Peruvian Journalists Reporting on the Amazon Conflict Threatened by Authorities

Geovani Acate (for it is he)

You want government threatening reporters to shut up or "have problems"? You want state control of media? Forget the rest, Peru is still the best. A direct translation of the first part of this report in Peru's CNR

Reports of Continued Threats Against Journalists in Amazonia

Yurimaguas-Loreto, 09/06/2009 (CNR): Despite the partial re-establishment of calm in the Amazonian conflict zone, reporters from diverse media are receiving threats to stop them from filing reports at a national level, the director of Radio TV Oriente, Geovani Acate, denounced today.

He explained that on his return to the city of Tarapoto in San Martin, he met with TV reporters who told him they had received telephone calls demanding that they stop informing about the Amazon protest.

"For example, the case of Jerry Izquierdo, cameraman at TV Oriente, who even had people going to his house who talked with his wife. They warned her he should stop sending reports to media companies in Lima because they could have problems (later)".

According to Acate, the authors of the threats are presumably police agents of the DIROES special operations unit.

CONTINUES HERE (Spanish language)

Murder, rape, police brutality: Pando in Bolivia is still in the grip of fascists

This is the link to the English language report from Ukhampacha Bolivia. It fills me with disgust to see the way that both Bolivian national media and the wider international press corps ignore this story and try to bury it behind political ambitions.

Real people, real suffering, real fascism, real violence, real rapes, real murders. Where are you, Simon Romero? Where are you Andres Oppenheimer? Where are you, Jackson Diehl? How does this story not qualify as "Fit To Print", NYT?

Read the link. Click it and read it.

Business as usual in Santa Cruz: Hatred, Attempted Linchings, Racism, Media Bias

Salvador Ric

How would you treat an ex-Minister of your country if you saw him eating in a restaurant? If you agreed with his politics, you might say hello. If you didn't care either way or disgreed with him, you'd probably just let him be. If you hated him and all he stood for, you might even mumble something in his direction.

In Santa Cruz, fascist capital of South America, they call in the heavy mob and try to linch them. Here comes Otto's translation of this report from Spain's respected "El Economista".

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Radical right wing groups from the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), the attack arm of the Civil Committee of the Bolivia region of Santa Cruz, attacked an ex-minister of the gov't of President Evo Morales, who this Sunday reported his agressors' intention to kill him.

"What they wanted was to kill me; the reason they gave was that I was carrying a gun. I have never in my life carried a weapon," said businessman Salvador Ric, who was Minister of Services and Public Works during the first year of the Morales mandate, between 2006 and 2007.

According to the ex-Minister the youth group's actions, which has in the past sacked and set fire to public offices, taken over toll booths, airports and attacked indigenous rural dwellers, was supported by the Civil Committee of Santa Cruz, the region whose elite are opposed to Morales.

The moment I left (the restaurant), Carlos Soruco, who was Viceminister of the Interior during the gov't of Hugo Banzer (ex-dictator and later constitutional President) physically attacked me and I defended myself", then later was punched and kicked by members of the UJC.

The attack on Ric Friday night was later reported by local TV stations.

This violent episode follows on from another, also in Santa Cruz, in which the commander of the Armed Forces was insulted and booed in a public place.

"I have serious doubts that Santa Cruz will accept the changes (for equality proposed by Morales), I don't know how they will ever come to accept that dark-skinned people are just as Bolivian as the whites..... There is so much hate and racism, and the media ignores it all."

Evo draws the line

"Otro Golazo de Evoooooo!"

Seems like your prescient Otto was spookily correct yesterday when writing "There comes a point when patience will run out" about the way the racist scum decided to break off negotiations with Bolivia's democratically elected government.

Just to recap, the fascists decided to throw a tantrum when one of their own was arrested for the trivial matter of state terrorism. Only in the warped minds of the separatists can a legal arrest made on someone who actually admits to the wrongdoing (i.e. the attack on gas pipeline installations in Tarija) but they said that it was a kidnapping, broke off talks and said they'd reconvene Monday 29th. Well today Evo just called their bluff; he's called this Sunday 28th as the deadline for any definitive agreeement. In the words of Doctor Morales;

"Sunday is definitive, I'm going to be there (in Cochabamba at the meeting place) on Sunday and hopefully the prefects will be there, too"

Other Evo zingers include, "Apparently the prefects are suspending dialogue in an attempt to protect those who committed acts of terrorism and common crimes during the protest of last September",

....and also, "(the talks) cannot be conditioned to certains claims that must be dealt with by the judiciary."

So Evo once again shows them who's boss. And as a reminder, what's in play is the contents of the new constitutional referendum. Morales has shown he is willing to adapt the draft resolution on some points with the media luna states (a policy expressly against the wishes of many indigenous organizations, it should be noted), but if the prefects from the rebel states don't agree to anything by Sunday's deadline, they get no changes. Zip, nada, zilch. The constitution goes to referendum as stands and Evo gets to say "Look, I tried to talk with the dumbasses....gave them a chance...they want to be idiots, that's fine."

Evo: You are the man. And over 67% of Bolivians agree with me. And all of Unasur, come to think of it.

A great article on Bolivia

Know who Tupac Katari is? If not you have no valid opinion on today's Bolivia

I fully agree with this excellent and insightful article written by Adolfo Gilly and translated into English by the website Ukhampacha Bolivia. If you are reminded while reading of the situation in Apartheid-era South Africa and the industrialized nations' attitudes towards the black majority movement at that time, I wouldn't be surprised. Here's the link, and here's an extract to whet your appetite:

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".....what is happening is something much deeper and that goes much further than the elites, politics, and the economy. This is a questioning of the means of the historical domination by those elites, old and new. It comes from very far below, it is moved by an ancient fury, and it will not be stopped by the massacres at the hands of fascist groups nor by the fragile government agreements with the prefects of the Media Luna.

CONTINUES