Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Media and the Plot against Evo Morales

After casting doubt on the official Bolivian account of the thwarting on April 16 of a para-military assassination plot against President Evo Morales, the mainstream US press has been silent on the events that unfolded six weeks ago. Since Bolivian security forces raided an expensive hotel and engaged a gun battle with the conspirators, killing three of the conspirators, reports have appeared in English on Prensa Latina and in web translations expanding and strengthening the official government version of the encounter.

The capitalist media silence has been deafening.

The week-end Wall Street Journal edition (5-22/23-09) broke this silence with a lengthy article conceding many of the claims asserted by the Bolivian government. Now the group of assassins is portrayed as “a rag tag group” engaged in “a strange misadventure”, an attempt to minimize the scope of the plot as well as its seriousness.

Nonetheless, the three Journal writers confirm that the group had operated in Bolivia for several months, stayed in exclusive, expensive hotels, and demonstrated a propensity for violence and hostility to Evo Morales and his government. One doesn’t have to imagine how a similar story would be reported if Homeland Security and the US judicial system identified similar individuals, for example, Muslims operating in New York City, as recent headlines demonstrate.

A picture in the article of Michael Dwyer brandishing four handguns demolishes the former accounts depicting him as an innocent, young Irishman visiting Bolivia with a group of students. In addition, new evidence connects Dwyer with the owner of a fascist website who worked on a security project with Dwyer and also belonged to the clandestine group.

In light of web postings by the group’s leader, Eduardo Rosza Flores, describing himself as a “fascist” hostile to socialism, it is now impossible to deny that this “strange misadventure” was politically inspired, even with the best efforts of the mainstream media.

Where the facts bring clarity, the Journal sees “murky movements and intentions”. Besides 58 pictures that members of the group took of one another with various weapons, the government has produced a cell phone video where the ringleader refers to a missed opportunity to assassinate Morales at a time when records show that both members of the group and Morales were at Lake Titicaca.

The Journal article suggests that three of the members of the group were defenseless when killed during the security service raid. They conveniently ignore the autopsy reports that found powder residue on the bodies from firing weapons.

They paint a skeptical picture of government claims that the conspirators held links to wealthy, powerful secessionist from Santa Cruz province. Yet they refuse to question how this “rag tag” group acquired weapons and lived luxuriously and without any visible means of support for many months. While the plot is virtually incontrovertible, the mainstream media has a remarkable disinterest in exploring the most important issue: the financial and organizational interests behind it.

Zoltan Zigedy

3 comments:

  1. Zoltan, you've forgotten the "old language" :) . The group leader's name is Rozsa (actually: Rózsa), not Rosza.

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  2. Oops, I didn't realize that a friend of mine was logged in when I wrote the previous comment. Sorry for that...

    Balazs

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  3. The Irish guy was a paid mercenary. Some Irish media are trying to portray him as a young, naive, geek who did not know what he was getting into. The reality is that he is not so young, was working for a "private security firm" prior to his mercenary work, and helped the fascists with their websites--knowing what their goals are.

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