EVA UPDATE: Zelaya on Route ; US Pumping up Military Bases in COLOMBIA

[magbana]

"Thursday, July 16, 2009
UPDATES: ZELAYA ON ROUTE TO HONDURAS; US PUMPING UP MILITARY BASES IN COLOMBIA
Honduran Foreign Minister (constitutional) Patricia Rodas has announced that President Manuel Zelaya is currently on route to Honduras to reunite with the people in resistance to the coup regime, now on its third week.

On Tuesday, President Zelaya issued an "ultimatum" to the coup regime, warning that if they do not step down by Saturday - during the next scheduled "mediation" meeting in Costa Rica - then he will consider the dialogue process, imposed by Washington, as a failure. And he will return and rescue constitutional order, along with the masses in the streets, by any means necessary.

The Department of State responded to Zelaya's statements, calling on him to have patience and "let the mediation process work". But as the Obama White House calls on a democratically elected president, who was violently kidnapped and forced into exile by a military force trained, armed and commanded by the Pentagon, the US Government continues to do absolutely nothing to tighten the pressure on an increasingly repressive coup regime in Honduras.

The Committee of Family Members of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras published a report today detailing more than 1155 cases of Human Rights violations committed by the coup regime since June 28, 2009. Of those, there have been 4 political assassinations, 6 gravely injured, 16 threatened with death, 59 injured, 13 media outlets closed or censored, 14 journalists detained, of which the majority have been expelled forcefully from the country, and 1046 arbitrary detentions. Where are the State Department reports on human rights violations now? They are always quick to condemn Venezuela for made up violations in order to demonize the government, but when real violations and crimes are committed by a repressive regime favored by Washington, then the policy is silence.

Meanwhile, Washington is busy moving its military installations from Manta, Ecuador, where it has maintained a Forward Operating Location (FOL) since 1999, to neighboring Colombia, pumping up its presence next to Venezuela. The base in Manta was established per a ten-year contract created in 1999, when the Pentagon formally closed its big air force base in Panamá (Howard Air Force Base) and proceeded to set up several Forward Operation Locations (FOLs) in the region - in Manta, Ecuador; Aruba and Curaçao, and Comalapa, El Salvador. At the same time, the Pentagon substantially increased its capacity in the Soto Cano air base in Honduras, which is at the center of the recent coup d'etat against President Zelaya (see my blog entries below).

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador refused to renew the Pentagon's contract to maintain its presence at the Manta base, forcing its ouster this year. The US began its move today. Despite the persistent denials by US Ambassador in Colombia, William Brownfield, regarding the Manta base's relocation to Colombia, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe confirmed the relocation today, stating, "obtaining agreements with countries like the United States, so that, with all due respect to the Colombian constitution, and Colombian autonomy, they help us in the war against terrorism, against drug trafficking, is in the best interests of our country." The agreement negotiated between Colombia and the US establishes the use of Colombian bases in Malambo (northern part of the country), Palanquero and Apiay (center of Colombia) by US military forces. Colombia is also offering use of two other bases in Larandia, in the Caquetá State and Tolemaida, in the center of the country. The agreement is for an initial 10-year period and authorizes the presence of 800 US military forces and 600 private security forces as contracted by the Pentagon. The US has pledged over $5 billion (US taxpayer dollars!!) to improve base operations and set up shop in the South American nation that rests right next door to both Venezuela and Ecuador, two nations considered "adversarial" by Washington.

This makes clear that the Obama Administration is continuing directly on the same militarization path as the previous administrations and it is paving the way for the provocation of a major conflict in the region. Will the empire never listen?
Posted by Eva Golinger at 7:15 PM"
http://www.chavezcode.com/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Not far from Honduras from Colombia, is it?

http://www.gilgordon.com.nyud.net:8090/images/pics/map_samerica.gif

[magbana]

2. No, it's not. This is a very dangerous situation unfolding. This is do or die

for both sides. I'm glad Chavez has been acquiring military equipment up the ying yang. It will be interesting to watch what goes on at Soto Cano over the next several days and how it will figure into things if this thing escalates.

While lying low, Cuba is contributing with its super intelligence capability.

[Downwinder]

3. According to the Press, we are short of troops.

How many wars can we fight at one time?

[magbana]

9. The US can probably do a variety of things to get boots on the ground

should the need arise: rent mercenaries, pay Honduran army soldiers twice what they are getting now, and recruit young, poor guys from other countries in Central America and promise them US citizenship which they will renege on. And, if that doesn't work, I'm sure the Israelis will send over several C-130s fresh from the killing field in Palestine.

[Downwinder]

4. I guess now we know why the push for the border fence.

They are planning on taking on everything South. Change I believe in.

[rabs]

5. Rodas later clarified that she did not mean it literally, like at this very moment.

----------------------------
Honduran Foreign Minister (constitutional) Patricia Rodas has announced that President Manuel Zelaya is currently on route to Honduras to reunite with the people in resistance to the coup regime, now on its third week

--------------------------

Rodas was speaking in La Paz.

Now, does anyone know where Zelaya is today?

Telesur had an article in which he denounced the invasion of his house "with bayonets and rifles" earlier today. He said his family and ancestors have lived in that house for 400 years.

The Telesur story did not say where Zelaya was.

[magbana]

6. Nicaragua - the Telesur interview with Zelaya tonite said Nicaragua n/t

[rabs]

11. Okay, guess I missed it because did not watch Telesur TV today.

The Telesur print article did not mention where he was. Last I had seen was that he was in Guatemala on Tuesday. He is racking up some air miles :)


http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/54219-NN/zelaya-denuncia-allanamiento-a-su-residencia-en-honduras/

[magbana]

12. Telesur has a video up -- right hand side of the interview that shows him in Nicaragua.

[Downwinder]

7. There was a report that he was in Bolivia.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Seems like the pieces are being put in place for an attack on Venezuela and a grab of

its northern coastal oil fields and ops on the Caribbean. The method would likely be a US-instigated (or private corporate/Bushwhack-instigated) fascist secessionist movement, so that they can gear up the propaganda machine to paint the fascist cabalists in Venezuela's northern oil province of Zulia as "patriots" and "freedom fighters" trying to secede from the national government of that "dictator Chavez" (part one of the propaganda already in place). This method was rehearsed in Bolivia in September of last year, with Bushwhack support, right out of the US embassy--our tax dollars again, of course--for the white separatist movement, which was trying to secede from Evo Morales' national government in Bolivia's gas/oil rich provinces. An attack on Venezuela's Caribbean coast oil fields may also include a simultaneous attack on Ecuador's northern oil provinces, to the south of Colombia. Colombia has tested that border several times, in ops directed from the US embassy "war room" in Bogota, and has ramped up the war propaganda against Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa. Correa was the one who publicly stated that the Bushwhacks and their fascist allies in South America had a three-country plot for starting fascist secessionist movements--Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela. Bolivia's didn't work partly because of the unity of South American leaders in support of Evo Morales, but it may also have been entirely a test of this method of attack and a systems test out--of logistics and regional response. Also, oil has been found off Cuba, so Cuba might be included in this war plan. (The Obama administration's "opening" to Cuba might be designed merely to contact potential fascist groups within Cuba for the same purpose--"divide and conquer"--and paint some cooperative group as "patriots" and "freedom fighters.")

The US bases in Colombia will be in place. The US 4th Fleet has been put in place in the Caribbean already (to considerable alarm by South American leaders like Lula da Silva, who has said that the 4th Fleet poses a threat to Brazil's oil fields). Now Honduras--with a rightwing coup government, a military trained at the "School of the Americas" in torture and repression, US military funding and base in place, and a long history of Honduras being used as a "lily pad" country from which to launch aggression against its neighbors (all now with leftist/democratic governments--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala). Final planks of this plan for Oil War II-South America?: A secretary of state who has been on the wrong side of everything on Latin America, from US-dominated "free trade" (looting and impoverishing most Latin Americans) to having, as her chief campaign adviser, Mark Penn--a paid agent of the narco-fascist Colombian government--to larding the heinous Colombian military with $6 BILLION in military aid...and (sub-plank 2 of the final plank), a president who will give it a wink and a nod?

The latter element is a great puzzle. Is he merely a nice, friendly (hypocritical) face for this war plan? Did he sell out Latin America to the Bushwhacks and the Clintons, to get to the White House? If he disagrees with the war plan, does he have the power to stop it? Will they kill him if he tries to (as they did to JFK over the Bay of Pigs invasion)? I think the war plan is on. The coup in Honduras and Obama/Clinton's failure to stop it--when they clearly have the funding power to do so--is a big indicator that it is. I've been warning about it ever since I read Donald Rumsfeld's op-ed in the Washington Post, a year after his resignation from the Pentagon, entitled, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez." In it, he urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in South America. Whatever did he mean, except "swift" military action in support of fascist coups?

But, more than what he says, is the fact that he says it--and also when he said it. I won't go into the details but the timing pointed to Rumsfeld's fingers in certain events at the time, and his high interest in South America. What gets Rumsfeld's evil brain ticking fast? OIL!

All that basically undefended oil, right in their "back yard"--with the profits being wasted on education, health care, local infrastructure and regional independence!

I heard some analyst's prediction today that gasoline will go to $20 a gallon in the US! $20 a gallon! We have only to look at Iraq to see how far certain people and entities will go to control oil profits. They slaughtered a hundred thousand innocent people in the first few weeks alone, to steal their oil.

Despite all these dire signs, I don't think this war plan will succeed, if it is implemented. The people of Latin America have too great a passion for democracy and independence, and social justice, and they've come too far! They are like we north Americans were at the time of American Revolution. They have had it with being bullied and oppressed. They have done their homework--all the hard work of achieving transparent elections and other democratic institutions. The Bushwhacks (with Obama wringing his hands?) can cause a lot of trouble in Latin America--suffering, mayhem--but they simply cannot conquer it. US domination of Latin America is OVER. All they can do is alienate the northern and southern halves of this hemisphere permanently.

It could be otherwise. We could all enjoy a future of democracy and social justice, and together build a lively, prosperous, powerhouse economy in the Americas, and save the planet as well. Grass roots movements--in trade, in agriculture, in community, in equality, in education, in environmental protection, in sustainable products--are working on such goals throughout the Americas. Obama has something of this vision, although not all of it. He could be a great leader. And if they drag him into war--whether of outright aggression, or a war of attrition (trying to wear down the Latin American democracy movement over the long term, with "divide and conquer" tactics, economic plots and bullying, etc.)--it will be a tragedy for him, for us and for our country. I think that the Latin American democracy movement will survive it, but the opportunity for cooperation and a respectful partnership between the US and Latin America will be lost.

[Downwinder]

10. Plus we have to get that Bolivian uranium before someone else does.

If we are too short of troops to staff Iraq and Afghanistan, we sure can't handle S. America too. I have always questioned the shortage. With a supposed million man army, The Middle East is just a drop in the bucket. I figured they were holding the regular army back to keep us in line, while they sent the Guard and Reserve citizen warriors, off shore.