Chavez' Master Plan?

From Petroleumworld.com - speculation on what long-term goals Chavez might have:

Chavez's "Master Plan"


Hugo Chavez is winning the energy war in Latin America. His three goals are
very simple. He wants the following:

-- to drive Petrobras and Brazilian influence out of Bolivia;

-- to drive Occidential Petroleum and US influence out of Ecuador; and

-- finally, to convince China to displace the US as Venezuela's
primary energy partner

,

Complete article by Scott Sullivan here.

That first "objective" makes some sense.

Brazil through Petrobras - which is partially State-owned- has been a critical player in developing Bolivia's natural gas industry in the 90's. They funded a good chunk of the construction of the pipeline from Bolivia to Sao Paulo, a move that was controversial (in Brazil) at the time. The expense was justified by Brazil's long established plans to rely much more on natural gas, and wean itself off oil. It also served a foreign policy goal of assisting its neighbor Bolivia, hopefully stabilizing it. And it further reinforced the strategic partnership Bolivia had with Brazil, that had started in earnest under Banzer to the detriment of the Argentinians.

For Chavez, promoting instability in Bolivia, creates trouble for Brazil/Petrobras. Chavez suddenly has more leverage vis a vis Brazil through his close relationship with the "Social Movements" in Bolivia. But there probably is a less ideological or geo-political reason behind this. If Bolivia is too uncertain a supplier of natural gas, who better than Venezuela? After all the country is the holder of the largest gas reserves in the Continent, and is a neighbor.

OLE!!! Felicitaciones Oriol, First Win

The Catalonian Champ Car driver, pinch-hitting for the injured Bruno Junquiera in Newman Haas Racing, finally got that elusive first win at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on Sunday. Oriol started second and fell to third, but after a restart he made a banzai move on Justin Wilson and took second. He then proceeded to run down German driver Timo Glock who made two blocking moves to hold off the hard-charging Spaniard. The race stewarts penalized Glock for the second move, and gave Oriol the position for the win.
Oriol is one of the nicest guys in the paddock, and deserves this win, not only for his persistence, but also for the sheer agression he showed on the track Sunday. Read the whole story, here, here, and here.







Photo by Michael Levitt, USA LAT Photographic








Photo by Michael Levitt, USA LAT Photographic

Duro! Daddy Yankee in New York Times

Alerted to this by Clemenseando

Reggaetón's Big Star Hits the Big Time

By JON PARELES
Published: August 25, 2005

Madison Square Garden isn't the biggest place Daddy Yankee has performed. He has already headlined soccer stadiums across Latin America. But his show on Saturday night at the Garden is to be a milestone both for Daddy Yankee and for the music he now dominates: reggaetón, the Puerto Rican hybrid of hip-hop, Jamaican dancehall and salsa, sung and rhymed in Spanish with a touch of Spanglish. Now Daddy Yankee is taking reggaetón on its first American arena tour.


It begins at the Garden and winds up, nine cities later, in San Jose, Calif. Reggaetón has conquered parties, clubs and lately radio; Daddy Yankee's hit "Gasolina" reached MTV and the playlists of many hip-hop stations, and he has a new hit, "Like You," with lyrics in English and Spanish. Both songs are from his 2004 album, "Barrio Fino" (VI/Universal), which has sold three million copies in the United States alone. Daddy Yankee guesses that at least half a million were sold to English-speaking fans who just liked the sound.

The Rest Here

Dang, Daddy Yankee hitting it big-time!

While some folks from the Spanish-speaking perspective might be getting sick of reggaetón, it comes as a fresh shot in the arm for hip-hop in general, which could use the infusion of energy and beats.

Through the years, the Latin audience in the United States has been divided by regional tastes. Mexican audiences favor Mexican styles, Puerto Ricans and Cubans prefer salsa, Dominicans support bachata and merengue. Latin pop has tried to pull together a pan-American audience with sentimental ballads and light rock. But musicians and fans have grown confident that reggaetón will be the street music that unites younger Latinos and reaches into the English-speaking mainstream.

I agree with that statement. Daddy Yankee's hard driving beats, and delivery appeal to the type of Latino kids who also listen to 50 Cent, Eminem, and Ludacris, no matter if they are in Chicago, New York or L.A. I was watching some show on Univision, and they talked about a largely Mexican-American crowd in L.A. going nuts, when the intro to Gasolina was played.

In a way DY's music reminds me of Naughty By Nature, streetwise, but able to come up with some catchy beats.

Pat Wants To Take Out Hugo!!

Looks like there is a rift in the Flat-Earth society!!!

Pat Robertson, while not praying for the death of moderate Supreme Court Justices has now turned his attention to the Hugo Chavez regime, as you can read here. In terms kind of harsh, coming from a purported religious leader, he proposes to deal with the ruler in the following terms:

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."


Yikes, Chavez is still an elected leader, shouldn't be saying those things Pat.

Chavez of course, is given to saying a lot of nonesense publically, including how American invaders will be killed by his troops, and by his plans to scare Bush by going up behind him when he isn't looking.

the fact that the American Minister/politician/multi-millionaire, has wished Chavez dead just gives more ammo to the already paranoid megalomaniac in Caracas.

But it should make for interesting exchanges.

Boy, those two characters are truly a match made in Heaven.

Iraq: The Unseen War

From Salon.com, pictures the U.S. gov't and Fox News don't want you to see. As I have said before

War is ugly and brutal, when you send someone's 19 year child overseas, and spend billions of your taxpayers dollars, the public deserves (no actually needs)to see the full extent of what is going on in the theater of war, including pictures of innocent victims of your weaponry, and your own war dead.


Warning: graphic photos of dead civilians and combatants.

Link Here

Nicaragua: Lewitzes Gets Endorsement of Splinter Sandinista Party

Herty Lewitzes, the popular ex-Mayor of Managua, just got the endorsement of the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS), a breakaway faction of the FSLN (Sandinista Front), that also announced it was abandoning Convergencia Nacional, coalition it has with the Sandinistas since 2001. Stories in Spanish from the Nuevo Herald, here and here.

Lewitzes was expelled from the FSLN, for challenging Daniel Ortega and launching his candidacy for President, at a time when he was leading Ortega in national polls.

Lewitzes, was first oficially nominated by the Partido Alternativa Cristiana, a mostly evangelical party. He seems to be putting together a fairly broad-based coalition, and will certainly need the ex-Sandinista network at the grassroots to effectively challenge the FSLN and the liberals come election.

Sendero Luminoso Leader Goes on Trial

Abimael Guzman a/k/a Presidente Gonzalo, with 18 other individuals, is finally going to trial by a Civil Court (as in non-military)on charges of terrorism. Last time it came up, it ended with a mis-trial of sorts in November of 2004. And even before that, the original military case, was vacated due to a finding that the Military Court lacked jurisdiction over civilians. The Nuevo Herald has an article here.

Guzman is accused of instigating one of Latin America's bloodiest conflicts, which left around 70,000 dead from 1980 y el 2000.

The former phillosophy professor in Ayacucho, led a splinter faction that broke away from Peru's Maoist-line Communist Party. Starting with small cells - they had an estimated 12 to 50 members in the early 70's. At Guzman's direction, they began an underground study of the works of Peruvian intellectual Jose Carlos Mariategui, as well as the classics of Marxist-Leninist though such as Mao and Lenin with the object of producing a "Peruvian" type of Communism. It was Mariategui's phrase "Shining Path" that gave the group its name. As the nucleus of students and others grew, previous graduates went to work as rural teachers continuing their work with the students, while others started infiltrating labor and peasant groups in other regions of the country.

As the 70's went by, it increasingly became a cult of personality based around Guzman, whose orders were unquestionably followed, and he became known as "Presidente" Gonzalo. By the end of the decade they had decided the conditions were ripe for armed struggle, and Guzman's writings became increasingly apocalyptic in tone. He referred to the Senderistas as being the "few chosen" of the "many called", of them having a "pure light" in their "breasts and in their soul," and talked about how they would accomplish a cleansing of Peruvian Society, by removing the serpents and cancers.

When the actual armed struggle began, it started with relatively small scale actions, but quickly grew in scope and viciousness. The Peruvian military responded with brutality of its own to the threat and soon began sweeping the hills and jungles. Something about Sendero's millenarian language struck a chord with some Andean residents, which combined with the military's brutality led to some degree of support for the rebels. Their disciplined cadres soon exerted their puritanical control over chunks of Ayachucho, indoctrinating more young people. But their heavy hand was soon resented by many villagers, who began their own paramilitary organizations with the militaries help. This cycle of violence and revenge soon plunged parts of Peru into a horrific Civil War.

In this environment, Guzman himself endorsed some of his organizations bloodiest actions, which took place against villagers. In one such act of vengeance, Senderistas attacked the village of Lucanamara and murdered more than 70 unarmed men, women and children. Guzman himself referred to it as a "needed" "massive blow", against his opponents, although he cyncically did say that it was an "excess" for which he was not responsible, since he was hundreds of miles away. But then again, he also did say that it was an action planned by the Central Committee - which was essentially just him and a couple of his women.

A true evil mastermind, who might finally pay for his crimes.

Cuba: Castro And Ricemakers

Funny AP picture here.

Looks like the bearded one, in the middle of a great national drive to modernize Cuba's kitchen appliances, promised electric rice makers at a discounted price of around 6 bucks to the entire Cuban population in one of his blabathons. Nuevo Herald
article here.

But Fidel has been taught a lesson in Capitalism, since the Chinese manufacturers have demanded letters of credit, and in their absence have been slow in delivering the 3 million unit order. A first installment of 250,000 delivered to the Island, was held in a Habana warehouse, due to the vendors insistence on receiving a letter of credit before releasing them. To make matters worse, those 250,000 were delivered to mostly remote provinces, and people in La Havana still eagerly await their pressure cookers.

So now Cuban appartchiks are desperately soliciting quotes from potential suppliers closer to the Island - even in the U.S.

One Cuban housewife, quoted in the Herald, said "not even in a painting" had she seen the appliance, and thought the whole thing "a myth".

Hundreds of Cubans and Venezuelans "Lost In Paraguay"

File this one under "things that make me go hmmmmm" from the New Heraldo

The Paraguayan government is looking for 150 Cubans, 120 Venezuelans, and roughly the same number of Colombians who entered the country with 90 day tourist visas, and overstayed by two months. Local authorities want to see where they are living, what work they do, and why they continue to be in the country.

Some sources are claiming that this has something to do with Rumsfelds visit.

And the Cuban ambassador also said that the Cuban embassy is also investigating what her compatriots are doing here.

She also, helpfully pointed out that it costs a lot of money for Cubans to fly out of the country.

Yeah right!!!!
--- unless someone didn't get briefed....

I smell a rat, or at least 150 of them.

It might help if they look in Bolivia.

Could it be that some of those Colombians and Venezuelans are actually Cubans?

Whatever the speculation, one fact is crystal clear: it is extremely difficult for ordinary Cubans to get permission to leave the island, and to have that kind of money to leave the island. The ones who do travel freely, often have some sort of official capacity. That 150 of them, with tourist visas, arrive in Paraguay with its multiple borders is cause for concern.

And people get all riled up about 150 or so American troops there.

Nicaragua -- Human Rights Case Against Sandinistas + other nasty regimes in LA

Publius has posted a link to this AP article that appeared yesterday:

Miskito Indians Accuse Sandinistas of Crimes Against Humanity

By Filadelfo Aleman Associated Press Writer
Published: Aug 18, 2005

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - Miskito Indian leaders on Thursday asked the independent Permanent Human Rights Commission to probe crimes against humanity they allege were committed against their people under Nicaragua's Sandinista government of the 1980s.

The leaders said at a news conference that they also would demand that government prosecutors take legal action against those who allegedly killed at least 150 of their people, burned houses, destroyed crops and slaughtered livestock.
............
One of those who filed the complaint, Mario Flores, said five of his relatives had been killed by the army around Christmas 1982.
...........

The Miskito leaders denied political motivation and complained in a prepared statement that "no government to this point has decided to investigate these events and the local and international human rights groups have ignored us."

Tomas Borge replies:

Former Sandinista Foreign Minister Tomas Borge said the complaint had been inspired by the U.S. government as a way to denigrate the Sandinista party ahead of the 2006 presidential election. "Otherwise, why now after more than 20 years?" he said when contacted by telephone.

Borge said both sides had committed abuses and said he had punished Sandinista troops who committed them.

"Enano" Borge is a cynic, he was head of the State Security Aparatus for the regime, the one that was trained by the East German Stasi, and was crawling with Cuban advisors. Amazing how someone who was tortured -almost to death- became the head of such a feared (and brutally efficient) organization. That is the kind of contradictions you can live with, when you are that dedicated to Marxist-Leninism. Boy was he a piece of work! the guy had crosses on his office wall, no doubt impressing the many "Peace and Justice" types from U.S. churches.

I have heard first-hand accounts of summary executions taking place in the Costa that December and January. It was a culmination of Sandinista provocation, which had included the killing of several Miskitos at a religious service.

Over the next eight or so years, abuses were committed by both sides - and the Miskito's and Contras could be extremely brutal. While it is important for the State that governed to be held accountable for its brutality, I doubt it will happen due to the Sandinista/Liberal control of every major institution. But the very least that can happen is to have the truth revealed in detail.

Why After 20 Years Tomas?

Other repressive Latin America regimes are having their dirty secrets aired publically, even the relatively benign PRI, is being forced to confront its own past misdeeds. This next article points out how this trend is playing out in South America, particularly in Argentina and Chile:

Breaking free from a brutal past

Many countries once ruled by military governments finally throw off legal protections that had shielded regimes' officials

BY JACK CHANG

Knight Ridder News Service

SANTIAGO, Chile - From her house, María Valenzuela saw her country's presidential palace burning on the morning of Sept. 11, 1973, when military leaders toppled the government of President Salvador Allende, ushering in 17 years of dictatorship.

The Santiago resident also remembers the night in 1974 when soldiers raided her house, forcing her and her family to the floor while they searched for dissidents.

On a recent afternoon, while touring the grounds of Villa Grimaldi, a former detention camp for political dissidents on the outskirts of the Chilean capital, the 51-year-old woman said those days were part of her country's distant past, never to be repeated.

''Everything has changed now,'' she said. ''There is no torture now.'' Her brother, Osvaldo Valenzuela, strolling beside her, wasn't so sure.

''We hope it's over,'' he said.

Decades after the return of democracy, South American countries once ruled by military governments are finally throwing off their painful pasts. Like Villa Grimaldi, former torture centers are being opened to the public. Stories about recently identified victims of military violence regularly fill newspapers.

The rest here, and Beautiful Horizons has a good post about the right wing paramilitaries in Colombia, whose own legacy of brutality is up there with some of the worst atrocities seen in the Continent.

Is Chavez, Fidel's New Sugar Daddy???

Gustavo Coronel seems to think so:

After leading a bloody but inept and unsuccessful coup in 1992, Hugo Chavez was sent to prison but after a few months he received a pardon from Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera. One of the things that he did after coming out of prison was to pay Fidel Castro the first of what would become a long string of more than 30 visits.........This modest investment by Castro in an obscure and ignorant Venezuelan demagogue paid handsomely. Today, Chavez .....is now paying back Castro’s hospitality with a largesse both beyond Castro’s imagination and disastrous for the Venezuelan nation.

Venezuela has become a political satellite of Cuba and the main contributor to the fragile Cuban economy. Venezuela represents today much or even more of what the Soviet Union was to Cuba during the early stages of the Castro dictatorship. Today, there are about 50,000 Cubans in Venezuela,

read the complete article at Petroleum World.




I disagree with Coronel, as far as Cuba increasingly running Venezuela, I characterize the relationship as more one of co-dependency. Chavez gets "street credibility" after all he was a high ranking Army officer with all the stigma attached to it in Latin America. Castro on the other hand gets reinvigorated by the injections of money, that allows him to relive his old glories by playing power politics outside of his failed utopia, and yanking the gringos chains. Fidel is getting too old to fully concentrate on these things, maybe his hyper child, Hugito gets to play lead as I said in another post.






Where the article gets cooking is when Coronel, with years of experience in the oil business, breaks down the deal for oil that Chavez and Fidel have:

III.

Under the terms of an arbitrary oil supply agreement to Cuba, Chavez is giving Castro a subsidy of between $3 and $4 billion.

The main contribution Chavez is giving Castro is in the form of oil. In an agreement signed by the two heads of state in October 2000, without proper consultation with, and approval by the peoples of the two countries, 53000 barrels of Venezuelan oil per day started to be sent to Cuba. This agreement was for 15 years. The Cubans can pay 25% of the oil shipments over the 15 years of the agreement, at interest rates of 2% and 2 years of grace. Payment requires no international guarantees, as is the case in normal commercial transactions of the Venezuelan petroleum company. Since commercial rates that Petroleos de Venezuela pay international lenders are substantially greater, it is easy to conclude that much of the Venezuelan oil going to Cuba under the terms of this agreement represents a gift from Chavez to Castro. On the basis of what we know of the details of the agreement, its favorable economic terms and the fact that an important portion of the oil can be paid in services, it is possible to estimate that no less than 10-13,000 barrels of oil per day are being given to Castro for free. At the current prices of oil, this handout of Chavez to Castro is already of the order of $3 - 4 billion during the 15-year term of the agreement. This is a considerable amount of money, taken away from a country where poverty afflicts more than 80% of the population.

IV.

But, since early 2005 the situation is much worse!

Since early 2005 the handouts from Chavez to Castro have almost doubled! In December 2004, a new agreement was drawn up between Chavez and Castro, again without the Venezuelan people being consulted since they only found out the details after the fact. In the context of this broader agreement, it was announced that the supply of Venezuelan oil to Cuba had been increased from 53,000 barrels per day to 90,000 barrels per day. Since there is no detailed information on the conditions of this new arrangement, we have to presume that the conditions are the same ones as before. This means that the gift from Chavez to Castro for the next 15 years will now be in the order of $6 to $8 billion.

V.

But wait…. there is more.

This unwarranted of Venezuelan oil and money to Castro has another probable and equally criminal component. According to Cuban official figures the domestic oil production in Cuba is already of the order of 80,000 barrels per day. This volume, claim the Cubans, is already sufficient to meet the industrial and electricity requirements for the island. Government and independent observers coincide in saying that the frequent power outages in the island are due to faulty maintenance of the electrical distribution system rather than to lack of domestic oil supplies. This means that the Venezuelan petroleum going into Cuba is only required for domestic transport. The Cuban government also claims that the oil consumption in Cuba is of about 160,000 barrels per day. Is this true?
If we accept that Cuba is consuming 160,000 barrels of oil per day this means that their consumption is of almost 15 barrels per day per 1000 inhabitants, consumption higher than Ecuador’s or Poland’s. It would represent consumption twice as large as Costa Rica’s or that of Egypt, Colombia, Peru or El Salvador and three times higher than that of Nicaragua, Bolivia or the Philippines. It would be six times higher than Nigeria’s and thirty times higher than Bangladesh’s. If this level of consumption were true it would also be higher than Norwegian or Irish or Puerto Rican oil consumption, all of which are countries with a considerably higher level of industrial and transport activity than Cuba. Cuban oil consumption, as claimed by the government, must therefore be highly doubted.

To judge by the level of transport in the island and by the general profile of the industrial and electrical consumption in a country where sugar production has declined to a third of what it used to be and where electrical supply is very erratic, it seems more likely to estimate oil consumption in no more than 120,000 barrels per day. If this estimate were close to being correct, it would mean that Castro could be re-exporting between 40,000 and 50,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil and products per day. In terms of additional income for Castro, at current prices, this would represent between $1.5 and $2 million per day, some $550-700 million per year.

In summary, therefore, the Venezuelan supply of oil to Cuba, under the terms of an illegal agreement that was never properly ratified by the nation, represents a total handout from Chavez to Castro of between $1.2 and $1.3 billion per year, for a total of some $18 to $20 billion during the 15 year duration of the agreement.

And those hypocritical hard-leftists who bitch and whine, about "the people" not having "a voice or were not consulted", in deals involving multinationals, now are silent.

ANYONE WHO STILL BELIEVES IN SOCIALISM

Is just a plain dumbass.

ITS 2005!!!

Quit recycling old outdated garbage, there is no elusive "third way" you tools.

I am sick of these idiots, changing definitions, or hiding behind opposition to the bogeymen of "Neo-Liberalism", and "Globalization".


Listen Lemmings, the free market works, government control and planning of the economy at the macro scale DOES NOT WORK.

People should take a look at what happened in Eastern Block countries and Yugoslavia from the 60's to the 80's, all sorts of experiments in trying to find a 'third way' or to introduce 'market socialism'. IT DID NOT WORK!!!!

Bolivia - May and June Rioting Negatively Impacted Economic Growth

More fallout from the collective meltdown.

A new study from the Centro Boliviano de Economía (Cebec-Cainco) finds that Bolivia's Gross domestic product (GDP) would have grown by 4.5% had it not been for the May and June blockades that affected the economy, and they are projecting a 3. % growth instead. According to Cainco, the losses attributed to the disturbances were around 100 million dollars, which represent 1.2 percent of the National GDP.

Story in Spanish from El Mundo here

Venezuela: Mas Babosadas De Chavez

More babes and political stupidity from Venezuela, as Harry Hutton describes the end of the Youth Council thingy in Caracas:

The Festival of the Easily-Duped ended last night. I can neither quantify nor isolate the stupidity I have seen this last week in Caracas. Chavez could break wind and stick his head in a bucket of porridge, and still they would cheer.

It was a laugh though. I haven’t had this much sex since I was a boy scout leader* The only thing that depressed me was the ceaseless chanting. Do not chant under any circumstances. It’s sub-human.

More of the hilarity that ensues when our Brit friend gets to the bottom of the conference here
Proper fan attire: its like wearing a Zeppelin shirt to an AC/DC concert!!














Now Thats More Like It!!!!

New Latina Author

Well not necesarilly new, but newly published.
Xenia Ruiz an Afro-Latina author from Chicago, just celebrated the publishing of her "debut" novel Choose Me" from Warner Books/Walk Worthy Press. Though considered to be in the "Christian" genre, the book has attracted good reviews from the mainstream press for its vivid portrayals of the two main characters, a Puertoriqueña and an Afro-American man. Was tipped off to this by Babalu . It looks like a good read, here is a sample chapter from the authors web page. I am also interested on her take on Chicago's N.W. side, Humbolt Park and Logan Square, an area I lived in for years.

One review from her blog:

“Narrated in the alternating voices of Adam and Eva, Ruiz's novel mixes a conversational tone with realistic, flawed characters to create a refreshing story of love and reaffirming faith.”

—Library Journal

Evo Wants To Nationalize Gas Industry and Industrialize

Evo, at the act celebrating Garcia Linera's nomination to be his VP candidate, gave some indications of what his policies would be if elected to the presidency. This is quoted in the Nuevo Herald.

He clearly said he would nationalize the gas industry, as well as all other natural resources, and all public services.

He also said that instead of exporting gas, it would be used to "industrialize" the country.

I'm, wondering if that neo-luddite Garcia Linera agrees with the "industrialization" part of the speech.


This is about the stupidest campaign platform coming out of Latin America in recent years.

Bolivia's gas industry expanded due to innovative private-public partnerships, which led to the discoveries of the 1990's. Evo's movement has succeeded in setting this industry back several years, if he is elected it will simply be the coup de grace.

Bolivia: Rummy Gets Tough With Chavez and Fidel On

Babalu gets props for pointing this one out.

Rummy in Paraguay is "concerned" about Fidehugo's activities in Bolivia.

Rumsfeld meets with Paraguayan president amid concerns over Cuba, Venezuela
ASUNCION (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived here for talks with Paraguay's President Nicanor Duarte Frutos amid concerns over what US officials see as a Cuban-Venezuelan campaign to subvert neighboring Bolivia.

"There certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters as he flew here from Washington.

Rumsfeld declined to elaborate but senior defense officials traveling with him said a major purpose of the secretary's visit to Paraguay was to consult on Cuban and Venezuelan activities in the region.

The article quotes some DOD guys, who are probably reflecting Rumsfeld's thinking

First time admission that there are Special Ops guys on the ground

Paraguay, which borders Bolivia as well as Argentina and Brazil, has hosted a series of small scale US military exercises this year. Most involve peacekeeping training and medical readiness teams, but also US special operations forces.

Cuba Worming Its Way Back In?

The officials said Cuba, backed by Venezuelan money, has reactivated its underground networks throughout the region, particularly in Bolivia

"Very clearly in the past year we've seen a return of an aggressive Cuban foreign policy," said one US defense official, who spoke to reporters traveling with Rumsfeld on condition of anonymity.
"The Cubans are back with a big game," he said.


Cuban Activity In Bolivia?
"The evidence suggests that Bolivia really is more of a Cuban project so to speak," the official said.

The official said Cubans were providing political guidance, stimulating street violence and attempting to discredit the country's democratic institutions.

"To the degree that subversive activity is going on and they're trying to wield political influence, it is really the Cubans. Venezuela is certainly providing funding and some morale support," he said.

"It's a concern to all the neighbors. There is an enormous indigenous population that stretches all up the Andes -- Ecuador, Peru even in Paraguay," the official said.


How Farfetched is this whole Scenario?

I have previously wondered what was going on with Castro's vast intelligence network in South America. Anyone denying there was a massive Cuban intel presence in South America is blind, deluded, or just plain stupid. These folks were good, besides the usual suspects in local "open" communist parties, guerillas, and drug dealers, they had great sources within the military's of the region, the government and business.

My theory is that Venezuela has outsourced their intelligence networks, and "hired" the Cubans.

Fidel has a long history of messing with South American governments, specially the ones allied with the U.S. Chavez has been subsidizing him lately with a couple of billions of dollars a year in oil, so he might be flexing his muscles again. There are an estimated 50,000 Cubans in Venezuela, and odds are some of them are intel agents.

So how much of this meddling in Bolivia is Fidel's doing? I am not sure, we have to factor in how much it could annoy Brazil - the "quiet" (for now) giant in the area - and a country which is a trade partner to Cuba.
Fidel is also too much of a control freak; he needs a Marxist-Leninist base to stamp his imprint on it. Bolivia's chaotic New-Left - with all of its Andean babble - would not suit his tastes. Makes me wonder if he is in the drivers seat on this one, or is letting Chavez play lead, while he supplies the instruments.

As for Chavez, he has all the motivation in the world to destabilize Bolivia. Why? First because its fun. Helping overthrow a pro-U.S. government like Sanchez De Lozada's creates headaches for the U.S. and it comes cheap. It has the added benefit of messing with neighbors like Peru and Colombia, who are scared of this type of instability. Plus, the Colonel gets "evidence" for all the B.S. he talks about the failure of neo-liberalism - the big Chavez bogeyman. And it also plays to his messianic fantasies of being the new Bolivar, liberating South America from foreign intervention, and installing himself as the South American leader. From a purely strategic sense, it also constitutes a pro-Venezuela territory right smack in the middle of the continent, giving an outlet to Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, and Chile. A cynic might also say that by destabilizing Bolivia, it freezes the natural gas production of the nation with the second largest reserves in South America, that would benefit the country with the largest Venezuela.

Venezuela Policy Re-Apprised

A second defense official suggested Washington also has reappraised the challenge posed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leftist populist who has gained clout from soaring oil income since surviving a referendum on his rule a year ago.

"A guy who seemed like a comical figure a year ago is turning into a real strategic menace," the official said, also speaking on condition he not be identified.

Washington initially took a wait-and-see approach after Chavez won a referendum on his rule last year, the official said.

"But then we saw within a period of months that he began moving out very aggressively, both internally and externally," he said.

"We see him trying to strangle pluralistic institutions of the country at home and then abroad, we see him moving aggressively in Bolivia, other places, with the Cubans," he said.


What is Hugo Problem???

Here is the issue withy Chavez, all his saber-rattling was bound to have an effect. No doubt the third world groupies will blame the U.S. for the crisis, but the bottom line is that the Bush administration has cut Chavez a lot of slack, rightfully so in my opinion. Basically, they let him run his mouth against Bush, and let him try to influence his neighbors, in return they bought his oil. HE PROVOKED THEM, by making all sorts of threats, buying weapons, bringing in Cuban advisors, and kicking out the DEA. The days of Social Democrats overthrown in U.S.-inspired coups in South America is over, and Chavez had enough room to be annoying so long as hge stayed in his playbox and wasn't too overt about things. At this stage, the U.S. reaction comes because Chavez basically asked for it.

It would not surprise me if this has the tacit agreement of not only Colombia and Paraguay, but of Brazil, which is extremely concerned with Chavez' activities. Chavez is projecting his power in South America, taking advantage of the vacuum that resulted when the U.S. got into the Iraq disaster. The resulting balance of power in the region is skewed towards Venezuela, it is time for someone to smack him down to size a little, and put the brakes on him.

Maradona Talk Show Host

Continuing on with the world of the weird, former Argentine Soccer super-star Diego Armando Maradona has a new career:

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THE WORLD
Fallen Soccer Icon Scores With TV Show
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer

BUENOS AIRES — He crooned. He grew teary-eyed. He traded head passes with soccer great Pele.

He emoted a tango verse, danced a waltz with an Italian bombshell, hugged everyone in sight and declared more than once, "Que lindo" — How lovely.


Diego Armando Maradona, the stocky midfielder who led Argentina to the zenith of the soccer world two decades ago and then fell prey to drug addiction, obesity and celebrity malaise, made a glitzy comeback this week. His new incarnation: host of a weekly entertainment program, "La Noche del 10," or The Night of 10, a reference to the number that adorned his jersey.

Monday's much-anticipated late-night debut highlighted how Maradona, 44, was still revered here despite his tribulations with cocaine and corpulence, the latter resulting in stomach-stapling surgery that helped him lose more than 60 pounds.

The rest here


Sounds like a carnival sideshow - I am putting this on my list of "must see" TV.

Interesting that Pele shows up on his debut show, they feuded very publically some years ago, when FIFA had that poll for best player of the century.

Dieguito seems like a burned-out clown now, and he blabs a lot of silly rhetoric, but it is hard to forget his absolute genius as a player.

Wonder if Pinguino will be a guest, and if Telesur will pick up syndication rights.

Pingüino Chronicles Part 4 Pinguino Strikes A Pose!!

Pingüino's full frontal as Irlandesa describes it!! The bird in all of its magnificence!





EDIT: For Subcommander Marcos' version of the creation of the world, click here

Bolivia: Evo To Introduce Garcia Linera As His VP Pick

Evo Morales' is presenting sociologist Alvaro Garci­a Linera as his running mate, purportedly to "balance" the ticket with someone from the "middle class" (read "White").

However, Garcia Linera, far from being a moderate, is considered one of the main theoreticians of the Bolivia new left, with its view of "different" Bolivian nations

Some of his writings reminds me of the silliness you read in left wing rags in college towns in the U.S - and more than one unreadable ethnic studies journal. But his views are a big influence on Evo Morales and Quispe, and on the Aymara and Cocalero movements.

Garcia Linera, claims that Bolivia's native people's have been trapped by the power structure, to the point where they unconsciously act to favor the oppressors. In his view they need to assert their "will to power" to assert their "sovereignty", and once this process started they would recreate Bolivia in a "new structure of state power" with its own kind of "politics" "institutions", and "economy", based on the Indians own traditions, which would displace the "liberal" platitudes of modern government. In his view, such things as electoral politics and balances of power do not apply to the Aymaras of Bolivia.

It goes without saying that he doesn't approve much of the modern economy. With pronounced scorn he once publically criticized Quiroga - and other young, educated, Bolivian technocrats - for the sin of studying business administration and even worse, being actual managers in corporations. !! Of course, recycling Foucalt, Fanon, and Mariategui is better preparation for the day-to-day grind of running a government than anything taught at such sites of evil as the Kellog School and Wharton!!!!

Nothing new with this this kind of recycled ideology. Variations of this have been played and replayed, not only in Bolivia, but also in other third world countries. Garcia Linera's views, like similar ones elsewhere, also embody acurious paradox: on the one hand suggesting that Bolivia's native people's by digging within their traditions have the tools available to create a fair and just society from the ground up, but on the other hand, he also seems to imply that native people's are somehow not up to the task of living in a modern representative democracy with a free market economy. It is ultimately the scorn with which he refers to democratic institutions - which never have been able to consolidate in Bolivia - that worry me the most about the guy. And also the fact that the multi-ethnic and multi-layered society he aims to create, seems to always come down to one 'led' and organized by one ethnic group - the native peoples. This is the type of theorizing that works great for undergrads wanting to annoy college administrators with, but in Andean contexts can end up with the Sendero Luminoso.