Siding with the Warlords

[RBHam]

Bush administration backs massacres in Bolivia

With at least 86 workers, peasants and students confirmed killed by army and police bullets and hundreds more wounded during the last three weeks of mass protests, the Bush administration has solidarized itself fully with the repressive regime of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

There is also mounting evidence that the CIA and US military are playing a direct role in organizing the bloodbath that has been unleashed against Bolivia’s rebellious population.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/boli-o17_prn.shtml

[Wwagsthedog]

1. Drugstore Cowboys

How America's wrongheaded war on drugs brought down Bolivia's president

By Christopher Hayes
Web Exclusive: 10.29.03
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It may be difficult to conceive of an American president doing more to alienate the French than George W. Bush has. But imagine, for a moment, how Paris would have reacted if, during Prohibition, Calvin Coolidge had begun paying the French government huge sums of money to burn its country's vineyards. It seems a safe assumption that the hypothetical French prime minister who collaborated with such a policy wouldn't have lasted long in office.

Burning Prohibition-era French vineyards may seem like a ludicrous scenario, but it's more or less analogous to the current U.S. policy of coca eradication in Latin America. So it should come as little surprise that Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada resigned earlier this month amid growing popular opposition to his support of American eradication efforts in his country.

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http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/hayes-c-10-29.html