Bolivia-USA: Morbid Relations Beyond Diplomacy

October 28, 2011

Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti

Who pays for this pollution?

It’s no secret that diplomatic relations between a poor country and a hegemonic world power are frequently a montage. They are a pantomime written and directed by the stronger, showing it as a hero, and the weaker as a victim rescued from poverty, chaos, or ungovernability. Above all, it’s a theatrical piece meant to hide a scandalous degree of interventionism and domination.

This was the case in the relations between Bolivia and the United States ever since the Rockefeller empire seized the oil industry and, in the 1930s, instigated the war against Paraguay, later selling to the latter the oil that it stole from Bolivia. Bolivia lost sixty-thousand men in that war, and fell into starvation, but from that pain was born the patriotic sentiment in favor of defending national dignity and natural resources.

Thus were born the revolutionary governments, and the first of them nationalized John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company for fraud against the state. That set off an interminable cold war waged by the United States against Bolivia, which drove the small Andean country into a vicious cycle of fraudulent elections and dictatorships in order to impose puppet governments with orders to change the laws so as to impose anew the looting; and, later, the periods of merciless exploitation of the Bolivian people, of popular protests against the abuse, and of massacres in order to repress them.

That period of diplomatic relations of submission to the United States was legalized the year 1951, with the establishment of a framework agreement of relations between a donor country that provided “aid” and a petitioner and receiver of that aid, which was always conditioned upon an absolute subordination to Washington’s policies. Despite its disastrous results and humiliating nature, that type of relations was represented through the pantomime of “good diplomatic relations.”

The period of Evo Morales, on the contrary, is the period of decolonization of the form of government, initiated with the re-founding of the country, a new constitution that impedes the looting, and the implementation of a process of profound change toward a more just society. In it, the state assumes fully its social responsibility, something from which Washington’s neoliberalism exempts the governments that it controls. It’s the era, therefore, of the inevitable confrontation with the hegemonic policy of the United States, which led to the expulsion of DEA and of ambassador Philip Goldberg. From then on, the State Department continued covertly its aggressive low-intensity war unleashed against Morales’ government.

Declassified documents obtained by renowned American investigator Jeremy Bigwood (www.boliviamatters.wordpress.com) revealed that from the beginning of the 1990s, long before Evo became president, the United States already identified him as a “danger to its plans for the hemisphere”, and put into effect a campaign against him that implied an “alarming interventionism” in the internal affairs of Bolivia. Documents from 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006 revealed that the U.S.A. intervened not only openly, through its embassy, calling for a firm hand from the presidencies that it controlled, such as that of Tuto Quiroga, but also covertly, through programs financed by USAID to make contact with the indigenous people of the TIPNIS with the goal of making use of the conflict that they had with the coca growers of the Chapare due to an illegal settlement of those territories.

In this way, it exacerbated rivalry among sectors and articulated a coalition of forces opposed to Morales that included the power groups of Santa Cruz that came together in the CAINCO. The United States financed programs with political goals of that entrepreneurial organization through another of its agencies, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), by means of which it had established with CAINCO a historical political alliance. Finally, it directed the use of the media to systematically discredit Morales, promote discontent, and thus manufacture an adverse public opinion.

These cultivated anti-Evo forces finally converged on Saturday, October 22, 2011 in Plaza Murillo, historic setting of so many lynchings of presidents and the overthrow of popular governments. it was the march on behalf of the indigenous peoples of the TIPNIS demanding to negotiate directly with the President. It was time to clench the teeth, because nobody in Bolivia forgets the river of blood that has flowed in the past in similar circumstances. It was time for the perhaps tragic outcome awaited by the sectors opposed to Morales, stuck like leeches to the cause that they managed to manipulate. When the police denied entry to Plaza Murillo to all of them, the infiltrators in the March began to shout “Villarroel”, “Villarroel”, alluding to the hanging of the former president. Sunday was an important day, which will be studied for a long time at universities, because what happened then was as unexpected as it was surprising.

“We’re screwed,” said on Monday afternoon a bewildered member of the opposition, scratching his head while talking with an Indian, trying to understand in depth what they had done. His concern was understandable. Morales had not only survived the attempt to destabilize his government, but also dissolved in 48 hours the subversive plot, which, according to the aforementioned evidence, the United States had been organizing since the beginning of the 1990s. Evo granted the indigenous peoples of the TIPNIS literally everything they asked for. The indigenous, on the other hand, recognized that several of the points alluding to problems outside the TIPNIS were not their petitions, but those of their “affiliates”, which they had included in the original 16-point petition, in return for the support they received for the march.

Negotiations almost broke down when the Indians saw in writing what they had requested, and decided to back off. The protection of the natural reserve was so absolute that it meant the postponement of any aspiration of integration for its inhabitants. The territory was being declared indivisible, un-attachable, imprescriptible, inalienable, and irreversible, but, above all, untouchable. It was a victory for foreign “environmental” groups, financed from the United States and other developed countries that become rich by polluting the atmosphere of the planet with their deregulated industries; and that now, because the TIPNIS is the “lungs of the planet”, condemned its inhabitants to eternal isolation, and therefore, made them pay for the historical ecological debt that industrialized countries are still accumulating.

The Indigenous who negotiated with Morales were filled with doubts, perhaps for the first time, but they had their persuasive “ecological advisers,” including foreigners, breathing down their neck. The latter persuaded them once again, and the indigenous signed the agreement. Evo passed it to the Legislative Assembly, the Act was passed, and the president signed it in record time. The TIPNIS became, according to the law now in effect, forever cloistered and without roads, thus making very difficult the provision of schools, hospitals, electricity and water, while industrialized countries, led by the United States, still polluted the air of the planet while refusing to reduce their carbon emissions. With regard to the environment, it was once again the old formula of “the clever lives off the donkey, and the donkey eats straw.” The United States’ political objective of boycotting the pole of development of the Chapare, under the community production model that so frightens it, was achieved with the complicity, conscious or not, of some Bolivians. Intervention in internal affairs remains alarming, and that forces us to reflect.

We all want the re-establishment of diplomatic relations based on mutual respect and equality of rights and obligations, but, considering that Bolivia does not conspire against the government of the United States, demanding only mutual respect, it is the Department of State that has to make a conscious effort to change its pattern of interventionist conduct in Bolivia.

This type of asymmetric diplomacy is as unfair as it is unsustainable. It is therefore urgent to sign the new framework agreement for diplomatic relations based on mutual respect, so that the Bolivian ambassador in Washington may finally be a dignified defender of his or her fatherland, and not, as was the case before, a simple agent of Washington working to persuade his own country to submit. It is time for a new type of diplomacy, honest and without paternalism.

www.juancarloszambrana.com

http://juancarloszambrana.com/?page_id=431

NGOs plot against Evo Morales | Moscow News

INTERNATIONAL

© RIA Novosti. Mikhail Fomichev

NGOs plot against Evo Morales

by Vicky Pelaez at 13/10/2011 21:02

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Bolivia seems to have entered a long-awaited period of calm, and many expect its indigenous president, Evo Morales, to follow through on his plan to rebuild the country on the principles of social justice and solidarity. But these expectations may never transpire, as Washington looks set to undermine the Bolivian leader’s authority using international NGOs – one of the most sophisticated and efficient tools for this purpose.

Bolivia, which still ranks among Latin America’s poorest nations, was for centuries exploited by the Spanish conquerors before it fell into the clutches of multinational companies and their local oligarch associates. This is why when Morales dared launch fundamental reforms in the country; he became one of the main targets for globalization champions.

In May 2008, Morales aborted an attempt of a military coup. In April 2009, he dismantled a mysterious terrorist group led by the mercenary Eduardo Rosza-Flores. A general strike in the mining province of Potosi in 2010 dealt a heavy blow to the Bolivian economy. Plus, four of the country’s nine regions, namely Tarija, Santa Cruz, Beni and Pardo, where major oil and natural gas deposits are located, have since 2006 been stepping up their struggle for autonomy.

Local indigenous groups, backed by the Movimiento Sin Miedo (Movement without Fear) and the Confederación Obrera Boliviana (the Bolivian Labor Confederation), have been holding anti-government protests for several weeks now. They took to the streets following Morales’ decision to build a highway between Villa Tunan and San Ignacio de Mojos with a view to stepping up the process of national integration. All this is unfolding against a backdrop of daily verbal attacks from international NGOs operating in the country.

The U.S. – Spain Council, an organization that aims to promote cooperation between Spain and the United States, sponsors conferences in Bolivia where American associates, such as Lindsay Robertson, Stephen Greetham and Amanda Cobb-Greetham, urge indigenous Bolivian communities to fight for their rights. They argue that in the United States, it is the Native Americans who are considered the only legitimate owners of the land’s natural wealth. Such statements are striking in their cynicism, as we all know only too well about the ongoing misery of North America’s Indian communities.

© RIA Novosti. / Fedotov

Historically, Bolivia was exploited

The NGOs were created as tools to promote globalization across the world, paving the way for transnationals. Accomplishing this “from above” seemed impossible because of the inefficiency of the governments then in power. So it was decided to act “from below” instead, creating new local grassroots organizations and infiltrating into those that already existed. Initially, NGOs were to be bankrolled by the State Department through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), with guidance from the CIA.

Other Western nations applauded the creation of these NGOs as vehicles through which they could promote their own interests, in addition to the common globalization agenda. Oil majors such as Shell and BP exploited these “vehicles” to expand their global reach. Many individuals also benefited.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, NGOs rushed to usher their new “children” in Russia and other ex-Soviet countries into the “brave new world.” According to U.S. professor Robert Bruce Ware, more than 450,000 non-governmental organizations had launched operations in Russia by 2005, all keen to proselytize their gospel of democratic governance and human rights. Indicatively, they were especially keen to reach out to the most distant of the country’s provinces, seen as the most promising, Libyan style, in terms of staging anti-government revolts.

Now U.S. Senator Richard Lugar has proposed adopting legislation to legalize the use of social media in Latin America to instigate revolutions, such as those that have recently swept across Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. This will be a new challenge for NGOs coming over to apply their African experience.

Over his five years in office, Morales has reduced the percentage of those living on just 2 dollars a day to 49%, down from 60%, and cut the proportion of people living in extreme poverty to 25%, from 37% previously.

But with Lugar’s motion in place, this and other achievements by the present Bolivian leader lose their relevance.

Morales stands in the way of transnationals, so the United States wants him overthrown.

Read other articles of the print issue "The Moscow News #79"

TIPNIS: A Libyan test method? | TIPNIS: ¿Un ensayo del método libio?

 This article was originally written in Spanish. The original version follows below our translation – admin

“I was Quechua born. I learned Spanish at 9 years old. I lived in a peasant community, 40 km afar of the nearest road. Without electric power, without engines, schools or medical centers. To reach the “punta carretera” (the nearest village where I attended basic school), we needed to travel a day and a half on foot, after the mules. We slept over mud, under the trees, covering ourselves with plastic sheets so full of holes. My father, when he was a child, had to travel afoot 7 days, behind the mules, to reach the school: he never finished his education.”

By Ollantay Itzamná
10/10/11

In the complex Bolivian order of things, so full of revolutionary histories, the TIPNIS case is and will be a valuable lesson for people with revolutionary creed, but too close to Sisyphus’ myth for their own good. When a 21st century world in despair was looking in hope the Bolivian process, as a referent for possible structural transformations, we stumbled upon the noisy TIPNIS case. As a result, Bolivian idea-lacking oligarchy breathed again, and conscience and political beliefs from promoting Bolivians is under a hard test.

The TIPNIS case is not a environmental or indigenous joke: it’s an rehearsal for validating the Libyan method’s effectiveness. The Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure (TIPNIS) is 12.363 square kilometers (4,773.381 square miles), and belongs to the Beni and Cochabamba departments, 300 kilometers from Brazil’s frontier. This territory, still virgin land, has no roads, electric power or facilities of any kind: it is the home for poor indigenous tribes, just two steps ahead of primitive times: moxeño, yuracaré and chimán. That, and some “colonization” communities. In order to include isolated parts of territory, President Evo Morales is working in ambitious road-construction projects. One of those projects, connecting the plateau and valleys with Amazonian Bolivia, goes straight thru TIPNIS. In the present day, you need three days of travel (900 km) in order to go from Beni to Cochabamba. With the new road, traveling through TIPNIS, distance would be 300 km shorter. This road project is shattering not just Morales’ government, but also the hopeful change process in Bolivia. It can look funny: a poor country, without enough roads, is fighting angrily against a road project in the middle of TIPNIS. What’s the matter with the bold Bolivia, the rainbow warriors’ one?

The meaning of living without roads

I was Quechua born. I learned Spanish at 9 years old. I lived in a peasant community, 40 km afar of the nearest road. Without electric power, without engines, schools or medical centers. To reach the “punta carretera” (the nearest village where I attended basic school), we needed to travel a day and a half on foot, after the mules. We slept over mud, under the trees, covering ourselves with plastic sheets so full of holes. My father, when he was a child, had to travel afoot 7 days, behind the mules, to reach the school: he never finished his education. At this moment of time, road is nearer, it conquered tropical jungle, and it’s 3 hours away from my parents’ home. Last time I visited my old parents, I sadly saw from the van I was riding on a lazy bear, no very scared by engine sound. You can’t imagine all the contradictions suggested by that scene. To be honest, without that blessed road, I would never learned to write, and I would never know the miseries and the greatness of the modern world. My mother, isolated, would surely die due to her heart troubles. But despite that, the road is still troubling me. Especially now that I am an urban indigenous, and my Earth identity. But, do I have the right to negate my nephews and other people the chance of experience modern times? For us, indigenous, the road is a matter of life and death. The rest is just silly stories.

Are we prepared to avoid modern times?

When I hear and read the arguments against the TIPNIS road, I wonder if environmental and indigenous advocates know firsthand how is life when you’re isolated and poor. ¿Do they know what is living without electrical power, schools, hospitals, computer or freezers? I do not defend Earth or indigenous people. I am Earth and indigenous at the same time, and I long for life. I don’t want the isolation that kills silence for no one. But I am not a defender of the modern times killing our surroundings, our people or committing suicide. My ancestors lived for thousands of years interacting with Mother Earth. Without agriculture, without settings, without cattle, without roads, without Industrial Revolution, mankind would not exist. At least, not with the “comfort” we already have. Good life, as a lifestyle, for indigenous people, isn’t opposed to modern times! Why people excluded from Movimiento Al Socialismo (Movement For Socialism, MAS), ex-Morales’ government agents like Raúl Prada, Alejandro Almaraz, Lino Vilca, Román Loayza and others, now that don’t receive a pay from Evo’s “tyrant” government, want to behead the President? Rest of road and petroleum exploitations, when they were on the rule: weren’t so harmful for Mother Earth and financed by Brazilian empire, as they claim now? Why modern and urban indigenous, used to fly by plane, want to keep their kin isolated and poor? If we negate roads to TIPNIS people, we must do it too for the rest of indigenous and mixed races, forbidding motorways and airports. Do they will agree on that? Once you’re in top of the ladder of modern times, is easy to burn bridges behind us, while rest of people wants also their share of “modernity”, even this is bad for Mother Earth.

It was no then, it is yes now?

Why landowners that treated indigenous people as beasts of burden and little more than animals, now with TIPNIS behave as the great defenders of native people and Mother Earth? Last thing wasn’t a pagan heresy for them? Take them the tractors, airports, planes, more harmful for Mother Earth than the TIPNIS road, and let’s see if they still want to defend environment. Free my native sisters from being maids and servants, and check later if the “ladies” still defend the “exotic natives in their natural state”.

Let’s find who’s paying the NGO behind the repressed VII Indigenous March to La Paz city, supporting TIPNIS. You’ll be surprised that Ford or Rockefeller foundations are behind. Why? Make a guess on how many air miles did people claiming now about environment and indigenous. Maybe them are spending more time in airports and luxury hotels than at TIPNIS, who will finance them? Why private mass media, who loathed and despised natives, now raise their ratings speaking about the noble TIPNIS natives and their valiant march? Maybe the brutal and long neo-liberal night wasn’t cruel with natives and Mother Earth?

Those media, and the journalists working for them, now indigenous partidaries, called us natives in the past “green beak animals (for chewing coca leaves) blocking the economy and the advancing of the country”. Is this due to ecological faith, or economical need? Do you remember Morales, fighting the global monetary system, denouncing projects avid to monetize water, air and international commerce on Earth? The global financial system, now wounded, does not forgive people trying to get fresh financing at its back. Global financial system needs to devour all the common goods (natural resources) from Bolivia for breathing, but Morales and the process he’s leading are an obstacle!

TIPNIS, a rehearsal of Libyan method?

Likewise, to Gadafi, Morales, Chávez, Correa and other people not prone to kneel, will get a taste of the Libyan method: break revolution from the inside, with the people who’s inside. In Bolivian case, what’s better than the own natives that “defend” TIPNIS and “Mother Earth”. Unfinished histories of Bolivian revolutions are full of treacherous and quick “comrades”, maybe they died without knowing they were undermining the revolution they were fighting for. In TIPNIS case, the defense of native people and Mother Earth is not at the stake. The game is about the validation of the Libyan method on its preparing phase, and the burial of the long-awaited social change in Bolivia, the one our ancestors and peers gave their lives for. Both us and them know these changes aren’t at the next corner. We know change is something that will benefit our future generations. But central government errors, and our own hunger about “eating” the future now, are making contradictions in the process much deeper, and who knows if they’ll reach a destructive limit. I honestly think that TIPNIS road projects needs to be informed, and listen to people’s vote.

Repression against indigenous march in September must be investigated, and the liable persons must be sanctioned. In the same manner, media who published wrong information about casualties and missing persons must get the same treatment. Government, for the sake of truth, must investigate and apply the law over the institutions, characters and financial firms behind the TIPNIS case. It is important for us, as a nation, never be slaves of dire urges, or mass media climate. Bolivia is now a process. Economical and material changes will delay, but they will arrive someday. What has been on the work for seven centuries can’t be upturned in a decade.

http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a131500.html

TIPNIS: ¿Un ensayo del método libio?

Por: Ollantay Itzamná
Fecha de publicación: 10/10/11

En el prolijo sendero boliviano, de innumerables historias revolucionarias inclusas, el caso TIPNIS es y será un hito aleccionador para un pueblo de vocación revolucionaria pero preso del presagio del mito de Sísifo. Nada menos cuando el desesperado mundo del siglo XXI miraba con esperanzas al actual proceso boliviano como el referente de transformaciones estructurales posibles, apareció en el camino el bullicioso caso TIPNIS que no sólo oxigenó a la convaleciente (en ideas) oligarquía boliviana, sino que tantea el grado y la profundidad de la conciencia y convicción política de las y los bolivianos promotores y baluartes del proceso.

El caso TIPNIS no es ninguna inocentada ambientalista o indigenista, es un ensayo para la revalidación de la eficacia del método libio. El Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure (TIPNIS), mide 12 363 km² (1.236 296 hectáreas) Pertenece a los departamentos de Beni y Cochabamba. A 300 kilómetros de la frontera con Brasil. En este territorio, básicamente virgen, carente de vías de comunicación, electricidad y otras facilidades, conviven en condiciones de empobrecimiento y precariedad primitiva, y no en bucólica armonía con la naturaleza, los pueblos indígenas: moxeño, yuracaré y chimán. Además, están varias comunidades de “colonizadores”. Con el objetivo de articular las zonas aisladas del territorio nacional, el gobierno de Evo Morales, emprende ambiciosos proyectos camineros. Uno de éstos, para articular a las poblaciones del altiplano y valles con la Amazonía de Bolivia, pasa por TIPNIS. Actualmente, para ir de Beni a Cochabamba, se requiere 3 días de viaje (900 km). Con la nueva carretera, que pasaría por TIPNIS, la distancia se acortaría a 300 km.Este proyecto caminero es lo que está sacudiendo, no al gobierno de Morales, sino al soñado y esperanzado proceso de cambio boliviano. Aunque parezca jocoso: un país empobrecido y sin carreteras suficientes, ahora, se encuentra en pie de lucha contra un proyecto caminero que cruza por TIPNIS. ¿Qué pasa con esa Bolivia aguerrida y promisoria de los guerreros del arco iris?

Lo que significa vivir en el aislamiento caminero

Yo, soy indígena quechua. Aprendí el español a los 9 años. Viví en una comunidad campesina, a 40 km. de la punta carretera. Sin electricidad, sin motores, sin centros educativos, ni postas médicas. Para llegar a la punta carretera (poblado municipal más próximo donde hice la primaria), necesitábamos viajar un día y medio a pie, y detrás de las mulas. Dormíamos sobre el fango, bajo los árboles, tapados con plásticos agujereados. Mi padre, cuando fue niño, tuvo que viajar a pie 7 días, detrás de las mulas, para llegar a su escuela que jamás concluyó. Actualmente, la carretera avanzó, rompiendo la selva semitropical, y se encuentra a 3 horas de la casa de mis padres. La última vez que fui a visitar a mis ancianos padres en la comunidad, con pesar vi, desde el camión en que me transportaba, en medio de la selva frondosa, surcada por la carretera, a un oso perezoso que huía con dificultad del ruido del motor por el barranco dejado por el tractor. No imaginan las contradicciones que me generó aquel cuadro.Para serles honesto, quien suscribe, sin aquella bendita carretera jamás hubiera aprendido a escribir, mucho menos conocido las grandezas y las miserias de la modernidad, patrimonio de la humanidad. Mi madre aislada ya hubiera fallecido por sus complicaciones cardíacas. Pero no crean. Aquella carretera me sigue generando contradicciones. Especialmente ahora que soy indígena urbano, y por mi identidad Tierra. Pero, ¿con qué derecho podría yo privarles a mis sobrinos u otros de la posibilidad de conocer la modernidad? Para nosotros indígenas, la carretera es cuestión de vida o muerte. El resto es romance.

¿Estamos dispuestos a renunciar a la modernidad?

Cuando escucho y leo los argumentos en contra del tramo carretero que cruza TIPNIS, me pregunto si las y los ambientalistas e indigenistas conocen en carne propia lo que es vivir aislado y en permanente precariedad. ¿Sabrán lo que es vivir sin energía eléctrica, sin escuela, sin hospitales, sin computadora, sin refrigeradora? Yo no defiendo a la Tierra, ni a los indígenas. Yo soy tierra e indígena al mismo tiempo, pero con vocación a la vida. Yo no deseo para nadie el aislamiento que mata en el silencio. Pero, tampoco promuevo el modernismo ecocida, etnocida y suicida. Mis ancestros han convivido por miles de años incursionando e interactuando con la Madre Tierra. Sin agricultura, sin asentamientos, sin ganados, sin carreteras, sin la revolución industrial no existiría la humanidad. No por lo menos con las “comodidades” actuales. ¡El Buen Vivir, como un estilo de vida, para nosotros/as indígenas, no es excluyente con los beneficios de la modernidad!¿Por qué será que justamente los raleados (expulsados) del Movimientos al Socialismo (MAS) y ex funcionarios del gobierno de Morales, como Raúl Prada, Alejandro Almaraz, Lino Vilca, Román Loayza y otros, ahora que ya no reciben sueldo del gobierno “tirano” de Evo, se empecinan en descabezar a Morales? Las otras carreteras y proyectos petroleros, mientras ellos eran funcionarios, ¿no eran acaso de igual devastador de la Madre Tierra y financiados por el “subimperio” brasilero que ahora denuncian? ¿Por qué será que indígenas modernos/urbanos, que no se niegan a los viajes en avión, ahora, quieren mantener en el aislamiento y empobrecimiento a otros indígenas? Si les negamos la carretera a los y las indígenas del TIPNIS, retiremos también las carreteras y los aeropuertos a todos los indígenas y mestizos ambientalistas, ¿será que estarían de acuerdo? Una vez arriba y accedido a la modernidad, es fácil patear la escalera por la que accedimos, mientras hay pueblo enteros que también aspiran a la “modernidad perversa” con la salud de la Madre Tierra.

¿Por qué será que antes no, ahora, sí?

¿Por qué será los patrones que siempre nos mantuvieron a las y los indígenas como sus bestias de carga, y nos tratan como a la última especie de la fauna silvestre, ahora, con en el caso TIPNIS se constituyen en abanderados defensores de pueblos indígenas y de la Madre Tierra? ¿Acaso, para ellos, esto último no era una herejía pagana? Quitémosle los tractores, aeropuertos y aviones que dañan mucho más que la carretera por TIPNIS a la Madre Tierra, haber si la “convicción” ambientalista persiste en ellos. Liberemos a mis hermanas indígenas de la servidumbre doméstica, haber si las señoras “de blanco” salen a defender a “exóticos indígenas en estado natural”.

Averigüemos quiénes financian a las ONGs que están detrás de la reprimida VIII marcha indígena hacia la ciudad de La Paz en defensa del TIPNIS. Para sorpresa de Ud. fundaciones de petroleras como Ford, Rockefeller y otros están detrás. ¿Por qué será? Averigüe Ud. las millas aéreas recorridas por las y los ambientalistas que ahora escriben y hacen huelgas en defensa del estado natural de indígenas. Quizás ellos y ellas viven más en los aeropuertos y hoteles full aire acondicionado que en el TIPNIS postergado, ¿quién los financiará? ¿Por qué será los medios de información empresarial, que antes sentía asco y vergüenza por las y los indígenas, ahora, hacen rating con nobles y primitivos indígenas del TIPNIS en marcha sacrificada? ¿Acaso la brutal y larga noche neoliberal no fue cruel y mortal con indígenas y la Madre Tierra?

Pero, estos medios de información, y muchos de sus actuales columnistas, ahora indigenistas y ambientalista, nos trataban a los indígenas en protestas “de animales de pico verde (por masticar la hoja de coca) sentados a los bordes de los caminos que bloquean la modernidad y la economía del país”. ¿Será esto una conversión ecológica, o una conveniencia económica?¿Recuerda Ud. a Morales, insubordinado al sistema financiero mundial, denunciando los proyectos de mercantilización del agua, aire y el comercio internacional de la tierra? Este sistema financiero mundial, que ahora desfallece, no perdona a insubordinados en su intento de abastecerse de activos financieros frescos. ¡El sistema financiero mundial necesita devorar todos los bienes comunes (recursos naturales) de Bolivia para oxigenarse, pero Morales y el proceso que encabeza son un obstáculo!

TIPNIS, ¿un ensayo del método libio?

En este sentido, a Gadafi, Morales, Chávez, Correa y a muchos otros insumisos, se les aplicará el método libio: quebrar la revolución desde adentro y con los de adentro. En el caso boliviano, qué mejor con los mismos indígenas “defendiendo” TIPNIS y a la “Madre Tierra”. Las historias inconclusas de las revoluciones bolivianas están empedradas de traiciones de revolucionarios maximalistas e inmediatistas que quizás murieron sin darse cuenta que minaban la revolución por la que lucharon.En el caso TIPNIS, no está en juego la defensa de los pueblos indígenas y la Madre Tierra. Lo que está en juego es la revalidación del método libio en su fase preparatoria y el entierro del añorado proceso de cambio boliviano por el que nuestros ancestros y coetáneos ofrendaron sus vidas. Ellos y nosotros sabíamos y sabemos que los cambios no estaban a la vuelta de la esquina. Sabemos que el cambio es un proceso que beneficiará, en buena medida, a las futuras generaciones. Pero, las equivocaciones del gobierno central, y nuestro espíritu inmediatista de querer comernos el futuro promisorio ya, están ahondando las contradicciones creativas del proceso hasta el límite de convertirlas en destructivas.Considero que para proseguir con el proyecto carretero por TIPNIS se debe informar y someterlo a la voluntad popular.

Se debe investigar y sancionar a los responsables de la represión contra la marcha indígena el 25 de septiembre pasado. De la misma manera, se debe investigar y sancionar a los medios que desinformaron a la población sobre muertos y desaparecidos en aquella refriega. El gobierno, por la salud del proceso, debe investigar y sancionar a las organizaciones, personajes y financieras que están detrás de la movida TIPNIS. Es importante que como pueblo no seamos presos del inmediatismo, ni del coyunturalismo mediático. Bolivia, ahora, es un proceso. Los cambios materiales/económicos demorarán, pero vendrán. Lo que se ha afianzado en 7 siglos no se puede revertir en una década.

http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a131500.html

The Critical Moment for Bolivians – by Author Juan Carlos Zambrana

The critical moment for Bolivians

Cambio- September, 30 2011

Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti

Recent events concerning the conflict generated by the construction of the highway through the TIPNIS require a stop along the road to attempt an act of reflection. The media hurried to condemn what it called the brutality of the violent police repression of the march of indigenous people, the death of a child, and a large number of disappeared. Public opinion, including the government’s, swallowed the news without questioning it, because it was not easy to detect such malice in the description of the events.

“Disappeared” is not a term for those who went into hiding or headed out into the wilderness. The term applies to the 30,000 young people who were thrown into the River Plate in Argentina during the right-wing dictatorships. The death of a child was not confirmed, either, but that did not stop the dissemination of the report like a trail of gunpowder. Emphasis was placed on the words “repression” and “brutality,” in order to evoke the memories of the dictatorships and neoliberal governments. With emotions exacerbated, public opinion was detoured from rational analysis and trapped in deceit.

No one recalled, for example, that the indigenous president, yielding to the demands of the marchers, had sent his highest-level diplomat, also indigenous, to negotiate under pressure within a march in which there were indigenous people armed with bows and arrows, and whose attitude was in no way diplomatic; that they acted threateningly towards him and forced him to march along with them, using him as a shield to break the police blockade that had been set up to avoid a confrontation with other indigenous people who waited in their path to stop them.

Under those circumstances, the police, among whom there were surely indigenous officers, were threatened by the marchers. There was no exaggeration in the frequent use of the word “indigenous” in the recounting of these events. The fact is that, since Morales rose to power, giving a leading role to the indigenous and recognizing their rights, their autonomy, and their 36 nations within the new Plurinational State, the Right, unable to defend its postulates, has “discovered” its own indigenism, politically opposed to Morales. The transnationals, the NGOs, the power sectors, the church, the media, and every political aspiration, are now indigenist.

The golden dream of the opposition to Morales is to force a confrontation among indigenous people, obtain a few deaths, and expel the president like Sanchez de Lozada was expelled. So prepared were they for the effort that one of the opposition parties hastened to bring charges of genocide against Morales without there being a single shot, a single killing, or the slightest grounds to support the crime mentioned. They know that the complaint has no possibility of moving forward, but that has never been the objective, which is continuous and sustained disinformation to promote discontent.

Nothing justifies the excess of violence, but one cannot help but notice the sophisticated opposition lattice of plans designed to provoke it, blame it on Morales, exaggerate it, and publicize it. That could explain the government’s fear of committing any violence, due also to the high standard of respect for life and to civil rights to which it is committed. Without a doubt, there is an enormous campaign against Morales, because, while from Chile to Europe and by way of the United States, far less provocative protests are daily repressed with much more violence, the international media concentrates on exaggerating and taking out of context the case of Bolivia.

The conflict, nonetheless, goes far beyond what is seen, for it has at its heart an element too dangerous to remain unperceived. Perhaps due to idealism, and to the opposition’s strategy of calling him “dictator” in order to neutralize his overwhelming majority, Morales committed an error much like that which weakened president German Bush: nullifying the legitimate parliamentary force that supported him. Morales did not shut down Congress, but did reduce enormously its power, making it submit anew, directly and constantly, to the will of the people, not taking into account that fragments of that people remained largely trapped by the same transnational powers that had just lost the elections. Politically defeated, but economically powerful, the Right invested fortunes in the manipulation of that “people” and set off the chaos that has never ceased to strike back at Morales.

Now, if we believe the media, we would get the impression that the people have turned their backs on the president, or even worse. Blockades, strikes, marches, protests and more protests, as if they faced a government that has betrayed the national interests and subjugates the people in order to loot them. That takes place because, by legislating inadequately the mechanisms of consultation and protest, a popular government with two-thirds of parliamentary power has allowed itself to be reduced to the will of its defeated opponents, who act covertly in the name of the people in order to destroy the government’s agenda. It is not the people who protest, as hard as that may be to understand because the disinformation has gained ground and confused various segments of society. The manipulators are few, but very powerful, and know how to broadcast their discourse.

Bolivians must rapidly internalize all of the power that they have achieved with Morales, in order to understand that a government based on the sustained respect of the people requires the participation of a people who think and are free of the ties of colonialism. The moment is critical, therefore, not for Evo and his government, but at bottom for the Bolivian people and the future that it is betting while marching like automatons toward the destruction of their own emancipatory process. Their dilemma is whether to open their eyes to see who is hiding behind the parapets of organizations that tempt some of their leaders with power, or to go off the cliff playing useful fools in a regressive political change that would place the government in the hands of their historical enemies.

The country has been many times in situations where, because of excessive demands from the Left, power ended up in the hands of the Right, which only restored immediately its full structure of looting and illicit enrichment, without the least regard for the indigenous people nor the misguided Left that supported it in subversion. That happened with the governments of Gualberto Villarroel and of Juan Jose Torres, among others.

It is now up to the Bolivian people to make an effort to overcome the old patterns of conduct, and to add political clarity to the courage, tenacity, and extraordinary capacity to organize with which they have won such a grand conquest. That missing element would consolidate indigenous Bolivians not only as formidable combatants, but also as a thinking people capable of sustaining their own success.

www.JuanCarlosZambrana.com

http://juancarloszambrana.com/?page_id=382

+++For more updates on Bolivia including a wealth of information not disclosed in mainstream media follow the website: www.juancarloszambrana.com

BOLIBYA? | Obama: Libya is the International Model [Including Recent Article by Author Juan Carlos Zambrana]

Obama: Libya is the International Model

The world is lucky that NATO cannot intervene for the use of tear gas … because if they could, they no doubt would in the case of Bolivia. Home of the world’s most vast reserves of lithium in a country rich with natural resources.

According to the article/report below written by author of Juan Carlos Zambrana (Secret of State), it looks like some in the U.S. are hoping for such an outcome.

Barack Obama speaking at the United Nations Assembly via Washington Times:

Almost six months to the day after he committed U.S. troops to aid Libya’s rebels, President Obama on Tuesday declared his policy a success and told the United Nations its strategy of collective sanctions, military protection and humanitarian assistance saved thousands of lives, ousted a bad regime and should serve as a model for future world hot spots.

“This is how the international community should work in the 21st century — more nations bearing the responsibility and costs of meeting global challenges,” Mr. Obama said. “Indeed, it is the very purpose of this United Nations. So every nation represented here today can take pride in the innocent lives we saved and in helping Libyans reclaim their country. It was the right thing to do.”

To read how Al-Jazeera was instrumental for the NATO war on Libya read the recent article “Al-Jazeera and the Triumph of Televised Propaganda” (“the height of duplicity was reached when a replica of the Green Square and Bab-el-Azizia was built in the studios of Al-Jazeera in Doha, where footage of false images was shot portraying pro-US “insurgents” entering Tripoli”).

On a side note, it is critical to note that only ALBA countries spoke out against the NATO war on Libya in which 50,000 people thus far have been killed.

Sector loyal to the opposition used the conflict of the Tipnis to protest in the U.S., insults Evo Morales and call to intervene the country

Cambio,  October 05, 2011

by Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti

According to a report by journalist Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti, Washington, United States, a small group of people staged a singular protest near the White House. “They called the invasion of Bolivia with signs and photos included, captioned” Mubarak, Gaddafi and the following is Morales” he said.

WASHINGTON, US

On Saturday, October 1, someone mentioned that there was on Internet a call for a protest of Bolivian residents the next day, in front of the White House, in defense of the Tipnis. It seemed curious to me, and I decided to find out what it was about. I found several announcements, but one of them especially caught my attention. It called not only to protest against the building of the road, but also to observe a minute of silence for the “dead” and “disappeared” among the indigenous people resulting from the repression of the government of president Evo Morales.

Discredit Bolivia and Evo

The next day, my wife and I decided to go by the place, and saw a pitiful spectacle. Approximately 16 people, rather distanced from one another, walked in a circle of about 15 yards in diameter, from the center of which a man with a megaphone defamed Bolivian president Evo Morales.

Rounding out the scene of the burial of the Tipnis, or of the dead at the Tipnis, was Death itself, dressed in green and white with a sign that said “Evo murderer.” “They believe blindly in the disinformation,” I thought, because maybe they did not know that there had been not a single shot in the breaking up of the march, far less any deaths.

The issue of the Tipnis seemed to go unnoticed by the protestors, who were more focused on insulting president Morales, calling him a drug trafficker for wanting to build what they called “the cocaine highway.” Also, a dictator, supposedly for wanting to destroy democracy by holding “political prisoners,” without mentioning the common crimes with which their leaders are charged in Bolivia, their economic crimes against the Bolivian state, the charges of terrorism and armed uprising due to which a large part of the old Cruzan elite turned themselves into refugees rather than runaways from justice.

They called for the invasion of Bolivia

They also asked for an invasion of Bolivia, with signs and photos included, captioned “Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Morales is next. No more dictators!” By means of such violence they demanded democracy in Bolivia, accusing the OAS and the UN of having sold out to Morales’ government by not having responded to their obviously unfounded complaints.

As a last resort, they protested in front of the White House in an effort to bolster, in the name of the Bolivian people, the interventionist pressures that the Republican extreme Right maintains against the Obama administration.

“This does not even remotely represent Bolivia,” I commented, seeing familiar faces among the protestors. “Nor the Bolivian community in Virginia,” added my wife, Elena Abolnik

Small group

The group of participants was reduced to political opponents of Evo Morales and to the Cruzans organized around the now-dissolved Pro-Santa Cruz Committee of Virginia and the present Cruzan Carnival and Day of Tradition.

Curiously, the Cruzans present there were not even a fair representation of Santa Cruz, far less of the Bolivian people. Elena and I knew that for sure, for, as we both are Cruzans and members of pro-Bolivia organizations, we knew other Cruzans and Bolivians who understand clearly the value of the process of change in our country.

It occurred to Elena that maybe they did not know, with the exception of the organizers, what they were doing in belittling Bolivia in that way. “Could be,” I answered, but we left, commenting that what was expressed in the protest followed the talking points that the Bolivian opposition uses when it comes to Washington to ask for intervention in Bolivia, based on the common interest to do so that is shared by their Republican peers.

The same thing was said to the Republican leadership at the Capitol, on November 17, 2010, by Luis Nuñez, speaking for the Cruzans, and by Victor Hugo Velasco, for the indigenous people.

These were two apocryphal representations that reflected the new political alliance of the opposition to Morales, which pretends a connection between the conservative ideology of the extreme Right and the indigenous people, who have become an influential electorate.

Still, the protest did not take place by chance. It represented something, and what I could recognize was the inconsistency of the cause of the Bolivian opposition, a few people saying outrageous things in the name of the Bolivian people. Yelling, or rather insulting, frustrated by becoming ever more isolated in their political-religious fundamentalism in the face of an overwhelming majority of Bolivians who understand perfectly the fairness of the process of change.

It behooves them to reflect on the consequences that similar attitudes had for the country in the past. The mining oligarchy, which asked for intervention against Busch and Villarroel, made possible the looting of the tin ore and the massacre of miners. The calls for interventionism against Torres led to the dictatorship of Banzer and the death of many Bolivians. The complaints against Lidia Geiler produced the bloody narco-state of Luis Garcia Meza, and the ones against Hernan Siles Suazo brought the neoliberalism that within two decades turned the country over to transnational corporations until only the leftovers remained.

Bolivian image damaged

It also behooves them to make an act of contrition for the damage that is being done to the image of the Bolivian community in Washington, DC by opposition politicians who, ever since they arrived in the United States, have gained a following among some people; protected behind organizations with cultural purposes, they have flooded community residents with political propaganda, constantly and systematically spreading disinformation generated from Bolivia.

Very often, our actions have unanticipated consequences, for which we are forever responsible, even if we do not understand this clearly for some time. We all have the right to dissent and to express ourselves, but it is extremely dangerous to promote political-military intervention against the land where we were born.

Filmed footage of the protest:

For more updates on Bolivia including a wealth of information not disclosed in mainstream media follow the website: www.juancarloszambrana.com

+++

Sector afín a la oposición usa el conflicto del Tipnis en EEUU, insulta a Evo y pide intervenir el país

Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti

WASHINGTON, EEUU

El sábado 1 octubre me comentaron que circulaba en Internet una convocatoria para el día siguiente a una protesta de residents bolivianos frente a la Casa Blanca en defensa del Tipnis. Me pareció curioso, por lo que decidí averiguar de qué se trataba. Encontré varias convocatorias, pero una de ellas me llamó la atención en particular. Convocaba no sólo a protestar contra la construcción de la carretera, sino también a guardar un minuto de silencio por los “muertos” y “desaparecidos” entre los indígenas a causa de la represión del gobierno del presidente Evo Morales.

Desprestigian a Bolivia y a Evo

Al día siguiente decidimos con mi esposa dar una vuelta por el lugar y el espectáculo que vimos fue lamentable.

Aproximadamente, 16 personas, bastante distanciadas unas de otras, caminaban formando un círculo de unos doce metros de diámetro, desde cuyo centro un hombre con un megáfono difamaba al presidente boliviano Evo Morales.

Completaba la escena del entierro del Tipnis, o de los muertos del Tipnis, la mismísima muerte, vestida de verde y blanco con un letrero

que decía Evo asesino.

Le creen ciegamente a la desinformación, pensé, porque quizá no sabían que no hubo un solo disparo en la disolución de la marcha y mucho

menos muertos.

La problemática del Tipnis parecía pasar desapercibida por los manifestantes, más concentrados en insultar al presidente Morales de narcotraficante por querer construir lo que llamaron “la carretera de la cocaína”.

También de dictador, supuestamente por destruir la democracia al tener “presos políticos”, sin mencionar los delitos comunes por los que sus

líderes están imputados en Bolivia, sus crímenes económicos contra el Estado boliviano, los cargos de terrorismo y alzamiento armado por los

cuales gran parte de la vieja élite cruceña se convirtió en refugiada antes que en prófuga de la justicia.

Pidieron la invasión a Bolivia

Pedían además la invasión a Bolivia con carteles y fotos incluidas que decían ‘Mubarak, Gadafi y el siguiente es Morales’ ¡No más dictadores!’. A través de esa violencia, exigían democracia en Bolivia acusando a la OEA y a las Naciones Unidas de vendidos al gobierno de

Morales por no haber atendido sus quejas, obviamente infundadas.

Como último recurso, protestaban ante la Casa Blanca en un intento de apuntalar, a nombre del pueblo boliviano, la presión intervencionista que realiza contra la administración Obama la extrema derecha republicana.

“Estos no representan ni remotamente a Bolivia”, comenté al ver caras conocidas entre los manifestantes. “Tampoco a la comunidad boliviana en Virginia”, añadió mi esposa Elena Abolnik.

Reducido grupo

El grupo de participantes se reducía a los opositores políticos de Evo Morales y a los cruceños que se aglutinaban en torno al disuelto Comité pro Santa Cruz de Virginia, y ahora al carnaval cruceño y el Día de la Tradición.

Curiosamente ni los cruceños allí presentes eran una justa representación de Santa Cruz, mucho menos del pueblo boliviano. Elena y yo lo sabíamos, a ciencia cierta, porque siendo ambos cruceños y miembros de organizaciones pro Bolivia conocíamos también a otros cruceños y bolivianos que entienden claramente el valor del proceso de cambio en nuestro país.

A Elena se le ocurrió pensar que quizá ellos no sabían, a excepción de los organizadores, lo que hacían al desprestigiar de ese modo a Bolivia. Puede ser, le respondí, pero nos retiramos comentando que lo expresado en la protesta seguía la línea del discurso de la oposición boliviana cuando viene a Washington a pedir intervención en Bolivia, apoyada en el interés común que tiene en hacerlo su similar republicana.

Lo mismo dijeron en el Capitolio el 17 de noviembre de 2010, ante la cúpula republicana, Luis Nuñez, hablando en nombre de los cruceños, y Víctor Hugo Velasco, en nombre de los indígenas.

Dos representaciones apócrifas que reflejaban la nueva alianza política de la oposición a Morales para fingir alguna conexión entre la ideología conservadora de extrema derecha y los indígenas ahora convertidos en influyente electorado.

Sin embargo, la protesta no estaba ahí por casualidad. Era representativa de algo y lo que logré admitir que reflejaba era la inconsistencia de la causa opositora en Bolivia, unos pocos hablando barbaridades en nombre del pueblo boliviano. Gritando, mejor dicho insultando ante la frustración de quedarse cada vez más aislados en su fundamentalismo político-religioso, ante una mayoría abrumadora de bolivianos que entiende perfectamente la justicia del proceso de cambio.

Quizá les convendría reflexionar sobre las consecuencias que tuvieron para el país similares actitudes en el pasado. La oligarquía minera, que pedía intervención contra Busch y Villarroel, hizo posible el saqueo del estaño y las masacres de mineros. Los pedidos de intervencionismo contra Torres ocasionaron la dictadura de Banzer y la muerte de muchos bolivianos. Las quejas contra Lidia Gueiler produjeron el sangriento narco-Estado de Luis García Meza, y aquellas contra Hernán Siles Suazo produjeron el neoliberalismo que en dos décadas entregó el país a las transnacionales hasta dejarlo en

despojos.

Imagen boliviana dañada

También les convendría hacer un acto de contrición con respecto al daño que se le está haciendo a la imagen de la comunidad Boliviana en Washington DC., de parte de los políticos de oposición que desde su llegada a Estados Unidos han logrado la adhesión de algunas personas, las cuales parapetadas detrás de organizaciones con fines culturales los han inundado con propaganda política en forma constante y sistemática, propagando la desinformación que generan desde Bolivia.

Muy frecuentemente, nuestros actos tienen efectos impensados, de los cuales somos por siempre responsables, aunque por algún tiempo no podamos entenderlo claramente. Todos tenemos derecho a disentir y a expresarnos, pero es extremadamente peligroso promover la intervención político-militar a la tierra que nos vio nacer.

Romero: Contraloría no observó contrato de la vía

+++

SANTA CRUZ

ABI

El Ministro de la Presidencia, Carlos Romero, informó ayer que el segundo informe de la Contraloría sobre el contrato de construcción de la carretera entre Villa Tunari y San Ignacio de Moxos, suscrito por el Gobierno y la empresa brasileña OAS, no tiene observaciones.

“Entregamos a los medios de comunicación este segundo informe de la Contraloría del Estado para despejar dudas sobre el contrato para la construcción de la carretera”, aclaró.

En relación al diálogo con la dirigencia de la Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní (APG), Romero afirmó que las reuniones fueron solicitadas por su principal dirigente, Celso Padilla, con lo que desmintió que se haya producido una división en ese sector.

El ministro Romero también se refirió a la hospitalización del dirigente de la APG en la clínica Incor de esta ciudad.

“Sobre los sucesos que impulsaron la internación del señor Padilla, primero tenemos que conocer un informe médico, porque estaba en un hotel de Rurrenabaque y se internó un día antes de la reunión Gobierno-APG”, dijo.

A su vez, la Federación Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Santa Cruz (FUTCSCZ) pidió el lunes a los indígenas marchistas reflexionar sobre la importancia de la carretera que unirá a Villa Tunari y San Ignacio de Moxos y cumplir con los compromisos del Pacto de Unidad.

El máximo dirigente de la FUTCSCZ, José Luis Chungara, manifestó que “la pelea no es contra de los hermanos indígenas, es contra los derechistas que en este momento quieren aprovecharse de un movimiento”.

“Agregó que es necesario “articular el bloque de oriente y del occidente entre los campesinos y los hermanos indígenas para impedir ser utilizados por los grupos de derecha”.

“Los que antes agredían a los campesinos e indígenas, hoy pretenden acercarse y mostrarse como sus salvadores”, enfatizó.

EL DATO

Ministro de la Presidencia entregó a los medios de comunicación ayer en Santa Cruz una copia del informe de la Contraloría sobre el contrato para la construcción de la carretera San Ignacio de Moxos-Villa Tunari. La oposición, entre ellos el líder del MSM, Juan Del Granado, denunció supuestas irregularidades del contrato con la constructora brasileña OAS.

División: el ministro de la Presidencia, Carlos Romero, negó que en el interior de la Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní exista división, como se especuló.

Unidad: el dirigente de la Federación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Santa Cruz, José Luis Chungara, pidió el lunes a los dirigentes de la Confederación de Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano (Cidob) que respeten el Pacto de Unidad.

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http://www.cambio.bo/noticia.php?fecha=2011-10-05&idn=55849

Is It Police Brutality in Bolivia or Is It Something Much More Insidious to the International Media Coverage?

WATCH: Media is manipulating info on indigenous conflict in Bolivia | September 30th, 2011

Bolivian president Evo Morales reject the coverage of the media on indigenous protests, he asserts that press has been manipulating the situation, seeking and invented dead people, evo said this is a strategy of the far right who can’t accept that a peasant became president of Bolivia. teleSUR

” … and these days they are reporting 9 dead, six dead, a child, a dead child, I ask the media where is the dead child? There isn’t a dead child … they didn’t find dead people so they invented dead people … this is a strategy of the far-right and our enemies who can’t accept that a peasant, a union leader became president of Bolivia …

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/en/30/9/2011/51897/media-is-manipulating-info-on-indigenous-conflict-in-bolivia/

Is It Police Brutality in Bolivia or Is It Something Much More Insidious?

By Lynette Yetter, Sep 30, 2011

Bolivia is in the news. Petitions are zipping through cyberspace. What is going on? Last Sunday police brutally attacked indigenous people peacefully marching in protest of a road being built through their

territory known as the TIPNIS (El Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure). Everyone seems to agree on the fact that marchers were horribly injured and killed. But soon the situation gets

very murky.

No one is claiming responsibility for ordering the police to attack the marchers. The quickest finger pointing seems to belong to the US press (both mainstream and activist). They say that President Evo is

the one responsible.

But I’m not sure that this is true.

As everyone who has read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States knows, the mainstream press historically has supported US business interests under a cloak of populist sentiment, and

sometimes has manipulated the activist press to follow suit.

What do I mean by that?

The cloak of populist sentiment changes with the topic and the times; jargon such as “God’s will” has been replaced with “protect indigenous people and the rain forest.” Of course we want to protect indigenous

people and the rain forest. This is vital to our survival as a species. But, is that what we are really doing when we sign one of the petitions that are going around the Internet?

Let’s pause a moment, and look at one of the many historical examples of the press manipulating people to support US business interests: the Spanish American War. This war ostensibly was to help the oppressed

Cuban people gain liberty from Spain: That was the rallying cry to get well-meaning people of the US emotionally charged so they would join the military and become cannon fodder.

After the war the Cuban people were not part of the decision-making process for their own new Constitution. The US-mandated constitution basically made Cuba a possession of US businesses. Soon about 80% of

the island was owned and controlled by US businesses, such as United Fruit. The people of the US were angry and disillusioned at this outcome, but their voices were not heeded.

With that in mind, let’s look at what is happening in the press nowadays. Sunday a group of policemen brutally attacked peaceful marchers in Bolivia. Starting Monday and Tuesday the US and UK press

ran articles denouncing Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. But, in a far more extreme incident in 2009 militarized Peruvian police massacred hundreds of protesting indigenous people, and the US press

was comparatively silent.

Why the difference in reaction?

Could the silence in the US press about the massacre in Peru be because the then-president of Peru, Alan Garcia, was friendly to US business interests, and the road building also benefited US businesses? And could the immediate outcry in the US press over the police attack on the marchers be because president Evo Morales supports the interests of the Bolivian people over the interests of US businesses?

And I have not even mentioned the police brutality that occurs on a regular basis in US cities. No news agency that I have seen has demanded that president Obama be held accountable for the brutal

actions of local police.

Police brutality should never be tolerated. I urge that we continue questioning until we reveal the truth of who incited the police to attack the indigenous marchers in Bolivia last Sunday. And I urge that

we use the same care in investigating human rights abuses commited, overtly or by ommission, by US business interests.

In the meanwhile, are well-meaning Americans being bamboozled into creating and signing petitions against Evo Morales — the first indigenous president in the Americas, when the real motive is for US

business interests to oust President Evo so transnational corporations can control Bolivia’s natural resources and indigenous labor like they have in the past?

I don’t know. But I do know that I am not signing any petitions while these questions linger.

http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/is-it-police-brutality-in-bolivia/

Flashback: Declassified Documents Revealed More than $97 Million from USAID to Separatist Projects in Bolivia

“USAID’s work in Bolivia is not just oriented towards strengthening the opposition to Evo Morales and promoting separatism, but also involves attempts to penetrate and infiltrate indigenous communities, seeking out new actors to promote Washington’s agenda that have an image more representative of the Bolivian indigenous majority. One declassified document clearly outlines the necessity to give ‘more support to USAID and Embassy indigenous interns to build and consolidate a network of graduates who advocate for the US Government in key areas.'”

Press conference by US researcher and investigative journalist, Jeremy Bigwood in La Paz, Bolivia, October 11, 2008. Reveals proof and documents to the press and public that show US intervention in Bolivia. (English subtitles | Running time: 7:17)

Below is an article by Eva Golinger. Golinger is a Venezuela-based award-winning Attorney and Author. You can follow her on twitter.

Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia

May 22nd, 2009

Eva Golinger

Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002. The documents, requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), evidence that USAID in Bolivia was the “first donor to support departmental governments” and “decentralization programs” in the country, proving that the US agency has been one of the principal funders and fomenters of the separatist projects promoted by regional governments in Eastern Bolivia.

Decentralization and separatism

The documents confirm that USAID has been managing approximately $85 million annually in Bolivia during the past few years, divided amongst programs related to security, democracy, economic growth and human investment. The Democracy Program is focused on a series of priorities, the first outlined as “Decentralized democratic governments: departmental governments and municipalities”. One document, classified as “sensitive”, explains that this particular program began when USAID=2 0established an Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) en Bolivia during 2004. The OTIs are a division of USAID that function as rapid response teams to political crises in countries strategically important to US interests. The OTI only address political issues, despite USAID’s principal mission dedicated to humanitarian aid and development assistance, and they generally have access to large amounts of liquid funds in order to quickly and efficiently achieve their objectives. The OTI operate as intelligence agencies due to their relative secrecy and filtering mechanism that involves large contracts given to US companies to operate temporary offices in nations where OTI requires channeling millions of dollars to political parties and NGOs that work in favor of Washington’s agenda. After the failed coup d’etat against President Chávez in April 2002, USAID set up an OTI in Venezuela two months later, in June 2002, with a budget over $10 million for its first two years. Since then, the OTI has filtered more than $50 million through five US entities that set up shop in Caracas subsequently, reaching more than 450 NGOs, political parties and programs that support the opposition to President Chávez.

In the case of Bolivia, the OTI contracted the US company, Casals & Associates, to coordinate a program based on decentralization and autonomy in the region considered the “media luna” (half-moon), where the hard core opposition to President Evo Morales is based, particularly in the province20of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Casals & Associates was also charged with conducting a series of training seminars and workshops to strengthen oppositional political parties that were working against then presidential candidate Evo Morales in 2004 and 2005. After Morales was elected president at the end of 2005, OTI directed the majority of its funding and work to the separatist projects that later produced regional referendums on autonomy in Eastern Bolivia. Their principal idea is to divide Bolivia into two separate republics, one governed by an indigenous majority and the other run by European descendents and mestizos that inhabit the areas rich in natural resources, such as gas and water. After 2007, the OTI, which had an additional budget of $13.3 on top of USAID’s general Bolivia program funding, was absorbed into USAID/Bolivia’s Democracy Program, which since then has been dedicating resources to consolidating the separatist projects.

USAID’s work in Bolivia covers almost all sectors of political and economic life, penetrating Bolivian society and attempting to impose a US political and ideological model. The investment in “decentralization” includes all the support and funding needed to conform “autonomous” regions, from departmental planning to regional economic development, financial management, communications strategies, departmental budget structures, and territorial organization designs – all prepared and implemented by USAID representatives and partners in=2 0Bolivia. As part of the program titled “Strengthening Democratic Institutions” (SDI), USAID describes its work to “enrich the dialogue on decentralization; improve management of departmental budgetary resources; and promote regional economic development.” Through this program, USAID has even created “territorial organization laboratories” to help regional governments implement their autonomy successfully.

In one document dated November 30, 2007, just months before the separatist referendums held in Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija during early 2008, the Democratic Initiatives Program of OTI/USAID worked closely with the Prefects (regional governments) to “develop sub-national, de-concentrated” models of government. In those regions, those promoting such “sub-national, de-concentrated” models, or separatism, have made clear that their objective is to achieve a political, economic and territorial division from the national government of Bolivia, so they can manage and benefit solely from the rich resources in their regions. It’s no coincidence that the separatist initiatives are all concentrated in areas rich in gas, water and economic power. The multi-million dollar funding from USAID to the separatist projects in Bolivia has encouraged and supported destabilization activities during the past few years, including extreme violence and racism against Indigenous communities, terrorist acts and even assassination attempts against President Morales.

Strengthening political parties in the opposition

Another principal priority of USAID in Bolivia as outlined in the declassified documents is the extensive funding and training of oppositional political parties. Through two US entities, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI), both considered international branches of the republican and democrat parties in the US that receive their funding from the Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID has been feeding – with funding and strategic political aide – political groups and leaders from the opposition in Bolivia. During the year 2007, $1.250.000.00 was dedicated to “training for members of political parties on current political and electoral processes, including the constituent assembly and the referendum on autonomy.” The principal beneficiaries of this funding have been the opposition political parties Podemos, MNR, MIR and more than 100 politically-oriented NGOs in Bolivia.

Intervention in electoral processes

An additional substantial part of USAID’s work in Bolivia has been devoted to intervening in electoral processes during the past few years. This has included forming a network of more than 3,000 “observers”, trained by USAID grantee Partners of the Americas, a US corporation that also receives funding from major companies and entities that form part of the military-industrial complex. The creation of “networks” in “civil society” to monitor electoral=2 0processes has been a strategy utilized by Washington in countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua, to later use such apparently “independent” observers in an attempt to discredit and delegitimize elections and denounce fraud when results are not favorable to US interests. In the case of Venezuela, for example, the organization that has implemented this strategy is Súmate, a Venezuelan NGO created with funding and strategic support from USAID and NED, that has presented itself in the public opinion as “apolitical” but in reality has been the principal promoter of the recall referendum in 2004 against President Chávez and later the leader in denouncing fraud after every electoral process in Venezuela lost by the opposition, despite that such events have been certified as legitimate and “fraud-free” by international institutions such as the Organization of American States, European Community and the Carter Center. These “networks” function as centers for the opposition during electoral processes to strengthen their position in the public opinion and through the mass media.

Penetration in indigenous communities

USAID’s work in Bolivia is not just oriented towards strengthening the opposition to Evo Morales and promoting separatism, but also involves attempts to penetrate and infiltrate indigenous communities, seeking out new actors to promote Washington’s agenda that have an image more representative of the Bolivian indige nous majority. One declassified document clearly outlines the necessity to give “more support to USAID and Embassy indigenous interns to build and consolidate a network of graduates who advocate for the US Government in key areas.” The document further discusses the need to “strengthen democratic citizenship and local economic development for Bolivia’s most vulnerable indigenous groups.” Per USAID, “this program shows that no one country or government has a monopoly on helping the indigenous. The program shows that the US is a friend to Bolivia and the indigenous…”

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2009/05/newly-declassified-documents-reveal.html

Fourth Generation War against Evo | La Guerra de Cuarta Generación contra Evo

This article has been translated to English using Google translator. The original version in Spanish follows. – admin

Fourth Generation War against Evo

La epoca

2011-10-04
by: Hugo Moldiz Mercado

One strategy that has media and social networking instruments of execution, has sought since 2006 to build social collective imaginations and sensibilities contrary to the process of change and to wear the leadership of President Evo Morales at the prospect of violent overthrow or political and electoral defeat. Taking advantage of unwarranted repression of indigenous September 24, the Fourth Generation War again showed his face.

The September 24th afternoon, a violent police intervention in the indigenous march Yucumo, opened up to unleash a variant while a new phase of Fourth Generation War against the government of President Evo Morales, who the national and international law has been proposed to defeat, as with other similar processes in Latin America.

And this Fourth Generation war is the dispute of the senses from the apprehension of objective reality to subjective unstructured and then set up another reality, radically different, but that our senses observe and feel it as true.

The media construction of a false reality of a fact left real: the repression that about five hundred police against indigenous developed since August 15 began a march to the seat of national government to demand prior consultation by the intention of building a road from Villa Tunari (Cochabamba) and San Ignacio de Moxos (Beni).

The violence of the soldiers there. There’s no doubt. But this gross error of the government policy was accompanied by the dissemination of news that amplified the extent of repression and, therefore, caused quite violent emotional reactions against the first indigenous president of Bolivia and Latin America, which coincided, deliberately or not- with the construction of a matrix of opinion that the national and international law is responsible for activating several months ago: “Evo, enemy of the Indians.”

The front-page headlines and news agencies, print media and national and international information as well as repeated images of repression permanently TV networks spoke of the death of a baby and other adults as well as the disappearance of several indigenous. Some said he had died three, seven and was not mentioned that the figure had increased to nine. It is evident that there were no casualties.

The wide dissemination of this news, never tested or exposed by the media on the nature of “alleged” or “transcended” but rather presented in a way that left no room for doubt, created an atmosphere of social rejection as adopted by the government, even in broad sectors of society committed to the process of change.

The media hype was not the same when a group of Indians held by the space of an hour over Chancellor David Choquehuanca, who was forced to march as a sort of shield to break the police cordon that separated the indigenous cultural communities to reject some items in the list of the Central Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB). Most of the media have not been worked hard to emphasize the proposal prior consultation and installation of working groups that the government proposed on September 13 through the head of the Foreign Policy of the multinational state.

A leisurely look at the origins and behavior of the media leads us to think that some gross errors incurred in such information for negligence, but that others did as part of a sustained communications policy since Evo Morales took over the leadership of the country January 2006. However, even those not “misled” intentionally, it is obvious that became part of a new era of Fourth Generation War that has raged for nearly 6 years against the Indian government and the process of change.

In fact, in about a year and a half of the second mandate of President Morales, is about five matrices of opinion that have been built systematically “enemy of indigenous Evo”, “Evo, enemy of Mother Earth” “Evo, permissible activities of drug trafficking”, “Evo, a friend of terrorist governments” and “Evo, totalitarian and authoritarian.”

These matrices of opinion, easily traceable and identifiable in the media, as well as Social Networking has been joined in recent days, from Sunday 24 September, the strong charge of “Evo, massacre,” he which constitutes a very favorable scenario for the imperial strategy designed for the Indian leader’s second term: the strategy of attrition to defeat political and institutional change process and Evo Morales, the highest conductor.

Moreover, this subversive strategy materialized through the media war was also part of the components of the strategy for the overthrow by undemocratic methods that triggered national and international law in the period 2006-2009, with a maximum peak occurred between August -October 2008, when paramilitary groups were taking repressed state facilities and authorities and militants of the change process, and the attempt to divide the country and assassinate Evo Morales.

This active role of the media apparatus has been strengthened in Bolivia almost similar to that recorded in other Latin American countries where the right has no political parties and leaders with roots in society, so many scholars agree that in the media communication are part of “unofficial” political system.

Therefore, The Fourth Generation War serves to advance several objectives: systematic wear governments and political leaders, the induction of partial forms of violence against governments, the overthrow of the revolutionary process of change or non-democratic means and preparation objective and subjective conditions internal to foreign military intervention, the most important.

One of the cornerstones of this type of war is “winning the hearts and minds of people”, as defined by the general Summers, one of the ideologists of the so-called low intensity warfare and whose difference from the classic doctrine of Homeland Security is that the objective is not primarily the physical elimination of opponents, but especially the disappearance of the social base that makes possible the emergence and development of projects and political leaders opposed to U.S. interests and capital.

If one takes into account the above, you will find enough to identify which elements to President Morales has sought to specify whether construction of subjective conditions for his overthrow by undemocratic means and political wear an electoral defeat. Most of the media legitimized paramilitary violence in the first term of the change and now de-legitimize the right of the state’s monopoly on the use of force. Sure, the latter do so on the basis of the gross political errors as committed against the indigenous march.

In the plans of the more conservative right-wing sectors of the country not ruled out the division of the country to encourage foreign military intervention as an “appeasement” and is now threatening Latin America undisguised enthusiasm of some Obama advisers to use the “Libyan model” in other parts of the world.

Moreover, there is no doubt that the Fourth Generation Warfare is found in young people, to whom it is easier to manipulate by a series of objective conditions, the most important social force for the deployment of this strategy and that is fertile ground not both their greater identification with social networking but by the political neglect of which are subject to change part of the process.

La Guerra de Cuarta Generación contra Evo

2011-10-04

por: Hugo Moldiz Mercado

Una estrategia que tiene en los medios de comunicación y las redes

sociales sus instrumentos de ejecución, ha buscado desde 2006

construir imaginarios colectivos y sensibilidades sociales contrarios

al proceso de cambio y para desgastar el liderazgo del presidente Evo

Morales en la perspectiva de su derrocamiento violento o su derrota

político-electoral. Aprovechando la injustificada represión a los

indígenas el 24 de septiembre, esta Guerra de Cuarta Generación volvió

a mostrar la cara.

El 24 de septiembre en la tarde, una violenta intervención policial a

la marcha indígena en Yucumo, abrió pasó para que se desatara una

variante y al mismo tiempo una nueva fase de La Guerra de Cuarta

Generación contra el gobierno del presidente Evo Morales, a quien la

derecha nacional e internacional se ha propuesto derrotar, como ocurre

con otros procesos similares en América Latina.

Y esta Guerra de Cuarta Generación es la disputa de sentidos a partir

de la aprehensión de la realidad objetiva para subjetivamente

desestructurarla y luego armar otra realidad, radicalmente diferente,

pero que nuestros sentidos la observan y la sienten como verdad.

La construcción mediática de una realidad falseada partió de un hecho

real: la represión que cerca de medio millar de policías desarrolló

contra los indígenas que desde el 15 de agosto comenzaron una marcha

hacia la sede del gobierno nacional en demanda de la consulta previa

por la intención de construir una carretera entre Villa Tunari

(Cochabamba) y San Ignacio de Moxos (Beni).

La violencia de los uniformados existió. De eso no hay la menor duda.

Pero este grueso error político del gobierno fue acompañado de la

difusión de noticias que amplificaban el alcance de la represión y,

por tanto, provocaban reacciones emocionales bastante violentas contra

el primer presidente indígena de Bolivia y América Latina, lo cual

coincidía —premeditadamente o no— con la construcción de una matriz de

opinión que la derecha nacional e internacional se ha encargado de

activar hace varios meses: “Evo, enemigo de los indígenas”.

Los titulares de portada y de las noticias de medios impresos y

agencias nacionales e internacionales de información, así como las

imágenes de la represión reiteradas permanentemente por las redes de

televisión hablaban de la muerte de un bebé y de otros adultos, así

como la desaparición de varios indígenas. Unos decían que habían

fallecido tres, otros siete y no se dejó de mencionar que la cifra

llegaba a nueve. Lo evidente es que no se registraron bajas.

La amplia difusión de estas noticias, jamás comprobadas por los medios

ni expuestas bajo la naturaleza de “presuntas” o “trascendidos”, sino

más bien presentadas de tal manera que no dejaba espacio para la duda,

generó un ambiente de rechazo social a la medida adoptada por el

gobierno, incluso en amplios sectores sociales comprometidos con el

proceso de cambio.

Este despliegue mediático no fue el mismo cuando un grupo de indígenas

retuvo por el espacio de más de una hora al Canciller David

Choquehuanca, quien fue obligado a marchar como una suerte de escudo

para romper el cerco policial que separaba a los indígenas de las

comunidades interculturales que rechazan algunos puntos del pliego de

la Central de Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano (CIDOB). La

mayor parte de los medios tampoco se han esforzado mucho por hacer

énfasis en la propuesta de Consulta Previa y la instalación de mesas

de trabajo que el gobierno propuso el 13 de septiembre a través del

responsable de la Política Exterior del Estado plurinacional.

Una mirada pausada a los orígenes y comportamiento de los medios de

comunicación conduce a pensar que unos incurrieron en esos gruesos

errores informativos por negligencia, pero que otros lo hicieron en el

marco de una política comunicacional sostenida desde que Evo Morales

asumió la conducción del país en enero de 2006. Sin embargo, aún los

que no “desinformaron” intencionalmente, es evidente que llegaron a

formar parte de una nueva etapa de La Guerra de Cuarta Generación que

se ha desatado durante casi de 6 años contra el gobierno indígena y el

proceso de cambio.

De hecho, en cerca de un año y medio de este segundo mandato del

presidente Morales, hay cerca de cinco matrices de opinión que

sistemáticamente se han ido construyendo: “Evo enemigo de los

indígenas”, “Evo, enemigo de la Madre Tierra”, “Evo, permisible con

las actividades del narcotráfico”, “Evo, amigo de los gobiernos

terroristas” y “Evo, totalitario y autoritario”.

A estas matrices de opinión, fácilmente rastreables e identificables

en los medios de comunicación, así como en las Redes Sociales, se ha

sumado en los últimos días, a partir del domingo 24 de septiembre, la

fuerte acusación de “Evo, masacrador”, lo cual configura un escenario

bastante favorable para la estrategia imperial diseñada para este

segundo mandato del líder indígena: la estrategia del desgaste para la

derrota político-institucional del proceso de cambio y de Evo Morales,

su máximo conductor.

Es más, esta estrategia subversiva materializada a través de la guerra

mediática también formó parte de los componentes de la estrategia para

el derrocamiento mediante métodos no democráticos que la derecha

nacional e internacional activó en el periodo 2006-2009, cuyo máximo

pico se dio entre agosto-octubre de 2008, cuando grupos paramilitares

tomaban instalaciones estatales y reprimían a autoridades y militantes

del proceso de cambio, así como el intento de dividir el país y

asesinar a Evo Morales.

Este activo papel del aparato mediático se ha ido fortaleciendo en

Bolivia casi de manera similar a la registrada en otros países de

América Latina donde la derecha carece de partidos políticos y líderes

con arraigo social, por lo que no pocos estudiosos coinciden que en

los medios de comunicación forman parte “no oficial” del sistema

político.

Por tanto, La Guerra de Cuarta Generación sirve para avanzar hacia

varios objetivos: el desgaste sistemáticos de gobiernos y líderes

políticos, el desencadenamiento de formas parciales de violencia

contra los gobiernos, el derrocamiento de procesos revolucionarios o

de cambio por medios no democráticos y la preparación de condiciones

objetivas y subjetivas internas para una intervención militar

extranjera, entre los más importantes.

Uno de los ejes centrales de este tipo de guerra es “conquistar los

corazones y las mentes de la gente”, como bien lo definiera el general

Summers, uno de los ideólogos de la denominada Guerra de Baja

Intensidad y cuya diferencia con la clásica Doctrina de Seguridad

Nacional es que el objetivo no es principalmente la eliminación física

del adversario, sino sobre todo la desaparición de la base social que

hace posible el surgimiento y el desarrollo de proyectos y liderazgos

políticos contrarios a los intereses de Estados Unidos y el capital.

Si uno toma en cuenta lo anteriormente señalado, encontrará bastantes

elementos como para identificar que ante el presidente Morales se ha

buscado concretar ya sea construcción de condiciones subjetivas para

su derrocamiento por medios no democráticos y su desgaste político

para una derrota electoral. La mayor parte de los medios de

comunicación legitimaron la violencia paramilitar en el primer mandato

del gobierno de cambio y ahora deslegitiman el derecho del estado al

uso del monopolio de la fuerza. Claro, esto último lo hacen sobre la

base de los gruesos errores políticos como el cometido contra la

marcha indígena.

En los planes de los sectores de derecha más conservadores del país

tampoco se descartó la división del país para alentar la intervención

militar extranjera a título de “pacificación” y que ahora es una

amenaza para América Latina por el entusiasmo no disimulado de algunos

consejeros de Obama para utilizar el “modelo libio” en otras partes

del mundo.

Por lo demás, no hay duda que La Guerra de Cuarta Generación está

encontrando en los jóvenes, a quienes es más fácil manipular por una

serie de condiciones objetivas, a la fuerza social más importante para

el despliegue de esta estrategia y que encuentra terreno fértil no

tanto por su mayor identificación con las Redes Sociales sino por el

abandono político del que son objeto de parte del proceso de cambio.

http://www.la-epoca.com.bo/index.php?opt=front&mod=detalle&id=932

El TIPNIS: La otra guerra del golpe suave | The TIPNIS: The Other Soft War

This article has been translated to English using Google translator. The original version in Spanish follows. -admin

The TIPNIS: The Other Soft War

La epoca

2011-10-04
by: Cynthia Cisneros

What is happening with the TIPNIS and media coverage that has the support and intellectual circles in opposition to the government now is creating a crisis whose background is similar to all those forms of soft coup was attempted in destabilize the government of Evo Morales.

If you look closely at the times of destabilizing the current government, we will see some similarities in tactics, for example in the Constituent Assembly. We have first a media war and feathering legitimate demands of the people who are manipulated and / or distorted in political discourse, as in the case of demands for autonomy, respect for private property, etc.. Second stage of mobilization of unions and guilds, well within the power local, regional, or co-opted, and finally the attack on the police through the formation of violent groups (youth Santa Cruz).

Of these elements the media terrorism plays an important role in both demand and oversized manipulation of fear through the empowerment of subjective reasoning based on half truths, oversized exacerbation of conflict and prejudice and fear among citizens .

Today, although the tactics and not concealed in the famous assault groups, now does behind Indian leaders openly co-opted by NGOs linked to USAID, and U.S. funding, as shown by the evidence presented by the government.

We repeat the script.

First the marchers protesting the TIPNIS based on a legitimate claim in this case the query to the people present in the art establishment. 30 subsection 15 and although not binding is the right of indigenous peoples. However, indigenous leaders Unlike previous marches want dialogue, threatening to further radicalize the protest if the president did not attend in person. Thus disguised behind a legitimate claim to citizenship, and under a legitimate form of protest as well as the peaceful, legitimate legitimize a little attitude: the protest per se and the rejection of dialogue.

Second all that boasts a dangerous myopia that fails to assess the needs of the country in social, political and economic context today, and that does not take into account the safety of children and women who accompany (When a motion has been formed mainly by pregnant women and children?) and believe in their leaders despite a proven co-optation.

Third, the abuse to government authorities and security forces, is manifest after being rejected seven committees of ministers who went to seek dialogue. After the government were to talk to the people of TIPNIS and would begin the consultation. After repeated invitations to do the government leaders to open up the dialogue, then the chancellor in person, go talk to the marchers. In response to these attempts at dialogue have the abduction and mistreatment of the Chancellor and the Deputy Minister of Governmental Coordination who were forced to head the march.

The marchers justify their actions indicate that they had not been invited to dialogue, break the police cordon guarding them, hurt with arrows to the police whose crime was to safeguard the fly to avoid clashes between the population and the marchers.

Fourth. The coup de grace comes with the media to hide the negative dialogue, the abuse of indigenous marchers from government authorities, provocation and aggression against the police force, the death of creatures which accompany the march as negligence who organized a march of pregnant women and children.

And oversized excessive police repression, gasification just as they would eat (fishing a cow, how money after 40 days of travel?) Speaks of dead creatures (data not been confirmed and drove cheerfully and do not give the names of the deaths), the people demand dialogue (as if the government failed to exhaust efforts to do so), speaking of dead and missing several contradictory figures, (with emphasis on character and premeditated massacre of wanting to harm the real indigenous) church dialogue and prayer requests, the federation’s press asks Potosí Freedom of expression, the demonstration in the Plaza de San Francisco in support of the marchers is felt TIPNIS disrupting normal traffic, coupled with the resignation of Defence Minister and finally the resignation of president requires comparing its actions with the government of Sanchez de Lozada.

Facts and contribute to increasing tensions and rejection in a citizenry that has subjectivized speech to the American Embassy. Unable dictatorial government that now shows its true face anti Indian government never wanted the people and that he should leave.

First victory for those behind an environmental discourse attempts to derail the Indian government, a government laboratory which was the construction of a state where all Bolivians Plurinational were recognized in their diversity and a government that ensured the economic welfare of his people amid a global crisis, which first tooth and nail defending a constituent assembly of the many. It does not matter to the media is a government that does not defend the mother land, a liar and a dictator government that is not really indigenous as their president does not speak a native language.

Plus for the war of the empire soft coup in Bolivia

The subjectivity and drama in the consciousness of viewers, exacerbates the shock, grief, compassion and rejection, nothing better to feathering an elite opposition, depose the process and justify the confrontation between Bolivians themselves under a government of Indians unable, even more so on the verge of an election of all judicial authorities in the best interest of the elite.

While we recognize that the government has shown a weakness this time very visible in the strategy of informing the public to prevent these sectors take center stage opponents distort a legitimate demand of the population. It is still questionable attitude of the leaders around the president by the lack of channels of communication with their bases, the lack of rotation of officers as well as the enclosure of the legislative assembly of the chamber of senators and deputies who do not maintain a close relationship with its constituents as misinformation abounds.

Govern by obeying means to meet the needs of the people.

Do not people remember that this voice is also unaware that the process will only be sustainable to the extent that the population is able to appropriate the same.

The ossified Left of the protagonists

But even more we care about what occurs in the national intellectual circle, we believe that in defending the motion without objection we are falling into the game from the opposition and doing a disservice to the state building process rather than the MAS Plurinational a devastating criticism it does not propose alternative solutions in the practical.

We need to read to Bolivia in the global context, in the midst of an economic scenario that predicts a new and dangerous phase for the more developed countries and not to mention our enclave economies[ 1].

We must look to Bolivia in a context where the balance of forces committed more violence, with a media discourse subverted through a complex ideological apparatus and ended with Libya, whose next target is South America. Faced with this, how we take on the challenge of building a state and not destructive criticism which suggests a set of players who are growing demand while it is legitimate, it is not the background around it, what we want to Bolivia? , we want to say that the Indian to the public if I was wrong and then ousted?, perhaps this was not the objective of the opposition since he took Evo Morales?

Bolivia must commit to developing a good time out of centuries of colonial backwardness and not demonize the word as if it were only neoliberal goods since there exists the world, seeking development and progress as well. What is necessary to do so in the context of respect and consultation itself, and because the government said a referendum to adjudicate these issues. As a circle of rebels demand a dialogue that the government asked all the time.

Finally, if this process is all Bolivians Defend the consciousness of this, with the conviction that the future belongs to us. We have the right to error, put the shoulder is not about supporting any party is a matter of survival of this great community we call Bolivia, have an obligation to go beyond our individual to understand that for the first time in history the Indians are capable of governing, to propose a model of collective development for all Bolivians, with our mistakes and we also have a right to it in this construction process.

For whom then all this paraphernalia media and all the dead who have to pay the people are the hidden interests behind the march of TIPNIS?.

[1]By CHRISTOPHER S. 1 RUGABER – Tuesday September 20 2011, 17:04. The IMF revised sharply downward its economic forecasts for the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 by the weak growth of the country and highlighted its concern at the inability of Europe to overcome its debt crisis.

El TIPNIS: La otra guerra del golpe suave

2011-10-04
by: Cynthia Cisneros

Lo que viene aconteciendo con el TIPNIS y la cobertura mediática que este ha logrado así como el apoyo de círculos intelectuales ahora en oposición al gobierno, está generando una situación de crisis cuyo trasfondo es similar a todas aquellas formas de golpe suave en los que se intentó desestabilizar al Gobierno de Evo Morales.

Si observamos detenidamente los momentos de desestabilización al gobierno actual, veremos ciertas similitudes en la táctica empleada, por ejemplo en la Asamblea Constituyente. Tenemos primero una guerra mediática y el embanderamiento de demandas legítimas del pueblo que son manipuladas y/o distorsionadas en los discursos políticos, como en el caso de las demandas por autonomía, respeto a la propiedad privada, etc. Segundo una etapa de movilización de sindicatos y gremios, bien sometidos al poder local, regional, o bien cooptados, y por último el ataque a las fuerzas del orden a través de la conformación de grupos de choque (juventud cruceñista).

De estos elementos el terrorismo mediático juega un papel muy importante, en tanto sobredimensión de la demanda y manipulación del miedo a través del empoderamiento de un razonamiento subjetivo que se basa en medias verdades, sobredimensión del conflicto y exacerbación del prejuicio y el temor en la ciudadanía.

Hoy en día si bien la táctica ya no se encubre en los famosos grupos de choque, ahora lo hace detrás de líderes indígenas abiertamente cooptados a través de ONG´s vinculadas a USAID, y al financiamiento de EEUU, como demuestran las pruebas presentadas por el gobierno.

Vemos repetir el libreto.

Primero los marchistas por el TIPNIS protestan sobre la base de una demanda legítima, en este caso la consulta a los pueblos está presente en la constitución art. 30 inciso 15 y a pesar que no es vinculante es un derecho de los pueblos indígenas. Sin embargo, los líderes indígenas a diferencia de las anteriores marchas no quieren diálogo, más aún amenazan con radicalizar la protesta si no los atiende el presidente en persona. Así encubiertos tras una demanda legítima ante la ciudadanía, y bajo una modalidad de protesta también legítima como es la marcha pacífica, legitiman una actitud poco legítima: la protesta per se y el rechazo al dialogo.

Segundo todo esto hace gala de una miopía peligrosa que no llega a evaluar las necesidades del país en el contexto social político y económico actual, y que tampoco toma en cuenta la seguridad de los niños y mujeres que los acompañan (¿cuando una marcha ha estado formada principalmente por mujeres embarazadas y niños?) y que creen en sus líderes a pesar de una demostrada cooptación.

Tercero el atropello a autoridades de gobierno y fuerzas del orden, se manifiesta luego de haber sido rechazadas siete comisiones de ministros que fueron a buscar el diálogo. Luego que el gobierno fuera a hablar con los pobladores del TIPNIS y diera inicio a la consulta. Luego de repetidas invitaciones que hiciera el gobierno a los líderes de la marcha para abrir el diálogo, y luego que el canciller en persona fuera a hablar con los marchistas. Como respuesta a estas tentativas de diálogo tenemos el secuestro y maltrato al canciller y al Viceministro de Coordinación Gubernamental quienes fueron obligados a encabezar la marcha.

Los marchistas justifican su accionar indicando que ellos no habían sido invitados al diálogo, rompen el cordón policial que los custodiaba, hieren con flechas a la policía cuyo delito era resguardar la marcha para evitar enfrentamientos entre la población y los marchistas.

Cuarto. El golpe de gracia viene con los medios de comunicación que ocultan la negativa al diálogo, el abuso de los marchistas indígenas contra las autoridades de gobierno, la provocación y agresión contra el cuerpo policial, la muerte de las criaturas que acompañan la marcha como negligencia de quienes organizaron una marcha de embarazadas y niños.

Y sobredimensionan la represión policial desmedida, la gasificación justo cuando iban a comer (faenando una vaca, con qué dinero luego de 40 días de marcha?) se habla de criaturas fallecidas (datos que no han sido confirmados y se manejaron alegremente y no se dan los nombres de los decesos ), el pueblo pide diálogo (como si el gobierno no hubiera agotado los esfuerzos para ello), se habla de varios muertos y desaparecidos en cifras contradictorias, (incidiendo en el carácter premeditado de querer masacrar y dañar a los verdaderos indígenas) la iglesia pide diálogo y oración, la federación de la prensa de Potosí pide Libertad de expresión, la manifestación en la Plaza de San francisco en apoyo a los marchistas del TIPNIS se hace sentir alterando el normal tráfico vehicular, sumado a la renuncia de la ministra de Defensa y por último se exige la renuncia del presidente comparando su accionar con gobierno de Sánchez de Lozada.

Datos y hechos que contribuyen a exacerbar los ánimos y el rechazo en una ciudadanía que ha subjetivado el discurso de la embajada americana. Gobierno dictatorial incapaz que ahora muestra su verdadera cara anti indígena, gobierno que nunca quiso al pueblo y que debe irse.

Primera victoria para quien detrás de un discurso ecologista intenta echar por tierra al gobierno de los indios, un gobierno que fue el laboratorio de construcción de un Estado Plurinacional donde todos los bolivianos fueron reconocidos en su diversidad y un gobierno que veló por el bienestar económico de su pueblo en medio de una crisis mundial, que por primera vez defendió a capa y espada una asamblea constituyente de los muchos. Pero eso no importa ante los medios queda un gobierno que no defiende a la madre tierra, un gobierno mentiroso y dictador que no es realmente indígena ya que su presidente no sabe hablar una lengua nativa.

Punto a favor para la guerra del Golpe Suave del imperio en Bolivia

La subjetivación y dramatización en la consciencia de los televidentes, exacerba el asombro, la pena, la compasión y el rechazo, nada mejor para embanderar a una élite de oposición, defenestrar el proceso y justificar la confrontación entre los propios bolivianos bajo un gobierno de indios incapaces, más aún ad portas de una elección de autoridades judiciales que en nada conviene a los intereses de dicha élite.

Si bien debemos reconocer que el gobierno ha mostrado todo este tiempo una debilidad muy visible en la estrategia de información a la ciudadanía para evitar que estos sectores opositores cobren protagonismo distorsionando una demanda legítima de la población. No deja de ser cuestionable la actitud de los dirigentes que rodean al presidente por la falta de canales de comunicación con sus bases, la falta de rotación de autoridades, así como el enclaustramiento de asambleístas legislativos de la cámara de senadores y diputados que tampoco mantienen una relación fluida con sus mandantes en tanto campea la desinformación.

Mandar obedeciendo significa gobernar para solucionar las necesidades del pueblo.

No tener presente que este pueblo también tiene voz es desconocer que el proceso solo tendrá sostenibilidad en la medida en que la población sea capaz de apropiarse del mismo

La Anquilosada Izquierda de los Protagonismos

Pero aún más nos preocupa lo que se produce en el círculo intelectual nacional, consideramos que al defender la marcha sin objeción estamos cayendo en el juego de la oposición y haciendo un flaco favor al proceso de construcción del Estado Plurinacional no al MAS en una crítica demoledora que no propone alternativas de solución en lo práctico.

Tenemos la necesidad de leer a Bolivia en el contexto mundial, en medio de un escenario económico que augura una nueva y peligrosa fase para los países más desarrollados y ni que decir de nuestras economías de enclave 1.

Debemos considerar a Bolivia en un contexto donde la correlación de fuerzas apuesta por una mayor violencia, con un discurso mediático subvertido a través de un complejo aparato ideológico que ya acabó con Libia y cuyo objetivo siguiente es América del Sur. Frente a esto ¿cómo asumimos el reto de un Estado en construcción y no la crítica destructiva que deja entrever un juego de protagonismos que hacen crecer una demanda que si bien es legítima, no lo es el trasfondo que la rodea, ¿que Bolivia queremos?, queremos hacer que el indio diga ante el público si me equivoqué y luego defenestrarlo?, acaso no fue este el objetivo de la oposición desde que subió Evo morales?

Bolivia debe apostar al desarrollo para salir de una buena vez de siglos de atraso colonial y no satanizar la palabra como si esta fuera solo neoliberal, la mercancía existe desde que existe el mundo, el desarrollo y la búsqueda de progreso también. Qué es necesario hacerlo en el marco del respeto y la consulta sí, y ya el gobierno se manifestó por un referéndum que dirima estas cuestiones. Mientras un círculo de revoltosos demanda un diálogo que el gobierno pidió en todo momento.

Finalmente si este proceso es de todos los bolivianos y bolivianas defendámoslo con la conciencia del presente, con la convicción de un futuro que nos pertenece. Tenemos derecho al error, poner el hombro no es cuestión de apoyo a ningún partido es cuestión de sobrevivencia de esta gran comunidad que llamamos Bolivia, tenemos la obligación de ir más allá de nuestras individualidades para entender que por primera vez en la historia los indios somos capaces de gobernarnos, de proponer un modelo de desarrollo colectivo para todos los bolivianos, con nuestros errores y que además tenemos derecho a ello en este proceso de construcción.

A quien le conviene entonces toda esta parafernalia mediática y todos los muertos que le toca pagar al pueblo, Cuales son los intereses ocultos detrás de la marcha del TIPNIS?

1 Por CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER – martes 20 de septiembre de 2011, 17:04. El FMI modificó drásticamente a la baja sus previsiones económicas para Estados Unidos en 2011 y 2012 por la debilidad del crecimiento del país y resaltó su preocupación ante la incapacidad de Europa para superar su crisis por la deuda.

http://www.la-epoca.com.bo/index.php?opt=front&mod=detalle&id=934

Ravens and Vultures | Cuervos y Buitres – América Latina en Movimiento

Ravens and Vultures

ALAI -América Latina en Movimiento

Emir Sader is a sociologist and scientist in Brazil, and is executive secretary of the Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO)

October 4th, 2010

Did you notice that there are people who say they are of the Left but who seem to only criticize people of the Left?  Never against the Right, whatever it does.  They specialize in pouring gasoline on any little fire within the Left.

They never recognize victories, conquests, advances.  They only make predictions of defeats, treasons, turns to the Right, whose sin will be always denounced as responsibility of the Left.  They revel in defeats, the bigger the better, for they are others’ fault, no matter that common people are the ones who pay the price.

They are great at preparing balance sheets of defeats, but they never can propose alternatives and never succeed in leading any process.  They are always critics.  A species of vultures, feeding only on carrion.  Ravens, who always foretell catastrophes.

That someone says he is of the Left doesn’t mean he gets respect, unless he is up for the struggle against the Right.  In this department they just lie low, lurking to attack the Left, for not being radical enough, not defeating the Right radically and definitively.  They themselves are not capable of making a dent in the power of the Right, nor are they centrally preoccupied with this.  What matters to them above all is all the “treasons” of the Left.

In serious situations like Bolivia today, for example, they ratchet up rancor at Evo Morales and his leadership, just as they took the same stance against Lula in Brazil.  All of them “betrayed,” including Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, Pepe Mujica, the Kirchners, Fernando Lugo, Mauricio Funes — only they are pure.  Except that people don’t believe it, so they never manage to organize popular movements with strong grassroots participation, they don’t lead any process, they can’t tell you a single case where their ideas led to victories and advances.

They don’t appreciate the agrarian reform, the nationalization of mines, the Constituent Assembly put into practice by Evo.  They don’t support sovereign foreign policy measures of Brazil: recognition of Palestine, mediation with Iran, support for Cuba.  Only denunciations, because their universe is not the general struggle of people, but the limited universe of the Left.  They don’t push forward mass struggles, only ideological struggles.  They don’t build political power to advance the Left, they try to always divide it.

Conflicts on the Left, in the popular camp, must be discussed and treated as conflicts among tendencies of the Left, be they more moderate or more radical, without issuing excommunications that throw others out of the camp of the Left.  This attitude is the first step toward bundling other tendencies of the Left with the Right and taking equal distance from both.

Emir Sader, a sociologist and scientist Brazil, is executive secretary of the Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO)

Cuervos y buitres

Emir Sader

ALAI AMLATINA, 04/10/2011

Notaron que hay gente, que se dice de izquierda, ¿pero que solo aparece para criticar a gente de izquierda?

Nunca contra la derecha, lo que sea que esta haga. Son especialistasen lanzar gasolina en cualquier fueguito dentro de la izquierda.

Nunca reconocen victorias, conquistas, avances. Son solo preanuncios de derrotas, traiciones, giros a la derecha –cuya culpa será siempre

denunciada como responsabilidad de la izquierda. Adoran las derrotas, cuánto mayor, mejor, porque la culpa es de los otros, no importa que

el pueblo sea quién pague el precio.

Son excelentes para hacer balances de derrotas, pero nunca saben proponer alternativas y nunca consiguen dirigir proceso alguno. Son

siempre críticos. Especies de buitres, especialistas en carroña. Cuervos, que auguran siempre catástrofes.

No da para tener respeto por alguien que se dice de izquierda, pero no está en todas las paradas de la lucha contra la derecha. Ahí se quedan

quietos, acechando para atacar a la izquierda, sea porque no es suficientemente radical, sea porque no derrotó de forma radical y

definitiva a la derecha. Ellos mismos, no son capaces de afectar el poder de la derecha, ni están centralmente preocupados con eso, les

importa sobre todo las “traiciones” de la izquierda.

En una circunstancia grave como la de Bolivia actualmente, por ejemplo, lanzan hacia afuera el rencor a Evo Morales y su liderazgo,

como antes tuvieron esa actitud contra Lula en el Brasil. Todos “traicionaron”, incluidos Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, Pepe Mujica, los

Kirchner, Fernando Lugo, Mauricio Funes, solo ellos son puros. Solo que el pueblo no cree eso, de forma que esa gente nunca consigue

formar movimientos populares con fuerte participación del pueblo, no dirigen ningún proceso, no consiguen citar un caso en que sus ideas

condujeron a victorias y avances.

No elogian la reforma agraria, la nacionalización de las minas, la Asamblea Constituyente puestas en práctica por Evo. No apoyan las

medidas de política externa soberana del Brasil, en el reconocimiento de la Palestina, en la mediación de Irán, en el apoyo a Cuba. Solo

denuncias, porque su universo no es la lucha general del pueblo, sino el universo circunscrito de la izquierda. No impulsan luchas de masas,

solo lucha ideológica. No construyen fuerza política para que la izquierda avance, siempre tratan de dividir.

Los conflictos en la izquierda, en el campo popular, tienen que ser discutidos y tratados como conflictos entre tendencias de izquierda,

más moderadas o más radicales, sin descalificaciones que señalen a los otros como fuera del campo de la izquierda. Esta actitud es el primer

paso que lleva a asimilar otras tendencias de la izquierda a la derecha y asumir equidistancia en relación a ellas.

En una situación de crisis como la de Bolivia actualmente, todo lo que podemos desear es que se llegue a un acuerdo político entre el

gobierno y sectores del movimiento indígena que están en enfrentamiento abierto. Ni el gobierno es derechista, ni los movimientos indígenas hacen el juego de la derecha. Es en ese marco que debemos anhelar que sean enfrentados los conflictos.

Como en Brasil, se debe criticar al gobierno y al PT en lo que se diverge, y apoyar en los puntos comunes. Hacer frente único en lo que

hay de común, comenzando por la lucha contra la derecha. Y criticar aquello en que hay divergencias. Considerando que son diferencias en

el campo de la izquierda, no es posible la equidistancia entre el gobierno y la oposición, el PT y la derecha. (Traducción ALAI)

– Emir Sader, sociólogo y cientista brasileño, es secretario ejecutivo del Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO).

http://voselsoberano.com/v1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12729%3Acuervos-y-buitres&catid=2%3Aopinion&Itemid=4

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