Mirtenbaum: Bolivia Balkanized
Sprague: More U.S. Aid to Haiti Coup Regime
July 8, 2005
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Dear Colleague,
Today in The Narco News Bulletin, Narco News correspondent and leading Bolivian intellectual José Mirtenbaum reports on
a new political compromise in the Bolivian congress that would postpone the referendum on "regional autonomy" that the
country's business elite have proposed in the city of Santa Cruz. Beneath the veneer or innocent political language
about local control of resources, writes Mirtenbaum, lies a dangerous "social Darwinian" mindset bent on Balkanizing the
country:
"A worrying element, added to this cognitive fragmentation, is the irresponsible role that the Santa Cruz media have
played. Since June 2004, they have been hammering the collective consciousness with the idea that "autonomy" is the
salvation from the falsely perceived threat of the end of the "eastern" lifestyle if a sector of the "western"
indigenous were to take power. At least, that is what the ideological thesis of the "Camba Nation" movement points to,
and the media, intent on confusing the people of Santa Cruz, have been fomenting this thesis in the grand style of
Milosevic and Goebbels. In sum, this exercise in completely irresponsible journalism, journalism sold out to the
interests of the traditional MNR (Nationalist Revolutionary Movement, in its Spanish initials) and of local business
leader Ivo Kuljis, has employed provocative, hostile, and excessive language against all those who would take a critical
look at the idea of "autonomy" and who might suggest the rationality of first entering into a Constituent Assembly in
order to create a new political structure for Bolivia."
Read the entire article online, here:
Also in the Narcosphere, copublisher Jeb Sprague reports on a new bill that a United States Congressional subcommittee
has passed, which widens support for the bloody dictatorship that took power last year in Haiti with U.S. support:
"On June 29th, 2005 Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), the Chairman of the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, read bill
H.R. 611 – The Haiti Economic Infrastructure Reconstruction Act of 2005. The bill was written by Congressmen Rangle
(D-NY), Foley (R-FL), and Shaw (R-FL). The bill passed the subcommittee and most likely will soon go to congress for a
vote. With a recommended "funding of $6 million", the bill could put millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer's money at the
disposal of Interim President Gerard Latortue's coup regime.
"The bill would also place American citizens in the precarious employment of possibly working for a dictatorship,
stating that "U.S. citizens will be recruited and deployed to Haiti to provide economic and infrastructure
reconstruction and development assistance to the Government of Haiti. The bill sets forth specific program provisions,
including: (1) maximum recruitment of Haitian-Americans, and (2) maximum one-year deployment, with a maximum two-year
additional stay." Burton explained that this bill would help bring forward the electoral cycle, registering campaigns,
and providing security for disarmament."
Read the full report, here:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin