Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for November 2015

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Colombia: Empowering the FARC

Mary O’Grady:
Santos Empowers Colombia’s Terrorists. To get a peace deal, the president offers one concession after another. One of the most frequently repeated talking points of the enablers of terrorists is “Colombians have waged a civil war for fifty years,” and Santos is seeking its end, therefore we must all support him.

O’Grady’s article illustrates the brutal attacks the FARC continues to perpetrate on the unarmed civilian population in this century, and asserts (emphasis added),

There is no civil war in Colombia. FARC is detested by almost all Colombians and in polls gets a mere 3% support. It’s easy to see why: According to government statistics, in the 50-plus years that FARC, sponsored by Cuba, has been terrorizing the nation, there have been 220,000 people killed and more than five million displaced from their homes.

So far, the Cuba-Venezuela-U.S. sponsored talks have resulted in this:

The FARC refuses to recognize its atrocities. It’s leaders say they will never serve any jail time, will not surrender their weapons, will not hand over the illicit wealth they have acquired by drug-trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, and will not compensate its victims. Mr. Santos has agreed to all these terms, and says that FARC drug-trafficking is a political crime that can be pardoned. But the FARC wants more.

In August Mr. Santos suggested that the government should reserve a number of seats in Congress for FARC terrorists as part of the agreement. Earlier this month FARC added Mr. Santos’s generous offer to the list of its demands.

And let’s not forget the plebiscite I mentioned Saturday, which the FARC opposes; O’Grady points out,

Earlier this month his coalition, which includes his [Santos’s] Liberal Party, began moving through the Colombian Congress a constitutional amendment to allow a national plebiscite on the agreement with a mere 13% turnout of registered voters—down from the 50% plus one threshold that now exists.

I must add, IF there is a plebiscite. As of the writing of this post, I have not found any information regarding a date it may be held.

Parting question: Why is Santos trying to secure a legacy at any cost?

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The Venezuelan passports Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

The big news of the week: Venezuela is issuing passports, voter registrations, to Hezbollah and Syrians – actual, authentically government-issued yet fraudulent passports and voter registrations.

ARGENTINA
Housecleaning: “Mysterious” Fire Hits Argentine Ministry Of Finance, Destroys Years Of Prior Regime’s Files

NSFW: Grupos kirchneristas habrían “meado” la Catedral de Buenos Aires

BARBUDA
Robert DeNiro’s Caribbean Mega-Resort Met with Opposition from Locals

BOLIVIA
Russian Technical Commission to Plan Bolivia Nuke Project

BRAZIL
Head of Brazil’s Largest Investment Bank and a Senator Arrested in Petrobras Probe. Brazil’s federal police arrested André Esteves, the CEO of Brazil’s largest investment bank, and Sen. Delcidio do Amaral, of the ruling Workers’ Party, in a widening of the Petrobras probe.

Soiling the sea

Vale Acknowledges Toxic Waste in River. Brazilian miner Vale acknowledged for the first time the presence of toxic elements in river water following the disastrous failure of a dam at its Samarco joint venture, two days after a critical U.N. report.

CHILE
Chilean Public Employees to Strike

COLOMBIA
Police Seize over 600 Kilos of Cocaine in Southwestern Colombia, presumably from the FARC.

CUBA
Flood of Cuban “migrants” annoys Latin American neighbors

Assad and Castro Are Simply Glorified Terrorists

ECUADOR
Canada warned against getting entangled in the Chevron Shakedown

U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador: Who Is Todd Chapman?

Ecuadorians Run against Correa’s Trade Barriers. Guayaquil Chamber of Commerce Promotes Commercial Freedom with 5K Race

EL SALVADOR
Targeting The Young: Gangs of El Salvador (Part 4)

FALKLAND ISLANDS
Falkland Islanders celebrate demise of the ‘Botox Queen’ Cristina Kirchner and welcome new president Mauricio Macri. The election of Mauricio Macri to succeed Cristina Kirchner is likely to see Argentina present a friendlier face

HONDURAS
Gang Violence Drives Hondurans Away from Home. The Maras Have Displaced Nearly 174,000 Hondurans in a Decade

IMMIGRATION
Number of Migrants Illegally Crossing Rio Grande Rises Sharply

Whistleblower: Many Unaccompanied Migrant Children Placed in Care of Criminals

JAMAICA
Jamaican lottery scammer to spend 20 years in US prison

LATIN AMERICA
Focusing on Latin America Is Essential in 2016

MEXICO
Houston-area former Marine released after being detained with children in Mexico

NICARAGUA
What did I tell you? $50bn Nicaragua canal postponed as Chinese tycoon’s fortunes falter. Environments concerns and Chinese stock market woes mean world’s biggest canal project will not begin for at least another year

PANAMA
Again, Panama canal expansion could suffer new delay – spokesman

PARAGUAY
Official sacked for ‘kicking’ woman. The president of Paraguay fires the head of the country’s indigenous affairs office after he kicks an indigenous woman.

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico among Caribbean islands under scrutiny amid pesticide poisoning concerns. Use of banned pesticide not isolated event in US territories

VENEZUELA
Violence breaks out as election season gets going in Venezuela

FARC Find Big Business in Smuggling Cattle from Venezuela. FARC Profit from Venezuela’s Border Closure, Smuggle Livestock

Reuters: In Venezuela, a tree named “Revolution” wilts from disease



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Colombia: Uribe on the FARC referendum

President Juan Manuel Santos has invested most of his political capital on the FARC peace talks – hosted by the Cuban Communist regime – which are now in their third year, and he implies he could resign if Colombia rejects FARC peace deal:

If the Colombian people fail to vote in favor of the deal, the efforts of the last three years will be for nothing.

Last Sunday he pardoned 30 FARC terrorists as a sign of good will.

Santos tries to make the deal palatable by saying the Colombian people would vote on it in a referendum, which the FARC oppose. The FARC continue their inflammatory rhetoric (emphasis added):

The FARC released a statement for the third anniversary of the talks. While they outlined some of the major positive achievements so far they were sure to critique the negotiations as well.

“Unilateralism, uncompromising stubbornness, particular political selfishness, the absence of common sense, the pettiness of class” on the side of the government are some of the things that the FARC claim are getting in the way of the progress of the talks like “dead mules in the middle of the road.”

The FARC also reiterated their disagreement with the proposed plebiscite as a fair way to include all members of society in the decision on the peace deal, saying, “there is not another solution than that of a Constituent National Assembly.”

There are many misgivings on the deal and on the referendum.

Former president Alvaro Uribe has been tweeting about it [my translation],

“Santos’s peace 1. A one-question plebiscite as minimum threshold to impose it creating a fear of war. Does not allow for consideration.”

“Santos’s peace 2. Impunity so the leaders cam prolong and multiply violence. Moving from one set of uniformed criminals to another.”

“Santos’s peace 3. Enabling terrorism so Castro Chavism may be at the helm of the State.”

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The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results

http://static0.therichestimages.com/cdn/864/455/90/cw/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/secret_society_by_thecolourushproject-1.jpg

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” “ – Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

“I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a sort of wonder that they presume to write my name.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” – Malcolm X

“Republicans and Democrats are obsessed with making sure that illegal aliens are granted citizenship. The American people are not. They’re concerned about jobs, the economy, debt. They’re concerned about a plundering country. They’re concerned about a decaying, dying country.”
– Rush Limbaugh

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1ndmEdQX3AM/Tv04FWJ3kTI/AAAAAAAAAzg/P-WNaJRST6Q/s400/Bookworm%2B3.jpg

This week’s winning essay,Bookworm Room’s The Wall Street Journal’s hatchet job on Ted Cruz is pretty much about what the title implies it is. As Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz continues to rise in the polls, like Donald Trump he becomes a target for character assassination and trial by media…not just for his conservative principles but in particular for his positions on illegal migration. That’s an issue dear to the heart of both Leftist Democrats and as we see here, the GOP establishment. Bookworm takes this effort by Kim Strassel apart in her usually erudite fashion. Here’s a slice:

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I support Ted Cruz. I realize he’s not perfect, but no candidate is. What matters to me is that his political values most closely align with mine, that he’s not scared of a fight (and, especially, he’s not scared of the media), and that he is truly smarter than just about everyone else out there. I learned yesterday, though, that Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal most definitely does not like Cruz. She wrote a savage hit piece on him essentially blaming him for ISIS’s ability to spread throughout the United States. (That spread, of course, has nothing to do with Obama’s open borders policy and the contempt he shows for every person and idea that suggests that Islam might have a problem.)

But before honing in on her perception about Cruz’s alleged security failures, Strassel first lambastes him as a rank opportunist who cares only about self-aggrandizement and refuses to take care of the GOP’s needs:

The senator’s supporters adore him because they see him in those moments when he has positioned himself as the hero. To them he is the stalwart forcing a government shutdown over ObamaCare. He’s the brave soul calling to filibuster in defense of gun rights. He’s the one keeping the Senate in lame-duck session to protest Mr. Obama’s unlawful immigration orders.

Mr. Cruz’s detractors see a man who engineers moments to aggrandize himself at the expense of fellow conservatives. And they see the consequences. They wonder what, exactly, Mr. Cruz has accomplished.
[Read more…]

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Venezuela issuing passports, voter registrations, to Hezbollah & Syrians

The alarm clock keeps ringing:

When you think of large scale Muslim immigration population explosions, most people think of Europe. Here are two items pertaining Muslims in Venezuela.

First item:

Back in 2003, Rahaman Alan Hazil Muhamaad, apparently from Syria, was arrested at London’s Gatwick Airport for carrying a grenade in his luggage. Now he turns up as a registered voter in Venezuela:

“Hazil Muhammad Rahaman jailed terrorist in London, carried Venezuelan diplomatic passport, and votes in Aragua”

Second item:

Venezuela Sold Immigration Documents to Hezbollah Terrorists. Frances Martel reports,

A Venezuelan diplomat in hiding is accusing the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro of selling visas, passports, and even falsified birth certificates out of its embassy in Baghdad to an estimated thousands of Middle Eastern citizens, including at least one confirmed Hezbollah terrorist.

A man identifying himself as Misael López Soto, advisor working out of the Venezuelan embassy in Baghdad, says in a video uploaded to YouTube Wednesday evening that he has had to flee his official position following multiple death threats, after attempting to alert the government in Caracas that its satellite in Baghdad had become a marketplace for falsified documents.

Here’s the video, in Spanish,

(emphasis added)

López also tells the story of a Venezuelan female national who appealed for help from the embassy after her partner, an Iraqi national, beat her physically and attempted to take her to a Sharia court to deprive her of custody over her child. The partner, López says, “had multiple Venezuelan aliases and known ties to drug trafficking.” López says she was rescued and placed on a plane back to Venezuela thanks to his efforts, but the embassy refused to help her. The Venezuelan site Periodista Internacional has identified her as 19-year-old Genesis Torres. The site adds also that, having reached out to López, he estimated that up to 50,000 Middle Eastern nationals have managed to receive counterfeit Venezuelan documentation.

As with the Rahaman Alan Hazil Muhamaad case, they are allegedly registered to vote in the upcoming election,

Most alarmingly for Venezuelan citizens given the upcoming December 6 election, López claims those handed counterfeit Venezuelan documents are registered to vote in Venezuela. “Venezuelan embassies in the Middle East are used to document people that have nothing to do with Venezuela, in mny cases are tied to terrorist organizations,” he says. “Thousands of Arab citizens… have been documented as Venezuelans and are voters within the Venezuelan political system… manipulated by the current government at their convenience.”

I’ve been saying all along this will not be a “clean” election; just this week opposition candidate Luis Manuel Diaz was shot dead during a rally that was also attended by Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.

Martel mentions Nicolas Maduro’s deals with Hezbollah for training camps in Venezuela, a subject readers of this blog are familiar with, especially if you have read Emili Blasco’s book, Bumerán Chávez: Los fraudes que llevaron al colapso de Venezuela .

Again, we should be asking the question, SHOULD VENEZUELA BE ON THE LIST OF TERRORIST STATES?

The alarm clock keeps ringing.

UPDATE:
Linked to by Babalu blog. Thank you!

Linked to by Blue Brain. Thank you!

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