Recruiting Spies in the Peace Corps

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Recruiting Spies in the Peace Corps
Washington’s blunder in Bolivia strains relations with the Morales government
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky (La Paz, Bolivia)


In February, allegations surfaced that the U.S. embassy in La Paz, located in western Bolivia, has been asking Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars to provide intelligence information to the U.S. embassy about foreign nationals in Bolivia.

“It flies in the face of what the Fulbright program is all about,” says John Alexander van Schaick, 23, a Fulbright scholar from Rutgers University, who says that last year, an embassy official instructed him to report on Venezuelans and Cubans living and working in Bolivia. “We’re supposed to be here to help with mutual understanding, not intelligence operations.”

This allegation, along with a similar incident involving Peace Corps volunteers, has again called into question the U.S. role in Bolivia, testing the thickness of the ice under its feet here in the heart of the Andes.

Anatomy of a scandal

On Nov. 5, 2007, van Schaick entered the U.S. embassy in La Paz for a routine orientation in preparation for his year-long fellowship in Bolivia. After meeting with various cultural affairs officials, the 2006 Rutgers grad met with Assistant Regional Security Adviser Vincent Cooper.

“He said that he was going to give me a ‘scaled-down’ version of the normal briefing given to U.S. embassy employees,” says van Schaick. According to the scholar, Cooper explained that although Fulbright participants are not U.S. government employees, the embassy likes to keep them “under its wing.”

The meeting consisted mainly of helpful tips for the newcomer—heed caution while on public transportation, steer clear of street protests and respond appropriately in medical emergencies. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3562/recruiting_spies_in_the_peace_corps/