U.S. Waives Drug Sanctions on Bolivia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

U.S. Waives Drug Sanctions on Bolivia
By MATTHEW LEE – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration has decided to waive penalties against the world's third-leading producer of coca, finding that Bolivia has done enough to fight the production and sale of the cocaine precursor to warrant a reprieve.

The decision came in a report sent to Congress on Friday that lists 20 nations, including Bolivia, as "major drug transit" or "major drug producing" countries that can be subject to punitive measures from the United States.

But, it finds that Bolivia, which has long been a concern, has taken adequate steps to stave off the sanctions. Last year, there was heated debate about whether the government in La Paz deserved a pass and Washington delayed a decision.

The report, to be released Monday by the State Department, was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its official release. It concludes that the same 20 countries as in 2006 are the world's leading producers or transit points for drugs.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g2H_SND8VDmRo0PfkzIYwW_-tbLQ

[Mr Rabble]

1. This is mind boggling.

How is it that the US thinks it has any right to do anything about about another countries agricultural products? How is it that the US feels it can tell anyone, anywhere what they can or can not grow?

While that thought alone should be enough to incite ridicule on behalf of thinking people everywhere, we can look at one more factor:

Tobacco.

US tobacco kills more people around the world in one year than all other "drugs" combined, and yet we hear of no move to punish the US for allowing the Carolina's to produce a lethal product.

Most disturbing? Stories like this will pass with absolutely no comment about the absurdity of perceived US power.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. The US doesn't 'tell' other countries what they can grow

The US provides financial incentives for these countries to not grow certain crops. No one is forcing them to take the money.

[Mr Rabble]

10. Not quite. The incentive is to not get bombed.

When the most powerful nation on earth- (which has basically been run by genocidal maniacs over the last 30 years)- "negotiates" about which crops to subsidize in whichever 3rd world country it is bullying, there isnt much of a choice for the smaller nation.

The US leadership is really telling these countries, "You are there to be milked by the US. If you make any attempt to change the way we want things, we will quite simply replace your leadership and kill lots of your people."

So we can drop this absolute bullshit line about subsidies without question.

[Mr Rabble]

11. LOL. Yes, I am very much aware.

Gunboat diplomacy.

I have a pretty good grasp on what US leadership has done to Latin America over the past 120 years. Really though, I am much more knowledgeable about our "involvement" over the last 30 or so years.

I was merely trying to make the point that yet again, as it was in the 1980's all of this will just simply not be discussed ever in the US mainstream press.

But please, continue to post relevant material from Latin American atrocities at the hands of US leadership.

[Judi Lynn]

9. I'm sure you're very well aware the U.S. has been bullying, intimidating Bolivia, as well as all the

others, a long, LONG time. The almost recent attachment to telling them they can't grow their ancient plant, coca, is relatively new, happening long after certain U.S. Presidents brought hell to that country and dumped it out upon them.
(Not the least was the assault on Bolivia's poor through a _{Bush the Elder} connected company, the Bechtel Company and its subsidiary which attempted to steal the very water from them, including the water in streams, rivers, lakes, and even trying to charge the peasants for trying to gather rainwater in barrels!)

BEFORE any of this happened, they were hard at work in other ways:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia

In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.
(snip/)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html



Hugo Banzer embracing another right-wing beloved puppet, bloody butcher Augusto Pinochet.

[Mr Rabble]

2. And here we go-

[EST]

3. Wow? Cool pic.

May I steal it? Please?

[Mr Rabble]

4. Of course. I stole the URL myself.

I dont host that pic, so have at it.

I came up with it doing a simple Google search.

[EST]

5. Thanks.

I think (or hope) this is actually a recognition of the continuing slide of US imperialism. It certainly sounds like a bit of "go cheney yourself" got sent along the back channels.

I have been campaigning against the various drug wars this country has waged over the last thirty-five years, and, although I am quite clear about the stubbornness of the foot draggers and money grubbers in charge, I did not expect it would take the toppling of the country to third-world status to achieve change!

[Mr Rabble]

6. Unfortunately, it will take just that:

Absolute collapse will be the only thing that wakes up the slumbering populace.

Even then, there will still be moneyed interests trying to keep us all asleep.

In this case, Bolivia provides an excellent example of the utter hypocrisy of US policy. Our agro-business exports, heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer, have largely ruined all possible farming opportunities for peasants in Bolivia (among many other Latin American countries) forcing them to grow coca as an absolute last resort.

And then the US decides to deal with the coca growers, (which it created), by nothing short of terrorist activities in many cases.

Again, no mention of this EVER makes it into "the news".

[Judi Lynn]

7. Bolivia's Morales says elites resent Indian power

Bolivia's Morales says elites resent Indian power
Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:18pm BST
By Eduardo Garcia

RIBERALTA, Bolivia, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales says wealthy elites are trying to block his leftist reforms because they do not like having an Indian leading the South American country.

Less than two years since becoming Bolivia's first indigenous leader, Morales is facing fierce opposition from rightist rivals and sometimes-violent street protests have flared in the poor nation in recent months.

Morales, who herded llamas in the Andes as a boy before farming coca, told Reuters in an interview discrimination persisted against the indigenous majority in Bolivia.

"What worries me most are the actions of the oligarchy, the dirty war. Discrimination continues," he said late on Saturday on a military plane from the Amazon town of Riberalta.

"In some cities, groups of people talk about wearing out the Indian, knocking the Indian out ... They cannot accept that an Indian is governing well," said Morales, dressed in jeans.

More:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1626598520070916