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Argentina to appeal recent court ruling over AMIA case

Press TV – May 16, 2014

Argentina has vowed to appeal a decision by a federal court that rejected an agreement between the Latin American country and Iran over a joint probe into a bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center.

On Thursday, an Argentinean federal court struck down a 2013 agreement between the South American country and Iran to jointly investigate deadly attacks on a Jewish center in Argentina in 1994.

Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor in the investigation of the AMIA center explosion, in which 85 people were killed, had argued in his appeal to the court that the 2013 agreement constituted an “undue interference of the executive branch in the exclusive sphere of the judiciary.” The ruling by the federal court against the agreement said that it was illegal and ordered Argentina not to go ahead with it, according to the Reuters.

After the decision was announced, Argentina’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said that the ruling was “a mistake” and that the government will take the case to the country’s Supreme Court of Justice.

“I would like to say that the judges take stock in what their mistake means at a national level and at an international level,” Timerman said. “Regarding the decision, Argentina will appeal the mistake and, if necessary, take it to the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice,” he added.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Julio Alak also said that a final decision was left to the Supreme Court. “The ultimate interpreter of the constitution will be the Supreme Court,” he said.

Under intense political pressure imposed by the US and Israel, Argentina formerly accused Iran of having carried out the 1994 bombing attack on the AMIA building. AMIA stands for the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina or the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.

Iran has categorically and consistently denied any involvement in the terrorist bombing.

Last January, Tehran and Buenos Aires signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly probe the 1994 bombing.

May 16, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Colombian Army Escalates Attack on Communities near Tolemaida Military Base

By Luke Finn | Red Hot Burning Peace | May 14, 2014
2580
Colombian soldiers uproot fruit trees (Peace Presence)

The communities of Yucala, Mesa Bajo, and Naranjala are facing a slow and deliberate process of displacement by a key army base used by the U.S. military in Colombia.

Seven military bases in Colombia fall under the U.S.-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement, which allows for U.S. Military access to Colombian bases, and one of those is Tolemaida, Cundinamarca. It was originally founded in 1954 by Colombia’s only ever dictator, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (though, of course, Colombia’s list of authoritarian rulers is much longer), and modeled on Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the School of the Americas (now WHINSEC), the infamous training ground for human rights abusers throughout the hemisphere. Like the School of the Americas, Tolemaida was to become primarily a center for training, here in anti-guerrilla (and more recently counter-insurgency) warfare, specifically through its lauded “Curso de Lanceros” course run by U.S. officers and taken by amongst others the armies of the United States, France, and Panama, as well as Colombians. Tolemaida has a permanent presence of U.S. soldiers.

The Tolemaida base is located on a plateau, overlooking the river Sumapaz, an area that amongst other things contains the largest páramo ecosystem in the world, noted even within Colombia for its bio-diversity. Prior to 1954, a community on the plateau, named their settlement “El Mirador,” or “La Mesa.” One man I met, who still remembered those days, told me proudly that they had both a butcher and a soccer field. But then came La Violencia and the new military base, and the communites moved further down the hillside to the veredas of Yucala, Naranjala, and Mesa Bajo, clearing the land and planting their crops.

The community has been in a state of near constant harassment ever since the base’s construction, and even more so as the base looks to expand. For example, back in the 1980’s the military cut electricity to the community. The 150 campesino families affected today, experience three main forms of harassment as part of the Colombian Army’s petty and vindictive campaign.

The first is the economic blockade of the community. The small road (in a state of severe disrepair) up the hillside, turns off the Pan-American highway, and Policía Militar from the base, are posted daily on the road. Thus, the military prevents the community’s access to large amounts of food, materials to repair houses, and materials to prepare their stable fruit crops. Not even a single bag of cement comes through. People are going hungry, there is no money coming into the community, and their houses are falling down around their ears.

The second is the deliberate destruction of community property. On a number of occasions over the last year soldiers have come down from the base and torn up irrigation systems and fruit trees. On June 19, 2013, over 150 fruit trees were uprooted. This carnage is a further attempt to put a stranglehold on the economic life of the community, and starve them out.

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Military trash pollutes stream (Peace Presence)

The third way, and perhaps the most shocking, is the deliberate contamination of the community’s water, constituting a sort of biological warfare. At the Cueca de la Quebrada Naranjala, the primary water source for the families, the Army has dumped the rubbish from the base, an estimated 30 tons. Battery packs, broken glass, and ceramics, slowly rotting camouflage patterned clothing and bedding, munitions boxes (labeled in English and produced in the United States), and electrical equipment of all sorts litters the fount of the stream, and in rainy season get washed down hill and collect in sodden clumps. The water is visibly toxic green in parts, orange in others, with an oily sheen, and chemical foam. The putrefaction fills your lungs and turns your stomach as you clamber over a mountain of rubbish in one of the most beautiful places in the country.

The charitable could imagine this to be merely neglectful and careless, were it not for the numerous complaints raised by the community, including two (ignored) petitions at local and national level, a new case in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the economic harassment they have faced. But rubbish is still being dumped, and as it stands this seems to be a deliberate attack on the psychological, moral, and physical well being of these fifth generation workers of this land.

The expanding military base (and not to mention the vacationing bogotanos who buy up fincas and build condominiums in the area) has squeezed the communities of Yucala, Naranjala, and Mesa Bajo from both sides in a campaign of outrageous malice. There is no explicit violence in the area, no guerrilla, paramilitary, or bandas criminales, just the economic and environmental violence of the state against this blameless community. The fatuous, meaningless motto of the Colombian Army is “Faith in the Cause”—but if we were to take this at face value, what cause is this? Another slogan is “Yes, there are Heroes in Colombia”—is poisoning wells ever heroic?

Luke Finn is a writer and international accompanier with Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Presence in Colombia. He graduated from the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester. Follow @Peace_Presence and on Facebook.

May 14, 2014 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Bill Proposing Sanctions on Venezuela Passes House Foreign Affairs Committee

By Z.C. Dutka | Venezuelanalysis | May 9, 2014

Santa Elena de Uairen – A Human Rights bill proposed by Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which includes sanctions on the Venezuelan government, cleared its first legislative hurdle this morning after passing the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Individual Sanctions



The bill, known as the Venezuelan Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, will sanction individuals responsible for “serious human rights abuses” against those participating in the anti-government protests that have received widespread media attention since February. It also includes those individuals who have supported those acts, whether financially or otherwise, and those officials who called for the arrest of those “legitimately exercising their freedom of expression and assembly.”

The most recent draft presented to the Committee listed asset blocking and inadmissibility to the US as types of individual sanctions. It also included the possibility of a presidential waiver of the application of sanctions, if the U.S. president should consider national security interests call for it, or conditions in Venezuela have improved.

Democracy Promotion



Section 7 of the bill outlines a “Comprehensive Strategy to Promote Internet Freedom and Access to Information,” including the expansion of activities to “train HR, civil society, and democracy activists” and the expansion of proxy servers for said activists, as well as access to “uncensored news sources.”

Section 8 asks that US Secretary of State, John Kerry, submit a “comprehensive strategy outlining how the US is supporting the citizens of Venezuela” in seeking basic civil liberties, development of an independent civil society, and free and transparent elections.

Section 9 offers refugee status or political asylum in the US to Venezuelan political dissidents if requested, and a direct effort on behalf of the US state department to identify cases of “prisoners of conscience and HR abuses in Venezuela.”

The bill ends with Section 10, the Authorization of Appropriations for Assistance to Support Civil Society in Venezuela, which pledges a minimum of $5 million through USAID, and finally, a Sunset Clause of two years after the date of enactment of the legislation.

Response



Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has accused possible sanctions of being “encouragement to extremist groups,” those protestors who he believes have sparked violence in their widespread call for regime change. 

Members of the Venezuelan opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), have also expressed their misgivings at the prospect of sanctions.

This morning Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, heard testimonies from Venezuelan opposition representatives regarding the alleged use of extreme force on behalf of Venezuelan security forces. She admitted to hearing a “diversity of opinions,” from “different oppositional factions” but that the majority asked that the U.S. not impose sanctions “yet.”

“They have asked us not to introduce sanctions at this time,” Jacobson said.

A caravan of Venezuelans, residents of South Florida, traveled to Washington D.C. yesterday to show support for the bill.

Only two committee representatives, Gregory Meeks and Karen Bass, voted against the bill this morning. In recent weeks, many Latin American leaders have expressed their distaste for the possibility of US interference in Venezuela.

Uruguayan president Pepe Mujica said, “When the entire world asks the U.S. to shelve its economic blockade policy against Cuba, voices emerge from within that government threatening sanctions against Venezuela. Are the lessons of history never learned? (…) the first thing that Venezuela and all of Latin America need is to be respected.”

Many sources believe the bill will reach the House floor the week of May 12th, and will likely be approved with little resistance. A number of organizations, including the Alliance for Global Justice, have organized petitions in attempts to prevent this from taking place.

May 10, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan Policeman Killed by Sniper While Clearing Protest Barricade in Caracas

By Z.C. Dutka | Venezuelanalysis | May 9, 2014

Santa Elena de Uairen – In the early hours of Thursday morning, Jorge Tovar, 24, a Venezuelan national police officer was shot dead in the neck by a sniper, according to official sources. The shooting occurred as police attempted to clear an encampment that blocked traffic set up by hardline anti-government protestors, or guarimberos, in the upperclass neighborhood of Los Palos Grandes, in eastern Caracas.

Injuries were sustained on both sides as protestors clashed with security forces. Two other police officers suffered bullet wounds, albeit nonfatal, allegedly by the same sniper. Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres reported that police have evidence of where the shots were fired shot from, but the shooter’s identity remains unknown, while a full investigation is being launched.

The police and national guard had organized that morning with the intention of clearing out the four remaining barricades in the Eastern area of Caracas.

Minister Torres said it was imperative these four guarimba camps be eliminated, “given the evidence that it was from these places that the most violent terrorist acts were committed: the torching of Metro trains and police vehicles, confrontations with molotovs and weapons against security forces.”

Some 243 barricaders were apprehended for questioning, although 12 were released hours later due to their juvenile status. A variety of weapons, including guns and homemade bombs, as well as illegal drugs, were found among protestors.

Among the arrested was a young man responsible for the burning of a National Guard vehicle, according to Rodriguez.

Later that day, near the scene of Tovar’s death, more hardline protestors attacked the Public Fund for Micro Finance Development (Fondemi) with explosives and stones.

Yesterday Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pledged a medal of bravery to the bus driver, Jonathon Jimenez, whose bus was assaulted by protestors wielding molotov cocktails last week. Jimenez still remains in the hospital with severe burns.

“Can it be called protest to throw a molotov at a worker? That’s something we should reflect on,” said Maduro yesterday afternoon.

Another worker, Victor Yajure, of the United Socialist Party (PSUV), was kidnapped by unknown assailants in front of his home in Iribarren, Lara state. According to those who reported the crime, Yajure was previously aware of a plot designed by anti-government student protestors to frame him for arson of the local university.

Colleagues of Yajure are convinced the kidnapping had political motives, and condemn oppositional governor Henry Falcon of “abetting violent acts” by permitting the protestors to “control the area” for three months, under the alleged protection of local police.

May 10, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Evo’s Bolivia: Continuity and Change

By Linda C. Farthing and Benjamin H. Kohl

Out now. An accessible account of Evo Morales’s first six years in office, offering analysis of major issues as well as interviews with a wide variety of people, resulting in a valuable primer on Bolivia and Morales’s “process of change”.

In this compelling and comprehensive look at the rise of Evo Morales and Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl offer a thoughtful evaluation of the transformations ushered in by the western hemisphere’s first contemporary indigenous president. Accessible to all readers, Evo’s Bolivia not only charts Evo’s rise to power but also offers a history of and context for the MAS revolution’s place in the rising “pink tide” of the political left. Farthing and Kohl examine the many social movements whose agendas have set the political climate in Bolivia and describe the difficult conditions the administration inherited. They evaluate the results of Evo’s policies by examining a variety of measures, including poverty; health care and education reform; natural resources and development; and women’s, indigenous, and minority rights. Weighing the positive with the negative, the authors offer a balanced assessment of the results and shortcomings of the first six.

Available in paperback for $16.72

May 3, 2014 Posted by | Book Review, Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

The US, Cuba and Terrorism

By Robert Fantina | CounterPunch | May 2, 2014

The United States State Department, in its infinite wisdom, has once again designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. The newest Country Report on Terrorism, issued on April 30, 2014, includes Cuba in a list of nations that “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”. The island country in the Caribbean has been so designated since 1982.One reads about the U.S. calling any other nation a ‘sponsor of terrorism’ in shocked disbelief. That the U.S., the greatest purveyor of terrorism on the planet, has the audacity to accuse any other nation of sponsoring terrorism is beyond all credibility.

Just since the beginning of the new millennium, the U.S. has unleashed horrific terrorism on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, and the displacement of millions, and is currently sending drones to Yemen and other nations, ostensibly to kill ‘terrorists’, but resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Is this not terrorism?

And what of the U.S.’s continued and unwavering financial support of Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians? Not only does the U.S. finance that apartheid regime, it blocks any attempt by the international community to put a halt to it.

So 1982 is the year that the U.S. first decided that Cuba was a state sponsor of terrorism. This, despite U.S. antagonism toward that country since 1959, when the repressive and widely hated, U.S.-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by a popular resistance movement, led by the young leftist, Fidel Castro. At that time, the U.S. controlled 80% of Cuban utilities, 90% of its mines and cattle ranches, and nearly all of its oil refineries. No wonder Mr. Castro has incurred the wrath of the U.S. since then: when the American bottom line is threatened, no efforts are too great to protect it.

And what has the U.S., that shining beacon of peace, freedom and democracy, been doing on the world stage since 1982, when it first singled out Cuba as a terrorist state? It has either invaded, or covertly or overtly worked for the overthrow of the governments of the following countries, sometimes on multiple occasions, and sometimes constantly:

Cuba

Nicaragua

Angola

Philippines

Iraq

Iran

Venezuela

Palestine

Afghanistan

Somalia

Haiti

If one were to go back just to the middle of the twentieth century, these countries could be added to the list:

Syria

Guatemala

Tibet

Indonesia

Democratic Republic of the Congo

South Vietnam

Brazil

Ghana

Chile

Turkey

Poland

Korea

El Salvador

Grenada

And what of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, including waterboarding, which the United Nations and every civilized country in the world, except for the U.S., condemns? By any but U.S. standards, these are acts of terrorism.

And while we’re talking about Cuba, let’s not forget Guantanamo, the U.S.’s, Cuban-based torture chamber. And the U.S. policy of ‘extraordinary rendition’, the practice of kidnapping suspected terrorists and sending them to foreign countries where prohibitions against torture don’t exist, can only be seen as terrorism.

So while the U.S. wages war, tortures political prisoners, holds prisoners for years without any concept of due process, destabilizes democratically-elected governments which displease it, and finances governments with long records of the most shocking human rights abuses, it actually has the nerve to accuse another country of supporting terrorism.

The Cuban response to this designation is milder than one might expect. A statement from that country’s foreign ministry said that Cuba “… energetically rejects the manipulation of a matter as sensitive as international terrorism by turning it into an instrument of policy against Cuba and it demands that our country be definitively excluded from this spurious, unilateral and arbitrary list.”

So what are the specific reasons the U.S. has for continuing to designate Cuba a sponsor of terrorism? It hardly matters, considering the U.S.’s own ongoing, horrific terrorist activities around the globe, but let’s note them anyway.

* Past support for the Basque separatist group ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( Basque Homeland and Freedom), and

* Support for Colombia’s FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels.

Yet the report concedes that Cuban ties to ETA ‘have become more distant’, and it points out that Cuba is hosting talks between the Colombian government and the FARC in Havana.

There are, of course, opposing views for why the U.S. actually has so designated Cuba:

Said Mauricio Claver-Carone, of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, an influential lobby group in Washington: Cuba “fails to meet the statutory criteria for being removed” (whatever that is).

Alana Tummino, director of policy at the Americas Society/Council for the Americas in New York, had a different view: “Sadly, unless the State Department has more evidence than it’s providing, it appears that political motivations have once again driven this determination.”

Can there be any doubt that political motivations are, in fact, behind the U.S.’s continuation of a policy that makes no logical sense? For nearly sixty years, the U.S. has embargoed, boycotted, sanctioned, blockaded and invaded Cuba, all because of ongoing resentment against the takeover by the government by Cubans from the Americans. The electoral vote in Florida is usually vital in presidential elections, and the importance of the Cuban-American voting bloc, although diminishing, is still worth courting. So such considerations as human rights, justice and statesmanship have no role in policy-making, when the goal is always re-election.

One looks in vain for any substantive change to U.S. policy towards Cuba.

Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Dill Press).

May 3, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Los Van Van – Aquí el que Baila Gana (El Concierto)

Cuban musician Juan Formell, leader and founder of the internationally recognized Los Van Van musical group, passed away on Thursday in Havana.

Formell, 71, was awarded with a Latin Grammy for Excellence in 2013.

May 2, 2014 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Confessed Brazilian Torturer Found Murdered

By Michael Uhl | This Can’t Be Happening | April 27, 2014

At approximately four o’clock this past Thursday afternoon, Paulo Malhaes, a retired officer who served in the ‘70s during the years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, was murdered at his small farm outside of Rio de Janeiro.

Malhaes had become infamous in recent weeks, as I wrote in this space recently [1], for his lurid testimony before the Brazilian Truth Commission, where he described in graphic detail how the bodies of opponents of the repressive regime had been disappeared after being killed under torture.

According to news reports, Malhaes, his wife and a house mate, in some reports described as a valet, had arrived at the farm around two p.m. and were confronted by three intruders already in their home.  The wife, Cristina Malhaes, and the house mate, later identified by police only as Rui, were restrained and led off into one room, while the former lieutenant colonel was taken to another.

Cristina and Rui were later released unharmed as the assailants departed the scene by car.  Neither of the survivors reported having heard a sound to suggest the Malhaes had been worked over or “tortured.” But when police examined Malhaes’ body Friday morning they found marks on his face and neck, and have tentatively concluded that he died from asphyxiation.  The only items the murderers removed from the premises were a computer, a printer, and several weapons that had belonged to the victim.

The announcement of Paulo Malhaes’ murder, reported in front pages all over Brazil, has sent shock waves through the country, including among surviving junta participants. The big question being debated is which side did him in.

It’s certainly conceivable that a victim of the dictatorship, or a relative of someone who was disappeared, might have orchestrated Malhaes’s death in an act of vengeance long delayed.  But this hypothesis is being given little credence, as is an alternative theory that Malhaes’ demise occurred in the course of a simple robbery unrelated to his notoriety.

The head of the Sao Paulo Municipal Truth Commission, Gilberto Natalini, suggested uncontroversially that Malhaes’ assassination “demonstrates that this page of Brazilian history has not yet been completely turned.”

His counterpart on the Rio de Janeiro Truth Commission, Wadih Damous, offers a darker theory, saying,  “In my opinion, the murder of colonel Paulo Malhaes was an act of witness elimination.  He was an important agent of political repression during the dictatorship, and a repository of information on what actually took place behind the scenes in that era.”

“He still had a lot to say,” agreed the former Minister of Human Rights, Maria do Rosario, “and could have been seen as a threat.  True, he had already told what happened, but he didn’t reveal who did it.”

One Brazilian senator, Randolfe Rodrigues, speculated on how far those still operating in the “shadow of the dictatorship” might be willing to go “to erase the past.”  He warned that the members of the various truth commissions had better start looking to their own security.

April 28, 2014 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Brazilian torturer found murdered

Memory in Latin America | April 26, 2014

Brazilian former army colonel Paulo Malhães has been murdered in his home near Rio de Janeiro.

He was reportedly killed by three men who broke in and suffocated him, as well as stealing computers and guns.

Malhães recently testified to the truth commission about his involvement in torture, about which he expressed no regrets. Commission president Wadih Damous called for the murder to be fully investigated, saying that it could have been an attempt to prevent Malhães revealing further information about the military regime.

Morte de Malhães pode ser queima de arquivo, diz Comissão da Verdade (uol.com.br)

Brazilian military rule torturer Paulo Malhaes found dead (BBC)

Former security agent who testified to CNV is murdered (Transitional Justice in Brazil)

April 26, 2014 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The Dirty Hand of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Venezuela

By Eva Golinger | Postcards from the Revolution | April 23, 2014

Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the US government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado- two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February – have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy “NED” and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled multi-million dollar funding to Lopez’s political parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and Machado’s NGO Sumate and her electoral campaigns.

These Washington agencies have also filtered more than $14 million to opposition groups in Venezuela between 2013 and 2014, including funding for their political campaigns in 2013 and for the current anti-government protests in 2014. This continues the pattern of financing from the US government to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2001, when millions of dollars were given to organizations from so-called “civil society” to execute a coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. After their failure days later, USAID opened an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas to, together with the NED, inject more than $100 million in efforts to undermine the Chavez government and reinforce the opposition during the following 8 years.

At the beginning of 2011, after being publically exposed for its grave violations of Venezuelan law and sovereignty, the OTI closed its doors in Venezuela and USAID operations were transferred to its offices in the US. The flow of money to anti-government groups didn’t stop, despite the enactment by Venezuela’s National Assembly of the Law of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination at the end of 2010, which outright prohibits foreign funding of political groups in the country. US agencies and the Venezuelan groups that receive their money continue to violate the law with impunity. In the Obama Administration’s Foreign Operations Budgets, between $5-6 million have been included to fund opposition groups in Venezuela through USAID since 2012.

The NED, a “foundation” created by Congress in 1983 to essentially do the CIA’s work overtly, has been one of the principal financiers of destabilization in Venezuela throughout the Chavez administration and now against President Maduro. According to NED’s 2013 annual report, the agency channeled more than $2.3 million to Venezuelan opposition groups and projects. Within that figure, $1,787,300 went directly to anti-government groups within Venezuela, while another $590,000 was distributed to regional organizations that work with and fund the Venezuelan opposition. More than $300,000 was directed towards efforts to develop a new generation of youth leaders to oppose Maduro’s government politically.

One of the groups funded by NED to specifically work with youth is FORMA (http://www.forma.org.ve), an organization led by Cesar Briceño and tied to Venezuelan banker Oscar Garcia Mendoza. Garcia Mendoza runs the Banco Venezolano de Credito, a Venezuelan bank that has served as the filter for the flow of dollars from NED and USAID to opposition groups in Venezuela, including Sumate, CEDICE, Sin Mordaza, Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones and FORMA, amongst others.

Another significant part of NED funds in Venezuela from 2013-2014 was given to groups and initiatives that work in media and run the campaign to discredit the government of President Maduro. Some of the more active media organizations outwardly opposed to Maduro and receiving NED funds include Espacio Publico, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), Sin Mordaza and GALI. Throughout the past year, an unprecedented media war has been waged against the Venezuelan government and President Maduro directly, which has intensified during the past few months of protests.

In direct violation of Venezuelan law, NED also funded the opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), via the US International Republican Institute (IRI), with $100,000 to “share lessons learned with [anti-government groups] in Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia… and allow for the adaption of the Venezuelan experience in these countries”. Regarding this initiative, the NED 2013 annual report specifically states its aim: “To develop the ability of political and civil society actors from Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia to work on national, issue-based agendas for their respective countries using lessons learned and best practices from successful Venezuelan counterparts.  The Institute will facilitate an exchange of experiences between the Venezuelan Democratic Unity Roundtable and counterparts in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Argentina. IRI will bring these actors together through a series of tailored activities that will allow for the adaptation of the Venezuelan experience in these countries.”

IRI has helped to build right-wing opposition parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and has worked with the anti-government coalition in Venezuela since before the 2002 coup d’etat against Chavez. In fact, IRI’s president at that time, George Folsom, outwardly applauded the coup and celebrated IRI’s role in a press release claiming, “The Institute has served as a bridge between the nation’s political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future…”

Detailed in a report published by the Spanish institute FRIDE in 2010, international agencies that fund the Venezuelan opposition violate currency control laws in order to get their dollars to the recipients. Also confirmed in the FRIDE report was the fact that the majority of international agencies, with the exception of the European Commission, are bringing in foreign money and changing it on the black market, in clear violation of Venezuelan law. In some cases, as the FRIDE analysis reports, the agencies open bank accounts abroad for the Venezuelan groups or they bring them the money in hard cash. The US Embassy in Caracas could also use the diplomatic pouch to bring large quantities of unaccounted dollars and euros into the country that are later handed over illegally to anti-government groups in Venezuela.

What is clear is that the US government continues to feed efforts to destabilize Venezuela in clear violation of law. Stronger legal measures and enforcement may be necessary to ensure the sovereignty and defense of Venezuela’s democracy.

(aquí en español)

April 25, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honduras: Gangsters’ Paradise

By Nick Alexandrov | CounterPunch | April 25, 2014

Nearly five years after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) first called on the Honduran government to protect Carlos Mejía Orellana, the Radio Progreso marketing manager was found stabbed to death in his home on April 11. “The IACHR and its Office of the Special Rapporteur consider this a particularly serious crime given the precautionary measures granted,” the Commission stated, assuming Mejía really was being guarded. But since the 2009 coup, asking the Honduran state to defend journalists is as effective as entreating a spider to spare a web-ensnared fly.

The coup, which four School of the Americas (SOA) graduates oversaw, toppled elected president Manuel Zelaya, and was “a crime,” as even the military lawyer—another SOA alum—charged with giving the overthrow a veneer of legitimacy couldn’t deny. A pair of marred general elections followed. Journalist Michael Corcoran recognized widespread “state violence against dissidents” and “ballot irregularities” as hallmarks of the first, in November 2009, which Obama later hailed as the return of Honduran democracy. And there was little dispute that the subsequent contest, held last November, was equally flawed. The State Department, for example, admitted “inconsistencies” plagued the vote, the same charge Zelaya himself leveled and an echo of the SOA Watch delegation’s findings, which identified “numerous irregularities and problems during the elections and vote counting process[.]” But while grassroots and governmental observers described the election in similar terms, they drew dramatically different conclusions about its validity. Canadian activist Raul Burbano, for example, acknowledged that “corruption, fraud, violence, murder, and human rights violations” dominated the situation. For Secretary of State Kerry, “the election process was generally transparent, peaceful, and reflected the will of the Honduran people.”

Kerry, to be sure, was referring to the class of “worthy” Hondurans, whose will was indeed reflected in the contest. One might be “a policeman, a lumber magnate, an agro-industrialist, a congressman, a mayor, an owner of a national media outlet, a cattle rancher, a businessman, or a drug trafficker”—all belong to this sector, Radio Progreso director Rev. Ismael Moreno Coto, S.J., known as Padre Melo, points out, adding that these “worthy” Hondurans use the state as a tool to maintain, if not enhance, their power. The results for the rest of the population are what you’d expect. The government no longer pays many of its employees, for example; Peter J. Meyer’s Congressional Research Service report on “Honduran-U.S. Relations,” released last July, cites “misused government funds” and “weak tax collection” as two factors contributing to the current situation, a kind of wage slavery sans wages. Doctors, nurses and educators toil for free throughout the country, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research reported last fall that over 43% of Honduran workers labored full-time in 2012 without receiving the minimum wage. That same year, nearly half of the population was living in extreme poverty—the rate had dropped to 36% under Zelaya—and 13,000 inmates now crowd a prison system designed for 8,000. In San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city after Tegucigalpa, some 5,000 children try not to starve to death while living on the streets; this figure includes 3,000 girls, aged 12-17, who roam the roads as prostitutes.

Confronting this reality—asking fundamental questions, like whose interests dominant Honduran institutions serve—“means living with anxiety, insecurity, suspicion, distrust, demands, warnings, and threats. It also means having to come to grips with the idea of death,” Padre Melo emphasizes, explaining that a reporter in Honduras “only has to publish or disseminate some news that negatively affects the interests [of] a powerful person with money and influence…for the life of that news reporter to be endangered.” Melo was making these points in July 2012, well before Mejía’s recent murder, but when it was already obvious that open season had been declared on Honduran correspondents. It’s likely that “few observers could have foreseen the deluge of threats, attacks, and targeted killings that has swept through Honduras during the last five years,” PEN International noted in January, highlighting “the surge in violence directed against journalists following the ouster of President José Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.” A great deal “of the violence is produced by the state itself, perhaps most significantly by a corrupt police force,” and now over 32 Honduran journalists—the equivalent U.S. figure, as a percentage of the total population, would be well over 1,200—are dead.

These killings are part of a broader Honduran trend, namely what Reporters Without Borders calls “a murder rate comparable to that of a country at war—80 per 100,000 in a population of 7 million.” One crucial battlefield is the Bajo Aguán Valley, where at least 102 peasant farmers were killed between January 2010 and May 2013. The conflict there can be traced back to the ’90s, when a “paradigm promoted by the World Bank” spurred “a massive re-concentration of land in the Aguán into the hands of a few influential elites,” Tanya Kerssen writes in Grabbing Power, her excellent book. These land barons, particularly Dinant Corporation’s Miguel Facussé, thrived as “the Aguán cooperative sector was decimated,” some three-quarters of its land seized, Kerssen concludes. Campesinos, suddenly dispossessed, first sought legal recourse, which failed. They subsequently “protested and occupied disputed land,” Rights Action’s Annie Bird observes in an invaluable study (“Human Rights Violations Attributed to Military Forces in the Bajo Aguán Valley in Honduras,” February 2013), prompting government authorities to review the legitimacy of World Bank-promoted territorial transfer. But the June 2009 coup ended this appraisal, and since then Honduras’ 15th Battalion, Washington-aided “since at least 2008,” has “consistently been identified as initiating acts of violence against campesino movements,” with police forces and Dinant’s security guards getting in on the kills, Bird explains

After Brazil, Honduras is the most dangerous place on the planet for land-rights defenders, according to “Deadly Environment,” a new Global Witness investigation, which notes that “more and more ordinary people are finding themselves on the frontline of the battle to defend their environment from corporate or state abuse, and from unsustainable exploitation.” At least 908 worldwide died in this conflict from 2002-2013, and Washington’s “counterdrug” policies in the region have helped raise the stakes, Dr. Kendra McSweeney’s research suggests. “In Honduras, the level of large-scale deforestation per year more than quadrupled between 2007 and 2011, at the same time as cocaine movements in the country also showed a significant rise,” BBC correspondent Matt McGrath summarizes her findings. “Once you start fighting” the traffickers, McSweeney elaborates, “you scatter them into more remote locales and greater areas become impacted,” as smugglers clear forests to build airstrips and roads, and “worthy” Hondurans in, say, the palm oil and ranching sectors capitalize on booming drug profits.

“Today it’s the same” as it was in the 1980s, Honduran activist Bertha Oliva remarked a year ago, referring to the decade when “the presence of the U.S. in the country was extremely significant,” and “it was clear that political opponents were being eliminated.” Obama’s Honduras policy is Reagan’s redux, in other words. The thousands of child prostitutes and street children, the prisons teeming with inmates, the scores of slaughtered peasants and dozens of murdered journalists—all indicate the type of nation Washington helps build in a region where it’s free to operate unimpeded, revealing which “American values” really drive U.S. foreign policy.

Nick Alexandrov lives in Washington, DC.

 

April 25, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Bolivia takes Chile to ICJ over coast claim

Press TV – April 15, 2014

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has submitted legal documents to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a bid to gain an access to the Pacific coast for his land-locked country through Chile.

“The Bolivian people hope that the historic wrong that took place will be repaired as soon as possible,” Morales said at the Bolivian Embassy in the Netherlands after personally handing over the documents to the ICJ in The Hague.

Morales was accompanied at The Hague by a strong delegation, including Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.

Landlocked Bolivia, which still maintains a navy, seeks to force its neighbor to give back a Pacific Ocean passage that it lost in a war with Chile at the end of the 19th Century.

“We have come here to make a historic demand, for Bolivia to regain sovereign access to the sea,” he added.

Bolivia and Chile have had only limited diplomatic relations since 1978. Unfruitful negotiations with Santiago over the issue prompted La Paz to lodge a complaint to the ICJ for the first time in April 2013.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said last month that the court case had closed the door on any hopes of a bilateral deal.

“We are very clear that we respect international treaties… but we are going to first analyze the Bolivian case in order to decide how we proceed,” Bachelet said shortly before Morales submitted the documents to the ICJ on Tuesday.

Chile says its border with Bolivia was fixed by a treaty signed by the two countries in 1904, which cost Bolivia some 120 kilometers (75 miles) of coast and 120,000 square kilometers (46,332 square miles) of arid land where many of the world’s top copper reserves are located.

April 16, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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