Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The Cocaine Coup and the Coca Revolution



The word mercy's gonna have a new meaning
When we are judged by the children of our slaves - Bruce Cockburn


I get many emails telling me I'm too negative. It's hard for me to disagree. Though what I want to be is just negative enough: neither stricken by paralysis nor buoyed up by cheap hope. That's a tough one.

So when good things happen - when real blows land against the empire and the last become first, at least for a while - they need acknowledgement. If only for the good of clearing my own head. Even sometimes at hope's "limited hangout" of electoral victory. Especially in Bolivia, when an indiginous man who talks like this is elected president:

When we speak of the "defense of humanity," as we do at this event, I think that this only happens by eliminating neoliberalism and imperialism. But I think that in this we are not so alone, because we see, every day that anti-imperialist thinking is spreading, especially after Bush's bloody "intervention" policy in Iraq. Our way of organizing and uniting against the system, against the empire's aggression towards our people, is spreading, as are the strategies for creating and strengthening the power of the people.

As Evo Morales begins to exercise his unambiguous mandate, it will be interesting, and quite likely disheartening, to watch how Bolivia suddenly becomes a topic of great concern in certain quarters; even possibly a crisis of national security demanding intervention.

Here's an early example from Jim Kouri, a Vice President of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, who's written an opinion piece entitled "Bolivian Thug Becomes President." He predictably bloviates that the win "will increase the destabilization of the South American continent," and that Morales is an "ally of the drug cartels and traffickers."

The continent enjoys far greater stability today - and in the mental health sense of the word, too - than in the days of death's head satraps employing the methods of the School of the Americas and answerable to none but Washington. And in an interview with Luis Gómez of Narco News, former Bolivian guerrilla leader and presidential candidate Felipe Quispe makes distinctions between coca and cocaine that undoubtedly would be lost on Kouri:

Coca has been, ancestrally, a sacred leaf. We, the indigenous, have had a profound respect toward it... a respect that includes that we don't "pisar" it (the verb "pisar" means to treat the leaves with a chemical substance, one of the first steps in the production of cocaine). In general, we only use it to acullicar: We chew it during times of war, during ritual ceremonies to salute Mother Earth (the Pachamama) or Father Sun or other Aymara divinities, like the hills. Thus, as an indigenous nation, we have never prostituted Mama Coca or done anything artificial to it because it is a mother. It is the occidentals who have prostituted it. It is they who made it into a drug. This doesn't mean that we don't understand the issue. We know that this plague threatens all of humanity and, from that perspective, we believe that those who have prostituted the coca have to be punished.


Kouri walks his readers right up to "regime change": "should [Morales's] coca policy show an increase of cocaine on US city streets, his regime will be seen as a national security threat and rightly so."

Funny, that. Or rather, like so many things these days, it would be funny if it didn't mean people's lives. Because on July 17, 1980, "los Novios de la Muerte" - narcotics traffickers and mercenaries recruited by fugitive Nazi and CIA asset Klaus Barbie - overthrew the democratic government of Bolivia in the "Cocaine Coup." Cocaine production increased dramatically and America was flooded with the cheap drug. In his essay on the drug war's shills in Kristina Borjesson's Into the Buzzsaw, 25-year DEA veteran Michael Levine writes that "there are few events in history that have caused more and longer-lasting damage to our nation." Bolivians could say the same.

Levine made headlines two months prior to the coup when his DEA sting netted Bolivian cartel leaders Roberto Gasser and Alfredo Gutierrez outside a Miami bank. He had paid them $8 million for the then-largest ever seizure of cocaine. Just a few weeks later Gasser and Gutierrez were released, thanks to pressure from the CIA and the State Department, and weeks after that both men and their cartels became principal financiers of the coup, and were rewarded by the new regime with squads of neo-Nazis to bully their competition.

And then there's Sun Myung Moon. Robert Parry remembers that one of the first international well-wishers who travelled to La Paz to congratulate the putschists was Moon's right hand Bo Hi Pak, former publisher of The Washington Times and "Koreagate" principal, who declared "I have erected a throne for Father Moon in the world's highest city." Later disclosures from the Bolivian government strongly suggested that Moon's organization had heavily invested in the coup, and Parry writes that in 1981 "war criminal Barbie and Moon leader Thomas Ward were often seen together in apparent prayer." Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla, an Argentine intelligence officer recruited by Barbie, described Ward as his "CIA paymaster." His monthly salary was drawn from the offices of Moon's anti-communist umbrella organization, CAUSA. (As we've seen, Moon still has a huge stake in South America, having purchased the land above the world's largest fresh water aquifer, in Paraguay. These people play a long game.)

"Meanwhile," Parry adds, "Barbie started a secret lodge, called Thule. During meetings, he lectured to his followers underneath swastikas by candlelight." Old habits, hardly dying, and a polyglot web of fascist patrons unashamed to profit by the labours of their Nazi lieutenants.

And here's another would-be funny thing: there were no American headlines about all of that. None at all.

But maybe that's enough talk for now about a coup, while there's a revolution going on.

33 Comments:

Blogger The Bulldog Manifesto said...

Bolivia is just the latest in a new wave of anti-neoliberalist, socialist, and anti-imperialist governments springing up in Latin America.

Don't be surprised if the upcoming Mexican election results in a socialist victor along the lines of Bolivia and Venezuela. Chile too.

The West is thumbing it's collective nose at the imperialist American government. I love it.

4:08 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Minor typo, Jeff: that nickname of the coup plotters was "los Novios de la Muerte", which literally means "Death's Fiancès".


Great article, thanks.

5:19 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wouldn't worry about the "negative" feedback, Jeff. What do people want? A fluffy new age positivism and some jokes? They can get that somewhere else. What you're serving up we can get nowhere else.

I'm always appreciative of your non-ironic tone. Too many blog writers adopt an arch post-modern hipness, and your sincerity (and elegant style) is very much appreciated, and not at all negative.

Still. Listen to your wife - got milk?

7:00 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A ROAR of applause sir, may both you and Evo live long and have the wind always at your back.

Not all election can be corrupted. Not all peoples can be bought, beaten or bewildered.
Sometimes, eventually, maybe increasingly, those people discover or make common cause, and thru their efforts we all get to glimpse what a peaceful planet might look like.

And that is surely something to celebrate :))

(and support, talk about, write letters about, have a party for.. )

7:39 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bolivia has politicized the indigenous (and proper) use of coca before. In the late '60's, there was a general workers' and truckers' strike that parylized the contry, and the use of the leaf was brought back.

I hope this man lives long and prospers! --MaryK

8:17 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

But the IMF loans are useful for the leverage they give over the countries. Once that's paid off, so is the unofficial colony status of the country.

"Confessions of an Econonmic Hitman" explains this scheme well.

10:47 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More and more interesting...

11:14 a.m.  
Blogger yusuf chun said...

Hi Jeff,

My two cents: great post. About the emails, I haven't seen anything negative on your site, nt in the sense mentioned if at all. Far as I can see you're telling it like it is, and that's needed, badly, in all quarters.

We need to know these things. And you're putting then out there, so keep it up.

Adn way of topic but I posted this some time ago Thought it might interest you:

Who Governs Europe Again?
According the Guardian Journalists Jon Henley and Richard Norton-Taylor in a report published on Wednesday December 14, 2005 in the Guardian:

CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of national secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first official report on the so-called "renditions" scandal. Dick Marty, a Swiss senator investigating allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, said that he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe, but had probably moved them to north Africa last month…

The senator said he believed European secret services had collaborated over the flights well beyond exchanges of information. "I think it would have been difficult for these actions to have taken place without a degree of collaboration," he said. "But it is possible that secret services did not inform their governments."

My question is who controls these agencies? Who do they work for if not the governments of their respective countries? What's going on?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1666824,00.html

God bless and keep you.

11:20 a.m.  
Blogger Effwit said...

Jeff:

Don't worry about the whiners. If they are having a problem with your content, there is nothing stopping them from starting their own "good news and smiles" page.

On the Bolivian election, did you notice that Morales appeared at an election night press conference alongside a Bolivian flag covered with piles of coca leaves?

The United States government no doubt wishes it could have gotten Bolivia to use trusty Diebold machines.

1:51 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I originally ran into the Cocaine Coup in connection with the World Anti-Communist League, while helped sponsor it, but its associations seem to be far broader.

For example, I've recently been looking into Progaganda Due, because of its connection with Michael Ledeen and thus potentially with the Niger uranium forgeries -- and I'm finding statements that P2 helped the CIA finance the Cocaine Coup. (Not surprisingly, considering Licio Gelli's fascist background and extensive connections with South America.)

The World Finance Corporation in Florida which participated in related money-laundering operations but went bankrupt in 1982 may or may not be the same World Finance Corporation which Brent Wilkes (of the Randy Cunningham scandal) is said to have founded in Washington in the early 80's. (Daniel Hopsicker seems to think it was, but there are too many gaps in the story for me to be persuaded without additional evidence.)

Reverend Moon was also a strong supporter of the coup, financing it beforehand and endorsing it after the fact. I've even seen implications that the 1980 coup was what enabled Moon to drop hundreds of millions on the Washington Times, starting in 1982.

Bolivia may by now have cleansed itself of the poison of 25 years ago, but its after-effects and related oprations seem to be more toxic than ever in this country.

2:14 p.m.  
Blogger Professor Pan said...

Jeff,

This is definitely news to celebrate.

When pondering the Bolivian election, I recalled a poem my wife and I incorporated into our marriage vows. It seemed quite appropriate to append to your post.

--

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh

2:22 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, I agree with all other articles I’ve read in this site but not this one. Evo Morales is just a new version of a populist puppet who will provide a pretext to those who warn us of drugs to increase cocaine traffic into this and other countries and then say “see, we’re the good guys and we warned you,” as they rush to the bank. Morales lacks the strength, vision or depth to get in power much less to change international agendas, but is being propped up by some forces to further the public’s confusion about who is behind and who profits from the drug trade. As to a promising trend being visible in South America I’m afraid I see the same Evo Morales game (actually the same old game of history) being played on that level. Kirchner and the other Latin leaders all strongly support the OAS and it’s mission, which is the Americas’ version of the EU, slowly moving towards regional and eventual international integration. On paper the OAS members long ago ceded national sovereignty to the OAS and it’s leaders know it but pretend they don’t. Of course, that is why they are in power. Or do we think that the virus that infects this country is absent in other countries? No, the virus is everywhere, it’s just that the noise it makes from here is quite deafening to us and we don’t always see that. On a recent visit to Chile, Bush interrupted President Lagos to joyfully greet one of Lagos’ key ministers, Ignacio Walker. Bush explained to Lagos, “this is my cousin.”

By sponsoring their own opposition like for example through Morales or through Democratic Senators in the U.S. to Bush’s domestic spying; this puts the ruling class in control of it, and eventually subverts it from within and into ineffectiveness.

6:28 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That photo of Morales walking through the crowd reminded me of the day Donaldo Colosio was assasinated in Tijuana...

Then five days later the police chief of Tijuana was murdered...

Washington Post writer Tod Robberson reported May 1 that he was in the police chief's office a day and a half before Benitez was shot. He was in the middle of an interview when the chief discovered that his files on suspects in the Colosio assassination had been stolen...

-and then seven members of the supposed assasins' family were granted 'political asylum' in California. ...

Anybody remember a Cardinal shot at an airport, or the uprising in Chiapas upon the start of NAFTA, or maybe the Salinas/Clinton/Bush/CIA-Texas Commerce Bank connection? (see 'Jeb in Argentina') ...

"When Colosio died we became fearful. I was brought back to my childhood memory of the day Kennedy died: it was unheard of--that someone could kill the PRI presidential candidate. You
could immediately see that his death was the work of the System. Some of us thought, 'If the PRI candidate can be killed, no one is safe..."


Indeed, happy days are here again-
Long may you run, Sr. Morales...

6:36 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

#1 Sniffer is on the money here. And Bulldog Manifesto and the others shouldn't be so happy. This is just exchanging one tyranny - pro-drug, CIA, big business globalism - for another tyranny - pro-Communist, FSB/DGI, big government globalism.

The working man and the small businessman will suffer under either tyranny, just like they are doing in too many other countries of the world. Morales will be just another bloody Red dictator, no different than the neo-fascist he's replacing.

This is a time to mourn and repent, not rejoice.

8:39 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Thus, as an indigenous nation, we have never prostituted Mama Coca or done anything artificial to it because it is a mother. It is the occidentals who have prostituted it. It is they who made it into a drug."

I could be diplomatic, but I'll be honest instead--this is pure horse shit. Morales didn't run on a campaign of legalizing coca production so Bolivians could better 'salute Mother Earth', it was done so his constituency of dirt poor farmers could more easily and more profitably sell the necessary ingredients for the cocaine that eventually winds up the nostrils of gringos like George.


If he refers to Colombians when he says occidentals, then, ok.

'Mama Coca' has been, will be, and is right now being 'prostituted' by 'indigenous nations' for sale in non-indigenous nations. These drugs will fuel the War on Drugs and all the horror that comes with it.

That said, I'm all for legalizing drugs as it is an inevitability and is necessary to stop the War on Drugs and all that it entails.

In this case, it's good because it will give the impoverished farmers more money--let's just not be naiive or fall under the sway of false romances and forget what they are ultimately profiting off of.

So far Evo has done only good things (as far as I know) and I don't think there is enough information yet to make a decision on him one way or another.

10:41 p.m.  
Blogger yusuf chun said...

Hi Jeff,

And everyone else who reads RI. I'm new to this site and blogging but I've spent a fair amount of time here. A lot of it resonates. (Both my parents worked for the company. My father until he died in 98.)

It all rings true, but at the same time I sensed a fair amount of despair maybe and wrote something about that for you all. With the best of intentions.

I've posted it at my own blog so as not to mess up Jeff's. Also, as not to offend you if you're entirely opposed to anything I might say.

Anyway, it's there. Peace.

cphinterpretation.blogspot.com

11:32 p.m.  
Blogger yusuf chun said...

by the way, it's called "friend of a friend"

11:51 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Google: "Arrest Bush 41"

Um... wtf up with that?

A brilliant puzzle a la notpron.com? A fleeting glimpse at the underside of some weird archonic dataspace? A piece of undercooked potato? Or a fucked up IP harvester set up by the feds?

12:42 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff,

"Too negative?" Let me add my voice to the rest.

Is it "too negative" to try to see what's really there?

Anyone who says so either isn't looking, is scared of his own shadow, or is shilling for the abusers of power and privilege.

All three kinds of people are part of the problem.

Please, keep looking into the dark side. There is no one else who is giving it your thoughtful, incisive, intelligent analysis.

8:47 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

#1 Sniffer is 100% correct! When will America wake up to this cycle of deception?! We are being continuously manipulated....and in the meantime absolutley NOTHING CHANGES! As the majority of us watch and comment...as we continue to consume and collect....the poor and disenfranchised suffer at the hands of a few elite.

12:54 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff: I love your work. Please keep it up. But please use a spell checker...

striken -> stricken
blovates -> bloviates

you may delete my post after you fix them, with no hard feelings.

8:23 a.m.  
Blogger Jeff Wells said...

Corrected, with thanks.

10:01 a.m.  
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