BOLIVIA: STREET HEAT FOR NATIONALIZATION

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

On Jan. 29 residents of Camiri, a city in the southwest of Bolivia’s eastern Santa Cruz department, began a civic strike and blockaded a main highway connecting the country with Argentina and Paraguay. The action, which stranded hundreds of people and some 400 vehicles, was led by the Camiri Civic Committee in an effort to make the government of leftist president Evo Morales intensify the nationalization of gas and petroleum production it had announced last May 1. The committee’s demands included the opening of a local office of Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the state-owned energy company, and stepping up plans to nationalize two oil refineries operated by the Brazilian state energy company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras).

Camiri residents escalated the protest on Feb. 2 by seizing control of a pumping facility operated by the international Transredes company and forcing the employees there to close a pipeline that supplies La Paz, Santa Cruz and other Bolivian cities. On Feb. 3, 15 hours after the pipeline was closed, with a loss of $500,000 in revenue, soldiers and police agents took control of the facility in a struggle which left 12 people injured, two of them by bullets.

On Feb. 5 residents lifted the blockade and began clearing rocks and logs off the highway after government and Civic Committee negotiators reached an agreement which largely met the committee’s demands. The government also promised to build a gas separation plant in the area and to move towards taking over the Chaco and Andina companies, which belonged to YPFB until the energy industry was privatized in 1996. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Feb. 5, 6 from EFE, Upside Down World, Feb. 13; La Jornada, Mexico, Feb. 10; Inter Press Service, Feb. 6; Associated Press, Feb. 4)

President Morales stepped up the pace of nationalization in the metal mining and processing sector on Feb. 9 by signing a decree giving the government control of the Vinto tin smelting complex, operated by Sinchi Wayra, a subsidiary of the Swiss-owned Glencore International AG. Morales sent 200 soldiers to occupy the plant.

The Vinto facility was privatized in 2001 when the government sold it to Allied Deals, which later sold it to Compania Minera del Sur (COMSUR), a private mining company whose largest stockholder at the time was former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (1993-1997 and 2002-2003). Glencore bought it for $100 million in 2004. Morales is reportedly counting on $10 million from Venezuela to help build infrastructure that the Corporacion Minera de Bolivia (COMIBOL), the state-owned mining company, needs to operate plants like Vinto. (Upside Down World, Feb. 13; Taipei Times, Feb. 11 from AP; LJ, Feb. 10)

Meanwhile, tensions continue between unionized COMIBOL employees and the miners in the small cooperatives that sprang up after much of the mining sector was privatized in the 1990s; the cooperatives now employ some 55,000 independent miners. (Upside Down World, Feb. 13) In October a dispute at the Posokoni hill tin mine in Huanuni, in the southwestern department of Oruro, turned violent; 16 people were killed and 61 injured in the fighting between miners.

The Morales government is trying to reestablish control over more of the mining industry with a planned increase in taxes on private mining. On Feb. 6 as many as 20,000 miners from the cooperatives marched through the streets of La Paz, setting off hundreds of sticks of dynamite and paralyzing the city. The government was willing to negotiate the tax increases, but the protesters refused to meet with officials until they released seven protesters that had been arrested near the city of El Alto, 12 kilometers west of La Paz, on Feb. 5 and Feb. 6 with a total of 285 sticks of dynamite in their possession. (ED-LP, Feb. 7 from AP)

The miners continued to occupy streets around La Paz’s San Francisco plaza on Feb. 7, blocking traffic and government buildings and setting off dynamite. When a group of police agents attempted to arrest people with dynamite, the miners beat up two agents and held others briefly as hostages. Despite the violence, during the day talks started with the government, which agreed to exempt the 536 Bolivian mining cooperatives from the tax and to give them a $10 million subsidy and two of the six seats on COMIBOL’s board of directors. The government says that of the $1.044 billion Bolivia made from mineral exports in 2006, only $45 million went to the state through taxes; the government wants to raise this to $80 million a year. (La Capital, La Paz, Feb. 7 from DPA; ED-LP, Feb. 8 from EFE)

Miners from the cooperatives planned new protests at the Posokoni mine starting on Feb. 4; they insisted that these actions would remain peaceful. In the week of Feb. 11, dozens of the miners and their families took the protest to the streets of La Paz, where they carried out a hunger strike, wrote signs in their own blood and symbolically crucified and buried themselves. The government insists that the Posokoni mine, the country’s richest tin mine, will be entirely under COMIBOL’s control but that the cooperatives will have access to other sites. The government is offering to pay about $187 a month to the private miners who have been removed from Posokoni until they can find work at the new sites. (Diario Las Americas, Miami, Feb. 17 from EFE)

A leader from Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS) party claims the cooperative miners are being manipulated by political forces. Gustavo Torrico, head of the MAS group in the Chamber of Deputies, told the Cuba news agency Prensa Latina that one of the people behind the recent actions is Jaime Villalobos, who was a mining minister under Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. (PL, Feb. 17)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 18, 2007

———

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also:

WW4 REPORT #129, January 2007
/node/2979

See related story, this issue:

NATIONALIZATION BLUES IN BOLIVIA; ROCK’N’ROLL IN VENEZUELA
The Fractious Struggle for South America’s Resources
by April Howard, Upside Down World
/node/3261

From our weblog:

Bolivia: deadly unrest over autonomy plan
WW4 REPORT, Jan. 12, 2007
/node/3027

—————————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2007 Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingBOLIVIA: STREET HEAT FOR NATIONALIZATION 

AUTOPSY OF A NARCO-GUERRILLERA

Justice Department Scores One Against the FARC

by Paul Wolf, WW4 REPORT

February 20, a federal jury in Washington DC found Anayibe Rojas Valderama (Sonia), Antonio Celis and Juan Diego Giraldo guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine into the US, and of manufacturing or distributing cocaine, knowing or intending that it would be imported into the US. The charges carry a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years, and a maximum of 30 years under the US-Colombia extradition treaty. The precise sentence will be determined in another proceeding to be held on May 4. Whatever the outcome, it will be a long time, longer than any Colombian would ever serve in his or her own country for these crimes.

It was Sonia who was the political figure and real target in this case. If only Giraldo and Celis were involved, it is unlikely they would have been prosecuted at all. However, Sonia presented the opportunity to prove that a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was an international drug trafficker, and the government spared no expense to ensure the outcome.

Although the allegation that the FARC are “narco-guerrillas” is often made—the DEA claims the FARC is responsible for 90% of the cocaine entering the US—this maked the first time it has been proven in a court of law. There has certainly been no comparable case in the US. This is a landmark case against the FARC.

But the verdict in Sonia’s case was based almost entirely on the testimony of paid government informants. There was no physical evidence against Sonia, such as seized cocaine, fingerprints, photos, or even telephone calls that clearly referred to drugs.

Just Another Drug Case

Some may wonder why FARC leader Simon Trinidad achieved a hung jury in federal court in November, while Sonia was convicted. Three factors made Sonia’s case different from Simon Trinidad’s: the nature of the charges, the defendant’s connection to the alleged crime, and the context presented to the jury.

In Trinidad’s trial, a great deal of evidence was presented as to who are the FARC, and what are their goals. Much of it came from Simon Trinidad himself, who testified in his own defense. Ironically, Trinidad’s case was also bolstered by witnesses for the prosecution. Some jurors may have believed that it’s not legitimate to apply the laws of conspiracy and hostage-taking to the negotiator of a guerrilla army in the context of a prisoner exchange. It was very complicated for them.

On the other hand, in Sonia’s case, drug trafficking is never legal. It doesn’t matter who is doing it, whether there is an insurgency, or whether the insurgency is justified. Even the US CIA has drawn harsh criticism for working with drug traffickers to achieve its goals. Drug trafficking is simply not a legitimate activity, while hostage-taking could arguably be, in the context of a war. (Although the purpose of the hostage-taking must be to spare the lives of prisoners of war, not to ransom them for rewards.)

Sonia’s jury heard very little background about the war in Colombia. The defense called no witnesses, and only cross-examined the prosecution’s witnesses. Sonia’s lawyer said in opening arguments that Sonia was just a nurse, without any leadership role in the FARC, and lacked the education to manage the finances of the FARC’s 14th front. However, no evidence was presented to support any of this. The jury had to evaluate the statements of some 20 prosecution witnesses against the statements of Sonia’s lawyer. After the trial, it was still unclear to many who Sonia is, and what was her job within the FARC.

Bearing False Witness

The prosecutors in this case arrived bearing the testimony of three crucial witnesses. They have poisoned the well of Colombian politics with their efforts to portray the FARC as the primary source of Colombian cocaine. From now on, those on the right can refer to this case as proof that the FARC not only tax the drug trade in Colombia, but also control it. The problem is that the evidence presented consisted largely of paid government informant testimony.

The first witness, Rocio Alvarez, was a DEA informant paid more than $15,000 US per month for a period of a year, who lived in the house of Sonia’s brother, Farol, in Peñas, in Colombia’s Caqueta department. Although Rocio had minimal contacts with Sonia herself, she testified that Sonia’s brother was a major trafficker of coca paste in the town.

The second witness, Mauricio Moreno, was a retired officer of the Colombian National Police who found employment as the bodyguard of Gordo Andres, an alleged drug trafficker, and then as an informant against the FARC. Moreno testified as to his boss’ alleged drug transactions with Sonia, and to a bizarre plan to sell cocaine to paramilitaries, then steal it back from them and then export it to the United States.

The third witness, called “Juan Valdez,” supposedly captained the riverboat used by Sonia on a bi-weekly basis, over a two-year period, up and down the Rio Caguan, buying hundreds of tons of cocaine and returning hundreds of millions of dollars to the impoverished economy. Although the Colombian military controlled the river at that time, Valdez and Sonia supposedly made hundreds of enormous drug deals in a regular pattern. Valdez buried the valuable gringo dollars in various places in the jungle, marking trees with an X and drawing treasure maps.

Then there was Pedro Lopez, a “reinserted” (demobilized) ex-guerrilla from the 14th front who also claimed that Sonia was financial officer there. And finally, “Lechuga”—their man in Panama City, who says he spotted Sonia in the Seven Seas restaurant. Lechuga was allegedly an old time narcotrafficker, going back 20 years to the Noriega days.

The prosecution also showed videos and presented witnesses implicating Giraldo and Celis in various drug transactions—but not Sonia. Nevertheless, the picture presented as a whole portrayed Sonia as the ringleader of a vast narcotics trafficking conspiracy, and went largely unchallenged.

Barely Adequate Representation

Sonia and the others had court-appointed lawyers with limited resources, who were not experts on Colombia. Sonia’s own lawyer was totally unfamiliar with the politics of the region during the time of the charged conspiracy, and the improbability of what her client was accused of. Sonia’s bi-weekly trips up and down the Rio Caguan allegedly occurred during a time when the Colombian military closely controlled the river, in 2002 and ’03. This was after the government’s February 2002 re-taking the “demilitarized zone” ceded to the FARC for peace talks along the river, and the area was heavily patrolled against the guerillas. The scenario was, for any knowledgeable observer, virtually impossible. Yet Sonia’s attorney was not able to effectively challenge it. Moreover, Sonia’s lawyer stipulated (agreed with the prosecution) that 30 kilos of cocaine at issue in the case belonged to another member of the 14th Front of the FARC. Sonia visibly winced as this was announced.

In contrast, the prosecution had the full weight of the US and Colombian governments behind it—including numerous police and military officers, half a dozen paid informants, and thousands of documents and recorded telephone calls.

Right to Counsel

One of the problems with the cases of Simon Trinidad, Sonia, and other FARC members extradited to the US is that they are effectively prevented from hiring private lawyers. In Trinidad’s case, the violation of his right to counsel was grotesque. Born into a wealthy family, and allegedly the representative of a group earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year through various activities, Trinidad has been held incommunicado under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), without access to his private attorney, represented by public defenders who cannot possibly counter the immense resources marshaled by the prosecution. Lawyers who may have sought to represent him pro bono were barred from contacting him by the SAMs.

Similarly, in Sonia’s case, her attorney called no witnesses, had a minimal understanding of the context of the case, and could not effectively cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses. While this kind of defense may be constitutional for the indigent, it is clearly insufficient in highly politicized trials such as Sonia’s.

The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution protects a person’s right to retain counsel of her choosing. Yet in cases involving the FARC, or indeed, any alleged terrorist or drug trafficking organization, private attorneys are dissuaded from representing these clients, due to fear of forfeiture of the attorneys fees. Defendants are left with appointed counsel with varying degrees of commitment and resources.

Over 75 years ago, the US Supreme Court observed in the famous Scottsboro Boys case (Powell v. Alabama, 1932): “It is hardly necessary to say that the right to counsel being conceded, a defendant should be afforded a fair opportunity to secure counsel of his own choice.” The right to retain private counsel serves to foster the trust between attorney and client that is necessary for the attorney to be a truly effective advocate. Not only are decisions crucial to the defendant’s liberty placed in counsel’s hands, but the defendant’s perception of the fairness of the process, and her willingness to acquiesce in its results, depend upon her confidence in her counsel’s dedication, loyalty, and ability. Counsel is too readily perceived as the government’s agent rather than her own.

The government spends vast sums of money to try defendants accused of crime, and of course will devote greater resources to complex cases in which the political stakes are high. Precisely for this reason, there are few defendants charged with crime who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. But when the government provides for appointed counsel, there is no guarantee that levels of compensation and staffing will be even average. Where cases are complex, trials long, and stakes high, that problem is exacerbated. Without the defendant’s right to retain private counsel, the government too readily can defeat its adversaries simply by outspending them.

Our system of criminal justice is predicated on an equal and adversarial presentation of the case, equality of arms, and upon the trust that can exist only when counsel is independent of the government. Without the right to counsel of choice, the effectiveness of our system is questionable. The cases of Simon Trinidad and Sonia typify this problem. One can only hope that in future FARC prosecutions—and more are on the way—the defendants will be given a fair chance. Otherwise, every aspect of these trials can be deemed political.

—-

See also:

THE FARC ON TRIAL
Simon Trinidad Prosecution as Terror War Test Case
by Paul Wolf
WW4 REPORT #127, November 2006
/node/2711

From our weblog:

James Petras replies to FARC
WW4 REPORT, Feb. 26, 2007
/node/3240

——

Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, March 1, 2007
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingAUTOPSY OF A NARCO-GUERRILLERA 

NATIONALIZATION BLUES IN BOLIVIA, ROCK’N’ROLL IN VENEZUELA

The Fractious Struggle for South America’s Resources

by April Howard, Upside Down World

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was arguably elected on the platform of nationalization. A country-wide protest deposed president Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada in 2003, and then kicked former vice-president Carlos Mesa out of the presidential palace in 2005.

Protesters demanded the nationalization of the 48 trillion cubic feet of natural gas estimated to be in Bolivian reserves, the second largest reserves in South America after Venezuela’s. However, the road since Morales’ presidential victory in January 2006 has been anything but smooth. Morales supposedly “nationalized” Bolivian gas in a highly dramatized ceremony on May 1, 2006. But the process has been slow and complicated, and has left many citizens unsatisfied.

Under the new policy, the state energy company Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) would pay foreign companies for their services, offering near 50% of the value of production in smaller fields, and 18% in the largest fields. Social leaders complain that this plan is not a true nationalization, though the state company has little funding of its own with which to develop infrastructure. The re-negotiation of contracts with companies was left until the 11th hour, and did not show much organization or finesse on the part of the Morales administration. Two energy ministers have resigned since the “nationalization,” and now the renegotiated contracts have been suspended indefinitely in the face of lack of funds and infrastructure in YPFB.

The first weeks of February have seen continued drama in Bolivia’s struggle over the nationalization of natural resources in the mining and gas sectors. Beginning in the last days of January, protesters blockaded the main highway and took control of a gas pumping plant outside Camiri, Santa Cruz department, forcing employees of pipeline operator Transredes to shut off gas flow to Bolivia’s largest cities of La Paz and Santa Cruz. Protesters demanded that Morales expand nationalization of the country’s petroleum reserves and expand state petroleum operations in the south.

Specifically, protesters demanded that YPFB build a local headquarters in their town. The project was in the planning stages before Morales took office, but was cancelled as the administration reorganized the state company. Protesters also pressured Morales to expropriate two Brazilian-owned Petrobras refineries, as he announced he would last September, but retracted due to international criticism.

On February 6, the eighth day of the protest, after 12 demonstrators were injured in clashes with security forces and $500,000 in losses to fuel suppliers, a government commission and the Civic Committee of Camiri came to an agreement to open a new YPFB headquarters and a gas separation plant in the town, as well as to expand nationalization in southern regions.

The next day, February 7, Morales was forced to meet with representatives of mining cooperatives—private ventures which sell to the state company COMIBOL, as well as other companies—who demanded the repeal of a new mining tax proposed by the government. Conflicts between cooperative and state miners lead to 16 deaths last October in the mining town of Huanuni. The concept of nationalization is complicated in the mining sector, where cooperatives resulting from the collapse of the state industry have gained power and numbers in the last 20 years. Mining is dangerous and often terminal work in both cooperative and state ventures, and when talk of nationalization comes up, it has set miners against each other rather than empowering either sector.

Now, the cooperative miners marched into La Paz, tossing dynamite—as is usual in mining protests. According to the miners, the new tax would have created increases of between 50 and 160 percent to miners’ costs, without figuring in the different circumstances of small undertakings and large mining companies, nor another tax that cooperative already miners pay. The agreement made with Morales stated that the new tax would not be applied to cooperatives and that the government would grant $10 million in funds to the 536 Bolivian mining cooperatives (incorporating some 55,000 independent miners). Also, the cooperatives will be given a third of the six seats on the board of directors of the state mining company, COMIBOL.

The week wasn’t over, however. On February 9, Morales sent 200 soldiers to occupy the Swiss-owned Vinto Smelting complex. Morales signed a decree to nationalize the smelting complex, with no plans in the near future to compensate the company. “The Vinto Metallurgical Complex returns to the control of the Bolivian state with all its current shares, allowing the [state] Vinto Metallurgical Company to assume immediate administrative, technical, legal and financial control,” the decree read. Glencore International of Switzerland, the former owners of the smelter, purchased it from Compañía Minera del Sur (COMSUR)—whose owners include former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada—for a value of $100 million. Morales’ plan counts on $10 million from Venezuela in order to create infrastructure for COMIBOL.

Nationalization has caught the news in Venezuela too, as president Hugo Chavez has directed a smoother nationalization of Venezuela’s largest private electric company by having the state buy a controlling stake in Electricidad de Caracas (EDC) on February 8. The EDC stake was bought from US-based owner AES Corp., for $739 million. Possibly up for future nationalization are smaller companies in the electrical sector, oil projects (think Chevron and Exxon Mobil), as well as the country’s largest telephone company, CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, CANTV, 28.5 percent-owned by New York-based Verizon Communications Incorporated.

While these countries struggle to renegotiate the meaning of “nationalization,” often with limited resources as a result of years of pillaging by foreign companies, Washington’s opinion of these projects is expressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who accused Chavez of “destroying his own country” economically and politically. Chavez is operating from a position of prosperous and developed industries, which might account for his more successful nationalization projects. Meanwhile, Bolivian gas and mining industries suffer from a historic lack of infrastructure and investment. Morales can be criticized for his lack of expertise in nationalization projects, but with so few successful precedents, and a consistently conflictive social situation, he can be recognized for his efforts so far. Of course, he well knows what happened to the last president who refused to fully nationalize.

—-

This story first appeared February 13 in Upside Down World, a website uncovering activism and politics in Latin America, where April Howard is an editor.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/626/1/

See also:

BOLIVIA: WHITHER NATIONALIZATION?
Still Waiting for Public Control of Hydrocarbons
by Gretchen Gordon, Upside Down World
/node/2712

From our weblog:

Bolivia: deadly unrest over autonomy plan
WW4 REPORT, Jan. 12, 2007
/node/3027

Miners’ strife in Bolivia leaves nine dead
WW4 REPORT, Oct. 9, 2006
/node/2614

——

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, March 1, 2007
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingNATIONALIZATION BLUES IN BOLIVIA, ROCK’N’ROLL IN VENEZUELA