The Imperial Eagle Stalks Latin American Justice

By Francisco Delgado Rodriquez on August 6, 2025

The latest misdeeds orchestrated by the State Department, led by Mr. Rubio, have focused on discrediting and even sanctioning countries in the region where their judicial systems decided to prosecute friends of the US government.

The cases of Colombia and Brazil have recently attracted particular media attention, although Argentina should also be mentioned, as well as the use of so-called lawfare, or the politicization of justice, against former leaders with positions that are “uncomfortable” or confrontational for Washington.

Now President Trump is accusing Brazil of being an “extraordinary threat to national security” and has decreed a 50% increase in tariffs, annoyed by the progress of the criminal proceedings against former Rio de Janeiro governor Jair Bolsonaro. In passing, Alexandre de Moraes, a judge on the Federal Supreme Court who is primarily responsible for investigating and supervising the trial against the former president, was also sanctioned.

Bolsonaro, a prominent member of the Latin American far right, is accused of masterminding the so-called “Green and Yellow Dagger” plan to prevent Lula from returning to power in 2023, which included his eventual assassination by poisoning.

Paradoxically, Washington applauded when Lula was imprisoned under the guise of “lawfare,” or the politicization of justice, to remove him from the political arena through a rigged trial led by Judge Sergio Moro, who was appointed Minister of Justice and Security by Bolsonaro in return and ended his days as a public official embroiled in several scandals.

In a similar vein, Colombia is also under threat of reprisals, with the trial of one of the most prominent political figures of the local right, former president Álvaro Uribe, who still seems to wield some level of leadership within these forces, considered an example of an alliance subordinate to successive US administrations.

Like someone who puts his beard in water when he sees his neighbor’s burning, a list of 28 former leaders, mostly Latin American, all prominent members of the traditional right, has appeared, flapping their wings against the trial of the former Colombian president.

Uribe, who governed between 2002 and 2010, was involved in possible crimes due to his relations with paramilitary groups, authorized the so-called false positives, whereby the identity of civilians killed by the repressive forces was falsified, passing them off as guerrillas, and even the use of illegal wiretapping of political opponents and journalists. Possible links to drug trafficking since the turbulent 1980s and 1990s cannot be ruled out.

However, despite the seriousness of these accusations, Uribe ends up being punished for other reasons, which are less serious, if one is willing to admit it, and which recall the story of the American mobster Al Capone, a serial killer convicted only of tax evasion.

Once the Colombian judge in charge, Sandra Heredia, issued her guilty verdict, sentencing former President Uribe to 12 years of house arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio jumped out of his seat in his office at 2201 C Street NW, Washington, headquarters of the State Department, to vociferously denounce the ruling, solemnly describing the convicted man as an “exemplary Colombian.”

Of course, Mr. Rubio may have many ideological motivations for acting this way, although it is advisable not to forget his brother-in-law, former drug trafficker Orlando Cicilia, convicted of drug trafficking with a Colombian connection. With Uribe cornered and without Mr. Rubio’s solidarity, could he get himself out of this mess? That is what the alternative Colombian media are asking.

The use of lawfare against Latin American progressive leaders, promoted by US embassies, is part of the endless string of attacks and flagrant interference by the US in the region’s judicial systems. The danger of this procedure being applied acts as an additional threat, like a sword of Damocles, over left-wing and progressive leaders in the region.

The case of Rafael Correa is a case study. After being subjected to a media lynching, he was convicted in absentia, in violation of established procedures, and arbitrarily excluded from participating in future elections.

Something that goes beyond absurdity is to try to convict sitting presidents, Nicolás Maduro being the most emblematic, regardless of the abundance of political causes that the US pushes or uses as a pretext for this relentless war against Chavismo.

But it is truly delusional, not to say futile, to implicate Maduro in a criminal case for drug trafficking. In his eagerness to discredit and eventually isolate the Venezuelan leader, Mr. Rubio increased the reward for anyone who finds the Venezuelan leader, as if he were in hiding or his capture were feasible.

Much has been said about the conviction of former President Cristina Fernández (CFK), but not enough. An obvious political reference point for part of the Argentine electorate, and therefore with enormous potential in the face of the current government’s debacle, CFK was unsuccessfully assassinated, leading to her judicial annihilation without merit or evidence.

And of course, the case of the former president did not escape US tutelage, and to make matters worse, the ambassador appointed by Trump, Cuban-American Peter Lamela, publicly expressed in his undiplomatic words his goal of locking CFK up forever.

It is known that a continental mobilization has begun to gather support and turn CFK’s immediate release into a just political cause, which must include denunciation of the murky involvement of the US. History and the people will surely absolve her.

Telling the judges of a third country how they should act constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the country concerned.

It implies a disregard for the established principles of judicial independence, as set out in Articles 2, 95, and 99 of the Brazilian Constitution; Articles 113, 228, 230, 254, and 255 of the Colombian Constitution; and Articles 110, 115, and 116 of the Argentine Constitution. This principle of independence of powers must be respected by local authorities, and especially by foreign authorities.

In perspective, with this policy, the US has another way to influence the political course of its neighbors south of the Rio Grande. Regime change methods are not enough; according to them, the manipulation of political forces, military structures, and cultural influence are insufficient. It is also necessary to prey on the justice system, arbitrarily sending opponents to prison and trying to protect and save their allies.

In this long history, the most common excuse used by the US has been the fight against drug trafficking, where inexplicably the only culprits are cartels and bandits with Latin American surnames, and their US counterparts or partners never appear, defying common sense given that the volumes of drugs, weapons, and profits generated necessarily require organized structures of their own on US soil.

The war against drug traffickers and how the United States has waged it deserve rivers of digital ink, but it is also pertinent to associate it with the specific issue of interference in Latin American justice.

The pretext that trials in the region do not convict those who should be punished

has been used for all kinds of abuses, including the “certification” of countries subject to sanctions, pressure on the judicial system to secure the extradition to the United States of individuals of particular interest, and even military invasion, as happened in 1989 against Panama to capture former President Manuel Noriega, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 civilians.

Coercive policies to impose US interests in the field of justice are yet another chapter in the imperial eagle’s habit, with a whiff of the Monroe Doctrine, of sticking its beak where it is not invited, forgetting that, now more than ever, the condor of the Andes is here, on watch, charged with preserving the independence of Our America.

Source: Cuba Si, translation Resumen Latinoameicano – English