William W. Cummings

Photo courtesy FICCI

CARTAGENA — The end of the film, “The Corporation,” portrays the massive protests that drove the multinational, Bechtel, to relinquish its control over the municipal water supply of the Bolivian city of Cochabamba as a dramatic victory of David over Goliath. This story captured the imagination of globalization’s opponents around the world, and has served as a parable for the power of people to triumph over the seemingly invincible forces of international capital. As The Democracy Center‘s Jim Schultz told Amy Goodman, “People like a good David-and-Goliath story, and the water revolt is David not just beating one Goliath, but three. We call them the three B’s: Bechtel, Banzer and the Bank.”

Another documentary, “Rios de Hombres,” screened this week at Cartagena’s International Film Festival, questions whether the 2000 water war was indeed proof that “the people united can never be defeated.” While the protests did lead to Bechtel losing its contract and started the social upheaval that forced President Hugo Banzer’s resignation, nothing has improved for the impoverished people of Cochabamba, and the water problem remains unsolved.

Director Tin Dirdamal took seven years to make the film, and that temporal distance from the events discussed permitted him to take a fresh look at the outcome.  Dirdamal arrived in Cochabamba, he told Opinión, “thinking that the water war was a victory. And, as I mention in the film, I went to be a part of this triumph, I identified with it.”

Yet, Dirdamal reveals a rare intellectual integrity, in that he abandoned his assumptions when confronted with facts that contradicted his preconceptions. For example, he arrived with the intent to tell the story of an American company that had privatized the rain water — a detail in the story that invoked the ire of people around the globe — and raised prices to unaffordable levels for the city’s poor.

Dirdamal discovered, however, that the there was little truth in these reports. Charging for rain water would have been a logistical impossibility, the film convincingly argues, and the 300 percent price increases were actually only leveled on the highest consumers such as hotels, large farms and private estates with swimming pools.

In a heavy-handed visual metaphor Dirdamal compares the impoverished, largely homeless, people who actually fought the bloody battles with the police, to cattle being led to slaughter. They unknowingly did the bidding of these wealthy Bolivians, who were spared the higher rates with the expulsion of Bechtel, and the original water suppliers, who make large profits providing polluted water inefficiently. Read more…

The Sala de Honor -- Hall of Honor -- at the Bolivian Foreign Ministry stands empty at 7 pm Friday when representatives from Brazil, Bolivia and the U.S., were to sign a trilateral agreement on coca crop reduction. Photo by William W. Cummings

LA PAZ — The flags of Brazil, Bolivia and the U.S. hung limply behind three empty seats Friday night in the Bolivian Foreign Ministry’s Hall of Honor. The room had been prepared for the public signing of a trilateral agreement establishing a new, cooperative system for monitoring and reducing coca cultivation in Bolivia. Yet, as the announced time of the signing came and went, the room remained unoccupied.

Various explanations have been offered since the abrupt cancellation as to why the signing of the agreement was postponed for the fifth time since March, and the second time in 24 hours.

Officials had said the previous postponements were due to logistical and scheduling problems. Felipe Cáceres, Bolivia’s top drug official, continued this theme Friday evening, saying the signing was postponed because he had to attend the closing ceremonies of the South American Council on the Global Drug Problem.

Vice Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Alurralde, on the other hand, told El Deber the postponement was due to issues with the agreement itself and that the signing would be delayed until he received further orders. “The document is being revised,” he said. “It still is not as we would like it.”

Minister of Government Wilfredo Chávez, who was to sign the agreement for Bolivia, also felt the document had to be rewritten. According to the Associated Press, Chávez said Sunday that the Bolivian government needed clearer control over the counter-narcotics efforts outlined in the agreement.

“The draft of the agreement must be improved so that it is understood that the Bolivian state is at the head of the drug war. It is under the total and absolute control of the Bolivian state, and there can not be a single word or concept that can be misunderstood,” the minster of government said.

Read more…

Left to Right: Bolivian President Evo Morales, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala during a meeting of the Andean Community of Nations in Bogotá on Nov. 8, 2011. Photo courtesy of Javier Casella, SIG.

LA PAZ — Bolivian President Evo Morales stated unequivocally Tuesday that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will not return to Bolivia, despite the new agreement that calls for greater cooperation in the fight against drug traffickers.

“The DEA will not return because of issues of sovereignty,” Morales said during a meeting of leaders of the Andean states in Bogota. He called Monday’s agreement one of “mutual respect,” and said, “For the first time, since the founding of Bolivia, the U.S. will respect Bolivian rule, including Bolivian laws and the constitution.”

Bolivian law permits the cultivation of coca for traditional uses, while the U.S. deems all coca cultivation illegal. Morales himself was a coca grower and a leader of the coca-farmers’ fight against DEA eradication programs.

“I was personally a victim of the DEA,” Morales said. “Armed, uniformed Americans commanded the police, commanded the armed forces. They repressed us. That is over.”

Morales expelled the DEA, and U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, in September 2008 after accusing them of conspiring to overthrow his administration.

During a press conference Tuesday in La Paz, Vice President Álvaro García Linera said he stood by the the decision to expel Goldberg and the DEA because it, “saved our country from a coup d’état.”

“In no article of the agreement does it say the DEA will return,” García Linera said. “We do not need it. We do not need a foreign police agency of political character in our country.”

García Linera, while admitting some difficulties, said the Bolivian police, intelligence agencies and armed forces were improving their fight against drug traffickers without the help of the DEA.

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Bolivian Vice Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Alurralde and U.S. Under Secretary for Global Affairs Maria Otero sign the “Framework Agreement” in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 7, 2011. Photo courtesy of the Bolivian Foreign Ministry.

LA PAZ — Bolivia and the United States signed an agreement Monday reestablishing diplomatic relations, three years after President Evo Morales expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Bolivian Vice Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Alurralde and U.S. Under Secretary for Global Affairs Maria Otero signed the “Framework Agreement” in Washington, D.C. The agreement, “establishes a framework by which the two governments will pursue relations on the basis of mutual respect and shared responsibility,” the two governments announced in a joint statement.

The agreement’s objectives include economic development, improved trade relations and “effective action against illicit narcotics production and trafficking.” It is unclear if the “shared responsibility” and “enhanced law enforcement cooperation” called for in the agreement will include the return of the DEA to Bolivia.

Armando Loaiza, who served as Bolivia’s foreign minister during the first year of the Morales administration, said in an interview on Bolivian television that it would be difficult to imagine a serious effort to stop drug traffickers that would not include the DEA. “There isn’t a more powerful and effective organization in the counter-narcotics fight than the DEA,” he said.

Morales expelled the DEA and Ambassador Goldberg in 2008, saying they were inciting the opposition in an effort to overthrow the government. “We don’t want people here who conspire against our unity. We don’t want people who threaten our democracy,” Morales announced at the time.

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LA PAZ — Bolivian President Evo Morales announced Monday that his government will eradicate 10,000 hectares of coca before the calendar year is up, although his claims that this would represent a new record are belied by United Nations data.

Bolivian President Evo Morales announces from the Presidential Palace that his government will eradicate 10,000 hectares of coca in 2011. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of the President.

According to Prensa Latina and Tarija’s El País, Morales, “announced that the Plurinational State will break in 2011 all records for the elimination of surplus coca leaf.” Perhaps the distinction lies in the definition of “surplus coca,” but, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2011 World Drug Report, Bolivia has eradicated more than 10,000 hectares of coca four times since 1996, including a high of 15,353 hectares in 1999.

Morales, who said more than 8,000 hectares of coca have already been eradicated this year, stressed that an agreement with the producers made the eradication possible. It is taking place, “without a single shot being fired that resulted in death or injury, unlike what occurred during the neoliberal governments,” he said

Morales is a former coca grower, and current head of the coca-growers’ union. His political career largely began as a leader of the cocaleros fight against the United States-backed coca eradication programs. He expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg in 2008 and suspended DEA activity in Bolivia the same year. He has insisted that his country can continue to produce coca for traditional uses while fighting the production and distribution of processed cocaine.

“You can not talk about free coca cultivation, nor zero coca for tradition and culture.” Morales said Monday.

Morales said the eradication was an important act in the fight against narcotraffickers. “This contribution and this conscious, voluntary reduction has a great impact on the international community,” Morales said.

The eradication of 10,000 hectares of coca would be a new record for the Morales administration, if not for Bolivian history, and would be double the amount eradicated during his first year in office. Since Morales took office, coca cultivation has increased roughly 12 percent, from 27,500 hectares in 2006 to 30,900 in 2010.

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The Mexican military recovered 32 hand grenades and 29 40mm grenades in a raid on a Zeta training camp on May 10, 2010. (Photo: SEDENA)

Retailers in the U.S. are a major source of weapons for Mexican drug trafficking organizations, but many of their armaments are from military sources.

A U.S. State Department cable released Monday by WikiLeaks reveals that Mexican law enforcement recovered grenades, which the U.S government sold to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s. One of these grenades, a U.S. military M67 fragmentation grenade, was used in an attack on Televisa, a Monterrey TV station, during their evening news broadcast. Law enforcement officials identified that grenade from the fuse spoon and pull ring left behind at the scene.

Three South Korean K400 grenades were recovered in an abandoned armored car believed to have been used by traffickers as a getaway vehicle. The cable requests that U.S. Embassy officials in Seoul, “discreetly query the Korean government regarding the whereabouts, disposition, and the possibility of any missing stocks,” of South Korean-made grenades. Another Korean-made K75 grenade was thrown into a nightclub in Pharr, Texas on the U.S. side of the border, where the targets were three off-duty police officers. The grenade did not detonate.

Other recovered military hardware described in the cable includes 14 more U.S.-made M67 grenades, an unexploded U.S. M26A2 fragmentation grenade hurled at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey on Oct. 21, 2008, 21 unidentified grenades from a narco warehouse, 25 40mm projectiles, and a U.S. M203 40mm grenade launcher,

Another cable provides detail of the case against Mexican Army Major Arturo Gonzalez, who was arrested on Dec. 21, 2008 for assisting drug trafficking organizations (DTO). The Jan. 20, 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City says Gonzalez, “stands accused of leaking military intelligence, training [Arturo Beltran Leyva Organization] hit men through a private security company and supplying military weapons to various DTOs, including los Zetas.” Gonzalez was paid $100,000 a month for his services, beginning in 2005, according to the cable.

At the time of his arrest, Gonzalez was a part of President Felipe Calderon’s security team. He is accused of passing information about Calderon’s travel schedule and Calderon’s medical records to the cartels.

“The arrest represents the most serious security breach to date but is not surprising given high-level civilian Government of Mexico (GOM) corruption charges over the past six months,” the cable says.

Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) sponsored the budget amendment blocking the ATF request.

The budget bill passed in the Republican-led House of Representatives Saturday includes an amendment that blocks a request from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives [ATF] for emergency powers ATF officials say will help stop the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels.

The ATF has asked that all firearms dealers in the four border states temporarily be required to report the sale of two or more rifles in less than five days to the same buyer.

“By obtaining information about these multiple sales, ATF increases the likelihood of uncovering and disrupting trafficking schemes before the firearms make their way into Mexico,” acting ATF Director Ken Melson said in a statement.

The Obama administration has yet to accept or reject the ATF request, but The Hill reports the bill would make that decision moot. The House budget bill’s fate will be determined in the Senate.

Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) sponsored the amendment, which passed 277 to 149.  According to The Hill:

Forty-one Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and two Republicans – Reps. Peter King (N.Y.) and Brian Bilbray (Calif.) – opposed it. King, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has often been at odds with GOP leaders over gun reform.

“The ATF has no legal authority to demand these reports,” Boren said in statement. He said that ATF was trying to circumvent Congressional authority because there are not enough votes in the House to approve this new regulation.

“This new regulation would create a flood of new reports that will further waste already scarce law enforcement resources,” Boren added. The rule change would also, “compromise the privacy of their customers by cataloguing [sic] personal information in a database,” he said.

According to Boren’s website, “The amendment was fully supported by the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an organization representing the firearms industry, says the rule change would make it more difficult for firearms retailers to identify suspicious buyers and alert the ATF because traffickers will begin to buy their guns at multiple locations.

“Illegal firearms traffickers engaged in acquiring firearms to smuggle into Mexico will simply and rapidly modify their illegal schemes to circumvent the reporting requirement,” the NSSF says.

A Romanian AK-47 and its accessories, imported by Century International Arms. (Photo by Geoffrey Fairchild, courtesy of Creative Commons)

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) called upon President Barrack Obama in a letter last week to use his executive authority to ban the importation of “military-style assault firearms.” This would help stop “the gun trafficking that is fueling the horrific gun violence in Mexico,” Feinstein wrote.

Previous presidents used a provision of the 1968 Gun Control Act, which only permits the importation of firearms that are “particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes,” to limit shipments of these types of semiautomatic rifles into the United States. This provision is not being aggressively enforced and guns that should ineligible for import are flowing into the United States, Feinstein says.

Among the firearms that have Feinstein concerned are, “cheap AK-type variants from former Eastern bloc countries.” The WASR-10, a Romanian version of the AK-47, is the gun most frequently recovered in Mexico and successfully traced back to the United States.

In her letter, Feinstein also asks Obama to stop the practice many importers employ of reassembling imported rifles with some domestically manufactured components in order to comply with import restrictions. This practice is in violation of the Gun Control Act, Feinstein says.

The National Rifle Association responded to Feinstein’s letter in a statement saying, “the ‘sporting purposes’ limitation imposed by the Gun Control Act of 1968 is constitutionally suspect, to put it mildly.” The “sporting purposes” criteria undermines citizens’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, and “the law is ripe for a remedy,” the NRA statement says.

The NRA says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has repeatedly misinterpreted the “sporting purposes test” for political reasons and faults Feinstein for, “encouraging yet another misinterpretation.”

The Romanian version of the iconic AK-47 is the leading gun recovered at Mexican crime scenes and successfully traced back to the United States, according to a recent report from PBS FRONTLINE in collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, Insight and the Center for Public Integrity.

WASR-10s found on Alfonso Gutierrez and his associates after a May 10, 2008 shootout with police. (ATF photo)

The WASR-10 is a relatively affordable, semiautomatic version of the AK-47. Century International Arms imports the weapons in compliance with the federal regulation which prohibit the importation of firearms that do not have a “sporting purpose.” The rifles are then reconfigured to include features that would have been illegal prior to importation, such as a detachable magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

The rifles retail for as little as $400 but can fetch $2000 – $3000 in the Mexican black market. This profit margin creates high incentive for individuals to smuggle these weapons across the border.

WASR-10s have been recovered at some of the highest-profile crime scenes in Mexico. When cartel gunmen killed 8 police officers in Culiacan, WASR-10s were part of their arsenal; when Mexican Marines raided a Christmas party in an effort to capture cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva, his associates were armed with 10 WASR-10s.; when a gun battle erupted Acapulco in which 17 people died, one of the gunmen was armed with a WASR-10; and when police arrested Alfonso Gutierrez Loera, cousin to the infamous cartel boss Joaquin Guzman Loera, six WASR-10s were included in the 12 rifles found on him and his associates.

According to a recent ATF report, the WASR-10 makes up 17 percent of the guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes and successfully traced back to the United States.

A disappointed Spicolli.

Despite the serious buzz it has generated, it doesn’t look like California’s voters are going to pass Prop 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize the possession and consumption of up to one ounce of marijuana.

Although the support for the measure represents a new high for the legalization movement, a Los Angeles Times/USC poll shows the measure failing by a vote of 51 percent to 39 percent.

Proponents’ hopes have not burnt out, however. A Survey USA poll shows the vote still within the margin of error, with the measure losing 44 percent to 46 percent.

Some have theorized that poll respondents are likely to keep the lid on their support for the measure because of the stigma associated with marijuana consumption. A haze has hung over the accuracy of live polling because Prop 19 has polled much higher among respondents to automated polling.

The joint efforts of the measure’s supporters have rolled together a diverse group that includes billionaire George Soros — who has made sure the movement doesn’t cash out — and rapper Snoop Dogg — who has released a video in which he says he stands “very high” on Prop 19.

Their campaign has resonated with young voters  — 59 percent of voters between 18 and 34 years old support the proposition — but has gotten a harsh reception among older Californians — 60 percent of voters over 65 oppose it.

If Proposition 19 were to pass, California would become the first state to legalize recreational use of marijuana. The law would also permit the cultivation of up to 25 square feet of plants for personal use.

It remains to be seen how implementation of the law will be hashed out considering existing federal law. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the federal government will continue to prosecute growers and distributors of marijuana, regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.