South American Countries Take Preventive Steps Against Ebola

[Judi Lynn]

South American Countries Take Preventive Steps Against Ebola

LA PAZ, Aug 13 (BERNAMA-NNN-AGENCIES) -- Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil have announced measures to prevent the Ebola outbreak within their borders, by issuing a health emergency to step up monitoring and detection of any suspected cases.

Roberto Torrez, head of epidemiology at Bolivia's regional health service (Sedes) of eastern Santa Cruz department, told reporters Tuesday at a press conference in the regional capital of the same name, that the department's health workers have been mobilized in case of an outbreak.

"While (the virus) has not appeared in Bolivia, just as our neighbor Brazil is doing, Bolivia has launched a system to strengthen monitoring to detect any suspected cases," said Torrez. "We are ready and mobilized by issuing this emergency," he said, adding, "a health warning was issued throughout the country. We want to reach the people to avoid any alarm, to tell them emphatically that the fatal disease has not appeared in national territory, that we are working to prevent any outbreak," Torrez said.

Control measures have been placed at border crossings and ports of entry, including airports in all departments, and health workers will receive training and be updated on how to handle patients infected with the virus, he said.

More:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1060018

[Demeter]

1. And with nieghbors like US, who needs enemies?

wouldn't put it past some no-name agency, thinking of introducing a bug into the area...as a power play.

[Judi Lynn]

2. You are on the right wave-length, for sure. It has always been on the table.

One quick example I learned about around 14 years ago was a testimony made in a murder trial for the Cuban "exile" Eduardo Arocena, who had been arrested for the murder by machine gun of Felix García Rodríguez, a Cuban diplomat to the U.N., when he was stopped at a red light in New York City, and they could sneak up and shoot him through his window. It was the sixth anniversary of the U.S. Cuban "exile" terrorist group, Omega Seven. Slimy people.

Here are some references to that event, which was actually kept very quiet, as provable by the fact almost no one has ever heard about it, or the other vicious things done to Cubans since the Cuban Revolution.

William Blum

Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic.

Cuba, 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

~snip~
In 1971, also according to participants, the CIA turned over to Cuban exiles a virus which causes African swine fever. Six weeks later, an outbreak of the disease in Cuba forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic. The outbreak, the first ever in the Western hemisphere, was called the “most alarming event” of the year by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. 23

Ten years later, the target may well have been human beings, as an epidemic of dengue fever swept the Cuban island. Transmitted by blood-eating insects, usually mosquitos, the disease produces severe flu symptoms and incapacitating bone pain. Between May and October 1981, over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158 fatalities, 101 of which were children under 15. 24 In 1956 and 1958, declassified documents have revealed, the US Army loosed swarms of specially bred mosquitos in Georgia and Florida to see whether disease-carrying insects could be weapons in a biological war. The mosquitos bred for the tests were of the Aedes Aegypti type, the precise carrier of dengue fever as well as other diseases. 25 In 1967 it was reported by Science magazine that at the US government center in Fort Detrick, Maryland, dengue fever was amongst those “diseases that are at least the objects of considerable research and that appear to be among those regarded as potential BW [biological warfare] agents.” 26 Then, in 1984, a Cuban exile on trial in New York testified that in the latter part of 1980 a ship travelled from Florida to Cuba with a mission to carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called chemical war, which later on produced results that were not what we had expected, because we thought that it was going to be used against the Soviet forces, and it was used against our own people, and with that we did not agree. 27

It’s not clear from the testimony whether the Cuban man thought that the germs would somehow be able to confine their actions to only Russians, or whether he had been misled by the people behind the operation.

The full extent of American chemical and biological warfare against Cuba will never be known. Over the years, the Castro government has in fact blamed the United States for a number of other plagues which afflicted various animals and crops. 28 And in 1977, newly-released CIA documents disclosed that the Agency “maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries throughout the world.” 29 It came to pass that the United States felt the need to put some of its chemical and biological warfare (CBW) expertise into the hands of other nations. As of 1969, some 550 students, from 36 countries, had completed courses at the US Army’s Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Alabama. The CBW instruction was provided to the students under the guise of “defense” against such weapons – just as in Vietnam, as we have seen, torture was taught. As will be described in the chapter on Uruguay, the manufacture and use of bombs was taught under the cover of combating terrorist bombings. 30

The ingenuity which went into the chemical and biological warfare against Cuba was apparent in some of the dozens of plans to assassinate or humiliate Fidel Castro. Devised by the CIA or Cuban exiles, with the cooperation of American mafiosi, the plans ranged from poisoning Castro’s cigars and food to a chemical designed to make his hair and beard fall off and LSD to be administered just before a public speech. There were also of course the more traditional approaches of gun and bomb, one being an attempt to drop bombs on a baseball stadium while Castro was speaking; the B-26 bomber was driven away by anti-aircraft fire before it could reach the stadium. 31 It is a combination of such Cuban security measures, informers, incompetence, and luck which has served to keep the bearded one alive to the present day.

More:
http://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/cuba

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

The Terrorist List, and Terrorism as Practiced Against Cuba

April 22, 2013 · by COHA

~snip~
On an emotional level, Havana has long drawn attention to the double standard that permits Washington to label others as a terrorist state, all the while ignoring its own culpability in the multiple acts of terror that have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Cuban civilians. This relatively unreported history stretches back to the early months following Castro’s victory over the Batista regime, when the United States was determined to eliminate the Cuban revolution not only through economic and political means, but with violence. Operation Mongoose, a program developed by the State Department under the overarching Cuba Project, coordinated terrorist operations from the period following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 to the October missile crisis 18 months later. During this time State Department officials provided logistical and material support to violent anti-revolutionary groups carrying out terrorist activities on the island. The terrors included torturing and murdering students who were teaching farmers to read and write, blowing up shoppers at Havana’s busiest department stores, bombing sugar cane plantations and tobacco fields, killing Cuban fishermen and the innumerable attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and other top government officials. [3] Historian Arthur Schlesinger reported in his biography of Robert Kennedy that Operation Mongoose was formulated under the Kennedy administration to bring “the terrors of the earth” to the Cuban people. [4] It has been called one of the worst cases of state sponsored terrorism of the 20th century. [5] When Operation Mongoose ended, violent anti-Castro groups based in South Florida, such as Alpha 66 and Omega 7, took over operations, often with the tacit approval and knowledge of local and federal authorities. In 1971, the village of Boca De Samá on the northeast coast of Cuba was attacked, leaving two civilians dead and a dozen more injured. Alpha 66 continues to claim credit for this act of terrorism on their website. [6] A series of biological agents were purportedly introduced into Cuba in the 1970s, harming a number of plants and animals. These biological attacks included an outbreak of swine fever that killed a half-million pigs. Perhaps the worst case was the1981 epidemic of Dengue 2, totally unheard of in Cuba prior to this period. More than 300,000 people were affected within a six-month period. An estimated 102 children died as a result of the disease. Cuban-American Eduardo Arocena, former member of Omega 7, testified in 1984 that he travelled to Cuba in 1980 to “introduce some germs” into the country to “start the chemical war,” —as reported by The New York Times. [7] One of them was Dengue 2.

More:
http://www.coha.org/22355/

[center]



Eduardo Arocena [/center]
Interesting note I just discovered, which I'd never heard before:

The Silent War Against Terrorism

by Jane Franklin; Saturday, September 25, 2010

~snip~

Omega 7: Created in 1974, Omega 7 operated for years with impunity as its members murdered people who promoted dialogue with Cuba, in New Jersey (Eulalio José Negrín) and in Puerto Rico (Carlos Muñiz Varela), and carried out bombing attacks. When Cuban UN diplomat Félix García Rodríguez was shot to death in New York City in 1980, the FBI was forced to arrest some Omega 7 terrorists because of the international outcry. The head of Omega 7, Eduardo Arocena, carried out at least one biological weapon attack; Arocena testified in his murder trial that he took “some germs” to Cuba. Omega 7 was also involved in drug trafficking. Arocena is the rare Cuban-American terrorist who was actually tried, convicted and imprisoned on multiple counts of murder and drug-dealing. Campaigning in Miami in 2008, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman indicated that Arocena would be pardoned if McCain became president.

More:
http://janefranklin.info/SilentWar.htm

A-holes!

[dougolat]

4. Absolutely horrifying and unforgivable!

Done in our name, on our dime, and still supported on the Right!

[Judi Lynn]

8. He's a murderer, a common criminal, a low-life piece of crap, and beloved by right-wingers.

They would all no doubt love to be demons, too, if they weren't so lazy, making big bucks from the United States citizens hard-earned tax dollars, and bribes.

[Zorro]

5. William Blum is the nutjob who believes the USA caused Hugo's cancer

What a credible source. Not.

[Judi Lynn]

6. What did he say regarding Eduardo Arocena which isn't true, please point it out.

There's a lot of information available on Eduardo Arocena which William Blum did NOT write, so anyone in doubt about the facts will have a very easy time checking it out.

[Zorro]

9. "...as provable by the fact almost no one has ever heard about it..."

Since almost no one (except those trolling nutjob websites) has ever heard about this, then it must be true?

Your credibility is on par with William Blum's.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Very interesting...

Thank you for your thoughtful and compelling posts.
~Lmsp

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thank YOU, Lmsp! n/t