Croat leads rebellion in Bolivia's east

[Judi Lynn]

Croat leads rebellion in Bolivia's east
By Simon Romero

Friday, September 26, 2008
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia: The documentary on Bolivian state television opens with grainy images of leaders of the Ustashe, the fascist movement that ruled Croatia during World War II. The movie, part of a propaganda campaign against one of President Evo Morales's top critics, then shows black-and-white photos of emaciated victims in concentration camps, followed by the question, "Who is Branko Gora Marinkovic Jovicevic?"

Tapping a pack of Camel Lights on his desk, Branko Marinkovic, 41, the scion of a cooking oil and cattle ranching empire, seems displeased at being associated with Nazis who fled to South America. After showing the documentary to visitors, he keeps glancing at his laptop's screen saver, a photo of the console of his private plane. His uneasy gaze betrays his thoughts: He would rather be somewhere else.

~snip~
But where the truth rests in Santa Cruz is also hard to determine.

This city remains a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the late Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco.

Another group, the Santa Cruz Youth Union, functions as a quasi-independent arm of the committee led by Marinkovic.

More:
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=16518063

~~~~~~~~
To the DU'ers who've seen this story last night, after reading something someone said about it, I decided it's worth discussing here, after all. This is a character who needs to be illuminated far, far more than he has been. He's been a very large fish in a small, powerless world (for the indigenous people around him) and he has wielded a TON of negative energy all directed against them for far too long.

It would be good to see these racist criminals get knocked off their perches, and for sure it'd be such a good idea if _Bush didn't have the ambassador deal almost exclusively with the opposition maggots.

[EFerrari]

1. I was struck at how Romero calls indigenous people "migrants"

at times as if they have no right to move about their own country. That was odd.

[Judi Lynn]

4. That was so damned odd, wasn't it? Reminds one so clearly of calling the citizens of New Orleans,

the survivors "refugees!" The corporate media just ate that up and tossed it around a like a dog with a new toy. "Refugees."

Bolivians whose ancestors go back THOUSANDS of years in Bolivia are only "migrants," in Romero's eyes.

What's more, the fertile half-moon area was the property of indigenous people as late as the 1960's, when Bolivian fascist dictator, Hugo Banzer drove them off their own land, and offered it to settlers from South Africa and "Rhodesia," etc., in his attempt to create a "white Bolivia." They are probably exactly on the same ground their own ancestors experienced as "home" for thousands of years.

Hideous.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Marinkovic threatens "blood and pain" for all Bolivians at the end of the article.

Though the article is a typical Romero production (cleverly written hit piece on Morales, in the interest to the Corpo/fascists), it does have a two-punch stunner at the very end:

"But as to the possibility of renewed violence on the streets of Santa Cruz and other Bolivian cities, Mr. Marinkovic is clear. 'If there is no legitimate international mediation in our crisis, there is going to be confrontation,” he said. “And unfortunately, it is going to be bloody and painful for all Bolivians.'”

This man's M.O.--inflicting "blood and pain" on those who disagree with him--is certainly revealed in this quote. But the other underlined item is more interesting, for it speaks to the effectiveness of UNASUR, the South American "Common Market" founded in May, which took on its first crisis, and got the unanimous statement of all of the leaders of South America backing the Morales government, opposing the secessionists and also sending a mediation team to Bolivia, and forming a commission to investigate the fascist massacre of 15 to 30 unarmed peasant farmers last week amidst full-scale fascist rioting. They acted swiftly and with complete unity. It was an impressive performance and bodes well for South Americans pulling together to fend off U.S. threats, and going forward with goals of Latin American self-determination and social justice.

Marinkovic is calling the legitimacy of USASUR into question in this paragraph, and would surely like to have some other entity--the OAS? the UN?--doing the mediation, that could bring his Bushwhack pals to the table. With USASUR, the U.S. is not a member and has no say. Nor do Marinkovic and his fascist pals. That was settled early on. They have no legitimacy. They are secessionists, and white separatists as well. And they are defying the law, and creating mayhem, over their greed for Bolivia's gas revenues and their resistance to social/political change (empowerment of the indigenous majority). They were not permitted to attend the USASUR meeting.

UNASUR most certainly does have legitimacy. It was created by a treaty signed by all of the governments of South America, including the major countries--Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia. It is an all-South American entity, for South Americans to solve their own problems and determine their own fate, sans the great big bully to the north. Even Colombia is a member, and voted with the majority to make the resolution and actions on Bolivia unanimous. Marinkovic doesn't have a leg to stand on, in calling USASUR illegitimate. But, just like the Bushwhacks, if they can't get their way, they break the law, they cast aspersions on the lawgivers, they try to subvert the legitimate order and they fall back on violence and murder and common thuggery to enforce their will.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Romeros' Corpo/fascist hit piece on Morales...

First of all, the premise of the article itself is a slam against Morales. It equates Morales--who won the presidency with the biggest mandate ever given to a Bolivian president, who just won a referendum on his presidency with 67% of the vote, and who has shown the patience of a saint in trying to prevent violence and trying to talk to these fascist thugs and greedbags--with one of the main leaders of the fascist thuggery. Morales is the legitimate, elected head of the country, with vast popular support. Marinkovic has only his wealth, much of it ill-gotten, and his gangs of enforcers. To equate him with Morales in this way is a hit piece on Morales:

"In Mr. Morales and Mr. Marinkovic, divided Bolivia has found strikingly different adversaries. The president, who halved his own salary to less than $2,000 a month upon taking office, is a former coca grower who espouses state-guided development from La Paz and the redistribution to indigenous peasants of large estates owned by people like Mr. Marinkovic.

"Mr. Marinkovic commands a multimillion-dollar fortune and promotes a vision of unfettered enterprise combined with weaker ties to the central government. While Mr. Morales thrives in Bolivian politics, which are increasingly characterized by confrontation and intimidation, Mr. Marinkovic still seems more at home in an air-conditioned executive suite."

-----

"Strikingly different adversaries" is a wrongful phrase. It is like saying that wealth is its own government. Because he is wealthy, and because he has rioters and murderers on his side, he is on the same footing as the president of the country?

Then comes the clever, slippy-slidey Romero sentence structure. "While Mr. Morales thrives in Bolivian politics, which are increasingly characterized by confrontation and intimidation...".

Confrontation? Intimidation? Morales? Do you get how Romero makes it seem that somehow Morales, and not Marinkovic, supported rioters and murderers? Marinkovic is just a real rich, cool guy, who is above it all. He distances himself from his dire threat about "blood and pain" for "all Bolivians," as if more violence is inevitable, as if it will just "happen"--it's nothing to do with him; it's the fault of the mediators (by which he means UNASUR). And Romero reinforces this view by the way he constructs the sentence, associating "confrontation and intimidation" with Morales, and not with the guilty parties including Marinkovic.

Romero might as well have said that Morales is "increasingly characterized by confrontation and intimidation." But it was the fascists who destroyed government buildings and human rights groups' offices, and blew up a gas pipeline, and beat up anyone who looked like a Morales supporter, and massacred dozens of unarmed indigenous, including men, women and children (and also a key get-out-the-vote organizer, with the vote on the new Constitution coming up in December). It is the fascists who have been using "confrontation" and "intimidation," and outright murder, to enforce their will on the country, and split up Bolivia so they can steal all the gas revenues. Morales did nothing to cause this. And he ordered the police and the military not to use their weapons in trying to control the fascist rioters. When the peasants were slaughtered, he sent the military into Pando province (just one province) to restore order.

Read that sentence again:

"While Mr. Morales thrives in Bolivian politics, which are increasingly characterized by confrontation and intimidation, Mr. Marinkovic still seems more at home in an air-conditioned executive suite.

That is scurrilous writing. That is lies and disinformation. That is one of the nastiest journalistic tricks I have seen, and I've seen thousands of them in our Corpo/fascist 'news' media about South America's new leftist leadership.

Morales is "increasingly characterized by confrontation and intimidation, while his "adversary" is a "cool" executive who sits in his office philosophizing about UNASUR's "legitimacy"--and his thugs go smash some indigenous skulls in.

I'm trying to get my mind around this--Romero's neat little writing trick, and how he can sleep at night.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Absolutely floored by this article. Incomparably vicious, underhanded, racist.

It would seem to follow Romero is also getting paid by the _Bush administration for his filthy, dishonest efforts to mislead the unsuspecting. Jesus.

The ones who are right, in every instance, are the ones with the wealth, the white ones. No exceptions, unless the white ones are, by a freak of nature, accidently leftists. Then you kill them, like journalists Charles Horman, and Frank Terrugi, in Chile during Pinochet's (and Nixon's) coup.

Romero also seems to know how unbalanced his chosen readers are when he uses words like "intimidation" to describe a completely peaceful, to a fault, according to native Bolivian citizens, President who could have slammed down these plotting, _Bush-supported monsters long ago.~~~~~~~~~
Published on Friday, September 19, 2008 by Inter Press Service
US Ties to Bolivian Opposition 'Shrouded in Secrecy'
by Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK - Who in Bolivia is receiving millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars? That is what many Latin America policy analysts in Washington want to know.

'Washington has decided to keep its ties to Bolivia's opposition shrouded in secrecy,' said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, an independent think tank.

In interviews with IPS, Weisbrot and other critics of U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America and the Andean region voiced deep concern over the George W. Bush administration's reluctance to disclose details regarding the amount of U.S. funding and its recipients in Bolivia.

'The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is doing in Bolivia what it was doing in Venezuela...aiding the opposition,' said independent researcher and writer Jeremy Bigwood, who specialises in Latin American affairs.

For example, a July 2002 declassified message from the U.S. embassy in Bolivia to Washington said, 'A planned USAID political party reform project aims at implementing an existing Bolivian law that would...over the long run, help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors.'

Bigwood has made several attempts to obtain detailed information about the nature of current U.S. spending in Bolivia, without success. He says he has filed five separate petitions under the Freedom of Information Act since 2005.

However, one FOIA request he filed revealed that the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy had funded programmes that brought 13 young 'emerging leaders' from Bolivia to Washington between 2002 and 2004 to strengthen their right-wing political parties.

'It's not just the USAID but also other U.S. government entities that are putting money into opposition groups in Bolivia,' Bigwood told IPS, charging that a major part of the funding is apparently aimed at 'bribing people' in that country.More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/19-0

[Judi Lynn]

5. If my memory is accurate, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet, at the U.N., called for UNASUR

to investigate the massacre, again. Having her make this call within the U.N. itself is significant.

Your point about Colombia is important. It's a real surprise, too, all things considered. Probably a very good sign, one would hope.