Geen evolutie en ecolutie zonder revolutie!

Albert Einstein:

Twee dingen zijn oneindig: het universum en de menselijke domheid. Maar van het universum ben ik niet zeker.
Posts tonen met het label doodseskaders. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label doodseskaders. Alle posts tonen

woensdag 9 juni 2021

Kamala Harris (vicepresident VS) roept bevolking van Guatemala op niet naar de VS 'te vertrekken' uh te vluchten

Afgelopen maandag in het BBC World Service radionieuws van 23.30 u. het bericht dat Kamala Harris, tijdens haar bezoek in Guatemala, de bevolking daar heeft voorgehouden niet naar de VS te vertrekken..... (ze weigert deze mensen uiteraard vluchteling te noemen) 

Het grootste deel van de Guatemalteekse bevolking zucht al jaren onder de terreur van doodseskaders met o.a. (ex-) leger- en (ex-) politiepersoneel..... Terreur die zich vooral richt op de oorspronkelijke bewoners (Maya's) en het verarmde deel van de rest van de bevolking, dit is dan ook de oorzaak voor het op vlucht slaan van deze mensen......

Harris sprak alleen over het aanpakken van corruptie in Guatemala en de rest van Midden-Amerika, volgens deze helleveeg is dat de reden dat men het heil elders zoekt, logisch dat ze niet over de doodseskaders spreekt daar ze anders de mensen die vertrekken vluchtelingen moet noemen...... (en daarvoor zijn VN regels, zoals het VN Vluchtelingenverdrag, dat overigens door westerse landen als de VS [en Nederland] met voeten wordt getreden............ Vandaar ook dat ze de bevolking voorhield dat ze teruggestuurd zullen worden als ze toch de grens met de VS bereiken.......

Hare inhumane kwaadaardigheid Kamala Harris tijdens haar waarschuwing aan het Guatemalteekse volk.....

Er is dan in tegenstelling tot beloften van oorlogsmisdadiger en mensenrechtenschender Biden, niets veranderd met diens aantreden, het inhumane schoftenbeleid t.a.v. vluchtelingen door de Trump administratie wordt in feite gewoon voortgezet....... Waar ik nog aan toe moet voegen dat onder president Obama (en Biden als vicepresident) er ook grote aantallen vluchtelingen werden gedeporteerd, o.a. mensen uit Honduras waar Hillary Clinton (minister van BuZa onder Obama) samen met de CIA een staatsgreep organiseerde en regisseerde, waarna de door de VS geparachuteerde juntaleider ('president') een waar schrikbewind begon onder de bevolking en wel zo dat men massaal op de vlucht sloeg richting.... VS!! En ook toen werden kinderen van vluchtelingen afgenomen en werden vastgezet in wat je niet anders dan als concentratiekampen kan zien.....

De VS heeft een dikke vinger in de Guatemalteekse terreurpap en het is dan ook een grote schande wat Harris uit haar smerige strot durfde op te lepelen.... Harris zei verder dat de VS en de Guatemalteekse regering samenwerken om de situatie voor de grote onderlaag te verbeteren, dit door de corruptie aan te pakken, terwijl juist de grote bedrijven uit de VS profiteren van deze corruptie en deze in stand willen houden....... Het is zeker dat er niets tegen de doodseskaders zal worden ondernomen, immers deze hebben voor het overgrote deel goede banden met VS terreurorganisatie CIA, bovendien profiteert ook die organisatie van de corruptie in Guatemala....

De VS heeft trouwens aan de zuidgrenzen van landen als Mexico militairen die moeten helpen bij het voorkomen dat vluchtelingen verder naar het noorden, richting VS vluchten..... Nogmaals: mensen die op de vlucht zijn geslagen voor terreur waar de VS deze ofwel steunt, dan wel zelfs een staatsgreep heeft georganiseerd zodat een 'VS vriendelijke' dictator de belangen van de VS behartigt, iets dat altijd ten koste gaat van de grote onderlaag in die landen.......

Nogmaals: niets van Harris over de terreur waaronder deze mensen moeten leven, terreur die wordt gesteund door de CIA, immers onder de arme bevolking en de oorspronkelijke bevolking bevinden zich velen die zich verzetten tegen het smerige neoliberale beleid van de grootste regeringspartijen, die via smerige trucs de verkiezingen keer op keer winnen...... En ja daar zitten veel mensen tussen die (volkomen terecht) het socialisme aanhangen en als de VS ergens de pest aan heeft zijn het wel socialisten....

Zie ook: 'Bidens 'humane plan' voor Midden-Amerika zal bitter weinig verandering geven in de omgang met de volkeren in die regio'

'BBC met propaganda tegen verzet in Guatemala'

'Maya vrouwen die de terreur en genocide in Guatemala overleefden vechten voor gerechtigheid'

'Honduras in de greep van VS 'vriendelijke terreur': een deel van de bevolking vlucht richting VS' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

'BBC met 'onafhankelijke propaganda' tegen de Venezolaanse president Maduro' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

'Met Joe Biden is er niets veranderd op de wereld, anders dan dat 'het Trump fascisme is weggestemd'' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

'Biden komt verkiezingsbeloften niet na: zo blijft de VS oorlog voeren en de genocide in Jemen steunen' (en zie de links in dat bericht)

'Biden neemt bestuurslid van wapenfabrikant Raytheon als minister van 'defensie': garantie op bloedvergieten'

 VS gaat door met uithongeren Venezolaanse volk >> de westerse wereld negeert deze afschuwelijke oorlogsmisdaad'

Reuters houdt rapport tegen over 40.000 Venezolaanse doden door VS sancties'

'Venezuela: propaganda (ook door VPRO's Edwin Koopman) tegen dit land en de laatste verkiezingen alweer met bewijzen doorgeprikt als leugens en bedrog'

'Joe Biden, de nieuwe VS president heeft een 'grote' racistische geschiedenis'

'Bidens regering zal veel gewelddadiger zijn dan die van Obama: 'linkse Democraten' moeten nu al met verzet beginnen'

'CIA coup (terreur) tegen democratisch gekozen bewind Guatemala 1954........

zondag 9 mei 2021

Colombia: grote protesten tegen afwentelen kosten Coronacrisis op de onderlaag: politie vermoordt minstens 30 mensen

Ivan Duque, de rechtse president van Colombia, heeft in 'alle wijsheid' besloten dat de kosten die de Coronacrisis met zich mee hebben gebracht worden gecompenseerd middels een belastinghervormingswet, die sarcastisch de volgende naam meekreeg: 'law of sustainable solidarity' ('wet van duurzame solidariteit'). Deze wetgeving is een cynische poging van Duque om de kosten van de Coronacrisis af te wentelen op het armste deel van de bevolking.......

De werkelijke naam van de wet is 'Reforma Tributaria' (in feite simpelweg 'hervorming van belastingen ofwel: belastinghervorming') en deze moet 6,3 miljard miljard dollar opbrengen, in Colombiaanse pesos is dat 23 miljard. Dit is een regressieve belasting (naarmate het inkomen stijgt is de last van deze belasting minder voelbaar) en wordt als onze btw geheven op producten als melk, suiker, koffie en graan, daarnaast dreigt er een belastingverhoging van 19% op zaken als water, elektriciteit en gas..... Uitleg dat deze wet de armsten treft lijkt me overbodig, immers hoe hoger het inkomen, hoe minder last je hebt van deze in feite schunnige prijsverhogingen.... (oh nu heb ik het alsnog uitgelegd)

De laatste belastinghervorming die Duque doorvoerde was in 2019, waar de financiële sector, olie- en mijnbedrijven van profiteerden door substantiële belastingverlagingen........ (terwijl ze al veel te weinig belasting betaalden...)

Eind April begonnen de protesten met stakingen tegen deze belastinghervorming georganiseerd door het Comité Nacional del Paro en de Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (resp. het Nationale Werkloosheidscomité en de Centrale Vakbond van Arbeiders) tegen vorig weekeinde (van 1 en 2 mei) braken grote demonstraties uit in de grote steden als Cali, Bogota, Medellin, Pereira en in honderden kleine gemeenschappen..... Vorige week zondagavond waren er branden te zien in een half dozijn steden, Duque trok de wet in, maar de gemoederen lieten zich niet meer sussen door deze maatregel, logisch als je ziet hoe onrechtvaardig de verdeling is in Colombia (en veel andere Latijns-Amerikaanse landen).......

Afgelopen week bleven de demonstranten op de straten, niet alleen vanwege deze meer dan schandalige wetgeving, maar ook door het slechte beleid op de Coronacrisis* en het sentiment dat de regering elke gevoel mist met de worsteling en problemen waarmee het gewone volk dag na dag te maken heeft...... Deze woede is nog eens extra aangejaagd door het politiegeweld tegen de stakingen, waarbij minstens 30 mensen werden vermoord, honderden gewond raakten en bijna honderd mensen worden vermist (waarschijnlijk vermoord en in massagraven weggewerkt...... (in datzelfde land heeft de NAVO 2 militaire bases.....) Amnesty International heeft het geweld van de ESMAD, een soort mobiele eenheid (ME), excessief en onnodig genoemd, terwijl een missie van de VN in Cali door de politie werd aangevallen ......

De schrijver van het hieronder opgenomen CounterPunch artikel, Alejandra Marin Buitrago, gaat dieper in op de protesten en de smerige behandeling van demonstranten en stakers door de ESMAD. 

Het is nog steeds ongelofelijk dat de FARC zich zo in de luren heeft laten leggen door de Colombiaanse regering, zeker als je ziet dan het doel van deze organisatie: een fatsoenlijke behandeling van de onderlaag verder weg is dan ooit..... Niet voor niets ook dat een aantal leiders van de FARC zich niet meer gebonden voelen aan het vredesakkoord en de FARC-EP hebben opgericht...... Schande ook dat de NAVO militaire bases heeft in een land dat met zo'n bloederige straffe hand wordt geregeerd, zonder enige compassie met de grote onderlaag........ Ach ja, de NAVO heeft als hun militaire baas de VS nooit problemen met dictators, zie ook de omgang met het reli-fascistisch geregeerde Turkije, prominent NAVO-lid...... En dan durft de NAVO als de VS te zeggen dat het voor verbreiding van democratie is en voor het handhaven van mensenrechten..... ha! ha! ha! ha! Smerige oplichters!! Verder moet niet vergeten worden dat de rechtse doodseskaders nog steeds actief zijn in Colombia, ondanks de leugens in een deel van de westerse pers dat dit niet meer het geval is..... (deze doodseskaders bestaan vaak uit leden van politie en leger, dan wel voormalige werknemers van deze organisaties.....) Leiders van vakbonden, mensenrechtenorganisaties en milieuorganisaties zijn hun leven dan ook niet zeker in dit vreselijk geregeerde land.......

Lees het artikel van Buitrago en zegt het voort, ongelofelijk de manier waarop er aandacht is voor deze zaak in de westerse reguliere media..... Zo liet de Telegraaf weten dat een Nederlandse moeder, van wie de keizersnede is gepland, problemen ziet vanwege het geweld in de stad Cali..... Niets over de oorzaak, op een foto zie je de moeder met een dikke buik en een kind op de schouders en daarnaast een andere foto met betogers die zo te zien de politie belagen, al krijg je de politie niet te zien, uiteraard geen enkele moeite om uit te leggen waarom het gaat..... Het AD komt vooral met berichten van de Colombiaanse overheid, ofwel het AD is klankkast geworden van de ijskoude, inhumane regering van Colombia, ook de cijfers over doden en vermisten zijn die van de overheid en deze liggen ver beneden de werkelijke aantallen....... Voorts wordt nog gemeld dat critici stellen dat de eerder aangekondigde verhoging van de btw, vooral de middenklasse zou treffen...... Wat een enorm verschil met de gelogen berichtgeving over Venezuela in diezelfde media...... Ongelofelijk!!

 

Colombia on the Brink



Photograph Source: Humano Salvaje – CC BY-SA 2.0

In the last week, Colombia has experienced the most widespread civil unrest of its modern history. Since Wednesday, April 28th, millions of people have taken to the streets to fight back against a regressive national tax reform bill. The bill, farcically called the “law of sustainable solidarity,” aimed to cover budgetary shortfalls resulting from the paralysis of the economy brought on by COVID. In fact, the legislation was a cynical attempt by right-wing President Ivan Duque to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto those who can least afford it.

The Reforma Tributaria, as the bill was called, aimed to raise US $ 6.3 billion (about 23 billion Colombian pesos), through regressive sales taxes of 19% on essential products such as cereal, milk, sugar, and coffee. It also threatened to impose 19% taxes on utilities (water, electricity, and gas).[1] Meanwhile, the financial sector and oil and mining corporations enjoy substantial tax benefits that were granted as part of Duque’s last tax reform in 2019.[2]

Demonstrations began last week with a strike, called by the Comité Nacional del Paro and the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (National Strike Committee and the National Unions Council). By the weekend huge protests had broken out in the major cities of Cali, Bogota, Medellin, Pereira, and hundreds of other municipalities. On Sunday night, with half a dozen cities up in flames, President Duque rescinded the bill. But as you Americans are fond of saying, the horses were out of the barn.

Throughout the week, protesters have remained on the streets in force, fueled by anger at the poor management of the pandemic and widespread sentiment that the government has completely lost touch with the struggles and troubles of common people in the country. This feeling has only been exacerbated by the extreme police brutality unleashed during the strikes, which has left close to 30 dead, hundreds wounded, and close to a hundred missing. Amnesty international has called the use of force by ESMAD (the riot police of Colombia), “excessive and unnecessary,”[3] and the UN reported its own mission in Cali was attacked and threatened by the police[4].

What has emerged in the last week is a distinct pattern, a contrast between tense protests during the day and police terror at night. Daytime protests are often led by strike committee members and other civil society groups: teachers, civil servants, students, activists. These protests have been attacked by the ESMAD, but have remained largely peaceful. At night, the security forces’ reign of terror begins. Across the country reports have emerged of kidnappings, assassinations, random shootings at unarmed crowds, and rapes. As Bogotá based El Tiempo columnist Sandra Borda said in an interview with the New York Times, Duque appears to be offering an olive branch to protestors during the day and sending police and thugs out to kill protestors by night.[5]

In Bogota, the protests during the day have remained relatively peaceful. Green Party mayor Claudia Lopez rejected Duque’s offer to send troops alongside of ESMAD police and instead sent the army to guard jails and police stations. However, protesters have denounced ESMAD abuses and human rights activists have been detained. In the south of Bogotá, the anti riots police (ESMAD) attacked protesters with an electronic multiple projectile launcher propelled from a tank. The “Venom,” as it is nicknamed, costs US $ 110,000, and the flash grenade canisters of tear gas that it fires cost $ 71 a piece.[6] By the middle of the week, on the 8th day of protests more than 27,000 protesters were gather in 20 points around the capital. Despite heavy rains and strong ESMAD presence protesters held rallies at cities main parks and universities. On Thursday, a major of the police in a town near Bogotá was captured as person of interest for the murder of the 24 year old Brayan Niño, who has become a symbol of police violence in the capital.[7]

Last weekend Cali, a city of 3 million (the third largest in the country), became the epicenter of the protests. Famed for its Salsa dancing, a huge “salsa party protest” broke out in the streets, with people dancing to the rhythm of their beloved salsa music and the sound of the cacerolazos (banging on pots and pans, a universal form of protest in South America, especially when food is at stake). However, this week the situation in Cali has become increasingly complicated. The city has been the focus of an intense police and military crackdown on the protest—it is by far the most militarized of Colombian cities at this point. However, this is in part because the national strike has in Cali been infiltrated by unidentified armed groups, which in addition to looting and stealing gasoline have been accused of shooting protesters. In one strange case, protesters actually convinced looters to return goods to stores. On Tuesday, Caleños endured twelve-hour-long Internet and power outages. Protesters were panicked because they could not get through to their families and post on social media, the preferred mode of denouncing ESMAD’s abuses. As of today, Cali has suffered the most cases of police brutality and murders,[8] and is running out of gasoline, as the main access roads to the city are barricaded.

North of Cali, in the heart of the coffee region, Pereira was the site of the tragic death of Lucas Villa-Vargas, one of the faces of the movement. On Wednesday evening, Villa-Vargas, a college student of physical education, was standing on El Viaducto, the main bridge running into Pereira, when he was killed by a gunman in a drive-by motorcycle shooting. As people who live in popular neighborhoods in Colombian cities know well, two men approaching on a cheap motorcycle is an ominous sign. Along with Villa, the gunman shot two other young movement members, who are now fighting for their lives at a local hospital.[9] The mayor of Pereira has offered rewards for capturing the gunman and hundreds of thousands of viewers have seen Lucas’s assassination online. Amongst Pereiranos there is little doubt that Villa’s murderer was a hired gun. Lucas’s leadership had become highly visible among the protesters in Pereira; sadly, such recognition in social justice protests often comes with a high cost in Colombia.

The rage over the proposed tax reform also comes amidst one of the worst waves of Covid outbreak in the world. In many cities’ ICUs are at full capacity, and the vaccination drive has been a resounding failure. Less than 8% of the population have received the first dose and many of those saw their second doses postponed as far as three months due to lack of supplies. Instead of prioritizing direct negotiating with Pfizer, the government authorized private health companies to negotiate in order to purchase doses for the elite. Public testing is hardly available, and at $50, private labs testing is well beyond the budgets of most families.[10] The day after the strikes began, the Minister of Health tweeted a threat that cities with large strikes and protests would have their already poor supplies of the vaccine suspended. He retracted his grotesque threat a day later, but the damage was done.[11] Social media and news outlets have ridiculed the incompetence of the government and the high-profile staff who, as is well known throughout the country, fly to Miami to get vaccinated while prioritized groups in the low-income class wait anxiously for their first shots.[12]

As in many countries, so in Colombia, covid has exacerbated what were already, before the pandemic, outrageous wage and income disparities and deep inequality. In Colombia 63.8% of the population earn no more than a minimum wage, equivalent to US $270 monthly (DANE, 2020), and 2.2 million Colombian families eat only twice a day (DANE, 2020). The percentage of people living in poverty went from 35.7% in 2019 to 42.5% in 2020 (Portafolio, March 2021). Contrast this with the government officials who were poised to push through the regressive reform. In Colombia, a member of congress earns thirty four times the minimum monthly salary, or around US $9,430 every month. Congressman and women also receive a monthly quota of plain tickets, a rented bulletproof car, insurance, cellphone plans, and staff salaries for a total monthly cost per member of US $ 25,837.[13] As far as public spending goes, in March, Duque announced a decision to acquire twenty-four last generation F-16 air force planes for US $ 4.5 billion. On Tuesday, May 4th, amid the protests, the minister of finance withdrew the plan.[14]

Across society, Colombian inequality is backed by a well-consolidated stratum system. In the strata system, urban areas get assigned a number from one to six according to the quality of the dwellings and urban development (Decree-Law 3069/1968; Law 142/1994). The stratum system is unique to Colombia, designed in the late 60s to redistribute utilities costs by assigning subsidies to low strata (1 and 2) through overpayments from high strata (5 and 6). However, in reality, it has become a widespread mark of status and contributes to discrimination and social immobility. While the strata system is not based on household income, it has led to outcomes that are similar to the effects of redlining in American cities. In a large city like Bogota, a strata 5 person in the north could spend his or her entire life without setting foot in the poor south. In all likelihood, the maids, nannies, and doormen working for them are the only close relationship with a low strata person that high-strata people ever experience. This total disconnection, separating rich and poor, perhaps explains why vice-president Marta Ramirez recently blamed informal workers themselves for not having savings to ride out the pandemic, adding that they should stop expecting welfare to solve their problems and urging them to take the pandemic as an opportunity to “rebrand” themselves.[15]

Colombians have tended to respond to such ignominies with meme-gallows-humor in social media. Likewise, they responded to colossal corruption scandals, and continuous incites of public money defraud. Each corruption scandal floods the news for a few weeks until it dissolved into the next, hardly ever any high public official is held accountable or the public money recovered. Meanwhile, neighboring countries have overthrown presidents and convicted high officials for similar white-collar crimes. Accurately, conservative sectors flaunt that the country is the steadiest democracy in the continent. But last week, sarcasm and passivity gave way to fury.

The resilience of the protesters is a hopeful sign for a country that has not witnessed the level of popular urban protest and progressive political organizing as many of its neighbors on the continent. Colombia was, of course, home to Marxist guerrilla movements, most famously the FARC, and experienced a half-century-long civil war. This war, however, was fought in the rural hinterlands while cities remain in compliance with every neoliberal reform implemented by one right wing government after another. For decades, the very presence of the unpopular guerilla helped the government and elites stigmatize and delegitimize any political activity that showed the slightest socialist influence. When more muscle was needed, paramilitary groups could be relied on, and Colombia was long one of the most dangerous places in the world for union organizers.

However, as Hylton (2020) has written, many Colombians see their current political situation as a potential historical opening. President Duque’s labor reform bill in 2019 catalyzed a nationwide urban mobilization not seen since the 1977 civic strike.[16] In this presidential period, protests have emerged as a regular feature of Colombia’s political landscape. The defeat of the regressive bill is an unprecedented triumph for the youth, the urban poor, and the unions of teachers and health care workers who promoted the uprising. The government, eager to regain control of the situation, has reached out to the Comite del Paro to accelerate the time table for talks. The Strike Committee has maintained that the demilitarization of the cities is a condition of its coming to the table.

Update: When this article was written it was reported that Lucas Villa-Vargas had been killed in Pereira. He was shot eight times and was presumed dead. Almost miraculously, it now appears that he is in critical condition in a hospital in Pereira. The people are asking that the city name the bridge where he was shot–Pereira’s most notable architectural feature–in his honor.

Thanks to Patrick Madden for editorial assistance.

Notes.

1. https://www.semana.com/finanzas/articulo/reforma-tributaria-cafe-chocolate-azucar-y-otros-productos-de-alto-consumo-que-tendrian-iva-del-19/202104/

2. https://razonpublica.com/el-regalito-tributario-a-las-companias-de-minas-y-petroleos-us-3-300-millones-anuales/

3. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/colombia-amnistia-denuncia-respuesta-militarizada-represion-policial/

4. https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2021/05/04/onu-colombia-denuncia-amenazas-ataques-cali-orix/

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/americas/colombia-covid-protests-duque.html

6. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/venom-el-arma-en-la-tanqueta-del-esmad-que-causo-panico-en-el-sur-de-bogota-en-el-paro-nacional/

7. https://noticias.caracoltv.com/colombia/capturan-a-mayor-de-la-policia-por-muerte-de-brayan-nino-durante-protestas

8. https://www.rcnradio.com/colombia/pacifico/policia-confirma-que-ya-son-los-10-muertos-en-los-cuatro-dias-del-paro-en-cali

9. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/nacional/paro-nacional-denuncian-tres-heridos-por-disparos-en-el-viaducto-de-pereira/

10. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/salud/la-farmaceutica-pfizer-anuncio-que-no-vendera-sus-vacunas-a-privados-en-el-pais/

11. https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/ministro-de-salud-de-colombia-anuncio-que-no-se-suspende-el-envio-de-vacunas-al-valle-del-cauca/202102/

12. https://www.semana.com/economia/empresas/articulo/muchos-colombianos-viajaran-a-ee-uu-a-ponerse-la-vacuna-dice-viva-air/202157/

13. https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/congreso/salarios-de-congresistas-cuanto-cuesta-un-congresista-en-colombia-557675

14. https://www.semana.com/economia/macroeconomia/articulo/atencion-colombia-ya-no-gastara-14-billones-en-aviones-de-combate-confirmo-nuevo-ministro-de-hacienda/202150/

15. https://www.wradio.com.co/noticias/actualidad/marta-lucia-ramirez-invita-a-los-colombianos-a-no-ser-atenidos-en-medio-de-la-pandemia/20200507/nota/4036537.aspx

16. https://nuso.org/articulo/algo-esta-pasando-en-colombia/

Alejandra Marín Buitrago is a Ph.D. student in urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She’s a Colombian lawyer and a former law in professor the cities of Pereira and Bogota. She can be reached amarin32@uic.edu.

======================================

* In landen met een grote arme onderlaag vallen de meeste Coronadoden, al is dat vooral te danken aan de armoede, het gebrek aan geld om goed voedsel te kunnen kopen en de huisvesting van de armen die veel te dicht op elkaar moeten leven in de sloppenwijken, hetzelfde is het geval in de VS (waar 14 milljoen kinderen honger lijden), Brazilie en een land als India....... 

Zie ook: 'Colombia van zins gevluchte Venezolanen een verblijfsvergunning te geven, terwijl VPRO's Edwin Koopman fascistisch uit de 'propagandabocht' vliegt' (en zie de links in dat berich!!)

'9 'ex-FARC rebellen' vermoord door leger Colombia: FARC-EP opgericht'

'Mensenrechten- en milieuactivisten worden massaal vermoord in Brazilië en Colombia, waar het laatste land NAVO bases heeft.......'

'Paus Franciscus in Colombia om vrede te prediken......' (en homofilie, abortus en euthanasie nog eens te veroordelen!!)

'VS commando's vechten o.a. in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika, aldus het VS ministerie van oorlog.........'

'NAVO gaat VS helpen in Zuid-Amerika terreur uit te oefenen: Colombia lid van de NAVO.........'

'Koenders heeft vrijlating gegijzelde Spoorloos makers in Colombia bewerkstelligt....... AUW!!!'

'NAVO naar Zuid-Amerika? Weg met dit agressieve, terroristische bondgenootschap, NU!!!'

Voor VS terreur in Bolivia:
'NOS met fake news over Bolivia'

'Bolivianen eisen hun president terug'

'Bolivia: staatsgreep maakt eind aan succesvol presidentschap Evo Morales'

'Bolivia: bewijs op tafel dat VS aanstuurt op een coup''




Bolivia’s Remarkable Socialist Success Story: President Evo Morales has transformed his country’s economy with an unapologetically left-wing agenda.

vrijdag 8 januari 2021

CIA doodseskaders richten bloedbaden aan onder burgers van Afghanistan: Biden zal deze eskaders ongemoeid laten

De door de CIA georganiseerde en geregisseerde doodseskaders in Afghanistan richten bloedbaden aan onder de burgers en terroriseren de bevolking. Als Biden over een dag of tien  aan het bewind komt zou hij direct een eind moeten maken aan deze terreur en massamoorden.....

Uit een onlangs op The Intercept gepubliceerd rapport blijkt dat deze doodseskaders in verschillende Afghaanse provincies een systematisch moordprogramma uitvoeren......

In 2019 tijdens een periode van 6 maanden werden meer dan 50 burgers vermoord, inclusief vrouwen en kinderen dit in 10 verschillende bloedbaden en deze cijfers komen nog maar uit 1 provincie.........

Het verantwoordelijke doodseskader, aangeduid als 'Unit 01' bestaat uit Afghaans 'personeel' (terroristen) en zijn getraind en bewapend door agenten uit de VS, zoals gezegd worden ze begeleid en staan onder commando van CIA agenten....... Deze illegale acties zouden door het Witte Huis zijn goedgekeurd en worden uitgevoerd onder de zogenaamde 'Titel 50 militaire code', zodat deze figuren niet voor hun vreselijke oorlogsmisdaden kunnen worden vervolgd.......

De gekozen president Biden beklaagt zich erover dat hij van Trump geen toegang krijgt tot instructies op het gebied van nationale veiligheid (waaronder deze afschuwelijke oorlogsmisdaden belachelijk genoeg schijnen te vallen, alsof ze in de VS worden uitgevoerd....). Welnu als Biden straks in het Witte Huis trekt kan hij zijn lol op! Hij zal worden geïnformeerd over het 'anti-terreurprogramma' en de daarvoor gebruikte doodseskaders en hij zal voor de keus komen te staan dit programma te blijven steunen of te stoppen, een programma dat juist het tegenovergestelde is van wat het zou moeten zijn, dus i.p.v. terreur te bestrijden, oefent men schrikbarende terreur uit op de Afghaanse bevolking die zoals uit onderzoek blijkt, niets te maken heeft met de strijd van de Taliban en zoals het zich laat aanzien die van ISIS..... (al is die VS terreur dan weer niet vreemd, immers dat 'land' is verreweg de grootste terreurentiteit ter wereld, waarbij je niet moet vergeten dat ook de oorlog tegen het Afghaanse volk in feite illegaal was en is, terreur van de ergste soort.....) Dan te bedenken dat men zich vooral in het westen druk maakt over de bestorming van het Capitol.......

Het bewijs voor deze CIA terreur is overweldigend, meerdere getuigen, zoals dorpsleiders en veiligheidsbeambten spreken over door VS officieren geleide doodseskaders, hetzelfde geld voor andere Units als Unit 01, die in andere Afghaanse provincies opereren.... Ook worden chinook helikopters en straaljagers van de VS gebruikt tijdens deze operaties, zogenaamd tegen Taliban kopstukken, echter zoals eerder gezegd belaagt men vooral de gewone bevolking...... Deze manier van 'werken' dateert al van 2017 toen striktere regels voor strijd werden losgelaten door de Trump administratie, die clandestiene operaties nog meer steunde dan voorheen onder Obama en George W. Bush..... (ook destijds werden geheime militaire acties uitgevoerd onder bevel van de CIA, al was dat overwegend met militairen uit de VS, dan wel militairen van particuliere organisaties uit datzelfde 'land...')

De kans dat Biden een eind zal maken aan deze smerige oorlogsmisdaden is zeer klein, niet in de laatste plaats daar de opvolgende presidenten CIA acties die dateren van de vorige administratie gewoon laten doorgaan..... Bovendien wilde Biden als vicepresident onder Obama een meer agressieve aanpak van Afghanistan...... Een teken aan de wand wat dat betreft is wel dat Biden op de hoogte zou zijn van deze illegale acties, maar daarvoor niet de Trump administratie op het spreekwoordelijke matje heeft geroepen, laat staan dat hij openlijk kritiek heeft geuit op deze oorlogsmisdaden ofwel vreselijke terreur......

Biden heeft overigens ook in zijn verkiezingscampagne gezegd dat hij de aanpak van Venezuela en Iran door de Trump administratie als zwak beoordeelt, dat belooft niet veel goeds voor de Afghaanse bevolking, immers als hij de CIA terreur zou veroordelen en stoppen, zou hij volgens eigen inzicht en beschuldigingen aan het adres van de Trump administratie tegelijk laten zien zwak te zijn als het om Afghanistan gaat.....

Het volgende artikel waarop o.a. mijn schrijven hiervoor is gebaseerd, werd geschreven door Finian Cunningham, werd eerder gepubliceerd op Sputnik International en door mij overgenomen van Information Clearing House (onder het bericht kan je klikken voor een 'Dutch vertaling', dit neemt wel enkele tientallen seconden tijd in beslag):

Biden & CIA Death Squads 

By Finian Cunningham

December 31, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - CIA-backed death squads are running amok in Afghanistan, murdering civilians and terrorizing the population. When Joe Biden becomes president in three weeks, he should prioritize ending this “Murder Inc.”

A newly published investigative report has uncovered a systematic assassination program conducted by the CIA in several provinces across Afghanistan.

In just one six-month period during 2019, it was found that over 50 civilians, including women and children, were murdered in 10 separate massacres studied, according to author Andrew Quilty. That was merely a sample of killings in one province, Wardak.

The death squad, known as “Unit 01”, comprises locally recruited Afghans but they are trained, equipped and directed by American operatives.

There is no doubt that the clandestine CIA operation would have top-level clearance from the White House. It is carried out under so-called “Title 50” military code which shields the operatives from prosecution of war crimes. Only the president can sign off on that level of clearance.

Joe Biden, the incoming Democrat president-elect, has complained that the incumbent Trump administration has denied him access to classified national security briefings. Well, Biden will soon get full access after his inauguration on January 20. In that case, the new president will inevitably be apprised of the Afghan “counter-terror operations” and its death squads. He faces a choice on whether to terminate the program.


The evidence for the CIA murder operations is overwhelming. Afghan community leaders and security officials testified that “Unit 01” and its counterparts in other provinces are run by shadowy American officers who accompany the death squads during their raids on villages and farms.

Dozens of Afghan residents and survivors of the attacks also describe US-led operations.

Furthermore, the death squads are supported with US Chinook transport helicopters, fighter planes, gunships and drones.

The official American position is that its military forces are tasked with defeating the Taliban militants who oppose the US-backed regime in Kabul. But the killings carried out by the CIA-led squads target civilians in what appears to be a bludgeoning policy of terrorism and intimidation. In most of the atrocities investigated there were no links between the victims and the Taliban.

Under Donald Trump and then head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, who later became Secretary of State, the US military operations in Afghanistan underwent a shift in late 2017. There was more emphasis on clandestine operations and a loosening of rules of engagement.

During Trump’s term in office, there has been a huge surge in civilian deaths in Afghanistan, partly from increased airstrikes, but also from the CIA death squads running amok. At the same time, however, Trump has crowed about withdrawing conventional troops from Afghanistan under a supposed peace deal with the Taliban. This has allowed the Republican president to claim that he is delivering on election promises to wind down overseas wars like Afghanistan – which at two decades’ duration is the longest foreign war ever waged by the United States.

What Joe Biden does about this remains to be seen, but the signals are not good. For a start, almost every American president has signed off on CIA murder programs, from Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s, to Cuba and Vietnam in the 1960s, to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1970s and 80s, and many, many more besides. It’s a routine part of the dirty business of being an American president.

That’s why it is so contemptible and absurd for Biden and others to have lambasted Trump over unsubstantiated US media reports of Russia allegedly running bounty-hunter schemes in Afghanistan to kill American troops. There was never any evidence for such a fable, which even the Pentagon was obliged to dismiss as unfounded. And as usual, the media furore evaporated as quickly as it erupted, belying its credibility.

Meanwhile, it emerges that under Trump’s watch the Americans have been carrying out systematic assassinations of Afghan civilians with CIA death squads. Where are Biden’s condemnations?

Biden is associated with urging former President Barack Obama to take a more aggressive military line in Afghanistan when he was vice president (2008-2016). Biden favoured “kick-the-door-down” night raids by special forces. It is therefore very unlikely that he will repudiate the Murder Inc which Trump has unleashed in Afghanistan.

What Biden brings to the new White House regime is an extra layer of moral corruption and hypocrisy under the guise of being a “liberal Democrat”.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. - - "Source" -

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

In case you missed it:

HRW: CIA-Trained 'Death Squads' Behind Afghan War Crimes

Watchdog: CIA Trained Death Squads in Afghanistan

Zarif Urges US to Get Out of Afghanistan, Accuses Trump of Using Taliban Talks for Electioneering

Pentagon Can Not Track Lost Weapons, Billions in Aid to Afghanistan - SIGAR Report

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Zie ook: 'CIA valt nogmaals door de mand als wapenleverancier van IS.......'

'CIA erkent dat Israël samen met Saoedi-Arabië 'vecht tegen terreur', die ze NB zelf hebben georganiseerd........'

'VS: openlijke militaire oefening met terreurgroep in Syrië......'

'VS centraal commando werkt in Syrië samen met IS en verklaarde Rusland de oorlog.........'

'CIA 70 jaar: 70 jaar moorden, martelen, coups plegen, nazi's beschermen, media manipulatie enz. enz.........' (!!!!)

'The United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia Created and Funded ISIS' (!!!!)

'Rex Tillerson (VS BuZA) geeft toe dat de VS een staatsgreep wil uitvoeren in Iran........ Het is nog 'iets te rustig' in dat gebied........'

'VS steunt terreurgroepen als ISIS in Syrië...........' (!!!!)

'Iraanse milities die samen met de Koerden ISIS bestreden, moeten Irak verlaten, zo stelt Tillerson (VS BuZa)........'

'Rutte en Koenders verantwoordelijk voor wapenleveranties aan IS!!' (!!!!)

'IS verklaart Hamas de oorlog, opvallend kort nadat een Israëlische veiligheidsdienst IS als eventuele bondgenoot tegen Iran aanwees........'

'Israël ondersteunt IS, aldus de Israëlische ex-minister van Defensie Ya'alon.............'

US weapons supplied to Syrian rebels ended up with Islamic State: report

 
'Al Qaida de bondgenoot van de VS in de strijd tegen...... terrorisme! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!' (intussen heeft de VS 'Al Qaida Syrië' van de zwarte lijst met terreurorganisaties gehaald!!)

'US TRAINED REBELS GIVE WEAPONS TO TERROR GROUP'

'Made in America: US-Trained 'Moderate' Rebels, With Blessing Of Americans, Selling US Weapons to ISIS'

'Exactly how the US trained and armed ISIS'




zaterdag 26 december 2020

Honduras wordt geteisterd door doodseskaders die worden gesteund door.... de VS!!

De geheime diensten van de VS hebben zich met de grote bedrijven gekeerd tegen de zogenaamde 'Pink Tide', de wens van Latijns-Amerikaanse volkeren voor een socialistische beleid in hun land en waar een aantal van die volkeren deze wens waarmaakten door met grote meerderheden te kiezen voor socialistische partijen. Voorbeelden te over, neem Venezuela, waar de al jaren durende oorlog* van de VS tegen het Venezolaanse volk en het door Maduro socialistische gevoerde beleid in dat land...... Volgens de laatste berichten hebben de illegale sancties van de VS (gesteund door Canada en onze EU) al aan meer dan 100.000 mensen het leven gekost, dit o.a. door een blokkade op voedsel**, medicijnen, medische hulpmiddelen en medische apparaten..... De VS zegt wel dat medicijnen en voedsel niet onder de sancties vallen echter de bewijzen van het tegendeel liegen er niet om.......

Of wat dacht je van de bloedige coup door de VS georganiseerd tegen het uiterst succesvolle socialistische bewind van Evo Morales in Bolivia. Deze man, de eerste president sinds de witte Europeanen daar een aantal eeuwen geleden begonnen met de genocide tegen de oorspronkelijke  bevolking van dit land......  Deze bevolking vormt NB een meerderheid in het land en niet vreemd dus dat Morales daar de ene na de andere verkiezing won en de armoede onder de oorspronkelijke bevolking wist weg te werken, waarbij ze recht kregen op goede en goedkope: -scholing, -gezondheidszorg, -energievoorziening en -huisvesting..... De CIA en de OAS (Vereniging van Amerikaanse Staten) hebben een opstand georganiseerd in het land en leger en politie omgekocht om aan de zijde (van de minderheid) van meer welgestelde burgers en het grootkapitaal in dat land te vechten tegen de oorspronkelijke bewoners en hun regering..... Morales werd door de militairen ontvoerd en naar Mexico gedeporteerd..... Intussen is de partij van Morales toch weer de grootste en heeft men een medestander van Morales gekozen tot president.....*** De junta, o.l.v. de fascistische christenhoer Áñez, is op de vlucht geslagen.....

Ook speelde de VS de hoofdrol in de 'constitutionele crisis' in Brazilië, waar de socialistische presidenten Dilma Rousseff en Lula da Silva werden beschuldigd van corruptie middels een smeercampagne en zogenaamde (vervalste) bewijzen een eind maakten aan de regering van da Silva en hij in de gevangenis verdween.....

Dan heb je nog Honduras waar Killary Clinton en de CIA in 2009 een staatsgreep pleegden en een eind maakten aan de socialistische regering van Manuel Zelaya...... Er zijn nog meer voorbeelden te noemen echter niet vergeten moet worden dat de CIA (en daarmee de VS) ook verantwoordelijk was voor een bloedige (fascistische) staatsgreep in Guatemala in 1954 die een eind maakte aan het bewind van President, Jacobo Árbenz, om nog maar te zwijgen over de uiterst bloedige coup in Chili, op 11 september 1973 (ja de eerste (9/11....) tegen de socialistische president Salvador Allende en diens regering door de CIA en zijne kwaadaardigheid nazigeneraal Pinochet.......

Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van T.J Coles, die veel verder ingaat op de VS bemoeienis met Latijns-Amerika, gepubliceerd op CounterPunch en zegt het voort!! De hoogste tijd dat alle volkeren over de wereld zich gaan verzetten tegen het fascistische Vierde Rijk, de grootste terreurentiteit ter wereld, ofwel de VS!!

December 20, 2020

The Evolution of U.S.-Backed Death Squads in Honduras

The Pathology of U.S. Foreign Policy

by T.J. Coles

Photo Source Capt. Thomas Cieslak – CC BY 2.0

U.S. intelligence agencies and corporations have pushed back against the so-called Pink Tide, the coming to power of socialistic governments in Central and South America. Examples include: the slow-burning attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s President; Nicolás Maduro; the initially successful soft coup in Bolivia against President Evo Morales; and the constitutional crises that removed Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.

In 2009, the Obama administration (2009-17) backed a coup against President Manuel Zelaya. Since then, Honduras has endured a decline in its living standards and democratic institutions. The return of 1980s-style death squads operating against working people in the interests of U.S. corporations has contributed to the refugee-migrant flow to the United States and to the rise of racist politics.

EMPIRES: FROM THE SPANISH TO THE AMERICAN

Honduras (pop. 9.5 million) is surrounded by Guatemala and Belize in the north, El Salvador in the west, and Nicaragua in the south. It has a small western coast on the Pacific Ocean and an extensive coastline on the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic. Nine out of 10 Hondurans are Indo-European (mestizo). GDP is <$25bn and over 60 percent of the people live in poverty: one in five in extreme poverty.

Honduras gained independence from Spain in 1821, before being annexed to the Mexican Empire. Hondurans have endured some 300 rebellions, civil wars, and/or changes of government; more than half of which occurred in the 20th century. Writing in 1998, the Clinton White House acknowledged that Honduras’s “agriculturally based economy came to be dominated by U.S. companies that established vast banana plantations along the north coast.”

The significant U.S. military presence began in the 1930s, with the establishment of an air force and military assistance program. The Clinton White House also noted that the founder of the National Party, Tiburcio Carías Andino (1876-1969), had “ties to dictators in neighboring countries and to U.S. banana companies [which] helped him maintain power until 1948.”

The C.I.A. notes that dictator Carías’s repression of Liberals would make those Liberals “turn to conspiracy and [provoke] attempts to foment revolution, which would render them much more susceptible to Communist infiltration and control.” The Agency said that in so-called emerging democracies: “The opportunities for Communist penetration of a repressed and conspiratorial organization are much greater than in a freely functioning political party.” So, for certain C.I.A. analysts, “liberal democracy” is a buffer against dictatorships that legitimize genuinely left-wing oppositional groups. The C.I.A. cites the case of Guatemala in which “a strong dictatorship prior to 1944 did not prevent Communist activity which led after the dictator’s fall, to the establishment of a pro-Communist government.”

REDS UNDER THE BED

To understand the thinking behind the U.S.-backed death squads, it is worth looking at some partly-declassified C.I.A. material on early-Cold War planning. The paranoia was such that each plantation laborer was potentially a Soviet asset hiding in the fruit field. These subversives could be ready, at any moment, to strike against U.S. companies and the nascent American Empire.

In line with some strategists’ conditional preferences for “liberal democracies,” Honduras has the façade of voter choice, with two main parties controlled by the military. After the Second World War, U.S. policy exploited Honduras as a giant military base from which left-wing or suspected “communist” movements in neighboring countries could be countered. In 1954, for instance, Honduras was used as a base for the C.I.A.’s operation PBSuccess to overthrow Guatemala’s President, Jacobo Árbenz (1913-71).

Writing in ‘54, the C.I.A. said that the Liberal Party of Honduras “has the support of the majority of the Honduran voters. Much of its support comes from the lower classes.” The Agency also believed that the banned Communist Party of Honduras planned to infiltrate the Liberals to nudge them further left. But an Agency document notes that “there may be fewer than 100” militant Communists in Honduras and there were “perhaps another 300 sympathizers.”

The document also notes: “The organization of a Honduran Communist Party has never been conclusively established,” though the C.I.A. thought that the small Revolutionary Democratic Party of Honduras “might have been a front.” The Agency also believed that Communists were behind the Workers’ Coordinating Committee that led strikes of 40,000 laborers against the U.S.-owned United Fruit and Standard Fruit Companies, which the Agency acknowledges “dominate[d] the economy of the region.” In the same breath, the C.I.A. also says that the Communists “lost control of the workers,” post-strike.

A PROXY AGAINST NICARAGUA

A U.S. military report states that “[c]onducting joint exercises with the Honduran military has a long history dating back to 1965.” By 1975, U.S. military helicopters operating in Honduras at Catacamas, a village in the east, assisted “logistical support of counterinsurgency operations,” according to the CIA. These machines aided the Honduran forces in their skirmishes against pro-Castro elements from Nicaragua operating along the Patuca River in the south of Honduras. By the mid-1990s, there were at least 30 helicopters operating in Honduras.

In 1979, the National Sandinista Liberation Front (Sandinistas) came to power in Nicaragua, deposing and later assassinating the U.S.-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925-80). For the Reagan administration (1981-89), Honduras was a proxy against the defiant Nicaragua.

The U.S. Army War College wrote at the time: “President Reagan has clearly expressed our national commitment to combating low intensity conflict in developing countries.” It says that “The responsibility now falls upon the Department of State and the Department of Defense to develop plans and doctrine for meeting this requirement.” The same document confirms that the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces (SOF), the 18th Airborne Corps, was sent to Honduras. “Mobile Training Teams (MTT) were dispatched to train Honduran soldiers in small unit tactics, helicopter maintenance and air operations, and to establish the Regional Military Training Center near Trujillo and Puerto Castilla,” both on the eastern coast.

A SOUTHCOM document dates significant U.S. military assistance to Honduras to the 1980s. It notes the effect of public pressure on U.S. policy, highlighting: “a general lack of appetite among the American public to see U.S. forces committed in the wake of the Vietnam War [which] resulted in strict parameters that limited the scope of military involvement in Central America.”

According to SOUTHCOM, the Regional Military Training Center was designed “to train friendly countries in basic counterinsurgency tactics.” President Reagan wanted to smash the Sandinistas, but “the executive branch’s hands were tied by the 1984 passage of the Boland Amendment [to the Defense Appropriations Act], banning the use of U.S. military aid to be given to the Contras,” the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua. As a result, “the strong and sudden focus instead on training, and arguably by proxy, the establishment of [Joint Task Force-Bravo],” an elite military unit assigned a “counter-communist mission.”

The Green Berets trained the contras from bases in Honduras, “accompanying them on missions into Nicaragua.” The North American Congress on Latin America noted at the time that “Military planes flying out of Honduras are coordinated by a laser navigation system, and contras operating inside Nicaragua are receiving night supply drops from C-130s using the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System,” first used in Vietnam and operational only to a few personnel. “The CIA, operating out of Air Force bases in the United States, hires pilots for the hazardous sorties at $30,000 per mission.” The report notes that troops from El Salvador “were undergoing U.S. training every day of the year, in Honduras, the United States and the new basic training center at La Union,” in the north.

SPECIAL UNITS AND ANTI-COMMUNISTS

The U.S. also launched psychological operations against domestic leftism in Honduras. This involved morphing a special police unit into a military intelligence squad guilty of kidnap, torture, and murder: Battalion 316. Inducing a climate of fear in workers, union leaders, intellectuals, and human rights lawyers is way of ensuring that progressive ideas like good healthcare, free education, and decent living standards don’t take root.

In 1963, the Fuerza de Seguridad Pública (FUSEP, Public Security Force) was set up as a branch of the military. During the early-‘80s, FUSEP commanded the National Directorate of Investigations, regular national police units, and National Special Units, “which provided technical support to the arms interdiction program,” according to the CIA, in which “material from Nicaragua passed through Honduras to guerrillas in El Salvador.” The National Directorate of Investigations ran the secret Honduran Anti-Communist Liberation Army (ELACH, 1980-84), described by the C.I.A. as “a rightist paramilitary organization which conducted operations against Honduran leftists.”

The C.I.A. repeats allegations that “ELACH’s operations included surveillance, kidnappings, interrogation under duress, and execution of prisoners who were Honduran revolutionaries.” ELACH worked in cooperation with the Special Unit of FUSEP. “The mission of the Unit was essentially … to combat both domestic and regional subversive movements operating in and through Honduras.” The C.I.A. also notes that “this included penetrating various organizations such as the Honduran Communist Party, the Central American Regional Trotskyite Party, and the Popular Revolutionary Forces-Lorenzo Zelaya (FPR-LZ) Marxist terrorist organization.”

Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez (1937-89), future head of the Honduran Armed Forces, told U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s Honduras Ambassador, Jack Binns, that their forces would use “extra-legal means” to destroy communists. Binns wrote in a confidential cable: “I am deeply concerned at increasing evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned assassinations of political and criminal targets, which clearly indicate [Government of Honduras] repression has built up a head of steam much faster than we had anticipated.” But U.S. doctrine shifted under President Reagan. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Thomas O. Enders, told Binns not to send such material to the State Department for fear of leakage. Enders himself said of human rights in Honduras: “the Reagan administration had broader interests.”

Under Reagan, John Negroponte replaced Binns at the U.S. Embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa, from where many C.I.A. agents operated. In 1981, secret briefings informed Negroponte that “[Government of Honduras] security forces have begun to resort to extralegal tactics — disappearances and, apparently, physical eliminations to control a perceived subversive threat.” Rick Chidster, a junior political officer at the U.S. Embassy was ordered by superiors in 1982 to remove references to Honduran military abuses from his annual human rights report prepared for Congress.

THE MAKING OF BATTALION-316

In March 1981, Reagan authorized the expansion of covert operations to “provide all forms of training, equipment, and related assistance to cooperating governments throughout Central America in order counter foreign-sponsored subversion and terrorism.” Documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun the reveal that from 1981, the U.S. provided funds for Argentine counterinsurgency experts to train anti-Communists in Honduras; many of whom had, themselves, been trained by the U.S. in earlier years. At a camp in Lepaterique, in western Honduras, Argentine killers under U.S. supervision trained their Honduran counterparts.

Oscar Álvarez, a former Honduran Special Forces officer and diplomat trained by the U.S., said: “The Argentines came in first, and they taught how to disappear people.” With training and equipment, such as hidden cameras and phone bugging technology, U.S. agents “made them more efficient.” The U.S.-trained Chief of Staff, Gen. José Bueso Rosa, says: “We were not specialists in intelligence, in gathering information, so the United States offered to help us organize a special unit.” Between 1982 and 1984, the aforementioned Gen. Álvarez headed the Armed Forces. In 1983, Reagan awarded him the Legion of Merit for “encouraging the success of democratic processes in Honduras.” When C.I.A. Station Chief, Donald Winters, adopted a child, he asked Álvarez to be the godfather.

After WWII, the U.S. Army established, in the Panama Canal Zone, a Latin American Training Center-Ground Division at Fort Amador, later renamed the U.S. Army School of the Americas and moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. Now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the C.I.A.’s Phoenix Program in Vietnam and its MK-ULTRA mind-torture programs influenced the Honduras curriculum at the School.

In 1983, the U.S. military participated in Strategic Military Seminar with the Honduran Armed Forces, at which it was decided that FUSEP would be transformed from a police force into a military intelligence unit. “The purpose of this change,” says the C.I.A., “was to improve coordination and improve control.” It also aimed “To make available greater personnel, resources, and to integrate the intel production.” In 1984, the Special Unit was placed under the command of the Military Intelligence Division and renamed the 316th Battalion, at which point “it continued to provide technical support to the arms interdiction program” in neighboring countries.

A C.I.A. officer based in the U.S. Embassy is known to have visited the Military Industries jail: one of Battalion 316’s torture chambers in which victims were bound, beaten, electrocuted, raped, and poisoned. Battalion torturer, José Barrera, says: “They always asked to be killed … Torture is worse than death.” Battalion 316 officer, José Valle, explained surveillance methods: “We would follow a person for four to six days. See their daily routes from the moment they leave the house. What kind of transportation they use. The streets they go on.” Men in black ski masks would bundle the victim into a vehicle with dark-tinted windows and no license plates.

Under Lt. Col. Alonso Villeda, the Battalion was disbanded and replaced in 1987 with a Counterintelligence Division of the Honduran Armed Forces. Led by the Chief of Staff for Intelligence (C-2), it absorbed the Battalion’s personnel, units, analysis centers, and functions.

In 1988, Richard Stolz, then-U.S. Deputy Director for Operations, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in secret hearings that C.I.A. officers ran courses and taught psychological torture. “The course consisted of three weeks of classroom instruction followed by two weeks of practical exercises, which included the questioning of actual prisoners by the students.” Former Ambassador Binns says: “I think it is an example of the pathology of foreign policy.” In response to the allegations, which he denied, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Elliott Abrams, replied: “A human rights policy is not supposed to make you feel good.”

Between 1982 and 1993, the U.S. taxpayer gave half a billion dollars in military “aid” to Honduras. By 1990, 184 people had “disappeared,” according to President Manuel Zelaya, who in 2008 intimated that he would reopen cases of the disappeared.

THE ZELAYA COUP

After centuries of struggle, Hondurans elected a President who raised living standards through wealth redistribution. Winner of the 2005 Presidential elections, Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party’s Movimiento Esperanza Liberal faction increased the minimum wage, provided free education to children, subsidised small farmers, and provided free electricity to the country’s poorest. Zelaya countered media monopoly propaganda by imposing minimum airtime for government broadcasts and allied with America’s regional enemies via the proposed ALBA trading bloc.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported at the time that “analysts” reckoned Zelaya’s move “runs the risk of jeopardizing the traditionally close state of relations with the United States.” The CRS also bemoaned Zelaya delaying the accreditation of the U.S. Ambassador, Hugo Llorens, “to show solidarity with Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with the United States in which Bolivia expelled the U.S. Ambassador.”

Because Zeyala did not have enough Congressional representatives to agree to his plan, he attempted to expand democracy by holding a referendum on constitutional changes. Both the lower and Supreme Courts agreed to the opposition parties blocking the referendum. In defiance of the courts, Zelaya ordered the military to help with election logistics, an order refused by the head of the Armed Forces, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, who later claimed that Zelaya had dismissed him, which Zelaya denies. Using pro-Zelaya demonstrations as a pretext for taking to the streets, the military mobilized and, in June 2009, the Supreme Court authorized Zelaya’s capture, after which he was exiled to Costa Rica.

In the book Hard Choices, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ghostwriters, with her approval, refer to Latin America as the U.S.’s “backyard” and to Zelaya as “a throwback to the caricature of a Central American strongman, with his white cowboy hat, dark black mustache, and fondness for Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro” (p. 222). The publishers omitted from the paperback edition Clinton’s role in the coup: “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras” (plus the usual boilerplate about democracy promotion.)

Decree PCM-M-030-2009 ordered the election be held during a state of emergency. The peaceful, pro-Zelaya groups, La Resistencia and Frente Hondureña de Resistencia Popular, were targeted under Anti-Terror Laws. The right-wing Porfirio Lobo was elected with over 50 percent of the vote in a fake 60 percent turnout (later revised to 49 percent). U.S. President Obama described this as “a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us great hope.” Hope and change for Honduras came in the form of economic changes benefitting U.S. corporations:

The U.S. State Department notes: “Many of the approximately 200 U.S. companies that operate in Honduras take advantage of protections available in the Central American and Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement.” Note the inadvertent acknowledgement that “free trade” is actually protection for U.S. corporations. The State Department also notes: “The Honduran government is generally open to foreign investment. Low labor costs, proximity to the U.S. market, and the large Caribbean port of Puerto Cortes make Honduras attractive to investors.”

Four years into Zelaya’s overthrow, unemployment jumped from 35.5 percent to 56.4 percent. In 2014, Honduras signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $189m loan. The Center for Economic and Policy Research states: “Honduran authorities agreed to implement fiscal consolidation… including privatizations, pension reforms and public sector layoffs.” The Congressional Research Service states: “President Juan Orlando Hernández of the conservative National Party was inaugurated to a second four-year term in January 2018. He lacks legitimacy among many Hondurans, however, due to allegations that his 2017 reelection was unconstitutional and marred by fraud.”

RETURN OF THE DEATH SQUADS

Since the coup, the U.S. has expanded its military bases in Honduras from 10 to 13. U.S. “aid” funds the Honduran National Police, whose long-time Director, Juan Carlos Bonilla, was trained at the School of the Americas. Atrocities against Hondurans increased under the U.S. favorite, President Hernández, who vowed to “put a soldier on every corner.” SOUTHCOM worked under Obama’s Central America Regional Security Initiative, which supported Operation Morazán: a program to integrate Honduras’s Armed Forces with its domestic policing units. With SOUTHCOM funding, the 250-person Special Response Security Unit (TIGRES) was established near Lepaterique. The TIGRES are trained by the U.S. Green Berets or 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and described by the U.S. Army War College as a “paramilitary police force.”

The cover for setting up a military police force is countering narco- and human-traffickers, but the record shows that left-wing civilians are targeted for death and intimidation. To crush the pro-Zelaya, pro-democracy movements Operation Morazán, according to the U.S. Army War College, included the creation of the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), whose members must have served at least one year in the Armed Forces. By January 2018, the PMOP consisted of 4,500 personnel in 10 battalions across every region of Honduras, and had murdered at least 21 street protestors.

Berta Cáceres co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras. One of the Organization’s missions was resisting the Desarrollos Energéticos (DESA) corporation’s Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, which is sacred to the Lenca people. DESA hired a gang, later convicted of murdering Cáceres. They included the U.S.-trained Maj. Mariano Díaz Chávez and Lt. Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, himself head of security at DESA. The company’s director, David Castillo, also a U.S.-trained ex-military intelligence officer, is alleged to have colluded with the killers. The TIGRE forces oversaw the dam’s construction site.

Between 2010 and 2016, as U.S. “aid” and training continued to flow, over 120 environmental activists were murdered by hitmen, gangs, police, and the military for opposing illegal logging and mining. Others have been intimidated. In 2014, for instance, a year after the murder of three Matute people by gangs linked to a mining operation, the children of the indigenous Tolupan leader, Santos Córdoba, were threatened at gunpoint by the U.S.-trained, ex-Army General, Filánder Uclés, and his bodyguards.

Home to the Regional Military Training Center, Bajo Aguán is a low-lying region in the east, whose farmers have battled land privatization since the early-1990s. After Zelaya was deposed, crimes against the peoples of the region increased. Rights groups signed a letter to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who facilitated U.S. aid to Honduras, stating: “Forty-five people associated with peasant organizations have been killed” between September 2009 and February 2012. A joint military-police project, Operation Xatruch II in 2012, led to the deaths of “nine peasant organization members, including two principal leaders.” One 17-year-old son of a peasant organizer was kidnapped, tortured, and threatened with being burned alive. Lawfare is also used, with over 160 small farmers in the area subject to frivolous legal proceedings.

BACK TO THE PAST”

In the 1980s, Tomás Nativí, co-founder of the People’s Revolutionary Union, was “disappeared” by U.S.-backed death squads. Nativí’s wife, Bertha Oliva, founded of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras to fight for justice for those murdered between 1979 and 1989. She told The Intercept that the recent killings and restructuring of the so-called security state is “like going back to the past.”

The iron-fist of Empire in the service of capitalism never loosens its grip. The names and command structures of U.S.-backed military units in Honduras have changed over the last four decades, but their goal remains the same.

T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and  Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).

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*   Een oorlog van de VS tegen het Venezolaanse volk, bestaande uit illegale sancties, het organiiseren van een opstand en het bewapenen van extreem rechtse groepen, beter gezegd fascistische groeperingen, plus het regisseren van geweld gepleegd door die fascisten..... Deze groeperingen hebben korte lijnen met extreem rechtse parijen, zoals die van fascist Guaidó, al is deze ploert pas sinds vorig jaar januari bekend geworden, voor die tijd was hij onbekend bij het overgrote deel van de bevolking..... De VS heeft deze fascist uit de anonimiteit gehaald en zelfs benoemd tot president van Venezuela, terwijl het overgrote deel van de bevolking kiest voor de partij van Maduro en voor de gematigde oppositie partijen in dat land...... Zie wat dit betreft: 'Guaidó is een ordinaire couppleger van de VS, e.e.a. gaat volledig in tegen de Venezolaanse constitutie' (en zie de links in dat bericht)

**  Al onder Obama werd de grote supermarktketens van de VS, die winkels in Venezuela hebben, 'gevraagd' (onder sterke dwang) hun voorraden niet langer aan te vullen....... Ofwel hier was in feite al sprake van illegale sancties, al waren deze 'geheim', onder Trump werden dergelijke sancties 'gelegitimeerd' en officieel gemaakt, waarna de sancties een paar keer werden verscherpt.... Volkeren middels sancties of andere valse redenen voedsel en medicijnen onthouden is een zware misdaad tegen de menselijkheid......

*** Zie: 'Bolivia: een jaar na de coup wint de socialistische partij alsnog de verkiezingen'

Zie ook: '651 miljardairs in de VS zijn sinds maart 1 biljoen dollar rijker geworden o.a. door de Coronacrisis'

'NOS met fake news over Bolivia' (en zie de links over Bolivia en Morales in dat bericht)

'Venezuela: onafhankelijke journalisten ontmaskeren leugens over dit land bij presentatie voor de VN' (en zie de links over Venezuela en Maduro in dat bericht)

'Nieuwe VS sancties tegen Iran zullen een groot aantal mensen het leven kosten, ofwel: hier is sprake van een grove misdaad tegen de menselijkheid'

'Moord op Iraanse nucleaire wetenschapper mogelijk aanzet om oorlog met Iran uit te lokken' (en zie de links in dat bericht over Iran) 

'EU sprak over sancties tegen Wit-Rusland, terwijl men Brazilië en Saoedi-Arabië laat begaan met het uitvoeren van genocides' (en zie de links in dat bericht)

'Heavy metal band Sepultura zet zich in voor het redden van volkeren in het Amazonewoud' (en zie voor meer berichten over Brazilië en bosbranden de links in dat bericht, ouder dan de hieronder getoonde)

'Dilma Rousseff afgezet, CIA coup gelukt........' (en zie de desbetreffende links in dat bericht)

Beste bezoeker, dit was het voor deze dag, morgen meer berichten, maak er zo mogelijk een mooide dag van. Tot morgen.