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Brazil is going to be a key factor in defeating Bush/Rumsfeld's oil war plan in South America. If the new left leadership of South America sticks together, the plan cannot succeed. The Bushites have tried every dirty trick in the book to "divide and conquer." They have failed so far. Their failure has been colossal. They are now going to try serious destabilization and military force. And, if I'm right, their plan is going to be the first major test of the new South American unity and cooperation. Indeed, the plan is aimed at destroying that unity and cooperation. The Bushites are going to try to split up Bolivia, where white separatists intend to declare their "independence," probably this May (in a brewing constitutional crisis), and secede from the central government of Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country), and a strong ally of Venezuela, Ecuador and Argentina. These rightwing separatists want to control the four eastern provinces of Bolivia, where the gas and oil are, to deny benefit of those resources to the poor majority. I have no doubt whatsoever that the Bushites are funding, and probably arming and organizing these fascists. The Bushite goal will be to set up an armed fascist enclave in the heart of Andes, at the south end of the Boliviarian alliance--as a means of gaining strategic ground (in a fast shrinking Bushite map), to disturb Argentina (Bolivarian ally) and Paraguay (if they elect a leftist this year), and to harry oil-rich Venezuela and Ecuador with a multi-front assault of major trouble, including more trouble with the massively armed (by the Bushites--$5.5 BILLION in military aid) Colombia, on their borders.
I think this is what Donald Rumsfeld means, in his 12/1/07 op-ed in the Washington Post, by "swift" U.S. "action" in support of "friends and allies" in South America. He means Bush responding to a request by the white separatists in Bolivia for U.S. military support for their "independence."
It is fascinating what happened with the hostage negotiations and the Ecuador/Colombia incident. I think now that this entire incident was a Bushite war trap (which very much smells of Rumsfeld, who was avidly watching those events--he mentions it in his first paragraph). In the lead-up to the '06 presidential election in Venezuela--which Chavez won with 63% of the vote--a plot to assassinate Chavez was exposed among close associates of Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia, who started his career as the go-to guy for the Medellin Cartel, and is now the go-to guy for the Bush Cartel). The rightwing candidate running against Chavez was obliged to publicly disavow this plot (which also involved using a false poll--cooked up in Washington DC--that said Chavez had actually lost, stirring up rightwing riots, destabilizing the country, toppling the government and killing Chavez). And the plot was so close to Uribe, that Uribe was obliged to apologize to Chavez, in a four hour meeting. (In fact, this assassination plot was so well known among Latin American leaders--and so well understood as a Bushite plot--that even the rightwing president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, mentioned it, obliquely, when he publicly lectured Bush on the sovereignty of Latin American countries, using Venezuela as an example--on Bush's tour of Latin America in spring '06.) I think it was at this Uribe/Chavez meeting, about the assassination plot, that Uribe first asked Chavez to undertake negotiations with the FARC (leftist guerrilla group in Colombia--still fighting after more than forty years of civil war), for release of their hostages. And this request to Chavez was a trap--which Uribe either consciously set at the meeting, or was advised by the Bushites to turn into a trap, shortly after the meeting.
This is the best explanation for Uribe's erratic behavior during the hostage negotiations--and his utterly treacherous behavior in killing the chief FARC hostage negotiator, Raul Reyes, in the attack on Ecuador. Chavez took his task seriously, contacted the FARC, and arranged for the release of the first two hostages, on the weekend of 12/1/07--same weekend as Rumsfeld's op-ed. Just before this first hostage release, and the Rumsfeld op-ed, Uribe suddenly announced that he was rescinding his request to Chavez, calling off the negotiation. By this time, the hostages were in route to Caracas, with a FARC party on a 20-mile hike through the jungle. The Colombian military heavily bombed the position of the hostages (recently reported by the two hostages), driving them back into the jungle under fire. The goal was to create a disaster for Chavez, with dead hostages.
The FARC previously had said that they need a demilitarized zone for safe passage, to release hostages. Chavez talked them into an unconditional release, as a show of good faith. Uribe then betrayed Chavez and bombed them. The FARC managed to keep the hostages and themselves from getting killed, retreated into the jungle, re-contacted Chavez, and made new arrangements for this release--which was successfully achieved some weeks later. Meanwhile, the presidents of France, Ecuador, Argentina and others began heavily pressuring Uribe to re-start the hostage negotiations. He would not do so. But Chavez continued the effort and got four more hostages released, unconditionally (no safe zone). And these leaders got in contact with the FARC for further releases (including Ingrid Betancourt--a French/Colombian citizen). These developments signaled a possible political settlement to end the long Colombian civil war.
At this point, the U.S./Colombia bombed the camp of the chief FARC hostage negotiator, Raul Reyes--which was just inside Ecuador's border--and sent troops over the border, killing Reyes and 24 others, in their sleep, thus killing any further hope of more hostage releases and peace talks. Uribe called Rafael Correa and lied to him that it was "hot pursuit" (the only circumstance in which such an incursion is permitted--and a tenuous one at that). Ecuador's military soon found out that that was not true. They found bodies in their pajamas and underwear, some shot in the back. It was not a fighting guerrilla group. It was a hostage negotiation group. Correa then revealed that he was about to receive 12 FARC hostages, including Betancourt. Colombia--using U.S. surveillance (a Reyes phone call on a satellite phone), U.S. ordinance ("smart bombs"), and very likely U.S. aircraft (and possibly personnel)--very likely from the controversial U.S. airbase in Manta, Ecuador--had very nearly killed 12 hostages, and, in any case, had violated Ecuador's sovereignty, had slaughtered a large group of people--some by bombs, sight unseen--including several visiting Mexican students and an Ecuadoran citizen. No arrest. No charges. No trial. No appeal.
President Correa was furious. He ordered several Ecuadoran military battalions to the Colombian border, to prevent further incursions. President Chavez in Venezuela did the same. (Venezuela borders Colombia to the north, Ecuador to the south--and both have had trouble with Colombian incursions--killings, pesticide sprayings of border area peasant farms--before.) And it was at this point, I think, that Chavez began to realize what the whole Bushite/Rumsfeld plan was--the arc of the plan from beginning to end. It was a plan to discredit him and other Bolivarian leaders as "terrorist-lovers," and to justify a U.S. military attack on their countries, drawing them into a war. Chavez moved troops to Venezuela's border to assure Correa that he was not alone; then he talked Correa out of retaliating.
I watched the vid of the Rio group (dispute settling organization of all Latin American countries--of which the U.S. is not a member). My Spanish is not good enough to follow what was said. But you really didn't need to understand the words. The body language was sufficient. Rafael Correa was still furious, as was President Cristina Fernandez (Argentina, which had also been involved in the hostage negotiations). If Correa had had a sword in his hand, he would have run Uribe through. Uribe acted the sullen little fascist prick that he is, smug in his billions of military aid from the Bush junta, and no doubt lots of drug earnings stashed away for his retirement. The room was seething with resentment at what he had done. He was forced to apologize and to sign an agreement that Colombia had violated Ecuador's sovereignty (passed by the OAS, with only the Bush/U.S. voting no). And Chavez--to my great surprise--was bouncing around the room with great jolliness, slapping backs and shaking hands, and even got photographed with a big easy smile on his face leaning over Uribe. I puzzled about this for a while. And I finally realized that Chavez had just averted a war--their falling into Rumsfeld's war trap. That is why he looked so happy and relieved. Correa has only been president of Ecuador for a year, and is a younger man (and what a looker! my, my!); Chavez is older and wiser, and has been dealing with dirty rotten Bushite schemes for eight years. He cooled things down. He convinced Correa to swallow his pride, and accept the apology, because he knows that they are winning this battle in the long run, and war is the Bushite plan for undoing all their progress, destabilizing the region, pitting one against another, creating mayhem, and grabbing their oil.
Round one to Chavez. This is what Lula da Silva was talking about--not only Chavez's effort to get peace talks started to settle the Colombian civil war (beginning with FARC hostage releases), but his dealings with Correa and Uribe over this act of war against Ecuador.
Round two will be Bolivia, in my opinion. And it's going to take a King Solomon to prevent hostilities in that tinderbox situation. Evo Morales--another peace-maker--has asked for a plebiscite on his administration--a sort of volunteer recall election--this spring, to measure public opinion on the constitutional reforms that he was elected to promote. He says he will resign, if the people want him to. I believe he got 80% of the vote on the referendum as to undertaking constitutional reforms. But the white separatists are using the occasion of the constitutional re-write committees to cause major disruption, in their demand for autonomy. This is all coming to a head in late spring of this year--a situation made to order for Rumsfeldian trouble-making and warmongering, and stoked by massive amounts of USAID-NED money, which is used to train rightwing cadres in how to destabilize leftist democracies. In prior times, the CIA had to use covert budgets and drug money for ops like this. Now they drain money from our treasury using budgets like USAID-NED, in addition to other funds (and now, billions stolen from us in Iraq, and no doubt stashed in various banks around the world--to pay for mercenaries, weapons, hit squads and so forth). Rumsfeld is set up for a long war of attrition. But he wants to spark it this year, and get the U.S. into another quagmire as well, so that we can't get out.
The real issue for the separatists is use of the profits from the gas and oil reserves in the separatist provinces. So that could possibly be the way to avert a civil war--although there is also a simmering racial issue. The separatists are white bigots. As Judi Lynn has reported, the indigenous were not permitted to walk on the sidewalks in Bolivia, as late as the 1950s. The rich landowners in these provinces at one point imported white South Africans, from apartheid South Africa, to bolster their numbers, and grab land from the indians. Indigenous have been killed, tortured, brutalized, impoverished, in these areas of Bolivia. Many have been driven off the land into urban shantytowns. For those who remain, it is not safe. And if the provinces gain autonomy, they will be at great risk, without protection from the central government.
However, if some settlement is reached in which these rich people can continue to enrich themselves--say, akin to the Venezuelan, Bolivian and other negotiations with global corporate predators, over percentages of profits to the public good vs. percentage of profits to the predators-- perhaps the country can be held together. Their motive is greed. If their greed is sufficiently satisfied, perhaps they can be separated from the Bush instigators and a war avoided. They have no principles, really. That is just USAID-NED propaganda--much like the crap we've heard about "free speech" from the fascists in Venezuela, over Chavez denying a license renewal to RCTV. When the fascists perpetrated the coup in Venezuela, in 2002, the first thing they did was suspend the Constitution and all civil rights. RCTV helped them do it. They don't believe in "free speech." They just want power and money. But the Bushites help them develop these utter lies as "talking points," for the corporate press to utilize in keeping North Americans stupid about all this. So, when these Bolivian white separatists use words like "independence" and "autonomy," they are not like Thomas Jefferson or Tom Paine, or Simon Bolivar, fighting for democratic principles. They are just bullshitting--saying things that sound good. This gives me hope that they can bought--by the indigenous! A nice irony, that. Democracy has given the indigenous rightful control of the country's resources. Now they have to purchase peace.
Latin American culture has been ingenious at devising solutions that we in the north really don't understand--the success of the Catholic religion in South America being a good case in point. I hope and trust that some sort of unique Latin American solution will be found in Bolivia--to deny Rumsfeld & co. the bloodshed and thievery they lust after. The Solomons of the new left in South America have proved themselves to be quite savvy so far. I think they are up to the task. Lulu's comments about Chavez tell me that my read on this situation has merit--and that the issue was very much: Bush-instigated war, vs. social justice and peace. And, although people were murdered, and peace was given a big setback, peace won out in the end. Further bloodshed and mayhem were averted. The alliances of the good guys were strengthened, and they will likely be able to handle whatever the Bushites throw at them, in the death throes of the Bush regime.
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