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Evo Morales: The New World's answer to Robert Mugabe.
No doubt the Bolivians can look forward to starvation as this communist attacks every productive person in the country. And when they starve I will absolutely oppose any US aid. Let Venezuela and Cuba feed them.
Don't worry, the US DEA has been actively involved in trying to remove him from office...permanently, if you know what I mean.
And install a friendly dictator again who will sell cocaine on their behalf?
The Unidad Móvil Policial para Áreas Rurales (UMOPAR) (Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas), a subsidiary of the Special Antinarcotics Force (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico--FELCN) of the Bolivian National Police (Cuerpo de Policía Nacional) was created in 1987 and is a Bolivian anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency force which was founded by, and is funded, advised, equipped, and trained by the United States government as part of its War on Drugs.
There have been complaints that UMOPAR, which is effectively controlled by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and military, was the most powerfully armed and best trained military force in Bolivia. In 1984, UMOPAR troops kidnapped the President of Bolivia, Siles Zuazo, and staged an unsuccessful coup attempt against the Bolivian government.
U.S. involvement
Although UMOPAR is technically headed by Defensa Social, a branch of the Bolivian Interior Ministry, they are in practice controlled by DEA and U.S. military officials based at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, who plan their operations, provide intelligence, and lead the drug raids, using UMOPAR mainly as a "strike force" for U.S. operations.
UMOPAR forces receive extensive training from DEA and U.S. military personnel, including the U.S. Army Special Forces, both in facilities in Bolivia (such as the Garras International Antinarcotics Training School), and at U.S. military bases such as Fort Benning, or the School of the Americas in Panama.
In 1987, under a U.S. State Department contract, an Oregon corporation known as Evergreen International Airlines provided several private military contractor pilots, many of whom had flown for the CIA's Air America in Laos and Cambodia, to transport DEA agents and UMOPAR troops throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley.
In 1988, U.S. Ambassador Rowell decided that UMOPAR troops needed their own airmobile task force to increase their effectiveness. The United States Department of Defense loaned UMOPAR 12 UH-1H helicopters, and Rowell assigned his U.S. Army-Navy attache, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Hayes to command the UMOPAR troops in the unit, which was called the Diablos Rojos (Red Devils).
Human rights abuses
UMOPAR troops have frequently been responsible for beatings, torture, rapes, extortion, robberies, arbitrary shootings, mass arrests without warrants, and various other human rights abuses.
The use of torture by UMOPAR forces has been widespread and systematic, and includes methods such as being hung upside down and beaten, burned with cigarettes, electrocution, death threats, and being submerged underwater to simulate drowning, amongst other methods.
UMOPAR forces act with almost total impunity, and human rights violations are rarely investigated, much less prosecuted.
Other examples of abuses include:
In June of 1988, UMOPAR troops killed 12 peasants and wounded over 100 in the Massacre of Villa Tunari
- On May 9, 1997, two UMOPAR agents detained and beat a fifteen-year-old girl, Valeriana Condori, during a coca-eradication mission in Uncía.
- In July 1998, Father Hugo Ortiz, a Catholic priest and president of the Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos de Bolivia (APDH), (Permanent Human Rights Assembly of Bolivia) , was beaten by UMOPAR troops while travelling to a meeting.
- In September 2000, a 19 year old boy, Isaac Mejía Arce was tortured to death by UMOPAR troops using a technique known as el arrastre (dragging), where two men sat on top of his body while it was dragged around over the ground (a method frequently used by UMOPAR troops to extract information from suspects). Arce began coughing up blood, and ultimately went into a coma, and died on February 1, 2001.
- In 2002, a member of UMOPAR shot at two government representatives as they were entering a community to investigate human rights violations.
This guy probably thought he'd gotten the deal of a lifetime (cheap land, cheap labour). When you do business in corrupt, unstable economies, these are the risks you take. But I wouldn't feel too sorry for this guy. I'm sure he's made a net profit on this venture. What's the cost of losing a small, 60 acre farm verus the benefits of running it like a slave plantation for 40 years?
That's 60 sq miles, not acres. Fairly big chunk of real estate.
That's 60 sq miles, not acres. Fairly big chunk of real estate.
That's 60 sq miles, not acres. Fairly big chunk of real estate.
You also need to balance off what he invested into the land in terms of labor and money. Ranches don't happen all on their own.
Then the next thing that needs to be noted here is that Bolivia is taking itself off the map for international investments. Not that they weren't already doing this. Morales' efforts to nationalize Brazilian owned industries earned him a swift rebuke and a sincere promise of military action from Brazil if he attempted to seize said industries. Morales backed off and relations hve warmed to where Brazil is cooperating with Morales in going after the drug trade. Still, Brazil is now reluctant to invest in Bolivia.
You also need to balance off what he invested into the land in terms of labor and money. Ranches don't happen all on their own.
Good point. But I presume the reason for going into Bolivia in the first place was comparative cost savings over doing things in the USA.
Then the next thing that needs to be noted here is that Bolivia is taking itself off the map for international investments. Not that they weren't already doing this. Morales' efforts to nationalize Brazilian owned industries earned him a swift rebuke and a sincere promise of military action from Brazil if he attempted to seize said industries. Morales backed off and relations hve warmed to where Brazil is cooperating with Morales in going after the drug trade. Still, Brazil is now reluctant to invest in Bolivia.
Absolutely. Bolivia won't be able to raise $1 in foreign investment if the the government's going create a track-record of stealing those assets. Crazy risk to assume if you're an investor. Just look at how long it took Cuba to start attracting foreign investment after their behaviour in the 60s (even though I agree with Castro's policy of nationalizing the casinos from mafia control).
I'm sorry but that's kind of what happens when you live in South America. Every now and then a crackpot ultra-nationalist lefty gets into power and then non-nationals are made an example of (Venezuela anyone?). Should have sold the ranch, or the cattle and abandoned the ranch, in 2006 and high tailed it out of there.
Want to hear about the massacres and death squads that happen when the right wingers are in charge? I'll take a few nationalized farms over right wing secret police with black hole jails any day.
Want to hear about the massacres and death squads that happen when the right wingers are in charge? I'll take a few nationalized farms over right wing secret police with black hole jails any day.
Don't forget to take the starvation and disease that comes with those nationalized farms. Before you get smarmy, legions more people suffered and died under left-wing farm collectivization policies in the 20th century than have ever died due to some rightist death squad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivi ... viet_Union
Rightists are rank amateurs when it comes to killing, starving, imprisoning, oppressing, and torturing people. When you want oppression done right, call a leftist.
Want to hear about the massacres and death squads that happen when the right wingers are in charge? I'll take a few nationalized farms over right wing secret police with black hole jails any day.
Don't forget to take the starvation and disease that comes with those nationalized farms. Before you get smarmy, legions more people suffered and died under left-wing farm collectivization policies in the 20th century than have ever died due to some rightist death squad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivi ... viet_Union
Rightists are rank amateurs when it comes to killing, starving, imprisoning, oppressing, and torturing people. When you want oppression done right, call a leftist.
Wrong. More people have died under right wing governments around the world since leftist governments are by definition open to freedom of the individual.
Right wingers like you simple consider only your own narrow view of what is right wing as the only definition of right wing. That is why you are busy claiming neo-conservatives are true conservatives or true right wingers.
I've already posted at length at the death and oppression fostered on nations throughout Central America by the US and they universally supported right wing governments.
When you want oppression - you call the right.
When you want freedom - you call the left.
When you want corporations to rule and destroy the environment - you call the right
When you want jobs and benefits for the workers - you call the left.
That is just the way it is in the world.