Bolivia Quiz for New Irish Viewers!

Welcome friends from across the sea in the land of Guinness, green things and small people at ends of rainbows! We're so glad that you've finally realized there's a whole continent somewhere South of uncle's house in Boston MA, even more pleased that you've realized it's made up of different subsections called "countries", too. It's slightly sad that it took the sudden death of an idiot countryman of yours to get you this far, but every cloud, eh...?

So to help you out with your ongoing education about all things Bolivia here we go with our gentle multiple choice quiz entitled:

*****ALL ABOUT EVO*****

All you need to do is study the question and click on the answer you think is correct. And don't worry if you get one wrong as it won't make your interweb machine blow up in front of you. I'll be wishing the best of Irish Blarney luck to you, so I will. Here we go!!!

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A) Acting out a personal fantasy about being an international man of mystery in Bolivia is:
1) Stupid and dangerous
2) Perfectly normal
3) What's Bolivia again?

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B) Foreign nationals working under assumed names for Santa Cruz fascist scum are:
1) Perfectly normal, actually. Happens all the time
2) Slightly suspicious, perhaps
3) Good enough reason from them to be under surveillance, so it is

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C) Foreign nationals ____________ carry firearms in Bolivia.
1) strictly, stopSTOPstop, mega no-no, cannot under any circumstances
2) always
3) might as well as long as nobody is looking

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D) Plotting to kill the President of Bolivia is:
1) kind of frowned upon
2) normal behaviour for a "bit o dis bit o dat" Irish dude
3) likely to be the last thing you ever do if you're living in Bolivia

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E) Irish journalists that pass themselves off as experts about a country they couldn't even find on a map one week ago are:
1) laughable
2) par for the course
3) what's Bolivia again?

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F) According to the Princeton University online dictionary, the definition of the word "denial" is:
1) A river in Egypt
2) A psychiatric defence mechanism that causes illogical rejection of painful thoughts
3) The refusal to recognize that people who don't look like us are normal

Yeah, it was him alright

A lesson for all the 24 year olds out there who think they're hard.

Don't mess with the ultra-rights. It must have been 117 days of excitement and "real live war games" for Dwyer, hanging with fascist Croat war veterans....

Dwyer listed as Eduardo Rozca Flores' friend on Facebook

.... training with live rounds, wearing green, feeling important, driving imported BMWs, wowing the local girls, feted by the UJC and plotting deep plots. He must have loved it all, right up to the moment before that photo happened.

All rather sad, really. R.I.P, Michael Dwyer.

UPDATE: Listen up anonymous posters and mailers both known and unknown:

1) The picture stays. Those that spend their life watching reality shows and unaware of reality need a wake up call. This is not a game. These people were plotting to destabilize Bolivia and got what they deserved, period. Don't like it? Hard luck.

2) I said it's "sad" for many reasons. After speaking with a couple of people on the ground in Bolivia my best guess that he was a young man living his own fantasy and way, way over his head. Anyone else out there think they're hard but run a Bebo page? Gimme a break.....

3) But it's also sad that the hatemailers (yep sure, come over to the house anytime and meet my dog) can't see a few basic facts, not least of which being that we're talking foreign nationals with far right wing connections in an area of Bolivia that tried to start a coup d'etat last year carrying guns and explosives, in itself totally illegal.

4) But the saddest part of all is the way that people think they can still change South America this way. You can't so go home now if you think that way. And stay home. And shut the fuck up cos you don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about.

5) And yes, they're exit wounds. Which means he was almost certainly running away when the Bolivian armed forces shot him. Welcome to the world of rough justice. I don't feel sorry for what happened to the guy, I feel sad for the guy. There's a big difference.

6) For the forseeable future, any comments not from regular readers and all mails from people unknown will be deleted without being read, so feel free to waste your time.


UPDATE: Find out more about the people who funded the mercenaries by clicking here

Is this the Irish would-be assassin of Evo Morales?

Sure fits. Thanks to some quick work by reader RM, check out this Bebo page on a certain Michael Dwyer.

Let's check the points in common

1) Is Irish

2) Loves guns and fancies himself as a sniper

3) Is definitely in South America and according to messages left by friends is in Bolivia

4) Has Bruce Willis's "The Jackal" as the answer to his "What kind of Assassin are You?" profile box

5) Thinks he's hard

6) Member of an Irish battlefield simulation club

Sure looks like a possible to me. Has anyone seen this man mooching round Santa Cruz recently? Well sure looks that way, as this photo from his Bebo album has him placed in the eastern Bolivia area 116 days ago.

UPDATE: I've been told that Bebo has now pulled his page, but I took a swipe of it yesterday and saved it on my PC. Here's a link to the PDF copy. I've removed the comments from friends out of respect for third parties but the rest is how it was. For your information, several newspaper journalists have been mailing and asking questions on this story, including Irish, US and world media. I haven't told them a thing of use and they get the same treatment as the people that really matter, i.e. the grassroots readers.

UPDATE: Yep, it was him alright.