Imperialism’s game

Who’s Wrong, Evo Morales or James Petras?

Jorge Eduardo Aldao – Tlaxcala

Translation: Machetera

September 15, 2008

Some days ago in an interview with Radio Centenario in Uruguay, James Petras made some remarks that deserve consideration.

In that radio interview, Petras, analyzing Bolivia’s critical situation, said:

“…This civil war has resulted in already almost half the country being in the hands of the fascists, and I say fascists, because they operate by the use of force, violence, with non-parliamentary groups typical of fascists, with the backing of the middle class, by taking public buildings of all kinds, paralyzing gas pipelines, even blowing up pipelines, taking control of police stations, customs, etc.  It’s already a coup.  Therefore, to say that it’s nearing a civil war or a coup is false, because there’s already a civil war, there’s a taking of power in the provinces called the “Half-Moon” (Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando, Beni) where the fascist rightwing is in control, despite the internal opposition of the peasants, etc.

What remains is in the Altiplano, where Evo Morales is located, boxed in, impotent, incapable of maintaining the country’s constitutional order and integrity.  While the popular masses begin to take their own action, independent of this president who until now continues to call for dialogue, while the fascists have murdered scores of peasants in cold blood and have disappeared dozens more, adding to the more than two hundred gunshot victims to be found in the hospitals.

This is the president’s cretinism in the face of an open U.S. intervention, the coup d’etat is already underway, the taking of power by the ultra-rightwing…”

Demagoguery and Realism

The Crisis of Capitalism

Demagoguery and Realism

Santiago Alba Rico – Rebelión

Translation: Machetera

The same day that the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that almost a billion human beings are affected by hunger and that the aid necessary to save their lives would cost $30 billion dollars, six central banks (United States, Japan, Canada, England and Switzerland) injected $180 billion dollars in the financial markets in a concerted action to save the private banks.

In the face of data such as this, there are only two possible alternatives: that we be demogogues or that we be realists.  If I invoke the natural law of supply and demand and say that there is much more worldwide demand for bread than for cosmetic surgery and much more for remedies against malaria than for haute couture clothing (and still more for housing than for mortgage loans); if I call for a Kantian referendum that would ask European citizens whether they would prefer that the monetary reserves of their country go to saving lives or to saving banks, without a doubt, I’m being a demagogue.  If, against reason and ethics, I accept that it is more urgent, more necessary, more convenient, more effective, more beneficial to mankind, to stop the ruin of an insurer and the bankruptcy of a banking institution than to feed thousands of children, provide relief to hurricane victims or cure dengue fever, then I am being realistic.

A future of fanatics, fundamentalists and fascists

Citizenship and Capitalism

Santiago Alba Rico – HERRIA-2000

Translation: Machetera

Let’s start with a story.

Once upon a time there was a teacher who went on a journey and became lost in the desert.  He walked and walked without coming upon either houses or food and after a few days he was so tired and famished that he sat down on the ground and began to talk with the rocks that surrounded him.  He pleaded with them, he argued with them, he lectured them with conviction and patience.  He passed many hours that way when suddenly a fairy passed by, her attention drawn by the strange behavior of our man.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

The teacher looked up proudly, a little annoyed by the interruption.

“I’m teaching these rocks to turn themselves into bread.”

“That could take quite awhile,” said the fairy. “It’ll go a lot faster with this.”

And she took a magic wand out of her bag.

The man, furious and disgusted, answered, “I’m a rational man.  I don’t believe in magic.”

And turning his head, he continued to explain to three little rocks, the molecular composition of flour.

Bolivians report children killed in Porvenir Massacre

They Killed Children; Many Bodies are in Mass Graves

Erbol

Translation: Machetera

Tuesday, September 16, 1:53 a.m.

La Paz. – On Monday, survivors of the “Porvenir Massacre” or the “Cobija Massacre” denounced the killing of a number of children last Thursday in the town of El Porvenir, when assassins shot peasants who were heading toward the area.

In statements to the Erbol Network, the leader of the Pando Peasant Federation, Cristian Domínguez, denounced the fact that vehicles belonging to the Prefecture had been given the work of collecting the lifeless bodies of the peasants in order to inter them in a mass grave.

Quick and very dirty update

Machetera has some pressing business this morning and can’t get to translations until later in the day.  In the meantime, she’s scanned the latest reports out of Bolivia regarding the Porvenir Massacre, which as far as the major media are concerned, simply never took place.  If an indigenous person is shot and CNN didn’t see it, did it really happen?

One question that may be on your mind (it occurred to Machetera) is if children were shot in the massacre, where are the bodies?  Reports from Bolivia say that the dump trucks which served as shooting platforms had a dual purpose – the bodies were picked up, stripped, and tossed into a mass grave.

More to come…

Maybe he’ll come to the U.S. on the Santrina

Bolivian Government Promises 30 Years in Jail for Prefect Leopoldo Fernández

Luigino Bracci Roa – Yvke Mundial, Erbol, ABI

Translation: Machetera

Monday, September 15, 2008. 8:21 a.m.

La Paz. – On Sunday the Executive Branch made it clear that it will not negotiate over the deaths from the Pando massacre, nor the responsibility of its material authors, and confirmed, in alluding to the Prefect of Pando, Leopoldo Fernández, that “murderers are not valid interlocutors.”

The Vice President of the Republic, Álvaro García Linera, and the Vice Minister for Coordination with Social Movements, Sacha Llorenti, both made this clear this Sunday at the Palacio Quemado, prior to meetings with the Prefect of Tarija, Mario Cossío, who brought the position of his brethren grouped in the so-called Democratic National Council (Conalde).

“The Government is not going to negotiate the deaths, the Government is not going to negotiate the criminal responsibility of those who perpetrated the massacre, the killers.  This is a separate point, it will not enter into the meeting,” García Linera assured emphatically.  He indicated that at a table for dialogue with the opposition prefects, the criminal would be differentiated from claims, affirming that departmental autonomy and the redistribution of resources from the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons would be part of the dialogue.

Paramilitaries on the run

Genocidal Killers Run to Brazil and Bolivia’s Government Calls for their Detention

Luigino Bracci Roa – Yvke Mundial, ABI

Translation: Machetera

Monday, September 15, 2008. 8:57 a.m.

La Paz and Cobija. – This Sunday, the [Bolivian] government reported that various hired assassins who killed peasants from the Pando town of Porvenir, presumably on orders from Prefect Leopoldo Fernández, fled to Brazil.  The government has asked the neighboring country to arrest them immediately.

“They (the assassins) have gone to the Brazilian side, we’re making efforts with Brazil so that people carrying weapons may be arrested there, of course this business of carrying weapons is illegal in any part of the world,” said the Defense Minister, Walker San Miguel, referring to the killers who machine-gunned a number of peasants in Pando.

12 arrested for Porvenir Massacre

Twelve People Arrested for Porvenir Massacre – Weapons Stash Found in Cobija

Luigino Bracci Roa – Yvke Mundial, with reporting from ABI & Erbol

Translation: Machetera

Monday, September 15, 2008 12:08 p.m.

Cobija, Pando. – Early this morning, the [Bolivian] Armed Forces captured a large amount of weaponry stashed in private homes in the city of Cobija, capital of Pando department, where 10 people were also arrested, presumably for their direct involvement in the massacre of peasants on September 11 in El Porvenir and Filadelfia.

In an operation that lasted the entire night, a machine-gun, a telescopic hunting rifle, four rifles, two revolvers and a number of boxes of cartridges, bullets and canisters for explosives were also seized.

“A .22 long caliber rifle with scope, a .38 caliber revolver and a (9 mm) machine-gun, as well as a number of boxes of double-action bullets, which penetrate and explode inside the body, and extra sharp cartridges for scoped rifles were seized,” said General Walter Panozo, Commander of the Pando Emergency Command.  Panozo said that the explosive capacity of the majority of the weaponry seized from private homes would allow for people to be brought down immediately.”

Bolivian general sat on his hands

Chávez Denounces Bolivian Commander’s Inaction and Asks Bolivian Soldiers to Remain Loyal to Evo

Luigino Bracci Roa – Yvke Mundial

Translation: Machetera

Sunday, September 14, 2008. 3:05 p.m.

On Sunday, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, denounced the inaction of the Commander in Chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces, General Luis Trigo, in retaking the Department (Province) of Pando, whose state of siege was declared last Friday, after a massacre took place on Thursday in which until now, some 30 dead and 106 missing have been reported.

Chávez supported Morales’s decision to declare a state of siege.  “There are foreign paramilitaries there killing peasants, burning houses and public buildings, attacking barracks, and so on.  What more was there to do? (Declare) a state of siege!”

Luis Trigo

But he denounced Trigo for not rising to the call: “Last night General Trigo went to Pando (…) but instead of responding to the presidential decree for a State of Siege, last night I was directly informed by sources very close to the situation, that he (Trigo) arrived and ordered the troops to their barracks, abandoning the airport and citizens’ protection. A strange thing, General Trigo.”

Dump trucks as a killing platform

Bolivia: Six Accounts from the Porvenir Massacre

ABN, La Patria Nueva, Erbol

Translation: Machetera

Sunday, September 14, 2008, 10:02 p.m.

Cobija. – After military troops sent by the government of Evo Morales took control of Pando department, the accounts from survivors of last Thursday’s Porvenir Massacre where there are 30 dead, 25 wounded and 106 missing, began to multiply, reported the Bolivian government and the Pando Peasant Workers Federation.

The Bolivarian Erbol Broadcasters Network and Radio Patria Nueva have compiled some of them, which we present in this note.

“They shot at pregnant women and children”

Today a woman leading the Bolivian peasants denounced the fact that during yesterday’s confrontation in Pando, armed opposition groups killed pregnant women and children and those who were driven to the Tahuamanu river.