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To Western Media, Prosecuting Bolivian Coup Leaders Is Worse Than Leading a Coup

BY JOE EMERSBERGER | FAIR | MARCH 23, 2021

One can imagine an editor of the London-based Guardian (3/17/21) shaking her head sadly as she typed the headline: “Cycle of Retribution Takes Bolivia’s Ex-President From Palace to Prison Cell.”  The subhead told readers, “Jeanine Áñez’s government once sought to jail the country’s former leader Evo Morales for terrorism and sedition—now she faces the same charges.”

The Guardian article by Tom Phillips wants us to lament an alleged incapacity of Bolivian governments to stop persecuting opponents once they take office. We are told that Áñez’s government did it, and that now the government of President Luis Arce (elected in a landslide win on October 18, 2020) is also doing it.

The article’s premise is a lie, and the liberal Guardian has hardly been the only outlet spreading it, with help from Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), whom Philips quoted. A team effort between Western media and NGOs like HRW often reinforces the views of the US government (FAIR.org, 8/23/18, 8/31/18, 5/31/2o, 11/3/18).

Áñez was a US-backed dictator installed after a military coup sent democratically elected President Evo Morales fleeing Bolivia for his life on November 10, 2019.  Once in power, Áñez immediately promised security forces legal immunity as they massacred dozens of protesters. She is now charged with terrorism (in addition to sedition and criminal conspiracy) over her attempt to keep power by terrorizing the public. Her arrest is good news to people who support democracy and human rights.

But now, as when the coup took place in 2019, the most obvious conclusions are evaded when they are incompatible with US foreign policy (FAIR.org, 11/11/19). It should surprise nobody that US officials have made statements depicting her arrest as political persecution.

Fighting to spring an ex-dictator

In downgrading the coup that installed Áñez to a mere allegation made against Áñez, Reuters (3/13/21), the Financial Times (3/13/21), the Washington Post (3/13/21), CNN (3/15/21) and Canada’s National Post (3/13/21) have all run articles quoting HRW’s Vivanco criticizing her arrest. CNN quoted him:

The arrest warrants against Añez and her ministers do not contain any evidence that they have committed the crime of “terrorism.” For this reason, they generate well-founded doubts that it is a process based on political motives.

The Washington Post article, whose headline alleged a “crackdown on opposition,” used a shorter version of the same quote from Vivanco.

While all the articles described the coup as an allegation, CNN stands out for getting the most ridiculous with its denialism:

Then-head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, Cmdr. Williams Kaliman, asked Morales to step down to restore stability and peace; Morales acquiesced on November 10 “for the good of Bolivia.”

But political allies maintain he was removed from power as part of a coup orchestrated by conservatives, including Áñez.

Did Kaliman need to be filmed putting a gun directly to Morales’ head for CNN to admit it was a coup?

Adding to the disinformation loop from his own platform on Twitter, Vivanco spread an Americas Quarterly op-ed  by Raul Peñaranda (3/16/21) that denounced the arrest of Áñez. Peñaranda once said that Bolivia’s democracy was “saved” the day Morales was overthrown, and his recent op-ed depicts the November 2019 coup as a legal transfer of power.

In 2019, the military publicly “urged” Morales to resign, as both the military and police made clear they would not protect him from violent right-wing protesters, some of whom ransacked his house.  Áñez, a right-wing senator whose party received only 4% of the national vote in the 2019 legislative elections, had the presidential sash placed on her by military men, while lawmakers from Evo Morales’ party (Movimineto al Socialismo, or MAS), the majority in the legislature, were absent: some in hiding, others refusing to attend without guarantees of their safety and their families’.

Ignoring all that, the Guardian article by Tom Philips refers to “claims the former senator [Áñez] was involved in plotting the right-wing coup that Bolivia’s current government claims brought her to power.” (My emphasis.) Editors are usually big fans of concision. The highlighted words should have been deleted. An added benefit would have been accuracy.

Of course, it’s easier to deny that Áñez was involved in plotting the coup that put her in power (hardly a stretch) if you do not even accept that a coup took place. Reuters placed scare quotes around the word “coup” in headlines about Áñez’s arrest: “Bolivian Ex-President Áñez Begins Four-Month Detention Over ‘Coup’ Allegations” (3/16/21); “ Bolivian Ex-President Áñez Begins Jail Term as Rights Groups Slam ‘Coup’ Probe” (3/14/21).

Reuters (3/14/21) and CNN (3/15/21) also uncritically reported the thoroughly debunked pretext for the coup. CNN reported, “Though an international audit would later find the results the 2019 election could not be validated because of ‘serious irregularities,’ [Morales] declared himself the winner, prompting massive protests around the country.” (The “international audit” is the OAS’s widely debunked report.) Reuters simply stated that the Organization of America States (OAS) “was an official monitor of the 2019 election and had found it fraudulent.”

Cycle of dishonesty

The coup was incited by transparently dishonest claims repeatedly made by OAS monitors about the presidential election won by Morales on October 20, 2019. Three days after the election, they claimed there was a “drastic,” “inexplicable” and “hard to explain” increase in Morales’ lead in the vote count (FAIR.org, 12/17/19).

The Washington, DC–based Center for Economic and Policy Research immediately pointed out that this was utter nonsense. But in the crucial months following Morales’ ouster, outlets like Reuters constantly shielded the OAS from devastating criticism. Eventually, expert criticism of the OAS continually mounted and disrupted the media silence. Details from the election results in 2020, in which Evo Morales’ party triumphed by an even greater margin than in 2019, further exposed OAS dishonesty.

Like Reuters, the widely quoted Jose Miguel Vivanco of HRW spread fraud claims when it mattered most in 2019. The day after the election won by Morales, Vivanco  tweeted in Spanish that “everything indicates that [Evo Morales]  intends to steal the election.” As late as December 2019, HRW executive director Ken Roth was also promoting OAS claims without the slightest trace of scepticism. Months into the murderous illegitimate rule of Áñez, Vivanco explicitly referred to Bolivia as a “democracy.” He did so in a Spanish-language interview with BrujulaDigital  (5/15/20), an outlet edited by Raul Peñaranda, the coup supporter whose Americas Quarterly op-ed Vivanco recently promoted on Twitter. Meanwhile, on Twitter, Vivanco constantly refers to the governments of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, and President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua–two democratically elected presidents the US government wants overthrown–as “dictaduras” (dictatorships).

The New York Times editorial board openly supported the coup that ousted Morales in 2019:

The forced ouster of an elected leader is by definition a setback to democracy, and so a moment of risk. But when a leader resorts to brazenly abusing the power and institutions put in his care by the electorate, as President Evo Morales did in Bolivia, it is he who sheds his legitimacy, and forcing him out often becomes the only remaining option. That is what the Bolivians have done, and what remains is to hope that Mr. Morales goes peacefully into exile in Mexico and to help Bolivia restore its wounded democracy.

So predictably enough, a Times article (3/12/21) about the recent Áñez arrest referred vaguely to the utterly debunked OAS fraud claims (“a contested vote count”) and took the same kind of dishonest stance as HRW and other Western media by equating a US-backed dictatorship to a democratically elected government whose ouster the US supported: “Both Mr. Morales and Ms. Añez used the judiciary to go after their critics.”

The Washington Post editorial board (3/18/21) came out with a wild defense of  Añez, headlined: “The Bolivian Government Is on a Lawless Course. Its Democracy Must Be Preserved.” Most ominously, the editorial said, “The Biden administration should lead a regional effort to preserve democratic stability in this long-suffering country, lest crisis turn into catastrophe.” Informed people may laugh at this for a few seconds–until they remember that Bolivia’s people could eventually face lethal US sanctions for daring to hold murderers to account. Left unchallenged, that’s the catastrophe that propaganda like this could bring about.

Brutal dictators supported by Washington have no reason to doubt that establishment journalists and big NGOs will try very hard to keep them out of jail. Removing the threat of US -backed coups from the world will involve a constant struggle against Western media and the sources they present to us as reliable.

March 26, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

Bolivia has every right to prosecute coup perpetrators for their crimes

By Bradley Blankenship | RT | March 17, 2021

The arrest of Bolivia’s former interim president Jeanine Áñez and her coup co-conspirators is being painted by pro-Western organizations as political persecution, but it’s far from that.

Bolivian authorities arrested ex-interim president Jeanine Áñez on March 14 for sedition, terrorism and conspiracy for her role in the 2019 coup that ousted former president Evo Morales and ushered in a dark age of violence and repression in the country. Justice Minister Ivan Lima said days after the arrest that he would seek a 30-year sentence for Áñez if found guilty, a sign that the victims of the coup regime’s repression will get the justice they deserve.

There have been many more arrests, including several ministers under the Áñez government and right-wing paramilitary leaders involved, and more are expected to follow. In many of these cases, it’s social movements leading the pressure for charges to be brought against co-conspirators in the coup.

This shows that President Luis Arce, a member of Morales’ Movement toward Socialism (MAS), is serious about getting the country back on its pre-coup developmental path – and keeping criminals accountable.

To be sure, the coup government of Jeanine Áñez tried hard to take Bolivia off of this path and that’s why they worked to radically change the character of institutions in the country. They repressed the MAS and grassroots social movements; allowed street gangs to terrorize and murder dissenters; worked to destroy the free press and opened the country back up to Western capital penetration, which they called a “return to civilization.” (A racist dig at Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous leader).

Now, for Arce and his government, course-correcting will take a correspondingly heavy approach. That being said, it does not mean that one should fall into the intellectual trap of both-sidesism, i.e. that both sides are just as bad as one another. Such a position fails to appreciate exactly how repressive Áñez and her co-conspirators were, and, by comparison, how orderly the judicial process they face is.

Just look at the 2019 Senkata and Sacaba Massacres that occurred immediately after Áñez took power. With Decree 4078, a license to kill that was so blatant it was even denounced by Amnesty International, Áñez absolved armed forces of any criminal liability in their actions and they immediately massacred anti-coup protesters. That same month, family members carried the coffins of those killed in the attack through the city of La Paz and Áñez ordered a crackdown on the march.

This isn’t even to speak of the violence that took place during the events of the coup. Áñez was actually able to seize power in the first place after the resignation of Victor Borda, former president of the lower house representing MAS, after protesters tortured his brother and burned his family home down.

Despite these extraordinarily well-documented crimes, many in the Western media and Western-backed institutions are painting the arrests of the former coup government officials and their street militias as political persecution against the MAS’ opposition.

These are the same kinds of people that have criticized independent governments for decades, who have apparently no limit to the amount of empathy they can express for murderers and traitors, and whose barometer for democracy is whether pro-Western radicals are allowed to carry on with impunity.

Just look at the Organization of American States (OAS), an organization that was one of the main drivers of the 2019 coup when it falsely claimed there were election irregularities during that year’s presidential election. The OAS recently called on Bolivia to release Áñez and the other coup co-conspirators because of supposed problems in the country’s judicial system, saying they should be tried before the International Criminal Court (ICC) instead to provide a “fair” trial.

Likewise, this sentiment was followed by Human Rights Watch. For its part, this human rights NGO denounced Bolivia last week for giving amnesty to those arrested by the coup government. According to them, the amnesty decree issued by President Arce was too broad and could allow for serious crimes to be dismissed.

Western media outlets are predictably condemning the arrests, labeling them as persecution. The AP ran with the headline, “Bolivia’s ex-interim president arrested in opposition crackdown,” which was reprinted as-is in many major English language media publications.

For her part, Áñez is also actively fielding support from foreign governments. A letter sent by Áñez to OAS chief Luis Almagro dated March 13, a day before her arrest, described the charges as political persecution. The memo apparently got through to at least an imaginary government since Venezuela’s “Legitimate Government,” the one headed by Venezuelan non-president Juan Guaidó issued a statement of support for Áñez.

Pro-Western organizations and media have little concern for “democracy” or “human rights” and only truly care about supporting governments that kowtow to the interests of multinational corporations. Holding their favored leaders accountable for crimes is “political persecution” and apparently in the same category as street violence, torture and mass murder. The hypocrisy never ends.

When President Arce took office in November, he promised to “rebuild the country in unity.” What he did not say was that Bolivia would allow murderers to roam freely, because surely that would only set the country up to be further divided by external forces. That is exactly what happened the whole year before he took office.

Bolivia is showing the world what justice and the rule of law look like, whether Western countries like it or not.

Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, columnist and political commentator. He has a syndicated column at CGTN and is a freelance reporter for international news agencies including Xinhua News Agency.

March 18, 2021 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | 2 Comments

Bolivian Court Issues Warrants for Arrest of Former Interim President Jeanine Añez, Other Ministers

By Morgan Artyukhina – Sputnik – 12.03.2021

Last week, Jeanine Añez, the former self-proclaimed interim president of Bolivia, refused a summons to meet with the state prosecutor in her home province of Beni, paving the way for her arrest for giving security forces a “license to kill” protesters who challenged her interim government’s rule in 2019 and 2020.

A Bolivian court has issued arrest warrants for Jeanine Añez, the former interim president who seized power in a coup d’etat in late 2019, alongside several of her senior ministers, warning they are a “flight risk.”

According to the court filing shared by Bolivian news outlet Kawsachun News, Añez and nine other senior officials from her administration are charged with terrorism, sedition and conspiracy.

In response to the arrest warrants being issued, Añez took to Twitter on Friday to beg for support.

​”The political persecution has begun,” she wrote. “The MAS has decided to return to the styles of the dictatorship. A shame because Bolivia does not need dictators, it needs freedom and solutions.”

Rise and Fall of the House of Añez

Añez left office in early November when Luis Arce from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) took office, having won in a landslide election on October 18. The vote was repeatedly postponed, sparking protests and fueling fears of a turn even further from democracy.

A former senator from the lowland Beni region in northeastern Bolivia, Añez rose to power in the chaos of November 2019, when a coordinated campaign by domestic and international forces attempted to void the re-election of MAS leader and then-President Evo Morales the previous month. After right-wing militias and sympathetic police forces locked out MAS lawmakers and Añez found herself the head of a rump parliament, she declared herself the interim president on November 12.

US media and the US government both provided support to the anti-MAS forces in the country, with then-US President Donald Trump and allies like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro quickly extending recognition to Añez’s declared interim government. However, after months of claiming Morales had stolen the vote, US papers like the Washington Post were forced to admit that the Organization of American States report underpinning those claims was “deeply flawed.”

“There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find – the trends in the preliminary count, the lack of any big jump in support for Morales after the halt, and the size of Morales’s margin all appear legitimate,” the Post wrote in February 2020, after months of street violence between Añez’s police and military forces and the indigenous-led protests against them had solidified her rule.

A backer of former President Evo Morales scuffles with police in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. The opposition senator who has claimed Bolivia’s presidency Jeanine Anez, faces the challenge of stabilizing the nation and organizing national elections within three months at a time of political disputes that pushed Morales to fly off to self-exile in Mexico after 14 years in power.

New elections were originally slated for May 2020, but after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier in the year, Añez’s government repeatedly postponed the elections until ten days of mass demonstrations forced it to commit to October 18. Ironically, the leading contender in the race was the MAS candidate Luis Arce, who swept the October elections with 55% of the vote.

In the weeks that followed, the new Plurinational Legislative Assembly, Bolivia’s parliament, issued indictments for Añez in connection with a series of massacres of protesters by police under her watch. She and 11 of her then-ministers were implicated in massacres in the indigenous-majority communities of Senkata, Sacaba and Yapacani and accused of genocide for giving police a “license to kill.”

Last week, she refused a summons to meet with the state prosecutor in Beni on pain of arrest.

March 12, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Nicaragua’s ‘Foreign Agents’ Law Explained

NSCAG News | February 22, 2021

In October 2020, Nicaragua passed a ‘Foreign Agents’ law. The law requires all organisations, agencies or individuals, who work with, receive funds from or respond to organizations that are owned or controlled directly or indirectly by foreign governments or entities, to register as foreign agents with the Ministry of the Interior. The fundamental objective of the law is to establish a legal framework that will regulate natural or legal persons that respond to foreign interests and funding, and use this funding to carry out activities that lead to interference by foreign governments or organisations in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, putting at risk the sovereign security of the country.

Predictably, the law has caused an outcry from the United States, who accuse Nicaragua of sliding towards dictatorship (when in fact the new law mirrors a similar and even more stringent law in the United States) and organisations like Amnesty International who claim that President Ortega plans to ‘silence those who criticise government policies, inform the population and defend human rights.’

The truth of the matter is that the intention behind the law is very simple – to create a tool that allows Nicaragua to ensure or prevent foreign powers, countries, governments, agencies or organisations from developing acts of interference in Nicaragua’s domestic affairs or national domestic policy, something that not only Nicaragua seeks to do and condemn, but very much something that international organisations of all kinds also condemn. There are Resolutions of the United Nations; there are Resolutions of the Organization of American States; there are Rulings of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where they condemn, in a clear and categorical way, all these acts of interference, by any foreign Government in the domestic matters of another country.

For years now, the US has poured millions of dollars into opposition NGOs and media in Nicaragua in an attempt to destabilise the country, undermine the democratically elected government and bring about ‘regime change’. Since 2017, a handful of Nicaraguan NGOs and media have received well over US$100 million from USAID alone. There are clear signs that the US intends to intensify these actions in the run up to Nicaragua’ national elections in November. In passing the Foreign Agents law, the Nicaraguan government has acted only to stem the tide of US funding which has been used until now to create chaos and instability and attack the country’s sovereignty.

There are around 5,000 NGOs in Nicaragua – the vast majority are engaged in perfectly legitimate activities around health and social issues for example and none of them will be affected by this law which is targeted solely at a minority of organisations who have been heavily funded by the US merely to act as proxies for US and right wing opposition ambitions in the country.

‘Nicaragua has the right to know about and protect itself from foreign funding of its domestic opposition – a country is not required to cooperate in its own overthrow by a foreign power.’ – Chuck Kaufman, Alliance for Global Justice

Sources:-

Council on Hemispheric Affairs, article by John Perry

The Grayzone article by Ben Norton

Interview with Deputy Walmaro Gutierrez, President of the Economic Commission of Nicaragua’s National Assembly, Tortilla con Sal

Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

UNICEF Says Not Closing Schools Was Best Decision
Jean Gough, UNICEF regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, acknowledged the decision of the Nicaraguan government not to close schools in the face of the pandemic. The regional director of the United Nations Children’s Fund congratulated the efforts made by Nicaragua to give continuity to education, among them the “best decision was not to close the schools in time of pandemic.” During a meeting at the headquarters of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denis Moncada, Gough expressed UNICEF’s decision to continue supporting the actions of the Nicaraguan government. The meeting allowed both parties to discuss the current Cooperation Program between UNICEF and Nicaragua for the period 2019-2023. Moncada thanked the representative of the United Nations agency for the support they provide to programs on education and protection of children and adolescents. (Radio La Primerisima, 7 March 2021)

March 12, 2021 Posted by | Corruption | , , , | Leave a comment

US Marines in the Sandino War 1926-1933

Tales of the American Empire | March 4, 2021

During the 19th century, American leaders kept an eye on Nicaragua as a potential site for a transoceanic canal. US navy warships periodically arrived at Nicaraguan ports to protect American interests and fostered U.S. business investments under the strong-man rule of President José Santos Zelaya. When Zelaya began courting Europeans for the building of a canal and welcomed European business investments, American leaders called Zelaya a tyrannical, self-serving, brutal, and a greedy disturber of Central American peace. In December 1926, President Calvin Coolidge ordered warships and more US Marines to Nicaragua. He told Congress that “disturbances and conditions in Nicaragua seriously threaten American lives and property, [and] endanger the stability of all Central America.” This resulted in the Sandino War that cost the lives of an estimated 3000 Nicaraguans and 136 US Marines.

______________________

“Yankee Imperialism 1901-1934”; United States Foreign Policy; http://peacehistory-usfp.org/yankee-i…​

“The Sandino Rebellion 1927-1934”; photos from the US National Archives; http://www.sandinorebellion.com/Photo…​

“Life and Death of an Activist: ‘Wild’ Bill Grandall”; Stephan Braun; Los Angeles Times; April 13, 1991; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x…​

March 9, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Zika was a warm-up for COVID; it didn’t fly

By Jon Rappoport | NoMoreFakeNews | March 4, 2021

I covered the Zika outbreak extensively in 2016. It was yet another fraud, and it collapsed under the weight of warnings to women to avoid pregnancy. Women wouldn’t obey in great enough numbers.

Basically, the official position was: an outbreak of microcephaly was occurring, worldwide, starting in Brazil. Babies were being born with smaller heads and brain damage. The cause was the Zika virus, carried by mosquitoes.

When I was exposing the lies, in 2016, I wasn’t questioning the existence of the Zika virus. Now, in 2021, I would be demanding proof that the virus had actually been isolated.

Here are excerpts from the many articles I wrote during the “Zika crisis”. There is more, much more to the story, but what I’m publishing here is enough to reveal the standard pattern of pandemic ops: pretend the “medical condition” is entirely the result of a germ; fake the exact cause; cover up ongoing government/corporate crimes.

EXCERPT ONE, 2016: There is no convincing evidence the Zika virus causes the birth defect called microcephaly.

Basically, Brazilian researchers, in the heart of the purported “microcephaly epidemic,” decided to stop their own investigation and simply assert Zika was the culprit. At that point, they claimed that, out of 854 cases of microcephaly, only 97 showed “some relationship” to Zika.

You need to understand that these figures actually show evidence AGAINST the Zika virus as the cause. When researchers are trying to find the cause of a condition, they should be able to establish, as a first step, that the cause is present in all cases (or certainly an overwhelming percentage).

This never happened. The correlation between the presence of Zika virus and microcephaly was very, very weak.

As a second vital step, researchers should be able to show that the causative virus is, in every case, present in large amounts in the body. Otherwise, there is not enough of it to create harm. MERE PRESENCE OF THE VIRUS IS NOT ENOUGH. With Zika, proof it was present in microcephaly-babies in large amounts has never been established.

But researchers pressed on. A touted study in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed Zika infected brain cells in the lab. IRRELEVANT. Cells in labs are not human beings. The study also stated that Zika infected baby mice. IRRELEVANT. Mice are not humans. And these mice in the lab had been specially altered or bred to be “vulnerable to Zika.” USELESS AND IRRELEVANT.

EXCERPT TWO, 2016: Millions of bees have just died in South Carolina, because Dorchester County officials decided to attack Zika mosquitoes from the air, from planes, with a pesticide called Naled.

The Washington Post reports, in an article headlined: “‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes.”

“The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. ‘Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,’ Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, ‘I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.’”

That’s the highest degree of outrage County Administrator Ward can muster? He’s not pleased?

If you want to dig further, you can discover that, despite assurances to the contrary, Naled, like other toxic organophosphate pesticides, harms humans as well. Organophosphates are neurotoxins. The original research was done in Germany, in the hunt for nerve-agent weapons.

And how about this? The cure for the problem causes the problem…

Naled, the organophosphate pesticide now being sprayed on Miami to kill “Zika mosquitoes,” has dire effects.

Reference: a 2014 study, “Neurodevelopmental disorders and prenatal residential proximity to agricultural pesticides: the CHARGE study.” [Environmental Health Perspectives, 2014 Oct;122(10):1103-9.]

Key quotes from the study:

“Gestational exposure to several common agricultural pesticides can induce developmental neurotoxicity in humans, and has been associated with developmental delay and autism.” [Emphasis added]

“We evaluated whether residential proximity to agricultural pesticides during pregnancy is associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or developmental delay (DD)…”

“Approximately one-third of CHARGE study mothers lived, during pregnancy, within 1.5 km (just under 1 mile) of an agricultural pesticide application. Proximity to organophosphates at some point during gestation was associated with a 60% increased risk for ASD [Autism Spectrum Disorders], higher for third-trimester exposures… and second-trimester chlorpyrifos [an organophosphate pesticide] applications…”

“This study of ASD strengthens the evidence linking neurodevelopmental disorders with gestational pesticide exposures, particularly organophosphates…”

The pesticide spraying affects pregnant mothers by raising the risk of neurological damage to their babies.

EXCERPT THREE: Here’s an “oops” Zika revelation:

“New doubts on Zika as cause of microcephaly.” ScienceDaily, 24 June 2016.

Source: New England Complex Systems Institute

“Brazil’s microcephaly epidemic continues to pose a mystery — if Zika is the culprit, why are there no similar epidemics in other countries also hit hard by the virus? In Brazil, the microcephaly rate soared with more than 1,500 confirmed cases. But in Colombia, a recent study of nearly 12,000 pregnant women infected with Zika found zero microcephaly cases. If Zika is to blame for microcephaly, where are the missing cases?”

FOUR: It makes far more sense to listen to what South American doctors are saying about the areas where birth defects are occurring. These would be doctors who actually care about what is destroying lives and the lives that are being destroyed.

We have such reports passed along to us, thanks to Claire Robinson of GM Watch. She is one of those people who still makes the profession of journalism mean something.

Here are quotes from her most recent article, “Argentine and Brazilian doctors name larvicide as potential cause of microcephaly.”

“A report from the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns.”

“The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide [pesticide] that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014. This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes.” [Emphasis added]

“The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese ‘strategic partner’ of Monsanto. Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects).”

“The Argentine Physicians commented: ‘Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.’”

“They also noted that Zika has traditionally been held to be a relatively benign disease that has never before been associated with birth defects, even in areas where it infects 75% of the population.”

“… The Argentine Physicians’ report…concurs with the findings of a separate report on the Zika outbreak by the Brazilian doctors’ and public health researchers’ organisation, Abrasco.”

“Abrasco also names Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the microcephaly. It condemns the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes, which it says is contaminating the environment as well as people and is not decreasing the numbers of mosquitoes. Abrasco suggests that this strategy is in fact driven by the commercial interests of the chemical industry, which it says is deeply integrated into the Latin American ministries of health, as well as the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organisation.”

“Abrasco names the British GM insect company Oxitec as part of the corporate lobby that is distorting the facts about Zika to suit its own profit-making agenda. Oxitec sells GM mosquitoes engineered for sterility and markets them as a disease-combatting product – a strategy condemned by the Argentine Physicians as ‘a total failure, except for the company supplying mosquitoes’.”

“…Abrasco added that the disease [microcephaly, other birth defects] is closely linked to environmental degradation: floods caused by logging and the massive use of herbicides on (GM) herbicide-tolerant soy crops – in short, ‘the impacts of extractive industries’.”

FIVE: In a recent greenmedinfo article—“What is the Zika Virus Epidemic Covering Up?” by Jagannath Chatterjee—the author traces other Gates-Brazil connections. For example:

“While investigating the procedures directed at pregnant women in the year 2015, shocking facts emerged. Acting as per a WHO [World Health Organization] decision to inject pregnant women with vaccines despite contraindications the Brazilian Government had allowed its pregnant women to become the equivalent of guinea pigs. Besides the tetanus vaccines (provided as Diphtheria Tetanus vaccines), the women had also received the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine in pregnancy. What is worse a DTaP vaccine was mandated for pregnant women in 2014. Citing a shortage of the DTaP vaccine the highly reactive [dangerous] DTP vaccine was also administered. Clearly huge risks had been inflicted on the unsuspecting women. None of these vaccines are known to be safe during pregnancy and the MMR and the DaPT/DPT vaccines are lapses that cannot be condoned. The rubella virus in the MMR vaccine and the pertussis component in the DPT vaccine are known to cause microcephaly…”

“The DTaP vaccine initiative to vaccinate pregnant women was financed by BMGF [Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] funds…”

SIX: For example, every year in the US, there are 25,000 cases of microcephaly. And the literature is very clear about causes: any insult to the fetal brain during pregnancy can result in microcephaly. Severe malnutrition, falling down stairs, a blow to the stomach, a toxic street drug or medical drug or vaccine or pesticide, and so on.

SEVEN: For science bloggers who live in mommy’s basement and love the statements of the experts, try this. I’ll give you the full citation. Ready?

“Practice Parameter: Evaluation of the child with microcephaly (an evidence-based review)”; Neurology 2009 Sep 15; 73(11) 887-897; Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Practice Committee of the Child Neurology Society.

Here’s the money quote:

“Microcephaly may result from any insult that disturbs early brain growth… Annually, approximately 25,000 infants in the United States will be diagnosed with microcephaly…”

Bang.

Let me take apart that quote. Microcephaly can result from any early insult to the brain. Any.

That could mean a highly toxic pesticide, for example. It could mean severe and prolonged malnutrition of the mother. It could mean a toxic substance injected into the mother—a street drug or a vaccine. It could mean a physical blow. It could mean a mother’s chronic high fever. And so on.

Moving on: 25,000 cases, not just once, but every year in the US, means what? Christopher Columbus actually brought the Zika virus to America in 1492, and it lay dormant for a very long time and then, in the modern age, exploded on the scene in the US?

No. 25,000 cases a year in the US means we’re being treated to an unsupported major bullshit story right now about the Zika virus.

That’s what it means.

EIGHT: Now we have a January 27, 2016, Associated Press story out of Rio, published in SFGate :

“270 of 4,180 suspected microcephaly cases confirmed.”

That’s called a clue, in case you’re wondering. Of the previously touted 4,180 cases of microcephaly in Brazil, the actual number of confirmed cases so far is, well, only 270. Bang.

But wait, there’s more. AP :

“Brazilian officials said the babies with the defect [microcephaly] and their mothers are being tested to see if they had been infected. Six of the 270 confirmed microcephaly cases were found to have the [Zika] virus.”

Bang, bang, bang. Out of all the microcephaly cases re-examined in Brazil, only six have the Zika virus. That constitutes zero proof that Zika has anything to do with microcephaly.

—end of my excerpts from 2016—

Getting the picture?

In 2015-16, the World Health Organization and the press whiffed on the Zika virus-microcephaly hustle.

But they re-grouped, analyzed their mistakes, and prepared a wall-to-wall messaging campaign for the next fake pandemic.

China would provide the model:

LOCKDOWNS.

House arrest of a major percentage of the global population. Economic devastation.

COVID.

As I’ve been demonstrating for the past year, the COVID story is as full of holes as Zika.

March 5, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 3 Comments

Territorial dispute growing between Guyana and Venezuela

By Lucas Leiroz | March 4, 2021

An old territorial dispute in South America is reaching its most tense point in decades. The territory known as Essequibo has been mutually claimed by Guyana and Venezuela since the 19th century when Guyana still belonged to the United Kingdom. In 1897, the Venezuelan and British authorities agreed to submit their dispute to an arbitrary international court in Paris, which ruled that the land belonged to the UK. For decades, the arbitration decision was accepted by Caracas, but in 1948 Venezuelan authorities revealed some irregularities in the trial, which were documented in old government files. As a result, the decision was considered null, and years later, in 1963, Venezuela formally submitted its territorial claim to the United Nations, and the dispute remains unresolved till today, when the interests of foreign oil companies threaten to increase the tensions.

As a region rich in oil, Essequibo has recently entered the map of the large multinationals in this sector, especially the American Exxon Mobil. More than that, the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela and the political alignment of Guyana with Washington contribute to create an even more controversial scenario. Guyana has the support of the large private oil sector and the American government, while Venezuela remains alone. Last year, the case was filed with the International Court of Justice, but Venezuela did not accept it and remained out of the trial.

However, in a sentence on December 18, 2020, the Court proclaimed its competence to intervene in the dispute, despite Venezuela’s position. It is necessary to highlight that, regardless of any decision taken by the Court over who really has sovereignty in Essequibo, this sentence must be considered null, since the absence of Venezuelan consent prevents the execution of the sentence. The need for consent is one of the most elementary principles of international law and the very fact that the Court declares itself competent already leads us to question whether its judges are really impartial – clearly, the norms of international law are being violated in favor of Guyana.

Guyana has publicly admitted that its expenses for the court case in The Hague were paid by Exxon Mobil. Although the American oil company has been operating in Guyana for decades, its interest has been greatly increased with the recent discoveries of oil reserves and investors are willing to do anything to ensure the exploration of local natural resources. Currently, Exxon Mobil is interested in expanding its facilities over an area of more than 26,000 square kilometers, which not only crosses the disputed territory in Essequibo, but also violates Venezuelan undisputed national territory.

With this scenario of clear attack on Venezuelan national sovereignty and possible collaboration of the International Court with one of the parties, Venezuela is at a disadvantage mainly due to its diplomatic weakness. Venezuela, at this point, lacks sufficient influence to cause the Court to review its decision or judge the case in a really partial way. For that, only strong international alliances can help Caracas. The large nations that are not aligned with Washington and have so far cooperated strongly with Venezuela, Russia and China, might be provoked by the Venezuelan government to incite international pressure in this regard. Only these two countries can mediate a parallel agreement that may be established between Caracas and The Hague in order to choose between two paths: either Venezuela agrees to submit to trial on the condition that there is a partial judgment and without the influence of private companies, or the Court declines jurisdiction. As the first scenario is unlikely and difficult to monitor, the most viable route would be for The Hague to abdicate any form of judgment.

It is important to mention that, in the absence of international judgment, what is in force in Essequibo is the Geneva Agreement of 1966, which did not decide on sovereignty in the region, but, in search of a peaceful solution, defined what activities would be allowed or prohibited in Essequibo. Oil exploration by foreign companies is not allowed, so, in principle, Guyana is violating the agreement and its activities could only become lawful if there was a decision by the International Court on the matter, allowing exploration. As Venezuela does not submit to the Court, the trial is impossible and, therefore, exploration remains prohibited and Guyana is committing an international offense.

However, more worrying than that is the fact that the American military is working in Essequibo, carrying out tests with the aim of intimidating Venezuela and pressuring Caracas to renounce its demands. There are American military ships in Essequibo “protecting” Exxon Mobil facilities and provoking Caracas. In addition, considering that the American company wants to publicly explore areas within Venezuelan territory, what will become of the American presence? If Caracas does not allow the activities of Exxon Mobil, it is the Venezuelan right to control or even destroy the facilities in its territory. And what would be the American reaction to that – considering Biden’s aggressive interventionist policy?

It is for these reasons that, more than ever, countries of greater international relevance must mediate the issue in order to maintain the status of illegality to the Exxon Mobil’s activities. With international pressure, it is possible that the American company will retreat or that at least the American military in the region will leave and with that we would have a reduction in tensions.

Still, it is possible that with international mediation a mutual exploration agreement will be reached that allows both countries to enjoy the local wealth, without, however, allowing companies that violate the Geneva Agreement to operate.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 4, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Bolivia’s Central Bank Returns Añez’s Requested Loan To IMF

teleSUR | February 17, 2021

Bolivia’s Central Bank announced on Wednesday that it had returned US$346.7 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a loan irregularly managed by the de facto government of Jeanine Añez.

“This loan, in addition to being irregular and onerous due to its financial conditions, generated additional and millionaire economic costs to the Bolivian State, which as of February 2021 amount to US$24.3 million of which US$19.6 million are due to exchange rate fluctuations 19.6 million for exchange variation and 4.7 million for commissions and interest,” the institution explained in a statement.

The Central Bank denounced that the IMF jeopardized the “country’s sovereignty and economic interests” through its Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI), which conditioned the funds to fiscal, financial, exchange rate monetary duties, which violate the Bolivian legal framework.

Moreover, authorities explain that they would start an investigation to prosecute all officials involved in the IMF’s illegal arrangement.

February 18, 2021 Posted by | Corruption | , , | 1 Comment

Argentina Denounces Presence of US Submarine

A United Kingdom aircraft from the British Independent Overseas Territory (BIOT) Falklands Islands recently collaborated with USS Greeneville (SSN 772) in the South Atlantic open ocean, demonstrating the global reach of both nations’ forces.

teleSUR | February 13, 2021

The Argentine Foreign Ministry, through an official statement published on its website expressed Friday its “serious concern” about the presence in the South Atlantic of the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Greeneville.

“The Argentine government expresses its serious concern over information that emerged from the official Twitter account of the Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic, by which it is pointed out that they would have recently operated with British support in the South Atlantic,” the Foreign Ministry expresses.

The statement also recalls that “carrying and using nuclear weapons” in the mentioned area contradicts resolutions of the United Nations Organization and urged to respect the region as a “zone of peace and cooperation.”

“The presence of ships capable of carrying and using nuclear weapons in the South Atlantic contradicts Resolution 41/11 of the United Nations General Assembly (Zone of Peace and Cooperation in the South Atlantic),” the communiqué stresses.

The official document recalls that the aforementioned resolution “calls upon States of all other regions, especially militarily important States, to scrupulously respect the South Atlantic region as a zone of peace and cooperation.”

“It is not the first time that Argentina” denounces “the presence of a British military base in the Malvinas Islands”, which is contrary to “various United Nations resolutions such as 31/49, which calls on the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to expedite negotiations on the sovereignty dispute.”

February 14, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

The Omnipotent Power to Assassinate

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 12, 2021

It goes without saying that the Constitution called into existence a government with few, limited powers. That was the purpose of enumerating the powers of the federal government. If the Constitution was bringing into existence a government of unlimited or omnipotent powers, then there would have been no point in enumerating a few limited powers. In that event, the Constitution would have called into existence a government with general, unlimited powers to do whatever was in the interests of the nation.

If the Constitution had proposed a government of omnipotent powers, there is no way the American people would have accepted it, in which case America would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation. Our American ancestors didn’t want a government of omnipotent powers. They wanted a government of few, limited, enumerated powers.

Among the most omnipotent powers a government can wield is the power of government officials to assassinate people. Our American ancestors definitely did not want that type of government. That is why the power to assassinate is not among the enumerated powers of government in the Constitution.

Despite the enumerated-powers doctrine, our American ancestors were still leery. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would thirst for the power to assassinate people. So, to make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people enacted the Fifth Amendment after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly prohibited the federal government from taking any person’s life without due process of law.

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta. At a minimum, it requires formal notice of charges and a trial before the government can take a person’s life. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, assassination involves taking a person’s life without notice or trial.

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national security state. So is Cuba. And China, Egypt, Russia, and Pakistan. And the United States, along with others.

A national-security state is based on a vast, all-powerful military-intelligence establishment, one that, as a practical matter, wields omnipotent powers. Thus, when the CIA, one of the principle components of America’s national-security state, was called into existence in 1947, it immediately assumed the power to assassinate. In fact, as early as 1952 the CIA published an assassination manual that demonstrates that the CIA was already specializing in the art of assassination (as well as cover-up) in the early years of the national-security state.

In 1954, the CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala on grounds of “national security.” The aim of the coup was to oust the country’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a military general. As part of the coup, the CIA prepared a list of people to be assassinated. To this day, the CIA will not disclose the names of people on its kill list (on grounds of “national security,” of course) but it is a virtual certainty that President Arbenz was at the top of the list for establishing a foreign policy of peace and friendship with the communist world. To his good fortune, he was able to flee the country before they could assassinate him.

In 1970, the CIA was attempting to prevent Salvador Allende from becoming president of Chile. Like Arbenz, Allende’s foreign policy was based on establishing a peaceful and friendly relationship with the communist world. The CIA’s plan included inciting a coup led by the Chilean military. However, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, stood in the way. His position was that he had taken an oath to support and defend the constitution and, therefore, that he would not permit a coup to take place. The CIA conspired to have him violently kidnapped to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. During the kidnapping attempt, Schneider was shot dead.

Schneider’s family later filed suit for damages arising out of Schneider’s wrongful death. The federal judiciary refused to permit either U.S. officials or the CIA to be held accountable for Schneider’s death. Affirming the U.S. District Court’s summary dismissal of the case, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. officials who were involved in the crime could not be held liable since they were simply acting within the course and scope of their employment. Moreover, the U.S. government couldn’t be held liable because, the court stated, it is sovereignly immune.

Central to the Court’s holding was what it called the “political question doctrine.” It holds that under the Constitution, the judicial branch of the government is precluded from questioning any “political” or “foreign policy” decision taken by the executive branch.

Actually though, the Constitution says no such thing. It is in fact the responsibility of the judicial branch to enforce the Constitution against the other branches, including the national-security branch. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from taking people’s lives without due process of law.

So, why did the federal judiciary come up with this way to avoid taking on the CIA? Because it knew that once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, the federal government had fundamentally changed in nature by now having a branch that could exercise omnipotent powers, such as assassination, with impunity. The federal judiciary knew that there was no way that the judicial branch of government could, as a practical matter, stop the national-security branch with assassinating people. To maintain the veneer of judicial power, the judiciary came up with its ludicrous “political question doctrine” to explain why it wasn’t enforcing the Constitution

Once Pinochet took office after the coup in Chile, the Chilean judiciary did the same thing as the U.S. judiciary. It deferred to the power of the Pinochet military-intelligence government, declining to enforce the nation’s constitution against it. Like the U.S. judiciary, the Chilean judiciary recognized the reality of omnipotent power that comes with a national-security state. Many years later, the Chilean judiciary apologized to the Chilean people for abrogating its judicial responsibility.

February 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

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