US Ambassador Expelled from Bolivia by Morales - Yet Another attack by the US on Democracy?

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2008/09/us-we-must-interfere-in-bolivian.html

The US Ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldburg is saying the US must intervene to back the right wing secessionist movement in Bolivia. He does not seem to have the same regard for Morales as his Georgian equivalent has for Saakashvili. Will the US send humanitarian aid to Morales government ?

Serious street disturbances were shown on Euronews today.

Quote :

Autonomy protests wrack Bolivia
Posted: 07:50 PM ET
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (CNN) — An insurrection against President Evo Morales in the eastern part of the country entered its second week Tuesday, with groups backed by local governors seizing control of government offices and airports and threatening to shut off a gas pipeline supplying Argentina and Brazil.

In Santa Cruz, mobs rampaged into the main telephone office, which had recently been nationalized, and took control of the internal revenue and agrarian reform offices in the town center. Government security forces were forced to retreat back to their barracks, some of them were beaten and had their weapons stolen and by evening control of the city center was firmly in the hands of demonstrators demanding autonomy.

The bulk of the army was busy ensuring gas continued to flow through the pipeline. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim has warned that if Morales fails to secure the pipeline, Brazil may have to open its own contacts with the eastern governors.

Morales, the nation’s first Indian president, was elected on promises to nationalize some industries and redistribute wealth to the largely impoverished Indian population. Last month, he won a new mandate in a referendum on his rule, but the eastern provinces voted overwhelmingly for autonomy in votes that Morales calls invalid.

Morales doesn't want to send troops in against the "Santa Cruz Youth Movement" that is wrecking government buildings including the land reform offices. If the elected Government is to survive he will need to organise his own supporters to defend it.Morales rural based supporters from the South are coming to La Paz to look for more action against the secessionists.

This anarchist's blog gives a very good detailed description of what has been happenening - but argues that Morales is the same as the right because he was democratically elected and has not dissolved the State forces. It seems that anything that looks like a street riot gets the OK from this anarchist's point of view, no matter who is being damaged by it.
http://hangingaroundonthewrongsideoftheworld.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/the-problem-of-bolivia-for-the-radical-left/

The blogger says that the last time Morales and Ruban Costas, the governor of Santa Cruz, met, Costas ripped up a cheque Morales was giving him in an official meeting and threw it in his face. He calls Morales a monkey.

As I've been writing this news has come in that Morales Government is expelling the US Ambassador. Perhaps Morales has been talking to to Chavez, whose government has come under similar attacks.

Yes the USA - the root of all evil in this world.

The Truth, of course, is only the truth if it comes from a leftwing blogger who has no constraints over the type of material they put out - like having to be objective, verify sources and be critical.

This getting quite tiresome now.

Interesting - autonomy is fine for Ossetia and Abcazia, but not for Santa Cruz it would seem.

I am very, very, tired of the US stirring up mayhem and violence the length and breadth of the globe to further their economic interests.

The anarchist blogger (with whom I disagree strongly) and CNN (a US station with impeccably non-left wing credentials) are saying exactly the same thing, in terms of the events on the ground.

It doesn't matter who you read on this, you will find the same facts.

If you want to read a left-wing blogger with a bit more substance, try Nicholas Kozloff, author of "Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the US.



http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html

cactus flower wrote:

I am very, very, tired of the US stirring up mayhem and violence the length and breadth of the globe to further their economic interests.

The anarchist blogger (with whom I disagree strongly) and CNN (a US station with impeccably non-left wing credentials) are saying exactly the same thing, in terms of the events on the ground.

It doesn't matter who you read on this, you will find the same facts.

If you want to read a left-wing blogger with a bit more substance, try Nicholas Kozloff, author of "Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the US.



[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html[/quote[/url]]

Not disputing the events (riots and insurrection) on the ground - how do you know that its the US behind it???

emotive presumption? - that the silly Bolivians would not be capable of doing this themselves - even tho this region has been solidly against Morales from the start - that they might not be massively in love with whole nationalisation project proposed by Morales - that they might (as a region) have most to lose in this project - you dont have to have an office in Langley Virginia to believe this.

With regard to the title of this thread - do you know that the US is behind the riots - or do you really really want to believe that the US is behind the insurrection?

Edo wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I am very, very, tired of the US stirring up mayhem and violence the length and breadth of the globe to further their economic interests.

The anarchist blogger (with whom I disagree strongly) and CNN (a US station with impeccably non-left wing credentials) are saying exactly the same thing, in terms of the events on the ground.

It doesn't matter who you read on this, you will find the same facts.

If you want to read a left-wing blogger with a bit more substance, try Nicholas Kozloff, author of "Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the US.

[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html[/quote[/url]]

Not disputing the events (riots and insurrection) on the ground - how do you know that its the US behind it???

emotive presumption? - that the silly Bolivians would not be capable of doing this themselves - even tho this region has been solidly against Morales from the start - that they might not be massively in love with whole nationalisation project proposed by Morales - that they might (as a region) have most to lose in this project - you dont have to have an office in Langley Virginia to believe this.

With regard to the title of this thread - do you know that the US is behind the riots - or do you really really want to believe that the US is behind the insurrection?

The thread title refers to the role of the Ambassador. But do you think the US is not active in this ? Do you think they don't do these things, or just not on this occasion. If you go back to the overthrow of Mossadeq Democratic government in Iran, it is far back enough for the papers to have been released. I posted here a link to a CIA document that showed how the US had used paid mobs pretended to be communists amongst many other destabilisation measures.

If you want to see what Goldburg and the US have, or may have, been doing, you could read this.

http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/the-ambassador-of-ethnic-cleansing/

Just a small extract here:"

Quote :

Last June 28th, the 20 year old U.S. citizen Donna Thi, from Miami, was detained at the airport in La Paz, for trying to bring in five hundred 45-caliber bullets which she’d declared as “cheese” to customs. Waiting for her in the terminal was the wife of Colonel James Campbell, the head of the military section at the U.S. embassy in Bolivia.

The North American Ambassador, Philip Goldberg, intervened immediately to obtain the woman’s release and said that it was all “an innocent mistake.” The ammunition, he said, was meant for “sport and entertainment.”

Bolivia’s Director of Migration, Magaly Zegarra, did not hold the same opinion as the Ambassador. According to her, “the fact that a North American citizen, related to the embassy, is carrying ammunition on a North American aircraft coming from Miami, a city where terrorists from all over Latin America are protected by the government, especially their teacher, as Posada is called by the terrorists, and make a mockery of all [justice] mechanisms, is questionable.”

These days, immigration agents and Bolivian police are careful with passengers coming from the United States. In March of 2006, another U.S. citizen, Triston Jay Amero, a.k.a. Lestat Claudius, a 25 year old Californian carrying 15 different identity documents, set off 300 kilos of dynamite in two hotels in La Paz. And on December 8th of this year, when the Summit of the South American Community of Nations was held in Cochabamba, security services uncovered the presence of two fake U.S. journalists photographing presidential vehicles.

In the Bolivian diplomatic world, as an expert pusher of separatism, Philip Goldberg’s nickname is “the Ambassador of Ethnic Cleansing.” Between 1994 and 1996 he was Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, one of the strategists behind Yugoslavian disintegration. He also promoted Serbia’s and Montenegro’s separation and was in Kosovo, where he fomented conflict between Serbian and Albanian forces."

People are entitled to their political differences, left and right, in any country, and to be left to have them without a much more powerful outside State engaging in active partisan destabilisation.

I suppose we should stop reading these left wing blogs (and CNN) and leave it to Rupert Murdoch to tell us what is going on?

You two pipe down. Let the voice of reason (me) talk.

Bolivia is having problems with seccessionist movements. Who isn't? Morales can probably claim a strong democratic mandate for his centrist nationalising policies, but these seccessionist movements can claim a democratic mandate too. Rather than being started by the US, this looks like a civil affair. The Yanks may of course, choose to back the seccessionist movement, such a policy would probably benefit them economically and politically.

The accusation that America is attacking, yet again, democracy is foolish I think. Morales has offered no details to support his accusation at this time, till he does I should withhold judgement. As I have said, there is no black/white divide here for democracy to fall on, both sides have democratic credentials. Morales plans a referendum in December on his controversial policies.

Left-wing blogs can be tiresomely predictable, as can Rupert Murdoch. Maybe we shouldn't rely on the extremes for news.

905 wrote:

You two pipe down. Let the voice of reason (me) talk.

Bolivia is having problems with seccessionist movements. Who isn't? Morales can probably claim a strong democratic mandate for his centrist nationalising policies, but these seccessionist movements can claim a democratic mandate too. Rather than being started by the US, this looks like a civil affair. The Yanks may of course, choose to back the seccessionist movement, such a policy would probably benefit them economically and politically.

The accusation that America is attacking, yet again, democracy is foolish I think. Morales has offered no details to support his accusation at this time, till he does I should withhold judgement. As I have said, there is no black/white divide here for democracy to fall on, both sides have democratic credentials. Morales plans a referendum in December on his controversial policies.

Left-wing blogs can be tiresomely predictable, as can Rupert Murdoch. Maybe we shouldn't rely on the extremes for news.

Always good to hear The Voice of Reason. But it seems to me that there is a lot of evidence of US messing, some of which I've posted. And far from predictable, the Ambassador's history in the Balkans and importation of Croatian cronies into Bolivia could have been written by le Carré.

Well, in support of Bolivia, Chavez has now told the US Ambassador in fairly graphic terms to F off out of Venezuela. The two Russian military planes parked on Venezuealan soil may have energised him.

Bolivia has been through a difficult two weeks. There have been scores of deaths on the streets. Evo Morales came into conflict with the head of the armed forces: Morales said that the army was not to fire on civilians but the army prioritise "protection of property". An agreement to enter talks has now been made between the Bolivian government and secessionist governors.

In spite of winning the referendum Morales looks to be under pressure both from the secessionists and the armed forces, but to have full support of the poor peasantry and indigenous indian population. There seems to be a serious threat of a US backed coup.

This is an interesting interview with Morales on climate change and food poverty - he gives hell to the private car - "land is for life, not for a heap of metal"



Here is a view on the secessionist movement and the heritage of Klaus Barbie in Bolivia

Link

Hugh O'Shaughnessy writing in the New Statesmen