Foreign Correspondence

[fuagf]

Bolivia summit adopts new currency


Morales, left, and Chavez, were among the Alba
leaders who praised the new currency [AFP]

Previous: The warrants are related to "Operation Condor", a violent campaign in the 1970s by the
governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to assassinate opponents
of their regimes. Hundreds of people are believed to have disappeared in the operation.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41135351&txt2find=Bolivia
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Insert: U.S. involvement
Further information: U.S. intervention in Chile

CIA documents show that the CIA had close contact with members of the Chilean secret police, DINA, and its chief Manuel Contreras.[citation needed] Some have alleged that the CIA's one-time payment to Contreras is proof that the U.S. approved of Operation Condor and military repression within Chile.[citation needed] The CIA's official documents state that at one time some members of the intelligence community recommended making Contreras into a paid contact because of his closeness to Pinochet; the plan was rejected based on Contreras' poor human rights record, but the single payment was made due to miscommunication.[35]

A 1978 cable from the US ambassador to Paraguay, Robert White, to the Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, was published on March 6, 2001 by the New York Times. The document was released in November 2000 by the Clinton administration under the Chile Declassification Project. In the cable Ambassador White reported a conversation with General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, who informed him that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor "[kept] in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which cover[ed] all of Latin America". According to Davalos, this installation was "employed to co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". Robert White feared that the US connection to Condor might be publicly revealed at a time when the assassination in the U.S.A. of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt was being investigated. White cabled that "it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest."[citation needed]

The "information exchange" (via telex) included torture techniques (e.g. near-drowning,
and playing recordings of victims who were being tortured to their families).[citation needed]

This demonstrates that the US facilitated communications for Operation Condor, and has been called by J. Patrice McSherry (Long Island Univ.) "another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor."

It has been argued that while the US was not a key member, it "provided organizational, intelligence, financial and technological assistance to the operation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
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Leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed during a summit in
Bolivia on creation of a regional currency aimed at reducing the use of the US dollar.

The decision came shortly after members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alba) gathered
in the central city of Cochabamba for the start of the two-day summit, the AFP news agency reported.

Top on the agenda for the left-leaning regional trade group, which includes Venezuela, Ecuador
and Nicaragua, were talks to implement the new currency, known as the sucre, for use among Alba nations.

"The document is approved," Evo Morales, Bolivia's president and summit host, said on Friday.

Earlier, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, described the new currency as a "revolution of paradigms".

"The sucre is born in the Alba," Chavez said ahead of the meeting.

"The sucre - an autonomous and sovereign monetary system that will
be agreed upon today so that it can be implemented in 2010."

Coup criticism

The Alba leaders were also expected to discuss climate change and trade issues
during the summit, as well as renew their criticism of the June coup in Honduras.

The coup forced Manuel Zelaya from office on the same day that he
planned to hold a non-binding referendum on changes to the Honduran constitution.

"They have shown their claws again in Honduras and overthrown a legitimate, democratic and
progressive government; an ALBA government of the Bolivarian Alliance," Venezuela's Chavez said.

"And they aim for legitimacy before a world community that does not recognise them. The
coup in Honduras will be defeated, history will defeat them, they are already defeated."

Zelaya's overthrow was roundly criticised by Latin American countries, including Alba members, and the US.

Talks to resolve the political crisis in Honduras are continuing.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/10/2009101712255748516.html