Unconfirmed US ambassador to the U.N. - John Bolton is Bush's " Joachim von Ribbentrop"

Unconfirmed US ambassador to the U.N. - John Bolton is Bush's "Ribbentrop" for the Iran war and the neo-con agenda. Joachim von Ribbentrop, hanged in Nuremburg for war crimes, was the diplomatic face of the Nazi German regime. John Bolton, former patron of New York City's now-defunct swingers' club, Plato Retreat, is the Bush administration's diplomatic face at the United Nations. The only difference between the two is that Ribbentrop was a successful diplomat, captivating equally British, French, and Soviet counterparts, according to the many Allied diplomats who interfaced with him in the years prior to the war. The same cannot be said of Bolton. Bolton has managed to alienate just about every UN ambassador and official.

Bolton's image at the UN: "Shock and guffaw"

It is clear that Bolton was sent to the UN by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld neo-con clique to help stir things up with Iran and carry out the neo-cons' ultimate goal -- the destruction of the United Nations system -- a prized goal of the mustachioed GOP operative ever since he worked as a staffer for the right-wing racist North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed ElBaradei has been a particular target of Bolton's undiplomatic and uncouth wrath. At a time when Iran is attempting to establish diplomatic back channels to the Bush regime through mediators like ElBaradei and European diplomats, these efforts have been scuttled by the neo-cons surrounding Bolton. UN insiders report that during the lead up to the war in Iraq, senior Iraqi Baathist officials opposed to Saddam Hussein attempted to use diplomatic channels, including those at the UN, to negotiate with the Bush regime. However, the Bush regime was intent on launching a blitzkrieg attack on Iraq and disregarded the diplomatic overtures from Baghdad.

Complementing Bolton in hurling abuse at ElBaradei is the US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Gregory Schulte, a confidante of Bolton, Dick Cheney, and Bolton's successor as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph. In fact, for his neo-con compatriots and agents provocateur, Bolton has transformed the temporary US Mission to the UN at 140 East 45th Street in Manhattan into a virtual off-site neo-con operational activity. A number of Washington-based neo-cons work out of the mission, courtesy of the mission's travel and expense budget, to plan various neo-con operations to disrupt and weaken the organs of the international body and neutralize the UN in the Bush regime's march to war with Iran, the scrapping of the Israeli-Palestinian accords, and the isolation of Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other countries.

Bolton has tried to cover up the damage he has done at the UN by doing what Bush officials do best -- lie. When Bolton explained America's decision not to run for a seat on the new UN Human Rights Council, he said it was because the new body was not much better than the previous Human Rights Commission, which Bolton helped deep six. However, according to UN sources, Bolton decided not to seek a seat on the Council because it could not get the 96 votes needed to be elected. The United States is held in such low esteem by the UN membership (because of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditioning, torture, secret CIA prisoner flights, opposition to the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Council, and the Kyoto Protocol, and disregard for international law), the world's "only remaining superpower" could not get 96 votes to be elected to the Human Rights Council.

Bolton's neo-con colleague at the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, has similarly incurred the disdain of the international staff of that UN specialized agency. Surrounding himself with a coterie of neo-con advisers, Wolfowitz, as president of the institution, arrogantly runs the bank as a personal fiefdom, according to World Bank insiders.

One UN insider reports that under George W. Bush, the United States has now become a shunned pariah, one that is comfortable in being another "Israel," a UN member state that contemptuously flouts the decisions of the UN and international law. In fact, the United States can only count on the votes in the UN of Israel and three heavily-subsidized "Soviet Socialist Republic"-like ex-U.S. trusteeships in the Pacific -- Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. During the Cold War, the USSR could always count on the pocket votes of two similar contrivances -- the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs.

As Bolton and his neo-con co-conspirators contemplate the unthinkable, a tactical nuclear strike on Iran, it is sobering to look at two displays in the lobby at the rear of the General Assembly. One is the Statue of Saint Agnes, which was found face down in the ruins of Urakami Tenshudo Roman Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on August 9, 1945. The back of the statue is charred and mottled, proof of the devastating effects of the A-blast on the church, which was located just a half a kilometer from ground zero.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

U.S. Special Forces are training Guyanese rebels in Guyana for cross-border incursions into the eastern part of Venezuela.

April 13, 2006 -- As U.S. and NATO descend upon the Caribbean in two exercises -- Operation Tradewinds and Partnership for the Americas -- designed to intimidate populist and progressive governments and political movements in Latin America, particularly the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela, comes word from U.S. intelligence sources that U.S. Special Forces are training Guyanese rebels in Guyana for cross-border incursions into the eastern part of Venezuela. It is clear that with the arming and support of secessionist forces in Zulia state in western Venezuela, the Bush regime has decided to also foment problems in Venezuela's east. The Guyanese-Venezuelan border has a history of irredentist problems among the tribal peoples who live in the region. U.S. missionaries tied to U.S. intelligence activities have been active among Amerindian tribal peoples of Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana, especially those living in the border regions of Venezuela. It now appears that President Hugo Chavez was correct when he accused U.S. missionaries, particularly the New Tribes Mission, of being linked to the CIA. Suspiciously, New Tribes Mission is based in Jeb Bush's Florida, which has become a newly invigorated base for CIA-funded right-wing Cuban, Venezuelan, Bolivian, and other Latin American paramilitaries and terrorist groups.

The camouflaged armed bands on the Guyanese-Venezuelan border are not tropical bird watchers. They represent the "Eastern Front" of the Bush regime against Hugo Chavez. The Zulia state secessionists are key players in the "Western Front."

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Don't Attack Iran By Cindy Sheehan

Fresh from a resounding victory in Iraq, George Bush swaggered onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and boldly and confidently declared victory. It was a pretty war, it was a clean war, it looked stunning in all of its shock and awe. Wow, never was there such a swift and amazing American victory and it all looked so damn glamorous on CNN!

As fake as his codpiece was, so was his "cakewalk" of an invasion. Over 2000 thousand dead soldiers, billions of wasted dollars, thousands of maimed young people, innocent Iraqis dead by the hundreds of thousands, still no consistent electricity or clean water in their country, later, and this swaggering imbecile of a "leaker in chief" has the nerve to be trying to sell all of us on a new war in Iran.

Do the warped neocons with their puppet president think that we are all stupid? Fool us once, shame on us, fool us,—well, we just can't be fooled again.

"But our objective is to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon," GWB, on Iran, 04/10/06 at Johns Hopkins University. So, let me get this straight, in order to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear, or "nucular" weapons, we will use tactical nuclear weapons on them! The continued hypocrisy of this regime is absolutely breathtaking!

Even having nuclear weapons is crazy, but talking about deploying them is sheer insanity. Retired General, Anthony Zinni said on CNN today that Iran would not just sit back and do nothing if attacked: they have the means and the capability to retaliate. Our young people in Iraq would be sitting ducks along with Israel and our supply of natural gas and oil could be greatly compromised. I have an even scarier reason: I, and others, believe that using tactical nukes in Iran could start WWIII or IV. With all of the "Left Behind" religious fanatics praying for Armageddon, this thought is made even scarier by the fake believers in the White House who are exploiting the neo-Christian idea that Jesus was a war monger and anything our great leader does is okay, because he is a Christian man!

By putting the focus on nuclear strikes we are also forgetting the appalling destructive power that conventional weapons wield. We must not even, for one moment, contemplate a conventional invasion in Iran either. No matter how George Bush lies about how rosy things are in Iraq, they aren't, and Iraq is proof that war of any kind is a horribly tragic way to solve problems.

We must not believe BushCo or anything they say about Iran. He has lied through his teeth so many times before: From WMD and terrorism in Iraq to the fact that no one could "anticipate" the levees breaking in New Orleans. He was the leaker of the documents that outed Valerie Plame, while he promised us that the leaker would be punished. We must not allow him to frighten us into this one.

The doctrine of preemptive war is an abominable doctrine, especially when we have such a vacuum of leadership in this country that rubberstamps any maniacal thing that this president wants to do. We cannot allow our leaders to destroy the world by jousting with windmills that are no threat to our safety, or our way of life.

We must elect leaders that will get at the root causes of terrorism and not pretend that every terrorist can ever be killed to satisfy some kind of primeval bloodlust that flows through the war machine's veins. When our leaders go terrorist hunting, they kill innocent men, women and children and they, themselves, become the very thing that they are trying to teach us to loathe.

Please go to Don't Attack Iran and sign the petition to our "fearless with other people's lives" leaders and tell them that you do not support an attack on Iran. We members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Code Pink Women for Peace, Traprock Peace Center, AfterDowningStreet.org, Democract.com, Progressive Democrats of America, The Velvet Revolution, and Global Exchange urge you to sign the petition prohibiting our leaders from committing more war crimes and crimes against humanity in our names. We must loudly repudiate the crimes lest we be accused of them also.

We cannot allow an attack on Iran. We must restore sanity to our country if it's not too late already.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=628

On the eve of destruction

During the early 80s Steve Martin joked, "I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was--an Arctic region covered with ice." Ronald Ray-gun may have failed to realize the goal of utterly decimating the planet, but his vice president's son may do just that.

Back when Democrats had spine they warned about giving conservative nutjobs like Barry Goldwater access to the nuclear launch button. But Dems have been neutered and no one is sounding the alarm.

Except for bloggers like Billmon. There is a must-read Billmon blog entry about the threat of a "nucular" strike by the Cheney-Bush Oil Junta against Iran. The malaise that has engulfed the United States makes this possible for three key reasons that Billmon points out.

First, the media is asleep:

Idiots, of course, don't need a reason to be idiots. But to the extent there is a rational excuse for treating a nuclear strike on Iran as the journalistic equivalent of a seasonal story about people getting their cars washed, it must be the cynical conviction that the Cheneyites aren’t serious -- they're just doing their little Gen. Jack Ripper impression to let the Iranians know they really mean business.

This may seem plausible – that is, if you were in a catatonic stupor throughout 2002 and the early months of 2003 (which is just another way of saying: if you were a member in good standing of the corporate media elite.) But the rest of us have learned that when Dick Cheney starts muttering about precious bodily fluids, you better take him seriously. He really does mean business, and when Dick Cheney means business, people are likely to start dying in large numbers.

Second, it would be good domestic press for the junta, and good TV for corporate media whores:

Let's be honest about it: For both the corporate and the conservative media, as well as for their audiences, a air campaign against Iran would make for great TV -- a welcome return to the good old days of Desert Storm and Shock and Awe. All those jets soaring off into the desert twilight; the overexposed glare of cruise missiles streaking from their launch ships; the video game shots of exploding aircraft hangers and government buildings, the anti-aircraft tracers arcing into the night sky over Tehran -- it would be war just the way we like it, far removed from the dull brown dust, raw sewage and multiple amputees of the Iraqi quagmire.

Third, we are already ruled by war criminals, there is no evidence that they have been rehabilitated in the slightest, and all who point out these facts are marginalized:

We’ve already seen a lengthy list of war crimes and dictatorial power grabs sink into that electronic compost heap: the WMD disinformation campaign, Abu Ghraib, the torture memos, the de facto repeal of the 4th amendment. Again, why should a nuclear strike be any different? I can easily imagine the same rabid talk show hosts spouting the same jingoistic hate speech, the same bow-tied conservative pundits offering the same recycled talking points, and the same timid Beltway liberals complaining that while nuking Iran was the right thing to do, the White House went about it the wrong way. And I can already hear the same media critics chiding those of us in left Blogostan for blowing the whole thing out of proportion. It’s just a little bunker buster, after all.

Please, somebody! anybody!! stop these people!!!

posted by Boiling Mad at Wednesday, April 12, 2006
http://boilingmad.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-eve-of-destruction.html

Cocaína No, Coca Sí

AlterNet
Cocaína No, Coca Sí
By Chellis Glendinning, AlterNet
Posted on April 12, 2006, Printed on April 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34525/

Cocaine cuts close to the bone here in New Mexico. An addict lives on either side of me. To the south, it's the angry Chicano whose proclivities run to shooting off guns and starting fires that require three fire departments to quell; to the north, it's the waif of a blonde whose high school graduation may have been awaited with joy, but who, in the presence of the white temptation, deteriorated into confusion, loss of a job and ill health.

So when Tom Hayden suggested I travel to Bolivia for el transmito del mando of the coca farmer Evo Morales to the presidency of that country -- one of the top Latin American growers of the plant used in the production of the narcotic cocaína -- I slapped a few Levi shirts into my maletita and waited for the departure date.

To the average U.S. observer, Morales' campaign platform might have appeared odd, even contradictory. It included halting sales of the coca leaf to the burgeoning narco business, which anyone who has seen the “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” TV ads could go for. But it also called for stopping U.S.-backed eradication of coca fields and the legitimization of the plant as the ancient sacred herb that it is.

Hayden's idea was in line with Morales' thinking. He wanted us to gather information and make contacts in Bolivia so that, upon return, we might launch a campaign to legalize sale of coca inside the United States. Mi compañero de viaje was jazzed by the potential medical application of the herb for heart and diabetes patients.

He himself, a heart attack survivor, had experienced its remarkable effects when, with leaves chocked into his cheek on a previous visit, his normal huffing and puffing had been miraculously replaced by an energetic mounting of the cobblestone streets of La Paz. His strategy was to put the herb through FDA hoops and make it a legal prescription drug for medical distribution.

I began to contemplate possible economic effects. The narcotraficantes are grossly in evidence in Colombia, Perú, Ecuador and Bolivia, where by military might and political manipulation they control the Andes' No. 1 commodity product: la coca, which is processed in laboratories for international distribution as cocaine. In some instances, the cartels kidnap farmers, sequestering them in wooden cages at night, forcing them to shout Wal-Mart-style pep chants and work the fields in double shifts. In others, village growers simply find it more remunerative to sell coca to drug dealers than to market pineapples at the local mercado. In still others, the crops are taxed, either by narcotraficantes themselves or by political groups amassing resources for military campaigns.

A thought -- which popped into my head not full-blown and solid as, let's face it, narcos are not ones to put up with competition -- was that a legitimate, collective-run venue for growers could provide uninterrupted income while upsetting the base of the illegal drug trade, a task that has thus far eluded every local, governmental and international effort ever attempted.

Sacred plant

La coca is the sacred plant of Bolivia, with 82 different species grown in the tropical Chapare, in the forests of Santa Cruz and on the altiplano of the Yungas de La Paz.

Why is it considered a "sacred” plant? The people value it above all else; they believe that its existence, like that of spirit, infuses every facet of life. When a couple marries, they plant a coca field; as their children grow, so the field matures, providing for all; when the children leave home, the field has passed its peak, producing now only for two. Coca is the gift that binds all social relations. It is the healer of humankind's ills. It is used to give thanks, to predict fortunes, to celebrate the season, to solidify the community, to experience the primeval space-time continuum of the gods.

And it has remarkable nutritional and medicinal attributes. Chock-full of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, it is reported to relax, invigorate and give strength. Hundreds of biological and medical studies propose it can aid digestion, combat arthritis, balance blood sugar, impede fungal and bacterial growth, heal ulcers, boost the immune system, augment oxygenation, act as a sedative, and -- of particular interest to Tom -- facilitate circulation and restore the cardiac muscle.

Coke. Snow. Flake. Blow. Tornado

Cocaine is a whole other story. Extracted as a lone alkaloid from a potpourri of nutrients in the coca plant, then processed with forty-some chemicals, including ether, acetone and methyl ketone -- it is a deadly drug. Snorted, injected or smoked, the white powder jacks the nervous system into a frenzy of extreme excitement, just as it interrupts the passage of nerve impulses, causing inhibition of pain sensations and failure of judgment.

And it is horrifically addictive. When laboratory rats are offered an endless supply of heroin, they ingest it constantly but also take time to eat and sleep; when they’re given an unending cache of cocaine, they do nothing but consume it. Complications can include heart attacks, respiratory failure, strokes, seizures and paranoid psychosis. According to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, over 48 million Americans have used cocaine. Read: one in six. That's a lot of people. The business is bigger than that of McDonald's, Microsoft and Kellogg's rolled into one: $92 billion a year.

It can be no surprise that the kind of people running it are of the no-bullshit variety, the kind with personal zoological gardens, personal body guards, personal hit men, personal telecommunications systems and personal techno-armies. To go up against them, the primary cocaine-consuming nation in the world -- the United States -- has likewise amassed techno-armies. Fighter jets. Black Hawk helicopters. Ground-to-ground missiles. Rocket launchers.

Since 2000 the "war on drugs" has laid out $7.5 billion to the Andes region, ostensibly to eradicate cartel-grown coca and opium fields. But, in fact, wanton spraying of toxic chemicals onto innocent coca farmers, their families, and the fields producing their daily food has predominated -- while the bulk of the money has been funneled toward military actions aimed at securing Latin America's oil, natural gas, water, gold, etc., for unfettered corporate exploitation.

Talking revolution

People in Bolivia talk politics. Well, truth be told, they talk revolution. This is a place where both classical and current colonization have taken brutish forms: genocide, slavery, resource robbery, military juntas -- and almost every family has a member who has been arrested, tortured and/or desaparecido. Bolivia has endured 192 changes of government in 178 years of existence as a republic, 100 of them by revolution.

Consider what this means: You have to keep up.

The waiter at my hotel in La Paz, a supporter of Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), brightens at the thought I have come all this way for the inauguration -- and our mutual enthusiasm for conversation, as he serves mangos and trucha a lo macho, revolves around la liberación of his country.

A 20-year-old cab driver tells me that Evo is like a loaf of bread fresh from the oven: We'll find out how he tastes. In a village west of Cochabamba, a doctor lays out the shape of the new Latin America. Venezuela's president is socialist Hugo Chavez. Chile has just elected former torture victim and single mother Michelle Bachelet. Left-of-center Néstor Kirchner heads Argentina, while Luiz "Lulu" da Silva is president of Brazil. Uruguay's Tabaré Vazquez's initial act is to open diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Inauguration day

22 Enero. Plaza de los Héroes.

Thousands of people are overflowing the heart of La Paz where large gatherings have historically taken the form of pitched battles against the military. This is something different. The official state inauguration is taking place several blocks away in the Congress. The presidents of Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Panama, Peru, Brazil and Paraguay are in attendance, and out here uncountable crowds are awaiting the arrival of their new leaders.

Smiling Aymara women in felt bowler hats. The street kids rehabilitated by El Teatro Trono atop stilts made of scrapwood, gyrating to the thunder of homemade drums. Quecha women in their flat-topped straw monteras. Miss Bolivia Universo. Bigger-than-life flying eagle puppets. Dance groups in feather headdresses. Bolivia's glorious trícolor, impressive blue MAS banners, the emblematic multicolored wiphala flags -- all flapping like foam caps atop a sea of humanity.

Rather than one mass leaning, lunging, looking toward one stage as would be done in the United States, the crowd organizes itself into circles resembling village clans. I am jammed into one, and an infant wrapped in a shawl grasps to hold my finger. An Aymara woman admires the artistry of the poncho I am wearing with a gold-toothed grin. To the emphatic toots of zampoña music, a cholito in red helmet hat dances with an African-American girl in dreadlocks, a willowy blond boy spins a laughing indígena. A serpent of miners in hardhats presses through, and every now and again the crowd lets roar a mass chant: "!EVO! !EVO! !EVO!"

It is 5 o'clock. Many have been waiting for Morales' appearance for six hours. Suddenly the distinguished Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano steps onto the stage and, with his gravely poetic voice, announces that Evo's presidency marks the death of la dictadura del miedo (the dictatorship of fear).

Next comes the handsome vicepresidente Álvaro García Linera. At last Evo steps to the microphone. The crowd stills. The coca farmer now festooned in the national medallion of liberator Simón Bolívar pledges obedience to the people and unprecedented striving for justice. The sky opens to its seasonal downpour, and thousands of people are drenched in hope.

Tears of Evo

One memorable thing about Morales is that, on both occasions of receiving his mandate -- the spiritual transmission at the sacred site Tiwanaku, for which he prepared with rituals of purification, and the official inauguration in Congress -- he burst into tears.

The 46-year-old Evo Morales Aima was born Aymara and poor in the department of Oruro. During a drought in 1983, his family was forced to move to the tropical Chapare to survive by coca farming. Before making his way through the ranks of local unions there, finally emerging as the president of El Comité de Coordinación de las Seis Federaciones, he had worked as a baker, a brick layer, a farmworker, a trumpet player and a soldier. In the mid-1990s he rose to lead MAS and, along the way, harshly derided the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas as "an agreement to legalize the colonization of the Americas"; be thrown in jail for standing up for the cocaleros; and proclaim ”Cocaína no, coca sí,”"(Cocaine no, coca yes), with emphasis on solving the cocaine problem not at the campesino end, but at the consumption end.

Morales is known for two distinguishing characteristics: (1) his Beatle-like, bowl-cut hairdo (read: he's an indígena through and through); and (2) the ratty old red and blue alpaca sweater he would not take off during his world tour to meet the leaders of China, Spain and France (read: he doesn't compromise).

Because Morales is romantically unattached -- and now asserts that, by vote of the people, he is married to Bolivia -- la primera dama is his sister, Esther Morales Aima. She is a 54-year-old vegetable vendor.

Morales' politics are touted to be an unfolding of socialista and indígena. The MAS platform has 10 points, which include the nationalization of resources (read: profits go to the country, not to multinational corporations); decentralization of decision making back to the pueblos indígenas, municipalities and regions; eradication of rampant government corruption; the creation of a national health system and, for our purposes, decriminalization of traditional coca growing; routing out the narcotraficantes; and the return of land to the campesinos who work it.

At Tiwanaku, in reference to Che Guevara, who was executed in Bolivia in 1967 at the hands of the military and the CIA, Morales proclaims, "La lucha que dejó Che Guevara, vamos a cumplir nosotros" (We will finish the fight Che Guevara began).

In the garden of the activists

I arrive in the village of Totorcahua craving a good night's sleep. I get it on a three-acre piece of permacultured paradise. The German-Bolivian doctor José Carlos Ramirez Voltaire, veteran of Physicians for Social Responsibility International, is my host, and I am sharing the walled gardens of lime, lemon, plantain, comfrey, carrots and nasturtium with Bolivian activist Malena Vida, Spanish healer Ignacio Ballesteros and Quecha gardener Irgidio Torres.

The fact that they are activists working for worldwide legalization -- or, at least, removal from the United Nations’ controlled substances list -- is sheer synchronicity. What it means is I am privy to almost nonstop discussion on the meaning of coca and the means by which it might overcome the taint it suffers from its unfortunate association with cocaine.

The first guest to a political meeting on coca filters through the plantain leaves to the house around 4 o'clock. He is Guido Capcha whose dedication is finding health care for the villagers in the Chapare. Next comes Gabriel Yawar Nina dressed in disheveled khaki jungle gear, a camera artisan who brings his photo creations of indígenas printed on brown-bag paper. He is accompanied by writer-activist Malena Tuta Larama. Carmen Cárdenas, along with Grober and Alexia Loredo from Teatro Trono, arrives toting a suitcase full of colorful puppets. The painter Valentina Campos carries her two-month-old in a red and pink shawl. While José, Ignacio and Malena are laying out cheese and cakes, Appalachian folksinger Ricardo Jack Herrenan picks a tune he has written linking the struggles of coal miners in West Virginia with that of gold and silver miners in Bolivia's Potosí.

We talk politics. There are as many years of movement sweat under the bougainvillea as there are years since the arrival of Cristobál Colón. We are talking about a possible worldwide campaign to legalize coca. A major theme is la liberación de los pueblos. Another is the holism that is second nature to communities not yet totally wrenched from the land: coca is not separate from people, family, ancestors, nutrition, music, art or spirituality. La coca es sagrada, as is so often said, and everyone's cheeks are bulging with leaves meshed with the characteristic bolus of licorice that glues it all together.

Then Juan Carlos Escalera, the dedicated agronomist in the corduroy beret, puts it to me eyeball to eyeball. How can coca be forged into a product separate from origins, place and traditions? Wouldn't the demand from worldwide consumers transform its historic small-scale village production into technology-based corporate agribusiness? And wouldn't such an endeavor signal yet another assault on Bolivia's waning biodiversity?

Just that morning, while downing our daily mate de coca, jam and bread, José has expounded yet again on the possibilities of coca despenalización, and a question has niggled its way into my mind. Wait a minute -- it flies in like a bird seeking a nest -- we're talking about the creation of ... a global commodity. A beneficent global commodity, perhaps, but a global commodity nonetheless -- complete with its potential for wrenching community from tradition, entry into the wage economy, devolution to mass transportation and telecommunications technologies, imposition of economic inequities and individualism, etc.

I answer Juan Carlos eyeball to eyeball, relaying my own progression of thought. I begin by describing mi compañero's desire to legalize coca and put it through FDA standards to make it available to U.S. heart and diabetes patients. I hear a collective gasp of anguish and witness a row of black-haired heads drop into despairing hands.

I move on to describe my conversion to the softer notion of coca sold in U.S. health food stores like yerba mate or chamomile. The same gasp erupts, the same dropping of heads. Last I tell of the thought that has entered my mind just that morning: Selling coca in mass quantities could signify entry into the global economy with perilous consequences for people, culture and the natural world. There is no gasp and no dropping of heads.

The plant stays

Juan Carlos escorts Jack and me to the farming village of El Paso. Its claim to fame is chicha, a homemade corn drink akin to moonshine, and the chicherría is a cavernous adobe barn with chickens and roosters strutting freely among the tables.

We take our first round of chicha from a dried gourd cup, making sure to offer the first sip to Pachamama who, in this case, appears as the earthen floor of the barn. Juan Carlos launches into a lecture on Bolivia's ecological cosmology. Illustrating his thoughts on a piece of blue-lined paper, he overlays a ladderlike configuration depicting the four altitude zones over a birds-eye view of the country.

His drawing becomes ever more elaborate, like a labyrinth, as he adds seasonal charts revealing farming and festival schedules; statistics on loss of biological diversity since 1930; etchings of sun, land and people. We are into our third round of chicha, a black cow is ruminating at the barn door, and Juan Carlos and Jack are simultaneously putting away the coca. Juan Carlos' conclusion is as simple and complicated as a leaf.

"La planta no sale fuera" (The plant doesn't leave here), he states. It is dusk. Against the darkening valley splayed out beneath the Cordillera Cochabamba, I have clarity. It all comes down to a politic of la soberanía. Respect for other peoples' self-determination implies that my business stops at the boundary where theirs begins; it does not extend inside another's territory, community, body or psyche.

That understood, there can only be two possible responses on my part. The first is to take responsibility for what my own government is doing to Bolivia: to stop the military/political arm of the U.S. war on drugs. In the interest of not imposing a plan that I posit would be useful to me, my second task becomes respectful communication: to listen, learn and respond in cooperation.

Needless to say, the age-old question raises its tangled head. Who is the legitimate spokesperson for la soberanía? What if, in response to pressures to amass capital that press in on any government in a global economy, Morales himself negotiates a deal for mass coca production with a multinational pharmaceutical? Or a consortium of health food companies? Or even a group of left-leaning "free trade" collectives? Juan Carlos stares into me with those eyes.

He says nothing, and I suddenly laugh at my own doubt. "OK. I get it. The origin of sovereignty precedes government and always, always always resides with the people."

I return home to New Mexico -- as before, sandwiched between the vato and the sad blonde, whose lives are forever marked by a drug derived from leaves grown somewhere in the Andes, perhaps in the Bolivian Chapare. It is time: I, too, must work to finish the fight that Che Guevara began.

Diccionario

el transmito del mando: the inauguration; literally, the transfer of command
cocaína: cocaine, the narcotic
maletita: little suitcase
compañero de viaje: traveling partner
narcotraficantes: drug traffickers, cartels
altiplano: the high, temperate plateau of Bolivia
desaparecido: a "disappeared" or kidnapped person, possibly tortured and killed
trucha a lo macho: trout from Lake Titicaca served with garlic and onions
trícolor: national flag
wiphala: flag of MAS, representing all indigenous peoples of Bolivia
zampoña: a flute made of reeds strapped together
cholito: a term used to refer to an indigenous man
indígena: indigenous woman
cocaleros: coca farmers
la primera dama: the first lady
pueblos indígenas: indigenous peoples or communities
la liberación de los pueblos: the liberation of peoples or communities
sagrada: sacred
mate de coca: coca tea
despenalización: decriminalization
chicherría: neighborhood bar that serves chicha
la soberanía: sovereignty
vato: homeboy

Chellis Glendinning is the author of five books, including "Chiva: A Village Takes On the Global Heroin Trade." She is currently finishing an opera on the contemporary arrival of Mexican immigrants into the U.S., De Un Lado Al Otro, and beginning a book on coca in Bolivia.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34525/

US Frustration in Its Desire to Dominate Cuba

US Frustration in Its Desire to Dominate Cuba
By Roberto Perez Betancourt - AIN Special Service -

"It's one thing is to want and another is to be able," says an old proverb that Grandmother Nana recalled when mentioning US threats ever since that first day of January 1959, when the Revolution planted a new reality on the island.

She was one more of the hundreds of thousands of humble, illiterate people who recorded in their minds the injustices of the Spanish colonizers and the so-called "representative democracy" of that time.

I think of her when I look at Bush Plan, in effect since May 1, 2005, and which will be expanded next month with the objective of speeding the colonialist transition of a so-called "free Cuba". The interventionist policy envisions the sponsoring and financing of counter-revolutionary elements aiming to revert Cuban society to the days of a barbaric neo-colony; where exploitation by the US consortium, poverty, illiteracy, gambling, prostitution and drug-trafficking are rampant.

Washington does not hide its intentions and walks around with millions of dollars and influence which it will use to achieve its purpose. We can see the anxiety of the Bush administration, and also the inefficiency of its strategies - incapable of cutting down the resistance that the Cuban people have offered for so many years. Their struggle has been waged despite Washington's strengthening of its economic blockade against the island, restrictions against Cubans from traveling and the re-writing of the concept of family according to a neo-fascist interpretation in order to minimize monetary aid going to residents on the island. But after the plan went into effect, at the UN General Assembly in 2004 the international community overwhelmingly voted 179 to 3 in support of a Cuba resolution condemning Washington's blockade.

The following year, for the fourteenth consecutive time, the world reiterated its rejection of Washington's anti-Cuba policy. This time 182 nations supported Cuba, while only four voted against the resolution: the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau.

The response of the Cuban people during that period included a progressive increase in its annual GDP, the extension of health services to the neighborhood level, the implementation of an Energy Revolution on the basis of capital investments and a new savings plan, and the expansion of university education to 169 municipalities, just to mention a few social benefits for the public. Among the events which have contributed to the failure of the Bush Plan's objectives is Cuba's strengthening of commercial and financial ties with Venezuela, China and other countries and humanitarian aid offered by other nations. But we should not underestimate the damages caused by W. Bush's evil program, particularly the escalating of the economic war that has exacted damages estimated at some $82 billion.

Daily, the US administration dedicates its time to persecuting and fining those who travel to the island, imposing sanctions on banks and firms that trade with Cuba, and protecting terrorist in their criminal adventures, on which the government spends millions of taxpayers' dollars.

US actions add an increasing number of obstacles to the purchase of food and medicine and obstructs scientific, cultural, sports and academic exchanges as US authorities deny Americans and Cubans permission to travel between the two countries.

In this context, the arbitrary laws continue to do harm, just as the so called "Cuban Adjustment Act" encourages illegal migration. This motivates individuals to risk the currents of the Florida Straights with the promise of awarding anyone who reaches US soil residency --after having dared to overcome sharks, the coast guard and storms-- to become "political refugees."

After the Bush administration's unsuccessful realization of the plan's objectives, they have announced that new measures will be issued next month in an attempt to destabilize the island and destroy the Cuban people. But remembering Grandmother Nana, we must reiterate her proverb: "It's one thing is to want and another is to be able."

Cuba-Bolivia Open New Free Eye Care Center

Cuba-Bolivia Open New Eye Center

La Paz, Apr 10 (Prensa Latina) Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Felipe Pérez Roque returned to his country on Tuesday after a short visit to Bolivia to attend the opening ceremony of a new Operation Miracle center.

The Cuban minister concluded his full agenda by having breakfast with Bolivian President Evo Morales, with whom Perez Roque shared the opening of Villa Tunari Ophthalmologic center.

Perez Roque said that his presence at the opening ceremony shows Bolivia can count on Cuba and ratified the decision to collaborate with La Paz providing training and resources in the health field.

The Cuban official praised the opening of the health center, which is a result of the Cuban cooperation and in which 50 low income patients will be able to undergo free eye surgery daily.

Morales and Perez Roque also attended the closing ceremony of the Congress of the National Women Farmers Federation, which was held in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

The Bolivian statesman thanked the Cuban government and people for their solidarity and highlighted that more than 6,000 low income Bolivians have undergone eye surgery in Operation Miracle and that over 4,000 young Bolivians are currently studying in Cuba.

Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455 - A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists

April 11, 2006

Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455

A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists

By JOSÉ PERTIERRA

Last week in Miami, Luis Posada Carriles´s accomplice in the downing of the Cuban passenger plane that was blown out of the sky with 73 innocent people on board on October 6, 1976 was interviewed by Juan Manuel Cao of Channel 41 in Miami. His name is Orlando Bosch.

I quote verbatim excerpts from the television interview

Juan Manuel Cao: Did you down that plane in 1976?

Orlando Bosch: If I tell you that I was involved, I will be inculpating myself . . . . and if I tell you that did not participate in that action, you would say that I am lying. I am therefore not going to answer one thing or the other.

Juan Manuel Cao: In that action 76 persons were killed (the correct figure is 73, including a pregnant passenger)?

Orlando Bosch: No chico, in a war such as us cubans who love liberty wage against the tyrant, you have to down planes, you have to sink ships, you have to be prepared to attack anything that is within your reach.

Juan Manuel Cao: But don´t you feel a little bit for those who were killed there, for their families?

Orlando Bosch: . . . Who was on board that plane? Four members of the Communist Party, five north Koreans, five Guyanese, (JP: there were really 11 Guyanese passengers) . . . concho chico, four member of the Communist Party chico!!! Who was there? Our enemies . . .

Juan Manuel Cao: ¿And the fencers? The young people on board?

Orlando Bosch: I was in Caracas. I saw the young girls on television. There were six of them. After the end of the competition, the leader of the six dedicated their triumph to the tyrant etc etc. She gave a speech filled with praise for the tyrant. We had already agreed in Santo Domingo, that every one who comes from Cuba to glorify the tyrant had to run the same risks as those men and women that fight alongside the tyranny.

Juan Manuel Cao: If you ran into the family members who were killed in that plane, wouldn't you think it difficult . . . ?

Orlando Bosch: No, because in the end those who were there had to know that they were cooperating with the tyranny in Cuba.

Bosch´s answers to those five questions give us a glimpse into the mind of the kind of terrorist that the United States government harbors and protects in Miami: terrorists that for the last forty-seven years have waged a bloody and ruthless war against the Cuban people.

What happened to Cubana de Aviación 455 almost thirty years ago is no secret. We need simply examine the CIA's own declassified cables. At the time, this was the worst act of aviation terrorism in history, and the first time that a civilian airliner was blown up by terrorists.

More than three months before CU-455 was blown out of the sky over Barbados on that sunny Wednesday afternoon of October 6, 1976, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informed Washington that a Cuban exile extremist group planned to place a bomb on a Cubana de Aviación flight.

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research reported to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that a CIA source had overheard Luis Posada Carriles say less than a month prior to the bombing that "we are going hit a Cuban airliner."

Neither Washington nor the CIA alerted Cuban authorities to the terrorist threat against their planes.

The bombing was carried out by Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo. Final preparations for the terrorist act began with the arrival of Orlando Bosch in Caracas on September 8, 1976. Bosch is a Cuban-born terrorist who was the acknowledged leader of an organization called Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas (CORU).

According to the FBI, CORU was an umbrella group of Cuban exile organizations that was formed to "plan, finance and carry out terrorist operations and attacks against Cuba." (FBI cable dated June 29, 1976).

When Bosch arrived in Caracas on the 8th of September of that year, Posada Carriles was there to greet and make available to him his right hand man: trusted confidante Hernán Ricardo, who has admitted under oath to be a CIA operative. In 1976, Ricardo was also an employee of Luis Posada Carriles at a private intelligence firm that the latter founded and ran in Caracas: Investigaciones Comerciales e Industriales (ICI). Ricardo says that Posada Carriles introduced him to Orlando Bosch at the ICI offices in Caracas.

To help him with the special operation that Bosch and Posada planned for him, Ricardo in turn recruited Freddy Lugo. A Venezuelan citizen, Lugo has also admitted under oath to be a CIA operative.

We know that the foursome of Posada, Bosch, Ricardo and Lugo met together at least four times to plan the downing of the plan.

At the meetings, the terrorists agreed upon the coded words they would use to describe the success of the operation. The plane would be known as the "bus", and the passengers would be called the "dogs." "The rest is up to you," Posada told Lugo and Ricardo.

The C-4 explosives were carried on board the aircraft by Ricardo and Lugo in a tube of toothpaste and in a camera.

Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo boarded the CU-455 flight in Trinidad at 12:15 PM bound for Barbados. Ricardo traveled under a forged passport using a false name. They sat in the middle of the plane. During the flight, they placed the C-4 explosives in two separate places in the plane: the rear bathroom and underneath the seat belonging to Freddy Lugo. Lugo and Ricardo got off the plane during its brief stopover at Seawell Airport in Barbados. They later admitted under oath that they had each received special training in explosives from the CIA.

Aboard CU-455 were 73 persons. 57 of the passengers were Cubans. 11 of them were Guyanese medical students in Cuba. The remaining five passengers were Koreans. Those on board averaged only 30 years of age.

Traveling with the group were 24 members of the Cuban fencing team, many of them teen-agers, fresh from gold medal victories at the Youth Fencing Championship in Caracas. They proudly wore their gold medals on board the aircraft. One of the young fencers, Nancy Uranga, was only twenty-three years old and pregnant. She wasn't supposed to be on board. That spot on the fencing team belonged to a pretty little twelve-year old fencer, unusually tall for her age, named María González. María had planned to participate in the Caribbean Games, and was on the tarmac at Havana's José Martí Airport ready to board the plane that would take the team to the Games, when one of her coaches gave her the bad news that international amateur rules prevented twelve year olds from competing. María reportedly was devastated, and she went to her home in Havana's neighborhood called La Víbora, and cried for three days, refusing to watch the games on Cuban television because it hurt her so much not to be there. Nancy Uranga was summoned to the Airport and took María´s place on the ill fated trip to the Caribbean Games.

The fencing team was a roaring success at the Games. They won gold, silver and bronze medals. They were to return home on October 6, 1976. The athletes proudly wore their medals dangling over their clothes, as they boarded the aircraft. Cubana de Aviación 455 stopped first in Trinidad at 11:03 AM, and then touched down again in Barbados at 12:25 PM.

Nine minutes after take-off from Barbados, the bombs exploded and the plane caught fire. The passengers on board then lived the most horrifying ten minutes of their lives, as the plane turned into a scorching coffin.

The cockpit voice-recorder captured the last terrifying moments of the flight at 1:24 PM: "Seawell! Seawell! CU-455 Seawell. . . ! We have an explosion on board. . . . . We have a fire on board."

The pilot, Wilfredo Pérez (affectionately known as "Felo"), asked Seawell Airport for permission to return and land, but the plane and its passengers were already doomed.

As the plane approached the shore, it was rapidly losing altitude and control. "Hit the water, Felo, Hit the Water," said the co-pilot.

Rather than crashing into the white sands of the beach called Paradise and killing the beachgoers, Felo courageously banked the plane toward the water where it crashed in a ball of fire one mile north of Deep Water Bay.

Pieces of bodies were slowly recovered from the sea. Most of them too grotesquely disfigured to be identified by their family members. There were no survivors.

After deplaning, Lugo and Ricardo hurriedly left Seawell Airport in Barbados and checked into a local hotel under assumed names.

From the hotel, Hernán Ricardo called his bosses in Venezuela: Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Unable to find Posada at his desk, he left a message with Posada´s secretary. He then called Caracas again and asked a mutual friend, Marinés Vega, to deliver the following message to Posada:

"We are in a desperate situation, the bus was fully loaded with dogs . . . they should send someone I can recognize . . . I will be waiting in a soda fountain near the embassy just in case something happens and I need to ask for asylum there."

Ricardo was able to communicate with Bosch who allegedly said to him: "my friend we have a problem here in Caracas. An aircraft is never blown up in midair . . .", implying that the plan had been for the bomb to explode while the plane was on the ground before take-off.

Sensing how hot things were getting for them in Barbados, Lugo and Ricardo boarded a return flight to Trinidad on British West Indies Airlines that very evening. On the flight, Ricardo said to his buddy: "Damn it, Lugo, I'm desperate and feel like crying. I had never killed anyone before."

In Port of Spain, the terrorists checked into the Holiday Inn with false identities and made more desperate calls to Caracas, trying to reach Posada Carriles.

Their nervous demeanor at the airport and at the hotel, as well as their conversations in the taxis they took in Barbados and later in Trinidad, led the police to zero in on them as the primary suspects in the bombing. They were arrested and interrogated by detectives from the Trinidad police department.

Both confessed to Commissioner Dannis Ramdwar who took their written depositions. Lugo and Ricardo each admitted to being CIA operatives. Ricardo described in detail how he could detonate C-4 explosives and pointed to a pencil on Ramdwar´s desk that was similar to the timer he used to detonate the explosive on board the plane. Ricardo also told the police in Trinidad that he worked for Luis Posada Carriles. He told Ramdwar that the head of CORU was Orlando Bosch and drew for the police an organizational chart of CORU and said that the terrorist organization was also known as Condor.

Upon hearing of the confessions of Lugo and Ricardo, the police in Caracas moved in and arrested Posada and Bosch. They also obtained a warrant and searched the offices of Posada Carriles where they confiscated weapons and sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment. The police also found a schedule of Cubana flights in Posada´s Caracas office.

In one of the very first reports on the October 6, 1976, downing of Cubana Flight 455, the FBI Venezuelan bureau cables that a confidential source has identified Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch as responsible for the bombing. "The source all but admitted that Posada and Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline," according to the report.

During the television interview three days ago in Miami, Bosch talked about an agreement reached between terrorists in Santo Domingo in June of 1976.

The FBI itself tells us about that secret agreement. According to an FBI report, Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles and other terrorists formed an umbrella terrorist organization called CORU at a meeting in the Dominican Republic. The FBI report details how at that meeting in the Dominican Republic, CORU planned a series of bombing attacks against Cuban entities, as well as the murder of Communists in the Western Hemisphere. On page 6, the report relates in great detail how Orlando Bosch was met in Caracas on September 8, 1976, by Luis Posada and other anti-Castro exiles and a deal was struck as to what kind of activities he could organize on Venezuelan soil.

After the arrests of Lugo, Ricardo, Bosch and Posada, Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana and Cuba ceded jurisdiction over the downing of the passenger plane to Venezuela, and all four were prosecuted in Caracas for murder.

Prosecuting terrorists has a price. The Judge who issued the initial arrest warrants for the four terrorists, Delia Estava Moreno, received several death threats and attempts at blackmail as reprisals for her conduct. As a result, she was forced to recuse herself. The presiding judge of the military court, Retired General Elio Garcia Barrios, also received death threats and in 1983, his son and chauffeur were murdered during a Mafia-style hit intended to even the score and intimidate those who dared legally prosecute the murderers.

Eventually, Lugo and Ricardo were convicted, but before the Court could reach a verdict regarding his case, Luis Posada Carriles escaped from the prison at San Juan de los Moros in the State of Guárico where he had been confined after two unsuccessful escape attempts.

Posada escaped with the help of at least $50,000 from a right wing extremist group in Miami.

Fifteen days after his escape from jail, Posada was smuggled out of Venezuela bound for Aruba on a shrimp boat. He spent a week in Aruba and was then flown by private plane to Costa Rica and then San Salvador. He immediately started working alongside Felix Rodriguez, a high ranking CIA member, at the Ilopango Airbase. Posada´s job in San Salvador was to supply the Nicaraguan Contras with arms and supplies obtained through the sale of narcotics. This Operation became a scandal known as Iran-Contra. Felix Rodriguez was the CIA's point man in Central America for the Iran-Contra scandal, hired for the job by an old friend from the CIA Donald Gregg who was Vice-President Bush's National Security Advisor. According to Anna Louise Bardach who interviewed Posada while she was a reporter for the New York Times, "Posada noted with a certain pride that George Bush had headed the CIA from November 1975 to January 1977"-a period that covered some of the most violent crimes committed by Cuban exiles and Operation Condor: including the Letelier assassination and the downing of the passenger plane.

Posada spent the next several years in Central America working for the security services of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. But in the early 90s he turned his attention once again to Cuba which was struggle to jump start a tourist industry in order to offset a dramatic economic downturn after the demise of the Soviet Bloc. From his lair in Central America he recruited Salvadoran and Guatemalan mercenaries to smuggle explosives to Cuba, and in 1997 bombs began to blow in the finest hotels and restaurants of Havana-killing an Italian tourist named Fabio DiCelmo and wounding several others.

Cuba learned that the campaign of terror against its tourist industry was being financed by Miami exile organizations and orchestrated by Luis Posada Carriles in Central America. Faced with the FBI´s refusal to reign in the terrorists in Miami, Cuba sent some very brave men to penetrate these terrorist organizations and gather information with the purpose of asking President Clinton to intervene and order the Feds to arrest the terrorists.

After gathering enough evidence to determine the source of the terror campaign, on May 1, 1998 Fidel Castro sent a personal emissary to Washington with a handwritten message to President Clinton: the emissary was none other than Nobel Prize for Literature Gabriel García Márquez. President Clinton was out of town for several days in California, and after waiting him out at the Hotel Washington for several days, García Márquez finally met with White House Chief of Staff Mac McLarty and gave him the letter. García Márquez recounts McLarty´s reaction to the letter and quotes McLarty as saying to him: "We have enemies in common: terrorists".

In the wake of the Garcia Marquez visit, the U.S. sent an FBI team to Cuba a month later to discuss collaboration with Cuba on a "War On Terror". Cuba handed over to the FBI tapes of 14 telephone conversations of Luis Posada Carriles with details on the series of bombs that had exploded in Cuba in the 90s. Cuba also gave the FBI Luis Posada Carriles´ addresses in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama. Also tapes of conversations with Central American detainees in Cuba who admitted Posada is their boss. All together, Cuba turned over 60 sets of documents with information about 40 terrorists based in Miami, including their addresses, and evidence of their ties to terror.

Cuba then waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Cuba waited for the FBI to start arresting terrorists. But instead the FBI arrested on September 12, 1998, the men now known as the Cuban Five: the men who had come to Miami to penetrate the Miami exile terrorist organizations.

According to El Nuevo Herald, the first persons that were notified of the arrests of the Cuban Five were Cong. Lincoln Diaz Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami.

The Five were charged with 62 counts of violating federal laws. Their arrests illustrates Washington's double standard when it comes to its so-called war on terror: a war that the U.S. government chooses to fight a la carte, distinguishing between terrorists it likes and those it doesn't.

The Five were placed in solitary confinement for the next 17 months, until the start of their trial. They were convicted of several charges and received the maximum sentences possible. Gerardo Hernandez received a double life sentence and Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labañino on life sentence each. Fernando Gonzalez and René Gonzalez, got 19 and 15 years respectively.

They were sent to maximum security prisons across this country, and two of them have been denied visits from their wives for the past seven years in violation of U.S. laws and international law.

On August 9, 2005, a 3 judge panel of the Court of Appeals published a 93 page decision that reversed the convictions and sentences, ruling that the Five did not receive a fair trial in Miami and acknowledging evidence produced by the defense at trial that revealed terrorist actions by Miami exile groups against Cuba. The Court of Appeals even cited in a footnote the role of Luis Posada Carriles and correctly referred to him as a terrorist. The tree-judge panel found that "a perfect storm" of prejudice prevented the Cuban Five from having a fair trial in Miami.

The Bush Administration, through its Solicitor General, made a formal appeal to all 12 judges of the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and out of apparent deference to the unusual request from the Department of Justice the Court of Appeals nullified the three-judge panel decision and agreed to hear the case en banc.

Attorney Leonard Weinglass who represents Antonio Guerrero said recently: "The Five were not prosecuted because they violated American law, but because their work exposed those who were. By infiltrating the terror network that is allowed to exist in Florida they demonstrated the hypocrisy of America's claimed opposition to terrorism."

As the Five were being prosecuted in Miami, the campaign of terror against Cuba continued. In November 2000, Posada Carriles was arrested in Panama along with three accomplices before they could carry out the plan to blow up an auditorium filled with students at the University of Panamá where Cuban President Fidel Castro was to speak. The four were convicted by a Panamanian Court, but on August 26, 2004, in one of her last acts as President, Mireya Moscoso pardons them in violation of Panamanian law. The three accomplices, all Cuban-Americans, go to Miami to be welcomed home. Posada Carriles who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident, goes underground in Honduras and begins to scheme a plan to go to the home of terrorism: Miami.

In March of 2005 he shows up in Miami and applies for asylum. For weeks he lives openly in that city, even going shopping at the mall. Before he is detained by anyone, Venezuela requests his preventive detention for the purpose of extraditing him to Venezuela to stand trial for 73 counts of first degree murder relating to the downing of the passenger plane in 1976.

Rather than exercising an extradition detainer on him, the Department of Homeland Security instead did nothing. It wasn't until Posada called a bizarre press conference in Miami on May 16, 2005 where he openly boasted that the DHS wasn't even looking for him, that government officials felt they had no choice but to detain him. He was detained immediately after the press conference and gingerly escorted in a golf cart with no handcuffs to a waiting helicopter.

Posada was charged with illegal entry into the United States and thus began the legal charade designed to divert attention from the extradition request that remains unattended by the Department of Justice.

As relief from deportation, Posada first claimed he was still a permanent resident of the U.S. In the alternative, he asked for asylum and protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Although it is true that he had been a permanent resident in the 60s, Posada long ago abandoned that status. After all, he has spent the last almost forty years living and killing abroad. Because of his long curriculum of terror, as a matter of law he does not qualify for asylum. That left him only with the possibility CAT relief.

It was then that we witnessed one of the sorriest episodes of legal maneuvering ever by Department of Homeland Security attorneys. Those handling the immigration matter of Posada Carriles at the Immigration Court in El Paso, Texas set the table for Posada to win CAT relief.

Posada called only one witness in his immigration case. A so-called expert on Venezuela who testified that in his expert opinion, Posada would be tortured if returned to Caracas. The witness testified that Venezuela tortures prisoners and that Posada would be surely tortured if sent back. That witness was none other than Joaquín Chaffardet, friend, business partner and lawyer of Luis Posada Carriles in Venezuela. Chaffardet had also been Posada´s boss at the DISIP in the early 1970s, a man that Posada has been close to for the past forty years. The DHS never even cross-examined this guy! Its attorney never even raised the possibility that Chaffardet was not an objective, disinterested witness-but instead was biased in favor of his friend, partner and client. Other than Chaffardet´s questionable testimony, no other evidence in support of the theory that Posada would be tortured in Venezuela was presented.

DHS´s tactic worked. Immigration Judge William Abbott credited Chaffardet´s testimony as credible and found a "clear probability" that Posada would be tortured if returned to Venezuela. Judge Abbott ordered his removal from the United States, but not to Venezuela or Cuba because he would be tortured there. DHS declined to appeal the decision, and began a quest to find a third country that would take him. A few months earlier the DHS had appealed an Immigration Judge´s decision to grant CAT relief to two Venezuelan officers. In that appeal, the same DHS attorney who litigated the Posada case argued that there is no evidence that Venezuela tortures prisoners. Now in the Posada case, DHS took a decidedly different position. Why? You figure it out.

More than six months have passed since the immigration decision. Since it has thus far refused to slap an extradition detainer on him (as Venezuela has requested numerous times), the U.S. government has to either release Posada or declare him a threat to the community. In a letter to Posada dated March 22, 2006, DHS decided to continue to detain him on immigration charges. The letter told Posada that he has a "long history of criminal activity and violence in which innocent civilians were killed." His release from detention concludes ICE in its letter to Posada, "would pose a danger to both the community and the national security of the United States."

In support of its interim decision to continue to detain him, ICE cites Venezuela's pending extradition case against Posada and the fact that Posada fled from a Venezuelan prison while his trial for the downing of a passenger plane in 1976 was pending. "Your past also includes your escape from a Venezuelan prison which was accomplished after several attempts utilizing threats of force, explosives and subterfuge," says ICE in its Decision.

ICE goes on to cite Posada's own statements to link him to the "planning and coordination of a series of hotel and restaurant bombings that occurred in Cuba . . . in 1997." These bombings resulted in the murder of an Italian tourist and the wounding of several others. ICE also cites Posada's conviction in Panama for "crimes against national security," in reference to his attempt to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000 with C- 4 explosives as President Castro was to speak to an auditorium with full of students.

So finally the US government recognizes that Posada is a bad guy! Without actually saying the dreaded word, the letter from ICE virtually calls him a terrorist. The law forced the United States to make this admission. Although it's clear that Washington doesn't want to extradite him to Venezuela, it is not prudent to release him. The only way that he can continue to be detained without an extradition detainer is with a government finding that he is a danger to the community.

But the extradition case is not going to go away. It's there, very much alive. Unless Posada has a heart attack and dies in prison, the law is eventually going to force the US government to proceed with the extradition case. A lot of people think that Judge Abbott´s finding that Posada may not be deported to Venezuela is a ruling on Venezuela's extradition request. That is not the case. Extradition rulings trump immigration decisions.

Moreover, even if Secretary of State Rice decides in her discretion not to extradite Posada, the treaties and conventions signed by the US government in the past obligate this country to prosecute him for downing of the plane in the United States-where noooooooooooo prisoners are ever tortured: right?

Listen to the language of the Montreal Convention on Civil Aviation.

Article 7

The Contracting State in the territory of which the alleged offender is found shall, if it does not extradite him, be obliged, without exception whatsoever and whether or not the offence was committed in its territory, to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution. Those authorities shall take their decision in the same manner as in the case of any ordinary offence of a serious nature under the law of that State.

The Montreal Convention´s Article 7 gives the US no discretion. It must either extradite or prosecute Posada Carriles for 73 counts of first degree murder in relation to the downing of the airliner. Deporting him to a third country is not an option and neither is releasing him to the community.

The story of CU-455 cries out to be told to the American people. If the American people hear the true story of how those 73 people were murdered in cold blood by terrorists whom the United States prefers to shelter rather than prosecute, they'll not stand for it.

Few people in this country know that Orlando Bosch was released from immigration custody by President George Bush Sr. in 1990, and that he now sits on the dais whenever President Bush Jr. delivers speeches in Miami. Bosch´s lawyer, who happens to be Fulgencio Batista´s grandson, was appointed four years ago by Jeb Bush to Florida's Supreme Court.

The fate of the Cuban Five is in the hands of 12 judges, but the judges must be put under the microscope of public opinion. Despite your best efforts, Americans still don´t know who the Five are or why they went to Miami. It's important that you continue to make sure that their story is told: that the U.S. prosecutes and condemns anti-terrorists, yet shelters and protects terrorists.

It's up to the American people to put a stop to impunity, and it's up to you to make sure the American people learn the truth about these cases and this government.

It's up to you to bring the truth to the American people about Cuba and about Venezuela.

The US government conducts a hypocritical war on terror, while it shelters and rewards the terrorists it prefers. Washington lectures other governments about human rights, while it blockades Cuba, using hunger as a foreign policy tool, in order to try and starve 11 million people into submission.

We cannot sit idly by while the U.S. government blockades and invades countries that have never attacked it, tortures prisoners and takes their pictures as if the victims were curiosity pieces rather than human beings, as it spies on Americans without a warrant, and tramples the civil rights of its citizens with a law whose authors dared title "Patriotic."

In 2002, Washington helped organize a failed coup against a democratically elected government in Venezuela in order to prop up a typical puppet government in Caracas. Thanks to the Venezuelan people, the coup failed and President Chávez was restored to office.

The blockade against Cuba didn't work and neither did the coup in Venezuela. Cuba and Venezuela are now stronger than ever.

The Bush Administration's policies at home and abroad have woken a sleeping and silent giant throughout this continent. And, yes: America is one continent and not two as some U.S. textbooks would have us believe.

We are in the midst of a new social movement that is shaking this continent to its core. On the 30th anniversary of Operation Condor's bloodiest year, we are witness that the people Latin America have taken back their countries from the grip of terror. Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile and Bolivia have governments that respond to the needs of their own people, rather than to the interests of US corporations. Other countries in will soon join them. This is an election year in America. The people of Latin America are taking back their governments.

It's high time that the people of the United States did the same.

José Pertierra is an attorney, practicing in Washington, D.C. He represents the Venezuelan government in the case of Luis Posada Carriles.

Keep on giving them hell, Harry.

From Black Commentator:
https://www.blackcommentator.com/168/168_bruces_beat.html

By some time in the late 1950s, before I was ten years old and without knowing what most of the words meant, I had memorized my child's version of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat" song along with a couple others on his Calypso album. As many times as I heard those songs, I am certain my parents wore out the vinyl. But mid-century electronics geek that my dad was, he pumped a lot of his favorite music through a suitcase-sized reel to reel tape recorder. Harry was in a lot of those mixes too.

Belafonte is a creative artist, an entrepreneur and public intellectual in the finest sense of those words, and a human rights activist of long standing. Like Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, Harry was a confidante of both Martin Luther King and of Malcolm X. That makes him one of the last surviving flesh and blood links to that piece of our histories, but Mr. Belafonte has always been about way more than showing up at the right place and time.

This year Belafonte led a fact finding delegation to Venezuela of more than a dozen U.S. activists and notables including Cornel West, Danny Glover of TransAfrica and Tavis Smiley during which he raised the ire of the corporate press back home.

For our money, Harry speaks for more African Americans on more issues than any of the black mayors we can think of. But in a time when the Wall Street Journal can blithely declare black public opinion illegitimate because most whites may not agree with it, nobody should be surprised by the corporate press's attempts to denigrate and dismiss Belafonte. Our reader email on the subject indicates that savvy BC readers are not surprised either.

Dear BC,

Harry Belafonte got it right when he announced, in company of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, that "George W. Bush is the greatest terrorist in the world." Wasn't it Martin Luther King that once said, "The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government?" Belafonte might have added that the president is a liar and "un criminal de guerre" - a war criminal as well.

The press pirates have denounced him as a "has been" and a traitor, bashing the USA. But when did criticizing government policy become anti-American? Just when did truth become treasonous, anyhow?

VF

Harry Belafonte is an esteemed elder, one of the tallest trees in the forest. Beside him, this president is a shrub. A bush.

Dear BC,

I'm a middle-aged working-poor white male (though I'm not necessarily without formal education, I live in Pittsburgh and vote across party lines).

I have paid attention to the multiple controversies over Belafonte's statements the past months. Via the Crooks 'n Liars web site I just viewed the recent Harry Belafonte/Wolf Blitzer interview on CNN - twice. Belafonte is absolutely correct in his basic points and observations, as far as I can tell. So, I googled "Harry Belafonte e-mail" to tell him what I think. Your site was near the top of the list. With a name like "Black Commentator" I thought I might be able to write to Belafonte through you.

You just keep going Harry. And thank you. You are reminding us of what America is really supposed to be about. I hope you continue to speak out, and hope you continue to get exposure in the corporate media. Your responses to Blitzer were unlike anything I see from the usual talking heads. Bravo! I agree. And if I do, others do too.
I hope he reads this.

We do too. And we hope Belafonte is around for many more years to come. Keep on giving them hell, Harry.

Hillary Clinton's Plantation

Criticizing the Bush administration in a black church on Martin Luther King Day is an easy way to get applause. The crowd is in the palm of the speaker's hand, eager to be inspired and filled with righteous indignation. New York's junior Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, found herself in just such a situation. She had an audience full of ardent supporters who feel a genuine affection for her and for her husband.

At Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem she described Republican one party rule as being akin to a plantation. Of course the right wing went into outrage overdrive. If they could just get over their Hillary hatred she would have little appeal, if any. When Trent Lott mused that she might be struck by lightning, Hillary's stock soared so much that she must have thanked God for Trent when she said her prayers at night.

Of course she is right about the Republicans. They love being the masters of this country and, they hope, of the entire world. For decades they have nursed fantasies of reconquest, waiting for the day when they could bring the nation back to the good old days when everyone knew their place.

Democrats behave the way oppressed people usually do. They cow and begin believing that their masters are not only powerful but deserving of the position they hold. Too few dream of waging war against the plantation system. Most just want a seat at the table in the big house and are satisfied when the master doesn't beat them too badly. If a few crumbs are thrown their way they are in seventh heaven.

Hillary's speech was not very impressive and neither is she, right wing blood lust not withstanding. She is just Mrs. Slick Willie. When she supports legislation to ban flag burning, legislation that she knows is unconstitutional, she insults the people who always rush to her defense. She and her husband play a tiresome game with Democrats. The right wing hate them so they get credit they don't deserve. They have concluded that they can get away with just about anything.

In the days after hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, Bill Clinton sucked up to the Bush family and declared that we shouldn't be too critical of them. Hillary now criticizes her yes vote on the war, sort of. Now she says she “takes responsibility" for her vote and complains that troops who are in Iraq because of her support don't have enough armor.

It is important to keep the triangulating, back pedaling and pandering in mind when tempted to be impressed by Hillary's King Day speechifying.

The week before King Day, Hillary showed her true colors. She and Harry Belafonte were both guests at a Children's Defense Fund luncheon. It is a gross understatement to say that she avoided Belafonte. If he were infected with leprosy and the first case of contagious avian flu she could not have stayed further away from him.

Belafonte had committed the unpardonable sin of speaking ill of the white and powerful when he quite correctly referred to Bush as a tyrant and a terrorist. The Senator went nowhere near his table, stayed at the event for only fifteen minutes and refused to comment on his presence or her failure to acknowledge it. She saw nothing wrong with the plantation system on that occasion.

Bill and Hillary are the masters of their own plantation. It is called the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC exists to make sure that anyone who dares to break free realizes their error and runs back to Tara before sundown.

The DLC has already turned the bright, charismatic Barack Obama into an apologist for the Bush administration:

“Let me say this - I don't think that George Bush is a bad man. I think he loves his country. I don't think this administration is full of stupid people - I think there are a lot of smart folks in there. The problem isn't that their philosophy isn't working the way it's supposed to - it's that it is. It's that it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do."

Yes, that is what life on the plantation will do to an otherwise intelligent mind. DLC talking points may make Obama sound like an idiot, but he isn't one. He knows the rules. Stick with the DLC, spew their bizarre mumbo jumbo, or give up any hope of political aspirations.

The DLC plantation has already chosen the Democratic presidential nominee for 2008 and it is none other than Hillary Clinton. The plantation system is so secure that it isn't risky to make a prediction two years ahead of time.

Just a few short weeks after hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast, Harry Belafonte had this to say at the Congressional Black Caucus annual conference. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were present:

"The most important wreckage to look at is the wreckage of the Democratic party. We must look through the ravages of the Democratic party to see if there is anything worth salvaging."

Thanks to the DLC and Bill and Hillary Clinton, Belafonte's worst fears have been realized. The Democrats have their own plantation and it may not be worth saving.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BC. Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. She can be reached via e-Mail at margaret.kimberley@blackcommentator.com. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at freedomrider.blogspot.com

https://www.blackcommentator.com/168/168_freedom_rider_clinton_plantation.html

Gangster Government -- A Leaky President Runs Afoul of "Little Rico" by Greg Palast

It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual, 'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you.

OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a bigger crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail.

Think about that. While Miller sat in a prison cell, Bush and Cheney were laughing their sick heads off, knowing the grand jury testimony, the special prosecutor's subpoenas and the FBI's terrorizing newsrooms were nothing but fake props in Bush's elaborate charade, Cheney's Big Con.

On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, "Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it."

Notice Bush's cleverly crafted words. He says he can't name anyone who leaked this "classified" info -- knowing full well he'd de-classified it. Far from letting Bush off the hook, it worsens the crime. For years, I worked as a government investigator and, let me tell you, Bush and Cheney withholding material information from the grand jury is a felony. Several felonies, actually: abuse of legal process, fraud, racketeering and, that old standby, obstruction of justice.

If you or I had manipulated the legal system this way, we'd be breaking rocks on a chain gang. We wouldn't even get a trial -- most judges would consider this a "fraud upon the court" and send us to the slammer in minutes using the bench's power to administer instant punishment for contempt of the judicial system.

Why'd they do it? The White House junta did the deed for the most evil of motives: to hoodwink the public during the 2004 election campaign, to pretend that evil anti-Bush elements were undermining the Republic, when it was the Bush element itself at the center of the conspiracy. (Notably, elections trickery also motivated Richard Nixon's "plumbers" to break into the Watergate, then the Democratic Party campaign headquarters.)

Let me draft the indictment for you as I would have were I still a government gumshoe:

"Perpetrator Lewis Libby (alias, 'Scooter') contacted Miller; while John Doe 1 contacted perpetrators' shill at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, in furtherance of a scheme directed by George Bush (alias 'The POTUS') and Dick Cheney (alias, 'The Veep') to release intelligence information fraudulently proffered as 'classified,' and thereinafter, knowingly withheld material evidence from a grand jury empanelled to investigate said disclosure. Furthermore, perpetrator 'The POTUS' made material statements designed to deceive investigators and knowingly misrepresent his state of knowledge of the facts."

Statements aimed at misleading grand jury investigators are hard-time offenses. It doesn't matter that Bush's too-clever little quip was made to the press and not under oath. I've cited press releases and comments in the New York Times in court as evidence of fraud. By not swearing to his disingenuous statement, Bush gets off the perjury hook, but he committed a crime nonetheless, "deliberate concealment."

Here's how the law works (and hopefully, it will). The Bush gang's use of the telephone in this con game constituted wire fraud. Furthermore, while presidents may leak ("declassify") intelligence information, they may not obstruct justice; that is, send a grand jury on a wild goose chase. Under the 'RICO' statute (named after the Edward G. Robinson movie mobster, 'Little Rico'), the combination of these crimes makes the Bush executive branch a "racketeering enterprise."

So, book'm, Dan-o. Time to read The POTUS and The Veep their rights.

After setting their bail (following the impeachments and removals, of course), a judge will have a more intriguing matter to address. The RICO law requires the Feds to seize all "ill-gotten gains" of a racketeering enterprise, even before trial. Usually we're talking fast cars and diamond bling. But in this case, the conspirators' purloined booty includes a stolen election and a fraudulently obtained authorization for war. I see no reason why a judge could not impound the 82d Airborne as "fruits of the fraud " -- lock, stock and gun barrels -- and bring the boys home.

And if justice is to be done we will will also have to run yellow tape across the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- "CRIME SCENE - DO NOT ENTER" -- and return the White House to its rightful owners, the American people, the victims of this gangster government.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Former racketeering investigator Greg Palast is author of "ARMED MADHOUSE: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War," to be released in June. Subscribe to our new podcast of these columns at http://www.gregpalast.com/gregpalastmedia.rss

"I am one of those from below and my idea is to govern with them and with everyone": • From Lima, presidential candidate Ollanta Humala

• "We shall respect foreign investment although it must meet certain requisites: the generation of employment – direct or indirect – the transfer of technology for the country, respect its fiscal obligations and protect the environment" • From Lima, presidential candidate Ollanta Humala talks to Granma International

MEDIUM height, an athletic constitution, close-cut black hair and a measured way of speaking characterize this man of 44, who spent 23 of those years in the Peruvian Army. When he was discharged, after an argument with his superiors for exposing shady dealings and fraud within the force, he was a commander and had been the chief of a military unit, in which he won the respect of officers, NCO’s and soldiers.

Now he is aspiring to the Peruvian presidency and his government program has provoked panic in the ranks of those who openly or from the wings control this immensely rich country but in which the majority of its 27 million inhabitants live in poverty or bordering on it.

Ollanta rejects labels: “I am a nationalist because I support my nation and my people. I am not a leftist or a rightist: I am one of those from below and I propose to govern with them – and with everyone.”

Granma International approached Ollante in a Lima hotel where he had met with the foreign press, eager to meet one of the most vilified men in Peruvian national history, but who is leading the opinion polls for the elections this April 9.

“I come from a family of bankrupted farmers who had to leave the country for the city in a desperate search for survival,” he affirms. “Agriculture, Peru’s principal economic and social base, has been remorselessly attacked. In many cases the huge latifundia conceded on false premises include entire villages of native peoples who have been inhumanly enslaved.”

A nationalist government will reactivate agriculture, will give value to the land, protect its cultivators, offer them financial credits, promote their cultural, scientific and technical development, create a sound agrarian sector, care for and develop sources of water and conditions so that rural people do not have to emigrate and live in slum conditions in the cities or cross the border in search of sustenance in other lands. Agriculture is the pillar of the country’s development,” he affirms, adding: “We shall begin by respecting the rights of the poorest.”

The nationalist candidate emphasizes the protection of the environment and adds: “We support the Kyoto Protocol and will give special attention to the precarious situation of the environment in line with the agreements and efforts of the United Nations.

“Education is another sector that demands particular attention from a nationalist government. The situation of 20,000 schools in the Altiplano region is tragic. We shall make an effort to give education to everyone, to eliminate illiteracy and guarantee the country’s present and future.

“I am going to construct the dignity of the people and their pride at being the owners of their country. The Peruvian people are the owners of their homeland: workers have the right to receive a decent wage that will allow them to maintain their families and with respect for the 8-hour working day, which has been criminally abolished,” he states.

Ollanta Humala advises that, through the country’s legal mechanisms, a nationalist government will carefully review all the concessions granted to national and foreign investors, will take action against corruption and oblige those who have been evading the payment of taxes to cover them.

“We will respect foreign investment although it must meet certain requisites: the generation of employment – direct or indirect – the transfer of technology to the country, respect for its fiscal obligations and protection of the environment.

“Those that meet these requisites are not going to have any problems,” stated the Peruvian nationalist candidate, adding: “We are going to consolidate democracy, affirm the institutions and reaffirm the concept of citizenship.

“I am against the neoliberal economic model. We want an economy at the service of the people and have a sense of solidarity with other Latin American countries that are trying to build a regional economic, social, energetic agenda and one that protects the environment, all in function of the well being of our peoples, without exception.”

In this context, Ollanta Humala notes: “I am not going to accept pressure from any country to discriminate against another country. We are not anti: we are pro, and we want good relations with all nations, including Chile and Ecuador, our neighbors, based on respect for our rights and theirs. We will have a politics of agreement and dialogue.

“The Peruvian people are sick of corruption, of seeing how the law is selectively applied, in favor of those who already have everything. Moreover,” he emphasizes, “there is currently a discrimination based on language. Many indigenous people do not speak Spanish and can see how their rights are being violated without even having the possibility of defending themselves, because their culture belongs to another of the seven languages spoken in the country.”

Incidents show that neo-cons fascists everywhere are desperate.

Incidents show that neo-cons everywhere are desperate. Upcoming elections around the world are pinning neo-cons against the wall and are heralding a return to democratic socialism and progressive populism, much to the anger and angst of international bankers, militarists, and reactionary Abrahamic tradition religious sects and movements. Tomorrow's election in Italy is a case in point. With neo-fascist Silvio Berlusconi trailing in the polls, he has resorted to accusing China's Mao of boiling babies to make fertilizer and called his Communist-Socialist opponents "coglioni," a vulgar term defined variably as prick, asshole, moron, and idiot.

U.S. ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield is spinning a Venezuelan vegetable, egg, and fruit protest pelting of his motorcade as some sort of terrorist attack. The U.S. State Department complained to Venezuela's ambassador in Washington that Venezuela was in violation of the international treaty on the protection if diplomats. Spinning an unfounded conspiracy theory (they are only conspiracy theories when the left-wing cites them), State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the incident in a poor Caracas neighborhood was condoned by the city's mayor, police, and local government. McCormack vowed that the United States will not be intimidated by such attacks of vegetables, fruit, and eggs on U.S. diplomatic vehicles. U.S. embassy spokesman Brian Penn bemoaned, ''Our car is stained all over . . . the motorcyclists were throwing things at us for at least 10 minutes, and the police did nothing." Penn did not indicate whether there were any funds left in the embassy's CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency slush funds used to foment insurrections, secessionist movement, coups, street protests, and election chicanery to afford a car wash for the ambassador's car.

Meanwhile, as Ollanta Humala, an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, looks set to capture Peru's presidency, the neo-con and corporate media are ringing "alarm bells" about the leftist surge in Latin America. And Washington's pro-corporate and militarist elite has turned up the heat on Humala, a populist former military officer who champions the rights of Peru's poor and native Americans, including coca farmers. Dennis Jett, Bill Clinton's ambassador to Lima from 1996 to 1999, said Humala is "just as wacky" as Chavez and Morales. Such rhetoric points to Jett, who was Clinton's ambassador to Mozambique, representing the "dark side" of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Leadership Council-aligned wing that is beholden to corporate special interests while at the same time appearing to oppose the Bush administration. In Mozambique, Clinton's ambassador was opposed to the socialist policies of the government and once banned embassy and USAID officials from speaking to a pro-Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) journalist. Jett was also found to be in collusion with right-wing rebel forces of RENAMO, the former apartheid South Africa-supported Mozambican guerrilla movement. All this subterfuge occurred under the so-called enlightened worldview leadership of Bill Clinton. The fact that the Democratic elite is resorting to the same name-calling as Berlusconi is an indication that recent mass pro-labor populist protests, strikes, and riots in France and the leftward sweep in Latin America will soon severely rip into the corporate interests of both the GOP and the elitist Democrats, along with their corporate financiers and entrenched neo-con policymakers.

In October, socialist Leon Roldos looks set to win Ecuador's presidency. If that occurs, Washington already previously placed an activist ambassador in Quito to turn up the heat on any incoming prospective socialist government in the oil-rich nation. Ecuador could end up as Latin America's second Venezuela, an oil-rich country opposed to Bush/neo-con hegemony. The most recent U.S. ambassador in Quito was Kristie Kenney, now posted to the coup-wracked Philippines where President Glorida Macapagal-Arroyo has been plagued by pro-Bush rebels within the Philippine military, and who is, conveniently, the wife of America's anti-Chavez provocateur ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield.

As the populist wave sweeps through Mexico and Nicaragua, where prospects look increasingly progressive and socialist, the real "coglioni" -- the neo-cons, free traders and international bankers, elitists of both U.S. duopolistic political parties, and religious fanatics will ultimately get their just rewards.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/