U.S. Wary of Cuba's Support for Leftists

I don't usually post here, but I had to pass this along. The ironic allegation of the week, IMO:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56080-2004Jan5.html

"Venezuelan resources may have been decisive in the ouster of Bolivia's elected, pro-American president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity."

That's just funny as hell. A little less funny is that the article makes no mention of the failed U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela. Go free press, go!

It was all him, and NOT Lozada's single-digit approval ratings.. :eyes:

That Bolivia continue to grow Russet potatoes. If the evil narco-labor-socialist-Al Qaeda movement takes hold, farmers might start growing crops that white people don't like, like yucca.

Or, they might grow crops white people really like, like coca. That would be even worse.

Yes, that seems reasonable. Bolivia should grow only crops that white people like a little bit. Nothing we don't like, or that we like a lot.

Man, our global economic system is really stupid.

I love the idea of a "narco-labor" movement, though. I want to join that union. "Yeah, here's your member card and a six-month supply of blow. If you need more before you been here six months you have to fill out a voucher. Weed and opium requests have to go through headquarters - takes about six weeks if you fill the forms out right the first time."

to be honest, I'm wary of similar RE the 'rightists' in this country

Yeah, if Bolivia goes, the whole of Latin America could follow,
and then where would we be? People everywhere would be doing
just whatever the hell they wanted to. How scary is that?

Can you imagine if one of the world's biggest oil exporters started seriously farming coca? We'd have to legalize it stateside or watch Venezuela become the richest country in the world. Either that or invade and overthrow the government.

Hmm, maybe that's why...

It is bizarre that we are funding FARC in Colombia to the tune
of a billion or so a year with the drug war. It's like a jobs
program for narco-trafficers.

Venezuela needs to grow hemp (only for fiber and food, of course).
:-)

hi there all, loved this bit:

Caracas also is described by U.S. officials as a gathering place for European leftists, retired East European intelligence officers and activists from countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

i´ll look out for other "euro-leftists" while i´m over here! pesc xx

That's freakin' hilarious, Mr. Raul. Next time I eat my boiled russet potatos on white bread with mayo, I'll think of "narco-labor".

:toast:

Dag nab it....it must be that rascal rabbit Chavez.

Telling lies and then repeating them as fact. AP "journalist" Gedda mentions the U.S. News & World Report article like it was fact.

U.S. News & World Report magazine reported in the fall that Middle Eastern terrorist groups are operating support cells in Venezuela and elsewhere in the Andean region.

It added that thousands of Venezuelan identity documents are being distributed to foreigners from Islamic nations, including Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon.

The article was criticized far and wide. Here's a clip from a Greg Wilpert article that took the disinformation *article* to task.

<clips>

An article recently appeared in one of the largest U.S. news magazines, an article which will remind well-informed readers of a typical disinformation campaign. The article in question, “Terror Close to Home,” by Linda Robinson, appeared in U.S. News and World Report (10/6/03) and claims to have evidence that Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, is “flirting with terrorism.” The appearance of a baseless article like this, combined with recent statements by Gen. James Hill, head of the Southern Command, that Venezuela’s Margarita Island is a haven for Islamic terrorist groups, suggests that the Bush administration is setting the stage for declaring Venezuela a “rogue” state.

However, the article is so full of false conclusions, unnamed “U.S. government sources,” distortions, and outright falsehoods, that one has to wonder what the author’s real agenda is. Let’s examine the article’s problems one by one.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1027

to everyone in the hemisphere who doesn't bow low and scrape and grovel before them. They are bound to destroy every government which doesn't seek their will first, above the interests of their own people.

From your article, concerning Linda Robinson's "journalistic" abortion:

(snip) It would be nice if one could attribute this atrocious article to bad journalism. However, the author is the Latin America Bureau Chief for U.S. News and World Report, the third largest news magazine in the U.S. Rather, it seems that either the author has been manipulated by her numerous unnamed “U.S. officials” who are pursuing an agenda of their own, with the intention of undermining and destabilizing a foreign government and perhaps even providing the justification for intensified foreign intervention in Venezuela, or she shares these goals herself and is a willing accomplice of the domestic and international opposition to the Chavez government. (snip)

Hi to Say_What! Happy D.U. New Year!

<clips>

Big labor calls on Mesa to change Bolivia's economic model

La Paz, Jan 5 (EFE).- Bolivia's largest labor union demanded Monday that President Carlos Mesa change the free-market economic model in place in the Andean nation since 1985, saying there is no other way to eliminate inequality.

The executive secretary of the COB labor organization, Jaime Solares, made the demand as he commented on the four-year plan announced by the Mesa administration on Sunday night, which includes a March referendum on plans to export natural gas and detailed the reasons for the high budget deficit.

Solares said that Mesa failed to address the concerns of the grassroots organizations whose protests over the gas-export deal forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada from office three months ago.

Those groups want the new chief of executive to abandon the market-friendly economic model - derided by Latin American leftists as "neoliberalism" - and cancel contracts with multinational oil companies.

http://www.efenews.com/includesasp/noticias.asp?opcion=0&id=5852930

Way to go Washington-Post!!

One-sided reporting will certainly honor you as
a legitimate publication!!...NOT!!

Don't think he's playing for the human race's team!

He's way, way off into Bush propaganda land.

That article is an INSULT to conscious, stable readers. No one could swallow it beyond the people who use their fingers to point at words, and move their lips while reading, or maybe even have to have articles READ to them, with the long words explained.

The way Bush is attacking Chavez, he may just have to implement a dandy travel ban on Venezuela, also, to keep Americans from finding out the truth there, too!

thanks for posting that one. I hadn't seen it, but I'm glad I did. It never ceases to amaze me how far these "nuts" will go to distort or outright lie to discredit Chavez.

It's not enough that they backed a coup and then gloated about it when it happened. The CIA and the U.S. funding of opposition political interests in Venezuela through the National Endowment for Democracy is criminal, imho.

It's just freakin amazin.

And, ... what a good piece of journalism that the Washington Post is printing! Do they give awards for the worst pieces of propaganda allowed to pass in the corporate media? I think someone should start an award along those lines, as this piece of garbage article would be right up there.

Nice going Washington Post.
___________________

"The Bush administration is becoming increasingly concerned about what it sees as a joint effort by Cuba and Venezuela to nurture anti-American sentiment in Latin America with money, political indoctrination and training."

Neither Castro nor Chavez have to do a damn thing. The U.S. has done plenty to fan the flames of any anti-Americanism all over the world, not to mention Central and South America. Simply amazin.

(snip) Caracas also is described by U.S. officials as a gathering place for European leftists, retired East European intelligence officers and activists from countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
(Posted Washington Post article)

I wonder how they describe Caracas of only 11 or 12 years ago, when the U.S. fully supported mega-corrupto President Carlos Andres Perez was running things in their favor!

Things seemed to be going just fine as Carlos Andres Perez served at our Republicans' pleasure, and his people suffered mightily. I don't think our media even stirred to cover the massacre of hundreds of Venezuelans by Perez' orders when they dared to riot during some hard, hard times.

(snip)
Ex-President
Carlos Andres Perez

Reports from Dominican Republic say that authorities in Santo Domingo say they don't have a clue of the whereabouts of former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez (CAP), wanted on an extradition warrant to face charges of corruption in Venezuela additional to his conviction a decade ago of multi-$ million corruption related to a secret government slush fund.

The news comes in the wake of the Venezuelan government's decision to suspend vital oil supplies to the Dominican Republic over its refusal to deal with ex-President Perez who has been using his luxury residence there as a base for further conspiracies against the government of his arch-enemy President Hugo Chavez Frias. It was a coup attempt by Chavez Frias in February 1992 that was the beginning of the end for CAP, who was impeached and kicked out of office the following year. He was convicted and served out a sentence under house arrest at his mansion in a southern suburb of Caracas.

CAP's decidedly anti-democratic activities in the Dominican Republic had already become an acute embarrassment for that country's President Hipolito Mejia who was faced with political problems from a pro-CAP "brotherhood" of shady Dominican politicians who had promised the Venezuelan ex-President a safe haven. Last week, President Chavez Frias recalled his Ambassador to Santo Domingo, and suspended further supplies of oil to the island until the problem is resolved.

Meanwhile, CAP has made good his escape and is reportedly enjoying the high-life in Manhattan where he maintains a luxury apartment close to New York's Central Park. Moves have already been made to have US authorities respect Venezuela's international extradition warrant but Washington appears to be dragging its heels (again!) in favor of Carlos Andres Perez to the point that Venezuela may be forced to apply "diplomatic restrictions" on oil supplies to the United States if the US Justice Department decides to "go slow" on this matter as well. (snip/...)
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=11131

(If anyone's at odds with vheadline, feel free to do a simple search for "Carlos Andres Perez" to uncover THE SAME INFORMATION.)

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(snip) 1989 - Carlos Andres Perez (AD) elected president against the background of economic depression, which necessitates an austerity programme and an IMF loan. Social and political upheaval includes riots, in which between 300 and 2,000 people are killed, martial law and a general strike. (snip)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1229348.stm

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(snip) Case Study: The Venezuelan Banking Crisis

By Nick Rosen

The implosion of the Venezuelan sector had been coming for years. President Carlos Andres Perez, a free-market reformer who took power in 1989, had created an ostensible paradise for banking executives in Venezuela. He shielded the industry from foreign competition, while allowing banks nearly unlimited freedom from regulation. Consequently, bank directors engaged in high-risk lending—often to their own tenuous business ventures. These directors were also suspected of providing low-interest loans to the public sector enterprises in return for kickbacks. Allegations of corruption in the banking sector were rampant. In 1994, political and economic instability forced these problems to the surface, resulting in a “domino effect” of collapsing banks that eventually cost the government $11 billion and inflicted trauma on the Venezuelan economy that would last for years.

Prelude to the crisis


Corruption and fragile financial institutions were not new concepts in Venezuela, a nation with a history of banking problems. Despite numerous costly bailouts, the country never seemed to learn from its mistakes, and remained without solid regulation or an effective template for restructuring failed banks.

While times were high for the oil-rich Venezuelan economy, the dangerous flaws in the banking system remained latent, as asset values remained inflated by booming stock and real estate values. But, in an effort to stay competitive amidst booming profits, the worst-performing banks made increasingly riskier investments—including shadowy off-shore deals, lending to bank affiliates at favorable interest rates, and allegedly fraudulent and illegal activities. President Perez abolished limits on the interest rates banks could offer on deposits, giving banks the tools to raise fast cash despite the precarious state of their balance sheets. Predictably, these investments eventually began to fail, though problems did not immediately come to light as bankers shifted money between businesses in a shell game to conceal their losses.

When oil prices fell and the boom economy began to decline in the early 1990s, cracks in the edifice became visible. Severe political unrest set in, marked by successive coup attempts that rattled investors and caused ongoing capital flight.

President Perez was impeached on corruption charges in 1993, and the following election year ushered in bloating deficits and a new cycle of inflation. This compelled the central bank—whose warnings of an impending crisis seemed to fall on deaf ears— to ratchet up interest rates. The interest rate hike effectively cut off private borrowing—the banks’ main source of income— while banks were paying up to 65% to depositors. (snip)
http://www-1.gsb.columbia.edu/ipd/j_bankingVEN.html

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Apparently, all the really scary "European leftists," etc., etc. designated by _Bush brainiacs all raced in as soon as the right-wing slimeball, Carlos Andres Perez got in over his head, and fled the country, like Batista, too soon to serve his complete sentence for IMPEACHMENT.

They had probably been hiding behind trees on the Colombian border, ready to streak out and start sitting around in coffee houses, smoking, and showing off, in Caracas, the very moment Perez skeedaddled. The _Bushies really have their number, don't they?

I've NEVER seen a U.S. State Department act like this:

(snip) In Caracas on Monday, Tarek William Saab, head of Venezuela's congressional foreign relations commission and a supporter of President Hugo Chavez, assailed an Associated Press story that recounted U.S. worries about Chavez's activities.

Saab accused the U.S. government of "using slander and defamation to weaken a constitutional government like ours."

"It's false and irresponsible and cowardly," Saab said.

Chavez's actions have worried Washington for some time, but U.S. officials have said little publicly. To do otherwise, the officials said, could give the Venezuelan leader material to use for political advantage.

Aside from his ties to Cuba, Chavez's democratic credentials are becoming increasingly more questionable in the eyes of U.S. officials even though he came to power in 1999 through a democratic election. Chavez's enemies are trying to depose him through a recall election.

Both President Bush and Chavez are expected at a hemispheric summit meeting Jan. 12-13 in Mexico.
(snip/...)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040105-1403-us-latinamerica.html

It's got to be Otto Reich. Nothing else could smell this bad.

from Pravda--a history lesson to remind us how *democratic* Uncle Sam really is.

<clips>

...Ereli"s words are quite interesting as said Cuba "has a long history of attempting to undermine elected governments in the region". According to unclassified US State Department documents, Washington plotted the coup that toppled the democratic, constitutional and legal government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and fueled Argentine military to oust the legally elected administration of Maria Estela Martinez de Peron in Argentina, less than three years later. Mr. Ereli should also look into those files.

Moreover, as early as in 1954, Washington sponsored a military coup in Guatemala. One year later supported the military after overthrowing Peron"s ruling in Argentina. All along the eighties supported all sort of bloody dictatorships in Central America, as invaded Panama in 1989. The death toll of the US intervention in Latin America should be in the region of 500.000 casualties, taking into account thousands of deaths in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia in the seventies and Central America in the eighties.

However, lack of memory makes US hawks to say Cuba and Venezuela are working together to oppose pro-American, democratic governments in the region with money, political indoctrination and training. PRAVDA.Ru correspondent in Buenos Aires is in position to confirm that neither Venezuela nor Cuba are financing such activities neither in Argentina nor in Uruguay, as doubts something similar may happen in other South American nations.

In Caracas on Monday, Tarek William Saab, head of Venezuela's congressional foreign relations commission and a supporter of President Hugo Chavez, assailed an Associated Press story that recounted U.S. worries about Chavez's activities. Saab accused the U.S. government of "using slander and defamation to weaken a constitutional government like ours." "It's false and irresponsible and cowardly," Saab said.

http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/11708_washington.html