Mobilization Of US Troops In The Caribbean
Gabriel Aguirre / World BEYOND War
(August 22, 2025) — The presence of more than 877 military bases around the world, with at least 76 of them in Latin America, together with the presence of the Fourth Fleet, constitute a real threat to peace and stability in the world and particularly in the region. Throughout its history of interventionism and war, the United States has used various narratives to justify its military interventions, most of which have been shown to be misleading justifications for sowing terror and death in various parts of the world.
Recently, US President Donald Trump announced that the United States had the right to send drones to other countries under the pretext of combating drug trafficking. This statement received a very firm response from the president of Mexico, who pointed out that Mexico is a free and sovereign country and that any action of this kind would be condemned.
In the days that followed, US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced, in true Old West style, with an act lacking any legal basis and violating any logical form of respect
for international law, and setting a very negative precedent in the world, that the United States was increasing the reward for the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, under the absurd excuse of considering him to be the leader of a drug trafficking cartel. This built on Trump’s narrative about the Tren de Aragua gang, which which has been used to persecute Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, the most notable event of which was the sending of 252 Venezuelans to the CECOT prison in El Salvador. They have now returned to Venezuela.
Immediately, the US government decided to send more than 4,000 troops belonging to the Fourth Fleet to Caribbean waters, with the clear intention of serving as a threat seeking to promote the overthrow of governments that the US considers inconvenient. This action, which threatens regional peace and stability, has been strongly condemned by the peoples of Abya Yala (Latin America). Our region must be free and sovereign. The dignity of our peoples is priceless and cannot be conditioned, threatened, or coerced.
We strongly oppose any intention to escalate the militarism, and call on all people who love peace to ensure that war is never the answer to global conflicts. We demand an end to aggression against all peoples on this continent. It will not be the threat of military intervention or sanctions that will bring a better future for our peoples, but rather cooperation, solidarity, and the defense of the principle of non-intervention to build peace with social justice.
Abya Yala
Abya Yala is used by some Indigenous peoples of the Americas to refer to the Americas. The term is used by some indigenous organisations, institutions, and movements as a symbol of identity and respect for the land one inhabits. The increasing usage of the term can be viewed in the context of decolonization, as it serves to create an understanding that “land and discourse, territorio y palabra, cannot be disjointed” and a geography in which a struggle for sovereignty and resistance occurs on an everyday basis for Indigenous communities. Wikipedia
The name, which translates to “land in its full maturity”, “land of lifeblood”, or “noble land that welcomes all” originates from the Guna people who once inhabited a region spanning from the northern coast of Colombia to the Darién Gap, and now live on the Caribbean coast of Panama, in the Comarca of Guna Yala.[5] The term is Pre-Columbian.
The first explicit usage of the expression in its political sense was at the 2nd Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala, held in Quito in 2004.[6] The symbolic and ideological significance of this summit is reflected in its rejection of neoliberal globalization, its reaffirmation of Indigenous peoples’ rights to territorial autonomy, and its continuity with the earlier declarations made at the 2000 Teotihuacan Summit.[7]
Despite each Indigenous group on the continent having unique endonyms for the regions they live in (e.g. Tawantinsuyu, Anahuac or pt:Pindorama), the expression Abya Yala is increasingly used in search of building a sense of unity and belonging amongst cultures which have a shared cosmovision (for instance a deep relationship with the land) and history of colonialism. The designation Abya Yala lies in its ability to represent a shared vision rooted in Indigenous ways of life. Many Indigenous movements have adopted this designation to replace colonial names such as ‘Latin America’ to express a connection to the land, community and ancestral memory.[8]
The Bolivian indigenist Takir Mamani argues for the use of the term “Abya Yala” in the official declarations of Indigenous peoples‘ governing bodies, saying that “placing foreign names on our villages, our cities, and our continents is equivalent to subjecting our identity to the will of our invaders and their heirs.”[9] Thus, use of the term “Abya Yala” rather than a term such as New World or America may have ideological implications indicating support for Indigenous rights, as it is regarded as a symbolic shift in Indigenous self-identification. Escobar describes this as “a telling element in the constitution of a diverse set of indigenous peoples as a novel cultural-political subject.”[8]
