Summit criticises US-Colombia deal

AL JAZEERA ARTICLE:

South American leaders have issued a statement warning "foreign military forces" not to threaten the sovereignty of any of the region's nations.

The declaration, which was signed by all 12 leaders of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), came after a lengthy debate on Friday on plans to increase the presence of US troops at bases in Colombia.

The statement "reaffimed that the presence of foreign military forces must not ... menace the sovereignty and integrity of a South American country and in consequence regional peace and stability".

It deliberately avoided specific mention of the US military in order to allow all the leaders, including Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president, to sign the text.

Regional fears

The extraordinary meeting the Argentine mountain resort of Bariloche was called after Venezuela, along with Bolivia and Ecuador, complained that the US military could use seven bases in Colombia as launch points to overthrow their governments.

"The US global strategy for domination explains the installation of these bases in Colombia," Chavez said, holding up a document he said set out the US air force strategy to achieve that aim.

IN VIDEO

Crisis hangs over US-Colombia military plan

An attempt by Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, to get other leaders to sign a declaration rejecting the US deal with Colombia was rejected.

"As long as there are uniformed foreigners in a South American country, it's difficult for us to think there can be peace," he had told the summit.

Colombia has insisted that the US troops are vital to tackle drug trafficking in the region and pose no threat to its neighbours.

Uribe told the summit on Friday that he would "not cede one millimetre of sovereignty" under the deal.

"We are not talking about a political game, we are talking about a threat that has spilled blood in Colombian society."

US expansion

But Eva Golinger, a consultant to the Venezuelan government, told Al Jazeera that the US military deployment was not necessary.

"It has been made clear in other US documents this year, particularly one on irregular warfare, about the need not to have permanent troops stationed in any one country but to have this type of mobility which allows for effective non-conventional military operations - so that's the fear," she said.
"The fear comes in the form of territorial occupation of US military forces or an access to the entire infrastrucure of Colombia for an alleged war against drugs and that doesn't pan out."

Under the plan, about 300 US troops are already stationed in the country, but the new agreement allows the expansion of the force to 800 US soldiers and 600 civilian officials.

Many Latin American nations are wary of US intervention in the region, recalling Washington's backing of right-wing military governments in the past.

Brazil, Chile and Argentina have demanded binding guarantees be made that the US military assets and personnel in Colombia not be used for any other purpose other than their stated mission of fighting drug-traffickers and Colombian rebels.

URGENT: Your action now can return Democracy to Honduras

Supporter,

Since June 28th, you have joined with our friends in Honduras to help return democracy to their country. As a result, your actions are now bearing fruit.

Earlier this week, the SOA graduate-backed Honduran military coup regime refused all diplomatic options to return democracy. The U.S. State Department responded by asserting that visas to Hondurans would no longer be granted under the coup. Late yesterday State Department officials made it clear that they are considering legally defining the situation as a "military coup." This would create an automatic cut-off of all remaining aid to Honduras. The coup regime immediately responded by saying that they would allow the rightful President Zelaya to return with amnesty, but not as president. Clearly the coup leaders are caving to the pressure. We need you to act now to return democracy to Honduras. Please make two very important phone calls this morning!

1.) Call the State Department at 202-647-5171 or 1-800-877-8339 and ask for Secretary Clinton. Deliver the following message: "Legally define the de facto regime in Honduras as a military coup and cut off all aid to Honduras until President Zelaya is unconditionally reinstated."

2.) Call the White House at 202-456-1111 and repeat the same message "Legally define the de facto regime in Honduras as a military coup and cut off all aid to Honduras until President Zelaya is unconditionally reinstated."

Thanks.
See Video

El Código en TV

New Promo "El Código", my future television show in venezuela...

Gobierno colombiano alimenta matriz de opinión contra Chávez

Gobierno colombiano alimenta matriz de opinión contra Chávez

Caracas, 25 Ago. ABN.- Para esconder la agresividad de las declaraciones provenientes de Colombia contra Venezuela y otros países de la región, sectores de la nación neogranadina alimentan una matriz de opinión contra el Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías.

En este sentido, la abogada e investigadora Eva Golinger se refirió a la denuncia que formuló el Ejecutivo colombiano ante la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) sobre un presunto plan expansionista que estaría adelantando el gobernante venezolano.

“Esto es justo lo que ellos están haciendo mediante declaraciones falsas que involucran a Venezuela y otros países de la región con movimientos considerados terroristas y narcotraficantes”, reflexionó.

Consideró que con esta práctica mediática “buscan darle la vuelta” a la realidad para “una vez más colocar a Venezuela como país agresor y culpable, mientras favorecen a Colombia'.

En cuanto al convenio suscrito entre Estados Unidos y Colombia para la instalación de siete bases militares estadounidenses en territorio neogranadino, Golinger aseveró que este acuerdo militar expresa la concepción de “patio trasero” que tiene el país del Norte en su relación con Suramérica.

Asimismo, explicó que con la ocupación de estas siete instalaciones castrenses en terrirorio colombiano por militares norteamericanos la relación entre ambos países tomó un nuevo rumbo.

“Lo preocupante de este acuerdo es que sólo se refiere a cooperación militar, a diferencia del Plan Colombia que contemplaba, además del aspecto militar, cooperación económica, social, cultural y comunicacional”, relató.

Destacó que no es una novedad la orientación belicista de la relación entre estos dos países y que “es algo que ha venido ocurriendo, aunque tal vez muchos no se dieron cuenta de esto”.

Este nuevo convenio, informó Golinger, permite a Estados Unidos utilizar todo el territorio colombiano para ejecutar múltiples acciones y maniobras a nivel militar.

El Congreso Nacional de Estados Unidos aprobó casi mil millones de dólares, cifra récord, para financiar operaciones y actividades de tipo militar en América Latina durante el año 2009.

En relación con la cuantiosa cifra que el Gobierno estadounidense destinará a acciones militares en la región, dijo: “La presencia militar es la forma más directa que tiene EEUU de recuperar los espacios perdidos en Suramérica en los últimos 10 años, debido a los movimientos insurgentes que se han producido en Ecuador, Bolivia y Venezuela”.

EEUU ha estado en ofensiva, aseguró, “para debilitar la integración latinoamericana antes de que se haya consolidado completamente”.

En tal sentido, señaló a la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Alba) como un bloque sólido cuyos gobiernos tienen una visión común sobre la realidad latinoamericana.

Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Dominica, Antigua y Barbuda, San Vicente, Las Granadinas y Honduras integran la Alba, instancia multilateral e iniciativa del presidente de la República, Hugo Chávez Frías, para apoyar el desarrollo de los países miembros basados en criterios de cooperación y solidaridad.

Golinger afirmó que existen otros países en la región que promueven la integración latinoamericana desde una perspectiva política y comercial, pero que no implica, necesariamente, una visión compartida sobre América Latina y que son estas naciones por su posición ambigua objetivos de la política exterior estadounidense.

Son países cuyos gobiernos dicen en relación con la instalación de bases militares en Colombia, a pesar de la amenaza que representan para la región “que no son buenas, pero que hay respetar la soberanía de ese país”.

Aseveró que la reunión de la Unión Suramericana de Naciones (Unasur) que se realizará el 28 de los corrientes en Argentina, se realizará en un momento de mucha tensión y peligro porque aún la unidad latinoamericana presenta fisuras y donde Colombia es la mayor expresión de esa realidad.

“Hay que ser más decididos en cuanto a lo que es la integración, este es un momento clave para decidir el futuro de la región”, dijo.

Good Article By John Perkins on US role in Honduran Coup

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

By John Perkins

August 07, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

It did not take much imagination to envision the turmoil sweeping through every Latin American capital. There had been a collective sign of relief at Barack Obama’s election in the U.S., a sense of hope that the empire in the North would finally exhibit compassion toward its southern neighbors, that the unfair trade agreements, privatizations, draconian IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, and threats of military intervention would slow down and perhaps even fade away. Now, that optimism was turning sour.

The cozy relationship between Honduras’s military coup leaders and the corporatocracy were confirmed a couple of days after my arrival in Panama. England’s The Guardian ran an article announcing that “two of the Honduran coup government's top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. . . The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is (lobbyist) Bennett Ratcliff.” (1)

DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring “assassination squads” in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups “for protection” and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine). (3) George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, a former Covington lawyer, had fiercely opposed Latin American leaders who fought for their peoples’ rights to larger shares of the profits derived from their resources; after leaving the government in 2006, Bolton became involved with the Project for the New American Century, the Council for National Policy, and a number of other programs that promote corporate hegemony in Honduras and elsewhere.

McLarty Vice Chairman John Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations; he played a major role in the U.S.-backed Contra’s secret war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and has consistently opposed the policies of the democratically-elected pro-reform Latin American presidents. (4) These three men symbolize the insidious power of the corporatocracy, its bipartisan composition, and the fact that the Obama Administration has been sucked in.

The Los Angeles Times went to the heart of this matter when it concluded:

What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States' School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups. (5)
All of this leads us once again to the inevitable conclusion: you and I must change the system. The president - whether Democrat or Republican - needs us to speak out.

Chiquita, Dole and all your representatives need to hear from you. Zelaya must be reinstated.

FOOTNOTES

(1)

“Who's in charge of US foreign policy? The coup in Honduras has exposed divisions between Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton” by Mark Weisbrot http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/16/honduras-coup-obama-clinton (July 23, 2009)

(2) http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/from_arbenz_to_zelaya_chiquita_in (July 23, 2009)

(3) “Chiquita admits to paying Colombia terrorists: Banana company agrees to $25 million fine for paying AUC for protection” MSNBC March 15, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615143/ (July 24, 2009)

(4) Fore more information: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/07/eric-holder-and-chaquita-covington.html (July 23, 2009)

(5) “The high-powered hidden support for Honduras' coup: The country's rightful president was ousted by a military leadership that takes many of its cues from Washington insiders.” by Mark Weisbrot, Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weisbrot23-2009jul23,0,7566740.story (July 23, 2009)
Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

By John Perkins

August 07, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

It did not take much imagination to envision the turmoil sweeping through every Latin American capital. There had been a collective sign of relief at Barack Obama’s election in the U.S., a sense of hope that the empire in the North would finally exhibit compassion toward its southern neighbors, that the unfair trade agreements, privatizations, draconian IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, and threats of military intervention would slow down and perhaps even fade away. Now, that optimism was turning sour.

The cozy relationship between Honduras’s military coup leaders and the corporatocracy were confirmed a couple of days after my arrival in Panama. England’s The Guardian ran an article announcing that “two of the Honduran coup government's top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. . . The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is (lobbyist) Bennett Ratcliff.” (1)

DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring “assassination squads” in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups “for protection” and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine). (3) George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, a former Covington lawyer, had fiercely opposed Latin American leaders who fought for their peoples’ rights to larger shares of the profits derived from their resources; after leaving the government in 2006, Bolton became involved with the Project for the New American Century, the Council for National Policy, and a number of other programs that promote corporate hegemony in Honduras and elsewhere.

McLarty Vice Chairman John Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations; he played a major role in the U.S.-backed Contra’s secret war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and has consistently opposed the policies of the democratically-elected pro-reform Latin American presidents. (4) These three men symbolize the insidious power of the corporatocracy, its bipartisan composition, and the fact that the Obama Administration has been sucked in.

The Los Angeles Times went to the heart of this matter when it concluded:

What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States' School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups. (5)
All of this leads us once again to the inevitable conclusion: you and I must change the system. The president - whether Democrat or Republican - needs us to speak out.

Chiquita, Dole and all your representatives need to hear from you. Zelaya must be reinstated.

FOOTNOTES

(1)

“Who's in charge of US foreign policy? The coup in Honduras has exposed divisions between Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton” by Mark Weisbrot http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/16/honduras-coup-obama-clinton (July 23, 2009)

(2) http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/from_arbenz_to_zelaya_chiquita_in (July 23, 2009)

(3) “Chiquita admits to paying Colombia terrorists: Banana company agrees to $25 million fine for paying AUC for protection” MSNBC March 15, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615143/ (July 24, 2009)

(4) Fore more information: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/07/eric-holder-and-chaquita-covington.html (July 23, 2009)

(5) “The high-powered hidden support for Honduras' coup: The country's rightful president was ousted by a military leadership that takes many of its cues from Washington insiders.” by Mark Weisbrot, Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weisbrot23-2009jul23,0,7566740.story (July 23, 2009)

INTERVIEW ON RUSSIA TODAY REGARDING US MILITARY BASES IN COLOMBIA

I was interviewed last week via Skype on Russian television regarding US military bases in Colombia...

just to share...

here is the interview...Russia Today.

And for the record, I never said the US was going to "attack" Venezuela, but anyway, the media...

50 DAYS OF DICTATORSHIP IN HONDURAS; REPRESSION CONTINUES

Fifty days have gone by since the June 28 coup d'etat that violently and illegally ousted President Manuel Zelaya from power, by forcefully kidnapping him and sending him into exile. The coup regime that took power that very same day, led by former Congressman Roberto Micheletti, has maintained a stronghold on the government ever since, through repressive measures imposed against the people of Honduras who, bravely and with great determination, have been resisting the illegal takeover for nearly two months. There have been a handful of political assassinations, hundreds of wounded and detained and thousands of political persecutions, executed by the coup regime and the Honduran armed forces, controlled and commanded by the US military presence on the Soto Cano base located outside the capital city, Tegucigalpa.

Both presidents Chávez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, have recently publicly denounced the US military role in the coup against President Zelaya, indicating that the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was kidnapped during the early morning hours of June 28 and forced on an airplane, which first was directed to the Soto Cano airbase. A decision by the US military commanders to illegally fly President Zelaya to Costa Rica that morning was made at the Soto Cano base in Honduras.

This revelation comes at a time during which Latin America is in uproar over a recent deal between Colombia and the United States to establish a dangerous increase in US military presence in the South American nation. Colombia, which already hosts a massive US military presence - both through private contractors overseen and paid by the Pentagon and State Department, as well as a direct US armed forces presence, with emphasis on Green Berets and other special forces, has just announced the culmination of the negotiation process with Washington to increase its military presence in the region. The deal has been sealed, and at minimum 7 more Colombian military bases will be occupied and used by US forces. This in addition to the three bases already utilized by the Pentagon as well as 12 radar sites run by Washington in Colombia. More than 1400 special forces and private contractor forces are authorized under the new agreement, as well as an initial $46 million to improve the military base in Palanquero, Colombia, so it can receive giant C-17 US military planes capable of reaching all of the continent from the Colombian base.

Washington and Colombia insist the agreement is solely to combat drug-trafficking and "terrorism" in the region, but Colombia's neighbors, particularly Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, fear - logically - that the tremendous US military presence in the southern continent will be used to increase aggression against their governments and revolutions. During the past 4 years, Washington has been actively - and publicly - attempting to link the Venezuelan government with terrorism, and recently has utilized similar tactics against both Bolivia and Ecuador. It's no coincidence that these nations have governments and policies that oppose US domination of Latin America and that seek social revolutions aimed to utilize the region's vast strategic and natural resources to benefit the peoples of Latin America and regional development. Venezuela, for example, has the largest oil reserves in the world. Bolivia has some of the planet's largest gas resources and combined, the three nations contain a necessary amount of oil, gas and water to maintain the US capitalist-consumerist model for at least another century.

Things are heating up in Latin America. A meeting between regional heads of state to debate the increasing US military presence in Colombia is scheduled for August 28 in Argentina. President Obama has been invited.

US Privatizes War in Colombia

Eva Golinger: U.S. Privatizes Colombian War with its Transnational Mercenaries


August 12th 2009, by Eva Golinger

For the year 2009 the State Department of the United States will invest approximately $520 million in Plan Colombia. More than half of this money went to private North American contractors charged with developing, promoting and furthering irregular warfare in Colombian territory and in Latin America; this was revealed to the Bolivarian News Agency by the lawyer and researcher Eva Golinger.

"This constitutes the total privatization of the war in Colombia through the utilization and financing of transnational mercenaries that have no legal obligation to respond to any judicial system in the world. In other words, they enjoy complete immunity," explained Golinger.

Golinger explained that in certain declassified government documents she found a list of 31 American contractors that maintain relations with the State Department. This list contains the amounts of financing awarded by the administration in Washington to advance the war in Colombia.

"What jumps out here is their areas of responsibility and the amount of money which they receive for a period of 12 months," says Golinger.

Even though these are American companies contracted by the State Department, they are not subject to any American legal code, according to Golinger.

"As part of a bi-national accord, in Colombia they have total immunity, that is to say, they respond to nobody for their crimes, actions and operations," she emphasized.

Of the 31 companies on this list, Golinger has limited herself in this opportunity to mention the most important and those with a long history of belligerence in various parts of the world.

The Transnationals of War

The first on the list is Lockheed-Martin, one of the largest companies of the military-industrial complex in the United States. It is dedicated to producing weapons and technology, including war planes.

"Its contract includes $53 million in financing for the period of one year to provide logistical support and technical assistance to the national police of Colombia, in addition to training personnel for special operations," said Golinger.

Another company is Dyn Corp International, which also forms part of the American military-industrial apparatus. The State Department provides it with $164 million in financing to provide pilots, technicians and logistical support to the Colombian army.

"Similarly, the Arinc company, a private contractor of the military-industrial apparatus, received $8 million dollars to maintain, manage and train the Colombian national police in the task of intercepting signals and obtaining equipment associated with espionage," she says.

Also, Oackley Network received $5 million for the provision of software for monitoring the internet and to assist in espionage programs conducted by the crime division of the Colombian national police.

Similarly, one also encounters on the list ITT, a transnational telecommunication company that participated in the coup d'état against [Chilean president] Salvador Allende.

"In 2007 it received some $7 million to operate a hemispheric radar system, offer logistical support and provide radar equipment in Colombian territory that operate via satellite," said Golinger.

Echelon Espionage

Another company with global reach is the Rendón Group, which acquired a contract for $3.4 million to give communicational support to Plan Colombia and to counter narcotics operations.

"The Rendón Group, being a company of the Pentagon, is one of the most well known groups of experts in psychological operations dedicated to designing this type of campaign... it is this company that manages a great part of the media campaign against Venezuela and Ecuador," Golinger commented.

Moreover, she sustained that the contract stipulates the use of the Echelon system, the largest known espionage system, invented in the 1970s by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

"It is a satellite system that has the capacity to monitor all worldwide communications. They enter a specific word in the system, and this is linked to the rest of the communications systems. If they find that someone used that word on the telephone, cell phone, or computer, attention is directed toward that place. It gives the exact location and permits the conversation to be monitored," she commented.

In conclusion, Golinger expressed that the financing implies a continuation of the escalated offensive and imperialist aggression against the region.

"We saw the coup d'état in Honduras, the resurgence of the Colombian-Venezuelan conflict and the concern on the part of the countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) over the [new U.S.] military bases [in Colombia]... This is not the end of it," she affirmed.

Translated by Zachary Lown for Venezuelanalysis.com

Good Info on Ongoing Honduran Coup

Here is a great site to catch updated information on what's happening with the now month and a half long coup/dictatorship in Honduras:

Honduras Oye!

And this blog has a very in depth and well presented series of articles on Otto Reich's role in the coup against President Zelaya: Machetera.


I'm still of course following the Honduras situation, but am working heavily on the increasing US military presence in Latin America via Colombia. I'm also investigating and analyzing data regarding the substantial raise in US funding to "democracy promotion" and counterinsurgency efforts in Latin America for 2009 and 2010, via USAID and NED...

And here is an article I just wrote, en español, about the dirty propaganda the Directorate of National Intelligence of the United States is disseminating against President Chávez...

...more to come, stay tuned!

EEUU Privatiza Guerra en Colombia

Eva Golinger: EEUU privatiza guerra colombiana con sus transnacionales mercenarias
Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN) - www.aporrea.org
10/08/09 - www.aporrea.org/tiburon/n140293.html

Para Eva Golinger, Chávez en la Cumbre de Río demostró un nivel de diplomacia muy maduro.
Credito: Archivo
Para el año 2009, el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos invertirá aproximadamente 520 millones de dólares en el Plan Colombia. Más de la mitad de ese dinero va a contratistas privadas norteamericanas encargadas de desarrollar, promover e impulsar la guerra irregular en territorio colombiano y latinoamericano; así lo denunció la abogada e investigadora Eva Golinger a la Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias..

“Esto constituye la privatización total de la guerra en Colombia, a través de la utilización y financiamiento de transnacionales mercenarias que no tienen la obligación de responder legalmente a ningún sistema judicial del mundo. En otras palabras, gozan de total inmunidad”, condenó Golinger.

Explicó que en unos documentos gubernamentales desclasificados encontró una lista de 31 contratistas estadounidenses que guardan relación con el Departamento de Estado. Esta lista contiene los montos de los financiamientos otorgados por la administración de Washington para potenciar la guerra en Colombia.

“Llama la atención sus áreas de responsabilidad y la cifra de dinero que reciben para un período de doce meses”

No obstante, expresó que a pesar de ser empresas estadounidenses contratadas por el Departamento de Estado, no están sujetas a ninguna ley pública de EEUU.

“Como parte del acuerdo binacional, en Colombia tienen inmunidad total, es decir, no le responden a nadie por sus crímenes, acciones y operaciones”, enfatizó.

Si bien la lista es de 31 empresas, Golinger se limitó en esta oportunidad a mencionar las de mayor importancia y aquellas que ya tienen un largo historial bélico en el mundo.

Transnacionales de la guerra

La primera de ellas es Lockheed-Martin, una de las más grandes del complejo industrial militar de Estados Unidos. Se dedica a fabricar armamento, tecnología y hasta aviones de guerra.

“Su contrato prevé un financiamiento para el período de un año de 53 millones de dólares, destinados a suministrar apoyo logístico y asistencia técnica a la policía nacional de Colombia, además de facilitarle personal humano para sus operaciones especiales”, añadió.

Otra empresa es Dyn Corp International, perteneciente también al complejo industrial militar. El Departamento de Estado la financia con 164 millones de dólares para proveer de pilotos, técnicos y apoyo logístico al ejército colombiano.

“Igualmente, la empresa Arinc, contratista privada del complejo industrial militar, recibió 8 millones de dólares para mantener, manejar y formar a la policía nacional de Colombia en los procesos de recolección de señales y otros equipos asociados con el espionaje”, señaló.

En tanto, Oackley Network recibió 5 millones dólares para la provisión de software de monitoreo de Internet y para asistir en los programas de espionaje conducidos por la división de crímenes de la policía nacional de Colombia.

“Seguramente, estas últimas dos compañías se encuentran detrás de las famosas y supuestas computadoras encontradas en el campamento bombardeado de Raúl Reyes, en marzo de 2008”, destacó la investigadora.

Asimismo, se encuentra la ITT, transnacional de las telecomunicaciones que participó en el golpe de Estado contra el chileno Salvador Allende.

“En 2007 percibió unos 7 millones de dólares para operar un sistema de radar hemisférico, apoyo logístico y provisión de equipos a radares en territorio colombiano y que son operados vía satélite”, indicó Golinger.

Espionaje Echelon

Otra empresa de gran envergadura es el Grupo Rendón, que adquirió un contrato de 3,4 millones de dólares para dar apoyo comunicacional al Plan Colombia y el plan contra el narcotráfico.

“El Grupo Rendón es uno de los más conocidos grupos de expertos en operaciones psicológicas por ser una empresa del Pentágono, dedicada a diseñar este tipo de campañas (...) Es quien maneja gran parte la campaña mediática contra Venezuela y Ecuador”, argumentó la abogada.

Además, sostuvo que en el contrato se estipula el uso del sistema Echelon, el sistema de espionaje más grande conocido, inventado en los años 70 por la NSA (Agencia de Seguridad Nacional de EEUU).

“Es un sistema satelital que tiene la capacidad de monitorear todas las comunicaciones en el mundo. Ellos introducen palabras específicas en el sistema y éste se enlaza con el resto de los sistemas de comunicación. Si encuentran que alguien utilizó esa palabra por teléfono, celular o computador, la atención se dirige hacia ese lugar, da la ubicación exacta y permite monitorear la conversación”, comentó.

En conclusión, Golinger manifestó que este financiamiento implica que continuará la escalada ofensiva y agresiva imperial contra la región.

“Ya vimos el golpe de Estado en Honduras, el recrudecimiento del conflicto colombo-venezolano y la preocupación por parte de los países de la Alternativa Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América Alba (Alba) por el tema de las bases militares (...) Este no es el final”, puntualizó.


La fuente original de este documento es:
Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN) (http://www.abn.info.ve)

LATIN AMERICA THREATENED BY US MILITARY BASES IN COLOMBIA

The announcement of the US occupation of more than 7 military bases in Colombia comes at a time when a dictatorship - supported, if tacitly by Washington - in Honduras is consolidating after almost a month and a half has passed since the violent coup d'etat forced Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from power. The increased US military presence in Latin America has been perceived by a majority of nations in this hemisphere as a threat to stability and peace in the region. How does the Obama administration justify increasing the Pentagon's budget and investing almost $1 billion in its Latin American military operations this year?

Well, maybe by trying to blame Venezuelan President Hugh Chávez of supporting, funding and arming "terrorist" leftist groups in Colombia and "facilitating drug trafficking". Both allegations have never been founded on solid evidence. In fact, yesterday, President Chávez gave a killer press conference to international media, deconstructing every accusation presented against his government by Colombia and Washington. The latest allegation involved Swedish missile launchers sold to Venezuela in the 1980s that apparently ended up in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Uribe government in Colombia, together with Washington, was trying to blame Chávez for selling the weapons to the FARC, therefore justifying its increasing aggression and military presence in the region, to combat "terrorist threats". "You're either with us or against us..."

Chávez revealed a document - given to him previously by the Colombian government - dated 1996 after a FARC attack had taken place on Venezuelan soil against Venezuelan armed forces and a quantity of weapons had been stolen. The 1996 document detailed the named Swedish missile launchers as having been taken during that attack, more than 2 years before Chávez won office and became involved in government.

"Dirty, dirty tactics", said Chávez regarding Uribe's accusations against him. The Colombian government knows very well that those weapons were in the hands of the FARC well before Chávez became president. So why blame him now for something he has nothing to do with?

Cowardly and pathetic Colombian President Uribe is desperately trying to justify turning his country into the launching pad for Washington's war on Latin America - a war seeking to regain its domination and control over the region's vast natural and strategic resources, and to take out any seed of "socialism" remaining in the hemisphere.

But the military bases in Colombia and the coup in Honduras evidence a dangerous and clear intent of Empire to also crush the vibrant people's movements that have been surfacing all over Latin America during the past decade - revolutions seeking to build new models of social and economic justice.

Latin America is on high alert in response to this revived offensive emerging from Washington. Colombia, isolated in its efforts, is not backing down from opening its land to the vast and barbaric US military power. Where is the outcry inside the United States in response to hundreds of millions - billions - of dollars now directed towards waging war in Latin America? Don't wait until it's too late and another nation, like Panama 20 years ago, is bombed and invaded by US forces in order to secure Washington's long-term control over the region's strategic resources. Act now to resist and protest US military expansion in Latin America and US aggression against a humble people struggling for justice.

Good Interview with President Zelaya

Here is a link to an interesting interview with President Zelaya of Honduras: Spiegel interview with President Zelaya: "We will not be brought to our Knees".


More than one month has now gone by since the coup regime ousted President Zelaya from power and installed a dictatorship. Zelaya remains in Nicaragua, still un-reunited with his family - they have not been able to leave Honduras to see him without risking forced expatriation. There were several deaths and injured during last week's protests against the dictatorship, and a teacher was assassinated by the coup forces.

The resistance front against the dictatorship is organizing major marches to begin this Wednesday, August 5th. The protests will be conducted throughout the country and will end in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the two largest cities in Honduras.

Meanwhile, the opposition groups in Venezuela are trying to provoke a coup against Chávez, again. They are calling for destabilization activities throughout the nation in reaction to the Venezuelan communications commission's (CONATEL) suspension of 34 radio station's licenses to operate due to administrative irregularities. Apparently, the 34 stations that were suspended are completely in violation of the Telecommunications Law and administrative procedures - in some of the cases, the operators and owners of the stations didn't even have licenses to operate those frequencies, in other cases, the licenses were outdated and never renewed, and in other cases, the licenses had been illegally passed on to third parties without authorization from CONATEL.

In any case, the opposition in Venezuela is using this situation as an excuse to call for protests against the Venezuelan government and to call on the international community to support their destabilization actions. While the suspension of any media outlet's license to operate on the airwaves can always be viewed with a political tint, there are also laws and regulations that must be complied with and in this case, CONATEL is merely enforcing the law. There are still plenty - hundreds - of other radio stations, mainly opposition run, that continue to operate and are in compliance with the law. Those that violate the law will be sanctioned. That's how a democratic country with a state of law operates!