• Interview with Venezuelan-American researcher and lawyer Eva Golinger
Olga Díaz Ruiz and Geisy Guía (Journalism student)
THE Havana Book Fair has accustomed us to good, interesting publications. Its 19th edition brings us Eva Golinger, the Venezuelan-American writer and lawyer, for the launch of her book, USAID, NED and the CIA: Permanent Aggression, an ambitious compilation and analysis of current situations, written by Golinger and Jean-Guy Allard, a Canadian journalist resident in Cuba.
"This is a visit of exposé, to achieve maximum impact and, in one way, a pretext to outline that message and to prompt reflection on the constant imperial acts of aggression and their various manifestations." Moreover, it lays out "all the marvelous things that we have achieved" in the subcontinent, she affirmed in an interview with Granma.
Golinger proposes to take up this selection of political, economic, cultural and social events that are evidence of Washington’s tactics and strategies in 2009, maintaining its interference in the region, as "a weapon in the defense of our revolutions."
At this point in the conversation, she stops to observe that the coup d’état in Honduras last June "has taught us the need to take care of our spaces, to recognize that the enemy is everywhere," adding that the book is to be published in Honduras this year.
Likewise the author of The Chávez Code (2005) and Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela, the writer believes that the strengthening of Latin American integration, fundamentally through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) has prompted an increase in U.S. right-wing aggression, "Because we constitute a threat to its domination in the region."
Integration that has expanded its borders to the rest of the world, and that "seeks to lift up our countries without exploitation, or competition, through the principles of solidarity, integration and cooperation," she notes, commenting that Cuba and Venezuela constitute the vanguard of this South-South union.
Despite the fact that she was born and raised in the United States and "talks like a gringo" – as she reproaches herself – Golinger directs all her energy and passion into fighting for social justice, and emphasizes that cooperation among ALBA countries "is perceived outside of our bloc with much hope, because we are constructing a more just social model."
She gives the example of the Bolivarian Revolution, which has transformed all sectors of Venezuelan society, as well as making an impact at international level on account of that nation’s significance to the world, with the figure of Chávez. "We are constructing a country that was in ruins, despite its natural resources. Then this president comes along, without experience in politics, moreover, and look what he’s done!"
In this struggle against constant aggression, the writer notes the leading role of the alternative media: "Telesur has had a fundamental role in dismantling the received opinions of the international media and in promoting another class of journalism, which consists of going into and bearing witness to the facts."
At the same time, she expresses her enthusiasm at one of the first printed copies of the only Venezuelan English-language newspaper, Correo de Orinoco International. "It is the first time that there is information in English from a Venezuelan perspective, from the Venezuelan revolution," she affirms with pride.
Golinger told us that she intends to continue exposing the principal maneuvers of the powerful in Latin America and in that proposition, she says, she can count on her friend and colleague Jean-Guy Allard.
Translated by Granma International
