[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [sftalk] Fw: U.S. Outburst at OAS Meeting

Mon Jun 13 11:20:17 CDT 2005

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> From: <unionyes at ameritech.net>
> Date: June 12, 2005 7:20:57 PM CDT
> To: "sftalk" <sftalk at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [sftalk] Fw: U.S. Outburst at OAS Meeting
> Reply-To: sftalk at yahoogroups.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <moderator at portside.org>
> To: <portside at lists.portside.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 7:25 PM
> Subject: U.S. Outburst at OAS Meeting
>
>
>> venezuelanalysis.com
>> June 11, 2005
>>
>> U.S. Outburst at OAS Meeting
>>
>> Chavez and the Bolivian Crisis Towards the end
>> of the two-day session by the Organization of
>> American States (OAS) in Fort Lauderdale,
>> Florida, the U.S. ambassador to the organism,
>> Roger Noriega, threw a temper tantrum.
>> After all, Washington had just received a
>> stunning rebuke.
>>
>> By Al Giordano - NarcoSphere Published: 08/06/05
>>
>> Towards the end of the two-day session by the
>> Organization of American States (OAS) in Fort
>> Lauderdale, Florida, the U.S. ambassador to the
>> organism, Roger Noriega, threw a temper tantrum.
>>
>> After all, Washington had just received a stunning
>> rebuke from the other countries around the table
>> against its proposal to create mechanisms for foreign
>> meddling in the affairs of other countries (read:
>> Venezuela), and  Bolivian President Carlos Mesa had
>> just offered his resignation in the face of a massive
>> popular movement to nationalize the Bolivian gas
>> industry.
>>
>> Noriega, not used to losing gracefully, simply blew his
>> top, spitting loudly that Venezuelan President Hugo
>> Chávez is to blame for Bolivia's crisis.
>>
>> Noriega has a point, but not in the way he thinks he
>> has it...
>>
>> Check out this account in Oligarch's Daily, er, The
>> Miami Herald:
>>
>>   As Bolivia drifted toward political chaos Tuesday,
>>   Washington's top diplomat form Latin America hinted
>>   that Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez was
>>   somehow responsible for the worsening situation.
>>
>>   "Chávez' profile in Bolivia has been very apparent
>>   from the beginning," Assistant Secretary of State
>>   for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega said
>>   in response to a question about Chavez' influence
>>   on the turmoil in Bolivia.
>>
>>   "His record is apparent and speaks for itself,"
>>   Noriega told reporters atthe Organization of
>>   American States's general assembly in Fort
>>   Lauderdale. He adding that the situation "was
>>   worrisome."
>>
>> Noriega had no hard facts to back up his claim -
>> something even the staunchly anti-Chávez Herald
>> acknowledged - and Venezuela issued an effective
>> rebuttal (quoted, here, below the fold), but I can
>> translate for you what Noriega was really trying to
>> say: Noriega is angry that the Bolivian Armed Forces
>> has refused to violently put down the demonstrators,
>> and he blames that on the example Chávez has set for a
>> pro-people, non-repressive, military in Venezuela...
>> which has more and more admirers among military brass
>> in other countries.
>>
>> The Herald continued:
>>
>>   In reply, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez
>>   "indignantly" denied allegations circulated by
>>   U.S. officials for several months that his
>>   government has provided financial assistance to one
>>   of the leaders of the Bolivian opposition, Evo
>>   Morales.
>>
>>   Asked about Noriega's comments, Rodríguez said,
>>   "It seems that he [Noriega] goes around seeking to
>>   throw fuel on the fire" and added that diplomats
>>   should try to put out fires, not fuel their flames.
>>
>>   "The problems in Bolivia are problems that belong
>>   to Bolivia and it is up to the Bolivians to solve
>>   them," Rodríguez said. "Venezuela is scrupulously
>>   respectful of the sovereignty of all countries."
>>   Bolivian government officials and Western diplomats
>>   in the region have told the Herald that while the
>>   allegations of Chávez financial aid to Morales are
>>   widespread, there's been no hard evidence to
>>   support the charges.
>>
>> In a combined wire from the French and German press
>> agencies, Mexico's daily La Jornada filled in the
>> blanks this morning.
>>
>> Under fire to provide proof of Noriega's bombastic
>> claim, the U.S. Department of State put out a statement
>> later in the day:
>>
>>   At the end of the afternoon, the State Department
>>   distributed press releases to justify its
>>   accusation. Among them was an interview published
>>   by the conservative Argentine daily La Nación last
>>   May 16, titled: "Evo Morales: We Want to Join with
>>   Fidel and Chávez."
>>
>>   They also distributed wire reports that announced
>>   that Morales had invited Chavez to Bolivia, or that
>>   (Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party backed
>>   President Chavez."
>>
>> These are hardly proofs of anything, not like, say,
>> Julio Mamani Conde's report yesterday about the United
>> States' meddling role in Bolivian affairs this week...
>> And certainly not on the scale of the hard evidence,
>> based on the U.S. government's own unclassified
>> documents, that the U.S. had directly meddled fomenting
>> unrest in Venezuela!
>>
>> That said, I think Roger Noriega has a point, although
>> his logic is convoluted. Let me explain:
>>
>> According to well placed sources in La Paz, yesterday,
>> prior to the resignation of Bolivia's president, heir
>> apparent to the Bolivian throne, Congressional leader
>> Hormando Vaca Diez, had gone to Bolivia's military
>> brass with a plan already written for how the military
>> will declare martial law and ruthlessly stamp out the
>> social movements when Vaca Diez becomes president. (Who
>> wrote that plan, Mr. Noriega?).
>>
>> But the Bolivian generals told Vaca Diez to pound sand:
>> They said, according to our sources, that they were
>> tired of being the villains of history, causing coup
>> after coup, massacring their own people. (This - and
>> perhaps copious amounts of alcohol - explains Vaca
>> Diez's crestfallen voice during his Monday night press
>> conference, heard around the world via Radio Erbol.)
>>
>> US Ambassador Roger Noriega is red-faced angry that the
>> Bolivian military won't get to work assassinating Evo
>> Morales, Felipe Quispe, Oscar Olivera, the entire city
>> of El Alto, and Authentic Journalists who are covering
>> the story. And Noriega blames Chavez!
>>
>> Noriega blames Chavez because Chavez - a military
>> soldier admired by many just like him across the
>> hemisphere - has set the gold standard of how to put an
>> Armed Forces to work on behalf of the people instead of
>> against them. And simply by surviving the coup attempts
>> against him, and by continuing his kinder-gentler non-
>> repressive military model, Chavez has showed by example
>> that Latin American military organizations need not be
>> repressors as they have historically been.
>>
>> That is why, kind readers, Noriega and Washington blame
>> Chavez: not because of any evidence of direct
>> involvement, but because the Bolivian military is
>> balking (so far) at murdering its own people. Damn
>> Chavez! Let one Latin American president reform his
>> military and before ya know it, others are gonna wanna
>> do the same! And then democracy breaks out all over the
>> place, and what is a decaying Empire to do?
>>
>> http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1472
>>
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Al Kagan
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
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USA

tel. 217-333-6519
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akagan at uiuc.edu
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