More on the father (in googlish):
Quote:An April 13, 1923 in the Carpathian Basin, was born George Obermayer Rózsa Austrian mother and Hungarian-Jewish father
Quote:France would be the bridge to get to Bolivia in 1952 with a mission to investigate the ethnographic French music of the Andes. The painter of colors of Eastern Europe came to Santa Cruz with the construction company Bartos from La Paz. Specifically to work in the remodeling of the Social Club.
http://nuevodia.glradio.com/versiones/20...413372.htm
The 1952 French-government sponsored ethnographic expedition to Bolivia was to investigate the "French music of the Andes"??????
That's almost as flimsy as his son's later journalistic cover story in the Balkan Wars....
According to this BBC piece, which draws no conclusions, there are links from Rozsa Flores' blog to the Camba Nation group in Santa Cruz.
Quote:in his blog, you can find links that lead to right-wing organizations in Santa Cruz, such as the "Camba Nation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/america_latin..._med.shtml
The Camba Nation claims to be a secessionist movement, demanding autonomy from the Bolivian government, but it is most definitely not a movement of indigenous Bolivians such as the Aymara and Quechua speakers.
Quote:Santa Cruz was barely on the map half a century ago. But thanks to the strength of its fertile soils and petroleum reserves, as well as subsidies from the central government in La Páz, it has grown to a city of more than 1.2 million, from 40,000 in 1950.
Today, it is a bustling metropolis of immigrants and industry, home to Croatians, Germans, and Japanese, as well as the offices for agriculture and petroleum giants like Archer Daniels Midland, British Gas, and Brazil's Petrobras. The city and surrounding region produce 42 percent of the nation's agricultural output and 34 percent of industrial GNP, according to a 2004 report by the United Nations.
Culturally, geographically, and politically, Santa Cruz is a world apart from the high plains of western Bolivia, home to the capital, La Páz, and El Alto, indigenous strongholds where last month's protests began. Newsstands here sell magazines from Brazil in front of billboards advertising John Deere tractors. In the city's cafes, young professionals talk of weekends spent in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. From sidewalk vendors to CEOs, people here are frustrated by the mounting economic toll that years of protests have had on the country, South America's poorest. But Santa Cruz's growing assertiveness is seen as a threat to many in the west.
The Aug. 12 referendum has not been sanctioned by the national government, and many western leaders view it as a means to counteract the growing power of the country's indigenous majority.
Yet its backers claim that one of the key benefits of autonomy would be to bring Bolivia's government closer to its people and allow the country's nine departments, or states, to have greater control over how their taxes are spent.
The Pro-Santa Cruz Committee has existed since 1950, but it wasn't until June of last year, when 150,000 people turned up at its rally in support of autonomy, that its agenda made national headlines. A cabildo, or town-hall meeting, followed in January, drawing more than 300,000 people into the streets here.
But as the demands from Santa Cruz gain legitimacy, the rivalry between east and west here is increasingly delineated in racial terms. It's the eastern cambas (European-descended Bolivians) versus the western collas (a term often used to refer to western indigenous people).
At one extreme are groups like the Camba Nation, which calls for independence from the indigenous cultures, described on Camba Nation's website as "slow and miserable" and prone to "conflict and communalism."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0628/p06s01-woam.html
Quote:Among other things, Santa Cruz is home to the most extreme right-wing groups in Bolivia: the Camba Nation and the Cruceñista Youth; both of them autonomist, and, to be a bit more descriptive, fascist. It was those groups that organized the aggression in Santa Cruz on October 16, 2003, against the march of indigenous and poor farmers that had arrived in the north of the department to demand Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation. They are the same people that have entire arsenals stored in their haciendas to use to attack peasant-farmers and the Landless Movement. (Did I mention that the land in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest department, is concentrated in the hands of just over 140 families?) They are the same people who, last Friday, in a pro-autonomy march led by the rebel government, began to raise their arms and salute the Führer they carry within them, in their hearts...
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/node/449
Quote:Secession to Maintain Ethnic Divide Santa Cruz's European-descended business elite has long desired a separatist rupture with the largely indigenous populations of the western highlands, comprised mainly of Quechua and Aymara-speaking peoples. Accounting for 55 percent of the country's 8 million citizens, the Andean nation's indigenous rely predominantly on subsistence farming and coca production as a means of survival, contributing little to the nation's industrial economy. Predominantly white and mestizo Santa Cruz, home to 2.4 million, is reputed to be the country's economic engine and historically has been chauvinistically proud of its European roots, which date back to the Spanish conquest. "The wealthy, 'white' agro-industrialists [...] view themselves as racially superior to the poor peasants of the highlands. They view the [poor peasants] as contributing little or nothing to the national wealth," commented Gill. While recent protests by the elite demonstrate frustration on the part of the prosperous lowland's over the historical split in Bolivia's economy between poor and rich, they also highlight deep racial tensions.
Santa Cruz plays host to two fiercely right-wing groups—the Cruceñista Youth, whose para-fascist ideals and actions have been broadly juxtaposed by some to the Nazi Hitler Youth movement, and the Movement for the Liberation of the Camba Nation (Nación Camba). Both groups are known for carrying out violent attacks against members of the Landless Movement, as well as subsistence peasant farmers. The larger and more vocal Nación Camba, which boasts 40,000 predominantly white and mestizo backers from both Santa Cruz and Tarija, advocates the creation of a "new Bolivia" by means of regional separation. Despite claims on the Nación Camba website that the group "rejects any form of racism," the movement's Youth Group branch was responsible for the October 2003 stoning of a large group of indigenous people attempting to enter the city of Santa Cruz in protest of former president Sanchez de Lózada's decision to export natural gas reserves.
Conveniently, direct support for Nación Camba, which claims 5,000 militants who are prepared to take up arms in support of their cause, comes from the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce (CAINCO), a body charged with representing the interests of 1,500 foreign and domestic companies holding investments in the department. Its long list of business members includes international gas companies holding gas contracts in the region, such as Repsol-YPF, Brazilian state-owned Petrobras and the notorious U.S. energy company, Enron. Each of these sectors, coincidentally, has representation on CAINCO's board of directors.
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/.../2843.html
Claims that a Camba Nation flag was found at the scene:
Quote: 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.
One link Morales didn’t make Thursday was to the U.S., which he has long insisted is out to destabilize his government because of his left-wing, anti-Washington agenda (including his nationalization of Bolivia’s vast natural gas reserves) as well as his alliance with fellow Latin radicals like Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro. Last year, in fact, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador after accusing him of supporting his right-wing foes in Santa Cruz. Last week, he remarked that armed groups in that province were “instruments of the empire,” his code for the U.S. But while he complained on Thursday of “outside interference” in Bolivian affairs, he pulled back from fingering Washington, saying he didn’t yet know who was financing the alleged assassination plots. Said Garcia, “It’s now the work of the [Bolivian] Attorney General to figure out who’s behind these operations.”
http://www.maxajl.com/?p=917
Time magazine on global capitalism's natural resources... um, sorry, Bolivia's natural resources:
Quote:For Lithium Car Batteries, Bolivia Is in the Driver's Seat
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky / La Paz Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009
Breaking America's dependence on foreign energy supplies and suppliers who often don't like the U.S. is a driving force behind the search for alternative fuels. That includes electric cars, which wheezing Detroit has finally realized it needs to produce. But at Detroit's International Auto Show this month, the excitement surrounding the Big Three's announcements that they're shifting from gasoline to voltage has been tempered by another realization: most of the lithium used to make the batteries for those cars is found in Bolivia, whose leftist President isn't too fond of the U.S.
Small, impoverished Bolivia, in fact, is the Saudi Arabia of lithium. It's home to 73 million metric tons of lithium carbonate, more than half the world's supply. The largest single deposit is the Salar de Uyuni, a vast, 4,085-square-mile (6,575-sq-km) salt desert in the southern Potosi region that is also one of Bolivia's biggest tourist attractions.
President Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous head of state, prides himself on state control over natural resources he nationalized the country's (massive natural gas reserves in 2006). If the past is any indication, electric carmakers should look to the Andes with sober eyes. "This is a unique opportunity for us," says Bolivian Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu. "The days of U.S. car companies buying cheap raw materials to sell expensive cars are over." Indeed, Bolivia's lithium abundance could put car manufacturers in the position of replacing one energy-rich Latin American U.S. critic — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — with another.
Many foreign carmakers have already found that out. Auto executives estimate the demand for lithium could exceed supply in a decade. As a result, representatives from companies like Mitsubishi and Toyota have approached the Morales government to get in on the ground floor of Bolivia's lithium development. They've been routinely turned away. "All they wanted to do was carry away the raw lithium carbonate," says Echazu, "and that's not what we're after." (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)
What Bolivia is after is a largely, if not purely, state-run lithium industry from mining to industrialization, which might even include actual manufacturing of the coveted lithium-ion batteries. Morales recently announced a $5.7 million pilot plant to process raw lithium carbonate, now under construction on the edge of the Salar, which hopes to produce its first 40 metric tons of the material by the end of this year.
Last week, General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner insisted that "the supply, design and construction of [electric-car] batteries must be a core competency of GM." GM plans to build a plant soon, as well as a battery research center, along with the University of Michigan. Toyota is already majority owner of the plant that makes the batteries for its Prius gas-electric hybrid car. Other car companies are looking to manufacturing firms like Chinese BYD, a leading cell-phone battery producer, to satisfy their battery needs.
The core question is whether Bolivia's lithi-leverage will eventually drive up the price of those batteries, which can already add about $10,000 to the cost of a car. Experts say that as production of the lithium-ion packs increases, they're actually getting closer in price to cheaper but less effective nickel-based batteries. Still, a big factor will be whether the demand for them rises as much as anticipated. "It is difficult to predict just how many electric vehicles we will see in the market," says Jennifer Moore, a spokeswoman for Ford, which hopes to have its family of BEVs (battery electric vehicles) on the North American market by 2012. "Much depends on the speed at which battery technology progresses, but equally important, cost considerations related to lithium-ion batteries."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...61,00.html
We're in the deep black stuff.....
If Their plan is to "balkanize" Bolivia through pseudo-secessionist movements, why not hire a fascist dog of war like Eduardo Rozsa Flores to help Their ethnic cleansing Ambassador.
Ffs.
Quote:The U.S. Ambassador who left Yugoslavia in a thousand pieces is now in Bolivia
Thu, 05/15/2008 - 16:14 — tupaj
By: Wilson Garcia Merida
http://www.llactacracia.org
Translation: Roberto Verdecchia
January 19, 2007
He presented his credentials to President Evo Morales on October 13, but three months before his arrival in Bolivia, while still in Pristina serving as head of the U.S. mission in Kosovo, it was already being said that Philip Goldberg, the new American ambassador appointed by George Bush to this Andean country, would come to take part in the separatist process that had begun to form against the Bolivian Government.
On July 13, 2006, Leopoldo Vegas, a journalist with El Deber of Santa Cruz, published an article stating that "according to three political scientists consulted after the White House appointment, the experience acquired by Goldberg in Eastern Europe, where ethnic struggles occurred after the separation of the former Yugoslavia, can be used in Bolivia, given the changes the current government intends to introduce."
One of those interviewed by Vegas was Róger Tuero, an academic and former director of Political Science at the 'Gabriel Rene Moreno Autonomous University' (UAGRM) in Santa Cruz, who stated that the experience of every ambassador is crucial to American diplomacy.
"It is not by chance that this man was transferred from Kosovo to Bolivia," said Tuero.
Ambassador Goldberg is now a major political and logistical pillar of the Prefect of Cochabamba Manfred Reyes Villa, who set up the worst ethnic, social, regional and institutional crisis ever to take place in the history of Bolivia.
Who is Philip Goldberg?
According to the resume officially circulated by the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Philip Goldberg participated from the beginning of the Yugoslavian civil war that erupted in the nineties, to the fall and prosecution of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
From 1994 to 1996, he served as a "desk officer" of the State Department in Bosnia, where the conflict between Albanian separatists and Serbian and Yugoslavian security forces arose.
In that same period, he served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the fall of Milosevic.
"In that position," the Embassy stated, "Goldberg was a member of the U.S. negotiating team in the preparation of the Dayton Peace Conference, and head of the U.S. Delegation in Dayton."
Ambassador Goldberg was also a political and economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa, and a consular and political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, where he first became interested in Latin American politics.
After serving as Deputy Chief of the U.S. Embassy in Santiago de Chile from 2001 to 2004, Goldberg returned to the Balkans to head the U.S. mission in Pristina, capital of Kosovo, from where he supported the prosecution of former dictator Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal.
From Kosovo to Bolivia
Before his transfer to Bolivia, Goldberg worked in Kosovo for the separation of Serbia and Montenegro, which occurred last June as the final act of the disappearance of Yugoslavia.
The disintegration of Yugoslavia took place during a decade of bloody civil war led by processes of "decentralization" and "autonomy". These were finally imposed with American military intervention and the presence of troops from NATO and the UN who occupied the Balkans to pacify the region.
The Yugoslavian civil war was characterized by "ethnic cleansing", consisting of the expulsion and annihilation of traditional ethnic groups who formed the territories of Yugoslavia. The most cruel racial extermination took place between Serbs and Croats.
Just three months after the arrival of Ambassador Goldberg, Bolivia, like the Balkans, began to undergo an exacerbated process of racism and separatism, directed from the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is governed by an elite composed of, among others, businessmen of Croatian origin who created a federalist movement called "Camba Nation."
One of the main Cruceño leaders of the separatist movement is Branco Marinkovic, an agri-businessman and partner of Chilean capitalists, who in February 2007 will become the head of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, the organization driving the process against the government of Evo Morales.
Separatist Autonomy
Beside Santa Cruz, Marinkovic's "Camba Nation" encompasses the departments of Beni, Pando and Tarija (home to the biggest natural gas deposits in Bolivia), whose populations voted for departmental autonomy in a referendum held in July 2006. Together, they form the so-called "Crescent" region of the eastern half of the country.
The western departments of La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosi, Oruro and Cochabamba voted No to this autonomy, maintaining their direct link with the central government of Evo Morales and distancing themselves from the four departments of the autonomy-seeking "Crescent".
This movement of separatist "autonomy" intensified through an impromptu decision by the government of former president Carlos Mesa in 2004, when "Camba Nation" pressured for the direct election of Prefects (departmental governors) through town meetings and strikes. Previously, prefects were appointed directly by the President to maintain the unity of the Executive Branch. Now, new President Evo Morales is not able to exercise this power and is instead forced to govern almost separately from the four autonomic Prefects.
In Cochabamba – a Department located directly between the eastern and western regions of the country – prefect Manfred Reyes Villa, abusing his elected status, tried to ignore the results of the July 2 referendum and force a new one that would unite Cochabamba with the 'Crescent', breaking the fragile balance between those for "autonomy" and those against. An alternative to separatism was in fact beginning to take shape in Cochabamba – an 'integrative megaregional' approach that contrasted with the model of Departmental autonomies.
The Attack in Cochabamba
Despite having already been decided by the ballot-box, Reyes Villa tried to force through this new autonomy referendum, mobilizing the most conservative urban sectors of Cochabamba society.
The popular movement and particularly the agricultural and indigenous organizations of the 16 provinces of this Department who had been demanding peasant co-management in the prefectural administration instead of the exclusive and corrupt way that Reyes Villa had ruled from the city of Cochabamba (the Department capital), arrived in the city to demand changes to the Prefect's policy.
Ignoring the just demand of the provinces, Reyes Villa promoted the organization of fascist youth groups, aided by the Cruceñista Youth Union which operates in Santa Cruz, in order to "expel the native indians from the city." This is how the fateful day of January 11 erupted, when a violent raid took place that ended with two people dead and 120 seriously wounded, most of them peasants. On this day, when thousands of "Sons of the Fatherland" armed with truncheons, baseball bats, golf clubs, iron pipes and even firearms made their attack, Reyes Villa left the city and went to La Paz to meet with the four autonomic Prefects and representatives of the American Embassy.
After those tragic events, the September 14 Plaza (the seat of the Prefecture and Departmental symbol of power) was occupied by more than 50,000 indigenous people from the 16 provinces demanding the resignation of Reyes Villa.
Although the government opened all possible opportunities for dialogue, Reyes Villa systematically refused to meet with provincial representatives, and instead "exiled himself" in Santa Cruz, from where he now seeks to turn the problem into an explosive national conflict, threatening the stability and democracy of this country governed by an Indian President.
The CIA and Reyes Villa
The influence of the CIA and of Ambassador Goldberg in the political conduct of Reyes Villa (a former Army captain linked to the dictatorship of Banzer and Garcia Meza) is unequivocal.
The separatist Prefect has systematically prevented the peaceful settlement of the conflict and his people have developed a malicious disinformation campaign that seeks to create the conditions for a confrontation at the national level.
The American Embassy is deploying a plan of collective indoctrination against the indigenous uprising, promoting a racial and separatist hatred that was clearly demonstrated on January 11. They are also working in conjunction with business organizations like the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Cainco) of Santa Cruz, who openly supports Reyes Villa and his "advisers".
But American interference in this conflict occurs not only within the far Right, but also through infiltration into the MAS government itself.
Last weekend, La Razon newspaper in La Paz published a photograph that revealed that food belonging to the state Civil Defense agency, normally used for victims of natural disasters, was being diverted to the peasant masses concentrated in the September 14 Plaza.
It was proven later that Juan Carlos Chavez, a former agent of NASDEA (the logistical and financial body of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency) and an adviser to the Ministry of Justice, had interfered in the Civil Defense agency without having any jurisdiction in that area, in order to carry out this diversion of State resources. Curiously enough, the photograph taken of this illegal act was published by a paper in La Paz, more than 650 kilometers away from Cochabamba.
Chavez was removed immediately, but how a former DEA agent exercised such a high influence within the Ministry of Justice must still be clarified.
The media smear campaign against the indigenous mobilization of Cochabamba is part of a psychological war typical of the CIA, and is a mainstay in the separatist strategy directed from Santa Cruz by Manfred Reyes Villa, who is still the Cochabamba Prefect.
The balkanization of Bolivia appears to be starting.
http://grupoapoyo.org/basn/node/215
MSM where are you?
Yeah. I thought so.
:thefinger:
Presidente Evo Morales kicked out the Ambassador and liquidated an assassination squad.
We shall see how plausibly deniable Rozsa Flores & dogs of war are.
Asking for help from the SMOM didn't much help the cover story....
mokin:
Quote:Ambassador Goldberg declared "persona non grata"
On September 10, 2008, the Bolivian Government expelled Ambassador Goldberg, after declaring him persona non grata.[2] The Telegraph reported on September 12, 2008 that President Morales had been infuriated by a meeting between Goldberg and Santa Cruz Governor Rubén Costas.[22] Costas, founder of Autonomy for Bolivia,[23] has pressed for democracy and autonomy for Bolivia's regions.[24] Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy concurs that the meeting between Goldberg and Costas was a factor in the crisis, since he believes it may have been interpreted by the Bolivians as a show of approval for anti-government demonstrations in Santa Cruz.[25] Morales has accused Goldberg of plotting against Bolivia's government and the unity of the country.[26][22] Prior to Goldberg only seven U.S. chiefs of missions have been ordered expelled from countries where they were serving.[1]
In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Goldberg indicated a belief that several factors had come into play in his expulsion, including the influence of Venezuela, and that "[i]t was part of the general policy of the Bolivian government for Morales to attack the United States."[1] Immediately prior to leaving Bolivia, Goldberg had said that Morales' decision would have "serious consequences of several sorts which apparently have not been correctly evaluated".[27] The US State Department issued an official statement saying that Bolivia had committed a grave error and that the allegations against Goldberg were baseless.[28] The statement also indicated that:[28]
Quote:President Morales’ action is a grave error that has seriously damaged the bilateral relationship.... We regret that President Morales has chosen this course. It will prejudice the interests of both countries, undermine the ongoing fight against drug-trafficking, and will have serious regional implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Goldberg
For what it is worth Morales has been a staunch defender of Serbia and has tried to assist in supporting Serbia in the UN and other international arenas with regards to upholding international law and the Kosovo Anschluss. But then 90% of the worlds countries have done this.