Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Zionist Media Targets Bolivian Muslims

(digitalwarriormedia) As Iran reels domestically from the contested results of last week’s national election, an effort to taint public opinion towards Bolivia and its relationship with the Muslim world continues.

Most recently the U.S. right-wing media jefe Fox News published an article claiming Bolivia is becoming a hotbed of Islamic extremism. The article cites a report by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The OSC report claims that the U.S. intelligence community is concerned with anti-American sentiments coming from “Muslim leaders” living in Bolivia. The article goes on to mention Bolivia’s cozy relationship with Iran.

Despite the fact that Muslims account for 1,000 of Bolivia’s 9.7 million inhabitants and anti-U.S. sentiment can be found in most sectors of Bolivian society, U.S. officials and terror experts are keeping a watchful eye on the situation.

The OSC disseminates reports based upon public information which includes “gray literature”. Gray literature is not commercially published and thereby prone to lack proper sourcing and editorial control, says the Association of College & Research Libraries.

Therefore the associations cited in the OSC report between Muslim leaders in Bolivia and fellow Islamists in other parts of the world - namely Iran and Palestine - may or may not have been properly vetted. Other commentary in the Fox News.com article came from a U.S. intelligence official speaking anonymously and a Latin American analyst at the (neoconservative) Heritage Foundation.

President Evo Morales has been widely criticized for close diplomatic and economic ties with Iran. Lately that criticism has materialized into U.S. and Israeli intelligence reports asserting covert activity between the two countries.

In May the AP reported that Bolivia and Venezuela were supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program. This information was based solely upon a 3-page report coming out of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Both the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments denied these accusations. Although Bolivia does have uranium deposits, according to Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu, Bolivia has no mining capability of the material.

Bolivia severed diplomatic relations with Israel in January over the bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians.






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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Massacre in the Andes

(digitalwarriormedia) The Bolivian government expressed its concern for the people of Peru, following a violent clash between indigenous protesters and Peru’s national police on Friday.

During a press conference on Monday, Vice President Álvaro García Linera condemned the tragic events that left at least 40 people dead when heavily armed police were ordered to clear about 2,500 Aguaruna and Wampi natives from an Amazon highway blockade near Bagua.

The actual number of dead and wounded is not completely clear. Telesur indicated at least 30 indigenous people were killed and 11 police officers, however Amnesty International put the number of police killed on Friday at 22.



According to the Associated Press ,“it was Peru's worst political violence since the Shining Path guerrillas(sic) were quelled in the mid-1990s.”

Amazon Watch, citing eyewitnesses, reports that the police opened fire on the peaceful protesters from helicopters, burned bodies of the dead and removed wounded people from the hospital - taking them to undisclosed locations.

The Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB) expressed its solidarity with their brethren in Peru.

"We sympathize with our brothers who are suffering massacres by helicopter, by land," said Isaac Avalos, executive secretary of the CSUTCB.

"These farmers, they are Aymaras, they are Quechuas - original peoples who are dying by the bullets of the Peruvian government and we cannot go to reinforce them, but from here {we offer} our support, our solidarity from the social movements in Bolivia."

According to ABI, campesinos in Bolivia and Ecuador declared Friday’s events against Peru’s native population a genocide and have warned about a regional “project of death” against indigenous people.

Indigenous social organizations in Bolivia have asked Andrés Andrago, the president pro tempore of the Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), to convene an emergency meeting in La Paz to address the events in Peru.

The standoff began April 9 when 65 indigenous tribes took to the roads and rivers in Peru’s Amazon region and took over oil facilities in order to repeal decrees approved by the administration of President Alan Garcia. Over 30,000 indigenous people have protested against the decrees, passed with “fast track” authority, that will enable oil, mining and timber companies to extract resources from native land without the consent of indigenous inhabitants.




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