Friday, September 12, 2008

Just for the record (and eyewitness report of the Pando massacre)

I've just noticed today's site figures have been very strong for this note I wrote a few weeks back. It went by the title "Those Crazy Crazy Santa Cruz Nights" and detailed the secret meeting of (now ex) US ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg and the Santa Cruz prefect Ruben Costas. It also had a write-up on how a ranked officer of the US army was arrested for drunken and threatening behaviour in a Santa Cruz club that same night and was pulled out of the jail by countrymen who said he had diplomatic immunity.

At the time, el duderino mentioned there was plenty in this story for MSM to get their teeth into, and the events of the last 48 hours seemed to have confirmed that. So if you see a bit of this background popping up somewhere else soon remember where you saw it first, yeah? Hopefully the story of how the US has been in the shadows of the Santa Cruz insurgency will get deserved light poured on it.

Meanwhile, Abiding in Bolivia sadly reports that the eight people dead by extremist ambush yesterday in Pando, Bolivia is now fourteen. The following is an extract quoted from an eyewitness report of yesterday's massacre that is on the wires; I personally guarantee its veracity but all the same, as soon as a link is available I'll add one. It's not very pleasant reading.

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"The road was blocked with trucks from the Prefecture, and there they started to shoot at us. Those that escaped towards the river were chased and were killed at the water's edge. Some of the survivors that arrived at the Riberalta hospital were (immediately) murdered," said one of the survivors.

(The survivors) also reported that several women were kidnapped, including old aged woman and mothers with babies or pregnant, and were forced to strip naked and were then tortured.

There is a lot of concern for the wellbeing of Professor Víctor Choque de El Chivé, member of the Cooperativa Intergral Agroextrativista de Campesinos de Pando, who was tortured inside the hospital but is believed still alive.


UPDATE SUNDAY 14th:
There are now 30 confirmed deaths from the Pando massacre, and the latest eyewitness reports tell how the unarmed group, men, women, children of all ages, machine-gunned at point blank range.