Please Give the Democracy Center Your Vote!
Dear Friends and Readers:Politics Online, the organization dedicated to covering and advancing the use of the Internet for political activism, has just named the Democracy Center as one of 25 finalists in it annual selection of: Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics.
Selection of the ten winners is up to you!
Politics Online will select the 10 winners via a public vote, over the Internet, in which anyone is invited to participate. We hope that followers of our work here at the Democracy Center will take a few seconds to cast a vote in our favor.
You can vote here!
For more than a decade – through our newsletters, briefing papers, videos and this Blog – the Democracy Center has been using the Internet to bring global attention to developing country issues that would otherwise be ignored.
We have also pioneered the Internet as a tool for global organizing, including the international campaign that successfully forced the Bechtel Corporation to drop a $50 million legal case against the people of Bolivia following the Cochabamba Water Revolt. More than 300 organizations in 43 countries joined that effort, leading to Bechtel's settlement of the case in 2006 for thirty cents.
That’s just the start of what we have planned. So, please, take a few seconds and offer us your vote – right here.
Jim Shultz
posted by The Democracy Center at 2:30 PM
The Democracy Center, based in Cochabamba Bolivia and San Francisco California, works globally to advance human rights through a combination of investigation and reporting, training citizens in the art of public advocacy, and organizing international citizen campaigns. If you like the Blog, consider becoming a subscriber to The Democracy Center's free e-newsletter by sending us an email at 
26 Comments:
Done
Go Democracy Center!!
You're up against media darling Twitter.
However, will the all the mentally disturbed schizophrenics (Bolivia Libre, Frank IBC, Katrina Croat et al) who comment here against Evo and all things rational, if you get them to vote for you then given their multiple personality disorders they're each good for about 30 votes each.
You got my vote. But honestly, I'm very concerned that the water situation in Cochabamba is still crap, after 9 years. I was able to attend a conference given by Oscar Olivera in a United States university several years ago, where he spoke on and on about globalization versus people power, but very little about actual water management. As a Bolivian receiving technical training abroad, I was struck that the guy was not able to answer a single question posed by fellow attendees related to a strategy for combining the legitimacy of social movements from below, and the technical ability and know-how of middle classes who may want to contribute to such efforts, regardless of ideology. Note that on the whole, Olivera's work is impressive and I have no reason to think or imply that he himself is part of that corrupt cabal managing Semapa.
While most of the voices heard on this blog about the critical situation of water provision in Cochabamba may come from ideological standpoints and ignore the great victory that the Democracy Center helped Bolivia to gain by reducing the indemnizations to Bechtel and the local management of such an important social strategic resource, they do seem to have a point.
I think the Democracy Center and its work is commendable and deserving of this award, especially above the likes of whitehouse.gov come on give me a break. But is it mistaken to assume that such Internet activism may not reach the roots of some problems in under-developed countries, related to deep rooted societal corruption, cronyism, and sadly, the resulting incompetence?
Is there some behind the scenes politiking which prevents Cochabamba's Semapa from being an efficient public service institution, and to what capacity can the DC's activism change this, when the culprits are not political elites and transnational corporations but the corruption and incompetence of local power groups shielded by their social movement legitimacy?
I sure hope that dealing with these issues is also in the roadplan.
Done too. Keep the good work. Thanks.
he votado
I voted for you
I hope that the Democracy Center wins.
Earl Huch
Done
Only because you look like John Kerry.
He doesn't look that much like me.
John Kerry
John Kerry wishes he looked like me.
Jim
I'd say more like me.
Anon 7:08's comments really do get to the heart of the water matter in Cochabamba, in my opinion.
After all of the chest-thumping about Bechtel and Sanchez, the defeat of globalization, etc., it appears that the water situation in Cochabamba is no better than it was when the events recounted in DC's book happened eight or nine years ago. DC has done a good job of retrospective in the book, but postings here always refer to the victory of almost a decade ago. When will DC and its staff do something substantive to improve the (strictly locally managed) water supply situation now and for the future?
Done! spreading the word... Let's see if facebook is a useful tool for this kind of thing... haha.
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I was going to vote for you. After reading all this Chinese spam, I concluded you were compromised as an agent of change toward establishment of democracies.
My vote goes to another that is more effective.
may be if you lobby to have Santos' wife extradited...
Jim,
I'm interestd to hear your take on the new info regarding the Eduardo Rozsa Flores terrorist case. I saw the show this weekend with spanish journalist Julio Cesar Alonso who claims he has investigated Rozsa Flores for more than 10 years and was at one point embedded with him. He revealed some very explosive information.
Anyone who is familiar with the Chrisitian Wurtenberg case knows that it was Rozsa Flores who ordered his death so that wasn't new info neither was him stating that Flores was intent on inciting a war using black flag operations, everything else I think can be debated. Whether this man is legit or not the big revelation is the existence of this new video. If it does truly exist it should be revealed in the next few months in which case some folks in Santa Cruz will have to look for an alternative to the "deny deny" mantra.
- There are at least two different Croatian journalists who are in possession of a video sent by Flores in March in which he (in spanish) reveals the names of the people who contacted and financed him to come to Bolivia. Under Flores' orders this video is to be released six months after his death.
- Rozsa Flores ordered Alonsos death, and he only escaped death due to a french mercenaries help.
- Rozsa Flores' favorite torture was to make his captives drink gasoline and then make them run before eventually having them killed.
- Rozsa Flores ordered the death of Swiss journalist Christian Wurtenberg, and Mario Tadic (under arrest in La Paz) was a knowing accomplice.
- Rozsa Flores was intent on beginning a civil war by using proven techniques of explosives and black flag operations of misdirection and confusion.
The poll isn´t working! Anyone experiencing the same problem/knows how to fix it?
But dude, you really are not changing anything.
Jim, the central point is not whether Rozsa was or not intending to make a separatist plot. The point is that the central government botched the whole operation by killing the "terrorists". There is a lot of evidence that suggests that there was no firefight (the cameras turned off, the police not letting anyone in the press for 14 hours, the contradictions of Presidente Morales, first saying "come to Bolivia to investigate" and then opposing furiously that possibility). Things happened that can lead us to suspect more government/police misconduct. For example, the fact the 2 persons that survived were covered by blankets and left only after 14 hours (they were probably tortured or beaten so badly, the police didnt want to let anyone know, of course). If you saw the photos of Elod Toaso full of bruises, you would know what I mean.
This police/judicial brutality is not isolated either, just look at the cases of other opposition leaders, how they were kidnapped, hooded, etc. Maybe Cheney would be proud of this kind of treatment to "terrorists". Finally Amnesty has let on some criticism of Morales government on his treatment of oppositors (whether they are right wingers that is not relevant from a human rights point of view).
The autopsy they made on Dwyer in Ireland shows he was killed by a single bullet on the chest and suggests that there was probably no gunfight as claimed by the Bolivian government. The problem is that the body was decomposed so a more conclusive statement couldnt be made after all. It seems they are hiding something, and given the climate of a war on terror all over the world the gov. is confident no foreign gov. will bother to probe deeper.
AK
Above all, the Bolivian gov. has committed a crime against truth. If Rozsa was the devil they make him to be, and if he was truly responsible for the Swiss journalist death (that was in a war scenario, you know the penalty for treason in those circumstances, all sides tend to execute snitches) this was a great opportunity to hand him over to European authorities and to clarify many issues about the Balkan War. Rozsa was a national hero to the Croatians and to certain Muslims (he was volunteer in Iraq, Indonesia, etc.) and perhaps a villain to others, but that is another issue.
I remember the left tearing up their clothes when the Bolivian security forces executed all the guerrilleros who had kidnapped the business man Jorge Londsale. Same with the operation of Fujimori against the MRTA. All they said was that there were ways to deal with the crisis in a better manner, how the neoliberals are really fascist, etc. And I agreed with them back then. So it´s been a shock to see that now, when a leftist government does something, arguably, even worse (there were no hostages in this case), at 4 a.m., with the suspect on their underwear, etc, etc. not only the Bolivian left but the international left as well are trying to make lame excuses... how? trying to find out the dirty past of Rozsa (the only one of the killed, by the way, who had any real combat/military experience, the others were 20something wannabees), and not deal with the central issues here.
Rozsa was a guerrilla fighter not a terrorist or, less, a mercenary. Terrorists, usually, are the guys on the other side, guerrilleros, the guys on your side. He said he was against attacking civilians and that was his point of contention with Carlos the Jackal (who by the way protested against the bolivian police).
AK
ERF was a strange person, not easily pigeonholed as a rightist or a leftist. In fact, it shows how sometimes the extreme left can turn into extreme right (national anarchism, for example). So, let´s stop demonizing Rozsa or sanctifying him for he was in many ways an idealist, and try to find the complex truth without prejudices.
It is the political neuroses on the lef that harms us the most... The international supporters of the Bolivian government should be more critical, it would help to build a really different kind of revolution and not a betrayed one as has been the fate of most. Let us hold ourselves to higher standards than the ones we use for our enemies (that was the way of Bolivian guerrillero Esteban Arze and is the way of all honest people) and demand it from any progressive gov. that comes along the way.
Hope you give a response to this comment, Jim.
Best regards
AK
Lets be a bit clear here. By his own admission ERF was going to raise a militia. It is alleged that he carried out at least one black flag bombing - the Cardinal's house at Santa Cruz. We know from photographs that he had acquired illegal arms. We also know by Hugo Acha's admission, the he had met ERF in Santa Cruz on a number of occasions "clandestinely".
Hugo Acha is described by the NYTimes as a "former State Department employee".
Bolivia is entitled to defend itself. Hundreds and thousands have died as a result of US/CIA intervention in Latin America. The Columbia bases are yet another direct threat to national independence and democracy.
Of course the internet is crawling with apologists who want to make the story all about whether or not firing on EFR and Co was justified.
Pathetic.
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