Viva La Revolutionary Guards
One of the most dangerous places in the Western Hemisphere is the city of Warnes, Bolivia, which lies a few kilometers outside the country’s industrial capital of Santa Cruz. There, set back in an open field off a bustling highway, is the new regional defense school of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas, or ALBA—the eight-member economic and geopolitical bloc founded by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro nearly a decade ago.
Since its launch last spring, the school has become the object of fevered speculation throughout the region concerning its potential role in the indoctrination and training to some of the most radical elements in the Americas. But perhaps the most tangible, and troubling, aspect of the facility is the role now being played there by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran, itself an observer nation in ALBA, is believed to have provided at least some of the seed money for the academy, and no less senior a figure than its Defense Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, presided over the facility’s formal inauguration last May. Latin American officials now estimate that between 50 and 300 “trainers” from Iran’s feared clerical army, the Revolutionary Guards, are present in Bolivia—with at least some said to be providing indoctrination at the facility.
Iran’s involvement in the ALBA school serves as a microcosm of the Iranian-Bolivian relationship writ large. Since 2007, when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first visited Bolivia, the ties between Tehran and La Paz have deepened dramatically.
More at: http://news.yahoo.com/viva-la-revolutionary-guards-084500885.html
