Capitalism's Greatest Hits

by Stephen Pizzo Page 1 of 2 page(s)

As Americans we've have had it drilled into our heads that there are only three kinds of economic models:

Capitalism: Which we've been been Pavlovianly conditioned to accept as “the best, most productive and most democratic economic system ever devised. (The current meltdown we are assured is the simply that exception that proves this rule.)

Communism: Which has repeatedly proven itself the least inefficient and least productive economic system ever devised by man,

Socialism: Which fans of unfettered capitalism assure us is simply communism in a dress.


I only bring this up because today the Republican National Committee, meeting in a spider hole somewhere where they will, in the next few days, demand that the Democratic Party rename itself the, Democrat-Socialist Party.

Well, most of Europe is run by “Social Democrats;” and they seem to doing okay. I mean, no one is doing great these days, but at least Europeans don't have to worry about being unemployed AND uninsured.

But if the RNC wants to make it's case against the Democrats socialist tendencies, they first have to make a better case for their unfettered capitalist tendencies. Is pure capitalism really all that efficient? And if so, at what human costs are these “efficiencies” attained?

Fortunately history provides report card on American capitalism. And, if it were, say a bus, that broke down every 20 miles or so and left its passengers to hoof it into town, I suspect we'd of replaced this thing with something more efficient a long time ago. Here's that report card:

October 12, 1837 - The Panic of 1837 (sparked by over-extended credit/defaults.) The House sanctioned the use of Treasury notes for a bailout, provided that they didn't exceed $10 million; Congress's efforts to stabilize the nation's currency failed to lift the depression which lasted seven years.

August 24, 1857 – Panic spared by the failure of New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company which had loaned $5 million to railroad builders, had been swindled out of millions by the manager of its New York branch and was unable to pay extensive debt to Eastern bankers.

September 24, 1869 - "Black Friday" crash of gold prices as Grant administration foiled attempts by financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk try to corner the gold market. Several brokerage firms went bankrupt; national economy was severely disrupted for months.

September 18, 1873 – The Panic of 1873 began with collapse of Jay Cooke and Co., one of the country's most reputable brokerage houses of it's time, known as the "financier of the Civil War.” The Panic of 1873 exposed over-speculation which continued to wreak havoc on the nation's economy for months. The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days to wait out the worst of the crisis. The secretary of the Treasury pumped $26 million of new currency into the economy, swelled the amount of paper money in circulation to $382 million. Panic did not subside, economy continued its slump through the end of the decade.

May 5, 1893 – Panic was once again sparked due to reckless speculation and over-leveraging. Panic swept the New York Stock Exchange and the stock market crashed; by year's end the country was in a severe depression.

November 9, 1903 - Panic of 1903 (known as the "Rich Man's Panic") reached its low; Dow dropped to 42.15; stocks of industrial companies fell to single-digit prices; fiscal crisis dragged on for the rest of the year, took severe toll on banks, many steel and iron producers.

October 1, 1907 - The nation plunged into the Panic of 1907 which lasted for a year – sparked by a run on Knickerbocker Trust in New York, which lacked resources to pay out to the demanding public, ultimately toppled the economy; President Roosevelt enlisted the aid of his one-time enemy, financier J.P. Morgan, who capitalized on his considerable reputation to borrow $1 million in gold from European countries. Outside U. S. Subtreasury building at Wall and Broad St. in October 1907

October 24, 1929 - "Black Thursday:' stock prices plummeted, a record 12,894,650 shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange Followed by "Black Tuesday" the markets tanked. Thousands of investors were wiped out as America's Great Depression began; 1932 - stocks were worth only about 20 percent of their value in the summer of 1929; 1933, nearly half of America's banks had failed, and unemployment was approaching 15 million people, or 30 percent of the workforce.

1985-89 - The Savings and Loan collapse... $167 billion in federal bailouts required.

October 19, 1987 - The stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value - its biggest-ever percentage drop; inflation and rising interest rates, the announcement of a surprisingly steep trade deficit and news of an American attack against Iran were both blamed for Wall Street's woes.

1998 – The Long-Term Capital Management failure. The Fed had to intervene to avoid sparking a worldwide panic over the condition of giant hedge fund companies like LTCM.

2000 – The Dot.com bubble crash

2007 – The housing bubble crash

2008 – The “Toxic Assets, Market Crash
Anyway, that's what the history books say. I don't cook it, I just serve it.

One final thing. If you want a taste of just how bizarre the RNC's demand the DNC change it's name really is, just watch this short video.

Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a (more...)

From OpEdNews

POT

Álvaro Uribe is definitely not a democrat

Tuesday, 12 May 2009 16:11

After the interview that Colombia's president Álvaro Uribe gave to the BBC it is hard to deny: Alvaro Uribe is not a democrat.

For quite a long time I have been thinking that perhaps I was wrong, that perhaps my liberal tendencies were my bias towards a president with whom I often disagree.

I have always been thinking that as a journalist I have to keep a distance in the Colombian political spectrum, which is so heated, and I think I still have to. But this is no matter of sympathies or left and right. This is a matter of democratic principles.

Uribe tried silencing BBC's reporter Julián Miglierini in the boldest way. He called him "friend" and disqualifying his question about Uribe's aspirations for a third term by reminding the interviewer of the history of his own country Argentina and telling the reporter to leave the Colombian democracy alone. There is very little left for Uribe than to be deeply ashamed of himself and his behavior.

I admit that journalists behave very bold at times as well, but that cannot be said of mr. Miglierini. He simply asked what millions of people want to know: does Uribe want to run for the presidency for the third time?

This apparently was too much for the president.

The ordeal confirms what the Colombian president has always shown and which he seems to empathize more and more. Uribe does not want to be questioned, let alone be contradicted. Doing either one is a mortal sin.

The president is convinced that everybody who doesn't agree with him is wrong. And thus he has visited European countries and the Washington Post - just to give some examples - to teach them how things really are. No matter what the subject is, Free Trade Treaty, the FARC, drugs policy. He doesn't seem to realize that these 'pedagogical rounds' are completely arrogant and ridiculous.

Perhaps the president thought he won the battle in his interview with the BBC reporter, but that would be a simple demonstration of his complete lack of self reflection. Uribe's image to those who still thought he was a decent man was shattered.

If he wants to be a democrat, it really is time he should refrain from authoritarian behavior like he has been displaying, he should reconsider calling his opponents and NGO's supporters of the FARC. It is time he stops accusing Piedad Córdoba and her Colombians for Peace of wanting to make a show of the liberation of hostages. The one who wants to make the biggest (one-man) show is Álvaro Uribe.

When Álvaro Uribe explained his policy of democratic security seven years ago I was surprised about this formulation, let's say about the fact that he added 'democratic' to security. Why should you say that so explicitly if you are already and obviously have been chosen democratically in a democratic country?

More and more I am sure that this 'democratic' has no meaning. Worse, it is a lie. This policy should be named 'security'. That will do.

Author Wies Ubags is a Dutch freelance journalist in Bogotá, works for media in her country and has her own weblog

From Colombia Reports Editorials

Expat community rocked by scandal

INVESTMENT COLLAPSE
05-14-2009 | MARIJULIA PUJOL LLOYD

While a case against a former Canadian lawyer drags its way through the system a local community is split

Panama Star PANAMA. The case of the London Asset Management Inc. property of the Canadian Mary Kathleen Sloane has taken another twist in a legal saga that has been in the hands of the Panamanian courts for more than 17 months.
Apparently, Mrs Sloane has been accused of allegedly running a ponzi scheme involving foreign exchange money in Penonome, Cocle province by some disgruntled investors, but the authorities have not yet taken any actions against her.
According to an article published by Eric Jackson in his blog, Panama News, Mary Sloane resigned from the British Columbia Law Society, after it was proven that she misappropriated client’s money, misled the client and the Law Society.
The Discipline Digest of the British Columbia Law Society, volume 2 of August 1992, said that in early November 1990, Mrs Sloane received $15,000 in trust from a client with instructions to send $5,000 to another party’s lawyer in trust and the remaining $10,000 to stay in the member’s law firm trust account.
The publication continues to explain how on November 23 Mrs Sloane sent an invoice for $7,500 using stationery not from her firm but her partner’s business company T.F. Corporation. She then directed the transfer of those funds, without the authorization of the client, to the general account. The misappropriated funds were used to pay for her law firm expenses and to make payments to T.F. Corporation.
On November 26 the client asked for his money back. She wrote a check for $15,000 in favor of the client, but stopped it before he could cash it.
On December 2, Sloane wrote a trust check for $7,500 in favor of the client promising that her partner woulf pay the rest of the money.
Eventually when the case was taken before the Law Society, the client received the rest of his money and Sloane admitted that she misrepresented herself and handed in her resignation.
Jackson’s article said that Sloane came to Panama and took an active role within the ex-pat community, becoming an integral part of it.
On August 16, 2006 Mrs Sloane registered London Asset Management for the purpose of playing the foreign exchange market.
Several people invested in the company. Until one of them accused her of allegedly running a scam and got the Panamanian authorities involved to investigate the operations.

THE EXPAT COMMUNITY

Foreigners living abroad tend to get together forming tight communities in order to find their way around in new surroundings and forge friendships.
In Panama there are several social organizations exclusively formed by expats and their families. They have social events, orientation classes and the chance to talk to compatriots about their countries of origin.
For many foreigners these clubs are a safe-havens in which they can speak their own language, eat their own food and find like minded people.
It is not easy to make a new life away from your own country, where everything is new and strange. The expat community could be safety net for many, but these clubs are also the hunting grounds of con artists looking for gullible victims

MARIJULIA PUJOL LLOYD

FACTS

In early November 1990 Mary Sloane received $15,000 in trust from a client.
On November 23 Sloane transferred her client’s money to her law firm general accounts.
She was brought before the BC Law Society and after an investigation tendered her resignation.

From La Estrella de Panama

The GM Quarterly Report 2009

By RS Janes


From BartBlog

Panama Votes "Right Way," Is Allowed to Keep President as Reward

Congratulations, right wing crazies. You have finally achieved an important electoral victory in Latin America, as the free daily Washington Examiner tabloid-paper was thrilled to point out today:

"After seven defeats in eight presidential elections across Latin America, the right results were finally achieved in Panama. The doubters, naysayers and chavistas were wrong: Despite freedom-lover fears, a free market democrat roundly defeated his ultra leftist opponent."

Of course on the downside, this glorious victory took place in Satan's Isthmus itself, scenic "Panama," proving again that all it takes is little free-market messaging and a brutal hundred-year history of invading, overthrowing, propping up, overthrowing again and pretty much just cold running this "key conduit of maritime trade," and you too can win over an important regional ally, through democracy!

Update: Let's all celebrate by setting up a tax shelter there. It's so easy that it's literally scary.

From Bolivarian Revolution

Swinging from the Right: Correa and Social Movements in Ecuador

Written by Jennifer Moore
Wednesday, 13 May 2009

On April 26, President Rafael Correa became the first Ecuadorian president in thirty years to win a new mandate after only one round of elections. A day later, the popular leader announced that he will accelerate his so-called Citizen's Revolution and prioritize change for the poor. However, prominent civil society organizations say that Correa's 21st Century Socialism favors powerful economic groups and bodes poorly for Ecuador's most-excluded.

“From the point of view of the social movements and the indigenous movement in particular,” says Marlon Santi, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), “Correa's socialism is not socialism at all...He waves the flag of socialism, but he does other things.”

During his first two years in power, Correa made key decisions reflecting social movement demands, such as not to renew the contract for the U.S. military base in the coastal city of Manta, to declare a large part of the country's external debt illegitimate, and to create a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the political constitution which was overwhelmingly approved last September. The 2008 constitution declared water a human right, gave rights to nature, and made Ecuador the second country after Bolivia to be declared a plurinational state—a central proposal of the indigenous movement for decades.

But since then, new laws pertaining to mining and food sovereignty, combined with open insults and threats against organizations such as the CONAIE and Quito-based environmental organization Acción Ecológica (Environmental Action), have led these organizations to conclude that Correa is governing from the right while squeezing their ability to participate on their own terms.

Acción Ecológica President Ivonne Ramos refers to the new food sovereignty law as evidence of how Correa's policies concentrate economic power. The legislation finalized after a presidential veto in April, she says, promotes agro-industry and favours powerful economic groups who will benefit from new subsidies. It also opens the door to Terminator seeds, agro-fuels and legalization of shrimp farming in coastal manglar forests.

Even the solidarity vouchers provided to the poor are tied with monopolistic economic groups who she says control nearly the entire national food chain.

“When the people receive their vouchers,” she explains, “they can buy products in the big supermarkets at a reduced price. So the benefit is ultimately channeled to these powerful economic groups.”

She also points out a new wave of criminalization affecting environmental and human rights defenders at the local level. Many of those now facing charges are from the hundreds previously granted amnesty by the National Constituent Assembly in March 2008. In particular, community leaders affiliated with the National Coordinator for Life and Sovereignty who are opposed to large scale metal mining have been targetted. Various members face charges of organized terrorism.

Overall, Ramos foresees a much more “restrictive” environment for groups like hers in the coming period.

Accion's Closure, a Red Flag

Acción Ecológica first drew international attention to tighter restrictions for NGOs and grassroots organizations when it sought solidarity for what it called “a clear act of censorship” in March. The Health Minister, under whose ministry the organization is registered, closed its doors by withdrawing its legal status saying that the organization had not fulfilled the objectives for which it was created.

Acción attributed the move to its recent participation in protests against the new mining law, which favors Canadian-financed transnational mining companies which are well-positioned to develop gold and copper mines along the Western Andes and in the Southern Amazon. Such projects have generated great controversy, especially within affected communities.

A tremendous outpouring of support for the 23-year-old environmental organization resulted in a quick retraction of the minister's initial statement. The Minister denied possible political persecution and explained the decision as part of an administrative procedure in order that Acción Ecológica become registered under the Ministry of the Environment, which did not exist when it was founded.1

However, although their legal status has been temporarily reinstated and Ramos is confident that a definitive decision will be made in their favour later this month, she is still worried about how the government is reorganizing NGOs and grassroots organizations.

New conditions include that organizations should orient their actions and programs according to the National Development Plan which is in the hands of the National Secretariat for Planning and Development (SENPLADES). She calls this “terrible,” saying, “we might differ with the National Development Plan.”

She further adds that President Correa has mentioned several times that organizations like hers should not carry out any political activity. But, she challenges, “We are political beings and we view working in the interests of nature and the common good as a political act.”

“However,” she affirms, “we have never engaged in party politics and we are not at all interested in holding positions of power. Rather, we believe that there is a power that exists outside of this: freedom of speech and freedom of action to defend what we consider worth defending.”

They are energized by the support they received in March which made them realize that they have what Ramos calls an “irreproachable reputation” upon which to continue working.

Plurinationality, Only on Paper

However, prior to the closure of Acción Ecológica, indigenous institutions were also being threatened, coupled with regular insults that the CONAIE leadership were nothing but “a few good-for-nothings.”

The indigenous movement first arose as an important political force in the early 1990s and has led key mobilizations against neoliberal policies such as US free trade agreement negotiations, while resisting expansion of extractive industries at the regional level, especially in the south and south-central Amazon.

The rift with Correa first developed a year ago for various reasons including Correa's emphatic opposition to the inclusion of free prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples over activities taking place on their territories in the new constitution.2 More than half a dozen indigenous nationalities could be affected by planned oil and mining expansion.

More recently, in late January, on the heels of indigenous-led protests against the new mining law, President Correa surprised indigenous leaders when he announced during one of his Saturday radio programs that the Development Council of the Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador (CODENPE) would be closed. He alleged that the Executive Secretary was misusing funds in favor of her home province. Several days prior, the Minister of Economy stopped CODENPE's funds.

CODENPE was established through implementation of the 1998 constitution which recognized the right of indigenous peoples in Ecuador to participate in decision making and to determine their own development priorities.

The decision led Monica Chuji, former Assembly Member and past Communications Secretary for Correa, to write that it is hardly a coincidence that the decision would take place following the mining law protests. She concluded that “like all neoliberal governments, for Correa, we indians represent 'an obstacle to development'.” She indicated that this was also a message to other social movements “to be advised: no protests or dissidence against the neoliberal politics of the Government of Rafael Correa—or else.”3

But this was only the beginning. A month later, President Correa issued a decree retracting the autonomy of the National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education (DINEIB), placing it under control of the Ministry of Education. More recently in the lead up to the April election, the indigenous justice system has come under heavy criticism.

CONAIE President Marlon Santi says “In the preamble of the new constitution, it says that this is a plurinational state, but the government does not really want to recognize this.” Plurinationality is the recognition of multiple nationalities coexisting within the same state. The concept also encompasses proposals such as autonomous control of health care, education, and justice.

Santi sees what is taking place as a racist process of “disaccreditation,” such that “the movement loses representation and participation in whatever agenda or economic process are taking place through the state.”

Funding and operations at Codenpe have begun again, but the CONAIE now has several cases before the Constitutional Court as a result of these decisions, and another that it is preparing against the President's Office to be presented before the Inter American Human Rights Commission.

An Extension of World Bank Policies

Economist Pablo Dávalos, a professor and former advisor to the CONAIE, was critical of Correa even before he was first elected in November 2006. He says the distance between social movements and Correa is comparable to the relationship between the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil and President Lula.

Dávalos is concerned about the growing concentration of power and growing state influence over social organizations, especially the CONAIE, as part of efforts to advance the government's economic program.

He comments that Correa is building upon accumulated efforts to weaken the CONAIE, which is still recovering from a failed alliance with the government of Colonel Lucio Gutierrez (2003-2005), who came to power with the help of the indigenous movement and then quickly proved itself a closer friend of former US President George W. Bush. However, he suggests that Correa's approach is closer to “intervention strategies developed by the World Bank toward social movements in the 1990s through projects geared at specific groups including women, peasant farmers, youth and indigenous.”

From Dávalos’ perspective, particularly with regard to the CONAIE, the goal is “to neutralize the ability of the indigenous movement to mobilize and to destroy it as a historic social actor.”

Although much has been made of the new 2008 political constitution—and notwithstanding social organizations including the CONAIE that are actively defending their constitutional rights as they were voted upon last September—Dávalos says that in contrast with the constitution of 1998 “the new political system is more vertical, more heirarchcal, and more dependent on the president than before.”

He adds that while certain rights have been obtained, “such as the right to water, the untouchability of indigenous territories and some collective rights, economic planning prevails over these rights. So if a right comes into tension with the planning process, then planning will come first. So the rights are there, but they are neutralized at the same time.”

Change from Below

Dávalos says the first step for social movements, before rebuilding capacity to mobilize and developing strategic alliances, is to “take back the [socialist, revolutionary] discourse because it permits resistance and locates the government with respect to social groups. But right now this has been kidnapped and assimilated into the government.”

Lastly, he says, “an international lobby needs to be developed to indicate that this government is far from a leftist government and corresponds more closely to the interests of powerful groups that are emerging with the new mining and agro-fuels sectors.”

From the perspective of the CONAIE's Marlon Santi, it is all part of a lengthy process for inclusion that the indigenous movement has been fighting for decades and living through for centuries.

“We have been in this process as an indigenous organization through left wing governments and right wing governments. Neither really suits us because the left does not take into count of the full dimension of every sector...That is why the CONAIE has life plans strategically developed to last for twenty years.

Stressing that it has been as a result of their past struggles rather than state programs by which they have achieved their currently recognized rights, “about 0.2%” of what they are aiming for, Santi says, he considers that change will continue to come from below despite Correa's discourse.“Our challenge is to develop public policies from us for the government to meet the needs and requirements of the most abandoned sectors."

Ideally for Santi, their involvement will be a 21st Century priority: “We are in the century in which we as human beings with our range of races, customs, cultures, and ways of thinking, have to respect these various differences that we have.”

Under the current conditions, however, this will be difficult.

Notes
1. Daniel Denvir, 16 March 09 “Ecuadorian government shuts down leading environmental group” http://www.grist.org/article/ecuadorian-government-shuts-down-leading/
2. Daniel Denvir, 16 May 2008 “CONAIE indigenous movement condemns President Correa” http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1288/49/
3. Monica Chuji, 27 January 2009, “El cierre del CODENPE: Otro ejemplo del racismo y autoritarismo del presidente Correa” http://www.llacta.org/notic/2009/not0127a.htm

From Upside Down World

Noam Chomsky Talks About US Imperialism Among Other Things

Compañero Obama? Obama Mends Fences with Latin America

Written by Benjamin Dangl
Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Source: Alternet

When George W. Bush went to Latin America, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona called him "human trash," and protesters flooded the streets.

Now, when Barack Obama visited, leftist Venezuela President Hugo Chavez wanted to shake his hand, the right-wing president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, asked for his autograph and the anti-imperialist book Open Veins of Latin America made an unlikely journey to the White House.

What does the April Summit of the Americas say about the past and future of U.S.-Latin American relations?

"While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms," Obama told 34 of the hemisphere's presidents at the summit. "But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership … There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values."

Such intentions were perhaps most clearly represented in the now-famous handshake between Obama and Chavez. At the start of the summit, Obama strode across the room to initiate a warm greeting with Chavez -- much to the chagrin of right-wing pundits and politicians in Washington.

Dick Cheney found the handshake "disturbing," and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said, "I think it was irresponsible for the president to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chavez."

Obama responded to critics by explaining, "Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States'. They own Citgo. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States."

The encounters between Obama and Chavez were followed up with concrete plans to improve relations. Both countries agreed to restore the ambassadors in each nation; the diplomats had been pulled last September when oppression of supporters of Bolivian President Evo Morales was linked to U.S. funding and support.

Obama later said at the summit, "We recognize that our military power is just one arm of our power, and that we have to use our diplomatic and development aid in more intelligent ways."

Such rhetoric comes at a time when the region is clearly breaking free of Washington's grasp. Across Latin America, leftist leaders have been elected on anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal platforms. On April 26, left-leaning Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was re-elected with 51.7 percent of the votes, showing that the leader is one of the most popular in Ecuador's recent history; it was the first election since 1979 that did not necessitate a run-off vote.

Statistics also show that many Latin American leaders' socialistic policies -- and independence from Washington -- are improving the lives of their citizens.

Inés Bustillo, director of the Washington office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a United Nations agency, recently told the Christian Science Monitor that in Latin America, "Between 2003 and 2008, we had average annual growth of 4.5 percent -- growth we had not seen since the late 1960s … That growth, and some really sound fiscal policies and expanded social initiatives, led to a 9 percent drop in the poverty rate -- 40 million people moving above the poverty line."

Obama Has a Fan in Colombia

Obama has previously criticized the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, citing the assassination of labor leaders and violations of human rights as reasons for not supporting the deal. Yet Obama has since made an about-face on the topic. The day after the summit, the Obama administration announced that it will not renegotiate any part of the North American Free Trade Agreement and will continue pushing for the application of FTAs with Panama and Colombia.

Colombia's Uribe was in on Obama's plan at the summit, hence his giddiness when he approached the U.S. president to ask for his autograph. Obama complied, writing, "To President Uribe, with admiration."

Uribe joked of the note to reporters: "Barack Obama signed this little letter for me ... I'm going to send this to get framed."

But is Uribe really the kind of fan Obama needs? The Colombian leader has been regularly linked to violent right-wing paramilitary groups, implicated in gross human rights violations. Just recently, Diego Murillo, a former paramilitary and drug lord in Colombia, said in a U.S. court that he helped fund Uribe's 2002 election campaign.

And on April 29, Britain quietly announced they would end all military support to the Uribe regime due to his government's extensive human-rights violations and links to violent paramilitary groups. The military aid had been going on for almost a decade.

In a written statement, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said his government "shares the concern … that there are officers and soldiers of the Colombian armed forces who have been involved in, or allowed, abuses … Our bilateral human-rights projects with the Colombian ministry of defense will cease."

According to The Guardian, "Investigators are looking into 1,296 cases since 2002 of reported executions of civilians by army soldiers who dressed the victims in rebel uniforms and planted weapons on them to present them as legitimate guerrilla casualties."

Open Veins in the White House

At the summit, Obama also said that he "didn't come to debate the past, I came to speak about the future." Yet the past crept up at every turn. First, Chavez handed Obama a copy of Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano's 1971 anti-imperialist book, The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, "to learn about our history, [because] it is on the basis of this history that we have to rebuild."

Perhaps Chavez handed Obama the book in part because he knew that Jeffrey Davidow, the U.S. coordinator for Obama's summit meeting, was also the U.S. ambassador to Chile from 1971 to '74, during the U.S.-backed military coup against the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. The U.S.' funding and support for the violent reign of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet is well documented.

At the summit, Davidow commented, possibly because of this bloody past, that the more right-leaning governments of Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia are "forward-looking, not backward-looking" and that the regional call for lifting the embargo against Cuba is "part of the historical baggage that Latin America carried with it and is almost a reflexive suspicion or anti-Americanism."

In a recent column, Tom Hayden wrote of a declassified document from 1974 in which Davidow communicated with Chilean officials regarding a "conspiracy on the part of the enemies of Chile to paint the junta in the worst possible terms."

This violent dictatorship casts a shadow across each page of Galeano's now-classic book -- which, after Chavez handed it to Obama, shot to No. 2 on the Amazon best-seller list. One can only hope that Obama will read this book and improve U.S.-Latin American relations in the post-Bush era, relations that could be marked by camaraderie rather than blood and bullets.

In the afterword to Open Veins, Galeano writes about the stories of where his book ended up after its publication:

The most heartening response came not from the book pages in the press but from real incidents in the streets. The girl who was quietly reading Open Veins to her companion in a bus in Bogotá, and finally stood up and read it aloud to all the passengers. The woman who fled from Santiago in the days of the Chilean bloodbath with this book wrapped inside her baby's diapers. The student who went from one bookstore to another for a week in Buenos Aires ' Calle Corrientes, reading bits of it in each store because he hadn’t the money to buy it. And the most-favorable reviews came not from any prestigious critic but from the military dictatorships that praised the book by banning it.

Now, with the unlikely arrival of this book in the White House, the journey of Open Veins continues, and the story of U.S.-Latin American relations enters a new chapter.

Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007). He is also the editor of Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events, and Upside Down World, a news Web site uncovering activism and politics in Latin America. Email bendangl@gmail.com .

From Upside Down World

Bits and Pieces

May 13th, 2009

* Remember that terrorist cell in Santa Cruz–the one with murky connections to the ultra-right-wing Argentine carapintada group? An Argentine daily reports that there were 11 more of the painted faces in Beni department (also an oppo area, natch), according to ABI. These guys were also apparently involved at some point in the Balkan conflict in the 90s, which neatly ties in to head terror dude Eduardo Rosza Flores, who was a Balkan war junkie and alleged murderer of journalists.
* Alcides Mendoza, who is tied to the terror group by Bolivian investigators, denied fingering ex-Pro-Santa Cruz Committee leader Branko Marinkovic as the terror-group funder; could it be because he is now being held in Santa Cruz, and little too close to his ex-comrades in the UJC?
* Bina points to another ABI article, which says that the terror-cell dead had gunpowder residue on their fingers; cambas are now clamoring to prove that one can get this residue from paintball (the Irish, I suppose, will claim that it’s a naturally occurring substance found on clovers).
* Evo makes a plea to Peruvian president Alan “Twobreakfasts” Garcia: “Vulgar comrade Alan Garcia, I’m asking you with great respect to expel these criminals who are escaping to Peru.” Garcia has granted asylum to a former minister of ex-Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (”Goni,” who is also wanted by Bolivian authorities, but who’s cuddled up to Clinton and Obama officials up north and is pretty damn safe and comfortable), and is considering granting asylum to two more Goni goons–this on the back of granting asylum to Manuel Rosales, who’s not only wanted by Venezuelan authorities, but by Interpol, too! (Could Bush Jr. and Cheney be eying asylum for themselves in Peru, too?)
* On February 14, 1879, the Bolivian government seized the Chilean-owned Antofagasta Nitrate & Railway Company, claiming an earlier agreement with the company over tax revenues on saltpeter exports was illegal, having never been ratified by congress. Chile, in turn, invaded Antofagasta, the capital of Bolivia’s Litoral region, on the Pacific coast. Neighboring Peru, bound by a secret treaty with Bolivia, tried to mediate the dispute peacefully at first, but Chile pre-empted negotiations by declaring war on both countries, on April 5, after learning of the treaty. Thus began the War of the Pacific–also known as the Saltpeter War–which raged for four years, caused Bolivia to lose its sea access, and had the capital of Peru, Lima, temporarily occupied by Chilean troops. Bolivians still mourn the loss of their ocean-side land.

Since then, Bolivia has periodically tried to negotiate with the Chilean government over access to the Pacific, to no avail. But according to Los Tiempos (Spanish), there is now a proposal floating in Chile over a 150-kilometer-long tunnel that could connect the Bolivian town of Andes Charaña with a man-made island off Arica, Chile. (Incidentally, I just talked with Brazil-nut farmers in Pando department who are forced to truck their product to Arica for export to Europe–this would save them time and money.) The proposal is in its nascent stages, with neither the Chilean nor the Bolivian governments discussing it formally yet. There’s also a question of Peru’s claims to the territory, too. The tunnel sounds like an expensive pipe dream, but it’s damn interesting. (Here’s a less-detailed article on the tunnel in English; H/T to BoRev for the Tiempos article.)
* Late addition: Via Otto, an AP story about cocaine, the Shining Path, and the poverty- and violence-stricken Peru way off the tourist path.

Soldiers shot and killed four people in one village in September, says Norberto Lanilla, a lawyer representing the victims’ relatives.
“They called us terrorists and collaborators. After the killings we had a week to grab what we could and leave,” Rojas said of the soldiers.
Defense Minister Antero Florez defended the soldiers, saying anyone living in the rebel-dominated mountains should be considered an insurgent.
Rojas and other refugees deny they are collaborators. But they say it’s best to avoid contact with the military.
“The soldiers try to use you quickly, for information, as guides. But if you guide, ‘Los Tios’ don’t forgive. They kill,” Rojas says. The [Shining Path] rebels are known as “Los Tios,” Spanish for the uncles.

Nasty.

From El Gaviero

World hide and seek

Perhaps I shall

It’s called a microphone, Joe.

Stop-Loss in Iraq Shows Results

By RS Janes



From BartBlog

Win/Win

By Peregrin


From BartBlog

The Panama Deception

An oldie but a goodie. Especially relevant in light of the ongoing deception by the media over Iraq and Afghanistan. For more on how the media screwed the public during the Panama assault 20 years ago, see the FAIR blog's entry on the media's shoddy, shameful coverage of that gorefest--and see how it really is déjà vu all over again.

From News of the Restless

More incriminating video from the Venezuelan coup

Haz click en cualquier video para verlo
Puedes ver otros en radiomundial.com.ve

Haz click en cualquier video para verlo
Puedes ver otros en radiomundial.com.ve

VTV journalist Ernesto Villegas shows a video clip taken by a Peruvian reporter team during the firefights of April 11, 2002 in Caracas. In it, in the background, you can see a Metropolitan Caracas police officer taking off a red beret (falsely identifying him as a Chavista) and swapping it for the white helmets worn by the cops.

Recall that the force was, at that time, under control of an anti-Chávez mayor, Alfredo Peña. Recall, also, that the media was full of stories about how "Chávez ordered the Bolivarian Circles to fire on unarmed opposition marchers"! Recall, too, that the media--Venevisión particularly--falsified the events of that day in a big way, showing a group of men firing from Llaguno Bridge. They were, in fact, defending themselves and their fellow Bolivarians on the bridge--against the Metropolitan Police, who were shooting at them from on top of a riot truck below. The opposition march never got within five city blocks of the bridge, and the shooters' handguns only had a range of three, if that. The only thing within that range was, you guessed it, the cops. Who, as the accused men later steadfastly insisted, were not acting as authorities of law and order, but as shock troops for the coup which was underway at the time. They were shooting at unarmed Bolivarian demonstrators, gathered on the bridge, which was just a short distance down Urdaneta Avenue from two government buildings: Miraflores, and the White Palace. The objective of the police and their allies, the rooftop snipers, was clear--to kill and terrorize, and thus clear the road so the oppo marchers could storm the palace.

And, as we can now see from the video above, there was an additional motive: to frame the innocent Chavistas and present them as the guilty party of that day. Looks like that frame is finally falling apart.

From News of the Restless

From the 'Comments' on this article

If Obama and Chavez seriously start negotiating about a future of normalization of relations, the latter should insist on releasing all the relevant US documents about the coup, especially the communications of Shapiro. That should help clarify matters a lot about what was happening ...

Posted by: Utpal | April 16, 2009 11:56 AM

More from Canal Sur, if you haven't seen this already:

http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/yvke/noticia.php?22996

Posted by: Utpal | April 16, 2009 1:36 PM

Haz click en cualquier video para verlo
Puedes ver otros en radiomundial.com.ve

Oh, that Evo...so paranoid all the time!

Does he never stop talking about terror plots the imperialists are hatching against him? Sheesh...

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who is currently on an out-of-country trip, publicly denounced on Sunday the presence of paramilitary cells who are organizing in the state of Santa Cruz, with the objective of destabilizing the government.

This denunciation coincides with an operation conducted on Thursday by Bolivian police, in which three suspected terrorists were killed and an apparent terror cell disrupted.

"We're not asleep at the switch, we know that they're organizing. Now, in Santa Cruz, they're inventing a new pretext for not having national elections. They always want to weaken the government. But their plan to 'exhaust the Indian' failed. What else are the imperial tools in Bolivia preparing, along with the empire outside the country?" Morales asked during a televised interview.

[...]

On Sunday, Morales also said that if anything were to happen to his vice-president, Alvaro García Linera, or to any of his ministers, it would be the doing of the "fascist right wing which is organizing".

On Thursday, the commander of the National Police, Víctor Hugo Escóbar, informed that the dismantled terrorist group "aimed to make an attempt on the life of certain persons in the cities of Santa Cruz and La Paz."

"By way of characteristics, modus operandi, and the quantity of explosives found, we may speak of a terrorist group," Escóbar said.

Translation mine. (Sabina's)

Only, as per usual, Evo isn't just talking paranoid woo-woo...he's for real, and so's this guy:



That's Chief Escóbar. Here's more about the plot he uncovered...

Bolivian police revealed that in the early morning hours on Thursday, they killed three suspected terrorists, two of them Hungarian nationals and one Bolivian. The suspects are linked to various assassination attempts with explosives in the city of Santa Cruz, among them the explosion at the home of Cardinal Julio Terrazas last Wednesday morning.

Police commander Víctor Hugo Escóbar, in a press conference, explained that the suspects "used firearms" and that police responded in kind.

"We regret the deaths of three persons, who have been transferred to the morgue, along with two detainees who were transferred to La Paz in order to continue the investigation," remarked the police chief.

Without giving any close details of the operation and the identities of the dead, Escóbar said that "they are specialists and trained for such ends", and that in the confrontation, "the terrorists launched a bomb" in their efforts to escape.

"We presume that according to the characteristics and the modus operandi we observed developing in the different crimes, that not only the assault on the house of the cardinal but others. The explosive chemicals used lead us to believe that it was the same persons, but we will await a technical report from our specialists," said the chief.

Translation mine. (Sabina's)

Paranoid? Shyeah. So paranoid is Evo that they really ARE out to destabilize the country. Just leaped fully formed from his head, they did...

UPDATE #1: The dead and arrested have now been named. Dead are Mayarosi Ariad, a Romanian; Michael Dwyer (spelled in the report on ABI as Duayer Michel Martin), of Ireland; and Jorge Hurtado Flores, a Bolivian. Captured are Mario Tadik, a Bolivian, and Iedad Toazo, a Hungarian.

UPDATE #2: Rubén Costas, oppo douchebag, thinks it's all just a media show cooked up by the government. Of course, it happened in HIS city, on HIS watch; he's the prefect of Santa Cruz! Strange, too, how the timing is so convenient--Bolivia's government just passed a new electoral law so that elections can take place in December. That's why Evo spent four and a half days on hunger strike--the oppos were holding the bill up in parliament. They talk a lot about autonomy, but they can't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight, much less mount a convincing campaign against Evo. The best they can do is recycle neoliberal dogma, which Bolivians have already rejected, and violently, numerous times. Guess who stands to lose big-time in December's elections, and why...

UPDATE #3: Vice-minister Saúl Ávalos has demanded that the right-wing Comité Pro Santa Cruz be investigated for possible links to the terrorists. That's Branko Marinkovic's outfit. Figures that he's never far removed from anything that goes bang, boom or, in this case, bust...

UPDATE #4: Vice-minister of the Interior, Marcos Farfán, reports that the same terrorist group tried to plant a bomb on the military ship that carried Evo, Alvaro and their floating parliament on Lake Titicaca a couple of weeks ago. They also tried to sabotage a ceremony in which Evo handed over land titles to Guaraní natives in Alto Parapetí. You may recall from reading El Duderino that the Guaraní are among the most grievously wronged people in Eastern Bolivia--many have been outright enslaved by large land-owners. This title handover is their ticket to freedom, and the attempted sabotage thereof tells you all you need to know about who the terrorists were working for.

From News of the Restless

Our Litigious Society

Look out, Venezuela! Hilarious law nut Larry Klayman has launched a class-action lawsuit against Hugo Chavez, for, um, "assault, supporting terrorism, crimes against humanity, violations of civil and human rights and torture of members of the class Klayman is representing."

Larry Klayman! Remember this guy? He's the founder of Judicial Watch, the organization that harassed the Clinton Administration with 18 increasingly bizarre lawsuits in the 90s. Then in 2003 he was fired for an "inappropriate relationship with a Judicial Watch staffer," and promptly sued Judicial Watch. It's been pretty much downhill from there.

In recent years he's been reduced to zoning lawsuits in Florida and, of course, suing his own mother for expenses incurred taking care of grandma. But this could be Larry's big year! In addition to the Venezuela suit, he's also launched an investigation into "partying in the White House since the Obamas moved in." Obviously, we're all pulling for you, Larry! Super-double hat tip to Bina, for digging up most of this.

From Bolivarian Revolution

US Strategy in Latin America Was Wrong

May 11th 2009, by Mark Weisbrot

Three years ago I wrote an article arguing that the political changes sweeping across Latin America were epoch-making and probably irreversible, and that they would fundamentally alter the relationship between the region and the United States. Some of the most important economic causes of the region's shift to the left - including the unprecedented long-term growth failure since 1980 - were unrecognised then and remain mostly unacknowledged to this day.

At the time, Washington's stated strategy was to isolate Venezuela from its neighbours. This was before the election of additional left governments in Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Paraguay and El Salvador. I argued that this strategy was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what was happening in the region, and that it would only succeed in isolating the United States from its southern neighbours.

All this has come to pass, but more interestingly, for the first time we have an acknowledgement of this failure from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. At a press conference last Friday, she said in response to a question about Venezuela:

When we look around the world, actually, we see a number of countries and leaders - Chávez is one of them but not the only one - who, over the last eight years, has become more and more negative and oppositional to the United States. ... The prior administration tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to ... turn them into international pariahs. It didn't work.

This is a remarkable confession, and it didn't get a fraction of the attention it deserved. Clinton did not name the countries, but in Latin America, Bolivia would have to be included as a country where Washington has incurred resentment by supporting opposition movements against President Evo Morales. And of course there is the 47-year failure of the embargo against Cuba:

"We're facing an almost united front against the United States regarding Cuba. Every country, even those with whom we are closest, is just saying you've got to change."

She didn't mention that they are also saying that Washington must change its policy toward Venezuela. President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has consistently defended Hugo Chávez, has told Barack Obama as much and reportedly counselled him at the Summit of the Americas not to listen to his advisers - most of whom have appeared to seek continued hostility toward Venezuela and possibly Bolivia.

It is remarkable that pressure for a reality-based view of the world has had to come from the south, and says a lot about the state of civil society in the US. How is it that nobody from our leading foreign policy institutions could have figured this out years ago? On Cuba, there has been dissent - partly because there are powerful business interests that want access to the island, and partly because 47 years of failure is a long time even for slow learners.

But on Venezuela, the primary focus of US foreign policy in the hemisphere for the past seven years, there has been an overwhelming consensus of fantasy and hype. Chávez is the only democratically elected leader in the world, facing a media that is still overwhelmingly controlled by his political opposition, to be successfully maligned as a "dictator". And a threat to the US - what exactly has he done to the US, anyway, other than provide a $100m annual subsidy to poor people here for heating oil?

The sad reality is that while the US has at least some civil society organisations that can present an independent view to the public on domestic issues, on foreign policy issues we are much more like Russia. The vast majority of expert opinion on foreign policy that is allowed access to major media in the US consists of government officials, former government officials or people who or are otherwise influenced by the government. This is one reason why it was so easy to invade Iraq and so difficult to get out of there or out of Afghanistan - in spite of the American public's long-standing lack of enthusiasm for sending combat troops overseas.

Hillary Clinton also took note that Russia, Iran and China are gaining economic and political influence in Latin America, and recognised that we are operating in "a multi-polar world." This is also obvious - China has recently invested billions in Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and Ecuador, and agreed to a $10bn currency swap arrangement with Argentina. This week China also passed the US as the number one recipient of Brazilian exports. But Clinton's recognition of a "multi-polar world" is unusual and probably unprecedented for a US secretary of state.

The signals from Washington remain mixed. The state department last week took another gratuitous swipe at Venezuela, listing the country as a "terrorist safe haven", among other unsubstantiated allegations. (A few days later, Venezuela deported five Colombian guerillas to their home country). Obama's top economic adviser Larry Summers recently made a point of saying that Argentina would not qualify for the IMF's flexible credit line, from which Mexico had just received a $47bn commitment.

Washington is the IMF's principal overseer. Mexico and Brazil also each have access to a $30bn currency swap arrangement with the US Federal Reserve. These are large commitments, and a reminder that Washington is still using its clout in a time of crisis to play political favourites, rather than contributing to regional balance of payments support.

But Clinton's unprecedented reality-based remarks are an indication that she and Obama may have taken home some important lessons from their conversations with other presidents at the Summit of the Americas on 22 April. Such new thinking would be long overdue.

From Venezuela Analysis

How the Venezuelan opposition does "journalism"

Yes, kiddies, more fun stuff from Mario and his band of merry men at La Hojilla:

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Puedes ver otros en radiomundial.com.ve

Globovisión no doubt thought it had scored a journalistic coup when one of its reporters, Beatriz Adrián, came by the confidential information of several members of the National Assembly, including their salaries and discretionary spending budgets.

Well, it was a coup all right, but less of the journalistic kind, and more like "d'état".

You see, the security cameras were on in the corridors of power, and they caught Beatriz, her colleague Violeta Rosa, and at least two other Globovisionistas in the act of suborning an employee of the National Assembly, who has since been fired. The cameras caught everything: some suspicious conversations, some lurking, some pacing back and forth, and finally, the hand-over of the confidential papers, along with the gleeful exit of Beatriz and Violeta, who can be seen grinning ear to ear at their own "cleverness" in having bribed a poor hapless woman into handing over materials that they had no right to.

Well, I bet they won't be grinning so much from now on. At least, not in the hallowed halls of the Hemiciclo.

And neither will their boss, Alberto Federico Ravell, who financed this little exercise in cheque-book hackery. I'd sure like to see a camera catch the look on his face when he learned that his girls had been caught in the act of bribery. I bet it would be uncannily like that of a man who has just split his pants and is suddenly feeling a gentle breeze blowing where it shouldn't.

From News of the Restless

Bolivia terror plot: An attorney's intriguing revelations, and some more intriguing revelations about the attorney

No translation required, I trust...

My, oh my, oh my. Something mighty interesting is going down in Bolivia, no? Here comes your latest installment, kiddies:

Denver Pedraza, the defence attorney for the Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC) members Carlos Gueder Bruno and Alcides Mendoza Masavi, implicated in the activities of a presumed terrorist cell dismantled in Santa Cruz, linked Senator Walter Guiteras to the suspected trafficking of weapons in 2006, which were to be used against the government.

"Senator Guiteras, of the Podemos opposition party, was one of the persons allegedly trafficking weapons through the zone, via one of his properties," Pedraza revealed in an interview with a local TV station.

Pedraza named a family, the Farfáns, as suspected ringleaders of an organization which trafficked weapons in the department of Beni, although he did not specify a precise location of the property in question.

"This terrorist event has a name and surname. As of 2006-7, a great many weapons entered Bolivia, especially in the departments of Santa Cruz and Beni," Pedraza said.

[...]

Pedraza also revealed that as of 2006, when the weapons began coming into the country, and in 2007-8, "the 'lodges' Toborochi, Caballeros del Oriente, and a group of members who ran the companies CRE (electricity), COTAS (telecommunications) and SAGUAPAC (water) began to react [against the Morales government]."

[...]

Pedraza said that these "lodges" immediately organized, and that there was a hunger strike in Santa Cruz, "and then the idea arose among some people there to kill Dr. Hugo Salvatierra, who was Minister of Agriculture, and Dr. Chato Peredo."

These declarations come as the Public Ministry investigates events relating to a terrorist cell which operated in Santa Cruz, which intended to divide Bolivia and made attempts on the life of President Evo Morales. In previous declarations made last week, Pedraza had already made known that he possessed much important information relating to the terrorism case, and asked to meet with President Morales.

Translation mine. (Sabina's)

You'll want to read what Otto has found about the Toborochi and Caballeros Del Oriente "lodges" mentioned above, which are shunned like lepers by mainstream, respectable Bolivian freemasons for reasons all too compelling. There is some extensive and damning documentation (at the moment, in Spanish only) on these two very shady secret societies. If more on them comes to light later on, I'm going to translate key bits and post them here, as I agree with Otto that they are significant--they appear to have provided cover for some serious terrorist plotting and other criminal activities as well.

Meanwhile, I'm doing the old Googly-moogly on Denver Pedraza, the attorney for these two accused, who are suspected bagmen and/or weapons suppliers to the cell. Here are a few things I've found so far:

According to a May 1 news item on a Canadian Bolivia solidarity site, Pedraza is himself under corruption charges. The charges stem back to when Pedraza was district chief of DIRCABI Santa Cruz, the district directorate of the national registry, controller and administrator of confiscated property. For this reason, according to the juridical director of the Ministry of Government, Rubén Gamarra, Pedraza "has no moral authority to summon any governmental authorities"--this in reference to his wanting to meet with Evo. Instead, he's been asked to hand over the information to the Public Ministry to be processed according to established legal procedure.

Pedraza was made district chief of DIRCABI Santa Cruz on July 21, 2006, and fired just nine months later, after Alfredo Rada, the Minister of Government, found irregularities in his management of the office. Pedraza is accused of having taken a confiscated car and then crashed it in a state of intoxication. Several bottles of wine were found inside at the scene. It wasn't the only confiscated car he took, either--he is accused of having given two armored vehicles, a Fiat and a Citroën, worth $50,000 US apiece, to the mother of a man charged in a drug-trafficking case. He only returned one--"totally dismantled". The other is still unaccounted for. Yet another confiscated vehicle, a Suzuki, was also "irregularly used" and involved in a traffic accident; Pedraza was found to have ordered the transfer of some persons in it, and to date has not paid for the repairs incurred as a result of the incident. He also rented out a confiscated building, on the corner of San Aurelio Avenue and Segundo Anillo in the city of Santa Cruz as a billboard for large advertisements. The renters were charged $700 US for a year's use of the space. This money did not go to DIRCABI, but to Pedraza's own pocket, even though he had been fired. Several pieces of confiscated jewelry were also found to be missing from the safe at DIRCABI headquarters, and Pedraza later admitted that they were in "a secure location", and returned them after they were found in his home!

Gee, he sounds like quite the character, doesn't he? But nonetheless, he's entirely par for the course if you're talking about crooked bigwigs in the city of Santa Cruz, which has no shortage of those. (Why do you think so many of them are banding together in clandestine "lodges" to kill Evo? Among other things, he's cracking down on corruption. Duh!)

According to this piece in the very right-wing (and smelly) Bolivian news site El Deber, Pedraza claims there are persons in the federal government and the National Police linked to weapons trafficking. Could this be what he wanted to meet with Evo about? Or is he accusing Evo, and trying to drag him into court? This might explain why his "requests" for a "meeting" were rejected on the grounds of his lack of moral standing. Oh, and get this: Pedraza claims to be a MAS supporter (that is, of Evo's party, the Movement Toward Socialism)! He also points the finger at Alfredo Rada (mentioned above), and Major Johnny Tapia, former federal police officer (and head of Delta Squadron) and currently chief of police in Plan 3000, a mostly-indigenous suburb of the city of Santa Cruz. Tapia of course denies it, and I have yet to see anything worth crediting pertaining to charges against Rada, either. The same piece also uncritically characterizes the far-right astroturf group, the "Human Rights Foundation", as "apolitical", which is the dirtiest joke I've heard all week. (I did say El Deber was smelly, did I not?)

BTW, I'm looking for the video in which Pedraza gives the interview mentioned in the ABI article at the top of this piece. If anyone knows where I can find it, drop me a note in the comments section and I'll post it here so you can see him for yourself and judge how trustworthy/noteworthy/whatever you find him.

From News of the Restless

Bolivia's loss is Peru's shame

This cartoon...it just never gets old, does it?

If the government of Peru was looking for a way to cover itself with even more disgrace than it already has, well, guess what...IT FOUND IT. They're not only taking crooks from Venezuela, but Bolivia, too:

The government of Peru granted asylum to a minister of the former president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who was facing trial by the Bolivian supreme court, according to Agence France-Presse.

Two other functionaries of the Sánchez de Lozada regime are also seeking asylum in Peru.

[...]

The concession on the part of Lima takes place at a time when legal proceedings have opened against Sánchez de Lozada, who is accused of the killing of 67 Bolivians in the repression of a popular insurrection in the cities of El Alto and La Paz, which preceded his removal from office in October 2003.

The charges, pressed by the victims' families, will be heard by the Supreme Court on May 18. Along with Sánchez de Lozada, currently a fugitive in the United States, they involve several of his ministers: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (Defence), Jorge Torres Obleas (Haciendas), Yerko Kukoc (Interior), Mirtha Quevedo (Popular Participation), Jorge Berindoage (Hydrocarbons) and Guido Añez (Agriculture).

Sánchez Berzain is a fugitive in the United States, as are Añez and Berindoage.

Kukoc is seeking asylum in Peru, and according to sources, Quevedo is also trying for asylum.

The Bolivian Minister of Legal Defence, Héctor Arce, called upon the Peruvian government to reject the asylum bids of Quevedo, Torres and Kukoc, reports AFP.

[...]

Kukoc, who fled to Buenos Aires on the night of October 17, 2003, and returned to Bolivia a month later, when Sánchez de Lozada's successor, vice-president Carlos Mesa, was in power, was tried for the illegal possession of nearly two million bolivianos withdrawn irregularly from the Central Bank a few days before the fall of the deposed leader.

Unable to convert it to dollars, Kukoc gave the money to a friend in Santa Cruz, at the Santa Cruz airport where Sánchez de Lozada embarked, along with his family and Sánchez Berzaín, on a flight bound for the United States.

[...]

Christian Zanabria, an activist of the Human Rights Assembly of Chuquisaca, denounced several magistrates of the Supreme Court on Friday for trying to halt the trial of Sánchez de Losada, who was also cited for inflicting economic damage on the state during his first administration, between 1993 and 1997, when he privatized most of the Bolivian state industries, including the strategic ones.

Zanabria also denounced Quevedo's defence attorney for trying to halt her trial.

"We have been informed of two incidents on the part of Quevedo, who asked for annulment of responsibilities, with the justification that there were procedural flaws and that there was no meeting between the parties," reported the activist.

Zanabria warned that, with such a pretext the Supreme Court could "give the green light" to halting the trial of Sánchez de Lozada.

Translation mine. (Sabina's)

Yep, Peru now has Goni-rhea in addition to a bad case of Burusas.

And of course, the biggest crook-harborer of all is still...drumroll please...THE UNITED STATES. How many national disgraces from Latin America are hiding out there now, some of them with close ties to Washington? I've lost count. For a country that supposedly values democracy and swears it will prosecute terrorists, it's sure not doing much to keep its own house in order.

UPDATE: Mirtha Quevedo has just piped up to confirm that she is in Peru, and wants a "fair trial". Why is she acting like she won't get one? Answer: Because she will, and that's just what she doesn't want.

UPDATE #2: Bolivia's ambassador to Peru denies that there are any political persecutions going on in Bolivia. Unfortunately, the same is true not only there but in Venezuela--and the truth hasn't stopped El Gordo from providing asylum to the scum de la scum from there, has it now?

UPDATE #3: Evo has finally weighed in, basically asking the Fat One to stop harboring crooks. Evo, stop being so damn polite and just kick his ass all over the soccer pitch, already!

From News of the Restless

Bolivia terror plot: The smoking gun(s) of forensic evidence

So, there are still those who think the three dead mercenaries shot by the Bolivian police were innocent, and that they were executed in cold blood, rather than killed in a firefight? Well, now the ballistic evidence is in, and guess what it says...

Experts from the Institute of Forensic Investigations (IDIF) found gunpowder residues on the hands of the suspected terrorists killed on April 16 in a confrontation with an elite unit of the Bolivian federal police in the Hotel Las Américas, according to judicial sources.

"The IDIF report indicates that there were gunpowder residues on the hands of Eduardo Rózsa Flores, Arpad Magyarosi and Michael Martin Dwyer," said prosecutor Marcelo Soza, head of the investigation.

[...]

Soza said the IDIF findings constitute evidence that the deceased fired at the police during the confrontation in which they were killed.

Translation mine. (Sabina's)

There WAS a firefight, and these guys were killed because they were shooting at the police. Any questions?

From News of the Restless

Washington Post's War Against Chavez Continues

Monday, May 11, 2009


BoRev's clever caricature of a Washington Post editorial board meeting

By Peter Hart

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

May 1, 2009

The Washington Post editorial page regularly slams Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, so it was no surprise to see it do the same on April 30. Their real point, though, was to suggest that Barack Obama's desire to change the tone of the U.S.-Venezuelan relationship wasn't going to work:

The administration's strategy--to open up a constructive dialogue with Venezuela and avoid being cast as Mr. Chavez's Yanqui foil--is reasonable; it is also the same strategy as was tried, unsuccessfully, by the previous two administrations.

It's hard to imagine that anyone believes that the Bush administration's Venezuela policy amounted to "constructive dialogue." The Bush administration--at the very least--seemed to approve of the April 2002 coup that briefly removed Chavez from power. And Bush policy after that disaster was hardly more "constructive."

(click here to view entire report)

From Latin American News Review