BOLIVIA: Morales Cites "Evidence" of U.S. Meddling

[Judi Lynn]

BOLIVIA: Morales Cites "Evidence" of U.S. Meddling
By Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 (IPS) - Bolivian President Evo Morales reiterated the charge Tuesday that the U.S. government was plotting to overthrow his government and that Washington had a hand in the recent episodes of violence in which a number of his supporters were killed and wounded by opposition gangs.

"We have the evidence," Morales told a news conference on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Tuesday, regarding U.S. involvement with the groups and individuals in certain provinces who are refusing to recognise the authority of the federal government in La Paz and are trying to assert their economic and political dominance over indigenous populations by violent means.

The Bolivian president charged that the George W. Bush administration has not only given away a "tremendous amount of money" to the opposition groups through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), but also provided them with ammunition to carry out acts of sabotage and killings of unarmed indigenous people.

Despite its formal denial of these charges, the U.S. government has not issued any statement condemning the killings, looting and acts of sabotage that have cost millions of dollars in losses.

"They are setting fire to gas pipelines, and the U.S. government does not condemn that?" asked Morales. "Of course, they know they {the opposition groups} are their allies. So why then they would denounce them?"

Last week, Bolivia's right-wing vigilantes launched several attacks on indigenous communities that support the government. They killed about 20 Morales supporters, most of whom were poor farmers.

Soon after the attacks, Morales declared the U.S. ambassador Philip Goldberg "persona non grata" and asked him to leave the country within three days. He was accused of aiding the Bolivian opposition groups, a charge the U.S. State Department denied.

Explaining the decision to cut diplomatic ties with Washington, the Bolivian president said that the U.S. ambassador was deeply involved in activities aimed at strengthening the opposition and weakening the government.

"{President} Bush sent me a message {saying} if I am not friend, I am an enemy," said Morales, who added, "I'm a friend of the people of the United States. I am in touch with many groups who believe in social justice."

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43985

[magbana]

1. Video of the press conference

to learn more on this and other issues from Morales. Go to : http://www.un.org/ga/63/generaldebate/bolivia.shtml and look for "press conference." It's about 55 minutes. You can also see the video of his speech before the general assembly at this URL as well.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for this opportunity. I plan to use it later today.

Morales did great in the small bit I saw of his speech to the General assembly.

[EFerrari]

4. Thank you. I wanted to watch that so much. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

2. US’s murky role in the Balkanisation of Bolivia

US’s murky role in the Balkanisation of Bolivia

By Wilson García Mérida

HE presented his credentials before President Evo Morales on October 13, 2006; but three months before his arrival in Bolivia, when he was still in Pristina fulfilling his role as head of the US mission in Kosovo, it was already being said that the new US ambassador designated by George W. Bush for this Andean country, Philip Goldberg, would come to take part in the separatist process that was being cultivated in the background to pierce the Bolivian regime.

On July 13 2006, the journalist for El Deber of Santa Cruz, Leopoldo Vegas, published a report indicating that "in the view of three political scientists interviewed after learning about the White House’s decision, the experience acquired by Goldberg in Eastern Europe which produced ethnic conflict after the separation of the former Yugoslavia can be used in Bolivia, using as an opportunity the changes that the government itself is trying to introduce".

One of those interviewed by Vegas was the academic Róger Tuero, former head of the Political Science Department at Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University in Santa Cruz, who stated that characteristics of each ambassador are determined by US diplomacy.

"It’s not by chance that this man was moved from Kosovo to Bolivia," said Tuero.

Ambassador Goldberg today is one of the principal political and logistical supporters of still-Governor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa, who created the worst ethnic, social, regional and institutional crisis one can remember in the history of the Republic of Bolivia.

~snip~
Between 1994 and 1996 he was the State Department’s "Bosnia Desk Officer", at the point when the conflict between Albanian separatists and Serbian and Yugoslav security forces erupted. During the same period, he served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was the author of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the fall of Milosevic.

"In the latter capacity," states the embassy, "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."

Ambassador Goldberg was also a political-economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa, and later a consular and political officer at the US Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, where he began to become interested in Latin American politics. After exercising his charge as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile, from 2001 to 2004, Goldberg returned to the Balkans to direct the US mission in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where he supported the prosecution in The Hague of Milosevic (who died March 11, 2006).

Before his transfer to Bolivia, Goldberg worked from Kosovo for the separation of the states of Serbia and Montenegro, which occurred in June of last year, as the last remaining aftertaste of the disappearance of Yugoslavia.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia unfolded during a bloody decade of civil war created to divide up through processes of "decentralisation" and "autonomy" that which was finally imposed with the US military intervention and the presence of Nato and UN troops who occupied the Balkans to pacify the region.

The Yugoslav civil war had as its principal feature what is called "ethnic cleansing", which consists of the expulsion or annihilation of the traditional ethnic groups that make up the territory of Yugoslavia.

The cruellest of this racial extermination occurred between the Serbs and the Croats. Bolivia, only three months since the arrival of Ambassador Goldberg, began to suffer an exacerbation of racism and separatist autonomous movements, as in the Balkans, which was initiated from the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where the governing elite made up of, among others, Croatian businessmen, created a federalist movement called "Camba Nation".

More:
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=1148&cat=10

[EFerrari]

6. Omg. Is this Negroponte's twin separated at birth?

So much to take in. Have to read this again.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Unasur commission to investigate killings of Bolivian

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Unasur commission to investigate killings of Bolivian peasants

Presidents and representatives from the Union of South American Nations, Unasur agreed on the creation of a committee to investigate recent peasant massacres in the Bolivian province of Pando.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet who holds the temporary chair of Unasur said an informal meeting was held in New York taking advantage of the presence of many South American presidents at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

The special investigation committee will be named next Monday and will be headed by the Argentine expert in human rights Rodolfo Matarolo.

“We are advancing and will continue working in support of democracy in Bolivia”, said Bachelet.

Allegedly at least 16 peasants were killed by a hit gang during the recent political turmoil in Bolivia. The governor of Pando has been formally accused of having masterminded the killings and is currently under arrest waiting to be prosecuted.

More:
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14660&formato=HTML

[EFerrari]

7. AP examines deadly clash on Bolivian jungle road

9/27/08
By PAOLA FLORES
Associated Press Writer

PORVENIR, Bolivia -- A deadly clash on a jungle highway has become the newest and bloodiest symbol of Bolivia's political crisis, pitting President Evo Morales against an autonomy movement in the eastern lowlands that is bitterly resisting his leftist reforms.

The shootout capped rioting across half of Bolivia, violence that Morales alleges was inspired by opposition governors and supported by the United States - a charge denied by U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg as he was expelled from the natural gas-rich country this month.

Morales, pushing for deep socialist reforms guided by traditional Bolivian indigenous values, says groups organized by his political opponents machine-gunned 16 of his poor Indian supporters in the Sept. 11 confrontation.

Lowland opposition leaders, guarding their region's frontier capitalism and more Euro-centric heritage, say they lost two of their own in a pitched battle to defend their provincial capital from marchers directed by Morales.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/704114.html