Bolivia orders US diplomat to go

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Bolivian President Evo Morales has ordered the expulsion of a US diplomat he accused last week of colluding with opposition groups in recent unrest.

He said Francisco Martinez, a political officer at the US embassy in La Paz, had links to groups involved in violent opposition protests.

President Morales ordered the US ambassador to leave the country six months ago over similar allegations.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7933846.stm

[fascisthunter]

1. these corrupt bastards won't stop until we stop them

good for Bolivia

[peacetalksforall]

2. Here I go again. I read this and I'm angry that we are still trying to undermine

the election of Morales. He didn't steal the election. It wasn't stolen for him. The people voted him in ....twice?

So I become angry with Dick and George. Then, I pause and moan. Obama is the President now. Clinton is the Sec of State. The Bush Ambassador was kicked out while Bush was still in office, but we're supposed to be changing. And now, a high end guy in the Embassy is STILL stirring things up?

I don't want the U.S. taking Morales down. It means taking the people down.

So what is going on here. We need transparency.

Side questions - how many Cuban-Americans were in Embassy positions during the Bush administration? Are we still 'claiming' that we're fighting communism? Is Bechtel still trying to get their water? Are we after gas - they're supposed to have plent? Any copper there? Minerals? Gems? Is the military still building in Paraguay - waiting for their moment to take Bolivia?

Why are we messing things up in Bolivia????????????????????????????????

So many news items have made me go ballistic today between the U.S. and Israel.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Well, there are still a lot of Bushwhack holdovers in South America, and in the

State Department on Latin American affairs. The Obama/Clinton State Department has had Latin America rather on the "backburner," and it has been quite impossible for me to figure out what their policy is going to be--perhaps because they don't know yet. They had the Bushwhack Financial 9/11, and two wars, and Guantanamo Bay, to deal with, right off the bat. It may not be neglect. It may just be a time/priorities thing. They've been in power only...what?...less than two months.

Obama made a big blunder, during his Inauguration Week. He gave an interview to a very rightwing, corpo/fascist 'news' monopoly--Univision--saying that Hugo Chavez was friendly to "terrorists" and "bad for the progress of the region." These things are so outrageously untrue that Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, got active, talked to Obama on the phone and arranged a meeting with Obama this month, to try to straighten him out about South America. Whoever arranged that Univision interview and put that script in Obama's hands did Obama a great disservice. Obama might be faulted for going along with it, but, heck, it was his inauguration week (somewhat forgivable)--or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing. I don't know. Two weeks later (and two weeks into the Obama administration)--when Venezuela held the vote on term limits--a State Dept. spokesman repeatedly praised Venezuela's democracy, and repeatedly said that terms limits is an internal matter in Venezuela (none of our business, in other words). Both of these things are true. Venezuela has elections that are far, FAR more transparent than our own, and levels of public participation that far exceed our own. They deserve respect and praise. And it is truly none of our business, if Venezuelans want to keep voting for their "New Deal," as we repeatedly voted for FDR here (before the Republicans instituted term limits).

So-o-o, as I said, mixed signals. I can't tell where they're going. I hope to God they're going in the direction of peace and justice. But they're going to need to clean house in the embassies and the State Dept. (and the CIA), if they intend a positive policy, and they don't want it to be continually sabotaged by Bushwhack holdovers, or career diplomats or other agents who are anti-democracy in Latin America. There may be enough trouble--even war--that Bushwhack operatives instigate to regain global corporate predator control of Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil. This may proceed as a private war that the perps try to get Obama/Clinton to support with U.S. military forces. There is plenty of evidence that such a private war has been planned, and Donald Rumsfeld may be involved. (Colombia would be their "launching pad.") So Obama really needs to watch his back in this foreign policy arena--if his intentions are good. And I really can't tell you if they are. I don't know. I am not terribly encouraged, though, given Clinton's prior support of Plan Colombia, and "free trade" (both policies have been disasters) and her close association with Mark Penn (a paid agent of the Colombian government).

What I hope happens is that Lula is able to get Obama to see reality. The reality is widespread rejection of U.S. domination and interference, and a nearly united front against it, in South America, with the election of one leftist government after another. Paraguay was the capper, last summer--electing its first leftist president, ever, after 61 years of sometimes heinous rightwing rule. Paraguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay all now have leftist governments. Brazil has a center-left government, strongly allied with the above. Chile has a center-left government in sympathy with them on vital issues like sovereignty (and led the effort to support Morales during the Bushwhack-supported fascist coup attempt in September). Additionally, Nicaragua has elected a leftist government. And El Salvador is about to (this Sunday--leftist way ahead in the polls). And Guatemala just elected its first progressive government, ever (allied with the above).

As Evo Morales has said: "The time of the people has come." And Obama really, really, REALLY needs to realize this.

[peacetalksforall]

9. Thanks for the great breakdown. I remember being crestfallen when I heard

heard Obama make the comments.

When you look at the big picture you describe - they are way ahead of us. I'm so pleased that they may be able to get out from under the World Bank/INF usurers.

I hope for their successes and our NON-INTERFERENCE.

The big hold-out is Colombia - the Cheney-Bush carry over of drugs, death squads, pretense of up righteousness.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Or... maybe Morales is full of shit. n/t

[struggle4progress]

8. Or ... maybe not ... considering that the previous Administration was

fostering a separatist movement in Bolivia and that the expelled ambassador was caught meeting with the separatists ...

[madrchsod]

3. bolivia has about 30% of the known reserves of lithium

better play nice if we want electric cars....

[Peace Patriot]

6. The Bushwhacks were out to control major gas/oil reserves in Bolivia, in the

fascist coup attempt in September. They fomented a secession movement by the white separatists in the gas/oil-rich eastern provinces, who rioted, beat up the indigenous, trashed government and NGO buildings, blew up a gas pipeline, and machine-gunned some 30 peasant farmers, before Morales sent in the military, and UNASUR (the new Common Market) got active to broker a peace with the saner elements among the fascists, to prevent the split-up of Bolivia and/or the toppling of its rightful government. Bolivia's major gas customers are Argentina and Brazil, who made it clear that they would not recognize or trade with a secessionist state.

In the middle of the Bushwhack coup preparations--last summer--Paraguay elected a leftist president who is closely allied with Morales, Chavez and all the new left and center-left leaders. This possibly cut off one route of U.S. military support to the secessionists in Bolivia (whose provinces are adjacent to Paraguay). I'm not sure how determined the Bushwhacks were. It is an interesting question why they went forward with this coup attempt so late in the day--Sept 08--shortly before being thrown out of the White House--and in landlocked Bolivia, where the forces they were supporting obviously did not have good "command control" (the rioting and murder totally discredited their cause in South America). They would like to have gained control of the gas going to leftist Argentina and leftist-allied Brazil, to blackmail those leaders. But it was an inept show, to that purpose. It could just have been the Rumsfeld strategy of chaos = opportunity--causing as much trouble as possible, hoping to "divide and conquer," etc. I tend to think it may have been a rehearsal for the bigger oil prizes of Venezuela and Ecuador--where there is also evidence of secession plots in the oil-rich areas (and collusion with the Colombian fascists). This could well be where the next oil war occurs.

There are other global corporate resource interests (as you say, lithium; also, ag land, water, forests and other minerals--not to mention cheap labor, and the looting of social programs), and financial interests (the World Bank, for instance), who want to see the leftist democracy movement in South America broken. But the oil corps (and their Bushwhack and Colombian operatives) are probably the only ones with the wherewithal to initiate a private war, which they might try to draw the U.S. into. The other interests would ride in on these--if they were successful. But I don't think they're going to be successful. The South Americans seem well aware of this potential. (Lula da Silva, for instance, said that the U.S. 4th Fleet--newly reconstituted by the Bush Junta, to harry Venezuela's oil coast--poses a threat to Brazil's oil reserves as well, and proposed a common defense to UNASUR last summer--which all have now agreed to). A private, Rumsfeldian oil war may wreck Obama Latin American policy, though--if Obama's intentions are good.

[GreenTea]

4. American "diplomats" always translates to CIA secret operatives there to covert

and overthrow in liberal, progressive, and socialist countries.

[B Whale]

10. Yep. Its easy to change the administration in

the USA but there's a lot of unelected people around the world doing America's dirty work with no mandate from the American people or government

[Judi Lynn]

11. Peace Patriot has quoted Chile's President Bachelet's remark on the subject.

She cracked a joke at a public event, asking why the U.S. has never had a coup, and the answer was "Because the U.S. doesn't have an embassy in the United States."