by Ro’i Tov, Christian Israeli Dissident and Persecuted Refugee
July 2, 2012 (TSR) – Leonard Cohen got it wrong. It is not about Manhattan and Berlin. In late June 2012, it is obvious that the USA is conducting an indirect attack on two geographically central countries in South America: Paraguay and Bolivia. “First we take Paraguay, then we take Bolivia” Obama Cohen sings, and the CIA-crowd applauds.
Last week a parliamentarian-putsch took place in Paraguay. Since then, the situation in that country has deteriorated. Most South American countries called back their ambassadors in Paraguay.
Venezuela was the first to impose economic sanctions by stopping the supply of fuel to Paraguay. Mercosur—an EU-style union between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay—has suspended Paraguay’s membership.
Towards the end of this week an emergency conference of UNSASUR—a political forum of South American countries—will take place. The main topic will be the imposition of economic sanctions on Paraguay.
Brazil said it will wait until formal decisions are made, but it is almost sure it will support such sanctions. This is bad news for Paraguay, which nowadays is little more than Brazil’s veggies backyard.
The deposed Paraguayan president announced yesterday that he will begin a peaceful resistance against the American-backed usurpers. Meanwhile, street-violence and media-censorship by the new government continues.
Unsurprisingly, the CNN provides pretty images of Paraguay while claiming that everything is calm there, while Venezuelan teleSUR and other local networks provide live images of ongoing violence. “First we take Paraguay, then we take Bolivia” Obama Cohen sings.
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READ: Latin America Outraged By the US-instigated and Carefully Organized
Illegal Presidential Coup in Paraguay
Latin America Under Surveillance of US SouthCom
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Last month, I published Gas in La Paz, a review of the ongoing massive protests against Evo Morales’ government. A few days ago, I got an email from one of my subscribers with a lengthy article on the Colquiri miners’ strike, which replaced the “butchers” (Bolivian healthcare sector)-strike as the most violent one; apparently I had been expected to report on this event.
It showed me how difficult is to portray the exact picture of what’s going on in Bolivia. If I were to report on every strike taking place, this website would be exclusively dedicated to this topic. Since then, the miners left La Paz. Nowadays, the TIPNIS highway protests are reemerging and—more important—the Bolivian police began a wild nationwide strike that includes violent marches in which dynamite sticks are used.
Yesterday, June 25, 2012, they occupied Plaza Murillo in front of the Congress and the Presidential Palace. Documents and furniture of government offices were burned by the angry policemen. Even after this, I wasn’t planning to comment on the issue. After all, dynamite is used by almost all protesters here.
Consequently, in recent polls, Evo Morales got less than 25% support for another term as president. Yesterday, he threw a political-bomb on the protesters, when he disclosed what many already knew: the Bolivian police protests are being managed by American infiltrators. Bolivian Vice President declared ion the same day that the police force is attempting a coup d’état in Bolivia. This is very similar to what happened last week in Paraguay.
The CIA involvement with South American police and military forces is not new. Operation Condor provided the most public testimony of that. Inside the Company: CIA Diary by Philip Agee provides a very detailed review of how is that achieved on a daily basis. I expanded on this issue in The Cross of Bethlehem II.
Bolivia has complex relations with the USA. At the beginning of 2008, the Bolivian news was filled with evidence of widespread political activity by the police force. Eventually, the local police officially confirmed their surveillance of politicians and journalists. The exposure was the result of internal wars between commandants of rival surveillance units. The officers’ public statements showed the heavy influence of their personal interests in the decision to take the fight to the newspapers.
It also exposed their basic disregard of the law and its principles. Probably, these events played a role in the 2008 widespread protests which began a bit later, on August 19, and reached their peak in what is locally known as the “Bolivian 9/11,” when protesters in Pando were shot under the local governor’s orders.
Following the expulsion of American Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg things calmed down quickly. Roughly at the same time the DEA, which was eradicating coca while the CIA supported the plantations, was expelled by President Morales.
Overall, the government claims that the USA was planning a coup d’état were credible. On June 23, 2011, General René Sanabria and one of his accomplices, Juan Marcelo Foronda Azero, pled guilty to charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy in a Miami courtroom.
At the time of his capture, while transporting 144 kilograms of cocaine (February 14, 2011, in Panama, by the DEA—was this their revenge for their expulsion in 2008?), General Sanabria was the Director of Central Intelligence for Bolivia. Before that he was the commander of the special anti-drug police force in Bolivia (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico, aka FELCN). He also faces charges in Chile where he was filmed by undercover agents offering to sell them over $5 million dollars of cocaine.
Until then, General Sanabria had been a very close adviser of President Morales. To summarize, Bolivia is not the typical CIA-run Banana-Republic; it needs nothing from the USA, while the USA needs the “special sugar” produced by it. Probably, the USA would also be happy to gain access to the very rich mineral resources of Bolivia, which include large amounts of recently discovered uranium, silver, iron and others. However, under the current regime that’s not possible.
Why Paraguay and Bolivia?
The USA attempt to control the central part of South America is not new. During the above-mentioned 2008 coup d’état, it was published that the American army was planning to use an air force base in Paraguay as part of its assault on Bolivia.
In June 2012, one of the affairs filling Argentinean media is the establishment of an American army base in the Chaco Province. The Argentinean Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that the Argentinean government had sanctioned its presence. Hysteric government officials showed empty warehouses and assured there was nothing in the base, not even soldiers (if so, why does it exist?).
Unsurprisingly, the base provides good access to Paraguay and Bolivia. In Bolivia there are claims that there is a secret NASA base in the Bolivian Amazonian Basin. All these are not casual; beyond direct control on its rich resources, the area provides strategic military access to much of the continent. The USA needs such access because a new superpower is gaining territory in South America.
In the last days, Paraguay’s membership in the Mercosur was suspended. The putsch and the subsequent suspension came shortly before a Mercosur conference was scheduled; during this event the signature of significant treaties between the Mercosur and China is expected.
For the first time, the agreements go beyond the supply of resources from South America to China. The new agreements deal with the creation of processing plants in South America. A few months ago, in Venezuela, Iran, China and the “Axis of Piracy” I expanded on the rapidly developing relations between China and Venezuela.
In fact, China already controls much of the Venezuelan economy. To American horror, its “backyard”—as defined by the imperialistic Monroe Doctrine—is not a backyard anymore, but a road to China. Sabotaging Mercosur’s agreements with the latter and attempting to gain access to some of the world’s richest mines is an acceptable goal of Obama Cohen, even at the expense of massive human rights violations. After all, why should the USA worry about a few deaths and the misery of entire societies, when Obama Cohen controls the CNN reports?
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AUTHOR: Ro’i Tov
Ro’i Tov is a Christian Israeli dissident and refugee persecuted by the State of Israel. He is a graduate—among others—of Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. In addition to his memoir, Tov is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Physics and other scientific journals. He won various travel writing and photography awards. Tov grew up as an outsider in the tight-knit kibbutz along the Jordan Valley. In The Cross of Bethlehem II: Back in Bethlehem, Tov seeks to share how he was caught between staying steadfast in his Christian faith and remaining obedient to his country’s military. Caught in a military that challenges his spiritual and moral beliefs, Tov achieved the rank of captain while serving in the IDF. When he left Israel and threatened to disclose the details of what he’s witnessed to the world, Tov became a refugee, traveling to Thailand, China, the United States and Bolivia, where he became first a refugee, and afterwards a political prisoner. In July 2009 he was cowardly and brutally attacked and nearly strangled to death by Israeli Mossad agents (in cooperation with locals). He was awarded formal political asylum under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, following an unsuccessful assassination attempt on him by Israel. For decades Tov has been monitored, followed, trapped, poisoned and brutally beaten to get him to shut up, and although he has been silenced from speaking in public due to the damage inflicted upon his throat he cannot be silenced on the Internet or on printed page, because he is driven to share the story of his soul.
