Right-wing revolt threatens Bolivia

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Right-wing revolt threatens Bolivia "The imperialist project is to carve up Bolivia and carve up South America" by Federico Fuentes

Global Research, April 28, 2008

Green Left Weekly

"Bolivia is on the verge of exploding", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on April 21.

Speaking on the eve of an extraordinary summit of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA — the alliance made of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Dominica) that was partly called to discuss the situation in Bolivia, Chavez stated the landlocked Andean country was "once again under fire — for daring to dream of retaking the path of dignity, liberty and real independence".

"The empire wants to put a brake on the integration of South America", Chavez argued, and has chosen Bolivia as its immediate target. "Today the cause of Bolivia is the cause of the dignified people of Latin America who fight for unity and liberty." Chavez said that, "We are and will continue to be with Bolivia and we extend our hand and our heart" to the Bolivian people.

Illegal referendum

At the heart of the latest round of tensions in Bolivia are the plans by the elite in the eastern department of Santa Cruz (a stronghold of Bolivia's oligarchy) to push ahead with a referendum on "autonomy" scheduled for May 4.

Despite the referendum being declared illegal by the national electoral court, the Santa Cruz electoral court has stated it will press ahead with the vote, which many fear is aimed at fracturing the country.

The right-wing campaign of destabilisation against the indigenous-led government of President Evo Morales — which the referendum is one component of — has intensified in the last few weeks.

"Leaving clear the success of the bunkering-down by the business sectors in Santa Cruz", wrote Pablo Stefanoni on April 19 in the Argentine daily Clarin, "Morales yesterday had to pull out his vice minister for land, Alejandro Almaraz, from the Bolivian Chaco". "Days before, the functionary tried without luck to enter the hacienda of the US citizen Ronald Larsen in order to verify compliance of his land in regards to its economic and social function, but was received with stones and armed picket lines, and had to take refuge in military quarters."

Stefanoni also reported that the president of the Chamber of Exporters of the East, Ramiro Monje, threatened that "after May 4, another economic model will begin to function".

Sectors of large agribusiness have been on a war footing against the government following recent moves to restrict exports of certain food products — in order to tackle food shortages provoked by agribusiness.

While loosening some of the restrictions, Morales threatened to nationalise companies that "are provoking a bosses lockout" by enforcing a holiday on May 4.

Defending unity

An April 24 ABI news service article reported that the commander of the Bolivian Naval Force, Vice Admiral Jose Luis Cavas Villegas, said that "we are the people in arms, in order to defend the internal security of our population, the Armed Forces are with the people … behind the [national flag], we will defend unity all our lives".

Through the build-up of tensions, the position of the government, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS — Morales's party) and the social movements aligned with the government has oscillated between threatening to stop the referendum going ahead to dismissing it as simply an opinion poll.

For now, it seems rallies will be held on May 4 in favour of "national unity" in all capital cities — except in Santa Cruz, in order to avoid confrontations. Nevertheless, the opposition have established "civil guards" to defend the polling booths in the department, just in case.

Since Morales inauguration in January 2006, the economic and political elites whose power has been threatened by the rise of Bolivia's first indigenous government — despite the impoverished indigenous people making up around two thirds of the population — have entrenched themselves in the east of Bolivia.

'Democratic and cultural revolution'

As the Morales government has continued to take steps forward in his self-proclaimed "democratic and cultural revolution" — through the nationalisation of gas, the convocation of a constituent assembly to "re-found" Bolivia and the implementation of important social programs aimed at tackling poverty and centuries of oppression — the elite have stepped up their campaign of destablisation.

In particular, the government's land reform, which has redistributed hundreds of thousands of hectares of land owned by the state or large landowners to poor campesinos (peasants), has aroused opposition. Key leaders of the push for "autonomy" in Santa Cruz are also large landowners.

Behind the calls for autonomy are economic interests hoping to give greater power to the opposition-controlled department governments on questions of control over natural resources and productive land, the majority of which is located in the east.

Bolivia sits on top of the second largest gas reserves in South America, after Venezuela.

By pushing for autonomy the elite hopes to weaken and bring down the popular Morales government. However, their campaign is also part of laying the groundwork for a plan B — the break up of Bolivia through the creation of an independent state in the east, taking with them the majority Bolivia's natural resources.

Under this banner, they have also sought, successfully, to unite large sections of the predominately white population of the east against the central government. Tapping into a long held sentiment for autonomy, and whipping up racism and fears of an "indigenous revenge", they have been able to mobilise large numbers in the east around the "autonomy" demand.

A recent poll by Equipos Mora showed that in Santa Cruz, 84% of the population say they will vote in the referendum, with 76% in favour of the autonomy statutes.

Solidarity

Pointing to the declaration of solidarity and support for the people of Bolivia, approved in the ALBA summit, Chavez stated that it expressed "the will … of millions of Bolivians, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Venezuelans."

During the summit, Chavez proposed the creation of a defence council and military force of the ALBA countries, "because our enemy is the same, the empire".

The declaration states that the nations in ALBA "reject the destabilisation plans that aim to attack the peace and unity of Bolivia". It stated ALBA nations would not recognise "any juridical figure that aims to break away from the Bolivian national state and violates the territorial integrity of Bolivia".

"The imperialist project", Morales said, "is to try and carve up Bolivia and with that carve up South America, because it has converted itself into the epicentre of the great changes that are advancing on the world scale". "I believe in the consciousness of the people and the wisdom of our social forces and of the indigenous movement, and above all of the patriots that are fighting for the dignity and sovereignty of our people."

To add your name to an international statement in solidarity with Bolivia, visit http://todosconbolivia.org. Federico Fuentes is editor of http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.

Federico Fuentes is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Federico Fuentes

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Is George Bush Restarting Latin America's 'Dirty Wars'?

Is George Bush Restarting Latin America's 'Dirty Wars'?

By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet
Posted August 31, 2007.

Signs are emerging of a new wave of U.S.-backed militarism in Latin America

Two soldiers in Paraguay stand in front of a camera. One of them holds an automatic weapon. John Lennon's "Imagine" plays in the background. This Orwellian juxtaposition of war and peace is from a new video posted online by U.S. soldiers stationed in Paraguay. The video footage and other military activity in this heart of the continent represent a new wave of U.S.-backed militarism in Latin America.

It's a reprise of a familiar tune. In the 1970s and 1980s, Paraguay's longtime dictator, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, collaborated with the region's other dictators through Operation Condor, which used kidnapping, torture and murder to squash dissent and political opponents. Stroessner's human rights record was so bad that even Ronald Reagan distanced himself from the leader. Carrying on this infamous legacy, Paraguay now illustrates four new characteristics of Latin America's right-wing militarism: joint exercises with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency training, monitoring potential dissidents and social organizations, the use of private mercenaries for security and the criminalization of social protest through "anti-terrorism" tactics and legislation.

In May of 2005, the Paraguayan Senate voted to allow U.S. troops to operate in Paraguay with total immunity. Washington had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the U.S. troops entry. In July of 2005 hundreds of U.S. soldiers arrived in the country, and Washington's funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay doubled. The U.S. troops conducted various operations and joint training exercises with Paraguayan forces, including so-called Medical Readiness Training Exercises (MEDRETEs). Orlando Castillo, a military policy expert at the human rights rights organization Servicio, Paz y Justicia in Asunción, Paraguay, says the MEDRETEs were "observation" operations aimed at developing "a type of map that identifies not just the natural resources in the area, but also the social organizations and leaders of different communities."

Castillo, in his cool Asunción office, with the standard Paraguayan herbal tea, tereré in his hand, said these operations marked a shift in U.S. military strategy. "The kind of training that used to just happen at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, is now decentralized," he explained. "The U.S. military is now establishing new mechanisms of cooperation and training with armed forces." Combined efforts, such as MEDRETEs, are part of this agenda. "It is a way to remain present, while maintaining a broad reach throughout the Americas." Castillo said this new wave of militarism is aimed at considering internal populations as potential enemies and preventing insurgent leftists from coming to power.

Bruce Kleiner of the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay said that the MEDRETEs "provide humanitarian service to some of Paraguay's most disadvantaged citizens." But this video by Captain William Johnson shows that there's more to the MEDRETE operations, with local Paraguayans being questioned as they receive treatment, as well as events and ceremonies aimed at strengthening ties between the military personnel of both countries. Often, heavily armed men are seen walking past lines of local families while they wait for medicine and questions. The lighthearted depiction of these joint military operations seen in the video is in sharp contrast with reports from local citizens.

A group of representatives from human rights organizations and universities from all over the world, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and a group from the University of Toulouse, France, traveled to Paraguay last July as part of the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) to observe and report on the repression going on in the country linked to the presence of U.S. troops. The local citizens they interviewed said they were not told what medications they were given during the U.S. MEDRETEs. Patients said they were often given the same treatments regardless of their illness. In some cases, the medicine produced hemorrhages and abortions. When the medical treatment took place, patients reported that they were asked if they belonged to any kind of labor or social organization. Among the leaders of such organizations, dozens have been disappeared and tortured in recent years, just as they were during Latin America's "dirty wars" in the Reagan era.

While Orlando Castillo is adamant that the historic military links between Paraguay and the United States remain strong, the U.S. troops that arrived in 2005 have reportedly left the country. In December 2006, the Paraguayan Senate and executive branch, responding to pressure from neighboring countries, voted to end the troops' immunity. Paraguay would have been excluded from the lucrative regional trade bloc of Mercosur if it continued to grant immunity to U.S. forces.

Privatizing repression

Castillo sees private mercenaries, or paramilitaries, as another key piece of the new militarism puzzle. In Paraguay, the strongest paramilitary group is the Citizens Guard. "These paramilitary groups are made of people from the community. They establish curfews and rules of conduct, and monitor the activity of the community. They also intervene in family disputes and can kick people out of the community or off land ... this all very similar to the paramilitary activities in Colombia." Castillo said that while this activity is illegal, the police and judges simply look the other way. Many of the paramilitaries are connected to large agribusinesses and landowners and have been linked to increased repression of small farming families that have resisted the expansion of the soy industry, a cash-crop mostly for export. The shadow army of the Citizens Guard is as big as the state security forces: These paramilitary groups have nearly 22,000 members, while the Paraguayan police force is only 9,000 strong and the military has 13,000 members.

The use of private security is on the rise throughout the Americas. Journalist Cyril Mychalejko reported that the Bush administration was recently incriminated in a scandal involving Chiquita Brands International Inc. and their funding of paramilitaries to repress a discontented labor force in Colombia. The paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Force of Colombia (AUC) is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. In 2003, a former executive at Chiquita told Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff that they were paying the paramilitary group. Chertoff looked the other way, allowing the company to pay an additional $134,000 to the AUC throughout that year.

Castillo's comments about the new U.S. military strategy for the region apply to all of Latin America. Carrying on the legacy of the School of the Americas, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was recently opened in El Salvador, where similar training is going on to broaden the military's reach in the area.

Exporting the "War on Terror"

Anti-terrorism rhetoric and legislation is being mixed into this deadly cocktail in Paraguay, as it is across Latin America. The Paraguayan Senate is scheduled to pass an anti-terrorism law that will criminalize social protest and establish penalties of up to 40 years in prison for participating in such activities. A large march against the passage of the law took place in the country's capital on July 26.

The U.S.-based corporate media plays a part in what has become a war against labor movements and leftist politicians. Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, has regularly been portrayed in the American media as a haven and training ground for Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. Regional analysts believe this terrifying narrative has aided the Pentagon in its military plans for the country. Terrorism talk is similarly being used for political purposes elsewhere in Latin America. The U.S.A Patriot Act was used to revoke the U.S. travel visa for Bolivian human rights leader and labor organizer Leonilda Zurita shortly after leftist president Evo Morales came to power.

In Venezuela's national divide between pro- and anti-Chavez citizens, everything is political. CNN recently entered the fray when it aired footage that Venezuelan governmental officials said falsely linked Chavez to Al-Qaeda. The Venezuelan government has filed charges against CNN for the act. Information Minister William Lara said CNN showed photos of Chavez alongside those of an Al-Qaeda leader. He explained that "CNN broadcast a lie which linked President Chavez to violence and murder." CNN denied having "any intention of associating President Chavez with al Qaeda …"

In Nicaragua, the media has recently been used as a tool by Washington to promote its foreign policy agenda. A long time lab rat for U.S. imperialism, Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America and the site of a socialist revolution in the 1980s when the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. The specter of a Sandinista-led government still haunts the White House. In a 2001 presidential election in Nicaragua when Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was running for re-election, (right after 9/11) similar tactics were employed, and the media was a key tool. In an ad in the Nicaraguan paper La Prensa, Jeb Bush was quoted as saying: "Daniel Ortega is an enemy of everything the United States represents. Further, he is a friend of our enemies. Ortega has a relationship of more than 30 years with states and individuals who shelter and condone international terrorism." The tactic worked, and the pro-free market, right-wing Washington ally Enrique Bolaños beat Ortega. In the lead up to the presidential election on Nov. 5, 2006, former U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North visited Nicaragua to warn voters not to elect Daniel Ortega. In the 1980s North was convicted of violating U.S. law to organize the Contra guerrillas against the Sandinista government. North reminded voters that the same terror could return to Nicaragua under a new Ortega administration. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., threatened another trade embargo and to prevent money sent from Nicaraguans in the United States from reaching their families at home. U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli said that if Ortega won the elections, the United States would "re-evaluate relations" with the country. The media was used against Ortega as well, with TV commercials showing corpses from the Contra war in the 1980s, warning citizens against voting for the left's choice. This time, however, the media campaign backfired, and Ortega won the election.

Paraguayan journalist Marco Castillo shook as head while contemplating this new landscape of repression. Dozens of social organization leaders and dissidents have been disappeared and tortured in recent years.

"Impunity reigns," he said. "This is as bad as it was during the worst years of the Stroessner dictatorship."

Benjamin Dangl won a 2007 Project Censored Award for his coverage of U.S. military operations in Paraguay. He is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007).

US Coal Firm Linked to Colombia Militias

Published on Saturday, July 7, 2007 by Associated Press
US Coal Firm Linked to Colombia Militias

by Frank Bajak

The bus had just left Drummond Co. Inc.’s coal mine carrying about 50 workers when gunmen halted it and forced two union leaders off. They shot one on the spot, pumping four bullets into his head, and dragged the other one off to be tortured and killed.

In a civil trial set to begin Monday before a federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., union lawyers have presented affidavits from two people who allege that Drummond ordered those killings, a charge the company denies.

The Chiquita banana company admitted paying right-wing militias known as paramilitaries to protect its Colombia operations. Human rights activists claim such practices were widespread among multinationals in Colombia, and that Drummond went even further, using the fighters to violently keep its labor costs down.

The Drummond case, they say, is their best chance yet of seeing those allegations heard in court.

The union has presented affidavits to the Alabama court from two people who say they were present when Drummond’s chief executive in Colombia, Augusto Jimenez, handed over a large sum of cash to representatives of the local paramilitary warlord. They claim the money was for the March 10, 2001, killings of Sintramienergetica union local president Valmore Locarno and his deputy, Victor Orcasita.

Union leaders, former army soldiers and ex-paramilitary fighters also allege that family-owned Drummond, which shifted most of its operations to northern Colombia in the 1990s as its Alabama veins gave out, paid and provisioned the paramilitaries as a matter of policy.

Drummond says neither charge is true.

“Drummond did not pay any paramilitary or illegal or unlawful group,” it said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. Senior company executives declined interviews.

Rafael Garcia, the former technology director of the DAS state security agency, says in an affidavit that he saw Jimenez give “a suitcase full of cash” to paramilitary commanders “to assassinate specific union leaders,” naming Locarno and Orcasita. Garcia is in prison, convicted of erasing drug traffickers’ names from DAS records.

Former paramilitary fighter Alberto Visbal says in an affidavit that he saw Jimenez pay his boss, who went by the alias “Julian,” $200,000 in cash. Visbal, who has fled Colombia, said he understood from another fighter present that the money was in exchange for the killings. Visbal says he was later sent to confirm Locarno’s death.

In a filing in an Atlanta circuit court Thursday seeking more time to gather depositions, plaintiffs for the union also alleged that former union treasurer Jimmy Rubio saw a Drummond official - they didn’t specify which one - pay a paramilitary leader for the killings. Rubio went into hiding when his father-in-law was murdered just before he was to give a deposition in the case, they said.

Affidavits from Rubio, Visbal and Garcia have all been entered into the public record in Birmingham.

Drummond challenged the accounts. “We have evidence that some (of the witnesses) are being paid and/or offered assistance by the United Steelworkers Union,” it said in its written response.

The union said the only assistance provided to witnesses was helping some of them leave the country after their lives were threatened.

The lawsuit, filed under a U.S. statute that lets foreigners sue U.S. corporations for their conduct abroad, seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, alleging Locarno, Orcasita and Gustavo Soler - who was killed after he took over for Locarno - “were direct victims of Drummond’s plan to violently destroy the union.”

“I think they thought they could get away with anything, literally get away with murder,” United Steelworkers lawyer Daniel Kovalik said.

Drummond’s relationship with the Sintramienergetica union, which represents a third of its 6,200 local workers, has long been tense. The union accuses the company of unsafe conditions it says contributed to 13 accidental deaths since 1995, of forcing injured employees to work and of indiscriminately dismissing workers.

Drummond said: “We have a good relationship with our rank and file workforce.”

The landowner-backed paramilitaries arose in the 1980s to counter kidnapping and extortion by leftist rebels but grew into terrorist organizations in their own right, killing more than 10,000 people, stealing land from peasants and taking over much of Colombia’s drug trade.

As the paramilitaries demobilize under a peace pact with the government, many former fighters are coming forward to describe the groups’ ties with business leaders and politicians in revelations that are shaking the nation.

The U.S. Justice Department fined Chiquita Brands International Inc. $25 million this year for giving $1.7 million to the militias from 1997-2004. Chiquita said the regular monthly payments by its wholly owned subsidiary Banadex were “to protect the lives of its employees.”

Colombia’s chief prosecutor, Mario Iguaran, has opened criminal investigations into both the Drummond and Chiquita cases. Last month, the families of 144 people killed by paramilitaries operating where Chiquita harvested bananas sued the company in U.S. federal court in Washington.

And Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., said a congressional hearing that he called on the subject last week would be the first of many.

“We don’t want American companies to fuel the unacceptable level of violence that exists in Colombia today,” he said.

While the Birmingham trial focuses on the union leaders’ murders, witnesses will also accuse Drummond of employing paramilitaries to protect its operations, which exported more than 25 million tons of coal last year from Colombia to the United States and Europe.

Previous efforts to use the Alien Tort Claims Act to make mulitnational corporations accountable for actions in other countries have failed. To win this case, the families must show the slayings amounted to war crimes sanctioned by state officials. Their attorneys say they can prove this since union activists have been systematically slaughtered in Colombia. l Three people unaffiliated with the union told The Associated Press that Drummond paid paramilitaries to guard its 25,000-acre La Loma mine and its coal trains against leftist rebel sabotage. They said the company supplied the mercenaries with pickup trucks and motorcycles and routinely fed them and let them gas up on mine property.

Two of them have offered testimony to Colombian and U.S. authorities: Edwin Guzman, a former army sergeant who later joined the paramilitaries, and Isnardo Ropero, who worked as the personal bodyguard for Drummond’s community relations director. Both have fled Colombia.

The third is a former midlevel paramilitary member who worked in the region until early last year and spoke on condition of anonymity because he remains in Colombia and fears for his life. He said paramilitaries guarded Drummond’s coal trains on the 120-mile rail line from La Loma to the coast. Every few miles, a motorized team shadowing the train on a parallel dirt road would hand off to another team, he said.

In an affidavit, Javier Ochoa, an ex-paramilitary who is serving time for murder, named the people he said collected “taxes” from Drummond, including between 20 and 32 cents per ton of coal produced. His affidavit was provided to the AP by Llanos Oil Exploration Ltd., which has sued Drummond separately for alleged theft of oil rights in an Orlando, Fla., federal court.

Rubio, the former union treasurer, said in an affidavit that he saw the mine’s community relations director, Alfredo Araujo, hand over two checks to a known paramilitary member on mine grounds. Araujo denied the claim.

“That’s false and will be so proven in court,” he said in a telephone interview.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

USA SUPPORT COLUMBIAN DRUG LORD & MASS MURDERER

clipped from www.latimes.com Colombia army chief linked to outlaw militias The allegations come as Congress reviews aid to the U.S. ally. The CIA says the intelligence hasn't been fully vetted. The CIA has obtained new intelligence alleging that the head of Colombia's U.S.-backed army collaborated extensively with right-wing militias that Washington considers terrorist organizations, including a militia headed by one of the country's leading drug traffickers. President Bush called Uribe a "personal friend" two weeks ago during a visit to Bogota, and his government is one of the Bush administration's closest allies in Latin America.

LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT: The USA is supporting a dictator who also commands his own death squads and he the country's leading Drug Boss.

Yup....that what this story says. What a surprise, my gosh.

Our tax dollars at work. Another great example of the USA spreading peace and democracy and joy around the wold. Another example of TRUTH being trampled by blood and bullets.