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Catherina

(35,568 posts)
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:03 AM Apr 2013

US ends logistical support for Bolivia drug fight

06 April 2013 - 03H31

US ends logistical support for Bolivia drug fight

...

"This is the end of an era," Larry Memmott, the US embassy's charge d'affaires and highest-ranking official in Bolivia, told private radio Erbol.

...

With the arrival to power of Morales in January 2006, US assistance gradually decreased to $11 million in 2013, while in years past it had exceeded $60 million annually.

Morales expelled the US Drug Enforcement Administration in late 2008 along with the US ambassador, accusing them of supporting an alleged plot to overthrow him. Washington denied the existence of such a plot and reciprocated by expelling the Bolivian ambassador.

Morales has on several occasions said that his country was better off without the United States in fighting drug trafficking.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130406-us-ends-logistical-support-bolivia-drug-fight

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MADem

(135,425 posts)
1. Go where you're celebrated, not where you're scorned. Here--you take the stuff and do it yourself.
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:15 AM
Apr 2013
Within the framework of counternarcotics conventions, the United States donated eight helicopters, as well as three transport aircraft and a small plane.

Memmott said the Bolivian government had been formally notified of the donation, a move confirmed by Felipe Caceres, Bolivia's deputy social defense minister.

A source at the US embassy in La Paz who requested anonymity told AFP that the transfer of all material would be made by September after talks with the Bolivian government that began last year.

The development comes amid unresolved diplomatic friction between La Paz and Washington, mainly in the form of verbal attacks by the country's leftist President Evo Morales, a friend of US foes Cuba, Iran and Venezuela who often condemns White House policies.


http://www.france24.com/en/20130406-us-ends-logistical-support-bolivia-drug-fight

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, this move does in terms of price and world-wide availability/supply of that Bolivian Marching Powder. We're well rid of this role, IMO.

Catherina

(35,568 posts)
2. Agree with you on ending that role, the whole war even. Even rightwing Guatemala is sick of it
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:44 AM
Apr 2013

Everyday another killing. They never make the news in the US either. Or get any apologies, compensation, nothing

Still Waiting for Justice: An Assessment of the Honduran Public Ministry’s Investigation of the May 11, 2012 Killings in Ahuas, Honduras
AddThis

April 2013, Alexander Main and Annie Bird

On May 11, 2012, a joint Honduran and U.S. counternarcotics operation in the remote Ahuas municipality of northeastern Honduras resulted in the killing of four indigenous villagers with no apparent ties to drug trafficking. The four individuals – a 14-year-old boy, two women and a young man – were traveling in a small passenger boat when they were shot and killed by counternarcotics agents. Three other boat passengers were badly injured.

According to Honduran authorities, the operation included 13 Honduran police agents, four State Department helicopters with mounted machine guns, eight U.S. government-contracted pilots and 10 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents. In February 2013, DEA spokeswoman Dawn Dearden stated that the Honduran investigation of the incident had "concluded that DEA agents did not fire a single round" and that "the conduct of DEA personnel was consistent with current DEA protocols, policies and procedures." Though 58 members of Congress recently requested a U.S. investigation of the Ahuas killings, a State Department spokesperson has said "there will be no separate investigation."

...

[link:http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/honduras-ahuas-2013-04.pdf|
PDF of the CEPR report here]


http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/still-waiting-for-justice

Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts)
6. I am surprised the US was still giving them money
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 02:39 PM
Apr 2013

and they were accepting it, looks like they don't mind the donation though. There probably won't be any huge impact on the drug trade.

MADem

(135,425 posts)
7. The leader of that country, Evo Morales, used to be a coke farmer. There wasn't much hope of any
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:21 PM
Apr 2013

serious interaction on this line. His views on the topic differ greatly from USG's. I'm surprised they hung in for as long as they did, too--it was a fool's errand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales

Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
3. It won't be the first time, and Bolivia will think again before allowing them to return!
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:58 AM
Apr 2013

To Bolivia, love, George W. Bush:

This all happened earlier, and was discussed at each step of the way here, then. It's a far older story than many realize...

The United States: Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia
New America Media, News Report, Roger Burbach Posted: Nov 20, 2008

~snip~

Evo Morales is the latest democratically elected Latin American president to be the target of a U.S. plot to destabilize and overthrow his government. On Sept. 10, 2008, Morales expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, declaring that "he is conspiring against democracy and seeking the division of Bolivia."

Observers of U.S.-Latin American policy tend to view the crisis in U.S.-Bolivian relations as due to a policy of neglect and ineptness toward Latin America because of U.S. involvement in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, the Bolivia coup attempt was a conscious policy rooted in U.S. hostility toward Morales, his political party the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the social movements that are aligned with him.

"The U.S. embassy is historically used to calling the shots in Bolivia, violating our sovereignty, treating us like a banana republic," says Gustavo Guzman, who was expelled as Bolivian ambassador to Washington following Goldberg's removal. In 2002, when Morales narrowly lost his first presidential bid, U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha openly campaigned against him, threatening, "If you elect those who want Bolivia to become a major cocaine exporter again, this will endanger the future of U.S. assistance to Bolivia."

Because Morales led the Cocaleros Federation prior to assuming the presidency, the U.S. state department called him an "illegal coca agitator." Morales advocated, "Coca Yes, Cocaine No," and called for an end to violent U.S.-sponsored coca eradication raids and for the right of Bolivian peasants to grow coca for domestic consumption, medicinal uses and even for export as an herb in tea and other products.

"When Morales triumphed in the next presidential election," says Guzman, "it represented a defeat for the United States." Shortly after his inauguration, Morales received a call from President George W. Bush, offering to help "bring a better life to Bolivians." Morales asked Bush to reduce U.S. trade barriers for Bolivian products, and suggested that he come for a visit. Bush did not reply. As Guzman notes, "The United States was trying to woo Morales with polite and banal comments to keep him from aligning with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez." David Greenlee, the U.S. ambassador prior to Goldberg, expressed his "preoccupation" with Bolivia's foreign alliances, while then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others at the Pentagon began talking about "security concerns" in Bolivia.

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, the highest ranking U.S. official to attend Morales' inauguration, declared a willingness to dialogue with Morales. In fact, what followed were almost three years of diplomatic wrangling while the United States provided direct and covert assistance to the opposition movement centered in the four eastern departments of Bolivia known as "La Media Luna." Dominated by agro-industrial interests, the departments began a drive for regional autonomy soon after Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, took office. (About 55 percent of the country's population is Indian.) Headed by departmental prefects (governors) and large landowners, the autonomy movement has been determined to stymie Morales' plans for national agrarian reform, and bent on taking control of the substantial hydro-carbon resources located in the Media Luna.

More:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ccf4677d9b2df97d80a56879b2bf3d80

Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
4. Did the U.S. have to get the #### of Bolivia during this time?
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 04:24 AM
Apr 2013

Taking the proverbial stroll partway down memory lane:


Neo-Nazis and the Cocaine Coup.

October 31, 2012 · by Kieran McGrath · in Artículos, Articles, Artikel, Artikkelit


On July 17th 1980, the Bolivian General Luis García Meza seized power in what has become known as the “Cocaine Coup”. Meza ruled for three years in a regime fueled by corruption, narcotrafficking and the relentless persecution of anyone who opposed him. The tortures, rapes and abductions that came to define Meza’s violent reign have been well documented: It is thought that over 1,000 people were murdered in the first year of the dictatorship. Meza also recruited the German Nazi, Klaus Barbie, to orchestrate his government’s systematic and ruthless wave of terror. Barbie – who was a former SS Captain, notorious for the slaughtering of 26,000 Jews in Lyon and the murder of Jean Moulin; a French Resistance leader – had been active in South America since 1957 making his living as a consultant and “specialist interrogator” for the military dictatorships in Argentina, Peru and Bolivia where his reputation preceded him, making him the apotheosis of neo-Nazism.

Along with Barbie’s role as chief torturer and interrogator in the Meza regime, he was also responsible for recruiting a number of high-profile European neo-Fascists to aid the dictatorship. The Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie – who, in 1983, was one of the CIA’s most wanted men – was enlisted by Barbie, as was the Spanish neo-Nazi Ernesto Milá Rodríguez. Delle Chiaie earned his infamy after being implicated in a number of bombings in Italy as well as his establishing of the “Avanguardia Nazionale”; a movement of young neo-Nazis who wanted to subvert Italian democracy and return the country to fascism. Milá was also a high-profile fascist accused of a series of bombings in Catalonia during the 1970s as well as the 1980 Copernicus Street Synagogue bombing in Paris.

It is easy to see why this tripartite alliance of Barbie, Delle Chiaie and Milá would have been attracted to the opportunity the Meza regime presented them with: It not only financed their activities whilst granting them sanctuary, but it also allowed them to experiment with their terrorist strategies in a country that had become deeply susceptible to them. Before Meza took power, Bolivia had been under military rule for the best part of two decades. During this period every attempt at establishing democracy had been mired in the kind of chaotic instability that, throughout the twentieth century the world over, gave rise to fear, violence and hatred. Bolivia, a country that has always struggled to stabalise its precarious economy with the tensions generated by its racial diversity, fell prey to the myths of fascism in this period and Meza, who was already in awe of Barbie´s sadistic expertise, must have been seduced by the hierarchical, traditional and nationalist fantasies that Barbie´s history, ideology and very survival represented.

It is tempting to see this strange hybrid of post-colonial European arrogance and resurgent Nazism as a demonic fugitive from the aftermath of the Second World War, as though fascism was – like the monster in some Hollywood b-movie – kept alive after Hitler´s fall by a cult of dignitaries, united by their vaguely esoteric ideals and the mysterious channels that connected them. This crude interpretation of history is a dangerous one because it fails to address the complexity of the crisis in Bolivia, the acquiescence of the US and the basic fact that, although it may have been forced underground, fascism has never left modern societies, whether they be European or American.

More:
http://luchaporley2640.com/2012/10/31/neo-nazis-and-the-cocaine-coup-3/

[center]

General Luis García Meza[/center]
Wikipedia:

~snip~

García Meza graduated from the military academy in 1952, and served as its commander from 1963 to 1964. He then rose to division commander in the late 1970s. He became leader of the right-wing faction of the military of Bolivia most disenchanted with the return to civilian rule. Many of the officers involved had been part of the Banzer dictatorship and disliked the investigation of economic and human right abuses by the new Bolivian Congress. Moreover, they tended to regard the decline in popularity of the Carter administration in the United States as an indicator that soon a Republican administration would replace it—one more amenable to the kind of pro-US, more hardline anti-communist dictatorship they wanted to reinstall in Bolivia. Ominously, many allegedly had ties to cocaine traffickers and made sure portions of the military acted as their enforcers/protectors in exchange for extensive bribes, which in turn were used to fund the upcoming coup. In this manner, the narcotraffickers were in essence purchasing for themselves the upcoming Bolivian government.

Coup d'État

This group pressured President Lidia Gueiler (his cousin) to install Gen. García Meza as Commander of the Army. Within months, the Junta of Commanders headed by Garcia Meza forced a violent coup d'etat -- sometimes referred to as the Cocaine Coup—of July 17, 1980. As portions of the citizenry resisted, as they had done in the failed putsch of November 1979, it resulted in dozens of deaths. Many were tortured. Allegedly, the Argentinian army unit Batallón de Inteligencia 601 participated in the coup. Former DEA agent Michael Levine had arrested the 2 prominent leaders of the Roberto Suarez cartel (the primary cartel linked to the coup), and he claims that the CIA intervened to drop charges against one of them and reduce bail for another, allowing both to escape their US trial in 1979; subsequently they returned to Bolivia and participated in the coup, along with the aid of former Nazi Klaus Barbie. Levine has alleged CIA cooperation with the coup.[1] These allegations were the basis for the dismissal of the DEA from Bolivia by current President Evo Morales in 2007.

The García Meza Dictatorship, 1980-81

Of extremely conservative anti-communist persuasion, García Meza endeavored to bring a Pinochet-style dictatorship that was intended to last 20 years. He immediately outlawed all political parties, exiled opposition leaders, repressed the unions, and muzzled the press. He was backed by former Nazi officer Klaus Barbie and Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie. Further collaboration came from other European neofascists, most notoriously Ernesto Milá Rodríguez (accused of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing.[2] Among other foreign collaborators were professional torturers allegedly imported from the notoriously repressive Argentine dictatorship of General Jorge Videla. The García Meza regime, while brief (its original form ended in 1981), became internationally known for its extreme brutality. The population was repressed in the same ways as under the Banzer dictatorship. In January of 1981, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs named the García Meza regime, "Latin America's most errant violator of human rights after Guatemala and El Salvador."[3] Some 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the Bolivian army and security forces in only 13 months.[4] The administration's chief repressor was the Minister of Interior, Colonel Luis Arce, who cautioned that all Bolivians who may be opposed to the new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms."

The most prominent victim of the dictatorship was the congressman, presidential candidate, and gifted orator Marcelo Quiroga, murdered and "disappeared" soon after the coup. Quiroga had been the chief advocate of bringing to trial the former dictator, General Hugo Banzer (1971–78), for human right violations and economic mismanagement.

[edit] Drug trafficking

The García Meza government drug trafficking activities led to the complete isolation of the regime. The new, conservative U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, kept his distance, aware of the regime's unsavory links to criminal circles. Eventually, the international outcry was sufficiently strong to force García Meza's resignation on August 3, 1981. He was succeeded by a less tainted but equally repressive general, Celso Torrelio. All in all, the Bolivian military would sustain itself in power only for another year, and would then beat a hasty retreat to its barracks, embarrassed and tarnished by the excesses of the 1980-82 dictatorships (it has never returned to the Palacio Quemado).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garc%C3%ADa_Meza_Tejada

[center]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/center]
Garcia Meza's former boss, a-hole dictator, US-supported sweetie, Hugo Banzer's obituary in the Guardian:

From Hugo Banzer's obituary:
~snip~
By 1971 coups and counter-coups brought leftist General Juan Jose Torres to power, alarming the right, several neighbouring governments and the United States. With their backing, Banzer overthrew Torres (later murdered, allegedly on Banzer's orders) and installed the longest lasting regime the nation had seen in more than a century. Initially, he governed via the "Nationalist Popular Front" between the increasingly rightwing MNR and the fascist Bolivian Socialist Falange. But in 1974 he ousted civilian parties and formed a notoriously brutal military regime - although the scale of killing was small in comparison with what was taking place in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

Banzer's regime is accused of 100 "disappearances", 39 murders and more than 400 deaths. Universities were closed for a year, and foreign priests and nuns sympathetic to "liberation theology" deported. In 1974, at least 80-100 peasants protesting at price rises were killed.

He denied all knowledge of it, but there is abundant evidence that Banzer's Bolivia was involved in Operation Condor, through which South American dictatorships eliminated each others' exiled opponents. In his dictatorship's first year, Banzer received twice as much military assistance from the US as in the previous dozen years put together.

After a short-lived boom, the economy was soon again in trouble. And there was pressure from new US President Jimmy Carter for a return to democracy. In 1978 Banzer called elections. Fraud in favour of his chosen candidate led to a fresh cycle of coups and Banzer was exiled briefly to Argentina. In 1980, just as a civilian government was about to indict him for corruption and human rights violations, his luck improved. Backed by fascists, cocaine smugglers and the Argentine military, General Luis Garcia Meza came to power, and Banzer came home. The key men behind Garcia Meza were the Nazi "butcher of Lyons" Klaus Altmann (Barbie), and Bolivia's cocaine king, Roberto Suarez. In power, Banzer had protected Barbie against French extradition requests and the country's cocaine exports had grown steadily. Several of Banzer's allies and relatives were linked to the trade.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/may/06/guardianobituaries.bolivia

[center]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/center][font size=5]ETC.[/font]

Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)
5. Gawd. Didn't know this history of cocaine-funded, U.S.-supported fascists in Bolivia.
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 01:10 PM
Apr 2013

And your "ETC" is very eloquent.

"ETC" to this day. "ETC" in Colombia and Honduras TODAY. "ETC" wherever the U.S. bribes, shoots or "Shock Doctrines" itself into control of countries.

The U.S. has PROTECTED cartels/mafias. That's why the U.S. has spent billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on the "war on drugs" and the hard drugs just keep pouring in.

The U.S. "war on drugs" is more than this, of course. It is an arm of the U.S. war machine. But this may be the heart of it. This may be why it never ends. This is why it has no intention of ever ending. It is the MECHANISM for FUNDING the destruction of societies and the installation of fascist regimes.

This explains almost everything we've seen in Colombia over the last decade+, where the Bushwhacks installed mafia don, Alvaro Uribe, as 'president,' aided him in spying on judges and prosecutors, among other nefarious deeds, and lavished him with $7 BILLION in military aid, not to pursue the "war on drugs" but to pursue a war on his and their drug RIVALS.

A "Mobius Strip" of corruption. But the key to it is that the local U.S.-supported fascists are getting their "bread and butter"--and their mansions, yachts and armaments--FROM the drug trade that the U.S. is pretending to extinguish.

It is never extinguished. On the surface, it seems to just keep shifting around--from group to group, gang to gang--driven by poverty and dreams of wealth. Seemingly, as one gang gets busted, another pops up, the lure of riches is so great. But what is REALLY happening is a war between small or independent drug operations and the big PROTECTED criminal operations that get control of governments, and that prepare the way for Corporate resource rape and slave labor shops. The U.S. "war on drugs" SUPPORTS these fascists by helping them to violently repress rivals and of course any civil society that attempts to arise.

Thus we have the head of a criminal organization, Uribe in Colombia, using U.S. billions to kill FARC guerillas NOT just because they are an armed leftist group but mostly because they have an INDEPENDENT cocaine operation. His murders of labor leaders, teachers, community activists, human rights workers, peasant farmers and others go without saying. He is a fascist. But his main object--and likely that of the Bush junta--was hidden: The serious money was IN the cocaine.

The U.S. taxpayer billions may have been just a sop to the military and a way for the Pentagon to infiltrate and control it. The whole system may be underpinned by this "other" economy of "dark money" in the TRILLIONS, which enriches fascist operators all along the way, from the local thugs who fix elections and put bullets in the heads of community activists, to the banksters laundering the money, the U.S. secret agencies and the monster transglobal corporate players who are calling the shots, on resource and "Free (unfree) Market" wars.

I wonder if this is what those "death squad" cases against Chiquita and Drummond Coal are all about, sub-surface. The death squad members that they were hiring to murder labor leaders in Colombia were no doubt also involved in cocaine trafficking. And it's quite interesting that, among the protections of Uribe by the U.S. government (Obama, Panetta, Clinton) was a State Department letter to the judge in the Drummond Coal case, pressuring the judge not to force Uribe to testify. (The judge caved.) WHAT does Uribe know, that might have come out in such testimony?

Uribe himself is cocaine-funded with close ties to the death squads. Those were the elements of his climb to power as well as the elements of his grip on power during the Bush Junta. And his hatred of Manuel Santos is kind of funny, really, since Santos has publicly called for legalization of all drugs. This is likely a Big Pharma long term plan, unfolding, but still, it must aggravate Uribe and his transglobal allies to think of how cheap recreational, addictive or herbal drugs may become, with legalization. Their golden lava flow may dry up. (This, too, may be a behind-the-scenes "war"--between the drug cartels that are ready to go legit, and those that like the easy and huge profit of being illicit.)

The Bush Junta LOVED the U.S. "war on drugs" and used it wherever possible as a weapon for strong-arming governments, waging war on civil society and inflicting murder and mayhem. Did they have another, even darker and, to them, even more important purpose--to ENSURE the CONTINUED flow of trillions of dollars in cocaine revenues to themselves and allied beneficiaries? This seems to be true regarding heroine in Afghanistan. Is it also true with regard to cocaine in Latin America?

I wonder, too, if this might have been the heart of the problem--indeed, the war--between Rumsfeld/Cheney and the CIA (the war that Panetta--a Bush Sr. associate--brought to an end in the first year of the Obama administration--after Bush Sr.'s "Iraq Study Group" got rid of Rumsfeld in '06). Were Rumsfeld/Cheney muscling into CIA cocaine operations?

If not the heart of the problem, an important factor? (Iran seems to have been the heart of the problem--Bush Sr. didn't want it nuked; probably because of his business interests in China; U.S. military brass also didn't relish nuking, invading and trying to hold onto Iran.) But I sure feel that the CIA/Pentagon war was "personal"--i.e., "bread and butter." Or had a very "personal" element to it--something that was aggravating war policy differences. The cocaine trillions?

A lot of questions. MOST PROBABLY, the worst is true in every case. Can't look at this history of Bolivia and not realize that it is on-going.

The best thing that Evo Morales ever did was to throw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia. Next best thing, legalizing the coca leaf.

This Bolivian history--and its illumination of on-going events--also may explain why progressive governments, like those in Venezuela and Bolivia, continue anti-drug operations, though they have thrown the U.S. "war on drugs" out of their countries. (Morales legalized the coca leaf, NOT cocaine.) They have fascist vipers in their midst, funded by the traffic in hard drugs. THEIR "war on drugs"--which is active and successful, but is profoundly disapproved of, by the U.S. government--seems to have the object of busting BIG drug operations, not little peasant farmers or small dealers. I noticed, too, that when the "Black Eagles" from Colombia (death squad/mafia gang connected to Uribe) were caught over the border in Venezuela, what they were doing was setting up a criminal operation--controlling towns and regions with protection rackets, murder and drug trafficking (and other smuggling). It seems to be THIS kind of crime--organized, political (control of local governments/police)--that most concerns these progressive countries.

I've wondered about their non-endorsement of legalization. You would think that governments that are as progressive as these are would be the first to say: 'Enough is enough! Legalize it all!' And, at first, I was extremely puzzled that it was RIGHTWING leaders (Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico) that were outright calling for, or suggesting, legalization--with not one word on this from Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, etc., from whom you would expect such a proposal.

Odd. The answer, of course, is that legalization is a CORPORATE plan. Pfizer, Monsanto, et al, probably have their GMO cocaine and heroine about ready to market--and their GMO marijuana, too (which explains the Homeland Security raids on medical marijuana clinics in the western U.S.--it's just like the "war on drugs" elimination of the peasants in Colombia, in favor of the big drug lords).

Some have said that Corporate drugs would be better than the "war on drugs"--far less bloody, in any case. True, true. I am totally in favor of legalization for this reason. The carnage in imprisonment alone is bad enough. The astronomical cost is bad enough. The deaths are simply appalling (50,000 dead in Mexico, for instance--ALL attributable to the massive infusion of U.S. "war on drugs" billions, by the Bush Junta in 2008, to eliminate SOME cartels in favor of OTHERS.)

And you'd think that this would sway progressive government leaders, too--as I said. But it hasn't. They've said nothing (that I know of). Why? What I'm suggesting here is that they have FIRST to deal with the Banzers, Barbies and Mezas in their midst, and the drug lords (and attendant death squads) who are supporting them, as they plot their coups. SECONDLY, they have to figure out what they will do, policy-wise, to fend off Pfizer, Monsanto, et al, 'GMO' drug monopolies. Santos, in Colombia, doesn't have this second problem. He has already opened Colombia to U.S. "free trade for the rich." But Colombia ALSO trades with the progressive governments. How do those progressive governments keep the Corporate drugs out?

I feel that what we have here, on the whole (the U.S. "war on drugs&quot , is a true "elephant in the room" situation. The "elephant" is this hidden, trillion+ dollar economy, which the U.S. "war on drugs" is designed NOT to interfere with, because its beneficiaries are so powerful and this illicit money is so useful, for instance, for funding and installing fascist leaders. The "elephant" is there. You can feel its presence. It nearly fills the room. But most of us--and certainly our government--has no eyes to see it. And it is never spoken of. Worse yet, our government tells us that this "elephant" is a "war" on "drugs" that is ridding the world of evil and saving us all from addiction, and the Corporate Media blares that lie into our brains, day in, day out.


 

ocpagu

(1,954 posts)
8. Thanks for this fascinating info, Judi.
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 03:35 PM
Apr 2013

Bolivia suffered enough in the hands of the right-wing scum.

Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
9. FYI: The Global Women Strike condemns racist violence of the elite in Bolivia and its US backers
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 07:43 PM
Apr 2013

The Global Women Strike condemns racist violence of the elite in Bolivia and its US backers
Leer en Español

The Global Women Strike condemns the violence in Sucre (Chuquisaca) by Bolivia’s racist elite against Indigenous people and members of the government of Evo Morales, the first elected Indigenous president.

Our sister organization in Bolivia keeps us informed about the struggle for liberation of the majority Indigenous communities against this re-imposition of apartheid. The women tell us that the elite wants to block any changes which would increase the economic, political and human rights of Bolivia’s Indigenous majority, the poorest in South America. Many of the oligarchy are the direct descendants of the murderous conquistadores of 500 years ago, while others are descendants of immigrants from ex-Yugoslavia who made their fortunes in Bolivia first of all by being white.

They want to balkanize Bolivia, separating Santa Cruz, the largest and richest state, from the rest of the country as if its resources were their personal possession rather than the property of all Bolivians. To this end they have been attacking Evo Morales, members of his government and those who support it. They are backed by the US government and its ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg, who presided over the division of Yugoslavia.

On 24 May, President Morales was prevented by the oligarchy from visiting Chuquisaca to launch much needed public works. Racist gangs backed by separatist regional authorities, attacked the mainly Indigenous and rural population which supports Morales, as well as the army and police, most of whom are also Indigenous. About 30 people were made to take their shirts off, bow down and beg for forgiveness as if they were still the slaves of the Spanish Crown, while their ponchos (the traditional dress), their flag and the flag of the government party the MAS (Movement towards Socialism), were torched. Women, children and older people, as well as ministers and members of parliament, were among those assaulted and humiliated. Racist gangs sporting Swastikas and Ku Klux Klan symbols have been prominent.

More:
http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/content/global-women-strike-condemns-racist-violence-elite-bolivia-and-its-us-backers

Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
10. Apparently the white hatred and hideous abuse of indigenous people is just fine with Washington.
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 07:53 PM
Apr 2013

What really pisses them off in the State Department is Bolivia's alliance with Venezuela and other democratic governments.



Bolivian Racism Runs Amok in Sucre
May 26, 2008 by The Democracy Center Staff

Racism Run Amok

On Saturday May 24th President Evo Morales was scheduled to visit the city of Sucre on the commemoration of the 199th anniversary of Latin America’s first steps of independence from Spain, General Sucre’s “first shout of liberty (May 25, 1809).” The President planned on delivering ambulances for Chuquisaca’s rural communities and to announce development projects for the region, all actions typical of what Presidents do here on such dates. The events were to take place in the “Patriotic” Stadium, surrounded by and under the protection of indigenous people from different parts of the province.

However, the night before the event, organized groups antagonistic to Morales began to provoke disturbances around the stadium and stoned a house where a fundraising dinner was taking place for a MAS candidate for Governor, Walter Valda.

Then on Saturday, the day of the anniversary, the anti-Morales violence went into racist overdrive. Mobs armed with sticks and dynamites confronted the police and military. The government retreated the public’s armed forces, cancelled all scheduled parades (of the military and police), and President Morales’ visit.

With the police and military presence gone, the indigenous peasants who had come to see the President were left face-to-face with armed civilians from urban Sucre, among them university students of the public University of San Francisco Xavier. More than two dozen indigenous peasants were beaten and captured, their few possessions were taken away and they were forced to walk for three miles and then kneel shirtless in front of Sucre’s House of Liberty. Sucre mobs humiliated their indigenous captives in a repeat of a ritual from the most brutal pages of colonialism. Under threat of violence, and half naked in a public square the captives were forced to apologize for the offense of coming to the city to receive President Morales. “Llamas, ask forgiveness,” the mob ordered. Among the captives was the mayor of the rural town of Mojocoya.

Video footage of the abuse can be seen here.

More:
http://democracyctr.org/blogfrombolivia/bolivian-racism-runs-amok-in-sucre/

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Monday, May 26, 2008
Blatant, violent racism in Bolivia

This weekend, as the city of Sucre approached the 199th anniversary of its decisive role in Bolivian independence from Spain, President Evo Morales was scheduled to arrive for an event. Many of his supporters from the campo (countryside) came to the city to receive him. They were met with some of the most blatant and obscene acts of racism Bolivia has seen in modern times.

The Inter-institutional Committee - a self-appointed group of opposition leaders in Sucre who were instrumental in orchestrating the violence there around the constitutional assembly in December - led protests against Evo coming. The rector of the public university there is the leader of this group. It is also worth noting that Cochabamba Prefect (governor) Manfred Reyes Villa made a point of being there, marching alongside Inter-Institutional Committee leaders.

University students and other protesters attacked campesinos, and beat them, and took a group of them and made them march several kilometers to the town center, stripped off their shirts, and made them kneel in the main plaza and sing pro-Sucre slogans and ask forgiveness for coming to see President Morales.

I am amazed at how little coverage this is getting outside Bolivia. Today on Google, the only news sites I can find covering it are in Cuba. For those who read Spanish, some information is available here.
Some of the public leaders have expressed regret today at the way things "got out of control." But they still blame it on Morales himself. Morales ultimately canceled his trip. But he had also asked military and police to stay away from the marches there. Organizers now say he abandoned the city. But in Sucre and elsewhere, it has been made clear that one constant goal of protesters is to provoke violence on the part of police and soldiers so that they can then label Morales an authoritarian and a murderer.

Some on the left are now saying that Morales should begin using the police and military more. He has been loathe to allow his government to be sucked into violent confrontations, but some critics now say that this is allowing his opponents to take advantage of him, and that poor and indigenous groups pay the price.

The racism of some Bolivians is overwhelming, and it is being manipulated by political interests who seem hellbent on forcing a larger confrontation with the government. Morales has shown impressive restraint regarding the use of state violence. Unfortunately, he has also shown little ability to otherwise deal with the kinds of scenes witnessed in Sucre this weekend.

Posted by Dan at 1:00 PM
http://danmoriarty.blogspot.com/2008/05/blatant-violent-racism-in-bolivia.html

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