Morales assassins: Bolivia gang "fought in Balkans"

[Jan Klimkowski]

I note in passing that another excellent internet thread about Rosza Flores, that on the Politics.ie site, has recently become disrupted by a number of agent provocateurs.

http://www.politics.ie/foreign-affairs/6...t-381.html

[Ruben Mundaca]

Hi.
Maybe I can give my contribution to inform about this thread.
Investigative journalists in Bolivia has done good research in this issue. Slowly things are more clear. The picture here is horrific.

Evo Morales has been claiming that there where people wanting to kill him almost since the first day his asumption as president of Bolivia. Seems this is common to all the latin american "Socialists", to keep the people in tension an to increase the hate to USA, coz they blame USA to be the head of any conspiracy. But bolivian people begin to laugh every time Morales complaint the supposed conspiracy in his frequent speeches.

On the other hand, there was intelligence reports that opponents in some regions (Santa Cruz region, specifically) wanting to organize a military resistance in order to stop "Labor Unions" (mostly coca farmers) controled and payed by Morales (with Chavez money) who used them to siege cities and regions opposed to Morales, by blocking roadways and preventing to city people recive food and goods during many weeks. Police forces are banned to take part, because they are controlled by Morales. There is no local police force in Bolivia, only one controlled by national government.

So, Morales government intelligence contact and hire Eduardo Rosza Flores as a double-agent. He went to Santa Cruz to contact opponents showing his war experience and his allegated capacity to organize a military resistance. Many oppositors take the bite and begin to give money and recive some training from Rosza, who begin to live a good life in the companion of his foreign friends (Michael Dwayer,Arpad Magyarosi, Elod Toaso) introduced as "military experts". But people begin to be tired to give money and recive allmost nothing, so they stop founding Rosza, specially when Rosza try to intimidate the catholic church cardinal by placing an explosive device in his residence while he was out of the city. Rosza do this as a way to justify the money he was reciving (without consulting his founders), telling people that they can blame the government, and asking more founding. By the other hand, he was asking more money to his real contractor ( the Morales government), threatening them to reveal the plot.

That lead to trigger the order for the asesination of Rosza and his friends. They where executed by a special force of assasins (UTARC) controlled by Morales and vice-president Alvaro García Linera, force that has intervened in other killing situations in Bolivia. Also, the bolivian government controls the official prosecutor who shamelessy violate bolivian laws catching oppositors according a list provided by Rosza and tortured them, in his attempt to involve the main opponent Ruben Costas (governor of Santa Cruz region) and Branko Marinkovic, civic leader, and any other. This subject has become the perfect excuse for the Morales government to prosecute political opponents, no matter if they where not involved. They are still chased (and blamed publically by government press) for "investigative reasons".

As a data: When he was in Europe, Eduardo Rosza where roommate of the brother of bolivian Vice-president Alvaro García Linera and a high leader of the MAS party in Santa Cruz, the political party controlled by Morales)

There is no way to legaly stop Morale's abuses, because in his first year of government, he take care to dismantle the Constitutional Court and many judicial institutions. The ones that remain are under shameless obediance to the government or under siege.

This situation will be worst. Morales is wining elections with Chavez money help (used to pay "Socialists" Union Leaders), creating small amount bonds for poor people, encouraging the hate for "Capitalism" and "yankees" thru government propaganda media (most of the media is now controlled by government), prosecuting opponents, using the state money (and Chavez money) in discretionary way (he don´t report budget expenses since he take government), cheating the election votes...etc.

There are many cubans and venezuelans agents controlling bolivian intelligence agencys, key institutions and media propaganda.

And don't you dare to call Morales a bloody dictator. If you do, you will suddenly find surrounded by insults from him and his "friends" (Chavez, Ortega,Correa, etc.) calling you racist, imperialist, capitalist... and all the "ist" they can find.

Sorry for my english.

To Ruben Mundaca

I was wondering what line the defenders of the ethnic cleansing dog of war, Eduardo Rosza Flores, were going to come up with. To suggest he was hired directly by Morales is a pretty pathetic argument.

Rosza Flores was a self-proclaimed National Anarchist. The National Anarchists are black sun-worshipping neo-Nazis, in the tradition of Miguel Serrano's "esoteric Hitlerists". This Nazi streak may partly explain Rosza Flores' hatred of Israel. Another possible root may be found in Rosza Flores' acknowledged work as an agent of Opus Dei, and the patronage of St. John of Jerusalem Knights of Malta Sovereign Autonomous Priory Association. And then there's Rosza Flores' links to the far right Hungarian group, Jobbik, who are close to openly encouraging ethnic cleansing of the Roma people.

Of course, the Croatian Ustaša rump, elements of which Rosza Flores must have mixed with during the Balkan Wars, don't like "gypsies" either. They created concentration camps such as Jasenovac to mass murder Roma, Serbs, Jews and members of the resistance.

Rosza Flores' politics may seem confused because of his support for the Palestinians and the MSM attempts to frame him as "the last anarchist". In reality, his National Anarchist, Croatian Ustaša, Jobbik, SMOM and Opus Dei links unequivocally show him to be a creature of the extreme and violent fascist right.

Rosza Flores' father, (note the full name - Jorge Rózsa Obermayer, born to an Austrian mother and Hungarian-Jewish father), arrived in Bolivia in 1952, funded by the French government to investigate the ethnographic French music of the Andes.

Seven years after WW2, with the Paperclip ratlines of Nazis to Bolivia increasingly known to the world's intelligence agencies, the French government sponsored an Austrian/Hungarian/Jew 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....

Becuase, yes indeed, in the early 1990s, Eduardo Rosza Flores obtained cover as a BBC stringer in the Balkans. But he soon openly abandoned the pen for the gun. Rosza Flores formed a notorious paramilitary Brigade (Zenga aka the "International Brigade") which was repeatedly accused of committing atrocities against its own side and then planting evidence to blame the Serbs. For these false flag crimes, and for alleged acts of ethnic cleansing, the butcher and mass murderer Tudjman made Rosza Flores an honourary Croatian.

Oh yeah, Rosza Flores is also believed to have murdered at least two journalists.

Eduardo Rozsa Flores, a journalist of Spanish-Hungarian extraction and a citizen of Hungary and Croatia, recently requested accreditation in the U.N. headquarters in Zagreb but was refused. A civilian UN official said that he had been vetted and that it was established that the said journalist was suspected of having committed war crimes and two murders, and “persons suspected of having committed murders are not given press accreditation”.

After a long investigation, the international journalists’ association, “Reporters without Frontiers”, prepared a comprehensive material and forwarded it to the United Nations Security Council which the expert group in Geneva published within its resolution 780. The essence of the said material is that Flores, the correspondent of the Catalonian weekly “La Vanguardia” of Barcelona and the commander of the “International Brigade” within the Croat Zenga’s which operated in Eastern Slavonia [under the leadership of self-declared Ustasha and indicted war criminal Branimir Glavas] at the end of 1991 and in 1992, is directly responsible for the death of two foreign journalists, Swiss Christian Wurtemberg and British photographer Paul Janks, who worked for the German EPA news agency.

So, what were the politics of Rosza Flores on his return to Bolivia in 2006?

http://www.laprensa.com.bo/noticias/27-0..._segu2.php

An interview recorded before his death sheds much light:

A Posthumous Interview
The outpouring of speculation was fierce and pointed in every direction. The versions multiplied while each of the political actors looked to turn things to their own advantage for their face off in the December elections. But the bubbles of misinformation were slowly bursting. The complexity of the case, fuelled by the multifaceted and contradictory life history of Rózsa Flores (see footnote), began to unravel when a Croatian journalist, András Kepes, released a posthumous interview with the terrorist that took place in Hungary, a kind of "last will and testament."

In it, Rózsa Flores revealed that he had been called by the authorities in Santa Cruz to form a militia to fight the central government, so that if Santa Cruz was not granted a greater level of autonomy, it could declare independence and create a new country. The phrasing throughout the 49 minutes of the interview was unequivocal:

"I will travel from Brazil to Bolivia and I will begin to organize the militia, based on the decision made in Santa Cruz" to gain autonomy through separation from the federal government.
"If those in government do not permit the autonomy of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz is ready to secede from Bolivia."
"The organizers will provide the financing and weapons, which will be obtained illegally. Probably from Brazil since the arms trade is not legal in Bolivia."
"We will not march with flags or bamboo sticks; we will do so with weapons."
"I will not go to the Bolivian jungle to play at being Ché Guevera."
"I am not going to launch an attack against La Paz, and I will not help launch an offensive against the capital, nor would I overthrow President Evo Morales. We will organize a defense and resistance …"
However, by all indications this last statement by the mercenary was modified with time as different investigations uncovered meticulous plans to take the lives of the president, vice president, the full Cabinet, and even the prefect of Santa Cruz.

Marcos Farfán, the vice minister of the Interior, stated that in the hotel they had found "charts, plans, and documents that point to the fact that the attempts were not going to conclude with Cardinal Julio Terrazas' house, but rather there was a chain of planned terrorist acts. There are reports that when President Morales met with his Cabinet in Lake Titicaca, the terrorists tried to plant an explosive device on the multipurpose Bolivian Armada ship on which they were traveling." That was on March 27.

Farfán added that the group followed Morales to various public appearances in order to study his security system. "Even Prefect Costas was among the targets pursued by these terrorists," he added. Clearly, the strategy of the cell was to create uncertainty, confusion, and chaos.

......

An overweight Rózsa, appearing on a publicly broadcast video, says "Shit, if only I had known in time about the government session in Titicaca the other day. I would have sent one of these guys (an image of his comrades Dwyer and Arpak, along with Tadic next to a column, appears) in scuba gear to blow up the boat. Every single last one, every single last one of them was there; not one was missing," Rózsa says with the boastfulness of a leader.

Eduardo Rosza Flores' blog, when I first looked at it, as the news of his death broke, linked to the Camba Nacion. The Camba Nation has financial backing from the non-indigenous landowning elites, often of European origin, and is notorious for co-opting the language of "indigenous secession" and "human rights" in the service of the far right agenda.

Bolivia is rich in certain key natural resources. The successors of the United Fruit Company and IG Farben want to ensure that the Aymara and Quechua are stripped of the fruits of their inheritance.

Which brings us to Philip Goldberg, "America's Ambassador for Ethnic Cleansing".



http://grupoapoyo.org/basn/node/215

Evo Morales rightly expelled Goldberg, who is now openly serving as a senior director of American intelligence, as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

It is fascinating and revealing that the first known act of violence of Rosza Flores' dogs of war was an attempt to assassinate the right-wing Catholic Archbishop of Santa Cruz.

But not surprizing.

Rosza Flores' speciality has always been false flag attacks.

Not in the service of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales and the anti-capitalists and anti-Yankees, as Ruben Mundaca claims.

Eduardo Rosza Flores is a creature of Gladio. Of the deep black, eugenicist, far right elites.

Here are some of my earlier comments in this thread. I stand by them in their entirety.

Fundamentally, we seem to be talking about a Gladio-inspired Strategy of Tension.

Eduardo Rozsa Flores himself, rather like Lee Harvey Oswald, could superficially be described as right or left-wing, as Catholic or Muslim, as anarchist or national socialist.

The subterfuge, the muddying of the tracks, is implausible though.

Rozsa Flores and his gang have far right Opus Dei/SMOM/wandering bishop links. Rozsa Flores himself was an ethnic cleanser, an assassin, and a specialist in dirty tricks. An expert in committing atocities against his own side and blaming it on his enemy - which is precisely what he did when executing journalists in the Balkan Wars of the 90s.

A strategy of tension and false flag attacks seem to have been part of the Bolivian plan. Rozsa Flores & his gang would commit atrocities against members of the right-wing separatist movement (his own side) - presumably so these acts could be used by propagandist neocon thinktanks and hired MSM hacks as a means to destablize the government of Evo Morales.

The far right foreign landowning separatist movement, led by fascists from Italian, German and Croatian families, were also backed by the USA - both covertly and overtly.

Here's the overt use of American taxpayer dollars:

I am also specifically thinking in terms of the know modus operandi of Gladio. A few examples:

i) The types of front companies/groups/individuals involved - eg infiltrated or intelligence-created terrorist groups, (im)plausibly deniable "adventurers";

ii) the absolutely ruthless End justifies the Means ideology, with the aim often being simply the creation of fear and terror in the civilian population itself;

iii) the commission of atrocities, often on "one's own side", as part of the Strategy of Tension. As part of the MO, clues are left enabling the blame to be put on the ideological opponents of the Gladio operation. Eg in Italy, blaming Italian leftists for bombings committed by right-wing Gladio groups. Eg in Bolivia, Rozsa Flores' apparent plans to assassinate and/or bomb prominent members of the right wing, foreigner-led, "Camba Nation" separatist group in Santa Cruz;

iv) the nature of the movers and players behind the scenes - ideologically far right wing, with strong links to international finance, extremist factions within intelligence agencies, Nazism and arcane religious groups such as Opus Dei, SMOM, and American Orthodox Catholic Church wandering bishops. However, it is provocative that Opus Dei member Rozsa Flores declared himself a muslim convert and a friend of Palestine, despite being a Jew - suggesting that once again the End justifies the Means. But then Rozsa Flores was, allegedly, once the interpreter of Carlos the Jackal, whose true masters are also shrouded in Gladio-esque mystery;

v) indeed, the ultimate raison d'etre appears to be geopolitical Power and Control achieved through Terror: the Strategy of Tension as the oldest magician's trick.

Gladio in Italy seems a near perfect template for the Strategy of Tension:

2000 Parliamentary report: a "strategy of tension"

In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the "Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo" concluded that the strategy of tension had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country". A 2000 Senate report, stated that "Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence." According to The Guardian, "The report [claimed] that US intelligence agents were informed in advance about several rightwing terrorist bombings, including the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan and the Piazza della Loggia bombing in Brescia five years later, but did nothing to alert the Italian authorities or to prevent the attacks from taking place. It also [alleged] that Pino Rauti [current leader of the MSI Fiamma-Tricolore party], a journalist and founder of the far-right Ordine Nuovo (new order) subversive organisation, received regular funding from a press officer at the US embassy in Rome. 'So even before the 'stabilising' plans that Atlantic circles had prepared for Italy became operational through the bombings, one of the leading members of the subversive right was literally in the pay of the American embassy in Rome,' the report says."[22]

General Maletti's testimony concerning alleged CIA involvement

General Gianadelio Maletti, commander of the counter-intelligence section of the Italian military intelligence service from 1971 to 1975, alleged in March 2001 during the eight trial for the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombings that the CIA had foreknowledge of the event.[23] According to the Guardian, he said:[24]
...his men had discovered that a rightwing terrorist cell in the Venice region had been supplied with military explosives from Germany. Those explosives may have been obtained with the help of members of the US intelligence community, an indication that the Americans had gone beyond the infiltration and monitoring of extremist groups to instigating acts of violence...

General Maletti told the Italian court that "the CIA, following the directives of its government, wanted to create an Italian nationalism capable of halting what it saw as a slide to the left and, for this purpose, it may have made use of rightwing terrorism," and continued on by declaring: "I believe this is what happened in other countries as well." Gianadelio Maletti also said to the court: "Don't forget that Nixon was in charge and Nixon was a strange man, a very intelligent politician but a man of rather unorthodox initiatives."
General Maletti himself in the first Piazza Fontana trial received a four year sentence for providing a false passport to one of the accused bombers, this sentence was overturned in 1985.[25] Maletti received, while in exile, a 15-years sentence in 2000 for his role in trying to cover up a 1973 bomb attack in Milan against the Interior minister, Mariano Rumor (DC - 4 killed and 45 injured), but was acquitted on appeals.[26] According to the court, General Maletti knew in advance of the plan of the attacker, Gianfranco Bertoli, allegedly an anarchist but in reality a right-wing activist and a "long-standing SID informant" according to The Guardian, but had deliberately failed to inform the interior minister of it.[24]

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...brigade%22

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...04&page=13

Sorry Jan. Seems you are only looking the "official media". I am not trying to offend your political sensibility or beliefs. Just showing the facts.

If you read my post, you will see I am not trying to deffend Rosza Flores. In fact, I say that he was hired by Morales government as a double agent, because he was not a democrat, not a nazist, only a MERCENARY. He fight where the money is and Morales offered too much for discover political opponent and latter don't pay. In fact, the commander of the UTARC group, Walter Andrade (who lately kill him by direct order of Morales and García Linera) was in permanent contact with Rosza, sharing parties. There are pictures of those parties in bolivian media showing them both, that bolivian government has not been able to deny. UTARC was an organization that recive direct orders only from president and vice-president, out of control even from bolivian police chiefs.

About what Rosza says in that video about the meeting in the Titicaca Lake: They show what Rosza say, but no to whom it say those words. Seems that he was saying that in the presence of an "autonomist", braggin himself about his military capabilities in order to convince to funding the resistance. This video was conveniently used by government latter.

So, you too have swallowed that history that Camba Nation is a dark and economical strong superorganization, defending white blond landowners from little poor dark inigenous people that assault land and kill landowner, claiming that they need only a "little" piece of land to survive, because all land belong to them because formerly belong to their grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfathers (uff.. too many "grand") ?..... My friend, seems you know nothing about bolivian reality, isn't it ?.....

For you information, the biggest landowners of Bolivia are indigenous people. Millions and millions of hectareas belong to them, and only a tiny part of it is used for crops and hunt. The assault to "white" landowners is carried by Union Leaders under government control that latter creates a "community" in the taken land. The land assaulted is gived not to farmers, but to the "community" (aka Union Labor controlled by Morales). Farmer is obligate to vote for Morales and to obbey his commands (block roads, siege citys, vote for Morales), under threat to be "expelled" from the community with his wife and his children, losing his land, his house and his crops.

Camba Nation is only a bunch of people who protest angainst those abuses, write press articles and defend autonomic system, claiming that Cambas values are different and those differentials must be respected. Many of them too has say that they want to separate their region from Bolivia, as the only way to have peace and to build a true country. They are wright ?...They are wrong?... thats another matter. But definetly, is a non violent movment. Not even one violent action can be blame to them, but government use them as an example of alien white european conqueror menthality linked with the CIA, the MOSSAD and who knows to wich other. In other words, government creates a phantom (or an enemy) so people can discharge their wrath in something, to blame somebody.

Do you know recent events here in Bolivia?... Sometime ago government show videos of the Union Juvenil Cruceñista hitting farmers with clubs. The shoking videos travel thru the world. You know who are the Evo Morales candidates for parliament in Santa Cruz?.... the former leaders of the Union Juvenil Cruceñista, the same filmed hitting indigenous farmers..jujujuju!!!!..... Clearly, they were spying the Civic Comitee for Morales since the begining, creating bad press for the comitee (some comitee leader say many times bittering that they have "little contol" over the UJC). I think french call them undercover "Agent Provocateur" in political slang, isnt it ?.....

Other little pill you easy swallow Jan, is that Autonomist movment is separatist. Is the same to say Autonomists in Spain are separatist. Spain has more that 20 years of autonomous government and is more bonded than ever as a nation. (German Landers are separatist?... my god!). That's the model for autonomic movment. Morales opposed to Autonomic movment because crashes to his socialist model, that need all the power and resources of the nation being centralized in order to obtain total political control (HIS control).

The money gived by USA was not gived to the Autonomic Leaders, but to the bolivian central government to encourage and streght the creation of democratic institutions, as part of anti-drug policys. Not a cent was of that money was used by Regional Governors. Bolivian central government usually used that money as "reserved expenses" to corrupt Union Leaders breaking strikes and road blockages, very common in Bolivia. USAID knows that, but they can't write that in their reports.

[Jan Klimkowski]

To Ruben Mundaca:

Give me your eyes
That I might see the blind man kissing my hands

[Ruben Mundaca]

Sorry for my english.

All things considered, I'm rather more sorry for your dismal CIA politics. Things a little slack at Langley, then?

I know nothing about CIA or Langley, Paul. But seems that you know a lot about.

[Paul Rigby]

Sorry for my english.

All things considered, I'm rather more sorry for your dismal CIA politics. Things a little slack at Langley, then?

I know nothing about CIA or Langley, Paul. But seems that you know a lot about.

Yup, I've seen your chums at work too often to fall for your nonsense, which, by the way, ordinarily chucks in some stuff about the persecution of the local Jewish community by the alleged Red Fascists in power. How long, I wonder, before that canard gets flung into the Langley mix on Bolivia?

Now, take your infantile script back to your handler, twirl it into a needle thin rolly, insert tobacco, and ignite. Think of it as a Condor moment.

Nunca mas, baby.

[Ruben Mundaca]

To Ruben Mundaca:

Give me your eyes
That I might see the blind man kissing my hands

To Jan Klimkowsky:
...Sorry. I need my eyes more than ever. And I don't want to be that blind man kissing your hands, either.

Anyway, why you need your hands to be kissed ?...some pope complex?..
-just kidding

Good poem.

[Jan Klimkowski]

To Jan Klimkowsky:

Interesting misspelling of my name.

Quite a revealing one in fact.

Za dom - spremni!

Razumijete?

[Ruben Mundaca]

Sorry for my english.

All things considered, I'm rather more sorry for your dismal CIA politics. Things a little slack at Langley, then?

I know nothing about CIA or Langley, Paul. But seems that you know a lot about.

Yup, I've seen your chums at work too often to fall for your nonsense, which, by the way, ordinarily chucks in some stuff about the persecution of the local Jewish community by the alleged Red Fascists in power. How long, I wonder, before that canard gets flung into the Langley mix on Bolivia?

Now, take your infantile script back to your handler, twirl it into a needle thin rolly, insert tobacco, and ignite. Think of it as a Condor moment.

Nunca mas, baby.

What a funny little boy you are. American joke, I gess.:

Seems that you are not different from the ones you blame, isn't it?... And in your poor little mind, you have allready categorized me. Amazing !!! :congrats:

[Paul Rigby]

What a funny little boy you are. American joke, I gess.:

Nope, the only America joke around here is...you.

Seems that you are not different from the ones you blame, isn't it?... And in your poor little mind, you have allready categorized me. Amazing !!! :congrats:

Thanks, I thought it pretty excellent, too, to have got your number after a paragraph and a half. If you need assistance in spotting any similar Agency drivel on other fora, let me know. My rates are reasonable, the detection rapid, and the results surprisingly enjoyable.

By the way, here's what's really irking your masters:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...or-economy

Latin America's economic rebels

Ecuador and Bolivia are achieving remarkable growth because they reject conventional economic wisdom

By Mark Weisbrot

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 15.00 GMT

Among the conventional wisdom that we hear every day in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice and strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital.

Guess which country is expected to have the fastest economic growth in the Americas this year? Bolivia. The country's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was elected in 2005 and took office in January 2006. Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, had been operating under IMF agreements for 20 consecutive years, and its per-capita income was lower than it had been 27 years earlier.

Evo sent the IMF packing just three months after he took office, and then moved to re-nationalise the hydrocarbons industry (mostly natural gas). Needless to say this did not sit well with the international corporate community. Nor did Bolivia's decision in May 2007 to withdraw from the World Bank's international arbitration panel, which had a tendency to settle disputes in favour of international corporations and against governments.

But Bolivia's re-nationalisation and increased royalties on hydrocarbons has given the government billions of dollars of additional revenue (Bolivia's entire GDP is only about $16.6bn, with a population of 10 million people). These revenues have been useful for a government that wants to promote development, and especially to maintain growth during the downturn. Public investment increased from 6.3% of GDP in 2005 to 10.5% in 2009.

Bolivia's growth through the current world downturn is even more remarkable in that it was hit hard by falling prices for its most important exports – natural gas and minerals – and also by a loss of important export preferences in the US market. The Bush administration cut off Bolivia's trade preferences that were granted under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, allegedly to punish Bolivia for insufficient co-operation in the "war on drugs".

In reality, it was more complicated: Bolivia expelled the US ambassador because of evidence that the US government was supporting the opposition to the Morales government, and the ATPDA revocation followed soon thereafter. In any case, the Obama administration has so far not changed the Bush administration's policies toward Bolivia. But Bolivia has proven that it can do quite well without Washington's co-operation.

Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, is an economist who, well before he was elected in December 2006, understood and wrote about the limitations of neoliberal economic dogma. He took office in 2007 and established an international tribunal to examine the legitimacy of the country's debt. In November 2008 the commission found that part of the debt was not legally contracted, and in December Correa announced that the government would default on roughly $3.2bn of its international debt.

He was vilified in the business press, but the default was successful. Ecuador cleared a third of its foreign debt off its books by defaulting and then buying the debt back at about 35 cents on the dollar. The country's international credit rating remains low, but no lower than it was before Correa's election, and it was even raised a notch after the buyback was completed.

The Correa government also incurred foreign investors' wrath by renegotiating its deals with foreign oil companies to capture a larger share of revenue as oil prices rose. And Correa has bucked pressure from Chevron and its powerful allies in Washington to drop his support of a lawsuit against the company for alleged pollution of ground waters, with damages that could exceed $27bn.

How has Ecuador done? Growth has averaged a healthy 4.5% over Correa's first two years. And the government has made sure that it has trickled down: healthcare spending as a percent of GDP has doubled, and social spending in general has expanded considerably from 5.4% to 8.3% of GDP in two years. This includes a doubling of the cash transfer programme to poor households, a $474m increase in spending for housing, and other programmes for low-income families.

Ecuador was hit hard by a 77% drop in the price of its oil exports from June 2008 to February 2009, as well as a decline in remittances from abroad. Nonetheless it has weathered the storm pretty well. Other unorthodox policies, in addition to the debt default, have helped Ecuador to stimulate its economy without running too low on reserves.

Ecuador's currency is the US dollar, so that rules out using exchange rate policy and most monetary policy for counter-cyclical efforts in a recession – a significant handicap. Instead, Ecuador was able to cut deals with China for a billion-dollar advance payment for oil and another $1bn loan.

The government also has begun requiring Ecuadorian banks to repatriate some of their reserves held abroad, expected to bring back another $1.2bn, and it has started repatriating $2.5bn in central bank reserves held abroad in order to finance another large stimulus package.

Ecuador's growth will probably come in at about 1% this year, which is pretty good relative to most of the hemisphere. For example, Mexico, at the other end of the spectrum, is projected to have a 7.5% decline in GDP for 2009.

The standard reporting and even quasi-academic analysis of Bolivia and Ecuador says they are victims of populist, socialist, "anti-American" governments – aligned with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba, of course – and on the road to ruin. To be sure, both countries have many challenges ahead, the most important of which will be to implement economic strategies that can diversify and develop their economies over the long run. But they have made a good start so far, by giving the conventional wisdom of the economic and foreign policy establishment – in Washington and Europe – the respect it has earned.

[Ruben Mundaca]

To Jan Klimkowsky:

Interesting misspelling of my name.

Quite a revealing one in fact.

Za dom - spremni!

Razumijete?

Ho, I am an interesting man.

I allready wrote that english is not my mother language. Sorry for the misspelling.

....And no. I am not part of the CIA, Usatacha, Mossad, KGB or any other black big phantom. Just an average joe very worried about the absolutism that is taking my country as cancer, carried by inmoral and delinquent people supported by Chavez and other foes.

Lucky you, forum members, don't have to live this experience (yet). The only thing that we can offer to the world now is cocaine (production increases dramatically due Morales protection), coz he has destroyed the main industyes of my country. No jobs, no future, no hope.