Colonel Luis Arce Gómez was a Bolivian military officer. Of strong conservative, anti-communist persuasion, in 1980 he backed the bloody coup (sometimes referred to as the "Cocaine Coup") that brought to power the infamous General Luis García Meza. Indeed, Arce served as García Meza's right-hand man and Minister of the Interior. Arce's tenure as Bolivia's chief repressor including the passing of such measures as the banning of all political parties, the incarceration and/or exile of most political opponents, the repression of the unions, and the censorship of the media. Among García Meza and Arce's collaborators were former Nazi officer Klaus Barbie, Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, and professional torturers allegedly imported from the murderous Argentine dictatorship of General Jorge Videla. Some 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the Bolivian security apparatus in only 13 months. Apparently, Arce meant it when he cautioned that all Bolivians who may be opposed to the new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms." The most prominent victim of the dictatorship was the congressman, politician, and gifted orator Marcelo Quiroga, murdered and "disappeared" soon after the coup. Quiroga had been the chief advocate of bringing to trial the former dictator, General Banzer (1971-78), for human right violations and economic mismanagement.
As if all this were not enough, the García Meza government was also deeply involved in drug trafficking activities, and may have come to power financed directly by the drug cartels. The main link of the regime to the drug dealers seems to have none other than the notorious Colonel Arce. The impunity with which he and García Meza operated led to the complete isolation of their government. Even the new, conservative U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, kept its distance and seemed to prefer better options. Eventually, Arce was forced to resign, as was his boss, García. In the late 1980s, Arce was extradited to the United States, where he was put in jail, serving a lengthy sentence for drug trafficking. On April 21, 1993, while serving sentence in America, he was condemned by the Bolivian justice to 30 years in prision for serious human rights violations incurred by the regime he took part in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce_G%C3%B3mezhttp://bolivia.indymedia.org.nyud.net:8090/sites/bolivia.indymedia.org/files/images/arzecocaina.jpg http://www.eldeber.com.bo.nyud.net:8090/2007/2007-11-18/images/na.jpgDark Side of Rev. Moon (Cont.): Drug Allies
(Posted in 1997)
By Robert Parry
~snip~
A Nazi Reunion
In nearby coca-producing Bolivia, Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie was working as a Bolivian intelligence officer and drawing up plans for a putsch that would add that central nation to the region's "stable axis" of right-wing regimes. Barbie contacted Argentine intelligence for help.
One of the first Argentine intelligence officers who arrived was Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla. "Before our departure, we received a dossier on (
)," Mingolla later told German investigative reporter Kai Hermann. "There it stated that he was of great use to Argentina because he played an important role in all of Latin America in the fight against communism. From the dossier, it was also clear that Altmann worked for the Americans."
As the Bolivian coup took shape, Bolivian Col. Luis Arce-Gomez, the cousin of cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez, recruited neo-fascist terrorists such as Italian Stefano della Chiaie who had been working with the Argentine death squads. Dr. Alfredo Candia, the Bolivian leader of the World Anti-Communist League, was coordinating the arrival of these paramilitary operatives from Argentina and Europe, Hermann reported. Meanwhile, Barbie started a secret lodge, called Thule. During meetings, he lectured to his followers underneath swastikas by candlelight.
~snip~
Later, an Argentine secret policeman told Levine that the CIA knew about the coup. "You North Americans amaze me. Don't you speak to your own people?" the officer wondered. "Do you think Bolivia's government -- or any government in South America -- can be changed without your government and mine being aware of it?"
When Levine asked why that affected the planned DEA investigation, the Argentine answered, "Because the same people he's naming as drug dealers are the people we are helping to rid Bolivia of leftists. ...Us. The Argentines ... working with your CIA."
The Cocaine Coup Cometh
On July 17, the Cocaine Coup began, spearheaded by Barbie and his neo-fascist goon squad dubbed Fiances of Death. "The masked thugs were not Bolivians; they spoke Spanish with German, French and Italian accents," Levine wrote. "Their uniforms bore neither national identification nor any markings, although many of them wore Nazi swastika armbands and insignias."
The slaughter was fierce. When the putschists stormed the national labor headquarters, they wounded labor leader Marcelo Quiroga, who had led the effort to indict former military dictator Hugo Banzer on drug and corruption charges. Quiroga "was dragged off to police headquarters to be the object of a game played by some of the torture experts imported from Argentina's dreaded Mechanic School of the Navy," Levine wrote.
"These experts applied their 'science' to Quiroga as a lesson to the Bolivians, who were a little backward in such matters. They kept Quiroga alive and suffering for hours. His castrated, tortured body was found days later in a place called 'The valley of the Moon' in southern La Paz." Women captives were gang-raped as part of their torture.
To Levine back in Buenos Aires, it was soon clear "that the primary goal of the revolution was the protection and control of Bolivia's cocaine industry. All major drug traffickers in prison were released, after which they joined the neo-Nazis in their rampage. Government buildings were invaded and trafficker files were either carried off or burned. Government employees were tortured and shot, the women tied and repeatedly raped by the paramilitaries and the freed traffickers."
The fascists celebrated with swastikas and shouts of "Heil Hitler!" Hermann reported. Col. Arce-Gomez, a central-casting image of a bemedaled, pot-bellied Latin dictator, grabbed broad powers as Interior Minister. Gen. Luis Garcia Meza was installed as Bolivia's new president.
~snip~
After the coup, Arce-Gomez went into partnership with big narco-traffickers, including Trafficante's Cuban-American smugglers. Klaus Barbie and his neo-fascists got a new assignment: protecting Bolivia's major cocaine barons and transporting drugs to the border.
"The paramilitary units -- conceived by Barbie as a new type of SS -- sold themselves to the cocaine barons," concluded Hermann. "The attraction of fast money in the cocaine trade was stronger than the idea of a national socialist revolution in Latin America."
According to Levine, Arce-Gomez boasted to one top trafficker: "We will flood America's borders with cocaine." It was boast that the coup-makers backed up.
More:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon6.html
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