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US Embassy in Manila, Philippines. AP FILE PHOTO

So far, the US has delivered about 1,780 tons of food, with about 13,000 US forces helping to deliver the goods to the stricken areas devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan on November 8.

“We are going to continue to work to try to reach these devastated areas,” Kerry said, adding that Goldberg had accelerated his departure to leave for Manila on Monday.

The top US diplomat also thanked the Senate for rushing through Goldberg’s confirmation, “because we want to have our ambassador on the ground in the Philippines to deal with the challenges of emergency assistance.”

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The right person indeed...


Bolivia expels US ambassador Philip Goldberg
By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent
8:21AM BST 12 Sep 2008


"Without fear of the empire, I declare Mr Goldberg, the US ambassador, 'persona non grata,"' said Mr Morales, echoing the anti-US rhetoric of his friend and close ally, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

"He is conspiring against democracy and seeking the division of Bolivia."

The announcement came after protests against Mr Morales escalated and turned violent. Earlier in the week opposition protesters burnt and pillaged government offices in city of Santa Cruz, which was followed by an attack on a gas pipeline that feeds the neighbouring giant of Brazil. Gas is the lifeblood of the Bolivian economy and the source of much of government revenue.

Washington replied, through a State Department spokesman, that the accusations against Ambassador Philip Goldberg were "baseless"

Mr Goldberg last week infuriated President Morales when he met with Ruben Costas, the governor of Bolivia's richest province, that of Santa Cruz, which wants autonomy and has threatened secession. Santa Cruz is predominantly white, whilst the capital La Paz, set in the highlands, is more indigenous.

The province is one of five that voted for more autonomy in a series of referendums, which the president has refused to recognise.

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ambassador nga nakatilaw ug "expulsion" even if the reason is to please local politics must be a war veteran in the figurative sense.

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Who is Philip Goldberg?

According to the curriculum vitae officially distributed by the United States Embassy in La Paz, Philip Goldberg was involved from the beginnings of the civil war in Yugoslavia that erupted in the nineties, until the fall and prosecution of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

Between 1994 and 1996 he was the State Department’s “Bosnia Desk Officer”, at the point when the conflict between Albanian separatists and Serbian and Yugoslav security forces erupted.

During the same period, he served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was the author of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the fall of Milosevic. “In the latter capacity” – states the Embassy – “he was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American Delegation at Dayton.”

Ambassador Goldberg was also a political-economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa, and later a consular and political officer at the US Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, where he began to become interested in Latin American politics.

After exercising his charge as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile from 2001 to 2004, Goldberg returned to the Balkans to direct the US mission in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where he supported the prosecution in The Hague of the former dictator Milosevic (who died March 11, 2006).

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The separatist autonomous movement

The “Camba Nation” lumps together with Santa Cruz the departments [states] of Beni, Pando and Tarija (where one finds the largest reserves of natural gas in Bolivia), whose populations voted in favor of departmental autonomy in a referendum held in July of 2006, comprising the so-called “half moon” that represents the eastern half of the country.

The western departments of La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Oruro and Cochabamba voted “no” on autonomy, maintaining their direct link to the central government of Evo Morales and in effect separating the four autonomous departments of the “half moon.”

This autonomous separatism – which should be recognized by the new constitution by virtue of a Law of Incorporation in the Constituent Assembly [the body drafting a new constitution] – was made worse by a off-the-cuff decision taken by former president Carlos Mesa in 2004, when the “Camba Nation” was creating pressure through city governments and civic strikes for the direct election of prefects (department governors). Previously, prefects were chosen directly by the president, maintaining the unity of the Executive Branch, a power that new president Evo Morales was not able to exercise and who is now obligated to govern almost completely separated from the four autonomous prefects.

In Cochabamba, a department that falls exactly between the east and the west – and where an alternative to separatism, with the proposal of mega-regional autonomy instead of departmental autonomy, began to gestate – its prefect, Manfred Reyes Villa, abusing his elected position, attempted to reject the results of the July 2, 2006, referendum and illegally force another vote in order to annex Cochabamba to the “half moon,” breaking the fragile balance between autonomous and non-autonomous departments.

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The CIA and Reyes Villa

The influence of the CIA and of Ambassador Goldberg on the political actions of Reyes Villa (a former captain of the army associated with the dictatorships of Banzer and Garcia Meza) is irrefutable.

The separatist prefect has systematically blocked a peaceful solution to the conflict and in its place has developed a raging campaign of misinformation that seeks to create the conditions for confrontation on a national scale.

The US Embassy is deploying an effort of collective indoctrination against the indigenous crisis, promoting racial hatred and separatism that was evident during the events of January 11, 2007, in unison with business organizations such as the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Cainco) in Santa Cruz, which openly supports Reyes Villa and his “advisors.”

But the US meddling during this conflict is not only occurring on the ultra-right, but also through the infiltration of the government of MAS [Movement Towards Socialism – Morales' party].

In mid-January 2007, the morning paper La Razón in La Paz published a photo which revealed the diversion of provisions and supplies belonging to the state Civil Defense body (that are destined for victims of natural disasters) to the farmers in the September 14th Plaza in Cochabamba.

It’s been established that a former NAS agent (a DEA-financed anti-drug program) identified as Juan Carlos Chávez, who strangely functioned as an advisor to the Ministry of Justice, involved himself with Civil Defense without having the authorization to order the diversion of state resources. The photograph of the irregular act, taken by outsiders, was curiously published by a paper in La Paz, 650 kilometers from Cochabamba. Chávez was fired for the act and will have to make clear he is a former DEA agent exercising powerful influence inside the Ministry of Justice.

The media campaign to tarnish the indigenous mobilization in Cochabamba is part of a psychological war, CIA-style, and is one point in the separatist strategy headed from Santa Cruz by the still-prefect of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa.

The Balkanization of Bolivia seems to have begun.

This text was translated from the Spanish by Scott Campbell.

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Hmmm, this man sounds like a zionist nutjob. He should've been sent to Israel.

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Let's hope he doesn't involve himself in supporting insurgents and pro-autonomy political entities in the south. I have my doubts on this guy, however.

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my sense is that he won't.  we have no ethnic cleansing here, unlike kosovo and bolivia.  besides, our government is always u.s.-friendly.  no evo morales here, no slobodan milosivic.  he can talk to nur misuari for all we care.

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hehehe, sounds like a german jew ug kaliwat, considered kuno as one of the diaspora surnames.  he must have a historic family line. 

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i'll just pray that he's good to the Philippines.

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