1. 1
Saturday, April 03, 2010
The U.S. Lets an Ex-President Stand Trial for its Clandestine
Collusion with the Bolivian Military
Readers:
Thank you for your positive reaction to our April Fools Day Blog on the plan to
make Bolivia and Venezuela one country. We especially thank those of you
who fell for it and reproduced it as news.
This Blog post is not a joke. It is dead serious, a special report on how the U.S.
went behind the back of a democratic President and today lets that former
leader hang in the wind on treason charges because "politics" won't permit
Washington to tell the truth. This is the case of the Chinese missiles and the
wrongful prosecution of former President Eduardo Rodriguez. The report
includes documents from both the U.S. and Bolivian governments never before
published in public.
Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center
The U.S. Lets an Ex-President Stand Trial for its Clandestine Collusion
with the Bolivian Military
Over the past four years, Bolivian President Evo Morales has leveled one
charge after another that the U.S. does not respect Bolivian sovereignty and
that it has meddled in the country's domestic affairs.
Some of those charges have been based on substance. It is suspicious that
Ambassador Phillip Goldberg went on a tour in September 2008 to visit the
country's opposition governors, just on the eve of their launching a series of hot
street rebellions against Morales. It is also a fact that an Embassy official
illegally solicited Fulbright Scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to scrounge

2. 2
up intelligence for the Embassy.
Other times Morales' charges
against the U.S. have been just silly. This includes the infamous photo (right)
taken of a smiling Goldberg on the floor of the Santa Cruz fair, Epocruz, along
side a supposed Colombian paramilitary operative. To cite the photo as
evidence of a U.S. conspiracy, as Morales did at a summit of Latin American
Presidents, is to assume that the U.S. Embassy prefers to hold its clandestine
meetings amidst thousands of people sampling local fruits and machinery.
There is however another recent case of U.S. intervention in Bolivia's domestic
affairs that goes far, far beyond meddling. It is a case that involves the U.S.
Pentagon colluding with the Bolivian Army behind a President's back. It involves
the clandestine removal of Bolivian arms for shipment to the U.S. It involves the
proffer of a $400,000 payment by the Pentagon to the leaders of Bolivia's
armed forces, again behind the back of the President. And it is a case that is not
based on conjecture but on hard evidence, including documents we are
publishing here in this post.
If the Morales government is looking for evidence of U.S. disregard for Bolivia's
sovereignty, then this is the case upon which that charge can be made and
made clearly. Instead however, the Bolivian government is letting the U.S. off
the hook and pinning the blame, wrongly, on the former President behind whose
back the U.S. conspired.
This is the story of the U.S. theft of Bolivia's surface-to-air missiles, and of the
wrongful prosecution of former President Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze.
The Chinese Missiles
In August of 1986, four Bolivian military officials went to China on a shopping
expedition for weapons. Their wish list mainly included guns and bullets, some
3,300 of the first and millions of the second. After a long period of negotiations,
the weapons were finally purchased with a loan by the Chinese government of
$2 million. Later, in October 1997, when one batch of those weapons arrived in
Bolivia, military officials discovered something else in the mix – what many

3. 3
Bolivians would call una yappa, like the extra tomato a vegetable seller might
add in as a thank you for purchasing the other twenty.
Included in the crates
that arrived were thirty HN-5 Chinese surface-to-air missiles, known in the
military trade as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS). Bolivia
suddenly had what some in the military liked to refer to as an "air defense
system."
In the course of this investigation I had a long conversation with a Canadian
arms specialist who works for the UN on weapons destruction projects (who
spoke on condition of not being identified by name). He told me that the
Chinese surface to air missiles like those shipped to Bolivia were considered
the "Yugo" of MANPADS. In other words, they were poorly made to begin with
and even more useless over time. "It's the Russian models that you want," he
told me.
Maybe it was for that reason that the Bolivian Army was reluctant to test them. It
was three years later, in 2000, when the Army finally took a shot at firing one.
These missiles are small weapons, thin tubes about five feet long and weighing
just twenty pounds. Their lethal qualities come not from their size or range but
their function. Used against aircraft, the missiles aim for the heat emitted from
the exhaust pipe and tunnel right inside before exploding. They attack a plane

4. 4
or helicopter at its weak spot, in the way that Luke Skywalker took out the
Empire's Death Star through a tiny ventilation shaft.
That particular knowledge of the missiles' mechanism must have been lost on
Bolivia's Army in its La Paz test launch. According to sources, the missile fired
and then went crazy, flailing around in the air and sending soldiers diving for
cover. It then fell – a dud. The only other test attempted by the Army was in
2004 when the missile wouldn't fire at all. Its battery, like that of the rest of the
missiles, had gone dead.
U.S. interest in stripping other countries of their surface to air missiles began
not long after the September 11, 2001 attacks. That effort to find and
decommission stockpiles of the MANPADS got a key push in 2005 by a
bipartisan team of U.S. Senators, Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana and a
freshman Democrat from Illinois, Barack Obama. Speaking of the MANPADS
Lugar said. “Such weapons could be used by terrorists to attack commercial
airliners, military installations and government facilities here at home and
abroad. Al Qaeda reportedly has attempted to acquire MANPADS on a number
of occasions.”
The focus of the U.S. hunt for these weapons was on the Russian-made variety,
which were considered serious weapons and loose in the world in great
numbers. Why the U.S. suddenly took such an obsessive interest in Bolivia's
outdated junk-MANPADS in the middle of 2005 is a subject of speculation and
theory – but an obsessive interest it took.
The Unlikely President
In most countries of the world the men and women who become President do
so only after decades of careful plotting and positioning. Eduardo Rodriguez
became the President of Bolivia with about 30 minutes notice and he wasn't
very happy at all about the prospect.
On the night of June 10, 2005, as Bolivia was
spiraling into nationwide chaos, the scholarly Chief Justice of the country's
Supreme Court was watching the news on television with his wife and getting
ready to go to bed when his telephone rang. It was the President of the Senate,

5. 5
Hormando Vaca Diez.
For days, Bolivia's social movements had paralyzed the country with a series of
protests and road blockades demanding nationalization of the nation's gas and
oil. The protesters were furious with the watered down gas and oil reforms
being pushed by President Carlos Mesa, and Mesa was once again repeating
his penchant for threatening resignation to try to cajole the Congress and the
country his way.
Mesa's resignation gaming had set off a monumental power struggle between
he and Vaca Diez, the next in the line of succession. When his rivals called
Mesa's bluff and told him to send the resignation right over, Mesa refused if it
meant that the right-wing Senator would take control (Vaca Diez had declared
publicly that his answer to the protests would be to crush them with the military).
That night in June the Congress had fled the capital in La Paz, where the social
movements had made it impossible to meet. Instead the Congress sought to
convene in a surprise session in Sucre where it would accept Mesa's
resignation and swear in Vaca Diez. The social movements, led by dynamite-
wielding miners from Potosi, surrounded the Congress in session and blocked
members' exit to the airport. Bolivia was on the verge of exploding.
Over the phone, Vaca Diez explained that he, President Mesa, and the leader
of the House of Deputies, Mario Cossio, had finally agreed to the only deal they
could think of to keep Bolivia from rolling off the precipice. Mesa would resign
and the two Congressional leaders would relinquish their right to succession.
That meant that Rodriguez as head of the Supreme Court would have to
assume the Presidency, a move which would also trigger automatic elections
within six months. "Do you agree to do this?" Vaca Diez asked him. Rodriguez
knew he didn't have any choice.
After hanging up the phone and changing back into a suit and tie, Rodriguez
found himself an hour later speaking live before the Congress and the nation. "I
didn't even have a speech prepared," Rodriguez told me, explaining the odd
and dramatic events that night. "I had to make it up as I went along."
Afterwards Rodriguez was up until 4am getting briefed by the nation's generals
on one standoff after another around the country where the Army and the social
movements were on the verge of open warfare with one another. As he
recounted the events of the night he told me, "You can't imagine the stress.
Presidents come into office with a whole team of people they have worked with.
I was totally alone."
The next morning Rodriguez's two young children awoke to discover that their
father was now the President. As he walked the two out his front door in Sucre
to the car that would take them to school, the children looked wide-eyed at the
line-up of television cameras and the swarm of armed soldiers roaming around
their home. Rodriguez told me that is seven-year-old son looked up at him and
said, "Dad, you are the President. What are you going to do?"

6. 6
In the landscape of Bolivian politics, Rodriguez is an oddity. He came to the
Presidency not as a lifelong politician, nor as a social movement leader. He
rose to lead the Supreme Court based on a respected and squeaky-clean
record as a lawyer and public servant. In Latin America in 2005 there wasn't a
President anywhere that seemed a less likely candidate to be screwed by the
U.S.
Eduardo Rodriguez is the kind of man one might pass on the street and not
notice, even if you had seen him on television a number of times. At 54, with
scholarly glasses and a short graying hair, Rodriguez looks like the mild-
mannered lawyer he set out to be at an early age. He grew up in Cochabamba
across the street from Plaza Colon. His parents owned a local pharmacy and
Rodriguez was schooled nearby by the Jesuits at St. Augustine, a private
Catholic School which also graduated just a few years afterwards Morales' Vice
President, Alvaro Garcia Linera.
The first thing that set Rodriguez on the path toward law, he says, was a school
requirement that sent the clean-cut high school student to the San Sebastian
men's jail to help teach inmates to read. The school requirement was for two
months, Rodriguez stayed six. Injustice, he told me, was no longer a theory
taught in class.
Rodriguez second conversion experience came in 1973 during the year he
spent in Springfield Missouri as a high school exchange student. Night after
night the teenager from Cochabamba joined his host family and millions of
Americans as they watched the Senate Watergate hearings unfold on
television. Thinking about the brutal dictatorships back at home, Rodriguez was
mesmerized by a political system that brought down its President without a
shot.
Back in Bolivia he set his professional trajectory on public service. After
attending public university and law school, he got a job as junior staff to a
special Congressional committee investigating the country's most recent
dictatorships, an operation quickly shut down in 1980 with the arrival of yet
another coup. Later he won a USAID scholarship to attend the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard. On his return he helped build a new national
auditor's office, the stuff of numbers not revolution. In 1999 Rodriguez tossed
his hat in the ring for an improbable promotion, as a Justice of the country's
Supreme Court. Then candidates for the job were selected by a vote of
Congress. In a process overflowing with politics and party jockeying, the
unaffiliated Rodriguez ended up finishing first place in the Congressional vote.
Later he was elevated by his bench mates to be Chief Justice.
Then in September 2005, just three months after assuming the presidency,
Rodriguez discovered that the U.S. military officials and the Army chiefs under
his command had been mobilizing behind his back.
The U.S. Acts Behind the President's Back
During the last weekend of that September, President Rodriguez was on a rare

7. 7
trip away from Bolivia, to a Presidential summit in Brazil. That is when the
Bolivian Army and its U.S. counterparts decided to act.
On Sunday morning of that weekend a Bolivian military unit entered the
weapons storage facility in La Paz where the missiles were held and loaded
them on a truck for the drive uphill to El Alto. The 28 missiles that remained in
the Bolivian arsenal were taken to the base of the Bolivian Air Force where they
were transferred to a U.S. military aircraft and transported out of the country.
The President knew nothing of the operation, finding out about it only
afterwards.
Nor did President Rodriguez find out until afterwards about the four-page signed
document that the U.S. Pentagon left behind as a thank you, a September 30,
2005 "Mutual Cooperation Agreement" between Bolivia and the U.S. (read the
document here). It includes the following:
WHEREAS in recognition of the Republic of Bolivia's outstanding support of the
war on terrorism and as incentive to continue this support DoD [Department of
Defense] desires to transfer $400,000 to the Republic of Bolivia.
The Pentagon memorandum then leaves a series of blank spaces where the
Bolivian generals were expected to list the bank, bank account, and beneficiary
to which that $400,000 in Pentagon cash should be wired. The Bolivian
Generals could have listed anyone on the simple return form to Washington,
including themselves.
The whole manner in which the U.S. rushed to remove the missiles from the
Bolivian arsenal in the closing months of 2005 raises a series of crucial
questions.
First, why the rush and why behind the back of the democratic President of the
country?
The UN arms destruction specialist who I spoke with was astonished on this
point. "Handing over weapons to the UN or to another country for destruction is
an extremely political decision. Usually it requires an act of Congress."
Former President Rodriguez recounted a conversation he had with the then-
U.S. Ambassador, David Greenlee on this question. According to Rodriguez,
Greenlee told him, "We had to get them out. If we didn’t get them out then we
wouldn't be able to."
There are several theories about why the U.S. went rogue.
One has to do with the other big event taking place in Bolivia that September –
a historic Presidential election in which a fierce U.S. adversary, Evo Morales,
was surging to the lead. Was the U.S. really worried that two dozen outdated
missiles in the hands of Morales was some kind of threat?
According to Rodriguez and others, U.S. concerns about stray MANPADS
falling into the hands of Al Qaeda included charges of some form of terrorist

8. 8
presence on the Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay border. Witnesses in an Argentine
legal case reportedly testified that members of the Bolivian military had sold at
least one missile in the area and Rodriguez believes that reports like these
made the U.S. nervous about the possible slippage of the Bolivian MANPADS
into undesirable hands.
President Rodriguez, a man known to be a stickler for the law and correct
procedure, was not likely to give a stamp of approval to such a politicized action
as handing over missiles to the U.S. without submitting it to public disclosure
and proper consideration. And that undoubtedly would have spilled the U.S.
request over into a Morales administration.
Or was the U.S. trying to curry favor with the Bolivian military on the eve of a
Morales presidency? This is where the offered payment of $400,000 becomes
especially curious, especially given the informality with which the generals could
submit the designated beneficiary for that fortune. I asked the UN weapons
expert about the payment and the U.S. insistence that the missiles be removed
from Bolivia for destruction.
"Twenty-eight MANPADS? It's a simple process. You dig a hole three meters
wide and three meters deep in an unpopulated area, wrap them in a bundle with
some dynamite and explode them. If I were contracting it out it would be a day's
work and cost about $1,500."
Nearly half a million dollars is a mighty big thank you for such a small project. In
fact, it remains unclear why the U.S. wanted the missiles removed from Bolivia
at all, instead of just observing their destruction in some desolate hole in the
altiplano.
Speaking about the scandal to Voice of America, State Department Spokesman
Sean McCormick dismissed concerns that the U.S. had acted behind a
President's back. "As for who was told in Bolivia about the action, you'll have to
talk to the Bolivian government about that."
Given the long history of the U.S. colluding with militaries in the region behind
the backs of democratic leaders (see General Pinochet, Chile, 1973) one would
expect that the State Department understands that talking to the generals is not
enough.
Facing Trail for Treason and Left Hanging in the Wind by Uncle Sam
Last month the Morales government announced that it was going to accelerate
its efforts to prosecute a list of former Presidents, and included Eduardo
Rodriguez on the list. While the others face charges of corruption related to
foreign oil contracts, the case against Rodriguez, over the missiles, is
something altogether more serious. He faces charges of treason that can carry
up to thirty years in a Bolivian prison.
There is no question that Rodriguez was kept in the dark about the handover of
the missiles to Washington. In fact, upon discovering it, Rodriguez cancelled the

9. 9
$400,000 offer from Washington, demanded a full report (read the report
here), and fired both the head of the Army and the Minister of Defense.
Why the Morales administration is going after Rodriguez over the missiles,
instead of leveling those charges against Washington, is a mystery -- especially
given that the reason for the U.S. operation may have been fears of Morales
himself.
The U.S., for its part, knows it wronged Rodriguez and is letting him face life in
prison over a set of acts that it undertook not him. The former President claims
that several high level U.S. officials have admitted as much to him in private, but
say that the U.S. can't admit its actions in public for "political reasons." The
former exchange student to Missouri is being taught a new lesson about the
realities of U.S. politics, one not nearly so attractive as the accountability he
witnessed during Watergate. Today Rodriguez is looking at options for filing a
legal action against the U.S., on behalf of Bolivia and its people.
The U.S. has says often that it wants to build a new relationship with Bolivia,
including exchanging ambassadors again (the two countries kicked out their
respective ambassadors in September 2008). If it wants to do so it should start
by coming clean about its behind-the-back-of-democracy shenanigans that
September weekend in 2005. It should not let a decent man take the rap for the
Pentagon's suspicious maneuvers. And if the Morales government wants its
prosecution of other former Presidents, including Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada, to look like more than a political twitch, it should re-aim its sights on the
missile case to where those sights belong – on Washington.
posted by The Democracy Center at 1:51 PM
20 Comments:
Timothy Welsh said...
If you think the milk in Bolivia tastes weird, it does in Spain as well.
3:40 PM
Anonymous said...
"Why the Morales administration is going after Rodriguez over the
missiles, instead of leveling those charges against Washington is a
mystery"
Jim, you still don't get it...Morales is like GWB, "you are either with us or
against us." When he said that he will put Juan del Granado in
Chonchoroco (maximum security prison) for daring to break from the
political coalition and challenge his mayoral candidate, it shows his true
colors.
Please be more objective in all of this, it is not the romantic scene that
you like to paint.

10. 10
5:35 PM
Anonymous said...
thats my evo fuck those m.....f...........and
11:31 PM
Anonymous said...
Dr. Rodriguez doesn´t need to pay for general´s business,including
people who is very close to actual governor.
This trial is only a political move,injustice and not democratic laws are a
day by day issue in Bolivia.
11:58 PM
Anonymous said...
This is a resonating Pandora's box full of singing worms, but the tunes
they sing are anonymus...great lessons for everybody contemplating
coop deals with foreign interests, and following the chain of command
will suffice to draw a spectrum of guilt for the military to be exemplarily
punished for treason as the case merits. Now when it comes to Mr.
Rodriguez, whether his "cancellation" of the 400.000 $ meant pocketing
the sum, or brokering a free deal for Washington, is only anecdotal, he
owes the amount and must be made accountable for, that's where he
may learn his ultimate lesson of what to expect from the DoD, on behalf,
or in spite of the RoB. LPF/EFI
2:29 AM
locojhon said...
In Bolivia, those missiles were a big deal at the time--as they involved not
only national security, but perhaps more importantly, national sovereignty
and pride.
I'm pretty certain it is panning out something like this:
The military still has great strength in Bolivia, and the ties to the US are
strong, long-lasting and run deep in the military leadership, especially.
The Morales government has asked for documentation on this and other
cases, and the Generals' response has been to stall with one excuse
after another, or provide partial documentation or to flat-out simply stone-
wall and refuse.
Under previously corrupted governments, many in the military were
tested, vetted and trained at the SOA/WHINSEC in the USA, to then
return to Bolivia where they infiltrated and advanced in the hierarchy. The
treasonous missile transfer was as a result of that corrupting influence,
as the new documentation reveals.
Today, in spite of policies in place that facilitate prosecution--by offering
freedom to those who are proved to be ordered to commit irregularities
from above--the military is well dug in to protect themselves from below.
The trial of the (honorable) President Rodriguez is the only way that
Morales can purge the highest ranks of the military of its traitors--by

11. 11
going at them from above.
Rodriguez will be acquitted and returned to the court, the Generals fired
with pensions lost, and the military purged of those who work in service
to the US, as opposed to Bolivia.
In the process, more documents will be brought to light that will confirm
long-standing US involvement in the internal affairs of Bolivia, and the
corrupting influence it has had on the Bolivian military and ruling elite.
In the longer term, this case might be the keystone that when removed,
destroys the edifice of US benevolence in Latin America--one country at
a time, with Bolivia leading the way.
Thanks to the administration of Evo Morales, Bolivia is regaining its
sovereignty day by day--and a likely US-inspired military insurrection and
coup averted--all without firing a shot.
Viva Bolivia, and Evo Morales!
Locoto
8:33 AM
Anonymous said...
No one would had described the Bolivian government as stable in those
days. The president resigned under pressure, others abdicated, a stand-
in placed in office for 6 months, a potentially hostile government in the
offing...no one knew what was going to happen.
Unstable governments are notorious sources of weapons - remember the
days after the USSR fell, when entire fighter aircraft and tanks were sold
on the black market? Even low grade weapons like the ones described
can be repaired, and even a failed attack can do great political damage.
The nightmare the open society of America faced was heat seeking
missiles launched by terrorists who smuggled them into the US. One
crash was being investigated as a possible missile attack in New York.
So the US bought potentially lethal weapons - you'd rather they send in
the Marines and take them? Or should the US wait until more of its
people are murdered, then file a useless complaint with the UN?
It is the Bolivian government who is unjustly prosecuting an innocent
man. Blaming the US is disingenuous at best.
8:55 AM
Anonymous said...
Locoto, or maybe you should think about why your good buddy Evo
wants to go after the US on anything but this one. Who is he so afraid of,
the Bolivian Army?
If you don't see something fishy here you stopped sniffing.
9:34 AM
Anonymous said...
8:55 Got it, the bottom line is the US can do whatever the f*** it wants,
forget whether there is another sovereign nation involved. How about

12. 12
rendition flights from Bolivia for MAS members that make the US
nervous? Same principle, no?
Glad to see the Embassy is reading and commenting on the Blog.
9:37 AM
Anonymous said...
I recall that before the whole Autonomia/dos Tercios campaigns in the
East against Morales which were designed to split the country, the first
head of the hydra to raise itself was indeed that of a La Paz based ex-
General who called for a Spanish style rising rising against the govt -
Antezana, I think his name was - but they processed him for treason
more or less immediately.It does indeed look as though Secretary of
State Rummy's first plan of attack against Bolivian democracy involved
an old style coup.
The response of the weapons expert you spoke to really contextualises
this.It does indeed look as though Sec Rummy was palming a big gold
coin into the hands of some old, long neglected friends to remind them
who paid their rents.And the Bolivian govt. should take notice of what you
say.If this guy is who you say he is they should not accuse the wrong
people.
12:56 PM
locojhon said...
@anon 8:55,,,
I remember the unsubstantiated/propagandist fear-provoking reports of
fighters and tanks being sold on the Russian black market, but have
never seen any authenticated accounts of any. As a matter of fact,
neither can Google. If you are not pumping out bullshit, certainly you can
provide proof of it, can't you? (I'll wait while breathing.)
Nice false-choice you presented—either steal them or invade. It is
interesting that you defend illegal means to obtain the missiles, instead of
through legal means.
No--no reason or even pretense for a reason for the US to attack Bolivia.
No reason for the US to do anything other than to investigate who really
was responsible for 9-11--because it certainly wasn't 19 Muslims directed
by OBL from some cave. The 9-11 Commission report is cover to cover,
nothing but bullshit that you have apparently swallowed entirely.
Despite Monroe Doctrine suggestions to the contrary, LA is not the
territory of the USA, nor are the sovereign nations, including Bolivia,
subject to US control. The most-destructive terrorist nation in the world is
the USA, not some internally-invented "war on terrorism".
The rest of the world sees this, and it's about time you did too.
@anon 9:34,,,
Yes,,,some of the military higher-ups, especially those trained by the US
in SOA/WHINSEC, as well as those trained/promoted under them in
successionary roles are historically feared, and with good reason, too.
Though they try to resist the Executive, the military will not go against the

13. 13
courts or refuse the legal court orders--and they know it is futile to try.
Those who know they will be tried and convicted will try to leave and
claim asylum elsewhere--like Miami--where they will feel right at home
with other like criminals.
And with each one, little by little, Bolivia regains its sovereignty.
@anon 9:37--re. Embassy reading--I was thinking the same thing.
@anon 12:56--you bring up additional supportive points. With every dot
connected, the picture becomes ever clearer. Thank you.
Viva Bolivia, and Evo Morales!
locoto
1:46 PM
Anonymous said...
Loco: You left out that the moon walk was a hoax, JFK was killed by
Martians, and George Bush was actually a woman. Then your analysis
would be complete.
2:16 PM
Anonymous said...
It Could have been an upfront payment to stop Morales, but, even
if the military had orquestrated a military coup, the INDIANS WOULD
HAVE
HANGED THE MILITARY THEM IN THE STREETS.
THIS IS NO LONGER 1952 WHEN THE INDIANS WERE TREATED AS
ANIMALS, THIS IS THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY, CELL PHONES,
INTERNET, RADIOS, ETC, THE INDIANS
WOULD HAVE ORGANIZED THEMSELVES AND PRETTY MUCH
SHUT DOWN THE WHOLE COUNTRY UNTIL THE MILITARY IS
HANGED AND LEAVE.
THE OTHER OPTION WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR THEM TO GO TO
SANTA CRUZ AND BURN IT DOWN, SINCE IT IS WHERE A MILITARY
COUP WOULD HAVE BEEN LAUNCHED.
MANY INDIANS STATED THAT THERE WAS A PLAN TO TAKE THE
CITY OF SANTA CRUZ AND BURN IT DOWN AND THE INDIANS
WOULD HAVE MOVED THEIR BASES TO THAT CITY. AT THE
PRESENT THERE IS A PLAN TO INCREASE INDIAN PRESENCE AND
INDIAN INSTITUTIONS LIKE THE "RED PONCHOS" AND OTHER
INDIAN GROUPS TO START THEIR MOVEMENTS IN SANTA CRUZ.
IT WOULD BE HARD TO MAINTAIN A MILITARY COUP IN THIS DAY
AND AGE. THEY WOULD HAVE TO VIRTUALLY KILL 8 MILLION
INDIANS TO IMPOSE SUCH A MESURE TO APPEASE FOREIGN
POWERS LIKE THE U.S.
BUT, EVERYONE KNOWS IN BOLIVIA THAT THE U.S. HAS

14. 14
FOMENTED THE OPPOSITION, MOST LIKELY VIA FINANCIAL AND
ASSYLUM AND WILL PROBABLY CONTINUE TO DO SO, YET
MORALES HAS MADE IT KNOWN THAT HE WILL INCREASE AND
FOMENT MASS INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE ORIENT AND THE
ESTABLISHEMENT OF NEW CITIES IN THE ORIENT WHICH HAVE
BEEN NEGLECTED AND BECOME HOT BEDS FOR SEPARATISTS.
5:28 PM
Anonymous said...
thanks Jim for a very interesting article and thanks to the posters,
especially locoto, who show just how insane Evo's hard core supporters
are.
There are plenty of Veltzes in Bolivia. People who had no connection to
the corrupt leaders of the past, but who are now persecuted simply
because of the color of their skin, because they got some education, or
they did their best to better themselves.
People should realize from this article, that the US is simply protecting its
interests, that there is no grand conspiracy, or anything like some of the
posters say. From the Monroe doctrine, to Plan Condor, to the war on
Drugs, the US is doing that not a single Bolivian President has been able
or cared to do: put their country's interests above anything.
8:00 PM
Anonymous said...
I can agree with Anonymous @ 800PM. I can see how some americans
would be proud of its government for protecting its interests, I also agree
with the fact that most likely no bolivian president has ever done that for
Bolivia. But one should wonder if any citizen should be proud of its
government when it breaks international law or does what the US has
done all over the place to protect its interests... I'm sure many germans
felt proud during WWII when their government started a big war where
millions perished, I'm pretty sure we can also argue the german
government was indeed watching for its country's interests. I guess when
nationalism gets in the way, objectivism goes out the window.
10:55 PM
Anonymous said...
I know Eduardo. Since he was a youth. He always was a wuzz. As
Bolivia's commander-in-chief of the armed force, the buck stops with him.
President Morales is correct to seek to have Eduardo tried and held
accountable for his acts of treason, high crimes, malfeasance and gross
negligence (willful or otherwise). His collusion is obvious by the fact that
he neglected to prosecute the responsible Bolivian military leader who
acted as agents for the US. Instead, he covered it up. Fortunately,
President Morales will make "pagar para los platos rotos".

15. 15
12:45 AM
Anonymous said...
The United States did a great favor to Bolivia, the Western Hemisphere,
and the world for removing potential terrorist weapons from a hostile
government. Our eternal thanks!
7:40 AM
Anonymous said...
Jim, who is the anonymous "UN arms destruction specialist" you claim
you spoke to and who are the "former high US level officials" Rodriguez
claims he spoke to?
If we're to believe your report from anonymous sources, I claim that a
headless alien from the Andromeda galaxy mated with a chuño to spawn
Morales because an unanymous yatiri told me so.
Really, really!
8:46 AM
Anonymous said...
Anon 10:55 do not make the mistake of reductio ad hitlerum, it just does
not apply. Hitler was not protecting the Germany's interests by killing
jews. As far as breaking international law, that is a more sticky point.
First common sense should prevail, specially since any one vote in the
Security council can negate a legitimate claim.
Anon 12:45 let's extend your logic...ergo, Evo Morales should be in jail
for protecting the killers of Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, Luis Espinal,
etc???
However, it would be worthwhile for someone to tell us why Evo is so
fearful of some people like the FFAA, Quintana, Morales Davila, and
other well known and well proven criminals, yet is a huge bully to some
powerless bureaucrats?
10:21 AM
Anonymous said...
This is political persecution, has nothing to do with the US. President
Sanchez de Lozada's trial is a political persecution? Yes, this is how the
"rule of law" is used in Bolivia, again has nothing to do with the US.