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Today's
Stories
January 13, 2004
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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January
13, 2004
Chonchocoro
The
Prisoner and the Presidents
By ADOLFO GILLY
Translated by Forrest
Hylton
At the meeting in Monterrey, the president of
the United States prepares to "squeeze" Latin American
governments, perhaps much more so on political than on economic
terrain. In an electoral year, the spectacle occupies politics.
"Narcoterrorism" will be a recurrent theme. In this
moment, one of the small pieces in this great game of pressures
and simulations is in the Bolivian prison of Chonchocoro.
The Maximum Security Prison of Chonchocoro
is more than 4,000 metres above sea level, on the Bolivian high
plains, a half hour from El Alto. We're on our way to visit three
social movement prisoners.
We stop in El Alto to buy grilled meat
to take with us. I look at the name of the place: "Taliban
Grill." Not unusual, because in El Alto, a dynamic Aymara
city of 800,000 inhabitants, I already saw at least two minivans
which had, on the rear windshield, Che Guevara on one side, Osama
Bin Laden on the other, and the word "Love," in English,
in the middle. We also buy a kilo of coca leaves for the three
prisoners. We'll share it in conversation.
We get to Chonchocoro. We go through
security. We go to the cells, or whatever they call them in Bolivia.
In April 2003, the deposed president Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada put two Bolivian coca growers there, Carmelo Peñaranda
and Claudio Ramírez, both founding members of MAS (Movement
Toward Socialism). Arrested with them in a commando operation
at Claudio's house in El Alto, with masked police and all the
paraphernalia of globalized illegality, was Colombian peasant
leader Francisco "Pacho" Cortés.
Of course the latter is the key to an
operation that has the classic-and bumbling-aspect of a police
frame-up. Pacho Cortés is Colombian, which is to say,
"narcotrafficker," and "terrorist," and who
knows what else. It's always good to have a foreigner to confuse
and paralyze the defense of detained nationals, suggesting "international
conspiracy" on the part of outsiders whom local society
does not know. I know the fable from my own experience.
When he was arrested, Pacho Cortés
had only been in Bolivia for four days. He had been there before,
to attend peasant congresses, as Cortés is a known leader
and human rights defender of peasant communities in Colombia.
This time, however, he was going to Bolivia in search of a place
to bring his family, threatened by paramilitaries.
For the repressive policies against the
coca growers' movement, which had been intensifying after he
took power in August 2002, for "Goni" (as they call
the deposed president in Bolivia) it was good to have a Colombian
peasant leader enclosed in Chonchocoro as an international item
to show the US Embassy, the true directing center of the campaign
to eradicate traditional coca plants.
As of February, Goni had already initiated
his policy of responding to demands with massacres. More than
thirty died in the police rebellion and the revolt against taxes
on low-income salaries. Goni had been elected with twenty-one
per cent of the vote, one per cent more than Evo Morales, but
precisely for this reason he wanted to show how strong he was.
An "international narcoterrorist
conspiracy" appeared as a good ingredient with which to
set up the repressive scenario that was exacerbated last September
and would end, on October 17, with the precipitous resignation
and flight to Miami of Sánchez de Lozada.
The case of Pacho Cortés is, in
this sense, scandalous. They accuse him of traveling to Bolivia
with the intention of extending the Colombian ELN, thousands
of kilometers away. According to the Bolivian police, in the
house in which they found Cortés, they found a black-and-red
ELN flag, a guerrilla manual, seventy bullets in bad shape, and
wire and adhesive tape that could be used for home-made bombs.
Without worrying about the ridiculousness
of the supposed "evidence," they seem to have forgotten
to plant more convincing elements, since each time political
police carry out these types of detentions in these regions of
the world, they claim to have found "flags" and "manuals"-they
used to find books by Lenin-as if every time people got together
to conspire, they took care to bring a subversive flag for the
corresponding police photo.
The justice system did not accuse Cortés
of any concrete criminal acts, but rather of having "intentions"
to commit them. In any case, without a crime to pursue, standard
practice would be to deport him to his country. But no: for evidently
political reasons, they needed a Colombian peasant leader in
Chonchocoro, where, indeed, there are real Colombian traffickers
as well.
This is the story as they tell it. The
reality, in contrast, is that various human rights organizations
from Colombia, Belgium, France and other countries; José
Bové, the French peasant leader; more than thirty peasant
organizations of Via Campesina from various countries,
among them Uncora, CIOAC, and CENPA of Mexico and the Landless
Workers' Movement (MST) of Brazil; fifteen deputies of the European
Parliament and deputies from France, India, Spain, Portugal,
Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, among
others, have demanded that they free Pacho Cortés and
his compañeros, as have senators and human rights activists
in Bolivia itself.
Goni was defeated and run out of Bolivia
on October 17th, 2003. That day, Carlos Mesa assumed the presidency
of a country undergoing financial meltdown, political crisis,
and social conflict. Mixed in with this catastrophic legacy,
Goni left Mesa the poisoned gift of the case of Francisco "Pacho"
Cortés. In the week of his downfall, the by-then delirious
Goni still had time to declare that the mass movement that demanded
his resignation was directed by "narcosindicalists"
and "narcoterrorists."
Until now, President Carlos Mesa continues
to carry the weight of this legacy. Why? Do pressures from the
US Embassy to keep alive "narcoterrorist" ghosts? Does
he believe that it works in his favor to prolong the case as
a bargaining chip for the future? Or maybe three imprisoned peasant
leaders, one Colombian and two Bolivian, do not mean anything
for a regime overwhelmed by other problems?
No one can escape the symbolic significance
of this case. It serves to strike at peasant leaders involved
in international activity; to criminalize the social movement
as "terrorist"; and to leave open the possibility of
more arrests, which police attempted last December, but had to
set eight coca-growing prisoners free twenty-four hours later.
The immediate freedom on Pacho Cortés
and his compañeros, besides being an act of justice that
cannot wait, would lift this stupid and foreign mortgage on the
already complex relations between the government of La Paz and
the social movements in Bolivia. A government that persists in
keeping these types of social prisoners incarcerated might run
the risk of becoming a political hostage of the case of the prisoners
in Chonchocoro. What for?
Historian, journalist, and essayist,
Adolfo Gilly (b. Buenos Aires, 1928) has taught history on the
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at UNAM since 1978,
and he became a Mexican citizen in 1982. He has written numerous
books, most recently El siglo del relámpago: Siete
ensayos sobre el siglo XX (2002), Pasiones (2001),
and Chiapas: La razón ardiente (1997). As a correspondent
for Marcha (Montevideo), he lived in Bolivia from 1956-60,
where he learned about politics from revolutionary tin miners.
He returned to Bolivia in 1999 and again in December 2003.
This essay originally appeared in Spanish
in La Jornada.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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