Evo Wins

Otto further documents the English speaking media atrocities. It’s amazing, he has won by an overwhelming majority far greater than any mandate a UK or US politician could manage yet because he is pursuing a different path to promote the wellbeing of his people (ie a path to wellbeing as opposed to profit for the few) they have to find ways to sneer at the win. Also I guess it is jealousy, most of the people he governs like and support him, not something the middle-management-for-corporations breed of neoliberal politician we have ever experiences, there may be a clue there…

Viva Morales!

Head over to Abiding in Bolivia for a lowdown on what our wonderful English speaking media are up to, hint- not what could be called journalism.

Connecting Oily Dots…

Having avoided their crimes in Nigeria coming out in open court Shell have looked elsewhere to ply their business model perchance…Abiding in Bolivia sums up 

Branco Marinkovic, Argentine fascists, and US Embassy security personel, our buddies at the Human Rights Foundation were also involved by partially funding the mercenary group. Apparently the faux human rights organization doesn’t just hire mentally unstable bloggers like Alek Boyd, they now also have criminal fugitives from Bolivia on their roster, Hugo Acha.

So what of Shell?

2008- The Shell oil company is under great pressure from the Bolivian government to reduce its presence in the country, or even to withdraw completely. President Evo Morales issued an ultimatum at the end of March, giving the company till 30 April to agree to sell off its activities to the Bolivian state.

Ok, they must have been upset. Now imagine, people trying to kill Evo Morales just so happened to have a history working security for Shell, oh coincidences!

It has emerged that members of the Szekler Legion, a paramilitary group which recruits among young ethnic Hungarians in Romania, have worked as security guards at the Shell Corrib Gas Project construction sites in recent months.

Among them the Szekler Legion’s leader 32-year-old Romanian Hungarian Tibor Revesz who worked for Integrated Risk Management Security (I-RMS) at the Mayo sites. There are indications other Szekler Legion members have worked in Ireland, with the organisation’s internet site selling patches associated with the Corrib project.

One patch, with a skull and Celtic motif carries the slogan “OSS — Operation Solitaire Shield 2008 Corrib Gas Project”, believed to refer to the Solitaire ship which was to be used for pipe-laying at the site.

The Szekler Legion have been implicated in violent incidents in Romania. The group openly promotes neo-fascism and race hate.

Among the Szekler Legion’s members were Magyarosi Arpak and Elot Toazo. Arpak, 28, was shot dead by Bolivian security forces alongside Tipperary native Michael Dwyer, 24 in Bolivia. In the same operation Toazo was arrested.

The Bolivian government has accused the Tipperary man and his companions of planning terrorist attacks, including the assassination of the country’s socialist President Evo Morales. The gang’s leader Eduardo Rozsa Flores, 48, was also killed in the raid. Flores was a neo-fascist activist and an “honorary member” of the Szekler Legion.

Five skinheads formed a guard of honour at the Tipperary man’s grave in Tullyglass cemetery just a few hours after he was buried last Thursday. A Garda source said they were members of Hungarian right-wing group, the Szekler Legion. Cops believe Dwyer forged links with the fascist group on the internet before flying to Bolivia to take a security job.

Of course it’s entirely possible such lovely individuals found other benefactors and left all ties to Shell behind, it would just be a happy accident of fate their objective would have alleviated the problems their former employer Shell was having in Bolivia. It’s nice when friends and colleagues, current and former share interests, innit?

At the end of 2007 I-RMS ‘security operatives’ replaced the majority of security guards employed by Shell. A substantial number of these ‘operatives’ have military backgrounds and dubious far-right political links. I-RMS have faced numerous complaints from protestors, having been accused of assault, heavy handedness and failure to wear or present their Private Security Authority licences. They have also routinely filmed protestors and indeed Dwyer himself was involved in this gathering of intelligence for Shell. On their website, offline and ‘under construction’ in the wake of Dwyer’s death, I-RMS had advertised their services, specialising in “international armed and unarmed security”, “customised security solutions” and “special services”, unquestionably all euphemisms for mercenary work. I-RMS have also been used by Fianna Fáil at their last few ardfheiseanna. So not only does I-RMS protect the nefarious multinational Shell in their robbery of Irish gas, they also defend the politicians who facilitated this grand theft. Who said three’s a crowd? Maura Harrington, the courageous veteran Shell to Sea campaigner, castigated I-RMS as “Shell’s private army in North Mayo”. This hired muscle for capitalism has been doing the state’s dirty work, while Gardaí turn a blind eye. They are no more than a hired gang of thugs and fascists.

Bolivian Assassination Vacation

This is a complicated story and a really good place to star would be at blogmig@ Otto’s Inca Kola News. From the looks of it the Irish -macho fantasist- guy got in way over his head with actual mercenaries and fascists (and fans of fellow Croatian war criminals) who quite possibly were in the pay of Santa Cruz fascist supremo Branco Marinkovic and yes folks, you guessed it, there could be a US govt. connection! Try to act surprised! On the alleged leader mercenary’s -possible- blogsite

http://eduardorozsaflores.blogspot.com/

you discover just how fucked up and well…dumb he was (if not a liar). While being a Muslim who was against the Iraq war and supported Palestinians he was also a fanatical anti-Serb, anti-communist -fascist- and somehow got convinced Evo Morales was an enemy even though he is an indigenous leader who also supports the Palestinians (Or…some of that is to smear people who are anti-war and pro-Palestinian hmmm). So ultimately one could conclude (not unsurprisingly) mercenaries mostly love the violence, love fascism (so closely aligned to machismo, patriarchal oppression synthesising with the authoritarian repression), like money and aren’t all that smart.

Simon Romero, Imperial Vampire

See if you can spot it-

UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world’s lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia – a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily.

The assumption of imperial privilege here is breathtaking in its arrogance. That Bolivia’s lithium is desired so all is at issue is how will they ‘surrender‘ it. How dare they not be ‘willing’ to feed the rapacious corporations and on terms wholly favourable to said corporations. Romero’s dedication to effete moronity is nothing new to those familiar with BoRev, Abiding in Bolivia or Inca Kola News but this purple prose really opens up new possibilities for him as the hack of choice for neoliberal rapists everywhere.

PS. And for another hack doing the hard work of attacking the Empire’s targets in print check out Abiding in Bolivia on the LA Times- Racism taints Chris Kraul’s reporting

Evo Doing It Again

Despite fasicts and racists and their US support (natch) the New Constitution vote in Bolivia is again showing a majority for Evo Morales. Early exit polling is-

“yes” at between 60% and 62% of the total vote, (“no” at 39% to 40%)

And of course the nutjob Santa Cruz-ers are claiming fraud, which is predictable despite-

Amidst charges of fraud from Morales opponents, the OAS, which has 68 election observers out in the field today, has issued its first statement.

The OAS says it looks to it that the voting took place with full regularity. But that preliminary analysis is based simply on a finding that most all of the nation’s polling places has the required equipment and materials so that people could vote. It is doubtful that MAS opponents, especially if they lose as expected, will drop their charges of pressure on voters. But if they believe that Morales support in the rural areas of the country is manufactured rather than valid, they haven’t spent much time talking to people in the countryside.

The efforts to fight Evo included -try to act shocked- right wing religious institutions (like for example a Catholic church also currently readmitting Holocaust deniers, whoever could have seen that happening) and the ads in typical conservative fashion operate on the level of spite, fear and obedience while projecting a sugary image wildly at variance with the reality of their far right elimnationist attacks. Corporatist media will not like this further approval of Morales governance, but really they are running out of bullshit as Abiding in Bolivia documents. It’s remarkable to have countries where neoliberal governments claim massive support with barely above 50% of the vote (if that) in low turnout elections painting Morales as dangerously undemocratic, which is a clue to the real regard for democracy in the minds of our elites.

PS. Via Otto @ Inca Kola News check out El Gaviero blogging from the belly of the beast- Santa Cruz, reports with 60% votes in, a lower number- 51 % vote in favour. At this early stage I don’t know if that shows a discrepancy with exit polls giving results that are kinder (but still mean they lose) to rightists, like that could ever happen!

Bolivian Hate Radio

Reporters Without Borders (excerpt):-

An organisation that defends press freedom and free expression, Reporters Without Borders believes it has a duty to denounce the use of news media to incite racism, violence or murder. It was for this reason that the organisation condemned the behaviour of Jorge Melgar Quete, who was arrested on 13 October in Riberalta, in the northeastern department of Beni.

Melgar’s commentaries on Beni’s Canal 18 TV station were just hate-filled rants against the indigenous origins of many Bolivians and the country’s democratically-elected president. In an opinion piece published in the dailies La Razón and La Prensa on 21 October, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard voiced outrage at the fact that the media were being used to express such views.

For the same reason, as a warning, we are publishing on our website passages from “Nuestra Palabra”, a hate programme hosted by lawyer Luis Arturo Mendivil on Radio Oriental, a station he owns in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Mendivil’s radio editorials glorify the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, a radical Santa Cruz-based group that has carried out repeated physical attacks on state media such as Canal 7 TV and the Red Patria Nueva radio network because of their perceived support for the central government in La Paz.

Transcript (excerpt)-

Second editorial, 11 June 2008:
“I am not proud of being a Bolivian, as the collas would say. I am proud of being a camba, of being a Santa Cruz man to the core. I want to be an Amazonian. I want to take advantage of this piece of Latin America without having to keep the company of these ignorant brutes, these animals in human form. I will never stop calling them that, these drugged, alcoholic maniacs who yesterday or the day before tried to demonstrate their ferocity in La Paz like poor animals. When a human being takes the form of a two-legged animal, when a human being loses his rationality, when we listen to these brutes and imbeciles who govern us, each day we lose a bit, or a lot of what we aspire to become.

I was listening to this imbecile, this ignorant cretin who represents us on the international stage, I was listening to him say he was not satisfied with the ambassador’s statement but would consult lawyers. Obviously, it is a man with knowledge of international law who can maintain relations between peoples, and not this stupid donkey, this animal, this stone llama freak. We must develop every possible mechanism to oppose this proposed referendum which makes no sense, which is just a sexual infatuation between the government and Tuto Quiroga [former president and current head of Podemos, the main opposition party, who is regarded as traitor by the most radical supporters of autonomy]. We won’t let ourselves be screwed by these sell-outs. They are all in the same corner as this crazy government that wants to make us submit to a socialist-model economy that has failed all over the world.

Racist Spectacle, Class Spectacle

Evo Morales spoke out on Gaza-

Israel must change its policies and the U.S. government should not continue using a country like Israel to invade countries that are seeking liberation… The killings are not a solution in this new millennium, so Israel should stop being a tool of U.S. imperialism to humiliate the Palestinian people.

As this short compilation shows the wealthy racists of Santa Cruz are also keen on violence to achieve their ends (ht2 Otto)-

And from The Angry Arab ‘The White Man and Gaza‘-

660 Palestinian killed and 2950 injured. Of those, there are 214 Children and 89 women. And it’s smiles all round for the European elites. But how can these Israelis enjoy their picnic watching Palestinians being killed, because apart from the sheer sadism-

Prof. Shlomo Sand– “No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents.”

I mean haven’t they noticed how their ruling class don’t have their luxury compounds in Sderot? Yet they are convenient when a brand is needed for a new war product-

Israel is not a state of, by and for the Jewish people. It is rather a state of, by and for a sprinkling of families, 19 in all, whose income amounts to $70 billion—88% of the national budget.

UNASUR Investigate The Pando Massacre

With tears in her eyes, she remembered how a group of “men from the city” burned alive one of her colleagues last September 11th. Next to the burned body, the woman’s baby was crying hysterically, she narrated. Enboldened by the wails and discontrol, they picked the baby up by the legs and shook it and, as it wouldn’t stop crying, shot it in the head.

More details at Otto’s place. And remember, the perpetrators of this are the ones backed by Washington. So there’s the answer before you ask- Why is this not in the news?

PS. Also on what the media hide Otto reports Bloomberg and Reuters only allow high paying people to know the Venezuelan unemployment figures they have, why might this be? Because evil socialist Chavez actually has dropping figures while neoliberal hellholes see huge increases perchance?

Washington Sides With Fascists Against Evo Morales

No, try to be surprised. El Duderino sums up–

But WaPo reporter Pamela Constable didn´t tell you that the quoted “activist” Elena Abolnik is a fascist. She also forgot to tell you that these protesters engaged in racist verbal assualts of indigenous Bolivian dancers attending the OAS meeting.

Following his links to Down South–

An activist? Really? Well, sure, just like the KKK was (still is?) an activist organization. Ms. Abolnik is vice president of the Virginia chapter of Pro–Santa Cruz Committee, the cryptofascist organization run by wealthy landowner and arch-enemy of Evo and Bolivian law and order Branko Marinkovic. The UJC–the brownshirts of the opposition–goes hand in fist with Ms. Abolnik’s committee, a violent organization that is only happy to attack the majority indigenous population of Bolivia.

I think it is only right and proper for news media here and elsewhere to listen and report opposition viewpoints, but a simple Google search quickly turned up Ms. Abolnik’s association with the Pro–Santa Cruz Committee. Responsible journalism would, at the very least, require that this relationship be disclosed.

Carlos @ Carlos in DC has video of the anti Morales crowd intimidating indigenous Bolivian’s going to Morales apperance at the OAS meeting. His translation of some of the chanting- “Assassins, get out, fake Indigenous, sold outs, take that custom off, bastards, piece of shit, get out, Evo faggot son of a bitch, he is a faggot…”

He also observes-

The article points out the fact that Morales did not meet with any US officials, something that in my opinion makes no sense. US President elect Barack Obama should have met with Morales, or at least a member of his transitional team should have had the courtesy of approaching the democratic-elect Andean leader.

Of course one reason for the snub may be-

Obama’s Bolivia adviser Greg Craig (who also happens to represent fugative ex-Pres “Goni” wanted for genocide) just got a promotion. He is now to be tapped for White House counsel, making the likelihood of an Evo-Obama pow-wow ever so slim.

Ps. Also…well look when anyone who is involved with supporting a fascist group the US also supports in Latin America that’s one thing, then when that person gets generously quoted in the Washington Post that’s another, then…well look she is listed as working for Access National Corporation as a mortgage banker (d’oh!) in Reston Virginia and has an address in Fairfax Virginia, where she is vice president of Comite Por Santa Cruz (cue those swastika lite crosses on the logo). Reg details show Created on: 06-Dec-06 Expires on: 06-Dec-08  Last Updated on: 06-Nov-07 – One year after Evo was elected with 53.7% on December 18, 2005 (84.5% turnout!). Since of course re-approved with a whopping 67.4%, y’know elected, overwhelmingly. Makes Obama’s look like a slim win, y’know elected as in a democratic leader, like wot America claims to encourage globally…

Now excuse me while I idly speculate- Can you guess who else also has some big facilities there, it rhymes with See Aye Eh (not to mention its HQ in Langley Virginia)! Here’s one of their big office blocks @cryptome. Anyways I am being scurrilous, there is no proof she has any connection with the spooks. But she does share similar objectives and working in banking well, a lot of cash has been put into the fascist UJC. I suppose really if she isn’t she may as well apply and get paid for her far right subversion of elected governments the empire dislike. After all the commute would be easy-

Pando Hacks

Abiding in Bolivia– Still wondering why press coverage of the Pando Massacre was/is so varied, contradictory, and difficult to sift through? As it turns out, a large portion of Pando’s “journalists” on which Bolivia and the world relied to gain news as to what was go on only happen to have been payed off by Pando’s former Prefect Leopoldo Fernández, now in prison for the massacre.

[More]

Pando Massacre Survivors Speak

Rodrigo Medina, Second Secretary of Land and Territory, Madre de Dios Peasant Federation

“I want to announce to the press that the persecution and death threats continue today in Pando., This is happening in the municipalities of Santos Mercado, Villanueva, Puerto Gonzalo Moreno, Filadelfia, Puerto Rico, and other communities, such as Ingavi de Pando.

“They are intimidating our people. Yesterday an event occurred – they shot the driver of Mayor Edwin Cuellar of the municipality of Santos Mercado, and he is wounded. A girl was raped by these same groups. Last night in the community of Piedras, they tied up and offended the honor of this girl, until the members of the community came to her rescue. She is currently in the house of a schoolteacher. Because of these incidents, women can not go to where they wash and bring water. People come down from the mountain, in what seem to be planned attacks. In the municipality of Gonzalo Moreno, the brother of the head of the city’s human resources department was run down with a motorcycle. Currently he is at the Hospital in Riberalta, this has also been done by the same group of men who were hoods over their heads. These are only the cases that we know about; but surely there are many which we haven’t heard about yet.

“For these reasons, we ask that the Martial Law authorities also maintain a presence in our communities where our peasant brothers find themselves unprotected.”

Abigail Adagua, Vice-President, Villanueva Vigilance Committee

“We came to the city of La Paz because we want to express that some of the mass media have converted themselves into the accomplices of the murderers of Pando. The [former] police chief comes across as a victim via the media, but she was complicit in the abuse against us.

“On that day, September 11th, if they had told us that we were going to Cobija to a battle, we would not have brought our children, our wives and our elders. We never thought we were going to confront a massacre, and now humble people are left traumatized.

“To the racist media we say that we too are human beings. We ask the media to help us to demand justice for all peasants, for the widows, widowers and orphans.”

Gerson Racua, President, Town of San Pedro Vigilance Committee

“I am one of the survivors. Surely some of the media know me because I said that Chiquitin Becerra gave me weapons and paid me. I said that because they tied me up and tortured me, they fired their guns to make me say those things. I am here today to refute things that some are being published in the media.

“The police chief who is making herself out to be the victim was one of the promoters of this shooting and killing of peasants – she went to verify the car we were in, checked for weapons and found nothing.

“To Pando authorities, political advisors and others, we want to say that we too are citizens of Pando and we want justice for the peasant sector. Another thing I want to denounce are the montages that have been made recently.”

Isabel Chicunawi, Councilwoman, Town of Puerto Rico

“I say today, in the presence of the media, that we are victims. What they did to us on September 11th is very sad. We ask the media to help us to investigate the deaths of the women and children. In the list of the dead the are only men, but where are the women and children that they killed?

“I ask the media not to be like the media of Pando, which has been bought out by the cacique [political boss] of Pando.”

Jorge Boroboro, Organizational Secretary, Bolivia Confederation of Peasant Workers

“I am also one of the survivors of the massacre of Pando. On September 11th, there was an ambush in which there was a clear intention to kill us; they shot me three times with a .22 caliber. Many of our comrades have died or have disappeared, but currently they continue with this subjugation in different communities in Pando.

“Many are lying, like for example the police chief [at the time] who is appearing in the media. She was an accomplice in the ambush and but is now saying that she is the victim.”

(ht2 Otto @ Inca Kola News)

Bolivia, Race & Class

Via Otto @ Inca Kola News an essential article- Racism, Domination and Revolution in Bolivia by Adolfo Gilly– on the deep cultural roots of what is emerging and the racial and class dynamics so ignored by our media, as Otto says ‘If you are reminded while reading of the situation in Apartheid-era South Africa and the industrialized nations’ attitudes towards the black majority movement at that time, I wouldn’t be surprised.’ A wee excerpt [full article here]-

That dividing line is sharp and deep in Bolivia. It is not only a class domination, although that does exist. It is above all about a racial domination that was shaped in the colonial times and reaffirmed in the ogliarchic Republic from 1825 onwards.

In that domination, being a full citizen means being white or an assimilated mestizo. To become a citizen, an Indian must stop being Indian and see themselves and be seen as being white; break from their concrete historical community, that of the Aymaras, the Quechuas, the Guaraníes or another one of the many indigenous Bolivian communities; and enter as a newly-arrived subordinate into the abstract community of the citizens of the Republic. The Indian does not expect that the Republic will change and be like his people. Instead, it is required that these people change their men and women, renounce their identity and their history and be like the Republic of the whites, the rich, the eucated, the Spanish-speakers – where, for everyone else, the inerasable color of their skin will forever condemn them (those men and women) to second-class citizenship. That is the nature of this domination.

The strength of the revolution taking place in Bolizia is supported by an ancient civiliation, invisible in the law but one that persists in the languages, customs, belief, relationships of solidarities and communities, both rural and urban. The dominated brown-skinned people were not brought from other lands. There were there before, they were and they continue to be the native civilization. The filmmaker Jorge Sanginés, in an unforgettable film, called it “The Clandestine Nation.” Guillermo Bonfil named it “Deep Mexico: A Civilization Denied.” Following in their steps, I have named it “a subaltern civilization” in my book, “Historia a contrapelo.”

Clandestine, denied or subaltern, the social and cultural framework of those native civilizations appears at the moment of organizing the uprisings and the rebellions of their heirs and bearers, because those rebellions and uprisings are roots as deep as the root of racial domination.

Springtime For Santa Cruz

The fascists of Santa Cruz staged a little march and @ Down South via Abiding in Bolivia you can see their odd little demo. Wait ’til the 13 second mark and check those…erm salutes. Ring any bells?

Machine Gunning Children

Erbol- Translation: Machetera
Tuesday, September 16, 1:53 a.m.
La Paz. – On Monday, survivors of the “Porvenir Massacre” or the “Cobija Massacre” denounced the killing of a number of children last Thursday in the town of El Porvenir, when assassins shot peasants who were heading toward the area.

In statements to the Erbol Network, the leader of the Pando Peasant Federation, Cristian Domínguez, denounced the fact that vehicles belonging to the Prefecture had been given the work of collecting the lifeless bodies of the peasants in order to inter them in a mass grave.

“The comrades told us that they had seen dump trucks that had collected corpses, where they were stripped and had gone to throw them into a mass grave,” said Domínguez.

Tearfully, the leader questioned the departmental autonomy that the Pando Prefecture is trying to implement.  “This is autonomy, killing children,” said Domínguez.  Claudia Alpire, a peasant from the town of Filadelfia denounced the fact that a number of children had been riddled with machine-gun fire, while they begged their mothers for their lives.

“Those children cried, with machine-guns […], they asked that these children not be killed,” said Alpire.

For its part, the Pando Peasants Federation asked the government for logistical support once the investigation into the “Cobija Massacre” has ended.  According to data from the peasant organization, there are 9 dead, 24 wounded, and 39 hostages.  The number of missing totals 106, but they warned that the number could increase in the hours to come.

‘39 hostages‘- Does this mean the fascists are still holding people? That was Monday, I hope by now after the fascists were defeated and talks underway they are alive and free.