Friday, September 19, 2008

Peasants road block in rural Bolivia last week (Photo: AP)


BOLIVIA: WASHINGTON'S
DE-STABILISATION
PLOT EXPOSED

CRISIS
Events in Bolivia are at a crisis state with a direct threat to the unity of the state being manipulated by US diplomats from their Embassy in La Paz. On 09.09.08, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s second city, fascist hooligans from the so-called “Santa Cruz Youth Union” an adjunct of the fascist “Santa Cruz Civic Committee” headed by Branco Marinkovic , a Croatian fascist and crony of US Ambassador, Philip Goldberg, attacked government offices, state television, the land administration office, local community groups offices, state telecom, human rights organisations, causing widespread destruction and burning of some of the buildings attacked. Marinkovic had just returned from a meeting with CIA agents in Miami, Florida, the day before. Marinkovic was also in contact with Carlos Sanchez Berzain, a former minister for Justice in the previous Bolivian government.

Berzain is wanted in Bolivia on various charges relating to the deaths of more than 60 people in a massacre in 2003 that attempted to crush an uprising against plans to privatise Bolivia’s gas industry, when he was justice minister. While Bolivia has requested the US to extradite both Berzain and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada ( former Bolivian president in 2003), the Buckfush regime has refused to collaborate. Instead, Berzain was granted asylum in the US in July.
As the organized violence spread to Tarija and Pando, other areas headed by right-wing politicians, resistance by the common people began to frustrate the attempted coup. Bolivian military were sent to secure government property and the Bolivian Oil and Gas production centres. Road blocks were set up by local people to seal off the Santa Cruz fascist junta from its supporters in other areas. In Tarija, the fascists attacked the popular farmers’ market in the town with petrol bombs and blew up part of the pipeline to Argentina. At the same time, the head of the parliamentary bloc of the right-wing Podemos party and large landowner, Antonio Franco, praised the violent takeovers, while Podemos deputy for Santa Cruz, Oscar Urenda, issued an open call to arms.


MORE VIOLENCE

On 12.09.08 , President Evo Morales decreed a state of emergency in Pando, the northernmost of the rebellious regions, sending fresh troops to secure control. The carrying of weapons was banned under the decree “to safeguard lives and the collective good”. When national troops arrived with the Commander-in-Chief, General Luis Trigo. General Trigo ordered the troops to barracks in an unexplained manoeuvre but, ignoring his orders, loyal troops went on to secure the airport and dispersed the fascist gangsters who were occupying it. Among the gangsters were hired paramilitary mercenaries from Brazil.

Fernandes in Court in La Paz (Photo:AP)
The local prefect in Pando, Leopoldo Fernandez, organised the violence and had sent gangs to seize and occupy the airport , with at least 15 people recorded killed. The national government ordered the arrest of the Pando prefect, who is alleged to have organised the killings. Fernandez was reported as having fled to Brazil but was located in Cobija on Tuesday, 16.09.08 by National troops, arrested and flown to La Paz where he awaits trial for criminal offences.



EXPELLED
On10. 09.08, President Morales announced the expulsion from Bolivia of the US ambassador, Philip Goldberg, for his role in backing the fascist uprising. Goldberg had publicly urged the US to intervene on the side of the local authorities behind the violence. Goldberg was given 72 hours to leave the country.
On 11.09.08, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave the US ambassador in Caracas 72 hours to leave, in solidarity with Bolivia. On 12.09.08, Honduras suspended recognition of the US ambassador to it in solidarity with Venezuela and Bolivia. The US responded by expelling the Venezuelan and Bolivian ambassadors from Washington

On 11.09.08, Chavez offered Venezuelan military assistance in defence of democracy to Bolivia. “If any or our governments is overthrown, we will have a green light to perform military operations of any type to give the power back to the people in those countries”, Chavez declared. The Brazilian Foreign Minister cabled Washington and warned the Buckfush regime that any attempt to partition Bolivia would be strongly resisted by Brazil and its allies. A meeting was called of the Presidents of Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile and Venezeula which took place in Santiago,Chile. The leaders agreed to support Bolivia against any attempts to stage a coup or split the country apart.

NOTORIOUS
Philip Goldberg, US ambassador in La Paz since 2006 was involved from the beginnings of the civil war in Yugoslavia that erupted in the Nineties, until the overthrow and prosecution of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. He was the State Department's "Bosnia Desk Officer", between 1994 and 1996 at the point when the conflict between Albanian terrorists and Serbian and Yugoslav security forces became acute.

Also, he served as Special Assistant to Clinton’s Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was the author of the break-up of sovereign Yugoslavia and the overthrow of Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic. He was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American Delegation at Dayton.
Goldberg was a political-economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa, and later a consular and political officer at the US Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, where he made contact with Colombian politicians. He served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile from 2001 to 2004. Goldberg returned to the Balkans thereafter to direct the US mission in Pristina, the administrative centre of NATO occupied Kosovo, where he supported the conspiracy to detach Kosovo from Serbia. Goldberg is now trying to repeat the separatist enterprise in Bolivia using all the tricks of Washington subversion tactics on behalf of the US Oil and Gas monopolies and their local mercenaries to disrupt and overthrow the socialist government of Evo Morales. The monopolies want to regain control of Bolivia’s oil and gas resources at a time of unprecedented demand and high market prices.
The reaction of the other Latin
American leaders has stunned Washington, long used to having its way in its so-called “backyard”. The leading countries of the continent now governed by progressive leaders who want their countries’ resources used for the benefit of their own peoples and not for profiteering and exploitation by US monopolies.
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING.....
In a calculated snub and démarche to Washington, Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers landed in Venezuela for the first time on an official visit and on Samhain/November 25 this year Russia’s largest missile cruiser “Peter the Great” with its escorts and 1000 Russian marines will arrive for large-scale naval exercises in the Caribbean with the Venezuelan Navy.
This is the Russian military’s largest incursion into the Americas since the former Soviet Union’s alliance with Cuba in the 1960’s. Washington is purple with rage at these developments and the success of the progressive Latin American governments in pursuing “The Second Independence” as they are calling it, meaning the end of US economic domination of their richly resourced continent and their freedom to forge new alliances with Russia, China and India and even the EU if it can get out from under the NATO jackboot.

The declaration of solidarity with Bolivia by the combined Presidents, that they would not recognise the results of any coup against the elected Government of Evo Morales, has knocked the bottom out of the right-wing prefects revolt and made it strategically redundant. To save their skins and avoid being hung for treason they now have to come to terms with La Paz and the central government. Another devious plan by Washington for subversion of democracy in Latin America has come a cropper due to popular resistance and international solidarity by Bolivia’s neighbours.



FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/DUBLIN, 19 Meán Fomhair/September 2008.


Tuesday, September 16, 2008


EU WIMPS OUT ON
RUSSIA "SANCTIONS" :
Despite all the previous bloodthirsty rhetoric from Militant Milliband, smarmy Brit Foreign Secretary, and the parrot chorus from Warsaw, Tbilisi and the Baltic NATO colonies, McCain, Buckfush and all, the result of the much trumpeted EU “emergency” summit, Tuesday, 02 Meán Fhomhair/September 08, was a wimped-out finger wagging criticism of Russia’s positive actions in the Caucasus against dotty Georgian dictator Shitfacevili.

Both Paris and Berlin, as we flagged below, damped down talk of “sanctions” which hadn’t a hope of succeeding anyway, and the result of the whole expensive, time-wasting farce was a decision to postpone talks with Russia on development of mutual relations of cooperation. The only ones who will suffer from this are the EU members themselves, losing business opportunites in Russia which will go to other partners outside the EU bloc. It is notable that the USA, which started the whole thing anyway by arming the Georgian criminals and egging on their sneak attack on the peaceful country of South Ossetia, hasn’t “sanctioned” a single American business deal with Russia.

French President Sarkynoze had to return to Moscow and be told what for by Russian President Medvedev which Sarkynoze had no option but to accept. Russian troops will now be permanently stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and new bases will be constructed for them there in agreement with their respective governments whether the EU or NATO likes it or not.

It is quite clear that European interests do not include confrontation with Russia which supplies the majority of gas/oil to most of Europe. The NATO expansion agenda of the USA and its puppets is contrary to those interests and is a retrogressive continuation of an old cold war strategy designed to preserve the USA’s status as No 1 superpower. The world is changing fast and the centre of economic power is moving to the Eurasian landmass where the developing economies of Russia, China and India provide the opportunities of increased trading links and new markets for EU industries and services.

The economic logic of this is not lost on Washington think-tanks and Pentagon planners which is why the NATO expansion agenda is being vigorously pushed at present. Washington is desperate to avoid consolidation of this natural development which would vastly outweigh the US economy, separated, as it is, by two vast oceans from the rest of the developed world. In addition, Latin America, which the US has long regarded as its own “backyard” is gradually detaching itself from US economic domination. The scene is being set for permanent decline of the USA as the dominant economy of the 20th century and its replacement in the 21st by the new dynamism of Eurasia.

Europe, as the western geographic outpost of this vast super-continent with its long-standing historic, political, economic and cultural links with the rest and the physical links of the densest network of roads, railways and fuel pipelines on the planet, is ideally placed to join in this inevitable development with substantial and secure benefits for everyone. The military implications, of course, are quite stark. This combination would be invincible and capable of resisting any threat. Washington knows this well and this is the reason why they are pursuing the divisive warmongering agenda of the last few years.
Europe, therefore should detach from the aggressive NATO policies of the USA and establish friendly relations to the East with Russia and beyond. This is the true interest of today’s Europe, not fantasising and replaying old, outdated cold war battles or propping up piddling little dictators like Shitfacevili in Georgia.



FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/DUBLIN, 16 Meán Fomhair/September 2008.

Monday, September 08, 2008


ROOTIN' TOOTIN' HUNTIN'
SHOOTIN' MOMMA PICKED
AS McCAIN PARDNER ON
WAGON TRAIN TO WHITE HOUSE:

The US election gained a new character last week as the Republican (what a misnomer for the most reactionary party in America) McCain campaign announced the selection of recent arrival to national politics, Sarah Palin, Governor of off-the-edge rambunctious frontier state Alaska, as the nominee for Vice-President in the most expensive and longest lasting election campaign in US history.

SALLY GET YER GUN

Ma Pain-in-the-face, a gun-toting, reactionary representative of the worst elements of that benighted country, appears more like a character from satirical cartoon TV show “The Simpsons” than a serious politician. The Alaskan airhead, former beauty queen and college basketball player, with a clutch of children whom she shamelessly abuses in public by dragging them around as an entourage to display as a political statement of her so-called “family values”, was hailed by all the usual suspects in the gaggle of right-wing head-bangers which has been attached to the Republican party since the Reagan era. The 44-year old virtual ad-mans bimbo, who only took out a US passport last year and has visited only 2 countries outside the US, Kuwait and a brief stop at Shannon Airport, would of course, be next in line for the White House in a McCain presidency if such a disaster would befall the Demented Household which is the USA today. “Merciful Hour and Gaw between us an’ all haarrm” me Granny would have said.

It seems the Republicans, in their current insanity, are assuming that having a tick-box woman “Howdy pard!” for McCain would somehow leach votes from the bloc which gave Democrat contender, Hilary Rodham Clinton, 18 Million votes during the primary contests. Of course, the Republicans left out of the equation that only intelligent women and men voters cast their ballots for Hilary! Such a constituency is out of reach for a walking gobshite like Ma Pain-in-the-face. I mean, why would anyone who opposed the War in Iraq vote for this termagant? Aren’t a million dead Iraqis enough? Why would anyone who supports Universal Health Care vote against their own interests in this election? Women in America won’t get what the majority want as expressed in numerous opinion polls; the right to control their own fertility, the right to equality in the workforce, the right to decent housing, health-care and education for themselves and their entire families; from this jumped-up Barbie-doll ersatz politician. Ma Pain-in-the-face is politically opposed to such rights being established by statute and is against their application in practice as well.

When the Clintons were in office, the Republicans, backed by billionaire insurance companies, fought tooth and claw to sabotage Hilary Clinton’s efforts to get the Congress to support a national system of basic Health Care in the USA. Outside the Convention centre in St Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the Republicans were gathering, an Anti-War demo of more than 10,000 took place and an encampment of Health Care supporters is positioned in the street opposite the centre; not much support for Ma Pain-in-the-face there. Further up the street, other demonstrators were attacked, gassed and batoned by Robocop dressed riot police in another example of the Compassionate Conservatism of the Republican Party.

The character of Ma Pain-in-the face’s political allegiances show her preference for divisive, prejudicial, religious based fanaticism which fails to recognise social and individual difference and condemns and tries to stigmatise other human beings for their perceived faults and deviations from the fairytale “holy scriptures” peddled by herself and her regular companions and associates. She promotes the ludicrous superstition of “Creationism” and seeks to have it imposed on schoolchildren everywhere in the country with books describing Evolution Theory removed from public libraries as well, despite the US having a secular state constitution which she would be obliged to “preserve, protect and defend” on oath if she and McCain were elected. How could this woman give a credible oath on such occasion when a main plank of her political allegiance is to undermine the Constitution as it stands?

Up until last year she didn’t even have a US passport; rather odd for someone who now wants to be Vice-President of the country. One reason why she only recently took out a US passport might have been due to her long-time membership of the “Alaska Independence Party” a pressure group pushing for a vote to allow oil-rich Alaska to secede from the USA. At the same time she cheer-leads McCain in his reactionary stance on the recent conflict in the Caucasus which opposes the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. So, what’s ok for palefaces in Alaska isn’t good enough for the inhabitants of southeast Europe. No doubt, further questions will arise in short order about Ma Pain-in-the face’s past record and actual suitability for high office.

When she finally appeared on the Convention stage Tuesday night, 02.09.08, to make her keynote speech, she delivered a rambling, fragmented, incoherent fudge of warmed-up Reaganite vomit, heavy on all the standard threadbare clichés of distorted “family values” but, devoid of any clear analysis of the problems facing the American people with their crumbling economy and disastrous military adventurism of their Government. She trotted out the usual audience baiting cracks at “Washington” as if it were some foreign regime occupying the USA and she was the leader of the rebels trying to overthrow it; when in fact it is HER government which has been installed in Washington for the past eight years and HER government which has created the problems which she pretends to complain about and gives false promises as to the supposed remedies.
It is just another exercise in unsubtlety from the “Kill a Commie for Christ” party of the 1950’s & ‘60’s to the “Pro-life” party slogans of today. “Pro-life”, in its essence being a delusional, psychopathic obsession with human egg-cells and embryos but, not extending to actually born, living, human beings as the families of the million dead Iraqis could testify to if they ever got the chance to express their opinions in the “free press” of the “Land of the Free”. Likewise, the unfortunate wildlife of Alaska on the receiving end of Ma Pain-in-the-face’s “killing animals for fun” sport weekends.
As well as all this, she backs McCain’s “Hundred Years” war in Iraq and Afghanistan, sends one of her own “pro-life” children to join in the bloodshed, supports the torturers of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and the Israeli oppression of the men, women and children of Palestine and Lebanon. “Pro-life”? Not on your NATO Nellie! Representative of Women in the world today or in history? Not bloody likely! A snake-haired Gorgon or a Screeching Harpy more like.

FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/DUBLIN, 08 Meán Fomhair/September 2008.