Mexico has been on a razor’s edge since July 2018, when López Obrador won the presidential election, because the right wing, which prevented him from reaching the National Palace in two previous elections, swore an oath not to let him govern.
The struggle to implement his anti-neoliberal program is fierce, with the handicap that he started it almost alone, as the era of progressive governments in Latin America led by leaders like Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Inácio Lula Da Silva and Nestor Kirchner.
The victory of Amlo, as the people call it, reversed this situation and with it was reborn the hope of many southern peoples retaking paths to sovereignty that had been impeded and blocked by the United States, foreign transnational organizations and the Organization of American States (OAS). . . .
The OAS-orchestrated coup d’état in Bolivia against Evo Morales, political withdrawal processes in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and a brutal media campaign and economic aggression against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua also had the goal of weakening and isolating the Fourth Transformation of Mexico.
As demonstrated at the frustrated America Summit convened by President Joe Biden, Petro’s victory proves, as López Obrador proclaimed, that our America is no longer the one they ruled with gunboats, blockades and looting.
In the face of Uribismo’s efforts to derail a foreseeable victory for Petro with a quickly-made candidate, but with a huge and dangerous media flow behind him, López Obrador denounced the dirty and undignified campaign against the former guerrillas and called on Colombians to vote deliberately.
The echoes of Petro and Márquez’s victory reverberate through America’s hotspots as an unmistakable message to the White House that the era change is the whole, not the part, of the new Latin American reality that López Obrador insisted on instigating it…too an inclusive summit that he despised.
Voices like those of the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Cuba, Managua and the Caribbean lend a continental connotation to the triumph of Petro and his running mate, the Afro-Colombian Francia Márquez.
In Mexico, there is a strong belief that this historic victory in Colombia, where for the first time a proven left-wing politician is elected President, sets the stage for the creation of regional integration without hegemonism or blockades, while respecting the sovereignty and mindset of each people.
With Petro in the Colombian government, Latin America can have a little more power to withstand the calamities being inflicted on it by its powerful neighbor to the north, and increase leverage to negotiate the terms of its relationship with the United States in a genuine way, not paripé from the last meeting in Los Angeles.
Mexico will be able to be more closely accompanied in this struggle for unity, non-exclusion and closer adherence to the Juarist motto that respect for the rights of others means peace, both among nations and among individuals.
Amlo’s idea is that the United States must negotiate with the peoples south of the Rio Grande sooner rather than later because the world’s division into trading blocs prevents geoeconomic and social inequalities from being perpetuated.
If this happens, Evo Morales has warned and López Obrador has suggested, Latin America, including the Caribbean, must be united like silver in the roots of the Andes, citing Martí.
So, as Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said in Los Angeles, the next summit will not be about the blockade against Cuba, nor about exclusions, nor will there be the OAS, because the time has come to restore the inter-American order.
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