[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: INVITACION JORNADA SOLIDARIDAD BOLIVIA EN III FSA - Invitation to a Day of Solidarity with Bolivia at the FSA III

Wed Oct 1 05:26:53 UCT 2008

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

For your information, and also with special respect to the debate  
that took place in this space recently about the presence of heads of  
government at the Social Fora – and which was also tabled for  
discussion at the recent meeting of the WSF International Council in  
Copenhagen.  We are still awaiting the minutes of that meeting, which  
we will post as soon as they come in.  But in the meanwhile, if  
anyone receiving this posting was there and would like to inform us  
of the decision on this and related issues, please do so !

English translation given below.

             At the same time, and given what is happening today in  
Bolivia – under the nose of the bail-out crisis in the US, Iraq,  
Afghanistan, etc, etc - please also definitely ‘read’ this event in  
broader political terms.

             For those who are not familiar with what’s going on in  
Bolivia at the moment – in short, the empire is striking back,  
viciously – I have pasted on some information below.

             JS
fwd

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Directora FEDAEPS <directora at fedaeps.org>
> Date:  October 1 2008 4:38:00 AM GMT+05:30
> To: destinatarios-no-revelados:;
> Subject: INVITACION JORNADA SOLIDARIDAD BOLIVIA EN III FSA
>
> JORNADA CONTINENTAL DE SOLIDARIDAD CON BOLIVIA
> Y EL PRESIDENTE EVO MORALES
>
> Acto político conexo al III Foro Social Américas
>
> Con la presencia del Presidente Evo Morales
>
> Jueves 9 de octubre de 2008 de 14h00 a 17h00
> Plaza de los Martires, Universidad San Carlos, Guatemala
>
> Convocan: Asamblea de Movimientos Sociales Américas, FEDAEPS, REMTE,
> CLOC-Vía Campesina, Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres, Coordinadora Andina
> de Organizaciones Indígenas, Movimento Sem Terra, CLACSO, Jubileo Sur,
> Minga Informativa de los Movimientos Sociales, GALFISA, Diálogo Sur/ 
> Sur
> LGBT, Centro Martín Luther King, Alianza Social Continental,  
> Fundación Solón, CONIC y Waqib' Kej
>
> Seguido de un acto cultural de celebración de los cincuenta años de
> socialismo en Cuba.

In English :

CONTINENTAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH BOLIVIA
And President Evo Morales

Political event related to the Americas Social Forum III

With the presence of President Evo Morales

Thursday October 9, 2008 from 14h00 to 17h00

Plaza de los Martires, Universidad San Carlos, Guatemala

Convenors: Asamblea de Movimientos Sociales Américas, FEDAEPS, REMTE,  
CLOC-Vía Campesina, Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres, Coordinadora  
Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas, Movimento Sem Terra, CLACSO,  
Jubileo Sur, Minga Informativa de los Movimientos Sociales, GALFISA,  
Diálogo Sur/Sur LGBT, Centro Martín Luther King, Alianza Social  
Continental, Fundación Solón, CONIC y Waqib' Kej

Followed by a cultural event celebrating the fifty years of socialism  
in Cuba.

__________

Pasted in by JS of CACIM :

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bill Quimby <wquimby at ECR.NET>

Date:  September 27 2008 9:16:52 PM GMT+05:30

To: SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS at LISTSERV.HEANET.IE

Subject: Re: Bolivia

Reply-To: International forum for discussion and information on  
social movements <SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS at LISTSERV.HEANET.IE>

This September 20 letter to Condoleeza Rice from a group of Latin  
American

experts may help summarize the events and fill in the picture. Note  
that it is

written from a "left academic" perspective.

- Bill

ABIDING IN BOLIVIA

Saturday, September 20, 2008

90 experts on Bolivia and Latin America ask State Dept. to reveal  
Bolivia funding

http://casa-del-duderino.blogspot.com/2008/09/90-experts-on-bolivia- 
and-latin-america.html

To Dr. Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State

Cc: Phillip Goldberg, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia

Henrietta Fore, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development

Representative Eliot Engel, Chair, Subcommittee on Western  
Hemisphere, Committee

of Foreign Affairs

Senator John McCain

Senator Barack Obama

Dear Dr. Rice,

We are writing out of deep concern over recent events in Bolivia that  
have left dozens dead and cost millions of dollars in lost revenue to  
the Bolivian government and the Bolivian people. We are especially  
concerned that the United States government, by its own admission, is  
supporting opposition groups and individuals in Bolivia that have  
been involved in the recent whole-scale destruction, violence, and  
killings, above all in the departments of Santa Cruz, Pando, and  
Chuquisaca.

Since the United States government refuses to disclose many of the  
recipients of its funding and support, there is currently no way to  
determine the degree to which this support is helping people involved  
in violence, sabotage, and other extra-legal means to destabilize the  
government of Bolivia.

Yet since the democratic election of Evo Morales in December 2005,  
the U.S. government has sent millions of dollars in aid to  
departmental prefects and municipal governments in Bolivia. In 2004,  
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) opened an  
"Office of Transition Initiatives" (OTI) in Bolivia, which provided  
some $11 million in funds to "build on its activities designed to  
enhance the capacity of departmental governments."[1]

The OTI in Bolivia sought to "[build] the capacity of prefect-led  
departmental governments to help them better respond to the  
constituencies they govern," and even brought departmental governors  
to the U.S. to meet with state governors.[2] Some of these same  
departmental governments later launched organized campaigns to push  
for "autonomy" and to oppose through violent and undemocratic means  
the Morales government and its popular reforms.

According to the OTI, it ceased operations in Bolivia about a year  
ago; however some of its activities were then taken up by USAID,  
which refuses to disclose some of its recipients and programs. USAID  
spent $89 million in Bolivia last year. This is a significant sum  
relative to the size of Bolivia's economy; proportionally in the U.S.  
economy it would be equivalent to about $100 billion, or close to  
what the United States is currently spending on military operations  
in Iraq.

U.S. taxpayers, as well as the Bolivian government and people, have a  
right to know what U.S. funds are supporting in Bolivia.

On August 10, a national recall referendum was held in which Bolivian  
voters had the opportunity to vote on whether the President, the Vice- 
President, and eight of nine departmental prefects should continue in  
office. President Evo Morales and Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera  
won with more than 67 percent of the vote, much more than President  
Morales' original electoral victory in 2005, which had the largest  
margin in the country's electoral history.

The recent opposition violence appears to be an organized response to  
this mandate, attempting to use extra-legal means to win what the  
opposition could not gain at the ballot box. This includes the  
National Democratic Council (CONALDE), composed of "five provincial  
governors, business associations, conservative civic groups, and  
legislators of the rightwing Podemos party led by former president  
Jorge Quiroga."[3]

Perhaps most alarming is the recent evidence of close collusion and  
cooperation between the departmental governments and violent groups  
such as the UJC (UniÃ³n Juventud CruceÃ±a, or Union of Santa Cruz  
Youth) and the Santa Cruz Civic Committee. As a new campaign of  
violence began following the August 10 recall referendum, a Reuters  
journalist interviewing Santa Cruz opposition leader and prominent  
businessman Branko Marinkovic witnessed UJC members going into  
Marinkovic's office and coming out with baseball bats.[4] Even more  
startling is evidence that the events of the past two weeks are the  
result of a deliberate decision by the opposition coalition CONALDE  
to pursue a campaign of violence. Media reports describe how  
opposition Podemos legislators were ejected from an early September  
CONALDE meeting after voicing opposition to the violent methods under  
discussion.[5]

News articles in the past week further noted the support from some  
departmental prefects and other regional government officials' for  
the violence. "The conservative governors are â€¦ encouraging the  
protesters in their actions," Agence France Presse reported, adding  
that, "The opposition coalition, which also includes town mayors,  
have focused their attention on the main source of Bolivia's income:  
the natural gas fields that lie in their eastern half of the  
country," and "Militants linked to the opposition group set up road  
blocks to add pressure to the governors' demands for more control  
over gas revenues." [6]

The racist nature of the UJC and other hate groups is well known and  
documented. These groups have focused their attacks mostly on  
indigenous MAS (governing party) supporters. In May, for example,  
members of the "Interinstitutional Committee," composed of civic and  
local leaders, and other youth militants forcibly marched indigenous  
and peasant supporters of President Morales to the city center of  
Sucre (Chuquisaca), beat them, stripped them of clothing, and forced  
them to chant anti-Morales slogans while berating them with racist  
taunts.[7]

As you know, at least 15 people have been killed in the past several  
days in Pando alone - the great majority of them Bolivian peasants  
and farmers - in what eyewitnesses describe as a massacre by  
assassins with machine guns. The Bolivian government has arrested  
Pando prefect Leopoldo FernÃ¡ndez in connection with the killings.

This violence, which has been accompanied by sabotage that has caused  
extensive economic damage, is utterly deplorable, and should be  
condemned from every quarter. Yet the U.S. government response has  
been weak. Before the extent of the massacre was known, and before  
the Bolivian government had declared U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg  
to be persona non grata, many had already been killed and economic  
damage done. Yet as of September 12, according to its website, the  
U.S. State Department had said only that it regrets the expulsion of  
Ambassador Goldberg and that this "reflects the weakness and  
desperation [by President Evo Morales]" and "an inability to  
communicate effectively internationally in order to build  
international support," and suggested that the Bolivian government is  
not improving the well-being of its citizens.[8]

The State Department website shows no statement between May 5, 2008  
and September 11, 2008,[9] indicating that the State Department  
failed to condemn the violence in recent months, and also failed to  
congratulate President Evo Morales on his overwhelming victory in the  
August 10 referendum.

We call on the U.S. government to turn a new page in its relations  
with Latin America by clearly and unequivocally condemning the  
violent, destructive and anti-democratic means employed by members of  
Bolivia's pro-"autonomy" opposition. Most importantly, Washington  
must also disclose its funding for groups inside Bolivia - through  
USAID and other agencies - and reveal the names of the recipients of  
these funds. The U.S. government must cease any and all support -  
financial or otherwise - to any group or person in Bolivia and other  
Latin American countries that engages in violent, destructive,  
terrorist, or anti-democratic activities such as we have witnessed  
with great shock and sadness in the past weeks in Bolivia.

Sincerely,

Ben Achtenberg, Refuge Media Project, Boston, MA

Emily Achtenberg, Housing Policy & Development Consultant, Boston MA

Robert Albro, Assistant Professor of Antrhpology, School of  
International Service, American University

Juan Manuel Arbona, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr  
College

Byrna Aronson, Boston, MA

Teo BallvÃ©, Journalist, former editor of North American Congress on  
Latin America Report on the Americas

Ericka Beckman, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese,  
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Charles Bergquist, Professor Emeritus of History, University of  
Washington

John Beverley, Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literatures,  
University of Pittsburgh

Michelle Bigenho, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Hampshire College

Lina Britto, Ph. D. Candidate, Department of History, New York  
University

Beverlee Bruce, Ph.D., Program Associate, Planning Alternatives for  
Change, New York City

Marisol de la Cadena, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University  
of California-Davis

JoaquÃ n Chavez, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, New York  
University

Mike Davis, Distinguished Professor of Non-Fiction, University of  
California-Riverside

Nicole Dettmann-Quisbert, Sudbury, MA

Luis Duno-Gottberg, Associate Professor of Hispanic Languages and  
Literatures, Rice University

Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Duke  
University

Nicole Fabricant, Ph. D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology,  
Northwestern

University

Samuel Farber, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Brooklyn College

Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Queens College

Lesley Gill, Professor of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University

Marcial Godoy-Anativia, Associate Director, Hemispheric Institute of  
Performance and Politics, New York University

Daniel Goldstein, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers  
University

Manu Goswami, Associate Professor of History, New York University

Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University

Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington  
University

Charles R. Hale, Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas- 
Austin, former president of the Latin American Studies Association  
(LASA)

Jack Hammond, Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and CUNY  
Graduate Center

Daniel Hellinger, Professor of Political Science, Webster University

Eric Hershberg, President, Latin American Studies Association (LASA)

Doug Hertzler, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Eastern Mennonite  
University

Kathryn Hicks, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of  
Memphis

Connie Hogarth, Center for Social Action, Manhattanville College

Forrest Hylton, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, New York  
University

Rachel Kahn-Hunt, Professor Emerita of Sociology, San Francisco State  
University

Caren Kaplan, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, University of  
California-Davis

Laura Kaplan, Bronx Community College

Steven Karakashian, Milwaukie, OR

Marie Kennedy, Visiting Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA, Professor  
Emerita of Urban Planning, University of Massachusetts-Boston

Eben Kirksey, Ph.D., National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow,  
Santa Clara University

Naomi Klein, Journalist

Benjamin Kohl, Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Studies,  
Temple University

James Krippner, Associate Professor of History, Haverford College

Richard Krushnic, City of Boston, Department of Neighborhood  
Development, Boston,

MA

Maria Lagos, Associate Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Lehman  
College, CUNY

Amy S. Lang, Professor of English and Humanities, Syracuse University

Daniel Lang/Levitsky, New York, NY

Brooke Larson, Professor of History, State University of New York- 
Stony Brook

Catherine LeGrand, Associate Professor of History, McGill University

Florencia E. Mallon, Julieta Kirkwood Professor of History,  
University of

Wisconsin-Madison

Angela Marino Segura, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Spanish &  
Portuguese, New

York University

Francine Masiello, Acker Professor of Humanities, University of  
California-Berkeley

Marie-Josee Massicotte, Director, International Studies and Modern  
Languages,

University of Ottawa

Richard Monks, Vice-President, International Union of Operating  
Engineers, Local

877

Elizabeth Monasterios, Professor of Hispanic Languages and  
Literatures, University

of Pittsburgh

Pablo Morales, Editor, NACLA Report on the Americas, New York, NY

Mary Nolan, Professor of History, New York University

Lisette Olivares, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Consciousness,  
University of

California-Santa Cruz

Almerindo E. Ojeda, Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Center  
for the Study

of Human Rights in the Americas, University of California-Davis

Andrew Orta, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of  
Illinois,

Urbana-Champaign

Deborah Poole, Professor of Anthropology, Director, Program in Latin  
American

Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Nancy Postero, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of  
California-San

Diego

Seemin Qayum, Independent Scholar and Development Consultant, New  
York, NY

Peter Ranis, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, City University  
of New York

Graduate Center

David C. Ranney, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Policy,  
University of

Illinois-Chicago

Gerardo Renique, Associate Professor of History, City College-CUNY

Marcus Rediker, Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh

Christina Rojas, Director, Program for International Studies,  
Carleton University, Montreal, CA

Nancy Romer, Brooklyn College & Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, AFT  
#2334

Fred Rosen, Senior Analyst, North American Congress on Latin America

Karen B. Rosen, Cambridge, MA

Karin Rosemblatt, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of  
Maryland, College Park

Frances Rothstein, Professor of Anthropology, Montclair State University

Ethel S. Ruymaker, Oakland, CA

Tamara Lea Spira, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Consciousness,  
University of California-Santa Cruz

Kent Spriggs, Spriggs Law Firm, Tallahassee, FL

Diana Steinberg, Boston, MA

Marcia Stephenson, Associate Professor of Spanish, Purdue University

Steve Striffler, Zemurray Chair in Latin American Studies, University  
of New Orleans

Estelle Tarica, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and  
Portuguese, University of California-Berkeley

Sinclair Thomson, Associate Professor of History, New York University

Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University

George Yudice, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, American Studies,  
and Latin American Studies, University of Miami

Jeffrey R. Webber, Ph. D. Candidate, Political Science, University of  
Toronto

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research,  
Washington, DC

John Womack, Robert Bliss Professor of Latin American History and  
Economics, Harvard University

Patricia A. Wright, Retired Urban Scholar, University of Illinois- 
Chicago

Carol Zuckerman, MD, Boston, MA

Rosanna Zuckerman, Boston, MA

[1] USAID/OTI Bolivia Field Report, July - September 2006.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Franz ChÃ¡vez, "BOLIVIA: Divisions Emerge in Opposition Strategy."

Inter Press Service. September 4, 2008.

[4] Eduardo Garcia, "Foes of Morales stage general strike in Bolivia."

Reuters. August 19, 2008.

Found at http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1925747220080819

[5] Franz ChÃ¡vez, "BOLIVIA: Divisions Emerge in Opposition Strategy."

Inter Press Service. September 4, 2008.

[6] Agence France Presse, "Bolivia orders US ambassador out, warns of  
civil

war." September 11, 2008.

[7] Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Press Release, "IACHR  
Deplores

Violence In Bolivia And Urges Punishment Of Those Responsible." NÂ°  
22/08. May

29, 2008. Accessed at http://www.cidh.org/Comunicados/English/ 
2008/22.08eng.htm

on September 16, 2008, 5:52pm EST.

[8] U.S. Department of State Press Statement, "Expulsion of U.S.  
Ambassadors

to Venezuela and Bolivia." September 12, 2008.

Accessed at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/sept/109534.htm

on September 16, 2008, 4:46pm EST.

[9] U.S. Department of State website: Bolivia - Releases.

Accessed at http://www.state.gov/p/wha/ci/bl/c7579.htm

on September 16, 2008,4:35pm EST.

Posted by El Duderino at 6:33 PM

______________________________

Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
www.cacim.net
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, 4155 0963 - PLEASE NOTE NEW SECOND NUMBER !

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