DEA quits Bolivia on Morales' order

Source: UPI

DEA quits Bolivia on Morales' order
Last update: 8:44 p.m. EST Jan. 29, 2009

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan 29, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has removed all its agents from Bolivia, complying with orders by President Evo Morales, officials said.

~snip~
Morales ordered the DEA out in November, more than three decades after the DEA began working there. He expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg last year and the Bush administration has decertified Bolivia's anti-drug campaign.

Citing senior law enforcement officials, the Times reported this is the first time the DEA has been ordered to pull its entire operation out of a country.

Officials said DEA personnel would be redeployed to bordering countries, where they could monitor developments in Bolivia.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dea-quits-bolivia-morales-order/story.aspx?guid=%7B9031D4C7-C853-427E-91A1-8E1A7A717DA2%7D&dist=msr_1

Brazil backs Bolivia's Morales with drug war help
Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:25pm GMT
By Raymond Colitt

ARROYO CONCEPCION, Bolivia, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Brazil agreed on Thursday to help Bolivia combat drug trafficking as part of measures to show support for President Evo Morales before a key referendum on his new socialist constitution.

Brazil is keen to reward Bolivia for maintaining the supply of natural gas to its industries and to showcase its development aid, as other South American countries like Ecuador and Paraguay consider renegotiating debt with Brazil.

"We won't have lasting prosperity if all our South American brothers don't have prosperity as well," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said during the inauguration of a highway that will link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans when the last stretch is finished later this year.

In the sweltering heat of the vast wetlands along the Bolivia-Brazil border, Lula said he would grant Morales's request for helicopters and other logistics support to patrol the porous frontier that is a major cocaine-trafficking route from the Andes to violence-plagued cities like Rio de Janeiro.

After expelling the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for allegedly supporting opposition leaders last year, Bolivian President Evo Morales has turned for help to Brazil.

More:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN15537513

Can't let the flames of the narco-wars be completely extinguished, after all. I hope Mr. Morales has good bodyguards, cause I have a sad feeling some spook may end up drawing a bead on him over this.

corrupt, failed, murderous US "war on drugs" police-state, military, multi-trillion dollar boondoggle, and the past and recent history of the US in South America. But, while anti-democratic assassinations and rightwing coups are the MO of our secret government, at home* and abroad, what has been happening in South America is the rise of an amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) movement that has swept the continent, and has furthermore resulted in South Americans pulling together to resist US corpo/fascist interference and domination.

Thus--in the seminal event of this revolution--the people of Venezuela peacefully resisted a Bushwhack-supported rightwing coup/assassination, in 2002, pouring out of their hovels in the tens of thousands, and surrounding Miraflores Palace to demand restoration of their Constitution and return of their kidnapped president, unharmed. And won!**

That was "the shot not heard around the world"--the bullet that did NOT take down the elected president, Hugo Chavez--an event that reverberated throughout the region, which has seen the election of leftist governments--in addition to Venezuela--in Bolivia, in Ecuador, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in Paraguay, in Brazil (center-left, strong ally of the leftist leaders), Chile (center-left--ally of the left on some issues), as well as strong leftists elected in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and soon to be elected in El Salvador, Honduras now leaning left and the leftist coming within 0.05% of winning in Mexico in the last election(--likely will win next time).

This non-assassination--this people-prevented assassination--marked the END (or the beginning of the end) of US domination of South America. Perhaps Obama's CIA will have better aim, but meanwhile the South Americans have pulled together into their own 'common market'--UNASUR--formalized last spring, specifically to assert their sovereignty and independence, and to watch each other's backs, as to US meddling.

UNASUR's very first important action was to move swiftly and unanimously to support the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, when the Bushwhacks instigated a fascist coup attempt, this last September. Morales threw the US ambassador out of Bolivia, at that time, for funding and organizing fascist rioters and murderers, who went on rampage in the eastern provinces, that included machine-gunning some 30 unarmed peasants. UNASUR helped broker peace talks with the saner elements among the white separatist faction--resulting in the new (and revolutionary) Constitution just passed by Bolivians with 62% of the vote--and also investigated and reported on the murders (an important action that prevented a civil war).

So what I am saying is not that US assassination of democratic leaders will never occur again, or be attempted, but that the reaction will be alienation of the northern and southern regions of this hemisphere for the rest of the century--a permanent breach. It will not be tolerated. The South Americans formed UNASUR in order to exclude the US as a member (--so as not to have the US obstructing S/A interests, as it does in the OAS), as well to initiate a new era of political/economic cooperation with social justice goals. It is a new day, in South America, really and truly. And the US is in such disrepute, throughout the region, that if it dares to try any of this shit again, there are going to be severe economic and political consequences.

Ecuador is throwing its US military base out this year. Paraguay's new leftist president wants US troops out of his country as well. Bolivia's new Constitution forbids any US military bases in Bolivia. Venezuela threw the US "war on drugs"/military out a long time ago. Brazil's president was alarmed by the Bushwhack reconstitution of the US 4th Naval Fleet in the Caribbean, said that it posed a threat to Brazil's oil reserves, and proposed a common defense to UNASUR, which has been agreed to and is being implemented.

The times they are a-changing!

-----------

*(Recommended: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he died and why it matters," by James Douglass.)

**(See the fabulous documentary, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," by Irish filmmakers who were present in Miraflores Palace when the US-backed rightwing coup attempt unfolded in Venezuela. The peaceful defeat of that coup is perhaps the most important event in South American history--certainly in the history of the last hundred years.)

What is happening in South/Central America gives me hope for the World.

AND

the Democratic Reforms are migrating northward!



I worked in Venezuela in the 90s.
Beautiful country.
Beautiful People.
I applaud what they have done!

VIVA Democracy!

I was actually very surprised that the Bush Crime Family showed as much "restraint" in SA over the last eight years- I believe this showed exactly how seriously US leaders are taking the UNASUR. In 2001, it seemed like Bush wanted to send the Marines south so badly it made his d*&k hard, and yet ever they knew the potential costs of such a move.

Hasn't happened yet, but I expect it will.

What was the name of the international drug guy that was busted within a matter of days? weeks? months? After Venezuela threw out the DEA? IIRC this guy was at the top of the Interpol list. It wasn’t very long after Venezuela’s government bounced the DEA that their country’s security people nailed him.

I am pretty sure I read a lot about that incident on DU at the time. There was some pretty good commentary and conversation! I can’t find the links to the DU postings.

Thanks.

Carlos Alonso Ojeda

There was quite the discussion here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2102556

That was a terrific action by the Venezuelan government after the DEA got out of the way for a while.

Thanks for the link.

Add his anti-corrupt, failed, murderous US "war on drugs" stance to the list of reasons that the Bushwhacks HATE Chavez and the people who elected him (and turned back the Bushwhack coup in '02, and defeated the Bushwhack recall in '04, and re-elected him in '06). Not just his kicking Exxon Mobil the fuck out of Venezuela, not just leading the movement against US "free trade" (the rich get richer) in South America, not just evicting the World Bank/IMF loan sharks from the region, not just running a good government, not just holding clean elections, not just using oil profits to help the poor, not just providing free heating oil to the poor in the U.S., and not just calling Bush "the devil," but actually arresting a major drug lord! They must hate him with every cell in their corrupt carcasses!

as possibly wildly nutso, paranoid, suspicious, delusional, etc. It's an old, old trick, and it seems to work with the slow ones among us, doesn't it? It makes them feel safer if they think their government can somehow just pick these bad leftists off, so the world can be all right-wing forever. They don't realize how little concern their right-wing leaders actually have for their well-being. What a damned shame.

Too damned stupid. It makes it so easy for sly propagandists to put one over on them any day of any week of any month, year. Since they refuse to think things through, to reseach, how will they ever know the difference? Ignorant, indifferent. Don't know, don't care, but they can be moved to hate by crude, or slick propaganda.

..and THANK YOU Judi Lynn for keeping us so well informed. I always look forward to your news about the new exciting efforts in Latin America.

It's starting to look as if there are many of us who hope they are going to find that unity which was denied them so long as foreign powers outside Latin America could find ways to control their governments, and divide and conquer them, one at a time, and keep them in bondage with puppet governments, dictators, coups, juntas.

It's so intense I'm almost afraid to hope too much! They should never have been abused, exploited, raped, and enslaved all these long, long years. Our own media kept us all in the dark, while our tax money has gone to training their militaries to torture, and terrorize them into total submission. Many of the countries have already pulled out of the School of the Americas. One country said it doesn't want to train its soldiers to torture their countrymen. Only now are they daring to stand up again. If ANYONE dares to interrupt their progress, he/she should burn in hell.

Bolivia--run by an HONEST government, headed by Evo Morales (first indigenous president of Bolivia, nearly 70% approval rating)--makes a distinction between coca leaves and cocaine. Coca leaves--for chewing, or tea--are a traditional indian medicine, with high nutrition value, essential to survival in the icy altitudes of the Andes mountains. Morales himself was a poor coca leaf farmer, and head of the coca leaf farmers union. He even campaigned with a wreath of coca leaves around his neck--it's considered a sacred plant in the Andes region. But neither Morales nor the coca leaf farmers have any tolerance for cocaine trafficking--a highly processed, artificial drug whose manufacture and transport is run by profiteering drug lords and criminal syndicates, fostering murder, gangs, drug addiction and other mayhem.

Enter the US, with billions of dollars in 'war on drugs' money, to militarize the situation, and furthermore to benefit Big Pharma (toxic pesticide spraying) and police-state and war profiteering--Clinton policy--then compounded by the criminals of the Bush Junta coming to power and using this money and these programs for even more nefarious purposes (--to undermine Bolivia's democracy, to favor big landowners--pushing the small campesinos who might be growing a few leaves for local use, off the land--to arm fascist coup plotters and troublemakers, and to profit from drugs and weapons trafficking).

Instead of bolstering the Morales government, and the society in general, in their efforts to implement a SANE drug policy, that doesn't drive small FOOD farmers from the land, that respects local traditions (such a coca leaf chewing) and that addresses poverty and exclusion (why people are attracted to cocaine trafficking), the US "war on drugs"--with its INSANE attitude to ALL cheap or free natural medicines--makes everything much worse--drives the price of cocaine through the roof, increases cocaine trafficking and crime, poisons food crops, children, and animals, and enrages small farmers, and--with the Bushwhacks in charge--encourages corruption, and engages in corruption, as well as plotting against Evo Morales' SANE and beneficial government, and instigating fascist coups (as they did this last September, which very fortunately failed).

In the US, we seem stuck with an INSANE drug policy--that demonizes a harmless, medicinal weed like marijuana, and throws millions of people in jail, at great expense, basically for being poor and getting caught. I won't go into all of what's wrong with this policy--except to say that it is VERY lucrative to our own prison-industrial complex and police-state and war profiteers. I just wanted to point out that "another world is possible" and also the reasons why Morales hates the DEA and the Bushwhacks hate Morales.

Be it drugs, terror, no child left behind. Such a joke, so George Orwell.

This nation was formed by better people. It still stands for an ideal that I have yet to find a replacement!

DEA should be kicked out of Latin America altogether. The solution to America's drug problem lies in reducing demand, not supply. Let's start treating drug dependency as a medical condition, not a crime.

An article that linked together the changes in the narco laws with the repeal of the Volstead Act?

I am thinking way back….

I’ll have do some creative search strings

Let me know what you find.