North American Congress on Latin America

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Abbreviation	NACLA
Formation	1966
Type	non-profit organization; publisher
Headquarters	53 WASHINGTON SQ. SOUTH FL. 4W
Location	New York City
Sponsor	NYU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS)
Website	nacla.org

North American Congress in Latin America (NACLA) is describes itself as an independent, non-profit organization founded in 1966 to provide information on trends in Latin America and relations between Latin America and the United States. The organization is best known for publishing the bimonthly NACLA Report on the Americas, and also publishes "books, anthologies and pamphlets for classroom and activist use". It has been described as having a leftist political leaning.

For the last 40 years, NACLA has been a source of English-language news and analysis for journalists, policymakers, activists, students and scholars in North America and throughout the world.

History

Founding

"[T]he focus of our attention and hope was the Cuban Revolution. The readers and writers of the NACLA Newsletter tended to view the future of Latin America and the Caribbean as resting on the possibility of reproducing something like the Cuban model elsewhere in the region."

Judith Adler Hellman, former NACLA member

In 1966, the founders consisted of civil rights, anti-war, and labor activists. The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) was established as a group that performed research for the leftist group Students for a Democratic Society. The groups founders were inspired by the Cuban Revolution and had a goal to challenge the elitist conventions expressed as "national interests" of the American people and to express the interests of those fundamentally opposed to American elitism. Rolling off a mimeograph machine in New York, the "New Left student activists", with founding publisher, NACLA, released the first issue of NACLA Report on the Americas. The activists used the term "Congress" to express the spirit of a "Congress of Unrepresented People". They represented a liberal faction of American activists unrecognized or unsupported by mainstream American elites. Rejecting the "systematic analysis of wealth and power" in Latin America, the founders chose to focus on the belief that United States policy has a direct relationship to the unfolding history of the rest of the world.

In NACLA’s first year, the Presbyterian offices of the Interchurch Center in uptown Manhattan offered free working space. The Presbyterians also paid for printing of newsletters, promotional materials, stationery and small pamphlets. Those contributions aside, NACLA’s first annual budget, including salaries, was just over $11,000. Income sources included newsletter sales (about $200 per month) and grants from the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Division of Youth Ministries of the National Council of Churches and the UCM.

NACLA investigated alleged U.S. interventions as violations of "Washington's self-declared democratic principles" including the 1954-CIA orchestrated overthrow of the reformist Arbenz regime in Guatemala, the 1961 invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs by a Florida-based anti-Castro mercenary force, and the 1965 invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic.

1970s–1990s

The 1970s produced further research on United States (U.S.) involvement in the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende's elected government in Chile. The coup reinforced the American "fears" of socialism succeeding in America. That year, the NACLA report called "Facing the Blockade" documented President Richard Nixon's Administration's "invisible blockade" that denied Allende and his regime's "credit arrangements necessary for export-import operations". Salvador Allende responded to NACLA's book called New Chile in his speech to the United Nations by saying, "If you want to know how the U.S. has affected Chile, just read New Chile by NACLA."

In 1978, NACLA split into two groups, with one group moving to Oakland, California called the "Data Center".

In the 1980s, NACLA's reporting focused on the United States' role in the Central American Wars of the 1980s. NACLA activists travelled frequently to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, studying conflicts in such areas.

In the 1990s, NACLA stated that there was a culture of impunity so pervasive in Latin America's new democracies. They highlighted the military consequences of the Drug War and criticized the neoliberal revolution occurring in Latin America. NACLA influenced activists and leaders in Latin America and in the Caribbean with their activities.

Rubén Zamora, a presidential candidate for the leftist Democratic Convergence in El Salvador, said that he regards NACLA as responsible for the better part of his political formation. During the darkest part of Haiti's military rule in the early 1990s, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ambassador-in-exile to the United States, Jean Casimir, wrote to “express [his] gratitude to NACLA for its unflinching solidarity during this important period of our history."

Present

Today, with Latin American leaders and social movements confronting what they call inequalities brought on by neoliberalism and rejecting the Washington Consensus, the growing movement for global justice pushes NACLA's intentions to take a prominent role just as it did in the 1970s and 1980s. Using the internet as an organizing tool and information portal, NACLA's website intends to provide coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean along with an analysis magazine, 40 years of archives, discussion forums, electronic newsletters, action alerts, links to social movements and organizations, and a media analysis project to examine mainstream coverage of the region.

Programs and activities

NACLA developed programs involving public debate and activism surrounding issues in the Americas. This includes its flagship publication, NACLA Report of the Americas, among other books, anthologies, and pamphlets. To support its bi-monthly newsletter, NACLA's site includes blogs, interviews, photo essays, its own radio department, and articles for investigative research and journalism.

NACLA hosts and collaborates with various conferences, seminars, teach-ins, and workshops to bring journalists, students, scholars, and others together such as The Media Accuracy on Latin America project, which involves a network of participants that generate constructive media criticism on U.S. policy in the region.

Funding

In the 1980s, NACLA was funded by the National Council of Churches and the leftist foundation Stern Fund.

Analysis

The Heritage Foundation stated in 1984 that NACLA "openly acknowledges its leftwing bias, even though other Latin American lobby groups have grown more circumspect" and that "despite the organization's theoretical ties to Marxist-Leninism, it can respond to the changing political reali ties of Capitol Hill". NACLA was also criticized by Brian Nelson, author of The Silence and the Scorpion, for having Gregory Wilpert and Michael Fox of the pro-Bolivarian government website Venezuelanalysis.com on their editorial team.

External links

• North American Congress on Latin America (Official Site)
• Media Accuracy on Latin America