From Knight-Ridder, March 21: BOGOTA, Colombia – It’s pretty easy to tell when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is angry. The bespectacled president usually airs his grievances in public, particularly against errant generals in his army. Since taking office in 2002,… Read moreColombia: Uribe rift with military?
From EFE, March 16: Bolivia’s attorney general filed charges Thursday against three ex-presidents and eight former energy ministers for signing contracts with foreign petroleum firms that violated the laws of the Andean nation. The accusations are directed against Gonzalo Sanchez… Read moreBolivia: three ex-presidents charged in foreign oil deals
Paula Palmer writes for Global Response Action Alerts: In late January at the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuelan indigenous leaders asked Global Response to support them in their struggle to stop construction of open-pit coal mines in their territories…. Read moreAction alert: Venezuelan indigenous oppose coal project
From Prensa Latina, March 8: A call to return illegally owned lands was launched by Bolivia´s President Evo Morales, while warning his administration will put an end to unproductive large landed estates. On his Tuesday statement after assigning Saul Salazar… Read moreBolivia: Evo to free the land?
Coca Eradication Brings War to Endangered National Parks
by Memo Montevino
Last June, following months of political contest between the administration of President Alvaro Uribe and environmentalists, Colombia’s government announced that the aerial spraying of glyphosate to wipe out coca crops would be extended to the country’s national parks. Claiming 11 of Colombia’s 49 national parks had been invaded by cocaleros, Uribe named three parks slated for imminent fumigation: Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria, a northern snow-capped peak which is a UN-recognized biosphere reserve; and two in the lush cloud-forests where the eastern Andean slopes fall towards the Amazon basin. This cloud forest belt is the most biodiverse zone of Colombia, and among the most conflicted. These two parks—Cataumbo, in Norte de Santander department, and La Macarena in Meta—are both in areas hotly contested by Colombia’s military and guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The fumigation was held up as Colombian environmentalists challenged the spray order before administrative courts and petitioned the US Congress—which funds the spraying program—to intervene. In December, Uribe made a new announcement: that he would order manual eradication of coca crops in the parks as a compromise measure. A thousand-strong work force was sent into La Macarena to uproot the illicit crops. The military and National Police would oversee the program, which was dubbed, with a keen eye to public relations, “Operation Green Colombia.”
“We are going to recuperate for the country [La Macarena] nature park, an area that unfortunately has been harmed mercilessly by illicit crops,” Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, director of the National Police, told the press.
But the reality has proved considerably less than “green.” On Feb. 6, six National Police agents, part of the contingent sent in to protect the eradication team, were killed in an attack by FARC guerillas in La Macarena. Another six were killed in a FARC mortar strike Feb. 15. At least one of the workers, who make about $12 a day, was injured in the crossfire between the guerillas and security forces, leading the majority of the team to quit because of the danger.
Uribe responded by ordering air strikes on the national park. The park would be evacuated before the strikes were ordered, Uribe told Colombia’s RCN TV from Washington, where he was negotiating a free-trade deal with United States. “It seems we need to be more aggressive in terms of bombing the areas within the park where the guerrillas are located,” Uribe said.
Air Force planes struck positions within the park Feb. 16. “In those areas where guerilla concentrations have been identified or in those places where military targets have been identified, we will proceed with all the istruments that are available to the public forces to neutralize them,” Defense Minister Camilo Ospina told Bogota’s El Tiempo.
Uribe said four areas identified as FARC bases within the park were targeted, but the military could not confirm that any guerillas had been killed. “This has not been an indiscriminate attack,” Ospina told El Tiempo Feb. 17. “The bombardment caused no damage beyond that needed to neutralize some points.”
The force backing up the eradication team consisted of 2,000 army troops and 1,500 members of the National Police. Since the fighting, just a third of the original 1,000 workers are left to tackle the task of clearing La Macarena of an estimated 4,600 hectares of coca. Uribe insisted he remains committed to the operation, while backing away from the original goal of completing the eradication by April.
The distinction between the eradication and anti-guerilla campaign is almost completely disappearing. Uribe chose La Macarena as the first park to be targeted by “Colombia Verde” after a FARC attack on an army detachment just outside the park left 29 troops dead.
“We cannot pretend that eliminating the checkbook of the guerilla will be an easy process,” Ospina told El Tiempo Feb. 16. “The process in La Macarena consist of the eradication of coca in one of the zones of the world with the greatest cultivations, which represents the most important source of financing for subversive groups, specifically the FARC.”
Journalist Yadira Ferrer, writing for Inter-Press Service just before the air strikes on the national park, spoke to some of the Colombian environmentalists who opposed the “Colombia Verde” program.
“The manual eradication in La Macarena may represent progress as a technique,” said Ricardo Vargas, Colombian coordinator in Colombia for AcciĂłn Andina, a group that monitors issues around drug trafficking in the region. “However, it doesn’t replace the government’s erroneous policy, which is to try to get rid of the drug trafficking problem by going after the weakest link: the peasant farmer who feels obligated to grow coca in order to survive.”
“If the government doesn’t directly attack the sources of financing for drug trafficking, those groups will continue to shift to other areas, as they have been doing for years,” he added.
La Macarena was declared a national park in 1989 and declared a “heritage of humanity” site by the UN Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Some 2,500 families of colonos—settlers—are thought to be living within its 630,000 hectares. Most arrived over the past two generations, before it was declared a national park. However, settlement of the park has increased in recent years as the coca economy in the region has exploded. “Colombia Verde” calls for the forced removal of these settlers from the park, although details of how this will be carried out or where they will be resettled have not been revealed.
Vargas charged that Colombian government has never carried out “a serious state policy” for the country’s national parks. He insisted that means of livelihood must be provided for any settlers relocated from La Macarena, and that the eradication be accompanied by a broader development plan drawn up with input from the impacted communities.
According to Colombia’s Integrated System for Monitoring Illicit Crops (SIMCI), in 2004 there were 5,364 hectares of coca planted in 13 of the nation’s parks, equivalent to 0.05 percent of the country’s total protected area and 7.0 percent of the total area cultivated with illegal crops. Protected areas in total cover 10 million hectares—10 percent of national territory. The government’s goal is to eradicate 40,000 hectares of illegal drug crops in 2006.
SOURCES:
“Colombian rebels kill six coca eradication police,” Reuters, Feb. 16:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15347957.htm
“Colombian Rebels Kill Six Police Guards,” AP, Feb. 15:
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/02/15/ap2530658.html
“Colombia to bomb FARC guerrillas,” BBC, Feb. 16: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4719460.stm
“El Estado llegĂł a La Macarena para quedarse: Ministro de Defensa,”
El Tiempo, Bogota, Feb. 16
http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/coar/ACC_MILITARES/
“Fuerza AĂ©rea lanzĂł cuatro bombardeos sobre áreas de La Macarena,”
El Tiempo, Bogota, Feb. 17
http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/coar/ACC_MILITARES/
“The Difficult Rescue of La Macarena,” by Yadira Ferrer, IPS, Feb. 9:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32106
See also “Colombia: Chemical Warfare Expands,” WW4 REPORT #110 /node/566
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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, March 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
CAUCA: ARMY KILLS CIVILIANS
On Jan. 8, Colombian army troops from the No. 26 Cacique Piguanza Infantry Battalion, headed by Lt. Hoyos, shot to death 17-year-old Hortensia Neyid Tunja Cuchumbe and Manuel Antonio Tao Pillimue and wounded William Jose Cunacue Medina in Inza municipality, in the southern department of Cauca. On the night of Jan. 7 Tunja left her home in the community of San Antonio, accompanied by Cunacue, to attend a party in the nearby community of Belen. At 4 AM Tunja’s mother was informed by neighbors that her daughter was wounded on the road about 100 meters from Belen. When the mother arrived, she found her daughter dead, lying face down on the side of the road with bullet holes in her body. Uniformed and hooded soldiers threatened Tunja’s mother and told her that her daughter was a leftist rebel who had been killed along with a rebel “commander.” The soldiers then forced the mother to leave her daughter’s body at the site and go to Belen; they claimed they were waiting for officials from the attorney general’s office to come to the site to officially record the deaths.
The soldiers then blocked anyone from leaving Belen and attacked and beat a number of people at the party there; several people were injured, including one who was hit in the head with a rifle butt. When family members of Tunja and Tao tried to return to the site where their bodies lay, the soldiers fired their rifles in the air to force them to retreat. Around 6 AM, Tunja’s mother managed to return to the site and found the soldiers still there but her daughter’s body gone. She was told that the corpses had been taken to the town of La Plata in Huila department, where the attorney general’s office would file the report on them. Under Colombian law, only the attorney general’s office is allowed to move cadavers from the location where they are found; the army’s removal of the bodies from the site was in blatant violation of the law.
As Tunja’s mother and other family members headed toward La Plata, they found Tunja’s and Tao’s bodies covered up and dumped on the side of the highway about 30 minutes from Belen in the village of Puerto Valencia. Army troops at the site forced the family members to leave the area after telling them that the bodies would be left there for the attorney general’s office to deal with. The army then took the bodies to the military base in La Plata, where they were handed over to the families around 4 PM on Jan. 8. The family members took the bodies to the local hospital. There soldiers again intimidated the family members.
Tunja was a domestic worker who had been employed in Bogota since April 2005; she had been on vacation visiting her family in San Antonio since Dec. 27. Tao Pillimue was a young campesino who lived in the community of San Isidro in Inza municipality; he had left his home on Jan. 7 to go to the party in Belen. Tunja and Tao were members of the Campesino Association of Inza -Tierradentro (ACIT). William Jose Cunacue Medina suffered several bullet wounds and was taken to the hospital in La Plata, where army troops detained him and accused him of “rebellion.” Community members insist that none of the three youths were members of any armed organization; they say the army falsified evidence, planting weapons on the corpses and claiming the victims were guerrillas. (ACIT Communique, Jan. 11)
LA GUAJIRA: WIWA INDIGENOUS LEADERS MURDERED
On Jan. 3, Colombian army troops from the Rondon de Buenavista Group came to the indigenous Wiwa community of Seminke, in the area of San Juan del Cesar and Riohacha municipalities in the northeastern department of La Guajira. They took away community members Celso Carrillo Perea and Ricardo Arias Solis; the next day shots and explosions were heard at a distance from where the two were seized. The decomposed bodies of the two men were found in Riohacha on Jan. 5. In a joint communique, the Yugumaiun Bunkuanarrua Tayrona Wiwa Organization (OWYBT) of San Juan del Cesar, the Kogui-Malayo-Arhuaco Reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Prensa Indigena correspondent Guillermo Riguera indicated that Carrillo and Arias had no links to armed groups and were just campesinos engaged in agriculture to support their families. Their families were linked to an International Red Cross project in the community.
Last Dec. 9, troops from the Rondon de Buenavista Group arrived in the Wiwa community of Ulago and took resident Laudelino Mejia Montano from his home; the next day shots, explosions and a helicopter were heard nearby, and Mejia was subsequently found murdered.
The Wiwa communities are concerned because a number of residents and community leaders have been accused of being rebels or rebel sympathizers; those who are detained often turn up dead, presented as rebels killed in combat.
On Jan. 9 two individuals on a motorcycle assassinated Fernando Montano Armenta, a resident of the Wiwa indigenous community of La Pena de los Indios. He was murdered in San Juan del Cesar municipality. The community does not know which armed group is responsible for his murder. (Prensa Indigena, Jan. 3; Adital, Feb. 3)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 5
ARAUCA: COMMUNITY LEADER MURDERED
On Feb. 4, community leader Alirio Sepulveda Jaimes was shot to death in Saravena municipality in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca, just a block and a half from an outpost of the National Police. The Departmental Association of Campesinos (ADUC) reports that Sepulveda was murdered by hired killer Edgar Guiza Gamboa, who permanently accompanies the National Army’s “Gabriel Reveis Pizarro de Saravena” Mechanized Cavalry Group No. 18, commanded by Lt. Col. Carlos Vicente Prada Garces. (ADUC, Feb. 10 via Colombia Indymedia) Prada Garces, whose first name was given in some sources as Jose Vicente, is likely the same person listed in the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) graduate list as Carlos Vicente Prado Garces; as a cadet he took SOA’s C-3 Arms Orientation Course for Cadets in January 1984, when the school was still in Panama. (SOA Graduates List)
Sepulveda’s body was picked up by several individuals on motorcycles whom witnesses recognized as members of the National Army’s S2 military intelligence unit, dressed in civilian clothing. After the killing, witnesses say Guiza went to a local shopping center where he drank alcoholic beverages and threatened passersby with the same gun he had used to shoot Sepulveda. According to ADUC, Guiza claims to be the commander of the Saravena paramilitaries.
Sepulveda was detained on Nov. 12, 2002 with 42 other Arauca community leaders, based on allegations by former rebels who were allowed to demobilize if they accused others. Sepulveda was freed for lack of evidence, but he continued to suffer constant threats and harassment; the army claimed he was a member of the National Liberation Army (ELN). (ADUC, Feb. 2 via Colombia Indymedia)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 20
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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #118
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1536
“Colombia’s army chief sacked in brutal hazing ritual” WW4 REPORT, Feb. 27
/node/1652
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, March 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
Hugo Chavez threatens to cut oil to the US at the same time that he makes it available at a subsidized rate to low-income US consumers. Capitol Hill Republicans go apoplectic that a developing country could stand up to Uncle… Read moreChavez threatens to cut off oil to US
A very interesting piece from the Feb. 6 Christian Science Monitor, online at RethinkVenezuela. Smells like the usual “regime change” recipe, doesn’t it? Democracy’s ‘special forces’ face heat CARACAS, VENEZUELA — A diplomatic row between the United States and Venezuela… Read moreVenezuela: US funds opposition
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
ENTRE RIOS: PAPER MILL PROTESTS CONTINUE
On Dec. 30, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic along three bridges which span the Uruguay River, linking Argentina’s Entre Rios province with Uruguay, to protest the Uruguayan government’s decision to allow the construction of paper mills along the river. Residents say the mills will pollute the river and cause serious harm to the environment.
The largest protests were led by residents and local officials of Gualeguaychu, Argentina; protesters there blocked the General San Martin bridge leading to the Uruguayan city of Fray Bentos, in Rio Negro department, where the paper mills are being built by the Finnish company Botnia and the Spanish company Ence. Another group of protesters blocked traffic for several hours across the Gen. Jose Artigas bridge linking the Argentine city of Colon with the city of Paysandu in Uruguay’s Paysandu department. Eventually the demonstrators opened one lane of traffic and allowed cars and trucks to pass, but the protest caused serious delays for travelers. The third protest was held on the bridge linking Concordia in Argentina to the city of Salto in Salto department, Uruguay. There residents distributed informational flyers to travelers. The protests were timed to cause maximum impact at a time when Argentine holiday vacationers traditionally flock to Uruguay’s beaches.
Gualeguaychu mayor Daniel Irigoyen supports the protest; a spokesperson for his office, Hernan Rossi, told AFP that if Uruguayan authorities don’t cancel construction of the paper mills, residents will carry out “programmed and surprise blockades” along the bridges throughout the summer vacation period. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Dec. 31 from AFP; AP, Dec. 30; Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 30) Entre Rios governor Jorge Busti also supports the protests. The Argentine national government said on Dec. 29 that it would send 200 gendarmes (federal border police agents) to the region to control traffic during the protests.
On Dec. 29 the Uruguayan government announced that the construction of the paper mills was “irreversible,” while unofficial sources reported that the Argentine government was urging Uruguay to move the paper mills elsewhere, a proposition expected to cost between $10 million and $14 million. On Dec. 27, Argentine deputy foreign minister Ricardo Garcia Moritan said his government is urging Uruguay to halt construction of the paper mills until an impartial environmental impact study is carried out. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 30)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 1
CHACO: VIOLENT SQUATTER EVICTION
On Jan. 5, some 400 agents of the provincial police of Chaco province, Argentina, used violence to carry out an eviction order against 200 families who had taken over public housing units earlier that day in Puerto Vilelas, 21 kilometers south of Resistencia, the provincial capital. The families, including many children, took over the recently built houses after having lost their homes in a storm on Dec. 16, and having unsuccessfully sought help from the government. In scenes recorded by news cameras and viewed around the country, police agents from Infantry and Cavalry units and the Special Operations Command–protected by helmets, shields and bullet-proof vests–fired rubber pellets at residents and used whips, clubs and kicks against those who fell to the ground or who were handcuffed. A number of people were treated for injuries. German Pomar, a photographer for the daily newspaper Norte was hit with 12 rubber pellets in his leg. (Prensa Latina, Jan. 5)
POLICE SENTENCED IN PIQUETERO KILLINGS
On Jan. 9, the Oral Tribunal No. 7 of Lomas de Zamora sentenced former police inspector Alfredo Fanchiotti and former sergeant Alejandro Acosta to life in prison for the killing of piquetero (organized unemployed) activists Dario Santillan and Maximiliano Kosteki during a demonstration on June 26, 2002, in the Buenos Aires suburb of Avellaneda. Fanchiotti and Acosta were also convicted of attempted homicide for wounding seven other demonstrators with live bullets.
Former police inspector Felix Vega and ex-police agents Carlos Quevedo and Mario de la Fuente were each sentenced to four years of prison for aggravated concealment. Former police agents Gaston Sierra and Lorenzo Colman got three and two years, respectively, for aggravated concealment, but will not go to jail. Francisco Celestino Robledo, a retired police agent who carried out arrests during the 2002 protest despite not being in active service, gota suspended sentence of 10 months in prison for usurping authority.
More than 400 uniformed and plainclothes police agents took part in the operation against protesters who tried to march across the Pueyrredon bridge into the city of Buenos Aires. The agents were from three federal units (Gendarmeria, Prefectura and Federal Police) and the Buenos Aires provincial police. Retired agents were also called up to take part in the operation. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Jan. 12; Cronica, Buenos Aires, Jan.. 22)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22
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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #117
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1439
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
On Jan. 5, paramilitaries who identified themselves as members of the “Autodefensas del Llano” (Plains Self-Defense) group murdered four people in the community of Matabambu, in Puerto Lleras municipality, in the southern Colombian department of Meta. The victims were campesinos Arelis Diaz, Alcibiades Pachon, Luis Guillermo Gonzales and Rafael Quinto Orjuela Diaz. The paramilitaries also forcibly disappeared four siblings–Rafael, Amir, Yurley and Esteban Rodriguez–from the La Laguna farm owned by Rafael Rodriguez in Matabambu. The two youngest siblings are minors: Yurley is 17 and Esteban is 13. Among the paramilitaries were two men recognized as active duty soldiers from the army’s Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 42.
The massacre culminated a week of attacks on area residents by military and paramilitary forces. On Dec. 31, troops from the “Motilones” Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 17 of the Mobile Brigade No. 2, headed by Lt. Avila, arbitrarily detained Norberto Lujan in the community of El Vergel, village of Santo Domingo in Vistahermosa municipality, Meta department. On Jan. 3, soldiers arbitrarily detained eight campesinos in the village of Santo Domingo, accusing them of being guerrilla sympathizers. On Jan. 4, paramilitaries who identified themselves as members of “Autodefensas del Llano” forcibly disappeared Ecelino Pineda Pena, a campesino from the community of Santa Lucia. Pineda was on a bus headed from Granada to Puerto Toledo when the paramilitaries abducted him at a roadblock. On Jan. 6, in Villa La Paz, Puerto Lleras municipality, paramilitaries detained and disappeared campesino Gildardo de Jesus Salinas Piedrahita. Pineda, Lujan and Salinas all remained missing as of Jan. 18.
Another area resident, Rosabel Rincon, was forcibly disappeared by the paramilitaries at a roadblock in an area known as Cano Blanco. She also remained missing as of Jan. 18. Rincon was abducted while returning from Vista Hermosa, where she had gone on Jan. 4 to try to get information about her daughter, Marilyn Martinez Rincon, one of the eight people detained on Jan. 3 in Santo Domingo. The eight were all supposedly released on Jan. 5 in Vista Hermosa, although only one of them managed to return home. As of Jan. 18, the whereabouts of the others were still unknown.
A number of residents were apparently wounded during the paramilitary attack in Matabambu. While paramilitaries were still in the area, members of the Human Rights Comission of the Guejear River Region in Puerto Toledo went to see Lt. Garcia, in charge of the Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 42 of the army’s Mobile Brigade No. 4, to ask him to provide security for the community; Garcia responded that he had not committed himself to providing security. Soldiers under his command told Commission members that the same thing that happened in Matabambu would soon happen in Puerto Toledo. Lt. Garcia then blocked residents of Puerto Toledo from fleeing the town. (Communiques from Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, Jan. 4, 5 via Red de Defensores No Institucionalizados)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22
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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #117
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1434
See our last update on state terror in Colombia:
/node/1489
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
On Dec. 20, a group of about 20 guerrillas from the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebel group ambushed a police contingent and killed eight agents in Aucayacu, Leoncio Prado province, in the central Peruvian region of Huanuco. On Dec. 5, alleged Sendero rebels ambushed two police vehicles farther south in the Apurimac river valley, killing five police agents and wounding a police agent and a prosecutor.
President Alejandro Toledo responded to the attacks on Dec. 21 by decreeing a 60-day state of emergency in the jungle provinces of Maranon, Huacaybamba, Leoncio Prado and Huamalies in Huanuco region, Tocache in San Martin region and Padre Abad in Ucayali region. The decree, which took effect on Dec. 23, allows the armed forces to take control of the provinces and suspends certain constitutional rights, including freedom from unwarranted searches and the rights to free assembly and travel. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 27; Miami Herald, Dec. 23; El Nuevo Herald, Dec. 24, 25; AP, Dec. 23)
Toledo accuses Sendero of links to drug traffickers; in November the government inaugurated a police anti-drug base, funded with aid from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in Palmapampa, in the Apurimac valley. (ENH, Dec. 31)
In a communique published in the Huancayo daily Correo on Dec. 23, Sendero Luminoso took credit for the two recent attacks and announced its rejection of the upcoming April 9 presidential elections, which it called “the electoral circus.” The communique, signed by “Comrade Netzel” of the “Center-Mantaro Base of Sendero Luminoso,” calls for a “people’s war” against the country’s “alleged democracy,” and urged Peruvians to boycott the elections by abstaining. The communique included criticism of various politicians, including brothers Antauro and Ollanta Humala Tasso, whom Sendero called “pseudo-revolutionaries and fascists.” (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 27; ENH, Dec. 24; La Cronica de Hoy, Mexico, Dec. 24; Terra Peru, Dec. 23)
The Humala brothers led an insurrection in 2000 against the government of then-president Alberto Fujimori, who has been detained in Chile since last Nov. 6 and is facing extradition to Peru. On Dec. 30 Ollanta Humala, a former lieutenant colonel, registered his presidential candidacy for the Nationalist Party Uniting Peru. (ENH, Dec. 31) Humala’s nationalist and pro-indigenous rhetoric appears to have propelled him into first place in the electoral race. On Dec. 26, a survey by the polling firm Idice showed Humala leading with 21.7% of voter intentions against 21.2% for traditional right-wing candidate Lourdes Flores Nano of the National Unity party. The poll showed ex-presidents Alan Garcia and Valentin Paniagua in third and fourth place with 19.8% and 16.7% respectively. Idice warned that Flores would likely lose a runoff against Humala. A poll released Dec. 28 by the international firm Datum showed Flores Nano ahead with 25% to Humala’s 23%, but even Datum acknowledged that support for Flores has stagnated while support for Humala “is growing daily.” (ENH, Dec. 29)
Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 1
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Weekly News Update on the Americas http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #117
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1437
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
by Benjamin Dangl
After winning a landslide victory on Dec. 18th, Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country’s gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers and change the rules of the US-led War on Drugs in Bolivia. If he follows through on such promises, he’ll face enormous pressure from the Bush administration, corporations and international lenders. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia’s social movements are likely to organize the type of protests and strikes that have ousted two presidents in two years. In the gas-rich Santa Cruz region, business elites are working toward seceding from the country to privatize the gas reserves. Meanwhile, US troops stationed in neighboring Paraguay may be poised to intervene if the Andean country sways too far from Washington’s interests. For Bolivian social movements and the government, 2006 will likely be a trial by fire.
The Social Movements and the State
Among the presidential candidates that ran in the December election, Morales has the broadest ties to the country’s social movements. However, he has played limited roles in the popular uprisings of recent years. During the height of the gas war in 2003, when massive mobilizations were organized to demand the nationalization of the country’s gas reserves, Morales was attending meetings in Geneva on parliamentary politics. After the 2003 uprising ousted right-wing president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Morales urged social movement leaders to accept then-vice president Carlos Mesa as Sanchez de Lozada’s replacement. In June 2005, when another protest campaign demanding gas nationalization forced Mesa to resign, Morales helped direct the social movements into governmental channels, pushing for an interim president while new elections were organized.
Morales’ actions during these revolts were aimed at generating broad support among diverse sectors of society, including the middle class and those who didn’t fully support the tactics of protest groups. This strategy, combined with directing the momentum of social movements into the electoral realm, resulted in his landslide victory on Dec. 18.
In spite of Morales’ relative distance from social movements, his victory in a country where the political landscape has been shaped by such movements presents the possibility for massive social change. Once he assumes office, Morales has pledged to organize a Constituent Assembly of diverse social sectors to rewrite the country’s constitution. It is possible that this could allow for a powerful collaboration between social movements and the state.
Vice President-elect Alvaro Garcia Linera says such collaboration is possible. He contends that MAS, the Movement Toward Socialism party which he and Morales belong to, is not a traditional political party but rather “a coalition of flexible social movements that has expanded its actions to the electoral arena. There is no structure; it is a leader and movements, and there is nothing in between. This means that MAS must depend on mobilizations or on the temperament of the social movements.”
Oscar Olivera, a key leader in the revolt against Bechtel’s privatization of Cochabamba’s water system in 2000, believes the relationship between social movements and the Morales administration will play a vital role in creating radical change in the country. Olivera participated in the December election because he felt that it was part of “a process of building strength so that in the next government… we can regain control of natural resources and end the monopoly that the political parties have over electoral politics… We are creating a movement, a nonpartisan social-political front that addresses the most vital needs of the people through a profound change in power relations, social relations, and the management of water, electricity, and garbage.”
To sustain their momentum and unity, an alliance between some of the most dynamic social groups was formed in early December 2005 in the first Congress of the National Front for the Defense of Water and Basic Human Services. This alliance includes the Water Coordinating Committee of Cochabamba, the Federation of Neighborhood Councils of El Alto, the Water and Drainage Cooperatives of Santa Cruz, as well as neighborhood organizations, cooperatives, irrigation farmers, and committees on electricity, water rights and other services from all over the country. In many cases, these autonomous groups have organized methods of providing citizens with basic services which the state fails to offer. Such a coalition of grassroots forces may pave the way for a nationwide alternative form of governance.
Tangling Over Coca
Morales plans to fully legalize the production of coca leaf and change the rules of the US-led War on Drugs in his country. White House officials are wary of any deviation from its anti-narcotics plan in Latin America; a strategy they claim has been successful. However, US government statistics and reports from analysts in Bolivia tell a different story.
A recent report from the US Government Accountability Office states: “While the US has poured 6 billion dollars into the drug war in the Andes over the past five years…the number of drug users in the US has remained roughly constant.”
In an interview on National Public Radio (NPR), Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, said the Bush administration hopes “that the new government of Evo Morales in Bolivia does not change course, does not somehow assert that it’s fine to grow coca and fine to sell it.”
Though it is a key ingredient in cocaine, coca has been used for centuries in the Andean region for medicinal purposes; it relieves hunger, sickness and fatigue. It’s also an ingredient in, cough syrups, wines, chewing gum, diet pills and, many claim, Coca-Cola. The US Embassy’s website for Bolivia suggests chewing coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness.
“Trying to compare coca to cocaine is like trying to compare coffee beans to methamphetamines; there‚s a universe of difference between the two,” Sanho Tree from the Institute for Policy Studies explained on NPR. “We have to respect that indigenous cultures have used and continue to use coca in its traditional form, which is almost impossible to abuse in its natural state.”
Georg Ann Potter worked from 1999 to 2002 as an advisor to Morales, and since then has been the main advisor to the Coordination of the Six Women Federations of the Chapare, the country’s biggest coca growing region. Potter stated that although Morales plans to continue a hardline approach against the drug trade, the current policies of the US War on Drugs need to change.
“One billion dollars has been spent [on alternative crop development] over the last 20 years and there is little to show for it,” she said. “Forced eradication resulted in many dead, more wounded, armed forces thieving and raping.”
It’s widely held among critics of Washington’s anti-narcotics agenda for Latin America that the US government uses the War on Drugs as an excuse for maintaining a military and political presence in the region.
A report from the Congressional Research Service stated that the US War on Drugs has had no effect on the price, purity and availability of cocaine in the US. Potter explained that even the US government admits that “Bolivian cocaine, what there is of it, does not go to the US, but rather to Europe.”
The Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based NGO which monitors human rights issues in the US-led War on Drugs, recommends that “the US should recognize studies that have determined that domestic education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs are more effective in altering drug consumption, and accordingly address the demand side of the war on drugs.”
Between a Rock and Hard Place
In regard to the country’s gas reserves, the Morales administration could go in two directions. It could fully nationalize the gas reserves and face the wrath of multinational corporations and lending institutions that want exactly the opposite to happen. Or it could renegotiate contracts with gas corporations, and partially nationalize the industry. Choosing the latter option would likely generate massive protests and road blockades. Social movement leaders have stated that if Morales doesn’t fully nationalize the gas, the population will mobilize to hold the administration’s feet to the flames.
“We will nationalize the natural resources, gas and hydrocarbons,” Morales stated after his election. “We are not going to nationalize the assets of the multinationals. Any state has the right to use its natural resources. We must establish new contracts with the oil companies based on equilibrium. We are going to guarantee the returns on their investment and their profits, but not looting and stealing.”
Any move that Morales makes is likely to upset either corporate investors, social movements or both. Previous Bolivian presidents Carlos Mesa and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada walked similar gauntlets and ended up being ousted from office by protests.
A secession movement in Santa Cruz, the wealthiest district in the country, also threatens Bolivia’s peace. An elite group of businessmen lead the movement to separate Santa Cruz from the rest of the country, which would allow for the full privatization of the gas industry regardless of what protest groups and the national government demand. This group has been accused of maintaining militias organized to defend their autonomy.
Other methods of destabilization are already underway. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the US government has spent millions to support discredited right-wing political parties and stifle grassroots movements in Bolivia. Between 2002 and 2004, a grant from the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) allowed for the training of thirteen “emerging political leaders” from right-wing parties in Bolivia. These 25-to 35-year-old politicians were brought to Washington for seminars. Their party-strengthening projects in Bolivia were subsequently funded by the NED.
US Troops in Paraguay
Outright US military intervention in Bolivia is a possibility. An airbase in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is reportedly being utilized by hundreds of US troops. The base, which was constructed by US technicians in the 1980s under Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, is 200 kilometers from the border with Bolivia and is larger than the international airport in Paraguay’s capital. Analysts in the region believe these troops could be poised to intervene in Bolivia to suppress leftist movements and secure the country‚s gas reserves.
Under US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s direction, the Pentagon has pushed for a number of small Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs) based around Latin America. These military installations permit leapfrogging from one location to another across the continent. Such a strategy reflects an increased dependence on missiles and unmanned aircraft instead of soldiers. CSLs offer the opportunity for a small but potent presence in a country. Such outposts exist at Eloy Alfaro International Airport in Manta, Ecuador; Reina Beatrix International Airport in Aruba; Hato International Airport in nearby Curacao; and at the international airport in Comalapa, El Salvador. Paraguay may already be home to the region’s next CSL.
The US Embassy in Paraguay contends that no plans for a military outpost are underway and that the military operations are based on humanitarian efforts. However, State Department reports do not mention any funding for humanitarian works in Paraguay. They do mention that funding for the Counterterrorism Fellowship Program in the country doubled in 2005.
U.S. officials say the triple border area, where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet, is a base for Islamic terrorist networks. Analysts in Latin America believe that the U.S. government is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to secure natural resources in the region.
“The objectives of the USA in South America have always been to secure strategic material like oil in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, tin mines in Bolivia, copper mines in Chile, and always to maintain lines of access open,” Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, a Brazilian political scientist at the Universidade de Brasilia, wrote in the Folha de SĂŁo Paulo.
Orlando Castillo, a Paraguayan human rights leader, said the goal of US military operations in his country is to “debilitate the southern bloc…and destabilize the region’s governments, especially Evo Morales…”
While grappling with these challenges, the Morales administration will have to answer to the millions of Bolivians who, in the December election, gave him the biggest mandate in the country’s history.
For centuries Bolivians have, in the words of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, “suffered the curse of their own wealth.” The country’s tin, copper and silver were exploited by foreign companies that made enormous profits while Bolivia struggled on. For many Bolivians, the election of Morales offers the hope that history will stop repeating itself. As Galeano writes, “Recovery of the resources that have always been usurped is the recovery of our destiny.”
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Benjamin Dangl has traveled and worked as a journalist in Bolivia and Paraguay. He edits Upside Down World, uncovering activism and politics in Latin America, and Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events.
This story originally appeared in Toward Freedom, Jan. 12
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/724/
SOURCES:
“Two Opposing Views of Social Change in Bolivia,” by Raul Zibechi, International Relations Center—Americas Program, Dec. 14, 2005
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2987
“Bolivia after the election victory of the MAS: Morales cannot serve two masters,” by Jorge Martin, In Defense of Marxism, Oct. 1, 2005
http://www.marxist.com/bolivia-election-victory-mas100106.htm
“Exporting Gas and Importing Demoracy in Bolivia,” by Reed Lindsay, North American Congress on Latin America, November 2005
http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2603#
“US Military in Paraguay Prepares To ‘Spread Democracy,'” by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, Sept. 15, 2005
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/47/44/
“US Military Moves in Paraguay Rattle Regional Relations,” by Sam Logan and Matthew Flynn, IRC—Americas, Dec. 14, 2005
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2991
“An Interview with Paraguayan Human Rights Activist Orlando Castillo,” by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, Oct. 16, 2005
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/48/44/
See also our last features on Bolivia:
“Bolivia: ‘Gas War’ Impunity Aggravates Tension,” by Kathryn Ledebur and Julia Dietz, WW4 REPORT #117
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“Paraguay: The Pentagon’s New Latin Beachhead,” by Benjamin Dangl, WW4 REPORT #116
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
