Dwyer went to Bolivia on 'training course' (Evo Morales assassination plot interrupted)

[Judi Lynn]

Last Updated: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 11:29
Dwyer went to Bolivia on 'training course'

http://www.irishtimes.com.nyud.net:8090/newspaper/breaking/images/2009/0421/228774_1.jpg?ts=1240311667

CONOR LALLY, Crime CorrespondentMichael Dwyer, the 24-year-old Co Tipperary man shot dead by police in Bolivia, travelled to the country from Ireland last November with a group of up to 17 people, The Irish Times has learned.

Sources closes to the Dwyer family have said Mr Dwyer told them he was going to Bolivia for a three-month training course linked to his work in the security industry. He suggested to the family he was going to Bolivia at the behest of an employer here. However, it has now emerged he paid for his own flights to Bolivia and there is no information at this point to suggest he was in the country doing a course for a company.

Mr Dwyer’s family are now trying to contact some of the Irish people the dead man travelled to Bolivia with. It appears Mr Dwyer broke away from the group and took up local work. Shortly after arriving in Bolivia Mr Dwyer posted photographs on his Bebo site of himself in the country with other people with a Caucasian appearance.

Mr Dwyer had worked for at least two Irish security companies before he travelled to South America at the end of last year. He had been employed on a part-time basis with Integrated Risk Management Services (IRMS).

They are a well-known company based in Naas, Co Kildare, headed by former member of the Army Ranger Wing. The company has been best-known in recent years as the security provider to Shell at its controversial Corrib gas pipeline project in Co Mayo.

More:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0421/breaking30.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. (another dead alleged assassin) Flores name on anti-Morales tirades

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Flores name on anti-Morales tirades

DANIEL McLAUGHLIN in BudapestTHE SUSPECTED leader of the gang accused of planning to assassinate Bolivian president Evo Morales called for him to be “stopped” and denounced him as a “white-hating national-socialist”, according to postings that bear his name and photograph on a Hungarian nationalist website.

An internet tirade attributed to Eduardo Rozsa Flores called Mr Morales a “Nazi ideologist with an Indian background” and accused him of “preparing aggression against my home town, Santa Cruz de la Sierra”, the city where he was killed along with Irishman Michael Dwyer last Thursday.

“Let’s stop the white-hating national-socialist Indians, otherwise there will be civil war in my homeland,” Flores apparently wrote on the Szekely.tk website in 2007, finishing the post with the Hungarian-language phrase: “Viva freedom, viva autonomy for Santa Cruz de la Sierra.”

Bolivian police accuse Mr Flores and Mr Dwyer of being part of a gang that planned to murder Mr Morales at the behest of right-wing opposition groups that resent his efforts to redistribute wealth in the poverty-ridden South American state.

Domestic opposition to Mr Morales’s indigenous-dominated government is concentrated in Santa Cruz, in the mostly mestizo east of Bolivia, a region that is a major transhipment point for Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine bound for Brazil and Europe.

More:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0421/1224245070117.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Dead man had security background in Ireland

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dead man had security background in Ireland

~click for photo~
?ts=1240311095

Bolivian policemen take three dead bodies, including that of Michael Dwyer, to the morgue last Thursday after clashes in Santa Cruz.
Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

CONOR LALLYMICHAEL DWYER, the 24-year-old Co Tipperary man shot dead by police in Bolivia, had worked for at least two Irish security companies before he travelled to South America at the end of last year.

He had been employed on a part-time basis with Integrated Risk Management Services (IRMS). They are a well-known company based in Naas, Co Kildare, headed by a former member of the Army Ranger Wing, Jim Farrell.

The company has been best-known in recent years as the security provider to Shell at its controversial Corrib gas pipeline project in Co Mayo.

When contacted yesterday, a spokesman at the company declined to confirm any details of Mr Dwyer’s employment. The spokesman said Mr Dwyer’s family had asked for privacy and IRMS wanted to respect their wishes.

However, The Irish Times understands Mr Dwyer last worked for IRMS in the first half of last year. When his contract expired, he then left the company.

It is unclear if Mr Dwyer worked at the Shell site in Co Mayo, but a number of local sources said they believed he had worked there for a period.

Mr Dwyer also worked for a now-defunct company in Oranmore, Co Galway, called Praetorian Security. It was one of the biggest firms in Ireland, supplying security to pubs and nightclubs.

Last June, the Private Security Authority suspended its licence over failure to meet all its tax compliance obligations.

Mr Dwyer worked part-time as a pub security guard while he was studying construction management in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. When he graduated last year, he worked in security full-time in Ireland before travelling to Bolivia at the end of last year.

Sources close to the family said they believe he had gone to Bolivia for a three-month training course linked to his security work. However, some security industry sources who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday said they had never heard of anybody travelling from Ireland to Bolivia to be trained there.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0421/1224245070110.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. Irish mercenary killed in Bolivia had been working for Shell

Irish mercenary killed in Bolivia had been working for Shell
J1 | 20.04.2009 11:43



Michael Dwyer (right) working for Shell in 2007

At the end of 2007, the majority of security guards employed by Shell at the site of the proposed refinery and production pipeline in Mayo on the west coast of Ireland were replaced by operatives from a company called IRMS. These new security guards were mostly ex-military types, who were much more aggressive in dealing with the many protests against the controversial project.

One local man reported that he had spoken to a security guard from IRMS who had served in the South African army, and was using his time in Ireland as a break between trips to work as a private contractor in Iraq. Many of the security men were former members of the British and Irish armies, but some were obviously young men from Ireland who had backgrounds in the security industry, guarding places like construction sites.

Controversy flared when the security guards based at Glengad on the coast insisted on filming people using the beach, including small children.

The attitude of the security to the local people, protesters, and media was extremely poor, with guards refusing to wear identity tags and ordering people around like soldiers. Many people said they felt that the security were far too aggressive and behaved "like and occupying army".

It now transpires that Michael Dwyer frm Tipperary was among the Irish men involved in the security operation.

He went to Bolivia after working for Shell in Mayo, but it is not clear whether he was still under contract with IRMS. He seems to have made connections with extremists and paid mercenaries, in whose company he was gunned down by Bolivian Security forces.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/427924.html