#Organization of American States (OAS)

[leftistfeminista]

Now, the CIDH has brought the ESMA exhibit to the Organization of American States (OAS) Headquarters in Washington DC in an attempt to start a conversation about crimes against women during dictatorships across Latin America. The exhibit will be available for visits throughout the whole month of March, dedicated to both the Argentine feminist struggle and the quest for memory, truth, and justice. 

“Trophies” and “retraining” — the exhibit

Featuring 28 testimonies from women survivors, the exhibit shows the specificities of women’s experiences within the clandestine centres with testimonies from the trials as well as recent interviews. Banners and texts convey the story that the military coup was part of a “systemic and patriarchal” plan to eradicate women victims through gender-based violence. 

Testimonies show how women were generally used as ‘trophies’ by the military, subjected to humiliation and suffered gender-based violence when tortured. This often came in the form of sexual abuse, which sometimes resulted in unwanted pregnancies. 

34 women were forced to deliver their babies in violent conditions, often seeing them taken away immediately  — some were abducted by the military to be raised as their own, but many were murdered. 

The violence was not limited to rape and sexual abuse — several psychological methods were also employed. The military reinforced gender stereotypes on detained women by giving them lessons on wearing makeup and having officers take them on “dates,” among other obligations to “retrain” them as women. 

“Gender-based violence existed before the dictatorship, existed during the dictatorship, and continues to exist,” Mantilla Falcón said. “The Argentine case shows how women’s bodies were completely sexualized, how rapes and pregnancies in conflict affected them differently than men.” 

When the trials were re-opened in Argentina in 2001, it took a long time for the judiciary to incorporate a perspective on gender in their investigations. The first time a torturer was condemned for rape was in 2010. And, in 2011, Judge Sergio Torres, in charge of the ESMA case, declared that the sexual violence in the clandestine center was “a systemic practice carried out by the State within a plan of repression and annihilation”. 

[chicagotimesmagazine]

South America: A Strategic Reassessment For The United States

By Chicago Times Magazine – July 20, 2024 The recent rise in Russian and Communist Chinese activity in South America necessitates a reevaluation of U.S. strategy in the region. Historically, South America has served as a stage for external powers to exert influence, a dynamic the Monroe Doctrine, with its inherent complexities, sought to navigate. Today, the challenge lies not in solely…

[thoughtlessarse]

The 54th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) concluded Friday in the Paraguayan capital with the Declaration of Asunción, a document promoting the elimination of violence against women and girls, the fight against climate change, and the fight against organized crime. The Assembly also approved a declaration expressing the OAS' satisfaction with the Argentine Government's reaffirmation of its willingness to continue exploring all possible avenues for a peaceful resolution of the Malvinas controversy and emphasizing the need to resume negotiations on sovereignty as soon as possible to find a peaceful solution. Even in its version in English, the OAS website (accessed June 29 at 9 am GMT) never used the word “Falklands.” ”The Asunción declaration reflects agreements to (...) strengthen the fight against transnational organized crime, defend human rights, eliminate all forms of discrimination and (...) address climate change,“ Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano explained. The joint statement also proposes to ”respect, protect and promote human rights (...) and eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, and groups in vulnerable situations.“ These paragraphs were adopted despite Argentina's contention on the need to have a gender and ethnic perspective. ”There has been an intense negotiation dynamic“ but ”the resolutions and declarations have been approved by consensus,“ OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro admitted. The OAS Member States also reaffirmed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, since ”there can be no sustainable development without peace, and no peace without sustainable development“, and committed to prioritizing public policies to protect the environment and combat climate change.

continue reading

[developmentinformationday]

Human Rights as Catalysts for Sustainable Development; Leveraging a Coordinated Approach by the UN development system to Leave No One Behind.

ECOSOC-OAS Side-event; conference room 11 - United Nations Inter-agency Network on Human Rights.

Watch Human Rights as Catalysts for Sustainable Development; Leveraging a Coordinated Approach by the UN development system to Leave No One Behind!

[paulpingminho]

[internationalwomenday]

Partnerships to strengthen the Inter-American Decade of Rural Women, Adolescents and Girls of the Americas and its globalization, CIM/OAS (CSW68 Side Event).

Contributing to the development of public policies to guarantee the human rights of rural women as local actors in the care for life, food, and territorial development.

Public policies for equal opportunities, empowerment and the full exercise of women's human rights are based on a wide series of international and regional commitments, including CEDAW (1979), the Belem Do Para Convention (1994), the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda (2015), in particular, SDG 5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls."

Panama, as President of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the term 2022 and 2025, promoted together with the countries of the region, the adoption of the Declaration for the Rights of All Women, Adolescents, and Girls in Rural Environments in the Americas (AG/DEC. 113 (LIII-O/23)) during the 53rd regular session of the OAS General Assembly (June 22, 2023). Among other commitments, this Declaration established the Inter-American Decade for the rights of all women, adolescents, and girls in rural environments of the Americas, with the objective of "…promoting progressive measures for the advancement of all their rights and the eradication of all forms of discrimination they face." 

Related Sites and Documents

Concept Note

Watch the Partnerships to strengthen the Inter-American Decade of Rural Women, Adolescents and Girls of the Americas and its globalization, CIM/OAS (CSW68 Side Event).

[endimpunityday]

DAY I - Opening ceremony - Intl' Day to end Impunity Against Journalists 2023.

08:00 - 09:00 -  Registration at the Organization of American States (OAS) Hall of the Americas. 

09:00 - 10:30 - Opening ceremony of the global commemoration

Artistic performance by Vivir Quintana, singer, composer

Welcome and opening remarks:

Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS 

Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO 

Keynote speeches by:

Margaret Macaulay, IACHR President 

Birgitta Tazelaar, Co-Chair, Media Freedom Coalition and Netherlands Ambassador to the United States 

Address by:

Justice Imani Daud Aboud, President, African Court for Human and Peoples Rights 

Testimony from:

Danish Karokhel, Director & Editor-in-Chief, Pajhwok Afghan News

Panel discussion:

 Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion

Jodie Ginsberg, President, CPJ

[jayaaaa]

Common America W gif with the OAS flag for when you really need to dunk on the other continents

[leviathan-supersystem]

Nearly 85% of the Haitian people live on $5.30 a day or less. Severe malnutrition among young children is rampant, and the streets are overflowing with uncollected garbage. Potable water is scarce along with medical care — cholera, which is often spread through contaminated water, has broken out, with hundreds of cases reported in the last few weeks. 

Access to education is spotty. The state has not fed or given water to prisoners since the beginning of the year, leading radio stations to run feed-the-prisoner campaigns; Haitian prisoners are dying from malnutrition.

It has been clear for months that acting Prime Minister/President Ariel Henry — appointed 16 months ago by the U.S. with the blessing of the Core Group — has not been able to control the rising, militant, hungry anger of the Haitian masses. The Core Group consists of the ambassadors of Canada, France, Brazil, Germany and Spain, along with representatives of the U.N. and the Organization of American States (OAS).

Since the beginning of August, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in increasingly militant demonstrations to express their total rejection of Henry’s government and U.S. imperialism.

On Oct. 10, huge demonstrations rose up in Port-au-Prince, Petit-Goâve, Jacmel, l’Île de la Gonâve, Mirebalais, Lascahobas, Cap-Haïtien and Gonaïves. In Cap-Haïtien, a massive demonstration was attacked by cops firing live rounds. One demonstrator was shot dead; in reaction the crowd attacked and ransacked businesses, including a branch of Unibank, one of two major Haitian banks, which was set ablaze.

Since their puppet Ariel has proven to be hugely unpopular, the U.S. has apparently decided to try someone else. A Disaster Assistance Response Team is currently in Port-au-Prince. DART teams generally consist of “experts” from the political arms of U.S. imperialism, who assess “needs” and organize the delivery of “aid.”

[zvaigzdelasas]

[The Hill is US Private Media]

Earlier this year, The Hill published an Op-Ed I wrote that was titled “Puerto Rico’s political status, an issue of national security.” In that piece I presented a series of events to stress and relate the political future of Puerto Rico, its importance to the U.S. national security needs and how foreign powers push their agenda through the pro-independence movement within the island.

This past June, the United Nations Decolonization Committee met to discuss the issue of Puerto Rico at the request of Cuba. That body also passed the 41st consecutive resolution asking for the island’s self-determination and independence, with complete disregard of the will of its residents, who are US citizens. I tried to set the record straight by submitting a written and oral statement but the representative of Cuba had other plans. My statement blew the Cuban representative’s mind that led to an interruption rampage. Somehow my statement[...] made him forget that he was not in Cuba and that the UN is a place where different points of view are supposed to come together in order to encourage a thorough discussion of the issues pressing the world. I can attest that this wasn’t one of the UN’s best moments. 

But what was he trying to hide? Simple, for the Cuban representative, the truth is inconvenient. Its ties with China and Russia are publicly known and widely reported. The Wall Street Journal, in June 20, 2023, wrote “Beijing Plans a New Training Facility in Cuba.” This is something that the Cuban representative did not want on the UN record. But why would China want to establish a military training facility in Cuba? Maybe for the same reason, the Chinese wanted to buy what used to be Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico but couldn’t. [...]

In June 2023, Francisco Urdinez wrote for the [US industry thinktank] Wilson Center, “At the OAS, where China is an observer, an analysis by George Meek showed that between 1948 and 1974, the United States influenced 75 percent of the 297 roll-call votes. That influence has clearly diminished. Between 2001 and 2021, countries in which China has displaced the United States economically were 26 percentage points less likely to vote in alignment with Washington than other member states.” This clearly represents a shift in political power because of ill conceived policies that fail to recognize the importance of U.S. leadership in Latin America.[...]

It is important to remember that the involvement of foreign powers and interests in Latin America is not new. In 2011, the subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on Hezbollah in Latin America — Implications on U.S. Homeland Security, and received the testimony of Ambassador Roger F. Noriega, former US Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OEA) and stated, “Hugo Chaves hosted a terror summit of senior leaders of Hamas (supreme leader “Khaled Meshal), Hezbollah (unnamed “chief operations”), and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah) in Caracas on August 22, 2010. That extraordinary meeting was organized at the suggestion of Iran,… In addition to the summit, operatives from other countries gathered in Caracas to meet with these terrorist chieftains.”

These are but a few indications that Puerto Rico’s political status may have a significant impact on U.S. security and foreign policy interests. The island’s current political status is not sustainable and when it comes to an end there will be only two options: it either becomes a state, thereby ensuring a strategic U.S. presence at the crossroads of the Americas, or it becomes a sovereign country which would be tantamount to ceding the island to our adversaries. The longer Congress takes to act on Puerto Rico’s political status, the greater the likelihood of the latter outcome.[...]

[The Author] José Enrique Meléndez-Ortiz, Esq., LLM., is representative at large in Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives.

"Puerto Rican Independence is a Russian-Chinese-Iranian Plot" now a mainstream narrative being pushed among self described progressive media by sitting politicians [22 Oct 23]

[darkmaga-retard]

X users in Brazil, and the company itself, are receiving support from several legal and rights advocacy groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, which has turned to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The latter has authority over Brazil under the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). These developments come in the wake of Brazilian authorities’ decision to first ban X in that country, and then start fining those who use VPN to circumvent the ban.

According to ADF, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court and Superior Electoral Court have engaged in censorship that runs afoul of international law.

IACHR, a tribunal of the Organization of American States (OAS), is being asked to intervene on behalf of those now censored and fined in Brazil.

Brazil’s own Bar Association wrote to the Supreme Court to say that “a daily fine to individuals and legal entities in a broad and generalized manner represents a serious affront to the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.”

[leftistfeminista]

The Real Life Handmaid's Tale of Pinochet's Chile

Nieves Ayress Moreno, a MIRista militant after being severely tortured at Villa Grimaldi, was transferred to a prison run by Catholic Nuns. She had become pregnant from repeated rapes by Junta guards. "Dr. Mery, a military doctor who practiced at the Catholic University, and who told me that I should be proud to have a "son of the fatherland." Despite her health being in danger, her only hope of an abortion, under Chile's ultra-strict "pro-life laws" was to appeal to the Pope himself. A revolutionary feminist woman, in a prison run by Catholic nuns, forced to give birth. It is a nightmare out of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale come to life.

STATEMENT OF LUZ DE LAS NIEVES AYRESS MORENO

In New York, State of New York, United States of America, on ____ days of the month of August of the year two thousand, Mrs. Luz de las

Nieves Ayress Moreno (born in Chile under the name Luz de las Nieves Ayress Moreno, Chilean citizen, legal profession, domiciled in New York, New York, USA, passport No. 6.347.871-7) of legal age, who demonstrated her identity with your passport, and states:

I make this statement to be presented as evidence in the cases pending against General Augusto Pinochet and his subordinates in Chile. I make this statement under oath and with full knowledge of the crime of perjury.

The facts are the following: I was born in Santiago, Chile on October 5, 1948. I joined the Bolivian National Liberation Army, an arm of the Socialist Party in Chile, in 1968, and in 1973 I was still a militant and ELN activist, working with women and children in the towns. I was also an art and journalism student at the University of Chile. After 1973, I was a member of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left of Chile (MIR).

A few weeks after the coup, I was at the house of the mother of a friend of mine who was in prison, when, around 10 pm, a group of police officers arrived and arrested me. They handcuffed me and took me first to the Carabineros NCO School, and, after two or three days, to the National Stadium. (At the stadium, the carabinieri would tell me that my friend's mother had named me in the hope of saving her own daughter.) At the NCO School, they beat me and slapped me. They also touched my body, threatened me with sexual advances, and insulted me. The prisoners were kept in some cells that were in the back of the School, in the stables.

In March 1974 I was transferred to the Women's Prison on Vicuña Mackenna Street, in Santiago, which was under the administration of an order of jailer nuns. Here I was in free conversation, and I stayed in a patio with the other political prisoners; they kept political prisoners apart.

In April I found out that I was pregnant, and this was confirmed by Dr. Mery, a military doctor who practiced at the Catholic University, and who told me that I should be proud to have a "son of the country." My pregnancy caused great controversy. By now my case was internationally known, due to the efforts of my mother and family to denounce what was happening to me, and also because a woman who was imprisoned with me in the Vicuña Mackenna women's prison had managed to get a my statement I was interviewed by the International Red Cross, the Kennedy Commission, Amnesty International, the International Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations High Commissioner, by Bishop Aristía of Santiago, a Dr. Phillippe , and by Cardinal Raul Silva Henríquez, who came to see his niece, who was also in prison. A group of military wives came to visit me, and they promised me my freedom if I didn't make any more statements about my pregnancy and my torture, and they threatened to take away my son once he was born.

The nuns offered to help me request permission for an abortion. I was not a religious, but because I was in a prison run by religious, I had to submit a request to the cardinal, and from the cardinal to the Pope. In Chile, abortion is punishable by law for five years and one day. I was physically very ill, and if I had a clandestine abortion in prison I could die, and for this reason I decided to have the child. After having survived months of torture and detention, I was not going to give the military the pleasure of killing me. However, in April or May, I started having a lot of pain in my belly, and losing blood clots. I miscarried spontaneously. I received no medical care during the pregnancy or miscarriage.

I never had a legal process. General Bonilla, who took an interest in my case, sent an officer to interview me in jail about my pregnancy and the sexual abuse and other torture I had suffered. In this interview, the officer told me that at one point there were three different lawsuits against me, but that the lawsuits were so contradictory to each other that the military courts declared themselves incompetent in my case. Later there was an order to transfer me to the Pisagua concentration camp, with the penalty of firing squad, but General Bonilla blocked it; he did not agree with the treatment of male and female prisoners. However, I was sentenced to imprisonment "by virtue of the state of siege."

Two dams, M .D. and María Emilia Tijaux, were with me in the women's prison, and they are witnesses of the weak state in which I found myself. Eventually my case got too complicated because of all the controversy it was causing, and since I had no official conviction from the court, in March of 1975 I was transferred to Tres Alamos.

In Tres Alamos, where I remained until December 1976, I was again subjected to rape, threats, insults, and other psychological torture. Comandante Pacheco, who was in charge of Tres Alamos, constantly abused me, subjecting me to sexual harassment for almost two years. He liked to walk around the concentration camp with me next to him. I was very weak, and I fainted frequently. I stayed in a cell with eight other companions. Another prisoner, Marcia Scantlebury, was also badly abused by Comandante Pacheco.

In the spring, I don't remember what month, they transferred us prisoners from Tres Alamos for a month to Pirque, in the mountains, because a group from the UN Human Rights Commission was coming to Chile, and they wanted to avoid a visit to Tres Alamos. It was to give a good image before the UN delegation. I was very depressed, and I felt anxious. He ate and cried a lot. The beauty of the place somehow broke me psychologically.

After a month they took us back to Tres Alamos. We continue to organize ourselves to do craft work to sell abroad. Three babies were born, and we all took care of them. My mother and my aunts would visit me in Tres Alamos. At this time my mother was making arrangements for me to go to Germany.

In December, I was expelled from Chile by the dictatorship with 17 compañeros and compañeras. The dictatorship published a special decree to expel us, leaving us with no right of return. On this list were Gladys Díaz, Víctor Toro, Luis Corbalán, and 15 other colleagues. Many international organizations, such as the Red Cross, the United Nations High Commissioner, and "CIME", UN HIGH COMMISSIONER and the solidarity of the peoples of the world, helped to get me out. In Berlin I had acquaintances, and I stayed with Nuria Nuñez, and also with Gilde Botay. During this time I was dedicated to publicly denouncing what was happening in Chile, and I traveled a lot.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

At OAS summit, Brazil seeks to soften criticism of Nicaragua’s government

Just hours before the start of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is keeping diplomatic and political tempers high due to proposed corrections to a statement critical of the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua.

The Brazilian delegation made “substantive changes” to a document prepared by the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and Antigua and Barbuda on “the escalation of repression, the closure of civic space and human rights violations” in Nicaragua. Despite the conclusive reports by the United Nations group of experts and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), the Brazilian delegation questioned the commission of crimes against humanity by the Sandinista administration. The Brazilian diplomats eliminated the words “alarming conclusion” and replaced it with “there are elements.”

Moreover, the Brazilian diplomats added the word “alleged” to the passage about infringement of property and social security rights through the confiscation of property and assets and the denial of pensions for individuals deprived of their nationality by the Nicaraguan government, and which the promoters of the original declaration had emphasized.

Brazil also completely removed the mention of the dramatic levels of migration by Nicaraguans who have fled due to political persecution and the socio-political crisis raging since 2018, the year of massive social protests against the regime. On Tuesday, the Human Rights Collective Nicaragua Never Again denounced that this is the largest exodus in the history of Nicaragua, greater even than that of the 1980s, when the country fought a civil war that left tens of thousands dead: “At least 605,043 Nicaraguans have left their country in the last 62 months, nine percent of the total population, due to state repression against opponents, religious leaders and critics of the government of Daniel Ortega,” they remarked.

Continue reading.

[cicadaland]

What are our thoughts on the OAS (Organization of American States) flag

[mariacallous]

The United States needs to accelerate its energy transition—and quickly. The only problem? It needs vast quantities of raw materials to do so, and it will have to negotiate with other countries to acquire them in time.

Washington will likely need to turn to South America for lithium, a material needed to produce the rechargeable batteries that drive the energy transition. But the progressive governments of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile—known as the lithium triangle because they have the world’s largest lithium reserves—resent more than a century of U.S. intervention. As global demand soars, all three governments plan to strengthen state control over the industry. They are looking for ways to process their lithium domestically and partner with companies from nations other than the United States—especially China, the international leader in lithium operations.

If the Biden administration truly wants to diversify its global supply chains to electrify the U.S. car market, it must abandon the archaic, punitive policies in Latin America it inherited from previous administrations and engage constructively with the lithium triangle governments.

To date, U.S. lithium extraction companies have failed to make significant headway in the region. Albemarle’s operation in Chile is the exception, but it is facing increasing regulation under the country’s leftist government. A history of U.S. intervention and support for military dictatorships in all three lithium triangle countries and their neighbors hasn’t helped Washington’s cause.

In 1971, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano summarized concerns about U.S. policy on the region’s natural resources, writing that “[u]nderdevelopment in Latin America is a consequence of development elsewhere” and “Latin Americans are poor because the ground we tread is rich.” Lithium triangle governments and their supporters fear this dynamic persists today. In March, as he was proposing a sovereign regional alliance on lithium, Bolivian President Luis Arce said, “We don’t want our lithium to be in the [U.S.] Southern Command’s crosshairs, nor do we want it to be a reason for destabilizing democratically elected governments or foreign harassment.”

The first U.S. administration committed to a green energy transition is ill-prepared to engage productively with lithium triangle governments. Take Bolivia, which has the world’s largest untapped lithium resources but, at present, few economically viable reserves. Since the 2005 election of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, the United States has had a strained relationship with the country, impeding U.S. companies’ ability to negotiate lithium contracts there.

Morales, an Indigenous leftist leader, has long critiqued U.S. intervention in Bolivia. During his tenure, he did not seek out partnerships with U.S. companies to extract lithium. “We need partners, companies that respect the Bolivian rules,” Morales said on a trip to Spain in 2009, as he sought talks with lithium extraction companies. “Companies that come to invest are welcome, but not to do politics.” In 2018, his government signed a contract for lithium processing and battery production with Germany’s ACI Systems. Then, in early 2019, Bolivia signed a joint venture agreement with China’s Xinjiang TBEA Group to build processing plants.

In 2019, just as the projects with ACI Systems and TBEA were about to launch, Morales was ousted in what his party considers a U.S.-backed coup, resulting in the projects’ suspension. His ouster was fueled by election fraud claims alleged by the Organization of American States (OAS), supported by the U.S. State Department; researchers, economists, and media outlets including the New York Times later disputed those claims. Before the OAS report, domestic allegations of fraud had led to protests across the country; but the opposition used the report to accelerate unrest and violence, with support from police, the military, and the international community.

“There was a coup … because we nationalized our natural resources and started the [lithium] industrialization process,” Morales claimed. A year later, Arce—Morales’s former economy minister—was elected president, ending the repressive interim presidency of right-wing politician Jeanine Añez. Arce has since echoed Morales’s arguments about the role of lithium in Morales’s forced resignation.

The reason behind Morales’s ouster is still contested, and even progressive publications have questioned lithium’s role in it. But all three lithium triangle presidents consider Morales’s ouster, which was welcomed by the Trump administration, to be a coup. Some U.S. lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also called it a coup.

The democratically elected Arce government expected to receive support from the Biden administration. Instead, the administration followed its predecessor’s lead and denounced Añez’s 2021 arrest on charges of terrorism and sedition. A few months later, the administration excluded Bolivia from its Summit for Democracy, angering the country and its ally, Argentina. At the summit, Argentinian President Alberto Fernández said, with U.S. President Joe Biden watching, that Latin America had “lived through a difficult time” recently, especially “Bolivia, our dear sister republic that suffered a coup endorsed by a large part of the international community and by the OAS.”

Biden officials’ decisions regarding Latin America frequently anger all three lithium triangle governments, which prioritize regional solidarity. For instance, the three governments have condemned the continued blockade and sanctions against Cuba, as well as its exclusion, along with Nicaragua and Venezuela, from last year’s Summit of the Americas. Arce boycotted the meeting, saying “Washington’s veto shows that, despite rhetoric in favor of democracy and human rights, [U.S.] officials have no genuine will to change their hostile policy toward governments with dignity that do not subordinate themselves to [U.S.] interests.” Fernández and Chilean President Gabriel Boric also criticized Washington’s decision to exclude the countries.

The Pentagon’s tactics to secure lithium contracts in the region have further exacerbated tensions. Lithium triangle governments want to keep the U.S. armed forces out of their politics. But Gen. Laura Richardson, the head of U.S. Southern Command, recently said she had met with embassies and U.S. lithium companies to discuss investing in the region and to “box out our competitors” after claiming China and Russia have invested in the region “to undermine the United States and to undermine democracy.” In March, after Richardson told the U.S. Congress that China was “taking resources away from these countries and from their people,” Carlos Ramos, the director of Bolivia’s state lithium company, balked at her assertion. “We’re taking care of our strategic resource to avoid any possibility of foreign depredation,” he said.

Meanwhile, lithium triangle governments have increasingly emphasized sovereignty over their natural resources. The Arce administration has made state-driven lithium extraction and battery production a national priority, seeking to ensure it does not repeat the region’s history of dependency on other countries to extract, process, and export high-value resources such as silver, tin, and copper. Chile’s constitution, which is being rewritten and whose changes must be approved by a referendum, will most likely follow Bolivia’s model and create a state-owned company to establish strategic partnerships and regulate private lithium investment.

But the lithium triangle knows it can’t process its lithium alone; it needs partners to fund and build infrastructure and appropriate technology. China, which does not have such a fraught history in the region, is stepping in to fill the gap. China already dominates global lithium markets: It produces approximately three-quarters of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, while the United States produces only 8 percent. Half of the 2021 growth in the global electric vehicle market took place in China, while the United States accounted for only 10 percent.

It is no surprise, then, that after long negotiations with six international companies, Bolivia signed a contract in January to partner with Chinese consortium CATL, the largest lithium ion battery producer in the world, to build direct lithium extraction processing plants and accompanying infrastructure in Bolivia. Two U.S. companies had responded to the Arce administration’s call for proposals for lithium partnerships—including EnergyX, run by Alamo Rental Car heir Teague Egan, which has no lithium experience—but were unsuccessful.

U.S. policy toward lithium triangle countries should be based on respect for the countries’ national sovereignty and the decisions of their democratically elected governments. A good start would be for Washington to promote the active participation of all Latin American governments in regional and international fora, rather than excluding some, and to provide more opportunities to collaborate on climate change and the global energy transition. Furthermore, U.S. civilian leaders, rather than military officers, should lead diplomacy. The Biden administration should also create incentives for U.S. companies to purchase batteries produced by all three lithium triangle countries. And finally, if the U.S. companies do manage to win contracts on lithium triangle soil, they should ensure that those countries—and especially the local communities that live near lithium flats—benefit financially from lithium production.

Lithium triangle governments affirm consistently that they “want partners, not bosses.” Washington needs to move beyond ingrained, historical patterns of conflict and intervention, and forge productive partnerships with these nations based on a shared priority: the clean energy transition.