By Margarita Pécora on May 22, 2023 from Buenos Aires
Interview with Resumen Latinoamericano editor Carlos Aznares for Comunas, broadcasted by Radio Güemes
Carlos Aznárez
Resumen Latinoamericano is a communications platform with an exemplary history in the field of counter-information and alternative journalism. Comunas talked to its founder, the outstanding journalist Carlos Aznárez, editor and general director of the Agency that had its seed in ANCLA (The Clandestine News Agency) founded in 1976 during the military dictatorship by Rodolfo Walsh. Today, Resumen Latinoamericano is a must-visit communication channel if you want to find a faithful reflection of national and international events. Aznares was categorical in stating that Resumen is not impartial media: “We are biased in the struggle for truth, justice and memory”.
MP: Carlos, in this path of struggle to open a breach in the single discourse, as a fighter of ideas from the trenches of journalism, you have gone through everything. How, in the current national and regional political context, do you develop this crusade against disinformation, misrepresentation of the message and media terrorism?
CA: From that moment when we did ANCLA with Rodolfo Walsh and other comrades, which were moments of great difficulties and danger in the sense of the strictest censorship and crimes of the dictatorship, to the present, a lot of water has flowed; But censorship still exists, the single discourse has an important force, the hegemonic media are really distorters of information, and against that we have been fighting the battle in the same way as we did at that time in the beginning, trying to put aside any kind of fear, to tell the truth, knowing that sometimes you run a risk with that, but if you really embrace this wonderful profession that is journalism, popular communication, there are times when you have to put your body into it. We have been trying for 35 years to provide information, to approach the conflicts in a way, not with impartiality. We are biased, we are on the side of those who fight for truth, for justice, for memory. And we do battle in that sense.
MP: One of the sections that most attracts me today in Resumen Latinoamericano is Critical Thinking. For example Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein, a Venezuelan analyst who said that “Europe is a repulsive civilization, it is the cradle of imperialism, capitalism, slavery, fascism, Nazism”. What can you tell me about this, which breaks the mental and colonial schemes of those who here in Argentina still see Europe as the first world, the most developed, or the divine land?
CA: Sergio is really a great thinker, he was an official in Hugo Chavez’s government, he is a man who works with ideas and does not mince his words and I think it is important for this country and continent that lives facing Europe, where from Argentina we looked at Europe over Latin America, and to say that in that continent (Europe) the most authoritarian regimes were born, it is a truth. Sergio will be with us soon on June 2 for a talk here in Buenos Aires, he is writing a lot on the subject that is being misrepresented, which is the war in Eurasia, the NATO war against the Russian Federation, the use of Ukraine by the US and NATO to generate a destabilizing conflict in the whole European region and, I would say, in the world. He has a lot of knowledge and that is why we found it very interesting to interview him. He is a regular contributor to Resumen Latinoamericano and we usually publish his chronicles, which are about conflicts that nobody talks about, or at least they do it with lies, distorting the information.
MP: You are celebrating 35 years at Resumen Latinoamericano!
35 Years of Resumen Latinoamericano
CA: That’s right, we started in exile in 1979; then we made an interruption in 1983 when we returned to Argentina and in 1993 we decided to go back to work because we found the possibility that great things were going to happen in the continent, in fact in 1994 we approached the Zapatista rebellion, and gave information about Hugo Chavez’s rebellion and everything he represented in the continent, and from then we went on. Now in the present things are very confused and uncertain, not only in Argentina, but also because of the processes taking place in Latin America, but our line is absolutely informative on the side of the peoples. In this sense, I think there is a lot of material to offer to the reader that other media, the hegemonic ones, do not have and if they do have it, they bury it.
MP: How does Resumen Latinoamericano work to obtain first-hand information from our region, and how many correspondents do you have?
2017 Guantanamo- Carlos Aznarez with Resumen Latinoamericano editors Alicia Jrapko (L) US and Graciela Ramirez (R) Cuba
CA: We have a large team of collaborators, around 30 columnists all over the world. Here in Argentina we have an office where we often come out in print, with an active website that updates everyday. We have another office in Cuba with an active blog and a popular print edition; also we have a bureau in Venezuela. And since 2015 we have had an office in the U.S. where we bring news and analysis from Latin America and translate it for a North American audience.
In Buenos Aires we are on AM 740, on Radio La Tribu, in La Plata, also on FM Universidad in Neuquén, and on television, we are on Barricada TV, on another channel from Mendoza, another one in Chile, and in Venezuela, that is to say, several sources of transmission for several Latin American countries. Sometimes they look for us to broadcast programs. We have two programs, one on Latin America and the World, and the other on the Middle East, which seems to us to be a region where the single discourse works every minute trying to show a reality that does not exist to counter the falsehoods of the struggles of the Arab world, and everything that is happening in Palestine, Syria, etc.
MP: Would you give us your position on the political situation in the region, because there are several latent conflicts, for example in Peru with US military forces entering that country with weapons of war, where Dilma Boluarte, who has been rejected by Lopez Obrador as an illegitimate president; and in Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, who dissolved the Assembly and is governing by decree. Are these the most worrying conflicts?
CA: In Peru it is shameful that this government is still in place, and we have already gone through the greater shame of having received it here in Argentina, in CELAC, as if nothing had happened while at that very moment Peruvians were being killed in different places. But these are the great contradictions in the continent. It is amazing that it is said that U.S. troops enter the country with weapons and this is approved by the Parliament, which is totally rigged to the coup that the Parliament and Dina Boluarte gave as a puppet of that palace coup.
In Ecuador more of the same thing is happening, Lasso is about to be impeached, he was going to be removed from the government for multiple acts of corruption and to demonstrate that as a ruler he was a very repudiated guy. And he struck a blow. Before he was kicked out he dissolved the Parliament, now he is calling for elections.
MP: Could former President Rafael Correa run in those elections?
CA: He cannot come back until the justice system, which is like the one here that are powers because they are above the executive power, in complicity with the media as well. And Correa cannot return. However, his party was able to participate in the recent elections for governors, (prefectures), and won the majority in Guayaquil which was a stronghold of the right wing, won in Quito, and it was the “Revolución Ciudadana” Party, there Lasso lost almost 98% of the power he had. That is why he made this palace coup that should be totally repudiated by the governments of Latin America. We are no longer in the times when there was a strong alliance among the peoples, where every time a Constitution or a parliamentary power was violated, everyone united to repudiate it. Now Dina Boluarte governs without any problem, Lasso does that and nothing happens. This is the panorama we are seeing in Latin America.
MP: Carlos, in your view what can we communicators do to protect the Patria Grande from the imperialist appetites that come to take the lithium and speak with ownership of our natural resources, or to put sticks in the wheels of countries that bring us development projects with no interest in turning us into their backyard, I am referring to China, Russia, to which an open media war has been unleashed with “Russophobia” and “Chinophobia” included?
CA: We, the popular communicators, are making a great effort to tell our story, on the other hand, the hegemonic media sell to the people hour by hour these types of campaigns, first against Venezuela, against Cuba, Bolivia. Where there are popular governments, they work to move the foundations so that they fall down just because by creating a climate. The hegemonic media are really the advance guard of the coup, of fascism and of the ultra-right in the continent and the whole world, because there is a worldwide turn to the right popular communicators like us, we have to make a double effort because we do not have economic resources, they put sticks in our wheels all the time, they accuse us of what we are not, but we must never stop fighting. I have the example of Rodolfo Walsh and comrades who, in much more difficult years than now, survived by having dignity, the political will to continue fighting, and never stop finding the truth, never fall into fascist formulations, and never give in to resignation.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – Buenos Aires, translation Resumen – US