"Paraguay president to be impeached" June 22, 2012
ASUNCION, Paraguay — The lower house of Paraguay’s opposition-controlled congress voted Thursday to impeach leftist President Fernando Lugo for his role in a deadly clash involving landless farmers, adding to political turmoil in the South American nation.
Lugo immediately appeared on national television and promised to face the impeachment trial with all its consequences, dismissing rumors that he might resign.
The lower house approved the impeachment trial by a vote of 76-1. The Senate said it will begin the impeachment trial Friday.
Critics blame him for the violence that erupted last week when police tried to evict about 150 farmers from the 4,900-acre reserve, which is part of a huge estate owned by a Colorado Party politician. Advocates for the farmers say the landowner used political influence to get the land from the state decades ago and say it should have been put to use for land reform.
Seventeen people died in the clash.
Lugo, 63, has expressed sorrow at the confrontation and accepted the resignations of his interior minister and his chief of police.
Paraguay is one of the world’s top suppliers of soybeans and disputes have risen in recent years as farmers seek more land to grow the country’s top export earner.
Lugo, who resigned as a Catholic bishop to run for the presidency, had promised farmland for 87,000 landless families. But as he nears the end of his term next year, he has failed to deliver, partly because his programs have been blocked in the legislature.
They don't care about that now.
--more--"
"Paraguay Senate removes leader; President ousted by trial, sending nation into crisis" by Belen Bogado and Pedro Servin | Associated Press, June 23, 2012
ASUNCION, Paraguay — The Paraguayan Senate voted to remove President Fernando Lugo from office on Friday in an impeachment trial that plunged the South American country into a crisis.
After a quick, five-hour trial, 39 senators voted to dismiss Lugo, while four senators voted against and two were absent. Based on the decision, Lugo would be replaced by Vice President Federico Franco of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party.
Crowds of pro-Lugo protesters took to the streets condemning the impeachment trial and expressing support for the president. Police in antiriot gear and wielding water cannons drove them back.
Paraguay’s lower house of Congress voted to impeach Lugo on Thursday.
The Senate tried him on five charges of malfeasance in office, including an alleged role in a confrontation between police and landless farmers that left 17 dead.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, who traveled to Paraguay ahead of the vote as part of a delegation from the UNASUR regional bloc, denounced it as a ‘‘new type of coup.’’
‘‘A truly shameful act has been committed,’’ Maduro told reporters.
Lugo decided not to attend the trial, instead watching on television from the presidential palace while his lawyers spoke on his behalf.
The Senate rejected a request by his lawyers for a period of 18 days to prepare their arguments. The Senate’s president, Jorge Oviedo, said there were no grounds for such a request.
Many schools shut down in Asuncion, and downtown shops closed their doors as a precaution.
The impoverished, landlocked nation has a long history of political instability.
Lugo was elected four years ago on promises of helping the South American country’s poor, but his more moderate government allies have increasingly turned against him.
Lugo’s impeachment trial was triggered in part by an attempt by police to evict about 150 farmers from a remote, 4,900-acre forest reserve, which is part of a huge estate owned by a Colorado Party politician.
Advocates for the farmers say the landowner used political influence to get the land from the state decades ago and say it should have been put to use for land reform.
Six police officers, including the brother of Lugo’s chief of security, and 11 farmers died in the clash last week.
Lugo’s political opponents blamed the president.
Lugo has expressed sorrow at the confrontation and accepted the resignations of his interior minister and his chief of police.
The president also was tried on four other accusations. They include that he improperly allowed leftist parties to hold a political meeting in an army base in 2009; that he allowed about 3,000 squatters to illegally invade a large Brazilian-owned soybean farm; that his government failed to capture members of a guerrilla group, the Paraguayan People’s Army, which carries out extortion kidnappings and occasional attacks on police; and that he signed an international protocol without properly submitting it to Congress for approval.
PPA = CIA?
The trial marked a dramatic demise for the once-popular leader who stepped down as the Catholic ‘‘bishop of the poor’’ to run for president amid a leftward swing in South America.
Looking more and more like an Aristide situation.
--more--"
"Ouster of Paraguay’s president sparks criticism" by Belen Bogado | Associated Press, June 24, 2012
ASUNCION, Paraguay — President Fernando Lugo’s rapid impeachment and ouster by lawmakers has plunged Paraguay into crisis and unleashed a wave of criticism by fellow leftist leaders in Latin America.
The former Roman Catholic bishop elected on a pledge to help Paraguay’s poor said he would step aside after Friday’s Senate vote to remove him from office, even though he called it a blow to democracy.
Federico Franco, the newly sworn in president, vowed Saturday to
honor foreign commitments and reach out to Latin American leaders to try
to keep his country from becoming a regional pariah.
He even has the name of a fascist.
Franco has begun forming his Cabinet. His first two appointments were an interior minister in charge of maintaining domestic security, and a foreign minister who will go on the road in an effort to appease fellow members of the Mercosur regional bloc.
He even has the name of a fascist.
Franco has begun forming his Cabinet. His first two appointments were an interior minister in charge of maintaining domestic security, and a foreign minister who will go on the road in an effort to appease fellow members of the Mercosur regional bloc.
Lugo’s quick acceptance of his ouster appeared to have prevented a bigger confrontation and potentially violent protests in the streets of Paraguay’s capital of Asuncion, where his supporters had gathered. But other South American presidents were critical of the impeachment trial, which several called a de facto coup d’etat.
Who could have been behind that?
‘‘This goes beyond Fernando Lugo. It goes beyond Paraguay. It’s about true democracy for all of our America,’’ said Ecuador’s leftist president, Rafael Correa, adding that his government will not recognize any government in Paraguay other than Lugo’s.
Related: Panetta Pasteurizes Ecuador
Must have gone sour 'cuz he's still there.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said that he will not recognize the ‘‘illegal and illegitimate government’’ that replaced Lugo. Chavez said that his ally ‘‘preferred the sacrifice’’ of stepping aside and that the trial had been a setup.
Related: Venezuelan President Chavez Hints U.S. Could Be Behind Cancers Affecting South American Leaders
Also see: Lymping Into Paraguay
Sure is an odd cluster.
In Argentina, the government of President Cristina Fernandez said it ‘‘is not going to validate the coup d’etat that just occurred’’ in Paraguay.
Also see: Argentinian Atrocities
Sponsored by the CIA. Operation Condor was it?
Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, also called it a coup.
He's got his hands full now (see below).
In Chile, foreign minister Alfredo Moreno said ‘‘we are worried’’ that Lugo’s ouster ‘‘did not fulfill the minimum standards of due process and the legitimate defense that any person deserves.’’
Yes, Chile has also had their experience with Condor.
Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a communique that although the process followed procedures laid out in Paraguay’s constitution, ‘‘Mexico considers that said proceeding didn’t grant former President Lugo the space or time for his defense.’’
Even friend Mexico against?
Amid the criticism, Franco directed his foreign minister to reach out to the region’s governments.
Franco, of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, will serve out the rest of Lugo’s term, which ends in August 2013. Franco, 49, has experience as a former state governor and was part of a political alliance that supported Lugo....
Lugo...
a dramatic demise....
The knife in his back helped.
--more--"
"US agent kills man in Honduras raid" New York Times, June 25, 2012
WASHINGTON — A US agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a drug-smuggling operation early Saturday, a spokesman for the US Embassy there said Sunday. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, the official said, and the US agent fired in self-defense.
Yup, sure.
The shooting brought further attention to the growing US involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America. Commando-style squads of DEA agents have been working with local security forces in several countries and have been present at several firefights in Honduras in which people died in the last 15 months.
Also see: Alphabet Agency: Putting Holder on ICE
They must be to think we are buying the bulls*** anymore.
The latest episode, however, is the first in which the US government has said that an American agent, rather than a Honduran police officer, had killed a suspect. The shooting underscored the sensitive issues of national sovereignty raised by the growing US participation in the operations....
How many f***ing countries are we at war with anyway?
--more--"
Related: One Day Honduran Wonder: DEA Denial
There was no mention of that in the previous piece.
"Fatal Honduras raid part of aggressive drug strategy" by Alberto Arce | Associated Press, June 26, 2012
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who killed a suspected drug trafficker during a raid in a remote region of Honduras was part of an aggressive new enforcement strategy that has sharply increased the interception of illegal drug flights.
Suspected?
The mission, called Operation Anvil, is run with six State Department helicopters, as well as a special team of DEA agents who work with Honduran police to move more quickly and pursue suspicious flights, according to a US official in Honduras who could not be named for security reasons.
Operation = WAR!
In little more than two months since the operation started, it has intercepted four flights. That compares to only seven from mid-2010 to the end of 2011 — less than one every two months.
The US official said about 100 flights of suspicious origin come into Honduras every year.
With the new operation, Honduran and US drug agents follow every flight they detect of unknown origin and work with non-US contract pilots who don’t have the restrictive rules of engagement that apply to the US military.
The area of Brus Laguna, where the DEA said an agent shot a drug suspect as he was reaching for his gun Saturday, is part of the remote Mosquitia region that is dotted with clandestine airstrips and a vast network of rivers for carrying drugs to the coast.
Saturday’s event marked the first time that a DEA agent has killed someone in Central America since the agency began deploying specially trained agents several years ago to accompany local law enforcement personnel on all types of drug raids throughout the region, said DEA spokeswoman Dawn Dearden.
A May 11 raid by Honduran police with DEA advisers, also under Operation Anvil, killed four people and wounded four others, whom locals said were innocent civilians traveling the river at night.
They finally got around to mentioning it.
Honduran and DEA officials have said people on the boat fired first and the lawmen were acting in self-defense. The DEA said none of its agents fired their guns in that case.
Operation Anvil also netted cocaine shipments on May 6 in the Mosquitia and June 13 in Olancho state, totaling more than three-quarters of a ton of cocaine in about two months.
The aggressive tactics have come under fire from human rights groups and some political interests in Washington, especially since the May 11 attack.
The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras filed a complaint in May with the regional prosecutor in the Gracias a Dios region where the attack occurred, asserting human rights violations by Honduran and US authorities.
The group’s investigation concluded that the dead and wounded were innocent civilians.
Then it's STATE MURDER, isn't it?
Adrienne Pine, American University anthropology professor, sent a letter signed by 40 Honduran scholars and former government officials, and supported by 300 academics in 29 countries, to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this month, demanding the United States cease support for the Honduran military and police.
And, as usual, the administration isn't listening.
‘‘It’s really troubling,’’ Pine said Sunday. ‘‘It’s absolutely not appropriate for US law enforcement to be killing other people in other countries.’’
Or in AmeriKa, for that matter.
Operation Anvil is part of an overall increase in US efforts in Honduras, where drug trafficking and murder rates have spiked in the last year or so.
--more--"
Scroll: Honduras
UPDATE:
"Grand Tradition: Obama Does it the Old-Fashioned Way in Honduras
Written by Chris Floyd
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Overthrow the constitutionally elected democratic government. Install willing stooges, backed by local oligarchs, in its place. Send in your own troops to take part in the crusade du jour (anti-communism, anti-terrorism, the "War on Drugs") and establish your iron dominion over the lesser breeds south of the border. Repeat as often as necessary.
It's a tried-and-true formula, a traditional remedy, as American as apple pie, Chevrolet and murdering wedding guests and funeral-goers by remote control from a comfy chair in a secure fortress 10,000 miles away. And Barack Obama -- who is nothing if not a genuine American Traditionalist -- is carrying on the grand tradition of America's always extra-special relationship with the nations of Central America.
Last Saturday, the Obama Administration finally came clean on its "commando-style" operations in Honduras -- the country whose government Obama helped overthrow in the rosy dawn of his progressive presidency. A "commando" of the Drug Enforcement Agency shot and killed a man in a group of alleged drug smugglers who had surrendered after a raid. As the New York Times reports:
During the operation,[U.S. embassy
spokesman Stephen] Posivak said, the government agents told a group
suspected of smuggling to surrender. Four of the suspects did so and
were arrested, but a fifth reached for a holstered weapon. The American
agent shot him before he could fire.
“The suspect, instead of surrendering, reached for his firearm,” Mr. Posivak said. “The other suspects surrendered, but this guy went for his gun.”
“The suspect, instead of surrendering, reached for his firearm,” Mr. Posivak said. “The other suspects surrendered, but this guy went for his gun.”
Well, that's what Mr. Posivak said, so it must be true. It may even be as true as the story of Osama bin Laden going for his gun when he was shot down unarmed in his bed. Or maybe the "guy" in Honduras was reaching for his holstered weapon in order to surrender it, as ordered. Who knows? But if the story changes tomorrow or next week, we should not be surprised -- nor should it make us doubt the words of our leaders and their Posivaks as they try their darndest to give us the true facts through the ever-present "fog of war."
America's drug-warring commandos have been linked to a number of deaths in Honduras this year -- including a raid in which two pregnant women were killed, according to local eyewitnesses -- but the White House has always denied that our boys were actually pulling the triggers. But now, after the carefully orchestrated revelations by "administration insiders" about Obama's weekly Death Squad meetings -- and the near-universal non-reaction to this story by the media-political establishment and the general public -- there's no need to hide a little penny-ante wetwork down south. Now it's praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, the whole world is a "free-fire zone."
As the NYT noted in an earlier story about the spread of American "forward bases" in the client land, "government leaders in Honduras, who came to power in a controversial election a few months after a 2009 coup, have strongly supported assistance from the United States, but skeptics contend that enthusiasm is in part because the partnership bolsters their fragile hold on power."
Oh, those skeptics. Always pouring cold water on even the most altruistic operation. For everyone knows that the sole and only single purpose of the War on Drugs is to keep the pusherman away from little Sally's middle-school playground. Sure, the Drug War has given rise to the most powerful underworld organizations the world has ever seen; sure, it's corrupted governments and politics around the world on a staggering scale; sure, it's stuffed respectable banks with obscene profits from money-laundering; sure, it's led to the deaths of countless thousands of innocent people, fueled civil wars and insurgencies, served as an excuse for government repression and tyranny, and blighted the lives of millions of people who have been jailed and ruined for the crime of choosing the wrong kind of intoxicant. But despite this 40-year record of carnage and despair (which, oddly enough, has not curtailed the trafficking and use of drugs), we all know that the War on Drugs is a good thing. It has made the world a better place.
And that's why a good progressive like Barack Obama has embraced the War on Drugs with same avidity with which he has taken up -- and extended -- the War on Terror. That's why our boys are down in Honduras today, shooting "guys" with holstered weapons and helping our satraps keep their grip on the power we gave them.
II.
But just to give a little context to this noble crusade, we might look back at Obama's progressive dealing with Honduras since coming to power. As I wrote here last year, in a piece that came out as the White House was basking in the glow of the bin Laden killing:
One of President Barack Obama's most
signal achievements in inter-American relations has been his
countenancing of a brutal coup in Honduras and his avid embrace of the
repressive regime produced by the elitist overthrow of the
democratically elected government. As we noted here last year:
Since the installation of these
throwbacks to the corrupt and brutal 'banana republics' of yore, Obama's
secretary of state, the "progressive" Hillary Clinton, has spent a good
deal of time and effort trying to coerce Honduras' outraged neighbors
in Latin America to "welcome" the thug-clique, now led by Porfirio Lobo,
back into the "community of nations." Let bygones be bygones, Clinton
says, as Lobo's regime murders journalists (nine so far this year),
political opponents and carries on the wholesale trashing of Honduran
independence (such as sacking four Supreme Court justices who opposed
the gutting of liberties and the overthrow of constitutional order).
After all, isn't that Obama's own philosophy: always "look forward,"
forget the crimes of the past? Every day is a new day, a clean slate, a
chance for a new beginning -- indeed, for "hope and change."
In other words: let the dead bury the dead -- and the rich and powerful reap their rewards.
In other words: let the dead bury the dead -- and the rich and powerful reap their rewards.
And even as Obama basks in the atavistic
glow of the Warrior Prince (you would think he'd killed bin Laden in
single combat on the field of battle instead of ordering 80 Navy Seals
to storm a house filled with women and children and shoot an unarmed
man), his favored elites in Honduras continue to hunt down and kill
those who seek to shine the smallest light on their corrupt, repressive
rule. As the Washington Post reported last week:
Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and
killed a journalist outside his home in a city in northern Honduras,
officials said Wednesday. Francisco Medina, a 35-year-old television
reporter, was ambushed Tuesday night in the city of Morazan, 75 miles
(120 kilometers) north of Honduras’ capital, said Santos Galvez, a
member of Honduras’ College of Journalists press group .....
In his reporting, Medina was critical of the Honduran national police and of private security firms contracted by ranchers in the area, where drug traffickers operate. Medina became the 11th journalist to be killed in the past 18 months in Honduras. ... A committee of missing persons in Honduras said Medina was followed by two men on a motorcycle after his evening show. They shot him three times in the back and once in his arm as he was about to enter his home. Relatives of Medina called an ambulance, which took him to a hospital. He later died. Medina’s brother, Carlos Medina, said police officers refused to escort the journalist in the ambulance.
In his reporting, Medina was critical of the Honduran national police and of private security firms contracted by ranchers in the area, where drug traffickers operate. Medina became the 11th journalist to be killed in the past 18 months in Honduras. ... A committee of missing persons in Honduras said Medina was followed by two men on a motorcycle after his evening show. They shot him three times in the back and once in his arm as he was about to enter his home. Relatives of Medina called an ambulance, which took him to a hospital. He later died. Medina’s brother, Carlos Medina, said police officers refused to escort the journalist in the ambulance.
This is a precise echo of the case noted here last year:
[From John Perry at the London Review of Books]:
On the night of 14 June, Luis Arturo Mondragón was sitting with his son
on the pavement outside his house in the city of El Paraíso in western
Honduras. He had often criticised local politicians on his weekly radio
programme, the latest edition of which had just been broadcast. He had
received several death threats, but disregarded them. At 10 p.m. a car
drew up and the driver fired four bullets, killing him instantly.
Mondragón was the ninth journalist to be murdered so far this year.
Honduras is now officially the most dangerous country in the world in
which to work for the press.
The overthrow of President Zelaya last year was only the second military coup in Latin America since the end of the Cold War. The first, a US-backed attempt to overthrow Chávez in Venezuela in 2002, was a failure. The coup in Tegucigalpa shouldn’t have succeeded either: Obama had promised a new approach to US policy in the region, and there was strong popular resistance to the coup in Honduras itself. And yet, a year on, the coup’s plotters have got practically everything they wanted. ...
The overthrow of President Zelaya last year was only the second military coup in Latin America since the end of the Cold War. The first, a US-backed attempt to overthrow Chávez in Venezuela in 2002, was a failure. The coup in Tegucigalpa shouldn’t have succeeded either: Obama had promised a new approach to US policy in the region, and there was strong popular resistance to the coup in Honduras itself. And yet, a year on, the coup’s plotters have got practically everything they wanted. ...
Perry notes that Roland Valenzuela, a
former minister in Zelaya’s government, claimed in an interview that he
had papers which named several American-connected business figures
behind the coup plot, including "former members of the army death squad
known as Battalion 316." Perry also notes that "in aseparate
development, it has become known that the plane which flew Zelaya out of
the country first called at the US airforce base Palmerola."
Barack Obama's famed "continuity" with
his predecessors goes far beyond his avid, almost erotic embrace of
George W. Bush's Terror War atrocities (foreign and domestic). In Latin
America, it goes back to the glory days of Ronald Reagan, when
American-backed, American-trained death squads and military juntas
slaughtered thousands of people and stripped their people to the bone
with the scorched-earth economics of oligarchy. (An ancient, barbaric
system now being energetically imposed throughout the "developed" world,
under the cover of "deficit reduction.") But of course, Reagan himself
was standing on the shoulders of giants when it came to his Latin
America policies, simply soldiering on in the proud tradition of
Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, James K. Polk and other
paragons now chiseled in history's alabaster.
--MORE--"
And remember what I said about Morales?
"Bolivian police mutiny grows over demand for higher pay" by Carlos Valdez | Associated Press, June 23, 2012
LA PAZ, Bolivia — A mutiny by rank-and-file Bolivian police demanding higher wages spread across the nation on Friday, with an estimated 4,000 officers occupying barracks.
Protesters sacked and set fire to furniture and documents at a police office in downtown La Paz that processes disciplinary complaints, but the protest otherwise appeared peaceful.
The mutiny began Thursday when about 30 police officers and their
wives seized control of an elite unit’s barracks about 100 yards from
the presidential palace, ejecting its commanders.
And their wives?
And their wives?
They were demanding direct talks with President Evo Morales, who was in the palace on Friday, protected by helmeted military police with assault rifles. The leftist leader returned early from a climate summit in Brazil to deal with the predicament but did not immediately comment.
‘‘This conflict is the most complicated that Morales has faced and if it’s not peacefully resolved it could detonate a political crisis as in the past,’’ said political analyst Carlos Cordero.
A similar mutiny in February 2003 ended violently with police engaging the presidential guard in a firefight, and 19 people killed. Eight months later, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, then president, fled after bloody antigovernment protests. Commissioned police officers were not participating in the mutiny and the force’s chief, Colonel Victor Maldonado, appealed to protesters to halt the mutiny and negotiate.
Bolivia’s 28,000 rank-and-file police officers earn an average of $194 a month, a third less than a sergeant in the armed forces.
Interior Minister Carlos Romero told reporters that authorities were seeking a way to raise those salaries but noted that the cost of police salaries had doubled in six years to $86 million in 2011.
--more--"
Also see:
Bolivian Belligerence
Bolivian Busts U.S. Coup
Bolivian Coup Next For Obama
U.S. Plans to Assassinate Morales of Bolivia
U.S. Bullies Bolivia
Yeah, they have wanted him out for a long time now.
Lithium Lighting the Way to Bolivian Invasion
I was wondering what resource was at the bottom of all this.
"Uruguay plans to sell marijuana to registered buyers" Associated Press, June 21, 2012
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay’s government plans to take a step beyond legalizing marijuana. It wants to sell it.
And WATCH YOUR ECONOMY ROAR TO LIFE!!!!
Local news media and lawmakers report that the government plans to send a bill to Congress on Wednesday that would legalize marijuana sales as a crime-fighting measure. Only the government would be allowed to sell the cigarettes and only to adults registered as users.
Those who exceed a limited number of cigarettes allowed would have to undergo drug rehabilitation.
The
idea is to remove profits from drug dealers and divert users from
harder drugs. There are no laws against marijuana use in Uruguay.
Ruling party Senator Monica Xavier said that if the measure passes, it should be accompanied by efforts to get people off drugs.
--more--"
Related: Condor Flies Over Uruguay
Ruling party Senator Monica Xavier said that if the measure passes, it should be accompanied by efforts to get people off drugs.
--more--"
Related: Condor Flies Over Uruguay
More birds:
"HUNGRY BIRDS -- Restaurant owners fed fish to pelicans to ward off starvation in Chorrillos, Peru. Scientists studying a mass die-off of pelicans think hotter than usual ocean waters sent a type of anchovy deeper into the sea, beyond reach of young pelicans (Boston Globe May 19, 2012)."
A photo of pelicans and people you would only see in a printed paper.
