Bolivia says kills 3 foreigners in asassination plot

[cal04]

Source: Reuters

Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Thursday security forces had thwarted a plan to assassinate him along with top officials, killing three foreigners in a half-hour shootout at a hotel.

Morales mentioned Ireland and Hungary the nationalities of what he called foreign mercenaries involved in the alleged plot. He said two people had been arrested.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16378214.htm

[EFerrari]

1. The right wing psychos want to kill Morales for allowing the people

into their own political process.

[bemildred]

2. This could get interesting. nt

[EFerrari]

4. Remember there was a massacre in Bolivia last year

sponsored by the white supremacist separatists who were also backed by the Bush government. It didn't get much coverage up here. And Evo threw out our Ambassador because he was recruiting Peace Corp volunteers and visiting scholars to SPY for our government during their stay in Bolivia.

State wanted him gone very much at that time. And I have to wonder how many of those people are still in our government. . .

[bemildred]

5. Well, it says that two people were arrested.

It's going to be interesting to see what they have to say.

[EFerrari]

6. The Summit of the Americas starts tomorrow.

It was already going to be a tense gathering because all of Latin America except our clients want Cuba back in the community.

Buckle up!

[DCKit]

11. Clients? I was hoping Uribe of Colombia was the last.

Regardless, someone's getting desperate - and they'd better hope the Bolivian people don't find out who it is.

[EFerrari]

13. Maybe overtly. I count Peru, too. n/t

[L. Coyote]

15. I remember when that was a plural usage!

:rofl: "our clients" :rofl:

That's so 20th century! We are down to what, one now maybe.
I'm not sure who runs Colombia, but I'll bet on cocaine.
Who can we call a "client" state today? I'm coming up empty!

[EFerrari]

16. Colombia, DEA playground and CIA amusement park. Cocaine doesn't run itself!

And Peru, where we only rape the earth? :)

[bemildred]

7. I mean, a half-hour shootout in some hotel?

What is this, Butch and Sundance here? The "security" for this operation must have really sucked. Kind of made me think of the attempted coup in Equatoial Guinea a couple years back.

[EFerrari]

10. Santa Cruz is the seat of the white separatists.

If nothing else, they're trying to deny Morales that territory. He better beef up his security immediately because it's been obvious for a long time that he's wearing a big target just as Correa and Chavez are. I hope he gets chewed out by his allies.

[L. Coyote]

17. I suspect they are not "white" but Ladinos, non-Traditional, non-Native land owners.

Current genealogies get complex in South America after near 500 years of Contact history. Generalities are just that. Not long ago Natives were chattel to colonialists, with change happening very begrudgingly post-Spanish rule. The local Euro-Americans continued economic and political dominance. The concert of Euro-regimes is now history, but the class differences and prejudices persist in some quarters. The most bigoted, racist, Dark Age type rants I've heard against Native Americans have been in the Andes, where the largest Native American population survives. In the 1960s, some of these people still seemed to have been sequestered in their remote valleys since the Inquisition, unwitting of the Enlightment and freeing of the world's slaves. On the Altiplano, Indians were chattel as recently as 1970.

[EFerrari]

19. I agree with all of that but there was an influx of white South Africans

who were fleeing the burden of the end of Apartheid. They were recruited, actually, but I forget by whom. Judi Lynn would know. :)

[Bacchus39]

20. yeah, we'd love to see a link about that myth. Ladino is a Guatemalan

term, not sure if they use that in Bolivia but the essence is correct. It would be like saying most Salvadorians are "white" because they are not Indian. Given there are some people who are white in El Salvador and Bolivia.

[Judi Lynn]

25. I got to this news very late, Friday morning at around 3:00 a.m. It was Hugo Banzer!

The scum who imported white South Africans was Hugo Banzer. Here's a thumbnail look at him written in 1995, so it doesn't include the violence he unleashed against Bolivian natives during his only ELECTED Presidency in the 1990's, which he had to leave due to DEATH from cancer:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia

In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

[EFerrari]

38. Thank you, Judi Lynn!

[AlphaCentauri]

48. Oh boy! that looks like the history of Texas n/t

[Judi Lynn]

26. It was almost a year ago they caught two of the local right-wing shock troopers at the Santa Cruz

airport with a rifle with telescopic sights right before Evo Morales was scheduled to arrive:

Assassination plot suspected in Bolivia

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivian officials said Friday they have arrested two men who may have planned to kill President Evo Morales. But a local prosecutor quickly released them.
Police said the two were arrested Thursday at the El Trompillo airport in the eastern city of Santa Cruz minutes before Morales was scheduled to arrive. They said one of the suspects carried a rifle and rounds of ammunition.

"The government has well-founded reasons to believe this involves an attempted assassination," said Sacha Llorenti, deputy minister of social movements, at a news conference.

But the two had already gone free before Llorenti spoke. The Santa Cruz prosecutor's office released the men late Thursday for lack of evidence they had committed a crime, said Ruben Gamarra, vice minister of the interior.

"The prosecutor's decision is lamentable because one of them was carrying a Mauser rifle with a telescopic sight," he said.

The Interior Ministry, in charge of security, said the two men were members of a conservative Santa Cruz youth group that has led protests against Morales' leftist policies.

Relatively wealthy Santa Cruz has been a center of opposition to Bolivia's first Indian president and the region's leaders are trying to win greater autonomy from the national government.

Morales' visit to the region went on as scheduled, but with heavy security.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-06-20-460684427_x.htm

http://www.stratfor.com.nyud.net:8090/files/mmf/0/f/0f8eac6a9e5b83d9612f043367661023241c95cb_two_column.jpg http://www.hollow-hill.com.nyud.net:8090/sabina/images/bolivian-thugs.jpg

Members of the opposition shock troopers "youth movement." They use the clubs to beat indingenous Bolivians
when they march into their neighborhoods and attack them, or when they can catch individual or small groups
of indigenous people alone, and unprotected.

http://www.theepochtimes.com.nyud.net:8090/n2/images/stories/large/2008/09/11/bl82765086.jpg

Pro-Santa Cruz autonomy activists throw stones at a riot police bus in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. (Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images)

Attacking buses last September.

[WriteDown]

3. Gotta watch out for those

Hungarian assassins. This sounds like a page out of the Book of Hugito. When is he going to appoint a VP of La Paz?

[subsuelo]

8. BBC link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8003117.stm

[bemildred]

9. Santa Cruz, some Bolivian perps.

Who'd a thunk it?

[vinylsolution]

12. Kissinger's murder squads are still....

... wreaking havoc all over South America. The Spanish courts need to be pursuing him, too.

All power to Evo Morales, and the Bolivian people!

[EFerrari]

14. The Spanish are in on it in Latin America. Iirc, the Spanish government

was implicated along with ours in the 2002 Venezuelan coup.

[harmonicon]

18. that was a different Spanish government than the one in place now

[Judi Lynn]

29. Eeeeeyup! Same guys, if Juan Carlos is still the king. That was the sore point

behind the flare-up at a summit attended by Juan Carlos last year, when he whined, "Porqué no te callas?"

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. CNN and AFP mention Croatian as a nationality too

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/04/16/bolivia.plot/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gnX5gf7wXiAp8oSxDPBmksBYX_AQ

[Judi Lynn]

27. The largest landowner in Bolivia is Croatian, parents moving to Bolivia in the 1950's,

attended the Unversity of Texas:

http://www.glasdalmacije.com.nyud.net:8090/admin/images/content/2/5991.jpg

http://www.radioiyambae.com.nyud.net:8090/images/stories/civivcos_crucenos.jpg

Croat leads rebellion in Bolivia's east
By Simon Romero

Friday, September 26, 2008
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia: The documentary on Bolivian state television opens with grainy images of leaders of the Ustashe, the fascist movement that ruled Croatia during World War II. The movie, part of a propaganda campaign against one of President Evo Morales's top critics, then shows black-and-white photos of emaciated victims in concentration camps, followed by the question, "Who is Branko Gora Marinkovic Jovicevic?"

Tapping a pack of Camel Lights on his desk, Branko Marinkovic, 41, the scion of a cooking oil and cattle ranching empire, seems displeased at being associated with Nazis who fled to South America. After showing the documentary to visitors, he keeps glancing at his laptop's screen saver, a photo of the console of his private plane. His uneasy gaze betrays his thoughts: He would rather be somewhere else.

~snip~
But where the truth rests in Santa Cruz is also hard to determine.

This city remains a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the late Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco.

Another group, the Santa Cruz Youth Union, functions as a quasi-independent arm of the committee led by Marinkovic.

More:
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=16518063

[rabs]

22. Morales just finished speaking at the ALBA conference in Venezuela

He said the terrorists were "foreign mercenaries, mercenary killers (sicarios)."

Morales asked who is paying and contracting the mercenaries. He said there would be a full investigation.

Morales said the mercenaries were Croatians, Hungarians and Irish.

Morales said he had told Venezuelan President Chavez last Sunday that "his (Morales') days might be counted."

He said U.S. Embassy officials had been detected bring in bullets to Bolivia couple of years ago. Members of the U.S. Peace Corps had been instructed to spy on Cuban and Venezuelans working in Bolivia.

Morales said the USA (during bushista adminstration) tried to sponsor "civic coups" and not military coups because the Bolivian military is loyal to the government.

The raid was carried out by elite police units flown in from La Paz to Santa Cruz. Police and officials in Santa Cruz were not informed beforehand because Santa Cruz is the hotbed of opposition to Morales.

[Judi Lynn]

32. I remember one of the events, rabs: Bolivia releases US woman detained at airport with ammunition in

Bolivia releases US woman detained at airport with ammunition in luggage
The Associated Press
Published: June 28, 2007

LA PAZ, Bolivia: An American woman detained at the La Paz airport for entering Bolivia with 500 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition in her luggage was released Thursday and will not face charges, officials said.

Donna Thi Dinh, 20, was detained Wednesday night after airport security found five boxes with 100 bullets each in her luggage upon her arrival from Miami on an American Airlines flight.

Dinh initially declared to customs that she was carrying various types of cheese, but later acknowledged that her luggage also held the bullets, Bolivian Migration Director Magaly Zegarra said.

Dinh was met at the airport by the wife of Col. James Campbell, a military liaison at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Zegarra said. Campbell wanted the bullets for training and sport shooting, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg said during a Thursday news conference at the presidential palace in La Paz.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2897984

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That story always smelled so damned bad, didn't it? Thanks for your new information. You certainly went beyond the pathetic ordinary corporate media to get it.

You know, after the Santa Cruz prosecutor let those guys go who were caught with a rifle with telescopic sights who were cruising around the airport there immediately before their President Morales was due to land, there's NO WAY the Santa Cruz local government can be trusted to do ANYTHING important for anyone outside their racist, murderous, traitorous mob.

Not mentioning the way they arm, train, and turn loose the brutal, vicious opposition "youth groups" to run amock, beating, injuring, even killing indigenous people.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_7Se7iswAanA/SJ8QhtWS3hI/AAAAAAAACCs/bYnsYfMh51I/s400/SC_juven.jpg

Santa Cruz fascist youth group members

[Vidar]

23. Surpised they're not CIA... though they may be hired by them.

[subsuelo]

24. we're naive to assume they aren't

[Judi Lynn]

28. Time: A Plot to Kill Bolivia's Leftist President?

A Plot to Kill Bolivia's Leftist President?

By JEAN FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSKY / LA PAZ AND TIM PADGETT Jean Friedman-rudovsky / La Paz And Tim Padgett – 51 mins ago
Bolivia had been enjoying some well earned quiet in recent days. South America's poorest nation seemed on the verge of a civil war last year between forces loyal to President Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous head of state, and those aligned with the country's white elite. But after a new Constitution was finally approved in January, and an agreement was struck earlier this week to hold new presidential and congressional elections, calm seemed at hand.


It was shattered before dawn on Thursday when authorities uncovered what they insist was an assassination plot against Morales. At 4:30 a.m., police surrounded the Hotel de las Americas in downtown Santa Cruz, the capital of Bolivia's anti-Morales east. They'd been tipped about armed occupants in two of the rooms; and when they went to check it out, say government officials, they were met with gunfire. They returned it and killed three of the five men in the rooms, wounding the other two. According to Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, authorities were then led to Santa Cruz's convention grounds, where they found an arsenal of sharp-shooter rifles, grenades, C-4 explosives and other heavy weaponry. (Is Bolivia's President Evo Morales one of the most influential people in the world? Vote for the TIME 100.)


More important, Garcia said, they also discovered maps and documents showing that the group the men in the hotel allegedly belonged to had been stalking the caravans of high-ranking government officials and plotting assassination attempts. Vice Minister of the Interior Marcos Farfan said the documents indicated that two members of the group were present when Morales handed out land titles to indigenous Guarani in Santa Cruz province last month - and that they'd supposedly abandoned a scheme to plant a bomb at a recent Morales recent cabinet meeting near Lake Titicaca. More ominously, said Garcia, "we also found documents that speak of future preliminary preparations for an assassination of the President and Vice President." (Check out a story about Bolivia's immense and strategic natural resources.)


As he stepped off a plane in Venezuela later in the day, where he was meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez before traveling on to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad on Friday, Morales said unequivocally, "They were going to kill me." He added, "These are international mercenaries" aligned with Bolivia's right-wing opposition. Whether or not the men are linked to the conservative opposition - whose members adamantly denied any ties - officials say a flag of the Nacion Camba - a Santa Cruz-based fascist group - was reportedly found among the weapons. According to security officials, one of the three men killed at the hotel was alleged to be a Romanian; one was from Ireland. One of the wounded, say officials, is a former member of the Bolivian military who trained in Croatia. Eastern Bolivia is home to a politically conservative Croat enclave that has been ardently opposed to Morales and his pro-indigenous government since he was elected in 2005.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090417/wl_time/08599189185200

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Off topic: "Is Evo Morales one of the most influential people" - yes, because of the 'E'

A lesson in how to really take over an online poll:

Inside the precision hack

There’s a scene toward the end of the book Contact by Carl Sagan, where the protagonist Ellie Arroway finds a Message embedded deep in the digits of PI. The Message is perhaps an artifact of an extremely advanced intelligence that apparently manipulated one of the fundamental constants of the universe as a testament to their power as they wove space and time. I’m reminded of this scene by the Time.com 100 Poll where millions have voted on who are the world’s most influential people in government, science, technology and the arts. Just as Ellie found a Message embedded in PI, we find a Message embedded in the results of this poll. Looking at the first letters of each of the top 21 leading names in the poll we find the message “marblecake, also the game”. The poll announces (perhaps subtly) to the world, that the most influential are not the Obamas, Britneys or the Rick Warrens of the world, the most influential are an extremely advanced intelligence: the hackers.



At 4AM this morning I received an email inviting me to an IRC chatroom where someone would explain to me exactly how the Time.com 100 Poll was precision hacked. Naturally, I was a bit suspicious. Anyone could claim to be responsible for the hack - but I ventured onto the IRC channel (feeling a bit like a Woodward or Bernstein meeting Deep Throat in a parking garage). After talking to ‘Zombocom’ (not his real nick) for a few minutes, it was clear that Zombocom was a key player in the hack. He explained how it all works.
...
Zombocom joked to one of his friends “it would be funny to troll Time.com and put us up as most influential, but since we are not explicitly on the list we’ll have to spell it out. ” His friend thought it was impossible. But two weeks later, “marblecake’ was indeed spelled out for all to see at the top of the Time.com poll.

So what is the significance of ‘marblecake’? Zombocom says: ” Marblecake was an irc channel where the “Message to Scientology” video originated. Many believe we are “dead” or only doing hugraids etc, so I thought it would also be a way of saying : we’re still around and we don’t just do only “moralfag” stuff .
..
Ultimately, this hack involved lots of work and a little bit of luck. Someone figured out the voting URL protocol. A bunch of folks wrote various autovoters, which were then used by a thousand or more to stack the vote in moots favor. Others, sprinkled the spam urls throughout the forums tricking the ‘competition’ into voting for moot. When Time.com responded by trying to close the door on the hacks, the loose collective rallied and a member discovered the ’salt’ that would re-open the poll to the autovoters. The lucky bit was when Zombocom discovered that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t get banned. This opened the door to the fine grained manipulation that led to the embedding of the Message.

http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/

And if you check the Time list today, the message still reads the same, despite the fact that Manny Pacquiao now has over 20 million votes. Every time his fans try to vote him up to get him inside the 'marblecake also the game' message, 4chan is voting him down, automatically.

The moral: never, ever trust an online poll.

On edit: 4chan defeated! Well, sort of - on close inspection, their message read, at one moment: "marbleckae, also the agme" - a couple of their candidates have got the same rating, and have got swapped. Their algorithm isn't as powerful as I thought. But within a few minutes, it had gone back to the 4chan order.

[Judi Lynn]

31. Lesson noted!

http://lmno4p.org.nyud.net:8090/images/6.5/angry_bush.jpg

[conspirator]

33. Irish and hungarian? I wouldn't rule out involvement of the MI6 either nt

[Judi Lynn]

34. Bolivia police bust group they say planned to kill Bolivian president, vice president

Bolivia police bust group they say planned to kill Bolivian president, vice president
CARLOS VALDEZ | Associated Press Writer
8:44 PM CDT, April 16, 2009

http://snsimages.tribune.com.nyud.net:8090/media/photo/2009-04/46343399.jpg

A Bolivian police officer displays seized guns taken in the city of Santa Cruz
from an armed group at a police station in La Paz, Thursday, April 16, 2009.
Bolivian police said they broke an armed international group on Thursday
that was plotting to assassinate President Evo Morales and the vice president.
Three suspects were killed and two were arrested in a half-hour long shootout
with officers in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, police said. The area is the
center of political opposition to Morales.(AP Photo/Juan Karita) (Juan Karita,
AP / April 16, 2009)

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivian police foiled an alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales, killing three men in a 30-minute gunbattle with a mysterious group that included suspects from Hungary, Ireland and possibly Croatia, government officials said Thursday.

Police had attempted to arrest the men in the center of Santa Cruz, an eastern Bolivian city and hub of anti-Morales sentiment, but they fled to a hotel where an intense shootout took place around 4 a.m., witnesses and police said.

The alleged assassins detonated a grenade inside the hotel, blowing out its windows amid the gunfight, according to police. Three of the suspects, identified by state media as Hungarian, Irish and Bolivian, were killed.

A second Hungarian was arrested, along with a retired Bolivian soldier who had fought in conflicts in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, state prosecutor Jorge Gutierrez said.

Police raided a storage facility in a nearby park, confiscating explosives, high-caliber telescopic weapons and what appeared to be travel plans for Morales' motorcade, Police Commander Victor Hugo Escobar told reporters.

More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-bolivia-assassination-plot,0,1036527.story

[bemildred]

35. Thank God they stopped these viscious terrorists in time. nt

[Judi Lynn]

36. Sure sounds like they meant business, if they hadn't been caught! n/t

[bemildred]

37. Bolivia aims to untangle plot to kill Morales

---

"The terrorist group had a strategy and part of the strategy was to attack the cardinal ... and (take) other actions, not only against the president or vice president, but other authorities as well," Deputy Interior Minister Marcos Farfan told the Erbol radio network.

Farfan said the suspected plotters tried to blow up a navy boat on which Morales met with Cabinet ministers two weeks ago and aimed to trigger "a spiral of violence" in Bolivia.

The head of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, condemned the suspected assassination plot on Friday after meeting with Bolivia's foreign minister in Trinidad and Tobago, where Morales was attending the Summit of the Americas.

Confusion lingered over the nationalities of the three men killed. State news agency ABI reported that one of them was a Bolivian-Hungarian, Eduardo Rozsa Flores, who fought in separatist movements in the former Yugoslavia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN17332257

[Judi Lynn]

42. Oh, jeez! The "a spiral of violence" mentioned in this article is exactly like the orgy of violence

the opposition unleashes at various times near national votes, a referendum, legislation, etc. It has happened repeatedly. This is exactly their method which was attempted by these murderous thugs. Looks exactly as if they were working for the opposition.

[bemildred]

39. Bolivia gang 'fought in Balkans'

Three died and two were arrested in the eastern city of Santa Cruz after police fought a gunbattle with the group.

Bolivian police officials said two of the five fought for Croatian independence. The three others are said to be Irish, Romanian and Hungarian.

They were said to be planning attacks on government and opposition figures.

Chief among the suspected targets was Bolivian President Evo Morales, but Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera and Santa Cruz Governor Ruben Costas, a bitter opponent of Mr Morales, were also targeted, police said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8005592.stm

[formercia]

43. Someone hired International MERCS.

The question is: Were they free agents or contractors?

Someone didn't want this blowing back. Obviously, hiring 'cowboys' is bound to go sideways.

[bemildred]

45. Yah, Equatorial Guinea, Simon whatshisname.

But a lot remains "unclear". There seems to have been but a feeble grip on reality at work.
:popcorn:

[formercia]

50. Why take over a country with the full force of the military?

When a handful of cowboy MERCS can screw it up just as easily and for a hell of a lot less money.

[formercia]

40. Bolivia gang 'fought in Balkans'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8005592.stm


Bolivia's president is following events at home while at an Americas summit

Two members of a mercenary gang said to have plotted to kill Bolivian President Evo Morales were veterans of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, reports say.

Three died and two were arrested in the eastern city of Santa Cruz after police fought a gunbattle with the group.

Bolivian police officials said two of the five fought for Croatian independence. The three others are said to be Irish, Romanian and Hungarian.

--snip--

The boys are out to make trouble.

[bemildred]

41. Sounded "spooky" to me.

Not just some authoritarian fellows from Bolivia.

[Mika]

44. Standard ops, like the CIA ops of Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch.

Blowing up people, planes, whatever - not a problem for the Cheney/BFEE assassins.

[bemildred]

46. Yeah, I got that part. "Stability operations".

But who's behind it? I don't see it coming from Obama, not with the summit and all. If it's US spooks, they have to be spooked themselves now. It it's the Santa Cruz guys, well that might work.

[Judi Lynn]

47. Very reminiscent of this Israeli leftist-killer, Yair Klein who trained Colombian death squads:

01Jun07

Who Is Israel's Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?

Last weekend, Colombian intelligence agents arrested two Israelis and a Colombian suspected of being part of an arms-smuggling network attempting to deliver more than 50,000 guns to guerrillas.

Colombian officials are investigating whether the detained Israelis are linked to Yair Klein, an Israeli mercenary accused by Colombian authorities of training right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers in the late 1980s and 1990s.

And it is this man Yair Klein that we are going to take a close look at today. It's the story of a leading mercenary but also of the governments and shadowy forces he has worked with.

In late April, Yair Klein was released from a Sierra Leone prison where he spent 16 months on charges that he was smuggling arms to rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

Klein is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Army. In the 1980s he established a paramilitary mercenary company called Spearhead Ltd. Through this company, Klein began providing arms and training to forces in South America.

In 1989, Klein, along with several other former Israeli officers, was charged by authorities in Colombia of providing paramilitary training and arms to drug lords running international cocaine cartels. He is also accused of training Mafia assassins whose targets have included

Colombian politicians. Klein is also suspected of involvement in the explosion of a Colombian airliner in November 1989.

In 1991, Klein was convicted by an Israeli court of illegally exporting military arms and information to a Colombian group. He was fined $13,400. He has denied all charges.

In 1998, Klein was officially indicted in Colombia on charges of training paramilitary units in terror tactics in the late 1980s. He was allegedly one of four Israelis hired by the late drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the Medellin cartel's most violent bosses.

The evidence against him includes a training video that he used to instruct death squads in Colombia. The main leaders in the infamous Carlos Castano's paramilitary groups were trained by Yair Klein.

Massacres, assassinations of politicians and other terror tactics now used by paramilitaries in Colombia were part of the instruction that Yair Klein gave in his training camps.

More:
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/colombia/doc/klein1.html

http://www.rcnradio.com.co.nyud.net:8090/media/Elprofetadelamuerte.jpg http://www.haaretz.com.nyud.net:8090/hasite/images/iht_daily/D030608/250klyne_hanan_ezran.jpg http://www.elpais.com.co.nyud.net:8090/historico/ago292007/fotos-periodico2/COaAAGO29-07N1,photo01.JPG

Yair Klein

[bemildred]

49. Bolivia's Morales slams US 'conspiracy'

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Bolivia's leader says Washington continues to conspire against him — despite U.S. President Barack Obama's pledge of a new era of mutual respect toward Latin America.

Morales says at a 34-nation summit that he asked Obama to publicly repudiate a plot to assassinate him that Bolivian authorities say they crushed this week, killing three alleged mercenaries.

Morales does not allege U.S. involvement in the assassination plot. But he tells reporters that in the 100 days since Obama took office he sees no change in U.S. hostility.

Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and drug agents last year, accusing them of conspiring with the opposition to incite violence.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iga5Q635T970WKebRVhsO_FADpRgD97L0FV81

[Judi Lynn]

51. Irish link to Bolivian assassination attempt

Irish link to Bolivian assassination attempt
Published Date: 18 April 2009

~snip~
Media outlets across the world carried unconfirmed speculation that one of the men shot dead was a 24-year-old from County Tipperary.

It was reported that his social networking website, hosted by Bebo, bore a message from a friend last night simply stating "RIP bro".

The website in question painted a portrait of a man obsessed with guns and assassins, placing him in South America and specifically, according to messages left by his friends, in Bolivia.

There was speculation that a photograph of a fresh tattoo on the suspected Irishman's left shoulder and arm may have matched a tattoo on the corpse of a man strongly resembling the Tipperary man and featured on the front page of Bolivian newspaper, El Mundo.

A spokeswoman for the Irish Foreign Office last night emphasised all such reports were unconfirmed speculation. However, it is understood the Irish Foreign Office are in contact with a County Tipperary family in relation to the matter, in order to provide possible consular support.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Irish-link-to-Bolivian-assassination.5182874.jp

DU'er rabs posted his photo a couple of days ago in the Latin America forum, and a website of the Bolivian/Hungarian:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x14070#14110

[bemildred]

52. Family of Irish man killed in Bolivia issue statement

The family of an Irish man killed in Bolivia have issued a statement saying they're shocked and devastated by the tragic death of a beloved son and brother.

25 year old Michael Dwyer from Co Tipperary was named by Bolivian police as being one of a group of men allegedly involved in a plot to kill the country's President.

They claim Mr Dwyer's passport was found following a shoot-out in a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz on Thursday morning.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/ireland/family-of-irish-man-killed-in-bolivia-issue-statement-14272374.html

[Judi Lynn]

53. I hope we'll get the story on how they discovered them someday.

They had a TON of guns in there. Clearly they weren't expecting to get caught in there by anyone.

As for his family, they must be in shock. Who would expect to learn a family member is a professional assassin?

[bemildred]

54. Well, you just never can be sure who to trust, you know what I mean?

Somebody dropped a dime on them would be my guess.

Edit: The BBC link, #8, says "intelligence sources", also says there was an attack which precipitated the action, and has other information.

[formercia]

56. Ma would be appalled

Here she thought he was taking Yuppies on eco-tours. All those postcards and the occasional fat check didn't even make her blink.

It's called'Cover for Action.'

Hauling a ton of guns into a safehouse is bound to attract some attention.

[bemildred]

55. Family grief over shoot-out death

---

Three men, including Mr Dwyer, died and two others were arrested in the eastern city of Santa Cruz after police fought a gun battle with what Bolivian authorities described as a "mercenary gang".

Police said two of the five fought for Croatian independence after the break-up of former Yugoslavia. The three others are said to be Irish, Romanian and Hungarian.

The gun battle took place in Santa Cruz, an eastern Bolivian city and hub of anti-Morales sentiment.

Police commander General Victor Hugo Escobar said the group had been monitored for some time and that police had seized an arsenal, personal computers containing city plans of Santa Cruz and La Paz, the capital, and a list of possible targets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8005624.stm

[formercia]

57. It doesn't always work out like in the movies

Sometimes you get the Bear, sometimes the Bear gets you.

[Judi Lynn]

58. Wow! Thanks for the article. I have to wonder how the family could have been that clueless. n/t

[bemildred]

59. Would you tell your family?

"I'm going to help some guys overthrow a Latin American government. Don't worry."

[Judi Lynn]

61. Yup, that's a little off the beaten track. Most people wouldn't be suspicious their relative

was a hired killer.

It would be pretty damned creepy, however, finding out this way, when he gets his ticket punched after a shoot out with cops, while preparing to slaughter government heads on behalf of some dirty, greedy racists.

[Judi Lynn]

60. 2 jailed in Bolivian assassination plot

2 jailed in Bolivian assassination plot
AP Last updated 08:22 19/04/2009

A Bolivian judge is jailing two suspects in an alleged plot to kill President Evo Morales as investigations continue.

Judge Betty Yaniquez told reporters Saturday there is enough evidence to imprison the survivors of a shootout with police. Three other members of an alleged band of assassins were killed in a raid by police on Thursday in the lowland eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Prosecutor Edward Mollinedo says the suspects, Elot Toazo and Mario Tadik Astorga, are being held on terrorism charges, but refused to be provide more detail. Representatives for the suspects could not be reached.

Tadik Astorga, 58, a Bolivian-Croatian who apparently fought in the Balkans, and Toazo, a Hungarian computer science expert, were being transferred to a jail in La Paz.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/2345123/2-jailed-in-Bolivian-assassination-plot

[Joanne98]

62. Bolivia's Morales: US conspiring against him

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad -- Bolivia's leftist leader claimed Saturday that Washington continues to conspire against him - despite President Barack Obama's pledge of a new era of mutual respect toward Latin America.

President Evo Morales told a news conference at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago that he asked Obama to publicly repudiate an assassination plot against him during a morning meeting the U.S. president held with 12 South American leaders.

Obama responded that he was unfamiliar with the incident but assured Morales "his administration was not involved" and "made it clear he does not endorse or condone the use of violence against democratically elected governments," said a senior U.S. official.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

Bolivian authorities say they crushed on Thursday a group comprised mostly of foreign mercenaries that was planning to kill Morales and his vice president. Police killed three alleged conspirators, including an Irishman and a Romanian.

Morales, a former coca-growers' leader and Bolivia's first indigenous president, did not allege U.S. involvement in the purported plot.

But he said Obama's vow in a speech at Summit of the America's inauguration on Friday rings hollow without a denunciation.

"Obama said three things: There are neither senior or junior partners. He said relations should be of mutual respect, and he spoke of change," Morales said. "In Bolivia ... one doesn't feel any change. The policy of conspiracy continues."

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1102ap_cb_summit_bolivia.html?source=rss