Branko has left the building and is very unlikely to return

Thanks due to reader 'JR' for passing on this report from Bolivia Weekly. The news concerns our favourite LatAm fascist Branko Marinkovic, chickenshit multimillionaire and coupmonger who fled Bolivia after his racist plot failed. Here's the first part pasted and make sure you click through for the rest.

Ex-Aid Testifies that Marinkovic Financed Accused Terrorists

On March 17th, former Santa Cruz civic leader Branko Marinkovic’s longtime personal assistant and right-hand man for 14 years Juan Judelka confirmed that Marinkovic was financing a group called “La Torre” that is accused of terrorist conspiracy. Judelka declared under oath before prosecutor Marcelo Soza in La Paz that Marinkovic had on several occasions given him money in closed envelopes to deliver to Hungarian-Croatian-Bolivian Eduardo Rozsa Flores who was shot by police in a raid on the Las Americas hotel in Santa Cruz on April 16th, 2009. The Bolivian government accuses the deceased Rozsa Flores of being an international mercenary paid by Santa Cruz leaders to assassinate President Morales.

Judelka said, “If I did not testify earlier it was because of pressure by Mr. Marinkovic’s lawyer, but in my testimony I said that I effectively carried money from Branko to the La Torre (accused terrorist cell led by Rozsa Flores), after that Mr. Orlando Justiniano asked me to take this money to a Mr. “Germán” who was really Rozsa Flores.” The Bolivian government is accusing the Santa Cruz state government of organizing the La Torre group during CONTINUES HERE

Message to Simone Rosemary: You still proud of that fawning interview you did with Branko, dumbass? For those with better sense of the obvious than the NYT's star in LatAm, this post by Duderino will remind you just what this piece of shit Branko was trying to do to Bolivia. Fortunately, democracy is alive and well in Bolivia thanks to Dr. Morales.

Oh wow, Luis Posada Carriles used to snitch on other anti-Castro activists

Here's the link to the NSA declassified archives and here's the story that I've just read on it all. My thanks to reader MG for the headsup.

Message to the murdering terrorist Posada, currently enjoying US protection from justice: Enjoy your next veterans meeting in Miami, you piece of shit.

Ignacio Villa Vargas, the key witness against the Santa Cruz Bolivian mercenary terrorists, blows the lid off the story

Today in Bolivian daily 'Cambio' there are a dozen or so pages devoted to the story of the Santa Cruz terrorist cell taken down by Bolivian police and the aftermath of the whole episode. The main event in today's paper is an official, published Q&A with Ignacio Villa Vargas, the Bolivian national who was the group's Mr. Fixit, chauffeur and gopher.

In the very extensive interview he basically blows the lid off the whole affair, directly implicating Branko Marinkovic, Ruben Costas and other Santa Cruz bigwigs with Eduardo Rozsa Flores, Michael Dwyer and the others in the terrorist cell. He also testifies that the group was out to kill Evo Morales, Veep Alvaro Garcia Linares, their Cabinet Minister Juan Ramon Quintana and the Bolivian Cardinal Terrazas whose house was bombed. Here is the first part of the confession.

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Question: Please tell what you want to inform the Interior Ministry regarding the latest events occurred in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, specifically regarding the attack on the house of Cardenal Julio Terrazas and other aspects.

Ignacio Villa Vargas answers: First I would like to say the I was President of the Santa Cruz Youth Union (the far right wing Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or UJC) for seven years in the 1970s. This is why I am well-known in the city of Santa Cruz and also in Cotoca. Because of this the ex-President of the UJC, 'Negro' Cejas, came to find me, because I was his advisor. He told me that they were putting together a "real group" and I should get in contact with a person who answered to the name of Germán. The gentleman called me on my cellphone and we arranged to meet at the COTAS stand inside the trade fair show site for our first meeting, to which I drove my vehicle. This must have been on a date in or around October 2008.

When I arrived at the meeting Germán was in a group with Branko (Marinkovic) and other gringos that I didn't know. Also present were Estaban Mauricio Roca, Pedro Yovió and Guido Nayar. There must have been eight people there and it was 1pm, the time the meeting was to start.

Branko Marinko­vic talked to me and offered me a series of economic offers and other deals. We were talking and they also linked me by phone to the Prefect of Santa Cruz, Ruben Costas, who offered me a house and some land. I asked what would have to be done and they answered that we had to finish what had been started. They were definitely referring to the attacks that were going to happen in the city soon as a demonstration of serious intent. They attacked the radio of Guido Guardia two months later, they made the attack on Saúl Ávalos by localizing him as target. Sometimes they would ask me to take them on a tour of the streets before the attacks. I saw that they were looking for escape or emergency routes. Regarding the attack on the Cardenal, Germán (Rózsa) and the Irishman (Dwyer) were there that day. They asked me to pick them up from the Hotel Santa Cruz at around 10pm and asked me to drive around several times close to Seminario Street in the Santa Cruz neighbourhood (where the Cardenal lived).

Later I found out that a terrorist event occurred which repulsed me because I am Catholic. While laughing Germán commented that they had got out the car and placed the explosive that I saw them holding into a rubbish bin. He also said that he lit the fuse, got back in the car and drove forward half a block and waited for the explosion, then had to go back three times until Germán verified that the fuse had taken. He said with a smile that it was a pity we hadn't killed the priest and that involved with the explosion were the driver and in the back seats were Germán and Michael Dwyer, who was armed with a pistol with the instruction to open fire and kill if somebody saw them.

I can co-operate with the information about the other vehicle hat participated in the attack, a white 1997 Toyota Corola driven by a certin Alberto Mendoza (I know know if he is the owner) and they had paid 200 Bolivares to use it for two hours. they told him it was to do some business."

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More excerpts

Question: Please tell us who is Germán, noting his general characteristics

Answer: Germán is Eduar­do Rózsa Flores. He also called himself as well as Germán by the last name Villaroel. I met him at the Expoferia meeting. He was semi bald with a scar on his face by his left cheekbone, a robust body and the leader of the group, the one shown dead in the police intervention.

Question: What was the objective of Germán?

Answer: His objective was to kill Evo (Morales), Linera (his VP) and Quintana (his cabinet minister). He talked about his constantly. He said there was somebody who was going to give him more than U$100,000 to kill Quintana.


Question: How was he thinking of carrying out the attacks if the seat of government is in La Paz?

Answer: It was going to happen in Santa Cruz. They even talked about buying a rocket launcher that cost more than U$120,000. The money was going to come from the owner of the Bimodal terminal named Daré, with whom I even talked by telephone and said that Germán had to pick up part of the money to do the job. They also wanted a radar to locate the aircraft that transported Quintana to Pando and then to use the rocket.


Question: How often did they meet and where was the place of meeting with the "bosses", as you call them, and who were they?

Answer: They met every 15 or 20 days. The safest place was the trade fair grounds because it had a security perimeter where only authorized people could enter. When I attended the meetings there were present Monseñor Rivero Alejandro Melgar, Branko Marinkovic, Rubén Costas, Hugo Achá and others. Generally they met when Germán called a meeting. Sometimes he would also be present at the meeting. Soemtimes I could see that Alejandro Melgar went with Germán and I to pick up the money (nobody else, not even the gringos) from the Melgar office, in the Oriente Building 5th floor first office on the left. There are three offices all together and they met there and sometimes I was present. They only talked about financing questions.

Question: Tell us who provided the firearms and how contact was made with these people.

Answer: Only by telephone. I don't have it (the number) now but I can get it later. I once went to a purchase of a mini Uzi with silencer for U$1,500. We bought it in "the fourth ring" (neighbourhood of Santa Cruz). Germán did the deal which had been previously agreed with the vendor.

Question: Who financed these operations?

Answer: Everyone knows that they funded the group but nobody will report the financing. CRE, Cotas, Saguapac and other Santa Cruz institutions funded German's group or the UJC.

Question: How many attacks took place in Santa Cruz or in other departments of Bolivia?

Answer: In Santa Cruz only three, in the interior I don't know. The three in Santa Cruz were those I've mentioned; the radio of Guido Guardia, the house of Ávalos and the Cardinal's house. There were only three.

Question: Where did you stay when the attacks took place?

Answer. For the first attack we were staying in Branko Marinkovic's house at Km4 of the northern highway. For the Ávalos attack we were in the Hotel Asturias and for the Cardinal's attack in Hotel Las Americas. For the three attacks Germán was always the leader. Security and gunman was Michael Dwyer and his driver, always in the same place.

Question: What was going to be the next attack to be made that you know of?

Answer: I heard that they were going to take a car laden with explosives to the Prefecture. It was going to be in the day time and cause the maximum amount of damage possible to the people at the place, for the simple reason of damaging the Prefect.

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And it continues and continues. The whole Spanish version is very long and has dozens of questions and answers. None of it is good for the bigwigs in Santa Cruz, that I promise you.

Half a kilo of C4 in Caracas, anyone?

Some French dude named Laurent Bocquet (above, from his 'feibu' page, as we say down here) got arrested trying to escape Caracas, Venezuela, and get to Isla Margarita on Friday. He was nabbed along with Omar Campusano, Diomedis Campusano and Edgar Florián Sánchez (all from The Dominican Republic). All four are supposedly members of the criminal gang known as "The Internationals" (oh how subtle). So when police checked out the arrested Frenchie's house in Caracas they found:

• half a kilo of C4 explosive
• flame throwers
• 5,000 (yeah, five thousand) shotgun cartridges
• bullet-proof vests
• military uniforms
• foreign licence plates
• 3 FAL weapons
• 2 machine guns
• 3 shotguns
• telescopic sights
• etc etc

Expect Venezuelan police to be called human rights offenders for daring to arrest foreign nationals like this on their soil. I mean, the impertinence...what's half a kilo of C4 between friends anyway?

UPDATE: Venezuela's Interior Minister has given a presser this afternoon to name the group as a "terrorist organization". Minister Tareck Al Aissami also said that Bocquet is known as an expert in military matters and a sharpshooter/sniper who saw action in Europe (the exact country wasn't mentioned). Here's a quote from Al Aissami:

"We can testify that the type of armaments used by these military terrorist organizations are for actions of destabilization. With this find we have no doubt in telling the country that we have dealt a severe blow to terrorism and to those groups that try to drag Venezuela into scenes of blood and confrontation."

Meanwhile, in the quiet provincial border towns of Colombia....

...they've got no space left in the morgues.

In Caucasia, Antioquia, medics are complaining about the heavier that normal workload of autopsies. In the period Jan 1st to April 25th 2008 there were "just" 46 murders in an otherwise sleepy old town, but this year it's got up to a pesky 102 in the same lapse. "Here we only have one autopsy table and two old storage compartments, and on average we're doing two autopsies a day", said the doc.

As for the atmosphere around the place, here are a few quotes:

"The rumours run from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, but nobody knows anything when they're asked about a crime."

"They say that two men were in a hairdressers. On hearing a woman talk about the conflict they made the hair stylist shave her bald and remove her eyebrows, and then gave her 24 hours to leave Caucasia."

"The assassins rent one house in every neighbourhood, which allow them to hide quickly once they commit a crime and we (the police) cannot enter without a search warrant."

"The people fear for their lives, because those committing the homicides are locals, young men that were born and raised here."

So, gentle reader and lover of freedom, how does the situation in Caucasia compare to the US-backed shouts of "oppression!" that comes from the mouths of theVenezuelans with painted hands as they march noisily down streets tilting against windmills? The above is what real fear, real terror and real oppression are all about. When it's the genuine article, noise is replaced by a roaring silence and you rarely get to find out about it.

So what was that about Irish Mercenary Michael Dwyer being unarmed again?

So, Michael Dwyer was some poor innocent unarmed traveller doing a bit o' dis and a bit o' dat?

Want to continue with your BS denial, Ireland?


Was "hard", now dead.

This below is a photo of the montage put on by Bolivian police today, including weapons and 58 photos of the mercenary terrorist cell that was plotting to kill Evo Morales and other political heads as well as destabilizing the sovereign state and forcing a breakaway of Santa Cruz from the rest of the country.

Also today, one of the men arrested earlier this week admitted having sold leader Eduardo Rosza Flores (ERF) a gun for U$1,000. He also said that ERF was plotting to kill the Prefects (i.e. governors) of Santa Cruz and Beni because they had been ineffective in the struggle for a separate state of Santa Cruz

Finally, here are close-up shots of the photo montage. Click on them to make them big, because they get very big and you an see all the details of Dwyer, Flores, the others and their guns....all in hotel rooms. It only remains to be seen whether the bigoted mailers and anonymous commenters this blogger has had the displeasure of reading these last two weeks (mostly Irish, according to IP numbers) have the guts and common decency to write again and apologize. You people aren't quite as disgraceful as examples of Irish as Dwyer, but you certainly aren't any credit to your nation.

Click to enlarge (they get very big)

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

Bolivia: Remember the Moneda Declaration

Thank you to the many readers who have sent on the link of the interview given by now dead terrorist cell leader Eduardo Rozsa-Flores (ERF) in which he states that he was in Bolivia to organize a militia in order to force the separation of Santa Cruz (and/or the rest of the 'medialuna' region) from the rest of Bolivia.

In the interview (here in full on youtube, thanks MH) ERF claims his actions to be legal. Fortunately, we can point to a clearly defined document that shows he is wrong. The Moneda Declaration of September 15th 2008 came in the wake of the attempted coup and violence in perpetrated by the authorities in East Bolivia. Here's the link to the whole thing in English, but here are points one and two of the nine point declaration:

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1. Their fullest and decided support for the constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a wide margin in the recent referendum.

2. They warn that its respective governments energetically reject and do not recognize any situation that implies an intent of civil coup d'etat, the rupture of institutional order, or that compromises the territorial integrity of the Republic of Bolivia

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This makes it abundantly clear that the whole of the continent of South America and other guest states such as Mexico categorically reject the separatist movement of East Bolivia, headed up by the people who funded ERF and his gang of now dead or arrested insurgents. ERF's interview makes it abundantly clear that he was working to illegally divide Bolivia with the full knowledge of people such as Prefect Costas and Branco Marinkovic. There is now plenty of evidence for arrest of these people and I'm quite sure there's more evidence to come.

As I mentioned before, I'm quite sure that foolish wannabe Dwyer had no idea what the hell he was getting involved in.

MEANWHILE, I received the following text and photo this morning as forwarded by a friend. Very interesting. so much for all that crap about them being unarmed in the hotel.

There is a photo Bolivian media today that has not yet been covered in
the international media. The photo can be found in the archives of
Eduardo Rozsa Flores blog from December 2008. It shows Rozsa Flores
sleeping almost naked with two automatic weapons in his bed.

The Bolivia right wing newspaper El Deber claims the photo is a fake
and not on the blog, but indeed it is on his blog, its just buried in
the archives. I found it there and the link is below. The text in
Hungarian seems to indicated that he published the photo to show his
friends what life in hiding is like. The news media in Bolivia has
confirmed the the furniture and walls match the Hotel Buganvilla in
Santa Cruz, a location not previously identified.

Regardless of why Rozsa Flores posted this photo, it does seem to lend
credence to the idea of a shootout rather than a cold blooded killing
of Rozsa Flore and companions in their underwear in the Las Americas
Hotel room.

Here is the link on the blog you need to scroll down:
http://eduardorozsa flores.blogspot. com/search? q=nov-dec+ 2008

The Bolivian mercenary terrorist cell and how they were funded: A primer for journalists

I've been moaning to a couple of mailpals this last 24 hours that know the mediaworld about the ongoing harassment (there is no other word) I'm getting from English language journalists about this Bolivian mercenary Evo assassination death terror squad thing. I mean, when (as one example of many) I write a polite but direct reply to the WSJ's hack in LatAm telling him that I don't want to be famous, I have no wish to be interviewed or mentioned in his rag and ask him specifically not to write again and he then sends not one but two more mails, the lack of respect oozes through his pores.

My pals (who know the world of media) don't really understand why I should be bugged like this, either. For one thing, I just ran a couple of posts on the issue...no biggie. For another, it's not as if the blog coverage here on Martin Dwyer was some kind of unearthly secret, either. It just happened to get out there first via this humble corner of cyberspace, but it's all public domain stuff anyway and any decent reporter wouldn't need to waste his salaried time on a free-to-access blog and its unpaid blogger. So rather than put up with this shit any longer, here are a few pointers for those that would rather drink FruityRumPunch and regurgitate other people's work than actually do their own investigation (I mean...perish the thought). What follows are pointers to the real big story that will unfold in the next few days but I'm not going to spoonfeed you the thing. And by the way, all links are in Spanish (one's in Portuguese in fact) so you need to know a bit more than "Quiero una cerveza" to get to the bottom of it.

1) This is the link to an ABI report that has an un-named source (who was clearly a witness to the closed session committal hearing of the two terrorist survivors in La Paz yesterday) saying that the terrorist cell was being funded by the Santa Cruz secret masonic lodges. These lodges are not affiliated to the official Bolivian Freemasons because the official people don't like how they were formed, what they say and what they do in their meetings.

2) This is the link to a page on which you can find Reymi Ferreira's 1994 study of the Lodges of Santa Cruz, 100% essential background reading into these pieces of shit.

3) This link and this link are where you can read that since 1994, the Toborochi lodge (one of the two secret lodges under question here) has been taken over by Branco Marinkovic, the opposition leader, oil magnate and thoroughly unlikeable racist turd who has been organizing both legal and illegal resistance to the government of Evo Morales these last few years.

4) This is the link to a video interview with an ex-secret lodge member who decided to betray them because he saw they were working to illegally destabilize Bolivia.

You also note along the way just how many times the word "Croatia" comes up in polite conversation. Branco is Croat blood, so was the leader the mercenaries. His cohorts with the exception of Dwyer all fought in the Croatian war and the same battalion (and according to shared tattoos also trained in the same training centre). If you check out this link you'll even find out the term for the region, "media luna", was co-opted from Croatian history. Also, take a wild guess as to where the expelled US Ambassador to Bolivia, Phillip Goldberg, was stationed in the 1990's.

The rest is up to you, hackos, but all roads lead to the same place and the same person, who is also a person with extreme both racist and anti-communist sentiments, a lot of money and a lot to lose under Evo's land reform. The next one of you to bug me with your inane line of questioning (with the notable exception of the three reporters who were polite and respectful... you know who you are because I mentioned that your good manners were appreciated in my replies) gets flamed on the blog, including name, name of editor, e-mail address and the rest.

Police Foil Assassination Attempt on Evo Morales, Kill Three of the Gang, Arrest Two

Police raided a hotel in Santa Cruz (where else?) this morning and confronted a group of five heavy armed terrorists (guns, bombs etc). In the ensuing shoot-out, three of the suspects were killed. Two of the dead Hungarian nationals and one Bolivian. The other two, apparently one Irish national and one Romanian, were arrested and taken to La Paz. However there are conflicting reports of the groups' nationalities, with Croatia also mentioned. A large quantity of explosives and arms were also confiscated by Bolivia police.

Evo Morales said today (and I quote): "I'm not mistaken in saying that last Sunday the days of Evo Morales might have been counted. The results of todays operation coincide with the preliminary reports we have regarding this group of European and Bolivian terrorists and mercenaries."

According to police reports relayed by Evo in a press conference, the group was targeting Evo Morales, Vice President Alvaro García Linera and Minister Juan Ramón Quintana. Unsurprisingly the racist fascist shits and Evohaters are already looking stupid and calling it all a hoax, with the Prefect of Santa Cruz (where else?) calling it all a put-on and a show. Hey, remember that Facebook group?

UPDATE: Here's Reuters EngLang with the story

UPDATE 2: We now have confirmation of the names and nationalities of the would-be assassins. I don't know if the spelling is exact on the names but they're taken directly from this ABI report:

Mayarosi Ariad, (Rumania) Dead
Duayer Michel Martin (Ireland) Dead (SEE LATEST POST)
Jorge Hurtado Flores (Bolivia) Dead

Mario Tadik (Bolivia) Arrested
Iedad Toazo (Hungary) Arrested

Apparently the firefight on the 4th floor of the Hotel Las Américas, Santa Cruz, went on for around 30 minutes. Police conficated foru pistols, a rifle, a shotgun, ammunition and explosives, including high powered C-4 explosive and sophisticated detonators. These guys were no muppets, but they should have got down.

FINAL UPDATE: Nice job by Bina of putting today's timeline and the latest developments all together in one place. Check it out on this link.

The Sendero narcoterrorists of Peru: Some insight

Town in the Sendero VRAE stronghold region of Peru

I like it when people take me to task.

After commenting yesterday on the 13 (now 14, sad to say, and another is still missing) soldiers killed by Sendero terrorists last week, I received today the following mail from somebody who prefers to remain anonymous. Suffice to say that this person is someone who is in a position to know what they're talking about and whose view I greatly respect. I think it's worth reprinting here and have been given permission to do so.

I will add my own two cents' worth, though. The whole subject of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) is still a very touchy one in Peru. Locals' memories are still of the open wound variety about what went on in the 1980s and 1990s and people that criticize the official government standpoint make themselves targets for totally unwarranted accusations of being sympathizers. But enough of me, here's the insightful and worthy mail I received this morning:

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On what basis do you say this with such confidence?

Peru: "Despite what you might read in the NYT or Comercio this isn't a resurgent idealogical struggle, more like a bunch of heavily armed narcos trying to defend what they consider their patch."

My humble opinion is that there is very little good investigative reporting on Sendero, or on the various Sendero factions operating in Peru today, and while it is convenient to write them off as just a bunch of "delincuentes y narcos", I remember Peru in the early 1980s when Belaunde said the very same thing. And we all know how that ended up (for the record, the legal left initially said it was all an invention by security forces to maintain power and priviledge, after stepping down from government).

Around 3000 senderistas and alleged senderistas have been released from jails in recent years, and no matter how much we care about their rights to remake their lives (and I certainly do), we have to assume that at least some of them remain committed to subversive activity. Some faction of them are winning elections in San Marcos again, and perhaps La Cantuta, and then we have the folks in VRAE and in Alto Huallaga. Who thanks to working with the drug runners, dont have to coerce the locals so much -- they can buy them off, do the hearts and minds stuff. So, maybe they are "just delincuentes" or maybe they aren't, and maybe this involvement in the drug business as a source of income (while others pursue legal channels to power, like university elections), means that THEY have learned from the past, even while others have not.

It concerns me that there are maybe 4 or 5 "experts" on Sendero and drugs who are quoted all the time in the media, and who knows if they have a clue what is happening on the ground.

It's Kafka time! Miss Universe visits Guantanamo Bay

Dayana Mendoza (for it is she)

I really, truly and honestly don't know where to start with this report of Miss Universe 2008, (Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela) and Miss USA (Crystle Stewart) recounting their fun days out at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So I'm just going to translate it directly with no further comments and let you enjoy it, too.

Translated via Ottotrans™, and here's the original Spanish report to prove that I am not making this shit up. I promise I'm not. It's word for word. Enjoy, gentle reader.

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YVKE World: International

"It was an incredible trip"

Venezuela's Miss Universe: "Guantanamo Is So Interesting"

Venezuelan Dayana Mendoza, Miss Universe 2008, visited the Guantanamo military base two weeks ago to "entertain" the soldiers stationed there. The beauty queen said that she had been in the detention camps. "We saw the jails, where they bathe, how they are entertained with movies, art classes, books."

YVKE Web Press / Agencies
Tuesday March 31, 2009. 3:30pm

Miss Universe 2008, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, and Miss USA, Crystle Stewart, paid a visit to the US naval base and detention centre for alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and found it "interesting".

On her web page, Mendoza explained that both beauty queens visited the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba on Friday March 20th in order to greet and entertain the military personnel stationed there.

"It was an incredible experience," said the Venezuelan. "They (in Guantanamo) knew that Crystle and I were coming to visit and the first thing we did was to sit down to an enormous lunch. Later we went to one of the bars they have there."

Since the beginning of 2002, the USA has held hundreds of men at Guantanamo, captured in different parts of the world as supposed terrorists and has held them prisoner without trial or appeal. Many of them have been subjected to torture, according to reports from human rights organizations.

Mendoza said that she and her friend talked with Guantanamo personnel "about the base and what life was like there, and in the following days we had a great time, it was a really memorable trip." The base personnel took the two women on a visit in a 'boat', unidentified by Mendoza, and a sightseeing tour that "was a lot of fun."

"We also saw the military dogs and they gave us a cute demonstration of their obedience", added Mendoza. "All the army people behaved themselves very well with us".

"We visited the detention camps and saw the jails, where they bathe, how they are entertained with movies, art classes and books", she added. "It was very interesting". The young Venezuelan added that "the water in Guantanamo Bay is sooooo beautiful. It was incredible and we were able to enjoy it for at least an hour."

UPDATE: The NYT's lede blog is running the story too. I could have saved myself all that translation bother. Thanks for the link, RB.

Peru invents a new method to control gov't opposition. They call it "mass arrest"

Four of the witch hunt targets

Catchy name, no? The mass arrest in question hasn't happened (yet?) because the relevant documents were leaked to Peruvian daily "La Primera" last week. Basically, the Peruvian D.A. department in charge of terrorism affairs (acronym DIRCOTE) has officially requested the arrest of 14 prominent opposition politicians and unions representatives, including de-facto leader of the left wing Ollanta Humala (the guy who lost to Twobreakfasts in the last Presidential run-off).

The plot (there's really no other word) to scoop up all the hardline García opposition and throw 'em in jail was discovered and denounced last week by La Primera (with photocopies of the arrest petitions and everything), but while the APEC summit was on the García administration stonewalled all enquiries. Now that world dignitaries have gone back home, the gov't has admitted the ongoing investigations into these opposition leaders, all justified by the very sinister sentence of Interior Minister Remigio Hernani:

"There is an investigation related to international terrorism."

Why creepy?
1) It's the 21st century catch-all accusation.
2) If the investigation is international, then other bodies are already involved. CIA? You betcha.
3) According to the ongoing investigations of La Primera (doing a fine job, by the way), the whole invstigation is related to the (in)famous FARC laptop.

Personally I don't like any of the politicos named on the DIRCOTE list. Not one of them. But there's no way...repeat NO WAY they have anything to do with some sort of pan-Latino terrorism plot. You're not automatically a member of Al Q'aeda just because you're a jerk. But the atmosphere in Peru is becoming evermore oppressive to anyone who dares stand up to the authoritarianism of Alan García. All this does not augur well for a calm future in Peru.

Democracy and respect Peruvian style (version 2.008)

This link goes to a story published in today's edition of Peru's daily, La Republica. It tells of how locals were treated by a platoon of Peruvian soldiers on the hunt for Sendero Luminoso terrorists last month. Not in 1987, but in September 2008.

The world needs to wake up and protest these blatant abuses of human rights by the supposed good guys before they turn into the bad guys. If you don't learn from history you are condemned to repeat it, and by the looks of things the Peruvian army hasn't learned a thing from the terrors of the 1980's and 1990's. Don't they understand that if they beat crap out of the people they're supposed to be protecting they'll simply drive them into the arms of the extremists?

THIS MUST STOP NOW. Here below are the direct quotations from the Republica story, as spoken by the rural dwellers abused by soldiers from their own national army.

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Dionisio Huayanay Carbajal: "There are many displaced people. They (the Peruvian army) forced us out of our homes with death threats and burned our houses. 80% of the houses have been destroyed. We need urgent help because we're left without food or clothes."

Rómulo Jerí Quinta: "They (the Peruvian army) detained five of us. They pistol-whipped us and asked us "Where are the terrorists?" Then they made us dig a grave, and they even made us lie down and measure our own bodies to dig the correct depth of grave so that all five of us would be buried."

Nilda Sánchez Romero: "They (the Peruvian army) kept us without giving us any food, and under the threat of death if we didn't reveal othem where the terrorists were. "We don't know", we told them, and when we finally convinced them we were simple rural dwellers they let us go. Now we are refugees in Canayre."