying or aligning itself with the right of other countries.

And also the greater implications that has not only for political alignments but also for greater political changes on an international scale.

Let’s get to some examples that have come out recently first!

The Love for Spanish Imperialism

An interesting example that I already brought up in this article here is how you apparently have more sightings of the imperial Spanish flag in Latin America these days.

Granted, I live in Latin America and have yet to see anyone fly this flag.

But apparently it has something to do, at least in part, with celebrating “Hispanic Heritage” as you can see in this popular video here.

Por que todos debemos tener una bandera de borgona

As you can imagine if you have any sense of how politics works, it’s usually those on the right that wave this flag apparently.

According to this article here, it’s not an uncommon sight among some right wing parties in Peru and broader Latin America.

The flag in question anyway, as you can see in the video above, shows the Cross of Burgundy.

For those who don’t know, the Cross of Burgundy is meant to give respect to the Spanish Monarchy and its crusade in the former Spanish colonies.

The former Spanish colonies including much of Latin America obviously.

Here’s an interesting quote from that article last cited to get things going on this topic.

“"Since June, Peruvians have been witnessing an unusual sight in the streets of Lima. Groups of people have been spotted bearing a flag with a little-known symbol called the Cross of Burgundy — it made its first appearance during post-election rallies against purported election fraud by current President Pedro Castillo and his party, Perú Libre.

More recently, on October 12, which is both Spain’s “Día de la Hispanidad” and Peru’s Indigenous Peoples and Intercultural Dialogue Day, the Peruvian Patriot Society (Sociedad Patriota del Perú) carried the flag in front of the statue of Christopher Columbus in Lima’s historical center.

The group claimed to be protecting the statue from demonstrators against the legacy of colonialism and violence perpetrated during the Spanish conquest against indigenous populations."

While this flag hasn’t ever been that common at all in Peru previously, right wing parties have been seen with the flag as there’s been a turn in Peruvian right wing politics to give respect to “Spanish legacy, Catholicism, and ties to the Iberian Peninsula.”

Outside of using the flag itself, there have been other moments where right wing Latin politics has demonstrated an alignment with right wing Spanish politics.

For example, the leader of the right wing Peruvian party Fuerza Popular, Keiko Fujimori, was at a Viva 21 event that was held for “enriching Spanish culture.”

The event itself was held by right wing Spanish party Vox.

In the words of Fujimori, the importance of the event is due to how it is a “symbol of Hispanic unity against the socialism of the 21st century.”

At this same event, there was even a document called the Carta de Madrid that was signed by other Peruvian right wing politicians.

This letter being characterized as a way to “unite the “Iberosphere” against the global communist threat.”

Though, as I said, it’s not just Peruvian politicians getting in on this alliance with right wing parties of Spain.

The Alliance between Vox & PAN

This is something that made the news only a few odd months ago.

In Mexico, you have a more right-wing party called PAN.

Not to be confused with the delicious Pan de Muerto…

Haha jeje haha jeje…

I’m a comedian.

Anyway, various senators of the political party PAN also just recently signed the Carta de Madrid as a way to take a stance against communism in Latin America as you can see here.

in the words of the PAN representative at the event, it was said ““México nunca será comunista” as you can see here.

To be honest, this isn’t entirely unusual.

On one of my previous birthdays, I attended a protest against current Mexican President AMLO as you can read here.

Though I don’t have any allegiance to any political party of Mexico, I simply stumbled across the protest as it was happening literally almost outside of my apartment.

And, as you can read in that article, it became clear to me that many see AMLO as “socialist” and likely to “make Mexico into another Venezuela.”

In which they see an alliance between AMLO and other political leftists of Latin America like Evo Morales, Castro, Maduro and others.

Of course, to be fair, I can kinda understand why they’d say that as leftists in Latin America do form alliances – formal or informal – as I mentioned before.

Or at least they do help each other out as you can see here with Evo Morales being accepted into Mexico. 

At any rate, let’s move on.

Anti-Communist Alignment with Vox Among Other Latin Leaders

Let’s wrap up this party of the article about Vox since it serves as a pretty good example.

You’ve had other Latin leaders or highly connected political individuals be associated with Vox as well in the past.

For example, as you can see here, the son of Brazilian President Bolsonaro was at a Vox event also.

And, as we know, Bolsonaro himself wasn’t the biggest fan of leftists in Brazil as you can see with this quote here.

"During the dictatorship, they should have shot 30,000 corrupt people, starting with the (then) President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, which would have been a great gain for the nation."

Outside of Bolsonaro, you have former Colombian presidents attend Vox events also as you can see here.

“El diario El País publica este lunes que el partido que preside Santiago Abascal está reclutando personalidades políticas de América Latina a título personal, como el del expresidente colombiano Andrés Pastrana.”

And you have had reports of other Latin politicians like José Antonio Kast of Chile as you can see in this article here.

“El presidente del partido de ultraderecha española VOX, Santiago Abascal, y el líder del Partido Republicano, José Antonio Kast, se reunieron hoy en Madrid, España, donde trazaron lineamientos para mejorar a la ultraderecha.

Ambos coincidieron este lunes en la necesidad de recuperar valores como "la defensa de la vida, la familia y la libertad, atacados por las imposiciones ideológicas de la izquierda".

Según Abascal y Kast, consideraron a España y Chile como "naciones hermanas" e hicieron hincapié en la importancia de luchar contra el "marxismo cultural", informó VOX en un comunicado

El encuentro dejó clara la buena sintonía entre Abascal y Kast, de viaje por Europa, que obtuvo en las pasadas elecciones en Chile un ocho por ciento de los votos y actualmente aparece bien posicionado en las encuestas para las próximas presidenciales.”

Someone of some political importance as you can see in the quote above and in this video here.

Of course, these are just examples of right wing alignment of various Latin politicians with right wing alignment with those in Spain.

But it’s not just Spain that we should be looking at.

Before we go any further, we should evaluate some history to maybe better understand a possibility that we could see become more commonplace in the coming decades.

The Historical Example of Anti-Communism in Latin America

As we have seen so far, there has been an increased attention towards “anti-communism” in Latin America mixed with a greater respect towards Spanish legacy.

It’s really the “anti-communism” bit that is more interesting here for me.

In the last cold war, we saw very clearly an “anti-communism” take among various Latin leaders.

Especially those involved in Project Condor – an effort by various countries such as Chile, Argentina and Paraguay to make various leftists “disappear.”

Something we saw Bolsonaro talk about in that quote cited previously in this article as it relates to Brazil.

While these governments worked to tackle leftist individuals, they often worked as well with outside countries like the US.

Given the nature of the Cold War, the US obviously didn’t want too much leftist influence in Latin America that could be more aligned with the Soviet Union.

As we see in this example here where the US worked with South American forces to capture and kill Che Guevara.

Similarly, you had the US work with Chilean forces to eventually overthrow Allende in Chile as you can see here.

Of course, you had Soviet meddling in Latin America also as you can see here.

Among other examples as well.

But it wasn’t just the US or the Soviet Union doing their business in Latin America as it should be reminded.

You obviously had local leaders committing to the acts that they did.

Like the human rights abuses under Castro.

To the human rights abuses documented under the book “A lexicon of terror” by Marguerite Feitlowitz.

A book that details the Argentine Dirty War that sought to torture, kill and disappear those believed to be part of some “worldwide communist revolution” under the context of the Cold War.

Thus, any right wing or left wing alignments on a global scale to promote ideologies or the interest of other entities isn’t uncommon in Latin America.

We’ve seen it historically in the past and, as we are seeing now, there is arguably the beginning of similar alliances.

The main ingredients missing are authoritarian governments in Latin America and increased tensions similar to what we saw in the Cold War.

But that might be changing going forward.

Looking into the Future

Of course, it’s hard to predict how exactly the future will rhyme with the past.

But I think we can all agree that tensions are rising between the US and China as I wrote here.

A new Cold War?

Obviously, most people outside of defense contractors want another Cold War since it never turned out well for the poorer countries that got turned into proxy war battlegrounds the last time.

Be it Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba and anyone else in Latin America.

However, with the rhetoric and the alignments seen on an international scale against “communism,” one could maybe see the beginnings of what happened in the past.

For example, you have this accusation that Vox got involved in the overthrowing of leftist President of Bolivia Evo Morales as you can see here.

“Prensa Diputados, 27 de abr del 2021.- El representante de Bolivia ante el Parlamento Andino, supraestatal Adolfo Mendoza, advirtió que las injerencias de representantes de la extrema derecha europea como el Partido de ultraderecha español Vox, intentan generar desestabilidad en el Estado boliviano.

“Algunos sectores de características fascistas en Europa y partidos de derecha europea están tratando de generar un guion de desestabilización, del gobierno legitima y democráticamente electo de Luis Arce Catacora, esto a partir de una acción de Vox y de algunos otros parlamentarios que intentan generar las condiciones para crear la necesidad de una especie de sanción para Bolivia en torno a los sucesos de detención de la señora Jeanine Añez” detalló Mendoza.

Asimismo, denunció que el partido de ultra derecha europeo Vox, colaboró con la mantención del gobierno de facto, y con el propio golpe de Estado en noviembre de 2019, en la que participaron y trabajaron junto con Arturo Murillo y Luis Fernando López.”

Though, to be fair, while Vox might carry whatever influence it has in Latin America, it shouldn’t be overstated.

After all, it isn’t like Spain is the one that anyone predicts to be the other superpower in any upcoming Cold War.

Without considering any future Cold War, the extent to which entities like Vox matter only goes as far as to how well they can influence Latin politics to steer to the right.

In some elections, they might have success and others they won’t.

As we know, Latin politics has changed considerably from time to time as the region sometimes swings to the left or to the right.

Like what we saw with the Pink Tide of the 2000s where leftist leaders were doing quite well as you can read here.

So, at the very least, the Vox affiliation of numerous right wing Latin politicians is only important in illustrating how the right wing can and does make international relationships just like the left wing does in Latin America as I covered in previous articles already cited.

But going beyond that, the other question to ask is how does this relate to a potential Second Cold War?

While the first argument is already well established with the evidence showing how right wing entities can establish relationships also, it’s difficult to predict how this relates to changes in Latin politics in the coming decades.

Primarily because there’s so much we don’t know.

Does the US and China go to war over Taiwan in the next 5 years? If so, how does that play out?

If they don’t, how do politics in Latin America change in the coming decades as, if I had to make a prediction, both sides try to win over local governments down here?

How does this potential competition not only shape the politics of the region but also what risk does it carry in regards to potential new civil wars, rise of authoritarian governments and other shenanigans as we saw in the first Cold War?

We can already see one example of this in which this article here claims that the US, under Trump, tried to get Brazil to move away from China due to concerns over 5G and Huawei.

You also have the example of the origins of the Coronavirus.

Where it was known that Trump used to suggest that it came from a lab in China.

Due to American politics, the idea was called racist while Trump was President. Many dismissed the idea.

Now, being honest, I have no idea if it came from a lab or not. I’ve never looked into it personally. The last two years has been me living life as if the Covid shit hasn’t started.

But it’s interesting how, at the same time, you have right wing politicians say the same idea about the lab leak idea as you can see here in which Bolsonaro suggest that China is waging a “biological war” on all of us.

While Trump is no longer in office and Biden doesn’t have the best relationship with Bolsonaro as you can read here…

It’s interesting how Biden also has at least now entertained the idea of a lab leak and, oddly enough, not as many people in the media are giving him shit over it.

My prediction is that, while the right wing in the US will always have a better time making connections with the right wing of Latin America, we shouldn’t dismiss the idea of the corporate left building solid relationships with them either if a second Cold War is to happen.

After all, as you can read here, it’s in the interest of right wing leaders like Bolsonaro to get along well with the US.

On top of that, their political rhetoric still can lean towards anti-communism and anti-China.

Though, as we can see here, even money can be a pressure for domestic politics in these countries to change.

And China has lots of money also!

But politics is politics and right wing leaders in Latin America do tend to lean towards a preference for the US and a stance against “communism” and China.

Even without a right wing leader like Trump in office, if the Cold War tensions intensify over issues like Taiwan, I can see even a left wing leader like Biden having success in getting a working relationship with right wing leaders like Bolsonaro.

But time will tell.

Final Thoughts

This article began on one topic and slowly transformed into a broader issue to discuss.

As I said, the first point is really just to illustrate how right wing entities and individuals can form international relationships just like left wing ones in Latin America.

The second point being a question of how this relates to any potential second Cold War.

With the previous Cold War serving as a way to help us understand a second one, we can see right wing leaders taking a stance against “international communism” and the Soviet Union even when certain presidents of the US during that time period were left leaning democrats.

And, consequently, you had Latin America turned into a battlefield for both sides to swing their dicks trying to establish support in various Latin countries.

Those like Cuba going to the Soviet Union.

Those like Chile going to the US.

As we have seen with the growing rhetoric of the right wing these days among “Iberian” countries regarding their anti-communism pledges in Madrid, it’s a question of how this will intensify.

And, more importantly, how will the US exploit this under both right wing and left wing presidents.

That’s the other question to ponder.

At any rate, I’ll leave these questions to be pondered by you.

I hate trying to “predict” the future since there are so many variables.

I’ll keep it simple for the purposes of this article but would enjoy reading any comments on this topic below in the comment section.

If you have anything to say, drop a comment below.

Finally, as it relates to a second Cold War, I guess I could’ve covered also the alignment that left wing leaders of Latin America internationally and with China (or Russia actually).

Something to discuss in another article!

Or in the comments below?

Why not both?

Anyway, follow my Twitter here.

Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt